Half a month had passed.
While Diarmuid and Danzo had teamed up to stir the pot within the Land of Rain, clashing over the Rinnegan, the "Demigod," and the Akatsuki in a flurry of high-stakes action, very little news had actually leaked out of the borders, thanks to their careful orchestration.
Some knew a civil war had erupted and that Hanzo of the Salamander was moving against the Akatsuki. But in the grand scheme of things, these were minor ripples. The internal strife of a small nation was hardly enough to grip the attention of a shinobi world exhausted by the Third Shinobi World War.
Furthermore, the Land of Rain wasn't the only place seeing conflict. As the Great War wound down, proxy wars flared up everywhere. Many small nations caught between the major powers were experiencing their own upheavals. But time, as always, would smooth over the scars.
…
The Hidden Rain Village.
A village that had remained untouched throughout the Third Shinobi World War was now a scene of utter chaos. Large numbers of Akatsuki shinobi were locked in a life-and-death struggle with the Hidden Rain's forces.
On an island in the center of the Land of Rain's largest inland lake, just outside the village, Hanzo of the Salamander stared at the man before him with a look of pure resentment.
Hanzo was gravely injured. His left arm was clearly broken, with bone shards jutting through the muscle, exposed to the air. The entire limb hung at a grotesque, unnatural angle. His chakra was erratic, and his respirator was shattered. With every breath he took, deadly toxins leaked into the air.
Yet, the man standing before him didn't seem to care about the poisonous mist at all. He didn't even bother taking precautions.
"Who... exactly are you?" Hanzo asked, his voice thick with a sense of unwilling defeat.
"Yorozuya. Rodriguez Diarmuid," Diarmuid replied with a light chuckle.
Compared to Hanzo's wretched state, Diarmuid looked perfectly composed. He still wore the same haori and hakama, and not a single drop of blood had stained his front. Even more striking was his casual demeanor while facing a "Demigod" level opponent; he held a smoldering pipe in one hand, looking entirely relaxed.
"The Yorozuya..." A flash of surprise crossed Hanzo's eyes, followed by a look of fierce desperation. "Is it Danzo? Did he hire you to kill me? Or was it that woman from Akatsuki? What did they offer you? Leave now, and I will give you double!"
"At this stage, don't you think such talk is pathetic, Hanzo?" Diarmuid smiled, adding mockingly, "Or can you give me two Lands of Rain?"
"Two Lands of Rain?" Hanzo froze. His expression shifted rapidly as realization dawned. "I see... so that's your plan. That bastard Danzo... he never intended to cooperate with me from the start!?"
"It seems you aren't so stupid as to be beyond redemption," Diarmuid chuckled again.
Hanzo's expression flickered for several moments before he seemed to reach a final resolution. He said in a deep voice, "What if I offer my surrender? I will submit to you, to the Yorozuya. I'll even join your organization..."
"Hahahaha!" Diarmuid laughed out loud. "With your strength and status, you're certainly qualified to join the Yorozuya. You'd make an excellent subordinate..."
A flicker of hope crossed Hanzo's face, and he seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
But before he could speak, Diarmuid shook his head with a touch of regret. "But I can't. You see, there's a poor woman I've already deceived quite badly. Her only obsession now is your death. I promised her you would die. Though I'm hardly a saint, I don't want to lie to her a second time. So, Hanzo of the Salamander... if you can still remember your former glory, show some backbone. Die a quick death."
Realistically, accepting Hanzo's surrender and abandoning Konan would have been the optimal choice. At this point, Konan had no remaining value. Diarmuid could have easily assassinated her right here and announced that she fell in battle during the assault on the Hidden Rain. With Hanzo's prestige, it would have been much easier to govern and consolidate the village and the nation.
Hanzo made this offer because he believed there was a high probability Diarmuid would accept. They had no blood feud, only a conflict of interest. From a purely logical standpoint, Diarmuid gained far more from Hanzo's service.
However, the thought of letting Hanzo live didn't sit right with Diarmuid. While he didn't mind using deception to get what he wanted, he felt a genuine twinge of guilt regarding Konan, and Nagato as well. Even if he had killed Nagato with cold efficiency, humans are complex creatures. This time, he chose to stand by Konan.
"You bastard!" Hanzo roared. With his remaining hand, he gripped the end of his sickle-chain and swung it violently toward Diarmuid.
The jade-inlaid ivory pipe in Diarmuid's hand instantly turned pitch black, coated in Armament Haki. With a casual flick of his wrist, as if swatting away a bothersome insect, the pipe struck Hanzo's sickle with precision, knocking it aside. In the next heartbeat, Diarmuid's hand moved to the hilt of Kokorowatari at his waist.
A flash of cold light erupted.
Hanzo fell to one knee. His sickle hit the ground with a hollow, lonely thud. Diarmuid, who had been standing before him, was now behind him.
Diarmuid flicked the blade of Kokorowatari, sending a single arc of blood splattering onto the damp ground. With a graceful, one-handed flourish, he sheathed the sword and exhaled a long plume of smoke.
"Consider the debt for your friends paid, even at the cost of my own interests. From here on, Konan, we owe each other nothing," Diarmuid whispered to himself, looking out over the calm lake.
Factually speaking, his statement was somewhat irrational. But at this moment, the guilt in Diarmuid's heart had vanished.
Behind him, the sound of Hanzo's body hitting the earth echoed. The Demigod who had once struck terror into the shinobi world was gone.
…
With the death of Hanzo, the spiritual leader of the Hidden Rain, the remaining resistance crumbled. The Akatsuki shinobi quickly occupied the entire village. This marked the end of the brief but intense civil war.
The victor was the Akatsuki.
From this day forward, the Akatsuki would hold all power in the Land of Rain. It was an interesting situation; despite being a legendary nation that had once nearly become a "Sixth Great Power," the Land of Rain had no Daimyo. Hanzo had held absolute authority, and he had founded the Hidden Rain Village himself.
In the distant past, there had been a Daimyo. But shortly after the outbreak of the Second Shinobi World War, the Daimyo and the entire aristocratic class had been wiped out in the chaos. While there was no concrete proof, most believed Hanzo was responsible. Normally, this would have made him an enemy of the global nobility, much like Diarmuid, but during the war, Hanzo was busy fighting the Land of Earth, Land of Fire, and Land of Wind simultaneously. Since no one could actually defeat him, the charges were eventually dropped, and the Great Nations begrudgingly recognized his rule.
Regardless of who had slaughtered the nobles years ago, Diarmuid was the one reaping the benefits now. He wouldn't have to waste time cleaning up useless "trash" and bureaucrats.
…
The Hidden Rain Village — Hanzo's Estate.
Diarmuid stood in Hanzo's private collection room, browsing the Demigod's ninjutsu scrolls. Unlike the Hidden Leaf, where the Hokage is powerful but still subject to checks and balances, Hanzo's word had been absolute. The village didn't even have an administrative building; the center of government was Hanzo's personal estate. The "officials" were essentially his domestic servants.
Diarmuid intended to keep it that way, with the Yorozuya becoming the new central authority. Everyone else would simply be "tools" for the organization. Centralized power was the most efficient path.
Hanzo had been hailed as a master of Water Release with no equal. Most of the scrolls were high-level Water Release or chakra-flow techniques.
Diarmuid picked up a scroll for an A-rank Water Release: Rain Tiger at Will Technique. He recognized it immediately as the technique the Paths of Pain used to monitor the village in the future. By infusing chakra into rain clouds, the user could monitor everything touched by the rain. It was a superb, nearly undetectable sensory technique. Even Jiraiya hadn't detected it initially.
Diarmuid had assumed it was a Rinnegan-based ability or something Nagato invented, but it turned out the technique had existed all along. According to the scroll, the creator was actually Hanzo. Given Hanzo's paranoid nature, it made perfect sense that he would develop such a method to monitor his subjects for betrayal.
"This one is worth learning," Diarmuid smiled. He set it down and reached for a scroll marked with the character for "Forbidden" (Kin 禁).
He chuckled inwardly. For a "Demigod," having only one Forbidden Technique in his collection seemed a bit low-rent. He unrolled the scroll, and his expression turned to one of genuine surprise.
"Wait... I thought this was a Rinnegan technique? Why is it here?"
S-rank Forbidden Technique: Shapeshifting Technique!