The First Shinobi War had engulfed the world in chaos. One that made the warring states era appear mute, forcing the great nations into a brutal struggle for supremacy.
Unlike during the past era, It wasn't about individual clans any more.
It was the country as a whole with the Hidden Villages protecting each of their country's borders from invasion of their neighbouring country.
Among them, Iwagakure and Kirigakure found themselves locked in an inevitable clash.
In the heart of the continent, the Fire Country stood as a bridge between the warring factions.
To its northwest, beyond stretches of rugged terrain and looming peaks, lay the Land of Earth, and within its mountainous expanse, Iwagakure, the Hidden Stone Village.
Its defenses were impenetrable, its shinobi hardened by an unforgiving landscape were a force to be reckoned with.
And far to the east, beyond the storm-ridden seas that separated the continent from the archipelago of the Land of Water, Kirigakure remained an elusive threat, its warriors capable of emerging from the mist like ghosts of the deep.
With the sea acting as a natural barrier, an amphibious invasion was unfeasible without significant risk.
The Land of Water could not march upon Iwagakure without first establishing a foothold, and Iwagakure had no navy to challenge Kirigakure's domain.
Thus, both sides turned their gaze to the Claw Peninsula, a jagged landmass extending from the northern coast of the Land of Fire into the Land of Cones.
This was their battlefield.
The Claw Peninsula was an unclaimed strip of land, too distant for Fire Country to hold influence over yet close enough to serve as a strategic gateway.
If Iwagakure seized it, they could construct fortifications and launch attacks against Kirigakure's forces before they reached the mainland.
If Kirigakure claimed it, they could establish a permanent stronghold on the continent, allowing their infamous Mist-nin to rain terror upon the Land of Fire, Lightning and Earth, depending on which Land they were out to get.
…
…
The First Shinobi War.
It all began with a whisper, like the subtle shift in the tide before a wave followed.
The First Hokage was dead.
The man who had brought order to the chaos that was the Era of Clan wars, the man who had unified clans and forged an era of peace, was gone.
His passing sent tremors through the nations, a silence before the inevitable storm.
Without Hashirama Senju to act as the great mediator, the uneasy balance between the hidden villages shattered.
Ambitions that were once buried beneath the weight of his presence quietly resurfaced like embers beneath dry leaves.
The Land of Earth and the Land of Water had always been distant, separated by both ocean and mountains, but in war, distance meant nothing.
Iwagakure and Kirigakure were two titans bound to clash, their differences too great to reconcile.
For Iwagakure, expansion was the key to survival.
The village's isolation within the rugged mountains made it difficult to sustain a prolonged war effort.
Resources had to be secured, supply lines established.
The Tsuchikage, Mū, was a man of calculation, and he knew that striking early was their best option.
If Iwagakure could claim strategic points before their enemies fully mobilized, they would dictate the course of the war.
And so, his gaze fell on the Claw Peninsula within the Land of Cones.
Kirigakure, however, was no less ambitious. The Mizukage saw opportunity in war.
The sea was their domain, but true dominance required a foothold on the mainland.
The Land of Water had long been seen as separate from the rest of the world… distant and unapproachable.
Now, Gengetsu intended to carve their name into the continent itself.
And his gaze fell on The Claw Peninsula
And it became their battleground.
The mist came first under a thick, creeping shroud of mist that swallowed the cliffs and forests of the Claw Peninsula.
It was the first sign of Kirigakure's arrival, and under its shroud, Kirigakure's elite nin made landfall.
They advanced swiftly, setting traps and securing the high ground. By the time the first rays of dawn pierced the mist, the Claw Peninsula was no longer neutral territory.
It belonged to the Bloody Mist.
…
…
Mū was not a man to wait.
When the scouts returned with their reports, the Tsuchikage acted and responded with force.
Leading a legion of his own elite shinobi, he descended upon the peninsula with the horror of an avalanche.
Under his command, they struck, meeting the Kiri-nin vanguard head-on.
The clash was swift and brutal but it was no surprise. They were up against him.
The Ghost.
The mist-shrouded shinobi who were trained to eliminate targets with ruthless efficiency quickly found themselves at a disadvantage.
It took only moments for them to realize the truth. This was no ordinary resistance.
A retreat order was given. The Kiri-nin fell back, their silent formation breaking as they rushed toward the shore.
There, beneath the looming haze of Kirigakure's ever-present mist, they reassembled awaiting reinforcements.
And so, the war for the Claw Peninsula began.
For the next few years, they fought over this piece of land which neither side could afford to lose.
…
…
Far to the north, hidden among the peaks of the Land of Lightning, Kumogakure watched all these in silence.
The Third Raikage knew better than to rush into a war not yet decided. Kumo had no love for Iwa or Kiri, and their conflict presented an opportunity, a moment of weakness that could be exploited.
The Kumo-nin remained neutral on the surface, but beneath the diplomacy, spies were dispatched.
If Iwagakure faltered, Kumogakure would seize the chance to press south, taking valuable resources from the weakened Land of Earth.
If Kirigakure failed, the Raikage would offer false alliances, promising aid while bleeding them dry from within.
For now, Kumogakure would wait. The storm had only begun, and when the dust settled, they would be the ones left standing.
…
…
Years passed as the war drew on.
The war between Iwagakure and Kirigakure was no longer about land.
It was about dominance.
It was about pride.
About proving, once and for all, which village stood superior.
And at the heart of this war, shaping its every battle, were two men; Mū, the Second Tsuchikage, and Gengetsu Hōzuki, the Second Mizukage.
Their feud was not political, nor was it strategic.
It was personal.
To say they hated each other would be an understatement.
Their rivalry was the war, a battle of ideologies, of power, of unrelenting will.
And neither would stop until the other was dead.
Mū was a man of silence, a ghost on the battlefield.
His Dust Release erased enemies from existence, leaving no bodies, no evidence, only the emptiness that remains following a dust cloud.
He was a genius in his own right and fought with efficiency and the cold logic that saw lives as nothing more than resources to be spent.
His Iwagakure forces mirrored him: disciplined, methodical, relentless.
Gengetsu, on the other hand, was flamboyant, arrogant, and cruel in his genius.
He relished war not as a burden, but as a performance, mocking his enemies even as he cut them down.
Where Mū sought to eliminate his foes before they knew he was there, Gengetsu played with them, letting them believe they had a chance before breaking them from within.
His techniques reflected this; his Steaming Danger Tyranny Clone, a grotesque mirage of himself, was designed to torment and outlast, not merely kill.
This technique allowed Gengetsu to transform part of his body into a dense, seething mist that rapidly coalesces into a duplicate of himself.
Unlike conventional clones, this "clone" is composed not of solid matter but from the oil and water in his body.
The water in the clone is surrounded by a thin layer of oil and due to this structure, the clone's temperature can easily be altered from cold to hot and vice-versa.
When it exerts itself, the outer layer of oil heats up and evaporates the water inside and as the internal pressure builds, the clone expands until it violently explodes and the water vapour is released.
The force of the explosion is great enough to completely destroy even durable constructs.
This vapour then cools down as it rises and as a result, turns into hail that cools the clone, causing it to shrink to its original size and start the entire process again
The clone's ephemeral nature deeply mirrors Gengetsu's own fluid combat style, making it both a tool of psychological warfare and a physical distraction.
One sought absolute efficiency. The other sought to make war an art form.
Their battles were not mere clashes of brute strength. They were chess matches played on the bones of the fallen. Each sought to counter the other, their techniques pushing the limits of what shinobi thought possible.
It was akin to the mysteriousness of the Wood Style and the Susano of the Sharingan.
However while they could be explained as Kekkei Genkai, theirs was pure genius.
Mū was a master of assassination and invisibility, slipping through battlefields unseen, erasing entire squadrons before they could scream.
But Gengetsu was a trickster, his illusions making the invisible man doubt his own senses.
Mū's Dust Release could turn mountains into dust, yet Gengetsu's hydrated body made him nearly impossible to destroy.
The war between their villages was secondary. All that mattered was outmaneuvering each other.
And so, years passed.
Then came the final clash.
Neither man would ever retreat.
Neither would ever admit defeat.
And so, they fought, not with armies, but with everything they had left.
The battlefield had long ceased to resemble land.
It became an absence; matter erased by Dust Release, the space drowned in mist and illusion, and terrain reduced to something unreliable and transient.
And in this chaotic landscape, Mū moved.
There was no hand seal, no warning, only a distortion in space as Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique unfolded silently.
A perfect geometric prism expanded outward, erasing everything it touched. Rock, water, mist…matter itself unraveled into nothingness.
The ground vanished beneath Gengetsu's feet.
Or rather, it should have.
The Tsuchikage's eyes narrowed as his technique passed cleanly through a laughing figure that dissolved into brine and vapor.
'A mirage.'
"Still hiding," Mū muttered, already lifting into the air, his body lightened to near weightlessness.
His gaze pierced through layers of illusion, scanning for the subtle distortions chakra always left behind.
The sea answered first.
Water surged upward as if the ocean itself had risen in defiance, forming colossal waves that crashed into the battlefield from impossible angles.
From within the mist that followed, the Giant Clam's Genjutsu took hold, reality folding inward as reflections multiplied endlessly.
Hundreds of Gengetsus appeared.
Each laughed.
Each moved.
Each felt real.
"Strength without imagination is just another cage," Gengetsu's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Can you erase what you can't even see, old stone?"
Mū directly ignored his word games and descended like a falling star.
His body split apart mid-air using the Fission Technique, dividing himself into multiple forms, each carrying a fraction of his power.
The illusions shattered on contact as Dust Release fired in rapid, controlled bursts, carving through mist and mirage alike.
Dust Release. A Kekka Tota known for its precision and absoluteness.
Entire sections of the battlefield vanished in clean, impossible cuts.
Yet the laughter continued.
A sudden pressure rippled through the ground.
From beneath Mū's feet, a massive oil-slicked bubble erupted, expanding violently.
The infamous Steam Imp bounced into existence, absorbing the force of Dust Release and rebounding it outward in a shockwave that tore through the air.
Mū crossed his arms just in time, reinforcing his body with Rock Armour as the blast sent him skidding backward through the sky.
"Tch." he clicked his tongue in annoyance as eyes locked onto the real Gengetsu at last, standing calmly atop a half-submerged rock, mist curling around him like a living thing.
"So you finally showed yourself," Mū said coldly. "Your tricks end here."
He slowed his momentum and rose higher, chakra condensing between his hands.
"True strength has no need for deception."
Gengetsu grinned wide, eyes alight with madness.
"And it has no place for people who think they can define it."
Mist thickened into near-opacity as sound distorted, space warped, and illusions layered over reality until even the sky seemed uncertain.
Mū's Dust Release flared once more, a blinding prism of annihilation cut straight toward Gengetsu.
Only for the Mizukage to step into the attack and laugh as his body dissolved into water.
From behind Mū, a whisper came. "Strength isn't about control."
A massive explosion of steam and water detonated as Gengetsu reappeared, driving a chakra-enhanced kick into Mū's back and sending him crashing into the shattered earth below.
Gengetsu landed lightly, mist swirling.
"It's about surviving the chaos the world throws at you."
Mū rose slowly from the crater, blood running from his mouth, eyes burning brighter than before.
"Then let us see," he said, chakra surging, the very air trembling under its pressure, "whose philosophy endures."
Two Kage stood amid a battlefield that no longer belonged to the living world.
…
..
.
When the dust settled, both lay dying.
Two titans had clashed, their rivalry etched into history, their final battle shaping the very land itself. But in the end, neither could claim victory.
Gengetsu Hōzuki, ever the showman, refused to let his death be the end of his will. If Kirigakure could not have this land, then neither would Iwagakure.
His chakra, twisted by defiance and spite, did not fade with his final breath. Instead, it seeped into the battlefield, embedding itself into the very earth.
A final act of malice. A curse.
Even in death, he would not let Mū have the last word.
As he lay there, his body broken, his once-pristine robes stained red, he still found the strength to smirk.
A cruel, knowing grin. There was no fear in his fading golden eyes, only amusement, as if he had already won.
His last breath did not come as a whisper of regret. It came as a declaration.
If his home could not claim this battlefield, then it would belong to no one.
At first, the changes were subtle.
The wind carried a whisper and the faintest echo of laughter.
An Iwa-nin patrolling the valley swore they could hear his voice, mocking them from just behind their shoulders. Yet, when they turned, there was nothing.
Then came the first death.
A shinobi awoke in the dead of night, gasping, clawing at his throat, his eyes wide in terror.
He screamed of water filling his lungs, of drowning on dry land. Moments later, he died, coughing up seawater.
But there was no ocean for miles.
What had once been an unremarkable valley became something else entirely.
The Drowned Valley, as it came to be known, was forever marked by Gengetsu's will.
His chakra lingered, twisting reality itself.
Illusions haunted those who entered, visions of waves crashing over the land, the scent of saltwater in the air, the feeling of wetness against their skin despite the ground being dry, the scent of salt and blood thick in the air.
No matter how they tried to dismiss it, the feeling of wetness clung to them, their skin clammy and cold, even beneath the blazing sun.
Iwa shinobi categorised it as a curse.
Of a vengeful specter lingering in the valley, waiting to pull them into the depths.
Though Iwa had claimed the battlefield, they could never truly hold it.
The land had been stained with Gengetsu's chakra, warped by his final defiance.
The valley became a place of superstition. A land that neither nation could settle, nor truly claim. It belonged to no one.
Just as Gengetsu had wanted.
Even in death, he had taken it with him.
Their rivalry had shaped the war between the two villages, but their deaths did not end it.
Instead, it fueled the fire further, Iwagakure and Kirigakure could not let go of their leaders' grudge.
They fought on, their hatred now buried deeper than bloodlines, passed on to the next generation of shinobi.
The war that was initially about land and resources morphed into something else.
It was about Mū and Gengetsu. And in the end, neither had truly won.
***
***
A/N: Although I'd have loved to write more about their battle, after thinking long and hard about it, I came to a conclusion that I couldn't characterize them well enough to decide who the winner or loser would be and how.
Even with the information I browsed, I still couldn't write it well enough to capture their strength. I'm sure we all know they were uniquely powerful.
Not just strong, but powerful so this is the best I can come up with. Not to mention, it was said they both died fighting each other.
Although no timeline was mentioned, I decided this would be the best time since Kiri didn't partake in the Second Shinobi War.
With this, the old generation will be gone and the new generation will take over. The Third Raikage is already in power, Hiruzen is already in power, and with this, Ohnoki will come into power.
As for the Third Mizukage…not much is known about him other than the fact that he was a bodyguard to Byakuren, The First Mizukage alongside Gengetsu.
So he should be strong.
I also decided to name a place after these two to sort of honour them. It can't be only Hashirama and Madara that should have a place named after their battle...right?
Anyways…I'm sure you all know what will happen next. Well, even if you don't know, keep reading and you'll find out.