"Th-This..."
Yahiko was completely dumbfounded.
"Using Amegakure's floods to drown our enemies?"
"If there are no enemies, then naturally we won't open the gates. Konoha Council Member Orochimaru is already researching ways to generate electricity using the reservoirs. Like Konoha, Amegakure values peace above all else."
"But valuing peace doesn't mean leaving yourself with a weakness."
Hanzō's words carried deeper meaning.
After thinking for a moment, Yahiko nodded.
"You've really thought of everything, Hanzō-sama!"
"Not me. This was achieved through the combined efforts of myself, the Hokage-sama, and many other Konoha shinobi."
Hanzō seized the opportunity and continued: "So you all must do the same. Turn the cooperation between Amegakure and Konoha into something real."
"Understood?"
This time, Yahiko responded with genuine conviction.
"I understand, Hanzō-sama!"
Nagato and Konan nodded as well, clearly in full agreement.
The great hidden villages might indeed be arrogant...
But at this moment, even if Konoha was arrogant, they felt it had earned the right to be.
Whenever it acted, it did so on a massive scale!
Hanzō continued walking and chatting with Yahiko's group.
Then, without warning, disaster struck!
Nagato, who had been walking slightly behind the others, suddenly felt his ankle seized by a pale hand.
A strange figure wearing a black hood silently emerged from beneath the ground.
With swift and decisive movements, he plucked out Nagato's eyes in an instant!
The intruder was none other than Uchiha Madara.
Having rushed back from Kirigakure at top speed, Madara was currently disguised as Tobi and acting together with Hi-kun.
Although he had noticed Hanzō standing beside Nagato, Madara paid him little attention.
To him, Hanzō was merely a somewhat outstanding junior.
"Nagato!"
Yahiko roared in disbelief.
At that very moment, Hanzō's sharp chain-sickle shot forward with a shrill whistle, coated in razor-sharp Water Release chakra as it stabbed directly toward Madara's neck.
"Heh..."
Madara casually raised an arm.
The hand wrapped in Tobi's White Zetsu covering caught Hanzō's chain barehanded with ease, neither dodging nor retreating.
After storing the Rinnegan within the White Zetsu armor, Madara grabbed Nagato by the throat and lifted him high into the air, widening the distance between himself and Hanzō's group.
Squinting, he studied the boy while sensing the immense life force surging within him.
'Good boy. As expected of one of Hashirama's clansmen. What remarkable talent...'
'Not only were you able to nourish my Rinnegan, but your body truly developed exactly as I predicted. The Rinnegan has been able to reshape you in return...'
Madara felt somewhat regretful.
There had been objective reasons why he had chosen a proxy plan rather than acting personally from the beginning.
The Rinnegan's chakra-absorption abilities could indeed restore vitality.
But after obtaining the Rinnegan, his body had transformed into one possessing the power that gives rise to all things, becoming what could be called a body of all phenomena. In a sense, he had been "cursed" by that power.
Ordinary chakra—even tailed beast chakra—could no longer repair the damaged foundation of his body after entering it. At best, it could only make Madara temporarily appear younger, like a final flash of vigor before death.
To truly return to his peak condition, he needed an extraordinarily gifted Uzumaki like Nagato.
Only after years of being reshaped by the Rinnegan, accumulating immense vitality and fully maturing, could Nagato use that enormous life force and the power of the technique itself to replenish him in a single stroke.
'If I had obtained the Rinnegan twenty years earlier, I could have simply waited for it to finish transforming Nagato into a completed vessel...'
'But now I can't afford to wait. Hiruzen isn't a fool. If he notices the Rinnegan, things will become troublesome.'
Such thoughts flashed through Madara's mind.
He began drawing chakra out of Nagato's body, primarily the portion that had been altered by the Rinnegan...
Nagato's cheeks visibly hollowed out.
Meanwhile, inside Tobi's armor, the ends of Madara's pale white hair actually began turning black again!
'Even becoming slightly younger feels indescribably wonderful.'
Madara let out a long, satisfied sigh.
He could not even remember how many years it had been since his body had last felt alive.
Madara glanced at Hanzō and gave a mocking smile.
Thanks to the White Zetsu network, he could be considered someone who "never left home, yet knew everything happening throughout the shinobi world."
That was especially true after he had pulled himself together and begun competing against Hiruzen on the grand stage.
'Perhaps the body of an ordinary mortal isn't entirely without merit.'
'It recovers so easily. That little Salamander brat looks much younger now...'
Hanzō stared at Madara as if facing a great enemy.
The hooded stranger before him radiated overwhelming pressure. His instincts were screaming warnings at him.
"Who are you, and why are you attacking Amegakure?!"
Hanzō demanded in a deep voice.
"Nagato!"
Beside him, Yahiko let out a furious roar, drew a kunai, and charged forward with eyes blazing.
Nagato was in a miserable state.
His eyes had been torn out, and his body had become emaciated and withered, as though he were on the verge of death...
"Fool..."
Madara snorted and casually waved a hand.
He had no desire to kill anyone.
The conflict between him and Hiruzen was still, at this stage, a battle of ideals fought with the entire shinobi world as the chessboard. It followed contradictions that would naturally arise within the shinobi world itself.
That didn't mean some junior could challenge him, however.
Several sharp black rods formed through Yin-Yang Release shot toward Yahiko at incredible speed!
That idiot...
Hanzō cursed inwardly.
In an instant, the chain of his chain-sickle wrapped around Yahiko's waist and yanked him backward.
No choice but to block it. The angle is too tricky...
Seeing that Yahiko still couldn't avoid the attack—
Hanzō used the Body Flicker Technique and appeared directly in front of him.
He raised his left arm to intercept the black rods aimed at Yahiko's vital points.
At the same time, he activated the Hydrification Technique.
This was one of Hanzō's signature tactics: pretend to be struck, lure the enemy into believing the attack had succeeded, then seize the opportunity to counterattack.
But the moment Madara's black rod pierced his left arm, Hanzō's chakra instantly became chaotic.
The Hydrification Technique failed!
What kind of technique is this?!
Hanzō was shocked.
Fortunately, Hiruzen had recently disrupted the same technique with Lightning Release, and that experience allowed him to regain his composure almost immediately.
Enduring the agony, he used the Body Flicker Technique to move both himself and Yahiko out of danger.
"Hanzō-sama!"
Konan and Yahiko cried out in alarm.
At this moment, several black chakra rods had completely pierced through Hanzō's entire left arm.
Torn flesh curled outward. Blood covered the limb from shoulder to wrist, while pale white bone could be glimpsed through the mangled wounds.
The chakra leaking from the black rods had utterly shredded the chakra pathways within the arm.
The arm was completely ruined.
Hanzō lowered his gaze and looked at the arm pierced by the black rods.
The cold chakra within them was violently spreading through his meridians toward his shoulder, neck, and heart, leaving his entire body partially paralyzed.
A fierce look flashed through his eyes.
With his right hand, he tightened his grip on the chain-sickle that had accompanied him for decades and swung it back toward his own shoulder without hesitation!
Now was not the time to hesitate...
The arm was already crippled. Keeping it would only be a burden.
Better to cut it off immediately and decisively!
"Interesting..."
Madara's gaze gained a trace of respect.
Though Hanzō was still weak in his eyes, he at least had backbone.
"Hanzō-sama!"
Yahiko's eyes filled with tears.
He had never imagined that a single mistake on his part would cost Hanzō his left arm!
This was the great hero of Amegakure!
"Shut up and fall back!"
Hanzō barked.
Truthfully, he had indeed wanted to protect Yahiko.
But his original plan had been nothing more than using the Hydrification Technique as insurance while taking the hit himself as a gesture to win the boy's loyalty. He had never expected to actually lose an arm.
Who could have predicted that the enemy's attack would be so bizarre?
Those seemingly ordinary black rods had effortlessly broken through his secret technique...
But since it had already happened, Hanzō could only accept reality and make the best of the situation.
Yahiko clenched his fists tightly.
For the first time, he felt overwhelming regret for his own past naivety.
Peace without strength?
Impossible!
"But Nagato..."
Yahiko stared fixedly at Nagato's barely breathing form.
Then, at that moment—
A Flying Thunder God kunai fell from the sky and landed precisely beside Nagato.
A flash of golden light followed.
Namikaze Minato had arrived!
In truth, he had reached Amegakure earlier, but Hanzō had been out conducting inspections with his team that day, causing them to miss each other.
After asking Amegakure's shinobi where Hanzō and the others had gone, Minato had rushed over—
Only to witness this scene.
"Such a childish trick..."
Madara frowned in disgust.
With a casual lift of a black rod, he effortlessly blocked Minato's attack and silently destroyed the Flying Thunder God kunai on the ground.
Minato's heart sank.
Other than Sarutobi Hiruzen, this was only the second person Minato had ever encountered who could casually react to his attacks after a Body Flicker.
Not daring to hesitate in the slightest, the moment his attack was blocked, Minato instantly activated the Flying Thunder God Technique and teleported away, reappearing beside Hanzō.
"Hanzō-ojisan, who is the enemy?" Minato asked gravely.
"I don't know..."
Hanzō's expression darkened.
"But he's obviously powerful. At the very least, he's on the same level as my elder brother. No idea where he came from!"
Madara chuckled.
On the same level as Hiruzen?
That was truly underestimating him...
If he were in his prime right now, even if Hashirama himself appeared, Madara was confident of victory!
Still, he wasn't angry.
After all, Hiruzen was the inheritor of his youthful ideals, and his strength was passable enough...
One couldn't blame the ignorant.
And at the mention of Hiruzen, something suddenly occurred to Madara as a bit of vitality returned to his body.
"Boy..."
"You and Hanzō aren't qualified to speak with me."
"If you want this Uzumaki brat to live, go bring the Hokage here."
"I have something to discuss with him!"
Madara's voice, distorted by Tobi's disguise, sounded as though it came straight from the depths of hell—low, heavy, and ominous.