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Amegakure.

Hanzo of the Salamander stood at the highest point, coldly looking down at the alleyway below, which was engulfed in black flames.

He could feel it.

The sudden burst of cold and violent Chakra, even from kilometers away, made him, a battle-hardened "Demigod," feel a slight tremor.

He raised his hand, his kusarigama clinking crisply in his grip, preparing to personally deal with these biting rats.

"Lord Hanzo! This is bad!"

A messenger ninja from Amegakure scrambled up to the top of the tower, his voice distorted by fear.

"Urgent report from the front lines! Konoha has launched a full-scale assault!"

"What?" Hanzo froze, then whipped his head around. "Full-scale assault? Has that brat Jiraiya gone mad? Launching a large-scale attack in this weather?"

"It's not just Jiraiya!" The messenger handed over a blood-stained intelligence scroll.

"Orochimaru's forces have launched a surprise attack on the western defense line, and Tsunade's forces have even charged directly to the central front! Konoha's forces are pushing forward on all fronts!"

Hanzo snatched the scroll, his eyes turning incredibly grim.

Logically, Konoha had just destroyed his Armory, and they should be consolidating their gains now, preparing for his counterattack.

This kind of all-out offensive, regardless of the cost, bordering on madness, was completely illogical.

Unless...

Hanzo's gaze returned to the alleyway burning with black fire.

"So that's how it is."

Hanzo let out a cold laugh, slowly lowering his kusarigama.

"Jiraiya, are you willing to gamble the entire front line to protect these few brats?"

"Lord Hanzo, the front line is requesting reinforcements! Without you there, we can't hold back Konoha's forces!" the messenger ninja shouted anxiously.

Hanzo remained silent for a moment.

He cast a deep glance in the direction of the alleyway.

There was a power there that made him feel threatened. If he went now, he was confident he could extinguish this threat.

But if he did, the front lines of Amegakure would collapse, and the entire Land of Rain would fall.

Hanzo clenched his fist, his knuckles turning white.

This was the sorrow of a small country. Even if you were a Demigod, you couldn't be in two places at once.

In the face of the power struggles between the great nations, individual might seemed so pale.

"Relay the order!"

Hanzo spun around abruptly, his aura erupting like a mountain collapsing and a tsunami surging. "Gather the entire army, and we will meet them!"

"As for those few rats..."

Hanzo cast one last look back.

"Record their information and send it to the major nations."

"Especially that inextinguishable flame and the black skeletal giant."

A ruthless glint flashed in Hanzo's eyes, a desire to use others to kill.

"With such power, Konoha itself probably won't be able to sleep soundly."

Inside the alleyway, the black flames still burned quietly.

It was no ordinary fire; even the continuous downpour of the Land of Rain couldn't extinguish it.

Raindrops fell on the black flames, making a "sizzling" sound before instantly vanishing.

Uchiha Fugaku knelt in the mud, his hands tightly covering his right eye.

Pain.

A searing, bone-deep pain.

It felt as if someone was forcefully churning a red-hot iron hook behind his eyeball. The price of this power was so direct and brutal.

"Is this... Mangekyo?"

Fugaku gasped for air, crimson blood seeping through his fingers. His vision was somewhat blurred, but his perception of Chakra had become terrifyingly acute.

In that instant, he felt as if he had touched the legendary divine power of the Uchiha clan—Susanoo.

That absolute power, which materialized Chakra and offered both offense and defense, allowed him to easily crush an elite Jonin.

But now, as his emotions calmed, the black skeletal ribs slowly dissipated into the air like weathered rock, leaving only a lingering cold aura.

"Cough, cough... Senior Fugaku, your eyes..."

Nishikawa Tetsu clutched his chest and struggled to sit up. He looked at Fugaku's still bleeding eyes, and a storm raged in his heart.

Although it was true that Fugaku had awakened the Mangekyo in the original work, the timing and abilities had always been a mystery.

And now, because of his intervention, because of this near-death situation, these eyes had awakened prematurely.

"Don't mind me..."

Fugaku gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stand up, his voice hoarse. "Check on Minato first."

Nishikawa Tetsu crawled to Minato's side, his palm glowing with the green light of the Mystical Palm Technique, something he had learned from the medical ninja during this time.

"A through-and-through shoulder wound, severe damage to the meridians, but luckily the heart was avoided. As long as the bleeding is stopped in time, he won't die."

After dealing with Minato, Nishikawa Tetsu turned his head towards the alley entrance.

There, on the street that was originally empty, figures began to appear.

But strangely, most of them were civilians, with only a few Genin.

A villager pointed in terror at the black flames that had yet to dissipate in the alley, and at the corpse on the ground that had been crushed into a pulp.

"That's Lord Hanzo's personal guard?! They're all wiped out?!"

Fear spread among the crowd, but more than that was shock.

In this isolated Amegakure, they had never witnessed such a terrifying sight.

Although the black chakra skeleton had disappeared, the image it left in their minds was enough to give them a lifetime of nightmares.

"Damn it, we were seen."

Uchiha Fugaku's eyes sharpened, and killing intent surged in his heart once more.

Normally, even with his Three Tomoe, he was confident he could kill all these people to silence them.

The secret of these eyes was too significant; once it got out, not only enemy nations but even the Konoha higher-ups would target him.

"Kill them..."

Fugaku tried to mobilize his ocular power again, but as soon as he focused, a tearing pain shot through his eye sockets, and his body went weak, almost collapsing to the ground.

His chakra was depleted.

"Don't push yourself, Senior!"

Nishikawa Tetsu grabbed Fugaku, his eyes terrifyingly calm.

"We can't kill them all. The commotion here was too big; half of Amegakure saw that black skull. The information is already leaked; there's no point in silencing them now."

"Then what do we do? If the village finds out..." Fugaku gritted his teeth.

"Then let them know."

Nishikawa Tetsu interrupted him, speaking rapidly. "There's nothing wrong with possessing power itself; the mistake is not having the status to match it. With these eyes now, you actually have absolute leverage to negotiate with the higher-ups once we return."

"But the prerequisite is that we have to get back alive."

Nishikawa Tetsu looked at the sky in the distance.

There, a suffocating, terrifying chakra was erupting.

Strangely, that chakra was moving away.

He then understood why; a giant toad appeared in the distance.

"Hanzo is gone."

Nishikawa Tetsu keenly sensed the disappearance of the oppressive aura.

"It seems Lord Jiraiya attacked to cover for us. This is our only chance."

He took out a few high-explosive smoke bombs from his bag and threw them violently at the Amegakure Genin who were still hesitating about whether to attack.

"Boom!"

Thick smoke billowed, instantly obscuring their vision.

"Let's go!"

Fugaku endured the intense pain and carried the unconscious Minato on his back.

Nishikawa Tetsu was responsible for covering their retreat, laying down dense Explosive Tag traps along the way.

Two hours later.

The border of the Land of Rain, Konoha's rendezvous point.

When the three, covered in blood and with their chakra almost depleted, stumbled out of the rainforest, the Konoha ninja responsible for the rendezvous could barely recognize them.

"Who's there?!"

"Team Five... reporting back."

After Uchiha Fugaku said this, he finally couldn't hold on any longer. His vision went black, and he fell forward.

But he didn't fall to the ground.

A broad, steady hand supported him.

Jiraiya.

The Sannin, who had just finished commanding the front lines and was covered in dust, saw his three miserable subordinates before him, and his eyes immediately reddened.

Minato was severely injured and unconscious, Nishikawa Tetsu's chest was covered in blood, and Fugaku's eyes were swollen beyond recognition, with dried tear tracks remaining at the corners.

"Good, well done!"

Jiraiya's voice was choked with emotion; he could imagine what kind of hell these three children had been through.

"Teacher..."

Nishikawa Tetsu leaned weakly against the tree trunk, baring a smile that looked uglier than crying:

"Mission complete, the Armory is blown up."

"And..." Nishikawa Tetsu glanced at the unconscious Fugaku, lowering his voice so only Jiraiya could hear:

"Fugaku-senpai's eyes have evolved."

Jiraiya's body trembled violently.

He looked at Fugaku's tightly shut eyes, his expression instantly becoming incredibly complex.

As a disciple of the Third Hokage, he knew too well what the word "evolved" meant.

It was the power of Uchiha Madara, a power capable of overturning the balance of the ninja world, and enough to make the Konoha higher-ups fear to the point of madness.

And it had been activated under the watchful eyes of Amegakure.

This meant that this secret could not be hidden at all.

"I understand."

Jiraiya took a deep breath, handed Fugaku over to the medical team, and then took off his own coat, covering the three of them with it.

"First, return to the camp for treatment. The rest, I will handle."

Jiraiya turned around and looked in the direction of Amegakure, a rare cold glint in his eyes.

"It seems the war in the Land of Rain is about to become much more complicated because of these eyes."