The Land of Rain.
The sky looked like a lump of waterlogged lead, and the rain fell without pause, soaking the earth into a muddy mess.
A dozen or so shadows sped through the woods, their toes touching the mud without raising so much as a splash.
The Levee unit, the blade Konoha kept most closely concealed.
Minato Namikaze raised a hand, and the squad froze as though someone had pressed pause, blending into the surrounding shadows in the blink of an eye.
"We're here."
His voice was soft, but it struck every squad member's heart like a little hammer.
Up ahead, the map marked a village called Lian.
But now, there was nothing there.
Everyone stared in disbelief at a sight that defied all understanding.
Before the rain could enter that area, it stopped dead, as though it had struck an invisible wall of glass.
Each strand of rain vanished into thin air along a perfectly circular boundary, as though something had sucked it dry in a single gulp.
Inside that boundary, everything was unnervingly flat, possessed of an absolute "cleanness."
There were no ruined walls, no scorched earth, not even a trace of any living presence.
The ground was a lifeless gray, so smooth it seemed a god had polished it with a whetstone. Forget loose stones-there wasn't even a single weed.
Sound seemed to sink into a bed of cotton here, and even the light twisted strangely.
It was as though an eraser had forcibly rubbed this place out of the world.
"Is this... 'Nothingness'?"
Nawaki's throat felt dry. He could feel the power of Wood Release trembling inside him-not with excitement, but with fear.
For life itself, that area was an absolute forbidden zone. Something more final than death.
"Captain Minato."
The Lightning Release ninja edged