Inside a cave in the Land of Rain, a young man was honing his ambition.
But beyond that cave, across the vast Shinobi World Continent, a tsunami of intelligence fiercer than any storm was sweeping through the Five Great Nations at astonishing speed.
Three days.
Just three days.
News of Konoha's Destruction, the Hokage's fall, and the massacre in the border forest that resembled "Divine Punishment" spread like a plague to every corner of the shinobi world.
In those three days, every shinobi village and every faction went from doubt and ridicule to a deathly terror.
[Land of Lightning · Kumogakure · Raikage's Office]
BANG!!!
With a deafening crash, the desk carved from a solid slab of premium obsidian shattered into fragments across the floor.
Fourth Raikage A, the burly man renowned for his temper and strength, stood bare-chested, Lightning Release chakra rampaging around him and shattering every window in the office.
"Damn it! Damn it!! DAMN IT!!!"
The Raikage's roar nearly tore the roof off the Raikage Building.
"Five hundred! Those were five hundred of Kumogakure and Iwagakure's finest advance troops! And that kid Darui was leading them!"
"How could they all be wiped out without even sending a distress signal?!"
Amid the flying splinters and crackling lightning, Mabui, his curvaceous, dark-skinned secretary, held a newly delivered Top-Secret Intelligence Scroll in trembling hands.
Her face was pale as paper, and her voice shook.
"L-Lord Raikage, this is the site investigation report our scouts risked their lives to bring back."
"Read it! Read it to me!" the Raikage roared.
Mabui drew a deep breath, forced down her fear, and slowly began to read.
"The incident occurred in the Primeval Forest along the border between the Land of Fire and the Land of Hot Water. The site... no longer bears any characteristics of a forest."
"The terrain within a radius of one thousand meters has been completely leveled, showing signs of vitrification under extreme heat. The ground is smooth as a mirror, with no remaining signs of life."
"No bodies, severed limbs, or bloodstains were found. Analysis of the residual carbonized particles in the air indicates... our five hundred shinobi were directly vaporized... in an instant, by some form of ultra-high-temperature energy."
By the time she reached the word "vaporized," Mabui's voice was barely audible.
A deathly silence fell over the office.
Even Killer B, the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki who usually loved singing, dancing, and rapping, refrained from rapping for once. He merely adjusted his sunglasses and looked gravely at his older brother.
"Vaporized..."
The lightning around Raikage A slowly subsided, but the veins on his forehead throbbed even harder.
He dropped into the wreckage behind him. For the first time, something besides anger appeared in his enormous eyes: apprehension.
He had fought Minato Namikaze, the "Yellow Flash."
He knew what strength meant.
Minato's strength lay in his speed, in slitting your throat before you could even touch the hem of his clothes.
But this Chiya Uchiha...
This wasn't a battle between shinobi at all! This was a battlefield-wide strike that annihilated an army in one blow!
"Blazing Sword..." The Raikage mulled over the unfamiliar technique name in the report. "One swing, and five hundred people evaporated?"
"That kind of destructive power is even more outrageous than what B can do, and that bastard has perfect control over the Eight-Tails!"
"Big brother, what now? Are we still marching on Konoha? Fool, you fool!" Killer B asked.
The Raikage fell silent.
He had originally planned to take advantage of Konoha's internal turmoil and bite off a sizable chunk.
But now, that kid named Chiya had "disbanded" Konoha. The Hokage was dead, the Advisors were dead, and the civilians had been disarmed.
Konoha was nothing but a mess now.
Occupy it?
That would mean facing the wrath of that monster, Chiya Uchiha!
"Where is that bastard now?" the Raikage asked darkly.
"According to our intelligence, he has entered the Land of Rain with two members of the Uchiha clan," Mabui answered.
"The Land of Rain..."
The Raikage's gaze flickered uncertainly. At last, he slammed his fist into the wall.
"Send out my orders!"
"The army assembled at the border... is to remain on standby! Without my orders, no one is to set so much as half a step inside the Land of Fire!"
"And raise Chiya Uchiha's threat rating to... above S-rank!"
"Tell those idiots that if they ever encounter this man dressed in black and carrying a flaming blade on a mission..."
The Raikage clenched his teeth and forced the words out between them.
"They're allowed to abandon the mission! They're allowed to run! If anyone dares throw his life away, I'll split him in half first!"
[Land of Earth · Iwagakure · Tsuchikage Building]
Compared with the Raikage's furious outburst, Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki's reaction was far more somber.
The old fox, who had lived for over seventy years and survived three shinobi world wars, hovered in midair, holding several photographs of the site taken by a Ninja Hawk from extreme range.
In the photographs, the glassy scorch mark stretched a thousand meters, smooth as a mirror and painfully conspicuous amid the forest.
It was a scar upon the earth.
"Cough, cough..."
As Ōnoki studied the photographs, he felt a dull ache returning to his lower back.
"This... this is Fire Release?"
"What a joke! In all my years, I've never seen a Fire Release technique that could burn the earth into glass!"
Ōnoki gently rubbed the edge of a photograph, his eyes filled with horror.
As a powerful shinobi possessing the kekkei tōta, Dust Release, his greatest pride was the Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique, which could break objects down into molecules.
But he knew very well that although Dust Release was powerful, its range was limited, and its chakra consumption was enormous.
Yet the report said that Chiya Uchiha had unleashed that slash as casually as if he were chatting.
And that was after burning down half of Konoha!
"This boy's chakra reserves... is he a tailed beast?"
A chill ran through Ōnoki.
"Lord Tsuchikage! Urgent news from the front!"
A Stone Ninja rushed in, flustered. "The other small nations around Konoha are all waiting to see what happens. Should we..."
"To hell with waiting!"
Ōnoki abruptly flung the photographs into the Stone Ninja's face and cursed.
"Are you trying to wipe Iwagakure off the map?"
"Can't you see that even those muscle-brained brutes from Kumogakure have stopped?"
Ōnoki took a deep breath and steadied himself. Cunning and fear mingled in his cloudy old eyes.
"Listen carefully. Send urgent encrypted messages to Roshi, the Four-Tails Jinchūriki, and Han, the Five-Tails Jinchuriki."
"Tell them to get their asses back to the village immediately! Right now!"
"All jinchūriki are to enter Level One Protection Status! They must not take even half a step beyond the village barrier!"
"Why?" the Stone Ninja asked, baffled.
"Why?" Ōnoki sneered, looking out the window at the endless rocky mountains. "If Chiya Uchiha has left Konoha, his ambitions clearly extend far beyond a single village."
"Now that a monster of his caliber has tasted the sweetness of slaughter..."
"He'll undoubtedly seek stronger prey next."
"And jinchūriki... are the most conspicuous targets in the world!"
"I have no intention of letting Iwagakure's tailed beasts become roast meat beneath that flaming blade!"
[Underworld · Bounty Exchange]
This was the dark underside of the shinobi world, a paradise for outlaws, and the most straightforward place to measure a shinobi's "worth."
The Bounty Exchange hall, normally noisy and reeking of money and blood, was eerily quiet that day.
Everyone crowded around the enormous Bounty Board, mouths hanging open like ducks with their necks squeezed shut.
Just moments earlier, the employee responsible for updating the bounty notices had shakily posted a brand-new wanted poster, its red color glaringly bright.
At the very top of that poster was a number that left every bounty hunter breathless.
"Ones, tens, hundreds, thousands, ten thousands... hundred thousands, millions, ten millions, hundred millions..."
A wandering shinobi with a scar-covered face counted the zeros after the number. By the end, his tongue had tied itself in knots.
"One... 1.5 billion ryō?!!"
BOOM!
The deathly silence broke, and the entire hall erupted.
"You've got to be kidding! 1.5 billion ryō?!"
"Wasn't even First Hokage Hashirama Senju's historical valuation on the black market only one billion ryō?!"
"Someone on the level of the Twelve Guardian Ninja is only worth thirty-five million ryō. This Chiya Uchiha... is worth fifty Asumas all by himself?!"
"This is insane! Have the Daimyō of the Five Great Nations lost their minds? That's enough money to buy a small country!"
Among the crowd, a cloaked man with stitches across his face-Kakuzu-stared fixedly at the Bounty Notice.
His green eyes did not gleam at the sight of money as they normally did. Instead, they were filled with solemn concern.
"1.5 billion..."
Kakuzu spoke in a low, raspy voice. "At that price, they aren't buying a head."
"They're buying the life of the entire shinobi world."
The surrounding bounty hunters turned toward this legendary veteran.
Kakuzu pointed at the new epithet on the wanted poster and gave a cold laugh.
Everyone followed his finger.
Above the original epithet, "Flame Emperor," the intelligence departments of the major shinobi villages had added a new, even more terrifying prefix in bright red ink.
[World-Ending Flame · Chiya Uchiha] Threat rating: SSS (Disaster Level) Kill Order: This individual is extremely dangerous and possesses the ability to instantly destroy large shinobi villages and erase terrain. Unless operating in a team of peak Kage Level combatants, all individuals are strictly prohibited from attempting contact! Even information on his whereabouts carries a bounty of one hundred million ryō!
"World-Ending Flame..."
Everyone murmured to themselves, feeling a chill shoot from the soles of their feet straight to the crowns of their heads.
Throughout the history of the shinobi world, there had been Hanzo of the Salamander, called the "Demigod," Hiruzen Sarutobi, called the "Shinobi Hero," and Minato Namikaze, called the "Yellow Flash"...
Their titles were illustrious, but they still fell within the realm of "human."
But "world-ending"...
It represented destruction utterly beyond reason or negotiation, like a natural disaster!
"I'm out! I'm out!"
The scar-faced shinobi who had been counting zeros suddenly slammed down his wine cup, turned, and walked away.
"What's wrong, Old Li? Not taking this job? That's a hundred million just for information!" someone nearby teased.
"To hell with the money!"
Without looking back, the scar-faced man cursed, "I may be greedy, but I'm not done living!"
"Didn't you read the report? Five hundred from Kumogakure, and not even scraps left!"
"That's no walking 1.5 billion! That's the god of death on legs!"
"Whoever wants to go can go! I'm heading back to the countryside to farm! The shinobi world is too dangerous!"
Once the first man left, more and more bounty hunters began to back out.
They realized that the era had changed.
Before, the shinobi world had been a contest between shinobi.
But with this 1.5-billion-ryō Bounty Notice, it had entered a new era in which gods and demons ran rampant.
And the man standing at the center of the storm was carrying his blade, trampling the dignity of the Five Great Nations, and climbing step by step toward a throne everyone else could only gaze up at.
[Heartland of the Land of Rain]
The uproar and panic outside had no effect whatsoever on this closed-off nation.
The cold rain continued to fall.
Chiya emerged from the cave. After a night's rest, his presence had become more restrained, and even more unfathomable.
His sharp, exposed killing intent was gone, replaced by an oppressive stillness like that of an abyss.
"Let's go."
Chiya glanced back at Sasuke and Izumi.
Sasuke had dark circles beneath both eyes. Clearly, that "Sōkatsui" had kept him awake all night. Now, standing in the rain, he was trying to imitate Chiya's "Flash Step." Though his movements were clumsy, his gaze was exceptionally resolute.
"Chiya, are we really going to charge straight in?" Sasuke asked.
"Charge?"
Chiya raised his head and looked toward the towering steel buildings dimly visible through the distant curtain of rain-the heart of Amegakure, and the Akatsuki's headquarters.
"No."
Chiya shook his head, a faint smile curling his lips.
He raised his foot and stepped into empty air.
HUM!
The air beneath his foot solidified, supporting his body.
Under Sasuke and Izumi's shocked gazes, Chiya walked up into the sky, step by step, as though climbing an invisible staircase.
"We're not breaking in."
Chiya looked down at the city below, a steel beast, his long black robes snapping in the rain.
"We're going to... descend."
"Since a 'god' lives there."
"Then I'll greet him in a way only a god can understand."
Chiya raised his right hand, palm down, and aimed it at Amegakure, tightly protected by a barrier.
Reiatsu began to gather.
"Hadō #58."
"Tenran."
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