Uchiha Yue didn't know about Jiraiya's visit, nor did it matter to him. Does a predator remember the name of its prey? What does it care about title, lineage, or the history of the piece of bread with which it satiates its hunger?
This absolute indifference made it possible to conceal the truth: Jiraiya, one of the Legendary Sannin, nearly died without ever seeing his opponent's face. The most astonishing thing is that the cover story, concocted as a cover story, left no doubt. Human imagination has its limits. Everyone knew Uchiha Yue was strong, but Jiraiya was no weakling either. Therefore, the legend of a titanic battle in which the Sannin, alert and aware of the enemy, still fell after hundreds of jutsu exchanges, yielding only in the final blow, sounded bitter, but plausible.
In the Domain of Deadly Peace.
The jōnin from the Sand Village raced forward, confident in his calculations. He felt his chakra draining, but attributed it to his high speed. He didn't notice his face turning deathly pale, his movements becoming sluggish and slow.
Only one thought occupied his mind: find Uchiha Yue or, failing that, retreat before his energy ran out. He was focused on chakra—a familiar and understandable quantity for any shinobi. He had no idea that along with it, this place was draining something greater from him: body heat, the bioelectricity of his nerve impulses, the very chemical energy of life.
Under normal circumstances, he would have long ago noticed the weakness, the sluggishness of his thoughts, the slowed reaction time. But not now.
His brain—the core of a complex machine of flesh and blood—was deprived of power. Deprived of energy, it could barely maintain basic thought processes. What kind of introspection was there to speak of?
At that moment, he was like a patient under anesthesia, whose arm had already been amputated, yet he still believed it was still there.
"What?! I-it can't be... My body... speed... strength..." the jōnin croaked, finally realizing something was wrong.
He stopped abruptly and, staggering, nearly collapsed. Confused, he raised his hand to make a fist, but his fingers refused to obey. The simple movement, which a moment ago had been effortless, now jerked, as if a rusty mechanism was trying to get going.
"Chakra... I still have chakra! Why am I..."
A sudden realization burned with a chilling cold.
"No... I get it. This place... it absorbs everything. All energy! The cold... the cold..."
He raised his head. The darkness around him thickened, but he could barely make out the saving boundary of the Domain in the distance. The distance was monstrous. By his calculations, he hadn't even covered a tenth of the distance, although his chakra reserves should have been enough to reach the Konoha gates and return.
He turned and ran back, but his knees buckled almost immediately. He collapsed face down on the frozen ground.
"Move, you damned body! Get up! I command you!!!"
His mind screamed, but his body was deaf. How could limbs, deprived of power and cold, hear his brain's command? How could his willpower force muscles to contract without a spark of life left in them?
No matter how indomitable his spirit, he was powerless against this cruel reality.
"Captain! He seems to have run out of chakra!" shouted one of the shinobi watching from the border.
Several Sanda fighters watched in panic as their commander fell. A chuunin from their squad estimated that the captain was very close. Saving him would only take a second.
With this thought in mind, he rushed inside.
"No! Don't go in!" Gathering his last strength, the jōnin raised his head and screamed desperately. "This is... hell! Run!"
After that scream, he went completely limp. If he wasn't pulled out in the next few minutes, he would die, turning into another statue in this dead forest.
But he didn't know that no one had heard his warning. Sound is also energy. And here he was dying, barely born.
"Captain, I'll get you out!"
A comrade ran up, grabbed him by the clothes, and dragged him toward the exit. A few steps... a little more... salvation seemed within reach...
"Captain... forgive me... I have no more strength..."
Boom.
Two bodies sprawled limply on the ground.
Outside, the genin who had witnessed this scene exchanged glances. The distance was insignificant! They could do it! They had to save them!
They performed hand seals, but the ninjutsu techniques vanished into thin air as soon as they appeared within the Domain. Seeing the faces of their fallen comrades turn pale, one of the youths rushed forward in desperation.
"Just a little bit more... I can... I'll get everyone out... alive! Aaaargh!"
He managed to bind all three with scraps of clothing. His hand slowly reached out from beyond the boundary of the Domain of Peace... and fell heavily to the ground.
It was all over. All the Suna shinobi who had arrived on the mission lay motionless. The last one had only one step left to pull the others out of this hell. One step, which turned out to be an unbridgeable abyss.
A single snowflake fell from the sky and landed on his motionless head.
A thought, bitter and clear, flashed through the last genin's fading consciousness:
"The intelligence... It contained a fatal flaw.
It said this territory absorbs chakra. But nothing about it devouring life itself."