Inside a dim cave.
"Cough, cough, cough…"
The weakened old man opened his palm, and what entered his sight was a patch of scarlet.
"My lord!" Zero stepped forward.
Madara raised his weak right hand and said softly, "It is only some aftereffects. It will not kill me."
"But if this continues, you will go completely blind…"
"Zero."
Madara cut off his persuasion.
"Here!"
"This small price is insignificant."
Madara slowly rose to his feet and looked toward the distant battlefield filled with smoke.
"As long as we can take down Hanzō this time, Amegakure will belong to us completely…"
Hanzō, the current demigod of the shinobi world, was also an ambitious schemer. His cautious and suspicious nature had caused the Akatsuki's attempts to assassinate him over the past year and more to end in failure again and again.
Large-scale encirclement operations could do almost nothing to Hanzō. The deadly poison gas released by his summon, the salamander, was practically a divine technique in group battles. Wherever the poison gas passed, it became a forbidden zone for life.
Even if they wanted to dispatch several powerful shinobi to carry out an assassination plan, the problem was that Hanzō's Earth Release was also superb. His ability to escape underground was not at all inferior to the famous Earth Release escape technique, Hiding Like a Mole. Combined with Hanzō himself assisting from the side, the difficulty was no different from chasing a foolish dream, even with Nagato in their ranks.
Until now.
This time, Hanzō had finally fallen into the trap Madara had long prepared, one designed specifically for him.
Although Madara had paid the price of near-blindness for it, his eyes were already almost unable to see.
This was the aftereffect of overusing the Mangekyō.
What a pity. Nagato's Rinnegan could not be taken back at all.
His current body simply could not control that kind of power…
Then all he could do was make full use of this blade called Nagato.
A light, drizzling rain suddenly began to fall from the sky.
The rain contained Nagato's chakra.
"Nagato has begun to move," Zero said. "My lord, I'll set out first."
Madara gave a light nod.
…
On the battlefield filled with smoke, a fine drizzle suddenly began to fall.
Here, hundreds of shinobi were engaged in a brutal battle.
"Lord Hanzō, we… we're almost unable to hold on!"
The Amegakure shinobi felt tremendous pressure as they faced the frenzied assault of the Akatsuki's ordinary members.
This time, the enemy truly seemed determined to fight to the death.
Hanzō sensed the unusual raindrops and knew that this was his old opponent.
Nagato.
They had come.
The battlefield this time was surrounded by barren earth and far from rivers or lakes. Were they trying to cripple his Water Release?
It seemed that this time, these "old friends" had truly made up their minds to keep him here.
Hanzō immediately ordered, "Third squad, Fourth squad, reinforce First and Second."
"Yes!"
With that, the areas originally defended by Amegakure's Third and Fourth squads were left empty. Very soon, dozens of Akatsuki shinobi charged forward.
Hanzō then raised his terrifying giant sickle and entered slaughter mode.
Even without the salamander, and even far from a water source, Hanzō's taijutsu was still among the very peak of the shinobi world.
He charged into the enemy formation, swung his enormous sickle, and rapidly harvested the lives of the Akatsuki shinobi.
For a time, large amounts of blood and severed limbs spilled across the land.
Suddenly, a tremendous repulsive force surged toward him, forcing Hanzō to retreat violently.
"Just three little brats. I've been waiting for you for a long time."
It was Nagato.
His left eye was still that Rinnegan, radiating an ominous light.
Standing beside him were Yahiko and Konan.
"It seems you know that today is the day you die," Nagato said.
"No… it is the day you die."
"Last time, allowing you two little insects to come back from the dead was my oversight."
"This time, let me correct my previous mistake!"
Hanzō immediately summoned his giant salamander. At the same time, as though responding to a signal, dense crowds of Amegakure shinobi surged in from every direction.
A trap?
Who exactly was the hunter, and who was the prey?
Did they truly think that he, Hanzō the Demigod, had no way to deal with a group of brats like them?
After instantly understanding the enemy's plan, Yahiko clenched his teeth and said bitterly, "So that unit you sent out of Amegakure earlier was only a smokescreen."
"There really was such a unit that left."
The arrival of over a thousand Amegakure shinobi instantly shattered the deadlock on the field. In the blink of an eye, the Akatsuki's situation took a sharp turn for the worse.
"It just wasn't my unit. Hahahahaha!"
"Who was it?!"
"Go ask in hell!"
However, just when Hanzō believed victory was firmly in his grasp, a ghost-like figure suddenly charged toward him.
With a sharp clang, his sickle easily blocked the surprise attack from the kunai.
The attacker had originally appeared to be an Amegakure shinobi, but Hanzō knew that was only a false appearance.
When had one of the Akatsuki's people infiltrated his side as well?
But with only this level of strength, were they not being far too naive?
Did they really think Hanzō's taijutsu was just for show?
"Hanzō, do you think you have already won?" the shinobi who had launched the ambush said coldly. "You are wrong."
"Today truly is the day you die."
Hanzō instinctively raised his head.
What entered his sight was actually a Rinnegan.
…
"You damned brats!"
Hanzō dragged his exhausted body onward, continuing to hurry toward Amegakure. That was where his final chance to reverse the situation lay.
Although he had ultimately survived, from a strategic standpoint, the enemy's decapitation tactic had still succeeded.
As their leader, his withdrawal from the battlefield during combat would inevitably deal a major blow to the morale of the Amegakure shinobi. Although they still held an absolute numerical advantage, with Amegakure now scattered like loose sand, how much strength could they still gather for a counterattack?
"How is it possible for there to be a second wielder of the Rinnegan?!"
Nagato alone had already been more than troublesome enough. If there was one more enemy with the Rinnegan, how could this battle even be fought?
So the instant Hanzō saw that Rinnegan, his naturally cautious heart had already begun to retreat.
He finally understood where the enemy's confidence came from.
Although he had long since noticed that Nagato's left eye was the Rinnegan, while his right eye had always been covered by his hair, the person from earlier had the Rinnegan in his right eye, while his left eye was covered by a piece of black gauze.
That was clearly one pair of Rinnegan split apart and supplied to two people for use.
No matter how ignorant Hanzō might be, he still knew that without the bloodline of the Sage of Six Paths and without sufficient strength of one's own, it was completely impossible to draw out the power of the Rinnegan.
Forget using that power. Merely not having one's body crushed by it was already a great fortune.
That second Rinnegan user…
Who exactly was he?
"You really did have a way to escape from their encirclement!"
A middle-aged man's voice suddenly came from directly ahead.
Hanzō instantly stopped moving.
"Who's there?!"
"The one who will take your life."
"A sneaky little rat…"
But before he could finish speaking, Hanzō's expression had already turned to shock.