The rain fell in torrents. Chiya stood on a battlefield covered with corpses, the blood-red pattern inside his Mangekyo Sharingan rotating slowly.
Rainwater washed the bloodstains from his face, but could not wash away the smell of death hanging in the air.
"The Far Shore of the Yellow Springs!"
Chiya murmured quietly. The vision of his Sharingan pierced through the curtain of rain and locked onto the figure retreating at high speed.
The power of his eye erupted again. The pattern of a six-petal spider lily blazed open within his gaze.
An invisible wave of death spread outward with Chiya at its center. Wherever it passed, the bodies of the Rain-nin withered rapidly, like bark drained of all moisture.
Screams of terror rose one after another, only to be cut off in an instant.
Hanzo's figure suddenly came to a stop. He looked down in horror to find his arm beginning to age at a visible rate.
The skin shriveled. The muscle wasted away. His life force was being ripped out at a furious pace.
"What jutsu is this?!"
As his voice rang out, his body immediately shattered into countless water droplets and merged into the pouring rain.
Chiya's brow creased. His Sharingan swept rapidly across the surroundings.
"A Water Clone?!"
Chiya's gaze sharpened.
He scanned quickly in every direction. The perception of his Sharingan tracked the path of every single raindrop with clarity, yet he could not find Hanzo's true body anywhere.
'As expected of the "Demi-God." Cunning as ever.'
Rainwater slid down Chiya's forehead, mixing with the blood seeping from the corners of his eyes and dripping into the mud.
He held his back straight, like a javelin standing upright.
The pattern within his Sharingan flickered in and out through the rain.
Hanzo's figure coalesced again not far away. This time, the hand seals he formed were unusually slow and heavy.
"To push me far enough to use this move..."
Hanzo's voice suddenly dropped into a low rasp.
"Little Uchiha, you should feel honored."
His hands slammed together. The water pooled on the ground suddenly began to boil.
Three Water Clones split apart from the rain and took up a triangular formation, surrounding Chiya at the center.
Each clone began forming a different set of seals.
"Summoning Jutsu, Salamander!"
Boom!!
In a deafening explosion, thick smoke and water mist shot into the sky.
The ground shook violently. A massive salamander over twenty meters in length burst up from the earth, its gray-brown skin covered in slime gleaming with an eerie sheen in the rain.
From within its gaping maw, sharp venomous fangs dripped corrosive mucus that ate hissing craters into the ground below.
ROAR!!!
The salamander let out a deafening bellow, its thick tail sweeping across in a wide arc.
Chiya flickered out of the way in a Body Flicker. The ground where he had been standing was smashed into a crater ten meters across.
He had barely landed when the poison glands along the salamander's back suddenly sprayed dozens of venom bolts in his direction.
Flames and venom collided in midair, evaporating into a purple toxic mist.
Chiya poured chakra into his feet and vaulted hard off the ground, his Mangekyo Sharingan locking onto Hanzo's true body perched atop the salamander's head.
But at the very moment he was about to launch his eye technique, the pooled water at his feet suddenly transformed into chains and coiled around both his legs.
'A trap from the Water Clones? Since when did they...'
The salamander's massive tail was already screaming toward him.
Chiya's feet were bound fast by the water chains. The salamander's huge tail came roaring in, tearing through the air.
The shadow of death closed over him. Yet the corners of his mouth curved into a cold arc.
'Got you all.'
The blood-red pattern inside his Mangekyo Sharingan suddenly blazed open. The six-petal spider lily blazed with an eerie light in the rain.
"The Far Shore of the Yellow Springs!"
Hum.
An invisible wave of death erupted outward with Chiya at its center.
Time seemed to stop in that moment. Raindrops froze in midair. The entire world was stained a sickly dark red.
The first to bear the brunt was the massive salamander sweeping in with its tail.
Its slime-covered gray-brown skin cracked and shriveled at a visible rate. The menacing eyes went instantly dull and lifeless.
Sssss...
With a sound that made the skin crawl, the salamander's enormous body began to shrink rapidly.
Muscle wasted away. Bones twisted. In no more than three seconds, that great beast collapsed into a dry, hollow husk, crumpling to the ground like a piece of torn cloth.
The three Water Clones let out piercing shrieks at the same moment.
Their bodies twisted and warped like punctured water balloons as the moisture inside them was forcibly stripped away by something irresistible.
"Im...possible..."
One of the clones struggled to reach out a hand.
Before the words could finish, all three Water Clones burst apart at once, scattering into countless water droplets.
Every droplet shattered into fragments the moment it hit the ground.
Just then.
A mass of rainwater gathered and took shape in the air. Hanzo's figure materialized like a ghost directly behind Chiya.
In his hand, a chain-sickle gleamed with cold blue light, visibly coated in lethal poison. He brought it down from above straight toward Chiya's throat.
"Die, little Uchiha!"
Hanzo's true body grinned savagely. The poison on the sickle was more than enough to kill Chiya in an instant.
Chiya shifted his body slightly to one side on purpose, his gaze calmer than it had ever been.
At the very instant the sickle grazed his skin, the eye power of his other Mangekyo Sharingan erupted.
"Cycle of Cause and Effect!"
The cold sickle drove through from Chiya's rear shoulder all the way through to his abdomen. Time seemed to freeze.
Hanzo could feel clearly the sensation of the blade slicing through flesh. The poisoned edge cut through the young Uchiha's defenses without resistance.
He watched Chiya cough up a mouthful of blood and lurch forward.
Hanzo did not press the attack immediately. Instead, he slowly withdrew the sickle and let the poison spread through Chiya's body at its own pace.
He looked at the young man now on his knees and, unexpectedly, a trace of regret showed in his eyes.
Hanzo's raspy voice echoed through the curtain of rain.
"Your eye techniques, your talent, are among the finest I have ever seen in my life."
"You might even have become the next Uchiha Madara."
"What a pity."
Chiya raised his head with difficulty. His Mangekyo Sharingan was still turning stubbornly, but the spreading poison had already begun to blur his vision.
"But..."
Hanzo shook his head. Rainwater dripped from the brim of his hat.
"Battle experience is something that talent alone cannot make up for."
He walked closer at an unhurried pace, the chain dragging across the ground with a grating sound.
"You think you saw through my Water Clones? That was only because I let you see through them on purpose."
Hanzo stopped in front of Chiya and looked down at him from above, watching the moment a genius fell.
"The true killing move is always hidden in a place you cannot see."
Chiya's fingers dug deep into the muddy ground. The pattern inside his Sharingan was still flickering, still fighting.
"There is no need to feel bitter about it."
Hanzo raised his sickle and pressed the tip against Chiya's throat. A look of world-weariness crept into his eyes.
"To push me this far is already something to be proud of. You surpassed all three of Konoha's. It is only that..."
His voice suddenly turned utterly cold.
"The fall of a genius always comes in an instant."
At the very moment the sickle was about to draw across his throat, the surrounding environment changed.
When his vision returned, Hanzo's eyes went wide.
He was now on one knee in front of Uchiha Chiya. The sickle in his hand had fallen and lay somewhere in the distance.
He felt it then, the rupture of the poison sac in his abdomen. The venom was flowing freely into his own organs.
His chakra was disrupted and could not be gathered. His back was soaked in his own thick blood.
'Is this not the exact position where I drove the blade into this Uchiha?'
'How can this be?!'
"This... is impossible?!"
Hanzo stared at Uchiha Chiya, his eyes wide.
Then he coughed up a mouthful of black blood. The color drained from his face rapidly.
Chiya walked toward him at an unhurried pace and looked down at him from above.
"Hanzo, your blade and your poison. How do they feel?"
Hanzo sank to both knees, his consciousness beginning to fade.
'The poison sac has ruptured. Even I cannot resist this poison.'
'This Uchiha actually...'
He struggled to raise his head and fixed his gaze hard on Chiya's eyes.
'Could it be these eyes?'
"These eyes... what are they..."
"There is no need for a dying man to know too much."
Chiya said coldly.
Hanzo tried to say something more. A kunai pressed against the underside of his throat.
One firm stroke. No more sound came from him.
His body fell heavily to the ground, splashing mud in all directions.
The "Demi-God" of Amegakure fell at last.
Chiya did not let his guard down. He took out his kunai.
He went across the battlefield one by one, delivering a finishing strike to every ninja not consumed by the Far Shore of the Yellow Springs, and only when he had confirmed there was not a single living person on the grounds did he let out a long breath.
The number of times he had used the Mangekyo Sharingan just now had not been many.
But even those few uses had already sent a wave of black clouding across his vision.
The Mangekyo Sharingan faded slowly, returning to ordinary black pupils.
He gathered chakra beneath his feet and withdrew quickly.
In the curtain of rain, his figure grew smaller and more distant.