By the time Yuji arrived at the Hidden Rain Village with Shimizu and the others, the fighting had essentially concluded.
Looking across the village, many of the buildings had been damaged or destroyed. The ground bore bloodstains that the rain had diluted but not fully washed away, and a number of bodies remained where they had fallen. On the way in, the group had encountered a few Hidden Rain ninja still attempting to flee.
"Lord Kazekage."
The moment Yuji stepped inside the village, Shira and Pakura came forward to report.
"How does it stand?" Yuji asked, surveying the chaotic state of the village around him.
"Hanzo's trusted inner circle has been eliminated. The Hidden Rain forces have been dealt with, none left behind. The village's major clans have all been brought under control. As for the civilian population, they have been temporarily gathered and moved to a central location."
Shimizu spoke in a low voice.
"The civilians were actually quite cooperative. There was no meaningful resistance from them."
"Good," Yuji nodded.
He then glanced at Black Zetsu standing behind him.
Black Zetsu understood the cue and sank into the earth. A moment later it emerged leading a White Zetsu body alongside it. This particular White Zetsu had been quietly monitoring the Hidden Rain Village for some time and had accumulated knowledge of certain internal secrets.
"The Hidden Rain Village's major clans were almost entirely families that Hanzo personally elevated and trusted over the years. Their Hidden Rain ninja members have all been dealt with already, leaving only ordinary civilian members. But they cannot be left unattended."
The White Zetsu body spoke plainly.
Every eye in the room shifted to Yuji upon hearing this.
"Their total numbers across all the major clans come to over two hundred," Shimizu added.
Yuji was silent for a moment.
Then his eyes settled and he spoke in a flat, unhurried tone.
"Kill them."
A single word.
War was not supposed to touch civilians, and giving this order carried a certain coldness to it. But there was no alternative. Allowing these people to live freely meant accepting an unknown quantity of future instability. The seeds of resentment had already been planted in their hearts.
In certain moments, many things required decisive action. If the entire Land of Rain was to be governed and stabilized afterward, there could be no internal disruptions. Anything less would drain enormous resources and attention.
"What about the rest of the civilian population?" Shimizu asked carefully.
The Sand Village had seized the Hidden Rain Village through force. They were outsiders. These people, even under pressure, might bow their heads to a stronger power in the short term, but they would never be truly aligned with the Sand Village.
Simply put, they held no cultivation value at this stage.
"They are different from the clan descendants. The ordinary people at the lowest level simply want to survive and live their lives in peace. But they cannot be made our own either."
Yuji rubbed his chin and thought for a moment.
"Bring several of the village's elder representatives to me."
"Understood," Shimizu nodded and turned to go.
By now the sky had grown dark. The Sand Village's immediate tasks were to clear the battlefield, stabilize the civilian population as quickly as possible, and restore some semblance of normality to the village.
After that would come the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Hidden Rain Village itself.
The entire Hidden Rain Village was considerably smaller than the current Sand Village in terms of area, and its economic and developmental foundation was far behind. The reconstruction effort would not be particularly difficult.
Shortly after, Yuji brought the others and entered Hanzo's former residence. Several of the Hidden Rain Village's surviving elder figures were waiting there.
Through negotiation with these representatives, a preliminary understanding was reached between the Hidden Rain Village's civilian population and the Sand Village. The Sand Village would not harm or persecute the Hidden Rain Village's ordinary citizens. But from this point forward, the village would operate under Sand Village administration. A complete transformation was underway.
As for the ordinary civilians, their reaction was largely as Yuji had expected. They had endured the destruction of war for so long that the fall of the Hidden Rain Village itself carried less grief for them than it might have otherwise. They wanted only to survive and continue living. War had always been the cruelest reality for people who held no power of their own.
Of course, Yuji understood clearly that within the Hidden Rain Village's civilian population, there would certainly be a portion of people who harbored resentment toward the Sand Village. That was entirely normal. Whether it was the civilians or Akatsuki, as long as the Land of Rain's future development could lift this country out of the misery it had been mired in, some things would be selectively forgotten over time.
Because in the end, people only looked at results.
History worked the same way.
Yuji then called together all the key members of the forces present and conducted a planning meeting, laying out the policies and actions for the Hidden Rain Village and the broader Land of Rain going forward. This included accounting for the reactions that might emerge from the other major hidden villages in response, particularly Konoha and the Hidden Stone Village.
The fall of the Land of Rain to the Sand Village was the last outcome either the Land of Fire or the Land of Earth wanted to see. Some form of response from them was certain.
Fortunately, with White Zetsu maintaining covert surveillance, Yuji had no particular fear of Onoki or Hiruzen attempting any quiet maneuvers he would not detect.
The discussions continued through the night until the following morning, when Yuji finally withdrew with Shimizu and the others and began the return journey to the Sand Village.
Several thousand Sand Village fighters remained stationed in place. Sasori and Rasa temporarily took up positions overseeing what was now the Land of Wind's second hidden village. The place could no longer be called the Hidden Rain Village.
Going forward, the Sand Village would deploy the appropriate personnel in waves to rebuild and reshape this village from the ground up.
Of course, they had not yet achieved complete control over the entire Land of Rain. Capturing the Hidden Rain Village was only the first step. Fully consolidating control over the country meant dealing with every regional power faction and private armed force still operating throughout the land.
Those were the genuinely difficult obstacles that still lay ahead.
That was the true test the Sand Village had yet to pass.
This had also been the consequence of Hanzo's years of turning a blind eye to the Land of Rain's deep-rooted problems, keeping one eye open and one eye shut while the country's ailments festered beneath the surface.
Yuji's thinking was straightforward. Iron-fisted methods would be used to sweep away every remaining armed faction and resistance force, completing what Hanzo had never had the will to do.
These troublesome problems within the Land of Rain could not be treated with gentleness. Several areas of disorder had hardened into deeply entrenched habits over years of neglect. The only way to uproot them was to make the people involved understand, with absolute clarity, what the cost of resistance against the Sand Village looked like.
Before leaving the Hidden Rain Village, Yuji left Sasori and Rasa with a single instruction delivered in a completely calm voice.
"Anyone who resists, kill without mercy."
Yuji understood clearly that the Sand Village's iron-fisted rule would stir considerable turbulence across the ninja world and would change how other hidden villages and nations viewed the Sand Village going forward. He did not particularly care.
Because saving this country required strong medicine. Anything less and the Land of Rain would not become a prosperous extension of the Land of Wind. It would become an enormous and permanent drain.
The reason Yuji and the others returned to the Sand Village was that something on that end required his personal attention.
The Fuma clan.
After a period of negotiations and discussions, the Fuma clan of the Land of Rice Fields had finally agreed to relocate to the Sand Village. And they were arriving imminently.
As Kazekage, Yuji naturally needed to be present to receive them. This was after all the Sand Village's first successful recruitment of an entire ninja clan rather than a single individual.
"What is that little devil trying to accomplish?"
An event as significant as the Sand Village seizing the Hidden Rain Village could not be concealed. By the following day, word had reached the Hidden Stone Village.
Upon hearing the news, Onoki's entire body jolted with shock. For a brief moment, he simply refused to believe it.
Then his expression darkened considerably.
The Land of Rain, despite its years of internal unrest and the emergence of Akatsuki, had still been one of the central powers of the Second Great Ninja War. Even with Hanzo growing complacent and indulgent in his later years, as long as he remained in the Hidden Rain Village, it represented a force no ninja village could dismiss entirely.
For any of the major hidden villages to defeat the Hidden Rain Village outright would never have been easy, and certainly not accomplishable in such a short window of time.
The only explanation was that the Sand Village had been planning this move against the Land of Rain for a long time and had been preparing quietly for years.
"Salamander Hanzo is genuinely dead. Killed by the Fourth Kazekage personally."
Onoki's son, Kitsuchi, also wore a grave expression.
"The Sand Village appears to have reached a secret cooperation with Akatsuki beforehand. They used Akatsuki's strength to help draw Hanzo into the open and eliminate him in a single stroke."
"The Sand Village has been quietly preparing for this moment for a very long time. Time and again, and it all came to fruition now."
"Hmph. Your head has not gone entirely to waste, I suppose."
Onoki glanced at his son, his expression serious, one hand stroking his beard as his voice gradually returned to its customary composure.
"Kazekage truly played his hand with extraordinary precision. My instincts were right. That young man is far more difficult to deal with than the Third Kazekage ever was."
Kitsuchi had long grown accustomed to his father's blunt remarks. Both of them were focused on the same single concern right now.
The Sand Village's next move.
Anyone with any intelligence could see that what the Sand Village had done in the Land of Rain was only the beginning. It was sending a clear signal about the direction things were heading.
"Send word to the Third Hokage. Tell him I want to meet."
Onoki turned the situation over in his mind and gave the order.
The Land of Rain's geographical position was uniquely significant. If the Sand Village treated the Land of Rain as a strategic bridgehead, the expansion of their bordering territory meant that any offensive the Sand Village chose to launch against the Land of Earth would benefit from far more angles of attack and a considerably wider range of tactical options. And the Hidden Stone Village's defensive calculations would become correspondingly more complicated.
"Understood," Kitsuchi replied.
"Wait. Send word to the Sand Village as well. Express the Hidden Stone Village's serious protest and demand for negotiations regarding this development. Notify the Daimyo's office as well."
Onoki drew a slow breath and emphasized his point.
"The tone must be firm and clearly dissatisfied. And it should not only be the village. Have the Land of Earth's Daimyo engage the Land of Wind's Daimyo directly on this matter as well. We want the Fourth Kazekage to give us a proper accounting."