After a year of fierce fighting, most of the towns within the Country of Rain had become dilapidated and ruined.
Hii Kōri and his group, draped in cloaks covered with patches of colors difficult to describe, silently skirted past a town whose very walls were riddled with holes.
Their figures vanished in an instant amidst the rain, making one wonder if they were merely an illusion. Only a few shallow footprints left on the rain-soaked, extremely damp soil marked their passage, soon obscured by the rain once more.
At their destination ahead, an Amegakure unit was moving in the opposite direction.
Clearly, this Rain unit's target was Suna's encampment.
Even for ninja who possessed far superior physical strength and had mastered techniques like "tree-climbing" and "water-walking," rendering most terrain no obstacle, when assaulting an enemy position, they would still not waste too much physical strength rushing through difficult, rugged terrain.
This was also the underlying defensive logic when ninja formed armies for battle.
The more people forced-marched through difficult terrain, the easier it was for mistakes to occur and for them to be discovered in advance. Moreover, you couldn't expect the enemy's formation to completely lack sensor-type ninja—rugged terrain wouldn't hinder perception of chakra... unless there was some massive energy source like a Dragon Pulse or a Graham's Stone in the area.
As for single individuals assaulting enemy formations... well, if someone had the ability or guts to assault alone, they could go anywhere.
As the local powers familiar with the terrain in the Country of Rain, it was actually quite normal for Amegakure ninja to master some paths that Suna and Konoha hadn't discovered.
Take this small path hidden in the ruins outside the town, for example. If Hii Kōri hadn't detected these Rain ninja's movements through continuous surveillance by his flying puppets, Suna still wouldn't have found it.
To be honest, this wasn't him being overly sensitive. It was normal for them to maintain a low-intensity, small-scale probing engagement with Konoha. But what did it mean that the Rain ninja, whose homeland was being repeatedly ravaged as a battlefield, were fighting more and more timidly?
You guys clearly haven't been beaten to that point yet, right?
As the saying goes, when children are quiet, they're definitely up to mischief. Rain had to be cooking up something big.
"..."
Racing along, Hii Kōri silently gestured behind him. The Suna ninja following him silently dispersed, rapidly heading toward their targets according to the pre-arranged plan, while Hii Kōri himself gradually slowed his pace.
The weather in the Country of Rain was good—good precisely because Hii Kōri was a sensor-type ninja who had mastered Water nature transformation.
Using the misty water vapor as a medium, Hii Kōri's already quite broad perception radius had expanded by nearly 30% compared to when he was in Sunagakure.
So he could easily detect the enemy's movements, numbers, and chakra levels before coming into contact with the Rain forces.
Five jōnin, twenty-two are similar to jōnin, one hundred and eighteen chūnin, genin... none.
Confirming once more—an awkward middle-ground number.
As a small team, this was undoubtedly excessive, but for a large-scale operation, it was too few.
No, considering Amegakure was a village specializing in assassination missions, it was an accepted fact that they pushed each ninja's abilities to the limit. For them, this number was enough to do many things.
But however he thought about it, this didn't seem like the "big plan" Rain was cooking up...
Thinking this, calculating that his subordinate ninja should be in position by now, Hii Kōri began sprinting once more.
The enhancement tattoos inked along his chakra meridians and muscle fibers would activate the formulas etched into his flesh when chakra was released through tenketsu. Their effects varied, but the most basic was physical enhancement.
Leg strength, temporary liberation.
The patterns on his legs, wrapped beneath the chakra suppression bandages, faintly glowed. The man disguised as the "Heavenly Tyrant" stomped hard on the muddy ground, kicking up a large chunk of mud while transforming into a fierce gale that roared past.
The distance to the Rain ninja in his perception rapidly closed. When it was close enough that they would surely detect him—
Since I borrowed this guy's appearance, I should at least display similar physical abilities~♪
Sensing a certain charm in freely exerting his physical capabilities, Hii Kōri's thoughts even seemed to become a bit frivolous.
The previously hidden enhancement tattoos all lit up. The formulas activated by chakra further propelled Yang Release's operation. Every muscle tensed, even his veins becoming clearly visible.
Arm strength, full enhancement!
The three-section staff at his waist was drawn to his hand by chakra threads. With chakra infusion, the chain connecting the staff sections suddenly tightened, transforming into a four-meter-long staff.
A heavy stomping sound rang out. His disguised, narrow pupils contracted even smaller. The Heavenly Tyrant suddenly twisted his body, his speed even blurring his quite ferocious smile into a comical afterimage.
Speed coalesced with the burst of power from all his muscles during the spin, becoming tremendous momentum as he hurled the staff—wrapped in surging, restless chakra—forward.
"Water Release: Water Formation Wall!!!"
The Rain ninja's reaction speed indeed lived up to their reputation. Even attacked at this speed, they could still react.
The jōnin and tokubetsu jōnin at the front and sides of the unit teamed up to perform this defensive technique. Wall after wall of water rose from the ground, attempting to disrupt the trajectory of this "unidentified flying object" with turbulent currents.
But the unstable chakra ratio wrapped around the staff—modeled after a "runaway Tailed Beast Ball"—possessed even more rage destructive power. The hastily erected water walls layered upon each other, yet were still torn apart completely without effect.
The piercing sound of tearing air and the bursting rain curtain drowned out the Rain jōnin's shouts, then were swallowed by the deafening roar.
The overburdened, decrepit buildings collapsed piece by piece, becoming miserable wreckage. Thanks to the increasingly heavy rain, this scene of demolition-level explosion didn't kick up much dust.
But the few ninja who had half their bodies blown off, or who were splashed with fragments of their comrades, probably wouldn't be grateful for that.
"Yo, everyone. In such a hurry, where are you off to feast?"
The reverse summoning technique inscribed on the staff activated. Hii Kōri materialized amidst the crowd, casually grabbing the still-flying three-section staff as he bent low, spun, and swung violently, "cutting" over a dozen nearby chūnin in half like grass blades struck by a branch.
Their soft torsos, containing only a spinal column and internal organs, burst into foul blood mist. The upper halves of their bodies were hurled high into the air by this brutal force.
Confusion still lingered in their eyes—they completely hadn't processed what had just happened. Their remaining consciousness even instinctively reached for their waists, trying to draw kunai to face the enemy, before Hii Kōri's thrown kunai pierced their skulls, killing them completely.
"Ah... how about letting me join in too~"
He tugged at his collar, rolling his neck, then swung the three-section staff downward, cleanly flinging off the bloodstains.
This action, combined with "Fushiguro Tōji's" appearance, imbued his tone with an indelible cruel and vicious aura.
It was rusted steel, withered grass, a blood-soaked wilderness—sending chills down the spine.
"Fushiguro...!"
But even more chilling was the hatred in the Rain ninja's words. Just gnashing their teeth to spit out the surname of the man Hii Kōri was impersonating, that word alone seemed like a bloody curse.
Hii Kōri could completely understand this hatred. After all, they were the bastards who had stormed into someone else's homeland, creating this mess.
As perpetrators of such evil, being hated to this degree was deserved.
"Here, here, I'm right here~"
But so what? In this messed-up world, the stances one could afford to consider weren't so rich.
The moment that name was called out with such hatred, two Rain jōnin's forms instantly dissolved into pools of water. The next moment, they appeared with kunai on either side of Hii Kōri, thrusting backhand inward.
This was Amegakure's quite famous Water Body Flicker Technique. Although it had the limitation of requiring a water source to use, in the pouring rain of the Country of Rain, that condition was virtually nonexistent.
Simultaneously, a third jōnin drew the ninja sword at his waist and slashed down at Hii Kōri from behind.
From this tacit three-way pincer attack and their crisp, crisp movements, it was clear that Amegakure's jōnin were on an entirely different level from those perfunctory jōnin of other small villages.
Ninja physiques were strong—they could easily perform various actions. Ordinary people couldn't hope to achieve.
Ninja physiques were also weak—shuriken, kunai, blades... these weapons that could kill ordinary people could also easily take a ninja's life.
Most of the assassinations Amegakure ninja specialized in were actually accomplished through taijutsu and ninja tools.
Having long anticipated this almost natural attack, Hii Kōri's figure vanished from beneath his cloak with a poof, replaced by a wooden stake plastered with explosive tags.
"Tch!"
Although they already knew about the existence of those non-explosive fake tags, at this critical moment, no one had the luxury to distinguish. One or two they could endure, but this quantity—even a jōnin specializing in taijutsu would be seriously injured.
The sword-wielding jōnin and another used Body Flicker to retreat, while a dark-skinned Rain jōnin raised his hands to form seals, seemingly about to use Water Prison Technique to contain the wooden stake.
But as he instinctively raised his hands, he sensed something wrong. This Rain jōnin suddenly realized that Hii Kōri hadn't fled far after the substitution—the brute was standing right behind him!
Water Prison Technique, already seen.
Hii Kōri moved with inconceivable speed. The man, bursting with blue-black flames, swept his staff and sent the jōnin's head flying, then kicked the headless remains together with the wooden stake toward the Rain chūnin, followed by...
BOOM—
This time, all his explosive tags were real.
Even in such a torrential downpour, the tags plastered on the stake could still unleash a grand blaze of fire.
With this as the signal, one after another cyan "curtain" rose around the ruins, sealing the entire battlefield tightly.
"A barrier?!" The jōnin directing the chūnin to withdraw from this battlefield they couldn't intervene was quite puzzled. As neighbors, they knew very well what level Suna's barrier techniques were.
A barrier like this—no way Suna could have developed this themselves.
Of course, no one would answer that question.
The ninja under Hii Kōri's command, after activating the barriers, rapidly arrived on the battlefield, slaughtering the Rain ninja below with large-scale Wind Release techniques.
As long as they faced a direction without allies, they could wash the area with ninjutsu with impunity. This was also one of the reasons Hii Kōri had them disperse early, besides setting up barriers.
Ninja with little chakra weren't necessarily weak, but ninja with lots of chakra were certainly strong. As everyone knew, ninjutsu ranks only indicated learning difficulty, while power was directly linked to chakra quantity. With enough chakra poured in, any technique could be stacked into extra large cup.
This principle especially applied to the five elemental escape techniques.
Water and Wind had no elemental relationship, but Water Release, tending toward "physical impact," did have a "physical" disadvantage against Wind Release, which focuses on cutting.
The front formation had already been disrupted by Hii Kōri. The scattered jōnin and tokubetsu jōnin couldn't protect all the chūnin. With the prepared striking the unprepared, the Rain forces suffered heavy casualties in an instant amidst the howling gales.
And Hii Kōri, who was also within the Wind Release bombardment range?
That burst of chakra he'd released wasn't just for ambushing that jōnin.
"If I could avoid it, I wouldn't want to waste like this—the Medical Corps is always short of corpses for dissection—but your numbers are a bit too many. Just our group alone couldn't quite handle it~"
Amidst the flying flesh and blood, Hii Kōri, tapping his back with the three-section staff, grinned provocatively and crooked his finger at the jōnin who had shielded his subordinates from the Wind Release.
"Come on, our team only has about ten people. We're at an overwhelming numerical disadvantage~"
This was a lie. As Suna's interim commander against Rain, once he detected Rain's movements, how could he come with just one team without making any arrangements?
In fact, even with the pre-arranged ambush, relying on just these twelve people under his command, he couldn't completely annihilate these Rain forces here. If these jōnin and tokubetsu jōnin were willing to abandon the chūnin, at least escaping would be possible.
But when they first encountered Hii Kōri alone, there was no way those five jōnin-led teams would retreat. Even now, surrounded by an ambush squad, they still had the numerical advantage.
The option of retreat simply wasn't in the Rain ninja's consideration.
And this was precisely Hii Kōri's goal.
Killing was far simpler than capturing. Even with a certain strength disparity, trying to take a jōnin alive was extremely difficult.
The ambush, the barriers, including the provocation now—all were meant to keep these Rain ninja here until the sealing team he had arrived arranged to take them alive.
Then they could interrogate the Rain ninja's plans from them.
Extracting memories from corpses was too random; that method was generally used to reverse-engineer their body modification techniques or other secret arts.
"You bastard—!"
But judging from the current situation, the provocation was working quite well.
"Don't shout so loudly. It makes you seem like you lack confidence!"
***
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