Asuma, who was currently riding a dog, stubbornly craned his neck. Despite the agonizing pain in his chest and abdomen, he forced his eyes to stay open, desperate to track the shifting tides of the battlefield.
He was the Third Hokage's son, but even he had to admit that his classmate Hagoromo truly deserved the reputation he had earned in the Land of Wind. In terms of pure combat prowess, the gap between them was immense.
In his pupils, the image of Hagoromo's clones pincer-attacking Pakura was reflected clearly. From Asuma's angle, he couldn't see Pakura's face, but he felt as if he could sense the panic radiating from the famous kunoichi. Facing an unexpected, sudden, and lethal strike—who could truly maintain their composure?
The Hero of the Sand dies at the hands of the White Yaksha...
Was this good news for the Leaf? Yes. Was it bad news for the Sand? Undoubtedly.
But whether the news was good or bad, even if it leaked out, it likely wouldn't trigger any massive consequences. As Pakura herself had said to Hagoromo earlier: would two Great Villages who had just realized a fragile peace restart a world war over this?
No. Regardless of who killed whom, it was just one ninja. It wouldn't hinder the grand design of peace.
So, Hagoromo felt he could kill with a clear conscience.
Perhaps Hagoromo had realized this from the start, or perhaps he hadn't thought that far ahead at all. Either way, since the moment the fight began, he had been giving it everything he had.
Yet, battlefields are always rife with accidents—variables that can turn a near-certain future into an illusion.
If the one-on-one duel had continued, Hagoromo's clones might have severed the Sand Hero's head in the next second, or Pakura might have been ready with a counter-attack to disperse the clones.
Neither happened.
Pakura did not die by Hagoromo's hand. This was because of a sudden, violent intrusion.
Shuriken began to rain down from the sky, blotting out the light. First came the blurry, overlapping shadows, then the high-pitched shing-shing of whistling wind. It was a massive carpet-bombing of projectiles, as if someone had released multiple Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsus at once.
The steel bit into the mud with wet thuds and sparked against the trees with sharp clinks.
Hagoromo's main body reacted with lightning speed. He launched himself diagonally upward like a fish leaping from water, his back parallel to the ground.
He caught a branch with his hands, his muscles coiling and snapping like springs to propel him several meters higher onto a thick limb.
However, his clones were forced to abandon their lethal strike on Pakura, even though her soft neck had been inches away. The window of opportunity for a kill had slammed shut.
Hagoromo's two clones and Pakura retreated in three different directions. The Rain ninjas also froze their assault. A new power had entered the fray, and the battlefield fell into a momentary, heavy silence.
Hagoromo knelt on the branch, immediately dispelling his clones. In an unknown situation, recovering even a fragment of chakra could be the difference between victory and defeat. He steadied himself against the trunk and looked down.
He was at the perfect height to face the newcomers directly.
There were fifty of them. Every single one wore a Hidden Rain headband, but their attire was completely different from the standard Rain infantry.
Leading them were three individuals...
Orange hair, purple hair, and—much like Kushina—vibrant red hair.
Perhaps it takes a century of specialized hair care and anti-hair-loss treatments to produce such a colorful array of ninjas, but these colors served as iconic identifiers. For instance, red hair almost certainly signified a member of the long-lost Uzumaki clan.
The dense swarm of shuriken that had just fallen wasn't made of steel. It was paper.
As for the volume and speed? Someone had used a coordinated jutsu: Paper Shuriken combined with Wind Style: Gale Palm.
It seemed their goal wasn't to kill, but to prevent Hagoromo and Pakura from finishing each other off. After forcing the combatants apart, they didn't follow up with more attacks.
Considering their location and the traits of the three leaders, the identity of this group was glaringly obvious.
The Akatsuki.
And their leaders: Yahiko, Konan, and... Nagato.
Hagoromo could make this deduction with certainty. While the faces of Yahiko and Nagato had changed since the childhood memories of his past life, Konan's "paper-style" attacks were a signature that no fan of the series could miss. Once her identity was confirmed, the others fell into place.
He hadn't expected to encounter a legendary "Child of Prophecy" here, along with the eyes that once belonged to the Sage of the Six Paths.
The Akatsuki was still in its infancy, led by three idealists with somewhat naive dreams.
Could I finish them here?
The thought flickered through Hagoromo's mind before he suppressed it. That was madness. He didn't know how far the Rinnegan had been developed yet.
Moreover, he knew that even the "gentle" Konan was a monster capable of burying 600 billion paper bombs—enough to blow him up fifty times over without breaking a sweat.
And while Hagoromo was still struggling with basic Water Style training, Nagato, thanks to those eyes, had likely already mastered all five nature transformations.
Hagoromo did not move recklessly. One look at Nagato's red hair—and specifically the ripple-patterned eyes beneath his bangs—was enough to tell him that he was looking at the ultimate "Cheat Code."
Under his command, the Multi-Headed Hound began to merge back into a single body. It didn't attack; instead, it slowly backed away with the three Leaf ninjas into the dark shadows of the forest, away from the firelight.
While Hagoromo was acting with the caution of someone who knew the future, Pakura had no such insight. Seeing the headbands on the newcomers, she naturally assumed they were more Rain reinforcements.
"Like leeches that won't let go!" she spat, her eyes full of venom.
--------------------------------------------
If you are enjoying the work, you can support it while upto 50 chapters ahead on Patreon!