A few days later, rain still whispered over the soaked hills as Danzo and his Root operatives reached the summit where Hanzo waited today.
Both groups wore Amegakure gear, masks, cloaks, and headbands, to blend together as one army.
Only a few knew the truth of who led them.
For this mission, Danzo posed as Hanzo's strategist, a trusted advisor brought to oversee the meeting.
The disguise suited him.
He preferred to pull strings from behind the curtain anyway.
Hanzo gave him a curt nod.
Danzo returned it with a polite incline of his head, though his thoughts were less civil.
'Just wait. You'll see soon enough how far beneath me you've fallen.'
He was eager to show what power really looked like.
The man once called "Hanzo of the Salamander" was a relic now, clinging to his title, old reputation, and glory, and the venom that had once made him feared across nations.
Hanzo's legend was built on poison and survival.
He had achieved his power through a bond with colossal, abnormally powerful salamanders, his clan had once relied on since the Warring States era.
After one such such creature's death while he was still young, his clan decided to experiment on him, for some reason, and implanted the creature's venom sac into his body while he was still young, turning Hanzo himself into a living toxin, lethal to touch, immune to all known poisons.
Since it worked, he eventually rose from that brutal world and built Amegakure, his fortress in the endless rain.
For decades, he'd been spoken of with the same respect as any Kage.
But time was unkind, and now, Danzo saw only a tired ruler desperate to hold on to his crumbling power.
Hanzo wasn't blind.
He saw the flicker of smugness in Danzo's eyes, and it also irritated him very much.
Konoha's spymaster had changed, grown arrogant, unreliable, and far too convinced of his own value.
Over the last few months, he'd broken promises, delayed support, and left Hanzo to clean up the mess more than once, always acting as if his time was too precious to waste on "minor" matters like Amegakure.
And yet, here he was, standing tall and composed, radiating the quiet arrogance of a man who thought his presence, finally, alone was a favor.
Hanzo forced his irritation down. He couldn't afford it now.
Not when Konohagakure had somehow, completely unexpectedly, turned the entire tide of this war, thanks to a new generation of heroes rising alongside the old, including the Sannin he once crossed blades with.
They now stood on the verge of an unlikely victory.
It reminded Danzo of who they were exactly again.
Fortunately, Hanzo had still smartly never fully committed to any other alliance with other great villages before this, during the war.
It was now then finally, the time to choose a side, to abandon the neutrality and autonomy he had clung to since the massive war began.
Konoha was his best card left to play, and the Akatsuki, those fools soon to arrive, had become a problem too large to ignore.
For now, his pride would have to wait.
What had begun as an idealistic movement of Amegakure orphans was now a genuine force, a group preaching unrealistic peace, stopping all fighting, and recovery, stealing sympathy from Hanzo's own people.
It spread like wildfire through the hopeless and the desperate. Every raid, every skirmish, only drew more followers.
To Hanzo, it was simple: peace was poison. The talk of "ending war" threatened the fragile system that kept him on top.
So he'd agreed to Danzo's plan.
The Leaf elder had proposed a simple, elegant trap: a fake peace negotiation.
He would play the mediator under the alias Kanzō, speak for Amegakure, and lure the Akatsuki leadership into a meeting with promises of cooperation.
Then they'd end it, all of it, in one swift blow.
The rain grew heavier as three figures emerged through the mist: Yahiko, the fiery idealist; Konan, calm and sharp; and the red-haired, always quiet teen standing behind them, Nagato.
The so-called "peace-makers."
Hanzo's men surrounded the clearing in silence, Root operatives hidden among them.
Danzo gave a small nod.
In an instant, everything broke.
Explosions flashed in the rain as kunai and fire tags erupted from the trees.
Dozens of Akatsuki were cut down before they could even draw weapons.
Konan was caught almost immediately, tangled in chakra threads and dragged to her knees.
Danzo watched with cold satisfaction.
Even he hadn't expected it to go this easily.
"Either my men are improving," he thought, "or these fools were never worth fearing."
Hanzo stepped forward, his mask glinting under the lightning.
He pressed a blade to Konan's throat and looked at Nagato.
"Kill Yahiko," he said flatly, "or she dies."
The rain paused, as if even the sky held its breath.
Yahiko's face hardened.
He understood.
If he hesitated, Nagato would break.
Slowly, he turned to his friend and forced a small smile.
Then, with one steady motion, he pushed himself onto the kunai.
Blood mixed with rain as he fell.
"Change the world, Nagato," he whispered, voice fading.
The battlefield turned into chaos.
Nagato, shaking from grief and rage, felt something inside him snap.
Yahiko's body was still warm in his hands, Konan screaming his name somewhere behind the haze of rain and smoke.
He moved before anyone could stop him.
No one even saw how.
One second, Konan was trapped in the hands of Root operatives, and the next, she was back at his side, free, but the cost was clear.
Explosive tags Hanzo had hidden up the hill went off as Nagato shielded her, tearing into his legs.
He barely stayed upright, blood soaking into the mud.
Hanzo watched from higher ground, the rain sliding off his mask, his expression unreadable.
A mix of satisfaction and something like unease.
He had underestimated them, their bond, their conviction.
Danzo felt it too, though in his own way.
Yahiko's self-sacrifice annoyed him; such sentiment was a waste in war.
Yet part of him couldn't help but respect it.
That kind of resolve was rare.
Then the air soon changed.
The rain stilled for a breath.
Both Hanzo and Danzo froze, instincts screaming.
They felt it, a pressure, a pulse, something vast and ancient awakening.
Nagato's chakra was no longer human.
The shock froze everyone.
Then Nagato screamed, a raw, tearing sound that cut through the rain.
His eyes lifted toward them, blazing with something beyond human, grief twisted into fury, and fury into pure hatred.
Chakra, dark and immense, pulsed out from him in a wave that made even the veterans flinch.
Danzo felt it before he saw it, an energy so raw it warped the rain itself.
Nagato pressed his palm to the mud, his voice echoing through the storm.
The ground trembled.
A monstrous silhouette began to rise behind him, something that should not exist in this world.
Hanzo and Danzo shouted almost in unison.
"Kill him! Now!"
Every available shinobi launched forward, but it was already too late.
Nagato's grief had opened something inside him, something beyond any human's control.