I was still mulling over Liedou's ideology—how a desert warlord somehow reinvented the Will of Fire—when a prickling sensation crawled up my neck.
Someone was staring at me.
Not just staring.
Recognizing me.
Outside the tavern, a middle-aged man had frozen mid-step, eyes wide, lips trembling.
"That face… isn't that Amamiya Raizen? The First Hokage…?"
I almost choked on my drink. First Hokage? Gods, the timeline in this world was drifting like a glitchy save file.
But his reaction told me enough.
He'd seen me before.
And based on the way he twitched like a startled rabbit, he was Sand's intel division—ordinary on the surface, dangerously informed underneath.
Years ago, he'd entered Konoha as part of the alliance. Back when his clan still existed.
Now that clan had been crushed into Sand Shinobi Village under Liedou's iron rule.
Great. A familiar face in the worst possible desert.
His fingers flicked, subtle as a pickpocket.
A small sparrow fluttered down from a rooftop.
He slipped a message onto its leg.
The bird vanished instantly into the sky.
His last glance toward the tavern was filled with dread.
And that tiny, terrified moment was all I needed.
Got you.
My senses flared.
I didn't even need Byakugan to feel the pulse of chakra sprinting away.
"Someone spotted us," I whispered to the Anbu, and we slipped out of the tavern like shadows.
The spy didn't make it far.
He'd barely crouched behind a building to continue recording intel when a hand wrapped around his throat and dragged him into a narrow alley.
"Who—?!"
He didn't finish.
My Rinnegan rippled in front of him like the world folding in on itself.
He slumped.
I dove through his memories.
Oasis patrol.
Sand intel division.
Mission: Track outsiders.
Send immediate alerts to Liedou.
And more important—
Liedou himself was nearby.
Not on the frontlines.
Not fighting the Fengsha Clan like every rumor claimed.
He was here.
Near this oasis.
"Why would the First Kazekage leave the final unification battle…?"
I dug deeper and froze.
So that was it.
Sand was hunting One Tail.
Before their nation was officially unified, before the Five Kage Summit even existed…
they were already pursuing the tailed beasts.
Wind Country's unification wasn't even complete, but Liedou was preparing for the next era—
the era of jinchūriki.
If I delayed even a little, One Tail wouldn't fall into my hands.
It would fall into his.
That would be a problem.
A massive, desert-shaking problem.
"Move," I told the Anbu. "We're leaving. Now."
We slipped out of the oasis before Sand shinobi could swarm the place, returning to the roaring yellow sea of the desert.
The Altar of Wind wasn't far—maybe a few hours of hard travel.
By afternoon, we arrived.
And the desert greeted us like it hated us.
A wall of wind slammed into my face, carrying so much sand it might as well have been knives. The dune ahead exploded upward, swirling into a thick, towering storm.
A sandstorm… with chakra.
My Byakugan pulsed.
"Not natural," I muttered. "One Tail's chakra is everywhere."
The entire desert around the altar was drowning in flowing chakra threads. It flooded my vision so thoroughly that I couldn't distinguish a single grain of sand from a transformed Shukaku fragment.
One Tail could turn its entire body into sand—
and this storm was made of sand infused with chakra.
Meaning…
"Yeah, no wonder I can't pinpoint you."
I lowered my hand, letting the grit sting my skin.
One Tail was arrogant. Loud.
A tantrum-prone tanuki with the attention span of a child and the destructive power of a natural disaster.
It wasn't hiding.
It was throwing a desert-sized temper tantrum to flush out whatever intruder dared step onto its altar.
My lips curled.
"Well, guess I'll play into that personality."
I clapped my hands together.
"I'll just piss you off."
Somewhere inside the roaring sandstorm, the desert trembled.
One Tail heard me.