"Quite the man, I'll give him that," Ōnoki muttered with a faint smirk. "But 'Demigod'? Hardly fitting."
"I already told you," came Hanzō's cold voice from behind him, "You are not Six Paths Madara."
Ōnoki's eyes widened. Before he could turn, Hanzō's chain-scythe whipped forward, binding him tightly in its coils.
"Pseudo Tandem Explosive Tags!"
Dozens of explosive tags materialized from the ground, clinging to Ōnoki's body like a swarm of paper insects.
For the first time in his life, the Third Tsuchikage felt death press right against his throat. His pupils shrank to pinpoints.
"Earth Style: Petrifying Jutsu!"
"Earth Style: Super Weighted Boulder Jutsu!"
Even in the face of death, Ōnoki's reaction speed was extraordinary. In an instant, his outer clothing and sandals turned to stone, and under the influence of his jutsu, that stone armor and the chains floated up, dragging him with them. Bursting with chakra, he shattered the bindings and shot skyward.
The explosion followed a second later—blasting him midair and slamming him against the very Earth Flow Wall he had created earlier.
"Damn… my body's going numb…!"
He realized too late that the poison from Hanzō's earlier Water Style: Poison Mist Torrent had already seeped into his system, now coursing through his veins.
Before he could react further, hundreds of explosive tags rose from below, completely encircling him.
"When did he—!"
Hanzō didn't give him time to think. With a Teleportation Jutsu, he vanished, escaping the blast radius. Even he had taken a hit from the shockwave earlier and wasn't eager to be caught in the next one.
He reappeared beside a bloodied but barely conscious Hattori Murakami, hauling him up by the collar.
"Damn, that Mud Wall is high… looks like Ōnoki planned this ambush from the start. Must've taken him a while to set up."
"Summoning Jutsu!"
A burst of white smoke filled the air, and a giant salamander emerged, its massive form breaking a hole through the stone wall.
"Ibuse—charge!" Hanzō commanded, standing atop the creature's head.
The great salamander roared and surged forward through the newly opened gap. Beyond the wall, an army of Iwa ninja awaited—thousands strong.
"Ibuse, Poison Mist!"
Ibuse's maw opened wide, spewing thick, venomous gas across the battlefield. Iwa-nin screamed and scrambled for cover, but it was too late.
Hanzō leapt into the haze, his blade cutting through silhouettes like shadows. The poison didn't affect him—he was the Salamander. Every swing of his chakra-coated scythe left another corpse in its wake.
---
Meanwhile—back at the epicenter.
Ōnoki, still surrounded by explosive tags, hardened his body with Earth Style: Petrifying Jutsu, his skin turning pitch-black like stone. He dove underground just as the first wave detonated.
But the explosive tags were relentless—chasing him like spirits through the earth. The explosions rolled above him like thunder, and the shockwaves rippled through the ground, battering him even below the surface.
Then something went terribly wrong.
The Tandem Explosive Tags had been modified. Originally, twenty thousand tags were designed to detonate in sequence over sixty seconds—but they all triggered at once within less than ten.
The result? A catastrophic chain reaction.
Each tag contained a sealing formula capable of storing three more tags, and each of those held three more within. In short—an exponential nightmare.
First second: twenty tags released sixty.
Second second: sixty released one hundred eighty.
Third second: five hundred forty.
Fourth second: one thousand six hundred.
Fifth second: four thousand eight hundred sixty.
Sixth second—over fourteen thousand tags exploded simultaneously.
The compressed timing destroyed the storage seals prematurely, releasing every tag at once. The Mud Wall trapped part of the blast, causing the shockwave to rebound inward—amplifying the devastation.
(Imagine twenty thousand grenades detonating inside a warehouse… or Deidara's "C3" going off point-blank.)
Hanzō's instincts screamed. He grabbed Murakami and dove behind Ibuse.
A blinding white flash consumed everything.
The world erupted.
Ōnoki's Mud Wall shattered like glass. The explosion ripped through a radius of over a hundred meters. Everything—stone, trees, tents, bodies—was flung skyward. Even Hanzō, shielded behind Ibuse, was hurled into the air. The salamander's massive body absorbed most of the impact but was fatally injured, dissolving into white smoke as the summoning broke.
Desperately, Hanzō threw his chain-scythe into a nearby rock crevice, the blade anchoring deep. He and Murakami clung to the other end, their bodies whipping through the air like flags in a storm.
All around them, Iwa ninja were tossed skyward—some soaring dozens of meters before crashing down, limbs bent at impossible angles.
The entire camp was annihilated. Every tent torn apart. Every soldier stunned by the overwhelming force.
Even Hanzō himself was momentarily stunned. Did I just… do that?
When the winds finally died, he stared at the battlefield, speechless.
"…What the hell… was that?"
He landed heavily, dizzy from the blast. Murakami collapsed beside him, vomiting.
Hanzō had seen death before—he'd lived through war, through blood and poison and carnage—but this was different.
The ground was littered with hundreds of bodies. Severed limbs, shattered skulls, and brains splattered across stone. Those caught nearest the center were embedded in the earth itself, frozen mid-scream. The crater stretched for hundreds of meters, red mud pooling where rain began to fall.
At the epicenter, the ground had sunk several meters, forming a vast, cracked scar that glowed faintly red from heat. Flames and smoke rose from the ruins, the air thick with the smell of blood and burnt flesh.
It was… hell.
And in the middle of that inferno stood a lone figure—masked, cloaked, scythe in hand.
To the Iwa ninja who survived, Hanzō wasn't human. He was Death itself, walking among them.
"This… this is war," Hanzō whispered hoarsely. "A battle where only one side leaves alive."
His earlier fight with Ōnoki flashed through his mind—the moment he'd used a clone to mask his escape. His Water Style had carried the salamander's venom; when his Fire Release vaporized it, the poison turned into a deadly gas. By the time the real Hanzō prepared his trap, the toxin had already entered Ōnoki's body.
And the Tandem Explosive Tags had finished what the poison began.
A raindrop landed in his palm. Then another. And another. Within seconds, the heavens opened.
"Ōnoki," Hanzō murmured, raising his head to the storm. "A hero of your age… brought down by my hand."
Rain mixed with blood, turning the crater into a crimson lake. The dark clouds above cast everything in a ghostly gray.
Hanzō lifted Murakami onto his shoulder and began walking away. Every Iwa shinobi who saw him backed away in terror, trembling, clutching their weapons but not daring to raise them.
As he reached the edge of the ruined camp, he turned once more.
"Tell your superiors this," Hanzō said coldly. "The agreement between me and Ōnoki still stands—Amegakure will hold off Konoha's advance. In return, Iwagakure will pay the Land of Rain one thousand tons of grain."
He paused. "Deliver it soon. Otherwise, I'll come collect it myself—from your Daimyō's palace if I must."
Then he vanished into the rain.
---
When the surviving Iwa ninjas finally regained their senses, they began to dig through the ruins. Hours later, deep underground, they found what was left of Ōnoki's body.
Parts of him had fused with the earth from the immense pressure. Blood streamed from his eyes, ears, and mouth; his organs were crushed beyond recognition. Death had been instant.
Even the legendary bodies of the Third Raikage or those with the Steel Style might have withstood it—but not even the Tsuchikage's Earth Techniques could save him from that cataclysm.
---
Days later, word spread across the entire shinobi world.
The Demigod of Amegakure, Hanzō of the Salamander, walked alone into the Iwa army's camp. He slew the Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki amid ten thousand troops—and returned alive. No one dared stand in his way.
Reports described a battlefield scorched and cratered, nearly a thousand Iwa ninja dead, the land itself scarred like a vision of hell. Survivors spoke in whispers, their minds shattered by the memory.
From that day forward—Hanzō's name became legend.