The sky above the Land of Wind wasn't blue. It was a bruised, suffocating violet, darkening toward an indigo horizon that promised no relief, only a colder kind of death.
The wind had died an hour ago, leaving a heavy, static silence that pressed against the eardrums like deep water.
"MOVE!"
Jiraiya's scream tore through the silence of the canyon.
He didn't wait to see if they listened. He kicked off the sandstone wall—a towering monolith of melted red wax that rose a thousand meters into the air—and threw himself sideways.
BOOM.
The rock face where he had been standing disintegrated.
A cloud of purple vapor slammed into the stone, sizzling like acid on flesh. The "melted" texture of the sandstone didn't just erode; it liquefied, turning black and dripping down the canyon wall in a hissing sludge.
The smell hit them instantly—sweet, cloying almonds masking the stench of rotting sulfur.
Jiraiya landed hard on the valley floor, his sandals crunching on black basalt pebbles. He rolled, coming up in a crouch, his white mane coated in red dust. His lungs burned. The air here was thin, dry, and tasted of copper and old blood.
"He's fast," Jiraiya wheezed, wiping a trail of grit from his mouth. "For a man who breathes through a filter, he moves like smoke."
Fifty meters away, Hanzō of the Salamander stood atop a dune that glowed burnt orange in the dying light. He wore his rebreather mask like a crown. His kusarigama chain dangled from his hand, the weight clicking rhythmically against the rocks. Click. Click. Click.
Below him, the massive black salamander, Ibuse, churned the sand, its toxic breath wilting the sparse saxaul bushes instantly. A lizard scuttled out from a crevice near the beast, took one breath, and curled into a dry, grey husk in seconds.
"Fast?" A voice slithered from the shadows of a fissure to Jiraiya's left.
Orochimaru stepped out. His flak jacket was torn, revealing pale skin that was already bruising. He held a kunai in a reverse grip, his golden eyes narrowed.
"He isn't just fast, Jiraiya. He is chemically superior. The air belongs to him. Every breath we take is a negotiation with death."
"Shut up and fight," a third voice snapped.
Tsunade landed between them. Her green haori was shredded at the hem. Her blonde hair was matted with sweat and dust. She didn't look at Hanzō. She slapped her hands onto Jiraiya's shoulder and Orochimaru's back simultaneously.
ZZZT.
Green chakra flared—medical ninjutsu, crude and forceful.
It didn't feel like the warm bath of a hospital heal; it felt like a staple gun, forcibly closing the meat.
"My ribs were cracked," Jiraiya grunted, feeling the bones knit together with a sickening pop.
"And my lung was perforated," Orochimaru noted coolly, as if discussing the weather. "Thank you, Hime."
"Don't thank me," Tsunade spat, withdrawing her glowing hands. "Kill him. I can't keep stitching you meatbags back together forever. My chakra isn't infinite."
"Working on it!" Jiraiya yelled.
He bit his thumb.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
He slammed his hand onto the hard-packed mudflat.
POOF.
Manda, the giant purple snake, erupted from the smoke. He didn't look happy. His scales scraped against the narrow canyon walls, knocking loose a rain of rocks. The canyon floor groaned under the sudden displacement of weight, spiderweb cracks shooting out from Manda's belly.
"You again?" Manda hissed, his voice vibrating in Jiraiya's chest. He looked down at Orochimaru. "You summoned me into a poison bath? Are you trying to insult me?"
"I require a distraction, Manda," Orochimaru said smoothly. "Bite the salamander."
"No."
Manda uncoiled, slithering away from Hanzō.
"The air tastes like death," Manda growled. "You don't have enough sacrifices to pay for my skin rotting off. Bye."
POOF.
The snake vanished.
"Coward!" Orochimaru shouted at the empty smoke cloud. He turned to Jiraiya, his face twisting in rare frustration. "Where's your frog? The big one with the pipe?"
"HE'S A TOAD!" Jiraiya screamed, dodging a kusarigama blade that sliced the air where his head had been a microsecond ago. "AND HE'S TOO BIG FOR THIS SHIT! LOOK AT THE WALLS!"
Jiraiya gestured wildly at the canyon. It was a maze of vertical fissures and narrow siqs. Gamabunta would get stuck like a cork in a bottle.
WHIZZZ.
The sickle blade whipped back. Jiraiya tried to twist, but his foot slipped on the loose scree.
SHLICK.
The blade caught his left forearm. It didn't sever it, but it carved a trench deep enough to see white bone. Blood sprayed across the red sand, turning it black. Heat radiated from the wound, hot and wet against the dry desert air, making Jiraiya lightheaded.
"GAH!" Jiraiya fell to one knee, clutching the wound.
Tsunade was there instantly.
She didn't ask if he was okay. She jammed her hands into the wound.
"Hold still," she ordered.
Green light flooded the cut. The flesh boiled, stitching itself back together in seconds. Jiraiya screamed through his teeth as his nerves reconnected. Steam rose from the site of the injury, smelling of cauterized iron.
"Move!" Tsunade shoved him aside just as a glob of poison sludge hit the ground where he had been kneeling.
Orochimaru leaped from a rock bridge above, throwing a barrage of shuriken. Hanzō deflected them with a lazy wave of his chain.
"Body Flicker," Hanzō murmured.
He vanished.
He reappeared behind Orochimaru.
STAB.
The sickle went into Orochimaru's back, piercing the lung again. Orochimaru gagged, coughing up blood. He dissolved into mud—a substitution—reforming ten feet away, clutching his chest.
"Inefficient," Orochimaru wheezed, his regeneration failing to keep up with the toxin entering his bloodstream.
Tsunade landed beside him. She slapped her hand over the hole in his chest.
"Breathe," she commanded.
She flushed the poison out with a surge of chakra. Orochimaru took a ragged breath, his eyes widening as the air returned. He spat a wad of bloody mucus onto the sand, watching it hiss and bubble as the toxin within it ate the silica.
Tsunade looked at them.
Jiraiya was panting, his arm trembling. Orochimaru was pale, his movements slowing.
Above them, Hanzō stood on a pillar of Disi sandstone, looking down like a god judging insects. The sun was setting, turning the canyon into a blood-red throat, and they were being swallowed.
This is a battle of attrition, Tsunade realized, the cold logic of a medic cutting through the panic. And we are losing.
She looked at Jiraiya.
"Jiraiya," she said. Her voice was low, devoid of the usual fire. "Carry me."
Jiraiya blinked, wiping sweat from his eyes. His face went bright red under the grime.
"Whahwat?!" he stammered, looking at her chest, then her face, then the enemy. "Now?! Here?! Tsunade, I know I'm irresistible, but—"
WHACK.
She hit him in the back of the head. Hard.
"Focus, you idiot!" she growled. "Not like that! Piggyback!"
Orochimaru crossed his arms, leaning against a rock face. He watched them, intrigued despite the hole in his vest. "Color me intrigued."
Tsunade scoffed, glaring at him. "I could color you anything with your pale-ass skin."
Orochimaru touched his chest, feigning offense. "Hurtful."
But his eyes were sharp. He wasn't helping; he was analyzing. He saw the potential. A mobile medic battery attached to a tank. Flesh manipulation, he thought. External regeneration.
Tsunade grabbed Jiraiya's shoulders. She climbed onto his back, locking her legs around his waist and wrapping her arms around his neck. It wasn't romantic. It was the grip of a soldier securing a backpack.
She placed her hands directly over his heart.
"Listen to me," she whispered into his ear. The smell of her hair—lavender and blood—filled his senses.
"You have 56 seconds to beat him."
Jiraiya stiffened. "What?"
"That's how long I can heal you," Tsunade said. "Before my chakra reserves tap into my life force."
She wasn't just using chakra. She was preparing to burn her telomeres. She was about to wager years of her natural lifespan to keep his cells dividing faster than Hanzō could kill them.
This wasn't recklessness. This was muscle memory. She had been gambling since she was six. She knew the odds. And right now, the odds were death.
"Hime..." Jiraiya whispered, realizing what she meant. "You can't... your lifespan."
Her fingernails dug into his trapezius muscles through his mesh armor, sharp enough to draw blood.
Tsunade tightened her grip.
"My life doesn't matter if we die here today," she hissed. "Now shut up and get angry."
Jiraiya grimaced. He looked up at Hanzō. The goofiness vanished from his face. The pervert was gone.
The Toad Sage remained.
"56 seconds," Jiraiya growled. "Let's make them count."