Hanzō tightened his grip on the chain-scythe and lunged straight at Hiruzen Sarutobi.
The eye on the transformed adamantine staff cracked open—Enma's voice echoed sharply:
"Brace yourself, Hiruzen!"
The staff shrank instantly back to its normal size, and Hiruzen swung it down in a powerful arc.
CLANG!
Sparks scattered like stars as Hanzō's scythe met the Adamantine Staff head-on.
A heartbeat later, dozens of rapid metallic clashes filled the air—the space between them erupted in lightning-bright flashes as the two combatants blurred together, their figures flickering like ghosts.
"Too fast—!"
"I can't tell who's who!"
"Our attacks might hit Lord Hanzō by mistake!"
Chiyo immediately barked an order:
"Fall back! Surround this area—don't let the Third Hokage escape once he breaks free!"
Shinobi withdrew at once, opening a wide perimeter around the duel.
Part of it was to tighten the encirclement—
but the other reason was far simpler:
Hanzō had removed his respirator.
The poison miasma around him would thicken rapidly.
The Ame ninja wore masks—they were safe.
The Suna ninja?
They absolutely were not.
Chiyo herself could no longer intervene. Her Chikamatsu's 10 Puppets—her most elite force—had self-destructed earlier to cover the Suna's retreat. Without puppets, her combat ability was barely jonin level.
Entering this melee would be suicide.
Meanwhile, Hiruzen and Hanzō clashed with nothing but raw taijutsu and weapon skill—
staff and scythe, chain and metal—an equal match at first glance.
But the Third Hokage quickly sensed something was off.
Why is Hanzō… slower?
He had witnessed Hanzō's speed before—the man's Body Flicker was absurd, almost teleportation.
Yet now his attacks, while fast, were nowhere near that level.
Was he using a forbidden technique earlier to boost his speed?
Or did escaping that explosion damage his chakra pathways?
Is the flow of chakra through his body impaired now?
Hanzō was still deadly, but far from his peak.
If Hiruzen committed fully—even at the cost of injury—he could fight him to a mutual kill.
But Hanzō's blade was coated in salamander venom.
Even a scratch meant death.
With the area sealed off, poison filling the air, and no escape route…
A suicidal exchange would be meaningless.
On top of that, Hanzō's every breath was toxic.
The longer Hiruzen fought, the greater the risk.
He had deliberately been fighting while holding his breath, suppressing his own chakra circulation and speed.
If Hanzō landed even a single cut—or if he inhaled too much miasma—Hanzō would retreat, leaving Konoha fodder to stall until the poison killed him.
That was unacceptable.
Hiruzen understood he would not survive this battle.
What he could do—was take Hanzō and Chiyo with him.
Those two were far too dangerous to Konoha's future.
Only their deaths might create the slightest chance for a Konoha counterattack.
Shiki Fūjin, the Reaper Death Seal—the grim thought flashed through his mind.
The Shinigami was invisible to all but the caster.
At this distance, he could reach Chiyo the moment Hanzō fell.
She would never see it coming.
First I kill Hanzō…
Then I seal Chiyo in the next breath.
Even if she was dozens of meters away, her guard was down—she couldn't defend against what she couldn't see.
As long as Hanzō died here, Hiruzen was fully prepared to drag Chiyo to the afterlife with him.
Even if I can only take one of them…
I'll do it.
He felt the poison thickening in the air. Time was running out.
I must end this now.
Hiruzen's grip tightened. He suddenly increased the Adamantine Staff's weight—the huge force blasted Hanzō backward.
"Wind Style: Gale Palm!"
Hiruzen leapt away, forming rapid seals, and expelled a massive gust of wind.
The jutsu wasn't lethal—but its area of effect was enormous.
The entire encirclement shielded their faces from the grit-laden blast.
But that wasn't why Hiruzen had used it.
"The poison's dispersed… good. Now I can go all out!"
He hit the ground and prepared his next jutsu—
—but Hanzō was already in his face, charging through the gale.
"Slash!"
Hanzō's scythe sliced for Hiruzen's chest—
forcing him to intercept again with the Adamantine Staff.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi…
Master of over a thousand jutsu,
Wielder of all five chakra natures,
The 'Professor of Ninjutsu,'
The man they call 'The Strongest Hokage.'"
Hanzō's voice carried through the storm of blows.
"But if the 'Strongest Hokage' can't weave a single hand sign… how much power does he have left?"
He flooded his chakra into his muscle pathways—and his speed spiked brutally.
"From here on—you won't cast a single jutsu!"
Hanzō blurred.
His scythe and chain whipped through the air in a storm of steel.
Forced onto the defensive, Hiruzen had no room to form hand seals.
"This… this is the style of a samurai!
A ninja using samurai swordsmanship—aren't you afraid of disgrace?"
In the days before shinobi overshadowed them, samurai were the dominant warriors of the world.
But the rise of jutsu had pushed them to the edge of extinction—except in the Land of Iron.
Hanzō remembered well: even seasoned samurai fled at the mention of his name.
Only Mifune had stood against him—scarred across the face, sword shattered—willing to die if it meant saving his troops.
Hanzō had spared him out of respect.
Using sword techniques wasn't shameful to him.
He wasn't bound by the old shinobi rules.
He was a reincarnator—only results mattered.
Victory rewrote all judgments.
And right now, his relentless assault prevented Hiruzen from forming a single seal.
Effective. Very effective.
But the poison is thickening again. I must finish this quickly.
I need to restrict his speed—just for an instant.
"Enma—wait for my signal!"
As they clashed, the Adamantine Staff suddenly sprouted two hands—
Enma grabbed Hanzō's scythe and chain in a vice grip.
He had intended to seize Hanzō's throat,
but the odds of success were too low.
Locking down the weapon was enough.
Hiruzen seized the opening—his heel whipped across Hanzō's jaw, launching him backward.
Six seals in a single second—his hands slammed into the earth.
"Earth Style: Dark Swamp!"
"Earth Style: Mud Binding!"
The ground around him dissolved into a massive mire. Mud surged outward like quicksand, stretching toward Hanzō in living waves.
The mud itself sprouted hands—grasping, pulling, trying to drag Hanzō under.
Hanzō had no choice but to retreat.
"Retreat further!" Chiyo ordered her troops.
The swamp only grew wider.
"This jutsu consumes insane chakra… must be to restrict Hanzō's speed."
Her job was simple:
Maintain the encirclement and stop Hiruzen from escaping.
Ideally, both titans would kill each other.
"Lightning Style: Ground Surge!"
Hiruzen electrified the entire swamp—purple lightning crawled across the mud and even up the falling rain.
A field of death.
"Not good—too late!"
Hanzō had jumped earlier to evade the mud—but the swamp spread faster than expected, leaving nowhere safe to land.
Still airborne, the entire ground below him crackled with lightning.
But Hanzō was already reacting—
"I won't fall for something like this!"
He hurled his scythe downward. It stabbed into solid ground just beyond the swamp's edge.
He yanked on the chain—swinging his body out of danger.
Hiruzen was already forming more hand signs.
"It's not over!"
"Earth Style: Earth Dragon Bomb!"
A giant mud-drenched dragon rose from the lightning swamp.
It launched volleys of electrified mud bullets.
"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Bomb!"
A stream of flames coated the projectiles—
turning them into blazing, crackling thunder-flame shells.
They rained toward Hanzō in hundreds.
"Retreat!"
Even the surrounding Suna and Ame ninja fled in panic.
The barrage swallowed Hanzō completely.
The impact shook the battlefield.
Hanzō landed and raised a stone wall—
"Earth Style: Mud Wall!"
—but Hiruzen's jutsu smashed into it instantly.
"Earth Style: Great Mud River!"
The entire battlefield buckled—the ground churned like a living beast.
Stones and mud surged upward like tidal waves.
Exploding thunder-flame shells detonated inside the earthstorm—and Hanzō's wall disintegrated instantly.
Go to hell, Hanzō!
Hiruzen knew—
Victory and defeat between masters was decided in a single instant.
Enma had created that instant.
The Great Mud River swallowed Hanzō whole.
His figure vanished in the rolling earth, battered like laundry in a washing basin.
Finally—
The chakra fueling the technique faded.
Silence.
A long gouge, like a ravaged highway, split the battlefield.
At the far end, a broken human shape was partially buried, legs twisted disgustingly, clothes shredded, raw muscle exposed.
Hiruzen exhaled deeply.
"At last… Hanzō is dead."
"Now only Chiyo remains."
A crazed laugh pierced the air.
"Hahahahaha!"
Chiyo laughed wildly.
"That worthless Hanzō actually got killed like that!"
"Good! Very good!"
"The Land of Rain and Amegakure now belong to Sunagakure!"
She stepped forward, chakra flaring violently.
"You thought you could walk away with all those benefits?"
"Thought we valued you as an ally?
"Idiot!"
She doubled down, screaming:
"Once Konoha is finished with you, we'll deal with you and Rain next!"
"Did you really think you were useful after this war?"
Her chakra suddenly spiked—a forbidden technique.
"All Suna ninja! Kill the Ame ninja beside you!
Leave none alive!"
"I'll hold off the Third Hokage!"
"Once you're done, surround him!"
More than a thousand Ame ninja had chased Jiraiya's group.
Barely five hundred remained here.
But nearly three thousand Suna shinobi still stood on this field.
They could slaughter the Ame forces in minutes.
Chiyo's laughter turned manic.
She imagined taking Hanzō's corpse, dissecting his unknown jutsu, restoring Sunagakure's supremacy—
Her fear of Hanzō—the shadow he cast over her mind—finally erupted into rabid glee.
Suna ninja raised their kunai toward the stunned Ame shinobi.
"No way—Hanzō-sama can't be dead!"
"You traitorous Suna filth! Amegakure will never forgive you!"
Chiyo raised her hand.
"Kill them!"
Suddenly—
POOF.
The "corpse" half-buried in the earth exploded into a spray of water.
A Water Clone.
Chiyo and Hiruzen both froze in shock.
At that instant, the earth beneath Hiruzen trembled. He leapt backward instinctively—
—and a deadly chill ran down his spine.
A scythe burst upward from the ground, not aimed at him—
—but at the Adamantine Staff embedded in the ground from earlier.
CLANG!
The staff was blasted far across the battlefield.
Hanzō emerged from the earth like a demon rising from the depths of hell.
"Hiruzen Sarutobi," he said coldly,
"That last strike? I easily could have killed you."
"While I am in a generous mood—get out."
Chiyo and Hiruzen stared in disbelief.
Impossible.
His real body was fighting us the whole time—when did he even make a clone?
Both of them reached the same conclusion:
During the Water Wall earlier.
When his jutsu blocked their vision.
Even Hiruzen had failed to notice the switch.
"That speed… that precision… even I failed to sense it," the Third Hokage murmured.
Hanzō's Water Clone held half his chakra.
With enough chakra, even heavy attacks wouldn't dispel it immediately.
He had expected to fake his death—let Chiyo and Hiruzen tear each other apart.
Then he would strike whichever survived.
But Chiyo's betrayal had simply accelerated the damn script.
Ame shinobi saw him—
and hope exploded through the ranks.
"Lord Hanzō!"
"I knew it—he wouldn't die!"
Hanzō's voice thundered:
"All Ame shinobi—form up! Now!"
His tone was heavy, cold, furious.
The Suna shinobi felt his killing intent and froze in place.
Chiyo swallowed hard.
She forced a smile.
"Haha… well, the enemy of my enemy is a friend… right?"
"We accept Konoha's goodwill, don't we?"
Hiruzen smiled politely.
"Given your strength, and her lack of puppets—even with her forbidden technique—it won't take you long to eliminate her."
"With half your chakra remaining, surely two thousand Suna shinobi won't be an issue."
He shivered remembering the earlier explosion.
Enma reverted from staff to monkey form, standing beside him again.
"That was quite the spectacle, Hiruzen," Enma remarked.
Chiyo's face was drenched in sweat, blue chakra flaring around her.
"This… this is all a misunderstanding."
She didn't even realize she'd spoken.
Her mind was blank.
And death loomed from both sides.
----------------------------///
150 Powerstones - Bonus Chap
300 Powerstones - Bonus Chap
500 Powerstones - Bonus Chap
700 Powerstones - Bonus Chap
1000 Powerstones - Bonus Chap