The autumn rain fell in a steady drizzle, covering everything in the Land of Rain beneath a curtain of endless rainfall.
Kei liked this kind of weather.
The air was moist, the soil was moist, and even his mood seemed to become moist along with them.
Unfortunately, crops didn’t like this sort of weather.
Especially when it lasted for such a long time.
The Land of Rain simply couldn’t produce enough food to sustain itself. As a result, it had become a country that depended almost entirely on outside supplies.
But Kei felt that this place actually had excellent potential for developing tourism.
A tropical rainforest climate, rain falling eight or ten days out of every ten, romantic encounters in the rain, rumors about it being a city of romantic adventures...
Perhaps they could even spread stories about people having children on rainy days because they had nothing better to do, turning the Land of Rain into a holy land for lovers.
That would at least give the Land of Rain an economic foundation. Once the economy improved, they could transform the industry later. It wouldn’t be so difficult then.
After all, the earliest appeal of every chat application had been built around the promise of hooking up. That didn’t stop them from becoming successful later.
Unfortunately, Kei wasn’t here to take over the Land of Rain.
He was here to hand it over to someone else.
He wondered what kind of country Nagato and the others, who held onto their ideals as their faith, would eventually turn the Land of Rain into.
Come to think of it, what was the economic backbone of the Land of Rain in the manga?
Wasn’t it basically Kakuzu’s financial schemes and the mercenary business?
No future.
Absolutely no future!
It would be more profitable to have Konan sell explosive tags!
Kei’s mind wandered wildly as he traveled.
As the group of Uchiha gradually entered the Land of Rain, the surrounding poisonous mist became increasingly dense.
Kei knew that he was getting closer and closer to Hanzo.
Unfortunately, this level of poison was useless against him.
After sleeping with Tsubame, the woman’s first blood had granted Kei immunity to poison.
Now even Tsubame’s specially targeted poison could no longer affect him, let alone this kind of area-of-effect poison.
After all, AoE damage was inherently weaker than targeted damage. That was simply a rule of the system.
The combination of Tsubame and Zhujun, on the other hand, counted as a form of targeted damage against an entire group, so it was exempt from that rule!
That was also why Kei was so confident about coming here to toy with Hanzo.
Their attributes countered each other.
Kei was Hanzo’s natural counter.
Hanzo was easy enough to find as well.
His Summoning Beast was simply too enormous. All Kei had to do was follow the drifting poisonous mist, and he could see him.
Himawari, Johnny, and the others had already put on the gas masks they had prepared beforehand.
This level of poison could still affect them.
Joseph, however, was as energetic as Kei.
Simply from the terrifying poison constantly radiating from Hanzo, Kei could already tell that this man wasn’t particularly impressive.
Either Hanzo wasn’t strong enough to properly control his Summoning Beast...
Or he was someone with an extreme lack of security who needed to constantly create fear in order to maintain the illusion of his own strength.
A person like that wasn’t much of a threat.
At the same time, Hanzo was observing Kei’s group.
Standing atop his enormous Salamander, the leader of Amegakure, Hanzo of the Salamander, looked down upon Konoha’s new generation of leadership.
Beneath his gas mask, his smile was becoming increasingly radiant.
Everyone assumed that Hanzo wore a mask to protect himself from his Summoning Beast’s deadly poison.
But if a shinobi couldn’t even withstand his Summoning Beast’s normal state, how could he possibly form a contract with it?
So Hanzo wore the mask for another reason.
It concealed the lecherous grin beneath it.
A leader who smiled too much had no dignity.
Hanzo had to maintain his dignity at all times.
Finally, Kei’s group arrived before him.
Hanzo stood high above them and looked down at Kei.
The boy before him wore a broad smile.
He was at the age when he should have been radiant, shining like the morning sun.
Yet for some reason, Hanzo felt that the smile on the young man’s squinting face carried an inexplicable gloom.
What an unpleasant little brat.
Hanzo didn’t know what method the boy had used to stand directly within his deadly poison.
He had noticed it, but he didn’t care.
Over the years, plenty of people had been able to withstand his poison.
Very few had survived.
And this wasn’t even the Salamander’s strongest state.
Aside from that "puppet hag" Chiyo of the Sand, how many people hadn’t suffered badly because they underestimated the Salamander’s poison?
"Arrogance will teach a brat a lesson he’ll never forget."
Hanzo muttered this under his breath.
He didn’t know whether he was saying it to himself or to the guards beside him.
Then Hanzo glanced at Kei’s entourage.
Two attendants accompanied two children.
Such a group appeared completely harmless.
It clearly demonstrated their sincerity in coming to this meeting.
After all, unless absolutely necessary, no one would bring children onto a battlefield.
That was a rule established during the battle with the God of Shinobi.
Thus, the Demigod nodded.
"Konoha’s people still respect me as they should. That’s a good sign. We will accomplish our objective."
Unfortunately, the brat before him was far too young and inexperienced.
He clearly knew nothing about the dangers of the shinobi world.
Someone like this could never defeat a man known throughout the shinobi world as a demigod.
"Courage born from excessive confidence is nothing more than recklessness."
Hanzo made his initial judgment of Kei’s group.
Then another thought arose in his mind.
The foolish people of Konoha were always so trusting.
They were always too willing to believe others and too willing to overestimate their own strength.
Apparently, the lesson Konoha had received when the Second Hokage and his six-man escort were ambushed by the Twenty-man Gold and Silver Forces of the Land of Lightning hadn’t been enough.
Kei shook his head as he looked at Hanzo and the densely packed ranks of masked Amegakure shinobi surrounding him.
A hundred-man shinobi guard was truly an unusual sight.
This man was regarded by the shinobi of this era as one of the strongest figures in the entire shinobi world.
Yet he had equipped himself with guards working around the clock in shifts.
That alone told Kei that Hanzo had a fairly accurate understanding of his own abilities.
He knew he wasn’t actually that strong.
Hanzo’s entire life could be summed up in one word:
Cunning.
Everyone said that when facing Konoha’s rising generation, Hanzo treated them as juniors of the shinobi world and displayed a senior’s appreciation for talented young shinobi.
He had even used his own prestige to elevate the reputation of Hiruzen Sarutobi’s students.
But Kei didn’t think that was because Hanzo was truly some great shinobi.
He thought Hanzo was simply afraid that the Third Hokage would come after him later.
Afraid that Konoha would come after him.
Even the Third Hokage, whom Kei regarded as little more than an ordinary Kage-level gatekeeper, had been someone Hanzo feared.
That showed just how much self-awareness Hanzo had possessed in his younger days.
Just look at how he dealt with Nagato and the others.
They were also rising stars.
But unlike the Sannin, Nagato had no powerful backing.
Once Nagato’s existence threatened Hanzo’s position, Hanzo gave him absolutely no opportunity.
He simply ordered their extermination without mercy.
That style of doing things reminded Kei of that Monkey king who was always boasting about having wreaked havoc in Heaven five hundred years ago.
Someone who had never suffered a major defeat, never fallen into a truly disastrous trap, and never spent five hundred years locked away in a dark cell simply couldn’t develop that kind of awareness.
Hanzo was also the type who treated people differently depending on their status.
Hanzo swept his gaze across Kei’s group as though he were looking at a collection of corpses.
His previously genial expression suddenly turned cold.
"Brat, you’re that Uchiha Kei, aren’t you?"
The contempt was unmistakable.
Kei hadn’t heard such a tone directed at him in a long time.
Suddenly, he felt that the world wasn’t quite as boring as he had thought.
After all, there were always more idiots in this world than intelligent people.
"Old man, you’re that Demigod Hanzo, aren’t you?"
Kei deliberately mimicked Hanzo’s tone and threw the question back at him.
It was nothing more than a bit of malicious amusement.
"Hahahaha! The brat from Konoha! Back then, the Sannin were just like you. They proudly showed off their arrogance before this old man!"
Hanzo laughed loudly.
"But do you know what happened to them afterward?"
Hanzo was extremely proud when he mentioned this.
The more famous the Sannin became throughout the shinobi world, the prouder Hanzo felt.
"Hahahahaha!"
Hanzo’s laughter continued.
Normally, the other party would ask:
"What happened to the Sannin afterward?"
And then Hanzo would calmly answer:
"Afterward, they knelt before me and proved their courage. I graciously spared their lives and bestowed upon them the name of the Three Legendary Sannin!"
But the brat before him showed absolutely no interest in asking.
He didn’t care in the slightest about Hanzo’s question.
Hanzo couldn’t even reminisce about his glorious past properly.
That made him dislike Kei even more.
Hanzo decided that he would not forgive Kei.
Nor would he show him any mercy.
Kei also disliked Hanzo.
He hated that lofty, condescending attitude.
Especially when Kei himself was constantly lowering his status to interact with others politely.
He disliked rude people even more under those circumstances.
So what if Hanzo had defeated the Sannin when they were young?
What was so impressive about that?
As long as someone was strong enough, defeating a few youngsters was nothing special.
But Kei was a man who intended to defeat Madara in his old age.
That required real wealth of strength.
Kei simply wasn’t interested in Hanzo’s past achievements.
What Kei didn’t realize was that Hanzo had already begun to pity him.
Hanzo couldn’t understand how this brat had managed to defeat the Third Hokage.
Had the Third Hokage really become so old and feeble?
What a pitiful fellow.
This brat knew nothing about his own past and yet had dared to provoke Hanzo.
It seemed Konoha had no expectations for him at all.
They hadn’t even told him anything.
Perhaps he was yet another unfortunate pawn that Konoha had abandoned.
He was supposedly Konoha’s victorious leader, yet he hadn’t even brought a proper Konoha guard force with him.
It seemed that, just like the Second Hokage back then, this young man had been used by Konoha to overthrow the Third Hokage’s rule and then discarded afterward.
Completely ignorant of Konoha’s current situation, Hanzo chose to trust his own judgment.
He was going to repeat what Kumogakure had done back then.
"Since you’ve come, don’t bother leaving. Stay here in the Land of Rain as our guest. Once Konoha—"
Hanzo didn’t finish his sentence.
Kei looked up at him.
Apparently, he wasn’t the only villain here today.
But Uchiha Kei merely wanted to kill Hanzo of the Salamander.
Hanzo, on the other hand, wanted to kidnap him.
That was simply too much.
Hanzo needed to be punished.
Kei smiled.
"Slap him once. Let him find out who’s really in charge."
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