That slap was so powerful that even the heavens seemed to understand the situation and clear up.
Unfortunately, it still couldn’t wake the great man standing on the clouds.
Hanzo of the Salamander’s expression was extremely ugly.
After all, compared with the previous slap, that one had at least been a case of being outclassed.
No one had even seen how it happened.
As long as Hanzo didn’t explain it himself, there was still plenty of room for speculation.
He had lost, but he hadn’t completely lost.
This time, however, the slap had been delivered openly, right in front of everyone, directly onto the face of the Demigod.
Everyone had seen it.
The physical damage was negligible.
The humiliation was devastating.
If Hanzo weren’t afraid of dying, he could already have chosen to make a dignified exit.
But public humiliation was sometimes more painful than death itself.
Hanzo of the Salamander still wanted to preserve his dignity.
He still had a wonderful life ahead of him.
As long as he remained alive, he was still the ruler of the Rain shinobi.
What he needed now was a way out.
He needed to give the other side a step down while giving himself a chance to leave with his dignity intact.
If I’d known things would end up like this, why did I have to put on such an arrogant act in the first place?
Hanzo finally stopped struggling internally.
The pride he had been clinging to was gradually lowered.
Because Hanzo believed that nobody could possibly reject the praise of the Demigod.
The Sannin hadn’t.
Mifune hadn’t.
And surely this young man wouldn’t either.
Young people always believed glory was more important than anything else.
Hanzo, lying on the ground, adopted the appearance of a hero in his twilight years.
His weathered voice carried the approval of the previous generation toward the new generation.
"I’m old... old indeed. I should have realized it sooner."
"The person capable of overthrowing rotten Konoha must naturally be an unmatched young hero as well."
"Remarkable. Truly remarkable!"
"Young man of Konoha, the future of the shinobi world belongs to you. Step upon the prestige of this old man in his twilight years and walk toward an even greater future!"
"I, the Demigod, am willing to acknowledge you as the strongest shinobi in the world!"
Hanzo’s calculations were ringing like a bell.
Everyone would experience failure in life.
But even after failing, one mustn’t lose heart.
As long as one remained alive, there were always ways to face failure and accept it.
For example, after losing, one could lavish praise upon one’s opponent and elevate them to an impossibly high position.
Then one’s own defeat no longer counted as a defeat.
If one was lucky, perhaps some even more prestigious figure would lose to the same opponent in the future.
That would provide another way to salvage one’s reputation.
"The God of Shinobi and I both suffered narrow defeats at the hands of so-and-so."
Wouldn’t saying it that way make that person sound almost as powerful as the God of Shinobi?
That was Hanzo’s plan.
He didn’t want to die.
And honestly, losing to the young man before him wasn’t completely unacceptable.
The Shinobi Professor, Hiruzen Sarutobi, had lost and paid with his life.
Hanzo, on the other hand, had lost and remained alive.
If anything, that meant the Demigod was stronger than the Shinobi Professor!
Hanzo was performing with his life on the line.
He needed to win himself an opportunity to be remembered as stronger than Hiruzen.
Unfortunately, Kei had no intention of giving the Demigod a way to save face.
"Unfortunately, I still haven’t seen anything impressive about you, Demigod."
"You couldn’t even give me the satisfaction of a proper fight."
"And I know enough about myself to understand that I can’t exactly call myself the strongest in the shinobi world."
Kei was surprisingly self-aware.
He didn’t know exactly how strong he was, but he knew that there were certainly more than a handful of people in this world who were stronger than him.
If Hanzo hadn’t been so undeserving of his reputation...
If Joseph hadn’t delivered such an astonishing blow...
If that sonic boom hadn’t torn through the sky...
If that enormous inferno hadn’t engulfed the forest...
If all of those factors hadn’t combined to fill the entire area with fear and terror...
Kei definitely wouldn’t have possessed his current level of power.
And Hanzo had disappointed him far too much.
Kei desperately wanted a truly exhilarating battle.
The kind where he knew for certain that he would win, but could still fight to his heart’s content.
A real, close-quarters battle.
Fist against flesh.
But a battle in which he might lose?
Forget it.
Everything had to be built upon the premise of certain victory.
Kei needed to vent.
The higher his position, the less freedom he had.
The more things he had to take into consideration.
The more people he had to accommodate.
And that made Kei extremely unhappy.
What made him even more unhappy was that Hanzo of the Salamander had originally been the perfect opponent in his eyes.
Kei naturally countered the Demigod’s greatest strength.
Hanzo’s reputation should also have been enough to let him put up a decent fight.
This should have been a battle Kei could win with certainty while still enjoying himself for a long time.
Unfortunately, he had overestimated the Demigod.
Of course...
It was also possible that Kei had underestimated himself.
"Demigod... why can’t you even give me a chance to enjoy myself?"
Hanzo’s face turned livid.
He had already given this young man an enormous amount of respect.
Why was the boy still refusing to take the hint?
Did he really think that the Demigod had no other cards to play?
"Young man, you’re still young. Don’t be excessively rude."
As he spoke, Hanzo actually used his chain sickle to support his battered body and stand up.
Then he thought for a moment.
He put the weapon away.
"It seems today is indeed the day of my death."
"Young man, you never intended to let this old man live in the first place."
Hanzo then changed his tone into one of righteous passion.
"A person’s end isn’t marked by death."
"It is marked by the moment they lose their faith."
"Even if I die here today, I am not yet a dull blade."
"Young man, I hope you will tell the world that I was a hero."
After saying this, Hanzo formed the farewell hand seal with one hand.
He looked as though his heart had died.
As though he had become a living corpse that had lost its faith.
Kei was just about to enjoy the Demigod’s final performance.
If Hanzo really intended to commit suicide, Kei was willing to watch the curtain fall on the life of a legendary figure.
But just as Kei settled down to watch the show—
Hanzo threw down a handful of explosive tags and leapt away.
Yes.
He ran.
He ran without the slightest hesitation.
The Salamander Summoning Beast he had relied upon was ineffective.
His deadly poison was useless.
His Taijutsu and Ninjutsu were both inferior to his opponent’s.
The three people before him had already surpassed the conventional concept of a shinobi.
Hanzo believed that if he had been facing the people of the Second Hokage’s era, he wouldn’t have been in such a miserable state even if his opponents had possessed a numerical advantage.
But the strength displayed by this group had completely exceeded what an ordinary shinobi should have been capable of.
Perhaps only the legendary God of Shinobi could have produced such an abnormal situation.
And the other side clearly intended to kill him.
Hanzo no longer had any desire to fight Kei.
A Summoning Beast could be replaced.
Dead subordinates could be recruited again.
But once he died, he was simply dead.
Nothing else would matter.
Beautiful words were easy for Hanzo to speak while standing on the side of victory.
But asking him to calmly face death?
Hanzo couldn’t do it.
The higher a person climbed, the less capable they became of doing so.
Because only those who stood at the top could truly understand how kind the world had been to them.
They loved this world too much.
Hanzo had to escape back to Amegakure!
Unfortunately, before he could even move, Joseph rushed forward and grabbed the terrified Demigod by the neck.
He lifted Hanzo into the air.
Then he forcibly twisted Hanzo’s face toward Uchiha Kei.
Kei looked at the Demigod in this state and felt deeply disappointed.
"You’ve been called a Demigod, at least have some dignity in death."
"I was still waiting for your final speech."
"Why bother?"
Boring.
Really boring.
Sure enough, all those beautiful speeches rulers made were just meant to trick other people into going to their deaths.
When it was their own turn to die, they ran faster than anyone.
Hanzo struggled desperately while Joseph held him by the neck.
It was completely useless.
He was like a fish that had escaped the water and was being held by the tail.
The more he struggled, the faster he would die.
At last, Hanzo of the Salamander let out a long, desolate sigh.
He stopped struggling.
Instead, he devoted all his remaining energy to negotiation.
"I’ve lost."
"But young man, think carefully."
"If you kill me, all of the Rain shinobi will wage a war against Konoha to the bitter end."
"Oh?"
Kei wanted to hear just how pathetic a dying man’s desperation could become.
"How exactly will they wage that war to the bitter end?"
Seeing that he still had an opportunity to speak, Hanzo answered forcefully,
"The Land of Rain has five thousand shinobi!"
"They will avenge me!"
Kei was completely unimpressed.
"Not enough."
"Anything else?"
Hanzo’s response was faster than ever.
"You will face a diplomatic crisis between the Land of Fire and the Land of Rain!"
"Do you understand how serious an incident it is to kill the leader of a hidden village during a diplomatic encounter?"
Kei remained unmoved.
"How serious?"
Hanzo continued piling on threats.
"The death of the Second Hokage triggered the Second Shinobi World War!"
"The cause was his death in an unjust diplomatic incident!"
"Uchiha, do you really want to trigger the Third Shinobi World War?"
"That would be quite a coincidence."
Kei rolled his wrist and smiled.
"The shinobi world has been far too quiet."
"So quiet that it has created fertile soil for all sorts of petty schemers and parasites to hide."
"This isn’t the kind of shinobi world that a God of Shinobi should have built."
"If this is what the shinobi world has become, then perhaps it doesn’t deserve to exist in its current form."
"Perhaps it’s time for another Third Shinobi World War."
"Though, to be honest, the Third Shinobi World War may have already begun."
"Destroy the old to build the new."
"If the old order isn’t broken, the new cannot be established."
"If the flow isn’t cleared, nothing new can flow."
"If the old obstruction isn’t removed, nothing can move forward."
"The struggle between the new world and the old world is a struggle of life and death."
"It will end only when one side is destroyed."
"If we don’t tear this rotten structure down, no new culture can ever be established."
"Unfortunately, Demigod..."
"You won’t live to see it."
"And even more unfortunately..."
"Only after losing you will the Rain Village truly be able to—"
Kei’s voice grew quieter and quieter.
And his words became increasingly terrifying.
Hanzo’s heartbeat slowed with every word Kei spoke.
This young man had absolutely none of the self-awareness expected of someone in a position of power.
He didn’t care that social stability was supposed to be the paradise in which those at the top enjoyed their lives.
He wanted to do something enormous.
Hadn’t Konoha always advertised itself as a force for peace?
How had it managed to raise a monster like this?
The disaster of the shinobi world...
Konoha would have to bear responsibility for it.
Hanzo of the Salamander desperately grabbed at the hand around his neck.
His teeth clenched as he shouted,
"The shinobi world will never forgive you!"
"The Uchiha truly are a brutal clan!"
"Young man, what exactly do you want?"
"Name your conditions!"
"I’ll agree to anything!"
"I am willing to lead the five thousand shinobi of the Land of Rain and swear allegiance to you!"
"Please, Master! Give me a chance!"
Kei clenched his fist.
Explosive chakra surged and gathered around his hand.
Joseph threw Hanzo high into the air.
Kei punched.
Divine Sky Strike!
The blow crashed into Hanzo.
The entire Demigod shattered instantly.
Once again, the sky began raining crimson.
Blood mixed with the rain and fell to the ground.
The already filthy muddy water on the earth was dyed red.
This punch had done more than shatter Hanzo.
The earth within several kilometers sank under the force of the blow.
After the great fire, the sky over the Land of Rain darkened once more.
Torrential rain poured down.
Before long, a small lake slowly formed in the devastated landscape.
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