The governor's bathroom let out a fragile, cracking groan. The floor split apart, and countless streams of Gold Dust surged up from below.
In an instant, the entire bathroom was filled with Gold Dust, then completely burst apart.
The roof and all four walls were blasted away by the Gold Dust.
Rasa appeared beside the bathtub with an ugly expression.
He had thought his Gold Dust could capture the Konoha ninja assassinating the governor.
However, there was no one in the bathroom.
No culprit. No weapon.
Only a wound.
The governor had died in a completely inexplicable way.
Several Sand ninja quickly came to Rasa's side and shouted, "Kazekage-sama! The governor's wife and several sons are dead too! Their deaths are strange!"
Before long, the Sand ninja laid the nobles' corpses in a row.
There were more than thirty bodies in total. Every corpse had died from wounds that had appeared for no apparent reason.
Beneath the Kazekage hat, Rasa closed his eyes.
At the same time, a Sand Eye hovered in the sky, moving above the estate and monitoring the entire compound.
Soon, blood flowing out from beneath the door of a storeroom caught Rasa's attention.
Even slaughtering an ox could not produce that much blood.
The Sand Eye moved near the storeroom and slipped inside through the ventilation fan on the roof.
The sight inside the storeroom made even the battle-hardened Rasa feel horrified.
More than thirty corpses lay on the floor, each with terrifying wounds across their bodies. Judging by the wounds and their fallen positions, they had all killed themselves.
A grand collective suicide had just taken place here.
And the positions of those wounds...
Rasa immediately discovered that the wounds on the people who had committed suicide were identical to the wounds on the thirty-plus noble corpses the Sand ninja had found.
Recently, many nobles in the Land of Wind had been killed. Their deaths were bizarre, and Sunagakure had never found the killer.
Unexpectedly, while completing this mission for the daimyō, he had run straight into the culprit.
Rasa used Body Flicker and headed toward the storeroom on the northern side of the estate.
After arriving in the courtyard outside the storeroom, Rasa pressed both hands to the ground and activated his Magnet Release Gold Dust.
Gold Dust surged toward the storeroom like a roaring wave, instantly crushing the outer wall.
Inside the storeroom, Hidan was waiting for the Three Gods Faith believers to recover from their injuries. When the outer wall collapsed with a crash, he thought, 'Not good.'
Just as Rasa thought he could destroy the storeroom with Magnet Release, an ear-piercing roar sounded behind the Gold Dust.
The wave of Gold Dust seemed to slam into an invisible wall and scattered violently in all directions.
"Morning Peacock!"
Hidan swung his three-bladed scythe at extreme speed, creating flames through friction with the air. Continuous flaming masses burst forth and shattered the wave of Gold Dust.
After the Gold Dust collapsed, Rasa saw Hidan.
Green chakra steam poured from Hidan's body, his aura astonishing.
Hidan swept his eyes across Rasa's Kazekage robe and Kazekage hat, then shouted excitedly.
"So it's the Kazekage! I've wanted to test this for a long time—which is stronger, a Kage-level ninja among ninja, or the divine art bestowed by the Three Gods?
The age of ninja is over!
The great Three Gods will guide the transformation of the shinobi world!"
Rasa raised a hand, threw away his hat, removed his Kazekage robe, and looked at him with contempt.
"There are always forces trying to prove they are stronger than ninja. These 'Three Gods' of yours are nothing more than another heretical faction that Sunagakure will defeat."
Rasa waved his hand. Countless streams of Gold Dust emerged from beneath the ground, forming a Gold Dust tornado that swept toward Hidan.
The area around Hidan suddenly darkened. He and the entire storeroom were wrapped inside spiraling Gold Dust.
The rotating Gold Dust was compressing inward, and behind him were more than thirty Three Gods Faith believers who had not yet recovered.
These believers had only survived the soul sacrifice with great difficulty. If they were all crushed into meat paste, he would have to painstakingly sacrifice their souls to the Three Gods one by one again.
Hidan could not help complaining inwardly. Where exactly was that Wind Calamity guy? The Kazekage had already appeared, so why had he still not acted?
With no other choice, Hidan opened the Seventh Gate of the Eight Gates.
Far away from the estate, Namikaze Minato hid inside a pavilion and watched the earth-shaking battle in the distance.
Gold Dust had flattened more than a dozen buildings, only to be smashed apart by compressed air bullets from taijutsu.
Minato took out many Flying Thunder God kunai, turned around, and handed them to his three students.
"Move slowly and stealthily. Approach the edge of the battlefield, and be careful to avoid the Gold Dust," Minato said.
"I will use a kunai as the signal. Once you see my kunai, throw the kunai in your hands toward the center of the battlefield with all your strength."
Kakashi, Nohara Rin, and Uchiha Hato each took six Flying Thunder God kunai and left the pavilion.
Kakashi did not act recklessly. He hid behind a chimney.
After forming hand seals, he summoned his ninja dog, Pakkun.
Seeing Kakashi, Pakkun said, "It's you, Kakashi. Long time no see."
Kakashi said, "Pakkun, I'll need your help in the battle that follows."
"Tell me."
"As far as I know, the Fourth Kazekage has a technique called Sand Substitution. Even if he appears to be standing there, he may be ready to use Sand Substitution at any moment," Kakashi said.
"Very soon, the battlefield will be covered in Gold Dust. Sand Substitution will be difficult to deal with.
Sensei's plan is for the three of us to randomly throw Flying Thunder God kunai, and at the critical moment, he will judge where the Kazekage appears after using Sand Substitution, then teleport to the closest position.
That tactic is too unreliable.
Pakkun, use your sense of smell to find Rasa's location!"
In the original timeline, when Might Guy opened the Seventh Gate, he compressed the air into a tiger-shaped air bullet to attack his enemy.
Hidan had not trained strictly according to the Eight Gates secret scroll. He preferred blood-drop-shaped air bullets.
A blood-drop-shaped air bullet shot out at extreme speed and struck Rasa.
"Ohhh! I hit him! I hit the Kazekage!"
Hidan was extremely excited. He felt that the Kazekage's strength was nothing special.
Gold Dust felt soft and weak before the air bullets of the Eight Gates.
In the next instant, Hidan was disappointed to discover that what he had struck was only a Sand Substitution.
The real Rasa had already used Sand Substitution and hidden somewhere unknown.
Minato immediately threw out a Flying Thunder God kunai.
Nohara Rin and Uchiha Hato received their teacher's signal and hurriedly threw their six Flying Thunder God kunai.
Kakashi threw five Flying Thunder God kunai, leaving one in his hand.
Minato searched the surroundings nervously, looking for Rasa's figure.
The moment Rasa ended his Sand Substitution and his real body appeared would be his opening.
More than twenty Flying Thunder God kunai sliced through the air one after another. As soon as Rasa appeared, Minato would move as close to him as possible.
Pakkun had been tracking with his nose the entire time. Suddenly, he shouted, "There! The pavilion!"
Kakashi did not hesitate. He threw the last Flying Thunder God kunai in his hand toward the pavilion.
Gold Dust fell from the pavilion with a faint rustling sound, slowly forming into a person.
Just as Rasa's body finished condensing from Gold Dust, a Flying Thunder God kunai had already flown before his eyes.
Minato also noticed Rasa.
'As expected of Kakashi.'
He vanished instantly.
In the next moment, he appeared in front of Rasa.
And just as Minato faced Rasa, fully focused on killing him...
behind him in the distance, a black spatial vortex appeared.
Uchiha Obito emerged from the vortex and reached forward, about to seize Nohara Rin by the throat.
Looking at Rin's fluttering short blue hair, Obito felt an inexplicable tremor in his heart.
Back in the Ninja Academy, he had always watched Nohara Rin.
He wondered—if he had not defected from Konoha, if he and Rin had graduated together, would he have become teammates with her? Would he have carried out missions together with her?
But assumptions were still only assumptions.
Uchiha Obito's eyes changed.
Nothing could happen to Sunagakure. It was an important part of the plan to surround Konoha.
Konoha was too strong.
He had to take the weakest one, Nohara Rin, hostage.
Namikaze Minato had to die.