Nawaki-senpai was dead. Blown apart by a paper bomb trap right before Orochimaru's eyes.
When Tetsumaru first heard the news, his gut reaction was: That's impossible.
Then, the memories of the original timeline resurfaced. It was true. It had actually happened.
But how? This was Nawaki Senju. He might have looked like a boy who would never grow up, but Tetsumaru had sparred with him personally. He had felt the raw power of the last direct descendant of the Senju clan.
Nawaki had been strong. Seriously, undeniably strong.
His fundamentals were rock-solid, his chakra reserves were monstrous, and his mastery of Water and Earth Release was peerless—he was the true successor to the Second Hokage's legacy.
Sure, he was a bit impulsive and reckless. He got injured often. But he was a Senju. He possessed the innate vitality of Yang Release. No matter how badly he was hurt, he'd be good as new after a hearty meal and a night's sleep. He was a living shadow of the First Hokage.
And a ninja like that was just... poof? Gone because of a trap? Give me a break.
What kind of trap could be that lethal? Not only did it bypass Nawaki's instincts, but it also fooled Orochimaru, who was standing a mere twenty meters away. The blast yield had to be staggering to kill a Senju in a single hit.
The trap had to be tailor-made. It was designed specifically to exploit Nawaki's combat habits—and more importantly, it was designed to bypass Orochimaru's observation.
The explosive tags had to be custom-made, too: minimal chakra fluctuations, instantaneous detonation, and double the standard explosive power.
The difficulty of meeting both those conditions was astronomical. No single ninja in the world could pull that off, and only one organization had the resources and inside knowledge to even attempt it. It was the most unthinkable possibility: Konoha.
But that was the reality. Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
Tsunade arrived shortly after. She didn't just cry; she utterly collapsed.
This was a seismic event. It was unfair, but the death of Nawaki had a greater impact on the war effort than the loss of a thousand regular shinobi. And the one who bore the brunt of the fallout was Orochimaru.
Nawaki's lineage meant he was the undisputed candidate for the position of Fifth Hokage. No one would have even bothered to contest him. He was the "Hokage-Elect," which meant his teacher, Orochimaru, was the shoe-in for the Fourth.
Now the boy was dead. The Fourth Hokage's seat was no longer a certainty. Worse, a stain had been left on Orochimaru's record: If you couldn't even protect your own disciple, how can you protect the village?
The investigation lasted all night, but the result was a dead end. Whoever had struck had severed every single thread.
The investigators found a dozen Iwa-nin corpses nearby. All had committed suicide, but their autopsies proved they specialized in Water and Lightning Release—not a single one knew Earth Style.
Furthermore, the toxins they had used were a custom-made, highly potent neurotoxin designed to liquefy the brain upon death. The method of delivery was also unique: a carotid artery injection, rather than the standard ingestion or inhalation.
The bodies wore Iwa uniforms, but the fabric was from the Land of Lightning. Their shoes were from the Land of Whirlpools. Their kunai were mass-produced Iron Country stock, yet their senbon were poisoned needles specially crafted in the Land of Wind.
"It's intentional," sighed Yamanaka Rei, the lead investigator, shaking his head. "Too many clues is the same as having no clues at all."
No, that's not it, Tetsumaru thought grimly. The lack of a real trail is the evidence.
He understood why Orochimaru's expression earlier had been a mix of shock, helplessness, grief, and rage. The sheer amount of "noise" in the intel proved that the mastermind was intimately familiar with Konoha's investigative protocols. They knew every detail of how the village tracked its enemies.
As a top-tier shinobi, Orochimaru likely realized it the moment he looked at the site.
And as a brilliant man, he probably deduced the same thing Tetsumaru had: no foreign village, not even the Uchiha clan, possessed that specific neurotoxin or that level of counter-intelligence. Only two agencies had that kind of reach: the Intelligence Division and Root. The Intelligence Division lacked the field assets for such a strike. The answer was staring them in the face.
But who would dare say it? Not even Orochimaru. Not because he's afraid of Danzo, but because he's afraid of what the truth would do to Konoha.
There was only one man who could settle the score: the Hokage. With a single order, Hiruzen Sarutobi could have crushed Danzo and ended the rot.
But the "Soft-Hearted" Hiruzen wouldn't do it. He would suppress the investigation, issue a gag order, and pretend nothing happened.
Tetsumaru felt a chill. Orochimaru had likely reached the same conclusion. While Tsunade and Jiraiya were still looking to the Hokage for justice, Orochimaru was already descending into despair. He was just waiting for the final word.
A sensitive, brilliant, and introverted man like Orochimaru could sense the impending hopelessness. Deprived of even the chance to vent his rage and left to soak in that toxic atmosphere... if he didn't warp into a monster, he'd likely just die of grief.
A few days later, the gag order arrived from Konoha as expected. Jiraiya defied orders and stormed back to the village in a rage, while Tsunade simply vanished from the camp.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, went back to his paperwork as if nothing had happened. But every day, his presence grew colder, more reptilian, and more detached.
Morale in the Rain Country army plummeted. The ninjas began completing missions mechanically, with no trace of the passion or fire they once had for protecting their home.
The duck is the first to sense the change when the spring river warms.
If the Konoha ninjas had lost their drive, the Ame-nin should have sensed it. Instead, the Ame-nin found themselves trapped in a bizarre, daily nightmare.
A certain bug-user from Konoha was becoming a serious problem. No matter where they went, they ran into him—or more accurately, his insects.
The Ame-nin reported that the swarms were growing by the day. Now, the moment they stepped out the gates of Amegakure, they were under constant threat. It was exhausting.
Ninjas are human; they eventually get tired or let their guard down. And when they did, someone got hurt. Or died.
As the attrition mounted, Ame's morale began to crater even faster than Konoha's.
One month later, deep in the Land of Rain.
Three Ame-nin were meticulously sweeping the area. They checked every stone, every tree trunk, and every crevice in the rocks. They didn't even skip the puddles or the banks of the small stream.
After two rounds of searching and the "execution" of seven or eight innocent-looking beetles, the trio finally felt safe. they pitched a tent and started a fire to dry off.
As locals, they had plenty of ways to deal with the constant rain. They set up a frame and lit a pile of carefully preserved dry wood. At first, the dampness caused a bit of smoke, but it soon bloomed into a clean, warm flame.
The three quickly changed into dry clothes and hung their soaked gear to dry, preparing to boil some water.
The youngest of the trio took an umbrella and walked down to the stream to fill a canteen.
He stared at the bubbles rising from the canteen, his mind wandering for a moment, when he noticed something shifting in the silt at the bottom of the stream.
His first instinct was to sound the alarm, but he realized it was just a mud-fish. He let out a sigh of relief, though he felt a bit annoyed at his own jumpiness. He spun his umbrella, launching three senbon from the ribs to pin the poor fish to the streambed.
As he reached out to grab his canteen, he froze.
Mud-fish burrow, but they don't seal their holes. And when they had swept the stream earlier, they hadn't seen any burrows. So where did this fish come from?
"Bug—urk!"
The short scream was cut off instantly, followed by the wet sound of blades piercing flesh.
Splat. Splat. Splat.
The young Ame-nin slumped into the stream, his eyes wide with the final image of Flight-Locusts erupting from the "mud-fish" hole.
Simultaneously, a chorus of high-pitched shrieks erupted. Streaks of shattered raindrops converged on the campfire from all directions.
In a flurry of clashing metal, screams, and frantic shouts, the campsite was torn apart. Two seconds later, silence returned. Only the pitter-patter of the rain remained.
A long time passed before two mud-covered figures crawled slowly from the earth, looking at each other in shock.
"A new type of insect trap?"
"Looks like it. Probably triggered by the heat of the campfire."
"Son of a...!"
After venting their frustration, the survivors remembered their teammate. They followed the stream and quickly found his body.
Upon inspection, they found several near-dead Flight-Locusts and the remains of the "mud-fish." They deduced that someone had created a camouflaged insect burrow disguised as a fish nest, filled with locusts carrying paralytic toxins.
The locusts were too close to the ninja when he reached for the water. He didn't have a chance to dodge. Paralyzed, the poor boy had fallen face-first into the stream and drowned in inches of water.
It was yet another new trap. Between the "fish nest" and the long-range campfire trigger, they had encountered two new variants in a single day.
They thought of the countless reports of increasingly creative bug traps surfacing across the Land of Rain over the past month, and they shivered. This wasn't war; it was a nightmare.
Walking was a gamble; you might step on an Explosive Bug at any moment. Looking at a bush was dangerous; the entire thing might be a camouflaged swarm. Tree trunks were even worse—heaven only knew what was waiting under the bark. Even the stones in the river could be fakes.
And now, even a cozy campfire could trigger a trap from hundreds of meters away.
They traced the trajectory of the flying insects back to the source. It was over three hundred meters away, hidden in the fork of a tree and tucked into a rocky crevice.
Three hundred meters. If an Ame-nin was just taking a quick break, they didn't have the time or the manpower to sweep a radius that large.
Frustrated, the two Ame-nin searched the area and managed to find one un-triggered long-range trap. They carefully bottled it, grabbed their friend's body, and bolted back to Amegakure.
Hours later, the container was replaced with a glass jar filled with preservative solution. Several Ame-nin scrutinized the specimen.
"Intel from Iwa confirms it. The one playing these games is an Aburame from Konoha. We don't have a name."
"Konoha is too damn powerful. They have a specialist for everything, and they always produce these monsters."
"Has anyone actually seen this bug-user?"
"We've had contact, but no one has seen him. It might even be a whole squad."
The others nodded in agreement. Amegakure was a small village, but even they knew that producing this many insects was beyond the capacity of a single person.
"How do we know they've had 'contact'?"
"Jonin Ensui encountered a swarm that hadn't been set as a trap. Those bugs were coordinated, accurate, and incredibly powerful. And the sheer numbers... it was staggering."
"Was that the time Ensui was nearly killed?"
"Yes."
"So the question is... what do we do?"
Silence filled the room. All eyes turned to the man sitting at the head of the table: Salamander Hanzo.
Hanzo sat in silence for a long time before speaking. "So, the problem is the sheer number of insects?"
The intelligence officer nodded. "Yes, Lord Hanzo."
"Then distribute the Salamander's venom. Tell the boys to spray it wherever they go. If we can't kill the ninja, we'll rot the very ground he stands on. Drive them out of our country."
"Yes, sir!"
A few days later, Tetsumaru noticed the Ame-nin had begun a "scorched earth" policy, spraying potent toxins everywhere. Thousands of his trap-bugs were poisoned.
"I swear, I hate Ame and Suna ninjas the most. Always with the poison. No sportsmanship at all."
He cursed while simultaneously deploying a massive wave of Siphoning Bugs. He began harvesting the Salamander's venom, refining it, and selling it back to Konoha for a premium.
I made a tidy profit last time, he thought. Since you're being so generous, I'd be rude not to accept.
Once the poison was diluted by the rain to the point where it wasn't worth harvesting, Tetsumaru immediately redeployed his traps. Contrary to Ame's suspicions, he didn't need to "set" them. He just pumped the bugs full of chakra and tossed them out.
The insects hid themselves according to their natural instincts and triggered automatically when stimulated. It required zero manual labor.
The reason Tetsumaru was being so aggressive was that these bugs were being mass-produced by his Broodmother using local materials. They cost him exactly zero Ryo. He could afford to be wasteful.
Furthermore, the Broodmother's current version was a bit flawed—once the production line started, it was hard to stop. If the bugs weren't being "consumed" in the field, they'd pile up in the hive.
Feeding a stockpile of bugs cost money. Using them was free. Tetsumaru had every reason to flood the zone.
You want a war of attrition? Fine. Let's dance.
He wanted to see which was faster: his Broodmother's production line or Hanzo's venom glands.
The cycle continued. The poison would kill the bugs, and the bugs would return the moment the toxicity faded. Again and again. The Ame-nin felt like they were fighting an immortal swarm of cockroaches. In their frustration, they increased the dosage of the Salamander poison, drenching the land in toxins.
One month later, the Land of Rain had been transformed into a literal toxic wasteland.
When a policy is enacted on such a scale, quantity becomes quality. The "Wasteland Mode" of the Land of Rain was now more terrifying than Hanzo himself. The ambient poison in the air and water far exceeded anything he could release in a single battle.
The Konoha ninjas, suffering from the fumes, were forced to retreat back to the border for reorganization.
The Suna ninjas suffered as well. Even with Chiyo's antidotes, they couldn't keep up with the environmental saturation. Cursing the "madmen" of the Rain, they too retreated.
Hanzo had successfully driven the Great Villages out of his country again.
But Amegakure couldn't sustain it either. They had poisoned their own home. Their own civilians were suffering, and the mass migration of refugees had become a crushing burden on the village's resources.
Even the Ame-nin weren't immune. They had to wear full hazmat gear just to move around. Even taking a bathroom break was a life-threatening ordeal; one slip-up and you'd be poisoned.
But the final straw was the Salamander itself. Ibuse was done. Synthesizing that much toxin required a massive amount of protein and physical energy. That pool of "legendary venom" had been built up over years.
By trying to out-attrition Tetsumaru's swarm, the Rain had used up their stockpile too fast. After a month of being milked night and day, the venom pool had been replaced by nothing but clear, non-toxic rainwater.
Ibuse was miserable in the clean water. It was physically spent. It couldn't squeeze out another drop of venom regardless of how much it ate.
Ultimately, the great Salamander just gave up. It rolled onto its belly in the pond and played dead, refusing to move or secrete a single ounce of fluid, no matter what they did.
It was officially dry.