Chapter 276: Hide and Seek

Land of Rain, the Akatsuki Base

Drip… drip…

After days of constant rain, it was finally letting up a bit—though the sky remained oppressively dark.

Standing in the rain, Yahiko stared at Nagato's lifeless body, grief etched into his face. A partner he loved like a brother, a bridge that once led to a peaceful future, had collapsed.

"Yahiko…" Konan choked back tears, her voice trembling. "They were after the Rinnegan, right?"

Ever since that day, she had searched everywhere until she finally found Nagato's body in a waterlogged ditch. She'd been hit by a whirl of despair, sorrow, and disbelief that was beyond words. Once she brought him back to their base, she waited for Yahiko—who had been busy trying to negotiate a three-way ceasefire—to return so they could hold the funeral.

Yahiko fell silent for a moment. "That doesn't matter anymore. We—"

Suddenly, a fierce wind howled through the air. The thick, low-hanging storm clouds were ripped apart. What little rain had been falling was instantly swept away by the gale. A massive, earth-colored dragon flapped its wings, descending from high above.

Its size grew more imposing as it drew closer to the base, enormous scales covering its back. Three people stood atop the creature.

"Prepare for combat!" Yahiko said sternly. He pulled a scroll from his waist, unfurled it, and took hold of the giant sword that emerged via summoning.

They obviously hadn't come in peace—any flying summon beast that huge would be a nightmare to handle. More importantly, Nagato had just been killed; it crossed Yahiko's mind that these people might have been the ones who stole his Rinnegan.

Flap! Flap!

The thunderous beating of the dragon's wings shook the air. It hovered less than a hundred meters overhead, then dropped to the ground in an instant.

Boom!

Rumble… crack…

The impact tremored through the earth, sending ripples across puddles and leaving cobweb-like cracks in the walls of some old, abandoned buildings.

Right after landing, the three figures atop the dragon leapt down.

"Watch the ground!" Yahiko shouted urgently.

He could see clearly that countless dark shapes shot out from under the shortest figure's feet. They moved rapidly through the shadows of the ruined structures.

"I knew it." The kid in the lead caught sight of Nagato's body, still draped in his Akatsuki robe, and said in a complicated tone, "Take them all with us."

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Figures emerged from the shadows and quickly took down everyone nearby.

They're way too fast!

Yahiko, with Konan covering him, managed to slash one of the shadowy shapes using his oversized sword. But in the next instant, Konan was knocked out cold by a particularly swift shadow, and Yahiko himself couldn't hold on for more than a few seconds before collapsing.

As consciousness faded, he vaguely heard approaching footsteps halt beside Nagato's body.

"So the Rinnegan really is gone…"

A sigh followed. Yahiko—or more accurately, this alternate version of Yahiko—sank fully into unconsciousness. His final thought flickered and vanished:

So it was all just a dream, after all…?

…

"It'd be a great place for stargazing if the Land of Rain didn't have all this constant drizzle."

Standing amid the ruined buildings, Link gazed up at the bright moon and scattered stars now visible in the clear patch of sky. The earth-colored dragon had dispersed the storm clouds, making the moon radiant—though more clouds loomed in the distance. The Land of Rain was like that by nature. Without someone like Senju Hashirama or Uchiha Madara reshaping the terrain, no temporary fix could truly lift the environmental restrictions.

Maybe I could ask Hashirama to destroy part of the mountain range between the Land of Rain and the Land of Wind to redirect the rainfall, then plant a few "Nativity of a World of Trees" to change the environment.

He was already considering how to restructure this world and make it better. With his current power and near-absolute intel advantage, there was no reason the entire world shouldn't fall under Konoha's influence—and ultimately his own. Since it was all essentially "his" now, altering the environment and reforesting it seemed like the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, Uchiha Sasuke set Yahiko down and said, "Nagato's Rinnegan really was taken. Judging by his time of death and Jiraiya's disappearance, it must have happened within the same few days."

Meaning Nagato was killed, his Rinnegan was stolen, and Jiraiya was captured—all part of the same chain of events. Uchiha Madara was looking more suspicious by the minute.

Link manipulated Hermit Purple to gather dust from the ground and sketch out a mental map. As his chakra quickly drained, a map and Jiraiya's location were revealed.

"Let's move." Leaving an ordinary shadow clone behind to watch over the unconscious Akatsuki members, Link led the way through the ruined buildings.

This place was once a town, now destroyed by war. The Akatsuki had repurposed these ruins as a base. It wasn't particularly far from Amegakure itself; given that most Akatsuki members were originally shinobi of the Hidden Rain, bearing its headbands, Hanzō naturally saw them as a threat to his authority.

More and more young people stopped believing in Hanzō—who had lost relevance during the Third Great War—and instead followed Yahiko, who aspired to peace.

With shadow clones in tow, the three of them covered a dozen or so kilometers in no time, reaching the spot marked on the mental map. It was a dark, derelict building. The shadows slipped inside. Utakata, at Link's side, shifted into Tailed Beast Mode and sensed for a moment, then shook his head.

"It's empty. But…" He glanced at the ground. "Deep below, there's a faint chakra signature. It was only a few meters down just now, then sank deeper—exactly like White Zetsu. It's spying on us."

Down in the depths, it would be tough to catch them—Utakata wasn't skilled with Earth Release, so he couldn't easily tunnel through.

Link tried mapping again and saw that both Zetsu's and Jiraiya's positions had shifted once more, roughly the same distance away but in a different direction.

"Seems like Zetsu knows we're tracking it," Uchiha Sasuke muttered, frowning.

They're giving us the slip. Link was puzzled why they seemed certain he could trace them—and seemed to be dragging Jiraiya along as bait. It was as though they knew perfectly well he could glean intel with his mapping ability.

White Zetsu, grown from Hashirama's cells by Madara, could move underground indefinitely without needing to eat, drink, or surface. Even an Earth Release user would have trouble flushing them out. And Link wasn't about to go burrowing blindly underground himself—if it were a trap, he'd be in real trouble.

"We're abandoning Jiraiya for now."

That was Link's final judgment. Trying to play hide-and-seek with Zetsu was a losing game; Black Zetsu and White Zetsu were masters of vanishing. One thing was clear, though: Jiraiya had almost certainly fallen into the hands of Old Man Madara and Zetsu.

That meant it was time to find Senju Tobirama and figure out a plan. If Old Man Madara used Funa-tsū to get to the main world, Tsunade would be the only one there. And if he went to some other world, who knew what monstrosities he might raise.

I'm definitely missing some key piece of info. Link had a strong sense that Madara's actions were entirely too deliberate, not at all like someone in the dark about the situation.

~~~

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