"Hanzo, I have come to hold your final funeral."
From afar, Tendo Pain looked at Hanzo and spoke in a cold voice, saying this was the last mercy of a god. As his words fell, Asura Path and Human Path split apart and moved, forming a triangular formation that trapped Hanzo in the center.
"Calling yourself a god?"
Hanzo frowned as he stared at the increasingly familiar face. Aside from the appearance, there was no trace of the past left at all, and he spoke in a deep voice, asking if he was really Yahiko, and why those eyes were now on him. His gaze lingered on the eyes with clear shock.
"That person is already dead. Now, I am 'Pain.'"
The words were almost without emotion. Tendo Pain raised his arm expressionlessly and aimed his palm at the distant Hanzo.
"Universal Pull."
Standing atop the salamander's head, Hanzo felt his body sink as an overwhelming force seized him, dragging him violently toward Pain floating in the air. Black Rods slid from Pain's sleeve into his hand, ready to stab the moment Hanzo was pulled close.
"Pulling me in? What kind of technique is this?"
In an instant, Hanzo understood the effect of the technique. His pupils tightened as he looked at the rapidly approaching Pain, and he snapped his wrist to fling out his Kusarigama.
Clack clack clack!
The chain coiled like a snake around a gate pillar behind him, forcibly stopping his out of control movement. But Tendo Pain's eyes darkened, and the attraction on Hanzo suddenly doubled, making the Root gate pillar groan under the strain.
Hanzo's body was pulled apart, his bones creaking loudly. His thoughts raced as he realized there were no hand signs, wondering if this was a Kekkei Genkai tied to those eyes.
He made a swift decision and released his grip on the Kusarigama. His body was dragged free again by the immense pull, flying toward Pain at even greater speed. The suction felt unstoppable, and it seemed to have no time limit.
"In that case." Hanzo fixed his eyes on Pain and quickly formed hand signs. "Water Release·Water Cannon Technique!"
He could feel that his current speed of refining Chakra and his control over it were several times stronger than at his peak. There was even greater power hidden in this body, but there was no time to explore it now.
With a loud bang, a heavy water cannon condensed around him and blasted forward, carrying force strong enough to pierce iron walls as it roared toward Tendo Pain. All these actions and judgments were made within three short seconds, honed by decades of battle experience.
Yet as the massive water cannon approached, Tendo Pain made no elaborate move and only gently pushed his arm forward. "Shinra Tensei."
A terrifying repulsive force erupted from Pain's center. The air twisted with a shrill screech, and the surrounding rain was blown away in an instant, forming a brief vacuum.
It was like an invisible giant hammer smashing into Hanzo, who had nowhere to brace himself. With a thunderous crash, even the heavy water cannon that tore through the air was violently forced back.
"What?" Hanzo's expression shifted.
Attraction and repulsion switched without warning. He had no time to react and was slammed hard by the combined force of the repulsion and the reversed water cannon. His body crashed uncontrollably toward the ground, where Human Path had already appeared like a phantom below, five fingers hooked with a chilling intent to seize his soul.
But just before contact, the falling figure suddenly turned into a pool of water. It was the Water Body Flicker Technique.
Hanzo had once used this Ninjutsu to evade Orochimaru's Hidden Shadow Snake Hands and Jiraiya's Needle Jizo, and he had also used it to avoid the Chakra dragon attack released by Nagato through the Outer Path Statue. In the next moment, his figure appeared silently behind Asura Path.
The Kusarigama was already back in his hand. He spun his body and slashed out with the chained sickle, aiming straight for the head, silent and clean like a reaper at work.
However, Asura Path did not turn around, yet seemed to see him in a blind spot. A sharp "kacha" sounded as a jagged blade shot out from his back.
Clang!
The blade collided with the sickle, sparks flying as a piercing metallic screech echoed across the area. Feeling the heavy force and realizing he had somehow been exposed, Hanzo's expression grew grim.
What was going on, and how had this one detected him? Before he could think it through, another "kacha" rang out.
Asura Path suddenly grabbed his hands, and an extra arm extended from his shoulder, forming a cold and vicious cannon barrel before Hanzo's eyes. A blinding beam rapidly gathered within it.
Asura's assault.
A chill ran through Hanzo as he shouted sharply, calling out Ibuse. Almost the instant the sound left his mouth, a massive tail slammed down with crushing force.
With a heavy crash, Asura Path expressionlessly crushed Hanzo's wrist. Chakra burst under his feet as he retreated at high speed, the tail barely grazing past and smashing the ground into a web of cracked marks.
"Pointless struggle."
Tendo Pain raised his arm toward Hanzo again. As he was about to use Universal Pull, the salamander suddenly turned and swept its thick tail.
Everything in its path was as fragile as foam, yet at the end of the swing it halted as if it had struck a solid wall. Powerful repulsion rose before the stopped tail, slowly forcing the massive limb back.
Tendo Pain stared at the terrifying salamander and spoke coldly, telling it to leave. A deafening explosion followed as the repulsive force overwhelmed the salamander's strength.
Ibuse's enormous body slid backward dozens of meters, its limbs carving deep trenches into the ground. Watching the massive creature, Pain, who had remained expressionless until now, finally frowned.
Hanzo was known on the battlefield as a "Deadly Poison Weapon," and most of that reputation came from this salamander named Ibuse. He had not expected that even now, Hanzo could still summon it, when according to Zetsu's information, age should have left him unable to fight at full strength.
Even so, Pain spoke coldly, saying it changed nothing and that all resistance was futile. Hanzo appeared atop the salamander's head, staring at the four figures in black cloaks with red clouds in the distance while enduring the pain in his wrist.
Such strange powers. If his guess was right, that "Yahiko" used attraction and impact, and the bald one clearly hid various weapons inside his body.
Only the long-haired man and the woman remained unknown, yet instinct told Hanzo that the long-haired man was extremely dangerous. A man long dead, no sign of Ninjutsu, the same eyes, and that unexplained detection earlier.
Working together with Ibuse to continue pressuring Tendo Pain, Hanzo kept analyzing the information on the three before him. With another bang, Ibuse's attack was blocked once more by Shinra Tensei.
Hanzo froze for a moment and noticed a slight delay in Pain's response. If there was no limit on the number of uses, then perhaps there was an interval instead.
"Ibuse!"
With that thought, Hanzo bent down without hesitation and pressed the diamond-shaped mark on his palm against the salamander. The Chakra he had accumulated poured into Ibuse.
He had already found Pain's weakness, an interval of five to six seconds between attacks. No wonder the first move had been to cripple his hand.
Unfortunately, Pain would not give him that chance. With sharp whistling sounds, Asura Path twisted his arm open and fired several rockets trailing flames, sealing off every route around Hanzo.
With his wrist crushed and unable to form hand signs, Hanzo sensed danger and growled as Ibuse lifted its thick neck and inhaled deeply. Vast amounts of rainwater were drawn in, forming a white vortex in its mouth.
In the next instant, it threw its head back and opened its jaws wide. A dense purple-black poisonous fog poured out like a breached flood.
The fog spread wide and fast, and even more frightening, it sank and dispersed through the rain, forming a lethal zone. The air filled with a sharp stench, and the ground hissed as it was corroded.
The missiles caught in the fog were corroded almost instantly, melting away within seconds. Asura Path within the attack range also melted rapidly, exposing internal machinery that began to dissolve.
At that moment, Human Path appeared in front of Tendo Pain. The latter raised his arm and aimed behind him.
With a massive blast, powerful repulsion struck from behind Human Path, tearing up the ground and flinging it away. Human Path was thrown like a cannonball into the poison fog, his body visibly corroding, yet his hand still managed to touch the salamander's body.
Soul extraction.
Human Path's Rinnegan glimmered with a dark light as his right hand seized the salamander's belly. Nagato poured most of his Chakra into Human Path, forcibly drawing the salamander's soul out of its body.
This was the one Pain whose abilities Hanzo knew nothing about. His face changed as he asked what kind of technique that was.
At the same moment, Tendo Pain's Rinnegan turned, and his outstretched palm grasped at the air. "Universal Pull!"
A tremendous suction seized Hanzo at full force, and almost instantly he was dragged helplessly through the air. At the same time, his wrist gave a sharp sound as it finally healed under the effect of the wedge.
Before he could raise his hand to form seals, Asura Path's fist detached at the wrist and slammed into him, smashing him down. Human Path appeared below and caught Hanzo's rigid body.
Hanzo's pupils shrank as if an invisible hand had seized his soul. Intense pain and weakness flooded his entire body.
"It's over."
Floating in the air, Tendo Pain looked down at Hanzo, whose soul was being stripped away by Human Path. His calm voice carried no emotion as he said that challenging a god was folly.
As the words fell, Human Path remained expressionless and clenched his five fingers tightly. At that instant, an extremely powerful suppressing force surged out, pinning Hanzo's soul in place like a nail and stopping the extraction.
Controlling Human Path, Nagato frowned and looked at the diamond-shaped mark on Hanzo's palm. That mark was what fixed Hanzo's soul in place, making it impossible to pull free.
"What is this?"
As Nagato wondered, black patterns spread out from the mark and covered the right half of Hanzo's body in a blink. Even the soul being pulled out was wrapped in those black markings, which then extended onto the arm of Human Path holding the soul.
With a sudden hum, Nagato felt his vision go dark, then wash over with blood-red. When he opened his eyes again, all he saw was chaos.
"Where is this?"
Looking down at his arms and body, Nagato immediately realized he had been forcibly dragged into a mental space. His pupils shrank as shock appeared on his face.
Someone had traced Human Path back to him and dragged his true soul in. How could such a thing be possible?
In the deathly silence, a hoarse and cold voice echoed from the darkness. It asked in disdain which lowly insect dared to touch its soul.
The owner of the voice seemed to notice something and paused slightly, a hint of confusion entering the tone. It said those were not eyes he should possess and demanded to know where his eyes came from.
What did that mean?
A chill surged through Nagato as he raised his head toward the distance. Within his vision, enormous twisted silhouettes floated in the chaotic mist.
At the far end, upon a towering throne built of pale bones, a figure sat silently, half-hidden from view.