The Land of Hot Water.
This was a nation where the country and its hidden village existed as one. Unlike the five great nations, it resembled the former Land of Whirlpools and Uzushiogakure.
Blessed with rich natural resources and thriving tourism, and with its people—from the highest officials to the lowest citizens—deeply devoted to pacifism, it stood as one of the shinobi world's rare neutral countries.
It had been fortunate enough to escape the fires of both the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars. Yugakure's fighting strength had faded along with those conflicts, leaving the village known as "the village that forgot war."
It was exactly that kind of place that had filled Hidan with irritation and disgust. He had slaughtered everyone around him, become a missing-nin, and thrown in his lot with the Jashin cult.
Of course, the Land of Hot Water remained peaceful for now. But that peace had just been shattered at the border.
First came a brief earthquake. Then the roar of a massive explosion. Finally, the shockwaves of battle rolled across dozens of kilometers.
No one dared approach. The locals notified Yugakure's shinobi, but the village had already received strict orders from Kumogakure to stay clear of the area. All they could do was send word to the Land of Lightning.
Rustle.
In the dead of night, a four-person squad moved swiftly through the forest. Chill wind sliced past their ears while the soft whisper of leaves masked their footsteps.
Leading them was a tall, curvaceous kunoichi with sleek, shoulder-length pale-gold hair and fair skin.
Samui—one of Killer Bee's swordsmanship disciples. Her calm nature and natural leadership had earned her promotion to jōnin by the Fourth Raikage himself.
Yet right now her usual cold, emotionless mask had cracked. Her face was set in grim lines.
The moment the report arrived, the Fourth Raikage had ordered her to take her team and head straight for the border of the Land of Hot Water to investigate.
He had already received the first message from the border guards earlier that day. They had spotted strange activity to the southwest and were moving to check it out. At the time he hadn't thought much of it and had simply tried to contact them again through a messenger bird. No reply came.
Only after Yugakure's report reached him did he realize something was seriously wrong. That was when he dispatched Samui.
"Sis, the handover point we arranged with Konoha should be right up ahead, right?"
The man behind her—tattooed with the character for "Hot" on his shoulder—frowned. "I bet it's another one of Konoha's dirty tricks. If they're really behind this…"
"Atsui, stay calm," Samui said evenly, cutting him off. "Even if it was Konoha, we don't need to do anything extra. We gather the facts, return safely to the village, and let Lord Raikage decide."
The brother and sister were as different as their names suggested—one cold, one hot. The elder sister and jōnin was rational and aloof; the younger brother and chūnin was optimistic and impulsive.
Rustle.
The squad finally broke through the dense trees. Samui stopped short. The three behind her halted as well.
"Sis, why'd you stop?" Atsui asked.
"We're here," Samui answered, her voice unusually low.
Atsui blinked, scanning the flat ground ahead. He turned his head, searching.
"Don't bother looking," Samui breathed, raising her hand to point into the distance. "That's our intelligence outpost—the exact spot we agreed on for the handover."
The three followed her finger. Their eyes widened in disbelief at the deep, shadowy crater.
They swept their gazes across the surroundings, and the same impossible thought struck all three at once.
"This… is the harbor?"
In their memories, the harbor built jointly by the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Lightning had been a place of green trees and rippling waves. Fishing boats bobbed on the water while the trees tinted the river a soft emerald, reflecting the vast blue sky above.
But now…
Nothing but dead silence and flat emptiness. A barren wasteland stretched out before them.
Ignoring the stunned trio, Samui crouched and ran her fingers over the ground.
She felt the unmistakable spiral gouges. A chill crawled up her spine.
Just as she feared.
The harbor hadn't simply vanished overnight.
Everything on the surface of this entire area had been stripped away—like a pencil drawing on paper erased by a single ruthless swipe of a rubber, leaving only a bleak, blank page behind.
Crunch.
Atsui took an instinctive step forward and stepped on something that snapped loudly.
He looked down, spotted a shard of metal half-buried in the dirt, and pulled it free. After wiping away the mud, he finally made out the fine scratches and the faint, worn Kumogakure symbol.
"This… is one of our village's forehead protectors?" Atsui said, stunned.
Understanding dawned on Samui. She rose slowly and walked toward a slight rise in the ground farther ahead, where the darkness gathered thickest.
The others fell in behind her, kunai now drawn and gripped tight, every step cautious.
As they drew closer to the rise, a familiar stench of blood and rot filled the air.
Splash…
Samui stepped into a pool of blood that had not yet dried. Dark red droplets splattered across her pant leg, staining the fabric.
She stared at the mangled chunks of flesh and splintered bone floating in the blood, at the matted purple hair soaked within it, and fell into a heavy silence.
"Purple hair…" Atsui's throat bobbed as he swallowed hard, his voice dry. "That… that couldn't be Lord Toroi, could it?"
The words dropped into absolute stillness.
Only the thick, metallic smell that could almost be tasted on the tongue remained, along with the faint rustle of cold wind through the leaves.
Moonlight fell on them—neither warm nor cold—yet the breeze from the distance made everyone suddenly feel chilled to the bone.
The cold sank through their skin and into their hearts.
The air was thick with the scent of death. Every breath made it painfully clear that death was not merely an idea. It had a real, physical smell—one you could detect with your own senses.
They knew that if this much blood had come from a single person, that person had been drained dry while still alive.
Even for seasoned shinobi, the thought sent a shiver of fear and rage through them.
The mighty Magnet Release user Toroi—a shinobi renowned across the entire shinobi world—had died in such a bizarre, horrifying way?
"Who did this? Konoha?"
Doubt and suspicion churned inside Samui. Something else occurred to her, and she turned her gaze toward the deep crater in the distance.
Her instincts screamed that something else was still hidden there.
At the same time, inside Konoha Hospital, moonlight spilled through the windows onto the corridor floors, casting a cold, pale glow.
Wearing his Hokage robes, Sarutobi Hiruzen stopped outside a patient room.
He peered through the observation window, eyes flickering slightly.
Drip… drip…
Inside the sterile white room, IV fluid fell steadily from a tube. Heart-monitor lines traced rhythmic peaks across the screen.
Akimichi Dōtō lay in the bed, slowly opening his eyes. The first thing he felt was a numb tingling in his lower legs. He lifted his head and saw a messy mop of long black hair.
"Phew…"
Hyūga Kumokawa sat in the chair at the foot of the bed, head pillowed on Dōtō's leg, fast asleep and even letting out soft snores.
"This kid…" A faint, bitter smile crossed Dōtō's face, but warmth touched his heart at the same time.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. A full day had already passed since he had forced himself back to Konoha and collapsed.
If he had to guess, the boy had been sitting here watching over him the entire time.
"Cough, cough!"
His scorched throat itched. Dōtō couldn't hold back a cough.
Hyūga Kumokawa jolted awake, sitting up straight at once and turning toward the bed.
"Lord Dōtō!"
Seeing the man coughing, Kumokawa quickly grabbed the medicine and handed it over. "Your condition right now…"
Click.
The door to the room opened. He turned instinctively.
In the moonlight he recognized Sarutobi Hiruzen's face and froze for just the right beat.
"Sandaime-sama?"
***
Hi guys, Elenea here. I hope you're all doing well.
I wanted to let you know that I'm currently working on one of the best projects you might ever read. This project is set in the world of Fairy Tail with some combined elements from the Yu-Gi-Oh! series.
I'm confident you won't regret giving it a try, so don't hesitate to visit my second account's page (elenea) and start reading it.
[Fairy Tail: My Magic is a Yu Gi Oh Deck?]
Synopsis:
Getting isekai'd into the world of Fairy Tail sounds amazing with all the magic and beautiful girls in it...
But do you know what's even more fun than that?
Getting isekai'd with a Yu-Gi-Oh deck!
(No knowledge of Yu-Gi-Oh is needed, so don't worry.)
...
If you like it feel free to giving it a try.