NNT 3:45AM
--Land of Rain, Asugamuzi Town, 12 kilometers from the Border--
Pitter. Patter.
The endless curse of rain battered the dying town, the cold drops tearing across ruins like an army of tiny blades. Even the Demigod Lord Hanzo, it was said, had bowed to the fury of the skies, unable to bend nature to his will.
Lightning forked across the heavens, for a brief second revealing the ruins of Asugamuzi — a town once bustling with life, now drowned in blood and decay.
"Quick, run!"
"Arghhh!"
Hugoji howled, his body shuddering as he threw himself in front of his comrade, intercepting a slicing torrent of water chakra.
"Damn it! Get to that house down the street!" Hugoji barked, gritting his teeth against the pain. "We'll recuperate there!"
The small squad stumbled forward under the punishing rain, boots sloshing through the filth that covered the streets. Their uniforms — once bright with the symbols of the Hidden Leaf — were now tattered rags, indistinguishable from the mud and blood of the dead they stepped over.
The town was a slaughterhouse.
Once, Asugamuzi had been home to farmers and potters.
Now it was just another corpse rotting under the unrelenting skies.
---
As they approached the building, a foul stench assaulted them — thick and suffocating, like breathing rotting flesh.
"Hold!" Hugoji raised a fist.
Jiro, the fastest among them and uninjured, slinked forward, his sandals silent on the wet ground. He pressed himself against the wall, took a breath, and slid the door open with agonizing slowness.
The scene inside twisted his stomach into knots.
A boy. No more than five years old.
Skin pale, his body thin as a skeleton.
He sat by the corpse of a woman — his mother, Jiro assumed. Her chest was torn open, rib bones like white claws reaching skyward.
The boy, with hollow, glassy eyes, sank his teeth into the dead flesh, tearing, chewing, swallowing.
Maggots, disturbed by the movement, wriggled from his mouth and tumbled to the floor.
The boy didn't react to Jiro or the squad behind him.
Didn't even blink.
Only kept chewing.
---
"D-...Dear gods..." whispered Shino, his voice cracking.
One of the others, a younger Chunin named Ebaki, gagged violently, collapsing to his knees and vomiting into the mud.
"This... this isn't a battlefield," muttered Jiro, horror choking him. "This is a fucking graveyard."
Hugoji's jaw clenched.
They all knew what had to be done.
Wordlessly, Jiro formed hand seals.
Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu.
A ball of flame roared from his mouth, engulfing the boy and his mother in merciful fire.
For a heartbeat, a piercing, inhuman scream shattered the night — more beast than boy — a sound so raw, so soaked in agony, that the rain seemed to hesitate.
The flames lit their faces, each one twisted in grief, revulsion, or dead numbness.
And when it was over, only ash remained.
Hope was dead.
Decay ruled now.
---
Minutes later, inside the ruined house
The squad gathered under the half-collapsed roof, sharing what little dry space they could find.
The rain drummed on the metal above, a funeral dirge.
Silence sat heavy between them, until Hugoji broke it.
"Never... never let me see something like that again."
His voice was a low growl, as if speaking louder might shatter him.
Ebaki shook his head, still pale.
"This place," he muttered, "this land... it's wrong. It's like even the kids are cursed."
"Maybe we are too," Shino said bitterly, wrapping his bleeding arm in makeshift bandages. "Sending boys like us to die in the rain for a piece of dirt."
A heavy silence.
Outside, the distant clash of jutsu and steel rumbled like approaching thunder.
---
Jiro leaned against a cracked pillar, eyes distant.
"You think the Sand are any better?"
He laughed — a raw, ugly sound.
"They send kids too. Hell, some of the ones we killed... they couldn't have been older than twelve."
"Still killed us though," Hugoji spat.
"Yeah. Still killed us."
Another silence.
---
Meanwhile, across the town, hidden beneath the broken bridge, two Sand shinobi conversed in hushed tones.
"Kazuki, status?"
The elder ninja — a woman with a face like cracked leather — wiped blood from her kunai.
"Leaf squads are scattered. Their reinforcements delayed by the rain."
"And casualties?"
"Heavy on both sides. But more on them."
"Good."
She sneered.
"Let them rot."
---
The Sand had a different doctrine.
No mercy.
No prisoners.
Only results.
Kazuki's companion, a boy barely into his teens, trembled slightly as he adjusted the wire on his puppet.
"You think... after this... we can go home?" he asked.
Kazuki glanced at him, eyes devoid of pity.
"There's no home anymore, Yoru. Only the mission. Only survival."
The boy nodded, swallowing hard.
Only survival.
---
Back in the ruined house, the Leaf squad rested.
But rest was a lie.
Their nerves frayed tighter with every heartbeat.
Hugoji spoke, breaking the silence again.
"Do you know what they call us?"
Ebaki looked up, confused.
"The people of this country," Hugoji continued. "The Land of Rain. They call us 'butchers.'"
"Better than corpses," Shino muttered darkly.
Hugoji chuckled — a dead sound.
"Maybe."
---
Jiro stood, eyes shadowed.
"We move at first light," he said.
"If we survive till then," Shino muttered.
Outside, somewhere in the darkness, another scream echoed.
Followed by laughter.
High. Childlike.
Mad.
The squad sat together, but each was alone with their thoughts.
Each wondered if this night would be their last.
---
Hours later, Dawn — or what passed for it under the rain
The battle resumed.
---
The Leaf and the Sand clashed across the broken town in brutal silence — the rain muffling the sounds of screams and shattering steel.
Jiro's squad moved through alleys choked with corpses, the air thick with chakra residue.
Every step was a risk.
Every shadow, a potential death.
---
"Ambush! Right flank!" Hugoji shouted, barely dodging a barrage of poisoned senbon.
Kazuki and her puppet burst from a collapsing building, razor-sharp claws gleaming.
Yoru followed, his puppet smaller but faster, wires slicing through the air.
Leaf and Sand clashed in a dance of death.
---
Kazuki mused mockingly as he slashed at Hugoji "Still clinging to your worthless lives, Leaf dogs?", spitting blood he replied "Better than crawling in the mud like you!", unperturbed Kazuki replied "We are the mud, fool! We are the survivors!"
---
The puppets darted like phantoms.
One of the Leaf genin — a boy named Takashi — screamed as a wire tore through his throat.
Jiro set Kazuki's puppet ablaze, but the woman laughed even as her skin burned.
"LIVE, DAMN YOU!" she shrieked, lunging forward.
Shino tackled her, both tumbling into the mud.
Jiro had no time to mourn Takashi.
No time to help Shino.
Only time to kill or die.
---
Minutes stretched into eternity.
The battle was savage.
One by one, shinobi fell, swallowed by the relentless hunger of the Land of Rain.
By the end, only a few remained.
---
Hugoji's dying words:
"Tell... tell them... I tried."
His hand went limp in Jiro's grasp.
The rain washed his blood away.
---
Jiro stood alone among the corpses, his body broken, his chakra depleted.
Above him, the rain wept.
And somewhere, deep within the village, a child continued to chew the dead.
---
The Land of Rain had no heroes.
Only survivors.
And even they were dying.
---