Chapter 25: Rain

It took them another day to reach Amegakure. Finding the village itself was the hardest thing. Kannin thought Konoha was well hidden in the forests, but Amegakure was like a needle in a needlestack. The area it was hidden in was a marshy wasteland where it was constantly raining, the rain itself made the air difficult to see through it was so dense.

They eventually came upon a gigantic lake that stretched as far as the eye could see.

"I believe it's somewhere in this lake." Shin said

Coming upon the lake, Kannin felt like he was about to explode with power. He knew his water release was strong, but this quantity of water made Kannin feel invincible.

"Tetsu, see if you can't summon a block of earth for us to float on. I don't wanna waste all of our chakra trying to walk across this whole lake."

Tetsu formed some hand seals and a square block of earth erupted from the ground. They moved it onto the water's surface. Warai was convinced it would fall apart in the water, and it did dissolve a little, but it held firm nonetheless. The boarded the makeshift watercraft, and Kannin used water release to propel them across.

Speeding through the water, they kept their eyes peeled for the village. What they didn't anticipate was the spray. Each one of them was thoroughly drenched after maybe 5 minutes of riding the earthen raft. In fact, the rain was so bad, Shin had Kannin slow down so they could see where they were going.

"I should've brought an umbrella" Tetsu said

"Actually," Kannin said, "I might have a solution to that. This jutsu is supposed to deflect incoming kunai and shuriken, but I don't see why it wouldn't work on rain."

He made a few hand seals and shouted "Wind Release: Wind Dome!"

Around the raft, a small hemisphere of wind coalesced, which did block the rain from reaching them, it also had the unfortunate effect of making everyone's clothes flap wildly, which, to Kannin's credit, did make them dry faster.

Now that their socks were dry again, they had a much more comfortable ride to Amegakure, though Kannin did burn through a lot of his Chakra to get there. When they came upon the village, they were astonished. Rickety metal buildings creeped into the rainy sky, seemingly into the clouds. When they approached the main gate, two shinobi in typical Amegakure dress stopped them, and Shin offered the permissions to gain access to the village.

Inside, what they saw shocked them even more. Much of the city still seemed to be in a bad state after the war. Rubble was strewn across the ground, and many of the buildings had holes in the side, or tarps covering the roofs. The people seemed morose as well. A gloomy air seemed to emanate from everyone they locked eyes with.

Shin muttered to herself, 'It really is that bad, isn't it.'

They were told they would be taken to see Hanzo to formally introduce themselves to the village as emissaries. So they were led through the soggy streets of Amegakure, where little alleyways crept away at every turn, and water flushed into the gutters with a constant trickling.

Winding their way through the labyrinthine village, their clothes again soaked, they eventually made it to the residence of Hanzo of the Salamander. The whole team, including Shin, was on edge. They had all heard of the legendary prowess of Hanzo, how he'd come to be called a Demi-God. All of them were imagining what he must look like.

The building they came to looked much nicer than average for Amegakure, and the inside even more so. It was well furnished, dry, and warm--quite different to the outside. They were led to an elevator which brought them to the top floor. With a ding, the doors opened to a room much like the Hokage's office, with a large window overlooking the village, and a nice desk and chair, whereupon sat Hanzo of the Salamander.

The Rain shinobi brought them before Hanzo, and at closer glance, Kannin could see him better. He wore a complicated respirator apparatus on his mouth, beneath which Kannin could see a large scar descending on his right cheek. His hair was blondish, and he was wearing comfortable clothing, instead of the normal shinobi gear.

An eerie silence hung for a moment before Hanzo cleared his throat, and with a Darth Vader-like tone due to the respirator, said,

"Well, get on with it. I don't have all day to entertain kids."

Shin sputtered out, "Well, uhh, I'm Harakaze Shin, with me are my underlings Sarutobi Tetsu, Uchiha Warai, and Uzumaki Kannin."

Each of them bowed as Shin said their names, and Hanzo eyed each one, as if to size up their combat prowess from a glance.

"These seem stronger than usual for genins, no? Why don't we, as a gesture of camaraderie, organize a mock fight between them and some of our chunin?"

Shin couldn't exactly refuse the strongest shinobi in the world such a request, so she and the kids assented.

"Bring out Team 6. This should be fun." Hanzo said with a hearty chuckle.

Team 4 couldn't really say anything about this, but Kannin was really glad he exhausted much of his chakra getting them here just to fight chunins as soon as they got here. Warai was in a similar state; her fire release was incredibly weak here. Tetsu was the only one who was on neutral ground, with his earth release theoretically doing well against water.

-

Outside, they were brought to a relatively open field where they could safely battle. Hanzo watched on from above standing still in the rain, and told them,

"It may interest you to know that it was this very spot that I decimated your Konoha forces in the 2nd war, and gave your Sannin their title."

And though the respirator covered his mouth, Kannin could swear he was smiling from the memory of defeating the Konoha-nin.