Konoha: Naruto of Sekiro

Swish, swish, swish!

Several shuriken flew towards him with precision from different directions.

The five Jonin, without any verbal communication, coordinated their efforts, surrounding him from various angles.

Naruto's long sword flashed, and in an instant, he deflected all the shuriken.

"Lightning Release: Earth Runner!" "Water Style: Wild Water Wave!"

Two Jonin launched a frontal assault, while the other ninja feigned attacks from the sides.

Naruto's gaze shifted slightly. Crimson Nine-Tails chakra rapidly enveloped his body as he leaped powerfully upwards.

At the same time, a figure with long red hair leaped down from a hole above, hands spread wide, and roared: "Shinra Tensei!!"

A powerful repulsive force, capable of splitting mountains and cracking stone, erupted outwards. Whether it was ninjutsu, kunai, or anything else, it shattered under this force and was sent flying into the distance.

Naruto's figure descended slowly from above, completely unharmed.

It was thanks to Nagato selectively ignoring the direction he was in.

Looking at the suddenly widened space, Naruto clicked his tongue. "Such high efficiency. How should we divide the enemies?"

"Hanzo of the Salamander is mine." The moment Nagato's words fell, he dashed towards Hanzo, who was buried amidst the rubble.

Naruto had no objections. Gripping Kusabimaru in his right hand, he used his Mind's Eye of Kagura to lock onto a heavily wounded Amegakure Jonin and rushed towards him.

Judging by the surrounding chakra reactions, Nagato's last attack had definitely been aimed to kill.

"The true leader of Akatsuki. You've finally come," Hanzo of the Salamander said, looking at him. His gaze was calm, as if he had long expected this.

"Shinra Tensei!" Nagato had no intention of exchanging words with him. He slightly raised his right hand, and a terrifying repulsive force slammed directly towards Hanzo's battered figure.

"Body Flicker Technique!" Hanzo's form abruptly appeared behind Nagato, his specialized kusarigama ninja tool arcing towards Nagato's neck like the Grim Reaper's scythe.

Nagato remained unmoved, still standing in place.

"Bansho Ten'in!"

Not far away, a massive boulder moved as if by an unseen force, blocking the space between the two.

Hanzo's long blade struck squarely against the stone. His eyes darkened slightly; this was yet another ability he had never seen before.

"Wind Style: Pressure Damage!"

A highly compressed mass of Wind Release chakra shot from Nagato's mouth. The hard stone only managed to obstruct it for a moment before shattering into several pieces, and the attack then slammed into Hanzo.

But amidst a puff of smoke, Hanzo's body turned into several splintered pieces of wood.

Nagato's Rinnegan quickly locked onto the enemy's position. He lightly raised his left hand, and a powerful attractive force acted directly on Hanzo's body.

"This power?!!"

Hanzo's expression changed. No matter how he struggled, he couldn't escape this inexplicable force.

"Bansho Ten'in!!"

Nagato raised his right hand, and several sharp iron implements flew towards the airborne Hanzo at terrifying speed.

"Damn it!!"

Hanzo's pupils constricted violently. Whether by disrupting his chakra flow or through sheer pain, he couldn't break free from this technique—which he mistakenly thought was genjutsu.

Pfft, pfft, pfft!!

The iron implements precisely pierced his flesh and blood.

From a distance, he looked like a blood-red hedgehog.

Nagato calmly gazed at the corpse on the ground. He felt no excitement at having slain the 'Demigod' with his own hands, only his usual tranquility.

As if everything was as it should be.

At the same time, in the distance, Naruto's long sword swung out, slitting his enemy's throat. Blood stained the earth red.

Outside Amegakure, on a vast plain, a large number of Amegakure ninja had gathered, talking amongst themselves.

"Do you know what happened?"

"I saw… I heard that Lord Hanzo was killed."

"Ridiculous. That's Lord Hanzo, known as the Demigod. Who could kill him?"

"The people who told us to come here."

The Amegakure ninja who had been conversing fell silent. Their gazes involuntarily drifted towards the outermost edge of the crowd, towards the ninja who had instructed them to wait here.

"I heard they're Akatsuki ninja," someone said.

"No way. Do all Akatsuki ninja look the same?" someone else scoffed.

If Akatsuki had the strength to overthrow Amegakure, how could they still just be an 'organization'?

"You'd better hope they are Akatsuki members," an Amegakure ninja who had experienced the Second Great Shinobi War said.

"At least, we'd be compatriots…"

Everyone: "…"

"Elder Kazuhiko!" A sharp-eyed ninja pointed at a middle-aged man slowly approaching in the distance and exclaimed.

"And Elder Shinba!" "Elder Mimura is here too!"

"Why are they following behind those two?" a Genin couldn't help but ask.

Silence. The older ninja, who had anticipated this, couldn't bear to speak the terrifying, helpless truth.

"Shadow Clone Technique really is useful," Nagato said with a smile, looking at the rows upon rows of Narutos in the distance.

"If you want to learn it, I can teach you," Naruto said, looking at the dense crowd of heads on the field with satisfaction. It hadn't been a waste to create so many clones.

About four hours had passed since they dealt with Hanzo and his group.

During these four hours, maintaining basic order had been managed by Naruto's shadow clones. Their own energy had been spent more on the three 'Elders' trailing behind them.

Konoha had been the first to establish the one-village-per-country system in the Land of Fire. Its war potential and development speed far surpassed those of the individual ninja clans of the Warring States Period.

So, the ninja of that era, like cats drawn to the scent of fish, all rushed to imitate Konoha, establishing their own places for ninja to live in their respective countries.

But a hidden village wasn't simply a place where ninja gathered. It involved organizational structure, personnel allocation, operational mechanisms…

If one were to design all these major and minor details from scratch, the opportunity would be long gone.

After puzzling over these issues, the ninja of that time suddenly had an epiphany: a hidden village couldn't be run by a single person.

Konoha's establishment hadn't happened overnight.

They themselves couldn't perfect the framework of a hidden village in a short time! But if they wanted to build a true hidden village, they couldn't bypass these rules and regulations.

Things seemed to have reached an impasse.

But the pioneers declared this impasse was easily resolved. Wasn't there a successful model? They would do as Konoha did.

If something could work in a large country like the Land of Fire, it could certainly work in a small country.

Operational mechanisms too complex? Konoha had them—copy! Departmental design unreasonable? Couldn't they look at Konoha? Copy! …

Under this frenzy of imitation, the operational mechanisms of all hidden villages throughout the ninja world ended up being largely the same.

The biggest differences, perhaps, lay in some philosophical aspects, such as: Konoha's Will of Fire, Iwagakure's Will of Stone…

Even Amegakure, a few years ago, had come up with a passable Will of Rain.

In the Five Great Shinobi Villages, the Kage held the greatest authority. In smaller hidden villages, the center of power became their respective leaders, like Hanzo of the Salamander previously.

The Kage of the Five Great Hidden Villages and the leaders of the smaller hidden villages were, in some respects, no different.

In fact, due to their smaller scale, the leaders of small villages often possessed even more concentrated power than a Kage.

Of course, politics was all about balance.

After all, it wasn't just the Kage or leaders who established the hidden villages; others had put in effort too.

If you get to eat the meat, I should at least get some soup, right? Thus, the elder system came into being.

They might seem useless most of the time, but if the Kage or leader met with an accident, these individuals became critically important.

A flock of sheep with a leading ram and one without were entirely different concepts.

Take the current Amegakure, for example. If it weren't for these three old scoundrels, Naruto and Nagato truly wouldn't know how to keep so many Amegakure ninja in check.