novelones Chapter 619 Mai
Chapter 619 Mai
Things were more complicated than Naruto had imagined. However, to some extent, he had brought this trouble upon himself.
He knew that the answer given by [Star Eye] couldn't be wrong, but before the answer was confirmed, he still wanted to verify it with his own ears. So he looked at Minato Namikaze, who was still trying to process his question, "Something's wrong with Uzumaki Mai," and asked.
"Akatsuki is the universally acknowledged enemy of the ninja world. Now that this conclusion has been officially confirmed by all the villages, do you know who the leader of Akatsuki is?"
"...Most villages have already clashed with the leader of Akatsuki." Minato frowned, his tone turning somber. "But to our shame, we still know nothing about that person's identity."
Now Naruto was completely certain that the information about the Akatsuki leader wasn't a secret at all—it was Pain, or Obito Uchiha who was using Madara Uchiha's name.
But Minato's answer was, "His identity remains completely unknown." In other words, in this world, the person standing at the very top of Akatsuki is neither Pain nor Obito. It's someone else.
"Hmph! A bunch of idiots!" Deidara, still gripped in the Nine-Tails' chakra claws, suddenly let out a hoarse laugh. "How could you possibly know the leader's true identity! Don't even dream about it! I'm telling you, you won't get a single piece of information out of me! Not a single word! Hmm!"
"That's hard to say," Tsunade coldly interrupted him. "Konoha has its own secret techniques that you don't need to speak to. We have one method for dealing with the living, and another for the dead. Even if you commit suicide right now, we can still extract what we need from your brain."
"idiot!"
Deidara's disdain deepened. "How can you find something that doesn't exist? Even if you unleash all of Konoha's secret techniques, it won't work if it doesn't exist! The current Hokage is such an idiot who can't even understand such a simple principle. Konoha might as well just collapse today! Hmm!"
Deidara's meaning was clear: he himself did not know the true identity of his leader.
"And you!" Deidara abruptly turned his gaze to Naruto. "Don't be so arrogant for long! You think you've won just because you caught me? Our reinforcements are on their way! You can't escape! You won't get out of our grasp, Kurama!"
"Yes, I know what you mean." Naruto simply nodded calmly, and Deidara's arrogant smile, which was waiting to see the other party panic, froze.
"Logically speaking, your target in today's attack on Konoha should be Mai Uzumaki, right? She's the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, not me. I'm not on the Jinchuriki list, and your intelligence system shouldn't have any data about me. But..." Naruto raised his eyes and looked directly at Deidara.
"The moment you saw me appear, you immediately abandoned your attack on the Hokage and turned to attack me. How did you know I had the Nine-Tails inside me? Who told you?"
"No need to answer, I know the answer." Naruto said before Deidara could speak.
He withdrew his gaze, raised his head, looked at the distant sky shrouded in smoke and twilight, took a deep breath, and then spoke in a volume that everyone could hear, as if talking to the air.
"Alright, come out and let's talk. No matter how you look at it, we're the same person. Why did you attack me? Don't keep me waiting too long, come out now, or I'll reveal your true identity in front of everyone here..."
"boom--!!!"
Suddenly! A dark shadow descended from the sky at a speed completely imperceptible to the naked eye, landing precisely where Naruto was standing.
It was a pure, compressed aggregate of energy, a small black sphere.
It was no bigger than a fist, but the energy it released the moment it landed was like a small sun exploding at your feet!
A massive, destructive shockwave swept outwards from the point of impact. Tsunade, Minato, and the Anbu members who hadn't had time to retreat were hit head-on by the shockwave. Their bodies were violently thrown out like leaves in a storm. Some crashed into broken walls, while others tumbled and fell more than ten meters away!
The shockwave, carrying rubble and smoke, surged into the air, forming a black mushroom cloud that rolled upwards, lingering over Konoha for a long time.
Just before the explosion, Naruto saw two dark figures sweep past the edge of the blast radius at speeds far exceeding the limits of a Jonin. One of them swept away Deidara, whom Naruto was holding in his giant claws, while the other swept away Kakuzu, who was lying on the ground asleep.
"Boom—!!"
The explosion continued to spread. Shockwaves surged outwards wave after wave, uprooting buildings like building blocks and sending beams and tiles flying into the air before raining down.
As Tsunade was thrown away, she formed hand seals, and the slug's enormous body simultaneously split into countless smaller individuals throughout Konoha, spreading out its soft yet resilient body to cover all the ninjas around who had no time to dodge.
Once Tsunade regained her footing, she suddenly turned to look at her side. The spot where Minato had been standing was now empty.
Tsunade didn't have time to look for Minato. She slowly straightened up, her gaze passing over the still-burning ruins in front of her, and looking at the area in front of her that had been leveled by the explosion.
The shockwave swept through half of Konoha, streets disappeared, rooftops vanished, and even several horizontal cracks appeared on the Hokage Rock.
As the last wave of dust finally began to settle, Tsunade opened her eyes, which were red from the stinging dust. What came into view was a scene she didn't want to see but had already anticipated—half of Konoha had been reduced to ruins.
"That's so unfair..."
Tsunade muttered to herself, then gritted her teeth, veins bulging on her forehead. But this time, beneath those veins surged not only anger, but also an overwhelming grief. "That guy... he still came after all..."
Naruto stood in the very center of the explosion, without a single wound on his body. A huge golden chakra fox head steadily enveloped him, the Nine-Tails' chakra shell having shielded him from all the damage in the previous impact.
He stood there, the ground beneath his feet had been blown into a huge crater several meters deep, but the small patch of land beneath his feet remained intact.
His gaze first swept across the distance, in that direction he could sense Zuo Yue rushing towards them at full speed. Then, he looked away and returned his gaze to the front.
From the smoke and dust, some figures slowly emerged. Eight people in total, emerging from different directions, surrounded him at the bottom of the crater.
Apart from the person standing in the very center, the other seven people were all wearing the same uniform, black with red clouds, which was the uniform of [Akatsuki].
A face emerged from the smoke and dust like a shark's, with sharp teeth arranged in a dense array and a terrifying smile on its lips. Kisame Hoshigaki took the Samehada sword wrapped in bandages from behind him and carried it on his shoulder with one hand.
Beside him, a man with half his face wrapped in bandages held the iconic guillotine, the huge slit carved into the blade particularly glaring in the firelight. Zabuza Momochi stood beside Kisame, silent, but his killing intent already permeated the air.
Standing next to Zabuza was a person with extremely handsome features whose gender was indistinguishable at first glance.
Haku was also wearing Akatsuki's black robe with red clouds, his long black hair hanging down his shoulders, his face was delicate and calm, and he stood side by side with Zabuza, very close to him.
The smaller figure stood on the left, his delicate features suggesting he was only a teenager, but half of his face was also tightly wrapped in bandages, revealing only one eye. Naruto recognized the face: Hiruko.
The white-haired youth carried the iconic three-bladed scythe. Hidan tilted his head and sized up Naruto, his smile as chilling as Kisame's.
There were two other people who surprised Naruto, but upon closer inspection, they all made perfect sense.
Huge white paper wings fluttered slowly in the sky, like an angel spreading its wings and hovering in mid-air. Konan looked down at Naruto at the bottom of the crater, her expression calm and unreadable.
Standing directly below Konan, approaching step by step from the smoke and dust, was a figure with striking red hair amidst the gunpowder – Nagato.
He wore the Akatsuki uniform, his figure upright, his face showing no trace of the haggardness or emaciation that comes with illness. His feet were firmly planted on the ruins, and his eyes, set in their sockets, were genuine Rinnegan. Purple ripples spread out in concentric circles, gazing at Naruto without any emotion.
"You seem to have misunderstood something."
The figure in the very center finally spoke. A deep, emotionless female voice. Long black hair was tied into a single ponytail.
She wasn't wearing Akatsuki's black robe with red clouds, but a dark-colored long robe. Standing right in the middle of a group of Akatsuki members, she exuded more pressure than all the murderous S-rank rogue ninjas around her combined.
Her face was completely covered by a fox mask.
"I'm not like you, whose head is full of naive ideas. I'm not going to let this opportunity slip by."
Naruto looked at the fox mask, pointed to the mask covering the person opposite him, and said in a tone that was hard to describe as either helpless or absurd.
"...To me, your mask is actually your biggest weakness. It's practically introducing yourself. Haven't you ever thought about changing your outfit?"
"Enough with the boring nonsense." Mai Uzumaki, wearing a mask, said coldly as she raised her right hand, slowly spreading her five fingers toward Naruto.
"I won't consider your identity. Who you are, where you come from, or what kind of relationship you have with me—none of that matters. Since you've taken the initiative to appear before me, I won't give up this power."
"Come on, hand over the half of the Nine-Tails inside you."
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