Naruto: Uchiha Youngjo's Konoha Spring

Chapter 269 Artificial Humans
Upon seeing Pain's movements in mid-air, the attackers prepared for battle, but the powerful ninjutsu they had anticipated did not materialize.

But just as they relaxed their guard a little, an invisible and intangible enormous repulsive force arrived in front of them, and the ten-person team was sent flying backward.

However, Nagato's Shinra Tensei didn't seem to cause much effective damage. When the squad was sent flying backward, their armor emitted a dazzling light, indicating that some kind of defensive mechanism had been triggered.

So, although the attacker squad looked disheveled, they quickly regrouped after getting back on their feet, aimed their guns at Payne in the air, and pulled the triggers.

At the same time, the captain who had fought Jiraiya earlier also pressed a button on his armor while holding his lightsaber. The strangely shaped armor changed shape, and after a burst of steam, the man was suddenly lifted into the air, intending to attack Pain with his eerie lightsaber.

Payne raised his hand in mid-air, and five black rods instantly materialized beside him, shooting straight towards his opponent.

The person who took to the sky, relying on the protection of their armor, did not dodge. They simply pressed a button on the armor, and a pale blue micro-force field was instantly generated, firmly protecting them within it.

However, the black rods summoned by Payne pierced through the opponent's force field, struck him, and dragged him to the ground. The four black rods pinned his limbs to the ground, rendering him unable to move.

At this moment, with Pain holding the line, Naruto and Kurama had ample time to condense their Tailed Beast Balls. The Tailed Beast Balls, as black as ink, were exactly the same size as before. However, the space around the Tailed Beast Balls began to slowly distort, which showed just how much energy the two of them had gathered in them this time.

"Roar!" The Nine-Tails roared, suppressing the anger of those it had previously regarded as ants with special means, and the Tailed Beast Ball flew towards them with a whoosh.

Seeing this, the opposing squad had no choice but to abandon their attack on Payne and instead pulled out grenades capable of creating a defensive force field.

They threw out the force field blasts in turn. The Nine-Tails' furious attack was mostly weakened by the continuous force field generated almost without interruption. The remaining energy was only enough to blast off a layer of soil on the ground in front of them.

"This kind of coordination..." Jiraiya's pupils contracted. The seamless coordination of these force fields, wave after wave, was something even a ninja team that had worked together for many years would find difficult to achieve. Such a level of teamwork could only be cultivated by a large clan in a major ninja village, such as the former Sarutobi clan's private army. However, the taijutsu skills that the opposing leader had just displayed did not seem to be cultivated by a force capable of producing such a team.

"Damn it! How could such power be mastered by humans!" Kurama roared, then turned back to Shukaku and cursed, "Stupid tanuki, how much longer are you going to do?"

"What are you rushing me for! You stinky fox! This move was originally prepared for you!" Shukaku cursed back at Kurama, then slammed his two large hands heavily on the ground. Various kinds of black runes continued from the ground toward Kurama, and scattered in all directions the moment the runes reached Kurama's feet.

Centered on the opponent's location, an area within a hundred meters was instantly enveloped by a barrier bearing black runes, which then instantly contracted.

The attackers tried to forcefully break the barrier using the special power from the Ten-Tails, but the barrier, made of sealing techniques, would repair itself whenever it was damaged.

"Pain! Now's the time!" Jiraiya shouted a reminder upon seeing this.

Payne nodded in mid-air, raised his hand to conjure black rods, then clenched his fist and sent the rods hurtling toward his opponent. Each rod precisely targeted an attacker, pinning them to the spot along with their armor.

"Pain, leave behind a suit of armor!" Jiraiya quickly reminded him.

Payne nodded, controlling the last black rod to blow the target's head off, leaving his armor intact.

"You stinky fox, those eyes..." After the battle ended, Shukaku and Kurama finally had time to observe the battlefield. However, upon seeing Pain's eyes, both tailed beasts froze on the spot.

"This is truly bizarre today!" Kurama exclaimed from within the Tailed Beast Space. "First, it was that thing's power, and then it was the old man's eyes!"

"Brother Kurama, what are you saying?" Naruto looked up from beneath Kurama, his face filled with confusion.

"Kid, after things are settled here, you need to go to where Chongming and the others are," Kurama said seriously, bowing his head.

"Huh? Going to the Tailed Beast Nature Reserve?" Naruto was taken aback for a moment before nodding. "Let's go then. It's been a while since I've seen Sister Fu."

While the two tailed beasts were talking, Pain arrived at Jiraiya's side. After forming a hand seal, Nagato, who was in a wheelchair, and Konan, who was pushing the wheelchair, were summoned there.

"Jiraiya-sensei, and..." Nagato greeted Jiraiya, then turned to look at Naruto.

Although he knew that the blond-haired man in front of him was the current head of the Uzumaki clan in the ninja world, Nagato was already over thirty years old, and he really couldn't bring himself to call a ten-year-old child "head of the clan."

"Just call me Naruto." Naruto gave Nagato a bright smile. "This is Gaara."

"Hello." Gaara, having deactivated his tailed beast form, also nodded to Nagato.

"Nagato, thank goodness you arrived just in time," Jiraiya said after sending the two sages and the Iron-Armed Toad back to Mount Myōboku. "Otherwise, it would have taken us a lot of effort to deal with them; that blue energy is too suppressive of chakra."

“Let’s go check on these people’s bodies first,” Nagato said. “To be able to build a team like this, the power behind them must be considerable.”

"Hmm." Jiraiya nodded and, together with Nagato's Pain puppet, walked toward the squad leader who had been dealt with first.

The man, whose vital organs had been pierced by Nagato's black rods, was already dead. Pain raised his hand, and the black rods stuck in the corpse dissipated. Jiraiya also approached, intending to take a closer look at this thing that had caused them so much trouble.

"Wait a minute!" Naruto, who had just witnessed this scene, suddenly shouted.

After the opponent's damaged armor was freed from the restraint of the black rod, it suddenly surged with violent energy fluctuations.

"Not good!" Upon seeing this, Nagato's main body hurriedly formed hand seals. Pain's puppet raised its hand and used Shinra Tensei to push away the about-to-explode corpse, while its other hand pulled Jiraiya back rapidly. The next instant, the remaining energy in the armor exploded, engulfing an area with a diameter of 100 meters. It could be said that if they hadn't reacted in time, both Jiraiya and Pain's puppet would have been engulfed by the sudden explosion.

"Is there a self-destruct mechanism?" Jiraiya's expression was rather grim.

"Grandpa Jiraiya, be careful." Naruto came to Jiraiya's side and reminded him.

"How was I supposed to know this armor had this function?" Jiraiya's face showed a wry smile.

"Isn't it common sense to be wary of self-destruct devices on something that looks so high-tech?" Naruto said. Having frequently visited Konoha's Scientific Ninja Tool Research Institute to test new equipment, Naruto knew very well that such equipment, which contains complex technology, usually has a self-destruct mechanism to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

Take Neji for example. If all the scientific ninja tools he carries were to trigger their self-destruct mechanisms at the same time, they would be enough to create an explosion that rivals the Tailed Beast Ball.

"Looks like I really am outdated." Jiraiya shook his head and said with a wry smile, then asked, "So what do we do now?"

"These black rods that Uncle Nagato created seem to have a restraining effect on this energy, so it's best not to touch them for now," Naruto said, "Let's go check on the other people's armor."

“Alright.” Nagato nodded, then had Pain take Naruto and Jiraiya with him. At the same time, the main body in the wheelchair was prepared to use the Summoning Jutsu to summon Pain and the two of them back at any time.

This time, the armor remnants, whose energy flow was blocked by the black rods, did not explode.

However, for safety's sake, the two people and the puppet still observed the armor from a distance.

"This should be their organization's symbol," Jiraiya noticed. Each suit of armor had the same symbol engraved on top. "Judging by the shape, it looks like a seashell... Is there any organization in the ninja world that uses this kind of symbol as their representative?"

“It seems not.” Pain shook his head. “At least, none of our Akatsuki members have ever seen anyone wearing a similar pattern before.”

"Shell?" Naruto frowned immediately upon hearing this word.

"Naruto? Have you seen this organization before?" Jiraiya asked hastily upon seeing this.

"No, not at all." Naruto shook his head. "But before I came out, my teacher told me to keep an eye out for an organization called Kara in the ninja world. Do you think it could be them?"

"Has Douguang heard of this organization?" Jiraiya nodded. "Then it seems we have no choice but to inform him first."

“Jiraiya-sensei, these people don’t seem to be human.” At this moment, Pain also spoke up.

"Hmm?" Jiraiya looked at the other person with some surprise.

“They…don’t bleed.” Pain said, gesturing for the two to look at the places where the black rods had pierced the bodies. Normally, with such gruesome deaths, the area should have been covered in blood, but now it was unusually clean.

"Not human? Could they be puppets?" Jiraiya asked in surprise. He originally thought that the reason these people's corpses were not bleeding was because Nagato's black rods had a similar effect of high-temperature burning, which directly stopped the bleeding. But since Nagato had spoken up, he naturally ruled out this possibility. And the only thing in the ninja world that could achieve a similar effect was a puppet.

“No, it shouldn’t be puppets.” Naruto said at this moment. “Before, when I sensed their existence using the ability my older brother gave me, I could clearly feel the malice that each of them had towards me. If they were puppets, I should only be able to sense the malice of the puppeteer behind them.”

"Is that so?" Jiraiya nodded upon hearing this. "In that case, we can only maintain the status quo for now. Nagato, can you have the area sealed off? Since Touko knows some clues about this secret organization, we can only send a message to him now and ask him to come here."

“Alright, I’ll have someone come and seal off this area right away.” Pain nodded.

……

That afternoon, Deidara, who had volunteered to lead the team to seal off the scene, arrived with a team of barrier-protecting soldiers from the Land of Rain. Meanwhile, in the Hokage's office, Uchiha Touko received a message from Jiraiya delivered by the communication frog of Mount Myōboku.

"First, he personally went to Orochimaru to steal the Edo Tensei, and then he sent the Kara organization to attack. Is that guy hiding in the shadows finally going to show himself?" After reading the news, Uchiha Touko frowned.

The fact that the Kara organization, which was supposed to appear and operate decades later, has now emerged is definitely not good news for Uchiha Touko. According to the information Jiraiya sent back, those puppet-like people should be artificial humans created by the other side, and the special energy they use should be the power extracted from the other Ten-Tails in Otsutsuki Isshiki's possession.

Uchiha Tokō originally planned to unify the ninja world and then use all its power to deal with these invaders from other planets. However, it seems that they may have already sensed something from his actions in the ninja world, so they have jumped out ahead of time.

"This is really troublesome." Uchiha Touko sighed. Putting everything else aside, the artificial humans and the ability to use the Ten-Tails that the Kara organization is currently displaying are a huge variable for the upcoming war in the ninja world.

In short, let's first figure out exactly how far their technology has developed.

Uchiha Touko thought for a moment, then got up, picked up the Flying Thunder God Technique, and said loudly, "Inahime, I need to go out of the village and ask Genma and his Flying Thunder God team to come over. As for the documents that need to be processed in the next few days, gather them up. Send the less important documents directly to the General Staff Headquarters and let the Chief of Staff handle them."

"Understood," Uchiha Inahi replied from outside the door.

Before long, Genma Shiranui and the other two arrived at the Hokage's office. Touko Uchiha had already changed into his battle suit and instructed the three of them, "Let's go to the border post in the direction of the Land of Rain."

……

(End of this chapter)