Witty Naruto Life

Chapter 225 Naru-zakura in the Land of Rain
At this moment, a few prisoners were still struggling to push away the stone slabs that were hitting them, wanting to escape this place of trouble as soon as possible.

A burly man with a cursed seal moved a boulder beside him, but after taking only a few steps, he saw Orochimaru looking in his direction from afar.

The burly man was terrified and stood frozen in place, meek and submissive, his eyes lowered and his back drenched in sweat.

He dared not look up as a pair of feet appeared in his line of sight.

"Keep your head up."

Hearing the hoarse voice, the burly man slowly looked up and saw Orochimaru's cold smile: "Go and search the surrounding area and gather all the living people here. If you do well, I'll spare your life."

"Okay, okay, I'll do it!" The big man nodded and began searching for living people around him.

Orochimaru glanced sideways at Kidomaru and Tayuya beside him: "You two come along too."

The two exchanged a glance and whispered, "Yes."

On the isolated island, which had almost become ruins, voices began to be heard intermittently.

Half an hour later.

Kidomaru found Jirobo rolling his eyes, and Yakushi Kabuto beneath him.

A hand was placed on Jirobo's nose, but no breath was detected.

They're completely dead.

If you examine his internal body, you will find that all his chakra channels are severed, including his blood vessels, which have all been cut by the wind blades.

Kidomaru's face darkened. Without saying a word, he pushed the corpse aside, revealing Yakushi Kabuto underneath.

At this moment, a faint white mist emanated from his body, his chest was covered in black, and his other hand, dripping with blood, rested on it.

In fact, after Sasuke pulled the sword out of his chest, the biggest threat to Kabuto Yakushi's life was dying from excessive blood loss.

Therefore, Kabuto forced himself to use the Palm Healing Technique to heal his wounds quickly, and only after doing so, and making sure he wouldn't die from excessive blood loss, did he faint.

It's also worth mentioning that before being hit, Dou released Yin Healing Destruction, which made him recover faster than normal when he was near death.

This is the result of the combined effect of multiple factors.

the other side,
Jugo, his clothes torn, was found by Tayuya. He was huddled in a corner, with one or two shriveled corpses beside him.

During the collapse, he was crushed by a boulder from the ceiling, breaking off most of his body. To survive, Jugo used Cell Absorption to absorb the cells and flesh of his dead comrades, allowing him to escape death.

Zuo Jin and You Jin also rushed over, looking disheveled.

Orochimaru counted the remaining people, then looked at the burly man bowing and scraping beside him, a warm smile on his face:
"You did a great job, this makes things much easier for me."

"It's all what I should do, Lord Orochimaru." The burly man gave a simple, honest smile, thinking to himself, "Now I should be able to save myself, right?"
He was obedient and did whatever he was told, and showed no desire to escape.

Afterwards, they will probably appoint me and others to take over this stronghold, since we don't have enough manpower... The burly man thought to himself, when he suddenly felt a chill on his chest.

He looked down in disbelief and saw a Kusanagi sword precisely embedded in his chest!

"Why...?" The burly man looked at Orochimaru's sinister smile, his legs went weak, and he fell backward.

The prisoners who had been gathered together suddenly twitched their eyelids and glared angrily at Orochimaru.

But it was too late.

five minutes later.

"Take Jugo and Kabuto with you, and leave the rest of you here."

Orochimaru licked his lips and put the Kusanagi sword back into his mouth.

The Sound Ninja F4—no, the F3—swallowed hard as they looked at the scene before them.

Apart from them, Kabuto, and Jugo, everyone else died at Orochimaru's hands!

For Orochimaru, the only valuable thing about this base was Jugo; the other prisoners were nothing more than flawed copies of Jugo, and he could have as many as he wanted.

Continuing to let them breathe is just a waste of air.

"Lord Orochimaru, what should we do now?" Sakon asked hesitantly.

Orochimaru said calmly, "Sasuke will be hunting down Itachi Uchiha. During this time, keep an eye on the surrounding area and let me know if you find any trace of Itachi."

He understood that going head-to-head with Sasuke would be very damaging, so it was better to let Sasuke and Itachi fight to the death while he found an opportunity to reap the benefits.

Fortunately, there weren't any major losses this time; we only lost a base and Jirobo died.

……

the other side.

Naru-Ying and her group continued their journey, with Pak and Siba leading the way and constantly adjusting their positions.

Naruto, who was being parasitized by Ukon, had his body cells damaged and became weak.

If Sakura hadn't given him emergency treatment, his condition might have been much worse.

"Pakistani, how far are we now? How much longer until we arrive?" Naruto asked Pakistani.

“Hmm…” Parker slowly closed his eyes: “It’s hard to say. It’s difficult to make an accurate judgment based on smell alone. Right now, we can only determine a general direction.”

Sasuke: "In other words, we lack information right now, right?"

"Correct."

Sakura pondered for a moment: "Uchiha Itachi is a member of the Akatsuki organization, so finding information about the Akatsuki organization will lead us to his trail."

Upon hearing this, Naruto immediately thought of a detail.

In the original story, Sasuke's Snake Squad was gathering intelligence during their city visits, and it seems they had...

"Money, follow the money to find information about Akatsuki," Naruto suggested. The Akatsuki organization wasn't built on thin air; achieving any objective inevitably involved financial expenditures.

With Kakuzu as the chief steward of internal affairs, there are naturally subordinates responsible for managing the accounts.

As figures in the black market, they are mostly composed of gangsters and mercenaries, whose combat strength is stronger than that of ordinary people but weaker than that of ninjas.

Naruto explained to everyone in detail: "We'll start with the Akatsuki's money, tracing its flow. Wherever there's a transaction, there's a place where it will happen."

"If we keep climbing, we can follow the clues to find their stronghold."

"Understood," Sasuke said, then added, "Going together is too inefficient, let's split up and go in two directions."

"How about me and Shiro, and you and Sakura? When we get to a place with a hotel, we'll use that as our meeting point."

Sakura, Naruto nodded: "Okay, we have no objections."

After thinking for a moment, Naruto added, "When you encounter a strong enemy, never linger in battle. Retreat immediately... Understand, Sasuke?"

He feared that Sasuke might encounter Deidara during this process, and even if he eventually killed him, it would take time for him to recover, making it a completely thankless and arduous task.

But Sasuke clearly had a different opinion.

"If we encounter a formidable enemy of Akatsuki, we can use them to gather information, right?"

Naruto paused for a moment: "...No, it's best to avoid fighting. We should only gather information from those weaker than us to maximize efficiency."

Naruto knew perfectly well that Sasuke's thinking was sound, but he had read the original manga and knew that Deidara would never tell him anything in the end.

Kishimoto arranged for Sasuke and Deidara to meet and fight, mainly to give readers a thrilling battle and to further develop the characters.

For Naruto, it was unnecessary.

Sasuke did not refute, but his expression became thoughtful.

Why does Naruto seem to be in a state of 'he is likely to encounter a powerful enemy'?
Does he have some information that I don't know about...? But if he had information, wouldn't he share it with me directly?
Unable to figure it out for a moment, he simply put it aside for the time being and sped up his journey with the three of them.

……

the other side.

The border of the Fire Nation.

The location is near Amegakure Village.

Sakura and Naruto continued to travel through the dense forest, moving at full speed so fast that only their afterimages could be vaguely seen.

Unlike Sasuke's side, they remained silent, as if a Damocles' sword was hanging over their heads, ready to strike at any moment.

Soon they entered the land of rain, and the surrounding environment changed from dense forest to wasteland.

"Give me the waterproof raincoat first," Sakura said to Naruto, her clone, who was standing next to her.

The latter nodded and handed her a package.

The first thing to be careful about when infiltrating Amegakure is to avoid Pain's surveillance.

In the original story, Pain used the "Rain Tiger Free Technique" to infuse chakra into rainwater, thereby sensing all abnormal chakra fluctuations within Amegakure and forming a surveillance network with virtually no blind spots.

Jiraiya lost the initiative precisely at this point.

To deal with this situation, Naru-Sakura prepared clothing made of a special material coated with toad oil to interfere with the adhesion of rainwater chakra.

The two changed into raincoats beforehand and covered most of their faces.

Continue on your way.

beep, beep...

Unlike the Land of Fire, this place also has rolling hills and grasslands, but due to the dense clouds, they have lost their original colors.

It was replaced by grayish-brown, which became the mainstream color.

At this moment, looking slightly into the distance, one can vaguely see the dense rain and the towering steel forest reaching into the clouds.

beep, beep...

Suddenly, Sakura noticed that she could vaguely see a group of people approaching them from her right.

As they drew closer, the sound of their footsteps grew louder and louder.

Naruto narrowed his eyes. They were all wearing headbands from Amegakure and looked travel-worn, as if they had just returned from an outing.

Naru and Sakura did not make any rash moves and subconsciously lowered the brim of their hats.

The group of people also noticed them. The leader glanced at the two of them sideways, his brow furrowing slightly.

He hadn't seen anyone from another village come here in a long time, so today was truly a rare sight.

Looking at their attire and skin, he instinctively felt a sense of unease.

"Hey! What are you two doing here?"

Narumi turned her head to look at her, and Sakura lowered her voice slightly, saying, "Who are you? Why should I answer your question?"

"We are under the command of the angel, and we have the right to know the purpose of the visit by ninjas from other villages," said the man who appeared to be the captain.

So he's just Akatsuki's puppet... Naruto thought to himself. At this time, Amegakure's internal organizational structure was already defunct, with power concentrated in the hands of Pain and Konan.

Sakura remained silent; this distance wasn't advantageous.

If they were further away, they could simply eliminate them directly, but at this distance, if a conflict broke out, the commotion might attract Payne's attention.

But accepting the questioning might arouse their suspicion.

(End of this chapter)