Being a rogue ninja is worse than being Hokage.

In the silent tunnel, a strange sound, like the rustling of paper, suddenly rang out.

Karin's eyes were fixed intently; she knew the enemy was approaching.

Immediately afterward, with that sound, Karin felt a gust of wind blowing towards her!

The tearing sounds grew more and more intense in the gale. Sensing the enemy charging towards her head, Karin no longer hesitated and threw the kunai in her hand from the blind spot of her raincoat.

As Karin threw out the kunai, she also saw the face of the enemy who was standing very close to her.

A woman with short blue hair, wearing a paper flower on her head and dressed in a black robe embroidered with red auspicious clouds, flew towards Karin with wings made of white paper growing from her back!

The woman's appearance was exactly the same as the "angel" Karin had inquired about in Amegakure.

God's apostle—Xiao Nan!

Karin threw out her kunai at the perfect moment. Konan charged straight at Karin at such high speed that she didn't have enough time to adjust her position and dodge the kunai!

But when faced with kunai, Konan never thought of running away from it from the very beginning!

"This is!!!"

And so, the unexpected happened right before Karin's eyes.

The kunai did indeed hit Konan.

It even struck Xiao Nan's forehead directly.

In the next instant, Xiao Nan's body exploded, turning into scattered pieces of white paper!

Konan, who turned into countless pieces of paper, nullified the physical attack of the kunai!

Having neutralized Karin's attack, Konan began her counterattack.

These countless pieces of paper spun around and wrapped around the incense sticks. The thin, harmless paper pieces piled up on top of each other and became deadly weapons that could suffocate and bind people.

Remnants of the paper that wrapped Karin completely remained, swirling around her in the air before finally coalescing into the figure of Konan.

"You're one of the guys working for Nine-Tails..."

Xiao Nan frowned, feeling a sense of unease about the intruder's identity.

She had just pulled down the hood of Karin's raincoat and could see Karin's face clearly.

"Were you the only one carrying out the intrusion?!"

She tore the piece of paper covering Karin's mouth, allowing Karin, who was suffocating, to breathe again through her mouth, and questioned her sharply!

Pain's sensory ninjutsu used in Amegakure—Rain Tiger Free Technique—only detected Karin as the intruder.

No! That's not right!

The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki possesses a space-time ninjutsu called Flying Thunder God!

We can no longer rely entirely on the information about the intruders obtained through the Rain Tiger Freedom Technique to make judgments!

Although Konan was puzzled as to why Pain's information had been leaked, her immediate priority was to find out from Karin where the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was!

"Where is Nine-Tails... Naruto Uzumaki now?"

Konan questioned Karin.

Karin countered with, "Where do you think Naruto is?"

As soon as Karin finished speaking, two earthen walls suddenly rose from the ground and the top of the tunnel.

They sealed the tunnel at an astonishing speed, forming a cubic enclosed space that trapped Karin and Minami inside.

Now Konan can no longer use her paper clones to transmit information to Pain.

This prevented Pain from knowing that the intruder was Naruto.

No wonder Karin didn't choose an open-air environment to confront Minami, but instead hid in the tunnel!

This highly targeted Earth Release ninjutsu startled Konan.

She turned her head to look behind her.

Where the kunai that Karin had shot earlier landed, a yellow figure appeared there at some unknown time.

Naruto was standing there.

He held the kunai that Karin had just shot out in one hand.

With his other hand, he formed a hand seal, and the ninja seal in his hand was the Earth Release seal!

"Oh no!!!"

Konan flapped the paper wings on her back and decisively separated herself from Karin.

In the next instant, Naruto appeared in front of Karin.

Naruto swung the Rasengan he had gathered in his hand toward where Konan had been, but it missed because Konan had left!

If Konan had hesitated for even a second longer after leaving Karin's side, that Rasengan would have actually hit her.

Konan's judgment was correct; the information Naruto revealed already showed that he had also marked Karin with the Flying Thunder God Seal.

Konan, flying in the air, looked down at Naruto.

Naruto's tightly closed left eye piqued her curiosity.

However, before Konan could think about it, her attention was already drawn to the Rasengan in Naruto's hand!

Naruto's Flying Thunder God Technique failed against Konan, and he quickly adjusted his offensive tactics. The Rasengan in his hand suddenly expanded and was no longer an ordinary chakra ball.

The change in the nature of the wind caused Naruto's Rasengan to spin even faster.

In the blink of an eye, Naruto had completed the Rasengan transformation!

Naruto flung the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken from his hand, shooting it toward Konan who was flying in the air!

Konan immediately unfolded the paper wings on her back, and countless pieces of paper turned into shuriken that shot out from the paper wings toward the spiral shuriken.

But how could the powerful cutting ability of Wind Release be blocked by these pieces of paper?

The spiral shuriken easily shattered those paper shuriken.

Finally, Wind Release: Rasenshuriken struck Konan, who couldn't dodge it.

However, just like Karin's previous kunai attack on Konan, Konan used the same trick again, her entire body blossoming into countless pieces of paper.

Even so, the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken still managed to catch a large number of pieces of paper, shredding them into tiny fragments.

However, many more pieces of paper managed to escape the attack of Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.

These pieces of paper fell from the sky like white rain.

"Karin, I'll leave the rest to you."

Faced with these scattered pieces of paper, Naruto stopped making a move.

He called out to Karin, who had long since broken free from her bonds.

Following Naruto's instructions, Karin grew several chakra chains from her back!

Karin's Adamantine Sealing Chains reinforced the entire enclosed cube-shaped space by wrapping around the earthen walls Naruto created, the top of the tunnel itself, and the ground.

This time, it was Karin who tightened the chains, forcing the scattered pieces of paper to reassemble into a human shape.

Xiao Nan was bound and tied up in a ball by the King Kong.

The sealing techniques of the Uzumaki clan are not some low-level art.

This time, she could no longer turn into a piece of paper.

"Naruto Uzumaki, no wonder you were able to defeat so many members of the Akatsuki organization—where did you get your information about the Akatsuki?"

Xiao Nan didn't struggle; she wouldn't expose her ugly side just because she was the loser.

On the contrary, because the battle was over, he finally had time to think and became curious about Naruto's intelligence-gathering abilities.

It wasn't until Naruto actively invaded Amegakure that Konan keenly noticed the unusual nature of Naruto's intelligence-gathering abilities.

It's not just about the personal information of the Akatsuki members.

There's also information about Amegakure...

Pain continued Hanzo's policy of isolationism, establishing Akatsuki's true stronghold there, even deceiving the Five Great Nations.

Naruto, however, seemed to already know everything about Akatsuki.

Unfortunately, it was too late.

"I know more than you can guess..."

Naruto approached Konan, and the Flying Thunder God Kunai in his hand pierced Konan's abdomen.

Blood gushed from Konan's abdomen, but Naruto had no intention of stopping there.

He twisted the handle of the kunai, causing the kunai, which was inserted into Konan's abdomen, to stir up her internal organs.

The intense pain caused Xiao Nan to begin to lose her focus.

People who have lost their mental composure are more easily manipulated by illusions.

"If your goal isn't the tailed beasts... perhaps we could become fellow disciples with the same ideals..."

Konan was speechless upon hearing Naruto's words.

Naruto Uzumaki, does he even know about something like this?

Konan, enduring the pain, looked up at Naruto and was surprised to find that Naruto's left eye, which had been tightly closed during the battle, was now open.

The bright red left eye had black lines that resembled a four-cornered shuriken with a curved blade.

Kaleidoscope Sharingan...

With just one glance, Konan forgot the pain Naruto had inflicted on her.

Her consciousness became hazy.

When she regains consciousness, she will be reborn.

But will she, after her "rebirth," still be the same person?

Before her consciousness completely dissipated and she fell into darkness, Konan vaguely saw Naruto's left eye revert back to the three-tomoe Sharingan.

She also heard Naruto whispering in her ear.