Being a rogue ninja is worse than being Hokage.

"Let me drown in this cruel dream..."

"Senior Sister Xiao Nan..."

Chapter 73 God Has Descended [Interlude: The Demise of Dawn]

After the regime led by Hanzo the Salamander was overthrown, Amegakure, reborn under the rule of the god Pain, gained peace.

But this peace has been shattered today.

While the villagers were still wondering why the heavy rain that had been protecting Amegakure had suddenly stopped, a deafening explosion interrupted everyone's thoughts.

The explosion originated from a very common tower in the center of the village.

Even after the explosion, an unusual battle continued inside the tower.

The angel who guarded Amegakure alongside God still wielded her enormous white paper wings, but she was no longer as holy as before; she was covered in mud and grime, her face ashen.

The intruders have put the angels in an unexpected and difficult situation.

Faced with enemy attacks, the angels could only fly in the air and try to keep their distance from the enemy.

But the enemy had no intention of giving the angel a chance to breathe, and the kunai passed through the white pieces of paper scattered around the angel to confuse him.

The next moment, the enemy, who was originally on the ground, suddenly appeared in the air where the kunai was, staring at the angel at close range.

The enemy relentlessly pursued the angel like a hound that had caught the scent of blood from its wounded prey, relentlessly biting and refusing to let go.

"die..."

A powerful wind-style chakra mass coalesced in the enemy's hands, declaring the angel's death in place of God.

"You're the one who deserves to die!"

But the angel merely gazed at the enemy, who had already fallen into her trap.

The pieces of paper that were constantly scattering and flying around the angel were not just meant to confuse them.

When the enemy willingly steps into the encirclement of these paper scraps, they will pay the corresponding price!

Those white pieces of paper contained a considerable number of explosive tags!

boom--!!!

The explosive tags were detonated instantly, and the enemy did not have time to use the troublesome space-time ninjutsu to escape the blast radius—this was to be expected, as it was a technique prepared by the angels to deal with the space-time ninjutsu possessed by Uchiha "Madara," the enemy of God.

Although the number of detonating tags at this moment is not on the same level as that final spell.

But when facing the enemy who has now invaded Amegakure, she used a large number of explosive tags that could kill an ordinary ninja dozens of times!

The enemy at the epicenter of the explosion had absolutely no cover in the air to withstand the chain reaction of explosions.

In the ever-changing battle, the angels' tactics, prepared according to the situation, had few flaws.

She set up an explosive tag trap based on the characteristics of the enemy's fierce attack.

The enemy also fell into the trap as they had hoped.

As the enemy of the Tailed Beast Jinchuriki, she never underestimated his strength.

But she never considered whether her upper limit in using ninjutsu could reach the lower limit of her enemy.

the answer is negative.

That explosive tag attack, capable of killing an ordinary ninja dozens of times, might have also damaged the enemy in front of them.

But it's by no means fatal.

Even insignificant.

Without needing to consciously perceive it, an extremely powerful chakra, exuding a violent aura, suddenly filled the center of the explosion.

The moment this unsettling chakra appeared, the angel felt a lingering chill of malice.

In the next instant, the blazing red chakra transformed into a physical claw, reaching out from the shattered paper scraps and ashes of the explosion at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye towards the angel!

The angel, caught off guard, was gripped tightly by that blazing red chakra hand.

Then, two more chakra hands extended and brutally tore off the paper pieces behind the angel.

The angel, who originally wanted to use the chakra hand's fist to turn herself into paper and scatter to avoid the attack, was surprised to find that she could no longer "disperse" herself.

The red chakra that formed the chakra hand began to flow continuously into the angel's own chakra meridians the moment it grasped the angel.

The red chakra rampaged through the angel's chakra channels, making it difficult for the angel to control his own chakra.

They forced the angels to maintain their physical form.

And with each attempt by the angel to use her chakra, the chakra hand holding her exerts even greater force on the angel.

The pain of the organs being squeezed and displaced became so intense that the angel forgot to resist.

Finally, the chakra that Angel used to maintain his flight also dissipated in this pain.

The two adversaries fell to the ground from the sky.

Only then did the angel see what the enemy looked like.

The enemy's body was enveloped in fierce, gloomy, and tyrannical red chakra.

Six tail-like chakra hands, one of which extends its fist to grasp an angel, while the other five sway behind the enemy.

Tailed Beast Cloak!

For Akatsuki, who target the Tailed Beasts, the power possessed by the Tailed Beast Jinchuriki wouldn't seem strange to the angel.

Compared to the other tailed beast jinchūriki, the angel finally experienced firsthand the terrifying power of the Nine-Tails sealed within the body of the enemy who was the Nine-Tails jinchūriki—the strongest calamity beast that could surpass the other eight tailed beasts with just its own power.

If it were any other Tailed Beast Jinchuriki, not to mention the Tailed Beast cloak, even if those Jinchuriki transformed into Tailed Beasts and became enormous, the previous explosive tag attack would still have been enough to cause them considerable damage.

However, the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki only needed to unfold the tailed beast cloak with six tails to block the explosive tag attack.

And he still has three tails to spare!

Or perhaps... the powerful one isn't the Nine-Tails, but rather the Jinchūriki, Naruto Uzumaki, who can now freely use the Nine-Tails' chakra?

The red chakra hand flung the angel to the ground, where the angel lay helplessly, its chakra channels still being ravaged by the Nine-Tails' chakra.

Naruto removed his Tailed Beast Cloak, and his right wrist, which was originally hanging down parallel to his right leg, bent slightly outward, and the Rasengan condensed in Naruto's right palm.

"It seems everything is over, Senior Sister Xiao Nan..."

Just one final blow and this battle will be over.

Naruto slowly walked toward Konan, the angel who had fallen to the ground.

However, a strange phenomenon suddenly occurred. Naruto turned around abruptly, and the Rasengan in his hand, the size of a palm, rapidly increased in size—a giant Rasengan condensed with even more chakra, which struck towards Naruto's empty back!

What's most surprising is that Naruto's Giant Rasengan actually hit the intangible "air"!

The "air" behind Naruto was caught off guard and took a direct hit from a Giant Rasengan. The powerful force of the "air" revealed its true form.

The wind had already brought Naruto a message: behind him was a giant, invisible chameleon!

The chameleon, no longer able to hide, writhed in agony on the ground for a while, then fell silent.

Naruto looked at the huge, dull Rinnegan protruding from the eye sockets on the chameleon's head. This summoning beast with the Rinnegan was none other than the Animal Path of Pain, who was proficient in summoning techniques.

Using the Wind-Soothing Dawn Technique, Naruto immediately located the Animal Path.

The man, dressed in a red robe with auspicious clouds from the Akatsuki clan, had his face covered with black rods of varying lengths and shapes used for receiving and transmitting chakra.

His orange-yellow high ponytail and a long fringe standing up on one side of his forehead swayed slightly.

He stood on the huge pipe that was used to store and drain water at a high place with a rather contemptuous attitude, looking down at Naruto on the ground with his purple Rinnegan.

At the last moment, Payne finally arrived.

Chapter 74 Pain [Interlude: The Demise of Akatsuki]

"Naruto Uzumaki... What a surprise, why are you here?"

Like Konan, Pain was curious about why Naruto would appear in Amegakure at this time.

After all, in their view, the location of "Akatsuki" was a highly confidential and strict source of information.

In the original work, it wasn't until Akatsuki stopped concealing its capture of tailed beasts and even dared to capture Gaara, who was the Kazekage at the time, thus exposing its whereabouts in the open, that Jiraiya, who had been keeping a close eye on Akatsuki's movements, finally pieced together the clues and located Akatsuki's leader in Amegakure.

In the original story, Jiraiya, who had been collecting information about the Akatsuki organization, showed a serious lack of understanding of Akatsuki's intelligence until his last breath.

And so Naruto... inexplicably stormed Amegakure.

This cannot be explained away with a simple "good luck".

Unfortunately, directly asking the enemy for information is the least likely method to succeed.

"I was lucky."

Naruto explained his appearance in Amegakure with reasons that even he himself couldn't convince.

Pain didn't care about Naruto's attempt to cover it up.

"I'll find out the truth after I catch you... After all, as the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, you were originally Akatsuki's target. Your presence here actually saves me a lot of trouble."

Pain, who can directly obtain information from the soul, doesn't care about Naruto's attempt to conceal the truth at this moment.

"God is all-knowing."

The Human Path, one of the Six Paths of Pain, is a derivative of this concept.

However, Naruto only let out a mocking snort in response to Pain's self-proclaimed god-like remarks.

The most ignorant guy in the entire ninja world is this guy who shamelessly calls himself a "god".

He firmly believed in his close friend Yahiko's naive theory that "world peace can be created without relying on extreme force," until absolute violence shattered that belief.

The destruction of Yahiko and his Akatsuki allowed Obito Uchiha to take advantage of the situation and invade his mind.

So he immediately abandoned his past and Yahiko's dream, and became intoxicated by Obito Uchiha's words that "the ninja world cannot understand each other, and the only way to quell the world's conflicts is to unleash powerful forces and use fear to restrain them."

They completely abandoned the original purpose of "Akatsuki" and turned it into a mercenary organization that pursued profits.

Akatsuki became a tool for Obito Uchiha... or rather, Madara Uchiha, to achieve his own selfish desires.

Even the Rinnegan, which Jiraiya called "capable of changing the ninja world."