Naruto: Menma Exiting Infinite Tsukuyomi

Chapter 195: Amaterasu no Mikoto and the Akatsuki

"...Something's not right!"

The sensory-type Iwa-nin pondered for a few seconds, finally saying cautiously: "Retreat! Go back and report to the captain!"

With that, he decisively turned and left.

The two Iwa-nin beside him also reacted in the first instance.

After a moment's hesitation, they decisively followed.

Although they hadn't seen the figure their comrade spoke of, to ensure the team's safety, they had to be cautious no matter what.

At this time, they had to transmit this important intelligence back to where the team was stationed.

However, just as they were about to make a move,

Whoosh!

A chilling killing intent suddenly appeared behind them. The three, enveloped by this killing intent, couldn't help but stiffen.

Then, the sensory Iwa-nin only heard a muffled sound from beside him.

Thump thump! Thump thump!

As if realizing something, the sensory Iwa-nin's breath instantly hitched, and his heart began to pound violently.

He was all too familiar with this sound.

This was... the sound of a sharp weapon piercing flesh.

The sensory Iwa-nin turned his head somewhat stiffly, looking at his comrade beside him who was making strange sounds.

"Hkk... hkk~"

He saw blood continuously overflowing from the corner of his comrade's mouth, his stiff body twitching constantly.

A short sword, stained with blood, had pierced through his chest from behind.

A figure that seemed to have blended into the shadows, like a phantom, had appeared behind him at some unknown time, without a sound.

Looking at the black shadow so close, the sensory Iwa-nin's heart suddenly sank.

"You... you bastard?!"

He forcefully suppressed the fear in his heart, trembling as he took out a kunai, wanting to fight.

But the black shadow flickered, vanishing from before him in the blink of an eye.

Before the Iwa-nin could react, he saw a flash of cold light.

The kunai in his hand snapped in the middle, half of it slowly sliding down.

"Hkk!"

The sensory Iwa-nin was about to do something, but suddenly felt a sharp pain and a chill on his neck.

Hiss... Sssst!

A cold cut was slowly drawn open, and a large amount of blood suddenly gushed out.

His eyes instantly widened, filled with fear and unwillingness, as he slowly fell backwards.

From the silent appearance of the black shadow to the sudden death of the two Iwa-nin, the entire process took no more than two or three seconds.

After killing the two, the black shadow

didn't even glance at the two corpses, but instead turned its gaze to the last Iwa-nin.

He saw that the Iwa-nin had already taken out a signal flare and was about to launch it.

The black shadow fiercely swung out its short sword, aiming for his wrist.

Crack!

"Ngh!"

The hand was directly severed by the sword. The Iwa-nin let out a pained, muffled grunt, and the signal flare also fell to the ground.

The Iwa-nin didn't hesitate, fiercely smashing a smoke bomb from his other hand.

Immediately, he decisively pulled away, ignoring the person behind him, turning his head and fleeing for his life.

"Who is this monster? It's just like..."

-- Like... a shadow!

The Iwa-nin easily judged the strength gap between the enemy and himself.

This kind of enemy was not an existence he could deal with at all.

His stealth ability was simply too strong.

Clearly, they had a sensory ninja on their side, yet he only revealed his killing intent when he was right behind them.

Then, without giving any chance to react, he killed two people cleanly with just two swings of his sword.

He now only wanted to deliver the news back as quickly as possible, to gather his teammates to deal with this "shadow" together.

However, before he could run more than a few steps,

he suddenly felt his body disobey his commands, staggering as he pitched forward to the ground.

"What?"

The Iwa-nin turned his head with a look of astonishment and bewilderment.

He saw that his body had been cut into two sections at the waist.

The part of his body below the waist was still standing there, large amounts of blood gushing from the incredibly smooth cut.

"Haah... AHHHHH!!"

After a moment, the dazed Iwa-nin began to wail with a heart-wrenching scream.

The terrifying, intense pain surged up like a tide.

Even a well-trained ninja could not endure the pain and fear of being directly cut in half at the waist.

"Sorry. But could you be a little quieter?"

Accompanied by a slightly apologetic voice, a figure completely wrapped in a black hooded cloak slowly approached.

Looking at the figure gradually walking towards him, looking at the dripping short sword in his hand, the Iwa-nin's face, twisted with pain, also showed a look of terror and venomous hatred.

"Kill me! Give me a quick death!!"

The Iwa-nin shouted with tears and snot streaming down his face: "I will never betray the village's intelligence! Kill me!"

With such terrifying injuries, he was already dead.

But he would absolutely not expose the team's stationed location. He now only begged for a quick death!

"If this is your last wish..."

The hooded man looked down at him, shaking his head with some pity: "Sorry, I cannot grant it."

"However, since you are unwilling to tell me, I will not force you to answer."

Hearing this, a look of joy instantly appeared on the Iwa-nin's twisted face.

But the next second, when he looked up and met the man's eyes, the smile on his face instantly froze.

Because under the eyeholes of the mask, a scarlet three-tomoe Sharingan slowly appeared.

"...Uchiha!!"

Coming from Iwagakure, he couldn't be clearer about what this pair of Sharingan meant.

It was... the despair of being unable to keep secrets even in death.

"The position I just cut was the waist."

Shisui's tone was calm: "Although your internal organs and blood are flowing out, your major organs were not damaged. Even without any hemostasis measures, you will still take several minutes to bleed to death."

"These few minutes are enough for me to obtain all the intelligence I need."

The instant his voice fell,

the Iwa-nin, looking at him, only saw a flash of scarlet.

Three tomoe, exuding an evil aura, gradually magnified in his vision.

"Don't worry. It will only hurt a little at the beginning. You will soon die in the genjutsu."

Although Shisui's tone sounded very gentle and compassionate,

the Iwa-nin, with his remaining shred of consciousness, only felt his body turn cold, his eyes also showing a deep look of despair.

Finally, his gaze gradually became vacant, and his consciousness slowly fell into darkness.

After a moment,

the Iwa-nin completely lost all signs of life.

"Over there, hmm?"

The scarlet color in Shisui's eyes also dissipated. He turned his body and looked far towards the southeast direction.

"If there are no surprises, Izumi's side should have already started."

Then, he can't fall too far behind.

Thinking this, Shisui's figure once again blended into the darkness.

...

Inside the temporary encampment of the Iwagakure mining team.

"Kakuzu, what's with these Iwagakure guys?"

A strange puppet, crawling on the ground, came to Kakuzu's side, questioning him impatiently: "When are they going to make a move? I'm in a hurry to supplement my suitable materials!"

With that, he glanced casually at the corpse beside him, his tone becoming even more irritated.

He had searched the vicinity for so long, but only found one piece of trash.

Probably in this small country, there weren't many ninja who could meet his minimum requirements.

Kakuzu glanced at the corpse Sasori brought back, then took out a worn and thick bounty book from his robes.

"What's the rush? Making money requires patience. Wait for their advance scout team to return."

He flipped through the bounty book, answering casually: "Ahead is the territory of the Land of Rivers. The only remaining ninja force in this country is concentrated there. If you kill them all later, you should be able to find some suitable puppet materials."

Sasori couldn't help but let out a cold laugh upon hearing this.

This guy Kakuzu clearly wanted to use him as a tool.

When the time comes, after he has wiped out this small country, there will always be some small fry with bounties on them.

However...

"It's not the first time I've destroyed a country."

Sasori tossed the corpse aside with some disgust: "Although they are all trash, I can only make do with them for now."

With that, he turned his head again to look at Kakuzu.

"Kakuzu, if you die, your body is mine."

Sasori's voice was hoarse and low, extremely unpleasant.

Finding that this corpse had no bounty, Kakuzu also said perfunctorily with some impatience: "You can try."

Just then,

"Sirs."

The Iwa captain walked over with a grave expression: "There might be an abnormal situation."

Kakuzu asked without looking up: "What abnormal situation?"

"We've lost contact with the advance scout team."

"...Lost contact?"

Kakuzu looked up with some surprise upon hearing this.

If he remembered correctly, the advance scout team had one sensory ninja and two Jōnin, right?

They couldn't even send out a signal in time?

"Cut the crap!"

Sasori beside him, seeing this, said very impatiently: "No matter who we encounter in this broken place, it's impossible for them to defeat the two of us!"

"Instead of dawdling here, we might as well just push forward now!"

This group of Iwa ninja were simply too timid.

It was just an ordinary resource mining mission. What level of enemy could they possibly encounter in the Land of Rivers?

"...Mm, let's do as he says."

Kakuzu pondered for a moment, then also nodded: "With the two of us protecting you, you can all rest assured."

Seeing that these two masters had made up their minds, the Iwa captain only hesitated for a moment before silently going back to continue organizing the team.

Right now, besides trusting them, there was no other choice.

But just as Kakuzu stood up and was also preparing to pack up and leave,

his footsteps suddenly paused, and he keenly sensed something.

He subconsciously looked down.

Silent stillness, deep shadows.

Those shadows, for some reason, had become darker than usual, looking like a bottomless darkness of thick ink.

"Sasori... the shadows..."

Intermittent, stiff words came from Kakuzu's mouth.

He struggled to control his head, turning to look at Sasori.

But from the corner of his eye, he saw that Sasori was the same as him.

-- Someone had controlled their bodies with a shadow technique.

Damn it!

Kakuzu cursed inwardly.

But before he could react,

the next second, countless strange and twisted shadows rushed towards him from the trees and the ground in a bizarre, confusing manner.

Finally, all the shadows converged at one point, condensing into a figure completely enveloped in a cloak.

Uchiha Shisui's dark eyes held only a cold color.

His figure flashed towards Kakuzu, the black blade in his hand unhesitatingly slashing across Kakuzu's body.

Splurt!!

Blood gushed from Kakuzu's chest.

This one slash cut from his chest to his heart, revealing the body full of stitches beneath the black robe with red clouds.

"This guy..."

Shisui's movements paused, his expression also somewhat astonished.

He had clearly shattered this person's heart, but why could he still hear a heartbeat?

No, that's not right.

This isn't the heartbeat of one heart.

This is... the heartbeat of several hearts overlapping.

"Ughh!"

With a low roar, four monsters wearing white masks and composed entirely of black threads rushed out from Kakuzu's body, then scattered in all directions.

"What is this secret technique?"

Shisui's gaze sharpened, and he decisively retreated backwards.

At this time, one of the monsters with red patterns on its mask opened its mouth towards Shisui.

Fire Style: Searing Sorrow!

One after another, fireballs shot out from the monster's mouth like cannonballs!

Shisui didn't make any extra movements, instead, his hands once again rapidly formed seals.

"Fire Style: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet!"

In an instant, a giant dragon head of fire was spat from his mouth, roaring silently as it rushed towards Kakuzu.

BOOM BOOM BOOM!!

The fireballs struck the fire dragon, emitting a series of loud bangs and stirring up a sky full of flames, which diffused into a cloud of smoke and dust.

When the smoke and dust gradually dissipated,

Kakuzu and Sasori, their clothes tattered, had already broken free from the control and were facing off against Shisui, who wore a black cloak, looking at each other from a distance.

"You bastard..."

Kakuzu sized up Shisui with a grim expression: "Shadow technique... are you from Konoha's Nara clan?"

"No, that's not right. Although the Nara clan is cunning, their shadow technique is not this bizarre."

Thinking this, he stared intently at the three-eyed cat-face mask on Shisui's face.

"A three-eyed cat-face mask... could you be Ame-no-Minakanushi of the Crimson Moon organization?"

Hearing Kakuzu say this, Shisui immediately understood that Kakuzu must have grasped the characteristic attire of Crimson Moon, which was why he identified him as Ame-no-Minakanushi.

So he pointed at the mask on his face, shook his head, and chuckled lightly: "Sorry, I am not Ame-no-Minakanushi. I am Amaterasu no Mikoto of Crimson Moon."

Kakuzu said in a deep voice: "What Amaterasu no Mikoto? Are you messing with me?"

He had never heard that "Crimson Moon" had any other members besides "Ame-no-Minakanushi."

Sasori said in a low, muffled voice: "His mask does seem different from that 'Ame-no-Minakanushi.' They should just be from the same organization."

"...A member of Crimson Moon? Didn't expect to meet one here."

Kakuzu's attitude was still calm as he spoke to Shisui in a condescending tone: "What does your Crimson Moon want? The Akatsuki has already accepted this mission!"

"Please don't misunderstand."

Shisui smiled somewhat helplessly: "My mission is only to stop you from advancing further."

"If I'm not mistaken, the secret technique you're using should be the secret technique of Takigakure, Earth Grudge Fear... I didn't expect this secret technique, which had disappeared for decades, to have fallen into your hands."

"I've changed my mind."

Kakuzu's expression instantly darkened, his tone icy: "Tell me the whereabouts of Ame-no-Minakanushi, and hand over all your organization's intelligence. I can spare your life!"

Sasori at the side said impatiently: "What's the point of wasting words with him! I'm very satisfied with this guy's body! Just kill him directly!"

SWISH!!

The instant his voice fell, a sharp weapon like a scorpion's tail suddenly stabbed towards Shisui.

(End of Chapter)

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