Chapter 291: Clashing with the Akatsuki Organization!
"The sinners of today have truly become utterly lawless. I haven't even gone to find trouble with Akatsuki yet, and Akatsuki actually dares to take the initiative to come and kill me!"
Uchiha Ikeizumi could not help but lament that the wickedness of the ninja world had already reached a point where heavy, crushing blows were absolutely necessary.
"Kojirō, take Izumi and leave via another route."
Lament as he might in his heart, with the sinners right before his eyes, UIkeizumi had no intention of temporarily avoiding their sharp edge.
Previously, Ikeizumi hadn't moved against Akatsuki because there really wasn't much sin residing within Konan and Nagato. The targets of their actions were basically the ninjas of the Land of Rain and the subordinates of Salamander Hanzō.
As for the civilians...
Nagato and Konan were of civilian origin themselves; it was true they hadn't moved against civilians, but under Akatsuki's governance, the Land of Rain couldn't be described as flourishing either...it could only be said that they were merely getting by day by day.
As for Kakuzu, those he killed were originally guys who carried bounties on their heads, along with a few of his own teammates. And what kind of good merchandise could those who were able to join Akatsuki possibly be?
Lastly, Sasori...he actually had slaughtered the innocent. In order to test his own capacity, Sasori had used his Puppet Jutsu to frontally crush an entire nation, causing that nation's order to collapse. Ikeizumi's Wood Clone had previously crossed paths with him and knew that Sasori carried a heavy burden of sin upon his body.
But if one set Sasori aside, the sin currently carried by Akatsuki was actually not even as much as that of some nobles.
However, this was only because Uchiha Ikeizumi did not yet know that Hidan had joined Akatsuki; otherwise, without waiting for Akatsuki to move against him first, he would likely have taken the initiative to strike them down. Unlike the others in Akatsuki, that fellow Hidan was pure, unadulterated evil! To him, whether it was civilians or ninjas, all were merely sacrifices to be offered to his so-called Jashin.
"Detonate!"
Precisely at the moment Uchiha Ikeizumi halted his footsteps, Pain and the others on the opposite side made their move.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
A detonation so terrifying it made the very atmosphere wail instantly resounded throughout this entire region. A colossal fireball soared violently into the sky, and the resulting shockwave caused the trees within a radius of nearly ten kilometers to begin collapsing. The violent explosion seemed intent on turning the solid earth into a lake.
The extreme heat scorched everything in the vicinity, and a grey mushroom cloud rose billowingly into the sky just like that.
"Did it succeed?"
Kakuzu stared deathly at the space where Uchiha Ikeizumi and Kojirō's group had been standing, his eyes carrying a look of deep anticipation.
An instantaneous explosion equivalent to three hundred million normal paper bombs was, in Kakuzu's view, fully sufficient to kill any single person in the entire ninja world; even a Tailed Beast taking such an impact frontally could potentially perish.
Yet, for some unknown reason, a faint, vague sense of uncertain unease instead gripped Kakuzu's heart at this moment.
"Something's wrong!"
"What is that?"
Pain was the very first to see the details of the site where the paper bombs had detonated. Even though this pair of Rinnegan existed within Pain's eyes only through a specialized jutsu, it still granted him a vision that far exceeded that of ordinary people.
At the dead center of the explosion, a colossal Susanoo rose abruptly from the ground. By the time the smoke and dust dispersed slightly more, Nagato and the others could even see that the massive Susanoo had completely enveloped Uchiha Izumi and Kojirō within it!
"Susanoo!"
"The power possessed exclusively by the Uchiha clan's Mangekyō Sharingan!"
Looking at that massive humanoid entity, a rare ripple of emotion finally passed through Pain's pair of Rinnegan.
Nagato had seen the Ten-Tails, and under conditions of extreme rage, he had even summoned the Ten-Tails' husk out. Judging purely by height, Uchiha Ikeizumi's Susanoo could not match the height of the Ten-Tails. But compared to the husk Nagato had once summoned, Uchiha Ikeizumi's Susanoo was far more complete and filled out, and its hand naturally wielded a massive longsword.
"Is this the ultimate power of our Uchiha clan?"
Uchiha Izumi, currently enveloped within the Susanoo, sized up everything around him with a hint of curiosity.
The explosion had appeared without a single shred of warning, but Uchiha Ikeizumi's speed had also been swift to the absolute extreme. When Izumi was enveloped within the Susanoo, she could even still see the ongoing explosions continuing to ripple through the outside world!
"An explosive volume of this scale... did Akatsuki bury the paper bombs of the entire ninja world right here..."
Kojirō looked at everything before its eyes with lingering dread. To put it bluntly, had Uchiha Ikeizumi not reacted with absolute swiftness, this wave of explosions would truly have been enough to leave Kojirō without a single shred of corpse remaining.
"Hey, hey, hey, are we really going to fight a guy like this?"
"Even if I swing my scythe until it shatters, I won't necessarily be able to break this guy's defense, right?"
Hidan had also seen the several individuals enveloped within the Susanoo over there by now. At this point, he had already begun to regret joining this garbage organization; his very first mission out was a hell-grade mission of this caliber...Hidan truly couldn't take it!
"Discard the second plan. I will strike directly!"
Pain also nodded at this moment. The strength of Kakuzu, Sasori, and even Hidan could be considered very excellent, but forcing them to fight a Susanoo was still far too much of a stretch. After all, what Kakuzu and the others were best at was still the traditional ninja style of combat.
As for Pain and Uchiha Ikeizumi, their combat styles were entirely un-ninja-like!
"The Leader is going to strike personally?"
"The power of a god... I am truly anticipating it!"
The gaze of Sasori within Hiruko brightened slightly as well; in truth, he also harbored some covetous desires toward Pain's body. It was just that Sasori had been brutally beaten by Pain before, so he knew that Pain's power was something he himself could not contend against.
RUMBLE!
Precisely at the same time the people on Akatsuki's side spoke, Uchiha Ikeizumi on the opposite side also made his move.
As that massive Susanoo...large enough to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with a mountain range...raised its hand, a colossal blade carrying a strength fully capable of cleaving mountains rushed straight toward the Akatsuki group.
That single arc of sword-light even carved a massive scar into the earth; the air wailed, and the atmosphere roared!
"Shinra Tensei!"
Facing this oncoming, colossal arc of sword-light, Pain actively blocked the path ahead of Kakuzu and the others.
If this arc of sword-light truly landed squarely, Konan should be able to evade it by relying on her paper clones; Kakuzu would drop one life at most, still leaving four lives to waste extravagantly; Hidan would likely be minced into ground meat...whether he died or not being a separate matter.
But Sasori would likely be written off directly under this single arc of sword-light, the kind where even his core could not be preserved! The fact that everyone else in Akatsuki could preserve their lives while Sasori alone could only take it head-on...and couldn't even withstand it...was enough to justify Sasori quitting the organization entirely on the spot.
The power of Shinra Tensei allowed Pain to repel all attacks approaching his vicinity.
Before that terrifying arc of sword-light could completely close in on this group of Akatsuki members, it abruptly altered its direction out of thin air in the next instant, blasting violently toward a mountain peak on the opposite side!
"How could the power of a god ever be understood by a mere Uchiha like you!"
Seeing his Shinra Tensei successfully repel the attack, Nagato spoke up with supreme arrogance.