Chapter 141: Woodman 2.0

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[Sukaina's POV]

As I arrived with top speed at the prison, I first fell the overwhelming chakra flooding the area, before seeing the actual enemy.

And lo and behold, it was an old adversary of mine. The mysterious Mokuton user, whom I had first met when I investigated the rebellion.

A member of the Akatsuki I had no knowledge of, yet who always managed to get in my way. Or maybe it was the other way around?

In any case, he was a problem, an annoying one, especially since he was about to smash Hideto's head into mush.

So using my speed to my advantage, I landed in between the two, and struck the mysterious man in the chest, sending him flying back.

Patting Hideto's shoulder, I commented, "You did a good job."

Hideto nodded, looking tired, when another voice said, "You took me by surprise. That was quite the punch."

I turned to look at the member of the Akatsuki, who had a small trail of blood falling in the corner of his mouth. Putting a hand forward and the other back, I replied, "No it wasn't. But I can show you a good one."

He snorted softly, "You've grown quite arrogant for a little girl."

I didn't answer his taunt, and instead said, "Hideto, watch Hirahisa, I don't want him to die or get abducted."

Hideto replied by moving next to Hirahisa, who had fainted already, and lifted him over his shoulder.

The mysterious man slammed his hands together, causing a large tree to erupt from the ground, but before it could get to Hideto, I appeared next to it and slashed it apart with a first swing, before jumping at the Akatsuki member, my sword going for his neck.

He was forced to drop the offence as he took a deep breath, his belly bulging slightly as I recognized the jutsu instantly.

I may not have the Sharingan, but I sure knew how to deal with this. Gathering chakra even faster than him, a compressed stream of water left my mouth, colliding with the one coming out of his own mouth.

He was forced to aim it at me too as if he carried on attacking Hideto, then my attack would reach him, and as one who mastered the jutsu himself, he knew he wasn't surviving that.

So our two attacks clashed against one another, creating a loud sound as both of our attacks cancelled one another.

Meanwhile, this gave Hideto the time to move, while there definitely were other soldiers coming our way.

He knew about it too as his face turned into a frown, and he fully focused on me as he said, "You are starting to get on my nerves, and becoming a problem. Haven't I already told you I was working for the Leaf's best interest?"

Nearly at the same time, Jashin suddenly said, "Don't trust him. There's something familiar about him. I feel like we met before."

Curious as I was finally given a hint about this mysterious man's identity, I was about to listen to his explanations, but before I could do so, he attacked me again.

Parrying the incoming kunai with a flick of my sword, I saw four clones appear around him, and with the distraction of the kunai, I actually didn't know which was one was the real one.

In any case, the five of them jumped at me from different directions, all of them attacking in a different way.

One ran straight for me from the front, but with every step he took a wooden armor formed around him, apparently empowering him as it increased his speed.

Another was rapidly weaving through hand signs, quickly forming a giant water dragon, while another did the same, but with a rock dragon.

Finally, for the last two, one was creating dozens of wooden lances, and the last one slammed their palm into the ground. Realizing what the last one was doing, I immediately took them as the real one, as it was the stance of the Summoning Jutsu, and blood was needed to execute it.

In other words, a clone couldn't do it.

But as I arrived before the man and swiped my blade at his arm, forcing him to block, I realized there wasn't any blood on his hand.

And just as expected, the man busted into smoke, revealing himself to be a clone as the four other attacks were now upon me.

I did not panic though as I instantly summoned a large sphere of water in front of me, which enveloped everything before me.

Moreover, I used nature manipulation to divide the water within the sphere into hundreds of small currents, and had them move chaotically around the ball.

Obviously, I had taken the principle of the Rasengan, Minato's self created technique, and what would go on to become Naruto's second favourite technique in another world, to create this technique.

However, it was different in several senses. First, the streams weren't as powerful or numerous as the Rasengan, so they couldn't do much damage. However, what they did perfectly was throw everything thrown in it in chaos.

The two elemental dragons were immediately forced to change directions as they entered the sphere, the water dragon naturally turning into another current of its own while the rock dragon went directly for the armor clad clone.

As for the three who attacked me from a distance, they were all burst open by the wooden spikes, revealing that they were in fact the clones.

With all five of them up into smoke, it was now obvious that the real one was actually hidden.

Not even wasting a tenth of a second to hesitation, I rushed toward Hideto, and sure enough, the mysterious man was quickly emerging from the ground, aiming to attack Hideto.

Hideto wasn't a newbie though, and instantly spotted the man. He did not stop though and instead decided to charge his foot with a great amount of lightning as he brought down onto the man's head.

Unfortunately, the ground next to them rose up as yet another piece of wood came out, this time not attacking but merely redirecting Hideto's foot, causing the attack to miss.

However, this had given me enough time to arrive next to him, and punch toward the mysterious man.

I knew I wouldn't hit him, and sure enough he dodged, but he was forced to jump back to avoid my attack.

But right then, I saw yet another figure appear on my right, and my first thought was that this was yet another clone.

However, as I titled my head to the side, my body already moving to intercept this figure, I figured something else.

First was the mysterious man, whose face was turning ashen. This wasn't a normal reaction to a clone's attack, even if he realized it was doomed to fail.

And more importantly, as I finally saw more of the new arrival, I realized that while clad in a robe of the Akatsuki, this one was much smaller, and much younger than the man, despite looking quite a lot like him.

He was somewhat above my age, in the age where it was hard to differentiate between a man and a boy. But he was undoubtedly a boy, for his naivety.

A wide grin etched onto his face, he screamed, "Got you!"

But I easily ducked under the wooden stake that aimed to blast through my head, and stared at him in the eyes, and saw he didn't even see me move.

Moving quick like lightning, I moved my hand towards his throat, and saw the mysterious man come at me as fast as he could, but he wouldn't make it.

He was strong, very strong. Maybe stronger than me. Maybe not. He was more than decent physically, and had a better mastery over both Earth Style and Water Style than any Jonin I know.

And his Mokuton only served to make him more of a threat than he already was, a worthy S Rank Shinobi, a member of the Akatsuki.

But in the end, all that mattered right now was speed, and I was faster than him.

Yet, I slightly slowed down my hand, allowing him to reach us in time.