Chapter no.155

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....

Satsuki was cut off by large crash of lightning and the roar of thunder, causing the two female Uchiha to jump at the sudden noise. With weapons immediately drawn, Mikoto and Satsuki frantically turned towards the direction where the outburst originated from.

"What the hell was that!" Satsuki all but screamed, completely at a loss of what such a noise could have been when there was not a single storm cloud in sight.

"I don't know but it came from the southern area." Mikoto responded, her body and hearing recovering from the shock that the sudden, incredibly loud echo sent into her system. "Quick, let's go. I know Naruto-kun's strong, but I think he'll need all the help he can get if whatever that jutsu was, was anything to go by."

Without another word spoken, the two ravenettes quickly took off in the direction of the thunderclap. Neither of them could exactly pinpoint exactly where in the southern sector the explosion came from, but they assumed that there would be many more to follow which would help them immensely. Though that line of thinking was a bit disconcerting considering that Naruto would be the target of such explosions. They just hoped they'd make it in time.

{Southern Sector}

Naruto clutched his bleeding left ear as he knelt down on one knee atop of a wooden rooftop that overlooked the street. He had managed to jump out of the way of that burst of lightning, but the shock and sound waves that followed through him across the air onto the rooftop he was currently occupying and ruptured one of his eardrums.

'...Just what...was that?' Naruto thought to himself in between his fits of panting as he stood back up, despite his loss of balance from hearing loss. He hadn't suffered much damage, but such a thing happening so suddenly took a lot out of the young man.

Even with his left ear successfully deafened alongside the ringing in his right ear and coupled with his now blurry vision, he was able to notice the large hotel, that he had passed by earlier, being flung at him from above.

Pushing any thoughts of what was currently happening to the side for the moment, he was forced to take action.

With a simple wave of his outstretched arm, Naruto activated his Enkai (Flame Commandment), amassing a large amount of crimson-orange flames around his body. The move itself wasn't meant to deal with the falling building, in fact it wasn't even an offensive technique, however it was a prerequisite for what was to come.

In the epicenter of the spiraling flames, Naruto, activating Hibashira (Fire Pillar), crouched down until his hands were touching the wooden surface below him, causing the flames to rise and rotate around him more fiercely, after which Naruto shot the collected flames straight upwards, piercing straight through the hotel causing the remnants to scatter in all different directions, as the sky was alit the color of his flames for a few moments.

As the flames dispersed, Naruto's vision began to come into focus once more. Though he was thankful for his sight back and that the ringing in his ears had subsided, even with those ailments he had saw how bright his flames were as they lit up the sky and how loud the destruction of the hotel had been, not to mention how loud the previous thunderclap had been.

That begged the question, why had none of the townspeople come out of their shops or homes to see what was going on in the streets?

'What the hell is going on in this town?'

However, before Naruto could mull over the possibilities, two powerful presences in the immediate area demanded his attention.

"So you managed to survive that huh?" An, obviously male, lazy voice asked rhetorically as him and a shadow-like being emerged from one of the alleyways and casually walked into the middle of the street. "I must commend you on your efforts, even though they'll prove futile in the near future."

Naruto's head instantly whipped towards the direction of the voice as he hadn't been able to sense their presences until this very moment. They must have been the ones who had been countering his Haki since he had stepped foot in the town.

Something told him not to take them lightly.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked with narrowed eyes as he sized up the two new arrivals.

Naruto's eyes were immediately drawn to the slashed hitai-ate that was worn around the taller one's neck, signifying that he was a nuke-nin from Kumogakure. After that, he took in their physical appearances, neither of which could be classified as normal.

However, his eyes narrowed even further when he focused on the second person, who looked like a humanoid black mass with no visible hair or orifices and two yellow eyes that lacked sclerae or pupils. It felt like he knew this being from somewhere in his past, but he just couldn't place his finger on it.

Actually, he could feel familiar presences within both of them but he was at a complete loss as to what that could possibly mean.

"I'm surprised that you aren't aware of what organization we belong to, seeing as how your sisters are our targets this time. We know for a fact that Konoha is already aware of our existence due to Jiraiya's intelligence network." The shirtless man spoke with an air of arrogance to him. "We are known as the Akatsuki, not that it matters since you'll be dead in a matter of minutes."

Naruto froze after absorbing the man's words. If they were after his sisters then the Bijuū were most likely their organizations goal, either that or for the fact that they were practically royalty as far as Konoha was concerned. But if that were the case then he and Nawaki would also be their targets. The fact that they only mentioned Natsuki and Narumi cemented the former. But how could they possibly know that Nawaki was no longer a jinchūriki? That development only happened during the invasion, there was no possible way that information could have spread that fast, and even if it could there was no one around to do so. This meant that at least one of them had to have been there during the invasion.

An entire organization devoted to the capture of the Bijuū did not spell good news. It was then that another thought came to mind. If they were after the jinchūriki for their respective Bijū then why were they here in front of him? They already proved to be skillful enough to avoid detection from even a skilled sensor, so they should have easily been able to capture Natsuki and Narumi without making their presence known. Why risk unnecessary people knowing of their goals? Even if they planned to kill any witnesses, they could have killed the rest of his team already, yet he could still sense their presences.

'Just what is their goal in revealing themselves so openly?'

"You're after the Bijū." It was not a question, but a statement, though Naruto did not voice any of his other previous trains of thought. He was well aware that the rest of his team had heard the explosion and were now rushing towards his general vicinity, but they were still aways off and probably wouldn't arrive for quite some time. Though Naruto was aware that these two shinobi were at too high of a level for him to take on alone, any of his other team members would only serve to get in the way and would most likely be killed in the process. Maybe Mikoto would be able to bail him out, but with her weakened body he couldn't be sure of anything at the moment.

This meant he had to take them both on by himself now if he wanted his team to have any chance at survival. It was quite the predicament, a losing battle no matter which angle he looked at it from.

"Looks like we have a winner." Enel congratulated sarcastically. "Though for the time being, our purpose is only to test how strong they currently are for when we initiate our actual plans. Things wouldn't work out very well if tried to capture them now, it'd actually be more trouble than it's worth at the moment."

"Enel, shut up." Naruto's attention was brought from the Kumo nuke-nin and onto the shadow-like being as he spoke, who was staring at him with unrelenting hatred while subconsciously releasing massive waves of killing intent. "He's mine, just stay out of the way and deal with the rest of his team when they arrive."