Naruto Chapter 105
Naruto watched helplessly as the woman finished her handseals, as he was too busy with dodging and cutting down the vines to actually attack the Jashinist. It would be hard as hell to stop this cursed ritual from starting.
This was no simple opponent, it was more than likely a high A rank opponent. And they didn't have any high ranking jonin on their team.
He was the highest ranking ninja at special jonin. All the others were chunin, with Hinata and Shikamaru only being rookie chunin. Well, this would need special jutsus. Those overpowered things that he normally didn't use in battle, as they had the bad habit to blow up in your face. But the vines needed to go so that they could stop the Jashinist.
He quickly unsealed one of the flying backpacks that he always carried on his person and activated it, shooting into the air, out of reach of the vines.
He flew above the seal and watched how the insane woman made five earth clones, which walked over to the captives, a knife in hand. He knew that the woman intended to kill the prisoners to activate the ritual.
He needed to prevent that. He sped through the thirty two handseals for this jutsu. It was the only chance he had now. Now the fact that the vines didn't let the others inside was a good thing.
"Water and Lightning release: True thunderstorm," Naruto called out and used one of the full storage scrolls with water to flood the seal and the Jashinist.
The electricity from the lightning chakra that he had moulded had charged each part of the water and his manipulation of the water chakra in combination with the lightning chakra enabled him to control the movement of the water.
Right now the Jashinist had to feel thousands of litres of highly charged water hitting her in violent waves, while the water was held back from getting outside by her vines. He could hear her scream.
He hoped that the victims, who were tied up on wooden structures, would not be hit by the lightning. But he sadly couldn't be considerate right now. The Jashinist would become a horrible threat, should she manage to become a high priestess.
When his jutsu stopped working, he found the woman staggering around, clearly disorientated. He was honestly surprised that she was still alive after a point blank hit.
"You will pay for that!" She screamed and made clones from the water, as the water had destroyed her original clones.
But Naruto only had to flare his own chakra to make them fall apart. That water was charged with his chakra, which meant he had full control over it. The problem was, it wasn't enough water by far to dissolve the stupid seal.
Just enough for his more powerful ninjutsus. The woman now went through handseals again and Naruto was confronted with having to manoeuvre in the air to avoid flying boulders. He also noticed that the vines had lost some speed.
That could be a hint on what kind of jutsu it was and how to stop it. He made two shadow clones that quickly flew to the sides to find out if the people had survived his attack. When they dispelled, he found out that, while some had been hit, the charge they were hit with had been too small to kill them.
They were hurt, but if given medical treatment within the next day, they would recover. And he could set some scheme up to make it look as if he had summoned himself from Konoha via one of the flying thundergod kunai.
It was known to a few people that Naruto Namikaze and Dark Phoenix worked on fuinjutsu projects together from time to time. It wouldn't be too hard to explain away. But first this Jashinist had to die. Otherwise any healing wouldn't do these people any good anymore, as they would have been killed already.
He took a few premade seals from his pouch and used the cover of the boulders to direct them using his wind chakra. The seals only needed to be attached to the woman in some way to work. He needed two to make the trap spring.
He noticed the first one landing and attaching itself to the right leg of the woman, who thankfully didn't notice the contact. A second one got close, but was intercepted by a boulder that was thrown at him again.
Three more seals were stopped by boulders until finally the last one landed on her bare back. She noticed and grabbed for the seal, but the two that had landed activated as soon as they were both on the same body.
The seals made pure lightning chakra, about one thousand volts each, shoot through the woman's body. She screamed in pain and Naruto used the now dropping boulders to send out fifty shadow clones to free the captives.
If he could get them away from the seal, he could prevent the ritual. To his utter shock the woman still was alive.
"No stupid attack can harm those serving God Jashin," she growled kneeling on the ground with her whole body shaking.
"What a freak," Naruto mumbled. He found that his shadow clones had made short work out of the vines tying the captives up and had transported them out of the seal's range via body flicker.
"I will first kill you, then I will kill your team, then I will kill the captives and I will become a high priestess. Then I can finally unite with Hidan and we can bring back God Jashin in human form. Nothing will stop the rule of Lord Jashin," she cackled in the end.
Naruto felt sick, understanding that she planned some sick sexual ritual with the other known high priest of Jashin to become pregnant with a child. He didn't know if it was possible to have child that could bear a god be sired by two high priests, but he would rather not risk finding it out. Suddenly the woman didn't move anymore and seemed to struggle.
Naruto found a thin line of shadows connected to her and followed it with his eyes, finding Shikamaru, who was kneeling behind a sealing barrier that kept the attacking vines from him and Hinata, at the end.
Naruto was glad that the two were safe and had found a way to help him. Probably Hinata had directed Shikamaru with the help of her byakugan. Then a large fireball slammed into the vines and they burned down before some new ones came from the ground. But the burned vines had given Izumo an opening to cover the seal with treacle.
"You didn't think we would leave all the fun to you?" Izumo called out, grinning how his treacle was sucked into the seal.
"About time you acted," Naruto called back, "That woman is a freak with how much damage she can take."
"I doubt she can survive getting cut into small pieces," Shimon commented, raising his sword over his head.
The seal seemed to shake as the treacle was absorbed more and more.
"Uh oh, I think the seal has indigestion," Izumo joked.
"You won't stop me!" The woman screeched and forced her hands to move.
Shimon was about to bring his sword down when a large scythe was thrown into the way of the sword, stopping it dead in its tracks.
"A pity Mala, you were so close," a male voice stated, "Now get those f*ing tree huggers killed so we can make you a proper high priestess."
"Hidan," The woman called Mala greeted happily.
"Shit, the Jashinist high priest," Kotetsu cursed.
Hidan gave an imposing sight with his scythe already back in his hand. He emitted self confidence in each movement. He was also fast and knocked Kotetsu and Izumo away as if they were nothing but annoying flies. Naruto quickly calculated in his mind what to do.
The shadow clones had brought the intended victims away, which meant that this Mala needed to find new victims, if he was successful in getting far enough away fast enough. This wasn't an opponent he could deal with. He was good, yes, but this guy was S-rank and he wasn't that good. Not without taking him by surprise.
The only way to solve this problem was the flying thundergod jutsu, but it bore the risk of giving up his identity. Well, their lives were more important that this secret and he could avoid letting these two find out.
The Konoha team could be sworn to secrecy if he couldn't pull off a ruse. He quickly had four clones set up a barrier around the whole seal area, which caused Hidan to swear like a sailor, and body flickered everybody away.
The two would at least be stuck for an hour, which was enough time to get everybody to safety. And the amount of treacle that the seal had sucked up should be enough to prevent a quick activation of the ritual. This needed the ANBU to take over.
He reached Shikamaru and Hinata at the same time as Shimon. Kotetsu and Izumo were brought there by the clones.
"What now? We aren't prepared to take on a high priest that we can't kill," Shimon asked.
"The seal won't work properly for about a day I think, thanks to the amount of treacle Izumo managed to get into it.
It wasn't enough to fully shut it down, but it will buy us enough time to call for the ANBU from Konoha. We can't take on an S-rank ninja and expect to win or even survive," Shikamaru stated before Naruto could do it.
"He is right. This is far beyond our abilities. The barrier I created will hold them up for a while and I doubt that Mala will be able to perform the ritual any time soon with the amount of electricity that I sent through her with my seals and the true thunderstorm jutsu.
She's only going on by pure stubbornness. We need to get away with the captives. This will also delay them and give us time to call in ANBU," Naruto pointed out.
"Alright, this is the best course of action. But we need to get farther away than our camp and that will be difficult with the two only being held up for an hour, should they not find a way out of the barrier," Shimon commented.
"Say what you want about Hidan, he might be powerful and impossible to kill, but he isn't said to be a smart guy. His tactics are brutal and straight forward. With enough preparation you could take him out of the equation," Shikamaru said, remembering the bingo book entry.
"The Hokage and the ANBU will be able to figure out a solution. And it will take them time to find new victims. You don't simply catch fifty people in a short time when there are no larger villages around. Especially as a large scale operation would call the ninja villages around onto the plan."
The others nodded.
"Still, how do we evacuate?" Shimon asked.
"I have one of Naruto's flying thundergod kunai at the camp. It was a last option measure that the Hokage decided upon. I can call him and he can take the group back to Konoha,"
Naruto said, thinking that his original plan might still work and preserve his identity. But they really needed to get away now. They didn't have much time left.
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