Chapter 373: Uchiha Akira's Fire Release Defeats Konan in a Single Strike
Rain lashed against the cold glass of the high tower's top floor. Inside the dimly lit conference room, the heavy atmosphere suddenly stagnated. The holographic projections of the Akatsuki members flickered slightly as a collective silence fell over them. Everyone noticed the subtle shift in Pain's demeanor.
"What is it?" Konan asked. She sensed the anomaly instantly, her paper-thin steps gliding across the stone floor to stand at Pain's side. Her voice was kept low, meant only for him.
Pain slowly withdrew his gaze from the storm raging outside the window. On that perpetually indifferent face, a rare, almost imperceptible ripple of emotion surfaced.
"Some bugs have gotten in," Pain stated, his voice a cold, mechanical echo that chilled the room.
Kisame grinned, slamming the massive, bandage-wrapped Samehada onto the ground with a heavy thud. "Which blind little mouse is it? Let me go take care of them." He licked his jagged teeth, his shark-like eyes gleaming with the eternal thirst for slaughter. He lived for moments like this, especially when it involved idiots arrogant enough to trespass into the Akatsuki's main headquarters.
"I will go," Konan interjected, her tone crisp and frigid. "The meeting is still in progress. You do not need to handle such trivial matters yourself, Pain." She swept her amber eyes over the gathered criminals. "And there is no need to disrupt everyone's plans."
Konan had no intention of letting a minor intrusion derail their critical strategic deployments., as the Angel who guarded a god, purging the filth from his domain was her divine duty.
Pain remained silent for a long moment. His Rinnegan eyes stared into the void before he gave a slow, measured nod.
"Very well. Go and return quickly."
Konan bowed her head slightly. In the blink of an eye, her physical form dissolved. Countless sheets of crisp white paper scattered into the air, catching the draft and whistling sharply as they funneled out through the narrow ventilation ducts.
Watching the last of the white paper vanish into the vents, Kakuzu felt a sudden, involuntary tremor run through his stitched body. As an ancient relic who had clawed his way through the blood-soaked era of the First Hokage, his instincts for impending death were sharper than a starved hound's.
Intruders? Here? In Amegakure?
His mind raced, piecing together the fragmented intelligence he had recently funneled to Konoha. He knew all too well the terrifying, rule-breaking nature of a certain man. A cold sweat broke out beneath Kakuzu's hood as his artificial hearts constricted violently against his ribs.
'It cannot be...'Kakuzu thought, his green eyes widening in the darkness.'Did Uchiha Akira come here personally?'
Without drawing attention to himself, Kakuzu instinctively shuffled half a step backward, letting the shadows of the corner swallow his projection.
"Alright," Pain commanded, drawing the room's attention back to his imposing figure. "Let us continue the discussion. Regarding the infiltration route into Iwagakure..."
In another dark corner of the room, Biwa Juzo rested a hand against the massive hilt of the Kubikiribocho strapped to his back. A bead of nervous sweat rolled down his cheek. He felt a rising tide of panic gnawing at his gut.
'Is this organization really going to be finished?'Juzo swallowed hard, glancing around at the stoic faces of his peers.'Why does it feel like everyone else is just acting tough, and I am the only one who is actually afraid?'
Biwa Juzo let out a long, silent sigh.
Far beneath the high tower, the relentless rain of Amegakure washed over the cold steel structures. High above the flooded streets, Konan's figure coalesced from the storm. Thousands of paper sheets swirled and locked together, forming a magnificent pair of pure white wings that beat against the heavy downpour. She hovered in the gray sky, a literal angel looking down with absolute apathy at the two black dots standing on the waterlogged street below.
Konan spoke. Her voice was not a shout, but infused with dense chakra, it sliced cleanly through the deafening roar of the rain, echoing directly into the ears of Uchiha Akira and Jiraiya.
"This is the forbidden area of Amegakure. Trespassers will die."
Down on the street, beneath the shelter of a wide umbrella, Jiraiya froze. His wooden sandals splashed into a shallow puddle as he stopped walking. He slowly tilted his head up, his eyes locking onto that painfully familiar silhouette suspended in the sky.
Blue-purple hair plastered against pale skin. Light orange eyes devoid of warmth. That delicate, unchanging paper flower resting in her hair. She had matured into a stunning, albeit freezing, woman, but the Toad Sage recognized her instantly. Beneath the cold exterior of an assassin, he still saw the gentle, kind-hearted little girl who used to smile at his terrible jokes.
"Konan..." Jiraiya took a heavy step forward, stepping out from beneath the umbrella. The rain instantly soaked his white hair, but he did not care. A complex mixture of guilt and desperate excitement flooded his weathered face.
"It really is you!" Jiraiya called out, forcing a wide, nostalgic grin. "You have grown up and become a great beauty."
He tried to use his classic, relaxed tone to shatter the suffocating tension, to bridge the decades of silence between them. But the raw, aching dryness in his throat betrayed him. His voice cracked.
High in the air, the paper angel shuddered.
Konan's perfectly indifferent eyes violently contracted. The stoic mask cracked, revealing a turbulent storm of suppressed emotion.
'Jiraiya... sensei?' Konan mouthed the words silently to herself.
Memories crashed into her mind like a tidal wave. The warm fire in the cave. The frog suits. The man who had given three starving war orphans a sliver of hope when the world had abandoned them... only to vanish into the mist when they needed him the absolute most.
The shock and brief flash of nostalgic warmth twisted, hardening rapidly into a jagged, freezing hostility.
"Why did you come here?" Konan demanded, her voice dropping an octave, laced with pure ice. "That title of sensei... died in the past long ago. Leave this place. Before I change my mind."
It was a mercy. The absolute last shred of their severed teacher-student bond stayed her hand, forcing her to issue a final warning rather than a lethal strike. But her wings flared outward, the paper edges sharpening into razor blades. If they took even one more step forward, she would sever that bond in blood.
Jiraiya stared up at the unyielding determination etched into Konan's beautiful face. The rain mixed with the moisture gathering in his eyes.
"Konan, I came to..." Jiraiya reached out a hand, his voice thick with regret. "No matter what happened, I..."
"Shut up." Konan cut him off, the words snapping like a whip. "That crybaby little girl died in the war long ago. The me you see now... is an Angel."
Dismissing the broken man below, Konan shifted her piercing gaze past Jiraiya, locking onto the tall, imposing figure standing silently beside him.
"I did not expect this," Konan stated, the killing intent bleeding into the cold air around her. "To think even the Hokage of Konoha would come personally."
Her eyes narrowed. If the leader of the hidden villages had breached their sanctuary, there was no room for mercy. Since he had come, he would stay here forever. Buried in the steel and rain.
The massive paper wings behind Konan suddenly exploded outward. Thousands upon thousands of crisp white sheets, saturated to the brim with lethal chakra, folded and twisted in mid-air, transforming into razor-sharp white spears. They multiplied endlessly, a dense, suffocating cloud of weaponized paper that completely blotted out the gray sky above.
"Dance of the Shikigami: Punishment!"
Konan swung her arm down in a vicious arc.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
The heavens tore open as thousands of paper spears rained down upon the street like a localized, apocalyptic storm.
Jiraiya's expression warped into alarm. He immediately bit his thumb, his hands blurring through hand seals to summon his Wild Lion's Mane Technique for defense. But before he could even mold his chakra, Uchiha Akira stepped casually in front of him.
"Flashy and useless," Akira remarked, his voice a dry, arrogant drawl that cut through the roaring wind.
A terrifying eruption of dense, purple chakra exploded from Akira's body. The sheer pressure of it vaporized the rain in a ten-meter radius. In the blink of an eye, a colossal, glowing purple skeletal ribcage manifested out of thin air, securely caging the two men within its indestructible embrace.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
The torrential downpour of paper spears slammed violently into the Susanoo. Deafening metallic shrieks echoed across the abandoned district as sparks exploded against the purple chakra construct. Yet, despite the overwhelming barrage, not a single scratch, not even a hairline fracture, marred the surface of the absolute defense.
High above, Konan's eyes widened slightly. 'This...'
Was this the legendary Susanoo of the Uchiha Clan? Was its defensive power truly this absolute?
Uchiha Akira stood perfectly still within the glowing ribs of the Susanoo, his arms casually crossed over his chest. He watched the futile bombardment with dry amusement.
"It seems," Akira said, not bothering to raise his voice over the chaotic din, "that this good teacher of yours cannot communicate with them either."
He turned his head slightly, casting a sidelong glance at the deeply conflicted Toad Sage standing behind him. "Let us just let our strength do the talking."
Jiraiya stared up at the sky. Konan was radiating pure, unadulterated killing intent. A deep flash of sorrow crossed his aged features. Words would not reach her. This battle today was completely unavoidable.
"Akira..." Jiraiya took a slow, heavy breath, steeling his resolve. "There is no choice. Then let us do it." He paused, his fists clenching at his sides. "But... I am begging you. Do not kill her."
It was his final, desperate insistence as the man who had once taught her how to survive.
Uchiha Akira's dark eyes glinted. The oppressive aura radiating from his body began to climb, growing heavier and more suffocating by the second.
"I will try... not to kill her," Akira replied smoothly.
Before the final syllable even left his lips, Akira's right foot stomped violently against the flooded pavement. The accumulated rainwater exploded outward in a massive crater.
The purple Susanoo dissipated into thin air.
Replacing the ultimate defense was a terrifying, hyper-compressed mass of volatile chakra surging up from Akira's lungs into his throat. Fire Release. Against a jutsu forged entirely of paper, it was the absolute, inescapable nemesis.
"Fire Release: Great Fire Destruction!"
Akira opened his mouth and exhaled.
Instantly, a monstrous, roaring sea of crimson flames spewed forth. The terrifying inferno expanded into a literal tsunami of fire, violently swallowing the heavy rain curtain and instantly evaporating the downpour from the sky. The sheer, apocalyptic heat radiating from the blast caused the surrounding steel pipes and metal balconies of the Amegakure buildings to glow red and melt like wax.
"What?!" Konan's expression shattered into pure horror.
The heatwave was suffocating. Even before the physical flames reached her altitude, the blistering air caused the delicate paper sheets forming her wings and clothing to curl, brown, and scorch.
"Dance of the Shikigami: Shield!" Konan screamed, her hands blurring through a desperate sequence of seals.
Tens of thousands of paper sheets swarmed together in front of her, compressing into a massive, heavily reinforced white barricade. She poured every ounce of her chakra into the construct, praying it could withstand the all-consuming sea of fire.
The tsunami of flames collided with the paper shield.
There was no struggle. No moment of resistance. In a fraction of a second, the blinding heat incinerated the thick paper barricade, reducing it to a cloud of gray ash that was immediately swallowed by the inferno.
Konan let out a sharp, agonizing cry.
The residual momentum of the fire wave crashed directly into her body, blasting her out of the sky.
Just one single move. A complete, devastating defeat.
And this was the result of Uchiha Akira actively restraining his lethal output. Had the Hokage unleashed the jutsu at its full, unbridled capacity, Konan's fate would have been far worse than severe burns and a shattered ego. She would have been erased from existence.
The sheer magnitude of the strike could not be ignored. A thunderous explosion tore through the heavens, violently shaking the foundations of the Hidden Rain Village.
High above, inside the dimly lit conference room on the top floor of the tower, every single projection froze.
Pain snapped his head toward the window, his Rinnegan widening as a blinding, unnatural pillar of firelight soared into the gloomy sky, painting the rain clouds a hellish orange.
"Konan!" Deep within the hidden shadows of the village, Nagato's true, emaciated body let out a hoarse, desperate roar.
A Fire Release of that catastrophic magnitude...
It was not just Pain who realized the gravity of the situation. Obito, Kakuzu, Kisame... the expressions of every single S-rank criminal in the Akatsuki twisted in alarm.
An enemy attack.
And an enemy attack of an entirely different, monstrous caliber.
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