Chapter 097: Steampunk Showdown with the Ancient Survivors

"Lucky? Yes, very lucky indeed."

A faint, chilling gleam flickered in Naruto's azure eyes.

It was the power of yin-attribute chakra surging within him. By now, Naruto had driven his chakra to its limit, torrents of it roaring through his body like a rising tide, strengthening every inch of his skin and every fiber of muscle.

A vague sense of unease began to rise in Kakuzu's heart. He realized that things were starting to go wrong.

He stared hard at the boy across from him, secretly alarmed. This kid was absolutely no ordinary opponent.

At first glance, he was clearly nothing more than a hotheaded little rookie fresh out of the ninja academy. Yet for some reason, Kakuzu could feel, deep in his bones, a profoundly dangerous aura coming from him.

It was as though this boy were some ruthless monster who had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, a man even death itself had forgotten.

Suddenly, a thunderous explosion blasted through the air.

Kakuzu stared in shock as the four masks of his Earth Grudge Fear technique beside him detonated at once, their upper bodies blown to pieces, limbs and fragments scattering across the ground.

At the same time, four steam rifles quietly appeared in Naruto's palms and clattered down to the floor.

From the thin smoke drifting from their barrels, one could infer that the deafening blast just now had come from Naruto pulling the triggers of all four rifles simultaneously.

"Individual volley fire. That's a training drill every scout has to learn, not a mandatory course for combat engineers."

Naruto explained at an unhurried pace.

But he was not speaking to Kakuzu in front of him. He was talking to Hinata, who was hiding behind him.

"This move helps scouts break free quickly from attacks by enemy squads. All you need is a more delicate touch when handling spirit-tech energy. You saw what I just did, didn't you? Just practice that."

Kakuzu, this seasoned old hand of the shinobi world, understood not a word of what Naruto was saying.

While Naruto was talking to Hinata behind him, Kakuzu tried to repair the Earth Grudge Fear bodies.

But the message he got back was that although the hearts had not been shattered and could still be repaired, for some reason the flow of chakra had been cut off.

For the time being, they could not be fixed.

With no other choice, Kakuzu could only keep one eye on Naruto while secretly trying to recover his hearts.

He intended to abandon these bodies and create new ones from scratch.

"You Akatsuki terrorist, your luck really is something."

Naruto had clearly noticed Kakuzu's movements.

Frowning slightly, he spoke at an even pace, then casually produced another steam rifle. Holding it steady with one hand, he aimed the black muzzle straight at the center of Kakuzu's forehead.

Naruto's voice remained calm and composed.

"I'm a kind person. Even when facing someone like you, someone who likes to dodge death with schemes and tricks, I rarely feel any real malice deep down."

Narrowing his eyes a little, Naruto went on, "Don't worry. I won't use those inefficient or low-efficiency methods to torment you again and again just to find out exactly how you die. I'll only let you die cleanly, without you feeling the slightest bit of flesh being torn."

Danger!

A bone-deep chill seemed to crawl up Kakuzu's spine and straight into his mind. Terror exploded through him, and his hands flew through seals like lightning, trying to cast a jutsu to escape this lethal crisis.

But in the very next instant, two brilliant flashes erupted at his wrists. The fierce blaze, like two enraged fire serpents, instantly blasted both his arms to tatters.

Fortunately, the black threads linking his shredded arms to his body kept them attached; otherwise, those two ruined limbs would have been hurled gods-knew-where by the force of the blast.

The situation had reached the brink of disaster. In his mind, Kakuzu screamed, too late, harden now!

He threw everything he had into it, driving his earth-attribute chakra into a frenzied circulation, trying to use it to reinforce his upper body and form a solid defense.

Yet calamity struck again. Two even fiercer flames burst forth without warning.

Like lightning, the flames struck Kakuzu squarely in the forehead. The immense force sent his head flying, a sight so horrifying it made the blood run cold.

Fortunately, Kakuzu desperately maintained the chakra inside his body, and the black threads tugged at his head like tenacious ropes, preventing him from dying on the spot from having his head severed.

But his misfortune was far from over. The second attack that followed was even deadlier.

It smashed straight through his chest, blasting a hideous hole open in his torso.

Then came a shocking sight that stunned everyone present:

Inside Kakuzu's blown-open chest were five hearts.

One had already been pierced by the attack and turned into a nauseating mass of mangled flesh.

The remaining four were still beating strongly, but in the glare of that gruesome wound, they looked so fragile, as if they might stop at any moment.

"Where the hell did this kid come from? He's insane!"

Kakuzu was furious and alarmed all at once. In a flash, he vanished from where he stood, rapidly putting distance between himself and the spot while furiously channeling chakra to repair his battered body.

He knew he had to keep moving. He absolutely could not just stand there like an idiot and let this boy do as he pleased.

Only by getting close to him and engaging in close-quarters combat would there be any hope of victory.

Otherwise, he would be pounded relentlessly by ranged weapons until he died in utter humiliation.

Like a ghost, Kakuzu rushed toward Naruto. His tree-branch-thin arms suddenly lengthened, wrapped in clusters of bizarre black threads.

Those threads seemed endless, stabbing at Naruto from all directions like millions of razor-sharp spears, carrying piercing whistles as they tore through the air.

Yet Naruto moved like a nimble bolt of lightning, utterly unruffled amid the storm of attacks. It was as though he were strolling through his own garden; every dodge was perfect, effortless, and precise.

At times, Kakuzu's attacks only skimmed the hem of his clothes, sending out faint, chilling whistles as they passed.

Seeing that his strike had missed, Kakuzu's assault grew even more savage.

His body twisted in an utterly unnatural fashion, as if it had no bones at all. Suddenly, several spiked tendrils erupted from his back, crashing down on Naruto like a torrential downpour.

Naruto responded by springing into the air, his posture as light and graceful as a swallow in flight.

In that instant, a long bow studded with gears and valves had appeared in his hand without anyone noticing when.

With a resounding twang that rang like thunder, the arrow shot out like a falling star and slammed violently into the black threads, sending bursts of explosion-fire scattering everywhere and lighting up the surrounding space.

Kakuzu did not dare let up even for a second. His attacks came in an unbroken wave, relentless as the tide.

He slammed both hands against the ground, and countless black threads poured continuously from the seams of his body, plunging deep into the earth.

The ground then surged with several black chakra pillars, each one like a ferocious black serpent, baring its fangs and claws as it lunged at Naruto.

At first glance, Naruto seemed to have nowhere to borrow force in midair and nowhere to evade.

But he showed no panic whatsoever. His wrist flicked, and he fired a specially made kunai straight at Kakuzu's head.

Kakuzu hastily tilted his head to dodge it. Yet in that split-second of lightning and fire, after a blinding flash, Naruto vanished from the air as if by magic.

A wave of icy dread crashed into Kakuzu's heart. Instantly realizing something was wrong, he cut off the jutsu he was casting and rolled away from the spot in a most humiliating heap.

But he was still a step too late.

Pain ripped through him. An arrow pierced through his back and out through his chest, and another precious heart was destroyed.

Kakuzu turned back with great difficulty. There stood Naruto, silent and still behind him, bow drawn and arrow nocked, the cold point of the shaft aimed directly at him.

"Flying Thunder God Technique. Please, enjoy the performance."

Naruto said coldly, his voice like an icicle driven straight into Kakuzu's soul.