Chapter 542: The Sneak Attacker
Swish swish swish—!
The suddenly attacking shurikens shot out like a few cold stars, enveloping the girl who was walking amidst the waves and completely oblivious to this.
The whistling sound was piercingly cold. The sneak-attacked female ninja seemed to have completely not noticed, but the ears hidden under her beautiful hair were trembling slightly.
It wasn't until the cold gleam reached her body that she suddenly reacted—the girl nimbly and agilely twisted her waist and slender neck, dodging the incoming hidden weapons by a hair's breadth, seemingly thrilling but actually handling it with ease.
"Haruno Sakura..."
A voice came from behind.
The sneak attacker seemed not to expect those few shurikens to achieve success in one strike from the very beginning, but rather treated them as a malicious and dangerous way of saying hello.
"You really came."
The clear and cold voice transmitted clearly amidst the noisy rainstorm.
Haruno Sakura stopped her steps and stood tall and graceful, her eyelids half-closed, the expression on her face showing neither surprise nor joy.
The voice coming from behind was very unfamiliar, not the voice of Sasori of the Red Sand, Kakuzu, or other Akatsuki members she knew.
That is to say, the personnel Akatsuki dispatched this time exceeded the intelligence estimates—the ones coming from Akatsuki were not the two-man team she was familiar with, and even... it was not just one two-man team coming.
Right, although whether in this world or the "original work" world she transmigrated from before, Akatsuki only dispatched one team to execute missions every time; but... who stipulated that Akatsuki must only dispatch two people?
Combined with the newcomer's words, it was easy to generate some extremely bad speculations.
Is this... a trap?
Haruno Sakura thought of all this, but her eyes were without ripples, calm as a pool of autumn water.
"You should have continued to attack." The girl's red lips parted slightly, not even turning her head, and said faintly to the enemy behind her.
"Why?"
The sneak attacker's voice rose slightly, still wondering why her previous psychological attack words actually failed to shake the girl's heart.
Did she... not understand, or is she confident enough?
"Because that was your only bit of chance to win."
While answering, Haruno Sakura abruptly turned around. The Water Blade on her hand shot out explosively, chasing the direction of the sneak attacker's voice, slashing across half the sky!
Swish—!
A silver bright light suddenly exploded in front of Haruno Sakura. The silvery-white water line shot out along the girl's slender and straight index finger, delicate and beautiful, yet the whistling sound it stirred up was sharp and dangerous, so fierce it made one's scalp tingle.
The all-conquering ultra-high-speed water flow cut through the air, dividing the sneak attacker into two without hesitation, before finally stopping contentedly and dissipating into the air.
No excitement of killing the enemy could be found on Haruno Sakura's face; instead, her delicate eyebrows furrowed slightly.
Her expression was solemn, staring fixedly at the sneak attacker floating in mid-air.
That person actually hadn't died yet.
That was a woman.
A glamorous and icy woman.
She was about twenty years old, exactly the age when a woman is most charming; her facial features were exquisite, her face beautiful, with a sexy lip piercing under her lip, yet her temperament was extremely aloof and cold. Her voice carried a bit of lazy hoarseness, exuding a fatal and tempting attractiveness all over her body.
Behind the woman was a pair of huge paper wings. She flew high in mid-air, her posture graceful, looking down indifferently at the girl on the sea surface.
More eye-catching than the woman's appearance was her jutsu: she was cut into two segments from the waist, yet didn't die.
Haruno Sakura gazed intently, only to see that the wound which would be fatal to ordinary people, when landing on the woman, didn't make her shed a single drop of blood; the severed lower half of her body scattered into countless pieces of paper right under the girl's eyelids, gathered again at the woman's wound, and restored her body!
Obviously... her entire graceful body had changed from a body of flesh and blood into a paper body folded from infinite pieces of paper!
Obviously, this was an extremely profound Yin-Yang Release secret technique, able to transform oneself into a combination of paper pieces, thereby immunizing against all physical forms of attack, extremely similar to the Hydrification Technique.
Haruno Sakura's mind raced, rapidly recalling intelligence in her brain.
Paper secret technique...?
The identity of the newcomer was already abundantly clear.
"God's Angel..." Sakura's voice was indifferent as ice, a pair of emerald eyes looking at her emotionlessly, and said coldly, "Konan?"
The woman's expression changed slightly.
The light in those pale orange cold eyes rippled slightly, and she asked: "You know me?"
Who leaked Akatsuki's intelligence?
The woman was startled in her heart, but the expression on her face remained arrogant, glamorous, and indifferent, flapping the huge wings behind her and flying high.
Haruno Sakura had just cut her into two segments from the waist, and in the blink of an eye, that slender waist was restored as before.
"Nagato, Pain, and you..." Haruno Sakura calmly recounted that top-secret intelligence, "Don't tell me you guys thought Jiraiya was already dead!"
The true intelligence was actually obtained from another world, which Haruno Sakura naturally wouldn't say.
She casually pulled Jiraiya out as an explanation. It didn't matter whether the other party believed it or not, anyway they would never guess the correct answer.
"Jiraiya-sensei... huh?"
Konan lowered her eyelids, her eyes flickering a few times.
Mentioning this person, her emotions were suddenly a bit agitated, the high peaks on her chest trembling a few times, but eventually calmed down.
Unfortunately, that man was already an enemy to them.
Calming down, with Haruno Sakura bringing out Jiraiya as an explanation, she could only accept it half-believing and half-doubting, after all, there was no better explanation.
Even Itachi Uchiha, who was the most suspicious, couldn't possibly know those three names; and the people who knew her and his identities were, besides Jiraiya, only Tobi who called himself Madara Uchiha. However, although each harbored ulterior motives, Konan didn't think Tobi would leak Akatsuki's intelligence to Konoha's people.
Konan took a deep breath.
Whether what Haruno Sakura said was true or false, whether Jiraiya discovered their identities, these were no longer important.
"It seems you have discovered some of Akatsuki's secrets and also got my intelligence..." The woman said indifferently, "However, this won't affect the final result."
"Nor will it affect the ending of you being defeated here!"
Konan's tone was resolute and decisive, full of confidence.
Haruno Sakura frowned tightly.
Admittedly, when she first found that the Water Blade didn't kill Konan, she was a bit surprised. In the intelligence given by that world, the data on Konan was the least, so Haruno Sakura also didn't expect Konan to actually have such a move to immunize against physical attacks.
Paper Release... Generally speaking, secret techniques that don't belong to the five basic nature transformations are a kind of Yin-Yang Release. If Konan could immunize against physical attacks, a considerable part of Sakura's attack methods would indeed be invalidated.
But this wasn't much.
The problem was that she was finally targeted.
However, this was also something Haruno Sakura had long anticipated. Any normally operating organization wouldn't fail to collect intelligence on an enemy opposing it for a long time and make corresponding deployments—after all, she wasn't the protagonist of a mindless web novel, lacking the aura that lowers everyone else's IQ.
Haruno Sakura had fought so many battles with Akatsuki, and even killed several Akatsuki members. It would be strange if she wasn't targeted.
Her attack methods leaned towards physical. Whether it was Water Release, Ice Release, Taijutsu, or even Genjutsu, they all tended towards physical attacks, and she was very unskilled in Fire Release; Konan's Paper Release happened to be completely immune to physical attacks. Theoretically, this woman would indeed counter her quite a bit.
But... is it really that simple?
Haruno Sakura sneered.
"You are overly confident." She narrowed her eyes slightly, stretching those beautiful eyes slender and cold, and said faintly.
"The one who will lose is you, not me!"
When saying this sentence, Haruno Sakura had already thought of several strategies to deal with her in her mind!
"Is that so?"
Not only did Konan not have an enraged demeanor on her face, but she smiled slightly instead.
"Then I'll wait and see."
Saying that, she abruptly raised her chakra. A concise and vast momentum instantly emanated from this angelically beautiful woman, permeating between the sea and sky.
The spirit was quite astonishing.
As expected of an official member of Akatsuki!
Haruno Sakura raised her eyebrows.
Judging solely by momentum, among the many outstanding and powerful females the girl had met, the strength of this woman before her eyes was completely not below her master Tsunade and Mei Terumi!
Unlike what was imagined, Konan was not a pure vase, a foil beside Pain, but a true powerhouse.
A "Kage" level powerhouse!
Among female ninja, she could probably already be considered a top-tier figure of the current era.
Truly remarkable.
However... the person standing opposite her was someone similarly often misunderstood as a flashy but useless vase with low combat power, but whose strength was actually one of the absolute top existences among all ninja in the current era!
Yes, she was one of the strongest ninja of the current era...!
Haruno Sakura shook her neck and rubbed her wrists.
Yin Seal... Open!
Secret Technique: Sakura Dash Stage Three... Open!
The frantically surging chakra sometimes escaped outside the girl's body, turning into a momentum so dense it almost became substantive, suppressing even the noisy rainstorm.
For a moment, near this small sea area, the wind seemed to have become smaller, the rain seemed to have become finer, the waves seemed to have become shorter, and the sounds seemed to have become quieter.
The girl raised her head, looking at Konan flying in mid-air.
A faint smile appeared on her face.
The latter flew extremely high, the smile on her face fading.
Her expression became serious.