Chapter 554: Fishing
"The chakra in your body can at most sustain the consumption of that jutsu one last time, after which you won't be able to escape anymore. So..."
"You lose."
Haruno Sakura lowered her hand, a cold smile hanging on the corners of her mouth.
A magnificent ice pillar rose rapidly from the frozen sea surface, like a straight giant tree.
The woman was imprisoned at the top of the pillar. The hard ice had grown to her chest, firmly locking her in mid-air. The Angel of Paper was pale, her smooth wings drooping weakly, the picture as poignantly beautiful as a religious oil painting.
Haruno Sakura looked up at this picture.
Despite being in a predicament, Konan's eyes were still sharp. She pursed her lips, looking back at the girl unyieldingly.
"So what?"
The woman's voice was cold and indifferent, as if she completely didn't care about her own life and death.
She straightforwardly admitted her defeat.
In this battle, Konan had once seized the initiative at the beginning using her secret technique. But soon, Haruno Sakura stabilized her footing with outstanding responses. And after that...
After that, Sakura completely gained the upper hand.
The seemingly evenly matched ninjutsu bombardment and intense battle where it was hard to distinguish the superior from the inferior, for Konan, was a nightmare where she was completely suppressed and led by the nose. Haruno Sakura skillfully cast various Water Release and Ice Release, bombarding her until she was battered and exhausted. In just a few moves, Konan lost the initiative in battle, defending and dodging amidst the girl's continuous ninjutsu bombardment, looking extremely miserable, her stamina and chakra dropping rapidly at a dangerous speed.
Fighting until now, Konan's chakra was exhausted, and her stamina was running out.
She lost.
But so what?
"You discovered long ago that you had no chance of winning." Haruno Sakura narrowed her eyes slightly, her tone carrying doubt, "Why not flee? A battle destined to lose, why keep holding on? What are you persisting for?"
"...Why?" Konan sneered, "This simply doesn't need any reason... because you, a citizen of the Five Great Nations, will never understand the pain of us living in a small country, and will never understand what we are persisting for!"
Haruno Sakura frowned slightly.
If being born in an era of war is a kind of misfortune, then being born in a small country in an era of war is the misfortune among misfortunes. So Haruno Sakura was lucky; at least in both lifetimes, she lived in a peaceful great nation. The feeling of a ruined country and destroyed home only existed in history books for her.
While the small countries and their citizens surviving in the cracks, wantonly invaded by the Five Great Nations... were people living in two different worlds from the ninja of the Five Great Nations.
But Konan saying Haruno Sakura couldn't understand this feeling was also biased. Haruno Sakura was a transmigrator after all, not a simple native. The information she had acquired was far more than ninja living in an almost feudal era, so at least... Sakura could somewhat understand what had happened in those small countries.
On Earth in her previous life, similar tragedies were actually happening all the time in those small countries oppressed by great nations. Just paying a little attention to the news, one could always see news like war breaking out again in a certain country in the Middle East, with hundreds of civilians killed, and the masterminds directing all this were nothing more than those few great nations again. And the life and death of human lives in these areas sometimes even caused less of a stir on the internet than a famous building catching fire in a certain great nation.
Humans, the deep-rooted bad habits of humanity.
Haruno Sakura remained silent. The wars of the Five Great Nations brewed many tragedies; this was their mistake. The appearance of "Akatsuki" was the backlash caused by this mistake.
But this didn't mean Haruno Sakura would just surrender to make up for these mistakes, or that the Five Great Nations should let Akatsuki run amok in this world because of this. Perhaps after solving the Akatsuki problem, the entire Naruto world would reflect on this lesson. Humans would only know the preciousness of peace after suffering enough.
But whatever needs to be reflected and reviewed, it absolutely won't be now.
During battle, she had no spare energy to deeply consider these problems.
Whether sympathizing or not, she and Konan were now life-and-death enemies. What Haruno Sakura had to do was to thoroughly defeat her and her companions!
Konan took a deep breath and continued: "My country was destroyed in the crossfire of your Five Great Nations, my parents were killed by the ninja of your Five Great Nations. In the Land of Rain, there were once thousands upon thousands of wandering orphans like me, most of whom eventually died miserably in the cold and hungry winter... You don't know what we've been through!"
"So the three of you formed 'Akatsuki' to exact revenge on the Five Great Nations?"
"Exactly the opposite." Konan raised her head contemptuously, then said loudly, "Yahiko and Nagato's minds are much broader than your Five Great Nations... They founded 'Akatsuki' not to stir up wars, but to stop wars and realize the dream of world peace!"
"Is that so?" Haruno Sakura laughed out loud with a pfft, her smile full of sarcasm, "The dream of warmongers is world peace... you don't mean to tell me that your Akatsuki capturing dangerous Jinchuriki is also for world peace, Senior Sister?"
Konan was not enraged, instead looking back at the girl calmly and indifferently.
"You outsiders will never understand the will of God, nor do you know the pain of the world..." she said faintly. "So no matter how strong your strength is, you are just a naive and childish little girl. In front of God, the power you are proud of is as tiny as an ant!"
The girl's face darkened slightly.
"Your so-called God is just the possessor of the special Kekkei Genkai, the Rinnegan..." Sakura curled her lip disdainfully, "The Six Paths of Pain merely have somewhat peculiar abilities, stop playing the devil!"
Konan's calm face finally changed. She was suddenly startled and widened her eyes!
"How do you know, who is it?!"
Nagato's intelligence was Akatsuki's top secret and had always been strictly controlled. How could it have leaked out?!
Is it Madara? Is it Itachi Uchiha? Or someone else?
Knowing Nagato's intelligence, yet not knowing that I recently specially practiced tactics against Haruno Sakura, means this person hasn't contacted them recently?
In an instant, her mind was in turmoil, and many suspicious thoughts arose in her head... However, no matter how hard she racked her brains, she couldn't guess that Haruno Sakura actually transmigrated to the future of the original world and obtained Akatsuki's intelligence from there...
This foul-play method had already exceeded the scope of Konan's imagination.
The Angel of Paper steadied her mind, forcefully suppressing the shock in her heart.
So what if the intelligence was leaked? God... is God after all.
Nagato is invincible! Even if the strength of this girl before her eyes far exceeded her predictions, Konan was still full of confidence in Nagato. He would definitely defeat Haruno Sakura!
That's right, it's like this.
Thinking of this, Konan breathed a sigh of relief. The paper clone over there just sent back news that Pain had already set off. Calculating the time, since she had delayed Haruno Sakura for so long... Pain should have arrived long ago.
"Hmph... these don't matter anymore."
The woman said, the solemnity on her face vanishing like smoke in thin air, and gave a cold sneer.
Even though she had been beaten by Haruno Sakura to the point of imminent collapse, the gaze she used to look at Sakura was one of looking down... as if Haruno Sakura was the loser.
Haruno Sakura stood straight on the sea surface not far away, her posture upright, graceful and erect, remaining motionless despite the tossing of the sea waves. The sea surface was also very strange; outside the waves were turbulent, but the place where the girl stood was abruptly calm and tranquil. Only shallow water ripples pulsed glisteningly, gently washing over Sakura's round toes, rolling up bubbles, playfully leaving a ring of lace-like water foam on the girl's ankles.
The girl had been observing Konan's expression, from a momentary panic and shock to restoring calm and sneering. Sakura smiled gracefully, as if she had already seen through this defeated opponent.
Being looked at by Sakura's graceful and confident gaze, Konan's heart suddenly jumped.
For no reason, a thought arose from the bottom of her heart: Was Haruno Sakura really delayed by me for so long because she lacked a decisive method?
She hasn't even activated Sage Mode... A Haruno Sakura with full combat power open, could she ignore the Dance of the Shikigami and instantly kill me in a flash?
Also, since Akatsuki's intelligence has been leaked, would Haruno Sakura not know that Nagato would definitely come to save me?
The smile on the Angel of Paper's face stiffened, her eyelids drooped, and her face turned deathly pale.
No wonder this battle felt so awkward...
Konan finally realized that while she was trying her best to delay time and hook Haruno Sakura, wasn't Sakura also beating her at her own game, cooperating with her to put on a good show to fish out the Six Paths of Pain?
Exactly who hooked who?
"Judging from your expression just now," Haruno Sakura's voice suddenly sounded, "Pain should be almost here, right."
Konan abruptly raised her head, only to see the girl standing far away, a pair of beautiful light green pupils looking at her playfully.
"Then..."
She raised her right hand.
The girl's fair arm pointed straight at Konan, her five fingers spread.
"The bait is useless."