Chapter 49: Nawaki vs. Kakuzu – Water & Lightning Combo vs. Earth Wall, Desperate Defense
Kakuzu's green eyes instantly locked onto the inconspicuous gem at the center of Nawaki's armor brow. He had been poor for too long—with his shallow understanding, he truly couldn't imagine a mere broken stone could buy several large mountains!
So could this stone be worth hundreds of millions of ryō?
Kakuzu said: "Looks like I was too shallow before. The most valuable thing is actually this gem! Looks like today is a big harvest!"
But how to take the gem without damaging it—that was a big problem.
He seemed to have no good solution, so he could only say: "Sigh! Stinky brat, hand over that gem on your head. I'll turn and leave immediately. You can go save your comrades too!"
Seeing Kakuzu's serious tone, Nawaki decided to trust him once!
Nawaki tried pulling it a few times, but discovered Naraku's forging technique was too good—the gem had been completely fused with the armor. Normal methods simply couldn't remove the gem.
And Nawaki couldn't just hand his only weapon to the enemy and completely give up resistance. Moreover, in Nawaki's eyes, this was a weapon personally forged by Naraku, carrying Naraku's expectations and serving as proof of the bond between them!
Kakuzu watched Nawaki, who clearly couldn't remove the gem, and his face gradually darkened.
He felt the kid in front of him was toying with him, so he prepared to act himself.
But he also didn't want to accidentally damage the gem, so next he planned to use Fire Release, Water Release, and Lightning Release to attack Nawaki.
If Wind Release cut flaws into the gem, he would feel heartbroken!
Faint threads of lightning appeared on Kakuzu's Lightning mask.
Nawaki saw the faint lightning on the Lightning mask and sensed the enemy was about to use Lightning Release.
But Nawaki had no Wind chakra, so he immediately began high-speed movement, trying to evade Kakuzu's attack this way.
After the mask monster briefly prepared to release ninjutsu—
"Lightning Release: False Darkness!"
The Earth Grudge Fear Lightning mask monster spat out a sharp and majestic bolt of lightning, carrying terrifying might as it shot toward the distant Nawaki.
The Lightning Release: False Darkness released by Kakuzu was extremely powerful. In the original story, Kakashi needed two Lightning Blades just to neutralize it—and Kakashi's Lightning Blade could even cut lightning from the sky.
Facing this strike, Nawaki had no way to fully resist. He could only rely on his speed advantage to dodge as much as possible.
After dodging most of the Lightning Release attack range, Nawaki had no choice but to counterattack. After covering his long spear with Lightning chakra, he furiously slashed toward the lightning.
However, although part of the lightning's power was canceled, the current still conducted through the spear into his body.
"Ah! Ah! Ah..." Nawaki screamed continuously from an electric shock stronger than Yang Yongxin's electric chair.
His body convulsed uncontrollably, as if every inch of muscle and nerve was suffering torturous torment. His face turned pale, and faint smoke even rose from his body.
Kakuzu, however, did not go in for the finishing blow. He simply stood quietly in place, coldly watching everything happening before him.
As a veteran ninja, he knew there were too many variables in battle and one could not relax vigilance easily. From his many years of experience, sometimes this kind of situation could be the enemy deliberately playing dead to escape death.
Moreover, even if the opponent was truly heavily injured, they might launch a final counterattack before dying and threaten him. Looking at Nawaki collapsed on the ground, Kakuzu used Earth Grudge Fear to extend his right hand toward Nawaki's head.
That gem—he absolutely had to get it!
After several failed attempts to grab the gem, Kakuzu lost patience.
At that moment, Nawaki directly used his long spear to sever Kakuzu's arm.
Kakuzu let out a miserable scream because of this.
It could be said Kakuzu had underestimated Nawaki—and even more so underestimated Incursio. The terrifying lightning had indeed injured Nawaki under the armor's protection, but the Senju clan's thick skin, fast healing, combined with Incursio's terrifying adaptability—
The combination of these two gave Nawaki extremely terrifying sustain. It was precisely Kakuzu's habit of not finishing off opponents that allowed the fallen Nawaki to recover again.
As Nawaki slowly stood up, he discovered that the arm he had clearly severed was reconnected by Kakuzu's Earth Grudge Fear and returned to Kakuzu's body.
Kakuzu also acknowledged the kid and his armor, but compared to himself it was nothing: "Physical attacks are useless against me!"
Don't ask why Kakuzu liked revealing information to enemies. The answer was to oppress the enemy, plus being old and liking to show off!
Nawaki inwardly basically agreed. What made him somewhat desperate was that he had roughly figured out how to kill the enemy: use attribute counters to break each mask separately.
Following the order Water → Fire → Wind → Lightning → Earth → Water, he needed Water, Fire, Wind, and Earth to complete the goal more easily. But Nawaki himself only had Earth, Water, and Lightning chakra natures—he had no Wind or Fire at all.
Of course, if Nawaki mastered more powerful ninjutsu—like Naruto's Wind Release: Rasenshuriken level—he could force destruction and even directly sever the connections between Earth Grudge Fear.
Unfortunately, Nawaki didn't have it!
Nawaki had already prepared himself for sacrifice. He planned to do his utmost to stall the enemy in front of him, absolutely not allowing this enemy to go kill others. The best outcome was to hold out until Lord Orochimaru arrived to save the day.
Nawaki leaped behind a tree and gradually turned invisible. Unfortunately, to a powerhouse of Kakuzu's level, Nawaki's invisibility still had some flaws. The earlier successful sneak attack was mainly because Kakuzu was unaware of this ability, plus the Fire Release cover and the strong enemy causing distraction.
At this moment, two of the mask monsters beside Kakuzu opened their huge mouths again, preparing to release ninjutsu.
Nawaki tried slowly moving his position, only to find the mask monsters beside Kakuzu also moved with him.
He could only release his invisibility—after all, invisibility also consumed stamina and chakra.
Nawaki saw faint lightning and water vapor on Kakuzu's masks and knew the enemy was most likely about to use Water Release and Lightning Release.
Nawaki directly stabbed his long spear into the ground and poured Earth chakra into the spear.
This was also a method Nawaki had discovered while continuously pouring different chakra natures into the weapon. Thanks to the weapon's excellent conductivity and adaptability to chakra, it could act as an auxiliary device for releasing ninjutsu, speeding up the release process. (In other words, like a mage's magic wand!)
"Earth Release: Earth Wall!"
Nawaki instantly created an earth wall to protect himself.
This defensive ninjutsu had a very good countering effect against Water Release.
Instantly, the mask monsters also released their ninjutsu!
"Water Release: Water Curtain Tent!"
"Lightning Release: False Darkness!"
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