Chapter 160: Torune and Fu
A Root Ninja had just finished a patrol rotation and stopped at the handover point, preparing to take a short break.
He leaned against the cold wall, his face beneath the mask showing signs of fatigue.
Suddenly, he felt a chill in his chest.
It wasn't the sharp pain of being pierced, but a strange, rapidly spreading coldness, as if his blood and heartbeat had been frozen in an instant.
He looked down in shock, seeing that a crystalline longsword had been thrust into his chest at some unknown moment.
"Wh... at..."
He wanted to shout, but found his voice frozen in his throat.
In the next second, ice crystals suddenly erupted from inside his body, bursting outward.
Fine ice thorns instantly pierced his organs, blood vessels, and muscles, even erupting from beneath his skin, 'exploding' him from within into an ice sculpture frozen in a state of shock; it then shattered silently, turning into crystalline powder all over the floor without leaving a single trace of blood.
In the pupils of his final moments, he only had time to reflect a fleeting, blurry figure in a black robe with black hair wearing a strange fox mask, and a glimpse of the empty mask holes in the darkness.
Naruto's figure did not pause for a moment, not even looking back at the "ice sculpture" that had instantly dissipated.
Withdrawing the ice blade, Naruto's form merged into the darkness again, rushing toward the next locked Chakra reaction point.
The hunting hour had already begun.
This secret dark cleansing taking place in the deepest part of Hidden Leaf Village's underground was quietly proceeding with startling efficiency and ruthlessness.
And his target remained only one: Danzo, who was dreaming of becoming Hokage.
That old fellow actually wasn't staying on the lowest level; where was he?
Ten minutes later, Naruto sensed that a Shadow Clone had disappeared.
The memory sent back by the Shadow Clone instantly informed Naruto of Danzo's location.
That Shadow Clone had been poisoned to death by a venomous insect from Aburame Torune that crawled into its clothes.
So that's how it is.
Naruto dispelled the remaining Shadow Clones, and then three sections of wood grew from Naruto's back, slowly transforming into his likeness.
Wood Release: Wood Clone Technique.
Naruto's figure dashed through the intricate passages, quickly arriving at the place where the previous Shadow Clone had dissipated.
This was a large hall.
At the other end of the hall, in front of a heavy door, stood three people.
The leader was none other than Danzo Shimura.
He wore the Hokages Ceremonial Robe, and the shadow of the Hokage hat almost completely covered his face, revealing only tightly pursed lips with a hint of a gloomy curve.
He seemed to have just stepped out from behind that door.
To Danzo's left was a man wrapped entirely in dark tight-fitting clothes and a mask, with even his eyes hidden behind goggles; his aura was cold and silent, as if merging with the surrounding darkness.
Aburame Torune.
To the right was a man with a slightly feminine air and long orange hair, Fu Yamanaka.
The moment Naruto's figure appeared at the entrance of the hall, Danzo seemed to slightly lift his hat, revealing that cold left eye.
He clearly recognized the identity of this uninvited guest as the person who had just tried to assassinate him; had the original body come this time?
However, there was no sign of panic or surprise on Danzo's face, only a controlled indifference and a hint of annoyance at being disturbed.
He didn't even give Naruto a second look, as if this intruder, who could silently infiltrate the core of Root and instantly take out the guards along the way, was merely a slightly troublesome fly.
He just waved his hand toward Aburame Torune and Fu Yamanaka beside him.
The movement was casual, like shooing away a mosquito.
The meaning was clear: get rid of him.
After giving this extremely concise command, Danzo seemed to lose interest in everything that followed.
He pressed down the brim of his hat with one hand, hiding that cold eye back in the shadows, and turned back into the room without hesitation.
Danzo's figure disappeared once more as Aburame Torune and Fu Yamanaka bowed slightly to take the order.
"Bang."
The heavy door closed again, isolating the inside from the outside.
In the hall, only Naruto remained to face off against the two top experts of Root.
Throughout the entire process, Danzo hadn't said a word, nor had he shown even a hint of intent to fight.
That arrogance of treating an intruder as nothing, and the coldness of casually tossing trouble to his subordinates, showcased the habits he had cultivated over many years in a high position within the shadows.
Naruto's azure eyes stared coldly at the closed door through the eye holes of his fox mask.
Danzo's avoidance of battle and contempt did not cause the slightest emotional fluctuation in him.
As the door shut,
Aburame Torune slowly raised his hands, and fine dust with a dangerous purple-black luster, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, began to seep from between his fingers.
Those were swarms of venomous nano-insects capable of eroding cells and dissolving flesh and blood upon contact.
Fu Yamanaka drew the longsword from his back, preparing to finish Naruto off.
The Shadow Clone from earlier was already so difficult to deal with; if this one was the original body, it would certainly be even more troublesome.
Naruto made a gesture with his left hand.
No hand seals, no lengthy prelude.
It was as if the air around his palm was violently stirred and compressed by an invisible force, then instantly released.
An unimaginable, violent suction—not blowing forward, but centered on Naruto—formed a small-scale, high-intensity, yet completely reversed terrifying eye of a hurricane.
The purple-black mist of venomous insects that was originally drifting toward Naruto was instantly strangled and cleared by this sudden storm, then blown back toward Aburame Torune.
"What?"
Aburame Torune's eyes behind his goggles widened, but the wind pressure was so strong and abrupt that it completely disrupted his Chakra control rhythm. The venomous insects were swept up by the storm and lunged back at him and Fu Yamanaka beside him!
Fu Yamanaka's expression also changed drastically as he swung his longsword, trying to cut through the wind pressure and the insect swarm, but the wind was formless and the insects were tiny; his sword light could only cleave through a few.
Aburame Torune stood in front of Fu Yamanaka to block the corpses of the venomous insects, preventing him from being poisoned.
In the instant the storm rolled back and the two responded somewhat clumsily,
Naruto's figure rushed in front of them like a ghost.
In the next moment, Aburame Torune and Fu Yamanaka felt their necks tighten simultaneously.
An irresistible, massive force gripped their throats like iron pincers, slamming their bodies—which hadn't yet fully stabilized—violently against the cold wall behind them.
Boom!
Boom!
Two dull impacts sounded almost at the same time, and fine cracks were smashed into the surface of the wall.
Aburame Torune and Fu Yamanaka were pinned dead against the wall, their feet off the ground; the intense feeling of suffocation and the dizziness from the impact caused them to lose their ability to resist instantly.
Too fast!
From the wind pressure rolling back to being captured, the time was too short.
Aburame Torune's face under the mask twisted due to suffocation, but the nano-insects inside his body sensed that their host was under a fatal threat and reacted immediately.
Countless even finer and more deadly venomous insects poured frantically from his skin pores and even from his gripped neck like a black tide, spreading up Naruto's arm that was clutching his throat, preparing to instantly engulf and dissolve the attacker.
However, just as the venomous insects were about to touch Naruto's skin,
Naruto's arms gripping the two, along with his entire body, suddenly underwent a change!
His skin quickly lost its color, turning into a coarse wood grain, and just before the insects could bite, his form shriveled as if drained of moisture, turning into two pieces of tough wood that tightly coiled around the necks of Aburame Torune and Fu Yamanaka, binding their bodies to the rock wall.
Loving Book So Far? Check Out 30+ Advanced Chapters At PA Treon
patreon.com/FictionOP