Kapitel 367: Hostage for an Hostage
"How dare a kid like you stand in my way? Get out of my way or I'll tear you to pieces." Kakuzu roared.
"There is no way I am letting you get past me." Naruto said as a shadow clone appeared beside him and a Rasengan started forming in his hands.
On the other side, Yami was relentlessly chasing after Konan. Konan was missing the attacks of the scorch-style tentacles by a very narrow margin but the damage and exhaustion was slowly building up. This made Konan more and more weak as time passed but this also gave Tobi the time to get close to Konan. Due to his space-related abilities, neither Kakashi nor Might Guy were able to hit him even once.
'I didn't expect Yami to disregard the life of the hostages and go straight away toward Konan. I can't let her die here or else that idiot Nagato might do something foolish. The other members of the Akatsuki are expandable but not Konan.' Tobi thought as he reached behind Konan and started his Kamui to pull her inside her space.
Konan sighed in relief as she saw this happening. This meant that she would be safe now but Yami wasn't one to let her go this easily.
"We just met and you are planning to leave just like that." Yami said as his sword turned from purple to black and he swung it but not at Konan or Tobi but between the two of them.
Tobi didn't understand what Yami was trying to achieve by this but Kamui was instantly stopped. Konan who was about to go in the Kamui space was back again in the real world.
Before she could react to anything and prepare for any attack, Yami kicked her shoulder making her fly straight toward a small hill and hit it hard. The force of her being kicked was so hard that the hill collapsed on itself.
Yami swung his sword again but this time it wasn't with the intention to kill Tobi but to make him back off.
"Hehe…I am quite annoyed to tell you but you have become the bane of my existence kid. But the woman you are hurting right now is very close to the leader. I must warn you of this or the consequences might not be something the hidden leaf and sand can handle.
The ears of Kakashi and the old woman Chiro twitched as they heard that. They immediately looked at each other and nodded as if they had just made a deal without saying a single word.
Yami who already knew who Tobi was talking about and who the real leader of the Akatsuki was, didn't give a flying fuck to what Tobi said and dashed toward Konan. Due to the hill collapsing, there was a lot of dust and debris in the air which made it hard to see where Konan was and Konan took advantage of this exact situation and threw 5 paper bombs toward Yami.
Yami was already able to sense her chakra so he didn't need to search for her. As the explosion occurred and Konan looked around to see an injured Yami, she saw a red ball in front of her.
"What the hell is this?" She blurted out and found out the very next second as the red ball split into 4 tentacles revealing an unscathed Yami.
"You really are a one-trick pony? Do you even have anything besides paper bombs?" Yami asked provokingly.
Konan actually had a card up her sleeve but she wasn't sure if this was the right time and place to use it. Because it would not only take the lives of her enemies but also her allies and she wasn't heartless enough to do that.
She was immediately brought out of her thoughts when she heard the crackling noises Yami's sword was making. This time Yami had infused lightning chakra in the sword and that was too heavy enough that whenever the lightning would hit the sand on the ground, a small red spot would get created from the intense heat.
Just as Konan was making her decision on whether to use her final trump card or not, she heard a shout "STOP"
Hearing the voice Yami stopped and looked behind. As he had expected this was Kakashi's voice.
Kakashi and Guy quickly rushed over to where Yami was. Kakashi looked at the pitiful state Konan was in and then at Yami.
'This kid has really surpassed all limits. Dealing with an S-ranked criminal without even a single scratch. Even I can achieve that.' Kakashi thought.
"What the matter Kakashi?" Yami asked.
"Yami even though she is our enemy we mustn't forget that the enemy has a few of our people as well."
Guy also chimed in and said "Yes Yami…she would be a good hostage that can be used for exchange." Guy then looked back at Tobi and asked "What do you think? Her in exchange for the hidden leaf hostages that you have taken. What would be your choice? After all you are the one who said she is quite close to the head of the Akatsuki."
Kakashi was relieved seeing this happen. He had his doubts that Yami would even obey his orders in the field. But seeing that Yami's sensei Might Guy himself was taking the initiative to do this the chances of Yami rebelling to this decision would be less than 10%.
Tobi looked at Konan and their eyes met. They kept eye contact for 3-4 seconds and Tobi turned toward Guy and said "Erm….she is important but so is our boss's meeting with the Kages. Why don't we do one thing? We will make the prisoner exchange during the meeting."
Kakashi and the others were shocked by this. They didn't expect Konan to be abandoned so easily. This didn't come as a surprise to Konan because she knew what was going on in Tobi's head.
He needed all the tailed beasts under his own command even if it meant sacrificing her or even Nagato. Seeing that Tobi was negotiating with Kakashi and was thinking of letting them keep Konan as a hostage, Deidara flew toward Tobi.
"What are you even saying, newbie? How could someone like you negotiate with the enemy and that too about letting them keep Konan as a hostage? Do you think a small mission given by the leader meant that you are in charge?"
Konan quickly stopped Deidara and said "I was the one who told him to do this in case of a situation like this arises. He is just following my orders. The hidden leaf won't dare to harm me when the heirs of their clans are in Tobi's custody. For now, all of you need to leave and come to the meeting with the Kages."
As she was saying that, everyone sensed a huge amount of chakra being concentrated somewhere. At first, they thought that it was Yami who was doing this but then they saw Naruto holding a huge shuriken made of wind chakra in his hand and running toward Kakuzu.
"What kind of a jutsu is that? This is the first time I have seen it." Temari asked.
"I had taught him to keep this as a trump card but why is he using it now?" Kakashi asked as he had an urge to facepalm himself.
While the others were watching and trying to gauge the strength of the jutsu, Naruto was able to slam the jutsu head-on at Kakuzu. It was partly due to Kakuzu being arrogant enough not to accept that the jutsu would kill more than one heart but to his surprise, the jutsu was way stronger and his hearts were being destroyed left and right and the jutsu was still going on.
With the big explosion, everyone braced themselves for the result and when the dust settled they saw a huge crater created in the middle of the desert and Kakuzu was lying in the middle of it covered in blood. He was almost at death's door.
"We have to save him quickly." Deidara said as he looked at his allies who were standing and not making any effort to help out Kakuzu.
"All his hearts have been destroyed and even his merdains seem to be damaged at a cellular level. Saving him won't do us any good and he will just become a burden." Sasori said. He was able to figure all this out just by seeing the way the jutsu worked and the effect it had on Kakuzu's body.
Tobi focused his attention back on Kakashi and said "We will take our leave now. This was a good and fruitful meetup, wasn't it Kakashi? I hope we are all able to meet at the hidden leaf next month and all the Kages will be present there as well."
Just as he said that the space around him warped and he disappeared. Yami and the others looked at Deidara and Sasori who were the only ones left there. Sasori who was already on a flying bird made from his clay flew toward Sasori who quickly jumped on it and they flew away.
"Are we really letting them go?" Sasuke asked. He wasn't ready to let them go just like that.
"We have to. They have Hinata and the others in their custody. We can't do anything to them before we rescue them." Naruto said as he walked back regrouping with the others.
"Says the guy who kept fighting even after the talks." Sasuke gave him the side eye to which Naruto laughed and said "I was so engrossed in fighting that I didn't realize that the talks were happening and it was that guy's fault that he didn't stop and kept attacking me."
Konan who was still sitting on the ground looked at Naruto and thought 'I was reminded of Yahiko when I saw him for the first time.'
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