70: Chapter 70 Crushing False Smiles! Absolute Suppression and the Name of Monster!The road to Tiandi Bridge is not easy to travel.
The closer you get to the border of Kusagakure Village, the denser and more gloomy the vegetation becomes.
The towering ancient trees blocked out the sunlight, and the forest was filled with the smell of rotting leaves and damp, cold moss.
"Let's rest here for a while."
Yamato stopped and looked up at the few dappled rays of light filtering through the tree canopy.
As a former elite member of the Dark Division, he keenly sensed the tense atmosphere within the team, an atmosphere so tight it seemed about to break.
Mainly Sakura and Sai.
The tension between the two was so intense that even a passing squirrel dared not utter a sound.
Just as Yamato was about to speak to ease the tension, Sai spoke first.
He reached for the scroll behind him, his gaze passing over Yamato and fixing directly on Naruto, his eyes carrying a hint of cold indifference as if assessing the goods.
"Captain Yamato, instead of communicating with words, let's be more direct like ninjas.I also want to see what kind of person the Hokage has such high hopes for."
Naruto leaned against a tree trunk, his hands in the pockets of his orange sweatpants, without even lifting his eyelids.
"Not interested."
He yawned, looking as lazy as a lion that had just woken up and was too lazy to pay attention to the grasshoppers jumping around at its feet.
"That's true." Sai pulled out his paintbrush, his tone as gentle as if he were talking about the weather.
"After all, chasing after a traitor who doesn't want to go home is an inefficient and exhausting activity.Perhaps you should save your energy and beg that trash named Sasuke to come back when you see him?"
Click.
The ground beneath Sakura's feet cracked.
The pink-haired girl suddenly raised her head, her emerald green eyes burning with a palpable rage.
Her fingerless gloved fists clenched so tightly they cracked, and chakra surged wildly between her knuckles.
"Sai!You bastard."
"Sakura".
A soft call, devoid of any emotional fluctuation, was like a bucket of ice water, instantly extinguishing Sakura's impending outburst of anger.
Naruto stood up straight.
He slowly walked in front of Sakura, blocking her view.
"Captain Yamato is right, we do need to get to know each other a bit." Naruto looked at Sai, a signature bright, sunny smile spreading across his face."Since you want to play, I'll play along.But…"
He paused, but the smile didn't reach his eyes.
"I hope you can keep playing with it."
"Super Beast Imitation Painting!"
Sai didn't waste any words.The instant Naruto finished speaking, the brush in his hand had already created a blur of afterimages on the scroll.
Ink splattered, and black lines twisted and expanded in the air, instantly transforming into three enormous ink lions.
roar--!
Although it is composed of ink wash painting, the roar of the lion makes the leaves in the forest rustle and fall.
The three lions, arranged in a triangular formation and carrying a foul stench, simultaneously pounced on Naruto from the left, right, and top—three blind spots.
Extremely fast.
This is "Root's" killing technique, without any fancy moves, aiming only for a single, fatal blow.
Yamato's eyes narrowed, and his fingers twitched slightly, ready to activate Wood Release to save the day.
However, Naruto didn't move.
His hands remained in his pockets, and he didn't even lower his center of gravity.
Just as the lion's claws were about to touch the tip of his nose.
Swish.
Naruto's body slid half a step to the left without warning, like a willow catkin being blown by the wind.
This step was so precise it was outrageous.
A lion flew past him, its claws tearing through the air, but it didn't even touch a hair on his head.
Immediately afterwards, he tilted his head slightly and leaned his upper body backward at an angle that defied human biomechanics.
A second lion swept past him from above.
The third lion blocked his escape route and opened its blood-red maw to bite at his throat.
Naruto smiled.
He didn't pull his hand away, but simply raised his right foot and seemingly casually tapped it in the air.
Bang!
The ink lion's jaw seemed to have hit an invisible iron wall, and its entire head instantly exploded into a ball of black ink.
"Too slow."
Naruto's figure moved through the inky rain, strolling leisurely as if he were taking a walk in his own backyard.
"These are the elites of 'Root'?Is that old geezer Danzo senile, sending people of this caliber to their deaths?"
Sai's fake smile froze.
He kept wielding his brush, and snakes, birds, tigers.countless ink beasts surged out like a tide, overwhelming the orange figure.
But it didn't work.
It's completely useless.
Naruto is like a slippery eel, or a gust of wind that you can't catch.
He weaved through the herd of animals, his hands never leaving his pockets.
Every dodge was perfectly timed, and every movement utterly humiliated Sai's attack intentions.
"Poor drawing skills."
Naruto's voice drifted from left to right, unpredictable.
"The lines are stiff, the composition is rigid, and most importantly."
Whoosh!
A golden flash tore through the black beast tide.
Naruto suddenly appeared beside Sai, the two of them less than ten centimeters apart.
Sai could even see the fine lines of Naruto's beard.
"There was no murderous intent."
Naruto leaned close to Sai's ear and whispered, like a devil's murmur, "Your doodles are so childish they wouldn't even scare a three-year-old."
humiliation.
A blatant humiliation.
As a killing machine who survived a brutal elimination system since childhood, Sai's self-esteem was trampled on like never before at this moment.
The fake smile in Sai's eyes vanished instantly, and a cold glint flashed from his sleeve.
It was a short knife, its blade gleaming with an eerie blue light—a deadly poison that would kill instantly upon drawing blood.
Even in simulated battles, Root's ninjas never hold back.
He accurately predicted Naruto's blind spot and thrust straight at his ribs.
The distance is too close.
At such close range, even a Jonin wouldn't have time to form hand seals.
bite!
A clear, metallic clang echoed through the forest.
There was no blood splattering.
There was no sharp blade that pierced the flesh.A muffled thud.
Sai's pupils suddenly contracted to the size of pinpoints.
He witnessed the most incredible scene of his life.
Naruto's left hand had somehow been pulled out of his pocket.
He did not use a kunai or any other weapon.
He simply held up two fingers.
Index finger and middle finger.
Those two long, slender, fair fingers, seemingly without any calluses, effortlessly gripped the fine steel dagger capable of cutting through gold and jade.
The tip of the knife was only one centimeter away from Naruto's chest.
But that last centimeter became an insurmountable chasm that Sai could never cross.
"How.is this possible."
Sai tried desperately to either insert the knife or pull it out.
But the knife seemed to be welded to Naruto's fingers, remaining completely still.
Naruto looked at the trembling short sword, a hint of boredom flashing in his eyes.
Is this all there is to it?
He slowly raised his eyelids and looked directly into Sai's eyes.
boom--!
An aura so terrifying it defied description erupted instantly from Naruto's seemingly frail body.
That's not just chakra.
It was a tangible killing intent, a mixture of the Nine-Tails' thousand-year-old tyrannical hatred and Naruto's own arrogance that viewed all living beings as ants.
The world changed color.
In Sai's view, the surrounding forest disappeared, and Yamato and Sakura also disappeared.
The whole world turned into a thick, scarlet sea of blood.
In the middle of the sea of blood, the blond boy had vanished.
Instead, there was a towering golden demon god with nine tails.
The demon was looking down at him with the gaze one would give a dead man.
Countless golden chakra hands emerged from the sea of blood, grabbing Sai's limbs and throat, tearing and twisting him bit by bit.
"Ah.ah ah."
Sai opened his mouth wide, but no sound came out.
His heart stopped beating, and his blood seemed to freeze in his veins.
That chilling feeling that came from the depths of his soul caused his proud "ruthless" training to completely collapse.
He wasn't facing a single person.
He was facing a tailed beast.
He would turn into a pile of minced meat if the other party had just one thought.
Click.
The fake smile mask that Sai had maintained on his face for more than a decade shattered.
Cold sweat instantly soaked through his clothes, and his legs went weak.If Naruto hadn't caught the blade, he probably would have already knelt on the ground.
"This.this is."
Not far away, Yamato suddenly took half a step back, and wooden strips uncontrollably grew out of his shoulders.
As an experimental subject possessing the first generation of cells, his perception of chakra far surpasses that of ordinary people.
He saw it.
What was behind Naruto was not the Nine-Tails' leak at all.
That's Naruto controlling the Nine-Tails.
That immense and malevolent chakra, like a tamed hunting dog, obediently coiled around Naruto's fingertips, released solely for Sai.
What incredible precision in control!
What terrifying mental pressure this is!
Is this.the "monster" that the Fifth Hokage ordered him to monitor?
Yamato swallowed hard, his throat dry and painful.He suddenly realized that he, the so-called "captain," probably didn't even have the right to speak in front of this boy.
Team 7 is Naruto's team, as long as Naruto wants it.
Sai was on the verge of a complete mental breakdown.
All the pressure vanished instantly.
It was as if the storm had been suddenly paused.
Naruto loosened his grip.
Clang.
The dagger fell onto the stone on the ground with a crisp sound.
Sai was panting heavily, looking as if he had just been pulled out of the water, his eyes unfocused and still in shock.
Naruto reached out his hand.
Sai instinctively wanted to back away and scream, but his body was too stiff to move.
The hand landed on his shoulder.
It wasn't a hard pat, just a gentle tap, like a greeting between old friends.
"Remember to make it more realistic next time."
Naruto leaned closer to that pale face, and his lips curled back into that sunny, warm, and harmless smile.
But in Sai's eyes, this smile was even more terrifying than the demon god from before.
"otherwise..."
Naruto narrowed his eyes, a chilling glint flashing in his blue pupils.
"I would think you are insulting my aesthetic sense."
After saying that, he didn't look at the useless tool anymore, and turned to walk towards the dumbfounded Sakura and Yamato.
"Captain Yamato, warm-up is over."
Naruto put his hands behind his head and said in a light tone, "Shouldn't we be getting going?I'm getting a little hungry."
The wind rustled through the trees.
Sai slumped to the ground, staring at the orange figure in the back.His fingers trembled as he reached for the short knife on the ground, but he didn't even have the strength to grip the hilt.
Yamato stared intently at Naruto's retreating figure, cold sweat trickling down his forehead.
Just a moment ago, the first generation of cells in his body actually trembled.
That is the instinctive fear that living beings have when facing their natural enemies.
This boy doesn't need his protection at all.
Instead, he needs to consider whether anyone in Konoha can stop this "monster" if it gets out of control.
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