Master of Genjutsu

CH-38 Goodbye

Naruto flinched as he felt the last of his clones dispel from Kakuzu's rather impressive repertoire of jutsu.

"Stupid ningen," Kyuubi commented as it sat within its cage, "I had to withdraw from that attack because the damn ningen had six lives; this is a blight I won't allow to go unanswered." A deep growl accentuated the great Bijuu's words.

Naruto grunted lightly in response, "There's no shame in withdrawing when necessary, the guy is one life light because of your fighting and, considering we couldn't use Genjutsu against either of them, they could be some of the harder ones for us to defeat in Akatsuki," Naruto thought back to his partner.

There was a reason Naruto hadn't simply used a Genjutsu to incapacitate his opponents and retrieve Yugito. Naruto had attempted to do just that once he found them. Naruto had dropped his Kyuubi cloak hours before he had located his target. He had then sent out clones to ascertain the location of his opponent. They hadn't been very hard to find, the only source of chakra besides the trees and underbrush for miles around them. He had snuck up on them and cast his Genjutsu against them. Unfortunately, Naruto had quickly realized that his Genjutsu hadn't worked and decided that a display of power may cause a distraction that he could use to get Yugito off, who he now knew was, Hidan's shoulder.

As such, he had retreated a few miles away before he summoned his cloak once more and dashed to his fellow container's rescue. Naruto had smiled as he felt the familiar chakra once more, just as he burst through the trees to behold his true enemies.

Though he had been forced to, ultimately, retreat, Naruto had also gained valuable intelligence on the Akatsuki pair known as the Immortals.

The first was of Hidan, the man whom didn't seem to die even through life-threatening wounds and how he used a ritual that supposedly hurt the one whom was 'cursed' by the ritual. This ritual contained a circle of blood, empowered by chakra, to be drawn on some surface Hidan had to stand in. Also, was that the ritual could be broken. The question about this was how exactly the ritual was activated and how it could be broken. Of course, Naruto had multiple theories about how it could be broken as he considered how Kyuubi had destroyed the ritual circle, distance, or if there was some still unknown factor that Naruto couldn't figure out or didn't know about.

Then there was Kakuzu, the man who used elemental jutsu like they were kunai. As of his final clone, Naruto knew the man had the capability of utilizing every single elemental jutsu with the exception of lightning. Not only was the man as versatile as Kakashi, he was also as indestructible as his counterpart. After having witnessed Kyuubi's recollection of its brief fight with Kakuzu, in which Kyuubi acted like a blood crazed monster, which meant it attacked with a ferocious, quick set of attacks while it disregarded any jutsu thrown at it, Naruto had quickly learned this man was capable of taking death hits with little to no visible damage to his person, and he used thick black tendrils which emanated from his body, much like his chakra tails. All in all, Naruto was acutely aware of the reason they were called the Immortals.

Naruto looked across the room to the sleeping blonde on the bed of the room he had rented for the night. Yugito had been successfully saved from the Akatsuki, for the time being. Kyuubi's intense speed had overtaken the clone which had initially taken Yugito. The clone had passed Yugito off to the Kyuubi clone before it turned and attempted to delay the Immortals to give Naruto time to get away. Naruto had been slightly surprised when Kyuubi hadn't even seemed to register the fact he was holding yet another person as the clone sped away from Kakuzu and Hidan with a speed that left even him surprised. Of course, once he realized that Kyuubi was going to get away, Naruto set into motion a plan which would leave no risk to himself. He had quickly concentrated on having his depleted chakra heal his leg enough to make it where he could stand before he summoned as many clones as possible to spread themselves among the trees to gain more intelligence on his enemies as well as provide a nice distraction to the Immortals. Sadly, they had not lasted nearly as long as Naruto had wanted.