"Kisame, this is Konoha. I just need to hold you off."
He knew his own situation well.
Nagato's taijutsu skills were only slightly better than a regular Chunin's—nothing compared to an elite Jonin. As for ninjutsu, facing Kisame, who had the Rinnegan, it was basically useless.
He knew that he was highly likely not going to be Kisame's match.
But like he said, this was Konoha. Even though four kage-tier ninjas had left, there were still plenty of strong ninjas remaining in the village.
All he needed to do was hold off Kisame until reinforcements arrived.
"Let's see if Konoha's people arrive first or if I defeat you and capture the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki."
Actually, Konoha's ninjas had already arrived.
But they had the sense not to jump into the fight.
The Konoha ninjas who had arrived were split into two groups—half were maintaining order, and the other half were working hard to rescue people from the destroyed buildings.
Kisame naturally paid no attention to these people. He shouted loudly, brandishing Samehada, and charged at Nagato.
Ninjutsu was useless against Kisame, so it was also useless against Nagato.
That's why Kisame chose the simple and straightforward approach—taijutsu.
"Summoning Jutsu."
Seeing Kisame charging at him, Nagato immediately summoned a few defensive summoning beasts to resist Kisame's attack.
"Konan."
"Understood."
For defense, there are summoning beasts. As for the offense, Nagato leaves it to Konan.
Yahiko doesn't have any special abilities and only knows Water Style ninjutsu, so he'll just stay as the cheerleader.
"Multi-Shadow Paper Shuriken"
Swish, swish, swish~
Konan waved her right hand, and a large number of paper shurikens flew toward Kisame.
Looking at the sky filled with paper shurikens, Kisame chuckled. He didn't dodge but instead used "Shinra Tensei."
The repulsive force was unleashed again, and all of Konan's paper shurikens were blasted away. Even the summoning beasts surrounding Kisame were affected.
Fortunately, the defense of these summoning beasts was strong, and Shinra Tensei didn't cause any damage to them.
It's just a shame that so many of Konan's paper shurikens were wasted.
"Fancy tricks."
Without the distraction of Konan's paper shurikens, Kisame focused all his energy on the summoning beasts.
One by one, he struck them down. Even the defensive summoning beasts couldn't withstand the power of his Samehada.
In no time, he had wiped out several summoning beasts.
At that moment, Konan, who was flying in the air, curled her lips slightly and coldly said, "Did you think my paper shurikens are made of scrap paper? I've mixed in some special things."
"Hm?"
Hearing Konan's words, Kisame instinctively looked around him.
"What is this...?"
It turned out that when Kisame was dealing with the few summoning beasts Nagato had called, he had unknowingly moved to a place where a large amount of paper was scattered.
It was then that Kisame saw clearly—Konan had actually mixed a large number of Explosive Tags into the paper shurikens.
"Looks like it's really your thing, little."
"Boom boom boom~"
Before Kisame could finish his words, the explosive tags around them began detonating one after another.
"Nagato, do you think Konan's explosive tags can deal with this shark-faced guy?"
Hearing Yahiko's question, Nagato shook his head with a serious expression.
"I don't think the explosive tags will have any effect on Kisame."
And as Nagato had said, the situation turned out exactly as expected.
After a couple of hundred explosive tags went off, Kisame appeared unscathed in front of everyone.
"That was close. If it weren't for my Samehada, I'd probably be in trouble right now."
Kisame laughed and retracted the Samehada that surrounded him.
"Kisame, hurry up. If you don't, we won't be able to leave."
"Understood."
If it were just Obito, Orochimaru, and the old Third Hokage left behind in Konoha, Kisame wouldn't be the slightest bit afraid. But with Nagato, who has the Rinnegan, it was a different story.
So, to finish things quickly, he decided to stir things up and take advantage of the chaos to capture the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.
"Water Style: Great Waterfall Crash."
Kisame opened his mouth wide and unleashed an enormous amount of water in a short period of time.
Instead of scattering, the water formed into a massive, circular water shield.
"Water Style?"
Nagato frowned, starting to absorb the water chakra with his Rinnegan.
However, it would take some time for him to completely absorb all of this water chakra.
That was Kisame's plan all along.
Using the time difference, they seized the opportunity to capture the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.
The figure in the water, Kisame, moved incredibly fast. The others were all trapped inside the water dome, and Nagato was exerting all his efforts to absorb the water-style chakra.
At this moment, the only ones beside Naruto were Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno.
But strangely, when Kisame extended his monstrous claws, neither of them made a move to rescue Naruto. Instead, they held their breath and calmly watched him.
Their calm demeanor made Kisame realize something was off.
When he grabbed Naruto a second time, he tentatively asked, "You're not just a shadow clone again, are you?"
Naruto gave a shy smile and replied, "You guessed right."
As soon as he spoke, the shadow clone disappeared with a puff.
Seeing that the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki had slipped away again, Kisame's frustration was growing.
At that moment, Nagato had absorbed nearly all the water-style chakra, and everyone was now outside the water dome's range.
This meant that Kisame's second attempt to capture the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki had failed.
"Why? Why is it another shadow clone?"
Though he smiled and spoke in a calm tone, the vein bulging on his forehead showed just how frustrated he was.
"With me here, did you think you could still capture the real body?"
Looking up at the voice, Kisame saw Obito standing on a tree.
"Did you put the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki in the Kamui dimension?"
Obito knew that with Black Zetsu's presence, Kisame would certainly understand his Kamui abilities.
So, he wasn't bothered by Kisame's words and simply nodded, replying, "Yes, though I didn't think you had the ability to take Naruto from us. But just in case, it's safest to keep Naruto in the Kamui dimension."
Hearing this, both Kisame and Black Zetsu understood that the surprise attack to capture the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki had failed completely.
"Kisame, we should retreat for now. We'll deal with the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki later."
Seeing that the situation was hopeless, Black Zetsu decided to make Kisame retreat.
With the chances of success slim on the side of the reanimated Madara, Kisame couldn't afford to make any mistakes.
"Think you can leave? Did you ask us first?"
Just as Kisame was about to retreat, the main force from Konoha finally arrived.
Leading them was the Third Hokage.
"I'm not being arrogant, but with a bunch of rotten eggs and squishy tomatoes like you, you think you can stop me?"
"Exactly, we can."
As soon as the words were spoken, four figures suddenly appeared in the four directions—north, south, east, and west—around Kisame.
They were the Second Hokage's time-space jutsu user, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Shimura Danzo, Uchiha Kagami, and Uzumaki Mito.
The four of them simultaneously formed hand seals and used the barrier technique from the original story that was used to seal the Ten-Tails.
"Four Violet Flames Formation."
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