Chapter 144: Fighting the Sound Four

A frown appeared on Orochimaru’s face when he heard Yuna’s taunt. What irritated him wasn’t the taunt itself, but that Yuna didn’t seem to take him seriously at all. Even Jiraiya put his guard up when he appeared and yet, Yuna doesn’t seem to care at all.

“There should be a limit to how arrogant someone can be, but your arrogance seems to have no bounds.”

Yuna couldn’t help but chuckle when she heard that while nodding her head.

“Hehe, I am, indeed, boundless. But I wonder what YOU are acting all smug for? The last two times we met you got your ass kicked. Do you get some kind of prize after getting your ass kicked three times in a row or something, why are you so eager to fight?”

Orochimaru’s frown deepened even further, while he got into an attacking stance. He decided to stop the useless banter.

“Get the girl, you can kill the rest if necessary. You don’t have to worry about Tsunade, she won’t be able to fight.”

“””YES, OROCHIMARU-SAMA!!!”””

Yuna could feel another arrow being fired, but this time it was aimed at Naruto, who only sidestepped a little to evade it. Jiraiya, meanwhile, stepped in front of Yuna and started to charge at Orochimaru, which Yuna found a little disappointing because she would have like to fight him on her own.

Yuna scanned the people in her group and could only shake her head when she saw that Tsunade was about to attack Orochimaru as well.

“Seriously, Tsunade, just sit back and relax. We both know that you are in no condition to fight. It’s just a bunch of small-fry, so no need to worry about it.”

Although Tsunade wanted to argue back, the only thing she could do was clench her fists while glaring at Yuna, which caused Yuna to roll her eyes at her.

“You can glare as much as you want, but I…”

“Who are you calling a small-fry?”

While Yuna was talking with Tsunade, the person with blue hair had approached Yuna and was currently punching towards her. Yuna casually evaded the attack and backhanded him into the face, sending him flying away.

“I am calling YOU a small-fry. I have to admit that the way you blocked my attack was rather interesting, though.”

The person with blue hair had two additional arms growing out of his chest that blocked Yuna’s backhanded strike. He saw the two arms that blocked the attack shaking in pain and a deep frown appeared on his face. Moments later, black markings appeared all over his body, while his chakra level increased.

“Guess we have to take this seriously, Ukon.”

Another head grew out of his neck, that also had black markings appearing all over it.

“Indeed, Sakon. Be careful, she has a lot of physical strength.”

Yuna, meanwhile, looked at the weird duo and couldn’t help but be slightly intrigued by what she saw.

‘This world sure is a strange place, huh. I heard about two people being connected, but this is just ridiculous. That one guy is literally growing out of the other. How does that even work?’

A pillar of ice shot out of the ground behind Yuna and blocked a huge club that was being swung at her, by a weird-looking creature that wore black clothes and had its eyes covered by its own hair. Yuna smashed her fist into the creature’s stomach and sent it flying towards two other creatures that were trying to attack her, knocking all three of them back.

“Hehe, you didn’t think I wouldn’t notice you, did you? By the way, you look a little like an Uzumaki, are we related?”

Yuna’s eye fell on a girl with long, red hair that was currently playing the flute quite far away from the actual battlefield. She guessed that those three weird-looking creatures were controlled by the music the girl was making with the flute, which Yuna found slightly interesting. She felt that controlling not one, but three creatures with sound alone couldn’t be easy.

Naruto, meanwhile, faced the huge person with three orange patches of hair on his head with a slightly bored expression.

“Well, no offense or anything, but I am not really interested in this fight. Mind giving up?”

The moment Naruto finished speaking, his opponent put both of his hands on the ground, and, moments later, the earth started to rise around Naruto.

“[Earth Release Barrier: Earth Prison Dome of Magnificent Nothingness]” (Author Note: Literally took the name from the wiki. Canon Naruto is a Xianxia: confirmed)

“You shouldn’t have spoken so arrogantly. Now, you will die by having all of your chakra taken from you.”

Naruto looked at the dome surrounding him with some doubts in his mind. He could, indeed, feel that his chakra was being absorbed, but it would take more than a day for him to reach a critical level of chakra depletion. He scanned the earth dome and realized that the whole thing was infused with chakra, with his opponent as the source. Then, he threw a punch at the earth dome, leaving behind an imprint of his fist, that regenerated itself after a short moment.

‘I see, this dome is suffused with chakra to make it sturdier and to make it possible to regenerate itself. I guess that means that it is the least solid on the opposite side of where my opponent stands, huh?’

Naruto walked around the dome for a short while, before he reached the position, he thought would be the most fragile. He took out his two knuckle dusters and got into a punching stance.

[What are you doing, Naruto? I have never seen you use a stance like that.]

‘Shut up, I am trying to concentrate here.”

[You just want to act cool, huh?]

‘S-Shudup!’

[Haha, I knew it!]

With an annoyed scowl on his face, Naruto punched towards what he thought would be the earth dome’s weak point and pierced straight through it, causing the whole dome to collapse.

“Well, that was pretty eas…Whoa!”

The moment the dome crumbled, Naruto dodged to the side, evading yet another arrow that was shot at him from the distance.

‘That archer guy sure is annoying, huh? Guess I have to send a few shadow clones after him, so he won’t bother me too much.’

“Seems like I have underestimated you. My name is Jirobo and I am the one that will kill you today.”

Creepy-looking, black marks started to appear all over Jirobo’s body, and afterward, his whole body started to transform. His skin became brown, while his hair became longer. Additionally, warts started to appear all over his upper body.

Naruto frowned when he saw that transformation, after all, the black marks looked rather similar to Sasuke’s, especially in the way they spread.

‘Can Sasuke transform like this as well? When I looked at the seal together with nee-san I didn’t see a function like that, but who knows what kind of mutation that thing went through while I wasn’t looking. His power level increased quite a bit after activating that seal. I wonder if all of Orochimaru’s bum-budd…*cough*… minions can transform like that? Might be useful to capture a few of them alive to devise a counter-strategy.’

Moments later, Jirobo appeared before Naruto and punched towards his head. Naruto noticed the strength of the attack and couldn’t help but be a little impressed.

‘He powered up quite a bit after he activated the seal. I wonder how long he can keep it activated?’

Naruto’s eyes turned red as he let a bit of Kurama’s chakra flow into his system, and afterwards, he leisurely lifted one of his hands and easily blocked the attack that was thrown at him, causing Jirobo’s eyes to widen.

“You didn’t really think a simple curse mark would be enough to compete with the Kyuubi’s chakra, did you?”

Naruto slightly tilted his head, evading yet another arrow, before smashing his fist into Jirobo’s stomach, sending him flying towards the person who has been harassing him with arrows for a while now.

“Well, I would like to capture you alive, so how about you give up and nobody gets hurt?”

As soon as Naruto got closer to where Jirobo landed, massive amounts of projectiles were shot at him from everywhere. Naruto, however, only coated himself in red chakra, causing all the projectiles to harmlessly bounce off of him.

“Yeah, I thought you would answer like that. Oh well, guess it’s time for a beating.”