Chapter 326   - Ch326. Naruto In Pinch 1

Author Note:

I see that many are complaining in comments that this arc is too long. Well, sorry for that guys but it is already finished so nothing I can do about it on that front. Anyway, Let's see... if you don't like this arc, you should probably stop reading till the end of this month? Maybe three weeks?

That's about it.

To be honest, I did have fun writing this arc.

But I fully acknowledge that it might not be as interesting for some and the non-presence of MC can be a huge source of irritation. Yeaaah, I basically screwed up in that way.

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Guren didn't like killing. Especially killing children. But it was what Lord Orochimaru wanted of her so she gritted her teeth and did her best to fulfill his expectations. The most she could do was to make sure to give painless and quick death to the children she had to dispose of. That's why she held back against Naruto at first. In her eyes, he was a child. An overconfident foolish genin who learned a dangerous technique. Not really a threat.

But this kid showed cunning and enough capability to plan that he could catch even her in a trap. Because she held back, she was almost injured and that simply wouldn't do. Guren knew Lord Orochimaru would be disappointed if he knew about her current situation.

As such, she once again gritted her teeth... and decided to hold nothing back as she attempted to slaughter the blonde annoyance. In her eyes, Naruto ceased to be just an unwitty naive kid.

It took Naruto a few moments to recover from the heavy kick to the head. He shakily stood up, his head still spinning and his cheek intensively stinging. He could feel his cheekbone was cracked and the pain made him involuntarily tear up. But Naruto could also feel the damage already slowly mending itself and knew he had to focus on his enemy.

Guren didn't give him a chance to fully recollect himself though. He didn't get even three seconds of a reprieve since he stood up and Guren was already near him, her hands blurring in hand seals.

Feeling his danger instincts screaming at him, Naruto tried to focus, which was hard with a throbbing head, but, in the end, he managed to notice Guren's intended attack in time and put his all into his chakra senses since it was obvious she would be using ninjutsu.

"Crystalline Bloom!" Guren exclaimed and Naruto could instantly sense chakra gathering under him.

His eyes widened before he hurriedly shifted his body to the side, not having enough time to properly evade before large crystal spikes 'bloomed' from the ground. Naruto barely managed to evade most of it, getting only a nasty large gash on his side rather than being skewered from his groin up to his head.

Sweat rolled down Naruto's forehead as he gasped in pain before forcefully closing his mouth and trying to breathe through the pain while a bit of fear crept up into his eyes. It was times like this that he couldn't help but profusely thank for the brutality Anko called training that helped him refine his chakra sensing enough to predict enemy ninjutsu.

Naruto forced his body to jump back, distancing himself from the crystal construct that struck him. He had no idea if Guren could use it for an additional attack so it was better to get the hell away from it.

Naruto landed on the ground, instantly swaying as his injury flared up with more pain because of the impact of his jump. He wasn't given the time to overcome it though. His chakra sensing instantly alerted him to numerous crystal senbon flying straight at him and Naruto did his best to somehow scramble out of the way.

That didn't help him much as he was still hit by many of them but instead of hitting a vital place, because he moved the senbon now embedded themselves in relatively unimportant spots.

Naruto almost let out a relieved breath... until the chakra in the senbons flared, causing dread to fill his eyes while he started pumping his chakra towards the places where these senbons struck him.

Not unlike the crystal spikes, these senbons also 'bloomed', creating small bur razor-sharp crystal shards inside Naruto's body, tearing junks of flesh from him and scrapping numerous bones. Naruto screamed and fell to his knees as he became a literal pincushion of small crystal spikes. The only reason why he survived was that he protected his vital organs with his chakra.

'Now I understand why Anko-nee was always so brutal with us.' Naruto winced and dryly chuckled. His body screamed in unholy pain but... it wasn't the worst he had in his life. Anko could do much worse with much less.

Naruto pushed himself back onto his feet through sheer willpower while ignoring as his pain-receptors flared... he only barely managed to put his arms in front of his head before Guren's kick impacted his forearms with enough force to crack them and send him uncontrollably rolling on the ground.

'I have no choice.' Naruto realized as his body was bouncing against the hard bricks of the bridge. He didn't want to use it but the woman was too strong. He could fight chunins without a problem but he had no chance to even start fighting back now. 'Thinking I could manage just because I initially surprised her was a bad idea.' Naruto inwardly scolded himself.

Guren wanted to do another follow-up attack on the rolling boy. She could still feel he was alive and the sooner she ended this, the better. She was almost about to jump at him again when something changed. The body of her opponent suddenly flared with a red chakra cloak, going straight for three tails.

'Jinchuuriki!?' Guren's eyes widened while she inwardly cursed and started to strengthen the crystal armor on her body.

The now feral boy in front of her slowly stood up, her crystal needles and the shards created by them shattered into dust from the sheer intensity of the chakra cloak around the boy. Guren winced at that. She would have to pack much more chakra into her crystal constructs if she wanted to make them capable of getting through the dense chakra of the bijuu cloak. The worst part... she could see the gash on his side and numerous holes in his body healing at a visible pace, fast enough that Guren would be hard-pressed to intervene even if she discarded her caution.

Naruto wasn't rampaging. He retained the clarity of his mind thanks to the training he underwent with Anko. As such, the moment he was healed enough to move, he disappeared in a burst of speed and appeared in front of Guren, punching her in the midsection.

His hand went right through her stomach, and for a second Naruto thought he got her good... before the Guren in front of him shattered into pieces of crystal that quickly dispersed into the air.

Realizing he fell for a trap, Naruto felt a chakra spike behind him and was about to turn when he suddenly felt a piercing pain from his thigh. Looking down, he noticed a sturdier-than-normal crystal spike going right through the middle of his thigh, only barely missing the bone.

Naruto's pupils dilated. This attack was not aimed to injure him but to pin him down! He quickly flared his chakra, pushing the air around him away which created a small shockwave.

This saved him as it redirected the follow-up attack. Another crystal spike, instead of skewering him through the middle of his back, veered off its course and went through his right hip before splinting into multiple razor-sharp shards, not unlike the previous senbons, just at a much larger scale.

Fortunately for Naruto, most of the spike was outside of his body when that happened so only his right side was totally shredded, causing him to look like some half-human, half-crystal-shard creature. If the attack went through his upper stomach as intended, Naruto would most likely miss his upper body completely.

Howling in pain, Naruto brutally tore himself away from the massive crystal shard, leaving chunks of his flesh on its spikes and blood started oozing out of his massive open right side. His organs stayed in their place only because his chakra kept them there. Otherwise, they would be already spilled on the ground.

Naruto was openly crying from the pain, but his head was still clear. The wound was closing quite quickly so that was no concern. But he knew his opponent would not just wait for him to heal.

Guren inwardly clicked her tongue in dissatisfaction. Her attack failed but it did manage to injure the brat. She sneaked behind him, intending to use his distraction from the pain to deliver a fatal blow. Kyuubi chakra or not, a blade through the brain should still kill him... no?

Unfortunately for her, Naruto was trained to withstand massive amounts of pain due to his sadistic 'sister'. He wasn't as distracted as Guren hoped and the second she got behind him, Naruto spun on his heel, surprising Guren enough to make her reaction speed lag a bit. She only got out of her reverie when Naruto's fist smashed against her chest, creating multiple web-like cracks in her crystal armor and sending her flying through the air with the velocity of a cannonball.

Naruto grinned victoriously, knowing his punch in this form was almost on par with Anko when she was half-serious. That was still enough to liquefy everything in the chest of his opponent.

His grin froze and his expectations were betrayed when Guren slowly stood up, taking a deep breath and shook herself out of the daze before looking at Naruto with a conflicted gaze.

"If I didn't have my crystal armor, that would have killed me." She respectfully nodded at Naruto. "You are indeed an impressive young man. I am just sorry I have to end your journey here."

Naruto realized she was utterly unscathed. Her armor absorbed all the force behind his attack.

'Isn't she basically unbeatable for me!?' He mentally screamed, wondering if he would have to go further than three tails and shuddering with knowledge of what it would do to his body. Not to mention, he couldn't control it yet. 'No... not yet.. I am the prankster king of Konoha! I will find a way!' He desperately thought.