A corner of the chaotic battlefield.
Asuma wiped the blood beading on his forehead and grinned. "I thought you'd be stronger. You're nothing special!"
"Tch!"
Hidan spat, looking thoroughly annoyed.
Kakuzu, standing beside him, didn't look too pleased either.
They had barely encountered Asuma's team when a Kumogakure shinobi on the team, who wielded Magnet Release, used it to snatch away the Bloody Reaper, Hidan's favorite weapon.
Then two Hyuga Clan experts worked together to easily suppress Hidan, who had been left unarmed and was fighting with his bare hands.
Kakuzu's situation was somewhat better.
His opponent was Asuma, whose overall strength was inferior to his own, but not by much. After their prolonged clash, Asuma had suffered only minor injuries.
Asuma's injury only seemed to lift his spirits. "Everyone, give it everything you've got! Let's take these two out first, then go help the others!"
When word got out during the previous operation against Target Seven that Shinji's "Takamagahara" had serious discrepancies from reality, Asuma had worried that his team's simulated battles in "Takamagahara" might be ineffective.
Now that they were fighting for real, the situation did differ from the simulations in "Takamagahara," but the discrepancy was well within an acceptable range.
In other words...
Unless something unexpected happened, the squad he was leading to hunt down Kakuzu and Hidan really could kill these two official members of the Akatsuki Organization!
After a brief pause, the fierce battle erupted once more.
Without his weapon, Hidan was being suppressed by the two Hyuga Clan members and couldn't spare a hand to help Kakuzu.
Meanwhile, surrounded by Asuma and more than a dozen elite shinobi, Kakuzu was gradually pushed onto the back foot.
Rumble!
Kakuzu barely managed to leap clear of the enormous explosion. Most of his Red Cloud outfit had