Around the huge stone conference table, two clearly distinct groups of ninja sat or stood.
One side consisted of Akatsuki members in black cloaks patterned with red clouds: Obito, Zetsu, and Kisame. On the other side stood the four members of Taka, wearing black cloaks with their hoods down.
Suigetsu kept eyeing Kisame with keen interest—or, more precisely, the Samehada strapped to Kisame's back.
He made no effort to hide his gaze. Kisame couldn't help grinning cruelly, his round, fish-like eyes gleaming with bloodlust. He seemed eager to fight Suigetsu.
Unfortunately, Obito was sitting casually by the stone table, and Kisame held back.
Sasuke had taken a seat at one end of the conference table, at the head. He rested both arms on the tabletop and pressed his hands against his forehead. Like Kisame, he was struggling to contain his displeasure.
He had already been waiting here for quite some time, yet the Akatsuki leader still hadn't shown up. Was he supposed to keep waiting? This man called Nagato was getting on his nerves more and more.
Noticing Sasuke's mood, Suigetsu's grin widened. He gripped the hilt of Kubikiribōchō at his back, stared at Kisame, and licked his lips, as if preparing to put on a little show.
The idea was simple: he'd let Kisame take a swing at him, then raise his sword and wait for Kisame to take one in return.
Obito gave Suigetsu a cool glance. Behind him, Kisame stood grinning, looking amused.
Just then, Jugo, usually taciturn and wooden, suddenly reached out and gripped Suigetsu's shoulder. "Wait!"
Suigetsu heard Jugo's heavy breathing.
"Hm?" Suigetsu paused, letting out a puzzled sound. He could feel Jugo's hand trembling slightly on his shoulder.
Karin paid no attention to the two fools, Suigetsu and Jugo. She hurried over to Sasuke and leaned close to his ear, speaking in a slightly trembling voice. "He's here. The man called Nagato."
Sasuke glanced at Karin's fearful expression, surprised. Before he could ask, she answered his unspoken question. "From what I can sense of his Chakra, he's absurdly powerful!"
His expression darkened at once.
Before they arrived, Sasuke had told Karin to keep an eye on the Akatsuki leader's Chakra. He'd expected Nagato to be strong, but why had Karin just told him she hadn't detected any particularly powerful Chakra outside the room? And now she was saying Nagato was absurdly powerful?
Karin's Mind's Eye of the Kagura could detect anomalies across a radius of dozens of kilometers. Did that mean the enemy had been dozens of kilometers away until just now, and had suddenly appeared nearby?
Did he have space-time abilities like Madara? Sasuke gave Obito a thoughtful glance but said nothing.
After stopping Suigetsu, Jugo came over too and whispered in Sasuke's ear. "Something feels wrong. The power of the Cursed Seal inside me is being suppressed, and it's like something's controlling the Natural Energy around us."
He frowned hard as he sensed the Natural Energy that had been active all around them. It no longer flowed into his body on its own. Instead, it hung motionless in the air, as if frozen in place.
Sasuke narrowed his eyes, wondering if his two teammates were overreacting. But Jugo looked more and more tense, while Karin wrapped her arms around her shoulders and began to tremble. "How is this possible? That person's Chakra keeps growing. It's enormous—about as much as the Eight Tails. He doesn't feel human at all."
People in this world often said that someone had Chakra comparable to a Tailed Beast. Kisame in this room, for example, was even called the Tailless Tailed Beast. But that was just an exaggeration. A human's Chakra could never truly compare to a Tailed Beast's. Otherwise, there'd be no need to develop Jinchuriki.
Take Naruto, for example. Kakashi had once said that Naruto had four times as much Chakra as he did. If Yamato didn't suppress the Nine Tails' Chakra, Naruto would have a hundred times as much. And that was without Naruto being able to use the Nine Tails' power.
But the Chakra Karin sensed now was genuinely on the level of a Tailed Beast. It drew closer and closer, radiating a terrifying pressure like a human-shaped Tailed Beast.
"Is it really that exaggerated?" Sasuke looked doubtful. He knew about the Eight Tails. Not long ago, Taka had nearly been wiped out by it. How could a human compare to the Eight Tails? Was the Akatsuki leader a Jinchuriki?
"No." Karin's voice rose again. "He's already surpassed the Eight Tails. Why is his Chakra still growing?"
What was going on? Sasuke frowned. With Karin's sensory abilities, the whole tower should have been practically under her nose. How could the amount of Chakra she sensed be completely different every time, and keep increasing?
"Where is he?" Sasuke turned his head and asked quietly.
"He's in the corridor just outside the room, walking toward us," Karin replied quickly.
At that, Sasuke simply closed his eyes, baffled by Karin's reports.
Karin herself found it extremely strange. She had never encountered anything like this before. It was as if the person with the enormous Chakra had a dense fog around him that blocked her senses.
The closer he got, the greater the amount of Chakra she sensed—like a mountain gradually emerging from the clouds before her, bearing down on her with ever-increasing pressure.
Was he deliberately using some kind of ability to disrupt her perception? Karin could only guess.
"Sasuke, be careful. I have a really bad feeling about this," Jugo suddenly said again.
He sensed a vortex of Natural Energy forming not far away, slowly moving toward him. As it drew near, the Natural Energy around him suddenly grew lively. It wasn't entering his body; it was cheering as it awaited the man's arrival, like soldiers waiting for their general. He felt as if nature itself were rejecting him—a terrifying sensation.
For Jugo, who was used to constantly absorbing Natural Energy, it felt like a normal person suffering from altitude sickness. His heart raced, he grew short of breath, and his face turned increasingly pale.
Of course, he had no idea this was merely nature's reaction to Nagato slowly approaching.
It was the same principle by which Natural Energy gathered from the natural world around what were known as the sacred lands.
Whether it was the amount of Chakra they possessed or their ability to control Natural Energy, there was a fundamental gap between Jugo and Nagato. That was why Jugo felt that all the Natural Energy around him was drawn to Nagato, waiting for him to arrive.
This was only an unintended consequence of Nagato's presence. If he did it deliberately, controlling all the Natural Energy around Jugo would be effortless.
The reason wasn't that Nagato was exceptionally powerful, but that Jugo was too weak. He couldn't absorb Natural Energy by his own will. Someone else—Naruto or Kabuto, for instance—wouldn't have ended up in such an awkward predicament.
The reason Karin couldn't sense Nagato's exact amount of Chakra was the same.
Nagato had no interest in putting on some mysterious act. It was simply that his Sage Mode had no time limit, so he could keep absorbing Natural Energy and hold it inside his body for a long time.
Entering Sage Mode for real kept Nagato's mind in an excessively alert state, but as long as the Natural Energy within him hadn't reached the level needed to activate Sage Mode, it had no effect on him.
He believed that maintaining this state would let him enter Sage Mode as quickly as possible if a fight broke out unexpectedly. To further reduce the time needed to enter Sage Mode, he had also grown used to gathering the Natural Energy around him and letting it cling to his body. That was why Karin couldn't accurately sense his Chakra: too much Natural Energy had gathered on the surface of his body, forming something like a protective film that interfered with her sensory abilities.
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