"Kakuzu, do you have any way to find the person pulling the strings from behind the scenes?"
Hidan spoke coldly.
If they did not find the one behind it all, the two of them could only keep passively draining their strength. Their opponent seemed to be counting on exactly that. Even if the two of them were made of iron, once their chakra ran out, they would still be easily defeated.
So, they had to break this deadlock now.
"I have no way. My abilities are for killing people, not finding them."
Kakuzu shook his head.
"If this keeps up, sooner or later, we'll be played to death by whoever's behind this."
Hidan spoke with obvious frustration. "It looks like Sasori and Deidara's mission has already failed. The two of us shouldn't expect to succeed either. This was Akatsuki's first large-scale operation. If it fails so completely and we suffer such a huge setback, Akatsuki might even disband because of it."
Hidan spoke with no small amount of concern.
Kakuzu wore an equally worried expression.
Yet he could not think of any good way to break the situation.
Meanwhile.
Naruto used the Flying Thunder God to teleport the One-Tail Shukaku, who had been beaten unconscious, back to them.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk." Naruto clicked his tongue in amazement. "Akatsuki really is impressive. Such a powerful One-Tail Shukaku was completely outmatched by just those two. He'd already been beaten unconscious twice. As expected of Akatsuki."
"Naruto, where did this Akatsuki come from? How could they be so strong?"
Hinata had also felt Akatsuki's strength and could not help asking.
"They're a group of rogue ninjas from various hidden villages who gathered together. Itachi Uchiha and Orochimaru once joined Akatsuki too. Most importantly, every one of them is an expert at acting cool."