Feeling the fierce wind batter his face, Shikaku Nara knitted his brows and looked toward the figures fighting in the distance.
He was Konoha's Jonin Commander and tactical adviser, an elite jonin of considerable strength. Even across the entire shinobi world, the Ino-Shika-Cho Formation carried real weight, as the bounties on the black market proved.
But in the battle before him, he could find no room for strategy, nor could he intervene.
The enemy was the Akatsuki Leader, wielder of the legendary Sage's Eye, the Rinnegan, and indisputably the strongest shinobi in the world. According to their current intelligence, he fought by manipulating the Six Paths of Pain from hiding, making his true body impossible to reach.
And just the six puppets that had appeared so far had demonstrated astonishing strength.
They were practically equivalent to several Five Kage-level ninja fighting together, with flawless coordination at that. Otherwise, even Jiraiya in Sage Mode would not have been at a disadvantage.
Fighting the puppets was pointless. To defeat the enemy, they had to find his hidden true body!
After considering it for a while, Shikaku Nara reached that conclusion, but it did nothing to change the battle at hand.
Without defeating the Six Paths of Pain, they could not locate the true body, and to find the true body, they had to defeat the Six Paths of Pain. The logic formed a perfect closed loop.
Ultimately, the problem was that he, their tactical adviser, was not strong enough.
Having sorted out his thoughts, Shikaku Nara headed toward his two teammates. They had best stick to fighting the other Akatsuki members or helping Mount Myōboku's great toads deal with the large summoning beasts.
If Shikaku Nara was worried about whether they would win or lose, Jiraiya's feelings were far more complicated.
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