Kakuzu had already done his best to dodge, but he still failed to avoid it completely.
Puchi!
A section of his lower leg was directly annihilated.
It happened too suddenly.
So suddenly that even Kakuzu's body, blood vessels, and muscles could not react in time.
Only after a brief pause did blood spray out.
A wave of intense pain surged upward.
Kakuzu's expression immediately changed.
Then, even more attacks landed on Kakuzu's body.
After the Six Paths of Pain lost the ability to move and collapsed, Konan was restrained by Rasa, while Sasori of the Red Sand had escaped first. Kakuzu alone bore the full force of every attack.
The masks on his body shattered one after another.
The Akatsuki's true strength lay in Nagato's uniqueness.
Without Nagato, any shinobi village could actually defeat the remaining members of the Akatsuki.
In the distance, Kakashi and Uchiha Shisui exchanged a glance.
"Kakashi-senpai, what should we do now?"
Kakashi's eyes were filled with confusion as well.
Rumors had appeared about his father being persecuted to death. Hiruzen Sarutobi had fallen under the pressure of countless rumors. Kakashi had begun to doubt the village. Then he himself had been persecuted.
Kakashi had developed deep hatred toward Konoha.
He even felt that the existence of a shinobi village like Konoha was a disaster for the shinobi world.
That was why Kakashi had placed his hopes on the Akatsuki.
But now, the Akatsuki had lost.
Suddenly, Pain had fallen.
Without any warning.
Clearly, a moment earlier, they still held such a great advantage.
Kakashi could not understand it at all.
But with Pain's defeat, Kakashi knew that the things the Akatsuki had described before could no longer come true.
The future would still belong to the era of shinobi villages.
Only the structure might change somewhat.
Then what should he do?
What could he do?
Kakashi did not know.
All at once, with his goal gone, Kakashi suddenly felt as though everything had become meaningless.
This shinobi world was already rotten.
But he did not possess the power to change it.
Not now.
Not in the future.
The shinobi villages were too powerful. Even the Akatsuki's leader had failed.
"I don't know either."
Kakashi shook his head.
"Shisui, that day, you personally saw the leader and the others destroy nearly half of Kumogakure?"
Uchiha Shisui nodded.
"Yes. With one technique, it was like an invisible giant hand crushed down on Kumogakure. Nothing could stop it. Everything collapsed like rotten wood."
Kakashi frowned.
"If they could destroy nearly half of Kumogakure, why are they performing like this now?"
"The ninja from these villages aren't even that strong."
"Rasa never attacked the leader."
"Those shinobi village ninja didn't even injure the leader. The leader collapsed on his own."
A vast amount of Gold Dust surrounded Konan.
As someone who possessed an ocean of explosive tags, once Konan detonated them, it would indeed be extremely difficult for anyone to withstand.
But Rasa was different.
Rasa's Magnet Release Gold Dust was greater in quantity than Konan's explosive tags.
And Rasa also possessed a technique that absolutely countered explosive tags.
"Gold Dust Thundercloud!"
A bolt of lightning appeared and spread along the Gold Dust.
In an instant, the entire sky was covered. Under the effect of that lightning, Konan's explosive tags were directly rendered useless.
Konan's expression changed.
Pain's sudden change had already filled her with worry. She no longer had the heart to fight.
And now, the ability Rasa displayed completely restrained her.
Konan was anxious.
She was panicking.
And the more anxious and panicked she became, the easier it was for her to make mistakes.
Very quickly, Rasa found an opportunity. He controlled Gold Dust to wrap around Konan's calf, and then a bolt of lightning surged violently forward, knocking Konan unconscious.
Her body kept twitching, and white foam spilled from the corner of her mouth.
The next moment, she fell downward.
A mass of Gold Dust appeared and caught Konan.
But Rasa did not intend to save Konan.
He merely wanted to capture her alive.
A large amount of Gold Dust surged forward.
In an instant, Konan was wrapped tightly.
Then—
Even more Gold Dust appeared.
It looked as though Rasa was preparing to use some powerful attack on Konan and grind her bones to dust.
Boom!
Countless grains of Gold Dust filled the nearby area completely.
"True Quicksand Displacement!"
In an instant, Rasa brought Konan's body far away. The next moment, he returned to his previous position.
The Gold Dust gradually dispersed.
In the sky, only Rasa's figure remained.
To everyone else, Konan had already been killed by Rasa, leaving not even a corpse behind. She had been reduced entirely to ash.
"This is our Kazekage-sama!"
"So strong!"
Some Sunagakure ninja cheered.
A young man's eyes showed a trace of fear.
"This… this…"
"Isn't that too ruthless?"
"She was such a beautiful female ninja, and Rasa just blasted her into ash?"
"No pity for beauty at all."
How could the Sunagakure ninja tolerate someone slandering Rasa?
"Pity for beauty? She was a member of the Akatsuki, one of the most vicious criminals in the shinobi world, a criminal secretly cultivated by Konoha! Just because she was pretty, you couldn't bear it?"
"If you personally watched your family get killed by them, would you still praise her for killing beautifully?"
The two began arguing.
Rasa's figure slowly landed.
The battle had ended.
Nagato and Konan had fallen into Rasa's hands. The Six Paths of Pain's puppets lay collapsed on the ground.
The only living captive left was Kakuzu, who had only one heart remaining and was barely breathing.
Rasa looked at Kakuzu, but only glanced at him once.
In the past, Rasa had once thought of recruiting Kakuzu. But from the moment Kakuzu abandoned Maki, Sunagakure's gates had been forever closed to him.
It could not be said that Kakuzu had made the wrong choice.
It was simply that, compared to Kakuzu, an outsider, Rasa would certainly care more about Maki, one of his own people.
A loyal disciple, even with limited talent, could still possess very decent strength under Sunagakure's current conditions.
To Rasa, whether someone's individual strength was slightly stronger or weaker did not make much difference.
By comparison, loyalty mattered far more.
Onoki glanced in the Fourth Raikage's direction.
"The Akatsuki was nothing special."
Previously, when facing a powerful enemy, the two of them had no choice but to ignore their hatred and fight together.
Now that the Akatsuki had been defeated, the situation was different.
The Fourth Raikage was furious, but he had no way to refute him.
The Fourth Raikage looked at Pain on the ground, filled with confusion. The one who attacked Kumogakure and the one before him now were completely different—like heaven and earth.
The Fourth Raikage even wondered whether the Akatsuki had deliberately held back.
But holding back with their own lives?
Rasa looked toward everyone and proposed a guess.
"Do you think Konoha deliberately did this?"
"They may have used this method to cut ties between Konoha and the Akatsuki."
"These six people do not look like living people. They seem more like some kind of puppets."
"Perhaps just now, the person controlling those puppets voluntarily cut off the connection?"