Shika took care of the five new members of Akatsuki easily enough. It wasn't hard, seeing how he took down two while their guard was down, while another two he had enough knowledge to work around with.
But that doesn't mean it didn't take any time. By the time he reached where Utakata was fighting Pain, he saw the entire place had turned into ruins. Utakata, in his Biju form, had turned everything into ashes. The chakra alone was enough to uproot trees, let alone the fight between Utakata and the rest of the Pains.
The outcome was also exactly what he thought. He saw Utakata lying there, defenseless, while Pain was ready to take his body to his base.
However, just as he was about to take Utakata with him, he heard something.
"Eight-Handed Sword Divergence Sila Divine General, with this treasure I summon…"
Before they even knew where the sound came from, they felt a large object hurtling toward them from the sky. Only in the nick of time did they dodge back, only to see a giant object falling to the ground, creating a crater. This object was actually a big monster with no eyes and a white body. In one hand, the monster had a sword attached, while some sort of object floated on top of the monster's back.
And following him, another person landed just beside him, but this time it wasn't a monster but a normal person. This person was none other than Shika, who had used a significant amount of his chakra to summon Mahoraga. Summoning Mahoraga required the most amount of chakra, and thus, he only called him in dire situations. At least it was better than the times when he could do it only when he absorbed additional chakra from one of his chakra refill scrolls.
"Mahoraga…" Shika called, and with a low growl, the strongest Shikigami looked at him.
"Smash." Shika pointed at the Pains and let loose the beast.
This was followed by a roar that could be heard from miles away before Mahoraga rushed toward the Pains.
Pain, on the side, narrowed his eyes. He wasn't sure what was going on, but looking at the shinobi from earlier, he knew that his new recruits were defeated. This further solidified his determination to capture the man in front of him. If there was one person who could have been responsible for the disappearance of Akatsuki members, then this shinobi had to be it.
No matter how weak those five were, not just anyone could beat all of them this quickly. This unknown shinobi was strong.
The Deva Path raised his hand, and the air shifted violently.
"Shinra Tensei."
The force exploded outward, tearing through the ground. Shika, seeing this, smirked and didn't bother doing anything. The attack was meant for Mahoraga, but just as the attack came at him, even Pain's eyes went slightly wide.
The monster withstood the attack like it was nothing. There was no effect on him. Shika had a big smile on his face.
'Surely letting him adapt to my powers was a good start.' Shika had a grin so wide that it could have rivaled Guy or Lee; however, his mask saved his dignity.
Not wasting time, he too soon started what he was there for. Making a hand sign, he focused his Cursed Energy.
'Shadow Rabbits Emergence.'
Soon the area was filled with multiple rabbits, tossing around him, covering him, and soon the entire area to the point the entire place looked like a snow-filled mountain.
His plan was simple—to distract them with Mahoraga and get out with Utakata. At least, he thought it would be easy until another powerful gravitational force rammed into him and all the rabbits, shattering them once again, revealing Utakata's body—just in reach but still far enough that Pain could stop him from reaching it.
'Seems fighting is the only option I have left.'
Mahoraga roared and rushed toward the Pain who attacked him, ready to tear him limb from limb. Swinging his massive blade at the Deva Path, he was countered with a barrage of missiles.
This was the Asura Path who attacked Mahoraga, though it didn't do anything since Shika had Mahoraga adapt to explosive tags as well. But it did distract the Shikigami.
Just as that attack was ending, the Animal Path summoned a giant rhino that rushed to ram into Mahoraga. Shika didn't care about that either. Mahoraga was well adapted to the Piercing Bull's charge.
As the rhino came towards Mahoraga, he used his two massive arms to catch the rhino's horn mid-path and, to even Shika's amazement, lifted the entire rhino before throwing it towards the Animal Path.
"What is that thing? I don't sense any chakra from it. How is it so strong?" Deva Path muttered to himself, his mask of indifference breaking slowly. Once again, he was ready to launch an Almighty Push, but it was doomed to fail.
Before the Deva Path could do that, though, on the side, the Human Path acted, summoning the King of Hell to attack Sukuna's soul. This now was an issue. Shika had no idea whether Shikigami had souls or not, or if this chakra-based attack could affect Mahoraga, but he didn't want to take any chances. And thus, he rushed forward and slammed his hands together.
'Convergence…' Shika pushed all his power into the water pressure to make it strong enough to reach the Human Path fast enough.
Unfortunately, due to the shared vision of all six paths, one of them must have seen this coming attack, and the Human Path was able to dodge—barely, though. And he wasn't scratch-free by any means.
Seeing Shika finally acting, the Paths of Pain ended up dividing into two groups to fight.
Two went for Shika, lucky for him that the two who went after him were the Human Path and Naraka Path—the only two who could do any kind of damage to Mahoraga right now. Otherwise, Shika had Mahoraga adapt already for everything else.
Shika wondered whether he should kill a few of the Paths of Pain but let go of the idea. Nagato could always make more paths, so it was pretty much pointless taking out these puppets.
Right now, saving Utakata and hiding his own trump cards for the real fight that would eventually come was the most crucial.
The fight intensified. The Human Path tried to grab him, but the Divine Dog: Totality, which was still out and summoned, showed up and bit down on its arm, holding it in place long enough for Shika to strike with a powerful chakra-infused punch. Meanwhile, Mahoraga adapted to some of the other Pains' attacks, his movements growing sharper, his strikes more precise—not only adapting to the different attacks but also to the fighting style of Pain and their shared vision. He was already starting to predict how Pain would move and what actions he could take.
Pain, on the other hand, was sweating. Never had he seen anything like this. This monster in front of him—it was like he was immune to everything he did. It was hard enough to the point that now, even with four of the strongest Paths, they were getting pushed back.
The monster was outright tanking their attacks like they didn't even touch him. He couldn't even use all of his powers either—his main body, Nagato, was still in the Land of Rain. Channeling his chakra from that distance was very taxing.
He was just working at half of his capacity right now. This was getting out of control. Seeing that physical attacks weren't working, he had no other option but to use both Naraka Path and Human Path's power against this monster.
So, when fighting, Shika saw both the Human Path and Naraka Path rushing toward Mahoraga. He knew that Pain had figured out most physical attacks wouldn't work on Mahoraga.
However, he wasn't ready to let them go just yet.
"Domain Expansion…"
xxx
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