章 856: 33
Chapter 32: Who's The Real Monster?
The call for Kumo's shinobi to fan out and search the countryside for Yugito had gone out, and a three man team had come to a stop to get their bearings of their surroundings as they sat on a boulder to take a rest.
"Man…" A dark-skinned man with shaggy white hair and a white one shoulder Kumo flak jacket over his high collared, sleeveless Kumo uniform said. On his left and right arms he had the kanji for lightning and water tattooed, and on his back he had a large cleaver blade, "These guys were able to get Yugito. How is Raikage-sama sure she's still around here. We don't have a trace of her presence at all."
"Calm down Darui." A young blonde man with a sleeveless black shirt, black pants, his white one shoulder Kumo flak jacket, elbow-length arm guards, and red and white shin guards replied, "If she's anywhere around Kumo I'll be able to find her. No problem."
Darui sighed, "I know Shi, but what if she isn't-." He was cut off when a series of large rising pillars of flame shot into the sky before merging into one massive torrent of fire, "What the hell was that?"
The blonde man, Shi, stood up abruptly with a serious look on his face, "I don't know, but the chakra that thing is pumping out is one hell of a beacon for me to follow."
Darui rose to his feet watching the unnatural flaming structure, "You think it's Yugito?"
Shi snickered, "Do you know anyone else that pumps that much chakra into their jutsu?" He stopped laughing and motioned for them to move, "Jei, get one of your messenger lizards to Raikage-sama fast, we've got to get moving!"
The man named Jei, a bald, dark-skinned man with sunglasses and his Kumo hitae-ate on his head, and apparel similar to the rest of his teammates, finished writing a small message on a scroll that he gave to a small lizard, "Get this to Raikage-sama, coordinates on Yugito's possible position."
XxX
"What if Yugito got taken by a cultist group that worships the Nibi and want to free its spirit to get its revenge on Kumo for imprisoning it for so many years?" A white-haired dark-skinned boy with a sucker in his mouth pondered.
"Omoi shut up with your overthinking crap!" his dark-skinned, red-haired teammate replied, "Me and Samui are getting sick of hearing your bullshit theories on what happened to Yugito, all we have to do is find her now mind on the mission!"
Omoi visibly deflated, "You don't have to be so angry about it Karui…" He then perked back up, "But you are acting kind of defensive… is there something you would like to tell us? Like maybe what you did with Yugito?" His answer was a fist to the head, "Ow!"
Karui glared at him, "I'm running out of patience with you. Now focus or I'll break your jaw and shut you up for good!"
Samui looked back at her teammates that she was leading, "Both of you focus. No one has been able to find a sliver of a clue about her whereabouts or even who took her. We're operating blind here."
A faint sound of explosion rang out before a series of rising pillar of flames came into view in the distance. Omoi pointed lamely in that direction, "Not anymore…"
Karui stared at the ever growing infernos as they seemed to merge together and grow larger, "Kami, what on earth did that?"
"I'll give you one guess." Samui was already on the move towards that area with Karui and Omoi right with her.
XxX
(With Naruto and Yugito)
Yugito and Naruto's fire and wind ninjutsu had combined and caused a major upswell of fire in the form of a towering tornado that burned the entire environment, leaving the already barren landscape utterly lifeless and scarred with cinder.
"*cough cough cough* Fuuton: Daitoppa (Wind Release: Great Breakthrough)!" Naruto rid the general area around him and Yugito of all of the smoke and charred debris scattered about from their combination attack, "I think we were standing way too close to that." He said as he wiped the blackness from the heat off of his face.
Yugito, covered in soot, cleared out her lungs with a few coughs as well, "You think? *cough cough* Did we get them?"
Naruto shook his head, "Not a chance in hell." He tried peering through the leftover smoke but kept on his toes as he knew their respective chakra cloaks made them beacons to Hidan and Kakuzu, "I cut one of their heads off last time we fought and he still kept coming. If it was going to be as easy as spamming a big-ass fireball then wouldn't you have been able to beat them alone?"
Yugito bristled at the remark, "But look at this!" She said as the land around them was colored black due to the intensity of the flames they generated, "That had to do something! That would have put one of us down for the count for sure!"
Naruto remained silent as they walked along the smoldering battlefield and reached to his back only to gasp in surprise before realization set in, "Fuck. They disarmed me before we did that combination." As a substitute, he pulled out a kunai and held it in a reverse grip for defensive purposes as they continued along the area.
"There should be bodies, a char mark, something to let us know we got them. There was no way they got out of that one." Yugito said as her chakra cloak billowed around her. Yugito channeled the Nibi's chakra to her eyes to assist her seeing through the smoke. She wordlessly pointed off in a direction that she and Naruto then followed to find Hidan leaning against a wall breathing heavily.
The top of his Akatsuki cloak had burned and stuck to his skin in certain places, and from the view of many other part of his skin it was clear that much of his front took intense third degree burns from Naruto and Yugito's combined ninjutsu. From the way he was shaking, Yugito figured that he was in shock from his injuries, "You're still alive. I'm surprised."
Naruto held his kunai up high, "I'm not. Where's your partner?"
Yugito looked at Naruto, "Look at this guy Naruto. Just because he survived doesn't mean the other one did. This guy is on his last legs himself so why would you-?"
"You fucking bastards!" Hidan roared as he threw his scythe at Yugito. Naruto grabbed her arm and pulled her out of the way of the incoming blade, "You're both really pissing me off. It's getting really hard for me to not flat out want to kill you two. Especially you girlie, we already beat you once."
Yugito glared at him harshly, "How are you still alive and able to move? That should be agonizing."
"Oh it is." Hidan assured her, "But you've got to hit harder than that to stop me! I'm immortal bitch. You know, I can't die? The punk ass brat next to you should know better than you."
Naruto sighed, "Yugi-chan, I told you that I cut his head off and he still cursed me out and kept coming." Naruto let go of her, "Now where the hell is your partner?"
Hidan smirked, "Would you believe me if I said that you killed him." He chuckled as Naruto gave him a dry look, "I didn't think you would, neither did he."
"Raiton: Gian (Lightning Release: False Darkness)!"
Naruto and Yugito moved aside as a spear of lightning cut into the ground where they were standing. Both jinchuuriki split apart to avoid the jutsu but found a flaw with their plan of evasion when the bolt of lightning branched out and followed them both. The solid rock of Kumo's mountain range was effortlessly carved into by the force of the arcing lightning.
'One chance to get this thing off of me.' Naruto said as he formed hand-seals on the move and crossed his arms in an 'x' to finish, "Fuuton: Senpuu Kakasui (Wind Release: Whirlwind Pyramid)!" A sudden wind kicked up around Naruto's body, strong enough to deflect the quick and forceful lightning attack off to the side, effectively ending the threat it posed him and allowing him to move back in to continue fighting.
He was cut off from rejoining and assisting Yugito by Hidan appearing in front of him with his scythe drawn for attack. Naruto grit his teeth in anger at being diverted by the immortal berserker, "Do you even know any ninjutsu or genjutsu at all?"
Hidan smirked, "Nope, just one really. I'm pretty straightforward, you know what you're going to get with me, but does that mean you can stop it?"
Hidan started swinging at Naruto who found it difficult to dodge due to the angles of Hidan's strikes. It was clear he was used to fighting people with extreme dexterity as his attacks were tailor made for opponents that were far more mobile than he was. Naruto barely diverted a slash from Hidan's scythe with the kunai in his hand but seeing how close he came to actually taking a cut from the wicked weapon, he needed to get that damn thing away from him.
Hidan attempted a cross slash that Naruto stopped by grabbing on to the pole of the weapon with both hands before it could impale him. Hidan kicked low at Naruto's shin, disrupting his balance and his grip. Hidan butted the pole into Naruto's face and knocked him back before swinging at him again. Naruto ducked, losing a few stray hairs in the process and pissing off Hidan further, "Just bleed already damn it! What do I have to do to draw blood on you?"
"Aim better for one!" Naruto said as his fist collided with Hidan's scythe pole in an attempt to hit the man in the face. He dropped low for a kick, but Hidan shifted the scythe to block him again and kicked him backwards across the ground, a kick that Naruto easily recovered from, "For second you need to be faster."
Meanwhile Yugito was still dodging Kakuzu's Raiton: Gian, 'How long can he hold this jutsu for? He must have the reserves of six shinobi to keep this up for so long.' Using the Nibi's chakra kept her a step ahead of the lightning due to her not having a defensive jutsu the likes of Naruto that was strong against lightning ninjutsu, 'Where is it even coming from? I can't even see the guy firing it!'
Yugito sharply abstracted her forward motion with a back handspring and started moving closer to the source of the lightning through the smoke that was still hanging around the battlefield. She played a dangerous game by twisting around the dangerous attack and dodging its branching stems of electricity that tried hitting her as she ran. She eventually found the source of the lightning in another one of Kakuzu's black thread creatures with a mask.
As she caught sight of the creature it broke off its attack and sent out some of the threads that composed its body to ensnare her. Yugito turned up the heat of her blue, protective, flaming chakra cloak to keep them from touching her, "I'm so tired of you Akatsuki assholes!" She got back out of range of Kakuzu's mask and opened her mouth, channeling chakra all the while, "Katon: Reizau Hari (Fire Release: Laser Beam)!"
Yugito fired a thin, straight, narrow red laser from her mouth that instantly impacted off of the mask of the creature and burned a hole right through, coming out the back of it and continuing on to burn a deep hole into the side of the mountain. Kakuzu's masked creature immediately collapsed in a quivering mass of black thread as the mask that signified its face cracked.
"You troublesome upstarts." Yugito turned her head at the sound of Kakuzu's voice, "You brats destroyed two of my hearts with your last two attacks." Kakuzu no longer had his Akatsuki cloak on, instead he had on a black sleeveless shirt revealing muscle tone and visible stitches that carried all across his body. The mask was now vacant from his face and showed that he had shoulder length brown hair and stitches around the edges of his mouth.
Yugito narrowed her eyes at him, "What the hell do you mean 'two of your hearts'?"
Kakuzu turned around to show her three masks sewn into his back, one of them cracked, and a vacant spot that looked like it used to be filled, "The mask you just destroyed was my lightning heart and that combination jutsu you and the Kyuubi boy launched destroyed my earth heart.
'Mask… Heart…' Yugito thought before her eyes widened, "Each one of those masks is a heart? You have five hearts?"
"Had." Kakuzu corrected, "I had five hearts before I fought you and the boy. Now I have three. But that is of no real consequence, I'll simply have to replace them after we capture the two of you, we are in Kuminari no Kuni, I'm certain I can find a replacement lightning element heart somewhere."
Yugito smirked, "So you're not really immortal. All I have to do is kill you three more times before you're gone for good right?"
Kakuzu chuckled at the simplified plan of action, "You say it like it's going to be easy little girl. Hidan get over here!" He shouted to his partner who was still swiping furiously at Naruto who was shocked that he was still able to move at that intensity after attacking for as long as he had been.
"I'm a bit busy right now Kakuzu!" Hidan yelled back as he carried on with his assault on Naruto, "This kid's going to get sluggish soon and then it's game over for him!"
Naruto scoffed and kept narrowly avoiding Hidan's attacks, noticing that the silver-haired man was beginning to get his timing down and had stopped openly telegraphing his attacks, "Please, if you're waiting on me to get tired just from moving around like this you'll be here for the next three days." That was a lot of bluster because at this rate Hidan was going to inevitably hit him. He was adapting to Naruto's style of movement very well he had to give him that, and the way he kept coming forward was annoying enough to press other shinobi into making mistakes.
As Hidan got tunnel vision on getting a shot in on Naruto he failed to notice Yugito come at him from his blind spot, narrowly sliding out of the way of a kick from the girl only to end up eating a haymaker from Naruto right in the mouth that sent him flying at least thirty yards away due to the Kyuubi's chakra giving Naruto's considerable natural strength a boost.
Yugito landed at Naruto's side and smirked at him, "Good shot Naruto-kun."
Naruto shook his right hand out, "Yeah it was. It took long enough for the teme to drop his guard." Naruto looked at the fist he used to hit Hidan when he felt it stinging and saw a small cut on his knuckle, but shrugged it off as irrelevant. Yugito however looked at his knuckle in abject horror, "What's the matter Yugi-chan?"
She looked over at Hidan who was slowly getting up, "Did he cut you?"
Naruto looked at his fist, "Yeah, I must have cut my hand on his teeth when I punched him or something."
"No…" Yugito said hopelessly.
"Yes… Jujutsu: Shiji Hyouketsu (Curse Jutsu: Death Controlling Possessed Blood)…" Hidan said victoriously as he stood up, his skin now marked black with white outline that made him look like a skeleton. As he reached his feet he revealed a red symbol similar to the one around his neck drawn into the ground, "And now you lose brat."
Naruto rolled his eyes, "What is this asshole babbling about? Nothing is any different than it was two minutes ago. You're still an immortal douche and you still haven't gotten a decent hit on me yet, and now I'm going to finish tearing you apart. Naruto made a set of hand-seals and placed his palms on the ground, "Raiton: Kaksen no Jutsu (Lightning Release: Livewire Jutsu)!" Lightning raced from Naruto's hands along the ground towards Hidan who did nothing to move.
Instead of moving, Hidan slowly began laughing and when the jutsu hit him and began electrocuting him his laughter turned downright manic and insane.
Naruto wondered why he was cackling away like a lunatic until he saw the jutsu hit Hidan, and then he felt as if he had been the one to take the hit as he felt the muscle stiffening effect of the electricity that should have been coursing through Hidan's body. His vision went spotty as the smell of burning flesh filled the air.
"Naruto-kun!" Yugito watched Naruto drop to the ground as his frame began to smoke. She tried helping him to his feet only to take a subtle aftershock as Naruto's body was still able to complete a live circuit. Again she tried and succeeded in picking him up to his feet as he leaned on her.
"W-What the fuck just happened?" Naruto asked, still out of it.
Yugito shook her head, "That was how they beat me. They ended up getting a wound on me, that guy ingested my blood, and then everything that happened to his body happened to me in return."
Naruto glared at Hidan, "You think this is going to stop me you son of a bitch?"
Hidan licked his lips, "I know this is going to stop you." He drew a pike from his ruined cloak and extended it to full length, "I owe you a few wounds brat." Hidan stabbed the pike into his left foot, delighting as he heard Naruto shout in pain.
Blood started coming out of a phantom wound on Naruto's foot. He shouted in pain again and collapsed back to the ground when Hidan stabbed the other foot. Hidan dug the pike into his foot and ground it around, sighing in relief at the pain he was inflicting on himself and Naruto, "Come on Kyuubi-brat, don't tell me this is all you can take. We're just starting to get aquainted! Sharing utter physical anguish like this lets me bond with my victims, so don't give up yet, give me some fight!"
Naruto stood back up, ignoring the wounds in his foot, "Is that the best you've got you talentless piece of shit?" Naruto growled out, "I can sleepwalk through this."
Yugito hissed at Naruto, "What the hell are you doing?"
Naruto turned to Yugito with his eyes shadowed by his hair, "He can't kill me. As long as he can't kill me he can't stop me. There's nothing he himself can do to himself to actually stop me. This is where my demented physical training is going to come into handy." Naruto started breaking out in a run towards Hidan, actually surprising the man that he was able to do so.
His surprise faded quickly as he drove the pike into the meat of his own thigh to bring Naruto's advance to a stop with their link.
Yugito grit her teeth at Naruto's desperate attempt to reach Hidan and turned her anger to Kakuzu who was smirking at the sight of Naruto's struggle, "I told him to just let us have you and we would leave him alone. He brought this on himself."
That got her attention, "Why would he do that? I'm not even a ninja of his village?" 'Would he really put himself in harm's way like that for me? Our villages aren't even allies.'
Kakuzu shrugged, "That's what I said, but he said if we wanted you we had to take you both… and I don't have any problems with that." Kakuzu clapped his hands and motioned towards himself in a patronizing fashion, "Here kitty kitty."
Yugito was within a hair of going full Nibi and attempting to tear him apart when Naruto yelled out to her, "Yugi-chan you'd better remember what I said to you goddamn it!" She turned to him to see him picking himself up off of the ground, "Get fucking moving already!" Yugito shook her head to him getting Naruto to sneer at her, "That wasn't an option!" Naruto threw a mass of kunai that spread all around, some nearly hitting Yugito and some nearly hitting Kakuzu.
The unmasked nuke-nin openly laughed at the blonde boy, "What was that? You too disoriented and faint to throw your weapons anymore?"
"Kiss my ass scarface." Naruto said as he made hand-seals, "Raiton: Denkai (Lightning Release: Electric Field)!"
Kakuzu found himself encased in a roughly shaped dome of electric chakra, "You threw those kunai to-!"
"That's right dumbass." Naruto said as he held the seals for the jutsu, "Who throws kunai that badly and lives this long?" He turned to Yugito, "Now I'm not asking you Yugito I'm telling you. Get the fuck out of here and find someone to help you!"
Tears started pushing to Yugito's eyes, "You can't tell me you're just going to give up, that you're going to lose to them here!"
Naruto smiled weakly and shook his head, "It was never about winning or losing Yugi-chan. Go."
Yugito stood in place for a moment before taking off back towards Kumogakure. Kakuzu tried to force his way through the barrier only to bounce off, getting a little electric shock for his troubles, "So what's your plan boy? To keep me trapped here? To keep us trapped here? We're the ones that have you at our mercy, not the other way around."
Naruto smirked at him, "You're right, So why doesn't Hidan just leave and chase her down so that you and me can have it out. There's nothing keeping him there, hell he can even stab at me while we're fighting can't he? Just by attacking himself?" Naruto's smirk turned to a manic grin, "Unless he has to stay right where he is to keep his little link to me! Am I right?" He shouted at both Akatsuki members.
"Shut up brat!" Hidan yelled back and he dug his pike back into his thigh, bringing Naruto to his knees.
Naruto's laughing fit hit a hitch when he took the damage that Hidan dealt out, but it came right back, "No matter what you two do there's no way I'm letting go of this jutsu. You both know I have the chakra to hold you here for as long as I want. Hidan can't move because the second he moves I will unleash all hell on him. And every second I hold you there Kakuzu Yugi-chan gets farther and farther away."
Kakuzu glared at his electric prison, "You think you've won? You think this is over?"
Naruto shook his head, "No I don't think I've won. At best this is the ultimate stalling tactic. But it's better than letting you get us both. Even if you catch me you said it yourself that you have to wait to seal the Kyuubi last, so that gives time for a rescue attempt. And to even seal me you have to at least catch Gaara, re-catch Yugi-chan, and I'm not even going to mention Kirabi. If you can put him down then you deserve to take the Kyuubi."
"So what you said to the girl." Kakuzu pieced together, "About how it was never about winning or losing."
Naruto nodded, "It was never about winning or losing, it was about surviving. And I'd say that we're both going to survive this one don't you think?"
Kakuzu frantically turned to Hidan, "Hidan make him drop the barrier now!"
Hidan started pounding away at his legs and arms with his pike, trying to weaken Naruto's hold on the seal he had his hands held in. He repeatedly stabbed away at his left arm, "Let go of the jutsu damn you! You can't keep taking this, no one can!"
Naruto held his teeth together and hung tough as the Kyuubi now had time to heal his other injuries due to Hidan's focus on his arm, and the way he was his healing increased due to the one-tailed cloak surrounding him, "I can take this all day you fucking wuss! Is that all you've got, all you're willing to do to get me to break? I've taken worse than this when I was 6 years old! Kill me! Fucking do it already you pussy! You can't break the jutsu!" He said before breaking into loud, pain filled laughter.
Hidan shrieked insanely as he started carving up his own chest with the pike trying to up the ante, "Shut the fuck up!"
"What's the matter?" Naruto roared, "Aren't you having fun? Weren't you enjoying this just a minute ago? Answer me goddamn it! How about you Kakuzu, you enjoying the show?"
"That's it!" Hidan drove the pike directly through the palm of one of his hands and ground it around deeply,
One of Naruto's hands went limp, dropping the jutsu that had Kakuzu trapped and the Taki nuke-nin took off in the direction that Yugito took, "Hidan finish the brat off and start getting him out of here! I'm going after the Nibi!"
Hidan looked himself over. He was a total mess. He had stabbed his arm into hamburger meat, if he could walk after the damage he did to his thighs to keep Naruto on the ground he would be shocked, and his chest was spilling blood openly after the carnage he had wrought on himself to hurt Naruto. He found solace in the fact that the intended target of his butchery was looking just as horrible as he was. Naruto's clothing stayed intact, but the blood was seeping through his pants and running down his legs from his wounds on his thighs. His top was sticking to his chest, stained entirely red by the blood from his chest and blood completely covered his arms from those injuries.
Which is why it was so surprising to see Naruto stand right back up so quickly after taking all of that damage to his limbs, "Finally." Naruto said in the gravelly voice that using the Kyuubi's chakra gave him, "That should be more than enough time for her to give him the slip and now I've finally got you all to myself, and better yet you've already done half of my job for me."
"What the fuck are you on about now?" Hidan asked as he still had his pike stuck in his hand.
"Kakuzu was the real threat the entire time." Naruto said, his face still smirking, "While I kept my eyes on Kakuzu the first time we fought you were always there, just walking right through any offense I threw and coming at me while I was avoiding him. You even got in the way of a few attacks from your partner just so you could hit me. Alone, you're nothing to me."
Hidan seethed at the insult, "We'll see how much shit you talk after I carve you a new hole to speak out of!" He tried pulling at the pike in his hand to deal Naruto more damage, but it stuck fast. Before he could look up, Naruto was in his face and unleashed a savage uppercut to his body that sent both Hidan and himself flying backwards into rock formations, crumbling them from the force of the impact. The good thing for Hidan was that the punch dislodged the pike from his hand.
"Ugh." Naruto emerged from his rubble spitting blood, "It was either that or punch you in the face and I really don't feel like growing my teeth back right now."
Hidan crawled out of his own side, "You little bastard. This isn't over." He had to get back inside of the circle or it was indeed over. He could barely move and yet this punk kid was not only still standing, he could still move about and beat the crap out of him. He had to wonder what was keeping him going, not only that but what kind of threshold for pain did he have?
Hidan shakily reached his feet and began his all out rush to reach the Jashin circle to continue his torture of Naruto when he saw the red blur that was the Kyuubi powered Naruto coming at him again, "Not this time!" Hidan pulled his scythe back and blocked Naruto from punching him again when a second tail bubbled from Naruto's chakra cloak. Hidan got a good look at the grinning Naruto whose face looked like pure evil once his lips took on a black outline as his red eyes seemed like they locked with his very soul.
One of Naruto's chakra tails grasped Hidan's scythe and ripped it from his hands while the other grabbed the man himself and slammed him into the ground heavily. Naruto's tail dragged him through the ground before throwing him into the air and joining with the second tail to swat Hidan off into a cliff wall.
Hidan stood back up and shouted with his back turned to the direction he was thrown from, "Is that all you've got! I'm immortal you fucking half-wit!"
He turned his head only to come face to face with a Naruto brandishing familiar steel, "Look what I found!" Naruto used the Sen'nenki no Ken to once again sever Hidan's head from his body. As he saw Hidan's head hit the ground and tumble along he sighed to himself and powered down, letting his fox shroud drop.
"I'm still alive you useless waste of sperm!" Hidan's body-less head spouted, "I'm going to snatch your bleeding throat out with my teeth, just get over here! You're so lucky I can't get back up!"
Naruto slowly walked over. Without the Kyuubi's chakra helping him along he was starting to feel the strain from the battle, "I wonder if I can get your bounty even though you're still alive." Naruto pondered out loud, "It should still be good right?"
Hidan stopped cursing long enough to look at Naruto with curiosity, "Huh? What are you saying?"
Naruto grinned a bloody smile and reached into his pocket to pull out a storage scroll. Hidan's eyes widened as his motionless head could only watch the process that Naruto had pulled and opened the scroll for, "I'll kill you! You fucking demon fox bastard! This isn't over! As long as I'm alive I'll never rest until I pierce your heart! I'm going to watch you bleed out in front of me and I'm going to savor it! Do you hear-?"
In a puff of smoke, Naruto had sealed Hidan's head inside of the storage scroll. At that point the only thing preventing him from collapsing to his knees was the fact that the fight still wasn't over yet. Naruto pocketed the scroll and dragged his sword along the ground in exhaustion as he went off after Kakuzu and Yugito, 'Is it possible for fifteen to be too old for this crap?'
XxX
Yugito hadn't turned back since Naruto told her to run. If she had turned back she would have gone back to help him and she figured that going back when he demanded her not to would have pissed him off more than anything else she could have done at that point.
Her coils were burning as she continued pumping the Nibi's chakra throughout her system to keep her body moving towards Kumo. The two fights against Hidan and Kakuzu had really done a number on her. Had Naruto not given her the okay to start using the Nibi's chakra in the fight she wouldn't have lasted long enough to even begin fleeing in the first place.
"Yugito!"
The voice that had called out to her and got her attention almost made her shout out loud in relief, "Shi!" Upon seeing someone friendly that didn't have a demon inside of them she deactivated her chakra cloak and collapsed on her hands and knees.
Shi, Jei, and Darui came to a stop all around her. Darui kneeled down, "Yugito what happened? Who have you been fighting the whole time?"
Shi turned her over onto her back, "She needs medical attention she's really beaten up." He made a few hand-seals to get his hands glowing green, "Shousen Jutsu (Mystical Palm Jutsu)."
Yugito looked around at them, "Akatsuki tried to kidnap me. Naruto-kun is still back there fighting with them. Someone needs to help him."
Darui looked confused, "Naruto? Who's Naruto?"
Jei realized who she was talking about, "You mean the kid that came here with Jiraiya of the Sannin from Konoha, their jinchuuriki, Naruto Uzumaki. He was helping you fight? And he let you get away?"
Yugito nodded with hopeful eyes when Shi snorted, "Why would we go back and risk our necks for a Konoha ninja when we already have you back Yugito? He's not our ally. For all you know he was just fighting with you because it was convenient to him."
Yugito narrowed her eyes at her fellow Kumo ninja, "He was the one that saved me in the first place. He didn't even have to get himself involved. He's the only reason you were all able to find me at all and you're just going to leave him to my fate!"
Shi nodded, "Better him than you. Why does it matter? This way Konoha loses their jinchuuriki. They probably brought him here as a show of force or something."
"Get off of me!" Yugito shouted, forcing Shi to cancel his jutsu when she shoved him while getting up, "I'm going back to finish those guys off and help Naruto-kun. You three can sit here with your thumbs in your asses if you want."
Jei moved to stop her, "Yugito you're still a mess. Shi didn't get to do much and you're just going to reinjure whatever he did manage to fix."
Darui nodded in agreement, "Yeah. Shi didn't have to be such a bastard about it but he's right in a way. You're risking your neck for this guy, why?"
"Because he did it for me!" Yugito yelled at them, "Can't you see that? Do you not get the picture here? There was no incentive, no reason, no actual objective to find me and get me away from them but he still did it. So why can't someone extend the same damn courtesy to him, nationality be damned!"
"Well isn't that sweet. It looks like the Kyuubi jinchuuriki lit a fire under your Nibi jinchuuriki."
Yugito paled at the sound of that voice and immediately turned the Nibi's chakra cloak back on, "Kakuzu." She hissed out in anger, "What did you do to Naruto-kun?"
Kakuzu laughed, "Me? Nothing. Hidan probably maimed the brat to put him down and is probably dragging him across the mountain range as we speak. And look, you even brought me an entire mess of new hearts to replace the ones you destroyed. You're a responsible young lady aren't you?"
Yugito flipped him off, "Fuck you… I'm going to finish you off."
"Yes I'm sure that you will." Kakuzu replied sarcastically. His stitches on his body opened up to reveal a mass of black threads that his two remaining masks were attached to, "You and your little friend tried a little combination jutsu a while back on me. Allow me to return the favor, "Katon Zukokku (Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work)! Fuuton: Atsugai (Wind Release: Pressure Damage)!"
Yugito remembered the force that she and Naruto generated with their combined jutsu and that was a wind and fire combination as well. Kakuzu sounded extremely confident in his own, and that didn't exactly inspire confidence in her for everyone else around her or even for herself, "Get away from him now! Get far away!"
Hearing someone like Yugito tell them to get away got the other Kumo ninja in gear as they immediately bugged out and took off running away from Kakuzu just in time for him to launch his attack. One of his masks spit a regular sized fireball at Yugito when the other one sent off a tornado like mask that compressed the fireball before finally releasing it in a white hot torrent. The intensity of the heat that it generated forced all of the other Kumo ninja to look away.
As the attack faded it revealed that Yugito had to turn into her full Nibi mode in order to block the jutsu for the others. At the end of her rope she transformed back to normal and dropped to the ground, visibly singed in a few places.
Shi looked at her in disbelief, "Did… Did Yugito just lose?"
Darui grit his teeth, "She took the hit for us. If we weren't here she would have just dodged it and been okay, but she took it for us because we all wouldn't have gotten away."
"Damn him!" Shi shouted before rushing right towards Kakuzu, "I'll finish him myself!" Ignoring Darui and Jei telling him to stay put he went right at Kakuzu while making four hand seals, "Raigen Raikouchuu (Lightning Illusion Flash of Lightning Pillar)!" An extremely bright light seemed to exude from Shi that blinded Kakuzu.
Kakuzu shut his eyes and snapped out his arm that flew off and grasped Shi around the throat before he could take any action to follow up. Kakuzu looked the young man over before smirking, "You're a lightning element aren't you? Your heart will do just fine for now."
"Hyakunen Tsukkakaru (Century Rush)!"
A red buzzsaw flashed through the area and hacked Kakuzu's arm holding Shi off, freeing him and letting him retreat back to his own ninja. Jei kneeled over the man as he held his own throat and caught his breath, "Are you alright?"
Shi coughed to get his breathing back to normal, "Who was that?"
Darui pointed over to the source of the attack. Naruto stood not far from Kakuzu wearing a bladed pair of gauntlets and grieves, staring at him intently. Kakuzu's good mood vanished as his arm reattached, "You were able to finish Hidan? And how exactly did you get here so fast?"
(Flashback)
Naruto was starting to run of fumes at this point but the entire situation wasn't over until he and Yugito were safely with someone that they could absolutely trust to ensure their safety, and he sure wasn't going to find that out in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain, 'I need to catch up to Yugi-chan and see if she's fighting.'
Naruto squinted as three figures came into his view from not too far away. He really wished that they weren't Kakuzu's stupid masks. He was so sick of those things by now it was absurd.
"Hey is that who it looks like?" A fiery female voice called out, "Kami he looks like a complete mess."
They all came to a stop not far from each other, Naruto breathing heavily and staring at them all, "Hey Karui, Omoi, Samui. Long time no see you guys."
Omoi looked Naruto over and took the sucker out of his mouth, "You look like you lost a fight to a kitchen knife. What in Kami's name happened to you?"
Naruto sighed, "Well I for sure didn't lose to anything… yet. Anyway what are you guys doing here?" He said, stumbling slightly but playing off his fatigue
Samui spoke up, explaining the situation "Raikage-sama ordered our forces to scour the area for Yugito since it was revealed that she was missing. We saw a massive tower of flame a little ways from here and rushed over, but you were all that we found."
Naruto grimaced, "Damn, so you haven't gotten an order to return yet. She's still out here, I need to go now."
Naruto ended up getting grabbed on his shoulder by Karui, "Hey wait, you know where Yugito is? You saw her?"
A nod came from the blonde chunin, "I told her to escape from some unsavory people while I held them in place but one got away. We were fighting them, that's where the massive fire thing came from." He held up his sword, "I really hate using this thing but I'm not catching up any other way. Sen'nen Hakkei: Ichijiraware (Millennium Release: Primary Materialization)!" The sword dematerialized and reformed as grey/silver gauntlets around Naruto's arms and grieves on his legs with wicked blades on the outsides of them.
Samui poked at Naruto's weapons in surprise, "What on earth just happened? What are these?"
Naruto shook his head, "No time to go into detail right now. Yugi-chan took off back towards Kumo so you probably missed her or came here from another side of the mountain range. Follow me… or follow the trail I carve out, because you're not going to be able to follow me directly." With that Naruto took off at top speed, leaving a trail of dust and upkicked rock in his wake.
(End Flashback)
"Don't worry about that." Naruto said, "Let's finish this once and for all stitches. I'm sick of looking at your face."
"About that." Kakuzu said before sending two of his masks off of his body to attack an incoming contingent of Kumo ninja consisting of Shi, Darui, and Jei, "I don't need anyone interrupting us you understand."
"Understood." Naruto then rushed in to attack Kakuzu at a speed Kakuzu hadn't seen him move at, a speed faster than when he had been using the Kyuubi's chakra. Kakuzu jumped back out of Naruto's way but ended up getting cut along his stomach. Black threads poured out of the wound en masse and attempted to swarm Naruto and block him into place.
Naruto spun out and cut through the threads as he dropped back in position to avoid a mishap with the threads that had been plaguing him in their last series of conflicts. Kakuzu's body pumped out more black thread then Naruto had ever seen come from Kakuzu's body any time prior to this point. It formed an octopus-type figure around his body and stretched out twenty feet in every direction the arms went, "You're too fast now to allow you to get in close again. Luckily I can keep you off with this. It's a shame, you have a very powerful heart. I'd like to take it for myself to be quite honest." He then whipped his arms at Naruto to initiate an attack.
Naruto spun in a rapid circle turning into a blur as he cut and repelled Kakuzu's threads before dodging as a second thread appendage smashed into the ground where he had been a moment before. Kakuzu was so far succeeding in keeping Naruto at a distance from him, "I already finished off the Nibi. Once I beat you too you can kiss your infantile ass goodbye, and I say good riddance."
Naruto had put on the gauntlets to get the speed boost needed to catch up. He hadn't really planned on how he was going to handle Kakuzu from that point forward, but he did have something to fall back on; Kakuzu had sent off two of his masks to run interference with the rest of the ninja in the area thus keeping him from spamming multi-elemental jutsu combinations at him. On the other hand, Naruto was beginning to suck wind. Once again the downside of his weapon was coming into play. For the boost it gave him it sucked his chakra like a sponge. He was already dipping into the Kyuubi's chakra to keep it from sucking his own reserves dry. At this rate it was only a matter of time.
XxX
Jei dodged another Katon: Zukokku from Kakuzu's fire element mask, "Who the hell is this guy? What are these?" The heat from the attack licked at his body as he stayed out of its range.
Darui had drawn his cleaver blade and had been attempting to hack away at the wind element mask that had been keeping its distance since he didn't feel like dodging any wind attacks from it, "Yugito's been fighting these things? Her and that kid?" He cut through its body only for it to reform right in front of his eyes, "Shi, how is she doing?"
Shi had carried Yugito out of the line of fire and was once again hard at work healing her injuries, only this time she had a few burns to go with her pre-existing wounds, "She's going to be out of it for a while. She's not getting back up, her insides are wrecked. How long has she been lasting like this?"
Darui had enough of the regenerating freaky mask creature running roughshod all over them and made a dragon hand-seal, "Ranton: Reizau Saukasu (Storm Release: Laser Circus)!" A halo of bright light formed around his hands and shot off several beams of electricity at both masks. The fire mask showed awareness to the situation and took cover behind some rocky formations while the wind mask simply attempted to dodge in the open field. It got a nasty surprise when the beams of light maneuvered back around towards it.
The wind mask generated chakra and fired off Fuuton: Atsugai, disrupting the attack and blowing Darui back off of his feet. The mask took advantage of its freedom from fighting Darui and moved towards Shi and Yugito to take him out and capture her for Kakuzu.
Shi looked up to see the black thread monster moving his way but he stuck it out near Yugito to keep her out of its clutches and take his chance against it on his own.
"Lariat!"
Shi was saved by a massive, muscular dark-skinned arm plowing into the mask of the wind element creature, shattering it on impact and putting it out of the fight, "Raikage-sama!"
A looked over his shoulder at his subordinate standing by Yugito. The Raikage smirked victoriously upon seeing that she was still with them, "Good work. Now where are the fools that thought taking our Yugito was a good idea?"
Shi was about to answer when he noticed Jei still under pursuit by the fire mask that had just shot off another jutsu. The jutsu was diverted as it changed trajectory completely and found itself sucked into a scroll, "Fuuka Houin (Fire Sealing Method)."
Jiraiya rolled the scroll he used to seal the jutsu back up, "It looks like we were able to make it after all eh Raikage-sama?" The mask charged up another attack, but Jiraiya only smirked and pointed behind the mask before disappearing in a puff of smoke.
The mask ended up getting eradicated by a Rasengan that carved through the back of its head, all the way through the front, defeating the mask and the heart that went with it.
Shi watched in awe before his focus returned, "Raikage-sama, the man that tried taking Yugito is over there!" He pointed over to where Naruto was still engaged in combat with Kakuzu.
A wrapped his body in a layer of lightning chakra and prepared to make his way into the battle when Jiraiya called over to him, "Raikage-sama let Naruto finish the fight himself. He did this much by himself, I want to see him finish it off."
A looked at Jiraiya, "We could just head in and end it ourselves. There's no need for the boy to be at risk any longer, he's proven himself by staying alive this long."
Getting a nod from the white-haired man was his response, "He needs this. If only to prove to himself that he's capable of defeating these people."
XxX
Naruto had sweat beading down his face, mixing with the grime and blood as Kakuzu kept him on his toes with his defensive offense. It was as if he knew that keeping this style of fighting up was wearing on Naruto and all he had to do was outlast him and the battle was his.
'Damn it this is like the Forest of Death all over again!' Naruto thought frantically to himself, 'Wait…' He realized, 'This is like the Forest of Death all over again! And I'm just as tired now as I was then. I've been running away and fighting for at least twelve hours straight and that was before I even started using this thing.' A tentative smirk came to Naruto's face.
Kakuzu raised an eyebrow at this 180 in Naruto's attitude, "What are you smiling about brat? You still can't touch me."
"The last time I tested this move out I exterminated half of a nest of spiders." He mumbled lowly to himself out of Kakuzu's earshot.
"What was that?" Kakuzu teased, "Saying a short prayer for yourself? That can wait, you aren't dead… yet."
"Nope." Naruto said more to himself than to anyone while still on the move, "But you are." Naruto slammed the blades on his gauntlets together loudly three times, setting a low droning noise that stuck around over the battlefield. Kakuzu simply took it as irrelevant noise as he felt nothing from it. Naruto then slammed his blades on his greaves together three times while in mid-stride, turning the noise higher pitched.
Naruto stopped running as the threads all closed in on him, getting Kakuzu to cackle as he believed that Naruto had finally run out of energy. Naruto clashed the blades of his weapons together one more time and focused the point of the sound into one of the blades on his leg, making the noise conspicuous to Kakuzu who prepared himself for whatever was about to happen, getting his threads away from Naruto. Naruto lifted his one foot and stomped it, burying it into the ground from the force of the stomp. The vibrations from his leg blade carried through the ground, promting Kakuzu to leap off of the ground as he assumed this was all an earth element ninjutsu.
"Tenbin no Hiroukonpai (Scales of Total Exhaustion)!" A high pitched whining noise that droned into Kakuzu's ears seemingly sapped him of all of his energy.
XxX
Meanwhile, with those watching the fight from a distance a few of the ninja that had been in battle against the masks felt their energy suddenly leave them as a faint white noise hit their senses, forcing them to visibly look winded all except for Jiraiya and A. A commented on it, "I can feel my chakra leaving my body. Is it this sound?"
Jiraiya looked on at the scene between Naruto and Kakuzu, "I would guess as much. I can only imagine the effect it's having right at the heart of the noise."
XxX
Kakuzu began to leak blood from his mouth, eyes, and ears, "What the hell are you doing!" He willed his threads bestowed upon him by the Jiongu to move forward, but they only flickered forward for a moment before dropping to the ground limply.
Naruto's ears started to bleed himself, "This jutsu takes the fatigue that I've accumulated in comparison to my full capabilities and saturates the air with this sound. Anything that is caught in the noise gets their chakra drained to the extent of the amount that I've used in relation to my full reserves." That fact widened Kakuzu's eyes. With only one heart left he had no ludicrous reserves the way that Naruto did, and he had been fighting just as long as Naruto had been all day long.
"You… brat." Kakuzu said weakly as he slumped to the ground in a heap, "How could I be beaten by a punk kid that's barely out of diapers?" He said quietly as the noise persisted.
Naruto walked over to him sluggishly, now bleeding from his eyes to go with his ears, "Because this punk kid's been training to kill guys like you since he was able to read." Naruto drove the blade on his foot into Kakuzu's chest, leaving it sticking straight out of the side of his chest his heart was on. Kakuzu let out a death rattle and he went still once and for all.
A groan of discomfort came from Naruto as he allowed his weapon to return to its original ninjato form before he began walking over to where the others were.
XxX
Jiraiya had a wide grin on his face as he saw his apprentice walking back over to them after finishing off Kakuzu, "What did I say Raikage-sama? I told you he could handle it by himself. You just need to have faith in the kid."
A chuckled at Jiraiya's pride in Naruto's performance, "As long as that boy is in your village I can see him keeping it safe as its protector. What he was meant to be as its jinchuuriki."
"Yep." Jiraiya beamed, "He's the spitting image of-. Oh hold on." Jiraiya frowned when he saw Naruto unceremoniously drop face-first onto the ground in exhaustion in the distance.
A sweatdropped as he gestured for his ninja to go out and assist him, "Is he going to be alright?"
Jiraiya shrugged, "Meh, he's fine." He cupped his hands to his mouth, "Come on gaki, walk it off! You're blowing my wise teacher moment here! And here I was starting to think you were tough!"
Naruto, face down on the ground, heard Jiraiya's remark and started muttering curses to himself as he found himself unable to move his body or raise his voice.
"Alright…." Kyuubi's voice boomed in Naruto's mind, "He's back on the list." Naruto could only give a mental nod to his tenant in agreement.
Jutsu List
Katon: Reizau Hari (Fire Release: Laser Beam). A-ranked ninjutsu. Long range. Chakra is forced to the point of attack on the user's body and is then blasted out in a heat laser. The attack is direct and straightforward, unable to have its path altered. It is slow to charge due to the attack's power and focus, but upon being fired moves around the speed of light. It is small and precise in its aim, but is fast and capable of burning through nigh anything upon making contact. Has a range of roughly 100 yards.
Raigen Raikouchuu (Lightning Illusion Flash of Lightning Pillar). Supplementary genjutsu. Mid-to-short range. This genjutsu blinds the enemy with an extremely bright light that appears to emanate from the user's body. A secondary genjutsu can then be used within this genjutsu.
Tenbin no Hiroukonpai (Scales of Total Exhaustion). A to S-ranked ninjutsu. Effectiveness depends on range. Requirements: Sen'nenki no Ken, extreme exhaustion. After being driven to the brink of collapse by lack of stamina/chakra the user will use their chakra to generate a sharp noise that fills the air. The intensity at which the noise is heard will result in the drain of the enemy's chakra ranging from 5% of the user's overall lost amount to 100% of the amount of chakra that the user has wasted thus far in combat. Keeping the jutsu going also slowly but steadily drains the remainder of the user's chakra along with the usual drain of using the awakened Sen'nenki no Ken.
週次パワーステータス
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