บท 330: Time to Butt in
"What?" Kankuro asked in a shocked tone. He thought that he had heard wrong.
"You scared brat? I once tried to assassinate the God of Shinobi Hashirama Senju but failed." Kakuzu said narrowing his eyes. He could see the tension rise up on Kankuro's tattooed face and also on the faces of the shinobis surrounding him.
Kankuro knew that this statement was way too outrageous for it to be a lie. But if what the man in front of him is saying is true then he is not someone the likes of Kankuro and a handful of sand shinobis can deal with.
Kankuro knew that if he himself started doubting his capability then the morale of his people will be worse. Kankuro immediately sent one of his puppets toward Kakuzu but this time the hands of the puppet were wide apart as if trying to hug Kakuzu.
Kakuzu who didn't know what Kankuro was trying to do just stood there. He knew that those toys made of wood won't do him any harm. Just as the puppet reached Kakuzu, all the arms of the puppet suddenly detached from the main body.
Not just that but the entire torso of the puppet opened up showing a hollow space inside. The puppet came closer to Kakuzu and eventually, Kakuzu's entire body went inside the puppet's torso.
Just as that happened Kankuro muttered "Got you". As he said that, the torso closed back up with Kakuzu inside it and the arms which had detached a few seconds ago had sharp knives pop out from their other side. With a clap of his hand, all those 6 arms with knives on its end were inserted into various slots that were made on the wood of the torso cover.
This was one of Kankuro's trump cards and no one who had witnessed it had lived to tell about it. Kankuro then looked at the bottom of the puppet expecting to see blood seeping out from the puppet but that didn't happen.
"Captain Kankuro, what is happening? Is he dead?" One of Kankuro's men asked as he himself was waiting for the blood to come pouring out of the hollow puppet.
"I don't know...but maintain a safe distance."Kankuro warned. He didn't want to face any casualties so early in the conflict against the Akatsuki.
After waiting for 5-7 seconds, Kankuro decided to check it out himself and moved a step forward. Just as he did that he saw that dark hair started coming out of the holes where the knife arms had pierced.
Kankuro didn't understand if this was good or bad but the next second, the entire puppet exploded. This created a loud noise and even destroyed the entire puppet. Kankuro held a hand against his eyes to shield them.
Just as he removed it, he saw that the pieces of the puppet were spread to everyone around him and Kakuzu was standing in front of him but not without something disturbing on his body.
The entire body of Kakuzu looked like it had been stitched numerous amount of times and he also had 3 masks on his back. The sight of his body weirded out many shinobis.
"How is this possible? That technique should have killed you. They all target vital organs including your heart so why didn't you die?" Kankuro asked in a daze. He couldn't think of one reason why Kakuzu was standing in front of him alive.
"Told you brat...it's not that easy to kill me. You have to kill me many more times to get rid of me and I don't think you have any more cards to play." Kakuzu said and just then plenty of hair started coming out from the stitches of his hands and his back.
The hairs were way more than the ones he had previously taken out to get rid of those clay balls. They were also denser and longer than before. Kankuro was even questioning what Kakuzu was and whether was he even human in the first place.
"I hope wasting so much time on you will get me a good bounty or else it is just a waste of time and energy." Kakuzu said and the thousands of hair strands moved toward Kankuro.
Kankuro quickly took a few steps back and attacked with his other puppet but the strands of hair just flew a hole through the entire puppet and chucked it outside rendering it useless.
The distance between the strands of hair and Kankuro was shortening. Baki was about to jump in and help him but he suddenly felt an attack coming toward him. He immediately jumped to the side and a voice fell on his ears.
"I was jealous that you weren't giving me much attention." Baki looked in the direction the voice came from and he saw Hidan standing just a few faces away from where Baki stood before and the scythe had penetrated the ground where Baki was exactly standing a second ago.
'Thank god I jumped away at the right time or else I would have suffered a serious injury.' Baki thought. He then looked in the direction of Kankuro and saw that Kakuzu was pushing him back and now the hairs had become so long and denser that they had blocked Kankuro's escape from 3 sides.
Baki looked up at Gaara to see if he was available to bail out Kankuro but Gaara looked too busy dealing with Deidara who wasn't giving Gaara a single chance to give even the smallest attention to other parts of the battlefield. He was constantly hurling clay at Gaara or trying to harm the troops around Gaara and with all that Gaara's hands were full.
Kankuro was getting desperate as each and every second was passing. He knew that even in the wide open desert, Kakuzu wasn't giving him a single chance to escape. Kankuro couldn't even take the time to bring out more puppets. Every time he tried to do something, Kakuzu would make a swift attack forcing Kankuro to be on the defensive.
A little distance away from this Hidan was toying with Baki. Baki had instructed his men to stand back as it would be no use making them fight. He had understood that for Hidan those sand shinobis were like weeds that he can uproot without much effort.
Hidan was just waving his multi-bladed scythe at Baki but not with the intention to kill. He would laugh erratically between attacks and only make multiple injuries on Baki's body.
After a minute or so in such a fight, Gaara quickly glanced to the side and saw that his brother was exhausted and was trying his best to save himself from the dense hair strands and Baki was now breathing heavily with multiple bleeding wounds on his body.
"Finish it both of you...stop toying with your prey and wasting my time" Sasori said in a gruff and annoyed tone.
Kakuzu and Hidan weren't the type of people to take orders but since this mission was given to Sasori and they were just helpers, they had to listen.
Both Kakuzu and Hidan lunged forward to execute their final blow to their opponents when they felt something. It wasn't just anyone's presence but something akin to fear in their hearts. They suddenly stopped and then a voice came.
"Fire Style: Majestic Destroyer flame"
Just as this voice was heard, a large sea of flame came from behind Kankuro and Baki toward the 3 Akatsuki members. Just by being in the vicinity, Kankuro and Baki felt that they themselves will melt now so they jumped far back. The sand shinobis were also shocked to see a jutsu of this proportion.
It had covered such an enormous amount of space that Sasori and the 2 Akatsuki members had no way to run sideways to avoid it. Sasori quickly dug a hole just below him and jumped into it while Hidan and Kakuzu were the first ones to get the brunt of the fire-style jutsu.
Deidara and Gaara who were busy battling also stopped seeing the enormous wave of fire. Deidara knew that whoever performed this jutsu is definitely Kage-level shinobi or higher.
Just as the wave of fire stopped, they wanted to look back and see who was the one who performed this jutsu but then they heard a loud scream. They looked in the direction of the scream and saw that it was Hidan's scream. His entire skin was burned and he looked like an ugly black statue.
"Is he dead?" One of the sand elders asked as he saw the burned Hidan who was still standing with his scythe in hand but then Hidan opened his eyes. He moved his body a little and very soon his body started healing.
His movements which were slow and rigid at first started to become smooth. His healing was so fast that skin started appearing on his body. Just then some clusters of molten sand were thrown in the air a few meters behind Hidan and Sasori jumped out of it.
"The fire did quite a number on you" Sasori said and threw an Akatsuki cloak at Hidan.
(Who interfered in the fight and how will things take a turn now? Ans to all your questions are posted in my P@treon)
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