Drifting by AlphaDelta1001

Part 14 - The Executioner

Drifting

The Executioner

Just as Zabuza was only seconds out and Hidan was beginning to twist in with a downward strike at the fallen Haku, with all intent to finish her off with a single blow, Naruto acted.

Stepping forward and ahead of a horrified Isaribi, the jinchuriki threw his right forward in a swinging corkscrew overhand.

"HIEN!" (Flying Swallow)

The second Naruto let his fist fly, the Akatsuki member was suddenly blindsided and intercepted by something invisible and fast moving.

A tunnel of wind, following a straight path through the air, exploded from Naruto's fist and ripped down the bridge towards Hidan, smashing into him at the speed of a bullet. The force behind it sent his body tumbling violently backwards across the bridge inside a twisting vortex, the sound of a gunshot ringing out all around.

The gale of wind that was its aftershock rippled past Zabuza and got him to stop, the swordsman looking up in bewilderment before glancing behind him to see where the hell that attack had come from. It just flew past his shoulder before he could even reach Haku or his target.

When Haku felt Hidan get knocked back and the winds whip at her own face, the teenager looked to see what had happened. To her left, she saw Naruto over twenty meters away with his fist thrown forward and a triumphant look on his face. To her right, she saw Hidan roll and slide to a stop on all fours, the force of the attack subsiding.

Winded, Hidan's head shot upwards. "What the fuck was that?"

Naruto, stepping forward into an orthodox stance, cocked back his left, "That was my attack, you bastard! I won't let you lay a finger on her!" Twisting in, he unloaded a full-power, left straight, "Eat this!" Another bang rang out when he fired off another blast of wind at the currently staggered Hidan.

The Akatsuki member growled and got up, preparing to block with his scythe, only to see the tunnel of wind shooting towards him change course, arc around and slam into him from the side, barreling him off his feet again. From there, all hell was brought down upon the stunned mercenary as hit after hit, Naruto chucked twisting blasts of wind at the stubborn antagonist, all of them either following straight paths towards him, or arcing and bending in completely different directions before converging on their target.

Seeing the blasts of wind rip down the length of bridge one after the other from the side, a surprised Zabuza watched the blonde haired kid stick it to their opponent. Glancing between them, the swordsman could only gawk at the raw display of power the kid was showcasing for them. "Those are the fastest wind based attacks I've ever seen." He watched the blonde smash Hidan into the air with an uppercut thrown from a distance before using another blast of wind to hit him from above and slam him back down into the ground. "The shots don't follow a linear path either. The direction they travel is dictated by the movement of his punches and come at their target after he tries to dodge. That's incredible."

An attack that could circumvent a guard after the target tries to move and still hit an opponent with full force? That was unheard of.

It certainly did live up to its name though.

Hien or Flying Swallow as it was called. The swallow was a bird well known for its sheer speed and sudden directional changes. The kid must have been inspired to name his attack based off of the animal for those very qualities it possessed. The fact that it was wind based as well meant that it fit the description almost perfectly. It sure as hell shook their opponent up something fierce.

Eventually the series of consecutive shots slammed Hidan into the end barrier of the bridge, where the seemingly invincible man crumpled to the ground. Battered from taking so many blows, as indicated by the untidy condition of his cloak and hair, and supporting himself on his weapon and bleeding from the corners of his lips thanks to his mouth being cut up, the Akatsuki member growled furiously and glared in the direction of the opposition.

As agile as he was, he had been unable to dodge any of the attacks that came at him or defend against them successfully. Whenever he tried to move, the blast of wind changed course and hit him the instant afterwards. When he tried to guard with his weapon, the invisible attack would swerve around it and smash him in the chest, limb or head. Not only did each shot come a split second after every punch the kid threw, despite there being thirty meters of distance between them, they were also tracking him.

"What the hell are these attacks?" the Akatsuki member growled. He was absolutely baffled.

OOO

Meanwhile...

Orochimaru's outpost...

Jumping back, Kakuzu lifted his left arm and blocked a slash from the side as Kimimaro came spiraling at him like a top on the air. Effortlessly matching his momentum with his strength, the Akatsuki member ignored the sparks that flew past him as the boy's steel hard bone blade grazed his diamond hard skin, before shoving him off and kicking out at him.

Reacting instinctively, Kimimaro back-flipped away effortlessly, avoiding the blow that would have otherwise sent him barreling down the corridor and bouncing off of walls. Sliding to a stop and assuming a wide stance, the teen glared back up at his opponent, after which he then sprinted forward once more. Jumping off of the surrounding surfaces of the tunnel in his approach, Kimimaro came flying at Kakuzu upside down, who backed away slowly and effortlessly began blocking his hits with his arms when he spun towards him.

Grunting, the masked man punched out at Kimimaro when he flew at him with a kick, a loud shockwave ringing out and cracking the rocks around them when their attacks collided in mid-air. After which Kakuzu threw the boy off and sent him away, pursuing him to intercept before he could make landfall. Just moments away from having his opponent touch ground, the Akatsuki member lunged at the retreating Kimimaro with a punch, only to have the boy spin sideways to avoid and hike off his forward leg. He then kicked off his chest and face, flipping away as the older and much larger opponent chased him, throwing punches with his blackened fists mixed in with kicks.

Managing to corner Kimimaro against the wall, Kakuzu chopped across at him with his arm, only to see the boy duck under and leap away. The attacker's arm shattered the stone and filled the entire hall in dust. The cloud separated the pair from one another, with the Kaguya putting as much distance between him and his powerful opponent.

When the cloud settled, it revealed a still impassive Kakuzu glaring across at an equally impassive Kimimaro, who was still assumed in a low fighting stance with his bone dagger held firmly in hand. So far, their battle had taken them out of the main lab, where they spent a good portion of their fight demolishing everything in sight, and had now taken them into the main hallways. The labyrinth of a hideout now served as their battleground, with both opponents trying to one up the other in their taijutsu battle.

Unfortunately, things weren't going exactly how either one had planned.

Kakuzu grunted indignantly, "Nice taijutsu. Probably the best I've seen in a while." He held up his left hand and flexed it, testing out the muscles before smirking at his foe. "It's such a shame you're working for a snake like Orochimaru. You would have made a great bounty one day. Such a waste."

Kimimaro stared blankly at the man. "I don't need praise from a man like you."

"No. Of course you don't. After all, you're going to die here today," Kakuzu exclaimed with a smirk. "Not even your steel hard bones will be able to break through my defenses. I had you trumped the moment you decided to engage me."

Furrowing his brow, the white haired boy leaned forward for a run.

However, just before he could lift off, he suddenly felt a tug on his leg and tripped over onto his knee. Eyes widening, Kimimaro looked back to see what had happened. When he locked onto his ankle, he blinked in surprise when he saw a hand protruding out of the ground with clusters of grey, moving threads attached to it, with a bundle of it throbbing rhythmically, like there was a heart attached to it.

It took the Kaguya a moment to realize who the hand actually belonged to.

"What is this? When did he...?" Before he could even ask, Kimimaro thought back to when Kakuzu chopped at the wall and clouded the air in dust. He must have detached his limb in the smokescreen and sent it into the ground, where it then waited for him to make his move.

But... how was he able to detach his own limb?

Before he could figure it out, Kimimaro then remembered he was still in a fight and looked ahead of him just in time to see Kakuzu's fist closing in on his face. He had but a split second to raise both his arms over his face and block the punishing blow that sent him spiraling down the corridor, the impact of which forcing him to lose his bone dagger. He bounced and cart-wheeled down the entire hall like a ragdoll before his body slammed into the back wall and he vanished into another room behind a cloud of dust and debris.

Watching the far barrier cave in under the boy's body, Kakuzu retracted his blackened fist and smirked. "That should have shaken him up a little."

When the wall of dust settled, Kakuzu saw the form of his opponent step out of the rubble. His foe's body covered in dirt and gravel, the Akatsuki member watched as Kimimaro's broken arms snapped back into place and healed themselves, with any other broken bones snapping loudly as they were replaced by new ones.

Upon performing damage control, an unfazed Kimimaro then glared back up with more noticeable fury, as bones began protruding out of different parts of his body. Taking on the appearance of a hedgehog from the number of spikes he was able to produce, the Kaguya locked his best death stare on his adversary, who didn't show a single bit of surprise at his new form.

"That's attractive," Kakuzu commented, raising his right arm and revealing the stump under the sleeve. The hand he had detached from it, which was still in the ground, then extended its threads towards it and grabbed onto his forearm, before pulling the limb back to it. The thumping of the heart hidden within the cluster of tendrils was sucked back into the Akatsuki member's body, at the same time the threads sewed his limb back into place. "But then again, it is your bloodline."

"I do not care for appearances. As long as I am able to defeat Orochimaru-sama's enemies, than that is all I need," Kimimaro replied, before crouching and sprinting down the hallway.

Kakuzu watched the boy rush at him without hesitation. In response, the Akatsuki member extended his left hand and, the forearm expanding, fired his hardened fist straight at the approaching boy, who span around it in a graceful dodge before leaping at him with two long bones extending from his hands.

Intent on impaling the man, Kimimaro lunged at him, only for Kakuzu's right hand to suddenly shoot up at him from his other arm and grab his ankle again. Just as the Kaguya was only inches from spearing his quarry, the Akatsuki member used his extending limb to yank the boy out of the air, away from him, and fling him back down to the ground. Slamming him onto the cave floor with a loud crack, Kakuzu than let out a loud growl before hurling Kimimaro through the side wall, sending him straight through it and into another room.

Withdrawing both his stretched arms, which he was able to do thanks to the properties of his Jiongu abilities, Kakuzu smirked towards the new hole he had created. "This hallway really inhibits some of your more impressive moves, and doesn't give you much room to dodge either. Me. I have no problems with it."

"Sawarabi no Mai!" (Dance of the Seedling Fern)

Before Kakuzu could begin undermining his foe even further, massive pillars of bone jutted straight out of the side wall and straight towards him. An alarmed bounty hunter leapt down the hall and out of the way, the space he was standing in crumbling under rubble and being skewered by the massive cluster of white protrusions.

Skidding to a stop, Kakuzu glared up. "Nice trick."

The wall next to him than exploded outwards as Kimimaro came charging straight at him, still covered in spines with a spear of bone in his left hand. Kakuzu threw his right hand up just in time to block the attack when it slammed into him, a loud clang ringing out as the pair reengaged.

"I have more than that hidden up my sleeve, trash," Kimimaro stated, his body trembling as he grappled with the much taller and physically imposing Kakuzu. "I don't care how many of them I have to use. I will defeat you."

The bounty hunter's brow furrowed, as he pushed back against the Kaguya. A low chuckle escaped his lips, "Well then, by all means, show them to me."

They then sprang off of each other as round two to their battle began...

OOO

Back on the bridge...

Gripping his scythe tightly through a ringing head, Hidan saw his blonde opponent prepare for another onslaught from the fighting stance he assumed at distance, and let out a yell of anger. "YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF!" He wasn't critically wounded. Only annoyed.

While those wind attacks or whatever the hell they were would have floored a normal, mortal opponent, all they did to him was smack him around like he was a ragdoll. That was just not going to stand with him.

Bellowing out like a wild animal, Hidan charged with his scythe held firmly behind him. "Ready or not, here I come, fucker!"

Seeing the enemy dashing towards them from the end of the bridge, Haku sprang to her feet and retreated to Zabuza's position several meters away, throwing senbon at the berserker while leaping. The swordsman also chucked a barrage of shuriken at the mercenary to provide support for his student, only to see the Akatsuki member smack the projectiles out of the air with his sickle by slashing out in front of him indiscriminately. After knocking away the nuisances, Hidan then made a beeline towards Naruto, who fell back into formation with Zabuza and Haku.

The blonde fired off more Hien rounds, only to watch Hidan plow right through them. Sure the ones that hit his body made impact, the man was negating the force of the wind shots with the momentum of his charge, and thanks to his seeming imperviousness to debilitating blows, Naruto realized that he couldn't count on his newly developed technique to hold him off now that he'd decided to go full berserker mode on them rather than dodge like he did at the beginning.

His first use of it had been his only advantage.

Gritting his teeth, Naruto yanked back the sleeve on his right hand and held it out. "Zabuza!" He then threw it forward, a series of loud popping sounds ringing out when he launched several pellets from his gauntlet straight at their opponent.

The pellets he launched were either cut down by Hidan's scythe or they struck him repeatedly. It seemed like a useless attack that only served to irritate the man even further, until every one of the small wrapped up balls, including the ones sliced in half, exploded and clogged the air with thick layers of smoke all around the assailant. The sudden blasts of fumes filling Hidan's eyes and lungs had the rogue ninja coach to a stop. He cut away at the screen furiously while trying to move forward, only to feel tears welling up when he realized they were laced with irritating powders.

"Fuck! Damn you brat and your stupid parlor tricks!" Hidan cursed, eyes almost clenched completely shut from the burning sensation starting to grate at his exposed flesh.

Unable to see, he started chopping away at the smokescreen, only to sense someone over his shoulder and looked back through a squinted gaze in time to see Zabuza emerge from the thick white wall, eyes shut, and spinning his massive sword above his head with one hand. The Kiri shinobi smirked as he swung in with his enormous blade with a fully corked, horizontal slash, an attack Hidan barely managed to block with the pole of his sickle.

The Akatsuki member attempted to take the full force of the blow, but that sword and the momentum behind it was just too awesome. Despite guarding, Hidan was blown clean off his feet and sent flying out of the smoke.

His soles dug into the concrete when he landed and skidded off to the side, at the same time trailing fumes from his body before glaring up towards the dissipating clouds. Before the smoke could even settle, he saw it suddenly break apart and Zabuza come lunging straight towards him with his sword held over his shoulder.

Telegraphing the swing, Hidan responded by spinning his weapon and hurling it in a curved throw at the Jonin, who ducked under it and attempted to slash his target in half. When the scythe hit the ground some ways behind the swordsman, Hidan gave a sharp pull on his cable and, kicking off the ground at the same time, yanked himself towards his own weapon, flying right over Zabuza's slash and causing the swordsman to miss him by a hair.

Flipping through the air towards the sickle, Hidan yanked it out of the ground while airborne and expertly hurled it at the nearby Naruto, who jumped out of the way in time to watch it embed the space he was once standing. When Hidan landed and gripped the cable, he was immediately set upon by Haku coming around from behind, hand seal formed with water gathering around her in her run.

"Messatsu Suisho!" (Flight of the Obliterating Water) The water gathering in the air formed into thick, solid icicle like spears. They surrounded Hidan in an arc before converging on him at high speed.

Spotting the incoming assault, Hidan ducked and spiraled out of the way of the frozen water bombardment that, instead of ripping him to shreds, tore up the ground and sent chunks of debris flying everywhere. While dodging, Hidan pulled his sickle towards him and, spinning like a top upside down through the air, flung it across at Haku in a counter. The teen flipped over it when it came at her horizontally, watching it pass an inch or so under her, seconds before Hidan landed and pulled it back towards his hand.

Catching it, the mercenary turned fast clockwise just in time to see Isaribi rushing at him from down low. She ducked under him toward his right while he was still rotating and attempted to nail him with a spearing blow with her uncovered arm, which had suddenly developed scales and morphed into a large, webbed claw. Alarmed, instead of timing a counter that he wouldn't have been able to manage, Hidan kicked off the ground and flipped right over the girl, allowing her strike to pass right under him. She ultimately missed with her attack.

It was then while he was suspended above her that the Akatsuki member swung to cut into the girl while she was directly under him, only to be stopped when he spotted Naruto flying right at him immediately after Isaribi with a side kick.

Hidan chose to slash at the boy instead, cutting him clean in half and bringing a grin to his face. His glee disappeared however when the bisected jinchuriki went up in a puff of white smoke and three more Narutos came flying through the cloud. The trio all sent either a punch or a kick at the man, a barrage the Akatsuki had to quickly counter.

The combo forced the man to guard with his arm, weapon and knee, before he was sent blasting back by the collective momentum of all three copies ramming into him. Sliding to a stop along the concrete, Hidan tilted up to see a platoon of blonde doppelgangers running circles around him, keeping him dead center and converging on his position, before being shortly joined by Zabuza charging through the entourage. The Jonin yelled as he swung out at Hidan, watching the mercenary leap out of the way and counter with his scythe, swinging it at him at the exact same time he dodged.

Zabuza ducked under the counter, spun his sword expertly before lashing out in an attempt to slice his opponent in two. Both experienced shinobi began trading dangerous attacks with each other at close range in the center of Naruto's shadow clone formations, with Hidan continually leaping out of reach to hit with one of his more unorthodox attacks, only to have his opponent close in and keep him from landing those attacks.

While his scythe was knocked up, Zabuza came in low with a wild hit, his body spinning towards Hidan. The silver haired mercenary leapt clean over the following blow and his opponent's shoulder, trailing his scythe behind him that he aimed to decapitate his adversary as he passed. As expected the blow hit the low going swordsman through the neck and took his head clean off his shoulders, a sight that filled Hidan with hope that he'd finally managed to kill one of the bastards.

But the frozen body of a beheaded Zabuza suddenly transformed into a body of water that hit the ground with a loud splash.

"Oh come on!" Hidan shouted, rounding on the Naruto copies that suddenly came rushing in at him, "How many of you fuckers are going to use those cheap-ass clone techniques?! Fight like you've got a pair!" Twirling his sickle above his head, he then began viciously cutting down the onslaught of shadow clones wave after wave as they came at him randomly.

Despite Naruto's best efforts to confuse the man with elaborate formations and having dozens of his copies attack continuously from all sides, the S-Rank level rogue ninja mowed through his platoons in droves. He cut them down before they even had a chance to get within a few feet of him, showing that filling up a battlefield with targets wasn't really helping them any. This became apparent after the fiftieth clone was dispatched by the sickle wielding maniac, and a whole squad of them was wiped out when they tried to doggy-pile him, but failed.

"With that fighting style combined with his speed and aggressiveness, he can take on all of my clones attacking him at once," the original Naruto thought amongst his copies running circles around the man, making careful observations as he sent in several more. He tried strategizing and using odd formations to throw the man off, but every attempt he tried the guy would just jump out of the way and cut down his doppelgangers effortlessly. Even mixing in throwing weapons was doing him no good. "While all four of us attacking him at once can negate his unorthodox maneuvers and shut down his speed, this guy is still ridiculous to fight. Since numbers aren't working at close range and going at him one after another is useless, how about long range?"

Deciding to get smart, the remaining clones all backed off and began throwing shuriken. The barrage of knives from all sides forced Hidan to back off as he expertly knocked all of the weapons out of the air in a furious retreat. Haku and Isaribi joined the formation of shadow clones in attacking the enemy, with both girls forming whatever hand seals they required before launching their own attacks at the target to join the masses of metal being hurled his way.

"Sensatsu Suisho!" (Thousand Flying Water Needles of Death) Haku summoned a wall of water needles from the ground and sent them at the defensive Hidan.

"Suiton: Teppodama!" (Water Release: Gunshot) Cheeks puffing, Isaribi fired off consecutively shots of water from her mouth.

The combined attacks of the shadow clones firing Hien and throwing shuriken, along with Haku's water needles and Isaribi's liquid bullet shots peppered Hidan mercilessly. After smacking away every attack he could with his scythe, he was soon overwhelmed by the sheer amount of projectiles, which hammered away at his body before blasting him off his feet. He was sent tumbling towards the end of the bridge again. Upon traveling some ways under the shit storm the kids were putting him under, Hidan then slammed his feet into the concrete to stop from going any further and glared up through a soaked visage, riddled with weaponry.

After throwing over a hundred rounds at him, the three teens stepped back as Zabuza appeared in front of them. Already flying through a shitload of hand seals, the swordsman smirked when he finished on bird and willed the chakra of his next technique to life. At this point in time it was impossible to ignore the crashing of waves from the ocean under the bridge.

"Suiton: Suiryudan no Jutsu!" (Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique) The moment he said that, the water from one side of the structure suddenly rose into the sky in the form of an almighty pillar. That pillar twisted and undulated violently before taking the form of a massive, snake-like dragon, which gave a tremendous roar before rocketing down towards the battered Hidan.

Spotting the massive attack incoming, the sickle wielder smirked and stood up. "So you've got a water dragon? Big whoop! Bring it on, motherfucker!" Hidan bellowed, swinging his scythe back before attacking the mythical creature composed of liquid when it came within reach.

He cut into the raging torrent sure, but that massive body of water wouldn't stop from just one hit. The massive dragon smashed into the Akatsuki member with concussive force before blasting him over the side of the bridge in the form of a wave. This downpour then crashed into the ocean, slamming whoever it had twisting around inside the mass into the channel. The shockwaves it created from hitting the surface of the strait battered the bridge and sent a cloud of moisture upwards, something that did not go missed by Zabuza, Naruto, and a slightly winded Haku and Isaribi arriving at the guard railings to look down over the side.

All of them were getting pretty exhausted from hammering this guy with everything they had. While Zabuza and Naruto were confident they can carry on despite the efforts, Haku and Isaribi were starting to look a little worse for wear.

After a minute passed watching the raging waters below die, a frown came to Naruto's face when he felt a familiar presence hit him.

"Are you kidding me?" the jinchuriki asked. "He's still not dead yet?" Can this guy even be killed? What the hell.

Zabuza looked up at him, "You can sense him? Where is he?"

"Under the water," Isaribi said, jumping on top of the railing and grabbing the gauze around her. At first Zabuza and Haku were puzzled by what she was doing, but when they saw her form grow a bit and green scales appear all over her, they quickly understood why. Their eyes widened when they saw the new girl grow fish like appendages and develop more amphibious qualities when she assumed her Kaima form, something neither of them expected to see. Her sudden transformation meant the rest of the bandages wrapped around her were ripped away and cast onto the wind. "Don't worry. I've got him."

"Be careful, Isaribi," Naruto said, looking over at her with concern. "That guy's relentless. Don't let him get you with his scythe."

The girl smiled assuredly at the boy. "Don't worry. He can't hurt me in this form," Isaribi stated, tapping her skin for emphasis. "These scales of mine are as hard as steel and are coated with slippery mucus to prevent scarring. Blades can't pierce it."

Despite how cool that sounded, Naruto still felt the need to be cautious. Their opponent was alive and kicking, even after being bombarded by a blitz of attacks and having tons of water dropped on top of him with the force of a tidal wave behind it. No one should have survived that, but battling Hidan was proving to be one massive contradiction for all of them.

"Just watch yourself. Okay," Naruto said.

Nodding, the fully transformed Isaribi then dove over the side of the bridge and into the water.

A ways out from the bridge, bubbles on the surface of the ocean heralded the resurfacing of Hidan. The Akatsuki coughed and choked as he pulled himself out of the water, retching up the amount of ocean he'd swallowed before spitting out some blood. While he was cleaner now than he was before being thrown over the side, his cloak was torn on the right side and practically ruined, leaving him with only one good half still intact.

He didn't care much for his state of dress though. What he was most focused on was the irritating bunch he was stuck fighting.

"Damn those bastards! They act like fucking pussies and keep attacking me from a distance where I can't touch them." Even though he couldn't be killed, the amount of attacks he was receiving from the four of them was starting to grind on him. Clenching his fist around the handle of his weapon and standing up to full height on top of the water, Hidan turned to face the bridge about a couple hundred meters away and looked up. Eyes locking onto the figures he could see standing at the side, he raised an eyebrow. "Hmm... weren't their four of th-WAH!"

Before he could mount any sort of defense, the ocean surface in front of him burst upwards and a humanoid sized creature suddenly lunged at him, fangs and claws bared. The growling creature tackled the man with the force of a torpedo and dragged him straight into the water once more, dropping them over twenty meters down before swimming away.

Baring his teeth, Hidan attempted to swipe at the animal with his scythe when it released its hold of him. However, due to the weight and size of his weapon, and thanks to being completely submerged under water, his movements were as slow as an old man's. As a result he ended up missing the entity when it swam away, disappearing into the darkness below and leaving the Akatsuki floundering.

Searching for the animal, Hidan figured he should probably head back to the surface and attack it from there where he was most effective, only to have his plan cut short when he spotted a shadow coming from behind and turned. He wasn't fast enough to respond to it however, as he was slammed in the side by what he first thought was a sail fish, and sent spiraling through the water.

The damn thing was fucking fast.

Blowing bubbles in an inaudible cry of pain, Hidan turned again to try and spot the creature. Seconds later, he was hit again from the side with a blow that cut into him and sent him spinning once again. Winded, the mercenary attempted to lock onto the speedy critter until he was hit from behind a third time, blowing whatever air he had left out of his lungs and leaving him practically dead in the water.

Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, he was pretty incapable of dying. Hell, he wasn't even able to drown. What this basically meant was his waterlogged body was floating there, underwater, being attacked by something he couldn't even keep up with.

After being hit a few more times, the light-headed Hidan spun a circle and followed the fast moving fish as it looped around. When it stopped to float out of reach of him, the man's eyes widened when he realized he'd seen this thing before.

Despite having sea creature like qualities now, Hidan had no doubt in his mind that this thing attacking him in the depths of the channel was that purple haired brat in bandages. She was wearing the same clothing and had the same body shape and reflective features. Though distorted now thanks to her transformation, Hidan could see that this entity was her. No question.

But as staggering as this new piece of information was, the Akatsuki member wasn't going to let this get to him. He had to get out of the ocean before he became actual fish food. Plus he was getting tired of getting the shit kicked out of him underwater.

However, before he could start to surface again, Isaribi came at him again and pulled him further under, spinning him, lashing at him with her webbed claws and kicking him. After that she broke off again, pulling away till she was a little deeper. When she caught full sight of the man looking back at her, clearly annoyed at this beating, her cheeks puffed up and she fired a powerful jet of bubbles at him.

This jet turned out to be another powerful stream of water that crashed into Hidan and sent him rocketing back to the surface. When he flew out of the ocean, he let out a yell of shock as the blast sent him tumbling across the waves before he skidded to a stop. Spewing out the water in his lungs, the man glared up and took his scythe into a two-handed grip. "Alright you freak! The moment you surface, I'm going to shave the scales off your face!" His senses then jolted back to life when he heard the sounds of approaching footsteps and looked behind him to see Zabuza Momochi dashing in his direction.

Blade trailing behind him and carving a gash in the water, the swordsman swung Kubikiribōchō upwards at his adversary, who ducked clean under the blow. Spinning in a counter, Hidan attempted to slice into his opponent's side, but Zabuza backed up, spinning his sword around to stab. The silver haired assassin expertly swayed around the motion and returned with his triple-bladed scythe, a loud clang ringing out when their weapons clashed.

Throwing Hidan off of him, Zabuza then lunged with a downward strike, only to have the Akatsuki member cartwheel over him and, upon landing directly behind him, slashed at him with his sickle. The swordsman turned just in time to have the staff like weapon damn near split him in two at the waist. A second after though, the two halves of his body fell into the ocean in the form of water, pissing Hidan off at missing his mark again, only to jump out of the way an instant later to avoid the series of senbon that came at him out of nowhere.

Looking across, he saw Haku appear from an ice mirror floating above the water and throw more senbon at him. The Akatsuki member batted the first barrage out of the air and blocked the rest with his arm. He growled angrily and ripped the pins from his limb before charging at the ice user, corking his weapon and dragging it across the surface of the ocean much like Zabuza had before.

"Die for me!" He lunged at her, only to be intercepted by Zabuza himself jumping straight out of the water directly in front of him and slamming his titanic blade into his scythe.

The sickle user was pushed back across the waves, a grappling match ensuing between the two powerful shinobi. In order to gain leverage, Zabuza lifted his foot and kicked against the back of his sword. His clever smashed into Hidan's guard and forced him away, with the Kiri ninja lunging with another horizontal slash, only to miss when the agile fighter leapt in a quick retreat.

Hurling his cabled weapon at the swordsman, Hidan expressed extreme displeasure when it was knocked out of the air by consecutive water shots from a surfacing Isaribi, who then fired another stream of water at him. Dodging it, the silver haired killer grumbled. "You know, I'm getting sick and tired of this buddy-system you have going on with each other. Why don't you come at me one at a time instead of hiding behind each other like pussies?" He landed safely and glared in frustration.

Zabuza strode forward and held his blade up, a smirk crossing his face, "Because we're not stupid enough to take you on alone. Though I can put up a tough fight, you're not an easy opponent to deal with. I think the kids are doing well so far." Damn. It was like they rehearsed this fight. The way Haku, Naruto and Isaribi worked in tandem with one another and dodged this guy was brilliant.

Guess dangerous situations really did force you to become more in sync with one another.

Hidan grinned back, "That sounds like coward talk. Why don't you show me that you actually have a pair and take me on alone? Come on."

Before anyone could say anything back in response to Hidan's taunts, the sound of something fast approaching and a shadow out of the corner of his eye caught the assassin's attention. Eyes widening, the mercenary acrobatically leapt out of the path of a metal beam that suddenly came flying at him from behind. The massive piece of construction equipment speared the water with an almighty splash, surprising the three people on the ocean and Hidan when he landed several meters out of reach of the resulting ripples.

"God damn it! What the hell is it this time?" Eyes shooting up, Hidan locked onto the bridge some distance away. When he did, he saw the blonde haired kid had produced a whole platoon of shadow clones, all of whom were positioning construction material along the safety railing and, from the looks of it, were taking aim at him?

The original Naruto grinned as he conducted firing drills, watching his copies hold the material and machinery steady while several of them stood behind the lined equipment and readied themselves for action. Raising his hand, the jinchuriki then dropped it, "FIRE!"

One after the other, his shadow clones slammed their hands into the backs of the beams, bags and pieces of wood they had lined up. Immediately upon each hand making contact, simultaneous Jet Hand ejection points sent the material blasting towards Hidan, who the collection of doppelgangers could see standing perfectly out in the middle of the water. Due to the fact that Naruto couldn't water walk yet and with the opportunity presented to him to raise hell, he began a devastating bombardment of their enemy.

Hidan skillfully started avoiding the rain of bridge supplies coming down on top of him. Dodging left and right acrobatically, the scythe wielding assailant set his sights on the structure and advanced on it. One after the other he avoided the hail of material, getting closer toward his blonde haired attacker while at the same time putting distance between himself and the others behind him.

Seeing Hidan making his way towards Naruto had everyone react defensively. Zabuza and Isaribi started back to the bridge as well, pursuing Hidan, while Haku produced an ice mirror beside her and sunk into it, after which the pane dissipated on the wind.

Avoiding the worst of the deadly storm of construction equipment, including the cement mixer hurled at him, Hidan then leapt straight up towards the causeway. Due to the sheer size of the structure and seeing how high the walkway was positioned above the ocean, the jump the Akatsuki member made was incredible. In the blink of an eye, he was back up on top of the bridge and staring down Naruto's legion of clones menacingly.

"Do you think it's funny throwing shit at people?" Hidan asked with a murderous grin. "Well, let's see you try and laugh while I'm playing your lungs like an accordion, you blonde-haired little prick!"

Twirling his sickle, the man charged at them and the original, who he assumed was positioned at the rear. The shadow clones sprang at him and attempted to counter with a cover of Hien shots, but Hidan merely lashed out at his attackers with reckless abandon, cutting through the swath of copies and plowing through the wind attacks like they were nothing. Upon slicing through the platoon, he then cut through the smoke they left hanging behind and lunged at the original, who stepped back with his arms hanging at his sides and primed for close-combat.

However, just before Hidan could get to him, a cold sensation fell over both when an ice mirror suddenly appeared in the air beside Naruto. In the blink of an eye, Haku flickered in front of the jinchuriki and blocked the swing thrown by the Akatsuki member with a clang, her senbon stopping the scythe dead.

Avoiding the deadly blades, Haku remained suspended in front of the irate looking Hidan before spinning and attempting to kick. The man swayed back to avoid, before back-flipping across the bridge to put space between himself and the two kids.

Hidan frowned when he eventually stopped, watching as Zabuza and Isaribi returned to the fray and formed a row alongside the other two, the latter having reverted back to her human form. "You bastards are trying my patience. I thought that this was going to be an easy fight and you assholes would just roll over for me. But you're giving me a harder time than I expected." He then straightened up and tapped his scythe against his exposed shoulder. After a few thoughtful taps, he then grinned mischievously and slammed the blades into the ground in front of him, "Particularly that purple haired runt with the scales."

Isaribi blinked when she realized she was being addressed, which had Naruto and Haku glance back at her briefly.

Seeing the group momentarily refer to the one in question, the silver haired Akatsuki member then allowed a more roguish smirk to cross his lips. He wasn't getting anywhere taking hits from these kids at long range. He wanted to change that... and take a little back for himself at the same time.

"It sucks ass getting your ass beat around under water. I didn't know a human being could swim like that or hold their breath for that long," Hidan exclaimed, but then lifted his head a bit to essentially look down at his opponents. "But you're far from human, aren't you, girl?" He saw the teen look up at him in surprise, a sight that spurred him on. "You're not even close to one. Hell, I don't even know what to call you! You have slivers and scales all over you like you've got the fucking plague. Looking like that, wrapped up in bandages, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone moved to the other side of the street when you passed them by. I would. You're a freak of nature!"

Eyes shimmering and body beginning to tremble, Isaribi felt Hidan's words hit her like a blade to the heart. Hearing the revolting taunts himself, Naruto looked at his friend worryingly to see her starting to shake as memories of her past and experiences with the outside world were brought back to her full force, as did Haku and Zabuza.

Hidan laughed at the girl's reaction and carried on boldly. "This is just too hilarious. You're just a disease-ridden, disgusting monster trying to pass herself off as a normal villager. Even in your human form you still look like a walking abomination. Something like you, a thing that nobody wants to be near or wants anything to do with, shouldn't even exist."

Dropping to her knees, Isaribi suddenly had tears running down from her eyes as her hands reached up to cover her face. Naruto immediately rushed over to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders to comfort her. He could feel how much she was quivering, which angered him beyond belief because Hidan was still throwing insults at her.

"Don't listen to him," the jinchuriki whispered, giving Isaribi a warm gaze as the traumatized girl turned his way. "He's wrong..."

Hidan tilted his head with a look of feigned interest, "You think she's disgusting too, don't you blondie?"

Gritting his teeth, Naruto snapped at him, "SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH, YOU BASTARD!"

"Why? All I'm preaching to you heathens is the truth," the silver haired man replied with a smug expression on his face as he cut towards Zabuza, "A weak missing ninja who can't even fight for himself, and needs to rely on kids and monsters for help. That's just pathetic. You're even worse than the walking freak show." He then looked across at Haku, who had taken immediate offense to the man attacking her master verbally. "And your little cum-dumpster isn't any better. I'm astonished you haven't thrown her useless piece of ass away yet. I mean... that's all she is to you, right? Just a tool meant to be used up and then thrown away when she isn't able to satisfy you anymore? Tell me I'm wrong?"

Zabuza's eyes narrowed in blind fury as his hand clenched like a vice around his sword's handle. His other fist, which wasn't wrapped around anything, tightened so much he drew blood. The rest of the kids were looking back at Hidan with varying levels of disgust, outrage, and anger, just like the Jonin next to them.

Continuing on audaciously, Hidan gave his final assessment on the lot of them. "What a riot. All of you losers are so dependent on other people, it's almost laughable. In the end that's all you're really good for. The swordsman was used by his village, his ice-wielding slave is used by him, and the girl who I'm guessing was made into the freak that she is... all of you are just tools with pitiful skills." His grin spread as he looked across at the group arrogantly. "All of you were just made to be used."

Silence fell following Hidan's rant.

As everyone glared across at the Akatsuki member a still shell-shocked Isaribi suddenly felt Naruto stand up and walk forward. Zabuza and Haku saw the kid march up front, and though they could only see the sides of his face, they could see the anger burning in his eyes.

His own fists clenched into fists, the boy seethed, as was the entity inhabiting his body, who'd chosen to remain silent up until this point.

After hearing what Hidan had to say, the Kyuubi could only say one thing return.

"Kid..."

"Yeah?"

"Tear this guy apart," the fox spoke, his voice level but still carrying enough anger behind it that it was almost palpable.

And that's all that needed to be said.

Before Hidan could even react, he saw the blonde haired kid standing twenty meters away from him suddenly disappear in an orange blur, a split second before a small fist impacted against his face and practically caved it in. The force behind it sent the Akatsuki member blasting backwards and tumbling violently down the bridge. When he eventually stopped on all fours, the man looked up in surprise with blood dripping from both his nose and mouth.

"Huh?" the Akatsuki member unintelligently exclaimed, his shocked eyes looking up to see what the hell just hit him.

When his attention landed on Naruto standing in the spot he had previously been standing with his fist outstretched, Hidan saw the boy was covered in a poisonous orange aura. It wasn't an ordinary chakra aura either. On second glance, it was chakra that had taken the form of a radiating cloak giving off heat waves and bubbles almost reminiscent of flames, a sight that had the silver haired man gawking as he'd never seen anything like it before.

To accompany the orange glow wrapped around the kid, the blonde also had what looked like ear shapes protruding from the head of the cloak, and two large tails made of the same chakra whipping behind him.

After looking the brat over and locking eyes with the boy, Hidan then saw that the youngster's previous blue irises had turned red with black slits. To top it off, his spiky hair had become wilder, and his human features had become more feral and animalistic, including sharper whiskers, fangs in his teeth, and sharpened nails.

The sight was fucking terrifying, something that had even Zabuza, Haku and Isaribi reeling.

The swordsman formerly of the hidden mist could feel the amount of chakra the boy was emitting as well as the presence he now possessed. The sensation he got from it was almost suffocating. "What is this? What the heck's going on?" Blinking in astonishment, he then narrowed his eyes further as he tried to remember where exactly he'd seen something like this before. Memories of his services back in Kirigakure eventually culminated in an answer, which had the man recoil in shock. "Wait! Don't tell me...!"

He'd seen this before in both the previous containers of the three and six-tailed beasts...

"N-Naruto-kun," Isaribi whispered in shock, placing her hands over her mouth in disbelief as her despair brought on by the Akatsuki member's vile tongue dissipated completely. "What's happening to him?" Looking over, the purple haired girl could see that both Zabuza and Haku were equally shocked at this development.

About a minute after everyone had finished processing the new look Naruto was now sporting, Hidan had also managed to recover enough to finish taking in his opponent's sudden transformation, seconds before his mind cut back to memories of his group and the meetings he'd attended with them. While it took longer than everybody else there for him to fully comprehend the seriousness of his situation, he was eventually able to figure out why this terrifying new sight felt so familiar to him. It occurred to him not too long after he'd started pondering over the little details of it when he began to stand back up.

His mind was floundering in astonishment by the time he managed to push himself to his feet. "Whoa, whoa, hold on! Y-You're... a jinchuriki?!" What the hell! So this was one of those tailed beast containers that his group was after?

Son of a bitch.

Unfortunately, he had no time to curse his luck out when Naruto suddenly vanished from sight in an orange haze, indicating the path he was traveling. A split second later, Hidan was smashed in the side by something small and fast moving, blasting him across the bridge in another direction before he was knocked back the way he came and smacked tumbling onto his ass.

Again and again Hidan was struck repeatedly by his now even faster adversary, who was now darting around at a speed he just wasn't able to keep up with. Not in his current state. Due to the fact that he hadn't been aware he'd been fighting a jinchuriki this entire time, the mercenary's mind and body just wasn't ready for the level of speed and ferocity the boy suddenly brought out onto the field. Sure, if he'd known exactly what he was dealing with he would have been more prepared and would have been able to counter his attacks accordingly, but the fact that the kid's transformation was so sudden and that it took so long for him to realize exactly who his opponent was, Hidan just wasn't in the right frame of mind to adequately respond when he was suddenly blasted into the sky by a killer uppercut from his chakra coated opponent.

Dropped on all fours and letting out a growl as he watched his target fly straight up from his last attack, Naruto bellowed out in rage and blurred out of focus again before rocketing after his foe. Appearing several dozen stories above the bridge and above his still climbing adversary, the glowing Naruto linked his hands above his head, which extended into two large chakra arms that mimicked his actions perfectly, before he rammed both his fists down on top of the stunned Hidan.

The Akatsuki member plummeted back towards the bridge's walkway at the speed of a bullet, slamming into the ground with such force the blast of debris, rubble and dust that flew into the air looked like a landmine going off. When the smoke cleared, it revealed a crater several meters across in diameter in the center of the bridge with a dazed Hidan sprawled out in the middle of it. His scythe, which had previously been held tightly in his grip, had flown out and was lying a few yards away from him, the cable still linking them together.

Dripping blood from his mouth, the wincing man opened his eyes just in time to see Naruto's descending form drop down right on top of him with a killer knee to his stomach. The driving blow caused blood to fly from Hidan's mouth, before he was mercilessly pounded into the ground by the blonde's fists.

Zabuza, Haku and Isaribi could only watch in shock as their enraged companion mercilessly and violently drilled their adversary into the bridge with a continuous string of blows that would have pulverized a hill. They were only grateful that the bridge was so sturdy otherwise, judging from the shockwaves ringing out with every hit, the whole thing would have collapsed into the ocean by now.

Eventually, after a minute of pinning the man under him and pretty much burying him with an uncountable number of furious attacks, a still Kyuubified Naruto eventually withdrew and leapt out of the crater. Skidding to a stop not too far from the others, the panting, two-tailed form of the jinchuriki caught his breath, before standing up to full height and allowing his transformation to subside.

The orange chakra that had previously enveloped him bled back into his body and dissipated, his features slowly returning to normal.

Panting with sweat pouring from him, Naruto watched and waited to see if the bastard would get up again. So far the guy had been stabbed, clubbed, beaten, body-slammed, drowned repeatedly, and battered to the point his bones should have been pulverized, and had gotten up after every single wave unfazed. The jinchuriki was expecting, no, knew their enemy was going to get up again if his resilience so far had shown them anything.

However, when nothing happened for the next five minutes or so, and the blonde was still waiting for a response, Naruto was suddenly startled out of his reverie by a hand being placed upon his shoulder. Looking across, he saw Zabuza staring down at him with a level and collected expression, something the youngster was able to identify in his eyes.

"It's over," the masked ninja said, patting him reassuringly.

Hearing this and then glancing over to see Haku and Isaribi standing beside him and giving him warm looks, the winded Naruto then returned to focusing on his recovery. Coming down from the shock and high of the moment, the jinchuriki took in a few deep, needed breaths before straightening up. Together, the four of them cautiously made their way over to the crater.

Picking spots around it, the odd squad looked into the center of the huge indent in the ground to see that their opponent had practically been cremated in the assault he had been subjected to. On top of being virtually crushed, in his transformed state Naruto was able to drill him into the cement to the point most of his body was buried, save for his left hand, which was still sticking out of the ground.

Kneeling down beside the arm, ignoring the cable beside him, Zabuza pressed his fingers to the wrist and checked for a pulse. After a moment and nothing, the swordsman stood back up and sighed in relief. "He's gone. There's no way he's getting up after that." Nodding, he glanced up at Naruto across from him and smirked, "Nice one, kid. That was a hell of a beat down you gave him."

The jinchuriki returned the compliment with a small smile. "Thanks... but..." He looked back down at the crater and frowned, an expression of dread coming over him when he held his hands up and checked them. From his bloody, bruised knuckles to his palms, he could still feel the sensations of his previous state reverberating through them like vibrations through a piece of metal, and the deed he'd actually done when he'd allowed his anger to run loose. He didn't know how to describe what he felt and what he did. It had simply been overwhelming. "That... was the first time... I just lost it. Normally I'm more levelheaded then that... but..." The kid bit his bottom lip and made a tight fist. "He just... he just kept insulting everyone, mocking everyone and ridiculing us. I just... I just couldn't stand it."

Inside his mind, a familiar voice spoke up. "Sorry about that, kid. Going two tails for the first time must have been a real shock." Due to his own anger, the Kyuubi had pumped way more chakra than he expected into the kid to give him that extra boost to kill his opponent. He didn't know why he did it, he just did.

Maybe because the words that that Hidan used to insult all of them had been the exact same words that that man spoke to him all those years ago before taking control of him.

You could say the fox just wanted to get a little back for himself this time... and let off a little steam in the process.

In the end, he was satisfied.

"Hey. Don't worry about it," Zabuza exclaimed, getting Naruto to look up at him again and see his smirk. "I wanted to tear him apart myself for what he said about me. That bastard had it coming."

Blinking, Naruto then looked to the side when he felt a hand rest on his arm and saw Isaribi beaming at him with shimmering eyes. Due to the fact that he practically stepped in to defend her honor and to protect her from the mercenary's abuse, it wasn't surprising that she was showing him her thanks in this way.

Isaribi took his hand and squeezed it, whispering a 'thank you' before releasing him. The blonde acknowledged her show of gratitude and looked over at Haku, who also beamed at him.

After a momentary silence, Naruto's eyes cut back to the center of the crater. "Well... at least it's over now."

Just as the group was beginning to feel at ease, a twitch of the finger from the partially buried hand had Naruto and everyone else suddenly look at it. For a brief instant nothing happened, and the four figured they were probably just hallucinating.

However, before either of them could react, the hand suddenly came to life and grabbed the cable, which began reeling in at high speed.

Stunned, Zabuza looked at the cable retreating into the ground for but a moment before remembering exactly what it was attached to and spun around. When he turned, he saw the sickle lift off the ground and shoot straight towards him, its blades leveling with his neck to take his head.

The swordsman only had a split second to react before he was forced to sway out of the way, two of the three blades slicing across his cheek directly under his eye and drawing blood.

"Damn it!"

The cable whipped around the surrounding four and knocked into Haku and Isaribi, but when Naruto blocked with his arm it shaved across his hand and drew blood.

Caught off guard, the group sprang out of the crater and away when the scythe landed in the open hand. A shocked Naruto, Haku, Isaribi and Zabuza took up positions a good distance from the hole, where the weapon's coils couldn't reach them.

The instant they stopped and stared, the crater they had previously been inside blasted upwards in a shower of debris. A moment later, Hidan, having taken the worst beating anyone had ever seen done to a human being before, rose up like a zombie from the concrete with a holler and a laugh.

"I was waiting for one of you bastards to slip up! Now I got two!" the man roared. Grinning madly at the stunned shinobi, he then sprang into the air and retreated further to the unfinished end of the bridge. It was there he quickly stopped and slid into the blood circle he'd drawn safely out of reach of attack at the beginning of the fight, and positioned himself firmly in its center.

Shit. They'd completely forgotten he drew that. What the hell was he doing now?

Despite looking a bit grungy with a few cuts and bruises, and having most of his outfit torn up, Hidan was still alive and well. This baffled the four people facing him off, as they honestly thought they'd killed him. The most shocked out of all of them was Zabuza, because he'd actually checked for his pulse and there had been none. From the amount of hits he'd taken from Naruto and watching him practically get flattened under enlarged chakra fists, the guy should have died.

"How... the hell is he still alive?" Zabuza asked, wiping away the blood on his cheek. He remembered the cut and swore under his breath. "Shit. Now what?"

Isaribi was horrified, "W-What is he? Is he... immortal?"

Naruto shook his head in disbelief, "I honestly don't know." He rubbed the wound on his hand until the Kyuubi's healing ability sealed it, the fox in question also expressing surprise at the development.

Bringing his scythe up, Hidan smirked in satisfaction at the blood he could see dripping off of it and the cable. Chuckling, he glanced briefly towards the four meddlesome shinobi he was fighting, watching them back up in response when they thought he was going to attack. However, the move he had planned for them wasn't anything he was going to hurl at random

No. He had something a lot sweeter planned for them.

"Let's get to the fun part!" Hidan exclaimed, licking the red fluid off of the tips of the blades.

Haku and everybody else was stunned to see someone actually ingest blood. Though most of them there had seen and drawn blood before in the past, never in their entire careers had they ever thought about drinking blood. The moments they couldn't help it were when the blood came from their own bodies and it was coming from their own mouths. Those times were practically unavoidable.

This man however was going out of his way to intentionally drink someone else's blood; both the blood on the scythe's blades and the cable he had attached to it.

So basically they were fighting against someone who was not only insane, but was practically unkillable and bloodthirsty... literally.

Was he even human?

Their belief in that fact was only supported when they saw the man's skin change to black with white markings appearing all over him, giving him the appearance of a skeleton. If they weren't shaken before they were definitely shaken now when they watched the assailant grin, embed his scythe into the ground next to him, and draw an extendable pike from his cloak.

"Jujutsu: Shiji Hyouketsu!" (Curse Technique: Death Controlling Possessed Blood) Hidan exclaimed, his murderous gaze falling on the group. "This is perfect. I can't wait to see how you fuckers react to my next trick! It's a real kicker."

Snapping out of it at hearing the man speak, the group immediately got defensive.

Not willing to wait around to see what he will do, Zabuza slapped his hands together and began flying through hand seals. Haku, Naruto and Isaribi put space between each other and watched the Jonin finish up. "If my last attack didn't work, then I'll crush him with this one!" the swordsman shouted, ending on bird. As soon as he did, water began rising up quickly from both sides of the bridge and came to gather behind him. A ring quickly formed from the mass of ocean, which began to spin violently, signaling the incoming of an awesome jutsu. "Suiton: Daibakufu no-"

"Too slow!" Hidan exclaimed, driving the pike he was wielding straight through his own leg, right through a nerve bundle.

While everyone was shocked to see their opponent attack himself, out of all of them, Zabuza and Naruto were the most shocked when the pair suddenly felt a searing pain in their legs and they both dropped to the ground. The swordsman didn't even have time to fire his damn jutsu when he dropped, the water that had been gathering behind him falling to the floor and forming a pool over the entire area.

Haku and Isaribi looked across at the two boys in bewilderment, where they then unexpectedly saw blood beginning to dribble out of their left leg and into the water on the floor.

Gripping his limb, Zabuza glared up at Hidan. "W-What... What just..."

"Gah!" Naruto shouted, his hands applying pressure to the wound as he looked down at it in confusion. "The hell?"

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Hidan cackled, grinding the pike in through his leg and eliciting shouts from his two victims, both of whom clutched their stinging legs even tighter. Getting the desired response from them, the assailant then yanked the pike out and held it up, watching as his own blood dripped from the weapon. "The pain, the suffering, the confusion... don't you think it's fantastic?" The man then positioned the pike over his stomach and, without a blink of hesitation, shoved it straight through him. "How about this?!"

Zabuza and Naruto's eyes widened as bolts of pain shot through them and they keeled over onto their hands and knees, bodies shaking as they kept themselves from falling flat over.

"Zabuza-sama!" Haku shouted.

"Naruto-kun!" Isaribi also shouted.

The two girls rushed to the aid of the shinobi writhing in agony.

The ice user wrapped her arms around her teacher and pulled the Jonin up, looking him over. "What's wrong? What's happening?" Haku was then stunned into silence when she saw blood dripping out of his shirt and onto the floor from what looked to be a wound in his stomach. How he received it though was beyond her.

Looking across, she saw Isaribi was hovering over Naruto and checking his own stomach just as she was her master's. The exact same injury that Zabuza was afflicted with was also on the boy's stomach. But how come?

Their opponent was standing way outside of their range and wasn't throwing anything at them. He was just stabbing himself.

So what the heck was happening to them?

Through pained eyes, Zabuza looked up towards their foe, "I-It's him." His growl got the others to glance towards Hidan, where they saw him yank the pike out and hold it above his left arm, which he extended. "Son of a bitch... it has to be!"

Confused, Haku stood to full height and glared at their opponent, analyzing his current position.

So far the Akatsuki member had stabbed himself in the leg and stomach, the exact same spots Zabuza and Naruto had just taken damage. Quickly, the ice user examined the situation and took into account everything that had occurred thus far.

One; their opponent drew a circle of blood at the beginning of the fight. He didn't use it at all throughout most of the battle until he managed to niche Zabuza across the cheek and Naruto across the back of the hand. Two; he moved to the circle the moment he drew blood from his opponents and ingested it. Three; he changed forms and began attacking himself inside the circle, with each wound he was making to himself reflecting back on the swordsman and the jinchuriki, both of whom he got the blood fr-

Haku's eyes widened when she figured out what was going on and rushed forward, drawing senbon from her robe and throwing them. She needed to get this man to stop attacking himself or get him out of the circle to sever the link. If she could do that, then she could save Zabuza and Naruto.

However, the moment her senbon peppered the silver haired man in the chest and legs, stopping him from stabbing his arm, not only did he not move, but Zabuza suddenly curled over in agony and gripped the areas afflicted. Naruto responded to the onslaught as well, except he managed to stay upright through a combination of stubbornness and grit. A stunned Haku looked back at her battle damaged master and friend with wide eyes, her brain processing at light speed why they'd suddenly doubled-over before quickly getting her answer.

"No!" she shouted, looking back at Hidan to see him grinning madly in her direction. "It's not just himself! Even if we attack him inside that circle...!" Then both him and the victims would receive the damage, with the former being the better off out of the two parties.

Hidan had proven to all of them that he was resistant to all forms of damage that had the potential to cripple or maim. Not only could he dodge serious injury, but he could also survive the worst punishments imaginable and come out relatively unscathed. This made him like some sort of living, breathing human doll that could take hits to the body and keep on coming, no matter what you tried to him. On its own that was a scary thought.

However, he had now subjugated himself to a ritualistic technique that effectively transformed him into a person akin to a voodoo mannequin. Since he could stand through any attack thrown at him, he could stab and attack himself freely inside of his circle without cause for concern. But while he could survive any attacks targeting the vital areas of the body, other people probably could not.

Biting back the pain, Naruto growled and forced himself upright. Ignoring the blood coating his front and dripping down his leg, he staggered forward and fired off a Hien round at the Akatsuki member. His attack ripped towards its target with intent to knock him off his feet and out of the circle. Shockingly enough however, when it slammed into Hidan, not only did it fail to budge him from his spot just as Haku's attack did, but the damage he received came back on both him and Zabuza.

The blonde staggered back and spit up blood, while the Jonin on his hands and knees ripped away his mask and choked it out.

The jinchuriki growled and snapped back towards their smirking foe, "I can't move him! How did he..." Eyes widening, he looked towards Hidan's feet. "Shit! He's sticking to the ground with chakra!"

"Now that I know how your attack works, I can use it against you!" Hidan laughed uproariously. "Not having fun anymore? Good! Because I'm having a ball over here!" Regaling in the group's struggles, the man stabbed himself in the arm, before bringing his pike out in front of him and beginning to slash and stab at his midsection deeply and repeatedly. "Take this! And this! AND THIS!"

Zabuza curled up on the ground holding his bleeding stomach in agony, growling and yelling against every bolt of pain that washed over him before glaring angrily at the man. Naruto dropped to his knee and stopped himself from falling, his shoulders being taken by Isaribi, now starting to panic.

Balling his fists, the swordsman slammed them into the ground and attempted to force himself up, but his body was taking so much damage right now it was impossible for him. He could feel his insides caving and his life flickering out with every bolt of pain that went coursing through him. The damage he took and the blood he was no losing...

Shit... at this rate...

"Y-You bastard!"

Hidan smirked when he heard the curse thrown his way, drawing his pike back and holding it above his right pectoral. After a moment of pause, he drove it straight through his lung, causing Zabuza to bend forward and choke up more bodily fluids.

Naruto did the same, but instead of falling flat on his face, bit his teeth together through vein red eyes and forced his body up. Letting out a strangled scream, he stumbled forward off of Isaribi, where he was quickly caught by Haku and both turned to glare at their attacker.

The Akatsuki member tormenting the two males kept the spear where it was rooted and chuckled, "This is my mercy. Enjoy it while it lasts dickheads, because it will all be over shortly."

Hearing this, Haku looked at the man in alarm. "No!" She knew what that must have meant and turned towards the others in desperation, feeling Naruto move off of her and stand by himself. "Naruto! He's going for the heart!"

Winded and still taking serious damage, Naruto wiped the blood from his mouth and staggered forward. Despite bleeding heavily through his jacket, he was beyond giving up at this point.

This fucker was toying with them. That was something the jinchuriki was not going to let slide.

"LIKE HELL HE IS!" Naruto shouted.

He had to die!

"Brat! I can heal the injuries you've already taken to your body but in your condition you won't survive a direct shot to the heart!" the Kyuubi's voice shouted at him from inside. "You have to stop him!"

"I know!" the blonde yelled back. But how?

The distance between them was too great and the guy had them completely at his mercy. If they tried to approach him he would stab himself through the heart and end the fight. They needed a long range technique, one that could get him out of that God damn circle! If they used the wrong one they would damage themselves, and Naruto's Hien just wasn't cutting it anymore now that the guy was resisting them.

What the hell were they going to do? They were out of options.

Feeling he'd left the four in traumatic suspense long enough, Hidan brought his pike out and levitated it above the area where his heart was. Seeing Haku and Isaribi's horrified expressions had his grin widen as he drew back for the final blow.

"Well kids... we had fun," Hidan exclaimed cockily before giving them a courteous nod. "But now... let's share the pain of death together!" Just as he was rearing back for a piercing shot through his own chest, he suddenly stopped when he remembered something important. "Wait. Shit... weren't we supposed to catch these tailed beast things alive?"

Yeah. That's right. The leader said that to all of them specifically. They needed to bring the jinchuriki in alive.

Damn, and he was still connected to the kid. What the hell was he going to do now?

Before he could think up a solution, all of a sudden a massive pillar of water shot up beside the bridge from the ocean below. The sight of the massive tower distracted Hidan long enough to watch the undulating mass suddenly warp and twist, before taking the shape of a massive dragon. The creature composed entirely of sea water let out a roar as it suspended itself high above the Akatsuki member, who looked at it in surprise before cutting towards his four opponents.

There, on the ground, he saw Zabuza had a hand seal formed and was glaring at him through intense eyes. In spite of the pain he was in, he was able to bite through it and muster enough strength to use a jutsu, which he had trained on Hidan and ready to run him down.

Clicking his tongue, Hidan pulled the pike away from his heart and held it above his left arm. "Fucking smart ass! You think you can still act cool in your position! HUH?! Well FUCK YOU!" He drove the spear through his limb, causing Zabuza's arm to go dead and drop, which effectively dispelled his technique.

The giant water dragon hovering above Hidan dropped like a dead weight back towards the ocean, crashing across the bridge and soaking the entire area. Having been standing directly underneath it, the white haired assailant glared straight ahead of him while feeling the water fall on top of him, after which he then continued to stare while giving the situation a moment of pause, before he pulled the pike out from his arm and smirked.

"Not so cool now, huh?" the Akatsuki member taunted. "After all that effort, you fucked up."

A harsh laugh came from the exhausted Zabuza as he glared back at the man again through a pained expression. In spite of all of his serious internal injuries, he was still able to chuckle through them and mess with his opponent. "What makes you think I fucked up?"

Puzzled, Hidan looked down at himself.

It was then, looking down at his feet, he realized what had happened. Eyes widening, the silver haired assassin saw that, while the water dragon bullet technique failed in taking him out, when the user lost his hold on it and it dropped to the bridge, it ended up flooding the entire walk space. On top of that, not only did the floor get soaked, but the symbol he'd drawn in blood had been washed away.

All he was standing in now was shallow water, which had him panic. "No! My ritual!"

Breathing raggedly, Zabuza clenched his fists and reeled forward with what strength he had left, "NOW'S YOUR CHANCE! GET HIM!"

Not needing to be told twice as they had seen the whole thing for themselves, Haku and the grievously wounded Naruto exploded into action and charged straight towards their foe as fast as they could. In spite of his injuries, the jinchuriki led the charge with everything he had. "HAKU! We need to take him together while he's stationary! I'll block his first shot and create an opening! Use that to take out his weapon!"

"Right!"

Side by side, the pair dashed towards the assailant in a blur, intent on defeating him before he had the chance to regain his bearings.

Despite him having a clear physical and taijutsu advantage over them, they didn't care what it took to beat him as long as they put him down for good. As to how exactly, they didn't know. They'd tried drowning him, stabbing him, attacking his vital organs and crushing him. What haven't they tried yet to get rid of the son of a bitch?

In the middle of their high speed sprint, Naruto looked up towards the sky. Thinking about it for a moment, he then said to hell with it...

Seeing the kids approaching him, crisscrossing along their path to confuse him, Hidan let out a growl and yanked his primary weapon out of the ground, intent on cutting them down as soon as they got within reach. "Damn you, you stupid rats! JUST DIE ALREADY!"

Naruto and Haku advanced on the powerful shinobi, both with their respective weapons drawn and corked back. Together, they let out a tremendous war cry as they closed the final distance on the Akatsuki member and moved in for the kill.

Hidan struck! Naruto lunged forward and deflected the descending scythe with a mighty upward swing of his kunai, sending the triple-bladed weapon back into the air. While the enemy was staggered, Haku rushed in and threw a hail of senbon at his body, legs, arm and weapon, smacking it several times and forcing him to let go of it and throw it out of reach. The cable also fell under the assault of lightning fast ice needles, which slipped into the flexible gaps and broke it at the base of the handle, effectively severing his connection to it.

Stumbling backwards from the furious combination, Hidan tried to retreat, but was unable to evade using his acrobatics due to the senbon buried in his knees. With their opponent effectively grounded, Haku and Naruto switched places for a third time. The blonde swung around his partner and threw his corked right hand forward, plowing it straight into Hidan's chest.

"JET HAND, MOTHERFUCKER!" Naruto roared in anger, forcing himself past the damage racking his body and the searing pain that came with it.

All of a sudden, the ejection point Naruto slammed into Hidan's sternum blasted into life. The gale winds the attack sent started whipping around both of them from the impact point, ripping up the concrete floor, sending dust flying, and cutting everywhere in all directions. It was like a vortex compacted to the size of a fist had opened up on the Akatsuki member's chest, drilling into him with forces a hundred times stronger than Naruto's normal attack.

The power behind it was so great that Haku, Zabuza and Isaribi had to hold their ground as winds tore across the bridge all the way to the end of it.

In the midst of the chaotic storm, Hidan let out a scream of terror while Naruto bellowed at the top of his lungs, his eyes flickering between blue and red, before his body suddenly became shrouded in a potent orange glow. Seconds later, the blonde sent the man flying.

Blasting down the bridge like he was fired out of a cannon, the Akatsuki member flew straight through the barricade wall, across the channel, and across the coast moments before his trajectory changed course and he was sent rocketing skywards while gradually gaining altitude. Everyone who had braced themselves under the storm of wind that hit them from Naruto's attack striking Hidan flush in the chest looked up and watched in shock as their foe was sent clear over the horizon in one of the best pitches they'd ever seen.

The technique had so much power behind it and was moving so fast; the mercenary actually left a vapor trail as he shot off at an exponential rate.

OOO

Meanwhile...

Across the channel in one of the small ports controlled by Gato, Tayuya could be seen standing atop a ruined building glaring down at the mass of bodies she'd recently laid strewn across the various floors and platforms.

Twirling her flute between her fingers, the red head smirked when she saw Swift fly up from one of the unconscious thugs to land on her shoulder. The bird had helped her in driving the swaths of troops down below crazy, getting them to chase her around the area, which made the young swallow perfect bait for the kunoichi to use her flute music to lull them into a powerful genjutsu. After hypnotizing a majority of the mercenaries, she then proceeded to clobber each and every one of them, being merciful enough to put some of them to sleep with her tunes so she had less of them to fight.

That didn't mean their transition from conscious to unconscious was pleasant. Oh no. The genjutsu she'd given all of them had been one nasty piece of work. Definitely something that would require months of therapy.

This was clear from the stunned looks on a lot of her comatose foes drooling or frothing at the mouths respectively, and blabbering endlessly about giant monsters eating them and bugs crawling into their bodies.

"Yeah, you guys are going to be in la-la land for a lo~ong time. Enjoy," Tayuya exclaimed, catching her flute in her hand while glancing across at her bird teammate. "Pretty cool, huh?" When the swallow whistled, the red head giggled. "What can I say? It's what I do best."

Just before Tayuya could make any plans on what to do with the dozens of brutes she'd managed to put down, a blast of wind suddenly hit her in the back of the head followed by the distinct echo of the sound barrier being broken. Caught off guard, the red head spun around and glanced towards the massive bridge she could see just several hundred meters away. Locking onto it, the kunoichi then watched as a high speed trail of smoke lifted off from the structure like it was a ramp, before blasting into the sky away from the island.

The stunned kunoichi and the bird on her shoulder followed the trail of vapor as it shot over the horizon like a rocket, watching it until it vanished over the line above the treetops before turning to face the island completely.

Only one person they knew could use a technique like that.

Who else could propel objects at high speed trailing fumes and defying all the laws of physics?

"Naruto-kun," Tayuya murmured, frowning deeply and holstering her flute. Swift hopped off of her shoulder to hover beside her. "Let's go!" The red head then jumped down from the building and ran for the docks.

That thing that blasted off from the bridge was no ordinary object. That was a person.

If Naruto was forced to use that much power to send a living being, a person, into the atmosphere, then that wasn't a good thing.

OOO

Screaming at the top of his lungs, Hidan was unable to stop himself no matter what he tried as he broke the sound barrier several times, broke through several different cloud formations, before soon entering the altostratus level. Due to the G-forces impacting him, he could barely move properly as he was whipped and spun around like a mannequin in a blender, watching the Land of Fire beneath him pass him by at an alarming rate.

It was unreal.

"THAT FUCKING BRAT! I SWEAR, WHEN I GET OFF OF THIS THING, I WILL FUCKING MURDER HIM! FUCK! JASHIN WILL SMITE YOU FOR THIS, YOU SON OF A BITCH! GAA~AH!" He didn't care anymore whether that kid was a jinchuriki or not. As soon as he stopped, he was going to hunt him down and kill him.

The man cried and swore profusely as he observed any notable feature of land below disappear in an unreadable blur as he passed through more clouds.

In his long, one hour journey across the continent at whatever ridiculous speed he was moving at, Hidan's body was subjected to the harshest conditions humanly possible. He was ravaged by high winds, starved of oxygen, and at some point, his body got soaked from all the clouds he was pushed through. Due to his consciousness remaining intact, he was able to see and experience everything that came after that to the point he suddenly passed into an area where he was slowly able to make out the distinct features of white and snowfall.

Perplexed when he felt the temperature drop like a stone, Hidan had only a few seconds of more flight time to try and work out where he was exactly, till all of a sudden his view of the world turned blood red, seconds before his vision went black.

Due to the fact he had been traveling at such high speed backwards, the mercenary had been unable to see he had wound up in the mountain ranges somewhere in the northern parts of the country, where his body was then, without warning, slammed straight into the side of one of the massive peaks. The blast of rubble, debris and snow outwards on impact was big enough...

The fact that he went splat against it like a bug under a fly swatter on a windowsill was another.

For however many number of minutes that went by after that, Hidan saw nothing but black. Eventually, his eyes eventually recovered whatever sight he'd lost and blinked open to kiss the sunlight that was able to reach him up there. Once his vision completely cleared up, a grin spread across the silver haired man's lips as he realized he'd finally stopped.

"Yeah? YEAH? Is it over? HA! YES! About fucking time! Woo! What a rush! Motherfucker, I don't think anyone has ever moved that fast before!" Clearly he had chosen to forget about the Fourth Hokage and Raikage, but he couldn't give a shit about them right now. He'd finally landed and that meant he could get back to killing people again. "Shit... I shouldn't have held my ground against that kid's fucking wind attacks. I should have just dodged and fucking cut them all to pieces. This time... this time I'll do it right. I... wait... why do I taste blood?"

A whole lot of blood. Man. He must have hit the ground harder than he thought.

"And why can't I feel my legs... or my arms... or my hands?" Confused, the man looked down to see what was going on and figure out why he couldn't move. It took him a few moments of glaring through the snow for him to discover that not only had he formed a massive crater in the ground where he crashed, but his body had splattered and quartered itself.

Hidan's eyes bugged out of his head when, from his head's position at one end of the crater, he saw his arm lying several feet from him, his leg a few feet from that, a pool of blood staining the snow, and his torso lying at the other side of the hole in a crumpled heap. He had no idea where the other parts were. "WHAT THE...?!"

Yep. At the speed he had been traveling at, when he hit the side of the mountain, not only did he hit it at full speed, he also went straight into bedrock.

"SON OF A BITCH! WHAT THE HELL! How the fuck am I going to put myself back together now! KAKUZU!" The man screamed out, his voice echoing through the mountains however many thousands of meters up he was. Unfortunately for him, his partner was nowhere even near where he was, which was really bad. "KAKUZU~UUU!"

His voice echoed through the foggy, sub-zero mountain ranges and into the distance, reverberating off of every wall and cliff.

This was his big mistake, as once Hidan's disembodied voice died out, the severed head stopped when he heard the sound of rumbling and looked up. When he did, he saw a wall of ice and snow charging straight towards him from the mountain further up the side. When it got close enough for him to see it and the shaking in the ground grew to a level he could easily feel, Hidan's eyes bugged out again when he realized what he had done.

"Fuck me." His last curse died under the tremendous sound of a rushing storm when the avalanche hit him and swept him away, burying him under tons of ice in the middle of uncharted territory.

It would not be too long till the collapsing sheet of snow settled down. When it did, it left a mountainside completely devoid of life, due to the fact that it had not only scattered whatever remains of Hidan there were, but had buried him under hundreds of feet of snow and ice, which was where he would stay forever.

It was over for him...

OOO

Elsewhere...

Having lived close to a hundred years now from the days of the First Hokage, you could say that Kakuzu was a man of experience. He'd seen and heard of almost everything major and minor in the world in the numerous decades he had been around, and the amount of knowledge on top of the skills he'd accumulated during that period was irrefutable. You could even go so far as to say that there was nothing out there that he hadn't seen before and that there were very few things that could surprise him.

Anything that could, he would refer to as just one of those days, he figured.

This just happened to be one of them.

At the beginning of this fight with Orochimaru's subordinate, Kakuzu started off confidently. With his claim over the five main affinities and the abilities granted to him by his Jiongu (Earth Grudge Fear) threads, he figured he had this one in the bag. Since he'd done battle with several Kaguya in the past and came out on top through the same means he'd enhanced upon in the past fifty years every time, he figured that Kimimaro would just be another pig lined up for slaughter.

But then the battle between them started, the two fighters engaged, and things started to go pear shaped for the bounty hunter real quickly. It wasn't that he was in any kind of danger. Oh no. It was just that the situation to follow started to become troublesome.

The Kaguya were well known for their aggressive fighting style and savage battle tactics. For those that had come into possession of their rare kekkei genkai Shikotsumyaku (Dead Bone Pulse), this enhanced their abilities to perform several times over, granting them flexibility, strength, power and speed an ordinary human wouldn't be capable of. The last person Kakuzu fought with these abilities was a really powerful individual, able to incase herself in armor and forge swords of bone. She had an impressive fighting style and decent strength, something Kakuzu was able to circumvent and carve through her.

Kimimaro had inherited these exact same abilities, which Kakuzu thought would make for another easy and predictable battle. Unfortunately, the boy had also inherited a lot more than just bloodline ability. He was also ridiculously sharp and his reflexes were absurd. On top of that, he was incredibly talented, able to bust out moves and techniques on the fly like he'd rehearsed it thousands of times in the past. This became apparent when Kakuzu attempted to corner him, and he just slipped away.

He wasn't too shabby in the close combat area either. With that bone dagger in his grasp and his hand-to-hand combat skills, he was able to trade blows evenly with the bounty hunter, and even run circles around him for a bit.

After getting a decent gauge of his opponent's abilities, Kakuzu started to take him more seriously, as did the youngster. Following a vicious exchange through the underground base, Kimimaro took it up a notch by producing bones from his entire body and went after the man like a spinning top. Using only his Doton: Domu (Earth Release: Earth Spear), incasing certain parts of his body in black, Kakuzu came to blows with the young man again, reducing entire hallways to rubble and collapsing rooms on them. Eventually Kimimaro was forced to activate the Cursed Seal of Earth on his chest, transforming his entire body to look like a dinosaur.

This was where the battle really started to get interesting, and in the ensuing chaos, the entire base was blasted from the cliff and into the ocean.

Through use of his fire release technique Katon: Zukokku (Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work), Kakuzu ripped the entire facility apart and assaulted his opponent mercilessly. When the structure caved in on itself and was left a smoking, unrecognizable heap, the man leapt out of the aftermath and back out onto open ground.

Grungy from unintentionally burying himself, with his cloak dirt ridden and shredded from his battle with his opponent, most notably the missing sleeve on his right and the tattered hem at the bottom, the masked shinobi glared down at what used to be Orochimaru's research lab. The section of island it resided in was nothing but a crater of large slabs of rubble and debris now, with smoke rising out of it due to the explosions that had occurred inside.

This ruined section led all the way down to the beach, where Kakuzu could see clear out across the ocean. After inspecting his handiwork, he grunted and massaged his neck.

"What a pain. I never expected the runt to transform into a lizard and start leveling the place," Kakuzu thought off-handedly before lowering his arm back down to his side. "Next time I'll finish the battle quickly and not waste time. That was just a needless expense of chakra."

Turning heel, the man prepared to march out of there, only to stop when he saw the ground several meters in front of him explode upwards and several large bone structures began jutting out of it.

"Sawarabi no Mai!" (Dance of the Seedling Fern)

Kakuzu watched with interest as dozens more bones penetrated the surface before stopping. Several seconds later, the familiar form of Kimimaro came sliding out of one of the protrusions at the front, currently transformed in a partial Level 2 state, with half of his body normal, while the other half of his skin was dark brown and demonic in appearance, with thick bones sticking out from that side of his back like sails. After stepping onto the ground, looking a little roughed up but relatively unharmed, the boy held his transformed right arm up and produced a large quantity of bone from it. The white blades twisted and wrapped around his limb till he'd produced something akin to a drill, which had Kakuzu raise an eyebrow.

"Tessenka no Mai: Hana," (Dance of the Clematis: Flower) Kimimaro said, cocking the massive construct of bone back threateningly while locking his best death glare with the Akatsuki member. "You think you can destroy my master's precious facility and just walk away?"

"Yes," Kakuzu shrugged carelessly. Technically it was Kimimaro that started going wild and forced the bounty hunter to start fighting more recklessly. He figured that half of it was partially his fault as well.

"You are mistaken," Kimimaro replied with a deepening frown. "I will not have you intrude on our soil and sully it with your filthy presence. Trash like you must be disposed of accordingly, and I am just the person best suited for the job." He lowered himself into a wide stance, his one yellow eye hardening on the man standing in his sights. "Prepare to meet your maker."

After hearing Kimimaro's blatant declaration to defeat him, Kakuzu breathed a sigh of annoyance before raising his right hand. When he did, the stitching around his arm unraveled and, in a show of his own freakish capabilities, an immense amount of threads burst out and wrapped around his hand. When they formed a mass of metal like a club, two of his masks appeared at the tip with their chins touching; the fire mask and the wind mask. While the Kaguya flinched at the sudden change in his opponent's limb, to Kakuzu it was just a normal occurrence.

"Normally I wouldn't use these to such an extent, but you're really trying my patience, boy," Kakuzu replied, his glare darkening as he lowered his morphed arm. "I'll be sure to finish you with this next attack."

Frowning, Kimimaro crouched and prepared for a lunge. But before either foe could move to engage for a possibly fifth round, a sudden flash of chakra on the wind stopped them dead, and the pair's eyes turned towards the tree line. Looking towards the tops of the trees, the two shinobi saw a vapor trail high up in the sky arcing towards the horizon of the mainland, with the source of it moving at an extremely high speed up into the altocumulus level.

It was unusual to see such a formation in the sky and even stranger that they were able to sense such a phenomenon.

Puzzled, Kakuzu squinted to try and gauge what the hell he was looking at, figuring it to be just some strange cloud formation. When his gaze locked onto the fast moving object way off in the distance, his eyes widened somewhat in surprise when he realized that it was a person.

It wasn't just any person either. Who else wore black and would make such a flashy performance to let everyone know that it was him. What's more, it also looked like he was in deep shit, something that had Kakuzu completely forget about his squabble with Kimimaro as well as his hunt, and focus on the new issue at hand.

"Damn it, Hidan," the masked mercenary growled, his brow furrowing irritably. "I give you a simple job to do and you screw it up. Now you're really going to die." And he was absolutely serious on that note. The trajectory of his airborne opponent far off in the distance was dangerous. If he ascended any higher than that than the chances of him returning to earth in one piece and NOT scattering across the land was zero. Groaning in exasperation, the man turned back to Kimimaro, "We're done here."

"No. Just you," the Kaguya replied, dashing forward before leaping into the air. The massive bone drill in his right cocked back as he descended upon his foe, all intentions set to impale the man with his strongest attack.

However, just before he could get into striking distance of him, Kakuzu pointed his transformed limb straight up at the youngster, and the mouths of the two masks opened. "Jiongu: Saishu Shageki!" (Earth Grudge Fear: Final Shot) The flecks of fire and wind that appeared at the mouths of his masks suddenly warped together, before blasting outwards in the form of a raging tornado of flames.

A stunned Kimimaro still in mid-descent was engulfed in the enormous blast that filled the air with an attack the size of an actual hurricane. The flames incinerated trees and lit up the sky in a dazzling display of destruction. The person on the receiving end was scorched and tossed about inside the heart of the attack, after which he was then sent hurling out of it trailing smoke. Wherever he landed, Kakuzu was sure that he wouldn't be picking himself up for a while.

Cutting off the chakra feed to the attack, Kakuzu retracted his arm and allowed the threads and masks to sink back into him. His limb twisting and shuddering as everything was returned to its rightful places the bounty hunter then flexed his restored fingers before looking across the smoldering crater the size of an Olympic swimming pool, which he'd formed in the ground from the sheer range of his attack.

Even though he aimed the blast upwards, the spread and reach it had was just jaw dropping.

"That takes care of him," Kakuzu muttered, wanting to add a 'for now' to the end of that, but was pretty sure he wouldn't be running into him again anytime soon. He was going to be busy grafting skin back onto his body after having all of it melted off. Business settled, the masked man then focused on the vapor trail he could see fading away in the distance. When it vanished, he calculated the exact position the 'rocket' originated from, and started in that direction, moving with purpose. "The bridge."

Yep. Whatever shit Hidan got himself into, must have been way more than he could handle...

TO BE CONTINUED...