The moment Ren whispered "One of five," something inside Kakuzu snapped and his aura surged in a dense and violent manner. The air thickened with killing intent so heavy that even the wind seemed to stagger.
For a split second, Ren saw the subtle shift in Kakuzu's stance, the faint flex of his shoulders as threads rippled beneath his tattered cloak like an ocean of snakes. Then, all at once, the remaining masks reeled back and fused into his body, the black cords winding and tightening across his skin.
"Alright," Kakuzu muttered, voice dark and low, "enough playing around."
The veins on his arms bulged as the threads anchored deeper, reinforcing every muscle fiber. His already monstrous physique swelled with tension, each movement accompanied by the faint, bone-grinding sound of chakra-hardened sinew constricting.
The next instant, the ground cracked beneath his feet.
Boom!
Kakuzu vanished.
Ren barely caught the movement as his Hyperfocus registered the ground deformation milliseconds before Kakuzu emerged behind him, arm gleaming obsidian-black. Ren twisted sideways, his instincts taking over as the hardened fist grazed his ribs, the air pressure alone launching him off the ground.
He crashed through a half-burnt tree, skidding across the dirt before landing in a low crouch, his breath steady but sharp. His forearm throbbed where he'd blocked the strike with a chakra-reinforced elbow.
'His physical strength just increased to an absurd level.' Ren muttered thought. 'I didn't remember that he could reinforce his body with those threads, is it a deviation or is my memory failing me.'
He barely had time to analyze before Kakuzu's hands slammed into the ground.
[Earth Style: False Mountain Collapse!]
The terrain convulsed.
With a roar like a breaking earthquake, the entire stretch of forest floor erupted upward as massive slabs of earth splitting apart, roots snapping, trees hurling into the air like paper. A tidal wave of stone and debris surged outward, ripping through the battlefield and sending clouds of dust spiraling high above.
Ren shot into the air, propelled by a burst of chakra at his feet, but the moment he gained altitude, Kakuzu's threads shot up after him, dozens of them, moving faster than most could even perceive.
He clicked his tongue. "Persistent old man."
The first wave of threads speared upward, slicing through the air like black whips. Ren twisted midair, dodging by inches but there were too many. He clapped his hands together.
[Lightning Style: Thunder Clone!]
A clone materialized in front of him just as several tendrils lunged. They pierced straight through it and in an instant, lightning exploded outward, frying the threads and scattering them in a burst of white-blue static.
Ren used the opening to backflip away as he used one of the threads as a base, landing on a broken tree trunk only for the ground beneath it to suddenly surge. Kakuzu's arm, separated far from his body, erupted from the soil, wrapped in hardened threads, swinging upward in an ambush.
Ren blocked with his forearm, the blow sending a shockwave up his bones. He slid back several meters, boots carving deep tracks into the dirt.
Kakuzu followed up with a barrage of fists, tendrils, and hardened strikes moving in an erratic rhythm. He wasn't just lashing out; he was thinking. Testing Ren's reflex timing. Probing his blind spots. Adjusting his angles faster than most could adapt.
Ren's Hyperfocus tracked every twitch of muscle, every rotation of Kakuzu's joints. His body moved instinctively, weaving between the flurry with minimal steps, redirecting the tendrils with open-palm deflections and small bursts of chakra from his joints.
But even Hyperfocus had limits when faced with a near-endless barrage.
A tendril clipped his shoulder, another slashed across his thigh, and one managed to wrap briefly around his wrist before he tore it off with a surge of lightning. Sparks scattered across the ground as Ren leapt backward, his breathing quick but controlled.
Kakuzu didn't relent. His movements blurred again, striking from unpredictable angles, combining brute strength with deceptive timing.
Ren responded with bursts of offense between dodges.
[Lightning Style: Arc Palm!]
The air crackled as he fired condensed bolts from his hands, slicing through a cluster of threads. Another handseal, [Fire Style: Scorch Burst!], and a ring of flame flared around him, forcing Kakuzu to pull back momentarily.
But even the damage he managed to inflict healed almost instantly. The black cords within Kakuzu's body writhed like living veins, sewing torn muscle and burned tissue back together within seconds.
'Annoying regeneration', Ren thought, grimacing as he wiped a streak of blood from his cheek. 'I could tear him apart ten times over, and he'd still crawl back.'
Despite his calm exterior, he could feel the gradual toll, the shallow cuts adding up, bruises forming where Earth Spear hits had grazed him. He was burning chakra at a steady rate to keep his reactions sharp and his movements light, and all this was on top of his already mangled body.
A loud crack split the air and another of Kakuzu's strikes smashing into the terrain just beside Ren, the impact sending shrapnel flying. Ren ducked behind a ridge of rock, clapping his hands.
[Earth Style: Stone Bullets!]
Chunks of earth blasted outward like gunfire. Kakuzu raised his arm, Earth Spear hardening it to black glass as the rocks shattered harmlessly against him.
"Your tricks won't save you, brat," Kakuzu growled, his voice carrying over the chaos. "You were lucky enough to destroy one of my hearts but you won't get another chance."
Ren tilted his head, exhaling softly. "Shut up old man, your taunts are like that of a little girl, the only difference is that the latter's voice would be pleasant to hear atleast."
He darted forward again, body blurring, a faint grin playing on his lips despite the injuries. Their fists met mid-charge, lightning and earth chakra colliding, the impact creating a thunderous shockwave that flattened the nearby trees.
Ren slid back, heels digging into the dirt. Kakuzu lunged right after him, threads whipping like tendrils of death.
The two became a flurry of motion, Ren spinning low to avoid one strike, ducking under another, countering with a chakra-infused knee aimed for Kakuzu's ribs. It connected, forcing the older shinobi a step back but within seconds, the torn muscle stitched back together.
Ren hopped away, breathing through his nose, face expressionless.
'The difference is clear', he thought. 'I bleed. He doesn't.'
Kakuzu extended both hands, hundreds of threads unraveling, splitting into fine, whip-like strands that covered nearly the entire clearing.
"Let's see you dodge this."
The forest turned black.
The barrage came like rain, countless piercing lines stabbing from all angles, shredding everything in their path. Ren dashed through the gaps, every sense stretched to its limit, every muscle under complete control. He burned chakra at his feet to accelerate, leaving afterimages in his wake.
Even then, a few threads cut through, one tearing across his chest, another grazing his forearm, drawing blood.
Ren grimaced but didn't slow down. Every motion he made was calculated, part evasion, part misdirection. A sudden twist, a flicker of lightning, and a kunai burst from his sleeve striking Kakuzu's shoulder before detonating with a flash of chakra.
The explosion tore half his arm off but the threads immediately swarmed, sewing it back as if nothing happened.
When the smoke cleared, both stood breathing heavily, the air crackling between them.
Kakuzu's stitched face twisted into something almost like amusement. "Do you feel the difference now."
Ren rotated his neck, wiping the blood from his lip with his thumb. "Oh what difference? Age? Handsomeness? I can see many difference."
Kakuzu's eyes flared red. His threads surged again, faster, sharper.
And Ren met him head-on as lightning blazed under his skin, body coiled like a spring.
The storm raged on, the immortal and the prodigy locked in a violent dance, both inflicting wounds, both refusing to yield but only one of them was running out of blood.
~
Ren wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, his breathing steady despite the thin red trail marking his chin. Across from him, Kakuzu was already on the move again, the immortal's body pulsating as dozens upon dozens of black threads burst out, splitting into countless writhing tendrils that spread across the field like a wave of living darkness.
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly. These weren't particularly strong, he could tell from the number of times he'd been struck, but the sheer number of them was the problem. It wasn't power that was dangerous here, it was density. There were too many.
He ducked under one, twisted past another, kicked off a stone, and backflipped midair to avoid a dozen that lashed upward. Still, one grazed his shoulder, another sliced across his leg, and several brushed his back close enough to tear his shirt apart. He could sense every single thread with Hyperfocus, each subtle vibration, each flick of chakra, but sensing and dodging were two very different things.
'If there were only a few, I'd have no problem,' Ren thought as he twisted sideways, slamming his palm into the ground to redirect his momentum. 'But with this many, there's no room to slip through. Every path's covered.'
He landed lightly, sliding backward a few meters before straightening up. Blood dripped down his arm. The injuries weren't deep, but they were adding up. He exhaled slowly through his nose, expression calm despite the mess.
'I need to destroy at least one more heart before I can activate the formation. If he still has four, he'll tear through it easily.'
His mind kept running as he weaved between the next barrage. Kakuzu had gotten warier since losing the Wind mask, he hadn't revealed any of the others since. That alone made things tricky.
Ren had also figured something out during the fight, Kakuzu's main body could only use Earth Style at high levels. He could throw out some minor jutsu of other elements, sure, but nothing advanced. The other hearts, the masks were what carried the real elemental firepower.
That meant each heart had its own element, and each mask's jutsu came from a fixed direction and since Ren knew which was which, defending and countering was easy enough. But none of that mattered if Kakuzu kept them hidden.
Ren's gaze flicked to Kakuzu's chest for half a heartbeat, then back to the tendrils. His thoughts stirred. 'Should I reveal that I'm injured?'
Before destroying the first heart, he'd only been pretending, showing small signs of fatigue to lure Kakuzu in, but now the plan was different.
He was already injured badly and his ribs ached with every breath, and his muscles were tensing slower than before. It wouldn't be hard to make Kakuzu notice. A plan began forming in Ren's mind, 'First show him I'm injured then trap him somehow, then pretend to retreat.'
Ren's lips twitched faintly. 'It's risky… but it might work.'
Once he decided, there was no hesitation. His body shifted instantly. Instead of clashing directly, he began moving differently, faster and sharper. He darted around the threads with reckless precision, his movements no longer aimed at pushing through but at slipping around. Jumping off shattered bark, rolling across half-buried roots, sliding under whipping cords, anything to close the distance.
Kakuzu's eyes followed him coldly, and his hands tightened. More threads exploded from his back, but Ren was already moving. The moment he reached striking distance, Kakuzu's skin began to darken again, the tendrils retreating slightly as his flesh turned into that armor-like texture.
They collided again, fist against fist, speed against endurance. The air cracked with each impact.
Ren's strikes were sharp, direct, but Kakuzu's counters carried terrifying weight. As they traded blows, Kakuzu's analytical mind kept ticking beneath his rage. He'd fought countless shinobi over his long life, and few things escaped his attention.
He began to notice something small, small but off.
Each time Ren swung his arm, there was a flicker of too much chakra, far too much, reinforcing movements that shouldn't need it. Even the simple act of raising a forearm carried an unnatural surge of energy. Kakuzu's eyes narrowed slightly as he blocked another hit with his forearm.
Although Ren was using absurd amount of chakra since the beginning, now he was using even more than that and not just to enhance, 'That amount of chakra… it's not just enhancement.'
As he kept observing Ren slowly things began to clear, Ren was using too much chakra and not just for chakra enhancement, even minor movements like raising of hand to block an impact was supplemented by chakra and this observation made him reach a conclusion.
'He's injured, badly. On the inside.'
The thought ran cold and clear through Kakuzu's fury. He'd been fooled before by false weakness, but this time… this time the signs aligned. His strikes had felt different, Ren's body wasn't absorbing impact as cleanly as before.
Kakuzu suddenly lunged in with renewed aggression, threads bursting from his arms mid-swing. Ren's eyes widened and he moved to retreat, but the immortal pressed forward like a predator smelling blood.
A thin grunt escaped Ren's throat as Kakuzu's tendrils lashed across his chest, sending him back. Ren twisted midair, landed on one knee, and pushed off again instantly but this time, his movement wasn't as sharp.
Kakuzu saw it too but he kept waiting for more proof so he spoke, "Why don't you speak now, are you done already?"
Ren's body jerked forward, his eyes sharp but just as he was about to respond, Kakuzu's hand shot out like a vice.
The immortal grabbed his wrist and slammed him down hard, the ground cracking beneath the impact. Dust exploded outward.
Ren's vision flickered white for half a second, but before Kakuzu could pin him, his body coiled like a spring and he blasted upward with a point-blank Wind Bullet. The compressed gust struck Kakuzu square in the chest, sending the man staggering back a few steps.
Ren dropped to one knee again, chest heaving once before he stood up. His hand was still trembling faintly from the earlier grab.
Meanwhile, Kakuzu's gaze was fixed on him, unblinking, calculating. The feel of that wrist had told him everything he needed to know. The chakra flow inside Ren was fine, however the better news was that his organs were all fucked up.
The conclusion was certain now.
'He's injured badly.' (Kakuzu)
'Got him~' (Ren)
~~~~~
{Hyperfocus isn't slipping, however that too is just Ren processing information at an extreme speed and reacting, but now there are so many threads that there is no route for escape, which is why Hyperfocus can't help him escape, hope this clears any doubt you had.}
{Also, the fight is going across many chapters, however I can't do anything about it, which is why in this fight I am including them planning their moves so that it doesn't feel boring, if you guys like this kind of fight more then I would follow this route in the future.}
{If you want, you can support me on pat-reon}
{ h t t p s : / / w w w . p a t r e o n . c o m / Z e e n o n }
{You know what else}
{STONES!!!!}