The moment Kakuzu realized Ren was injured, his attacks changed instantly. His calm calculation turned to relentless aggression. Threads spewed from his arms like a tidal surge, weaving, slicing, stabbing from every possible direction. The grassy field itself seemed to darken under the swarm.
Ren met that storm with minimal movement. Every dodge was precise to the millimeter like a tilt of the head, a step just outside a thread's reach, a pivot that barely cleared Kakuzu's palm. The man's strikes came faster and heavier, yet Ren refused to block outright unless he had no choice.
When a thread finally connected, Ren didn't try to resist it. He redirected. A quick twist of his torso let it pierce his shoulder instead of his chest. Another skimmed across his ribs and a shallow cut formed, it was painful but survivable. Every injury was deliberately controlled so as to not become life threatening.
From Kakuzu's perspective, it looked exactly like confirmation. The brat was running on fumes. His dodges were sharper but smaller, his speed jittering, his breath heavier. The more Ren adapted, the more it felt like desperation.
And that was exactly what Ren wanted.
He let this play out for several minutes, dodging, circling, letting Kakuzu press closer each time. The immortal's confidence grew with every exchange. He could practically feel victory approaching.
Then, Ren gave him the opening he'd been waiting for.
Kakuzu lunged, tendrils bursting from his back as he rocketed forward. Ren feigned a stumble mid-step, just a slight loss of balance which was enough to bait instinct. Kakuzu took it without hesitation.
The punch that connected cracked through the air with the force of a battering ram.
Ren's body folded from the impact, a spatter of blood erupting from his mouth as he crashed against the ground. Some of it sprayed across Kakuzu's cloak and chest, streaking black fabric with deep crimson.
Kakuzu straightened slowly, threads twitching. "You're finished," he muttered under his breath, the thrill of confirmation rippling through him.
But Ren didn't even bother to wipe the blood away. He just rose back up, swaying slightly, and smiled faintly through the mess on his face. "Damn right~"
And then, he moved again.
The two collided head-on, fists cracking against forearms, knees clashing midair. Their taijutsu exchange was brutal and unrelenting. Ren no longer moved like a blur, his pace had changed. It was tighter, controlled, almost slow-looking, but every strike carried surgical precision.
Between the shockwaves and collisions, Kakuzu didn't notice what Ren was really doing.
Each step, each pivot, each low sweep was placed with calculated intent. As his feet dragged against the blood-soaked earth, he began sketching faint arcs, connecting droplets of blood with subtle movements. The formation wasn't large as it didn't need to be but every line had to be drawn precisely.
His heel pressed down briefly, marking a curved seal line. His pivot created another arc, connecting the first to a sigil on the dirt. A half-spin and retreating step finished another. The pattern grew slowly becoming almost invisible beneath the chaos.
Kakuzu advanced, launching a flurry of blows that shattered tree trunks and churned the soil. Ren blocked some with hardened forearms, deflected others using minimal movements. His blood painted the ground as the fight dragged on.
Each splash of red was exactly where it needed to be.
When the last connection was made, Ren exhaled quietly.
It was ready.
He gave Kakuzu space, stepping back and circling toward the eastern side of the clearing. Kakuzu didn't let up for a moment, chasing him with relentless pursuit. The air filled with the whistle of slicing threads, the heavy thud of their feet hitting fractured ground.
Ren led him in a spiral which was not too obvious, not too direct. A subtle curve, looping the fight back toward the same ground they'd first clashed upon. The blood-stained area.
Kakuzu's focus remained razor sharp, his aggression pressing harder with every second.
With another flicker of movement Ren stepped just inside Kakuzu's guard and channeled a huge amount of chakra in his fist and then drove his fist straight into the man's gut. The blow wasn't enough to kill, but it made Kakuzu's entire body tense, halting him exactly where Ren needed him to be.
Ren's voice was calm, barely audible over the wind. "Perfect."
A single hand seal and the blood ignited beneath their feet.
[Fuinjutsu Array: Blood Binding Formation.]
The world itself seemed to pulse for a moment as a deep, resonant hum spread through the air like a heartbeat. Then the seals came alive.
From the soil, glowing crimson symbols erupted in a perfect circle around Kakuzu. They spread outward like veins, forming rings and interlocking chains that crawled up his legs before he could react.
Kakuzu's instincts flared. He tried to leap away, his foot touched the ground outside the circle, but instead of freedom, hundreds of seal lines burst upward, snaring him mid-motion.
The entire formation snapped closed like a trap.
Kakuzu roared, threads bursting violently from his body. He tried to cut the seals with pure force, sending a forest of tendrils crashing against the glowing markings. But the seals weren't a barrier for everything and the threads passed through harmlessly.
Which meant Kakuzu could still attack.
Ren had designed it exactly like that, the moment he planned to reveal his injuries he had planned this array just like this. His blood had splattered on Kakuzu which was one of the nodes of the array and the barrier would even block the physical body of the person inside the barrier and the one on whom the blood landed.
He turned sharply and began to retreat as Kakuzu unleashed a torrent of black cords after him. They tore through the air like a thousand whips, splintering trees and shattering stones.
But even as he attacked, Kakuzu felt something strange. His body was bound however his threads were able to pass through and he even tried to pass the chakra through it which meant that even jutsus could pass through this barrier however his physical body couldn't.
He searched a bit and then saw it.
On his own cloak, faint lines of red were glowing, matching the same hue as the seal beneath him. It took him half a second to realize that this was Ren's blood, the blood that had splattered onto him earlier.
Kakuzu's expression twisted. With a growl, he tore the cloak off and instantly set it ablaze with a burst of fire chakra. The fabric disintegrated to ash in seconds. He stepped forward again.
But still, the binding held.
The marks on his skin, faint and spreading, were still glowing. The blood had seeped through the fabric. It was on him directly.
Ren had marked him.
Kakuzu's mind raced. He could feel the formation's pull, it wasn't suppressing him completely, just anchoring him, slowing his chakra circulation. Nothing he couldn't break with enough power.
He gritted his teeth. 'If I pour enough chakra, I can tear through it.'
But.
Ren was already slipping further away. The bastard was fast, even while injured. The range of his threads was long, yes, but if Ren got too far.
Kakuzu's jaw clenched. He didn't have the luxury of caution anymore.
"Damn it."
Without hesitation, he forced open his chest cavity. Two masks detached from his back, one red, one yellow. The Fire and Lightning hearts.
Ren, mid-retreat, saw them emerge. His steps slowed slightly, the corner of his lips lifting into a bloodied, crooked grin.
The gleam in his eyes was almost cruel.
"Got you now," he muttered under his breath.
The instant Kakuzu released his Fire and Lightning hearts, Ren stopped retreating. His body went still for half a heartbeat and then his chakra flared like a second sunrise.
Yang chakra flooded through every cell, surging into torn muscle and ruptured tissue. His aura burned white-hot for a moment, the air warping around him as steam hissed off his skin. The light around him grew sharp and vivid.
Every wound on his body, the deep slashes, the puncture near his ribs, the bruised shoulder began knitting shut. Bones realigned with faint cracks. Blood slowed its trickle.
It wasn't full healing, but it was enough to make him functional again.
The burst nearly emptied his reserves, but Ren was already moving. One of his chakra battery clones popped out of existence in a puff of smoke. The rush hit Ren instantly and a clean surge of chakra refilled his coils to the brim.
He rolled his shoulders once, the fatigue vanishing under sheer focus. "Round two, then," he muttered, eyes locking onto the masks, then shook his head, "Hmm, not the 2nd round, maybe 5th or 6th?"
Both masks, Fire and Lightning darted toward him, their chakra signatures blazing. Kakuzu didn't waste time giving orders; his creations already knew what to do.
Twin storms erupted.
The Fire mask roared first, belching a column of flame wide enough to engulf the clearing. The Lightning mask followed, its entire face splitting apart as it discharged arcs of raw electricity that spiderwebbed through the flames.
Ren shot forward straight into it.
Kakuzu's eyes widened as he realized that he once again fell into the brat's trap.
But it was too late.
Ren blurred through the inferno, chakra flooding to his legs in bursts that cracked the ground under each step. He moved with the shockwaves as a faint streak of blue began cutting through the green.
He clasped his hands together and began molding chakra.
[Water Style: Flowing Wall!]
A torrent of water erupted in front of him, colliding with the incoming flames. The heat exploded into a massive burst of steam, masking his approach.
Lightning followed instantly, it was sharp and blinding, aimed straight through the steam.
Ren's hands were already in motion.
[Wind Style: Gale Shuriken!]
Compressed wind discs sliced through the incoming lightning arcs, dispersing them with sharp cracks that echoed like shattering glass.
The entire clearing became a battlefield of elements, wind, water, fire, and lightning weaving in and out of each other in bursts that blinded even the most trained eye.
Ren didn't hold back. His chakra control was perfect. He layered jutsu upon jutsu, perfectly timed to counter each of Kakuzu's elemental outputs.
Water swallowed fire.
Wind split lightning.
Mud hardened under his feet to stabilize his stance for the next sequence.
Every movement was timed to the pulse of his Hyperfocus. Every counter was exact, such that there was no wasted movements.
Kakuzu, however, wasn't standing idle. The immortal's threads lashed from the edge of the formation, manipulating his masks in perfect tandem. The air screamed under the pressure of colliding chakra releases.
Ren's mind stayed cold and exact. He'd already done the math.
'Thirty-five seconds before he breaks the seal,' he calculated, eyes flicking across the battlefield. 'Let's keep it this way, thirty to defend and heal, five to destroy.'
And so, for thirty seconds, he played Kakuzu's game.
Every breath, every twitch of his fingers was calculated to draw time. His defenses were relentless, shifting between Water, Earth, and Wind without pause. The pressure was suffocating, but still in his control.
Flames rolled toward him; he flooded the area with water, turning it into vapor. Lightning cracked through the mist; he compressed wind to diffuse the arcs. When the Fire mask tried to flank him, he slammed his foot down.
[Earth Style: Rising Ridge!]
A massive earthen ridge shot upward, splitting the battlefield and forcing the mask to reposition.
Seconds ticked by. The sealing formation around Kakuzu pulsed erratically, cracks forming in the glow.
At the thirty-second mark, Ren exhaled. His chakra flared again.
"Time's up."
He vanished.
Thunder split the ground as his body blurred into an arc of blinding blue light.
[Lightning Style: Thunderblitz.]
The Fire mask barely had time to react. Ren appeared point-blank, a swirling Rasengan buzzing in his palm.
The sphere drilled straight through the mask's faceplate, shattering its structure entirely. The heart inside it ruptured with a dull, wet sound before exploding in a burst of smoke and embers.
Ren didn't stop. He spun midair, chakra flickering violently around his hand again as the Lightning mask unleashed a desperate surge.
He cut straight through it.
[Rasengan.]
The impact was sharp and final as the Lightning mask disintegrated into crackling fragments that faded away with a hiss.
Ren landed lightly, his chakra aura flaring, body still humming from Thunderblitz's aftershock. He looked toward Kakuzu just as the immortal tore himself free from the remnants of the Blood Binding Formation.
The explosion of chakra that followed cracked the air like a thunderclap.
"YOU DAMNED BRAT!" Kakuzu roared, voice echoing across the shattered clearing. His threads erupted outward in waves, digging into the ground, tearing apart trees, and ripping through debris.
Ren steadied himself, wiping the thin streak of blood trailing from his nose. "Hehe~ You're getting louder."
For a moment, it seemed Kakuzu would charge but instead, the man suddenly pulled back. Every thread recoiled, slamming back into his body as he began retreating at an incredible speed.
Ren's pupils narrowed. 'Hm? Oh damn, he's running away.'
The moment Ren destroyed the fire mask Kakuzu had already decided that he'd run away first and wait for another chance with all his hearts to attack the brat again.
'I slipped too many times today, but in all my years of living I have never seen someone drawing a Fuinjutsu array this way.'
As Ren saw Kakuzu running his hands were already forming signs then his palm hit the ground and the forest blazed yellow.
A massive surge of chakra erupted from beneath the soil. Yellow lines expanded outward in all directions.
In a flash, a barrier rose up like a dome, the entire clearing bathed in a golden glow. The air crackled with electricity as lightning veins traced across the dome's surface, humming with restrained violence.
The barrier stretched for nearly a kilometer (0.62 Miles) in every direction, humming with an oppressive energy that made the air itself feel heavy.
Kakuzu skidded to a stop at the edge of the clearing, his instincts howling at him. He hadn't even touched the barrier yet, but he could feel it.
A deep, visceral dread.
'This… this thing's dangerous.'
Ren stood in the center of the field, breathing steadily, his hands still pressed to the ground. "Leaving already?" His tone was calm, cold. "Come on, old man. Don't go yet. We're just getting to the fun part."
Lightning crackled across the barrier, sealing the forest like a gilded cage.
Kakuzu's jaw clenched. His remaining two hearts throbbed inside his body, pulsing erratically. His instincts screamed at him to destroy the brat right here, before that barrier could finish stabilizing.
And yet, deep down, a flicker of unease gnawed at him.
'I have to either kill the brat or stall long enough that the barrier is broken, this thing is too dangerous to even touch.'
Ren finally lifted his gaze and spoke with an evil chuckle.
"You can't run now."
The air vibrated with power as the entire dome finally connected fully and the entire field was covered in a pulsing yellow barrier.
[Fuinjutsu Formation: Binding Grid : Lightning Style: Cross Seal!]
~~~~~
{Originally I had planned to end it differently, however, if there was no good conclusion to such a long fight then you guys would probably kill me.}
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{ 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!!!!}