Faced with the crushing pressure radiating from Naruto Uzumaki, Kakuzu's survival instincts screamed. Like a cornered animal, he instantly bared his fangs.
The threads stitching his back tore apart, and the grotesque secret hidden beneath his skin was unleashed—a writhing storm of black tentacles.
Secret Technique: Earth Grudge Fear!
The tentacles erupted through his tattered cloak, revealing the four demonic masks fused to his back. They pulsed with a malevolent life of their own, propped up by the thrashing limbs of thread before tearing free, forming a massive, multi-limbed monster. As it stomped the ground, shattering it into a deep crater, Naruto's brow furrowed slightly.
"I can't really fight you here..."
Before Kakuzu could process the rest of the sentence, his world tilted. He was airborne, a powerful hand clamped around his head, a dizzying sense of weightlessness overwhelming him as Naruto dragged him out of the forest at impossible speed. The mask monster with the "Water" chakra nature, which he had just summoned, didn't fare so well. Its porcelain face was shattered by a single, contemptuous kick from Naruto, and the link to Kakuzu's consciousness was severed completely.
Feeling one of his hearts stop beating, the raw, primal fear of death gripped Kakuzu. He was known as the "Undead Ninja," but he knew the truth: if all five of his hearts were destroyed, even he could not escape his own mortality.
Regaining control of his body, he immediately launched the black tentacles at Naruto. Simultaneously, his head detached from his neck, allowing the rest of his body to move freely as two more masks shifted from his back to his shoulders.
"Lightning Style: False Darkness!"
"Earth Style: Earth Spear!"
"Earth Grudge Fear: Tentacle Fist!"
In an instant, a spear of pure, dark purple lightning shot from one mask. At the same time, one of Kakuzu's hands, hardened by chakra until it resembled Naruto's own Armament technique, lashed out alongside the torrent of electricity.
"Fool! Let's see you dodge at this distance!"
Ordinarily, Kakuzu would never use such a reckless tactic; if the lightning spear hit, he, still held in Naruto's grasp, would be caught in the blast. But he had lives to spare. He could afford the loss.
Faced with the point-blank assault, Naruto didn't even blink. He made no attempt to use Kakuzu's head as a shield. This one can't die yet, he thought. Not before he tells me who's behind this.
Through the gaps in Naruto's fingers, Kakuzu watched his tentacle fist strike true. A flicker of triumph lit his eyes. But the sensation that followed left him utterly dumbfounded. Naruto's head was like an alloy forged in the heart of a star. The impact felt no different from punching a mountain wall.
The lightning spear hit a moment later, engulfing Naruto's body in a crackling purple aura. The current surged through Kakuzu as well, a wave of numbing pain.
But Naruto was completely fine, his head only tilting slightly from the force of the blast.
"Now," Naruto's voice was as calm and unwavering as before, "are you interested in talking?"
To Kakuzu's ears, it was as loud as a thunderclap.
"...What in the world are you?" he managed, his voice strained. To take a B-rank ninjutsu to the face and walk away unscathed—it was a level of physical resilience he'd only ever seen from the muscle-bound freaks of the Hidden Cloud.
"I didn't expect a killer like you to have such professional ethics," Naruto mused, as if talking to himself. He then lifted Kakuzu's head high and slammed it into the empty ground below.
BOOM!
The earth shattered, spiderweb cracks spreading outwards from the point of impact. After throwing him, Naruto landed softly on the ground.
"Fire Style: Searing Migraine!"
"Wind Style: Pressure Damage!"
Kakuzu's voice erupted from the pile of dust and rubble. With it came a super-compressed ball of air and a rolling wave of fire. The wind caught the flames, instantly transforming them into a raging sea of inferno that engulfed Naruto's figure.
"Combination Ninjutsu: Flame-Wind Wave!"
Kakuzu slowly emerged from the crater, his hands forming seals as his two remaining tentacle monsters spewed a continuous torrent of destruction. At the same time, countless threads rapidly stitched his shattered head back together. The throw had nearly turned it into pulp; only his mastery of the technique saved him.
"Hmph. Careless fool," he grunted. He, the undead ninja Kakuzu, had once again defeated his enemy. Still, he didn't stop the assault, intending to let the sea of fire spread and incinerate the entire area—including his own inconvenient partner.
Just then, a voice that Kakuzu least wanted to hear echoed from within the flames.
"Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu."
The smoke from the jutsu billowed out, thick and white. When it cleared, several hundred of Naruto's figures stood in a solid wall, facing the inferno.
"It's just a clone jutsu!" Kakuzu roared, doubling down. "You'll die in front of my combination ninjutsu!" He poured even more chakra into the attack, confident in its overwhelming power.
On the other side, the hundreds of Narutos formed a single hand seal in perfect unison.
"Earth Style: Earth-Style Wall."
It was a simple C-rank ninjutsu, one Naruto had copied from his earlier assailants. Normally, it would be useless against such an onslaught. But it all depended on who was using it.
Fueled by Naruto's immense chakra reserves, the jutsu didn't just create a small earthen wall. It summoned a veritable fortress wall, nearly ten meters thick, that rose from the ground to meet the flames. The outer layer scorched and cracked, but more mud instantly filled the gaps, a relentless defense against the sea of fire.
"Damn it... is that still an Earth-Style Wall?" Kakuzu muttered, a rare sense of speechlessness creeping into his voice.
Before he could increase the firepower, several crisp cracking sounds made him freeze. He turned his head with difficulty, only to see Naruto standing beside him, having appeared at some point without a sound.
Naruto's hands were currently piercing through the masks on his body.
At that moment, only Kakuzu's own heart was still beating.
"Now," Naruto's tone was still relaxed, as if he were asking a friend out to eat, "are you interested in talking?" As he spoke, his palm rested gently over Kakuzu's last, terrified heart. He'd dealt with "undead" before; men who used Devil Fruits to reanimate corpses, things that truly couldn't die. This was different. This was just a man with extra lives.
With his last life held in the enemy's hand, Kakuzu finally understood that he was not, in fact, unafraid of death.
"...We were contacted through the black market," he choked out. "I don't know who he is." He who understands the times is a wise man, and Kakuzu was very good at assessing the situation.
"Is that so..." Naruto nodded with a hint of genuine regret, then looked at Kakuzu. "Anything else you want to say?"
Seeing that the boy had no intention of letting him go, Kakuzu felt the last shred of his will to live evaporate.
"...The Akatsuki will avenge me."
Splurt—
Naruto pulled out his hand, wiping the blood on the clothes of Kakuzu's now-lifeless body.
He turned his gaze towards the distant lake.
"Now it's up to you, Kakashi-sensei..."
[Chapter Complete]
***
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