Take Two Round Two

by Third Fang

What do you get when you cross several interdimensional god like beings, raw boredom, a world of Naruto that went wrong, several years worth of off screen training, common sense, insanity, humor, sarcasm, the Log, explosions, plot, and overall chaos? Apparently a lot of headache medicine for Tsunade. May the Games Begin. Sequel to Yet Again With A Little Extra Help.

16. Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen: Wake of The Full Monty

I don't own Naruto, any of its characters, or any references in this story. If I did, horrible things would happen. Neither do I own any other anime that I reference. I do own all OC's and new Jutsu in the story as well as every ounce of pure awesome spawned by this.

o. o. o.

Near the Land of Fire and Waterfalls border:

"It shouldn't take much longer." Kin yawned as the group traveled through the woods at an almost casual pace. "If I remember right, Taki's about half a day from here… maybe longer. We aren't moving that fast at the moment."

"How did you learn that?" One of the jonin frowned at the girl. "Our village's location is kept secret from outsiders save for a select few."

"Could have fooled me." The girl shrugged. "I'm a former Sound-nin. Orochimaru had everyone memorize important locations in and near the land of Rice Patties as part of basic training. Anyone who had to work outside of the area had to know of it. To be honest I wouldn't be surprised if he had some plan to take over Taki gathering dust on a desk somewhere."

"I wouldn't doubt it either." The Sandaime Hokage sighed, ignoring the nervous look the jonin were giving him. "My deceased student did enjoy having plans for all sorts of occasions… not that he would have gone through with that particular scheme. It would be too much risk."

Some of the ones he left in Konoha when he defected were admittedly pretty funny too. He still had the one involving killing Jiraiya once and for all by tricking him to peek on Tsunade in a bathhouse stored away for when he needed a good laugh. Truly it was the simplest plans that were the most effective... although he still had some doubts on whether or not the snake had actually considered it a viable plan or not.

"Oh?" The other full grown man mused. "You put Takigakure's might at that high of a value Hokage-sama?"

"No. It's not that." Hiruzen shot the man down. "It's simply that Orochimaru had a short attention span in spite of his intelligence. The effort and attention that taking over Taki would have brought him would likely counter any benefit gained from the victory in the first place. Konoha and Kusa would instantly be after his head, limiting the range of his activities drastically and forcing him to flee to Kumo's direction, which would not react well to his presence regardless of what he had to offer."

"Forgive me for being blunt, but I highly doubt your former student and a minor freshly formed village would have been enough to take our home." The first jonin frowned. "Takigakure is not weak. We have held off both Konoha's and Kumo's forces in the past and can do so now."

Fuu puffed out her cheeks and rolled her eyes. If her home was so secure she wouldn't be going back now would she? Given the look Kin was giving her, she held similar sentiments.

By this point the path they were taking opened up to the right to reveal the top of a cliff overlooking a few nearby mountains in the distance and about a hundred meter drop straight down. The Jinchuriki remembered this area vaguely as a popular tourist destination. Bandits normally would have gushed over such a perfect spot to ambush their prey, but the road was fairly busy all year round and as such the local shinobi patrolled it frequently enough to dissuade them.

"There's no need to be offended." Neji diplomatically interjected. "The third was simply elaborating on what was likely going through his former student's mind. He did not insinuate that he would have been successful in his endeavors had he tried to do something so foolish as to attack."

Lee and Gai looked at one another briefly. It was no secret among the higher ranked Konoha shinobi that if it weren't for the fact that they had gotten lucky with Orochimaru's scheme during the chunin exams and turned the trap on him, things would have gone completely different for them and not in a good way.

While Taki was a notably fortified and defendable village, it also had little in terms of offensive capabilities outside of Fuu herself and the hero's water. Going to war with the village was pointless in that it would just end up being a waiting game with them on the defensive. The moderate territory and resources obtained from that long fought victory would pale in comparison to the cost of a grueling siege, and the ire obtained from its neighbors.

To sum it up in a sentence, it was a nice place in itself, but totally not worth taking over from an outside perspective unless you had an absurd amount of resources to spare or it was part of a larger goal.

"It's perfectly understandable." Hiruzen nodded in agreement with his peaceful grandfatherly persona. "They are no doubt still high strung from the situation at hand. We will have to be careful with our words so we don't risk any further misinterpretations. My apologies."

"Um… yes… thank you." The first jonin bashfully looked away embarrassed. He, like many other shinobi, was not used to those in power treating him in such an accommodating and friendly manner, much less did he expect the legendary Professor to do so. Even if he was no longer in his prime, the man had little doubt that the former Kage was capable of taking down at least half of their group by himself. "My apologies for overreacting, Hokage-sama."

"Hey Fuu-chan. Do you think you can give us a tour when we get there?" Lee asked curiously. "It's not often that someone from the outside gets to see Taki and it would be great to see things from a local's perspective."

"Yeah sure." The girl smiled. "The village itself is really boring so I don't really spend much time there, but I do know some of the coolest places and caves that no one knows about and…"

"You are going to be busy protecting the village." One of the jonin frowned at the girl, interrupting her reply. "I'm afraid the Konoha shinobi will be occupied helping our home to deal with you."

"But-!" The girl began to complain before Neji stepped in again.

"Her input may be helpful." He glanced at his friend in a way to tell her to back down for now. "If what she says is true and is that knowledgeable of the surrounding area, she may know of the way the enemy infiltrated your village undetected. We are familiar with her abilities as well so she could be a valuable asset in the search."

The two jonin grimaced and looked uncomfortably at one another before coming to some sort of agreement. "It is not about us," one of them said, "These are the orders we have been given by our superiors. If you can convince those in charge of your preferences then it's all good."

"Oh sure you listen to what he has to say, but when I talk-"

The girl's rant stopped halfway as she snapped her head forward.

"Oh hell. Here we go." Kin grimaced as she instantly went on guard, eyes peeled and chakra going into her ears. "I can hear them coming. They aren't making much of an effort to hide themselves, cocky bastards. One of them is going on about slaughtering us and sacrifices."

"A shame. And here I thought I could enjoy this youthful view for a bit longer." Gai shook his head in pity as his muscles slowly tensed and he turned away from the cliff.

"What's the matter?" One of the jonin frowned as he adopted a fighting stance. "Fuu, what are you sensing?"

"Big signatures that are coming our way." She was tensing up, both anger and fear fighting to determine her next move.

"It appears our concerns were correct." Hiruzen sighed. "Neji?"

The Hyuga activated his dojutsu seallessly from under his bandanna and looked farther ahead. Because he only had one of his byakugan, he was only able to focus between either distance, full range, or chakra systems accurately, and even then he would still no longer be able to see tenketsu… but he was far from incompetent. He had solidified his position as a genius in his family's arts even with the handicap, and was considered one of the clan's most prominent members in spite of it.

"There are two men half a kilometer ahead of us and approaching rapidly." He stated evenly. "They're dressed like Akatsuki members. It's an ambush."

"Ah damn it." Kin muttered under her breath.

"Akatsuki?" One of the Taki escorts asked. "You mean that mercenary group that has most of the major villages up in arms about?"

"There's only two of them and we have two full teams." The other pointed out. "Among us a Jinchuuriki and the Sandaime Hokage. We have a decisive advantage here."

"Common logic doesn't work on men like these." Gai looked around warily and expanded what limited senses he had. "They are most unyouthful and unforgiving."

"I recognize them." Neji continued. "They were among the ones that we encountered on the escort trip years ago. Both have incredibly high chakra levels. One of them is wielding a three bladed scythe and has a sinister chakra. The other's chakra system is all over the place and constantly moving and… has five hearts."

His fear was understandable. Even though this was his third time encountering Akatsuki, and the second with Kakuzu, he had only seen the miser from a distance and was more focused on protecting the Prince of Moon country at the time. He knew that the man had the extra organs from the meetings his group participated in. They all knew a good deal about most of the members outside of the leader and some other random facts, but it didn't change the fact that what he saw was disturbing.

"How is that even physically possible?" Kin shook her head in disbelief. It was hard to believe, even after working directly under Orochimaru.

"I do not know." Gai frowned. "Perhaps it is some sort of medical condition?"

"Five hearts?" One of the Jounin clenched his fists in dread. "It's him."

"You mean, him?" His partner shuddered. "Kakuzu... that monster killed my grandfather when he defected and ruined my family… here..."

"Three hundred meters." Neji stated. "It's him. The scratched headband he's wearing is from Taki."

"Lee, you took out one of his heart monster things last time, right?" Kin looked at him.

"I had help then. It was a most unnatural and peculiar creature." Lee's eyes didn't stop moving as it inspected nearly everything around him. "Its body was made of organic chord, like tentacles but of thick leather, and had an incredible amount of chakra running through it. It was very tough material but constantly moving. To be honest I do not think that they have any genuine bodies in the first place. Other than the masks they have I don't think they have any lethal points. They are most difficult and unyouthful targets."

"This is the Earth Grudge Fear, one of our village's secret Kinjutsu," one of the Taki-nins said, "But five hearts... I've never heard of it being used like that…"

"He improved it," his partner replied, turning to the rest of the group, "Hokage-sama, my family used to guard the technique before it was stolen. A master of the technique will have essentially every non major organ save for their skin and bones replaced with the tentacle like threads that the boy mentioned. Veins and other sweet spots are pointless to target on him since he can shift his insides around and heal most wounds easily. The only viable targets are his brain, his hearts, and eyes. The threads can act as substitutes for the rest of the organs until he gets a replacement. As long they remain, Kakuzu will be able to revive himself from any wound."

"We will keep it in mind," the Sandaime replied, although he already knew the kinjutsu's bases.

"Everyone group up. Our opponents will not hesitate to pick off stragglers." Gai ordered, prompting them to organize themselves in teams of four consisting of the Taijutsu user and his students on the side of the path closest to the forest and the former Hokage with the Taki contingent closest to the cliff. With Fuu able to fly and Hiruzen able to adapt to anything, having the open air to their backs would be in their favor...

Fffp. Thunk.

The head of one of the Taki Jonin exploded in a wonderful crimson display of blood and gore, surprising everyone.

"SNI-" the other Jounin shouted, before his head exploded in a repeat performance.

"SNIPER!" Lee shouted at the same time in panic, as he moved at the last possible moment to avoid having his head being blown off and was rewarded with a glancing blow off his forehead that bled a bit, without causing major damage.

"Lee!" Kin and Neji shouted in alarm as they saw the blood fly from his skull.

"It's just a flesh wound! Keep moving!" The Taijutsu user spun his body away erratically while moving back to prevent his attacker from getting another clean shot. While the bullets being fired were not what he was accustomed to while working with Tenten, he was none the less familiar with how they operated, what they looked for, and what to look for in return.

In fact…

At once all remaining six members, while retreating into the woods, turned and looked at the general direction the fire had come from. While most of them couldn't physically see the source through natural means, they were all experienced enough to push past such limitations in other ways.

It was small, but they could feel someone's gaze on them in the distance. Far and faint enough that they had easily missed it before since they weren't looking for something at that range, but now that they did…

… Further…

… Further…

… And on the third cliff to the left about two miles out…

o. o. o.

"Hooh? Not bad. This just got interesting." Carmen smirked as she looked down her scope at the retreating prey just moments before they disappeared into the foliage.

"You only got two of them." Sasori stated in annoyance as he leaned up against a nearby tree, watching the targets scatter with a modified eye meant for long distance observation. While he didn't say it, he silently admitted that the woman had some skill. It was one thing to spot a target from this distance. It was another to take one out so quickly and cleanly.

He glanced to his charge's side and noted the bullet cartridge that had flown out of the weapon she was using. With a twitch of his fingers, he attached a chakra string to the airborne piece of metal, pulled it back to his hand, and slipped it away for further study.

If she had noticed what he had done, she apparently didn't care.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know that your bitching plastic ass could hit anything at this distance." She rolled her eyes. "I got the easy shots, but the rest of them are a good dozen levels or so better. They managed to spot me as they took cover. The kid with the retarded haircut actually managed to dodge my last bullet just by reflex. He looks like an idiot but he sure as hell can move."

"They saw you from this distance?" The artificial man blinked. As skilled as he was, even he would have issues pointing out a target that fast from such a range. "Was one of them a sensor and pointed out your location?"

"Nope." The woman didn't look up as she altered her vision to a special variant of infra-red that worked well in the daytime. "All six of them at once zeroed in on me at the same time. This isn't the first time they've been on the wrong end of a ranged fighter's sights."

"I can understand if the jinchuriki managed to do so. Our notes indicated she was a sensor of sorts." Sasori grumbled. "I would not be surprised if one or two of the others in the group Konoha has sent were as well, but I draw the line at all of them."

"Sensors are that rare huh?" Carmen filed away that particularly useful bit of information for later. "Well like it or not Pinocchio, they all pegged us at once. Now if you'll excuse me…"

All six of the targets were standing in the woods apparently staring down what she could only assume were that money loving tentacle monster and the insane cultist. She couldn't tell if they were talking or not given her current modified sight wasn't designed for that. Oh well. No skin off her back.

They were all standing separately from her perspective so she couldn't get a double kill, which was unfortunate, but still fine. She had to make sure that she didn't off the target after all. This was a capture mission.

With a few metallic clicks, she had switched the ammo of her deceptively plain looking sniper rifle from normal rounds to armor piercers. A bit overkill since she only needed for the bullet to get through some trees instead of half a foot of enhanced or enchanted metal, but she preferred them since they were rarely deflected when going through interruptions like a few trees… or half a forest. It also made deflecting and defending against them a downright pain in the ass if not suicidal.

"You wanted the green haired kid… and since she had that big round thing on her back that stuck out more than those bags the others were carrying…" She muttered under her breath as she inspected the silhouette of each of her targets and how they stood.

"… Hello grandpa." She grinned as her finger rested on the trigger, her eyes focused on the slightly hunched over figure standing near the front of the group. She had seen the old geezer earlier and considered taking him out first, however she had a feeling that she'd get a good show if she left him alone for a while longer. Unfortunately that whim had passed and the job took priority. "Later grandpa."

While sniper equipment for dimension travelers tended to vary, it was generally accepted that a shot from her distance would take about four to six seconds to reach the target on average.

The ammo Carmen used was not standard. Her job was not standard. And her weapons were not standard.

The piece of altered metal that came out of the muzzle of her gun traveled the distance between the two cliffs, through eight trees…

And passed in front of the head of the old man who had leaned back out of the way at the last possible moment in just shy of a second and a half of her firing.

"… That old fuck." She muttered in minor disappointment as all the signatures in front of her instantly began to move slowly. No doubt she had just ruined any conversation that might have been going on at that point.

"You missed?" Sasori asked skeptically.

"I didn't miss. He dodged like a pro. Moved his head barely anything to avoid getting it blown off." She grunted irritably. "Any idea who he is? He's too experienced compared to the shmucks here to be a normal vet."

The Puppetmaster glanced at the woman, unsure how to answer such a stupid question. "You really are a clueless foreigner. That's the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi."

"Kage are like uber ninja who become leaders right?" She asked without looking up. "Only five villages here have Kage if I remember correctly."

"Your knowledge of our culture is nothing short of astonishing." Sasori retorted honestly. How could someone be so clueless of the world he had no idea. "For your information, he is the only Kage to ever live long enough to retire. He did it twice."

"Talk about a badass gramps." Carmen whistled impressed. "Doesn't say much about the literal job security though does it?"

"I killed the third Kazekage and turned his corpse into a weaponized puppet." The redhead stated bluntly. Normally he'd hold this information close to his chest, but ever since the fiasco in Suna pretty much everyone in Akatsuki had learned about his greatest weapon and its current condition. "It happens."

"Haha. Way to prove my point." If Sasori had intended to intimidate her, he had fallen far off his mark. "Man I feel sorry for whoever manages life insurance in this place. They must charge up the ass here."

"Less talk, more shots. You are supposed to give the vanguard support." The impatient man glared at her from behind.

"Keep your glue on." Carmen didn't bother to ready her next shot as she watched eight blurs in the distance. "My shot set them off and now everyone's moving. I can't tell who is who, let alone support our troops. As pissed as you are, I doubt you'd be happier if I took out that brat that all of you are being pedophiles over."

That was… technically, not a lie. She had several alternate forms of vision that could point out everyone to her clearly, and her reaction time was easily enough to nail anyone there…

… But what was the point of showing off exactly what she was capable of to these shmucks so soon?

"Thppppt."

"Yeah. Real mature doll boy." The woman rolled her eyes. To be honest she was even surprised that the fake human had made his body elaborate enough to even pull off a raspberry. The amount of control and flexibility in the parts needed to do it were nearly inversely proportional to how stupid it was.

"That was not me."

The silence between them had more than anything they could have possibly said at that moment.

"Thpppt."

Slowly, almost painfully, both outlaws turned to the source of the childish noise… and about five meters away from the woman lying on the ground… was a head popping out of the dirt like a vegetable with its tongue sticking out of the front. Male, somewhat tan, well shaved, long thick wild shoulder length black hair that went everywhere, and crimson blood red eyes clearly staring at the sniper but otherwise conveying nothing but boredom, childish insanity...

… And if they were seeing things right… annoyance.

"Thp-"

Shunk.

Sasori impaled the head with an exceptionally long and sturdy senbon as it was in the middle of making another absurdly ridiculous and annoying sound. The skull tilted to the side from the impact, but otherwise didn't change its expression, the tongue's position, or its gaze from the foreign woman. Honestly it looked even more ridiculous with that long needle sticking out of it at that angle with its face like that.

The area was silent for several ominous seconds as they watched the head carefully.

"…Ppt." The head resumed its interrupted raspberry without moving.

Three more senbon and a bullet impaled the skull at various points. Each one would have been more than enough to kill or at least knock out a normal human being, even a reasonably powerful individual. The bullet itself had drilled through the head's left eye and blast out nearly half of what consisted of the back of the skull upon exiting. Bone, blood and greymatter flew visibly from it…

"Thpppt."

But it wasn't enough.

"Great. Another insane immortal." Carmen grumbled. "I should have shot off its tongue."

"Oh gods, it's Hidan all over again." Sasori's artificial face scowled as he watched the unknown individual continue to mock them. Stepping forward, the Akatsuki summoned a poison coated sword into his right arm. He was going to follow Kakuzu's advice for dealing with Hidan whenever the priest got too mouthy: cut off his head and toss him over a cliff somewhere so you can get some silence. When you need to put him back together, just follow the unfiltered screams.

"Thppppppppppppppppp…" Apparently the head didn't like that as it slowly descended into the ground spewing more saliva and not changing its mangled expression in the slightest. While it physically was gone, they could still hear it being stupid from the hole it had made.

The two reasonably sane people there glared at the hole for a good few seconds.

"So… how much you wanna bet that he's not going to go away anytime soon?" Carmen asked while looking around skeptically, constantly switching between the altered visions she had. X-ray. Heat. Echolocation. Infra-red. Energy. Soul.

The nut was not showing up at all. That… was not something that happened often.

"He's annoying." Sasori reached for a scroll. "Annoying things don't go away that easily."

"Right. That's why they're annoying in the first place." She agreed with the statement completely as she took out a grenade. With practiced movements, she primed it, electrically set it for a few seconds shorter than it normally would, and then tossed it into the hole that the head had made.

Less than half a second later it shot out of the hole again to their direction and detonated almost at the peak of its flight. Other than the concussive force that hammered their bodies and some residual heat, neither of them were particularly affected by it.

"What?" She asked as if she didn't do anything wrong. "You look like you didn't half expect it to not work."

"Thpppt."

"Oh come on. He's not even above ground for that one." The woman grumbled as her eyes darted everywhere to try and find the source.

"That's it." Sasori took out a scroll and unraveled it. With a cloud of smoke, a rather large male puppet with a purple Mohawk in a red cloak and wearing an Iwa headband appeared.

"So… is that what you use when you want to dig holes or something?" Carmen rose an eyebrow skeptically.

"Yes."

Channeling a large amount of chakra into the puppet made from a particularly talented Iwa ninjutsu user, Sasori commanded the earth around him to rupture and split erratically in every direction. It was nowhere near the same level of devastation that the Third Kazekage's puppet could perform, however the visible effects were still quite apparent as the landscape around them all but broke and exploded upwards. Fissures littered the landscape where the volcanoes of stone and explosive force failed to mar.

Five seconds later, the annoyance in his full glory landed flat on his face on what appeared to be the few swaths of untouched flat ground nearby.

"Thpppt."

"At least he's consistent." Carmen muttered under her breath as she took a moment to take in the man's appearance. Longcoats weren't uncommon, and neither were the flame designs on the bottom hem… but the straightjacket function was an interesting touch that reminded her of something that she couldn't put her finger on…

"That's an Oogakari…" Sasori frowned, instantly recognizing his target. Ever since his encounter with Scabbard three years prior and the man's show in the swordmaster tournament, he and the other members of Akatsuki had put in an effort to learn a bit more about the peculiar clan.

"Oogakari?" The word translated roughly to "large animal scale" in English, but she had a feeling that it was merely the name of some group.

All things considered… still a better name than the "Rainbow Unicorn Association", "Demon Fire Brigade", and the "We Love Blowing Shit Up Club". The crappy title choice didn't stop her from joining the latter though.

"A clan of mercenaries that moved to Konoha several years ago." He elaborated while looking around warily. "This one is rumored to be mad… madder than the others… but he's normally never without another member nearby."

"Hmm. You don't say." Carmen skeptically leered down at the unmoving annoyance. She didn't feel anything from him… but the longer he was around the more the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She was a cyborg. She still had human organs, functions, and instincts, but for the most part she relied on her robotic components to keep herself alive.

Her robotic side was informing her that her target was of no consequence. Sure he had some power and skill, and immortal, but he wasn't that threatening to her numbers wise.

… But her human side was progressively growing more uneasy. Something was wrong. Not "wrong" as in they were walking into a trap or they were forgetting something… but "wrong", like something that really shouldn't be, that couldn't be was here… that even the world itself was beginning to tremble in apprehension.

There were tons of insane nuts out there that looked like him and dressed like him… outside of the straightjacket bit. That was a bit rarer, but still not that identifying…

With a few twitches of his fingers, Sasori commanded his puppet to rush forward and literally cut the man's head off with a straight sword before stabbing it into his heart.

"Prrrrrrrt."

That time he really did fart.

"Say doll man… what the hell is with this guy?" She didn't turn away from the decapitated immortal. Either the damage was enough to finally put him down, or it was enough to incapacitate him enough to not annoy them anymore… so long as he didn't possess one of the countless broken regeneration abilities that plagued the multiverse. "Powers. Skills. Mercs don't keep useless people around. The more of a liability they seem to be, the more useful they really are."

"He's a madman like Hidan. Capable of healing from countless grievous rounds rapidly without issue. Some earth manipulation, obviously… but there are rumors that he is unusually proficient in seals." Sasori elaborated. "According to my sources, his most notable trait is that he barely seems aware of the world around him and perpetually speaks nonsense. Even infants make more sense than him. As you can see, I believe this might have been an understatement."

"An insane seal master. That's not uncommon." She muttered sarcastically. "Weapons?"

"He is said to possess a scythe. Supposedly it's cursed in some way."

"How original." A cursed scythe wielding immortal nut that's "good" with seals? Considering how ass backwards this place was and what the locals considered powerful? Yeah that narrows down the search to only, oh, about a few ten thousand known jumpers out there. There wasn't much merit in knowing his name either since it was common process for jumpers to change their name, and that was if he was a jumper in the first place. It wasn't uncommon for someone to pretend to be someone else to exploit the benefits.

"Do you recognize him?" Sasori inquired. "You are both foreigners."

"Do I look like a tour guide?" Carmen shook her head. "The world is a big place dumbass. Just because I'm from somewhere that you've never been to doesn't mean that I know everybody else."

… But that didn't change the fact that something was wrong with the corpse in front of her.

"What is the matter? Something is disturbing you." The puppet man inquired seriously.

"I don't know." She honestly admitted. "I'm just getting a real bad feeling about this guy…"

"If he is anything like his brother, you may be right." Sasori agreed. Every time Akatsuki had encountered Scabbard they had been dealt with handedly with barely any effort from the man. Their firsthand experience with his power put him on a threat level on par with the Kage at least as far as they were concerned, and the fact that he was not the leader of the Oogakari only made the group more wary of the family in general.

"His brother?" Ok, madman that travels with family members does narrow it down a bit, but again there was no assurance that the people he was with were actually related to him. In fact… wait.

"… Hey, that sword of yours… does it cauterize wounds?"

He looked at her skeptically and was about to tell her that it was simply laced in a ton of poison before slowly connecting the dots and looked down at the decapitated body…

… And noticed a distinct lack of blood pooling where the head was cut off.

The ground began to shake at that moment, and it was only then that the pair realized that Carmen's instincts were probably right. Before they had an opportunity to react, the ground fifty meters away from them in every direction save for over the cliff spiked upwards, high enough that they could not simply jump over or between the spires.

In the next instant, they felt the entire portion of the cliff they were on shift dangerously as its foundations crumbled and they slowly started to lean over the edge.

"Shit! That fucking little troll tricked us!" Carmen snarled in frustration as she took out a significantly more complex and powerful looking rifle, complete with wires and glowing green filters, from her cloak and shot at the newly formed wall. Instead of a bullet, a beam of pure energy easily three meters in diameter ruptured from the muzzle much to Sasori's surprise and hammered into the stone…

… And reflected off of the until-then wall of crimson seals that lit up on contact, causing the energy to fly up harmlessly into the sky.

"Oh hell." The woman grimaced as she recognized the patterns that had lit up. That was not the local sealing style. This guy was like her, and unfortunately unlike her earlier assumptions, he really was damn good at making seals. The markings registered in her internal database to be of a pretty damn high level, and to make them while decapitated and playing possum only rose this guy's potential danger level even more.

"How annoying." Sasori frowned as he attempted to use his puppet to break through the barrier with ninjutsu, only to yield no results.

By this point they were starting to get a rather good view of the ground directly below them and the noise of crumbling and shifting earth was progressively growing louder and louder...

"Thppppt."

Carmen glanced at the slowly rolling head and body as the angle between them and the earth below grew more distinct…

And just before they fell off the edge, she saw it look directly at her… with bored crimson eyes and a mildly amused smirk.

o. o. o.

Two minutes earlier:

"It appears our partners already decided to have a bit of fun." Kakuzu chuckled as he and Hidan stopped in front of the group of six and spied Lee's bleeding head. He had already known that there were two full teams worth of shinobi going to Taki, and the recent shouting had been a reasonable enough indication that the woman had just sewn some her own personal brand of havoc.

"Tch. Damn. I was hoping to sacrifice all of them to Jashin-sama." Hidan pouted. "I mean, look at them! Those two with the cheesy haircuts are just begging for someone to put them out of their misery! It's mercy really."

"Gai-sensei… why do people keep on saying things like that about us?" Lee turned to his teacher with tears in his eyes.

"Lee. Not. The time." Kin chastised her boyfriend with clenched teeth.

"... Come on, please, let me sacrifice the shit out of those retards. It'll be a public service."

"Forget it. Your ritual takes long enough as it is for just one person." The elder shot him down, his eyes never leaving the group. "Well now. This certainly is a welcome surprise. It has been a long time, hasn't it boy?"

Hiruzen nodded grimly, much to the surprise of everyone else there. "Indeed it has Kakuzu. The last time we met was when you tried to kill sensei if my memory is correct."

"I'm fortunate you didn't die then. Your bounty has grown into a staggering one over years." With practiced ease, the miser took off his coat and stored it away into a seal on his waist in a single movement. While he normally didn't care what he was dressed in to fight, the man tended to tear apart anything that covered his back when he released the masked beasts, and the coats were not cheap. "I believe that today would be a good time to collect."

"Humph." The former Kage snorted. "You haven't changed a bit. You're still the same arrogant man you were sixty years ago."

Before anyone could say anything else, the old man had tilted his head back a few inches without any warning just as a piece of metal tore through the spot it had been just moments before. Only after the sonic boom finally hit did they realize that the geezer had actually dodged something and they weren't seeing a trick of the light.

"The fucking hell?" Hidan glanced to the direction where the bullet had come from, spying the holes in the trees it had made in its path to lobotomize the old man. "I don't know what's more nuts, the fact the chick nearly managed that shot or that the old fuck managed to avoid it so easily."

While still annoyed with his partner, Kakuzu had to agree. Even he didn't notice the bullet coming until it had already passed where the bounty's head had been. He still had some misgivings about the woman, but he could not deny her effectiveness.

The fact that the old man had avoided the shot so easily, as Hidan had also pointed out, was also a major footnote. That level of observation skills and reaction time...

It appeared Sarutobi's skills hadn't grown dull in his old age.

"Chick?" Fuu frowned as she and everyone else began to move slowly. As far as she and the others knew, the only woman in Akatsuki was the leader's right hand, and she supposedly used paper ninjutsu… not extreme long range precision projectiles.

Before any more small talk could be made, a sudden spike in chakra from above caught everyone's attention… as did the gold and ebony pole that speared down where the two members of Akatsuki had stood just moments before.

"We have to keep moving!" Hiruzen ordered, as he rushed towards the transformed Monkey King and grabbed hold. "The sniper can see us through the forest!"

"What the fuck?! When the hell did that old bastard do that?!" Hidan didn't bother to hide his surprise. Landing on a nearby tree, the man took note of who was moving and where they were. Seeing as the old geezer was rushing Kakuzu, he decided to go for the easiest target… the boy that was already bleeding from the head. "Ah screw it! I'm gonna sacrifice ya to Jashin and piss on your corpse!"

Neji jumped into the path of the thrown weapon and slammed it to the side with a hand glowing with chakra…

Then he slapped aside the bent coil that was connected to the end of the weapon that flew at him in the shadow of the main body.

This was followed up with him knocking up the scythe up into the air once again as its wielder yanked back on the chord in an attempt to decapitate or impale the Hyuuga from his supposed blind side.

This was then succeeded by Hidan, who had closed the distance during the brief time they were distracted defending themselves, catching the airborne scythe while slashing his arms down, further chaining the combination assault.

Against most shinobi, the tactic would have yielded some degree of success given that "success" meant simply drawing blood. However, the Hyuuga had seen his attack coming long before it came and managed to jump to the side without a scratch, unlike the large tree branch he had been standing on that had been completely severed.

"Lee! Keep away from him until you clean yourself! You can't afford to get close to him as you are!" Neji snapped at his best friend just before he was forced to defend himself against the mad priest.

"What kind of neat freak pussy are you?! Worrying about your friend's looks at a time like this!" Hidan laughed wildly as he swung his long weapon with one arm wildly. While Neji was incredibly skilled in close combat, his opponent's weapon extended his reach that, when combined with his wild strength and speed, made the battle a stalemate. Hidan's attacks were all dodged or deflected expertly while Neji was held at bay, unable to advance or retreat. "Still, you look pretty. And you know what? I LOVE killing pretty things!"

Duck. Deflect up. Shift to the right. Back up. Duck. Use the momentum to spin on one foot and deflect the retracting weapon and the blades hooking from behind. Deflect up again…

"What kind of monster is this guy?" Neji grimaced as he admittedly struggled to keep up with his attacker so that he wouldn't bleed, ducking below another swipe before knocking away a coil thrown at him with the swing's momentum, only to pivot on his right leg and spin around a hooking slash that would have torn apart his spine had he stayed in the same spot. "Even if his chakra is abnormally potent, he shouldn't be capable of this much strength! It's almost as if I'm fighting Lee when he's…"

The teen's eyes widened in realization as he made the comparison, and the distraction almost cost him his life as Hidan's scythe came from an overhead angle at blinding speed.

"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"

Crunch!

Gai's signature stupid move that he had passed down to all of his students had returned with a vengeance in the form of a high speed flying kick that literally sunk into Hidan's face and sent the surprised madman flying through several trees.

"Neji! Are you ok!?" Gai asked concerned as he landed in front of his student.

"I'm fine." He looked at his hands to verify his statement and saw that they were not scratched in the slightest. For a moment he had been slightly worried that Hidan's blows may have been enough to get past his chakra enhanced limbs, but it apparently a needless concern. "He hasn't gotten anything. Be careful. His technique is sloppy but when you combine his weapon with his strength and speed he doesn't really need it to draw blood."

"What's the matter?" Gai frowned as his student glared at where Hidan had flown. He knew when his most intelligent student was putting together something in his head.

Neji didn't say anything he focused his doujutsu on his opponent's chakra coils.

Deeper…

Deeper…

"It's as I thought." The student grimaced before turning to his teacher. "He is more dangerous than we thought Sensei. He constantly has his first gate open."

It made sense in a perverse way. With a body that couldn't die via most physical ways, it wouldn't be that hard to imagine that he would eventually manage to learn something like this.

All things considered, despite being one of the weaker members of Akatsuki, Hidan was overall one of the worst ones that most shinobi could ever hope to encounter. Shinobi in general were taught to incapacitate or kill their targets in the most efficient way possible with minimal effort. Punctured heart. Poison. Nerve damage. Bone Fractures. Sliced arteries. Severed tendons. Broken Neck. Chakra exhaustion. Destroyed organs…

… All completely useless. Having him constantly have his first gate open made him a downright pain to pin down or land in a hit. And even THEN, only moves that would distinctly cripple him physically would be able to get him to stop. Lucky shots would not work on this guy.

"What?!" The Lee blinked in surprise. "You mean he's like me?"

"No. He is just using his immortality to his advantage. It would explain his heightened speed, strength and reaction time." Honestly, Neji didn't know whether to be relieved or worried that a comparison between the two had just been made. "However if he is capable of opening one gate and hold it for so long without issue…"

He didn't need to finish that sentence.

One thing, however, worried him much more. The fact in spite of their information, this came as a complete surprise. Hidan was stronger than he should be.

Meaning Hidan had developed a skill he didn't have before.

Considering everything that had changed, Neji realized he should have seen it coming. Still, it was a worrying news. How outdated were their information?

"Who fuck just hit me?!" A voice roared in half bewilderment and half rage from the destruction. "Respect my personal space!"

"He really is a sturdy one." Gai grimaced before briefly looking back. "Kin! How much time do you need?!"

"Thirty seconds!" The kunichi replied, already having some cotton out in one hand to wipe up the blood leaking from his head while the other was glowing green. She wasn't an ideal medic, but she knew enough to stop small cuts from bleeding in a short amount of time. She had plenty of experience cleaning herself and Lee up from the years of training.

She still didn't compare to Sakura, Hinata, and Ino. They could get rid of something minor like this in three seconds.

"The hell are you?!" Hidan shot out from the woods with a vengeance and a clearly broken nose. "I'm gonna tear your green ass apart, chop off your head, and then turn it into a chamber pot!"

"Challenge Accept-!"

"DOWN!"

Gai's retaliatory response was interrupted as he was dragged off and down the branch he was on by Neji. Not even a second later the spot they had been on and Hidan had been immolated and launched by a concentrated torrent of flames coming from a short distance away.

From the corner of their eyes, the taijutsu group members saw the intense and destructive battle between Hiruzen and Fuu between Kakuzu taking place and absolutely destroying the landscape.

o. o. o.

As the former Kage and the Akatsuki wove around one another with their bizarre taijutsu styles, Fuu was going toe to toe with Kakuzu's three masked beasts, throwing ninjutsu of every element at one another, playing off of one another weaknesses in rapid succession around the pair fighting in close combat.

Wielding the transformed Enma with unnatural ease, Hiruzen Sarutobi proved himself to still be a physical force of nature, twirling the ever changing bo staff around his body so fast that he was constantly attacking and defending at the same time. Likewise Kakuzu was putting up just as big of a fight with his darkened skin indicating that he was using ninjutsu to augment his physical traits, alongside the fact that he was frequently lashing out tentacles and his limbs to extend his reach just as frequently as Hiruzen was elongating his weapon.

Every time the adamantine pole and the earth enhanced body clashed, the air ruptured with a heavy thud that could be felt by all nearby. Hiruzen's powerful blows were countered by Kakuzu's hard body. Likewise Kakuzu's bizarre whip like strikes at a distance were all deflected and read with unnatural ease.

Neither of them seemed to bother paying attention to the chaos happing around them as jutsu flew about wildly from all sides, nor the destruction that was yielded as a result.

Twenty meters above the pair, rampaging gusts of wind, errant blasts of lightning, torrents of water, and waves of fire flew everywhere, destroying the landscape.

If one paid enough attention or had sharp enough eyes to filter out the chaos, they would be able to see three black blurs, two of them jumping from tree to tree and one flying widely around the area.

If one had even sharper eyes, they would be able to tell that these blurs were the source of only half of the chaos taking place up above and spreading out a thin cloud of dirty golden particles that shone in the light. Holding its own against the black monsters, a smaller brown, green and white flying blur, was dancing around the foliage like an extremely fast insect, and pumping out almost as many elemental attacks as the other three combined.

Wind was countered by Wind. Lightning was completely redirected when inside the golden cloud, and Water drowned out Fire.

Fuu darted sideways while spinning to avoid a blast of compressed air. At the same time one of her hands brushed against the atmosphere around her, guiding the lightning launched at her from below to curve harmlessly away from her and at the fire element monster in a third direction.

The attacks were physically small in nature, allowing her to avoid them with ease… however they were all still incredibly deadly. Air, Lightning, and Fire all punched perfect holes into the trees and foliage around. To most else they would have been lethal blows if met directly. To her, it would no doubt be incredibly painful if not crippling.

"You can't catch me. You can't catch me." It didn't stop her from singing a mocking tune like a child in tempo with her current movements. "Neh neh neh neh."

She allowed herself to drop in altitude while still spinning to fall below another wind blast and leaned a bit to get away from the counter fire that had been let loose the moment the third mask had jumped out of the way. As she fell, she made several seals with trivial ease despite the world spinning around her before stopping in place to avoid another blast of pressurized air and unleashing one of her own at the oncoming eagle masked creature.

Whatever technique it had used was instantly overwhelmed by the jinchuriki's attack and steamrolled it through the dense foliage of the forest's upper canopy until it was out of sight. The move was unfortunately not enough to destroy the monstrosity, however it did give her time to focus on the slightly less annoying two monsters.

Speaking of which, she had not even finished setting off her jutsu before she shot up into the air again to avoid getting immolated, before again redirecting another lightning bolt towards the source.

This technique of hers was excellent for manipulating lighting techniques and chakra, and she had gotten good enough that only the strongest of its moves could evade her grasp when within the cloud, however it still took enough focus to control and redirect enemy attacks to prevent her from using techniques of her own at the same time unfortunately.

Still, being able to save chakra, not that she needed to, being a jinchuriki, render herself immune from a third of her enemy's attacks, and throwing it back at them with ease was a rather satisfying tradeoff.

Having interrupted the attacks, the girl began to erratically weave between the leaves and foliage to buy some time to make more seals before popping out and firing off several large wide spread pressurized streams of water that did just as much damage to the local wildlife as her opponents were doing.

Her water element mastery wasn't up to the same plateau as her wind and lightning, having only gotten it to a solid level within the past year, however she more than compensated for it by pouring in far more chakra into each attack.

The pressurized and rapidly moving streams of fluid moved like the edges of large knives, cutting through the local forestry as if it was paper.

Had the wind mask not unleashed a massive storm of air to blow them off course, she likely would have killed at least one of the monsters in front of her instead of just tearing off one of their arms and legs respectively, only to have them regrow the limbs moments later.

Fuu grunted as she darted to the side to avoid getting rammed by the rapidly moving aerial monster. She thought she had blown away the thing further than that.

"You're not catching me this time. Choumei, back me up on this one."

A dark chuckle that resembled a hive of insects being active at once echoed through her mind and a dark power flooded her coils.

She continued to spin in mid-air while making seals, opting to dodge the oncoming lightning attack instead of redirecting it.

In fact, attacks of all three elements were heading straight towards her…

"Fuuton: Mure no Shutsugen (Wind style: Advent of the Swarm)."

Upon her last rotation, the Jinchuriki exhaled the demonically charged air in her lungs in a slow and wide sweep and discharging a genuine storm wall of countless small scythe like wind blades that mulched and obliterated anything that came into contact with them. Even more overwhelming, at least from a human perspective, were the countless tiny high pitched scratching sounds that each blade made, joining together to make a deafening white noise reminiscent of insects chirping at daybreak, calling the oncoming night.

Wind, Lightning and Fire attempted to pierce through the savage monsoon, and failed unanimously as the wave overcame them all like a tsunami and enveloped them all alongside the top half of the forest in front of her for half a kilometer in a wide arc, leaving nothing but the smooth cut off tops of tree trunks for her to stand on.

"Tch." She held back an annoyed curse. While they may have been hidden in the debris, she was not fooled into thinking her targets were gone. She could feel that they were still alive. Weakened somewhat, but not destroyed. Their last attacks must have destabilized hers' enough to reduce the damage before contact.

She didn't let her guard down as she made a shadow clone to hover above the destruction while she slowly lowered below the newly defined tree line. While she would have preferred going a bit more widespread with her tactics and her move set, she needed to keep things in perspective. There was still plenty of fighting going on below, she was the main target, and most importantly, there was a bloody sniper somewhere way out of her range that could pick her off if she wasn't careful.

Given that Akatsuki usually worked in pairs… that meant that there was an unidentified fourth member lurking around somewhere.

However they didn't seem to be interested in moving just yet as she watched her clone dodge out of the way of the racing eagle masked monster. The cracks on the porcelain face were as clear as day to her, telling her that her latest move had not been completely unsuccessful.

As things stood the current situation was something like this: Fuu was peppering and harassing the land bound masks frequently at long range while flying around at dizzying and erratic speeds. While this was happening, the wind element mask attempted to chase her down and take some of the pressure off of its comrades. Its efforts were successful to the point that the fighting between all of them was more of a stalemate than anything. The masks couldn't pin down Fuu, and Fuu was unable to manage a finishing blow on any of the masks due to the interference.

Had the battle been more in terms of close range or in a more open area, then things would have been more in the masks' favor, however that simply wasn't possible in this sort of open environment.

While there may have been a risk of the monsters using a collaboration technique, the odds of it happening anytime soon were low if what she observed as any indication. These moves required focus to perform or to set up, and with their controller was too occupied with his opponent to spare the needed focus, the masks were left to fend off Fuu's stronger techniques alone. Thus, the almost mindless drones were to rely on their numbers and their admittedly powerful attacks to keep the pressure on her.

Judging from how easily her clone was avoiding the oncoming wind mask in mid-air before using a minor wind technique to deflect more lightning, the odds were in her favor.

"The old man probably doesn't need help… but just in case, I suppose I could take out a few of these things for him…"

o. o. o.

At the same time:

Five hundred million.

That was the average price for a Kage's head on the black market.

They were renowned for being the strongest shinobi in the world. Countless secrets resided not only in their bodies but in their minds as well. In this dark world of theirs, there were more than a few corrupt nobles, merchants, and organizations that were very willing to cough up that sort of money to possess such a rare and valuable trophy. Hell, in the right hands, the head itself could be a tool of untold power in certain political circles.

And that wasn't even counting all the people wronged by said Kage and eager to see their foe dead.

Hiruzen Sarutobi. The only Kage to ever live long enough to pass on his mantle while still alive, and he did it twice.

What made him even more impressive was that he managed it all under his own steam.

The current Tsuchikage and Mizukage had abnormal bloodline limits, which was already a redundant statement under most circumstances. The current Kazekage was a jinchuriki. Finally, the current Raikage, Kazekage, and Hokage were all direct decedents of former Kage and thus had certain privileges and genes that they exploited in their growth period to get them to where they were today.

The Third Hokage… was simply lucky enough to have been taught by his predecessors. True, his father was a notable individual back in the day, but only enough to put up a solid fight against the monsters of the time.

Really, the only other Kage that came to mind that had pulled off something of that level was his first successor, Minato Namikaze. The blonde man wasn't good enough to not die though, so all in all the geezer was considered a more impressive individual.

But to earn the moniker of "the Professor" and "God of Shinobi"… you had to be made of something peculiar, that much was certain.

It was that recognition that resulted in the old monkey having an absurd bounty of eight hundred and fifty million on his head.

All in all… not bad for a person who claimed to be a pacifist.

Kakuzu grunted as he blocked a heavy swipe from the pole and skidded a few meters. His body was supposedly impervious, but that didn't stop him from feeling the blow he had just taken. He couldn't dodge it this time as it stretched the distance between them and widened to be nearly his height in diameter.

The former Kage's skill was to be expected obviously, but his weapon was proving to be a real pain to manage. The constantly, and more importantly, rapidly changing dimensions of the pole made it incredibly difficult to predict and adjust to. Given how easily the old man was wielding the weapon despite the frequent size changes, it was fairly obvious that he had been aiming for these sorts of results and had practiced this approach thoroughly.

He battered away the weapon and was about to counterattack when the other end of the pole came at him from his other side. He had put in too much power to push the first end away so he couldn't dodge. Instead he attempted to ensnare the oncoming attack with the threads that shot out from his arm…

They met nothing as the old man retracted the pole's size to something a normal human could wield, stopped its motion with little effort with an end pointing at his target, and then elongated it again at near bullet speed to pierce or hammer his target.

He managed to barely lean out of the way of the pole end. It hadn't been widened at all, so despite its speed, the area he needed to avoid, which had been originally were the small of his chest had been, was fairly small. Unfortunately, just as soon as he noticed that the attack didn't connect and attempted to ensnare it again, the pole retracted half the distance before firing off again at its original target.

He avoided this one too, this time ducking a bit low to make up for his slightly off balance and throwing him off even more, although he still wouldn't have trouble avoiding attacks like this for a while even if they were dead on…

He realized his mistake a moment too late to avoid the next strike. He should have kept on moving the first time he had nearly been speared through.

The next time the pole end came for him, it wasn't the diameter of a large coin, but that of a moderately sized summon.

Hit like one too.

He was no weakling though. Instead of being pulverized or launched through the forest, he held his ground, tearing the earth beneath his feet as he pushed back at least a dozen meters before coming to a full stop. His arms and legs didn't buckle under the force of the attack, however he certainly did feel the strain.

And then suddenly the opposing force was gone again.

He left nothing to chance and leapt away just as his position was lanced by another tremendous black and gold cylinder below and then retracted…

He didn't need to be a genius to see what was going to happen next. He threw out his right arm to the side and caught a hold of a nearby tree to alter his position just as the other end of the pole swiped at him. This time however, he had also lengthened his other arm and managed to ensnare the transformed summon as it went by.

Not stopping there, Kakuzu threw himself to the ground while using his chakra to keep ahold of the ever changing annoyance, ensuring that it wouldn't be able to pull free or retract without dragging him closer to the wielder and turn things to his advantage.

Having finally found a foothold, the miser took it a step further and threw the arm he had used to move himself with initially forward at his prey, clearly aiming to either entangle, disarm, or incapacitate him in one-

"GHAAARH!"

The miser shouted in pain as a stabbing sensation lanced through him originating from the pole, spreading throughout his entire warped body. The pain was easily significant enough to force all his limbs and threads to thrash about and loose most control.

His attack forgotten, he threw away the staff in a dire attempt to get away from the source of his agony, retracted back both his arms and jumped away to regroup and figure out what the hell had just happened.

His vision just barely managed to clear before that infernal staff struck out at him again… this time he dodged, jumping up to a nearby branch.

As he regained himself, he hallucinated for just a moment…

Every now and then he heard of the occasional wild animal that become something peculiar. One that, despite the laws of nature dictated otherwise, had achieved something that few would ever would.

They had grown old.

In a world where predators hunted the young, weak, and crippled, wild creatures rarely if ever died of old age. They were an oddity that should not be, and yet still were.

Some reached it from sheer luck. Others from perseverance. Some were just that powerful…

… And then, there were the rarest of them all. The ones that had reached that plateau… from learning.

Once in a while, there would be missions for shinobi to deal with creatures like this. Animals that had grown wise to the ways of the world and had adapted. They had learned to know when to run before their enemy had even shown themselves, when to fight when possible, how to use tools, navigate their packs… to lead.

Instead of Hiruzen Sarutobi, Kakuzu had for but a few moments been looking at The Old Monkey Hiding in the Leaves.

An aged and slightly weathered specimen of its kind, barely visible from its perch and rarely seen if ever, but one that held a wild yet hard intelligence in its eyes that humans rarely possessed. It watched him from its place from the forest canopy, protecting its territory with as much ferocity and even more efficiency than any of its younger counterparts could ever manage.

And it had revealed itself to him for a reason…

He shook his head to clear his vision, but only managed to get it so that he wouldn't have trouble seeing Hiruzen himself. He didn't know what the retiree was thinking but a pointless genjutsu like that was worthless. There were better things to do with his chakra than try to intimidate him. The fact that it had actually sent shivers down his spine for even a moment was embarrassing even if no one had seen it or could prove it.

"That is a new trick you have there." Red and green eyes glared at the adamantine staff that had almost impaled him…

… Radiating with lightning chakra.

Given what he knew of the old monkey's repertoire, it would be safe to say that the bastard could channel any basic element he wanted into the damn thing. Wonderful.

He had only himself to blame. He had forgotten what it was like to go up against someone else that was both competent and could use all five basic elements. Pain didn't count. That unfair monster relied on his doujutsu's unique techniques for nearly everything.

"I've known it for a while actually. It was only recently that Enma allowed me to try it on him." The former Kage smirked casually while casually tapping the tips of his feet on the ground as if loosening himself up for a warmup, and for good reason. Over him, the illusionary hidden monkey mimicked its caster's expression. "He can be incredibly stubborn at times."

"I can still hear you you old shit." The staff opened an irritated eye on its body and glared at its holder. His transformed state may be indestructible, but it still was uncomfortable as hell to have the elements channeled through his body like a wire.

"Humph." Kakuzu grunted in annoyance. He was not stupid. He could tell that while Hiruzen was putting up a good fight, he wouldn't be able to keep it up for long. While the Akatsuki was still older by a good twenty years at least, the organs and what kept him running were far younger and in better condition.

The problem was that this was not a one on one fight, and the old Kage knew that. The withered old man was putting up an admirable show yes, but just enough to prevent his opponent from getting enough time or space to do something that would change the game in his favor. Not only that, but he had to keep his masks out to keep the Jinchuriki busy. The girl was putting up an annoyingly passible fight against the three of them and to take away one of them would all but condemn the other two.

Normal melee combat would have been the answer, but the monkey had too many tricks and too many allies to keep an eye on. He couldn't utilize his normal divide and conquer tactics to get in close while using his masks as a distraction since he was using them on the Jinchuriki. He normally could count on Hidan to kill things that annoyed him, but if even one more reasonably competent shinobi joined in against him things would turn against him fast.

The old man was good. Good enough to know that he would lose in close range combat, and would do whatever it took to avoid that scenario. Despite being technically weaker than his opponent, he was doing a passable job of controlling the fight so far.

As much as he hated to admit it, it was likely that he and Hidan had picked the wrong opponents. He didn't think the insane priest would have won in the slightest against the former Kage, but he was more suited for fighting multiple opponents at once than the madman. He could have taken out at least a couple of the brats and then spared some of his masks to help out in the other fight by now.

So that left mid and long range combat… and since mid-range wasn't working out, with that bloody pole coming after him at incomprehensible speeds, that just left long-range tactics.

Ninjutsu it is then. Rapid high level techniques would wear down that failing body faster anyways. Now how to buy enough time to make the needed preparations… oh wait. He didn't need to.

Up above, the chaos rampaging between his three hearts and the jinchuriki came to a head with the brat tearing away half of the forest above and spraying wood everywhere. He made a mental note that the girl was stronger than anticipated and that there was a solid chance that he would unfortunately need to replace multiple hearts again in the near future.

The split second's worth of a distraction caused by the flying debris was all he needed to take the initiative.

With a sickening series of pops and noises that should never have come from a human body, Kakuzu's back seemed to rip itself apart as the mask containing his earth element heart appeared over his left shoulder along with a plethora of writhing black threads.

No hand seals. No setup. Just a simple mental command. Sometimes it paid to be an inhuman monster that happened to love money…

The mouth above his shoulder cracked open menacingly the same time the retiree's eyes opened in realization.

… And he did so enjoy getting paid.

A small avalanche of stone rocketed towards the former Kage, who for the first time since the fight began was forced completely on the defensive as he jumped around like his namesake and swatted away any parts of the attack that got too close to him.

Trees and stones about them were completely torn apart from stray shots of the technique. Troughs were plowed into the ground deep enough to hide a small platoon of shinobi, and even more foliage was sent flying in every possible direction…

Neither aged males bothered to note these minor facts as they focused on the task at hand. Hiruzen with avoiding getting killed… and Kakuzu gathering absurd amounts of chakra while his mask did the attacking separately.

None of them expected the flying stones to actually kill the Konoha shinobi. He was too good for that. No, the onslaught was just a distraction, a way to occupy him while the attacker prepared for his next approach.

"Hurk…" The Akatsuki's back began to writhe again as he began to gather his chakra and produce a good deal of threads that burst and spilled out of the numerous fissures that made up his body to the point that from a distance it appeared to be more of an unkempt and demonic mane of black fur than semi sentient threads. His arms were still segmented, giving them an unnatural stretched impression, and the mask in front of his face was thrown away to reveal more unnatural fiber spilling out of his mouth and slit cheeks.

He let out a long breath. These transformations took a lot out of him if he was only physically running on one or two hearts. Normally his creatures alone could take down most shinobi, even some jonin, so he let them out when the numbers were against him. However he miscalculated the quality of the force he was up against.

His wet noodle like arms suddenly went rigid and made a handseal.

Hiruzen's eyes narrowed and held up two fingers.

The forest floor beneath Kakuzu instantly began to light up brightly with countless small needle like objects pointing straight up like grass.

"When the hell did he set that up?" The Akatsuki kept with his technique despite the fast surprise counter move his opponent had enacted. Something on that level couldn't be done with a simple seal…

His eyes narrowed as he saw that each needle wasn't pure chakra, but being channeled through something… and then widened as he had figured it out after the first needle of lightning scratched his chakra enhanced body from below and saw the piece of wood in the middle of the projectile.

The old bastard had used the splinters sprayed everywhere by the jinchuriki's attack as a medium for his chakra to attach to. When he had tapped his foot on the ground earlier, he had been subtly molding his chakra to all of the splinters on the forest floor to stand them up and stream lightning chakra at a moment's notice.

It should have been expected from the Professor. The man always was creative when it came to using his environment to his advantage with minimum effort and maximum effect. Turning a debris covered forest floor into the setup for a rain of electricity from below would be no problem for him.

He leapt away with speed that few could hope to match while still holding his seal and wiry chords thrashing about to try and deflect the oncoming assault from below as it came full swing. Streaks of light assaulted the sky with Kakuzu as the intended midpoint, forcing him to move and thrash about as much as possible to mitigate the damage. His earth element would not help him that much even though each individual attack was not that damaging alone.

He had to move positions at least six times during the five second assault as the needles would frequently weaken if not absolutely tear apart the branches he would land on, and despite his best efforts and having a seemingly impenetrable mane of threads coming out of his body, he was stabbed through a good few dozen times. None were lethal or got that deep, but each needle that got in him came with a moderately sized splinter that would be annoying the hell out of him for the rest of the fight and sometime afterwards…

… No. It would be best to get them out as soon as possible. There's no telling if the old bastard had slipped in some poisoned senbon in the attack as well.

The former Kage was strong enough to hold his own against him and another heart. The Jinchuriki was good enough that she was pushing the three he sent to her. Sending any of them to Hidan would just be a waste, and he had already settled on Ninjutsu being the answer…

"Old Man! Watch out!" The jinchuriki shouted from above, inadvertently revealing her location.

… But then again, switching opponents for the time being wasn't exactly a bad idea.

A wall of fire engulfed the forest from behind the old monkey and pressed forward like an omen of destruction. It had been then that he realized that Kakuzu hadn't been enacting a jutsu for himself to perform, but for one of his separated masks instead.

Most shinobi, let alone humans, would be stunned and blinded by the sudden attack.

Likewise, most would have been caught completely off guard by the salvo of stone bullets shot at their back as they turned around to see said wall of fire.

The normally tried and true combo failed miserably. Most shinobi that managed to react in time attempted to counter the flames with a water jutsu since the fire was too big to simply evade via normal means, and were then taken out from behind, having completely forgotten about their initial opponent. The stones would easily pierce nearly any water defensive technique imaginable save for the most powerful from individuals like Kisame or Tobirama Senju.

The lucky ones managed to survive by going underground. Of course that didn't save them in the end, but it did prolong the inevitable since Kakuzu would follow up with an earth technique to rupture the ground and crush the target while they were hiding.

No one there could be qualified as "most".

The old monkey did neither, and went for the far more efficient option of jamming one end of his pole onto the ground, holding onto the other, and extending it, shooting him up above the treeline, allowing the flood of crimson heat pass by harmlessly below, and into the sky in a near instant…

Right where the air mask was waiting with its mouth wide open…

WHAM!

And where wind chakra had been gathering, the foot of Fuu's empowered shadow clone dove in like a meteor, sending the emotionless drone flying once more.

Regrettably it was not enough to kill the creature. As strong as Fuu's clone was, it was unfortunately stronger, as moments later the copy had disappeared in the standard poof of smoke while the creature managed to stabilize itself after a short flight. Its face was clearly cracked and mangled, but still intact.

The old man allowed his momentum to carry him as he retracted his pole, allowing himself to float momentarily while rolling with the force that carried him so high in the first place.

A yelp of surprise from below.

A chaotic rumble of stone hitting wood.

Two new spikes in chakra nearby.

The sound of something flying rushing to him.

The cracking sounds of the masks opening their mouths was heard.

"I see…" The old man mused with his eyes closed and his hands gripping his pole harder. "… You really haven't changed at all…"

The three monsters were coming in a non-linear formation so he couldn't swipe them all away in one go. Their attacks were of separate elements, so there was no way he could do a standard elemental defensive technique to adequately defend himself, and likewise counterattacking would yield similar results. He was separated and too far away from the ground or any other hold to maneuver out of the way, and from what he had seen, the attacks after him were of high quality to pierce through most half assed attempts to deal with the situation.

Wind, Lightning, and Fire tore through the air to destroy the old monkey, to mutilate his existence until it no longer functioned, but was still identifiable.

The old monkey in turn tapped his weapon with the index and middle finger of his right hand.

The area above the forest erupted as the three attacks hit home, emitting a light that temporarily grabbed everyone's attention.

"Humph." Kakuzu smirked as he stared down the floating Fuu. The girl was slightly scratched up from nearly being caught by the thief's chords earlier, and had to struggle a bit to escape. "That wasn't so bad. The old man was good, but sadly he didn't have the ability to keep up with multiple high level opponents anymore."

Fuu snorted while keeping an eye out for any whip like tentacles that may be hiding in the canopy. "That's all it took for you to think that you've won? For someone so strong, you sure have your head up your ass."

The nukekin raised an eyebrow. To be honest Kakuzu didn't think he had killed the old man either, but he did like to employ the idea that he had done some solid damage with that last maneuver. "... What did you do, you crafty monkey?"

"Isn't it obvious?" The girl grinned as she slowly began to hover left and right mockingly while electricity began to spark from her body towards everything and anything solid near her. Soon enough the arcs of light illuminated nearly invisible lines that spanned from tree to tree around her. Said lines began to fray and fall apart after extended exposure to the erratic charges. "You're about to lose some minions."

"Saru, I hope you're going to fix that girl's mouth after this." Enma's gruff voice demanded as the cloud of dust and debris in the air cleared away.

"Believe me friend, she's nowhere near as bad as she used to be." The Kage sighed. Given the tone, he might as well have been taking a stroll in the park instead of fighting an S class missing nin.

The last of the obscuring particles cleared to reveal that Enma had once again altered his size and length so that he was once more stabbed into the ground far below, giving his wielder who was hanging off of the top with one hand…

… However that was where the old things stopped and new factors became apparent.

A single chain loop was sprouted from the staff's top, and interlocked with the end of an identical copy of Enma save for the smaller size and the fact that it was glowing with crimson fire chakra courtesy of Hiruzen's free hand.

The other end of the red staff was linked to a third which looped around and clenched in the old man's left leg behind the knee.

This one was glowing with azure water chakra.

Again, this staff was linked to a fourth and final, which was adhered to the old man's right foot, this time surrounded and swirling with powerful, but faint green wind chakra.

It shouldn't go without saying, but each staff was directly in the way of the elemental attack that they were strong against.

"I can't use it as much as I used to, but I still love shadow clones." The old man grinned with nostalgia without a single scratch on him. "Good times. Gooood times."

"Clones. It's always clones with that one. How the hell did I forget that?" Kakuzu couldn't help but actually grunt out in displeasure, frustration, and admittedly some impressment at the display. Even he had never heard of anyone simultaneously using multiple chakra natures individually at once like that before.

Had he acted sooner, he might have been able to avoid what came next.

"I'd prefer it if you loved your own clones instead of mine. Lazy old shit." Enma grumbled as his eye kept tabs on the three monsters watching them aimlessly. The wind one in particular was starting to make moves that indicated it was going to try another pass or escape. "Oi."

The hand on top of the main staff slipped so that the old man was progressively sliding down the body. "I see it…"

Kakuzu grimaced as he watched the old man start to make his move. Instantly he bolted away from the jinchuriki, unable to afford the distraction by this point, and began to focus on the hearts near the Kage.

That didn't mean he was unprotected though, as the mask that had hovered over his shoulder had repositioned itself again to fire its payload at the girl to prevent her from being even more of an annoyance than she already was. The yelp he heard behind him only confirmed that he wouldn't have to worry about any annoying tails in the immediate future.

He had made a mistake. He could indeed handle the girl, but his hearts were out of their league against the old monkey without a heavy hitter as a distraction. If he didn't move quick, he was afraid that there would be a real possibility he'd lose all three of them in the next few seconds.

All of the monsters above opened their mouths again and began to charge techniques that were clearly stronger than the previous assault.

"No. I see them." The old kage muttered as he pulsed his elemental chakra into the three copied weapons before dropping everything to freefall alongside the body of his transformed summon, grabbed again, shrunk it down so that it was the size of the clones.

With a swift movement, the chain of elementally charged weapons whipped around him, coloring the air around him with power that distorted the world around him. He had nothing to fear from this maneuver. He was too old, too good, too experienced to let this wild motion get the better of him…

…. And so he thrashed out his makeshift implement of destruction in a chaotic motion that would had been considered pointless had two things not happened.

The first was that all of the interconnecting links between the tools snapped at once with a simultaneous crack that could easily be mistaken for a thunder strike. The pent up energy from the swing released at once, forcing them to fly spinning in different directions to the point that they appeared to be thick disks of raw elemental power.

The second was that the directions of these weapons were each heading straight towards the masked creature that they had an advantage over.

The techniques were finished. Wind, Fire, and Lightning speared through the sky to take down the old monkey as if nature herself wished to end his existence.

Wind, Fire, and Lightning were felled by Fire, Water, and Wind respectively.

If the converging attacks could be considered Nature's Wrath, then the counterassault by the old monkey could be considered Nature Weaponized and focused. The scale of the flying weapons were smaller than the phenomena they encountered, but the concentration of the power in them were far from insufficient.

The spinning tools tore through the oncoming storms as if to defy the rules of reality, disturbing them to such an extent that they collapsed on themselves before even getting close to the old monkey in the leaves. They did not stop though, as they flew through the air towards their respective targets with barely any change in speed or flightpath.

The creatures attempted to flee. Emotionless they may have been but they knew when their existences were threatened… but it was to no avail. What flew at them were not just tools, but sentient copies of the ruler of the ape summons. Altering their trajectory in mid-air was beyond simple for them.

With two satisfying crunches, the monsters of Lightning and Fire were slammed by their respective attackers. Their bodies were tough enough to not bisect upon contact, however that only meant that they were pushed back by the supercharged spinning weapons far into the distance before they collided with the ground...

… Upon which the transformed shadow clones of a boss summon erupted like bombs of their respective elements, spawning tremendous wind, water, and fire pillars of power that caused the forest, air and earth to shudder in protest from the violent display and spilled out to cause even more damage to the once peaceful landscape.

There was no doubt that the creatures hit were no longer among the living.

Wind however, managed to survive thanks to its flying nature and naturally high maneuverability. Instead of destruction, it merely suffered the mutilation and searing of its wings by the crimson staff, forcing it to plummet to the forest…

Where it instantly meshed with Kakuzu who had been waiting below.

"I should have done this from the start." The miser grunted in annoyance at the loss of two of his hearts so quickly, more so given that his lightning and fire elements were among his most offensive of the set next to his wind element.

Having finally earned himself some space to breathe, the Akatsuki began to rapidly make seals even as his latest returning addition repositioned itself over his right shoulder to match the earth mask retook its place over his left. A short distance away he saw the old kage just barely landing and the jinchuriki regrouping with him. Given how they were moving, they were setting up to use jutsu to counter whatever he was about to throw at them.

How cute.

The numbers weren't in his favor this time, but now he had the power of three hearts in his system running full throttle, and he sure as hell was going to use it.

One by one the masks cracked open their maws so they would release their respective element…

And then the stitches in Kakuzu's cheeks tore open, his mouth opened wide with his jaw all but hanging on by the threads in his body revealing an ominous blue glow in between the pair originating from his throat.

"Die."

It was as if someone had managed to weaponize an avalanche mixed with a tornado. A rampaging wall of wind, stone and water spilled out of a single point, ravaging literally anything and everything in its path without so much as stopping.

While it was heading in Hiruzen's and Fuu's direction, it could not be said to be aimed at them specifically as the chaos spilled out in nearly every fathomable direction save back at the caster's. Even if they managed to run away or try to escape, the destruction would none the less wipe out nearly everything in a tremendous radius. Elemental affinities and advantages would not be able to save them here. It was truly a technique of Biju level proportions.

It was particularly convenient that they had one at hand in that regard.

"Fuu!" The old man's chakra and Presence spiked to unnatural highs compared to what he had been exhibiting so far. His old wrinkled hands moved fast enough that only someone with a doujutsu would have been able to follow.

"Right!" The girl tapped into her biju's chakra as she made seals of her own, regrettably nowhere near as fast as her partner's. Her now crimson eyes staring down the oncoming calamity without any hesitation.

By the time they had finished the last of their seals, the attack that could only be equated to a freak demonstration of nature's wrath was nearly on top of them.

"Katon!"

"Futon!"

Both of them reared back their heads with puffed out cheeks and then snapped them forward.

"Mezameta Kodai no Ikari (Awakened Ancient Wrath)!"

The two complimenting elements blended together perfectly, growing into a massive white inferno that reached the size of the oncoming destruction within an instant.

And then it roared.

Whatever shape the literally white hot blaze took was impossible for anyone to determine as within a moment the two forces of destruction hammered into one another with enough force to knock away nearly every tree nearby.

Had the technique been performed by even trained jonin, the results would have been easy for anyone to determine. The fire would have been smothered out after an admirable but short period of time and the users would have been killed, but this was not the case.

While the two elemental attack was somewhat outclassed by the three elemental attack, the power and foundation behind it was a completely different story.

One source of the pair was at one point considered the strongest man in the world. A man who had mastered and researched countless techniques and more elements naturally than anyone else known. The fire he put out was so hot and powerful that it burned white without any aid.

The other contained one of the ten fragments of the planet's world tree. A living source of hyper concentrated and living power that was naturally in tune with the world around it. The howling demonic winds she was producing could tear through walls and buildings of pure steel miles away and still keep going.

In nearly each and every way, their counter attack was just as disgustingly destructive as the move nearly upon them.

No… it was even worse.

The two titans of elemental chaos pushed against one another with the might and force of rampaging biju, causing bullet speed stones and gouts of fire to spray in nearly every direction. However, it didn't take long for the first signs of a victor to make itself known.

There was a fundamental difference between Kakuzu's attack and theirs. While nearly equal in terms of destructive power, their designs and purpose were not the same.

The three elemental collaboration technique was designed to annihilate anything within a set range indiscriminately. Its wild power was spread out evenly to mow down all in its wide path.

The intense white hot inferno however, was not like that. The firestorm produced was made to punch through any but the most powerful of defenses, while at the same time spread its destruction outward from the main body to scar and consume the landscape surrounding its path up to nearly a kilo out in either direction. It was something to destroy anyone or anything hiding behind a solid defense after getting through said obstruction in a single move.

Much like an awakened biju.

The great nine monsters do not simply wreck what is about them and disappear. No, they rampage wherever they wish, spreading chaos in their path and even more issues after they leave.

Initially the white inferno did start to appear as if it was losing steam as the thrashing water and stone began to cup over it… but then the reason behind it became obvious to all there as the seemingly dominating force began to glow more and more as it further bloated back to the source, progressively steaming and widening as it did so.

Kakuzu's eyes widened in surprise and alarm as he pieced together the fact that his technique was not only loosing, but being actually pierced through by the mere two element combo. He could feel the demonic heat progressively get closer to him like an omen that he couldn't see but still feel through all of his other senses. Frantically he began to pour more power into the attack, causing the calamity that he made to grow in size and ferocity, however it did little more than slow down the piercing nature of the move heading straight towards him.

While neither side could see past the techniques they were using, it none the less became quite apparent when Kakuzu's technique finally buckled under the force of Fuu's and Hiruzen's. As if a dam had burst, the held back flames emptied out like the contents of a balloon.

Within moments, the landscape that once contained the Akatsuki were nothing more than an immense river of blinding fire that flowed back and through the forest relentlessly like a sentient flood, spilling out over the banks that no longer existed and spreading more damage in its wake.

Soon enough though, like most freak disasters, the chaos ended as soon as it began.

What once was a lush and lively forest now had a new image of fire, stone and war. A tremendous gouge in the earth thirty meters wide stretched across the land, down the hillside they had been fighting on, and into a freshly made molten hole that went down for who knows how long. The land charred black so thoroughly that nothing in it was aflame as there was nothing left to burn anymore. The only indications that it was still incredibly hot were in the air above it as steam rose from the ground, causing the image in the distance to shimmer as if it was a mirage…

… Of course, the immense flames from the still burning forest to either side of the trench could also be used as a fairly obvious hint to the local temperature too.

The area around and behind Hiruzen and Fuu didn't come out unscathed either. While their technique had protected them from any real harm, it didn't stop the wild stones, blades of wind, and flying pools of water to wreck what was around them. From where they stood, there really was no longer a single tree in view that was not either charred, still burning, crushed, or diced in some way. Heck, because of the whiplash from the technique, there really wasn't any debris even close to them for a good fifty meters in any direction.

"Hah." Fuu breathed out heavily and rubbed her neck gingerly. Channeling demonic chakra was one thing, focusing it only in her respiratory system was another story entirely. "Didn't think we'd be able to pull that off for a second."

"He is quite strong." Hiruzen leaned against his summon with some exhaustion. He may still have quality chakra, but quantity was something he had been steadily losing over the years. His experience and library of skills had and did make up for much of that, but there were times where what was needed was simply raw power. That last maneuver had easily taken up nearly half of his reserves. Not that it wasn't worth it, but using up that much that quickly was bound to cause his body to act up in the near future.

"Unfortunately." She coughed out with frustration while leering at a certain patch of charred earth a good fifty meters away. "Why can't things go our way for once? These guys are so annoying!"

Said portion of earth rumbled and shifted for a few moments before bursting up to reveal a burned, battered, and winded, but otherwise fine Kakuzu. His head was completely visible as any trace of clothing from his waist up was completely gone now, revealing his stich and scar laden body for the world to see.

The fact that he only had the wind mask attached to his body was not missed by anyone.

"He's lived for a long time and grown stronger from experience." Hiruzen sighed, not at all surprised by this result. "Tenacity of unnatural amounts is something that anyone that has reached this level possesses."

"Three hearts…" The Akatsuki grimaced as he cracked and stitched his jaw back into place with a series of sickening noises that should not have come from a human being. It had been a last moment decision to sacrifice his earth elemental mask to stave off the oncoming firestorm just long enough to escape below, but even with that he had not managed to come out of that last one unscathed. Several portions of his body were burned and seared so badly that his threads were fused to one another and his flesh, unable to move in the process. This could be rectified in time, but it would be very painful and distracting to do so. "This is turning out like that fiasco in Iron all over again… truth to be told, it's been a while since I've had to work this hard for a good bounty. Quite refreshing, actually."

It had been a long time since anyone had ever matched, let alone beaten one of his three element combos. True if enough people gathered at once they'd eventually pull it off, but with two people or less? Outside of Pain and Hashirama, no individual had ever managed it, let alone a pair. True, Muu and Onoki might have with their Dust Release, and then there were the Biju themselves, not to mention Madara, but they were the exception, not the norm.

Zabuza didn't count. The sword did most of the work in that particular event.

He had lost three hearts, leaving him with only the one he was using and the wind element left, which was also somewhat damaged. His body naturally had a water affinity and the one in his chest was a spare earth, so technically he could use three different styles without too much trouble. His chakra reserves and output had taken a hit though from the loss and that last maneuver, but it was not a significant problem just yet. He'd have to be more economical from this point forward, an endeavor he didn't like given his current opposition.

On the other side of things, the old Kage finally looked like he was starting to run out of steam, and the jinchuriki girl had taken a few hits from her close encounter with him if the cuts and torn clothing was any indication. She was still capable of fighting, but ultimately she was still nowhere near as dangerous as her partner… so long as she didn't tap into the bulk of her biju's power.

That was another problem he'd have to deal with. If he pushed too hard the girl would no doubt go wild, and frankly speaking he was not in a state to battle a demonic monster alone.

Neither side was in a condition to repeat the events that had just destroyed the local area, so that meant it was back to skirmishes, but this time everyone would start to show their fatigue…

… Yeah, that settles it. He'd go for the old Kage first. His heart may be a bit dated, but it was still strong, and held all five chakra natures in it. It would prove to be a useful mask until it gave out. Once he was out of the way, he could focus his attention on the brat or go and help Hid-

The world shivered, along with everything on it.

Something unnatural and wrong had just been spawned very close by. Something that had everyone frozen in their tracks.

A biju? No. This didn't feel like one. The chakra wasn't demonic and yet… it was so… foul… so utterly overwhelming and potent that there was nothing else that came to mind that could even come close to describing it for the Akatuski…

"What…?" The Kage muttered under his breath in a way that betrayed the brand of confusion he was feeling to those that could hear him. This wasn't a question asked as if he didn't know what was going on…

It was the question asked in pure terror, as if he knew what this was, but didn't know why it was happening.

o. o. o.

Again a few minutes back, with the unanimously agreed upon most unstable member of Akatsuki:

It didn't take long for Hidan to recover from being blasted through several trees by Kakuzu's mask.

It took less time for his opponents to remember he was immortal when he started shouting like a loon as he did so.

"I swear I'm going to thoroughly and slowly skin you alive, make boots of out of your motherfucking face, and offer them to Jashin-sama!"

Hidan was pissed beyond words. This was like fighting the paper bitch all over again, except this time he was being matched by kids.

In spite of what others thought, Hidan was not a blind idiot. Losing was one thing. Losing to a woman? His public humiliation in front of his entire organization had made him realize how behind he was, and most importantly, spurred his wrath. He had been too reliant on his immortality, resting on his laurels.

So he had started training. Days and nights, he had trained, without rest. Say what you want about Akatsuki and their goals, but you couldn't deny that they had one of the best libraries for forbidden techniques and jutsu in the world. So far the progresses had been slow, but he had achieved good results with this convenient gate technique he had read up on. He wouldn't stop until he found a way to open them all and take his revenge.

A wounded ego was one hell of a motivator.

Then, when he was powerful enough, he would avenge his loss, beat the shit out of the paper bitch, and then eviscerate Kakuzu. No, no, it was a bad idea. Once he offed Konan, Pain would be all over his ass and make it impossible to get Kakuzu.

First Kakuzu, then the bitch.

... He seriously needed to write down a checklist.

… Nah. He'd just lose it in the end. Best not to leave a paper trail. Especially with a woman that could control paper as easily as breathing around.

"Don't blame us for what your partner did to you asshole!" Kin snapped at him comically.

"Try your best, but I am too youthful for some old decrepit demon!" Gai grinned as he whipped out his dual custom made nun-chucks and started to whip them about expertly.

"He's a god you dumbass!" The madman raged as he threw his weapon forward. "He's THE God!"

The chuck in Gai's right hand whipped up, and despite the clear difference in their respective sizes, the small tool easily derailed the scythe's path at the last moment, forcing it up into the air easily.

Again, like with Neji, following the flying blade were irregular coils of the metallic cord that had attached to the handle of the weapon and hidden behind the initial attack. Unlike Neji though, Gai was significantly faster than his student and had witnessed this tactic being used before, so weaving around the half a dozen erratic coils was easy for him.

He did, however, have to knock away the spike lunged at him by Hidan himself who had crossed the distance between them in the meantime…

… Followed by the other nun-chuck whipping up from below and cracking the madman's chin and head up.

The taijutsu master then had to leap back again as his counter attack did nothing to forestall or alter the man's follow through swipe with off-hand weapon.

It was then that he noticed the metal chord connected to his opponent retracting rapidly, and given the way it was shaking…

"That won't work!" Before the first coil could strike him from behind and towards his attacker, Gai swung his arm down forcing his weapon to slam on the moving link, forcing its path and the improvised attacks away from him with an impact that caused the trees around them to shudder.

He then moved forward while spinning rapidly to kick the oncoming swipe away, chaining into another kick that would have hammered into the chest of the madman if he didn't manage to push it slightly to the side at the last moment and relocated it to his right shoulder.

The Akatsuki used the force to spin his body in place, allowing the momentum to yank his weapon into yet a new path around the pair while also adding power to his strike.

Smooth as water, Gai fell below the attack when he landed from his kicking combo if it was choreographed, continuing to spin as well to try and take his opponent's legs out from below.

Hidan however was not so inexperienced as to not see that and jumped back to another tree branch to avoid it, allowing his scythe to come into view again, having come full circle around them following the spin he had made earlier and straight at Gai once more. Looking further, Hidan threw in a wide circular whip into the chord to make its strike more unpredictable when it reached the target.

In turn, the man in green merely flexed his notably muscular legs, and jumped straight up several levels of tree branches and far out of the reach of the wild attack before it reached him.

"Tch." The Akatsuki clicked his tongue in annoyance as his weapon flew harmlessly below the man before dropping. He yanked it back with a jolt before it even reached its full length so that he wouldn't lose any time. "Ahhhh. I know I'm not the fastest of the group, but seriously what the hell is up with this guy? Is his speed proportional to his stupidity?"

Gai landed upside down on his new branch and stuck to it. Looking down at the battle ground below and his opponent taking back his scythe, he frowned. "Immortal and with a troublesome jutsu. His taijutsu is rough but not something I can ignore either. Hmmm. If I remember right, in addition to my blood he needs to draw some simple seal on the ground with his blood and be in it for his technique to work. So in a way, the best thing to do to deal with him is… AHA!"

"Aha?" The priest looked at the now smiling man as if he had lost it. "What the hell do you mean by "aha", dumbass?"

"I have figured out the secret to your tactics!" The cheerful man declared proudly. "You rely on your weapons to fight!"

"…"

"…"

"…"

Everyone there, save Lee, stared at Gai as if he had just said something stupid. No… no, he did say something stupid. The analogy wasn't needed.

"… Are you guys real?" Hidan asked, honestly bewildered.

"NO SHIT SHERLOCK!" Kin yelled.

"Oh! Brilliant!" Lee gushed with stars in his eyes. "You're a genius Gai-sensei!"

"Stop talking Lee. That's merely the lack of blood hitting you." Neji bowed his head in depression.

"Bah! It's only a flesh wound and you know it." Mini-Gai shot back.

"Er. No! That's not what I meant!" Gai fumbled with his words in the wake of everyone's response. "What I meant to say was… that is…"

"... I'm going to murder you," Hidan declared ominously, his patience having reached its limits, "I'm going to murder you so hard they'll give me a medal for it!"

He threw his scythe at his target again, forcing Gai to jump away and lodging the tool into the wood, which he used to pull himself closer to his target. Instead of stopping that the scythe though, he swung himself in the process, jettisoning him even further ahead in the process while whipping loose his weapon as he did so.

Gai instead of retreating again, hammered his legs into the next tree branch he came into contact with to launch himself to another one close by before rocketing towards Hidan from a different angle, spinning halfway during the launch indicating he was going to attack hard. Without the scythe to deal with, the Akatsuki could only manage to defend himself with his spike, which in itself was already a fairly dangerous item in his hands.

As fast and strong Hidan was, he couldn't compare to Gai's mixed with his raw taijutsu experience. The immortal had attempted to swipe at him as he attacked…

… Only that had been exactly what the taijutsu master had been looking for. Instead of hammering the priest's body with his arms or legs, Gai had proceeded to swing his leg foot into the oncoming hand that was holding the spear.

With a sickening and familiar crack of breaking bones, the hand caved in several points on the outside, forcing Hidan's knuckles to bend inward and out through the palm of his hands…

… And more importantly making him drop the collapsible tool in the process.

"Ah Jashin damn it! I forgot how much that could hurt!" The priest raged, whipping his injured hand to crack his knuckles back into place while he swung his other arm in an attempt to whip his scythe to the retreating green man that had passed by him. Unfortunately it proved too little too late as the target found his footing too soon and got out of range before his tool could make it.

"Neji! Lee! Kin! Get the spike and keep it away from him!" Gai ordered frantically. "The less tools he has to draw blood the less he has to work with!"

A switch went off in everyone's minds as they processed what their teacher had just said. Suddenly his asinine statement from before made perfect sense. Hidan's style was dependent on his weapons, and not simply because he fought well with them…

It was because drawing blood and inflicting wounds on himself to draw large amounts of blood were significantly easier to do with his weapons.

Given the way he fought, his current abilities, how he relied on his weapons, and what his techniques required…

… Without his tools, he wouldn't stand a chance in hell against them.

"I got it!" Lee bolted, his head wound already clogged up and mostly healed.

Neji instantly activated his doujutsu and analyzed everything his enemy had on him. "He has a dozen shuriken and kunai each. A good deal of wire and miscellaneous items. Three collapsible tools like the one he just dropped. Last and most troublesome is a contraption on his left side that coils, stores, and retracts the chord that is attached to his scythe. From the looks of it he has about thirty meters available."

"We can ignore the kunai and shuriken for now. The spears and the scythe take priority." Kin nodded, knowing exactly what her teammate was doing. "We'll have to rely on dealing with the smaller trinkets as they come, but for the scythe…"

"The chord comes first." Neji agreed, watching as Gai occupied Hidan's attention while Lee retrieved the man's weapon… and subsequently threw it away into the air in the direction of the cliff they had just run from. "It will be impossible to get the scythe away from him otherwise. Plus it would hamper his mobility and ranged combat options. Tenten would be ideal for this, but since she isn't we need some other way to sever it."

"You hear that Lee?" Kin turned to look around at the fight and her boyfriend.

The battle was continuing up above, but the addressed was nowhere to be found.

He heard them all right.

"Come on. We have to help Sensei and make an opening." Neji didn't take either of his eyes off of the area where his sensei was occupied with trying to cripple his immortal opponent while not getting cut or scratched in the slightest from the scythe flying in nearly every direction at once.

"Don't have to tell me twice." The former Sound-nin snorted as she took out a scroll and opened it up to reveal a sealing matrix.

Moments later the girl was twirling around a custom made double bladed battle axe with a long body, allowing it to act as a polearm if needed with a small spike at the top of the polished blue shaft. The wide curved blades were over half a meter long on each side and curved outward, flaring up at each end, but what really made the tool interesting were what was contained in the dozen odd inch radius holes inside the blade and core of the weapon.

Inside each small hole was a small silver suzu bell shaking and chiming lightly with the slightest shake… save for the larger one that occupied the center of the weapon, nearly three times the size of the other holes. Inside that one was a larger golden ornate kane bell with suspicious looking runes etched around its rim.

"It's been a while since I got to put Mii-dera to good use." She grinned eagerly as she finally rested the large weapon on her right shoulder as if it weighed nothing, causing the bells to jingle in the process.

It was a strange sight for such a lithe girl to heft such a big weapon so easily, but it was practically a standard for Neji and his friends. With Sakura's super strength and Tenten's ability to use virtually anything with a bladed edge as if she had been raised with it in her hand, Kin's particular case was almost substandard.

Well… that is until she started to fight with that thing. Neji had made a personal note to take the girl down as soon as possible after the first time she used it against him. Anything longer than the first skirmish and… things would get unpleasant.

"So I got vanguard and you'll back me up?" She asked looking up at the fight, searching for the right time to get involved.

"Yeah. I'll keep an eye out for any traps while you're busy. At the same time I'll help set things up to turn this to our favor." Neji nodded, also prepared to move at a moment's notice.

"Hah. And here I thought the suicide jobs were done with after I left Orochimaru." She laughed sarcastically while gathering chakra to her feet.

A half a second later she was thirty meters away, in front of Gai, and had knocked away the triple bladed scythe that was coming after him. The sound of bells chiming alongside the metallic clang of the two weapons hitting one another was a rather peculiar thing to hear for everyone.

"Hey Sensei! We're taggin' in for the moment!" The long haired axe wielder claimed for everyone to hear before landing on a tree branch and rocketing towards the surprised Hidan.

"The fuck? Kid are you a retard? Don't treat me like some green nosed weakling!" The chord between the wielder and the scythe began to recoil instantly while he jumped up from the girl's attack. As fast as she was, the weapon would easily gouge into her before she reached her next landing.

It didn't get close to her as Neji intercepted the blade and knocked off course with a well-placed chakra enhanced strike.

"STOP DOING THAT!"

"Stop what?"

"STOP NOT DYING!" Hidan moaned as he managed to whip his blade back to his hand. "By Jashin, I'm trying to give you a quick death! If I gave all of you the full ceremony it would take for fucking ever! Kakuzu would never shut up about it if I went through with it!"

"Sorry, not gonna happen!" Kin wasted no time launching herself from her new branch at the target, her weapon jingling in the process.

Hidan snorted at her response and positioned himself to counterattack, only to have to sidestep a vacuum air palm strike from Neji. He used the motion to chain into a counter swipe at the girl, but only met her big ass weapon instead.

Tingle. Tingle.

The man's eyes widened as his vision and mind blurred from the noise and instantly pushed her back to retreat before she could follow through. "Tch. Genjutsu?"

He landed a short distance away and looked at the girl's axe. Yeah, no doubt about it, those bells were mediums for causing hallucinations in her opponents. Every time they rang, those that heard the chimes would get hit hard… and then she'd hit with the axe harder. Easy to see through, but a pain to deal with if the effects kicked in, especially since the one affected had to focus on dispelling the illusion and avoid getting cleaved in two at the same time. It didn't help that the girl was surprisingly quick on her feet too.

"Heh. Nice little trick." Hidan grinned. Sound based illusions were a pain to deal with if caught off guard, but there was a useful trick he learned of in Akatsuki that nulled them out pretty well. All a person had to do was channel chakra to their ears and make a white noise there and most if not all other chakra laced sounds nearby would be canceled out. "I think I'll ring some of those bells when I stick my scythe up your ass!"

He rushed forward with new vigor and took the offensive against her, this time not bothering to let go of his tool since that kid with the one eye was being annoying, getting in the way of his ranged attacks. The girl was a pretty little thing now that he got a good look at her. Good figure too. A bit on the young side, but hell, he'd still do her. And by "do" he meant rape, torture, and sacrifice…

... Thinking about it, maybe he should do it the other way around this time. It sounded like an interesting experience.

She was pretty good though. He had to give her that. She was way stronger and faster than she looked too. Not as good and fast as her backup, but with her weapon she could hit his hard enough to buy enough time for the follow-up before he could react

His first swipe down was deflected by her tricked out battle axe swiping up. He tried to push through a second time, but was turned to the side by the butt end of the axe, giving her room to hop back and get enough time to try and spear him through with a thrust.

He deflected her this time and tried to follow through, only to find that her technique was better than his and allowed her to react in time to counter another blow with her axe head. It still didn't stop him from pressing forward, forcing her to back up to the point that she had to jump away.

The process continued to repeat itself with him pressing the attack at close range and the brat constantly playing on the defensive. It wasn't something he was unused to. Nearly everyone he got this close to tended to play it safe given how awkward it was to go against his scythe…

… No. Something was off. The kid was pressed but didn't have that frantic gleam that he sometimes got a boner seeing. Heck, from the look in her eyes, she wasn't even looking for a way to really counterattack or get a strike in. With a weapon like hers, she should be at least trying to look for a way to score a winning blow during all of this. All she was doing was focusing on holding him off and not getting hit.

"What?" He muttered under his breath as the pair continued to hack at one another with their polearms.

The girl began to change… no, it was like he was seeing another version of her that wasn't human. It looked like her yeah, and she was the same size… but at the same time she was smaller and had these bug wings like she was one of those children's story things. What were they called… oh yeah fairies.

She was still swinging about that tremendous axe, but it seemed to be more for ceremonial purposes. As if it was to call something over. Every time it moved, the bells chimed as if they were made of crystal. Except for that bigger one in the middle. It rang, but there was no sound coming from it, not one that humans could hear…

… But there were monsters around hidden in the forest… for a moment he could feel their eyes on him, watching. They could hear the bells. They could hear the fae's laughter, almost as enchanting as the bells on its tool, as it played with their new prey.

The laughing fairy temptress in the forest that lives among the monsters.

Yeah he remembered it now. The newer stories had these little things to be all innocent and harmless, but the older ones were nasty pieces of work. Some even worked for Jashin-sama in the scriptures. Tricking people to their deaths and for their amusement… nasty little fucks, even by his standards.

Hidan didn't get tired. He rarely got winded. And to say that it was hard to stop him was a tad bit of an understatement… so when he started to sweat, breathe hard, was starting to get pushed back, and was seeing illusions of the girl standing side by side as they continued to duel with one another, all at once, he knew something was seriously off.

Their weapons clashed again, and he could feel his weapon shake from the impact, shaking ever so slightly… travelling up his arm…

"Tch!" The priest swung his arm hard suddenly in desperation, forcing Kin to block and giving Hidan enough time to jump away sloppily. A vacuum palm struck him in midair as he retreated, which he was unable to react to in time due to his condition, hammering him into a nearby tree, however he had managed to hit it feet first and used it to put more distance between him and everyone else.

"That fairy bitch. The sound genjutsu was a fucking lead." Hidan swore under his breath and cradled his head to deal with his headache. Now that he had the alternate image of her in his eyes he couldn't get rid of the damn thing. He didn't know how, but the girl was transferring her illusions to him every time his weapon hit hers, through physical contact. Given how hard it was to see clearly, he doubted that she would have needed long to weaken her enemies enough to get a killing blow in before they knew what she was even doing. He was an exception of course, but still that didn't mean he looked forward to getting that thing lodged in his skull. If he was any less skilled and powerful than he currently was… that could very likely have happened by now.

Hell, before this he's never heard of anyone that specialized in physically applied illusions in combat. Even Itachi didn't do shit like that, and that guy mind fucks people just by looking at them for a living.

A dual medium illusion. That certainly was one hell of a weapon the girl was using. Genjutsu usually were applied via one of the five senses or by casting the illusion via pure chakra all over the place. Even Hidan knew that, but he had never heard of anyone actually manage to create a way to apply the same illusion over two mediums simultaneously.

He had to give the girl credit where it was due, she has a beastly trick up her sleeve. To combine all of that with a battle axe of all things and still hold her own in a fight against him… maybe he could convert her later after he sacrificed everyone else? Jashin-sama would no doubt be pleased in having her as a worshipper. She certainly looked unhinged enough.

Still, he wouldn't have had any trouble with her if he could throw his weapon about like normal, but that one eyed kid was messing with his groove…

"Well that settles it then." He muttered as he shook his head and looked down at the pair of brats. "Cute ones first."

The forest above everyone shivered as a massive wind tore all the forest apart a short distance away.

"And that's my cue!"

Without waiting, the priest launched himself directly into Neji's direction, slightly up and to the left of where he would go if he was heading for Kin. Grabbing his main weapon with two hands, he appeared to look as if he was going to counter the girl's swing at him… but he didn't.

Her axe tore into his chest and opened a crimson line nearly half a meter long from breast to waist, deep enough that some bones and organs were now visible… but his trajectory didn't change.

"What?!" The girl blanched in surprise, not expecting her opponent to take such a nasty wound and completely ignore her.

"Got ya brat!" Hidan squealed in glee, knowing that once he butchered this kid, the only ranged fighter, he could deal with the others with much more ease. "Jashin-sama here's your first course of the day! A little pig with a juicy bloody sauce!"

Neji on the other hand, had different plans. "Kaiten!"

"Kai-what?"

The Hyuuga had to admit, this was the first time he had ever seen or heard of someone hit into his family's perfect defense head first at full tilt before. The sound made from the impact in particular was quite unique.

"What the fuck!?" The priest was repelled from the glowing blue dome as quickly as he hit it, and with extra damage to boot. Where his body had impacted the spinning chakra, skin had been sheared off to the point that half the skin and muscle on his face and part of his upper body had been ravaged if not torn off.

"I am not so easy to get rid of." Neji smirked as he slowed down…

Hidan roared in anger as he threw his weapon while still flying, channeling chakra into the chord to activate the hidden contraption inside the hilt to make the blades suddenly rotate like a demented crimson drill. "Fuck you cyclops! You hear me? FUCK YOU!"

Neji's and Kin's eyes widened in alarm. The boy was in no position to dodge in his current state and the oncoming attack would be crippling at the very least.

The missile plowed forward and drilled through the branch easily, rocketing forward through the forest until it finally impacted the ground below.

"Oh come on just die already." Hidan grumbled in annoyance as he landed on a branch of his own. "Give me a break. I was so close that time!"

"Honestly." A deep and annoyed voice muttered next to the temporarily stunned Neji, a short distance and on a different branch from where he had been moments before. "You must be more prepared Neji. You are normally not that sloppy."

The Hyuuga shook his head and turned to his teacher. "Sorry sensei. I didn't expect him to be able to regain control over himself after hitting my Kaiten so hard."

"Don't expect normal reactions from abnormal people." Gai frowned sagely before donning a confident smirk. "However I must commend your efforts. Your youthful plan has worked spectacularly."

"Hey asshole! Remember me?!" Kin fell down on Hidan from above with a two handed axe strike, forcing the man to leap away lest he be crushed by the blow that destroyed the tree he had been on.

"I swear when I'm gonna catch you, ya ugly midget whore, I'm gonna cut off your tongue and nail it on your mother's door!" The equally vulgar man snarled and yanked back on his chord… only to find a familiar weight to it missing. "What the…?"

Turning his head back to look at where he expected his scythe to be flying through the air… he saw the severed end of his thick metal and chakra conductive chord.

"YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING JOKING! WHEN THE FLYING HELL DID THAT HAPPEN?!"

Neji had to admit it. As annoying as Lee was at times, it was worth having him around for moments like these. They just never got old.

Neither was the looks on the enemies' faces when they realize that they were in the middle of a fight two seconds late for a giant axe to come down on them.

Another explosion of splinters accompanied by the tingling of bells echoed through the area. Unfortunately it did not signal the end of the fight.

Fortunately it did, as witnessed a few moments later, indicate a successful blow as Hidan's retreating figure was minus his left arm just below the elbow.

"Son of a blasphemous little piece of shit…" The veins on the immortal's head were beginning to throb uncontrollably as he reached into his coat and withdrew one of his spare collapsible spears.

"Kin! Be careful! He's still very dangerous!" Gai shouted in alarm as his current female student chased after the Akatsuki.

"We got him on the ropes! We can take him!" The girl shouted back eagerly with weapon in hand.

And then Hidan swung his severed arm in front of her, spraying his blood right in her face.

Kin screamed in surprise by the sudden fluid in her eyes. She screamed again in pain moments later as Hidan swiped her across the chest with his spike before running in the opposite direction as her oncoming teammates.

"KIN!" Neji and Gai shout in panic as they raced towards her as she fell through the air.

"YES! I got one!" Hidan yelled in euphoric joy as he landed a good distance away. Pressing down on his missing limb, he poured blood on the ground which was stomped on and dragged through the earth. Within two full spins, the seal of Jashin was beneath him. "PRAISE JASHIN!"

He grinned as he leered at the three freaky annoyance staring at him in horror from way too far away. Had he been slightly saner and sharper, he would have been slightly concerned that they knew what he was doing.

Slowly, and purposefully he brought the spear tip dripping with blood of his soon to be next victim up to his lips…

… Only to find that his spear was missing.

The arm that was holding it was gone too.

"… Eh?"

It was only then that he felt a new pair of eyes upon him. Ones that looked upon him like a predator would prey. Not a savage beast though… no this was one that knew its craft. It waited, bided its time, positioned itself until the right moment to strike… when its target wouldn't would lease expect it for maximum efficiency.

And not a single sound was made from it.

The only reason why he even felt it now was because it had already struck.

"Forgive me, however I find what you were about to do to my girlfriend to be… unyouthful."

The third brat who had been missing from the entire fight was standing in front of him. In one hand was a nasty looking large ridged hunting dagger, long enough to almost be a short sword, and glowing white with a special converted mix of wind and lightning chakra.

In the other was Hidan's freshly severed arm, complete with the spear with Kin's blood on it.

"... Huh?" Hidan blinked more in confusion as he recognized the kid in front of him.

Maybe he didn't cancel out that girl's genjutsu yet because he was seeing some black slit eyes and barely visible teeth hovering over the newcomer glaring down at him. It didn't even seem to look like any individual monster, but more like it fit the profile of anything that took this particular approach to taking out its target.

Predation in its purest form. That which enables all that hunt at night to ensure a kill with its first undetected strike. Silent death.

"Is it wrong for me to be turned on right now?" Kin asked from further back. "Because I really want to jump my boyfriend at the moment."

"… You just… you really just cut off my arm like that?" Hidan blinked, still in a bit of a daze.

"You do not die like others do. Gai-sensei said that you would be helpless without your weapons, however I believe that removing both of your arms would also yield similar results. Again my apologies." There was none of the energy in his voice like before. No eagerness. No cockiness. No sorrow. No emotion.

A shiver went down Hidan's spine. The boy was not apologizing for cutting off his arm. He was apologizing for leaving him alive after his first strike. To the kid, not killing him swiftly was an insult to both of them.

Yeah, this brat was seriously dangerous. Despite how he looked, he was pure assassin material.

In the distance, a raging inferno waged war against a grand storm of earth and water. The land rumbled, the forest nearby burned, and boulders began to fall from the sky.

In that single moment, the boy vanished, blurring out of sight.

Hidan jumped out of pure reflex back into the trees. He was rewarded with nearly a quarter of his neck sliced through, and sprayed blood everywhere.

"Mother fucker!" He grimaced, pressing the stump of one of his arms to his neck to try and stop himself from bleeding out even more. "He's faster than me?!"

He knew instinctively it was an understatement. The brat was beyond being simply faster, to the point that he simply outclassed the man. The only other people he knew of on that level were Kakuzu, Itachi, Kisame, and Pain.

His words caught in his mouth as he felt his entire being threatened. The world seemed to contort on itself, forcing images into his eyes of things that weren't there.

Below was predation. Silent hunting.

Above however, came the Fae, That Which Is, Was, and Can be All-Mighty Proud Beasts, and The Imperfect White Contortion that Forges Straight Paths Through All.

These things were after him. They would get him. They were upon him. His nerves, his body, his entire being told him this was absolute, and fighting it was like fighting God himself.

A normal human would lose faith in everything and accept their fate in what was to come from these abnormal specters.

A normal powerful shinobi would attempt to fight against the image and try to retreat, regardless of what the end results may be.

But Hidan… Hidan was mad, crude, instinctual, powerful, and despite his demeanor and language, a spiritual man.

… At that moment, something triggered in his head. Something that had been implanted several days prior…

"Haaa! FUCK YOU!" Hidan pushed back against the bizarre sensations with his rage, power, and chakra, inadvertently developing a dark aura of his own while whipping out the stump of an arm that was still connected to what remained of his chord.

He was angry. He was humiliated. He was frustrated. Most of all he just wanted to sacrifice these heathens to JASHIN-SAMA!

The three attackers from above were caught off guard by his counterattack, and were subsequently hammered by the wildly thrashing cable that seemed to have a life of its own. Predation attempted to catch him from below, but Hidan had quickly managed to wrap his lifeline around a nearby branch and pulled himself away at the last possible moment.

Gai, Kin, and Neji landed next to one another, all completely stunned by the turn of events.

"What the hell?" Kin muttered as she gripped her axe tightly in apprehension. "Guys… please don't tell me I'm seeing this wrong, but is he…"

"No…" Neji grimaced, clenching his teeth in frustration as they observed the madman landing sloppily on a new perch. "He's using Presence."

"How?" Lee appeared next to them without making a sound other than his speaking. "The only ones that know how to use it are those that the Oogakari taught, and I doubt that they would do something like this. They are irresponsible at times, but not to this extent."

Hidan's breathing began to get deeper and he was starting to talk to himself.

"We'll have to find out later." Gai took a stance. "First we have to defeat this man. Just his head will do…"

"Wait…" Neji held up a hand in trepidation. Something was wrong with the Akatsuki. They had been stunned by his sudden use of Presence, but…

… But it wasn't like a normal aura. It was… growing… changing… no… it was…

o. o. o.

Unknown:

It was old.

It was there when the first lifeform found joy in the death of another. It was alive before mortals could give it a name. It was older than language.

It did not remember how it was born. It did not know if it was unique, or the fragment of a greater, deeper, more sinister darkness. It knew there were other horrors out there, bigger, more significant, older. It had no idea if they had created it, or if it was self-born.

It simply was.

It didn't have a mind. It had no body. Yet it was there, present, pervasive.

It was sentient. It acted. It yearned. It raged. It thrived. It reached. It influenced. Sometimes it even added a "personality" to a fraction of itself in order to interact with the minor existences that spawned in the infinite realms of infinite.

It also loved life. Preferably intelligent life.

It loved mortals. It loved them. It loved them when they raped, burned, killed, tortured, reveled, devoured, and thrived. It did not care if they did it in its name or not. It loved them like they were, savage, brutal, violent.

For it was blood, and pain, and hate. It was hunger, and torture, and violence.

It loved guiding mortals, purging them of this stagnant illness called peace. It guided the hands of torturers. It inspired serial killers. It gave purpose to warlords. Seeing such delicious bloodshed filled it with abject joy.

… It heard a call.

It felt what could only be considered a "tug". A calling by a single meaningless being in a single meaningless existence, isolated… but it had still called, yearning for Its touch and influence.

… How odd. The call was from a realm that was claimed and sealed off from outside interference. Peculiar.

A brief examination at all of the realms around it gave It an idea of what it was like, how Its influence in the area generally was, and the like.

Weak.

These worlds were weak. Disgusting. Relatively peaceful. Beneath its notice.

But the barrier here was strong. Outrageously so, and the weight of this particular world was much greater than those around it. No, that was an understatement. No realm outside of those that It's kind have a tremendous collective investment in should or could ever be this naturally influential. No doubt one of It's kind was there performing some sort of experiment. Under most circumstances, It would never be able to penetrate such boundaries on its own.

And yet something actually managed to call out to It from within, which perplexed It even more. The means to call out to It, or any like It were limited. Even then, the frequency where It in particular was called upon at all was rather small compared to its kind.

Normally It would not be able to influence this universe in any way, however the story was different in this case. The barrier was powerful yes, but the caller's actions from within had punched a conceptual hole from the inside out. Miniscule at best, but it could be worked with. The makers of the shield likely did not expect anyone inside to do such a thing, however that was all It needed to make an action.

It reached out to the caller and was once more intrigued. The believer was fully willing to entrust itself to It, yet was particularly dissatisfied with the foolish excess means by which to convey his loyalty. A rather unusual specimen, but it would serve as an unusually suitable medium with its durable physical condition.

It also felt a major weight physically near the caller. One that held great significance… familiar… too familiar… but was impossible to determine from It's perspective.

It was intrigued.

It reached a decision.

How could It refuse such an interesting invitation?

It answered.

o. o. o.

End of Part 1.

One is for the money. Two is for the show…

A/N:

More to come VERY soon boys and girls. This part was just way too big to fit into one chapter.

I fully expect all of you to let me know of your thoughts by the times the main curtains rise.

Thanks Kagaseo for the betaing.

See you guys at Anime Boston. Find me if you can.

All hail the log.

AMEN.