Kazuku glared at him, surprised to see his partner suddenly frozen just before his finishing move. Not only that, but there was actual terror written on Hidan's face and nothing really had seemed to happen before Hidan froze. There were only a few explanations for it, one of which stood out above the others as he had witnessed a similar thing in his travels with Uchiha Itachi. "A Genjutsu user, huh?" He said. Naruto shrugged and grinned. Kazuku was smart, he recognised. Smarter than Hidan at least, because unlike Hidan, Kazuku had taken his time to study his opponent.
Now that Hidan was out of the fight, Kazuku approached the fight with the same caution as before, still being unsure of what to make of the blond that was suddenly upon them. After all, all he had seen was Kenjutsu of notable skill, the boy had pierced one of his hearts after all, and Genjutsu, though the boy seemed to have a knack for avoiding attacks as well so there was a lot of physical prowess as well.
Kazuku kept his distance, still cautious about his opponent. The way Naruto stood before him, with the grin and the fiercely gleaming eyes, made Kazuku think there was more to him than he thought at first. But that didn't mean Kazuku was going to back down. In fact, this would make quite an interesting fight, he thought.
Kazuku was the first to move. He launched his fist at Naruto, barely missing his head and hitting the cave wall behind Naruto. The whole cave shook and small bits of sand and rubble rained down on both of them. Kazuku retracted his fist just as fast as he shot. He continued on, testing his opponent with each move. Naruto seemed to have no answer to the distance except to dodge with a natural and almost animalistic grace. It took Kazuku a few moments to realise that Naruto was not just dodging, he was also edging closer to Kazuku, and Kazuku had backed up in an unconscious effort to maintain the distance. Given the room the cave offered, this meant Kazuki had little to no room left behind him to avoid whatever the blond would throw at him.
Kazuku wasn't disappointed when the blond smirked, twirling his Katana in his hand and suddenly rushing at him with a surprising amount of speed. Naruto lashed at Kazuku, aiming for Kazuku's heart, but the way he did it looked slightly clumsy, leading Kazuku to believe Naruto's Kenjutsu wasn't as practiced as it could have been.
Kazuku caught Naruto's strike with his bare hand stopping the momentum easily. The slight cut he gained from it quickly stitched itself closed as soon as he let go of the Katana.
Naruto pouted, disappointed that his strike didn't leave any lasting damage. He launched the same attack again, and it resulted in pretty much the same. Naruto did it again and again and each time the outcome was pretty much the same. Kazuku caught or blocked his blade, gaining a cut that immediately healed after the Katana was pulled back.
It seemed that any effort not focussed on Kazuku's weak spots didn't really have any lasting effect, so Naruto changed tactics. Now that his target area had become significantly smaller, he didn't feel like just his Katana was going to save him. Using a big Jutsu was also out of the equation, as he didn't want it to cave in on him and as Kazuku demonstrated with his fists, that was a very likely possibility. Luckily for Naruto, he had a pretty valid option to restrain someone, as long as he could get within adequate range of that person. He smirked again, satisfied with his own plan and even though he wasn't going to draw any blood from Kazuku, he still planned on getting his kill.
He went in for another strike, exactly the same way as he had done before, and Kazuki prepared to block just like before, but just before the Katana struck Naruto focussed his chakra to form two chakra chains, pinning Kazuku in a ruthless grip strong enough to crush bone of any lesser man. With Kazuku restrained, Naruto let his blade slip between the ribs of the man, piercing the organ in its cage and wounding it beyond repair.
Naruto smirked. That was twice. Twice he had killed Kazuku and for a second time Naruto was witness to the inevitable recovery Kazuku seemed to possess. As soon as Naruto pulled back his sword and relented his chains, Kazuku's body automatically forced itself to heal once again. But Naruto didn't mind. He was actually enjoying this game and for a moment wondered how often a person could die while still being able to call themselves sane afterwards. Or even the same person? Did Kazuku still have his original heart?
Would that one bleed?
Kazuku didn't give him the time to think on it too long. As soon as the heart settled into its place, Kazuku was on him full force again, changing his tactic by expelling one of his remaining hearts and puppeting it into fighting alongside him. With this, Naruto had barely any space to maneuver and avoid, resulting in a few good hits on his body.
It took a short while to get used to the more erratic attack pattern, but Naruto picked up on it fast. The heart was slower than the main body, and more limited in what it could do, making it the more obvious choice to attack. Which was why Naruto kept his focus on Kazuku.
Naruto used two chakra chains again in an effort to catch both Kazuku and his heart-doll, seemingly giving the doll an equal portion of his attention.
When Kazuku dropped his guard for an instant thinking Naruto was focussed on the doll, Naruto made two more chakra chains and pinned both Kazuku and his doll down. He pulled the doll towards him, cutting the heart and watching the doll go limp. He quickly turned back to Kazuku and went in to do the same to him.
Just when he was about to cut through Kazuku, something snapped inside him. He heard and felt it at the same time as it shot though his very being. His mind went completely haywire and filled with incoherent flashes of fragmented information and excruciating pain. The pain was so intense he was sure he was screaming at the top of his lungs, but he didn't hear it, just muffled and meaningless sounds.
He grabbed his head, fingers twisting into his hair as his whole body shook in the all-consuming sensation of crushing pain in his head. He gasped for breath he couldn't catch and even his sight became a mess of fragmented shards, incoherent and senseless.
What little air he had was knocked out of him as something hard and heavy smacked into his side and with that, he lost any recognition of where he was. Whatever it was that hit his side lingered against him, pressing against him like it was trying to get him to move. He kicked his legs, trying to find the ground, any kind of grip, but only hit air. In that moment, it didn't matter. The pain in his head was too much to focus on anything else. He still grasped at his head and writhed without knowing where the rest of his body was. The vertigo was destroying whatever sense he had been still able to make of the world around.
Small snippets of coherent information made it into his mind, but it was too hard to focus on those small details. Right now, his world was just pain and disorientation.
The distorted sounds of footsteps approached him, followed by a voice that didn't make any sense at all. A new pain settled in his ribs as he was kicked hard, leaving him even more winded than he already was. The kick made him realise the hard and heavy thing pushing against him was the ground as he tumbled across it from the force of the kick.
Everything went black for a moment before coming back in full force, sending a new and even more intense wave of pain through his system. He felt his control slipping as he snarled in pain, pulling his body into itself so he was in a fetal position. This was bad, he realised. Hidan's Genjutsu probably ended the moment he lost control, meaning he was now in a room with two deadly Shinobi who had a very good reason to kill him and he had no chance of defending himself. His mind screamed danger, but he wasn't able to act on it at all.
Somewhere in the distance, he heard something else as well, but he couldn't make out what. It sounded dearly familiar, whatever it was and his muddled mind was overcome by a need to get closer to the source of it. Unfortunately, his body was in no state to move at all.
A sharp pain pierced his abdomen, which shattered him completely. With every nerve already on fire, the pain was too much. He felt his body go numb and he lay just lay there, an occasional tremor running through him.
For some reason, he was left alone after that. Neither Hidan nor Kazuki touched him again and left him to shake in exhaustion and pain. Naruto couldn't tell how much time past, but he knew things were happening around him. He registered an occasion shout, metal clashing and aggressive growls. He sometimes saw a shadow dance in front of him, but those were quickly gone again.
After a while, everything quieted down, including his mind. It was almost eerily quiet now. Slowly blinking, he realised he was able to make sense of what he saw again. Someone was standing in front of him , their back turned towards them. With effort, Naruto managed to look up and saw it was Sasuke standing in front of him defensively. Shikamaru was a little to the side and Asuma and Choji were fighting with Kazuku. Hidan was down, though Naruto knew he wasn't dead.
"Sasuke..." Naruto said, his voice more shot than he expected. Sasuke snapped around, looking down on him. The blazing Sharingan burned down on him, raking over him in search of signs of distress, but seemed not to find anything new to worry him. "Stay down." Sasuke said, almost growled, was more like it. Naruto relaxed, turning halfway unto his back and watched the fight continue.
Shikamaru was focussed completely on Hidan and when Naruto focussed on them, he saw the black shadows intertwine Hidan's body, keeping him firmly in place.
Naruto shifted his gaze to Kazuku and noticed all the masks on his back were gone. Asuma was flanking Kazuku with chakra coated Kunai and Choji kept attacking from the front, using his Body Expansion Justu to land heavy blows, forcing Kazuku to block Choji which created openings for Asuma. All in all, the teamwork looked quite well-polished between them.
It didn't take long for Asuma and Choji to take out the final heart as well, but the combination of the Choji's powerful attack and the cave wall were enough to shake the earth, and make it come down on them.
"Get out, now!" Shikamaru yelled, still focussed on keeping Hidan in place. Sasuke swooped Naruto up, and Naruto clung to him when his wound shot a new pang of pain through him. Naruto looked over Sasuke's back to see Asuma and Choji retreat as well, but Shikamaru was still focussed on keeping Hidan in place. At the last moment, he released his shadows and ran after them. Hidan wasn't able to move as fast as Shizuka could. He tried to escape as well, but the rocks came down on him, crushing him into an eternal darkness underneath a mountain.
Outside the cave, they stood breathing hard for a while. Sasuke was the first to catch his breath a little again. "Are you alright?' He asked between gasps. Naruto nodded against his shoulder. "Good." Sasuke said, then proceeded to drop Naruto on the ground. "What the hell were you thinking?" He yelled at Naruto, staring him down angrily.
Naruto cringed in pain when he landed, pressing his hand on the wound in his belly. He looked up at him a little confused and lost for words.
"Why the hell did you leave us? You could have died! You would have died if we were any later!" Sasuke was furious and crossed his arms as he waited for Naruto's answer.
"Uhm... I was..." Naruto stuttered. He didn't know how to explain what was going through his mind when he left his team behind. It was selfish, but it still felt like it had been something unavoidable. "I needed to?" He said uncertainly.
"Oh my Kami, Naruto. Is that really all you have to say? You endangered yourself and everyone else on this mission!" Sasuke said exasperated. Naruto looked down, feeling guilty.
He sighed and looked back up at Sasuke. "I'm sorry! I just... I felt like I needed to. I couldn't stop myself..."
The look on Sasuke's face changed fast. Not to pity, or more mellow, but to surprise and shock. He dropped to his knees in front of Naruto and held Naruto's face in his hands. "Naruto... your eyes..." He said looking utterly amazed. "How..."