Harbinger

by tigerowl

Naruto's friendship with his teammates Gaara and Haku is put to the test as they prepare to deal with the threat of the Akatsuki. The secrets Jiraiya has kept come to a head, and Naruto must shoulder the responsibility of protecting much more than the Leaf Village. Continuation of Forlorn. AU NaruHina, GaaSaku, NejiTen, ObiRin, OCs *Taoism, Self-Indulgent World Building, longfic

59. Betting on Long Odds

Chapter 59- Betting on Long Odds

Chapter Soundtrack: "Raindrops" by Ilan Bluestone

Recap: Before Hyuga and Taketori ambassadors could complete the final phase of Hidden Leaf's alliance ratification with Hidden Waterfall, the team of Leaf ninja discovered Hidan and Kakuzu ransacking the village. After a successful ambush and evacuating most villagers, Fū and Fujita are forced to fight Hidan and Kakuzu again, and lose. Knocked unconscious, Fū was summarily abducted. Now, a desperate rescue operation is underway as the crackpot team of worn-out Leaf and Waterfall ninja race to reclaim Fū from her captors and save her life. Reinforcements are still far away…or perhaps only a figment of their imagination…

By midnight, the tracks had all but disappeared.

They were disoriented in the dark, breathing hard, torn between hunkering down to wait for first light or pushing through and hoping they weren't far from Hidan and Kakuzu's path. They puttered blindly for a short time before the majority agreed it was time to stop, or risk losing their course completely.

The group of Leaf and Waterfall ninja quickly struck up a campfire and huddled around, speaking in low tones. They nipped at rice and fish rations, trying to coax their bodies to build up a bit more energy and stamina. Their waterskins were fat and well-replenished thanks to the hinterland's abundant rivers, but if they went much further north, those resources would grow scarce.

Fujita shared a wealth of information with Hōzan and Tadamasa about how Hidan and Kakuzu's jutsu worked. Magan pointed out that in a few more kilometers they would pass beyond lands held by Takigakure and into unclaimed territory. It was a huge peninsula that stretched to the northern sea where rugged terrain was scarred by past wars. No ninja village really bothered to stake a claim to the area given that it had previously been pillaged for resources, had virtually no settlements, and was equally distant from most every other country on the continent.

"This is a problem." Magan clarified to those gathered around the fire, "Because the unclaimed territories could be a good refuge for the Akatsuki, since the Great Villages don't regularly patrol there. They'll have an advantage over us."

"As if they didn't already." Kitano muttered.

Magan flared his nostrils at his son, "Don't give me any guff, Kitano. You have almost no experience traveling outside of the Fire Country. I've had a few missions to the Unclaimed Lands, and Hide-kun's had several, but it's treacherous. We'll know very little about the area, and will have to take care in recording landmarks for other teams coming to assist us."

"Yup." Hideyasu agreed with a sigh, "It's not a welcoming place. Vast stretches of grassland and plateaus, wild forests…it's unlikely we will run into any other ninja there unless they're with the Akatsuki."

"I've done a few expeditions into the area." Shibuki shared, "But we never stayed for long. There are a few small fishing hamlets along the gulf coast, and that's about it in terms of civilization."

"It's quite common to find abandoned corpses there. Remains and refuse from past battles. Unusual land formations…" Tadamasa recalled.

"Unusual formations?" Fujita was curious.

"Well, by that I mean that the land doesn't always conform to typical tectonic activity and movement that forms normal mountain ranges and such. Some of it…looked like maybe shinobi battles were responsible."

"That's quite a tall-tale." Hōzan scoffed, "You mean to tell me those pillars and gouges were made by ninja? They're huge."

"Ancient battles, so I've been told." Tadamasa didn't try to justify what he'd heard.

Hideyasu had gone dead quiet during the exchange and was using his Byakugan. His teammates stopped talking and waited for his input.

Hideyasu rested his eyes and rubbed his temple, "Oof, it's such a strain to look around in the dark."

"Did you see something, Dad?" Fujita asked.

"Not exactly. I'm sort of…keeping track…" He trailed off, not really explaining himself. Fujita felt a granule of anxiety settle in his guts. His father had been watchful ever since they had left the Leaf village, occasionally scanning their surroundings. Fujita suspected it didn't have to do with the Akatsuki at all.

"We should get some sleep." Magan suggested, "Let's have half on guard, to play it safe. Shibuki, Hōzan, and Tadamasa, will you keep watch first? We'll take two hours, give you two, and by then it'll be time to move with sunrise."

They agreed to the arrangement, allowing Magan, Kitano, Hideyasu, and Fujita to curl up on bedrolls and recuperate for a short while. At first, Fujita laid there and thought that he was too restless to close his eyes. His brain played a masterful trick on him, as if it could keep stewing on Fū's predicament all night, but then it promptly ceding to his aching body's demands. He was unconscious in about 79 seconds.

Then, he was rudely shaken awake by Kitano. He heard a comment about "being a heavy sleeper" and was pulled into a sitting position. Fujita felt his father patting his back as he came to.

"Sorry, that wasn't much time to rest." Hideyasu apologized to his son, "It's our watch now. Lean on me if you want. I'll let you know if there's anything to worry about."

Ah, how good it was to be spoiled by his father on a mission. Fujita snuck at least another hour of sleep with his face pressed against the shoulder pad of his father's flak vest.

Dawn peeked over the horizon and all were commanded to get to their feet, stamp out the embers of the fire, and keep moving. Thankfully, Hideyasu spotted the trail of snapped twigs and footprints in soggy packs of autumn leaves on the ground. They hadn't gotten lost, but they had sacrificed about six hours. And, Fujita reckoned as they ran full speed beyond the border into the Unclaimed Lands, they would likely need to stop again in the next 12 hours to keep their strength up.

'All this time that we waste…is time they can use to get to their destination and begin extracting the Seven-Tails from Fū.' He hated to think about it, sick with the thought that if they arrived even a few hours late, there was no promise that Fū would be alive even if they got her back. 'How long does an extraction take? What do they have to do to a jinchuriki? Restrain them or keep them unconscious? Does it hurt them?' Fujita's mind raced, 'How many Akatsuki members are involved with the process, and…where does all of the Biju chakra go?'

That line of thought stumped him. Tailed-Beast chakra was colossal and dense; it exerted pressure on the environment and those near enough to feel it. How could it be contained outside of a body it had been Sealed into? There was a chance that, if they saw this mission through, it wasn't simply that they'd do whatever was necessary to rescue Fū…they might also learn more about the Akatsuki's secretive processes. If they lived to tell about what they discovered, of course.

Eight straight hours of travel at pursuit-speed, or, mostly at pursuit-speed allowed the team to penetrate into the heart of unclaimed territory. They were fortunate that Hidan and Kakuzu had been rather sloppy about their escape, leaving plenty of evidence behind of where they had been. As it so happened, the trail revealed that the duo had reneged on the decision to head east, curving back up in a northwesterly path toward the coast of the peninsula.

"Something must have made them change their minds. Maybe going too close to the Rice Country or Lightning Country was ruled out? Like Orochimaru, I expect the Akatsuki also uses multiple bases to cycle between and use as decoys." Hideyasu surmised, "I'm not sure why they changed course and are keeping to an unpopulated area. Either it was an impromptu response, or they are deliberately trying to deceive us into entering a trap."

"They didn't seem to be very good with traps." Fujita thought back on it.

A bit further along a mountain ridge, Hideyasu stopped the group again in the waning afternoon light.

"If we go much further…" He trailed off, glancing over his shoulder.

"What is it? Have we been followed?" Magan sort of picked up on his friend's hesitation.

"This won't be easy to explain…I've been trying to think carefully about it. How this could help or hinder us…" Hideyasu confessed, "Ma-kun, I need to tell you something about the Hyuga clan that I hope you'll keep in confidence. Shibuki, you and your bunch too— I can't have you sharing this information with anyone else."

"Sure! Who are we gonna tell? It's not like we're in a position to scheme or double-cross." Shibuki dunked on his own village's inadequacy.

Hideyasu took a deep breath and then stared into his son's eyes, willing himself to speak the truth, "We've been followed for over three days."

"It's not the Akatsuki." Fujita could immediately tell it was something else.

Hideyasu shook his head, "It's not. Actually, it's Hidden Leaf's Root ANBU forces. They followed Fujita and I out of the village at the start of the mission, watched us meet with Magan and Kitano in the countryside, and even stalked us into Waterfall's territory. They've kept their distance, but I'm sure they expect we've been up to no good."

"Ridiculous!" Magan kicked a withered tree trunk and forced its lean to dip another 5 degrees, "WHAT business do Black Ops of your own village have watching you as if you're a criminal?"

"I haven't the foggiest! It's been like this for months!" Hideyasu rubbed his head, trying to explain it, "Maybe they think…the Hyuga clan is meddling in certain high-level affairs? I just can't figure it. It isn't as if an alliance with Waterfall is suspect, since the village council, comprised of numerous clans and representatives approved the agreement. And I just don't know what it is about our clan that's piqued their interest, but that's really not my point…"

"Dad, did they follow us all the way out here?" Fujita's anxiety was cresting, "What if they try to do something to us while we're cut off from—?"

"Don't. Don't speculate right now." Hideyasu would not let him hypothesize, "I'm talking about getting help. That's what I'm getting at. I don't care what they think about the Hyuga clan. I care that they are a security force from our village that we can turn to."

"We can't." Fujita shook his head in fierce disagreement.

"We can." Hideyasu insisted, "We've gotten too far ahead of them, so I was concerned that we'd be out of range of asking for help from Root. It's probably worth it, since they have their fair share of experience in unclaimed territory, but wouldn't come this far without a reason. They've fallen back." He took another deep breath, "I probably should've done this a while ago, but I'd hoped they would track us further north…and maybe they'd intervene on this mission since the Akatsuki struck. There's no way they couldn't know what's happened. If they've been watching us, they know what we just went through."

"Forget it. We can't trust them. They're just here to hunt us, to corner us!" Fujita turned in a small circle, "It's no different from what the Akatsuki is doing to jinchuriki! Except we don't know the reason why they're after us!"

"Chill out, Fujita, come on." Kitano tried to talk him down, "They haven't done anything yet. Maybe-?"

"You want me to calm down? The Akatsuki took Fū and they're going to kill her." Tears welled in his eyes, "Once they pull Chōmei's chakra out of her, that's it. There's no magic fix to put it back or save her. She'll be gone. The whole reason I am here is because I'm her friend, and I promised I wouldn't let this happen."

Kitano pursed his lips and fidgeted. There was a long silence and Magan broke it.

"Everyone has a valid point here. We can't waste time, and we can't waste some possible extension of help." Magan mediated, "And so it may be necessary to split this team up to achieve these parallel goals." He turned to Hideyasu, "You should go alone. You have the most clout as a war veteran from Hidden Leaf. We'll go ahead to track the Akatsuki."

Hideyasu nodded, trying to ignore his son's inconsolable expression, and how Fujita invaded his space and tugged on the sleeve of his jumper. "It's fine. If you have to, take me along. I can help you." His worry swung back in the direction of his father, "Dad, you shouldn't talk to them all by yourself. What if that's what they want?"

"Who knows what they want?" Hideyasu plucked his son's hands and tried to warm them up, feeling how they'd gone cold in the stale fall air, "You can't come with me. You need to help guide this team and be on alert for threats."

"And what if you don't come back?" Fujita pressed.

"Then I don't come back." Hideyasu supposed. It had happened to them before, when Hikune had gone out for a routine mission and never returned. Since they had survived heartache once, it'd be a waste if they didn't survive it a second time. "This is more than a mission now, and you know that. This isn't simply what the council and Hokage asked of us. It's something we need to do for our allies," He gestured to Shibuki, Hōzan, and Tadamasa, "And for your friend. I didn't raise you to break your promises."

Fujita bowed his head and conceded defeat. He couldn't push the matter anymore.

Hideyasu gave his son a brief, squeezing hug, then released him to step over to Magan and clap the man's armored shoulder, "Can you look after them while I'm gone? I'll go as fast as I can."

"I know how fast the Slipfoot Wind moves." Magan smiled at him, "Be careful, Hide-kun."

"You too, Magan… Shibuki," Hideyasu turned to the Waterfall leader, "You and your men, stay safe. Take only calculated risks. I can't tell you how far you ought to go to save Fū, or if it's worth giving your lives, but please trust that we will support you at every step no matter your decision."

"You've already more than earned our trust." Shibuki assured him, "Thank you, Hideyasu. Come back soon." He chuckled, "And bring us some help!"

"Good grief, you're always asking for help!" Hideyasu teased as he set off down shale steppe in the direction they'd come from, "Fujita, Kitano: think and act together! Mind your form!" He hurried away after that.

Fujita forced down the lump in his throat as he watched his father shrink into the distance. Shibuki urged the group onward as far as they could go while they still had daylight. The trail continued northwest, challenging the team with shambling crags and thicketed slopes, vacillating between cluttered and barren landscapes as they moved ever closer to the coast.

By nightfall, Shibuki had to speak his piece, "We need to rest as much as we can." He could see that Fujita was antsy at the prospect of stopping for a full night of sleep, "If we're going to keep this up we should stop now and recoup some energy. This outcrop will act as a great shelter."

Hōzan and Tadamasa had already moved ahead toward the rock shelter jutting out of the mountain slope, gathering sticks and kindling as they went.

Magan stood there with his hands on his hips, surveying the location, guessing that it was safer than camping out in the open, "Not a bad spot at all."

The gaggle regrouped beneath the overhang, but Fujita lagged behind on the ridge. He dithered while using his Byakugan, spying the divots and exposed sediment layers of the bluff. Sparse vegetation peppered the valley below, and on the mountain's west side, cliffs had been carved from ocean erosion and wind.

"Sure is starting to get cold, this time of year." Kitano observed as he came to stand beside his friend, "It felt warmer in Hidden Waterfall."

"Maybe the temperature was stable because it was sheltered. And further south." Fujita ceased the use of his Kekkei Genkai, but still stared listlessly at the unknown lands all around.

"It's a nice place." Kitano folded his arms and gazed at all of the nothingness his friend stared at, "My feet are killing me. Now I know why they'll call a novice tenderfoot."

Fujita couldn't help but crack a smile. He'd thought that of Kitano when they had first set out, how he wasn't adjusted to lengthy travel and would complain often.

"We came a long way…but it's already been two days." Fujita implied, Two days since they had taken Fū.

"She's still alive. We aren't far behind those thugs, after all." Kitano reminded him, "They had to come all the way out here too. And what if she woke up and fought them? That'd slow them down again."

"I don't think they'd give Fū the chance to do that." Fujita imagined, "But…maybe we haven't squandered too much time."

"Speaking of squandering time…" He gently nudged Fujita in the ribs, "You need to eat and sleep. Seriously. Of all of us, you've been through the most."

Fujita followed Kitano in the direction of camp, where the adults had gathered around a growing fire. Shibuki was seated and sharpening the edges of his sword with a whetstone. Tadamasa was boiling water for tea. Hōzan scrawled notes in a small scroll, noting the landmarks and terrain they had passed through. When he finished, he tied the wound scroll to a shrub's branch with red string; a hopeful gesture predicated on the possibility of help finding it. He returned to the fireside to sit near Magan.

"Isn't it hard running around in all that armor?" Hōzan asked the Taketori clan leader, "You don't even take it off to sleep."

"Oh, it's terrible. Very uncomfortable unless I'm sitting upright." Magan chuckled, "It's already saved my life once on this mission, so I'll bear the inconvenience."

Kitano nodded, relating to the discomfort of constantly wearing armor plates, "Yeah. I like to tell myself it's extra weight training while we travel, but I don't know if I'd recommend it."

"Well, if nothing else it looks cool." Tadamasa joked.

Fujita sullenly picked at a bento box, trying to find the will to eat something and fuel himself. His heart was pulled in so many directions, and his brain scrambled to make sense of it all.

The conversation took on a more serious tone when Hōzan observed, "If these two we're tracking really are immortal…I don't want to think about what the other Akatsuki members are like."

"We have to think about it." Shibuki sounded mournful as he explained, "We could be in way over our heads, depending on what we find. The Hokage gave a report to me containing details collected so far regarding members of the Akatsuki. The one called Pein is very dangerous, and can control six proxy bodies at once. Another is an unknown kunoichi who can control paper…"

Magan nodded gravely, his arms folded as he listened.

"Hoshigaki Kisame is a former member of the Seven Swordsmen and a nukenin from Hidden Mist…and he's partnered with Uchiha Itachi." Shibuki looked to Fujita, as if posing a question, "Do you think your Dad would…try to go against those odds?"

"I…think he'd strongly advise against it." Fujita said and then popped a shrimp dumpling in his mouth.

"So…in the event we confirm that it's not just Hidan and Kakuzu waiting wherever they are…" Shibuki concluded, "We have to be prepared to retreat."

"And leave Fū?" Fujita asked, bristling.

"I don't want to, but I know my limits better than anyone." Shibuki retorted, "I'm barely a match for the threat we've already faced. They beat me bloody when they entered my village. Now imagine other S-Ranked missing nin tossed into the mix? What can any of you do?" He glanced around pointedly at the silent shinobi, "Right. Short of the Hokage herself rushing out here, I wouldn't be so eager to dive in even if we had two or three more teams supporting us. I doubt numbers will make a difference. It's skill. It's preparedness. Those are the things we don't want to be lacking."

"Huh…don't want to be lacking in skill or preparedness." Magan repeated the thought, "Well I'm not on the level of an S-Ranked criminal. No one here is."

"So what are we supposed to do, give up?" Fujita snapped, tossing his box down, "You love Fū! She's always looked up to you."

"I won't deny any of that, but as a village leader I can't allow so many of my people to die again. This is the agony of my position: that I'd ever have to weigh these things. I don't want to." Shibuki's eyes glistened, "God, I'd give anything not to have to decide between the two. Unless you have a better idea?"

"We trick them. Surprise them." Fujita insisted, "And then divide and conquer."

"That's a classic maneuver. But how?" Magan was mildly amused.

"They hate each other." Fujita reminded them, "Hidan and Kakuzu are terrible at cooperating, they've proven it already. We should capitalize on that. Remember how Dad cut Hidan into pieces? If we can do that again and keep him immobile, we can concentrate on destroying Kakuzu's hearts."

"Great." Tadamasa liked the idea, "Then what do we do about the others?"

Hōzan nodded, "Yeah, like sharkface Hoshigaki, for example. How do we take him on?"

"I…I don't know yet…"

"Then we retreat." Shibuki stated in finality.

Fujita exhaled through his nostrils with a soft whistle.

"You do have a good mind for strategy, though." Kitano commended him, "I mean, if we see a good opportunity we take it, right? We're all so prepared for the worst case scenario…what if we stumble onto the best-case scenario?"

"My, my, what an optimist." Magan chided his son, "This is the Akatsuki we're talking about, Kitano. At what point will there be a best case scenario?"

"I'm just saying! We should have a few contingencies." Kitano suggested, "A contingency for best case. A contingency for worst case. A contingency for best case with backup, then without backup. A contingency for worst case with backup, then without backup…"

"What about a middle-of the ground scenario, like one additional Akatsuki member present?" Tadamasa was brainstorming, "And it depends on who it is…"

"Alright already, all of you settle down!" Shibuki grumbled, sheathing his sharpened and polished sword, "He's right. We need to have a few plans. Let's think about it before we arrive at our destination, carefully survey the area without being detected, and then settle on one plan unanimously depending on what we find. Fair?"

They all agreed.

Shibuki and Magan took the first watch, allowing everyone else to sleep. After a few hours, Hōzan and Tadamasa traded off. The elders let Kitano and Fujita sleep all through the night as a courtesy, considerate of their inexperience and youth. They were a little bit disgruntled and bashful about the kindness of their seniors in the morning, muttering thanks.

Slivers of light crept over the ridge as the sun rose, and in the dimness Fujita noticed the tracks in soil and bent branches culminate near a hilltop. On the western, sea-facing slope, footprints reflected stamping and chaotic movement, pebbles scattered, and the sandy soil was indented as if a body had rolled down the hill.

Fujita gasped and ran ahead of the group, earning surprised squawks from them. At the bottom of the slope Fujita reverently lifted Fū's tattered satchel, finding its contents scattered about. The inner compartment that contained a large portion of Chōmei's Scale Powder had been emptied onto the ground. Iridescent, blue-green scales shined, and left a residue on Fujita's fingertips, not unlike the powdery scales of a butterfly wing.

"Whoa! Hold up!" Shibuki arrived and dropped down beside the pile of Scale Powder, "I can't believe they left something like this behind! Those idiots." The man cracked a rare smile.

"What's going on? Why are you excited about this powder?" Fujita was perturbed, "They threw her stuff aside like trash!"

"Because they are idiots." Shibuki reiterated, tugging a few empty drawstring satchels from his hip pouch, "This is incredibly valuable; not that they could give a damn. Scale Powder is so flammable…I can't really compare it to other explosives. It's why many of Fū's high-damage jutsu can't be used around another ninja…but we…" He motioned for Tadamasa to help him scoop scale powder into the drawstring bags, "Can weaponize this."

Fujita exchanged a goggled glance with Kitano, who was equally surprised and impressed. What a turn of fortune! Magan stood beside them with a placid smile, "A criminal's trash is our treasure…"

What Shibuki could not store in small bags was scooped back into Fū's satchel, upon determining it wasn't punctured anywhere Scale Powder could leak from. Fujita collected the other odds-and-ends from Fū's bag, including her notebook, and stuffed them into his hip pack.

Fū's satchel was passed off to Hōzan, and he drew it closed before slinging it onto his back, "Do you really think we're going to have to use this against them? What if Fū wants it back?"

"She can always make more Scale Powder. Besides, when we find her, Fū probably isn't going to be well enough to fight." Shibuki guessed.

Magan was closely inspecting the tracks pressed into soft earth, "Not to alarm anyone, but these look recent…"

'We're close.' Fujita already knew it, had felt it in his bones. He inhaled deeply before using his Byakugan to the fullest extent he could, straining to observe their surroundings in a radius of a mile. Sandy wastes, hardy plants, limestone cliffs. Footprints that had left imprints in soil were less detectable where the trail progressed over rocky outcrops, but Fujita could make out the faint disruptions for quite a distance. The path appeared to lead northwest, adhering to the severe, stone coastline of the gulf.

"Please follow me." Fujita requested of the group, "And be prepared. I think we're going to find them." He led the way and his companions followed in silence.

How strange it was to be doing this on an idyllic morning; a clear sky overhead, a gentle breeze rolling off the sea. Fujita thought of his father as the wind caressed his face. If all went to plan, Hideyasu would be returning with help that day. He couldn't think about whether his father would succeed or not. His sole purpose was moving forward, toward Fū. Toward hostile, immortal ninja.

Tracks converged and then finally disappeared off the side of a cliff ledge. Fujita halted to peer down the sheer drop, where 30 meters below stones and rough, narrow beach were slapped by ocean waves. 'It seems like they went down there to follow the beach…' A moment after assuming where Hidan and Kakuzu had gone, Fujita used his Byakugan again.

At first, the details of what he could see made no sense. Portions of the ground beneath their feet were hollowed out…cave systems, it seemed, carved by ocean erosion and rushing water over centuries. And 20 meters north of their position was something wide, a space below the surface of the ground they stood upon. Quiet and puzzled, Fujita stalked along the cliffside toward the strange gap in the underground, peering through layers of rock to see into a gigantic atrium. It could have been a cave that was expanded by human intervention.

Below, there was a blocked entrance to the giant grotto, and it was about level with the beachfront, 'So that's how they got in! The front entrance…no, it looks like the only entrance. They sealed it shut behind them…' That was the last of the normal details he could discern. All the rest was horrifying.

His Kekkei Genkai could make out a towering shape; a terrible, monstrous-looking effigy seated in a Lotus Pose within the cave. The statue's arms and hands were pressed together, raised up and fingers splaying wide, and it was there that Fujita could see Hidan and Kakuzu perched on the effigy's left index finger and left middle fingers respectively. At first, Fujita balked, causing his companions to clamor and demand to know what he'd seen. Their voices buzzed in the background of his mind as he observed the demonic arrangements below. There were other occupants in the hideout.

Of course there would be. Fujita's heart sank, petrified by the prospect of confronting others, except…each of the people present on the remaining eight fingers of the statue…were only chakra projections. Somehow, they were funneling their chakra into the monster statue remotely, while Hidan and Kakuzu endeavored to do so in person. Whatever jutsu they were conducting through the effigy had entrapped Fū. Snared in several serpentine columns of chakra, Fū hovered above the cave floor, unconscious, as Chōmei's chakra was siphoned out of her. She was helpless, but as far as Fujita could tell as he strained to see into her chest, her heart was beating.

"Fujita?" Kitano grasped his friend's forearms in his hands, shaking him lightly, "Talk. Please, tell us what's going on!"

"It's…it's them. Below us. An underground cave…" Fujita explained, gathering the visuals into bunches of speech, "Fū's there. She's trapped, but she's alive."

"Is she conscious?" Shibuki was spinning a plan in his head.

"No."

"Okay." He folded his arms and took a deep breath, "That's about what I expected. How many Akatsuki members are there?"

"Ten…no." Fujita shook his head, "Two. Hidan and Kakuzu. The rest are only projections of chakra."

"Really?" Magan's face lit up, "If they're not physically there, then we still have an advantage."

"We do. I think we do." Fujita tried to control the surge of elation, knowing there was still much uncertainty that needed to be considered, "It's a start, but we don't understand how that statue works. The hideout below us…there's a giant monster statue in there. It's probably the container they're using for Biju chakra." He sat on the ground to model the shape of the statue, adding, "And there's a projection of chakra coming out of its mouth that's holding Fū…taking Chōmei's chakra." Fujita again pantomimed the dragon-like protrusions of chakra emanating from the effigy's maw.

While Shibuki, Hōzan, Tadamasa, and Kitano took the influx of descriptions in stride, Magan was shaking his head, as if something did not add up.

"Fujita, that…can't be. Nothing like that exists. Are you sure you aren't looking at a Tailed-Beast?" Magan asked.

"I know what Tailed-Beasts are like. I've ridden on Chōmei in the desert." Fujita explained adamantly from his seat on the ground, "Magan-sama, it looks like a dried corn husk. A tower. Something that once lived…can you imagine Sokushinbutsu? It's very much like that."

"Inanimate?" Magan was growing worried.

"It's not moving. Whatever Akatsuki members are doing with it, they're using it as some kind of medium to take chakra from Fū."

He pressed another question, "How large is it? This statue?"

There was a tart silence as Fujita gazed into the underground space, deep and vast, and he tried to estimate the size. He tipped up his head to the sky, resting his eyes after a moment. It was as if Fujita was imagining the scale of the effigy if it were to be relocated above ground, how tall it would rise. The Waterfall ninja and Kitano nervously looked up as Fujita did, trying to gauge the enormity of what was below through imagination alone.

"200…or more. 220 meters. I'm not sure. It's seated…I don't know if it can stand." Fujita said finally, looking back at his companions to see them glance nervously at each other. Magan's expression was grim.

"Listen to me. I've studied Sealing Jutsu all my life." Magan explained, "There are no containers of that size and scale in existence that could be used to Seal chakra or Tailed-Beasts. Do you understand? None. A human body alone is more than sufficient to hold a Tailed-Beast if the correct Seal is applied. Hell, even a teapot would work if someone knew what they were doing." The Taketori clan leader shook his head, "You need to see it from my perspective, what this means if the Akatsuki is collecting enough chakra to warrant filling such a gigantic Sealing container. It's more than enough for all of the Tailed-Beasts to be absorbed, in fact…" His yellow eyes scanned across the line of his companions, "It would fit far more chakra than that, I'm sure."

Kitano shook his head, ruffled, "But there isn't…more? Right? There are only nine Tailed-Beasts. Why do they need so much extra space for containment?"

"Where the hell does something like that even come from?" Shibuki was likewise stupefied.

Hōzan and Tadamasa were muttering:

"Does this even matter right now?"

"It damn well might, if there's something down there that huge that our enemy is controlling!"

"So what can we do about it?!"

"…probably nothing."

Fujita continued to sit cross-legged on the ground, tumbling in his thoughts. Magan was worried that the statue was capable of containing all Tailed-Beast chakra and then some. Of course a criminal organization would have access to such a gratuitous tool. It figured. He rested his hands in his lap and tried to settle. It reminded him of how he'd seen Naruto meditate in the desert to gather Nature Chakra.

'Naruto would probably have excellent insight about what I just saw. He knows so much…' Fujita frowned, 'It's because he's a Sage…he's…' His eyes blew wide, 'A sage.' He leapt to his feet and exclaimed, "Everything else. It's everything else!"

"What else?" Kitano wrinkled his nose, "What're you—?"

"All other chakra." Fujita gestured at their surroundings, "Naruto taught me that there's chakra distributed richly throughout nature, within living things. Including all of us." He posited a morbid hypothesis, "What if it can hold all of our chakra too, if that's what they wanted? To rob it from other shinobi?"

"That is actually crazy." Kitano could not bring himself to follow the logic.

"Is it, though?" Magan was smiling darkly, "I don't think it is. You make a good point. Not that we can do much about it, unfortunately."

"Would a container of that size be able to do that, Magan?" Shibuki wanted a professional's opinion.

"To tell the truth…I don't doubt that it can. Senjutsu is real. What your friend told you is true and has been known since ancient times." Magan confirmed, "However, that particular conundrum is not the focus of what we need to do now, which is to recover Fū alive and put a stop to the Akatsuki's pursuit of her. Even if we retrieve her, there's no way they'll tolerate our interference."

"Since confrontation is guaranteed, we have to make our element of surprise count. We know their weaknesses, or at least…we know how to counter their strengths." Fujita also course-corrected the subject, planning what to do next, "I don't know if Dad will be back anytime soon…but we should be enough to disrupt what the Akatsuki are doing."

"If we knock Kakuzu and Hidan away from that statue and break their concentration, would that be enough to stop the statue's jutsu and get Fū back?" Shibuki wondered, "10 participants in a chakra-Sealing jutsu seems like a lot."

"Sure seems like it. So two less probably won't stop the jutsu, it'd just slow it down." Magan wagered.

"How are we going to get in there?" Kitano was concerned over another problem, "If there's one entrance, that's the same place we'd be exiting from. And they'll expect that! It's probably covered in traps."

"Definitely." Magan nodded.

"Then we don't use their door." Shibuki proposed, "We have Fū's Scale Powder. I'll set off an explosion with Zinu to gouge a hole in sediment, just above the statue. Fujita can tell me where to aim. How thick is the rock between us and the cave ceiling?"

"Not very thick." From what Fujita's Byakugan could see, "Three meters, just about, at its thinnest."

"That's very well and good, but we need to consider exiting through the cave door since, you know, a hole in a cave ceiling isn't very easy to climb back out of." Magan employed basic strategic sense, "So if they have that passage booby-trapped or, more likely, outfitted with a Sealing gimmick technique…"

"I do see a Sealing Tag on the inside." Fujita confirmed, taking another look at the stone door far below.

"Fine. Kitano or Fujita can diffuse the tag. Whoever collects Fū needs to exit that way while Hidan and Kakuzu are distracted." Magan continued his projections, "We blow a hole in the ceiling, drop in for an unfriendly lunch hour with the Akatsuki, and then address how to switch off that statue's technique. The big issue is…whatever is extracting chakra from Fū can likely do the same to us. Like flies to flypaper, we'd get stuck that way."

Fujita hoped there was a solution, "So what can we do?"

Magan clucked his tongue as he thought about it, announcing, "I'll put a Spirit Sealing Sphere over it. Since mine is a high-level Sealing technique, the barrier my jutsu creates not only contains what's within, but deflects what's outside. To a point. If all that extra remote chakra is needed to work the statue, it should stop working when Akatsuki members' chakra can't reach it anymore. If that's not going so well…I'll summon Oshidori-Ō."

The suggestion positively threw Kitano for a loop, "YOU'D—?!"

Magan held a hand up to his son, "I know."

"IT'S FORBIDDEN."

"I know." Magan's face was flat, preparing to hear the diatribe that everyone in the Taketori clan gave the fool who speculated about calling Oshidori-Ō, their Boss Summon.

"I don't even know if Oshidori-Ō exists! You don't either-!"

"I do know."

"Oh, so you're a rule-breaker after all, Dad? How have you been raising me into a gentleman while you keep secrets?" Kitano's tantrum was pretty mild, but as Fujita watched he wished his friend could save it for later and just get on with strategizing.

"I am also a gentleman." Magan sniffed, folding his arms, "This occasion calls for it. Oshidori-Ō may be needed to avoid casualties on our part."

"Why not just use the whole Whistling Flock? Is it true that Oshidori-Ō resides in the Pure Lands, and we call him to the Mortal Realm when we summon him? Isn't he huge? How would he fit in the cave?!" Kitano's questions were a bombardment.

"First of all," Magan gruffed, "The duck king is probably as big as that statue is, if a bit smaller. From what Fujita indicated, there's plenty of space for a giant summon disruption in the cave. Second, I have no idea where Oshidori-Ō comes from."

"Heaven!" Kitano screeched.

"That's just a legend."

Kitano protested, "If it's true, that's why it's forbidden for a mortal to call the Mandarin Drake King of Eternal Love for trivialities!"

"What the fuck are they going on about?" Tadamasa muttered to Fujita.

The young Hyuga tried to assess, "…uh…? A heavenly duck of eternal love that may or may not be real?"

Shibuki palmed his face, "We don't have time for this."

---

5 Hours Earlier

In the dark, Hideyasu had begun to fear the squadron that followed him and his son to Takigakure had retreated back to the Fire Country border. There was simply no way he could travel that far and expect to reunite with his mission comrades in a timely fashion. They would be further north into unclaimed territory than where he had left them, of this he was reasonably sure.

'Root. You cowards. Spying on us like door mice…have you really returned home empty-handed? With nothing to report?' Hideyasu's mind was racing as he moved through the dark, estimating where the Root cell would have traveled now that he lacked a trail.

'Didn't you see evidence of an attack? If not the Akatsuki themselves, didn't you see the smoke, rubble, and blasts? The lack of guards stationed where they were supposed to be? None of those details could escape you.' It felt like he was trying to convince himself that the Root Foundation was good for something. After all, Hideyasu had no reason to believe otherwise. They were tasked with Hidden Leaf's security, trained elites capable of handling the most precarious of missions.

'Maybe I'm the fool. I've been afraid that Root wants to harm Hyuga clan members, for some reason. We don't understand why we're being surveilled, and it may not be for the reasons we think.' What if he had misunderstood it all? 'I had my chance to cordially invite Root members to help back at Hidden Waterfall's entrance. They were only a few meters away from me, at their nearest. I didn't call them out. I just kept up the charade. Because I didn't foresee the danger ahead of us like I was supposed to…' His fingers curled into a fist, nails digging in to his palms.

Even then, there was no promise that Root would have assisted had he coaxed them out of their hiding places, but Hideyasu liked to hope. Now, he was wasting precious time and energy to seize the opportunity again. To access some semblance of help.

A sliver of rose-hued light glowed on the horizon as dawn hastened. God, he was so far away from his team now. Hideyasu could not imagine the new records he would set for long distance endurance-running, on his way back to them. His feet would be a grisly sight when he returned home and peeled his shoes off. He could already hear Kayato's shrieks, 'Hah! She'll bring me a bucket of ice water to deal with the swelling.'

As he did once every fourth of a kilometer, Hideyasu activated his Byakugan again. Ahead, in the trough between two densely forested hills, was a Root agent taking a breather on a tree branch. Hideyasu's heart jack-rabbited in his chest. Drawing closer, there were four more visible; five, six, seven… What a force. It would be enough. It would make a difference.

'First, I have to figure out how to address them.' He knew that would be the hard part. Persuasion. No amount of begging on his part might be enough to alter the priorities of mechanically strict Root agents who abided by the orders of their Director.

Once he was within five meters of the Root squadron, he could see their changing postures, their heads darting up in alert when they heard his footfalls. Hideyasu dropped out of his wind-propelled run, decelerating in the underbrush, and then walked calmly towards the Special Ops members with his hands raised. "Root ninja. Hello! I'm Hyuga Hideyasu, currently deployed on a mission assigned by Hokage-sama and our village council. Could I please have a word with you?"

"Hyuga-san." He was greeted likewise, "We are taking a short break before returning to headquarters. Our patrol is over."

A female voice behind a mask addressed him, "Do you need something from us, Hyuga-san?"

"Whatever you could give. Your time and manpower, preferably." Hideyasu launched into his explanation, "My team and I entered the Hidden Waterfall Village to conclude alliance negotiations, and discovered numerous Waterfall villagers killed and held prisoner by two Akatsuki members. Despite our best efforts to repel those criminals, they captured the jinchuriki of the Seven-Tails— a crisis that our inter-village alliance was supposed to prevent." He hoped sincerity would appeal to them, somehow, some way, "My team pursued. We've tracked the Akatsuki pair that took the jinchuriki north, toward a coastal region of the Unclaimed Territories. We suspect they have a base there, where they will begin efforts to extract Tailed-Beast chakra."

Other Root agents had gathered 'round. Eight in total that he could see. Their masked stares were fixed on him, listening, but otherwise they weren't responding or giving any indication what they thought about this mess.

Hideyasu went on, "Taketori Magan already sent word of this to Hidden Leaf, and I estimate aid may come in about two days' time. However, I don't believe that would be expedient enough of a response to deal with this threat. Hidden Waterfall was only able to provide three ninja to assist in a retrieval. Apart from myself, Taketori Magan and I have two Chunin on our team. We are all in moderate to poor health, after our previous clashes…" His throat was burning, his eyes searching the expressionless congregation standing in front of him, "Please. Turn north and join me? Help us."

At first, none of the agents spoke up. The female shinobi broke the long silence, "We are under orders to return to the village, Hyuga-san. If we don't we will face disciplinary action."

"Short of you being put to death, I think whatever consequences you face would be totally justified after facing the Akatsuki. Is this not a critical matter pertaining to village security?" Hideyasu reasoned.

"It is." Another male voice acknowledged.

Then another voice, "We do not make decisions independently."

Hideyasu knew this was the case. Root operated with far less freedom than the Hokage's ANBU Black Ops.

"We shall defer to leadership's opinion on the matter." Another said, then turning to glance over his shoulder. The row of Root agents parted to make space for a slow-moving, unmasked shinobi that left the shade of pine trees. He stopped an arm's length away from Hideyasu and leaned on his cane with two flattened hands.

Hideyasu did not think that Shimura Danzo would actually be present on a Root squadron patrol, although he knew it was not an impossibility. He should be glad that a Special Ops leader was here to make a decision, but gradually let the dread sink in as he began to understand how all of this looked. To Danzo.

'Oh fuck, well. We were definitely being watched, then. Fujita and I. More closely than I understood.' Hideyasu thought to himself, 'Watched by Root's Director and his underlings, from Leaf all the way to Waterfall…and they were observing our interactions with everyone else too. So we are suspect for some reason…and here I am boldly confronting them and demanding help…'

Danzo got to the point, "Why are you here?"

"I needed to ask—"

"You were aware." The Root Director only had to hint at his meaning for Hideyasu to understand. That he was aware he'd been watched. That now, the elephant in the room was practically being fed bananas, as Hideyasu voluntarily approached a sentinel who had ambiguous objectives.

"Yes. Yes, I knew Root was following us." Hideyasu dared let the words leave his lips, "And now we need Root's help."

"What position are you in to barter?" Danzo was casual about their circumstances, "Outnumbered nine to one, exhausted. Are you not concerned about Root's presence and purposes?"

"Do I need to be?" He looked the old man square in his uncovered eye.

"Members of the Main House of the Hyuga clan have been reorganizing, and are more politically active than they have ever been, save for the founding of the Hidden Leaf village." Danzo pointed out, "What business do the Hyuga have with outside villages, now? Why are they currying favor with the leadership of other settlements?"

"I—! Do I…? Do I really have to defend our intentions?" Hideyasu's hands flexed, perturbed, a little frightened by Danzo's line of thinking, "My son befriended the jinchuriki of Hidden Waterfall, and got Konoha's council to agree that Leaf should be diligent in preventing the Akatsuki from harvesting jinchuriki. It's a common-sense goal. No one in the Hyuga clan is positioning for political gain. The Hokage sent my son and I to oversee this task because it was his idea in the first place. His kindness."

"Contrarily," Danzo inclined his head at the steward of the Hyuga clan, "The Hyuga clan has positioned itself with plain intent to ascend. It flaunts power and jutsu at public events that are assuredly not of its own design. It courts the attention and prestige of other ninja clans, and it lets its most powerful members roam freely with impunity for their actions. There has been no indication this behavior will cease. Truly, it's only become more audacious."

"Ascend? To what? To do what?" Hideyasu's face was sheet white, "Danzo-sama, my family and I have been endeavoring to improve ourselves. To shed abusive practices within our clan too, slowly, sometimes painfully. But please don't mistake our efforts as a stunt to funnel power away from any decision-making body in our village already responsible for it. We would never."

"So you say." A long sigh, a blink of his eyes. Danzo glanced over at his masked lieutenant. On a nonverbal signal, Root agents fanned out in a circle throughout the clearing.

The hair on the back of Hideyasu's neck stood on end, his senses electrified. How could he prevail with words? Because he likely wouldn't with brute force.

"Please hear me out. I am the steward of the Hyuga clan. My only purpose is to serve in the wake of catastrophe and loss." Hideyasu tried once more to appeal to sense, "I know Hyuga clan elders very well, and I know Hiashi-sama very well. I know of their intentions better than any Special Ops agency could. And I am telling you that your concerns are off-base. What I know just as well…is war…" He could see the agents around him tensing at the word, "I'm a veteran too, like you. You know what the brink of disaster looks like. When enemies lay waste to our forces."

"You know of the Hyuga clan's intentions better than the Root Foundation, but you imply that you know as much as I about the pains of war?" Danzo was amazed.

"It's ahead. Not just behind us." Hideyasu insisted, "I see so much— trust my ability. I come to you more desperate than I've ever been. The Akatsuki will take the Seven-Tails, in addition to the power they've already amassed. It's of direct concern to Hidden Leaf, and to all of the great villages. Is this not the polestar of your security ventures, in defense of our home? Our people?" He implored, "Please help me. I won't breathe a word to anyone that we've spoken today, if that's what it takes. Waterfall ninja, the Taketori, and my son will not be enough to suppress this threat."

Danzo granted, "None of what you said is wrong, but you forget your place, Hideyasu-san."

"I haven't forgotten it at all." He tried to keep his breathing steady. He was tempted to use his Byakugan to view the positions of all Root agents, to see who would attack him first.

"Quite simply, your attempt to sanitize the Hyuga clan's posturing has not left me convinced. And so…I will address all of these matters as I see fit." Danzo concluded.

Hideyasu, for his part, had known he was not going to get back to his team on time. If at all. It had been silly of him to hope. But, that was just his nature. At his core he was a silly man, and all of his clan and friends knew it.

He smiled ruefully to himself.

---

The thing about molding and channeling chakra for this gargantuan Sealing technique, Hidan thought to himself, was that after a while concentration was unnecessary. With nine others helping to control the Gedō statue's intake of Tailed-Beast chakra, it was almost like muscle memory. The same narrow, steady pitch of his chakra reserves, a single hand-seal, perched atop the left index finger of the statue…his eyes were now sliding lazily around the cave.

It was getting boring. Nearly two days of non-stop sealing and they were only part of the way through! According to Pein, they could need up to five days. When Akatsuki members had to gather by hologram jutsu to participate, the effects of their work were never quite as potent.

But it would be done and over with, inevitably, then they'd deliver the corpse to Pein in Hidden Rain to keep in storage for future possible techniques. 'Then I can find a high-end restaurant and have a proper meal! I'll eat until I can't move, and let Kakuzu's greedy ass pay for it.' Hidan had his itinerary planned, 'Leader will give me a week off for getting this shit done, so I can head East and offer worthy sacrifices to Jashin. Relax in some hot springs until the next job…'

His eyes trolled over the numerous, cheap lanterns strung about the space. Hidan's gaze skimmed over the roiling blue sphere of energy that encompassed the Seven-Tails jinchuriki, and he snuck glances at the other Akatsuki members who still somehow seemed attentive to the task. Even Deidara! 'That useless, artsy psycho hipster…' He'd been without at least three nights of sleep, now. The others were all probably well-rested for this while he and Kakuzu were, though it was embarrassing to admit— a bit worn down.

Even then, Kakuzu was singularly focused on the Nine Phantom Dragons sealing. As if he hadn't been throttled by Leaf ninja punks, and nearly blown to bits by a Tailed-Beast ball. It was all an act to save face. In a few days, Hidan was certain Kakuzu would bee-line for the nearest upscale inn and rent himself the finest room to sleep off his troubles.

'That's not a bad idea, actually. I should sleep this off. We went through way more trouble than we expected too.' Hidan stared into the middle distance, careful to not let his desire for sleep accidentally put him under and bungle the collective jutsu, 'That piece of shit, sassy Hyuga thought he could cut me up and stop me. Heh! I ripped his kid open like a bag of chips. When they come at me…those arrogant and self-righteous heathens…I'll always be able to put them back in their place.'

He took comfort in his beliefs as a disciple of Jashin; that he could continue to live happily and unhindered by mortal cares so long as he remained devout. For as long as he'd been a practicing priest, Hidan could say he had transcended the mortal bondage that was "fear," and though he knew that he was among powerful peers in the Akatsuki…he couldn't help but look down on their godlessness. They were sinners and outsiders, all of them. Never connecting with a divine force beyond their realm, consumed by what their simple senses could convey to them. They would not know god or hell until they knew death first.

'I'm not going to start condescending to this bunch of thugs, not when they've tolerated me more than any village ever has…but sometimes I just wish they'd wake up and get it. Jashin is in every fiber of everything. Guiding me, lending me his strength, borrowing my strength and experiences…they can't share or connect the way I do. Their ignorance makes me sick to my stomach.' He shut his eyes briefly to calm himself, 'And yet…collecting all this Tailed-Beast chakra has never felt like it was against Jashin's will. I think he might even condone it.'

As a practitioner of an unusual, violent religion, no one could say Hidan was not sincere in his beliefs. He was just an awful missionary, forever failing to convert others to Jashinism. He'd been told it was due to his rotten social skills, first and foremost, and also the sacrificial blood rituals.

Crack—ker-THOOM! A pants-shittingly loud explosion left him temporarily deaf and smoke-blind as debris rained down. Hidan staggered on the statue's index finger while realizing he'd broken his concentration and his hand seal. Frazzled, he looked up at the cave ceiling above the Gedō statue. From a smoking, crumbling hole in the above layer of rock, shinobi dropped in without hesitation, filing off to different parts of the cave.

'No.' Hidan thought, 'No way.' It wasn't them. The defiant jerks from Waterfall most certainly had not chased them all the way here. Absolutely not. Because they were beaten and pathetic, and they were no match for the Akatsuki. They had already lost. How brain-dead did they have to be to try again? It was a squad from another village, he told himself.

And then he saw Fujita plummet by, dirty and travel-worn, unmistakable as he and Kitano dove down in unison toward the cave floor to approach the jinchuriki.

"Fuck!" Hidan's eyes were watering, saliva spattering from his mouth in a rage, "Is this some fucking joke?!"

There was a grunt and a strange wrangling sound that prompted Hidan to look to his right, and he beheld Kakuzu being bound in a thick swath of glimmering, gold thread. A Mask Beast…that didn't belong to Kakuzu. Hidan watched in frozen, slack-jawed astonishment as the lasso-like arm of threads reeled Kakuzu up through the hole in the ceiling. Kakuzu's cry of indignant surprise was distant.

"Hidan." Pein's projection snapped him out of his stupor, "Kill them."

Right. The others could hold the jutsu, even if it would be a burden on them. He could fight off these punks! No sooner had Hidan closed his hand around the grip of his scythe, he was battered bam, bam, bam by flying, blunt projectiles. Hundreds were zooming about the space…

Ducks.

The fact that his Akatsuki associates could see his hologram being slammed in the face and back by an incessant stream of summoned fowl was a low-blow to his dignity. He would not be made a fool of in front colleagues that were inferior to him.

Thank Jashin his timing was top-notch: Hidan swung his scythe in a mighty arc and bounced Magan's incoming sword strike back. The armored Taketori clan leader, from what Hidan recalled, could summon ducks, was capable with Ninjutsu and Kenjutsu, and was an expert in Sealing jutsu. Rebounding off of a nearby finger of the statue, Magan charged again for a piercing strike, meeting Hidan in mid-air as their weapons caromed off of each other.

"No you fucking don't— not on my watch." Hidan's eyes were red coals in the dim cave, "You're dead, Duck Man."

---

Fujita and Kitano's feet hit the cave bottom with a wet, echoing crunch.

"Eyes on the exit?" Fujita confirmed with his friend, scanning the whole of the space with his Byakugan. His attention was fixed on the knot of chakra dragons cocooning Fū while Kitano reported his findings.

"That stone door looks like it was dragged into its position, so we'll have to force it open." Kitano tipped his head toward the sealed cave entrance, "But first we need to remove the sealing tag on this side that keeps the outdoor traps active."

"Good, that's next…" Fujita could see Kitano's father dashing beneath the cave ceiling, meeting and parting from Hidan at the top of the statue. A frenzy of whistling ducks battered the single Akatsuki occupant of the cave, frequently firing jets of water or gastroliths from their beaks. Earlier, Shibuki had used the Masked Beast Zinu to snatch Kakuzu from his perch and pull him above ground, where Tadamasa and Hōzan were prepared for a preemptive strike.

Seeing all other components were being handled, Fujita nearly forgot himself and prepared to leap up to retrieve Fū. Kitano restrained him by his arm, advising, "No! We can't go to her. That jutsu will drain our chakra reserves down to the last drop if we make physical contact."

"We don't have long! How do we free her?" The first beads of nervous sweat gathered on Fujita's brow.

"Counter-Sealing." Kitano was confident in the next step to take, "Not sure if I have the oomph needed to interrupt a Sealing technique quite so…imposing. But I'm not down here to twiddle my thumbs!" He formed hand seals in preparation for jutsu, adding, "Pull that tag down so we can get out of here!"

Fujita's footfalls were soft splashes racing over the puddled floor; he hadn't needed the instruction to neutralize the traps at the cave entrance. Through the back of his head, his Byakugan's field of vision could see Kitano's efforts at the center of the cave.

Eyes focused on Fū above, Kitano pressed his forearms together and fanned his fingers wide, pointing upwards to channel chakra, "Warding Sphere!" The shimmering orb of energy manifested outside of the glowing tumult imprisoning Fū, but when the sphere attempted to close and "snip" off the narrow, connecting column of chakra pouring from the Gedō statue's mouth…the resisting pressure of the Nine Phantom Dragons rattled him where he stood. Kitano gasped, struggling to stand and hold his channeling pose, sucking in long breaths as he pushed and pushed to exert enough influence to sever the connection. It felt like trying to saw apart a tree trunk with a kitchen knife.

It was clear to Fujita that Kitano was taking on a force too aggressive to be contained by one shinobi. He ripped down the Sealing Tag from the cave door and tore it in half to disarm its linked traps. Pivoting, Fujita raced back to his friend's side just as Kitano sputtered again, dropping to his knees and ceasing his attempted jutsu. He helped Kitano stand again.

"Whatever that statue is doing is enough to subjugate Tailed-Beasts. You have to target something you can impede." Fujita had been considering the possibilities before, and finally gave his best suggestion, "Akatsuki members are controlling this statue. If they can't control it, the technique should stop."

"A reasonable assumption, but how do I stop the Akatsuki?" Kitano shrieked.

"You can! Shibuki-sama removed Kakuzu for us, and Magan-sama is handling Hidan! Look!" Fujita pointed out the other organization members gathered atop the statue's fingertips, "Those are holograms! Projections of chakra! They aren't actually here. If their chakra can't reach the statue—"

"On it! Wait down here to catch her!" Kitano sprang off to ascend the statue.

Ah yes, this step was iterated by Magan before Shibuki had exploded a hole in the cave ceiling. Magan needed to use a Spirit Sealing Sphere to block chakra from entering the Gedō statue…but he was rather preoccupied by Hidan, spinning and hurling his scythe like a beast. It took a few more painstaking moments than what would've been necessary if he'd charged up recklessly, but Kitano scaled the back of the statue's head without being seen. He waited for his father to retreat again from Hidan's slashes before he pounced, completing hand-seals for his trademark Warding Sphere. His unwitting target was caught.

Hidan had the look of a pet hamster in an exercise ball. No matter how much he shook and raged, he was contained in the energy bubble. Kitano carefully picked his way back down to the cave floor with his captive, hearing Magan's praises trail after him, "Excellent timing, Kitano! I'll get to work on my ward next…"

Magan flitted down to the cave floor with four Prong-Seals flaring to life on his fingertips. He folded his hand into a fist, letting it briefly rest over his heart, concentrating on the giant statue in front of him as he traced an outline of the structure with his right hand…directing where his ward should manifest, "Spirit Sealing Sphere!" He held a Rooster hand sign as shimmering, amber energy slowly climbed, cresting the top of the effigy.

It was a monstrous thing to contain, the largest object Magan had ever attempted to isolate with Sealing Jutsu in all of his life. Twin lines of sweat streaked down from his temples as he focused. All else was closed out of his mind: the terrible jutsu siphoning chakra from Fū, the holograms of Akatsuki members, the young men behind him, two-hundred ducks waddling around the cave.

He successfully closed the sphere around the Gedō statue, breathing heavily as he watched the transparent figures at the statue's top.

Fujita and Kitano collectively held their breaths, watching the holographic projections at the top of the statue flicker and then disappear. The Nine Phantom Dragons sealing technique lingered, roiling around Fū, and Fujita's heart clenched for a terrible moment.

With the Gedō statue contained, surely the jutsu couldn't last! Before he could succumb to nauseating dread, the surge of blue energy from the statue began to ebb away. As they had predicted, with no one to guide the technique, there was no protocol for the statue to carry out on its own. Fujita inhaled, darting beneath Fū as she was finally released and dropped through still cave air. He caught the unconscious kunoichi in his arms with a wumph.

Kitano and Magan cheered from their stationary positions, and Hidan was apoplectic within his containment sphere.

"Don't kid yourselves!" The priest was spitting mad, "You're not leaving, not until I cut you down. She's done! A half-poured jug of juice! No use in pretending you can stop the Akatsuki from dripping her dry!"

"It's time to shut your mouth, you profane snake." Kitano tipped his nose up Hidan like the nobleman he was, "You're the one who's pretending now."

Hidan's crazy eyes rolled back in the direction of his captor, "Ohh…you're a chatty corpse."

Meanwhile, Magan was pondering over what step to take next, 'How do I damage or lock down this thing? None of my Ninjutsu could really put a dent in it…and it probably has quite a bit of Biju chakra stored in it already.' He grimaced, 'What on earth are we supposed to do about that? I have no clue how to try to release what's stored within this thing. Can it be done?'

He didn't need to consider the topic for long. Abruptly, the Gedō statue disappeared in a puff of smoke. Magan's jaw dropped, 'It was summoned! Someone in the Akatsuki can summon it?' He dropped his hands and ran towards Fujita, passing Kitano as he kept Hidan contained.

"Fujita, hurry! We need to get her out of here." Magan heaved his weight against the rolling stone door, gradually beginning to move it aside, "That statue can be relocated! The Akatsuki un-summoned it so it can't be tampered with. They can hide it anywhere!"

The young man's eyes were wide as he repositioned Fū on his back, "It's a summon?"

"Well, look! It's gone now." Magan heaved, puffing, "Sure, I cut off their chakra signals to it, but I wasn't prepared to try to stop a Summoning Contract. I fear that…that statue may be animate after all."

"It's made of stone! It's not…" Fujita wavered in his assessment of what they were up against, "It can't be…alive."

"It was, once. I think." Magan supposed grimly, "The Hokage…all village leaders must now. Whatever the Akatsuki is using to contain Tailed-Beast chakra…may already be related to Tailed-Beasts. We need to learn more." A large enough gap opened at the cave entrance, "Go! Move south and don't stop. We'll hold them off."

Fujita glanced back at Kitano in the cave as he restrained Hidan, then to Magan's serious face before darting from the cave mouth. The grotto was sea-level, far below the cliffs they had descended from. It was a treacherous effort to pick his way over jagged cavern stones as ocean water lapped and sprayed with the tide, roaring in the hollow. Above were a few skylight gaps in the earth that erosion had carved over time. Fujita leapt from foothold to foothold to rise up toward a gap in the escarpment, and then stopped dead in his tracks.

Fū was limp against his back. His heart was hammering. Jutting out partially from layers of sediment was the thickest tree root he had ever seen. An ancient tree root, some 50 meters in width…and there was no tree so comparatively large to be found. His stomach was twisting with fright. 'It's huge…like that statue.' Though his fear seemed irrational, Fujita wanted to trust his instincts as he looked upon another unthinkable feature of the hideout, 'How far does it go, underground…? Where's the tree?' He scanned the soil horizon with his Byakugan.

It stretched on for an impossible distance underground, far beyond the steppe, through the mountain range and beyond the scope of his heightened sight. Further away, he spotted a war's worth of decomposed bodies and skeletons from a bygone era, buried beneath the earth's surface. It was no secret that the unclaimed territories had been a battleground in the past, but the hair on the back of his neck was on end. He frantically scaled the stone bluffs.

'Something's wrong with this place. This barren land…all the shinobi who died here…' Fujita felt Fū's chin loll on his shoulder and he tried to steel his nerves, 'This place is as evil as they are. I'll get you out of here, Fū. They'll never touch you again!'

Out into the grey light of the above-world, he leapt. He ran inland, turning south over the hills, moving as fast as his legs would allow as he observed the area again with his Kekkei Genkai.

A kilometer away, Hōzan and Tadamasa had effectively fended off Kakuzu's Mask Beasts running amok. Their distraction was crucial. It gave Shibuki the opportunity to engage with Kakuzu, using all of his concentration to retaliate against thread-strikes with his sword. Shibuki's borrowed Mask Beast, Zinu, merged and parted from his body with remarkable speed, extending out its golden threads to snare and lash at the furious nukenin. Surely it was a blow to Kakuzu's ego to see the Earth Grudge Fear being used by Takigakure's pitiable village leader.

Fujita glimpsed the critical exchange: Kakuzu was finally goaded to use Ninjutsu against Shibuki's Water techniques and swordsmanship. Kakuzu exhaled a powerful Wind technique that originated from the Wind Nature heart inside of his body at that time. Shibuki was prepared. Benio had made sure that he would be. Flying through hand signs, Shibuki countered with Zinu's own Fire Jutsu. It raked along the blast of wind Kakuzu had unleashed, igniting it, and turned the empowered firestorm back on Kakuzu. The nukenin was blasted back, crushed to the ground with a hole in his chest where the Wind Mask had been destroyed.

'Thank God— that was a decisive strike!' Fujita's feet pounded the slopes, 'They know that elemental counters are key to defeating Kakuzu, and it would only be fitting for ninja of Hidden Waterfall to finally snuff him out.'

Descending a ridge into desolate hinterlands, Fujita stole away with Fū.

---

Sometimes these things happened.

In rare cases it was greed that could get him in over his head. Occasionally, it was poor planning or a lack thereof, but in this case, Kakuzu thought to himself…it was his lack of imagination.

That he had never envisioned another user of Jiongu loaning a Mask Beast to a comrade. He'd failed to imagine being ambushed by a cowardly village leader, and moreover, never believed for a second that the runt would be able to blast a hole through his chest.

The same silly group of protestors who'd fought and failed to protect the Seven-Tails jinchuriki, they'd dared to show their faces again. Back in Takigakure, it had been amusing. His hunt had felt like a sporting event or leisurely outing. By the end of the encounter, he'd realized that approaching his task with a desire to cash in on the helpless, and entertain himself with the slightly less helpless had not been the optimal approach. He and Hidan had succeeded in their mission, but their poor execution had fed too many crumbs of information to the enemy.

And here he lay in the dark of his mind, feeling a piece of himself approach to retrieve him from dormancy. There, trapped with his own thoughts as he waited in the long shadow of death, Kakuzu could only stew in his outrage. It was humiliating. He'd been an adversary of the First Hokage, once. He'd destroyed settlements single-handedly for stiffing him on payouts. He had shed the confines of mortality itself.

But an ability such as his, like with everything else in the known universe, was subject to a certain set of rules. Rules that could be exploited by enemies, if he were unlucky enough. Kakuzu had learned long ago that he could only graft up to five hearts on his body, and never duplicate more than one Elemental Nature while doing so. He could replace them in the order that they were lost, and rest assured that any of his pilfered hearts would rejuvenate his damaged main body if there were ever a need…but this way of existing had cost him something.

Inside, somewhere, he had a few organs kicking around. He felt pain and other sensations to a limited extent. He could eat on the rare occasion, if he felt so inclined. Within, however, he was mostly slithering, knotted threads. Kakuzu had welcomed the Jiongu technique into his body nearly a century ago, and in due time it had begun to erase the parts of him that had been human. Thieving and using the hearts of others had also expedited his change into something else. Into a walking mass of string and hatred. Malevolent energy.

In this respect, he had grudgingly admitted to himself once, after a previous mission with Hidan, that he and Hidan had similar physical compositions. It wasn't the material that made their bodies that mattered so much— threads or flesh. It was the strange energy inside; not quite chakra, not quite a human life. Squashing death, resentment, selfishness, and all manner of negativity into the crucibles of their bodies had made them unique beings. Though they could use Ninjutsu and wage war like other shinobi in the world, their constitutions were the inverse of what existed in other ninja. Engines of death and inhumanity on the inside that no adversary could duplicate.

Ah, and then he was whole again. Kakuzu opened his eyes, could tell from the feeling alone in his chest that the Water Mask Beast had replaced what he had lost. While his Lightning, Fire, and Earth Mask Beasts rampaged against the trio of gutsy Waterfall ninja, Kakuzu slowly sat up and shrugged his cloak off. Since the limits of the Earth Grudge Fear were clear to all present, it wouldn't do to leave himself vulnerable again.

He rolled aside when Shibuki's sword strike pierced down, aiming for his face. The blade stuck in the rocky ground and the village leader grunted as he pulled his weapon free. When Kakuzu lashed out with a mass of threads from his body, Shibuki likewise countered with Zinu's threads.

"You've never been able to rely on your own strength." Kakuzu assessed the weakling, "Whoever gave you that Mask Beast should have come here to face me himself."

"She's busy at the moment!" Shibuki hissed, "If you think me weak for relying on others, then you are scum who takes hearts from the unwilling! Worms are more worthy than you!"

"Idiot. How is seizing my eternity a weakness?" Kakuzu formed hand signs, smug, before spitting a column of pulverizing water at Shibuki.

Shibuki dodged and rolled, hoping to keep Zinu out of range of such counterattacks, and in his effort to edge nearer to his Waterfall teammates, Kakuzu closed the distance to overpower Shibuki with Taijutsu. A well-timed kick knocked the hilt of Shibuki's sword from his hand, and Zinu's threads wrapped 'round the sword spinning through the air. Kakuzu spun again in another round kick to catch Shibuki in the stomach, launching him down the ridge with a bloody sputter.

Promptly, Kakuzu raced toward the other two Waterfall ninja. This was old hat. He had cut his teeth on murdering shinobi of his native village long ago.

To the credit of the two Jounin lambasting his Mask Beasts, they were fleet of foot and holding their own. The bulky, goateed one, Hōzan: he was baiting the Fire Mask Beast away from its counterparts by goading it with Wind Style jutsu. Naturally, the Fire Mask tailed after him to pursue and eliminate its natural opposite. Tadamasa had distracted the Lightning Mask Beast with Mud Clones and summoned a large river eel to try to electrocute the Earth Mask Beast circling him. In a valiant display of coordination, Tadamasa frequently fired off Water Jutsu toward the Fire Mask Beast pursuing his comrade.

With a mere thought, Kakuzu directed the Fire Mask back in the direction of Tadamasa. Hōzan skidded to a halt and looked back when he realized he wasn't being chased. When Shibuki hurried to Tadamasa's rescue, threads flashed up from behind Hōzan and snared his arm, pulling him down the slope.

"You rat!" Spittle flew from Hōzan's mouth as he struggled, reeled in close to Kakuzu who unleashed Taijutsu that Hōzan barely kept up with. He managed to land a right hook that snapped Kakuzu's head to the side, then somersaulted forward down the hill to catch Kakuzu's underarms with his hooked legs— flipping the nukenin down the bluff. Skidding in sharp stones and dusty soil, they rumbled, but try as he might, Hōzan could not free himself from Kakuzu's threads.

After Kakuzu was finally able to pin Hōzan's other powerful, flailing arm, his legs followed. The Waterfall ninja was flattened onto his back on the ground.

"We know how to defeat you, traitorous dog!" Hōzan's eyes were wild as he thrashed.

"Knowledge has no use if you can't follow through on it. And I know that you have something I need." Kakuzu pulled a knife from his belt and knelt down over his captive, "Something I can't readily buy…is right here." He sliced up to cut the closures of Hōzan's flak vest, and then pressed down with the point to open the man's chest up. For a few moments, Hōzan was resistant, obstinate as he was cut in the space between his pectorals…but his cursing and shouting pitched up into screams as Kakuzu carried out his work.

Even over the explosive din of Shibuki countering a fiery assault by the Fire Mask Beast, using Zinu's own firestorm to blow back the attack; he and Tadamasa could hear the caterwauls of their teammate echoing in the valley. Both men scared off the Mask Beasts with a combined and empowered Water Jutsu that raised a towering wave over the land. Kakuzu's Mask Beasts retreated from the crashing water up the slopes.

Shibuki and Tadamasa advanced down the rill in time to see Kakuzu cracking past Hōzan's ribs, heard the last of the man's death sputters as the nukenin rustled around and extracted his prey's still-beating heart.

Kneeling down in the shade of the cliffside, Kakuzu peered back over his shoulder at the stunned Waterfall ninja. His eyes glinted like a demon's. Slick with Hōzan's blood running down his front and arms, Kakuzu casually pulled the stolen heart into his body with threads, creating a new Wind Mask on his back from Hōzan's Wind Nature affinity.

"If you prefer that I divest you of your hearts after you're dead," Kakuzu offered, "Wait here. If not, follow me."

Kakuzu carried on into the hinterlands, covered in blood like a madman. His Fire Mask Beast leapt from the ledge above to tail after him in pursuit of Fujita and the jinchuriki. A heartbeat later, Shibuki and Tadamasa were ambushed once more by the Lightning and Earth Mask Beasts that Kakuzu had left behind.

---

The distant, shrill screams had been the first tip off. Even though Fujita had been beyond the scope of a visual confirmation as he fled the coast, he could hear a comrade being killed.

He dared not look back to find out who it had been, 'I can't stop.' He wasn't sure if sweat had run into his eyes or if he was crying again. He'd lost the acute sense of what his body was doing, commanding himself only to run.

Then, he sensed a prick of killing intent, and a rushing gust sounded behind him. Fujita used his Byakugan to spy Kakuzu charging for him, propelled by the knit-work wings of the Wind Mask the nukenin had replaced. He would close in on Fujita in about 50 seconds or three-quarters of a kilometer, even as the Hyuga youngster doubled his pace. He had seconds to make a decision.

'I'll need to put Fū down so I can confront him…but he has three elemental Masks with him.' And from what Fujita could gather, his own Lightning Affinity was of no use against any of the elements Kakuzu was toting. His options were few. He could keep running, he could turn and fight, or he could pray while doing either that Fū would wake up and somehow be able to defend herself— highly unlikely.

Framed in Koi Koi standards, Fujita knew this was game over. He had no points to speak of. Kakuzu was clearly the victor: replenished and wiser to his opponent's game. Fujita was isolated and outclassed, too far ahead of any reinforcements.

Fū, he thought, wondering if somehow she would hear him. It wasn't exactly in vain, was it? That he was here? Even if she tumbled from his back, never to wake again from a chakra-whittled coma, spilled to the ground as Fujita made his last stand by using any technique he could to repel Kakuzu…it was a small thing to celebrate. Making it so far. She could have died days ago, alone, unsung, unappreciated. To be here dying a few paces ahead of her, pedestrian as his strength may be, Fujita could rest easier knowing that his conviction had bought his dear friend a bit more time.

200 meters remained.

Fujita stopped and gently set Fū down on dried grass, standing again to walk out in Kakuzu's direction and take a Gentle Fist stance. So be it. Toss the deck of cards and flip the table.

He was only a Chunin, but he could nearly hear Naruto scoffing from beside him and demanding that he go down brutalizing his enemy's most vulnerable bits. Maybe he'd focus his attacks strictly on Kakuzu's brain to see if that cut off signals to the disgusting, interconnected hearts he used.

A shadow fell and stretched over the prairie as Kakuzu closed in. Within 15 meters of each other, it was only then that both Akatsuki member and Leaf ninja realized they were not alone in their duel. Something huge was descending on them.

POMF. Dust rose up around a stomping gigantic, orange, webbed foot, making a space between Kakuzu and Fujita as they halted on opposite sides of the obstacle. Fujita had been reasoning with concrete facts before, but this was not to be believed. What Magan and Kitano had bickered about earlier should have been utter nonsense. Yet, above him towered a magnificent mandarin drake duck, as tall as Gamabunta, utterly unlike the plain whistling ducks the Taketori clan employed. Fujita had the wherewithal to scoop Fū up and make a break for it before a loud, bellowing quack rattled the grasslands.

The pecking started. Physics dictated that a creature of so much mass would generally move more slowly than its miniature adversaries, but Oshidori-Ō was mighty quick for his size. He plucked up Kakuzu first, scaring the wits out of the nukenin who managed to eke himself out of the beast's beak and dive away from it before it plunged down again. The Fire Mask was next. This time the duck got a better nip in and ate the Fire Mask Beast, swallowing it down. Kakuzu was flummoxed. When he took a step in the direction Fujita had fled, the Mandarin Drake King shifted slightly to ward him back. It was intelligent, with a clear goal in mind.

The blatant, fantastical tomfoolery of it all had him both enraged and fascinated. Kakuzu wanted to try blowing the giant duck up from the inside, so he shamelessly formed hand seals to activate his Fire Mask's jutsu. In response, Oshidori-Ō bent his neck, hacked, and vomited up the smoldering ball of threads in a wad of thick mucus. It seemed more damage had been done to the Mask Beast than the bird.

'This is the doing of the Taketori clan…' Kakuzu was aware that the armored ninja were responsible, 'Which means they can't be far behind…' He released the Wind Mask Beast from his body to zip around the Boss Summon and distract it, looking back to see mayhem approaching.

Hidan was running toward Kakuzu, flanked on the left by the Lightning and Earth Mask Beasts that were launching retreating fire on the gang of Waterfall and Taketori ninja giving chase. A hurricane of whistling ducks were returning fire with gastroliths and water guns at the Mask Beasts, occasionally shooting Hidan in the back as he yowled profanities and ran.

Misfortunes never come singly, or so the saying went.

Above all else, the jinchuriki had to be secured. Killing the fools stampeding behind him would have to wait. Kakuzu avoided the stomping webbed feet of the Mandarin Drake King while his Fire and Wind Mask Beasts lambasted it with Ninjutsu. The duck seemed to shrug off the attacks with mild discomfort.

The little Hyuga boy had not gotten too far ahead, but Kakuzu's pursuit of him slowed to a meandering walk as a cloying sensation began to come over him. When he glanced back up at Oshidori-Ō, it was staring at him with its dark eyes, tinted yellow as it exerted energy and targeted him with a technique. Likewise, Kakuzu's Mask Beasts also became sluggish, dropping down to the ground, indolent.

'What is it…doing to me?' Kakuzu had not sustained any physical damage. The turmoil was mental. He couldn't exactly describe what he was feeling, or rather, what the animal was making him feel. The emotion was so alien that he was nauseated, waging war with his mind to suppress a feeling that had no use for. He couldn't focus. He couldn't fight.

"AAARGHH!"

Ah, that was Hidan's frustrated scream. The duck had targeted him as well.

Kakuzu took a knee to collect his bearings and try to devise an escape from what was not, in fact, Genjutsu, he had confirmed. It stung to watch the Taketori and Waterfall ninja pass him by at full speed, beneath the swell of Oshidori-Ō's feathered belly. He heard Magan urge the group onwards and to let the summoned boss handle matters. And how exactly was it handling them? Kakuzu was puzzled over it. It made no attempt to peck at them again or engage in any sort of violence as it exerted, well, whatever power it used. Hidan seemed to be faring far worse.

"Feh…fuh." Collapsed on his back, Hidan huffed and puffed, running a hand from his face to rake through his hair, "Don't know what this is…but…I can't move."

Nearby, Kakuzu was trying to work the mystery out, "Can't move, or can't kill?"

"Well no. Not them! I can't kill them now." Hidan whined while rolling in prairie grass, "Fucking thing…made me. I like them. I don't— what am I saying?!" Hidan shrieked, turning his head for reassurance, "Kakuzu, hey. Make it stop."

"If I understood what this was, I'd be doing just that."

"You're smart." Hidan offered minimal encouragement. He slowly rolled to his knees and pushed himself up, staggering to walk in the direction of the escaping thieves. The effort was all wrong— felt wrong. If he moved towards the group that had taken the jinchuriki, the feeling grew stronger. He hobbled past Kakuzu for a few paces before gasping, swinging and sinking his scythe into the ground, "Shit! If I go to them…I'll-! I'll protect them."

Though it was astounding to hear such a vile proclamation, it did establish one thing for Kakuzu. Hidan wasn't voluntarily experiencing these feelings of care, or the impulse to defend the enemy. These emotions were being inflicted. And, Kakuzu gathered, this was especially debilitating for those who seldom indulged in affection and nurturing proclivities. It seemed that the more they tried to act of their own volition, out of violence, the less mobile they became. In short, it was an unspeakably heinous affliction.

He tried to concentrate and breathe while Hidan panicked, carrying on like a tantrum-throwing child who was unable to sort out his emotions. Kakuzu reached out to his Mask Beasts to recall them, and though they were lethargic; also weighed down by the useless feelings he was overcome with, they toddled back to gather around Kakuzu.

"Oh, thank fuck." Hidan sighed, as if Kakuzu's control of Mask Beasts was a small victory, "Can you make them do anything?"

"Barely. I'm not in any better condition than you, though I've no use for theatrics."

"This is discomfort on a spiritual level. An attack you can't defend against! I want to hate them like I did— to think and move like I did before, but I don't know what this is—"

"You need to think through the problem. Not grouse about how awful it is." Kakuzu snorted. He couldn't really afford to be proud, in that moment. He wasn't prepared to share the theory aloud; that he suspected the gigantic duck had imposed intense feelings of love on them both. The emotion was so utterly contrary to how they functioned, they could scarcely comprehend of or embrace the feeling for fear that it would compel them to act against the Akatsuki's interests. Their interests. Like a coin tossed into the vast working cogs of a machine, it clanged and bounced, unwelcome, antithetical to the system it invaded.

Well, what could be done? It didn't seem to be letting up, and their quandary was disappearing into the grassy heartlands.

He needed to get his partner to do something productive, "Hidan…"

Immediately, Hidan covered his ears with his hands, curled up on his side on the ground, "Ah, no. Don't talk to me."

"We need to rectify this failure and you dare try to ignore me?" He wanted to be incensed, but unfortunately, he felt a bit too understanding of Hidan's pain and it was fluugghhhh nearly making him vomit.

"No, don't talk to me because ah, ack! Fuck!" Hidan squeezed his eyes shut and mashed his head into the ground, "I like that too."

Great. So the feelings extended between each other. Kakuzu didn't care to explore if it was a true camaraderie now and not casual tolerance, or potentially something worse (read: fonder).

"The only way to end this oppression is to stop the oppressor. Though these emotions are revolting it seems unlikely we can take any action without embracing them." He found the willpower to stand, ignoring the stain on his ego that it meant he had to care. "We will wash our hands of this later."

"Sure…yeah." Hidan's laughter was on the verge of tears, "How are you supposed to fight? Gonna go cry at that big duck? It's like a sick ball of mushy family shit that makes me wanna puke. Can't go near it…"

"Under the correct terms, I can still defeat it." Kakuzu was not sure how exactly, but he had a sense that acting in defense of something would avoid the prohibition of violence. Namely, he needed the duck to attack first. It wasn't doing that. For now, it was a stalemate.

Thankfully, Hidan was insane and immortal. He sat up to loll around and bawl in anguish, "Jashin-sama, forgive this betrayal. I don't truly care for your detractors. I don't. I swear it! This isn't really me. I can prove myself to you…to the god I do love and serve." Hidan drew out his pike and gladly ran it through his stomach, pulling it out to pierce himself multiple times.

Oshidori-Ō's feathers fluffed in alarm. Hidan's self-harm was far outside of parameters. The great duck darted its head down to peck at the Jashinist, to try and divest him of his weapon, "Dost thou not love thyself? Deny not thine parents and the joy of creation—" The bird communicated in lofty, antiquated speech.

Hidan threw himself away from the beak, "You can fuck - right - OFF!" He lashed out and scattered his blood on the bird's face, "Fuck your love and creation, you piece of shit duck. I serve a true god-!"

"Fool. Thine service benefits a wretched demon—" When Oshidori-Ō made the mistake of snapping at Hidan, Kakuzu could finally react accordingly in defense of his partner.

He had fused his Wind, Fire, Lightning, and Earth Mask Beasts to unleash a combined elemental blast that shot through Oshidori-Ō's right flank, cutting off the bird before it could finish speaking on Hidan's misguided practices. Oshidori-Ō disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"UGH." Hidan collapsed to his back in a puddle of blood. He acknowledged Kakuzu's effort with a response that came naturally, "I hate you." It felt so liberating to speak that truth. To not care at all.

"Get up. We need to stop them." Kakuzu was equally relieved to be free of the emotional manipulation. He divided his Mask Beast into four again as he set out, and Hidan promptly caught up.

The next segment of this race was crucial. Three or four kilometers further, and the retrieval team would be within range of possible reinforcements if they'd been contacted in the previous few days. That was, if auxiliary teams knew to look in the Unclaimed Territories. Reinforcements from the Akatsuki were guaranteed not to arrive, this Kakuzu knew for a fact. Most organization members were scattered in a radius of 200 kilometers or more from their current position. Though the others were aware of the interference in the Seven-Tails' extraction, it was expected that Kakuzu and Hidan would remedy the situation. Pein would be very cross if they didn't have the jinchuriki contained by nightfall, primed for extraction. But what chakra had been taken from Fū already ensured that she would stay comatose for days, perhaps longer. She would pose no threat.

And so it was a matter of trimming down this pesky group, preferably eliminating the strongest shinobi first, leaving the weakest to flee or die. To achieve this method, as opposed to the reverse order, it would require Hidan to fight effectively. Kakuzu had killed all of his previous partners in the Akatsuki, so it was remarkable that he'd gotten to know someone else this well. Hidan's immortality had made it possible.

In Kakuzu's opinion, Hidan was barely a shinobi at all. He'd maybe seen the man perform a Substitution jutsu once. Or had he imagined it? The man was a monster who relied on his invulnerability and weapon skills, as well as a ritual gimmick to win battles. These abilities were not even true Ninjutsu, as far as Kakuzu could tell. Not that he actually cared, so long as Hidan got his work done.

Hidan had an on-off relationship with efficacy. If opponents got good at exploiting Hidan's weaknesses and evading his ritual, he often became dead weight on a mission. Fortunately, Kakuzu had learned something from the Mandarin Drake King that his enemies likely would not count on him employing as a tactic. He would now do all in his power to make sure that Hidan's ritual attempts were successful. This didn't mean he despised his partner any less, but rather, Kakuzu knew the element of surprise could fetch one or more successful kills simply because the stupid retrieval team had grown complacent around Hidan.

With this goal in mind, Kakuzu set about making sure the Leaf and Waterfall forces would never suspect this change in strategy. He assaulted the swarm of whistling ducks with wild Earth and Wind jutsu, smashing and cutting the little devils, dwindling the size of the flock. As for his Fire and Lightning Mask Beasts, he dedicated the Fire Mask to speeding up, gaining on the runner that was carrying the jinchuriki. The Lightning Mask was ordered to antagonize the rest of the group, distracting them from escape and enabling Hidan to catch up.

His partner began whirling through the group with his scythe. The Taketori ninja both clashed against Hidan with their swords, parrying his blows. Taketori swordsmen were more than a match for Hidan's strikes, countering and opening his guard to give Kitano opportunities to slash and cut at Hidan, trying to disarm him. Hidan weathered all pain, ignoring it in favor of giving his full attention to his attacks. He seemed most fixated on Magan.

Kakuzu assumed that the jinchuriki had been hidden somewhere along a grassy knoll beyond their sight, because the young Hyuga wasn't carrying her anymore. He'd turned to join the fray, bashing his way past Kakuzu's attacking Fire Mask Beast, rotating to avoid its firestorm, and then kept moving towards the other Mask Beasts. Directly for the Earth Mask Beast!

Well, he was a consistent pest. But Kakuzu was privy to this one's tricks— that Fujita was clearly the thinker in the group. He, like Kakuzu, wanted to eliminate strong enemies first as quickly as possible. While Kitano and Magan danced around Hidan, Shibuki and Tadamasa evaded and fired Ninjutsu at the Lightning, Wind, and Fire Mask Beasts. The Mask Beast Zinu merged and parted from Shibuki fluidly, acting to defend him and also take the offensive against Kakuzu's Wind Mask Beast whenever they got close to it. Tadamasa had summoned another river eel to lash out and bite at Mask Beasts.

Kakuzu had lined up a sniper shot of Water Ninjutsu, poised to shoot Zinu through its Mask; abstract gold, blue, and white patterns, faceless. No sooner had he channeled the necessary chakra for his jutsu, several things happened: Tadamasa counterattacked with an Earth Jutsu that gouged a narrow, cracking fault line towards Kakuzu. Meanwhile, Zinu had fired its explosive technique to propel itself backwards, wrapping its helix-thread arms around Shibuki as it rocketed over the prairie. Kakuzu's Water Jutsu was absorbed by the Earth Technique rumbling toward him, knocked backwards by a wall of earth, cutting and jumbling him, eventually dumping him at the foot of a hill to collect his bearings.

Shing! He felt it— Shibuki's sword slicing through the back of his head. He'd been caught. Yes, there had been a brief spray of blood, a chunk of bone shaved from his skull by the decisive strike…but dark threads quickly moved to mend the exposed patch. Momentarily outraged, Kakuzu bounced up again to lunge at Shibuki. His anger had made his Taijutsu sloppy. Shibuki raced around him, and Zinu dedicatedly stayed in Kakuzu's blind spot, lashing out and tripping him. Kakuzu had only been able to land a glancing punch on Shibuki's side when Zinu's thread arms wrapped around Kakuzu's face to cover his eyes. Blinded, Shibuki was able to cut Kakuzu's left leg at the shin, severing his foot and spilling the nukenin to the ground.

Desperate, Kakuzu fired another Water Jutsu to ward off the blasted Mask Beast, Zinu. Threads wove rapidly to pull his severed appendage back to his body, stitching and securing.

Being angry at Shibuki was pointless. He was a distraction. A weakling. And Kakuzu was perceptive enough to know that Tadamasa had abandoned the tumult with Kakuzu's gang of Mask Beasts to assist his leader. 'I see you both, now.' Kakuzu regained his composure.

Shibuki's sword swing came for his head again, and Kakuzu timed his parry with a kunai to deflect the blow. He then hurled the knife at the incoming Tadamasa, slicing the man's cheek, and turned to finish hand signs to raise a wall of water to protect himself against Zinu's firestorm. Kakuzu maintained momentum, firing threads from his left arm to force Shibuki to slash at them, and then used a running double-kick to knock Shibuki down a small slope. He rolled aside to avoid Tadamasa's incoming Earth Jutsu.

There. The key to turn the tide was now available. Kakuzu extended threads from his left arm to collect the bloodied kunai on the ground that had hit Tadamasa.

"Hidan." He called to his partner once before throwing the knife to him.

It had not been a guaranteed pass. Hidan had only just knocked Magan back again, turning in circles while spinning his scythe defensively. He leapt clean over Kitano's head (to the boy's surprise) and caught the knife that Kakuzu had thrown to him. Giggling, Hidan licked blood from the blade and then tossed it aside.

Magan bellowed a head's up to Shibuki and Tadamasa, who had not seen the devious move, "Waterfall! They have your blood! Whose is it?"

When Shibuki crested the hill again, all color drained from his face. It was obvious that his subordinate was the next victim. The look in his village leader's eyes was all the information Tadamasa needed without turning around. He used another Earth Jutsu, unwilling to let up the pressure on Kakuzu. Behind him, the Wind Mask Beast had flown over to ambush Tadamasa from behind.

"Zinu!" Shibuki did not even need to direct the Mask Beast with hand signs. It could feel his desire to protect his friend. Zinu shot its narrow beam of fire at Kakuzu's Wind Mask Beast, shattering it apart before it could attack.

Immediately afterward, Zinu was destroyed by Kakuzu's retaliating Water technique.

---

Shibuki fumbled for a moment, devastated that he had lost Benio's treasured mask. But those moments of turmoil gave him the opportunity to corner Kakuzu again with Tadamasa's combined efforts. It forced Kakuzu to recall his Lightning Mask Beast to protect himself, an element that neither Shibuki nor Tadamasa could easily counter.

This freed up Fujita to assist Magan and Kitano in impeding Hidan from completing his ritual. Kakuzu's Earth and Fire Masks darted toward the Leaf group, only to be chased off by Tadamasa's rampaging river eel and the last of the Taketori whistling ducks. Fujita scrambled to think of a way to thwart Hidan's efforts.

'His body has turned black…so there's no way to reverse things now. Not until he injures himself.' Fujita recalled what he had seen in Hidden Waterfall, 'But he needs to draw his pictogram on the ground next…'

"Magan-sama! Kitano! Don't let him stand on his emblem!" Fujita could see that they had made things more difficult for themselves. Earlier they had slashed at Hidan with their swords, and spilled more than a sufficient amount of the Jashinist's blood on the ground. Hidan vacillated between repelling their attacks, and dragging his feet to make a circle. They couldn't risk spilling more of Hidan's blood.

'Really,' Fujita thought morbidly as he charged, 'All we can do is afford Tadamasa a bit more time. I don't know if Hidan's transformation wears off or is permanent. We need to incapacitate him or restrain him!'

With a shout, Fujita signaled his intention a heartbeat after Kitano and Magan tranged their weapons off of Hidan's scythe, opening the nukenin's guard.

"Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms!" Fujita launched into the man, closing 24 chakra points before Hidan's body took on that usual rubbery quality of someone in shock. Often, opponents were not ready to overcome the pain and trauma of having their chakra circulatory system attacked. Such lethargy and lowered guard usually snowballed in weaker opponents with low constitutions, but Hidan looked as though he was trying to scrape some control together.

Two or three tenketsu before Fujita had finished his technique, Hidan spilled to the ground, and had managed to reel his arm back to swing his scythe at the boy's legs. Fujita was forced to retreat.

Hidan howled like a dog on the ground, "Fuck you, kid! That shit is so cheap—!" He couldn't finish speaking because Magan landed a vicious elbow-drop, striking Hidan's stomach squarely, making Hidan's body buck up into a V from further shock and pain.

The three pounced, seizing the opportunity to divest Hidan of his weapons while he sputtered, moving slowly. Kitano handed off Hidan's pike to Fujita, and Magan leaned the scythe on his shoulder. Then, as Hidan tried to wobble to his feet, Kitano contained Hidan in a Warding Sphere.

A trickle of blood slid down from Hidan's lip as he chuckled, "This again? You know this shit didn't hold me last time, kid. You're still vulnerable."

"When does your jutsu wear off?" Kitano demanded the information they were lacking, "The blood you ingested: it should wear off!"

"It doesn't." Hidan drawled lazily.

"No jutsu is permanent."

"Tch! Shows what you know." Hidan scoffed, "It ends when he dies. I'll be transformed forever, if that doesn't happen." Bored, Hidan began drawing a complete pictogram on the ground within his space in the sphere.

Fujita's hackles raised at the sight, 'He doesn't care…he's just going to wait for an opportunity. For us to slip up!'

Behind them, the last of Magan's whistling ducks were eliminated. What was worse, Kakuzu's Fire and Earth Mask Beasts had combined, spewing Lava Release to melt down the landscape and scare off Tadamasa's river eel in a puff of smoke.

And Kakuzu was as alert as ever. He had the Lava Release Beast switch places with the Lightning Mask Beast he'd used to fend off Shibuki and Tadamasa, sending the Lightning Mask toward the Leaf group imprisoning Hidan.

Right away, the Lightning Mask discharged a tremendous jutsu on the field that would strike all within 20 meters. Fujita hurled himself forward and spun in a Rotation, warding off the black lightning at odd angles that still, albeit indirectly, zapped the Taketori ninja behind him to a lesser extent. Even Fujita could feel the pulsing charge of energy just beyond the tips of his hair and fingers, barely repelled by the shield of chakra he pushed from his body. In a split second, he remembered his brother.

'Aniki…how did you channel your Nature through your chakra points? How does Dad do it?' He remembered seeing Hikune practicing on his own in training yards, combining his Lightning Nature with his Rotation. It had been a massive technique, both offensive and defensive at once. He'd give anything to be able to replicate it. He could barely do a quarter of the things that Hikune had been able to do, let alone what Neji and Hinata had accomplished.

When the lightning assault had ended, Magan charged forward in synchronization with Fujita, wielding a sword in one hand and Hidan's scythe in the other. That too reminded Fujita of how his father had fought days earlier, with Hidan's stolen scythe. A mirror of friendship, of his father's friendship, was something he could fight beside and take comfort in.

Without Wind jutsu, however, they wouldn't be able to destroy the Lightning Mask, no matter how many times they battered it or cut apart its threads.

"Magan-sama! Can you summon more ducks for a Wind Technique?" Fujita asked sidelong to the Taketori clan leader.

"I'm afraid I can't…"

Just then, he understood what dire straits they were in. He felt the kernel of fear in his heart flaring again.

Fujita realized that Magan had depleted an incalculable amount of his chakra. It should have been obvious, what with the man relying on physical attacks and avoiding the use of Ninjutsu, that he was near his limit. In the hideout, Magan had contained a giant structure in a Spirit Sealing Sphere, a Sealing Jutsu that required a huge portion of chakra to perform, and even more talent and focus to use on one's own. After that, Magan had summoned Oshidori-Ō, the duck Boss Summon, to protect Fujita from Kakuzu.

He probably couldn't even use a simple Warding Sphere or Water Gun jutsu. Magan was moving on sheer willpower alone, at this point. Had Kitano noticed the situation as well? Fujita feared that his friend didn't understand how worn out his father truly was.

They were losing points again.

In a flash, the Lightning Mask Beast was able to wrap threads around Hidan's scythe and wrench it out of Magan's grip. The beast flung the weapon, where it whizzed southeast through the air…and Kakuzu reached out to catch it. He spun and slashed, cutting Shibuki's right hand off as the man swung for his swordstrike. Shibuki's hand was still clenched around the hilt of his sword where it stuck in the ground. A pained cry erupted from the village leader, and Tadamasa wrapped him in a running bear-hug to tackle him out of the way as the Lava Mask Beast came charging.

On his knees, Tadamasa exhaled a jet of water at the scythe in Kakuzu's hand, just barely securing the opportunity to clean the weapon of Shibuki's blood. The effort was of little import to Kakuzu while he directed his Lava Mask Beast with a single hand sign. It had no interest in the Waterfall ninja, just then. It was barreling towards Fujita and Magan!

Fujita simply thought, 'No.'

They'd been outplayed. Kakuzu was an amazing player.

It was as obvious as Magan's distress. As Tadamasa's, and now Shibuki's…

They had never been a match for the Akatsuki.

Fujita moved automatically, out of compassion and guilt, to stand in front of Magan as the man fell to one knee, hardly able to move anymore. Maybe, if he believed with all of his might and attacked with Lightning Style Gentle Fist, Fujita could destroy the Earth Mask that resided within the combined Lava Mask Beast. Before his open palm could strike the bulky mass of threads, it split apart into two again.

Both the Fire Mask Beast and Earth Mask Beast launched two attacks in short succession of one another: The Fire Mask razed the prairie where Kitano stood with his containment sphere, forcing him to let go and escape. With Hidan standing unsheltered on the moor in that moment, the other Mask Beast shot an Earth Spear through Hidan's chest, piercing him front-to-back. Hidan sunk to his knees on his pictogram, laughing as if he'd heard the best punchline of his life.

On the far side of the field, Tadamasa collapsed on his side, convulsing as he suffered the same wound as Hidan. Beside him, Shibuki gawked and rambled in a panic, trying to keep his friend conscious. They had just finished tying a tourniquet around Shibuki's arm to stop him from bleeding out.

'No.' Fujita thought again, 'Please.'

Had he not understood before this? It was not all about Fū. For a time, that was how Fujita had seen things. But truly, this mission was made possible by the comrades and relationships coming together in support of Fū. Those bonds were precious too. And one by one, they were being broken.

Maybe if he's seen the bigger picture, he could have done more to help them.

"You scoundrel! How dare you!" Kitano's furious voice snapped Fujita out of his stupor, "Don't laugh at what you've done! You're inhuman!"

"I know, right?" Hidan was chortling, wiping mirthful tears from his eyes as he set out into a run to escape Kitano. His middle was sealing up, healing the injury that the Mask Beast had inflicted on him. Secretly, Hidan was impressed that Kakuzu was interested in making his ritual killing more effective. It made him like the bastard a little bit, if only for the sake of his ego.

The Fire Mask Beast rounded on Fujita to distract him, as the Earth Mask did for Kitano, affording Hidan the chance to pounce on Magan as the Taketori clan leader struggled to defend himself.

"Ho ho ho ho! What did I tell you, Duck Man? What did I tell you?" Hidan's grin was wide as he wrestled with Magan, delighted to take Magan's sword point through his shoulder, "I promised you that I'd kill you, remember?"

Kitano was bellowing. Upon seeing his father's circumstances, he tried to make a run for it and escape the Earth Mask Beast, which then snared its threads around Kitano's ankles. He tripped, landing face-first on the ground. The Earth Mask reeled him in, preparing to skewer him with an Earth Spear.

In those terrible moments, as the reality sunk in for Fujita, he had to make a choice. He was able to heave off the Fire Mask harassing him with another Rotation, but he could only assist either Magan or Kitano. It couldn't be both.

'God…please. Dad, please!' He squeezed his eyes shut, hating himself, running for Kitano. It was what Magan would have wanted.

In the nick of time, Fujita's timely Lightning Style Gentle Fist strike caught the Earth Mask Beast in the face, cracking it apart before it could mortally wound Kitano. Behind them, 30 meters away, Hidan had divested Magan of his sword, pushing it just out of the man's reach on the ground.

"You seem tired, old man." Hidan canted his head to regard the Taketori clan leader. Right, left, right: he then punched Magan in the head. "You use all those big jutsu just to burn out now? Tsk, tsk…" He struck Magan in the face again, cracking his nose, and cooed at the line of blood that ran down from his nostrils.

"Heh! Don't mind of I do…" He leaned down to lap up Magan's blood with his tongue, and Magan grunted weakly, trying to turn his head away in disgust. He was on the verge of passing out from chakra exhaustion, but he was aware enough to know what this meant.

Hidan then rolled to his feet and picked up Magan's sword, "You're that asshole's friend, yeah? The one who thought he beat me?" Hidan dragged his feet to draw another pictogram, ignoring the clamor of Kitano and Fujita in the distance, blocked off by Kakuzu's Fire Mask Beast, "Once I send him to Hell after you, I want you to give him a message for me…" Hidan smiled blithely as he stood on Jashin's emblem, "You tell him…you guys really were a bore."

Hidan stabbed himself through the heart with Magan's sword.

Fujita could barely think through Kitano's ear-splitting scream, forcing his distraught friend out of harm's way when he failed to dodge the Fire Mask Beast again. Prairie grass was alight in wide swathes, the ground charred black where the worst attacks had hit. Kitano appeared lost in a long moment of disbelief, his voice fading, and he stood dumbly while Fujita flitted forward to attack the Fire Mask Beast. In the midst of Fujita's barrage of Jyukken strikes, the beast had wrapped its threads around both of his forearms.

Fujita gasped, thrashing to try to free himself as the Fire Mask charged its attack, "Kitano!"

About then, he was convinced he would end up a pile of ash like the open fields all around them. Yet Kitano had burst forward without a word, hacking the beast's thread arms off with his sword. He and Fujita tumbled sideways together when the Fire Mask Beast fell back, thrown off-center, and released its firestorm towards the sky. The flames licked up at gathered thunderclouds.

In the next three heartbeats, Kitano sheathed his sword and kneeled, spreading his hands out in front of him to create a Warding Sphere. The bubble of chakra surrounded him and his companion, shielding them from outside threats. Fujita pushed himself up to lay his hands on his friend's shoulders, hoping he could get him to communicate as Kitano stared numbly at their burning surroundings.

"Kitano…I should have gone to him instead. You don't need to forgive me, I know it's my fault…" Fujita confessed his failure, his voice rasping out of his parched mouth, "Maybe I could've…no. I couldn't. I'm worthless. You should run and just leave me here…I'll try to distract them."

Blinking back tears, Fujita glanced from Kitano's face, to the Fire Mask Beast head-butting the Warding Sphere from the outside, then to the fat rainclouds overhead that threatened to break. Between black smoke rising and a dimmed sky, the fire of their enemy seemed to be the only light around. In the distance, lightning strung between thunderheads, skipping around and down to the earth in brief glimmers.

"Don't say…you're worthless." Kitano's eyes refocused, calling Fujita's attention back to him, "You're the best at gathering information and making plans. You've got way more stamina and experience than me…next to you, I'm a slacker." He continued speaking while Fujita weakly shook his head, "You didn't make the wrong choice. I don't blame you. Dad knew…he just didn't tip me off. Didn't want me to focus on him while his chakra was all dried up." Kitano's lip quivered, "He did it for a reason, but…I don't know what we can do now without everyone else. I can hold this Warding Sphere for a little while, but then…"

"We can't let them work together. We have to think of a way to make them angry at each other again, so they won't cooperate." Fujita suggested breathlessly, "Together, they're too strong. Kakuzu can help complete Hidan's ritual too easily."

"They're not going to screw up again. Divide and conquer worked in Hidden Waterfall, but they won't fall for it twice." Kitano shook his head, ignoring the circling Mask Beast.

Fujita used his Byakugan to spy on Kakuzu absorbing his Lightning Mask Beast back into his body and handing the scythe back to Hidan. At the time, Hidan was distracted and gloating about how he'd taken down the most senior ninja of the bunch. They didn't really seem to care that the two youngest shinobi were holed up against the single Mask Beast razing the prairie. They would be addressed in due time.

"We'll have to run. To take Fū as far as we can…" Fujita changed gears, "The border with the Fire Country can't be more than 10 kilometers away."

"Fujita, we won't even make it half a kilometer with the two of them after us." Kitano disagreed, "If we're even going to try, one of us has to stay behind."

"Leaving a—"

"I'll stay and fight them."

"No." Fujita rejected the notion of sacrifice, "They'd still give chase! It's stupid."

"If I can keep one of them busy, you might have a chance. I'll distract Kakuzu." Kitano's mind was made up.

"I won't let you die here!"

Kitano smiled, "Who said anything about dying?"

"You—" Fujita tutted in frustration and then asked, "How much chakra do you have left?"

"Enough."

He sighed heavily at Kitano's flimsy confidence. The Taketori heir's eyes were daffodil yellow, strange, and at peace with what was to come. They couldn't waste what their comrades had done for them to get this far. Fujita heavily patted Kitano's shoulder again, wordlessly thanking him.

"If you can lure them west, that'd be a great help. I left Fū under a ledge close by, and from there I'll have to move south or southeast."

Kitano nodded, "West is best."

"Don't joke." Fujita clucked at him, but he still smiled.

"Get moving!" Kitano released his Warding Sphere when they both sprung to stand, darting in two different directions. Kitano avoided the Fire Mask Beast's lunge for him with a forward somersault, and completed hand signs for Summoning at the end of his roll.

Naturally, he had to summon a swarm of whistling ducks for cover. Their at-will firing of Water Gun techniques frightened the Fire Mask Beast back in Kakuzu's direction, tipping him off that their captives were making a run for it. Fujita was a blur between rows of flames segmenting the grassland.

Thunder shook the plains.

Fujita skidded into a shallow gulley and pulled the unconscious Fū up from beneath a camouflage of branches and grass. As he fitted the young woman to his back and broke cover, raindrops began to fall.

Remarkably, Fujita was not sighted until Kakuzu and Hidan had closed in on Kitano. Hidan had spied the retreating Leaf ninja and shouted in indignation, springing to chase after the rascal. And when Kakuzu had turned his head to gauge whether or not he was needed for the hunt…a Warding Sphere closed around him. He turned slowly to look at Kitano. The boy was hateful and defiant, standing beside him in silence.

"You cannot hold me here." Kakuzu observed, unimpressed.

"I'll destroy your Fire Mask." Kitano growled, "Then I'll kill you."

"You are incapable." Kakuzu wasn't paying much mind to the harried Fire Mask Beast fleeing from a myriad of water attacks launched by Summoned ducks.

"You've really gotten cocky, living as an immortal for so long. The only thing motivating you to use what's left of your brain and skills is self-interest." The Taketori heir had a fairly accurate read on the criminal, "But those of us who act to defend our bonds with others…we will always have the upper hand over you. We work harder, plan further ahead, and we let go of the self during battle. That's how we overcome."

"…is that what you do?" Mildly amused, Kakuzu asked him, "Is your selflessness what littered the bodies of your comrades all through these fields?"

That ugly reminder did not cow the Taketori heir. He held firm, grimacing as rainfall began to pelt down, slicking hair to his face. Fire in the fields was widely extinguished.

In those same moments, Fujita had been able to sprint for nearly half a kilometer before Hidan gained ground behind him. The young Hyuga was fully aware when his pursuer was within range, sighting with the Byakugan when Hidan wound up and pitched his scythe. With nary a heartbeat before impact, Fujita dropped flat to his belly on the ground, cushioning the fall for Fū and avoiding Hidan's attack. Mud caked along his front, speckled his cheeks. Fujita could hear Hidan cursing somewhere behind him, muffled by the sound of rain.

'Fū. I don't know what happens to me now…but you will see your family. Your village. You'll be with them again after all of this.' Fujita shucked off his Chunin vest to tent it over Fū's face, hoping she'd breathe easier in a bit of dry shelter. His tunic was still torn at the flank, where Hidan had last cut him in Hidden Waterfall. Fujita then stood, turned, and took a stance, 'He won't hit me ever again…'

With all other options exhausted, it felt right to put his full focus into fighting this enemy. Here, alone, in horrid weather. Fujita's mind was filled with the black and red card, gaji, of the November suit in Hanafuda. It depicted a violent storm and lightning, and was, appropriately, a wild card.

Hidan had stopped a few yards away to dither at his good luck, chuckling as he leaned on his scythe like a cane, resting a hand on his hip, "You are a persistent little bug! We saved you runts for last, for obvious reasons. You've known it's been coming…"

"Known what? That you would tail after us? You're far less of a threat than your partner." Fujita just had to launch a few verbal barbs.

"Tch. You wanna think that, but I've bloomed out here." Hidan's smile was toothy, "This is a proving ground of Jashin-sama. Bet you can feel it too…all of the dead out here? Calling out. Calling for you too, heh! You wanna take a stand on top of a war's worth of unconsecrated dead…but this is my arena. They know you're here, alive…and they hate you. I'm here to make it right."

"Why don't you console them yourself!" Fujita borrowed a tactic from Tenten's playbook, and hurled a kunai with an exploding tag attached. Hidan rolled sideways to avoid the cheap, explosive shot, and charged, meeting the smaller shinobi in a whirl of motion.

Fujita ducked a full-circle scythe swing. The rain slowed. Hidan grunted as chakra points in his mid-section were attacked, slashing to interrupt the Gentle Fist bombardment. Their steps were heavy clops in the mud as they danced around. Clouds coasted away on winds over the plains, taking the storm and rattling thunder with it. Sunlight glimpsed down in errant shafts from above.

Hidan had maneuvered just enough, stamping in the mud and grass, to eke out space behind Fujita and make a rush for Fū where she laid helpless. Fujita was wide-eyed, sobering with vulnerability.

Ah. It was time to make a call. 'Koi-Koi.'

He softened his knees, rotated his palms out. An exhale, channeling chakra before thrusting his arms forward with a burst aimed at Hidan— who had dared turn his back to a Hyuga.

The vacuum wave struck the criminal squarely, blasting him clear of the ground to sail through air with a screech. Hidan flew several meters before landing in prairie muck, spattering. He popped his head up incredulously to stare back at the persistent little bug. He hadn't been afforded the opportunity to stand again.

Having felt out how to properly use Eight Trigrams: Air Palm, Fujita let the waves rip from his flattened hands, one after another in a rhythm. Hidan soared for several meters, landed in mire, then was struck again, tossed into a rainwater-filled gully. The man splashed in the shallow trench and howled curses. Fujita raced after him, watching Hidan's back as he turned north to retreat, barely taking a step above the lip of the rill before another vacuum wave struck him in the back. Gracelessly, Hidan was flung front-ways to the prairie mud below, suctioning into it.

Fujita stood atop the little hill, filling his lungs with wet air. If he could fatigue Hidan, he might buy himself enough time to do the miserable work of cutting the immortal nightmare's head off.

He had put a safe distance between Fū and her attacker, and on the not-so-distant horizon, Fujita could see Kitano clashing with Kakuzu after the Warding Sphere had dropped. Remarkably, the Fire Mask Beast was nowhere to be seen, and the Lightning Mask Beast had parted from Kakuzu's body again…and was chasing Shibuki through the meadow! The village leader had drawn attention to himself to help his Taketori comrade, even if he had to run while keeping his severed hand swaddled and tucked into his gi. Kitano had taken up his father's sword, slashing at Kakuzu with two weapons as whistling ducks continued their nuisance efforts.

Intermittent drizzle spritzed the thick air as Fujita leapt down to lambast Hidan with Jyukken. The Akatsuki agent's distress was peaking, a brew of livid pride and feral self-preservation making Hidan move faster, slide and step messily in the mud that he and Fujita were both covered in. His scythe could not strike true, and the heat of disappointment roiled Hidan's guts. Why was the kid using a different technique? Why couldn't he get this insignificant speck to flinch? Land a single hit on him-?

Hidan managed to duck an incoming vacuum wave successfully, and charged with his scythe hung back for a mighty swing, "FUCK— YOU— BUG—!" He screamed and connected his weapon, knuckles white on the hilt, spittle running down his chin. In the same moment, Fujita's erupting shield of chakra whacked the scythe back as he rotated to defend himself. It blasted Hidan, scythe and all, back into the squelching soil.

His chest rose and dropped with deep belly-breaths; Hidan had a view of the clearing sky overhead. Oh, how he'd come to despise this relentless, teenaged Leaf nin who simply couldn't hand over a jinchuriki drained of a quarter of her chakra. A spilt bag of rice. It was a fool's errand. An insult.

Even more pleasant, when Hidan staggered to stand and get a gander at the whelp with his eggshell eyes all veiny at the corners…he'd gone to stand on the small hill again. What new fuckery was the weird little strategist cooking up? Jashin and all the dead sent to his maw! How he wanted to slice that kid's legs out from under him!

"March your scrawny ass out of here and leave the goods!" The asset Hidan was referring to was, of course, Fū, "I'm done clowning around with a shit crumb who's no match for me, wasting my time!"

Fujita granted him, "I am no match, true. But you've forgotten why you and your partner treated us as a threat in the first place."

"—some fucking love ducks and bullshit-!" He spun the scythe in his hand, high with hate, obsessing over those all-seeing pearl eyes.

Fujita reminded him, "Reinforcements."

He did not need to lift a finger. He stood, a muddy, bedraggled Chunin on the slope, and on Fujita's left and right two shinobi burst up from behind the ridge's crest to launch immediate, ambush attacks. Hidan's eyes vibrated in their sockets.

Him again.

In synchronization with Hyuga Hideyasu's Wind Release Air Palm, Shimura Danzo exhaled a vacuum bullet that spiraled into a combined front of wind that sheared the prairie where Hidan stood. The assault hewed the ground, raising a swell of mud that rained down on Fujita, lashing wind that tore plants free of their root-holds and sent debris swirling wildly all around.

Hidan had attempted a retreat, felt one of his ears get cut off by Wind chakra as he ran, rolled, and screamed, slicing attacks scoring his body like an abused wood block. It would require a miracle for him to move, to verify if an adequate number of his limbs were still attached. He laid still on the ground in abject horror, pain singing through him in tune with nauseated rage.

'Jashin-sama…' A tear rolled down Hidan's cheek, a dash of salt to mix with mud and blood, 'They resist and defile your name. I wanted glory for you. Wanted to kill them and gift them to you. None of this other shit matters. None of it ever did. I don't care what happens to me.' He blinked and let tears flow, 'I don't want you to disappear from this world. I don't want you to not exist. All I do is for you.'

He couldn't see well. Perhaps the storm clouds had rolled in front of the sun again. Perhaps he was sick and blind with tears. Though Hidan did perceive, if not visually, then spiritually, that the creeping dark around him was listening. Underground, he could feel the many, many, many. Yearning. Molten energy of resentment, loss, enumerable war atrocities. The death that fed energy into the everything. The long dead, and dark. And it was there that Jashin need not reach through a pentagram of blood to spin the chaos into something useable, and freely fed it to such a devout adherent in need.

Abruptly, the fingers and foot he'd lost regained sensation. A lumping bubble of flesh rolled up along his jawline to bloom as a new ear. Dark energy licked along Hidan's body in wisps.

A soft sigh. Strength. 'Thank you.'

---

"Sorry I'm late!" Hideyasu's apology had a Doppler effect as he raced past his disheveled son, alive and well on the prairie hill.

He and nine Root Foundation operatives, its Director included, had a tense meeting at the country border before re-routing with haste into the Unclaimed Territories to confront the Akatsuki. Hideyasu had the scare of his life a day earlier, believing that Danzo was prepared to eliminate him— but instead the old Director had demanded details from him and ordered Root Ops to fan out. Whatever qualms Danzo had with the Hyuga clan, he opted to examine them later. On the wing, Hideyasu shared as much information as he could.

The non-stop running had worn away the last pricks of feeling Hideyasu had in his feet. He couldn't afford to rest on the return route to the Unclaimed Territories.

When at last he'd spied Fujita still fighting, alone and in defense of Fū, Hideyasu had been scouting miles ahead with his Byakugan. His weary feet and body were reinvigorated with an adrenalin boost, moving faster, his heart soaring with relief to see his son pummeling an opponent with vacuum waves! Then, Hideyasu gave the specifics of what he was seeing to Root, reiterating the abilities of the two present Akatsuki members, and Danzo was not opposed to a combined Wind-Style technique.

Hidan was sundered and left sunken in the mud of the moorlands. Root operatives dashed past the downed Akatsuki member to close in on Kakuzu further north. Fujita retreated to collect Fū again, and after that Hideyasu focused on the scene before him. One of the Waterfall Jounin, Tadamasa, laid dead in the grass, and the other veteran, Hōzan, was several kilometers away. Deceased, from what Hideyasu could see. Shibuki was alive, but injured and exhausted, spared from the Lightning Mask Beast as Root agents surrounded the creature and provided him cover to hobble off and rest. And oh. Oh.

Magan was gone.

Hideyasu inhaled, a strangled sound of heartache squeaking out of him when he recognized his dear friend was dead. The agony of Kitano continuing the fight nearby, his father's weapon in hand, nearly rocked the sense out of Hideyasu's head. But now was not the time grieve for Magan. Kitano had not been given such a luxury. In those same moments, as the boy was worn down and Kakuzu pressured to escape…abruptly, Kakuzu's sharpened threads stabbed into Kitano's shoulder. The Taketori heir dropped the additional sword he'd been holding, pushed over by the attack. Kakuzu was then forced to dodge an Earth Jutsu initiated by a Root agent, parting him from his would-be victim.

This was, of course, highly inconvenient for Kakuzu. Nine Root ops from Leaf and the insufferable Hyuga veteran surrounded him in a wide ring, and it was clear there was no room for negotiation. Their order for Akatsuki members was terminate on sight.

He'd had a bit of foresight earlier, while fighting Kitano. The Water Mask currently resided in Kakuzu's chest as his main heart, and the Lightning Mask Beast stood back-to-back with Kakuzu, wary of the reinforcements that had arrived. The first matter was startling those gathered by allowing threads to erupt from his body into trunk-like tendrils, creating a long-range form to manage crowd control. With that distraction, Kakuzu's Fire Mask Beast scuttled out of an old fox hole in the prairie (hidden from Kitano), closing the distance to merge with the Lightning Mask Beast.

Kakuzu made hand signs and filed off to the east, dividing a portion of the Root agents from the group while the new Plasma Mask Beast unleashed a combined Lightning and Fire elemental attack. The thread beast projected the jet in a horizontal arc that swept a superheated wave over the land, hyper-steaming moisture out of the air, drying out the mud to the consistency of dust. Static bolts arced crazily, and cool air was immediately replaced with superheated air nearly unfit for breathing. One unfortunate Root operative who had not completely avoided the Plasma wave had a small point of contact on the back of his arm— that instantly lit his entire body on fire. Hissing like a tea kettle, he collapsed on the ground and was fortunate that a squad-mate used an Earth technique to (gently) fold a few meters of dirt over him, in an effort to put him out.

The insane blasts of heat dwarfed Water and Earth jutsu that Root agents retaliated with. Those that hoped to fair better against Kakuzu himself had all of their close-range efforts repelled, and at best flitted around the nukenin to exchange net-zero techniques with him.

All of this, Hideyasu noted as he raced around the space in search of an opening, was going to make the terminate order much harder to achieve. Danzo kept pace with him, and it was as they were observing Kakuzu's ruinous effect on the environment that Hideyasu had a risky idea, "Danzo-sama, can you give your men a signal to retreat all at once? Away from that Mask Beast and Kakuzu?"

"It is standard practice." The old man sniffed, "What do you intend to do?"

"Give that fool a taste of his own medicine, and redirect that Mask Beast at him."

Danzo did not need more of an explanation than that, and timed the retreat perfectly for Hideyasu by whistling sharply. All Root agents ducked back. Meanwhile, the Plasma Mask Beast was preparing another combined-element onslaught. Then, very simply, Hideyasu wind-slipped the much-too-hot air around the thing and slid it north— flinging it at Kakuzu.

Kakuzu very nearly gasped. He dropped down, wrapping his endless coils of thread around himself in a dome as the plasma wave ripped through the air, scorching all gas particles it came into contact with. The Mask Beast lumbered to turn itself back toward the Leaf cohort, and beneath the smoldering pile of what was once thread, Kakuzu had resorted to using a Water Body technique to cool down and try not to catch on fire.

'That damned Hyuga can redirect attacks too easily…' Kakuzu was alone with his thoughts under the dome. 'And where exactly is Hidan during all of this?' Highly unlikely that he had actually been able to reclaim the jinchuriki, or perhaps he was too distracted being a Jashinist zealot to assist his partner.

If this situation did not reverse itself in the next 30 seconds, Plasma Mask Beast or not, Kakuzu would be leaving the moorlands empty-handed.

A kilometer to the south, Fujita had begun to move Fū toward safety again, but all the while had a nagging feeling about leaving the Root squadron to handle things. 'Kakuzu is still very difficult to fight, and they may not completely understand how his ability works…' He glanced back, fretting over his father, 'Dad made it, but he has to be tired now. I don't think he's taken a rest since before he went looking for Root agents.'

With the Byakugan, he could see Kitano and Shibuki had relocated further away from the smoking battle site, and had also managed to move Magan and Tadamasa's bodies. It was then Fujita also saw the unthinkable further east.

Hidan was upright and whole, standing listlessly in the meadow grass. He was faced towards the battle that Kakuzu was fighting. And Fujita was unable to explain what he was seeing— dark, vaporous energy seeping up from the ground. It was nearly undetectable to regular sight, unlike the radiant glow of chakra in its many colors; dense and bright. This energy was silken, subtle, trickling from the environment and latching onto the Jashinist. If a shadow could behave like a cloud, gossamer and intangible, then that was the behavior Fujita would describe.

He didn't really believe in there being anything more than what he could perceive with mortal senses, however Fujita had seen enough of Hidan's ability to know that it did not have a readily acceptable explanation. Jashin wasn't real. Whatever that energy was— it wasn't chakra. But Fujita feared that he understood. That as he'd been warned, the countless dead of past wars were bereft and forgotten under their feet, and if it were possible for departed shinobi to exert an essence of some kind…then no doubt it would be Hidan to conscript such a perverse resource.

He didn't need to linger in doubt for long. The dark spiritual energy slithered up, coalescing at Hidan's bare back, and manifested two pitch-black arms beneath his natural limbs. His scythe hung relaxed in his left hand, and on his right a reflection appeared; black, smoke-like, but physical. One of Hidan's black arms lifted the dark scythe, and about then Fujita felt his knees start to knock together.

Not only wasn't the man incapacitated…he was renewed. It was an ability they had never seen, or possibly, that Hidan had never been able to tap into it. Fujita gave his head a shake. Jashin was not a real deity. As far as Fujita was concerned, gods were imaginary things. But then, how could he explain Hidan's killing ritual? How did that function as Ninjutsu? Hidan's immortality: how could Fujita begin to understand that? This dark energy pilfered from the dead? These concepts assured him that there was a set of rules running parallel to Ninjutsu, and Fujita did not understand those rules at all. As a card player, he was aware that if he didn't have a grasp of the rules…the game was going to be dismal.

Outfitted in corrupt energy, Hidan suddenly charged in the direction of the battle. He hadn't a care for Fujita, Fū, or any of the other weaklings withdrawing from the fight. He wanted a satisfying challenge, or maybe it was the prospect of fresh meat that lured him. It made sense to Fujita, in a strange way. That Hidan would rush at the chance to provide more sacrifices in exchange for the new power he had harnessed.

Oh please, please, his heart thumped in terror as he ran in the opposite direction. Let his father see. Let him notice.

No. This was a disaster in the making. Unless he backtracked to warn them, to help, no one would be anticipating the organization member they 'defeated' to pounce on them from behind. Fujita dryly sobbed, exhausted, shaken, and let himself slow and plop to his knees. He rolled Fū down from his back again. How many times would he have to leave her, barely able to gain ground to help her escape during the course of this day?

If he let logic prevail, he'd keep running. Fujita wouldn't even glance back as he used the last dredges of his strength to cross into the Fire Country, make a scene so that patrols noticed him, and get an escort back to the Leaf Village. Bring Fū to the hospital. Finally close his eyes and recover a little from these last few days. And those he left behind? It couldn't end well for them.

He made Fū comfortable again and covered her with his flak vest once more. Weary, he stood and trudged back toward calamity. What could he do, anyway? He picked up speed. What was the point? His lucky suit in Hanafuda was April, wisteria, his name sake and birth month. Out here, all they seemed to play were late-year suits and high-point combinations. He was worn out. Sick with loss. If anything, this decision flew in the face of what good mission sense dictated— that ahead of all other objectives, he had to get Fū to safety. He shouldn't turn back to help anyone.

Maybe it wouldn't matter at all, he feared as he ran as fast as his starving, sleepless legs permitted. Even if it was futile, as Fujita closed in on the monstrously altered Hidan, drawing near to the group distracted by Kakuzu…he didn't have to die with the regret of never trying.

"Head's up!" Fujita's shrill warning carried over the prairie, catching in the ears of Leaf's reinforcements.

At about the same time Hidan twisted to throw his cabled scythe in Fujita's direction, aggravated with his interference, Hideyasu identified the problem with his Byakugan.

"—oh fuck." Hideyasu's coarse language confirmed for Danzo that they had to account for one more opponent.

Fujita blasted Hidan's scythe back with an Air Palm, but the criminal was still moving northwest, cackling, and came within range of Root agents corralling the Plasma Mask Beast in an attempt to contain it. Simultaneously, Hideyasu barked at his son to retreat again, and explained sidelong to the Root Director, "He can't be killed."

"You explained this." Danzo recalled, "But you also explained he could be incapacitated through dismemberment." Which they did. They had thoroughly dismembered Hidan and here he was, reassembled.

"It seems we didn't have a complete picture of this nukenin after all. He's restored himself, somehow, and I've never seen that extra pair of arms or weapon before." Hideyasu amended his tale, "He might require Sealing to stop. I can't think of another way. That energy…" He squinted at the dark vapors drifting around Hidan, as if they were being harvested from the environment.

"Redirect that Plasma Style creature again when it attacks, and for now focus your efforts on the nukenin from Waterfall." Danzo wasn't suggesting so much as commanding Hideyasu's next action, "I will deal with this qi-wielding deviant." He quickly joined Root subordinates as they divided up their attention between the Mask Beast and Hidan.

By the Third's beard— did that explain it?! Hideyasu was flummoxed by Danzo's simple assessment. Could he not recognize a Tao Art? A technique that relied on energy and skills adjacent to those of chakra and Ninjutsu? From what he had heard, those that used Tao Arts referred to qi or spiritual energy as a foundational source, and it was supposedly independent of the chakra utilized in shinobi populations. However, there seemed to be a fair deal of intersectionality in shinobi nations where rare individuals harnessed both systems. And they were formidable indeed.

But, Hideyasu considered as he lent several vacuum waves to the cause of three Root agents trying to bash open Kakuzu's charred thread dome: it didn't seem like Hidan understood. He didn't care what he was using so long as he could do something in service to Jashin. Hidan had no concept of these differences, nor was he traditional in any sense as a ninja. And so, this development gave credence to the possibility that Tao Arts were not an import of the Kingdom of Han exclusively. Not as Hideyasu had once believed during the last Chunin Exam. Tao abilities may exist on a spectrum, a lateral move or two away from Ninjutsu, and may not even be intentionally achieved.

Two sets of arms to whip, reel, and spin scythes while in constant motion made Hidan deeply problematic for Root operatives trying to manage him while the Plasma Mask Beast continued to superheat gas in the area to proto-star levels. Four agents combined elemental counters to thwart the beast, ducking Hidan's wild attacks, and another agent dove in with Danzo to try to hack Hidan apart with swordstrikes. The Root nin who had been badly burned was conscious and on the sidelines, gradually treating his own injuries with a Healing Jutsu. When he was well enough to move, Danzo ordered him to fall back toward the escort team (Shibuki, Kitano, and Fujita) so as not to be a liability. He did as he was told.

Kakuzu burst from his shelter into his long-range form again, and divided the Plasma Mask Beast in two again. The Lightning Beast rushed to cover him, tailed by one Root agent, and the Fire Mask— well, it didn't get to unleash a firestorm quite the way Kakuzu intended. Hidan hooked the Fire Mask on the end of his scythe and hurled it into three Root agents. When they dodged, the returning spin of his shadow scythe cut two of the three, superficially. The Fire Mask Beast tumbled like a weed, then ran around on all four legs again to correct its aim.

The other Mask Beast's Lightning jutsu discharged in the north. Hidan caught his dark scythe, making cold-blooded, murderous eye contact with Danzo as he licked the blood from his weapon.

"Wanna see a trick?" He asked as his body suffused black, skeletal, his grin ghoulishly wide, "Now you see 'em, now you don't." Hidan stuck himself through the chest with his scythe point, inflicting the wound on his two victims. They dropped to the ground.

Much of the information Hideyasu had given him was no longer adding up. Danzo was aware that this individual first painted a pentagram in blood before transferring wounds…but that hadn't happened. He was using his ability freely, without making preparations first. The old man baited the Fire Mask Beast by using a Wind jutsu, and before it could retaliate, Hideyasu wind-slipped the flaming mass at Hidan. Ah, so Hideyasu had also noticed the conundrum.

Hidan could ritually kill whoever he wounded, and quickly at that. Quite suddenly, Danzo had one last operative by his side as four other squadron members were preoccupied with Kakuzu. Danzo gave two clipped whistles and recalled two of them.

"Do not," Danzo made it clear, "Allow this one to take your blood. He possesses an instant-kill technique." That was all that they really needed to know, at this point. Prevention was the best defense.

While Danzo lured the Fire Mask Beast away from the two Root agents who had joined him, the pair brandished paintbrushes as large as broomsticks. Without ink, paint, or anything of the sort, the agents swiped their wide-bristle brushes through the air as if it were a canvas. They swung in haphazard patterns around Hidan, who was mildly perplexed for a few seconds. Then, his face mashed flat into something he couldn't see. A wall.

"How is there—? Hey!" Hidan roared, flattening his hands, both flesh and shadow, against the invisible funhouse-like obstacle, "What is this shit?"

He realized that they were going to "paint" him into containment. Before the Root brush-workers could close Hidan into a confined space, he made a wild run for it, crashing into unseen walls, but eventually darted out into freedom. The duo sped up, racing alongside him with brushes dragging, creating a long hallway as they ran. Spitting furiously, Hidan hacked into both sides of the invisible corridor in an attempt to cut the artsy bastards, but they were protected by their Concealed Custody walls. He leapt up, up into empty air…and they followed! Leaping and brushing.

They began to construct an invisible network of cubic paths in thin air, not unlike a hamster habitrail to keep Hidan trapped. Hidan's frustrated cries carried over the meadow as he was preposterously hindered.

Kakuzu, of course, noticed this bizarre phenomenon upon glimpsing his partner from the corner of his eye…stuck in some crazy jutsu that expanded in an unseen space. He couldn't judge if it was a technique that Hidan could overcome on his own. As it was, Kakuzu had his own problems to contend with after Danzo threw two shuriken boosted with Wind chakra. The projectiles formed an acute angle, one shuriken sheared off a huge chunk of Kakuzu's long-range form threads. The other soared for the Fire Mask beast, which promptly prepared its firestorm to absorb the Wind Style.

Danzo instructed a Root operative beside him, "Now, Mizunoe."

The Root agent shot a Water Style technique on command, intent on countering the Fire technique the Mask Beast unleashed. His jutsu was interrupted by the Lightning Mask Beast that came charging from his blindside, head-butting him away and sending him rolling. Hideyasu was likewise occupied with Kakuzu's frontal assaults, and made another attempt to wind-slip him, hoping he could be hurled into one of his Mask Beasts' elemental attacks. This time, Kakuzu had anchored himself into the ground, threads burrowing far beneath the soil so that he couldn't be budged. He made his Fire and Lightning Mask Beasts trade places: the Lightning Mask focused on Danzo, and the Fire Mask bounded toward Hideyasu, spewing flames.

Hideyasu and Fujita each used a Rotation to protect themselves from the devastating fire technique, and the Root agent that had been assisting them dodged and rolled into a shallow ditch. He was mostly spared from the heat, but threads wound around his neck and upper arms, violently pulling him from his hiding place. Dragged, the Root agent struggled, drawing a tantō in an effort to cut the threads snaring him. Kakuzu reeled the agent in before the two Hyuga could react, and bound the snatched ninja to his body, suffocating the life out of him like a boa. He kept the body bound in his threads to use as a shield.

Danzo coordinated with his pair of brush-wielders, instructing them where to funnel Hidan back towards the ground. Hidan was particularly volatile, no longer making much sense with his vocalizations, crashing into hidden walls, and was surrounded by buzzing dark energy he had amassed even more of. It seemed that the angrier he became— the more negative qi was magnetized to him. When he struck an invisible wall in a fury, it actually sent an impact throughout the rest of the structure, and knocked one of the painters off of his foothold. He fell from his perch, but landed lightly on his feet, "Danzo-sama, we may not be able to hold him."

"You don't have to. I'll seal him when he reaches the end of the trail." He was in motion, heading south in the grassland, "Mogura has funneled him toward one of the formulas I left behind."

Mogura, being the other Root painter, had been able completely surround Hidan in the hidden trails, and then just had to draw the Akatsuki rogue's attention by picking his way back toward the ground. Hidan mindlessly followed while in his enclosure. When his feet hit the ground again, the latent Sealing formula that Danzo had planted glowed briefly upon contact. It then began to creep up Hidan's legs, paralyzing him as it climbed up his body. At the point where the seal had climbed above his hips, Hidan pitched his dark scythe so that it spun through the air, aimed at the Root agents tormenting him. His body froze in place after the effort, but his scythe did not.

In fact, so ferocious was his manifested weapon that it changed form, vaporous and solid all at once, spinning into a wanyūdō, a demon wheel spanning 2 meters in diameter. Green fire pulsed off the unholy thing, it crashed easily through unseen obstacles, careening towards Hidan's targets. Danzo had a fraction of a moment to dive to the side, feeling the cutting, burning energy rake along his leg when he hit the dirt. The operative alongside him was less lucky, mowed down into the ground, with a slicing, charred track carved into his back by the demon wheel.

The Lightning Mask Beast tried to take advantage of Danzo's state, lashing out with threads, but he exhaled a Wind style technique to scare it off. Simultaneously, Hidan was screaming, slowly raising his arms and breaking free of the paralysis seal he'd been trapped by. Danzo's whole face was scrunched as he observed the series of mishaps piling up. He'd even put his chapped lips together to whistle, to warn Mogura not to attack Hidan— but he was just a hair too late.

Mogura lashed out with his sword in the hopes of dismembering Hidan, since even Sealing hadn't done the trick. One of Hidan's black arms reached out, bending behind him to catch the Root agent in the midst of a sneak attack. Danzo felt sick, felt he'd lose his breakfast as he scrambled to his feet and watched another one of his operatives get disemboweled by Hidan's scythe after being caught.

For all of his years as a veteran, after enduring hardships, war, and the cutthroat political arena, Danzo had been able to steel his nerves and overcome the most grisly of sights. Yet something about this qi-monster calamity began to chisel away at his unshakeable pride, and he'd never dare give in to fear, but the stacking of unknown variables in this battle had more than astonished him. It made him question these strange powers, and how the Akatsuki and Dintei Bi's syndicate liberally used them. How all of the Great Villages, to Danzo's extensive knowledge, were devoid of shinobi who could use such abilities. What he thought he knew he'd never known at all.

Hidan seemed to come back to his senses, distinctly self-congratulatory, and then shouted at Kakuzu, "What do you think of me now, eh Ragdoll?! Jashin-sama is letting me cut them down like weeds!"

"Our goal," Kakuzu reminded him venomously, "Is to retrieve the Seven-Tails. Your ability is utterly inconsequential—"

"Fuh! Still on about that shit, as if I could lose." Hidan crowed merrily, "Let me make my sacrifices. I need to give thanks for the blessing I've received, after all. Then we can grab the—"

A shouting match across the field, "—focus!"

"Fuck you! Jashin-sama is starving! I need to sacrifice all of these idiots!"

All the while, Hidan's wanyūdō careened about the space, scattering Danzo, Hideyasu, and Fujita intermittently as they traded fire with the Mask Beasts.

With one fighting-fit Root agent and Danzo remaining, Fujita could see the most pressing issue at hand was the enemy reducing their numbers too quickly. "Concentrate on Hidan!" The boy cried out, and thankfully, the accompanying adults listened.

Danzo promptly made hand signs for a Summoning Jutsu, and he called a gigantic creature onto the prairie, a baku, a chimera both elephant and lion-like in appearance. Its first stomp flattened the Lightning Mask to the ground, positioning itself to charge at either Akatsuki member, tail swinging wildly behind it as the Leaf ninja stayed back to avoid being squashed. When the baku's right paw came down, it missed Kakuzu just barely…but its obscenely long claws caught on Kakuzu's long-range threads. The beast opened its maw and sucked with a vacuum force so powerful that Hideyasu could detect the air fonts on the meadow reversing direction, sending small dust devils spinning all around.

Like a cat playing with a toy, the baku flipped Kakuzu by his threads and then inhaled him with its Wind-style vacuum. Chomp. And that was that.

It pounced again, leaping over to Hidan's opposite side as the man sized up the new threat. Upon being freed, the Lightning Mask Beast slowly unfolded itself, threads ballooning out into its normal appearance as it hobbled towards the Fire Mask. Fujita was shocked that the Mask Beasts merged once again, 'That means Kakuzu isn't dead yet! He made his Mask Beasts combine…from inside the creature that Danzo-sama summoned.'

The last thing the Leaf forces needed was to deal with the Plasma Mask Beast's superheated waves again. They fled in different directions, the two Hyuga rotating to be spared from incineration. Likewise, the baku leapt high into the air to avoid the plasma wave, which broke over Hidan, searing his flesh and exposing the ligaments and muscle beneath. He didn't seem to feel the pain at all…and he was quickly regenerating. He had one eye tracking the baku bounding about the space, as it would inevitably try the same trick out on him as it had Kakuzu.

Fujita had crossed into Hidan's field of vision while evading the Plasma attacks. Hidan narrowed his eyes, remembering the humiliation the boy had subjected him to, 'That little bug still hasn't run away yet? Seems that Jashin-sama will be receiving him as a gift after all!' Hidan spun his scythe, hooking his foot into the cable to build extra momentum, and hurled it at the pipsqueak.

Though it was a super-fast strike, Fujita was able to bounce the weapon back with an Air Palm. Then, it was the wanyūdō rolling up behind Fujita, nearly colliding with him before Hideyasu re-positioned his son with a windslip. The demon wheel rolled on, meeting with Hidan again and transfiguring back into a scythe for its wielder. While Hidan kept a Root agent occupied with one of his scythes, he cut a line on the agent's arm with the other. Fujita shrieked at the sight, wishing the agent had taken some kind of action to thwart Hidan's ritual.

Instead, the Root agent followed Danzo's orders, and used a spitting jutsu to cover the Plasma Mask Beast's head in an adhesive, gluey gob. Unable to see or perform jutsu, the Mask Beast lumbered around blindly while waving its thread arms.

"Now!" Hideyasu lashed out with a Wind Release: Air Palm, raking the cutting force over the Mask Beast. Though the damage was effective against the Lightning portion of the Mask Beast, it did not account for the Fire Nature, "We need Water Style to destroy the rest of it!"

PAMF. The baku's stomps rattled the earth. It had inhaled again, the suction stopping Hidan from moving freely after licking blood from his weapon. Tinged black and skeletal, Hidan's footing slipped on the ground, and he shot back and into the giant creature's mouth. It sealed its jaws and growled, bending its trunk against its forehead.

As soon as Danzo launched a Water technique to finish off the Plasma Mask Beast, the last Root agent behind him abruptly dropped. Hidan had been able to wound himself. The Mask Beast fluffed apart into inert threads. A lull descended over the three Leaf ninja remaining. Danzo cast a disbelieving look over the meadow where his Root operatives were scattered, casualties of conflict. Fujita's chest was heaving with labored breaths, and his father could tell that he was an Air Palm or two away from collapse. He lad little chakra left to spare, and Hideyasu also knew his limit was fast approaching.

Stomp, stomp, the baku trudged back toward Danzo as if to receive some acknowledgment of its assistance…and then a sickening squeal erupted from the creature. Thrashing and reeling, the baku fell sideways, giving all a clear view of its stomach being split open from the inside. Hidan hopped out of the animal's wound, shaking himself like a dog to slick the fluids from his body and weapons. Kakuzu dashed out of the animal, using the opportunity to hurl the mutilated body of the Root agent he'd taken captive. Danzo dodged the ghastly attack.

There they stood, disgusting and unhindered once more. It appeared that while inside of the baku, that had since disappeared in a cloud of smoke, Kakuzu had stolen two additional hearts from fallen Root agents. He had Wind, Water, and Fire Natures at his disposal.

"Fujita."

The boy turned to look at his father, forgetting to steel his face as the anguish of this unstoppable threat flayed the hope still flickering within him. Hideyasu gave his child a rueful look and said, "Get going. You need to retreat with the wounded."

"I can't leave you, Dad—"

"You can. Danzo-sama and I can still slow them down. Besides, that death god's ability isn't going to last forever. Like everything else, he'll experience peaks and dips." Hideyasu reasoned, "And we'll finish him when he dips again. Have some faith in us, alright? I'll be just behind you."

He took one last, tearful look at his father before obeying, turning back to collect Fū and Shibuki's group. In the same instant, Danzo and Hideyasu sprang, firing off their respective Wind jutsu at Hidan and Kakuzu with no preamble whatsoever.

Danzo's initial attack missed, but as he closed in and followed up with a Wind Sword strike…he cut Hidan through the middle horizontally. And the Jashinist laughed as his top half slid free of the bottom of his body, because the spinning wanyūdō he had countered with transfigured back into a shadowy scythe to slice up Danzo's front, tearing into the artery in his neck, then spun away with a spatter of blood.

Hideyasu saw this catastrophe as he danced around Kakuzu's various elemental attacks, getting more intense as he released one Mask Beast after another from his body. He was watching with his Byakugan, calling out to the veteran because he wouldn't be able to windslip Danzo to safety now that the old timer had dropped to a knee, bleeding out. The Root director fumbled for a moment to free his right arm from a sling he kept tucked in his yukata.

Hidan was laughing his head off as he extended his hand to welcome his shadowy instrument back. Shadows tendriled between the severed halves of his body on the ground, pulling him together, his flesh knitting with a regeneration ability.

"That's too bad, you old fuck!" Hidan mocked, "I could just let you flop over and eat it that way, but where's the fun in that?" He licked the shadow scythe's blade after standing and announced, "You're dead."

Hidan completed his killing ritual without a pentagram, and Hideyasu saw Danzo slump bonelessly after the blow connected. He saw many things with his Byakugan, including Kakuzu's frenzied attempts to catch him in between defensive Air Palm waves and rotations. But what he did not see in its entirety, although his Kekkei Genkai got the hazy impression of it, was time not adding up quite like his brain and eyes had originally assessed. Danzo had been killed, then he was standing behind Hideyasu, unharmed and upright.

It even made the two Akatsuki nin do a double-take, astounded that their eyes had deceived them. To them, they assumed Genjutsu had fooled them and that Hidan had missed. In fact he had not. Hideyasu could confirm it had been a true kill, and that somehow Danzo had overwritten his demise. He could barely register the instructions Danzo was relaying to him, because it was then he saw it. Many Sharingan eyes embedded in Danzo's right arm. A physical detail he had overlooked earlier when Danzo had kept it bound up.

It had something to do with that, surely. Hideyasu was no expert on his brother clan's abilities, but he could draw a loose conclusion that some sort of Visual jutsu had spared Danzo's life. At any rate, Hidan had sent his wanyūdō after them again, forcing both to dodge and use Wind techniques to repel weapons and Mask Beasts.

When Hideyasu flitted past the Root director, he couldn't help but verbalize his astonishment, "Why do you have so many Sharingan!" He asked, "How didn't you die?" Danzo was no Uchiha. He couldn't make sense of the old man's circumstances.

"Such questions are far, far above your security clearances." Danzo sniffed at him, "Concentrate on the Akatsuki."

That sentiment did not sit too well with the steward of the Hyuga clan, who was beginning to feel alarm crest inside him as his supposed ally was wielding a heritage staple that didn't belong to him. Hideyasu made the mistake of laying a hand on Danzo's shoulder, and the Root director promptly kicked him to the dirt. Luckily, the move spared them both from being struck by a swinging scythe.

Rattled, Hideyasu tried to make sense of things as they traded ranged attacks with Hidan and Kakuzu, "I just don't understand…were those Sharingan harvested from members of the Uchiha clan who've passed? How could Hokage-sama allow it? The council has always sworn that clan secrets are sacred and to be protected. I'm worried—"

"If you value your life and the lives of your comrades, you are not only going to never speak on this subject— you won't even spare it a thought." Danzo warned him, flashing the Sharingan in the right eye socket he had kept covered in bandages, "Or I will make you do exactly that."

It was a frightening development, but Hideyasu couldn't afford to ponder the matter or make any accusations. Halting Hidan and Kakuzu was going to require all of his focus, and Danzo's cooperation.

---

Over two kilometers away, Fujita reached the small huddle where Kitano, Shibuki and the last Root agent were resting beside Fū. He motioned urgently to them, "Up. We have to leave."

"We aren't winning?" Kitano rose slowly to his feet, wounded by the news.

"Not even remotely. My father and the Root Director are going to hold them off." Fujita explained.

Kitano looked to Tadamasa and Magan's bodies in the meadow grass, "I don't want to leave my dad's body—!"

"Kitano, there's no time!" He took a short tone with his friend, "Magan-sama would be more concerned with you surviving than transporting him home for burial. That's a matter for another time."

Kitano made an ugly, heartbroken face at him before silently relenting.

To Fujita's surprise, Shibuki's severed hand had been reattached and his arm immobilized in a sling. When Fujita pointed incredulously to the mending, Shibuki smiled sheepishly, "This Root ninja helped me, though neither of us are sure it'll take. If the tissues are black by tomorrow, we'll know."

Fujita turned to the masked, medically-trained Root agent with them, "What's your name?"

"My code name is Magire." He offered hesitantly.

"You're coming with us, Magire." Fujita resolved.

"I'd prefer assisting Danzo-sama in this battle, but he gave me orders to stay out of it. I've mended most of my injury already." The Root agent's burns were impressively quelled, though still hideous red in certain spots, "I'll retreat with you." He agreed.

Once again, after pulling his flak vest back on, Fujita scooped Fū onto his back to carry her. He set out at a brisk pace southward, debating absently out loud: To Hidden Leaf or Hidden Waterfall? Leaf was safer, but further away. Other voices in the group weighed in, determining that Fū would be safest in Leaf. And so their route turned directly south, pressing closer to the country border.

If they were fortunate, a patrol at the edge of the Fire Country would be able to escort them, or so Magire hoped. Some twenty minutes passed, and the sun was sinking low in the sky as dusk hastened. Nightfall could be a problem, but Fujita refused to think about it.

The air felt thick, smoky, and ionized. Foul and burnt. The ninja batted their lips, remembering such a phenomenon from the Plasma Mask Beast's scorching of gas particles. Fujita used his Byakugan in response to get an idea of their surroundings, and yelped in spite of himself. Little more than a kilometer away, Kakuzu was gaining on them.

It appeared to Fujita that the monster had collected more hearts to restore the Elemental Affinities he had been missing. And he was relentless in his pursuit. Far away, Hideyasu and Danzo were still railing against two Mask Beasts and Hidan. Fujita kept moving as he reported the details to the group.

"Just go." Kitano told him. He and Magire stayed back, prepared to confront the Akatsuki member tailing them.

Fujita and Shibuki kept moving, haste making their footfalls harder, breathing more uneven. They covered about half a kilometer before the thought occurred to Fujita.

He was keeping pace with a coward, running away with him. Shibuki was a famous coward. But things made more sense from this side of things, Fujita considered. Now, maybe he could count himself as a coward, after all that he had seen. It wasn't that he hadn't stood up to danger several times before, but rather when he had, he'd been beaten back and foiled too often to risk his life or the lives of the vulnerable again. In this way, Fujita was coming to understand the Waterfall leader's experience in life.

He would cling to this fool's hope and run, hoping that Fū could be rescued.

Abruptly, Shibuki collapsed.

Fujita skidded to a halt, turning 'round to goggle at the village leader who was flat on his face in the dirt. Exhaustion had waylaid him.

"No, no, you get up!" Fujita screeched at Shibuki, "Up, you stupid idiot! How many fathers are going to die here in these godforsaken fields?" Frustrated and snotty, Fujita crouched down beside the man, "You can go on. Do it for your family. For Fū!"

Shibuki laughed softly, "How dare you…speak so disrespectfully to me. Sorry. I've got no strength left."

"Get up, Shibuki-sama!"

"…tell them I'm sorry. Please keep going."

"I can't!" Fujita squeezed his eyes shut, tears slicking down his face as he clutched Fū to his body, "I can't tell so many people that I'm sorry I left behind the ones they care about. Get up!"

His whole body rattled with sobs. Night was two hours away, he estimated. Fujita could tell that he was growing delirious too from the exhaustion. Yet he couldn't keep leaving people behind, as if Fū wouldn't be sick about it after she was saved and told how the mission went.

Through tears, Fujita observed with his Byakugan as he sat on his knees, propping up Fū while he watched Kitano and Magire await Kakuzu as he came within striking distance. The featureless plains were painted in the light of the sunset, and where Kakuzu's nearest footfalls fell the ground opened with a rumble to release a gigantic tree. A tree that thrust up unnaturally, the force of it colliding with Kakuzu and sending him whizzing through the air.

When the nukenin hit the ground and dust wafted up, the stupefied expression on his face was clear. Fujita could also make out the expressions of Kitano and Magire as well, upon beholding the miraculous occurrence.

"Shibuki-sama," Fujita reported, "A tree grew."

Shibuki assumed the kid's brain was scrambled from fatigue, struggling to get into a sitting position, "Pfft, yeah right—" Then he looked back and saw it, "Holy shit. How'd that get there?"

"It stopped Kakuzu." Fujita did not want to assume some mystical properties were responsible, which was correct, because they then heard the sound of wingbeats.

Overhead, two black and white birds that looked as if they'd been sketched on parchment soared past. There were three ANBU Black Ops in total, one of whom, it occurred to Fujita, was able to use the Mokuton. He had used follow-up Wood techniques to chase Kakuzu back in the direction he'd come from. On the other Beast Imitation bird, two smaller Black Ops coasted northeast, toward Hideyasu and Danzo. Upon reaching that position, one leapt down to assist the two Leaf veterans while the airborne agent created Beast Imitation drawings to harass the Mask Beasts and Hidan.

Maybe Fujita was just imagining it all, desperate for tide-turning aid. But if he and all the others were hallucinating the same thing, maybe that was a good sign?

---

Hidan was crestfallen to sober up from the death power that Jashin had loaned him from the dead in the battlefield. Apparently, that negative energy was not limitless. And when the vaporous qi was gone and he was his usual self, with no extra set of arms, wanyūdō, or indiscriminate killing power, Hidan was really quite miffed about it.

But no, no, he couldn't be ungrateful about the gift Jashin had bestowed. Most especially not when the insufferable Hyuga and his geriatric companion were in prime position to be sacrificed. So he went about business as usual, launching scythe attacks in the beats between the Mask Beasts' Ninjutsu. Time and again his efforts were repelled, but he could see the Hyuga wilting, his defensive maneuvers coming slower and clumsier, 'I'll have his head in about a minute at this rate!'

Then, more Leaf reinforcements dropped down from the air. Better said, one airborne unit sent down numerous Ink Beast creations that, by the look of it, were fully capable of hacking the threads of the Mask Beasts with a claw-swipe. 'Okay, they're sharp. Whatever.' A lion drawing pounced on him from behind, and Hidan acrobatically rolled, somersaulting to kick the thing off with his feet, sundering it with his scythe. In a timely fashion, he was struck in the back with an Air Palm vacuum wave.

Hidan flew down a small hill and into a clay mud gully…just like the pint-sized Hyuga had done to him earlier. Oh. His mellow was totally harshed by this.

"That fucker. That arrogant, cheap-shot, white-eyed infidel…" Hidan was muttering to himself, displaced from the battle as he slicked mud from his chest and pants, "He's next. He's next-!"

Kakuzu caught his arm, dragging Hidan into a full-tilt run.

"What the—?" Hidan was wide-eyed, "Kaku—"

"Shut your mouth. Full speed." Kakuzu demanded.

They kept moving, but Hidan did not shut his mouth, "What the FUCK, Kakuzu? You're running away now, when we have them on the ropes?"

"Because of you, we wasted time in securing the jinchuriki and now they have shinobi with Wood Release here. You useless, brain-rotted priest." Kakuzu spat at him, irate, "There's no stopping that. I would know."

Hidan pointed his scythe back in the direction of the Leaf forces, "I'll stop them when I—"

"You'll be Sealed long before you get close enough to take his blood. And later, when they have you in a test tube, divided into a hundred parts to pacify and study you as you CRY FOR YOUR GOD, what good will your sacrifices do?" Kakuzu unloaded on his partner, striving to put distance between them and the threat. He stopped momentarily to set traps near where the bodies of dead Root agents lay.

"You know what? Fuck you. Trying to pin it all on me, but I didn't see you making much progress against those Leaf bugs." Hidan defended his actions while simultaneously following along with Kakuzu's hand signs, re-configuring the dead bodies.

"When it's all explained to Pein, let's see where more of the blame falls." Kakuzu sneered at him. They completed the hasty work of leaving behind temporary, functional doppelgangers of themselves made from Root ninja bodies. Then, they took off again northward.

At about the point where Oshidori-Ō had made his appearance, beams and spirals of wood began to crash up from the ground. It was an onslaught that could even make Hidan understand that the ranged Kekkei Genkai pursuing them was nearly impossible to counter or escape while on land.

A huge wood cage began to form, beams expanding and knitting together to contain the pair caught inside. Tenzo leapt down from the back of the Beast Imitation eagle, concluding hand signs, keeping his hands folded as the cube of the cage was jarred by Kakuzu and Hidan's furious attacks. With a final hand sign, he subjugated his captured targets with a Sealing jutsu to immobilize them. When all grew still, Tenzo walked up to the cage, eyeing the nefarious pair as they sagged to the ground.

Tenzo parted the wood bars and got a closer look. The bodies were shifting, their appearances reverting back to that of Root operatives. Ah. So he'd snared fakes the two had left behind to cover their escape. He looked over the steppe hills ahead, deciding if it was worth tracking the duo through the Unclaimed Territories on his own, leaving so many defenseless behind him. 'They're going to have more traps, and probably more Akatsuki forces at their next rendezvous point. Now that they're beaten, they'll go to where they are safest and forsake hunting the jinchuriki.' Which, overall, was the objective. To chase them was going beyond what was actually needed in this scenario.

On foot, Tenzo returned to the flatlands to attend to those who had battled the Akatsuki.

He first encountered Hideyasu and Danzo, finding the former had taken a seat on a flat rock, aching from top to bottom, and the latter was standing upright with hardly a scratch on him, balancing his cane beneath his palms. Tenzo's jutsu had clued Danzo in to who their rescuer was, and he was addressed by the Root Director, "Kinoe…I had hoped to never have to depend on you again in this lifetime."

Evidently, the sourness was still there that he was no longer a member of Root. As if Danzo would ever let him forget it.

"I feel much the same, and I refuse to answer to that name." Tenzo brushed off Danzo's remark, turning to Hideyasu, "Are you injured?"

"Definitely." Hideyasu was slumping on the ground, "Not sure where, though. I don't think I can walk anymore."

Tenzo promptly reached down to scoop beneath the man's arm, hauling him up to brace him and allow Hideyasu to hobble towards the group gathering around Sai. The young Black Ops member beside Sai was Shimura Mashu, one of Tenzo's direct subordinates, collecting the injured to be transported on the Beast Imitation eagles Sai provided.

Salvageable bodies, including Magan's, were collected and strapped to Beast Imitation eagles that were not transporting the living.

"While we were en route to the Unclaimed Territories by Hokage-sama's order, we passed by a squad of Cloud ninja on its way to Hidden Waterfall. They'll provide some relief from the Akatsuki's attack." Tenzo shared the information with any listening ears, "Hidden Waterfall has ample protection now. Five or more teams, by my last count. We will return the jinchuriki and have you all treated, then I'll coordinate further defenses to ensure the Akatsuki has no opportunity for a follow-up attack."

"Marvelous." Hideyasu smiled tiredly, "Thank you, Captain."

Pointedly, Danzo made himself comfortable on his own ink bird, and Tenzo allowed Hideyasu to almost instantly pass out against his back after climbing aboard another bird. They were airborne before the sun set.

---

When next Hideyasu was conscious, he couldn't exactly remember how he'd ended up in a shabby old, cushioned armchair. It was inside of cabin reserved for those recovering from the retrieval mission, all snoring. The deep stillness of late night was comforting. Hideyasu remembered they had been evacuated by air back to Hidden Waterfall, under escort, and were welcomed by the sight of hundreds of ninja from multiple villages protecting the settlement.

Fujita's wish for cooperation in defense of jinchuriki had come true, at least, in this instance it had.

In the infirmary beds Hideyasu saw Fujita, Kitano, Shibuki, and Magire, fast asleep. He used his Byakugan briefly to ascertain where Fū was being kept, of course safely, in a larger cabin next door where her mother was asleep in bed beside her. Twenty-five shinobi had taken up guard posts around both buildings. Further viewing revealed to him hundreds of other ninja fanned throughout the village, either on guard duty or aiding in rebuilding efforts. He let his eyes rest and sighed.

He could use a cup of tea. And a feast. And an ice bath for his ruined feet.

Hideyasu pushed to stand up and hissed from the pain radiating up from his toes and calves. Running sure used to be easier when he was younger.

He walked tenderly, quietly exiting the cabin to stand on its covered porch. Ahead he had an exquisite view of the village's wide central lake, shining beneath the waning gibbous moon. On the far side of the caldera, he felt a small bolt of alarm in his guts upon seeing (with plain vision) the silhouette of the full-size Eight-Tails Biju using its tentacles to lift material to reconstruct the damaged outer walls. The ANBU Black Ops captain was with the Eight-Tails jinchuriki, using the Mokuton to manufacture guiding beams of wood and rebuild.

'What a sight.' Hideyasu rubbed his temples, 'Overnight, such a high level of cooperation! And my kid helped make sure it would happen.' He wanted to laugh, but he was parched and it felt like he would cough up a tumbleweed if he tried.

Before he could turn back into the cabin in search of a drink of water, he heard soft voices speaking above the porch awning. Two shinobi guards conversing quietly. Hideyasu did not intend to be a snoop and identify them with the Byakugan (the two Leaf ANBU subordinates), but whoops he was tired and did it anyway for a brief second.

"He refused to acknowledge me. I suppose that shouldn't affect me, and I greeted him with respect…" Sai was referring to a person not known to Hideyasu contextually, "But I feel like…so many people still dismiss me, or don't understand me. I've tried to change myself. And no matter what I do, I'll never be acceptable to him."

"Why do you want to be?" There was a smile in Mashu's voice, "Who cares what Danzo-sama thinks of you? He is an awful sounding-board. He's the patriarch of my clan, and when I was young he used to tell me I was a slacker who would never amount to anything. I've polished myself and worked hard, that's what I did."

"You have." Sai acknowledged. Hideyasu could hear admiration in the young man's voice.

"And Captain Yamato thinks I can always be relied upon. Sai, sometimes the only way to know your worth is to let go of the old way you used to see yourself. Your old standards and benchmarks. You can't look back to Danzo-sama and expect to gauge your value that way." Mashu explained.

"Ah." Sai said thoughtfully, "You're probably right."

Hideyasu was grinning while he eavesdropped. What cute young ANBU operatives! So supportive of one another.

"This is going to be a long watch." Mashu determined, "Want to come up with some nicknames together?"

"It's what we do best." Sai believed.

Hideyasu's long hair nearly curled upon hearing that.

Some names that were thrown around: The Blue Dragonfly, Wisteria Cuckoo, Shambler, Tiger Lady…

'Oh boy.' Hideyasu toddled back inside for that drink of water, and some more sleep.

---

Note: Quarantine struggles are real, ugh. My brain fought me tooth and nail not to get this done, but we made it. Your comments are appreciated and I hope you are all faring well!

Chapter 60- Naruto, At Your Service!