-Earlier-
-Stone Garden of Roaring Tranquility-
-Sanji, Nami, Brook, Franky, and Law-
Sometimes it seemed as though the problem with Luffy was that his sense of timing was so perfectly balanced. For every time he appeared out of nowhere to save the day there seemed to be a corresponding time when he did the perfectly wrong thing at the perfectly wrong moment. In this case, he had screwed all of his companions by turning and running for the exit the very instant that Kakuzu had begun splitting himself into pieces.
Kakuzu discarded his red-cloud cloak with one grand motion and then promptly ripped his joints apart, thread bursting through the seams in wriggling clouds that coalesced into horrid black shapes. As Sanji and Nami watched in disbelief, there now stood before them two black monsters, one wearing a red mask and the other wearing a green one. Including Kakuzu and Hidan themselves, that brought the total number of Akatsuki fighters to four.
And then Luffy had up and disappeared, leaving Law, Sanji, Nami, Franky, and Brook behind to fight as they shouted after him in irate fury.
Law, in particular, had rarely been so confused in his entire life. What could have caused one of their most powerful fighters to just abandon the plan and chase after the others? The lone pirate surgeon grit his teeth as he reassessed the odds. They didn't look good.
Then Kakuzu made a quick series of hand gestures that seemed to fill the two masked beasts with energy.
"Kill them," ordered Kakuzu.
The two beasts slid to each side with inhuman motions to surround their prey. Twin blasts of wind and fire exploded forth, and Sanji countered with a spinning kick that summoned a wall of flame. The pirate's fire intercepted the blast of wind, dashing it to pieces and gaining strength in the process, but the fire-beast's flames bore down on them unaffected, nearly catching Nami in the fringes of the explosion as she fled for safety.
Seeing Sanji's incoming fire attack, Kakuzu himself slid into place in front of his wind-heart and summoned a wall of stone that burst from underneath the sand. When the fire hit the wall, its ferocity fused sand to the rock, but did not break through.
Another gesture from Kakuzu and the wind-heart dashed away, retreating towards where Law, Hidan, Franky, and Brook were fighting, and Law watched its approach with a calculating eye. Whatever rules their freakish ninja magic obeyed it seemed as though the green-masked beast was a poor opponent for Sanji. But, if any of Kakuzu's creations were able to team up with Hidan they would be able to launch high-powered area attacks with impunity, trusting in Hidan's regeneration to see him through. Clearly, that couldn't be allowed.
He glanced over to Franky and Brook, who were exchanging insults and injury in equal measure with the Akatsuki regenerator. "You two, keep this guy busy," he ordered. "I'll keep the rest of them in check."
Then he darted towards the incoming beast, tremendous nodachi held at the ready. He might as well not have said anything; the other fighters hadn't even been paying attention.
Roughly a hundred feet away from Kakuzu, dancing atop the stones and sand, Brook and Franky dueled with Hidan. For the most part, Brook was evasive, darting back and forth and doing his best to bait the Akatsuki zealot like a bullfighter while Franky attacked from long range, but Hidan was still frighteningly fast. He had already landed several hits on the skeleton and the only thing that was keeping Brook from being pinned down and overwhelmed was Franky's long-range support. This had, understandably, begun to piss Hidan off.
"You shitheads can't fight me one on one so you've gotta gang up on me, huh?" tried Hidan. "Got no blood either! What, no pride in your skills?"
"Pride?" laughed Franky, as he laid down a volley of suppressive fire from his weaponized arm. "Sure thing, man! I'm proud of how badly we're kicking your freaky ass."
The regenerator spun his scythe to block a storm of the incoming bullets before turning to intercept a sword strike from Brook, shoving back at the skeleton with enough force to send the lighter man flying away. Hidan took several bullets to the chest from the momentary distraction. When they failed to do anything more than make him wince in pain, Hidan followed up with a smirk.
"Kick my ass?" said Hidan, patting his regenerating flesh that was even now extruding each bullet he'd been hit with. "You shits haven't done jack to me. My dedication and sacrifice to the Great God Jashin has made me immortal! I'll never die to wimps like you!"
Brook stood back up, brushing himself off as he did so. "Oh, I was wondering what that healing was, but it was simply too awkward to ask you about it. You're a priest, then. I hope you're not trying to... convert me…?"
Hidan gave the skeleton an odd look. "Huh? Convert… Why would I-"
"You see," elaborated Brook, staring at Hidan with empty eye-sockets, "-I'm already immortal."
Hidan blinked. "...You-"
"Yes, that's correct," nodded Brook, agreeing with words the man hadn't actually said. "I have died and been reborn!"
"But-"
"Indeed. We have more in common than you might think! My dedication and sacrifice saved me as well!"
Franky, who had been taking advantage of the pause in the fight to reload his heavier built-in weaponry, raised an eyebrow. "Dedication? Didn't you just eat a dumb Devil Fruit? What's so dedicated about that?"
Brook coughed. "Yes, well, it was quite the ill-tasting fruit, you understand."
Hidan's mouth opened and closed.
"And as for sacrifices," continued Brook, "-I had to give up so many of my biological functions. Oh, it's so horrible living without them!"
"Uh-huh," said Franky. "Like what? Name one."
There was a pause in the conversation punctuated only by the sound of fire and battle from the other side of the room.
"...Farting?" asked Brook. Literally a second later, the skeleton broke wind with a force that ruffled his coattails. He continued onward regardless, a blush coloring his bones. "Look, I'm sorry! You put me on the spot and I just said the first thing that came to mind! It's just that I think that some of that milk might have gone just the slightest bit-"
Without warning, Hidan's scythe exploded into movement. The moment it left his hand it arced towards Brook in the space of a single breath. Brook hurried to raise his blade and blocked only part of the three-tiered scythe. Though he avoided the cutting edge, his thin body slipped between the blades which let the haft strike him like a flying hammer. A small crack on impact announced fracturing bone, but Brook let the weapon lift him off the ground with its weight. He flew through the air before dropping lightly to the ground, barely in time to duck underneath the next circling up, he charged, dashing straight towards Hidan while dancing nimbly above and below the spiraling scythe. With his fleshless body he skimmed atop the sand at speeds no other combatant could match.
He had just landed from a bone-light handspring when he noticed a flash of light at his feet. He looked down. A burning piece of paper peeked out from under the sand. Eye-sockets widening, Brook leapt off the ground again just an instant before the explosive tag detonated. The explosion sent him flying into the air in a blast of concussive force. Stunned and wounded, he recovered his senses just in time to see the scythe slicing towards him in a trajectory he couldn't possibly evade while airborne.
The sound of cannon fire signaled Franky's return to the fight as a blast of flak knocked the scythe off-course into a wild spiral. Hidan screamed with frustration as Brook landed in a roll, dashing away to tend to his wounds.
"Blasphemous perversions of nature!" shouted Hidan, struggling to regain control of his weapon. "You'll be punished for modifying your body, cyborg freak!"
"Hey, chill out, buddy!" Franky laughed. "At least skeleton-man didn't say he gave up 'boners,' am I right?"
Growling with rage, Hidan let loose his scythe once more, swinging its cord out in a large arc that Franky saw coming a mile away. Stepping inwards, the cyborg caught the braided metal cord in both hands, ignoring the sharp spikes that slid out of the metal as they sent sparks shooting off of his armored gauntlets. Franky continued his merciless taunting unabated as he anchored the flying weapon in place.
"You really need to relax! It's super not good to freak out at your age, old man!"
Hidan grunted, pulling fruitlessly against the much heavier cyborg. "I'm like, barely past twenty, asshole!"
Franky clicked his tongue, shaking his head in pity. "Grey hair in your youth? Man, that makes it way worse! 'Cause you know what comes next, right? Male pattern baldness!"
Something in the scythe's cord clicked and whirred as Hidan engaged a so-far unused mechanism. Franky jerked in surprise as the chain he was holding violently retracted without warning, sending Hidan flying towards the cyborg at high speed.
Franky resisted the urge to drop the chain leashing him to the madman, instead swinging it around in a two-handed throw that was intended to send Hidan flying off into the distance. Unfortunately, Hidan kicked off the ground in a last-second acrobatic maneuver that perfectly countered the intended throw. He soared through the air in a vertical semicircle that dropped him behind his target, then released the chain and sprinted forward, stabbing with his hand-spear that Franky barely dodged in time. Franky dropped the scythe's cable and moments later they were grappled onto each other, brute strength versus mechanical might.
"You fucker!" screamed Hidan, bearing down on his opponent. In his rage, he had let Franky grab both of his arms, but somehow Hidan was still pushing forward. "You think you're funny?! You think you're safe from me just because you've got no blood in you?! You're nothing but a dickless piece of shit!"
"Dickless?!" guffawed Franky, thrusting his pelvis in a threatening manner. "Oh, man, you don't want any of what I've got, holy man! If your so-called 'god' throws a fit about arm-cannons then boy have I got a treat for him down here!"
Hidan's expression darkened, but Franky kept going.
"Why don't you bring this deity of yours down from on high so I can show him a real miracle, huh?! I've never given a god a heart attack before, but hey, there's a first time for everything!"
"DIE!" screamed the zealot, flecks of spittle shooting from his mouth and onto Franky's face. "DIE, DIE, DIE!"
His strength exploded, bearing down on the cyborg with crushing force. Franky winced in pain as the mechanisms in his arms began to groan from the effort. Already one of Hidan's hands was inching its way towards his throat.
"Geez, take a joke, will you?" growled Franky. "Like I have time in my schedule this week to start wrestling with sweaty cultists. Get… the hell… off of me!"
He shoved, dropping one of Hidan's arms to deliver a colossal right hook straight to the jaw. It connected with a sickening sound, steel hammer to cracking bone and teeth, but it didn't dislodge his opponent, who twisted in a way that was probably impossible for anyone who hadn't dislocated their joints hundreds of times before. Now Hidan had Franky's forearms in his grip, and the tables had turned entirely.
Hidan spat out an incisor and gave a nasty gap-toothed grin that was already regenerating. He cackled. "Aww, finally taking this seriously?! You're gonna need to hit me a lot harder than that if you wanna make me feel it, big guy!"
"Funny," sneered Franky, "-that's just what your momma was saying to me last night!"
A vein popped in Hidan's forehead and his sneer turned to rage. "MY MOTHER WAS A SAINT!"
"Hah! Not after I was done with- Ow, ow, ow!"
Franky's arm buckled under the force of Hidan's grip. The sound of metal plating crumpling and giving way to superhuman finger strength was followed shortly thereafter by the cyborg's cry of pain.
"Holy crap," winced Franky, aware his opponent had finally snapped. "You're the real deal, aren't you?"
Abruptly, Hidan's other arm shot upward, clutching the large cyborg's throat and lifting the massive man off the ground. In the background, Brook, who had been preparing to resume the attack, froze. He watched helplessly as Franky struggled to regain his freedom. Franky punched and scrabbled with his free arm, to little effect.
"Ohhh yeah," sneered Hidan, shrugging off the frantic hits as if they barely bothered him. "You'd better believe I'm the real fucking deal. And you know what time it is?"
The Akatsuki murderer slipped his free hand into his tattered sleeve and came out holding a slip of paper. Franky's defiant glare abruptly dropped from his face when he saw the explosive sigils inscribed upon it.
"It's time to find out just how tough that fucking armor of yours really is," hissed Hidan, staring directly into Franky's eyes as the seal began to burn.
Franky struggled to draw breath, trying desperately to claw himself loose from Hidan's deathless grip. It didn't seem to be working.
"A sinner always thinks they can avoid retribution," chuckled Hidan, "-but the truth comes to all unbelievers in the end."
All of a sudden, Franky's panicked expression turned into a toothy smirk.
Hidan narrowed his eyes and glanced downward. Franky's injured forearm was expanding rapidly, the buckled metal ballooning outward with popping noises as air pressure built catastrophically inside Franky's built-in blast chamber. Hidan's eyes went wide, and Franky grinned.
"Adios… dickhead," gasped the cyborg.
[COUP DE-]
Hidan dropped his grip and dashed backwards just as everything went wrong. Instead of blasting air out of the aperture in his palm, Franky's injured arm exploded from the rocketing air pressure. The shockwave hit them like a hammer, sending both fighters flying in opposite directions in a cloud of shrapnel. Franky, far heavier, flew low to the ground before hitting the sand and kicking up a huge furrow. Hidan soared up and away through the air, stunned by the impact.
Then, the explosive seal in Hidan's hand performed its intended function.
The blast wave washed over the room. Smoke billowed forth in an expansive cloud that quickly covered the ground. Debris that might or might not originally have been a part of Hidan showered down over the sand as they watched. Elsewhere, the fight against Kakuzu paused for a moment as everyone stood stunned by the sudden explosions.
"Shit," muttered Franky, spitting out sand as he examined the ragged wreckage of his arm. "That's gonna leave a mark… Gonna have to rebuild that… Didn't expect to catch him in his own blast, though."
"Do you think we killed him?" asked Brook. "I rather hope so. I think I'll go over and make sure, just to be safe."
"What, after an explosion like that? That would've put a hole in a battleship, man. The guy's done for."
"I think I would prefer it if we-"
The noise of Kakuzu roaring in anger brought him to silence.
"Hidan, stop playing around and kill these clowns!"
Their stomachs dropped out from under them, and then the smoke began to clear. Hidan, warped, burnt, and bloody, staggered out into view, cracking his neck as his flesh knitted back together. If anything, he looked calm, though it was difficult to say whether he had found the explosion therapeutic or if he had simply reached a new and transcendent plateau of rage.
"Ah man," remarked Hidan, as genially as if he were speaking about the weather, "I fucking hate it out on this ocean. I really do. Never before have two huge losers like you pissed me off this much."
Something about his expression made Brook and Franky go white as a sheet. Especially Brook. Hidan nodded quietly and then hefted the short spear he had used before in one hand.
"You know what?" he asked. "Everyone out here's always talking about the wonder of exploration and adventure or some shit, but I've never really seen the point. Until right now. Now… I'm thinking… I'm thinking I'm gonna stab this thing right into each of your eyeballs and explore how we both feel about it. That seems like a pretty cool kind of adventure to me right about-"
Something caught Hidan's attention, interrupting his sentence. He looked down at the spear in his hand. There was a streak of blood smeared over the tip. He stared at it for a moment, eyes narrowed as if he wasn't sure of what he was seeing, and then raised his gaze to pierce the distant figure of Franky.
Franky's blood froze in his remaining veins. He patted himself down in confusion before reaching his back, where Hidan had first attacked him in the melee. A small score in his side dripped red fluid.
"Oh, give me a break," said Franky.
"Y-you're hurt," said Brook.
"Alright, so," began Franky, looking distinctly worried. "-remind me again how this blood thing works?"
"You're boned now, freak!" yelled Hidan, raising the bloody spear to his lips.
Just before it reached his mouth, Trafalgar Law landed nearby. The barrier of his operating room widened until it washed over Hidan's position. A swipe of Law's room-severing sword caught the distracted zealot off-guard, slicing one arm off before he could dodge to the side. Anticipating further attacks, Hidan somersaulted backwards, watching the doctor's movements carefully for any more sign of his invisible blades, but instead Law raised two fingers in an odd motion.
[ROOM: STERILIZE]
There was a swift sharp noise that seemed to come from nowhere at all, and then the blood on Hidan's hand and spear simply disappeared. The man boggled, looking down at his suddenly clean weapon in shock.
"Sorry if this offends your religious sensibilities," stated Law, "-but I won't tolerate blood dirtying my operating theatre."
Hidan said nothing, trembling with rage. Brook and Franky quickly ran over towards Law's position.
"Thanks for the save, Doc," said Franky.
"Don't mention it," muttered Law, readying his sword.
In one mighty leap, Kakuzu slammed into the stones beside Hidan. There was barely a pause before innumerable black threads wormed their way from Kakuzu's body, grabbing Hidan's arm and sewing it back onto his stump. In seconds it was fully functional once more. Then, no longer blocked by Law's area denial, the two heart-beasts slid into place behind the two Akatsuki killers. Sanji and Nami rushed to follow after them, but it was too late. Their opponents had finally managed to join forces.
"Really," said Law, voice low as he surveyed the seemingly unharmed fighters arrayed against them, "-don't mention it..."
Kakuzu stared across at the three of them while his strings repaired his damaged partner. He seemed calmer than he had been before as well, contrasting nicely with Hidan's barely-controlled fury.
"Playtime is over," declared Kakuzu. "We've had enough of your frivolous sparring. You've done admirably to keep us separated, but now that we're fighting together you don't stand a chance."
"Oh yeah?" asked Franky, still nursing his broken arm.
"Indeed," said Kakuzu. "I may spit on the concept of teamwork, but if there's one thing I know for sure about my partner here it's that he can take whatever I throw at him."
Hidan cracked his knuckles, and Kakuzu continued.
"Let me assure you that your comedic antics won't carry you any further." He grinned, the motion subtly shifting the cloth mask covering the lower half of his face. "From here on out, things are about to get much… more… serious."
A sharp crack echoed through the room as the doors to the inner sanctum burst open, followed by the crash made by a screaming rubber-man colliding with a boulder so violently that it split in half. Stone shards rained down on the room, and then Luffy staggered from the dust cloud, coughing and heaving. The assembled fighters watched Luffy's unexpected arrival with a wide range of emotions.
Sanji chuckled, letting out a small sigh of relief before smirking at Kakuzu. "You maybe wanna rethink that last line?" he asked.
The wonderful thing about Luffy was that his sense of timing was so damn perfect.
"Luffy!" yelled Nami. "Thank god you're back! What happened?"
"Gack! Ptooie!" spat Luffy, coughing up gravel as he rose out of the cloud of rock dust. "Ugh, I just got punched by some weird ninja who came out of a coffin! I never even met the guy and he tried to kill me!"
Kakuzu narrowed his eyes, carefully appraising the new arrival. "One of Orochimaru's pet Hokage, then. Clearly you're more impervious to damage than I would have guessed..."
Sanji shook his head in annoyance. "Alright, Luffy. I dunno what possessed you to go running off like that, but now that you're here, you- HEY! Where the hell do you think you're going again?!"
Luffy dusted himself off, gave a friendly little wave, and then resumed running for the exit. "I gotta save Ace! I'll be back in a little bit!"
"You've gotta save us first!" cried Nami.
"Don't worry!" shouted Luffy. "I know you guys can win this! Just- whoa!"
Whatever Luffy was going to say was interrupted when both of Kakuzu's hearts twisted and writhed, exploding with energy as they fired twin blasts of fire and wind in Luffy's path. He dodged the mighty explosions, leaping all the way up to the ceiling and rebounding with a springy noise. When the smoke cleared, he had barely lost any speed at all on his path towards the exit.
Kakuzu scowled and motioned to the two heart-beasts. Refocusing their attacks, they widened their Ninjutsu into great streams that cut across the room in an effort to catch the wildly evading Luffy. The new attacks were just as ineffective as the previous efforts had been.
Kakuzu cursed before glaring at Hidan. "Kill this lot," he ordered. "I'll be back with their captain."
Then he disappeared, charging away after Luffy as he left Hidan behind with the heart-beasts.
Hidan shook his head, cursing under his breath. "That money-grubbing old sinner can't stop hunting bounties for even one damn second, can he?! We're gonna be as powerful as gods at the end of this! We don't need to be chasing every fucking coin we see!"
He turned to the rest of them. The wind and fire hearts bracketed his position, practically glowing with energy.
"Ah well," mused Hidan. "So much to kill, so little time. Better get started quick before he finishes off your captain, huh?"
Kakuzu bounded across the battlefield with superhuman speed that surpassed anything they had seen so far. Every step he took seemed to launch him forward as the sand and stones themselves responded to his movements. He moved with the complete assurance of an earth element Ninjutsu master.
The world of high-level shinobi combat was a game of meticulous counter-play. As a result, there were few who could survive for long without a wide array of tricks, which forced anyone who wished to attain mastery to diversify, embracing techniques and elemental jutsu that they had less affinity to than they might like. The alternative was being caught out by a ninja who had thoroughly practiced all of the many ways to shut you down. Normally this kind of generalized training wouldn't be a problem, except that any shinobi had to train for years just to raise unfamiliar elements to the level that they were useful in combat.
Kakuzu had no such problem. His forbidden technique, Earth Grudge Fear, had transformed his very essence into that of dark strings controlled by his chakra. It allowed him to steal the organs and chakra system of other warriors and use them as his own, performing master-level Ninjutsu in every element without the brutal training that would have been normally required. Of course, the fact that he was more than ninety years old with a body composed of the hale and hearty pieces of his far younger victims didn't hurt matters either.
All-in-all, he would be surprised if there was any other ninja on earth with more experience than he had.
Kakuzu considered the distant rubber-man carefully as he prepared his attack. He clapped his hands together and landed hard on both feet, the impact sending strange shockwaves across the room. A second later, an earthen rampart shot out of the ground in front of Luffy. The pirate shouted in surprise, leaping into the air to avoid crashing. Then, the ground where Luffy would be landing transformed into a field of wicked spikes. Luffy's shocked surprise turned into terror before he contorted his body, reflexively folding in between the impromptu spears. It took him a moment, but he extricated himself unharmed and resumed fleeing the area.
It was too late. Kakuzu had used the time well and was now nearly caught up.
"Straw-Hat Luffy!" he roared.
Luffy looked backwards, dodging a pitfall that opened up beneath him with instinctive ease. "Huh?! Who the hell are you?! What's with that face-mask?"
"Running away from your team, are you?" he taunted, ignoring the question.
"What, them? They can handle themselves!"
"Oh, you don't know the trouble they're in! They were relying on you to save the day, and instead they're all going to die in pain!"
Kakuzu laughed, rumbling like a volcano as he surged forth like a lava flow. "I've heard about you. Straw-Hat. The 'fearsome' pirate. Always running off into danger and leaving your companions to clean up your mess. Hah! I'm surprised you didn't die the last time we saw each other."
"What are you talking about?! I've never seen you before in my life!"
The man's laughter exploded into full bloom. "Oh, but you have! You have! In fact, why don't I show you..."
There was an explosion of smoke as Kakuzu transformed. When Luffy looked over his shoulder again he saw the unmistakable form of his brother, Ace, sneering back at him.
"W-wha?!"
"You know," said Kakuzu, now speaking in Ace's voice, "-I still don't know what connection you have to this trash. None of the intel we collected on Fire-Fist indicated any sort of a connection to the Straw-Hats. But you just make it so easy to figure out when you scream his name again and again!"
Bit by bit, Luffy slowed his headlong rush for the exit until they had both stopped completely. He turned to face the assassin with confusion written over his face. Kakuzu continued talking, stance lowering for battle.
"That's right. We hunted him down. Our plan wouldn't work unless we attacked the Nobility. We had to draw the truly powerful mobile forces away from the capital, you see. Any one of us could have wreaked enough havoc to make that happen, but we wouldn't want people blaming us, right? That's the kind of thing that gets people after your head, after all."
Luffy's expression darkened. "You did this?! You attacked those people and then blamed it on Ace?!"
"Oh, I did much more than that. After we stole him away, I guarded him, watched him, studied him, all to make sure that my disguise would be perfect when it was time to pin the blame."
Back with the rest of the Straw-Hats, Kakuzu's hearts summoned a crawling bloom of flame that warmed the air even as far away as this. Kakuzu grinned, wearing Ace's face and tipping his hat. "So… how did you like my Fire-Fist Ace impression?" he said. "I'm a wannabe wimp who's gonna die because he couldn't run with the big boys!"
Luffy's fist shot out but failed to connect as Kakuzu dodged, laughing, to the side.
"Well at least you're not one of those trash that can't bring themselves to hit someone who looks like a friend," said Kakuzu, ceasing his transformation and returning to his normal form.
Luffy had completely abandoned his retreat into the temple now. He had frozen in place.
"So… it was you," said Luffy, lowering his stance. When he looked up, his eyes were cold, but his body had begun to steam. "You were right about one thing. Ace is my brother. But you're wrong if you think I was just worried about rescuing him..."
"Oh?" Kakuzu raised an eyebrow at the young man's glowing red skin. There had been a fair bit that he had heard about Straw-Hat's combat ability, but that hadn't been part of it. "Don't care whether he lives or dies, huh?"
Luffy shook his head. "I wanna see him alright, but it doesn't need to be me that makes it happen. I trust everyone else to save Ace. Naruto, Sasuke… I know they can handle it even if I'm not there… But what I really want to do myself is to beat the crap out of the people who took him here in the first place!"
He disappeared in an explosion of sand. Kakuzu spun around, eyes crinkled with amusement as he blocked the first punch. Fist struck forearm with a resounding noise, but dealt no damage. Then Luffy was gone. Kakuzu glanced left and right, following Luffy's astonishing movements with only some difficulty. Slowly, he began to laugh.
"Well, you're quick, at least," he said, grinning with malice. "It was a pity I couldn't turn in Fire-Fist's immense bounty… but I think I can settle for yours instead."
Luffy dashed inward, and Kakuzu took the punch to the chest as if it hadn't bothered him, responding with a devastating gut blow that sent the rubber-man rocketing backwards.
"Tough, too," remarked Kakuzu. "Not that I expected anything less."
Luffy skidded to a halt in the sand, totally unharmed. "I'm just getting started!" he said. "If you think you're gonna hurt me with hits like that then you're out of luck!"
"Oh, I know," said Kakuzu. "Believe me, I know."
Abruptly, Kakuzu's body shuddered and the indentation that Luffy's fist had made disappeared as if it had never been there in the first place.
"Wha?" asked Luffy.
"You look surprised," remarked Kakuzu, rotating his arm and stretching the relevant chest muscles. "But not nearly as surprised as you'll be in a moment."
He exploded forward, instantly approaching Luffy's speed on the sand by the simple fact that the sand supported his weight as if it were solid stone. One moment his fist was raised for a strike to the head, and in the next moment he dropped low, sweeping Luffy's feet out from under him. Luffy fell, only narrowly avoiding a brutal slam attack that would have buried him beneath the ground. One rubber hand flickered away to grab a distant boulder, and with a pliant stretch, Luffy flew away.
Or he would have, if Kakuzu's arm hadn't separated at the elbow, stretched several feet in an instant, and grabbed onto Luffy's foot. Luffy gawked in surprise to see the man mimic his rubber nature. At the gap in the man's arm there was nothing at all except wriggling black strings.
"Get back here, trash," growled Kakuzu, wrenching Luffy and boulder both as he tried to pull the rubber-man back into the melee. "I've seen this kind of amateurish style a hundred times before. This overconfidence. This martial arrogance."
The boulder gave way first. It uprooted from the ground and flew towards Kakuzu like a pellet from a slingshot. He deftly avoided it at the very same time as he elbow-smashed Luffy into the sand.
"You've had this rubber ability of yours since before you learned to fight, haven't you? You've lost the ability to properly recognize your own weaknesses," he said. He slammed his foot down, summoning a sharp stalagmite from the ground below Luffy's heart that Luffy barely dodged in time. Luffy pushed off the ground, kicking Kakuzu with both feet, but all it did was push in his string-supported chest like he was making an indentation in a foam rubber ball. Kakuzu grabbed his feet and tossed him contemptuously away.
"Unable to even recognize…" he began. Again, the wound wriggled and twisted until it had regained its former, unharmed state. "-when you've run into a predator of a higher order!"
Kakuzu pressed his hands together, and a spire of stone appeared before him. Luffy, seeing an opportunity, whipped a leg across the distance between them to interrupt whatever attack the Akatsuki fighter had planned. It was, alas, too late. Kakuzu's palm struck the spire a single time, shattering it into a blasting cloud of stone needles, each one so perfect it couldn't have been anything other than magic. Eyes widening in shock, Luffy stopped his kick in an effort to jump out of the way, but the edge of the deadly stone cloud still caught him. Needles pierced his skin in several places over his body. Luffy grit his teeth in midair, all the while protecting his face from damage.
He uncovered his eyes, and Kakuzu wasn't there. Some animal instinct made him twist his body like an aerial limbo dancer just in time to avoid a slashing knife that cut through the air with barely a whisper. It didn't help him dodge the next kick that smote Luffy to the ground in a meteoric cratering strike.
Luffy rose from the ground coughing up sand. Kakuzu landed nearby.
"It makes a silly sort of sense," said the ninja. "You wouldn't believe the kind of worthless courage I've seen in my life from shinobi who possess something they'd call a true trump card. Any ability that lets them punch far above their weight class makes them feel truly invulnerable. It's even worse with those that have so-called 'perfect defenses.'"
Kakuzu was approaching, his entire body seeming to be held together by nothing more than those horrible black strings. He must have stood eight feet tall now, with correspondingly long limbs and torso, but he still advanced like a human, eyes fixed on his prey.
"But, as a result, trash like you never learn to properly assess just how much you're outclassed by your foes… So you keep fighting anything that moves, going after more and more powerful opponents, trusting in your Devil Fruit to protect you…"
Luffy was ready this time. Kakuzu disappeared, practically teleporting across the sand with fist raised. Luffy blocked the first strike, counter-punching immediately, but the hit was shrugged off as Kakuzu kept up the attack. Once again he slipped inside Luffy's defenses and began brutally pummeling him.
"-Until the moment-" *SLAM* "-you find an opponent that just," *SLAM* "-doesn't-" *SLAM* "-give a damn!"
A vicious uppercut sent the rubber-man flying into the air just long enough for Kakuzu to snatch him with one thread-extended hand and pummel him to the ground in a calamitous strike. A knife appeared in his hand as if by magic, and he thrust it downwards, only narrowly missing due to Luffy's frantic evasion. Luffy shot out of the melee at high-speed, but Kakuzu was already chasing him.
"I'm stronger than you!" yelled Kakuzu. "I'm faster than you! I stretch like you! I control the very elements themselves! And if you think you can punch string hard enough to hurt me then feel free to waste your time!"
"Geez, you're annoying!" yelled Luffy, ripping the last of the stone needles from his skin as he evaded wildly. "Is everyone in Akatsuki as crazy as you?!
"You don't know the half of it!"
They clashed violently, strike after strike being exchanged as they danced across the room. Every hit Luffy landed was shrugged off, often with laughter, and in return Kakuzu would score bloody lines in Luffy's skin. The landscape was not doing Straw-Hat any favors, either; Kakuzu's mastery of Earth Ninjutsu would form boulders, walls, and sharp spires out of nothing at all, hemming in Luffy's movements as the battle progressed. The sand resisted his movement while helping his opponent.
Eventually, Luffy's strength began to waver. The telltale red glow of Gear Second started to dim, and Kakuzu caught up to him a second later.
Both arms shot forward, his forearms propelled upon a storm of black string, and they grabbed onto Luffy's torso. Immediately upon contact, more and more string poured forth from the gaps, clawing and wrapping itself around Luffy like grasping vines. Straw-Hat struggled onward until he tripped and fell, at which point Kakuzu fell upon him, a wolf feasting upon fallen prey.
"Pathetic," said Kakuzu, staring down at the string-bound Luffy with disdain as strings from all over his body continued to wrap him into submission. "You may be appropriately tough, but your technique leaves much to be desired." He chuckled, appearing to ponder the matter further. "Though that Devil Fruit of yours isn't half-bad… I wonder what would happen if I took pieces from your body. Your heart might be useless to me, but would your legs retain their properties if I cut them off and took them as my own?"
He chuckled. "Well, we can always try and see what happens, hmm? Your bounty never specified you needed to be intact, after all."
Luffy wasn't laughing. Slowly, he exhaled a deep breath, and a shudder ran through his overheated muscles. He opened his mouth, then inhaled.
[GOMU-GOMU: JET BALLOON]
If each of Luffy's normal attacks had been enhanced to superhuman levels by his use of Gear Second, then this explosive inhalation was like a point-blank inverse-hurricane. His lungs pulled in air at a catastrophic rate, stretching him to a far larger size than normal in one fell swoop. At that moment, every single string that Kakuzu had wrapped around his trapped foe was stretched far beyond safe limits.
"GRAAAHHH!" screamed Kakuzu, roaring in pain as he suddenly found himself adorning the sides of Luffy's balloon-form like a ragged scarf stretched around a morbidly obese man. He had, in fact, been stretched to such absurd lengths that the stitching holding the many independent pieces of his body together tugged, tore, and in some places snapped. In one instant he had become a tortured soul laid upon the rack, his body stretched past the breaking point.
Then, nearly as quickly as it had begun, Luffy let out all his stored air in one fantastic breath. The two of them soared back and forth through the air, spraying up sand as they flew here and there. They collided with the ground and with the ceiling, Kakuzu's enraged yells being drowned out by the rocket-engine noise of Luffy's deflating balloon-form.
Finally, shrinking back to normal size, Luffy extricated himself from the strings as they both plummeted to the ground.
Luffy spent a moment coughing up sand and getting his bearings. Eventually he located his fallen foe.
Kakuzu unfolded from the ground, his motions temporarily too inhuman to be called standing up. Chunks of his body were torn and red at the edges; the black strings that stitched them together struggled to force everything back into place, revealing horrifying cracks in the skin that had previously kept him looking like a real human being. No longer, however. As Luffy got unsteadily back to his feet he saw Kakuzu's body reforming out of its component pieces. It put one in mind of a person reassembling a jigsaw puzzle. In all of this nightmarish horror, however, there was one thing that stood out.
Right before the last pieces of his torso slid back into the correct position, Luffy could see a large, black, wriggling mass of string encasing the area where his heart should be. Then it was pulled back out of sight as Kakuzu stood up, looking significantly worse for wear as he continued to repair as much damage as possible. He sighed.
"Of course it would be something as ridiculously stupid as a rubber party balloon that does me harm today. If there's one thing I'm in agreement with my partner on it's that I truly despise this ocean. Let's just get this over with… oh?"
Kakuzu narrowed his eyes. Luffy was watching him like a hawk. His reddened and steaming skin had returned full force, and there was no trace of his earlier unfocused energy.
"Oh, you're actually paying attention now, are you? Finally sunk in just how much trouble you're in, I suppose…"
Luffy said nothing, his eyes roaming over the ninja's body.
Kakuzu shook his head. "Fine. If it keeps you from trying any more silly tricks then feel free to do your worst."
He stomped the ground, kicking up a wave of sand that obscured vision and tore towards Luffy before causing an eruption of stone. Luffy dodged to the right, narrowly avoiding jagged rock shrapnel as he regained sight of Kakuzu sprinting straight for him.
When Kakuzu was just approaching melee range once more, Luffy leapt into the air, one leg raised for a vicious rubber axe kick. Kakuzu raised his arms to defend himself, but Straw-Hat swiftly redirected his target to a featureless patch of sand dozens of feet away. Right before his heel struck the earth, the real Kakuzu dove out of the way of the attack, emerging from the sand he had taken the opportunity to hide underneath while Luffy's sight had been obscured. Once Luffy had landed, he tossed a scowl towards the true Kakuzu.
"I know you ninjas like to play around with copies…" he stated with unusual calm, "-but none of that is gonna work on me. If you really wanna stop playing around, then quit it."
The clone disappeared. Kakuzu finally looked properly angry. He stared back with simmering rage and then launched into an attack.
The two of them disappeared. Fighting resumed in earnest at high speed across the sand and stones. Luffy and Kakuzu exchanged hits every time they collided, and Kakuzu summoned murderous stones from the ground. Spikes, walls, abrading sand, and slicing guillotine stones erupted all over this side of the room. Though Luffy, rapidly accumulating cuts and bleeding wounds, landed many hits, nothing seemed to stick.
After nearly two minutes of this, Luffy jumped up into the air only to be spiked like a volleyball back to the ground. Straw-Hat landed in a stone reflecting pond with a watery explosion that scattered spray all around him. Kakuzu landed some distance away, dampened by the shower, and turned to face his opponent.
Luffy had gone to his hands and knees in the pool, breathing hard as the steam from Gear Second left him completely. He dunked his head beneath the surface and sucked. The sound of violent suction filled the air, and Kakuzu narrowed his eyes.
"What do you think you're doing?" he asked.
Luffy continued pulling in water until he had become completely spherical, balancing on his face inside the pool. The water level dropped lower and lower until all of it had disappeared into Luffy's greedy maw. Then Luffy rotated awkwardly around until he was facing in the right direction and blasted it forward.
[GOMU-GOMU: WATER GUN]
If the intent of this action was to be an attack, it clearly wasn't very effective. Luffy sprayed the water at high intensity in Kakuzu's direction, but couldn't even keep his direction stable considering his wobbly, spherical shape. The Akatsuki warrior slid effortlessly out of the way, looking for all the world as though he wasn't sure if he should be offended or fascinated by the watery attempt on his life. By the time Luffy had expelled enough water to begin aiming properly, Kakuzu was already well prepared to dodge, which meant that Luffy hit absolutely everything in the area except Kakuzu, thoroughly drenching the formerly well-tended sand.
When the water finally ran out, Luffy took a deep breath and staggered out onto the wet sand while Kakuzu looked increasingly offended.
"Is this your idea of a joke?" asked Kakuzu. "Some childish imitation of water Ninjutsu? What exactly did you hope to accomplish with that?"
If anything, Luffy ignored this question entirely. He stepped forward further, his expression completely calm as his breath settled.
"Well, I think I've got you pretty much figured out," said Luffy, dropping back down into a squat. Muscles pulsed and moved through both legs, and his body began to overheat once more. "You're not really a human at all anymore, are you…? You're just a big ball of string and stuff, like those other things over there..."
Kakuzu snorted. "That's your big revelation? That should have been obvious to anyone with a brain by now, but I suppose you're no analytical genius, are you. The flesh that I've taken from others is bound together by string that I can control at a thought." He shifted in place. "Enough of this. Let's get this charade over with quickly."
Luffy just nodded. "Yeah, I think I can manage that."
Off in the distance, the other Straw-Hats and Law continued to fight together against the two heart-beasts and Hidan. Heat shimmered over the battlefield, and the fierce fighting kicked up clouds of blackened sand, fused into chunks of warped glass as Sanji tested his flames against those of his foes. Kakuzu laughed.
"Oh-hoh! You think so, do you…? That's a hell of a boast. Maybe I'd pay your threats a bit more attention if you had managed to hurt me at all, but as it is…"
Kakuzu lunged forward, covering the distance between them with the same speed he had shown the entire fight. When he was barely twenty feet away, Luffy disappeared. The Akatsuki fighter's feet squelched in the wet sand as he reached the place where Luffy had been just moments earlier, but Straw-Hat was nowhere to be found. There was a blast of sound from the side and Luffy darted past him at high-speed. A quick dodge on Kakuzu's part ensured he was only struck lightly, but Luffy was already gone. Kakuzu spun around but lost track of Luffy shortly afterwards, just in time to take another swift hit-and-run strike from behind.
Kakuzu was suddenly flummoxed. What was happening here? The rubber-man still couldn't land a strong hit, but he'd gotten so much faster than he'd been just minutes ago. How? Kakuzu spun in place and saw two things that made him freeze in surprise.
The first was Luffy, kicking off of the newly wetted sand several times in a single moment and then disappearing in a burst of extreme speed and disturbed air. It appeared as though the wet sand's cohesion was significantly stronger than it had been dry, and the rubber-man was using every bit of that new advantage to even the odds.
The second thing he saw was the wide array of strands of black string that had been looped around several of the boulders in the room. Kakuzu's eyes flicked down to his body. Both of the times Luffy had struck he had grabbed a handful of string and pulled, ripping them away from Kakuzu's body like the boldest of thieves.
His eyes narrowed, and he gathered his focus for the true fight. Luffy darted in for another bunch of string, and Kakuzu brought his arm around in a meteoric backhand that knocked the boy off into the distance.
A tugging sensation from Kakuzu's arm drew his attention. Luffy had snagged yet more string while being punched.
Straw-Hat suddenly shifted tactics, digging into the wet sand as if the superpowered strike hadn't even hurt him at all and disappearing to the side. He made his approach in fits and starts while darting back and forth between the many boulders and rock spires that now littered the room, each motion drawing out the strings further and further. Then, with no warning, Luffy sprung off of a rock and shot towards Kakuzu at sonic speed.
Kakuzu summoned a wall of rock in between him and the pirate-turned-projectile, but it wasn't any use; Luffy zipped past the obstruction and away without even attempting an attack.
Kakuzu glanced around himself. His body was tightening rapidly as Luffy spun his black strings around every obstacle in the area. Straw-Hat wasn't even attacking anymore, he was just dashing around at high speed to tangle the strings, turning the room into a veritable cat's cradle with Kakuzu at its center.
"You're a fool," said Kakuzu, eyeing the speeding lad carefully. "A resourceful fool, perhaps, but a fool nonetheless. You're not getting any more string from me, and what you've taken means nothing if I just cut it off!"
He raised a hand, filling it with his chakra, then brought it straight down towards the strings that were unraveling his arm. Before he could sever them, Luffy arrived feet first, blocking the chop with one hand at the same time as he drop-kicked Kakuzu in the chest. The Akatsuki warrior stood firm, at least until Luffy grabbed onto his mostly un-stitched hand and rebounded away from the kick at full speed. There was the hideous sound of strings snapping and Kakuzu suddenly found himself missing his left hand from the wrist up.
"RAAAAAAHHH!" screamed Kakuzu.
Luffy was already gone. Kakuzu staggered to the side, staring at the wriggling stump of his arm. He focused his chakra, summoning a wall of rock around himself, then quickly snapped the errant strings binding him to the landscape one after the other. Like this, Luffy wouldn't be able to easily approach, but neither would Kakuzu be able to hunt the pirate down.
He took stock of his situation.
He was now missing a hand, and his defenses were weakened as long as his stitching remained damaged, but Straw-Hat wasn't exactly in the best of shape either. Anyone with experience could recognize when a fighter had pushed themselves to the limits of their stamina, and Straw-Hat was clearly reaching that point.
On the other side of the coin, Kakuzu himself wasn't even in dire straits himself, despite the damage he had taken. For that matter, even with the speed-boost the young pirate still wasn't fast enough to overwhelm him now that he knew exactly what to expect.
So he had a choice to make. He could either try to finish this now while Luffy was vulnerable, or he could gather his strength, make quick repairs to his body, and overwhelm these filthy pirates after he was in better shape.
Kakuzu made his choice. He had always been a cautious, careful fighter, and now wasn't the time to take unnecessary risks. A quick mental command ordered his errant heart-beasts to abandon the fight against the pirates and return to him. Hidan would have to deal on his own.
Kakuzu gathered his earth chakra and pushed it out through the ground, shaking and infusing the sand that filled the area until it became a whirling sandstorm centered around his body that completely blocked visibility from the outside. Just like that, the wet sand that Straw-Hat had been relying upon was mostly gone. Next, he performed a swift set of hand-seals, summoning a set of four stone swords from the rocks beneath the sand. He grasped one in his remaining right hand, bound a second into the string-filled stump of his left, and left the others to sit, ready for later use.
If Straw-Hat wanted to flit around like a human bullet then he'd have to come inside the eye of the hurricane to aim his attacks, and Kakuzu would be well ready for it. This time he would make sure it would be Luffy who lost an arm. In the meantime, Kakuzu hunkered down and resumed repairing his stitching, carefully watching his surroundings as the curtains of sand shifted about him.
For nearly fifteen seconds there was nothing. Then… slowly, Kakuzu heard a noise like a cross between a stretching balloon and rumbling thunder.
Kakuzu grinned. Straw-Hat was readying an attack. Still smiling, he raised his swords, focusing his ancient, disciplined mind to the task of battle.
Then Luffy shot through the sand with one arm held behind him.
[GOMU GOMU: GIGANT RIFLE]
Luffy's arm crested through the curtain of sand like a ship's prow cutting through the ocean. It grew larger and larger as more of a ridiculously titanic fist exploded forth, scattering sand in all directions as it spun rapidly inwards.
Kakuzu's jaw dropped open underneath his mask. This had not been part of the plan.
Abandoning his planned offense, Kakuzu moved, but his torn legs responded too slowly. It soon became clear that it wouldn't have mattered either way; the fist that burst fully into view was gargantuan enough to cover the entire interior of the sand vortex in a single spinning punch.
Kakuzu screamed as he was struck, pinned to the front of the unstoppable drill that carried him forth out into the light once more.
-One Minute Earlier-
The heart-beast's flame wave crashed into his Room, and Law countered by lifting a truckload of sand and rock into the air. The fire Ninjutsu was absorbed, and then Law dropped the resulting slag before returning his focus to Hidan.
"Why haven't you killed that crazy priest yet?!" shouted Nami, who had taken advantage of his Room's protection to fight from long-range.
"He's harder to hit than you'd expect," muttered Law, breathing heavily. He'd been drastically over-exerting his power over the course of the last twenty minutes or so, and it was definitely taking its toll. He couldn't keep this up for long. "Listen, I have a way to end this fight for good, but-"
"What are you waiting for then?! Do it!"
Law shook his head. "Against opponents this strong they're going to have to be distracted before this will work. I need to get a precise, direct hit on them, which means that whatever distracts them, it needs to be big."
It was about that moment when a sandstorm hundreds of feet wide engulfed the far side of the garden, totally obscuring the fight between Luffy and Kakuzu. There was a momentary pause in the battle, and then both hearts retreated from the fight, heading straight for their distant master.
Law watched in astonishment as a great rumbling filled the air and the sandstorm exploded. Luffy's tremendous fist pushed Kakuzu through the sand, both of them screaming for very different reasons.
Nami closed her mouth, which had been hanging open, then called out to Law. "Is that enough of a distraction for you?!"
Law gathered his remaining stamina and sprinted forward. "That'll do! Get your cook friend to drive the two of them together!"
He dashed away without waiting for her reply. Luffy might have been unpredictable, but his subordinates at least seemed focused on the task at hand. Either way, he had little choice but to trust them; if this fight continued any longer then the Straw-Hats would start suffering fatalities. Winning would happen now or not at all.
Law disappeared behind a boulder and took a deep breath, focusing on his own power.
The Ope-Ope Fruit was a Devil-Fruit with infinite possibilities. No other fruit that he had heard of gave you as many options for dealing with a problem inside your field of influence. The problem was making the right choices at the right time, which would spell the difference between brutal victory and pointless effort. Normally, the simplest solutions to his problems were to slice them into pieces, but these ninjas has proven to be unbelievably savvy fighters. Hidan and Kakuzu dodged his most careful, completely invisible, attacks as if they were telegraphed in neon lights. What was even worse was the way that Kakuzu had sewn together any severed body parts Law managed to separate. He needed something irreversible, and he might just have the right answer.
Kakuzu finally struggled to his feet, his heart-beasts stepping into formation around him. His mask had been torn away, exposing a bloodied mouth, and his long hair was now wild and unbound. He focused immediately on the distant figure of Luffy, who had shrunk to a fifth of his normal height as a rebound effect of using Gear Third.
"Straw-Hat!" shouted Kakuzu. He seemed to wish to say more, but words eluded him in favor of an enraged roar. He jumped into the air and landed on all fours. The noise was like an explosion that sent a shockwave through the ground. It passed Tiny-Luffy by before erupting into walls that trapped him in place. Tiny-Luffy tried and failed to climb his way out.
Standing up, Kakuzu let out a raucous, grating laugh. His wind and fire hearts stepped up beside him, chakra building in their hands. If they both fired at the same time, Luffy would be engulfed in a hellfire capable of reducing him to ash. Law simply watched. Now still wasn't the right time to move.
"Die," ordered Kakuzu. The fire and wind continued to build.
That was the moment when Sanji delivered. Hidan flew in from the side, the skin on his torso blackened and burnt from the cook's burning leg. He landed in a heap barely thirty feet away from his partner.
There!
Law stepped out and extended his room. It washed over Hidan and Kakuzu before they could react, and Law stabbed outward with both hands. They reacted too slowly to stop the invisible stroke. He felt it connect as the wave of power filled their bodies. He smirked.
Then he grabbed both of their souls in his hand and ripped them from their bodies.
[OPE-OPE: PERSONALITY TRANSPLANT SURGERY]
As he had said, the Ope-Ope Fruit was a power that granted unlimited possibility. It could even remove a person's soul, if only for a moment. But in that moment, that soul could be placed into another person's body. In that single unguarded moment, Law struck deep with his power, swapping Kakuzu's soul into Hidan's body, and vice versa.
Then the world split, people started screaming, and it took Law a moment to realize that his voice was part of the burgeoning chorus.
"AHHHHHHH!"
It felt as though someone had reached inside his chest and tried to pull out his heart, only failing by the slimmest of margins. His Room collapsed around him, and with it went some small portion of the agony. His Devil Fruit was suffering an overload, something he'd never felt before, and the throbbing, burning pain came from one source.
He looked in the direction of the disturbance. Kakuzu's body, currently inhabited by Hidan's soul, was writhing and shouting in what was presumably pain, black, frayed strings erupting in every direction. The heart-beasts were in similar disarray, silently and uselessly thrashing about in the sand. Though he couldn't actually see anything about the souls he affected with his power, Hidan's soul stood out like a red-hot jagged piece of barbed wire in his mind.
Normally, any soul transfer he performed was permanent until he deigned to undo it, but he had a feeling this one wouldn't last for very long.
"What… the… hell... did that guy… do to his soul?!" exclaimed Law. "This shouldn't fucking hurt me!"
Off in the distance, Law could barely make out the Straw-Hats gearing up for battle.
"Sanji!" yelled Nami, pointing her loyal follower in for the kill.
"Don't know what the hell's going on," muttered Sanji, "-but I'll be glad to finally cook up these freaks once and for all!"
Sanji spun with one burning leg until the sand began to fuse into glass. Then he kicked off the ground. With a mighty vertical spin he brought his burning leg down in a crescent kick that shot a vivid line of hellfire and molten glass towards the struggling forms of Hidan, Kakuzu, and the two hearts.
[DIABLE JAMBE: COUTEAU BRÛLANT]
[DEVIL LEG: BURNING KNIFE]
The molten blade sliced downward, and whatever survival instincts the two Akatsuki shinobi still possessed kicked into high gear before it reached them. Hidan's body dove awkwardly out of the way of the blast, and Kakuzu's body practically crawled across the sand like a living slime of black string and chunks of flesh, all semblance of humanity gone. The two heart-beasts, however, did not recover in time.
The fires of Sanji's passion incinerated both beasts without even a scream.
Then, Law's power finally ran out. Like a rubber band snapping back into its normal configuration, both enemy souls returned to their normal bodies, and Law crumpled to the floor.
Hidan's hands went straight to his head as he shouted in unfathomable horror, and Kakuzu sluggishly morphed back into his original humanoid shape.
Kakuzu struggled to his feet as hurriedly as he could, stuffing organs and muscle groups into positions that were as close to their intended locations as was feasible in the short time he had. The moment his head stopped spinning, he summoned his chakra to raise another cloud of twisting sand that covered everything outside of his and Hidan's positions. As soon as his lower body was arranged properly he began moving. These damnable pirates would be on them in moments.
"Run, damn you!" he shouted to Hidan, putting his own words to action as he broke straight for the door leading further into the temple. "We can't fight them like this!"
Hidan shook his head with a groan and started running sluggishly after him. "What the fuck was that?! I couldn't even feel what the hell I was doing! What I was! What kind of nightmare Genjutsu was that shit?!"
Kakuzu considered his experience carefully. Though he spent most of his time looking like a human, the truth was that his self-awareness and motor control was more closely tied to his strings than his flesh body. By the power of his chakra and the Earth Grudge Fear technique he could discard all of his flesh except for his heart, brain included, and still function for some time. But though it had been several decades since he had had anything like a normal human body, at least he had enough memories of controlling normal arms and legs to recognize that he'd been shoved into Hidan's body. It stood to reason that Hidan might have been placed in his.
All told, it was surprising Hidan had managed to move the black strings at all.
"Not important," growled Kakuzu. "Keep moving. We've delayed the intruders long enough, but we have to fall back to the sanctum before the fruit is ready."
"We're not gonna kill these fuckers?! I'm still in perfect shape!"
"In case you hadn't noticed, they took advantage of the Genjutsu to destroy my hearts." He was quiet for one uncomfortable moment. "You're welcome to take them all on yourself if you have a death wish, but I won't be joining you. I have a better plan."
Off to the side they saw a shrunken Luffy appear through the twisting sand. The tiny captain called out their positions in a high-pitched voice, and Kakuzu had to restrain himself from going after his weakened foe personally. Soon, Luffy disappeared into invisibility behind them.
"Man, screw this kiddy bullshit," cursed Hidan, still running alongside. "What's your fucking plan?"
Kakuzu pointed ahead to where an archway had just become visible. They burst through it into the hallway beyond, and the light went on in Hidan's eyes. Kakuzu smiled.
"We lead them to the dead," said Kakuzu. "I think Orochimaru's pets will prove more than sufficient to deal with these pirates."
"Holy shit," laughed Hidan. "I'm so on-board with that! Just let me watch those shitheads get owned!"
One of said shitheads caught up to them, the skeleton-man skittering down the corridor at speeds they couldn't hope to match. Kakuzu dismissed him with a wall of stone that blocked the corridor entirely. The wall exploded ten seconds later, but it had bought them time.
Hidan and Kakuzu burst into the next room at high-speed, but stopped dead in their tracks.
"What?!" exclaimed Kakuzu, eyes wide.
A high-level Ninjutsu war had been fought here, and quite recently at that. The formerly peaceful chamber looked nothing like its original state. Small forests had grown, burned, and rejuvenated. Stone walls had been raised and shattered, waterfalls poured spontaneously from miniature mountaintops, and entire swathes of the room were now open to the sky. All-in-all, what had once been a fairly featureless room was now a multi-tiered natural wonder, and it had been done in just the last half hour.
An explosion somewhere off in the branches to the right of them alerted them that the war was still ongoing.
"Let's go," ordered Kakuzu. "Stay away from the fight if you can help it."
"How the hell did these chumps find someone able to duel two Hokages?" mused Hidan.
"Doesn't matter. If they haven't won yet then they're not going to win at all. You more than anyone should know that you can't beat an immortal in a battle of attrition. Keep your eyes peeled and stay quiet. Let the trash blunder their way in here and draw attention to themselves."
They moved through the room, keeping to the opposite side of where the fighting had been as much as they could.
It was odd, thought Kakuzu, that the Straw-Hats hadn't burst into the room yet. It was almost as though they knew just how dangerous it would be in here. No matter. If they chose not to follow them then that just meant Hidan and Kakuzu would make it through to the sanctum unchallenged.
Just as he thought that, Gold Roger appeared before them, using one hand to steady himself against a house-sized tree branch. There was no doubt about his identity, even to the non-pirates. There was nobody else it could have been. What was not immediately clear, however, was just what he was doing here and why he had the dead skin and red eyes of an Edo Tensei incarnation. Orochimaru had only said he was reviving two corpses, and Gold Roger was not one of them. Before Kakuzu could do anything other than ready himself for a fight, Roger spoke up.
"Oh? Who the hell are you two, and what the hell are you… No... wait, I know who you are!"
Roger grinned with recognition, which was doubly odd. The plan had been to resurrect the corpses without their personalities. They shouldn't have been able to talk.
A gruff voice from behind them made Kakuzu snap his head around. A grey-haired man bleeding from several small wounds was looking at them curiously. "Roger, I know why I know these two, but how could you have met them before?"
Suddenly surrounded, Kakuzu and Hidan leapt up into the air, alighting on the underside of a massive tree branch. Gold Roger continued talking up to them as if their abrupt departure hadn't bothered him at all.
"Of course I know these guys! Sasuke showed me their faces ahead of time so I'd know who I needed to kill on sight!"
The Akatsuki members scattered, disappearing into the wild vertical terrain with a skill that no one but a ninja could match. Unfortunately for them, the two newcomers matched them anyway, arriving on their heels in hot pursuit.
"What's the hurry, guys?" asked Roger, leaping through the tree branches with indefatigable stamina. "You've got us outnumbered, right? Where the hell are your friends?"
Hidan threw a kunai backwards, and Rayleigh snatched it out of the air.
"Kids these days and their manners," chuckled Rayleigh, tossing it over his shoulder. "If I didn't know better I'd think they weren't happy to see us."
"Of course they aren't happy to see us! They're looking for the other two ancient corpses."
"I'm not a corpse yet, Roger. Don't count me among your number."
They emerged from the thick tangle of branches into a wider area, and Kakuzu breathed a sigh of relief when he saw the revived corpse of the First Hokage staring down at them from a high cliff. Moments later, the Second blurred into existence beside him.
Roger whistled as Hidan and Kakuzu scurried up the cliff-face and took positions behind the two Hokage. "Speak of the devil! You guys got lucky. that's for damn sure."
Hidan finally had a chance to speak. "What the hell is that guy doing here?" he asked.
"Doesn't matter," said Kakuzu, before turning to face the two resurrected thralls. "Don't let anyone past this room. Hmm… actually… on second thought, if a blond man in black clothing comes in here then leave him alive. I'll need a new heart to replace my losses…"
The First turned to look at Kakuzu, dead eyes piercing through him. Some deeply-honed instinct inside of him made him leap backwards, but at this range it was far too little, far too late. The dead Hokage covered the space between them like a zephyr, and before Kakuzu knew what had hit him the First's fist was embedded up to the elbow in his chest. Black strings exploded and wriggled from the wound as Kakuzu sighed a breathless scream.
"O-Orochimaru…" he croaked, "You…"
The deadly punch erupted into flame, and the fires of the Hokage's execution blow turned Kakuzu into a living pyre. Seconds later only lumps of ash remained, falling lifelessly to the earth. The Hokage turned his gaze to Hidan, who had already started running.
"Aww, hell no! Fuck this, I'm outta here!"
His scythe shot out into the canopy like a grappling hook, and with a mighty swing he disappeared into the thicket of branches. Hidan climbed, crawled, jumped and slid through the mass of new-growth forest that was so thick it was more like running through a series of tunnels.
"Fuck fuck fuck!" shouted Hidan. "That snake betrayed us! He's planning to sic those fucking things on everyone and take the fruit for himself! Weren't those zombies supposed to be weaker than the real things?!"
Hidan landed on a lower level. He turned left and right, looking in every direction but unable to discern his location in the thick forest.
"Fuck! Where the hell am I?! Where's the exit?! I gotta get the hell outta here!"
"Let me give you a hand," said Gold Roger. Before Hidan could react, two hands grabbed his arms from behind, and one foot had been pressed between his shoulder blades. The Pirate King wrenched both limbs with an irresistible force, and with a wet ripping noise both of Hidan's arms dislocated and then tore away from his body. He screamed in sudden pain, staggering away and spinning to face Roger, who was grinning wildly.
"Whoops," said Roger, tossing both severed limbs back over his shoulder. "Sorry about the arms. Old habits die hard, I guess. I hope you didn't need those."
Hidan cursed and ran. He didn't have a choice. Even if he could hurt this guy, a dead man didn't have any blood to fuel his curse-ritual, and he had no illusions about his chances without Jashin's dark magic to help him. So he scurried armlessly away, dragging his scythe behind him by its long cable now that he had no way to reach down and unwrap it or disengage the mechanisms. He didn't even have the ability to perform what limited Ninjutsu he possessed.
So he ran, tripping and spinning in place to let out more cord as he went. Just before Gold Roger could chase him down for the third time, the branches opened up and Hidan leapt off of the tree and down to the stones a hundred feet below. His cable unwound rapidly as he fell, spinning him like a yo-yo until the cord finally reached its end and disengaged from his body. He hit the ground with a sickening crack of snapping bone, but he was already on his feet and running for the door.
He didn't make it far before the Pirate King landed in front of him.
"Hey, hold up," said Roger, still grinning. "I said I'd help get you out of here, didn't I? Don't just run off like that!"
Snarling, Hidan charged the man who stood between him and freedom. Roger met him halfway, practically teleporting across the distance between them, and then he was past. Hidan staggered from the unexpected lack of resistance, and spun around to face Roger, who had appeared right behind him.
A moment of disorientation passed as Hidan's body turned in place but his head didn't. The Akatsuki zealot crumpled to the ground in two pieces, his head rolling away across the ground.
Roger walked casually into his field of vision, cutlass now unsheathed. He knelt down and picked up Hidan's head with one hand.
"Yeah, you're a hell of a lot more portable this way, let me tell you," remarked Roger. "Pity about your friends. Who would have guessed they'd stab you in the back like that?" He paused, before adding, "Besides anyone with a working brain, I mean. Even I saw it a mile away, and I'm technically dead."
Hidan's disembodied head began bitching and cursing the offspring and ancestry of every damn pirate in the world, a torrent of profanity that made Roger grin with nostalgia.
"Not bad," said Roger. "A little lacking in actual substance, but a bit more practice and we'd have you swearing like a real sailor before the year is out!" He shrugged. "Well, except for the whole 'you being dead' thing."
"Fuck you!"
Roger laughed. "Listen, I've got to get back to the fight, so let's make this quick. Any last words?"
Though Hidan had no lungs, he still somehow managed to gasp out a final scream.
"I HATE THIS FUCKING OCEAN!"
Roger considered this for a moment before shrugging expansively. "Eh, I've heard worse, but... this is going to make what I do next a little more ironic than I had intended. Oh well."
That said, Roger stepped forward and launched Hidan's screaming head like a rock from a trebuchet. It flew out through a hole in the stone ceiling, disappearing into the distance before beginning the long, long, long plunge to the blue waters far, far below.
A/N: This fight took a lot longer to write than I had expected, but I didn't want to break it up. Thanks to everyone for your patience and hello to any new readers. I really do love writing this and I don't expect any of the remaining chapters to give me nearly as much trouble as this one did.