Chapter 15

Yugito didn't like the look that Mei was giving her. That ever-present smile that could hide pain and pleasure at equal percentages and eyes that just begged to be asked a question. And Yugito, for her point, felt like she was holding her own quite well. It only took her twenty minutes this time for her to break down and confront Mei, up nearly ten minutes since the last time she tried.

It also didn't help that she didn't know who would win between the two of them if they fought seriously. It was something that Yugito didn't have to worry about too often about since a while ago. She used to be a big fish with a bunch of largish, medium, and small fish around her. Now, she was a big fish with other big fish around.

"Yes?" Yugito asked with her palm on her face.

"I don't know what you're talking about~" Mei said, stretching her sentence out.

The cat woman readjusted her head shawl. Wind was picking up sand particles that cut through the skin like a knife through butter. It was mostly just irritating, but they all were wearing face protection anyways.

"Why have you been giving me that look?" Yugito asked quickly and with a little bit of a hiss.

"What look?"

It was this point that Yugito lengthened her nails until they were long and sharp enough to cut someone in half if she really tried at it. She hoped it to be a sign of her lack of patience towards the woman and not an actual call to action. And for the woman's credit, her eyes opened and she smiled knowingly.

"I'm just wondering," Mei said "What could have happened that eroded the patience of the ever stalwart Yugito Nii?"

"You, mostly."

Mei turned her head to the young, strapping lad getting blown about the desert by what appeared to be a demon cloaked in wind and sand, with the only indication of humanity about it being a giant wind fan. He would get to his knees and hold his hands up, as if to guard himself, only to get blown away by a giant gust of wind every time. It was comical the first hundred times or so. Now, it was just background noise. "Or maybe its thoughts swirling around your head about a certain handsome, young stud flying around here?"

Yugito closed her eyes and pushed her head forward against the wind she, and everyone else sans Naruto and Temari, were walking against. Trying to get an angle where she could both see, and face forward at the same time was getting to be too tiresome. And more to the point, she didn't want to look at the woman egging her on. "Don't try to reflect your lascivious nature onto me. If you want a round in the sack, just ask him."

"If it were that easy, I'm sure you would have done just that more times than I have fingers or toes."

The cat woman just sighed. "If you want a no-holds barred fight to the death, you only have to ask nicely."

"Is there something that I've intonated that you would find disagreeable enough-"

"Shut up!" Yugito growled out, letting some of Matatabi's chakra leak into her eyes for effect. "Just… say what you have to say. The quicker you do, the quicker we got on with our lives."

Mei crossed her arms over her chest. "You're not fun."

"And you have the mentality of a child."

Mei shrugged. "You want him."

"You're going to have to elaborate on that."

"You don't deny it?"

"I don't deny anything that I don't have a firm enough grasp on. If you want me to deny or support something, you're going to have to word it in a way that I can comprehend."

"You comprehended me just well enough."

"You give me too much credit."

It was Mei's turn to sigh. She didn't think it would take this long to get through to the woman. "If you want me to go into details, then fine. You want him to hold only to you tightly as he plunges his thick prick into your waiting and welcoming cunny. You want him to tell you it's going to be alright and to assuage all the fears you've been having in the back of your mind ever since you can remember. You want him to hold your hand as you walk through the streets of your home country and to show him off to anyone who might have said anything ill unto you in the past. You want him to be with you forever. You want him."

Yugito nodded at each and every suggestion, rolling them around in her mind and giving them equal consideration. Finally, she opened her mouth to say "Huh… I knew you were slutty, but I didn't think you were certifiable as well."

"Harsh words."

"Accurate too."

Mei smirked. "I think I like you."

"Can't say the sentiment is shared."

Before Mei could retort, there was a bit of a wild yelp from behind them as Naruto jumped up and down, arms in the air. In front of him were twin trenches about five feet long with his feet buried at the end of them. Evidently, he didn't go flying through the air like he had been before and had just been pushed, keeping his feet planted. He didn't have long to celebrate as Temari was back in action like nothing had happened, reeling him back into his training and sending him flying through the air with a particularly powerful gust of wind.

Mei turned back around, her amusement peaking. "You have a crush on him, is what I'm trying to say- and don't try to deny it. I can see it in your eyes. You think you're a steel trap for your feelings, but you aren't."

Yugito bit the inside of her cheek. "I don't harbor crushes. They aren't healthy for anyone involved. I will admit to a passing interest, but that's all it is. I'm far too old for him."

"No, you're not," Mei said, this time with an almost harsh tone. "You're both young, and horny, and maybe in love. Christ, from what I can tell, it's not like you had much of an adolescence anyway. You might as well make up for lost time."

Yugito snarled and whipped around, sending a puff of sand up in the air. The wind carried it and sent it flying towards Mei, who covered her face with her arms. Not seeing anything, she didn't expect a finger poking her in the chest by an irate cat woman. "Don't," She pressed out. "Speak as if you know me. As if you know my childhood, adolescence, adulthood, or anything in between. Don't speak as if you know my feelings and inner machinations. Don't assume shit. And I would kindly appreciate it if you wouldn't talk to me. Want me to be up front with my feelings? Okay, I'll start now. I. Don't. Like. You."

Mei, for her part, smiled jubilantly and threw her arms in the air. "Oh, finally. The truth is let free. It's not good to let your feelings bottle up like that. A bottle full of feelings is just begging for some percolation. Hell, you might even blow a lid."

Yugito huffed a few times to catch her breath and shook her head before turning around and stalking off. "I don't think it would do you very well to brush off a friend your age so casually."

'Mata…' Yugito caught her head by the bridge of her nose. 'Could you just… not… right now?'

Matatabi resettled into her normal sleeping position. "Well, what am I good for if not the occasional snippet of wizened advice?"

Yugito didn't answer, preferring to let her mind wander; much like her feet in the sunny desert sand.

00000000

One was a big man with a mane of white hair that touched the sandy ground, one was a cyclops with equally white hair stuck up and at an angle, and the last was a fairly normal girl with pink hair and a black diamond in the middle of her forehead. Their rapport was mired in deeply personal experiences with each other. Kurotsuchi felt somewhat like a stranger amongst them, which, to be fair, she was. She just didn't like feeling that way.

Turning around, she saw that Mei and Yugito were talking to each other in some way. It was difficult to tell how well it was going because of the shawls, but it seemed cordial enough. Ai, Onoki, and Shibuki were heading the pack while Naruto and Temari were training in something and Fu was… somewhere. Odd how she never seemed to know what that girl was doing.

"What," Kurotsuchi said, interrupting the three's conversation "Are Temari and Naruto doing?"

They looked at the pair and Kakashi cocked his head to the side. "Wind chakra training, I'd say."

Sakura turned around. "How can you tell that?"

Kakashi lazily pointed at them. "He's trying to split apart the gust of wind she's throwing at him with his chakra only. Somewhat a more brute-force method than ours, but I can't say it isn't effective."

Jiraiya belly laughed. "Is that what they're doing? Sacred training ritual my ass; that's just boot camp."

"Maybe there's a second stage that has more finesse to it?" Kakashi offered.

Jiraiya shook his head. "Nah, they're just using what they got. Shit load of wind users. Shit load of wind."

"Wait, what's going on?" Kurotsuchi asked.

Kakashi looked to Jiraiya, who shrugged in return. Reticently, he turned back to Kurotsuchi and said "As the name of the land of fire would suggest, Konoha has a lot of elemental fire users. And a dearth of wind users. So, our training techniques for wind users aren't as… sophisticated as others. Especially not that of the land of wind's Suna. A jonin in our village specializes in wind techniques and it took him years to master it."

Kurotsuchi whistled. "Took me less than a year to master earth. Bit more for fire. Lot longer for lava."

"Elemental manipulation?" Sakura asked "Why haven't I heard that term before?"

Kakashi shrugged. "No real reason you should know. Your fighting style doesn't revolve much around elemental manipulation."

Sakura crossed her arms over her chest. "Would've liked the option at least," she said, mock pouting a little bit.

While Sakura was pouting, Jiraiya was too busy grinning to himself. "That's all well and good, but I think we have more pressing concerns to hear about~"

Sakura looked confused and Kakashi groaned a little bit, putting his face in his hand. "Is something important happening?" Sakura asked.

Jiraiya wrapped and arm around Kurotsuchi and leered at her lecherously. "So, what's the guy like in the sack?"

Kurotsuchi's face remained stoic as she elbowed him in the bottom of the ribcage and stomped on his foot. "I…" Her mind paused for half a second while she considered the options available to her. She could either tell the truth about her relationship with her husband, or she could lie for however long it took for them to realize she was lying.

To her, it wasn't really an option.

"I fuck him every night," she said with a shit-eating grin.

00000000

Kakuzu and Hidan looked down at the caravan going from the land of wind to the land of stone. It was a motley assortment of individuals. Probably one that had never been gathered as well as one that will never gather again. If they were more abreast of the elemental nations' politics, they might have cared more over the fact that there was world peace, and that the world peace hinged on a harem marriage, but they didn't, so they don't.

"How many have to die?" Hidan asked.

"One or two," Kakuzu replied, eyes squinted from their hiding place. "Make sure they're women too. Unless it's the two tail or the seven tail. Otherwise, capture them alive."

"What's the goal?"

Kakuzu shrugged. "Don't care. I'm getting paid to do this."

Hidan grimaced. "I'm not usually one to shit and moan about odds, but… doesn't this seem a bit lop-sided."

Kakuzu slowly turned his head to the psychopath and quirked a brow. "Do you have ears?" He took out a scroll and waved it in front of the other man's face. "This guy's the distraction. We're the sword."

Hidan took a step back with his eyebrows raised. "That what I think it is?"

Kakuzu refrained from answering. "Tell me, does using tailed beasts disgrace your gods?"

A great smile threatened to split Hidan's cheeks. "One god, heathen. But I'll let it slide this time."

00000000

Ai, Shibuki, and Onoki were at the head of the caravan on the cart being pushed through the desert by camels. As it turned out, carts were a tad bit difficult to get through sand as they were, so they had to get special wheels that didn't sink through. And also camels.

Camels that really liked to bite people.

Conversation had dried up quickly, especially for Onoki and Ai, who, at all times, did their best not to pick fights with each other. And considering they had been doing the opposite of just that for most of their adult lives, it was somewhat difficult.

As the bare expanse of light blue sky rolled on and as they peered over more and more sand dunes, the only sounds that were made were the sounds of wheels going through sand and the grunting of the beasts of burden.

"It's, erm… the weather's nice, huh?" Ai said after a few minutes of deliberating whether or not to speak up.

Shibuki glared at the much larger man as if he had just admitted to killing his family. "Is it though?"

Onoki nudged the younger man with his knee while chuckling. "Still mad that the camels don't like you?"

His eye twitched a few times. "I'm okay with them not liking me. Hell, they could curse my soul and damn me to an eternity of hell for all I care. I'm just not okay with them biting me every time I try to feed them!"

"Well, that's your problem, now isn't it?" Ai said.

"But WHY?" Shibuki pleaded. "Why are they biting me? And why the hell am I feeding them to begin with?"

"Because they bite," Onoki said.

"That… that doesn't answer my question. Why don't either of you two do it?"

Ai and Onoki looked at each other and then back to him. "Well, we're the heads of the hidden villages of our nations."

"So am I! Village of Waterfalls. Look it up."

Ai and Onoki shared another look. "Is the Village of Waterfalls one of the great five villages?" Onoki asked innocently.

Shibuki flared his nostrils from the stewing anger brewing in his gut. "No," he said through clenched teeth.

"And that's why you feed the camels," Ai said, looking at Onoki with barely concealed laughter. The old man had to stifle a few gouts of laughter as well.

Shibuki crossed his teeth-mark ridden arms over each other. "This sucks," he said. "You two suck."

Ai shrugged. "That's what you get to do when you're the leader of one of the great five. How about instead of bitchin, why don't you try to get on our level?"

Shibuki let his face fall into his hands. "I'm not going to win this, am I?"

They both shook their heads.

"Well, I-"

All three grew deathly quiet and still at the sudden surge of chakra ahead of them. It was huge and out of this world. They had all felt it at one point or another, but none of them could have gotten used to it. Every time they felt it, it spelt pain and death and misery.

The chakra signature of a rampaging tailed beast was not one easily forgotten. And it was directly ahead of them, creating a plume of sand and dust as it thrust itself through the desert.

Onoki floated up in the air while Ai cloaked himself in lightning and flew at the plume heading right toward them. Shibuki jumped from the cart and ran towards the plume as well, blades of water percolating on his arms as he ran. "Wait up!" he shouted after them.

00000000

Naruto and Temari stopped their training as they felt the tidal wave of intense chakra wash over them. Their stomachs sunk and fear grabbed their hearts.

Yugito clenched her fist and Mei returned to her state of silence.

Kakashi, Sakura, Jiraiya, and Kurotsuchi all stopped and blanched at the feeling and sight ahead of them. "Kakashi," Jiraiya ordered, "Keep everyone safe. I smell a trap."

"Wait, what?" Kurotsuchi blustered. "What's happening? What's going on?"

"Enemy attack," Kakashi said as Jiraiya raced off to the battle. "Keep close. We need to consolidate ourselves."

Sakura nodded and punched her fists together, closing her eyes and extending the reach of her senses as far as they could go. Kakashi took out his dog summoning contract and Kurotsuchi started molding lava chakra in her gut.

They got into a triangle and paced around, wary of anything and everything that could be happening around them.

Kakashi turned to Sakura and said "I think-" but was interrupted when a triple headed scythe flew from underground and impaled him in the chest.

As his body sunk to the sand, another one rose up a few meters away with its hand on a coil of rope leading to the scythe's handle. As opposed to screaming in horror, Sakura's only response was to crinkle her nose in disgust and turn towards Hidan.

The man smiled menacingly. "Okay, so here's how it's going to go. I need to kill one of the women, er… girls, in this case. If one of you give up willingly, me and my partner will let the others go."

Sakura huffed. "You're insane for thinking you could get through with this."

One of his eyebrows cocked. "Oh yeah, little girl? Well, you just signed BOTH of your death warrants," he snarled, whipping his scythe towards him.

He took one step forward and then the body impaled on the scythe turned into a log in a puff of smoke, confusing Hidan long enough for a pack of vicious dogs to jump from underneath the sand and bite into him, simultaneously keeping him in place and sinking him into the sand at the same time. Just as he understood he was being held down, a hand cloaked in lightning pierced through the sand and punched a hole in the man's chest. Kakashi ripped his gore ridden hand out of the man's ribcage and walked away, dispelling his dog summons.

Kurotsuchi let a sigh of relief escape from her lips. When she saw the cyclops get stabbed with a scythe, she thought it was all over for everyone involved. What really impressed her was how Sakura managed to keep calm. The girl must have anticipated her teacher had the technique primed and ready, but she couldn't see how.

They ran up to him, Kurotsuchi keeping an eye trained on the dead man's body. "Are you okay?" Kakashi asked to them both.

"Of course we're fine," Sakura said. "We need to go help Jiraiya and the others now."

Kakashi shook his head. "First, we need to round everyone up. There's enough manpower at the tailed beast end of things to hold it off for a while. After that, we either retreat or counter attack based on the enemy's own manpower."

Kurotsuchi felt her hand go to the hilt of her sword. "I thought the Akatsuki were scary boogiemen who destroyed nations. How could you kill one so easily?"

Before Kakashi could answer something along the lines "Even the most powerful of people have met their end at the wrong end of a staircase," Hidan picked himself up and dusted the sand from his cloak, to the amazement of the trio watching him.

"And here I was, planning on getting one up on you." He hefted the giant scythe on his shoulder and cocked a grin at them. "Good trick with the dogs; haven't seen that one anywhere before, but it's not gonna work again. Now, because I'm nice, I'll ask the question again. Which one of you two are gonna die for the other?"

Kurotsuchi drew her sword out of her sheathe and got into her swordsman position, pointing the tip of her blade directly at his torso. "I don't think this is going to be an easy fight."

Hidan's eyebrows went up. "I'll take that as a no, then… Well," He grinned like an animal and hunched forward. "This is the more fun way, anyway."

00000000

Kakuzu grabbed the woman's hand out of the air, her long nails glinting dangerously in the sun. She brought her leg up and was about to kick him in the chest with the intent on skewering him, but he caught her incredibly fast foot at the ankle and stopped its velocity in its tracks. Yugito grinned and whipped her remaining arm around and raked him across the face.

Instead of his head turning into neatly diced deli meats, his head remained solid and stoic, and her nails smarted as if she ran them across stone, or solid metal. She barely had enough time to realize that she was trapped in his embrace before he tugged her in and slammed his forehead against her nose and teeth.

It was like getting kicked in the head by a horse.

When he let go of her, she slumped to the ground, unable to hold herself up and spat out bits of her teeth past the rivulets of blood pouring out of her nose.

The imposing man turned to the remaining female, the Mizukage, and paused. "Are you going to put up a better fight than this one?" he asked.

Mei looked down at the scrambling Yugito and felt her jaw clench against her will. A wildfire of rage was burning up in her gut that she did her best to quell. Deciding to answer at his provocation with action rather than words, Mei launched forward and planted a foot on his chest. Using it as a step, her cheeks puffed up and a jet of super condensed water spewed from her mouth, hitting him in the face and shooting him across the desert sand like a rock skipping across a pond.

Breathing out, she turned to Yugito and helped her up. The blood was already starting to quell and her eyes were getting focused. That healing factor was damn impressive. Even the best of shinobi had trouble getting back up after their faces were hit with a ton of bricks.

"Thplancks," Yugito blubbered through her lips, unable to talk correctly past her missing front teeth.

"Those will grow back, correct?" Mei asked.

"Ythlup," Yugito said after taking a deep breath and facing the Akatsuki member that just stood up from an attack that would destroy a normal man's entire body.

"I'm going to assume that was in the affirmative," Mei said, getting back into her stance.

Kakuzu raced towards the two with his arms behind his back and launched himself into the air, blotting out the sun to the two of them. Yugito quickly did handseals and launched a few fire rats from her mouth, which raced up through the air and hit him in various places, exploding. While she did that, Mei blew out a corrosive mist that drenched the flames, capable of corroding solid concrete.

He flew through the mist with his arms outstretched and would have crushed Mei's face with his iron hands had Yugito not jumped up on and launched a few kicks of her own into the side of his chest, altering his trajectory until he hit the sand next to them uselessly. The corrosive mist ate away at his clothes and mask until only his scarred, inhuman body was left. Even those two, having witnessed the horrors of war, felt their blood run cold at the sight of him.

"His skin is as hard as iron," Mei said.

"Ahnd histh shtrengthh ishth reaally big thoo."

"Please don't talk."

"I find it funny," Kakazu said, standing at his full height with his arms splayed "That you two find the time in your lives to chat amongst yourselves at such a harrowing moment."

Mei shrugged. "I've had worse. Who are you?"

His skin split at the shoulders and tentacle-looking wires flowed through the cracks, whipping back and forth like they had their own minds. "No one important."

00000000

Naruto ducked under the raging hellfire and quickly created a shadow clone, which grabbed him by the wrist and flung him to the side, sacrificing itself in the progress. He zigzagged forward and jumped, getting out the of the way of the wire monster slamming its fist down in the sand and sending a plume upwards at insane heights.

A gust of wind blew at it from the right, and it merely had to turn and blow out a stream of fire to overtake the wind and redirect it back at Temari, who jumped out of the way at the last second. It turned back to Naruto, who had a rasengan in hand, running wildly at the mass of wires with the intent of blasting it apart to smithereens.

It jumped away and rapid-fired fireballs at Naruto, who jumped out of the way, letting the rasengan dissipate. "We need to get closer!" he shouted out at Temari, who busied herself with blasting gusts of wind at the monster, one after another.

"I know!" she shouted back.

"I've got an idea!"

"What?!"

Before she could ask another question, Naruto created a small crowd of shadow clones, which paired off, created their own rasengans, and summarily ran at the beast with reckless abandon.

As it blasted them apart like the small pieces they were, Naruto ran to Temari, who was practically holding herself up with her war fan. It wasn't very surprising, seeing as she was fighting something antithetical to her element and also after having trained for about half a day with him. "This is bad," she said between wheezes. "I'm a fucking kage. I need to be stronger."

"Just… follow my lead and we'll get it done in one go," Naruto said, grabbing both her shoulders. "You're strong. It's just a bad match-up. We have to do this together!"

She nodded shakily and took her fan in both hands. "Let's do this."

After the fire mask got done roasting the Naruto crowd, it turned its gaze to the last two of the opponents. Unrelentingly, it spat out a burst of fire at them and they scattered to either side, Naruto creating a couple of pairs of clones, who started up their rasengans. The fire mask prioritized the gust of wind aimed at it and shot a fire ball at it, creating an explosion and shoveling up massive amounts of sand in the air, which got carried upwards and out, almost like a fog between it and Temari. Then, it speared the Narutos who had almost gotten to it with its wires, stopping their offense in their tracks.

An unsettling silence came over the battle field as it tried to figure out what to do over the period of two or so seconds. It took a step towards the sand cloud until hands came up from the sand and grabbed a hold of its wires. Another Naruto jumped up from the ground and swung a rasengan at its torso, but was ripped to shreds before the rasengan was even past his chest. It turned into a puff of smoke.

The Narutos trying to ambush the fire mask masked the sound of Temari grunting heavily and subsequent giant gale of wind at it. The mask immediately shot a huge torrent of white-hot flames at the sand cloud, catching the gale of wind just as it ripped apart cover. They met head on and flattened outwards, creating a wall of flame that extended fields in either direction.

The mask didn't let off, even when its stream ballooned at its base and a small, ball-like protuberance followed the river of fire up all the way to its face, until it stopped the stream itself by shoving a rasengan in its mouth, cracking it apart immediately and exploding it outwards, making it fall to the ground, completely lifeless.

Naruto fell down near it, the skin on his arms, chest, and half his face an angry red from the melting heat. Temari ran up to him and helped him up. "That was a stupid idea," she said, berating him.

Despite the massive pain flaring up all over his body, his only response was to smile at her. "But it worked."

"By the grace of something higher than us, I'm sure. How did you know that would work?"

"Intuition," he said. "Can't get near, or it'll spear us. Can't out-element it. Had to get to near it without seeing me."

"You're just lucky it was stupid."

"At some point, luck is just part of the skill set. Now come on, we need to help everyone else."

00000000

"AAAAAAHHHHH!"

Kurotsuchi fell to the ground after getting hit in the back with thousands of tiny little porcupine needles. The shawl on her back quickly turned red, despite there not being any actual porcupine needles. Through the pain, she pressed open her eyes to look at her opponent, who had turned jet black with white images of a skeletal structure remaining. His back had been riddled with one of Kakashi's lightning jutsu and despite that, he was smiling like a monster.

Sakura immediately knelt down and started up her healing jutsu, obviously confused by the situation at hand. "What happened?"

"I DON'T FUCKING KNOW!"

Kakashi was backing away from the chuckling demon, who stood back up. "I'd sure love to play, but I need to get rid of this girl as quickly as I can," Hidan said, grabbing a couple of stakes from inside his coat and immediately aiming them at his vital parts.

Kakashi's eye opened wide with realization and he rushed forward, jouncing them away at the last second, one getting lodged in his shoulder and another grazing his ribs. Kurotsuchi roared in pain as two new blotches of red stained her torso.

Hidan and Kakashi started hand-to-hand fighting; Hidan trying to stay in the circle and kill himself at the same time and Kakashi trying to move him out without him self-harming.

New blots of red opened up on Kurotsuchi's body faster than Sakura could heal them. And worse, the girl was losing strength at a rapid pace. If something didn't change soon, she was going to expire.

Just as Sakura was about to summon a giant slug to help her out, a brown blur flew down from the sky and planted a foot on the dead man's back from behind before he could realize she was there, and pushed him out of his circle. However, he managed to swirl around in mid-air with his stakes outstretched and scraped her thigh, landing with his feet down on the sand, already creating a blood circle at his feet. Kakashi ran forward, all thoughts on getting him out of the circle, and didn't expect when a stake flew from the man's hands and stuck itself in his thigh. He fell to the ground and ripped it out in one fluid motion, but enough time was bought for the dead man. Blackness flooded back into his skin and for a moment, the only white was the white of his sclera and his pearly teeth.

Kurotsuchi moaned and writhed on the ground, under unbelievable amounts of pain. Sakura was trying to stabilize her. Kakashi was staggering up. Fu was hovering in the air with confusion and fear evident on her face, blood dripping down her thigh and splattering against the sand.

Hidan was smiling. "Let's have some fun."

00000000

Kakuzu raised a hand to block the leg aiming at his face and spat out a wad of wires from his mouth intent on debilitating the cat woman. However, she jumped away at the last moment, allowing time for Mei finish her jutsu and spit out a corrosive mist at the tongue of wires protruding from his mouth. He used the wires he stuck underground to reel him away at the last moment and released a buffet of wind at the cloud of acid, pushing it to the two of them in one go.

Blue flames raced up Yugito's body as she pounced through the cloud and at Kakuzu, the wind buffeting her body only enhancing the amount of firepower available to her. Kakuzu swung at her, which she ducked under, grabbing his sides with her reduced claws and swinging the rest of her body around his back. She then flared up her fire, doing her best to concentrate it on her torso and hopefully melt his back, or at least the wires that dwelled within.

Rather than let her do that any longer than she was able to do, he willed more wires to unravel from his thighs to puncture her legs and hold her in place. She growled in pain, but that pain only succeeded in upping the intensity of her fires, softening his iron hard skin. Before she could let go of his sides and drive her claws into his vulnerable skin, more wires shot up from his back and wrapped around her wrists and dug into her forearms. Yugito grit her teeth, shuffled her body up and sunk her fiery fangs into the base of his neck, ripping out chunks of his skin with reckless abandon, even when wires came out and attempted to gag her, she only spat out an even more hellish fire and ripped those apart.

Mei stood at a distance and watched on. Anything she could use as an offensive maneuver had a high chance of killing Yugito. And then, from behind her, a gale of wind rushed along the ground and hit the two squabbling fighters, raising up in a pillar of air and wind and hit the fire, further incubating the heat the two were inside of.

Naruto and Temari landed next to Mei. "What's going on?" Temari asked, somewhat out of breath.

"He has iron hard skin and wires crawling under his body. Doesn't matter how much we throw at him, he doesn't break even a little bit."

Naruto didn't look too sure. "Yugito's taking quite a big chunk out of him."

Just as he said that, a large pond's worth of water expelled from his body. It quickly quelled the flames and dissipated the air fanning them. Yugito still blazed from inside the volume of water, but anyone could see that she was taken out of it by a huge amount. Her legs and arms were stuck and bound by wire and when he tightened them, they cranked together, leaving her completely immobilized with her arms and legs tight together.

Using his wires, he flung her to the side and stood back up, his revealed wires retreating back into his body. There were chunks of his neck and back missing, but he didn't seem to mind. Instead of viscera and gore, they only showed more of the wires that seemed to make up his entire body. "One down," he spat out. "And I don't even have to take you two alive. Be grateful for that."

Before Naruto could rush in and show that demon some righteous vengeance, Temari grabbed his wrist. "The wires," she hissed into his ear. "Those are the same as the fire thing that attacked us. And there are the same types of masks on his back as the one of the fire thing. They're connected somehow."

Mei puffed out her chest and shot out pockets of hot lava at Kakuzu, who dodged them with the grace of a ballerina and the pragmatism of a monk. As he dodged the bouts of lava, he edged ever closer to them. "If you offer yourselves, it will be painless. I promise you this!"

Naruto created a round of clones and they all rushed at Kakuzu, creating rasengans in their palms as they ran. The most they could all do together was to slow him down somewhat. They were too bunched up and his body was too attuned to instant killing at a medium range. They were mostly fed to the lava Mei was using as projectiles.

The main Naruto grit his teeth at the sight of clones of himself getting destroyed like so many ants under a large boot.

"I've got a plan," Temari said excitedly, pulling at Naruto's and Mei's sleeve. "Listen closely."

After finishing the last of the clones, Kakuzu ran forward, making sure to keep himself rooted in the loose sand, and aimed an iron hard forward punch at Temari, the only one still standing where the others had been. Instead of dodging like he had been expecting, she put the fan in between them and let his knuckles clang against her fan. She twisted it to the side and extended it, sending a thin, weighty iron slab straight into his nose.

It stung.

He growled and jumped forward, both arms extended, and tried to grab her. She fell to the ground and the only thing he grabbed was the upright fan. Before he could toss it away, a severely sunburned blond man jumped from the sand with a swirling ball of energy in hand and shoved it in his exposed back, sending him forward.

When he rolled around, everything was dark; the sun was blotted out. Before he could scamper out of the way, Mei, who had jumped above him, released a pressurized blast of water straight into his chest, pushing him into the now soaked sand. He sent his wires up to turn the woman into mincemeat, but a gust of razor-sharp wind blew through and cut his wires into confetti. It also knocked the water off course, allowing him to roll out of the way and right into a rasengan spiraling into his chest.

He was blasted backwards until halted by the blunt end of a fan directly where his vertebra should have been, if he had any left. Temari took it away and swung it around, which Kakuzu blocked with his arms pressed into an X. Two shadow clones came to either side of him and kept him in place for Mei to run up and spray corrosive acid directly into the small of his back. He was kept in place by the two Narutos as the acid ate away at his insides.

He writhed in pain for all of two seconds before his entire body split at the seams, sending all the wires that were corded in his body suddenly outward and whipping everyone away in the process. He stood alone, panting and nearly fallen over. His eyes winced as two of the masks on his back crumbled to dust and a good portion of the wires spilling from his back turned to a black sludge. Looking up, he saw that he was surrounded by the three, circling him like a trio of vultures, studying his moves.

This was bad. Lighting was usually his worst enemy, but they went with repeated heavy attacks in a single place, his back, which was also very effective. He had underestimated them for sure. The Mizukage and the two tailed Jinchuuriki he thought were his greatest worries, but the two blondes worked together too well for their own good.

Well, he might have incapacitated one of the Jinchuuriki, but if he couldn't extract her, then it was next to meaningless. He was going to have to put his faith into Hidan that he managed to get one or two of them.

He suddenly felt a whole lot worse about his situation.

Instead of fighting more and risking death, he pulled himself back into the sand and retreated from the three fighters, who all sighed a breath of relief when they saw the last of his broken head sink under the fallow sand.

00000000

Kakashi stood on his one good leg, mind racing a mile a minute, trying to figure out a way out of the scenario he was placed in. Ninjutsu was a no-go against him, as it would hurt Fu. Taijutsu was useless. Genjutsu might work, but the man was clearly unhinged, if the stake pressed against his neck and the manic grin were of any indication. The second he got put under something, he could very well panic and end his life along with Fu's.

"Okay!" Kakashi shouted after a few seconds of deliberation. "Let's… let's talk this out, why don't we? What are your demands – what do you want?" he asked desperately. For all his experience, all the techniques he had obtained and meticulously mastered and maintained, nothing could help him in this situation. The only thing he could have done would be to know about it beforehand.

He lost before he could even put up a fight.

If it were even possible, Hidan's smile grew even more. "Talk is for those who have time. Unluckily for the girl, hers is about to run o-"

His speech ran short when he realized that the stake was no longer pressed to his neck. He tried to follow his hand up his arm, but he couldn't do it. It wasn't there anymore. Lamely, he looked to the ground and saw his dead, lifeless arm leaking blood slowly into the yellow sand. The skin quickly lost its black color and turned into its normal shade of white.

What had hit him? He turned around and tried to look for anything that could have gone off and hit him unawares. It didn't feel like he got hit with anything. And the cyclops looked just as confused as he did. What could have-

The girl. She was standing next to the downed stone girl and the medic. Her left arm had grown two purplish exoskeletal claws coming out of either side of her wrist. It was pressed against her other shoulder, which was now a stump leaking blood, much like his. Pain was on her face, but more than that, there was rage and anger. She had the face of the devil.

Without saying a word, without grunting in pain, or giving any other sort of indication that she had just cut her arm off to save her neck, she tucked the make-shift scissors up her other armpit. The medic's eyes widened and she tried to intervene, but she wasn't fast enough.

He was too far away, so he couldn't hear the sound of two blades pressing together, slicing cleanly through bone and flesh, but he could see the arm fall lifeless to her other side, and he could hear the sound of his other arm falling to the ground next to him.

Well… shit.

A foot was pressed to his chest and he was sent spiraling back like before, away from his circle, only this time he hit the sand and tried to scramble up without the use of his arms. A pack of dogs sprouted from the sand and grabbed a hold of everything they could to keep him in place.

Hidan roared and screamed in indignation. Curses sprung from his lips like water from a broken faucet. He'd lost. He never lost. That wasn't something in his faith. That wasn't something in his job description. What happened now?

Greyish black wires came up from the ground and wrapped around his midsection, pulling him underground and away from the dogs, who let go out of confusion.

He was gone, sunk into the sand with the help of his partner.

00000000

Naruto blinked a couple times. Was he seeing things wrong? Was he under a genjutsu? What was this before his eyes?

Kurotsuchi wasn't moving with her face pressed into the sand and her clothes almost completely logged with wet blood and Fu was kneeling on the ground, her entire body shaking and her arms off at the shoulders.

That wasn't-

This wasn't-

This couldn't happen.

Kurotsuchi was brash and stubborn and foolhardy, but… she couldn't be…

And Fu was… she was so strong. She was happy. How could that look of despair be real in her eyes?

Sakura was on her knees too, hands lit up with green, glowing chakra, doing her best to stymie the blood.

But there was so much.

Fu turned her head and her face went from shock and despair to worry. "N-Naruto…" she gasped. "Please, you can't do this. You can't let it take you. I can grow them back…"

But he wasn't listening anymore. He looked at his arms. They were cloaked in red chakra, bubbling and swirling. And a blackness was overtaking them from his chest outwards. The blackness was going upwards, reaching his head and-

What was he standing around for?

He had things to kill.