Dozens of fireballs, from all directions, were shot towards Sasuke at once.

Earlier, Kakuzu had purposefully used hand seals to mislead Sasuke into paying attention to his hands. However, the truth was that Spirits no longer required Kakuzu's attention to cast the jutsu.

Caught off guard by the sudden barrage of Sasuke, who had no way to dodge all of the projectiles, was engulfed in the storm of fire.

It took while for the flames disperse enough for Sasuke to become visible again. He seemed to be mostly unharmed. Although his appearance went through a major change, he hadn't received any critical injury. His skin had turned dark-grey and his hair grew longer. Most noticeable change, however, was webbed, claw shaped wings protruding from his back.

Sasuke had immediately activated second stage curse seal to defend himself. However, aside from some burn marks that seemed to be quickly healing, he was unharmed.

"Not quite the level of Deidara's C2, unfortunately. Well, I shouldn't expect more from sacrificing some random ninjas. So, this will have to do." Kakuzu thought to himself.

Slowly, Sasuke stepped forward. He was slow, as if having hard time to keep balance, disoriented from the intense heat, but it only lasted for a moment, he quickly regained balance and suddenly he pulled something towards him with his hand. Swiftly, two Fuma shurikens were pulled back and shot towards Kakuzu's back.

"Shit."

Shurikens that were too close to dodge impaled Kakuzu and sent him flying him towards Sasuke, who raised his sword and let Chidori run through it, ready to slash his opponent.

At that moment, however, Kakuzu's shoulders, where shurikens had lodged themselves hit, tore open and let shurikens pass through him.

This was advantage that his physique possessed. It made him extremely flexible and durable during the fights. All the knowledge and strategy shinobi had about human anatomy was rendered useless against him. And that added sense of unpredictability to his fighting style.

Kakuzu planted himself into the ground with threads, balancing himself in split second. But Sasuke wasn't planning to let his opponent's momentary carelessness go unpunished. He appeared in front of Kakuzu, slashing his sword forward.

Kakuzu frowned. He was slow to properly react. He felt annoyance because he couldn't use Diamond Morph, a jutsu that could have easily saved him in this situation if Sasuke wasn't letting Chidori run through the Kusanagi blade. He had no way to fully dodge or block this attack. And his spirits were nowhere fast enough to act either.

Before Sasuke landed the hit Kakuzu's chest bulged, and threads conglomerated in one spot to absorb the strike. Kakuzu was hit, and thrown backwards. However, Sasuke couldn't follow up on that, as another barrage of fireballs assaulted him.

Kakuzu collided with several trees and flew dozens of meters before he could stop himself. One of his hearts, that had acted as a shield, was destroyed. Pain that it has caused his was agonizing, making him black out for a second. Sasuke on the other hand, was fighting remaining spirits, dodging the jutsus that were shot toward him, and was steadily decreasing their numbers.

"It seems I don't have much choice."

Kakuzu concentrated on his chakra and let it flow trough the network connected to the spirits. The spirits, now only about dozens of them left, greedily absorbed the energy and attacked even more ferociously.

For Sasuke, they weren't much of a challenge, it was just that their physiology made it hard to swiftly dispose and bypass them. Even with the chakra bust they received from Kakuzu, those spirits wouldn't last against Sasuke for long.

Kakuzu knew that, however he had different goal in mind when he transferred chakra to them. He wasn't betting on those spirits to beat Sasuke. He knew better than that. In fact, beating Sasuke didn't benefit him whatsoever. Rather, more time he spent interacting with him, more unpredictable would circumstances become.

"Time for me to bail, kid. And good luck, I'm sure we'll see each other soon."

Kakuzu simply waved at Sasuke and used Body Flicker Technique and disappeared from the battlefield. Sasuke tried to chase him, but was held back by spirits that acted as meat shields.

Then, suddenly, Sasuke detected change in the puppets in front of him - they begun overfilling with the chakra. He found their state to be alarming, however, it was too late to escape. The spirits, one after another, begun enlarging, as if they were balloons that were about to pop. And then - huge explosion erupted from their suicidal attack.

• • •

Kakuzu continued traversing the forest. Original destination that he had set hadn't changed. The fight with Sasuke was unexpected, but he could only curse his shitty luck. He felt bitter about the minions that he had lost. More importantly, loss of one of his five heart was bad news. It came from rather strong jonin, and replacing it would be bothersome. Losing it decreased his fighting potential quite a bit. Not only he lost ability to effectively use the fire element, the chakra pool that he could draw from also decreased.

It was bothersome, however, fretting over it wouldn't change the outcome, so he kept on moving forward.

His goal was to find suitable targets to add into his army. Ones that would be strong enough to be useful for his upcoming battles. And those whose disappearance wouldn't cause too much of a disturbance.

Who were those shinobi that best fulfilled those requirements, you ask?

That would be criminals. And the greatest number of criminals he knew of resided in the Hozuki castle, or more commonly known- the Blood Prison, a facility that played major plot role in one of the movies.

He was hoping to not only increase number of vassals, but to also integrate strong warriors into his army that would be more useful in fights rather than just be disposable paws. If he infiltrated the prison and turn the shinobi there into his spirit masks, those problems would be more or less solved for time being.

While he was in midst of those thoughts, he remembered something.

"If Sasuke fought with me, what is Deidara doing?"

That's right, he just remembered that Deidara was left by himself. And that Sasuke wasn't his only target.

"This means that… he might end up fighting Naruto."

Chances of that happening were quite high since Deidara should be actively looking for jinchuriki. However, outcome of the battle wasn't clear for Kakuzu. It was likely that Obito wouldn't interfere. And he wasn't certain, but doubted that Deidara would use C4, since killing jinchuriki would be counterproductive for the organization. In the end, it was another headache for Kakuzu to worry about.

Kakuzu halted his steps, and with simple nudge of the chakra, his back opened up and lightning spirit came out from it. Then it went towards the periphery of the town that Konoha shinobi would be conducting the search for Itachi.

"Although there's not much you can do, just in case, pay attention to our hero. Wouldn't want anything happen to him now, would we?"

•••

A person traversed through the forest quietly and swiftly. She jumped from one tree to another, thinking over her destination once again. However, she halted her steps and landed on the ground when she noticed that people that were supposed to be following her stopped and banded together.

She observed bunch of people that were dressed in dirty and torn clothes were staring at her with eyes full of hostility.

"Hey, who said you could take a break?"

Several people in the group flinched in fear after hearing her speak.

At that moment, a muscular man with canon attached to his shoulder stepped forward.

"That would be me!" He shouted. "We're trough listening to you. We've taken a vote among ourselves and we have decided you're dead, lady!"

The aforementioned lady – Guren, looked at the men in front of her indifferently and started counting them.

"One, two… five… fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. I count sixteen of you, is that right?"

"What are you, scared?" Said smaller ninja with a sneer. He seemed to have overcome fear of her now that he wasn't alone.

"You think so?" She raised an eyebrow and replied playfully.

"You really think you can really defeat all sixteen of us, foolish woman?!"

This time, another guy spoke up. One that was first to suggest to rebel against her. He roused his chakra and directed it towards the mark on his body. After mark glowed, his chakra intensified and circulated throughout his body. Then, appearance begun to rapidly change. His skin turned dark grey, his hair white and his pupils changed color. Not only him, but other fifteen men standing beside him went through similar transformation. Some grew horns on their foreheads, some had their nails turned into claws. That wasn't all. Tails, fins, wings and various other deformities could be seen to have appeared on their bodies.

"Oh my… foolish, you say? Let me tell you what's truly foolish. Going into battle without realizing your utter weakness."

Person who first spoke up furrowed his brows in anger. He raised the canon mounted on his shoulder and shot a cannonball at arrogant woman in front of him. However, it was useless. To her, cannonballs trajectory was as clear as day, and its speed to slow for her to be hit with it. She simply tilted her body and cannonball shot past her, exploding some distance away with a loud crash.

"You know, among the things that I could forgive my subordinates, betrayal isn't one of them."

Several man charged at her, hoping to beat her with their enhanced strength. Although they were under the curse seal's effect, they weren't attacking head on because they lost sense of themselves. Rather, they wanted to force her to engage into taijutsu combat to restrict her use of hand signs.

Guren looked nonchalantly at the people charging at her, letting them get close. She blocked fist of first person who attacked her with her palm. Then she twisted her body and the before her opponent could notice what happened, he was sent flying and collided with a tree. She retracted the leg and dodged several claw strikes. She flexibly shifted and turned her body, moving swiftly between the bunch of ragtag shinobi charging madly at her.

Frankly, had she wanted, she could get rid of them all rather easily with just a single attack. But she wanted to experience some action and purposely restricted herself. The people in front of her were perfect target for a quick warm up.

• • •

On the cliff not far from the place that Guren had stopped earlier, stood five people.

"Oh man, these guys had no idea what they were getting themselves into. They weren't only hopelessly outclassed, they were hopelessly stupid."

The person who said that was Rinji. He, like others that Guren took along, was prisoner and former test subject of Orochimaru.

"So then, are you saying that you're smarter?"

Guren was finished dealing with rebellious children. Her hands were drenched in blood, but apart from that there was no sign of her previous fight. She wasn't even exhausted.

She walked up to the group and closely observed each one of them.

"They aren't too shabby. Well, compared to others, then difference is as clear as a day. It's better than starting from the scratch." She thought to herself.

"So, are coming with me?" She asked.

"Well, I… uh…"

Renji nudged the muscular guy next to him who started mumbling something and stepped forward.

"Yeah, of course we're coming. It's not like we were running away… We were just avoiding unnecessary fight."

Silence fell between Guren and the group and it continued for a while. Other members weren't saying anything. Though, they seemed to be willing to follow her rather than try to escape.

"I pledge my loyalty- " Renji bowed his head but was cut off by Guren.

"There's no need for such formalities. Just follow me. We're going to take a stop soon at next village. We have something to discuss."