A load roar reverberated through the Hozuki castle. Awakened beast made sure to declare his presence to everyone in the prison. It was huge creature, standing around 14 meters tall and had a horrifying appearance. Mismatched chest that was at the same time, beast's head, thin limbs, no eyes and grotesque mouth. It sprouted gigantic wings close to his size and seemed to want nothing more that destroy whole place into smithens.
Kakuzu slowly approached Satori and ordered his spirits to take positions. He was being careful, as he recognized that Satori was no simple beast. He could feel that much from the intense aura that it radiated.
Sage Naruto… right now Kakuzu couldn't say that he was stronger than him. After absorbing Sora's heart, it was true that it greatly affected his chakra volume and intensity, to the point that even with that one heart, he still had more chakra that his previous self.
Kakuzu predicted that right now he was around Jiraya's level of strength and not too far of Naruto's level, but he wasn't certain.
Then again, since the fight was not canon, it probably shouldn't be taken into face value.
Satori moved around in the middle of the night, noticing the guards that came after the sound. However it ignored them and eyed Kakuzu.
While rest were akin to ants in the beast's eyes, only one here that could pose a threat to it was Kakuzu.
And Satori didn't like that at all.
Kakuzu also noticed how beast was staring him intensely and readied himself while ordered the spirits to gather in one place.
Satori dashed towards Kakuzu. It opened it's wing with and raised it's claws, wanting to impale impudent human. Kakuzu jumped sideways and dodged the charging beast while swinging hand and punching towards Satori. Before he swung, his hand swelled up, before shooting forward with a great speed. Half of the arm separated from him and hit the beast.
Satori was pushed away for few meters before regaining it's balance. It hovered into the air, confused, trying to figure out how the puny human manage to react to it's speed and even go as far as hit him. It observed the extended hand that was pulled back by black tentacles and sewn again into the human's body. So that was the trick. The human was just bit stronger that it expected, it would just have be little more careful moving forwards.
Kakuzu didn't move or counter-attack. Instead choose to lay in wait and buy some time. Four spirit's appeared next to him, all possessing earth nature affinity.
Meanwhile, rest of the spirits were in the process of something.
In order to fight Kaiju, you need another Kaiju. Either that, or Kakuzu just wanted to fight gigantic monster with another one. In short, hundreds of spirits created from the prisoners were merging and combining with each other, forming a gigantic monster that would contend against Satori.
It wasn't truly merging per se, as they wouldn't truly be merging with each other. Rather it was following the same principle when kakuzu combined fire and wind spirits to enhance their effectives.
This time, however, it was on much more massive scale. Therefore, it took some time to do so.
While observing Kakuzu, Satori decided to keep it's distance and flapped it's wings.
Then dozens of feathers, sharp enough to cut through even metal, were shot forwards Kakuzu.
In response, the spirits changed their position and gathered it front of Kakuzu. Then, they used the Diamond Morph technique and braced against the projectiles.
Dozens of feathers fell on the spirits. However, despite the force that monster's feathers carried, not a scratch could be seen on them.
The Diamond Morph jutsu had a great defense, it's only downside was that reinforced part couldn't be moved.
Satori was annoyed that it's attack was parried so easily. It begun circling around Kakuzu and kept shooting feathers at him. But it was pointless, as the spirits blocked them. Though, they begun to take some damage, those feathers weren't enough to take them down in short amount of time.
That drained Satori's patience. It dived towards Kakuzu with full speed. Although the spirits, when using the Diamond Morph, were strong enough to withstood few of Satori's claw strikes, they couldn't do anything when Satori picked them up and threw away from Kakuzu. The impact from the charge collapsed the roof of the building and Kakuzu begun to fall.
Satori charged again and to avoid the hit, Kakuzu activated Diamond Morph of his own. He was thrown away by the strike but he was otherwise unharmed. Only some surface scratches could be seen on his reinforced skin.
Satori roared in anger. It decided to use everything in it's disposal.
It flew around the courtyard and begun to chase down humans that were running around to hide and space. He picked up the unlucky few that couldn't escape his reach and threw them inside the mouth of the box. In return, box glowed and transferred some chakra to Satori.
That replenished the beast's chakra reserves and even further strengthened it. Then it opened it's mouth and shoot several gigantic fireballs towards Kakuzu. However that too was ineffective as Kakuzu blocked it as well. Annoyed, Satori refused to accept that as reality and kept of firing as it chased down Kakuzu.
That was when one of the fireballs went towards the direction that alarmed Kakuzu.
He noticed exhausted Ryuzetsu standing on the roof of certain building. The fireballs caught her off guard, but she was too exhausted to defend against them. She seemed to have begun casting some jutsu but it was questionable if that would save her.
Kakuzu extended his hand towards her, shooting it forward with the threads to drag away her from the blast radius.
Kakuzu knew it was a desperate move, as he wasn't fast enough to reach her in time. But this was not a place nor time for her to die. So he put as much chakra as he could it his hand and reached towards Ryuzetsu.
The fireballs were approaching both of them, and he was too slow to reach her.
However, in the desperate moment, something red sparked from one of his heart.
It enveloped his right arm, and from the heart it traveled through the arm and went even further. It shot out of his body.
Red chakra materialized in the form of a claw, it traveled faster then Kakuzu's thread and fireballs and enveloped Ryuzetsu's whole body.
Loud explosion reverberated through the castle, and impact destroyed several buildings nearby. The dust rose and was shortly blown away by the impact.
Ryuzetsu's form came into the view.
She was encased by the claw, like a cocoon, formed by the red chakra and seemed to not have taken any critical injuries. Rather opposite was true, as her wounds begun to heal and she started to recover. Kakuzu on the other hand, wasn't unharmed. Apart from his right arm that was covered with the red chakra, rest of his body had taken quite the damage.
But for him, the injuries weren't important. He could withstand much more that this. Although it somewhat affected him, it wasn't to the point that he couldn't contend with Satori.
Satori attacked again, this time charging by itself, but Kakuzu was fast enough to activate Diamond Morph at defend himself. However that caused chakra cloak to vanish. And Kakuzu realized that materializing and controlling it wasn't simple.
The stalemate continued for a while. Satori seemed hesitant approaching Kakuzu after seeing that chakra. It seemed to have made it more vigilant. However it's pride wouldn't let him to retreat and leave the box behind.
Satori couldn't deliver killer blow to Kakuzu. He always dodged or deflected it's attacks one after another. However opposite could be true. Satori possessed incredible defense that Kakuzu couldn't overcome with the long-range jutsus of his. And the beast didn't let him come into the striking distance either.
Two beings fought in a nearly destroyed castle. Neither managing to get better of another.
But Kakuzu had been staling for whole time to begin with. He had been preparing something to take down Satori.
Loud crash came from the building that housed the prisoners. And from within came out gigantic being that rivaled size of the tailed beast.
It was Kakuzu's ace to deal with Satori. A monster he created after combining hundreds of spirits with each other. It didn't have any defining form as it was made in a hurry. It resembled something a child would create from the clay. It was simplistic creature. It had snake-like body and sprouted two limbs and unreformed, round, head. Countless masks could be seen all around the monster's surface.
It charged towards Satori with an impressive speed.
Satori immediately became wary of the creature and, if not Kakuzu keeping the pressure on it, it would bombard the gigantic spirit with fireballs.
Kakuzu deployed partial use of Diamond Morph jutsu to keep Satori in place. He would attack with all his might and then harden the fist to deliver the maximum impact. And would do the same to block and counter-attack.
Satori roared in frustration.
The amalgamation of spirits was already upon it. But Satori was high in air. It believed the creature wouldn't be able to touch it. Even if it did, dodging shouldn't be a problem either from the distance between them.
Satori didn't know what its foe could do, however.
As the spirit came closer to it, masks on it shifted and concentrated on its back. Those masks had red and green marking on them and they had single purpose to accomplish - to proper the spirit forward.
The gigantic spirit jumped, and fire and wind spewed out of it's back. Hundred masks combined their power with each other and pushed monster in the air with a formidable speed.
Satori wasn't able do dodge. It wasn't expecting something like this. It couldn't read the creature that had no fear for it's death.
Only thing Satori managed was raised it's claws. But that did nothing to hold back the spirits.
Two titans collided with each other.
With another being on top of it, Satori lost it's balance and begun to fall.
It tried to flap it's wings but numerous threads wrapped around it's whole body, including wings and restricting any movement from it.
With a huge crash, both fell onto the ground.
Satori tried to move. It struggled against the threads with all it's might. It roared and started spewing fireballs at the creature that dared to humiliate it. Threads begun to tear. And the fireball destroyed dozens of masks, weakening the hold on Satori.
However Kakuzu wouldn't allow that to happen. He sent his chakra towards the amalgamation of spirits. His chakra begun draining quickly but it strengthened the threads.
Satori was restricted further and more securely. It mouth was gagged and it lay helpless, unable to escape the bindings.
Kakuzu breathed heavily. The fight had taken a lot out of him. It had not been a joke and was far harder than he initially suspected.
But that was not bad at all. In fact, it was opposite of bad. It was good.
That was because the stronger the monster was, more he would gain.
So what if it destroyed hundred spirits in order to capture it. It was all worth it in the end.
Kakuzu looked at the result of the fight: Hundreds of the spirits he gained and the legendary monster; and the comolex enotions washed over his mind.
Kakuzu couldn't hold it in any longer.
He begun to chuckle. Smile creeped up onto his lips. A smile that soon turned into a low and periodic laughter. And that had done it. Kakuzu fell into the maddened laughter.
He wasn't sure why he was laughing. He wasn't exactly happy.
On the one hand, he was pleased as to how things turned out, that as undeniable fact. He managed to strengthen himself. There was also Kyubi's chakra that drastically changed things. And on top of that was the gigantic monster that would soon hopefully turn into his pet. What he gained from this place were impressive.
But, in the end, it was far from enough. He was still far weaker than shinobi he had to fight against. There was also suspicion, that he was almost certain in, that there were others like him. Things were far from ideal. There was much do to before he could be confident in the future.
Yet still, he couldn't hold his laughter. For whole minute his expression didn't look of someone sane.
It took whole minute before he calmed down. Fortunately Satori had been chained down. Everything was in control, at least for now.
He drew gigantic mask resembling upper head of a dragon from the summoning scroll and approached Satori.
If this worked, he would gain one hell of a strong mount, fully under his control.