"Look at that, Kakuzu, more lambs to the slaughter," Hidan remarked with a grin at the newly arrived Akatsuki duo. "Jashin will be so pleased!"
"And fresh hearts right as I need to replenish," Kakuzu added with a menacing chuckle.
The lambs in question, meanwhile, analyzed their two adversaries. Hidan was seemingly covered from head to toe in horrific burns and deep wounds, wounds that Karin noted should have been fatal, but the way that his flesh and skin were slowly regenerating indicated a considerable healing factor. He'd no doubt be trouble. Kakuzu, on the other hand, was much harder for Karin to read, and the black, hulking mass of whatever-the-hell standing behind him wasn't making it any easier.
However, Tayuya recognized the name. Kakuzu was on a short list of people that Orochimaru had warned the Sound Four not to engage if they ever encountered him, especially without Kimimaro with them. She didn't bother asking why (too many questions were usually bad for your health under Orochimaru), instead just accepting that someone who could give Orochimaru pause was definitely worth avoiding. Now, the slimy fuck was dead, and Tayuya was about to go two for two.
Tayuya slightly turned her gaze toward Karin while keeping a close eye on the monsters in front of them. "You got those two?"
"Already covered," Karin affirmed, still kneeling with her palms planted on the dirt. "My clones are handling it."
"Oh no, you don't!" Hidan growled before leaping into the air with his scythe. "You're not taking my fucking sacrifices away from-"
A sudden eruption of golden chains shot from the dirt beneath him and bound him by his limbs within the blink of an eye, halting his advance before he could make any real ground and holding him in place in midair.
"What the fuck?!" Hidan balked at his new predicament. "The hell kind of kinky shit is this?? I ain't into bondage!"
Tayuya quirked a very unimpressed eyebrow at Hidan, ignoring a blatantly chuckling Kakuzu to the side before turning to Karin. "Rock-paper-scissors to see who gets that one?"
"Yeah, whatever," Karin shrugged.
"Hey, you tomato-headed bitch!" Hidan spat, though it was ambiguous who he was talking to at that moment. "Let me fucking go so I can chop your fuckin- GODDAMNIT STOP!"
The chains binding him coiled around his limbs even tighter, digging into his skin and tugging on his extremities like a torture rack as an annoyed Karin glared at him from the ground.
"Wait your turn!" Karin scolded Hidan like a petulant child. "We'll deal with you in a minute."
Karin and Tayuya ignored the furious, profanity-laden death threats that followed as well as the openly laughing Kakuzu who found his partner's predicament way too amusing to lift a finger to help. Facing each other with narrowed gazes, they launched into the high-stakes game of rock-paper-scissors that would decide their opponents. Three beats later, Tayuya was smugly palming Karin's fist in victory.
"Damnit," Karin bemoaned.
"Everyone always goes for scissors, so no one expects it when you willingly choose paper," Tayuya gloated. "Guess the dumbass is all yours, and I get the fun one."
Still bound in chains, Hidan's fervent snarls quickly transitioned to uproarious laughter. "You hear that, Kakuzu? She called you a dumbass!"
If Kakuzu's expression could be any flatter, it would literally become two-dimensional. He could do nothing but silently lament where he went wrong in his near-century of living to end up with Hidan as a partner.
"I just want to make it very clear that I'm leaving here today with five new hearts," Kakuzu declared with absolute finality.
Unfortunately for him, Hidan spoke again. "You fucking idiot, there are only four of them. Can't you count?"
Kakuzu's annoyance had reached a boiling point, evidenced by the vein visibly bulging on his forehead under his hood, and the combined fire/wind creature jumped into the air and blasted another firestorm at the other three, not even bothering to watch out for Hidan. Karin and Tayuya were forced to disengage and leap out of dodge, just narrowly avoiding the inferno. Hidan, now free from his chains, gleefully jumped out of the blaze and into the air with his scythe in his grasp once again, meanwhile, Tayuya sped right through the flames straight toward Kakuzu.
Clashing her forearm with his own, she sent him a cocky yet no less excited smirk. "Orochimaru warned me about you once upon a time."
"Oh?" Kakuzu entertained. "Were you the one who cashed in on his bounty?"
"Can't take all the credit," Tayuya shrugged. "I was mostly support for a heavy. Still enjoyed dancing over his corpse."
"Then I'll enjoy ripping your hearts out for infringing on my dibs."
Pushing her off and forcing her to backpedal, Kakuzu sidestepped the reemergence of his fire-wind mask amalgamation, but it was intercepted by a swing of the giant club of one of her Doki, forcing it on the defensive as the other Doki jumped into the fray to give chase. Simultaneously, Tayuya played a smooth melody on her flute, casting her Chains of Fantasia genjutsu on Kakuzu while he was momentarily off-balance. Expecting him to stiffen and grow catatonic, she was surprised and alarmed when he easily shrugged the genjutsu off and fired his hand at her like a rocket. She narrowly dodged the open palm that attempted to clamp down onto her throat, but his hand still snatched her by her hair, and he brutally tossed her to the side into a nearby, massive tree with a loud crash.
Kakuzu derisively sneered at her, though his smirk was practically visible under the mask. "Because of my 'unique' constitution, you'll never gain a decent grasp on any of my chakra networks. My threads are constantly undulating and discharging, maintaining a perpetual breaking wave of chakra throughout my body. In other words, your genjutsu won't work on me."
"Good to know," she lowly growled. Without another word, she formed a cross seal, and a shadow clone popped into existence beside her to take the flute, sending her a nod before leaping away toward the battling Doki and thread creature.
"Whatever," Tayuya huffed, unearthing a kusarigama from a seal inscribed within her sleeve. "I ain't a one-trick pony anymore, anyway."
The distance between them was covered within moments with Tayuya on the attack, swinging the clubbed end of the chain at Kakuzu as mostly a feint before she flipped the script and swung the sickled end at him. He averted the blade by a hair, but she yanked it right back and grazed him along the side of his face, dragging a jagged cut through his hood and exposing some of his long hair. She continued her assault, now weaponizing both the club and sickle in a manner that vaguely reminded Kakuzu of Hanzo from days long past.
He refused to be scratched again, though. Charging in to meet her directly, he bobbed and weaved around the swings of the club and sickle as best as he could, eating any hits that happened to land before batting Tayuya's wrist to knock the weapon out of her hands. Just like him, though, Tayuya was not going to back down, and the two met in a fierce taijutsu battle. Every strike dodged sliced through the air like a freshly sharpened sword, every kick blocked reverberated through both them and the surrounding terrain like tiny tremors, and every punch deflected sent little gusts of wind skidding across the small puddles and ponds dotting the edge of the swamp. Their ferocious duel would continue like that, haphazardly carrying them over a large puddle that was stomped through with reckless abandon.
Neither was truly gaining ground in their exchange until Kakuzu's blocked spinning hook kick was followed up by a quick sweep of Tayuya's legs, bringing her down and splashing into the puddle. Kakuzu tried to capitalize on his advantage by viciously stomping her, but she quickly rolled out of the way and was back on her feet in no time at all, throwing a retaliatory backkick that landed snuggly in Kakuzu's ribs. That split-second of breathing room allowed her to slam a spinning roundhouse in Kakuzu's face that knocked him off-kilter, and she moved to press her advantage with an axe kick to his cranium to bring him down, but he was ready for her, snatching her out of the air and dislodging his wrist to slam her into the ground.
Kakuzu threw Tayuya around like a sack of potatoes, slamming her into the dirt here, there, and everywhere until he had his fun and pelted her high into the same, gargantuan tree he had launched her into before. Tayuya, planted in the bark and royally pissed off, quickly shook off the fog right as Kakuzu sped up the side of the tree to continue his assault, and she met his charge head-on fueled by nothing but spite. They engaged in yet another vicious brawl, this time completely horizontally on the side of the tree, ending in Tayuya getting the better of Kakuzu and kicking him off of their arboreal battlefield. She chased him down on his descent with a devastating kick to his ribs, followed by a stomp for good measure before she latched onto his upside-down form, wrapping her arms around his waist and her legs around his neck as gravity returned them to sender.
Kakuzu was helpless to escape the earth-shattering pile-driver that Tayuya subjected him to, planting him waste deep into the dirt with a thud that would have killed any normal shinobi on impact and paralyzed many abnormal ones from the neck down. Jumping off of the newest fixture of the swamp, Tayuya nearly allowed a smirk to break through before her expression grew even darker at the notice of the rumbling underground. Kakuzu's body twitched, and he soon reemerged from the earth, his skin magnitudes darker than it previously had been. Tayuya instantly recognized the Earth Spear Jutsu in action hardening his skin to a level comparable to diamond. He casually dusted the dirt off his shoulders and sent a dark glare Tayuya's way, as if to say that playtime was over.
Tayuya responded in kind, the jagged lines of her cursed seal gliding up her skin from her collarbone. Playtime was indeed over.
The two clones of Karin wasted no time tending to Hotaru and Utakata. Fortunately, other than a few scrapes, bruises, and chakra exhaustion, Utakata was mostly fine on a physical level. With a bit of rest, he'd be back at 100% within the hour.
The same could not be said for Hotaru. The hole in her chest was gruesome, and it was only a stroke of luck that her heart and lungs weren't damaged (despite her lungs being partially visible). With that said, she was still clinging on for dear life, so all certainly wasn't lost. Karin could still definitely save her.
With the patients assessed, the two clones opted to slide Utakata to the side and focus their combined efforts on Hotaru for the moment. Her wound wasn't an injury that could be easily addressed with medical ninjutsu (at least on the field), so the level of chakra drain that was certain to result from healing this the undesirable way would probably pop a single shadow clone before the job was done. Two clones made their odds better, but it still wasn't a complete certainty. Nonetheless, they'd try their damnedest as any medic would.
One of the clones quickly pulled up her sleeve and exposed the faint, healing bite marks peppering her arm, but the other clone stopped her.
"What are you doing?" the first clone asked in a mixture of confusion and agitation at being halted when a patient was in critical condition.
"Boss would want us to try the new way," the other clone stated simply, and the first clone's eyes widened before she nodded and pulled her sleeve back up.
Both clones prepared themselves before hovering their palms above Hotaru's bleeding form. Slowly, the golden tips of chains emerged from their hands, creeping out of the clones and approaching Hotaru like a benevolent specter. Slowly and carefully, the four chains punctured Hotaru's abdomen in a rhombus around the wound, and the clones began funneling chakra through the chains. A soft, green glow crept down the length of the chains until it finally reached Hotaru, and her body was quickly enveloped by the verdant aura of Karin's chakra. The healing properties of her chakra worked overtime as the clones carefully channeled as much of it as they could into her without overloading and breaking the chains. Color slowly returned to Hotaru's complexion, and they watched her damaged flesh seemingly knit itself back together as the wound slowly closed.
Sweat droplets trickled down furrowed brows as they maintained strict concentration. Hotaru's wounds were being repaired and her reserves refilled by the Uzumaki chakra coursing through her body, and slight, soft moans flitted out of her throat as consciousness came back to her alongside her energy. Soon, all that remained from where the wound once sat was unblemished flesh under the gaping holes in her Akatsuki cloak and her violet kimono top underneath, the two clones finally ceased their efforts.
A groan escaped Hotaru's throat, and her eyes slowly fluttered open, her green gaze landing on two pairs of crimson staring warmly back at her with equally warm smiles.
Hotaru blinked and stared back at them for a brief moment. "…Am I seeing double?"
"Yes," one of the clones answered at the same time as the other answered, "No." The two clones shot annoyed glances at each other before looking back at Hotaru in consideration.
"Technically?" the clones answered in unison, and Hotaru definitely had her answer. There was no mistaking it; this was Karin being a dork as usual, just in shadow clone form. The smile that arrived on her face almost drowned out the tenderness she felt in her abdomen when she inevitably tried to sit up.
"Don't," one of the clones instructed after putting a hand on her shoulder to keep her down. "You'll be tender for a while. Save your strength."
"I have just enough left to top Utakata off before dispelling," the other clone informed before shuffling over to refill his reserves. "You two will be fine; Boss and Tayuya are handling it."
"Awesome," Hotaru remarked and sighed. "Guess this means Naruto had the better apprentice after all."
"Don't be so hard on yourself," the first clone said with a friendly smile, one that was infectious enough to assuage Hotaru of any burgeoning feelings of self-doubt.
"…It was a foregone conclusion anyway," the clone finished with a cheeky expression before popping, causing Hotaru to gasp in indignant betrayal.
Hidan bellowed a bloodthirsty war cry before swinging his scythe at Karin once again, and like every other time, Karin dodged the swing and pounded Hidan's abdomen with a barrage of palm strikes wreathed in almost vibrating chakra scalpels, ending the combo with a two-finger jab to the heart before expelling a concentrated burst of razor-sharp chakra directly through him, launching him a few yards back. That kind of attack would ordinarily shred a person's internal organs and practically burst their heart, killing them immediately.
Hidan, however, just keeled over and vomited blood onto the dirt, and then he looked up at her with a bloody grin.
"Damn, you're good!" Hidan complimented. "I haven't had this much fun since getting to sacrifice that fake-Kyubi heathen at the Fire Temple."
Karin didn't respond, simply narrowing her eyes as she analyzed him. All this battle had been thus far was just her avoiding his scythe while testing the efficacy of his healing factor. The cuts and burns he had when they arrived had already mostly healed, and he remained standing through every shot designed to kill him from the inside out, maintaining that manic grin all the while. It seemed to be more than just regeneration she was dealing with, but what were its limits?
"I'd offer a ryo for your thoughts, but Kakuzu would bitch about me wasting his money," Hidan cackled before gripping his scythe and dashing for her once again. "Doesn't matter; die!"
Karin was ready, and a single pulse of chakra through a seal inside of the palm of her gloves caused the retractable blades within each finger to protract, clashing against the scythe with her left hand while taking a swipe at his throat with her right. Hidan dodged the swipe, but the chakra-enhanced blades still cut the neck of his cloak, exposing the stitches on his neck from his battle against the Konoha-nin. Karin took note of their presence before disengaging, leaping into a series of backflips before popping into the air as high as she could and shooting a myriad of chains at Hidan.
"Not a chance in hell!" Hidan cackled, deftly dodging the chains with gymnastic precision. He bounced around like a madman, gracefully evading the seemingly endless barrage of chains that came for him from above as well as those that tried to surprise him from underground. He was caught lacking once, and it wouldn't happen a second ti-
Another Karin suddenly emerged from underground like a missile, swiping at his throat once again the moment he was within range. Hidan, still airborne, didn't have the leverage to properly evade the attack, so while he did pull his throat out of the danger zone, her claws managed to catch and slice right through his left arm, severing his forearm just below the elbow.
"FUCK!" he roared, blood spurting from the wound as he slammed his scythe into Karin, and his incredulity deepened when she vanished in a puff of smoke.
Landing back on the ground and quickly jumping away to create space, Hidan cursed at his newest ailment and growled at the real Karin who hadn't moved from her initial spot. "You fucking bitch! Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it'll be to get Kakuzu to sew that shit back on?!"
'Sew… it's just like his neck, then,' Karin mused to herself at that new bit of information. 'He can heal wounds, but his limbs don't grow back, so he can only regenerate insofar as he's in one piece. That means that even if he won't die, he can be put down.'
"Nothing to fucking say after you cut off my goddamn arm?!" Hidan spat, heatedly pointing his scythe at her with his remaining hand. "At least acknowledge what you did, you rude cunt!"
Karin's eye twitched, and an irritated sigh escaped her. With a cross seal, several shadow clones spawned around her and sprang into action, charging right for Hidan with glowing palms ready to tear him limb from limb. Hidan met her charge(s) full throttle, cutting down clone after clone with only minimal difficulty despite his missing arm. He ducked and dodged the swipes that came in return all the while, but the numbers game quickly took its toll, and one of the clones broke through his defenses and landed a devastating strike to his right knee, severing his patellar tendon, MCL, and LCL in one fell swoop.
Howling in pain, he jumped backward on one leg to the best of his ability to create space, but another clone was waiting underground for him to land, and when he did, she emerged and grabbed his ankles, severing both Achilles tendons. As if that wasn't enough, a final clone came barreling from behind and took out his other knee, severing all the same tendons as well as his ACL this time around.
"Fucking FUCK!!" Hidan bellowed, swinging his scythe around to cut down the remaining clones.
Unfortunately for him, one of them was faster, slicing through his remaining arm with her clawed gloves and removing his scythe from him entirely. Finally, the clone that cut his Achilles tendons chopped him in the nape of his neck, severing his cervical spine and rendering him paralyzed from the neck down (at least temporarily in his case). His limp body nearly face-planted, but the clone grabbed his cloak and propped him up on his useless knees.
"You putrid, crimson skank," Hidan spat with more venom than all of Ryuchi Cave was capable of producing. "As soon as I can feel my body again, I'm going to hang you by your entrails and cut off your toes one by fucking one!"
The sheer absurdity of that threat nearly gave the real Karin pause, but she continued her leisure stroll to the frothing Hidan with a cold countenance. She still said nothing to him as she approached, retracting her claws and motioning for her clones to hold Hidan's head steady.
"Oh, more of the fucking silent treatment, huh, you uppity bitch?!" Hidan growled as his limp neck was roughly twisted straight. "You think you're fucking better than me?! Lord Jashin will have your soul begging for oblivion for all eternity when I'm through with you!"
More silence was all the answer he got, which drove Hidan even further up the wall. Karin's right hand glowed once more as a boosted chakra scalpel flared to life, and in one swift motion, she sliced Hidan's head clean off his shoulders.
"Goddamnit, not again!" he shouted as his head bounced on the dirt beside them.
The clones dispelled, allowing Hidan's headless body to fall to the dirt alongside his head, meanwhile, Karin stepped over and picked up the head that was currently cursing up a storm at her. She stared dispassionately down at the head, thoughts of leaving Kabuto to his gruesome fate creeping back into her mind.
"Think, Karin, think! No one ever dies unless you witness it!"
She reached into her cloak, ignoring the shower of swears she was being bombarded with all the while, and pulled out a stack of explosive tags. She idly noticed that the swearing ceased as soon as she did, but it didn't stop her. She wasn't going to neglect the double tap this time.
"He-hey, wha-what are you doing??" Hidan nervously asked as an explosive tag was slapped onto his cheek. "Come on, I-I was just kidding!"
Karin spared him no expression as she covered his head with paper bombs, ignoring his frantic pleas that quickly transitioned back to vitriolic curses once she slapped a tag over his eyes.
"You'll rot in hell, you dumb fucking bitch!" Hidan spat (literally) at her. "Jashin will torture your soul for all eternity while you fucking bur-"
Karin slapped a final tag over his mouth, muffling his furious ramblings before she took a final look at her handiwork: every inch of his head was covered in explosive tags. Satisfied, she casually threw his head over her shoulder and began walking away, forming a ram seal with her right hand to detonate the paper bombs. The resulting explosion was probably magnificent, but she didn't turn around to watch, as the shockwave and splatter of blood that hit her back told her that his head was totally annihilated in the blast.
"Regenerate from that."
The constant impacts of two colliding titans reverberated through the land like a mini earthquake. Tayuya, her cursed seal burning a hot orange, and Kakuzu, the Earth Spear Jutsu blessing him with destructive offense and unshakeable defense alike, clashed with reckless abandon as they attempted to break the other. Every ruthless, bone-shattering punch, kick, knee, and stomp was rewarded with one in equal measure. If Kakuzu rocketed a detached fist into her jaw, Tayuya would respond with a backhand that momentarily rang his bell. If Tayuya kicked him in the ribs, Kakuzu would stomp her other knee and bring her down. If one went for a haymaker, the other would be right there with them to return the favor, causing them to punch each other at once and send them both stumbling away.
That last one was where they currently found themselves, but Tayuya wasn't going to allow that moment to slip away, so she leaped backward and created a good bit of space to ready her next attack. All Kakuzu saw as soon as he shook the stars out of his vision were the bright lights of an incoming Phoenix Flower Jutsu, but he could think just as quickly as her, and he spat a massive Water Wall Jutsu that extinguished the balls of fire before they could reach him.
They did not, however, deter the shuriken hidden inside the flames, but Kakuzu easily batted them away with his hardened hand, even catching one through the hole with his index finger to add insult to injury before casually discarding it behind him with a sneer. However, that shuriken vanished in a puff of smoke, and in its place was a shadow clone of Tayuya that unrolled a jutsu storage scroll and pressed it against Kakuzu's back, unleashing the Electromagnetic Murder Jutsu that was contained within and frying him with an absurd quantity of lightning. Kakuzu's screams echoed through the battlefield as he was electrocuted, the lightning nullifying the earth-natured chakra maintaining the Earth Spear and slowly returning his skin to normal.
His torment wasn't over either, as an iron fist impacted his jaw soon afterward, staggering him once again and forcing him to take a step back. Then, another fist slammed into his face, breaking his nose while simultaneously jolting him back into the fight, and he angrily caught the third fist aimed for his eye with his right hand and another fist with his left. Tayuya's strength with the cursed seal active was very comparable to his own, though, even exceeding it just enough in his addled state to begin to muscle him back. With a grunt, he willed the Earth Spear back into activation, hardening himself once again and immediately wrenching the advantage away from her.
He easily overpowered Tayuya and put her on the back foot, and when it finally appeared as though he had her beat, her skin began to darken, as well. Her hair lost some pigmentation, and horns grew out of her skull as her strength was exponentially boosted by the activation of the second stage of her cursed seal. In no time at all, Tayuya took back the upper hand and easily overpowered Kakuzu even with the boost of the Earth Spear. Before Kakuzu knew it, he was being manhandled by his opponent, and a fist crashed into his face, rocking his world and sending him on an impromptu trip through the galaxy. Before he could return home, though, Tayuya delivered a front kick to his sternum that rocketed him away, sending him tumbling into a pained, confused heap.
There was no reprieve in store for him, as Tayuya appeared before him in a flash, snatching him by the face and hammering his head into the ground like she was trying to send him on an all-expenses-paid trip to a future of CTE. Then, she dragged him up to his feet and threw him into the monumental tree that had already seen so much action in that battle.
Kakuzu needed a moment to shake away the birds flying around his head before he finally regained his bearings and analyzed his situation. The tide of the battle had completely turned, and he was no match for her as he was. If things kept up like this, he would surely be killed. Looking past Tayuya, he saw his fire and wind hearts pinned to the ground by the Doki with the clone sitting crosslegged on one of their heads. He needed to get to them.
He threw his foot back into the tree, creating a big dust cloud around him to obscure her vision. Then, he attempted to capitalize by darting out of the other side as fast as he could in pursuit of his hearts, but a surprise fist to the cheek courtesy of Tayuya intercepted him. The natural energy within the cursed seal boosted her sensory prowess tenfold, so Tayuya didn't need to see him to know exactly where he was.
Meanwhile, the fire and wind masks writhed under the weight of the Doki, giant arrows stabbing through their thread tendrils and pinning them to the ground. The clone played a simple note on her flute one last time, and the Tengu hovering above them aimed for each mask, primed to destroy them and eliminate the troublesome creature. The masks had no interest in that, however, as after sensing Kakuzu's distress, their writhing grew in intensity. Soon, the conjoined beast split down the middle, disengaging from each other and wrenching themselves out from under the Doki until they successfully slipped away, ripping the pinned tendrils off in the process. They narrowly dodged the arrows that came down to execute them before zooming past a curious Tayuya and diving straight into Kakuzu's open back.
Tayuya watched in fascination as threads began bursting from his body. A long, writhing mane of threads protruded from his back and hovered over either side of him, the fire and wind masks front and center near his head. His arms had disconnected and were held together in several pieces by even more threads, and he even vomited threads that tore through his mask entirely, exposing his stitched-up Glasgow smile. He looked positively monstrous. He looked absolutely atrocious. He looked…
"Ridiculous," Tayuya deadpanned with an unimpressed stare. "This really the best you got? You're not even that much stronger than before."
"Famous last words," Kakuzu chuckled gravely, and threads shot out of the ground, wrapping around Tayuya's limbs. "Now die!"
The fire and wind hearts readied another, massive firestorm to blast at Tayuya at point-blank range, but Tayuya was having none of it. She tore herself out of the threads and vanished from Kakuzu's line of sight, giving him only a moment to process what had happened before he was kicked in the back and sent skidding through the dirt. Somewhere along the way, the masks discharged the collaboration jutsu, and Kakuzu was blown into the sky by the resulting explosion. If he thought that being airborne would save him, he was sorely mistaken, as Tayuya leaped into the air like a man-sized flea to continue her assault.
Kakuzu, thinking fast, fired his arms at her as she approached and managed to lock onto her wrists, and the masks blasted yet another jutsu at her from short range. This one hit true, and Kakuzu allowed a smirk before it was quickly wiped away when he was yanked out of the sky like a looney tune. An unscathed Tayuya slammed him to the ground with a loud thud, and then she yanked him toward her before leveling him with a haymaker that had enough power behind it to rocket him through the trunk of the very same tree entirely, leaving a shithead-shaped hole in his wake.
Kakuzu bounced and rolled along the ground, eventually coming to an unexpected stop at someone's foot. Peering up at them, Kakuzu was met with the angry gaze of the apparently healed Rokubi jinchuriki pouring his biju's chakra out of him like a translucent flame with six tails. Then, Utakata punted him back from whence he came, smashing through the tree once again on an arc toward oblivion in the form of Tayuya jumping in the air to spike him to the ground like a giant, stringy volleyball.
Kakuzu had no idea how things had devolved so quickly, nor had he any idea how his life had gotten to this point. This wasn't even a battle anymore; he was literally being kicked around like a child's plaything. He was being treated as a fucking joke, and that truly boiled his blood. Hell, he could practically hear his body bubbling like a red-hot kettle in rage… or perhaps that was just his ears ringing from the repeated impacts. Either way, he wouldn't stand for any more of this-
Golden chains shot out of the ground beneath him and pierced his limbs, stabbing through his arms and legs before wrapping around his torso to pin him to the ground.
So, he supposed he wouldn't be doing any standing at all, then.
"'Bout time you finished up over there," Tayuya commented to the approaching Karin. "He couldn't have given you that much trouble."
"He had some strange form of immortality," Karin shrugged, sparing Kakuzu a glance before returning her gaze to her partner. "It took a little bit to crack, but I was able to figure him out. He was easy to put down after that."
That got Kakuzu's full attention, and he stared at Karin with wide, unblinking eyes. "You… you killed Hidan?"
The question wasn't asked with any anger, malice, or even sadness, much to their surprise. The only things they could glean from his tone were genuine surprise and a hint of… curiosity?
"I guess…" Karin carefully answered. "…You don't sound all that broken up about it."
"I should thank you," Kakuzu replied, surprising them even more. "I've been dreaming of the day that I could kill him and have it finally stick. His brand of immortality makes him infinitely more annoying than he already is."
"Um…" Karin muttered in confusion, looking to Tayuya for any idea of what to say or make of this interaction but finding nothing. "You're welcome?"
"No need," Kakuzu assured with a shake of his head as the masks readied a final firestorm to blast them with. "I'll thank you properly by putting your hearts and bounties to good use after I kill you all."
That threat was extinguished as soon as it was made when Utakata appeared above Kakuzu and slammed the masks into the ground, discharging the respective jutsus again right beneath Kakuzu just as he had done to Utakata previously. It may not have been a bijudama, but the principle was what mattered.
"So, what do we do with him?" Utakata asked.
It was Karin who responded, turning to Tayuya. "You said you wanted to see what I was working on, right?"
Tayuya nodded, and Karin turned back to Utakata standing atop Kakuzu. "You probably want to clear out of the way."
All it took was one gander at the flickering excitement in Karin's gaze for Utakata to get the message that she was probably about to engage in "insane Uzumaki bullshit" that she no doubt picked up from Naruto, or worse yet, Naruto and Nagato together. Promptly removing himself from the inevitable splash zone, he appeared beside Tayuya as her non-cursed seal clone sidled up beside them with her flute in hand. Conveniently, Hotaru had succumbed to FOMO and was already gingerly hobbling over, as well.
With everyone now a safe distance away, Karin retrieved a red scroll from her cloak and unrolled it, revealing a long, intricate seal matrix scrawled on the parchment. She removed one of her gloves and bit her thumb, then smeared a line of blood across the seal and tossed the scroll to Kakuzu's still-bound body before performing the tiger seal. Sending a pulse of chakra through the ground with her foot, five clones emerged from the dirt in a pentagon around Kakuzu, each one currently responsible for binding him in chains to begin with. As they each also performed the tiger seal and focused, the seal matrix on the scroll expanded outward, bleeding off of the scroll and onto the ground below until it was large enough to touch the five corners of the pentagon.
"Uzumaki Sealing Art: Adamantine Mausoleum."
The seal began to glow, and there was a pregnant moment of silence before golden chains erupted from the seal like a geyser, impaling Kakuzu dozens of times over in less than a second. Chains shot through his body like golden javelins, stabbing through thread and flesh alike as they lifted his twitching form off the ground. Meanwhile, the geyser of chains hadn't subsided, and Kakuzu found himself bound even further when chains wrapped around every inch of his body that wasn't already pierced. His extra hearts were all but annihilated, and his body was rendered completely immobile.
Then, chains emerged from the edges of the pentagon maintained by the clones, erecting five golden walls that enclosed him. The walls looked like standard (if not abnormally large) chains on the outside, but on the inside, Kakuzu could see even more seal matrices inscribed within. Once the roof closed over him, he was officially trapped within the structure while also bound and immobilized by the very chains it was made of. He didn't know exactly what was happening, but he knew it was nothing good.
Then, the matrices inside the seal began to glow, and more clones of Karin slowly emerged from them and fell onto the ground around him. Very soon, dozens of clones were practically bleeding out of the walls, filling up the already limited free space within the structure and packing it to hell. Kakuzu really didn't like what was in store for him.
Finally, one of the clones in front of him started glowing, and whatever hearts Kakuzu had left sank.
Back on the outside, the real Karin's arms fell to her side as she exhaled, and she took several steps back.
"Holy shit…" Tayuya muttered, a thought that was shared by Utakata, Hotaru, and even her shadow clone. "The hell is this?"
"A barrier seal constructed entirely out of my chains," Karin answered. "The ones binding him are ruthlessly suppressing his chakra, while the others surrounding him are keeping him locked inside and anything and everything locked outside."
"Wow…" Hotaru murmured. "That sounds like a really effective sealing meth-"
She was interrupted by the first explosion within the mausoleum rocking the area. Immediately following it, a long chain of powerful explosions inside the structure nearly knocked them off their feet. Even the sturdy chain walls were nearly buckling at the repeated shockwaves.
"What the fuck?!" Tayuya demanded.
"The interior of the mausoleum is lined with jutsu storage seals that I loaded with super-powered Exploding Shadow Clones," Karin answered simply.
Tayuya blinked, as did the others. Karin's calm, almost detached manner of speaking about something so bombastic was the most unsettling thing Tayuya had seen from her, and as such, she really didn't want to ask her next question. Still, her curiosity needed to be sated.
"…How many exploding clones did you load it with?" Tayuya hazarded.
Karin eyed her in her periphery for a long moment before returning her gaze to the still-exploding mausoleum. "Enough."
And that was all the answer anyone needed. No further questions were posed, and the five of them silently watched the uncharacteristically torturous jutsu run its course. It was a whole minute later before it finally had, and then the five clones vanished in puffs of smoke. With them went the jutsu's structural integrity, and the chains disintegrated into rubble, leaving a charred, defeated Kakuzu lying pathetically in the center of it all. The group approached the body, and they found that Kakuzu was still alive, though he appeared to be barely clinging on and was no threat to anyone in any capacity. Still…
"Double tap?" Tayuya asked Karin, and Karin nodded.
"Double tap," Karin confirmed.
"I got it," Tayuya's clone spoke up, handing the flute back to the real Tayuya before she stepped over to pick up Kakuzu's helpless body.
Once she had him in a full nelson, she turned to Utakata. "Blow the fucker away."
Picking up on what she was asking, Utakata transitioned into his V2 cloak and leveled Kakuzu with a cold glare. Then, his mouth opened wide, and a bijudama formed within. Seconds later, he fired, and the ball slammed into Kakuzu's chest, blasting him and the clone miles away in an instant. The group watched as the ball tore through the landscape away from the swamp until it impacted a far-off mountain in the distance, and a gargantuan explosion followed, leveling the mountain in its entirety and unleashing a glorious blast that Deidara could sense two whole nations over.
Tayuya blinked as the memories came back to her, and she shuddered. "Alright, let's never fuckin' do that again."
"You get used to it," Karin shrugged.
"Well, that was fun," Hotaru remarked in a chipper tone, and Tayuya snorted.
"Fun is nowhere near how I'd describe any of this," Utakata deadpanned.
"You're only saying that because I almost died," Hotaru dismissed.
"That is exactly why I'm saying that, yes."
While Utakata and Hotaru were bantering, Tayuya noticed Karin's eyes locked onto something in the sky. Following her gaze, all she saw was a sparrow circling the area. That was kind of peculiar on its own, but the way Karin's gaze was fixed on the sparrow and following its every movement gave her pause.
"What's up?" Tayuya questioned.
"There's someone in that sparrow," Karin replied.
"Say what??" she followed up, but Karin didn't respond, instead watching the sparrow appear to stall for a moment before flying away in a random direction.
Seconds later, a chain shot out of her back to deflect a trench knife aimed for Tayuya that zoomed from the trees. Now, everyone was paying attention, and they watched as a boy with a black, spiky ponytail about the girls' age was tackled to the ground and placed in a rear naked choke by a girl with pink hair.
"Shikamaru, you need to calm down!" the girl commanded.
"She was there, Sakura!" Shikamaru shouted. "She was one of the group that Sasuke left with! She's the reason Choji is dead!"
"She wasn't the one Choji fought," Sakura insisted. "I'm just as much to blame for Choji's death as she is."
"This isn't the time, Sakura!" Shikamaru growled.
"No, it isn't, and that's why you need to calm down!" Sakura fired back. "You cannot attack Akatsuki. Hokage's direct orders. They're an ally to Konoha, remember?"
"She's right, Shikamaru," a new, older voice entered the fray, one that was revealed to belong to the Copy-nin, Kakashi Hatake. "Stand down."
Shikamaru growled, but he stopped resisting. After a moment to collect himself and let rationality take over, he begrudgingly conceded. Sakura sighed and broke the choke hold, getting off of him once she was sure he wasn't going to do anything stupid. A blonde girl emerged from behind Kakashi and hurried to Shikamaru's side, but he shrugged her away and stood up on his own.
Meanwhile, Kakashi turned to the Akatsuki group that was watching the scene with interest but not making any movements one way or the other. "Where are Hidan and Kakuzu?"
Karin thumbed in a vague direction behind her. "The loud one's headless body is back that way."
"And the other?" Kakashi questioned.
"I aimed my bijudama where that mountain used to be," Utakata answered, motioning toward a newly installed valley in the distance. "You can hunt for his remains if you want, but it's more likely that he was vaporized in the explosion."
The shock of the Konoha group was written all over their faces. It was obvious that they had come precisely to kill those two, likely tracking them to the site of their battle. Tayuya didn't know why, nor did she really care, instead keeping an eye on Shikamaru brooding in the background. She definitely remembered him; it was hard to forget someone that pushed her to use the second stage of the cursed seal in single combat, just like it was hard to forget the fucking forest that was dropped onto her afterward.
Apparently, that bitch was Kazekage now? They really needed to run that back at some point.
Eventually, the silence was broken by Kakashi who turned to address the other Konoha-nin. "Well, I see this as an absolute win. Good work, team."
Kakashi raised his hand for a high five, but Shikamaru walked away without a single word. The blonde one worriedly followed behind him, and Sakura simply sighed with a level of exhaustion that Tayuya could definitely empathize with. Seeing that he wasn't going to put down his hand, she begrudgingly high-fived him, meeting her sensei's eye smile with a flat expression.
"Let's go, sensei," she groaned, and the two swiftly left.
"Well," Hotaru amusedly drawled, fighting a confused chuckle. "That just happened."
"Yep," Karin remarked, and then she looked to Utakata. "So, off to Kiri?"
He nodded. "Off to Kiri."
"Are you okay, Shika?" Ino asked her friend with concern pouring out of her, but Shikamaru didn't respond. He didn't even look at her, instead keeping his gaze locked forward as he led the trek back to Konoha. It worried her. In fact, everything about his mental state since Asuma's death worried her. He hadn't gotten past Choji's death even after all that time, and losing Asuma was just a double whammy.
Behind them, Sakura sighed as she tree-hopped beside Kakashi. On the one hand, it was kind of annoying that they essentially came all this way for nothing, especially when the goal was to avenge one of their own. On the other hand, the fact that Akatsuki had decisively handled a threat like Tsuki no Me was good on its own, and the fact that one of them was indirectly responsible for the death of one of Asuma's students was some sort of poetic justice, right?
"Not really, but we'll take whatever victories we're afforded in our line of work," Kakashi said from beside her, startling her and nearly causing her to stumble.
"…I muttered that out loud, didn't I?" Sakura sheepishly asked.
"No, your thoughts are just much too loud for me to miss," Kakashi casually responded, and when he noticed her incredulous stare, he shrugged. "I'm not as emotionally unintelligent as you might think."
"Fair enough…" Sakura conceded the point.
"You're still holding onto it, huh?" Kakashi asked.
"There are a lot of 'its'," Sakura replied.
"I understand," Kakashi solemnly replied. "I'd tell you that it's pointless to continue blaming yourself for things that weren't your fault, but that'd just be setting up a pot and a kettle on a blind date."
"What do you mean?" Sakura inquired, never turning down an opportunity to indulge in her sensei opening up for once.
"You already know about Sensei and Naruto," Kakashi said, and Sakura nodded. "Well, let's just say that just about every aspect of myself reminds me of a grievous failure of mine. Every time I put on my headband, I'm reminded of Obito. Every time I use the Raikiri, I'm reminded of Rin. Every time I look in the mirror, I'm reminded of my father. Hell, every time I look at you, I'm reminded of Sasuke and Toji."
"I…" Sakura began, but her voice briefly died in her throat at the weight of that last statement. "I'm sorry…"
"Don't be," Kakashi said. "It inspires me. You inspire me."
"I do?"
"Yes. Looking at you inspires me to ensure that nothing ever happens to anyone I care for ever again. It inspires me to protect everything I hold dear to my dying breath."
Kakashi's one-eyed gaze returned to her, and this one was brimming with resolve and sincerity. "You, however, inspire me in a completely different way. Your rapid progress and unshakable will to grow stronger and better every single day inspires me to do the same, and not just because you're dangerously close to surpassing me."
"No chance in hell," Sakura dismissed the notion.
"Don't sell yourself short," Kakashi insisted. "I've taught you everything I know and a lot of what I don't."
"I don't know the Raikiri," Sakura pointed out.
"Not for lack of trying," Kakashi rebutted, and she had to concede the point. "Your chakra natures just weren't conducive to it. It's no one's fault but your parents'."
Sakura couldn't help herself from snorting, and Kakashi internally fist-pumped at getting a smile out of her. That smile was short-lived when the group noticed a figure standing on a branch just up ahead, one garbed in the same black cloak with a purple moon as Hidan and Kakuzu, and sporting a blank, crimson gaze that put Kakashi on high alert.
Shikamaru struck first; a shadow tendril snaked around the trunk of the tree Itachi was standing on in order to ensnare him, but he leaped away at the last moment, keeping his shadow from absconding. However, it placed him right in the path of Kakashi with a Raikiri crackling violently in hand, and he plunged it through Itachi's chest without a second thought, but Itachi burst into a murder of crows moments later. Ino leaped upward into a higher branch to survey the battlefield and get a good shot at hitting Itachi with her Mind Transfer Jutsu, but he was never corporeal for very long at any given moment, and it was already difficult to determine what was real and what was simply a genjutsu.
Sakura, however, followed her sensei's lead and took the fight directly to Itachi, watching the crows closely to determine where they would congregate next and getting there preemptively to deck Itachi as soon as he appeared. This happened to work well enough, as she zoomed toward a nearby branch and cocked her blackened fist back to ring his bell the moment he reappeared, but as he did so, he pointed his index finger at her without even looking in her direction, throwing her into a barren void under an orange sky with only the distorted silhouette of Itachi present with her. A single pulse of chakra was all it took to shatter the illusion, but facing her in the real world was a blazing pair of Mangekyo Sharingan.
"Tsukuyomi," Itachi whispered, and Sakura's world literally inverted.
She fell onto her back with a thud, nearly sinking into the black ground as Itachi reconstituted from the flock in front of her. She momentarily panicked before her instincts kicked in, and she attempted to dispel the genjutsu once again. However, nothing happened, and she was still stuck in the inverted world with Itachi in front of her.
"You're surprisingly adept with genjutsu, but there's no escaping Tsukuyomi," Itachi commented. "This is all happening within a fraction of a second in the real world, but in this realm, I am God."
Sakura didn't reply, simply scooting back and rising to her feet in preparation for a battle she knew she couldn't win. She was for damn sure going to rip out a Sharingan or two on her way out, though.
"What are your intentions with my brother?" Itachi suddenly asked, and the atmosphere so tense that one could cut it with their pinky finger was shattered at that very moment.
Sakura was so taken aback by the question that she only barely regained brain function to respond after nearly ten whole seconds. "What??"
"What are your intentions with my brother?" Itachi repeated, confirming the unthinkable for Sakura.
"…Don't you think it's a little late to be playing the 'protective older brother against potential suitors' act?" Sakura questioned with more than a little suspicion and derision.
"No, but that's also not what I meant," Itachi dryly replied. "Why are you chasing after my brother?"
"Because he's my teammate and my friend, and he doesn't deserve to suffer," Sakura easily answered. "He deserves to be at home surrounded by people who care about him, no thanks to you."
Itachi didn't flinch at the venom dripping from that last statement, as it was the truth. "What will you do when you find him?"
"I'll plead with him again to come back to Konoha and remind him that he isn't alone anymore, that he doesn't have to bear the impossible weight of his clan's legacy on his shoulders. I'll even deck him until he finally believes it if I have to."
"And if he doesn't want to return?" Itachi pressed. "What if he is insistent on remaining away? You're aware of Konoha's policy regarding rogue shinobi. What will you do if Sasuke refuses to come back despite your pleas?"
That was the million-dollar question, wasn't it? What was she going to do if Sasuke was adamant in his decision to not return? She knew exactly what Itachi was really asking her: would she kill Sasuke if it came down to it?
That was something she had been wrestling with every day since she left with Kakashi on that training trip. She knew very well what Konoha's policy was, but she was no closer to getting there than she had been the day he left. It was just so… why? Why did he deserve to die for wanting to avenge the family that was taken from him by his own flesh and blood? Why should he have to die for wanting to wipe a dangerous psychopath off the map for good? All because he didn't want to stay constrained to a hidden village? Because he felt that being a good little soldier was getting him no closer to what he truly desired? Because he was a scared, traumatized child who received no professional help to address that trauma and was forced to carry it with him into an already traumatizing profession, one that he was more or less forced into by virtue of being the last of his clan by no fault of his own?
Sasuke was a powder keg set up for failure by everyone around him since he was seven years old, and he didn't deserve to die for that.
"Hmmm…" Itachi mused in consideration, and it only then occurred to her that she had possibly been muttering out loud again.
"No, your thoughts are simply really loud in this realm," Itachi corrected, and Sakura's eye twitched.
"Look, I'm not going to pretend to know what Sasuke has been through for the better part of a decade," Sakura began, and Itachi was paying rapt attention. "At a bare minimum, Sasuke deserves happiness, and if killing you and living the rest of his life as a hermit away from civilization is what would truly make him happy, then I absolutely will not take that away from him. If killing you and striking it big as an actor opposite Yuki Fujikaze in the next Princess Gale movie is what he wants to do, then I'll buy front-row tickets at every single showing. If killing you and then traveling the multiverse to eliminate a race of chakra-eating aliens is what he wants to do, I will craft him a specialized alien-killing kit if he'll have me."
"I think we're losing the plot-"
"The point is that if Sasuke never wants to return to Konoha and he finds happiness elsewhere, then I will ensure that he knows that he will always have my love and support wherever he wants to go. He'll always have family in Konoha, even if it's just me and Kakashi-sensei. He deserves nothing less than that, just like he deserves nothing less than the right to choose his own destiny."
Itachi gazed at the iron will in the steely, green eyes of Sakura. There was not a hint of deception, either to him or to herself. This was her answer, and it was the only answer she would give him.
"Fuck it, good enough," Itachi shrugged before a crow with another Mangekyo Sharingan implanted in its socket emerged from his sleeve.
Before Sakura knew it, the crow flew from Itachi's palm straight into her mouth and squeezed itself down her throat. She didn't even get the chance to grasp at the avian invader in her esophagus before it fell into her stomach and vanished into the ether, bringing Sakura to her knees in a terrified huff.
"What…" she heaved. "Wha-what the fuck was THAT?!"
"I'm gonna level with you, Sakura," Itachi began in a frank tone. "You were a last resort. I don't exactly have a lot of people that I can trust with much of anything for obvious reasons, I don't know where Naruto is, and I'm not sure where Kakashi got his Sharingan from, but I didn't want to run the risk of him plucking this one out of the crow and implanting it into his other eye socket. So, that left Sasuke's remaining teammate."
"That doesn't answer my fucking question!"
"That was a crow containing the Mangekyo Sharingan of Shisui Uchiha," Itachi explained. "I'm certain you've heard of him."
"Shisui of the Body Flicker, yes," Sakura nodded, still incredibly irritated at what had just transpired but never turning down an opportunity to flex her knowledge. "What about his Sharingan?"
"It possesses one of the most powerful genjutsu currently known to man, and I've been holding on to it since his death," Itachi answered. "I've been keeping it out of unsavory hands, but I fear that I am not long for this world, so his eye needs a new keeper until the time is right for it to come to use."
"Right…" Sakura muttered with narrowed eyes. "Why is it in my stomach, how the fuck is it in my stomach, and how the fuck am I supposed to know when the fuck the time is right??"
"When the time comes, the crow will know and act on its own," Itachi informed. "All you have to do is stay alive for that moment to come."
"I swear to fucking god, Uchiha, if I regurgitate this goddamn bird, I will hunt you down and kill you myself, even if you're already fucking dead."
"I wouldn't blame you for it," Itachi shrugged. "Thank you, Sakura."
With that, reality warped back to normal, and Sakura found herself on a branch staring at a tree trunk with no Uchiha in sight. Kakashi landed beside her, and Shikamaru and Ino landed on the next branch over.
"Did he just vanish?" Ino asked, feeling around for any signs of his chakra for miles but coming up with nothing.
"I think so," Kakashi grunted but remained on high alert. "What was his purpose for appearing in front of us?"
"Tsuki no Me is probably still in the area, even if the other two are dead," Shikamaru muttered. "Maybe there's a hideout nearby."
"Then we should canvass the area," Kakashi asserted. "Even if it's abandoned by now, its location would be good information to take back to Lord Hokage."
Shikamaru and Ino nodded, whereas Sakura was still wrapping her mind around her conversation with Itachi. It wasn't until Kakashi's hand landed on her shoulder that she returned to reality.
"You hear that, Sakura?" Kakashi asked with a quirked eyebrow, the actual question going unsaid.
Sakura nodded. "Yeah, yeah, just… breaking out of each of his genjutsu took a bit out of me. Let's go."
Kakashi nodded, knowing that they'd discuss what actually happened later on, and the group flickered away.
A long-suffering sigh filled the Hokage's office as Jiraiya lamented the paperwork at his desk, but his mind was truly elsewhere. He probably shouldn't have authorized Shikamaru Nara and Ino Yamanaka to hunt down Hidan and Kakuzu, but with Kakashi and his last loyal brat tagging along, they would likely be fine. It was strange to admit, but that Sakura Haruno had really become something incredible in a really short amount of time. He'd honestly say that she reminded him a lot of Tsunade… just substantially less endowed.
Of course, Tenten would wipe the floor with her, as any apprentice of the Great Sage of Mt. Myoboku, Jiraiya the Gallant should, especially after she returned from training with Fukasaku at Mt. Myoboku herself. However, Sakura was still one of the most promising shinobi of her generation. She was definitely leading the pack alongside Rock Lee; then again, if Hyashi Hyuga was to be believed, his eldest daughter had completely transformed the Gentle Fist into something supremely deadly (even more than usual), so perhaps the gap wasn't as wide as he thought. Nonetheless, the future of the village was brighter than ever.
So, of course, a nervous chunin messenger had to knock on his door and interrupt his reverie.
"Enter," he beckoned, and the nervous chunin shakily stepped into the office with a scroll in hand. Jiraiya already didn't like where this was headed.
"What is it?" Jiraiya sighed, opting to rip the bandaid off immediately.
"Erm, sir," the chunin finally steadied himself enough to speak. "We encountered a troubling message at the aviary."
"Lemme see," Jiraiya requested, and the chunin handed him the scroll.
That day would go down in Konoha history as the day the voice of the Godaime Hokage, Jiraiya of the Sannin, was heard throughout the entire village:
"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN 'TAKIGAKURE EXPLODED'?!"
Every third chapter begins with a flashback but I literally have nothing left to flashback to. Naruto's entire story from leaving Konoha to screwing around in Tanzaku has been told, so... yeah.
On a completely unrelated note, I'm curious how you all would rank the members of Akatsuki. Of course I have one in mind, but I kinda wanna see if anyone else's list differs.
R.I.P. Akira Toriyama. You entertained and inspired multiple generations in multiple capacities. Thank you for everything.
Thank you all for reading.