Kakuzu & Hidan Pt. 2

A/N: Hey guys, this story is almost wrapped up for the time being. The final chapter of what I'm calling 'Book 1', Chapter 50, went up over on my P atreon today. Thanks for enjoying the ride with me, and I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and the last two chapters as they come out!

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Before anyone can do anything, Hidan swings his scythe around… and slashes himself along the arm. Everyone except for his partner pauses at that, though only Naruto sees what actually happens. Meanwhile, Kakashi undoubtedly feels it from the way he jerks an inch. On Naruto's end, the link between Hidan and Kakashi makes everything quite clear. A surge follows along their hastily constructed bond, and as blood sprays from Hidan's arm, there also appears a similar cut on Kakashi's, staining through his sleeve.

Even as Naruto takes this in, Kakuzu is already attacking, using their moment of distraction against them to dash forward into their midst with lightning swiftness. Luckily, none of them are slouches in their own right. The S-Ranked Missing Nin makes a beeline for Sakura, correctly identifying her as the healer… and incorrectly identifying her as the weakest link.

Both Yugito and Sasuko move to intercept, but it's Sakura who meets Kakuzu head on, her fist glowing with power as it slams into the grey threads slicing out of him towards her. It's obvious the Missing Nin is quite startled by the way Sakura's immense strength, trained into her by Tsunade herself, turns back his threads, forcing them back in on themselves and deflecting his attack.

A heartbeat later, Sasuko and Yugito are there, and though the two have no experience working together, they still strike out at Kakuzu in nearly the same instant. Their attacks are independent of one another however, allowing him to slip back and readjust as they're forced to pull back to keep from hitting one another after his escape.

Fu, meanwhile, has drawn a kunai and looks wide eyed and unsure what to do… but also determined to help.

All of this, Naruto takes in before he can so much as blink. Quickly, he realizes two things. One, Hidan is actually the weaker link of the pair. He's a one trick pony, that much Naruto is now confident of. Two, Kakuzu isn't going to let them focus down Hidan. Naruto's chakra sensing abilities allow him to detect that on top of the link Hidan has made with Kakashi, Kakuzu has multiple chakra signatures and affinities.

Maybe if they'd approached this differently, or maybe if there weren't three jinchuriki gathered in one place, they could have played off of Hidan and Kakuzu's over-confidence and gotten them to fight one by one. But no… it's obvious Kakuzu isn't playing games and Hidan has Kakashi caught in whatever this fucking net is.

Net… that might be it. Naruto's eyes flick down to the symbol beneath Hidan, the symbol he's still standing in as he goes about mutilating himself to continue hurting Team Seven's Sensei. Kakashi is still standing, but only because Hidan is very deliberately not going for anything fatal just yet. Still, from what Naruto can see… that symbol on the ground is the most important part of the Jashinist's ritual.

There's nothing for it. Kakuzu has to be taken down first. That doesn't mean Naruto is just going to let Kakashi die, however. Meeting the older shinobi's eyes, Kakashi's headband already raised to reveal his Sharingan, Naruto gives Kakashi a nod that's swiftly returned. They've both come to the same conclusion.

Turning his attention to the pitched battle going on between Kakuzu, the rest of Team Seven, and Naruto's fellow Jinchuriki, the blond shinobi hesitates for only a moment, forming a quick hand sign, using up some more of his massive reserves of Chakra… and then leaping into the fray.

A Rasengan forms in his other hand in an instant, and with Kakuzu distracted, Naruto even manages to land it on the Missing Nin's back for a split second before the S-Ranked Shinobi has slipped away again. The result, however, is that Kakuzu's outer attire is finally destroyed, his armored coat beneath his Akatsuki robes annihilated by the sphere of rapidly grinding chakra.

With Kakuzu's back revealed, his true nature is exposed. His body is covered in stitches of the same grey color as those threads he fights with. More than that, he has four masks stitched into his back, which Naruto can see are connected to his multiple chakra affinities.

"Tch. You children are more annoying than I gave you credit for."

Despite the success of Naruto's attack, Kakuzu is ultimately unfazed. But then, from what he's seen so far, Naruto isn't surprised. The others, meanwhile, are far from idle. All of them move to capitalize on Naruto's blow. Sasuko's lightning blade sweeps through the air, Yugito uses claws of glowing blue chakra, Sakura has her fists, and even Fu slaps her hands on the ground, webs spiraling out from them and reaching for Kakuzu's feet.

The Missing Nin responds to all of these attacks in a timely manner, but in that moment Naruto sees the slightest hint of hesitation as Kakuzu protects his back at all costs, avoiding letting any strike reach the masks there. He has a weakness. Probably has something to do with the fact that Naruto can literally see multiple chakra pathways inside of the Missing Nin now that he's getting close enough. He can see that the man has multiple hearts too.

As if to confirm this, Kakuzu lets out a loud growl.

"When I'm through with you lot, I suppose I'll have some new hearts! We might need the Jinchuriki intact, but the students of the Sannin will make for good replacements. That means I can be a little bit more… reckless!"

Naruto's eyes widen, but before he can shout a warning, it's already happened. Sasuko's lightning blade sheathes itself in Kakuzu's chest… but not because the Last Uchiha managed to overcome the Missing Nin's speed or anything like that. Kakuzu allowed himself to be impaled so that he could do some impaling of his own.

Sasuko manages to twist slightly, but his hand still punches into the upper left portion of her chest… and then to Naruto's horror, starts to travel downward at a diagonal, aiming for Sasuko's heart. As the Last Uchiha chokes on her own blood, eyes widening in surprise… everyone else moves.

Naruto's hands close around Kakuzu's impossibly strong arm and with a curse on his lips, he calls upon Kurama's strength. A shroud of demonic chakra covers the blond shinobi from head to toe and a pair of tails flickers into existence behind him as he corrodes Kakuzu's 'flesh'. However, even that isn't enough to stop the S-Ranked Missing Nin entirely.

He's just about to ramp up even more, despite the danger that his chakra shroud might have to Sasuko due to proximity, when the others arrive as well. Yugito's claws cut into Kakuzu's arm, Fu's web wraps around his head and shoulders and she pulls back on his body with all her might… and finally, Sakura comes in, one hand glowing with healing green energy and the other slamming down in a truly titanic punch from above.

Kakuzu's arm is torn free of Sasuko's body, sans the organ that he was hoping to rip clean out of her. He's pulled back off of Sasuko's lightning blade missing one of his own hearts. Sasuko starts to fall back to, but Sakura is already healing her teammate, leaving the Last Uchiha to recover fast… not as fast as Kakuzu though.

Still, rather than press the attack, Kakuzu pulls back, growling as the holes in his body close up. Still, one of the masks on his back has cracked and fallen away, and Naruto can see that he's missing a chakra affinity that he had before.

For just a split second, there's a lull as Kakuzu stares at them all. Naruto tenses up, lips thinning out, surprised that the Missing Nin is giving them so much time to fix Sasuko. But then Kakuzu calls out… and not to them.

"Hidan!"

"Fucking WHAT?!"

"Stop messing around. Kill the Copy Cat Nin. I… require your assistance."

Admitting as much is clearly like pulling teeth for the Missing Nin, and Kakuzu's drawn out speech is probably the only reason Kakashi survives. Hidan himself looks so startled at Kakuzu's request for help that he pauses briefly before grinning widely. Then, he turns his scythe on himself again, aiming not to torture, but for his own heart.

Up until this point, he's clearly been toying with Kakashi, hurting himself in painful but not maiming ways that in turn hurt Kakashi right back. Now though, he's going for the kill.

Naruto reacts without hesitation. Or more accurately, his new batch of clones, created right before he joined the fight against Kakuzu, all react.

Bursting out of the ground on all sides, they grab hold of Hidan from every angle. The man is incredibly strong and durable, and so is his damn symbol. Naruto had tried to ruin it from below by churning the ground under the symbol, but somehow it simply would not allow himself to be dissipated.

Still, Naruto's hypothesis turns out to be right, thankfully. Hidan, taken by surprise, is ripped out of the symbol entirely by Naruto's Nature Chakra Infused Clones. They yank him off of the circle and as his scythe carves up through his own heart, the link between him and Kakashi has been broken, flickering out of existence.

Hidan goes down with a grunt, tackled and under a pile of Naruto's clones… for a moment, anyways. A beat later and the Jashinist howls as he whips them all off of him with a swing of his scythe, kicking like a mad man.

"YOU DARE INTERRUPT MY SACRIFICE TO JASHIN-SAMA?! FOR FUCK'S SAKE, I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL I SWEAR TO FUCKING JASHIN!"

Naruto grimaces, recognizing almost immediately from Hidan's continued transformation as well as the existence of the symbol… that the connection isn't permanently broken. From the way the Jashinist is fighting to get back to his symbol, he only needs to reenter it and he'll be able to kill Kakashi right on the spot. That obviously can't be allowed to happen.

Just as Naruto is moving to help his clones however, Kakuzu appears right in front of his face.

"Nine-Tailed Brat. You're quite the commander, aren't you?"

Only a hastily created Rasengan gets Kakuzu away from him as those threads aim to tear him apart. Luckily with the Chakra Shroud, he's got defenses of his own. He can even bring up a Rasengan in each hand for good measure. But that doesn't help Kakashi, who is definitely looking worse for wear, his Sharingan eye bleeding as he stands there, torn up by Hidan's own self-harm.

The others rush in to get Kakuzu back off of Naruto, but the situation is clearly dire. Naruto's clones are starting to dwindle, and Hidan is mere inches away from the symbol he needs to return to in order to end Kakashi's life.

Kakuzu, meanwhile, is only down one heart and seems intent on keeping them from helping their Sensei. At this point, Naruto doesn't quite know what to do. He's being spread too thin, in too many directions. He could easily work up a plan to defeat either Kakuzu or Hidan, and probably pretty easily at that. But both of them together, with Hidan already having his claws in Kakashi. It was-

"Kamui."

A shudder runs through the clearing as Kakashi's voice rings out, strangely dark and raspy. Naruto finds himself blinded for a moment by a tidal wave of black chakra that spirals out from Kakashi's eye… and slams into the symbol that Hidan had drawn on the ground. Only Naruto sees it as such of course. To everyone else, there's perhaps a small distortion of the air at best.

The end result though… that everyone sees. The ground upon which the symbol was drawn, and more importantly the symbol itself which had seemed inviolate to everything Naruto threw at it… a part of both disappears suddenly from existence.

The symbol is carved in twain, and as Hidan's transformation fades, Naruto knows in that moment that whatever Kakashi has done to break the connection has actually been permanent.

"WHAT THE FUCK?! NO!"

Hidan's reaction is to be expected. Sasuko's on the other hand, Naruto barely sees out of the corner of his eye. The Last Uchiha's own sharingan eyes are wide, her tomoe spinning as she stares at the scene in disbelief and… a bit of outrage.

There's a heartbeat in which Hidan just stares at the destruction of his god's holy symbol. Then, the silver-haired man becomes frenzied. Naruto spawns more clones, but Hidan is mowing through them like they were just normal shadow clones. However…

"… Tch. Bit off more than we could chew."

Naruto's head whips around at that, only to see Kakuzu surveying the battlefield… and shaking his own head. In an instant, everyone realizes what he intends. Everyone reacts in their own way. Hidan howls in disbelief, while everyone else tries to keep him from escaping. But Kakuzu is unbelievably fast. Dramatically so. In an instant, he's gone and while they could have chased after him and even maybe hunted him down… it would have allowed him to split them up and pick them off one by one. More than that, he was not their only opponent.

Hidan was tough and apparently immortal judging by the way that blow to his heart didn't kill him. But he wasn't nearly as skilled or versatile as Kakuzu. Knowing what the Jashinist could do was half the battle, and winning the other half was as easy as not letting him touch them with his scythe. The following fight, once the connection between Kakashi and Hidan is broken and Kakuzu has pulled a runner, is mercifully short.

"You fucking fuckers! I'll fucking cut off YOUR heads and see how YOU like it! Leave you to get your fucking eyes pecked out by the fucking BIRDS!"

An hour later, they're all staring at Hidan's head sans his body as the S-Ranked Missing Nin curses them all out. Naruto has his hand in Hidan's hair, gripping it tightly as he lifts the head up to eye level.

Meanwhile, his hand is down below, drawing on the chest of Hidan's decapitated corpse. Though, is it a corpse if the head is still talking? Naruto didn't know, but neither did he care. It was time to end this.

"Are you sure you can do this, Naruto?"

Sakura's concern is fair enough. Even with her healing, Kakashi had still fallen unconscious. Meanwhile, Naruto had used more of his chakra in spamming suped up Nature Clones then he would have preferred. Still, he refused to leave this battle unfinished. Kakuzu might have gotten away, but Hidan was fucking dying right here and right now.

Finishing the seal at long last, Naruto gives Sakura a simple nod… before pouring as much of his remaining chakra into the experimental seal as he possibly could.

Truth be told, Naruto is expecting this last part to be the hardest thing he's had to do all day. Fighting an evil god isn't supposed to be easy, right? Except… either Jashin doesn't really exist, or he doesn't protect his failures, because the seal that Naruto has made to dissolve Hidan's 'blessing' works like a charm. It starts by annihilating the Missing Nin's chakra pathways and then goes even further, tearing through every scrap of chakra that the man has suffusing his admittedly powerful, utterly strange body.

Hidan's eyes widen as he feels whatever Naruto is doing. Thanks to the hold Naruto has on his hair, the man's decapitated head is connected to the ritual. In the end, Hidan barely gets off two more words before his features go slack and he finally dies for real.

"FUCK YOU-!"

Naruto lets out an explosive breath as he slowly stands up and lets the head drop from his grasp. Then, he looks around at everyone else and gives them a tired grin.

"… It's done. I'm going to collapse now. Someone please catch me."

He really needs to stop doing this… but at least he has good friends. Sasuko catches him before he hits the ground, and Naruto has a moment to give her an appreciative smile before he's out like a light.

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