CHAPTER 192: CH 192

Naruto and Yugito moved aside as a spear of lightning cut into the ground where they were standing. Both jinchuuriki split apart to avoid the jutsu but found a flaw with their plan of evasion when the bolt of lightning branched out and followed them both. The solid rock of Kumo’s mountain range was effortlessly carved into by the force of the arcing lightning.

’One chance to get this thing off of me.’ Naruto said as he formed hand-seals on the move and crossed his arms in an ’x’ to finish, "Fuuton: Senpuu Kakasui (Wind Release: Whirlwind Pyramid)!" A sudden wind kicked up around Naruto’s body, strong enough to deflect the quick and forceful lightning attack off to the side, effectively ending the threat it posed him and allowing him to move back in to continue fighting.

He was cut off from rejoining and assisting Yugito by Hidan appearing in front of him with his scythe drawn for attack. Naruto grit his teeth in anger at being diverted by the immortal berserker, "Do you even know any ninjutsu or genjutsu at all?"

Hidan smirked, "Nope, just one really. I’m pretty straightforward, you know what you’re going to get with me, but does that mean you can stop it?"

Hidan started swinging at Naruto who found it difficult to dodge due to the angles of Hidan’s strikes. It was clear he was used to fighting people with extreme dexterity as his attacks were tailor made for opponents that were far more mobile than he was. Naruto barely diverted a slash from Hidan’s scythe with the kunai in his hand but seeing how close he came to actually taking a cut from the wicked weapon, he needed to get that damn thing away from him.

Hidan attempted a cross slash that Naruto stopped by grabbing on to the pole of the weapon with both hands before it could impale him. Hidan kicked low at Naruto’s shin, disrupting his balance and his grip. Hidan butted the pole into Naruto’s face and knocked him back before swinging at him again. Naruto ducked, losing a few stray hairs in the process and pissing off Hidan further, "Just bleed already damn it! What do I have to do to draw blood on you?"

"Aim better for one!" Naruto said as his fist collided with Hidan’s scythe pole in an attempt to hit the man in the face. He dropped low for a kick, but Hidan shifted the scythe to block him again and kicked him backwards across the ground, a kick that Naruto easily recovered from, "For second you need to be faster." Meanwhile Yugito was still dodging Kakuzu’s Raiton: Gian, ’How long can he hold this jutsu for? He must have the reserves of six shinobi to keep this up for so long.’ Using the Nibi’s chakra kept her a step ahead of the lightning due to her not having a defensive jutsu the likes of Naruto that was strong against lightning ninjutsu, ’Where is it even coming from? I can’t even see the guy firing it!’

Yugito sharply abstracted her forward motion with a back handspring and started moving closer to the source of the lightning through the smoke that was still hanging around the battlefield. She played a dangerous game by twisting around the dangerous attack and dodging its branching stems of electricity that tried hitting her as she ran. She eventually found the source of the lightning in another one of Kakuzu’s black thread creatures with a mask.

As she caught sight of the creature it broke off its attack and sent out some of the threads that composed its body to ensnare her. Yugito turned up the heat of her blue, protective, flaming chakra cloak to keep them from touching her, "I’m so tired of you Akatsuki assholes!" She got back out of range of Kakuzu’s mask and opened her mouth, channeling chakra all the while, "Katon: Reizau Hari (Fire Release: Laser Beam)!"

Yugito fired a thin, straight, narrow red laser from her mouth that instantly impacted off of the mask of the creature and burned a hole right through, coming out the back of it and continuing on to burn a deep hole into the side of the mountain. Kakuzu’s masked creature immediately collapsed in a quivering mass of black thread as the mask that signified its face cracked.

"You troublesome upstarts." Yugito turned her head at the sound of Kakuzu’s voice, "You brats destroyed two of my hearts with your last two attacks." Kakuzu no longer had his Akatsuki cloak on, instead he had on a black sleeveless shirt revealing muscle tone and visible stitches that carried all across his body. The mask was now vacant from his face and showed that he had shoulder length brown hair and stitches around the edges of his mouth.

Yugito narrowed her eyes at him, "What the hell do you mean ’two of your hearts’?"

Kakuzu turned around to show her three masks sewn into his back, one of them cracked, and a vacant spot that looked like it used to be filled, "The mask you just destroyed was my lightning heart and that combination jutsu you and the Kyuubi boy launched destroyed my earth heart.

’Mask... Heart...’ Yugito thought before her eyes widened, "Each one of those masks is a heart? You have five hearts?"

"Had." Kakuzu corrected, "I had five hearts before I fought you and the boy. Now I have three. But that is of no real consequence, I’ll simply have to replace them after we capture the two of you, we are in Kuminari no Kuni, I’m certain I can find a replacement lightning element heart somewhere."

Yugito smirked, "So you’re not really immortal. All I have to do is kill you three more times before you’re gone for good right?"

Kakuzu chuckled at the simplified plan of action, "You say it like it’s going to be easy little girl. Hidan get over here!" He shouted to his partner who was still swiping furiously at Naruto who was shocked that he was still able to move at that intensity after attacking for as long as he had been.

"I’m a bit busy right now Kakuzu!" Hidan yelled back as he carried on with his assault on Naruto, "This kid’s going to get sluggish soon and then it’s game over for him!"

Naruto scoffed and kept narrowly avoiding Hidan’s attacks, noticing that the silver-haired man was beginning to get his timing down and had stopped openly telegraphing his attacks, "Please, if you’re waiting on me to get tired just from moving around like this you’ll be here for the next three days." That was a lot of bluster because at this rate Hidan was going to inevitably hit him. He was adapting to Naruto’s style of movement very well he had to give him that, and the way he kept coming forward was annoying enough to press other shinobi into making mistakes.

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