The next thing Kakuzu felt was a painful prick in his chest. Looking down, he saw a kunai held by the former Leaf shinobi, its blood-covered blade sticking out of his chest. Kakuzu's entire body shook as one of his hearts was pierced.
"Only three left, bastard," Naruto whispered darkly. He pulled his hand out of Kakuzu's body just in time to avoid the wires coming from the masked man's back.
The two Akatsuki members were attacked from every direction by dozens—no, hundreds—of clones that kept appearing. For every one that appeared, ten more took its place. It was impossible for the two men to keep up this pace, but...
"..." Breathing heavily and covered in sweat, the real Naruto ran between the clones and grabbed a spear that came out of one of the seals. He threw it with all his strength, nearly piercing Hidan's head, but the man moved at the last second.
"Just a little longer..." Pushing his body to its limit, Naruto had to maintain the technique for as long as possible.
"You're the fucking original, aren't you?!" Hidan shouted after noticing that one of the teenager's countless copies looked more exhausted and injured than the others. "I'm coming for you!"
With a burst of speed and strength, Hidan destroyed every clone in his path. Covered in cuts and stab wounds, the silver-haired man looked like a human pincushion. The immortal devotee didn't seem to care as he prepared to slash the teenager with his scythe.
However, Hidan never reached him. A chain came out of the ground, and two of Naruto's clones pulled it tight, trapping him. He glared furiously at the Uzumaki, who ran toward him and plunged a kunai into his throat.
"Ahg!" Paralyzed, Hidan staggered as the blade entered beneath his jaw and pierced upward toward his skull.
"Uksx-u-m-su-uki-i!" His cut tongue made it impossible to speak properly. Hidan screamed when another kunai buried itself in his right eye.
Without mercy, Naruto prepared to finish him by crushing the follower of Jashin's skull, but a tornado of fire engulfed him before he could. The flames grew to gigantic proportions, burning every clone along with all the seals flying through the air.
"..." Kakuzu had lost part of his mask and the upper part of his clothing. What little blood remained in his body ran from the wounds caused by the weapons the teenager had summoned. With only three hearts left, the veteran of the Hidden Waterfall Village couldn't allow the battle to continue this way.
Naruto rolled across the ground as lightning rained down on him. Dazed, he saw the dark outline of one of Kakuzu's masks high in the sky, firing different long-range techniques, all of them Raiton.
"..." Naruto looked at the mask. A great cloud of smoke completely covered him, and when it cleared, a four-bladed Fūma shuriken had appeared in his hands. He threw it toward his target with all his strength.
While he was distracted by the Raiton mask, hands came out beneath Naruto's feet, grabbed him by the neck, and slammed him into the ground. Kakuzu lifted him and targeted him with a Katon technique—a fire dragon.
"Three..." Naruto struggled against the hold, but Kakuzu's strength was far from disappointing.
"Two..." He looked up and saw that the shuriken he had thrown at the Raiton mask had missed.
"One..." With the Katon attack only a few meters away, he smiled.
Time seemed to slow. The Raiton mask dodged the shuriken as it barely grazed past, only for the weapon to transform in a cloud of smoke into Naruto. He held a kunai surrounded by a blade of wind, which easily cut the mask in half and destroyed another of Kakuzu's hearts.
Kakuzu shook from the terrible pain of losing another heart, but that didn't matter now. He had the original Naruto trapped and about to be burned to ash.
"Another clone?!" To his dismay, the Naruto in his grasp disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Kakuzu looked up and found the original.
Still falling from high in the sky, Naruto had no time to move away before one of the rogue ninja's arms struck the cut across his chest. He gasped and twisted in pain as the force of the blow sent him upward.
"What?!" Alarmed, he felt something grab his ankle. Looking down, he saw Kakuzu pulling him toward the ground before brutally slamming him into it.
The impact formed a crater, leaving Naruto sprawled at its center. He slowly tried to rise, but Kakuzu planted a foot on his chest. The sound of his ribs breaking was followed by a muffled cry of pain.
"So much wasted talent. If only you hadn't allowed your ideals to guide you... you could have grown to be as powerful as Hashirama Senju..." Kakuzu looked darkly at the teenager and pressed down harder, finally forcing a scream of agony from him. "Perhaps this is for the best. You would've become a threat that not even Pain might have been able to contain..."
"Rot in hell..." With his Sharingan shining, Naruto grabbed Kakuzu's leg with both hands and squeezed until he heard it crack. Four clones came out from beneath the ground and charged, but they didn't land a single blow. Wires came from the rogue ninja's body and pierced all four of them.
"You're already finished..." The threads extending from Kakuzu's body slowly withdrew. He remained standing over the fallen teenager and looked at him coldly. "Was everything you did worth such a pathetic end? I don't think so..."
"You were always an arrogant, greedy bastard," Naruto growled. He still lay on the ground with blood running from his mouth, but he was smiling. "Remember one of the rules in the shinobi handbook... always be ready for the unexpected."
Before Kakuzu could ask what he meant, his eyes opened wide as several protrusions came out of his chest. Stunned, he looked down and saw both of his remaining hearts pierced. When he looked behind him, he found Hidan smiling, his eyes darkened.
"What have you done?" Kakuzu's entire body trembled. He staggered as Hidan pulled his scythe free.
"Finally... finally..." Breathing heavily, Hidan smiled grimly as his partner's dying body fell at his feet. "Ha... ha... ha..." He began to laugh and raised his scythe victoriously. "To hell with Akatsuki! No one will take away the satisfaction of killing you, you damned bastard!"
Hidan... you damned traitor... That was Kakuzu's first thought as he looked with pure hatred at the follower of Jashin, who was euphoric over his victory.
"To hell with Akatsuki's plan! We can wait for the Nine-Tails fox to be reborn again!"
"Wh-what?" As he slowly bled out, Kakuzu looked at his partner's darkened eyes. "You're an idiot, Hidan."
...….
Two minutes earlier…
The sound of blows continued across the battlefield, where Kakuzu and Naruto were fighting their final battle. On the vast, burned ground covered in ash lay Hidan's body, the kunai Naruto had driven into his jaw still in place. The rogue ninja began to move. The first thing he did was pull out the weapon piercing his jaw. Growling in fury and pain, he also removed the kunai from one of his eyes.
"That hurt like hell..." Hidan's body changed. His skin turned dark, and his wounds healed in an instant as every cell regenerated. He was left as good as new, without the slightest sign of fatigue. It was one of the last blessings granted to him by his beloved Jashin-sama: the ability to recover from any physical injury. He could lose an arm or a leg and recover it in an instant.
Rising to his feet, Hidan looked into the distance and saw the Uzumaki brat beating his partner to a pulp. It was pathetic that the greedy old man couldn't hold his own against a dying teenager, a true pain in the ass who needed to be eliminated once and for all.
"Kill him, Hidan... kill him... kill him..."
An idea entered Hidan's mind. Why not kill him? A voice inside his head was tempting him to do it. Could it be Jashin-sama answering his doubts, telling him to offer as a sacrifice the wretch who had humiliated him in the past?
"I'll do it... I'll do it for you, Jashin-sama."
Without thinking, Hidan obeyed the voice inside his head and ran at the Uzumaki, who already had Kakuzu defeated on the ground. With his scythe raised, he attacked.
[ If you want to read advance Chapters then go to Pat reon and support me there as I have already uploaded advance Chapters there.
PAT REON I'D:- Skythe ]