"Hey! Why are you just leaving?" Anko stared in confusion at the rogue ninja who showed no sign of engaging them. Were missing-nin this calm nowadays?
"Are you after my head?" Kakuzu paused mid-step and turned back, his voice cold.
Anko was caught off guard by the question and turned to Kagetsu, silently asking if they should attack.
"Kakuzu-san, may I study you?" Kagetsu ignored Anko's gaze and instead addressed Kakuzu earnestly.
"Study me?" Kakuzu's expression darkened instantly.
He rummaged through a stack of bounty notices in his hand, flipping through them carefully. "What a shame. It seems my memory didn't fail me—you're just a group of fledgling brats. Either you're not worth a bounty, or the reward is so low that no one bothered to report it to me."
"Fighting you will only waste my time. And time, after all, is money!"
Setting his case of ryo aside with exaggerated care, Kakuzu flexed his muscles and cracked his neck. "Since you're not destined to amount to anything significant, there's no point sparing you. Let's end this quickly."
Fire Style: Searing Migraine!
Kakuzu's hands blurred through hand signs as he spoke. In an instant, flames erupted from his mouth, expanding into a blazing inferno that surged toward the three Konoha shinobi.
Water Style: Water Formation Wall!
The moment Kakuzu moved, Shisui reacted just as quickly. He darted in front of his companions, forming hand seals at nearly the same speed.
A spiraling wall of water erupted from the ground beneath his feet, rotating to shield him, Anko, and Kagetsu completely from the approaching flames.
The raging sea of fire clashed with the swirling torrents of water, producing a sharp sizzling sound.
In the next moment, the spinning curtain of water transformed mid-air into a roaring water dragon, crashing down from the sky. The massive surge of water extinguished the flames. Amid the rising steam, both sides moved rapidly, almost instantly.
"Those eyes... they're the Sharingan!"
Kakuzu's voice echoed among the trees. Unlike his earlier reluctance, there was now a hint of excitement in his tone.
"This reminds me of that man, the one who stood equal to the First Hokage back then."
Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Flower Claw Crimson!
Ignoring Kakuzu's nostalgic remark, Shisui's Sharingan spun in his eye sockets, tracking Kakuzu's movements. With precise timing, he flung a dozen shuriken while forming hand seals. His chest expanded, and in the next moment, he exhaled bursts of flame, engulfing the flying shuriken in fiery orbs.
Wind Style: Great Breakthrough!
A powerful gust erupted from Kakuzu, blowing Shisui's fire technique into disarray until it dissipated entirely. However, this also revealed the shuriken concealed within the flames.
The shuriken struck Kakuzu's body but failed to inflict any damage, falling to the ground as if hitting solid rock.
Through his Sharingan's keen insight, Shisui noticed Kakuzu's skin had hardened. At the same time, he observed the unique, inhuman nature of Kakuzu's body—there were no chakra pathways like those in a normal ninja. Instead, five distinct chakra sources of different colors stood out clearly.
In Shisui's mind, Kakuzu's body was nothing short of a monstrous anomaly.
No wonder Kagetsu wants to study his body, Shisui thought.
He felt a sudden understanding. Given what he knew about Kagetsu, Kakuzu's unique physiology must be incredibly enticing to him—like some kind of powerful Kekkei Genkai.
"Is this a secret technique?" Shisui speculated silently.
But his movements didn't falter. His Sharingan spun rapidly, channeling the potent force of Yin Release directly into Kakuzu's brain.
For a brief moment, Kakuzu seemed trapped in a genjutsu, his expression struggling as he froze in place. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Shisui drew the short blade from his back and used the Body Flicker Technique to appear right in front of him.
Just as Shisui was about to sever the opponent's limbs to capture him alive, a sudden and inexplicable sense of danger washed over him. In the next instant, his body vanished from in front of Kakuzu.
At the same moment, Kakuzu's arm, shimmering with a stony texture, came crashing down toward Shisui. If not for some inexplicable hesitation on Kakuzu's part, Shisui might have had to face that rock-powered punch head-on.
The reason for Kakuzu's hesitation was reflected in Shisui's Sharingan as he landed.
A black shadow was linking Kakuzu's shadow to another.
"How surprising. An Uchiha and a Nara brat," Kakuzu remarked, turning his head toward Kagetsu on the other side.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
Before Kakuzu could finish his words, a sharp sound filled the air behind him. Snakes lunged at Kakuzu from behind, coiling and biting at him.
A sudden burst of electricity!
The body that the snakes bit into dissolved instantly, breaking apart into blazing electricity before fading away. However, the paralyzing current traveled through the snakes, reaching Anko.
Even though Anko reacted quickly to the danger and severed the connection almost instantly, her body was still affected by the paralysis, leaving her momentarily unable to move.
A kunai took this chance to slash toward Anko's neck.
Anko could even feel the icy chill of the blade, but in the next moment, her uncontrollable body suddenly regained its mobility. She leaned back just in time, tilting her head sharply.
Her motion not only smashed into Kakuzu behind her but also avoided his lethal strike.
Kakuzu, knocked back by the impact, could only think that Anko's body felt as solid as a rock.
"What kind of jutsu is this?" Kakuzu asked, his gaze fixed on the faint black patterns that appeared on Anko's body. His eyes then shifted to her shadow before landing on Kagetsu.
"Using the Shadow Imitation Technique to forcibly control a teammate's body, just like a puppet, to evade my attack? Seems like you're no ordinary group."
"My genjutsu doesn't work on him," Shisui said as he flickered to Kagetsu's side.
From the moment he activated his genjutsu to when Anko was forced to avoid an attack under the control of Kagetsu, everything happened in an instant. He now understood that the genjutsu from his Sharingan had no effect on Kakuzu. Thɪs chapter is updated by NoveI-Fire.ɴet
"His body is a bit special. You can think of him as a Jinchūriki," Kagetsu explained.
"Are you saying it's because of the five chakra sources inside him?" Even though he had received some information about Kakuzu from Kagetsu beforehand, experiencing it firsthand was still quite baffling.
"How about we just stop here? Our fight is meaningless," Kakuzu raised his hand. Facing three powerful opponents with no bounty on his head, he had no desire to engage in a life-or-death battle.
"Then, can I study your body?" Kagetsu asked seriously once more.
"It seems you all have underestimated me!" Kakuzu's eyes narrowed again, but he didn't say anything more about retreating. Instead, he clasped his hands together, and while his body underwent intense changes, he slowly spoke, "After all, I'm the one who once nearly assassinated your first Hokage!"
In an instant, Kakuzu's clothes tore apart, and black, monstrous creatures emerged from the stitches in his body.
"What's that?" Seeing four monsters circling Kakuzu, his torn skin reattaching itself with black threads, Anko and Shisui both widened their eyes in shock.
"That's Earth Grudge Fear, a forbidden technique from Takigakure. It's also our target this time," Kagetsu said, his eyes gleaming as he gazed at the terrifying scene.
Upon hearing Kagetsu's words, Kakuzu's heart sank as he felt offended by their gaze.
In the ninja world, those who covet the secret techniques of others were considered the most despicable and the most hated.
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