HSU: Ch. 336

"Congratulations. You, too, can now attain eternal beauty."

Sasori looked down at the Suna jonin beneath his feet, a satisfied smile curling on his handsome face.

The jonin pinned under him was completely numb. Not figuratively. Literally, his entire body was paralyzed. Human puppets had to be made while the person was still alive. And as for the anesthetic, Sasori didn't use it out of mercy, but because it kept the "material" from moving, which could affect the crafting process.

"Sasori-sama."

An Ame ninja came running from the distance, looking both respectful and nervous before Sasori's overly delighted expression.

"The Suna army has been defeated. Lady Saint orders us to continue the pursuit."

"Then go pursue them," Sasori said irritably, displeased that his moment of rapture had been interrupted. He glanced at the Ame ninja. "The only one who can give me orders is Nagato."

The Ame ninja gave an awkward laugh, then forced himself to continue: "She said that God has granted her full authority, over you and Kakuzu as well. She says there's been a small problem, and she needs your personal assistance."

"That woman's getting ahead of herself," Sasori muttered unhappily.

He turned his gaze back to the jonin on the ground. "Seems our little session will have to wait. Don't worry. We'll meet again very soon."

He lifted his foot and took out a large syringe. Under the Suna jonin's glare, one that seemed to say 'You bastard!' Sasori calmly injected him with half a tube of the stuff.

What a stubborn material. Not bad.

He liked it when his "materials" started out defiant and proud, only to end up screaming for mercy and begging for death. They were all the same. Spineless, shallow, vulgar. They put on such airs, but couldn't even endure a little pain.

When he carved into himself, he hadn't made a sound. He hadn't found it painful at all.

"Take this one back," he told the Ame ninja. "Make sure he's not damaged, and don't let him miss any meals."

"Yes, Sasori-sama, you can rest assured."

"Oh, I am quite assured. If he dies, you'll do just fine as a replacement."

Even knowing Sasori was just toying with him, the Ame ninja couldn't help but feel a chill run down his spine.

"Where is she now?" Sasori asked.

"Over there." The Ame ninja pointed south.

Sasori followed his gaze. In the distance, a column of thick smoke rose straight into the sky.

He chuckled. Kakuzu was definitely losing his temper again. And he was absolutely right.

The smoke came from a series of massive craters, explosions that had torn the land apart.

They were already inside the Land of Wind's borders. With Sasori and Kakuzu joining the fight, Suna's proud puppet divisions had taken devastating losses, and their various poisons had all been countered.

The Ame ninja army was advancing steadily. At long last, they had pushed the battlefield into enemy territory.

Their morale was sky-high. How many years had it been since they'd fought outside their own rain-soaked borders? At last, the fires of war were burning on their enemy's soil.

The Land of Wind, and Suna, had been among the very ones that once shattered the Land of Rain's dream of becoming a great power.

Konan's paper wings had already scattered. The Paper Person Technique was her primary battle technique. Even the Sharingan couldn't see through it. She could disguise countless explosive tags as anything at all.

This time, she had successfully sent a whole squad of Suna ninjas and their puppets up in flames. The Suna army was forced to retreat.

The only problem with this strategy was its cost.

Oh, and Kakuzu's constant nagging.

"You used that many explosive tags on small fry like this? Are you out of your mind?" Kakuzu's voice was cold. "Do you even realize how short on tags we are right now?"

"Do you realize how many ninjas our village has lost?" Konan's tone was even colder. "Money can always be earned again. But a capable genin takes ten years to train."

"Earning money has nothing to do with you," Kakuzu muttered. To him, this woman wasn't just wasteful. She had no sense of practical warfare either.

In his opinion, she had no business being on the front lines. All she ever did was throw explosive tags everywhere.

It was really Sasori and Kakuzu doing the actual fighting. And yet, every time this woman appeared, the Ame ninjas would cheer and shout "Saint! Saint!" like a bunch of idiots.

Konan didn't bother arguing with him.

Frankly, neither Kakuzu nor Sasori cared about Ame itself. They were only cooperating because Nagato fulfilled their individual goals.

To Ame, they were untrustworthy but indispensable.

As Konan thought of the Akatsuki that Yahiko had built, now little more than a shadow of its former self, she felt a pang in her heart.

Even if only the name remained, she couldn't bear to lose it completely.

Suddenly, she noticed movement on the northern horizon. A squad approaching at incredible speed.

"Which unit is that?" she frowned.

This war had already exposed many of Ame's weaknesses, including one of the most basic flaws in their ninja forces: the inability to maneuver large formations effectively.

Suna's ninjas would never fail to have their small units arrive at the battlefield on time, but the Ame ninjas, it happened all the time.

If it weren't for Konan's willingness to "blow money" on explosions, and the presence of Sasori and Kakuzu, the Ame ninjas could never have driven the Suna ninjas out of their borders.

And even now, the Kazekage still hadn't shown up.

"You idiot. Those aren't your people."

As a seasoned veteran who'd survived since the end of the Warring States period, Kakuzu recognized it immediately from their tactical formation. Those were definitely not Ame ninjas.

Not to mention, even from this distance, he could smell that all-too-familiar scent.

"They're Konoha's ANBU."

His skin began to bulge. Earth Grudge Fear had been with him for decades, already fused completely into his body. And that reaction meant only one thing.

"Masashi?" Konan's eyes widened as she finally saw the man leading the squad.

She couldn't keep her composure.

Why he was here, Konan didn't know. But she did know one thing for certain. He wasn't here to help Ame.

If he didn't drop a Chibaku Tensei or a Super Shinra Tensei on their village, that would already count as extraordinary mercy.

Suddenly, a gust of wind swept past her. Kakuzu had already leapt forward, rushing straight toward the Konoha ninjas led by Masashi.

"Kakuzu! What are you doing!? Get back here!" Konan shouted.

This time, she was frightened.

Had he lost his mind?

In the distance, Masashi also noticed Kakuzu charging toward him.

"Oh?" His eyes lit up in amusement.

Someone still charging at him?

Well, if it was Kakuzu, that explained it.

"Masashi!"

Earth Grudge Fear burst out from his skin. In an instant, several massive tendrils, like octopus tentacles, expanded outward. And they were huge. Once the secret weapon of Taki, Earth Grudge Fear was truly a divine artifact. It could perfectly channel its wielder's chakra nature, including Yang Release. By expanding its form and combining it with his Earth Style: Earth Spear, a makeshift version of True Thousand Hands had already taken shape.

Black threads erupted again from his back, weaving themselves into a pair of wings.

He kicked off the ground and took flight.

"What is that thing?" Even Itachi, who had seen plenty of bizarre jutsu, was a bit stunned. 

As he spoke, the tentacles of Earth Grudge Fear shot downward, striking at the Konoha ninjas below with tremendous force.

To be fair, if this had been during the time between the First and Third Great Ninja Wars, Kakuzu would have been a real monster, an unstoppable force on the battlefield. But right now, the real monsters fought in far simpler, more brutal ways.

Masashi's eyes shifted into the Rinnegan.

He raised his hand toward Kakuzu.

Shinra Tensei!

The powerful repulsive force blasted both Kakuzu and his extended tendrils high into the sky, dozens of meters up.

The Konoha ninjas on the ground felt the earth shudder beneath their feet.

Masashi pushed off and shot upward as well.

He knew Earth Grudge Fear had extraordinary physical binding ability. It could restrain an opponent's hands with precision, preventing them from forming seals or summoning. Even Jiraiya's Wild Lion's Mane Technique couldn't compare. It lacked the fine control and could be easily countered with a substitution jutsu.

But unless his opponent was someone on the level of Madara, he didn't bother with finesse anymore.

To him, Earth Grudge Fear's binding power was meaningless.

He spread his hand, activating his cursed seal. Tailed beast chakra flared to life.

Inferior: Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack!

The Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack, used by Kaguya, was based on her overwhelming chakra and godlike perception. Never mind the number of fists. Each carried Six Paths-level destructive power, covering all directions with no blind spots. Neither ninjutsu nor genjutsu could evade it.

It also served as absolute defense, forming a shell that could completely enclose Kaguya herself.

He couldn't use the full technique. He hadn't learned the complete version. But even so, he unleashed dozens of tangible chakra fists, sealing every possible escape route with the perception of his Rinnegan.

From Konan's distant vantage point, it looked like dozens of massive blue chakra fists slammed down on Kakuzu in the blink of an eye.

She froze in shock.

What was that jutsu!?

Even the fact that Masashi had eyes like Nagato's wasn't as hard to accept as this.

Masashi, meanwhile, was very satisfied with the results of his first attempt at the Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack.

Using Matatabi's chakra, the inferior version had performed exactly as he'd hoped.

Dozens of chakra fists plowed the earth ahead of him, and since Matatabi's chakra carried an innate burning nature, the entire ground below had turned into a sea of blue fire.

This was pure, orthodox Ōtsutsuki-style combat.

Glancing back, he saw his special-ops unit halt before the burning field, then turn southward.

Itachi might have his flaws, but he had one great strength. His ability to grasp intent instantly. He never needed much explanation. He always understood exactly what to do.

Masashi turned his eyes forward again, flew over the sea of blue flames, and descended toward Konan.

As he came crashing down, she reacted on instinct. The paper wings on her back fluttered as she prepared to fly away.

But she was Jiraiya's discount student after all, so she performed her Paper Dance technique, using swirling sheets of paper and paper clones to try hiding her real body.

In Masashi's eyes, her true form had nowhere to hide. He felt this wasn't ideal, so he threw a punch.

Calling this move the Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack wasn't quite accurate. It was too heavily nerfed. "Uchiha Empty God Strike" would be more fitting.

But honestly, this technique paired extremely well with the cursed seal.

Compared to jinchūriki methods, the tailed beast chakra conducted through a cursed seal put far heavier strain on the body. But when using the Empty God Strike, the strain was nearly zero. The tailed beast chakra stayed in the body for an extremely short time, almost negligible.

This time, Konan saw it even more clearly.

Chakra erupted from Masashi's palm, forming a gigantic fist in midair. The instant this violent chakra materialized, it began affecting the surrounding environment.

The temperature in the air surged. Fragile sheets of paper ignited instantly, and even Konan felt a brutal impulse surge in her heart.

But that feeling was quickly replaced by fear.

The blue chakra fist roared through the air, and the shockwave, accompanied by ring-shaped waves of flame, burned every last piece of scattered paper to ash in an instant.

Seeing that colossal fist of fire, too huge for even ten people to encircle, closing in on her, Konan shut her eyes in despair.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Explosions tore through her ears until only ringing remained.

Scorching air waves pressed her clothes against her body. Even her sweat couldn't escape, evaporated instantly.

Konan opened her eyes. Her ears still rang, but she was alive.

It turned out that the fiery fist had separated just before hitting her, precisely avoiding her position and blasting everything except where she stood.

Within a hundred-meter radius centered on her, not a single scrap of paper remained. The paper clones had long since vanished. A full layer of the ground had been shaved off. Even if traps had been set, they were gone now.

A pull of gravity came from ahead, and Konan was dragged downward without the ability to resist.

Masashi had simply thrown a Universal Pull at her.

"We're old acquaintances. Why run the moment we meet?" he said unhappily. "Treating an ally like this... if Yahiko were still around, he'd knock some sense into you."

Hearing that name snapped Konan back to herself.

"You're not going to kill me?"

"Which part of this looks like I'm trying to kill an ally? I'm here to mediate. I was stopping you from leaving, wasn't I?"

Konan looked around, then glanced toward where Kakuzu had fallen. The flames there were out, but the ground had collapsed into a huge pit from the earlier bombardment and melting effects.

In her eyes, everything about this looked like he was here to pick a fight.

Kakuzu still hadn't climbed back up. She was starting to suspect he'd been beaten to death.

"Quit looking at me like that," Masashi said. "If I wanted to kill you, would I need to go through all this trouble? Kakuzu isn't dead. You're really underestimating him. I pulled my punches. Besides, he struck first. If he did die from that, that's on him."

"...Where are your subordinates? I saw them heading south."

"Obviously to go find the Suna ninjas. Both sides need to be present for mediation, right?"

Konan fell silent for a moment. She decided not to overthink whether this was a trap.

After all, she was facing someone who could kill her in the most final way possible with a single punch.

When someone like that offers you a way out, you take it.

She wasn't afraid of death, but dying like this would be too frustrating.

"You look normal now. Let's go."

"Go where?"

"Find a place. Negotiations should be in some peaceful, scenic spot. Good environment, good mood, better talks."

Masashi swore he meant this wholeheartedly.

He wasn't planning to find a nice burial site for anyone. His reputation outside recently had taken a downturn, probably because of the chaos he caused in Kumo.

With Konan now obedient, Masashi started walking toward the direction of Suna.

After a long time, on the scorched blackened earth, a small mound rose.

Pop!

With a sound like a bottle cap popping off from internal pressure, Kakuzu's head emerged.

He looked around warily. After confirming no one was nearby, the earth around him began to churn.

Countless black tendrils burst from the soil. In the blink of an eye, they covered the ground, writhing and intertwining, making strange, unsettling noises.

Kakuzu's head, from the neck down, was entirely massed with these black threads. They had propped his head upward.

As the threads intertwined further, they began retracting into a humanoid shape. The glow of medical ninjutsu flickered continuously as skin rapidly grew over the dark form.

Masashi had held back, but the Empty God Strike was pure dimensional warfare against the average ninja of this era. And with a tailed beast supporting him, he'd naturally avoided the move's greatest weakness, extreme chakra consumption.

With the Rinnegan, he could use chakra targeting to strike opponents with no blind spots, so of course he could also hold back intentionally.

But Kakuzu still had to suffer for it.

Without Earth Grudge Fear and his unusually robust Yang Release, far superior to most of this era, Masashi's version of "holding back" would have killed him utterly.

As the medical ninjutsu restored him, his skin rapidly regrew below the neck. But during the process, the Earth Grudge Fear threads trembled and spat out four objects.

They had been heavily damaged by external force and were now completely unusable.

Kakuzu looked at the destroyed hearts on the ground, understanding that this was a warning for him. He now had only one heart left, one with Earth-nature chakra. It had only been a few years, yet the opponent's level was already far beyond his reach.

Just like when he once faced Hashirama and Madara.

No, this was even worse. After experiencing that technique from Masashi firsthand, he felt that all his years hadn't been lived in vain, but he still concluded that the technique was born from a level of chakra mastery he could no longer comprehend, something that surpassed all ninjutsu he knew.

He didn't even need to compare. He had reached the conclusion.

Nagato is not on Masashi's level.

Masashi also had the Rinnegan, but Nagato definitely could not perform that technique.

This had nothing to do with bloodline or any special ability. It was chakra. That threshold was the greatest one of all.

Nagato, you better compensate me properly for this.

Once his skin had finished regenerating, he stopped looking at the discarded hearts and left.

He was headed to find Sasori.

Testing Masashi's current strength, that was the task Nagato had given him.

He prided himself on being reasonable. Nagato was much stronger than he was but had always treated him with respect. So he would honor the agreement. Especially this time. It was only fair repayment for Nagato's long-standing respect toward him.

Masashi was a troublesome man, so he needed to meet with Sasori first.

But before that, he had to see someone else and replace his missing hearts. Kakuzu quickly departed from the land Masashi had casually ravaged. He traveled north until he reached his target, the Ame's forward base.

Along the way, he encountered a patrol squad of Ame ninjas. From them, he learned that the person he sought was indeed here.

He was looking for an old "coworker," now the de facto spokesperson of Akatsuki.

Zetsu.

This yin-yang-faced being was now completely black, not even wearing clothes. Its entire body pitch black, clearly no longer human.

Kakuzu didn't mind. After all, when he first regenerated, he was also "perfectly natural," and Earth Grudge Fear didn't exactly make him look human either. Since both sides looked inhuman, there was nothing for anyone to be bothered about.

Entering the base, Kakuzu headed straight for the tent where Zetsu resided.

At this moment, Black Zetsu was sitting on a little folding stool, elbows on knees, chin resting on his hands, thinking in the manner of some brooding commander. He had been thinking about one thing. When he followed Madara away from Konoha earlier, he seemed to have received a summons from Kaguya.

His heart had been shocked. And even now, it was still shocked.

But he suspected he might have simply missed her too much, and that had caused a hallucination.

As for why such hallucinations would appear, well, that was obvious. Madara's period of lurking in Konoha had nearly driven him insane.

What had he not done? What had he not seen?

But taking care of children, that, he had neither done nor seen.

He observed the shinobi world. He did not observe people babysitting.

Even Hagoromo hadn't babysat!

And Uchiha brats were far too difficult to raise!

But... the feeling of being summoned by Kaguya had been so real that he couldn't forget it.

Too real!

But she was still sealed. She could not possibly be calling to him.

It made no sense.

If Madara hadn't already been on the move at that moment, he would definitely have gone to investigate.

Should I go back and check? But I'm too busy... Madara really knows how to overwork others.

Black Zetsu grumbled internally.

Ever since leaving Konoha, he had muttered about this issue to himself several times a day.

Today, someone interrupted his muttering.

The tent flap was yanked open, and Kakuzu stepped inside.

He looked at Black Zetsu sitting in that bizarre posture but didn't care, and spoke directly, "You can recall the Akatsuki members now."

Though they were former colleagues, they had no real relationship and had never teamed together.

Zetsu had no bounty on the black market. Nobody would pay for his head. And Kakuzu never bothered with people who weren't worth money.

"You're calling a ceasefire?" Black Zetsu didn't care about Kakuzu's attitude. Earth Grudge Fear was nothing impressive in his eyes, and Kakuzu's personality made him hard to manipulate. To him, Kakuzu was basically a passerby, fine as long as they didn't interfere with each other.

"Masashi has arrived, and he's obtained new power. You really don't want to see him," Kakuzu said. This former colleague of his had bizarre abilities and also seemed immortal. "Don't look at yourself like that. Even with your body, if his new technique hits you, you might not survive."

"Oh?" Upon hearing the name of the only friend he had ever had, Black Zetsu became interested. "What new technique?"