The gauzy mist surrounding them was thick with the pungent stench of blood.
Hidan carried the Bloody Triple-Bladed Scythe as he searched around for something, cursing under his breath and bringing a trace of life to the forest shrouded in mist and silence.
Kakuzu rose from atop a damp boulder and swept his gaze over the area.
Everywhere he looked, trees lay toppled in every direction, and craters of varying depths pocked the ground. All of it clearly showed that a fierce battle had taken place here not long ago.
At last, Kakuzu's gaze fell on Utakata, who had been nailed to a tree by a Kunai, and his expression turned grim.
Drip...
Drip...
Drop by drop, blood fell from Utakata's body, splashing into the puddles on the ground.
Utakata was covered in wounds, his clothes almost entirely dyed red. He had fallen unconscious, and both his hands had been pierced through by Kunai, leaving him nailed to the trunk like a pig or dog awaiting slaughter.
"Tch!"
Kakuzu spat contemptuously.
They had suffered a major loss this time and had nearly been defeated. If not for how utterly unreasonable Hidan's Death Controlling Possessed Blood was, the two lying on the ground right now would probably have been them.
"The organization's intelligence this time was way too far off!"
Even someone like Kakuzu could not help but complain.
Before the operation, Akatsuki had described the Six-Tails Jinchuriki as a "low-level threat." This assessment was based on the fact that Utakata was not a perfect Jinchuriki and lacked coordination with the Six-Tails. Once he entered Tailed Beast Transformation, he would lose his sense of self.
Thus, Kakuzu had thought this mission would be easy.
Yet he had never expected Utakata to be so strong. Though he was not a perfect Jinchuriki