"Let me handle this!"
Hidan swung the Bloody Triple Scythe, eager to fight.
"I'm gonna kill you, Hokage!"
A follower of Jashin.
An immortal monster walking among men.
He couldn't wait to take a drop of Naruto's blood and kill him.
"What about you?"
Naruto crooked a finger at Kakuzu, who was still in a daze.
"Not planning to fight? I told you long ago—I'm taking your bloodline and secret techniques!"
Naruto flicked his finger with a grin, and towering trees surged upward from beneath the waters of Amegakure!
"Does this look familiar?"
"Kakuzu! You once tried to assassinate the First Hokage of my Konoha. How has your life as a rogue ninja been these past few decades? Did you ever think I, the Acting Hokage, would come after you?"
Naruto brought his hands together.
He stood atop a mountain formed from more than a hundred giant wooden hands.
"Answer me! Why aren't you fighting? You have a secret technique that lets you stitch yourself back together and live forever, so why are you backing down?"
"At least throw a kunai at me! What are you cowering from, you coward?"
Naruto's terrifying presence as he looked down on them was like boundless darkness fused with storm clouds that filled the sky.
"Kakuzu! Kill him!" Hidan shouted, urging his partner to attack.
But Kakuzu stared up at Naruto in terror.
How could he look so much like him?
"Hashirama Senju!"
Kakuzu sensed that familiar chakra, along with an unparalleled Kekkei Genkai.
Wood Style!
Who else but Hashirama Senju could unleash Wood Style with such devastating power?
"So you've returned from the Pure Land after all, Hashirama Senju! You didn't kill me back then!"
"I don't want your mercy! I'll defeat you! I have an immortal body now. I can definitely kill you!"
For a moment, Kakuzu felt as though he had returned to his youth.
Who in their right mind would issue a mission to assassinate the God of Shinobi? But he had gone anyway, marching to his death.
So when he heard that Hashirama Senju had died, Kakuzu refused to believe it.
Go, and you died. Refuse, and you died anyway.
Kakuzu had asked himself a thousand times: if the target had been Madara Uchiha, Takigakure would probably have been reduced to ashes.
Throughout his career as a ninja, Kakuzu had wondered what might have happened if he had been born in Konoha instead of Takigakure, and followed someone other than those fools—if he had followed the God of Shinobi, Hashirama Senju.
Perhaps he would have found a home long ago, and never become a rogue ninja, forever adrift.
"Kakuzu! Ignite your chakra!"
Naruto struck out with ninety-nine giant wooden hands.
"Hashirama Senju!"
Kakuzu didn't see Naruto. He saw the figure that haunted him, Hashirama Senju!
The sworn enemy he wanted to defeat. The god he had wanted to follow.
"Earth Grudge Fear!"
"Combined Ninjutsu: Searing Migraine!"
The masks on Kakuzu's shoulders were the last struggle of enemies before their deaths.
Black threads filled the sky, trying to entangle the unstoppable wooden hands.
Give it everything!
Kakuzu had once risked everything for his village, only to be cruelly betrayed.
The Ninja World gave him nowhere to belong, yet it was also where he had found refuge.
Losing to the God of Shinobi was no disgrace. Losing to the people of his own village was shameful!
"Hashirama Senju! I hate you!" Kakuzu roared, the green glow in his eyes flickering beneath his mask.
The fear he had felt in his youth had really only happened when he was already an adult.
But within Kakuzu's long life, it had become a brief memory, like the resentments of a boy.
If he had woken up in Konoha after being defeated that day, perhaps he wouldn't have learned so painfully just how cruel the world was.
"Why did you defeat me without killing me? Do you know I've never dared to die again? I'm afraid of death! I only love money! I became even more shameless than those beasts! It's all because you didn't kill me that day!"
Kakuzu cursed, his words as incessant as Deidara's, his pride as fierce as Hidan's.
Young men were always foolish. Once they made up their minds, they fought to the bitter end, no matter how difficult it was.
As Kakuzu merged Naruto's image with Hashirama Senju's, he felt how little blood remained in his body!
Five hearts, with black threads in place of blood.
Of course he was Kakuzu, the rogue ninja from Takigakure!
"Look carefully."
"Hashirama Senju is dead. An era has passed, and you're the only remnant of the old age still alive."
"What you've been hiding, barely clinging to life—that's the shadow you've lived in ever since you left Takigakure, afraid to step into the sunlight."
"Kakuzu, I'm taking your secret technique, and your life belongs to me!"
Naruto treated the sea of fire before him like a puddle of mud.
So what if fire countered wood?
A blaze capable of burning down a house was just as insignificant when faced with a giant tree that could topple a mountain.
The gusts from more than a hundred wooden hands alone were enough to snuff out Kakuzu's sea of fire!
"Earth Grudge Fear: Final Shot!"
Wind, lightning, and fire.
Three types of chakra came together in a cannon blast, capable of turning an enemy to ashes from a distance.
Kakuzu seemed like the weakest of them, but his long-range firepower was actually one of his strengths.
Naruto didn't just want Kakuzu's ability to keep himself alive. He also wanted the Chakra Cannon, which combined chakra from multiple nature transformations.
In Naruto's hands, that weapon would let him gather highly concentrated chakra with a single point of his finger or the press of his palm, whenever he wanted.
It would be powerful enough to destroy entire armies!
Naruto would become a long-range weapon with tremendous speed and agility!
His destructive power and combat prowess would become unrivaled!
"You want to kill me? Then come on!"
Kakuzu fired his cannon.
"Wood Release: Wood Dragon Technique!"
"Wood Release: Wood Golem Technique!"
Naruto brought his hands together.
The Wood Dragon coiled around Kakuzu's chakra cannon and withstood the blast without a scratch, then quickly wrapped itself around Kakuzu.
Kakuzu's five masks flew from his body, and he desperately tried to release a flood of black threads to find a way out.
But the Wood Golem was already standing over him. It brought its palm down!
Naruto had already beaten Itachi senseless with Majestic Attire: Kurama.
Now, this terrifying display of Wood Style left the members of the Akatsuki even more shaken.
Had Kakuzu really tried to assassinate Hashirama Senju back then?
How had he survived?
The Wood Golem's slap from Naruto had caused terrifying destruction.
All five masks shattered at once.
The black threads were crushed like a flood of ink.
Only when Kakuzu was overwhelmed by that crushing force did he understand why Kisame Hoshigaki had lost all will to resist before his defeat.
But at that moment, Kakuzu was overwhelmed with excitement. The power of Hashirama Senju!
The humiliation of being crushed so utterly made Kakuzu ecstatic. It was as if he were back in the forest, trying to assassinate Hashirama, only to get beaten to a pulp!
"You still claim you're not Hashirama Senju!"
Kakuzu's will was completely broken.
As his last heart was destroyed, his chakra was drained away.
A scroll tumbled out from among the black threads.
"There sure are a lot of fans of the First Hokage in the Ninja World."
Naruto picked up the secret technique scroll from the ruins. He only had to glance at it once to memorize everything inside.
A coffin burst up from the ground.
Naruto ignored Kakuzu, who stepped out of it looking utterly bewildered.
He pointed at Hidan, Konan, and Nagato.
"I said I'd wipe all of you out today. Who still has a trick they haven't used?"
White threads sprouted from Naruto's body.
Sage Mode Double had also fused with the power of Earth Grudge Fear, letting him seize other people's hearts at any time to extend his life.
"If I can kill you with my own hands and offer you as a sacrifice to Lord Jashin, I'll become his one and only chosen apostle!"
"Naruto Uzumaki! No one survives the Bloody Triple Scythe!"
Hidan hurled his scythe and charged at Naruto at close range.
"You want to take my blood?"
Naruto kicked the scythe away and drove a punch into Hidan's stomach.
"You're willing to take my life? Aren't you afraid your Lord Jashin will be scared to death?"
Naruto, in his Sage form, faced the immortal Jashin!