Revenge Begins

Eastern Land of Fire, a wilderness road.

The sun hung low in the western sky, its slanting rays filtering through gaps in the clouds and staining the rolling hills a dim gold. Low shrubs and weathered rocks lined both sides of the road, with the occasional crooked tree growing from cracks in the stone, its branches bent in the same direction by the wind.

Kakuzu walked in front, his pace steady, each stride almost exactly the same length.

He carried a white cloth bundle over his shoulder, coins clattering inside it.

A bounty of thirty million ryo. Another sizable profit.

Hidan followed three paces behind him, his scythe slung over his shoulder and its chain dangling along the ground. The metal links scraped over the gravel road, producing an unpleasant, fine, continuous rattle. He had a blade of grass between his teeth, chewed it twice, spat it out, then picked another.

"How much was that corpse worth again?" Hidan asked.

"Thirty million."

"Thirty million." Hidan repeated the number as if savoring it. "That should be enough, then. I've been bored to death these past few days. There haven't been any suitable sacrifices."

Kakuzu did not respond. As he walked, his eyes kept moving—not with obvious turns of his head, but quietly scanning the terrain on either side from beneath the brim of his hat.

Deidara and the others have arrived, but where are the people I expected?

The view was wide open. A low ridgeline lay to the right, while a gentle slope stretched to the left, scattered with sparse shrubs and offering no suitable ambush points. Even so, he remained alert.

An eagle circled overhead.

Kakuzu's left hand twitched slightly. A black thread as fine as a hair silently slipped from his sleeve, extended up along his arm, and rose into the air beside his collar. Its path was almost impossible to see as it moved, showing only the faintest glint in the sunlight, transparent as spider silk.

The eagle was still flapping its wings when the black thread pierced its chest. It struggled in midair for less than half a second, its wings snapping open and shut before it fell from the sky like a loosened stone, crashing onto the gravel ahead. Feathers scattered everywhere, along with a small spray of dark red blood.

Ino's body jolted, and her eyes flew open at the same instant.

She had used the Mind Body Switch Technique to observe Kakuzu and Hidan's location through that eagle. Now, the backlash from having the technique forcibly severed struck her chest like a muffled blow, and a metallic sweetness surged up her throat.

She braced herself against a tree trunk with one hand and covered her mouth with the other, forcing back the blood that nearly sprayed out. Even so, a thin thread of blood seeped through her fingers.

In the final instant before the eagle was shot down, her consciousness had still been inside its eyes. She had seen the direction Kakuzu and Hidan were traveling, the path of the road, and roughly where the two of them were.

Ino's voice was slightly hoarse as she kept one hand on the tree. "They're not far ahead. They're still moving forward."

Shikamaru stood at the edge of the tree shadows and glanced at her, making sure she could still stand steadily. Then he gave a signal and led everyone running deeper into the forest.

They moved quickly, but their footsteps were light, almost soundless.

The Nara Clan's forest spread out beneath their feet—this was where Shikamaru had run since childhood, and he knew it intimately.

As he ran, he activated the Shadow Perception Technique. Chakra seeped from the soles of his feet into the earth, merging with the shadows of the forest.

As Kakuzu and Hidan moved, their shadows left extremely faint chakra marks on the ground, tree trunks, and rock surfaces—traces ordinary people could never detect, but which the Nara Clan's shadow techniques could track.

Two blurry trails emerged in Shikamaru's mind, like fine marks dragged through sand, extending in the direction he had anticipated. The direction matched. The speed matched. They had not deviated.

Shikamaru stopped deep within the woods. He had selected the most suitable stretch of road in the forest—the path narrowed here, trees packed densely on both sides, and their crowns nearly met overhead, forming a natural corridor of shade.

The noon sunlight was broken into fragments by layers of leaves, casting mottled patterns of light and shadow across the ground. Such an interwoven environment of light and shade was a natural amplifier for shadow techniques.

He took a scroll from his ninja tool pouch and unfolded it. Several explosive tags and chakra blades were neatly arranged inside. He linked the explosive tags together one by one with extremely fine chakra threads, then buried them beneath the soil. He did not dig holes or disturb the surface; instead, he pushed the tags deep into the earth with chakra threads, leaving no trace aboveground.

Footsteps sounded in the distance. They were light, but drawing closer. The Immortal Duo had arrived!

Several people instantly vanished into the surrounding environment, barely daring to breathe.

Kakuzu entered the shaded area first. The instant his foot stepped into the forest shadows, his movement paused slightly—he had noticed it too. It was too quiet.

There were no bird calls, no insect chirps. Even the wind seemed to stop at that moment. The branches did not sway, the leaves did not rustle, and the entire world seemed as though someone had pressed pause. But Kakuzu did not stop, because Hidan had already stepped into the woods behind him. If he suddenly halted, Hidan would crash into him.

After Hidan stepped in, the sound of his scythe chain dragging along the ground mixed with his faint footsteps, masking Kakuzu's half-second pause.

Shikamaru's fingertips moved.

The first kunai flew out from behind a tree, shooting precisely toward the chain connected to Hidan's scythe—not at Hidan himself, but at a riveted joint in the middle of the chain.

A faint chakra glow appeared over the kunai's surface as it flew, and an explosive tag was tied to its handle.

Hidan saw the kunai, but his reaction was half a beat too slow. The instant it struck the chain, the explosive tag activated. Flames erupted between the two men, and black smoke and fire swallowed that section of chain.

Metal fragments flew in every direction. The chain snapped in the middle, and the scythe flew from Hidan's hand, spinning through the air before its blade buried itself deep in the trunk of a large tree.

Hidan looked down at the broken length of chain still dangling from his hand and froze for a moment. His hand remained in the position of gripping the chain, but the chain was already broken.

"You—"

The second kunai had already landed by his feet. It was not aimed at his legs, but at the shadow on the ground beside him.

The instant the kunai struck the ground, Shikamaru's Shadow Imitation Technique extended along the chakra thread to the kunai. Two chakra blades embedded near the tree roots activated at the same time, their shadows surging across the ground and biting around Hidan and Kakuzu's ankles like two black snakes.

Hidan's body stiffened. His fingers froze in midair, and even his blinking slowed by half a beat. Kakuzu was bound as well, his right foot suspended halfway through a step, his entire body like a statue locked in place.

Shikamaru emerged from behind a large tree. He maintained his hand seal, sweat rolling down his chin, yet his gesture did not waver. "Hidan, your scythe is broken. You don't have a weapon now. Kakuzu, no matter how many hearts you have, you can't move when your shadow is pinned down, right?"

He raised his right hand—and Hidan's right hand rose with it. Shikamaru pointed toward Kakuzu, and Hidan's body turned against his will, his fist smashing toward Kakuzu's face. Kakuzu tilted his head half an inch, and Hidan's fist grazed past his cheek, leaving a pale mark across his knuckles.

Kakuzu's pupils shifted slightly amid the gaps in the shadows on the ground. His left hand remained stiff, but beneath his glove, his fingers slowly moved inside his sleeve. A black thread slipped from Kakuzu's cuff, silently burrowing into the ground and racing through the soil.

The black thread bypassed the area where the shadow was pinned and burst from the ground roughly three meters behind Shikamaru. It pierced precisely into the base of the chakra blade pinning Kakuzu's shadow and pulled it from the earth.

Kakuzu was free again.

"What are you waiting for? Get out here already!"