The wind in the canyon suddenly died.
Kakuzu's dark green eyes fixed fiercely on Hyuga Xiao, greed churning deep within his pupils. He could sense it—the chakra flowing through this Hyuga Branch House brat was completely different from that of ordinary shinobi. It was not ordinary chakra, but something older, purer, closer to the source.
"Your heart..." Kakuzu's voice was as raspy as sandpaper scraping together. "It must be worth a lot."
Before his words had even faded, his hands flashed through seals so quickly they left only afterimages.
"Fire Release: Head Mincer!"
"Wind Release: Pressure Damage!"
Flames and raging wind intertwined into a destructive vortex within the canyon. The fire borrowed the wind's force, and the wind fueled the fire's might, transforming in an instant into a blazing storm more than twenty meters wide that swept toward Hyuga Xiao. The heat cracked the ground and warped the air. Even the Land of Demons shinobi and Yomi Sect followers fighting in the distance had to stop temporarily and retreat in terror.
Xiao did not move.
The azure radiance of the Tenseigan flowed through his eyes, and the world before him was broken down into paths of chakra flow. At the heart of the firestorm, he saw wind-nature chakra and fire-nature chakra resonating at a precise frequency, creating a geometric increase in power—this was a combination ninjutsu refined through Kakuzu's more than eighty years of combat experience.
But even the most precise coordination had a flaw.
Xiao raised his right hand and spread his fingers.
"Cycle Rotation: Repulsion."
An invisible force field erupted from him. Rather than clashing head-on with the firestorm, it precisely pierced the point where wind and fire resonated. Like pulling the bottom block from a tower of bricks, the entire structure of the blazing storm instantly collapsed.