Cangyue leaped down from the Flame Sword.
The instant he landed, the purple Flame Sword spun back into his left hand, while the Thunder Sword slid from its sheath into his right.
Violet Flame burned along one blade.
Lightning danced along the other.
"Upheaval, my ass!"
Hidan was already so furious at those words that the veins on his forehead bulged.
The moment Cangyue planted his feet, Hidan shattered the ground underfoot and charged straight at him, dragging his bloodstained Triple-Bladed Scythe.
No probing attacks, no wasted words.
The three-bladed scythe whipped up a vicious gust as it swept toward his waist!
Cangyue raised the Thunder Sword vertically in his right hand.
Clang!
The Thunder Sword blocked the scythe head-on.
A piercing metallic clash rang out, and blue arcs of electricity raced along the chain.
Hidan's arm went numb, but a savage grin spread across his face.
"Got you!"
He abruptly released the scythe's shaft and kicked at Cangyue's chest.
Cangyue turned aside, his left-hand Flame Sword slashing past Hidan's leg.
Hidan made no attempt to dodge. He twisted his waist and drove his knee hard toward Cangyue's face.
The purple blade sliced through his Red Cloud Cloak, leaving a bone-deep wound in his thigh.
At the same time, Cangyue brought his elbow down.
Thud!
Knee met elbow.
The earth beneath both of them exploded.
Hidan slid back half a step, but Cangyue did not budge.
For the first time in actual combat, the strength granted by intermediate physique enhancement showed its full extent.
Disbelief flashed in Hidan's eyes.
How could a twelve-year-old's body have this much strength?
Cangyue gave him no time to think.
He pressed down with the Thunder Sword in his right hand, trapping the scythe blade.
The Flame Sword turned in his left, slashing upward toward Hidan's chest.
Hidan tilted aside to protect his vitals, but the purple blade sliced open his shoulder.
Before the blood had even finished spraying, he reached for Cangyue's wrist.
Cangyue withdrew his sword, spun, and drove his right foot hard into Hidan's stomach.
Thud!
Hidan doubled over as he flew backward, snapping a small tree before landing.
He glanced down at the sword wounds on his body.
They were still bleeding.
Yet his movements remained completely unaffected.
"Is that all you've got?"
Hidan wiped the blood from his chest, his smile crazed.
"I'm immortal!"
"Then I'll cut you a few more times."
Cangyue advanced again with both swords in hand.
A sudden, shrill whistle cut through the air behind him.
Gojō Ryūsen's expression changed sharply.
"Cangyue, behind you!"
Dozens of pitch-black tendrils shot toward him along the ground.
Two poisoned kunai were hidden among them.
As though he had eyes in the back of his head, Cangyue stepped sideways with his right foot and turned halfway around.
The Thunder Sword traced a blue arc.
Slash, slash, slash!
The black threads snapped one after another.
The blade knocked both kunai away, and they brushed past Cangyue's clothes before lodging in a tree trunk.
Kakuzu had already appeared ten paces away, his hands rapidly forming hand seals.
"Wind Release: Pressure Damage!"
A violent sphere of wind burst open with a roar.
The wind pressure surged like a towering wave, shaking the entire grove.
Layer after layer of earth was torn up, and Hidan was caught within the attack's range as well.
Yet he charged straight through it, laughing.
These two were on an entirely different level from ordinary Jonin.
Hidan kept his opponent tied up at close range.
Kakuzu bombarded him from a distance.
An ordinary ninja would be torn apart in an instant after exposing even a single opening.
Gojō Ryūsen slapped both hands against the ground.
"Earth Release: Multiple Earth-Style Wall!"
Three thick stone walls rose in succession.
The storm struck the earthen walls head-on.
The first wall shattered instantly.
Cracks spread across the second.
Gojō Ryūsen stepped onto the third wall, using its upward momentum to leap into the air, his ninja blade slashing straight at Kakuzu's head.
Kakuzu raised his hardened arm.
Clang!
The blade struck his arm, sending out sparks as though it had hit metal.
Kakuzu hurled a punch at Gojō Ryūsen's chest.
Gojō Ryūsen blocked the heavy punch with the flat of his blade, but the impact still sent him flying backward.
He forcibly twisted in midair and planted both feet against a tree trunk.
The bark exploded.
Gojō Ryūsen pushed off again, thrusting his ninja blade straight at Kakuzu's eye.
Kakuzu tilted his head aside.
A mass of black threads emerged from his sleeves and coiled toward Gojō Ryūsen's limbs.
The two immediately plunged into a furious melee.
On the other side, Hidan pushed through the storm and lunged before Cangyue.
The Triple-Bladed Scythe came crashing down from above!
Cangyue crossed his swords.
Boom!
The ground beneath his feet sank half a foot.
Hidan kept pressing down with his body weight, the scythe scraping against both swords in a shower of sparks.
"Keep talking, brat!"
"Weren't you going to turn the world upside down?"
Cangyue's gaze remained calm as he abruptly exerted force with both arms.
He forced the Triple-Bladed Scythe up and away.
Hidan's chest was left wide open.
Rather than immediately striking with his swords, Cangyue stepped half a pace forward and drove a knee into Hidan's stomach.
Hidan doubled over.
The Flame Sword's hilt followed, smashing upward into his chin.
Thud!
The blow snapped Hidan's head back.
The Thunder Sword swept toward his neck.
Hidan hurriedly leaned backward. The blue edge grazed his throat, drawing a spray of blood.
He retreated two steps and swung the chain.
The Triple-Bladed Scythe that had been knocked away spun toward Cangyue from behind and to the side.
Cangyue ducked beneath the scythe blade and ran his right-hand Thunder Sword along the chain, sending dazzling sparks racing toward Hidan's hands.
Hidan released the chain himself and threw a punch straight at him.
Cangyue did not dodge.
He answered with a punch of his own.
Thud!
Their fists collided head-on.
Hidan's finger bones cracked under the strain.
Cangyue seized his wrist, turned, and hurled him over his shoulder into the ground.
Boom!
Dirt flew everywhere.
Hidan landed on his back and coughed up a mouthful of blood.
Cangyue thrust both swords downward at once.
Hidan rolled sharply.
The Thunder Sword pierced his shoulder, pinning him to the ground.
The Flame Sword plunged into the dirt beside his cheek, its Violet Flame scorching half his hair into charred curls.
Even with an immortal body, he could not get up while pinned by a sword.
Cangyue gripped the Thunder Sword, preparing to cut sideways.
Hidan suddenly grinned.
"You fell for it!"
The distant Triple-Bladed Scythe abruptly flew back.
The chain pulled taut, and the scythe blade shot toward the side of Cangyue's neck from behind!
Cangyue did not turn around.
The Flame Sword slipped free of the dirt on its own, its purple light circling his body.
Clang!
The Flame Sword blocked the Triple-Bladed Scythe head-on.
Cangyue pulled out the Thunder Sword and stamped down on Hidan's chest.
Crack!
His breastbone caved in.
Hidan slid more than ten meters along the ground. The moment he rose, he saw Cangyue pursuing him with swords in hand.
He retrieved the Triple-Bladed Scythe, and the two immediately closed on each other.
Clang, clang, clang, clang!
The scythe swept in broad, forceful arcs, every strike aimed at a vital spot.
Cangyue alternated between his swords to block.
When the Thunder Sword intercepted the scythe blade, the Flame Sword struck straight at Hidan's chest. When Hidan wound his chain toward the Flame Sword, Cangyue raised his leg and kicked the scythe's shaft.
In just a few breaths, they had exchanged dozens of blows.
Sparks, Violet Flame, and lightning kept bursting into the air.
Relying on his immortal body, Hidan made no attempt to defend himself.
Even when a blade pierced his stomach, he still tried to trade the wound for a single drop of Cangyue's blood.
But no matter how he tried to exchange injury for injury, his scythe never touched Cangyue's body.
Cangyue's taijutsu was even harder to deal with than his swordsmanship.
Redirecting force, sidestepping, blocking, counterattacking.
Every movement was clean, without the slightest wasted motion.
The sword wounds on Hidan's body kept multiplying.
Yet Cangyue's clothes did not have so much as a single cut.
Elsewhere, Kakuzu forced Gojō Ryūsen back with a punch.
The ground abruptly heaved upward.
"Earth Release: Rock Spear Forest!"
Dozens of stone spikes burst from the earth, stabbing toward Kakuzu from different directions.
Kakuzu hardened both arms and punched the stone spikes apart one after another.
But Gojō Ryūsen was hiding behind the rubble, his Ninja Blade thrusting straight at Kakuzu's left chest.
Thud!
The blade sank half an inch into his flesh before dense black threads locked it in place.
A cold gleam flashed in Kakuzu's green eyes.
"Got you."
Black threads burst from underground and instantly coiled around Gojō Ryūsen's ankles.
Kakuzu punched him in the stomach.
Gojō Ryūsen spat blood as he was sent flying backward.
Kakuzu was about to pursue him when thunder suddenly rumbled overhead.
Cangyue had still been trading blows with Hidan a moment earlier.
Now, he used a clash of their blades to launch himself into the air.
He raised the Thunder Sword high.
Chakra condensed along its edge into a blue line so thin it was almost invisible.
"Awakening Thunder: Formation-Breaking Strike."
The Thunder Sword slashed down.
The sword energy came without any grand display.
But it was so fast that Kakuzu only had time to shift half a step.
The blue line cut diagonally into his shoulder, tore through his chest, and emerged from his side at the waist.
Kakuzu's body abruptly stiffened.
A mask hidden inside his body cracked.
Crack!
The mask and the heart within it exploded together.
Kakuzu staggered backward.
Severed black threads surged wildly from the wound, trying to stitch his body back together.
His expression darkened to the extreme.
One heart, gone.
"Fighting me, and you still dare to get distracted!"
Hidan charged after Cangyue from behind.
His Triple-Bladed Scythe swept toward Cangyue's waist.
Cangyue had only just unleashed his sword energy and had yet to land.
Hidan was certain this attack would connect.
But Cangyue vanished the instant the scythe's blade touched the edge of his clothes.
Hidan cut through nothing but an afterimage.
"What?"
Lightning flashed beside him.
Cangyue swept past him.
The Thunder Sword was already back in its sheath.
Hidan stood rooted to the spot, holding his scythe, bewilderment still lingering on his face.
The next instant, his right arm came cleanly off at the shoulder.
The arm holding the Triple-Bladed Scythe fell to the ground.
Blood gushed out after it.
"My arm!"
Hidan looked at his severed arm, his disbelief giving way to a look of utter fury.
"A brat..."
"I actually had my arm cut off by a brat?!"
Cangyue landed again.
His purple Flame Sword pointed at Hidan.
The Thunder Sword angled toward Kakuzu.
One had lost an arm.
The other had lost a heart.
Gojō Ryūsen wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and took up position behind Kakuzu's flank, blade in hand.
After joining the fight several times, he had already gained a clear sense of how difficult these two were to deal with.
Especially Hidan.
The man simply could not be killed.
But Cangyue was even harder to comprehend.
Facing a true Kage Level Missing-nin for the first time, Cangyue had shown no panic. Instead, he grew more composed as the battle went on.
He overwhelmed Hidan in close combat and still managed to shatter one of Kakuzu's hearts between exchanges.
The black threads in Kakuzu's chest kept writhing.
He glanced at Hidan's severed arm, then turned to Cangyue, who held a sword in each hand.
"Stop rushing in."
"There's something wrong with this brat."
"You don't have to tell me!"
Hidan roared.
[Valor Points +199]
The Undying Duo had hunted down countless ninja.
Even many renowned Jonin had died at their hands.
Yet now, a twelve-year-old boy had forced them to call for help.
Hidan found that humiliation even more unbearable than losing an arm.
With his remaining left hand, he took out his ring and roughly forced Chakra into it.
"Pain!"
"There's a goddamn brat here!"
"Get over here and back us up!"
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