Watch closely. This strike will look awesome

Kakashi glared furiously at Kakuzu. Whatever else happened, this was the village's business. How could he let a rogue ninja from another village mock them here, especially when the targets were Minato-sensei and his wife?

But to everyone nearby, Kakashi's reaction was undeniable proof that Shuofang Si had told the truth.

"Impossible. My dad was the Fourth Hokage? Then the Third..."

Naruto remembered that face on Hokage Rock. He had even painted silly patterns on the Fourth's face. So the man he had painted was his own father?

All these years, he had looked up at that stone face and sworn he would become Hokage, never knowing that the face carved there belonged to his father.

"This isn't real. This isn't real. It's all a lie."

As he murmured, the Nine-Tails' savage, ominous red chakra began spilling out around him.

"Naruto! No, you can't lose control here! Get a hold of yourself!" Kakashi's voice grew hoarse with panic.

Things were already as bad as they could get. If Naruto was consumed by the tailed beast now, it would truly be all over.

But Kakuzu moved faster than Kakashi.

The old bastard of the Shinobi World appeared before Naruto with a Body Flicker Technique, formed hand seals with one hand, and pressed his palm against Naruto's stomach.

Black Sealing Jutsu markings spread beneath his palm, covering Naruto's abdomen like a net.

In an instant, Naruto, who had been slipping into darkness, fell unconscious. The Nine-Tails' sinister chakra rapidly dispersed into the air, as though its source had been cut off.

"You may be a victim of your village's dirty power struggles, but I have no intention of letting the Nine-Tails ruin things."

Kakuzu withdrew his hand, his tone flat. As an old bastard who had lived for ninety years and worked for the Akatsuki, which was collecting tailed beasts, Sealing Jutsu came easily to him.

But Kakuzu had barely removed his hand from Naruto, before he could do anything else, when a streak of blue-white lightning stabbed toward him.

"Stop. Let him go." Sasuke's voice was cold as ice.

He remembered the days he had spent with Naruto, remembered that idiot chasing after him and shouting "Sasuke," pestering him endlessly.

Though his chakra was nearly exhausted and his Cursed Seal had receded to the back of his neck, he forced out his last shred of strength, condensed his Chidori Stream into a spear, and thrust it straight at Kakuzu.

The blue-white lightning of the Chidori Sharp Spear in Sasuke's hand lit up his deathly pale face.

Kakuzu did not turn around. He held his still-intact right hand behind his back and spread his fingers, sending black threads pouring from them.

Sasuke's pupils contracted sharply, but it was too late.

Kakuzu turned his right hand, and the black threads instantly slipped past the Chidori Sharp Spear, wrapped around Sasuke's wrist and arm, and lifted him off the ground.

Two hair-thin black threads emerged from Kakuzu's body and slowly crept toward Sasuke's eyes like venomous snakes.

"The Sharingan fetches a good price on the black market, too. Let's see how your eyes compare to Itachi's."

At the same time, the masked fire creature on Kakuzu's back opened its mouth.

Fire Release: Searing Migraine.

A massive blaze blasted toward Kakashi. This Fire Release was a wide-area jutsu to begin with, and Kakashi was only halfway through his charge when the flames forced him to change direction.

His feet gouged two deep furrows through the earth before he barely managed to steady himself. He could hardly hold on anymore. He was truly about to run out of chakra entirely.

At the very moment Kakuzu restrained Sasuke and drove Kakashi back, a figure skimmed low across the ground behind him.

The force of the Heart-Destroying Palm gathered in Shuofang Si's palm. He had originally aimed for the mask, but Kakuzu sensed him and shifted slightly out of the way, leaving Shuofang Si's palm to land squarely on his back.

But once the palm's force passed through the skin, it vanished like a clay ox sinking into the sea. Only a shallow palm print remained on Kakuzu's back.

Earth Release: Earth Spear.

With this technique reinforcing him, Kakuzu's skin was as hard as metal and stone. The force of the Heart-Destroying Palm could not penetrate it at all.

A trace of mockery flashed through Kakuzu's eyes. He did not even turn around.

"You had no bounty on your head, and you gave me quite a show, so I wasn't going to bother with you. But since you're asking to die..."

Before he finished speaking, countless black spikes shot from Kakuzu's back at once.

Shuofang Si circulated the Eight-Nine Mysterious Art, while the pale golden light of his Golden Bell Shield flickered wildly over his body. The black spikes pierced his skin and lodged between his muscles and bones, pinning him in midair.

Yet a smile curled at the corner of his mouth. Just before the black spikes struck him, he had raised Kiba, the Thunder Sword at his waist, and brought it closer to his side.

Now he was pinned a short distance from Sasuke, who hung in the air bound by black threads, the lightning of the Chidori Sharp Spear in his hand still flickering in defiance.

Shuofang Si raised Kiba, touching its tip to the arcs of Sasuke's Chidori Stream.

"Hey, you're Sasuke, right?"

Sasuke struggled against the black threads binding him. The two thin strands were less than two inches from his eyes.

Hearing that voice, he turned his head. His Sharingan reflected the face of a man pierced all over by black spikes, yet still grinning.

Was this the guy who had already become infamous as a rioter before I left Konoha? What does he want with me?

"Watch closely. This strike will look awesome."

A glimmer of excitement flashed through Shuofang Si's eyes, then gave way to the blankness that came with unlocking the gene lock.

He gripped Kiba with both hands and poured every last bit of true qi in his body into the blades.

The lightning power left within the Thunder Sword by the Thunder Burial Raiga Kurosuki had called down before his death surged wildly under the stimulus of his true qi. It flowed along the arcs of Sasuke's Chidori Stream, forming a bridge to guide the lightning.

He crossed the two blades and raised them high above his head. Blue-white lightning suddenly burst from their intersection, becoming a pillar of electricity that shot skyward, straight into the roiling thunderclouds overhead.

"Sasuke, this move is called Kirin Blade!"

The instant the pillar pierced the thunderclouds, it was as though someone had struck a colossal bell in the sky.

A thunderous roar rolled down from the clouds, making the loose stones on the ground jump.

Then an enormous bolt of lightning struck from the thunderclouds, a concentrated streak of electricity spanning heaven and earth.

It plunged straight down along the guiding bridge of lightning, crashing toward the top of Kakuzu's head.

Kirin Blade used the Thunder Sword as its guide, Chidori Stream as its bridge, and nature's thunderclouds as its source.

With his Sharingan-enhanced vision, Sasuke understood what Shuofang Si had done faster than anyone else.

The instant that Thunder Sword rose, something clicked for him, as though this was a technique he should have created himself.

If this attack landed on its target's head, everything around the point of impact would be reduced to charcoal by the lightning, including Shuofang Si, pinned in midair by black spikes, and Sasuke himself, bound by black threads.

In a flash of inspiration, Sasuke reacted. Just before the lightning fell, he squeezed the last trace of chakra from his Cursed Seal. Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth as he forcibly tore both hands free of the black threads.

His Sharingan spun rapidly. He formed the hand seals for the Summoning Technique as fast as he could, and an enormous purple snake appeared from a cloud of smoke. Its jaws opened wide, swallowing Sasuke and Shuofang Si beside him in a single gulp.

The instincts of the second-order gene lock had initially urged Shuofang Si to release the Thunder Sword at once and burrow underground for shelter. But his reflexes let him detect the summoned giant snake's movements, and he stopped resisting, falling into its mouth.

Heavenly lightning crashed down.

Kakuzu raised his head. All he could see was blue-white lightning filling the world.