Hidan was already doing the symbol. He had licked the blood off the scythe. The only step remaining was to draw a symbol of his god and then begin with the sacrifice.
He could see the look of panic on the young man. It felt great! Thrilling!
…
'What a coincidence! The hand that I got injured with nature chakra is the one that got him this opportunity.'
It was the same damn hand that had almost turned to a stone. This was indeed an unlucky coincidence.
Fortunately, Reko had a massive chakra reserve, and a very high shadow clone jutsu level.
He missed but his clones didn't. They stopped him midway, and ruined the preparations of the technique.
One of them snatched the scythe out of Hidan's hands while the others held the guy and used their chakra to disrupt and dispel the ritual he was activating.
The marking on the ground was stubborn, not dispelling for some reason. But it stopped. It didn't continue to grow from that stage.
While Reko handled Kakuzu's frenzied onslaught for some reason, his clones destroyed and sealed the chakra pathways, turning the maniac into a cripple.
'Good! It didn't affect me.'
He was pretty worried that injuring Hidan's body and chakra pathways would likewise affect him, reflecting the injuries on him. Fortunately, he escaped the curse.
The ritual had been disrupted halfway, causing the injuries suffered by Hidan to not transfer on Reko.
[Curse of the God]
[Lifespan decrease - 20/day]
...
'It did?'
In the middle of the battle with Kakuzu, Reko saw a very eerie, dangerous looking notification. He had been inflicted with a curse.
It appeared that the ritual did affect him.
Hit!
As if to snap him out of it, Kakuzu punched him hard in the face, throwing Reko a few metres away.
His vision got blurry for a second, but he recovered in an instant, getting his grip.
"You!! How dare you destroy my precious hearts??"
Kakuzu lashed out once again. He wanted to beat the living shit out of the young man.
He had not expected the youngster to possess such superhuman strength. It was good that he had his forbidden jutsu. Otherwise, he would have been dead with just that one punch.
The punch had destroyed two of his hearts and a shoulder.
"Do you know how much effort it took me to collect just one of them? And you fuckin destroyed two!!"
He was angry! Furious! He wanted to rip the heart out and take it for himself. But he was too experienced to not notice Jiraya preparing something on the side.
He rushed ahead, wanting to continue with the flow. It was time he filled one of those two empty spots.
"Two of them!!"
Kakuzu attacked relentlessly, shouting cuss words at Reko. He did not bother that Hidan was being subdued or captured. He had his own revenge to take.
This time, the blows were exchanged and Reko easily intercepted the attacks.
Whatever the curse or debuff was, he could not deal with that at the moment. But what he needed to do first was finish his opponent.
Reko heard Kakuzu shouting about how he had shattered two of his hearts.
Due to his high chakra sensitivity, Reko was easily able to make out how the remaining three hearts moved around the man's body, hiding.
"Two hearts? Are these remaining three also hearts?"
He laughed arrogantly as he began to attack the spots where the hearts stayed, aiming for a quick elimination.
He also made his two clones aim for those moving hearts, increasing the pressure.
"Would you not be able to live after I destroy all five of them?"
Reko grinned, trying to sound out a confession from the opponent. He already knew the weakness of the forbidden jutsu. That is, if it could be called that.
He needed to destroy all the hearts to eliminate Kakuzu. But he still said it out loud to put some pressure on the opponent.
A single lapse of time, and he could finish it all.
He noticed the change of expression in the opponent's face. His tactic seemed to be working.
"Let's see…"
A single handsign, and he summoned another ten shadow clones. All ten of them rushed at the opponent. It was a barrage, bombardment!
"Giant Rasengan !!" × 10
"Hold him down!"
Reko shouted, the clones all used their attacks on Kakuzu. His body was too strong to just go down in one Giant Rasengan but ten?
No! He could not survive ten of them at once. Even if he could, Reko would have used his superior strength once again to finish it once and for all.
"You brat!! I have defeated your first Hokage !!"
"You would not win against me!!"
Kakuzu kept shouting in between his grunts but the clones kept going on. One by one, the tendrils kept multitasking to regenerate but the Giant Rasengan was equally destructive if not more.
Finally, it was all over. Kakuzu or at least all his hearts had been reduced to dust.
"When did you use Genjutsu on him?"
Jiraya approached closer and enquired. He had noticed that the opponent had begun to react slower. It was not something a veteran with so much experience would do.
In the heat of battle, even Jiraya would have not noticed this Genjutsu technique. But he realised that Kakuzu was not looking at him anymore.
Before this, Kakuzu had been very wary of him, keeping an eye.
"Just when you summoned that toad. He got distracted as he was very wary of your moves. I used that."
Reko smiled. He could not have pulled this without Jiraya's assistance.
Just when Jiraya summoned that big toad, Reko used that instance to put his opponent in an illusion. He didn't have much expectations but it turned out to be very helpful.
His opponent had his reflexes toned down, and even the battle instincts were affected, all thanks to the distraction that Jiraya caused.
"I barely managed to scrape some chakra together to pull this move."
"Alas! You ruined my fun."
Jiraya sighed, feigning sadness, but he was relieved that it all ended without his interference.
He had taken a soldier pill but from the looks of it, he needed too much chakra or Senjutsu to finish off the opponent.
It was really an immortal duo.
"What are those tendrils? How's that still moving even after all his hearts have been crushed?"
Naruto joined in, pointing at the black tendrils, still moving.
"How would I know? They seem to be losing life though."
Reko replied with a shrug. Though, it did look like the tendrils were going to shatter anytime now.
"What about that maniac? He does seem to be an immortal like he shouted."
Jiraya pointed out to Hidan. Reko had made him a cripple but two of his clones were still keeping an eye.
One of the immortals had died and Jiraya was curious about the other one.
"I have got a method to deal with that. Don't worry."
He went close to Hidan, the body was unable to move, his clones had done a good job with his medical knowledge.
Hidan was unable to even move his neck as the clones kept damaging all the regeneration that occurred passively.
Though, he kept cursing.
[Trait from Kakuzu - Forbidden (5)]
Use this trait to get Kekkei genkai or a trait from the target. Disappears after a total of five uses.
…
He had acquired the 'Forbidden' trait after eliminating Kakuzu. A very important trait.
And he knew what to do with it. Who could be a better experimental target than a literal immortal himself?
He pressed his palm deep against Hidan's chest. Why his chest? He didn't know. It just seemed like a trait would be present somewhere around there.
For a second, Hidan stopped cursing, his heartbeat moved rapidly. He was panicking for some reason. His intuition was alarming him.
Forbidden (5) -> (4)
The count dropped from five to four, signalling a successful attempt of the trait.
[Trait from Hidan - Immortal body]
The body recovers as long as it is in contact with any type of chakra.
…
As if dazed, Hidan stopped and never moved again. His life was over, just like that.
"He's dead? What did you do?"
"Used some of the medical ninjutsu, and it worked. Surprisingly."
He answered Jiraya with a smile and stretched his body for good. This was the first battle where he could be injured for good.
As for losing his life? No, there was no chance. He had Flying Raijin technique for the worst case scenario. Even his less used Curse mode was yet to be used in the battle.
"So, all good?"
Jiraya asked, Reko did not seem all that relaxed after this battle. Even though he had managed to defeat to S rank rogue shinobi, there was no happiness that a youth of his age would do so.
"Not really…"
He tried to explain to Jiraya how the act of stopping the ritual mid process had stopped the activation of something very severe but still caused grave injury to him.
He had around four to five years of life left, if he calculated by the loss of twenty days every day.
"So you have been feeling the loss of your lifespan and it's likely you will not live more than five more years."
Jiraya asked, trying to look at his body and then the half drawn ritual. There did not seem to be a connection or a resonance between them.
"Right."
Reko nodded. It was indeed the situation and the trait from Hidan did not seem to be the one he needed to counter the lifespan decrease.
"That would eventually be dealt with. No big deal."
However, he reassured Jiraya. He was confident that he would eventually find a solution. He still had like four chances to get a trait. Real Steal!
"Let's see. The ritual is something I have never seen. It is definitely something special, not like the usual Fuinjutsu."
Jiraya inspected the sign drawn on the ground. The pattern definitely followed a logic but he could not decipher the meaning.
It was different from the ones used in Fuinjutsu.
"The sages would know something, probably."
Jiraya assured Reko. He believed that the great sage who could predict the future would pretty much have the solution to this curse.
…
A week passed, they had moved to another location in the meantime.
Jiraya had wanted to call the sages from Mount Myoboku or bring Reko there. Unfortunately, the sage could not be disturbed at the moment.
And the two toads that assisted Jiraya in Senjutsu promised that they would look for the markings by Hidan.
Reko had secluded himself in the meantime, working on himself, meditating, and searching for a solution with his medical knowledge.
"Why don't you go back to the village? Tsunade might be able to help you."
Jiraya mentioned. Although the way back was time consuming, it would still be better that way.
They had encountered two of the Akatsuki members and eliminated them without a trace. He was worried that this would result in retaliation from the Villain group.
And the most likely target would be the five villages.
"As much as I want to believe in your words, there is no rationale behind them. Lady Tsunade had passed on everything she knew to me.
If anything, she only has a large amount of experience that takes her ahead of me. Even my chakra control has already long surpassed her."
He explained patiently. He was not worried about the half year lifespan that he had lost in the last few days.
Instead, he had been working on his Flying raijin technique and researching the trait he had gotten from Hidan.
He was curious if the absolute recovery of the body referred to recovery of the lost lifespan too. But that would only be known after he gets very close to dying or when his body weakens to that extent.
...
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