A violent boom tore through the air. A bolt of lightning—searing, absolute—ripped through the void, and within the wild fury of the electricity, Kakuzu's body was pierced clean through by the thunder.
He hadn't even registered what had happened. His eyes were wide with shock. It wasn't until the realization caught up with him that his gaze snapped downward, fixed and unblinking, on the black thing in Chen Yu's hand.
"Compared to an ordinary human's heart, it is indeed a bit peculiar."
"But just as fragile, all the same."
Chen Yu turned the round, plump heart over in his fingers—and then, calmly, crushed it to nothing.
"Who the hell are you?!"
Kakuzu couldn't hold back. The words tore out of him, and for the first time, the composure he had maintained up to this point was completely gone.
It wasn't as though the shinobi world lacked powerhouses capable of destroying one of his hearts. There were actually quite a few—the vast majority of the Akatsuki could manage it. But someone who did it this effortlessly, so casually that he hadn't even had time to react—that had never happened to him before.
Perhaps Pain, the former leader of the Akatsuki, or the current King of the shinobi world might also be capable of it. But what truly shattered his composure was the ability Chen Yu had just displayed.
That purple lightning—the one that had torn through space itself—as though his very body had become electricity. The speed it carried was beyond imagination.
Even the Lightning Release Chakra Mode that Kumogakure had once proudly boasted would never produce a speed this terrifying.
And the most critical point of all: he had felt no fluctuation of chakra whatsoever.
Which meant this was very likely not ninjutsu—not even a body-enhancement technique rooted in ninjutsu. It was pure taijutsu.
But how could pure taijutsu possibly channel the power of lightning?
In all the years he had lived, he had never once heard of such a thing.
Chen Yu's body hung suspended in the void. He did not answer Kakuzu's question. From him erupted a presence as terrible as an abyss—Conqueror's Haki, absolute and crushing, falling upon Kakuzu and Hidan like the wrath of heaven itself.
Both of them let out a muffled groan. Their spirits recoiled as though struck, and the color drained from their faces.
"Hm. The fact that you can withstand this much pressure is unexpected."
"As Kage-level fighters, your spiritual resilience is decent enough."
"Then—what about this?"
With Chen Yu's words, a force far more terrifying than what had come before slammed into the spirits and bodies of Hidan and Kakuzu alike.
The earth trembled. Lightning crackled across the sky.
And between heaven and earth, a howling gale rose up.
This was the fury of the heavens themselves—something that could only be stirred when Conqueror's Haki reached a certain magnitude. But compared to the upheaval in the sky, what Kakuzu and Hidan were enduring at this very moment was pain beyond description.
Conqueror's Haki was not genjutsu. It did not weave illusions designed to torment or to ensnare. It was the will of a sovereign—the authority of a ruler, laid bare and inescapable. Those too weak to bear it would simply collapse into unconsciousness. Those whose will was iron would feel not a ripple.
It was only those who fell somewhere in between who suffered like this. Their spirits would waver, as though the next instant might swallow them whole—yet their own will refused to bend.
Both men now stood at the very edge of spiritual collapse under the relentless assault of Chen Yu's Conqueror's Haki, teetering on the brink of unconsciousness with every passing second.
By now, whatever hostility they had once felt toward Chen Yu had long since evaporated. Or rather—they no longer possessed the courage to fight him.
If they could go back and make the choice again, they would never have set foot outside today. They certainly would never have raised a hand.
How had they managed to stumble into someone this powerfully, utterly insane?
When had the shinobi world produced a powerhouse like this? They hadn't received a single piece of information about him.
Hidan's willpower was not particularly strong. Compared to Kakuzu—who was in pain but still holding on—Hidan was gasping for air in great, ragged heaves. The black-and-red cloak of the Akatsuki was drenched in sweat. And then, in the span of a heartbeat, his eyes rolled back and he crumpled to the ground.
"Damn it..."
"A presence like this—even Hashirama Senju at his peak would have fallen short."
"How can the shinobi world have produced someone like this?!"
"I have to get back—I have to tell the King about him!"
Kakuzu had no spare attention left for Hidan, who had already fallen into unconsciousness. The man had an undying body—even if his spirit shattered and he blacked out, even if he endured the most brutal of attacks afterward, he would survive.
Compared to worrying about Hidan, he was better off worrying about himself.
"Crack!"
Without a moment's hesitation, Kakuzu drove a kunai clean through his own palm with savage intent.
Searing pain flooded through his body. The physical agony, acute and immediate, briefly overpowered the spiritual torment—enough to wrench his consciousness free from the grip of Chen Yu's Conqueror's Haki.
But that alone was not enough.
Without hesitation, he drove the kunai through his body again.
Once. Twice. Over and over, until the physical pain demanded his full attention, leaving him no room to register anything else.
"Using pain to redirect focus—keeping yourself conscious."
"That's actually a decent method."
Chen Yu watched from above and nodded.
It was self-harm, yes. But it worked.
Still—
Chen Yu's expression remained perfectly calm. His pale, jade-white arm rose slowly into the air.
And then—
He pressed downward.
"Dark Space!"
Black mist poured from his body in an unending torrent, shaping itself into a vast, yawning darkness.
The ground lurched violently. Gales erupted in all directions.
Everything in the vicinity—trees, shattered rock, even the soil itself—began sliding toward the black void, drawn inexorably inward. Swallowed whole.
Hidan, already unconscious, had long since lost any capacity to resist. The pull dragged him in without ceremony. Kakuzu, though he desperately wanted to fight it, had lost the strength to do so. Consumed by despair, he was pulled in alongside Hidan, swallowed by the darkness.
"It's over."
Chen Yu said this simply. Neither Kakuzu nor Hidan could possibly endure the infinite, relentless tearing of something like a black hole.
Even Hidan's peculiar constitution—his undying body—would find it near-impossible to reassemble itself after being ground to dust.
But just as Chen Yu deemed the matter concluded, the Dark Space spread across the ground suddenly stopped.
It hung there, frozen mid-motion, as though time itself had seized.
"Using gravitational force to restrain my Dark Space. Interesting."
"If you can accomplish that, your strength is greater than I had assumed."
"The god who rose through war and yearned for peace—Uzumaki Nagato."
Dark Space was Chen Yu's own power. He could naturally feel it—feel that his own force was being held in check by another.
In the current shinobi world, only one person could do this.
Uzumaki Nagato.
Shinra Tensei and Bansho Tenin. The power of repulsion and the power of attraction.
It was not at all surprising that he could accomplish this.
Beyond Nagato, Chen Yu could not think of anyone else.
But what could be said was that he deserved the title of someone chosen by Uchiha Madara—whether in terms of innate talent or raw strength, he stood at the very pinnacle.
What happened next, however, made Chen Yu furrow his brow.
Within his field of vision, four silhouettes materialized from the void.
His gaze swept across three of them. It lingered for a few seconds on one—a man radiating a fierce, almost feral wildness—before finally coming to rest on the last figure.
(End of Chapter)