Hidan staggered backwards, completely overwhelmed. His silver hair was a tangled mess, and the black cloak patterned with red clouds had been sliced open in several places by Kurenai's wind-infused illusions and the razor sharp vines she conjured. Blood streaked across the fabric, leaving him looking more beaten and disheveled than ever.
"Damn it! Damn it! You two are so annoying!" Hidan snarled, thrashing wildly as he fought through countless phantoms and choking vines. His movements grew more frantic by the second.
His crazed gaze locked onto Asuma with a feverish intensity, as if madness were leaking from his eyes.
He wasn't trying to overwhelm them.
He wasn't trying to win in a straightforward fight.
He was trying to draw blood.
Only after entering the ritual state could he secure victory. Without it, he had no hope of defeating Asuma, especially not with Kurenai providing support.
During a coordinated assault where Asuma charged in under the cover of Kurenai's illusions, Hidan deliberately exposed an opening. He took Asuma's wind blade directly to the chest, the attack piercing his heart.
At the same moment, his body twisted unnaturally. The massive triple-bladed scythe swung like a venomous serpent lashing out of its den, shrieking through the air as it stabbed toward Asuma at an impossible angle.
The strike was so fast, so deceptive, and Asuma had leaned in too close while aiming for a lethal blow.
Though his battle experience allowed him to avoid a mortal injury, the very tip of the scythe's extended spear-like blade grazed him.
It was barely a touch.
Just a whisper of steel.
But a thin line of blood appeared on the back of Asuma's hand, and a single bright drop slid onto the scythe's gleaming point.
Asuma only felt a faint sting. He didn't take the scratch seriously and quickly retreated to regroup with Kurenai. Frowning, he stared at Hidan.
"This guy took a blade through his heart and still isn't dead. Did he grow his heart on the right side or something?"
Hidan bowed his head and let out a low, trembling laugh. The sound was quiet at first, but filled with a chilling glee he could no longer contain.
His eyes locked onto the tiny drop of blood on the scythe's tip. To him, it glowed like a divine treasure.
He had it.
The one thing he needed to kill.
Hidan leapt backward to create distance. The moment his feet hit the ground, he used the blood dripping from his own wounds to rapidly draw a massive symbol on the earth.
A dark red sigil formed from a triangle and a circle.
The ritual of Jashin.
Death Controlling Possessed Blood.
Hidan stepped into the center with a fanatical expression, the posture of a devout but deranged worshipper.
"The offering begins! Hey, old man! Feel it! This is the glory of Lord Jashin! Hahahaha!" He cackled and greedily licked Asuma's blood from the blade.
His body transformed instantly.
Black and white spread across his skin until he looked like a living skeleton.
Asuma and Kurenai stared in alarm at the unsettling ritual and his grotesque transformation.
They didn't know what was coming, but the suffocating sense of death clamped cold fingers around their hearts.
Hidan's refusal to die earlier suddenly made sickening sense.
This ritual was not a bluff.
As Hidan's skeletal form completed, Asuma's instincts screamed. Years of combat had taught him one thing above all:
Never let the enemy finish a technique you don't understand.
"Kurenai, cover me!" Asuma barked, hands flashing through seals.
"Fire Style: Ash Pile Burning!"
He inhaled deeply and exhaled a thick cloud of chakra-infused ash. The gray smoke surged forward like a living mist, engulfing the ritual circle. The ash hid all movement inside and was primed to explode at any moment.
It was one of Asuma's most lethal techniques, both blinding and devastating.
But within the smoke, Hidan only laughed harder.
"Hahaha! Perfect! Come on! Give me more! Let the pain hit me harder!" He threw his arms wide, inviting the blast like a lunatic drunk on agony.
The ash detonated. Flames roared and swallowed Hidan whole.
Yet the next voice that filled the battlefield was not his scream.
It was Asuma's.
He dropped to one knee, clutching his chest as searing burns spread across his skin. It was as if the explosion had hit him directly.
"Asuma!" Kurenai grabbed him, horrified when she saw burn marks spreading across his face and clothes. "What happened?!"
Asuma gritted his teeth, staring into the fading smoke.
Hidan stood unharmed at the center of the ritual circle.
Every burn Asuma suffered appeared identically on Hidan's black-and-white body.
Yet Hidan acted as if they were nothing more than scratches.
"How is this possible…?" Kurenai whispered, pupils tightening in disbelief.
"This feels amazing!" Hidan howled. "Come on! Attack me again! I want more pain!"
"You monster. Just die!" Kurenai's eyes chilled as she cast Tree Binding Death again.
Trees erupted from the ground, binding Hidan tightly. Kurenai appeared atop the branches and drove a kunai toward his skull.
"Stop! Kurenai-sensei, don't attack him! Asuma-sensei will die!"
Shikamaru's voice cut through the tension.
Kurenai froze. Asuma stared at Shikamaru in shock.
"Oh, shut up, kid!" Hidan snapped. "Don't listen to him, woman! Stab me! Kill me already!"
From behind a distant rock, where he had been observing the entire battle, Shikamaru had a clear view of what happened.
Something didn't add up.
Something was wrong.
His mind raced through every detail, eyes fixed on the blood-red circle beneath Hidan's feet.
The moment Hidan licked Asuma's blood, the first thing he did was draw this sigil.
Not attack.
Not defend.
He performed the ritual.
When Hidan's body shifted into its skeletal form, Shikamaru suddenly remembered his crazed shout:
"The offering begins! Feel the blessing of Lord Jashin!"
A single word struck Shikamaru like lightning.
Offering.
His eyes widened.
"I understand now!" Shikamaru burst from his hiding spot, sprinting toward them as he yelled, voice cracking with urgency.
"Stop, Kurenai-sensei! If you attack him, Asuma-sensei will die!"
His reasoning was immediate and airtight.
"That guy's ability is a blood curse! Once he licked Asuma-sensei's blood, the ritual linked their bodies! Every injury he inflicts upon himself is transferred straight to Asuma-sensei!"
He pointed at the triangle sigil beneath Hidan's feet, speaking rapidly.
"The moment the ritual activates, he becomes a living conduit! Pain and damage pass straight through to Asuma!"
"What?" Kurenai and Asuma stared in shock. They never imagined an enemy technique so sinister.
Kurenai's hand trembled around the kunai.
She had almost killed the man she was trying to save.
"Damn it!" Hidan growled when he realized Shikamaru had uncovered his secret. His feral gaze snapped toward the boy like a wolf baring its fangs.