Vrmmm.
Kusanagi left his hand.
Not a tossed kunai.
Blood mist wound around the dark red blade until it became a streak wrapped in crimson flame.
Fast, past the limit of Kakuzu's tracking.
Faster than the screaming wind drill itself.
The sword light carved a lethal arc through smoke and scrambled energies, drawing a gorgeous, ghastly line in the air.
Straight for the wind mask hovering over Kakuzu's left shoulder.
For the heart inside.
The angle was wicked, the timing perfect.
It slipped past Kakuzu's bullish neck where fury had tilted him, around the densest Earth hardened glow plating his chest, and went for the control node of the wind.
"Skree?"
The wind mask's cry was thin and not human.
It felt the blood lit edge and the will sharp enough to cut souls, and knew annihilation.
It dumped power from the wind drill at once, yanking everything inward to a core, a densest Wind Release barrier, a screaming cyclone compressed to a bead, keen enough to slice steel.
One throw. One kill.
Only one.
Thunk.
Time froze to a ten thousandth.
The blood wreathed red bolt hit the wind core, no flourish, like a suicide spear.
No sky rending boom.
Just the thick tear of blade through hide and energy ripped apart at the seams.
Crack, whump.
Fractures raced across the mask.
With a twisted, failing shriek, the cyan face burst like a bladder stuffed with hurricanes, shattered to ragged quarters.
Wind chakra, freed of core and command, detonated like a rogue eye of storm.
Compressed razors, shards of gale, shot outward, scoring the earth into deep trenches around Kakuzu and kicking a storm of ash and grit.
Even the air seemed cut to ribbons.
A third mask, wind's heart, down.
The storm born of the wind's failure had not even finished hissing when—
"GRAAAAAAA."
Kakuzu howled, worse than before, pain and disbelief twisted into a beast's gut scream.
His massive, iron body buckled like a spine hit by an invisible hammer.
The ragged cloak of black threads swelled and heaved. Under the skin, a hundred invisible serpents writhed and lost control.
His rock dark hide dulled by the eye. Wrinkles deepened. In an instant he aged ten years.
Triple hit. Three core hearts gone in a chain.
Not just a plunge in chakra and force, a wound to life's root.
The soul level rip made him lose control of body and the two remaining hearts.
The mad wind razors cut indiscriminately, raking Earth hard skin that suddenly lagged to respond.
The stone spears and wind drill's death crush evaporated with that loss of control.
What had been a roaring auger for Ryo's back guttered like a snapped kite, light dimming, spin dying, and at the last instant, fell short.
Even so, the vestige of the drill ripped new trenches across his already chewed back, bone showing white as blood fountained.
The spears through his legs burned with layered pain. Blood loss stacked and screamed.
"Kff, pfff."
Ryo could not hold it down.
A gout of hot blood, flecked with charred gut, burst from his mouth.
Darkness lapped at his vision. His mind flickered like a candle in wind.
Do not fall. Not here.
A voice hammered from the soul.
Chance, bought with a paralyzed lower half and a dead left arm, a slit to survive.
Pain beyond limits woke an animal will.
His silver eyes dimmed, but the last sparks leapt and snarled.
He slapped the stone spear skewering his left leg, snapping its tip with raw force, crack.
Both legs wrenched. Agony nearly blacked him out, but his monster's will tore the right leg free of its spike.
The left was gone, no motion there.
He dropped to one knee in blood and char, breath like a bellows, every inhale tasting of hot rust.
The body was at collapse. Even lifting a hand was ordeal.
Far off, Kakuzu hunched and retched up dark green, rotten smelling syrup, the Earth Grudge Fear weeping from wounded cores.
He raised a face wrinkled and wrenched by pain and rage. Dead green eyes burned with hate and an animal's killing.
The last earth mask hovered at his breast, guttering yellow to keep the host upright.
The lightning and fire masks were ash. Stray sparks snapped out in the dark.
"Y, you little, filth."
Kakuzu's voice scraped like a grinder on rusted iron. "I will, crush your bones, make every inch of you, pay."
His huge, hardened right hand lifted, shaky, slower than before, but the killing will was naked and close.
No more masks.
He wanted to pulp the brat who had cost him three gold mines.
A hundred million? He only needed the head.
Ryo lifted his face into that venomous stare.
Soot and blood painted him. Red hair hung scorched and ragged. A bright line of blood tugged his lip.
And in that ruin, his silver eyes twisted into a hideous, icy smile full of contempt.
"Kh, heh, heh."
Weak, but clear. "Old man, your hearts, pricey."
He glanced at the last, ocher mask at Kakuzu's chest. "Three, just to make a dent?"
Veins bulged on Kakuzu's brow.
He roared. The hardened fist fell with a wind that smothered breath.
Death rushed again.
And when the fist was less than a yard away, air ripping the burnt hairs at Ryo's brow—
Ryo's only working hand flicked up.
No weapon, only a kunai.
A plain one, sticky with his blood.
A tiny, jarring motion.
"Flying, Thunder God."
His whisper was a gnat, and a spell.
Space shivered, weak but distinct, rippling from that bloody kunai as its center.
His final out, apart from the last throw, his door from the gallows.
Kakuzu's pupils stabbed to pinpoints.
Flying Thunder God? Senju Tobirama?
No, impossible.
Terror drowned the rage in a blink.
The boy's identity, this lost space art, how—
But the fist was thrown, too close. Old strength gone, new not born. No way to change it in time.
Ryo's cold smile cut deeper at Kakuzu's face, twisted by shock, fear, disbelief.
"One hundred million."
He spent the last of his voice on four clear words, the final verdict.
"Just went up."
The moment the words fell, Ryo, and the bloody kunai, vanished a hairsbreadth before impact.
As if he had never been there.
Left behind, a crater from that iron fist. Scorched earth. A snapped spear through Ryo's left leg. Sprays of hot blood. Smoke and iron thick air.
The missed blow's rebound staggered Kakuzu sideways, injuries howling.
"Uhh, hu, huh?"
He stared at nothing, at the pit his cracked fist had made.
"Disappeared?"
Silence fell.
Only the night wind prowled the wrecked ground, playing the crisped leaves and dust.
Kakuzu stood, hulking and locked, like a ruined statue scoured by a thousand winters.
His anger and killing will, suddenly targetless, drained and flooded back as something larger, colder, and choking.
Three.
Three priceless hearts.
The core's tearing ache kept screaming, the loss was not a dream.
That hundred million mark, not only shredded three hearts and rode out all his assaults, he slipped the surest kill under Kakuzu's very eyes.
"Flying, Thunder God."
The rusted, rotten sour throat forced the words out, chill to the bone.
Senju Tobirama.
A nightmare name leapt across his mind.
A godless, traceless space leap, who else?
A thirteen year old, drove him to near full output, cost him three hearts, and then walked away.
Kakuzu felt bile and blood surge. The world dimmed at the rim.
Not just money.
Decades of savings, hearts, looted in one night, and his hunter's pride, trampled.
"Pfft."
Dark green, viscous fluid frothed with blood from his mouth.
He lifted his face to the black sky.
The night's cold slid through his tattered robe, and into a heart like a broken, empty field.
"Konoha, Ryo."
He ground the names out between teeth, hatred and a deeper fear burning the sound.
"And Flying Thunder God, Senju Tobirama.
Pft.
Pain at the cores and a tempest of rage finally toppled what little he held together.
More green syrup spat from him. The big body sagged, kneeling to catch breath.
Every inhale was a bellows ripping itself to pieces.
—
Meanwhile, on Grass Country's border, in a hidden fold of hills.
Firelight nudged back the dark and the mountain chill, not the cold in three young hearts.
Nawaki leaned on stone, sweat and dust streaking his face, panting.
One hand clamped his ribs, the black threads had carved deep, not mortal, but down to bone.
Beside him, Kitsuchi lay pale and out cold.
Kaori hugged her knees by the fire, small body trembling out of her control, eyes wide and unfocused, only the horror of surviving.
Mikoto stood straight on a high rock at the ravine's mouth, twin tomoe scarlet maxed out, staring toward where Ryo and Kakuzu fought.
Her face was snow pale. She had all but bitten through her lip.
At this range, miles and mountains between, she could see nothing.
(To be continued.)
◇◇◇
◇ One bonus chapter will be released for every 200 Power Stones.
◇ You can read the ahead chapter on Pat if you're interested: p-atreon.c-om/Blownleaves (Just remove the hyphen to access normally.)