a forest of bones rose from the ground, covering huge area of the cliff of the island. Kakuzu was pushed upwards and even though the attack was far from being life-threatening, he had lost his footing, giving the enemy opportunity to exploit an opening.

Scorching hot orbs of fire went flying towards him as he tried to regain balance. The orbs that stemmed from the Kekkei Genkai that Pakura possessed was nothing short of impressive. They contained extremely dense concentration of chakra that scorched and drained life from anything near it. He had to look out for those. It would only take few seconds to burn through his chakra cloak before reaching and burning up his threads. Diamond Morph should be able to deal with the heat for a while, but that came with restrictions of mobility.

Fortunately, the orbs of fire weren't swift enough to catch up to him. He maneuvered himself from one bone protrusion to another while various jutsu were trying to obstruct his path. Dodging wasn't a problem, and the bone forest only created obstacle between him and reanimations that wouldn't even take half a minute to breach, but Kakuzu noticed a problem.

It seemed that target of the bone forest that Kabuto summoned through Kimimaro wasn’t him, but rather his spirits. Kakuzu sensed that he lost connection to several of his weaker pawns. They failed to manage to react in time and were now impaled on the bones as tall as trees. He clicked in annoyance. Stronger ones survived, but they were forced to disperse in order to not get skewed.

He heard loud crunching sound as he finally stepped out of the forest. Soon after, a roar echoed that reverberated through the island. A quick glanced confirmed that it came from Satori. That was good news. His strongest spirit had finally dealt with Manda II and was free to assist him.

The giant serpent’s body lifelessly fell into the further periphery of the island. It had huge scar on its midsection, left by Satori trying to tear it into half. Still, it didn't go further than a halfway point. It seemed that the simplistic strategy had been discarded, and instead far more gruesome, yet effective one. It went for the serpent’s eyes. A disturbing scene of the black tentacles slowly being pulled out from the eye sockets, and the blood flowing out like a fountain came into the view. Kakuzu whistled in surprise. The serpent ten times the size of Satori, yet it was swiftly taken care of. The victory wasn't without the cost though, as Satori had lost third of the threads making up its body and quite number of spirits that got squashed like bugs by Manda.

Remembering the serpent’s origins made him thought of certain mad scientist. He would later take genetically engineered snake to Hiroshi. Who knew what could he accomplish with it, but it should be a valuable sample that would undoubtedly make the scientist drool from just the sight of it.

Now that Manda II was taken off from the picture, Satori was free to act as it pleased. However, he didn't immediately make Satori jump into the fray. Rather, he ordered it to dive in and swallow the cocoons that contained the sealed reanimations. It wasn't difficult for the dragon to accomplish, as he already had moved them away when he sealed Rasa. Had he left them laying around, they might have been a source of a huge headache. Diamond Morph was pretty much useless against A's lightning release, and he wasn't sure how would seal's inherent defenses would hold.

Suddenly two blazing fireballs came flying towards him again. Pakura of the sand was standing several meters away from him while remaining two fire orbs circle around her back. Kimimaro, Haku and Zabuza stood next to her, however they didn't approach him head on. Rather, Kabuto kept them close, using them as shield. Not that they could play a detrimental role in this battle.

It wouldn't be easy one nonetheless. This could be considered an opportunity for him as well to get used to fights of this level. It wasn't often you fought shinobi of this tier. The Battle against Kage level shinobi was on completely different dimension, and he was currently against one of the stronger ones, and on top of that two pseudo-jinchuriki. Even a single lapse in judgement could create a dominos effect, where a small mistake could snowball into the disadvantageous position one couldn't get out of. This would be opportunity to adapt to intensity of battles that he would experience in the future. And unless he decided to change his plans, those kinds of battles would not be rarity.

Kakuzu readied himself as he drove forward. Targeting Pakura first, intending to get rid of the annoying orbs that restricted his movement. He kept concentrating on the heart that produced Kyubi's chakra, controlling the output and density that encircled his body. It took some effort, not to mention fending off the corruption that was being gradually seeping into his mind. He didn't have enough control over the red chakra yet, and it would take some time until he could use it as efficiently as his regular chakra.

Kakuzu dodged blazing fireballs that Pakura threw at him that tried to swallow him up whole. He disappeared from the spot, approaching closest target that he could quickly get rid of before dealing with the main adversaries.

He was about to get close to Pakura, when the Third Raikage appeared right in front of him. Kakuzu barely reacted to the attack, and the impact of the strike pushed him back for a few meters.

Alright, that was much faster than he expected.

He readied himself and clashed with A again. However, others didn't stand idly either.

More fire orbs came flying towards him, however they didn't immediately went after him. Rather, they circled behind his back, waiting for an opening and restricting his movements. If he had time, couple of Water Bullets should be more than enough to get rid of those. But focusing on those things meant creating an opening that Raikage would have no trouble exploiting.

Gold and Silver brothers jumped at his sides, delivering pincer attack while A followed suit from the front. Kakuzu decided that rather than taking three of those strikes head on, he would have a better luck with playing with the fire. He jumped back, passing through the fire orb that began to thin out part of the cloak that it hit. Kakuzu swiftly moved to create the distance. Ice fragments came frying towards him next, but he didn't have trouble avoiding them either. He reached towards Ginkaku who was closest to him and swung his fist towards him.

A came into his view again, but not until Ginkaku went flying several meters away. Kakuzu noticed that cracks that appeared on silver brother's face, but it soon begun to reform. Kakuzu noticed after observing the brothers, and confirmed after coming in contact with Ginkaku's chakra, the cloak Ginkaku possessed was denser than his own. However, there was only so much to how much could it strengthen them, after all, there was a quite difference between them in their regular forms, not to mention him being a reanimation. Still, it meant those cloaks provided more defense than his own, and getting through them would take some effort.

Meanwhile, A was far more dangerous opponent. Not only did he possess greater defense than the two brothers, but be it strength, speed or a skill, he was superior then those two in every aspect imaginable. Kabuto also paid far more attention controlling A, trying to draw out as much of potential as he could from him. Which was given considering A's strength and how effective he was against Kakuzu. Kakuzu was slowly adapting to the crazy speed that Raikage possessed, but it was impossible to react to all of the attacks. Damage slowly began accumulating onto his body as the fight progressed. The hits managed to slightly push him back, but overcoming A's defenses harder than it sounded.

Apart from those three, rest reanimations simply surrounded Kabuto. Beside these pesky orbs, Kabuto didn't even try to incorporate them into the fight, as they would simply split his focus without bringing much value into the fight.

For a while, the standstill continued and Kakuzu was slowly pushed back. The two brothers had shortly went into the second form, red chakra wholly surrounding their bodies. Dozen or so spirits were laying around them, utterly incapable of doing any lasting damage.

It seemed he had to think of something to increase their firepower, otherwise they would turn pretty much useless against the opponents that really mattered. Even now, they could only act as distractions. It was clear that effectiveness of spirits created from regular hearts was fading. Considering that non sentient spirits couldn't naturally get any stronger than they were upon their creation, he had to find another way. There was a limit of what could be accomplished by just numbers, and he couldn't just go and hunt down every Jounin alive. He was thinking of visiting certain island that housed various ferocious beasts to see if they could be of use to him, but if it was possible, genetically engineering the spirits was far better alternative.

At certain point in the battle, he had made two spirits with the wind affinity attach to his shoulders in order to exploit Railage's weakness, but as expected, they were hardly effective, Wind Bullets only being able to slightly push him back. It at least allowed him to land some hits, but he lacked ability to deliver lasting blow while simultaneously fending of the Gold and Silver brothers.

This was slowly turning into the battle of attrition, and it was clear that Reanimations didn't have much problem in that aspect. If things continued like this, his defeat was almost guaranteed.

It seemed he had to go all and use that form, even if he had to fight two fronts.

Kakuzu concentrated on the heart and pumped up the output. Chakra was rapidly flowing to his wind affinity heart and pushing its output to its limit. The chakra would undergo a qualitative change, and circulate back into his body, resulting even denser cloak of red chakra.

It didn't take long until Kakuzu activated the second form of the chakra cloak. He let the solid chakra surround him while simultaneously bracing his mind. The increase in power evident, however the power didn't come without the drawbacks. A few days was far from enough to master his control over the Nine Tail's chakra. The extremely dense concentration of energy overtaxed his body and mind, leaving him in a weakened state after the usage. Not to mention, he could only maintain the form for a short amount of time.

If he wanted to have a chance at the victory, he had to make the most out of the overdrive.