The dense red chakra surrounded Kakuzu's body as he took step forward. He intercepted Raikage's lightning-quick strike and responded in kind. A fist connected with A's face, carrying a tremendous force, but lightning cloak absorbed the impact while A sustained no real damage.
Every second was important for Kakuzu as timer kept going. Another punch hit Raikage but he shrugged off like it was nothing and delivered counter of his own. Though, Kakuzu no longer was outmatched this time. Strikes no longer landed on him one after another and ones that did were unable to get through the dense chakra cloaking.
The brothers weren't a threat any longer, but simply a nuisance. They possessed as much durability as Kakuzu, yet lacked agility to keep up with the fight. He simply avoided their attacks while fully focusing on Raikage.
Dozen second passed as the fight turned into the brawl. Any idea of using weapons were discarded. Their fists were stronger than any weapon they owned, and their bodies were sturdier than any armor they could find.
If Kakuzu wasn't restricted by time limitation, he might even be able to slowly whittle down A's armor and deliver the enough damage before he regenerated.And the same strategy would work against brothers, though it wouldn't take nearly as much time.
But Kakuzu knew that he couldn't defeat A like this. He sighed in resignation, once again reminded that strength he had now was far from enough to contend against the main threat. His power was still limited. He had to become much stronger than his current self if he wanted to deal with the unexpected.
That left one final move. A final card he prepared in case things went in direction that his personal strength wouldn't be enough. One attack, that would burn most of his resources, yet held enough force to annihilate anything Kabuto would bring out.
Kakuzu dodged another attack and sent signal to Satori. It was time to bring out big guns.
Satori seemed to have understood the order and immediately begun to realign the position of spirit's its body. The spirits that lay in its wings moved towards the dragon's head while rest were pushed back and surrounded his core. Dozens of wind spirits connected together and Satori begun to overcharge them with the chakra.
Kakuzu kept reanimations in check, not allowing them to fall back and join Kabuto. Kabuto on the other hand, undoubtedly noticed the chakra fluctuations that came from Satori but there was nothing he could do at this point to stop it.
The spirits merged with Satori worked on overdrive, they overexerted themselves to the point that their masks begun to crack. One after another, the spirits begun to fall apart as they pushed every drop of chakra into Satori's core. And when most of the spirits had sacrificed themselves to charge up the giant heart, the second phase begun. Satori repeated similar process, but this time it directed its chakra towards the wind spirits. Normal attack would be nowhere enough to do real damage to Raikage. Even now, if there wasn't Satori's enormous core overcharging and stabilizing the wind spirits, the sacrifice would be for naught. Maybe it would be different if the core for most spirits came from someone around the level of a jonin, but that simply wasn’t the case.
Soon, Kakuzu sensed that charge up was about be finished and put even more power into his attacks, not paying attention to the damage the over exhaustion would cause. A dozen threads shoot out from his arms, each one coated with the dense red chakra. They were directed at the three reanimations in front of him. It encircled their bodies and restricted their movement. Raikage managed to cut off few of them but even more threads surrounded him in response. With the monstrous strength A held, it wouldn’t take long till he tore through them though, but it would by him some time.
The three struggled against the binds, but the threads were sturdy enough to hold for a while. And it was all that Kakuzu needed. The moment he cut off the threads, the chakra connection would stop, and the bindings would soon lose their strength. He had to time it precisely to get to the safety while not allowing the three to catch up to him.
Satori had accumulated as much energy inside the spirits as it was spiritually possible. Orange glow could be seen inside its mouth, a result of extreme chakra concentration forced into a single point. What should he call this attack? A Wind Canon? A Wind Bullet would be a disservice for something this powerful. Anyway, it was about to shoot.
Kakuzu concentrated red chakra around his legs and small explosion erupted as he basically flew backwards to get out of the blast radius. He winced in pain, but managed to cut of the threads in time. It would be a disaster if he dragged those zombies into safety with him.
It didn’t even take a second until A managed to brake through the bindings and begun to run after him, but it was already too late. The huge wind bullet descended on the island and air begun to vibrate even before it connected with the ground. Kakuzu was barely out of the blast range, and sighed in relief as he saw A being swallowed by the enormous tornado. As the overcharged wind bullet hit the island, impact was enough to throw him back for a few dozen meters. The island shook and the ground rumbled for a while even after the tornado dissipated. In the place the beam heat, a crater could be seen, reaching down several meters underground.
The dust settled as Kakuzu got to his feet. The attack was stronger than expected, though that was far from bad thing. The impact felt like he had taken a sledghammer to the head and even he needed some time until he reoriented himself.
That should have thrown Kabuto off his feet well.
Kakuzu approached the crater as his eyes darted on its bottom. It didn’t take long to notice a bunch of papers congregating in the three spots. Kabuto was nowhere to be seen, but it was unlikely he managed to espace just yet. This would take only a couple of seconds to seal the reanimations but he still ordered weakened Satori to search for Kabuto.
The pseudo dragon looked to have overexerted it’s core, and Kakuzu could feel its chakra had become unstable. It would need some time to recover its strength, as well as replacing the mask that sported various cracks running through its surface. If Satori fought again in this state, it wouldn’t be unexpected if its body simply fell apart. Thankfully, things were mostly dealed with.
Satori turned to search for Kabuto, but not before flicking its tail and throwing three spirits at Kakuzu. It took less than a minute to make sure that the reanimations were properly sealed and Kakuzu dashed towards the location where he sensed a signal from Satori. But he stopped after moving several meters as he saw a movement underneath the rubble. It was actually a bunch of pappers moving towards the same four locations. This time, he didn’t stay to check it and let Satori deal with it. He kept going, but he only had to move too far to find a unconcious body of an young man.
A blood was dripping drom Kabuto’s head, but the guy wasn’t dead yet. As he aprroached the body he noticed the flesh wriggling around the part of Kabuto’s body that resembled a snake’s skin. He didn’t pay it any mind. He simply picked him up with a left arm while stabbing his heart with the right. There was no use he had for Kabuto, apart for interest in potential that his heart could represent.
But before he could begun to perform the technique, he felt signal coming through the spirit pathway. It was Hiroshi, who kept spamming the connection with a sense of urgency. It seemed something important had happened, so Kakuzu opened up the pathway.
“Hey boss, I got some bad news,” immediately, Hiroshi’s voice echoed through his mind. “Our hideout just got attacked. I think we are in a big trouble.”
