For Hidan, any goodwill he might have had toward the Akatsuki was basically gone by now.
When he joined, they had all said he could worship Jashin and offer sacrifices however he wanted, as long as he completed the organization's missions properly.
But after joining, forget sacrificing to Jashin—he felt like he was out here fighting actual gods instead.
And on top of that, the leader of this garbage organization had almost sold him out just now. That left Hidan with basically no sense of loyalty to the Akatsuki at all. Combined with the fact that his abilities weren't especially useful against this kind of ninjutsu construct, he felt perfectly justified slacking off.
"No, something's wrong. The temperature's rising fast!"
"Kakuzu, Sasori, move!"
On the other side, Konan, standing atop the Wood Dragon, suddenly realized something was off. They were still quite far from the center of the battlefield, yet the temperature around them was clearly climbing.
"That bastard's greedy as hell!"
"He's trying to drag us into the battlefield too—or rather, he's trying to wipe us out along with everyone else!"
Kakuzu's expression darkened. So in the eyes of Absolute Justice, a guy like him really was someone who needed to be purged?
The moment Konan warned them, Kakuzu grabbed Sasori and started retreating.
He might have guessed that Uchiha Chizumi intended to eliminate him too, but if Chizumi wanted him dead, did that mean Kakuzu was supposed to just sit there and take it?
As for Hidan? They weren't close. Who cared whether he lived or died?
Didn't Hidan keep saying his precious god made him immortal? Kakuzu felt like seeing what kind of immortality that really was.
"Huh? Uh?"
As Konan spread paper wings from her back and Kakuzu took off with Sasori, Hidan—who had been doing nothing this whole time—finally realized something was wrong.
How had everyone disappeared in the blink of an eye, leaving only him standing there?
Weren't they supposed to be teammates?
Hidan might not have felt much loyalty to this lousy organization, but wasn't this a little too much? Just ditching the new guy and running for it?
That final thought had barely flashed through his head before the surging lava swallowed him whole.
On the other side, inside the Susanoo, Uchiha Chizumi could feel that something inside his body had changed slightly. But he had no interest in paying attention to that right now. His only concern was finishing off Pain.
By laying hands on Absolute Justice, they had already chosen death.
"Pain, go!"
Sheets of paper swirled through the air as Konan appeared beside the Deva Path.
"No. I haven't lost yet."
"A god does not lose!"
Pain looked at Konan beside him, but a ripple had already appeared in those Rinnegan eyes.
He called himself a god, so naturally he believed a god could never lose. But Uchiha Chizumi's appearance had slapped that belief in the face. Four of the Six Paths had already been destroyed outright. Pain simply couldn't swallow that humiliation.
"Hidan is dead!"
Because she had been in the air, Konan had seen Hidan die clearly.
Even if Hidan had some so-called immortal body, Konan didn't believe someone who had already been burned to ash was coming back.
At her words, Nagato—controlling Pain from afar—finally began to hesitate.
Even a so-called god had weaknesses, and Konan just happened to be Nagato's.
If even Hidan, with his supposed immortality, was already dead, then what about Konan if the fight continued?
And not just Konan—this body of Pain was Yahiko's. If it were destroyed, then until the Naraka Path could restore it, Pain's body would be truly gone.
"We underestimated Uchiha Chizumi's strength. This time, we simply weren't prepared enough."
"You didn't lose. The only one that lost was the Akatsuki."
Konan kept persuading Pain—or rather, Nagato controlling Pain. After all, the Akatsuki didn't actually have any deep grudge against Uchiha Chizumi. If anything, there had even been a little overlap between them before. There was no reason things had to end up like this.
"If…"
Pain stared deeply at the still-advancing Susanoo, and in the end, he compromised.
He still had trump cards. Whether it was pushing the Rinnegan beyond his body's limits or summoning the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, Nagato felt the final outcome still wasn't certain. But he had to consider Konan's life.
If he really summoned the Demonic Statue, then yes, he might be able to defeat Uchiha Chizumi—but the entire shinobi world would also learn just how powerful the Akatsuki truly were. For the Akatsuki, revealing that level of power too early would only make the whole world wary of them.
"I understand. Let's go."
The Deva Path and Konan no longer bothered with anything else happening on the battlefield. One possessed the Rinnegan and could freely manipulate attraction and repulsion; the other could use paper techniques. Both of them could fly.
It wasn't that Uchiha Chizumi hadn't considered keeping Konan and Pain here, but feeling the increasingly violent battle in the distance, and knowing his Susanoo didn't have the ability to fly, he could only let it go for now.
Still, he knew this wasn't over.
After all, the Land of Rain was still there. The Akatsuki were still there. Even if Pain and Konan left today, they couldn't just abandon the Land of Rain entirely, could they?
"Obito, Pain and Konan ran!"
It had to be said, Kitsujiro really knew how to draw aggro. With Kamui's bizarre mobility and intangibility, none of Kitsujiro's attacks could touch Obito at all. Instead, in just a short time, Kitsujiro had accumulated quite a few wounds of his own.
As for Uchiha Izumi, she had wanted to join the fight too, but White Zetsu also had considerable combat ability.
"They ran?"
Obito, still tangled up with Kitsujiro on the other side, looked thoroughly miserable when he heard White Zetsu's report.
A second ago, wasn't Pain still fighting Uchiha Chizumi?
He had just been planning to capture Kitsujiro and Uchiha Izumi and use them as leverage against Chizumi, and now Pain had just up and left?
At that moment, Obito genuinely felt the kind of bitter frustration of: we were ready to fight to the death—so why did the emperor surrender first?
"Go!"
"Uchiha Chizumi is coming straight for us!"
It wasn't just White Zetsu warning Obito—Black Zetsu was warning him too.
In truth, Black Zetsu was even more panicked than Obito. Obito had only seen the Flames of Judgment before.
Black Zetsu, on the other hand, had those flames burning on him for real.
If Uchiha Chizumi hit him with another blast of the Flames of Judgment, then no matter how confident Black Zetsu was in his will to save his mother, he felt like he'd have to seriously consider whether the flames would reduce him to an idiot.
"Move!"
Obito might be rotten. Obito's brain might not work that well. But Obito knew when to cut and run.
Even if he wanted nothing more than to stew Kitsujiro alive, he still made the smart call and decisively dragged Black Zetsu and White Zetsu into the Kamui dimension.
And no matter how much Kitsujiro and Uchiha Izumi wanted to stop him, there was nothing they could do.
~~~
Thank you for reading!