CLANG!
The sound of metal striking metal rang across the plaza. Hidan's scythe scraped along Naruto's left shoulder, the blade screeching as it failed to find purchase. Sparks fountained from the point of contact, bright against the grey sky.
The weapon rebounded, vibrating in Hidan's hands.
Not a scratch. Not even a red mark on the skin.
Nagato's eyes widened fractionally. The Rinnegan analyzed what it had just witnessed, breaking down the impossibility into component parts that still didn't make sense.
Hidan's scythe is forged from chakra-reactive metal. The edge is honed to molecular sharpness. It's cut through A-rank defensive techniques like paper. His gaze shifted to Naruto's unmarked shoulder. And it can't even scratch this boy's skin.
Deidara's visible eye twitched behind his scope. If I were standing there instead of him, I'd be in pieces by now, yeah.
Kakuzu, who'd fought the First Hokage and lived, felt an unfamiliar sensation crawling up his spine. It took him a moment to identify it.
Fear.
Konan's paper butterflies trembled in the air around her, responding to her spike of alarm.
Jiraiya and Tsunade had tensed when the scythe connected, prepared to intervene. Now they relaxed, though Jiraiya's heart was still hammering.
I knew Naruto was durable, but this... Tsunade stared at the complete absence of damage. This exceeds anything I've seen. Even the First Hokage's Wood Style armor could be damaged with sufficient force. But Naruto's body...
She had no frame of reference for this.
Hidan stared at his weapon, then at Naruto, then back at his weapon. His mind struggled to process the failure. "What... what the hell are you made of?!"
The scythe rose again, trembling slightly in his grip. Just need to hit harder. Need to find the right angle. Everyone bleeds. Everyone.
Naruto's hand shot out, faster than Hidan could track. His fingers closed around the scythe's blade like it was made of clay instead of reinforced steel.
"My turn now," Naruto said pleasantly.
His fingers tightened.
The metal shrieked. Molecular bonds severed. The carefully forged weapon crumpled like paper, folding in on itself as Naruto's grip compressed it into a twisted ball of scrap metal.
Hidan's jaw dropped. "That's... that weapon cost... you can't just..."
"One punch," Naruto said, releasing the mangled remains. The scrap metal clattered to the ground. "Just one punch. Don't be afraid."
His right foot slid backward, weight shifting. His body coiled like a spring—legs bent, torso arched, fist drawing back. The movement was economical, efficient, perfect.
Then he struck.
The distance was less than two feet. The punch crossed it in a microsecond. Hidan's eyes barely had time to widen before the fist buried itself in his stomach.
For a fraction of a second, nothing happened.
Then the force transferred.
BOOM.
Hidan's body didn't just fly backward. It detonated. His torso exploded from the impact point, flesh and bone fragmenting like a bomb had gone off inside him. His limbs tore free, spinning through the air in different directions. An arm crashed through a window fifty meters away. A leg embedded itself in a wall. His torso—what remained of it—tumbled across the stone plaza, leaving a trail of gore.
Only his head remained intact, bouncing twice before rolling to a stop near Nagato's wheelchair.
The plaza fell silent except for the wet sounds of Hidan's scattered body parts hitting various surfaces.
"Since you're called Hidan, I figured you should fly for a while," Naruto said calmly, lowering his fist.
Hidan's head lay on its side, one eye twitching. His mouth worked soundlessly. He was alive—his immortality ensured that—but completely immobilized, utterly defeated.
One punch, Nagato thought, his analytical mind cataloguing the data despite his shock. One casual punch destroyed Hidan's entire body. The force distribution was perfect—enough to fragment bone and tissue, but controlled enough to leave the head intact.
It wasn't random violence. It was precision.
The remaining Akatsuki members processed what they'd just witnessed. Their teammate—the immortal cultist who laughed at dismemberment, who'd survived being blown apart dozens of times—had been casually obliterated by a twelve-year-old.
Deidara's hands moved before conscious thought caught up, forming seals with practiced speed. "You want art?! I'll give you ART, yeah!"
Clay poured from the mouths on his palms, molding and shaping mid-air. Spiders scuttled into existence, each one marked with Deidara's explosive seal. Centipedes writhed as they formed, their segmented bodies already primed to detonate. Grasshoppers sprang from his hands by the dozen. And above, clay birds took flight, circling overhead like vultures.
"Explosion is the ultimate art form!" Deidara's voice carried manic glee. "The brief, brilliant moment of destruction—that's TRUE beauty! Let me show you!"
The clay creatures swarmed toward Naruto. Twenty spiders, twenty centipedes, twenty grasshoppers, all converging on a single point. The birds dove from above, adding vertical pressure to the attack.
"Bloom for me!" Deidara's fingers twitched.
The clay creatures detonated simultaneously.
The explosion was beautiful in its terrible way—a sphere of fire and force expanding outward, consuming everything within its radius. The shockwave shattered windows in the surrounding buildings. Heat washed over the observers, singeing hair and making eyes water.
Black smoke billowed upward, obscuring the center of the blast entirely.
THUMP.
Something rolled out of the smoke. Round, bald, trailing blood.
Deidara laughed, genuine joy in his voice. "HAHA! See that, yeah?! Under my explosive art, even your invulnerable body couldn't—"
"That's Hidan's head, you idiot."
Kakuzu's deadpan observation cut through Deidara's celebration like a knife.
The blonde bomber blinked, squinting at the object. The shape was wrong. Too bald. The features...
"Oh. Oops, yeah?"
Through the dissipating smoke, a figure emerged. Naruto walked forward at a leisurely pace, hands in his pockets. His hair was slightly mussed from the wind pressure. His Hokage robes showed not a single scorch mark, not a speck of ash.
He looked like he'd been out for a morning stroll.
"How?!" Deidara's voice cracked. "That explosion should have—even if you're tough, the heat alone—that's IMPOSSIBLE, yeah!"
His hands moved again, crafting more clay spiders. Need bigger explosions. Need more power. Need—
"Stop blowing up my puppets, you absolute moron!" Sasori's voice cut through Deidara's panic.
The puppet master had already deployed his technique. Red-robed puppets emerged from storage scrolls in waves—ten, twenty, fifty, one hundred. The White Secret Technique: Performance of a Hundred Puppets filled the plaza with wooden bodies, each one armed with blades, kunai launchers, poison dispensers.
Chakra threads so fine they were nearly invisible connected Sasori to each puppet, allowing simultaneous control of the entire army.
The puppets surged forward as one, a wave of wood and steel and poison aimed at Naruto's position.
Then Sasori spotted Deidara's new batch of clay spiders positioned right in the path of his puppet army.
"I SWEAR TO THE SAGE, DEIDARA, IF YOU BLOW UP MY HUNDRED PUPPETS I WILL DISMANTLE YOU PIECE BY PIECE!"
"Art requires sacrifice, yeah!"
"YOUR FACE REQUIRES MY FIST!"
Naruto watched the bickering teammates with mild amusement. These are the legendary Akatsuki members? They fight like academy students.
He took a single step forward.
His body blurred, the Instantaneous Movement carrying him across the distance before anyone could react. One moment he stood at the edge of the smoke. The next, he was directly in front of Sasori's position.
Hiruko's tail whipped toward him, the poisoned stinger seeking flesh.
Naruto's fist shot out.
CRACK.
The puppet armor shattered. Wood splintered. Poison sprayed harmlessly to the sides as the tail disintegrated from the impact. The force of the blow sent Hiruko flying backward, tumbling end over end across the plaza.
Poisoned needles erupted from every port in the destroyed armor—a last-ditch attack triggered by Hiruko's damage sensors. Thousands of senbon filled the air, each one coated with Sasori's most lethal toxins.
They bounced off Naruto's skin like rain.
"Interesting," Naruto murmured, watching Hiruko's flight path with genuine curiosity. "You turned yourself into a puppet. That's dedication to your craft."
Hiruko crashed to a stop thirty meters away. The wooden armor was destroyed, revealing the true body within—a young man with red hair and brown eyes, his chest cavity opened to expose the cylindrical core that served as his heart.
Naruto flickered again.
He appeared beside Sasori before the puppet master could react, hand already reaching into the exposed chest cavity. His fingers closed around the core—the regeneration mechanism that kept Sasori alive despite his transformation into a human puppet.
"Wait—" Sasori tried to form hand seals, to activate defensive mechanisms, to do anything.
Too late.
Naruto pulled the core free with a soft click. The chakra threads connecting Sasori to his hundred puppets went slack. The puppet army collapsed like marionettes with cut strings, wooden bodies clattering to the ground in heaps.
Naruto examined the core for a moment, then tucked it into his Hokage robe's inner pocket. "I'll give this back later. After we talk."
Sasori's consciousness persisted within the core, trapped and helpless, experiencing the unique horror of being reduced to a pocket-sized prisoner.
Naruto's attention shifted.
Deidara was still standing near his clay creations, hands formed in the detonation seal, one eye wide with mounting panic as he watched Naruto dispatch Sasori in seconds.
Naruto appeared in front of him.
"Wait, I can explain—" Deidara started.
The punch took him in the chest, lifting him off his feet and sending him flying toward his own clay spider.
The bomber's body crashed into the explosive construct.
Deidara's fingers, still held in the seal position, completed the technique on reflex.
No, no, NO—
The clay spider detonated.
Deidara's scream was cut short by the explosion consuming him. Fire and smoke obscured his position. When it cleared, he was sprawled on the ground, clothes smoking, hair singed, one arm bent at an unnatural angle.
Still breathing. Still conscious. But definitely not fighting anymore.
Two down in the space of ten seconds.
Naruto turned toward Kakuzu.
The immortal bounty hunter, who'd survived encounters with the First Hokage himself, who'd lived for nearly a century through cunning and ruthless efficiency, felt his five hearts all skip a beat simultaneously.
"Wait!" Kakuzu's hands shot up in a placating gesture. "I haven't even attacked yet! That's not fair! At least let me—"
Naruto grabbed him by the collar.
"You make a good point," Naruto said thoughtfully.
Then he turned and threw Kakuzu toward the group of watching Konoha ninja.
The immortal tumbled through the air, arms windmilling, before crashing to a stop in front of Jiraiya, Tsunade, Orochimaru, Kakashi, and Sasuke.
"Here," Naruto called out. "You guys aren't just here to spectate. This one's all yours."
Kakuzu pushed himself up, spitting blood. He looked at the five legendary ninja surrounding him. His mind raced through tactical calculations.
Five against one. All of them S-rank or above. Multiple combat specializations. Excellent teamwork. No escape routes available. Hearts are vulnerable to coordinated assault.
"...I want to file a formal complaint about this matchup," Kakuzu said.
"Complaint denied," Tsunade replied, cracking her knuckles.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!" Sasuke didn't wait for more discussion.
"Hidden Shadow Snake Hands!" Orochimaru's attack came from the opposite angle.
"Heavenly Foot of Pain!" Tsunade blurred forward.
"Water Style: Water Formation Wall!" Kakashi erected barriers to prevent escape.
"Rasengan!" Jiraiya charged in for close combat.
Kakuzu's entire body erupted in elemental techniques, trying to defend against five simultaneous attacks from different directions. Lightning crackled. Fire roared. Water surged. Wind howled.
The immortal's voice rose above the chaos: "This is bullying! Six people ganging up on one! Where's the honor in—"
WHAM. Tsunade's kick sent him flying.
"—the dignity! The fairness! You call this—"
SPLASH. Kakashi's Water Style technique hammered him back down.
"—one on one combat like civilized—"
HISS. Orochimaru's snakes constricted around his limbs.
Nine-Tails, perched on Naruto's shoulder and watching the beat-down with great interest, suddenly stood up on his hind legs. His tails swished excitedly.
"Naruto! I want to help too! This looks fun!"
"Have at it," Naruto said.
The miniature fox leaped from his shoulder, growing slightly mid-air. He landed on Kakuzu's chest just as the immortal was trying to stand up, then began batting at his face with tiny paws.
"Take that! And that! And—ooh, is that a mask? I'm keeping this!" Nine-Tails yanked one of Kakuzu's elemental masks free, clutching it like a trophy.