-----
-----
"Hayato!"
In that desperate moment, Konan somehow tore free from the chunin restraining her, her body scattering into a storm of white paper sheets before reforming right at Hayato Tsuruta's side.
"Hide! Get away from me! I… I can't hold it back! Hurry, hide!" Hayato's eyes were starting to show streaks of green, his whole body trembling as he fought to suppress the Hulk inside him. With Konan standing there, he was terrified he might lose control and hurt her.
"Jun… sob… it's all my fault… I'm so stupid…" Konan was crying so hard her tears soaked his clothes, clinging to him without the faintest idea of what he was saying—or caring.
"Go! Hide!" Hayato gritted out, his voice strained as his trembling hand tried to push her away. "Four… two… zero…"
But Konan didn't understand a word of it. Instead, she threw herself at him again.
"Tch. Kill them both!" Hanzo Yamashigyo barked with a flick of his hand.
"RAAH!"
Hayato's roar shook the air, deep and full of raw fury. In the next instant, he surged to his feet—Konan still hanging onto him like a stubborn koala.
Everyone froze, staring in shock. Hayato had become a towering green monster.
The Hulk didn't recognize the girl clinging to him. To him, she was just something in the way. His massive hand seized Konan by the shoulders and yanked her off.
"Jun? Jun, it's you, right? You're okay? Oh, thank god!" Konan dangled in the air, staring at the Hulk's fearsome, twisted face—and instead of fear, she smiled, reaching out to hug his head.
"ROAR!"
The Hulk bellowed in her face, making her flinch.
Hayato—now fully gone—didn't know who she was anymore. With a grunt, he hurled her aside. Yet somewhere deep inside, maybe a scrap of him still didn't want to hurt her, because he held back.
Even so, the throw sent her skidding hard across the ground. She landed with a sickening thud, a faint blush of pain on her cheeks and a thin line of blood trailing from the corner of her mouth.
"AAAAAHHH!" The Hulk's roar shook the courtyard, his glowing green eyes blazing with hatred as he swept them over everyone there. Then, with another earth-shaking shout, he slammed his fist into a ninja who had just lunged for Konan, sending the man flying like a rag doll.
Without pause, the Hulk charged straight for Hanzo. Every ninja foolish enough to step in his path was smashed flat with one punch or swatted aside like trash. Other than Konan—who'd been spared by that hidden flicker of restraint—everyone he touched ended up dead, most of them in a way that would give even hardened shinobi nightmares.
"Tch. Still pretending to be dead? Then die for real!" Hanzo sneered. He thought the transformation was some secret jutsu, and that Hayato's earlier suicide attempt had just been a trick.
Hanzo's scythe swept out, a streak of icy light cutting toward the Hulk with deadly speed and precision. Against most jonin, this strike left no chance to dodge.
But the Hulk didn't dodge. He roared, raised his massive fist, and swung it straight into the blade. No hesitation. No fear. Just brute force, head-on.
If one punch didn't solve it, he'd just throw another.
BOOM!
Hayato's fist smashed straight through Yamashiu Hanzō's attack. The scythe was knocked clean out of Hanzō's hands, spinning away before he yanked it back with a sharp tug, the curved blade snapping back into his grip.
But Hayato's knuckles weren't unscathed—there was now a deep gash across them. The blood oozing out wasn't red, but pitch black, carrying a foul, metallic stench. It dripped to the ground with a harsh sizzle, the earth hissing where it touched.
That alone was enough to tell just how deadly the poison coating Hanzō's blade was.
Too bad for him, though—deadly poison or not, his opponent wasn't just some man. He was a monster. A terrifying one. And against something like Hayato, poison wasn't going to cut it. Honestly, there probably wasn't a single weapon or trick in the world that could finish him off.
The black, toxic blood kept dripping from the wound, but Hayato didn't even glance at it. With a flick of his arm, he whipped the venom off his hand, spraying it in a wide arc. The droplets landed on several Rain ninja who hadn't managed to dodge.
There was a sharp hiss, and before they could even let out a proper scream, they collapsed lifeless to the ground. Their bodies began to dissolve, melting away like something straight out of a wuxia novel's "corpse-dissolving powder."
"AAAHHH!"
With a roar, Hayato balled his other hand into a fist and swung it hard at Hanzō.
Boom!
Hanzō brought his scythe up in time to block, but the raw force behind the blow drove the weapon straight back into his own body. He choked, spitting up a mouthful of blood, and was hurled backward with a deafening crash—slamming straight through the mansion behind him, reducing part of it to rubble.
"Raaagh!" Hayato bellowed, springing into the air like a coiled spring unleashed. He came down like a living warhead, smashing straight into the ruined building where Hanzō had landed.
The impact shook the ground, tearing through what little was left standing. Almost every nearby structure was obliterated.
Those who were still alive just stood there, stunned.
Even Konan, Nagato, and Yahiko froze, staring wide-eyed at the spot where Hayato had landed.
Konan forced herself upright, every bone in her body aching, but she ignored the pain. She just stared at the crater with disbelief. "Is… is this what you meant, Hayato? When you said… a monster?"
Nagato and Yahiko had used that brief moment—when Hayato had exploded into motion and sent Hanzō flying—to slip free from the two Rain ninja holding them hostage.
"....."