When the violent winds finally died down, the center of the battlefield looked like a natural disaster had hit it.
Trees lay snapped and scattered. The ground was torn up, deep furrows carved through the earth by the sheer force of wind. And in the middle of it all, half of a blue-patterned mask lay among writhing black tentacles that were slowly dissolving into a pool of foul liquid.
Kakuzu's Wind Release heart was dead.
Kenji turned his attention toward where Kakuzu's main body stood. A curtain of water was just dissipating, revealing the older ninja along with two of his masked creatures. Both creatures were missing half their bodies.
The three masked creatures had been standing together when Kenji redirected the Wind Release technique. The wind heart had taken the brunt of the damage and been completely destroyed. But because they'd been grouped so close together, and because the Pressure Damage had such a massive area of effect, the fire and lightning creatures had also been caught in the blast.
The hearts beneath their masks had survived, but the tentacle bodies housing them were severely damaged. If Kakuzu hadn't used the water heart in his main body to cast the Water Formation Wall and block some of the damage, he probably would have lost another heart entirely.
He was breathing hard now.
The mask on the fire creature's face suddenly opened. A torrent of flames erupted from its mouth, sweeping across the entire battlefield in a massive wave of heat.
"Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work!"
The range of the technique was enormous. It covered every inch of ground where Kenji had placed Flying Thunder God marks, creating a zone of continuous flame. The purpose was clear, seal off Kenji's space-time technique and force him to stay in one location.
At the same moment, the lightning creature's mask opened as well. Crackling energy gathered in its mouth, condensed lightning chakra building to a peak before discharging in a focused bolt.
"Lightning Release: False Darkness!"
The lightning tore through the sea of flames and shot toward Kenji.
Facing the approaching attacks, Kenji brought his hands together in a seal and closed his eyes.
When he opened them again a split-second later, red pigmentation had spread across his face. His pupils had changed, taking on a rectangular shape.
His figure vanished.
CRASH!
The lightning bolt struck where he'd been standing, blasting a crater in the ground and sending shattered rock flying in all directions.
He reappeared behind the fire creature. He'd moved so fast that the displacement of air created a small shockwave. His fist was already cocked back.
He drove it forward into the creature's back.
BOOM!
The air in front of his fist compressed violently under the force. An explosive burst of pressure erupted outward. The fire creature's entire upper body, including its mask and the heart hidden beneath, exploded into fragments.
Pieces of black tentacle and shattered mask rained down across the battlefield.
The lightning creature and Kakuzu's main body were splattered with the debris. Both turned in shock to find Kenji standing right beside them, his fist still extended from the punch.
Kakuzu's expression twisted. He immediately ordered the lightning creature to attack.
The last remaining creature gathered lightning chakra in its mouth once more.
"Lightning Release: False Darkness!"
Another bolt of lightning shot toward Kenji from point-blank range.
Kenji's hands blurred through seals.
"Sage Art: Wind Release - Vacuum Wave!"
The technique that emerged from his mouth was nothing like the standard Wind Release jutsu. Enhanced by senjutsu chakra, it was on an entirely different level from anything Danzō had used during their fight. A transparent wave of wind expanded rapidly as it shot forward, moving at incredible speed.
The wind wave collided with the lightning bolt and shattered it completely. The electrical energy dispersed harmlessly as the Vacuum Wave continued forward, cutting through the lightning creature's body.
The blade of compressed wind sliced through the mask and the heart beneath it. Before the creature could even begin to fall, the wind chakra surrounding the technique ground it into powder. The remains scattered across the battlefield.
Kakuzu saw the Vacuum Wave coming toward him and threw himself to the side, rolling to avoid the direct path of the attack.
He was fast enough to dodge the main technique. But the senjutsu-enhanced Vacuum Wave was simply too powerful. Even avoiding the direct hit wasn't enough. The ambient wind chakra radiating from the technique formed countless invisible blades that shredded everything in the vicinity.
His right arm and right shoulder were torn apart, reduced to scraps of flesh and black tendrils that fell away from his body.
BOOM!
The Vacuum Wave continued past him and slammed into a distant mountain.
A shadow fell across Kakuzu's face.
He looked up to see a pair of sandals standing right in front of him.
"Looks like you won't be collecting that bounty after all," Kenji said with a slight smile.
His tantō flashed.
The blade separated Kakuzu's head from his neck. Blood sprayed across the broken ground as the head rolled away, coming to a stop several meters distant.
Kakuzu's eyes stared in Kenji's direction. His mouth opened as if to speak, but no sound came out.
Kenji walked over and picked up the severed head, holding it by the hair. He turned and started to leave the battlefield.
After walking a few steps, he suddenly stopped. His eyes narrowed slightly, then he raised his fist and drove it into the ground.
CRASH!
Empowered by Sage Mode, the impact shattered the earth. Huge cracks spread outward from the point of impact, creating deep fissures in the ground.
He looked toward one of the newly opened cracks. Down in the darkness, he could see a mass of black tentacles writhing, trying to burrow deeper underground.
Unfortunately for it, Kenji's previous attack had damaged it. Its movements were slow and clumsy.
"Found you," he said quietly.
His hands formed seals. The ground near the tentacles bulged upward, the earth itself pushing the hidden mass back to the surface. It emerged reluctantly, exposed to the light.
It was the left hand Kakuzu had discarded earlier during their fight. On the middle finger was a dark green ring with the kanji for "north."
Behind the severed hand was a cluster of pulsating tentacles wrapped around what looked like a beating heart.
Kenji tossed the severed head onto the writhing mass of tentacles.
"Stop hiding. I already found you."
The black mass seemed to hesitate for a moment, then dozens of tendrils shot out from the heart and connected to the nearby head. The lifeless expression on Kakuzu's face slowly returned to something resembling animation. His eyes focused on Kenji.
"How did you find me?" Kakuzu asked.
"The chakra signature from your heart was way too obvious," Kenji replied. "I knew the moment you detached it from your body and tried to fake your death. Plus it still had my Flying Thunder God mark on it. Did you really think you could pull that trick while I was in Sage Mode?"
Trying to deceive enhanced sensory abilities like that was basically attempting sleight of hand right in front of someone's face.
Kakuzu's expression twisted slightly. His final gambit had failed.
Kenji's hands moved through seals rapidly.
"Seal!"
Chakra surged from his palms. Sealing formulas spread across the ground, racing toward Kakuzu's grotesque remains. The marks wrapped around the severed hand, the head, and the pulsating heart, forming an intricate pattern of containment.
Kakuzu's consciousness and chakra were suppressed, locked down by the sealing technique. His eyes went blank as the seal took hold.
Kenji pulled out a storage scroll and sealed Kakuzu's headless body into it. Then he picked up the sealed remains, the bizarre assemblage of hand, head, and heart now inert and harmless.
He looked around at the battlefield one more time, then immediately left the area at high speed.
The fight with Kakuzu had created too much noise and destruction. There was a real risk that other Akatsuki members had noticed. Or worse, Pain. This border region of the Land of Fire was very close to the Land of Rain, and that was Pain's territory.
Getting caught by Pain's Rinnegan while carrying Kakuzu's sealed body would be problematic to say the least.
Better to get back to Konoha quickly and let Minato deal with the political fallout.
---
One day later, Kenji approached Konoha's gates in the late afternoon.
The two guards on duty noticed him immediately and waved. They were Izumo and Kotetsu, the village's eternal gatekeepers. Both were capable chunin and decent men, yet somehow they had spent years stuck on gate duty without promotion.
"Welcome back!" Izumo called with a cheerful grin.
Then his expression froze when he noticed what Kenji was holding.
In Kenji's hand was something that looked like it belonged in a nightmare. A severed left hand gripped an organic looking heart, black tendrils wrapped tightly around it. The entire grotesque mass was covered in sealing marks. Attached to it was a human head with green eyes and thick stitches running across the face.
Kotetsu's complexion turned pale.
"What's that?"
"Bounty collection," Kenji replied as he walked past them and into the village. "Nothing to worry about."
The two guards could only stare after him in silence.
Not wanting to frighten any civilians with Kakuzu's current appearance, he immediately used the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Space flickered around him. After two seconds, he appeared inside the Hokage Building, standing in the hallway outside Minato's office.
He raised his hand and knocked.