Chapter 168: CH 168
Hidan's arm was crushed, producing a sizeable burst of blood and getting a yell of pain from the silver -haired berserker. He pulled his crushed limb from the sand and ended up getting it severed by Naruto's sword before he could return to Kakuzu's side.
Kakuzu rushed to the unprotected side of Gaara and attempted to deliver a heavy kick to the unmoving Kazekage that was blocked again by Gaara's sand. Kakuzu was still fast enough however to remove his foot before Gaara could pull a repeat performance of Sabaku Sousou on him. He jumped back, "That's a nice defense. It really is something worth mentioning when one speaks of you."
"I'm forgetting something." Naruto mentioned as he saw Gaara easily defending him from both of the Akatsuki members. Seriously, he wasn't ever looking forward to fighting Gaara ever again, even if it was just a spar.
As he said this, Kakuzu's mask came at them both from a blindspot. It started making its movements to attempt Fuuton: Atsugai once again, but Naruto was damned if he was going to let that thing go off near Gaara without a fight. Naruto formed a Kage Bunshin and formed a Rasengan, "I'll show you a real wind jutsu." The Kage Bunshin put its hands around the Rasengan Naruto had formed and pumped wind chakra into it while Naruto maintained the original shape and form of the Rasengan giving it the appearance of a Rasengan with sharp spikes circulating outside of it, "Come on you ugly, ugly son of a bitch! Fuuton: Rasengan (Wind Release: Spiraling Sphere)!"
Naruto met the mask head on as it was forming the pressurized dome of air and collided the new Rasengan directly with its mask, destabilizing the mask's jutsu. The resulting clash of wind element ninjutsu caused a major outflow of force from the point of impact as a massive tornado engulfed both Naruto and the embodiment of Kakuzu's wind element. The force of the jutsu finally began tearing the black thread body apart and ended up shredding the mask itself into pieces.
Naruto stood with his hand outstretched, cuts on his own palm and insides of his fingers healing from the powerful wind technique, "Baa-chan telling me not to train... How else would I have gotten this down?" Hidan clutched at his missing arm as Kakuzu retreated back to his side. The masked man watched with interest, "I think we've got enough for the time being. We need to report how dangerous the Kyuubi jinchuuriki is to Leader-sama." He raised his voice so Naruto and Gaara could hear him, "This was an enlightening little skirmish. We'll definitely be seeing one of you two sooner rather than later, but for now we'll just let you be. A fight between us now would only be something akin to the unstoppable force against the unmovable object." He and Hidan both made half-tiger seals, "Until next time."
Gaara raised his hand at both men, "Not so fast. Sabaku Kyuu (Sand Coffin)." Gaara covered their bodies in his sand, but before he fully covered their faces he caught a smirk on the face of Hidan.
"So sorry boys, but rest assured Kyuubi kid. I'll be seeing you again real soon." The sand covered his face entirely with his dark grin being the last thing seen. Gaara clinched his fist, "Sabaku Sousou (Sand Burial)." The sand imploded and gushed blood everywhere before receding back into Gaara's gourd, "What a disappointment of a battle. Those were S-ranked missing ninja?"
Naruto walked over to the corpses and frowned, "These aren't the same guys Gaara."