Chapter 60 - Survival

Ryouko looked to Azami, a sad smile and a nod was all he gave her. She immediately understood he had some kind of plan, and she couldn’t let anyone else interfere. That meant Kakuzu.

Ryouko knew two Hokage level jutsus. The chakra you put out was the same. With a few props, you could create some interesting effects. Truth be told, he didn’t have the chakra for the Reaper Death Seal. Instead, he forced himself to summon his last weapon, short of the Reaper Death Seal. His emotions. That chakra would boost him a little bit- enough to use the Seal, and maybe even get away alive.

The Third Hokage had taught Ryouko this Jutsu, knowing it would someday be used. But even as he had learned it, Ryouko knew it was meant for Orochimaru, not Hidan. The Third Hokage had taken precautions. After studying for two years with Ryouko, he finally came up with something: Ryouko could, potentially, use the Seal and live. But he had to sacrifice something- his kekkaigenkai, the ShikotsuMyaku, and his emotional chakra.

But that wasn’t all that Ryouko had learned from Sarutobi. He had learned a very powerful genjutsu- that of the First Hokage, the “Bringer of Darkness” technique. Ryouko didn’t know if a bluff would work or not, but the two had, he imagined, similar effects. So while screaming he was using the Reaper Death Seal and making the handsigns for it, Ryouko was silently using the “Bringer of Darkness” technique. He stopped the Reaper Death Seal handsigns short and instead made the sign of the tiger. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Kakuzu had his hands full with Azami.

Ryouko/Ekyt smiled, thinking that they were almost like Kurenai and Asuma. Except he was the genjutsu user, instead of Azami. It struck him that he didn’t know what she could do. But that wasn’t important now- stopping Hidan was. Make no mistake, Ekyt was taking a gamble.

With Hidan blinded, Ekyt made his move, only then realizing that he had no idea of what to do!

“RYOUKO! GET HIM OUT OF THE CIRCLE AND KEEP HIM OUT!” Azami shouted, clicking her tongue and released an explosive from underneath it. She spit it at Kakuzu, who disassembled himself in the nick of time. In this close, Azami’s crossbows would be useless. She drew two swords of Filipino origin and kept slashing away. She saw a set of threads aim for Ryouko and quickly cut them down.

-

Team Kakashi arrived. Immediately, Ryouko warned them to stay back.

“I’ll fill you in later! Help Azami, I’ll handle him!” Ryouko, of course, had no authority over any of them, but in combat they tended to respect Ryouko’s wishes.

“All of you, stay back. I’ll handle this one. If I get killed, follow Yamato’s orders- understand?”

Kakashi didn’t wait for a response- he took off, straight toward Kakuzu. Hidan heard footsteps and aimed a blind attack toward Kakashi’s back. Ekyt used the Body Flicker and got in the way of the scythe, knocking it into the ground. The cord that the scythe was attached to suddenly jerked Hidan forward. Fate wasn’t usually this generous to Ekyt. Reaching into his tool pouch, Ekyt fished out ten exploding tags. He planted them all over the scythe, then jumped away, waiting until Hidan stopped moving.

The pain from this will end the genjutsu I put on him, but I only need a couple seconds to do this. He’s out of his circle of power, so what I need to do is destroy him. With his partner tied up in combat, he won’t be able to heal him- not until I’ve done my damage. But that’s not enough…I’m ‘Ekyt’ again, but in my mind…Ryouko would make this bastard suffer. Sorry Ekyt, no room for nice guys out here now.

“Detonate!”

The tags exploded, blowing Hidan’s legs away. The second he was down, Ryouko used the ANBU Paralysis Jutsu. He didn’t typically use this jutsu, since it seemed to be in poor taste to take advantage of a helpless opponent. But today, Ryouko wasn’t in the mood for mercy. He walked over to Hidan, standing right in his field of vision.

“You like pain, freak? You’re going to get a lot of it- but you won’t enjoy THIS pain. This pain is really going to hurt, in more ways than one.”

First, a genjutsu. Ryouko put all he could behind him ‘Death Foreseeing’ Jutsu. At this level, it was A-ranked, and enough to shatter a mind.

Next, Ryouko took out his long sword from his summoning scroll. He raised it up ten times- it fell ten times. Hidan was sliced into chunks. The last move Ryouko made was to cut off his head.

“Now then- If you thought you were going nuts before, you were wrong. NOW I start to torture you.”

Ryouko picked up Hidan’s head by the hair. Unceremoniously, he dropped Hidan’s head into an empty summoning scroll. Ryouko put his seal on the scroll. As an afterthought, Ryouko took Hidan’s hand, too- the one with the Akatsuki ring on it.

-

Kakuzu kept attacking, but saw it was worthless. Kakashi outclassed him, and now he didn’t even have the insufferable Hidan’s help. He decided to cut his losses and get back to the Akatsuki with a report- Itachi had been wrong about this ‘Ekyt/Ryouko’ boy. Saying he was without talent was wrong…no one got lucky this many times.

“Where the hell d’you think you’re going?” Ryouko barked, tearing toward Kakuzu. Kakuzu’s threads shot at him, but Ryouko blocked or dodged most of them. The threads were durable, so Ekyt borrowed a page from Sasuke Uchiha’s book. He caught one thread between his two kunai.

“Fire Style: Dragon’s Ember Jutsu!”

Ryouko sent a jet of fire down the thread, toward Kakuzu. Kakuzu cut the thread’s connection, then reattached it once the fire was out. As Ryouko got closer, Kakuzu sprung his trap- blending in with the earth, one of his threads shot up and hooked Ryouko’s ankle, sending him to the ground hard. More threads came to finish him, but Azami’s twin blades blocked them, while the threat of a Raikiri from Kakashi send Kakuzu into retreat mode. No one chased him.

Ekyt was pretty hurt, and he was spent after all those attacks. That made him easy prey for Kakuzu’s threads. That was one thing that made the Akatsuki so dangerous- they knew the art of war. A tactic like this ensured that they wouldn’t be pursued. Sai’s drawings leapt in the way, blocking the attack. Naruto swooped in and picked Ekyt up, while Sakura primed herself for battlefield surgery.

“He’s had worse,” Naruto informed her. Sakura nodded in agreement, getting to work, while Naruto continued.

“I wonder why the Akatsuki are after him? Is it because he keeps helping me?”

“I’d imagine. Seems like Ekyt has some luck when it comes to them. Anyone else probably would have been killed by these attacks,” Sakura murmured, focusing her chakra to Ekyt’s stomach, which was the worst of the wounds.

-

Kakuzu stared down the group he was facing. But he disappeared, not even saying a word. He and Hidan had been embarrassed, and it was their own fault- they underestimated the boy’s skills, and they gave him a reason to fight. Then they fell for his stupid trick. Their loss was their own fault, not Ekyt’s.

Kakashi and Azami didn’t lower their weapons right away. When they did, they did so slowly.

“You want to check on him, don’t you?” Kakashi said mildly. Azami turned to look at him. She was on Kakashi’s Sharingan side, so she couldn’t see his expression at all.

“…”

“Go on. I’m not going to stop you. It’s clear that you two aren’t enemies. If I know anything about Ekyt, I know that. So go on, check on him. After that, we have a lot to discuss.”

Azami sheathed her blades. “That sounds fair enough. Thank you for your help.”

Kakashi turned to give her a smile (or at least his eye seemed to smile). “Well, you two held them up and gave us a chance to make a well-planned move. And besides…You’ve done us all a great favor. You just don’t know it yet. But that’s enough talk from me.”

-

“I’d love to know the story behind this one.”

Naruto and his team (Sakura was speaking) faced Azami and Ryouko. Ryouko opened his mouth.

“F*** you!”

(Sweatdrops)

Ekyt grabbed the summoning scroll and dropped an exploding tag in.

“I hate this thing. Too bad I have to hold onto it to make sure this…whatever it is…never becomes a full body again. I really need to see if there’s a way to kill him >

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