"What!" Kisuke unconsciously said as he looked at the person who he had just killed.
It was a familiar face, one much more familiar than Kazuo's.
It was his own.
Emotions that he had thought were long gone were once more brought to the surface.
It wasn't a slow process, It was as if a hand had plunged right inside Kisuke's chest, grasped deep inside of him, and wretched those emotions out.
His hands were shaking and so was his vision, an unparalleled terror started grasping his mind as he stared at his own bloody face.
A hand slowly reached from behind him.
It looked as if the hand was being shaped from the shadows around the small tent as if it was being formed mid-air.
And soon enough that hand grasped the back of Kisuke's neck.
There were no wasted movements, there was no talk or monologue.
*Crack*
With a simple twist, Kisuke lost his life.
*Thump*
His body fell down almost immediately as the hand let go of his neck.
"One down, now that the root is gone, all that's left to deal with is him…" Kazuo said as his body was quickly reconstructed from hundreds of pitch-black papers.
Looking down at the two dead bodies, one of them fake and the other real, Kazuo felt like laughing.
His mind was in turmoil however he still kept his reward in sight.
"Only one more kill."
With those last words, Kazuo quickly bent down and sealed Kisuke's dead body whilst the illusion over the fake one dropped, the blood and supposed dead Kisuke turning into hundreds of paper sheets.
Whilst from underground another figure appeared.
It was the real Kazuo who had been underground.
Quickly looking around and figuring that the plan was a complete success, Kazuo made another hand sign before going back underground once more whilst the paper clone took his place.
The paper clone made a hand seal, creating another paper clone, with the only difference being that this time the figure wasn't a clone of Kazuo, instead it was one of Kisuke.
After doing so, Kazuo went back to 'sleep'.
Hours passed and soon enough it was time.
Kazuo's clone snapped his eyes open, in an instant he changed his position and immediately launched a water style severing wave jutsu whilst at the same time creating a shadow clone.
The shadow clone went up in the air whilst the paper clone stood in the ground.
The Real Kazuo meanwhile was already running away in a predetermined path underground.
'I need to recover chakra whilst at the same time creating as many paper explosion tags as possible.' Kazuo thought as he arrived at the chosen location.
It was a small naturally formed underground cave.
Creating two shadow clones, he immediately unseleled the paper sheet's he had in his wrist guards aswell as three ink brushes before getting to work.
His speed was quick, as he created explosion tag after explosion tag whilst at the same time counting the seconds in his mind.
He knew he had at most five minutes before Kakuzu started chasing after him and another three minutes before he was found and that was being generous to himself.
'251, 262, 263, 264…'
He stood in silence as the only sound being heard was that of paper sheets being shuffled as he and the clones completed the explosion tag seal on them.
Finally after 416 seconds or just about seven minutes, Kazuo stopped, sealed the entire paper tags that he had created and dismissed the shadow clones before plopping a soldier pill inside his mouth, it dissolving almost instantly.
'He's here.' Kazuo thought as he sensed the ground shake.
In an instant, Kazuo used the hiding-like-a-mole technique and launched himself upwards.
His movement speed was much faster than before.
As soon as he escaped the clutches of the underground, Kazuo quickly formed a pair of paper wings and launched himself up into the air.
Finally looking down, Kazuo saw it, or rather him.
Kakuzu.
The man's face was bloodied whilst a glare adorned his expression.
Kazuo didn't even say anything to the man who looked hell bent on killing him and ripping his body piece by piece afterward.
Instead, he only made a single-hand seal.
"Kai."
The explosion was muffled however Kazuo still heard it and much more importantly, he saw its effects.
Kakuzu dropped down to one knee, the left side of his chest as well as his left arm had been completely blown to bits. Erased from existence and turned into a shower of blood and flesh.
Kazuo didn't stop however as he directed his attention to the two black hairy monsters that stood guard around Kakuzu.
His paper wings swung wide open before they flapped once with intensity, launching Kazuo directly toward Kakuzu.
With Immense speed, Kazuo arrived at the two monsters in almost an instant.
When he did arrive, Kazuo's paper wings immediately fragmented, launching hundreds of paper tags toward the two.
These paper tags quickly surrounded the two monsters, more specifically they surrounded their heads, almost like a paper globe.
Kazuo meanwhile launched a chakra-enhanced kick toward Kakuzu who was only just starting to regain his wits.
Kazuo's kick slammed into the man's abdomen and sent him flying meters away, only to be stopped when his back clashed with a tree.
Kazuo didnt stop for a moment as he already sent the chakra signal, causing the hundreds of tags surrounding the two monsters head to explode.
He had two seconds to get away from the zone and escape the impact however Kazuo stood still as the two paper explosions went off.
*BOOM*
Kazuo's body was launched back tens of meters and clashed against a tree similarly to how Kakuzu's body had done.
However, there was a major difference between the two expressions.
One looked like he was going through harrowing pain whilst the other.
Kazuo had a large shit-eating grin on his face, it looked as if this was the happiest moment in his life.
[ User has Completed a Hidden Mission. ]
[ User has done something unbelievable and has gained an Achievement. ]
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I really liked this chapter, It finally goes full circle and we are back at the start of this entire mission, but now we know that things weren't as simple as they were back then, we know that Kazuo had only been acting until the very last moment.
He had even fooled himself and his teammates so that he could achieve this outcome.
[ End of Volume - S Rank Killer ]
Lots of Love as always!
NarutoAuthor