Chapter Twenty
Kenshin stood at the edge of a cliff, staring out at the perpetual rain in the distance. Grey clouds swirled endlessly above a city of twisted spires and industrial smoke.
Amegakure.
The Akatsuki's nest.
He'd delayed long enough. Time to make an entrance.
---
"Amegakure, a beautiful industrial village, under the rain of a tyrant. Fear not, I'm here to save you."
A theatrical tear dropped from his eyelid, mingling with the mist that clung to his skin.
You see what I did there—reign. Rain.
He closed his eyes and spread his senses across the land—Observation Haki expanding like a ripple, View Earth mapping the city's foundations, View Air tasting the humidity, smoke, and hidden chakra in the atmosphere. With his S+ Perception and sensory traits layered atop each other, he could feel the entirety of Amegakure like a living blueprint in his mind.
He sensed them. All of them.
---
In a dimly lit room overlooking the central tower, Pain stood motionless at the window, the rain tracing endless paths down the glass. Through his shared vision, he monitored the city's pulse—the despair, the order, the silent obedience. A flicker. A disturbance in the chakra flow of the northern sector. A flare. Sudden, deliberate, and massive.
His Rinnegan eyes narrowed slightly.
An intruder. Purposeful. Arrogant.
---
In a quiet, dry chamber tucked beneath the rain, Konan looked up from a scroll of complex sealing arrays. The paper in her hands stilled. She felt it through the moisture in the air, through the very infrastructure she helped build—a spike of chakra, bright and unapologetic, piercing the city's damp gloom.
A declaration.
She rose, paper beginning to rustle around her form.
---
In a grimy tavern on the industrial level, Itachi sipped water, his Sharingan passively recording every patron's micro-expression. Kisame leaned against the wall, Samehada propped beside him, grumbling about the lack of decent fights.
They felt it simultaneously.
Kisame's shark-like grin split his face. "Now that's a scent. Big, brash, and begging for a bite."
Itachi's cup paused halfway to his lips. The chakra signature was… structured. Controlled, yet flaunted. Not a beast's roar, but a surgeon's calculated incision into the city's awareness. Interesting.
---
In a secluded forge on the eastern edge, Kakuzu counted a stack of ryo, his fingers methodical. His earth-grater heart pulsed once, a low, instinctual thrum of warning. A financial risk assessment ran instantly through his mind. High-power signature equals potential threat equals possible property damage equals expense.
He tucked the money away, his multiple masks shifting under his cloak. "Trouble. Expensive trouble."
---
Atop a rusty communications spire, Deidara was molding a fresh batch of clay, humming to himself. The sudden chakra surge hit him like a physical gust, ruffling his blond hair. He blinked, then a wild, excited smile spread across his face.
"Now that's an entrance, yeah! Big, bold, and flashy! I like it!"
---
In the sewers, Sasori, encased within Hiruko, didn't flinch. But a hundred hidden puppets throughout the city registered the vibrational shift. An uninvited variable. He processed it with cold, mechanical interest. A living intruder. How… inefficient.
---
In a rented room, Hidan was halfway through a loud, profane prayer to Jashin when he jerked upright. "The hell is that?!" He could feel it—a delicious, living pulse of energy. It felt almost… sanctified. "Oh, Lord Jashin, you've sent me an offering! A big, juicy one!"
---
At the city's main gate, Zetsu's white half chuckled, his voice a dry rustle. "Oh my. Someone's knocking."
The black half hissed, "A threat. A powerful one. Should we inform Leader?"
"He already knows."
---
Kenshin, standing in a rain-slicked plaza in the heart of the industrial district, lowered the hand he'd used to conduct his chakra flare. The afterglow still hung in the air, a visible, pulsing aura that made the falling rain sizzle and steam a foot away from his body.
He smiled, looking up at the endless grey sky.
Everyone's paying attention now.
If only this was my plan.
He smirked.
He was only a shadow clone.
The original had gone to ambush frail old Nagato.
Obito was the one he was after—he was the one who would give him access to Madara's corpse. Him or Black Zetsu.
---
"Glum much?"
Kenshin's voice echoed across the chamber Nagato resided in.
A look of shock appeared on Nagato's face, the pale skin stretching taut over sharp bone.
"Ah, long time no see, Nagato—though you've not seen me before." Kenshin flashed a smile that didn't reach his cold, assessing eyes.
---
At the plaza, the clone of Kenshin was sitting in a chair he'd bullied out of a civilian, a katana resting by his side thanks to the Sealed Arsenal Scroll.
Finally—
The Akatsuki had arrived.
Though Pain (the Deva Path) seemed like he had received shocking news, his expressionless face somehow managing to convey a sudden, severe tension.
Kenshin gave a teasing grin.
"Hello, fellas."
"You're welcome. Now let's get the party started—no need to worry about others. They can protect themselves, can't they?"
He tilted his head, and gave a knowing smile.
"Let me show him true art!" Deidara walked forward, his hands already twitching toward his clay pouches.
"No, he's a sacrifice to Lord Jashin!" Hidan interrupted him, brandishing his scythe.
"No need to worry. You can all come at me at once, no need to be scared of the sword—it was to scare the villagers. I'll be facing you all without it," Kenshin teased, his voice light, almost mocking in the damp air.
---
Deidara's eye twitched. "Scared? SCARED?! Art fears nothing, yeah!"
His hands dove into his clay pouches, molding with practiced speed. Small white spiders materialized, skittering across his palms with an unsettling organic fluidity.
Hidan laughed, a manic, grating sound that bounced off the wet stone. "Oh, you're gonna regret that, pretty boy. Lord Jashin's gonna love watching you bleed!"
He swung his tri-bladed scythe in a wide arc, the weapon whistling through the rain.
Kenshin didn't move from his chair. He crossed one leg over the other, fingers drumming casually against the armrest.
"Any time now."
---
Deidara moved first—clay spiders launching in a scattered wave, each one programmed to detonate on contact. They skittered across the wet stone, leaving trails of displaced water, converging on Kenshin's position from multiple angles.
Kenshin's Observation Haki pinged—twelve individual explosives, staggered detonation pattern, designed to create overlapping blast zones.
His hand flicked once.
Almighty Push.
The invisible force erupted outward in a perfect sphere, catching the clay spiders mid-leap. They hung suspended for a split second—then detonated simultaneously, thirty meters away from Kenshin. The combined blast lit up the plaza in a brilliant orange flare, the shockwave rippling outward, shattering windows and sending rain hissing into steam.
When the smoke cleared, Kenshin was still seated, completely untouched. He yawned.
"That all?"
Deidara's jaw clenched. "You little—"
---
Hidan didn't wait. With a feral roar, he charged, scythe spinning in a deadly figure-eight pattern. Rain droplets split against the blade's edge, the weapon carving through the air with lethal intent.
Kenshin finally stood, slow and deliberate, his movements unhurried.
Hidan closed the distance—ten meters, five, three—
Soru.
Kenshin vanished.
Hidan's scythe cleaved empty air, the momentum carrying him forward. He stumbled, eyes wide—
—and Kenshin reappeared behind him, hand outstretched.
"Too slow."
Universal Pull.
Hidan's body lurched backward against his will, dragged by an invisible force. Kenshin's palm met his spine—a Chakra-Enhanced strike.
CRACK.
Hidan flew forward, crashing face-first into the wet stone. He skidded ten meters, leaving a trail of displaced water and blood.
"Gah! You bastard!" Hidan pushed himself up, ribs already knitting back together thanks to his Jashin immortality. "That actually hurt! I'm gonna enjoy this!"
Kenshin tilted his head. "Immortality, huh? Let's test that."
---
"Enough playing." Kisame's voice rumbled like distant thunder.
He stepped forward, Samehada unwrapped and writhing in his grip, its scales bristling hungrily. The sword's toothy maw opened, tasting Kenshin's chakra in the air.
"Big signature like yours? Samehada's starving."
Kisame blurred forward. His swing came low, aiming to bisect Kenshin at the waist.
Kenshin's hand moved—
Boogie Woogie.
He clapped once.
In an instant, Kisame's target disappeared. He found himself swinging at Deidara, who yelped and barely dove aside.
"What the—?!" Kisame's eyes narrowed.
Kenshin now stood where Deidara had been, twenty meters away, hands in his pockets.
"Spatial technique," Kisame muttered, recalculating. "Tricky."
---
Itachi hadn't moved. His Sharingan spun slowly, tracking every micro-movement, every chakra fluctuation.
Repulsion technique. Attraction technique. Spatial swap. High-speed movement.
Other than the spatial technique, his jutsu arsenal is just like the leader's.
---
"Wasting time." Kakuzu's voice was flat, businesslike.
His body split—threads erupting from his back, four masked entities separating from his form. Fire, Wind, Lightning, Water. Each mask glowed with elemental chakra.
"Combined assault. Overwhelming force. Standard extermination protocol."
The masks opened simultaneously.
Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work.
Wind Release: Pressure Damage.
A massive fireball, superheated by wind chakra, roared toward Kenshin. The temperature spiked instantly—stone cracking from thermal stress, rain evaporating before it could fall.
Kenshin's Rokugan analyzed the technique in real-time.
He raised one hand.
Extinguish Flames.
The fireball winked out.
Just—gone. As if snuffed by an invisible hand.
With the same precision, Kenshin weaved hand signs and sent the jutsus back to Kakuzu.
Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work.
Wind Release: Pressure Damage.
The Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work struck first, piercing directly through the Wind Mask's gaping mouth. There was no explosion—only a violent, sizzling implosion of heat as the flame burrowed into the mask's core, igniting the chakra threads from the inside out. The Wind Mask shattered into charred, crumbling fragments that dissolved mid-air.
The Wind Release: Pressure Damage followed—not as a broad blast, but as a focused lance of atmospheric force. It struck the Lightning Mask with surgical precision, not tearing it apart, but compressing it. The mask crumpled inward like stepped-on paper before bursting into pulverized dust.
Kakuzu's main body staggered, threads recoiling violently as two of his elemental hearts were extinguished in an instant. The backlash of severed chakra connections sent jagged pain lancing through his nervous system—a sensation he hadn't felt in decades. Smoke curled from his cloak where the threads had retracted, the air smelling of ozone and burnt earth.
---
From the shadows at the plaza's edge, Hiruko's tail whipped forward—senbon needles coated in paralytic poison, twenty projectiles launched in a spread pattern.
Kenshin's Protection From Arrows trait activated instinctively. His body shifted—micro-adjustments, almost imperceptible—and every senbon missed by centimeters, embedding into the stone behind him with sharp thwips.
He turned his head to face Sasori.
Heh.
He blurred toward Sasori, who used his tail to counterattack, but Kenshin had read his move. He moved sideways, caught the tail—which could not deal poison damage to him thanks to his Immunity System—and used it to reel Sasori in. He punched the puppet in the chest, cracking a hole through its armored shell. He twirled the heavy puppet once and hurled it away. It crashed into a wall with a dull, metallic crunch.
He dusted his hands in satisfaction.
---
Pain's Deva Path finally spoke, his voice resonant and emotionless.
"Enough."
He raised one hand.
Shinra Tensei.
The repulsive force detonated outward—a shockwave that flattened everything in a fifty-meter radius. Stone shattered, water exploded upward in a massive spray, the plaza cratering under the pressure.
Kenshin had a split second to react.
Light Steps + Soru.
He kicked upward, walking on nothing, using air as solid ground. The Shinra Tensei passed beneath him, obliterating where he'd stood.
He landed on a building's edge, thirty meters up, looking down at the Akatsuki.
"Why so feisty? Are you worried?" He tilted his head, rainwater dripping from his hair. "Where is the female? Your countermeasures are quick."
"I should finish things here. The fish has been reeled in."
---
"KILL HIM!" Deidara roared, hands already molding his largest bomb yet.
But Kenshin's clone didn't run. Instead, he drew the katana from the sealed scroll, the blade gleaming with chakra as he poured energy into it.
Chakra Flow: Blade Enhancement.
Lightning crackled along the edge, bright and vicious.
Hidan charged again, scythe raised. "JASHIN DEMANDS YOUR—"
The clone moved.
Divine Hand-to-Hand Combat + Intermediate Blade Mastery + SS Agility.
He closed the gap in a blink, katana flashing. The blade met Hidan's scythe with a screech of metal—then through it, the superior chakra-conductive steel shearing the weapon in half.
Hidan's eyes went wide. "My—"
The clone's follow-up strike took Hidan's head clean off.
It hit the ground with a wet thud, rolling to a stop near Kakuzu's feet.
"WHAT THE FUCK!" Hidan's head screamed. "THAT'S MY FAVORITE HEAD!"
The clone didn't stop. He spun, katana arcing toward Deidara—
—but Kisame intercepted, Samehada blocking the strike. The sword shredded the clone's chakra on contact, draining it in massive gulps.
The clone's form flickered. "Heh. Worth it."
Itachi's kunai pierced the clone's chest from behind—precise, clinical.
The clone looked down, then up at Itachi with a bloody grin.
"Your first strike, critical. As expected of an ANBU captain—though you've defected."
POOF.
The clone burst into chakra smoke, dispersing into nothing.
---
Silence.
Rain pattered against shattered stone. Hidan's headless body flailed around, trying to find his head. Deidara panted, clay still molded in his hands, unused.
Kisame sheathed Samehada, grinning despite himself. "That was fun."
Itachi stared at where the clone had been, Sharingan analyzing the dispersal pattern. "A diversion. From the beginning."
Pain's voice cut through, cold and final.
"Return to the tower. Now."
They moved as one, blurring into the rain.
Hidan's head shouted after them. "SOMEONE PICK ME UP! GUYS?! GUYS?!"
---
Nagato's Chamber
Kenshin—the real Kenshin—stood across from the emaciated form of Nagato, the Gedo Statue looming behind him like a skeletal god, its hollow eyes seeming to stare through dimensions.
Nagato's Rinnegan eyes locked onto him, unblinking, ancient and terrible.
"You should not be here."
Kenshin's grin was sharp, predatory, utterly unconcerned with the ten-story nightmare behind his opponent.
"And yet, here I am. Let's talk business, Nagato. I've got a proposal you can't refuse."
Behind Nagato, a figure emerged from the shadows—an orange spiral mask, a single Sharingan gleaming through the eyehole, radiating barely suppressed killing intent.
"Madara," Kenshin said, inclining his head with mock respect. "Or should I call you Obito?"
The chamber's temperature seemed to drop.
"I don't really like people using my goat's name."
The masked man froze, his one visible eye widening in shock, the Sharingan spinning faster.
The door burst open with a crash. Konan stood framed in the entrance, paper wings spread wide, eyes cold and furious as she took in the scene—the intruder, Obito's unmasked shock, Nagato's calculating stillness.
"Nagato—"
She froze, processing the tableau before her.
Kenshin glanced at her, grin widening as his Observation Haki had already sensed her approach.
"Ah, there you are. Just in time for the reveal."
Nagato's head turned slowly toward Obito, Rinnegan rippling with sudden, terrible understanding, questions forming in those ancient eyes.
Kenshin's voice cut through the mounting tension, casual as ever despite standing in a room with three S-rank threats.
"Awkward, isn't it?"