I had no heartbeat. My mind was drifting off into the endless darkness of nothingness that enveloped me and everything around me. I was barely conscious. Any background noise, as well as voices that I was only faintly hearing, were obscured by a haze that lasted only for a moment before a deep thud tried to jolt me awake.

Then deafening silence descended once more, making my thoughts drift into a strange set of memories that, for some reason, felt alien to me. And my thoughts were too clouded to remember why.

Another thud echoed that felt like someone struck my chest with a sledgehammer, and the haze cleared some more.

What was going on? Why couldn’t I move my body? I couldn’t explain my current situation. My body felt like a mess and I had trouble breathing.

Then, my ears suddenly stopped buzzing and I could hear what the people around me were saying.

“What did just happen?”

It was voice of a girl, and while I couldn’t properly hear what she had asked about, an answer that came from a man standing next to her did absolutely nothing to clear up the confusion.

“He absorbed the lighting style monster’s heart.”

I didn’t have the time to think about what those words meant, as another powerful thud finally jolted my mind awake, and immediately got assaulted with a grueling headache instead.

I opened my eyes, only to see three figures standing in front of me that somehow felt uncannily familiar. But before I could remember where I had seen them before, a wave of memories flooded my mind.

It wasn’t as simple as information being dumped into me. No. Rather, it felt more like those memories that belonged to a certain shinobi had been somehow fused into my being.

The continuous practice and skills of a talented ninja, the experiences that could only be developed by the person who spent decades honing his craft to its limits were ingrained into my mind.

It felt disorienting.

And as I realized, that wasn’t an end to it. Not only the memories, but the body that I was inhibiting right now was not originally mine either. I had replaced Kakuzu. And I was dropped right in the midst of a battle.

Various questions popped up one after another in my head, but this bizarre situation was too jarring for my mind to think straight.

And then a kunai went flying straight towards me.

I instinctively shifted my torso and dodged the weapon that, while failing to inflict damage to me, managed to snap me out of the daze.

Strange. The speed of the projectile had been surprisingly slow.

The first thing that caught my attention was a change in my perception. As I focused on my senses, I couldn’t shake off the feeling of how different the world appeared. My sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch felt skewed. And aside from those, there was a sixth sense that perceived the world in its own way.

Various dots suddenly connected into my mind that made me realize what the sixth sense was and where it had originated from.

Chakra flowed and circulated throughout my pathways, enhancing my body, as well as my senses, giving me the ability to perceive others’ chakra signature.

I looked at the group in front of me that cautiously observed my movements. Ah, of course. It made sense why they seemed familiar. Now that I wasn’t at the death’s door, both set of memories easily registered the man that held a calculative gaze.

Kakashi Hatake. He was showing an utmost caution against me. This situation was anything but favorable. It was clear he wasn’t in his best condition, but neither was I. Two of my hearts were missing, and a big chunk of my chakra had been spent to keep the body alive. That must have been when I replaced Kakuzu. Right as third heart was sacrificed to bring the body back to life. But how did I get sucked into this?

The situation still didn’t make much sense.

This world felt too real for it to be a hallucination. Was my mind even capable of creating such a vivid dream? Or had I gone insane and was currently in coma?

Wait, how long had I been standing here, again?

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Something pushed against my mind, and I saw Kakashi finish performing hand signs for the fire release jutsu.

I brought my focus back on the shinobi in front of me. Unfortunately, I had no time to be standing still like an idiot. The existential crisis had to wait for some other time.

I tried to dodge the jutsu, but my body refused to move. I felt some sort of mental strain that desperately tried to keep me restrained. A single glance at the other two figures confirmed my guess. Ino’s unconscious body was being supported by Choji, while she must have cast the Mind Transfer jutsu. It wouldn’t take more than a few seconds to shake off her hold, but the incoming giant fireball said that I had no time.

The thread puppet with a combined fire and wind release masks moved at my signal, acting as shield against the fireball. The jutsu wasn’t strong enough to kill me, nor could it manage to destroy the masks, but it burned off a chunk of tentacle-like threads surrounding it.

I glanced at Ino that seemed to be drained of energy. I had regained control over my body after a brief clash of minds. Her willpower was commendable for someone her age, but this wasn’t really a fair fight for her.

She was in no condition to try that again. A dangerous jutsu if they could capitilize on it properly. But not something that wouldn’t work again.

Before the smoke could clear up, I sensed the vibrations coming from below the earth.

As I dodged the attack coming from underground Kakashi launched himself from the earth. Realizing that I had already created some distance, he threw a kunai at me as a distraction, while another Kakashi was charging towards me with the lightning chakra flowing through his hands. The weapon flew past me as I sidestepped, and the thread tendrils were shot forward from my arm aimed at him in response. It was a straightforward attack, but probably the clone was still forced to jump back to avoid them.

Not the one that was charging at me though. He cut apart my threads with Raikiri with ease and rapidly closed the distance between us. But before he could land the hit, a clicking sound was heard from my side and both of the thread puppet’s masks opened their mouth sections. Kakashi was forced to stop the charge unless he wanted to get caught up in a firestorm that engulfed the nearby vicinity in scorching flames.

Now, which one of them was really a clone?

There was a no way to distinguish a clone from the original with a single glance. I could make a guess, but it was unnecessary. I could simply go for them all.

Dark tendrils shot out of the ground and enveloped the bodies of Konoha shinobi. The simple move, yet too sudden for the exhausted shinobi to react, and all three, plus the clone, were entangled by the chakra-enhanced threads.

“Damn it, he’s fast.” Choji groaned as he, like the other two, tried to break off the threads.

“Settle down kid. You’ll just hurt yourself.” I pointed at him.

It was a futile attempt, atfer all. Those tendrils were anything but ordinary. Cutting them wasn’t particularly hard, but brute forcing out of those threads’ hold?

The Jiongu was a jutsu that had been refined for decades through killing one strong shinobi after another, and simply tearing them off with a brute strength like that was impossible unless you were overwhelmingly stronger than Kakuzu. Which, if that was the case, meant that you wouldn’t fall for it in the first place.

But Kakashi alone wasn’t a problem. I had no reason to kill him. No, that would be a mistake. The problem was who was about to show up.

I had no business left here. I should just leave them incapacitated and leave before the things get spiraled further out of control-

And it looks like it is too late to simply leave now. Tch.

A dense concentration of chakra was suddenly hurled towards me, creating a giant vortex that engulfed my body.

Ah, I should have bolted the moment I regained control.

Smoke caused by the vortex slowly cleared, revealing my figure. My skin was coated in a dark metallic layer, a result of Diamond Morph technique flowing earth nature chakra throughout my body.

No more immediate attacks came, and I could see four new figures standing next to Kakashi and others. It wasn’t hard to recognize their identities.

A wild jinchuriki of Nine Tails had appeared.

“Sorry we’re late.”

I took a deep breath (despite having no actual lungs) and readied myself for the battle.

Kakashi sighed in relief at seeing the newcomers.

“Perfect timing, actually.”

Then, instead of immediately attacking, they had the nerve to start a full-blown discussion about how to beat me right in front of my face.

Those brats.

Yamato questioned Kakashi about the situation, after which, Sai and Sakura left to assist Shikamaru. Well, their fears were unfounded. Hidan was probably buried deep into that hole at this point.

Naruto took a step forward and stared at me with a calculative gaze as he cast the Shadow Clone jutsu.

“Yeah, yeah… five hearts, three more to kill. Got it!” His shadow clones shouted, followed by them charging towards me.

I extended my hand, and the thread tendrils followed my intent.

The original had simply used clones to ascertain my abilities. There wasn’t much they could do alone. The clones vanished after getting trapped by the tendrils.

Another set of clones appeared, three this time. I clasped my hands together and sent chakra flowing through the earth below me. An earthen wall appeared between us, separating me from the Konoha shinobi.

The clones busted through the wall with ease, rushing at me once more from the three separate directions. On tried to circle behind me, one from the front, and one from the side. They were simply impaled by the threads, but they had accomplished their purpose as distractions.

I could hear a screeching sound of air being cut apart, and a huge concentration of chakra crashed against my torso. Countless microscopic chakra needles pierced my skin, and my body began to dissolve into threads.

I guess I couldn’t ask more from a clone.

Well, it didn’t matter. My actual body, if I could even call it that, was no longer close to the scene of the battle.