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Batman in Konoha. Chapter 33. Fugaku Vs Kakuzu
🕑 Added 2025-06-28 16:48:04 +0000 UTCFugaku stormed onto the grounds of the Uchiha Enterprises factory. His Sharingan was already ablaze, absorbing every detail of the crime scene.
The yard looked like a warzone. The ground was torn open with deep craters, as if not one but a series of bombs had been dropped. Murky water sloshed through the broken asphalt, steam rising from it — the moisture had been boiled, vaporized by fire-style jutsu. The brick walls were scorched, melted in places, and elsewhere bubbled and warped like they'd been struck by lightning.
At the center of all this chaos stood Kakuzu. He had already shed his cloak with the red clouds — it lay crumpled at his feet. His outfit was minimal now: just black pants and a tight, dark tank top clinging to a sinewy body, as if woven from tendons and muscle. Black threads jutted out from his arms, shoulders, even his back — slick, writhing like wet snakes, vibrating in eager anticipation.
Kakuzu’s eyes — red with a green pupil — stared cold and emotionless. The gaze of a killer who had seen too many deaths to care anymore.
On the other side, Shisui was a blur. His movements were so fast and light that even the eye could barely follow, let alone a counterattack. The afterimages from his shunshin technique confused Kakuzu, while quick sweeps and blows to blind spots kept him from locking onto a single target. But it was all just a delay.
Shisui couldn’t dodge a storm of ninjutsu forever.
“Genjutsu doesn’t work,” Shisui transmitted telepathically, his voice laced with irritation and urgency. “Hope you’ve got a plan, Fugaku. Or he’s going to burn in the black flames of Amaterasu.”
“Don’t you dare,” came Itachi’s cold, stern voice inside his head. “Jiongu must not be destroyed. We need to study it.”
While Shisui kept the monster occupied, Itachi was already moving. Using the new paths Fugaku had cleared days earlier, he swiftly evacuated the workers. No screaming, no panic — it had all been planned in advance.
“I’ll handle him myself,” Fugaku said mentally. His voice left no room for argument, only immediate obedience. “Leave. And stay out of the way.”
They understood. He wasn’t the kind of man to be talked down.
Shisui vanished from the battlefield in another flash of shunshin. Kakuzu whipped his threads in all directions, impaling a dozen afterimages that had surrounded him. They dissolved like mist. The real Shisui was already gone.
Now only two remained in the yard. Fugaku and Kakuzu.
Two veterans. Two warriors who had long since crossed the line between man and weapon. They didn’t rush. They just stared at each other, like predators who had finally stepped onto the same territory. The air between them hung frozen.
“So you finally showed up,” Kakuzu said. His voice was low, metallic, calm — like he was discussing the weather, not standing in the middle of a charred battlefield. “I was starting to think you didn’t care about your workers. That I’d have to level the whole building just to get your attention.”
“Why are you doing this?” Fugaku asked, not moving any closer.
In Gotham, villains shared their plans only when they were Arkham inmates.
But in the shinobi world, there were rules of honor. If two enemies met on the field, someone would die — that was certain. And if they were evenly matched, they were allowed to speak before the killing blow. A kind of final confession before crossing into the Pure Land.
“I know about your contract with the Syndicate,” Fugaku said, his voice hard. “You were supposed to make me submit — not destroy the source of income.”
Kakuzu gave the slightest shake of his head. His face stayed like stone, but irritation flickered in his voice.
“That doesn’t matter anymore. Time is money. And you’ve wasted mine. This was supposed to be a simple job — two, three days, and I vanish. But you ruined it.”
His fists clenched slowly. Black tendrils bulged beneath the skin, snaking as if searching for an exit.
“I’m done waiting. I’ll kill you. Then your children. I’ll rip out your eyes and sell them on the black market. Uchiha eyes — that’s merchandise they pay for before even asking the price.”
Fugaku didn’t flinch.
"This will be your last mistake," he said quietly. "If you touch anyone in my family, the Uchiha Clan will rise. They’ll drag you out from under the ground, from beneath the ocean, from any bunker you try to hide in."
Kakuzu snorted.
"Good. More eyes to sell."
"Why do you need so much money, Kakuzu?" Fugaku narrowed his eyes, his voice turning sharper. "Saving up for true immortality?"
He caught it — a microcontraction of the pupil, a faint twitch of facial muscles. A fleeting emotion that couldn’t be faked. He’d hit a nerve.
"You can replace hearts. Liver. Lungs. Everything but the brain. Everything but the center where consciousness is born. And that’s already aging, isn’t it?"
A shadow flickered across Kakuzu’s face. But instead of rage, he suddenly gave a short huff — not malicious, almost... human. As if someone had finally seen the truth beneath the monstrous tangle of threads.
"Money rules this world. You understand that, don’t you?" Kakuzu spoke in a low, gravelly voice, touched by something almost philosophical. "Money is the simplest way to make people do what you want. Once I have enough, I’ll hire an entire nation of scientists. I’ll buy them the best equipment. And they’ll work — all for my immortality."
Fugaku slowly nodded, never taking his eyes off him.
"I understand you," he said evenly. "I have goals too. I’m looking for a new manager for my company, actually. I can offer you a salary higher than what you get for all these murders. I can fund your project. I can even... help you find those scientists."
Kakuzu raised an eyebrow. There was a flicker of surprise in his gaze, followed by suspicion.
"But?"
Fugaku took a step forward. Against the backdrop of scorched concrete, framed by steam and sparks, his silhouette looked almost ghostlike. But his voice thundered like a storm.
"But you’re a killer without principles. You murder for money. Not for vengeance, not for ideals — just because you can. You kill people for looking at you the wrong way."
Kakuzu smirked.
"That’s true. No point lying about it."
Fugaku clenched his fists. His muscles tensed, veins rising along his neck.
"I’ve spent my whole life fighting people like you. Today won’t be an exception."
The burst of chakra came instantly. Fugaku opened two of the Eight Gates — his body surged with power, muscles flooded with blood, every tendon ignited. His speed spiked, and he launched forward, leaving a trail of destruction behind.
He struck first. A descending blow — direct, heavy, like a steel hammer. Kakuzu blocked it — his forearm cracked but didn’t break, the internal threads dampening the impact. The counter came fast — a piercing punch, tendons pulled taut to add force. Fugaku dodged, pivoted, and drove his leg into Kakuzu’s side.
They fought up close, like beasts locked in a cage.
Fugaku was faster. His style was aggressive, relentless, precise. He unleashed a flurry of taijutsu honed by years of training, blending punches, kicks, jumps, spins, sweeps, and throws. He struck like a hammer and cut like a blade.
But Kakuzu’s body defied human anatomy. The threads beneath his skin absorbed impact, redistributed force, strengthened muscles, replaced tendons. Every block was a trap — the threads shot outward, trying to entangle Fugaku, pierce his flesh, choke him.
The Sharingan tracked every movement — but prediction was useless when facing something inhuman. Kakuzu adapted too quickly. His eyes — mutated, perhaps stolen — adjusted to Fugaku’s style. He read the rhythm of the fight and responded.
With every passing minute, the battle grew more dangerous. Kakuzu attacked not just with fists, but with his whole body — the threads turned him into a living snare. One wrong move and you’d be gutted like a fish.
At some point, both fighters broke apart, panting, eyes locked.
A stalemate.
And both of them knew it.
Kakuzu stepped back. His back twitched—then split open as four tentacle-like growths erupted, tearing through his shirt. At their ends were pale white masks, bestial or demonic in shape.
Each mask began to form a chakra sphere in its mouth, one for each element. The air started to shiver.
Fugaku understood—phase two had begun.
Time stretched like thick syrup, sticky and slow. In the heart of battle, every second lasted forever. A breath became a struggle to survive.
Fugaku knew he didn’t stand a chance in a ninjutsu clash. Not head-on. Kakuzu had more chakra. More hearts. Those grotesque masks on the ends of his tentacles moved in perfect sync, unleashing elemental jutsu faster than any shinobi could form hand signs. He was a living arsenal of destruction.
But Fugaku had once been something else. In a world without chakra—where death came in alleyways and enemies used tech and mutations instead of kunai—there had been no magic or superpowers. Just strength, intellect, and a plan. That trio had worked again and again.
And today would be no exception.
From beneath his cloak, he yanked a metal cylinder and hurled it straight at Kakuzu’s face. A flashbang exploded in a blinding burst of light. A shriek of brightness. A thunderclap.
Kakuzu reacted fast, retreating behind rubble, shielding the masks from the blast. A smart, trained response. But not fast enough.
Fugaku used that moment.
He jammed an injector into his own neck. The toxin spread under his skin—not a stimulant or combat drug. A serum. A legacy of dark experimentation. A creation that could deform the body but granted power equal to a monster’s.
The Man-Bat Serum.
Kakuzu emerged from behind the wall—and froze. His eyes, long used to blood and carnage, widened for the first time in ages.
Something had emerged from the smoke and cracks.
More than a beast. More than a man.
A hybrid—something torn from a nightmare and forced into reality. Black fur coated a swollen, veined frame. Enormous wings replaced arms. Hideous claws. Fangs jutted from a gaping mouth. And in those terrifying eyes… the Sharingan burned.
"You’re not the only monster in this hell," Fugaku growled, his voice no longer his own—low, metallic, and inhuman.
He spread his wings.
The explosion of chakra and muscle hurled Kakuzu back like he’d been struck by an invisible hammer. The concrete beneath Fugaku’s feet cracked apart.
The Third and Fourth Gates—opened.
But now, powered by the serum, his body could handle the strain. No torn ligaments. No shredded muscles. No loss of focus. His chakra was clearer than ever. His strength had finally caught up to his mind. Perfect balance of Yin and Yang.
Fugaku had become the first human to maintain full control under the power of the Gates. His mind was sharp. His movements, calculated. And the Sharingan still saw everything. There was no escape, no substitution jutsu that would go unnoticed.
Fugaku inhaled sharply—and spat out a fireball from his jaws, massive as a cart and hot as a volcanic vent. The flames screamed through the air, scorching everything in their path.
Kakuzu met the attack with a combined water-and-wind release. Air howled, water surged, and a deafening hiss filled the space. Steam exploded, blinding the battlefield.
But Fugaku didn’t wait.
He beat his wings—not just to clear the mist. He unleashed them like weapons. The force was savage. The compressed heat and wind struck Kakuzu head-on. Even his thread-hardened flesh blistered, hissed, and began to steam as the outer layer of meat sizzled.
In the next instant—he leapt.
Two hundred meters vanished in a blink. Fugaku slammed into the concrete—cracks spiderwebbed outward from the impact, the earth quaking beneath him.
Kakuzu had just begun to raise his arms, to funnel chakra into the masks.
Too late.
Fugaku’s wing edges ignited with flame. He slashed them like twin blades—and cut through all four masks in a single motion. Inside—he saw them. Hearts. Real, human hearts. He caught their pulse in a fraction of a second.
And destroyed them with one clean strike.
Kakuzu recoiled. He opened his mouth—maybe to curse, maybe to strike—but he never got the chance.
Fugaku kicked upward. Kakuzu’s jaw cracked with a sickening snap, and his body flew skyward like a ragdoll, launched with inhuman speed—as if fired from a cannon.
Fugaku spread his wings and shot after him. The air shrieked around him, everything happening in near silence from sheer velocity. He caught up to Kakuzu mid-air, seized him in his claws like a falcon snatching prey, and began to spin.
They plummeted together in a deadly spiral. Kakuzu struggled, black threads tearing out of his body to weave a protective cocoon—but it was too slow.
Fugaku let go just before impact, kicking off to add momentum.
Kakuzu hit like a missile.
He tore through the factory roof, then a steel platform, then concrete. The fall ended in one of the industrial vats. The crash echoed across the entire island.
Thick blue liquid erupted in waves, drenching the walls. Metal groaned and warped. Silence hung in the air. The liquid bubbled, releasing steam.
Kakuzu’s body lay in a crater. Motionless.
Fugaku landed softly—almost silently—on a metal walkway above the wrecked chamber. The concrete beneath his clawed feet creaked faintly. The red glow of the Sharingan locked onto the figure below, unblinking.
Kakuzu didn’t move. But Fugaku saw it—he wasn’t unconscious. He was hiding. Trying to survive. Playing dead, like a wounded animal caged in a corner.
“That strike should’ve shattered your brain from the inside,” Fugaku said quietly. “But if that wasn’t enough… then what’s in that vat surely will be.”
A faint crackling sound rose from below. Kakuzu’s body, wrapped in black threads, lay in the spreading pool of thick, gleaming blue fluid. It seeped inward—under the skin, through the threads, deep into the tissues.
It wasn’t just a chemical.
It was a weapon—designed by Mister Freeze.
“Cryogenic solution,” Fugaku murmured, as if delivering a sentence. “I built this facility to supply it to hospitals. It freezes tissue instantly—without damaging its structure. We used it to preserve donor organs for transplant.”
He narrowed his eyes.
“But you, Kakuzu… just took in a lethal dose.”
“That solution could’ve halted the aging in your brain. Prolonged your life. Given you the very thing you hunted for decades. But you came here with weapons—and got what you deserved.”
As Kakuzu lay still, his body began to crack from within. Organs, flash-frozen, shattered like glass vases dropped on concrete. The hissing stopped. Only silence remained.
The effects of the serum wore off. Fugaku, now fully human again, collapsed to his knees. Shisui rushed to him, wrapping a blanket over his shoulders. The boy had seen his father as a monster—but showed no fear.
Itachi hadn’t wasted time either. With surgical precision, he extracted the frozen but intact Jiongu from the corpse—a bundle of cursed threads—and placed it gently into a reinforced tank with an iron lock, just in case.
He stood silently, watching his father. His face betrayed no emotion. But his eyes… his eyes gleamed like a child who’d just been given a bicycle.
Fugaku had promised to retrieve Jiongu—and he had delivered.
But the mission wasn’t over yet.
///
Gato was panicking.
The small man with sunshades and dark circles under his eyes darted around his hotel room, stuffing cash, documents, and pills into a suitcase. Sweat streamed down his temples. He muttered to himself like a desperate prayer, hoping for a miracle.
But there was no miracle. Only the creak of the door.
“Going somewhere, Gato?” a voice said.
In the doorway stood Fugaku and his sons. Like a family portrait—only terrifyingly real. Fugaku took a step forward and walked into the room at his own pace, as if it were his home. His eyes flicked to the suitcase, and without waiting for an invitation, he sat down in the chair.
“You made so much noise here—and now you’re leaving without even saying goodbye?” he said coldly, leaning back. “Bad manners.”
Itachi and Shisui silently closed the door behind them and took their places by the wall like two sentinels. One—a cold, surgical blade. The other—a shadow always one step ahead.
“I… I don’t understand what you—” Gato stammered, wiping sweat from his brow. “I’m just a tourist. A businessman. I—”
“Stop lying,” Fugaku cut him off, his voice turning to steel. “I know who you are. And I know who you work for. The Syndicate. They’re the ones who sent Kakuzu.”
He leaned forward, and the chair creaked faintly under his weight.
“I don’t forgive gangsters.”
Gato swallowed hard, his entire body trembling. He forced a shaky smile, desperate for mercy.
“You’re going to… kill me?”
Fugaku squinted slightly.
“No.”
Relief washed over Gato. He even gave a weak sob. But the relief lasted just one second.
A sound—barely a whisper.
Itachi was next to him in an instant, chakra scalpel in hand. Two swift movements—and Gato’s hands dropped to the floor like broken branches. He screamed, collapsing in a pool of his own blood. His severed palms twitched beside him, fingers spasming.
“I’m dying! Help! Help me!” he shrieked.
“Shut up,” Itachi hissed, dropping to one knee and expertly halting the bleeding. His hands moved with mechanical precision—cold, unflinching, efficient. “A spineless worm like you doesn’t deserve death. We need you alive.”
He looked Gato straight in the eyes.
“You’re going to crawl back to your masters and tell them what happened to Kakuzu. Show them what’s left of your hands. Let them know: Uchiha Enterprises doesn’t forget. And it doesn’t forgive.”
“B-but I… I didn’t—” Gato tried to stammer a protest.
“One more word,” Itachi said so quietly the room fell into a ringing silence, “and I’ll take your legs too.”
Gato froze. Then—a sharp sound. He wet himself. The fear was absolute, animalistic. He lay there, soaking in his own humiliation.
Fugaku, watching calmly from the chair, gave a slow nod. One of approval.
“Itachi has learned,” he said, almost with pride. “Exactly as I wanted.”
His eyes shifted to Shisui.
The boy stood against the wall, unmoving, unblinking. His face was stone. He was a shinobi—capable of doing the dirty work. But Fugaku saw it in his eyes: this wasn’t his way. He didn’t look away from the blood. He didn’t flinch. But inside, something rebelled. He accepted the mission—but not the method.
And that was what made him valuable.
“Seems the successor for the business has already been found,” Fugaku said softly. His voice was calm. Without joy. Without regret. Just a statement of fact.
