Kakuzu's Advance; The Three Great Snake Princesses of Ryūchi Cave

Kakuzu's Advance; The Three Great Snake Princesses of Ryūchi Cave. Konoha, Federation Temporary Headquarters, Kakuzu's office.

The night was already deep, yet the office remained brightly lit.

Thick ledgers and Scrolls were piled like mountains, nearly drowning the broad desk.

The air was filled with the scent of old paper, ink, and a cold, sharp presence like metal scraping against metal.

Kakuzu sat behind the desk, his green eyes glinting coldly under the lamplight.

His fingers rapidly moved across an encrypted report transferred from the Intelligence Division under Shikaku Nara, concerning the flow of materials among the member states.

Shikaku Nara himself sat opposite him, unable to hide the fatigue on his face. A cup of tea that had long gone cold sat beside his hand.

He looked at Kakuzu, his emotions tangled.

This Kakuzu's workload was a little excessive. Even he was beginning to struggle with it.

Suddenly, Kakuzu stopped moving.

"Something's wrong."

His voice was hoarse.

"This batch of Lightning Silver Ore was officially recorded as being used to forge new agricultural tools.

"But based on the consumption ratio and production efficiency of Lightning Silver Ore after Federation-wide coordination, the refining loss rate of this batch was 17.3 percent higher than the standard value."

Shikaku frowned slightly.

"Perhaps it was a technical issue, or a statistical error..."

"An error would not appear so consistently with the same recipient: the smelting workshop directly under the Land of Lightning Daimyo's Mansion."

Kakuzu cut him off and pulled out another document from a separate stack.

"Look here. During the same period, several black-market nodes along the Land of Lightning border received a large quantity of unmarked, extremely pure Lightning Nature Chakra Metal.

"The amount happens to match the portion supposedly 'lost.'"

He pushed over a third document, which showed several financial