The Next Target

The vast ruins looked like an absolute mess.

The mighty S-Class rogue ninja Kakuzu lay among them like a salted fish.

If Danzo could see the bounty hunter he regarded as his trump card acting like a lapdog in front of Qin Yu, he would probably find it hard to accept!

"Don't worry. You'll realize in time that this was the right decision." Qin Yu patted Kakuzu on the shoulder.

"You've lost four hearts now, and I happen to have a very good target in mind. If you can get what he has, your strength will definitely rise to a whole new level."

If Kakuzu hadn't witnessed Qin Yu's formidable methods with his own eyes, he might not have believed him.

But after enduring the torment of two Rasengan, Kakuzu was now desperate to grow stronger.

He wanted to be able to stand tall in front of Qin Yu from now on.

"What power are you talking about?" Kakuzu grabbed Qin Yu's arm.

Feeling the strength in Kakuzu's grip, Qin Yu couldn't help smiling.

The worst thing in this world was a person with no ambition.

If you wanted to make someone stronger, there was only one way:

Make their ambition grow without limit.

Obito Uchiha, for instance, had gone from a dead-last loser to the mastermind behind everything.

He was the perfect example.

"You've probably heard that the Third Shinobi World War was triggered by the disappearance of the Third Kazekage of Sunagakure, right?" Qin Yu looked at Kakuzu.

Kakuzu had spent years working in the shadows. He might know things that people outside his line of work didn't.

As a bounty hunter, he had access to more sources of information than most.

In Kakuzu's world, there was no problem money couldn't solve.

"I know. It's caused a huge stir, but I don't know who did it." Kakuzu shook his head.

"The Third Kazekage has a bounty of ten million ryo on the black market. Are you sure it wasn't Konoha?"

"It wasn't." Qin Yu shook his head. "I want you to find someone. Once you do, figure out a way to take the Third Kazekage's heart from him."

"With Iron Sand, your strength will reach a whole new level."

Kakuzu's Earth Grudge Fear allowed him to gain new chakra natures by taking other people's hearts.

Iron Sand was like the Cloud Ninja's Dark Lightning.

Both were rare, mutated chakra natures, distinct from Kekkei Genkai.

Others might be unable to obtain this power, but Kakuzu was an exception.

There was just one thing Qin Yu couldn't understand. In the Original Work, the technique could clearly have made Kakuzu much stronger.

Yet he'd somehow managed to waste such a good hand.

Was that the infamous plot armor?

Noticing Qin Yu's expression change, Kakuzu gave a helpless smile and struggled to sit up straight.

"B-boss!"

"I know you must be wondering why, with such a powerful secret technique as Earth Grudge Fear, I'd still need to find special people to take their bodies."

"It's not that I don't want to. I just can't do it alone."

Qin Yu felt some sympathy for Kakuzu.

His claim to fame was that Takigakure had sent him to assassinate the First.

He'd thrown a single Shuriken from a distance, then been so terrified by the First's gaze that he'd fled back with his tail between his legs.

Afraid the truth would come out, Takigakure had slapped Kakuzu with a trumped-up charge as soon as he returned.

Furious, Kakuzu had stolen the secret technique, Earth Grudge Fear.

Takigakure's overall strength had already been poor. By the later parts of the Original Work, even a single jōnin could beat the whole village.

Against someone like Kakuzu, who had turned himself into a monster, they were nothing but sitting ducks.

"You know where the Third Kazekage is?" Kakuzu couldn't hold back any longer.

In the distance, Gekko Hayate and Uzuki Yugao both froze, then started to move toward them.

Qin Yu's Mangekyō Sharingan spun suddenly, putting them both under hypnosis in an instant.

It wasn't that Qin Feng didn't trust Uzuki Yugao.

He just didn't want to drag her into this and expose her to surveillance by Danzo and the Anbu.

If she were tortured for information, that would be even worse.

Seeing Qin Yu put Uzuki Yugao and Gekko Hayate under hypnosis with nothing more than a glance, Kakuzu was stunned. Then he finally realized something was wrong.

"Boss, your Sharingan is the same as Uchiha Madara's, isn't it?"

Back then, only two people in the Ninja World could make Kakuzu flee with a single glance.

The first was the First.

The second was Uchiha Madara.

Kakuzu had survived the First Shinobi World War, so he knew of Uchiha Madara.

"More or less." Qin Yu made no attempt to hide it.

If he wanted someone to serve him loyally, he had to be able to awe them.

Otherwise, how could they risk their lives for him?

"But let's get back to business." Qin Yu brought the conversation back on track. "You have plenty of connections in the black market. Find someone named Sasori of the Red Sands."

"If you find him, get him to hand over the Third Kazekage's heart. He needs a lot of materials to make Human Puppets, and the person has to still be alive when he modifies them."

The greatest advantage of Human Puppets was that they retained the ninjutsu their owners had used in life.

They still needed a Puppet Core, of course. Qin Yu would be glad if Kakuzu got his hands on Iron Sand.

But recruiting Sasori of the Red Sands would be a pretty good outcome too.

And who knew? If he found Orochimaru, they might even be able to cultivate a new body. That would be a win-win.

"You mean that kid?" Kakuzu's expression froze.

Qin Yu raised an eyebrow. "You know him?"

"Of course I know him." Kakuzu nodded.

"That kid loves making puppets. Sometimes he buys corpses from me before they're quite dead, and he also puts out bounties asking me to capture people alive. I never thought he'd be crazy enough to go after the Third Kazekage."

"He was the leader of his own village, after all."

Qin Yu was at a loss.

He hadn't expected that one of the people he wanted to recruit would be obsessed with money, and the other had a strange fetish.

It seemed the Akatsuki was full of oddballs.

Then again, people who had nothing in common wouldn't have ended up on the same path.

"Since you know where he is, head out now. A few Root Division shinobi have just arrived over there. You can handle them, right?" Qin Yu glanced toward the woods not far away.

The three Root Division shinobi who had just arrived and hidden in the trees to keep watch turned pale.

They didn't have time to think. They immediately tried to retreat.

Their mission was to monitor the battle between Kakuzu and Qin Yu, then report back to Danzo.

But they never would have expected this.

They'd thought the fight would drag on. They hadn't even considered that by the time they arrived after hearing the explosion, it would already be over.

"Don't worry, boss. They won't get out of my grasp. I'll go find that guy, but first I'll get myself some new hearts." Kakuzu grinned viciously.

A web of black veins shot through the forest.

Like a net, they spread overhead and descended upon the three Root Division shinobi.