Susanoo, the Third Power! A Monetary Offensive, Kakuzu Falls

The moment they met, Kakuzu knew he could not dodge this attack and could only take it head-on!

The instant the arrow tore through the air, loose stones on the riverbank were blasted skyward by the shockwave, and a trench more than ten meters wide exploded across the dry riverbed.

Purple lightning carved a shrill trail through the night sky, like a bolt of lightning falling from the heavens.

Kakuzu only had time for one move—he crossed his hands before his chest while drawing upon the earth-nature chakra within him to cover his entire body, pushing his defense to its limit.

Earth Style: Earth Spear: Full-Body Coverage!

This move had once withstood Jiraiya's Rasengan head-on and had even endured the Third Kazekage's Iron Sand Storm.

But against this purple chakra arrow, Kakuzu felt what "powerlessness" truly meant for the first time.

The arrow pierced through his right chest.

—Pierced through.

It did not "blast apart" or "explode." It cleanly punched through his body, like a red-hot iron needle piercing a sheet of rice paper.

Kakuzu was sent flying by the arrow's impact and crashed heavily into the forest across the riverbank.

Tree trunks snapped at their middles. Kakuzu's body rolled through shattered rocks and broken wood several times before finally landing amid a pile of rubble, kicking up dust that filled the air.

He lowered his head and looked at his chest.

A fist-sized hole had pierced straight through his right chest from front to back.

The edges of the wound were scorched black, and there was no bleeding—because the blood and part of the tissue had been vaporized by the arrow's heat the instant it pierced him.

Not only that, Kakuzu could feel that two of the five hearts within him had stopped beating.

—One had been directly pierced in his right chest.

—The other, near his left shoulder socket, had been shattered by the lingering Lightning Style chakra left behind by the arrow.

"Cough..."

Kakuzu coughed up blood mixed with fragments of internal organs. He braced himself against the ground and tried to rise, but his knees gave out, and he dropped to his knees again.

His breathing was rapid and ragged, and for the first time, an emotion called "fear" surfaced in his emerald-green eyes.

Uchiha Jun stepped closer, and the skeletal frame of Susanoo slowly moved with him, dragging deep furrows across the ground.

He stopped about five meters in front of Kakuzu, looked down at the Takigakure rogue ninja half-kneeling on the ground, and said nothing.

Kakuzu raised his head and looked at him.

Within those scarlet Sharingan, the three tomoe had joined into one, transforming into a complex Mangekyō Sharingan pattern that slowly rotated.

"...Mangekyō Sharingan."

Kakuzu's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper, as though forced from his throat. "A Mangekyō wielder barely over ten years old... When did the Uchiha Clan produce a monster like this?"

Uchiha Jun did not answer his question. He merely said blandly, "Kakuzu, I will give you two choices."

"First, die here."

"Second—"

He took a bulging money bag from a Storage Scroll and casually tossed it onto the ground in front of Kakuzu.

The bag landed amid the gravel with a dull, solid clink—the distinctive sound of silver colliding, heavy, dense, and pleasing to the ear.

Even severely wounded as he was, Kakuzu's gaze could not help falling upon that money bag.

As the number one money grubber of the Shinobi World—

After decades of experience, he had developed an almost instinctive sensitivity to the sound, weight, and texture of silver. That bag, as tall as several people, contained at least tens of millions of ryo!

"Join my organization. This is your signing bonus and monthly living expenses."

"The signing bonus is twenty-five million ryo. Your monthly living expenses are five million ryo, issued on the first day of every month after you join."

Kakuzu froze.

He had lived for nearly a century and had seen countless recruitment methods.

—Threats, temptation, deception, control, intimidation, brainwashing.

But he had never seen someone nearly kill him with Susanoo, then toss out a bag of silver sufficient to buy an Elite Jonin's head and tell him it was a perk for joining an organization!

What kind of approach was this?

Why didn't you say so earlier?! With benefits like these, how could I possibly refuse to join?!

Kakuzu remained silent for a long while. He looked at the money bag before him, then up at Uchiha Jun, before finally forcing out a single question. "...How much?"

"Twenty-five million ryo, as a signing bonus."

"Five million ryo every month for living expenses, issued on the first of every month."

"Mission pay is separate, calculated according to S-Rank Mission standards. You get ninety-five percent of the cut... Forget it, you can have it all. I do not lack money."

"However, the organization is only in its early stages and does not have much of a name yet, so there are no hired missions from the Five Great Nations for now. Of course, if you take private jobs yourself without delaying the organization, the organization will not interfere."

Thinking Kakuzu's hearing had been damaged by his arrow, Uchiha Jun repeated himself, his words brimming with indifference toward money.

Ever since silver from the Shinobi World could no longer buy High-Recruitment Scrolls, Uchiha Jun's regard for money had plummeted.

And after using Shimura Danzō's identification to recklessly take out several billion ryo in Daimyo Loans, Uchiha Jun cared even less.

If he ran short on money, he could just use Uncle Shimura Danzō's identification to take out another round of Daimyo Loans. Even if the Land of Fire's daimyo ran out of money, there were still the Land of Wind, Land of Earth, Land of Lightning, and Land of Water, weren't there?

Kakuzu's eyes had begun to gleam faintly upon hearing twenty-five million ryo. When he heard five million ryo every month, they shone like a pair of searchlights.

He stood up, grabbed the mouth of the bag, squeezed its thickness, weighed it in his hand, then pulled out several banknotes and held them up to the sun—genuine notes.

Kakuzu's features beneath his mask gradually twisted.

Holy shit!

At that moment, Kakuzu felt a kind of excitement no weathered old ninja should have possessed.

You should have fucking said so earlier! With benefits like this, why were you bringing out Susanoo? You could have just thrown money at me!

Though he felt conflicted in every possible way, Kakuzu had completely fallen under Uchiha Jun's monetary assault.

There was no helping it. Uchiha Jun was offering far too much.

Never mind the twenty-five-million-ryo signing bonus; the five million ryo in monthly living expenses alone was so outrageous that Kakuzu thought it was a scam.

After all, even in the prosperous Konoha, a Jonin with an ordinary background and ordinary strength could take on, at most, three or four A-Rank Missions per month.

Even if every mission paid the maximum one million ryo, after the village took its cut, the Jonin would receive only around 3.6 million ryo at most!

While Kakuzu was a Kage Level powerhouse, as a rogue ninja with no fixed residence, his only means of acquiring wealth was hunting bounty targets from the major ninja villages.

Thanks to his unnatural physique of five hearts, Kakuzu could save on combat losses by not needing ninja tools and other consumables, but he could only maintain an income of a little over three million ryo a month.

Uchiha Jun had casually thrown five million ryo a month in living expenses at him. That was more than enough to keep Uncle Kakuzu covered.

Kakuzu had originally prepared himself to become a nuclear-powered workhorse. After all, he was weaker than the other party, and if he wanted to live, there was no other way. He had not expected Uchiha Jun to be so generous.

This organization... seemed like a good organization?

Had all the luck of my life been used up on this?

Kakuzu efficiently climbed up from the ground, stuffed the money bag into his clothes, and patted off the dust.

He covered the wound through his chest with his other hand. His expression was both pained and satisfied, forming a strange and distinctly warped look.

Uchiha Hikari stood beneath a tree several steps away and witnessed everything from beginning to end.

She watched Kakuzu go from near death to changing his expression in an instant. Her scarlet Sharingan blinked, as though her understanding of the world had been refreshed once more.

"Are... all ninjas like this?"

Uchiha Jun turned his head slightly and replied in an even tone, "He is different. He is a money grubber."

Kakuzu had already begun counting money over there.

His fingers flipped through the banknotes with nimble familiarity, his movements so practiced that they were almost heartbreaking—after all, he had been doing this for decades.

Uchiha Jun watched Kakuzu "counting money" and did not rush him.

There was nothing urgent to do anyway. Watching "Kakuzu Counts Money," famous alongside Sasuke Run, was not a bad way to pass the time.

"Hikari." Uchiha Jun turned his head and beckoned to Uchiha Hikari.

Uchiha Hikari stepped out from beneath the tree and came to his side.

"Later, carve a Yachihoko mark on him and give him a 'power bank.'"

Uchiha Hikari paused slightly. Though she did not know what Uchiha Jun meant by "power bank," she immediately understood his intention.

She walked before Kakuzu and slowly closed her eyes. When she opened them again, complex patterns had appeared within her Mangekyō Sharingan.

Kakuzu, who was counting money, instinctively tensed—having lived for nearly a century as a hardened old ninja, he understood better than anyone what it meant to let another person's ocular jutsu act directly on his body.

But in the end, he endured it.

On one hand, he truly no longer had the strength to dodge.

The gaping hole in his chest still throbbed faintly. Though the Earth Grudge Fear tendrils in his body were slowly repairing his damaged hearts, he had lost the ability to engage in high-intensity combat for the time being.

On the other hand—Uchiha Jun was truly offering too much.

He had gotten his life back and was even being paid. This was already a good ending.

He was not some iron-blooded tough guy. Why put on an act about preferring death over surrender?

Uchiha Hikari's Mangekyō Sharingan exerted its power, and a cold chakra instantly seeped into Kakuzu's body, leaving an almost imperceptible mark between his spine and brainstem.

Kakuzu's body trembled slightly before returning to normal.

"What kind of ocular jutsu is this?"

Kakuzu touched the back of his neck and turned to Uchiha Jun, his voice carrying both vigilance and curiosity.

"An engraving."

Uchiha Jun paused, then added, "You can think of it as a backup 'power bank.' When your chakra is depleted, you can borrow chakra from Hikari through this mark. At critical moments, it can even save your life."

Kakuzu fell silent for a moment, his emerald-green eyes flickering several times beneath the moonlight.

He was a Takigakure rogue ninja who had experienced countless betrayals and schemes. During the long years since the First Hokage had frightened him into abandoning his mission and turning to assassination work, he had witnessed far too much human malice.

At his age, it was already difficult for him to trust anyone.

But the terms Uchiha Jun offered struck directly at his weakness.

Kakuzu swiftly calculated the value of this deal in his mind. The fact that he could not defeat Uchiha Jun was indisputable.

The kid before him had not only nearly taken his life with a single arrow empowered by Susanoo, but also seemed to know everything about him—the weakness of Earth Grudge Fear, his past experiences, all of it.

Meanwhile, the profits of obeying orders were too great to refuse.

Twenty-five million ryo upon joining, five million ryo in monthly living expenses, full S-Rank Mission rewards with the organization taking nothing, and the freedom to take private jobs—such generous treatment might not even be available as a daimyo's trusted confidant.

As for the engraving on the back of his neck—

I will treat it as a token of allegiance.

Kakuzu silently calculated, then raised his head. A dry smile hidden by his mask appeared on his face, and his voice was hoarse and low.

"Give the order, Boss. Who needs killing? Konoha ninjas? Or high-ranking nobles from the Five Great Nations?"

Uchiha Jun raised a hand to stop him and waved it dismissively. "No rush. First, we are going to Takigakure."

Kakuzu frowned, and his steps halted. "Takigakure?"

"Mm."

Uchiha Jun's gaze fell toward the distance, his voice calm. "I need their Hero Water. We will also get you new hearts. You lost two just now, so find two high-quality ones to replace them."

When Kakuzu heard the latter half, the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

He stared at Uchiha Jun's profile for two seconds, trying to find some trace of calculation on that youthful face—but he could find nothing.

That frankness instead left Kakuzu somewhat at a loss.

More than a decade ago, while he had still been an Anbu in Takigakure, he had personally witnessed a colleague abandoned without hesitation by the higher-ups after failing a mission, thrown to Kumogakure's pursuit force as a scapegoat.

That was when he understood one truth: a ninja's life was worthless.

But what Uchiha Jun had just said was, "We will get you new hearts."

Not "because the mission requires it," nor "we will replace them while we are at it"—he had plainly said that he would replace Kakuzu's hearts.

Having lived for nearly a century, Kakuzu was hearing someone treat his life as something deserving serious consideration for the first time.

Silently, he tucked the bag of money into the deepest part of his Storage Scroll, then stepped forward to follow Uchiha Jun.

Uchiha Hikari followed as well. The three-person team walked along the dry riverbed toward Takigakure.

The night wind passed through the riverbank, stirring the hems of their clothes.

After walking for a few steps, Uchiha Hikari suddenly turned her head. Her Sharingan glinted beneath the moonlight. "Kakuzu's chakra... is very strange."

"That is Earth Grudge Fear." Uchiha Jun walked at the front of the group without turning back. "It is a forbidden technique of Takigakure. Countless fine tendrils stitch together the entire body, replacing the human circulatory system, internal organs, and muscles. In theory, one can prolong life indefinitely by replacing hearts."

"That is correct." Kakuzu's voice came from behind them, carrying a faint, hoarse chuckle. "It seems the boss has thoroughly figured out Takigakure's secret technique."

As he walked, Uchiha Jun spoke casually, his tone as calm as if describing what he had eaten for dinner.

"You prefer combining Wind Release and Fire Release to create explosions that restrain enemies. You use Earth Spear to strengthen your body for close combat, occasionally use Lightning Style for long-range suppression, and use Water Release the least—perhaps because high-quality Water Release hearts are scarce, or perhaps because it does not suit your fighting style."