Make the Kazekage Do His Job!

Several days later, two figures appeared on the border between the Land of Rain and the Land of Grass.

"Company President, weren't we going to the Land of Wind? Why are we in the Land of Grass?" A trace of confusion showed on Sakamoto's weary face.

"The client sent one of their people to join us on this mission." Kakuzu stopped and turned toward Sakamoto.

Seeing the exhaustion on Sakamoto's face, he fell into thought...

Three years earlier, Kakuzu had passed through a town in the Land of Frost. On a busy street, a teenage Sakamoto knelt on the cold paving stones in ragged clothes, bowing and begging passersby for money to treat his gravely ill mother.

But everyone hurried around him. No one was willing to help.

Kakuzu had spent decades in the Shinobi World. By all rights, his heart should have been hard as stone.

Yet when he met Sakamoto, he had softened just once. He had stood watching for a long time. It was not the boy's suffering that moved him, but the stubborn resolve in his eyes.

The sight stirred memories he had long buried. Once an elite of Takigakure, he too had risked his life for his village, only to be betrayed by it.

That familiar determination struck a chord. Kakuzu, who never parted with a penny, paid for Sakamoto's mother's treatment. Seeing that the boy was resilient and quick-witted, he took him under his wing.

After all, Kakuzu had secured himself a steady position by then and was drawing a salary from Kagami Uchiha.

On Kagami Uchiha's orders, he had also gone a long time without earning money at the Bounty Station.

All of it had brought them together.

Kakuzu returned to the present, his expression calm. "Hey, kid. This trip might be dangerous.