"Six hundred billion... six hundred billion Explosive Tags..."
Kakuzu slumped behind the shelter he had barely managed to construct with Earth Release, staring up at the region of sky utterly swallowed by endless explosions and thick smoke. He muttered unconsciously, his eyes vacant, as though his soul had been sucked out.
Having lived in the shinobi world for nearly a century, he understood the value of money to his very bones. He knew all too well what that number meant.
Explosive Tags were not cheap.
A standard Explosive Tag commanded a considerable price in peacetime, whether bought on the black market or through official channels.
During wartime, that price only soared higher.
Six hundred billion...
In an instant, Kakuzu's mind converted that number into countless equivalents: mountains of gold, silver, and treasure; enough land to buy several small countries; resources that would make even the treasuries of the Five Great Nations green with envy; an astronomical sum in commissions he could never save up even after centuries of S-rank missions...
Wealth to rival a nation!
Without a doubt, wealth to rival a nation!
No, wealth to rival several great nations!
"Every explosion... that's money burning... my money burning!"
With every deafening blast that rolled endlessly across the sky, Kakuzu felt his heart throb with pain, as though those explosions were destroying not Explosive Tags, but his own priceless hearts, one by one.
That's all... my money! My money!
Kakuzu roared silently in his mind, his facial muscles twisting in agony over the loss, the whites of his eyes turning red.
He could almost see the savings he had painstakingly scraped together by running himself ragged, even betraying employers and robbing fellow criminals, vanishing in those dazzling explosions.
As he recalled his long life-all the running around, dangerous missions, meticulous penny-pinching,