On the northeastern border of the Land of Fire, the main road was muddy.
Rain had fallen all day, turning even the mud to mush.
Kakuzu sat atop a wagon, leafing through a ledger wrapped in three layers of oilcloth. His fingers flicked the abacus beads faster than any Ninjutsu.
"Seven wagonloads of flour, at black-market prices, each pound can fetch four times the price... pork through the Cold-Chain Channel adds thirty percent..."
Hidan stood in the rain with his triple-bladed scythe over his shoulder, looking like a drowned rat. His uniform hung open at the front, rain streaming down his pale chest, his soaked silver hair plastered to his face.
"Listen, Kakuzu, Lord Jashin sent us out here on serious business. But slaughtering a town wasn't enough for you. You had to haul off their flour and pigs, too."
"Shut up."
Kakuzu turned a page of the ledger without even looking up.
"Do you know what this flour is? Royal-Special-Grade High-Gluten Flour from the Land of Fire. Only that one mill in Frostwood Town can produce it in the entire country. You can't buy it on the black market even if you have the money."
Hidan spat out a mouthful of rainwater.
"I worship an evil god, not a god of wealth."
"Worship whoever you like. I'll make the money. Akatsuki's funding isn't going to fall out of the sky."
Just as he finished speaking.
Something really did fall out of the sky.
It wasn't money.
Kakuzu stopped working the abacus and looked up.
A rift tore through the middle of the dark clouds. A pillar of golden light plunged through it, slamming into the ground ten meters ahead of the wagon.
The earth shook violently. The shock wave stripped away a layer of the entire road, splashing mud