Kakuzu sat blankly on the threshold.
His gaze pierced through the drifting dust, fixed intently on the interior of the national treasury.
Dust settled slowly. The incandescent light bulb on the ceiling flickered twice, casting its light into the space behind the steel door.
Kakuzu's green eyes froze. His eyelids didn't blink for three seconds.
His breathing stopped. The chest, where a heart had just been shattered, had been throbbing with unbearable pain, but now he couldn't even feel the pain.
What appeared before him was neither a traditional Ninjutsu scroll nor a broken jar used to seal forbidden techniques.
It's gold.
Mountains of gold.
Rows of standard-weight yellow croaker gold bars, stacked neatly like bricks, reached a height of over three meters. The gold mountain stretched all the way to the innermost part of the treasury, against the cold cement wall.
The dazzling golden light illuminated the basement.
It also made Kakuzu's dusty face look golden.
Next to Jinshan were hundreds of open, green-painted wooden boxes.
It was filled with Chakra crystal bullets that Orochimaru had just refined. The dark blue crystals and the golden light intertwined, creating a bizarre and surreal scene.
On the left, several rows of iron shelves are stacked with parchment paper half a meter high.
The topmost image was blown away by the blast of air from the door opening and drifted down to Kakuzu's feet.
He glanced down instinctively.
It's the land deed for the largest granary in the eastern part of Sunagakure. It bears the red clay seal of the Daimyo of the Land of Wind.
Kakuzu reached for the land deed, his fingers trembling.
He lived for over ninety years. For money, he killed countless people.
Exposed to wind and sun, hiding from enemies, licking black blood from the edge of a knife every day.
When he went to the underground money exchange to collect his reward, those greasy managers would deduct five percent as a handling fee.
He painstakingly saved every penny, hiding the money in various secret cellars.
To prevent the banknotes from getting moldy, they had to take them out in batches to air them out every six months.
He always considered himself a wealthy man, an elite who had taken making money to the extreme.
Now.
Looking at the gold scattered on the ground and the bundles of land deeds, he felt like Delia who had just arrived in the city.
He Jonin kill a hundred elite Jonin on the black market, but he couldn't even get a corner of this gold mine.
The meager, bloodstained pieces of silver in the black market wouldn't even fill a corner of this place.
Shu Shiraishi's leather boots stepped on the collapsed steel door.
It made a dull clanging sound.
He walked up to Kakuzu and looked down at the old monster whose face was etched with greed.
"Fifty million taels."
Shu Shiraishi took out his cigarette case, pulled out a cigarette, and put it in his mouth.
"You just said that you'd go to such lengths, even crawling through ventilation ducts, to kill me for such a small amount of money."
He struck a match. The flame illuminated his chin, where he held a cigarette.
He took a deep breath and exhaled a cloud of grayish-white smoke. The smoke was dispersed by the gentle breeze from the exhaust fan and drifted towards the golden mountain.
Kakuzu made a gurgling sound in his throat. He wanted to speak, but his throat was as dry as if it were stuffed with sand.
The dark lines of Earth Grudge Fear baring their fangs just moments before, now looked like wilted eggplants.
One by one, they silently retreated into the ripped hole beneath the black robe.
He even rubbed his hands on his trouser leg to wipe away the cold sweat from his palms.
Shu Shiraishi, with a cigarette between his fingers, pointed at the gold bars in front of him.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg of what Konoha has earned in the past few days of industrialization, dumping weapons and fertilizers onto the entire Shinobi World."
He flicked his cigarette ash. A piece of grayish-white ash fell to the ground.
" Sunagakure is on the verge of bankruptcy. The Daimyo's caravans are now trading gold bars for our machine gun ammunition."
Kakuzu opened his mouth.
His chin tilted unconsciously to one side due to nervousness. He quickly reached out and straightened his jaw.
"You... this money..."
He stuttered. In his nearly one hundred years of life, this was the first time he had ever bitten his tongue while speaking.
A slightly metallic taste reached his tongue. He swallowed it forcefully.
Shu Shiraishi turned around, facing Kakuzu directly.
He didn't talk about the Will of Fire, nor did he mention anything about the greater good of peace in the Shinobi World.
Talking about ideals with this kind of old miser is a complete waste of breath.
I'll give you a chance to live.
Shu Shiraishi's tone was flat, like asking how much a pound of cabbage costs at a market.
"Make me your finance minister."
Kakuzu was stunned.
His green eyes were fixed on Shu Shiraishi. He reached up and picked at his ear, thinking he had dust in it.
"I want to expand Konoha's production lines throughout the entire Shinobi World."
Shu Shiraishi bit the cigarette holder.
"Take control of the mines of the Land of Lightning, the gold dust of the Land of Wind, and the maritime trade of the Land of Water."
"I want to rob all the money from the four great nations. I'll make them trade their land deeds for food."
Shu Shiraishi stretched out his left foot and kicked the land deed for the Sunagakure granary next to his foot to Kakuzu's hand.
"What I need is a ruthless, money-grubbing, and accounting-savvy villain."
"You're an old hand at the black market."
Shu Shiraishi removed the cigarette from his mouth.
"From now on, you'll set the prices for Konoha's weapons. Anyone who doesn't pay will have their fertilizer and food supplies cut off. You'll sever their economic lifeline."
"Much faster than you digging out your own heart."
Shu Shiraishi pointed to the golden mountain in front of him.
"You manage my finances. Help me rob all the money in the entire Shinobi World."
"The gold here."
"You can lie down and roll around on it as you please."
These words came crashing down.
A deafening roar erupted in Kakuzu's mind.
His old worldview of killing, robbing, and making money was crushed by an invisible industrial bulldozer.
You risk your life to kill Jonin and earn a few million, but that's not even enough to buy a box of bullets produced every ten minutes on Konoha's assembly line.
This is a devastating attack where a national machine is set in motion, frantically reaping the wealth of the entire world!
Compared to this, the black market is nothing.
The reward of fifty million taels of silver was nothing compared to the gold that filled the national treasury.
What assassination? What ninja dignity?
Compared to Kingsoft, everything else is just dog shit.
Kakuzu swallowed hard. His Adam's apple bobbed violently on his neck, which was covered in stitches.
Without hesitation, he retracted all the remaining tentacles. The rift on his back quickly closed.
He used both his hands and feet to climb up from the collapsed steel door.
He moved too hastily and his left foot slipped. His knee slammed heavily against the thick iron bolt.
It made a crisp sound.
He didn't feel any pain. Or rather, the pain was completely masked by another kind of fervor.
Kakuzu dragged his heavy steps past Shu Shiraishi.
He walked straight toward the pile of gold bars.
He walked up to the pile of gold bricks, and his knees buckled.
"Bang."
He knelt on one knee and touched the cold surface of the gold bar with both hands.
The realistic feel of the metal made his chapped lips tremble violently.
Gold of extremely high purity. Some even bear the mark of the Daimyo of the Land of Wind. This is all genuine gold and silver that was just forcibly extracted from the pockets of other countries.
The gold bars were too cold. But his heart was burning like a ball of fire.
In those green eyes, a greedy light overshadowed all fear and vigilance.
Kakuzu slowly turned his head and looked up at Shu Shiraishi.
His lips were trembling.
His voice trembled with extreme excitement, even carrying a hint of fanaticism and fawning that he himself was unaware of.
" Lord Hokage."
Kakuzu swallowed hard.
"Which ninja village's trade routes should I cut off first?"