"Kh… khk-khk!!"
Kakuzu hauled himself out of a heap of shattered rock and sand, struggling like a wounded animal.
It was a miserable, undignified sight, nothing like the veteran Akatsuki member who'd lived more than ninety years and survived countless battles.
His black cloak with red clouds was torn in multiple places, exposing pale skin and grotesque stitchwork underneath.
Several gashes deep enough to show bone were writhing as they closed at a pace visible to the naked eye.
That was Earth Grudge Fear consuming the spare hearts he had stored.
"Damn it…"
He spat out a mouthful of grit and bloody foam, green eyes burning with rage and a lingering, shaken fear. "Was that an earthquake? Or… did that bastard do this?"
Just a few minutes ago, he'd been drifting off into a sweet dream of collecting twenty-three billion ryō.
He'd even started mentally allocating the money.
Buy up that hot spring inn district in the Land of Hot Water, invest in shipping lanes in the Land of Waves, acquire shares in a few weapons workshops in the Land of Iron…
Anything but hand it all over to the organization.
And then the mountain came down.
Literally came down.
Even though their position had been a good distance from the center of the canyon.
Even though the instant Kakuzu sensed the ground shift, he'd gone on instinct and burrowed deep underground.
That annihilating shockwave still struck him like an invisible sledgehammer.
It slammed through dozens of meters of rock and crushed him anyway.
Two hearts ruptured in that single instant.
One he'd taken twenty years ago from a jonin of the Land of Lightning.
A Lightning Release specialist that had once helped him weather the residual blast of the Eight-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb.
The other came five years ago, from a wandering swordsman he'd hunted near the Land of Rain's border.
No special ability, but freakishly durable.
Now both were gone.
Kakuzu felt the three hearts he had left hammering wildly inside him, trying to cover the sudden chakra gap.
Pain. Weakness. And something even stronger.
Fury.
"I'm going to butcher that bastard…"
He staggered upright, the stitches on his face twisting and crawling. "No… I'm going to dig out his heart."
"The freshest one, to make up for what I lost… no, two. I'm taking two of his hearts!!"
Above, paper swirled and gathered.
Konan hovered ten meters off the ground, her back unfurling into wings folded from countless paper explosive tags.
Moonlight washed over her. Her pale blue hair streamed in the night wind like water.
That face, usually cold and flawlessly composed, showed a rare crack in control.
Wariness.
And beneath it, almost perfectly concealed… fear.
Her gaze was locked on the distance.
The canyon was gone.
In its place stood a mound of rock formed from the collapse of both mountain walls, piled into a newborn hill.
Dust hadn't fully settled yet.
In the moonlight it hung like a hazy gray veil.
And at the top of this freshly made graveyard, a figure stood suspended in midair, back turned to them.
Even from this distance, even with him doing nothing but standing there, Konan could feel the pressure rolling off him, almost tangible.
"Too close…" she murmured, her voice cold as spring ice. "One more moment and we would've been crushed by the mountain."
She wasn't like Kakuzu. She hadn't gone underground.
The instant she sensed the anomaly, she'd gone straight up.
It was the smartest choice.
It also meant she'd watched the entire scene from the clearest possible angle, like a spectator to a natural disaster.
Two mountain faces toppled like blocks shoved over by an unseen hand.
Slowly at first, then faster, then crashing together.
The roar of splitting stone, the boom of compressed air, the ground's wailing tremor…
It burned itself into her retinas and her mind.
As for the Iwagakure ninja?
Konan didn't even feel the urge to check.
Under a collapse on that scale…
Under a kill-zone that left no escape at all…
The odds of survival were zero.
"Abandon the mission."
Konan spoke without warning, her tone absolute.
Kakuzu was still cursing as he beat dust off his clothes. At her words, he whipped his head around, green eyes wide with disbelief.
"What?"
For a second he thought he'd misheard.
Or that losing two hearts had somehow given him auditory hallucinations.
Abandon the mission?
Hearing that from Konan was more unbelievable than the collapse itself.
The "Angel" of the Akatsuki was known for execution.
Once she accepted a job, she didn't stop halfway unless she died.
And now she was saying, abandon it.
"This Kazekage…"
Konan descended slowly, her paper wings folding and dissolving into scattered sheets that slipped back into her sleeves.
"Is dangerous. How dangerous… needs to be reassessed."
Her gaze never left that distant figure.
"This isn't a target we can handle right now. At least… not with this level of preparation."
Kakuzu opened his mouth to argue.
He wanted to say, "It's just two mountains. In my prime I could've done that."
But the words died in his throat.
Because he realized, she was right.
That wasn't "ninjustu" anymore.
At least, not in any way he was willing to accept.
Sure, it had to be some kind of Earth Release.
But this wasn't simple terrain manipulation, not a mud wall, not rock pillars.
It was…
Domination.
Treating an entire range like a toy and flipping it, crashing it, remolding the landscape.
Kakuzu had lived more than ninety years.
He'd seen the First Hokage's Wood Release raise forests out of nothing. He'd seen Madara's Susanoo cleave mountains. He'd seen the Third Raikage's Hell Stab punch through stone.
But "crush people with mountains," done with that kind of casual ease?
He'd never heard of it.
This Teizawa…
What kind of monster was he?
Where had he come from?
Until now, Kakuzu hadn't even heard the name.
"But…" he rasped, still unwilling to let go. "Twenty-three billion…"
"There's no point making money if you're dead," Konan cut in, ice in her voice. "And…"
She paused. A sharp light flickered in her violet eyes.
"Do you really think a Kazekage who can crush people with mountains is an easy opponent?"
"Do you really think he… doesn't have a follow-up?"
Kakuzu fell silent.
Greedy, but not stupid.
The biggest advantage of living too long was knowing when to indulge your appetite and when to save your skin.
"Shit."
He finally spat it out, accepting it. "So what now? How do we explain this to Pain?"
"We report it as it is."
Konan turned and started walking away from the direction they'd come.
"The target's combat power far exceeds estimates. Recommend suspending action against him for now, gather more intelligence, then reassess."
She took a few steps, then stopped without turning back.
"Oh. And dig Hidan out."
"He should still be alive. That idiot is impossible to kill even if he tries."
Kakuzu's face twitched.
He thought about their loudmouthed teammate.
During the collapse, Hidan had been standing even farther forward.
And he hadn't tried to dodge at all.
That lunatic seemed to think "getting crushed to death by a mountain" would be an incredible offering to Jashin.
He'd spread his arms and welcomed the collapse.
Which meant he'd been buried the deepest.
Kakuzu sighed and formed hand seals.
The ground softened. Several "digging arms" made of black tendrils rose from the earth and began rummaging through the rubble.
As he worked, he could hear a faint voice echoing from deep below.
"Hey… Kakuzu, you bastard, aim better! You just stabbed me in the ass!!"
"…"
Kakuzu suddenly felt like maybe getting crushed to death by a mountain wouldn't have been so bad.
At least then he wouldn't have to listen to this moron shouting anymore.
In the distance, Teizawa's silhouette finally vanished into the moonlight.
Konan looked back one last time at the newborn mound of stone.
Deep in her violet eyes, something cold and resolute began to crystallize.
This Kazekage… had to be treated as a priority.
Not because of the twenty-three billion.
But because of… the plan they were advancing in the shadows, the one that absolutely could not be disrupted.
She turned away. Paper wings unfurled again and melted into the night sky.
Behind her, Kakuzu finally hauled Hidan out of the dirt, gray with dust, but somehow still bouncing with energy.
The moment he was free, Hidan swung his triple-bladed scythe and shouted, thrilled:
"That move was sick! Hey, does that Kazekage believe in Jashin or what?"
"I think he's got talent… ow! Kakuzu, why the hell did you hit me again?!"
Under the moonlight, three S-rank missing-nin…
One cursing, one preaching a death cult, one already gone…
And the ruined canyon, for a long time to come, would become a new legend in the shinobi world.
(End of Chapter)
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