After a brutal clash, another corpse lay on the ground.
It was the Iwagakure captain.
His face was twisted in agony, his body riddled with holes—countless puncture wounds running clean through him. It was obvious those black tendrils had tortured him thoroughly before he died.
"W-why…?" Dōto struggled to speak. "If it's just… money…"
His words came out in broken gasps. Black tendrils bound him tightly, suspending him upside down in midair like prey caught in a web.
The ninja with the dark emerald eyes stared at him with naked greed.
"Don't want to die, huh?" he said lazily. "Then pay double."
"Forty million. I'll spare your life."
"Y-yes… yes…" Dōto clung to the offer like a drowning man grabbing driftwood. "Lord Tsuchikage will agree! I swear… he values me greatly…"
"Then how do we make the trade?"
"…Let me go first. We can talk it through properly…"
The man burst out laughing.
"Let you go? Do you know how much trouble I went through just to catch you?"
"…But I'm losing too much blood… I'm about to die…" Dōto's voice grew weaker.
"Then die."
Wait—
Didn't they just agree on forty million?
Why had he suddenly changed his mind?
And the greed in the man's eyes—his hunger for money—had looked completely genuine.
Dōto wondered if he had misheard.
"But—"
"I changed my mind."
The ninja cut him off.
He raised one hand.
The black tendrils instantly stabbed into Dōto's chest.
"You see," he continued coldly, "I've taken a liking to your heart."
"So I think I'll borrow that too."
"—?!"
Dōto's eyes widened in disbelief. The pain exploded through his body, stealing the words from his throat.
The tendrils tore open his chest, slowly wrapping around his still-beating heart.
Then—
Rip.
They yanked it out.
A forbidden technique: Heart Seizure.
The ninja calmly transplanted the heart into his own body. The flesh shifted and merged until it became one of his own.
"Now then…"
"With this, I should be able to use that elusive invisibility technique too."
He held Dōto's body up like a chicken, casually slicing off the head before tossing it aside.
The camp had turned into a hellscape of blood and slaughter.
"You going to keep watching forever?" the ninja said suddenly. His emerald eyes glowed faintly in the dim light. "Or are you planning to stay hidden there all day?"
The surroundings remained silent and empty.
"Hmph. A boring little rat."
Black tendrils shot out again, lashing toward a nearby tree.
BOOM!
"You move fast."
A figure landed several meters away.
A white-haired ninja wearing a Konoha forehead protector.
"What a familiar forehead protector," the emerald-eyed man said thoughtfully.
Then the newcomer spoke.
"Reminds you of the first Konoha ninja you ever fought, doesn't it? The First Hokage?."
"…?!"
The man froze for a moment.
"Nothing strange about it," the white-haired ninja continued casually. "I ran into Uchiha Madara not long ago myself."
"You think I'm an idiot?!" the man snapped.
Everyone in the world knew the First Hokage Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara belonged to a bygone era. Those titans of the Warring States had died decades ago.
How could they possibly still be alive?
"If you can live this long, why couldn't Madara?" the Konoha ninja asked in a tone that suggested it was common sense.
The emerald-eyed ninja quickly regained his composure.
"You know who I am," he said slowly. "So who exactly are you?"
"I was originally just passing through," the white-haired ninja replied. "And saw you dealing with those rats. We could have minded our own business..."
He paused. "But you insisted on forcing me out."
Although the Konoha ninja hadn't answered his question, Kakuzu's mind was already racing.
The man in front of him was clearly young. And yet he was operating alone deep inside enemy territory. From the tone of his earlier words, it sounded like he had originally intended to wipe out the entire Iwagakure camp by himself.
That meant he had tremendous confidence in his own strength.
And that glimpse of speed just now…
"Your Body Flicker Technique is impressive," Kakuzu said slowly, studying him. "And that movement style… are you one of Konoha's ANBU?"
He could tell that much from a single exchange. As expected of a monster who had lived for nearly a century.
"I am Kakuzu, the Immortal Ninja. Former elite of the Takigakure ANBU."
So Kakuzu had once belonged to Takigakure's ANBU forces.
"Shimizu Uzuki," the Konoha ninja replied calmly.
"?"
Kakuzu frowned at the answer.
No title. No background. Just a name he'd never heard before.
Did this brat not know basic courtesy?
Of course, Shimizu was still an active ANBU operative. There was no way he would reveal his position or identity.
Besides, he had heard Kakuzu earlier. The man had hunted Dōto for a twenty-million-ryō bounty.
If someone this obsessed with money learned that his own head was worth even more, there was no telling how far Kakuzu would chase him.
Shimizu had never forgotten that his head carried a thirty-million-ryō bounty on the black market.
Granted, that bounty was placed on the ANBU captain known as Kūryū…
But right now he was simply Shimizu Uzuki, walking openly under the sun.
Who would ever connect the two?
Especially now that even his hair color had changed.
"So just some nobody brat…" Kakuzu sneered.
No background. No title.
To Kakuzu, that meant no accomplishments worth mentioning—just a rookie trying to act tough.
The thought left him feeling strangely insulted.
He had once fought the First Hokage himself. And now he'd actually been momentarily unsettled by a kid barely out of diapers?
Still…
That speed hadn't been an illusion.
The Body Flicker the boy used had been far faster than his own.
And more importantly—
How did some nameless brat know who he was?
How had he immediately mentioned Kakuzu's fight with the First Hokage?
"Something like that," Shimizu said with a casual shrug. "I've spent most of my life doing dirty work. If people knew who I was, that'd only make things troublesome."
That much was true.
If an ANBU agent became so famous that people recognized them on sight during missions… they wouldn't last long in that job.
"Besides," Shimizu added lightly, "I dealt with quite a few people not long ago. The kind whose existence alone would shock the entire ninja world."
He paused.
"Honestly, compared to that… a man who's merely lived for a hundred years isn't all that impressive."
"Shut up."
Kakuzu's voice turned icy.
Black tendrils erupted from his body, surging violently toward Shimizu.
"Who the hell would believe that?!"
Shimizu vanished in a blur of motion.
With a single Body Flicker, he dodged the ambush and landed on a distant tree branch.
Leaning casually against the trunk, he called out:
"Hey, senior."
"I know you love money. And I know money's the only thing you believe in."
"So how about we skip the nonsense… and talk business instead?"
Kakuzu didn't respond.
The fact that he had been briefly shaken by some unknown brat was something he couldn't even admit to himself.
Only one thing filled his mind now—
Violence.
This arrogant little punk would pay in blood for his insolence.
More black tendrils burst from Kakuzu's body, spreading outward like a living net.
This time, he intended to seal off every possible escape route.