Chapter 475: That’s My Beloved Hometown. It’ll Cost Extra

Meanwhile, at an underground bounty station somewhere in the Land of Fire, amid the receptionist’s enthusiastic farewell of, "Thank you for your Saviorage, sir. Please come again!"

A tall, dark-skinned, middle-aged man with shoulder-length hair, a mask covering the lower half of his face, and eyes devoid of the slightest emotion slowly walked out through the bounty station’s entrance.

In the darkness of the night, the middle-aged man counted the stack of bounty money that had just been paid to him as he walked. His fingers flipped through the bills quickly and steadily, but after taking only a few steps, he suddenly came to a stop.

Not far from the roadside stood a towering ancient tree, quietly bathed in the moonlight.

Its branches were lush with foliage, and its trunk was so thick that several grown men together could barely encircle it. In the fertile land of the Land of Fire, such trees were by no means uncommon.

The trees of the Land of Fire were all this luxuriant. Yet, whether it was the tree before him or any other towering giant growing upon this land, compared to the divine tree of his homeland, they all seemed somewhat insignificant.

That divine tree had been far larger than this one.

Its canopy had blotted out the sky, while its roots reached deep into the earth, concealing the entire village beneath its shadow and protection.

He had grown up beneath that divine tree, joining his fellow villagers every year during the festival to offer sacrifices and kneel in worship.

After reaching adulthood, he had even been chosen to enter the interior of the divine tree itself and personally retrieve the Hero Water, carrying it with him to carry out a mission that no one believed could possibly succeed.

To assassinate the first Hokage!

At that time, he had not yet become a missing-nin.

He had still been one of the village’s most elite Jonin, entrusted with the Hero Water by Takigakure’s leadership.

In that battle, the middle-aged man had staked his life on the fight, drinking every last drop of the Hero Water in his possession, yet he was still no match for that God of Shinobi.

Moved by his unwavering willingness to sacrifice himself for his village, Hashirama Senju spared his life in the end instead of killing him.

After surviving by sheer luck despite drinking the Hero Water, he returned to the village in a dazed state, only to be met with severe punishment for the failed mission and the disgraceful accusation of fleeing from battle.

The leadership of Takigakure at the time threw him directly into prison.

At first, the middle-aged man accepted it calmly. After all, he was a ninja, and a ninja’s duty was to carry out missions. Even though he had not fled the battlefield, he had indeed failed.

It did not matter who his opponent had been, nor whether the disparity in their strength had truly existed. He had accepted the mission and failed to complete it, and that was all there was to it.

At the time, he had even believed that surviving and returning alive was itself a disgrace and perhaps dying in prison was the proper end for that shame.

However, during the wretched days he spent barely clinging to life in prison, he accidentally learned the truth. The mission had never been the result of a misjudgment by the higher-ups or reckless ambition. From the very beginning, it had had nothing to do with how strong he was, nor with how strong Hashirama Senju was.

The leadership had only ever had one objective from beginning to end: to send him to his death.

What they wanted was for him to die at Hashirama Senju’s hands. They simply had not expected that Hashirama would spare him, nor that he would survive after drinking the Hero Water. So, after he had become a complete cripple, they threw him into prison and left him there to rot like a rat.

The reason they had done all of this was simply that his prestige had grown too great!

Simply because he had become too powerful, so powerful that they feared they might no longer be able to keep this taciturn man under their control.

When the middle-aged man learned this truth, he remained silent for a long time before...

Since you people are unworthy of having hearts, then give all of your hearts to me!

Thus, the middle-aged man endured, and not only did he survive the prison, but fueled by overwhelming hatred, he transformed into a vengeful demon. He took the healthy yet filthy hearts of the village’s leaders and also stole the village’s Hidden Jutsu, the Earth Grudge Fear Technique.

After that night, Takigakure’s entire leadership was wiped out, and he disappeared into the curtain of rain, carrying their hearts, never returning again.

In the briefest instant, countless memories flashed through the middle-aged man’s mind like scenes from a lantern show.

A moment later, he gathered his thoughts and mocked himself inwardly.

’Kakuzu... Kakuzu... How many years has it been, and you’re still so distracted while counting money?’

After ridiculing himself, the middle-aged man named Kakuzu lowered his head once more and resumed counting the stack of banknotes in his hands.

After confirming that the amount was correct, he tucked them into his clothes and walked without looking back into the depths of the night.

Compared to his so-called homeland and the hatred of the past, it seemed that only the banknotes in his hands could make the heart that no longer belonged to anyone feel even the slightest weight of being alive.

Kakuzu had no heart, nor did he need one. Only those with hearts concerned themselves with the past, with betrayal, with hatred and unwillingness.

Now Kakuzu cares only about money. He would keep counting it until death finally carried him away from this heartless land forever.

At this moment, Kakuzu still had no idea that the people of Kusagakure were already planning to track him down and pry information about Takigakure from him.

Had he known, Kakuzu would probably have merely finished counting the stack of banknotes in his hand before replying without even lifting his head: "That’s my beloved hometown. It’ll cost extra."

...

Some time later, everything that had happened on the day the Ninja Way Origins Research Society was founded began to spread throughout the entire Shinobi World, becoming the hottest topic of discussion during that period.

Major newspapers and journals published article after article detailing every aspect of that day, while ordinary civilians throughout every nation discussed it with great enthusiasm in streets and alleyways.

Then, little by little, the focus of discussion across the major newspapers converged on a single subject: the humanitarian convention.

After all, the Third Shinobi World War was now raging, and the shadow of war hung over the entire Shinobi World, and everyone could genuinely feel the cruelty of war.

It was not that people had never known what happened during war before; they had simply grown accustomed to it, or rather, numb to it.

They had become accustomed to seeing casualty figures printed in the newspapers every day and had come to regard everything as perfectly natural.

But now someone has stepped forward and declared, "No. It should not be this way. We can choose another path. We should have a bottom line!"

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