Kakuzu looked down at the fallen body of Kushimaru Kuriarare. Raising his hand, the black threads within his body writhed out again, attaching themselves to Kushimaru's corpse.
Those threads squirmed endlessly, stitching up the huge wound on Kushimaru's chest.
Only when the work was complete did Kakuzu retract the threads back into his body. He squinted slightly, looking very pleased.
"A corpse missing one heart can still be sold for money. That's what I like most about the black market. This transaction, quite profitable."
However, recalling what Obito had revealed about the chakra conversion technique, how the production cost was almost negligible, while the selling price was sky-high, Kakuzu suddenly felt that taking corpses to the black market wasn't as appealing as before.
———
[On the Other Side]
Jinpachi Munashi and Konan stopped in an open clearing. He looked up at Konan, still flying in the sky like an angel, and said irritably,
"Flying ability, huh? That's a very rare and practical power. What a pity I don't have it. If I could fly and detonate explosions in midair, that would be so satisfying."
After pausing for a moment, he continued,
"But woman, don't think that just because you can fly, I can't hit you. I have plenty of ways to deal with you."
As soon as he finished speaking, he raised his sword, Shibuki, and swung it toward Konan in the sky.
Instantly, a scroll made entirely of explosive tags unrolled and shot toward her.
He shouted arrogantly, "My sword, Shibuki, can summon nearly six thousand explosive tags at once! Little girl, scared yet? I bet you've never even seen this many tags in your life!"
However, Konan simply looked at the small scroll of tags drifting toward her, her face showing a puzzled expression.
"Six thousand explosive tags… is that a lot?"
Jinpachi's face darkened in fury, "You dare look down on me? Blow up!"
As soon as his words fell, the scroll of explosive tags reached Konan, and in the next instant, it detonated.
BOOM!
The explosion was so intense that the night sky was almost turned to daylight. Jinpachi stared at the inferno that completely swallowed Konan, muttering to himself, "To die beneath this many explosive tags… consider it an honor, little girl. Farewell."
Just then, the huge shockwaves from another of Nagato's Shinra Tensei attacks made Jinpachi turn his head.
His proud expression shifted into surprise, and then into grim seriousness.
"Seems like there are quite a few troublesome people in Akatsuki. Not as easy to deal with as I thought."
But just as he said that, he suddenly felt something wrong about the explosion above him.
He turned back, and saw countless sheets of paper gathering together again amid the fading smoke.
From within that swirl of paper, Konan's figure slowly reformed, though her clothes now bore a light layer of dust.
Maintaining her cold, composed expression, Konan said, "That technique of yours is quite powerful. The explosion can actually harm my paper form. If you had used several times more tags, perhaps I would've died."
"But, at this level, it's not hard to handle. Since you blew me up once, it's only fair I return the favor."
With that, Konan also raised her hand toward Jinpachi.
In the next moment, countless sheets of paper flew from her sleeves, sweeping toward him in waves.
Seeing this, Jinpachi quickly dodged, and easily avoided the first barrage of paper. But Konan didn't stop. Paper kept pouring from her sleeves, more and more of it, until before long, it had formed a vast ocean of paper, surrounding him entirely.
Jinpachi began to feel the pressure. After all, the more paper there was, the harder it became for him to dodge.
Still, he sneered up at Konan flying in the sky.
"Mere sheets of paper, what's the point, no matter how many there are? Little girl, I'm not playing house with you."
Konan's expression finally changed slightly. The corner of her lips lifted in a faint smile, as she released the genjutsu concealing the true nature of her papers.
"Are you sure it's just paper? This is a gift I prepared especially for you. Using this many at once… normally, Lord Kakuzu would already be having a heart attack."
Jinpachi froze, not quite understanding what she meant, but out of caution, he looked more closely at the paper surrounding him.
And then he saw it.
Those sheets that had seemed like plain white paper… had somehow all turned into explosive tags.
Countless tags, densely packed together, it was a breathtaking sight. As the wielder of the Blast Sword, he even thought it was the most beautiful scene he had ever seen.
If only those tags were his.
But the next instant, his face twisted in horror. He screamed, "Impossible! How many are there? You're lying, these must be fake, right? They're fake, aren't they?"
Konan replied calmly, "Not too many. About six hundred thousand, I think. As for whether they're fake, you'll find out for yourself soon enough."
"I'm curious, though. You're quite used to fighting with explosive tags. I wonder, will you die by the very weapon you're so familiar with?"
Jinpachi's eyes widened. Was this a joke?
If these tags were real, and they all surrounded him, there'd be nothing left of him, not even ashes.
He kept muttering under his breath, trying to convince himself, "Fake. They're fake! You're lying! You're trying to trick me!"
But then, he saw those tags begin to glow, giving off an all-too-familiar, all-too-deadly aura.
The prelude to an explosion.
"No way… all of them, ha… haha! They're all real!"
"Hundreds of thousands of explosive tags, all real?"
As an expert in explosive tags, Jinpachi could no longer fool himself. He was on the verge of madness, perhaps even more disoriented than Kisame had been before his death.
Konan's cool voice rang out, "So, little girl's house-playing game, do you like it?"
Her words were followed by a deafening chain of explosions. Each blast was as powerful as the ones Jinpachi himself had unleashed earlier.
The detonations continued, fast and unrelenting, exploding for dozens of seconds before finally subsiding.
When the smoke and dust eventually cleared, the place where Jinpachi had stood was nothing but a scorched wasteland.
Nothing remained, except for the sword Shibuki, lying on the ground, unscathed.
Konan flew over curiously, picked up the sword, and examined it closely, brushing her fingers over its surface.
"So I really blew him to dust, huh? Ah, I didn't even leave behind a body. Lord Kakuzu's definitely going to scold me again."
"But this sword is quite remarkable. To have withstood such an explosion without a scratch… guess I'll keep it as a toy."
She glanced toward the distance, "I wonder how things are going elsewhere. I should head back and check."
With that, Konan lifted off once more, flying toward the original battlefield.