Chapter 187: The Beginning of the Melee

Chapter 187: Chapter 187: The Beginning of the Melee

Traveling at full speed, Hyuga Kagami and Shisui soon arrived at a black-market bounty station.

The bounty station was a large stone building situated on a quiet, deserted pier. The entire dock looked extremely rundown, with only a few wooden fishing boats moored along the shore. It seemed to have been abandoned for quite some time.

Standing outside the entrance to the bounty station, Shisui hesitated before asking, "Senpai, are we really going to exchange Gloya’s corpse for the bounty? Aren’t we taking this a little too far?"

Kagami replied, "If we’re putting on an act, we have to see it through."

"But..."

The thought of taking the corpse of someone he had been assigned to protect and exchanging it for money on the black market made Shisui deeply uneasy. He had never done anything like this before.

Kagami glanced at him. "Hey, don’t tell me you think I actually care about that fifty-million-ryō bounty?"

Shisui hurriedly waved his hands. "Of course not!"

"As if I’d care about a measly fifty million ryō!" Kagami snorted before continuing, "Since we’re acting as members of Kamigami, naturally we have to behave according to the logic of a bounty-hunting organization. Think about it. We went through all that trouble to intercept and kill Gloya and seize his corpse, only to never turn it in for the bounty. If anyone investigated that later, wouldn’t they immediately become suspicious?"

Shisui nodded. "Mm. If the village investigates and discovers that, they’ll definitely start doubting whether we’re really bounty hunters."

"Exactly!" Kagami patted Shisui on the shoulder and smiled. "To cement our identities as bounty hunters, we have to make sure Gloya’s corpse enters the black market. Only then will the village have an excuse to pin Gloya’s death on this Kamigami we created—and on Iwagakure, who posted that enormous bounty in the first place! As for the bounty itself, that really isn’t important."

If Gloya’s corpse never ultimately entered the black market, Kumogakure would inevitably suspect that the entire attack had been staged by Konoha itself. In that case, it would be difficult for the village to shift the blame elsewhere.

But once Gloya’s corpse genuinely entered the black market, proving that a third-party force had participated in the attack, then although Konoha would still bear responsibility for failing to protect him, most of the blame could be shifted onto the bounty hunters—and Iwagakure, who had secretly posted the enormous bounty.

Shisui glanced at the gloomy, sinister-looking bounty station and shook his head. "Senpai, I think I’ll stay out here."

Kagami didn’t mind. "That’s fine. Keep watch outside. I’ll come right back once I’ve dealt with the corpse!"

......

On a small boat not far from the bounty station at the pier...

Sasori glanced at Kakuzu, who had casually placed a corpse beside his feet, and his handsome brows furrowed slightly. "Can’t you seal the corpse inside a scroll? It’s starting to stink!"

Kakuzu replied gruffly, "We’re almost there."

"Hmph. Once we’ve dealt with Orochimaru, I’m definitely getting a new partner!"

Sasori snorted and turned his head away.

The more Sasori looked at Kakuzu—a man utterly devoid of artistic sensibility who didn’t even understand the proper techniques for preserving a corpse—the more irritated he became.

In Sasori’s eyes, every corpse was potential material for a puppet. Having to sit there and watch a perfectly usable corpse slowly rot and begin to stink right in front of him was practically driving him insane.

Kakuzu paid no attention to Sasori’s complaints and simply continued flipping through the bounty ledger in his hands.

Suddenly, Sasori, who had been sitting at the bow of the boat, rose to his feet.

As he gazed into the distance, a trace of icy killing intent seeped into his eyes.

Following Sasori’s gaze, Kakuzu spotted an unfamiliar figure standing outside the nearby bounty station, clad in a black cloak and wearing a mask patterned with flames.

......

Inside the bounty station...

Kagami took Gloya’s corpse out of his storage scroll and placed it on the examination table.

"Ah, if it isn’t Lord Kawa! What did you bring us this time?"

The owner of the bounty station hurried out to greet him, his face plastered with a flattering smile.

Ever since Kagami’s previous battle against Kakuzu and the others, Kamigami’s name had gradually spread throughout the black market through Kakuzu. By now, everyone who operated in the underworld knew one thing—

Kamigami was not to be trifled with!

Kagami curled his lips. "See for yourself."

The bounty station owner certainly didn’t dare disobey Kagami. He hurriedly pulled out the bounty ledger before turning his gaze toward the corpse lying on the examination table.

With just one glance, the owner froze.

"Th-this... Isn’t this Gloya, the chief of Kumogakure’s delegation to Konoha?!"

A massive bounty of fifty million ryō was rare even on the black market, so nearly every bounty station owner had the details of someone like Gloya committed to memory.

Kagami said indifferently, "That’s right. I had to go a few rounds with Konoha’s Hokage just to collect this bounty. Heh, I nearly lost my life over it!"

"Y-you really are..."

The bounty station owner had originally wanted to say utterly fearless, but then he thought better of it. The man standing before him was a ruthless figure who dared to kill and wreak havoc inside Konoha, the foremost of the Five Great Shinobi Villages.

And so, halfway through his sentence, his voice simply died in his throat.

Kagami urged, "Hurry up and inspect it. Then pay me!"

The owner didn’t dare delay. He hurriedly compared the corpse against the information in the bounty ledger and began examining Gloya’s body.

A short while later, the owner cautiously said, "Lord Kawa, according to the rules, the black market takes a ten-percent cut. The total bounty is fifty million ryō, so the black market will deduct five million. Is that... acceptable?"

Kagami replied, "Enough talk. Just pay me."

"Yes, yes..."

Seeing that Kagami had no intention of breaking the rules, the bounty station owner let out a long sigh of relief.

There were all kinds of rules in the black market, but when dealing with truly powerful individuals, sometimes rules weren’t worth much at all.

Before long, the owner returned carrying a case.

Kagami took it from him and said coldly, "Last time, quite a few of the bills in my bounty payment were old and damaged. That won’t happen again this time, will it?"

The bounty station owner hurriedly replied, "There definitely won’t be any problems this time! You can count it right here if you’d like."

Kagami activated his Byakugan and carefully swept his gaze through the case. After confirming that every bill inside was indeed intact and undamaged this time, he picked up the case and prepared to leave.

Just then, he suddenly sensed two enormous chakra signatures arriving outside the bounty station.

At the entrance to the bounty station...

Seeing two ninjas dressed in black cloaks patterned with red clouds approaching with obvious hostility, Shisui was completely baffled.

"Who are you?"

Sasori sneered. "So you’re not Kawa..."

Although Shisui knew nothing about the bad blood between Kamigami and Akatsuki, the hostility radiating from the two men was simply too obvious to miss.

He secretly raised his guard and asked, "What do you want?"

Kakuzu studied the flame-patterned mask covering Shisui’s face before saying in a deep voice, "Hmph. Another member of Kamigami? You don’t look particularly strong."

At that moment, Kagami walked out of the bounty station.

But his gaze didn’t linger on Sasori or Kakuzu.

Instead, it passed straight over them and settled on the forest farther in the distance.

Over there, a large force of Konoha shinobi, led by the Third Hokage, was rapidly closing in on the bounty station...