That day, the bridge ran red with blood, both the blood of the guilty, Gatō's goons, and the blood of the innocent.
If this bridge were ever to be finished, it wouldn't be a day of joy; it would be a day of tears, for the bridge had exacted a truly heavy price from the people of Wave.
Naruto fell to his knees, tears streaming down his face as he watched the dead bodies, their lives worth the sum of 10 million Ryō.
A horrible lesson indeed.
But such was the world.
It wasn't pretty.
It wasn't all good, and not every problem could be solved by talking.
Strength was the only truth.
And mercy, the privilege of the strong.
Only once you were strong could you talk about peace, about understanding.
"Alright, Zabuza, Haku, it's time to go. We must escort Gatō-san to a safe place, one where he can arrange our payment from," I finally said, seeing no reason to stick around here any longer, now that we had gotten what we came for.
"You are really just going to let that happen?" Naruto asked, as he looked at me, the hatred in his eyes now turned toward me.
"Yes," I said, not seeing a reason not to be honest with the child. "It's the shinobi way. He paid us, so we protected him."
"It was the same as your mission. You were paid to protect the bridge builder, and you did your job. We were paid to protect Gatō, and we did ours," I explained, not caring if he understood or not.
My words were harsh, but they were the truth.
Naruto was silent. My words, no matter how harsh, were something he had to learn. He had to accept that being a shinobi wasn't all about glory and adventure. It was a dirty, bloody business.
And if he couldn't handle that, then he had no business being one.
I wasn't here to educate him on morality. That was Kakashi's job, and it seemed like he was doing a terrible job at it.
...
First, we made our way to Gatō's hideout here in Wave, where he gathered every bit of money he had on hand as a deposit.
"328,439,323 Ryō. Not much, but I guess it will do," Kakuzu said as he finished counting the money.
"Damn, he has so much money just hidden away here, and he still wanted to betray me rather than pay?" Zabuza cursed angrily.
His payment would have been but a fraction of this, and still that greedy bastard hadn't wanted to pay it.
It just showed how greedy and foolish he truly was.
"Much? Compared to what we will be squeezing out of him, this isn't much at all," Kakuzu shot back, not caring about Zabuza's feelings.
After the deposit was paid, we left the Land of Waves, but not before Kakuzu decided to take Gatō's prized necklace as well.
"It's a nice little trinket," he said, as he put it around his neck.
It was a golden necklace with a large ruby in the center, and it was clearly worth a lot of money.
But unlike the money, this wasn't for the Akatsuki. This was for himself, a little bonus for a job well done.
He was naturally going to sell it, but still, he would keep the money he got. After all, it would be money earned from selling his personal possessions. Surely the Akatsuki wouldn't demand even that.
I didn't say anything, as it was his right to take a little something for himself, as long as it didn't affect the mission.
Just like I wasn't going to bother telling Pain just how much we earned this time, allowing Kakuzu to pocket the difference, as long as he split it three ways, with one part going to me, one to Karin, and the final one to him.
Sure, he still hated that, but given that we only got this massive payout thanks to me, he didn't complain nearly as much as he would normally.
Once we were out of the Land of Waves, we made our way back into the Land of Fire.
Heading right for the capital.
Gatō did, after all, need to pay up more than a small part of his net worth, and to do that, he needed to sell a few assets and take a few loans to cover the difference.
Something he could only really do there.
"So, what do you plan on doing with us?" Zabuza finally asked.
He knew he had no choice, that whatever we wanted, he would just have to accept, but he still wanted to know his fate.
"You are worth a lot of money alive," I said, as I looked at him. "But to get the most out of you, we first need to find the right buyer."
"Surely the only ones willing to pay that much are Kiri," Haku stated, already having put the pieces together, as he was the one who understood the value of his own bloodline the best.
"Indeed," I nodded. "But they are currently not in a position to pay that much, not until they take care of their... current leadership."
"What do you mean, take care of their current leadership?" Zabuza asked curiously. He might have left, but he still had a few sources of information inside the village, and he didn't know what I was talking about.
"I guess you could say a civil war is brewing, one where the bloodline wielders want to take back control. They will no doubt pay a Daimyō's ransom for you two if they win," I explained.
Zabuza didn't say anything. He just looked at Haku, a thoughtful expression on his face.
He had, after all, tried to assassinate the Mizukage once, so he was no fan of the current regime. So if he had a chance to help overthrow it, he would take it.
That had even been the reason he had been working for Gatō; he had been trying to gather the money for another attempt at a coup.
Yet now, it sounded like once the rebellion won, they would still have to pay a heavy price for him, something he wasn't all that happy about.
But at least, judging by the fact that we were planning on cashing in on the rebellion's winner, it seemed like their chances were good. So he took solace in that.
...
"How did you do it?" Haku asked, breaking the silence.
"Do what?" I asked.
"Ice Release. Aren't you a member of the Kaguya clan? So... how could you do Ice Release?" he asked, not understanding how I could have the Kekkei Genkai of both the Kaguya and the Yuki clan.
Most would assume I was a child born to parents of both clans, though that was only until they started realizing I had another dozen Kekkei Genkai.
"Because I am Kaguya-hime, that's why I can do it," I said cryptically.
It explained everything, yet it also explained nothing.
One would only understand it if they knew just who and what Kaguya truly was.
The progenitor of all chakra.
Haku didn't ask any more questions. He knew better than to pry into the affairs of an S-ranked missing-nin, especially not one like me.
He could see that I wasn't going to answer him, and pushing the issue would only lead to trouble.
...
The rest of the journey was uneventful, and we soon reached the capital of the Land of Fire, a bustling city filled with life and energy.
It was a stark contrast to the gloom and despair of the Land of Waves, a reminder of the peace and prosperity that the Hidden Leaf Village had brought to the land.
We found a quiet, upscale inn, one that catered to wealthy merchants and traveling nobles. It was the kind of place that wouldn't ask too many questions, as long as you paid your bills.
Gatō, now looking pale and haunted, was escorted to a suite, flanked by Kakuzu and Karin. He was to make the necessary arrangements to secure the rest of the payment, under the careful watch of his new, terrifyingly efficient business partners.
A week later, we all left the capital, with Kakuzu looking far happier than he had ever been.
Because he had never had a payday even close to this before.
"I must admit, this wasn't a bad idea at all," he said, hugging the sealing scroll containing the massive amount of money tightly.
"It was a great idea," I said, a small, almost invisible smirk on my face.
Blackmailing the rich but weak was indeed far too easy, but it was also risky.
It was something that could quickly get you a bad reputation, and once you had that, it wouldn't be long before you had every bounty hunter in the world hunting you down, while also having high-level missions posted in all the great shinobi villages.
Everyone who did this didn't live long, which was why most missing-nin still did missions, and why bandits preyed on the poor and powerless.
The fact that we could do this came down to two things.
One, Gatō wasn't well-liked in the first place, so people were unlikely to step in to help him out.
And secondly, I was a noble.
And nobles had privileges of their own.
One just had to look at Tsunade. Despite drowning in debt, those she owed money could do nothing but try to find her and get her to pay. They couldn't go through any legal routes.
There was little they could do, because she was a true noble princess of the Land of Fire.
And with Karin being a princess of the Land of Whirlpools, and me being a noble recognized by the Fire Daimyō, I had plenty of ways to ensure there was nothing legally wrong with any of my actions.
The first time I blackmailed Gatō years ago, I relied on claiming that he was offending me, a noble, as an excuse.
This time, it was a business deal, where we did as he asked.
If he had gone to the authorities, they would see it as a contract dispute between a businessman and a noble, not something they would get involved in.
So we left Gatō to try and recover his losses, while we headed back to the Land of Rain.
Kakuzu had tried to persuade me to find other jobs first, or any excuse to not go, because he knew that going back would mean having to hand over the Akatsuki's share of the money.
Something he wanted to avoid for as long as possible.
But we couldn't continue to have Zabuza and Haku follow us around.
The longer this went on, the more of a chance they had to escape or do something else.
So, to Rain it was.
(End of chapter)
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