Onoki listened intently, he immediately picking up on the underlying subtext of Muu's proposal. He stared at Kakuzu for a long moment, assessing the immortal one.
"Iwagakure is prepared to formalize this arrangement," Onoki stated. "We will provide secure land grants and compensation in form of money as well. The bounty for Darui's death will be processed through our channels without delay. Furthermore, you will receive a direct retainer fee for instructing Muu or anyone, alongside escalating performance bonuses should their strength exceed that of an elite Jōnin or reach Kage-level milestones before they turn 15."
Onoki knew precisely what kind of man stood before him. Kakuzu was driven purely by profit; he had no loyalty to buy, only services to rent, which he planned to use to the fullest extent.
"However, there are conditions," Onoki added, his eyes narrowing into slits. "You will not harm any Iwagakure shinobi for bounty. Break that rule, and I will personally hunt you down. On the flip side, for every high elite-tier Kumogakure target you eliminate during this campaign, I will personally throw in a ten percent bonus on top of their standard black-market value."
Behind his mask, Kakuzu's eyes glimmered with subtle greed. He was fully aware that within the confines of this room, Onoki possessed the power to turn him to dust with Particle Release before he could even raise a hand. But the financial offer was simply too lucrative to pass up.
Onoki quietly calculated the battlefield logistics. "The void left by Rōshi's demise has hit our military infrastructure hard," the old man thought, his mind racing through the numbers. "With only Kitsuchi and Han available in commander level, our high-level defense is dangerously thin. If I play this right, I can turn this greedy old immortal into the ultimate meat shield for Iwa. If he dies that is good as well. i have to reward Muu for thinking this through."
"Do we have an agreement?" Onoki asked, settling back into his floating stance.
Kakuzu adjusted his mask as he said. "We have an agreement, Tsuchikage. I will get to the Kumo's front at the earliest... ready your treasury."
~~
Kaien stood near the main entrance of the massive warehouse the air inside was abrasive, carrying a sharp burn at the back of the throat with every breath, his arms crossed, watching the final shifts of civilian laborers drag wooden rakes across the salt floor.
For the past seven days, the Land of Lightning's economic underbelly had been bleeding salt.
Kumo had spent a staggering ten million ryo, quietly draining black-market supply lines and bribing corrupt administrators to siphon off the Daimyo's private reserve stocks. Now, forty metric tons of coarse white salt sat piled in the center of the structure.
"Keep it moving! Don't let the salt form crust!" an overseer shouted.
The workers churned the outer layers continuously, desperate to prevent the damp air from fusing the outer salt layer into an unbreakable block of salt stone. They worked under the salt dust, their lips chapped and white, eyes red-rimmed from the reactive chlorine gases.
Kaien stepped forward, his boots crunching loudly against the floor. "Alright. That's enough. Excellent work, everyone."
The laborers began lining up to hand over their rakes, their shoulders slouched with exhaustion.
Near the back of the line, a middle-aged worker wiped his brow with a stained rag and grumbled under his breath. "Is something wrong with this kid? Who buys out an entire nation's supply just to lock it in a shed?"
"Shut your mouth and keep moving," the man next to him muttered, darting a nervous glance at Kaien's forehead protector. "You want to piss off a shinobi?"
"I don't care," the first man spat quietly, his voice trembling with fatigue and anger. "Look at the market stalls in the lower district. The price of a single kilo has jumped ten times over since last week. We can barely afford to season scrap meat, let alone keep our kids hydrated from the lack of salt. The salt is only for the rich now, while we break our backs moving it for a dumb shinobi child."
Kaien heard every word but he didn't react, maintaining the unreadable composure but his hands tightened slightly inside his sleeves.
He had made sure these men were compensated fairly... paying them five hundred ryo an hour, a wage nearly unheard of for basic manual labor in the outer villages. But as they dejectedly took their coin pouches and shuffled out into the fading light, the heavy clink of the money offered little comfort.
Once the doors of warehouse was slammed shut, Kaien closed his eyes.
He hadn't fully weighed in all the aspects when he mapped out this plan. He just realized the reality of what he was causing. Completely cutting off salt consumption led to hyponatremia.
Without sodium to hold fluid balance, the human body would flush out its own water to keep the cellular ratio stable, driving people into severe dehydration.
Within days, digestion would fail, bringing on relentless nausea and vomiting. Muscles would starve for electrical signals, leaving adults bedridden and children unresponsive.
People were suffering right now outside these walls. Somewhere in the surrounding towns, a dozen lives... maybe more... had likely already succumbed to the sudden artificial famine he created.
Kaien opened his eyes, his gaze hardening as he stared at the mountain of white powder. "I'll fix the market when this is done," he told himself, burying the guilt deep down.
"I have to steel myself. The objective comes first... more lives will be saved his way."
He dropped into a low stance, his fingers blurring through a rapid sequence of hand seals. The chakra flared in his gut, channeling downward through his legs and into the bedrock.
"Earth Release: Multi Earth Slump!"
The ground cracked like spider-webbed structure across the warehouse floor as it formed a grid of exactly one thousand small shallow sinkholes. The giant pile of salt collapsed inward, flowing into the earth as the terrain carefully measured and divided forty kilograms into each uniform hole.
Kaien walked the rows kneeling at every single sinkhole. With a tap of his palm, the earth spat the salt upward binding forty kilograms into tiny storage scrolls.
~~
A/N: Since, the plan too use the salt was sudden, it created serve price hike of salt in market making it unaffordable.
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