The gastric juices of the Great Toad hissed softly against Kakuzu's flesh, but he remained stubbornly intact. Bound tight within the sticky, suffocating tissue, he was down to his last thread: a single water heart. Jiraiya had shattered two, while Neji's ruthless strikes had laid the other two. His chakra was sealed, yet his face was a mask of indifference.
Jiraiya looked down at the immobilized Kakuzu, his gaze hardened with curiosity.
"To think your body could actually withstand the stomach acids of my toad," Jiraiya muttered, resting his hands on his hips. "Kakuzu, was it? You're going to tell me everything you know. Right now."
Bound and defeated as he was, Kakuzu didn't even blink. "Information isn't free. It'll cost you."
"Fair enough," Jiraiya replied smoothly. "But you get paid at the end. First, let's talk about those rings on your hands."
Kakuzu spat harsh words at Jiraiya. "Do I look like a fool to you? What guarantee do I have that you won't just slit my throat the second I stop talking?"
Jiraiya knew he could try to extract the answers by force, but a man like Kakuzu... a pragmatic mercenary who had survived for generations... would gladly take his secrets to the grave out of sheer spite. Force wouldn't work here but he could use his greed.
Jiraiya unrolled a thick storage scroll across the Toad's tissue. He tapped on the seal, and with a heavy puff of smoke, ten sturdy metal briefcases popped out, thudding hard against the tissue beneath them.
"Ten suitcases," Jiraiya said, popping the latches of the nearest one to reveal tightly stacked bands of cold cash. "I think a professional like you knows exactly how much is sitting right here."
Kakuzu's eyes narrowed, instantly running the math. A hundred million ryo. A wave of jealousy ran through him. The thought that this loud rambling Sannin could casually conjure a small village's fortune out of thin air irritated him far more than his own impending death.
Standing nearby, Naruto's mouth hung open. His eyes darted from the stacks of cash to Jiraiya, his face rapidly turning a furious shade of red.
"Pervy Sage!" Naruto screamed, his voice with utter betrayal. "You had this much money the whole time?! And you made me bleed out Gama-chan every time we bought food?!"
Jiraiya looked back at Naruto with eyes of an old sage as he adopted a loftily educational tone. "Naruto, I was teaching you a critical financial life lesson about resource management."
"You're a scam artist!"
Ignoring the kid's outrage, Kakuzu stared at the money, his demeanor shifting entirely. "Fine. Since I've been paid in full, I'll give you everything I have on the Akatsuki."
He took a slow breath, settling into his role as a informant. "First, the rings. There are ten of us, each wearing a specific ring on a specific finger. I wear mine on the middle finger of my left hand. They aren't just for show... they play a vital role in sealing the tailed beasts. When we perform the extraction, each of us stands on the corresponding finger of the Gedo Statue. The process takes three full days, while the extraction takes place the Akatsuki duo have to secure their location and be unmoving."
Jiraiya leaned in, his expression darkening. "And now that you're captured? What happens to your spot?"
"It slows everything down," Kakuzu said bluntly. "When Orochimaru defected, he took his ring with him... the one he wears on his left little finger. Leaving that position empty already delayed the extractions. With me gone, it's going to take them even longer."
A few paces back, Kimimaro's ears pricked up sharply at the mention of his master's name. A memory flashed through his mind... the gruesome sight of Lord Orochimaru's maimed hand hanging in the fluid tanks back at the laboratory.
"Who are the ten members?" Jiraiya pushed further. "And what are their primary abilities?"
"Pain, Zetsu, Konan, Deidara, Sasori, Hidan, Itachi, Kisame, myself, and Orochimaru," Kakuzu recited. "The organization operates almost strictly in two-man squads. We rarely meet in person—the bijuu extraction is one of the few exceptions. As for recruitment, I was hunted down and beaten by Pain and Zetsu. Pain uses bizarre unnatural jutsu. He can manipulate invisible forces... attracting and repelling anything at will."
A chill ran through Kakuzu as he briefly recalled the memory of all his high-tier Ninjutsu simply bouncing off thin air, entirely negated.
"You actually saw Pain?" Jiraiya's voice lost its casual cadence, replaced by an burning curiosity. He needed to know if this leader was truly his former student, Nagato. "What does he look like?"
"Let me think," Kakuzu muttered, searching his memory. "Medium-length, spiky orange hair. He has the Rinnegan. His face was covered in metal—six piercings, three studs running through the side of his upper nose, a metal bar through each ear. On his right thumb, he wears a purplish-grey ring. But despite the terrifying power, his physical body looked young. Early twenties, at most."
Jiraiya stood utterly still, his mind spinning into a deep confusing spiral. Spiky orange hair... piercings... early twenties? That sounded precisely like Yahiko. But Yahiko should be around mid thirties but why would he be in early twenties. And it was Nagato who possessed the Rinnegan, not Yahiko. Nothing about the timeline or the visual description made sense.
"Did Nagato give his eyes to Yahiko before he died?" Jiraiya thought he remembered Kakashi's eye.
Taking advantage of the sudden lull in Jiraiya's questioning, Shikamaru stepped forward, his sharp eyes locked onto the immobilized Kakuzu. "How many tailed beasts has the Akatsuki captured so far?"
"Two," Kakuzu answered flatly. "The Five-Tails and the Seven-Tails."
The entire conversation felt weird to Naruto, who was a jinchuriki himself. He gritted his teeth as he clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white.
"There are people... people just like me and Gaara," Naruto spat out, his voice trembling in grief and pure rage as his nine tails chakra leaked out. "And these bastards are just hunting them down like we are nothing? Killing them?!"
He couldn't stand it as he felt emotionally connected to fellow jinchuriki. The thought of others going through the same hellish isolation he had, only to end up murdered in some dark cave for their power, made his blood boil.
"They're coming for me too, aren't they?!" Naruto yelled, stepping forward with his fist raised, ready to smash Kakuzu's face. "Where are these bastards hiding?!"
~~
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