"No, it's true."
Kakashi's voice drifted back from ahead of them. He said it casually, like he was commenting on the weather, but the words hit the three students like a punch to the gut.
"What? Why?!" Naruto jogged forward a few steps. "We already passed the graduation exam!"
Kakashi didn't answer immediately. Instead, he asked his own question without looking back. "Although I don't know where you heard that, let me ask you something first. You already took a graduation exam, right?"
"That's right! We all passed!" Sakura quickly answered from beside them.
Kakashi stopped walking. He turned around slowly.
"That exam was only used to select those who are qualified to become genin. Only those who pass their jonin instructor's test can become true ninjas. Those who fail get sent back to the Academy. And every year, the elimination rate for this test is over sixty percent."
"S-sixty percent?!" Naruto's fists clenched at his sides. "Then what exactly is this test? What do we have to do?"
A faint smile curved Kakashi's lips. He turned and continued walking down the hall.
"Follow me first. Let's get to know each other a little, and then I'll tell you the details."
---
While Naruto, Daiki and the others were being evaluated by their jonin instructor, Kenji had already quietly left the village.
He was currently moving between several towns along the border of the Land of Fire, gathering intelligence on a very specific target: Kakuzu.
In the original timeline, Akatsuki would begin their tailed beast capture operation in about three years. But recently, Konoha ninjas stationed near the border had reported sightings of Akatsuki members operating in the area.
Kenji had decided to handle this personally.
If he could eliminate several of Akatsuki's key members before the main storyline events began, or even kill all of them, it might delay or prevent the Fourth Great Ninja War entirely. At minimum, it would throw a wrench into Obito's and Madara's plans.
The intelligence network he'd built over the years had finally paid off. Cross-referencing reports from multiple sources, he'd narrowed down Kakuzu's likely location to a handful of bounty exchange stations near the border.
Now it was just a matter of finding the right one.
He stopped in front of what looked like an abandoned military outpost. The wooden roof had collapsed years ago, leaving exposed beams rotting in the elements. Stone walls were covered in cracks and overgrown with vegetation. Rusted weapons and animal bones lay scattered across the ground.
To any casual observer, it looked like nothing more than old battlefield ruins.
But he knew better. This was a bounty exchange, one of many scattered throughout the shinobi world.
The bounty exchange system was an intermediary organization operating in the underground black markets spread across every major nation. Their primary function was publishing bounties on famous ninjas and notable figures, facilitating assassinations that needed to appear independent of government involvement.
The whole operation was backed by a complex web of interests involving various daimyō and ninja village leadership. The personnel were mostly gang members and hired missing-nin who had enough skill to be useful but not enough loyalty to be trustworthy in legitimate organizations.
It worked like this: Employers who wanted someone eliminated but couldn't do it openly would post a bounty at an exchange. These employers could be daimyō, high-ranking village officials, or even wealthy merchants with enough money to make it worth the exchange's while.
The exchange would publicly release the bounty information. Anyone who accepted the job and completed the kill could bring the target's corpse or sufficient proof of death to claim the reward. The exchange took a cut from the difference between what the employer paid and what the assassin received.
Kenji himself was on the bounty lists. His price was one hundred million ryō, not particularly high in the grand scheme of things. Most of that value came from his position as a Konoha advisor rather than his threat level.
His reputation in the wider shinobi world remained relatively low-key by design. The people who did know his strength also knew that typical bounty hunters wouldn't be able to kill him, so they didn't bother wasting money on the attempt.
He walked straight to the most intact section of stone wall. Chakra gathered in his right fist.
BOOM!
His punch smashed into the wall with explosive force. Stone fragments flew in all directions. Through the cloud of dust and debris, a deep hidden passage was revealed, descending into darkness.
The locations and layouts of these bounty exchanges within the Land of Fire had been thoroughly mapped by Konoha's intelligence division years ago. He had helped with some of that mapping himself.
Konoha generally left them alone. The exchanges posed minimal direct threat to the village, and their backers had enough political influence to make elimination more trouble than it was worth. Better to know where they were and monitor their activities than drive them deeper underground.
But that didn't mean he couldn't use them when convenient.
He descended into the passage without hesitation. The corridor reeked of mold. Torches mounted at intervals provided flickering light. The floor was uneven stone, worn smooth in places by decades of foot traffic.
He could sense the people deeper inside. Not many, maybe half a dozen total. Most were ordinary criminals with barely any chakra to speak of. But there was one signature that felt more substantial, someone with ninja training.
That would be the manager.
Kenji moved quickly through the warren of passages, following his chakra sense. He rounded a corner and found his target trying to flee through a back exit.
The manager was a large man with a thick beard and a face covered in scar tissue. A particularly nasty scar ran from his left eye down to his jaw. His hand was already on the tantō at his waist, though he'd gone pale when he saw Kenji appear.
"You know you can't just barge into a bounty exchange," the man said, "Our backers won't—"
"Has someone named Kakuzu been here recently?" Kenji cut him off, not interested in hearing threats about political consequences.
The manager's jaw clenched. "I don't know. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you."
"Is that right?"
In the next instant, Kenji appeared beside him. His hand closed around the manager's skull before the man even realized he had moved.
His chakra invaded the man's brain. He forced his way past mental barriers, tearing through the manager's consciousness to access his memories.
"AAAAAHHH!"
The manager's eyes rolled back in his head, showing only whites. His body convulsed, muscles spasming as Kenji's chakra ripped through his mind.
Blood began trickling from the man's nose, then his ears. The Psycho Mind Transmission wasn't designed to be gentle. It was an interrogation tool, meant to extract information by force. When used this brutally, it destroyed the target's brain in the process.
Kenji sifted through the memories rapidly, discarding irrelevant information and focusing on anything related to Akatsuki or individuals matching Kakuzu's description.
There it was.
Two days earlier, a man wearing a black cloak patterned with red clouds had entered the exchange while carrying a corpse over his shoulder. The body belonged to a missing-nin from Konoha with a modest bounty. The cloaked man had cold green eyes.
He'd collected his payment and left, heading northeast toward the next nearest exchange station. There was no indication that anyone had accompanied him.
Kenji withdrew his chakra and released his grip. The manager's body crumpled to the floor. His eyes were still open, staring sightlessly at nothing. Blood pooled beneath his head, leaking from his ears and nose.
He was brain dead. The memories had been extracted, but the price was total cerebral destruction.
Kenji felt no guilt. These underground operators had innocent blood on their hands. The manager's own memories had made that clear. Murders, kidnappings, and far worse. A man like that deserved no sympathy.
"Hidan isn't with him," he muttered to himself, analyzing what he'd learned. "So at this point in the timeline, Hidan hasn't joined Akatsuki yet."
That matched what he remembered from the original story. Hidan had joined the Akatsuki relatively late. Kenji only remembered that it happened after Deidara but before Tobi. Tobi himself had joined only after Sasori's death. That meant Hidan was probably still in the Land of Hot Water, slaughtering the enemies of the Jashin cult.
Which meant Kakuzu was operating solo right now.
One opponent was easier than two.
Now that he'd confirmed Kakuzu was definitely in the Land of Fire, he didn't hesitate. He left the bounty exchange quickly, already planning his next move.
Kakuzu would visit more exchanges. The man was obsessive about collecting bounties, always looking for the next target. If Kenji checked the other nearby stations, he'd eventually intercept him.
He spent the next day moving between exchanges, gathering intelligence and leaving behind more corpses. By late afternoon, he'd confirmed fresh sightings of Kakuzu at a station about fifty kilometers to the northeast.
Kenji rushed to the spot where Kakuzu had last been seen and released his sensory technique at full power. His chakra sense spread outward like a wave, sweeping across the surrounding forest.
He sensed a massive source of chakra. It was far larger than what any normal human should possess. The signal came from about three kilometers away and was moving slowly.
That had to be Kakuzu. His Earth Grudge Fear gave him multiple hearts, each one adding to his total chakra reserves. The resulting signature was distinctive.
"Found you."
Kenji smiled and set off at high speed.
---
At that moment, Kakuzu had recently left a bounty exchange. He walked at a leisurely pace down a forest path, flipping through the updated bounty list he'd just acquired.
He studied each entry, analyzing the risk-reward ratio. Akatsuki needed funds. Pain had assigned him another collection mission, and Kakuzu took his role as the organization's treasurer seriously.
Recently, he'd already eliminated most of the valuable targets in the smaller nations nearby. Their bounties had been collected, and the money had been delivered to the organization. With nothing left worth pursuing there, he'd no choice but to operate within the Land of Fire.
Security in the Land of Fire was far tighter. Konoha patrols were frequent, and the risks were significantly higher. However, the rewards were greater as well. Wealthy merchants, famous clan members, and missing-nin with large bounties all passed through these lands.
He was examining the details of a particularly lucrative target when he suddenly stopped walking.
Someone was approaching quickly.
He looked up from his list.
A man stood on the road ahead, blocking his path. He wore a Konoha forehead protector and a standard jonin vest. His expression was calm. His posture looked relaxed, yet Kakuzu could clearly sense the readiness hidden beneath it.
This was clearly not a random encounter.
He didn't react with alarm. Instead, he calmly lowered his head and flipped through his bounty list, scanning the names and faces until he found what he was looking for.
He looked up again, comparing the face in front of him to the photo on the wanted poster.
It was a perfect match.
"Yamanaka Kenji," he said flatly. "Konoha advisor. Bounty: one hundred million ryō."