Rushing all the way for the entire night, Suijin and Homusubi soon arrived at the nearest Black-market bounty exchange branch.
The Bounty Exchange branch is a large stone house with a wooden pier. The pier looks very dilapidated with only a few fishing boats around. It seems as if the place has been abandoned for a long time.
Standing at the gate of the Black-market branch, Homusubi hesitated for a while and asked "Suijin, do you really want to exchange Watanabe's body for the bounty on his head? Are we not going a bit too far?"
Suijin just calmly stated, "We are enacting a show here so we should not leave it halfway."
"But…" – Homusubi was a bit worried.
Suijin glanced at Homusubi and questioned, "Hey, you don't happen to think that I care about the 50 million Ryo bounty on his head, do you?"
"Of course not!" – Homusubi quickly waved his hands.
Suijin nodded with a snort, "How could I care about a mere 50 million Ryo?" – and continued after a short pause, "Since we are the members of Amatsukami, a bounty-nin organization, we have to follow the behavior pattern of a bounty-nin, just imagine, if a real bounty-nin worked hard to kill his/her target but in the end didn't exchange its corpse for the bounty, wouldn't that be suspicious?"
Homusubi nodded, "Now that you mention it if the village were to find about this, they will definitely be suspicious of our objective and identity!"
"That's it!" – patting Homusubi's shoulder, Suijin continued with a smile, "To not leave any flaws, we must exchange Watanabe's corpse for the bounty on him, only in this way can the village put the blame of death on the bounty-nin organization, Amatsukami, and then claim that Iwagakure is responsible for issuing such a high reward. As for the mere 50 million Ryo bounty, 'it's obviously not important'" – The last part was said with a particular emphasis as if Suijin was justifying his actions.
If Watanabe's corpse doesn't flow into the Black-market circle, Kumo will remain doubtful whether Watanabe was really killed by bounty-nin.
But once Watanabe's corpse has flowed into the Black-market circle and it is confirmed that a third party was responsible for the death of their Head ninja, no matter how much they want to blame Konoha they can't pressure the village to hand over the culprit, after all, even if Konoha showed a bit of neglection, the main responsibility still falls in the hands of the bounty-nin who killed and Iwagakure who put the bounty.
Looking at the gloomy entrance of the stone house, Homusubi sighed and said, "Alright, but I still don't want to go in."
Suijin didn't care and said, "That fine, so you can stay outside and keep watch, I will come as soon as I finish the exchange."
…
On a small boat not far from the pier.
Sasori of the red sand wearing the Akatsuki traditional black cloak with red clouds print; glanced at the corpse placed on the corner of his foot and said with a frowned expression, "Can't you put this corpse in a sealing scroll? It's almost rotting!"
Kakuzu replied with a gruff tone, "Why bother, we will be there soon enough."
"Humph, I must change the partner after dealing with Orochimaru!" – Sasori snorted and turned to the side.
Sasori feels upset when he looks at Kakuzu who has absolutely no understanding of art and doesn't care about anything aside from money, the more he has been traveling with Kakuzu, the more annoyed he has been getting.
In Sasori's view, any corpse is a great puppet material, so when he watches the corpse before him gradually rotting and smelling, it makes him feel displeased.
Kakuzu didn't care about Sasori's complaint and was looking at the bingo book in his hand to decide on the next target he will be eliminating.
Suddenly Sasori sitting on the boat stood up and looked in the distance with a cold expression oozing out killing intent.
This didn't go unnoticed by Kakuzu and turning to look in the direction Sasori was looking, he found a figure wearing a very similar outfit he remembers very well.
…
Inside the stone house.
Suijin took out Watanbe's corpse from the storage scroll and placed it on the autopsy table.
"If it isn't Suijin-sama, what are your gains this time?"
The bounty master of the exchange office greeted Suijin with a respectful smile.
The name of Amatsukami has become very famous in the Black-market Circle ever since Suijin's last face-off against the members of the Akatsuki organization, everyone knows that Amatsukami is a very strong organization, and it would be wise to not offend them.
Suijin curled his lips and said, "How about you see it for yourself?"
How can the bounty master dare to disobey? He quickly took out the bounty book and matched the identity of the corpse with the one on the reward page.
With just one glance, the bounty exchange master was stunned, "He… he is the leader of the Kumo delegation responsible for the signing of the peace treaty between Konohagakure and Kumogakure!"
The huge reward of 50 million Ryo is not a common occurrence even in the Black market, therefore, for people like Watanabe to have such a high bounty, almost every Bounty Exchange Master knows about him.
Noticing the Bounty Master's shocked face, Suijin said lightly, "Sigh, in order to bring him, I had to actually fight the Sandaime Hokage of Konohagakure, it was a really troublesome job."
"You… you r-really… have no…" – The bounty Master wanted to say 'no scruples,' but didn't dare to. After all, this person dared to kill and cause trouble for two of the great shinobi villages at the same time, who can be more foolish than him?
Seeing that the other party was left speechless, Suijin urged, "Hurry up with the verification and process the payment."
Coming out of his stupor, the bounty exchange master nodded and quickly verified the identity of the corpse.
Not long after, he said cautiously, "Suijin-sama, according to the regulation, 10% of the reward will be charged as the processing fees, you see…"
However, before, he could continue, Suijin interrupted him midway, "Don't waste my time talking this nonsense, just process the amount after taking your cut, I have better things to do than to entertain you here."
"Yes-yes, I will immediately complete the processing." – Understanding that Suijin has no intentions of breaking the black-market circle rules, the bounty master breathed a sigh of relief and got busy with the work.
Although there is a descriptive code of conduct of the Black-market circle, the really strong individuals often tend to ignore these rules. And since Suijin didn't have any intentions of breaking the code of conduct, the bounty master was undoubtedly relieved.
Soon after, he brought out a wooden box carrying the processed amount in cash.
Receiving the box, Suijin coldly said, "In the last payment I received, many bills were worn out and damaged, this time it won't happen, right?"
Bounty master shook his head quickly and said, "There will no such problems, you can check it out to make sure!"
Suijin activated the Byakugan and carefully scanned the box, and found that the bills were indeed fresh this time. Giving a nod, Suijin prepared to leave.
However, at this time, he suddenly sensed the presence of two huge chakra sources that came outside the stone house.
…
At the gate.
Seeing the two ninjas in similar outfits aggressively coming towards him, Homusubi asked carefully, "Who are you two?"
Sasori sneered, "Hmm, it isn't the Suijin we were looking for…"
Although Homusubi didn't know the previous grievances between the Akatsuki and Amatsukami, the open hostility expressed by the opposite two was obvious to him, so again asked, "What do you two want to do?"
Looking at the different patterns on the face and the mask, Kakuzu questioned, "Are you another member of Amatsukami? But you don't look very strong at the first glance!"
At this time, Suijin walked out of the stone house, but his eyes were not looking at the two people of the Akatsuki Organization, rather, he was more focused on the forest past Kakuzu and Sasori.
Out came Sandaime Hokage together with many Konoha Anbu towards the bounty exchange branch…
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Read up to Chapter - 390 on P.a.t.r.e.o.n. Page: p-atreon.com/Milta_translations