Kakuzu suddenly jumped up while lifting his legs to his chest, evading three doton papers that crashed into the ground, spreading cracks through it.

His left hand was sent flying towards the ground where it buried into it, flinging his entire body to the side to evade sharp futon paper shurikens while his two masks started blasting Futon: Atsugai and Katon: Intelligent Hard Work all around. ​​

The whole field was full of flames, pressurized wind, and incredibly durable paper, creating a hailstorm of danger.

Kakuzu sped up towards a silhouette of a person and engaged it in a bout of taijutsu. He was winning. Kicking that person around like a ragdoll. It was a woman, he noted. She was good at technique and speed but her body lacked power compared to his. It was as if she were made of… his eyes widened when he was about to deliver a punch to her face only for his arm to bury into her head up to his elbow!

He didn’t even have a chance to hear any sizzling sound before…

‘Boom’

The paper clone made solely of exploding tags blasted a crater of the size of a small lake into the ground.

Kakuzu wobbly stood up, noting his arm ripped to shreds from the explosion. He at least managed to harden his body with Doton: Iron Skin. He was shaking his head to get his ears into working condition again when he spat blood from his mouth. He looked down, only to see a womanly hand with blue, very cared for, nails covered in his blood as his the was sticking from his chest, holding his heart that painted these blue nails bloody red.

Kakuzu snarled as his threads made short work of the woma-, he cursed. Of the clone, he noted as he saw it dissolve into paper. He lost one heart to a clone. His raiton one! He felt ashamed! He! He who survived Hashirama! Fuck this shit!

He still had his doton heart in his body. He decided to get serious. His body parts fall apart, the black threads coming out of it.

He noted his futon and katon masks killed four paper clones so far. Four assailants remained.

“You are a lucky girl! Six out of ten, all clones. But now I have a twenty-five percent chance to hit the original.” Kakuzu stated as the threads expanded all around him, trying to appear threatening while the threads from his feet entered underground, approaching his opponents.

“It has a brain.”

“It can talk.”

“It can count.”

“It can do the math.”

The clones dryly uttered one after another and jumped to the side, evading the threads shooting from the ground, pissing Kakuzu off even more, making him focus on them.

They were supposed to stall. So, stall they would.

Kakuzu could only hopelessly watch as his enemy took the defensive approach and swapped to ranged tactics. He understood. These two clones that injured him were there to slow his body and the four clones his masks destroyed were to observe his attack pattern.

The four in front of him were only a nuisance to stall him. He understood… he lost his 5 billion Ryo hostage for good!

With a snarling fury, he jumped into the battle.

…

And while Kakuzu fought, Rei looked at the rapist who was being dragged in his chakra strings. He was mulling if it wasn’t better to do the world a favor and kill the guy off, suffering the first failed mission in his career.

He could understand Raikage ordering kidnappings of Kekkei Genkai girls. Not condone it and certainly not approve but understand the reason, he could. It was all politics and ‘for the village’. Disgusting but it WORKED in the long run. Maybe cruel but it WAS efficient.

The women were miserable. But males? For those more informed, the Raikage, at least the third, actually preferred to kidnap males and showered them with literal harems of kunoichi to pamper the shit out of them in any way conceivable. They got wealth. They got any woman they pointed at, if she didn’t belong to someone else, and was agreeable to the disgustingly high pay procuring a kid with Kekkei Genkai would give her. They lived in heaven on earth and after their useability was finished, they were ALLOWED to keep three of their favorite kunoichi. They just could not complain!

Rei could also understand Mizukage trying to manipulate him to have sex with the women of Kiri to produce babies. Konan had to chase these away on a WEEKLY basis. It would first, tie him down to Kiri and second, create a future shinobi with good potential. Not to say, shinobi who would be raised IN Kiri and shinobi Rei would actually teach everything he knew as they would be his kids. If they revealed to Mizukage that Konan had Kekkei Tota? Rei was sure even Mizukage would pull Raikage on Rei, drowning him in money and women. He would at least not think of putting hands on Konan as he was aware she could blow Kiri to high heavens if she was so inclined. He was manipulative. Not stupid. He knew even restrained and bound, Konan could still use her paper.

Rei also understood the idiotic way Hiruzen tried or will try, to manipulate Naruto. It was… stupid, to say the least as it could have backfired in any conceivable way possible. But it was a solid attempt at manipulation for the good of the village.

Heck! Rei could even understand Danzo! He hated how he treated and mind-fucked the orphans, all to make them a tool for himself. He was very put off when he read about it in his old world. After he actually became a shinobi and saw a bit of the Narutoverse? He didn’t quite admire the man, more like felt disgust but grudging respect. Not everybody would be a monster enough to do what Danzo did and wholeheartedly believed it was for the ‘greater good’ of his village. It really put things into a perspective.

Rei had no delusions. If Hiruzen stayed Hokage for ten more years, little Naruto would spend days in the eager care of many Konoha kunoichi to recreate the Uzumaki clan in Konoha and make sure Yondaime had some grandkids that could inherit Hiraishin. Oh, Naruto was NEVER meant to inherit THAT Jutsu. Scorned Jinchuuriki with Hiraishin? That was a disaster just waiting to happen…

What? Some clueless fools believed that Hokage didn’t have access to it? Hah. Blood seal? Naruto was on his beck and call. As was his blood. The problem was more in the set-up of Hiraishin seaô, Rei surmised from his knowledge of seals. It must be a bloodline linking seal that was usable in its full ability only for Minato’s descendants. Minato after all had or will have access to Uzumaki seals via Kushina, and this one was widely used by that clan. That was the reason why most scrolls looted from Uzushiogakure were deemed worthless and the entire raid was marked as a glaring failure.

That was the only thing that would prevent it from being learned willy-nilly. And since no one knew Hiraishin jutsu in the future he knew of… Rei was almost a hundred percent sure that was what Minato would do. Key it to his descendants only. Of course, he as the seal master could give someone a tweaked seal that could be used… say, by his bodyguards. But it would be a very watered-down version.

It was VERY important for the villages that bloodlines survived. The Kages really pulled no moral stops to ensure that. Naruto dodged that bullet due to Tsunade thinking of him as her grandson. She didn’t want him to live a life of debauchery. To lose his innocent nature. Or whatever went through her head.

As for Sasuke, for him, it was an obvious conclusion. The girls were fangirls. But most of them? Their parents tried to push them onto him. Yes, he would be given Kunoichi to reproduce the clan. But if he liked a civilian girl? He could take her. Nobody would complain if the almost extinct Uchiha clan got more kids.

Rei marveled at the amount of information about these matters he could find in the Kiri Library. They were not even restricted. The second Mizukage had five women, not of his clan, to keep the Hozuki clan up and running and inject new blood, for example. Most clans practice polygamy. And worse yet, inbreeding. It is only thanks to the chakra that the kids are not born retarded… yet. But the problems were glaringly obvious. Just look at Kaguya males!

Another example, where during the Warring States clans had hundreds, approaching a thousand members, now, they were barely around one hundred strong.

That’s why whenever there was the LAST male of a clan, cue Sasuke’s situation, the Kage desperately tried to make him pair up with as many women to inject new blood into these family lines. They KNEW about these problems. But even they had to tip-toe around clans matters. Of course, this allowed the loyal kunoichi that could ‘influence’ the last male of the said clan to be put into these positions.

Anyway, these decisions HAD TO be done and were EXPECTED from leaders. They didn’t have to like it but it was their job to make sure the bloodlines survive. Each Kage had their own way of dealing with things but none was completely clean. Even Tobirama is rumored to use a mild genjutsu and manipulations to make a few happy couples. Kiri spies certainly found multiple very suspicious starts for a relationship.

These documents were so old they were long deemed not important to restrict and even Kiri chunin could read up about it. It was Konan’s past-time activity actually. She loved to read about it and always pointed something funny or interesting to Rei. Especially when it came to the ‘misdeeds’ of other Kages of old. It almost made him shake his head.

But the scum Rei and Konan were hired to save? He raped powerless women only for his own petty ego. He tore families because he could. Because his father was Daimyo. Because he will be one day Daimyo. The documents about him made it abundantly clear why the Mizukage wouldn’t care if the guy died. The pig was disgusting.

“Wanna kill him?” Konan asked disinterestedly.

“Is it that obvious?” Rei sighed.

“Yup, you are all pondering, you know.” Konan chuckled before she continued without care. “Let’s deliver him and get money. It’s not like he matters to us.”

“Right…”

Konan came closer and put her hand on the princeling’s arm.

“There, done. I used my suiton chakra to relax his heart. He will die of heart stroke a few months later.

Rei smiled at her and chuckled. Sigh. It was all so easy, after all.

…

It was only hours later when panting Kakuzu held both remaining Konans enwrapped in his threads.

“So… which, haa, one of y-you, haaaa, is the, haa, original?” He heaved after the fight the girl just put him through. The surroundings were completely destroyed. Earth gouged, ground incinerated. The previous forest all but disappeared.

“None.” The calm women pierced by his threads through various painful organs impassively stated with small smirks, not showing an ounce of pain.

Kakuzu got a veeery bad premonition when they suddenly started glowing.

A rattling explosion resounded through the area, creating a kilometer wide crater. These two paper clones were carrying Konan’s most potent explosive seals up to date. Far away, Konan only cheerfully nodded her head in satisfaction as she did guts pose, startling Rei who dropped the prince head-first because of it. Her experimental seals passed their trial!

In the center of the crater, Kakuzu’s body fell down, dead, all his hearts pulverized.

Three hours later his suiton heart finally arrived from scouting Kiri and merged into the pitiful shredded remains of his body. He took a sudden deep breath as he came back alive and groaned, mentally scanning his body.

He was half-dead, missing more organs than comfortable. Most of his threads snapped, pulverized, atomized, burnt. Four hearts destroyed…

No one has done a number like this on him since Hashirama.

“You gotta be fucking shitting me.” He croaked.

His head fell onto the ground with a ‘thud’, unconscious.