Modified by the Earth Grudge Fear, Kakuzu could freely control his blood vessels, transforming them into highly resilient tendrils.
This granted him an unparalleled advantage for performing surgery.
In canon, Kakuzu was also the surgeon of the Akatsuki, when Hidan’s head was severed, Kakuzu was the one who sewed it back on.
The blood vessel tendrils could directly tear through human flesh and rip out a victim’s heart.
Simultaneously, each heart could form a tendril clone, allowing a maximum of four clones.
“Secret Technique: Parasitize!”
Having subdued Fudo with Lightning Release, Kakuzu strolled behind him, formed hand seals, and cast his secret technique.
The tendril clone struck down by Fudo instantly burrowed into Fudo’s chest.
It left behind only a ravenous white mask affixed over his left pectoral.
Fudo stood up and adjusted his clothes.
He smiled eerily.
“The technique…
was…
a…
success.”
This was the result of Kakuzu’s research into various hidden clans, the Parasitic Technique.
Much like the parasites in ‘Parasyte’, it allowed a tendril clone to enter another person’s body, extract the heart, and control the host like a puppet.
Fudo appeared alive, but the real man was dead.
The entity now occupying this body was essentially one of Kakuzu’s clones.
“Partial Multi-Size Jutsu!”
Fudo’s arm suddenly swelled to more than twice its size as he smirked.
“It seems I can use the Akimichi clan’s secret technique inside this body.”
An Earth Grudge Fear clone was merely a mass of tendrils and naturally incapable of speech.
However, after parasitizing Fudo, it could hijack his vocal cords to produce the appropriate sounds.
“The Akimichi clan’s secret technique is not important for now,” Kakuzu said.
“What matters is that it belongs to Yang Release.
Through years of training in Yang Release secret techniques, their hearts have taken on a Yang nature.
This will aid my research into Yang Release.
Additionally, I need to use this body to bait a heart with a Yin nature.”
In Konoha, potential sources of Yin Release included the Yamanaka clan, Nara clan, and even the Uchiha clan.
He had no desire to provoke Madara, and Nara clan’s intellect made them too dangerous a target.
The Yamanaka clan offered the optimal alternative.
Given the close ties between the Akimichi and Yamanaka, luring a lone member would be simple.
Fudo nodded and turned from the woods.
He soon met two patrol team members, ordinary folk untouched by the Parasitic Technique.
“Fudo, you’re bleeding?” his teammates exclaimed.
“Sustained a minor injury, nothing serious,” Fudo replied.
“Pity that bastard got away.”
Through prolonged observation at the ramen shop, Kakuzu had comprehended Fudo’s personality.
“The person we were tracking got away too,” one teammate noted, detecting no anomaly.
Shifting the topic, the other mused, “I can’t believe someone actually had guts to sneak into Konoha.”
“Yeah, but this is no time for that.
Let’s report the situation.”
Fudo nodded in agreement and followed them to the squad captain.
Their involvement ended there.
The captain ordered the injured Fudo home to rest, instructing the remaining two to continue their patrol and stay alert for intruders.
Once clear of the patrol team, Fudo did not head home.
He made for the Yamanaka compound to seek Mizuya Yamanaka, a capable clansman on good terms with him.
Mizuya had frequently accompanied Fudo to the ramen shop for noodles in the past.
“What’s the matter, why are you looking for me in the middle of the night?” Mizuya asked, eyes heavy with sleep.
He had no idea death loomed over him.
Fudo fabricated an excuse to lure Mizuya into a deserted, dark alley.
Joining forces with his main body, Kakuzu replicated their previous method and murdered him.
This time, Kakuzu bypassed the Parasitic Technique, directly extracting Mizuya’s heart to replace his own Water-Nature heart.
He retracted the clone from within Fudo, substituting his Lightning-Nature heart in the exchange.
The heart of a Yamanaka clansman, who practiced Yin Release secret techniques since childhood, belonged to the Yin nature.
With this, Kakuzu’s five chakra natures lost Water and Lightning but gained Yin and Yang.
Hearts with common natures like Water and Lightning were easy to acquire, Konoha Prison was full of them.
Hearts with prominent Yin and Yang Releases were far rarer, making this substitution an absolute advantage.
As for the two corpses missing their hearts, Kakuzu did not incinerate them on the spot.
He deployed his Wind and Earth-Nature clones to parasitize them, commanding the bodies to accept a mission tomorrow that would take them far from Konohagakure, ensuring they disappeared forever.
“I should head back and research Yin-Yang Release.” The plan had gone flawlessly, Kakuzu was in an excellent mood.
‘Interesting guy.’
Right after Kakuzu departed, a shadow in a dark corner grinned broadly.
He was the entity later known as Black Zetsu, Kaguya Otsutsuki’s third child.
Black Zetsu dedicated himself fully to Kaguya’s resurrection, a truly devoted son.
Outside the bounds of his grand plan, he enjoyed observing the bizarre occurrences across the shinobi world.
Interesting people like Kakuzu were a rarity, even over the past thousand years, and they helped him pass the boring hours.
‘The chakra reincarnations of Indra and Ashura this time around are the strongest in history.
Madara already possesses the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, he is only a step away from awakening the Rinnegan.
The conditions for Mother’s revival are nearly fulfilled.
By then, perhaps this interesting guy can become an asset to me.’Black Zetsu thought, merging into the darkness.
The next day, Fudo and Mizuya, under Kakuzu’s control, went to the mission desk to accept an assignment far from the village, an escort mission issued by Daimyo’s Residence.
In truth, since the hidden villages had only recently been established, public trust was low.
Very few civilians posted missions for shinobi.
The tasks currently available were almost exclusively issued by Daimyo’s Residences to fund the villages.
Kakuzu hadn’t expected that in the massive village of Konoha, only missions issued directly from Daimyo’s Residence would satisfy his needs.
To divert the two corpses away from prying eyes without leaving a single flaw, he had no choice but to accept the assignment.
Yet precisely because Daimyo issued it, he couldn’t simply vanish midway.
So Kakuzu left two clones at Daimyo’s Residence instead.
Daimyo, as the apparent supreme ruler of the nations, occupied a unique position.
They possessed no mighty power themselves, yet stood at the pinnacle of each nation’s authority.
In a world without supernatural abilities, such a figure would make perfect sense.
But in this shinobi world, where humans could trigger landslides and tsunamis, Daimyo’s existence struck Kakuzu as nothing more than a feudal tumor.
That was his view, at least.
In this era, however, the general trend of the world remained fixed.
He could not change it, so he chose to ignore it as much as possible.
Still, if the opportunity arose, using Earth Grudge Fear to parasitize Daimyo would certainly prove an interesting endeavor…
Hashirama and Tobirama returned with news that the Five Great Nations would coexist peacefully.
This promise would hold, at least, until Hashirama’s death.
Within a month, every nation sent peace agreements to Konoha, accompanied by local specialties.
After all, Hashirama had distributed the powerful tailed beasts to those nations, they had to show their appreciation.
Konoha kept only the strongest, the Nine-Tails.
During this period, Madara clashed with representatives from Iwagakure.
A man of his power disliked obtaining peace in such a manner.
Yet the peace agreement was ultimately signed.
The shinobi world finally welcomed peace, and everything seemed to start heading in a positive direction…
Madara grew increasingly unwelcome in Konoha.
Time passed.
In the blink of an eye, three years went by.
Under the First Hokage’s leadership, Konoha flourished.
Kakuzu had never planned to stay in Konoha for three years.
By his initial estimation, he should have left long ago.
Yet he couldn’t bring himself to abandon the data in Tobirama’s laboratory.
Visiting the lab daily to study secret jutsu felt like clocking in for a steady wage.
This was the busyness of peace.
Compared to every other corner of the ninja world, Konoha, home to two top-tier shinobi, was undeniably the most tranquil.
That peace held an opium-like allure for Kakuzu, who had spent twenty years steeped in the life of a shinobi.
So, three years on, he still had no intention of leaving.
During those three years, nothing major occurred in Konoha beyond its rapid development.
If anything deserved mention, it was that Hashirama had recently become a grandfather.
Yes, this girl was Princess Tsunade, the doujinshi mainstay of the Naruto-verse.
Kakuzu had taken on an apprentice: a commoner young man in his twenties, sunny, cheerful, and hardworking.
He put the boy in charge of running the ramen shop, freeing Kakuzu to devote more time to researching Yin-Yang Release.
After three years of painstaking effort, his work finally bore fruit.
He had made real progress.
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