Freelancer in Naruto

Senshi looked over at Madara, and after some careful thought, Madara turned to look at Senshi as well.

He had decided to try persuading Senshi to understand the greatness of the Eye of the Moon Plan—to make Senshi realize that even if extracting the Nine-Tails would result in Naruto's death, the necessary sacrifice would be worthwhile if it meant bringing the Eye of the Moon Plan to fruition and achieving permanent peace for the ninja world.

Of course, if Senshi refused, then Madara would just have to find some other way to obtain the Nine-Tails.

Madara cleared his throat and said, "Senshi, I don't just need the One-Tail through the Eight-Tails—I need all the Tailed Beasts. Will that be a problem?"

Senshi answered without missing a beat, voice firm and decisive: "Madara-bro, no problem at all—absolutely none!"

What could possibly be an issue? Based on his earlier meticulous analysis, if he didn't sell his Tailed Beasts to these two suckers, Obito and Madara, he'd truly be stuck with them, unsold!

…Though on second thought, Tailed Beasts going unsold actually seemed a bit unlikely. But come on now—who was he?

He was Uzumaki Senshi, legendary figure of the black market, the kind of ruthless guy who could squeeze commissions even out of a stone.

No matter what, he wasn't about to let all those Tailed Beasts he'd painstakingly captured go to waste in his hands; he had to find a buyer and get them out the door.

More than anything, Senshi genuinely felt that Obito ("Soy Boy") and Madara ("Madara-bro") were perfect buyers, because they actually needed Tailed Beasts.

Trying to sell combs to a bunch of monks would be nonsense, but in this case, the two of them truly had a need. Selling them these Tailed Beasts would let them move forward with their plan.

While they carried out the Eye of the Moon Plan, they'd also be advancing Senshi's own mission progress.

Once Senshi's mission progressed, it meant Black Zetsu's mother was on the verge of rescue. And what would you call that if not a triple win?

Madara and Obito would get the Tailed Beasts they'd always dreamed of, Senshi's mission would advance substantially, and later on—once Madara or Obito got turned into the sacrifice that resurrected Kaguya Ōtsutsuki—Senshi would earn a massive chunk of employment points, and Black Zetsu would successfully save his mom. Everyone happy, victory everywhere!

The more Senshi thought about it, the more he felt these Tailed Beasts should definitely be sold to Madara and Obito. Yet Madara, seeing how readily Senshi agreed, felt even more doubts. In the ninja world, the master-apprentice bond was an incredibly strong tie—could Senshi really lay a hand on Naruto?

Stuck for any other explanation, Madara simply asked outright: "The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki is your student. If we extract the Tailed Beast from him, he'll die. So can we still hire you for the job of capturing the Nine-Tails?"

Obito heard the old man Madara ask this and thought anxiously, "We're so done!" From Obito's perspective, Senshi was only saying polite things. Why was this old man Madara taking it seriously?

But Obito quickly realized he no longer understood anything about this world—because when it came to capturing the Nine-Tails, Senshi was definitely not just being polite.

Madara asked, and Senshi answered without hesitation, "Madara-bro, we're just talking about the Nine-Tails, right? Easy stuff! Payment on delivery, fair trade, no Tariffs! You can count on my reputation forever!"

Madara gave a slight nod, understanding that "Kindness got you killed—unless your jutsu was 'Talk No Jutsu,' and even that had mixed reviews." In today's ninja world, you had to be like Senshi to make it. Even if it was his own student—so long as the profit was big enough, Senshi would sell out his student without batting an eye.

Nevertheless, Madara decided to give Senshi a face-saving gesture. The low emotional-intelligence way of saying it would be: "Then go ahead and extract the Nine-Tails. Name your price." The high emotional-intelligence way would be: "Senshi, in fact, Naruto's sacrifice is meaningful—his sacrifice will bring permanent peace to the ninja world in the future!"

But Madara didn't even finish before Senshi waved him off: "Extracting a Tailed Beast is a delicate job. Your methods are way too crude, which is why your Jinchuriki always die in the process. But using the Tailed Beast Partition Technique I've invented through my research, the Tailed Beast can remain completely usable, while the Jinchuriki stays alive."

Senshi's words left Madara and Obito dumbfounded. They'd seen plenty of things in their lives, but not this. While the two were still reeling, Senshi proceeded with the intricate work.

Smack!

First, Senshi gave a casual slap to release the Double Four Symbols Seal—basically the Eight Trigrams Seal—on Naruto's body. The moment that seal was undone, the confined Nine-Tails was ecstatic. Within Naruto's inner world, the beast howled at the sky: "Finally, I'm going to be free! Sorry about this, Naruto!"

Although the Nine-Tails had interacted with Naruto a fair bit lately, they hadn't formed a deep bond yet. Faced with the overwhelming lure of freedom, the Nine-Tails scarcely hesitated before deciding to flee the container that trapped it.

Boom!

The massive, fierce orange-red chakra of the Nine-Tails quickly appeared outside the seal. Delighted, it tried to escape through the seal's exit, only to discover some idiot out there yanking on it. Furious, it roared, "Fuck You!! How dare you try to drag me out by force!"

But that idea didn't linger in the Nine-Tails' head for long, because it remembered what had happened to the One-Tails, the Two-Tails, and the Six-Tails.

Unlike those three dimwits, once the Nine-Tails sensed something wrong, it didn't just blindly charge outside. Instead, using the chakra that had already leaked out, it formed a small version of itself atop Naruto's head to observe the situation.

After scanning the surroundings, the Tailed Beast was stunned. It spotted the red-haired "demon god" that the One-, Two-, Three-, and Six-Tails had spoken of, and it also saw Uchiha Madara—the man who once had it firmly in his grasp—and Uchiha Obito, who had used the Sharingan to control it!

Seeing the scene, the mini Nine-Tails immediately thought: "Crap, this is like the apocalypse from the get-go! One red-haired demon, two Uchiha in Susanoo 'Gundam'—what can weak, pitiful, helpless Kurama possibly do?"

With that, the mini Nine-Tails dispersed the chakra-based little body perched on Naruto's head. The real Nine-Tails remained in Naruto's inner world, digging in its heels to play tug-of-war with Senshi. "I, Kurama, would rather die here and stay forever—I'm not going out!"

Seeing the Nine-Tails fighting him inside Naruto's mind, Senshi couldn't help laughing. "Kurama, come on—just get out of there already. Whether you poke your head out or hide in, you're still going to get sliced. Better to rip off the band-aid now and be done with it!"

"If you waste any more of my precious mission time, I'll have to stop being nice!"

At that, the Nine-Tails felt the terror that Shukaku, Matatabi, and Saiken had once experienced under Senshi's power. Its situation was even worse than theirs—Shukaku and the others each faced Senshi alone, but here were three top threats together.

Against just one of them, Nine-Tails would probably lose, especially since its Jinchuriki wasn't fully matured; they couldn't combine powers effectively.

The Nine-Tails had no choice but to do as Senshi said. There was no difference between hiding and coming out—it would be sliced either way. Might as well do it quickly, as Senshi advised.

With the Nine-Tails cooperating, Senshi easily pulled it right out of Naruto's body. Since he'd already succeeded in three previous "operations," he was even more skilled this time.

"One Finger Nukite!"

After extracting the Nine-Tails from Naruto, Senshi raised his hand and literally cut the beast into a large and a small piece. The bigger portion went into Senshi's grip, while the smaller portion transformed back into a mini Nine-Tails inside Naruto, trembling in a corner. This was truly too much for the poor Tailed Beast.

As a lifeform of chakra, the Nine-Tails wouldn't "die" in the usual sense. It could resurrect if its chakra re-coalesced, but that process was lengthy and grueling.

Thankfully, Senshi left a small portion behind, because otherwise who knew how long it'd take the Nine-Tails to regain awareness.

Outside, seeing Senshi so crisply slice the Nine-Tails in two, Madara was awestruck. Senshi had been telling the truth: extracting a Tailed Beast required delicate work.

Madara's and Obito's crude methods would have inevitably killed the Jinchuriki. Now, though, Naruto was still alive and well, and the Tailed Beast itself was fully usable.

Furthermore, Tailed Beasts possessed amazing healing ability, so even after being halved, the bigger chunk of the Nine-Tails was slowly restoring its lost chakra.

Of course, in that respect, maybe the Eight-Tails was even better at it. All eight of its tentacles had once been sliced off by the Third Raikage with a "One Finger Nukite."

In dire straits, the Eight-Tails often tricked enemies by sacrificing a tentacle disguised as itself, letting the real body escape. Doing that so often apparently made its tentacles regenerate extremely quickly. You never saw Gyūki missing any of its arms, so clearly they'd grown back long ago.

Obito watched Senshi's operation and couldn't help blurting out, "So it really was you who stole the Tailed Beasts from all those Jinchuriki." Previously, whenever he defeated a Jinchuriki, the Tailed Beast inside would end up missing, and he'd suspected Senshi—but he'd had no proof. Now the truth was out.

Why had Tailed Beasts kept disappearing from Jinchuriki? Why had his every attempt ended in failure? Was it a loss of human decency, or a distortion of moral values? No, it was just Senshi's doing—he played dirty!

As Obito spoke, the portion of the Nine-Tails in Senshi's grip started baring its fangs. On one hand, it was furious at the sight of Madara and Obito, who in the past had controlled it with their Sharingan.

On the other hand, it felt deeply humiliated at having no courage to fight back against Senshi and these two Uchiha. If word got out, how embarrassing would that be?

It wanted to put up at least a semblance of resistance so it could later tell other Tailed Beasts and ninjas:

"In that battle, I really didn't lose in vain. I was alone, while on the other side was Uzumaki Senshi and two Uchihas. With that kind of power gap, I lost, but I lost with honor!"

Whatever the Nine-Tails was plotting in its mind, Senshi was clueless, but seeing the beast posturing, he gave it a light smack on the head, leaving the Nine-Tails suddenly docile.

Madara, who had once fought the Nine-Tails himself, felt a surge of emotion at seeing it so utterly subdued by Senshi. Obito likewise felt all sorts of thoughts swirling. He muttered, "So that's how it is… If I'd known Senshi was so unhinged, willing to do anything for a mission, I could've cooperated with him from the start! If I'd done that in the beginning, all these headaches could have been avoided."

While Obito reflected, Madara cast a cold glance at him, disappointment welling up for this "heir." Something that could've been simple ended up twisted and messy due to Obito's foolishness, putting them both in a bind. But now wasn't the time to blame Obito; the priority was to make a deal with Senshi.

Gazing at the Nine-Tails, now thoroughly cowed, Madara asked, "So what's the price for obtaining the Nine-Tails?"

Hearing that, Senshi grew delighted. In a dead-serious tone, he said, "Madara-bro, there's a market rate for Tailed Beasts! The base price is one hundred million ryō per tail, and for each extra tail, you add another hundred million on top of that."

"So the One-Tails is one hundred million, the Two-Tails is two hundred million, the Three-Tails three hundred million, the Four-Tails four hundred million…"

"Hold on!" Madara's head spun at that quote. At those prices, who could possibly afford a Tailed Beast? Calling Senshi to stop, Madara said, "Senshi, capturing a Tailed Beast doesn't cost that much. We could follow the prices Hashirama gave at the Five Kage Summit, or what the Akatsuki used to charge for capturing Tailed Beasts."

Senshi heaved a sigh. "Madara-bro, that was then—this is now. Ever heard of inflation? It's been how many years already? You can't expect to buy Tailed Beasts at the old rate. And Tailed Beasts are one-of-a-kind; one hundred million ryō per tail is a perfectly fair going rate."

"If you can't accept that, you could always find another way to get them."

While he spoke, Senshi casually opened a vortex of dark red, as though about to leave.

"Wait!" Madara quickly called out. The Eye of the Moon Plan had to be carried out; otherwise, resurrecting him wouldn't accomplish much.

After fighting Senshi, Madara was completely convinced that no one could take Tailed Beasts away from him by force. If he didn't pay for them, the plan was done for.

With that in mind, Madara nodded. "From now on, we'll do it your way." Though it was expensive, money was relatively easy to get in the ninja world, while Tailed Beasts were each uniquely irreplaceable. Failing to secure one now would only lead to more complications later.

Once Madara agreed, Senshi rubbed his hands together with a happy grin. "Madara-bro, we'll follow the usual procedure—issue me a hiring request, and I'll hand over the Tailed Beast."

Madara: (O_O)???

He was taken aback. Were black market mercenaries normally this formal? Even for this sort of deal, they still had to follow the entire mission-commission process? Still puzzled, Madara wasted no time. "Senshi, I'll hire you for nine hundred million ryō to capture the Nine-Tails for me!"

Right then, Senshi saw a message appear in his head:

[Mission Accepted!]

[Client: Uchiha Madara]

[Goal: Help Uchiha Madara capture the Nine-Tails!]

[Reward: 900,000,000 ryō]

[Mission Rank: S]

[Mission Bonus: 900,000 Employment Points!]

Although Senshi had handled missions worth over a hundred million many times by now, this nine-hundred-million one from Madara still thrilled him. As soon as his mental interface showed the mission prompt, Senshi didn't delay—he happily tossed the Nine-Tails over to Madara.

Madara directed his Susanoo to seize the beast, then pulled out a scroll and shook out the money inside.

Under normal circumstances, that sum would last a long time, but he was buying a Tailed Beast, so it felt like a big chunk was missing. Counting it all, Madara discovered that altogether, it was just over one billion ryō—enough for the Nine-Tails and the One-Tails.

He sighed, having never felt money was so valuable before. Back then, his clan had betrayed him, so any revenge he took felt justified. If he'd known money was so useful, he would've just taken the entire Uchiha treasury with him!

After sorting nine hundred million out, Madara piled it up separately and put the remainder back into the scroll. Turning to Senshi, he said, "Here's the nine hundred million. I'll be looking to work with you again soon!"

He'd already decided that for the other Tailed Beasts, he'd just hire Senshi again—he only needed to figure out how to raise more funds. He might even entrust Senshi with certain steps in the Eye of the Moon Plan itself, ensuring nothing went wrong.

Opposite him, Senshi watched the system panel confirm the arrival of his employment points, flashing a huge smile at Madara. "Madara-bro, much appreciated! Once you've got the money ready, come back to your brother, and brother here will take care of you.

Hearing that, Madara nodded. That was indeed his intention. Yet right now, both he and Obito looked around at the surroundings—so devastated it was like the end of the world—and then at the Nine-Tails they'd just acquired so effortlessly.

They both felt a bit dazed. Previously, to obtain the Nine-Tails, they had pulled out their Susanoo "Gundam" against Senshi's giant Buddha and Lightning Susanoo, ravaging everything, and got nothing. Now, just by spending a sum of money that meant little to them, they'd gotten the beast.

Quietly, Obito said, "This situation is almost as dramatic and absurd as my own life."

Madara agreed, feeling that this was the most self-aware statement Obito had made. He, too, found it all too absurd. Before facing Senshi, Madara believed the "true power of the Uchiha" was still enough to intimidate the ninja world.

After fighting Senshi, he realized that his era and Hashirama's era were over. Shinobi of this new generation, like Senshi, had strength that was not merely terrifying but downright unbeatable.

Madara mused, "I thought this revival was fated to be short-lived. Against a monster like Senshi, even I couldn't do anything. Never imagined that in the end, there'd be such a turnaround—not only are Obito and I totally fine, we even ended up getting the Tailed Beast. It's just that the method was way too unexpected."

At Madara's side, Obito was also deep in thought. After a while, he slapped his thigh. "If I'd known money was this useful, I shouldn't have wasted time slaughtering people on the Night of the Massacre!"

Because Senshi was so overwhelmingly strong, and because money was the only reliable way to communicate with him amicably, both Obito and Madara badly needed a lot of funds now.

If they had enough, they could simply pay Senshi to capture all the Tailed Beasts, then keep hiring him to push their plan ahead.

But the biggest issue was that neither of them had much money left. Some trivial sum might stump a fool, but tens of billions would stump anyone.

Across from them, Senshi took the commission money from Madara and gleefully stashed it into his system space. Then he activated his Kāma teleportation once again, leaving the ruined battlefield behind.

With him gone, Obito and Madara finally released a long breath. Before fighting Senshi, they hadn't thought much of it; after throwing everything they had at him and still failing to prevail, the pressure he exerted was staggering. Fortunately, Senshi had left with Naruto, leaving them safe.

As soon as Senshi departed, Obito complained to Madara, "I've been telling you all along this guy wasn't easy to handle. I told you to be cautious!"

"That's enough," Madara cut him off, not letting him continue. Because it was pointless now—even if they'd taken Senshi seriously from the start, the huge power gap meant they'd still have nothing on him.

After silencing Obito, Madara said directly, "The priority now is to find a way to get enough funds. If we're flush with money, there are all kinds of things we can do."

Obito nodded in agreement. "Right. If only we'd known we could settle it so easily by paying him. Instead, we went around in circles making it complicated, and in the end we still had to pay!"

Thinking back on how much they'd gone through, Obito was annoyed at Senshi. He'd tried going head-to-head with him multiple times, nearly dying each time.

When nothing else worked, he hatched a scheme to steal Nagato's Rinnegan and revive the old man Madara—only now, Senshi had turned around and basically said, "Just pay me, no need for all that trouble." Obito felt that if you tried to swallow your anger, the more you thought about it, the more infuriated you became.

"That wretched mercenary Senshi is so greedy for money—why didn't he say so from the start, making me go through all that nonsense!"

Hearing that, Madara cut in with a somewhat irritated tone, "Enough! Who said a mercenary who loves money is a bad thing? A money-hungry mercenary is amazing!"

He wasn't just flattering Senshi; he genuinely thought so. Right now, Tailed Beasts were weapons each village used to deter its enemies.

To capture them, you'd ordinarily have to go head-to-head against entire hidden villages. That would be a colossal hassle. But with someone like Senshi, who got things done so quickly, all you needed was the money. You didn't have to handle anything else yourself.

After they talked a bit, Madara suddenly asked, "Where's Black Zetsu? I haven't seen him anywhere."

~~~

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