"KATSU!"
A small, controlled explosion turned Makoto's crude "PowerPoint" drawings into confetti.
Deidara blew the smoke from his fingers, looking satisfied with his contribution for cleaning up the "evidence."
Minutes later, Hidan was allowed back inside.
The Jashinist stomped in, shaking the rain off his cloak like a wet dog.
He looked around, expecting to see Makoto's head on a spike or at least the guy cowering in fear.
Instead, he saw something that unsettled him far more than violence.
Respect.
Kakuzu was looking at Makoto like he was a bag of gold coins. Sasori was listening intently. Even Pain seemed to be giving the new guy space.
The atmosphere had shifted from "interrogation" to "strategy meeting."
Hidan scratched his slicked-back hair, squinting. "Oi, what the hell happened in here? Did you guys join a cult or something? I mean, a different cult?"
Before Hidan could launch into another tirade, Makoto clapped his hands together.
"Welcome back, Hidan. Now that the room is whole again, let's move on. The Hidan Protocol is our biological deterrent. But," Makoto paused, raising a finger, "I have a second deterrent. One that targets the psychological and physical comfort of the Five Nations. It's a bit more... troublesome to execute, but the payout is immense."
Deidara perked up, leaning forward on his rock. "Ooh! Troublesome usually means explosive! Come on, spit it out! Who's the next victim? Which Kage are we going to blow up?"
Deidara was practically vibrating!
"Konan-nee..."
Makoto turned his head slowly, his eyes locking onto the Angel of God.
The cave went dead silent.
Konan froze. It wasn't just the fact that he had singled her out.
It was the honorific.
Nee. Big Sister.
He said it with such casual familiarity, like he hadn't just met her an hour ago.
Her heart skipped a beat—not out of romance, but out of sheer, unadulterated dread!
She had just sat through his lecture on menstrual cycles and hemorrhoids. If he was calling on her next, it couldn't be good.
Konan closed the distance between them in two strides. She placed a hand firmly on Makoto's shoulder, her amber eyes wide and pleading.
Her stoic mask cracked completely.
"I am begging you," she whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of threat and desperation.
"Don't."
Makoto looked at her hand, then back at her face. He gave her a reassuring, wholesome smile.
"Ah, I see. Since Konan-nee is begging me so earnestly, I have no choice but to announce this plan to the entire group immediately."
"That is not what I meant!" Konan hissed, her fingers tightening on his shoulder.
She was torn.
On one hand, she wanted to turn him into origami and burn him. On the other hand, his previous plan—insane as it was—was logically sound and benefitted Nagato's vision.
She was paralyzed by the terrifying possibility that he might actually be a genius.
"Konan-nee," Makoto asked, his voice turning professional. "Your paper ninjutsu. Specifically, the Dance of the Shikigami. Your disguise capabilities are top-tier, right?"
Konan hesitated. She let go of his shoulder and stepped back, regaining her composure.
"It... is decent."
Decent was an understatement. She had prepared a sea of six hundred billion explosive tags to kill "Madara."
Her paper could mimic trees, water, earth—even skin. If she wanted to hide something, God himself wouldn't find it.
"Why?" she asked, her guard up.
"Perfect," Makoto nodded. "Here is the plan. We utilize your paper disguise technique. We take millions of explosive tags and you disguise them."
"Disguise them as what?" Sasori rasped.
Makoto grinned.
"As toilet paper."
The silence in the cave was heavy enough to crush a tank.
"We mix these disguised tags into the commercial shipments sent to the Five Great Shinobi Nations," Makoto continued, his voice rising with passion. "We flood the market. High-quality, double-ply softness. And when the daimyo, the Kage, and the wealthy merchants sit down on their porcelain thrones... when they reach out to wipe their ass..."
Makoto threw his arms wide, mimicking Pain's signature pose.
"LET THE WORLD KNOW PAIN!"
He then struck a pose that looked suspiciously like Deidara's.
"ART IS AN EXPLOSION!"
...
A crow cawed somewhere outside the cave.
The members of the Akatsuki stared at him. They were stunned. Shocked.
A few were horrified!
"Why..." Hidan broke the silence, blinking rapidly. "Why did those last two sentences sound so cool when Leader and the Blonde Brat say them, but so... wrong coming from you?"
For once, Hidan had identified the problem perfectly.
Deidara looked like he had swallowed a lemon.
His face turned a shade of red that clashed with his cloak.
"My line..." Deidara whispered, clutching his chest. "He used my sublime artistic motto... for a poop joke? For blowing up someone's ass?!"
Deidara felt a wave of nausea.
It was like watching someone use a Picasso painting to clean up vomit. He looked at Konan with genuine sympathy.
"I'm begging you..." Deidara muttered, unconsciously repeating Konan's earlier plea. "Make him stop."
"Get in line, bomber," Makoto snapped, pointing a finger at the Angel. "I am currently discussing the proprietary technology exclusive to Konan-nee."
Konan stood there. Her expression was a complex tapestry of emotions: helplessness, resignation, second-hand embarrassment, and a tiny, horrifying sliver of admiration.
'I can do that,' she thought. 'I can actually do that. But... should I?'
"NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!"
A deep, furious roar shook the stalactites.
Everyone jumped.
They turned to see Kakuzu stepping forward, his fists clenched, veins bulging on his forehead.
The Akatsuki members were stunned.
Kakuzu? The man who would sell his own mother for a nickel? He was objecting? Was this... a moral objection? Had they misjudged the old miser? Did he actually have a line he wouldn't cross?
"Why?" Makoto and Konan asked in unison.
They looked at each other, surprised by their synchronization.
Kakuzu stomped over to Makoto, getting right in his face.
His green eyes were burning with rage!
"Do you have any idea," Kakuzu spat, "how much a single Exploding Tag costs to manufacture? The chakra-infused paper? The ink? It's expensive!"
He gestured wildly.
"And do you know how much a roll of toilet paper costs? Pennies! You want to take a premium military asset and disguise it as a product that sells for nothing?! The profit margins would be in the negatives! We would be bankrupt in a week! Have you even calculated the ROI?! YOU IDIOT!"
Konan let out a breath she didn't know she was holding.
'Thank god.'
For a second, she thought Kakuzu had figured out her secret stash of six hundred billion tags.
But no, he was just being cheap.
Makoto sighed, shaking his head with pity. "Ah, Kakuzu. This is why you're still counting coins while I'm planning empires. Your view is too narrow."
Kakuzu's eyes narrowed into slits. "My view is narrow? Boy, do you know how long I have lived? I fought the First Hokage!"
"And? Did you win?" Makoto shot back instantly. "Doesn't look like it. If you haven't lived a thousand years, don't pull the seniority card on me. I'm talking economics."
Kakuzu growled, but he didn't attack.
The kid had nerve!
"Listen," Makoto lectured, pacing back and forth. "I heard about your philosophy. Hidan asked why you don't kill the bounty station staff to steal their money. You said, 'Sustainable development.' That was smart. It's just that on this matter, you're still only seeing the immediate benefits, not the long-term development."
Makoto held up two fingers.
"First: Military spending. The money you 'save' by hoarding tags will eventually become reparations paid to the Leaf when they kick our teeth in. You have to spend money to conquer the world, Kakuzu."
"Second," Makoto continued, "remember the industrial plan for Amegakure? Once the factories are running, we aren't just disguising tags. We are producing the toilet paper itself. We create a monopoly. Toilet paper from the Land of Fire? Might explode. Toilet paper from the Land of Lightning? Might explode. But Akatsuki Brand toilet paper? Guaranteed safe. Soft. Durable."
Makoto smiled wickedly.
"The Five Great Nations will have to buy from us. We control the supply. And once we control the paper, we control the message. We print subtle propaganda on every sheet. When a daimyo is sitting on the toilet, what does he read? Our slogans. Our ideals. We influence them at their most defensible moment."
"And," Makoto lowered his voice, glancing at the cave entrance where Hidan had been, "if they choose not to buy our paper? They have to use sticks. Or leaves. Or cheap, rough paper."
He looked meaningfully at Kakuzu.
"Rough paper causes scratches. Scratches cause bleeding. And if they bleed..."
Makoto let the sentence hang in the air.
Kakuzu froze.
The gears in his head spun rapidly.
'If they bleed... Hidan gets the blood.'
It was a closed loop.
A perfect ecosystem of commerce, violence, and terror.
"The plan... connects," Deidara muttered, horrified. "From top to bottom. From the industry to the... rear end. It's ridiculous, hmm! But... it works."
"I have another question," Kakuzu said, his anger replaced by cold calculation. "What you said about the propaganda. You want the Five Nations to accept Akatsuki's ideals through toilet reading? That is fanciful. The moment we start hunting Tailed Beasts, we become public enemy number one. No amount of soft paper will make them like us."
The room went quiet.
Pain shifted on his pedestal. Konan looked down.
It was the elephant in the room.
Their ultimate goal required global war.
"That brings me to the final item on the agenda," Makoto said.
His playful demeanor vanished. He looked tired, serious, and dangerous.
"I have decided that the Akatsuki will abandon the plan to capture the Tailed Beasts to create a Ten-Tails deterrent."
"..."
Pain's Rinnegan widened slightly.
This was heresy!
This was the foundation of everything they had built.
But the person who reacted most violently wasn't Pain.
It was the black blob attached to the white plant creature.
Black Zetsu felt a chill of genuine terror.
'Abandon the plan?' Black Zetsu's mind raced.
'I have spent a thousand years manipulating Indra and Ashura's reincarnations. I manipulated Madara. I manipulated Obito. I manipulated Nagato. All to free Mother. And this random civilian walks in and says 'Let's stop'?'
Black Zetsu decided, right then and there, that Makoto had to die.
He would signal Obito tonight.
This man was a variable he couldn't control.
But then, Makoto spoke again. And what he said made Black Zetsu's brain short-circuit completely.
"The Tailed Beast weapon is inefficient," Makoto stated calmly. "Our new plan is simple."
"We are going to unseal Kaguya Otsutsuki!"