Sato's team left Konoha with Hyuga Hinata and Hyuga Neji as soon as C gave them the bad news.
They had to leave quickly because the bounty on Sato was obviously Konoha's doing, the longer they stay in this village, the worse their situation will become.
*Swish*
Three adults and two children were running towards the hidden Cloud, one of the adult had the two children hanging on his shoulder.
This adult was a man in his prime, he had solid muscles, strong body and a serious face.
Bur the thing which stood out most about this man was his multicolored eyes, one of which was green and the other one was golden yellow.
Yugito who was running with this man turned to look at the him with love and a little bit of concern, she opened her lips and softy asked.
"Sato, do you want me to carry them? Aren't you tired?"
Yes, that's right, this man was Sato, because he was assigned a bounty he wanted to hide his existence for a while.
So he decided to copy Tsunade's method and used Transformation justu on himself, his current transformation was his future adult form.
"I am good, I barely feel any strain, more importantly I want you and C to remain at your best in case we encounter Kakuzu."
"I might be strong but I lack experience, I cannot deal with a guy like Kakuzu right now, the best I can do is keep Hinata and Neji safe."
Sato said in a deep magnetic voice, he looked like a seasoned ninja right now.
Of course, all this was fake and the work of transformation justu, Sato was still a kid and didn't grow up overnight, it would need him many more years to attain this body naturally.
"It feels weird to hear you talk."
Yugito said in a distracted way, although she knew this was transformation jutsu it still felt awkward to her.
"Look out!"
Out of nowhere C exclaimed with an urgent voice.
*Swish*
The trio quickly flickered out of the way and scattered in different directions.
*Boom*
The very next second, an earth style justu hit their previous spot, creating a crater in the ground.
"Cough cough"
Hinata and Neji coughed as the smoke and dust dispersed into the air.
Sato wanted to help them but he didn't dare to let his guard down right now, this was a very good earth style ninjutsu, someone had come for his head.
"The two tails jinchuriki, C, the ambassador of cloud, two Hyuga children without caged bird, and you-"
"The man with the same eyes as Sato the headhunter, you have a good disguise but you can't fool me, it's you, using the transformation jutsu."
A gruff voice came from behind the dust, and a man with solid green eyes came out of the smoke.
"Your team is a walking goldmine, the two Byakugan alone will fetch me a solid amount of cash."
The man named Kakuzu stared at their group, his eyes glued to Sato and the two trembling Hyuga children.
'Dammit! I was hoping that we could avoid this guy but our location was leaked, it's that bastard Danzo wasn't he, he leaked our location.'
Sato growled internally, he wasn't very sure about their chances against Kakuzu.
In the original story, Yugito had smartly trapped both Hidan and Kakuzu in a cave full of deadly traps, she was still cautious and proceeded to transform into her full tailed beast form, but then Hidan had casually destroyed her and nailed her dying self to the wall like it was nothing.
All the while Kakuzu hadn't even moved and Hidan took no damage whatsoever, to top it all off, this was a 29 year old Yugito with a decade more experience than now.
Sato would be lying if he said he had confidence in Yugito to take out Kakuzu if she couldn't even do so for Hidan, she would lose unless she knew the secret to Kakuzu's immortality.
'I need to tell her, but how, I can't just know about his secret when no one else does.'
Sato frowned, maybe he had to step into this fight himself, but his chances of surviving against Kakuzu were slim.
He didn't have much ninja experience, he did have a bit of experience fighting against ninja's by now, but that wouldn't help against someone as old as Kakuzu.
'Shit man, we are in deep very shit.'
Sato cursed Danzo's whole family and then some more, but he had to get himself together all they'll all die.
But before he starts throwing hands against Kakuzu, he wanted to see if he could avoid him altogether.
"Kakuzu, the old legend, they say you'll do anything for money."
Sato tilted his head with his calm multicolored eyes starting at Kakuzu.
"Will you let us go if I were to give you more money than our combined bounty?"
Sato asked in a deep magnetic voice, and against all odds, Kakuzu really stopped in his place.
"How much more money are we talking about? When can you give it to me?"
Sato sighed with relief internally, at least there was a chance to get out without fighting, meanwhile Yugito and C looked rather speechless.
"How much is our bounty?"
Sato wanted to confirm what amount of money he was playing with, as he had a grand total of zero ryo in his account right now, he had to rely on Yugito and C if he wanted to pay.
Kakuzu stopped talking and brought out a bunch bounty posters and a calculator out of his robes.
He started to carefully go through the bounty posters one by one.
"Your bounty is 20 million ryo, the two Hyuga will sell for 500 million ryo individually, I can get upto 2 billion ryo if I sell their body and Byakugan seperately."
"The two tails jinchuriki Yugito Nii has a bounty of 50 million ryo, while C the ambassador has a total of 30 million ryo."
Kakuzu carefully added the numbers into his calculator and spoke only after calculating five times.
"A total of 2 billion 100 million ryo, I will leave if you alone give me 3 billion ryo."
Kakuzu said seriously, and Sato grabbed his hair in despair, 3 billion ryo?! Yugito's entire property was only 200 million ryo.
Where the hell was he gonna get so much money.
"While I know the answer already, sister, do you have this much?"
Yugito shook her head, seeing which Kakuzu looked at them dangerously, Sato seemed thoughtful and tried one last time.
"Can I owe it to you? I know a businessman who can give you this much, I can even hire you for a fixed salary later."
Sato suggested seriously and Kakuzu once again stopped for a while before he shook his head.
"No, owed money isn't reliable, if you can't pay me now, I can't let you go."
*Boom*
The seasoned ninja Kakuzu didn't waste a second and immediately attacked Sato, who was taken aback by the sudden attack.
'Sneak attacking as soon as the negotiations broke down, shameless fellow!'
*Rip*
A kunai swiftly slashed across Sato's neck, somehow he barely managed to move out of the way but it managed cut open a large wound on his chest.
*Splash*
A large amount of blood splashed out of Sato's open wounds and dyed the ground red, some white bones were also visible through the cut open flesh.
"Aaagh!"
Sato growled like a wounded beast, the sudden pain aroused his ferocious nature, he didn't want to fight Kakuzu but that didn't mean he was gonna sit and wait for death.
"Hah!!"
*BOOM*
Sato ignored the tearing pain and suddenly punched the ground, using Tsunade's move he changed the whole terrain once again.
He knew he couldn't fight against Kakuzu in hand to hand combat, so he decided to maintain distance.
*Swish*
Sato quickly flickered away using the dust as a cover and ran behind Yugito.
"Are you okay Sato?!"
Yugito asked with fear and anger, how dare this bastard sneak attack Sato.
"You bastard! How dare you hurt him!"
*Growl!*
Yugito morphed into a gigantic fire cat rushed towards Kakuzu.
"No sister stop!"
Sato yelled with wide eyes while clutching his chest, she was doing the very thing which got her killed in the orginal story, attacking without knowing their secret.
Him being sneak attacked sent Yugito in a rage state, which was the worst possible state for her to fight Kakuzu in.
To fight against an immortal like Kakuzu rage wasn't something which worked, only strategy did, and she wasn't exactly in the state to listen to strategy anymore.
Advanced chapters ahead on patréon
www.patréon.com/ImagineMaker