Chapter 123: Konan
Asuka and the others' journey to the Land of Rain went remarkably smoothly.
They encountered neither any earth-shattering disasters nor any self-important fools trying to seduce someone else's wife.
By evening, a campfire slowly rose from the ground.
At that moment, Asuka sat across from Nanaka, poking at the flames with a stick as he asked,
"Captain, we've already reached the Land of Rain. Do we have any definite information on Orochimaru?"
"We can't just wander around aimlessly like headless flies, right?"
Nanaka was silent for a moment before answering,
"Wait for information. Get lucky. Search blindly."
"...?"
Asuka tilted his head and stared at his captain in confusion.
So we're really relying on a blind cat stumbling across a dead mouse?
Although Orochimaru had most likely gone to the country where Danzō's men had headed, shouldn't Konoha's Tactical Assassination Squad at least look a little more professional?
You can't operate like this.
Running blindly into another country and searching for someone like you're looking for a needle in a haystack?
"..."
Perhaps sensing that something was off about Asuka's gaze, Nanaka looked up at him and explained further.
"Orochimaru won't stay in one place for long. The intelligence we obtained before leaving the village indicated that he might have passed through those three countries."
"We can only use the stupidest method: gather information city by city."
Hearing this, Asuka glanced out the cave at the drizzle falling outside, then leaned against the cold stone wall and asked curiously,
"Is this how you've always pursued missing-nin?"
"Mm."
At that moment, the Akimichi clan member tossed the Rain shinobi aside and sat down beside Asuka. His booming voice rang out.
"Under normal circumstances, once the village receives information about a missing-nin, it dispatches Anbu to capture them."
"However, Orochimaru holds a very high position, and what he did this time was extremely heinous. Although the village knows the chances of capturing him are slim, it still dispatched a large number of Anbu shinobi to try to bring him back."
Asuka finally understood.
No wonder Sarutobi Nanaka isn't particularly enthusiastic about capturing him.
At first, he had thought there was some hidden information behind all this.
He hadn't expected it to simply be a matter of not wanting to go through the trouble.
He gestured toward the Rain shinobi beside him and asked,
"What should we do with this guy?"
The booming voice answered again,
"Keep him here for now. The day after tomorrow, we'll transfer him to the village through one of the Land of Rain's special channels."
Asuka nodded, then moved closer to the young man and carefully examined him from every angle.
Ever since hearing that Kushina had pulled out her own hair to leave a trail for someone, he had become somewhat paranoid about taking prisoners on the run.
What if this bald guy left behind some kind of special marker?
Better check carefully.
After thoroughly inspecting him, Asuka sat down beside the Rain shinobi, whose hands and feet were covered in explosive tags, and casually asked as though chatting with an old friend,
"I heard the Akatsuki, which was very active six months ago, no longer exists?"
Hmm?
Ōtaka Yūten's heart sank.
Looking at Asuka's calm face, he couldn't tell whether the question had been deliberate or merely casual.
"Haha. That... I don't know."
Hearing his perfunctory answer, Asuka leaned against the wall, his thoughts drifting toward a certain wealthy woman with blue-violet hair.
He wasn't interested in the Akatsuki.
But he was very interested in rich women.
Six hundred billion explosive tags.
The gods of his previous life had always said Kishimoto didn't understand mathematics. Asuka, however, couldn't comprehend the value of six hundred billion explosive tags.
According to some of the great mathematical gods from his previous life, if Konan had continuously produced explosive tags from the moment she learned ninjutsu until her death, she would have needed to make roughly 385 explosive tags every second.
Three hundred and eighty-five tags every second.
She's practically a human assembly line.
If he could get her to manufacture explosive tags beside him for an entire year...
With that kind of quantity, forget about using a nuclear bomb to blow up Danzō. He could level Konoha ten times over.
Hmm?
At that moment, Ōtaka Yūten suddenly shuddered.
He sensed an inexplicable malice radiating from beside him and turned to see drool trickling from the corner of Asuka's mouth.
"Are you thinking about something bad?"
"Not really."
After dragging Konan back from his imagination, Asuka sighed.
"I just want to see six hundred billion with my own eyes. Even if six hundred billion banknotes were piled in front of me, it would take me several years just to count them."
Hearing this inexplicable statement, Yūten frowned slightly.
"Six hundred billion what?"
"The story is about a goddess who possesses six hundred billion in wealth. It's the kind of fortune you couldn't count in an entire lifetime."
"What do you think of such a goddess?"
Six hundred billion?
Yūten instinctively interpreted the number as money.
There's no way you could spend all that money. Absolutely impossible.
Thinking of this, Ōtaka Yūten nodded firmly.
"Become her friend."
Asuka stared at him in surprise.
"Have you changed your mind already? Two days ago, you were still very interested in my teammate."
"No!"
Yūten shook his enormous head and secretly glanced at the woman holding the dog, speaking somewhat bashfully.
"I haven't changed my mind. I just want to become friends with someone worth six hundred billion."
The next moment, he muttered under his breath,
"Six hundred billion would be enough to keep the organization running for a very long time."
Caw! Caw! Caw!
Suddenly, the cry of a crow came from outside the cave.
Flap! Flap!
Seeing a crow fly toward them with a bamboo tube attached to its right leg, Sarutobi Nanaka raised an eyebrow and lifted her arm, allowing it to land.
She untied the tube, removed the binding, and poured out the document inside.
After scanning it, her expression became somewhat solemn.
"Something happened."
Asuka weighed the stone in his hand and asked,
"What happened?"
Nanaka expressionlessly tossed the intelligence into the campfire.
"Elder Danzō sent word. Orochimaru has appeared in the Land of Rice Fields and taken someone with him."
Judging by the crow's flying speed, it might have been in the air for several days already.
Looking at the faint redness on his captain's cheeks from the campfire's smoke, Asuka turned around and leaned against the stone wall again.
Just as expected.
Orochimaru really was "found" by Danzō in the end.
As for him escaping...
Only a fool would believe something like that.
The morning of the third day.
The rain was still falling, showing no sign of stopping.
Since they had received no new orders, Nanaka decided to take Asuka and hand the Rain shinobi over to the village first.
As for what the team would do with him afterward, that was no longer important to their current mission.
Watching his captain walking ahead, Asuka thought of the Akimichi and Inuzuka duo who had gone out to gather intelligence.
He couldn't help falling into thought.
Orochimaru is probably living a luxurious life somewhere under Danzō's arrangements, while those two idiots are still wandering around Amegakure gathering information...
Splash!
The sound of water interrupted his thoughts.
Seeing someone suddenly blocking his path, Asuka frowned slightly.
A straw hat.
A straw cloak.
Light-purple pants clinging tightly to her lower body...
A female shinobi?
At that moment, Yūten, restrained by Asuka, trembled violently.
He stared at the woman wearing the straw hat. His eyes gradually reddened, and his trembling lips repeatedly whispered,
"Go! Go! Don't worry about me!"
The woman in the straw hat shifted her gaze slightly downward, watching Yūten's trembling body.
She sighed inwardly.
"I can't bear the pain of losing another comrade."
She lowered her head, walked up to Asuka, and spoke softly.
"He's my comrade. Could you hand him over to me?"
"No."
Asuka rejected her without hesitation and reached for his ninja tool pouch.
Splash!
At that moment, he saw the woman in the straw cloak place her hands against her chest before slowly moving them downward.
"Shikigami Dance!"
The raindrops falling onto Asuka instantly transformed into sheets of white paper, wrapping tightly around him.
At the same time, Konan pulled Yūten backward.
"Lady Konan!"
Realizing that he was safe, Yūten could no longer hold back his tears.
They streamed down his face.
Konan patted him on the shoulder, her expression softening as she comforted him.
"If I hadn't happened to notice that familiar figure of yours, we might have missed you."
"Go back first. I'll handle things here."
"Lady Konan!"
As he spoke, Yūten looked worriedly at Asuka, who was completely wrapped in white paper.
"They're Konoha shinobi, and that man is a jōnin from the Uchiha clan."
"He has comrades too."
"Don't worry."
"His comrades have already been transferred elsewhere."
After saying this, Konan looked at the human-shaped cocoon of paper before her, her eyes flickering slightly.
Recently, she had had quite a lot of contact with Konoha Village.