"That water is undrinkable!"
The group merely glanced at Yōkō before continuing towards Crescent Moon Lake.
Yōkō quickened his pace and stopped them.
The leading girl had strange hair color, blue on the top half and yellow at the tips.
In the scorching desert, she wore very little, yet her exposed shoulders, arms, and waist weren't sun-tanned at all; they were very fair.
This girl had a special constitution.
"This water is undrinkable, it's clearly highly poisonous. If you need water, leave this place and find another oasis."
The girl looked at Yōkō's chapped lips and said, "Thank you for the warning, but don't worry, I have a way. I can get water to drink."
Yōkō was taken aback. He looked back at the purple Crescent Moon Lake, then at the girl.
If you can get water to drink, wasn't my poisoning effort in vain?
Yōkō became interested and followed them, wanting to see what the girl would do.
The girl knelt by the small lake, her hands hovering over the water's surface.
Before long, the purple water surface began to steam and then churn.
Yōkō was puzzled. Why could this girl heat the water? And this heating method didn't seem like Fire Release; it was more like some kind of evaporation ability.
A child placed a basin over the girl's hands, also covering the steam.
Soon, a thin layer of condensed steam droplets formed in the basin.
The child took the basin down, collected the condensed steam droplets, and poured them into another basin.
The girl and the three children labored arduously to evaporate the water vapor.
Yōkō went over and asked, "What's your name?"
"Pakura."
Pakura? Scorch Release Pakura?
Looking at Pakura's hair color, Yōkō was sure this girl would later become Sunagakure's elite jōnin, Scorch Release Pakura.
He just didn't know why Pakura hadn't entered Sunagakure yet and was currently a civilian of the Land of Wind.
Sunagakure didn't seem to have a tradition of the Scorch Release Kekkei Genkai; perhaps they only acquired this bloodline by chance.
It took half an hour for them to produce a small basin of water.
Pakura, unsure if the water was drinkable, performed a second evaporation on the half-basin of water.
After the second evaporation, there was even less water, just a shallow layer at the bottom of the basin.
Pakura said, "I'll test it. If the water is drinkable, we won't die of thirst!"
Yōkō reached out and stopped Pakura, saying, "Let me test it instead. I'm healthy."
He had the Senju clan constitution; even if he ingested a little poison, he could recover from it.
Pakura and the children looked frail, and a bit of toxin might kill them on the spot.
Yōkō, at 17 years old, already had the height of an adult.
As Pakura tried to stop him, Yōkō had already snatched the basin and taken a small sip.
Pakura opened her peach-like eyes wide, staring at Yōkō.
Yōkō licked his lips, his expression changing dramatically.
Pakura was startled.
"Are you okay?! Is there still poison in the water? I'm sorry, I... I-I-I..."
"No!" Yōkō raised his hand, saying, "There's no poison in the water, but!"
Pakura relaxed upon hearing there was no poison, but seeing Yōkō's conflicted expression, she felt something was wrong.
"This basin... it wasn't found under a bed, was it?"
A child nodded repeatedly, pointing to a tent and saying, "It was found under a bed in that tent."
Yōkō was at a loss for words. "Basins for drinking water definitely shouldn't be under beds. Change the basin, you must change the basin!"
These hopeless people... This taste...
Lucky they didn't find a basin in the latrine, or it would have been even worse.
Pakura jumped up excitedly, saying,
"I really can purify the poisoned water! Thank goodness, we won't die of thirst! Find some clean basins, let's continue collecting water!"
Seeing them struggle so inefficiently, Yōkō couldn't stand it.
It was too slow. Two rounds of evaporation and distillation, and they couldn't even produce a full basin of water by noon.
He found a piece of waterproof cloth, similar to plastic, and used a long pole to set up an inverted cone shape over the water surface, signaling Pakura to use her ability directly beneath the inverted cone.
Water vapor rose, and droplets condensed on the underside of the inverted waterproof cloth. As the droplets grew larger, they flowed down the slope to the tip of the cone.
Placing a basin under the tip, the basin quickly filled with water.
Yōkō had the children bring large jars and set up conical waterproof cloths on them too.
Once a large jar was full, Pakura would perform a second distillation on the water inside.
With Yōkō's involvement, their water collection speed increased significantly.
The youngest child stared eagerly at the water, occasionally glancing at Pakura.
Pakura smiled and said, "Drink. We'll have water to drink from now on."
After the children drank, Yōkō also filled two canteens.
He was almost dying of thirst himself.
One canteen was for him, the other Yōkō planned to bring to Hamo, who was hiding and scouting on the periphery that night.
Hamo was responsible for guarding from the shadows as a backup.
After nightfall, Yōkō found an empty tent to rest in.
In the latter half of the night, he used Earth Release to sneak out of the tent and went outside the oasis.
Hamo was lying buried in the sand, watching the distance with a telescope.
"Hamo, have some water."
Hamo, who had been unbearably thirsty for a long time, drank half the canteen in large gulps upon hearing there was water.
Water created by Water Release is undrinkable.
The nature transformation of the water attribute chakra produces water, but when the chakra dissipates, the water also disappears.
This is why large bodies of water created by Water Release recede quickly.
Even if drunk, it only fools oneself; it doesn't become moisture for the body, only turns into unabsorbable chakra, and is harmful if consumed in excess.
Yōkō handed him another canteen, saying, "Tomorrow night, I'll bring you two more canteens."
Hearing there was another one, Hamo tilted his head back and finished the first canteen.
"Leader, where did you get the water?"
"Those people in the oasis actually have a method to evaporate and collect water. I got it from them."
"What? Then our mission failed? Should we kill them?"
Yōkō said, "It's fine. That evaporation ability is extremely rare. It's sufficient to supply a few people, but far from enough to supply a large Sand ninja force."
Yōkō returned to the oasis and rested in his tent.
In the latter half of the night, he suddenly opened his eyes, hearing gusts of wild, howling wind.
A massive sandstorm was coming to the desert!
Yōkō rushed out of the tent, looking up at the sandstorm.
Sand flew like a moving wall, blotting out the moonlight.
Sensing carefully, there was no chakra in this sandstorm; it was naturally formed.
At that moment, a scream came from the direction of Crescent Moon Lake.
Yōkō looked over and saw a tent by the lake being blown away, revealing Pakura, who was bathing inside.
Pakura was actually bathing in the middle of the night. Now, with the tent gone, she sat naked on the ground.
Her fair, slender back seemed to brighten the night.
The finest back in the shinobi world, radiant and dazzling.
Yōkō used Body Flicker to reach her, grabbing a piece of cloth mid-air to wrap around the dripping wet Pakura.
Pakura looked up and saw it was Kōji, the wandering ninja from the Land of Wind, who had helped them fetch water during the day.
"Don't look! Don't look up!"
Yōkō picked up Pakura, who had curled into a ball, and left the lake, heading back to his own tent.
Just then, the tent of the three children swayed precariously, about to be torn away by the sandstorm.
Pakura struggled in Yōkō's arms, shouting, "Oh no, put me down, I need to save them!"
She couldn't even care about her shyness anymore, her upper body wriggling out of Yōkō's embrace.
"Don't act recklessly, let me handle it." Yōkō held Pakura's waist with one arm and formed hand seals with the other:
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Rising Spears!"
Several earth spears emerged, securing the children's tent.
Yōkō then carried Pakura into his own tent, also reinforcing it with earth spears.
After securing the tent, Yōkō turned to look and saw Pakura sitting on the ground with her back to him.
Her beautiful back was completely exposed to his view.
***
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(Chapter End)