Chapter 52: Harvest
"Lord Orochimaru, we have indeed extracted a lot of useful information from the minds of these Sand Ninja; Baosha Town is currently being held by Chiyo, the puppeteer from Sand Ninja Village, but she is the only high-ranking Sand Ninja who has come to Baosha Town. The Fourth Kazekage is currently mobilizing supplies and personnel in Sand Ninja Village and will not arrive in Baosha Town with the Sand Ninja troops for at least ten days."
A Yamanaka Clan ninja slowly relayed the intelligence he had extracted to Orochimaru and the other Jonin leaders. It must be said that Hyuga Mirai was quite lucky; among these Sand Ninja, one happened to have a Jonin elder brother, and he had gained a lot of information from his elder brother at home, all of which was now read from his mind by the Yamanaka Clan ninja.
Orochimaru asked, "What is the number of Sand Ninja in Baosha Town?"
Yamanaka Arashi replied, "According to the memories in the minds of these Sand Ninja and the intelligence brought back by other reconnaissance teams, there are about 1,100 people, not including non-combat ninja, but the exact number is unknown."
One thousand one hundred Sand Ninja. The Konoha Ninja at Kikyō Castle, even with the reinforcements, numbered only over 700. After excluding Medical Ninja, logistics and transport personnel, the number of combat-ready Konoha Ninja was only a little over 430.
However, the average quality of Konoha Ninja was definitely higher than that of Sand Ninja. Leaving aside other things, in terms of cooperation in Ninjutsu-type Ninjutsu, Konoha Ninja absolutely surpassed Sand Ninja by a large margin. On this point, even the cautious Nara Shikaku had to admit the advantage of Konoha Ninja.
Nara Shikaku pondered the matter and concluded that attacking Baosha Town would be beneficial to Konoha. Even if the results were not significant, this sneak attack could still deter the Sand Ninja.
However, Nara Shikaku could not bear the responsibility of initiating a war on his own. If Orochimaru were not the overall commander and insisted on it, Nara Shikaku would have certainly advised against it repeatedly.
"There's one more thing."
Yamanaka Arashi hesitated for a moment but still decided to speak.
"The personal ninja tool bags of those ten Sand Ninja were all taken by Hyuga Mirai. When I went to inquire, he only handed over a mission assignment letter issued by the Kazekage."
Orochimaru's hoarse voice interrupted Yamanaka Arashi, saying, "Yamanaka-kun, there's no need to report such a small matter. The information from the Sand Ninja's minds is enough."
"Yes, Lord Orochimaru."
Yamanaka Arashi was not without discernment; he simply thought that there might be other important information in the Sand Ninja's personal belongings that should be handed over to the intelligence unit for careful analysis.
However, since Orochimaru had spoken, Yamanaka Arashi no longer intended to pursue the matter.
Inside the house, Hyuga Kiyomi, frowning slightly at what had just happened, said to Hyuga Mirai,
"You should have given them the items just now; they would have returned them to you later anyway."
"There's no need for that. It's already good if a Chunin carries one mission assignment letter. Who would be so foolish as to put classified information on a Chunin? Instead of going through a pointless process, it's better to just tell them directly."
Hyuga Mirai opened the checked ninja tool bags one by one, then took out everything inside and sorted them.
Two hundred and forty Shuriken, one hundred and sixty Kunai, seventy Exploding Tags, as well as military rations, Chakra threads, and puppet scrolls, among other things.
Hyuga Mirai mentally calculated the total value of this harvest. If he sold everything, it would be at least three million, with the bulk of it coming from those dozen or so puppets.
Hyuga Mirai took the puppets out of the scrolls and examined them. Under the Byakugan's ability, the mechanisms on the puppets had nowhere to hide, including the Chakra threads controlling the puppets. The threads that could manipulate the mechanisms were seen clearly by Hyuga Mirai.
"Looking at it this way, puppets are actually quite easy to control."
After Hyuga Mirai connected Chakra threads to his five fingers, with a slight movement of Chakra, he made the puppet move according to his will.
"Don't talk nonsense!"
Hyuga Kiyomi snorted, then immediately poured cold water on him, saying,
"Do you think everyone is like you, with both the Byakugan that can see through mechanisms and super strong Chakra control ability?"
Controlling a puppet so skillfully on the first try showed how proficient his Chakra control ability was. Under Hyuga Kiyomi's Byakugan, Hyuga Mirai could even control Chakra to detach from the threads and directly manipulate the attack mechanisms on the puppet with Chakra.
Seeing this, Hyuga Kiyomi couldn't help but blurt out, "Perhaps you could try developing in puppetry…" Such Chakra control ability, even within the entire Hyuga Clan, would probably be hard to find a second person with.
"Let's not. Puppets that require the user's direct control are a bit low-level."
Hyuga Mirai immediately refused. He only wanted to create a puppet control guide to help these puppets sell for a good price on the black market.
These trash puppets held no value in Hyuga Mirai's eyes. He could even create an identical one after memorizing its structure.
The structure and mechanisms were too simple, making it easy for opponents to find weaknesses and counter them in battle. However, the Sand Ninja probably thought of this, so they had puppeteers control two to three puppets, allowing them to cooperate and compensate for each other's shortcomings.
Hyuga Mirai looked down on these puppets. He had seen more advanced mechanical warriors from Kinnos and had no interest in these outdated pieces of junk.
"Kurenai, Kiyomi, share the supplies. I'll keep the puppets for now and give you your share after they're sold on the black market."
With a wave of his hand, Hyuga Mirai directly divided the Kunai, Shuriken, and other items into three portions.
With the unexpected income from this harvest, even though Hyuga Mirai used over a hundred Exploding Tags at once, he recovered a good amount of his expenses. Plus, with the merit from two A-rank missions and thirteen puppets, Hyuga Mirai still made a net profit of nearly one million.
Kurenai Yuhi happily accepted the Shuriken, Kunai, and other items, saying, "I don't need a share. It's thanks to Mirai-kun's plan and the Exploding Tags that we were able to complete this mission so smoothly. How about you treat me to a big meal when we get back?"
"Kurenai, please don't say things that are highly likely to not come true!"
Hyuga Mirai warned alertly. Fortunately, it was Kurenai Yuhi; if Tsunade had said that, this war would have been in grave danger.
After the reconnaissance mission was completed, the higher-ups temporarily did not let Hyuga Mirai's team continue reconnaissance in the Land of Rivers but instead had them patrol nearby.
This was an easy mission, although it involved patrolling the surroundings and being vigilant against enemy attacks.
However, the Sand Ninja currently did not have the capability to launch a large-scale attack on Kikyō Castle, and there were still many Konoha reconnaissance units in the Land of Rivers. Even if a small group of elite Sand Ninja infiltrated the vicinity, they would not escape the detection of two Byakugan.
'The Jonin who issued the mission probably considered that we had just completed a difficult reconnaissance mission, so they gave us an easy one.'
Thus, after accepting the patrol mission, Hyuga Mirai directly took Hyuga Kiyomi and Kurenai Yuhi to patrol the surroundings.
For a patrol mission, one only needed to complete the inspection within the designated areas, confirm no enemy traces, and then, after recording, proceed to the next location.
After two rounds of patrolling, they could return and report on the mission.
And Hyuga Mirai could conveniently use the patrol time to practice with the puppets he obtained from the Sand Ninja, then record various control methods. This way, he could pretend they were genuine Sand Ninja secret techniques, increasing their selling price.
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