After leaving the village, Nara Meika took out two sets of clothing and masks.
"We'll disguise ourselves as attendants of Fire Country nobles. We can't wear Konoha flak jackets."
While changing, Meika occasionally glanced toward Fox, trying to figure out who he really was. Unfortunately, Fox moved quickly — she saw nothing.
A town in western Fire Country.
Dressed in the long servant robes commonly seen in noble estates, masks covering their faces, Nara Meika and Yako entered an abandoned building on the outskirts of town.
Yako had no idea where Meika had obtained her intelligence, but this building supposedly concealed an underground bounty exchange.
The broken spiderwebs looked convincingly aged, as if no one had entered for years.
A thick layer of dust covered the ground, kicking up clouds with every step.
Reaching the stairwell, Meika descended toward the basement.
Inside the dark cellar, she tapped the wall with a specific rhythm.
A hidden door opened, light spilling out first.
The two entered.
A long counter divided the room. Behind it sat an old man, and behind him stood an entire wall of refrigerated cabinets filled with corpses.
Four guards stood at the corners in front of the counter.
Yako observed the old man. He wasn't weak — at least Tokubetsu jōnin level.
Among wandering shinobi, he would be considered strong.
As for the guards, they were roughly chūnin level.
"I'm here to post a commission," Nara Meika said.
The old man opened his eyes slightly, pulled out a ledger, and handed it to her.
She wrote down the name of a Sand shinobi jōnin and set the bounty at sixteen million ryō.
She unsealed three boxes filled with cash.
The old man carefully inspected the stacks of money.
"A Sand jōnin named Tade. His previous bounty was eleven million. Looks like his strength has increased.
But… is this your first time at an underground exchange?"
Meika paused, nodding, unsure where she had gone wrong.
"For bounty commissions," the old man continued, "you also pay a twenty percent handling fee. That means an additional 3.2 million."
Meika froze.
She had thought her preparations were sufficient — gathering contact information, locating the exchange precisely.
Apparently, her intelligence still lacked detail.
She summoned another box of money and counted out the additional amount.
"Mr. Kintail, my partner and I serve Fire Country nobles. We're also bounty hunters. Please show us the bounty handbook."
The old man — Kintail — looked momentarily startled. It had been a long time since anyone used his name.
In a place like this, names didn't matter. People only needed to know he ran the exchange.
Meika had deliberately spoken his name, demonstrating her investigative reach.
"This is the bounty ledger."
She accepted the book and flipped through it quickly.
From behind, Yako glanced over, curious whether his own name appeared among the bounties.
"Why are there no bounties on Fire Country nobles or Konoha shinobi?" Meika asked.
"This is Fire Country," Kintail replied. "Naturally there are no bounties here on Fire Country nobles or Konoha shinobi. If you want that information, go to another nation."
One of the exchange's methods of self-preservation.
In Fire Country, they avoided Fire Country business. The same applied elsewhere.
Yako remembered how Kakuzu had once collected Chiriku's bounty within Fire Country's exchange — and even killed Sarutobi Asuma afterward.
Seems like, twenty years later, Konoha must have weakened considerably. The exchange wouldn't have been this cautious otherwise.
Meika nodded, memorized several names, and left.
Outside, they walked a distance away.
"Fox," Meika said, "we need to track these people — see where they go and who they contact.
The underground exchange is mysterious. Even now, the village doesn't know who stands behind it.
Sixteen million is a huge sum. Kintail won't hold onto it personally. He'll likely pass it up the chain."
"No problem tracking them," Yako replied. "But not both of us."
"Hm? What do you mean?"
"I'll handle it alone. I specialize in Earth Release — tracking underground is difficult to detect. Bringing you would be different."
"You stay safe. Don't wander until I return."
Meika felt displeased, but she understood. Both were jōnin, yet Fox's strength far exceeded hers.
She had heard his name many times among the jōnin leadership.
The missions he completed involved Jinchūriki or even Uchiha Madara.
In such missions, her role would be strategic planning and report writing — not combat.
This was the tragedy of the Nara clan.
Countless strategies in mind, yet without sufficient strength, all tactics required others to execute.
"I'll wait here."
Seeing her cooperation, Yako formed seals and used Hidden Fish in Earth Technique to slip underground.
Once deep beneath the earth, he immediately switched techniques and vanished.
Meika tried to track his movement — but Fox disappeared completely.
During the investigation of Golden ironwood in the Land of Wind, she had once felt like an essential combat support.
Now she couldn't even participate.
Yako returned to the underground exchange.
Kintail still leaned back in his chair, pretending to sleep. The four guards stood motionless.
None of them knew that beneath the long counter, a face stared upward from the floor.
Using the parasitic infiltration technique was incredibly strange.
He merged completely with the wooden counter, becoming indistinguishable from it.
During the Uchiha brothers' duel, even Itachi and Sasuke had failed to notice Zetsu nearby.
Several hours passed.
One of the refrigerated cabinet doors suddenly opened.
Yako tilted his head slightly, revealing more of himself from beneath the counter.
A corpse coming back to life? Why did the freezer open?
Kintail climbed inside.
Yako quickly moved closer, attempting to merge with the cabinet — but it was made of metal, not organic material. He failed.
He heard a muffled voice from within.
"Sir… someone has posted a new bounty…"
Yako's eyes widened.
A remote communication system?
Not ninjutsu — some kind of new technology.
Kintail remained cautious, saying nothing beyond his report.
Yako couldn't identify who the mysterious superior was.
Thinking it over, the shinobi world already had electric lights and devices. Perhaps scientific geniuses existed here too — remote communication wasn't impossible.
After speaking briefly, Kintail exited and resumed his resting pose behind the counter.
Late into the night, Kintail left with two guards, leaving two behind to rotate watch.
An hour after he departed, Yako moved.
The guards' eyes widened suddenly.
They couldn't move.
Sealing curse marks spread across their bodies, locking their jaws. Fearful groans escaped their throats.
Yako opened the freezer Kintail had used and climbed inside.
The moment he lay down, he heard a beeping sound.
Definitely some strange technological device.
He felt around, attempting to activate it.
Wait…
Why did that beeping sound like a countdown?
The thought had barely formed when the device initiated self-destruct.
Boom.
After the explosion, Yako fled underground in a disheveled state.
Later that night, Fox appeared with Body Flicker Technique, startling Nara Meika.
Not only was his Earth Release formidable — even his Body Flicker was extraordinary.
When others appeared behind her like that, it reminded her of encounters back when she was still a chūnin facing jōnin.
His cloak was torn, as if he had been caught in a close-range blast.
With strength like his, how had that happened?
Meika glanced once and analyzed calmly.
"A cylindrical explosion? Even distribution… Were you inside a cave lined with explosive tags?"
Not far from the truth.
"It was a cylindrical blast," Yako said. "Kintail hid a communication device inside the freezer.
After he left, I infiltrated it. The freezer detected I wasn't him — and exploded.
But I managed to retrieve some key components."
He handed her a circuit board.
The shinobi world's technology was chaotic — even circuit boards existed.
Meika examined it carefully.
"The greatest ninjutsu prodigies and bloodline users gather in ninja villages. No matter how much the daimyō secretly train rogue shinobi or expendable agents, they can't compete.
So they've invested effort elsewhere.
For example, the Lightning Country Electromagnetic Artisan Guild, or Fire Country's Power Engineering Guild — they've created many strange but useful inventions.
If I'm not mistaken, this circuit board comes from Lightning Country's electromagnetic artisans."
Yako blinked. The name sounded identical to terms from his previous life.
"So the underground exchange is backed by the daimyō of various nations?"
He continued thoughtfully.
"The daimyō have reasons to place bounties on shinobi. Exchanges exist across major and minor nations.
Fire Country exchanges avoid bounties on their own nobles or ninja… probably similar elsewhere.
This organization carefully serves the daimyō."
Meika nodded.
"When shinobi carry out missions, villages burn, reservoirs collapse.
To nobles and civilians, weak shinobi are disasters — strong ones are natural calamities.
The daimyō resent them, even if they cannot express it openly.
They cannot oppose the great villages directly, but they can hire bounty hunters against rogue shinobi. That was likely the exchange's original purpose.
Who knows… it may grow into something enormous someday."
"That depends on the strength of bounty hunters," Yako said.
"If one appeared with Kage-level strength and a love for money, every jōnin would tremble."
He was thinking of Kakuzu.
If the exchange ever nurtured three people like that, shinobi would never leave their villages without fear.
"Fox," Meika said, "our investigation ends here for now.
We have an opportunity for cooperation.
Right now, the priority is completing the bounty assassination — then reclaiming our money."
"Reclaim our money?" Yako asked.
"You mean we placed a sixteen-million bounty on that Sand jōnin… then kill him ourselves and collect it?
We already paid a 3.2 million fee.
I do all the work — and still lose 3.2 million — just to avoid retaliatory escalation from Sunagakure?"
"Yes," Meika replied calmly. "That's correct.
And we should move quickly. If another bounty hunter kills him, we won't lose 3.2 million — we'll lose nineteen point two million."
"Then we'd better hurry."
They set out for the Land of Wind.
Once inside, Yako summoned a scroll.
"Jōnin Meika, please step back. ANBU confidential."
She rolled her eyes.
"I'm Lord Shikakaku's chief aide. I know most of the village's secrets.
That's a Root-transferred ANBU spy communication scroll, isn't it?"
Even ANBU secrets were known to her.
"I know you know," Yako said calmly. "But please respect ANBU. Many spies risk their lives protecting this information.
This mission is special — even with my status, I can only use this communication scroll once.
Please turn around."
She reluctantly complied.
Yako opened the scroll and took out a vial, smearing its blood onto the parchment.
It wasn't his blood.
It belonged to Long-Arm Ape.
Yellow Dog's new assistant — the one controlling the spy network.
Forming hand seals, Yako used the blood sample to summon two ninja hawks.
These trained hawks enabled rapid intelligence transmission.
They flew off swiftly.
One reached an oasis and spotted concealed signals.
It circled overhead.
Inside the oasis, a Sand shinobi noticed the hawk — a Konoha spy embedded within Sunagakure.
He deciphered commands through the hawk's flight patterns — left, right, up, down.
Days later, the spy buried a scroll beneath a cactus, leaving hidden markers.
From high altitude, the hawk's vision spotted the signal easily and retrieved the tiny scroll.
Yako received it.
The Sand jōnin Tade was currently on assignment in the Capital of Wind Country and might soon return to Sunagakure.
Yako and Nara Meika lay in ambush outside the Wind Country capital.
Yako gazed at the city from afar.
A capital of adobe buildings, mostly one or two stories high. Noble estates used timber, rising to three or four stories.
After several days of waiting, anxiety crept into Meika's eyes.
If her plan caused the village to lose nineteen point two million ryō, it would be disastrous.
Yako noticed and said lightly, "The daimyō are too rich. Inflation has hit ninja bounties hard.
How could a Sand jōnin be worth sixteen million? He might never earn that much in his life."
Meika shook her head.
"Tade is a renowned puppet master in Sunagakure. Likely elite jōnin level."
"Puppet master? Elite jōnin?"
Yako thought, 'That's practically tailored for me.'
At night, Tade departed the capital with three genin after completing his mission.
Like Konoha, all major villages required jōnin to serve as instructors at the academy, helping rebuild strength.
Desert temperatures dropped sharply at night.
The air hovered around four or five degrees.
Tade stretched out a hand, feeling the wind.
Tonight… it felt colder than usual.