In Team One, Asuma was the Hokage's son, Hyūga Hizashi was the clan head's own younger brother—branch family or not, still a noble—and even Kurenai had a jōnin father. None of them had ever really needed to worry about money.
Feiyu Uchiha was a different story.
To the Uchiha clan he was basically invisible. His parents had been ordinary civilians, and there was no compensation payout waiting for him. For years, aside from hunting to help cover expenses, he'd been burning through the little inheritance his parents left behind. You could say he was slowly eating his way into poverty.
Under those circumstances, of course Feiyu cared a lot about money. In the world of shinobi, money was also a form of power.
If he'd been rich from the beginning, he would've hired people like Kakuzu to capture a bunch of runaway Chunin and jōnin, then strip their souls one by one to train his techniques. He wouldn't have had to wait until now to finally get someone at Sakumo's level as a spirit suitable for possession.
Ordinary Chunin souls didn't boost his stats that much, and Feiyu refused to use the "spirit-nurturing" part of his technique on human souls, which made them look almost worthless.
But in reality, almost every Chunin had solid experience with ninjutsu. Veteran Chunin had usually already started working on chakra nature transformation. If Feiyu could harvest their experience and patch his own weaknesses, he was confident he could reach elite jōnin level in a very short time.
It was already close to noon when Hizashi took the three of them out for lunch. After they'd eaten, he brought them to the mission desk in the Hokage Building.
Because war was looming, all D-rank missions in Konoha had been cancelled. Now, missions started at C-rank by default.
For a brand new three-man cell, C-rank was the highest they were allowed to take. C-ranks involved danger, but usually not enemy shinobi—more often bodyguard work, escort duty, or driving off dangerous animals.
Hizashi scanned the mission list, then picked out a "drive away wild beasts" job and led his three little rookies out of the tower.
Escort and bodyguard missions tended to be long—one or two days minimum, sometimes more. A beast removal job was much simpler. With no civilians slowing them down, if it was nearby they might finish in just two or three hours.
This time Hizashi had deliberately chosen a village not far from the village. According to the report, something had been attacking their livestock—cows and sheep—and the villagers' traps did nothing. Two hunters who could use chakra had been mauled and eaten.
In the world of Naruto, basic chakra extraction was fairly widespread. Plenty of civilians could refine chakra even if they didn't know any ninjutsu.
And even that level—just having chakra—was enough to make them small-scale superhumans compared to real-world people, able to take on ten men alone. Ordinary lions and tigers wouldn't be a match for them at all.
If something was eating hunters like that, then it was almost certainly a chakra beast.
Hizashi had chosen this mission specifically to give Asuma and Kurenai a chance to grow.
As for Feiyu… a mission that could seriously challenge him was probably A-rank or a straight deployment to the front lines.
"We're here. This is the village," Hizashi said, stopping at the outskirts and leading the three of them inside.
"Are you ninja from the Hidden Leaf? You've finally come!"
An old man in his fifties stepped out to greet them. The village was close enough to Konoha that he was used to seeing shinobi. Even when he saw Hizashi's pale eyes, he didn't panic.
"That beast is getting more and more brazen. Just last night, Jirō was hiding inside his own house and that monster still ate him. We're at our wits' end—please, you have to drive it away!"
"It's started attacking people directly… then we really can't let it live," Hizashi said, his brow furrowing.
Chakra had a kind of "awakening" effect on animals. Even an ordinary frog or puppy, once it possessed chakra, would slowly become smarter. Some chakra beasts could grow far more intelligent than humans; even the dull ones usually had the wits of an eight- or nine-year-old child.
Beasts like that generally wouldn't attack humans for no reason. But once one started actively hunting people, it would likely become a habit—and then it was just a matter of time before it turned into a true man-eating monster.
"Maybe it was those two hunters who angered it last time," the elder said with a bitter face. "Before that, it only killed our livestock. Now it's started eating people."
"By the way, Elder," Asuma cut in, "you keep calling it a monster, but what is it actually? What kind of animal?"
At that, the village chief's expression twisted with frustration.
"That… I honestly don't know. Its claw marks look like they belong to some kind of lizard. It's active at night and sleeps by day. Everyone who's seen its true form has already been eaten."
"What's worse, aside from claw marks at the scene, there are no tracks at all. No prints leading in or out. We can't trace its movements anywhere!"
"So it's no ordinary chakra beast," Hizashi murmured. "Still… finding things is my specialty. Leave this one to me."
That was the confidence of someone who possessed the Byakugan.
An hour later, Hizashi felt thoroughly slapped in the face.
He'd checked every scene: the cowshed, the sheep pen, the clearing where the two hunters died, even Jirō's house where he'd been eaten. He'd inspected every inch.
Nothing.
Aside from those lizard-like claw marks where people or animals had been killed, there were no tracks approaching or leaving. It was as if the thing appeared out of thin air and vanished the same way.
Hizashi had also used his Byakugan to sweep the nearby forests several times. He saw plenty of ordinary wildlife, but no trace of a chakra beast.
"Sensei, where is that monster? You couldn't find it even with your Byakugan?" Asuma asked, frowning.
Hizashi could only shake his head helplessly.
"It is… strange," he admitted.
"If it's not leaving tracks on the ground, could it be some kind of flying animal?" Kurenai suggested, frowning herself.
Hizashi immediately shook his head.
"Judging from the size of the claw marks, the creature should be quite large. If it could fly, it would definitely leave damage in the forest or on rooftops. At the very least, the house Jirō died in would have holes in the roof."
"Then what is going on?" Asuma muttered. "Don't tell me this thing actually has some kind of space–time ninjutsu…"
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