An hour later.
The convoy slowly rolled out of the daimyo's palace district.
And at that moment, Kankurō finally reappeared after vanishing for a long time.
Only now he looked worn down, haggard, his face full of exhaustion.
On the slowly moving wagon, he sat across from Teizawa with a resentful glare, teeth clenched as he spat out the words.
"You bastard. Do you have any idea how I lived through last night?"
Thinking back on the absurd chaos, Kankurō felt like his legs were still trembling.
He couldn't take it. He really couldn't.
"No need to thank me," Teizawa said calmly, completely at ease. "I'm just your life mentor, that's all."
Life mentor?
"You…"
Kankurō puffed up in anger. "I'm telling Temari about you and that Ameno."
"Sure," Teizawa said without the slightest panic. "And I'll tell Temari her dear little brother is a lust-crazed menace who 'favored' six dancers in one night."
"Y… you. How do you know it was six?"
"Because I paid six hundred ryō, that's how. You think I wouldn't know?"
Kankurō's face twitched. "That's way too expensive. A brothel costs, like, a few ryō…"
"Oh?" Teizawa grinned. "So you know the going rate for brothels, huh?"
Kankurō ignored the jab and sighed bleakly.
"Th… this stays… stays in the stomach."
"Fair enough," Teizawa said with a smile that wasn't quite a smile. "I hope you keep a few other things in your stomach too."
Kankurō looked ready to cry from indignation. "Deal!"
"Still," Teizawa said, sounding genuinely impressed, "six of them. You really don't want to marry one? You're about at that age."
At the mention of it, Kankurō seemed to remember something and visibly shuddered.
"No. Absolutely not. Women are terrifying."
Teizawa snorted. "What a scumbag."
Kankurō's face twitched again. "You've got the nerve to call me that? You're the one who's still messing around with Ameno…"
"I didn't abandon her," Teizawa said righteously. "I'm even planning to visit the daimyo's palace a few more times later."
Kankurō stared at him in shock. "You're juggling two at once. That's shameless!"
Teizawa chuckled. "At least I'm better than you. You pull your pants up and pretend you don't know their names."
"I didn't pull anything up. They took my pants off," Kankurō snapped, face turning red with anger. "If you're so brave, you marry them…"
Teizawa shook his head in open disgust. "I'll pass. The 'secret path' you explored is probably already frosted over with someone else's snow."
Kankurō: "…"
…
Meanwhile.
Somewhere in a tall tower under endless rain, a conversation was taking place.
"Twenty-three billion? Where… where did he get that much money?"
The cold male voice carried unmistakable shock.
Then came a magnetic female voice.
"The Sand shinobi surrounded the Land of Wind's daimyo's palace, then extorted it from those ministers and nobles."
Silence for a moment.
Then the icy voice returned.
"As expected, this world has rotted. It needs correction and cleansing."
"Nagato, this money…"
She didn't finish, but the meaning was obvious.
She wanted it.
"Konan, send Kakuzu and Hidan," Nagato said. "Before the real plan begins, get that money."
Konan's expression remained cold, but her voice turned unusually serious.
"The ones escorting it are more than a thousand Sand shinobi. If it's just Kakuzu and Hidan, I'm afraid…"
"You want to…" Nagato hesitated.
Konan looked out at the curtain of rain and said, "I'm going too."
Another stretch of silence.
After a long moment, Nagato said in a low voice, "Be careful."
Konan didn't care. "Relax. Sunagakure doesn't have anyone worth taking seriously."
…
At the border of the Land of Earth.
Inside a tent at the Iwagakure camp.
"So the Tsuchikage's meaning is?" asked Bunsō, an elite jōnin with a towering build. His voice rumbled.
Across from him sat a girl in Iwagakure standard combat gear.
Her long, slender figure stood out sharply among a crowd of burly men.
Right now she was crossing a pair of shapely legs, idly twirling a kunai in her hand.
"The old man's meaning is that Sunagakure's money will be taken by wandering shinobi," she said.
The way she said it was absolute.
As if she didn't take Sunagakure seriously at all.
And that "wandering shinobi" line was even more ridiculous.
How many wandering shinobi would it take to dare rob an organized shinobi force?
It was just a scapegoat excuse. Nothing more.
Bunsō stayed calm, as befit an elite jōnin.
He only frowned slightly.
"Sunagakure has over a thousand Sand shinobi escorting it. We don't have enough people in the Land of Wind."
In the shinobi world, aside from the handful of outright cheaters.
If you wanted to swallow a thousand-strong force.
You had to bring numbers of your own.
Even if you counted every Iwa shinobi that had infiltrated the Land of Wind over the years, it was only five hundred.
Clearly, Iwagakure's manpower inside the Land of Wind wasn't enough.
That was why Bunsō hesitated.
The girl let out a mischievous laugh. "That's why I brought people."
Bunsō asked, "How many?"
"A thousand. They'll dress up as wandering shinobi and samurai and slip into the Land of Wind. Add the five hundred already embedded there and it's enough."
Seeing how confident she was, Bunsō fell silent.
In theory, he couldn't refuse the Tsuchikage's orders.
But with his age and caution, he felt something was off.
He just couldn't put his finger on what.
"Kurotsuchi," Bunsō said after a moment, calling the girl by name, his expression turning solemn. "I want to know the Tsuchikage's final stance."
Kurotsuchi narrowed her eyes and said sweetly, "We take it. No matter what."
"I understand."
(End of Chapter)
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