After bidding Namikaze Minato farewell, Yamanaka Kei strolled back home.
Sneaking around, he once again used the Yamanaka Clan's secret technique to connect through the back door to the Sensory Barrier covering all of Konoha.
Following the Chakra of Might Guy, Yuhi Kurenai, and Shiranui Genma, he easily found the three of them eating yokan and watching the rain beneath the awning outside Sweet Chestnut Sweet.
He used the Summoning Technique, intending to summon the crow he kept at Konoha's Bird Summoning Beast Ranch—the one most familiar with the village—and have it call the Three Little Ones over.
This crow was different from the "Swift Type" crow he had summoned and possessed in the Tea Country town and on Summoning Island.
Its intelligence was clearly higher than that of its peers.
After being casually teased just a few times in its spare time, it had learned to say little blessings like "Congratulations on getting rich" and "May you always smile."
It could also understand and carry out some fairly simple commands.
What it loved most was taking advantage of the ranch's free-flight hours to wander around Konoha. Whenever it spotted someone holding food, it would use those little blessings to mooch a few bites.
As a result, it had grown nearly half again as large as other crows—round and plump—and flew far slower than its peers.
Seeing how clever it was, Yamanaka Kei had not only refrained from disliking it, but had even given it a name: Gai Liu Zi.
Only...
"Fuck... where's my Gai Liu Zi?"
Yamanaka Kei stared blankly at the vanished summoning array.
Refusing to believe it, he dipped into the blood storage tube again and performed the Summoning Technique once more.
Unfortunately, the sweet-talking little black fatty from his memory still did not appear.
With some