Pakura

Nagato had been right about one thing: Konoha really did have many beautiful flowers.

And he had been just as right about something else: Konan could make every flower in Konoha fade beside her.

A shop. A women's clothing store.

Shedding the loose robes of the Akatsuki Organization, Konan changed into a fashionable, pretty outfit and shyly emerged from the fitting room.

The girl was beautiful and graceful, with a high, full bust and a slender waist. Her fitted, pale dress made her slim, delicate figure look even more graceful and alluring.

Though only three or four years younger, Konan's figure was very different from Kurenai Yuhi's.

A truly beautiful woman could make even other women unable to resist taking a second look.

The shopkeeper's eyes lit up. She showered the beautiful girl before her with every lovely compliment and phrase she could think of.

As the owner of a women's clothing store, she couldn't help saying things she didn't mean from time to time. She'd used those flattering words countless times, until she was sick of hearing herself say them.

Now she only wished her vocabulary were more expansive.

The girl said nothing. She only blinked her starry eyes and looked toward Jiang Feng.

"You look beautiful."

Jiang Feng gave her a thumbs-up. With Kurenai Yuhi and Tsunade not around, he could praise the girl's beauty as sincerely as he pleased.

Konan finally smiled. The shopkeeper's countless flowery compliments couldn't make her as happy as Jiang Feng's simple "You look beautiful."

Why?

Maybe it was because they were friends.

Jiang Feng picked up another pretty outfit he'd chosen earlier and handed it to Konan. "Try this one, too. A pretty girl needs more than just a few pretty clothes."

"Okay."

Konan took the clothes from Jiang Feng, turned, and went back into the fitting room.

Having grown up amid war and experienced every kind of hardship, Konan was undoubtedly precocious. She was like an angel who had truly descended into the mortal world, untouched by it, flawless and pure.

Many of the Akatsuki Organization's old hands had never seen their leader show emotion or behave in an immature way.

But in the end, she was still a girl—and a beautiful girl just beginning to fall in love.

There might be women in this world who didn't care about looking beautiful, but there were certainly none who didn't want to show their beauty to the person they loved.

Jiang Feng continued browsing the store, patiently choosing ready-made clothes from the racks and imagining what Konan would look like in them.

The shopkeeper followed close behind Jiang Feng, praising him nonstop. As expected of the charming, romantic Jiang Feng, he treated girls in a way completely different from other men. Some men looked as if they were being tortured whenever they had to accompany their girlfriends while they tried on a few outfits.

Yet another person who thought Jiang Feng was quite a catch.

Jiang Feng shook his head.

He didn't think patiently picking clothes for Konan was anything special. When it came down to it, he just had great character design and high stats.

And he could understand why those other men didn't want to accompany their girlfriends while they tried on clothes. When it came down to it, their girlfriends just didn't have good enough character design or high enough stats.

As they spoke, another customer walked into the women's clothing store.

The shopkeeper apologized to Jiang Feng and hurried to greet the new customer. She only had to look up and get a good look at the woman before a string of lovely compliments came tumbling out.

There weren't many customers who could make the shopkeeper offer such heartfelt praise. She might not meet one for half a month, and finding several in a single day was rarer still.

Today was a rare day.

Like Konan, this was a beautiful woman who left the shopkeeper at a loss for words.

She had a figure that could set any man's heart ablaze, yet she exuded a chill that froze the shopkeeper to the bone.

That chill wasn't really coldness. It was killing intent, undisguised and unrestrained.

Jiang Feng had never expected that, just after leaving the Hokage Office and taking Konan out to buy some pretty clothes, he would run into Pakura, the Scorching Release User.

Few people would associate Pakura, the Scorching Release User, with shopping or women's clothing stores, even though she was more feminine than 99.99 percent of the women in the Ninja World.

Because she was also a ninja—and more of a ninja than 99.99 percent of the shinobi in the Ninja World.

Hatred, killing, missions... That was the kind of person Pakura was: a pure ninja, so pure that people might mistake her for an emotionless mission machine, a tool of slaughter, and overlook her beauty.

But if one thought it through, Pakura did have reason to go shopping and browse a women's clothing store. She had skin as fair and smooth as jade, extraordinary beauty, and, more remarkably, an excellent sense of style.

When all was said and done, she was still a woman.

"Just as I thought."

Jiang Feng sighed softly. "If there's a chance to buy clothes, women never miss it."

Pakura, the Scorching Release User, said nothing. She only stared fixedly at Jiang Feng with eyes so cold they seemed capable of killing, as if he were the murderer of her father.

The fitting-room curtain suddenly flew open. Konan hurriedly changed and darted out, her expression stern as she stepped in front of Jiang Feng and stared coldly at Pakura.

Pakura's brows drew together slightly.

For ten years, she had been killing people: people from Konoha, Iwagakure, Amegakure, every enemy of Sunagakure, and everyone the Kazekage wanted her to kill.

She was about the same age as Minato Namikaze, and she might have killed more people than the Sannin combined. Most of them had been nobodies, of course, but among them were also many renowned and formidable shinobi.

The countless souls who had fallen to her "swords" had earned her the name Scorching Release User and forged a killing intent as potent as blood wine.

Nobodies wouldn't dare face her. They would tremble just from catching her eye. Yet this girl she didn't recognize could stand against her under the pressure of her killing intent.

Since when had Konoha produced such an impressive kunoichi?

"Can you do nothing but hide behind a woman?"

"Handsome young men like me were born to live off women. If I didn't have formidable strength, then living off women might really be my best option.

"So I think there's nothing wrong with enjoying a little soft living once in a while."

He said that, but Jiang Feng still took Konan's hand and drew her to his side. Ignoring Pakura, he complimented Konan's beauty a few times and continued picking out clothes as if no one else were there.

Konan stayed beside Jiang Feng, but she never took her attention off Pakura. This woman... no, this kunoichi made her feel deeply uneasy and in danger.

Pakura had come to shop for clothes, but she no longer had any interest in admiring the beautiful outfits in the store. She simply stood there, watching Jiang Feng coldly and testing his limits with her killing intent.

The shopkeeper felt as if she were sitting on pins and needles. Though Pakura's killing intent wasn't aimed at her, even being caught in its reach made her feel as if she'd fallen into an icy abyss.

Fortunately, Konoha still had its Little Sun.

"Miss Pakura, so this is where you were! I finally found you. Oh, Jiang Feng, you're here too."

The shopkeeper breathed a sigh of relief. Minato Namikaze had arrived.