On the Matter of Bearing Sunagakure's Future on My Shoulders

"Lord Kazekage, the search teams have found no trace of those people in the desert..."

The ninja delivering the report sounded helpless and dejected.

Rasa slowly closed his eyes upon hearing this.

He knew what this result meant. In a sense, he was angrier and more frustrated than any other ninja in Sunagakure.

But he was the Kazekage. At the very least, he absolutely could not show weakness or disappointment in front of the other ninja.

He opened his eyes again and ordered, "The mission to recover the Tailed Beast is officially over. All ninja involved are to return to their posts. Offer condolences and compensation to the families of the injured and deceased immediately."

Though unwilling, Rasa swiftly issued this highest order of Sunagakure.

After all, the search for Shukaku had already lasted a month.

Over that month, Sunagakure's investment had been terrifying.

Deploying so much manpower for the search meant that Sunagakure had been unable to complete a great many commissions on time.

This was a tremendous blow to Sunagakure's reputation and might even affect the village's number of missions for a long time to come.

This would indirectly affect Sunagakure's income and its training of ninja...

That was why Rasa had chosen to cut his losses in time. He would rather give up on recovering Shukaku than continue this mission.

The main reason was that Sunagakure truly could not find any trace of those mysterious people.

The enemy had been far too cunning. The only clue they had found was that one of them used Iron Sand as a weapon.

As for their abilities, appearances, and everything else, they knew absolutely nothing.

That was because every Sand Village ninja who had seen those mysterious people had died without exception.

More than a dozen Jonin had even lost