The Man Worth Thirty Million

Asuma summoned a monkey and handed it the Sealing Scroll, then turned back to Zou Hyuga and Oto Uchiha and solemnly thanked them.

"Thank you both. You're Genin?" Asuma still sounded a little doubtful.

But without them, he could never have escaped the Cloud Ninja pursuing him, and the village would have been forced to make concessions.

Though he scoffed at his status as the Hokage's son, he knew that if Kumogakure captured him, his old man, the Third Hokage, would make concessions to them.

After a moment's thought, Asuma continued, "Please tell me your names. I'll report your contributions to Lord Hokage exactly as they happened. This mission should receive at least an A-rank rating."

The moment Zou Hyuga heard about receiving credit, he hastily waved his hands in protest.

"All the credit belongs to you, Lord Asuma. If it weren't for you, we might have died at the hands of those Cloud Ninja."

Oto Uchiha nodded in agreement.

Asuma frowned. Their tone had changed after he gave his name. He hated benefiting from his status as the Hokage's son more than anything, and declared firmly:

"Your credit belongs to you. Do I, Asuma, look like someone who would steal it?"

Asuma thumped his chest as he spoke, aggravating his internal injuries and coughing up blood again.

Zou Hyuga hurried forward to treat him. If this privileged son happened to die and word reached the village, who knew what the Third Hokage might do to him?

After a brief pause, Zou Hyuga said, "If you're willing, Lord Asuma, you could buy our credit from us...

"We don't need much. Two hundred thousand ryo would do..."

Asuma's expression darkened, and his opinion of Zou Hyuga dropped considerably.

There were actually ninja in Konoha who sold mission credit! This undermined the very foundations of Konoha's mission system.

Had the ninja before him not saved his life, Asuma would have already unleashed a torrent of abuse.

Seeing Asuma's dark expression, Zou Hyuga's lips curved into a smile. His plan had worked perfectly.

If he deliberately asked to have his contributions omitted, Asuma would instead lavish attention on them in his mission report, making a point of emphasizing his achievements.

But now that Asuma saw him as a petty opportunist, his assessment would be lower.

That would indirectly reduce his chances of receiving credit and lessen his chances of becoming a Chunin.

Sure enough, Asuma approached him to talk far less often afterward, and the few times he did, he only asked about their surroundings.

The three kept a certain distance from one another as they headed toward a nearby town, where a Konoha force was stationed.

Not long after Zou Hyuga and the others left.

Several Cloud Ninja squads arrived at the battlefield. Their expressions turned grim as they surveyed the devastated ground and the Cloud Ninja corpses strewn everywhere.

After carefully examining the bodies several times, the Cloud Ninja assigned to the task approached their leader and shook his head.

"No survivors. Someone deliberately finished off every one of them, but the cause of death was a powerful explosion. It appears to have been caused by Explosive Tags."

"Explosive Tags..." The Cloud Ninja leader gave a few cold chuckles.

Among the dead were a Jonin who specialized in Taijutsu and several Chunin. How could mere Explosive Tags have killed them?

Konoha must have dispatched elite ninja as reinforcements.

Others might not know, but as the Jonin leader responsible for this operation, he knew its true objective.

Kumogakure's loss of vital intelligence was a pretense. Their real goal was to abduct the current Hokage's second son, Asuma Sarutobi.

That would give them more leverage in the war to come.

With that in mind, the Cloud Ninja leader summoned the ninja responsible for tracking scents and led his force onward.

"So why exactly did we have to stick our noses into this?"

Walking at the rear of the group, Zou Hyuga wrapped a bandage around his wrist and spoke through gritted teeth.

According to the original plan, he and Oto Uchiha should have been heading back to Konoha, where they would take safe missions like plowing fields, finding cats, and cleaning sewers.

They should not have been following an important figure like Asuma into battles between Konoha and Kumogakure.

This was far too dangerous.

Oto Uchiha folded her arms and rolled her eyes at Zou Hyuga. In that situation, even if they had slipped away, they would still have run into those Cloud Ninja.

Still, she was very pleased with Zou Hyuga's attitude.

After those unexpected incidents, she had changed her goal from becoming an outstanding kunoichi to simply living in peace. Staying alive mattered more than anything.

The group continued onward, and Asuma kept an eye on the two whispering behind him.

Something had seemed off about them from the moment they appeared. If not for the Caged Bird Seal and the Sharingan, he would have suspected them of being spies from an enemy ninja village.

But would undercover spies really be this greedy?

Asuma shook his head to clear away those stray thoughts and looked at the path ahead. At their current pace, they would soon reach the outpost in the nearby town.

There were at least several Konoha squads there. With proper preparations, they should be able to hold off Kumogakure's forces.

The Kumogakure force's surprise attack had originally been a covert attempt to assassinate the Land of Fire's daimyo. Only after encountering him had they switched targets and attacked the Hokage's son.

But he had already sent the intelligence to his old man, informing him that Kumogakure was looking for an opportunity to assassinate the daimyo.

That would make Kumogakure wary of the consequences and push them to expedite the peace talks.

He had once longed for war as a chance to prove himself, but after experiencing several years of it, all he wanted now was for peace to come soon.

As those painful memories surfaced, even the cigarette in his mouth tasted bitter, and he tossed it into the ditch beside the road.

At the rear of the group, Zou Hyuga and Oto Uchiha, being professional Genin, erased the footprints they left as they walked and planted signs to mislead the enemy.

Only one final task remained: checking for scents on their bodies. Scent tracking was a required part of a ninja's training.

The Ninja Dogs raised by ninja could follow a scent for dozens of kilometers until they found their target.

"Do I have any unusual smells on me?" Zou Hyuga approached Oto Uchiha and spread his arms.

"No. None at all."

Oto Uchiha shook her head. While learning to work together in their earlier battles, they had already become familiar with each other's scents.

"We need to be careful. Who knows whether the enemy has Ninja Dogs?"

Looking completely serious, Zou Hyuga moved closer to Oto Uchiha. He did not want a moment of carelessness to land them in another fight.

"There's nothing..."

Oto Uchiha drew back slightly and raised a hand to cover her mouth. His proximity made her uncomfortable, and her cheeks began to burn.

"You don't have any scent left by the enemy on you either. We're safe."

"Are we..." Once Zou Hyuga stepped back, Oto Uchiha turned her head away and slowly breathed a sigh of relief.

As she turned, Oto Uchiha spotted a cigarette butt floating in the ditch.

"Over there. A cigarette butt..."

Oto Uchiha pointed toward the ditch, then covered her face with her sleeve to hide her flustered expression.

Zou Hyuga followed the direction of her finger and soon spotted the cigarette butt. The tiny butt gradually grew larger in his Byakugan vision.

"Asuma Sarutobi!"

At the sight of the cigarette butt, Zou Hyuga realized that all their earlier efforts had been wasted.