As the two moved forward, Sōkyū Hatake deliberately stayed a step behind Pakura.
Pakura was very popular in Sunagakure, and an Anbu had no standing to walk ahead of her.
"Your Anbu methods are well suited to tracking. Have you found anything?" Pakura looked at Sōkyū Hatake.
"Gold dust has been appearing here and there along this stretch. They clearly took this route," Sōkyū Hatake said, pointing to the gold dust he had just found.
"That's true, but the distance between each trace keeps growing. Lord Rasa's condition might be..." Pakura frowned. Normally, ninja left markers at fixed intervals.
Unless that would be too conspicuous. But judging by this instance, it was very possible that a problem with Rasa's own body had caused the gaps to grow wider.
"We'll know if we go a little farther. Judging by this pace, the spot up ahead won't be too far from the village," Sōkyū Hatake said as he observed their surroundings.
"That's true. Could it be someone from the village?"
"That's possible. Lady Pakura, look at this. These should be traces left by a puppet." Sōkyū Hatake pointed to the marks left beside the road, the kind only a puppet would leave.
"Traces left by a puppet... Could it really be..." Pakura looked in the direction Sōkyū Hatake was pointing in some disbelief. This really was...
"I don't know, but judging by these, I shouldn't be mistaken," Sōkyū Hatake said bluntly.
"..." Pakura fell silent, but her expression grew even grimmer.
As they continued forward, the two reached a small valley. Yellow sand covered the ground throughout the valley; it just happened to have a slope.
"The gold dust disappears here." Sōkyū Hatake walked into the valley. With yellow sand covering the ground, finding more gold dust would not be