As Pakura formed Hand Seals, she spat a fox-shaped ball of scorching fire from her mouth.
Unlike the other Extremely Steaming Murder fireballs that drifted slowly through the air,
the fox-shaped fireball rapidly swelled to the size of a person as soon as it left her mouth.
Not only that, the scorching fox fireball bounded straight into the Amegakure ninja formation.
Then Pakura guided the floating Extremely Steaming Murder fireballs with both hands and clapped them together:
"Burst!"
The Extremely Steaming Murder fireballs in the air burst at the same time as the fox fireball exploded violently,
covering the entire Amegakure position.
After a violent explosion, all that remained of the Amegakure position was dry ground and four corpses drained of moisture.
"How about that, you two brats?
Impressive, aren't I?"
Pakura raised her eyebrows smugly as she spoke to Mukai and Sasori, who were staring dumbfounded.
Sasori controlled the arm of the Mountain God prototype mech to cover his eyes,
while Mukai flipped up his faceplate and swallowed a big gulp. Then he went right back to throwing up.
Damn it, I forgot I'd just thrown up and swallowed it! That's disgusting!
But I have to admit, Pakura really does have a great figure!
And just like that, the border outpost reconnaissance mission ended without any real danger.
Inside the outpost, the group also found the ninja who had been killed.
Judging by the marks on their heads, the information had likely been obtained through a secret technique that probed memories or something similar.
Inside the outpost, Mukai habitually sensed bioelectric fields.
Sure enough, there were no other large lifeforms within several hundred meters.
But as Mukai released electrical charges to sense bioelectricity,
four small orbs of light appeared in his sea of consciousness.
What are these?
Mukai tried to sense the masses of consciousness,
but unfortunately, just like the consciousness of the sleeping Komushi,
they merely floated in his sea of consciousness, pulsing rhythmically without responding.
Mukai checked his own condition. Aside from gaining some finer control over Chakra,
the orbs of consciousness, which he suspected were fragments of souls, did not seem to have harmed his body in any way.
With that, he put the unexpected development out of his mind.
After cleaning up the battlefield, Mukai was putting the Zealot mech into a storage scroll
when Sasori, who had finished packing up long ago, walked over and handed him a mission scroll and a rather unusual sheet of paper.
"Mukai, I found this on one of the Amegakure ninja.
Isn't this that blue-haired girl's paper?"
Mukai took the items and felt the unusual paper. It had indeed been materialized from Konan's Chakra.
The mission scroll, meanwhile, seemed to have been issued by Amegakure. It called for an investigation into a group of wandering ninja called Akatsuki.
It seemed the legendary Akatsuki had already begun to form.
Of course, the current Akatsuki was still a naive organization led by Yahiko, hoping to bring about peace through communication and negotiation.
The wheel of fate really is no joke!
He already had companions, and he had already begun working to grow stronger.
He believed he would surely bring a different kind of change to this world!
He was utterly convinced of it!
Mukai raised his fist and bumped it against Sasori's, smiling as he said,
"It should be Konan's origami.
They established an organization called Akatsuki in the Land of Rain.
Their philosophy seems to be that yellow-haired guy's idea of bringing peace through dialogue."
Sasori shook his head. Although Mukai had influenced him, and he no longer obsessed over life and death,
he still had nothing but disdain for Yahiko's naive ideas.
He had probably only held back from mocking them because of Mukai and Konan.
The changes had already begun to take effect, and Mukai was very gratified.
On the way back, Mukai asked Pakura the question that had been on his mind:
"Teacher Pakura, about what you said to the Haibara ninja about his child, I couldn't see what was wrong with it."
Pakura took a deep breath before answering.
"The Haibara ninja's daughter and wife both died in the Second Shinobi World War.
He never allows anyone to bring it up.
Those ninja can use secret techniques to probe the surface memories in someone's brain,
but they still aren't the person himself."
Pakura had also lived through a Shinobi World War and deeply sympathized with her fellow villager's misfortune, but she soon pulled herself together.
As they traveled, she said,
"You two brats, we have you to thank this time.
It seems Elder Chiyo was right. Those puppets you two made
really are extraordinary.
This reconnaissance mission was originally B-rank, but with ninja from an enemy nation involved, it'll be raised to A-rank.
But you know what the village's situation is like now.
Because we lost the war, the daimyo reduced his financial support for the village.
I'm afraid the reward for this mission will have to be paid in other supplies and Ninjutsu."
With Granny Chiyo and Ebizo, two village elders, backing him,
Sasori had never lacked money and did not care about the reward for a single mission.
The old Mukai, on the other hand, might have been counting on the reward to improve his family's finances.
But now that the family's izakaya had added liangpi to its menu as a specialty, business had improved considerably.
His family's circumstances had improved, easing much of his financial pressure for the time being.
As for researching and improving puppets, with Sasori's help, money was no problem!
Mukai patted the storage scroll at his lower back and said to Pakura,
"Teacher Pakura, can I exchange the village's mission reward for supplies?"
Pakura turned her head toward Mukai and asked,
"Oh? Little Mukai, you don't want money or Ninjutsu, but you want supplies instead?
What supplies does the village have that you need?"
Mukai said,
"I want to exchange it all for Iron Sand extracted by the Third Kazekage!"
"Iron Sand?"
Hearing Mukai's peculiar request, Pakura and Sasori both looked at him with interest.
The Iron Sand the Third Kazekage controlled was not actually iron.
Rather, in battle, he used a special Magnet Release to control and extract tiny particles of iron-bearing minerals from the ground.
Likewise, the Gold Dust Rasa controlled was merely particles containing gold.
Comparatively speaking, the gold-bearing Gold Dust extracted by Rasa was more valuable.
At present, the village's finances were largely supported by Rasa traveling around to find and extract Gold Dust.
Although the Iron Sand controlled by the Third Kazekage far surpassed Rasa's in both scale and power,
aside from some kept in storage scrolls for battle, the Iron Sand he extracted was normally discarded after use.
Given the Shinobi World's poor smelting technology, the Land of Artisans was probably the only place that could smelt it.
Even so, the Land of Artisans preferred to seek out specialized, high-quality iron ore or melt down old iron implements for reuse.
If it were valuable, the Third Kazekage would have made a fortune long ago, given how much Iron Sand he mobilized each time!
Hearing Pakura's analysis, Mukai's smile grew wider.
"If it's worthless, that's even better!
From now on, I'll exchange all my mission rewards for the Third Kazekage's Iron Sand!
I have a great use for it!
Maybe my plan to make a fortune will depend on it someday!"
It was only a mission reward of just over a hundred thousand ryo, and Pakura herself did not care about it.
She had explained where Iron Sand came from only because she wondered why he wanted something so worthless.
Since Mukai had made up his mind, Pakura naturally would not interfere any further.
Make a fortune? If Iron Sand could really be sold for money, the Third Kazekage would have sold it long ago!
Nobody wants unsmelted Iron Sand!
She promised Mukai that once they returned to the village, she would help him submit a request.
Then Pakura turned her head and said, seemingly casually,
"Hey, little Mukai, you call me teacher every day. Interested in learning Ninjutsu from me?"