Wok Shadow Ninja

Chapter 74: Playing Dumb

Ino eyed the empty boxes, each marked with the character for "fire," and a deep sense of suspicion settled over her. Highly suspicious, in fact. She immediately called her teammates over to investigate. This was not a problem she was willing to tackle alone. Not only was she unwilling to handle it herself, but she also intended to play completely clueless and pass the responsibility off to someone else.

Choji, however, remained unmoved by boxes labeled "fire." Unless they contained food, he had zero interest. "What? They're empty boxes? What's the point of looking at empty boxes?" he grumbled. "I'm not going."

Leaving Choji to watch over their prisoners, Asuma and Shikamaru followed Ino to examine the suspicious boxes.

"This is such a pain," Shikamaru sighed, shaking his head. "Shouldn't we just pretend we didn't see anything?"

Ino, adopting an innocent expression, waited for someone in charge to step up and make a decision.

Asuma considered the situation for a moment. The "fire" character was too prominent to ignore. It almost certainly pointed to the Land of Fire or Konoha itself. Having once served as a guardian ninja for the Land of Fire's daimyo, Asuma had witnessed firsthand the darkness lurking within the nobility. This experience had shattered his youthful idealism and ultimately led him back to Konoha.

He suspected these empty boxes were connected to corrupt officials or nobles within the Land of Fire. Exposing this could unleash a major scandal, but he couldn't dismiss the possibility of Konoha's own involvement.

This discovery had the potential to be a gold mine, albeit with a very crude operation. But where was the actual gold now? Based on his understanding of Danzo, Asuma wouldn't put it past him to be involved in something like this, whether it was exchanging gold for illicit supplies or funding rogue ninjas to seize mines in allied territories.

The most direct course of action would be to interrogate Raiga. However, Asuma was genuinely reluctant to complicate matters further.

He thought of Kakashi, who seemed to feign ignorance on a daily basis. In the ninja world, sometimes a little cluelessness wasn't such a bad thing.

Ahem. Asuma cleared his throat loudly, twice. He knew his team was sharp and wouldn't need him to spell everything out. "This requires further investigation," he stated. "Let's report it and leave it to the village to handle."

The unspoken message was clear: Let my father deal with it.

"Alright, we'll follow Asuma-sensei's lead," Shikamaru agreed.

"Mm-hmm, Asuma-sensei is right," Ino echoed.

Asuma then used Fire Release to incinerate all the empty boxes.

Danzo's list of crimes was long and appalling. If they truly wanted to bring him down, they could easily find mountains of evidence. A few empty boxes were ultimately insignificant.

And if this was connected to Land of Fire officials... that was an even bigger, messier problem, and again, the boxes themselves were irrelevant.

Out of sight, out of mind. Burning them was the cleanest solution. Even if Raiga later revealed something, Team 10 could simply plead ignorance.

Next, they moved on to dividing the spoils.

Asuma's father was the Hokage's advisor on ninjutsu. If Asuma wanted to learn a new technique, all he had to do was ask. Even advanced techniques like the Eight Branches Technique were readily available to him. He had no interest in Raiga is collection of ninjutsu scrolls.

Choji also couldn't care less about ninjutsu scrolls. Imagine Choji, usually found at the front lines, suddenly hanging back, awkwardly trying to weave hand seals with his stubby fingers. If that ever happened, it would surely signal the end of the world!

Choji's hand seal proficiency wasn't just low it was abysmal. On par with Naruto and Rock Lee. Naruto had trained rigorously for three years under Jiraiya to "build his foundation," barely improving his hand seal skills from a 2 to a 3. But Choji? After three years of eating and lounging, his hand seal skill actually dropped from a 3 to a 2! Aside from the Third Hokage and Chiyo, whose physical abilities declined with age, Choji was the only ninja whose stats demonstrably decreased over three years.

For Choji, mastering his clan's secret techniques was more than enough. He had no need for Fire or Lightning Release techniques.

Shikamaru, however, selected a few high-level Lightning and Water Release techniques. He had no intention of learning them personally, but rather to copy them and add them to the Nara clan's extensive ninjutsu library.

The Nara clan's collection of ninjutsu, while impressive, still couldn't compare to the Yamanaka clan, who dedicated their lives to delving into the minds of others.

Asuma claimed two million of the five million in paper currency, while Ino and the other two each took one million.

The remaining jewelry and gemstones would be too cumbersome to convert into cash quickly. Noticing Ino's interest, they let her take it all.

While the others divided the loot, Ranmaru diligently tore strips from his sleeves to bandage Raiga is wounds. Ino, hesitant to risk accidentally killing Raiga with her basic medical ninjutsu, refrained from offering her own skills. She simply handed Ranmaru some bandages and ointment.

"Thank you," Ranmaru said politely.

Ino smiled gently. "You don't hate us? After all, we did disrupt your peaceful life."

Ranmaru's expression remained calm. "I don't hate you. Raiga always said that dying on the battlefield is a ninja's fate. We use violence to kill others, so it's only fair that others can come to kill us."

He bowed his head and continued tending to the unconscious Raiga injuries.

Hearing a boy of six or seven speak of fate like that tugged at something within Ino's heart. Ah, this damned world!

The Kurosuki clan numbered nine in total. Aside from Raiga and Ranmaru, the other seven were insignificant.

After some questioning, they discovered that one of the younger men was actually Grandma Shion's grandson.

Apparently, he'd decided curry rice wasn't his path to success, so when the Kurosuki clan started recruiting, he'd signed up.

No need for further discussion they roughed him up a bit, gave him a stern talking-to, and planned to send him back home.

Shikamaru escorted him back to the Curry of Life shop to find Grandma Shion and, thoughtfully, bought some food for Choji. For someone like Choji, food was the ultimate healing agent; even the most serious injuries seemed to mend with enough to eat.

Ino sought out the shade of a tree to rest.

She could feel her total chakra reserves had increased, and her "chakra recovery" speed would also improve as a result. Ninja like Naruto and Hashirama seemed to possess limitless chakra during battles. Partly, it was true they had enormous chakra reserves, several times, even dozens of times, greater than the average ninja. But equally important was their rapid recovery rate. After unleashing a B-rank jutsu, they could potentially be back to full chakra capacity in mere seconds.

Ino wasn't at that level yet. After continuously using a series of B-rank jutsu, she had depleted a significant amount of chakra. In wartime, she would have needed to resort to soldier pills to replenish her stamina and force her cells to generate more chakra.

This method, however, was incredibly damaging to the body, essentially mortgaging potential and sacrificing health. Many ninjas, like Itachi Uchiha, Sai's brother Shin, and Mangetsu Hozuki, developed terminal illnesses at a young age due to this kind of overexertion.

Kakashi was another example. To uphold his family's honor, he had fought on the battlefield from the tender age of six. How many injuries had he endured? How much potential had he mortgaged? How much darkness had he witnessed? And yet, his "Stamina" stat was still a 6. Honestly, that was a testament to his extraordinary talent.

Ino refused to drain the pond to catch the fish. She wouldn't sacrifice her health for chakra. Instead, she sat quietly under the tree, patiently allowing her stamina and chakra to replenish naturally.

Asuma finished writing the mission report, attached it along with the sealing scroll containing the Thunder Sword to a messenger hawk, and released it into the sky.

Team 10 remained at the Oxalis Mine for the rest of the day, awaiting the village's instructions on how to proceed with Raiga, Ranmaru, and the entire situation.

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