Chapter 221: Tokujō Assessment Mission
The next morning.
The weather was excellent—a light drizzle was falling.
For Haruno Sakura, a ninja of both Water and Ice Style, this kind of rainy weather couldn't be better.
It was almost equivalent to turning the entire sky and ground into half of her home field.
She even saved the trouble of using a ninjutsu to set up the field.
"If the rain were a little heavier... it would be even better," Haruno Sakura said softly, raising her hand and looking at the silver-white water lines drifting down from the sky.
The girl took off her conical hat, raised her hand, and the drifting rain threads fell onto her hand without a single splash, instead disappearing as if they had melted into the sea.
"What did you say?" Morino Ibiki was slightly taken aback and glanced at the girl beside him.
Then again, the two of them walking together really had the feel of a Beauty and the Beast scene.
"She said she hopes the rain will get a little heavier," Takeuchi Yūichi said, adjusting the conical hat on his head. "After all, spring rain is as precious as oil, right?"
Indeed, it was already late winter and early spring. The wind was gradually getting warmer, and the clothes of the pedestrians on the street were also gradually becoming thinner.
However, this did not have much of an impact on ninja. Even without using chakra to warm their bodies, their powerful physical fitness still allowed them to wear only a single layer of clothing and withstand temperatures of over ten degrees below zero. And for the convenience of battle, ninja would not wear overly bulky clothes.
However, Yūichi had clearly misunderstood her meaning. As a civilian ninja, his sensitivity to battle was still a bit lacking.
"Haruno Sakura means that heavy rain is more beneficial to her battle..." Ibiki corrected. The Interrogation Division also belonged to a front-line combat department, and his combat awareness was much stronger than Yūichi's. He knew what Sakura meant as soon as he heard it.
Ibiki still had a deep impression of Sakura. After all, he had once been her proctor and also knew that she was a Water and Ice Style ninja.
Sakura didn't dwell on this topic either. She glanced at the three ninja standing solemnly behind Ibiki and said, "Then I am the captain for this mission, and I will lead the team... Ibiki, Yūichi, is everyone here? If everyone's here, we'll set out!"
"Interrogation Squad 8, four members, all present," Ibiki nodded and said solemnly.
Yūichi also nodded and said, "Only I have come from the personnel department."
The three of them, Sakura, Ibiki, and Yūichi, exchanged a look. With a wave of a hand, the group set off on their journey.
The destination of this trip was an underground bounty exchange near the place where the battle between Orochimaru and Kakuzu and Hidan had been discovered last time.
Intelligence and footprint analysis showed that Kakuzu and Hidan had been there before they had intercepted Orochimaru.
Therefore, the content of this mission was to take down this illegal organization, arrest the key figures of the underground exchange, and interrogate them for information about the Akatsuki organization.
And the purpose of bringing the interrogation squad was to be able to conduct the interrogation on the spot, to avoid the situation where the enemy was injured in battle and died on the way back to Konoha, resulting in the loss of intelligence.
A long trek in the rain was a very arduous thing.
The raindrops would take away one's body heat. Even with chakra protection, it was very uncomfortable. The muddy dirt road and the slippery tree trunks required the travelers to concentrate more on their footing, and thus they were more easily fatigued.
The ninja from the interrogation and civilian departments couldn't be compared with the Anbu ninja. Sakura could clearly see that it wasn't just a matter of stamina and chakra, but also a lack of skill in traveling.
Therefore, their pace was much slower, and their ability to endure hardship was also far inferior.
After a continuous forced march, when night fell and a few scattered stars had just hung in the night sky, the rest of the group were already exhausted. Sakura had no choice but to stop the journey.
The muddy ground in the rain was not suitable for camping. Looking at the exhausted faces of her teammates, Sakura didn't dare to let them just make do for the night. Fortunately, their captain was a Water Style ninja. With a single, exquisite water jutsu, she took away the moisture from the ground, making the earth dry again. Then, with Ice Style, she isolated the outside world from the camp, and only then did she create a suitable accommodation environment.
Then, the next day, Yūichi, who had been overworked and drenched by the rain, had caught a small cold. It had taken some effort to cure him.
There were all sorts of small situations along the way. As the captain, Haruno Sakura actually felt that the most difficult part of this mission was taking care of her temporary subordinates on the way there and back.
It had taken nearly two days to cover a distance that Anbu would normally cover in one day.
Because it was also raining heavily here, the clouds had obscured the sun, and no one had a watch, so they couldn't tell the current time. Looking at the sky, it was probably close to evening. The white building at their destination appeared in the eyes of the group led by Sakura.
Everyone stopped in unison. At this time, everyone felt abnormally tired—the others were physically tired, while Haruno Sakura was mentally tired.
"You guys stay here and wait for the results. This mission is my personal mission. Please, everyone, do not interfere," Sakura said, turning her head to look at Ibiki and the others. She then created an ice clone and instructed, "I'll leave this clone here, just in case. If a situation arises that the clone can't handle, she will notify me. You must hold on for a bit. I can use the Ice Body Flicker to rush back quickly."
This was the first time she had led ninja she had not had much contact with on a mission. Her heart was always filled with all sorts of unease, so she had rambled on for a few more sentences.
"We'll rest here for a bit first. After you start making a move over there, we can move forward a bit further. Being closer will also be more convenient for carrying out the mission," Ibiki said after he had caught his breath. The tall and burly man had the best stamina among the remaining few and was the fastest to recover.
"Alright," Haruno Sakura nodded.
"On the surface, that building is the residence of a chamber of commerce, but in fact, all the staff inside are disguised members of the underground black market. You already know the mission requirements. Arrest the key figures of the underground bounty station, especially those who know the intelligence. If you can find the materials of the bounty station, that would be for the best. As for the others who dare to resist, after knocking them down, they can be handed over to the local personnel for processing, or it's also fine to kill them on the spot. But be careful not to go too far."
Takeuchi Yūichi said to Haruno Sakura after resting for a while.
He then added another sentence, "This mission is being carried out under the name of cleaning up an underground dark organization and investigating who issued the bounty order against the Konoha ninja. Be careful not to leak the intelligence that this mission involves the 'Akatsuki'."
"I understand," Haruno Sakura nodded, walked to the front of the team, looked back at them, and finally said, "You guys be careful. Wait for my good news."
After speaking, her figure disappeared from before everyone.
"What a fast Body Flicker!" a ninja from the interrogation department couldn't help but exclaim.
"..." Ibiki and Yūichi were silent.
Was it just a fast Body Flicker?
The two of them had good stamina and were the first two to recover. They had seen more than the others, who had only been focused on catching their breath and regulating their breathing.
Along the way, after traveling for two days in the rain, Haruno Sakura's clothes were actually still dry... When the wind blew, the corners of her clothes fluttered cleanly.
How did she do it?
Did she control her Water Style to cover the surface of her body the whole time, blocking the rain threads, so that the rain couldn't wet her clothes at all?
Such astonishing chakra micro-control, such advanced Water Style, it's truly unheard of.
The two looked at each other and could see the surprise in each other's eyes.
As expected of the rookie who is said to be even more talented than Sasuke...
"Alright, stop wasting time discussing this," Ibiki waved his hand to stop the whispers of his subordinates and said, "After we've rested, let's sneak up to the vicinity of the house. She should have already started over there..."
From the direction of the white building, the faint sounds of battle could be heard.
❃❃❃
⤑ Show your support with Power Stones!
⤑ Unlock a Bonus Chapter every time we hit 400 Power Stones!
❃❃❃
♕ Get early access to 30+ advanced chapters on Patreon!
🔗 https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to open the link!)
💬 Enjoying the story? Drop a review!
Your support really helps the series grow—thank you!