Unrolling the scroll, Pakura quickly ran her eyes over the bars of text and squinted slightly - negotiations with Kirigakure. Right after the crushing success with Konoha, the Kazekage had decided to try and resolve the sluggish conflict with the Mistborn?
The kunoichi had encountered the shinobi from the Land of Water more than once and could tell that negotiations with them should be conducted solely from a position of strength, so her assignment made sense, but her intuition insistently signaled that it wasn't that simple.
Her task was to escort and guard them, while others would negotiate with them, which was doubtful - the strongest one usually spoke, and Suna's S-class fighters could be counted on the fingers of one hand, and it was clear that they wouldn't send the Kazekage's past and it would be one of the ordinary jonins.
- The team?
- Already assembled, leave tomorrow night to be in place in the morning," the shinobi squinted calculatingly through the shadow of his hat, "I'm counting on the 'Hero of Suna'.
The title came out of his mouth as a sneer, which almost made Pakura flare up, but she held back with an effort of will.
- It will be done, Kazekage-sama," the kunoichi bowed slightly, without even looking up.
- Dismissed.
The girl quickly left the office, and the ruler of the village returned to his paperwork under the protection of four bodyguards, but none of those present noticed that the shadow behind the tub of plants in the corner of the room had lightened slightly.
***
As was always the case, at the end of a long mission, I had a mountain of things to do right now, without delay.
The Seal Shop was almost empty, despite a few kage bunshins left behind by Saya to replenish the stock - the people felt the hard times coming and were actively buying up quality fuinjutsu, knowing that their survival at the front might depend on it, the Anbu were making industrial orders for basic sets through the Hokage's office and the other clans were not lagging behind, not to mention the allies who had priority. In a situation like this, even a brigade of fuin masters can't handle the resulting demand, let alone me alone.
Given the flow of ryo from Akira, I could have shut down this troublesome, albeit lucrative, business a long time ago and devoted myself to other matters, but besides the money issue and the legalization of other income, there was another component that prevented me from doing so: reputation.
I could say with certainty that at least two-thirds of Konoha's armed forces with the rank of chunin and above were periodically buying from my shop, and I didn't want to be the one sawing the ground I was sitting on, especially with the imminent change of Hokage, as my uncle had hinted to me.
The other problem was the young iryonin who were left without my supervision for more than a month, even though they had a clear training plan for half a year, with a couple of clan mentors looking after the kids, but they weren't professional iryonin capable of answering any question, and the other few clan specialists were in high demand and didn't want to take on any more worries.
It was hard to expect anything else from the sloths of Nara, so the future iryonin were learning pure theory and needed to catch up on the practical part so that by the time the war started, they could take care of at least some injuries, not just bruises and minor cuts.
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