That night.
A full moon hung in the sky.
A four-person team quietly arrived at a sand dune two kilometers away from Roran.
They lay prone on the sand, gazing at the city in the distance.
It was a team of three males and one female.
The leader was a man in his thirties with an ordinary face, but the light stubble he sported added a mature man's charm.
The remaining three were teenagers around fifteen or sixteen.
The two boys looked quite average, but the girl was above average, especially her figure… very eye-catching. Slightly full-figured but not giving a sense of being overweight, a pair of headlights that had already reached D-cup proportions.
Wearing an enticing, low-cut, fishnet-style shinobi outfit, lying prone on the dune revealed her S-shaped sexy curves.
All wore headbands from the Shimogakure.
The three males glanced casually at the city before turning their attention to their surroundings. Only the kunoichi kept her gaze fixed on the city ahead.
The girl's pupils were different from a normal person's… sharper, like the eyes of a hawk.
In her pupils, the scene opposite was reflected.
In the city of towering spires, brightly lit, countless knight puppets patrolled back and forth in the sky or on the ground.
In the eastern area, nearly a thousand puppets, distinctly different from the knight puppets, were constructing something on the worksite. All sorts of metal machinery whose purpose she couldn't fathom dazzled her.
"Kana, any discoveries?" The leading middle-aged man asked quietly.
Hearing the question from beside her, the girl withdrew her gaze, her pupils reverting to normal human eyes. She gently rubbed the spot between her eyebrows, catching her breath before responding, "There are many puppets building something in the eastern area, but I can't tell what it is."
Kana pointed towards Roran as she spoke, continuing, "But every corner of the city has countless puppets patrolling. Their patrol routes are clearly meticulously calculated, with no blind spots..." Here, Kana paused, then added, "I mean, if puppets have the same visual blind spots as humans, then their patrols have no blind spots."
"A large number of puppets?" The middle-aged man frowned, continuing to ask, "What exactly is Sunagakure researching, to have so many puppeteers patrolling? And these puppeteers release their puppets just for patrolling. Such high alertness is practically announcing to everyone that what they're doing is super extraordinary."
"Um, I didn't see any puppeteers." Kana added this, then stuck out her tongue sheepishly.
In common knowledge, puppets require puppeteers to manipulate them to act. Kana saw thousands of puppets but didn't spot a single puppeteer in control. She felt this was a failure on her part as a Sensor-type Shinobi. So she felt a bit embarrassed.
But upon hearing this, the middle-aged man seemed to think of something and urgently asked, "Roughly how many of these 'large numbers' of puppets are there?"
"Probably several thousand!"
"What!?"
The two boys in the team exclaimed in shock. Seeing the captain glare at them fiercely, they quickly covered their mouths.
Kana also reactivated her 'Hawk Eyes' to scan the surroundings, sighing in relief only after confirming no one was approaching.
But for safety, the middle-aged man led the team to relocate to another dune from which they could observe the entire city.
"You're saying there are several thousand puppets in the city?" As soon as they moved, one of the boys couldn't wait to ask, his expression filled with disbelief.
Although they didn't know the exact number of puppeteers in Sunagakure, they knew it was a rare profession, constituting a relatively small proportion of Sunagakure's Shinobi.
And what did several thousand puppets mean? Even if each was a master capable of controlling at least five puppets, that would still mean at least several hundred puppeteers were here. If they were ordinary puppeteers only able to control one or two, then there would be at least a thousand or more!
Such strength was enough to annihilate a shinobi force of several thousand. Even the power of the Five Great Shinobi Villages wasn't much stronger than this!
After all, how much time and money does it take to create a puppet? How much time and money to train a Chunin or higher-level Shinobi? If a non-war mission could deploy such strength, Sunagakure would be excessively powerful.
But intelligence on Shinobi Villages indicated Sunagakure had around six thousand Chunin and above, with puppeteers comprising less than one-tenth of that, so it's impossible to have this many puppeteers here.
With such strength, they wouldn't have almost lost fighting a depleted Amegakure.
They thought either Kana had seen wrong, or it was an illusion created by the enemy to deceive. As for Kana lying... after all, they were teammates on a mission together; there was trust between them.
"But I really saw that many!" Kana said somewhat aggrievedly. "Although I can't determine the exact number due to blind spots, I saw at least three thousand."
"Could it be Genjutsu or something similar?" the middle-aged captain speculated.
"I don't think so," Kana said, seeing her teammates all looking at her, and explained, "My Hawk Eyes' field of vision is different from a normal person's. I see in color. Genjutsu that can fool the human eye can't fool mine."
Hearing this, the three fell silent. They naturally trusted their teammate's ability. In past missions, they had relied on Kana's Hawk Eyes multiple times to complete missions successfully. But what she saw this time was simply too unbelievable, forcing them to ponder.
After a moment, the middle-aged captain said, "I still don't believe Sunagakure has such strength. There must be some trick here. I need to infiltrate and confirm the situation."
"But the security there is so tight, Captain, you..." Kana, seeing the captain's determined gaze, stopped halfway through her attempt to dissuade him.
After a moment of silence, she changed her words: "Be careful, Captain."
"Don't worry. You all know my Ninjutsu. Mere puppets will absolutely not discover me." The captain said with full confidence.
Regarding this, the two boys were also full of confidence in him. Only the girl still had some worries in her heart, because this situation was truly unusual.
But to not dampen morale, she didn't voice her thoughts, instead joining the two boys in...
…
"Ah~ I'm so sleepy!"
Emerging from the laboratory in his personal space, Ryuji covered his mouth and let out a big yawn.
Just then, the door was knocked.
"Come in."
The door opened, and a Sunagakure's Shinobi wearing a grayish-brown flak jacket entered.
"Ryuji-sama, we captured a group of intelligence personnel from another village tonight."
"Huh?" Ryuji frowned slightly, puzzled. "Matters like this can be reported to Ebizo; there's no need to report to me."
"Among these people, there's a Shinobi with a special ability that meets the requirements you mentioned some time ago."
Hearing this, Ryuji's eyes lit up.
Since rumors spread that Sunagakure was creating a secret weapon, intelligence personnel from other Shinobi Villages had continuously come to investigate. Among these people, many possessed special sensory abilities. Ryuji, thinking about his research to develop a Chakra Radar capable of detecting White Zetsu, had instructed his subordinates to report to him upon finding Sensor-type Shinobi who met certain requirements.
"What ability?"
"Hawk Eyes."
Hearing this, Ryuji's eyes brightened even more, and he felt less sleepy.
"Bring the person here."
"Yes."
This Shinobi left and soon returned to Ryuji's room with a female Shinobi.
This was a young woman wearing a Shimogakure's forehead protector, with long pink hair tied into a single ponytail at the back.
Because her face was covered in dirt, it was hard to see her exact appearance, but judging from her regular features and the smooth skin on the clean parts of her body, it couldn't be too bad.
Especially her figure… extremely hot. Curvaceous, wearing a highly seductive, low-cut fishnet Shinobi outfit, making anyone who saw it feel parched.
This detailed description of the young woman's appearance isn't to pad the word count, nor does Ryuji have any special thoughts about her. It's because Ryuji has dissected corpses since childhood, seen countless naked female bodies, including those of hot, beautiful young women. He was long accustomed to women's bodies, so it was hard for him to have corresponding reactions to feminine charm.
Pakura dressed so revealingly and sexy, often came to his house to hang out when free, and the unintentional 'welfare' she gave were numerous, but the times Little Ryuji reacted could be counted on one hand.
But this young woman before him... Ryuji was seeing her for the first time. Although it was morning, it was still very abnormal.
He closed his eyes, rubbed the spot between his eyebrows, calming his mind. When he opened his eyes to look at the young woman again, the earlier sense of lust was gone.
"So it's seduction technique," Ryuji sighed deeply. "I never thought people still played with this stuff these days."
The so-called seduction technique is a Ninjutsu that uses one's own beauty and charm to lure enemies. But this thing was phased out as early as the Warring States Period when clans were the main units.
Because people in the Shinobi World knew all too well what Shinobi were. If one couldn't control their lower half, they absolutely couldn't survive in the Shinobi World.
Therefore, even if a Shinobi captured a beautiful Kunoichi or something, no +18 scenes would ever happen. Even if their brains and bodies thought otherwise, they would never obey bodily desires.
The young woman lowered her head, offering no response.
Ryuji sighed and continued asking, "What's your name?"
Still no answer.
The Sunagakure's Shinobi beside her pinched her chin, forced her head up, and directly slapped her. "Answer the question!"
"Pfft!"
The young woman glared hatefully at the Sunagakure's Shinobi beside her, spitting the broken tooth and blood onto his face.
The Sunagakure's Shinobi immediately raised his hand to slap her again but was stopped by Ryuji.
"Asking like this, you won't get any useful information until she's dead. You may leave."
"Yes, Ryuji-sama."
Watching his subordinate leave, Ryuji then turned his gaze to the young woman. Her face had an expression that said, 'Do whatever you want, kill me or cut me to pieces, I don't care.'
Ryuji smiled indifferently. "Actually, I only need a corpse. But for a Sensor-type Shinobi, a living one would be very valuable, right?"