The two Kusa shinobi were surprised by Karin’s sudden change in personality, but they were even more furious.
The transparent nobody they had always bullied without consequence had actually started fighting back.
How could they possibly tolerate that?
Karin began arguing back with reason and evidence.
“That’s right, Kusagakure took me in, but my mother paid more than enough for that.
She died because of you people, too.
After my mother died, I used my blood to heal countless Kusa shinobi.
I don’t owe you anything!” After saying those words, Karin felt an indescribable sense of relief.
She had wanted to say them for years.
All the pent-up resentment she had carried for so long finally poured out, leaving her feeling refreshed.
Yes, she didn’t owe Kusagakure anything.
The hardships she had endured, the suffering she had experienced, and the price she had paid over all these years had long since repaid that tiny so-called debt of gratitude.
Not turning around and hating them in return was already the greatest kindness she could offer.
Slap!
The two Kusa shinobi were thoroughly humiliated and enraged.
One of them viciously slapped Karin across the face.
A bright red handprint immediately appeared on her pale cheek.
“What gave you the courage to fight back?” “Now get on your knees and apologize.
We can forgive your insolence.” The two clenched their fists, preparing to teach the girl a proper lesson.
“I won’t!” Karin backed away while pulling out the Flying Thunder God kunai Aoba had given her.
She activated the mark on the kunai, and her eyes filled with determination.
“You’re asking for it!” The two Kusa shinobi threw their fists without mercy.
They happened to be looking for somewhere to vent their frustration over failing the Chunin Exams, and Karin was the perfect punching bag.
Even if they injured her, it wouldn’t matter.
The Uzumaki clan possessed astonishing vitality.
By the time they returned to the village, she would probably have recovered completely, and the higher-ups wouldn’t blame them.
Just as their fists were about to connect, a figure suddenly appeared and kicked both of them away with two clean strikes.
“Phew~ Made it in time.” Aoba exhaled before turning toward Karin.
“Sorry.
I made you worry.” When Karin activated the space-time mark, he had intended to come immediately.
But he had inadvertently noticed an Anbu shinobi, which delayed him for a little while.
“I’m fine.” The moment Karin saw the young man, she finally felt completely at ease.
The two Kusa shinobi climbed to their feet and stared solemnly at Aoba.
“Who are you?
How did you appear just now?” “This is an internal matter of Kusagakure!
A Konoha shinobi like you should mind your own business!” Aoba ignored their questions and threats.
Instead, his attention fell on the handprint on the girl’s face.
“Did they hurt you?” Aoba’s gaze toward the Kusa shinobi turned cold.
“Karin, what do you want to do with them?” After finally recruiting a reliable subordinate, Aoba naturally intended to help her vent her anger.
“I don’t know…” Karin hesitated.
Until today, she had been a pitiful girl who was constantly bullied.
She had never even considered taking revenge on someone or hurting another person.
But the two Kusa shinobi couldn’t hold themselves back.
“Karin, you actually conspired with a Konoha shinobi!
That’s an act of defection.
Once we report this to the higher-ups, you’ll be in serious trouble!” “You Konoha shinobi, you’re dead!
Kusagakure won’t let you off!” As he spoke, one of the Kusa shinobi summoned a carrier pigeon as a summon and prepared to send word about what had happened.
Karin’s healing ability was extremely important to Kusagakure.
So important, in fact, that the higher-ups had kept her Uzumaki heritage completely hidden.
It was an absolute secret.
Now that she had joined forces with a Konoha shinobi, there was a very high chance that the secret would be exposed.
No matter what, Kusagakure would kill them to silence them.
Whoosh!
Before the summoned creature could fly away, a shuriken shot through the air and struck it precisely.
The summoned creature immediately dispersed into smoke.
“Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique!” A pair of crimson Three-Tomoe Sharingan appeared.
Aoba immediately used genjutsu to intimidate the two men into submission.
Hell Viewing Technique was merely an ordinary genjutsu.
The reason he activated his Sharingan was to amplify its power.
After restraining the two men, Aoba activated Earth Release: Earth Spear, hardening the skin across his entire body.
Using Body Flicker Technique, he rapidly closed the distance and unleashed a series of taijutsu strikes while they were completely unprepared.
With Earth Release: Earth Spear reinforcing his body, his taijutsu attacks became even more devastating.
In less than half a minute, the two Kusa shinobi were beaten so badly that they rolled around on the ground vomiting blood.
They had been thoroughly crippled.
At this point, the situation between the two sides was one of kill or be killed.
Now that Aoba’s identity had been exposed, there was no way he could allow them to leave alive.
Knowing they had no chance of escaping, the two Kusa shinobi showed some backbone.
“If you want to kill us, you’ll have to die with us!” With that, the two Kusa shinobi ignited the several explosive tags they were carrying.
Boooom!
The flames of the explosion instantly illuminated a section of the forest.
When the smoke cleared, Aoba and Karin were already standing in the distance, completely unharmed.
How could someone who possessed the Flying Thunder God Technique possibly be killed by such a cheap trick?
In the instant before the explosion, Aoba had simply thrown out a kunai bearing a Flying Thunder God mark.
Then he brought Karin with him and used the Flying Thunder God Technique, effortlessly escaping the blast radius.
At this moment, the center of the explosion had been reduced to a huge crater.
The two Kusa shinobi had been blown to pieces, leaving not even a trace behind.
They had saved Aoba the trouble of disposing of their corpses.
“Aoba-sama, is there a mission?” Karin had only just recovered from the shock of seeing her former teammates die.
Now she looked at Aoba with eager anticipation.
“That’s right.
I have a mission for you, and it’s not going to be an easy one.” Aoba nodded.
He reached into his pocket and discovered that he had only a few hundred ryo left.
Only then did he realize that he had overlooked an extremely important problem.
If he wanted Karin to gather intelligence, she needed startup funds.
In the shinobi world, you can’t get anywhere without money!
If he didn’t have any money to give Karin and still expected her to work for him for free, he’d be no different from a bloodsucking capitalist.
After thinking about it, Aoba took the chakra blade out of his system inventory.
“This weapon contains chakra metal.
Its market value should be around one hundred thousand ryo.
Sell it and use the money as your starting fund for the mission.” As he handed the chakra blade to Karin, he also took out fifty bags of soldier pills and piled them into her arms.
“And these soldier pills.
They’re extremely high quality.
Even if you sell them cheaply, they’ll still bring in quite a bit of money.” Aoba had grown quite accustomed to using that chakra blade.
If he weren’t genuinely short on money, he would never have been willing to part with it.
Sometimes you have to sacrifice what you have to gain what you want.
With an intelligence operative helping him, making money in the future would become much easier.
Aoba took out a sealing scroll, and Karin sealed everything he had given her inside it.
The shinobi world had storage items too, namely scrolls created through the use of sealing techniques.
However, the space inside a sealing scroll wasn’t particularly stable and couldn’t be used to store things for extended periods.
With prolonged use and repeated activation, the scroll would gradually deteriorate.
Moreover, ordinary sealing scrolls didn’t have much storage capacity, yet they weren’t cheap.
Their cost-performance ratio was honestly rather poor.
Next, Aoba began assigning Karin her missions.
The first mission was for her to keep an eye on the bounties posted by the underground black market.
The shinobi world’s underground black market was spread throughout the Five Great Nations and the smaller countries, giving rise to the profession of bounty hunter.
The underground black market practically dared to take on contracts targeting anyone.
Even Asuma, the son of the Third Hokage, was listed as a bounty target, with a staggering price of thirty-five million ryo.
Of course, that happened after Hiruzen’s death.
For now, Aoba wanted Karin to focus on targets whose strength did not exceed that of a special jonin.
If the target possessed jonin-level strength, taking them down would be somewhat difficult for him.
Aoba had a very clear understanding of his own abilities.
Whether it was taijutsu, genjutsu, or chakra reserves, he was currently only at the chunin level.
Although he possessed several powerful jutsu, he could only unleash their power for a short period.
If he faced a jonin and the opponent simply dragged the battle out, Aoba would have no choice but to use the Flying Thunder God Technique to retreat.
Karin’s task was to screen the bounty list at the underground black market for suitable targets, then use the powerful abilities of her Kagura Mind’s Eye to sense and lock onto them.
After that, all she needed to do was wait for Aoba to arrive and collect the bounty.
“As for the second mission, I want you to find Otogakure and investigate everything you possibly can about that village.” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS Hidden_Quill Thank you so much for reading!