Chapter 69 - 69 (1/2)

After Pakura left, Ryo and his team quickly destroyed all the puppets and withdrew. Right after they left, Rasa and Chiyo arriver with a large number of Ninjas.

Rasa looked angrily at the remaining of the destroyed puppets and the corpses of their transporters. He deliberately chose to ship the puppets a few days before the battle. He felt that the delay would make Konoha put all their attention on the camp. He didn't expect the carriage to be discovered.

”Oy Oy, did you find Pakura?!” Chiyo was anxious as she wasn't able to see Pakura's body.

On one hand, she was worried about her life. But on the other, she worried that she could've been captured alive. Pakura was someone who had carried out many secret missions over the years. The consequences of her capture should be unthinkable.

”Don't worry. This team was formed of 52 people. We only found 46 corpses. Pakura must've escaped along with the rest of the 6 who survived.” Rasa kept his cool and calmly analyzed the situation.

”Kazekage Sama, we found the traces of the battle.” A Sand Ninja found the spot were Ryo and Pakura faced off.

Rasa immediately rushed over. He looked at the ashes on the ground, and he realized that this was where Pakura had her fight. With no traces of blood anywhere, he deducted that neither side had suffered any injuries.

With these traces, it was confirmed that Pakura should be alright. Chiyo was finally relieved. After a throughout search, the sand did not find any of Konoha's ninjas, deducing they must've made a full retreat.

At the same time, Ryo's team was on the way back to Konoha's camp. Their operation had been a huge success. But it wasn't a clean victory. Shin Sarutobi was seriously injured. Fortunately, he had Ryo by his side. After some treatment, he was no longer in a critical state, and Ryo determined that he should recover completely after a period of rest.

Along the way, Ryo was wondering why Pakura was worried about that sand spy.

Being enemies, Pakura's attempt to inquire information from him meant one of two things. The first could be confusing him into thinking that the person she was asking about is important to her. The second is that the spy that Jiraya had caught on that day was so important to Pakura that confirming her safety was worth jeopardizing the Sand's best interest. Ryo felt like it's likely to be the second possibility. She sounded so fl_u_s_tered, that he didn't believe that she was faking it.

Because of this, Ryo felt some regret. At the time, he only went through whatever was obviously related to the spy's task in her mind. He felt that he should have paid attention to her other memories as well.

In the camp, Sakumo and Jiraya also learned that Rasa and Chiyo went to rescue the transport team, so they also took many men and went to support Ryo's team.

They told the Huyga Ninjas to stay fully alert and report to them in case the enemy approaches.

”Sakumo San, Jiraya San!” Ryo was so familiar with their Chakra that he didn't wait to see them before shouting their names.

”Ryo?” Hearing Ryo's voice, Sakumo was finally relieved.

”Kid, you haven't encountered Rasa?”

Ryo shook his head and said, ”Jiraya san, don't you think I could take on him if we ever met?”

”Haha, yeah yeah!” Seeing that Ryo was okay, Jiraya went back to his usual carelessness.

Sakumo asked everyone to get back to the camp, and also asked Ryo about the details of his mission.

Ryo hid the matter of his deal with Pakura, and reported everything else to Sakumo and Jiraya who listened carefully.

They learned that Ryo successfully completed his mission and destroyed over a 1000 puppets. Even Sakumo who was ever so serious when it came to missions, smiled.

When he learned that she had just returned to the camp carrying five injured Ninjas, he and Chiyo were relieved.

Later on, in Rasa's tent, Pakura also concealed her deal with Ryo when talking about what happened.