With the New Year over, Aoba, as a Jonin of the village, resumed his missions. However, after the recent Cloud Ninja incident, the entire Shinobi World seemed to have entered a period of relative peace.
The only thing that annoyed Aoba was the news Asuma and the others brought back from outside—his bounty on the Black Market had skyrocketed to thirty million ryo.
And with Aoba being desperately short on funds at the time, he briefly entertained the thought of turning himself in for the money.
Thirty million ryo was no small sum. Moreover, as a newly rising Konoha shinobi, he had clearly garnered a lot of attention in the outside world.
During one mission, he even ran into that money-obsessed bastard, Kakuzu.
To be honest, Kakuzu was one of the most troublesome opponents Aoba had ever faced in the Shinobi World—in his mind, even more so than the Raikage.
This wasn't to say that Kakuzu was necessarily stronger than the Raikage. In a direct confrontation, Kakuzu probably wouldn't stand a chance against the Fourth Raikage. But unlike the Raikage, who was a straightforward brute, Kakuzu was an all-rounder.
He had mastery over all five nature transformations, and his Chakra reserves were so vast that he could turn himself into a mobile artillery platform.
This was exactly the kind of enemy Aoba hated dealing with the most. Against the Raikage, both of them were taijutsu specialists—at least Aoba could fight using his strengths.
But against Kakuzu, the guy just stood at a distance and bombarded him relentlessly. Clearly, Kakuzu had gathered intel on Aoba beforehand, knowing that he excelled in mid-to-close-range combat.
So from the start, Kakuzu kept his distance and overwhelmed Aoba with long-range attacks. It was downright infuriating.
Aoba's Lightning Release Flash was a powerful long-range technique, but with his current Chakra reserves, he could only use it three times in succession.
And the frustrating part? Kakuzu had five lives.
Against anyone else, Aoba could have waited for their Chakra to run out. But with Kakuzu? No chance.
Left with no choice, Aoba resorted to one of his hidden trump cards to escape Kakuzu's pursuit.
Aoba could fly—or rather, glide. That's right, he could harness the wind to lift himself into the air and travel at high speeds for a short distance.
The technique didn't allow for mid-air maneuvering, so it was practically useless in actual combat. But for escaping? It worked just fine.
At the time, he had two options: enter Sage Mode and fight Kakuzu to the death, but going all-out against a monster with five lives seemed like a terrible idea.
So in the end, he chose to retreat.However, Aoba still remembered that encounter. When he met Kakuzu, the man was already wearing the Akatsuki uniform. But he was alone.
It seemed either he hadn't found a partner yet, or his partner had been killed for bounty money. But the target Aoba cared most about wasn't by his side.
Hidan, this devout follower of the god of death, possessed an even more absurd immortality than Kakuzu. He played a crucial role in Aoba's plans.
Aoba had been secretly gathering information about the Evil God Cult for a long time. However, their movements were far more elusive than expected.
After all, it was a cult that practiced human sacrifices. The five great ninja villages would never tolerate such people. The cult had always operated in secrecy.
At this time, Hidan had already appeared. But he hadn't partnered with Kakuzu yet, which was why Aoba couldn't track his whereabouts.
Kakuzu was quite famous in the underground world. With his formidable strength, no target he set his sights on could escape. In bounty exchange centers, he received VIP treatment.
After returning to the village, Aoba reported his encounter with Kakuzu. He was then granted a few days off.
Naturally, Aoba wouldn't waste this time. He rented a shop in the commercial district and began selling small tools he developed by combining sealing techniques.
Headphones that could enhance perception—they could also be designed as earrings or ear studs. Bracelets that emitted strong noise to disrupt an opponent's balance.
These two were his flagship products.
He also developed some auxiliary combat weapons. Like rings concealing poison needles, or sleeve arrows capable of rapid-fire.
Such items weren't nonexistent in the ninja world. But for some reason, they never became popular.
Aoba had always believed that ninjas were essentially assassin-type professionals. These tools should have been perfectly suited for them.
Unfortunately, perhaps because chakra existed in this world, allowing ninjas to wield supernatural powers, the demand for such gadgets had diminished.
Still, in Aoba's view, these items were quite useful for low to mid-level ninjas.
Truth be told, even in a village like Konoha that valued education, ninja training was extremely selfish.
Most civilian ninjas would only learn one or two techniques beyond the Three Body Technique in their entire lives. And their chakra reserves couldn't sustain more techniques anyway.
This was why these chunin and genin could only serve as cannon fodder in wars. Against elite ninjas, they couldn't even rely on numbers to overwhelm them.
In battles, most genin and chunin still fought using shuriken and kunai. At most, they might buy a few Exploding Tags as trump cards.
More than that was impossible because Exploding Tags were prohibitively expensive. Ordinary civilian ninjas couldn't afford to use them frequently.
The most ironic part was that for true jonin-level ninjas, Exploding Tags became rather insignificant.
The ninjutsu they could unleash were more powerful than Exploding Tags, with more complex and varied effects far surpassing simple explosions.
Thus, Exploding Tags occupied an awkward position in the ninja world. Or rather, most ninja tools were somewhat awkward.After Aoba's ninja tool shop opened, it attracted quite a few customers. However, to his surprise, the headphones and noise bracelets he had high hopes for basically didn't sell at all.
On the other hand, items like rings, bracelets, and wrist arrows with hidden poison needles sold quite well.
After all the effort, the shop only managed to break even. After all, crafting those small gadgets required a significant amount of time and energy.
Aoba's first entrepreneurial venture in the Shinobi World was far from a success.
Truth be told, he had something much better that he hadn't put out yet. If he had introduced the Life Potion, it would have sold like crazy. He could have easily become the richest man in Konoha. But for the sake of Karin and her mother, he couldn't bring himself to do it.
During his break, as usual, he went to the riverside to train with Sasuke. By this time, his Spiraling Sphere was nearly perfected. All that remained was training to incorporate Chakra nature transformation.
That training carried some risks. Aoba was preparing to draft a new training plan.
But that very afternoon, just as he finished his training, Karin suddenly came running over.
"Brother Aoba, Mom is looking for you."