Ino felt that these empty boxes with the character "Fire" written on them were highly suspicious—extremely suspicious. She decided to call her friends over to take a look. She wasn't going to take the blame for this, no way. Not only would she not take the blame, but she would also play dumb and shift the responsibility onto someone else! Choji had no interest in boxes with the word "Fire" on them unless they contained food. What? The boxes were empty? Why should I bother looking at empty boxes? No thanks!
Leaving Choji to guard the prisoners, Asuma and Shikamaru followed her to investigate.
"This is such a hassle. Shouldn't we just pretend we didn't see anything?" Shikamaru kept shaking his head and sighing.
Ino put on an innocent expression, waiting for the decision-maker to take charge.
Asuma pondered for a few seconds. The character "Fire" was too obvious—it could either refer to the Land of Fire or the Hidden Leaf Village. He had once served as a guardian ninja for the daimyo of the Land of Fire, and it was during that time, witnessing so much darkness by the daimyo's side, that he abandoned his naive ideas from his youth and returned to the Hidden Leaf Village.
He believed these empty boxes were likely connected to certain officials or nobles from the Land of Fire. Exposing this could lead to a huge mess, but he couldn't rule out the possibility that the Hidden Leaf Village was involved.
This was clearly a gold mine, and the extraction methods were extremely crude. But where was the gold now? Whether it was used to exchange for supplies or to support rogue ninjas in occupying allied mines, based on Asuma's understanding, Danzo was capable of doing such things.
The best solution at this moment would be to question Raiga Kurosuki, but Asuma really didn't want to complicate things further.
Just look at Kakashi, who played dumb every day. Being a little clueless wasn't a bad thing in the shinobi world.
"Ahem," Asuma coughed twice forcefully. He knew his subordinates were smart and didn't need him to spell things out too clearly. "These things require further investigation. Let's report it and leave it to the village to handle."
The subtext was: let his father handle it.
"Alright, we'll follow Asuma-sensei's lead."
"Right, Asuma-sensei knows best."
Asuma burned all the empty boxes with Fire Release.
Danzo had committed countless atrocities, and there was no shortage of evidence to bring him down. Keeping a few broken boxes around was meaningless.
If this was the work of officials from the Land of Fire, it would be even more complicated, and the boxes would still be useless.
Out of sight, out of mind. The best solution was to burn everything. Even if Raiga Kurosuki exposed the matter later, Team 10 could simply claim they knew nothing.
Next came the division of spoils.
Asuma's father was a ninja technique expert. If Asuma wanted any technique, he could just ask for it. Even techniques at the level of the Eight-Headed Serpent were within his father's reach. He had no interest in the techniques Raiga Kurosuki had collected.
Choji didn't care about these techniques either. When have you ever seen Choji standing in the back, using his carrot-like fingers to clumsily form hand seals? If that ever happened, it would mean the end of the world was near!
Choji's "Hand Seal" skill wasn't just low—it was extremely low! He was on par with Naruto and Rock Lee. Naruto had been taken out by Jiraiya for three years of "foundation training," and his Hand Seal skill had risen from 2 to 3 points. And Choji? After three years of eating and lazing around, his Hand Seal skill had dropped from 3 to 2 points! Aside from the Third Hokage and Chiyo, whose physical abilities had declined due to old age, Choji was the only ninja whose stats had decreased over three years instead of improving.
Mastering the clan's secret techniques was the key to victory; he had no interest in things like Fire Release or Lightning Release.
Shikamaru selected a few high-level Lightning Release and Water Release techniques. He didn't intend to learn them himself but rather to copy them and bring them back to enrich his clan's ninja technique library. The Nara Clan's accumulation of ninja techniques paled in comparison to the Yamanaka Clan, who were constantly peeking into others' minds to uncover secrets.
Out of five million in cash, Asuma took two million, while Ino and the other two each took one million.
As for the remaining jewelry and gemstones, converting them into cash would take too long. Seeing that Ino was very interested, they decided to let her have them all.
While they were dividing the spoils, Ranmaru kept tearing his sleeves to stop Raiga Kurosuki's bleeding. Ino didn't volunteer to use her medical ninja techniques, fearing that her rudimentary skills might accidentally kill Raiga. Instead, she handed over some bandages and ointment.
"Thank you," Ranmaru said politely.
Ino smiled. "You don't hate us? After all, it was our arrival that disrupted your peaceful life."
Ranmaru's expression remained calm. "No, I don't hate you. Raiga always said that dying on the battlefield is a ninja's fate. We can kill others with violence, so naturally, others can come to kill us. It's fair."
He bowed slightly and continued to clean the wounds of the unconscious Raiga Kurosuki.
Seeing a six or seven-year-old boy talk about fate stirred something in Ino's heart. Ah, this damned world! The Black Hoe Clan had nine members in total. Besides Raiga and Ranmaru, the other seven were just small-time thugs.
After some questioning, they discovered that one of the young men was the grandson of Granny Sansho.
This guy thought making curry was a dead-end job, so when the Black Hoe Clan recruited thugs, he joined.
Without hesitation, they beat him up first, then educated him, and finally sent him back.
Shikamaru took him back to the Curry of Life Shop to find Granny Sansho, and along the way, he bought some food for Choji. For a big guy like Choji, as long as there was food, even the heaviest injuries could heal.
Ino, meanwhile, went to rest under the shade of a tree.
The total amount of chakra one had directly affected the speed of recovery, commonly referred to as "replenishing the blue." For powerhouses like Naruto and Hashirama Senju, it seemed like they had an endless supply of chakra during battles. On one hand, their chakra reserves were indeed vast—several times, even dozens of times greater than that of an average ninja. On the other hand, their recovery speed was incredibly fast. They could fully recover their chakra in just a few seconds after using a B-rank ninja technique.
Ino wasn't at that level yet. After continuously releasing a series of B-rank techniques, her chakra was significantly depleted. In times of war, she would need to consume Military Ration Pills to restore her stamina and forcibly extract energy from her cells to replenish her chakra.
This method was extremely damaging to the body, essentially draining one's potential and health. Many ninjas, such as Uchiha Itachi, Sai's brother Shin, and Mangetsu Hozuki, developed terminal illnesses at a young age due to severe physical overexertion.
Kakashi was no exception. To uphold his family's reputation, he was already fighting on the battlefield at the age of six. How many injuries had he sustained? How much potential had he drained? How much darkness had he witnessed? Yet, he still managed to maintain a "stamina" level of 6. To be honest, that was already a testament to his extraordinary talent.
Ino knew better than to exhaust herself. She didn't resort to overextending her health to replenish her Chakra. Instead, she sat quietly under the shade of a tree, slowly regaining her stamina and Chakra.
Asuma finished writing the mission report and, along with the sealed scroll containing the Thunderswords, tied it to the leg of a messenger hawk before sending it off.
Team 10 remained at the Oxalis Mine that day, awaiting the village's decision on how to handle Raiga Kurosuki, Ranmaru, and the entire incident.