Other than the explosive tags and long swords, the miscellaneous supplies were much cheaper, adding up to only around three thousand ryo.
Just like that, seventy-eight thousand ryo was gone.
"Being a ninja really is an absurdly expensive profession," Chiba Shun muttered through gritted teeth.
Before he had become a chunin, seventy-eight thousand ryo had been more than a full year of income for him.
After buying the ninja tools, Chiba Shun began selecting the children from the Ninja Academy who would go to Konoha with him.
First, he could not choose any true geniuses. The village would never allow that.
Second, he could not choose children who still had parents. Their families would never agree.
And finally, he could not choose anyone too old. The village had already invested resources into those students. Sending them away on what everyone understood to be a near-certain death trip would be a waste.
Because that was what this journey to Konoha was in the eyes of nearly everyone.
In Chiba Shun's own eyes as well.
In the end, he could only select twenty-four younger orphans from the academy, children around six or seven years old, neither outstanding nor especially weak, the kind of students no one would fight to protect.
He gave each of them five thousand ryo.
It was hush money, life-saving money, obedience money. Call it whatever you wanted.
What Chiba Shun needed was simple. They had to listen to him. At the very least, they had to avoid causing trouble.
If even one child acted rashly in Konoha, he was finished.
Twenty-four children meant a total of one hundred and twenty thousand ryo, all of it paid out of Chiba Shun's own pocket.
As for whether the orphans immediately spent the money, or passed it to the few friends they trusted, Chiba Shun did not care.
By the time he finished arranging everything, he was effectively broke.
Twenty-four children of mediocre talent, boys and girls mixed together, plus himself. That made for a strange little delegation.
Calling it a mission was giving it too much dignity. At best, it was an exchange group.
***
Half a month later, amid the villagers' noisy speculation, the exchange group of Ninja Academy students finally departed from Kumogakure.
Their destination was the Land of Fire.
Their escort was made up of two elite squads.
Yugito and her mother stood in the crowd, watching Chiba Shun and the others leave the village.
Only after they had already gone some distance did Yugito tug on her mother's sleeve and ask, "Mom, can that Shun-senpai really kill Konoha's White Fang?"
Yugito's mother slowly shook her head.
She had no hope for that at all.
Chiba Shun, of course, had no idea that the little girl was paying attention to him. His mood had been poor from the moment he woke up, but once the escort squads came into view, his attention was drawn elsewhere.
One of the two teams included a figure he recognized at once.
The future Fourth Raikage, Yotsuki A.
In the original story, the Raikage of Kumogakure were all referred to in the same strange way, by the name "A." The current Third Raikage was A. The future Fourth Raikage was also A. To keep them separate in his head, Chiba Shun privately called the boy before him Yotsuki A.
"Now that's a terrifying aura," Chiba Shun thought, unable to hide a trace of envy.
Yotsuki A was not even older than he was. Twelve at most.
But from the pressure he gave off alone, Chiba Shun could already tell that the boy had reached jonin level.
Each escort squad was led by a jonin and backed by three chunin, the standard elite setup used by ANBU-level teams. Yotsuki A was the captain of one of those squads.
And with his status, he was definitely not some ordinary jonin.
A twelve-year-old jonin was already only slightly behind the Kakashi of the original story.
And Chiba Shun was willing to bet that, given Yotsuki A's identity, the boy had already learned all kinds of secret techniques from the Third Raikage. Among jonin, he would not be weak.
Because of that same identity, however, Yotsuki A would not be entering the Land of Fire with them.
The two escort teams only accompanied Chiba Shun's group as far as the border between the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Fire.
There, eight Konoha ninjas were already waiting.
From that point on, the delegation would be escorted by two teams from Konoha.
Under the watch of those eight leaf ninjas, Chiba Shun and the twenty-four children slowly made their way deeper toward Konoha.
The pace was painfully slow.
Most of the children had only just refined chakra. They were nowhere near the level where they could keep up with a ninja's proper travel speed. Reaching Konoha in a single day was impossible.
That evening, the entire group stopped to rest in a forest inside the Land of Fire.
***
From the moment he stepped into the Land of Fire, Chiba Shun had been in a sour mood.
Forests this dense simply did not exist in the Land of Lightning. Here, however, the trees stretched endlessly in every direction, layered thick and deep, so full of life it made his teeth itch.
The land beneath them was rich. Fertile. Soft.
The territory of the Land of Fire really was absurdly good.
It possessed the finest land in the entire ninja world. In terms of natural wealth alone, the Land of Fire was richer than the other four great nations put together.
That was why Konoha had been able to fight one against four during the Second Shinobi World War.
After living in Kumogakure for fourteen years, Chiba Shun already thought of himself as someone from the Land of Lightning.
Which only made the sight before him even more infuriating.
He wanted this land.
He wanted these forests, these fields, this prosperity, all of it to belong to the Land of Lightning instead.
If the Land of Lightning became rich, Kumogakure would receive more funding. The village would pay higher rewards. He himself would gain more resources. His strength would rise faster.
But thoughts like that could not be shown on his face.
Not only could he not reveal them, he had to make sure the children did not reveal anything either.
Once camp had been set up, Chiba Shun gathered the twenty-four nervous children and said, "Don't be scared. We're here to negotiate with Konoha."
"We can't let the village lose face."
The children all nodded, trying hard to look calm.
But it was only an act.
Back at the Ninja Academy, Chiba Shun had brainwashed them far too thoroughly. In their minds, Konoha was no village at all, but a tiger's den, a place full of demons that devoured people whole.
How could they not be nervous?
After some thought, Chiba Shun changed tactics.
"The Raikage is standing behind us," he said. "Konoha wouldn't dare do anything to us."
"Your only job in Konoha this time is to eat."
That made several children blink in confusion.
"Konoha is rich," Chiba Shun went on gravely. "Unlike our village, they aren't short on funds."
"Every extra bite you eat there is one more bite saved for the village."
"In Kumogakure, we struggled to train because food was scarce. But in Konoha, you don't need to worry about that."
"Eat as much as you can, then keep training."
"We used to eat three meals a day. Once we arrive in Konoha, we'll eat four. Maybe five."
"Turn their food into your strength."
"When we return to the village, all of you should be noticeably stronger."
The children stared at him for a second.
Then their fear visibly eased.
Their attention had been completely diverted.
They began imagining an impossibly rich Konoha, a place where food overflowed in piles and nobody ever had to stop eating. As orphans, they could not truly comprehend what real wealth looked like, but that only made their imaginations run wilder.
Chiba Shun's words, of course, were overheard in full by the Konoha escorts.
Several of the leaf ninjas exchanged strange looks.
Why had the Cloud Village sent someone like this?
Could this kind of man really represent Kumogakure?
Weren't cloud ninjas supposed to be huge, rough-tempered brutes who started fights the moment they disagreed with someone?
Still, they were all direct subordinates of Hiruzen Sarutobi. They understood his policy well enough.
The Third Hokage genuinely wanted an alliance with Kumogakure.
He had no desire to repeat the situation from the early years of the Second Shinobi World War, when Konoha had been forced to fight enemies on every side at once.
So even though they found Chiba Shun odd, they did not mock him.
Not openly, anyway.
***
Late that night, unusual movement outside the camp woke Chiba Shun from his shallow half-sleep.
He did not leave the tent.
Instead, he quietly used his sensory ninjutsu.
Very quickly, he pieced together the situation.
The eight Konoha ninjas assigned to protect them had not moved. Two hundred meters away, however, a fight was taking place.
Both sides were holding back.
It was not a fight to the death, only a cautious, probing clash.
Chiba Shun let out a silent sigh.
"Danzo again," he thought.
"Only a clash between Root and ANBU would look like this."
"Hiruzen Sarutobi, you'd better not disappoint me."
Unfortunately, reality rarely cared what he hoped for.
Just as he was silently urging Hiruzen to show some backbone, he detected an extremely faint chakra fluctuation approaching the camp.
Chiba Shun's mouth twitched.
What were those eight people outside doing? Someone was already sneaking this close, and they had not noticed?
For a moment he wanted to warn them.
Then he forcibly swallowed the impulse.
He did not want to reveal that he had learned sensory ninjutsu.
Chiba Shun glanced at the children sleeping around him, then quietly shifted to one side of the tent and waited.
Soon enough, the infiltrator came closer.
"Who's there?" one of the Konoha escorts shouted at last.
So they had not been completely useless.
A taijutsu-type jonin instantly rushed toward the shadow, while the other leaf ninjas began preparing ninjutsu from the rear.
Seeing he had been exposed, the intruder gave up on sneaking.
Instead, he dodged the jonin's attack and hurled several kunai directly at Chiba Shun's tent.
Earth Release - Earth Flow Wall!
Since those Konoha ninjas were proving unreliable, Chiba Shun had no choice but to act for himself.
Fortunately, he acted only after the commotion began. To anyone watching, it would seem as though he had merely responded after hearing danger approach, not sensed it in advance.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Three explosions ripped through the night.
The earth wall shattered into flying rubble.
Chiba Shun himself was unharmed.
But several of the children he had brought were still injured by the debris.
Clang!
After a brief exchange, the Konoha jonin and the attacker broke apart again.
Once the intruder realized the strike had failed and that more enemies were converging, he stopped pressing the attack and retreated at once.
A flurry of movement followed.
Masked Konoha ANBU came rushing in from all directions, but instead of entering the camp, they spread out around the perimeter to guard against any additional enemies.
Only after the danger had passed did Chiba Shun raise his voice and shout, "Are there any medical ninjas from Konoha? Some of our people are injured!"
Two medical ninjas stepped forward immediately and began treating the wounded children.
Since none of them had been hit directly by explosive tags and most had only been cut by flying rubble, their injuries were not too serious. With the help of medical ninjutsu, they stabilized quickly.
Watching the treatment, Chiba Shun could not help feeling jealous.
Kumogakure could never afford something this luxurious. Two medical ninjas attached to only two squads?
Konoha really had already begun implementing the system Tsunade proposed in the original story.
Of course, that was only partly true. Konoha did not actually have enough medical ninjas to outfit every team.
It was simply that these two squads were direct subordinates of Hiruzen Sarutobi, which meant they had been among the first to receive that kind of support.
Once the treatment was finished, Chiba Shun went around soothing the frightened children one by one.
Thankfully, there had been no deaths.
Only then did he turn to one of the Konoha squad leaders and ask, "Senior, at our current pace, how long until we reach Konoha?"
The man hesitated before answering, "Three to four days."
Chiba Shun looked out into the pitch-black forest.
There was probably no danger left for tonight.
But there were still two or three nights after this.
After a moment's thought, he said, "I have a suggestion."
The Konoha ninja looked at him.
"Now that more ANBU have arrived, you have enough people. Why not have each ninja carry one child on their back and push through the night?"
"There are sixteen of you now. Taking them all to Konoha quickly shouldn't be a problem."
As he spoke, Chiba Shun's gaze sharpened slightly.
The sooner they reached Konoha, the sooner this journey would become even more dangerous.
But staying outside the village any longer might be even worse.