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Inside the Konoha Hospital.
Akio smiled as he looked at the three injured children and said,
"Now you understand how tough it is to go on missions, right? Accidents can happen at any time."
"There were no accidents. Everything was within expectations," Kushina replied through gritted teeth. It was obvious she suspected Akio had been secretly meddling. If it had been someone else, she would've already turned into her "little chili pepper" mode.
Nagato and Konan, on the other hand, hadn't noticed anything. Both looked a bit disheartened.
"It's all my fault. I must not have hidden well enough, which is how the Grass ninja found us," the two of them said in unison.
Akio and Kushina exchanged glances and helplessly shrugged. These two kids were just a little too innocent.
In reality, none of the three had sustained serious injuries. With Akio around, there was no way he'd let them get truly hurt. They only suffered some scrapes, which didn't even require Katsuyu's help. Konan had already healed most of it herself. Just to be safe, they had come to the hospital for some basic treatment and quicker recovery.
"All right, let's go." Once everything was taken care of, Akio led the three kids out of the hospital.
"The mission counts as complete. I'll go to Hiruzen to claim the reward. You three go rest. Training resumes tomorrow."
The group split into two directionsâNagato and Konan returned to the Senju compound, while Kushina went to look for Minato. Lately, he had been very busy. Though he hadn't been on any missions, Akio had heard he was undertaking some important training.
It might be the Flying Thunder God Technique, but Akio wasn't in a hurry to check. The training had only started less than a month ago. No matter how much of a genius Minato was, mastering the Flying Thunder God would take at least a year or two. Akio wouldn't be able to offer much guidance at this stage anyway.
"Elder Akio, could you sell all your Explosive Tags exclusively to Konoha from now on?"
After the mission handoff, Hiruzen hesitated before asking the question.
Akio smiled with a face that suggested it was up for discussion.
Hiruzen was visibly pleasedâuntil Akio added, "In your dreams."
Hiruzen felt like his life had just hit a roller coaster dip.
As he walked out, Akio shook his head. He had anticipated that selling Explosive Tags to other nations would rub Hiruzen and Danzo the wrong way, but what could he do? He couldn't sacrifice the Land of Whirlpools' economy for the sake of an alliance.
The Explosive Tags he and Konan made had almost no cost aside from being a bit troublesome to craft.
On the streets of Konoha, Akio hesitated for a moment. Instead of returning to the Senju compound, he used the Transformation Jutsu and headed straight for Ichiraku Ramen.
"Teuchi! Long time no see. You really started doing deliveries?"
As always, Teuchi greeted him with a cheerful smile. "Boss Hagoromo, you're back! Thanks to your suggestion, business has been even better than before!"
Akio nodded and glanced inside the shop. A woman bustled about behind the counter, carrying a small girl, about one or two years old, on her back.
"Bringing the whole family onboard?"
"Yeah, it was getting too busy for just one person, so I asked my wife to help."
Akio nodded again, slightly surprised when a small figure came running over behind him.
"Boss, I delivered the ramen to the Nara clan! Where to next?" It was Might Guy, not even six years old yet.
"The Nara clan?" Akio blinked. "You're doing clan-based deliveries now? I get the feeling this delivery idea might make Teuchi rich⊠The Ichiraku Empire, maybe?"
He turned and grinned at Teuchi. "If you do strike it rich, don't forget to support my business too."
"Of course, of course!"
"Looks like he really might get richâŠ" Akio muttered as he walked to his own shop.
Now that his identity had been exposed, Akio had left the store under Hiruzen's care for a yearâmainly just to prevent theft. The place was still dusty, though⊠and what was with all the paper slips on the ground?
He picked up a few and quickly realized they were messages from othersâsince the shop was closed, people had slipped notes through the door.
"As expected, the store went viral because of the wooden sculptures of Nawaki and Mikoto. Every slip is a request offering a million ryo each. That's three to four hundred slips here⊠Looks like Konoha has no shortage of wealthy clients."
But as Akio looked through more of them, he realized it wasn't what he thought. Only a fraction were requests to buy a sculpture. The majority were urging him to hurry upâand some were no longer willing to wait.
"So impatient. You should be grateful to wait even a year for these ancestral-level sculptures."
Over the next month, Akio would transform and go to the store during the day to complete "orders," and return to the Senju compound at night in his original form to assign training to the three kids.
It took about a month for him to finish all the orders. He even had Ichiraku's delivery boys send the sculptures out. The total income exceeded 300 million ryoânot a small sum, even for Akio. Sure, he could win that at a casino, but that would likely cause a stir.
With a year's worth of orders completed in a single month, the shop returned to a half-dead state, and it would probably stay that way for a while. After all, everyone in Konoha who could afford Akio's sculptures already had one. There wouldn't be many new customers anytime soon.
Just as Akio was pondering what new products to add to the shop, a message interrupted his thoughtsâKonoha Academy was about to hold its 39th enrollment session.
This round of enrollment was second in importance to Akio only to the one when Naruto and his friends would start school in the future. From what he remembered, Kakashi, Guy, Asuma, and Kurenaiâthe future teachers of the Twelve Konoha Geninâshould all be in this class.
Akio also wanted to see how the Ninja Academy had changed. He'd heard that students now needed to pass physical, genjutsu, and ninjutsu aptitude tests to enroll. It was no longer enough to just extract chakraâthey needed to demonstrate talent too. With Konoha's growing population, it was a necessary change.
Also, the original September enrollment had been moved to March in recent years. Akio had initially found that odd, but then realized he was just influenced by his memories from his past life. In the world of Naruto, people seemed to believe starting school just after the New Year was more auspicious. Maybe that was the reason.
As he approached the Academy, he saw a bright red notice posted near the entrance. It listed the registration and exam dates in detail. A steady stream of children were arriving with their parents to enroll.
Akio lingered for a while and spotted a few familiar faces, though he couldn't remember their names.
"So many people. No wonder Hiruzen wanted a selection process." Akio recalled that the first batch of Konoha students only had about thirty people. Just watching for a short while now, he could already see more than that.
"The exam's on February 20, huh?" Akio nodded to himself. "I'll come check it out. Let's see how many familiar faces show up."
There was a spark of anticipation in his heart.
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