Chapter 282: Signing the Contract
After pushing the door open, Haruno Sakura saw the so-called Granny Cat.
She was not what she had imagined. Granny Cat was an elderly human woman.
She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the spacious room, with a dozen ninja cats playing around her.
There were also two small kittens perched on her head and shoulders, meowing non-stop.
Seeing someone come in, the few ninja cats showed expressions of either vigilance or affection, their temperaments seeming to be vastly different.
Just as she understood, ninja beasts, under the stimulation of chakra or natural energy, had gained sentience. Their intelligence could reach the level of a human, and there were even many individuals who could be called wise, but in essence, they still retained many of the instincts of a wild beast.
For example, asking their "shit-shoveling officer" (owner) for cat food.
For example, being affectionate with their owner, or being wary of strangers.
Granny Cat carefully placed the two kittens that were crawling on her onto the floor, glanced at the two who had walked in, and said, "It's been a long time, little Sasuke-kun. What brings you here?"
The two kittens, taking deep and shallow steps on the carpet, swayed as they walked towards Sakura. Haruno Sakura squatted down, and with her palm open, the two kittens began to happily lick it.
It was adorably ticklish. They're no different from ordinary cats!
Sasuke looked down at the two kittens, carefully avoided them, and took a step forward. "According to the agreement between the Uchiha and the ninja cat clan, I am here to find a summoning partner who is willing to fight with me."
He took out a summoning scroll and showed it to Granny Cat.
"It's the highest-level scroll, one that only the clan head can use..." Granny Cat said, taking a puff of her pipe, which made a pattering sound. She frowned. "That's right, you've already... alas. In short, if you sign this scroll, you can choose the most outstanding cat from our ninja cats as your partner."
"Are Denka and Hina available?"
"No, they are responsible for receiving guests, and Denka and Hina are not the most outstanding. In fact, our clan has been producing a lot of geniuses in recent years," Granny Cat said with a slight smile. "So I recommend Oni and Hino, the siblings. Hn, that... and Yoru."
She said, pointing to the two kittens that had just been licking the girl's fingers.
Sasuke looked back, and black lines immediately appeared on his face: These are also called ninja cats?!
Those two kittens, who had no combat power at all and could only act cute, were at this moment squinting their eyes, enjoying the girl's petting.
This action had a professional term, called "petting a cat."
But... don't be fooled by their appearance.
In fact, Granny Cat was not joking.
Just by looking at their chakra, Haruno Sakura could also roughly judge that the potential of these two kittens at her feet was extremely high. Their vigorous life force made their chakra amount extremely large, even comparable to some of the adult ninja cats present.
When they grow up, they will be even more amazing!
"Oni and Hino are a once-in-a-decade genius ninja cat pair, and their temperament is also very fond of getting along with humans," Granny Cat said, proudly introducing the two kittens to Sasuke, and then added, "Taking them to the ninja village will be conducive to their growth, and if they follow you from a young age, it will also be conducive to cultivating your tacit understanding. Don't worry, ninja cats grow very fast."
I'd rather have an immediate fighting force that can be used as soon as I sign the contract... Sasuke accepted Granny Cat's good intentions with a helpless expression, watching as she sealed the names of Oni and Hino and two tufts of their fur into the scroll.
He then asked, "Then what about Yoru?"
This one shouldn't be a kitten, right!
"Yoru?" Granny Cat was stunned for a moment, looked around, but couldn't find her target. "Where's that damn girl? Where did she go off to steal food again?"
"Yoru! Yoru!" she shouted vigorously twice, but heard no response.
"I haven't seen her since this morning," a calico cat lying lazily on the cat tree said.
"Rin-chan! Okura Rin!" Granny Cat called out the door. "Have you seen Yoru?"
A girl about the same age as Sakura poked her head out from the side of the door. "No!"
Just as everyone was wondering, on a shelf on the side, the lid of a wine vat was suddenly pushed open, and an orange tabby cat revealed its sleepy eyes and said, its breath stinking of alcohol, "Who's calling me?"
"Yoru, you've been stealing wine again..." Granny Cat's eyebrows immediately drooped, and she said helplessly.
This fat, large cat squeezed out of the wine vat, drunk, and with a sway of its fat body, it jumped off the wine rack—it even nearly stumbled and fell to the ground. Seeing this creature's lazy movements, the expression on Sasuke's face immediately became priceless.
Apart from being able to talk, what part of this cat deserves to be called a ninja cat?
Those two kittens were one thing; what's with this gluttonous and fat she-cat!
Haruno Sakura, who was watching from the side, also couldn't help but let out a laugh. As the saying goes, nine out of ten orange cats are fat, and one is especially fat. This ninja cat named Yoru was clearly not a member of that ninety percent.
"Ahem... Yoru's sense of smell is particularly sensitive. No matter how we hide the food, she can always find it at the first moment," Granny Cat said with an awkward laugh, explaining, "Although she's so fat she can't even jump, as a support-type ninja cat, she's still very outstanding..."
Seeing the expression on Sasuke's face become more and more stiff, Granny Cat gave a sheepish laugh. "Just take her as a bonus. The rule is that one person can only sign two cats..."
He hesitated for a moment.
"Alright," Sasuke said helplessly.
In any case, the house is very big. It's also good to take her home to catch mice, Sasuke thought.
—He just hadn't thought about how such a fat cat could catch mice.
Granny Cat quickly wrote down Yoru's name, as if afraid that Sasuke would go back on his word, and muttered something under her breath.
Sakura didn't hear it very clearly, something like "finally sent her away," "the shop's money is almost not enough to cover her food expenses," and so on. She then looked at Sasuke with some sympathy. The remaining assets of the Uchiha are very large. They shouldn't be eaten into bankruptcy, right!
Probably!
Granny Cat handed the scroll with the names written on it back to Sasuke and said, "Remember to summon them to Konoha as soon as you get back. You must remember!"
Without waiting for Sasuke to say anything, she hurriedly continued, "Alright, the matter of signing the ninja cat contract is settled!"
She then asked, "Hn, little Sasuke-kun, is there anything else?"
Sasuke no longer dwelled on these trivial details and said, "I'm going to the Uchiha's warehouse to get something. You should still have the supplies from there, right?"
"Of course," Granny Cat said, her expression returning to its calm and composed state when it came to business. She held her pipe and said, "But you must show the family's token, otherwise, it can't be opened."
"I brought it," Sasuke said, taking out an exquisite, ornament-like object from his pocket. Granny Cat took it, and with another part in her hand, she combined them into a very large key.
"This is the key to the warehouse... Over there, you can just follow Rin-chan," Granny Cat said, handing the key back to Sasuke and smoking her pipe.
"Thank you, Granny Cat," Sasuke said with a nod. The two of them left the room, and under Rin-chan's guidance, they came to a huge warehouse.
Sakura finally understood why the key had to be so large—it was a perfect match for the warehouse's towering iron gate.
Haruno Sakura and Sasuke exchanged a look: What on earth is in there that requires such a large warehouse? Sasuke himself was also very surprised.
Sakura used her Monstrous Strength Technique to push open the giant iron gate. What came into view was a mountain of supplies.
From the entrance of the warehouse, it was piled all the way to the depths of the warehouse, so deep that the end could not be seen.
The two of them walked into the warehouse. Sakura casually pulled out a kunai from a pile of ninja tools stacked on a shelf on the side. The iron ninja tool, wrapped in oil paper, was extremely well-preserved, and when it was unwrapped, it was still as good as new.
She swung it a few times, making a whistling sound. "This is a new kunai of excellent quality. It's been kept here for six or seven years without being used."
Sasuke nodded.
The two of them looked up.
The huge shelf beside them was a full two or three stories high and was divided into many layers by iron plates. Each layer was filled with the same style of ninja tools. A rough estimate was that there were at least ten thousand kunai on one shelf. And this was just the tip of the iceberg of the warehouse—Sakura looked back and saw that behind it were the same shelves, neatly arranged, extending all the way to the dark depths of the warehouse!
Countless kunai, shuriken, Fūma shuriken, tachi, long swords, long katanas...
The commonly used ninja tools, the more numerous ones filled more than a dozen shelves, while the fewer ones were piled on several shelves. Just like that, they were displayed openly in front of the two of them!
For a moment, Haruno Sakura was also stunned by this dazzling inventory.
"There's so many..." she murmured.
It was indeed too many.
Haruno Sakura racked her brain to find a word to describe the scene in front of her, but found that her vocabulary was lacking.
As many as the hairs on an ox? Such a phrase was simply an insult to the quantity of this huge warehouse.
She walked straight in. The first dozen or twenty shelves were full of kunai, maybe hundreds of thousands of them. It was impossible to estimate the number. Further back were shuriken, which also filled a dozen or so shelves. And then there was a dazzling array of various long katanas, tachi, and various special weapons...
After walking past the long section of ninja tool shelves, they came to the depths of the warehouse. The light from the main entrance couldn't reach this position, and it was pitch black. Sakura fumbled in the dark for the light switch on the wall. When she turned it on, she saw that this was the part where medical supplies and medicines were stored.
Bandages, ointments, pain-relief patches, soldier pills, and blood-replenishing agents, etc., etc. They were either placed directly on the shelves, or sealed in boxes or scrolls. Things that Sakura had seen, and things she hadn't, could all be found here.
Further back were various miscellaneous items, clothing, scrolls, and books, and so on. This part, on the contrary, was particularly sparse. Compared to the supplies used for combat in the front, it could be said to be negligible.
When Haruno Sakura reached this point, she was already at the end of the warehouse. She turned back. Sasuke was standing in the middle of the warehouse, looking thoughtfully at the shelves filled with weapons around him.
The two of them looked at each other, speechless.
The same question lay before them—
What was the Uchiha clan collecting so many supplies for?
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