Chapter 125: Road Money

A couple of weeks after the bad-glass mess, the factory shipments were moving normally again.

Ren was halfway through an ordinary shipping complaint when Pakura walked into the commercial office and dropped three broken arrowheads onto his desk.

He looked at them.

“One of the western caravans has been stopped twice this month,” Pakura said. “The first time they paid. The second time a driver got beaten and they lost several crates. Patrols pass through, just not often enough to stop it happening again.”

She tapped one of the arrowheads.

“The merchants have already started adding the road fee to their prices.”

Pakura laid a folded proposal on the desk.

“I want to change the departure times, split the next shipment, and add concealed escorts,” Pakura said. “We identify where they observe the road, and we hit them the moment they expose themselves.”

Ren read the proposal and nodded. “When does the next shipment leave?”

Pakura looked at him. “No.”

“I need to see the route,” Ren said. “There are two suppliers along the same route I wanted to look at anyway. I’ll check them while we’re out there.”

Pakura stared at him for a moment.

“You’re staying with the caravan.”

Ren nodded.

They left the following morning.

Ren travelled on the wooden bench of an ordinary wagon in plain clothes. Several merchants rode with them, their wagons carrying cloth, medical supplies, soap, and a few sealed crates of more expensive goods.

Pakura had mixed several of her guards in with the wagon crews. Anyone watching the road would have taken them for hired labor.

By mid-morning, Ren noticed her quietly signaling two of the hidden guards to change the marching order after she spotted a set of faint wheel tracks near the tree line.

“Why the shift?” Ren asked.

Pakura pointed down the road. “The rise cuts off the rear wagons from the front. I want another guard back there.”

They stopped beside the wagons for lunch. Pakura sat on a crate across from Ren, unsealing a canteen.

“Did Tsunade actually approve the latest factory products?” Pakura asked.

Ren looked up from his food. “How do you know about that?”

“Half the commercial district knows,” Pakura said dryly. “One of your former suppliers was complaining loudly at a tavern about losing the glass contract.”

Ren made a mental note to tell Kakuzu to handle the former supplier.

“Do you ever miss Suna?” Ren asked.

Pakura paused with the canteen resting against her knee and looked toward the tree line.

“Parts of it,” Pakura said. “The desert. The food. A few people.”

She capped the canteen and looked back toward the road.

“I don’t miss being treated like something they could throw away.”

Ren took another bite of his food. After a while, he asked about the wooded terrain farther west.

Late in the afternoon, the road narrowed between a wooded slope and a steep drop on the opposite side.

Something shifted at the edge of Ren’s left eye.

A faint red path moved through the trees above the road. Another crossed it farther ahead, followed by a third running parallel to the caravan.

“We’re being watched,” Ren said quietly.

Pakura’s hand dropped to her side, and the hidden escorts began shifting positions at her signals.

The caravan continued.

A felled tree blocked the road farther ahead.

The wagons rolled to a halt. Several men emerged from the brush on either side of the road, weapons drawn. Their leader stepped into the road with a heavy axe on his shoulder.

“Road toll,” he called. “Pay it and keep moving.”

Ren stayed seated among the merchants. Pakura’s hidden escorts didn’t move.

Behind the rear wagons, the red paths suddenly shifted.

“Rear,” Ren said.

A dozen armed men broke from the tree line behind the caravan, rushing the high-value cargo wagons.

Pakura gave the signal.

The caravan guards dropped the act and drew their weapons.

Pakura moved up the slope before the men there could close on the wagons. Heat warped the air around her, and the first burst of Scorch Release sent the attackers scrambling away from the road.

Ren went for the men rushing the rear wagon.

One of the attackers near the last wagon hurled a cluster of explosive tags toward the wheels.

Ren’s hand disappeared briefly into the Black Vault and came back with two prepared kunai. He sent both across the gap, knocking the tags away from the wagon before they struck.

Ren closed the distance before the attacker recovered. The man’s weapon clipped his shoulder, but Ren kept moving and drove the hilt of his kunai into his temple.

A thick cloud of smoke erupted near the center wagons.

Red movement cut through the smoke in Ren’s left eye. One shifted toward a driver. Ren intercepted the path blindly, catching a descending blade on his own kunai and driving his knee into the attacker’s chest, throwing him backward into the dirt.

Another red path vanished deeper into the trees.

Ren let it go. Pakura dropped from the tree line a second later and caught the fleeing man before he made it twenty yards.

Near the back of the chaos, one of the thieves managed to cut loose a small, two-wheeled cart carrying the luxury crates.

Ren saw the cart start down the side track.

Ren pulled a coil of wire and a kunai from the Black Vault. A moment later the wire snapped tight around the cart’s rear axle. The cart jerked sideways into the bank and threw the thief into the dirt.

By the time Pakura came back down the slope, the last attackers had either gone down or fled into the woods.

Pakura stepped over a groaning bandit and looked at the overturned cart. “If those crates broke, you were explaining it to Kakuzu.”

Ren checked the nearest crate. “They’re fine.”

Several attackers were unconscious or tightly restrained by the caravan guards. A few had fled into the woods.

Pakura hauled the leader upright and questioned him. According to him, they were mercenaries and thieves who had noticed expensive caravans using the road. The first merchant group had paid without fighting, so they’d come back expecting the same result.

The surviving attackers were tied up and placed under guard in the rear wagons for the authorities at the next settlement. Pakura collected their weapons and explosive tags before the caravan moved again.

The next morning, they reached the first supplier Ren had intended to inspect.

He spent two hours sitting in a dusty warehouse, arguing with a merchant about textile quality and bulk pricing.

Pakura stood near the door while the merchant repeated his argument for the third time.

Ren picked up a bolt of heavy canvas and held it toward her. “What do you think?”

Pakura walked over, took the fabric, and pulled hard on the weave.

“Too loose,” Pakura said. She pulled at the weave again. “Take this through thick brush once and it’ll tear.”

The merchant immediately started defending the weave.

Ren set the canvas down. “Then you won’t mind lowering the price.”

When they stopped in the settlement’s small market before beginning the return journey, Pakura vanished for a few minutes. She returned carrying a paper wrap of spiced, grilled meat from a street stall.

“Wind Country style,” Pakura said, offering him a piece.

Ren took one bite and started coughing. He reached for his canteen and handed the rest of the meat back.

Pakura looked mildly amused and finished it herself.

The return journey was entirely quiet.

During a long stretch of empty road, Ren leaned back against the side of the wagon and closed his eyes. Pakura glanced over sometime later and found him asleep despite the constant rattle of the wheels. She left him alone.

They reached Konoha two days later.

Kakuzu was waiting at the commercial office.

“Damage?”

“Almost none,” Ren said. “All the wagons came back, and we barely lost any product.”

Some of the tension left Kakuzu’s shoulders.

Then he held his hand out toward Pakura. “What did the operation cost?”

Pakura pulled a folded sheet of paper from her vest and handed it over.

Kakuzu unfolded the expense sheet. His expression soured line by line.

Ren left Kakuzu staring at the numbers and walked out into the evening air.

As he passed the main Uchiha house on his way back to his estate, he noticed Sasuke standing near the front gate with Itachi. Sasuke had both hands raised, his small fingers tangled as he tried to force them into a new hand sign. Itachi knelt beside him and demonstrated it again.

Naruto was there too. Kushina had come over to see Mikoto, and he was now crowding beside Sasuke while demanding that Itachi look at his hands.

Sasuke looked up and saw him walking past the gate.

“Big Brother!”

Naruto spun around. “Big Brother!”

Ren lifted a hand.

Sasuke immediately held up the hand sign he had been practicing.

Naruto shoved his own hands higher, trying to block Sasuke from view.

Itachi caught Naruto around the waist before he could climb directly over him.

Ren left Itachi to deal with the argument and continued toward his estate as the sun went down.