Chapter 682 - 682: Sasuke Goes Shopping

"A pink-haired girl with huge knockers, you say?" echoed an old woman with a hunched back, flashing Sasuke a pitying look. "Are you sure this girl exists outside your daydreams, lad?"

Sasuke resisted the urge to give an exasperated sigh.

Conveniently, the language spoken here was the same as in the Five Elemental Nations, but the lingua franca of the shinobi continent had been of little help in his search. He'd asked all over Nagare Village about Tsubaki's whereabouts, but he had mostly received blank stares in return.

"Ugh…" Sasuke groaned inwardly. "Sakura's going to kill me when she learns I lost her clone…"

In fact, by the time he'd made it to this little old lady tending her buckwheat fields, Sasuke had received more questions than he'd asked. After the young, unmarried men of the village heard Tsubaki's description, they had become rather interested in her, which was only natural… but their infatuation did little to help him locate his lost teammate.

Sensing someone approaching from behind, Sasuke turned around, startling the young man who had been in the middle of reaching out to tap him on the shoulder.

"Is this perhaps who you were looking for? Pink-haired girl with a figure that's out of this world?" he said, holding out a flyer. "Maybe you saw her poster in passing while you were in the capital and forgot about it until now? I know how you feel, it was love at first sight for me too, haha!"

Sasuke snatched the flyer out of the young man's hands and stared at it in disbelief. Its cover featured a depiction of a busty young lass with pink hair. There could be no doubt about it: that was Tsubaki!

"Where did you get this?" Sasuke asked. "And… what is this…!?"

The brochure read:

The Tale of the Demon Queen of the Six Heavens, Scourge of the East: The Sixth Hokage Whose Bosom Smothers the World.

You will laugh! You will cry! An unmissable experience!

And in far larger characters:

A Murasaki Troupe production. Support the dramatic arts by visiting your local theatre today!

"I just told you, the capital, the royal capital!" the young man said irritably, lunging at the flyer in Sasuke's hands. "And give that back, I need that for later!"

Though Sasuke loathed the idea of giving a picture of his precious Sakura to such a pervert, he relinquished the obviously beloved theatre flyer to its rightful owner to avoid unnecessary trouble. He then returned to the little camp he and the Land of Waves craftsmen had made for themselves nearby, amongst the ruins of their airship.

"It's three days from here to the capital, either by horseback or on foot," Sasuke told Tazuna, regurgitating the information the Nagare villagers had given him. "Are you sure you'll be fine by yourselves out here?"

"The Land of Redaku's supposed to be a peaceful paradise, isn't it? The locals are friendly, we have plenty of supplies, and the rivers carry plenty of fresh water to drink, so don't worry about us, Sasuke," Tazuna replied, patting him on the shoulder. "Go to your girl and make sure she's all right… that's what's most important, lad!"

…

With Tazuna's blessing and assurance that he and his comrades would be fine without him, Sasuke departed for the capital. Even though he was worried sick about Tsubaki, he forced himself to maintain a comfortable pace; though he was still a little bruised from the crash-landing, what worried him most was that he had expended far too much chakra saving and subsequently healing everyone, leaving him precious little stamina for emergencies.

Four and a half hours after his departure, he finally arrived at the capital, perched at the peak of the tallest mountain in the region. There, he found Sakura's, or rather, Tsubaki's, image plastered all over the city walls, along with advertisements for the new play she was meant to star in as the main female lead. The premiere was meant to take place on Wednesday, the day of water.

According to the first person Sasuke asked, this was the day King Sora usually went out to call forth the rain when the rivers began running dry. Without the rainmaking power of the royal family, the Land of Redaku would be an arid, inhospitable wasteland, as the mountain country's elevation was so great that heavy, rain-bearing clouds rarely passed overhead. Even immense cumulonimbus clouds concentrated most of their moisture in their lower reaches, so they weren't of much help with water either.

After getting directions to the theatre from the same kind stranger he had asked the earlier question, Sasuke thanked him and began making his way towards the city centre when a chill ran down his back… he was being watched.

Sasuke leisurely shoved his hands into his coat pockets and changed direction, wandering around a flea market and pretending to be intrigued by what was on offer at the stalls. Business was booming, and the sides of the road were lined with great piles of salt heaped on tarpaulins, stalls filled with bottles of sake, and stacks of folded silk textiles with colourful drapes hung above them to display the intricately woven patterns of the merchandise.

Sasuke stopped in front of a booth brimming with various baubles and cheap jewellery.

"How much for that?"

Sasuke casually grabbed a pocket mirror and snapped it open, angling it so that its reflection showed him what was behind him. He scanned the crowd, trying to identify who was spying on him…

"Five thousand ryō," said the salesman, quoting a ridiculous figure as he eyed Sasuke's finely made waterproof cloak. "Say, you're a rather handsome fellow, aren't cha? But I don't see a ring on your finger… don't tell me you still haven't sealed the deal with that special lady in your heart?"

To the salesman, Sasuke looked like the playboy type, not the kind of bloke to be satisfied with just one gal, settling down and starting a family with said gal… but oh, what the hell. What did he have to lose by nosily prying into his customer's personal business?

"One thousand ryō," Sasuke counteroffered. He still wasn't done pretending to admire him reflection in order to spy on his surroundings. "…and what was that about rings?"

The salesman's pupils seemed to turn into ryō (両) signs. He had taken Sasuke for a visitor from out of town, but to think he was a tourist from afar… and for someone to travel this far from home in this day and age, that undoubtedly meant he was a man of means!