Rasa had a thought—though he wasn't sure if he should be saying it out loud.
Why the hell were all these Iwa-nin chasing only him?
Was it really just because of the title "Disciple of the Third Kazekage"? Did that attract this much hate?
Besides, weren't all the other shinobi villages currently spreading the rumor that the Third Kazekage's disciple, Rasa, suffered severe mental trauma and had lost his mind?
So what was up with this crowd of shinobi charging after a guy they thought was mentally unstable? Was that even ethical?
Only after he started running did Rasa realize—most of the enemy's jōnin and chūnin had all come to capture him.
Which meant… the group of Suna shinobi he had left behind was now in the safest spot on the battlefield.
Are you kidding me?!
Rasa exhaled and glanced back at the pursuing Iwa shinobi, while feeling the drain of chakra from his system accelerating.
They're really trying to kill me out here…
This couldn't go on.
He looked down at the impure gold dust he was riding.
Can this be converted?
The moment the thought crossed his mind, that same voice echoed again—just like the day his strange ability first awakened.
[Conversion available. Exchange rate: 60%.]
The same mechanical voice that had first appeared when his "golden finger" (cheat ability) activated rang out in his mind again.
Only sixty percent?
That conversion rate was daylight robbery!
Sure, this was low-purity gold dust, but he'd painstakingly collected it grain by grain from the desert! And now…
[Screw it. Do it!]
The moment the thought finalized in his mind, his interface updated—he'd received 99 silver coins.
"…"
All that gold dust… and this was all he got?
Could the system be bugged?
He'd even converted the entire defense array he'd built from gold dust around his feet—and still, only 99 coins?
Had he been scammed?
But after a moment of thought, considering they were in the middle of the Wind Country desert… it made sense. If the local sand had high gold content, this place wouldn't be so desolate in the first place.
Rasa sighed, shook his head, and muttered, "Honestly… I've got it pretty rough."
All that effort—mining pitiful amounts of gold dust in the desert just to feed the entire village.
What a massive undertaking...
Looking at his coin total—still not enough to spin the gacha—he quickly gathered another mound of gold dust underfoot. Then, right in front of the confused and wary Iwa-nin, he... started running again.
"…What's he doing?"
One of the Iwa-nin blinked in confusion, watching Rasa disperse his chakra, then gather it again.
Wait… is this some kind of trap?
Though they knew the Suna-nin in front of them had reportedly gone off the deep end, they still respected his guts. He'd drawn them away alone just to protect his comrades.
But still...
They had a mission to complete.
He was the disciple of the Third Kazekage. If nothing went wrong, he was almost certainly going to be the next Kazekage.
If they actually managed to kill him here—
That would deal a massive blow to Sunagakure.
So...
"Keep chasing him!"
And so, across the windswept desert—
A strange scene unfolded.
A man surfing ahead on a wave of gold dust. A horde of Iwa-nin chasing behind him. And whenever he dispelled his gold dust and paused, they all stopped too, not daring to charge in.
[These guys… might actually be the ones who are crazy.]
Rasa, now recharging more gold dust, stared at the Iwa-nin a short distance away, baffled.
He had already stopped moving—but they still didn't dare approach.
So why were they even chasing him?
Did they think that if they caught him, he'd… let them have their way or something?
Panting slightly, Rasa pulled out a small blue potion bottle—one he'd pulled from a high-tier gacha draw using 100,000 silver coins he'd earned with help from Pakura. It restored 100 chakra per second and could sustain a Shadow Clone or two.
Duration: one minute.
It came in a set—twelve bottles total.
He sighed. The Iwa-nin were still keeping their distance. So he ignored them and simply activated his Magnet Release: Gold Dust Shield, used up some more chakra, then instantly converted more gold dust. To the others, it looked like he was just cycling his chakra on and off again and again.
Gather, disperse. Gather, disperse. Chug potion...
Repeat.
"Definitely a trap! There's no way this isn't a trap!" one short Iwa-nin with tiger-striped face paint shouted, pointing at Rasa with a "I see right through you!" expression. "Why else would he keep gathering and dispersing chakra like that? He's trying to bait us in!"
"Yeah, makes sense! No shinobi would do something this pointless unless there was a reason!"
"Isn't it obvious?" their squad leader snapped. "This whole thing screams ambush!"
What, did they think he got promoted through connections?
But...
"What exactly is the trap? We just gonna keep watching?"
"Uh…"
The Iwa-nin all looked at each other in silence.
After a beat—
"Why don't we wait him out? He's clearly burning chakra like crazy. He can't keep this up forever."
"Good idea!" the commander nodded, then turned to glare at the one who'd spoken. "You! Yeah, you! Go check what kind of trap he's hiding."
"…Eh?"
The chosen Iwa-nin froze. He glanced nervously at his comrades, then at the commander. "Sir, I…"
"Move it!" the commander snapped.
With no other choice, the unfortunate shinobi ran forward hesitantly.
"Think I'm an idiot?" the commander muttered after him. "Keep your eyes on him. Be ready to back up our guy the second things go south."
This was still Land of Wind. Sure, it was barren desert, nothing but sandstorms and rocks, but it was still their land—Sunagakure's backyard. The longer they stayed, the more dangerous things would get.
They didn't have time to waste.
Originally, they'd come both to investigate the Third Kazekage's disappearance and to gauge the strength of Land of Wind—to see if Iwagakure might be able to exploit a weakness.
But who would've thought—
They'd run into the Third Kazekage's disciple himself.
Just as the assigned Iwa-nin approached—
The Third Kazekage's disciple gathered chakra again… and bolted!
"…CHASE HIM! I want to see what this bastard's hiding!"
The Iwa commander hesitated a moment, then shouted the order, teeth clenched, face twisted with frustration.
"This Rasa... he's holding back something big. If it's just one Iwa-nin, he's clearly not going to use it."
But what was he hiding?
Some kind of siege weapon? A terrain buster? The One-Tail?
Or something even Iwagakure hadn't gotten wind of yet?
We need to document this. Every Iwa-nin must be warned to stay on guard.
And so, the whole desert returned once more to a bizarre game of chase.
Rasa skimming ahead on his gold dust board. The Iwa-nin behind, always in pursuit, but never closing the distance.
"These guys… they're the real lunatics," Rasa muttered, shaking his head. He kept converting gold dust, occasionally looking back at the ever-suspicious pursuers.
"What the hell are they trying to do?"
Of course...
That thought only lingered for a moment.
After converting another stash of sand into silver coins, Rasa suddenly burst into tears, whispering to himself:
"I finally… I finally have enough for a spin..."
It had been a long, hard road.
So damn hard.