Chap.74 The Support Of The System

Tony found Karin in Tsunade's lab studying something through a microscope. After informing him of the urgent mission, they both went to her house to prepare the necessary things, he left a note for when Tayuya returned and they met the Kakashi team at the entrance of the village.

Tony watched as Jiraiya whispered something to Tsunade, who came to see them off as the clones continued to work on the office documents, most likely related to Akatsuki, before they left the village.

As Tony and company jumped through the branches, a familiar sound rang in his head.

[Ding! A new quest has been spawned: Aggressive Marketing!]

[Task: The Akatsuki organization is beginning to implement their plan to collect all the bijus and this time, they have kidnapped the new Kazekage who also happens to be the jinchuriki of the one-tailed beast. Your mission is to get Gaara back and return to Sunagakure alive. It will be a great advertisement for your business!]

-Retrieve Gaara's lifeless body (Not completed)

-Chiyo must not die before transferring her life (If he dies, the mission is considered failed)

-Get information from Akatsuki (Completed)

[Optional task: Karin must obtain the main merit of removing the poison that threatens Kankuro. Nobody wants to see Temari cry, right?]

[Reward: The host can exchange the Interdimensional Travel Ticket (single-use item) for an Interdimensional Summoning Ticket (single-use item).]

[Optional Reward: New Defensive Gourmet Ninja Technique + ???.]

[Note: The information that the host decides to provide to Tsunade after his return can have a major effect on the course of events compared to the original outcome.]

Tony raised an eyebrow when he read the details of the mission. He hadn't really thought about how good it would be for his business to be able to say that he rescued a Kage, the acceptance of the people of Sunagakure would skyrocket when it was made public.

As for getting information from Akatsuki, since he had watched the series, he naturally knew of its core members, their original plans, and their real hands behind the scenes. As for the volume of information that he would reveal, he would consider it during the mission.

What he currently had him confused about was the optional task.

Since when did he have to depend on others to fulfill the tasks of the System?

As if he could have interpreted his expression, a screen appeared in front of Tony.

[The System supports the host in the best way it deems possible within its limitations. After a long series of calculations, he has determined that helping the host's closest and most trusted people to some extent can benefit him in the long run. However, the System cannot take the initiative to provide help beyond assigning optional tasks once a mission is generated. This action has been approved by Rob.]

Tony roughly understood the explanation. The System created an optional task that should not exist with the generated quest, to include Karin. Since she's part of the compliance conditions, the System can act a bit inside that loophole with Rob's permission, as that only affects a select few people.

At the same time, if the optional task is unsuccessful, then it does not affect the main quest.

But how would the System help Karin?

This time the System did not respond and Tony scanned the mission several times before noticing the ??? in the optional task reward. It's possible that whatever could help Karin is that, since the gourmet ninja technique is something that was meant for him.

Perhaps spending more time than expected in his thoughts, the team of five met up with Temari who was on her way back to Sunagakure.

"Gaara has been kidnapped?!" —Temari paled at the news and suddenly thought of the glass of tea that he cracked when he was resting.

It really was a bad sign!

"Tony, take us to Sunagakure, quickly!" Temari turned to look at Tony nervously.

Temari was much more familiar with Tony than the rest of Team Kakashi and she knew that Tony had very fast ways of moving between Sunagakure and Konoha. It's just that she never went into details and they trusted him.

But this was an emergency!

When Tony heard Temari's words, she hit her forehead with the palm of her hand. He was so focused on reading the details of the mission that she completely forgot about it.

"What are you talking about, Tony?" Kakashi interrupted, confused by Temari's statement.

They had been running and jumping for hours.

"I'll explain later," Tony replied with a wave of his hand. "He needed you guys to get closer to me a bit," he said.

Temari went to her side as did Karin and the Kakashi team looked at each other in confusion, but they ignored her. Tony put a hand on the ground and with a burst of smoke, they all disappeared from the woods.

By the time the smoke cleared, they were all in a room that was dark but had a subtle sweet scent in the air. Tony opened a side door and they left the place, to find themselves inside one of Sunagakure's Kuku stores.

-What has happened? Sakura and Naruto were puzzled.

Karin knew what happened and Temari was too worried, so only Kakashi understood what happened.

Was it the reverse summoning technique?

But the five big villages had a barrier to prevent this kind of thing, like Tony did?

If Tony knew Kakashi's thoughts, she would mock him. Just thinking about the number of summons that occurred within a village in the series without any impediment, showed how flawed the barrier was in that regard.

The barrier was more for detecting if someone was going in or out than anything else.

Only if the barrier belonged to Uzushiogakure, where the Uzumaki clan was in the past, he believed that it would be truly effective. Besides, his summons came from the almighty System, what barrier was there in the world that could block them?

Temari quickly left the shop with everyone following her and after talking to a patrol, they were guided to the Sunagakure hospital, where Kankuro was currently being poisoned by Sasori of the red sand and was accompanied by the elderly brother duo.

"Kankuro!"

Temari looked worriedly at her brother who had all the makeup on her face ruined by the fight and the sweat.

—It's a new type of poison —explained one of the doctors with a dark expression— We'll need time to analyze it, but Kankuro-sama doesn't have that much time.

Tony and Karin were at the back of the group, so no one noticed when Tony passed a small piece of paper to Karin with something written on it, which after reading it, she destroyed with chakra.

Before Sakura could leave, Karin stepped forward and began to quickly examine Kankuro. The doctors wanted to stop her, but when she saw her movements, they understood that she was a colleague from the trade, so they didn't say anything in the hope that she could see something that they missed. Sakura then walked over and looked to the side.

"Kakuro's poison has been refined with heavy metals. It is of a type that penetrates the muscles and destroys the cells. From the looks of it, his heart muscles are being destroyed as we speak.

The information Tony gave Karin was exactly what he remembered of the poison in the series, but to be sure, he only mentioned that the symptoms resembled each other. Since Karin's examination specifically looked for these symptoms, he was able to confirm that it was indeed this type of poison.

Karin didn't doubt Tony, she had long accepted that her cool older brother had her moments of weirdness, but she never joked when it came to serious things. She even provided him with a suggestion to get Kankuro out of danger temporarily.

As everyone listened and Sakura stared at her senior in amazement, Chiyo became aware of Kakashi's presence.

"Konoha's White Fang!" she yelled as she lunged at Kakashi, "Prepare to die!"