I am the most popular character in Naruto!

After Asuma tried to struggle several more times, he finally succumbed to Shikamaru's intelligence.

There's nothing we can do about it; Shikamaru's IQ is a whopping 250, making him the undisputed brainiest person in the entire ninja world.

Asuma is strong in every ability, but he's very average.

While not the best, he was better than most. Faced with Choji, whose strength surpassed his own, and Shikamaru, whose intelligence surpassed his own, Asuma silently and resentfully suppressed his anger.

What.

Are you suggesting Asuma should attack the Ino-Shika-Cho trio?

That won't do. As the son of the Hokage, he doesn't want to betray Konoha.

Moreover, even if Asuma wanted to attack the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, he couldn't pose any threat to the combined Ino-Shika-Cho team.

Ino, the second core member of the Ino-Shika-Cho trio, has already sent out her plea for help and returned to Shikamaru's side. With the assistance of the Mind Transfer Technique, Asuma will have a hard time turning the tables.

Damn, with two crowd control abilities combined with a powerful damage dealer, plus synergy chains, how is Asuma, a mere super minion, supposed to fight?

Even Samsung Asuma can't beat him.

"Asuma, I think you should think about this carefully."

Shikamaru squatted down in front of Asuma, who was leaning against a tree, smoking a cigarette in one hand. His face was not good, and he seemed to be deep in thought.

Choji dejectedly held the potato chips, trying to fill his stomach so he wouldn't feel hungry because he could only eat half of his dinner.

Ino kept sending and receiving her ninja hawks, her brows furrowed.

"What do you want me to think about? Abandon the blood feud of my brothers?"

Asuma exhaled a puff of smoke and squinted at Shikamaru.

"That's not what I meant."

Shikamaru said calmly, "I don't want you to die, especially for such a stupid reason."

"madness?!"

Asuma became agitated, "Is it foolish to avenge a brother?"

"No, I mean..."

Shikamaru coldly removed the cigarette from Asuma's mouth and said seriously, "Not only did you fail to avenge everyone in the Fire Temple, but you also risked your own life. This is extremely foolish!"

"...Damn it...!"

Asma was silent for a moment, then swore.

He understood what Shikamaru meant, but the thought of his brothers' tragic deaths, the murderer's triumphant escape, and even leaving messages to lure him into investigating, made him unable to hold back.

"Alright, Asuma, I have a question for you."

Shikamaru patted Asuma on the shoulder, "How does Master Jiraiya of the Fire Temple compare to your level?"

"What a joke! That kid Di Lu can't compare to me!"

Asuma immediately bristled. Men are always competitive, after all. "I'm much better than him!"

"Alright, alright, what I mean is, how would you predict the outcome of your fight against Master Dilu?"

Shikamaru rolled his eyes at Asuma, who stroked his bearded chin and said, "Probably... 40/60."

"You four?"

"It's definitely me, number six!"

Asuma snapped, "You little brat, are you underestimating my strength?!"

"It's not that I look down on your strength, Asuma."

Shikamaru looked at Asuma speechlessly, "Don't you have an accurate assessment of your own strength?"

"What positioning?"

Asma clicked his tongue. He only knew that if he didn't fight, who knew if it would work?

"Asuma, you and Master Jiraiya will be entangled for a while, won't you?"

Shikamaru tapped his head. "What if Jiraiya and the other monks joined forces? Asuma, would you still be a match for them?"

"This……"

Asuma hesitated before saying, "We...we can still fight..."

"Well, assuming you're capable, what if everyone swarms in?"

Shikamaru decisively shattered Asuma's bravado, "Judging from the chakra fluctuations, the entire Fire Temple is fighting against a single ninja, which means that ninja has the ability to annihilate the Fire Temple all by himself."

"At the same time, he also has a partner who is extremely arrogant but rather stupid."

"In other words, that's at least one Kage-level peak ninja combination."

Shikamaru's analysis made Asuma swallow hard. "He has the ability to take on a hundred people single-handedly, an endless stream of ninjutsu, and strength far exceeding yours. Are you sure you want to go and die?"

"Or rather, are you taking the three of us to our deaths?"

In the original story, the immortal duo who attacked the Land of Fire, namely Kakuzu and Hidan, encountered Asuma and his group on the way.

Shikamaru and his friends were only Chunin level, so they couldn't stop Asuma from attacking the immortal duo.

This ultimately led to Asuma's tragic death at Hidan's hands, without even Kakuzu intervening.

But things are different now. Shikamaru and his two companions are enough to suppress Asuma and make the team's actions proceed exactly as Shikamaru planned.

With intelligence far exceeding that of ordinary people, Shikamaru is better able to control the situation. He knows when to back down and when to step up, making him much better than the impulsive Asuma.

"Then what do you think we should do?"

After thinking it over carefully, Asuma admitted that Shikamaru made sense and asked him a question.

Shikamaru shrugged. "Given that arrogant idiot's behavior, he'll probably leave clues along the way for us to follow."

"In other words, we don't need to rush to find them; we can just wait for reinforcements to arrive."

"At the same time, we can also make a trip to the nearest mercenary guild."

"Mercenary Guild?"

Asuma frowned. Coming from a respectable background, he was somewhat averse to the existence of the Mercenary Guild. After all, such an unorganized and undisciplined place was not quite in line with the traditional ninja.

The mercenary guild only works for money and has no sense of honor or responsibility as ninjas.

“That’s right, the Mercenary Guild can provide us with a lot of information.”

Shikamaru didn't care about Asuma's thoughts. To him, the Mercenary Guild was a good place to quickly obtain information. Wouldn't it be more enjoyable to directly obtain information than to search for it himself?

"Also, Asuma, think about it, who would deliberately attack the Temple of Fire?"

Shikamaru tapped his head again, prompting Asuma to think about his motives.

Asuma pondered, "The Fire Temple has many enemies, and recently they've also captured the Two-Tails Jinchuriki from the Land of Lightning... Right! Where is the Two-Tails Jinchuriki?!"

He realized what was happening and looked at Shikamaru in shock, "Did she run away?"

"No, I regret to inform you that we have also found the body of the Two-Tails Jinchuriki."

Shikamaru shrugged. Asuma only cared about his brother and didn't care much about the other corpses.

"...What does this mean?"

Asuma's face darkened. "They want to capture the Tailed Beasts?"

"uh-huh."

Shikamaru said with satisfaction, "Also, Master Jiraiya is missing a finger. I wonder if you noticed?"

"Using body parts to exchange for money is one of the trading methods of the Mercenary Guild."

Chapter 712 The Immortal Duo

“I said… Kakuzu.”

"Can't we spend a little money on enjoying ourselves?"

A man with slicked-back silver hair and purplish-red eyes spoke to a tall, masked man standing beside him, behaving very properly.

The tall man exuded a suffocating stench of decay, like a corpse crawling back from the earth.

He wore a bizarre mask and coldly glanced back at his companion.

"No."

"Money is important to an organization and should not be wasted on meaningless things."

This tall man is none other than Kakuzu, the immortal monster of the Akatsuki organization.

Code name "North".

Beside Kakuzu, the man who kept babbling on and on, was none other than Hidan, who possessed true immortality and walked the ninja world as the representative of the evil god.

"Money, money, money, what a vulgar thing!"

Hidan said unhappily that when he was wandering the ninja world alone, he would often use his appearance and strength to gain the trust of various rich women, and then offer them to the evil god in exchange for further strength and to directly obtain the wealth left behind by those "sacrifices".

Therefore, Hidan has an extreme pursuit of pleasure and beautiful women.

Since he is immortal and, as the representative of the gods, is outside the rules.

The idea that the body is eternal means that he can enjoy pleasure to his heart's content without any punishment.

In short, this is a human perpetual motion machine!

"I'm saying, a headshot from the Land of the Dead can earn a reward of 30 million, and with all the odds and ends from the Temple of Fire, it's at least 50 million, right?"

"Taking out ten million to enjoy yourself isn't a big deal, is it?"

Hidan crossed his arms and walked with Kakuzu through the mercenary guild. As a member of the group that did not wear masks, he was not well regarded by the ninjas in the mercenary guild.

The Mercenary Guild originated from an underground exchange. All ninjas working in the underground exchange would wear masks to conceal their identities, which had become a tradition and unspoken rule.

Even after the underground exchange officially became a mercenary guild and opened to the ninja world, the "veterans" of the underground exchange still retained the habit of wearing masks, because only in this way could they show that their identities were different.

Often, masked ninjas are vicious and do not want others to discover their identities. They are usually very powerful within the mercenary guild.

Conversely, ninjas who do not wear masks are generally looked down upon, considered "newcomers" and "outsiders," and may be isolated in the relatively exclusive mercenary guild.