In a certain sense, the situation hadn't exceeded Hinata's expectations.
Decades of war followed by peace had left this world starved for emotional and cultural sustenance. Television and animation hadn't developed at all, so the Fox Tales franchise wasn't merely a popular book series—it was a cultural vanguard, unstoppable in its momentum. She still remembered the sea of humanity at Andy Lau's concerts back in the day, with attendance figures well into the tens of thousands per show.
So the current spectacle didn't surprise her. If anything, she was mildly dissatisfied.
The world was still in its post-war recovery phase, and the idiotic political borders between nations still restricted fan travel. Otherwise, the crowd here should have been several times larger.
"Go tell the audience that the figures will be sold by auction. Starting bid across the board: one hundred thousand ryō. Make sure to emphasize that these are first-generation collector's editions—once they're gone, they're gone."
She couldn't be bothered to go out herself. She gave Sai the instructions with a wave, and he nodded and headed for the stage.
"Please, everyone, stay calm. Due to the limited number of figures, after backstage deliberation, we've decided to auction this batch of first-generation collector's-edition figures. Highest bidder wins. And for those who don't secure one today, rest assured—the second-generation figures will be available before long."
Sai's announcement cooled the crowd down. Rather than fighting over scraps, letting money—the ultimate arbiter—decide ownership made far more sense. The chaos subsided quickly as people returned to their seats, ready for the auction to begin.
"Those goddamn hags! If I run into any of you outside this event—!!"
Hidan's formerly immaculate slicked-back silver hair was now a rat's nest. A garish lipstick print decorated his left cheek—courtesy of some brazen admirer whose identity remained a mystery. Judging by the steam practically erupting from his ears, being groped by female predators at a public event was a definitive first.
"Damn! What kind of freaks showed up to this thing?!"
Deidara looked no better. His clothes were torn and disheveled, the hair tie keeping his ponytail together had been pilfered by some unknown collector, and his golden hair now hung loose around his shoulders in a state that was somehow both wretched and alluringly androgynous—the flushed cheeks and gritted teeth completing the impression of a high-school girl who'd just been violated against her will.
"You two. Your offensive repertoire is simply too one-dimensional."
Sasori's tone was cool and detached, and one look at his entirely unruffled clothing established his authority to pass judgment. The red-haired young man rotated his head a full 360 degrees on its puppet joint with a mechanical creak, then spoke as if delivering a verdict: "That's why you looked so pathetic."
Kakuzu glanced at the two men lying comatose beside Sasori, foam dribbling from their mouths, and nodded in agreement. "Indeed. When it comes to real capability, there's no substitute for the accumulation of years. Well—she's about to announce the prices. Let's see how much these figures of yours are actually worth."
Kakuzu's words at least refocused the other three on the stage. Ino, having mustered her courage for a second attempt, stammered her way through the opening.
"S-so... first up: the Fox Spirit Ahri, Moonlit Repose figure. Starting bid... um... one hundred thousand ryō."
"WHAT?!"
Kakuzu's eyes went wide. Despite being well into his nineties, the number had genuinely stunned him.
"Pffhaha~~ A hundred thousand ryō?? You could buy an actual woman for a hundred thousand ryō! Who's going to spend that on a mud doll??"
Hidan threw his head back laughing so hard he nearly toppled off his seat, only saving himself by grabbing Kakuzu's shoulder. The mockery made Deidara and Sasori instinctively clench their fists. They didn't care much about money, but they knew basic market prices.
The shinobi world's currency worked roughly like the yen—substitute "ryō" for "yen" and the math tracked. One hundred thousand ryō was approximately six thousand yuan in real-world terms. But because the economy was undeveloped and baseline prices ran low, a hundred thousand ryō went a long way. As Hidan so indelicately put it, you could absolutely buy a woman of middling appeal on the black market for that price.
"A hundred thousand ryō??! Hey, Hinata—did someone quote the wrong number?"
Backstage, Naruto and the others were equally floored. Their current weekly salary was a hundred thousand ryō—already the highest compensation standard in all of Konoha—and now a single figure was starting at that price?
"This is basically highway robbery!"
Shikamaru nearly dislocated his jaw. Beside him, even Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "Hey—have you gone completely money-mad? At that price—"
"THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND!!"
A thunderous voice from the audience cut Sasuke off mid-sentence. Someone had tripled the opening bid right out of the gate.
"Pfff—!"
Hidan choked on his own spit and face-planted. You couldn't blame him. Even the strongest shinobi lost their composure when confronted with the genuinely unbelievable—and Hidan had always been the emotional type.
Snap.
Kakuzu's pencil broke clean in half. The towering Akatsuki treasurer silently flipped open his ledger—the one where he tracked high-value bounties. Setting aside the handful of million-ryō targets at the top, the rest were all in the hundred-thousand-and-up range. He raised his hand and calmly tore out every entry whose bounty fell below three hundred thousand ryō. For a man who had spent his entire career weighing the monetary value of human life, it was a jarring reminder of just how cheap a head could be.
"No chance! Three hundred fifty thousand!!"
"Hmph! Ahri is MINE! Four hundred thousand!!"
But the bidding was far from over. After two more rounds, the first Ahri figure's final price was locked in.
"..."
Kakuzu raised his hand again and silently ripped out several more pages—every bounty below four hundred thousand ryō.
"And... congratulations to this gentleman for securing the first Fox Spirit Ahri figure~ Next up: the Cowherd Ver. Zuorin—Playing Bamboo Flute at Sunset figure. Starting bid is once again one hundred thousand ryō..."
Ino's palms were slick with sweat. She was running on autopilot now, robotically picking up the next figure. Her fingers were visibly trembling—the sensation of holding an object worth hundreds of thousands of ryō filled her with something close to religious awe.
"ONE MILLION RYŌ!!!"
Before anyone else could bid, a voice of staggering authority boomed from the center of the venue. Its owner stood five feet tall with a five-foot waist to match, draped in a luxurious purple mink coat with rings on all ten fingers radiating concentrated wealth. The face beneath several geological layers of foundation powder left no room for doubt: this was a specimen of the species commonly known as the sugar mama—scientific name: money is no object.
"Holy sh—!!"
Hidan's foot slipped and he crashed back down just as he was trying to get up. Kakuzu, meanwhile, looked down at his ledger one more time, then simply ripped out the entire remaining page. A bunch of useless trash—not a single one of these bounty targets' heads was worth as much as a figure. He was embarrassed to have ever chased them.
"Um, danna? Doesn't this kind of prove that our art really is popular? Hmm?"
Deidara folded his arms and spoke in a voice heavy with complicated emotion. Sasori glanced up at him. The red-haired young man knew exactly what his partner was feeling. "Relax. Most of the bidders are probably trash—but it does prove, at least, that our art is precious and worth pursuing. Doesn't it?"
"Well, sure~ I mean~~ this many people paying premium prices for our art... that means we've succeeded, right? Hmm~"
Deidara's lip twitched. He shook his head and let the other thoughts go, though he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that something about this "art promotion" wasn't quite right.
"Sold at one million ryō. Moving on..."
Ino had clearly abandoned rational thought. She smiled on pure instinct and transitioned to the next lot. Might as well treat the whole thing as a dream.
Listening to the bids rising and falling outside, the crew backstage had fallen into a dense, awkward silence.
"Is... this real?"
After a long pause, Shikamaru finally murmured. Even his intellect had hit a wall.
"They're just little wood men and little mud men. Raw materials cost under two hundred ryō. Add labor and you're still under five hundred. But at these prices—clearly, what they're paying for has nothing to do with the physical object."
Hands in his pockets, Shino gazed up at the ceiling and offered his quiet analysis. Naruto and Choji both fixed him with wide, starry-eyed stares that said "I have no idea what that means but it sounds amazing."
Still seated in her chair, Hinata's lips curved upward. She casually raised her teacup, and Shikamaru reflexively reached for the pot and topped it off.
She took a sip of black tea, savored it, and exhaled in quiet satisfaction.
"Mm~ Now this is more like it~"