The elemental nations were, frankly, a terrifying place to be in.
A good chunk of the population were effectively one-man siege machines, and even with my armour, there wasn't much I could do about it.
That said, for destination collection with Raven, it was still relatively safe.
As long as we didn't get too close to the Ninja villages.
It seemed that we still had some time before the events of Shippuden kicked off. Naruto was still in the thick of his training journey.
Hinata's report to Tsunade on the circumstances of her disappearance had already begun to have its effects.
We still hadn't decided on whether we should go forward with the plan for turning Nagato yet, but after the tentative approval of the others in the pact, Tsunade had been read in on the information we had regarding Nagato, Obito, Madara and Danzo by Hinata.
Hinata had been promised that Naruto's training would be heavily amped up and that the secret of shadow-clone training would be shared with him, including the optimization strategies that we had pulled from various fanfictions.
We weren't sure if they would work, but some of them did seem plausible and Hinata did state that they were theoretical.
Our own existence was shared with Tsunade, even if our specific location or a means of getting here was not. Hinata hadn't been given a portal projector, so she couldn't actually return to our world without our help.
She had agreed to it after we pointed out that she couldn't reasonably protect the device, what with being under the direct command of Konoha, which had Danzo in their command structure.
That and the outright warring nature of her world. The portal projector was effectively a strategic Hirashin, something that would paint a giant target on her.
That said, it wasn't like we really had personal projectors. The compound had a heavily locked down armoury with all the security we could put it under that housed the portal projectors when not in use and the projectors themselves were also enchanted and user-locked to as great an extent as we could manage. My world was safe enough that I could get away with keeping a project on me most of the time, but Gwen and Raven both limited themselves to the permanent installations that we had constructed for them.
Even Winston didn't have a portal projector any more. Now that he had a secure datacenter near our compound, he mostly just had a portal-based access terminal that could widen up into an emergency shunt.
Hinata had something similar, except that it was linked to another empty earth.
We really didn't want to underestimate the ninja.
Honestly, we wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't enough to hold them either, but hopefully, this particular world was far enough from our own that even if they could navigate between worlds (a la Kayuga or any of her relatives) they still wouldn't be able to find our compound.
It took us the better part of the afternoon to get the destination addresses for the various locations around the elemental nations, but Raven's soul-flight as an advantage we had over the locals in that way.
Before long, we were returning to Konoha.
The two of us touched down near the gates of the Hyuuga clan compound, coming in from outside the range of the byakugan.
It paid to be able to make subtle threats like this.
We were soon escorted through the various gardens to the largest structure within the large 'house' and directed to a tea room in which to sit.
We sat there for a time before Hiashi Hyuuga limped into the room, Hinata following behind him shortly after.
"I suppose that I will need to thank you for the return of my daughter." Hiashi stated.
Raven waved him off, "We were all in similar circumstances. Taking her with us was the least we could do."
Hiashi paused for a moment to consider Raven before turning to me. "The Hyuga are indebted to you for the return of our heiress."
I saw Raven roll her eyes out of the corner of my own and considered my options, "It has been our pleasure to work with Hinata over these last two weeks. Returning her to her loved ones was within our power to offer and we saw no reason to refuse her request."
Hiashi's eye twitched.
Next to him, we saw Hinata blush lightly.
Across from her, Raven's face was split with a wide smile.
The books on Fey Courtesy were really pulling their weight here.
I turned to Hinata, "Hinata, the others and I have put together a gift for you, in celebration of your return."
Raven reached into her cloak and pulled out a box wrapped in cloth.
Hiashi watched on as Hinata opened up the offering, revealing a bow that had been crafted by Winston and me.
As she examined the object, it unfolded, revealing itself to be a collapsible compound bow.
I spoke up. "This bow was built for you and will serve no other. It requires no ammunition, producing invisible arrows as required. At your command, these projectiles may kill, harm or heal as you require."
And wasn't that a pain. Hard-light emitters tuned to gamma and microwave frequencies were reasonable foci for enchantments that provided the first two, but biotic technology didn't really produce physical constructs that I could use as the basis for the conjuration spells. It had taken quite a lot of trial and error to figure that out.
Hinata nodded the bow quickly folding back into its compact form as she put it down. "Thank you for this."
I smiled, "Winston has arranged an instructor if you require one, but I doubt you will. This particular bow is far simpler to use than a normal bow as the arrows will always fly straight and true. The collapsed form is also sturdy enough to act as a melee weapon if required."
Next to us, Hiashi was becoming visibly annoyed at being ignored in favour of his daughter.
Well, I say visible. I could only tell because his tells were surprisingly similar to Hinata's tells, and I had gotten used to those over the last two weeks.
We then were served tea. Raven and I went along with the traditional tea ceremony, as we had practised with Hinata, savouring the splendid brews we were offered.
Eventually, we were introduced to Hanabi.
The young girl was obviously intrigued by us and as the topic of conversation began to turn towards what had happened in the two weeks while Elizabeth searched for a way to return Hinata home, she immediately asked why we had trained Hinata.
To which I expressed my confusion.
I turned to a blushing Hinata and asked her what Hanabi was talking about.
Hinata attempted to move the conversation away from the question, but Hanabi revealed that upon her return to clan compound from visiting Tsunade, Hiashi had forced Hinata to prove that her skills had not atrophied during the time she was gone, in a spar against Hanabi.
A spar that Hinata had promptly won. Handily.
She had then gone on to win the following spar against her father just as easily, revealing a new technique in the process.
With that clarification, Raven laughed.
My own face alight with humour, I explained that Hinata had sparred with us occasionally while Elizabeth completed her search, and I had been forced to get her to stop holding back against me. Hinata had initially been unwilling to harm any of us, but we were eventually able to get it through to her that we trusted her not to hurt us permanently, but if she held back, we wouldn't be prepared for actual enemies that would actually kill us.
When we had managed to explain that, she stopped holding back.
The spars that followed were short and painful, but highly educational, pushing us to be faster and more effective combatants.
The response had led to Hanabi questioning her sister, asking her if she had been letting Hanabi win.
Hinata's embarrassing confession had resulted in Hanabi actually breaking and laughing out loud.
Hiashi didn't seem to believe that. He asked us about the technique Hinata had used against him.
I just shrugged and explained that Hinata had already known the technique.
It took Neji being called in to confirm that he had helped Hinata develop the technique more than a month prior for the head of the Hyuuga clan to accept the explanation.
We left shortly after, returning to the compound for a few moments to get Gwen and Strange.
The Sorcerer Supreme had been called in to see if we could make contact with the spirit of Hagoromo Otsutsuki.
The Sage had responded to the summons quite easily and ended up rather chatty, all things told. The guy seemed a little lonely, in my opinion. He apparently had very little power in this form, enough to manifest a few times at most.
Strange's summoning, on the other hand, had the sorcerer provide the power for the manifestation, allowing us to consult with the spirit on how to proceed in what could reasonably be called his world.