In Naruto: Reborn With Talent

by Little Merger

A soul was transmigrated into Narutoverse but was refused to be given any sort of insta-OP power, instead, he could choose from three talents. Follow him and his loved ones on their journey to become strong as they pave their own path through the battle-filled world of Naruto. Will they be villains? For some, surely. Will they be heroes? For others, maybe. But anything they do is d

9. 257

In Naruto: Reborn With Talent #Chapter 257 - Ch257. Danzos Ploy - Read In Naruto: Reborn With Talent Chapter 257 - Ch257. Danzos Ploy Online - All Page - NOVEL NEXT

Chapter 257 - Ch257. Danzo's Ploy

Danzo had a few bad days behind himself.

When he came back from the Emergency Council meeting he organized, he found out the three of his five remaining ROOT ANBU were killed while guarding his house. He couldn't even think about how Tsunade managed that feat, considering she was present at the said meeting. He was far too angry and... he loathed to admit it, slightly fearful. His house was, after all, overstuffed with protective seals and traps.

On another, more important, note, his power base in the village was slowly evaporating and all it took for this to happen was four days! It was maddening. Years of work gone just like that...

First, his ROOT was annihilated, which was arguably a crippling blow that set him back by at least a decade but it was not that big of a deal. He could recover from it. All he needed was time and good usage of his five remaining subordinates.

Second, Tsunade came back like a whirlwind.

And then everything went to shits.

First, she got Hiruzen out of his seat with one expert and utterly unavoidable move. She simply exerted her right as the descendant of Hashirama and nobody could refute that. But that single move shook the village on a fundamental level. And she did that without even using a single punch! Danzo really did not expect a brute like Tsunade to use politics and good arguments of all things.

If that was it, then all would have been great in the world... but Tsunade just had to dismiss Koharu and Homura, smoothly taking out the more important half of Danzo's support base in the council as if to spite him. Worse yet, the second half that resided among the civilians was properly cowed by Tsunade's ploy. At any other time, he would have applauded her, thinking that there was finally somebody acting as a Kage should, not covering before the civilians. Now though? She effectively crippled him politically in under twenty minutes flat using only words.

It was him who was supposed to be the master manipulator in the village, dammit!

And then, when he thought it simply couldn't get any worse, he came home and found three of his remaining five operatives dead, their bodies mockingly placed on the couch so they would be the first thing he saw after entering the living room.

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Danzo's sense of urgency increased many-fold after that. He was being attacked by Tsunade who was pretentious enough to even let him know his failings are the result of her sabotage. And he could not do anything about it.

As desperation and a bit of despair set in, he decided to go to the Hokage and try his luck on influencing the man a bit. While trying to fool a Nara was indeed very foolish, Danzo knew the trick in tricking them was in being indirect. He could not manipulate Shikaku directly, using misdirection on the facts the man knew about. Shikaku would have analyzed it in seconds and see right through Danzo. No, Danzo had to use facts Shikaku had no idea about, then he had to portray his agenda believingly and logically with the support of facts that Shikaku did know, so he could make his own image. It was all in the wording and the hard facts he was about to use.

He would not directly state Tsunade was in the criminal organization Yozora. The Nara and Senju clan were allies and in the end, it wouldn't really even matter. No, his plan was simply to get Yozora declared as the enemies of Konoha first and only then oust Tsunade as a member and then branch from there. The fact that Shikaku had no reaction during the Emergency Council Meeting when she showed the Yozora mark, Danzo reasoned that the man had no idea about it. It was time to exploit that lack of knowledge.

Oh, Danzo had no doubt this would be a rigorous path filled with many obstacles and it was apparent he would have to avoid Tsunade detecting his machinations. For that purpose, he made sure she would be swarmed with paperwork by the civilian businessmen who were renting land from her.

"Er... Danzo Shimura is here to see you, Shikaku. Should I let him in?"

That sentence brought Danzo back to the present. He always could pull wool over Hiruzen's eyes and while Shikaku Nara was definitely a whole magnitude smarter than the old monkey, he was also a lot less experienced.

"Yes, send him in." Danzo heard Shikaku's voice sound from within the Hokage office.

It was showtime.

Without even waiting for Yoshino to present him, he calmly but confidently strode past her, right into the office with his head held high.

"Thank you for accepting me on such short notice, Lord Hokage." Those words left his mouth with a great reluctance while he discreetly looked around the empty office. Now that Hiruzen's things were no longer inside, it was really somewhat barren. For some reason, the sight brought sadness to Danzo's heart, which he promptly squashed.

"No problem, Shimura-san." Shikaku's eye twitched, almost as if in amusement, "You will have to excuse me but I do not have much time nowadays. Please state your business so we can move on."

Danzo frowned at such bluntness. He loved obedient bluntness from his subordinates but this was time for politicking. There was no place for such straightforward dismissal.

"Very well..." He said, put out, "I came to warn you about the threat of Yozora. As you probably know, they are responsible for a series of murders inside of our village. That simply can't go unanswered. We will look like fools in front of other villages if that comes out!" He coldly stated, fully counting on the information getting out. He did put a lot of work into making preparations to spread rumors about it. "You might not know about it but Yozora is a less-known group of S-rank criminals who seven years ago made a fool out of every single hidden village bar Konoha. These incidents, however, can be called just small pranks compared to the outright act of slaughter that was committed in our village. Will you let the murder of our villagers go unanswered, Lord Hokage?" Danzo thanked his foresight to register fake identities for his ROOT ANBU and make them full-fledged villagers. At least now they could not simply be overlooked.

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"About that..." Shikaku sighed, causing Danzo to lean forward, "you will have to consult with her." He pointed behind Danzo who stiffened.

Slowly turning around, Danzo was caught flat-footed as the air shimmered around a certain spot on the couch, revealing a smug-looking Tsunade who eyed him like an animal who is desperately clutching at straws to run from her.

"So you have a problem with Yozora, eh, Danzo?" Tsunade grinned, "How do we know the two hundred kills are not your job though?"

"Excuse me!?" Danzo snapped, not expecting such a come-back.

"You are quite famous in the village for being a schemer and someone with a lot of secrets. It would have been so easy to pre-arrange the evidence. Picking a target such as Yozora, a group that seldom shows itself was definitely smart. They are not very well known to the average ninjas while they would hardly defend themselves from the accusations since nobody heard from them for years. Yes... with your track record, this is definitely something you would have done, Danzo. So, give us proof it was not your doing." Tsunade relished pinning the blame on him. He might have been the next coming of sunshine out of the ass in the civilians' eyes but anyone above chunin-rank knew well who Danzo Shimura really was and what he did for a living. Or at least, they knew some rumors that were enough of a warning to get mixed up with him.

"I was at the council mee-" He gritted his teeth.

"Inconclusive. You could have prepared it beforehand. You know that. Your entire trade is about things like that." Tsunade indifferently shrugged.

"You demand proof I did not commit a crime perpetrated on me?" Danzo crossly asked.

"Bullshit." Tsunade chuckled. "There was no crime perpetrated on you. There was, however, a crime perpetrated IN your living room. Now, if I know anything about you, it is that you are a quite accomplished Seal Master focusing on security seals. How could anyone just walk inside your own living room that is over-trapped with various seals, set up a crime scene without setting even one of the said seals off, and then leave with no one the wiser about his identity? And on top of that, you want us to believe it was actually done by a group of people who nobody saw or heard from for the last six years? Are you taking us for total idiots?" Tsunade looked mockingly at him as if he was stupid, causing him to gape at her audacity.

The realization of what exactly he was overlooking as if slapped Danzo right on the head the second Tsunade uttered these words.

"Yeah... no. Pull another one." Shikaku nodded in agreement. He knew something was suspicious in that entire matter but now that Tsunade pointed out Danzo's house was basically a death trap for anyone other than the owner... He gave Danzo a suspicious look. "Parts of over two hundred bodies were found in your house... are you sure you don't have anything to say about that?"

Hearing Shikaku, Danzo shut his mouth with a click. In a huff, he turned around and walked right through the door without even excusing himself.

'That bitch played me from the start to the beginning!' He gravely thought as the door closed behind him.

Inside the office, Shikaku looked weirdly at Tsunade. "You know he will get away with it, right? There is no conclusive evidence to prove his involvement. I still have no idea why you are letting him live. From what you divulged about the Uchiha clan's demise, he deserves to be executed. Moreover, I am not stupid. This is personal for you. I can see that. Putting the facts together was not a hard thing, Tsunade. He is definitely responsible for the Senju clan's demise too and you either have proof or at least heavily suspect so. You would never be so ferocious towards him if it was not like that." He drawled. "So... why not just kill him and be done with it?

Tsunade lifted her eyebrow and snorted in distaste, "Killing him? That would have been a mercy. He did a lot of nasty stuff but he also did a lot of good for the village. So... no, Shikaku. I don't want him dead. I want him to live. To live in despair and desperation. To be frustrated, scared, on his toes at all times. To feel his hope slowly fade. I want him to suffer the worst fate imaginable for a ninja. The feeling of uselessness and hopelessness as a trap closes in. I will systematically take away his options, destroying any and all influence he has in the village, leaving him alone, isolated, and without any support. And when I deem he gave up enough resistance, I will permanently seal his chakra and throw the keying matrix to the sea." She finished with a finality that inwardly horrified Shikaku, causing him to slightly shiver.

Giving her a deadpan look in order to cover the chill that went up his spine, Shikaku groaned before quietly muttering, "Troublesome woman..."

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Chapter 258 - Ch258. Plans... ?

A week after Rei and Pakura finished their business in Sunagakure, Rei alongside his girls were sitting in the dining room of his mansion in the Village on the Other Side, enjoying their breakfast. It was during the said breakfast that Tsunade finally came back, surprising them.

"Well, well, look at that. The lost lamb finally found her way home." Rei invitingly smiled at Tsunade, gesturing to an empty chair while Konan wordlessly stood up in order to prepare another set of tableware for her.

Tsunade slightly blushed, reminding herself that informing no one of her activities might not have been the best idea but these thoughts quickly perished under her excitement. She couldn't wait for Rei's reaction once she revealed her accomplishment!

"Er... sorry? I just needed to do something." Before anyone could interrupt, Tsunade quickened her talking pace, "On the other hand, I have finished and I acquired a gift for you, Rei!" She exuberantly exclaimed, widely grinning from ear to ear with a praise-me look in her vividly amber eyes.

Rei stopped his fork mid-way to his half-opened mouth and looked at Tsunade. He was incredibly curious about what she was up to. Disappearing for more than a month? That was something he would have expected from Mei, and if it happened, it would have indeed been frustrating. As for Tsunade... He trusted Tsunade to know better. Mei would most likely have caused a scene in a few days but Tsunade had no such problem. Hence, Rei let Tsunade be and waited until she came back home from whatever self-imposed quest she went on.

"A gift?" He lifted his eyebrow at her while putting his fork down.

"Yes!" Tsunade beamed.

"Did I forget some kind of anniversary?" Rei turned to Konan with an appalled look and whispered loud enough for everyone to hear, causing many of them to giggle, including Konan as she shook her head.

Turning back to Tsunade, Rei furrowed his brows at her. It was not common in their household to give each other gifts. Sure, there were birthdays but even then, while not completely dismissed, it somehow became unimportant as time went by and they lived together. Rei was aware most of his seals were perceived as gifts by the girls even though he never intended them to be such.

With Ringo and him constantly forgetting themselves in their individual research to the point of forgetting their own birthdays and having to be dragged to the parties by Tsunade or Konan… With Konan and Tsunade taking care of the Biri-Biri and Uzushio Trading Company… With Pakura taking care of the administrative village affairs while Mei was her everyday daredevil... ordinary gifts were something they simply did not exchange anymore. There were many other ways to show they cared about each other, after all.

Hence, Rei was really curious about what Tsunade was about to pull off.

Even the other women around the table started to get curious. Tsunade was never one to be extremely excitable. Not like this. From Tsunade's expression, they could all feel that whatever revelation she was about to drop on them, it will most likely be enormous.

Tsunade approached Rei and leaned closer towards him with an expectant smile upon her lips, "I..." She started only to stop herself for a second and... a small burst of smoke suddenly appeared, notifying the people in the room about the use of a low-powered storage scroll, preventing them from getting jumpy.

Rei suddenly found his vision obscured by a hem of a hat, narrowing his eyes while grabbing the hem and yanking the hat off his head... only to owlishly blink as he somehow saw the Hokage hat in his hand.

"I have used the Konoha Creation Act and became the Daimyo of Konoha!" Tsunade proudly proclaimed, causing the people in the room to incredulously gawk at her.

"Congratulations." Konan was the first who shook herself out of her bewilderment and graced Tsunade with a warm approving smile.

"Way to go!" Mei cheered. "Won't the Hokage miss it though?" She cutely tilted her head with mischief sparkling in her eyes.

"I doubt it. My new Hokage didn't notice his hat missing for three days straight." Tsunade shrugged, "As long as I return it in under a week, it can be written off as him being forgetful."

"Geeh... have fun with the paperwork." Ringo good-naturedly interrupted with a snort before returning to her cereals.

"What's that supposed to mean, you redheaded hag! She became a Princess and you snort at her? Have you no manners?" Mei indignantly defended Tsunade, only to get an annoyed and deadpan stare from Ringo.

"First, you have red hair too, you midget. Second, I am from Kiri. They did not exactly teach us manners in the Academy. Just look at yourself." Ringo scathingly clicked her tongue, getting a scowl from Mei in return.

"You...!"

Needless to say, the two bickering redheads were quickly toned out by the other occupants of the room.

"If you need help with anything, just say. I will probably have my hands full with managing Suangakure since I don't have people who will happily do my job for me like someone," Pakura gave Ringo a pointed look, her lips thinning as she noticed Ringo was too preoccupied with Mei to notice her disapproval. Giving up her endeavor, Pakura shook her head and gazed back at Tsunade, "but I will always make time for you." She promised, knowing she was the best at the pure administrative work out of all of her sister-wives.

"Thank you." Tsunade nodded, "But I really don't have many responsibilities. I made sure of it when I took over the position of the Daimyo of Konoha. I gave away a bit of my influence to other Konoha clans but with it went most of my paperwork and negotiations with people. There is not much workload for me." She explained, causing Pakura to become introspective.

'Should I do the same?' Pakura thought with a pondering look and just like that, the people in the room knew nobody sans Rei would be able to get her out of her funk anytime soon.

The only one who was not cheering was Rei who stared at the Hokage hat in shock as if somebody murdered his puppy by disemboweling it.

It didn't take long for the rest of the cheering crowd to notice him acting weird. Especially since despite answering the congratulations, Tsunade's eyes didn't leave his form. She was really not liking his far too stunned look.

'Something is not right.' Tsunade understood and slowly approached Rei, putting her hand on his shoulder. "Are you alright? Is it that... shocking?" She asked with a tone of uncertainty.

Rei blinked again and slowly looked at her, wordlessly opening his mouth only to close it with an audible click a few seconds later in a show of speechlessness. A difficult look passed through his visage before a long insufferable sigh tore from his throat.

"Yeah~," He drawled, "I have to say... this is totally my fault. I just had to jinx it, didn't I?" He chuckled helplessly. "I should have told you to let Konoha be for the time being." He gave the bewildered Tsunade a reassuring smile as he put his hand on the one she placed on his shoulder to make her understand he was not angry as he said his next words. "With this little stunt, you totally ruined my plans, Tsunade."

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Chapter 259 - Ch259. Ruined Plans

"I... I have ruined your plans?" Tsunade exclaimed, subconsciously taking a step back. She was totally confused and utterly shocked. She only wanted to give Rei a pleasant surprise but somehow she did the exact opposite? That was too much for her distraught mind to handle as she flopped back down onto her chair.

Rei didn't give the woman even a second more for self-pity or any other undue thoughts, He stood up and approached Tsunade, giving her a tight, reassuring embrace with a comforting backrub. "Hey, I already said it is my fault. Don't worry. This just means I will have to..." Rei's eyebrows twitched, "readjust my long-term plans."

Inwardly, he was not pleased. Not at all. He knew he couldn't blame Tsunade though. He had only himself to blame. Lately, everything went far too good to be true and he might have grown a bit complacent. Naturally, everything went fine because he put in an enormous effort to actually safeguard that everything WOULD go just fine. He was never going in head-first. He always planned. He always had Konan find out the most intel she could before any self-imposed mission and then he made sure to consider as many eventual repercussions as possible. He did not play this deadly game blindly. He would like to believe he was playing it smartly and from the shadows.

Heck, people still had no clue how he looked! He made damn sure to prevent Bingo Book from posting his, Konan's, or Mei's image all these years ago by destroying any and all the villages had. There was a vague description of their looks but... well, to be honest, that was as helpful to the hunter ninjas as making Jiraiya into a godfather was for Naruto.

It took a while but Tsunade eventually relaxed her body in Rei's embrace but she was still radiating with disappointment. It was obvious she expected high praise for her effort and yet...

"Well, I think it is high time for you to divulge your so-called plans, husband." Konan calmly stated with a small but sharp smile, causing Rei to inwardly cringe while he outwardly tried to appear as indifferent as possible. "And also the reason why you kept it secret if you wouldn't mind." Konan added. "After all, I can stomach not knowing what you want to do. I have lived with you since I was a little kid. I have grown immune to your own brand of stupidity and learned to support you through it. But I won't stand for something as trivial as misinformation to cause trouble in our relationship." She evenly declared with finality.

Sighing to himself, Rei knew Konan is doing this mostly for himself, rather than because she was upset. She was one of those who never complained and always supported him no matter what he wanted to do but she was also never afraid of stating her opinion about it or even blatantly force him to do something she deemed beneficial for him as long as it had to do with his relationship with his wives. This was not even the first time she took such a firm stand on a matter pertaining to their family. Rei simply knew when he was supposed to, ahem, 'shut up and do as his wife says'.

'Well... at least I have a long night of apology sex to look forward to.' Rei wryly thought.

Yes, Konan could take a firm stand against him but after a few times of that happening, Rei understood she never enjoyed it and he always found her in his bed the following night, unusually clingy, eager to please, and her face scrunched with such an apologetic expression it almost broke his heart each time.

"Ah..." Rei awkwardly started, thinking what to say and how to justify his actions in words that would logically explain his desire to follow 'the plot' up to a certain point. "I wanted Hiruzen to be the Hokage for a few more years, you see. He was doing such a good job at keeping the village stagnant in his policy to let civilians run the matters for him. Just look at Konoha's Ninja Academy." Rei said, getting a chuckle out of most of his wives, "They slightly lower the standards almost every year since the Kyuubi attack. The clans have too many internal problems like Hyuugas or Kuramas or simply do not care about politics too much like the Nara-Shika-Cho alliance, the Aburames, and the Inuzukas. Frankly? Konoha is one crack-pot of lazy madness and it is a wonder it is still standing. There is not much value in getting it under us." He wryly stated, getting a pitiful look from Tsunade. Alas, Konan's firm and hard gaze was far more important in this situation and unfortunately for Tsunade's ego, Konan was far too good at spotting Rei's lies when she wanted so he was forced to be ruthlessly truthful.

Well, Rei was truthful... somewhat. He simply didn't say it in words he meant it in his mind. He simply wanted Hiruzen to stay Hokage until the Chunin Exams in Konoha in five years. Orochimaru crippled and Hiruzen dead was too good of a result to not aim for it. Tsunade becoming the Hokage just because the village had nobody else capable of taking over the position would have been just the proverbial cherry on the top.

To that end, Rei was vehemently avoiding Konoha. Sure, his actions all over the world affected Konoha in some way but overall? It was really not by much. The biggest interference to date was placing a seal on Naruto with the goal of making him smarter but that would have had a small effect on the plotline if Rei only wanted to preserve the events up till the Chuunin Exams. Even Naruto befriending Sasuke after the Uchiha massacre would have had no effect on that as far as Rei could predict.

Hiruzen would have had his village weakened by Danzo and the civilians on the council behind his back no matter what. Orochimaru would have attacked no matter what. The clans would have been too lazy or busy to even complain no matter what.

But now?

Tsunade made Shikaku friggin' Nara the Hokage! After all, who else would be lazy enough to not care where the most important symbol of his station was located for two freaking weeks straight?

It was a total bust now.

Not only Konoha would get better after this but Tsunade was basically a Daimyo of the lands around it which meant Rei's initial intention of keeping Konoha weak was no longer an option. He simply couldn't do that to Tsunade. As such, Konoha would have to get stronger from now on. As such, Rei could no longer be assured Orochimaru would be stupid enough to attack during the Chuunin Exam. Heck, Hiruzen was no longer the Hokage so one of his reasons for the attack was gone.

Yeah... Rei had no idea how the plotline would go now. Will the attack happen? Will Orochimaru employ more allies? Iwa? Kumo? Will he try Suna again?

'Actually, with Pakura that ship sailed long ago...' Rei only now realized. 'Ah, screw it! What will happen will happen.'

"I reckon you wanted to try something with Kumo and Iwa, then?" Konan instantly grasped what he was not saying by deducing it from what was already said.

Rei gave her a small eye-roll. "Obviously. These two are the only ones I have no leverage over and they both have a too solid foundation to just quietly take over or install our Kage in them. There is no event in sight that would make such an endeavor easy anyway."

"I see..." Konan hummed, mentally going through the latest intel on both of these villages and trying to find something. "Konoha was of no concern so you had time to focus your efforts on tougher nuts to crack, so to speak." She distractedly continued.

Rei kissed Tsunade on her hair when he felt her tensing again before speaking, "Yup. Not that it matters now. Tsunade rules the village and that means I will not just stand and let her wrestle with it alone." He said, getting a grateful snuggle from the blonde.

"So... what now?" Konan asked. "Do you need something from us? Should I start causing disturbances in Kumo and Iwa? We can still think something up..."

"No." Rei harshly interjected before releasing yet another sigh. "Look. I kept my plans secret because I honestly couldn't justify giving you more responsibilities. You already have quite a bit of work. Ringo... I did persuade into accepting the position of the Mizukage but that simply doesn't count!" He exclaimed, getting a deadpan stare from Ringo. Returning an eye-roll, Rei continued, "She really only has to spend less than half an hour per day on her paperwork and even then she mostly uses shadow clones for it. Compared to the other Kages, she is totally worry-free as other people do most of her job for her. Pakura loves administration so I had no qualms about having her become the Kazekage. She knows her limits too so there is no way she would have overworked herself either. But you Konan? Or Tsunade? You both are overzealous." Konan's eyebrows twitched while Tsunade froze in Rei's arms. "I have seen it in your work for the Biri-Biri company and since then I decided to not involve you more than necessary. On top of the duties for the Biri-Biri company, Tsunade has her medical research and you, Konan, have an entire spy network spanning a whole continent to care for. I have never even dreamed of pushing another full time job on you. As for Mei..." All of them looked at the happy-go-lucky girl who munched on her cereals, ignoring the conversation in its entirety...

"Wha-?" Mei carefreely tilted her head when she noticed the stares.

"Er... Anyway," Rei decided to continue, "I think... We should just focus on slowly improving the four villages under our control without alerting Kumo or Iwa. There is really not much to do about this, I guess." He slightly grimaced. His new plans would need a bit of thinking but then again, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Looking back at Tsunade, Rei schooled his expression and smiled, "So... still up for that breakfast?" He asked her with a small nudge.

Tsunade raised her head, lifting her eyes to his. For a second, she held their eye connection as if looking for something in his eyes... before she smiled and nodded in agreement when she didn't find it.

"Yeah..."

Chapter 260 - Ch260. Apprenticeship 1

With his previous plans ruined, Rei decided to be a bit more passive in his future approach, and most importantly, he now always consulted his plans with Konan.

Well... not that he had any other option anyway after the last debacle... right?

Kumo and Iwa were totally forgotten and left to their own devices. These two were frankly the strongest villages in the Elemental Nations and as such, Rei deemed it far too troublesome to even try subverting them in some way, especially since they had no idea about the existence of the Village on the Other Side yet.

Iwa, despite losing a sizable bulk of their force in the third ninja war, was quickly on its way to full recovery. The thing was, Rei was only aware of that thanks to the monitoring of their purchases from the Biri-Biri company and Konan's spy network. Onoki was damn good at keeping things under the wraps. They were eighty percent recovered and nobody had any idea. Iwagakure really deserved its moniker of the most militaristic hidden village.

Kumo, on the other hand, didn't have many losses in the third war despite their borders being penetrated by Kiri. Their forces were bolstering and the village enjoyed its momentary title of the strongest hidden village. After all, after the Kyuubi attack, Konoha really had no way to contend for it.

Instead of expanding, Rei decided that solidifying their secret hold on the three foreign villages and developing them was the way to go. After all, there were still numerous either financial, political, or militaristic problems present in these villages, just waiting to be resolved.

And while that was going on... the Village on the Other Side was in dire need of more high-level personnel too.

...

Izumi Uchiha nervously fidgeted while sitting on the waiting sofa right outside Konan's office. She had no idea why she was called in by the woman and her mind was fabricating various scenarios that made her quite jumpy.

Konan was widely known as one of the most important kunoichis in the whole village. As a member of the Uchiha clan, which was totally new in the village and wanted to prove itself, Izumi wanted to make a good impression on Konan. The problem was... Konan did not socialize a lot. Not outside of her job or family. Hence, the people in the village had no idea what to think about her or the personality she hid behind that cold exterior of hers.

Yes, she was extremely respected... but so was Itachi Uchiha, and look where that led the Uchiha clan.

At that moment, Izumi let out a whiny sigh as she realized that such a comparison was a bit too much and completely unfair to the people who saved her clan from assured extermination.

'Calm down, girl. You are too tense. What's the worst that can happen?' Izumi wryly thought, trying to think up and compare the worst imaginable fate to calm her nerves. 'It's not like she could drown me in even more paper than my clan already does.'

With that reminder, her mood plummeted and she didn't even notice how her nerves calmed down as her mind was filled with annoyance. Elder Isamu seemed to be grooming her for the leadership position in the future, which entailed a lot of paperwork on top of a lot of other paperwork, spiced up by some more paperwork, and to top it off, she got paperwork... At times, Izumi wondered if Isamu was making fun of her. Wasn't being a clan head supposed to be a bit more exciting?

Unknown to her, it was simply a test if she was smart enough to use Sharingan for it. Which... she didn't pass. Hence, her current predicament.

The door finally opened and Konan looked at the grouchy Izumi, lifting her eyebrow, "Good morning. Come in." She said and went back in.

Not long after that, Izumi found herself sitting opposite Konan who watched her like a hawk with a judgemental gaze, making her feel uncomfortable. Izumi, though, refused to budge or show her discomfort. To appear confident no matter how squeamishly shitty you felt was the very first lesson Elder Isamu instilled in her.

Konan opened a file on her table and looked at it, "Izumi Uchiha. Most promising of the current generation of the young Uchihas. Already awakened her Mangekyo Sharingan. Tsukuyomi confirmed. Preferences for genjutsu, meaning a keen intellect and good chakra control." That's where Konan paused for a bit before reading out loud the next part. "Moderately stupid as far as using her bloodline goes. Never found the trick of using Sharingan for the paperwork. Watching her wrestle with it is funny as heck, though. Signed, Isamu Uchiha." Konan looked back at Izumi with amusement written on her face, enjoying the slack-jawed expression the girl portrayed.

"That jackass had me doing the paperwork for a month without telling me about the shortcut!?" Izumi exclaimed in deep disbelief while subconsciously standing up before bonelessly slumping back into her seat.

There was a lot of paperwork involved in the assimilation of the Uchiha clan to the village. Especially for the Uchiha clan leader. It was nice to know Isamu Uchiha had an unparalleled work ethic and knew the trick of making others do his job for him.

'Looks like I have no reason to worry for the future of the Uchiha clan.' Konan inwardly mused.

A wide range of emotions flickered through Izumi's face before Konan deemed her entertainment satisfying enough to move on. "Do you know why you are here, girl?"

The thirteen years old young woman blinked at Konan... before instantly straightening up in her seat when she realized she was still in front of her immediate superior. Gulping, she tried to give a composed reply, "N-No." And promptly scolded herself for the small stutter.

"You are here on recommendation from Isamu Uchiha to become my apprentice." Konan informed her.

Izumi furrowed her brows and pointed at herself, "Me?"

"You." Konan nodded.

"Why?" Izumi asked in bewilderment.

"Why not?" Konan tilted her head. "You don't want it?"

"But..." Izumi frowned. She thought she would be the next clan head. That would mean working under Isamu Uchiha and learning the ropes of leading the clan. Not... doing grunt work for Konan. Sure, working for Konan meant her future was assured if she did well but... she simply didn't understand.

"Your Mangekyo... you have Tsukuyomi and Kamui, right?" Konan gave the girl a knowing smirk, causing Izumi to stiffen.

"H-How?" Izumi's head snapped back to Konan and her tone became guarded. She didn't reveal the second ability of her Mangekyo even to the Elder Isamu. There was no way Konan could have known!

"I am not the village's spymaster for nothing, girl. You tried your Mangekyo in one of our training grounds. Did you really think I wouldn't know?" Konan rolled her eyes.

All of the trees in the village were made by the Wood Release. It was a child's play for Konan to connect her chakra to these trees with her own Wood Release, having them act like her own sensory field. She might not be able to keep herself informed of all the happenings in the Village on the Other Side to the degree Mei could with her Boil Release but that didn't mean Konan did not monitor the village at all.

"Er..." Izumi looked at her hands, "If you chose me because of my eyes, then I am sorry but I can't use my Mangekyo. I would go blind." She fearfully whispered. That single attempt at using her abilities scared the living heck out of her. The searing pain in her eyes told Izumi enough about the damage that was being caused to her eyes. She grew up as an Uchiha. It was instilled in her that her eyes were the most important part of her. Any thought of damaging them sent a chill crawl up her spine.

After that particular training session, despite her hatred for Itachi, Izumi found a newfound respect for her peer. She couldn't even imagine the determination he had to have to keep damaging his eyes for power.

Konan looked at Izumi and sighed. The girl was serious. "You know... the guy who helped Itachi with the massacre was a master at using Kamui." She revealed. As classified as that information was, Konan would rather have a motivated student than a fearful and depressed one. "I chose you as my apprentice because, firstly, the Uchiha clan needs a connection to the higher-ups of the village. The Uzumaki, Kaguya, and other clans do have ninjas in reasonably high positions so this could even the political playing field for the Uchiha clan."

In the village on the Other Side, Rei ruled. What he said went and there were to be no questions asked. That was a fact.

But Rei didn't begrudge the clans playing politics and pursue self-betterment to a degree. That sparked a desire for development and strengthening themselves. Seeing other clans in the village getting richer or stronger made their co-habitants determined to reach the same heights. This competition was good as long as the clans had no say in the most important matters.

"The second reason for why you are here is," Konan continued, "Your fighting style with Kamui and genjutsu could be very similar to mine once trained enough. Like Itachi Uchiha, you are a hit-and-run type of ninja. So... are you willing to become my apprentice?"

"Do I even have a choice?" Izumi meekly asked.

"Of course you do." Konan rolled her eyes. Except… no she did not. 'But the girl doesn't need to know that.' Konan inwardly frowned. The second Isamu Uchiha recommended Izumi for this position, it was obvious her chances at becoming the clan leader were null and void. 'Ah, well, I created a miracle with Mei and Ringo… I am sure with Rei's help, I can make another one. Who knows, maybe she will end up as the clan head if she does well.'

Izumi silently contemplated her situation. This would take her away from the clan for quite a significant amount of time and most likely hurt her chances of becoming the clan leader. On the upside, she would definitely grow strong. Extremely strong if Konan does right by her. But then again, Konan was not doing this out of the goodness of her heart either. It was obvious this apprenticeship would simply be grooming to fill some kind of position in the village.

After a while, Izumi just shook her head, "Even if this was not extremely beneficial to me, there is no way I could turn down the opportunity to get a connection between the Uchiha clan and the village's leadership going on. If I did, I would have been made into an outcast in my own clan." She emptily chuckled. "I accept."

Konan simply snorted. She always found clan politics ridiculous.

"So... what's first?" Izumi curiously asked, causing a particular glint to pass through Konan's eyes.

Konan warmly smiled, "Why... you gotta learn how to properly do the paperwork, of course!"

And suddenly, Izumi started regretting her choice...

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Chapter 261 - Ch261. Apprenticeship 2

The day after Konan got her new apprentice and spent the dinner introducing Izumi to Rei and his other girls, all hell broke loose.

Suddenly, the other three women also wanted their apprentices. Who wouldn't want a grunt who you can teach how to fill paperwork for you, after all. Sure, using the shadow clones was one alternative but honestly? Having somebody else to deal with it simply felt a lot sweeter!

Only Ringo didn't care to teach anybody as she was quite satisfied with her current daily routine, saying that teaching would reduce her forging time too much. In short, she was far too lazy...

Anyway, this resulted in a fervent look-out for their own apprentices that could eventually take over their departments. Naturally, for such a task, the requirements were quite steep, especially when loyalty was concerned.

Pakura had it quite easy.

She already had Maki who she was grooming to take over her position in the Village on the Other Side. Maki was dedicated and after living years in the Other-Sided village, she fully considered it her home. It was a no-brainer that she would succeed Pakura in due time.

After all, Rei made the Village on the Other Side because having the backing of a whole hidden village or nation was what he needed. To be honest, he really couldn't be bothered ruling over it for more than was strictly necessary.

It was really just a comparison of benefits and effort needed. He put enormous effort into creating it and he indeed got the wanted benefits but in his opinion, it was better to dump the village on somebody else's shoulders. Somebody he trusted. Somebody who was gifted and experienced in the administration of day-to-day running of the village. Somebody like Maki after she finishes her apprenticeship for Pakura and climbs the ranks a bit.

Needless to say, Rei's goal was to become a Daimyo-like existence in the Spring Country. He would have his minister, Mr. Kazehana, who really wanted nothing more but the country to prosper and the civilians to live good lives. With such a good minister, there wasn't much Rei would have to do. And with giving command of the village to Maki... Rei will be free to do his hobbies and spend time with his girls. It was the ultimate dream of any sloth!

Ah, well... all in due time.

Back to Pakura... For the position of Kazekage, Pakura was grooming Temari. Even if Pakura never outright said so, Rei could tell and he actually approved. Gaara was a bit too unstable and young. Plus, people still despised him. Plus, there will be no overconfident, cheeky, exuberant, moronic, and brainwashed Naruto to beat some sense into the guy because of lucking out in their fight. Rei's interference with Naruto basically destroyed that possibility.

There was no real reason to not approve of Pakura choosing Temari for the position. It might have seemed counterproductive since Temari watched Pakura kill her father but surprisingly, the girl held no resentment towards her new mentor. Rei would even go so far as to proclaim that Temari actually felt a bit grateful and resolved to not disappoint.

It was a bit adorable from the Pakura's small desert flower.

Tsunade had an awkward time looking for apprentices.

Rei knew she would have loved taking Shizune in again and bestowing her newfound knowledge upon the woman. But after all these years, Shizune was more loyal to Konoha than Tsunade and that put a final wench in these plans.

That was not even mentioning their slightly messy parting when Tsunade tried to talk Shizune out of marrying Asuma after she gently probed her former apprentice and got the impression Shizune never allowed the guy to flirt and seduce other women during his long stay in the Fire Capital. Alas, Shizune took it wrong the wrong way, and Tsunade didn't have enough patience to show her the light.

In the end, that relationship sailed until Shizune got her head out of her ass... Tsunade's words, not Rei's.

With Shizune out, Tsunade decided to walk the harder path and commit to training Anko to eventually be her replacement.

Poor Anko was incredibly excited when she heard that she would spend the time Naruto was in the academy by training with Tsunade. She was even more excited when Tsunade for the first time showed her the Village on the Other Side. The woman even reaffirmed her loyalty to Rei, informing him that Konoha never really gave her anything so there was not much of a reason to be loyal to that village.

Well, Anko's excitement quickly faded when Tsunade showed the snake charmer the training grounds. For the first time in her life, Anko actually missed Orochimaru's training. Sure, the man was brutal but at least he was not a medical expert! Tsunade simply didn't care how damaged Anko was during the training. She simply fixed her and threw her back into the fray whereas Anko had no choice but to adapt.

If that was not enough, Tsunade then used the threat of an increase in this type of training to 'motivate' Anko to learn medical books, something the snake mistress was starting to hate with a passion. Sure, she loved her poisons and knew about them more than anyone in Konoha but that was that and this was this!

Unfortunately for Anko, Tsunade's goal was to train a medic capable of heading the Medical Department in the Village on the Other Side after she retires. And Tsunade was not taking no for an answer…

Only her determination to once kill Orochimaru gave Anko enough resolve to pull through the training.

Shikaku also proclaimed he will under no circumstances take more time from his already busy schedule to train a successor. But the man also demanded Tsunade trained one, citing her prowess as the reason.

The smart bastard simply wanted to get out of his responsibilities…

But Tsunade decided to be a bit devious and after a brief chat with an excited Chuunin called Kurenai Yuhi, an idea that it would be hilarious if the next Hokage focused on illusions appeared in Tsunade's head.

It would be a long time before Tsunade trusted Kurenai enough to show her the Village on the Other Side and tell the girl the whole truth but she definitely took the girl under her wing and started training her. Not that she told Kurenai what future she envisioned for her. That would come only after she trusted her enough.

The most problematic of the lot was by far Mei.

She decided to take Yugito and Yagura as her apprentices. Not that the two jinchuuriki got any say in the decision. Not even Rei could refuse her when she said, 'But they are already my pets, isn't it only natural to train them to listen?'

What the hell was Rei supposed to answer with such logic acting against him!?

In the end, he simply gave Yugito and Yagura a half-pitying, half-apologetic look before approving of the decision right in front of the two poor sods.

In reality, Mei chose 'her kitty', meaning Yugito, because they got really friendly over the years. As for Yagura, 'the kiddy turtle', as Mei dubbed him because he was still child-sized despite being an adult, Mei picked him because of his ability to transform into full bijuu mode. With her bijuu, Auburn, finally about to mature, Mei was capable of using the bijuu mode to an extent and as such, it would have been nice to have two playmates, no?

.

There really wasn't much Rei could do against such impeccable logic...

He only hoped Mei would not impart her obsession with world-ending Jutsu on her two new victi-, err… apprentices.

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Chapter 262 - Ch262. Timeskip - Kirigakure's Academy

When Rei decided to be more passive in his foreign policies for the following years, it meant the new age of development for the hidden villages under his command.

Kirigakure was the first one that was heavily affected by that decision. It was not because of Ringo, rather than Yagura who was like a chipmunk high on coffee. The guy really wanted to make Kirigakure better and he definitely showed it by annoying Rei enough that he deemed it important to finally start the reforms in Kirigakure rather than spend even one more day with the exuberant former Fourth Mizukage.

Frankly, at times, Rei even regretted taking the guy in. Who cares about confusing Akatsuki and denying them access to the Third Tail if he had to suffer his overly excitable nature every time reforming Kiri was mentioned? For such a serious kind of guy, Yagura sure acted like a kid once he realized he no longer needed to carry the burden of being a leader.

Years slowly started to pass by and Kirigakure felt the reforms fully.

The very first thing that changed was the graduation exam. No longer did the kids fight each other to the death for the right to become ninja. That said, neither Ringo nor Rei felt that the tradition was fundamentally bad. It took a lot of discussions with Yagura but in the end, even the turtle midget had to give in to their arguments.

The tradition in itself was good. It just needed a big overhaul to be efficient.

The final graduation exam was still a battle between the students but it was no longer to the death. After all, the village had to know the approximate level of its graduates, plus such an event could serve as entertainment for the local populace, bringing in a bit of profit in the entrance fees.

That said, the graduates were still told to do their best. The battles were still supervised by a Jonin ranked ninja so if any death occurred, it would imply the proctor is not apt to be a Jonin if he can't even stop an academy student from delivering a killing blow to another academy student. Hence, the proctors made damn sure to pay attention no matter how bored they were due to watching two novices fight.

That was not the only reform for the Academy. Not by a long shot. The academy curriculum was completely overhauled too, implementing chakra control exercises and some low-level water Jutsu in preparation to learn Kirigakure no Jutsu as one part of the graduation exam.

Honestly, the only reason why academies did not teach any useful Jutsus or chakra control exercises was simple. Many students drop out or fail the graduation exam and the villages simply do not want civilians with knowledge of how to improve their control over the chakra. After all, the more widespread such things are, the more people can experiment and actually make their own Jutsus. People who are not affiliated with the village. People who are civilians and can freely travel. It would have been a disaster to start them on their training only for them to later on leave. The worst part, the villages would be unable to even mark them a nuke-nin because... well, academy students are not yet a part of the ninja ranks.

The solution to this problem was surprisingly simple.

The village just has to guarantee that everybody would pass the academy.

Granted, it was a nice little theory but it was a lot harder to manage such a feat in practice. Basically, Ringo, which really means Ao, created a system where every graduate has five chances to graduate from the academy. The graduating age was still ten years old but the graduation rules were a bit different. Everybody could fail a graduation exam four times, which meant returning to the academy for an additional year.

Flunking once would be fine but twice? Well, let's just say the entire class would be silently mocking such a person, not to mention those who flunked more than twice. Such a person would be blatantly obvious in the class as he or she would be older than everybody else, signifying his or her ineptitude.

It was meant to motivate kids in that position to work harder. Naturally, the teachers would watch those like hawks to make sure there are no special circumstances involved.

The curriculum was not really all that hard. It was set up with ten years old orphan kids in mind. The clan children should have no problem at all and could probably graduate by seven years old as long as they learned the necessary Jutsu that were being tested. Heck, even the orphans should have no problem as long as they put in the necessary effort.

That said, Ringo made sure nobody could graduate early. If somebody special was found, he or she would simply be offered a special tutelage for the remainder of the academy years. There was no need to send kids under ten years of age to the battlefield. Such a practice was counterproductive considering the low percentage of them that would actually return.

If somebody actually managed to flunk five consecutive years... it would be a helluva suspicious matter. If a fifteen years old kid can't manage what an average ten-year-old can, then something is either very, very suspicious about him and his performance is faked, which should have been spotted by the teachers during all the academy years... or, the kid is simply so freakingly stupid, he is not fit to be a ninja. In such a case, there is no need to worry about him spreading chakra control techniques, much less worry about him actually creating a technique by himself.

Hence, the major problem of Kirigakure was on its way to being solved.

Nobody complained about bloody graduation exams that perpetually halved the graduating class, killing off many late bloomers in the process and slowly crippling the Kirigakure's ninja force. And the actual number of graduating kids would effectively double with their quality improving.

In just a few years, the Kirigakure's council predicted Kiri's forces to actually catch up to other major hidden villages number-wise.

Naturally, such statistics caused the Kiri ninjas to revere Ringo as their savior. In her hands, the village was starting to thrive both economically and militaristically.

Ao could only cry in the corner, muttering about not being given his just credit.

And Ringo?

She couldn't care less...

Chapter 263 - Ch263. Timeskip - Kirigakure

The academy was not the only place that received an overhaul in Kirigakure.

Ringo was a knucklehead but once she got something as her goal, she did her damnedest to finish it. That's the major reason why she became the wielder of Kiba in the past. She had no real chance to speak of when she was young. Sure, a strong Lightning affinity was rare in Kirigakure but bestowing Kiba blades to an orphan was an outrageous thought. Yet, Ringo managed to get them despite all the natural obstacles and prejudices in her way.

Hence, Rei knew that if he wanted Ringo to properly start developing Kirigakure, he had to make her interested in it.

And there were only two things Ringo thought interesting nowadays. Him, and forging.

Now, Rei could have developed a reward system and promise her more dates, snuggling, sex, whatever for doing tasks. That, however, felt hollow to Rei as Ringo was one of his wives, hence, these things were not supposed to be rewards but natural happenings in their relationship.

Instead, Rei decided to go about it through Ringo's interest in forging.

Alas, Kirigakure was an inland village, located almost in the middle of the Water Country that focused on sea trade. If Ringo wanted to develop better forging in the village, she first had to develop some outside village bases in major ports of the country. Then she had to develop the infrastructure and trade through the sea to get better materials for forging, indirectly developing the economy of the whole village.

It certainly was no coincidence that most imports for this area came from the Uzushio Trading Company either.

Sure, Kirigakure could have gotten their materials through the trading companies of the Water Country but in the long run, that would be really foolish and expensive. This way, Ringo may have invested a lot of money but the returns were directly paid in the development of the village and its businesses that would, later on, bring revenue, paying for themselves.

Just to develop forging in the village caused Ringo to develop a multitude of other things too. Things that were necessary for the smooth running of the village.

In just three years, Kirigakure became completely independent of the Water Daimyo as they had their own businesses that were fully capable of financially sustaining the village. This resulted in the Daimyo having much lesser influence over the village in general. No longer could the nobles of the Water Country demand some missions to be accepted despite being fully aware that the survival chance is almost zero.

After all, what other reason than political pressure could a village full of superpowered killers have for sending its soldiers on a suicide mission? Why would a village even do that? They did missions to get money. Having a ninja killed during a mission was, on the other hand, ALWAYS a loss. The village spent years of effort to nurture its ninjas so throwing their lives away to please some rich fat fuck, as Ringo called them, was completely foolish.

Some council members, especially clan heads, saw this deviation from the traditions as atrocious. Kirigakure was supposed to be a ninja village and that meant their income should come primarily from taking missions. Their protests might have been silent but Ringo and Ao took note of this.

Ringo's response?

"So... you basically want to be the glorified servants for hire for rich nobles, huh? You lot really did forget what it was like during the Warring States era, didn't you? Yes, the clans were hirable for a price but other than that, the clans were also completely self-sufficient. They were not under anyone's rule and usually roamed freely, no matter what the territory owners thought. Yet, you would like us to depend on Daimyo's generosity and work for him as if we were his loyal dogs? Are you stupid? He is just one fat and inept man, yet you cover in front of his supposed influence and beg for the scraps from his table despite each of you being able to single-handedly wipe out an entire battalion of his army. Pathetic. You are nothing but prideful slaves. I guess we are lucky it's not you who is the Mizukage but me. I at least don't cover in front of a powerless civilian just because he has a fancy title. What's he gonna do to me? Hire another village to start a war with his own nation? Please..."

That was the longest speech Ringo delivered in the two years she was the Mizukage and it was also one she said with such derision and contempt the council members listened, shitting their pants as they just wanted her to lose her temper and pounce, killing them in the process.

The clan heads really experienced a fright that day. To give Ringo credit where it is due, she did tolerate their grumbling for the better part of a year. Enough was simply enough, causing her to erupt. After that verbal lashing, the clan heads thought long and hard about the meaning of her words, and that later on had a major impact on the entirety of Kirigakure.

It took a few months for these words to have the desired effect. The clan heads were prideful beings and the source of said pride was their clans.

'You are nothing but prideful slaves.'

In the end, it was these words that made the clan heads look back at how their clans transformed in the past century. And many of them were horrified when they compared what had been with what currently was. They were not stupid. They just didn't look at the situation from that angle. They lived in the present, not looking at the past overly much. Only after they did look, did they figure out what Ringo was trying to accomplish. She was... trying to bring back and implement to the village the independence the clans enjoyed a century ago.

This led to yet another milestone in the history of Kirigakure. The clan heads, of their own volition, bowed to Ringo. Both figuratively and literally.

Before, they followed her because she was powerful. Too powerful for them to do anything about her. Too powerful to even try such a foolish thing. Now they found a reason to respect her as their leader. A reason other than her overwhelming power.

And suddenly, Kirigakure was unified more than ever.

Well... sure, it all started with a misunderstanding. Ringo couldn't care less about Kirigakure's independence but if she was to make her village into the best producer of forged weaponry, she had to get some leeway from the nobles and the Daimyo. Nevertheless, misunderstanding or not, Rei was actually impressed and flabbergasted at how Ringo gained the loyalty of the whole village.

When he put her up to this little forging-development project, he had no idea she would have been literally worshipped by the village.

Ah, well... all's well that ends well, no? At least, Rei no longer had to think about how to safeguard Kirigakure's loyalty and obedience considering the ninja and civilians alike followed Ringo's word as if it was a holy scripture after they noted just how much better did she make the village and how low became the mortality rate of their ninjas.

The best part?

The woman had no clue.

She simply couldn't care less.

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Chapter 264 - Ch264. Timeskip - Sunagakure: Puppetry Department

"And that concludes the report on the Puppetry Department Training, Lady Kazekage." The vice-leader of the said department reported to Pakura before being dismissed.

The puppetry Department was one of the very first things Pakura came up with. Sunagakure's main war tactic was simple. Puppeteers were one of the most important parts as they provided cannon fodder in the form of their puppets. The puppets were not alive, so having the enemy dispose of them was not a big deal. The puppeteer just had to pull a new puppet out of a storage scroll and the battle could go on. Moreover, the Suna puppeteers were also masters at using a wide range of poisons. One nick and the battle was usually over. And these puppeteers then were protected by Tessenjutsu Users who were killing beasts at mid-range with their Kamaitachi no Jutsu. One can't really appreciate how strong that technique was unless seeing a man dismembered out of nowhere because invisible wind blades no one noticed impacted him. And once the tessen user learned how to hide a wind blade in another wind blade?

Let's just say the Jonins of other villages rightfully feared engaging Suna on the battlefield more than they feared other villages because fighting against them could feel pointless at times with waves of disposable puppets swarming the front lines.

Suna might not have been the largest of the hidden villages but with puppetry, that was not such a big deal. Every puppet could be counted as an additional shinobi as long as the controller could keep up. When talking purely about a clash between chunin ranked ninjas... as that was the most frequent thing to happen during a war... puppets were actually superior AND disposable. They could pull a hidden blade out of anywhere on their body, disassemble into individual parts, and again reassemble, twist at angles humans could never achieve, and much more. The only limiting factor of puppets was the puppeteer and the range of weaponry in them. In the current period of cold weapons, puppets were the best war machines the world had to offer.

It was obvious Pakura would focus on improving the puppetry of her village, no?

The puppeteers of Suna were never united. The skills were passed down either in scrolls or from master to apprentice. Which was incredibly ineffective in the long run. Sure, the puppetry stayed a secret this way. Broken puppets were easy to acquire on the battlefield and yet, no village could replicate it, no matter how they tried. That was only possible thanks to the extensive secrecy around the art.

The Puppetry Department changed this aspect of the village, however.

The puppeteers were now united under one department whereas the prominent families in the craft received high positions to appease them. Other than that, however, the division was based on merit.

The vice-leader, for example, Shun Riku, was a civilian-born kunoichi. Somebody who would never be able to attain such a high proficiency in the craft to become a vice-leader if it wasn't for the common library in the department where every puppetry clan contributed some of their knowledge, making a decent base for anyone wanting to learn the craft.

Shun Riku, in only three years, jumped from an ordinary chunin into Elite Jonin who was knocking on the doors of the S-rank. That, was a pure talent for puppetry. Now that the talent was fed enough knowledge, it could flourish in full.

"The second coming of Sasori, eh?" Elder Chiyo released a weary sigh as she appeared from the shadows in the corner. "That woman is way too fanatical." She added with a sad chuckle.

Pakura raised her eyebrow at the old woman, not commenting. Riku was... one of her most loyal subordinates alongside the Suzumiya clan. The woman knew who was indirectly responsible for her sudden improvement.

"It's in the eyes." Chiyo started again after seeing the amused expression on Pakura's face, "Riku is a stern and no-nonsense type of person... well, she is basically channeling you, Pakura." Both women grinned, "But," Chiyo frowned, "the woman is really like Sasori. Cold. Detached. Focused... with a frighteningly inhuman perspective of looking at things." Chiyo said in distaste. "To think your reforms would bring to the village a person who can control hundreds of puppets at the same time while being able to fight in taijutsu with her own body..." Chiyo's face showed a glint of bitterness.

She was one of the people who believed that puppetry techniques should stay in the family. Yet, after the establishment of the Puppetry Department, the village experienced a sudden boom in the craft. More and better puppets were developed on a daily basis as more and more civilian-borns focused on the craft. Everybody could improve a puppet and register a patent, getting paid for it. With each tweak, the puppets became more unpredictable and dangerous.

That was also one of the reasons why she compared Riku to Sasori. She was dastardly creative when creating her own puppets. She was not the vice-leader because of her skills at killing with puppets but because of her skills at creating puppets. The assortment of weaponry in the woman's puppets was... disgustingly lethal even for Chiyo's standards. Riku was Sunagakure's own one-woman-army, loyal to death to Pakura.

Pakura inwardly smirked. To be honest, the entire success of Riku could be chalked up to a mental Jutsu she gave the woman for her loyalty. Sure, her talent for puppetry was undeniable but it was that mental Jutsu that allowed her to spread her focus to so many things at once. The access to trap-making techniques of the Suzumiya clan helped Riku a lot too. Not that Chiyo had to know that.

In a way, it was disheartening for Chiyo. There was nobody who would dare to oppose Pakura at this point. Riku was not the only one whose loyalty Pakura had. Temari...

'Better not think about that.' Chiyo shuddered when she remembered her last meeting with the twelve years old girl. The Wind Mistress of Suna was downright terrifying for her age. She could do things some Jonins in tessenjutsu Corps had problems performing. No longer was Gaara the reason for concern as far as the Sabaku family was concerned.

The scariest fact about the entire matter was that not that many knew about it. Temari was in ANBU since the day she graduated two years ago. But those who knew that behind the mask of the Wind Mistress of Suna is hiding Temari... couldn't help but start comparing the girl to Itachi Uchiha for the sheer potential for slaughter the girl's invisible wind blades possessed.

Temari's record was stellar too. 42 A-rank missions finished without any difficulty in the two years of her service. By now, the girl should have been promoted to Jonin but Pakura, for some reason, kept the girl in ANBU, hence giving her access to high-level missions, while officially keeping her at the rank of genin.

Chiyo was really curious but she was not sure she wanted to know what the Scorch Princess had planned for the girl.

"Good that you mentioned Sasori." Pakura suddenly interrupted Chiyo's train of thoughts, causing her to stiffen because of the sudden shift in the topic. "I need you to recall him back." She added with such an indifferent tone, Chiyo almost choked.

"Wh-what!? What do you mean to recall him back?" Chiyo asked, schooling her expression.

Pakura just rolled her eyes, "Don't even try it. I am aware Sasori killed the Third Kazekage and became a rogue ninja on your orders. I am also aware there is a 'spy', or a connection, you two have on Suna council. The Yura guy, right?"

Chiyo was forced to take a step back from the shock she felt. No one was supposed to know about that mission but her and Sasori!

Pakura dismissively waved her hand, "Ah, I get it. The Third was a prick. I lived in this village too, you know?" She snorted, "As for Rasa... I think you simply gave up when one idiot was swapped for the other." She shrugged. "That said... I want Sasori to become the leader of the Puppetry Department. Call him back. I have a deal for him. Chop-chop."

Chiyo could only stare at her leader, for the first time in a few decades gaping in astonishment.

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Chapter 265 - Ch265. Timeskip - Sunagakure: Sasori

Pakura stood near the edge of the sand wall encompassing Sunagakure, waiting for the guest of honor to appear. She enjoyed her current situation. Maybe a bit too much. After all...

"Goddamned Kazekage. Freaking Scorch User. Is she made of heat? How the heck can she just stand there with such an unbothered cocky expression..." Chiyo, who was next to her, quietly cursed up a storm as she tried to pull her hood to cover more of her head and provide more shade for herself. She was sweating like a pig. As someone who lived in Suna her entire life, the heat was not something that bothered her overly much but Pakura, for some reason, made her come to the meeting place entire two hours before the agreed time despite her protests that Sasori never arrives early or late. "Why is it so damned hot today?" She mumbled.

Chiyo had no idea that Pakura was using her bloodline to subtly warm up the air around them, increasing the discomfort of her companion.

In the past few years, Chiyo was a big help to Pakura but the old hag never made it easy to manipulate her. Pakura knew Chiyo was not 'on her side'. She was more of a fence-sitter who just waited for a good chance to pounce. That was the biggest reason why Pakura only now asked Chiyo to call Sasori back. In recent years, Chiyo became a bit more loyal to Pakura herself, rather than Sunagakure.

It wasn't by much and Pakura doubted Chiyo even realized her small shift in demeanor but... thanks to that, Pakura could finally put a minuscule amount of trust into the old hag.

"Finally." Pakura suddenly said, causing Chiyo to raise her head and notice the hunched-over form of Hiruko clad in the Akatsuki cloak, standing on the very edge of the sand wall.

'Smart. He is in a good position for both attacking and running away, depending on what would be needed.' Chiyo inwardly praised while Pakura just raised her eyebrow at the man.

"Exactly on time." Pakura amusedly noted. "You even hid for the last half an hour in that little crevice in the sand wall in order to appear here on time. I must admit, I am as impressed as I am exasperated."

To give Sasori credit, his puppet body only showed his surprise by halting for a second before he was back in his normal and indifferent manner.

"I should have expected to be discovered." Sasori muttered for himself before looking at Pakura, "You do have some skill."

Both Pakura and Chiyo noted he did not say she was a good Kazekage, rather, he just agreed Pakura was a good kunoichi. Then again, 'some skill', in Sasori's dictionary meant he acknowledged her as a threat. That, in itself, was tremendous praise from the perpetually grumpy wooden doll.

"I see that you did not leave Akatsuki yet." Pakura offhandedly mentioned, looking at the black cloak with red clouds on his body, causing Sasori to let out a grumbling growl.

"As if I would leave my safety net without even knowing your offer. Chiyo may be my grandmother but I am not an idiot. If this 'deal' is not satisfactory, then staying in Akatsuki is the most logical option."

"Yeah. You do not possess even one-tenth of Chiyo's care about Sunagakure." Pakura smirked.

That much she knew. The man cared only about one thing. His puppets.

Pakura just rolled her eyes at Sasori. "Let's cut to the chase. Neither you nor I have time to waste."

Sasori appreciatively hn'd while Chiyo glared at Pakura with unveiled distaste, 'No time, my ass! If so, why did I have to wait two hours here with you!?'

"Fine. Tell me your offer, then." Sasori said.

"There is not much to it." Pakura shrugged, "I want you to be the head of our Puppetry Department and work on enhancing the puppets of our village while training some apprentices."

So far, the offer sounded as if Pakura was inviting Sasori to serve Sunagakure again. Now that irritated the man to no end. Before Sasori could reject, Pakura threw a scroll at him.

Sensing no chakra from it, Sasori caught it, cautious of any would-be trap. He looked at Pakura and saw that she beckoned him to open it.

Sighing to himself, Sasori opened the scroll and...

Chiyo could only furrow her eyebrows when she saw her grandson entered his 'interested' mode after reading the scroll briefly. She couldn't help but wonder what was in the scroll.

Finally, Sasori finished with reading and turned to Pakura, "Is this true?" He asked, already knowing the answer.

Before the meeting, he tried to scout the village a bit... which failed. That impressed Sasori, so he got into contact with his informants and got the gist of what was happening in Sunagakure these past few years.

He was flabbergasted when they informed him the new Kazekage decided to invest in agriculture and that fields were created on the top of the enormous sand wall surrounding the village.

More shocking, however, was the fact it was the Puppetry Department that was responsible for the field. Who would have thought growing crops could be good training for novice puppeteers?

Then again, Sasori had to begrudgingly admit, it was a good idea. Taking care of fields took a lot of effort and repetitive movements. Novice puppeteers would indeed learn how to manipulate their puppets and polish their chakra control over the chakra strings if they used the puppets to grow crops.

Not to mention, it was not a waste of time since this made Sunagakure completely independent and self-sustaining as far as food was concerned.

Pakura put her left hand on her hip, "You are not the only prodigy in the art Sunagakure produced." She taunted, "You are also not the most clever one... considering what you did to your body." Sasori stiffened while Chiyo's eyes slightly widened and her head snapped towards Sasori's form, "I bet you silently regret it every single day."

Sasori stayed silent, waiting for Pakura to continue.

"It's a pity, you know? If you applied yourself, you might have surpassed Tsunade in the medical field, considering what you managed to do to yourself." Pakura said, 'Well, I mean Tsunade as she was before she met Rei.' She mentally added. "But because of your fixation on human puppetry, your creativity in making puppets plummeted."

Sasori looked at the scroll he had in his hands. It was true. He focused on human puppets and the kekkei genkai. He focused on perfecting himself. And yet...

'The scroll has so many incredible upgrades that would make puppets into literal art...' Sasori thought, remembering his earlier years when puppetry was not about organs and muscles but about wood and screws.

He did regret making himself into a puppet. While it made him more efficient, it also robbed him of most of his 'human' creativity and perspective. He could control a hundred puppets at once, yet, it was nothing special because neither of these hundred was special. Since he became a puppet himself, he did not create anything but human puppets. He was aware that limited his combat potential immensely. Human puppets were powerful... but there were not many strong useful bloodline ninjas that could be made into human puppets.

"And who knows? Maybe... if you are a good boy, you might even deserve re-humanization." Pakura threw him a bone.

Sure, her tone and wording pissed Sasori off but her words... now that would make his breath hitch if he still needed to breathe.

"Lucky for you, I know the perfect person to undo the... damage you caused to your body."

And with that, Pakura knew she had him. Sasori was not a complicated man. He loved puppetry. Offering him a chance to develop the art and create more powerful puppets was a good bait to poach him from Akatsuki despite the threat of death. The offer to make him a human again, to make him regain his own creativity again... that was just the finishing move.

After all, even if he became a puppet himself, his living core was still made of a normal unenhanced organic matter, hence, it aged. It was not like he gained immortality when he became a puppet. Pakura did not need to be a genius to know the man regretted it.

Naturally, Sasori only gave an affirmative answer after ten minutes of consideration.

Turning to the bewildered Chiyo, Pakura gave her a wink. "Take him to the Kazekage office, would you?" She ordered, getting Chiyo out of her reverie.

Chiyo was about to answer when Pakura burst into smoke, causing her to owlishly blink and realize that the person with whom she waited two whole hours under the scorching sun was just a... clone.

The entire Sunagakure heard Chiyo's reaction to that realization.

"That... bitch!"

Chapter 266 - Ch266. Timeskip - Konoha: Shikaku Nara

It has been three years since Shikaku became the Hokage and he could proudly proclaim he no longer needed to work 16 hours per day. Nowadays, after the overhaul of the administration system, he managed to finish his daily dose of paperwork in just 10 hours!

'Now that I think about it... Why am I still working so much?' Shikaku despondently thought while putting the pen down and releasing a sigh.

"Shikaku Nara! Don't you dare to slack! Your approval on these documents is needed in two hours!" Resounded through the closed door to his office.

'How does my wife even know when I am taking a break?' Shikaku inwardly grumbled. 'No... the real question is... why is my wife still my secretary?'

Then again, how does a proper husband fire his own wife without having to live through a hellish home life for the next few decades?

Honestly, Shikaku was stumped.

When he finished the improved administration system, he thought he would finally get his hard-earned freedom. Alas, he was so woefully wrong! Apparently, now that the administration of the village was no longer a mess, Tsunade thought it was time for rapid development.

Needless to say, Shikaku cursed the woman with all his mental prowess.

His paperwork that finally calmed down suddenly quadrupled as the development picked up the pace.

'I can't really complain too much, can I?' Shikaku wryly thought in distaste as he remembered the reports from Jiraiya's spy network.

Sunagakure started developing at an incredible pace and it was rumored their puppetry started to become a lot more dangerous. More and more Konoha ninjas, who encounter a Suna team, return from their mission with a report on the Suna team having at least one puppeteer in their midst.

That was weird in itself and Shikaku thought long and hard about where Sunagakure got so many puppeteers. Sure, it was their specialty but training a good puppeteer was hard and it was usually a skill that was kept in a family. If Sunagakure suddenly started training puppeteers en masse...

Shikaku didn't want to think about it. Even with their limited number of puppeteers, Sunagakure deserved a spot among the major five hidden villages. But now, there were rumors of the establishment of a Puppetry Department in Sunagakure that was spewing strong puppeteers one after another.

In these three years, Suna also gained fame through a few of their ninjas. Names like Wind Mistress, Shun Riku, or Scorch Princess... It was honestly weird. Three years ago, Sunagakure had so many problems and yet, now that the Kazekage changed, it was as if they were experiencing a miraculous recovery and sudden rise in power. They were picking up the pace and becoming stronger by the day.

Allies or not, that was a very worrying thing for Konoha.

Another cause for worry was Kirigakure.

'If having a threat on the left side of the map was not enough, the hidden village on our right side also had to decide to become a pain in the ass.' Shikaku silently groaned.

Unlike Suna, Kiri had no new famous ninja added in the last three years. That was not a relief though. After all, from the mostly useless reports of Jiraiya's spy network, Shikaku could piece together the fact that Kirigakure ninjas no longer sought fame. All of them now wore masks and actually acted like assassins. The only exception was the famous, easily identified people, like the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist and the Mizukage.

That was frightening in itself, how the new Mizukage could enforce such obedience in her new troops that they would disregard their desire for recognition. If that was not enough, though, the overall improvement of Kiri troops was also noted. Yet… Konoha had no real way to ascertain to what degree did Kiri's military improve.

Kumo and Iwa picked up on this newfound development drive too and tried to emulate Kiri and Suna. Yet… their leaders were not administrators. They were a muscle-brained fighter and a geezer set in his ways. Needless to say, the rate of development in Iwagakure and Kumogakure was really slow and could be outright disregarded.

'At least… Now that every village focuses on self-improvement, there is no time for war.' Shikaku chuckled.

He really wondered how the two weakest villages could improve so much in just short three years when the supposedly strongest villages failed to follow their pace. The most maddening was the fact these villages not only improved in military matters but also in their economy. Three years ago, only Konoha could boast of being semi-autonomous thanks to the high rate of civilians present in the village.

Now?

Now both Kiri and Suna were completely fine on their own. Kiri no longer needed funds from the Water Daimyo and was actually strong enough to keep the man quietly satisfied with what he had left of his influence. Suna... the new Kazekage, Pakura of the Scorch, was a friend of the Wind Daimyo. Unlike when Rasa was in command, Pakura got whatever she asked from the Wind Daimyo. Not that Suna needed anything from the guy considering Pakura's affiliation with the Uzushio Trading Company.

'Yet another concern...' Shikaku wanted to cry.

In the last three years, a relic of the past started to rear its head. Uzushio ninjas...

Shikaku was ninety-five percent sure they did not originate from Uzu Islands though.

If it was just one occasion, it would be nothing suspicious but a massive number of missions being assigned and accomplished by an organized group of people without any identification? Clearly, there was a new major player present in the world.

This new party's troops usually wore no visible identification mark on their bodies and operated in remote countries so information about them was scarce but after a few years of activity, it was definitely noticed.

The leaders of the five major hidden villages were very curious about who was the new player. The smarter ones surely noticed that the rapid rise of Uzushio happened just a few years before the appearance of these new individuals.

Or, at least, that was the conclusion Shikaku came to after putting a lot of consideration into the matter. Not that he could actually accuse Uzushio of being a hidden ninja village when the fact they ceased all ninja activity was already established and proved by various inspectors from other countries. As far as international politics was concerned, Uzushio was untouchable.

If anybody tried to attack Uzushio... a supposedly civilian village that focused on trading... it would be the start of a new ninja war. Uzushio had too many connections with the foreign Daimyos. Too many profitable deals with other countries. Attacking them was a sure-fire way to give other nations a righteous reason and Daimyos' permission to gang up on the poor idiot who would try.

'Yeah, there is no way anything like Kumo, Iwa, and Kiri pulled off in the past happening again.' Shikaku thought.

The new mysterious group of ninjas was not yet a threat and they did operate in countries that were quite far from the hidden villages. Shikaku felt something wrong about the entire situation though.

When even Tsunade forbade him to focus on them...

Well, let's just say he found something fishy going on in the world and his 'Daimyo' was definitely involved. That only proved Shikaku's personal theory of these ninjas being from Uzushio. After all, Tsunade was a 'quarter' Uzumaki and if there was one fact he knew about Uzumakis, it was that the Uzumaki clan did not believe in such a thing as a partial Uzumaki. If you had Uzumaki blood, you were an Uzumaki. Simple as that. And Uzumaki always stuck up for each other.

They were stubborn like that.

Then again, thinking about it would be too troublesome so he let it go. Hokage or not, Shikaku was aware the position lost most of its power when Tsunade took the reins. Even if he could prove that Tsunade did not work for the benefit of Konoha... What then? After all, she was the new Daimyo of the lands on which Konoha was built. Tsunade's interest WAS Konoha's interest. How could he actually accuse her of being a traitor when she was literally the person who decided the definition of the word 'traitor' around these parts of the world?

It was easier and much more logical to accept Konoha now belonged to a Senju that just happened to be an Uzumaki too.

'The world changed...' Shikaku sighed as he signed another paper. 'What a drag.' He added with a lazy grin.

He couldn't really complain all that much. Even if Tsunade was in some way betraying what Hiruzen Sarutobi would dub the 'Will of Fire', Konoha was flourishing under her rule to a degree no other Hokage could boast of. Even a blind idiot would realize that. The village was wealthier, stronger, and... surprisingly more united.

The Nara clan was under Tsunade's command from the start anyway. The agreements signed upon Konoha's creation would ensure that. There was no reason for Shikaku to worry about Tsunade's political moves in the village. No way to really alarm anyone who did not realize what was happening yet. His clan was in the clear and that was what really mattered to him most.

Yet... Shikaku could only marvel at how quickly clans like Aburame, Inuzuka, or Kurama... clans that were not really Senju supporters, suddenly became more amiable towards Tsunade and acknowledged her as their ruler.

While he was slaving away under the heavy strain of the paperwork and his wife's nagging, Tsunade was clearly subtly moving her agenda forward, getting Konoha under her thumb.

Shikaku found it laughable, yet admirable.

For the first time since the creation of Konoha, the ruling concept of the village was followed to a tee.

A real dictatorship was slowly being established without anybody even noticing or saying anything.

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Chapter 267 - Ch267. Timeskip - Konoha: Tsunade

Tsunade looked out of the window of her house in the Senju Compound and sighed at the sight of Kurenai Yuhi practicing her chakra control at such an early hour.

Taking the girl as her apprentice was one of the better choices Tsunade recently made. Kurenai was dedicated, she had a proper drive because she wanted to achieve her dream of showing she could be a good kunoichi. That coupled with a lot of talent and Kurenai was quite easy to teach. Fortunately, that meant Tsunade did not need to spend much time with the girl. She only needed to be steered in the right direction and showed the right exercises. Other than that, the girl would practice by herself till she dropped.

Honestly, Tsunade hated holding her apprentices' hands so Kurenai was ideal for her. After all, she was her mentor... not her mother. If she had to push her to train, then naturally, that meant the girl did not deserve her tutelage.

A yawn tore out of Tsunade's mouth, causing her mood to plummet as she noticed the stack of paperwork she finished last night with her shadow clones. Rei was right. It didn't appear as much work individually but her duties as Konoha's ruler and the Biri-Biri president added up to her necessary free time with her family, creating a killer schedule.

Fortunately, she had Shadow Clones...

Tsunade grinned at that thought, her mood restored.

Shikaku always bothered her about her secret for paperwork. To be honest, she gave him enough hints. After all, he was supposed to be a Nara so telling him, 'The clue is shadows...', should have been enough.

Alas, even after three years, the man simply couldn't get it.

It was simply hilarious. Especially since Shadow Clones was the only technique the Nara clan couldn't utilize well because of its immense chakra cost. Oh, they tried. The technique had 'Shadow' in its name so the Nara clan naturally wanted to master it. When her uncle Tobirama made the technique, the Nara clan instantly tried to implement it in their combat style. Nobody ever told them Tobirama named it Shadow clones on purpose.

Needless to say, the Naras failed miserably.

Well, figures. Tobirama made damn sure the technique spent so much chakra, a clan with innate low reserves and lazy attitude would be hard-pressed to utilize it.

Nara Jonins could make Shadow Clones. That was not the problem. The problem was what came after that. They simply would not have enough chakra to efficiently fight with the shadow techniques.

In the end, the Shadow Clones fell into obscurity where they stayed even till these days.

In Konoha, there were at most around twenty ninjas who actually knew Shadow Clone Technique. And not even half of them used the technique in their fighting style.

For example, Jiraiya.

He knew the technique. Not because it was helpful to him in a fight. He knew it because it was safe to peek at bathing kunoichi with it.

As for using it in his fighting style... that was simply asking for too much. Even with Jiraiya's chakra reserves, he couldn't waste his chakra for shadow clones. He was primarily a Summoner and ninjutsu user. Both needed a lot of chakra to work efficiently, hence, shadow clones became more of a hindrance in a fight.

As such, Jiraiya seldom used the technique in an actual fight.

Somehow, Tsunade could clearly picture Jiraiya getting a new apprentice who was good at the shadow clones while the old coot would totally forget they could be used for training too. With his porn on his mind, the usage of an obscure technique like shadow clones would be the last thing on his mind.

The same with Sarutobi.

The man knew so many techniques. He was primarily a ninjutsu powerhouse. Tsunade doubted Hiruzen actually used the Shadow Clones more than a couple of times in his life. Why would he use them when it was much more cost-efficient to use a devastating ninjutsu instead?

It was no wonder the old monkey had no idea they could be used for paperwork. He simply did not think about it as subconsciously, he already wrote the technique off as useless luxury that is better not used in any way because of its cost.

Thinking about Hiruzen Sarutobi brought Tsunade's mind on the track towards a happier topic.

Shimura Danzo.

During the last three years, she was using the old schemer as a stress relief. Every time she was too stressed, poor Shimura would lose something. Whether it is a new ally in the political sphere, some of his hard-fought influence, or an arm.

Taking away his mokuton arm was such a delight!

It wasn't even hard. As a mokuton user herself, Tsunade could simply overtake the arm and change it into a bonafide wood. After all, while it was similar to a human hand, at its base, it was still wood.

Watching Danzo's arm suddenly separate from his shoulder during one of the council meetings was golden.

'His exasperated expression made my day. A pity the old coot is done for.' Tsunade sighed.

Unfortunately, she already finished with Danzo. After the man lost every way to revert the momentum against him other than actually leaving Konoha and building his power-base outside the village, Tsunade decided she had enough fun. She locked his chakra, crippled both of his legs and his last arm before she ripped out Shisui's eye from his eye socket.

That eye was the only reason why Danzo had enough determination to fight back against Tsunade's machinations despite how hopeless it all seemed. That was the entire reason why she let him keep it so long.

'He must have thought he could just get me under his control if he really lost all options.' Tsunade amusedly mused.

She didn't kill the man, however. Right now, Danzo Shimura was a permanent guest at Konoha's Asylum for the Elderly. The only way he could run was to have somebody wheel him out on his wheelchair and the only way he could eat was by having somebody feed him.

That was much worse than death, considering the man was a ninja his entire life. Living in such a hopeless and helpless state would be worse than torture for him.

Danzo no longer posed a threat to any development she decided to implement in Konoha. Honestly, there was nobody who posed a threat anymore. Sarutobi tried whenever he found something not according to the 'Will of Fire', but he didn't get far with his complaints. After all, he was retired. His opinion no longer mattered.

Especially since Tsunade worked hard to get the neutral clans under her influence.

Her very first target was the Kurama clan. That was an easy one. She even got Kurenai's eternal loyalty and gratitude by fixing Yakumo Kurama up and enabling the girl to be a kunoichi. That was really all it took for the clan to accept Tsunade as their Daimyo.

Even to this day, Tsunade is bewildered at how easy that was.

From there, Tsunade went onward to the Aburame clan, which was tedious at best since they desired recognition more than anything else...

And after the Aburame clan, there was the Inuzuka clan, which really only required Tsunade to slap the ever-living daylight out of the entire clan, showcasing her dominance.

Thankfully, the Akimichi and Yamanaka clans followed the Nara clan so Tsunade didn't have to do much when these two were concerned.

As for the Uchiha clan... they no longer mattered. No matter what the civilians believed, one underage boy did not qualify as a clan. Sasuke would become important only when he grows up and even then, he would first have to become important for the village in some way other than breeding stock. Only then would Tsunade start paying attention to the Uchiha 'clan'.

Alas, it was still a work in progress. Rei forbade Tsunade from implementing many reforms in Konoha simply because her hold on the village was not yet absolute. That was the reason why Konoha lagged behind Kirigakure and Sunagakure when it came to development.

As much as Tsunade hated it... she understood the need for it.

Shikaku Nara certainly suspected Tsunade's loyalties. Then again, that man was smart and lazy enough to not give a fuck while continuing to do his job. Tsunade could only imagine the shitstorm it would cause if the one who realized it was Tsume Inuzuka. The Inuzuka clan would rebel in a week, tops.

Tsunade dramatically sighed, 'Why is it so hard to find smart people in leadership positions nowadays?'

She sat down in her armchair and pulled out a book while creating two shadow clones.

It was time for her clones to continue their paperwork duty...

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Chapter 268 - Ch268. Timeskip - Village On The Other Side: Missions

While Tsunade, Ringo, and Pakura focused on the respective villages under their command, Rei and Konan focused solely on the Village on the Other Side.

The biggest accomplishment in the last years was the finalization of the hideout network for the village. Since the village was so far away from any form of civilization, clients could not simply walk into the village to request a mission.

The Village on the Other Side was backed up by the Biri-Biri Company and the Uzushio Trading Company but that didn't mean they could go on without having any profitable venture. Rei didn't make a village because he wanted to lose money. As such, the ninjas of the village had to earn their keep too.

Which meant missions.

Missions not only brought money but also provided an experience to the ninjas of the village. No matter how good the training of the Other-sided village was. No matter how superior its ninjas were. Without proper experience, they could still be beaten by unconventional means.

The problem was... how to get clients since the village's location sucked in that regard.

The solution was simple.

Rei and Konan simply used the Uzushio Trading Company as a middle-man. The missions were posted to the Uzushio Trading Company who was then 'supposed' to find people for hire to accomplish the task.

That was a nice and broad way of saying, 'For a price, we will hire ninjas for you.'

At the first glance, this didn't seem like a business venture that would succeed but once one really thought about it...

Since the hirer was the Uzushio Trading Company, it was hard to track who really issued the mission unless the investigator went through the company that would in most cases keep quiet because it was a part of their service as the middle-man.

After all, if somebody is assassinated and his relatives want to get revenge, they will look for the assassin, sure. But they will look for the man who paid the assassin even more. This way, the request-maker was the Uzushio Trading Company, making it harder to find the real requestor... Even an idiot would realize the company was just a middle-man, hence it was obvious the company in itself only handed the request to a ninja village and had nothing to do with it.

It was simply a waste of time trying to get revenge against the Uzushio Trading Company that acted at most as a delivery man.

This service also proved efficient when the requestor is unable to leave his town, country, residence... whatever. He can simply ask the Uzushio Trading Company representative in the nearest branch of the company to make a mission request for him.

The nobles and richer people usually send their employees or servants to do these things in their stead anyway. Hiring the Uzushio Trading Company will cost them but they have assurance the request will safely get to a ninja village. It was, after all, significantly easier to hunt down one servant on his way to request a mission than an entire company... Not to mention, nobody yet discovered that the Uzushio Trading Company used transportation seals to get valuable paperwork to the headquarters asap.

This service proved to be a very valuable part of what the Uzushio Trading Company offered to their clients. Essentially the clients didn't care if the ninja was from Konoha or Iwa. They cared only about the results.

As such, the requests that passed the initial screening by the Uzushio Trading Company ended in the Village on the Other Side, waiting to be assigned to a team.

Thanks to the extensive network of hidden outposts all over the Elemental Nations, the ninjas from the Other-sided village could teleport to any part of the world almost instantly, creating an image of mystery around them.

After the people started to realize the existence of new ninja forces, they noticed these new ninjas were simply everywhere and nobody had any idea where they came from. Needless to say, it was frustrating to no end. The other hidden villages could only speculate these ninjas belonged to the Uzushiogakure because the thing they all had in common was that they only did missions where the Uzushio Trading Company acted as the middle-man.

There were a few 'clever' people who tried to probe the situation by trying to request a mission of hunting down the merchants of the Uzushio Trading Company while using the said company as the middle-man...

Yeah... that didn't go so well.

Anyway, many took this as proof of the new unmarked ninjas being from Uzushio.

Neither Rei nor Konan actually tried to dissuade that notion. If people wanted to think their forces were from a village that didn't even exist anymore, who were they to correct them?

The ninjas from the other side, as Rei liked to call his troops, didn't wear headbands or flak jackets or anything even remotely telling they were actual ninjas. They always wore civilian clothes, ones that were heavily riddled with various seals to make them useful in combat.

The entire act of wearing a headband seemed stupid but in reality, it was not. It served as a deterrent against bandits and other ninjas. The priority for ninjas was not to fight ninjas from other nations but to finish their mission. Ninjas generally tried to do that without getting into a conflict.

Many fights were avoided simply because the attacking side saw a headband and realized that the opponents are not easy pickings and even if they are defeated, their village would surely investigate.

Rei decided the ninjas from the other side did not need that. They looked like civilians. There was no reason for anybody to attack them. And if somebody did, they were trained enough to kill their way out of the trouble. After all, only ninjas who were at the very least chunin-rank in strength could leave the village for missions. Then again, having the strength of a chunin, in the Village on the Other Side, simply meant they were eligible to get the rank of genin.

It was the entire point of attending the academy to get to that level of strength and ability. Nobody can say the academy instructors in the Village on the Other Side went easy on the kids. Sometimes, even Rei cringed at the brutality of the training and rued the day he handed the responsibility for the academy curriculum over to Konan and worse, Mei.

The kids were in no immediate threat of dying or even staying injured. The important word there was 'staying' because the curriculum was made to harm the kids in a way that would force them to improve. It was a no-brainer, really. Kids were adaptable and soaked up new knowledge like a sponge. There was a reason why so many pre-pubescent kids became legends in the Ninja world during wartime.

Konan simply got the marvelous idea to simulate that kind of environment while making it safe without telling the kids it was safe. Those who could get through it became a force to be reckoned with and those that couldn't... well, there was still the option of working for the Biri-Biri or the Uzushio Trading Company where they could still get training. It would just be a very down-graded version of what the ninjas from the other side received.

There were not many civilians in the Village on the Other Side either since most of its occupants were from ninja clans Rei and his wives collected all over the Elemental Nations. That meant, the kids of those people were raised to be a ninja from the start, and failing at the academy was taken as a sign of shame.

Sure, Rei would love to be an idealistic idiot and let kids be kids but he knew what kind of world he was sending them in once they left the academy. As such, he allowed the academy to take education from an entirely different side and focus on making the kids into capable killers. In Rei's opinion, it was better to be an accomplished killer rather than be dead, raped, or tortured.

In this manner, the forces of the Village on the Other Side started to slowly build up and the service of its ninjas was becoming more and more sought after through the Uzushio Trading Company acting as the middle-man.

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Chapter 269 - Ch269. Rei The Sealmaster

Rei stood surrounded by his wives in his 'laboratory' located in his mansion in the Village on the Other Side. All around them were papers with sealing arrays haphazardly strewn all over the place, only the middle of the room contained a very complicated seal drawn onto the floor.

Today was the day his long years of research will finally bear the fruits of his labor.

"You have finally finished 'it', huh?" Konan hummed, a bit miffed.

She didn't like the fact Rei was again in his research mode for the past few years. The last time he entered it, he made the artificial bijuu. Sure, that brought a lot of joy to their lives and provided them with completely loyal companions that enhanced their strengths to an unimaginable degree but the process of creating them was extremely dangerous. Konan still didn't forget Rei admitting he almost blew himself up while making the necessary seals for the creation of their bijuu.

So when one pleasant morning after a lovely night of merrymaking Rei told her he had a new important project... her sluggish and pleased mood instantly evaporated. Konan only barely managed to bite her lower lip in order to prevent herself from screaming her throat sore at Rei.

Yet, Konan knew she couldn't stop him. As much as she wanted to, she knew his 'important research projects', as he called them, were really important for their future. Whenever Rei called a project important, it meant it would either raise their strength significantly or be a preventive measure against something bad from happening.

That still didn't make these 'important projects' any safer though. Konan could only hope Rei would be responsible enough to not actually emulate Mei and destroy himself alongside the planet because of some minor mishap.

'Really, sometimes I feel as if I was surrounded by kindergarteners.' Konan bitterly thought.

Rei looked at Konan, reading her inner turmoil from her almost indifferent expression, and wisely kept quiet without answering her rhetorical question. He was well aware of her attitude to his practical approach when it came to testing his seals. Then again, he did have Shadow clones. Ah, women. Why couldn't they understand that experiencing blowing yourself up was totally different than actually blowing yourself up?

"Anyway," Rei turned towards Mei, "you look quite excited!" He exclaimed.

Pakura, Tsunade, Konan, and Ringo were all busy so it was Mei who was helping Rei the most during this project. He still kept many things about it a secret but Mei, under all that guise of childishness, was incredibly smart. Rei had no doubt she came to her own conclusions about the goals of his project.

"Yes! We spent years on this and now it is finally finished!" Mei bounced up and down and for some reason, Rei had a hard time tearing his gaze from her vibrant auburn hair moving up and down with her momentum and clashing with her wide green eyes full of excitement.

It was only when Tsunade put her hand on the top of Mei's head while grinning widely did Rei finally snap out of his reverie.

"Look at her." Tsunade teasingly drawled, causing Mei's smile to stiffen, "So excited that you are finally done, Rei. Yet, I wonder why she is hiding that deep sadness she is fee..." A glint flashed through Tsunade's eyes but Mei quickly turned around and put her hand on Tsunade's mouth, desperately silencing her with a pleading look.

Tsunade's grin only widened when she saw an understanding glance from Konan and a raise of an eyebrow from Pakura. Ringo... just glared at the back of Mei's head but that was a common thing between the two redheads.

As for Rei... he had five overly caring women. He got good at hiding things he didn't want them to worry about and discovering things they were hiding from him. After years of their relationship, that was bound to happen eventually.

Even without the Senjutsu-powered emotional sensing which was becoming a kind of a passive sixth sense in Tsunade's case due to her uninterrupted continuous use of the Senjutsu Mode... And yes, that made it basically impossible to lie to her... Rei knew why Mei was sad and why he was hiding it.

Since she was his assistant, for the most part, they spent a lot of time together in his laboratory, doing things... things that not always could be connected to his research or seals.

Rei was just glad his laboratory was soundproof and actually had a bed. Mei could be really wild and willful when she wanted.

It was obvious Mei knew that now the research was over, her convenient excuse to spend time with Rei was also gone. Rei, on the other hand, knew his girls more than even they thought. Heck, he practically raised Mei and saw every step of the development of her mindset.

It was so obvious she didn't care about the seals at all. She was passable in the craft... but she couldn't care less. Sure, the final result probably did excite her but honestly? Rei knew she 'sacrificed' her free time and became his assistant in order to spend more time with him, rather than due to wanting to actually help him.

What Rei didn't say was that the research could be done a year ago if Mei didn't join. That girl knew how to play his buttons far too well, distracting him from work...

And when Yugito and Yagura finally married two years ago and announced Yugito with a child... in the following weeks, Rei didn't manage to do much seal work as he was deeply focused on exploring Mei.

Fortunately, Rei's ability to control natural energy and absorb it into his body made him able to make himself fertile and infertile on command. He was not gonna bring a kid into a world when there was still the threat of the Otsutsuki clan hanging above their heads. Nu-uh.

Rei also knew it was just one of Mei's whimsical moods. After a few weeks, she couldn't even look Rei into the eyes for a few days from shame. Deep in her heart, she didn't really want a child. She only liked the idea of that happening. Once her brain kicked in, however, Mei quickly realized she was not ready yet.

"Just start it." Ringo sighed, tiredly rubbing her eyes. "I still have work in my forge."

"Ha! I bet you are so cranky because you thought he was calling you to do something more enjoyable than showing off the results of his research!" Mei butted in with a sneer.

Ringo clicked her tongue at Mei in irritation, "Whatever. At least this way your bragging about all the time you get to spend with him will finally end, you nympho."

"What was that, you weapon pervert!?"

A pressure suddenly enveloped the room, pressing on both Mei and Ringo, weighing them down while completely bypassing the other occupants. Now that made both girls quiet down and turn towards Rei in embarrassment as if they were little kids that were just scolded.

Since the artificial bijuu finally matured, Rei and his wives gained a lot of 'perks'. One of which was the heaviness of their chakra which in turn enhanced their 'intent'. Not unlike the release of killing intent, Rei released his irritation with a full weight of his chakra behind it at the two bickering women.

It was harmless... against them. Their bodies were enhanced to an incredible degree when fully-matured bijuu settled in them. The weight of Rei's chakra made them only slightly hunch over unlike the air around them that was cracking from the pressure.

"I am starting." Rei decided to cut the chase, unwilling to give Mei and Ringo another chance to start arguing. "You all have the two seals I gave you earlier on you?"

After a round of agreement, no matter if it was enthusiastic, grumbling, or muttering one, Rei sighed and kneeled on one knee, putting his hands on the edge of the seal in the middle of the room.

Before his girls could even blink, the world shifted around them, becoming...

All five women turned their heads in bewilderment as they looked around and could only think, 'What the hell?'

Rei just smirked, spreading out his arms, "Welcome to the outpost hidden on the Other Side... of the Moon."

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Chapter 270 - Ch270. Complicated Home

Konan intently looked at the massive ball of mostly blue in the distance, "So... that is our home?" She tilted her head with a difficult expression.

Instantly, all four remaining women turned to look at it, showing either astonishment, frowns, or disbelief.

Rei already informed them about the universe, space, and things like that but accepting it was another thing. For people of Elemental Nations, the world beyond their continents simply may not even exist since almost nobody tried to get there and those who did, didn't return.

Hell, residents of some more remote countries still believed the world was flat! It was really mind-boggling how differently developed certain places in the Elemental Nations were.

Alas, now... here it was. Their home planet was right in front of their eyes.

Right there, they could see the Elemental Nations. They had the same shape they sported on many maps. It was unmistakable. The surprise though came from the fact the Elemental Nations were but a small fraction of land visible on the planet.

"The reason why nobody ever returned to the Elemental Nations after leaving to explore is clearly visible from here." Rei started, pointing to the distance, "Our home is too isolated. The closest land to the Elemental Nations is to the south and even then it is... hmm, by my crude estimation, at least, six thousand kilometers away."

"And that is a problem, why? I could run that far on water." Mei pipped in, cutely tilting her head in genuine confusion.

Rei smiled at her. She always overestimated others because she had a bad habit of comparing them to herself. It was something she picked up after being trained by Rei and Konan while having only them to measure her improvement.

"It's because you are not average, you dolt." Ringo snorted and rolled her eyes as she crossed her arms under her chest in a provoking manner.

Before Mei could return the verbal fire, Rei interrupted the argument before it could even start, "Yes. Water Walking is not too exhausting but even then, an average Jonin can travel up to a hundred kilometers on the water before he runs out of chakra, entering a chakra exhaustion state, which, on the open sea would mean he would drown." He explained, "Even those Elite Jonins and S-rank ninjas with the biggest chakra reserves back at home do not have chakra reserves to get further than five hundred kilometers on water."

"Unfortunately," Ringo decided to continue as she had some knowledge about these matters since she was the Kage of Kirigakure. "Even the ships the Land of Water has right now," And everybody knew these were the best ships in the entirety of Elemental Nations, "can't cover six thousand kilometers on an open sea. That's plain suicide. You gotta count the storage capacity for supplies, the durability of the ship in case it is caught in storms and many more variables that... yeah." Ringo shrugged, "Not happening. The ship would most likely fall into pieces halfway through the journey because of storms."

"And then there is that..." Rei added with a wry smile, "The dark blue patches strewn all around the Elemental Nations in the radius of two thousand kilometers."

"What do you mean?" This time it was Pakura who asked. "Doesn't that just mean the ocean is extremely deep in those places? Why should that be a problem?"

Rei looked around and noticed that none of his girls actually had an inkling why that would be a threat. He sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. 'I should probably have expected this. They all grew up in Elemental Nations, after all. How could I expect they would think outside of the box?' He helplessly lamented.

For one last time, Rei glanced at Tsunade, making her owlishly blink. Shaking his head, he decided in which way he would explain it.

"Tsunade," Rei started, "what are the two energy sources accessible to humans?"

At first, Tsunade scrunched her eyebrows, not understanding what that had to do with it but nevertheless, she dutifully answered, "Chakra and the nature energy."

"And what else can use nature energy, I dare say, even better than humans?" Rei asked again.

This time, Tsunade's eyes slightly widened. She quickly understood what Rei meant and the reason why he asked her was that she did research on this. "Animals. Most of them have a way to innately accept nature energy into their bodies, becoming what we call chakra beasts."

"You want to say in these dark blue spots where the ocean is the deepest is a habitat of strong chakra beasts?" Konan asked in a way that suggested she found it hilarious.

"Ah, don't think about it like that." Rei rebuked, "Chakra beasts get stronger as they age. The more nature energy they absorb, the stronger, smarter, and better they become. Naturally..." Rei glanced at Tsunade.

"Naturally," She continued for Rei as she understood this had to do with the results of her research, "they also possess chakra. Nature energy would kill them if their chakra was not balancing it in their bodies. They do this instinctively and as such, they take in nature energy, improving their bodies, which, in turn, in time improves their chakra reserves, which then allows them to take in more nature energy, making them even stronger in one unending circle." She summed up.

"You want to tell us the chakra beasts are instinctively using Senjutsu?" Ringo raised an eyebrow at Tsunade.

"No. In fact, Senjutsu was based on that ability of theirs. You gotta understand, the chakra beasts are doing this extremely slowly. Senjutsu is like… drawing nature energy to the limit of your body on purpose for a quick boost that is not permanent. In the short term, it provides far more power. Because you are trying to stuff the most nature energy your chakra reserves can contain, however, it is dangerous." Tsunade replied. "Senjutsu being derived from that also means that while I use Senjutsu, my body is slowly but permanently absorbing nature energy, and is getting stronger, which increases my chakra pool… yeah, that's why I actually started researching the chakra beasts in the first place."

"Summons are chakra beasts, aren't they?" Pakura suddenly realized.

"Yeah," Rei grinned, "Summons are just chakra beasts who live in an environment that is extremely favorable for them, quickening the rate of their 'growth'. For example, Mt. Myoboku is said to be the best place to learn Senjutsu because of the abundant nature energy there." He shrugged, "Hence the gigantic toads. And by the way, I think Mt. Myoboku is actually located in the middle of the Divine Mountains of the Land of Lightning."

"So... what? Is that why we must sacrifice chakra to summon them?" Mei mused, causing the people around them to stare at her in astonishment at the huge logical leap.

"... Yeah?" Rei unsurely nodded, "I mean... I have never studied the summoning scrolls but maybe the chakra the summoner sacrifices is indeed increasing the summon's chakra reserves, hastening its evolution. I mean... they sure as hell do not let people use them for free, right? A bit of chakra to get a massive animal fighting for you is also a bit too far-fetched."

"Anyway," Konan decided to return the conversation on its track. "Let's get back to the topic. Deep in the ocean? Chakra beasts?"

"Well, you see. The source of nature energy is the planet. Even this moon," Rei tapped his foot, "is a source of nature energy. It is small and weak but it is there, deep under the surface. Our planet is producing many times more nature energy. Plus the ocean is vast. There is enough space for multiple extremely strong and old chakra beasts that had centuries to grow without any natural predators and were a lot closer to the source than, for example, the summons. Do the math yourself."

"I see," Tsunade frowned, "In the Elemental Nations, the chakra beasts were hunted down. Only in some special places like the Forest of Demons in the Country of Demons you can find relatively strong chakra beasts. Even these are quite weak and a jonin can easily dispatch them. What Rei is describing is a situation where these chakra beasts had nobody hunting them and as such, they were allowed to grow..." Tsunade looked at Rei in astonishment, "You are not trying to tell us they are as strong as bijuu, are you?"

Now that got all of their attention almost instantly.

Rei, however, just shrugged. "I have no idea. All I got are the legends from the southernmost islands of the Elemental Nations. After all, the legends of the Sea Dragons, Water Serpents, Island Eater... whatever, has to be based on something."

"What's stopping them from coming to the Elemental Nations, then?" Pakura asked with a frown. The Land of Wind was located on the south of the mainland. If these chakra beasts decided to visit...

"The same thing that is preventing the bijuu from leaving the Elemental Nations." Rei said and paused, causing the women to lean closer to him, "No matter how intelligent, deep down, they are still animals. They have their territories. Why do you think the three-tailed turtle stayed close to the Land of Water for so many years? Why did Shukaku stay in the desert despite loving destruction? It's their turf and they simply loathe leaving it."

"Our world is a lot more complicated than we first thought, huh?" Tsunade chuckled.

She didn't expect an answer though.

"You have no idea."

So when a voice resounded from behind the group, they instantly tensed.

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Chapter 271 - Ch271. On The Moon 1

Nobody would expect to be surprised by a stranger talking to them... on the moon. Hearing the voice, the girls instantly turned around, ready for a fight, and then...

Konan furrowed her eyebrows in astonishment, "Yuriko? What are you doing here?"

"Hello, Konan. I work here," Yuriko answered with a small mischievous smile before she turned towards Rei, "Hi, boss. I see you finally decided to show them around?" She asked.

Needless to say, even Mei was completely surprised by this turn of events. She helped Rei the most with his projects, yet, she had no clue Yuriko was already on the moon, doing something for him.

The women instantly turned towards Rei, in their eyes a profound question of why Yuriko was the first one to know. As far as they knew, Yuriko was just a subordinate and a ninja of the Village Hidden on the Other Side. Somehow, she being the first to know about such an important project of Rei's was a low blow to their feelings as women.

Naturally, Rei had no clue about this at that moment and as such, he simply shrugged and indifferently replied, "I needed someone capable of using Senjutsu and there was only Tsunade and Yuriko available. But Tsunade was far too busy to involve her, so Yuriko it was." He said, causing Yuriko to pout.

He had no idea what kind of disaster his carefree reply just saved him from.

"Why would you need a Senjutsu user?" Tsunade curiously asked.

Rei grinned and pointed at the necklace with two seals on her neck he gave her before they teleported, "These seals are supposed to provide oxygen and ensure you will not be crushed from inside out due to vacuum."

All four of his women except Konan widened their eyes when they heard what could have happened to them. They knew what a vacuum was. It was important for high ranked ninjas to know because the two pinnacles of the Wind Manipulation were invisible wind blades, people who chose this way focused on density and compression, and then there was vacuum Jutsu, which focused on getting air out of certain spots, creating a vacuum and then weaponizing it.

That said, they never thought about what is outside of Elemental Nations, much less what is outside their planet, so neither really put many thoughts into the possibility of a natural vacuum being in space.

Natural vacuum... such a term was honestly laughable. Knowing how devastating vacuum Jutsu were, the girls could only wryly grimace at the thought of an air-less state like that existing naturally.

"So, without this," Tsunade patted the pendant on her neck, "we would instantly go squelch?" She asked in trepidation.

Rei grinned and wordlessly pointed at Yuriko, more precisely, her neck area that had no necklace. She actually wore a quite loose shirt and shorts. Unless the seals were tattooed into the part of her skin covered by her clothes, which was a ridiculous idea because the seals were not useful enough to make them permanent and hook them on her chakra system as was necessary with tattooed seals, or drawn directly on her clothes, which was unreliable as heck when it comes to seals that have to function 24/7,... then Yuriko now stood in a vacuum without any protection and was just fine.

"While Tsunade researched Senjutsu itself, I was more interested in nature energy," Rei started explaining. He was not about to tell them his idea came from what he saw in anime during his last life where Naruto without any protection could survive on the moon. That would be ridiculous. Rei naturally had a good excuse for his knowledge. "I found out, nature energy can strengthen the human body, not unlike what it does to the chakra beasts. That led me to a small realization." Rei meaningfully looked at his girls, "we are still wary of the vacuum Jutsu because they are the strongest crushing force our world knows. There is no Jutsu as devastating as these, which is the reason why the Wind was dubbed the offensive element. The only good thing about the vacuum Jutsu is their small area of effect. Yet... how do we know it would work on us when we always evade these out of a healthy dose of respectful fear?"

"You aren't saying you did something as crazy as trying out what would happen to you if a vacuum Jutsu hit you, are you?" Konan unamusedly asked, inwardly feeling a bad premonition telling her she was most likely correct.

Rei turned towards Konan and sheepishly laughed while rubbing the back of his head, "Well... yeah?"

"Dammit, Rei!" Konan sighed and started to rub the bridge of her nose.

Seeing that his other wives also started to narrow their eyes at him because he did something stupid... again, Rei decided to continue with his explanation and hoped they would just forget about the matter.

"I absorb Nature energy into myself and use it to directly strengthen my body for decades now. Honestly, the vacuum does nothing to me." Rei said and gestured that he did not wear the necklace with the protective seals either. "Yet... there are some attacks that can do me harm," Rei glanced at Konan and Tsunade, "despite the force behind them being weaker than what vacuum can exert. After that realization, I found out that nature energy works as a kind of a counter-force against vacuum. And Senjutsu users use nature energy too, hence..." He gestured at Yuriko who still stood in her initial spot.

"Oh," Mei nodded and took the necklace off, stuffing it into her pocket. "Then we should be fine, no? We have our pets, after all!"

"Ah," Konan blinked, "So that's what you are trying to tell us." She understood, "We might not be Senjutsu users but thanks to our bijuu that were made thanks to the nature energy in your dimension, we should be fine."

"Yeah," Rei sighed, "Then again, you are lucky it also makes you capable of surviving without oxygen, Mei. I really did not expect you to just yank the protective necklace off your neck." He shook his head before mumbling, "And they call me reckless..."

"So, should we proceed to the base?" Yuriko interjected. As amusing as watching the interaction between Rei and his wives was, she still had some work to do.

"Base?" Pakura turned towards her, "Rei ordered you to make a base here?" She looked around the barren, rocky terrain without anything interesting in it, not understanding why exactly they should care about the moon. It was a good place for a bolt hole that nobody could find, but other than that? She thought it was a waste of resources.

"Of course!" Rei put his hands on his hips in a self-important manner, "We already have Uzushio and the Village on the Other Side under our rule. Why not add a Village on the Other Side of the Moon there too? It might seem like nothing special but the moon has a lot of metal deposits. Metals that may or may not be even stronger than chakra metal."

"Now we are talking!" Ringo grinned, her eyes sparkling at the thought of metal stronger than chakra metal.

The opinion about the new base on the other side of the moon quickly shifted to being a favorable one once Rei explained why exactly he chose the moon.

Alas, Konan was not easy to fool.

"Plus, there should be Kaguya Otsutsuki sealed inside of this ball of rock. Isn't that right, Rei?" She smirked, giving him a knowing look. "Are you perhaps trying to get a new girl?"

Rei just shrugged, not expecting to be able to hide Kaguya's existence. After all, he did tell them about her. Then again... "That doesn't really depend on me, now, does it?"

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Chapter 272 - Ch272. On The Moon 2

Rei and his wives followed Yuriko to the base. The teleportation point was a bit away from the actual base while the needed seal was buried deep in the rocky ground, configured to teleport people above the ground. It was all calculated to the extreme by Rei as a safety measure.

This way, even if the base was discovered and destroyed by the guy who was supposedly living on the moon, the one Rei had no idea about since he didn't put much thought into the final movie of the Naruto series, there was still a chance the teleportation seal would not be discovered. After all, where would the guy learn sealing arts on the moon? As far as Rei knew, the area had quite the lack of teaching material going on.

The group finally arrived and the girls could only stare at the houses made of hardened snow, only then realizing the climate was cold enough to sustain it.

"This is actually amazing. How come it is so strong?" Ringo asked, knocking on the icy wall with quite a bit of her strength, surprised that it was as hard as the seal-enhanced stone walls the Village on the Other Side had.

"It's specially molded with my Senjutsu-enhanced chakra. You guys are not the only ones who experiment with their abilities, you know?" Yuriko pipped in when she saw the women look at the structures she was building in the recent months, "As for the size... Rei wanted me to make a small city. You know, prepare the place for new occupants and stuff." She shrugged.

"I guess Rei really wants to make another town here, huh?" Pakura muttered to herself in disbelief, still not understanding what good it would make. Anything that needed secrecy could be done in the Village on the Other Side. There was no need for an additional village away from their planet.

Rei approached her and hugged her with one arm, "Don't forget there is still the Otsutsuki clan. If I want to make a sealing barrier around the planet so they won't be able to find it, I can only do it from here. That's why it is so important that buildings are made here. A lot of work is awaiting me here."

"Ah," Pakura nodded, a bit satisfied with that explanation. She was actually planning to remake Sunagakure into a perfect fortress for her family in case something bad happened. That was the entire point of strengthening its forces! The village was perfect for that. It was deep in the desert in a hard-to-invade country and full of people who lived in this inhospitable land and knew how to ambush any idiot who dared to enter their territory.

Ninja villages were not made to sustain lengthy sieges. Such a thing was impossible with superpowered ninjas playing the role of soldiers. Ninjas were not trained to fight in siege battles either. The villages were, however, all located in places that, for their native forces, were easy to defend. The general idea was to not allow enemies to get close to the village. And since the establishment of the first hidden village, a situation where a large force of ninjas managed to get to an enemy ninja village simply did not happen. The ninjas' way of the fight was designed to prevent such a thing. To discover approaching enemies and eliminate them before they got to the village.

Honestly, there really was no better placement than the moon for a hidden village since their forces were already used to teleporting all over the continent anyway.

"You are finally starting to worry about the Otsutsuki clan?" Konan asked, "I thought we had time before they became a problem."

"We do, but that doesn't mean the solution is going to be easy. Fighting them head-on is not on the table. I have no idea about their forces but they are supposed to be powerful. I won't risk any of you because of some misplaced pride. If I can solve the situation by hiding our planet with seals then that would be enough for the time being. Even if we wanted to fight them directly, first of all, we need time. Six people are not an army."

"Hence the Elemental Nations have to be united"Konan mused, "Is that why you are letting Akatsuki do whatever they want?"

"Partly, I do hope to use them as a bogeyman later on. I still do not know what to do about them but their goal is perfect as far as a reason for the hidden villages to stand together goes. If we did not intervene, I can imagine a future where the villages would just ignore them while they hunted the jinchuuriki, only to get a harsh reminder when just one or two of them remained. After all, nobody would want a group of S-class criminals to get their hands on all nine bijuu."

"The problem is, the One, Two, and Three-tailed jinchuuriki are affiliated with us." Konan summed up what made Rei indecisive.

"Yeah. We do not really need Akatsuki anymore but... I just don't know. If I try to make Kirigakure, Sunagakure, and Konoha into one strong block and have them sign an alliance, Iwagakura and Kumogakure will instantly join together. It wouldn't even matter if they hate each other. They would do it simply because of self-preservation. And that is a reason that can make their treaty more ironclad than anything else.

"We don't really need them. They are lagging behind Konoha, Kiri, and Suna anyway. Give it five years and they will be useless compared to our three villages."

"Still, conflict at home turf is going to be a problem no matter how developed they are. I just need more time to think about how to approach that problem. Frankly, the direction of my plans depends a lot on Kaguya and her reply to my offer."

Konan nodded, deciding she heard enough. Seeing that the free-for-all information fest was over, the four discreetly listening women also pretended nothing was out of the ordinary. Yet, in the heads of Tsunade, Pakura, and Ringo, possible treaties between their villages started to form in a way that would benefit all of them.

As for Mei... she just enjoyed the fabulous view.

Walking through the street full of structures made out of clear blue icy-like snow felt otherworldly to the group. The constructs standing there were more like ice sculptures than buildings. It was clear that Yuriko put a lot of thought and effort into it.

At long last, the group led by Yuriko finally arrived in front of a palace-like light-blue building that stood in the middle of the newly sculpted town.

Even Rei was baffled at the enormous size of that building. It was even bigger than his mansion in the Other-sided Village or the one in his dimension. The group looked at Yuriko who looked a bit sheepish due to their gazes.

"Well, I might have gotten a bit carried away during the work." She shrugged.

"Right..." Rei nodded.

To be honest, he was just glad Yuriko found something that made her happy. Sure, after Konan saved her from the Snow Village, the woman looked and acted fine but it was obvious she needed a long rehabilitation. And she did get it. Yet, it wasn't all that helpful. Another reason why Rei chose Yuriko instead of Tsunade was that he wanted to get her to a place without people where she could simply be herself.

'Looks like it helped, if only slightly.' Rei thought in self-satisfaction.

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Chapter 273 - Ch273. Nature Energy?

Author Note: So, I have watched the last Naruto movie and I must say I am not impressed, so if some facts are off from canon, don't blame me :D.

--

The group sat around a table in Rei's new Moon Palace...

"Could you repeat it? I think I must have misheard you. For a moment, I got the impression you said the moon is ready to go ka-boom at any moment." Rei looked intently at Yuriko who sheepishly smiled.

"Yeah... about that." She shrugged, "I just investigated the strange chakra saturation you felt deep under the surface as you told me. It was more time-consuming than hard to find out what it is supposed to do. The idea is simple and many ninjas use it even nowadays on a smaller scale when they are hired for a demolition mission. The strange chakra is strategically located in weak spots of the planet and upon activation, it will most likely act like an overpowered exploding tag, creating a lot of cracks in the foundation of the planet, making it crumble on itself."

"And the gravitation will do the rest." Konan nodded.

"Damn, that's so cool! How come I did not come up with that idea?" Mei quipped.

"Maybe because that's too complex for you?" Ringo snorted with a small grin forming on her lips.

"So, the moon is basically a floating meteor shower just waiting to happen." Rei summed up, inwardly groaning.

'If it's not one thing, then it's another. Don't I have enough problems with villains on my home planet? Now I have to pay attention to some dickhead on the moon who can make it rain in pieces on my villages? This is such bullshit.' Rei thought.

He knew there was some idiot descended from Hamura living on the moon and that he would cause trouble in the far future after the Fourth Ninja War. That, however, was the extent of his memory when it came to Naruto's last movie. Finding out the dude is able to use the moon as his weapon was a bit heavier revelation than he expected.

"Maybe you could let me use one of my planet-destroying Jutsu now?" Mei excitedly asked, finally getting an opportunity to be destructive and helpful.

Unfortunately for her, Konan's pointed looks quickly told her that no, this was not her time to shine. In fact, they looked at her as if she just said something retarded.

As for Rei, he found it funny enough to goodnaturedly chuckle at Mei's proposition. Reaching out, he affectionately rubbed her head before saying, "If destroying the moon was an option, then I would have no qualms about it. Unfortunately, the moon is incredibly important, Mei."

"Is it?" Mei pouted.

"Didn't we go through what the moon causes to occur on our planet during our lessons when you were still genin?" Konan asked with an edge in her tone, miffed that Mei didn't remember.

"Your Jutsu would not work anyway," Rei interjected, "The moon produces far too little nature energy for the effect of your planet-destroying Jutsu to spread. All of them work by abusing the chain reaction and the endless supply of nature energy to spread destructive force. That would not work here. The nature energy barely penetrates the surface so your Jutsu would not have enough fuel..." Rei suddenly stopped talking and his eyebrows furrowed. After a while, he finally exclaimed in realization, "Son of a bitch!"

Tsunade blinked while tilting her head. She understood nature energy the most after Rei. Now that she thought about it, considering the moon produced it too, calling it nature energy might be a bit wrong too but... Anyway, thinking about what was just said, she couldn't help but widen her eyes, "The moon-crumbling Jutsu under the surface on the moon works on the same basis as Mei's Jutsus, doesn't it?"

Rei mutely nodded. There was no way to destroy a planet with a single Jutsu. If the dude on the moon could do that, there would be no need for blowing up the moon. Coming down on the Earth and directly destroying it would have been enough. If somebody other than Mei found out there is nature energy on the moon and then realized a way to use that energy in a chain reaction...

'Hamura... you son of a bitch.' Rei inwardly cursed.

He didn't need to remember the Last Naruto Movie to realize who was responsible. There was only one guy who lived on the moon and almost reached the level of the Sage of the Six Paths.

'Wait... bitch?' Rei tilted his head as an idea suddenly struck him. "He didn't..." He whispered, looking at Tsunade.

"What?" She asked.

"The Moon is just a big ball of rock. Even if it could produce the energy we know as nature energy, would it be enough for such a big-scale Jutsu? I doubt our planet produces enough of the said energy to completely and instantly crumble itself from inside out. Continuously destroying it should be possible..." Rei looked at Mei, "It would take a few months even for Mei's Jutsus but it could happen. But instantly? I don't think our planet has enough energy for that. Plus, every philosophy on our planet regarding that energy is saying it is the energy of life and comes from nature itself." Rei started.

"Which may be wrong." Tsunade reminded, "The Moon does not have nature, not to mention much life, and yet, it is producing nature energy. That should be enough to disprove these philosophies, no?"

"You are looking at the problem from the perspective of a researcher, Tsunade." Konan pipped in. "In that case, why do these philosophies work for people trying to master Senjutsu on our planet? If the energy had nothing to do with life or nature, then the Senjutsu 'Masters' must be misunderstanding the whole thing and using a flawed concept, yet, it clearly works for them. Either the concept is right, or it is close enough to the truth to work while being entirely different."

"My Senjutsu has a snow attribute in it. Would that even be possible without nature energy being connected to... well, nature?" Yuriko asked.

That was when Mei leaned closer to Ringo and whispered, "Do you have any clue what they are talking about?"

Ringo looked at the younger redhead and knitted her eyebrows, "No. Just let them. They will get tired eventually." She shrugged.

The debate about nature energy and the whole concept around it continued for a few more minutes. It was quite important. After all, if they understood what it was, then they could find a better way to use it and improve themselves, no?

"It doesn't really matter." Rei suddenly exclaimed, stopping the entire discussion, "The important thing is... why is a dead planet like the Moon producing enough energy to do what would be impossible on our planet?" He swept the women around the table with his gaze, a knowing grin on his face as he had an inkling what exactly was powering up the entire thing, "There must be a different source of the energy, no?"

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Chapter 274 - Ch274. The Source

"And the answer for the million Ryo question is... who is supposedly sealed in the moon?" Rei leadingly asked and the whole group except Yuriko dropped their jaws on the floor when the realization hit them.

"You mean Kaguya?" Konan finally managed to rein in her surprise.

"Maybe." Rei hummed, "After all, a jinchuuriki can use the chakra of his bijuu, and even if they are sealed in an inanimate item, the chakra can still be drawn. The limiting factor is that people never thought to make a technology capable of utilizing this chakra. Why wouldn't it be possible for Kaguya's energy to seep into the moon in small quantities? It would be prudent to make use of it, no? Moreover, Hamura was supposed to be the closest thing to the Sage of the Six Paths and the guy lived on the moon. It wouldn't be weird if he got the idea and made a little something capable of doing exactly that."

"Wait, you want to tell me this residue of energy from this Kaguya is involuntarily releasing is capable of instantly destroying the moon?" Pakura made a face at Rei, "And you want to free her? Are you barking mad?"

Mei, however, just rolled her eyes and replied before Rei could open his mouth, "Paku-chan, the residue from each of us could do that if it had a thousand years to build up."

That made Pakura a bit more subdued. Mei's boil bloodline's steam Jutsu worked mostly through the chakra residue a person is releasing at any given moment. Mei's bloodline was literally able to increase this released residue and shape it into the form of steam with various properties. Thanks to that, the group believed Mei's words instantly. She was the expert on that in the group.

"You would be surprised how much chakra seeps out of a person during the day. Especially us. Since we became jinchuuriki, our bodies are bonafide chakra factories. If we didn't have enough chakra control to keep it in, we would be like a sun to any semi-competent sensor. "

"But... aren't we talking about nature energy here? Why would Kaguya's body release that?" Tsunade crossed her arms under her chest and asked.

"She supposedly ate a chakra fruit. Considering there was no chakra people could freely manipulate before she was beaten by her sons... my bet is that chakra originates from nature energy of the planet gathered to form chakra fruit. That's my guess." Rei remarked.

"And since the chakra fruit is made out of the stuff, her body naturally releases it too." Konan nodded before shrugging, "Well, could happen. Who knows."

"I think you are forgetting the main problem here. It might be important how this is possible but I think we have more pressing matters to contemplate." Ringo reminded. "There is a guy capable of dropping a moon on our home. I think that demands some very violent actions."

"Agreed. We will know the answer to these theoretical questions once we get the device capable of using the residue for the moon-dropping Jutsu." Rei agreed, getting the attention of the others.

"You want to do what?" Konan turned towards Rei. "Do you at least know how many enemies are there and where exactly they are located?"

Rei turned towards Yuriko who smiled, "I am stationed here a few months already and there was no contact with anybody. Rei made sure the first thing we installed were seals blocking detection through any means he could imagine." She started, taking out a file with a few pictures. "That said, when we discovered chakra under the surface, I was tasked with investigating. I used my snow-natured Senjutsu and looked around a bit using snow in tandem with sensory Jutsu. Naturally, I can't cover an entire planet and I also had to make it unnoticeable so there was that, but..."

Yuriko triumphantly slid the file towards Konan who opened it and raised an eyebrow at a picture of a... "A cave?" She asked.

"An entrance." Yuriko corrected. "I found this by a complete coincidence. One nice day, I got a signal from my fine powder-like snow sparsely covering the ground around one area that somebody stepped on it. Which was weird, considering there isn't supposed to be anybody on the moon." She chuckled, "Imagine my surprise when I saw puppets walk around carrying supplies before disappearing into the cave. I didn't enter but I know the puppets didn't leave either until two weeks later and they returned in three hours with a new batch of supplies.

"Puppets..." Pakura pursed her lips, "And you didn't see any puppeteer nearby?"

When Yuriko shook her head, Pakura's eyes slightly widened. Suna puppeteers tried for a long time to create a Jutsu capable of remotely controlling puppets. Even Sasori mostly failed in that endeavor, deciding to be satisfied with controlling a hundred puppets via a hundred chakra strings.

Unfortunately, Pakura was not a puppeteer so she could not help much in that regard but Shun Riku was making some progress. Needless to say, a technology capable of remotely controlling puppets was very interesting for Pakura.

"Clearly, whoever lives there is very advanced in some fields. Getting from the moon to our planet... since I doubt the puppets found these supplies on the moon... is also no small feat." Konan reasoned. "We should probably assume the residents are fairly strong when it comes to chakra manipulation with a completely different Jutsu than what we are used to."

The group nodded. Being a ninja could be surprising but... stereotypes were a thing. One sees a Kiri ninja? He instantly prepares for Hiding in the Mist technique. Every single Kiri ninja knew and most used that technique to a great effect. One sees a Suna ninja without a war fan? He instantly assumes they are a puppeteer. It might not be always true but puppetry is deadly enough to rather be prepared than be caught off-guard.

The residents of the moon, however, had millennia to develop their Jutsu differently, which was noticeable from their advanced knowledge of puppetry. On top of that, it was plainly obvious they had a way to get supplies from the Elemental Nations, which meant they might have some knowledge of the Jutsus from hidden villages too.

In short, the group quickly assumed the enemy knew most of the widely known Jutsu while having a totally unknown repertory of their unique techniques.

The group became silent in contemplation. They had an advantage because the Jutsus most of them used were in no way widely known. That evened the playing field a bit but still...

"There is no point in this." Tsunade sighed, "We can't scout because we have to assume it will be discovered. Really... we have our bijuu that are already matured and ready to go. If anything, we can use them to run away."

Konan chuckled, "Looks like we became quite cocky." She said in a self-reproachful manner, "I still remember times when I was young and weak... we had almost no intel before most of our missions." She looked at Rei who smiled in nostalgia. "Yet, here we are contemplating and worrying about what-ifs because of no reliable intel. I think... we will simply have to wing it as ordinary ninjas do."

The group smiled at that, remembering their early days. Whether they were from Suna, Kiri, or Konoha, being a ninja was almost the same. Everybody had a memory of at least one mission where they had no idea what they were getting into, yet, they had to go.

"So... when do we start?" Tsunade asked.

"I think you misunderstood. There is no 'we', in this operation." Rei said, causing the women to show discontent expressions. It was obvious they wanted to argue about it but Rei had already decided. After all, he knew there would be only one man waiting for him and he really wanted to see how he compared to him.. "For this, I am going alone."

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Chapter 275 - Ch275. Entering

Rei stood in front of the entrance to the cave Yuriko found, painfully aware of the paper with a multipurpose surveillance seal inscribed on it through which his girls watched his every move.

'What the hell possessed me to say those words?' He awkwardly thought.

Needless to mention, when he said, 'For this, I am going alone.' to his wives, all hell broke loose. In hindsight, that was a really stupid move as Rei found himself outnumbered five to one and those odds were a bit too much even for him.

But he was stubborn too and didn't just back down no matter how many puppy eyes, narrowed gazes, upturned lips, or outright ultimatums he got from his wives.

In the end, Rei made a compromise that he would wear one of Konan's papers with surveillance and teleportation seals while he went in. He could do that much. He could understand their worries, after all. They thought he was gonna face an army, yet, he knew there was just one guy and his puppets. Then again, he had no plausible explanation for how he knew that.

"Here we go..." Rei muttered before slowly walking towards the entrance, with his senses looking for any early alarm system that could be present.

Finding nothing, his cautiousness only increased as it could mean only two things. Either there was really no alarm system, which could be possible, after all, who would expect intruders while having a base on the moon... or, it was hidden so well, even Rei was unable to find it. The second option was in no way sounding appealing to Rei, though.

Rei had no idea what he expected to see inside but a plain cave was definitely not among what he pictured.

He raised an eyebrow, "So... they do have at least some security measures up, huh?" He mused while looking around the completely normal small cave that ended with a dead end. It took him a few seconds but thanks to his sensory abilities, Rei quickly noticed a small concentration of chakra near the back of the cave.

Nevertheless, Rei was impressed as he barely noticed it. "As expected from the predecessor of the Hyuuga clan." He quipped with a smile while placing his palm on the rocky wall, pushing some chakra through it towards the 'seal' he felt located behind the said wall.

'Something interesting?' Konan's voice suddenly sounded in Rei's head, making him slightly jump.

They did not use telepathy much, preferring to talk aloud so this wasn't something Rei was used to. Yet, they could talk telepathically, and being in contact was one of the conditions his wives placed on him if he wanted to go alone.

'This is a chakra insulator. It blocks and disrupts chakra flow.' Rei answered. 'Byakugan, Sharingan, normal Chakra sensors... they wouldn't be able to find anything out of ordinary about this cave simply because there is nothing out of ordinary to sense as far as chakra-based sensing can tell you. It's quite a nifty trick. Be a dear, Konan, and do put this idea down on paper. We might use it for ourselves somewhere.' Rei mentally sent Konan his thoughts on how the wall worked, making her go quiet while sending him an impression of agreement.

Rei's chakra finally reached the lock behind the wall, causing the floor nearby to slide away, revealing steps leading further into a dark hidden entrance.

'One gotta be grateful for Night Vision no Jutsu.' Rei mentally chuckled before bravely but calmly walking down.

As Rei finally approached the end of the stairs, he was again pleasantly surprised that nothing attacked him yet. He was also shocked that there were no traps awaiting him. He could only shake his head at the sheer arrogance displayed in front of him. Sure, he believed in the superiority of his village and that nobody would ever discover it but that didn't mean he didn't trap the surroundings to all hell and back. If somebody not of his village did discover the area around his village, Rei made his damnedest to ensure they would not return alive to tell the tale. That was called taking precautions. Just in case... because such a case could possibly happen, no matter how small of a chance there was.

'Did you try nature energy sensing? There might have been different defensive systems.' Tsunade advised.

Rei's wives mostly watched, deciding not to talk to him overly much because it could prove distracting. Only when something 'important' came up did they contact him. Rei was glad about that.

In this particular case, however... 'I am using only nature energy sensing, Tsunade. Chakra sensing is useless down here. It seems the entire tunnel is made from chakra-blocking material.'

'Could we mine it and use it to create weapons?' Ringo asked excitedly.

'Eh... it's not as strong as you probably think, Ringo. You will see when I am done here.' Rei replied, 'Now, shush.' He was about to leave the tunnel.

What greeted him in the light at the end of the tunnel was marvelous. A large spacious underground place filled with a massive castle. It was one of the most amazing underground structures Rei ever saw and he indeed made sure to look closely while taking mental notes.

The building made him feel quite small, considering how massive it was. Rei could feel a headache creeping up onto him as he imagined the absolute pain in the ass navigating in the building will be. And that was before he even added all the enemy forces into the equation...

There was no doubt a fight would ensure and this nice marvel would be somewhat demolished. Rei, however, wanted to make use of all resources found here so there was no reason to rush. He could take his time noting everything important.

On the other hand, he could also finally feel movement in the castle through his sensory abilities. It was obvious the second he entered the castle, the shitstorm would start.

'Then again, it is quite curious they still have no clue about my presence. I wonder...' Rei stopped cloaking his chakra with his passive stealth seal tattooed on his back...

He could instantly feel the puppets inside of the castle snap their heads towards his direction, some of them having their heads turned at angles that would kill a normal human.

'I guess, that is my answer.' His sightseeing cut short, Rei, with a wry smile, stepped closer towards the entrance to the castle and tried to kick it open only for ripping the door out and sending it flying back, crushing three puppets about to open it.

Rei awkwardly waved at the remaining two puppets. "Er... hey? That was totally unintentional." He disarmingly smiled.

... and the puppets rushed at him.

'Oh, well. That didn't seem to work.' Rei thought as he sidestepped a woman-looking puppet lounging at him.

The puppet was not done yet, though. It twisted at its waist by a complete hundred-eighty and tried to land a strike on Rei with a sharp blade popping out of its hand.

Rei's eyebrows twitched. This was why puppets were dangerous. They could make sudden unexpected movements that no human could manage except maybe Orochimaru. You expect that you dodged its hit only for it to twist into a painfully-looking position and strike again.

Unfortunately for the puppets, Rei was not an average ninja. He quickly spun and grabbed the wrist of the second puppet that tried to stealthily hit him in the back with a sword, letting the momentum of the spin carry both him and his newly captured puppet. Rei then used it as a club to smash away the first puppet whose blade was just an inch away from Rei's belly.

The two puppets flew away, hitting a wall before crumbling down onto the floor... A second later, a searingly hot fireball engulfed them, incinerating them to ashes.

"Huh... looks like they are still made of wood." Rei hummed, pleased at the effectivity of his fireball. The puppets had no strings so Rei did not believe such a weak strike would be enough to make them stop. 'Who would expect puppets to show cunningness.' He shook his head, turning around about to continue on his merry way only to freeze at the sight that greeted him.

From all around, thousands of painted wooden eyes watched his movements.

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Chapter 276 - Ch276. Rei Vs Puppet Army 1

The puppets and Rei awkwardly stared at each other for a while.

When Rei decided to attract the attention of the puppets, he did so because he knew he could handle it and this way, he wouldn't have to look through the unknown structure in order to round up all enemy combatants. Now, they would come to him.

Despite such thinking, Rei was still astonished at the sheer number of puppets present in the initial wave. 'There must be a lot more puppets than I predicted.' Rei off-handedly thought without any worry. After all, be it thousand or even a million of average ninjas, in front of bijuu they were all just a slight nuisance.

These puppets might be a bit stronger than normal chunins from what he saw so far, but there was no threat of fuinjutsu and since they were puppets, even unexpected ninjutsu was not likely to appear during the fight. At Rei's current level, this was honestly nothing worrisome.

The puppets had apparently enough of the staring contest as they as one jumped toward Rei, intending to swarm him with their numbers.

Seeing the wall of wooden bodies approaching him at high speed, Rei inwardly sighed before slowly unsheathing his sword. In an instant, an electrical current sparked to life on the edge of the said blade and with one fluid movement, Rei jumped backward, away from the entrance to the castle.

The door he kicked away was quite massive and as such, many of the puppets would be able to pass through. But on the other hand, the entrance was also a nice choke point.

Rei swung his blade, sending a crescent-like cutting edge made of lightning element at the approaching puppets that were about to pass through the entrance, and therefore were very densely concentrated in one area. The elemental attack made short work of any puppet it passed through, decimating quite a sizable number of them at once.

'And just as intended, the castle has more or less no scratch whatsoever either.' Rei mentally hummed in satisfaction as he watched the smoking entrance. From what he could see through the smoke, some puppets clearly survived the attack and were getting up but most of these were in some way damaged.

It was then a sound of breaking glass attracted Rei's attention upwards, causing him to widen his eyes and inwardly cringe at the damage caused to the windows of the castle as a multitude of puppets jumped through them, trying to surprise attack Rei.

Stepping back, Rei swung his blade upwards, casting a Lightning Dragon Jutsu on the blade at the same time and directing it with the swing above himself. The dragon made of pure lightning chakra coiled in the air, cutting and burning any puppet that landed onto its body, only dissipating when no more puppets jumped out of the windows.

Thanks to the Lightning Dragon, no puppet landed in Rei's immediate vicinity, creating a small radius of the puppet-free zone around him.

Such a show of skill would surely freeze Rei's attackers in fear, awe, or something else if they were humans but unfortunately, puppets had no feelings and as such, they didn't hesitate at all. Not even a second lasted after their landing and they were yet again leaping at Rei while surrounding him with a volley of yellow balls they sent at him.

Rei didn't remember what these balls were supposed to do from the anime. That said, he was not about to find out by letting them hit him. Tapping his feet on the ground, he imbued his chakra into it and made it rise into a rocky shield all around him, enhancing it mostly from inside with his chakra to prevent the rock from being sent at him as splinters. He had a nasty feeling the balls were some kind of bomb...

Rei didn't even manage to finish that thought when a loud booming sound reached him as his rocky shield shook, showing some minuscule cracks. Now that created a frown on Rei's lips. It wasn't really that threatening to him but he reckoned this army of puppets would be able to take down most forces of a hidden village back home if they attacked it head-on. They certainly had enough firepower if their concentrated attacks could create cracks on rock enhanced with his chakra while he put some effort into it.

Sighing, Rei made his chakra in the rock erupt towards the outside, sending his rocky shield back at the puppets as dangerous shrapnel, tearing through their wooden bodies, again creating a safe zone all around the motionless Rei.

With the time for gauging the enemy's power over, Rei decided to move first as he channeled lightning chakra through his body. Blurring towards the spot with three puppets standing close to each other, he appeared in front of them, already swinging his sword, bisecting all three of them at the waist before they could react.

Rei knew being bisected would not hinder puppets as much as it would humans so he made sure to pump his lightning chakra through the puppet the second his blade entered it, frying all internal mechanisms responsible for the movement of the chunks of wood.

These three puppets would not be getting up anytime soon.

Rei didn't have a lot of time to celebrate though. With his enhanced nervous system, he easily noticed three yellow balls of energy flying at him, causing him to jump upwards, evading them as they exploded.

The air was no safe zone either, however, and Rei found himself under the fire of yet more puppets. Spinning in the air, Rei created a ball of spinning lightning chakra around himself, letting the yellow energy balls explode on it. Not unlike kaiten of the Hyuuga clan, the spinning lightning chakra redirected the explosive energy away from Rei, shielding him.

As Rei landed, he huffed, 'So... they would fire at me even if I was near their allies, huh? Guess the puppets are expendable enough for that.' He realized.

'Don't forget to leave some un-fried for research purposes!' Pakura telepathically reminded him, her voice somewhat worried. Not for him. She was worried for the puppets. After being fried from inside out, they had no worth to her!

Chuckling to himself, Rei sent her an understanding feeling before springing into action again, evading yet another volley of yellow exploding balls from the puppets.

'Clearly, they realized I am a dangerous foe up close and decided to focus on ranged attacks.' Rei realized that the puppets had some basic intelligence if they could do such a thing. Looking at the thousands of puppets all around him, Rei wryly smiled, 'This will take a while, won't it?'

'Well, it's not as if you didn't need the exercise, is it?' Konan's smirking voice resounded in his head.

Rei rolled his eyes and increased the amount of lightning chakra coursing through his blade, "Yes, yes. Laugh it up, woman.." He grumbled before jumping back into the fray.

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Chapter 277 - Ch277. Rei Vs Puppet Army 2

Cutting through a chunk of wood for the n-th time, Rei put so much lightning chakra into the strike the puppet his blade impacted literally exploded in a shower of wooden splinters. It was already two hours since he started felling down puppets as if they were a forest and with each additional kill, Rei felt as if he was getting back into the rhythm. It was a long time since he faced a lot of opponents and even longer he exercised his blade techniques.

Fighting against his girls in spars was good and all but he already knew most of their moves. They didn't give him a chance to practice some sword styles either since spars against them were in different power leagues and there were many better ways to deal with them than using a sword. Heck, using some otherwise powerful sword techniques against them would be outright foolish because they could just easily block or evade them.

Now, however, Rei was surrounded by a multitude of mediocre targets with no tricky Jutsu or bijuu level chakra reserves so he could let loose and simply have his body go through sword katas for kenjutsu styles he knew. It was really refreshing!

As yet another puppet lost its head to Rei's sword, Rei thought, 'Yes... I will definitely make Pakura remake these and then mass-produce them for training purposes!' He didn't even put his mind into the fact that such a sheer number of advanced puppets would be able to take over a hidden village. For them, these chunks of wood were just practice targets.

Rei sidestepped a stab from another humanoid puppet looking like a small creepy child, causing it to fly by his body. Hearing a clicking sound, he instantly spun on his heel, turning back, and saw the expected twist of the waist joint of the puppet causing its waist to turn backward. A pipe appeared on the palm of its bladeless hand, releasing yellow shine...

Rei's fist impacted the puppet's head, sending it crashing to the ground and making it involuntarily aim the pipe towards the sky before it released the yellow explosive ball.

Rei, much to his shame, fell for this trick once already and he had no intention of giving Pakura more ammunition to tease him.

At first, he was carefree and focused on the more artistic and 'cool' sword katas he never used because there were more practical ones for a real fight, but when he got hit for the first time because he momentarily forgot that he was fighting against puppets and that meant they could twist their bodies at inhuman angles, Pakura just couldn't let it go and teased him.

Rei just knew he would not hear the end of it for months but he also acknowledged he deserved it. Honestly, from the current ninja puppetry point of view of Sunagakure, these puppets were kinda useless. Yes, they had all the advantages of puppets and their bodies could be twisted, dismantled, and put together mid-fight as a few cases where Rei dispatched them without flooding their system with lighting energy showed. But... they simply lacked weaponry.

At first, Pakura was excited when she saw their firepower. The yellow exploding balls were marvelous! Such strength! With the number of puppeteers Sunagakure possessed, if she could give every one of them ten of those puppets...

But the longer the fight went on, the more flaws with her plan Pakrua saw. These puppets had massive firepower but that was honestly it. They had no internal weapon systems and their dismantling and putting themselves back together was also not up to snuff. Compared to the puppets of Sunagakure, they were simply disappointing.

It appeared as if without a puppeteer controlling them, the creator of these puppets had to give up most of what made puppets deadly and focus on one destructive attack the puppets could be programmed to do even without being controlled.

Pakura was still interested in the technology of puppets' remote control but she now saw there would be much to adjust and research once she got it.

Acknowledging that, Rei also decided to make it easier on her. Looking at the child-like motionless puppet with a cracked head on the floor, he noted his seal took effect. The puppets still twitched, showing it was trying to get back into the fight but the paralyzing seal stopped it.

The whole battle was littered with only two types of 'corpses'. The first were puppets fried from inside out and the second ones were these twitching, still functioning ones that were a gift for Pakura.

Rei's lighting chakra coursed through enough of the puppets to know the remote control technology would be useless to her as it took way too much place within the puppets' internal mechanisms. But... why would he tell her that? She had to be punished for teasing him!

'Meh, I will just give her the idea of using the spiritual part of Shadow Clones and merging it with puppets to create pseudo puppet clones when she comes to me crying her remotely controlled puppets are impossible to outfit with even basic Sunagakure's puppet weapon systems.' Rei shrewdly decided.

While fighting, Rei's mind naturally trailed towards how he would recreate the puppets. Such a thing was inevitable as the minds of many experienced ninjas worked in a similar way. It was a part of their training. During a fight, they always thought about how the enemy's techniques work, how to recreate them, and how to make them ineffective.

Only the most skilled and experienced could recreate the techniques of their enemies, and that was also why even the basic matured Sharingan was such a cheat as it allowed its user to bypass the needed knowledge and experience to do just that with a simple look.

Rei, however, had enough knowledge and experience to figure out a few ways to make Pakura's desire come true.

'Now that I think about it...' Rei looked around with furrowed eyebrows, 'How come I wasn't attacked yet? I must have been thinking for well over twenty seconds now.' It was then a slow and contemptuous clapping sound resounded from above, making Rei look up in surprise.

There, on the wall stood a white-skinned man, looking down at Rei while surrounded by the remaining puppets in a way as if he was a king surrounded by his obedient servants.

Needless to say, Rei quickly got annoyed at the cocky look the dude was shooting him. Obviously, his enemy thought he could squash him like a bug.

'I mean... sure, I used nothing more than lightning-enhanced kenjutsu but I don't think I deserve to be underestimated so much.' Rei disgruntledly thought, inwardly sighing. Clearly, the pale guy didn't think decimating a few thousand puppets was worth acknowledgement. 'Ah, youth.' Rei amusedly shook his head, 'Always thinking they own the world.'

The eyes of the pale guy narrowed at the gesture, yet, he tried to show he was not perturbed because of it.

"You have some skill, intruder." He coldly proclaimed, "If you think someone like you can stand against the Otsutsuki clan, however... you are greatly mistaken, foolish mortal!"

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Chapter 278 - Ch278. Rei Vs Toneri 1

"And who are you supposed to be, boy?" Rei cockily taunted as he put his right hand on his hip and raised an eyebrow in a condescending way. In his defense, the guy's stupid mug was just asking for it.

"I am Toneri Otsutsuki, the last descendant of the brother of the Sage of the Six Paths, Hamura Otsutsuki!" Toneri proudly yet calmly exclaimed as if he completely missed the mocking undertone in Rei's question. "And I am going to kill you."

"That so?" Rei hummed, inwardly a bit disappointed that his taunting bore no fruit. Then again, if the guy let himself be consumed by rage at the very first veiled insult then that would be disappointing in its own way too. "Well, good luck with that, then." Rei shrugged.

There weren't many prospective opponents around Rei who liked to enjoy some pre-battle banter. Konan returned such an attempt with a wind-enhanced cutting paper. Tsunade liked to dash head-on during their spars, making it unable to chat before the fight. Pakura was the serious type... That left Rei only with Ringo and Mei. Ringo, however, simply refused to spar with the excuse of being too busy and as for Mei, the less one said about her the better. That was one match-up where you simply didn't want to give her time to fill the surroundings with her chakra so no banter either.

Aside from them, Rei didn't fight much these days if one didn't count paperwork and scheming. Toneri was really a breath of fresh air in his otherwise dull non-battling life.

That said, Rei's nonchalant act was not because he was arrogant. He simply felt the levels of Toneri's chakra and its density. Sure, the guy's chakra was incredibly dense and it was no wonder no one could stand up to him in the future when he deemed to lift his bony ass from his moon throne for a visit. If Rei had to rate him, he would have to put the guy on the same level as Madara and Hashirama when it came to the strength of his chakra.

But... Toneri, as he was right now, did not have Tenseigan. Heck, he didn't even have Byakugan. And as far as Rei knew, there was no bijuu-subjugating bloodline either in the man. The strength of Toneri lied in his unpredictable and unknown Jutsu and his strong chakra.

Which Rei felt wasn't threatening at all. After all, even without Blackie, Rei still had more and denser chakra than Toneri right now. The fact Toneri did not even check Rei's strength was not lost on him either. In Rei's opinion, Toneri was the perfect example of a strong guy who spent his entire life in the proverbial 'closed cultivation' and never actually fought anyone even remotely close to his power level.

'It's so obvious... the arrogance in his eyes, the demeanor of superiority... he has total confidence he could wipe the floor with me at his leisure.' Rei inwardly sighed while outwardly smirking at Toneri.

"You know..." He started speaking, making Toneri raise an eyebrow at him, "When you are about to fight somebody," Rei meaningfully paused, "you should never give him the time to prepare his offense and strike first."

The second these words left Rei's mouth, Toneri didn't have even a chance to evade as the breeze that had no reason to be present on the moon suddenly picked up and pressurized wind slammed right into Toneri's right cheek, bitchslapping him off of the castle walls into the area in front of it.

'I bet he didn't expect that.' Rei snickered. Clearly, as far as unknown and unexpected techniques went, both could play that game.

Toneri, shaken due to the sudden attack, stood confusedly up, showing that the attack didn't hurt him much despite the small bruise on his cheek adding a little bit of color to his face. The extent of the damage he suffered was a sting on his cheek and a small chance at an unlikely heart attack from shock, but that was about it.

'So... it is not only his chakra that is strong, huh? His body is also quite durable.' Rei reckoned, 'His chakra is more of the physical variety then...'

There were many bloodlines where their users had strong chakra, yet, weak bodies. Strong chakra equals strong body only applied if chakra leaned more towards the yang.

'Figures. He can survive in the vacuum of the moon so, I should have expected a strong body.' Rei settled down his thoughts and prepared for a more serious exchange since Toneri was getting out of his shock.

Toneri's eyes finally grew serious, much to Rei's satisfaction. It was not about beating his arrogance out of him anymore. No, Rei simply wanted to see Toneri's techniques and how they differentiated from the usual Jutsu.

"You will regret that." Toneri menacingly uttered, rubbing his cheek while slightly bending his knees in preparation for an attack.

Rei, who seemingly stayed indifferent to Toneri's change of state, just motionlessly stood in his place, looking at Toneri as if he found him incredibly amusing. He knew that deep inside, it ate at the guy plus it was fun pissing somebody who absolutely refused to let it show.

In one swish, Toneri leaped at Rei, becoming a blur due to the speed he reached...

And Rei, much to Toneri's surprise, sidestepped. Using the momentum from the sidestep, Rei's right hand was already on its way towards Toneri's right cheek, aiming to strike the bruise there to add to the already received humiliation but this time, it was Rei's time to be pleasantly surprised when Toneri managed to duck under his strike and in a circular movement reminiscent of the Hyuuga taijutsu style, counterattacked aiming at the center of Rei's chest.

Rei noted the faint glow of chakra build-up around Toneri's hands and instantly assumed his opponent was about to use a Jutsu to deal the maximum amount of damage in that single strike. Which meant... he needed to avoid that.

Naturally, it was far too late to dodge physically so Rei chose a different approach. Instead of dodging himself, he decided to force Toneri to abandon his attack. Swinging his fist at Toneri's chest, Rei made sure to coat it in a copious amount of lighting chakra, creating a Raikiri.

'Let's see if he has guts!' Rei thought as the world around him slowed down, Toneri's fist approaching his chest while his fist was razing its way towards Toneri's chest. He watched as Toneri's eyes gained that understanding light and showed the first bit of fear during their brief fight.

The guy noticed this would not be a cost-free attack. Sure, Rei would let Toneri land this blow but that would mean getting his by a similar attack in exchange.

Now, Rei only wanted to see how Toneri would react. Will he cease the attack and jump back or will he continue? Rei really, really wanted to know.

Toneri's fist was getting closer and closer to the point of no return and the indecisiveness in his eyes was almost palpable. At the last moment, however, Toneri clearly deemed this exchange too pricey and flawlessly flowed from attack to evasion through jumping back.

While Rei was a bit disappointed Toneri chickened out, he could respect it as it showed the guy had at least some measure of brains. After all, which idiot takes a blow head-on in order to land his own hit? Right?

'If you do that again, you are sleeping on the couch for the foreseeable future. Are we understood?' Konan's cold voice resounded in Rei's head while he got the impression his other wives absolutely agreed with her.

Rei's back instantly straightened out as he answered, 'Yes, dear.'

His wives were seldom serious and almost never controlling. They let him do whatever he wanted, to a point, and his current situation was a testament to that. That said, Rei knew when he was beaten and had to actually listen to their complaints in order to preserve that peace.

'Women...' He inwardly grumbled, trying to be quiet. 'Telepathy, pfft. Never again.'

'We heard that!' Five voices chorused together.

Apparently, even his thoughts were now compromised...

Rei turned his gaze back towards Toneri, deciding to focus on the fight.. The poor lad had no idea he would serve as a way for Rei to vent his current frustration.

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Chapter 279 - Ch279. Rei Vs Toneri 2

Toneri watched Rei with a difficult expression that came off as a half-scowl and half-grimace because he was simultaneously trying to appear nonchalant. Right now, it was clear to him that he did not hold the proverbial edge in the fight which was a totally new experience for him.

Toneri spent a lot of time watching the ninjas from the Elemental Nations and comparing his skill to them, always getting the same result. He was simply unbeatable for them and as such, he never thought somebody could give him any difficulty. Yet, the man in front of him was doing exactly that.

'What kind of freak is that anyway! Did he really try to go for double suicide there? Who does that!?' Toneri's thoughts were much more distraught than his expression involuntarily showed. Realizing this won't be as easy as he previously imagined, Toneri decided to get serious right off the bat.

Rei instantly sensed a change in his opponent's chakra, mesmerized as it started to leave Toneri's chakra system and started to seep directly into his body, cloaking him in itself and changing the color from darkish blue to a much lighter shade of almost green. In fact, Rei could see the chakra with his very eyes because Toneri's body was as if bathed in it.

Quirking his lips, Rei frowned. He didn't expect Toneri to be able to enter chakra mode without having Tenseigan but clearly, he could. 'Here I thought I could just chill, but no! The guy clearly wants to try-hard it. How bothersome...'

The second Toneri's body finished charging up with chakra, he disappeared in a blur and Rei had a hard time blocking the brutal combo of punches Toneri unleashed on him. Evading and deflecting Toneri's fists, Rei tried to get a feel for his opponent's newfound power and speed, slowly adjusting his own tempo to match him while also checking how the chakra mode affected his body on a deeper level.

As he did this, he couldn't help but grin when the thought of Tsunade telepathically watching this fight through his eyes occurred to him. He had no doubt she was doing the exact same thing as him, already trying to come up with a way to 'recreate' the chakra mode for herself.

Toneri tried to use his superior speed to get his punches through Rei's guard, aiming at the gaps in his defense, yet, Rei somehow always twisted his hands in a totally unexpected circular manner and blocked Toneri's blows with his forearm or elbows. This led Toneri to become rather frustrated, which only made him more rash during the quick-paced exchange, but as the technique and precision of his blows lessened, the power behind them increased.

Rei found himself deflecting more and more, rather than blocking, moving all around the vast empty place in front of the castle while being happy he chose to pull Toneri outside for their fight. The surroundings were getting quite trashed up as cracks formed on the ground, and rocks were occasionally sent flying all around.

Somewhere during their fight, Rei understood that Toneri's chakra-enhanced blows would be too much for his base body. Instead of taking hits head-on, he rather redirected them away from himself. As Toneri became more impatient, this was becoming easier but also, the danger of injury increased as even a single hit could break a bone.

That actually surprised Rei a lot. His body could withstand Tsunade's chakra-enhanced punches with a minimal counter-enhancement. And here, a guy was almost matching, if not surpassing in some moments, Tsunade's strength. The technique he was using was rather ingenious.

Suddenly, Rei found a hole in Toneri's guard and instantly took it, sending a counter-strike at Toneri as he deflected his right arm to the side, aiming for his chin to incapacitate him. Smirk was starting to form on Rei's lips the closer his fist got to Toneri who seemed unable to react... Only for his fist to phase right through Toneri.

Rei blinked in surprise, momentarily not understanding what happened before a sharp sting in his abdomen pulled him out of his reverie as he found himself flying through the air due to Toneri's kick.

Toneri watched in satisfied fascination as the body of his opponent crashed into the rocky wall, creating a crater there while sending a massive cloud of dust into the surroundings. He clearly heard the resounding crack when his kick landed. Calmly walking forward, Toneri thought that this fight... was over.

The closer Toneri got, the more obstructed his vision became because of the dust cloud but he wasn't phased by it. This was the very first time he fought against a ninja from the Elemental Nations and honestly, he was surprised how strong his opponent was. Now he just wanted to savor the taste of his victo...

A hand suddenly pushed through the cloud of the dust, grabbing Toneri's face and pulling him inside with a mighty yank. Before Toneri managed to gather his wits enough to react, he found his body spinning for a moment before the back of his head was roughly bashed on the rocky wall, causing a spiderweb of cracks to form. Instinctively, Toneri's hands took hold of the forearm of his attacker who still held his face in a crushing grip and tried to push his hand away.

The only thing Toneri could see was the frightening grin on his opponent's face despite the resounding cracks that came out of the forearm Toneri's hands were squeezing. Yet, no matter how clearly Toneri felt his hands crush the bones in Rei's forearm, the hold of his hand on Toneri's face didn't cease, instead, it actually grew stronger, making Toneri feel very uncomfortable and almost painful pressure on his skull.

"You're gonna try a lot harder than this, boy. If you think a bit of bodily mutilation is enough to end a fight, then you clearly underestimate the ninjas of Elemental Nations far too much." Rei jokingly quipped, completely ignoring the pain in his hand while inwardly comparing his current situation to what usually happened during his spars with Tsunade.

That woman could be ruthless and tear his body to pieces at times only to get an excuse to put him back together. A few pulverized bones? That was what the guy who decided to destroy the ninjas expected to stop him? Wasn't that quite laughable?

"F-, Fi--n-" Toneri rasped through Rei's palm, causing Rei to lean closer, trying to hear what his opponent had to say.

"Come again? I think I didn't hear you quite well." He nonchalantly said, pushing Toneri's head a bit to the left, grinding the back of it on the hard rocks of the moon in a way he surmised was very painful. This allowed Rei to get a better look at Toneri's right eye and when he saw the look in it, his cheerful demeanor froze for a second.

That, however, was far too late as a yellow flash followed by a strong pushing force smashed into Rei, tearing his forearm away from his elbow due to Toneri's grip on it while the rest of his body flew back as the yellow exploding ball hit his chest point-blank.

It was only when he was flying through the air did Rei realized that the look in Toneri's eye was far from someone who was caught in an inescapable hold. Somehow, that made him release a small involuntary smile of satisfaction.

The fight was finally getting interesting...

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Chapter 280 - Ch280. Rei Vs Toneri 3

Toneri was not getting away unscathed from his counter-attack either. After all, his explosive yellow ball exploded quite close to his body as well. He, however, had the advantage of having his body enhanced by the chakra mode and as such, he only suffered some superficial scratches and slightly burnt skin.

Pulling Rei's torn forearm away from his face, Toneri gave it a disdainful sneer before he threw it to the side as if he was just discarding trash.

Rei stood up and looked at the handless arm he now sported, getting amused at the small spark of superiority that entered Toneri's gaze when he noticed where Rei was looking. Then again, Rei was not here to entertain him. He instantly used nature energy in tandem with Blackie's chakra to stimulate his cell growth, regrowing his forearm and hand at a visible pace.

It was kind of a weaker form of a knock-off from what Tsunade was capable of doing but after numerous spars with the said woman, it was of utmost necessity to develop a skill like this.

Rei lifted his gaze back towards Toneri, flexing his new forearm, "I told you it will take a lot more than that." He said, making Toneri frown.

"We will see about that." Toneri quietly said, getting ready for an attack.

Rei instantly reacted, readying himself too but what he didn't expect was puppets bursting from the ground around him, flooding him with their bodies in an attempt to obstruct his movements as they grabbed his various body parts.

Not for the first time during the battle, Rei inwardly wondered how exactly could he have been sneaked upon despite his sensing capabilities. He almost understood it by now and was pretty sure it had to do with Toneri's projection-like Jutsu.

'I still don't know if he can project the presence of his puppets somewhere away, which would be awesome if applied correctly, or if he is simply projecting a feeling that nothing is trying to sneak up on me, which... wouldn't be too shabby either.' Rei thought.

Clearly, Toneri was using his Jutsu, they simply were of the more subtle variety.

Rei was about to use a Jutsu to get rid of the puppets restraining his movement but Toneri was a step ahead and flashed near him, punching him in the gut which sent Rei flying back despite the puppets rooting him in the place. The punch was quite powerful too, and the puppets anchoring him to the ground actually got ripped in half upon impact. Not that it prevented their remaining parts from clinging to Rei's body with all they got.

Rei's body bounced a few times on the ground, every time that happened, Rei made sure to twist his body at a right angle so some of the puppets were flung away from him. When the momentum from Toneri's punch was almost gone, Rei flipped his body mid-air, landing on his feet and sliding back a bit.

Toneri was again right there, trying to maintain his current advantage and keep Rei out of his rhythm. His fist aimed at Rei's gut again, Toneri clearly wanted to strike the exact same spot as before.

Rei, however, wasn't idle either and managed to use his right foot to land a kick to Toneri's unguarded knee, unbalancing him enough that his punch to the gut went off its intended path and only briefly glanced Rei's hip.

Rei instantly followed up with an elbow to the face, breaking Toneri's nose and dazing him while a small blade made of lightning chakra formed on his other hand. He promptly jerked his right side of the body backward, propelling his left hand forward, aiming it alongside the lightning chakra blade at Toneri's chest.

And for the second time during the battle, Rei was stumped when Toneri's form simply disappeared the second he almost got him. Instead of feeling flesh, blood, and burnt organs, all Rei felt on his hand was nothing.

Toneri yet again used his projection to somehow fool him.

Despite himself, Rei couldn't help but feel a grudging respect for that. Evading a killing blow two times in a row was something else.

'At least, I got to know he can't use the projection during attacking. If he could, he would have used it at the start when I tried to exchange a lethal blow for a lethal blow with him.' Rei inwardly nodded to himself, putting the information he collected about the technique together.

He was also looking around, trying to spot Toneri but before he managed to do that, another batch of puppets burst from the ground, showing that Toneri was trying to employ the same tactics as before. This time, however, Rei was expecting it and before the puppets could yet again engulf him, a shockwave spread from his body, smashing them to such small pieces that puppets or not, they were no longer getting back up.

'Earth Release: Magnetic Push.' Rei thought. He didn't need to be able to sense the attacks. Expecting it was enough for him to deal with it. But... 'I finally sensed a spark of... something as the puppets appeared.' He excitedly realized and indeed, it was very brief but his senses gave him an inkling where Toneri was hiding.

Looking straight ahead, Rei assumed a relaxed stance while lifting his eyebrow in an expecting manner as he asked, "Are you quite done yet?" He might not have been able to see him but he knew Toneri was right there, in front of him.

The battlefield stilled.

Toneri appeared in the spot Rei suspected him to be at and looked at Rei with a weird expression, not expecting to be seen since he was projecting himself inside of the castle. For some reason, his second assault was a complete failure. Rei was not caught off-guard for the second time and as such, Toneri couldn't follow up the puppet attack with his taijutsu. He really had a hard time trying to understand what exactly happened there but...

"So be it." Toneri sighed. "Never in my worst dream would I think a ninja from Elemental Nations could force me to this state. You should be flattered that you made me do," He raised his hand with a grave expression, his palm facing Rei as he pulsed his chakra. "this!"

... Nothing happened.

Rei smiled at Toneri, sensing where his chakra went. "If you are looking to activate the nice devices of mass destruction inside of the castle, you are so shit out of luck." He laughed.

While he was entertaining Toneri, Rei's clones already snuck inside of the castle and sealed away both the Tenseigan ball thingy that was supposed to be some kind of mass destruction weapon and the activator for the accumulated chakra in the moon. Toneri would no longer be able to use either of them and watching his disgruntled expression was simply golden for Rei.

After all, there was a reason why he didn't go all out right from the start...

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Chapter 281 - Ch281. Rei Vs Toneri 4

Toneri looked at his hand, his mind blanking out from not understanding why nothing was happening after he pulsed his chakra. It was only when he saw Rei's smug face did he understand what had exactly gone wrong.

"What did you do?" He asked in a low accusing tone full of restrained anger.

"I privatized your possessions. No need to thank me for taking your burden away." Rei nonchalantly quipped.

"Privatized? ... You," Toneri realized what Rei meant and his expression twisted, "You thief! Return it!" He shouted, his anger overcoming his reason. "Return the legacy of my ancestors, you filthy robber! For this, I am going to kill you in the most painful way possible! Return i-!"

Toneri completely lost his vigilance at that moment and Rei instantly capitalized on it. For the first time during their fight, he enhanced his body with chakra and Toneri couldn't possibly react in time with his mind flooded with impotent rage as Rei slugged him right in the face, sending his body flying upward and crashing right through the roof of the excavated vast place where the moon palace was built.

For that single punch, Rei held nothing back and used even Blackie's chakra to give it an extra oomph, which ensured Toneri was blasted right through the hard rock bed all the way to the surface of the moon.

Fortunately for Toneri, his special chakra mode made such a blow just a slight annoyance. He was bruised quite a lot but nothing was broken or damaged enough to get him out of commission. Rei could only marvel at the hardness of the guy's body. This was the very first time he got a glimpse at the ability of the Otsutsuki bloodline and it had to be said, Rei was definitely impressed. The guy in front of him was far from 'pure' Otsutsuki, yet, the innate strength of his chakra was incredible.

This only made Rei deadset on following his previous decision of hiding from the Otsutsuki clan. His planet was simply not ready to face them if even a mutt like Toneri was capable of so much.

Rei followed Toneri to the surface, glad the real battle would be fought far away from the underground castle. From the chakra levels Rei felt from Toneri, he knew the guy was so far just fooling around at best. His arrogance simply didn't let him see that he had to go all out from the start.

Rei didn't fight to the fullest either as in his opinion, Toneri was not really a skilled opponent. He was just an overpowered child who never faced someone who could match him and was always told he is special. He was just your everyday spoiled brat. Rei really couldn't muster the will to go all out from the start against him.

When Rei finally got to the surface, he found Toneri already prepared for the continuation of their battle. His anger seemed to cease but Rei had enough training in reading people to know Toneri was still seething deep inside. The punch just made him see that blind anger would not solve anything.

Toneri's chakra pulsed to heights that even Rei's eyebrow rose at the absurdity he was feeling. It was as if the guy's chakra reserves expanded thrice over. An impossibility in itself according to the current common sense Rei was using.

Then again, these things usually needed frequent updates and adjustments in the ninja world.

"I've had enough of this." Toneri proclaimed and as quick as his chakra surged, it again dropped and started seeping into the ground.

Rei instantly prepared to deal with strong large-scale Earth-based ninjutsu but when even twenty seconds later nothing happened, he had no idea what was going on. Toneri didn't move, he just watched Rei, waiting for him to do something in complete calmness.

Rei knew his opponent did something but he had no clue what. 'This projection technique of his is starting to be a real pain in the ass.' He thought.

Being able to dodge attacks with it, fool chakra sensing, and to some extent, even nature sensing was a massive advantage but doing that for techniques?

Rei was just glad Toneri didn't yet realize what a powerful tool he had, otherwise he really just might be forced to take the kid seriously in this fight.

This time, Rei was at a disadvantage. He knew that waiting would be of no benefit to him, so after observing for twenty seconds and getting no conclusion, Rei decided to attack.

He stepped forward in preparation to lunge at his opponent...

But his would-be attack instantly ceased as the ground shifted underneath him as if it was liquid. It engulfed his right leg and squeezed... only his chakra enhancement prevented his limb from being torn away.

Rei quickly realized what happened. It was not that Rei couldn't find the area of effect of Toneri's Jutsu. He felt nothing out of the ordinary because the entire vast area they were in was already under Toneri's influence when he checked for the first time. With the passive cloaking Toneri's chakra possessed, it simply seemed nothing special was going on despite him soaking the ground in his chakra.

Cursing, Rei used a surge of his lightning elemental chakra in his right leg to break through the rock trapping it, and leaped backward, pushing some of his chakra into the ground below him to somewhat mitigate Toneri's influence over that area.

Rei could feel the bones in his right leg creaking and winced. The rock of the moon was obviously a lot harder and tougher than the one on Earth. Being bathed in the residue of Kaguya's chakra would do that to a planet. This brought a nasty disadvantage for Rei though. He was a lightning element user, which was supposedly weak against earth element, and the 'earth' on the moon was so damn hard he had to increase the potency of his chakra if he wanted to even scratch it.

His previous surge into his right leg was supposed to utterly obliterate the ground around him, creating a crater, yet, it was only barely enough to free his leg from its bindings.

Rei quickly realized that his strongest element was basically next to useless against his newly determined opponent.

Toneri calmly watched, no longer smug, as Rei got out of his initial attack and secured some ground for himself. Toneri no longer played around, understanding his opponent was someone tough. Puppets would be of no use for him in this fight, not even as a momentary distraction.

It was time to start using the real Jutsu...

Rei didn't have a lot of time to be idle. The ground around him decided to mercilessly attack him, creating spikes, tendrils, and sometimes even hurling itself at him in a mud-like substance that looked to be semi-solid enough to carry quite a lot of blunt force.

Rei weaved through it all, evading attack after attack while also feeding the ground under himself with his chakra, fighting for dominance over the ground with each step.

For a whole ten minutes, Rei was on the run, evading Toneri's attacks that tried to flood him in waves of rock while he tried to find a weakness to this technique. Eventually, Rei indeed found it and started to seep his water element chakra into the ground in a way that prevented Toneri from instantly reclaiming his control over it. This slowed the pace of his attacks a lot, making the deadly dance of offense and evasion almost a breeze for Rei.

Toneri naturally realized this flaw of his strategy and decided to change his plan.

The attack from the 'liquid' ground ceased, giving Rei room to breathe for a moment. That didn't last long, however, as the ground behind Toneri shifted, starting to rise in three piles towards the black sky of the moon, not stopping until three rock golems the size of bijuu stood in front of Rei, whose brain momentarily halted.

"You gotta be kidding me." He muttered. 'This might really require Blackie's help, after all...'

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Chapter 282 - Ch282. Rei Vs Toneri - Fin

The ground trembled as the massive rock golems shook themselves awake and aimed their attention at Rei who still tried to comprehend how the fight could escalate so fast. Not a moment earlier, their battle consisted of a bonafide slug-fest, yet... now the kid wanted to pull out mountain-sized monsters into the fray? Needless to say, Rei was not about to face these golems with just his fists or Jutsu.

'Yeah, screw this shit...' A black-ish chakra cloak instantly engulfed Rei's body, causing Toneri to feel a bad premonition that came true not a second later when the chakra cloak outwardly expanded, forming a mountain-sized ten-tailed black fox that promptly roared at the golems, fiercely shaking the ground for kilometers around.

Toneri stood rooted in his spot, stunned into speechlessness because he didn't expect Rei to be able to match his golems. Despite his momentary lapse, the golems didn't wait for orders and promptly attacked, rushing at the massive Blackie. Each step called forth a new earthquake, rippling the ground under their feet in a way that let them get a massive momentum.

Contrary to the normal expectations, the golems, while sluggish, were quite fast. It didn't take them long to close the gap between themselves and Blackie as they tried to tackle him to the ground. Blackie, however, was much nimbler and managed to sidestep the first golem before he jumped upwards, twisting its body in a way that the second and the third golem missed him by a slight margin as they crashed to the ground, spreading untold devastation all around their landing place due to their weight.

Rei could almost feel Kaguya's chakra seeped deep in the moving lumps of animated moon rock and he couldn't help but thank his past self for not choosing the easy way out and simply getting one of the nine already existing bijuu as in this current situation, he had no doubt they would have been suppressed by that exact chakra, making this an incredibly disadvantageous fight for him. But since his bijuu was self-made, Kaguya's chakra residue acted as nothing more than an extremely strong enhancer for the rock golems.

Blackie landed on the ground, and instantly charged a bijuu dama, shooting it at the three golems still sprawled on the ground, creating a city-wide new crater on the moon's surface. A brief flash of heat spread through the surroundings as a massive amount of dust flew into the air, completely obstructing visibility.

Blackie and Rei knew a single bijuu dama would not be the finishing move in this battle. But they wanted to see exactly how much damage it would cause.

Unfortunately for them, when the dust cloud somewhat cleared, the three golems were already rising up, sending gusts of wind all around. They indeed sported a layer of molten and jagged rock on their surface but it was obvious no major damage was caused to them.

Rei briefly glanced at the place Toneri was at before he sent his golems to the fray and frowned. The guy already used his projection to hide, letting the golems do the heavy lifting for him.

The golems tried to surround Blackie who was standing still, waiting for them to come closer as Rei already conveyed his plan to him. When they finally approached, trying to get the fox into their grasp, Blackie again dodged by the slightest margin but this time, he used his tails to trap the three golems. For each of them, three tails were used, binding their limbs and torso, trying to keep the three hulking and struggling masses of rock still with varied success.

Blackie now had all three golems bound but that also meant the golems had Blackie pinned down. In an instant, the fight became a comparison of brute strength, which was somewhat unfavorable for Blackie in one versus three scenarios.

Seeing that, Rei decided to give Blackie a bit more help. He started to use a chakra from Blackie to charge a Jutsu.

Rei knew he wasn't good enough in the earth element to do much about the golems but slightly weaken them, which was simply not worth it. Wind element was also out since the air was giving these jutsus quite a boost. Unfortunately, there was a vacuum on the moon. Using fire on rocks wasn't much better and lightning had already proved to be ineffective earlier so Rei had no other choice but to use water.

An arduous task, considering there wasn't oxygen and hydrogen in the atmosphere of the moon, therefore, Rei had to form water just from his chakra alone. Thankfully, Blackie had enough chakra to do this.

Clapping his hands together, Rei inwardly exclaimed, 'Water release: Crushing Exploding Shockwaves!'

A massive torrent of highly pressurized water as if exploded outwardly from Blackie right after the fox unbound them from its tails, smashing into the three golems with such a force it flung them back despite their huge size. Large gashes were made on the rocky surface of the golems on the impact, the second one even lost an arm while the third lost a leg.

Not that it mattered as the golems regrew them almost instantly but Rei still counted it as his win.

The real aim of the Jutsu was different anyway. Getting the golems away from him and Blackie was nice but he really just wanted to remake the battlefield.

The Jutsu was finished but that didn't mean the newly made water magically disappeared. Instead, the battlefield was submerged in a small ocean of water, reaching Blackie and the golems up to their knees, which was far harder terrain to move in for bulky and sluggish rock golems.

Realizing its advantage, Blackie instantly jumped back into the fray, smashing and smacking the golems around like little children by using its innate agility.

...

While the fight went on, Toneri, completely drenched and annoyed beyond all measures, watched the titanic battle from what he thought was a safe distance. Clearly, he was a bit wrong about that since the water still reached him.

Who in their right mind would create an ocean of water on the moon, anyway?

If not for his chakra cloak, Toneri thought he would have drowned right then and there. Well, there wasn't much of an opportunity to learn how to swim on the moon...

Embarrassed enough, Toneri didn't like how his golems started to lose. It was already ten minutes since the battlefield became too watery for them and they still couldn't get out of the onslaught of the fox.

"Should I create more golems?" Toneri said to himself. "No... it is just a battle of attrition. My golems might be disadvantaged for now but I will win. They cost far too little chakra to maintain and whatever Jutsu that is, I doubt the thief can sustain that fox avatar for long." He reasoned, not really knowing what bijuu was. "For now, let's just observe."

Toneri was totally certain that in time, he would win. That's why he was completely shocked when he got a reply.

"Are you sure about that?" An amused voice sounded from behind Toneri, scaring him out of his wits and causing him to turn around...

Only for his head to separate from his body.

Rei watched with bated breath as Toneri's now headless body slowly slumped to the ground, not disappearing this time, making him release a breath of relief.

"Nailed it." Rei whispered, flicking his sword to the side to clean the blood from it.

To be honest, Rei found Toneri's Projection Jutsu really annoying as it prevented him from getting in the decisive blow whenever he had the opportunity. That's why he was not sure he could sneak up on Toneri and finish the fight in one strike. Rei even called out for Toneri before striking, all in order to momentarily distract the kid from using the said Jutsu.

'Fortunately, it worked..' Rei hummed to himself, watching as the three golems started crumbling into the watery fields, leaving only the majestic sight of a titanic black fox standing all alone in the devastated landscape of the moon covered in water.

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Chapter 283 - Ch283. A Meeting 1

Rei stood in the throne room of the moon castle he privatized from the recently deceased Toneri, admiring the architecture while his clones were trying to research the two devices they stole from the castle during the fight.

The device to start the moon-crumbling was not really complicated, to be honest. All it did was make use of the pent-up Kaguya's chakra residue and pushed it into the weak crevices under the planet's surface. Sure, it was an ingenious use of a dumb concept to cause mass destruction, and really, that's what Rei thought being a ninja should have been about.

Nobody knew about it, yet it could have been used to wipe out an entire planet. Any idiot could use it too. From a scientific point of view, when Rei looked at it from the perspective of what the scientists of the Elemental Nations knew right now, it was a very simple device. In any other situation, Rei wouldn't be interested in it at all but when he found a peculiar set of seals drawn in a hidden compartment...

Rei found out many surprising things..

Apparently, Hamura Otsutsuki did regret sealing his mother on the moon. After all, why else would he build a device that would let him talk to her in her seal?

What he previously thought was some kind of weapon, was just a primitive walkie-talkie that used Kaguya's residue chakra to connect to her in the seal. The use of her chakra for the moon-destructing Jutsu was added only later.

What really made Rei a bit sad, however, was the fact Hamura never actually used the device for its real purpose after building it.

'He must have realized what potential it had.' Rei mused.

"Quite the sight, this building." Konan suddenly appeared behind him, causing him to turn towards her.

"Only you?" Rei asked, a bit surprised.

"Yes. Tsunade is playing with the Tenseigan device... did you know it is made of a massive number of Byakugan eyes? Kinda gross but apparently, it would have been quite a good Christmas present for a medic ninja." Konan amusedly hummed.

"Well, Tsunade did want to play with Byakugan eyes for a long time now yet she had no opportunity so far." Rei shrugged.

"Pakura is entertaining herself with the puppets, preparing them for transport and stuff." Konan continued.

"Already? She is quite impatient about that." Rei tinkered with the seal on the device while reacting.

"Well, she really likes her new assistant Shun Riku and these puppets are the best gift she could ever imagine giving to that woman." Konan said, "Plus, you know her. She is always so serious about developing her village." She wistfully said.

Konan might not show it, but she was quite jealous of Pakura. Pakura might not see herself as Suna kunoichi anymore but she did see Sunagakure as her home. Konan missed that feeling. She knew her home should probably be the Land of Rain but she simply could not see it in the light Pakura saw Sunagakure. Konan found Pakura's sense of belonging quite enviable.

"As for Ringo... she found the armory so I don't think we will be seeing her anytime soon." Konan chuckled, causing Rei to grin too. "And Mei decided to explore the castle."

"Which leaves the two of us." Rei nodded, painting new seals on the walkie-talkie device with his chakra alone. "You are not gonna explore? I thought that was why you made sure it wasn't you who stayed behind in our base."

There were only six of them on the moon and Yuriko was the poor lass who drew the short stick and had to guard their base. Needless to say, all five of Rei's women cheated in their own way in that particular draw. Not that Yuriko would ever know...

"I already do." Konan spoke, "I just don't see the point of doing it myself. My paper clones are enough when it comes to looking through useless trinkets. I'd much rather spend my time with you." She sat down behind him and put her hands around his neck, quietly observing him work while enjoying their closeness. "Somebody gotta make sure you don't do something crazily life-threatening."

Rei would never admit it but hearing her say that, his smile widened a bit. This was how it always was and he was fine with it.

"Whatever would I do without you." He snorted.

"You would probably blow yourself up in your first week dabbling with seals." She offhandedly replied without any real heat behind her words.

"I did blow myself up in my first week dabbling with seals." Rei quipped.

"See what I mean? You are incorrigible." Konan said and Rei could feel her gently kiss the back of his neck.

They were together long enough to know what the other thought most of the time and Konan was sure Rei needed a bit of her support right about now.

"Am I that transparent?" Rei sighed, enjoying how Konan tightened her hug.

"You saw yourself in the kid?" She asked.

"Well... to be honest, I could have ended that way too if I didn't meet you." Rei acknowledged. "Toneri was strong, not as much as we are and he was indeed touched a bit in his head but he was also in a league of his own. This fight... it really made me think about why exactly I am trying so hard to create a better place out of Elemental Nations. Why did I even make my own village... In the end, I just want a safe haven for us." He shook his head.

"That's what we always did. Watch out for ourselves." Konan put her chin on Rei's shoulder. "Are you sure contacting this Kaguya is a good idea?" She worriedly asked. "Maybe we just could let her stay sealed inside of the moon and forget about her?"

Konan didn't like Rei's decision of meeting up with this apparent 'goddess'. First, she didn't believe in gods, and second, from what Rei told her about the woman, she was, like Toneri, a bit touched in her head. Unlike the kid, though, Kaguya was a lot stronger, which Konan thought would mean a lot tougher to negotiate with.

Konan also had no idea what kind of seal was used to seal Kaguya and if it would be dangerous for Rei to pay her a visit with his consciousness. For her, it was simply far too dangerous to even attempt it but Rei was already decided and she knew there was no moving him once he got going. She could only slightly redirect him and make sure he made no foolish mistakes.

Rei sighed, "We could make sure she never gets out but I do want to talk to her. I am prepared for arrogance and haughtiness but I would like to believe a thousand years in a seal would mellow her down a bit. She could be really useful." He said as he finished a final stroke of a seal.

"And just like that, your communication device is done." Konan muttered, more to herself.

"Well, then... guard my body, will you?" Rei exclaimed, taking in a deep breath to give himself a bit of a push of courage. He made sure to add many safeguarding seals on the device so his being would not be endangered but... one simply never knew about these kinds of things. Then again, with how much effort he put into it, he would at worst get injured.

Just like that, Rei's body slumped in Konan's embrace, his consciousness venturing deep into the sealing space in the moon where the mad Rabbit Goddess supposedly resided.

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Chapter 284 - Ch284. A Meeting 2

Rei connected to the plane of the seal and the very first thing he saw was... nothing. This obviously surprised him. 'So, Hagoromo was not even courteous enough to actually craft a seal space in here?' Rei grimaced, imagining how it would feel to be sealed in a black space of nothingness for well over a thousand years.

Needless to say, he didn't like such a picture. At all.

'This doesn't give me much hope for an intelligent conversation with Kaguya, to be honest.' Rei sighed.

Every seal master who ever studied how to seal entities somewhere knew that crafting a seal space where they would reside was a necessity. It was the very first thing these people learned and for a good reason too! Nobody wanted to seal a bijuu or something of equivalent might only for the entity to go mad in the seal, becoming even more dangerous than before.. Even those that hated bijuu wouldn't dare to do this.

Rei really worried about Kaguya's mental state, right about now. Then again, he had hope. She was supposed to be the closest thing to a deity his planet ever saw so... just maybe?

The pocket dimension of the seal was immense and for that, Rei was grateful. Using the moon as the medium for sealing was clearly beneficial in this regard. Thanks to that, Rei wasn't faced with Kaguya upon entering his consciousness into the seal and had time to prepare.

The first thing he did, what any self-respecting and non-suicidal seal master would do, was naturally, check the state of the seal. Surprisingly, the seal was holding up quite well despite its advanced age. Seals, in general, were created to last but keeping something as powerful as Kaguya under a lock for a thousand years... that was a feat on its own considering the average period of time a seal designed to keep a bijuu inside a jinchuuriki was around a century before it started to deteriorate.

Rei quickly discovered why the seal was still working perfectly though. Simply put, Hagoromo disregarded literally everything but durability when it came to the seal. It was obvious he created it on the fly and from what Rei could spot as he let his senses drift through the nothingness of the pocket dimension, it had a lot of rough edges. The entire structure was held together not by the ingenuity of the creator but by the sheer power of his chakra.

The only ingenious part was where the seal separated Kaguya's chakra from her so she couldn't pit her own chakra against the Hagoromo's in the seal, instantly breaking it. Rei couldn't in good conscience give Hagoromo much credit for that though. Anyone with at least one brain cell would do that, knowing Kaguya could just brute force her way out otherwise.

That made Rei's mood rise a bit. A good seal master would be able to escape such a seal. It would take time and effort to find an appropriate way but it was definitely possible. 'Well, that gives me an upper hand in the talks with Kaguya, I guess. Since she is still imprisoned, she probably doesn't have any knowledge about sealing. That's good.' Rei nodded to himself in a pondering manner.

It was then Rei looked at the section where Kaguya's chakra was siphoned and reused to keep the seal going. What he found... made him grimace.

'So she is affected by the Chakra Fruit...' Rei bitterly realized as he watched globs of a black substance being separated from Kaguya's gathered chakra before it was used to power up the seal. 'That might be a problem.'

These globs didn't really exist in Kaguya's chakra. They were just a representation, an image the seal created to portray that Kaguya's chakra was corrupted. Rei reckoned it would be impossible to identify if they were not inside of the seal. The only reason why it was now possible, was that the seal needed pure uncorrupted chakra to power itself up so it automatically separated what it didn't need.

Rei observed the mechanism behind the process and after a few minutes, he decided that he definitely had to use this part to his advantage. Pulling the chakra from within himself, he started feeding it into the seal, knowing it would alert its resident. Rei was not deterred, however. He simply continued tinkering with the seal even after he felt a new pair of eyes intently stare at the back of his head.

Kaguya's presence was unmistakable. The second it engulfed Rei, he could feel her power despite it being sealed. The logical part of Rei knew he had nothing to fear from the woman as she was powerless inside the seal. The primal part, the part governing his nature sensing, however, screamed at him to get away fast.

Standing near her was like being washed over by a tsunami during a hurricane. It was then, Rei understood what Kaguya really meant when she said that all chakra belongs to her. She was a planetary level of monstrosity. The bijuu, artificial or the real ones, simply felt like underdeveloped children compared to her. The only saving grace was that judging by the way Kaguya let her presence freely flow outside of her body without any restraint, she really had no idea how to control it.

Rei couldn't help but quietly chuckle. To him, it seemed the woman staring at him didn't even have a clue about her own power. It was so ridiculous it became hilarious.

'Then again... if she actually learned to control all that energy within herself...' Rei subconsciously gulped, still ceaselessly focusing on altering the chakra purification mechanism in the seal. That brought a new dilemma for him. 'Should I tell her and teach her about her potential or should I simply let her waste it?' Rei really felt conflicted about that. 'Guess it depends on how this will go.' Finishing with his job, the pocket dimension of the seal somewhat brightened as if some kind of previously unseen taint was reduced.

Rei turned towards Kaguya who was furrowing her eyebrows at him, showing him a weird expression as she tried to comprehend why she felt different than a second ago and what exactly changed.

'Quite cute.' Rei revealed a small smirk as the regal-looking woman in front of him looked around like a little confused girl while slightly scrunching her nose. He cleared his throat, getting Kaguya out of her momentary reverie and causing a slight blush to paint her bone-white cheeks before her face again attained that aloof and cold regal look engineered to put a sense of inferiority in those who gazed upon it.

Nevertheless, Rei still found the situation quite funny so the smirk on his face stayed.

They stood opposite to each other, measuring the other with their gaze in total silence while the atmosphere around them was growing progressively more awkward. Rei always knew he would meet this woman somewhere along the line but now that he stood in front of her, he really had nothing to say to her. Jumping at her with his offer seemed a bit too abrupt too so...

As for Kaguya, her situation was even more difficult.

After a while, Kaguya slowly opened her mouth in preparation for speaking but before she could let out a sound, she silently closed it with a disgruntled expression, throwing a ponderingly inquisitive look at Rei who watched her internal turmoil with interest. He really didn't expect their first meeting would go like this.

Screaming, arguing, trying to kill each other while he tried to persuade her of the cleverness of his proposal... yeah, kinda? But, he would never expect having her adorably stare at him in speechlessness.

Finally, Kaguya decided to cut the chase and spoke in a somewhat unsure manner while tilting her head, "Uh, would you believe you are my first guest since I was thrown here?"

Rei really had no idea how to answer that...

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Chapter 285 - Ch285. Kaguya Otsutsuki 1

"I must say, I never expected this meeting to go this way." Rei smilingly mused as he drank tea and watched Kaguya munching on various types of food with gusto and the enthusiasm of a little child who just received her favorite dessert.

Much to Rei's surprise, after their initial awkwardness passed, the very first thing Kaguya asked him for was a bit of his chakra. This made Rei wary but also extremely curious. She was not asking for an amount that would allow her to do anything substantial.

In the end, Rei gave her what she asked for and then watched in amazement as Kaguya materialized a feast through her Creation of All Things. Around the ankle-high table full of various foods that could be classified as female's wet dream were various fluffy pillows for seating and Kaguya promptly flopped down onto one of them before starting to enjoy the food, impatiently inviting Rei to join her with her indifferent eyes containing a deeply-hidden eagerness. He wasn't even properly seated when Kaguya foregone all manners and started enjoying herself.

Rei had to admit, this was a totally new style of cooking...

"I didn't have anything to eat for a thousand yearsh." Kaguya managed to say before taking another spoonful of pudding into her mouth and repressing a blissful moan.

The corners of Rei's lips curled upward whereas his right eyebrow rose at the childish woman. He expected a regal, cold, and dismissive princess that would demand the world out of him if he wanted anything in return but what he got was... this.

As if sensing his doubts, Kaguya gulped down the pudding and spoke again, "The thing you did with the seal... I have no idea what it was but it worked. It was sudden but I felt as if something was lifted from my consciousness and no longer felt like attacking you on sight so... good for you?" She hummed while her eyes distractedly trailed towards another plate full of sweets.

'So the influence on her psyche was more subconscious.' Rei took into account her wording. She didn't experience any sudden flip that would shake her entire being when he purified the 'taint'. Instead, she simply felt as if her emotions and outlook somehow slightly shifted. 'Then again...' Rei scanned the modified seal with his mind, 'the chakra fruit became a part of her the second she ate it. It's not like the taint was removed from her. I just added a feature that negates its effects as long as Kaguya is inside of her seal on the moon.'

That naturally meant the second she is released, her outlook would shift back to her previous state. Clearly, Rei needed more time to ponder about these problems.

Rei gently smiled at the woman, "You are quite the pervert, aren't you?" He said, observing with satisfaction as Kaguya momentarily froze before huffing and continuing to eat as a slightly pink hue formed on her cheeks.

Since they sat down, Kaguya didn't look in Rei's direction once, focusing her eyes on the food but... she had Byakugan eyes and Rei was a trained ninja. Naturally, he didn't miss her gaze.

"Well, you will have to excuse my curiosity but you are the first person I see after a long time." Kaguya grumpily muttered and, for the most part, retracted her Byakugan gaze from Rei as silence ensued between them.

What Rei found cute, however, was that now her eyes actually flickered towards him every so often.

It was only a few peaceful moments later when Kaguya spoke again, this time with a measured and serious tone. "What exactly do you want from me? I doubt anybody would enter this seal without any agenda so... what's yours?"

It was obvious she mistrusted Rei's intentions. Sure, they were cordial right now but Rei reckoned that was mostly because there was no way to harm each other inside of the seal. Kaguya might have portrayed a childish and excitable front with how she acted. She might even seem easily manipulatable but Rei knew better. The woman in front of him wasn't a naive fool. That's why he was glad this seal was a perfect neutral ground for both of them.

Rei nodded, not seeing any reason to tiptoe around it, "I came to propose a deal." He started, "I can free you from the seal," He said that part slowly on purpose, observing Kaguya. Her eyes indeed showed a slight sign of brightening at his words but the woman didn't let her hope shine into her expression. Instead, she had her perfectly indifferent mask donned as she waited for Rei to continue. "but as you probably already realized I won't do that just out of the goodness of my heart."

Kaguya slowly nodded, "What are your terms?" She bluntly asked.

And this was the part where Rei's demeanor completely shifted, much to Kaguya's bewilderment. He released a deep sigh and sheepishly chuckled, "I... don't have any?" He said, completely aware of how ridiculous that sounded. Rei saw how Kaguya's face became blank after hearing him and instantly decided to continue to clear any misunderstanding that might or might not form between them. After all, he wouldn't want her to think he is trying to deceive her. "Right now. I don't have any right now. I honestly don't even have a method to free you." He shrugged, ignoring how Kaguya's lips twitched in exasperation before the woman decided to stuff a piece of a dessert into her mouth lest she said something unflattering to Rei.

They stared at each other for a moment, Rei awkwardly and Kaguya coldly. When Kaguya didn't have anything to say, Rei decided to elaborate, "I am the best Seamaster in Elemental Nations." Rei noted how Kaguya's attention shifted away from the food and back towards him when she heard these words. "If anybody can devise a way to get you safely out of the seal, it is me. As for the terms, I really don't know what to ask for but I can tell you right now, I will not free you for free. There will definitely be a price. I just don't... really have anything you could provide that I would need or want."

'Except completely fucking up the plot and making the biggest villain of Narutoverse my ally.' Rei inwardly thought. There were many advantages to freeing her, even if he did it completely for free. Most of them were indirect but that didn't mean there would be no benefit for Rei. But, Rei also knew that doing that would be extremely suspicious and while Kaguya would have been grateful beyond words, she would also be wary of his intentions to no end. She was a former ruler and her political mindset shone clearly through during their talks. She understood mutual benefit whereas having a stranger show her such a massive kindness was instantly a reason for concern and a start of some nefarious plot.

Then again, Rei would not release her from her seal unless he was absolutely sure the woman posed no danger to him or his family.

Kaguya felt stumped. She was happy that somebody decided to help her because these thousand years of utter powerlessness took their toll on her mind. But she also understood the underlying message in Rei's words. He would only help her if it benefited him and she had no idea what she could offer him for such a service.

With a slight embarrassment, she realized her thoughts must have been visible on her face when Rei smiled at her and spoke, "For now, let's not talk about it. Making a counter-seal to this," Rei gestured around himself, "will be a long job anyway. Let's just get to know each other and talk some more about the past, shall we? I am really interested in why you ended up here."

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Chapter 286 - Ch286. Kaguya's Past

Kaguya's mood soured when she heard what Rei asked her.

"You don't know?" She threw an incredulous look at him. "How did you know about me being sealed in the moon, then?"

"Well, there are legends but I would like to hear your version of the story." Rei shrugged. He didn't put much belief into all that crap told in the legends. Now that he felt the incredible potential of the being called Kaguya in front of him, he couldn't help but think these legends were all bullshit. Hagoromo and Hamura had no chance to win against her no matter if she didn't even start scratching the surface of her potential.

For a second, a wistful expression appeared on Kaguya's face as she reminisced about her past but it was gone as fast as it formed. With a cold expression, Kaguya distractedly reached for a cup of tea, not realizing how her hand shook. She took a long gulp from the cup and looked Rei straight into the eyes. Staring into his encouraging eyes, Kaguya gained a newfound determination..

It was a surreal feeling for Kaguya. She wanted to have someone to talk about these things for more than a thousand years now. Nobody, not even her sons, could provide any form of support for her but now... now that she looked at the strange man who appeared in her seal, Kaguya wanted... no, deeply desired to let it out.

Before she knew it, she started to pour her heart out to him.

Rei patiently listened to her story and had to admit, the legends were mostly correct. The difference was... these legends had a different way of looking at things. Kaguya had reasons for doing what she did. She wasn't some madwoman who was turning humans into wooden soldiers for kicks and giggles. As she explained what she did and why, her cheeks never dried of tears.

She started with how she was selected for the expedition to grow a chakra fruit. How she came to Rei's planet. How she didn't agree with the ways of her traveling companion and how she 'betrayed' him, knowing it would have been her undoing.

It was a story about a naive, young, and stupid girl.

She told Rei how she met her husband. How her heart fluttered when he talked about his ideals. How she, for the first time, fell in love, not realizing or paying attention to many important things. With hurt and tear-stricken expression, Kaguya portrayed how her happiness slowly changed into the realization that while she was the wife of her husband, he was a ruler and had a completely different way of looking at marriage than her.

She spoke of long lonely days and short nights of a passion that was slowly but surely burning out. Of how her maid was slowly becoming more of a husband to her than her actual husband. Kaguya simply put all of her grievances and poured all of her feelings from her apparently unsatisfying marriage a thousand years ago on poor Rei's shoulders, causing him to wryly ponder when he became an emotional support line as he silently listened to her.

Kaguya... eventually realized that she fell more for the fairytale ideals of her husband than him as an actual person. Her infatuation made her blind and that led her to a monumental decision. She confessed to Rei that she decided to take the chakra fruit and return back to the Otsutsuki clan. She was aware there would be a punishment waiting for her back home for what happened with her traveling companion but Kaguya also knew that if she brought the chakra fruit with her, it would be a negligible one. Instead, she would actually get rewarded right after she suffered a bit.

These plans were quickly destroyed, however, when one nice morning was ruined by a realization that she was pregnant. It was both a joyful and horrifying experience for Kaguya. While her maid was rejoicing like a small girl. Kaguya felt a myriad of emotions, most of them dark. She cursed her husband, she cursed her luck, she cursed herself for not being careful enough...

Rei found it funny. From how Kaguya described it, by the end of their marriage, she felt no satisfaction from having sex with her husband. She just bore with it because she thought it was her duty as his wife. Now she realized she was still stupid at that time and that she should have rejected him completely but... it was already too late to lament about it.

It was hilarious how she, a female Otsutsuki who should have had a hard time getting pregnant, actually got impregnated by a 'mortal' not when she passionately slept with her husband every night during the height of their 'love' but when the guy only graced her bed once or twice per two weeks for a quick release. Rei couldn't help but feel a bit of respect for her husband when he heard that. Thankfully, he could hide his amusement well. It wouldn't be nice to laugh into the face of a crying woman.

Kaguya knew she couldn't return to the Otsutsuki clan anymore. For that, she needed to kill her children first and that was simply not happening. She was happy to become a mother but it also chased her into the corner.

"It's ridiculous. There is always something that 'seals' my fate." She dejectedly said with such emotional depth, Rei sighed to himself and decided to reseat himself next to her, supportively embracing her small frame.

Kaguya then continued with her story, her words and tone a bit lighter as she leaned her body into Rei who felt a bit awkward.

Then, the entire debacle with her husband trying to kill her happened. Kaguya understood why he chose to sacrifice her to avoid the war. He was a ruler and had his priorities straight. He had to think about the well-being of his people. But... Kaguya had to think about the well-being of her children. She already forfeited her future and her life for them when she decided to keep them rather than return to her clan.

And so... she ate the chakra fruit.

Her life after that incident improved. She got stronger, became the ruler, and led humans to prosperity and peace. Deep down, however, Kaguya always felt anxious and insecure. Always awaiting the Otsutsuki clan to come and punish her... and her children. Eating the chakra fruit was the worst crime she could have done and she had no illusions the Otsutsuki clan would not realize what happened.

Her children were a big motivation for her. All she wanted was to raise them well, give them love, care for them, and make sure they would be happy. As such, Kaguya decided to make countermeasures against her clan.

Much to Rei's amusement, he bluntly told her he thought her plan sounded dumb and Kaguya blushed crimson red from embarrassment, unable to refute it.

Army of White Zetsu? What good would that do against the Otsutsuki clan? They couldn't be even considered cannon fodder!

"Instead of trying to create an army, you should have tried to master your own power and train your body." Rei gently chastised the downtrodden woman in his arms.

She sacrificed a massive amount of people in her quest to make an army... and for what? To create something as useless as White Zetsu? There was no wonder her legend portrayed her as pure evil.

'More like pure stupid...' Rei thought with a carefully hidden eye-roll.

Leaning his head down and looking at the fidgety woman in his arms, Rei realized one important thing.

In the end... she was simply a scared little girl who found herself shouldering the weight of an entire planet, knowing her clan would one day come for her.

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Chapter 287 - Ch287. Kaguya Otsutsuki 2

Rei waited until Kaguya calmed down her emotions which got him into a very awkward position. When she was distressed, their closeness didn't bother her and instead, it provided a measure of comfort but the more calm Kaguya became, the more self-conscious she got and Rei could clearly feel her squirm in his arms.

Deciding that she no longer needed him, Rei unhanded Kaguya and leaned a bit away from her before she also slid to the opposite side with a small blush, creating a gap between them.

Inwardly, Rei enjoyed the current atmosphere between them immensely. He pictured his meeting with Kaguya in many different ways but this was so unexpected that he couldn't help but marvel at his luck while getting the maximum amount of entertainment from the overpowered bashful woman.

Rei decided to stay silent, making sure to make Kaguya squirm to the extreme, only deciding to intervene when he felt she was reaching the limit of her patience. It wouldn't do for her to 'explode'.

"I don't understand..." Rei suddenly said, picking a topic to distract the distraught and fidgeting woman next to him, getting her utmost attention, "Why did you simply not beat your sons during your last fight?" He threw her a meaningful, yet piercing look..

Kaguya glanced at Rei, tightening her fists, "I wasn't strong enou-"

"Stop bullshitting me." Rei rolled his eyes at her in an annoyed manner.

"Bullshitting?" Kaguya tilted her head, not understanding the reference, causing Rei's eyebrows to twitch.

"It means 'stop lying to me'." Rei explained. "I can feel your chakra sealed in this seal. There is no way you were simply overpowered by your sons." He stated with a casual finality.

Kaguya lowered her head as a self-deprecating smile appeared on her lips, "I simply couldn't hurt them. They are my children, after all. That fact won't change, no matter if they betrayed me or not."

Hearing her reason, Rei hummed and inwardly rejoiced at the fact both Hamura and Hagoromo were already out of the picture. That would have complicated the situation immensely if that's how Kaguya felt about them despite everything.

Somebody could argue that Hagoromo was still present in the world but Rei would only snort at that. A person like Hagoromo, a self-righteous bastard who thinks his ideas and vision are the best, would long ago intervene in the ninja world if he could. That meant while the old coot most likely could see, he could not affect the happenings, which was just fine as far as Rei was concerned. Let the dead stay dead...

"You know that both of your children are long dead, don't you?" Rei carefully asked, wanting to confirm Kaguya's thoughts on the matter without making her realize his intentions. It wouldn't do to free her from the seal only to have her bring someone like Hagoromo back to the land of the living. That would suck so much! Rei was definitely not gonna do that... ever.

Kaguya's expression soured as pain flashed through her pupilless eyes while her forehead creased, making her closed third eye visible for the first time during their meeting, startling Rei. He was wondering why she had only two eyes but now he understood that her third eye socket was simply hidden.

"I figured... it's been more than a millennium, after all." She bitterly answered, evading Rei's gaze. Rei simply stayed quiet and waited for her to continue, not offering any comforting words or the like. It took a while but Kaguya did, indeed, eventually continue, "But I am also interested in what kind of world my children created." A small smile appeared on her face. "I can't say I don't want to smash it to pieces though." She sighed, "Their vision was the primary reason why we fought and I am still somewhat livid because of that. Strangely, when I am near you, my anger as if left me." She calmly smiled at Rei.

'I see... so as long as the taint from the chakra fruit in her chakra is kept in check, there will be no murder-happy rabbit goddess causing problems for me. Good to know.' Rei hummed, putting it into his mental notebook of seals he would have to develop.

"Would you bring them back to life if you could though?" Seeing that he would not get an answer to his secret question, Rei decided to ask her bluntly.

Kaguya was momentarily startled by Rei's question but then slowly blinked in a pondering manner before starting to slowly speak, mulling each word on her tongue with great care. "I... uh... I, I don't think so." Kaguya's face scrunched in hurt and self-blame.

Rei was inwardly happy when he saw her expression though. The sheer emotions conveyed told him that Kaguya was not just acting. She genuinely felt deep in her heart that she wouldn't resurrect her children if she could and it brought her a lot of confusion from which, pain and guilt were born. There was no greater confirmation that Rei had nothing to worry about in this regard.

"I..." Kaguya, not noticing the pleased glint in Rei's eyes, continued, "I'd like to say I would. In a heartbeat. But... I can't. I feel the desire but I also know I wouldn't be able to persuade myself to actually do it. They... They betrayed me." Kaguya spoke in a downtrodden tone before lifting her gaze towards Rei, "Does that make me a bad person? A bad mother?"

Rei gently shook his head in reassurance, "I don't know. That is a question you have to answer for yourself. Your children, however, chose their paths and the most you can do is respect their decision." He truthfully answered. As far as Rei saw it, both Hagoromo and Hamura were adults... more like corpses at this point... and as such, they had the right to decide for themselves.

Kaguya mulled over that answer, bringing yet another heavy silence between them. Rei almost thought he got her into a trance when even after an entire half-hour she didn't move but then, suddenly, a question was asked.

"How are you planning to free me from the seal?" Kaguya distractedly asked.

Rei blinked, looking at her, and noticed her face was still blank as if she was deep in thought. He realized she asked mostly to get her head thinking about something else than Hagoromo and Hamura. Rei happily obliged.

"I have to devise a counterseal that can unravel the one sealing you. There are many ways to do that but... well, finding the best one will be difficult." He said.

Kaguya slowly nodded, "Wouldn't it be better to just give me enough chakra so that I can blast the seal from inside out?" She curiously asked, distracted enough that her mood improved.

Rei, however, just snorted in reply. "You are not blasting anything, woman. The pocket dimension of this seal is literally located in the middle of the moon. Blasting the seal from inside out with pure force would result in blasting the moon itself apart. Which would result in the destruction of my planet." He explained. "So not gonna happen."

"Ah..." Kaguya sheepishly averted her head, feeling embarrassed at her suggestion.

"But..." Rei naturally knew why she was so impatient, "I reckon being in the seal alone must be lonely so I can tweak it a bit so you can telepathically contact me. You know... to have somebody to talk to." He said while inwardly sighing. His next few years seemed to be deprived of much privacy if the happy gleam in Kaguya's eyes was any indicator.

'Why must she be too cute to not take pity on her?' Rei lamented.

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Chapter 288 - Ch288. Teams 1

"Are you sure about this?" Shikaku looked from behind his Hokage desk at the calm Tsunade who sat on one of his sofas for guests, sipping tea.

"Yes. Why? Do you have any complaints?" Tsunade asked him in a tone that clearly said it wouldn't matter even if he had any but... she was willing to listen if he wanted to reason with her.

Shikaku could only inwardly sigh at the antics of this insufferable woman. Honestly, this was becoming a recurrent theme. It didn't happen all that often but when Tsunade wanted something, Tsunade got it. What really irked him though was that she always came up with some demand when he least expected it.

Like now, for example. Tsunade pushing her way into the formation of the new genin teams was something Shikaku never expected to happen.. It was his responsibility as the Hokage to set them up based on information from the academy teachers and Tsunade should have no interest in it... yet, here they were.

"How to say this..." Shikaku looked at the sheet with the teams, a small frown forming on his lips as he skipped all of the unimportant cannon fodder ones that posed no problems, "Let's start with Team Seven. Naruto Uzumaki, Sasuke Uchiha, and Hinata Hyuuga, led by Kakashi Hatake with Anko Mitarashi being co-teacher." He stated, moving his gaze onto Tsunade before deadpanning, "Now that's blatant favoritism."

Yoshino, his wife and secretary, who dutifully sat opposite Tsunade on the guest sofas and was refilling her teacup could only wryly smile while inwardly agreeing with her husband's assessment. That team, it was as if Tsunade said screw it and threw the best prospects from the year into one team. That was just not done. Ever.

Giving them Hatake Kakashi as their teacher on top of that? Yoshino could already see the headache her husband will have to go through in the next few days due to the complaints of other clan heads, advisors, influential figures, etc.

But the real problem...

"Why don't you just make that team and give them to be trained under Mitarashi-san?" Yoshino voiced her opinion.

Normally, she would be instantly silenced. After all, she was just a secretary. Then again, being also Hokage's wife had its perks. From time to time, Yoshino intervened with a question or a suggestion and Tsunade was glad for that. She knew that Shikaku, despite his immense intellect, had a bad tendency to seek the least troublesome way in order to accomplish his goals. Unfortunately, the least troublesome didn't always equal the best.

"She can't do that." Shikaku answered Yoshino's question. "Anko is not on the active roster of Konoha forces and even if she was there, she never achieved Jonin status before she became the Senju representative, which kinda both pushed her proverbial influence to the highest places while also putting a complete stopper into the advancement of her career as a kunoichi."

"And since she never returned to the active roster, she is still just a chunin." Tsunade added.

"Couldn't you just... I don't know? Disregard the rules for this instance?" Yoshino tried to be helpful and gave a suggestion based on the facts she possessed.

Tsunade smiled, "I could... but I won't."

She was Daimyo. What she said, went. It would only take one signature to put Team Seven under Anko's tutelage. Doing so would create some unnecessary minor problems Tsunade simply didn't feel like facing.

"We all know about Kakashi's approach." Tsunade said, making Yoshino dryly chuckle while Shikaku sighed in exasperation when he remembered that Kakashi dropped five teams so far without even considering them. The dude could preach about the lack of teamwork all he wanted but Shikaku simply didn't buy that bullshit. Expecting three kids put together on a team to have passable teamwork without any practice was just ridiculous.

Shikaku knew that Kakashi was simply pissed he was dismissed from ANBU so he was currently sulking... for years. It was just one more instance of Sarutobi's foolishness coming to bite the next Hokage in the ass.

"He won't teach the kids a shit if they don't pass his secret personal evaluation. And only God knows what that pervert's criteria for passing actually are. Considering this team will be forced onto him because of the last loyal Uchiha... I don't think Kakashi will like it." Tsunade continued.

She knew that for Kakashi to train his genin team properly, he would have to take a liking to them. In case that didn't happen, though... his genin team would be left to fend for themselves no matter how much the white-haired moron preached about friendship and camaraderie.

It wasn't even that the guy was incompetent. On the contrary, Kakashi was... incredible trainer. When he was still in ANBU, he was one of the best ANBU trainers in Konoha. He was the guy who trained newbies up to the ANBU standards and during his 'reign' the Konoha ANBU was in its golden age.

The problem was... Kakashi was too used to training competent and experienced ninjas. He expected them to desire to better themselves and put in appropriate effort without him butting in. He was used to just giving directions, not personally guiding them. And it worked. For ANBU.

But genin teams were different. A jonin sensei has to motivate his pupils to actually desire advancement. And even then, he has to make sure the focus and direction of his pupils are on the right track because a simple desire to improve coupled with 'moronic' training was not effective. If Might Guy did just push-ups the whole day, he would not become the best taijutsu practitioner in Konoha. The guy might seem stupid but he had a lot of knowledge in body improvement through training, diets, and various other ways. Just exercising simply won't cut it in the ninja world.

In this aspect, Kakashi lacked. He just couldn't care less if his pupils were motivated. Worse yet, even if they had enough motivation, he would never hold their hand and guide them in the correct direction to make the most of said motivation.

He wasn't really doing it intentionally though. The man had his issues and... he simply judged others based on himself. Which honestly did not work considering he was a rare type of genius. Holding freshly graduated genins to his standards was just stupidity.

"As such, you want to insert Anko into the team so they get at least some training." Shikaku nodded in understanding. "But the problem is still here. People will see that as blatant favoritism and come to complain to me." He whined.

Tsunade and Yoshino just rolled their eyes at him, "Then tell them she is there to take care of Naruto. The kid is Uzumaki, a relative to Senju. Having a Senju look after him should be normal. Even if Anko is only an honorary one." Tsunade shrugged.

Hearing her reasoning, Shikaku started to ponder... "Yes, that could work. It will still be troublesome to explain but... yeah." He mumbled to himself, unhappy that the troublesome blonde in front of him wasn't persuaded to drop her idea. Well, at least she was willing to compromise.

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