The Protagonist System

327 Pain Is In The Mind Conclusion

After checking the Bingo Book, which was the list of the various missing-nin from all over the elemental nations and their bounties, I gathered up the heads and marked off which ones I had. John had said he turned in the bounties for the Akatsuki, probably to get the word out there that they had been taken care of and no one had to worry about them anymore, so I disposed of them with the other bodies.

I stepped from there and back to my room and was surprised I could still feel Azkaban Island and knew where it was. I left my room and entered the living room where Yui was and asked for the map. She pulled it out and I asked for a pencil. She handed it over without question and stared at me as I marked one of the dead islands in Whirlpool with Azkaban Prison.

“It was a gift from John.” I said and she kept staring at me, as if I was joking. “I'm not sure what I'm going to do with a bunch of guards...” I stopped talking when I felt the dementors fade from existence. I immediately thought about doing the same with the island and it faded away as well. However, I could still feel a connection to it and that was a little weird. “Never mind.”

Yui opened her mouth, seemed to change her mind, and closed it. She took the pencil back and rolled up the map, put it in her expanded bag, and walked away. I watched her until she went down the hallway to her room.

“We like it when you keep looking at us like that, even after having us so much.” Tsuru said.

I turned and saw her come out of the kitchen as she dried her hands on a towel. “I would have done the dishes when I came back.” I said and she flipped the towel to fold it in half and hung it over her left shoulder.

“I know.” Tsuru said and walked over to me and gave me a tender kiss. “Can you tell me anything about what happened?”

I thought about that. It might cause us a lot of trouble if it ever got out that someone like John had visited and taken care of a good portion of the future threats. Then again, we were going to do the same thing, only over a much longer period of time.

“Heh.” I said when I realized something. “I didn't ask him how long he was here.”

“Was?” Tsuru asked, catching the important part of that statement.

“He left after showing me his special ability, which I kinda helped fix, then he handed me the heads of nearly everyone in the Bingo Book as a thank you.” I told her.

Tsuru's eyes widened. “You're joking.”

“Not even a little.” I said and took out the bag and opened it to show off the mass of decapitated heads. I shook it a little and the mass shifted to show her there were a lot of heads.

“He gave up that much money?” Tsuru asked and reached in to pull out a head she recognized. “Naruto, how... how did...” She held up the head of a missing-nin named Hidan, whom was supposed to be immortal. He could survive any wound, even beheading and being blown up; and yet, Tsuru had his head in her hands.

“The thing about immortality is that it usually requires a soul to inhabit the body. Without a soul...” I smiled and nodded at the head. “It's just resilient flesh, nothing more.”

Tsuru looked from the head to me. “Didn't John say he claimed the Akatsuki bounties?”

“He did.” I answered. “I wanted to keep the proof that even supposedly immortal beings aren't as immortal as they thought they were.”

Tsuru nodded and put the head back into the bag. “What are we going to do now?”

I put the bag away and put my arms around her. “We'll finish the bridge and keep going on like we've been going on.” I said and kissed her.

“But, the whole plan...” Tsuru started to protest.

“The only thing that has to change is we don't have any extra missions in each place we go to, that's all.” I said and picked her up.

Tsuru put her arms around my neck and I carried her to her bedroom. “You still want to go through all of that, even if the whole point of this was to travel to each place to take care of certain problems?”

I chuckled and shut her bedroom door. “The only reason the plan has been taking this long to do, is because I wanted to spend as much time with my friends and family as I possibly could, while also dealing with threats to keep you all safe.”

Tsuru smiled warmly and held onto me when I tried to put her onto the bed. I laughed as she dragged me down and we wrestled for a few minutes before we stripped off and started having some real fun.

*

Obviously, we couldn't turn in all of the bounties at once. It would bankrupt whatever village we visited, or worse, be ordered to stay for as long as it took for them to notify the people in charge and we would have to wait for a long time for them to pay the bounties.

So, we spread them out. A few of the smaller ones in the little villages, so it would give them a bit of notoriety and a good story. A missing-nin was killed near their village and they were really happy about that. It always made Tsuru and Anko laugh when the civilians reacted that way.

We eventually finished the very large and quite tourist friendly bridge in the Land of Grass. Most of the locals had shown up during the opening day celebrations, as did a bunch of people and ninja from the surrounding countries. The bridge really was going to be a huge boon to travellers, cutting their trips down by a couple of days. Plus, it was a hell of a lot safer than trying to traverse steep paths and rocky trails.

It was a party that everyone enjoyed and I kept a close eye on the discontents. My danger sense came in handy for that and I had Anko take care of a few shinobi that were there to sabotage the bridge. She had fun as she played with them, scared them, and interrogated them. They were sorely outclassed by her, since she had worked hard herself and could rank up officially.

Anko didn't, because she didn't want the extra responsibility. At her current rank of Special Jonin, she could do whatever she wanted, even take dangerous missions or retire, and no one would question her about it. The flexibility was what she liked and everyone always underestimated her, so she didn't want to give up that advantage.

When the party was winding down, we all silently packed up and slipped away before anyone realized we had left. With the Raikage dead, we didn't have to follow his previous order; but, no one would understand why we had not complied with the order, since his death hadn't been announced. Since we had to pretend we didn't know he was dead, we went to the Land of Lightning next.

No one stopped us when we reached the base of the mountain where the hidden village was built. We proceeded up to the large gate and Yui presented the scroll we had been sent. We were waved in without being checked and entered the Hidden Cloud Village. A young redheaded kunoichi met us on the main street just inside the gate.

“Welcome to Kumo. My name is Kamui and will be your guide.” She said as she bowed and then stood up straight to motion us to follow her. “The Raikage is waiting for you at the mansion.”

We followed along and kept on guard, just in case, and entered the village leader's residence. When we entered the meeting room, we were surprised to see a beautiful white haired and voluptuous woman seated at the far side of the table.

“Hi, Mabui!” Yui said and ran over to give the woman a hug. “I haven't heard from you in a few weeks. How did you like the bolts of silk I sourced directly from the Namikaze Ranch in Konoha for you?”

Tsuru chuckled and grabbed Yui's arm to pull her back. “This is supposed to be a formal meeting between our company and the Raikage. You can catch up with your fellow secretary assistant on your own time.”

Yui let herself be pulled away. “It's fine, Tsuru. The meeting doesn't begin until the Raikage enters the room, so we have some leeway for personal greetings.”

Both the young woman that escorted us and the older woman waiting for us stiffened slightly.

“Yui.” I said with a stern tone and she stiffened as well and looked at me with intensity. “I believe the Raikage is in the room already.”

Yui gasped and turned around to stare at her friend, only to see the sad look. “M-Mabui?” She asked, her voice shaky. “You can't be the only... there were so many others...”

“Yes, there were.” Mabui said pointedly and then stood. “Greetings, members and guards of Uzumaki Construction. Welcome to the Hidden Village in the Clouds. My village.”

Yui bowed in half and pulled out the scroll of invitation to hold out to her friend. “Th-thank you for the warm welcome, Lady Raikage. We have arrived at the earliest time we deemed it possible, as per the wording on the invitation.”

Mabui let out a soft sigh at the excuse and took the scroll. “I warned him about that when the messenger arrived with your own carefully worded response.”

I wasn't going to let that pass without comment. “I'm not sorry for putting this off after what happened since the request was sent to us.”

Mabui nodded and looked over at the young woman that escorted us through the village. “You may return to your duties, Kamui. I'll notify you when you need to be an escort again.”

“Lady Hokage.” Kamui bowed deeply and left the room.

“Sit, please.” Mabui said and waved at the chairs across the table and sat down herself.

Anko, Yashamaru, Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara moved off to the side of the room and stood there as guards.

“As you no doubt have guessed already, this is no longer in effect.” Mabui said and shook the scroll at us and set it aside.

“It still let us in to see you.” Yui said and closed her eyes for a second before she opened them and looked into Mabui's eyes. “I apologize for interrupting, Lady Raikage.”

Mabui gave her a sad look and turned her head as her eyes locked onto mine. “It is quite difficult to change a friendly relationship into a business one, especially if they conflict with each other so fundamentally.”

“I'd rather just include it instead of excluding either one or both.” I said and motioned to Yui. “I'm sure it would relieve a lot of the strain the both of you are feeling if we temporarily forget to adhere to the proper meeting protocols.”

Mabui held her blank expression for only another moment before it broke and tears came to her eyes. Yui was out of her chair and across the table instantly and they both started crying as she held her friend in her arms.

I glanced over at Anko and nodded slightly.

“We saw nothing.” Anko said and tapped the kids on the shoulder as Yashamaru quietly opened the door. “Silent patrol and scouting of a new and potentially hostile area. Deal with anything you see is suspicious and report back if it's anything you can't handle.”

“Hai, sensei.” Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara said as one, then they disappeared in a small swirl of sand.

Anko nodded back to me and both she and Yashamaru disappeared and the door closed silently.

“We'll offer our support.” Tsuru said and motioned for Akiko to go with her. “Naruto, you should check on things yourself while we're busy.”

“Agreed.” I said and closed my eyes as I activated my X-Ray Vision. John had said he removed most of the top Cloud shinobi, only I hadn't realized at the time what that would mean for a hidden village. When they lost their most powerful members, who was left to protect the citizens? Secretaries and ninja academy students that hadn't graduated yet. Did the Land of Lightning have any old retired ninjas? No, they didn't.

If you made it to a certain age, you were considered a very powerful shinobi for a reason. Most ninja didn't reach that age, because it was a very dangerous lifestyle and retiring usually meant you were either severely crippled or dead.

I could see a few people were around and they were strong, only none of them were as strong as Mabui, whom was the previous Raikage's secretary and ran the village for him. Now she was in charge, because she had the most experience.

So, what should we do? Our invitation was revoked. If we stick around anyway, we might become too involved with the local problems to continue on with the plan. Then again, the plan was only to spend more time with everyone, so if this became our temporary base for a while, it wouldn't be too big of a hindrance. I would just be doing a lot of the new projects all alone.

I stopped looking around and opened my eyes. Yui's tear-streaked face turned to me and she silently pleaded with me. Well, I couldn't refuse her wanting to help her friend, so I nodded. Yui smiled at me, mouthed a silent thank you, and went back to comforting her friend with words and a promise to stay around to help her as much as she could.

Tsuru smiled as well and put her hand on Yui's shoulder, giving her support and silently agreeing. We would all help the new Raikage with her duties and keeping her village safe.

*

The ninja academy welcomed three new teachers for the senior class. The students would be put through an accelerated training program that would shoot them well past the requirements to graduate and would be put into the realm of the next rank up, Chunin.

Only a few of the students were skeptical about such a boast and they changed their mind after only a single class. Word spread to the other students and soon the head of the academy was receiving hundreds of requests to include the other years into the program, even the ones that had just joined. They all knew getting the training as early as possible could help the students develop their chakra reserves well past the normal training did.

When the requests reached the Raikage, she approached her friend Yui about it. She had wanted to hire the talented woman as her own secretary and assistant, only Yui was too busy to add that to the businesses she was already running. Her family needed her and she wouldn't abandon them.

After a lot of discussions and some extra money changing hands, an extra curricular class was offered after school hours, because the administration couldn't officially sanction the techniques being used on the much younger students. They left the responsibility on the shoulders of the parents, whom were more than happy to take it if their children could become stronger faster.

Their village needed more shinobi and they needed them as soon as possible.

So began the epic training montage that also included the Genin team that had shocked everyone with what they could do. They were only supposed to be Genin, just recently graduated, and they could kick the ass of most of the Chunin around and some of the ninja above that rank, the Jonin.

All of the new students wanted to be as strong as the special assistant instructors and the three siblings took pride in themselves and helped the instructors with exercises and techniques that made them stand out so much. Everyone benefited and none of the students quit, even with how difficult it was and the instructors and assistant instructors did not go easy on them.