There was a moment of silence in the shuttle. Realizing that no one else was going to move, I took a deep breath and got up, walked over, and stuck out my hand for Riley to shake. “Hello Riley, I am glad I was finally able to meet you. My name is Max.”

I saw Riley look shocked for a moment, possibly because no one had called her by her name, instead of Bonesaw, in a very long time. Or perhaps it was because, as a bio-tinker, very few people wanted to be within touching distance of her.

Yet the strange politeness for a serial killer that she was known for seemed to snap her out of it relatively quickly. “Uh, it is very nice to meet you, Mister Max.”

I gestured towards the table to offer her a seat. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Sabah swallow nervously before grabbing some of the leftover sandwiches. After collecting them on a plate she set them down at an empty space on the table and gestured for Riley to take it. I was proud of her, Bonesaw was a literal boogie man on Earth Bet, but Sabah wasn’t going to let that stop her.

Riley looked unsure but after a moment of hesitation she nodded and walked over to the table and sat down.

Swallowing for a moment, I tried to smile kindly at her. “I will explain everything in a moment, but while I am very, very sorry, I have to ask first. What, if anything, do you remember?”

Riley stared blankly at the sandwiches for several long seconds before with a quiet voice, nearly a whisper she spoke up. “I remember a bit of when Uncl… I mean Jack Slash found me. I remember… a few parts of my… time… as bonesaw. I remember… I remember when things changed, my power… changed…”. There was a moment of silence before I saw her shiver. “I remember… when she… shot me.”

Looking up I could see the utter confusion and I felt my heart hurt a bit for her. She had done monstrous things, but she was a child for nearly all of it. This… this right here, along with Dinah Alcott, were the proof to me that Cauldron were incompetent monsters.

They could hide behind their goals of trying to save the world from a malevolent god. A goal that required sacrifices and hard decisions… no one doubted that. It just didn’t change the reality of how badly they seemed to be screwing pretty much every little thing up..

They had let one small girl, Bonesaw, suffer and be brainwashed for almost a decade. All while she could have been rescued via doormaker at literally any time. Worse, said girl would have then been able to save thousands or even tens of thousands of lives during that period as the world’s best surgeon.

Then since that wasn’t bad enough, they were about to do the exact same thing to Dinah by letting her be a drugged out slave to a pedophile. A precog so powerful that she was one of the only ones that could give them actual answers about killing Scion, their supposed goal.

As I had gone through before, there were other reasons, but these two were so blindingly obvious and right here in my face that I… I shook my head, now wasn’t the time to think about that.

Trying to keep my smile friendly I continued. “I am sorry about all of that. I really am. You didn’t deserve any of that.” Sighing I braced myself as I followed up that apology with the truth. “We were actually the ones that tried to get you away from Jack. We tried to remove your memories as Bonesaw, or at least make them fade a bit. Then we tried to turn you over to Dragon so she could help you because we weren’t sure we could help you at the time and… well to be blunt we figured that you were needed more back there… I am sorry..”

I winced as Riley looked at us confused and a little hurt. The guilt of what we had done by leaving her was really starting to eat at me. We really should have taken her with us, kept her asleep until Hogwarts and let her actually start over.

Sighing, I rubbed my forehead before I continued. “A lot has happened since then, but first things first. When we found out what happened to you, we came back to pick you up. Also, you should know that we aren’t on Earth Bet anymore.”

I saw the confusion cross her face before she asked an incredibly sad question for such a young girl and I could see the resignation on her face. “Wait, so that happened? … Am I dead?”

I shook my head. “No, well… mostly no.” I winced, but decided to just plow on. “Well, you did die, but I had tied your soul to a gem in case something happened so I could bring you back.”

The heartbreak on the sixteen year old girl’s face actually made me feel like someone had grabbed my heart and squeezed. “Why? Why didn’t you just let me stay dead?”

I took a breath and let it out. “Because what happened to you wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. And we wanted to give you a second chance away from Earth Bet.”

The girl looked so lost that I ignored the fact that she could probably still manage to kill me even without tools or the augments she had in her original body. Leaning over I wrapped my arms around the girl and tried to give her the softest hug I could.

Riley stood there for a moment before I felt a shudder in her small shoulders and then a little sob. “I don’t want to… anymore.”

I didn’t know what she didn’t want to do… Hell, I wasn’t sure SHE knew what she didn’t want to do, but I wanted to try to help.

The next hour was hard as we brought her up to speed. Explaining what we had tried to do was hard. Finding out her story, specifically that she had basically been kept in isolated confinement was hard. The only contact with the outside world was via digital communication except when she had someone brought to her that they wanted her to help fix or augment was also bad. These surgeries were all done while another parahuman mastered her to make sure she didn’t do anything else and horrifying.

Dragon had made sure she received some therapy sessions, both mundane and from parahumans, but she still struggled to cope. Then, in the end, it didn’t matter as she was still shot by someone who was a mother of one of her victims. Riley had long been stripped of most of her augments so she slowly bled out in full view of a dozen other people who did nothing to save her.

No, it was beyond horrifying.

She was a child that was brainwashed and controlled into becoming a monster and then when she was helped and tried to turn things around she was locked up, controlled, then murdered in turn.

It was a roller coaster of emotions that I didn’t know how to process and I didn’t think anyone else here did either.

Ultimately retelling the story seemed to tire her out and we actually laid her down on the sofa to nap once she explained she didn’t want to sleep alone. Alice was probably seeing too many parallels with her life of being groomed to be a sex doll that I could almost physically feel her determination to stay with Riley.

Part of me wanted to spend more time helping her, but I suspected that Riley had mixed feelings about us with how we had left her behind the first time. Everyone understood that she was, at best, a highly unstable murderous sociopath at the time, but it didn’t change everyone’s feelings.

Instead I focused on what we needed to get done. There was going to be tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of deaths in the elemental nations in the following years if we didn’t do anything even if Naruko and her alliance won. Admittedly after that struggle there would be a period of peace and after seeing her, I actually was starting to believe she could pull it off, but we could still try to help. If they could get to the same ending, without a fourth great shinobi war, then it was obviously best to try to stop it.

The question was how we were going to let the ninjas in charge know.

Looking over at Amy I grimaced. “I know that we just decided that we wouldn’t treat our bodies like disposable items, but I actually think it is best that I, and anyone else who wants to leave our home, switch over to a new temporary body. If anyone discovers us I want to be able to cut those bodies and run. I don’t want to be stuck in a hostage situation like on Earth Bet where I couldn’t just leave.”

There were some frowns and I could tell that just about everyone’s desires to get out and look around were instantly squashed. Instead we were left with only Amy and Sabah as even Dinah shook her head after a moment..

Sabah actually surprised me, but Amy, Sabah, and Dinah were the ones who had watched the anime and were the only ones who seemed all that interested. The rest had seen the risk of discovery and any fighting that could happen and decided not to risk it.

Dinah looked like she might change her mind again, but Amy noticed her look and smiled at her. “Don’t worry, we will make sure to grab you some Ichiraku Ramen.”

It was Ahsoka who asked the tactical question. “Why don’t you just do everything through a portal like we did when we were in London while picking up Alice.”

I nodded at her. “The first reason is that if we end up actually talking to the main cast and warn them directly then we need to actually be there physically. I am pretty sure they would detect any illusions or trickery and not trust our information. However I am not sure I actually want to do that. It is a lot of risk even if they might take our words more seriously. The second and more important answer is I don’t want them looking for our portals. The last thing we want is them attempting to attack us through the portals and actually succeeding somehow. I don’t understand chakra yet and I don’t want to trust our defenses if we don’t have to. The final reason is a bit silly, but basically I know at least some people here…” I glanced at Amy and Sabah before continuing, “are dying to walk around the village a bit.”

Amy nodded. “Are we going to heal Lee and Hinata via a poke through a portal?”

I hesitated, but nodded. “My gut says yes for Lee, probably do it just before we pop away and leave it as a mystery for everyone here. However, for Hinata, if we are going to offer her a chance to leave with us, we will have to talk to her even if it is through a portal.”

I looked at Ahri then scanned my eyes across the rest of the magic users. “I have a request for the rest of you. I still don’t want to talk to anyone that is going to drag us infront of the torture and interogation department so our strategy for letting Konoha know about the immediate future risks will be illusions and magical compulsions. Focus on having people notice that Sand and Sound are acting suspicious. Maybe some hints that Sound was talking about a ‘boss’. The rest should hear some rumors that will destroy Danzo’s credibility and lead to people looking into his abductions into his personal ANBU, Root.”

I winced as I clarified, “However the majority of the compulsions need to be time delayed so they seem somewhat organic over the next few days. As long as we don’t try to put compulsions on Ninja I think we can get away with it. Some ninja might see through it, but they will still check and that is good enough. Also, I don’t want anyone casting anything on the people immediately around us, just in case some ninja somehow track the civilians doing something weird back to us.”

I could see the agreement among the Family so I smiled. “Other than that, the last thing we need to do during our walk through the village is try to buy some crops. We have a ton of land now so we might as well buy something to grow on it.”

It was Ahsoka who poked the hole in my plan. “With what money?”

I sighed and considered it for a moment. “I will open a portal inside a merchant’s money box and borrow some money. We will just sell a little of our gold and jewelry once we are inside and replace the money when we leave. It is a good chance to get rid of some of the stuff I grabbed in Alice’s London, it isn’t like the late Dr. Bumby will miss it.” I snorted. “Look at me being all ninja-y already.”

I noticed the small chuckles all around before I glanced at Riley and I realized we needed to be safer. Looking at Amy I bit my lip but continued on. “Amy, I think we might need some contingency plans just in case things go badly.”

Amy tilted her head in confusion before she noticed my gauze and grimaced. Still after a moment she nodded. The three of us then followed her to her stockpile of biomass.

Making new bodies only took about an hour before the three of us were able to portal out to a few miles outside of Konoha with new clothes and backpacks, all sewn by Sabah, that matched the local style.

The reason for arriving outside the gates was to give us a paper trail in case anyone asked while we were inside the village. We knew that was a somewhat common occurrence for merchants and laborers as Naruto’s first ever mission outside the village was an escort mission for a bridge builder back to his home.

In fact just as we expected we got inside. Maybe because of the chunin exams requiring the village to be more open or maybe because of our relatively small chakra coils making us feel like barely a threat, we were waved inside with a relatively minor amount of questioning.

I didn’t really doubt that we were going to be watched a bit, but we really were here just to buy things and talk to people while the covert work was being done through a few extra bug portals that Taylor was directing.

The one question that seemed to take the guards back was when we mentioned that Amy was a healer in order to explain why we had this money and jewelry. We had assumed that being paid with heirlooms by poor villagers down on their luck was reasonable and would explain why we needed to sell them in order to get actual money to buy things with. But that might have been a bit strange and I wondered if we could have picked something else. Still, it was too late now.

When we did eventually find a jeweler, selling the items we had was as big an issue as I had started to fear. The merchant had been shocked by the designs he had never seen before.

Thinking quickly I had shrugged and mentioned I thought it was from somewhere in the land of iron, because if I remembered correctly, it was the land ruled by samurai and was somewhat forbidden for any ninja to visit. Regardless we got more than enough money for everything and I replaced the merchant’s money.

After that we began to ask around for a quality blacksmith. I wanted to visit so we could inspect weapons and ideally chakra metal. I wasn't sure we could learn much by just inspecting it with our skills, but it was worth a look.

Asking around got us directions and a few minutes later we were standing inside a blacksmith shop. Getting to look at the chakra blades was actually pretty easy once Amy batted her eyes at the man. However he wasn’t willing to even consider selling to us. I suspected that it was something only Konoha ninja were allowed to buy. Unfortunately I also wasn’t able to figure out what was inside or how it was made. I suspected that it required running chakra through the metal as it was forged, but I didn’t know.

We still picked up a few normal steel knives and a pack of five throwing stars that Sabah claimed she wanted as a souvenir. Despite the slightly strange look the blacksmith gave me, I was actually completely sure that was Sabah’s real reason.

The next stop was a bit more fun. It took a while and a little bit of searching but a few minutes later we were stepping under the banner of Ichiraku Ramen. To my pleasant surprise, it was empty. However I suppose it shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise as we arrived in the mid afternoon. I hadn’t been paying attention to understand the difference in time keeping, but glancing at the sun and knowing it was fall, I would have said it was maybe 3 or 4pm on earth so the dinner crowd wasn’t here yet.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

That allowed us seats at the edge of the bar and even when we ordered a massive number of bowls so we could share them with the Family at home, no ninja was there to see that I simply portaled the insides of some of the bowls away instead of eating them.

When I did finally eat some myself I had to stop myself from groaning in pleasure. Turning to address the cook, I had to compliment him. “Wow, sir, this is fabulous.”

I wasn’t exaggerating either. The broth was rich and filling. The ramen noodles perfectly balanced the line between creamy softness and pleasantly firm texture. The pork was rich and flavorful with marbled fat. The veggies were fresh and hadn’t been swimming in the soup long enough to lose their own flavor while still adding some spice to the broth. Even the egg was soft and added a nice, separate flavor to the meal. I didn’t think it wasn’t the best thing I had ever eaten, but it was definitely up there.

A part of me wondered if part of the taste was the chakra in the food here as there was definitely something there. Maybe it added more depth to the food, but the rest of me didn’t care, it was just plain good.

The owner and chief, Teuchi, had been too busy preparing for the evening rush to notice where food went when I portaled it home but looked up when I complimented his work and simply chuckled. “Thank you, young man. I have worked hard to make it so.”

The three of us smiled and went back to demolishing our bowls, already planning on ordering another round for everyone in the family, which was going to be a bit suspicious, but I didn’t really care.

Amy and Sabah both looked like they were in heaven as we ate as quickly as we could to a smiling Teuchi’s approval.

It was then that my plan for this first part of this trip was flipped on its head when none other than the blond pigtailed Naruko practically threw herself onto the bar next to us.

I had really started leaning towards just dropping a note off with Naruko when we left, giving her some guidance on how and what to train to be prepared, like the rest of the village leaders.

However with this world’s savior right here I was starting to reconsider our options.

I mean, I was already attempting to change the story here and small half hearted measures never seemed to make the changes that we hoped for.

Really, we were finding changing the stories we found to be a lot more difficult than I would have thought. I had always thought the butterflies of what I was doing would make things change more dramatically. Yet in places like HunterXHunter, Yamatai, and even Hogwarts, things seemed to continue mostly on script and I had no idea why.

Shaking off the funk that I was starting to fall into, I smiled at the local hero of this story. I didn’t have to check to know that all of the girls back at home were looking through their portal cameras at us and Amy and Sabah were practically having to hold themselves back from fawning over the girl.

Still, after a few more seconds before Naruko really noticed us, I shrugged mentally and decided that, screw it, we were leaving soon anyway, why not just go for it.? “So, Naruko was it?” Since she had jumped through the entrance way telling us that she passed and was promptly congratulated by Teuchi, “It is really impressive that you made it through the exam to the finals, congrats!”

The nearly painfully straight-forward girl visibly perked up at the congratulations and preened while bashfully rubbing the back of her head. “Ah, you heard about all that. Ha, ha…. Well, I am going to be the best. It is just the next step to becoming the next Hokage, Believe it!”

Nodding, I smiled at the girl, noting again how earnest she was in that declaration and nodded. “I can see that. You certainly seem to have the conviction.” Then I paused and reconsidered how I was going to approach this. “Still, isn’t it hard? I heard there are a lot of strong people in both this nation and the other four great ninja villages… to say nothing about the smaller villages”

I could see the slight arrogance of the standard shonen protagonist bristle as she reassured me that she “absolutely would be the best, Believe It!”… yet I was momentarily distracted wondering if this was still a shonen story if the main character was a girl.

I mean, it was still obviously operating under the rules for that type of story. The minimal romance, focus on training and becoming stronger, and gaining friends along the way was still what young boys liked in their media. Yet she was still a more mature, fairly curvy girl on the very edge of adulthood even in the modern world.

That amusing conundrum managed to distract me so I only caught the end of her boasting, but I kinda doubted I missed anything important. Despite everything she was still a bit of an airhead. She had also somehow managed to finish two bowls of ramen while keeping up the torrent of explanations on her prowess.

Remembering one of my side quests I decided to shoot for the moon and see if we couldn’t get some techniques out of the girl. As we stood up I tried to look earnestly interested. “But what if you can’t be everywhere at the same time?”

“Of course I can, Believe it!” she said while slurping up the last of a third bowl of ramen and setting it down with a thunk.

I was not disappointed when the girl made several hand gestures instead of the one that Naruto used in the anime and she poofed into a half dozen clones. Better yet she confirmed these were shadow clones as one brushed against a chair and moved it.

Not needing to fake how impressed we were at all, all three of us clapped as we stepped out of the restaurant. “Wow, that must be incredibly useful. That must be the famous Shadow Clone Jutsu.” I tried my best to look like something had just occurred to me. “Is that how you train? Can you practice things at the same time using that technique?”

Naruko smiled but looked a bit embarrassed. “Yeah… well sort of. It is really hard to keep track of what they learned when they all pop.”

I blinked as if surprised that this was even an option and nodded slowly. “Would it work better if you only keep them out for a little while and then pop them one by one? If you could, then you could probably get better quicker than just about anyone else out there.”

Naruko looked surprised and then thoughtful. “Huh, I wonder why no one mentioned practicing like that.”

I shrugged. “Probably because no one your age has the chakra reserves you seem to. I would guess that the older ninja train that way, but I heard that making shadow clones was difficult to pull off and exhausting to try. I always assumed that it was extremely chakra intensive to form the clone and even if you succeed you then needed to fill the construct with even more chakra to actually function making it unsustainable for normal ninja…” I trailed off and obviously looked her up and down. “...but you don’t look even a little tired, I guess you aren’t normal. Hokage-indeed”

Once again the blond rubbed the back of her head in what was now obviously a nervous tick. “Uh, yeah, you could say that.”

I nodded sagely as I repeated myself. “Yes, I think I will… You don’t look even a little tired, I guess you aren’t normal. Hokage-indeed”

I smirked as Naruko blinked in confusion before she snorted at retort. “Yeah whatever. Say… how do you know this much about chakra? Are you a ninja too? Where is your headband? What village are you from?”

I smiled a little amused at the motor mouth that I remembered from the show. “First things first I guess. Amy here…” while I gestured towards her, “is an extremely powerful and experienced healer and Sabah and I are her assistants.”

Naruko looked impressed before her eyes got shifty and I actually wondered if I shouldn’t have mentioned that. It was our cover here, but we didn’t need Naruko pulling us into things directly. We had portals so we didn’t have to worry about getting access or dealing with the consequences if we didn’t want to.

My fears were nearly instantly confirmed as Naruko nearly tackled Amy and began her attempt to deafen her with pleas. “Please, please, please please help my friends. I would be so grateful if you could do something, anything. I would make sure to reward you when I become Hokage. Believe It!”

I sighed, now realizing that I had screwed this up and there was zero chance of getting away from the hyper blond. Our trump card of using Amy or Taylor’s abilities to apply a knock out to Naruko was almost certainly going to be useless in the face of the ninetails healing ability.

Amy seemed to, once again, be reading my thoughts because, after visibly enjoying the hug from what I now knew was a well endowed Naruko under her battle kimono, she put her hand on Naruko’s arm and then glanced at me and shook her head.”

Sighing I looked around us as I was sure now that we were outside the restaurant and next to their jinchuuriki we were already being watched by several ninja and tried not to grimace. Giving Naruko a tip on how to train wasn’t a big deal but being pulled into heal people absolutely was. I had just decided that we would be slipping her a note with the rest of the info right before we jumped away and I kinda wanted to try to leave anyway.

Looking at Sabah and Amy I finally rolled my eyes before nodding and Amy clears her throat before pushing Naruko off of her. After another clearing of her throat, probably to try to hide the color in her cheeks, Amy smiled to accept. “If you can get approval for us to visit then we would be willing to try.”

As Naruko grabbed my hand to pull us to what was presumably the hospital I was only slightly distracted by my arm feeling like it was being ripped off. That level of force really was impressive since Amy had reinforced our bodies tremendously.

Instead I was almost completely distracted by my thoughts about Naruko just kept getting her way and how no one was stopping us. Hell, even as we burst through the hospital doors and passed several ninja who looked at us bemused, probably already experienced with Naruko’s antics, no one stepped up to tell us we couldn’t be here.

I was sure the rest of the Family would be helping where they could, but doing all of this should have been noticed if they were just hitting everyone with compulsions to leave us alone.

Bloody Hell, this was a military dictatorship, why were we even being allowed anywhere near their pocket nuke? It was true that they might just trust Naruko that much, but I didn’t think that any of their higher ups thought that way.

So why were they doing this?

Was Naruko just this charismatic? She did seem to just beat her head against a wall until she achieved what she wanted. For a lot of these shonen protagonists, the world just bent over backwards to put up things for them to overcome, but then they always seemed to pull the win out of nowhere.

Wait… why were WE doing this?

I nearly bumped into a nurse walking the other way at the implications.

My mind worked furiously. I remembered reading about the concept of Ta’veren from the Wheel of Time. That fate itself seemed to pull the people into roles and destinies. However there were a few that could, just by their sheer presence, twist people’s fates. I wasn’t sure if it was ever confirmed, but I had always assumed that they were subconsciously twisting others to their benefit.

Was that something that was happening here? Were we fighting against some sort of fate and Naruko was unconsciously twisting reality to her benefit?

It sounded a little crazy, but weren’t we literally just in a reality where Dr. Who won because of what was basically plot armor? I also remember hearing the reason that John Constantine in DC was constantly able to win was because he, or maybe a specifically a version of him, had managed to get a hold of the book of destiny and basically wrote a big ‘I win’ in it... that may have been oversimplified, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t far off. Then there was the Force in Star Wars. I mean, the whole of Star Wars was a mess of fate, and prophecies, and seers that were usually too complicated to follow.

As we were pulled into Lee’s room and finding the room empty of doctors or guards, I looked at Amy who shrugged, probably similarly wondering about the lack of hospital staff. Regardless, she walked over to look at Lee who was sedated and heavily drugged, but still looked to be in a lot of pain.

Reaching out Amy touched the man on his good arm and almost recoiled. “Damn, his bones are basically dust and I have seen ground beef that has been less diced than this.”

I saw Naruko’s face fall as she asked more quietly. “Is there really nothing you can do?”

Amy actually scoffed and smirked at that. “Please, I am the best there is.”

Turning back towards the bed she closed her eyes and focused. I noticed that Naruto seemed confused about something and I remembered that medical Jutsu actually produced a soft green light. I didn’t want to distract Amy, but a wandless lighting charm was something that I was easily capable of and with a flick of my finger, the area under her palm lit up with a small green glow.

Amy didn’t even notice, eyes still closed, but I saw Sabah blink in surprise before looking at me and nodding ever so slightly. I was also glad that Amy had gotten practice making chakra systems because despite how small Lee’s system was, not having one in those limbs would be bad.

As we waited in silence watching Amy heal Lee but not seeing any changes as all of his injuries were under bandages. Still, as the minutes crawled along, I could see Naruko starting to fidget more and more, probably wanting to know if it was working. She may have been older, probably around 17 equivalent Earth years, but as we had seen so far, it was obvious that she was still the hyperactive person we saw in the anime.

It was when Amy took a step back and staggered slightly and Sabah took a quick step forward and caught her, that Naruko couldn’t hold herself back anymore. “Did it work? Did you do it?”

Amy looked exhausted, but triumphant as she smiled. “I told you… best in the world. Just let him sleep for another day or two.”

Once again Naruko launched herself forward, this time hugging the two of them resulting in two blushes before she turned and opened the door to the hospital hallway. Yet this time, I noticed that Naruko made several hand signs and a small poof of smoke before she beckoned us to follow her.

Was she using shadow clones or some sort of Jutsu to keep the doctors away from us?

I wanted to shake my head for getting ahead of myself with the whole fate discussion, but after a moment of further consideration I didn’t. Naruko was canonically an incredible infiltrator when she wanted to be, even if she normally didn’t bother, and pranked the upper level ninja and even painted the Hokage mountains without getting caught. The thing was, I realized that it didn’t have to be all of one or the other…both things might actually be happening here.

I sighed and shook my head. I needed to talk to Luna and Dinah. They would probably have a better idea of what was skill and what was fate. The sooner I knew the better we could plan, but right now I needed to focus.

As we arrived in the next room I noticed a Hyuga walking down the hall away from us and I realized that we were probably visiting Hinata’s room next.

When we arrived I felt the good mood of being able to heal Lee fall again. The girl was laying on her back staring blankly at the ceiling.

Amy didn’t wait and touched Hinata’s hand and in only a minute or two, she pulled away. “She was already nearly healed, but she isn’t responding.”

I cleared my throat for a moment and then leaned over. “Hinata Hyuga, I am sorry, but can you hear me?”

Hinata blinked slowly and then turned her head to look over at us.

I was momentarily shocked to see the blankness of her eyes before I asked, “I am sorry, are you alright… No, you are not. What is wrong? Can we help?”

Hinata finally looked over at us for a moment before I noticed a tear gathering at the corner of her eye. Yet her voice didn’t crack and her body seemed firm yet after a moment I watched as she reached up apparently unaware of what she was doing and touched her own forehead. “The elders have announced that they will begin looking for my husband.”

I winced hard as I realized what she wasn’t saying. The Hyuga that we had just seen was probably here to tell her that she was being moved to the branch family. She was going to be branded with what was basically a slave seal just like her uncle had been. She also was going to be married off, probably to one of her older cousins.

I looked over at the three other girls in the room and sighed. Sabah and Amy instantly understood the issue with Naruko and turned to ask her if there was anyone else they needed to visit.

I leaned over and looked at Hinata, face grim. “I will be blunt. You may not believe me, but we are travelers that have come farther and further than you can imagine and we are willing to help if you ask us to. We have healers and I am the equivalent of a seal master.”

I could see the resignation of the girl as she ignored my words, already believing I couldn’t do anything. “Do not worry, I am…”

Knowing I couldn’t let her sink back into her mind I sighed and opened a portal where Naruko couldn’t see it on my palm and stuck my finger through it making it appear on my forehead. Mostly for kicks and giggles.

Hinata looked unimpressed for a moment until she activated her eyes in order to see through the illusion she assumed it was. There was a moment of confusion before I could see her eyes finally sharpen as she looked at me and then the portal.

I smiled. “If you decide you want to leave, we can help you get power, freedom, and a new opportunity.”

Swapping the portal on my palm to show her our shuttle sitting on the hill inside the pocket dimension. I could see her blink at confusion, not understanding what she was looking at, but knowing it was something that shouldn’t exist.

She looked at me confused and I shrugged. “We like to give people who need it another chance. we know you could grow to incredible heights and we want to help you get there, but we won’t get involved if you don’t want us to.”

The silence was nearly deafening as I watched Hinata war with herself about the revelations and I smiled at her. She looked at me somewhere between heartbroken, confused, and what I wanted to believe was hope.

Poking her left palm I opened a portal only a few millimeters wide, but she noticed instantly. “We will hear you if you want to talk to us. Let us know if you have any questions. If you tell us no, then we will leave you alone. Just keep in mind we plan on leaving in a few days.”

I watched as Hinata nodded a little shakily and I stood up and waved as we prepared to leave. “I hope you feel better Miss Hyuga.”

Hinata hesitated for a few moments before she looked back at me and nodded. “Thank you… and I am sorry.”

The meeting I had just gone through made me almost completely zone out during our visit to TenTen. Admittedly she was dosed with some pretty intense painkillers and Amy wasn’t about to shock a heavily trained ninja by bringing her out of her haze suddenly. So unable to speak with her our stop was short and a few minutes later we were being led back to outside the hospital.

I tried to look sheepish but spoke up. “I think we need to head out. We need to get supplies and get ready to travel if we want to make it back by next week.”

Naruko looked at us a little conflicted, but suddenly smiled. “You three are good people. I hope we meet again soon. We can be friends and I’m gonna show you around Konoha, Believe It!.”

I blinked and then added just in case the compulsion for Karin to talk to Naruko didn’t work or some sort of fate tried to stop their meeting, “Oh, and we met another girl named Uzumachi in the village. She was a red-haired shinobi that said she was coming for the chunin exams. Are the two of you related?”

That revelation blew Naruko’s eyes wide open and she looked like she wanted to start looking right away but was too polite to leave us without a proper goodbye.

I nodded at her and asked the last question. “I can see you weren’t aware of that. If you can just point us towards the farmer’s market, we won't take up any more of your time.”

Naruko looked happy to be able to help us one last time and pointed towards the west before literally jumping for the roofs and a dozen clones poofed into existence and they scattered.

Smiling and waving one last time we left and found the market not ten minutes later.

Just as we had hoped we were able to buy a variety of fruits, vegetables, and even some straight up seeds that we could use to plant in our new land.

It was only as I was debating on whether we still had enough time to head out of town or if we needed to rent a room for the night that I turned to walk away… and nothing happened.

I tried to blink only to realize that I couldn’t do that either.

Hell, my body seemed to be breathing in a different pattern than I was used to and I felt my body straighten up and turn around against my will.

Starting to panic a bit I tried to open a portal only to realize that even that was cut off somehow.

As I was now beginning to panic a little, I saw a dozen ANBU drop down from the rooftops around us.

“Lord Hokage would like to speak to you.”

I wanted to swallow, but I couldn’t. Noticing this, what was probably Shikimaru’s dad smirked at me and I felt myself forced into nodding.

Damn It!

Interlude Karin:

Karin felt conflicted.

Her fellow ninja had been yelling at her to get a move on for several minutes now, but she felt like she had needed to talk to the strange girl in the orange and black kimono.

She was exactly the type of attention seeker that Karin despised, but something was telling her that she should look for her before leaving.

It was strange. Why did she feel that way?

She was about to cycle her chakra to try to disrupt any genjutsu when said blond bombshell literally hit her like one.

She was about to push the strange girl away when what she was saying finally broke through her confused mind. “Cousin! We have to be cousins. It is so good to meet you. Do you have any other family we can meet?”

Karin swallowed and blinked rapidly at the change of topic.

The insistence to talk to this girl that had been running through her mind passed and she found herself smiling slightly. This girl was exactly the type of air head she despised, but it was hard to hate her.

Interlude Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi:

Hiruzen puffed on his pipe and watched through his crystal ball as the three civilians that Naruko found purchased the supplies they said they were going to buy.

A doctor was strange enough that they had someone following them, but there had been nothing overly strange about them right up until they met Naruko. That was when he had pulled up their image on his ball. Still nothing too strange there.

That was right up until he had seen them healing wounds on poor Lee that his best medic-nin said were inoperable and would end the boy’s career.

Then what the boy had done was possibly even more incredible. Some sort of spatial seal the likes of which even Naruko’s father Minato Namikaze hadn't achieved.

It was shocking enough that Hinata had even called for an ANBU to report the occurrence almost immediately after the trio left. She really was such a good girl, one where the will of fire burnt brightly… also probably way more loyal to her family than they deserved, but he had long ago realized that the Hyuga was something he wasn’t going to be able to change himself.

The question was what these three were up to. He was obviously going to get to the bottom of it, but the help they had given meant it would be in his office with perhaps a few mindwalks from Yamanaka instead of in T&I.

Once they knew this group’s secrets he might even let them settle in his village as free citizens and only a minor level of surveillance.

It was the least he could do after all.