Being grabbed and forcibly whisked away to meet with the Hokage was not my idea of a good time.

Seeing the Yamanaka patriarch standing next to the Hokage added just that little bit more to the experience. Not knowing if my mental defenses would let me completely shake off this world’s version of a powerful telepath really was making my stomach start to twist uncomfortably.

However, as much as it might appear to the outside, this wasn’t Earth Bet again. We weren’t trapped. Hell, if I had wanted to I could have pulled my soul out of this temporary body followed by Amy and Sabah.

That said, I really should have considered the option that the Nara shadow-bind jutsu would be able to stop or at least restrict my abilities a little. It stopped chakra usage by other ninja so I should have considered the possibility that it could stop me from opening new portals.

The good news was that the jutsu didn’t force me to close previously opened portals. That made sense as it didn’t cut off chakra all together or forcibly de-summon summoned animals from what I remember. It just seemed to force me to copy the actions or inactions of the nara performing the jutsu.

It also did absolutely nothing about our soul portals that controlled these bodies. In fact, looking at them now, the souls themselves were holding those open. That was both good and bad. It meant that my girls and I couldn’t be instantly killed if my abilities were ever turned off, but it also meant it would take a bit longer to pull us out of a situation like this. It might have actually worked that way before I pulled most of our souls back into our bodies, but it certainly didn’t anymore. It was like sticking the tip of my toe outside the door, ready to pull it back, versus being all the way outside and only holding the door open a little from the other side

However, considering my options, it might have been amusing if it had forced all of my portals closed. Trying to capture us to only have the three of us drop dead would have been a bit shocking. Especially when we showed up later in an identical copy of said body. I might have actually snorted if I could as I considered what the ninja in front of me would have thought seeing that.

The thing was, I wouldn’t ever do that because that opened the possibility of the worst case scenario. Specifically on the very small chance they figured out how to seal my soul into something and thus stopped me from being able to leave. I didn’t think any ninja here had that ability but fuinjutsu seemed to contain just enough BS to make that possible, I mean both the third and fourth Hokages apparently made a deal with their grim reaper. So that potential prank would stay as a final trump card only.

Suddenly I felt the control on my head and mouth retract just a little. A small flex of my abilities showed that I still didn’t have access to my portals or magic, but they were obviously giving me access to my mouth again, probably so they could ask us questions.

This entire time Hiruzen had just sat there in his formal Hokage robes and obnoxiously large hat as he studied us. Obviously I felt the pressure to start talking. There might have even been just a hint of killing intent to increase the pressure, but I knew this tactic. The silence and staredown were a classic interrogation technique. By waiting for me to make the first move, I was both the petitioner and he would be able to adjust his position based on what I said.

The funny thing was, I knew we were absolutely no match for any of these people here in direct combat… but we didn’t need to be. So taking that attitude and running with it, when Hiruzen raised his eyebrow at me from under his hat I actually rolled my eyes.

If he pissed us off, we should be able to just leave. Drop off a note with Naruko like our original plan. If he was willing to work with us then we could deal with him directly.

The chuckle the old man gave sounded very grandfatherly, but I had met too many strong old men to be fooled for even a second. “Maybe you would be so kind as to explain what you are doing here, young man. We wouldn’t want any misunderstandings, now would we?”

I shrugged and smiled. “Unless you are willing to put up more security than this. We are just travelers, helping a bit where we visit, nothing more and nothing less. Don’t worry about us, we will be moving on soon enough.”

I watched as several of the ninja around the room bristled with my disrespect, but I didn’t actually care. As I had said, we were moving on. This time we weren’t trapped and we weren’t unprepared.

The Yamanaka elder took a step forward, probably to try to put extra pressure on me. Their clan was known for their mental arts and a society so filled with secrets would obviously be terrified of him.

Personally I was just wondering if he was Ino’s father, Inoichi. He did have the pony tail and long blond hair so I guess that I would assume he was until corrected otherwise. He was wearing the somewhat familiar looking red and black vest that I vaguely remembered Inoichi wearing in the anime so I was probably right.

Hiruzen studied me for a moment before he asked. “You are sure you don’t want to tell us what you are up to?”

I shook my head, now a little curious what they would do. We were being treated with kid gloves as far as ninja went and I was curious what would happen next.

Stepping forward Inoichi glanced at Hiruzen who gave him an uncaring smile and nodded like this was all just extremely amusing for him… it probably was.

Making several hand movements that formed the seals the ninja used to perform their jutsu, he ended by forming a box between his two hands, thumb to forefinger. With obvious deliberateness, he lifted his hands up and looked through said box.

Bracing myself for it, I instantly felt like a spike was being driven into my mental walls. For a moment I felt a moment of panic thinking he was only getting started and that I might fail. Internally that made me prepare to pull myself out of this body, but the pressure retreated as quickly as it had come, ending up being maybe a third of my limit.

In the real world I watched as Inoichi stumbled backwards clutching his head.

Virtually all of the ninja pulled out weapons and momentarily leveled them at me. Now able to move my head a bit and focus with my soul senses, I counted out ten ninja in the cramped Hokage office including Hiruzen himself, Inoichi, and who I realized was Shikaku Nara. Honestly I was kind of impressed to have both the head of the Nara clan and the head of the Yamanaka present to capture and interrogate us.

Shaking his head one last time, Inoichi stood up and looked over at the Hokage. “Hokage-sama, the boy has strong mental defenses. Strong enough to bounce me back out. Should I try on the women?”

Hiruzen huffed for a moment before he tilted his head and nodded at Sabah. “I don’t want them hurt… But don’t try on the healer, just in case.”

That made me a bit annoyed as Sabah wasn’t less important to me just because she couldn’t heal, but I did keep in mind that the kid gloves were still very much on. These were trained killers and torturers. We could have spent several days in T&I to break our wills before this interrogation so they probably wanted to at least have the chance of staying on our good side.

It was also a wise move. We were completely unknown with unknown abilities and motivations and therefore a threat. However objectively we had done nothing but help the village or go about our own innocuous business.

No matter how curious or annoyed you were with 3rd party actors, a wise leader didn’t burn contacts like that without a very good reason. That turned potential allies into firm enemies really quickly… looking at you Cauldron.

Sabah, knowing what was coming, didn’t even flinch as she rebuffed Inoichi’s probes. Inoichi in turn was either more prepared for the rebound or didn’t try as hard as he simply rubbed his forehead a bit and scowled and shook off the discomfort.

Hiruzen snapped his fingers and a fraction of a second later the bowl of his pipe burst into flame and then settled down into a small ember that Hiruzen sucked through his pipe and blew back out in a long slow puff of smoke. Closing his eyes the old man seemed to consider things for several minutes as he leaned back in his chair.

Finally looking at me Hiruzen tapped the table in front of him with his finger. “You three certainly are an interesting conundrum.” The taps kept their slow and light pattern. “You appear somewhere outside the village with no history of fire country border crossings nor has anyone heard of a healer as skilled as you with your description. So either you haven’t done any healing anywhere near fire country, you were disguised, or you have been hiding it somehow.

Trying to not be combative if I didn’t have to be as we were still visitors in his village. Plus I wanted the ability to come back and purchase more chakra materials. “Is there a question in there, sir?” I asked while trying to smile neutrally.

Hiruzen huffed, fully amused this time. “Ok young man, let's play that game. What do you want to accomplish here? Why did you contact Naruko? How and why did you heal poor Lee-kun?”

Internally I felt like laughing. They were definitely taking it easy on us if they were just going to ask us the questions directly. However, I also realized that they must want something from us if they were being this accommodating.

Externally I just smiled “As I said, we are just travelers.” Glancing at his crystal ball I hummed. “Either you or one of your ninja must have noticed my abilities to travel, correct?”

Hiruzen didn’t say anything so I chuckled and continued. “I was being serious about the security measures. I am willing to say more, but I don’t think you will want everything we are about to say to get out.”

Hiruzen sighed and made a signal where two ANBU left to probably guard the door. Then reaching down Hizuen a palm under his desk. A second later my mouth nearly fell open as I could feel the pressure as an unknown number of security seals sprung into place. Obviously able to notice my surprise, Hiruzen simply raised his eyebrow at us. I kind of wished I could have pulled the room halfway into a pocket dimension like I had done on Earth Bet for true out-of-context security, but the process was slow and I doubted the ninja here would let me do anything before they restrained me again.

I smiled, happy he was at least willing to at least humor us a little. That was a good sign. “Well, whether you believe it or not, this village was just somewhere we were stopping by for supplies. We don’t have any designs here other than helping the kind young woman, Naruko, that we met randomly while we enjoyed an early dinner. As for healing Lee, Naruko found us and well… there really wasn’t anyone stopping her once she got started.”

I laughed and to my relief, not only did Hiruzen chuckle, but I noticed Inoichi actually cracked a small smile as well.

Hiruzen sighed and studied us a little longer before his mouth fell into a small frown. “And your attempt to get young Miss Hyuga-san to defect?”

I tried not to wince but I was pretty sure I failed as I still saw Hiruzen studying me carefully. Still, I wasn’t about to lie since limited honesty was probably how we got out of this with the least problems. It also made me realize that either Hiruzen was watching us, a ninja was hiding in the hospital room somewhere despite us checking for that, or Hinata had reported us directly. Honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all three despite our best efforts to watch for it.

Finally shrugging I looked Hiruzen in the eye and seeing his interest I decided to explain. “We have two seers in our employ. However, as useful as that sounds, our information has a lot of possibilities.”

Knowing that they wouldn’t just leave it like that I nodded. “We will give you some predictions that we are fairly confident in, but you should know that we weren’t sure if Naruko was a boy or a girl. If there was a war going on right now. Or even if the village had been destroyed by the nine tailed fox making the survivors have to scatter to the four winds. All of those were possibilities, albeit the more unlikely ones.”

Hiruzen, who had let his eyes go wide in surprise and interest at the possibility of seers, calmed back down by the end of our explanation. I had actually been talking about all of the different alternate universes from fan fiction, so that was true but misleading. Luna and Dinah were way more accurate, but Hiruzen didn’t need to know that.

Seeing his understanding I continued my explanation. “During those glimpses of possibilities we noticed that Miss Hinata Hyuga was… not particularly happy… as she was. So when we came across her we decided to give her… options.”

Seeing as, despite the greater trust we were being given and the slowly retracting shadow binding, I could still only move my head and shoulders right now, so I just shrugged again. “We have no ill feelings against the leaf and would have done nothing against you or your village. However, helping people is kind of my entire thing. My motivation right now can basically be summed up as getting stronger and helping people along the way.”

Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Sabah and Amy both nod emphatically at that.

Hiruzen looked interested in that, probably hoping that was a slip of the tongue and he could track down the rest of these people in his village. “And how many people are in this organization of yours?”

I just smiled. “There is Sabah,” I tilted my head at Sabah, “and Amy,” I tilted my head at Amy. Then, wishing I could count on my fingers I continued. “Then there is Amy’s extended family. Taylor and her family, Dinah and her family, Ahri, Aisha and her brother, Lisa, Thea, Alice, Ahsoka, Hermione, Luna and her father Xeno. We also have helped several other people along the way who are not currently with us.”

Hiruzen obviously thought we were talking about one or two others and so was a little surprised as I laid out our group. “And where are these others?”

I shrugged. “On the other side of my portals.”

Hiruzen nodded, taking another drag on his pipe. “And these portals… where can they go?”

I smiled. “Almost anywhere given enough time…” I tried to make the smile friendly, but I was pretty sure Hiruzen saw the warning in my eyes.

Yet he didn’t drop the grandfatherly act as he nodded. “Ah, I see… healing and instant travel… that would be a powerful set of abilities. Would you be willing to consider an offer to join Konoha?”

I shook my head. “We are more than willing to help you while we are here, but there are still other people in other places that need our help and we have promised to return.”

Hiruzen turned and looked out the window. “Hypothetically, what would you do if we didn’t permit you to leave? Your abilities might be too dangerous to be left in the wrong hands.”

This time I laughed. “Unfortunately, I don’t think you can.” Seeing Hiruzen turn to face us again, eyebrow raised, I continued. “You aren’t the first one to try to stop us, you see. There are several contingencies systems we have come up with since then.”

I smiled as everyone tensed slightly. “The first reason is because we keep undetectable communication devices on us at all times. They know we were taken and if we don’t return they will be more than happy to start opening portals around the village and start throwing fire indiscriminately throughout the village.”

The tension in the room skyrocketed and I felt what must have been killing intent directed at us. It was intense, but focusing on my mental defenses it only washed over me and I didn’t stop my explanation. “Second reason is that Amy here has created several dead-man drops. Specifically canisters that will release a disease if we don’t pick them back up and deactivate them. These ones should have the entire village be bedridden for weeks. I am sure the other nations would be more than happy to take advantage of your weakness.”

Several of the ninja looked like they wanted to kill us right then and there while I just scoffed. “Just be glad she stopped there. We had considered putting out something that would just be straight up lethal within minutes.”

We hadn’t actually yet dropped anything in the village but we had actually made the small dead man packets that we could drop just in case it came down to it. All I had to do was open a portal in the bottom of their storage tubes and a few hours later, after being exposed to oxygen, they would release their payload.

Now in the silent room I smiled. “The third reason is a bit more straightforward. You seem experienced enough to know that with our mental defenses, you need to keep us either happy or so completely mentally broken that we couldn’t even consider betraying you. Anything less and you would be playing with the survival of the village and anything more means you risk actually killing us. That is a difficult line to walk.”

The ninja in the room looked more and more nervous, but Hiruzen just looked amused. “And if we just decided you posed too great a risk and that it was better to just get rid of the threat and deal with your likely exaggerated consequences?”

I smiled even wider. “Then the last reason. These aren’t our real bodies, just remote controlled dolls.”

Hiruzen actually let his eyes go wide at that but his voice didn’t break his amused grandfatherly tone. “Oh, ho ho… young man. Not bad, not bad.”

Waving his pipe at us in a congratulatory manner and then tapping the soot out, he started packing more tobacco although I thought this time I think I saw some other things added in there.

After getting it to the way he wanted, he once again snapped his fingers and lit the new bundle. Once he took a deep pull he shook his head. “Again, not bad young man, but would you really want to make an enemy of the leaf? I can guarantee that you wouldn’t enjoy our enmity. If we put a bounty on your head there would be very few places you wouldn’t be hunted. We wouldn’t even have to risk our own men on the search.” His smile turned warmer and more grandfatherly again. “Plus, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to have our village to support your efforts in assisting others?”

I nodded. “Of course, that is why we want to work with you, from what we have seen you are the strongest and most reasonable village in this part of the world. But we need the ability to move and there is only so often we can come back.”

Hiruzen took another long drag and quietly hummed to himself. “So, not that far a range then…” There was nearly a minute of silence as the sun went down before he seemed to reach some sort of decision. Looking over at us he smiled. “What would you deem a fair price for healing the rest of our furloughed ninja? Many of them have received crippling injuries throughout their careers.”

I blinked but noticing that we were now completely free from the shadow bind, I turned to Amy and raised an eyebrow. “What do you think, love?”

Amy huffed and tilted her head, considering a fair price. “To start, some scrolls on chakra techniques, medical techniques, and physical conditioning.”

Turning back towards Hiruzen, I nodded. “I am also extremely interested in the shadow clone jutsu and some introductory texts on fuinjutsu.” I had seen Naruko perform it, but having the scroll would help the trial and error in figuring it out.

Hiruzen raised one of his bushy eyebrows again. “Why would you need those? Young lady, you already have surpassed all but the very best of our healers.” Turning away from Amy to address me Hiruzen continued, ”and if what you told Hinata Hyuga-chan, you already should know more than the basics of seals.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Amy smiled, gesturing between the three of us. “Our techniques are a lot closer to a bloodline ability. We aren’t sure anyone can do what we do. It is likely that not even our kids will be able to do it. That said, we are always looking to improve our skills.”

It was obvious that information disappointed Hiruzen, but it didn’t stop him in his obvious desire to tie us to the village. “I see… well, that is unfortunate, but for healing, we could probably gift you a few scrolls.” Looking a bit more serious he pointed towards me. “However, you must not attempt the shadow clone jutsu until you have at least four times the chakra you currently possess.”

I nodded. “Thank you for the instruction, sir.”

Hiruzen scoffed, then turned to me and narrowed his eyes and for the first time looked truly serious. “Now, I think we need to discuss your comments about a seer. Information can be truly dangerous, especially in the wrong hands.”

I nodded and after a moment I decided to just play it straight. “As I said, we are leaving soon, but I am willing to sell you the more likely possibilities if the price is right. I am also willing to do some seal removal. I can create seals, but I would class myself as particularly good at breaking them.”

Hiruzen narrowed his eyes. “What kind of seals can you break?”

I nodded. “Everything I have seen so far, it is just a matter of time.”

Once again Hiruzen tapped his fingers on the table before he smiled. “Let's see what you have to offer and I will decide how much it is worth.”

I scoffed while considering what I could do in the next few hours. “Fine, bring in the people you would like us to work on and we will see what we can do. However I want at least half of our payment up front once we have proved we can do what we claim.”

Turning, Hiruzen looked over a little pensive before he seemed to make a decision. “ANBU Salamander, come over here and let him take a look at your seal.”

I blinked before I realized that Anko was among this group of ANBU. In a flash Anko was standing in front of me before she turned around and knelt so I had access to the side of her neck before rolling down the neck wrappings.

Leaning forwards I studied the seal. It was a bit different from Sasuke’s and thus required another complete examination.

In the background I heard Amy examining someone that was coughing. She talked about poison gas for a minute then explained that she could fix him, but he would have to take it easy for a few days for him to get used to the increased lung capacity while I wondered if it was Hayate Gekko. He was supposed to die confronting sand ninja before the next task if we didn’t do anything, but I didn’t remember the details. Then again Amy and Sabah probably did and would probably try to point him away from that.

Instead I focused on Anko’s cursed seal. After reading it several times and tracing the symbols pathways I could see, I was able to confirm that it operated the same, but it was missing some of the refinements that Sasuke’s seal had. After considering for a few minutes and searching for possible other interpretations with my language skills, I decided that this meant the seal was going to be both paradoxically harder and easier to remove.

Specifically the nature chakra was less confined and would hurt Anko if I wasn’t careful, but I didn’t need to be nearly as precise with my release character placement.

Reaching out I poked around the skin trying to understand how her chakra pathways ran underneath the seal. I didn’t understand them, but I wanted to make sure that my rune placement blocked the flow of chakra in the area so nothing would pass through to the rest of her body. In this aspect I was pretty positive that chakra would act just like blood and I didn’t want the metaphorical tainted blood to be introduced into the rest of her.

Coming out of my fugue I turned around to be faced with none other than Jiraiya, the toad sage and member of the Sannin. I glanced over at Amy and Sabah who I expected to be excited to see the man. However when I looked over the two were openly glaring at him. I felt a flare of annoyance at the pervert for what he might have done. Amy’s modifications had definitely put them in the 10/10 range.

Yet there wasn’t much I could do about it yet that was both non-lethal and wouldn’t get us attacked by the rest of the ninja here. Really, it was just reason 153 on why I needed to be stronger. Then I could kick him in the dick for messing with my girls.

Turning back to Hiruzen I decided to do what I had been called in here for. “I can remove it, would you like me to try now?”

Hiruzen looked at Jiraiya, “Why don’t you explain it to Jiraiya first.”

I sighed and turned to the pervert. “I am proposing a sealing rune here, here and here to protect her from the nature chakra with four purification runes here and here. Followed by a draining rune here and an ending rune here.” While tapping each location around the curse mark.

Jiraiya opened his mouth and started to say, “Hey brat, what do…” before he looked at me and tilted his head. “...Say that again.”

Repeating myself got the spiky white haired assassin masquerading as a joke character to narrow his eyes at me. “Again…”

Now a little confused at what he was picking up on I repeated myself.

Jiraiya seemed to consider it for a moment before he turned back to Hiruzen. “I can’t believe I am saying this, but let him give it a try. I thought he was just messing with me, but he is doing something strange when he describes the seal and his ‘runes’ that I can’t actually track.”

Making an emphasis on the word runes, probably because it was different from the common vernacular of fuinjitsu masters. I had assumed that my omnilingual abilities would have just translated it to the term they used, but obviously there was something else going on.

Shaking his white mane of hair, Jiraiya simply shrugged. “Honestly when he describes his seals it is like there is subtext there. Regardless, I should be able to kill him and stop the process if it doesn’t work.”

Hiruzen raised his eyebrows before he looked at me and gave me a nod. Ignoring the threat, I reached out and pulled a modified sharpie from my supplies on the shuttle. This one having been filled with a mix of my own blood.

I saw some of the ninja look confused because I wasn’t using a traditional brush setup. However, just like how I liked using ball point pens for my note taking in Hogwarts, I wasn’t going to use inferior methods when it wasn’t necessary.

The reason why I was using blood was because temporary runes written in blood were the most powerful. Now that I thought about it, that was something that seemed to cross realities since I remembered Naruto doing things with blood in the cannon story..

What I didn’t explain was that I was still going to have to deal with Orochimaru’s soul when it was expelled. I wasn’t about to go telling them that I could manipulate souls if I didn’t have to. Hell, I didn’t trust Hiruzen with my family’s well-being further than I could throw the Hokage mountain, but I was starting to trust his pragmatic side. He wanted his people healed and we wanted the best study materials and if we said we would be back, then it was a long term investment.

Once again focusing on my tasks and taking several moments to fully prepare, I placed my hand on the curse mark and pressed my magic into the runes to activate them. I felt the pain as the surface of my palm began to tighten, but another hasty portal dumped the nature chakra into the air nearly a mile above us.

It was when the chakra was nearly gone that I finally got a chance to clamp down on the soul fragment of Orochimaru as it tried to escape. I was pretty sure it would have dissipated before being able to possess anyone else, but I wasn’t about to take that chance. We didn’t need another Harry Potter and Voldemort situation here.

Pulling my wand from my wand pocket I cast the strongest memory spell I could at the fragment then shoved the soul through a portal in front of Ahri. Being eaten by a fox demon seemed like a fitting end to the pedophile psychopath. Ahri shouldn’t even have to deal with the memories or feelings with the level of obliviate that I had hit it with, meaning everything was cleaned up quite nicely.

Underneath me I finally noticed that Anko had collapsed and several people around me looked worried. Yet a moment later the relieved sigh and then small giddy laugh she let out probably demonstrated that it had worked better than any inspection could have.

It didn’t stop Hiruzen from ordering Jiraiya to inspect her and for her to pull out a kunai when it looked like he was going to get a little too handsy. But he must have called for Sasuke to be brought to the tower before Jiraiya even finished because not 10 seconds after Jiraiya stepped back declaring her to be clean from any lingering traces of the seal, Sasuke was stepping through the temporarily disabled seals around the Hokage office.

A repeat of my performance with some extra time to align the release runes saw Sasuke collapse and be carried out of the room. Understandable since his younger body was a lot less resilient than Anko. It also gave Ahri another snack to enjoy while they were waiting.

The following hours were a blur of healing cripples especially after Amy demonstrated that missing limbs wasn’t a deal breaker and unsealing since it turned out that Orochimaru wasn’t the only one trying to hurt people that way. I even agreed to open a portal and add some reinforcement runes to the village’s walls. Not all of them and most of the walls already had some seals, but it was a demonstration of our abilities they could examine for our eventual return. I eventually wanted the more advanced texts.

Yet all of that stopped the first time we were met with a member of Danzo’s Root division.

Danzo was the hidden monster in this village. He had alienated the Uchiha and different versions of cannon and fannon even had him coordinate with everyone from Orochimaru to the Akitsuki. It wasn’t clear what this one had done here. Doubly so because this world was obviously not cannon, but even cannon had some retcons and vague hand waving throughout its runtime.

Yet even if you ignored all of that, the biggest crime had been attempting to exterminate the Uchiha and using their eyes to empower himself. Emplanting himself with over a dozen eyes ripped out of murdered Uchiha was horrifying, making him a lot closer to Bloodborne than anything Naruko had dealt with so far.

Honestly, I had wondered how long it would take for Danzo to realize that my abilities were a direct threat to his secrecy. He obviously hadn’t been here personally or I would have simply left right then and there. Still, he must have found out somehow.

Worse, Danzo must have realized that if I could undo any seal then the seal he put under people’s tongues to stop his ninja from talking about his experiments, infiltrations, or schemes was under risk.

The Root ninja in question turned to show me a seal on their back, but I could almost feel the chains around their soul.

Deciding now was the time we would need to talk to Hiruzen about leaving, I called for a break. “We can look into doing more, but we would like to stop for now. It is nearly midnight and we would like a chance to rest.”

That was when Naruko burst into the room despite the best effort of the Hokage’s secretary to get in her way. “Hey Gramps, I found one of my cousins! We are going to be best friends, Believe It!”

That was when she blinked in surprise and looked over at us. “Hey, Max, Amy, Sabah. What are you doing here?”

The following whirlwind of a blond then proceeded to give an entire rundown of our meeting, the healing trip, and her encounter with her cousin.

“Hey Amy, do you think you could heal Karin’s arms? Some real jerks have been using her whenever they get the chance.”

Amy, now as overwhelmed with the blonde as we were the first time simply nodded with a sigh and touched Karin’s hand. It was slower than a lot of her other healing, maybe because the chakra effects of her bloodline ability made it harder to heal, but about a minute later, it was done.

Karin only murmured a quick “Thanks…” before she stared at her now bitemark-free arms.

Hiruzen sighed and gestured towards his ANBU. “ANBU Cat, can you take Karin-chan here down to have her interviewed. We will discuss what we want to do after that. Naruko, why don’t you go with her?”

Naruko looked like she was going to object, but sighed and nodded. Maybe this version of Naruto was a bit smarter or at least understood how things worked if she understood that Karin would have to be interrogated if she was going to be allowed to stay in the hidden leaf.

It was why I wanted to leave before we got roped into that.

Nodding Hiruzen looked over at us across a pile of paperwork. I suspected that it was the paperwork of addressing the reinstatements of so many ninja.

Hiruzen nodded at us “Well, as much as I would like to keep your identities hidden, Naruko is probably going to tell everyone about what you did.”

I was pretty sure he could have ordered her silence, but maybe it was a way of applying pressure on us. It also made me wonder why the other ninja wouldn’t have been able to notice our faces. Maybe there had been some level of genjutsu to avoid our identities from leaking.

It was something I should have considered since I knew that there were quite a few traitors or infiltrators in this village at the moment, even if you didn’t include Danzo or Kabuto.

We could, of course, change our faces at any time, but Hiruzen didn’t know that.

Deciding to ignore all those complications, I turned to Hiruzen and smiled. “We have completed our end for now. When can we expect our payment?” If he shorted us here, we wouldn’t be back.

Hiruzen chucked and nodded. “Indeed, young man. I am a man of my word.”

That might have been the biggest lie I had ever heard, but what did I expect from a ninja?

With a small gesture from Hiruzen, two ANBU arrived and dropped a pile of scrolls and documents at the edge of the table.

What did surprise me was the appearance of two additional ninja. It took me a moment to recognize them even if we had just seen one of them a few hours ago.

In front of me stood none other than Hinata Hyuga and what was now obviously her father Hiashi Hyuga.

I blinked, utterly confused. Why would they be here? Were the Hyuga going to thank us for healing Hinata? Or was this some sort of meeting to air grievances with us trying to poach his daughter.

Hinata looked stoic in an extremely lavish dress while her father looked stern. Honestly I suspected he intentionally made his face look like that since it was pretty similar to Neji’s resting bitch face. It made me wonder if all Hyuga practiced looking like they were deciding if you were worth the breath to talk to.

Those thoughts were then banished as I noticed the color under a light veil that Hinata was wearing. To my complete horror, I tilted my head and noticed the caged bird seal was written on Hinata’s forehead.

Swallowing, I counted my breaths in and out making sure they stayed long and smooth. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to say anything inflammatory and potentially make things worse.

When I was pretty sure that I could remain calm, I asked. “If I may ask, why is the Hyuga clan here?”

Hiashi scowled at me harder. I wasn’t sure why he was displeased, it could have been anything, but his response was moderate and calm. “We became aware of your attempts to court my daughter, Hinata. After discussion with the Hokage, we have decided to accept your suit of my daughter’s hand.”

I looked over at Hiruzen confused and he smirked. “Obviously you weren’t attempting to get a Konoha ninja to defect. Doing so would be an act of sabotage and would require an immediate death sentence and an extermination of any group you are a part of. So you must have been asking to court her. She will travel with you along with a guard, ANBU Salamander has been assigned this mission.”

I opened my mouth for several seconds wherein I felt my eye twitch. Obviously asking a loyal ninja like Hinata to go rogue had been a stupid idea.

I had wanted to get Hinata out of her situation and this would accomplish that. However, this was almost worse. I wanted all my girls to choose to join us and instead I was basically getting an arranged marriage that would double as an infiltration point. Someone that would feel trapped and obligated to stay with me… basically the exact opposite of how I wanted my family to work.

The thing was they had coached it in a way that that refusing would not only cause problems with ever coming back, but also hurt Hinata’s already tiny and brittle self esteem and probably her standing within her clan… to say nothing about how I was sure they could grab our payment and kill these bodies before we had a chance to blink.

Yeah, they risked calling our bluff on the deadman switches, but we had made it clear we wanted the technique manuals so they probably thought they could simply guard them and we wouldn’t attack the village until we got them.

Sealing Hinata should have meant that their special eyes were safe and if I ever betrayed Konoha, they could force Hinata to kill me to say nothing about Anko killing us instead.

I wanted to be angry, but looking at both Hiruzen and Hiashi, something stopped me.

I let my eyes focus on the caged bird seal on Hinata’s brow and then looked at the two older men. To my surprise I saw some tension in both their eyes.

That gave me the mental distance to try to look at this deeper. As I really studied Hiashi I considered his character in the story. It was buried under a mountain of expectation, but in cannon he did really care about his daughter. He was still a demanding and controlling asshole, but he cared.

Watching them I blinked as what seemed like a strange idea started to bubble up. Was this their way of giving me the opportunity to find a way to remove the caged bird seal… maybe even find a replacement? The Hyuga in the story had been very sure it couldn't be removed, but they had just watched me remove unknown seals from over a dozen other ninja.

That thought seemed plausible. In the story it was shown that Hiashi loved his twin brother and was unwilling for him to sacrifice himself for Hiashi’s sake. He had hated the fact that that seal separated the two of them.

Was this his way of getting his weak daughter out of the fight for succession of his clan while trying to find a way to remove and replace the caged bird seal?

Swallowing and trying to hide my disgust for this entire discussion, I decided to ask Hinata. “Miss Hyuga… what do you think about this… agreement?” then glancing at my two wives in the room I continued. “Or about my other wives? I currently have 4 after all with another 6 that have already expressed at least a little interest in joining my household.”

Several of the ninja actually did a double take to look at me, probably in shock. A part of me actually felt proud of shocking experienced ninja like that.

Jiraiya in particular looked like his eyes would pop out of his head, but Hinata only blinked, face placid. “I am happy to serve you, my clan, and my village in any way I am needed.”

I sighed and looked around and sighed. Holding up my hand I made an audio portal only and spoke loud enough that everyone could hear me. “Dinah, Luna, do you think she will be happy with us?” Again, I was amused that I was able to shock the ninja around me.

Dinah sounded thrilled, but answered my question directly, “High chance of some culture shock, but high chance of compatibility.”

I could practically hear Luna’s smile. “She will mix quite well with the tapestry of our souls.”

I winced as that was closer to the truth than I wanted to give, but ninja here would probably spend too long looking for subtext and ignore that Luna had been literal.

Opening it up to the floor I asked everyone else, “What do the rest of you think, girls?”

Amy and Sabah, watching from the other side of the room, didn’t even hesitate and responded in unison, “Sure” and “Yeah she can join.”

Taylor didn’t sound particularly happy but responded firmly with a quick “Yes”.

Ahri sounded less conflicted with a “Of course, Max”.

Those were the people I was most concerned with but I still listened to the rest of the general agreement. So with a sigh, I looked at Hinata one last time and shrugged before turning to Hiruzen. “Well, you got me. We aren’t about to retract our… offer… for her hand. We are still going to be leaving for a time, but I guess that you certainly now have a guarantee that we will be back.”

Hiruzen didn’t even bother to cover up his smug look as he lit what must have been his fifth pipe since we had arrived.

Looking at Hiruzen I said my goodbyes. “We will be back in the morning to finish up, but we are going to be leaving after that.”

I was certain Hiruzen didn’t miss the piece of paper I dropped out of a portal onto his desk. Showing his skills, it didn’t even manage to land on the surface before it was gone in less than a blink. I suspected that he already knew that I wasn’t coming back in the morning, but if he didn’t then the paper would have explained that we would be gone for a while.

Opening a portal, I made sure to keep my entire focus on it so no one could sneak through. I also let the rest of our technique scrolls drop through another portal into the corner of our living room.

Amy and Sabah didn’t wait and headed through the portal, back to our shuttle. Turning to Hinata I gestured for her to go through. “After you.”

Anko didn’t bother to wait for instructions and walked quickly through the portal and looked around before gesturing for Hinata to follow her. Inside I saw Amy touch both their arms to ensure they were settled and ready for the trip.

Now the last one in the room I nodded to Hiruzen before I too, stepped through and closed the portal behind me.

Now that we were back with everyone I turned and gave a tired smile to Ahri. “Could you show Hinata and Anko to the crew quarters and let them pick out one of the rooms? We are leaving right now.”

Everyone turned to me, confused. Only Luna and Dinah seemed to catch on and nodded.

Sitting down at the center console I turned to everyone else. “We aren’t waiting around. I noticed a Root ninja came to get a cursed seal removed and didn’t mention the one under his tongue. Best case scenario is he was reporting back to Danzo about the healer who would want us on his side, worse case is we would be dead by morning.”

Amy, Sabah, and Dinah all winced, knowing how bad that could be.

Anko and Hinata looked confused at our scorn for the councilman, but didn’t say anything in his defense. Which made sense, he was hated in the cannon story as well.

Nodding to the group I continued. “So yeah, I don’t want to get into a battle with the shadow leader of a village of assassins. I have left Hiruzen with a note with a copy of everything I was going to give to Naruko and they are going to have to deal with everything themselves.”

Looking at Hinata’s small concerned frown I tried to reassure her. “We will come back when we have some idea on how to use chakra. I will also work on a replacement for the caged bird seal we can leave with them, but we are not going to be able to solve this world’s tangled net of problems and stop all the fighting, not unless we are orders of magnitude stronger than we are now.”

Hinata looked surprised at my goals while Anko snorted. Yet after a moment Hinata nodded. “Understood, Max-sama.”

I cringed hard at that. “I am sorry, but no, just no. Please call me Max. You didn’t choose to join us like the rest of us here, but we treat each other like family.” I winced internally as I remembered that her family was the one to emotionally abuse her. “That means we try to be kind, support each other’s ambitions and dreams, and want everyone to be happy.”

Hinata looked a bit conflicted about something, but nodded.

Wondering momentarily if she was feeling guilty about reporting our conversation or unsure of her position here, I put it out of my mind.

Closing my eyes, I reached out and searched for the next reasonably safe world we could visit.

While I focused I heard Luna sigh and walk up to me. “The next stop is ours. Please find somewhere large, strong, and vibrant that will give us a chance to grow.”

I frowned, unsure of what she was talking about, but right when I was about to ask her for clarification I found somewhere metaphorically large. It was a strange world that felt somehow safe and watched, but vaguely followed the descriptions that Luna had just given.

Furrowing my brow I sighed and opened my eyes to look at Luna. Luna looked sad, but nodded. “The note I saw said this is where we need to stop.”

I ignored the implications and focused on the feeling of the hurt in my chest from what I realized was about to happen. I closed my eyes again and gave a sharp nod. Reaching out I gave everyone the countdown to prepare themselves. When I reached zero I yanked us towards our new destination.

The travel wasn’t particularly far and I realized I must have passed some sort of threshold of healing because while we traveled I barely felt the strain I had started becoming accustomed to.

It was only as we arrived that I realized that Luna and Dinah hadn’t asked Amy to put them under. Xeno was still asleep in the corner, but Luna and Dinah were standing there with only a slight look of discomfort on their faces.

That was shocking enough that I leaned forward to study them. Only then did I notice that my strength was bouncing back much faster than I expected as well.

Oh, I still felt exhausted, but it was the difference between pulling an all nighter and not sleeping for a week. Focusing on the feeling I realized that the strength was focused in my stomach. Apparently the meager amount of chakra had improved my strength significantly. If learning magic had given me the ability to jump worlds by myself, then chakra had given me the strength to support the jump.

I frowned as I wondered why Nen from HunterXHunter hadn’t done nearly as much. Was it because we hadn’t given it enough time to work?

A sudden bang from the corner of the room pulled me right out of my thoughts and got everyone to pull out weapons or their wands. Even Riley woke up with a start and dropped into a fighting pose.

I didn’t bother to cut back my curse as I saw the body now laying next to the pile of scrolls we got from Konoha. “Bloody Buggering Ninjas…”

Hinata had pulled out a kunai from somewhere and was scanning the area with her Byakugan. Said eyes didn’t seem to see anything else out of order as she dropped the effect a moment later. Anko was frowning at the unconscious ninja in front of her, obviously angry.

It didn’t take long to figure out what was going on. Hiruzen didn’t need a back door to watch us because we had Anko right here. That meant the ninja that had somehow substituted himself into one of our technique scrolls was probably one of Danzo’s Root operatives.

It probably would have worked too. They obviously had the seals to block sensory techniques or Danzo would have been discovered long ago. A simple assassination when Anko and Hinata weren’t looking would have been child’s play.

What they hadn’t expected, nor could they have known was our response to the weeping angels infiltration of our shuttle in the Dr. Who universe. Amy had already created a bacteria that constantly produced a variant of Melatonin. The hormone that induced sleep. We were obviously all immune. All it took was a moment of relaxation or distraction and any infiltrator human or animal would fall unconscious. I also had placed sleep and paralysis runes around each of the vents in the cabin.

I wasn’t sure what had gotten him, but Amy simply walked over and grabbed the ninja pulling off his mask to show a completely generic face.

I rubbed my forehead. “Dump him in the storage bay in one of the expanded trunks. We can return him to Hiruzen when we stop by in a year or two. They can deal with him then.”

Shaking my head at that complication along with making a mental note that I needed to explain our abilities to the pair, I opened a quick portal to the surface and was greeted with a sight my inner child would have loved, but I never thought I would see.

The small creature turned around to look at us. “Digl…….. What are you doing here? I have not permitted you to enter this world.”

Interlude Anko:

Anko was annoyed.

That was a common feeling with the idiocy of the people around her.

However this time she was being pulled away from Konoha, all while that damn snake had been spotted.

Oh, she knew the reason she had been pulled. The Hokage had known she would get emotional about the possibility of killing her old backstabbing, traitorous sensei.

That didn’t mean she didn’t like it even if she understood and agreed with the mission to keep this stupid boy and his women safe.

Most civilians didn’t understand how casualties worked. Injuries were rarely fatal, but even with the best med-nin, they still accumulated. A hundred blows to the knee over the course of a career would slow down even the best ninja.

That meant someone like Amy here was worth her weight in gold.

At least it shouldn’t be too hard.

Whip the stupid civilians into shape. Take a break and enjoy the vacation all on someone else’s dime.

Maybe she would even take him or one of his girls for a spin. They were too stuffy for anything long term, but there had to be a reason he was able to keep so many women satisfied.

Interlude Taylor:

Taylor stared at the new woman in what was obviously some sort of formal dress.

It was like looking in a mirror. She hated it.

The self-loathing. The lack of confidence. The near suicidal mentality…

The mentality that Sabah had been helping her to notice in herself. A mentality that she felt like she was finally starting to move past.

There was a reason she had made sure she was the one that had been hit when they had tried to ambush Tom.

Taking a deep breath she walked over to the girl.

The sooner she could get this girl to stand up straight and look people in the eye, the sooner she wouldn’t have to be reminded of her own past.