"It was great!" Izumi exclaimed before her expression slightly dropped and became a bit sullen, "Although, she refused to join us willingly."
Rei... had no idea what to think about that. He discreetly glanced at Konan only to see her subtly shaking her head, signaling that he didn't want to know.
There was just a slight problem with that.
He did want to know.
"Hm. From your initial reaction, I assume you persuaded her, then?" He asked and smiled when he saw Izumi beamingly nod.
The way Konan instantly facepalmed at his question was a bit concerning but Rei was a ninja. How bad could it really be?
"Yes! It took a severe beating and a long session of Tsukuyomi but at long last, I persuaded her to come with me!" Izumi proudly announced, her eyes shining in a clear 'praise me' light.
Alas, Konan decided to give her opinion on the matter, instantly shooting down any chance of Izumi being praised by Rei.
"The woman is a drooling mess in the corner of one of our better prison cells, rocking herself back and forth while hugging her knees and constantly muttering something about not wanting to be eaten." Konan dryly deadpanned, causing Izumi's smile to freeze.
"Well... I might have been a teensy bit heavy-handed." She huffed and crossed her hands on her chest as she looked away in a petulant embarrassment.
"A teensy bit, you say?" Konan exclaimed in exasperated disbelief, "Luciela will need months of psychological help after what you have done to her."
"Don't exaggerate, Master." Izumi grumbled as if she was slighted, "I can give her a therapy worth months of time in under three seconds through the Tsukuyomi."
Rei winced when he heard that. He knew what Tsukuyomi did and if Izumi really had Luciela under its effect for a long time, especially since Luciela was no ninja and her spiritual energies were in no way all that much cultivated...
He doubted the woman would react well to even seeing Izumi, much less being told the Uchiha girl was going to cast the technique on her again.
Unfortunately, for a good effect of therapy, Luciela would have to be relaxed and the only way for that to happen inside of Tsukuyomi was to prepare her for it. Meaning, she would have to be told what would be happening and with Tsukuyomi being the reason for her mental breakdown in the first place... Yeah, there was no way in hell that was gonna happen.
Rei glanced at Konan, seeing she was also looking at him with the corner of her eyes and they silently agreed this was a very bad idea.
"Out of the question." Konan instantly shot that idea down.
"Rejected." Rei also said with finality in his tone.
Needless to say, Izumi wasn't happy that her idea was refused so readily and showed her displeasure by cutely pouting.
...
With the island relocated, the Organization purged, and the Claymores rounded up, only the hunting of the remaining Yomas needed to be done.
Obviously, Yomas were not natural beings. They did not breed. There was really only one conclusion from that for someone capable of using his brain.
The Yomas were either created by someone or brought to the island from somewhere else.
Meaning, once the Yomas on the island get wiped out, there will be no additional problems with intestines-eating monsters.
Rei and Konan set up some missions for their ninjas to do the work of Claymores and hunt down Yomas as an advertisement of a sort for their future ninja business.
Taking over the Organization's infrastructure wasn't that hard and it would provide quite a bit of influence on the island while it also proved to be a good information-gathering network.
The hunt would be a slow-going process this way and Rei was aware he could have just asked Kaguya to pinpoint the locations of the Yoma and then send people to hunt them down but... why bother?
With no one creating or importing new Yomas, they will eventually get all hunted down. Rei wasn't inconvenienced by their existence at all so there was no need to go out of his way to get rid of them. They could not multiply anymore so his ninjas could take their sweet time.
Should he care that some unfortunate strangers would get devoured by these Yomas in the meantime?
Pfft. Death was a common occurrence in this world. If he tried to prevent every death he could, he wouldn't even have the time to mofu-mofu with his wives. It was simply not worth it.
Now that Rei's intervention in the west was finished, it was once again time to return to the problems at home. Namely...
Anko being her usual bothersome self as she complained she couldn't join the intervention in the west since she had to prepare for the invasion with Konoha ninjas and Kin's inability to cook proper food even if her life depended on it.
What? The upcoming Konoha invasion was not a problem. It was an opportunity!
How often could a guy get a bonafide legitimate reason to invade other villages without the Daimyos and other politicians utterly unable to refute these reasons?
Rei and Tsunade secretly signed many legal documents, even an alliance between Konoha and the Village on the Other Side. If somebody wanted to question the legality of their actions afterward, there would be no basis for it.
Rei knew well what he was planning would definitely be condemned as a planned attack because... that was basically what it was and anybody with half a brain would realize it.
He only needed a good reason to enact his plans. A reason he could hide behind from all the political bullies. A reason he could put in front of their faces while broadly grinning with the knowledge he was 'technically' in the right since he 'technically' did not break any rules.
After that, it would be just the question of greasing the correct hands and no matter how uncomfortable the Daimyos would be, with the pressure and assurances of the Biri-Biri company and the Uzushio Trading Company, they would gladly look aside for some benefits.
Rei could understand why Kages got so used to this kind of power. The feeling that he put in motion events that would affect the whole of the Elemental Nations in a very profound way was quite nice. It was a weird mix of pride and calm smugness.
Frankly put, this feeling was the main reason why the hidden village system would never work as it was first intended. Too many leaders wanted to stay in power, desiring their village to be the strongest.
When Hashirama made Konoha, he aimed to protect the children from needless fighting. The problem was, he forced other ninja clans to form their own villages in order to survive instead of conquering them and bringing them under one banner. This effectively changed the nature of conflict from small-scale skirmishes between clans into bonafide continent-wide wars between large coordinated forces of ninjas.
As time passed by, to keep themselves going, the villages started to propagate their respective Wills like Will of Fire or Will of Rock...
It was just plain old brainwashing to safeguard the loyalty of their ninjas since the higher-ups could no longer depend on clan pride and the feeling of belonging since they had ninjas from more than just one clan under themselves.
And because of these 'Wills', the villages often fought for... nothing. Their reasons for fighting could be summed up in revenge, power, nationality, and just because.
They often said it was to get more land, more resources but that was just plain bullshit.
There was nothing productive in any ninja war so far. Each started because of some small-scale conflict or event that would in no way cause a war if the people did not actually want one, and by the end of the war, all villages were in a heavy deficit of resources and ninjas.
There were no official winners of the war and while Konoha would like to believe they have won every one of them, if one looked at how much they lost during the war, it would become obvious they were far from winners.
There was no winner in any of these wars.
It seemed the villages fought more to keep each other weakened rather than to get something out of it. It was dumb and ruined so much research and potential for development it was not even funny.
Rei managed to create a village that surpassed every other in under a decade and he did so by gathering stray clans and rogue ninjas, training them, and providing them an environment where they were forced to grow stronger.
There was nothing 'special' about Rei's village. Yes, his seals contributed a lot but in the end, any hidden village had the potential to accomplish the same thing. They were just too caught up in the cold war against each other and too unwilling to upset the fragile status quo to even try.
This simply had to stop but Rei was quite aware it wouldn't happen just because he wished it. No. If he wanted to accomplish that, he had to force it.
And that was exactly what he was planning to do.
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