Ch370. Preparations

Two weeks passed since the end of the preliminaries and Rei found himself by his lonesome self. Tsunade was too busy preparing the village for the upcoming trouble while Temari had her training.

One would wonder why would Sunagakure's strongest ANBU need to train when competing against genins but Tsunade gave the girl access to Konoha's library and Temari wanted to make the most out of it during this month. Rei only encouraged her when she came to him with a sheepish apologetic look. After all, he had to grudgingly admit he had his own pressing work he needed to focus on.

Hence, Rei spent the past two weeks pouring over complicated seals so much, it brought even him a headache. Then again, sleeping only one night a week might have been a part of the reason.

Then again, not sleeping with any of his girls for two weeks had surely something to do with it too. Rei was sure of it.

Nevertheless, after these two weeks of work, he finally finished his biggest project yet and that's why Rei had to visit his outpost on the other side of the moon, taking Izumi with him.

It was very fortunate that Izumi managed to get her Rinnegan. Rei reckoned that without it he would have to do a multitude of calculations that he was not sure were even possible in order to attain the desired result. With those cheaty eyes, however, all that complicated crap became that much easier.

So much so Rei briefly pondered about getting a pair himself but then he remembered it would require him to pluck out his own eyes since he was no Uchiha and that trail of thought was away in a jiffy.

Rei was willing to do many things but he had his own line he totally refused to cross. Exchanging his eyes just for a power-up was simply... bleh. No, thank you.

'Are you done yet?' An impatient voice eagerly resounded in Rei's mind for the n-th time that day as he was drawing seals over an area five times as big as Konoha on the surface of the moon. It was a very exhausting process but Kaguya was making it positively frustrating. Rei understood she was excited but damn if it wasn't annoying!

'No, Kaguya. The answer is the same as two minutes ago.' Rei dryly droned in his mind, getting a mental impression of a pout in return. It made him wistfully sigh because he knew she would ask the same thing again a few minutes later after her childish anger gets overpowered by her excitement.

It was then that yet another female voice, this time a bored one, asked from not far away, "Are you done yet?"

Rei's eyebrow twitched as he turned his head in Izumi's direction, finding her crouching nearby, watching him with her blood-red ringed eyes and supporting her chin with her hands while her elbows were on her knees in a show of utter boredom.

"No, Izumi. The answer is the same as two minutes ago." Rei exasperatedly said but inwardly he wanted to cry. What did he do in his past life to deserve this kind of treatment? Was it his fault he was forced to forbid Izumi from trying to help him after she, in her eagerness, unintentionally destroyed hours of his work for the third time because she was clumsy and tripped, wiping away some seals?

He had to start over three times already. No way was he allowing her to even come close to his work this time!

"When you told me you needed my help, I thought it would be much more fun." Izumi sullenly but weakly protested, feeling inadequate because of being useless to Rei at the moment. She was usually very polite but it seemed a few mind-numbing hours and even that went down the drain.

Rei really contemplated sending her to Konan for retraining of patience...

'And I thought having you here would be beneficial. Seems like we both were wrong and I should have just called you when I had it all prepared.' Rei thought while the corner of his lips slightly twitched. 'Honestly... women.' He discreetly rolled his eyes.

"Mmm, you just thought something rude about me." Izumi sulkily pouted. Her observatory abilities with her Rinne-Sharingan activated were simply unfair. She could see every little twitch of Rei's expression.

Rei thought normal women were bad but then he met kunoichis only to then get to know Izumi. The horror...

At least he was lucky and his women were a good sport about it. Imagining a woman with Izumi's capabilities of observation that bordered on thought reading but with a very easily offended nature and Rei had to shudder at the very thought.

Seeing that Izumi still awaited his reply with a veiled eagerness, he wisely held his tongue and swallowed his retort but he couldn't quite contain the smirk forming on his lips so he instead decided to focus on his seals. He could argue with Izumi about literally nothing for hours on no end, as he found out during the previous few hours and while it was entertaining for both him and Izumi, he really needed to finish.

Izumi clearly understood what Rei keeping quiet meant and didn't disturb him anymore but she still puffed out her cheeks at him. Frankly, she knew she could have left at any moment and Rei would have called her when he was done but she didn't have many opportunities to spend time with him and despite the boredom, this was quite nice.

Rei inwardly rolled his eyes as he yet again felt Izumi ogling him. The girl was such a typical Uchiha. She couldn't keep her eyes to herself.

Two hours of non-verbal flirting later, Izumi was a blushing mess while Rei was smirking in victory but more importantly, the seals were finally done.

Sage bless the Shadow Clones...

Rei loved how Izumi knew exactly what he wanted from her with nothing but a slight twitch in his expression. He enjoyed sending her mixed signals and making her come to wrong conclusions quite thoroughly these past hours.

He especially enjoyed the change in her expression after he non-verbally asked for sex before he quickly shifted his body language into disinterest, only to shift back into throwing a glance at her chest while licking his lips which translated as desire and when Izumi showed mild elation and acceptance in her expression, Rei again shifted into neutral body language, frustrating her.

Who said one couldn't have fun while working?

Rei also aimed to show Izumi to not depend on this observation of hers too much because skilled people could still lie with their expressions and body language. The trick was in always being at least partially truthful.

Which... will most likely backfire at him in the future once Izumi found that rule out and connected the dots but Rei couldn't bring himself to care. He had far too much fun teasing her.

Rei didn't even need to inform Izumi he was done with his part. Despite knowing nothing about seals, she instantly spotted that and approached with extreme care. Yet, Rei had to catch her with his Wind Release when she almost tripped and fell on a very important part of seals, almost ruining it.

That sight only made Rei a tad bit sour. 'How can she divine my thoughts from my expression but be still capable of being clumsy enough to misstep in a way that would mysteriously cause the most damage to my work?' He really couldn't wrap his head around that. 'If I didn't know better, I would say she is doing it on purpose.'

Alas, Izumi's clumsiness was legendary in the Village on the Other Side.

Izumi threw Rei an apologetic look as he 'levitated' her towards him like a sack of potatoes, not letting her touch the ground in fear of her smearing a part of his seals or something.

"Well, let's start the next part, shall we?" Rei amusedly asked while he gently put Izumi next to him and stretched his hand towards her.

The following part required them to mend each other's chakra together which was quite an intimate thing. Izumi was sure if one of Rei's wives possessed Rinnegan, he would not be doing this part with her and a part of her was glad that was not the case.

She timidly nodded and took hold of Rei's hand, giving him a small shy smile full of determination in return.

This was going to be hard but Izumi was resolved to do the best job possible.

'I can do this!' She quietly hyped herself up.