Fate puppets first use.

"You don't mean!"

"Yes. It was for them." Megumi pointed at the two people who were peeking their heads into the room Megumi had just teleported in.

"Why are the two of you here now? Did you get hurt again?"

"No!" Megumi exclaimed but just before he was about to explain the reason, Sakura ran up to Mito in her short body and spoke, "Mito-baa san! Scold Megi for me!!"

"Why?"

"Because look at his hand!"

Both Mito and Hashirama looked at Megumi's wrist and spotted the bandage wrapped over it.

"Oh? What happened?" Hashirama asked, walking up to Megumi to examine the wound.

"He kept carving throughout the day and caused his hands to swell up! He didn't care for what happened to his hand at all!"

"What were you carving with so much urgency that it needed to be completed so soon?" Mito asked in astonishment as she too looked at the scar on Megumi's tiny hand in Hashirama's larger hand.

"Ah! Well, the thing I brought you today! I was carving these puppets!" Megumi pointed with his prosthetic hand.

"...?" Both Hashirama and Mito instantly became intrigued but not before Mito took time to steer back the conversation to what Sakura had asked her to do.

"Not so fast young man! I can see you want to distract us and it might even be great but before that, *BONK*" Mito hit Megumi on the head once with her knuckles as Megumi nearly felt like he'd collapsed into the floor due to how strong the punch was.

"What was that!? It hurt so much! This is child abuse!"

"What was that? That was a fist full of love!"

"Oh god no! Not this!"

"Hmpf. Then you better take better care of my granddaughter."

"I thought you were worried I hurt myself!?"

"All that comes after you hurting my granddaughter." Mito dismissed with a casual wave as she pulled Sakura to her side and Sakura looked down on Megumi with a proud smirk. 

'HA!' and even added a scoff using their mental connection that caused Megumi's eyebrows to twitch.

"What are these anyway?" Hashirama was the one to distract the conversation this time since he was partly a little too excited about what Megumi had brought in and partly because he couldn't see both Sakura and Mito ganging up on little Megumi because he knew if their partnership got stronger, they might come after him too.

Megumi sensed something was wrong but ignored pointing it out in the fortune of having the attention of his bullies shifted by their protection gifts.

"This! This! Is what will let you leave here without being noticed by the strings of fate."

"...? What!?" Hashirama immediately got shocked and turned to look at Megumi with eyes as wide as saucer pans since this was not something he'd thought possible.

Mito herself looked equally shocked causing one of her golden chains to slip out from her back and poke and prod at Megumi.

"What are you doing Mito baa-san?"

"I'm checking to see if this is perhaps a dream."

"...you know you're supposed to pinch yourself and not other people right?"

"Hmm…then this is real. I see." Mito expertly ignored any advice Megumi sent her way.

┬─┬ノ(ಠ_ಠノ)

After calming his emotions for a bit, Megumi asked, "So! Who wants to go on a ride and be the first to try it out!?"

"ME! ME! ME!" Hashirama was the first and the only one to lift his hand and volunteer like a child so he got embarrassed and eventually slowly put his hands down hoping everyone would pretend like nothing happened.

But had his hopes dashed when Megumi continued with, "Alright, since Grandpa is so excited about it, why don't we let him test it out!"

"Wait! You two!" Mito stopped the two overly eager adults by pulling them back using her chains and putting a pause to their actions.

"What happened Mito?" Hashirama asked with confusion clear on his face.

"What do you mean? 'What happened?' We haven't even tested things out normally! How do you think I'll let the two of you use it just like that!"

"Eh! I'm sure it'll work just fine! Right, Megumi?"

"Yeah, I'm sure it will! How can it be flawed, when I the genius at the peak of geniuses make it!?"

"See, he's confident about it! Don't worry!"

*growl*

An angry growl escaped Mito's mouth that caused a shiver to spread across both Megumi's and Hashirama's spines as they both immediately turned around and stood in front of the demon that was Mito.

"Good. Now you both will stay here."

Nodding like chicken pecking grains of rice, the two of them agreed.

"Sakura, you tell me what tests Megumi did on these things to make sure they work fine."

"Well, I don't know all the tests, but most of them are listed in his grimoire."

"Grimoire?"

"Oh, we named the book Grimoire since it was getting too confusing calling the book a book."

"Ah, ok, Grimoire is a nice-."

Before Mito could complete her sentence Megumi interrupted it with, "Ha! See you like it! I suggested it on my first try." Megumi raised his head with pride.

"As I was saying, Grimoire is not a nice name, but it'll do for now."

"..."

Aggrieved Megumi looked towards Hashirama for some solace but only got ignored once again.

*critical hit x2*

So Megumi decided to vanish into a corner of the room and draw circles on the floor after teleporting and passing the Grimoire to Sakura to show Mito.

"The tests Megumi did first used artificial spirits to check whether the spirit could survive getting bound to the body and leaving to its original one. And after that, he did the test by using himself as the test subject."

"..." Mito glared at Megumi but knowing her husband did similar things in his free time she let him have some leeway because she knew they were both idiots who had absolute and blind confidence in their creations.

"Show me the seals, I want to see if there are any risks involved in it."

"Alright."

Opening up the prosthetic puppets, Mito began to examine the complicated chakra pathways carved inside as Hashirama became amazed at the amount of hard work Megumi seemed to have done to achieve this.

'He's copied all the important parts of a circulatory pathway system. Interesting. But how does he keep things hidden from fate?'

Forcing the seal Megumi had applied on the neck of the puppet to expand, Mito began to go over the seal and its functions when she noticed something that caused her eyes to go wide which Hashirama noticed.

"What happened Mito?"

"That brat, he's too good. Too good for his own good. I'm telling you someday he'll get himself beaten to death either by me or Sakura."

"What happened granny Mito?" Sakura asked in confusion since she hadn't spotted anything unique about the circuit seals or even the pathways when she'd examined the entire thing herself.

"Nothing happened. It's just his method. To hide us from fate he is using himself as cover."

"...?" Sakura still looked confused so Mito was about to explain more but Megumi cut her off.

"It works right! You don't need to poke more holes in it!"

"..." Mito glared at Megumi and then *BONK* *BONK* he got hit twice, once by Mito and another by Hashirama.

"Brat! You really think I'd let you go later if you managed to sneak this past me without at least telling me?"

Mito finally explained fully, "If he uses his fate as a cover for the two of us, as long as the puppet gets destroyed while we are in it, he has to do something of equal importance for Benzaiten. It's a deal he's making on our behalf to keep us out there and for Benzaiten to ignore us."

"Don't worry about her! She's my friend! Even Rura knows her! Don't you!?" Megumi asked, but was ignored by her as Sakura looked back at Mito, "Is it dangerous?"

"Not 'dangerous' in the traditional sense, but in the sense that it is an undeniable request. That means as long as Benzaiten wants to, she can wish for Megumi to kill everyone around him and he will have to obey, like a puppet to the strings of fate, irrespective of his own choice."

Seeing Sakura glare at him for not telling her, Megumi walked over to her and held her hands which she tried hard to keep away from him by keeping them folded.

As he did, he spoke using their mental connection, 'It's not like I wasn't going to tell you, I was just too excited I guess?'

'Don't lie!'

'I'm not lying, come on, have you ever seen me lie to you?'

'Then why did you stop Mito from telling it to me just now?'

'Because I wanted to tell you myself so that it wouldn't seem like I lied to you or kept things hidden.'

Sakura glared at Megumi so he continued with a slight smirk, 'If you forgive me I'll give you a gift.'

Sakura's glare only intensified but she still asked, 'What gift?'

'I'll teach you how to work with domains. That good enough?'

Sakura's eyes widened but she kept calm, 'I can ask Mito baa-san to teach me the same thing and I know Tsunade-sensei broke yours easily so it isn't that much.'

'Very true, except I'm the only one who knows how to enhance your sword spirit's abilities by using a domain.'

Sakura bit her lips since she felt this was unfair.

'I'm not forgiving you this easily ok? I'm only doing this because you told me that you truly wanted to tell this to me on your own.'

'...haha sure.'

Leaving Sakura's hand Megumi looked back at Mito with a smirk as she looked down at him and Sakura with the expectation of drama but became sad when nothing happened.

"You're a bad granny Mito baa-san. Stop trying to entertain yourself with drama. Why don't you try the puppet out already!?" Megumi said, pointing at the puppet Hashirama was studying.

Mito then got serious and spoke looking directly into Megumi's eyes, "The young shouldn't take up the burden of older people Megumi. It's alright if you want to help us but don't treat it as a sense of duty that you need to suffer through."

Mito and Megumi held their eye contact which prompted a response from Megumi as he explained, "As long as the two of you don't manage to break the main seal of the puppet nothing will happen to me anyway, so you don't need to worry about that since I know you're strong enough."

Mito still wasn't happy about it but she eventually had to give up when Hashirama called her over to look at something he found interesting, so she left with a warning.

"We're only strong because of our abilities, and without them, we're normal too."

"I know you said you'd be weak in the puppets Mito baa-san so I did some work and added a few abilities in there. Chakra chains for you and-"

"Fire attribute ninjutsu for me?" Hashirama interrupted.

"Oh? You sensed it?"

"Of course! If I didn't who would?" Hashirama looked offended that Megumi would expect anything less of him.

"Then go ahead! Pour your chakra into the tenketsu on its neck!" Megumi said walking over to the expended seal and compressing it once again for them to use.

Hashirama extended his fingers toward the small dot that held the compressed seal Megumi had created for this purpose and allowed some chakra to flow from his body into the puppet and waited.

"Huh? Why's nothing happening?" Hashirama asked in confusion as he looked at the smirking face of Megumi, the stunned faces of Sakura and Mito, and his own face-

"Wa! I already switched! It happened so quickly that I didn't notice! Oh now that I circulate my chakra in this body it does feel a little stiff." Hashirama said as he flexed his rickety fingers by opening and closing them in style to make fists with them.

"Now tell me, why are you in such a hurry?" Hashirama asked.

"Ah, that's because, well in simple words, because the Sage of Six Paths is taking over countries to make them powerful by artificially giving them Sage Mode and sell those means to provoke a war."

Mito's face expressed a frown while Hashirama's turned into one just as his body was covered with a fire elemental clone.

"That doesn't seem like a nice thing to do. By the way, how am I speaking through this? Is it using the genjutsu tenketsu to mimic what I'm thinking? Oh? I seem to be right?" Hashirama ignored the problem for now since no one wanted to ruin the moment as his voice suddenly turned into Mito's voice and he started to talk like how she talked.

"HAHAHA! Look at me Mito! Isn't this interesting!?"

"*sigh* ignore him. He'll be like that for a few hours."

"No! Mito baa-san! You go too!" Megumi said as he pushed Mito to fit into a puppet too while teleporting Hashirama's standing body to their room in the wooden statue house.

"Today you'll see Konoha with your own eyes, or at least as close as to your eyes for now, again!"

-------------------------

Thank you for reading!

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