56 56: Number One

The Reincarnators in the clearing - and Pakura - brushed themselves off as the dust cleared.

That sudden windstorm was so fierce that it caused clouds of dirt, sticks, leaves and who-knows-what else to wash over the clearing. Far in the distance, a small tornado visibly dispersed into a harmless breeze.

"Sheesh, what the heck was tha-"

[-World Message-]

[-Reincarnator #15 has died. Cause of death: Shredded by Reincarnator #1.-]

"..."

Several jaws dropped.

"What?" Pakura asked, "Why are you all standing around gaping like a bunch of dead fish? What am I missing?"

Taichi shut his mouth and slowly shook his head.

"Well... I guess we don't have to go chasing after Mishima now."

Pakura scowled and raised her kunai at him.

"What the hell do you mean we don't have to go chasing after him?! He needs to die and you're going to help me kill him, or else!" She threatened.

Yuta decided to cut into the conversation before things could get twisted.

"He's dead, Pakura. We just received a World Message informing us of his passing. 'Shredded by Reincarnator #1' is what the message says."

Pakura stood stunned as she processed his words. The hand holding her kunai dropped to her side.

"What...? So he's... just dead? Just like that? I didn't even get to do anything?!"

She frowned and shook her head.

"That can't be true. You're just saying that for my own benefit, to make me hold back and not risk my life fighting someone as dangerous as him. I appreciate your concern, but I don't know you, and you don't know me. I'm going-"

"I'm afraid there isn't anything left of him to serve as proof of his passing, but I can assure you that he is very much not alive any more."

A new voice had cut into the conversation, causing everyone to instantly become more alert.

"You could always walk the three kilometers to the site of his death, I suppose. But all you would find is a torn-up clearing. You may as well save yourself the time and remain here. It's a shame really, it'd have been good for my finances to turn over his body to Sunagakure for the bounty..." They spoke again, their voice sounding strangely distant and ethereal.

"Who are you? Where are you, even? Show yourself!" Pakura shouted to the wind.

"I understand that you're currently in shock, Pakura, but you already know the answers to both of those questions. Slow down, breathe, and take a moment to think." The voice responded.

Pakura shook with pent-up anger and adrenaline for a moment before taking a few shallow breaths to center herself. Slowly, her breaths deepened and slowed as she regained control of herself.

"You're that Reincarnator they just mentioned. You killed Mishima. Your voice sounds weird and distant... I'm guessing you're communicating with us from far away, somehow. Probably from the spot where Mishima died." She eventually concluded.

"You guess correctly. I think for now you don't need to know my real name, although that can change depending on what you decide to do from here."

Pakura raised an eyebrow and put a hand on her hip, her kunai still resting in her other hand.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

From the sidelines, Yuta took a moment to clear his throat before dropping into the conversation again.

"I believe that they mean to ask you what your plan is now that you're free from Mishima's control. Since you are a person who appeared in our visions of the timeline, I believe I speak for all of us when I say that we are curious as to what you're going to do now." He looked around at Ryu and Taichi as he said so, receiving nods of confirmation from them in return.

Pakura froze.

Her future... She'd almost forgotten that she could even have one of those.

She'd spent over a year trapped as a passenger in her own body, able to look outside and observe what her body did while under Mishima's control, but never having any say in what it would do or even what it would say. 

Now that she was free... what did she want to do now?

Pakura sighed and finally put her kunai away before sitting down on the grassy floor of the clearing.

"Honestly... I don't know. A large part of me thought I would never get this far, truth be told. I... I... g-give me a second, please."

She took a moment to wipe her eyes of the tears that threatened to build up while she was trying to put on a brave face. The people around her seemed nice enough, but the fact that she was now effectively all alone finally caught up with her.

It made an awkward atmosphere in the clearing for all of the Reincarnators to just be standing or sitting around while she had a good cry, but they silently agreed to give her some space while she let her emotions out.

After a minute, Pakura cleaned off her face and returned to her conversation.

"Sorry... thank you for waiting. I don't know what I'm going to do now, as I said. My options aren't exactly amazing... If I go back to Suna they'd probably execute me for becoming a missing-nin, right? Thinking of Suna... Mishima never bothered to tell me what was so special about me besides my looks. You guys have all seen my future, right? Or rather, the future that would've happened if Mishima hadn't taken me away from there. What would've become of me, if you all don't mind saying?" She asked the group.

Mimi had to just sit out the conversation on the side since she knew nothing about the timeline past the Zabuza arc, but all of the other Reincarnators in the discussion were happy to tell Pakura everything.

How she would've gone on to become a hero to Sunagakure's civilian population during the war, for instance. That made her angry to hear. That Mishima had taken something so wonderful away from her.

However, they were quick to dampen those feelings with the news that if she had continued on that path, eventually the Fourth Kazekage - a man named 'Rasa' who wielded gold dust as a weapon, apparently - would begin to view her as a potential rival for the seat of Kage in the Village due to her popularity.

Rasa would deal with this by sending her on a diplomatic mission to Kirigakure, alone. Of course, the mission was a sham; Rasa had already made an agreement with Kirigakure beforehand.

Pakura would die in an ambush by Kiri shinobi, and Suna and Kiri would have peace. The blame of Pakura's death would be pinned on Iwagakure, and she would eventually be forgotten by her Village.

Decades later, she would be reanimated to fight against a grand shinobi alliance, which was the point where her identity and backstory were revealed to the Reincarnators. Pakura had given the Reincarnators an odd look when they explained that part, and they had to quickly scramble to explain why their memories were structured that way without accidentally giving her an existential crisis with the reveal that she was just a character in a story.

She handled the revelation with remarkable grace, which surprised the group. She told them that it was thanks to Mishima constantly referring to other people - including herself - as characters that she'd already grown used to that feeling.

With that distraction out of the way, the Reincarnators finished their explanation with her reanimated body being sealed away by her own student, with her soul moving on once the Reanimation Jutsu was cancelled by an Uchiha man defeating the caster with a powerful Genjutsu.

Pakura drank in the information for a few minutes before she spoke again.

"Well then... I suppose in a way it's a good thing I left Suna. Still, that leaves me with the question of what I'm going to do now. I definitely can't join any other Hidden Village, especially not during a war. They'd have me killed on sight for sure." She considered, "But I do still want to be a shinobi, and I still want to help the people of Sunagakure... Even if they don't want me there..."

- - -

While this conversation was taking place, a second one was playing out in a certain Group Chat.

[Reincarnator #11: "Should I tell her about your organisation? For a moment there it sounded like you were going to offer her a position with that whole "you don't need to know my name, but that can change" thing that you said."]

[Reincarnator #1: "...Yeah I'm thinking about it. I'm almost there now so we can get you out of that barrier soon. I was planning on changing clothes and transforming my appearance before I arrived, but if I made a recruitment pitch to Pakura there wouldn't be much point in using a disguise since news of her joining Akatsuki would spread to the others in just a few years, or even months. And that's assuming she doesn't start asking questions about the organisation right then and there, which could clue the others in depending on how I respond..."]

[Reincarnator #11: "I know you want to keep your identity a secret from the others for as long as possible, but this... I mean, doesn't it get tiring? You still haven't even told me why you're hiding from the rest of them. I don't mean to be rude - really, I don't - but it feels like you're being a little too paranoid. I-If you don't mind me saying that, of course!"]

Seija chuckled and shook her head at the girl's meager attempt to save the conversation.

[Reincarnator #1: "I don't mind. In truth, you may be right. Today, thanks to the battles between Mishima and the others, my ability to counter other Reincarnators has skyrocketed. I'm pretty comfortable in saying that for now, none of them could possibly defeat me even if a few of them teamed up at once. That will change as their Systems gain more levels in the next few years though, and that is the reason why I remain wary of them. I've pulled ahead for the moment, but revealing who I am and which characters from the story I'm in contact with could become annoying, or possibly even dangerous for me in the future depending on how the others react."]

There was a pause as Mimi formulated her response.

[Reincarnator #11: "Still... You're the best equipped to take Pakura in and help her to find purpose in her life. Your 'Akatsuki' group is aiming to achieve world peace, right? Since you're technically a private company rather than a subsidiary of Amegakure, couldn't you eventually spread your company to other nations by opening new branches? Maybe one day Pakura could have her own Sunagakure branch of the company?"]

Seija stopped walking as she read that message. Mimi had just touched on an interesting possibility.

See, Seija had spent the last several years helping to build the Akatsuki up, but never once did she look into changing the structure of the organisation itself so drastically. The most she'd done was to carefully and intricately increase the power levels of the organisation's members by putting each of them onto personalised training courses.

The reason for this was that she hadn't been overly worried that the plot of the story would continue as it was intended to.

Some might assume that the biggest threats to the Akatsuki would be Hanzo and Danzo, who would team up to try and take down the Akatsuki and would succeed in changing it into the villainous group it would become in the original timeline by successfully killing Yahiko.

However, in Seija's opinion the biggest threat to the Akatsuki's integrity was actually the influence and actions of one Obito Uchiha. Obito would be the one to massacre the Akatsuki's lower-ranking members like Kyusuke, Kie, Daibutsu, and all of the other members who were left un-named in the original story, as their HQ was left undefended by any of the founders who were busy getting ambushed by the two 'anzos.

Seija believed that the loss of the lower ranks of the organisation, leaving Konan and Nagato alone and socially isolated, would be the primary cause of their unchecked spiral into villainy through Obito's manipulation.

But Obito hadn't yet started his life as a shinobi, if her reading of the timeline was correct. There were still at least a few more years yet until he would fall under Madara and Zetsu's influence, and in that time Seija was absolutely certain that more than one Reincarnator would try to change Obito's fate.

But just in case they failed to do so, Seija's sole focus had been on increasing the strength and skill of all of the Akatsuki's members. If the founders were stronger than in the original story then Yahiko, Nagato and Konan could all survive the ambush by Hanzo and Danzo. And if the lower-ranking members were stronger or more skilled, then at least a few of them might survive any possible attack by Obito and live on to keep the spirit of Akatsuki alive.

But this? Mimi's idea to change the structure of the organisation itself and branch out into different nations? That idea held some potentially valuable merit...

[Reincarnator #1: "That's an interesting thought. None of us had considered branching out into different nations, even in the original timeline. It'd be an expensive proposition, at the very least. I'm not great with money though, so I couldn't tell you how feasible that plan could be..."]

Once more, Mimi took longer than usual to respond. And her response was not one that Seija was anticipating.

[Reincarnator #11: "If you need money... well... I suppose I could join you! Being honest, I've had little to no opportunities to complete Quests for my Merchant System, and actually joining an established company would be a massive windfall for me. Does the Akatsuki have room for an accountant? T-That's the job I trained for in my parent's company in my previous life, so I have a lot of experience and everything!"] She asked, hope bleeding through the text as if she were standing right in front of Seija speaking to her face.

A wry smile crossed Seija's masked countenance.

[Reincarnator #1: "We'd love to welcome a new member to our admin department! We don't actually have anyone who specialises in handling finances specifically. Poor Konan's kind of been flying by the seat of her pants holding the department together with only her natural intellect and very minimal formal education. If I'm bringing you in, I can happily offer a job to Pakura as well. It'll feel strange to suddenly break my cover after being silent for so long... I'm sure I can handle it."]

[Reincarnator #1: "Ah, you've distracted me for too long! I'll have to pick up the pace. Fortunately my Shadow Clone who's using a Jutsu to hear the others' conversation from a long distance can share its memories with me when I dispell it, so at least I won't have missed anything. See you soon."]

[Reincarnator #11: "S-Sorry for distracting you! See you."]

Seija closed her System Menu and wove the singular seal that she needed to cast the Body Flicker Jutsu. Just a few more moments until she revealed herself to the others.