Ch119. New base

Rei, Konan, Mei, and Ringo traveled quickly to the west, not stopping until they reached the sea.

"What now?" Ringo asked, looking at the calm waves of the shining water washing the sandy shores. She had no idea what Rei wanted to do since they didn't go to any port city. He clearly didn't want to leave a paper trail of their departure from the country nor any witness but here they were, in the middle of literally nothing. Ringo knew they wouldn't be able to water-walk to the other side of the sea, no matter their chakra reserves. At least, she definitely could not do it, hence her confusion.

All of the Team Downpour gave Ringo a questioning look that stopped her in her tracks, making her furrow her eyebrows and adorn a pondering expression before a realization struck her. "Ah! So we will fly?" She more stated than asked. "Er, I think it was too long since I did missions with Konan and Rei so my memory can be a bit slow. Hehe." Ringo awkwardly laughed, trying to avoid the pointed and amused looks from the Team Downpour.

Rei just chuckled and came closer to Ringo, putting his hands around her waist with a mischievous expression, causing her to blush and look down as Mei silently snickered in expectation of Ringo's reaction.

"Wha-?" Ringo shyly started but then her entire world as if blinked in and out and she was hit with the feeling of peacefulness and yet, she was also greatly cowed as the full might of Natural energy in Rei's dimension fell onto her shoulders due to her entering it for the very first time. Ringo was in awe and so shocked she forgot how to breathe as the waves of energy washed over her body, the world as if slowed to crawl as her pupils dilated and her throat tightened. And as soon as it came, it went and Ringo found herself staring at a small town from a hill behind it.

Rei smiled knowingly at Ringo, unhanding her. She didn't spend even a second in his dimension but her star-struck expression was something he expected. Mei reacted much the same and even now she was a bit out of it from time to time. Unless one bonded with Rei, nothing he could do about that. On the other hand, at least because of Mei not being bonded with Rei yet, they found out that training in the dimension makes chakra reserves grow faster. There would be no way for Mei to have enough chakra to defeat a ten-thousand-strong army otherwise.

"We are here." Rei said, pulling Ringo out of her reverie just in time for her to spot Konan blinking into existence two meters away from them, holding Mei around her shoulders in a similar manner Rei held her around the waist.

"Wait... Where is here? No. First, tell me what the heck was that!? Did you find a way to teleport? That was not a speed technique! No, no, what the heck was that place full of gigantic trees, massive roots, and energy... god so much energy." Ringo muttered to herself in a crazed manner, breathing so hard she was close to hyperventilating. "How can something like that exist. There is just no wa-"

Rei's lips suddenly landed on hers, making her eyes widen as she leaned into the kiss, her arms snaking around his neck. Ringo pulled herself closer to Rei, deepening the kiss as her previous thoughts evaporated from her mind.

It took a while for them to pull away, much to Mei's ire. Unfortunately for Mei and fortunately for Ringo, Konan had Mei's shoulders in a vice-grip while giving her a barely noticeable smug smirk and shaking her head so Mei could only pout and watch, stewing in her own jealousy.

"You calm now?" Rei whispered to Ringo who meekly nodded laying her head on his shoulder to prevent him from seeing how flushed she was. "Good," Rei chuckled, making her shuffle closer to him. "Now then, we are in the Land of Waves and our destination is the Land of Whirlpool. We need a new base, after all." Rei said, making Ringo's eyes widen. Before she could say anything, however, Rei left the embrace and gestured for her to follow and Ringo could only huff in exasperation.

Soon after, the four ninjas were traversing through the sea between the Land of Waves and the Land of Whirlpools.

...

Finding Uzushiogakure was not really a problem. The problem was getting inside since the entire village was shielded by multiple sealing arrays, either geared to cause sickness, weakness, or Rei's favorite, a seal that actually inflicted chakra poisoning on an intruder if he stayed too long. There naturally were also instant-kill sealing arrays and other offensive seals strewn all over the Uzushiogakure.

The mystery of why the villages didn't have so many Uzumaki sealing scrolls was finally unraveled. The entire place was a death-trap designed to not let anybody who enters to leave alive. Only a jonin would be able to get out once he enters and even then he had to be very, very lucky. That explained quite clearly why Kirigakure had so many low-level sealing scrolls of the Uzumaki clan but none of the higher quality. They simply couldn't manage to retrieve them before dying.

After all, it took Rei quite a bit of time, three months to be exact, to first find out every single seal in the whole village and then change them so they would allow him and his party to stay without fearing to be either incinerated, poisoned, flayed alive, or frozen to death due to activating a hidden seal. While the world waged war, Rei was cracking his head, trying to find a solution how to make Uzushiogakure safe for his team as Konan made sure to whip Ringo into shape while adding what she previously did not teach the woman, lessons on anti-indoctrinations ala Konan, which basically meant she was indoctrinating Ringo to be loyal to Rei. Eh, not like Ringo didn't see it. She was too experienced not to, she simply went along with it because it was what she wanted.

During this time, Mei followed Rei like a puppy, trying to be cute and endearing. Rei knew she wanted a kiss since she saw him kissing Ringo, someone who didn't spend that much time with him. Mei simply felt Ringo was getting ahead and it took two months for Rei to finally break. To his eternal dismay, since then Mei became a lot bolder and demanding which only prompted Ringo to be the same... the two started an odd competition for his affections. He could only sigh in exasperation, especially when Tsunade heard of it and laughed her ass off on his account. Yes, he had to spend every night with either Tsunade or Konan since Mei and Ringo started competing, otherwise, he would long ago lose his nerves and go apeshit on them. In the end, Tsunade made sure to persuade him in a very heated 'conversation' that he had to bond with the two women soon if he wanted peace and calm. After all, the bonding made them feel like sisters and while Mei and Ringo would most likely still retain some kind of competitiveness among them, it won't be the ferocious kind.

Finally, the months passed and Rei was finished with the entire Uzushiogakure and the only thing that was left was to name their group. After all, they were a gathering of three S-rank and one SS-rank ninja. They naturally needed a proper name to represent them! Or so, argued Mei...

And such was the beginnings of Yozora.