35. Masks and Blade.

Shopping took forever, Valerie took her job of getting clothes and items for the others very seriously.

I'm pretty sure I just single handedly supported the leaf village for a year with all the things I bought.

I dropped off everything in the mansion so the girls and Kimimaro could pick what they wanted before setting Valerie to her task.

"I need you to go to the land of waves, there should be a grave with an executioners blade on top, I want the sword and the two bodies underneath. They belong to an ice user and one of the 7 swordsmen of the mist." I instruct Valerie and give her a map of the area. Shouldn't take more than a day.

"And what are you going to be doing?" She asks looking at the map.

"Robbing the Uzumaki mask shrine. Those masks have some pretty amazing abilities." I explain.

"Okay!" She give me a quick peck on the forehead before we leave Kamui and head out of the inn.

She is much faster than me and will get to the wave village quicker. As for the Uzumaki mask shrine, it's right outside the village.

I can sneak out easily using Kamui and going underground.

It doesnt take me long to find the run down shrine. "Really this is how they treat the shrine of thier allies, then again they probably helped kill them off, if how they treat naruto is anything to go by."

The shrine looked dirty and decrepit, the roof was caving in at multiple spots, it looked like this place hadn't seen humans in years.

I do a quick sweep of the area and start gathering all the Uzumaki masks and store them.

Then I just head back towards the Inn to wait for Valerie.

Sure enough a couple hours later she returns and passes me some scrolls.

"Why do you want the bodies and sword if you already have a sword." Valerie asks curiously.

"Collection purposes. Not the bodies, the sword, as for the bodies. The ice bloodline from Haku, and I'll make Zabuza into a path. As much as I would like to revive them, I doubt I could sway Zabuza away from the mist, and Haku is loyal to Zabuza to the point he even died for him. Don't know what it is about doucehbag people getting loyal top class minions in this world, but its fucking annoying. Even if I did revive them I only have one more slot to take someone back. Unless i use my evil pieces, problem is I dont know which worlds I would travel to in the future, and my pieces and slots are limited." I explain taking out the original executioners blade and giving it a once over, it's slightly damaged but nothing some blood couldn't fix.

"You could revive the loyal one and use the other as a bargaining piece, revive him at the cost the other to follow you." Valerie suggests. "As for those evil pieces, you never explained what they do."

"Ah my bad, basically the evil pieces grant boosts depending on what piece is given, for example, the rook would increase melee strength, the knight would increase speed, the bishop would increase magical abilities, the queen increases all three, in total I have 16 pieces, 1 king, 1 Queen, 2 knights, 2 rooks, 2 bishop's, and 8 pawns. I would be absorbing the king piece so I effectively have 15 slots for servants." I explain the logic behind the pieces. "It also offers wings and longevity if I'm guessing correctly. But anyway it makes a person part of a peerage group, which means they would be binding themselves to me as something like my servants. I would have to assure thier loyalty as I dont want to waste a piece on someone just to have them fuck off and take my piece."

Valerie nods in understanding. "Did you have any plans to make someone a peerage member already?"

"Kimimaro would make a great knight, his bloodline makes him a perfect tank due to his bone density, and most of his moves use swordsmanship, he is quite lethal already so if I gave him the knight piece to enhance his speed, he would probably be even more monstrous in combat. As for the others they are a bit harder to place, Guren isn't used to her abilities and doesn't have a path picked out, Karin wants to focus on medic skills, and Anko is a torture and investigation person who specializes in snakes and poisons. Kind of hard to place them." What even powers up snakes and poisons? "Plus if I do get them to join there might be some issues on loyalty and command if I have both of them under me, I doubt Haku would place his loyalty to me over Zabuza."

"So the best option if you want a loyal follower would be to revive Haku, use Zabuza, and then get rid of Zabuza to make sure there arent any problems from the followers. I wouldnt want someone with questionable loyalty around, the others all have motives to stay however this Zabuza does not." Valerie adds in her point of view.

"Yeah his loyalty would be to the mist village, they do tend to brainwash thier ninja. As much as I would enjoy having someone of his rank and caliber following me, I wouldn't be able to trust him." I shake my head. "Well then let's get this over with."

I slam my hands on the ground and summon the hell king. I toss out the scroll containing Haku's body and the tongue of the hell king grabs it.

I feel a large drain on my body as the hell king chews on the scroll. A minute later a brown haired person is spit out of the hell kings mouth.

They stumble for a second and look confused. "Where am I? What happened?" they ask honestly I cant make out thier gender.

"She, is a girl." Valerie says hearing my thoughts.

"Eh? Are you sure?" I ask her.

"Positive, she has breast wraps as they came undone when I dug her up." Valerie confirms.

Meanwhile Haku flinches. She had hidden her gender, if there was ever a chance of getting caught then if she acted like a man the chances of something like rape were slimmer. She knew the fate of female ninja if they were captured by enemies, death was a blessing.