chapter 134

It took a while for Eiji to even move from where he was, really. Not because he was worried something would happen. If anything, he felt like he could trust the system on that. Moreover, the system said Zetsu was out too, which meant the team had succeeded too. The only reason he'd doubted to begin with was because of paranoia and the constant fear he'd lived through his life with so far. That had been dashed by the Quest screen and with it…

With it came the greatest sense of relief, which was why he didn't move. It was almost overwhelming, in all honesty. It felt like he'd been trapped in a cave somewhere, shackled inside, barely able to see the world and then… And then freedom had eventually, finally, come for him.

It was over.

All of it. The preparations, the fear, the threats, none of that was in his mind anymore. Sure, maybe he'd need to prepare for stuff still, the world he lived in wasn't precisely nice. However, he wouldn't have to fear the apocalypse anymore. He was done with that, he could sit back and relax, enjoy himself and his life.

'Live life to the fullest,' he remembered. Maybe he'd finally be able to truly embrace that nindo he'd come up with those first days. He had tried his best until then, but he had done either not a very good job at it or a positively terrible one. Now though, now he could do whatever he wanted without having the weight of the world on his shoulders.

"Congratulations," he heard the twins say in his mind, coordinated as if they were real twins. With them came a cheerful bark from Tsuchigumo too. The adorable little thing probably didn't even know what the fuss was about.

'Thanks,' he whispered back, a smile on his face as he considered what step to take now. There were a number of things that needed to be done, for sure. There was Nagato and Konan, who were probably somewhere around the Land of Rain. There were the shinobi forces he'd called to be stationed on the borders of the nation. There was Itachi, still trapped in the Spider Realm. There were many things that he could do, and yet…

He had a handful of things in mind and none of them were on the list that he should do. That was the great thing of being free, he thought as he decided on where he wanted to go. He could do whatever he wanted, regardless of what he should do. Those things would be there when he decided to come back to them. The world wouldn't end if he left those waiting for a bit. For the moment, well, he'd enjoy himself.

And that involved doing a few things he'd had to push to the side for a while now.

Sealing Obito's body almost felt like a chore at that point. It was the sensible thing to do, just in case, but it was another should that he suddenly seemed to despise. 'Come on, it's over, yes, but no need to become a child,' he chastised himself before sighing.

His sudden bout of frustration didn't last long though, as he started moving after only a few seconds. The rain and the rocky landscape of the nation he was in were the only company he kept for a while, but he didn't mind them. They were certainly not the worst company he'd had, that was for sure. And soon he'd replace them with much better options, one in particular.

"Took you long enough, Fearless Leader!" called Fu, the first one to notice his arrival. "That light show was awesome! Much better than we-" she started exclaiming enthusiastically before she was interrupted, or maybe it was better to say that she interrupted herself. "And he's gone and made things awkward now… Fearless Leader~," she whined, but he ignored her.

He was otherwise too preoccupied cupping Tayuya's face with his good hand and kissing her. It wasn't the time nor the place, he knew, but who the fuck cared about that? He'd won! If someone had a problem with what he wanted to do, then they could damn well try to tell him to do something else. He dared them to do so.

"It's over," he whispered when he finally pulled back from his girlfriend. The girl herself nodded slowly, eyes a little dazed. "We can go on that trip now, see the sights, play, draw, enjoy ourselves," he told her, resting his forehead on hers as her eyes focused intently on his.

"You mean that?" she whispered, grabbing the back of his head and pulling him for another make out session before he could even answer her. They'd never quite been that intense with each other, and maybe they'd go back to normal after some time. For the moment though, Eiji was high on his victory and newfound freedom.

It was so great to not have a care in the world.

"Ahem," someone interrupted, clearing their throat.

"Red Nose, I swear to fucking God-!" Tayuya started before Eiji chuckled and nudged her. With a huff, the redhead separated from him and turned away. They'd probably go back to it, later and when they were by themselves though. Yeah, that sounded great.

"It's over, old man," Eiji told the Tsuchikage, who looked particularly annoyed. He couldn't bring himself to care overly much with that. The man would get over it. The preparations he'd made for the borders had been necessary, as far as he was aware, even if they hadn't been used. Better to err on the side of caution. "You can go back home and party or whatever it is you do to celebrate. Give Kurotsuchi a hug, visit the family, grumble about today's youth or whatever, man," he told Onoki, grinning widely and laughing. Behind him, he heard a few snorts as the man's eyebrow twitched.

"It's over?" Onoki asked, eyes narrowed.

"It's over," Eiji nodded. "Akatsuki is all but done for. There's a few loose ends I have to take care of, but it's just a matter of getting to it and I can't be bothered to do that right now. It's done, over, finished, the end."

"That's a relief," the Tsuchikage replied, and it was clear that he meant that, even if not as much as Eiji would if he said it. That was fine, the world may never know what he truly had stopped, but he didn't care for that. The fact was that he had stopped it, and that was the important part. "Don't make a habit out of this though, brat," the man couldn't help but add, making Eiji chuckle.

"What now, Eiji?" Kabuto asked, coming along as Onoki turned to address his people. His team's medic seemed to be actually curious instead of waiting for orders too, which was interesting.

"I have a few ideas," he replied, smiling.

[}-o-{]

Eiji sent an exasperated look to his side.

"Just because I said you could poke it doesn't mean you have to do it constantly, Naruto," he muttered, eye twitching as his blonde brother pressed the back of his chopsticks to his puppet arm. "Man, you'll never stop being a child, will you?"

"It's just weird? Why'd you change it?" Naruto asked, as if that excused his behavior. It was a fair question though, Eiji supposed. As soon as he and the team had set foot back in Suna, he'd changed his puppet arm from the armored one back to the simpler wooden version he'd used before.

It looked somewhat like a wooden doll's arm, really, or maybe a mannequin, but it was still what he preferred. The armored arm made him feel like he'd be going to a fight any second and he wanted to be able to relax. So, he'd decided that he'd use the simpler arm for when he was off duty and the armored one for when he was on a mission or otherwise expecting a fight. A simple enough system, sure, but if it kept him from stressing when he didn't need to, then he'd take it.

Kabuto hadn't so much as batted an eye when Eiji had asked him to work on both. What he had done was ask when he could get started on trying to improve his condition, and Tayuya's for that matter. Eiji had told him that there were some preparations to be made before they could truly tackle that, but if he really wanted to, he could work on it whenever he wanted.

There was no rush for absolutely anything as of that moment, after all. Well, yes, there were some matters that were almost pressing. Almost being the operative word there. With that in mind, Eiji would take his sweet, sweet time to do anything at all, just because he could. It was a glorious feeling, in all honesty.

"I just feel better with this one. The other one is… too much of a weapon," Eiji explained. Sure, this arm would likely be turned into a weapon too. No way Kabuto wouldn't do that. However, it was different if the arm was made to be a weapon and if it just conveniently could be a weapon too, or so the logic went in his mind. Maybe Eiji was being slightly delusional about it, but if it worked for him, who cared?

"If you say so," Naruto mumbled, pushing even more ramen into his mouth. "So, you were saying you'll be around more often?"

"I mean, I should. The team and I will travel a lot, but there shouldn't be any long term missions. At least for a while. So we'll just come back to Konoha in between places to visit," Eiji explained, picking up some of his own noodles after he finished. "But who knows, maybe you can visit us when we are out. Things should be simpler from now on."

"That's nice to hear," Naruto mumbled, pushing his ramen around for a bit before continuing to eat.

They remained somewhat in silence then… for all of a few seconds before the blonde started talking about all the things they could do, and where and how. He chatted about the things he wanted to train on and the techniques he'd come up with for the future. He spoke of his plans and how he'd be Hokage, because of course he did, and the things he'd do when he reached that goal.

"Eiji," he called, and the way the blonde's voice seemed to suddenly calm down from his normal hyperactivity called his attention. "Thank you, for all you did. I know… Just, thank you," he said, staring at his now empty bowl instead of at him.

"Anything for my brother," he said with a grin of his own, one that went from peaceful to mischievous a second later. "You do know that me being around more often means less ramen in your diet, right? I won't let you eat it for all your meals and you know that."

"Damnit, I knew there'd be a downside," Naruto cursed, even though there was a smile on his face. "It'll be good to have you back anyway, Eiji."

"I'll have to talk to Ichiraku so they don't sell you all the time. I might have to buy their loyalty, but it'll be for a good cause. I'm sure they'll agree," Eiji continued, grinning from ear to ear. "Another bowl, please," he added towards the cook.

"Coming right up!" the woman replied instantly.

"Eiji, come on, you don't mean that," Naruto replied, rolling his eyes. When he was met with silence, he started sweating. As he looked at Eiji's challenging look, he paled. "Eiji, bro, come on. You can't do that to me. Ichiraku's the best, you know it."

"Yeah, but that still doesn't mean you can eat ramen all the time," he told the blonde.

"Eiji, come on!"

"Told you it would go about like that," Sasuke commented, speaking for the first time in the night. He wasn't quite smiling, but then again, he hadn't shown much emotion at all since Itachi. Eiji took comfort, however, in the fact that his voice held the smallest tinge of amusement.

"You both suck," Naruto grumbled, sulking as he continued eating his- Actually, that was his third bowl… 'Huh, when did that happen?' Maybe he was a little too distracted. Then again, there were better things to focus on than Naruto's bizarre ability to eat ramen without stopping. "See if I do something nice for you. You better look out for a prank."

"Oh?" Eiji voiced, raising an eyebrow at the blonde. To that, Naruto chuckled nervously as he paled again. A second later, he backpedaled.

"Just a joke, just a joke," he "corrected", waving his arms in front of him. "Not you though, you are still in my sights," he added, pointing two fingers and then turning them towards Sasuke.

"Eiji would you…?"

"Hey, that's cheating-"

"Naruto, please," Eiji told the blonde, rolling his eyes. He swore, the jinchuriki would be an adult with children and all and he'd still manage to be more childish than even those. "Relax, would you?"

"Fine," Naruto grumbled, sulking even harder than before. "You both still suck though."

Eiji just sighed, but even then he wore a smile on his face.

[}-o-{]

"So, where do you think we should go?" Eiji asked Tayuya. They were sitting at a table by themselves in a restaurant at the moment, and they probably would the night next to it and so on. Part of Eiji enjoying himself would be taking his girlfriend out on as many dates as she'd like. Which probably would mean that he'd get told no relatively quickly.

Or maybe not. He was planning on switching things up from just taking her to restaurants, after all. He knew Tayuya would either get tired, get annoyed or both if they did the same thing everyday. Especially because she wasn't much for "normal" dating, really. That was a problem for future Eiji to deal with though, there and then he was enjoying himself.

"I wanna meet my friends for a bit, so it probably will involve some Land of Earth and then a trip to the Land of Fire, but after that, we can go wherever," Eiji added, as he saw Tayuya consider the question. To that she scrunched up her nose, but otherwise didn't say anything about that, which was a pretty good thing all things considered.

"We haven't been to the Land of Lightning or the Land of Water… At least with this team. It'd be nice," Tayuya commented and Eiji wondered if she and Jirobo had been to those at some point with the Sound Four. Kabuto probably had been everywhere, he guessed, same with Yugito. Temari… was a bit of a mystery on that front and Fu probably hadn't left Taki before they took her away from there.

"Land of Water it is," Eiji said, drawing a snort from his girlfriend. To be fair, even with Kumogakure joining the peace treaty and all… He didn't feel like tempting fate when the last two times people from there had seen him were power moves. One of those even against Kumo's people to boot. Yeah, he wouldn't be going there unless he was called or he absolutely needed to. "Sounds like a nice place to go, honestly. Except for the… Well, the mist, I don't know how much I'll like that."

"I'm sure Bimbo Number One will be more than happy to send it away with her fan," Tayuya pointed out, to which he nodded, bringing another bite of their meal to his mouth. "Besides, didn't you want to go to that hellhole anyway?"

"Yeah, I made a deal involving Samehada and I think they'll get annoyed with me if I put it off for too long," Eiji commented, some of his more long term goals appearing in his mind even if he didn't give them much thought. They were fancy dreams at the moment, but he'd get there. He had time. "Besides, they'd already offered to help us out, I imagine they'll do something nice for us if we go for a visit and maybe help out with something here and there."

"You think we can get, like, a fucking five star place or something?" Tayuya asked, suddenly seeming a little more eager at that idea. "Because I sure want to try one of those damn places. It ain't fun when you gotta do a mission and can just watch from outside."

He didn't ask for what missions involved that, because honestly, he didn't wanna know. It was the tacit agreement they'd come to. There was very little said about her time under Orochimaru's orders and Eiji quite honestly didn't care enough. If he needed to know, he'd trust that she would tell him. He wouldn't deny that it was sort of interesting to get little snippets like that though.

"I'm sure we can manage something," Eiji agreed. The situation in Kiri was bad, but it'd been improving for some time, so surely they'd be able to allow them that. Especially for what he'd done and would do for them, on top of maybe some help with a mission or two. "We can also go on a tooth rotting date on a boat there too," he added, getting a napkin thrown to his face immediately. "Or not," he mumbled, before chuckling.

"... I want to try fishing," he heard Tayuya whisper under her breath and he wasn't even sure if he was meant to hear that.

"Sure, we can do that too," he told her with a smile. She didn't look at him, instead turning her face to the side, but he saw a slight pink dusting on her cheeks, so he took that as a win. "Yeah, we can definitely do that. I've never gone fishing either," he admitted before smirking. "Would it be cheating if I use Living Thread and Web Sense for that?"

"It damn well would," his girlfriend confirmed with a sage nod. Then she mimicked his smirk. "Let's do it. Actually, you think we can get the others to bet something on fishing? Dumbasses wouldn't expect that," she said, grinning even wider.

"I think the guys might get a little suspicious if I do too well in something that involves any kind of thread," he pointed out with an amused smile. "Call it a hunch."

"Not if it's me the one that does well, and definitely not if you aren't around," Tayuya explained, seeming getting more and more into her little scheme. It was sort of adorable. Mean too, but mainly adorable. Eiji didn't think she'd like hearing that though.

"I guess I can conveniently tell you guys to go fishing or something while I talk politics with someone," Eiji said, bringing another bite to his mouth. "And tell you guys to wait for me there, so that the others will go, how does that sound?"

"Reading my fucking mind, Fearless Leader," Tayuya said, still grinning like the cheshire cat. "Reading my fucking mind."

"You are so adorable when you are being mean," Eiji commented, deciding to throw caution to the wind. Besides, his girlfriend's red face was certainly worth the string of curses that was sent his way then and there.

"Dumbass," Tayuya grumbled, her face still quite flushed while her eyes remained looking anywhere but at him. To that, which seemed the last of her insults, he chuckled. "There's some things to do before doing anything else, aren't there?" she asked, making his good mood drop slightly.

"Yeah, I guess there are," he agreed.

"Fuck, sorry, I was just trying to change-" she quickly said, scrambling to do something she wasn't used to doing. Apologizing.

"Don't worry about it," he waved off, giving her a weary smile. "Even with that, I still feel so much better than I did before."

"Still, sorry… I'm a dumbass too," she grumbled, looking down at her plate.

"It's fine, we can be idiots together," he reassured her with a chuckle.

"You promise?"

"I do."

"... Good."

[}-o-{]

"You sure about this?" Eiji asked, taking deep breaths to keep himself calm. 'Man, I thought I was past these levels of stress,' he grumbled in his mind. Tsuchigumo, sweetheart that she was, offered him a wave of comfort while the twins made their presence known.

"You knew there were loose ends to deal with," Kage reminded him.

"Just because the biggest problem is dealt with doesn't mean there's not a few minor ones left still," Hachi offered for her part. It was kind of funny that this was considered a minor thing. Accurate, but still sort of ironic.

"I am," Sasuke said, taking a deep breath in. "I hate it. I hate him. And I hate that I can and at the same time can't understand why he did what he did."

"I don't think you want to truly understand, Sasuke," Eiji commented with a grim expression. "What happened, it was a mistake."

"What if it wasn't?" Sasuke asked, frowning. He could almost see the Uchiha's eyes flashing red before turning back to black. "What if that was really the only way to stop them?"

"If it was, then it should have been a last resort," Eiji replied. "A lot of things should have been tried before it came to that."

"I guess… I guess you are right, I just…"

"You want it to make sense," Eiji finished, getting a stiff nod from Sasuke. "Sometimes, it just doesn't"

"It sucks."

"Yeah," he agreed with a nod and a weary half-smile. "Yeah, it does."

"I will do it, not because he wants me to, but because I want to," Sasuke said then, and Eiji could see the determination in his eyes as he stared at his brother a little distance away. "I want that power. No, I need that power."

Those words should have been concerning for Eiji to hear, he supposed. However, he knew Sasuke and he knew that he wasn't the same person that he had notes about in his Inventory. No, there was more to it than what one would first think. Sure enough…

"I need that power to make sure nothing like this happens while I live," Sasuke continued. "I'll rebuild my clan and I'll make sure that my family is safe. Never again will something like that happen. Never again will I be powerless to defend those I care about."

"And we'll help, you can be sure of that," Eiji told him, softly pushing him with his shoulder. To that, Sasuke chuckled somewhat bitterly, which surprised him somewhat.

"I'm including you with that," Sasuke replied, giving him an exasperated look. "You were out there, fighting S class ninja for Naruto's sake and the rest of us… The rest of us were just doing barely anything at all. You've got no idea how frustrating that was, Eiji."

"Ah, sorry about that?" Eiji offered uncertainty, getting Sasuke to shake his head at him. Then, the Uchiha took a deep breath in. "Ready?"

"As I'll ever be," Sasuke breathed out. "Let's get this over with."

To that, Eiji nodded at Kabuto, who had been standing off to the side. Thus, there he stood, watching as his brother underwent a procedure that was more than a little disturbing, but he refused to look away. It felt wrong to even think about it as Sasuke went through the process of getting Itachi's Mangekyou transferred to him.

Through the whole thing, his mind replayed the last conversation he'd had with the older Uchiha. This only made him even more acutely aware of his Inventory. Or, more importantly, the object that was stored there, next to Samehada and his notes from his previous life.

There, sitting almost innocently, was a single Mangekyou eye.