Ch189. Plans and reasons
"You see, a thousand years ago, a person from the Otsutsuki clan came to this planet to gather chakra fruit." Rei started, causing his wives to look at him strangely. Chuckling, Rei continued, "A lot happened, this person betrayed her comrades, stabbing them in their back in order to have the fruit for herself... or that's the story as I know it. Who knows if it is the truth. Too many years passed since then, after all." Rei shook his head before becoming serious again. "But what is important is that this person ate the chakra fruit, becoming the Progenitor of Chakra, the Rabbit Goddess Kaguya."
"Goddess?" Konan looked intently at Rei. "You are training us to fight a Goddess?" She added almost in disbelief.
"No, not at all." Rei smiled at Konan's baffled expression, something not seen that often. "In a fight to the death, you would lose to Kaguya even if you teamed up and possessed fully grown bijuu. No, leave Kaguya to me. Who knows, maybe you will get another sister out of it?" Rei mischievously joked. He seriously didn't believe that. Not really. Kaguya was... well, for a human, calling her Goddess was not that wrong if one took into consideration what she was really capable of. "Anyway, it's not Kaguya who is important here. She was betrayed by her two sons and sealed in the moon. But I digress. They had their own reasons and it is hard to say who was right and who wrong."
"Moon?" Tsunade muttered, for a moment forgetting she was in Rei's dimension and subconsciously looking up. Realizing what she did, her cheeks pinked.
Rei simply appreciated the cute sight and calmly smiled at Tsunade, "The problem here is not Kaguya. Well, not yet anyway. The problem is the Otsutsuki clan."
"You said they came to this planet." Ringo slowly started, "That means they are in fact NOT from this planet, right?" She asked with a bit of an unbelieving undertone, finding it kinda hard to accept that aliens existed.
Rei nodded, causing Ringo to bite her lower lips as a need for more intel flashed through her eyes, her mind switching into her Assassin mode. She needed info, their weaknesses, their habits, their...
Suddenly, a soft blue ball of chakra tenderly impacted Ringo's forehead, getting her out of her funk as the other girls giggled.
"Calm down, Ringo. We have a few decades until they attack." Rei said, "In fact, I have an idea how to hide this planet from them but it would need a LOT of power, time, and resources. But I am up for it. I didn't build my village only to have it destroyed by some wannabe pale-skinned fruit-muncher."
"And I guess, having a Goddess as a power source, would really help these plans, right?" Mei quipped, making Rei blink at her before nodding with a grin.
"But Kaguya is a piece of work in itself. Getting her out of the moon would be incredibly hard. Getting her to cooperate with us would be difficult because I have no idea what her mental state is or if she is really affected by the chakra fruit or not. If I get skilled and strong enough to safely pull her out of the moon while being capable of stuffing her inside of it again? Sure, we can try getting her on our side. If not? Fuck her. Not worth the risk." Rei seriously said, causing all five women to instinctively straighten up.
Rei didn't have any qualms about doing something others would consider a veritable suicide attempt for years. Now he actually says that there is something he thinks is dangerous enough that the risks are not worth the possible results? The girls naturally knew what exactly that meant. Any normal chap trying to pull that off would most likely not survive the next day. Thoughts about getting Kaguya out of the moon quickly left their minds. It would be better to leave that to Rei.
Even Konan decided to focus on something else. Sure, she handled many things but when it came to decisions that really mattered or would propel them a head above the shoulders of others, it was always Rei who made the decision. Konan could live with that. She trusted Rei with her life so there was no need to bother with what to do with a possibly murderous god-like being who was sealed for a millennium. 'Rei will figure it out.' She mentally shrugged while her expression was the perfect image of calm with a slightly amused smile as her mind was deciding what lingerie to take into bed tonight to properly motivate her Rei.
"How strong do you need us to be to contend against Otsutsuki?" Pakura asked the important question as she distractedly patted Emerald. She was the weakest of the group and while she was slowly catching up, this revelation meant she didn't have the leisure of being half-assed in her training.
Rei helplessly shrugged at her question. "I have no idea, to be honest. The bijuu are a nice step-up and it will give us the energy levels necessary to contend against them in case I will be unable to isolate this planet. After we got the bijuu into ourselves? Then we will have to learn more about chakra and its possible applications. We know nothing about it." Rei bitterly stated.
"Ah..." Konan's eyes slightly widened as if she realized something.
"I see..." Tsunade muttered, her tone a bit mischievous.
Ringo simply raised her eyebrow at Rei in an 'Are you serious?' manner.
Pakura stayed stoic but the corners of her lips were twitching. She was one of those who was setting up the system in Rei's hidden village. While she had no idea what good it would be when she was setting it up, now she understood why it was done that way almost instantly.
"I, on the other hand, don't see!" Mei pouted and crossed her hands under her chest, supported by Auburn who heatedly yipped in agreement.
"That's not very surprising." Konan smugly smirked before continuing in an admonishing tone that had Mei silenced in a jiffy, "You refused any position of management in the village and don't bother with what is going on with it. You would naturally not make the connection." She shrugged. "If you did, you would know that our village has a bit of a different promotion system than others. Not only our ninjas need to reach some standard of power before they can be promoted, every chuunin aiming to become a jonin has to invent a new technique and hand it to the Promotion Board to be reviewed. We made it into a rite of passage of sorts. To think Rei added it so that every single ninja of ours can come up with a new way to use chakra for us when we reach the stage where we need a bit of inspiration to get stronger..." Konan giggled. "It could be actually called cheating."
Rei simply grinned at Konan, "My village, my rules. Even if they knew, they can't really complain. Not with the benefits our village offers." He then moved his gaze towards Ringo, "But yes. Once we get to the level where our chakra reserves would be pretty much big enough and our enemies would have similarly massive reserves, it would all come to technique and that's why having hundreds of working chakra usage concepts from our dutiful ninja force will be helpful. They don't have to make something powerful. Just something to give us a push in the right direction. We can develop the technique to be powerful but we need at the very least a working foundation. This way, we won't have to spend our time trying to come up with one."
"I just now realized." Tsunade raised her eyes towards Rei, affectionately gazing at him. "You really couldn't be bothered what happens to the world, could you?" Her tone was almost sad but also content at the same time. Tsunade's eyes slowly trailed over her sisters, "As long as we are fine, you wouldn't care." Tsunade bitterly smiled, tearing up. "Thank you, Rei. For doing so much for me."
Rei and his other girls stayed silent with their own thoughts, as they listened to Tsunade's muted happy sobs as she tried to regain control of her emotions. Rei... didn't want to go into this discussion because even he knew it was a lost cause. And now that Tsunade said it aloud, his wives knew it too.
In the end, his reasons why he cared what happens to the Elemental Nations were simple. Tsunade was still fond of Konoha. Konan was proud of the Biri-Biri Company she helped build up. Pakura didn't want to see Suna destroyed. And in some way, Ringo still cared about Kirigakure.
That... was honestly it. He simply didn't want to see them sad.