Both Konan and Rei watched Mei and Ringo in silence, Rei leisurely enjoying their sword fight, in which Mei was grossly outmatched, while Konan observed only Ringo and her movements. She was not interested in the farce of a fight whatsoever.

Slowly, Konan's discerning eyes started widening as she spotted what she previously didn't even bother noticing. ​​

'Her style changed?' Konan pursed her lips in concentration. 'Indeed... it did change!' She frowned, 'Ringo became slower? No... she stopped dodging. Why would she...' Konan narrowed her eyes. Someone who didn't intimately know Ringo's fighting style would not catch up on it but Konan had trained the redhead! If anyone knew how Ringo fought, it would be her. 'She no longer dodges everything. She fights as if she was heavily armored and most of her opponent's attacks didn't even matter.'

Rei smirked as he saw the focused look on Konan's face with the corner of his eye. He quickly understood that Konan noticed. Ringo's style simply became more reckless. Blows that she would previously in no way let even graze her, the weakest but dangerous ones, now ever-so-slightly scraped her. She still tried to evade but...

'The new technique of Ringo is a game-changer for her and I made sure the girl understood it.' Rei thought while merrily shaking his head. 'I really look forward to when she is finally comfortable testing it in a real fight.'

Just then groggy Yugito walked out of the house, rubbing her eyes and stretching like a cat.

"Good morning." She mumbled, just loud enough to be heard.

"O~, Yugi-chan, finally awake?" Rei teased while gesturing towards the spot next to him, causing the girl to happily nod and sit where he told her to.

"As if you didn't know I woke up..." Yugito cheekily puffed out her cheeks. The month she spent with Rei and his girls really improved her overly serious nature and she became more playful, truer to her feelings. She was no longer wary whenever Rei was around.

A second later, Rei's clone stepped outside with a tray of scrambled eggs, toasts, and two fishes for the resident cat. Naturally, it started to prepare breakfast the second she woke up since Rei had the entire place covered in various seals, among which, various detection seals were quite common.

Yugito's expression brightened like the sun when she saw the tray with breakfast, and especially the fishes. Rei proudly chuckled when he heard her audibly gulp her saliva down. The girl was getting quite used to his cooking.

Without even waiting, Yugito started chomping on the fish first. "Yes, yes... eat up, kitty. Mei wanted to start your training today. You will need all the energy you could muster." Rei shrewdly grinned. He knew what Mei prepared and honestly, Nibi Jinchuuriki or not, he was pitying the girl.

'Maybe I should teach Mei some common sense when it comes to instructing others? ... Nah, practice is better than a thousand words. Sorry, Yugito, your sacrifice will not be in vain!' His lips slightly twitched which was noticed only by Konan who hid her silent snickers behind the sleeve of her purplish-black kimono.

Yugito started choking on her food, clearly wanting to say something in return if her narrowed glare was an indication but Konan spoke first. "Well, I think you should stretch before Mei is able to get you in her care. Anyway, Rei, you promised me a sparring match yesterday. Still up for it?" She leaned closer towards him and kissed his cheeks with an expectant expression, making Rei's eyebrow twitch.

In the end, he sighed and relented. He knew there was no avoiding it. 'She clearly knows I hate fighting her because it is so hard to hit her. Why the heck did she have to come to enjoy sparring against me? It is pure torture chasing her all over the field! Damned Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, I clearly remember she got this bad habit of enjoying making her opponents irritated when she started sparring against them with her clones while she hid in the treetops, snacking on sweets as they made fools of themselves.'

Rei stood up, resigned to his fate, and followed excitedly skipping Konan to the nearby empty training field while leaving Yugito to her much needed breakfast.

Unfortunately for him, there was no member of the Seven Swordsmen present so it was him who had to suffer. Needless to say, his desire for Ringo's new Jutsu to be showcased and Tsunade's power-up was not entirely without any ulterior motives. He desperately needed a new 'play-mate' for Konan!

'Maybe I should fetch Kisame later on?'

...

"This is pure bullshit." Yugito subconsciously muttered as she watched the fight between Rei and Konan. Yes... fight. It was not a sparring match. Not when both threw around assuredly lethal moves! "What kind of madmen did I agree to join?" She dryly laughed.

Most of the time, the only thing Yugito could see was blue lightning flashes and a flurry of paper slices. She couldn't even hear the sound of fighting as the sound of static deafened her and more often than not, she had to cover her eyes from the ferocious winds generated from the exchange. She got only glimpses. Glimpses of severed limbs and… Well, she now really didn't look forward to the training Mei prepared for her if this was any indication.

'This... isn't that similar to the Raikage's speed!?' Yugito mentally screamed.

In the field, Rei, holding his chokuto, zapped from one place to another, cutting Konan's limbs, piercing her heart, decapitating her... only for the blood to sprout the second he slashed through her flesh. Then a second later, the blood burst into uncountable red paper slices as her body changed to variously colored paper slices.

By that time, however, Rei was already exchanging blows with yet another Konan who attacked him a split second after he scored a hit on the previous one.

'Hagoromo, have mercy on my soul!' Rei whined.

'IT,' He cut of Konan's hand, 'JUST,' He turned around and pierced the head of the Konan that appeared behind him right through her eyeball, 'NEVER,' He kicked the body away, getting his sword free out of her head and fluidly slashing towards the right, slitting the throat of the next Konan, 'ENDS!' He kicked behind himself, hitting the knee of the next Konan, unbalancing her while he heaved the sword up and brought it down on her in a downward slash, bisecting her.

The entire surrounding was now just a flurry of paper, forcing Rei to saturate his body with lighting chakra and bolt away from there in order to avoid being caught in them.

This repeated again and again and again... for the next hour.

'7150, 7151, 7152, 7153...' Rei counted.

"How many freaking times do I have to almost kill you until you are satisfied, Konan? It's been an hour already!" He stopped, lowering his sword and Konan appeared in a flurry of paper four meters in front of him, totally fine in pristine condition.

"I take it, you like my newest masterpiece." She said with a very rare full-blown content smile on her face, making Rei scowl.

"Only you could create such a complicated yet perverted thing from a foundation made on most basic Jutsu. It's damn annoying!" Rei huffed, glaring at the woman who giggled, making him involuntarily smile.

'Why is it only during these moments when I am completely irritated that she forgets her facade? Not cute at all...' Rei hummed, also slightly smiling without even realizing it.

"So? Did you see through my newest Origami Technique?" Konan proudly asked.

"Are you really going to call it Origami Technique?" Rei asked in disbelief but Konan just playfully shrugged.

"That is a very big part of it, after all." She innocently blinked at Rei's fed-up yet piercing and accusing stare.

In the end, Rei had to admit his defeat and sighed. "Fine. Whatever." He grumbled.

"So~, my technique?" Konan tilted her head with a small coy smile, causing Rei to stop his grumbling and snort in derision.

"What technique?" He asked with thick sarcasm covering his tone, "All you do is Kawarimi right before you are hit with a singular slip of paper while activating the storage seal on that paper which pops in a paper clone mid-Kawarimi. There is that henge sustained by the clone itself that makes it seem as if my attack really hit you and blood actually spurted out before the clone dissolves back into paper slices a second later. All you do is use Clone Technique, Kawarimi, and Henge." Rei wanted to scream. "So why the fuck is it so hard to freaking hit you! What is this bullshit! You didn't even try to dodge! You didn't take even one step during the entire fight! Kawarimi, Kawarimi, Kawarimi! The fuck is that shit!?" He raged.

Konan just heartily laughed at his outburst with a teasing look. "Cool, isn't it?"

"Cool my ass..." Rei whispered under his nose. He was moving at solid Raikage-level speed when the guy was using his Lighting Armor and yet... despite his senses being enhanced, even he couldn't spot the moment when she substituted herself with the paper.

'To think her Origami would reach such a level. She is a monster, no doubt. At this rate, there is no way to win against her without a large massively destructive area of effect Jutsu. The way she used Henge to actually simulate blood and gore while she transfers herself to her opponent's blind spot and attacks while he is distracted due to scoring the hit. That's outright nasty. I can see how most shinobi could fall for that. Everyone stops for a millisecond if their enemy doesn't dodge an obvious attack they are certainly capable of evading. Whether they want or not, their brain starts to think about whys and... that momentary pause is when she strikes from behind. It would take some serious battle and danger instincts or high sensory ability to react to that.'

Rei's eyes gleamed with happiness despite his sullen appearance. He was naturally glad Konan was getting even stronger.

Rei sighed to calm himself down and decided to indulge Konan who had this 'praise me' shine in her eyes. "I must admit," He shook his head in disbelief, "the way you fluidly connected the three basic aspects of shinobi arts into a singular technique and made it into something like this..."

There was a reason why the basic three Jutsu were... well, basic. The Henge was an introduction to the lowest level Genjutsu. The Basic Clones were also supposed to be Genjutsu aimed technique but their purpose was to make sure the students have at least basic chakra control. And Kawarimi was a preparation for ninjutsu. One just stretched his chakra, connecting it with a thing they wanted to swap with and well, then swapped. This meant it was not teleportation. Just chakra manipulation.

As Konan demonstrated, she could swap with any of her uncountable paper slips since they all contained some of her chakra. It was basically a teleportation technique in her hands since she didn't need to reach with her chakra. The entire thing barely cost her anything and she could probably do it with her eyes closed for an entire week without a single break.

'How broken Jutsu...' Rei inwardly chuckled and walked towards Konan and with a gentle smile, he lovingly rubbed her head while tenderly hugging her. "Good job, honey."