The Land of Rivers was actually much closer to Konoha than Wave was, almost by half. Assuming I would find the swords in the first couple of days, we would most likely be back fairly quickly. I didn’t intend on stopping to train on this trip either.

I wanted to get both the cleaver and the twin swords into the hands of my minions so they could get some practice in with them before they had to actually use them. Once we all got used to using them a bit more, we could even get some practice in against each other with them, which should prove useful.

I’d forgotten about using the Dragonblade in the panic that had overtaken me during the fight against Kakuzu and Hidan. I was also completely sure that if I had pulled it out and attempted to go into melee with either of them, I would be dead.

So maybe panicking did occasionally have its uses.

I’d been thinking about trying to make some kind of buff that I could place on Karenbana and Fu as well; Something like Protect? Or Haste? I knew that I could cast spells on other people, even though they didn’t have Mana, because Heal worked perfectly fine, as did Status Removal. I was hoping the same would apply in this case.

It was something to attempt to create when I got back again; the concentration needed to unlock these spells wasn’t something I could just muster up on the fly. It was an effort of will that I needed to work at; It had seemed so much easier in the source material.

Speaking of spells; I was super glad that Status Removal worked on ‘Hungover’ and ‘Intoxicated,’ because it was an effort of will drag myself out of Tsunade’s bed when I had first woken up; either way, I was never drinking rice wine again, it tasted terrible, and the hangover was awful.

Either way, I’d dealt with it, and now I was waiting at the west-gate for my mysterious escort to arrive. I felt a chakra signature heading towards me, one I’d never felt before, definitely Jonin level though. I stepped away from the gate to turn towards them.

“Good morning, you match the description of the client Hokage-sama told me about yesterday,” Anko said professionally. “An escort mission?”

“That’s me,” I said cheerfully, “Now take me to the Land of Rivers, minion!”

“My feet hurt!” I complained, “Carry me!”

“No,” Anko smirked, “I hope they fall off.”

“You can’t say that to me!” I cried, “I’m the client, and the client is always right!”

“The client is wrong like half of the time,” Anko said immediately. “You’re probably wrong most of the time, though if I had to guess.”

The absolute balls on this woman, it was great.

“When I take over the world, I’ll make sure you’re the one who’s digging the latrines,” I said cheerfully.

Anko snorted.

“Konoha would definitely have to stop you if that was your goal.” Anko said easily, “But I think I could spare a moment away from the latrines to put a kunai in your eye.”

“Hah, I’m out of your league, Miss Special Jonin.” I cackled, “I can’t believe they had to invent an entirely new rank just so you could sit at the big boy table, how embarrassing.”

“Fuck off,” Anko said, annoyed, eye twitching.

I just grinned.

The Land of Rivers, just like its name suggested, had multiple rivers running all throughout it. We ended up crossing quite a few of them on the trip towards the ‘Curry of Life’ shop that was apparently quite famous in the area. I hadn’t revealed my actual destination until we had crossed the border, and I was glad that she actually seemed to know of its general location.

It would have been awkward if she didn’t.

Anko was less eccentric than I would have assumed, given what I remember of her from the series. I thought she was a bloodthirst kunoichi who ran around stabbing people and then licking the blood off. She might have done that during her downtime, but she seemed completely professional while on the job, or at least she had started that way until I had thoroughly introduced myself; then, she had started to loosen up a bit.

“Why do you want to go to this curry place anyway?” Anko wondered.

“What do you think I want to do at a curry restaurant, dumbass?” I said immediately, “Shove it up my ass? Are you really a ninja? Did Tsunade rip me off?”

Anko bared her teeth in an angry smile.

“If you wanted to eat curry,” Anko said dangerously, “Why did you need to come all the way here?”

I grinned at her.

“That’s for me to know,” I taunted, “and tease you with until you finally break down and attack me in a fit of rage, at which point I can demand a refund from Tsunade.”

“You can’t get a refund if you’re dead,” Anko smirked.

Clearly, Anko wasn’t aware that I had managed to get this mission for free, which was pretty amusing.

“How far away are we anyway?” I asked curiously, “I thought you said we were getting close?”

Neither of us had slowed down during our conversation, running along the road at speed. Anko had attempted to get me to jump through the trees, but I wasn’t having any of that nonsense; I would get a coat-hangered by a branch or slip and break my neck.

The road we were on now was slowly elevating up onto a mountainous path; I could feel a strange but powerful chakra up ahead, along with a civilian level one with it.

“We are close; it should be around that next bend,” Anko said easily.

I couldn’t help myself.

“Should be? Did it grow legs and walk away?” I cried, “What kind of nonsense are you trying to sell me here? I’m giving you a one-star rating!”

Anko turned to look at me in disbelief.

“We don’t even have a rating system!” Anko said, annoyed.

“Why the hell not? I want to leave a terrible review that gets stuck on your record for the rest of your life so that all the other ninjas laugh at you!” I cackled.

We came around the bend she had indicated, and low and behold, there was a small building about halfway down the pathway. The chakra signatures were coming from inside, I was going to go out on a limb and say that it was the kid that had been with the sword guy, and the curry-makers son, I couldn’t feel a signature indicating the old lady herself was around.

That was a bit sad.

“I told you it was here, idiot.” Anko said triumphantly, “You had better give me a good review or I’m going to-”

I cut her off with a shit-eating grin.

“Wow!” I said, impressed, “You managed to find a restaurant, that’s really impressive ninja work, say; if you were a gold mine, where would you be?”

Anko looked pissed for a moment before she managed to calm herself down enough to pull a folded-up map out of her pack. I watched as she spent a few moments studying it, and the tiny writing that was all over it.

“Katabami Gold Mine? It’s Southwest of here, half an hour, maybe?” Anko said thoughtfully, before stowing the map away again.

“That’s probably it,” I said easily, “Say, which direction is southwest?”

Anko stared at me for a moment before shaking her head and pointing off towards a mountainous area in the distance.

“You never wanted curry at all, did you?” Anko said resignedly. “What do you want with a gold mine?”

I grinned at her.

“If you can guess, I’ll give you a hundred thousand Ryo or something equally as valuable,” I said easily, covering my bases. “But if you get it wrong, you have to tell me your boring ass life story, starting at the beginning all the way too now, so I can laugh at you.”

Anko narrowed her eyes at me.

“Fine,” Anko said easily, “If I get it right, I want the hundred thousand Ryo, and you’re buying me some Dango on the way back.”

“If you win, you get all that money!” I said, annoyed, “Buy your own damn Dango!”

Anko just crossed her arms.

“Fine!” I pouted. “If you win, I’ll throw in some Dango as well.”

“Nope,” I said easily, “Wrong again.”

We had already arrived at the mining town and were sitting up high above it, watching them all go about their lives. It seemed to be a rather peaceful town, all things considered, the area did look vaguely familiar; it was pretty accurate to what I remembered from the source.

I studied the area further out from the town, trying to figure out which direction to go in first; there were at least three different rivers in view from here, in different directions. Each of them was far below, amidst the cliffs and mountains.

“Do you know someone here?” Anko tried again, “Coming to see a friend?”

I chose a river and started heading towards it, and Anko immediately followed.

“Nope,” I said honestly, “I’ve never met anyone from here.”

I carefully made my way down to the first river, with liberal use of wall adhesion and small hops. This would be so much easier if I could just use Jaunt, but I didn’t really want to have to explain that.

Kubikiribōchō had held a noticeable amount of chakra within it, and I was hoping that these two swords did as well. An hour spent pacing that river failed to bring anything up on my energy sense larger than a few wild animals.

I headed towards the second river that was closest to my position, idly listening as Anko continued to make random guesses, each of which was becoming more outlandish by the second.

“You had a secret tryst with the Daughter of the Daimyo of Fire, and hid the child here to escape the ninja that was sent in revenge?” Anko said unenthusiastically.

I blinked and turned to her, shocked.

“Wow, I can’t believe you actually got it,” I said incredulously. “How the hell?”

“Really?” Anko said excitedly.

“Of course not, idiot,” I said, amused.

Anko muttered something rude under her breath.

“I am definitely going to eat Dango in front of you on the way back,” I said evilly, “Your tears will bring me great joy!”

Anko scoffed.

Something pinged at the edge of my range, at the bottom of the riverbed, a second identical signature joined it thirty meters up the river.

“The last guess,” I said, grinning.

Anko narrowed her eyes suspiciously, looking around the area for anything that might stand out, before glancing at the river.

“I don’t fucking know,” Anko complained, “Gold in the river?”

I stopped us next to where the first signature was and grinned at her before diving back into the river. Anko just watched curiously as I disappeared beneath the water; I swam down. I could see the blade poking out from beneath a layer of mud.

I observed it before grabbing onto the handle of the sword before inventorying and resurfacing.

Kiba (Legendary)

Cuts through most things. Boosts the user's lightning affinity or allows the use of lighting techniques without one. Able to conduct both Lightning Chakra and natural Lightning. It can be connected by the hilts into a single double-bladed form.

“Whoops,” I said sheepishly as I climbed up onto the water. “Wrong spot.”

Anko raised an eyebrow and followed me as I jogged along the river until I was standing over the other sword.

“One second,” I said cheerfully and let the Mana at my feet vanish.

I fell down into the water and then swam the rest of the way down to inventory the matching sword. I snagged a smooth river stone from the riverbed and then came back up again.

“There we go!” I said happily and swam back to the shore. “Now, we can leave.”

Anko stared at me with narrowed eyes.

“What did you get?” Anko demanded, “Where is it?”

I grinned at her and pulled the stone out of my pocket, holding it out towards her.

“What the hell is this?” Anko said seriously.

“It’s my pet rock!” I cried, “I accidentally dropped him in a river back in the Land of Waterfalls, I can’t believe how far he’s traveled!”

“Bullshit, those two rivers aren’t even connected.” Anko said immediately, “Something else was down there; what did you do, seal it somewhere?”

I grinned at her.

“Two things actually,” I said easily, “I’ll let you guess again for the same prize, but if you fail to figure it out before we get back to Konoha, you have to buy me dango instead, and I’m going to eat it in front of you.”

“Fine,” Anko said easily, “A statue?”

“Nope,” I cackled, “Wrong again, and you can get started on your tragic backstory any time now.”

The trip back to Konoha was hilarious.

Anko hadn’t even gotten remotely close, and she had been systematically naming off every single common item she could think of in-between short bouts of how she had grown up. We were into the thousands of guesses at this point, and I was actually surprised she hadn’t given up already. That last step back into Konoha was filled with triumph for me, and failure for Anko.

“I’m feeling hungry all of a sudden!” I said cheerfully, “Where are you taking me?”

Anko huffed before leading me to a small building that primarily sold tea, but also sold several other food snacks. I watched as Anko spoke to the old man behind the counter for a moment before she returned to the table I had selected.

“Did you even find anything?” Anko said sullenly, “Or was this just a ploy to get free lunch?”

“You think I would organize a trip to the Land of Rivers, hire a Jonin escort, travel all the way there, pretend to look for something in a bunch of rivers, all so that you would buy me Dango?” I said incredulously, “How did you discover my evil plan?”

“Idiot.” Anko snorted, “Are you ever going to tell me what it is, though?”

I hummed to myself but didn’t respond, and she groaned before laying her head down on the table. We fell into a some-what comfortable silence until the food arrived and the old man told us to enjoy our meal. I picked up one of the sticks of Dango and brought it up to my mouth.

Anko watched sadly.

“Mm,” I moaned, “That is some good Dango.”

“I actually hate you.” Anko admitted, “You might be the worse client I’ve ever had.”

“Tell me I’m the best client you’ve ever had,” I said pleasantly, “and I’ll give you one of the sticks.”

“You are the single best client I have ever had the pleasure of escorting in my entire career,” Anko said immediately, before snatching one off the plate.

I laughed.

“I’m actually surprised you didn’t figure out what I was looking for,” I said curiously, “I would have thought Konoha would have been all over that.”

Anko made a noise of pleasure at the Dango, and I could honestly see what she meant; this was seriously good; I was probably going to come back here.

“Then again, you lot seem to have a bizarre history of leaving the Seven Swords of the Mist behind after you kill one of their members.” I said suspiciously, “I mean, why the hell wouldn’t you send a team to go pick them up? There is no way that they didn’t report an encounter with one of those guys.”

“What?” Anko said incredulously, “Which sword was in the river? No, wait, it was two swords because you checked two different spots, Kiba?”

“That’s the one, well two, I suppose,” I said cheerfully, before pushing the plate of Dango over to her. “Imagine not figuring that out, your ninja ancestors are shaking there heads sternly at you.”

Anko looked overwhelmed by my generosity and pissed off at my taunting; it made for an interesting expression.

“Anyway, I’m off to find my minions!” I said cheerfully, standing up. “I have some presents to give them, and it's going to be hilarious.”

I hadn’t seen either of them since before I had left for Wave, so I was sure they would both be annoyed, which made this the perfect time to piss them off even more. My evil plans were foiled, however, when Anko quickly ate another skewer of Dango before standing up as well.

“Nope!” Anko managed around a mouth stuffed with Dango. “We have to go see the Hokage first.”

I pouted, but Anko didn’t seem to care.

Despite my whining, Anko refused to break protocol and dragged me up to the tower. I was already sure they knew we were back because Kakashi and Tsunade had both waiting in her office. When Anko finally opened the doors and dragged me inside.

Literally dragged, mind you, because I had let myself go limp in a silent protest to this injustice.

“Hey, Tsunade, Kakashi,” I said cheerfully from the floor. “I’ve missed you both dearly, Anko is a terrible conversationalist, you know?”

“Mm,” Kakashi said at length.

Anko huffed.

“Reporting a successful but incredibly annoying mission, Hokage-sama,” Anko said dryly.

“Thank you, Anko,” Tsunade said, amused. “I’m sorry to have put you through that, I know it must have been difficult.”

Ouch.

“I bought her, Dango!” I protested, “She even said I was the best client she had ever had!”

“I paid for that Dango,” Anko said, annoyed, “And that other part never happened.”

I gaped up at her.

“Liar, Liar! Pants on-” I cried, “You’re not wearing any pants, though, which is rather nice-Oof.”

Anko kicked me in the stomach.

“Uncalled for.” I wheezed, before slowly pushing myself to my feet.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Kakashi said idly.

I grinned.

“I did,” I said cheerfully, “Did Sakura tell you I jacked Zabuza’s sword?”

Kakashi raised his single visible eyebrow.

“I recall her mentioning it, although she never actually saw you with it,” Kakashi said easily.

I held my hand out to the side obviously and took a step away from everyone.

“Stand back, and watch, as I pull a giant buster sword out of thin air!” I said grandly, before bringing Kubikiribōchō out of my inventory with a flourish.

“Holy shit,” Anko said incredulously. “Why is it so big?”

“That’s what she said-” I started before I overbalanced from the weight and the tip cut a groove through the floor.

“Whoops,” I said belatedly.

“Put that away,” Tsunade said resignedly.

I inventoried it before taking another step backward and holding out both arms.

“I have a couple more if you want to see?” I grinned.

Despite my previous desecration of the floor, nobody said no, so I brought out the two Kiba and kind of waved them around awkwardly, not willing to try anything tricky again. I inventoried them and then stepped forward again.

“You guys should really stop leaving these around everywhere,” I said cheerfully, “Someone might go around and grab them!”

“Mm,” Kakashi said evenly.

“They were both ‘destroyed’ on the mission reports,” Tsunade said seriously.

Oh shit, don’t worry, Kakashi; I have your back.

“The Kubikiribōchō was just a handle when I found it, but a little bit of blood, it was perfectly alright again.” I said cheerfully, “The Kiba’s were on the bottom of a river in the middle of nowhere, though; lost would have been more appropriate for that one.”

Tsunade hummed thoughtfully, and apparently, let us get away with the little deception because she moved on.

“What do you intend to do with them?” Tsunade asked seriously.

“I’m going to give them to my minions,” I said immediately. “Anyway, we have Kakashi here now, let's kick this low-ranking scrub out of here and get down to the real nitty-gritty.”

“What did you just call me?” Anko said incredulously.

“Ignore him, Anko.” Tsunade said wryly, “We do, however, have some sensitive information to discuss.”

“Yeah, Yeah.” Anko pouted, “I’m going, I’m going.”

“Hey, that curse you were talking about?” Sora called after her, “Come find me, and I’ll take a look at it for you; since I was such a dickhead.”

“What do you think you can do about it?” Anko scoffed.

Kakashi spoke up, possibly returning my covering for the false report with a bit of goodwill.

“I saw him turn a petrified king back into perfect health, and heal Gai’s student,” Kakashi said boredly, “You should probably take him up on the offer.”

Anko studied them for a moment before leaving. I took one of the chairs across from Tsunade, Kakashi spoke up.

“Obito is still alive,” Kakashi said evenly.

“He sure is, buddy,” I said cheerfully. “Alright, long answer time,”

I told them most of what I remembered about the situation; the footnotes being Madara was still around on some kind of life support made from a clone of the first Hokage’s body or some nonsense and had White Zetsu working for him. I mentioned in greater detail what Zetsu was capable of, and I even mentioned that the black half of Zetsu was actually a really old minion that planned on eventually betraying them both to revive its master.

I mentioned how they had used a combination of the first Hokage’s cells, and white Zetsu had become Obito’s body and how he had the Mangekyou Sharingan, and his general skillset, teleporting, phasing through things, and everything else I could remember about the guy. When I eventually got to what exactly he was doing inside Akatsuki, everyone had become quiet and thoughtful.

“So that’s pretty much it, he’s pissed off because of Rin, wants to use the infinite Tsukuyomi to make a world with her in it or something, I don’t know.” I shrugged, I might have been wrong about a lot of it, but it had literally been years since I had last watched any of it. “Which is pretty stupid honestly, he plans on using the Edo Tensei to summon Madara, and then use the weird Rinnegan ability that Nagato has to bring Madara back to life.”

Nobody said anything, so I kept on going.

“Why doesn’t he just summon Rin with Edo Tensei?” I added, “Revive her with the eyes? She would be literally alive and not a fake illusion. For such an evil mastermind, he’s a bit stupid, honestly.”

Maybe there was a reason he couldn’t, I don’t really know, but it seemed pretty strange to me.

“Anyway!” I said cheerfully, “It was nice seeing you again Kakashi, we should totally hang out sometime, you can watch me have sex again!”

Kakashi was seemingly caught off guard by the sudden drastic turn the conversation had gone in and laughed nervously for a moment; I cherished it.

Tsunade looked bemused by the last part.

“Tsunade, we should definitely hang out as well; you are hilarious to drink with.” I continued, “Anyway, I’m off to see my minions; I haven’t seen them in, uh, two months? Or maybe take a nap instead, I kind of need to not exist for a little while, you know where I am if you need me.”

Neither of them stopped me as I made my way out of the room, and I stretched my arms up above my head; today had been long, exceptionally long. I think I’d earned a nap at least, to just turn off my brain for a while; I hadn’t had one of those in a long time.

I made my way back to the place Konoha had given us for the duration of our stay and let myself in with the key, tossed most of my clothes off, and then flopped face-first onto the bed.

My minions could wait another day.