Chapter 23

After my… talk with the princess Haruna, we all continued on our path. With Haruna sometimes sending me looks that we're filled with fear, anger and… arousal?

The noble girl who is meant to rule a country is secretly a masochist who likes being put to her place but is rejecting it out of pride… when did my life became such a trashy romance novel?

We've had to deal with several other bandit groups on our way but none of them had been any more impressive than their predecessors. Can't help but wonder how people can actually be dumb enough to become bandits in a world like this. Their life expectancy must be lower than a butterfly's for any kind of deity's sake!

"Tell me." Haruna's voice was low, and filled with doubt and what I can only assume to be loathing for herself. Not sure why though.

"Why are you really helping us? Even if you say that it's to have a country be in your debt, the Land of Vegetables is a small and weak country. The whole world knows us as a pacifist country of weaklings. A country that stands today merely because the Daimyos of other countries love our cuisine. Even if we are in your debt we can't actually do anything to help your village. So why?" She asked and I started to slightly understand where she was coming from.

She didn't trust us. She couldn't understand our motives. So she was worried that this mission might end up with disposing a trio of usurpers only to place the country under the thumb of another pack of tyrants. So she could somewhat think like a leader instead of a rude bitch.

"It's image." I said much to her confusion.

"When people commission a mission from our village, they do it because they trust us to complete that mission. Other than that the way we treat people will color the opinion of other people who hear about them."

"So you have no problem their opinion of you being colored as a man who would spank his client." She muttered with a small glare which I returned twofold.

"Only when the client lies about the mission parameters before being found out and still act like they are in the right." I bit back and she had the decency to look down with a blush.

"Three people who took over a country with hostile action, Konoha taking them down and putting the rightful ruler back on the throne shows that we respect the position of Daimyo. That we do not tolerate such acts. That endears us to other Daimyos. Meaning the chances of hostile actions from other nations will be smaller." I continued to explain.

Honestly, I didn't like it much. The Daimyos were pretty much inbred morons who were weak in my eyes. But I also knew that the hidden villages did not possess the means to properly control the civilian population of a country. The only way we could was by force and that would just make them leave the land or start revolts. So we needed the inbred weakling morons and making them like us was useful.

…at least for now.

"I understand… I think." Haruna said uncertainly and I laughed at her.

"Do not worry, you will have a lot of chances to truly understand after we put you back on the throne." And I continued to walk with a laugh.

…not seeing the massive blush that spread over Haruna's face.

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"How long do you think we'll have to move?" Chocho asked Sumire as she threw another potato chip into her mouth before putting a piece of chocolate inside her mouth as well. Yugao sensei would train her until she lost her appetite when they return to village so eating as much as she could now was the best option.

What? There could be a fight at any moment and she should be preparing for that instead of eating? She would like to see the moron who would try to get between her and her snacks!

"I am not sure. We haven't encountered any bandits for a while." Sumire said with a frown. Chocho liked Sumire, she was always nice and very smart. Meaning she could leave things where one needed to think to her. That's pretty much what her cousin Choji did with Shikamaru.

Does that mean Sumire was her Shikamaru?

Though she always felt like she was a bit… timid? No, Hinata was timid. Sumire was more of a… recluse? Yeah recluse was good. She always stayed away from the other students unless she really had to interact with them, kinda like Daiki but he never seemed to need to interact with the students.

The best thing about Sumire though was how she had never judged her by her… skin. Honestly, Chocho hated her skin. Sure she was fucking beautiful but whenever she looked at it, she remembered why she was actually born. It wasn't out of love.

No, she was born because her mother was raped by some random scum from Kumo and got pregnant. And then she died while giving birth to Chocho. Uncle Choza had claimed that it was because she was sickly and weak but Chocho couldn't help but sometimes think that she died so that she wouldn't have to see Chocho.

Uncle Choza had claimed that her mother never hated her but still… she could never be sure.

After that people always acted differently towards her compared to other kids. Like she was something meant to be feared and stay away from or ridiculed and hated. Like that Hyuuga from the upper year who always glared at her whenever he saw her.

Even among people who became friends with her there was some sort of hesitation first. The only ones who hadn't had that were Sumire, Satsuki and Naruko. But she wasn't friends with Naruko and the Uzumaki was the living incarnation of air headed blond stereotype.

Daiki also didn't seem to care but he always had been a bit… unapproachable.

Honestly, he could learn…

"Look out!" The boy she was thinking about jumped and pulled both Chocho and Sumire down to the ground, narrowly avoiding a blade of water that cut down several trees.

"Well now, you shouldn't have done that. It would have been far less painful if they just died like that." A man with purple hair and a green triangle tattoo in his chin along with two drop shaped ones under his eyes walked up to them with two wooden tonfa in his hands.

"Ruiga!" Yurinojō-san yelled.

"Don't get too loud, we are all here." Another voice cam from the woods as its owner walked out.

A man with three purple tattoos on his face along with another and far larger man with tattoos on his cheeks and a chain in his hands walked out.

Janin brothers were here.