Chapter 118   - Ch118. Leaving Kiri

Rei, Konan, and Mei sat in the living room of their flat, recounting what they have to do before finally leaving Kiri for good. The biggest problem was Mei's report to the Mizukage since they doubted they would be allowed to go on a mission before Mei handed that to the Mizukage. In the end, Konan proposed to make use of the Mizukage's busy schedule and Rei accepted which basically meant they would be leaving Kiri at the end of the week, right after Mei handed her report. This made their schedule quite packed for the following week.

First, Konan made sure to spread her papers everywhere in the village, put them into hidden spots all in order to be informed. She even created a new Jutsu, a special type of paper clone that could access all these spying papers in the Kirigakure and had her own intelligence to determine what was and what was not important to report. The entire clone was powered by natural energy so it could last indefinitely until it was canceled. Funnily enough, despite the Council knowing Konan could manipulate paper, nobody really paid attention or even tried to find out the limits of it. Nobody had even an inkling she could spy through it. The best they could imagine her doing was cutting things with it which was plain dumb in Konan's opinion. If anything, Earth-hardening was much better for offense than Wind-sharpening. This ignorance made it incredibly easy for Konan to become aware of almost everything important that was going on in Kirigakure. Not even three days later, she brought the news of where exactly was the sealed three-tailed beast hidden to Rei but he just shrugged, deciding they will get its chakra later when it actually had a jinchuuriki.

Even Konan didn't understand yet why Rei told her to create such a massive information network in Kirigakure. He naturally wanted to get some clans for himself once the purge started and without knowing when to rescue them, any effort from his part would be useless. Needless to say, Rei wouldn't have that if he could help it.

As for Mei, she decided to stay the entire week indoors if only to avoid the idiotic and bothersome fawning of the villagers. She was not blind and could see the great fear they had for her in their eyes and how fake their acting was.

Mei-sama this, Mei-sama that. Mei-sama you look so wonderful. Mei-sama you are so powerful... who did the idiots think they were fooling when not even a half-year earlier they were all glaring and sneering at her? Seriously, only an utterly brainless idiot would be happy for getting recognition from people who clearly hated him and believed it was real when they switched their cloaks and became nice out of nowhere after he or she performed some meritorious deed for the village. Mei would rather have none of it rather than have some fake recognition.

Rei spent the week browsing through the library and discreetly storing any Jutsu scroll he found interesting or useful. His kleptomaniacal craze was stopped only after five days when the library was flooded by ninjas looking for clues who was stealing their scrolls after they finally noticed something amiss. Rei wondered what it was. The completely empty shelf in the B-rank Jutsu section, the fact that twenty A-rank Jutsu were currently unaccounted for, or the collection of cookbooks from the civilian section he took for fun... Personally, he suspected it was the cooking books. Jutsu were overrated, after all.

The week finally passed and the Team Downpour sans Mei found themselves at their personal training ground, ready to embark on another mission... unknown to the Kirigakure, their last one for the village.

Mei finally arrived and huffed in discontent. "These stupid chunins at the mission center had the cheek to ask me why I am taking mission right after handing the report for Mizukage before he could even assess it!"

Konan just chuckled at the clearly vexed girl while Rei rolled his eyes. "You know it's their job. It really is suspicious and you know we had you take the mission because as the newest SS-rank, the chunins won't give you any trouble in fear of it backfiring later."

"Maybe so but still!" Mei angrily stomped her foot on the ground before averting her gaze and crossing her arms under her developing chest. "I should have melted them."

Rei gained a mischievous smile and approached Mei. Before she could react, Mei found her cheeks being pinched by Rei as he smugly raised an eyebrow at her, causing her to blush and try to pull away from him.

"Ah, ah, ah. Don't be arrogant, Mei." Rei ruffled her hair. "Or I and Konan will have to beat the arrogance out of you. You won't enjoy it." He warned her, happy to see her flinch, taking it as an assurance she understood.

"Well, then le-" Rei was about to turn around to leave when he was surprised by a person approaching them from the tree line. All three of them instantly put their guard up.

To their utter shock, it was Ringo who was unsurely approaching them, a bag slung on her back, her face looking pensive while her hands held the handle of two swords around her waist in a fond manner.

"Uh... hi?" She uncomfortably greeted them, getting a raised eyebrow from Konan, a piercing look from Mei, and a slightly concerned frown from Rei. Before any of the three could start speaking, Ringo decided it would be better if she explained herself first. "I... I know you are leaving Kirigakura and I want to go with you." She said, feeling her stomach sink, as she for the first time uttered out loud what she was doing. She was turning traitor. It was almost physically sickening for her to even think about it but... Kirigakure betrayed her first. In the end, Tsunade was correct. Ringo had to choose and after many sleepless nights, this was her answer.

Ringo expected questions, bewilderment, protests, demands to prove what he said to be the truth so she was naturally floored when she was met with shugs and clicking of the tongue from Mei as Konan smugly outstretched her hand, palm up, towards the girl and the peeved Mei handed over a pouch to the smug Konan.

Konan saw Ringo's jaw drop as Mei gave her the winnings of their little bet and amusedly smirked in her direction. "What? I know everything that's going on in Kirigakure. Did you really believe I wouldn't be aware of your internal debate? I just didn't know if you would get your shit together before we left or if you would defect later in order to find Rei." Konan rolled her eyes while Mei scoffed, clearly not believing Ringo would defect later. Konan ignored Mei and continued. "You love Rei and with the way the Mizukage treated you and the fact that Tsunade set you straight, making you face your feelings for Rei and weigh them to those for the village..."

"Yes, yes. Our resident manipulator knew what would happen. We get it." Mei interrupted while her eye was fiercely twitching. "Frankly, I am watching you, Ringo." She said, stating her intentions and distrust towards the former wielder of Kiba.

Ringo mutely nodded, knowing she really deserved that one for her blind loyalty to Kirigakure as she turned to the most important person from the Team Downpour, Rei. He was watching her with his pointed piercing look as if looking into her soul. This was no longer the happy-go-lucky, witty, and mostly carefree teacher who taught Ringo most of what she knew. This was a ninja who was showing her he didn't trust her fully despite their past student-teacher relationship. It broke Ringo's heart a bit to be doubted by the man she loved but in the end, with the way she always acted, it was natural and she would be greatly disappointed if he just accepted her.

After a while, Rei threw something at Ringo who caught it and opened her hand to reveal a small ring, making her give Rei a questioning look.

"It's a camouflage ring with seals that will mask your chakra signature completely. If you want to come with us, you will have to get through every sensor and sealing barrier around the village since you did not take the mission with us." Rei said and turned around.

Just like that, their final journey away from Kirigakure started. Rei was told long ago what Tsunade did for Ringo and that the final decision was on the girl herself. Ringo chose and there was nothing to talk about. He would just respect it and see where that led them. In the end, no matter how he tried to just let it go, he still liked the girl he basically raised and made into a respected killer.