Chapter 272 - Ch272. On The Moon 2
Rei and his wives followed Yuriko to the base. The teleportation point was a bit away from the actual base while the needed seal was buried deep in the rocky ground, configured to teleport people above the ground. It was all calculated to the extreme by Rei as a safety measure.
This way, even if the base was discovered and destroyed by the guy who was supposedly living on the moon, the one Rei had no idea about since he didn't put much thought into the final movie of the Naruto series, there was still a chance the teleportation seal would not be discovered. After all, where would the guy learn sealing arts on the moon? As far as Rei knew, the area had quite the lack of teaching material going on.
The group finally arrived and the girls could only stare at the houses made of hardened snow, only then realizing the climate was cold enough to sustain it.
"This is actually amazing. How come it is so strong?" Ringo asked, knocking on the icy wall with quite a bit of her strength, surprised that it was as hard as the seal-enhanced stone walls the Village on the Other Side had.
"It's specially molded with my Senjutsu-enhanced chakra. You guys are not the only ones who experiment with their abilities, you know?" Yuriko pipped in when she saw the women look at the structures she was building in the recent months, "As for the size... Rei wanted me to make a small city. You know, prepare the place for new occupants and stuff." She shrugged.
"I guess Rei really wants to make another town here, huh?" Pakura muttered to herself in disbelief, still not understanding what good it would make. Anything that needed secrecy could be done in the Village on the Other Side. There was no need for an additional village away from their planet.
Rei approached her and hugged her with one arm, "Don't forget there is still the Otsutsuki clan. If I want to make a sealing barrier around the planet so they won't be able to find it, I can only do it from here. That's why it is so important that buildings are made here. A lot of work is awaiting me here."
"Ah," Pakura nodded, a bit satisfied with that explanation. She was actually planning to remake Sunagakure into a perfect fortress for her family in case something bad happened. That was the entire point of strengthening its forces! The village was perfect for that. It was deep in the desert in a hard-to-invade country and full of people who lived in this inhospitable land and knew how to ambush any idiot who dared to enter their territory.
Ninja villages were not made to sustain lengthy sieges. Such a thing was impossible with superpowered ninjas playing the role of soldiers. Ninjas were not trained to fight in siege battles either. The villages were, however, all located in places that, for their native forces, were easy to defend. The general idea was to not allow enemies to get close to the village. And since the establishment of the first hidden village, a situation where a large force of ninjas managed to get to an enemy ninja village simply did not happen. The ninjas' way of the fight was designed to prevent such a thing. To discover approaching enemies and eliminate them before they got to the village.
Honestly, there really was no better placement than the moon for a hidden village since their forces were already used to teleporting all over the continent anyway.
"You are finally starting to worry about the Otsutsuki clan?" Konan asked, "I thought we had time before they became a problem."
"We do, but that doesn't mean the solution is going to be easy. Fighting them head-on is not on the table. I have no idea about their forces but they are supposed to be powerful. I won't risk any of you because of some misplaced pride. If I can solve the situation by hiding our planet with seals then that would be enough for the time being. Even if we wanted to fight them directly, first of all, we need time. Six people are not an army."
"Hence the Elemental Nations have to be united"Konan mused, "Is that why you are letting Akatsuki do whatever they want?"
"Partly, I do hope to use them as a bogeyman later on. I still do not know what to do about them but their goal is perfect as far as a reason for the hidden villages to stand together goes. If we did not intervene, I can imagine a future where the villages would just ignore them while they hunted the jinchuuriki, only to get a harsh reminder when just one or two of them remained. After all, nobody would want a group of S-class criminals to get their hands on all nine bijuu."
"The problem is, the One, Two, and Three-tailed jinchuuriki are affiliated with us." Konan summed up what made Rei indecisive.
"Yeah. We do not really need Akatsuki anymore but... I just don't know. If I try to make Kirigakure, Sunagakure, and Konoha into one strong block and have them sign an alliance, Iwagakura and Kumogakure will instantly join together. It wouldn't even matter if they hate each other. They would do it simply because of self-preservation. And that is a reason that can make their treaty more ironclad than anything else.
"We don't really need them. They are lagging behind Konoha, Kiri, and Suna anyway. Give it five years and they will be useless compared to our three villages."
"Still, conflict at home turf is going to be a problem no matter how developed they are. I just need more time to think about how to approach that problem. Frankly, the direction of my plans depends a lot on Kaguya and her reply to my offer."
Konan nodded, deciding she heard enough. Seeing that the free-for-all information fest was over, the four discreetly listening women also pretended nothing was out of the ordinary. Yet, in the heads of Tsunade, Pakura, and Ringo, possible treaties between their villages started to form in a way that would benefit all of them.
As for Mei... she just enjoyed the fabulous view.
Walking through the street full of structures made out of clear blue icy-like snow felt otherworldly to the group. The constructs standing there were more like ice sculptures than buildings. It was clear that Yuriko put a lot of thought and effort into it.
At long last, the group led by Yuriko finally arrived in front of a palace-like light-blue building that stood in the middle of the newly sculpted town.
Even Rei was baffled at the enormous size of that building. It was even bigger than his mansion in the Other-sided Village or the one in his dimension. The group looked at Yuriko who looked a bit sheepish due to their gazes.
"Well, I might have gotten a bit carried away during the work." She shrugged.
"Right..." Rei nodded.
To be honest, he was just glad Yuriko found something that made her happy. Sure, after Konan saved her from the Snow Village, the woman looked and acted fine but it was obvious she needed a long rehabilitation. And she did get it. Yet, it wasn't all that helpful. Another reason why Rei chose Yuriko instead of Tsunade was that he wanted to get her to a place without people where she could simply be herself.
'Looks like it helped, if only slightly.' Rei thought in self-satisfaction.