In Naruto: Reborn with Talent

Rei returned back to Konoha a week before the Chunin Exam finals while Tsunade stayed back to study both Claymores and Yomas.

Last he heard from her, she was checking up on Clare because the girl confessed to having the flesh of another Claymore implanted in her instead of the flesh of Yoma like other Claymores.

Tsunade was gushing about some mad Orochimaru-level experiment that would bring that Claymore back from the dead since her soul was somehow preserved in the flesh implanted in Clare or something.

Rei didn't spend enough time thinking about it to understand how it came to be but it was a quite peculiar thing, but considering there are Jutsu capable of reviving others in various forms... He wasn't really surprised.

Nevertheless, Tsunade was too busy trying to create a body for her dead-rising project.

The fact she was not needed in her own village when it was about to face invasion spoke a lot about how her reforms improved Konoha. The village was capable of fully functioning even without her input and Tsunade had full trust in Shikaku to prepare the best defense plan he could pull out of his ass on such short notice.

It didn't matter that they only got to know about the invasion a month prior. Konoha was ready, be it for invasion or war. Tsunade survived two wars in her lifetime and in both Konoha was scrambling to get everything ready even after the war had already broken out.

She didn't want her village to suffer from something similar and as such, she hoarded a lot of supplies... just in case.

It really helped that with her position as the CEO of the Biri-Biri company, she could have these purchases off the books so nobody got alarmed because Konoha was arming up.

Because of the upcoming invasion, everybody was more or less busy.

Temari was 'training' for the Chunin Exam finals... which meant she was making sure that Suna ANBU was ready for their own role in the conflict, using the time and the excuse of training to not be missed by anyone.

Pakura and Ringo were similarly caught up in preparations and while Pakura was having the time of her life, enjoying the task immensely, Ringo sullenly informed Rei she was not on speaking terms with him until the invasion.

She hated every second of these tedious preparations and according to her, it was Rei's fault since he convinced her to become the Mizukage.

Well... Rei decided to ignore her. She was clearly in her petulant mood. It would pass. As always.

Kaguya had her hands full with her first subordinate Riful. Funnily enough, she took Rei's joke seriously and was 'supervising' Riful's cooking lessons.

Meaning, she was just taste-testing everything Riful made as she learned to cook for her new mistress.

Rei found it quite hilarious so he graciously sent Kin to accompany Riful in her task.

They were similar in a way... both utterly incompetent at cooking. Riful was Yoma and her usual eating habits had to do with raw human intestines, the more bloody the better. Not the tastiest thing for someone with human taste buds.

Honestly, Yoma could eat human food. Most just didn't see the appeal and Riful was firmly in this category. She hasn't eaten anything that wasn't human for centuries. Expecting her to be able to cook human food when she had no idea how it should even taste was... Well, Kaguya had her moments.

As for Kin, she was just hopelessly bad at cooking. No excuse there.

Needless to say, Kaguya was getting more and more frustrated by the day but she was stubborn and refused to give up.

Unfortunately for both Riful and Kin, that meant they could not give up until they made something Kaguya would find tasty. An arduous task, Rei was sure.

And who knows? Maybe repeating the process a few hundreds of times will make Kin at least passable at cooking something easy like... omelet. Maybe she would even finally learn to not include the eggshells in it.

Everybody being busy except him was a very weird feeling for Rei since it was usually him who was occupied with some projects while others had a huge amount of free time.

When Rei reached the Senju Compound, he only found Mei who was sitting in the living room, supremely bored.

She was stationed in Konoha for this month, just in case somebody got trigger happy and attacked before the Chunin Exam finals, and from her cutely scowling expression, Rei quickly gathered she didn't like her time in Konoha much.

Mei and boredom were never a good mix so Rei decided to start a conversation.

"Hi, Mei. Where is Anko? It is somewhat empty here." He said, sitting behind the table, opposite to Mei who instantly straightened up from surprise.

Rei chuckled at her reaction. She was so bored she started zooming out and didn't notice him. That was a bit ridiculous considering Mei was a powerful sensor capable of knowing everything that was going on in the entire village to a disgusting degree but when she was bored, it was hilariously easy to sneak up on her.

"Ah? Anko?" "She exclaimed, a blush coloring her cheeks.

Rei smiled. She probably felt embarrassed at being sneaked upon again. Tsunade and Konan in particular were giving Mei a hard time because of this habit of hers for the longest time.

"Something about needing to heal her broken bones after I dragged her for a spar since I was bored. I haven't seen her for three days already." Mei nonchalantly shrugged, trying to suppress her blush and play off the entire thing as if it never happened.

It did not work, to be honest. But Rei didn't mind her slip in attention. She was just a human. Not a machine. He, however, had a different thing that worried him.

"Mei?" Rei uneasily asked, not knowing if he really wanted to know the answer to his next question but... he was too curious. "Just how much did you injure her?"

"Er... Let's see." Mei put her pointing finger on her chin and scrunched her nose in concentration, "There were four breaks in her spine." She nodded to herself in silent praise at remembering that while Rei promptly facepalmed. That already sounded quite fatal and she was starting with it? Did he even want to know what was to follow?

Mei did not notice Rei's inner turmoil and continued, "Then her left shin was shattered and her pelvis cracked... that one was an accident though." She innocently smiled. For some reason, Rei was really not buying it. "And then her right arm had seven clean breaks and her left shoulder..."

"Okay. I get it. You totally wrecked her. No wonder she is not here, telling one dirty joke after another. The poor woman is probably making a nuisance out of herself in the hospital." Rei sighed, stopping her explanation.

Now that he thought about it, he didn't want to know...

"Muu~," Mei pouted, "she was supposed to be Tsunade's apprentice so I was a bit rougher with her." She then beamed and hit her chest with her fist in a reassuring and confident manner, "No worries, though. She will heal and I went a bit easier on her teammate."

Rei's lips twitched, "A... teammate?"

Anko was not the only casualty?

"Yup. Some spiky white-haired dude wearing a face mask." Mei causally shrugged, oozing disappointment, "I got interested in what he had under that mask but he refused to tell or show me so I was forced to beat him until he could no longer move but... he was just hiding a Sharingan. Boring!" She childishly exclaimed and stretched her limbs like a child throwing a tantrum.

"You poor baby. I can't even imagine how much that made you suffer." Rei said in a mock-understanding manner. He was quite sure Anko and Kakashi suffered much, much worse than whatever disappointment Mei felt and the fact she acted as if Kakashi wronged her because he was hiding 'only' a Sharingan...

'Sigh. I have spoiled her..' Rei inwardly ruefully shook his head.