Naruto didn't think that Veronica should be declared MIA. Kakashi-san was completely against the idea too, but he was less vocal about it.
Right now, he was sitting in his new house, with Sasuke, because his dad was super kind and didn't want to leave him alone in his haunted and blood stained compound, and pouting. None of the council members seemed to listen to him, because they saw him as nothing more than a tool apparently, and even though he got his friends to talk to their parents so that Veronica wouldn't be listed as MIA or worse, a missing nin he knew that they needed a more permanent solution soon.
He needed to find her soon.
"You remember Veronica's team?"-Sasuke
The idiotic nickname Sasuke called him by was gone so it must have been something important.
"Of course-" -Naruto
He paused in the middle of his sentence as he realized something. He didn't even know anything about her teammates except their names.
"Now do you get it? She never bothered to talk about her team like we did. Not only that, even though we, or anyone else probably, had heard so many people sing praises for them and even say that they were the best genin team to have ever been made after the Sanin we never knew anything else. We don't even know how her teacher and her Aburame teammate looks like."-Sasuke
Sasuke had never talked so much before. But that wasn't the most surprising thing out of it all. They didn't even know their sister in everything but blood's teammates. Teams were like a second family to all ninjas and if they didn't even know how their sister's teammates looked like then...
--- --- --- --- ---
Tailed beasts could be split apart into two or maybe even more versions of themselves. The best example would be when Kurama was split into two and Minato sealed a part of Kurama in himself. Of course, things had happened differently in the world Veronica was in however she was 100% sure that it was true.
Shadow clones had the same principle in a way. It wasn't hard to make a shadow clone with Veronica's appearance, with Matatabi's chakra and give control to Matatabi's chakra, which was Matatabi in itself. Basically, it would mean that Matatabi would be able to take control of Veronica's clones, who looked Veronica of course, if they had enough of Matatabi's chakra.
'Do you think you could move around freely at your place?'
[Yes. It has many... Seals, you could say although they are more like chakra remnants of father to protect us, to make it seem as though it doesn't even exist. Only people who qualify the conditions can get in the 'temple'.]-Matatabi
'Qualifications?'
Veronica quickly wrote something and passed her notebook to Taku. He was gazing around the forest and had almost been left behind once.
Her strict gaze made him nod at once. He didn't understand her at all. From the time he had been allowed to travel with her till now, she had ignored him and his brother. She only offered some advice here and there but she wouldn't even stop for them if they fell. At times he thought she cared about them but at other times he thought she wouldn't care if they dropped dead.
He didn't like her at all.
[There are two qualifications. If one of them is completed the person is allowed entry. However, I, the 'owner' of the place needs to be present in the temple to make it work.
The first qualification being that I bring whoever it is that wants entry myself or allow them to go in.
The second qualification being that the person is either dead, or someone who has affinity for cats, of course this qualification wouldn't work if I don't allow it to.]-Matatabi
Veronica thought of the Uchiha when she heard Matatabi say cats. From what she had learned they usually had an affinity for cats. There were some who had owl summons, or very rarely, hawks. Perhaps Matatabi knew some Uchiha from before.
'I see.'
[Oh, and because of my chakra you can easily use fire jutsus.]-Matatabi
Veronica frowned at the knowledge given to her just now. Of course, she had thought that the reason she could do fire jutsu easily while also having an affinity for water might have been because of Matatabi but since Matatabi had never said anything about it she thought she was wrong.
Sighing, she decided to not think about it much and focus on her travels.
The path was becoming rocky and a lot of the trees roots were largely exposed. It wouldn't be much of a problem for her since she had been raised in Konoha, but there were children with her. They had already tripped and fell a lot of times and she could smell the faintest amount of blood from them. It would be better to be slower in these parts and be more careful.
[By the way, I figured out how to make Fire clones.]-Matatabi
She paused for a second before she continued walking.
'What the f**k.'
She didn't know why, or how, Matatabi could've hidden that fact from her considering she stayed in Veronica body all of the time. She also didn't know how Matatabi figured out how to make fire clones but that wasn't the most surprising thing out of all of this.
[And, those clones will only carry the scent of fire with them and none of your own scent.]-Matatabi
So she had even managed to improve the jutsu.
Sighing once again, Veronica shook her head and tried to not think about whatever Matatabi just said. It would only bring her more headaches.
The three children soon found themselves walking through the deeper parts of the forest, the trees getting thicker and the terrain getting scabrous. Veronica was carrying the 4-year-old who now introduced himself as Oni. She guessed it seemed like a sign of trusting each other for now so she gave him her name as well, even though she knew he already knew it.
His name was a rather peculiar name.
She guessed that whoever named him either just found the name to be cool or thought he deserved it. Perhaps she would suggest for him to change it later.
--- --- --- --- ---
Makino was dead. Some genin team had been called to clean the place up and he could finally continue on his plans.
"Our plans Nita. Not yours."-Obito
As usual, Obito managed to figure out his thoughts quite easily.
"Are you sure about this?"-Nita
"Of course. We don't have enough resources right now to continue with our plans after we capture the tailed beasts so we have to do this. We can't make the whole world our enemy without even being strong enough to fight back."-Obito
Well, he supposed he could be patient for some more time. And he would still be getting some action so he guessed it wasn't that bad.
He just needed to make sure nothing unnecessary popped up again.