[Maybe he is the child of an Oni.]-Matatabi
Matatabi seemed to have latched onto the child's name for some reason.
'Maybe.'
She hummed a bit as she slowly climbed over some tree roots, careful of a poisonous plant. She glanced at Taku to make sure he was seeing and copying what she did as well.
The child was certainly more mature and intelligent than a lot of children his age.
If he had told her he was a genius, she wouldn't have been too surprised. The 4-year-old was quiet and barely even moved the whole time she held him. She wouldn't have been too concerned with it if he had been tense about being with her and thus, he didn't move. But she could feel how his chakra was completely relaxed.
[Maybe he is an Oni.]-Matatabi
Veronica felt as though there was something about 'Oni' that Matatabi knew.
She frowned a bit as she looked at Taku who had tripped and fell. She sighed slightly before putting down the child in her arms and walking towards the boy who looked ready to cry.
Her hands glowed green as she placed them over his injuries.
"Why-" -Taku
She ignored him in favor of grabbing the little child watching them curiously. His eyes which had gotten misty looking at Taku's bleeding knee now held some sort of admiration for her.
They all continued forward till Veronica stopped. The place looked just like the rest of the forest. Taku wondered why they had stopped there. Perhaps he could finally take another break.
Slowly reaching her palm out, Veronica pushed Matatabi's chakra as an old, ancient, temple showed itself. Vines, trees, grass and moss were present on almost every single structure of the temple. There were many inscriptions on the front two pillars, which they couldn't even begin to try to read.
Old and broken stairs were attached to the front pillars which led to the inside of the temple like thing. They could see some sort of water fountain which seemed less damaged than the walls at the front, which Veronica guessed was because it was built later. There were some animals running around the temple as well.
Taku and Tami's eyes were wide as they gawked at the sight.
"You- What are you?"-Taku
He squeaked at accidentally saying his thoughts out loud but sighed in relief when Veronica didn't pay any attention to his words. She calmly stepped on the stairs and let the child down as well.
'We're going to have to do a lot of renovations.'
Veronica herself was pleasantly surprised with the structure in front of her but everything needed to rebuilt in the temple. She also had two children with her which would make her work even harder.
[Tell me about it.]-Matatabi
Matatabi sounded quite tired. She was probably thinking about how much chakra she would have to spend creating shadow clones to make this place livable again. There was also the fact that she would have to spend chakra locating her troublesome and frankly, stupid siblings.
[And I even have to look after you and these two children you've decided to adopt.]-Matatabi
Matatabi sighed while Veronica frowned in confusion.
'Excuse you-'
"Um... Are we going to be living here...?"
This was the first time the 4-year-old had spoken to her.
She guessed he was right about his worries as this place seemed far from livable at the moment. She stiffly nodded in response to his question.
Activating her Dojutsu, she found only three to four ghosts/souls in the entirety of the temple.
The two children had already started their little exploration around the place while Veronica made a clone for Matatabi to control. Apparently, the animals in this place were all worshippers of Matatabi.
Which was creepy in Veronica's opinion but she wouldn't tell her that.
--- --- --- --- ---
The Hyuuga princess had thrown up more than 5 times ever since she came back from her mission. Hiashi, her father and the clan leader, had asked her genin teacher just what had happened for his daughter to be this way and could only sigh when he found out what happened.
Her daughter had seen one of the horrors of this wretched world they lived in.
Hannabi tried her best to stay with Hinata during that time while Neji simply ignored whatever was going on. He knew what it was like to suffer through the images of the dead circling through your mind and eating you up from the inside and if his cousin couldn't even handle this then she was not fit to be a ninja.
Some more days passed by and Hinata seemed to have recovered. The Hyuuga clan didn't know what exactly had been the cause of her newly found resolve but they were all glad to finally see Hinata step out of her comfort zone and be a proud Hyuuga.
"Kiba-kun, Shino-kun, good morning."-Hinata
"Good morning Hinata-san."-Shino
"Good morning Hinata-chan! You ready for your spar today?!!!"-Kiba
She giggled at Kiba and Akamaru being excited over her spar with her cousin.
It had taken a while for everyone to digest whatever had happened that day but they had finally found their resolve. They would become strong to make sure to protect as many as they could so no one had to suffer through the same fate as her.
"Looks like Naruto helped them out a lot more than I was expecting."-Kakashi
"Yes well, he has a way with words. They've found their new goal and they're all working hard to achieve it.
But what's this I've been hearing about your genin?"-Kurenai
Kakashi looked at Kurenai for a bit before shrugging and taking out orange book. Kurenai sighed when she realized he was no longer going to pay much attention to this conversation and called out her team to start training.
--- --- --- --- ---
Kumo had been in absolute chaos for years now.
The two tailed beast had been gone for years. It should have reformed by now but there was no sign of it anywhere.
Bee had asked for help from Gyuki, or Hachibi (eight tails) as they called it, but Gyuki was not willing to help at all. This was a surprise to everyone as the eight tails was always very docile and easy to control over and take answers from if needs be.
"A-sama, we've received reports of the two tails chakra being spotted at the borders of Iwa."