Chapter 276: For me?
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In another room was Hinata, who was sitting on a bed with her gaze blurry as she looked down at the ground.
"...Are you alright, Hinata nee-chan?" Hanabi softly asked from beside her, reaching out a hand to rest on her thigh. "I… know their apologies don't mean anything at this point, but you can't do anything to them."
Hinata's dry eyes moved to look at Hanabi whose face showed her worry. That made Hinata sigh softly. At least her sister still cared.
"Hanabi," Hinata said, her voice lacking any emotion at all. "At first I thought this was all an accident, but that woman… Kiana. She admitted that she had killed Naruto with her power. How can I forgive her after that..."
Hinata had confronted the two maid women earlier. After a lot of yelling and threatening to attack them, Hinata couldn't feel anything more after hearing their responses to her questions. Nemuri Kayama was an accomplice, but she wasn't the main player in this. It was Kiana, the woman with multi-coloured hair.
Kiana accepted that it was all her plan to kill Naruto, and also admitted what her end goal was— to hurt or maybe even kill Neji. They failed of course, stopped by Neji, but for some weird reason Neji didn't obliterate them despite the murder attempt.
That made Neji's image… cloudy in Hinata's mind. Confusing. She couldn't blame him any longer. After all, he hadn't killed them even though they tried to kill him, so it would be weird to expect him to punish them after they killed Naruto. Neji seemed… distant to her now. Hinata couldn't understand a thing about him anymore.
–Knock Knock
Right then knocks fell on the door and Hinata already knew who it was. She didn't reply though, but Hanabi did after a short silence.
"Come in."
Neji walked in, closing the door behind him and looking at them– at her– and then sighing.
"Your mother wanted to come but I told her to stay put for now because her presence wouldn't help much." Neji said, looking at Hinata. "But I will send her here after I am done."
"...Done with what?" Hinata looked up, her eyes dry as they met with his. "What is the point of anything at this point? Neji-nii, I don't even feel like I know you anymore."
After a short moment of Neji's silence, Hinata grit her teeth and looked at him. "Why couldn't I find Naruto in the heaven you made below? Please don't tell me a guy like him ended up in hell?"
Neji smiled. "I don't have a hell yet. As for why he's not here. Well, two reasons. First, the technique I used to bring the souls could only bring the souls who had died less than 24 hours ago. The Nine-Tailed Beasts' incident happened 10 days ago. Second reason, Naruto isn't dead."
Hinata's whole body paused, her eyes widening as she looked at him as if looking at a ghost.
"I suppose Hanabi didn't tell you because you'll ask for proof and even she doesn't have any proof other than my word," Neji said. "You know, I love how she trusted me instantly without any proof unlike you, but that's understandable." Neji snapped his finger as a screen appeared midair. "This is a scene that one of my clones is seeing with their eyes. A real-time live footage."
On the screen, the scene of Naruto Uzumaki standing beside an orange-masked man played out. The two of them were on top of a tree, looking down at a scene of their own where Sasuke Uchiha was fighting Itachi Uchiha, the latter's body burnt badly even as he strolled forward, putting a finger on Sasuke's forehead before he smiled and collapsed on the floor, dead.
"Naruto!" Hinata jumped up from her seat, running to grab the screen with her hands, but she just passed through the hologram and crashed onto Neji's chest. "G-genjutsu?"
Hinata's eyes seemed to lose hope, seeing which Neji sighed. "It's a hologram screen. Not a genjutsu."
"Take me there, then!"
"He isn't sane." Neji looked down at her with an expressionless face. "He will kill you."
"...I don't trust you unless you take me there. You are strong, right? Protect me if he attacks me." Hinata said, sounding challenging. She didn't believe Naruto would attack her. That was an impossible possibility for her. "So?"
"I am not obliged to listen to anything you say." Neji said, finally frowning. "You are annoying right now, Hinata."
"..."
"Em…" from the side, Hanabi hesitated, her lips thin as she looked at Neji. "Onii-sama, can you do as she asks? Just… once… for me?"
Neji's frown lessened and he sighed.
"Only for you." Neji brought her closer to him and ruffled her hair. "But after we send the Konoha Ninjas back. Alright?"
Hanabi nodded, hugging him, while Hinata looked at the scene in a daze.
— - —
Through his Jogan, Neji had seen the exchange between Kurenai and Asuma wrap out. Frankly, he was somewhat… disappointed in Asuma.
'That is not how you treat your girl.' Neji thought as his eyes watched Asuma storm off the room. 'Oh well.'
Usually, Neji would have gone to comfort Kurenai. But he just felt it was entirely her decision at this point and he shouldn't put his dick between this. But if she wanted comfort? Then sure, he would gladly do it.
In any case, Neji focused on what he earned this time. Kakashi's– or rather, Obito's Mangekyou Sharingan.
Neji was somewhat surprised seeing the eye was on Level 10, but he guessed it made sense since this was technically Obito's eye (until Neji healed Kakashi a week ago) and therefore shared all of Obito's experience too. So it being maxed level might not be so surprising.
Neji then opened the Genome Page, clicked on Jogan, and then found a new add-on under the ‹Sharingan› sub-ability.
[Ability: Long-ranged Kamui
Details: The user can look at a target and create a "barrier space" around them, with the barrier's size being determined by the user. Upon concentrating, anything within the barrier is pulled towards its centre, transferring the target to Kamui's dimension.
**Unlike the origin of this ability, Master can use it using both eyes, and even mix it with the Byakugan sub-ability to cast this on anywhere his eyes can see.]
The ability was cracked enough, but the last paragraph just made it brain-numbingly scary.
Now, he could kill a person by glaring at them. The fact that he could see 105 kilometres in all directions meant he could kill millions of people at once by glaring at them.
Neji had already given Kakashi the necessary knowledge to use ‹Lightning Cloak› by using the Yamanaka Memory Transfer Technique. His chakra was boosted, as promised, too. In some sense, Kakashi was a few times stronger than a few minutes ago.
A few hours after that, the Konoha Ninjas were prepared to leave. They had said farewell to everyone here, including the ones who decided to stay. They were happy that their friends were going to stay in heaven, but they were also sad that this meant they would rarely meet. Even that 'rare' was uncertain since they may never meet Neji again, given what sort of being he was now.
Everyone understood why some girls got to stay in this place though. Namely, Kakashi and Guy were surprised that Tsunade would stay here too, suggesting what sort of intimate relationship Neji shared with the much older woman. But nobody brought this topic up as this was useless and also somewhat uncomfortable for everyone.
Shikamaru in particular felt this was really selfish of Tsunade, to just leave Konoha to the fate of this handful of people, but he couldn't really blame her either since she apparently died too but Neji revived her— so she had given her life away for the village, which was more than enough.
Still, they felt somewhat weird by leaving in a smaller number than they came here with.
"With Kakashi as the Hokage, the lost Jutsus shouldn't be a problem since he knows most of them anyway," Tsunade said, looking at the group gathered in front of her. "Neji will go with you guys to help make some wooden buildings, so don't worry about the smaller stuff too much."
Kakashi nodded amongst the group. "I know, thank you. If that's it, I think we should leave already." He glanced at Asuma beside him, who was standing with an unreadable expression and sighed under his breath upon realising Asuma didn't plan to bring Kurenai no matter what. "Alright then, goodbye everyone."
Then, with Neji's authority over this realm allowing them, the Ninjas disappeared.
Only Shikamaru and Choji remained under Asuma. Like always, Rock Lee was under Guy, and only Shino was with Kakashi. Anko Mitarashi was accompanying them too, though.
As for the people staying, as previously decided Ino, Kiba (and his dog) and Jugo would be sent to heaven.
Karin was also being left behind, but it was temporary. Tsunade requested Neji to read the Uzumaki girl's memories. From the gathered information, Neji would let Kakashi know about Sasuke and the Akatsuki so that Konoha could be prepared for anything. After all, the new Konoha couldn't risk anything to do with the Akatsuki. At all. When that would be done, Karin was to be handed over to Konoha again.
Besides that, Hinata was also staying behind. As per Hanabi's request, Neji will take her to Naruto and then everything after that will be decided by her.
In a blink of white light, the entire group vanished, along with one of Neji's woodclones.
Now, he had more, relatively annoying jobs to do.
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Author Note: I was on a trip to the sea recently, that's why the lack of chapters. I will start posting 4~5 chapters a week starting from today again.
It's the start of a new week, don't forget to vote powerstones to send me free motivation!!!