Chapter 448: A helping hand

"The invasion went smoothly. Our puppeteers set up a poison cloud around the perimeter of Iwa before our Battle Fan specialists used their Jutsus to quickly spread it all over Iwagakure just as planned. With the chakra weakening poison in the air, our troops managed to overwhelm Iwa forces in under two hours." Rika reported without being prompted as she led Rei and Konan inside.

No doubt, it was an overwhelming victory for Suna, one that brought a lot of satisfaction to Pakura's subordinates. Many of them fought in the Third Ninja War and their primary enemy was Iwa. This was a way to get back at them.

But...

Rei didn't care about that!

"That's fine but I think you should report that to Pakura once she returns from Konoha." He wryly smiled, "I am more interested if you managed to capture Onoki's granddaughter."

To give Rika credit, she faltered only for a brief split of a second before she regained her bearings and nodded. "The bitch killed over fifty of our ninjas before we finally subdued her. I have no idea why Lady Pakura wanted her alive." She indignantly huffed.

And due to that reaction, Rei decided to keep his involvement in that order secret from Rika...

Rei, Konan, and Rika entered the temporary command center, which was basically just a trashed and remade office of Onoki, and Rei's eyes instantly landed on a form of exhausted and bloody girl tied to a chair with ninja wire while silently glaring at everyone who was quietly worked in the room.

Not that she could talk with a gag in her mouth.

Rei glanced at Riku and raised an eyebrow at that, only getting vague and uncaring, "She just wouldn't shut up.", and a shrug in reply.

Rei noted that Kurotsuchi had definitely seen better days. Her right arm was broken at the elbow while her left one sported many cuts and gashes. Both of her arms were painfully twisted behind the chair's backrest and tied together by a wire in a way that brought the woman constant suffering.

Her legs and the rest of her body were no better, for that matter.

Her clothes were scraps at this point, her modesty barely covered since nobody bothered to get her new clothes after she was captured, and her previous battling reduced her own torn wreck.

Despite most of her body being barely covered, Kurotsuchi wasn't very attractive right now. Her body was littered with deep purple and black bruises, sporting several nasty cuts that would definitely scar if nothing was done about them.

While ninjas didn't mind scars, Kurotsuchi's current form was way past fashionable and started to enter the territory of distasteful even for them.

Rei sighed and shook his head, fully aware that Suna had enough medics present to spare one for the Iwa girl. But they were most likely delaying it as much as possible out of sheer spite.

Not that he could scold Riku for that. Having her medics tend to her injured people first wasn't exactly a bad decision.

Rei ignored the questioning looks of the jonins seated all over the room who were dealing with reports and directly approached Kurotsuchi, un-gagging her and smirking when she tried to bite his fingers the first chance she got... and not in a playful way.

It was a child's play to evade her bite and Rei amusedly watched the unwilling irritation in Kurotsuchi's half-resigned and narrowed eyes as her jaw clicked together with enough strength it made her try and fail to repress her groan from pain as her upper and lower teeth smashed together.

"I am the only person in the room who doesn't wish you to violently die, girl. While your resistance is admirable, you should be way smarter about showing it so openly." Rei lightly chided, causing Kurotsuchi to look at him as if he grew a second head while her expression became sour at his nonchalance.

Rei didn't wait for her answer and quickly put his hand on her bruised cheek, making Kurotsuchi hiss from pain... before her eyes went slightly wide as she felt healing chakra start to mend her face.

It took Kurotsuchi a moment to understand what was going on and her expression was shifting through various emotions, the woman too tired to even try hiding it. In the end, however, resigned gratitude seemed to win as she leaned her head more into Rei's palm, enjoying the comfort of his healing chakra while staring at his eyes as if judging his intentions.

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Rei let her do whatever she was doing, not rushing her as he was too curious about what she would do. Much to his disappointment, there was no more biting play. Sadge.

A few seconds passed, and Kurotsuchi hesitantly opened her mouth...

"What do ya want?" She quietly asked with a tinge of reluctance in her tone, much to the bewilderment of the other occupants of the room that watched the interaction between her and Rei with rising interest.

The girl was like a rabid animal before she was gagged, screaming and cussing at everyone present, so much so that even the jonins found it hard to ignore her and focus on their work. Hence, the gag.

Seeing the same spitting mad bitch so... subdued, made their jaws almost drop to the floor.

When Rei saw that, he almost rolled his eyes at them. Of course, she was more agreeable to speak with him. Wasn't it obvious? No matter how messed up her body was or how tomboyish she was, she was a woman!

And if Rei learned something about the unexplainable creatures called women, it was that they valued their faces a lot. Many would deny it, saying appearance did not matter but they would be lying.

The second he started to heal Kurotsuchi's face, he knew there was a seventy percent chance she would chill the fuck out and stop her temper tantrum due to the sheer shock.

And while Rei was a bit downtrodden that the girl didn't persist with her fiery resistance and fell for this small trick, it worked better than a bitchslap... something the idiots around definitely tried considering how bruised her cheek was.

'Sure, ya twats. Try shutting a kunoichi down by further messing up her face.' Rei barely pushed down the desire to facepalm.

While that would have worked against genins or chunins, Jonins were made up of different stuff. And Iwa jonins were known to be stubborn to the point of stupid. They were known to rather die than be captured so Kurotsuchi acting out was quite normal.

"I have an offer for you." Rei disarmingly smiled... a gesture that was very hard to dismiss, considering he was currently healing her.

But Kurotsuchi didn't fall for it and a spark of anger once again slightly reignited in her coal-like eyes. "Do you really think I would help you? After thi- aw! Wha av yu doving!?"

When her voice rose, Rei promptly grabbed her cheek and started to play with it, stretching and squeezing it, which might have made Kurotsuchi indignant but the spiteful kind of anger gave way to a more childish one without her even noticing how much that gesture calmed her down.

"And who knows..." Rei nonchalantly continued as if her earlier outburst didn't happen. "If you are a good girl, maybe, just maybe I will make sure your grandfather's life is spared. He is currently battling Pakura's apprentice and just between us..." Rei leaned closer and said as if he was sharing a secret with her, "I don't think he is enjoying it."

"My grandpa will win!" Kurotsuchi rebuked with confidence and was about to continue her tirade, but Rei cut her off.

"Even if he wins," Rei strongly interrupted, "he would still need to face the completely fresh Kazekage. I think his back will give out sooner though." He shrugged.

The room descended into silence for a moment, everybody too interested in how the situation would unfold to interrupt as Kurotsuchi was considering her options.

"What... kind of help?" In the end, Kurotsuchi reluctantly asked, subconsciously looking down as she gritted her teeth.

Rei inwardly smirked. He knew the girl had a lot of trust in her grandfather but she was aware he was just a human too. And therefore, she was unable to persist in her blind trust once the threat to his life was directly pointed out to her.

"It's quite simple." Rei kindly smiled, much like a devil would when offering someone on their last leg a helping hand, "I want you to officially swear yourself as my personal kunoichi."

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