14 Road to Konoha, and Reactions

To ease the bad things about him in the Wave, he decided to give a quarter of Gato's entire wealth to them. Since he won't need his large mansion, he also signed a contract to transfer the ownership of the house and land to the villagers, though he doesn't know what they'll do with it. Maybe they'll use it as some kind of meeting house or something like that.

So now, they hail him as a hero who ended Gato's tyrannical reign, and he would say that's true but he's no hero; he's just a man who wanted money.

Anyway, it's not his problem anymore since he is leaving the country, back to Konoha.

He really wanted to take the two courtesans with him to become his maids because they knew how to clean and take care of a person but he decided against it, considering the fact that he'll also have to bring their families with them, and as history has said countless of times, having close relationship with prostitutes doesn't really end that well.

Just look at Shi Yang, also known as Zheng Shi, who was a Chinese prostitute that married a pirate lord by the name of Zheng Yi. When Zheng Yi died, she took over his pirate fleets and made many people's lives a living hell. Her pirate fleet became one of the largest fleets in the world, and she caused so much trouble to the British people that they decided to offer her amnesty.

Which is like when you steal a bunch of people's kettles and they decide to invite you over for a cup of tea. Well, the good thing about her is that she died at the age of 69, which is pretty… nice.

And he can't really trust courtesans to take care of his foster mother, Maha-san. He needed someone who's a professional at taking care of the elderly; he'll be busy most of the time from now on after all since he very much wants to become the Hokage, and conquer the Elemental Nations.

Of course he can do that all by himself but where's the fun in that? He wants to play as a player staring down at his chess board, controlling his side's decision while the other side tries their best to battle against him. But even then, it'll be very, very unfair.

First of all, at the moment, Konoha has the most S-Rank shinobis in their ranks. Uchiha Itachi, Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Kagami, Jiraiya of the Sannin, Senju Tsunade, granddaughter of Senju Hashirama, Hatake Sakumo, Sarutobi Hiruzen, Uzumaki Kushina, who just recently entered their ranks, Namikaze Minato, and unknown to all of them, him, Helel/Asahi Ren.

While they might've lost a few in the last wars, they still have numerous A-Rank Jounins. The one who took the hardest loss was Kumo, who lost 22 S-Rank nins from Senju Tobirama.

It's brought up a lot in the history lessons back in the academy that Tobirama used himself as bait to let his team escape while he fought off 22 very high-ranking shinobis from Kumo. As he died, he took all of them with him, which made Kumo back off from the War. They returned later for the 3rd Shinobi War, and yet again, they got their asses kicked by Konoha.

Iwa, however, is still suffering from the 3rd war, considering that they lost more than 1000 Shinobis from Minato.

So the moment he becomes the Hokage, he will wage war across the nations and bring them all to their knees. And as a bonus, he'll create the peace that so many people have dreamed about for all these years.

As long as he has strength and power, he can do anything.

Soon, he packed up all the stuff he wanted to bring back to Konoha in a huge backpack, back to his house, including the kubikiribocho that he took from Juzo's hands, which might fetch him a good price once the war in Kiri is over, and then set out for his village.

Meanwhile, back in Konoha…

When her jounin sensei told her that Ren died, she couldn't believe it. The strongest in her entire generation, dead, after using himself as bait so that they can escape safely.

Currently, among the new graduates, she is the strongest since he's dead but she didn't want to win this way. She wanted to win against him, fair and square. In her mind, though one-sided, she considered him as her rival. He was the wall that she's supposed to surpass but now… now what?

Sure, she can just move on, compete in the chunin exams this year, pass it, and become a chunin. Then she could just complete missions until she's promoted to Jonin Rank, and after that, Hokage. It won't be easy, it won't be smooth sailing, but what happens after that? She conceives a child? No, sage no. She'll never have a lover or a baby, she'll be single her entire life.

If Ren was alive, the two of them would clash against each other for the Hokage's hat. They would fight, fight, and fight, until one of them is down. She wanted it to be just like that.

But it was ripped away from her. She would never know if she really would surpass him, or if she'll ever beat him. Even though she despised him, he was her goal; her objective before her father. Now, she doesn't know what to do.

She sat there, on her bed, in her room, and contemplated on what to do next.

She sighed, and just decided to forget about it and move on. She barely even knew him, aside from the fact that his name is Asahi Ren, he's her classmate from the academy, that he was the strongest in her generation, and a teammate for more than a week. That's all there is to it.

Suddenly, she heard knockings on the door. She walked over the door, and slightly opened it to see who's outside of her room. To her shock, she saw her father, holding a bag of groceries filled with cooking ingredients, and standing in front of her whole wearing a blue, long-sleeved shirt with bands around his forearms and wrist, and he wears matching pants with bandages around his ankles along with dark blue sandals. But the most noticeable thing was the fact that he wasn't wearing his forehead protector, which he wears almost all of the time.

"Dad…?"

"Hello, your mother will be coming back tonight, so would you like to join me to prepare dinner, Azumi?" He offered with a smile.

Not knowing what to do, she blushed slightly, as she nodded, saying, "O-Okay."

Sasuke stared at the ceiling of his hospital room, thinking of many things.

For example, his teammate's death. He didn't know Ren that much but he felt like the 4 of them were getting closer as the days passed by. He felt a bit hollow, knowing the fact that someone he knows died, just like that. Like a snap of a finger, he's… gone.

Sure, he felt a bit jealous at the red-head when he beat him in those spars but he started to feel a bit of companionship with the guy after being in a team with him. He can be a bit snarky at times, yet that's just his personality. He never meant them any harm, nor any help, but hey, at least he was their comrade for a week.

He's the strongest genin he knew, capable of withstanding even his brother, the strongest person he knows. So for him to die so suddenly… It's just shocking.

He sat up, and sighed as he stared at the empty room. Why was Azumi discharged but not him? He still has to wear these stupid bandages around his head, it's stupid.

If only he had his sharingan, then maybe he wouldn't have gotten knocked out like that. Damn it, he could've dodged that shark-head's attack and may have been able to help his brother out, then maybe, just maybe, nobody would've had to die just for them to not die.

His brother managed to unlock his sharingan at the age of 8 but he's 12 and there's no sign of him even awakening his.

It's just so frustrating, to the point that he wanted to just pull his hair out. But he can't since it'll damage the bandage around his head, and the nurse will yell at him again for that.

He took a look at the darkening sky outside of the window as dawn came for the village, and then he lied down again.

A chuckle full of self-loathing escaped from Itachi's lips as he chugged down another glass of sake. He sat in a bar with Kurenai, who looked at him with concern.

"I don't know if I made the right choice or not," he said with a bit of slur in his voice, "and at this point, I'm just tired of thinking about it. Maybe I should've been the one to die and not him, or maybe the two of us should've fought them all off together. We could've won… no, we would've won, Yuhi-san."

Kurenai, with a worried face, said, "Itachi, you know that's not true. Your chakra was already low at that point, and Asahi was just a genin. A strong one but a genin nonetheless. There were hundreds of chunins, genins, and some jonins. What could've you two done against them? You would've just increased the casualty of the mission."

He turned to look at her, and said, "Did you know? He told me that he wanted to do it for the honor of serving his home, the village. He loved Konoha so much that he'd die for it, even though all its people ever did was insult and neglect him. The village doesn't deserve a child like him."

"That's the alcohol speaking, Itachi. It's late, maybe we should go home now?" She said to her friend, worried that somebody might've heard him. Then she stood up, grabbed his arm, and nudged him slightly to stand up, too.

Drinking one last glass of sake, he started to stand up when he suddenly went wobbly, as his vision split into two, indicating how drunk he was.

Again, she sighed, and let him use her as support to walk. She put his right arm over her shoulder, and started walking away from the table but not before paying for their drinks.

After leaving the establishment, she started walking towards the Uchiha Compound while Itachi limped in his drunken state. It's rare to see the usually cool and calm former anbu like this. In fact, this is the first time she's seen him drunk.

It's not that uncommon for young genins to drink after having a mission that went wrong, so when Itachi was in anbu, he would sometimes drink after an assassination mission. But he was a lightweight, so after a few drinks or so, he'd get so drunk to the point that he'd act like a completely different person.

Which is kind of funny but at the moment, it's not. She's not that cruel to laugh at someone who's grieving.

'His team must've meant a lot to him for him to act like this,' she thought.

Soon, they got to his house.

She walked into the front yard of the Uchiha family, and rang the doorbell.

A dark haired, light fair skinned woman wearing a white apron and a black dress underneath it opened the door, and Kurenai couldn't help but find so many similarities between this woman and Itachi. This is his mother, Uchiha Mikoto. An A-Rank shinobi, popular for being Konoha's best assassin. It is said in the history books that when she was 17 or so, she had already assassinated over 150 influential people throughout the land.

Even the Daimyos were afraid of her, fearing that one day she might show up and slit their throats or poison their drinks.

But now she's just a housewife, which really shows the future of a kunoichi. Unlike Tsunade, one of the Sannin, most kunoichi are either destined to be a housewife or old single women, either living with cats or dogs. There's no in-between.

Mikoto widened her eyes when she saw her son limping, and had his arm around Kurenai.

"Ara, what happened to Itachi?" She asked as she opened the door wide.

She politely smiled at the woman, as she replied, "Well, he's been down a lot lately after the passing of his student, so we decided to go to the bar and get drunk. As you can see now, he's really not that sober. Anyway, can we come in?"

"Ah, right. Here, let me carry him to his room," Mikoto said as she started to also wrap her son's arm around her shoulders.

"Ah, no it's fine, Mikoto-san. I can do it. Just lead us into his room," she said this because she felt a bit guilty letting Itachi get carried away drinking.

Hearing that, Mikoto reluctantly let go of her son, and said, "Well, if you say so."

With that, they went to Itachi's room, and when his mother opened the door and turned on the lights, she couldn't help but be amazed at how normal-looking her kouhai's room is. A bed with a comforter and two pillows, a single wooden desk with a lamp on it, a trashcan, and a bookshelf filled with complex books, and most of them she doesn't even know about.

Mikoto chuckled at the sight of her face, and sadly said, "Itachi loves normalcy more than most. In fact, ever since he was a child, his only dream was to bring peace to the world. He's a kind-hearted child, and I'm proud of him. I'm just worried most of the time for him whenever he's gone."

Even though she couldn't relate to her, Kurenai could still feel sympathy for his mother. To always worry whether your son would come back or not must be a very stressful thing.

She walked over to his bed, and gently laid him to his bed.

She couldn't help but stare at his face, noticing how peaceful his face is when sleeping.

Itachi slowly opened his eyes, and as he did so, he saw his girlfriend's face staring at him.

He didn't know what she's doing here, but he muttered, "Izumi…?"

Kurenai widened her eyes slightly, and couldn't help but release a chuckle. He's so drunk that he couldn't even recognize his friend.