- Rival r-r-r-rents! - Katsumi suddenly squinted at me like her mother, and I let go of the cup, but it didn't shatter from the impact.
- Well, who's teaching the kid bad habits?! - I looked around at the suspects, shaking the spilled tea off my clothes and ignoring the giggles of the girls.
Of the three adult kunoichi, only Linley looked as surprised as I was, but Saya and Hitomi looked away and unsuccessfully forced smiles.
- Spoil my baby," he muttered, shaking off the moisture from his clothes.
- I'm getting wiser! - The little one spoke up, smiling broadly.
- It's just a joke, Ryo-kun," Saya laughed.
- Well look, when I come back, we'll have a big talk about it! - Ryo-kun threatened, and then looked at his watch. - But right now, I have to get ready too.
- Be careful, Ryo-kun," Ma said, and the wives ran to help, though I could have done it faster myself.
- I'm always careful," I rolled my eyes.
Three shinobi, one of whom was Uchiha, were already waiting for me at the gate in full combat readiness, and after quickly discussing who specialized in what and the marching formation of the team according to their roles, we left Konoha and immediately moved to the upper paths, taking a decent pace of movement.
Unlike my companions who were traveling light, I was well loaded - a couple of artifacts in the form of half-meter cubes of chakra-conducting metal inscribed with symbols were impossible to hide in a scroll, and as the hardiest, I carried them on my back.
The freshwater storages had only recently been filled from the river that ran through Konoha and were supposed to be sent to the allies with a team of jonins, or even several, for the safety of the precious cargo, but Hatake had decided to take the opportunity to combine them, saving on guards and giving them to me. He didn't even have to pay for the delivery, though he could have at least paid for a token mission of Rank S, cheapskate!
We had no problems traveling through Ho no Kuni territory and then Kaze no Kuni, even though a couple of times I felt the chakra of observers that could not have belonged to the Konohovs, who were on the busy trade routes, which we used to increase our speed.
The nukenins were looking for a victim, but they did not dare to go against a full-fledged team of jonins, despite the obviously valuable cargo.
We decided not to stop for the night, and continued to run at night, because there were no problems with visibility under the light of the almost full moon and cloudless sky, and all four of us could stay awake for several days without any damage to our fighting ability.
I was in a hurry to get back as soon as possible to complete all the modifications I'd worked out on the two kanpeki ningyo lab clones, and the men who'd been in the last world war wanted to spend as much time with their families and children as possible before the fighting started, instead of disappearing outside Konoha on missions as usual.
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