"Um, wait a second, if I just vanish without saying bye, the Village Chief is gonna flip out because he worries way too much," Fu said while tugging on Makoto's sleeve with big, pleading puppy-dog eyes.
"Can you come back with me to tell him so he doesn't have a heart attack?"
"Of course, that's fine."
"Yay!" Fu hopped and skipped toward the hidden entrance behind the waterfall, waving enthusiastically like she was leading a field trip.
"Come on, come on, I'll lead the way~"
"She's really... energetic, isn't she?" Makoto sighed as he watched her bounce away, feeling like he was staring directly into the sun.
Kakuzu silently trailed behind them with an aura radiating pure menace, deciding that if the current leadership of the Waterfall Village didn't know their place, he would happily clean house again since a few more hearts for his collection wouldn't hurt.
Fortunately, Kakuzu didn't need to commit a massacre today because the current Village Chief turned out to be a young man who, while he was kind-hearted, he completely lacked a spine.
He had no particular ambitions and no real objections to Fu leaving, though he was mostly just terrified for her safety after seeing her standing next to Kakuzu, the village's legendary boogeyman.
However, Makoto smoothed things over with some masterful spin by explaining that Kakuzu had defected all those years ago because the corrupt elders sent him on a suicide mission to assassinate the God of Shinobi, Hashirama Senju, and then imprisoned him for the crime of surviving.
Coupled with Fu's vivid, star-struck description of how Kakuzu had "heroically" saved her from the Kumo ninjas and how Makoto healed her burns, the young Chief relented.
"I... I agree," the Chief stammered nervously.
Some of the older council members looked like they wanted to object, but one glare from Kakuzu silenced the room as his green eyes narrowed, practically daring them to speak so he could rip their chests open.
Kakuzu could tell this village was too soft and needed a reminder of the pecking order.
"The village is fine as it is now, but if it reverts to the old ways, I won't mind coming back to harvest your hearts since I have plenty of empty slots," Kakuzu rumbled in his gravelly voice before walking out.
The three walked out of the waterfall mist back onto the main path where Kurotsuchi was still standing, staring blankly into space as if her brain was buffering.
"Kurotsuchi?" Makoto waved a hand in front of her face to snap her out of it. "What are you doing standing there, is there something else?"
Kurotsuchi turned her vacant gaze toward him, looking deadly serious.
"Makoto, tell me honestly, do you think this little girl is cute?" she asked while pointing a finger at Fu, who was currently chasing a butterfly in the background.
"Uh, she's quite cute, why do you ask?"
"What about me?" Kurotsuchi posed with a hand on her hip.
"You're not bad i guess."
"What do you mean 'not bad'..." Kurotsuchi muttered with a twitching eye before taking a deep breath to ask the real question.
"Whatever, that's not important, but do you think... the Raikage was kinda.... cute?"
After asking this, Kurotsuchi watched Makoto's expression like a hawk, analyzing every micro-expression for any signs of interest.
"..."
Makoto recoiled physically as his face twisted into a pure, unadulterated disgust, looking like he had just swallowed a cockroach.
"Have you lost your damn mind?" Makoto gagged, looking genuinely nauseous. "I think I'm going to vomit just thinking about it, why would you even ask that?"
"That's good," Kurotsuchi breathed a massive sigh of relief while patting her chest.
"Thank god you're not gay as i thought."
She had been legitimately worried he was actually planning to seduce Killer Bee or the Raikage, and if Makoto was into muscle-bound wrestler types, the world was truly doomed!
"Alright then, bye, I've got a lot to handle with the new government so let's catch up when we have time!"
She waved and activated her Light-Weight Rock Technique, zooming away into the sky before Makoto could ask what the hell that line of questioning was about.
"Weirdo..." Makoto shook his head before turning to his partner. "Kakuzu, let's head back too."
"Strategist, you two go back first because I'll take my time returning," Kakuzu said, stopping in his tracks.
"Huh? Why?"
"This mission ended too quickly," Kakuzu grunted, looking pained. "If I go back now, that brat Deidara will be waiting for me to badger me about his 'Art' and asking me to shoot lightning at his clay again, so I'm going to stay out here and make some money for a few days to preserve my sanity."
"...Fine."
Makoto grabbed Fu's hand and activated C-Moon to leap into the air.
Fu instinctively spread Chomei's chakra wings and fluttered them uselessly at her waist before realizing she was floating without them.
"Eh? How are you flying without wings?" Fu tilted her head while peering behind Makoto to check for wires.
"Do you have invisible thrusters or is it..... magic?"
...
On the way back to Amegakure, Fu chattered nonstop, and Makoto used the travel time to explain the basics of the Akatsuki, telling her they will save the world and bring joy while conveniently leaving out the information about the psycho members.
Upon returning to Ame, Makoto handed Fu over to Konan to get her settled in, and a few hours later, Konan dragged him to a training field outside the village with an intense look on her face.
"I thought of a method, so let's test it," Konan said seriously as she handed Makoto a cup of milk with a straw in it.
"What do you mean?" Makoto blinked.
"Take a sip."
"..."
Makoto complied and took a sip, but immediately after, Konan took the cup back and turned away slightly, her cheeks flushing a rare shade of pink as she quickly took a sip from the same straw.
An indirect kiss.
Before Makoto could comment on this sudden intimacy, Konan threw two Exploding Tags at a tree, causing it to shatter into two burning pieces with a loud booming sound.
"Can you do it?" Konan looked at Makoto expectantly.
Makoto raised his hand and focused his intent.
VRRRRR.
Suddenly, time seemed to reverse for the object as the splinters of wood flew backward, the smoke retracted, and the tree reassembled itself perfectly into a whole trunk.
More importantly, two pristine, unexploded tags materialized in the air and flew back into Konan's hand.
"It really works!" Konan's eyes lit up with excitement.
This was a new ability Makoto had acquired over the past month called Crazy Diamond, which was the same ability Kurotsuchi mistook for Medical Ninjutsu earlier when he healed Fu.
Before testing his gravity powers with Nagato, Makoto had experimented with Itachi by asking him to hit him with Amaterasu.
Itachi had looked at him like he was insane but eventually complied, burning Makoto's left hand with the black flames while standing ready to extinguish them instantly.
The concept of "indestructible, eternal flames" triggered a reaction in Makoto's physiology, and to survive the unquenchable fire, his body awakened the power of Restoration.
It could restore anything to its original state, and unlike the JoJo stand, Makoto could heal himself since his power was born from the need to restore his own flesh while burning.
He discovered that enhancing it with natural energy just increased the restoration speed, but there was a hard limitation where he had to touch the object to fix it.
Konan saw serious potential because if she could use her 600 billion Exploding Tags to blow up an enemy and then instantly restore the tags to use them again, she would have infinite ammo.
However, Makoto couldn't run around touching every single piece of paper she threw, so Konan realized the key was Dna.
She needed to impregnate the energy with Makoto's biological essence to create a temporary link, thus leading to the "milk experiment."
By sharing saliva via the straw, she ingested a trace of his biological dna.
And it worked, as her chakra momentarily carried his signature, allowing him to restore her tags remotely.
'This principle is somewhat similar to how Tailed Beast Chakra works, like how Naruto linked everyone's chakra in the war...,' Makoto analyzed while stroking his chin.
Also, during this past month, the Land of Waves had seen some developments following one of Makoto's plans to boost the economy.
Kisame had contacted a film crew, and it turned out one of the crew members needed to issue an escort mission to protect the famous actress Yukie Fujikaze, also known as Princess Gale.
Makoto had accepted the task, scheduled for half a month later, as it was the perfect setup for securing the Land of Snow's technology.
But right now, the focus was on the milk!
Konan threw another Exploding Tag at a rock and waited, but nothing happened as the paper remained a pile of smoldering ash.
She turned to look at Makoto with a furrowed brow.
"Has it stopped working already?" she asked.
"That was fast."
"...Konan, your wording is quite ambiguous so please don't say it like that," Makoto sweatdropped.
"It expired because the trace of dna from sharing a straw dissipates quickly, so we need a stronger connection if you want it to last longer."
Konan stared at the empty cup, then at Makoto, and seemed to be calculating the logistics of a 'stronger connection.'
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For perverted people who think drinking milk is drinking sperm like Kakashi, this is what makoto means (probably) by drinking milk, by exchanging DNA trough saliva!