Ren stood in front of the entrance to his store, the skin around his eyes involuntarily tightening as he glanced over the half-demolished door and the broken sign announcing, ‘Yotsuba seals.’

Stifling an angry curse, he vindictively kicked the corpse of a Suna ninja in front of him. That one obviously died to one of his earliest anti-burglary traps in his store, so the dipshit deserved it.

Balling his fists and taking a deep breath to calm himself, Ren walked into the store, only to groan when he noticed that it was absolutely ransacked inside.

The shelves were broken. The counter in splinters. The wall was cracked. And blood from corpses or body parts strewn all around his store started seeping into the gaps between the wooden floor tiles.

Clearly, these men were not here randomly.

‘Oh, my. I seem to be very popular these days.’ Ren thought in sarcasm and distaste as he saw Suna uniforms, Oto uniforms, and even some bastards with blank ANBU masks.

He had spent the past few weeks building his shop up, and now it was in ruins.

The urge to punch the wall was almost stronger than him.

Then again, Ren couldn’t really say he didn’t expect something like this. There was a reason why he made his shop into a veritable seal fortress and why all these uninvited guests now lay lifelessly on the floor.

Ren made sure there was nothing to steal other than some very basic seals anybody could buy by dozens in his shop. After all, knowing there was going to be an invasion and keeping precious seals on the shelves would be dumb.

Still, Ren hoped his shop would have been spared. Alas, it was not to be.

Sighing, Ren crouched down and grabbed a torn part of a nearby shelf before he sullenly walked toward the destroyed counter and put it on a small, still-intact part as he sat down at a surprisingly undamaged stool behind it.

“Wild.” Ren uttered as he stared once again at the devastation in front of him. And while he tried to sound nonchalant, the helplessness in his tone was unmistakable.

Just then, the cracked mirror to his right finally collapsed, and large pieces fell to the ground where they shattered into smaller pieces under Ren’s deadpan gaze.

That mirror was expensive. Very expensi-

An entire shelf next to the destroyed mirror suddenly creaked, tilted forward for a bit, before it toppled over to the floor.

Ren took a deep breath before sighing. He was glad that he didn’t take Hinata with him. She would have been hysterical by now. She and Ino put a great deal of effort into furnishing and preparing the store. Seeing it like this… Ren could already hear them indignantly screeching in fury.

That image brought a dry chuckle out of Ren’s lips.

At least, the invasion was over, and Orochimaru was dead. Ren could finally take a breather. No Orochimaru and no Kabuto meant no Edo Tensei. Thanks for the small mercies.

The destruction of his shop was well worth it.

Ren suddenly noticed Kakashi whizzing through the street in front of his shop and remembered his meeting with Naruto and the Hokage in the T&I department.

To be honest, he was a bit surprised to find out that Naruto in there was not a clone. But he could glean that Hiruzen wanted to keep the boy near him for some reason.

… Maybe telling him that last part about Kyuubi in his Tobi costume was a bit too much.

Naruto, however, surprised Ren the most. The boy’s grasp of using his shadow clones was simply astonishing. It was a wonder what a few tips could do to an impressionable young man.

Naruto’s clones could create another clone and have it puff out of existence, instantly relaying information to all other clones and the original. And since the original Naruto stood next to the Hokage, he could relay the happenings all around the village in real time.

Ren smiled. The blonde boy was no longer the kid he remembered from the anime. He was more mature, even if his inexperience and childishness showed sometimes. The boy was growing up, and Ren was happy to see it.

Still, that didn’t mean he was not exasperated when the exuberant young man started regaling him and Hinata with the tales of his clones’ accomplishments or the exploits of his classmates.

He was a veritable treasure trove of information.

Kakashi and Gai apparently killed the Kazekage. Gai went “whoosh”, and then “whuuuf”, and then he went “waham!” before he did “twang!” and “aaaagrrhh!”. Then he went all green and veiny as he exploded in the power of youth! And the Kazekage was punched, “Pa! Pa! Pa!” Naruto actually excitedly punched the air as he described it. At the end, the boy added, “Oh, and Kakashi-sensei was there, too, I guess.” as he disinterestedly scratched his head.

Ren snickered as he remembered the awed twinkle in the boy’s eyes as he explained the situation in the most nonsensical manner possible. He wondered if Konoha will have a new Orange Beast of the youthful ways in the near future.

Now that was going to drive the Hatake bastard spare!

But to translate the Uzumaki speech, Gai was probably forced to use Inner Gates. Maybe even go as far as the sixth gate, considering Gai’s injuries that Naruto uncomfortably described at Hiruzen’s prompting.

Kakashi most likely played the assassin role in the combat to Gai’s berserker, which was why Naruto didn’t notice him too much. It was honestly impressive. Both that Rasa resisted and forced Gai into the sixth gate despite being highly disadvantaged, and the fact that two Jonin managed to deal with the Kazekage.

As much as Ren disliked Kakashi, he had to give it to the man. He deserved some level of praise for his contributions during the fight. If Ren were the Hokage, he would buy the man ramen. That should be a fitting reward.

Even Naruto would agree.

But enough about Gai and Kakashi. Naruto shared info about others as well. Sakura… well, Naruto went all “gaga, amazing, aww” when describing her exploits, but Ren managed to translate it into, “Yeah, the pinkette was mostly useless.”

Naruto was just lucky Karin was not nearby, or he would have gained a bump or two from the resulting punch to the head. While Ren doubted the boy had some remaining romantic inclinations toward the pink-haired girl, he still considered her his dear friend.

But to each their own. That sounded like a Naruto problem to Ren. He decided not to meddle in it.

Sasuke, on the other hand, apparently tore through several teams of enemy ninja with the viciousness of a spurned wife in a midlife crisis. The boy was not happy that he had missed his chunin exam match. And he took his anger out on the enemies.

Even Hiruzen was impressed when he heard how many enemies Sasuke felled.

Only Naruto was pouting as he shouted, “Bastard this, bastard that.” while giving more information.

His clones and Sasuke teamed up halfway through the combat, and together, they turned out to be even more effective at helping to push the enemy ninjas back and out of Konoha.

It was obvious that Hiruzen was truly proud. Only Naruto hadn’t noticed because he was too engrossed in his tales.

Shikamaru was next, and Ren half-expected the boy to sleep through the invasion. But that, surprisingly, turned out to be incorrect. Ino’s training managed to make the Nara boy truly dangerous.

The Naras never had the necessary focus to use their shadow techniques alongside taijutsu. It was a major flaw. One that Ino rectified by developing a new focusing technique for Shikamaru.

And with it, Shikamaru supposedly took on twenty enemy ninja and decimated them with his shadows and taijutsu.

Hearing that, Ren couldn’t stop smiling. He was proud of Ino. Her clan and the Naras were already very close. Many women and men from their clans intermarried. But this technique she had taught Shikamaru was going to bring a qualitative leap to the Nara clan’s combat effectiveness.

She had practically cemented the already ironclad alliance between their clans to a massive degree.

Ren put a small note in his mind to reward her for it. Having stronger clans was going to come in handy in the Fourth Ninja War. He was very pleased.

He sent a burst of affection to Ino through the telepathy seal, and his smile widened when it was returned.

Tenten, Kiba, Shino, Neji, Choji, they all had their own tales and exploits, but Ren kinda spaced out as Naruto told them. He was too busy mentally interacting with his blonde girl.

Only hearing that even Lee, bandaged enough to resemble a mummy, managed to beat an attacker in the hospital into submission with his crutches pulled Ren out of his mind as he gave Naruto a bewildered look.

Now that, he would have loved to see.

In the end, Hinata decided to go help at the hospital as they parted from Naruto and the Hokage, while Ren went to check on his store, and now, here he was.

Ren’s smile stretched into a small grimace as he was reminded of the decimation in the room, and he sighed again. “I guess that is enough stalling. Time to start cleaning.” He reluctantly muttered as he stood up.

He reckoned the following days were going to be very troublesome.

—

Author Note:

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Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep