Ino beckoned Ren as she hugged his left side, while Hinata gave her an exasperated look and stepped behind Ren, putting her hand on his shoulder.
Ren reached toward Danzo, grasping his shoulder as the space swirled...
The next thing Danzo knew, he shivered in the cold breeze as he found himself standing on the top of the Hokage Monument.
"Space-time ninjutsu. You have a space-time ninjutsu!" He exclaimed toward Ren, the shock hitting him hard, and not even Ino's control could prevent him from paling.
"Space-time seal." Ren mildly corrected.
But Danzo didn't care! Space-time seal, whatever! The problem was that they were sending this man to Sunagakure! He may die here. Fine. He can accept that. His death might never be avenged. He could accept that, too. But Konoha losing someone with a space-time technique!? That, that, that, no! That was unforgivable! That couldn't be allowed to happen!
"You must show it to Hiruzen!" Danzo desperately beseeched Ren. "He can stop the betrothal. With this, you can stay in Konoha, and-"
"Break, my ass." Ren interrupted him with a snort. "Weren't you one of the idiots who decided to send me there?"
"That's on Hiruzen." Danzo vehemently argued, "I wanted to..." He suddenly and awkwardly trailed off, but Ren beckoned him to continue with his hand.
"No, no, go on. Do tell. You wanted to what?"
"I wanted to put more political pressure on you. Ruin your store. Ruin your reputation. Destroy the political alliances you had made." Danzo grudgingly admitted, realizing that honesty would at least keep the talks going. He couldn't have Ren storming off. Not here. This was too important to Konoha's future! "And when you found no way out, I wanted to use that to force you to work for Konoha's R&D. Your seals are too good to stay in the private ownership of a clan. They would do more good in Konoha's hands."
Ren's eyebrows scrunched in discomfort at that. He... honestly, he could see that working under certain circumstances. And wasn't that terrifying?
He could have been manipulated without even realizing it, thinking that it was just village politics at play, and the work in R&D might have been seen as a way out if he had no other recourse.
He involuntarily shivered. Yeah, politics. Fuck that. He decided not to get overly involved in it in Suna. That would be Temari's job. Yeah, that sounded smart.
Or maybe he should deal with it the Gaara's way? Squeezing political opponents into a meat paste could be cathartic.
"Oho~, so it was Hiruzen Sarutobi who made this plan to send Ren to Sunagakure?" Behind Ren, Ino told Hinata and distracted him from his thoughts. "Good to know." She whispered, and Ren heard a certain level of vindictive vengefulness in that whisper.
He was probably going to have to talk about that with Ino at some point.
"You can't really mean to go to Sunagakure. Just talk with Hiruzen. For a technique like that, breaking the alliance with Suna would be worth it." Danzo spoke, ignoring everything in favor of trying to talk some sense into Ren.
Not even his loss of control of his body bothered him anymore, as his focus was fully on the task.
"No." Ren shook his head. "We already decided to accept the village's schemes. I will go to Suna."
Ino and Hinata were clan heiresses. Ren didn't really take it into account when he decided the decision would be theirs. The girls were simply raised differently.
For them, the important part was that going to Suna would be easier for Ren than going rogue. It wasn't even a question. They almost instantly decided that sharing him with Temari was doable. That it wouldn't even be a problem because there was no way some Suna hussy could ever compare to them.
It was part pride and part self-confidence. They were not even slightly afraid that Temari could snag all of his attention because they were absolutely confident they were not going to allow it to happen. Ren... didn't really understand it. But he made his peace with being unable to understand how women thought long ago. Spending a lot of time with them on a daily basis didn't change this fundamental fact.
He decided to simply thank the Sage for his fortune and move on with his life.
His girls were more worried about how to press-gang Temari into making her wedding a ceremony for all of them. But that would be an issue only after Temari arrived in Konoha and Ren decided not to get involved in that cat fight.
As for the fact that he told Hiruzen he was already married to the girls... Well, he was just going to shrug and tell him to his face that he lied. No big deal.
"Staying in Konoha means you can stay with your students!" Danzo protested, but Ren just amusedly raised his eyebrow at him with a small smirk.
"Ah. Teleportation. You can meet the two anytime you want." Danzo realized and cursed under his breath. "Hiruzen's long-term schemes are completely worthless, then."
"To be fair, you old coots had me on the ropes. I was totally blindsided and couldn't even tell where the punches were coming before they landed. You screwed me over well." Ren carefreely admitted his loss. Credit had to be given where credit was due.
"And yet, this scheme that was supposed to separate you three and give Konoha a chance to regain control of Yamanaka and Hyuga only made you closer. Enough that even treasonous actions are not out of the question." Danzo sourly argued.
But Ren only shrugged his shoulders. Sure. If that's how Danzo wanted to view it, why not?
"Having an S-rank ninja in Suna could be useful for the village, I guess." Danzo sighed. "At least you are still loyal to Konoha." He sounded somewhat defeated.
And Ren could have left him to his delusions. It would have been the kind thing to do. But why would he do that?
"Am I?" Ren looked Danzo directly in the eyes and mirthfully asked in a way that made the answer obvious.
That stopped Danzo's mind in its tracks, and if he could move, he would have probably jolted in a very unpleasant surprise.
"... No. You can't swap your allegiances to Suna. That. Your lovers will still be Konoha kunoichi. Their clans will still be Konoha clans. Betraying the village would be betraying them, too. You can't do that!" Danzo insisted, but his voice contained a hesitant, almost afraid undertone.
"You should have thought about that before using something like a marriage alliance, you idiot." Ren derisively retorted with a deadpan. Sure, it might not have been Danzo's plan, but it certainly was his influence that helped push it through the council. "Seriously, did you never stop to consider what it means for me? No. Don't answer that. Of course, you haven't, you Konoha fanatic."
Ren snorted, "I am going to marry the girl. I am going to move and live in Sunagakure. I will work with her. Live with her. Sleep with her in the same bed. And regularly fuck her into the bedsheets with the goal of eventually having children with her. I am not some cold bastard who could do that for years without forming at least some sort of positive relationship with her. Maybe not instantly, but what about in a few years? What about when we finally have kids together? It is simply going to happen."
"Do you really expect my loyalty to Konoha to weather all that? Do you think I would betray my future kids for a village that pretty much discarded me because I was politically inconvenient? Don't be stupid, Danzo. I can't say what the future holds. Maybe Temari will turn out to be a manipulative bitch I will hate. But let's be realistic. If this political marriage is even slightly successful, you would be asking me to choose between my future family and Konoha. If you think I'd choose Konoha, then you are simply a moron."
There were some very good reasons why political marriages were never a viable way of doing diplomacy between the hidden villages.
For a few breaths, Danzo stayed silent, and Ino happily shared with Hinata and Ren how hard that hit him. But he was not going to easily give up. He still had one good card to play.
"Yamanaka, Hyuga, and you are fine with that? Your man is speaking of his future children with another woman, but I didn't hear him mention anything about his future children with you two. Your future children will belong in Konoha, no? They will be a Hyuga and a Yamanaka."
Then, before he could get an answer, he once again spoke to Ren.
"And you, Yotsuba, whose children will be more important to you? Those in Suna or those in Konoha? You are setting yourself up for a very hard and unpleasant fall, boy."
A short silence, interrupted only by the chilly nightly breeze, spread through the surroundings, but Ren then slowly nodded and gave Danzo a small smile that hid his discontent perfectly.
"Do you know what the best thing about having two women who truly love you is?" He calmly asked a rhetorical question, but instead of following up with an answer, he gestured toward the girls and stepped to the side so Danzo could properly see them as they gave the answer.
"We can always fake our deaths and live with him outside of Konoha." Ino nonchalantly said, enjoying how Danzo's heart skipped a beat from the sheer mortification he felt. A bit more of this, and the old man might actually get a heart attack.
"What she said." Hinata agreed, "My sister can lead the Hyuga clan, and Ino has many cousins who can take over her role. We are not irreplaceable for our clans. Besides, we could always secretly visit our families." She breezily said, "It's not such a big deal as you make it out to be."
Well, Ren wanted to disagree. It was a massive deal. This was an issue that ate at him, but he didn't have a good solution other than, 'Let's conquer the world!'
He truly didn't want to be the reason for the divide between his girls and their clans or their village. Unfortunately, there was no good, straightforward answer to this problem, and they had already made up their mind.
For now, that was enough, but Ren couldn't help but feel dissatisfied. Here, Danzo hit the head of the nail perfectly.
Shaking his head, Ren turned toward Ino and Hinata, "I think I have had enough talking for today. Good luck with your fun, Ino. Hinata," He outstretched his hand toward her with a smile, "let's go home, sweetheart."
Hinata happily skipped toward him and hugged his right arm with a joyful grin before the space swirled around them, and then they were gone.