"There's something I'm still not getting," Margaret said, changing the subject. She then frowned, tapping her chin until Jada asked her what was wrong. "If Arthur was John... and Kaito..." She looked around the room. "Then how did I lose after trying to save Naruto?"
The room paused. They remembered the incident. Margaret had burst out of the Hokage's office to try and find Naruto on her own. But when they found her, she had lost badly.
"How can you go from knowing your life's at stake to talking about a fight no one remembers?" Jasper berated.
"I mean, I know he's strong," she continued. "But I'd at least like to know how I lost."
"I can always check your memories," Alice suggested. "To see if Arthur might have messed with it or something."
"He could do that too?!" William yelled. "So that's how he won against me in that tournament."
"Umm," Jada said, bursting his bubble. "Weren't there official monitors watching that fight? So how could he have had time to mess with your memories?"
William almost dropped on his seat.
The mood seemed to have lightened despite this revelation. And from how things were going thus far, it seemed like everyone had accepted their fate.
What were they going to do? Fly out into space until they found an exit?
Margaret would soon approach Alice to have her check her thoughts.
"I wanna see too," Alex said.
"Me too," Jada added. "Out of curiosity, I mean…"
Alice sighed, expecting Jasper and William to feel the same way. "Fine. Everyone grab hands. I'll project it."
They formed a circle in the living room, linking hands as Alice placed her palm on Margaret's forehead.
When the technique was activated, the world dissolved and they were all pulled into her mental landscape. There, they saw Margaret flying to where Naruto, Sasuke, and Arthur were located.
After seeing everything as if it were real-time, the memory ended and the group snapped back to the apartment.
There was a beat of silence. Then Jada chuckled.
"Did you hear what she said?!" Alex yelled, breaking into hysterics.
"Make me feel it again!" Jasper repeated, doing a terrible impression of Margaret's breathless voice.
"Gee, Marge!" William snorted. "I know you're into dirty magazines, but what the heck did that even mean?!"
"I meant the pain!" she shrieked before she turned bright red. Then she quickly buried herself in the couch, muffling her words. " "Uhh... s-sounded... coo...ler in... my... head...!"
"What did she say?" Alex asked.
"I think she said, 'It sounded cooler in my head,'" Alice laughed.
"That's the cringiest thing I've ever heard," Jasper sniggered, wiping a tear from his eye. "Arthur probably knocked you out just to make sure ya never say that again."
"It wasn't like that!" Margaret groaned, lifting her head. "Alice! Erase it! Erase their memories right now!"
"No way," Alice refused, grinning. "That's staying in the vault for sure."
"Please!"
"No," Alice said, sobering up slightly. "Besides, did you see the face Sasuke made when you used his Kirin?"
"Can we please just stop talking about my dialogue?"
"Not a chance," Jada said, finding the courage to grin. "Next time we spar, I'm going to whisper 'make me feel it again' in your ear."
"I hate you guys!"
After a bit more conversing, the topic revolved around just how Arthur survived and became so strong in such a short time.
William had inwardly compared Arthur to Madara Uchiha, which he was starting to regret now. Arthur, while strong, did not have Madara's personality. And as for Arthur's strength, everyone knew how Madara became powerful—through years of training with things like the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
But to measure Arthur's gains was unfathomable.
"He's hacking the system," Jasper declared.
"I don't think that's possible," Alex stated.
"What makes you so sure?" Alice wondered.
Before he could answer, Jada remembered something important: Hoshikaze's training. Since Arthur and him were the same, she announced to the group how he would undergo a rinse and repeat cycle of growing his strength.
"That doesn't explain his spiritual energy," William called out.
Each person here had their own methods of training to one-up the other. And thanks to their foreknowledge, as well as otherworldly background, they managed to work around the ninja world to acquire what they believed would help them.
Jada utilized her Sharingan excellently by copying the Leaf Village's best shinobi. That in turn sped up her progress. But because she did it too fast, she didn't have enough experience or chakra to use everything effectively.
William used his Uzumaki heritage by undergoing the Shadow Clone training method, which multiplied his training's efficiency. Yet because he lacked a strategic mindset, he wasn't wise enough to be a major threat in real-world combat.
Alice surpassed everyone's expectations on account of the rigorous life she had on earth. Such experience helped her really get in tune with the properties of chakra and its spiritual energy counterpart. Being born a Yamanaka, who were already so adept at that, boosted her inner mystic mindset to transcend what was deemed impossible.
Her only issue was that she often let emotions get the better of her, a flaw from her duties on earth. In doing so, her powers ran rampant, allowing anyone to take advantage if they saw through her imperfection.
Then there was Margaret. She was literally born and gifted with the best genes this world had to offer for a ninja. Yet her issue was that she was still quite immature. Taking her anger issues into account, she didn't have much control over her actions.
Jasper's own power-hungry endeavours fell short because of his high-mindedness. His evil nature was what led to his downfall—believing that he was at the top of the world where no one could reach him. That made him unfit to win the psychological battle when someone met his rank.
Lastly was Alexander, whose own persona was not yet revealed fully. While he did indeed defy expectations by becoming a prodigy, there was a manipulative factor behind him that he simply couldn't see through.
"Arthur's really something, huh?" Alex secretly praised.
"Whatever," Margaret blushed, crossing her arms.
Only Jada was aware of that fact early on. The main thing that troubled them, however, was how he survived. When they all looked to Jada for answers, she didn't have one, which led Alex to believe that he was simply brought back to life by mysterious means.
"At least now we know where Jiraiya is," William revealed, breaking the topic.
The others looked at him, confused.
"One minute we're trying to figure out Arthur," Margaret said, "and the next you bring up the Pervy Sage? Fine, Will, what is it that you wanna share?"
William adjusted his glasses to deduce that forgotten fight between Margaret and Arthur. Inside her memory, Sasuke and Naruto had also been present. For that scenario to exist, Arthur had to have been pulling the strings by orchestrating their meeting, like how he did as Kaito at the Valley of the End.
"Think about it," William continued, seeing their blank stares. "The last time anyone heard from Jiraiya, he was trying to find Orochimaru's hideout. Then he just so happened to disappear just around the time Naruto found Sasuke."
William began pacing as if he had figured something out. "If Arthur knew where Sasuke was the whole time, he likely lured Sasuke only to ambush Jiraiya."
"So he beat a Sannin," Alice whispered.
"Exactly!" William nodded.
Now Jasper's triumph over Orochimaru felt hollow. Everyone knew that Jiraiya was undoubtedly the strongest Sannin among the other two—thanks to his Toad Sage Mode.
"Remember," William continued, "neither Oro nor Kabuto knew where Sasuke was when we confronted them. That means Arthur snatched both Sasuke and Jiraiya right out from under everyone's noses. And because Naruto and Marge came in unexpectedly, he was forced to erase their memories."
Jasper let out a low whistle. "Wow, Male-Karin, I didn't think you were that smart. You actually used your brain for once."
William sheepishly rubbed the back of his head, unaware that Jasper's comment was an insult.
"But who's to say Arthur didn't just kill Jiraiya?" Margaret wondered.
"That's not how Arthur works," Jada whispered, shaking her head. For someone who had spent the most time with Arthur, she understood his psychology better than the others. "He had the power to kill anyone important after we thought he died in the Land of Tea."
"So...?" Margaret pressed.
"So," Alex answered, leaning forward, "he was using that time to create something vital to his plans."
Both Alex and Jada were correct. They reminded the group of Arthur's grim track record. Every death he had orchestrated served a specific, strategic purpose. He had killed Hayate Gekkō not out of malice, but to recorrect the timeline from the Chūnin Exams.
"What about Sakura's parents?" William frowned. "We don't have any proof that he did that, do we?"
It's then that Jasper stated that it was Arthur who had visited the moon first just after those events. Knowing this information led the others to believe that his act was simply to distract them for him to find the portal.
Again, they were correct.
"So he only killed those he thought would benefit him?" Margaret asked.
"Yes," Alice answered, "and having a Sannin would most definitely benefit him…"
There was a brief moment of silence until William spoke up. "I still don't get it. Why would he want Jiraiya if he didn't even use him during that war, and why reveal himself at that moment?"
Both were plausible questions. Yet neither of them knew the answers. Little did they know, Arthur failed at recreating the Time Travel jutsu, resulting in him traveling one thousand years into the past.
While they were playing out their adventures, he was dominating his.
"I don't know how he got so strong since he last fought Marge," Alice revealed, "but I think I know why he kidnapped Jiraiya… To strengthen his own country."
The room went still. Everyone by now knew the broad strokes—Jasper had seen the evidence during his confrontation on the moon—but hearing it said aloud made it surreal.
"Since he wasn't at the war," Alex deduced, "that means he's probably locked up in Arthur's country."
This was all reasonable to believe considering Jiraiya wasn't someone easily manipulable. So if Arthur didn't want to kill the Sannin, he would change him to his side—an act that could take months to years.
The whole room tried their best to fathom it. Arthur Bennett, the guy who knew almost nothing about anime tropes, the one who didn't even like the series to begin with, had managed to carve out a sovereign nation right under the noses of the Five Great Shinobi Villages.
"We have to go save Jiraiya," William said, clenching his fists. "If we know he's alive, we have to mount a rescue."
"Even if we knew where it was," Alex announced in a final tone, "we can't go there, you know."
"Why not?" Alice asked.
"Because if someone like Arthur made an entire country, he would have built it to survive without him. And what's a country without hidden villages masked by barriers?"
No one could refute those claims. Entering a country was easy, but there was an obvious reason why they were called "hidden" villages. It was reasonable to believe someone as cunning as Arthur would set automated defenses, booby traps, and sealing traps that could wipe out anyone before they even stepped through the gates.
While the Bird Country was clearly on the map now, so were many other newly formed nations like it. Arthur had played both the civilization game, the combat game, and the political game so well that the people here couldn't even deduce where his country was.
Not even Jasper, who saw some of the villages from the moon, could pinpoint its exact location.
"It's best we learn more about it and prepare before choosing to even think about going to see," Alex finished.
Everyone reluctantly agreed not to rush off to Arthur's mysterious nation—wherever it might be. Yet William was far too invested just to leave things at that.
"I say we at least inform the elders about this nation," he suggested.
"Same," Jada agreed. "It'll help knowing so we can fix the mess he's made."
Everyone agreed that this was the best call. It wasn't the heroic, rushing-in-blind rescue they might have attempted without all this information, but they were willing to be patient until they understood the full scope of Arthur's agendas.