The next three hours Kenshin was on pins and needles; when a voice sounded in his mind he flinched from surprise.
"Father—we entered forty-kilometer radius from home. All alive. Seventh has ribcage fracture—let Hitomi-san prepare to receive him," Ichiro reported—making Kenshin sigh in relief. Worst predictions weren't confirmed; scenario went almost ideally.
"Seventh injured. Ribcage fracture—be ready to treat him," Kenshin said turning to Hitomi sitting nearby.
"All alive? What about Twenty-Second?" Hitomi asked. Though mentally preparing for worst maternal instinct didn't let her ignore her beloved son's fate.
"All whole except Seventh," Kenshin replied—noticing Hitomi's main worry was her son's health while for Kenshin they were all his sons; losing any would hurt deeply. On the other hand he saw a small plus—least of all he wanted all wives in mourning if one son didn't return alive.
Kenshin decided not to voice his thoughts and headed with Hitomi to the medical bay—which currently had only five beds. He created this room two months ago modeling after his world's hospital. Hospital beds were very technological and comfortable but he couldn't create any electronic devices. The system didn't allow even simplest medical alcohol and aspirin—let alone more valuable drugs. But in the future he intended to fix this.
Literally twenty minutes later both teams returned. Team four led by Fifteenth encountered team one and escorted them home. Hitomi immediately took Seventh and started the operation—kicking everyone out of the medical bay.
Kenshin silently looked at Ichiro—slightly raising an eyebrow expecting report. Ichiro understood immediately and began recounting.
"As usual we took a mission at the outpost and went to eliminate a missing-nin terrorizing peaceful villages. The mission said mid-Chunin level so we weren't worried. But at the supposed hideout we found Momochi Zabuza—whom you warned us about."
"Zabuza?!" Kenshin exclaimed in complete shock. "Let me see everything myself," he said—placing his right hand on his eldest son's head.
In a minute he saw everything—from sudden "water dragon" attack to Seventh's injury and activation of "Terrifying Formation." He praised himself once more for ingenuity and finally confirmed the exhausting week wasn't wasted. During creation he poured huge Psi energy into the formation daily—barely managing to create a fragment of his consciousness in it through experimentation. At this stage the formation was primitive; the consciousness fragment could only perform primitive actions and react only to common enemy actions with high probability.
"You all did great! Ichiro—your arm is injured; Twenty-Second—examine him. Everyone else—go rest. Tomorrow Hitomi will check you all," he ordered; all sons bowed to father and went to their rooms.
"What happened?" Kasumi asked approaching.
"Nothing serious—just our kids ran into one of the Seven Mist Swordsmen," Kenshin replied smiling.
"WHAT?!" Kasumi exclaimed shocked—he only smiled and hugged her.
"You did well. Look how excellently Eighteenth worked," he said smiling—showing her the entire battle against Zabuza.
"God—he's almost caught up to me in mastery! Their learning ability is simply incredible—and combined with your knowledge transfer ability—in half a year a baby grew into a strong Chunin. If the Nara clan knew—any of our kids with you would become generation's number one genius!" Kasumi declared joyfully. She was overflowing with pride for her sons—who after any failure didn't give up but trained even harder.
"I'm surprised myself how fast they progress. But celebrating is early. Unknown how soon they'll reach Jonin rank. Ichiro is closest but even he barely withstood several Zabuza strikes—who isn't even an Elite Jonin…" Kenshin sighed. Though things went better than he could imagine a year ago—celebrating was premature.
"Zabuza demanded half a million… You'll really pay?" she asked sitting on his lap and hugging his neck.
"Of course. Half a million for five lives is nothing. This situation will serve excellent advertising for our family—creating reputation of a rich organization ready to honestly pay for members' lives," he replied smiling—stroking the beautiful girl's tender back.
"Aren't you afraid next time the price will rise to a million per person? Or some bastard decides to hunt our children for profit?"
"A million per person is still a good price. As for all kinds of scum—any of our teams can neutralize a weak Jonin; strong ones aren't that many in the world—let alone those ready to risk entering Fire Country and turning from hunter to Konoha Elite Jonin victim."
"Aren't you afraid Konoha will notice our family? A strong organization with several Chunin will surely attract attention…" Kasumi whispered.
"Ichiro already said they were followed several times trying to learn our refuge location. But since they took no active actions my formations easily threw them off the trail. I think soon they'll take us seriously—and that's already a problem. We're still too weak to declare independence…" Kenshin sighed—caressing his affectionate wife's incredible body again.
"What do you plan to do?" Kasumi asked interestedly. Over long time she and Kenshin developed an excellent alliance. Her intellect greatly helped solving many tasks. She could approach problems from another side and perfectly opposed him.
"Ideally—we urgently need to bring the refuge outside and build a defensive perimeter around it. My formation knowledge will stop and destroy any number of Chunin; even ten Jonin would drown in blood assaulting the base. But all this needs time…" he said—looking expectantly at Kasumi.
"Natsumi and I can help with simple formations—work will go a bit faster. How long for relocation?"
"By rough estimates relocation and basic perimeter strengthening will take a week; another month for thorough strengthening. I'm unsure about that month. If our refuge is discovered and very brazen shinobi sent whom we have to drive off by force—in days an elite squad may come and slaughter us all…"
"As far as I know bureaucracy is a huge problem for Konoha. Shikaku often cursed the high council—while they shake old bones and issue orders the situation changes and the order loses relevance. In theory Hiruzen or Danzo can pressure for instant order but our organization has extremely positive reputation—so can't just be destroyed; even Danzo won't risk losing influence points over some unknown mercenary organization. If only he knew what fate you plan for him… But he doesn't," Kasumi said smiling—purring from feeling part of something great.
"I'm not planning anything yet. Surviving and growing stronger ourselves is enough; you're already thinking about eliminating Kage-level shinobi… If we hold out the next three months even Konoha will have to pay a serious price for our elimination. That's why Zabuza surfaced now? God forbid he blabs about seeing Nara and Hyuga clan techniques in our family—then Konoha will dig more actively…" he sighed—rubbing tired temples.