The toad's tongue had already pulled Megumi into its mouth, his head the only thing still visible.
"I have to get out of here," Megumi said, his body growing weaker. He was bleeding badly and starting to lose consciousness.
No one had seen the toad snatch the masked man until the smoke cleared, revealing he was gone.
"Where did he go?" a Sarutobi clan ninja asked, looking confused.
The Uchiha officer, who had suffered the same fate before, was boiling with anger. "You fool!" he yelled. "Can't you follow instructions? Now you've let him get away." The captain then turned to Minato, waiting for orders.
Minato saw the toad's tongue emerge from nowhere and grab him. "Get the Hyuga clan to assist with this, and deploy every available shinobi to lock down the village," he commanded the police captain beside him. "Search every house, lockdown the hospital and tell the hospital to stop attending to new patients without knowing what caused their injury."
MInato was confused. "Was there someone else with summoning toad? I thought only my teacher had the summoning scroll for the toad sage."
...
Megumi was already back home, having been spit out of the toad's mouth. He let the toad retreat into the shadow of a tree and had his crow lead them all the way home rest on the crow.
"Hey, System, can you help me this time?" he asked. Megumi knew the System had healed severe injuries for him before.
[Of course, if you make a binding vow that you will not be able to use all your abilities for a while.]
Megumi, who was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, was on the verge of passing out. But when he heard the System's terms, he couldn't agree. The benefit was excessive compared to the backlash.
"I can't. Lower your demands."
[No, those are my terms. If you can't, then see you later, Host.]
Megumi stayed where he was until he heard a knock at his door.
"Open up! This is the police!" a thick voice boomed from outside.
Megumi snapped awake. He couldn't let them see him in this condition. He couldn't even stand up to open the door; his body was too weak.
"Hey, if you don't open the door in ten seconds, we'll break it down," the voice said.
"Ten."
"Hey, System, let's renegotiate!" Megumi said.
"Nine."
"Talk to me, you piece of shit!" Megumi was getting angry now.
"Eight."
"Seven."
"Please, I can't agree to that request. You smell like someone who's up to no good."
"Six."
Megumi gave up hope on the System's help. He was ready to go to prison and come back later.
"Five."
But then he saw his mother's face in his mind. This made him hesitate. He had to protect her dignity and stop acting like a child.
"Four."
"Hey, you piece of shit, I think we need to change and add a little condition to this deal," Megumi said with a menacing smile.
[What do you want to add? And if you're not agreeing to my previous offer, then the deal is off.]
"Three."
"I agree to your terms. You can block my cursed energy and every technique, even my Heavenly Restriction Eyes. But you will not take away the shikigami that is with my mother. And you will get the hell out of my life. I'll give you all my shikigami because I remember now that I never made a deal with you. Why are you the one to tell me how to use my own shikigami?"
"Two."
There was a moment of silence in the room.
[It took you so long to discover this.]
[Well, we've got ourselves a deal.]
"One."
Just before the officers could break the door down with brute force, it slowly opened. A boy of about five years old stood there, his eyes sleepy.
"Why didn't you open the door?" the Uchiha officer asked.
Megumi looked at the men in front of him and suddenly understood how powerless he was without his power. The System had been playing him all these years.
"My mom told me never to open the door for strangers at night," he said.
The Uchiha officer was on the verge of a rage, activating his Sharingan. The pressure was so overwhelming that Megumi dropped to the ground.
"You think you can get away with this? Just wait until my mom comes back; you'll be finished," Megumi said, bluffing and enduring the man's aggressive attitude.
One of the team members whispered into the officer's ear, causing him to immediately deactivate his eyes. The officers entered the house to search, then left. They found no one, but they noticed the room looked like a fight had broken out and was destroyed.
Megumi lied, claiming his mom had made the mess and promised to fix it when she returned.
Kaede got back to the village quickly, thanks to Nue for carrying her and the genin while the jonin and chunin followed from behind.
"It's good to be back," Kaede said, talking to the guard at the gate. As she was doing so, she overheard some people leaving the village discussing an incident.
"Can you believe a shinobi entered the Nara clan forest to kill their deer and beat all the guardians protecting them?" one said.
"Yes, I was told he outsmarted the Uchiha before and now he's outsmarted the Nara clan, too," another replied. "If it wasn't for the Fourth Hokage, who got there just in time, he would have killed more of their family deer."
"I'm sure he's still in the village after fighting the Hokage. They say he disappeared but was badly injured," a third person added.
Hearing what the men were saying, Kaede whispered to herself, "What trouble have you caused again, Megumi?" She knew she had to go and give report about the incident that happened on her mission .
"So it was true that a motivated Nara is a troublesome Nara" kaede said with a a smirk on her face as she and the other jonin make their way to the homage building.