15 Collecting All The Pieces (3/3).
It took him till midnight to collect all the pieces. The one in Takigakure was also sealed in a small child, a blue haired girl. She contained an insect-like bijuu. After that, the next one was a red haired man who had a red monkey inside him. The last one was the weirdest beast he saw. The others were weird as well, but this one took the cake. It had a body of a horse with five smooth tails but the head was a weird mix of a dolphin and a well, a something.
Zangetsu was complete and was a katana similar to his first bankai, but he still couldn't hear him or enter his own inner world. He tried using Getsuga Tenshou and it fired successfully. The power inside him was far more responsive but it still felt like it was asleep. He tried for a few more hours until sunrise.
He could already feel the force pulling him away from this world but it was not as strong as it was before. It wouldn't eject him from this world for another day at least. He went to the closest village outside the Earth Country and decided to rest for a few hours before trying with Zangetsu once again.
During his sleep, he felt Zangetsu trying to communicate with him and succeeded. According to Zangestu, while he was complete again, he wasn't exactly in good shape. He had been inactive for nearly a thousand years and in several pieces, some of them that were worlds apart and without his spiritual powers to stabilize him, Zangetsu was in a pretty bad condition.
It would require a few weeks to a month of being fed his energy to restore Zangetsu back to best condition. Or he could also find a swordsmith on the same level as Oetsu Nimaiya. He had a feeling that wherever he ended up next, there would be a blacksmith of such caliber. With that he woke up and got ready. Today was the last day he would remain on this world. He wanted to go to Konoha and thank them one last time before leaving.
He made it to Konoha in a few hours and by that time, the force pulling him away had gotten a lot stronger. He had to use his powers to keep him there. Less than a km away from the village, his power was completely manifested. He had transformed into his new form and less than a minute later, Minato showed up with the old man and a few others. He raised his hands as a sign to show that he didn't want to fight.
The only reason they recognized him was probably due to his hair still being orange. They came closer and Minato spoke up,
"Ichigo, is that you?"
"Yes." Ichigo replied shortly.
His voice had regained its double layered effect whenever he used his hollow mask. The others were visibly shaken by it. Hiruzen asked somewhat incredulously,
"Have you already collected all the pieces?"
It had barely been two days since he left and in that time had he already collected all the pieces of his weapon? that, according to him, were inside the bijuu. Had he traveled to all the villages, met their bijuu, collected the pieces and made it back to Konoha in less than two days? or had he simply given up and returned to try at a later time?
"Yes, it took less time than I thought." Ichigo said as he showed them the completed Zangetsu.
"I came back to thank you one last time for your help and to apologize because I would likely not be able to pay you back for it."
"What do you mean by that, Ichigo?" Minato asked with a frown. He was thinking that Ichigo might kill himself out of survivor guilt.
Ichigo sighed before deciding to tell them some of the truth.
"What do you know about the Sage of the Six Paths?"
"That he is the progenitor of chakra and that he created the moon?" Minato answered, confused at how this was related.
"When I was collecting the pieces, I was able to have a conversation with the eight tails. He told me that they, the bijuu were created by The Sage. He called him the Sage their father and said that he was born from someone not of this world." Ichigo waited for them to digest the information, before continuing.
"All the bijuu, including the Kyuubi, are sentient and sapient beings."
"Yes, we kind of already suspected that, but you said that the mother of the Sage was not from this world. Are you saying that you are the same?"
"Yeah, kind of. In my conversation with the Shinigami, he also said that there were definitely other worlds out there. I will be leaving in a few minutes and you will most likely never meet me again. As a last thank you, I wanted to give you guys a heads up that there may be more enemies out there."
With that said, Ichigo didn't wait any longer and let his powers drop. The white cocoon quickly started to envelope him as he heard another question.
"The stories you told us about yourself, were they true?" Hiruzen asked.
"Yes. That was all true with a few details missing." replied Ichigo with a smile as the cocoon completely enclosed him. He was once again sent to another place. This time he felt that the journey would be longer.
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"What just happened?" One of the shinobi following them asked.
"Either we just understood something vital about ourselves or we fell for a massive prank." Hiruzen sighed as he answered.
"Do you believe what he just said?" Minato asked Hiruzen, still looking up.
"It sounds outrageous, but what can I say? It might be true. We just saw someone apparently leave this world. But at the very least, when Naruto-kun is older and has more control over the Kyuubi, we can ask him to confirm few of the things we heared today." Hiruzen replied.
With that, they went back to their lives not knowing just how much one person had changed them.
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Ichigo on the other hand landed in a clearing in the middle of a forest after few days of traveling. He was glad he still had some food in the sealing scroll that he had decided to keep. The cocoon around him vanished completely. He remained seated and tried to enter Sage Mode since he could still feel the life giving energy around him. As he absorbed the natural energy around him, negative emotions other than his own started to rush in with it.
Given his early experiences with Zangetsu, they were easy enough to ignore. But the hatred and blood-lust he felt were very real. Easy to ignore but hard to forget. He slowly spread his senses so he could feel for anyone else around him. The closest people he could sense were a few dozen km away and some of them were advancing towards him. He stayed in place. The amount of chakra he could feel from these people was not very large. He also wanted to be led to wherever they were coming from rather than show up suddenly.
The people that showed in front of him were... unique to say the least. Some of them were outright strange. A few of them were humanoid in shape with black wings and crows head. Others had more human appearance but with animal ears and tails. They were all prepared for a fight it seemed. All of them had some sort of weapon on them and were wearing armors on top of yukatas and kimonos and the crow heads were wearing some sort of monk like robes. 'Why does the description of the crow heads sound so familiar.'
The... beings had surrounded him but were still quiet and wary of him. He just kept looking at the crow head, lost in his thoughts. Suddenly it clicked,
"Ahh! Youkais! Karasu-Tengu!" The crow heads reminded him of the description of Karasu-Tengu, the youkai they heard stories about when they were young.
The youkais flinched back at the sudden exclamation. They still looked skeptical but his shout seemed to have relieved them somewhat.
"Are you still in control?" One of the Karasu-Tengu asked him.
"Why wouldn't I be?" Ichigo asked. These youkais were speaking in japanese. That was a good thing, it would help avoid any misunderstandings.
"Did you not feel the malice and the ill-thoughts that come with absorbing natural energy?" One with monkey features asked him.
"And why are you surprised at seeing us? Are you not a youkai yourself?" Another one asked him.
"The feelings were easy enough to ignore. No, this is the first time I have seen youkais and no, I'm a human." Mostly. The last word was said to himself. Ichigo replied as truthfully as he could. He would most likely be here for a while, so he'd rather not outright lie to them.
His answers were apparently surprising enough for them to drop their guards and stare at him with open mouths, or beaks in some cases.
"A human with chakra! How can that be. Are you playing with us?" All of them seemed unbelieving of his claim.
"It doesn't matter to me whether you believe me or not, but why are you guys here?" Ichigo asked, trying to keep the conversation moving.
"Our elders and leader felt a large amount of natural energy being absorbed from here. They believed it to be a foolish youkai trying to use senjutsu and taking in more than they could handle, we were sent to stop them if they were still absorbing it, or subjugate them if they had already lost control." One of the Tengu explained.
"It seems we need not worry. You seem to have everything under control, uhh..." Another one said.
"Ichigo, Kurosaki Ichigo." Ichigo replied with his name.
"Right, Kurosaki-dono, are you willing to come with us to explain the situation to our leader directly?" The same Tengu asked politely.
"Of course, but can you tell me where I am. I was transported here suddenly without any knowledge of the destination." Ichigo replied dryly.
"Whoever teleported you, they have sent you quite close to the youkai capital in Kyoto. You are still outside the barrier that surrounds it, but still close enough to be sensed by our elders and leader."
They had small talk, or the youkai enthusiastically talking about their leader.
"Can you tell me about your leader? I rather not be rude in front of them after being invited in their home." Ichigo said.
What he said was true. When these youkai talked about their leader, they seemed to be very happy with them. A leader whose subordinates were so happy just talking about should be a good leader and he rather stay on their good side.
Oh and it seemed that his question had once again left them speechless.
"Is this actually your first time meeting youkais?"
"That's what I said when we met." Ichigo replied with a scowl.
"Apologies Kurosaki-dono, but using senjutsu without succumbing or even showing any signs of the malice is a rare skill amongst the youkai. To suddenly come across a human not only using chakra but also senjutsu is... hard to believe." The leader Tengu said with a placating gesture.
Ichigo nodded at that explanation and the leader continued,
"But on the other hand, it is near impossible for one to be a youkai and not know of Yasaka-sama. She is after all the priestess of Amaterasu and the most benevolent leader we have ever had."
