57 57
"Things are getting kinda out of hand out there? Did my presence cause this much chaos? Interesting. I wonder what it was that led to so many countries attacking Konoha? Not that it matters, or anything." Hiroki sulked in the corner of the mindscape, as he witnessed snippets of the outside world through Naruto.
A depressing aura surrounded Hiroki, as dark clouds roamed in the mindscape, unconsciously reflecting his mental state.
Ever since Hiroki failed to make himself a body from the Golden Pages, he had wanted to be left alone for a while.
Kurama was worried for his roommate. Naruto hadn't heard from his teacher/elder brother ever since. Hiroki suddenly recused himself.
.
Meanwhile.
In the outside world, the Land of the Sky, Sunagakure, and Otogakure were slowly being pushed back, however, the renewed enthusiasm from the enemies put the Konoha ninja on edge.
"What is that monstrosity in the air?"
"Did that cause that big explosion?"
"Is there a tailed beast attacking the village?" The ninja from Konoha asked in confusion as they fought against the enemies, while small white and blue slugs roamed around the village, latching onto the injured allies and healing their wounds and burns.
.
On the other side.
Tsunade and Jiraiya caught up to each other, as they came to investigate the flying fortress.
"What happened on your end?" Tsunade asked cautiously when she saw the stains of blood on Jiraiya's clothes.
"Orochimaru summoned the three dead hokages to life and had them fight against us. I sealed the First and the Second, while sensei, he, he sacrificed himself to seal the bastard's soul inside the Reaper. His body was too injured from the fight with Minato and Orochimaru.
He- he, didn't make it." Jiraiya tried to control his emotions, however, failed to as the turbid emotions spilled out of his eyes, leaving behind a trail of tear marks on his red makeup.
"W-what!! Impossible. Sensei couldn't die. I gave him the seal. Impossible!!!" Tsunade paled as she heard the news, instantly thinking back to her curse of killing everyone around her.
"What seal?" Jiraiya asked.
"The Creation Rebirth Technique seal. I placed one on him the day he announced me as the next Hokage and started my training.
That seal should have been enough to heal any injury he could have gotten. Unless. Jiraiya, did sensei's body disintegrate?" Tsunade asked nervously.
"What? No. He was stabbed by Minato's arm and then by the reaper. His body should still be on the roof where we battled. I didn't have time to pick it up."
"Phew. You idiot. Did you actually check if sensei was fully dead before you went around spreading rumors? Katsuya-sama. Can you have one of your clones check up on Sensei?" Tsunade breathed a sigh of relief as she turned to the small clone of Katsuya sama, the Slug summon resting on her shoulder.
"Definitely, Tsunade-sama." The soft voice of the slug sounded before the duo concentrated on the task at hand.
"Ero-sennin!!" Suddenly, the duo sensed a presence approaching them fast, before hearing the familiar voice of the resident prankster and jinchuriki of the nine-tails.
"Naruto. What happened? Where's Gaara?" Jiraiya asked in worry seeing his student/godson covered in dust and traces of blood.
"I'm fine. Gaara has been placed in a stasis sleep scroll, and I upgraded his seal. He shouldn't be a problem anymore.
But, what was that giant explosion from the village? Is everything ok?" Naruto asked worriedly.
"It's ok. It seems the fortress missed its target and shot a bit farther than needed. The area behind the Hokage Mountain has been leveled, but no civilian was injured or killed in that explosion." Tsunade recounted the information she received from the slug on her shoulder.
Seeing as the slugs were all connected to each other, being clones of the same Slug, provided Tsunade with the opportunity to use it as a live communication device with all those that had one on their bodies.
Collecting the information, Katsuya would transmit all the information back to Tsunade, which was excellent in such a situation.
"Phew, That's a relief. But we need to make sure that it doesn't shoot again. Who knows, this time, it won't miss." Naruto shuddered at the thought, seeing the huge explosion and the threat he felt with his senses.
"yeah. Let's go. I called a few relatively uninjured jonin to help. They should be on their way now." Tsunade explained as they started to tree hop towards the fortress once more.
"Naruto!!! Is that you??" Just as they came close to the fortress, the trio heard the emo voice of Sasuke shout out as he rushed away from the fortress, fear, and panic apparent on his face.
"Sasuke. What happened? Why are you here? Weren't you in the village?" Naruto asked as Tsunade and Jiraiya both thought of the same.
"That damn Kabuto. He disguised himself as Inoichi-san and then kidnapped me. He had the ninja from the Sky bring me to their fortress.
I thought it was easy to use and since I was too far away from the village I flew it towards the village, but just then it shot some death ray towards the village.
Oh god. Please tell me the village is fine?" Sasuke explained in a panic, thinking he flattened the village due to his mistake.
"The village is relatively fine. The explosion occurred behind the Hokage Mountains. The guy I was fighting must have fired the weapon when he pressed that button.
To be honest, it seems like you unknowingly saved the whole village, Sasuke. I think that Shinno or whatever I was fighting had set up the fortress to target our village in case their plan failed. But because you moved the fortress towards the village, you shifted the target behind the village.
I would have to say, the whole village is grateful for your actions. So, you don't have to worry and panic. You saved everyone." Tsunade smiled lightly as she ruffled the boy's head, as he visibly relaxed, before taking a big deep breath.
"Now, let's check what this fortress really is. Sasuke, since you escaped from it, you should know its layout, right? You come with us. Let's go guys." Jiraiya ordered the group as he took charge, entering the fortress floating above the tree line.
After entering, the group began to investigate the situation inside, and to say it was shocking would be an understatement.
"Wow. This thing looks like the equipment that we saw in the Land of the Snow. No wonder the flying guys looked familiar. Awesome. Look at the detail and precision. I wonder how it mixes technology with chakra." Naruto muttered as his mind wandered around the now empty base, taking in the brand new information about this type of technology.
"Focus, Naruto. We don't know what secrets this base holds. Since these guys captured Sasuke, there could possibly be more people that were also captured. Let's go see if we can find any." Tsunade smacked the boy's head as they cautiously followed Sasuke, who recalled the path he took to escape from the prisons in the basement.
GASP
Soon, the group happened upon a large room that looked like it was made to hold the toughest of demons in the world, as hundreds of thousands of talisman papers were stuck on the walls while producing a huge cocoon in the middle of the room.
"Ero-sennin. Do you feel the power flowing through these seals?" Naruto asked the toad sage in disbelief as the Uzumaki felt his blood resonate with the power of the seals placed all around.
"Yeah. It's terrifying. It looks like so sort of relic from the past from the Uzumaki village. After the village was raided and burnt down, millions of artifacts, relics, and books were snatched up by the invaders.
This seems like one of those relics." Jiraiya stated solemnly, as Tsunade and Naruto gained a grieving look.
"But what could it be that needs such a level of sealing? And what's powering it all?" Naruto questioned as his eyes roamed around the room, analyzing the whole area, looking for any clues that may reveal what was being sealed.
"What's this?" Noticing a single tag out of place, Naruto approached it, only for his face to reveal a terrifying look of shock.
"RUN!!!" As soon as Naruto recognized the formula on the tag, he booked it out of the room, followed by the others, as they trusted Naruto's judgment when it came to fuinjutsu.
As soon as the group ran out of the room, the whole fortress began to shake as the final lines on the Suicide Seal linked to Shinno's life broke apart, causing the whole room filled with Fuinjutsu seals to burn apart.
"SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"
An ear-piercing sound rang out of the fortress, as the Konoha ninja barely made it out.
The backup of a few uninjured Jonin ninjas were just about to head up inside the fortress when they saw the rushing figures of the two Sannin and the two genin.
"What the shit is that?"
.
.
.
