12 CH 12: Bandit Disappearance

In front of a rugged and destroyed building that sat atop a rocky terrain, Isshiki, Jigen, and many others were all observing and analyzing the place.

The bandit's base, this was the place where the previously alive bandits resided in and planned their mischievous deeds.

The building was destroyed, some pillars were broken, the gate was busted, and even some walls had holes of varying sizes. The scent of coagulated blood also lingered all over the vicinity, signifying that the event of the killings took place earlier than they anticipated.

The whole entire area was surrounded by a very thick fog, though that characteristic was only natural due to this place being high up in the mountains.

"Hmm"

Isshiki hummed as he focuses his chakra in all directions.

"Are you picking up anything?"

Jigen asked the serious-looking Isshiki.

"Hmm...nothing out of the ordinary"

"Wait...didn't you leave the bodies inside?"

Isshiki asked, as if realizing something.

"Yes? what do you mean?! are they gone?"

Jigen panicked.

"Yes"

Isshiki provided a straight answer.

"Then let's go inside, since you seem to be sensing nothing from inside right?"

Jigen asked with a hint of impulsiveness.

Isshiki continued using the [Chakra Pulse Technique].

"Hey calm down I am still not done"

Isshiki reprimanded as he brings out a scroll of paper.

Jigen saw this and could not help but ask curiously.

"Parchment? Do you need these for your other abilities?"

Jigen asked.

"Yes, this is similar to the one I gave Mina, this is a Sealing Technique"

Isshiki replied as he writes something on the paper using his chakra, this made the surrounding people gasp in awe.

The people behind them were the trained warriors and assassins of their newly revived village, they were there to protect Jigen in case some normal people were to distract them from the possible monster that Isshiki is meant to deal with.

"Done!"

Isshiki declared after he quickly wrote on the scroll.

He then placed his hands on top of the bigger character and manipulated his chakra to go towards the seal.

"[Divine Sealing Technique: Energy Suction]!"

Isshiki yelled with pressure.

(Was it necessary to yell that to activate the technique itself? no, but did I do it to sound cool? absolutely. I mean, it would be pretty lame to just sit there and let the technique activate without announcing that it has already did right?)

He reasoned inwardly.

This Sealing technique was taught to him by the original Isshiki after finding out a hidden danger about the Box of Ultimate Misery, aka the Box of Ultimate Bliss.

A year ago, after successfully and temporarily sealing the original Isshiki's soul deep inside his mindscape, he made a deal with the latter to teach him about Demons, to which the latter accepted reluctantly. Raymond/Isshiki were then taught numerous Divine techniques, ways, and knowledge on how to spot and deal with demons.

During the tutelage, he questioned to the original Isshiki if the energy remnants of Satori that still lingered in the atmosphere of the old Hokori Village was going to be harmful for the people. The latter told him that without a constant source, these energy were bound to eventually dissipate due to the Natural energy of this planet counteracting it.

But a year later, just a little over two months ago, during his visit to the remote cave that housed the Box of Ultimate Misery, he found that a subtle amount of Satori's negative energy were seeping out of the adamantine cage for some unknown reason. He also found out that this energy seeping out seems to be able to affect the human guards guarding it in the emotional level, these affected guards showed signs of being drawn of closely going towards the box for once in a while.

Isshiki feared that these current minor symptoms might escalate for the worse just like how it was portrayed in the anime, causing the people around it to revere it like some kind of a wishing genie lamp. But much to their false hopes, this box was not going to unleash a benevolent being, but a destructive Kage-level monster who only wants to seal every living being in the box with it. Turning every human sealed inside it like a puppet made to also do the same thing as Satori.

However, Isshiki knows that he was now here, he needs to find out a solution for this problem for this box to not corrupt the villagers and even worse, Jigen and Mina.

And so he immediately went and asked the original Isshiki to help him deal with this, the latter was reluctant at first, but after some Talk no Jutsu level of convincing, he somehow agreed to teach him more techniques, and that included the [Divine Sealing Technique: Energy Suction].

It's purpose was to suck out every contaminant energy produced by Demons, with the goal of preventing the life all around the area of the Demon attack from withering and wilting.

The way this technique worked is self-explanatory, it will suck in the energy/essence all around its range that it recognizes from its registry, while the effect range of this seal will vary depending on the amount of chakra in it.

And so he employed this scroll with Satori's repugnant energy registered in it.

After the activation, the seal began its siphoning process, trying to pull in all the energy it recognizes from wherever in its range.

Isshiki also opened his Byakugan to watch the entire process without leaving no stones unturned.

"Hmm... there seems to be noth-"

Isshiki stopped in the middle of his sentence when he began seeing a purple-colored mass of energy coming from the direction of the building, its trajectory was the seal right in front of him.

"Th-this!"

Isshiki exclaimed.

After hearing his alarming words of shock, Jigen and the group of armed warriors behind him became alert.

"Wha-what is it?! what do you see??"

Jigen urged Isshiki to tell him.

"A purple energy! this place, no! underneath this place lies an entity with similarities to Satori!"

Isshiki shouted with seriousness.

"Satori? You mean the Black Angel?!"

"Shit!"

Jigen was panicking a little.

As they were hearing this, the armed individuals behind did as they were told, they surrounded Jigen with alertness from all directions.

Then as they took on stance, the earth started rumbling and cracks started forming under their feet.

"How come, how come I could not see this thing with my Byakugan?!"

"This forest is infested with so many beings!! how come they are all just starting to come out now?!"

Isshiki yelled in exasperation, he was not least bit scared at all.

Bigger cracks also started to form surrounding the destroyed building right in front of them, and it did not take long until the whole entire thing got swallowed whole by the earth.

"Shit! [Crystal Release: Air Solidifcation Technique]!"

Isshiki predicted the incoming disaster and immediately employed his Bloodline Limit technique.

*BOOGSSSSHHHHKK*

Some debris were hurled towards their direction, but with Isshiki's BloodlineLimit Technique, he crystallized the surrounding air to become tough enough to safeguard them against the hurling debris.

"Phew..."

One of Jigen's guards could not help but heave a breath of relief after surviving such a disastrous collapse.

After the dust from the debris subsided, the scene revealed a huge sinkhole on the spot where the entire bandit base was supposed to be.

"What the hell?"

Isshiki was a little shocked at the huge sinkhole.

He then began floating towards the space above the sinkhole to inspect the sinkhole from the very center.

-----KUROTSUCHI VILLAGE MINUTES BEFORE: MINA POV-----

Mina is currently in her personal room preparing for a village-wide update speech for the villagers.

Her speech was going to be about the current food supply setback the village was going to experience for the next couple of months due to a massive storm nearly wiping out their vassalized port village at the mouth of the Yukibara River.

(Haaah, this is really troublesome, if it weren't for Isshiki-sama's powers, our village would be experiencing a famine right now. His storage seals have really kept most if not all of our extra food safe from decaying, and also his invented rotation-cycle technique used in agriculture really helped our management in crops)

Mina complained inwardly.

She then headed for her wooden designer vanity where her servants prepare her make up.

(Don't even get me started at his use of these creepy-looking 'Scarecrows' to ward off those pesky crows and crop-destroying birds, they might be nightmare fuel, but they are extremely helpful)

She mused as her servants applied herbal and medicinal cream and powder to lighten up her face.

(Not to mention his barrier seal that guards our village 24/7, the farms in the west will never need to worry about land animals and even bandits anymore. But still, no matter how self-sufficient we already are, it doesn't mean we do not need imports. Exclusive metals such as iron and copper that are all used for our tools equipments and more are all imported from the Tetsumyakku Island up in the northern sea, though we could try mining into the Kurotsuchi Mountains, but that part is still going to wait due to Jigen-sama's safety order. By Isshiki-sama's words, the Ulitmate Box of Misery that was placed hidden in a cave in that mountain range, he stated that it manifested a dangerous ability to affect nearby humans' emotions in a negative way)

Mina further cogitated and also grew concerned for that dangerous box.

But she soon shook her head to de-cloud her mind off of useless worries.

She turns her head for the piece of parchment where her speech was written.

"*Sighs*, the port village needs reconstructions, though we do not really need to worry about that now, Isshiki-sama said that he'd help with it"

She sighed in frustration.

Her servants saw her gloomily tired expression, which made them more motivated to work hard to make their lady look more presentable.

"Lady Mina, you are now all set, please follow us to head for the podium outside"

Her head female servant politely told her as the other servants finished up her make up.

Mina slowly rose up from her seat until an alarming quake hit.

*DUUUGGG*

"O-oh"

"My..."

"Heavens!"

The servants all exclaimed in shock.

All the objects in the room that are all on top of leveled surfaces shook from the uproar seemingly coming from the underworld.

"What was that?!"

Mina also shouted from the sudden quake.

After her exclamation, she turned to look at the window where the view of the village and its people was as clear as day.

She saw that the nearby villagers that were working their jobs were all also standing like mannequins, seemingly perturbed by the recent quake.

Upon seeing the situation, Mina realized something.

"....That must be them...."

She muttered in realization and then quickly headed for the podium outside to begin her announcement with a newly added paragraph for her speech in mind.

"Gather all of the villagers to the podium!"

Mina ordered her head servant.

"Understood!"

All her servants, including the head servant nodded and replied.

-----BACK TO THE SINKHOLE IN THE SAME TIMESTAMP: ISSHIKI POV------

Isshiki was currently above the epicenter of the sinkhole, and so he could no longer hear anything from Jigen's position.

But to make sure the latter was safe with the others, he put up a second barrier around them using his Sealing technique, it was a modified version of the [Sealing Technique: Cubical Cage], renamed as [Sealing Technique: Solid Cube Barrier]. It's capabilities were mostly similar to the Cubical Cage, but with the functionality to shrink in size omitted.

In fact, before arriving here, he had already instructed them to hurrily flee to the village and immediately execute the Disaster Plan as quickly as possible in case of a Black Angel-level threat appearing in this place.

"This is really deep, if I didn't witness that just now, then I would never believe that there was a mountain previously here"

Isshiki muttered in disbelief.

The center of the sinkhole showed a nearly imperceptible abyss, but with his Byakugan, he could see farther than normal and was able to make out the ruins of the destroyed bandit base from more than 3-4 kilometers to the bottom.

"Hmm...."

He hummed as he continued using his Byakugan to inspect the abyss.

"Gosh, should I really descend there?"

...

"Ugh OK whatever"

He complained and decided to do so after finding that no one will answer his previous question for him.

As he descends down towards the abyss, an emotion of anxiety started to well up within his chest.

He observes his darkening surrounding and found that even the sky above was starting to look like a starless night.

"What the.."

He could not help but mutter in awe as he looks at what seems to be laid down void.

The floor of the sinkhole were riddled with debris of the destroyed building and even some trees and boulders. But what caught his eyes was a circular spot on the floor with a shade as dark as his hair. Ebony, void, abyss, nihility, these were the words that arose from the depths of his vocabulary as he observes this anomalous space on the bottom floor.

"This, this must be a portal"

Isshiki spoke as he threw a rock into the 'portal'.

The rock did not even emit a sound as it got swallowed whole by the seemingly infinite darkness that laid upon Isshiki's eyes.

"Holy of the holiest..."

Isshiki muttered in disbelief.

He could not believe that such a gigantic portal existed, especially without him sensing about it.

Thinking of this, Isshiki grinned in dissatisfaction, it seems that he now realized how weak he still is, compared to the ninjas of the future.

Upon realizing this, Isshiki became quite disappointed of himself for already being conceited despite still lacking in many aspects.

But on the other hand, he also thought that it is not his fault for being quite inexperienced, because he knew that he is already above the future people of this world since he is basically pioneering the very first use of ninjutsu even before Hagoromo.

And so he smiled in determination, realizing that he is still amazing, being able to perform ninjutsu even without having no one to teach him.

"Yosh! Let's get this sealed up before something comes out!"

Isshiki hyped himself up with a smile of undeterred determination and courage.

He then stood straight and brought out another one of his scrolls.

"Good thing I am already prepared for this kind of thing, ever since that incident"

The oddeyes smiled in relief as he brings out his red scroll.

Upon opening it, the scroll displayed two weird characters atop the also numerous other weird characters written on the parchment scroll from top to bottom, it was his specially invented set of characters from his self-made script derived from his previous world's Javascript.

He pressed his palm on the biggest character above the other ones with his chakra.

"[Divine Summoning Art: The Spacial Yin Chains]!"

After spouting his techniques name, a total of four black-colored chains spawned from the biggest character of his scroll and approached the circular hole.

The chains then went above the hole and connected itselves to the four cardinal spots of the circular hole, forming a cross-like pattern that resembles a ribbon wrapped around a Christmas present.

As Isshiki confirmed the success of the first part of this 2-part conjoined technique, he then pressed the second biggest character that was just a little adjacent to the one he pressed earlier with his chakra.

"[Divine Sealing Art: Spacial Constricting]!"

He yelled the second technique's name.

After his announcement, the black chains began constricting at their central intersection, and with this motion, the circular portal started to shrink in size.

Watching this bizarre scene, Isshiki recalled a scene right after the aftermath of the Black Angel Massacre. It seems that this was not the first time he encountered such a mind-bending situation.