86 3.48

[Congratulations for completing the Kyuubi Attack potential mission! Rewarded with Shuten Doji's Mask!]

With the notification from God, I suddenly felt an extra weight in my backpack. I did not immediately take a look at it though as it would be a little strange to take it out now.

Swiping my sword to the side, I flicked off the blood and sheathed my sword, while Kushina abruptly sat up, scaring Minato.

She looked around in confusion, before smashing her own gut, growling, "Shut up stupid fox, I'm not talking to you."

This made both Minato and I smile, while Kushina looked around. Spotting Naruto, she ran to the baby and took him in her eyes as she said, "Come to mommy Dattebane!"

Soothing the baby to sleep, she turned to look at me and showed a toothy smile as she thanked me, "I will be taking that as payment for the dinners I made you."

I smiled back, as I had eaten more than once with the two. They had been some of the only meaningful relationships I had formed while in here.

A part of me knew it would be hard to see them in the future, as we didn't live in the same world, but I didn't want to just spend my time here without speaking to anyone. It had already been dreadfully boring in the Land of Iron.

Casting a glance at her belly, I asked, "Is the seal doing fine? I kind of just put Kyuubi right back in."

Kushina nodded, replying, "Kyuubi is a little too weak to do anything for the moment. All he does is curse you as a dirty thief."

I snorted at that, replying, "He will be fine. He should recover in a couple of months. But are you sure he won't be able to escape?"

Kushina did not answer, and instead stuck her belly out, only for Minato to form a claw with his fingers, covering the tip of each of his fingers with Chakra, before stabbing them at her belly, where the seal was.

The black lines that formed her seal started shifting around, and before long, her previous seal was back in place, completely restored.

That was quite impressive.

As he did this, Hiruzen arrived, looking a little weary as he looked at us with relief.

Making a tired sigh as I stretched, I said, "Well, I guess it's time to take care of the injured and the dead."

Minato looked guilty as he apologized, taking his hand off his wife's belly, "Sorry to ask so much out of you."

I waved him off, replying, "I'm the best suited to search for survivors. I could use a teleportation though."

Minato nodded, and with a touch to my shoulder, I suddenly found myself where Kyuubi had appeared. Hiruzen quickly followed, and as I focused on sensing the life signatures around me, Hiruzen quickly started ordering the Shinobis around.

I spent the rest of the night helping around, rescuing those who still had some life in them, locating them through the Force, and using Force Healing on the injured.

---

As the sun slowly rose in the horizon, I was finally finished with my work on saving the injured. I was left quite exhausted, but as I returned to my room I felt a surge of energy rise within me as I remembered my rewards.

Fishing out the extra object in my backpack, I felt something pointy. Taking it out, I found myself with an Oni's mask in my hand.

[Shuten Doji's Mask: Doubles Reaction Speed and increases damage with swords by 30%.]

The mask was a traditional Oni Mask, it depicted the red face of a demon, with a set of sharp fangs and two horns on top.

It certainly was impressive, granting me Stats while also protecting my face. Putting it on to try it out, I was pleasantly surprised to discover it did not hamper my vision in the slightest, as the mask felt like it was invisible once I put it on.

The increased sword damage was also convenient, as it should stack up with the melee damage boost from the Fists of Randagulf, making any sword strike of mine much more deadly.

However, I put down the mask, placing it back in my bag as I felt it would be weird to walk around Konoha with a mask all of a sudden.

The mask was not my only reward from the fight, however.

While the System had rewarded me with Shuten Doji's mask, the Force Seed I had retrieved from Kyuubi was as much of a reward to me.

The Force Seed was full of Kyuubi's lifeforce, and although it was only a portion of the Nine Tail's lifeforce, it was still much stronger than mine.

And I fully intended on using the last two weeks I have in this world to absorb this lifeforce, and make it mine.

Usually, stolen lifeforce was only good to replenish my own depleted lifeforce, or slightly strengthen my connection to the Force at a terrible efficiency, while feeding my hunger. But through this Force Seed, the lifeforce within the Force Seed was forced into stagnation once in my body, while being imprinted with my own essence. This should allow me to assimilate the lifeforce with a much greater efficiency, which I estimated to be around 98% to 100%, while eliminating the whole Force Hunger problem.

However, as I probed the Force Seed sealed within myself, I could feel it would take me a while to absorb, at least days, if not a week. And one of the weaknesses of this technique is that I can't be interrupted while assimilating the lifeforce.

So I did not immediately start absorbing the lifeforce, and instead started meditating, to rest my mind.

---

Later that day, I visited Minato in his office.

The young Hokage looked exhausted, reasonably so as he had been hard at work since Kyuubi's attack, probably not catching even a minute of sleep.

Still, he greeted me with a smile, "It is nice to see a friendly face after hours of meetings on crisis management."

I smiled back, "Happy to help, although I fear I do not simply come as a friend."

Minato paused for a second, before sighing as he laid back in his chair, rubbing his temples as he muttered, "I'm listening then."

Coughing a little awkwardly, I said, "I come for two things. One, if you have any lead on the mastermind behind the attack and intend on attacking shortly, you can count me in. Second, and slightly less fun, I would like something from you."

The first thing was about Obito. While things may have changed, in the Manga Minato manages to place his Flying Thunder God Seal on Obito, marking him and thus allowing Minato to teleport to him at any time, and presumably in any place.

Since Minato died in the manga, he was only able to use this mark during the Fourth Shinobi World War, when he was revived, but now that he was alive, if he still had the mark on Obito, then there was no reason for him not to attack Obito.

As for the second, I naturally wanted to be rewarded for stopping the Nine Tails. Sure, I had gotten some things already, but nothing from Konoha, and I would be a fool to simply leave.

Minato's brows relaxed a little when he heard my request as he revealed, "The identity of the mastermind behind the attack is still unknown, but we do know he possesses powers that allows him to manipulate space. He is a tricky opponent to fight, and since any surprise attack might tip him off and get him to be wary, we decided to come up with a fireproof plan to kill him. It should take us about a month."

I shook my head at that, a little disappointed, "Then I won't be able to help. I will be shortly returning to my homeland, and a month is too long."

Minato shrugged, "Thank you for offering your help still. And what did you want from me?"

Deciding against beating around the bush, I directly said, "I would like to get the Flying Thunder God Technique."

To his credit, Minato did not show shock or any emotion for that matter. He merely gazed at me, studying my face, before dismissively replying, "Sure."

I ended up being the one in shock as I asked, "What? Just like that?"

Minato snorted softly, explaining, "The Flying Thunder God Technique, while powerful and a private asset of the Leaf, is also very hard to learn, and even harder to master. People think of me or of Lord Second when told about the technique, but they don't know about the dozen Shinobis who tried to learn the technique and never managed to learn it. Considering everything you have done to the village, I don't see any problem in offering it to you."

I was still shocked, but Minato quickly changed subjects, "So, when will you be leaving."

Scratching my head, I replied, "As soon as possible. Since you won't be needing me, I will be leaving tonight."

"Oh. I see."

An awkward silence permeated the room, so I decided to add, "I can't say when I will be coming back, as my homeland is quite complicated, but I will definitely be coming back. Don't get killed before that, alright?"

Minato chortled, "Same to you. But Kushina is going to be angry if you leave without saying goodbye."

An image of the red headed woman angrily hitting me with a spatula appeared in my head, but I shook it off as I replied, "It's fine, I'm not good at farewells."

Minato nodded, and said, "Then I will simply thank you for your help once more."

---

Soon enough, I received a scroll containing the S Rank Jutsu, and with everything I had set out to do done, I walked out of Konoha.

I did not go that far from the village however as I stopped at a nearby mountain, and upon finding a rather well hidden cave, started absorbing Kyuubi's lifeforce.

It ended up taking me ten whole days to completely assimilate it, so a little longer than I had expected.

However, the results were there as I not only had managed to recover the lifeforce I had lost in my fight against the Tailed Beast, but my reserves had also drastically improved.

I felt that my body had become much stronger than before, and my vitality was leagues ahead of what it used to be.

However, it seemed that my technique was not perfect yet, as I started feeling a sense of emptiness within me. I was hungry. Not for food, but for lifeforce.

This was the typical side effect of overusing Force Drain. I thought I had managed to completely counter this side effect, but it seemed some of it remained.

Thankfully, I had still managed to weaken it, as the hunger I felt was still manageable. I would need to watch myself in the future, to make sure I didn't overindulge anymore than I already had. I'll also need to look into my technique to rectify this.

Although this side effect wasn't great, overall it was a major success as I could already feel a major increase in my Stats.

And now, with a few days left, I decided to spend them relaxing, doing absolutely nothing but appreciate the surrounding nature.

Like that, the last few days of my time in this world passed, and I was surrounded by the familiar white light.