Interlude. Uzumaki Naruto
I hadn't been sitting in my temple all that long before Terumi Mei quietly stepped inside and requested an audience.
This time, instead of the lectus-couch, I was seated on a pompous throne in the style of a marble building with gilding.
"Yagura is pulling his forces together." The kunoichi didn't beat around the bush the moment she walked in.
"I know," I replied, which visibly surprised her. Still, this time I actually bothered to explain. "The movement of large masses is very palpable…"
A wave of my hand, and between us, under Terumi's already bewildered stare, a dynamic image materialized: a port, the sea stretching beyond it, and hundreds upon thousands of shinobi hastily boarding ships, streaming in from the distant city.
I was using an advanced telescope technique, the kind Hiruzen employed with his crystal ball, plus an illusion similar to an illusory clone, only more advanced.
"This mobilization… It feels too sudden," Mei said after staring for a few seconds, shifting to her next thought. "Is it possible someone was pulling Yagura's strings again this time?"
To that, I simply shrugged, which earned me an even more bewildered look.
And honestly, I genuinely didn't know. Thanks to the control exerted by that masked prick, Yagura had been deeply unstable, if the reports were anything to go by. It was damn near impossible to tell which thoughts were actually his and which had been planted.
"I am not omniscient," I clarified. "But I know a great deal. It is good that you reported this. As I said, I, the Emperor, will intervene."
Terumi gave a careful nod, then made a show of wanting to ask exactly how that would be done. I explained that I would raise a temple on the shore and meet them at the front line. While the Mist shinobi were still aboard their ships and on the water. After that, to Mei's anticipation but not particular enthusiasm, I began issuing orders:
"You're raising your forces, that's also good. But I'll make an adjustment: you're doing it not to fight, but to manage those who surrender."
"—!" Mei flinched, clearly wanting to say something. But she didn't dare… I closed my eyes.
"Stepping aside from the topic for a moment. Let me be clear: here, in this temple, in your terms a headquarters, I am less a god and more a manager. You can relax, get yourself together. What I need from you are facts and objections."
The tightly wound kunoichi blinked in surprise again and let herself unwind just a fraction. I made a mental note that I clearly needed to expand my list of talking points in my self-introduction, because people around me did nothing but look shocked.
"How exactly do you see this playing out?" she finally asked, deciding to hear me out fully.
"I'll do what I did when I first came here. Only stronger…" Mei, possessing a functional memory, simply gave a slow nod. "Your people will handle escort duty, screening, disarmament, and medical care for the arriving surrendered forces. At the point of engagement, set up three half-rings that will close into full rings once the surrendered move inside. The outer ring is for catching runners. The middle ring is for security. The inner ring is for weapons collection, sorting, and initial screening."
"That… We were planning that as Plan B. In case—"
Having heard my plan, the head of the revolution began speaking uncertainly but couldn't bring herself to say out loud the direct assumption that I might not pull it off. Recalling the fate, not the darkest but hardly a cheerful one either, of their leader Hozuki, that was entirely unsurprising.
Hearing this bleating, I suppressed the urge to sigh, rested my head on my hand, which I'd already draped over the armrest. My gaze went especially piercing.
"Don't sugarcoat it for me," the statement escaped me, and the kunoichi flinched. "I understand. You don't trust me. Preparing a full front is extra overhead on your end."
"Even so…" She found the nerve to push her point, and I drew a deep breath and closed my eyes.
"Fine. If you want to run several thousand shinobi ragged preparing approaches and mining square kilometers of coastline, knock yourself out. They'll be the ones putting everything back the way it was afterward. Fine, if it gives you peace of mind."
At that, a visibly heartened Mei agreed enthusiastically.
"But that's not all," I didn't miss the chance to bring her back down. "I'm forbidding summary justice against the prisoners."
The woman's wide-open eyes told me plainly that the odds of that particular order being followed were… not the highest. But I continued.
"Victory is inevitable. But afterward, we cannot allow a massacre, or revenge, or chaos. Do your best to get that through to your people."
Terumi had no choice but to agree.
After that, adding a few more points, I managed to convince her not to stress too much about things going wrong. The kunoichi then left the temple to prepare to move to the other island. I had to do the same.
The following morning, or rather closer to noon, my humble self appeared in the sky above the island the revolutionaries had seized.
Since the Land of Water was an archipelago, the Mist shinobi would have to arrive by sea, aboard ships. And the trip was no joke. Roughly thirty kilometers from the neighboring island. They wouldn't arrive until evening.
Of course, shinobi could have crossed that distance far faster over the water. But not every shinobi is strong. An army is about far more than individual strength. Many would be winded by even a ten-minute sprint, but if they arrived rested, they could still contribute. So they would make the crossing by ship, along with all their supplies and other gear.
Below me spread the sight of dozens of people swarming about. Most of them, using Earth Release, were burying explosives. A lot of explosives. A truly staggering amount. The revolutionaries had volcanoes here and, well, a passable economy already, which for their quasi-state was already pretty impressive, so they could afford to splash out on a fairly solid defense.
After watching the activity below for a bit, I picked a suitable spot right over the water, descended slightly, and my voice unexpectedly carried across, warning everyone not to panic and that I had everything under control. But my sudden appearance alone, dropping straight out of the sky, had already thrown people off balance. Then they saw my two fingers come together in the seal for economical concentration, and the earth and water began to tremble. At that point, everyone sharply but without panic, since the shinobi were spread at decent intervals, cleared the area to watch as, seconds later, displacing cascading walls of water, an exact replica of the temple that had recently "arrived" at their other island rose from the strait. To say everyone lost their shit would be an understatement. Some shinobi with an affinity for Earth Release could create something resembling a building, sure. Powerful shinobi, like Mei, could reshape entire battlefields. But to create something not only massive but impossibly intricate and deliberate? No, don't even bother trying.
Though, perhaps they were overestimating me somewhat. I had planned this structure well in advance; it even had basic but functional fuinjutsu networks built in for future containment.
Not long after, the revolution's leadership swept in from the camps that had been set up before dawn. Namely, the duo of Mei and Ao. I had just finished my work and was waiting for them. All to explain that here was a temple. Very solid walls, and plenty of space. Not just grand halls, but also storage for weapons, rooms for interrogation, a space that could be properly set up as a field hospital, and a whole block of individual cells. And that they should make full use of everything inside.
"But… uh…" Mei failed to get a thought out, prompting Ao to throw her a sharp look for the stammering. But having thrown that look, he didn't open his own mouth either.
"My temple is not the sacred space you're imagining it to be. Yes, it's a symbol. But beyond that, it's an architecture of governance."
"Pragmatic," the shinobi nodded.
"You're starting to understand me. Inside, you're responsible for logistics; I handle the outer perimeter and the pressure. Continue your work."
With that, the mini-meeting was over. I watched the pair of shinobi walk away.
Then, on a whim, I decided to check what these ninja had managed to put together. Fortunately, with some concentration, my spherical vision could see into the distance almost like a Byakugan. Beyond the various fortifications, there was a clear distribution of the right forces in the right positions. Josame, Chojuro, and many other ninja I could feel were genuinely capable were deployed at interception points. Mittei was flickering through Shunshin, overseeing the sabotage placement, meaning the island's detonation charges. The shinobi near the shore, having caught hell from their recovered commanding officers, were back to working diligently. Several Hozuki were already scoping out positions far out at sea to cut off distant retreat across the water. In the distance, I also caught Zabuza with my "eyes," placed in command of one of the defensive nodes… Well, look at that, Mei's personal refinement program at work. He'd certainly dropped a few rungs on the career ladder. Further off, near the city, I came across a slightly odd scene: gathered in front of a pile of crates was a crowd of shirtless, enormously built men, looking like they'd just escaped a bodybuilding competition, while standing atop the crates was… I believe her name was Yase Ai, a large, rocky-looking woman. She was belting out a speech, occasionally throwing her arms wide and even throwing a full punch at the air at one point. She was currently… hmm, rallying the troops and telling them how they were going to tear everyone apart. Sora stood nearby with a perfectly indifferent expression, watching. It was… charismatic, yeah.
Noting that they had things well in hand here, I relocated home, leaving a clone behind to keep watch. There was still plenty of time before the attack, so I decided to stop by my favorite confectionery shop and properly decompress while all sorts of people out there were busting their asses.
Evening. On hundreds of ships of varying sizes, crammed onto the decks or packed inside the hulls, more than ten thousand shinobi waited. Not just chunin and above: there were plenty of genin among them too. The Mizukage's unexpected order hadn't allowed for a full mobilization; many shinobi were on distant missions across the world, and a couple thousand simply couldn't be pulled back in time. But the number now moving across the water was already monstrous.
"We have allowed these traitors to live on our islands for too long. We showed weakness when we failed to exterminate them all. Now they have sunk so low as to attempt to sell our country to the Village of Leaves! We must tear out this threat immediately, before it takes root!!!" Such was Yagura's order.
Many of those now swaying on the ships were nursing serious doubts about their leader. He was extraordinarily powerful, but his policies were… too selective and too painful for a portion of the shinobi. Many feared him and more than a few had been eyeing the revolutionaries, wondering whether to join. Yet this was hardly the first wave of revolution, and Yagura had remained in power through all of them. Many had simply given up and made their peace with it.
And now they'd been yanked from their routines and shoved, without even being given a chance to catch their breath, toward a slaughter…
Insanity, thought many. Their leader was a madman; that had long since stopped being a rumor and hardened into near-established fact. Yet even so, many of them were only half-frustrated right now. Because their path, despite the spectacularly terrible tactic of a straight-on frontal collision, still held a non-trivial chance of success. Even if far from rosy.
The Mist shinobi had a numerical advantage. A little more than twice what the revolutionaries could field… But on their own territory, with better supply lines and command, if the revolutionaries chose guerrilla warfare, there was no guarantee the Mist loyalists would come out on top at all. Furthermore, the Mist soldiers had been told point-blank that the Leaf was backing the revolutionaries. They hadn't sent troops, but that wasn't guaranteed to last. And the fact that a few shinobi had been sent anyway was both unnerving and, in a strange way, somewhat relieving to many Mist ninja.
One of the Legendary Sannin, Jiraiya, and the jinchuriki of the Nine-Tails, who'd been generating the kind of wild rumors lately you could listen to for days.
The problem was that those two could tilt the war dramatically, cut down a lot of regular soldiers, and, in theory, could even defeat the Mist's own monster: Yagura, who had fully subjugated the power of the Three-Tails. The silver lining was that if Karatachi were taken down, the country would descend into enough chaos that a man could hightail it and bolt for some other continent without worrying too much about hunter-nin coming after deserters.
Defectors stop being a top priority when the leadership is busy subjugating their own country.
So, by and large, the average Mist shinobi didn't so much want victory as they wanted Yagura and the Konoha shinobi to tear each other apart, while they personally stayed alive and got to live a quiet life as far from this snake pit of Five Great Villages politics as possible.
Beyond those holding the pragmatic views above, there were, of course, two more factions among the Mist's thinkers. But both were widely considered behind their backs to be just as out of their minds as Karatachi himself. The first were the patriots, people who saw the butcher's methods as the right course, steering the Village toward greatness, prosperity, and all that. The second were the idiots who genuinely hoped that maybe, just maybe, Konoha would roll in alongside the revolutionaries and take over, and then of course everything would be fine and they wouldn't be turned into colonial slaves… Though the second group was genuinely sizable, thanks to what many other shinobi considered equally idiotic rulers of the Leaf, who would genuinely try to impose order on a neighboring country, draft treaties about living in harmony, and pat everyone on the head. However, the majority of average Mist shinobi had enough brains in their heads to understand that the Hokage didn't rule the Leaf alone, and that the Leaf would indeed continue to be ruled by the Hokage, but if Kiri were seized, his reach would be too short to control his own representatives, who most likely wouldn't share that Will of Fire of theirs.
Maybe the Kiri ninja were wrong. Things could turn out any number of ways. But maybe not, and taking that risk was terrifying. And so, while most of the Mist shinobi weren't exactly in a rosy mood about what was coming, they nevertheless held out hope for the best…
Some time later. It was deep evening, when the sun had already painted the world orange and was half-hidden behind the horizon.
One of the commanders of a large unit, a man with pale blue skin, stood at the bow of his ship with an anticipatory grin. He was savoring the thought of his feet finally touching dry land. And how his cold, ocean-stiffened body would warm itself in the blood of traitors…
The deputy head of the Hoshigaki clan had heard plenty about the rats dug in here. People who had no techniques of their own refined through generations, no clan, no concept of honor. The shinobi was already picturing it: crashing into their camp, feeling the heft in his hands as he lifted bodies on his two-handed sword.
As a member of the upper caste, unlike many of his peers, he actually enjoyed doing the work typically reserved for the third caste. Killing gave him what he so desperately lacked: genuine emotion. Only when adrenaline was screaming through his veins did he truly feel alive.
And now the shore was nearly within reach. Except they could see something beyond the expected coastline: a temple? Unusual for these lands, very much so. But recently, just very recently, certain rumors had been spreading through the village about a temple just like it. Those rumors had been… highly impressive. Impressive enough that a sizable portion of the Mist shinobi began to feel deeply uneasy just from the sight of the structure.
"Mizukage-sama!" A voice rang out from a lookout on the mast of the neighboring ship, where the head of the Mist himself was currently sailing. "There… it's him! Uzumaki!"
"Move forward!" Without hesitation, Karatachi's thunderous roar carried across hundreds of meters. "Stay sharp!"
Hoshigaki, hearing the certainty in his leader's voice, stretched his lips into a bloodthirsty grin. That certainty partially spread to the others, but the man also noted that a considerable number of shinobi remained visibly shaken.
"Tch. Weaklings," he muttered under his breath, then went still, waiting.
Not everyone immediately noticed that something in the world had begun to shift the moment Yagura gave his command…
The noise of the waters slowly faded, while the sky shifted its pigment from warm orange to an increasingly deep crimson. The sun, positioned directly behind the temple, seemed to swell with dark blood-red color within just five minutes.
Finally, the wind died, and the water went completely flat.
The ships had come to a halt at a distance of somewhere between five hundred meters and a kilometer, far enough that they still needed to reach the shore but close enough to fully take in both the temple looming to an absurd height and the oppressive atmosphere surrounding it.
A dead silence fell as everyone just looked around, glancing at the temple, at their leaders, and not a single soul dared to be the first to speak. But someone else spoke for them.
"You didn't come here for a holiday, did you?" The voice that swept through the space around them, sounding as if the speaker were standing right next to each of them, was bone-chilling, the kind that made you shudder. "Who I am should be known to you. The rules I have established, likewise. So those of you who have no desire to taste the bitterness of punishment… I am ordering you to come here, to the temple, and surrender. You will become members of a new community and will find a path to redemption."
A tremor ran through the Mist's army. The story they had only heard, and only a handful among them had ever seen the icon, was unfolding before their eyes. The figure of a god, whose very outline couldn't even be made out through the blinding light of the sun…
Yagura, seeing this, moved quickly to restore confidence in as many ninja as he could before his force crumbled without anyone even striking a blow:
"Shinobi of the Mist! We are here to defend our honor! We will not allow Konoha's invaders and these insurgents to subjugate us! For the Hidden Mist! Forward!!!"
And, to no small degree, those brief words worked.
Karatachi jumped off the ship onto the water's surface, gripping his hook-staff, and in that same instant thousands of shinobi began to pour down one after another in an unending avalanche, taking to the water as well. Some, seeing the resolve of others, found their own courage, and their numbers kept swelling.
Echoing their leader, countless throats erupted into roars, whipped up by the raw adrenaline of impending battle. The air filled with a cacophony of restless, hungry sound.
Among them was him. Hoshigaki's racing heart trembled at what was about to happen. He could already feel the flesh of his enemies on his fingertips.
The water rushed beneath the shinobi's feet as the temple continued to loom larger, growing ever closer. Many tried to peer ahead, and some, stepping into its shadow, managed it. In that moment they saw not a figure standing upon a pedestal but a blond leaning casually against a low railing, simply watching them in nothing but white cloth around his hips and a golden laurel wreath. But beyond that… it all seemed far less scary than they'd heard. A more or less ordinary-looking person, as mortal as any of them.
Except…
A barely visible wave washed over the advancing army, and the world seemed to fill with blood. The taste and smell of iron flooded lungs and throats at once, making many freeze in place as everything around them filled with a faint crimson haze. And then…
Thousands of shinobi were literally knocked off their feet as an overwhelming aura crashed down upon the world!
What descended was not so much pressure as the presence of hell itself made manifest on earth. Horrific illusory visions immediately flooded the minds of those who had fallen.
Hoshigaki himself, having barely weathered the initial impact of the aura, felt his muscles seize a moment later and went down onto the water. A beat of clarity, and he realized he was under someone's direct attention. In a futile attempt to jerk his head, he froze. The ninja heard his own heartbeat, clear as day, and then scorching, soul-deep pain drowned his mind.
His limbs were wrenched and torn away. The deputy felt the full horror of it, everything his own nerves transmitted, unbearable agony. But he didn't black out; his consciousness didn't fade. Hoshigaki felt his heart hammering wildly, felt the water beneath him growing warm with blood. But only after a couple seconds, his mind submerged in agony, did he fully grasp what had happened to him. And that realization only hit him with even greater despair. He was alive in the body of a dead man. Only pathetic seconds remained before he left his body entirely.
Like a switch being flipped, the world shuddered again. His mouth, no longer restrained by anything, fell open and let out a cry of pure despair.
And thousands of others answered him in kind. The coastline, which had plunged into silence moments before, filled once again with an orchestra of screaming. But now the screams held only pain.
Struck as if by lightning, Hoshigaki seized up. Then his body, the one without limbs, lurched upright onto what had seemed to be ripped-out legs. Again he didn't understand what was happening, but the pain had stopped. In terror, he looked himself over, and to his utter bewilderment, his body was completely intact. When his gaze swept the surroundings, the sight that met him was hundreds of fallen comrades.
Some were convulsing, clawing at their own faces, screaming without pause. Some, with empty stares, were gazing into nothingness, whether lying flat or on their knees. Some were curled up, choking on their own saliva and tears, sobbing.
Not far away, a young shinobi held a kunai in his shaking hands. His legs had folded under him, lowering him into the water. But he didn't notice. Instead, his gaze was fixed on something in front of him. But there was nothing there.
"No… Yuriko… I didn't mean to…" Trembling, he dropped his head to stare at the kunai, which seemed soaked in blood to him. "N-nooo! That wasn't me! I didn't do it! NOOO!"
Snapping his head to the side, Hoshigaki caught sight of a ninja clamping both hands over his mouth. Sobbing into his palms, he twisted his torso left and right in erratic spasms. As if he was seeing something horrific, trying to get up and run, but something wouldn't let him.
Another glance, and he saw yet another Kiri warrior. Standing perfectly still. But in his wide-open eyes, there was no spark of life.
He turned back. Behind him, hundreds of shinobi were running, not hiding their primal terror at all. He'd ended up among the weak-willed ones who couldn't manage a single step at first, while the "lucky" ones, screaming uncontrollably, had already bolted toward the open ocean, as far from here as possible.
Seeing his chance, his mind screamed: Run! He lurched forward, immediately tripping over someone's body. But, refusing to stop, he crawled a few more meters across the water, splashing it aside, before scrambling to his feet and running again.
He didn't understand what this was, why he felt this primal terror. But every fiber of him was screaming where it was coming from and who he needed to flee.
No fear of being branded a traitor, and whatever came with that, could hold him now. His previous supreme terror, the demon Yagura, had been shoved far to the back of his mind. Because right now, the deputy was in the immediate vicinity of something that could, on a passing whim, make him know the most wretched agony imaginable. He was in the power of a monster that had not yet focused its attention on him. And while that was still the case, every fiber of Hoshigaki's being understood one thing: while there was even the smallest chance, he needed to go. Without looking back.
Unfortunately for those running, the world was not nearly as kind as they had hoped. The creature they were fleeing from had no intention of letting them scatter.
Behind their backs came a tremendous metallic peal, and they saw massive golden chains arcing through the sky, soaring past the ships to encircle a simply enormous expanse!
Another moment, and after the chains drove themselves in, a barrier blazed into existence between them, even redder than the world around it.
The hearts of the shinobi went cold with the understanding that they were sealed inside…
But that was not yet the end…
"R-A-A-A-A-A!!!" A deafening but familiar roar of a Tailed Beast erupted from the very direction most of them had been running toward, which sent the majority sharply correcting course and, even despite the barrier, preferring to scramble as far toward its edge as possible from what their lord had now become…
Karatachi, as a certain blond could see from a distance, had managed to withstand the pressure thanks to genjutsu-disrupting chakra in his head. And under orders from afar, he began to act.
Yagura was a short distance from the ships, in the form of an anthropomorphic red-and-black figure with three tails, also pouring a tremendous volume of chakra into the world. Under the crushing pressure that had already slammed into the shinobi, picking out this new chakra source wasn't as easy as usual, but it was definitely noticeable.
The Mizukage didn't stop. In his Tailed Beast form, wasting no time on dramatics, he ran through a rapid sequence of hand seals, then drove his fists down onto the water.
With another thunderous burst of displaced air, white smoke swallowed hundreds of meters in a second. But almost immediately it began to thin, revealing an enormous Tailed Beast within: a colossal form resembling a turtle. A grey carapace studded with spines, the same stone-like ridges covering its face and two limbs. Beneath the shell lay thick, reddish flesh.
It immediately submerged into the water, then surfaced.
But that wasn't even the worst of it. Without a moment's pause, right before its face the beast began drawing in blue and red negative and positive chakra particles! All to form a Bijudama, the most destructive technique a biju could unleash!!!
The shinobi, already scared shitless, at least those with enough brains left, realized they were trapped inside a sealed barrier and that, by all appearances, it was over; their lives were done. Because the destructive wave would have nowhere to go except inward, grinding everyone to nothing!
With another collective drop of their hearts, the sphere finished forming and launched forward at tremendous speed toward the temple sitting at the far inner edge of the barrier, which enclosed only the coastline.
But the moment it arrived, when many shinobi had already squeezed their eyes shut and made their peace with dying, it seemed to stick in midair, where lines of fuinjutsu appeared. A moment, and the destructive sphere simply vanished!
Then things grew even stranger. Some of them saw the blond on the balcony, from whose back the chains had been emerging all along, form a seal, and from thin air massive torii appeared above the Tailed Beast, immediately plummeting down and driving the biju to the bottom, pinning it to the ground at a relatively small height compared to the beast. Then from the Uzumaki erupted several more enormous chains that also plunged through the water column to the bottom. All of it led to several seconds of agonizing anticipation before a figure of the Three-Tails, glowing white, burst up from the water, distorted, shrank, and flew into the raised hand of the young man at the temple. On that hand, besides the mark that had just appeared, another black line became visible, before the limb was returned to rest against the marble railing.
A second passed, and after the end of the light show, a heavy silence hung. But it was broken again by the same being:
"So. Your leader has been defeated and will be judged. My order still stands. This is your last chance to surrender. Do not make me send you back to hell…"
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