It wasn't fast and it wasn't easy - it was insane and it was nigh impossible.
And secretly, he would have admitted to be having something very close to fun if it hadn't been because this was happening now and like this. Minato had always been good at managing seals, both creating them and fixing them. He had an almost visceral understanding of how they worked and what seemed like an unnatural sense that allow him to equilibrate them properly for them to work. His biggest testament to this had to be hirashin, a technique that had taken roughly two years to figure out by heavily modifying the standard teleporting jutsu.
What he was doing now was very much like when the Uzumakis had finally agreed to teach him some of their most advanced techniques; he was learning new, selective things of immeasurable importance. Minato liked seals - he had almost became a specialized jounin before the war had forced him to follow more warfare inclined paths - and the seals apparently liked the ex-Hokage, because they hardly bothered to keep secrets with him. Breaking the equations down, figuring out how they worked (and why and how and when) how to bend them and alter them, making them from scratch with nothing but a base and his imagination and yes- fixing things that anyone who had tried before had claimed impossible- that's what he enjoyed the most.
Konohanin just worked like that.
He first had Wren separate the seals in those who worked and those who didn't (apparently they had a lot more of the latter than the first) and went straight through them at full speed twice, before slowly starting the painful process of detangling them. He didn't need all of them, but breaking them down gave him a chance to see where it was coming from, which helped him deduce formulas.
Like the fact he had been trying to use the scribbly-dotty equivalent to 'you can choose either' instead of 'you must' in all passives. Yeah, that would have gone nicely with the Bijuu 'Would you prefer to rampage through the village to your heart's contents, or would you rather stay still and quiet, mister Fake Monk?'
Yeah, that would have worked so nicely.
It took a few hours, but they did manage to shorten the massive scroll to something more manageable (roughly a full block's length worth of paper shorter), and these new connectants surely would work better, or at least they had the ever so optimistic Wren personal seal of approval (consisting in telling him when the beast ate his soul, he wasn't going to go down for it).
While the Sunanin finished checking what they had written, he had taken a break and leafed through the failed seals just out of curiosity- and there it was. He found what they had needed from the beginning in one of the unusable scrolls. It was a wonder they hadn't seen it from the beginning- sure, it was smudged with what looked like blood, and the main seal was so swarmed by sigils it was a wonder they could see it at all, but Minato had. It had been written with a different type of brush from the others after all.
'حرام ' .
'Haraam'.
'Forbidden'. And by superior Godly law, no less.
It wasn't the exact same, but it was similar enough to the command of the Death God when it took a life that Minato easily recognized it. By law of the gods, and those would always have a say over the matter of humans and even of demons. He could see why it hadn't worked either, it wasn't - well, calibrated right. This was easily the meanest command he had ever seen, requiring thousands of sacrifices to work. An inhuman amount of chakra.
But, if he used the *other* side of the scroll, if he used the side that would be facing outside the center, to those crazy amounts of demonic chakra being so easily wasted in the air - a specified chakra draining seal could do it easily! He had Shukaku's name, he could make the command. All it would take was for a single chakra-infused grain of sand to touch it and it would activate on everything outside the perimeter - the radius was a mere matter of repeating the connectants until the command covered enough terrain and make sure they weren't even/uneven with the seal on the other side…
It was doable. Not easy and not fast, but doable.
'We are doing this.' he smiled slightly, the smudge of ink on his cheek dark against his pale face.
And if this worked, he swore on his baby he was giving this to the Kazekage as a gift and without asking for anything in return and keep his grabby Leafnin hands to himself.
Wren had only looked skeptically at him, but didn't say a thing. The work the man had made here was impressive and he couldn't take it away from him – but he still felt uncomfortable. Especially when at one point he simply stopped following his logic. But if that was going to calm the murderous beast, who knows, maybe after kicking him outside the town, Kazekage will remember about him and will bring him back in full glory. That didn't sound bad, it was only uncomfortable, because it required time. A lot of it. And a bit of luck, providing that he needed to be alive at the end of this experiment.
He rose up from the chair.
'Doing or not, I hope you have written what you wanted down.' he said as he closed the scroll 'Because in a moment you will get lots of what's happened today locked into a nice shiny box that will never open again.'
'Between you and me, I'd kind of wait for this to be over when you do that. This is really not going to be the best of moments for me to forget something important.'
What did his man expect him to do, join the myriad of people outside having mint tea under the palms and skin-peeling sand so he could share what awesome shiny toys the second Kazekage kept in his crazy man scrolls? He didn't really care either way - sure, it had been great to get to play with said shiny toys, probably the first stirs of actual excitement for anything he had felt in months - but he had known from the beginning it was borrowed knowledge, and it wasn't like if he would miss it after all.
He looked at his own scroll, which was nowhere near as wide as the original ones he had brought and insanely longer than before (he didn't even know scrolls of these lengths were even *made*).
'The village is set in a circular shape, and the scroll will need to be put around the area-' he pulled sweaty bangs off his eyes, sighing. 'A… pentagram? Pentagrams work best in circles-' Hell if he knew why, circles just worked better with uneven triggers.'Right, we need to set them around whatever size of an area we are talking about so they can activate it- that means 5 people with better than average control of chakra.'
He looked at the man.
'Do you know any other three available?'
Wren moved his head to the side. He didn't like the fact Minato wanted him to wait. The longer he held the knowledge the worse it was for his reputation, after all, the tendency to slip was proportional to the passing time.
'Other three, meaning beside you and me? Let's see.' he mused, pointing out fingers to count down 'Yura is working on the top barrier, he can't. Baki helps Kazekage-sama, he won't. Vulture is building the net between the eastern side of the village, he is unable to. Just like most of the current army, apparently.' he stopped, pointing at the man with the silence, that he was obviously asking for impossible. However, after a moment, he continued 'But as far as I know, Lark came out of the hospital some time ago and Thorny Devil is unable to help with the barrier, so she only does the supporting.' Which probably didn't mean that much, so he could call her here. 'As for the third person, I think I can try to call Roadrunner.'
Because Jerboa was still on retirement, and given how he couldn't speak or see was rather not helpful. Not that he wouldn't fight if he was supposed to.
Minato considered letting Wren know in detail how he appreciated his marked optimism in such a situation, but given how that wouldn't accomplish anything besides pissing the man who was at least now trying to be useful except maybe piss him off, he kept it for himself.
'Thorny Devil has great chakra control.' Minato mused, internally relieved that Lark was already out of the hospital. As much as he had tried not to think about it, he had worried he'd be stuck like that. One of his academy friends had ended up with a memory that lasted him all of five hours before going back to ten years ago after a Rocknin had given him a particularly rattling hit during chuunin exams. Not that he was friends with the man or anything, just… It was better.
'All right. Gather everyone. We will also need someone to signal and do it all at the same time. You better tell-' he stopped, then shook his head 'Never mind. Let's get everyone here and see how we manage to crawl outside to make this work. Get Dingo's map.'
For a moment he had almost told the man to warn Baki or someone if similar rank of what they were going to do so they wouldn't think the end of the world was coming when the sand suddenly ceased its attack. But given how he didn't know it was going to work, it was better not to raise their hopes.
'Get it yourself, Dingo is in the room nearby.' Said Wren with offended tone, like if the man had somehow managed to make bad impression on him by ordering him around – which he did from some time now – and he turned his back on him. A moment later a very badly tuned radio station creaked through the air with bits of words that even the most intelligent beings couldn't recognize. The man had only repeated one order over and over again until someone had turned the radio off. And then he did it again.
'Library. Meeting. Now. Library. Meeting. Now…'
'What is it.'
The door on the other side opened, showing the bulky tanned man, who seemed to have his whole head bandaged under the mask – including his ears and eyes. It was stained with blood on several parts. Minato didn't seem to consider the man's offense one way or another, instead turning to the newcomer with a slight smile and a bow while internally cringing. He'd never heard of people being this sensitive to chakra… some advanced bloodline? What a joy to have when these sort of things happened.
'Hello, Namikaze Minato.' he said politely. 'Wren has told me you can accurately pin-point where the biggest part of the Bijuu is gathering? I need to know where and how much that is as accurately as possible, please.'
The man had for a moment moved his head sideways, like if he was confused about what he was doing here, then he hung his head lowly.
'I will do my best, Hokage-sama.' he muttered in a low, bitter voice, and then he had slowly started undoing the bandages. Even as his mask was on, he seemed to have no problem with doing that as it didn't move from the place. As it came, under the bandage was a head tattooed on one side and with hair cut in strange patterns, matching the complicated writing above the left ear. The man also wore earrings, but it was hard to tell what kind of color they were – the blood covered them too well.
The man looked at him, but he didn't move, say anything or even make hand seals. He just stood in the place. A few seconds after, the blood started pouring through his ears and the mask started glowing, the most visibly in the place where nose was supposed to be.
'There.' he said, pointing at the north east, through the wall 'The part placed in empty hole in the ground, bordering with the dusty desert, a homeland for the poorer part of the town. It's trying to bite at the ground, so the town would collapse down.'
And as it seemed, he succeeded, but Dingo didn't seem to be worried. A moment later the mask started cracking, starting on the nose's point. The man hung his head low, the glow stopping all at once.
'I'm sorry, I have migraine.' he muttered 'I will point you the more durable location in a few seconds, when the attack is gone.'
Minato winced at the sight of the blood. His knowledge as a medinin was decidingly lacking and he'd be the first to admit it, but as far as he knew, head hemorrhages weren't advisable as far as health was concerned.
'Do you want to sit down?' he said, breaching the man's personal bubble with the lack of thought most ninja from Konoha accidentally displayed by placing a hand on his arm. Tunneling down the ground? Why was the creature so pissed? Between sleeping and the initial work on the seal at least full day had passed, there was no way the baby was still upset enough to cause such destruction. Had he fallen asleep? Did the monster have any other trigger? Or was the old seal shitty enough once open the beats was out and about for as long as it wanted?
He had to stop this.
'No, no, I just need to… wait.' said the man, lifting his head up. He didn't react to the touch to the arm, probably either too sick or taught better to care. He wiped his ears with a bandage. As it came, at least one earring had to be blue. He chuckled for a moment, until he stopped, most likely with wince.
'I remember when the west side of the town collapsed.' he muttered 'At least we have two cemeteries now.'
Then his nose started glowing again and he once again moved to the northern east.
'It's directly between the number four and nineteen of the buildings. The ground is the weakest there and the barrier is lacking.' he muttered. Wren looked at him, then cursed. Dingo slowly shook his head. 'Don't report it yet or the monster will move. I think you want it in one place now.'
He stopped, wincing again, his nose fading and glowing for a few times like a broken lamp, then he straightened.
'It ends up with the beginnings of the desert grounds. Then chakra mixes with grains. Don't try stepping on it, it had probably changed into moving sands.'
Then he looked up, seeming to remember about something.
'The direction is changing.' he muttered. 'Don't move out in the next fifteen minutes.'
And with that, he hung his head low again, stopping the jutsu.
'Is there anything else you want me to do?' he muttered, not even rising his head now.
'We won't… Listen-'
Minato didn't think about what he was doing or what he was losing because it didn't matter on the short or long run. If Suna had a problem with it, they could go complain to his village, and he had marked the spots with their full knowledge and blessing. Oh, they trusted Suna to keep him, not to give him back nicely in the hypothetical case they did need him back, so they had made him place several points of escape on their way here. The closest and most obvious was in a cave roughly sixteen miles from the village.
And it wasn't like if he'd use them anytime soon.
'Do you want me to take you out of the village? It will take less than a minute.'
This guy was having his brain pushed out of his ears thanks to the monster outside, and regardless of how often this happened (often, if Dingo's comment was any way to go) or whose fault it was this had happened at all, he didn't want to deal of it if he could help it.
'You can't get outta the village.' said the man, then slowly started bandaging his head. 'Besides, this would lead you nowhere. There's no good place to station around the village now, unless it's the next town. Or maybe not.'
Because at the next town sands stopped. But sand had this annoying ability it moved with the wind. So it could be the danger spread over there too. He sighed as he covered his ears.
'Excuse me.'
And with that, he was gone into his room again.
'Though day for us all.' muttered someone behind him. As it came, it was Lark, still smelling of herbal medicines from the hospital. Minato didn't discuss that he actually could very comfortably get out because that would only cause him trouble. Instead he gave the man with the bird mask a slight welcoming gesture with his hand.
'Some more than others, I guess. How often does this happen, again?'
'Once a month, so far this had only been successful once.' said Lark. A moment later Thorny Devil appeared behind him, her hair all messed up with sand and wind. 'We don't know the pattern yet, but it has nothing to do with the moon. It's probably the fact that sandstorms weaken the village and are great additional power from nature to help play with the loose sand… or something.'
'Or something.' Repeated Thorny Devil, trying to undo her hair. So far, in vain. 'Good afternoon. The southern barrier looks fine, but Satetsu had collapsed from hunger. The wind also looks like if it was about to change directions.'
'Because it will.' said Wren, closing the radiolocator. 'Had someone opened the window?'
Nobody answered. Wren had cursed under his breath and ran up to the closest frame. A moment later, along with the burst of wind, sand and dust, the fourth persona broke in, trying to stop in the middle of the run, but not quite succeeding. It had the mask of a greater roadrunner.
'I hate you!' he shouted completely ungracefully as he jumped and landed right in front of Lark. He seemed to be of the height of a professional basketball player. 'I hate you all! Why do you always have to leave the window closed when I'm about to arrive! The weather outside is awful enough to make my fragile heart cry!'
'Sorry about that…' muttered Lark, but before he could say anything else, he was hugged with passion that looked decisively weird for a Sunanin. And yet, there was no mistake about that it was a man at least living in this place for long – the skin color matched all three in the room.
'That's all right, sweetheart.' he said to the other man, brushing him consolingly like an old aunt. Then, at the cough of the girl, he had only then noticed Minato.
'Oh, oh my.' he said, stopped, like if something had paused all his doings. '…are you free tonight?'
'It's Hokage-sama, show some respect!' shouted Wren, pushing him by the shoulders 'And only because you're on your period doesn't mean you can act like if you were in mating season! Bow down.'
Roadrunner bowed down.
'Just Minato is all right.' the blond said, a large sweatdrop appearing next to his face. This was a bit more like what he was used to now.
'I …might have been before, but if I'm not dead by then, I'll probably be grounded or in a hospital.' he said with a small smile 'But if I'm not any of those sure. You might have to fight Lark for the honor, though, he asked first.'
'Oh, that wouldn't be a problem, I'm inviting you all. Bonding is what I believe in, Hokage-sama.' said the other man 'But personally I think that it's not right to make them stand between you and me.'
Thorny Devil sighed again.
'Just ask him for an autograph. Later. Now I want to know what are we here for.'
Minato found himself smiling - yeah, this guy definitely reminded him of home. However, Devil was right, if they did have fifteen minutes (now more like thirteen and a half) he better explain them as accurately as possible.
'So, um-' he trailed off, turning to give a look at the scroll before shrugging. 'I made a seal that will stop Shukaku for now, and we need to surround the biggest part of him and activate it for it to work. It will stop everything outside of the perimeter and force what's inside to lay low for a while.' He winced when something smacked against the side of the building. 'A long while, if it's so happily spending this much chakra.'
'Stop Shukaku?' repeated Lark. The rest just looked back at him in silence with blank masked faces.
'Stop laughing.' Finally said Wren. 'It's true.'
'Okay, but what are we really doing?' said Lark again, obviously not believing that 'No, really.'
Minato just smiled back.
'No, really, that's exactly what we are doing. I spent a full day writing a scroll big enough to contain it from both sides, and I assure you, I have better things to waste my obsessive-compulsive disorder on.'
Tiny cute things with his hair and his lover's face crossed by scratch-like marks, for example.
'So, sealing Shukaku, you are in? Yes/yes answers, please.'
The ANBUs slowly moved their heads to the sides, each one of them tossing a glance at the other, only to turn back to starring at the blonde.
'I have a little sister.' muttered Thorny Devil. It was more of a warning than a resignation sign.
'We're in.' said Roadrunner.
Minato could have sat down and maybe hid under the desk for the next ten minutes - yes, thank you very much for putting absolutely no pressure on him at all. Living in a village who might or not get re-leveled once a month was perfectly normal, sure. The crazy, suicidal idea was trying to put a stop to it.
'If we do this right, all should go well-' and he truly believed this. This might have been something he had created in a frenzy and with something he had never worked with before, but it *felt* leveled and that's all that mattered. He pulled out the map Wren had given him before, making a wide circles between the marked area.
'Dingo said the larger mass was between the buildings four and nineteen, so we will surround it as far a circle as we are allowed…' It was a pity they hadn't had more time to make it even bigger. Or more hands to write it. Or more people to proofread it and so on. 'The beginnings of the desert grounds are supposed to be quicksand, so step away from those… Basically just lay this down and activate it with blood, that's all the chakra you will need. The largest seals go face down on the sand, longer ones up. We need to split at even degrees to form a pentagram.'
He thought of explaining what the seals said to the people, but Wren wouldn't have liked it, and besides, these people were ANBU. They probably were used to it.
'Questions?'
The blank masks of animals had only moved to the sides.
'All right, I'll go first.' said Wren, looking at the whole group 'I know the location and the specific points. Lark and Thorny Devil take points and pinpoint the exact parameters of the circle. Roadrunner…'
He gave took out the scroll from his pocket and gave it to the tall man.
'…you draw the thing. After that we will move the seals into right directions, and that's the job of Hokage-sama. In ten seconds we scatter. Anything else we should know before that?'
The last question was tossed at Minato. The blond started to shake his head, then thought about it better.
'I don't know how sudden this is going to be when it happens, but the ground mass is going to be forced to go back as nicely as possible. That shouldn't destroy too much because I specified against it, but to power such a command the seal facing skyward is going to siphon the chakra used to power the storm. That means all that power is going to be cut off suddenly. So, you know - try not to get buried by it. It'll be the worst where we are. Actually - just give me your hands.'
Anyone who wanted to survive would already be somewhere sheltered, so the only ones one would have to worry about were the shinobi outside themselves. They should be able to work on that themselves, but the biggest mass would be directly over them. The ANBU looked at him, then the Thorny Devil simply caught him under his arm.
'See you on place.' she said to Roadrunner, who, for some reason didn't join the circle, and they disappeared. The moment the appeared on the surface of the world again it was hot, windy, dirty, full of sand and air pressure from all possible sides, tossing loose things at will without much logic.
'Move!' roared Wren, though in the middle of the sandstorm it could be barely hearable. A moment later, he jumped forward, heading toward the known direction, leading the way.
'Wait, no!'
Minato didn't catch them all. He got the female ANBU, easy because she was closest to him, and he caught Lark as well, but Roadrunner ran off too fast for him to do anything, and when he was about to plant the seal on Wren the wind nearly knocked him off before he found his feet. And when he found them, he was already gone. Gods.
Minato swore under his breath (Kushina would have been especially proud) and followed, trying to find a compass when the world seemed to be composed of a pepper shaker. At least that's what the sand felt like on his skin, and he wouldn't be surprised if he was rubbed raw in the process. No wonder some Sunanin had ridiculously smooth skin, how was this for exfoliation?
They still had a few more minutes, and while he was sure he was in the right direction, he wasn't exactly sure where he was supposed to go. He was supposed to find the stop between the Village's outer barrier and building twenty-three, and he had found the barrier. But where the hell was building twenty-three?
Fucking unimaginative Suna architects and their stupid round houses all the same color and looking the same and with their identification numbers half ripped-
Oh, building twenty five! He would have been much happier to have finally found his sense of direction if it hadn't been because just as he spotted what had to be the 23rd building, the one he had just passed hadn't groaned like some sleepy giant and started veering to the right. The whole area was starting to sink.
'Oh, fuck me.'
He ran.
Very soon he was caught up with the other pair of legs, holding up Roadrunner. The man seemed to be not moved at the least by the fact he had to ran through half of the village in less than a few seconds and he also held in hands now a bucket with very oily ink.
'Where are we going?' he screamed through the wind, his figure blanking and melting with the background with the sand waves 'I can't see the others.'
'I can't see half a meter in front of me.' Minato answered not really caring if the man heard such a useless comment or not. 'Building twenty three!' he shouted over the sandstorm, pointing at the building in question. 'Well have to hurry before all of this sinks! '
'Sure!' said Roadrunner and simply vanished from before his eyes, jogging even faster through the wind. Something had flashed in the cloud as one of the ninjas put the sign on the ground and stepped away.
'Roger, the place pinpointed!' said Thorny Devil, appearing in a moment in front of him and then, disappearing 'We're starting to draw! Please, look out for Roadrunner!'
A moment later something had flashed, spilling paint everywhere. The string of it was so thin one would think it was painted with the smallest brush for details – and yet, it didn't break.
Minato should have marked when he had the chance, not that he had had much of one. If he had, he wouldn't have had a problem finding it in this mess of a storm that threatened to choke him with its killer intent. He tried to tell himself the sand didn't really look as dark as he imagined it to be or that he didn't smell a faint metallic tinge to it. By now he might as well be imagining this, but the fact the sand was actively trying to murder him didn't really help, and with such creatures, who knew? Fire wasn't supposed to be alive either and yet (and yet)…
He stopped.
The world was sand and sand was everywhere, so he closed his eyes and covered his ears against it
(How many minutes?)
And breathed.
He could feel it down, down below, and he wondered if it was awake or merely dreaming, if it could feel him the way he could- big and dark and as reasonable as a venus flytrap, all teeth and hunger that couldn't be satisfied with a sacrifice or a million of them. Why would someone willingly put a demon inside of them, offer one's soul to be broken and devoured, and to save… what? To accomplish what?
I'm not mad
(You can't break me)
I don't want to dance
(You can't make me)
I will not eat
(I will starve you if that's what it takes)
my existence is my cause
(I live for something and I'm stronger than you)
He opened his eyes and the world was red, and the sky was red and so was the sun. A world that might as well be made of flame- and this was the world he lived in now.
When he tried to take a step he nearly fell down because in the few seconds he had wasted looking around sand had almost covered him up to his knees, and he had to shake it off himself without using chakra because he didn't dare- not so close to the body. It was hell to navigate with virtually nothing to guide himself, but he could feel the way the wind was affected on his right side so that meant the outer walls of the village couldn't be that far away, and after a few moments he was able to find his marking.
He'd read once a story about the earth being nothing more than an egg for some sort of creature that couldn't even be imagined. He thought of the one burrowed under the city-
Did it think, did it feel, did it dream in its little nest of quartz and silica and stone…?
'Wake up, fake monk…' he said against lips that cracked and bled from the element's abuse.'You are forbidden from taking a step further.'
The first grain of sand fell against the ink that started glowing an eerily silver the moment his blood fell on it.
Please work.
For a moment nothing seemed to change – only the howl of the wind was just as loud and as mocking as ever, along with grains beating at the walls and grounds. And then – the shake. A literal shake, like if they were in a big blender that was obscurely pushed up and down while mixing everyone to the sides. The floor rose a bit up, in a big wheeze the tired earth seemed to make, and then, at one snap of second all sand in the air literally fell on the ground, revealing the empty districts, the flaring points of ninja around the air pumping their chakra and the bright barrier all around the sky. The sound stopped also, making the desert's silence sound almost like a punch to the ears. Wren, who was only a few steps away actually caught himself by the ears and almost fell on the ground. Everything's stopped.
'Did it work?' asked Lark, standing at one point behind the wall. Thorny Devil climbed up, looking around the town. It seemed to be eerie.
'The sandstorm suddenly have stopped!' she shouted to the others.
'How unusual…' murmured Lark. A moment later Roadrunner jogged nearby.
'It seems so easy now it's done.' he said, rubbing behind his ear. The sand fell on the ground in lifeless forms. 'I was expecting more explosions or problems, or-'
Crack.
The ground made a sound. Then, two big black eyes opened on the ground, completely unaffected by the fact one building was standing on it's pupil or the fact that they were people above it. They blinked and then moved sideways, locating all the ninjas.
'You had to jinx it, hadn't you.' muttered Lark in annoyed tone as the eye looked at him. But so far nothing has happened. If anything, the Shukaku seemed to be surprised that it saw them – and just curiously looked at them, eyeing them like interesting bugs.
After a few seconds, they closed. Silence.
They looked at each other in silence, warily. It was almost too good, like if it went according to the plan, like if it went too well, like if they… forgot about something…
'…the ground is empty…' muttered Wren suddenly, making the others look at him. 'Who evacuated citizens from this district?'
'There was an evacuation?'
Two seconds after that the ground cracked again. And the whole northern east district of the town started sinking, with rather loud crash of buildings.
Minato stared back at the eyes, at the building that so softly were falling down. Some sunk at what seemed to be the speed of an hour glass emptying itself, others leaned to their sides, knocked on other buildings with deafening clashes of stone and debris and actually very little crystal. They stayed that way as if trying to see who had the biggest push before slowly leering in that direction.
Now that the sky had stopped from falling people were coming out of them too, or at least they were making good tries. Their best bet was getting to the upper floor and hope their building wouldn't collapse in too brisk an angle.
The problem was the instability of the floor. And how it had literally turned to quicksand.
I can't do this again.
After what had happened he had woken up to a baby without a mother, a village that was falling to pieces and more casualties that could be counted, and he hadn't had any other options than push everything until he actually had time to deal with it. At least this time it wasn't his responsibility.
'Orders?' he asked on the intercom, brushing what felt like a kilo of sand from the neck of his shirt and moving towards the sinking mess. He already knew what they would be.
'What orders?' scrunched the intercom with a nervous shout, then closed with a loud crack. The four ninjas around him immediately moved to the closest buildings, trying to at least take out the villagers who needed them, but was a droplet in the sea of needs. The barrier didn't break and besides that, no visible ninja who was the part of the barrier – obviously not needed now – moved from it. The intercom crashed again.
'What's going on here?' someone shouted from it. Then it made a loud crack and then the known voice of the Kazekage screamed through it 'What the hell is happening? Someone, report! Who is this? Someone, check out the northern district, what's with this dust-'
The intercom cracked with someone literally screaming through it something that was sounding like a mix between 'oh my god' and 'holly hell' and then it cracked back to the Kazekage's voice '-to the sandstorm? What's the cause? Is anyone listening to me here?'
The group of jounins suddenly showed up from the west and they stopped dead in the middle of the step, literally standing and gaping, like deers waiting for the truck to drive over them.
'I can't do this!' shouted Lark, letting go of the woman with two kids near the Minato, all of them crying from fear – and then, vanishing again. Another group of ninjas showed up from the southern side, this time not stopping, but immediately moving to the sinking buildings. But then, the black eye opened on the ground again, making both new groups freeze, and literally start screaming out of fear. In one short word: chaos.
Did the world hate him? Did the universe have some sort of strange compelling *hatred* for his person or something? Had he accidentally insulted some Mayor Deity or something?
'Namikaze Minato here.' he said as calmly as he could while he grabbed the hysterical smallest kid, put it in the hysterical woman's arms and reached for the bigger hysterical child. 'I don't have time to explain, but ignore the thing on the floor. It's not going to move now, it's not going to attack, it's just going to stay there and stare because it's sealed, so feel free to come help because this place is sinking and there's like a billion people in these buildings. Can you use the barrier to stabilize the sand? That would really be great. Out.'
Taking the woman by the arm, he teleported the three of them to the first place he could think of, which was the tallest floor of the ANBU office. The place was a mess and the furniture was mostly toppled over, but it was stable, so he told her to stay there and moved down, looking in his pockets- he didn't have that many. Twenty at best.
He ran the two levels down, in search for the handful of ANBU he had seen before.
'But what the hell is this?' shouted some jounin from far away, while most of them just stood still, starring at the big eye that starred back. The ones who got the worst panic attacks through barely breathed while the other screamed for and after them.
'Barrier is to protect the village from the sandstorm!' cracked through the intercom with a voice of Kazekage, who seemed to be on the higher level of anger already 'Who is this? State your name and the status of the current situation!'
Because really, no one else seemed to even try to enlighten him on what was going on, as half of them was still doing the barrier, the rest was just scared, confused or trying to act – which left him cut out from the information. It was obvious he was desperate to get any ounce of information.
'What is sinking? Where? Is something bad happening at the northern district? Why is the sandstorm gone? Can anyone tell me anything?'
'We don't know, the sandstorm seems to be ceased.'
'From my point it looks like genjutsu-'
'Send help!'
'It's completely calm, besides what seems the fire at the northern area-'
'It's not fire! HELP-'
'I want to talk to the leader of the situation!'
The ANBus that were on his way seemed to be just as confused, half of them trying to talk through communicators as others just starred through the windows. It seemed that the main intelligence of communication had failed. Cursing foully under his breath (Kushina would have been elated) Minato turned the intercom on again.
'YES. EX-HOKAGE HERE.' he grit as calmly as he could, which wasn't much by now. 'Storm is OVER. Northern district is SINKING and there's a giant FACE looking out of it. But don't worry, the face WON'T. MOVE. Now do something so the sand stops because SOPPING THE SANDSTORM caused everything to sink. OVER.'
He glared at the ANBU gaping at him like if he'd grown half a dozen new heads all speaking funny new languages.
'What are you looking at? Grab these.' he said, throwing a handful of marked kunai to the group. 'I can take about ten people at the same time, so leave these in the buildings where there's too many people for you to get out easily, wounded, elderly, you know the drill.'
He changed frequencies trying to find the erring soldier who had gotten away.
'Lark? I need you to find some place where the civilians can be taken for the time being, see if you can get some medinins.'
Lark looked at him with a posture being one big sign of shame – tense shoulders, lowered head, even curled toes at feet – if it was even more possible for him to burn from shame, he probably would.
'Y-yes, Hokage-sama.' he muttered and looked at the quiet group of ANBUs. There his silence seemed to break. 'Haven't you heard him? There are people dying out there! Move it, move it, move it!' And with that, half of ANBU had practically vanished right into the thin air. The other one stood still, looking at the kunais with lack of trust.
'What is this?' asked one. The intercom had finally seemed get back to life.
'What do you mean sandstorm is over? Why are you even there? Why is the district skinning- oh, to hell with this! Let me go! Let me go-'
'But Kazekage-sama-'
There had been some sound of a fight going on on the radio as another group of ANBUs just vanished, holding the kunais. The rest still seemed to be indecisive. A pair of ANBUs suddenly showed up, holding a wounded elder and a man without consciousness.
'I don't know where are we supposed to take him, so I leave them here.' he said and he vanished again.
'Idiot!' screamed someone who looked very similar to wearing the mask of ostrich, and then, another dozen of ANBUs vanished. It seemed the sight of the wounded people had finally worked as the pushing factor. Then, something made a crack – crack very similar to the wood breaking – and the whole barrier just fell into tiny pieces, letting the wind circulationin, along with the massive sun rays. Ninjas holding the barriers had immediately vanished from the standing points, but the first flash was blinding enough for everyone to stop at the moment. A moment later the Kazekage showed up in the room, looking like if he desperately wanted to get the job of the Reaper.
He looked at the blond, then at the people, and in half of a second his eyes went from nasty yellow to hideous pink, along with the skin color.
'WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE? MOVE OUT!' he screamed at them, making them all vanish. Then he looked at the blond. 'Five seconds for explanation why Gaara is dead.'
The old man coughed, and fell on the floor into the fearsome bow. Daichi didn't even toss him a glance.
Minato was never more glad he had an actual excuse to run away than now, because the redhead looked a little scary and the sudden increase of temperature made him want to sit and maybe not think for a year or two. So he just shrugged carelessly.
'He isn't, I found a way to stop your little pet, I don't know if it's going to work again and really, we can discuss this later over tea and pastries if you want, but right now I'm the person who can get the biggest number of civilians out, so, do you really want to waste time in sociality's right now?'
'This is not an explanation, but five seconds are over and I don't want to lose life.' said the Kazekage as he made the seal. The room's walls suddenly dropped like cards, changing into the sand and increasing the space widely 'I'm going to make the shortcut of medics here, bring at least one hundredth of people here. The others are the hospital and the big place in the centre of the town. Move out.'
'Lady and two kids in the room upstairs, didn't seem hurt, but I didn't quite check,' Minato said as answer, poofing out without even saluting. He didn't actually plan for it, but when he remembered about it – about a million and one hours later - he didn't really regret it.
