Ch. 37
Naruto flew into Konoha at such a high speed that it looked like a yellow flash of lightning had just stretched across the sky. He blew by the Hokage Monument and made a beeline for his house. As he arrived, he saw the dumpster Hikan was speaking of and threw it to the side. He looked down and the bomb was right there like Hikan had said.
Sasuke had been in Naruto's apartment when he sensed Naruto approaching the village. It took him by surprise since Naruto shouldn't be back so early. Something must be wrong...
He stepped outside and jumped down to Naruto. He wore a semi-confused expression as he examined him. He looked like he had just run a marathon and he was squatting down in front of some type of gray device. Sasuke wore a confused expression and asked, "What's going on?..."
Naruto wore a grave expression then lifted the cover off of the bomb and said, "This…"
As Sasuke looked down to the bomb, his eyes widened in shock. Naruto examined the bomb and saw that it was on a timer like Hikan had said. It was counting down and currently read 07:40 (7 minutes 40 seconds left). Sasuke regained his composure, then said, "I assume your meeting didn't go well…"
Naruto slowly nodded and said in a low voice, "You have no idea…"
He let out a small sigh and said, "There's another bomb at the Stone's ANBU HQ. He told me how to disarm it, but if I disarm one bomb, the other one goes off..."
After Sasuke heard that, he started looking at the bomb pensively. This was turning into a real problem. If they only had to deal with their bomb, things would be a lot simpler, but Hikan was making sure there were no easy solutions.
As Sasuke stood there trying to think of how to solve the problem, Naruto continued to examine the bomb. As he looked all around the bomb, he noticed that there was a small screen to the right of the timer. He had been so focused on the bomb and the timer that he didn't notice it before. As he tried to figure out what it was showing, Sasuke said, "It's showing live footage of the ANBU HQ in the Stone..."
As Naruto looked closer, he noticed that Sasuke was right. He let out a loud sigh and said in a low voice, "He wants us to see when the other bomb go off..."
As the two stood there in silence, Sasuke saw something move out of the corner of his eye. He turned to see that it was none other than Hikan who was standing a little distance away. He smiled and gave Sasuke a small wave. Sasuke's eyes widened in shock then he said, "What the hell?..."
Naruto noticed Sasuke was looking in Hikan's direction and said, "You can sense him too?…"
Sasuke turned to Naruto and said, "No...but I can see him. I have a Rinnegan, remember..."
Naruto had almost forgotten about the unique abilities of Sasuke's Rinnegan. He nodded then looked in Hikan's direction and said, "I can sense him, but I can't see him. He's been following me since I left the Rain. He doesn't want me to try to disarm both bombs so he's making sure I don't try anything. Just leave him alone. He's threatened to detonate them both if we try anything…"
Sasuke thought about it for a moment, then wore an annoyed expression. It was beyond annoying to see Hikan standing there with his smug smile, so he decided to just focus on trying to stop the bombs.
As Kakashi, Sakura and Tsunade arrived, they looked at Naruto with noticeable concern. The three had been talking when they sensed his return. With how fast he flew in, it was obvious that something was wrong. As they examined him, they noticed that he was sweating bullets. He rarely broke a sweat doing anything so something extreme had to have happened for him to have pushed himself so hard. Naruto turned and looked at them with an expression that showed the situation was dire. Kakashi let out a small sigh and said, "What are we dealing with?..."
Naruto looked down to the bomb and said, "This..." The timer now read 05:12.
Naruto looked at it with a blank stare and said, "I already know how to disarm it. We just have to disconnect the red wire. Problem is there's another one at the ANBU HQ in the Stone. Disarming one bomb, sets off the other one... I've got no idea what to do..."
Kakashi and Tsunade cast each other glances that showed they didn't know what to do either. They didn't want to just save Konoha at the expense of another village's people.
After a few moments of silence, Sasuke noted that they weren't getting anywhere. He acted like he was looking at the bomb so that he could turn his back to Hikan. He slowly looked at everyone else as he activated his Sharingan.
The five suddenly found themselves in a genjutsu. They were all standing in an open red field that seemed to stretch on forever.
As everyone grew aware of their surroundings, Sasuke said, "Listen up. You guys may not know this, but Hikan's astral form is out there right now and he's watching us."
As Tsunade and Sakura's eyes widened in shock, Kakashi said, "What?!"
Sasuke said, "I can see him and Naruto can sense him. He's basically here to make sure we don't try to stop both of the bombs. That's why I brought us here. So that we could have some privacy..."
After a moment of silence, Kakashi spoke up and said, "I don't even see how we could stop both of the bombs. If one's in the Stone. We can't get there within 5 minutes…unless someone has a very good idea of how we'd do that…" He was thinking of Sasuke's space-time dojutsu, but he wasn't sure if Sasuke would even know how to get to the Stone. He looked at Sasuke and said in a curious voice, "Sasuke?..."
Sasuke remained silent for a few seconds then finally said, "I think I remember the dimension I left the Stone through... I can try to use my space-time dojutsu to get there and get the bomb out of the village. I'd just have to do it before Hikan could get back to his body and detonate the bombs…"
Kakashi asked, "How long do you think it would take to do that?"
Sasuke looked down pensively and said, "I'm not sure. It depends on where my portal opens from. It shouldn't take too long though. We know the bomb is somewhere behind one of the ANBU HQ dumpsters, so I'd just have to find it and get it out of the village."
Sakura asked, "But how would Naruto know when you had gotten the bomb out of the village? If he disarms his bomb early, he could blow up the Stone bomb before you even found it…"
Naruto thought about it for a second, then said, "I don't need to disarm the bomb..." He looked at everyone and said, "I'll just get it away from Konoha as soon as Sasuke opens his portal. We'll just let them explode..."
He turned to Sasuke and said, "I'll have my bomb far away from Konoha as soon as you open that portal, but you'll have to move quick, because as soon as that portal opens, Hikan will know we're planning something. And when he realizes that, he will try to detonate those bombs…"
Sasuke looked down pensively and said, "So I'll essentially be racing Hikan as soon as I open that portal..." Naruto nodded and said, "Yeah..."
Kakashi and Tsunade looked at each other as they thought about it.
Sasuke looked at them and said, "It's our best shot at stopping both bombs."
Tsunade gave Kakashi one last glance, then sighed and said, "Then let's take it." She turned to Naruto and said, "You should also try to distract Hikan before you go. That might buy Sasuke some time, even if it's only a few seconds."
Naruto nodded and said, "If he's anything like Madara's limbo clones, I should be able to damage him with Six Paths Senjutsu. I'll wait a bit for everyone to get ready then I'll attack him." He turned to Sasuke and said in a grave voice, "Sasuke, as soon as I move to attack him you need to open that portal."
Sasuke nodded and said, "Let's do this..."
As the five returned to the real world, Sasuke looked around and noticed that Hikan was nowhere to be found. He gave the area a suspicious look over, then said in an unsure voice, "Where is he?..."
Naruto looked around semi-frantically and said, "I can't sense him anywhere..."
Hikan's eyes opened as his astral form returned to his body. He lifted his head then turned to Tashisu and said, "Let me sit there." Tashisu nodded then got up and switched seats. As Hikan sat down he muttered to himself, "Time to raise the stakes..."
As Hikan started typing away, Tashisu said, "What are you doing?"
Hikan kept working as he replied. "In high pressure situations, people are usually throwing out ideas to try to solve the problem. While I was over there, they all suddenly stopped talking...and not for a little while. And if they weren't talking in the real world, they were talking somewhere else... I'm very familiar with the Sharingan's abilities and I'm pretty sure they're having a little private meeting..."
Tashisu paused for a second, then raised an eyebrow and said, "How perceptive of you..."
Hikan kept his voice low, and said, "Thanks..."
Tashisu inquisitively asked, "So what are you going to do now?"
Hikan cracked his neck and said, "Well I told Naruto if they tried anything they'd regret it…" He smirked and continued in a whisper. "I'm a man of my word…so I'm gonna throw some dirt in their eye…"
As Naruto tried to sense where Hikan was, he said, "I'm getting a bad feeling about this…" As soon as he said that, the bomb made a long beeping sound. As everyone quickly directed their attention to it, the timer started flickering.
02:21 (2 minutes, 21 seconds)
02:20
02:19
02:19
02:19
As looks of confusion crossed everyone's faces, the timer went black, then words started appearing on it one by one.
I
said
no
cheating…
The screen went black again. As everyone watched in anticipation, the timer came back on, then the countdown continued.
00:15 (15 seconds)
00:14
Naruto put both of his hands on his head as he looked at the timer in stunned silence. As everyone watched the timer count down, Sasuke said, "He knew something was up... We're out of time..."
As Naruto sat there frozen, he said, "There's nothing we can do…"
00:07
00:06
Narut's face filled with dread as the timer kept counting lower. He had no idea what to do. Could he really pull that wire knowing what it would do to the Stone? As he sat there frozen, Kakashi knocked him out of the way and quickly yanked out the red wire. Naruto cast a stunned look to Kakashi, then turned to look at the bomb. As everyone waited to see what would happen, the timer started blinking then stopped at 2 seconds before shutting off.
Naruto had already started getting ready to make a chakra cloak just in case the bomb went off anyway. He slowly went back to normal as he realized the bomb had shut off. He put his arms down and let out a small sigh of relief as he looked back at everyone who was there.
BOOM! BOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM!
Naruto quickly looked at the bomb and saw that the sound had come from the small screen that was showing live footage of the Stone's ANBU HQ. He looked and saw that the headquarters was being torn apart by a cascade of explosions. The five watched on in horror as the ANBU HQ was completely blown apart along with some of the surrounding buildings.
As Naruto watched the fleeing civilians and cascading explosions, he felt that same sense of powerlessness he'd felt when he came back to Konoha and found the crater of destruction. There was nothing he could do. He had all of his power, but he had to just sit there and watch the explosions with everyone else.
After a few more seconds, the explosions finally stopped. The five stood there in complete silence. Every one of them understood that although their village hadn't been affected, they'd lost...again...
Naruto looked at the screen in a fit of rage, then punched it so hard that the screen broke.
Sasuke said in a monotone voice, "That's still a bomb..."
After a few more moments of silence, Naruto looked at the bomb for a few seconds, then slowly rose to his feet. His head hung low as he thought about what had just happened. The Stone wasn't even a part of this. They were just a random casualty of Hikan's crusade. Naruto could do nothing but stand there in silence.
After standing there for a few moments, he turned around and started walking away.
Sasuke continued to stare at the screen in silence while Sakura watched as Naruto left. She wished she could do something for him, but she knew she couldn't, so she just had to watch as he walked away.
As Tsunade watched him slowly walk away, she said to Kakashi, "He's gonna blame himself for this..."
Kakashi looked at her and said, "Maybe...but that's why I pulled the wire." He looked over to Naruto's retreating figure and said, "He may blame himself for this, but I'd rather he blame himself than not be able to live with himself... And if he had to make that judgement call, I don't know if he would have been able to live with himself..."
Tsunade thought about it for a moment then said, "Yeah, you're right...but he's still gonna take this hard..."
Kakashi replied, "Yeah...He just needs some time to think... We all do..."
After a short pause, Tsunade nodded and said in a solemn voice, "The day extracts a heavy toll..."
She looked at the cracked screen showing the Stone's ANBU HQ, then said, "Get ready to send a team to the Stone. Have Sasuke take a group of medic nin there. They're going to be left reeling after this, just like we were..." Kakashi nodded as he walked over to Sasuke and Sakura to tell them to get prepped to leave.
Author's Note
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