So it turns out people around here had never seen anyone eat a legendary immortal chakra monster before. When I arrived back in Whirlpool I was immediately whisked off to the healers before I could even ask what was going on. They kept telling me I had paperwork to do, but I knew a diagnostic technique when I saw it! Well...saw it with [Mystical Energy (Sense)], anyway. I still couldn't see with my eyes, though the blindness condition was lessening with every healing and dispelling technique I used on it. When my sight returned I was sitting in a comfortable chair in a hospital room with Ukyo laid out on a bed in the middle. Someone had gutted my daughter, and only the continuous work of the healers, Ember, and Konatsu was keeping her alive. That would not do.
I gathered [Holy] in my hand, using half of my maximum mana, and laid a blinding white light on her wound. It was gone before my hand made contact, her stomach whole and unmarked. I could sense the shockwave of excess [Holy] energy rolling over the entire demi-plane, bouncing off the borders and coming back in a slowly-fading cycle. How long had it been since I did the math on how much I scaled things up with all of my casting efficiency bonuses? I thought back to my character sheet and started to get the feeling I'd used a little too much. My fingerless gloves had started out reducing casting costs by half and doubling additional mana spent to upscale an effect, but after continuous upgrades were now making the initial costs of spells free and reducing the scaling cost by 99.99%. My Lightbringer title did the same for [Holy] magic, and so did Morning Star. [Mystical Energy (Mastery)] did the same thing again, and so did the perks I'd gained for having a ridiculously high intelligence score.
I'd just spent over 5000 mana on a healing spell and its effect had been multiplied out to… oh, that was a lot of zeroes. I'm pretty sure I could have healed everyone on the planet from the brink of death several times with that one spell. Ukyo's skin was glowing a little, and her soul suddenly looked a lot like a cross between mine and Sung-Ah's with all the [Holy] energy running through it. The effect was the same for everyone else in the room, and a brief scan with [Panoramic Survey] showed the same everywhere else in Bastion, too. Washu's laughter, which had started when I cast the initial spell, escalated to hysterical giggles.
'What exactly did I just do?' I sent to my benefactor as I started using [Observe/Divine] and my Builder scan ability on everyone in sight. Washu's continued laughter and the gape-jawed stares of those around me continued as information poured in. Every single person I saw now had a permanent blessing attached to them allowing for extra damage to demons and undead, extreme regenerative abilities, immunity to disease, mind control, necromancy, and poison, and was marked as guaranteed entrance to Elysium as a form of afterlife unless I revoked it or they chose to go elsewhere. They all had a link back to me and with only a prayer to call on it could use [Holy] channelled from either me or one of my places of power.
'Heeheehee… oh my… heehee,' Washu's voice echoed. 'I'm sure you can figure out what you've done by yourself, but I'll give you some highlights: nobody can ever enter Bastion again that you wouldn't grant entrance to yourself, no matter where you are or how little attention you're paying them. It's a part of you now, and will be accessible even after you leave the Jump. Nobody inside is going to age past where they want to, either. There's a lot more, but if you want to know you'll have to take the time to look.'
Even as I watched, the elderly were all getting younger and everyone was getting prettier. The non-sentient life around was changing, too. All the plants and animals I could see were getting healthier and changing in ways that promoted healing and slowed or stopped aging for the things around them. Even the bugs were useful in healing potions and similar items now. It didn't matter. My daughter was safe, my family was safe, and those under my protection would not be harmed. Ukyo blinked up at me, then smiled widely before grabbing me in a hug. Ember and Konatsu joined her, and that was fine. It was less fine when everyone in the room started in on the group hug. I was getting uncomfortable.
"Dad," my little girl said. "Thanks. And I love you, too."
What? I hadn't said anything. Not even with telepathy. Of course I loved my family, but why would she say it like that? Ukyo, Ember, and Konatsu all hugged me a little harder as that went through my head. Oh, hell. Everyone in the room was getting teary-eyed now. Somehow even my idle nice thoughts were broadcasting good mojo through the entirety of Bastion. I clamped down hard with Gamer's Mind to limit any extra emotional output, and Ukyo pulled away but gave me a knowing smile. Konatsu and Ember exchanged a look with her and did the same. At least the healers weren't trying to hug us anymore. They'd gone elsewhere. Wait...Bastion was a part of me now? That meant that my entire aura was...fuck. I needed a new way to apply [Mystical Energy (Concealment)], now.
-
I had to get away from that madness. Learning the incredible secrets and lost techniques of the greatest masters of the Uzumaki clan, who were renowned for their knowledge and use of sealing, was amazing... but everyone just kept looking at me! I was not a social person, and it was driving me insane! It felt like ants were crawling on my skin wherever I went, and the little murmurs I'd heard in the back of my head since Sung-Ah asked to be part of my religion in the Gamer universe were now full-on prayers that I could hear if I actively listened. My divine power pulsed and grew within me every second of every day, sometimes even pulsing out in response to the prayers regardless of whether or not I listened to them. People were painting and sculpting copies of my family crest everywhere! Konatsu was now determined to become my first angel, and everyone treated Ember and Ukyo as either high priestesses or goddesses. I fled Bastion, leaving only a single [Multi-Focus] thread behind to take the fall (and learn stuff, like seals and how to keep my emotions from leaking everywhere). That poor bastard.
With Washu's teasing laughter echoing through my mind, I decided to go with something that looked a little like my original plan. If you squinted and tilted your head when you looked at it. Getting rid of the tailed beasts and the evil statue thing would keep the insane omnicidal goddess-thing from coming back, and after that I just needed to keep a few power players from screwing things up. My first stop was initially going to be Konoha, but the tattered link I now shared with the tailed beasts indicated one of them was out and about. I snapped off an invisibility spell and started line-of-sight teleporting north in haste, hoping to catch it before it was sealed again.
What I found was a huge tentacled thing that looked straight at me in horror. There were lots of people around it with chains and stuff and a guy with a big pot off to one side, but none of them seemed to be able to see me through the invisibility. I shrugged, and the guy with the jar started doing hand-seals. That was how they cast spells in this universe, and the pot had seals on it. That could have been really inconvenient or really helpful, so I crushed the pot with telekinesis just in case before turning my attention back to the beasty. It was a little more stable than the slug, with the divine energy more evenly distributed and in a more intricate pattern. That didn't make the hastily-applied divine patchwork any more difficult to rip away. The Devourer title undoubtedly helped with that.
The horrible tentacled thing's pseudo-body started to bubble and hiss as it destabilized, and I dropped down in front of the guy who'd been trying to seal away the creature that really needed to be permanently sent on. With a thought and about ten percent of my mana I exorcised its soul into the afterlife, then pulled. The big guy behind me hadn't noticed my arrival, but he couldn't possibly miss all that energy spiralling in toward him as the tailed beast bubbled away. He fell over backwards and crab-walked away. I suppose from his perspective it looking like the sealing had gone horribly wrong somehow and the energy was going into the empty space where the pot had been, which would undoubtedly be a head-scratcher for years.
I got a message notifying me my tailed beast alternate form had been upgraded. Lovely. The link I'd acquired with the others was a little stronger now, but still not enough to really help in tracking them down while they were sealed. I suspected I'd need their souls for that, and I wasn't going to start eating those if I could help it. Another teleport and a flight spell coupled with the weightlessness I'd picked up but failed to fully understand in Pokémon had me in the air and tracing the peninsula back toward Fire Country, then south toward Wind Country and the Sand village. I remembered that the least powerful tailed beast was sealed in a tea kettle at some point. If I could get to it while it was still sealed I could get rid of it without killing a host.
[Panoramic Survey], a little divination, another invisibility spell, and some telekinesis brought me a remarkably large and equally angry teakettle. I exorcised the soul from the thing while it was still sealed, then ate the rest and put the kettle back before dispelling the invisibility on it. It was kind of bizarre getting experience for eating things but not getting any loot. Even ghosts dropped loot, but not super demon things. Perhaps Washu had something special in mind for all of this?
'I did, actually. I'd planned to send you on a quick run through an already messed up timeline to collect the tailed beasts and the demon statue that used to be the body of the ten-tails as an extra scenario after this Jump. Since you're already doing that I might as well give you the details now,' My benefactor's voice echoed in my head. 'Once you've consumed all the tailed beasts and the statue you have a choice to make: consume all the chakra in the world and gain a massive god-tree alternate form that sucks the life out of the planet it grows on to fuel your own powers, or consume only the divine aspect of the chakra and become a similar god-tree that instead nourishes the planet and everything on it. Your power will still grow in this form, but it'll be only a tiny fraction of what it'd be otherwise.'
[Quest alert: Aspect of Tsunami!]
'Alright,' I sent back. 'Did you really expect me to take the Jenova/Lavos route?' I asked, referencing two other planet-parasites from games I'd played. Her reply was deadly serious.
'You? No. But lots of your alternates have snapped and gone far beyond conventional evil for one reason or another. Even picking you up from the same starting point and controlling for a lot of factors I've had to re-set or completely collapse quite a few timelines. The souls of your alternates that forced my hand like that will be what you absorb as a dragonborn in any setting where dragons would normally die for good when killed. Consider it both prudence and judgement. Death has agreed to these terms.'
I froze in mid-air, pale and shocked. I'd played some evil characters before, and I knew just how creative I could be if I really wanted something or someone to suffer. My imagination was a truly terrifying place if I allowed my thoughts to follow those paths. Healing magic used to enhance and prolong torture was nothing to the things my fictional characters could do if allowed to run around unchecked. To think that I'd be absorbing the souls of versions of me that had actually committed such crimes made me physically ill, despite Washu's continued reassurances that I wouldn't be gaining their karma or history.
I actually had to sit and meditate, invisible and high above the world, for almost an hour before I had my emotions under real control again. Gamer's Mind could have done the job, but I didn't want to rely on it to repress everything. Working through and coming to terms with what was happening seemed healthier in the long run. The occasional thread being pulled for use in Bastion then released helped, since my other selves could talk to the family and they could sort of help me through it. I still didn't like the idea, though. I'd only thought of absorbing souls as the dragonborn in the abstract as a way to get rid of Alduin. I'd been deliberately avoiding judgement and anything that resembled destruction of souls by letting Death do all the work. Unfortunately now that I had my own afterlife set up it was going to fall to me to make some judgement calls. Eventually. Hopefully not for a long while.
-
The Leaf village in the Land of Fire was my next stop. I didn't know whether or not they'd sent reinforcements to Whirlpool like they had in the stories I read, but I had business with the Senju and Uzumaki that remained there nonetheless. As I flew over the village itself I noted the pair of faces carved into a mountain on one side, the monstrous trees, and a general feeling of despair. Touching down unseen at the edge of the forest and dispelling my invisibility, I approached the gates with paperwork in hand. My appearance would match what they had on file for me since we'd had visitors from Leaf to Whirlpool in the year after my initial preparations to verify the change.
Entering the village took very little time but drew a lot of attention. It wasn't every day the leader of an allied village showed up alone after notifying them of an overwhelming invasion force, and they'd seen the flash of light on the horizon even here. I was escorted by masked special forces ninja to see the village leader, Senju Tobirama. He was understandably surprised to see me, given that he'd dispatched forces to aid in repelling the invasion of Whirlpool less than a day ago.
Between the slew of assassinations, my instatement as Whirlpool's leader and the Uzumaki clan head, and the preparations necessary to repel what I knew was coming I'd never actually met the man until now. The letters we'd exchanged provided some evidence that I was who I appeared to be, but I was also forced to demonstrate both the chakra chains of my clan and my mastery of the [Mokuton/Plant Manipulation] technique unique to my Senju heritage to prove my identity beyond doubt. As far as Leaf knew I was the only person in the world that could do both.
An exhaustive exchange of information on how both villages were doing lead to quite a few surprises for both of us. Tobirama was shocked and impressed that we'd managed to escape certain death, and not-so-jokingly asked if he could retire to Whirlpool after his successor was properly instated. I assured him that as long as he followed the rules he'd be as welcome as any other member of our extended family, he just had to keep the continued existence of the village a secret, and would likely find it difficult to accidentally divulge either way. We were out of the game, as it were, and intended to stay that way. When I asked about our other relatives in Leaf the feeling of despair I'd felt earlier was explained.
Everyone seemed to be in mourning over the expected loss of our village, and our family was taking it the hardest. Uzumaki Mito (who was herself a local celebrity) was fading fast, and with her death the nine-tailed beast would need to be transferred to Uzumaki Kushina in order to keep it contained. On hearing this I insisted on being able to see them immediately. Tobirama was a little hesitant after the revelation that Whirlpool wouldn't be coming back any time soon, probably unsure of how that would affect our alliance, but he allowed it since we were family and I'd been honest with him so far.
It was nearly too late when I arrived. The seals to transfer the beast had already been prepared and both Uzumaki were resigned to their fates. Mito had maybe half an hour to live, and the transfer had to be performed before she died. It would also kill her. Being the helpful person that I am, I decided all of that was completely unnecessary and started things off with a cheerful greeting.
"Cousins! How wonderful to see you!" They looked at me in shock, having expected to be the last of their clan about now. I continued regardless. "It looks like I got here in just in time for your retirement, honored Mito! Would you care to retire to a more comfortable setting?" I asked, not letting anyone get a word in edgewise.
The masked ninja that had been following me since I entered the village and the ones protecting Tobirama surged into the room at my unexpected behavior, but they were too late. All the ridiculous speed-augmenting skills I'd picked up had already activated as soon as I started talking, and I teleported the leader of Leaf and the last two Uzumaki there into Bastion in a flicker of light. I even took the medical bed, sealing supplies, and inked patterns on the walls.
When we arrived it was to a custom-conjured room I snapped into place around us to hold the ink, bed, and other stuff. The wards froze Tobirama before he could place a knife at my neck, and I calmly leaned him against a wall with a chakra chain while I spoke to Mito and Kushina, the former looking at her hands in awe and the latter looking at me and the surroundings in shock.
"Now, isn't that better?" I said with a stupid grin on my face as Uzumaki Mito's extra years melted away under the influence of the [Holy] energy infusing Bastion and my will guiding existence within its borders. A thought stopped Tobirama's heart attack in its tracks and he lost a few extra years in the background to help him deal with the stress. He'd still look mostly the same on the outside, though perhaps refreshed as if he'd gotten an excellent night of sleep or some wonderful news. He was old as hell and I could direct the changes taking place to hide his newfound youth to some extent, so hopefully it wouldn't be a problem.
Mito sputtered incoherently, and Kushina raced over to her with wide eyes as she watched her mentor shed years until she looking like she was in her mid-twenties again. I conjured a glass of water and handed it to her casually, and she stared at it incredulously before setting getting out of bed. She looked good in a hospital gown, I had to admit. The water flung in my face was not entirely unexpected, nor was the lightning-fast movement smashing the glass against the wall and directing the pointy bits toward me. When the wards froze Mito and she fell back into the bed, I turned calmly to Kushina.
"Sorry, dear. This will probably take a while and there'll be a lot of arguing. If you'd like to go play or train I can summon someone to accompany you, but we'll need you back when we're done." Her eye twitched, and she slumped back into the chair muttering about how adults were insane and what the hell was going on, anyway? Aah, youth. Much more flexible than those of us with deeply-ingrained habits. I turned back to Mito and Tobirama, then held them in front of me with chakra chains. They could still see and hear, and their eyes were locked on mine now that I'd turned back around and started speaking.
"So, this is how it's going to go: I'm going to release both of you and offer both refreshments and explanations. If either of you do anything that could hurt another sentient being you'll be automatically frozen in place. Were you not in my presence you would also be dumped nude in a jail cell that's immune to and suppresses chakra. I do not wish to harm you and will not detain you any longer than an hour, though you are free to stay or go back to where you came from when we're finished speaking. As the head of the Uzumaki clan and the last leader of Whirlpool I implore you to listen to what I have to say carefully." Kushina jerked behind me, looking upset at the mention I was the last leader Whirlpool would have. When I waved a hand and made one of the walls transparent from this side she looked out on the isles of Whirlpool encased in a crystalline sphere and floating in an endless sky with a gasp.
I took a step back and commanded the wards to release the two before me, then watched as they rushed over to the wall to get a good look themselves. Keeping in mind that this could take a while, I separated the flow of time in Bastion from the flow in the Elemental Nations so we would be back within a few minutes of when we left regardless of how long the following conversations took. It was good that I did, because there were a great deal of very firm words directed at me, most of them about how it was not alright to kidnap people. No it didn't matter that I had somehow saved one or more of their lives in the process, I could still have been polite.
Further conversation covered the pertinent details of how Whirlpool was now Bastion, its people were not in fact gone, and I would be resigning as leader within a year or two to become a merchant and envoy to Leaf if they'd allow it. I'd only acted so rashly in order to save the life of a member of my family, and would anyone like a tour? I didn't mention that I'd have to deal with the staring and adoration some day, and I thought I might shake the awkward around a little. I really needed to get over the whole massively-introverted thing, but it was such a deeply-ingrained part of my personality it would probably take decades even if I worked at it (which was unlikely, and would involve much procrastination).
Kushina finally barged into the conversation at that point asking about her parents, and the other two grudgingly agreed to the tour and a family reunion while they were here. Since the village itself was very different than they remembered the tour was necessary, and I actually had to ask someone where Kushina's parents had gotten to. Half an hour or so later I left my guests with her family to make take scan and dispose of the conjured room I'd left in the middle of nowhere.
When I got back I the Leaf trio treated me like I was insane but ultimately benevolent. Kushina's not nearly as subtle as she thought comment that I didn't look nuts earned her a wide grin from me. I was just glad they weren't bowing and worshipping. Inviting the entire family to witnessing me replacing the nine-tails with something much less volatile probably didn't help minimize my image of insanity or divinity. Both Mito and Kushina left with massive [Mystical Energy (Generator)]s in their now-lifeless seals and I got a shiny ninth tail for my tailed-beast alternate form.
When they left Tobirama was still muttering about how I was a crazy fucker and he was really glad I didn't intend to stay leader long, as he still wanted to retire on the gorgeous beaches of Bastion where everyone was young and pretty and there was no war. That was pretty attractive compared to the rest of the local real estate, I reflected. Mito opted to retire in lieu of her expected death and spend time with the family, since she wouldn't really look the part now even if she went back to Leaf.