Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and any reference to any other thing owned by someone else.
Claimer: The OCs are mine. If any are sue-ish, well…they're still my sues.
Warning: Characters may sometimes be OOC. You have been warned.
Lost
Chapter 3
The sun shone into the room, birds were chirping outside the bedroom window, and one blonde, blue-eyed hooligan's eye's started to flutter open.
Rolling off the bed he did some stretches to further wake himself up, then he walked to the bathroom to wash up, and generally prepare for the rest of the new day.
He showered, and for once in his life with unlimited warm-hot water, for a couple minutes, then he brushed his teeth, then went to the closet to get his gear.
After dressing he left the room, but before leaving the corridor he bolted, locked, chained, in short he sealed his room shut. This was due to there being a rule stating that 'should I find your room unlocked, I will let myself in, and paint the room a shocking pink, this will traumatize you so bad, that when you see the color pink you will assume the foetal position'.
'That dude seriously has some weird rules,' Naruto thought to himself.
Now in his red ensemble, Naruto headed for the mess hall, where he hoped to see other life forms asides from Touken, also hopefully he'd get to talk to Kyonshi about the proposal, that is if the black clad man makes an appearance.
Seventy-two minutes of walking later, he found the mess hall doors, but before opening them, he realized that there was noise coming from the other side.
The noise sounded like talking, chatting, laughing, taunting, etcetera, all jumbled up into noise. It looked like he'd get to see, meet, and talk with the other residents and guests of the fortress.
Upon entering he was greeted with the sight of a host of other beings, ranging from other humans, to Touken in full-on-fox-form eating and chatting with one another. The humans ranged in color, shape, and size as well. He noticed that there were those with darken skin than his own, there were those with even lighter skin. There were those with blue eyes just like him, there were those with red eyes, white eyes, pink eyes, green, every color of the rainbow eyes, and lots more, there were even those with a different color for each eye. Hair color-wise, he's seen his fair share of shades, but to see someone with hair that constantly was changing colors was a real shocker. Body types and builds, they ranged from skeletal to bulgingly muscular. Height wise, well, most of them were taller than him, he hadn't gone through his growth spurt yet.
The other beings ranged from human-like, to animal-like, to animal, and then some. There were angels and demons, there were dwarves and elves, there were a couple of giants in the hall as well as some gnomes, there was a dragon or two, and some other things he could not name. How so many different things could fit into the mess hall he had no idea.
Staring at the congregation of beings he couldn't help but think, 'Thats a lot of people'.
A booming voice startled him from his staring, "Hey! Naruto! Over here!" shouted Touken while waving Naruto over with one of his beautiful nine tails.
Walking over, Naruto asked, "H-how...?"
"You're wondering how everyone can fit in here, yes?" he waited for an answer.
"Yeah."
"Simple!" he dramatically paused, "I have no idea."
Naruto fell face first on the floor, not expecting that answer. He had expected that the Kyuubi being such an ancient being it would know how to do things like fit so many in what, from the outside, looks like a very small space. Its not like he could just ask the guy who owned the fortress, since Kyonshi was no where to be found.
After getting back on his feet he said, "What the hell was the dramatic pause for! I actually thought you knew!"
"Well I don't, deal with it," Touken answered, "I may be ancient, but that doesn't mean I know everything."
"I have another question."
"You want to know why there are so many people today, but only me yesterday."
"Err, yeah."
"They were hiding under illusions."
"Why"
A new voice joined the conversation, "Simple, we wanted to see what kind of person you are."
"What do you mean by that...?"
"Dorotabo, I mean we wanted to see what you were like when in the presence of one who knows you. What you really are like." the new voice answered.
Dorotabo looked like an old man, who wore a battered brown shirt, grey pants, and straw sandals. He looked like a person who spent his days working in a rice field.
"Huh?" was the unintelligent reply of Naruto.
"What the old man means is that, we wanted to know who you are, and I don't mean your name, but who you," a second voice entered the conversation, he pointed at Naruto, "are."
"And you are?" Naruto asked the second new conversation participant.
"I am Hyakume! The monster with a hundred eyes!" he proclaimed. And indeed he had a hundred eyes, two on his face, the rest on a pitch black cloak that he wore to cover himself, underneath the cloack were just shadows.
"Uhm, nice to meet you, I'm Naruto" Naruto extended his hand, which Hyakume grasped and shook.
"Nice to meet you too Naruto."
"Anything else you want to ask?" asked Dorotabo.
"Uhm, why did you guys want to know who I am?"
"Simple, we were just curious as to what you possess that would cause Kyonshi-sama to be more than interested in you," was Hyakume's answer.
"You see, it is very rare that Kyonshi-sama brings someone here."
"Why is that?"
"Well, you see most of us just stumbled upon this place by accident, and Kyonshi-sama just decided to take us in, so to speak. Some of the others were born here," Dorotabo said.
"Oh. So.." but before Naruto could finish his sentence Hyakume interupted.
"Naruto, I think you'd better eat now. All or most of your questions will be answered by Kyonshi-sama eventually."
Naruto followed what his new found friend, and like the day before, he sat down infront of the table and wrote what he wanted to eat on the table, and in a pop his food appeared there in front of him.
'Glorious Ramen!!!' he mentally shouted, and quickly started to dig in.
From the other end of the table Dorotabo and Hyakume watched Naruto devour bowl after bowl of Ramen. Their eyes were open wide, as Naruto finished each bowl with blinding speed, not a noodle or drop wasted. Hyakume's hundred eyes were wide with shock, 'How can one so small eat so much?' he mentally asked himself.
'Thats a lot of bowls,' was what Dorotabo was thinking.
Some of the other occupants of the hall noticed Naruto and his continually growing stacks of bowls.
A toilet with an eye instead of a handle had its lid popped up in disbelief while thinking 'How can he eat that filth..' The toilet monster being a health freak, it knew that ramen is not filled with the nutrients needed by humans to be healthy. It just flushed the water in its bowl shaped mouth several times, before hopping away.
One of the giants just had admiration sparkling in its eyes, while it watched Naruto go nuts eating ramen. The giant admired Naruto, since such a small package could stuff so much food in. The giant just assumed that Naruto had fooled them all, that he was in reality another giant hiding under an illusion, and for a giant to create such an illusion was quite unique and admirable.
A Kanedama, which is a spirit of money thought, 'If I owned a ramen stand, I'd be rich.' He was a portly man who was salivating at the possibilities if only he knew how to cook ramen.
Other thoughts were going through the minds of the numerous other beings present. Some were intrigued by the sight, others disgusted, while others just didn't care.
But there was one being, hiding high in among the shadows created by the rafters lining the ceiling, who wished to act at seeing the unsightly scene of Naruto devouring unhealthy bowl after unhealthy bowl.
"Should he accept my proposal, I will force him to eat something other than that filth, even if it wll kill me, he will learn," he whispered to the air around him.
Back on the ground, Touken, who was just slowly eating his beef stew, just chuckled to himself thinking, 'At least I'm no longer in his gut.'
After finishing off his two hundred eighty seventh bowl of ramen, Naruto decided to stick around and talk to his new friend, pester Touken, and observe the others around him.
Thirty minutes of talking, pestering, and observing later, Naruto left the mess hall heading in the direction of the main gate.
There was a cave that his clones had found the day before. He decided that he would spend his day exploring.
The cave entrance was located an hour's run away from the fortress, its entrance was over thirty feet high and twenty seven feet wide. It was pitch black inside, the sun's light ended at the very entrance, none of the light daring to enter the cave for some reason.
Naruto created two hundred fifty clones, he had them go into the cave fifty at a time, each group was to map out the inside of the cave, and of course alert him of any danger lurking within. If there are giant predators in the jungle surrounding the base of the mountain, what's stopping the same things from living in a cave.
The groups were sent into the cave every twenty seven minutes.
After the fifth group had been sent in, Naruto created fifty more clones to keep him company and to guard him, from any presently unseen dangers in the area around him.
Good thing he did to, for not even a full minute after creating his bodyguards they were attacked. Their attackers resembled minotaurs, except instead of the regular two horns, there were four horns on their heads. There were slightly more than a hundred of them in number.
They made quick work of the clones, vanquishing one clone after another in quick succession, but that doesn't mean that Naruto's side were unable to take down some of the attacking ushi-oni. For every clone that went poof, one of the attackers was defeated. After the last clone had been taken out, Naruto was left alone, in the midst of fifty ushi-oni. The only thing he learned from his clones was that these things were really strong, and slow, but still really strong. Their strength clearly made up for their lack of speed.
The closest of the ox-men to Naruto punched Naruto, and sent him careening towards one of the boulders that litterd the outside of the cave. As Naruto hit, the ox-men collectively laughed at the misfortune of the weak flesh bag, which gave Naruto some time to recover.
Naruto remembered that he was armed and unsheathed his two blades, he held his katana, and his kunai in backwards grips, his kunai in front of him, and katana behind him, he crouched down, and prepared for the ushi-oni that he was sure would come at him en-masse, once they realized that he wasn't down for the count.
Sometime after Naruto had sent out the first group of clones, they had reached quite far into the depths of the cave. After traveling in a single direction for a time, they came upon a chamber with four separate tunnels.
One of the clones decided to take charge of the situation, it randomly picked a tunnel, and with the help of some other clones chiseled a message above the tunnel opening, stating that they went in it. It then divided his fellow clones into groups of five, sending each group into the tunnel every three minutes. Its group being the last ones to enter.
After travelling for some time, all the groups ended up in a large cavern, the walls covered in differently colored crystals, some of the crystals, notably the blue ones were glowing, and were illuminating the cavern. Before doing anything, the clones watiedd for instructions from the clone that made itself their captain.
Thinking quicly, the captain divided his clone unit into two groups. The first would traverse the whole of the cavern, they would take note of any other tunnels leading into the massive cavern. The remaining clones would wait for the recon team to finish their mission, before they bagan their own.
Upon returning from their mission, the recon clones reported that they found no other entrances in the cavern. But they did find the skeletal remains of an army's worth of creatures. Something did not feel right about the cave, the clones started to have a collective feeling of being watched somehow.
The clone captain ordered his men to spread out, but not too far apart from one another that they would not be able to aid one another.
One of the clones noticed some movement on one of the farther walls. A bunch of clones noticed some rocks had fallen from the walls nearest them.
That was when they finally realized that they were not alone in the cavern. They were then sure that there were more than one of these unknown observers, and based on the bones left in another part of the cavern proved anything, these things weren't friendly.
They may be clones, but like their creator they didn't want to die, they were essentially just copies of the original, but at the same time they too existed.
They would stand their ground, and beat whatever these things were, if they failed, there was a possibility that these things would leave the cavern and go after their creator. Just like the original, they wouldn't go down without a fight.
Seconds ticked by as if they were hours. Then as the first clone poofed out of existence, the battle for survival had begun, the clones burst into action bringing forth Rasengan after Rasengan, and slamming them into their attackers. They didn't care to really take a look at their opponents, they just attacked like a force of berserkers.
Their opponents were humanoid creatures, their bodies made out of rocks, but were covered in a crystalline armor, that were not immune to being shattered by spinning spheres of chakra. They attacked the clones with claws made out of diamonds, their eyes were rubies, and as some parted their mouths to take a bite into a clone their teeth shone like sharpened emeralds.
Even though the cavern was overrun by these crystal creatures, the clones were holding their ground, so far only losing five of their number, while more than two hundred had fallen to their Rasengan barrage. The clones circulated their chakra as not to lose any and go poof themselves. Their Rasengans were extensions of their beings.
After the three hundreth crystal creature fell lifeless to the floor, its comrades ceased their advance. They just stood watching, their prey.
The clones noticed what the creatures were doing, some of them started to power down their attacks. But before the first one could shut off its attack, the clone captain motioned for it to stop its action, along with the actions of the other relaxing clones.
The clone captain noticed that something was not right with their situation, the creatures seemed to be waiting for something.
Suddenly there was a rumbling beneath their feet, the crystal creatures started to panic, racing towards their hidden tunnels, the ground started to shake, growing in intensity as the seconds passed.
The clones decided to move closer to one another, half the clones powering down their attacks entirely. While the other half defended against the falling rocks and crystals.
The rumbling and shaking of the earth lasted for a good thirty minutes, miraculously none of the remaining forty four clones perished.
Instead of relaxing the clones were grew more cautious and alert. Something caused the tremors, and something must have scared off those crystal creatures. The clones visually scanned the cavern, searching for any new threats. Seeing none, they still did not relax, they instinctively knew that something was coming, when, or from where they did not know, but they knew something was coming.
It happened in an instant, more than half the clones had ceased to exist, the remaining twenty landed on their asses in different parts of the cavern. Where they were once standing was now a gaping hole in the cavern floor, and beside it a towering monster.
It was half as tall as the cavern it was standing in, it had two sets of arms, and one pair of legs. Its body looked to be made out of some sort of liquid metal which reflected the glow of the blue crystals. Its feet looked to be made out of solid rock, possibly granite. It didn't have hands, but like the previous monsters it had claws, which looked to be made out of iron. Its head looked like two dragon heads that were merged at their base, the thing had two sets of eyes, one set above its snout, and one set below, as it opened its maw its pointed teeth glowed in the same light produced by the blue crystals. It also had a tail, one that looked to slightly longer than the rest of its body, but unlike its body it looked to be made out of bones.
Before any of the clones could do anything the thing spoke.
"So, that fool Kyonshi has finally sent out another group of warriors to try and kill me!" the thing bellowed, "After I kill you all, I will go after that fool! After I kill him I will gain all his powers and rule the world above as well as below!"
"Hey ugly! You ain't killin no one! We'll be the ones doing the killing here! Not some ugly ass hell thing like you!" one of the clones shouted, followed by shouts of agreement from its brothers.
"Insolent fool! You will be the first one to die!" as it said this it swung one of its arms at the spot that the clone was standing.
The clone jumped out of the way just in the nick of time. Then it and its brothers jumped into action.
One of the clones attacked the leg of the monster with a Rasengan, the ball dissipated after a short while, the clone jumped away winded, some of its essense had been absorbed by the monster's skin. The monster paid the clone no mind, it just continued to try and destroy the clone that insulted it.
The clone just kept avoiding swipes, and stomps, which further infuriated the monster.
The other clones tried out the Jutsus they knew, trying to see if one of them would harm the monster.
The remaining clones moved around the monster, they too avoiding the attention of the monster.
After a few minutes of playing ring around the roses, the dodging clone was finally destroyed, it was impaled by a shower of crystal spears that were launched out of the mouth of the monster.
After the successful attack the monster then grabbed some crystal from one of the walls, and ate them. The monster seemingly paused for a few seconds as if regaining its strength.
The clones noticed that after the crystal shower the monster looked like it weakened. It took about two minutes for it to regain its strength, a short time for the monster, but a long time for the clones. So they quickly devised a plan. They would infuriate the monster into using the crystal shower attack on them, as much as possible, then when the monster rested they would attack with the only Jutsu that seemed to put a dent into its hide.
After the plan was formed they readied themselves, the monster had not yet picked a new target. But it did try to attack the nearest clone. The clones took to shouting insults at the monster, as well as taunts like, "That first one was a lucky shot! He was tired you ugly overgrown lizard!" or "Is that the best you can do!" and "If you can't beat us, what makes you think you can beat Kyonshi!"
That last one made the monster go after the clone that shouted it.
Insult after insult, the clones were quickly able to annoy, frustrate, and outright infuriate the monster, that it finally released its attack, but unlike the first time, it not only shot out crystal spears out of its mouth, but also out of its body. The attack was meant to be an area attack that would wipe out the clones, but it only succeeded in eliminating one. The other clones hid behind the crystals lying around the place. That one attack seemed to have greatly weakened the monster, seeing as its liquid metal like exterior looked lke it had hardened. It went about grabbing and gobbling crystals much slower than the first time. It looked to have spent up almost all its energy in that last attack.
Wasting no time, the clones went to work, they bombarded the monsters joints with dragons made of the rocks in the cavern. The monster could hear shouts of "Doton: Doryuudan!" Every now and them it had to stop from its munching to take a swipe at one of the clones.
When there were only two clones left, the monster had cracks running up and down its body. The two clones then decided that since they were the last ones left, they would attack the monster with an Odama Rasengan to the head, so they started to power up the more powerful version of the Rasengan while running up the back of the beast.
The monster paid them no mind, it just slowly consumed crystal after crystal, the cracks starting to disappear from the end of the bony tail, slowly moving upwards. But alas, its rate of regeneration was too slow as compared to the speed at which the two clones were running up its back. As the healing process reached its stomach, the two clones crashed the giant ball of chakra onto the monster's head, effectively shattering its skull, followed by the rest of its body.
Once the mass of rock, crystal, and bone finally came crashing to the ground, the two clones just plopped on their asses, to regain lost energy and rest.
Naruto due to his seventy two ordeal with the cliff, had been able to tweak the Kage Bushin no Jutsu into allowing his clones to regain lost chakra. This could only happen when they rested, also known as kept still, or slept.
So one clone went of to dream land, while the other kept watch. Those crystal creatures could return at any moment now that the monster that scared them off was dead.
At the same time that the events of the crystal cavern were taking place, the second group of clones had also had an adventure of their own.
The second group had taken the tunnel next to the one that the first group took, they too had a self appointed captain. They travelled through the tunnel also in groups of five. But they did not come out into a cavern filled with crystals. The cavern they came out into was one filled with what looked like water, with a few islands spread throughout the cavern. Along the walls a glowing moss was growing, the light it produced was yellow in color, and it was that that lit up the cavern. But the moss wasn't the only thing that was of that color.
Peering into the water some of the clones noticed streaks, lines, and traces, of a yellowish substance on the floor of the underground lake.
Before diving into the water the captain had half of the clones check out the rest of the cavern, there was the possibility that they were not alone in there. The remaining half were to scale the walls and see if there was anything else on them.
The two groups of clones set off to work. Each group doing their assigned tasks. The group scouring the rest of the cavern by hopping from one rock island to another reached the otherside while not encountering anything, once there they just hopped on back to the only entrance they to the cavern they knew of and could find.
The group that were scaling the walls reached the top finding nothing of interest, but on the way down, one of their number found something, or rather something found it.
When the two groups got back together, the captain took a head count, and noticed that one of them was missing. So they just sat around waiting for the missing one to appear. After five minutes of waiting the captain started to feel as if something was not right, so he split every one into pair, him being the one in a three man group, and had them move around the cavern in search for their missing brother.
After the clones returned, the captain took another head count, this time out of the fifty he was expecting, he counted only thirty eight. Worry, fear, and panic started to creep in. The clones were starting to become restless. Everytime they split up more of their number vanished without a trace, even if it was only twice. The captain made up his mind, they would move out as a whole unit. They would first go across the body of water to get to the other side of the cavern. Then from there they would walk up the walls.
But before they could head out, they clones closest to one of the rock islands noticed something standing on it. It appeared to be some sort of fish on two legs. Its scales looked to be made of the same rock that the island that it was standing on was made out of. Its mouth housed row upon row of sharp teeth, and on its head it had two big holes for eyes minus the eyeballs. Its tail was like that of a shark. It had a fin running the length of its back, it had two arms, and two legs, its feet and hands being webbed like a frog. But its underbelly was the only thing that stood out from the rest of its body, it appeared to have the same moss growing there as the moss on the walls. It looked like a half frog-half fish thing. And it was staring right at the group of clones. They could swear it was staring at them hungrily.
Throughout the cavern more and more of the things were starting to make themselves known. They were slowly disengaging themselves from the walls as well as coming out of the ground.
The two groups were watching each other intensively. Each preparing to move at a moment's notice.
A rock from the ceiling fell into the lake, causing ripples to form, and just as the first ripple reached the island where the first creature was on, all hell broke lose.
The fish-men pounced, and the clones dived out of harm's way, some of them clinging to the walls, while others had dived into the water.
The clones on the walls were given priority over the ones in the water, the ones in the water just had to go under to avoid the jumping, pouncing, and grabbing of the fish-men. While the ones on the walls had to run on the walls while avoiding the creatures that would pop up out of the wall itself every now and then, some of the clones were taken out, while some just kept on running, some of them just dived into the water.
The clones noticed that the fish-men were really fast, just as fast as they were even, they also seemed to be avoiding the surface of the lake. One clone thought that maybe they were afriad of water. So testing out his theory it splashed some water in the direction of one of the creatures chasing its brother on the wall.
The creature noticed the water too late, once the water hit its skin it lost its grip on the wall and fell into the water. As its body hit the water, its body started to dissolve rapidly, only leaving the moss on its underbelly intact. The clones theory was correct in a sense, the creatures were afraid of water, but not because it was water, they feared it because the water was acid to them. They weren't just afraid of it, they were deathly afraid of it.
All the clones cannonballed themselves off of the walls and into the water of the lake, effectively killing the creatures on the walls, and some of the ones on the islands, and some of the ones diving above the water taking swipes at the clones in the water.
After the last clone got into the water, clones as one quickly went through a seal set and announced their attack, "Suiton: Suiryuudan no Jutsu!"
Massive water dragons launched themselves out of the surface of the lake, and rammed their heads into the dozens of fish-men in the cavern, effectively dissolving all of them.
After that little battle was won, the clones then swan to the island, and some of the entrance of the cavern. What they didn't realize was that the moss found on the underbellies of the creatures had not dissolved. While the clones were resting, the moss had slowly been converging together, slowly merging with one another. Until one clone poofed out of existence, while the one sitting beside it fell into the water alerting the rest to the new danger.
Towering above the surface of the water was a monster made of glowing moss. Its movements as fast as the creature that it had grown onto, and it was unbelievably strong for something made out of moss, as proven by the fact that where the moss fist hit, the rock island had cracked.
Apparently the moss on the walls and the moss monster were cousins, one just stuck to the walls, the other evolving with the help of its stone-fish-men hosts. The moss monster was a parasite that absorbed the strength of its hosts. The fish-men were a lot faster than the moss monster, but at the same time a lot weaker than them.
Obviously the water didn't hinder the moss monster at all, it moved just as fast in the water as out of it. And its was big enough that even the clones that scaled the walls to and hung on the ceiling were not safe from its reach, as one of the clones learned.
The water dragons were useless. But the clone captain got an idea, the thing was made of moss, it was a plant, and plants burn. So it ordered the remaining clones to blow fire at the mass of moving moss. A collective shout of "Katon: Karyuudan!" Dragons made of searing hot flames permeated the air rushing towards the mass of moving moss igniting parts of the monster.
With its body burning the moss monster submerged its body in the lake, when the flames were all killed it resurfaced. It them pressed itself up against a moss covered wall and absorbed the moss which then replaced the burnt moss.
Seeing that the idea worked to a degree, the clones prepared to let lose another torrent of flames, but their captain stopped them. If they used up all their essence they would die, and it looked like that is what it would take to take down the monster, but what if it wasn't enough. They would not let this monster lose on the rest of the clones that were unprepared to it, their creator would know how to destroy it, but leaving it up to him was something that they would not do. He could be outside fighting for his life against something else, and once the moss monster would reach him, he might be to out of it to destroy the thing.
The clone captain ordered his brethren to use two Jutsus, a third of the clones would send fire dragons directly at the monster, another third would send fire to the moss on the walls nearest to the monster, and the rest of the clones would send lightning dragons at the water to fry the moss in the water.
"At the count of three! One! Two!" the clone captain shouted, "Three!"
"Katon: Karyuudan!" two third let lose their dragons of searing flames.
"Raiton: Rairyuudan!" the remaining third let lose dragons of electricity, the electricity being the electricity of their bodies, as well as some pulled from static in the air, combined with their chakra the dragons were brought to life.
The moss monster stood no chance. Within seconds only ashes remained. Half of the cavern had lost its light source. The lightning dragon users had spent up all their power and effectively commited seppuku. Of the fire dragons users, only five had survived, the clone captain among them, the others had fallen to their doom, they had to little chakra left to cushion their falls, their impact on the islands, and on the water's suface killing them instantly.
The remaining clones then decided to rest on one of the bigger rock islands, one watching over the others, the captain taking first watch.
Just as the first group's remaining two members settled down to rest, the earth beneath their feet started to rumble and shake once again. The two clones then sprung up, ready for almost anything, each telling the other that it was an honor fighting alongside one another. Then in an area not far from them an explosion of crystal and rocks occurred. Out of the hole in the ground that was created came out clone group number three. Their tunnel was a long and winding one, with many ups and downs, ending in a dead end that they decided to blast right through with Rasengans. Resulting in their meeting the survivors of the crystal cavern battle.
The two survivors then told the tale of the events that took place in the cavern. Afterwards the clones of group three spent a moment in silence in honor of their fallen comrades. Then the captain of group three decided to put the two survivors out of their misery by shoving kunai into their backs, instantly killing them. He then ordered the remaining clones to empty out the monster's corpse, so that they could use it as a carrying case for as much crystals as they could drag out of the cave.
"Finders keepers, losers weepers," the captain said, "Well in this case, the loser seems to have died."
The clones used Rasengans, their kunai, their hands, and whatever to clean up the corpse, anything they couldn't use they just chucked down the big hole that the thing came out of.
Once the carrying cases for the crystals was finished the clones then started to break off pieces of crystals from the walls, the floor, the ceiling, everywhere.
After the cases were filled to the brim, the group of clones then started their way out of the cavern, heading out to the entrance of the dratted thing, where they were sure their creator was waiting.
Once the last clone with a case entered group one's tunnel the cavern they were in came crashing down into itself, a large chunk of which fell into the hole, and another one covering it. The cavern caved in on itself, since a lot of the crystals that were keeping it up had been removed.
The clones were lucky enough to have gotten out with their treasure. But not all of them made it out before the cave in. The captain, not carrying anything was crushed before he could exit the cavern, the ones with cases of crystals given priority in leaving.
As group three were making their way out of the tunnel, group four found themselves falling down a hole they had created with the use of one Rasengan. Their tunnel lead then to a hole, that went down, a long way down. They had decided to form a clone rope and lower each other down, luckily five went down the same tunnel as they did, and helped make the rope longer. When the clone rope finally hit a dead end, the clone decided to Rasengan his way through.
At the startling use of the chakra sphere, the one holding the line fell into the hole, causing the clone rope fall into a cavern filled with rocks, rocks, and more rocks.
After scanning the area for anything of interest, the clones picked a direction and started drilling into the wall using Rasengans. After some time they eventually blew a hole into the wall of the cavern with the underground lake, effectively alerting the clones of group two to their presence. The hole they created was one foot above the water's surface. They noticed group two, and were filled in on the events that transpired within.
Groups four and five had no captain to lead them, so they allowed group two to order them around.
They too had noticed the yellowish substance in the water. So the clone captain had all the clones jump into the water, and using their kunai bring the substance up. After one clone brought up some if the stuff, they all realized that it was gold. Not fool's gold, but real gold. So they quickly made short work of the rocks under the water. The clones tore chunks of rocks out of the bottom lake bed. Once the clones were done they had collected one third of the cavern's supply of gold. Utilizing Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu, the clones melted the gold, and formed them into slabs that they could carry using a couple of Doton: Doryuu Heki to create the slab molds.
Once they were through the lot of them made their way out of the cave, planning on returning for more later.
All the remaining clones met up in the chamber where the tunnel divereged into four paths, three of which led to one cavern, while one led to another one.
As the clones helped each other with their load of gold, crystals, and gems, they also made it to the mouth of the cave together.
The sight that greeted them was that of their creator standing above the corpse of the last ushi-oni that he had killed. The stronger one lived, while the weaker ones all died. Naruto had just pulled his katana out of the body of the ushi-oni, when his clone army had returned with their treasure.
As he stood facing his clones, they couldn't help but break out in grins. Based on the position of the sun in the sky it was probably only three in the afternoon, enough time to get back to the fortress before dinner.
'Well today was an eventual day' he told himself, 'Wonder what tomorrow will bring.'
Naruto created more clones to help carry the load, so that they could reach the fortress sooner, so that he could also seal the booty in his storage scrolls, like his trophies. Boy, would he have a tale to tell at come dinnertime.