Chapter Fourteen: A Firestorm emerges.
Land of Birds, a few days later.
Takagi was sipping calmly sipping tea as he waited for Naruto to return from his incognito meeting with an agent of the Daimyo of the Land of Spring formerly Land of Snow. Of course he wasn't just enjoying the tea as sitting right across him were a team from Iwa whose leader just so happened to be a high-ranking shinobi from the village, high-ranking and well connected enough to know of any newly built secret bunker for experimenting with the Nine-Tails crystal. Being of course without somebody to counteract the last orders his Emperor gave him, he couldn't act directly, in fact what he did to save Naruto's life had required him to release three layers of his seal to merely survive the consequences of his actions,- he couldn't act directly but nothing forbid him from giving Naruto information and training him especially now that his [Semi-Ascended] had granted him a whole lot of new skills.
The three shinobi were rather jumpy of course having just completed their mission and having with them a great deal of information that, if discovered in their hands could be cause for a war between the Land of Birds and that of Earth. Should that happen that could evolve to become another big war or at least one or two of the other major villages would get involved and the losses even if they could harness the Nine-Tails in time would be too large for them consider it a viable option. It didn't matter in the end because Naruto was not playing nice anymore and was ready to take a more active role in shaping the Elemental Nations which of course, to him meant popping into Iwa as soon as possible and then teaching them that messing with his family was not something you wanted to do, ever.
That train of thought incited a chuckle from him while the door o the establishment swung open and Naruto entered in while wearing no disguise at all and the Genjutsu he normally used to wear on his eyes no longer present and his eyes looked like they had an orb of swirling blue fire inside in them. Takagi was only thank full he wasn't freely displaying his Legendary Eye around like he had on the last visit to Konoha which had ended with him becoming an S-rank missing Nin and having a bounty on par with that of Orochimaru and Itachi. After looking around the establishment for a few seconds his eyes stopped on the Iwa team and with an ear-splitting grin he sat down in their table to the shock of the jumpy Iwa team.
"Hello" Naruto greeted cheerfully "I guess you are waiting for your contact aren't' you?"
"though I must say that it was a very big mess you did last night, naughty kids" Naruto admonished as the Iwa nins eyes widened.
"You" exclaimed the leader of the team "you were there last night"
"Yep, I was the one who chased you and feigned losing you" Naruto replied "it was however very thoughtful of you to hand me your entire spy network within this country on a silver platter"
"N-no that can't happen, you are bluffing" spoke the leader of the team.
"Please" scoffed Naruto "did you really think you could escape me if I didn't let you go myself?"
"But we wounded you?" spoke the only girl of the team and its Ninjutsu specialist.
"No, you wounded a reinforced shadow clone which while strong was at most borderline S-rank, powerful enough to make you think you were in real trouble and weak enough for you to overcome" explained Naruto his smile never leaving even as he disrupted two genjutsu. "come on I wasn't just handed over my S-rank classification you know"
"What do you want then?" the leader asked, his body and chakra preparing for a clash "you know I will destroy myself, the documents and my team before letting them fall in your hands"
"I want you" he answered "your team can leave with the documents if it wants, I won't stop them"
"Why?" asked the leader.
"Because you are high enough on the hierarchy to know about where the hid the Nine Tails crystal" he answered with a shrug "and I want them to know I'm coming for them"
"Okay" the leader agreed after a few moments "but know I won't come quietly"
"Oh I already know that and I wanted to test my skills against the elite of Iwa" Naruto spoke "scamper off" Naruto yelled at the three jounnin watching the exchange
That was all that was needed as the three of them disappeared in a Body-Flicker. Watching with amusement as his clones left the tea shop, he returned toward the Iwa Jounnin with a shit-eating grin.
"You know you just bargained your life for three of my clones right?" Naruto asked "but I am a man of my word and your team will arrive to Iwa safely to send my warning but without all the extra info I just gave you"
"How do I know you are telling the truth?" the man asked preparing to use a suicide technique.
"You don't but you don't have much choice do you?" Naruto mocked, kicking the Iwa nin before he could complete his technique and sent him flying through the window and outside in an city devoid of life under a red sky and a sun that looked like a cracked ball of glass.
"W-where are we?" the man asked in shock at seeing his surroundings.
"Focus on surviving long enough" Naruto admonished before slamming his knee into the shinobi's gut.
The man quickly burrowed underground trying to break the genjutsu he thought he was in but not even half a second after he stopped to mold his chakra the ground around exploded and he himself was thrown out of the newly formed crater,- like a ragdoll. With a "Tsk" at the stupidity of the so called elite of Iwa,- Naruto blurred forward, breaking through the sound barrier and with a kick he pulverized… a supporting beam from a nearby building. Letting the backlash of his kick carry him, Naruto spun in mid-air and aided by a bit of Wind natured chakra shot toward the building where the Jounnin had substituted himself. The jounnin on the other hand threw himself out of one of the nearby windows but not before pumping the room with a portion of his unique chakra and activated it as soon as he felt the man enter the collapsing building and with a mighty explosion all that remained of the building …. And a few dozen of the surrounding buildings were ashes.
Feeling secure that he had killed the man he tried to break the genjutsu only for it not to waver in the slightest. He didn't have much time to wonder about it as the right side of his body exploded in pain while his brain registered the words "overconfident fool". Skidding to a halt the Iwa jounnin saw the form of his opponent standing there, his entire frame smoking but having no damage whatsoever on his person, while his from his left palm visible wisps of chakra emanated. Thanking the higher powers that the man no monster before him wanted him alive and not painting the walls of the city, the jounnin quickly summoned a massive dragon made of rocks but that didn't even faze Naruto who encasing himself in a layer of wood tore through the dragon like it was of paper, reinforcing the belief of his invulnerability in the eyes of the Iwa nin due to the layer of wood being the camouflaged to look as if he had nothing protecting him.
Swallowing hard the Jounnin decided to take thing up close and his fist impacted Naruto's chest with no movement on Naruto's side to defend against. The resulting explosion didn't even move him from his spot and with a backhanded slap, the jounnin was sent skidding with his cheekbone almost pulverized. Patting himself for a job well done he moved forward while at the same time regenerating the minor damage that the explosive chakra of his enemy did to his armor. Seeing the man pumping his body full of chakra to enhance his body, Naruto internally scoffed and separated a bit of his chakra into its components before applying the pure Yang chakra to every muscle in his body and flashed forward to meet the recovered jounnin mid-way.
When the two meet halfway, well it wasn't really halfway really as Naruto was way, way faster,- a crater was created as the two superhumanly enhanced shinobi threw all their augmented strength behind their respective blows. The Iwa jounnin went out of the dust cloud with a speed comparable to that of a bullet and went crashing through multiple building and eventually stopped a few hundred meters away from the newly made crater, his right arm turned to pulp. Naruto materialized in front of the jounnin slightly wincing at the sight of the other man's arm and berated himself for using too much Yang chakra or Ki (even though actual Ki was a tad bit different from 100 % pure Yang chakra) as some of the monks called it, - but on the other hand it was the Iwa jounnin that started it by gathering about half of his remaining chakra, which was still beyond the entire chakra reserve of a chunnin, - and using it to augment his muscles.
Such a technique would have normally been enough to defeat anyone who wasn't as good a sensor as Naruto or who was afraid to put too much chakra within his muscles as that damaged the muscles and organs and in fact could be called a suicide technique in and on its own. Now what Naruto did was unthinkable because people had long forgotten how to manipulate their own life-force and thus feared to do so as it normally resulted in people dying in very gory ways but those who dabbled in Ninshu could do so albeit it still had its dangers like or example enhancing yourself too much and burning your body from the friction of moving at such high speeds which chakra with its Mental/Spiritual component nullified except for extreme cases. Aided by the fact that he was now half-Ascended, he could safely use Ki and augment his strength, speed and endurance to ridiculous if not godly levels.
The sound of clapping came from the Naruto's right side as another identical Naruto appeared clapping slowly. The Iwa jounnin could only stare as his body refused to move, not even the massive amount of chakra he infused in his body had been enough to save him from having most of his bones broken,- as the other Naruto stopped clapping and with a condescending smile kneeled to his side.
"You know it would have been much, much easier if you hadn't forced my clone to do that" Naruto mock admonished "are you not a man of your word?"
"Of course not" Naruto replied with a slight chuckle, to his own question "we are shinobi after all, mm… this looks really bad… well it would have been really, really difficult if I couldn't do this"
As he spoke those words Naruto's left shifted from Cerulean blue, burning with an inner fire to blood red eyes with twelve tomoe spread through the almost imperceptible rings. Placing a hand over the man's chest he drained him of his chakra almost to the point of chakra exhaustion just to be safe before splitting about a hundredth of that chakra into its components before using pumping him with the Yang energy and putting him in a delirious state with the Yin energy. As soon as he did that, the pulp that was his right arm being restored fully and his body returned to the state it was before the fight started, the Yang energy that his body had been infused with having caused his cells to temporarily gain the same regeneration abilities as those that the Sage of Six Paths, his brother and his mother were rumored to posses and all of those benefits without reducing one's lifespan as it instead consumed the Yang energy.
" You know it will be suspicious if he were to be handed over to the Samurai in that condition" mentioned the first Naruto.
"Of course I do. You're me" the second Naruto replied with a bloodthirsty grin.
What followed next was a beating at half-strength from the second Naruto which the first one joined mid-way just for the heck of it. Within the minute the Iwa jounnin was reduced to a blue and purple bag of meat and after that the first Naruto disappeared in a cloud of smoke revealing his status as a clone while the original placed his palm upon the forehead of the unconscious of the Iwa Nin and whispered "Human Path: Soul Piercing Gaze" and the body convulsed once as Naruto's eyes glazed over for a moment before returning to normal and with a smirk the world around them shattered. A hand sign later and a full regiment of Samurai surrounded him and with a smile he threw the unconscious shinobi toward them.
"This is the team leader" Naruto told them "his team unfortunately escaped while he held me off, not very smart of him but they did get the document with them"
"Useless shinobi" one of the Samurai spat.
"I'd watch my tongue if I was you Samurai" Naruto growled "who knows you might accidentally bite it someday"
"Enough Mouri, show respect to the savior of your ruler" the Leader of the Palace guards barked out "Naruto-sama can you track this team fast enough"
"No, not before they reached the border anyway" Naruto answered "and to do so would be suicide"
"I see" the man nodded thoughtfully "if you would accompany me to the palace to receive your reward"
"But this mission failed even if I did destroy their spy network" Naruto retorted.
"Ah but our ruler would like to see you" the man countered.
"Well you should have started with that then" Naruto smiled "lead the way then"
Meanwhile, in the Land of Sky.
In the ruins of the Ancor Vatian, which had since fallen to the depth of the abyss created by the battle fought in its vicinity,- hundreds of Naruto's clones were directing tens of thousands of white humanoid blobs in the reconstruction of the almost destroyed base. The central part of the rebuilding effort was the fact that Naruto had learned a variety of skills from classes such as [Engineer], [Architect] etc. and through a combination of these skills he had made the plans to recreate Ancor Vatian but this time it would be way better than before, however his biggest success was the replacement of the Zero-Tails as a power source by designing and then successfully producing an Ion Drive Generator. Despite of the name the device harnessed the energy of a molecule of sorts which normally existed in regions of space in which space-time was scarred enough to allow such an abnormality to exist. Trielibur as the "molecule" was called was in fact nothing more than an amalgam of what could be called Aberration particles held together by the force that was generated around wounds in Time-Space.
Now what the generator did was that it harnessed the "molecules" unique property to give the middle finger to the law of Nature that said that energy wasn't created nor lost to produce insane amounts of energy that could be comparable to the output of the Nine Tails if chakra could be transformed to actual electricity rather than the "virtual" particle version that it normally did. The "molecule" itself was in fact a sort of DNA of energy and normally created abnormally high amount of thermal and kinetic energy which in the furthest regions of space fueled the expansion of the universe but the generator made it so that it produced Ions by constantly circulating normal matter inside and through the use of various fields of energy transformed it into Ions instead of super hot plasma that was harder to contain and properly transform into electricity.
The Generator could also be used to pump clones full with Yang chakra as it turns that transforming any kind of "physical" energy into Yang chakra is very easy, if that energy is contained enough. That of course had brought about the massive amount of humanoid blobs that were formed by the use of seal and copious amounts of Yang energy to make the seals produce grunt workers with insane levels of strength ad that couldn't get tired, like ever.
But that isn't the most important thing because the most important thing was the original Naruto standing in a circle of seal which were glowing faintly before they suddenly stopped as Naruto called out with an inhuman voice "Outer Path: Contractual Summon" and the world trembled as the World Wall opened itself up for one god to pass through and meet its summoner. The ghostly visage of the Shinigami appeared before Naruto Uzumaki causing tears made of black Ichor run down his face as a part of his life fore was drained into the summoning.
"You dare use those eyes on me mortal" bellowed Shinigami "I'll have your soul for this"
"No you won't" Naruto dismissed the threat "this very eyes ensure that"
"Fool, the seal on your stomach… wait where is it?" asked the Shinigami in disbelief.
"Torn away from the willing sacrifice of five shinobi" Naruto shrugged "but you aren't summoned to care about that but to be offered a contract with me and my bloodline"
"Why should I accept to be bonded to such a lowly being?" the Shinigami asked in an arrogant tone.
"Because we both know I'm far from inferior to you" Naruto smirked "you could say that I'm your equal if not superior even now"
"Fool, you might be very strong compared to humans but you are even less that a germ underneath my might" the Shinigami retorted but it wasn't in an arrogant tone but in the tone of someone who is reciting a known fact "when you become the Ninth Emperor, call me again"
"Don't dismiss me so handily" Naruto's smirk grew even more as a wave of power exploded from him, bathing his body in ethereal golden glow and weakening the figure before him until it was nothing more than a shadow of his former power.
"Foolish, young one" the Shinigami sighed "you just painted a target on your back"
"Please" Naruto scoffed "I already have a target painted on my back, so chose now become part of the Outer Paths Summons or become my enemy"
"What are offering me?" the Shinigami asked.
"The usual fare, chakra and mana willingly give" Naruto shrugged his aura of power abating and every living being in the world suddenly found themselves breathing just a tad bit easier "even the Primordial Beings cannot refuse such an offer, my ability to resurrect being proof enough"
"Very well but I also want a part of your Life-Force willingly give every year on the longest day of the year" the Shinigami spoke "this condition is non negotiable"
"I suppose you'll want this year's offering right now?" Naruto smirked.
"Of, course" the Shinigami smirked and reached out and plunged his hand into Naruto's chest and with a yank, he pulled out an orb glowing like the sun and promptly swallowed it while at the same time the Rinnengan glowed briefly signifying that the Contract had been accepted.
"Good now I need the last four souls you have reaped to be transferred to the King of the Underworld" Naruto whizzed out.
"Why?" asked the Shinigami puzzled, both his eyes becoming a blood red Rinnengan albeit without the tomoe.
"Because only me and another person can summon him" Naruto explained "while you can be summoned through other means and there are ways to weaponize those souls"
"And you don't want anyone but you to be able of doing so?" asked the Shinigami chuckling in a rather creeping voice.
"That and I want them to be capable of going to the Pure Land if not forever at least for most of the year while being protected from resurrection" Naruto chuckled to dragging himself to a sitting position in a nearby rock.
"So it shall be done" the Shinigami declared "and just for this once I'll do on my own power since you are about as strong a kitten right now"
With a booming and rather scary smile the Shinigami vanished and the world suddenly become a tad bit brighter as a properly drained Naruto fell on his knees, weakened beyond comprehension as the Shinigami would continue to drain him of his chakra and mana for another hour at the least since his energy levels weren't quite as large for the due rent for his services to be quicker. The worst and ironically the easiest to fix was that his health was stationary at one point and until the draining and thus the presence of the Death god was gone, it wouldn't go up. Of course having invented a generator of literally infinite Yang chakra that he could quickly convert to health before the Shinigami could absorb it. As a pair of clones rushed at him with a seal that was connected directly to the generator, a pair of boxes appeared before him, much like they did when he was practically ripped out of his Ascending and he became a sub-race of human known as [Half-Ascended].
[Due to successfully negotiating a contract with a god you have gained the following]
[+2000 Energy, +1800 Vitality, +900 Strength, +300 Luck (*for surviving the entire thing, you dumbass)]
[Black Hole Lvl. 22]
[You almost screwed up but luckily you survived your encounter with death, literally but his touch lingers upon you so you have essentially became a controlled chakra black hole]
[It drains 2000 cp/sec. but it also drains 1000 hp/sec. upon activation, also it reduces hp regeneration of the user by 30% for as long as it is active, Range: Requires Physical contact]
[Necromancy gains +100 lvl]
[You gained perk, Shadow of Death]
[Shadow of Death]
[You very existence retains a fragment of the primordial force of death allowing you to walk the border between Life and Death, easier and far more safely than any other mortal. Cost of all Necromancy and other Necro- related abilities and skills are halved]
[Due to your Energy stat being 3201 you gained the perk, Bottomless Well]
[Bottomless Well]
[You have so much energy that it assured that finding an end to it would be nigh-impossible, well if you don't go around fighting deities that is. You gain 19x the amount of energy that you stats would have normally given you, regeneration rate is doubled] (*replaces the previous Deep Chest perk)
[Due to your Vitality stats being 2256 you have gained the perk, The Man of Adamantium]
[The Man of Adamantium]
[The Man of Steel pffft... if you are going to have a body of metal than you better have the strongest one out there, thus the Man of Adamantium is born. You gain 10x the amount of Hp you would normally gain, health reg. is increased by 1.2 times, all damage is reduced by 35%] replaces Perfect Body perk
[Due to your strength stat being 1070 you gain the perk, Kinetic Distribution]
[Kinetic Distribution]
[Much of the strength behind a blow is lost but not for you as your superhuman muscles can direct the entire Kinetic energy of your blows without any of it dispersing uselessly, +65% to physical damage, +35% to {Muscle Enhancement} skill's efficiency]
The next day, Land of the Sky
Two white blobs were laying on the ground covered in variety of seals as Naruto stood over them, his left eye in its Rinnengan form while his left burning with the inner fire that had been there since his ascendance into immortality albeit his is much like that of Takagi, the version of Immortality that a Phoenix possesses, regenerating at full health at any time his health reached 0 but not kicking in before that. Going through the required hand seals for the Impure World Resurrection technique, his Rinnengan glowed with blinding white light as he called out "Outer Path" Impure World Resurrection" causing the light to die out as the two white blobs were swallowed by the King of the Underworld before they were spat out, a few seconds later,- into humanoid forms covered in dust and ashes which quickly morphed to the forms of Minato Namikaze and his wife Kushina Uzumaki.
This form of the technique could only be performed by one with a natural Rinnengan and it actually costs Chakra and Mana as the King of the Underworld absorbs half as payment and that was only thanks to the fact that he had insanely large reserves. The upside was that this technique required no blood or piece of one's body only that the user had to have had the chakra of the one they were trying to summon within them, which for one with the Rinnengan was rather easy not to mention that the cost remains the same whether one summons one or one million. However the greatest upside was that the summoned being was at exactly the same level they were when they died and they could feel emotions and sense the world around them with their senses, pretty much like when they were alive with the exceptions that they barely could feel anything that caused physical pain and even the most painful things in the world would feel like a civilians pinch and the other one was that they couldn't grow but were stuck at the same level as they were when they died, being stagnant.
Not that it mattered much to Naruto who just wanted to meet his parents for real as the blobs were formless thus gaining the body shape of the souls placed within, allowing for actual physical contact rather than a spiritual one that they had inside the unique seal designed by Takagi. It took a few moments before their eyes gained the glimmer of recognition as their full soul was actually there instead of a piece of them that was rejoined with them when they were resurrected by the Rinnengan. They were greeted by an orange blur slamming into them with a speed that rivaled the Flying Thunder God, - and they all fell on the ground.
"I didn't know this technique allowed for us to sense the Living world" Minato remarked patting his sons head "I hope you didn't use living sacrifices or I'll spank you my son or not"
"You do that and I'll castrate you" Kushina threatened "or worse…"
"Okay I get honey" Minato defended "I just don't want our kid to get into bad habits"
"Oh, remember the guy you let to die with a Rasengan stuck inside him… for three days" Kushina remarked "or that kunoichi from Kiri that tried to lure you into an ambush"
"Well I don't want him to make the same mistakes I did" Minato defended, relenting before his wife's angry glare which was only enhanced from her grey sclera.
"Well one might argue that one can't learn without making mistakes, it's called growing up" Naruto added cheekily from his mothers hug.
"Fine, let's go on a killing spree and resurrect some more people" Minato said.
"Oh, I didn't kill anyone… well not anyone really sentient" Naruto explained "though they did have a mostly human life-force which made them acceptable sacrifices for the jutsu"
"And what did you sacrifice?" Kushina asked with a slight frown.
"I guess two of those thousands of white blobs" Minato pointed at the massive work force repairing the Ancor Vatian "my chakra senses says they are filled to the brim with Yang chakra that continues to replenish itself, I'm guessing that their bodies were made so that they could always regenerate to the same state they were when created"
"Down to the last molecule" Naruto replied "I modified an Uzumaki seal that wanted to create an Immortal body combining Yang and Yin chakra in a balanced state but that couldn't work since human cells can't sustain that without eventually breaking down"
"So you used another material which could be giving perfect regeneration through seals" Minato concluded.
"Yep, more exactly genetically modified Ash trees" Naruto beamed "made them during Takagi's mad scientist spree about a year ago, well he did most of the work and I offered my Uzumaki cells and some of my potent chakra and mana"
"Damn, two geniuses in the family" Kushina mock complained "how will I survive?"
"Mum, you do know that you currently inhabit a body that can't be destroyed by anything short of a Black Hole?" Naruto asked with a raised eyebrow at his mother's antics "was she always this bad"
"Only the last couple of years since we were stuck inside that seal of your" Minato answered with a grin "well at least a part of us anyway"
"Ah that explains it" Naruto nodded sagely "want to go in the nearest village and get us some ramen?"
"Aren't you afraid we can be discovered?" Minato asked.
"Pfft I can waltz into Konoha right now, get the scroll of seals and blame Jiraya for that and no one will even suspect me" Naruto grinned "and just that awesome, as for you I can cook up a spell or two to change, my transformation has always been my area of expertise"
"Well in that case race you there" Minato said as a spell changed both his and Kushina's features "last one there is a stinking fish"
"Okay but I must warn you that the gamer gives me an unfair edge" Naruto shrugged as his features blurred into a non-descript chunnin from Kumo.
With that all the three of them vanished into three blurs of colors as they speed far beyond sound speed and it was only a thin layer of chakra that kept them from repeatedly breaking the sound barrier destroying all wildlife on their path. Of course within a second or so Naruto outpaced both his parents his speed way, way beyond the human limit and since they had agreed to not use chakra to augment their speed no one could catch, while Minato quickly left his wife behind, his natural speed far beyond anything Kushina had ever had. A chakra enhanced shout of "so not fair" caused both father and son to almost double over from laughter as they speed away.
Naruto Uzumaki
Class: Gamer
Lvl. 124
Points to next level [132.000/ 175.000]
Age: 16
Height: 180 cm
Weight: 58.3 kg
Hp: 2.967.847
Hp reg. : 19.665
Chakra points:27.368.550
Cp reg. :2.488.050
Mp: 60.819.000
Mp reg. :5.529.000
Energy: 3.201
Control: 3.201
Strength: 1.070
Speed: 211
Vitality: 2.256
Dexterity: 200
Intelligence: 1.271
Wisdom: 1.253
Luck: 420
Special status: Uzumaki Clan Head(+ 50 Intelligence, +75 Vitality, +10 Speed, + 2x exp in fuinjutsu and technique creation), , Trap master (+10% to [traps] and + 10% to [stealth]), Perfect Control (Your Control is always equal to your energy due to the Wood Release Chakra in your Chakra coils)
Half-Ascended (Perfect Control of all inner energies such as [Yang Chakra], [Ying Chakra], [Ki], [Mana] etc. and {Perfect Body} perk)