Chapter 22: Land of Whirlpools (8): History of the Uzumaki Clan and the Space Barrier.
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto. Naruto is the work of Masashi Kishimoto.

Shhrrk... shhrrk…

Yukito was barefoot, and each of his steps was slow. The grass beneath him slowly bent and by the time his feet touched the ground, they'd already snapped silently.

It's been a few days since he escaped from the crow, and he was now slowly mapping out the island. Since he didn't know where he was, he could only keep moving forward, not knowing that instead of out, he was walking deeper and deeper into the forest.

"What's that?"

Yukito whispered, his voice muffled and small like a mosquito. In front of him was a tall, cylindrical pillar made out of limestone. The pillar was at least five times taller than him, meaning that it was at least 25ft tall, or seven and a half meters.

"Is it from the Uzumaki clan?"

Yukito mused as he approached the pillar.

The pillar was rough to the touch, and its surface had many deep cracks. If he ignored the cracks and the chipped parts of the pillar, he could make out a rippling pattern in the middle of the pillar that covered the whole thing. It made him wonder if it was supposed to be the symbol of the Uzumaki, but the pattern on the pillar was a bit different.

The pattern consisted of many circles. At the circle was a big dot, and a circle surrounded it. Then, a bigger circle surrounded that circle, and so on and so forth.

When Yukito squinted his eyes, he realized that the pillar had ink stains.

"Does this thing have a purpose?"

Yukito looked around, trying to see if there were any other similar pillars around. When he found none, Yukito decided to travel further into the forest to see if he could stumble across another pillar.

Yukito walked with caution, each step he took was carefully planned out, acting like if he makes a mistake, a thunderbolt would strike him. While walking, Yukito made sure to stretch his chakra sensing to the maximum, so he could sense everything within a 200-meter radius around him.

'Fox, are you there?'

Another odd thing about the land of whirlpools is that he couldn't communicate with the nine-tailed fox. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't enter his mindscape, which was the reason the fox couldn't help him at all.

'Still not there... I never thought I'd miss all the insults you throw at me, you damned fox.'

Yukito cursed as he looked around.

The forest was a never-ending labyrinth. In the gaps between two trees, all he could see was another tree, and if that tree wasn't thick enough to block his view, then further away would just be another tree. The trees inside the land of whirlpools were far sturdier, thicker, and taller than the trees in the land of fire.

'If you bundle together five trees in the land of fire, then that would be the equivalent of one tree in here.'

Feeling that his knees and legs had gone numb, Yukito decided to rest and went to the nearest tree for shade. Yukito crouched, carefully taking out a scroll from the cloud scroll and laying it on the ground. It was an explosive scroll.

'Alright, let's see if this works.'

Yukito's hand hovered above the explosive scroll, using his chakra to carefully modify the scroll from the outside. This was a technique he practiced over the past month when he was imprisoned in the crow's cave. He trained when the crow was absent.

'Just a bit more…!'

Yukito's forehead was covered in a thick layer of sweat that flowed down to his nose and chin, dripping into the ground. He held his breath, his tongue stuck out of his mouth and rested on the right side of his upper lip without even realizing it.

'More… more…'

As Yukito steadily channeled chakra into the scroll, his hand began trembling. His chakra was naturally wild and chaotic, so forcing it to be calm was like gripping a crocodile's mouth shut. If his attention wavered, the crocodile would open its mouth and eat him whole.

'Done!'

The scroll glowed in a blue hue and silently vibrated.

Seeing that it didn't explode or burn like in his previous attempts, Yukito trembled and tears welled up in the corner of his eyes before trickling down his cheek. Finally, he was unable to hold back and cocked his head backward, spreading his mouth open to release a peal of silent laughter.

'I did it! I did it! I can advance to the next fūinjutsu level soon!'

Although he can't write an entire sealing formula with his chakra yet, he managed to modify a sealing formula without using ink and only using chakra.

It meant that he was close to advancing to the next level.

'Alright, now's not the right time. I need to escape from here first.'

Yukito regretted going back into the land of whirlpools. The place was too dangerous, and he nearly died twice. The only good news is that his chakra made a qualitative leap, or else he wouldn't have dared to modify that explosive scroll to practice.

After all, if he messed up and reacted late, the scroll would blow up in his face.

Yukito walked forward, brushed aside the tall grass in front of him, and gasped in shock.

"W-what…"

I've been wandering around in this forest for as long as I can remember.

The village was in chaos, I was twelve at the time. A person wearing a long, baggy, white jacket that could fit at least ten people attacked the village.

In the beginning, no one took him seriously. What can one man do against the mighty Uzumaki clan?

We were slapped right in the face when the man proved that he was worthy of the clan's attention. When that man managed to destroy half of the village in one go, the seniors finally took him seriously and attacked him with all they'd got.

The fight lasted for two days and one night, and the outcome was horrendous.

The man had mystifying abilities. He could absorb chakra-based attacks using his right hand, and he could absorb life energy with his left hand. His optical abilities were worse. He could drive a person insane just by looking at them!

After the battle, only one senior survived. He was the clan head.

He planned to use that man's body to research ways to improve the clan's fūinjutsu, but that man's body suddenly turned into stone and crumbled into dust. In the end, we lost nearly everything and got nothing. The heavens wept that day.

Before we could even recover from the sudden attack of that man, troubles began appearing in the clan. Clan members would get caught in genjutsu, committing heinous crimes like murder. We tried to find out who was using genjutsu against us, but before the clan head could get to the bottom of it, a can of worms burst open.

We received news from our spies that nearly the whole ninja world's ninja villages waged war on them.

Furthermore, our only ally since ancient times, the leaf village, declared that they wanted nothing to do with our war.

They reasoned that bandits were making trouble at the land of fire and that the bandits were blocking their route to support Uzushio.

It smelled like bullshit, so the clan head went to investigate and what he found was as the hidden leaf village said. Dozens of bandit armies suddenly appeared in the land of fire, causing no small amount of mayhem.

Because we wanted to help the land of fire, and in turn get their help, my team was sent out to eradicate those bandit armies.

'Pshh! Who would've expected that my team would suddenly be surrounded by three bandit armies and three kage-level individuals?'

We escaped after crippling those three arrogant bandit leaders. The caveat is that when we were returning to the land of whirlpools, our team was attacked by the hidden mist village.

Our route was a secret one, no one can find it even if they looked straight at it, and so the whole ordeal stank. Nonetheless, we couldn't care about it at the time, and my teammates sacrificed themselves just to let me deliver the news to the clan head.

I don't know what happened, but the clan head snapped after hearing my report and ordered the Uzumaki clan to prepare for doomsday.

Apparently, there was more than meets the eye, but I didn't know what it was.

A month later, Uzushio fell.

The enemy forces won the battle but lost the war. That was the best way to describe it, and the biggest winner was the one village that refused to participate.

Each of the major villages lost at least half of their ninja forces, while Konoha lost none, how coincidental. Weren't they being abused by dozens of "incomparably strong" bandit armies?

Barely a hundred Uzumaki survived the war, including me and the clan head. After a day of resting and mourning, the clan head gathered all of us and informed us of a plan.

He planned to activate a forbidden ritual.

The forbidden ritual was supposed to bring the Uzumaki clan up from the pit of hell into the heavens, but all it did was push us deeper into the void.

The ritual required an enormous amount of Uzumaki blood. To be exact, an Uzumaki seal master's blood. Since seal masters use sealing chakra to improve their blood and bodies, their blood was high quality.

If the seal master wasn't an Uzumaki, they could use sealing chakra to improve their blood to match that of an Uzumaki. Of course, the process would probably take a lifetime, and only the next generation will benefit from it.

The clan head wrote a massive sealing formula that had a diameter of 100 meters and stood in the middle. I still remember his speech from then.

"I, the clan head of the Uzumaki, wish that our clan rises once more. After my death, if my body still remains, then my last wish will be for the clan to study my body like how our ancestors let us study theirs. For Uzushio!"

Then, all hell broke loose.

For some unknown reason, the ritual failed, and all the surviving Uzumaki went insane. Very few escaped, they could be counted on both hands, but they lost most of their memories. Those who couldn't escape were devoured by chakra beasts, including me. The only person I know who was unaffected was the daughter of the clan head, the princess of Uzushio.

When I awoke, I was already a beast. I couldn't control my body at first, but when the puppets activated as a defensive mechanism, I managed to regain my sanity by absorbing most of their chakra.

They were puppets anyway, they don't need that much chakra, right?

I tried to "wake up" the others who were devoured by the chakra beasts, but it was no use. I only realized later on that their spiritual energy had already vanished, meaning their souls had already moved on.

After a year, my mind entered slumber.

My life was monotonous. I would hunt together with the other crows, play when I'm bored, and then sleep when I'm tired. I don't know how much time had passed, but one day, something changed.

The boulder I liked to stay at was moved.

No, it wasn't just moved, someone was hiding under the damn thing!

The person hiding must think that I didn't know, so I let him be. I haven't seen anyone for years, so I wanted to play with this person.

Maybe it's because I died young, but a ray of childishness shone through my frozen, stone heart.

However, when I returned to the boulder, that person had already escaped… or so I thought. I never expected that the person hiding from me knew fūinjutsu. The problem is, he was leaking sealing chakra everywhere!

I'm sure of it. This person was only a level 1 seal expert.

I decided to teach that person how to create better fūinjutsu, but then I realized that I couldn't talk.

'Ah, screw it. Let's scare him first.'

When I found that person again, we fought. He took out a scroll that released a majestic, golden fire dragon.

'Wow, that dragon is so beautiful! His master must be a cheerful, creative person.'

You have to know, most seal experts have a dry imagination. It wasn't to say that they weren't creative, but they all preferred to do things in the most efficient way, making their sealing techniques similar to black and white.

Rarely do they make their works pretty and breathtaking like this golden dragon.

'He's pretty good for a young kid.'

After knocking out the orange-haired kid, I took him to my nest.

My nest was inside of a cave since I didn't want to be with those other beasts in the trees.

'Oh, he escaped again.'

The kid is sneaky. If I didn't know how to sense chakra, he would've slipped away ten times out of ten. When I found him, he was surrounded by three, fifteen-foot-tall three-headed wolves. His situation was precarious, but thankfully, he had the fire dragon with him, so he managed to survive until I arrived.

After rescuing him, I pecked him on the head, but I forgot about my monstrous strength and ended up knocking him unconscious.

'I did it again… ah, he's bleeding… again!'

One thing I found odd about this kid was his healing abilities. It was eerily similar to the Uzumaki's healing abilities, making me a little suspicious.

'Does he have Uzumaki blood? His hair is orange, so maybe one of his grandparents was an Uzumaki. That should be it. No wonder he went to the land of whirlpools…'

After realizing that the kid might have Uzumaki blood, I decided to take better care of him. He tried to escape dozens of times, but I would always capture him and return him to the nest.

After one day, I decided to let him go.

I knew he was hiding under a rock behind that stinky cloud, but I feigned ignorance. I wanted to see how dedicated he was to escape, so I left him alone after three days and observed from half a kilometer away.

'Impressive! He waited for a while week before leaving!'

After one week, the boy finally left his hiding spot.

Of course, after leaving his hiding spot, he should've been mauled by the chakra beasts. But thanks to my presence, no chakra beasts dared to attack the boy.

After all, I was one of the overlords in this forest. I may not be the strongest, but I'm definitely the smartest and wisest.

'Hmm? He stumbled upon one of the ritual pillars, how lucky…'

The clan head used a total of four pillars for the ritual. One in the east, one in the west, one in the north, and one in the south. He found the one in the west.

Each of them was supposed to revive hundreds of Uzumaki members who died in battle, but it sadly backfired. It was a sealing formula based on the myths of the sage of six paths, and the Uzumaki clan had been perfecting the technique for centuries.

Who would've expected it would fail so spectacularly and turn the survivors into mindless husks, waiting to be eaten by equally mindless chakra beasts?

'Sigh… I miss the village.'

Sometimes, I envied those puppets. They could leave the island, but because I am a chakra beast, I am tied to the land of whirlpools. One thing though, I never hated the clan head. He did everything for the clan, and even sacrificed his life for the clan, how can I, or any of the other Uzumaki, hate him?

I watched as the kid explore the island with sparkling eyes, though he doesn't seem to realize it.

'Where is he…? WHAT?! Is he favored by the goddess of luck?!'

When a tall grass blocked his way, he pushed it aside and continued exploring but suddenly, the ground glowed and a space barrier seal was lifted.

'I had been flying around this island for my entire life, yet I never activated this space barrier… can it only be activated by humans? How enviable…'

I decided to follow the boy into the space barrier. I had nothing to do anyway.

'Hold on… is this the village?'

Although I could barely recognize it, there were fallen rubbles everywhere, most of them were made of stone and had the architectural design of Uzushio.

'Yes, this must be a part of the village, or maybe an entrance to the village.'

As I said, I've been roaming around the island all my life, but I only encountered some rubbles from the fallen village. I didn't know how many years had passed since Uzu's destruction, so I thought the island had been looted or something, leaving nothing behind, but I didn't expect this…

I watched in awe as the boy walked deeper and deeper into the space barrier. As he got deeper into the space barrier, more and more of the village was shown. Most of the buildings have collapsed, and only one building was decently intact, though half of the building was missing.

It was a three-story tower belonging to the clan head. Many secrets hide in that tower, but nothing came out of it.

'I wonder if this boy can find the legacy of Uzushio. If he does, and since he has Uzumaki blood, then I'll make him my master.'

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