Chapter 54: The Clan Head
Arc: Against Foreign Powers
Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto. Naruto is the work of Masashi Kishimoto, please support the original work.
"Anyone got any ideas where to find the clan head's body? Really, I'm open to any suggestion," Naruto asked but was met with silence instead. He expected it, but it was still a bit disheartening to see it in full play.
After recounting his journey through Clan Head Chisuke's brief memory, they were all dumbfounded, confused, and outright disbelieving.
"How about this," just as Naruto was out of ideas, Karasu suddenly spoke out and gathered everyone's attention. "Do you all remember the ceremonial pillars? It's a leftover from the Clan Head's Adamantine Sealing Chains, maybe it will help us find a clue…"
"Or we might as well destroy it," Naruto mumbled.
"… I mean, the Clan Head told us to destroy his body, so destroying his chains is basically the same, right?" Seeing the entire group staring at him, Naruto couldn't help but explain. As expected, the group stopped staring at him with questioning eyes after he explained his line of thought.
"Since no one disagrees, let's set off to destroy the pillars…" Naruto said, waiting if someone was going to rebuke him, and when no one did, he set out a list of orders.
"First and foremost, everyone will act in caution as the Beast Wave may trigger at any time. Everyone's clear?" Naruto watched as everyone nodded their heads, listening intently.
"Hinata and I will find the pillar from the west. Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro will find the pillar from the north. Zabuza, Haku, you find the pillar from the south. And lastly…" Naruto smirked.
"Shadow Clone!"
Seeing a carbon copy of Naruto get summoned, Zabuza looked at the original body of Naruto with confusion. "Your clone will find the one from the east?"
"No, Kura… err, the Nine-Tails will."
"Hello, humans."
Just before the group set out, Karasu bid his farewell to the group and asked to be resealed inside Naruto again. Karasu explained to Naruto that he wanted to be resealed just in case the Beast Wave triggers because deep inside the forest, the mind control over Karasu's mind was stronger.
The crow was afraid that he would lose control in an instant.
Naruto agreed to his request and the group finally ventured deep into the forest after splitting up into four teams.
As Hinata and Naruto traveled, a toad was sitting on Naruto's shoulder, keeping itself in place with the help of chakra. The other three teams had a similar toad on them, and through the toads, the group could communicate with each other remotely.
"Naruto, the Nine-Tails sent a message."
"Give it…" as the toad spat out a scroll from its mouth, Naruto snatched it away and began reading the scroll. "So fast?"
"Naruto, I'm at the ceremonial pillar at the east. What should I do now?"
Naruto and Kurama could communicate telepathically with no problem, but the fox insisted on using scrolls. Naruto had a nagging suspicion that the fox just wanted to make the toads suffer by swallowing scrolls after seeing the faint mud on the scroll. 'Kurama never liked the toads, after all.'
Shaking his head, Naruto took out an empty scroll and wrote an order for everyone to follow.
"After reaching the ceremonial pillars, hide. Let's try and destroy all of them at once to avoid any problems."
"Please send these to the others," Naruto said and handed three scrolls to the toad. "No problem," the toad replied and readily swallowed the scrolls.
After a few hours, Naruto looked at three scrolls gathered in front of him. Two of them came from Gaara and Zabuza's team, while the last came from Kurama. Kurama had sent another scroll after thirty minutes, saying how bored he was getting. In fact, the fox sent a scroll every thirty minutes!
"It's time to destroy the pillars," Naruto mumbled and stood up, jumping down from the tall ceremonial pillar he was sitting at. The pillar looked more radiant than ever, and even though Hinata was worried, Naruto insisted on meditating on top of the pillar.
Because the pillar was radiating Sealing Chakra. It boosted his ability to comprehend Fuinjutsu, so why should he waste the opportunity? Nonetheless, he knew how to separate his addiction from his work, so he didn't delay the ceremonial pillar's destruction.
Time was of the essence, what if the Beast Wave triggered while he was meditating?
"Destroy the pillars five minutes after getting this scroll."
"Send this to them," Naruto ordered.
"No problem."
Five minutes later, Naruto and Hinata stood to the side, watching as the dozen or so Explosive Scrolls lit up in a burst of flames.
BOOOOOOM!
The ground trembled, like a cowering ancient in the face of the new god as red and yellow flames shot to the sky, bringing along with them fist-sized chunks of soil. Suddenly, a pale gold glow devoured the flames and Naruto narrowed his eyes as he watched the ceremonial pillar start to regenerate.
"Was it not strong enough…"
"Naruto, the others have sent a message."
"Give them to me."
As he read the scrolls, Naruto's brows furrowed and a deep frown was etched into his face.
"They also failed, and the pillars were unscathed aside from Kurama's."
From the reports, Kurama was able to burn the pillars in half before they started regenerating. Then, he couldn't burn them anymore no matter what he did. Naruto was also able to destroy the pillars in half with explosions. Meanwhile, the other two teams weren't even able to put a dent in the pillars.
RUMBBLEEE…
Suddenly, Naruto narrowed his eyes when he heard a stampede behind them.
"The Beast Wave triggered!"
Hinata exclaimed, making Naruto's frown go deeper. At this point, he looked like a creepy, haunted ghost from how deep his frown got.
"Not good, we need to regroup."
Not everyone could fend off dozens, if not, hundreds of Kage-Level beasts. He wasn't even sure if there was anybody capable of such a feat.
After the three scrolls were swallowed by the toad yet again, Naruto sighed and went back into the Space Barrier. He ordered the group to regroup there and resist the Beast Wave together.
'This is strange. The Beast Wave triggered as soon as we tried to destroy the pillars.'
That is to say, whoever was controlling the beast wave, didn't know the situation above ground, otherwise, the Beast Wave would've activated before they could even try and destroy the pillars.
"Naruto-kun, I see a giant bear heading toward us… T-The bear has above Kage-Level chakra!"
"Tsk, I knew it."
Naruto was suspicious that the alien was now awake, and with one of the Chakra Beast Bosses right behind their tail, that fact was now evident.
"Let's try and kill it, otherwise, we'll escape through Blood Fuinjutsu Art."
"Okay…" Though she didn't know what Blood Fuinjutsu Art meant, it sounded dangerous, making Hinata want to go beyond her limits if it meant that Naruto wouldn't have to use such a dangerous technique. In the first place, she came here to be with her beloved, not to be pampered by him, but to stand by his side.
ROAAAAAR!
"Golden Dragon Scroll: Fire Dragon Guardian!"
Using up half of his chakra from the get-go, Naruto summoned a towering dragon made of flames.
"Hinata, try to close off its tenketsu points in one go! I'll keep its attention!"
"Got it!"
Although the Red Bear was above Kage-Level, that was only in terms of chakra. It was no more intelligent than a regular bear driven into madness.
Whilst the fire dragon intertwined with the bear's body, Hinata silently went behind it.
ROAAR!
The dragon roared, biting on the Red Bear's skin and trying to mangle it apart, surprisingly finding that its flesh was weak, unlike its terrifying bronze claws and teeth. In pain, the Red Bear swung its hands to dice the dragon apart, only to be burned by the fire dragon. It roared and stood upright, glaring at the fire dragon with indignity.
"Now!"
Seeing as the bear showed its nape toward her, Hinata made a decisive move and jumped, using her gentle fist to crush the red bear's brain. What was the use of claws as strong as adamantine chains when the brain is gone?
While watching the two giants fight for a short time, Hinata had already deduced the bear's weakness. Basically, it was just a normal bear aside from its ridiculously tough claws. Too bad, it was fighting against a chakra monster, who was immune to physical attacks.
Seeing the red bear fall, Naruto wondered if the other teams faced a Chakra Beast Boss.
'We were lucky that the bear is weak to me. If we faced the fast white crow, or the three-headed wolf instead… I don't even know how we'll deal with the blue tiger.'
Sadly, only Naruto and Kurama had an easy time dealing with the Chakra Beast Boss. Kurama met the giant white crow, which he burned into ash.
"Damned fly."
The white crow was fast, sure, but Kurama was undoubtedly faster. Way faster. The crow was more intelligent than the bear and used its abilities to turn into a smaller crow, nearly the size of a hummingbird as it tried to kill Naruto-Kurama, but Kurama just scoffed and roared, using his tailed beast chakra to send corroding chakra into the air, easily repelling the crow.
The poor crow didn't even know how it died when a tailed beast bomb suddenly appeared out of nowhere and disintegrated its body.
Gaara and his siblings met the giant three-headed wolf, which was simply too much for Gaara to handle because of its absurd Wind-Fire style combo.
"Sand Tsunami."
After the three-headed wolf launched another combo of Wind-Fire, Gaara created a sand tsunami in a rush. He had observed that for a short amount of time, the wolf would be immobile after using charka, so he used the time to trap it.
As to why he didn't attack it? It was because the wolf could also manipulate the earth, making its body stronger than steel. Temari's wind style couldn't cut it, how could his sand do so?
Thus, after delaying it using a multitude of sand traps, the trio ran away.
Zabuza and Haku had it worst. They faced off against the giant blue tiger, who could move without making a sound.
For once, the silent killer met another silent killer who was better than him.
During the fight, Zabuza had to guard Haku the whole time as the boy, while adept at silent killing, wasn't as good as him. In order to escape, Zabuza and Haku trapped the tiger in a Water-Ice combo, after which they fled.
The tiger was above kage level in strength, it surely wouldn't be held off for too long.
Thus, after a few minutes of madly running, both Chakra Bosses from Gaara and Zabuza were already behind their asses. Thankfully, Naruto and Kurama were already in sight, and after dealing with the two bosses, they readied themselves to deal with the rest of the chakra beasts.
The Beast Wave's real strength lies in numbers. Alone, even if they were the Chakra Beast bosses, they were nearly useless when alone. But together, they were a real threat even to the Ninja Villages. However, like the Beast Wave, the firepower of ninjas also duplicated as they gathered together. A prime example was Haku and Zabuza's Ice-Water collaboration.
As they watched the beast wave gather and surround them, Naruto was about to throw a few dozen of Explosive Scrolls when suddenly, the Beast Wave exploded in a mist of blood. Naruto felt happy that Karasu didn't accompany them at this time, otherwise, he didn't know if the crow would survive.
But soon, Naruto's elated mood dropped into the bitter abyss as he watched a red-haired man emerge from the blood rain.
The man had crimson hair, and a faint golden sealing chakra was emanating from his body.
He was Chisuke Uzumaki.
"Get ready, we're going to have a bloody battle."
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