Chapter 2

Naruto looked on in stunned silence Gone was the dilapidated ruin of the present and in its place was a pristine, beautiful temple that looked brand new. "What? … where am I?" A black haired shrine maiden that looked around 20 responded, walking into view "The same place you were before, the forgotten Biniru clan temple." Naruto looked at the work of art behind her and squinted. The shrine maiden giggled, "hehehe I can understand your confusion young one. This is what the temple looked like in all its glory." Naruto hummed softly as he pictured the dilapidated temple in his mind. The cracked and often missing floor tiles leading up to the faded wooden building cracks and holes all over, a faded red frame outlining the stained formerly white body of once used clan temple. This place looked eerily similar despite being in prime condition… "no… it can be… but…. It is…." He stupidly muttered. The shrine maiden nodded "but how?! This place hasn't seen use since the Warring clan era!" Naruto exclaimed.
"How do you think?" She smiled
"….TIME- no, th- thats stupid…" Naruto started then decided to dispel what ever genjutsu was on him "kai!"
The maiden laughed as Naruto opened his eyes to the same location. "No, no its not time travel or a genjutsu. Its a different kind of projection, almost like a shared mindscape." Naruto's eye widened. He knew what a mindscape was: a person's mental world within their very own consciousness constructed from the user's thoughts, memories, imagination, and dreams. But that was just it it was a personal world if it were a shared mindscape that meant… "yes child, there are multiple people sealed within this temple."

Naruto frowned, he could guess how this was going to go. "you want me to unseal you."

The shrine maiden shook her head. "The way this seal works is that only one person can release one sealed person. And as the person who created this seal I must go last. I want you to release one of others for me, and bring others to do the same." Naruto was guarded to say the least. "There are many questions I have to ask first…""Yes…" shrine maiden agreed "but lets introduce ourselves to you first, and we can tell each other our stories." The two walked towards the Temple. "Before I let you inside Naruto, I need to warn you, the others… well they are … abnormal, by your standards, friendly and they wont harm you loyal to the end but -"

"Its ok I dont judge people for their bloodlines." Naruto said thinking back to that Hyuga girl bullied for her eyes.

"well its not quite bloodlines, but thank you. I trust you to keep an open mind." With that the shrine maiden opened the door and guided Naruto through the temple. Giving a brief description of each room. Until they got to what seemed to be a meal hall, with one large table to eat at.

"so where are the others since they are sealed here … are they trapped in different rooms?" Naruto asked

"No the prisoners can move about this temple. they are simply observing you right now… they want to make sure you are trustworthy before they show themselves."

"A mutual earning of trust I see." The shrine maiden cocked her eyebrow. Naruto stared blankly at her. "I agreed to keep an open mind but there are many things suspicious about this whole situation, you not telling me your name for one"

"Mmm yes I can see how being so closed off might make you distrustful, I simply wanted to introduce you to us all together but if it will build your faith in us, my name is Himiko Biniru of the Biniru clan."

"Biniru… the vinyl clan? I haven't heard of you before…"

We were a powerful clan in the time you called… the warring states era I think it was? But do to a civil war within the clan we lost a lot of power… I cannot say for sure but I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up wiping our selves out and then were lost to history." Himiko said solemnly.

"Did that civil war have anything to do with your sealing?" Naruto asked trying to distract the shrine maiden.

"Yes," Himiko said "it did… let me tell you our story from the beginning, tell me child what do you know of summoning jutsu?"

"you make a contract with talking animals by wighting your name in a scroll in blood… and then if you need help you use a drop of blood and you can summon them…"

"Yes child, do you know where summons come from?"

"My names Naruto by the way…ummmm I know the frogs come from Mount Myoboku…"

"Ok Naruto, you are correct about the frogs…what Im trying to say is that most normal summons a ninja would use come from this world…" Naruto cocked an eyebrow "Our clan used a different type of summon."

"One from a different world Im guessing?" The blond didnt know if he could believe it -what he was hearing right now.

"Worlds" Himiko breathed. "Long ago our clan had discovered a way to view into different worlds, according to our clans lore we were trying to master a type of scrying jutsu, when we saw into many other universes." With this Himiko made a half ram hand sign with that the mess hall changed to a giant circular room, with many mirrors covering the walls and a huge one covering the floor. "by the time the clan wars -what we called the warring states era- we had out posts ever major and some minor nations is the hall of realms located in our temple in the land of waves…" Naruto hummed. Himiko walked down to the mirror on the floor and tapped it with her foot. Soon every single mirror lit up showing a different universe. Each similar but different from the others…" Naruto choked on his own saliva, he couldn't believe it and yet… its didn't seem like a dream even or a lie… he could sense the changes in ones chakra if someone is lying there were none in Himiko.

Himiko continued "We Never really cared about the battles outside our clan saw the different wonders and powers coming from these realms and wanted to reach them… we eventually made contact with one though a form of Time space summoning, thats when we met them … the yokai…" she sighed "Thats what they called themselves, it was an umbrella term for any sort of supernatural being, entity, or spirit. Some were trustworthy and honorable other weren't, like humans they had rules they were bound to though…certain yokai could not lie, others could not break a promise if they made it, and some found certain elements in out world to be like poison… these rules were different for each species but the rules themselves were baked into their very being. They used a different type of energy then chakra, they called it mana.… If chakra was the combination of the body's spiritual energy and physical stamina then mana was the spiritual side alone. The yokai had their own version of mana called yoki it was a little different but it could be used in the same ways. We saw them as friends and allies. The most honorable ones taught us how to bind the Untrustworthy or roudy yokai to our will." Himiko frowned "I bet they regret that. As we grew stronger and trained with our Mana some of our clan decided to conquer the Elemental nations while most just wanted to continue our lives some wanted to find a way to live with our friends in their world. Thats when our civil war broke out. The two sides were those who largely those who wanted to dominate the world and those who wanted to live in peace."

Naruto was now fully engrossed in the story "what side were you on?"

"the live in peace side. We were nomads and if the clans didn't bother us -which most of the times the didn't- we saw no reason t to fight." Himiko stated "we were under the rule of the clan head. The domination side fought under a man who fancied himself the dark sage of yoki."

"That sounds… so cool! Like an evil sage!" Naruto said.

"I think it makes him sound like a dork… he took the names of our leaders the yoki sages and just added dark in front of it." Himiko deadpanned "But he did had the power to back his self made title up, him and his followers found a way to bind other yokai even ones they didn't summon to their side. Bound and unbound yokai were forced to be his slaves as we waged war in the shadows of the other clans battles…maybe we were just assumed to be parts of the same conflict… It doesn't matter, soon we found two ways to undo the binding, the first, if you sealed a bound yokai with a certain kind of seal that had the abilities of both a contract breaking seal and a containment seal the binding would eventually break but we knew the process could take time based on how powerful the binding was. The second way was to send them home, a forced unsummoning."

Himiko grimaced as she finished her story "In the end our side won, but at a great cost to both sides, not many of us survived in this world during the war a those not involved found a way to live in the yokai's realm they left this world for good… I dont blame them. But for the ones on the domination side, the surviving leaders were put to death but other soldiers allowed to rejoin the clan as long as they helped unbind the remaining yokai. Most were sent home but some, like the ones in my temple, had grown so fond of our home here. They wanted to stay and had said as such, so I and a few others decided to seal them in the temples so they could be unbound. We thought agreed that some would come and release us when the time was right but…some bound yokai were still under their binding spells lifetimes later by the time the villages were made our clans and story was forgotten. Do you have any questions?" With that Himiko snapped her fingers and soon the two were back in the mess hall

Naruto was silent for a few moments taking in the story… "why havent I heard of magic before?"

"we learnt from the yokai to not show our power to the other clans it was too dangerous they would try to kill us to take our powers, Like with bloodline limits. We even developed mind erasure spells to avoid our magic being stolen. As for the other side, I cant say but I can assume they wanted to deal with us before the other clans so the less they knew about mana and yoki the better."

"I see… you said there was a difference between mana and yoki what is that?"

"Mana and yoki are both life energy but yokai are different in how they are made up remember those rule I mentioned as part of their being… the reason those rules are formed is because of yoki I dont know why or how though…"

Naruto nodded "but why were your sages called yoki sages then?"

Himiko chuckled "Because there are ways to turn a human into a yokai. You have to be a yokai to be a sage."

Naruto paused at that he decided to think about that later "one last question, its obvious that the biju are yokai are they still bou-"

At that a new, stern but distinctly feminine voice was heard "Those mere masses of chakra are NOT yokai, and never will be!"

(a/n: chapter 2 is now out! hope you all liked it! ch 2 and 3 will be posted together. heres a qiuck question for you all i have a few images i collected for help describing things in this story would you mind if i posted them in the wattpad/ Ao3 versions? i cant post them here so id feel thats a little unfair.)