Ch. 34

As Fast as you Can

A week later

Itachi was woken from his nap by a chorus of maniacal laughter. His eyebrows rose, knowing that was never a good sign where Moriko was involved. Her laughing like that was never good. An army of her clones laughing like that was definitely not good. He spotted Ryusuke's clone already hiding behind a tree and nodded to himself. Good someone had warned him. Suddenly Moriko appeared in front of Itachi, lilac eyes alight with an unholy gleam.

"Itachi! You're never going to believe this!" she said before her latched onto his arm, already talking a mile a minute as she slid in and out of English and Japanese as fluid as breathing, the massive blur of swift multilingual information almost threatening to make his brain glitch. To preserve his sanity, the clone dispelled himself.

...

Itachi sat up sharply from where he had been napping, his eyes snapping open as a cold sweat broke out all over his body. Spotting the blonde Uzumaki woman in the distance clearly looking for him, he cursed and began packing rapidly. Ryusuke appeared beside him, rising from the grass like a snake to follow his urgent lead, the camp broken down and packed in five minutes, the fire snuffed, and the two men prepared for the inevitable.

"Get ready," Itachi muttered as he bit his thumb and rapidly went through hand seals, Ryusuke standing beside him for the summoning. A large crow appeared under them. As the smoke cleared the young woman and the crow stared at each other for a moment from across the huge clearing before the Crow was taking off with haste, having been in this situation before.

She zipped across the clearing at them with dizzying speed only to get halted as Itachi activated one of the seals he had left in the clearing, the young woman pausing her manic laughter to start cursing loudly. By then, the crow had taken off rapidly winging it toward Konoha.

There was a large poof of smoke behind them and Itachi cursed as he saw the enormous Yamagata take to the skies, intently climbing in altitude. Itachi cursed louder as he went to the large strip of leather on Keisuke's saddle, hitting a seal, adding the antigravitational seal, and activating another. Suddenly they were rising rapidly in the air, the crow gaining speed that had Yamagata giving a piercing cry of annoyance as the peregrine falcon dove for them, picking up dizzying speeds.

Itachi, remembering the sound and its meanings cursed, using another seal to make them move even faster much to the hawk's ire. He could hear Moriko's cackles of laughter over the roaring winds and he felt a thrill of fear despite knowing that they were allies. It was the feeling of being prey and he found himself quietly thankful that they were on the same side. Despite knowing this, he still felt himself break into goosebumps seeing Yamagata's large shadow briefly cover them before he grabbed the leather saddle, sticking it to himself with chakra.

"Brace yourselves! Keisuke, now!" Itachi yelled, the crow suddenly tucking in its wings. An oblong barrier formed around the bird, the group floating due to the antigravity seal.

A moment later there was a large boom as they were shot forwards with dizzying speeds as the antigravitational seal kept them aloft, the barrier around them an aerodynamic shape that let them slip through the air, and another seal used to launch them forwards at high speeds. The two men and the crow yelled or cawed in terror and exhilaration as they struggled to withstand the speeds at which they were moving.

Behind the fleeing group, Moriko began cheering on the back of Yamagata for a new reason.

"Oh my god, that was a sonic boom! Yamagata, they were traveling faster than the speed of sound! Oh my god, it's been so many years," Moriko laughed as happy tears slipped from her eyes, watching Itachi's crow shoot across the sky like a missile. It had been so long since she had flown a fighter jet, but the remnant of those times brought a wistful smile to her face. It was almost enough to distract her from the discovery she had made, but at the edge of her senses, she felt a seal calling to her. With a grin, she disappeared in a yellow flash.

…

Hiruzen jerked in surprise when a young woman with blonde hair and purple eyes appeared beside his desk in the Hokage office. There was a rain of senbon, shuriken, and kunai that embedded themselves in the spot she stood before she reappeared on his other side, her hair turning red as her eyes turned teal.

"Sorry, I should have thought that through better. I didn't think you had a seal in the office though," she said as she dodged the projectiles that were being sent towards her still, her hair snatching weapons out of the air and collecting them on a section of hair as she danced and hopped over incoming projectiles. Hiruzen breathed a sigh of relief upon recognizing her, motioning for the Anbu to stand down. After a moment they did so as she walked towards the Hokage's desk, grinning widely depositing the weapons into a pile on the floor for the Anbu to sort through. Hiruzen's eyes were shining with the unspoken question, lit with hope. Her smile turned blinding as she grinned.

"I did it. I figured it out," she breathed as Hiruzen stood to embrace her the two pulling back after a moment to share a look of excitement and joy.

"Show me," he said holding out his hand. She took it and they disappeared in a red and white flash. A moment later they reappeared and the two began celebrating heartily at their shared triumph. A minute later Hiruzen seemed to calm as he shot her a questioning look.

"Will you be able to modify it?" he breathed, and she nodded eyes gleaming with excitement.

"For what we had in mind, yes. This is it. This is going to change everything," she breathed as he blinked away rising tears of relief and they hugged each other fiercely as their shoulders shook. The past two and a half months had been so stressful for the three of them. To know that they would be able to use the Hiraishin to teleport the civilian population to the shelters at a moment's notice, or if the village barrier was damaged, that the shelters that were reinforced with seal work to hide and protect them, it was such a weight off his shoulders, off their shoulders, knowing that there would be some certainty in the future for their people. If anything, this was just the beginning.

…

That night Hiruzen, Moriko, Jiraiya and Tsunade celebrated hard, Tsunade having been brought into the loop to explain to her why Moriko was needed elsewhere with the coming invasion.

She had also been chewed out very harshly by her teacher and teammate over her harassment of the young woman, on top of the other stressors that were going on in Moriko's life.

While Tsunade hadn't apologized, she had offhandedly commented that she would help Moriko gain some further healing experience when the young woman had time. It had been the closest thing to a compromise the blonde woman had been willing to offer, and Moriko was just pleased the other woman had laid off, for at least now.

The group got into the Sake jugs that the Hyuga had sent Jiraiya, and they were already sloshed as they laughed, playing party games and eating good takeout. This had been a group effort, so everyone shared in the celebration as their hard work started to come together.

They now had medics who had a mobile defense seal that would protect them from harm while allowing them to protect the people they were healing. The medics now had chakra storage seals that would allow them to store chakra for later, as well as chakra inhibitors on their hands that could be turned off and on to help increase a medic's chakra control to almost perfect.

The village now had a teleportation seal that could move forces around as needed, mass evacuate civilians to the shelters, the ability to reach key people and places in seconds of time, and the ability to teleport attacks and people away from the village.

Most of the hospital was done, with only the eighth floor needing to be finished for the huge building and they would start tagging the civilian population soon with the modified Hiraishin seals.

The hospital was sealed to high heavens for both security and strength, a self-triggering barrier set up to allow citizens in but would detect and light up guests or invaders, the refinement, control, and amount of their chakra having the color they lit up range from green, yellow, red and purple.

The guest that entered the hospital wouldn't be able to see their color but everyone that was keyed into the hospital would be able to. If on lockdown, those without the seal needed wouldn't be able to enter at all, and if people without citizen seals were in areas outside what was permitted they would be forcibly ejected from the hospital.

Any seals outside Moriko and Jiraiya's creation would light up blue, helping identify people under a sleeper seal to prevent spies. Guests would be limited to certain sections of the hospital and civilians would be sealed against being able to convey details about the hospital to prevent leaked intel.

The building itself was sealed against wear and tear and had self-sanitizing rooms and floors. It had air purification as well as heating and cooling seals to keep the building at a comfortable temperature. The air purification was designed specifically to combat airborne disease as well as poisons and smoke, any type of airborne substance. It was to keep poisons or smoke to be released in the hospital, and there were seals that stored and brought in oxygen in case of emergencies.

There were also fire suppression seals, acid neutralization seals, seals to ground electricity over a certain voltage, and the like to prevent damage to the hospital. The ground around the hospital was sealed against being able to be moved, and the ground was already tightly packed into stone to keep the foundation of the building from cracking as it settled.

In 60 years, they might need to use earth jutsu to level the ground under the hospital as the foundation settles, but there should be no cracks in the foundation concrete, with it being 20 feet deep. The concrete of all the floors and walls was reinforced on top of them using the highest grade of cement they could. It was built to last and withstand just about anything, even being teleported elsewhere.

Overall, it had been an ambitious as well as intensive project. Tsunade as well as her vetted and sealed staff were already going through the new hospital with a fine-toothed comb to ensure that everything was working the way it should. There were already a number of work orders put in for minor things that needed to be checked and updated, by overall the project looked to be finished by next week.

As for the hospital barrier, when it was on lockdown, it would function the same way the mobile medic seal would, by absorbing any kinetic, chakra, or thermal attacks. Slow-moving attacks would be repelled as well, and chakra attacks would be absorbed, all the converted or absorbed energy stored so the seal would know the chakra signatures to attack when the energy storage seals were full enough. The energy from the attacks would serve to fuel the barrier. Anyone who wasn't a villager of Konoha who tried to attack the hospital would activate the village-wide alarm system.

Otherwise, a ninja from the village was invited to practice their jutsu at the barrier to help keep it charged. As long as they were citizens of Konoha, having one of the seals to prove so and no sleeper agent seal, the alarm wouldn't turn on. It was going to be treated as a way to test for imposters in the ninja ranks and academy. If they were citizens, they would have the seals needed to enter the hospital and wouldn't trigger the alarms. Truly the hospital was a masterpiece of hard work, and they were all pleased to spend the evening drinking and laughing with cheer.

Moriko only had one last seal she and her teacher needed to finish. Hopefully, they would be able to finish it before the chunin exams began.

…

Someone groaned as the morning light began to wake up the hungover group that was scattered over the Hokage's living room floor dead asleep.

Asuma shook his head as he picked his way through the snoring group heading for the kitchen to start making coffee. It was a bit depressing to know that his 68-year-old father sometimes partied harder than he did.

He heard the groan of someone waking with a hangover and Asuma added more coffee to the pot knowing that the horde of hungover zombies would be entering the kitchen soon to raid it for coffee and food. Admittedly Asuma was a bit miffed that he hadn't been allowed to attend, but understood that it had to do with security clearance and had been offered security clearance. He had waved off the invitation citing that he hated learning new languages before he had gone out for the night with his friends.

After all, Moriko had promised that they would all go out tomorrow evening. He had to admit, he was looking forward to it and had sent out word to the rest of their friends.

That girl knew how to party hard.

AN: Mwahahahahahaha!

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