1,322Recommended story: 'My Snow Girl' by lord of the land of fire, my favorite Rosario+Vampire fic
Chapter Forty-seven
It had been a normal evening in Konoha, a few people out on the town or jounin performing security patrols. All that was changed by a white light appearing out of normal in the town center, described by those who saw it as lightning coming from the ground towards the sky instead of the other way around. When the light cleared and everyone in the area could see again, they saw a group of people in its place. Like they had been summoned there.
Naturally there was panic and confusion and of course shinobi were called in to act. But the sight of two people kept them from reacting too quickly.
"Holy shit! Hokage-sama is back!"
"And is that the Sandaime too?"
"Hold on, it must be a trick."
Disoriented and uncertain, Tsunade rose to her feet and cleared her head.
"Everyone stand down! I need everyone here brought to the hospital and treated right away! No exceptions or so help me the first person to refuse I will personally send to the morgue myself! Am I clear?!"
The Anbu and other ninja just nodded and went right to carrying the others to the hospital. Several of the group tried to tell them that they were okay, but the ninja weren't about to disobey Tsunade when she was like this, so it was best for them all to comply. For those like Naruto and Sakura, they put up no fight.
At the same time, Anbu got defensive regarding Tayuya given her appearance. Kushina stood defense for her sister.
"Stand down! This is my sister and she is not a threat!"
"Not unless you want one." Tayuya warned.
"Not helping Tayuya." Kushina whispered.
"I can vouch for her. She is one of my guards and I need her to stay close to me and the patients." Tsunade told everyone, making them cautiously lower their weapons.
"Jiraiya-sama!" An Anbu called, finding the substitute hokage out at a bar that night since his working hours were over and he wouldn't be at the office anymore.
"What?"
"Tsunade-sama is back, there's trouble and I know this sounds impossible, but your sensei was there with her."
Jiraiya got to his feet. "This I have to see."
He left the bar and followed the Anbu to where Tsunade had been seen. By then she had already felt the area, but other shinobi told him that she headed to the hospital. Apparently there had been some trouble, but no one could be specific other than some people were hurt.
So Jiraiya headed to the hospital, and fortunately he timed it right so he saw Tsunade in the lobby telling everyone what to do. Jiraiya froze for a moment, seeing the Sandaime there with her assisting her. His mind just couldn't process this, his sensei alive again. Naturally he had to consider that this was a trick, but the only way to confirm it was to interact with what he was seeing.
"Tsunade? Sensei?"
The slug sannin momentarily stopped what she was doing to look at her teammate. "Jiraiya, I'll answer everything soon enough. Right now I need you to get everyone on alert. We could potentially be under attack any moment by something on par with Orochimaru."
Jiraiya wasn't happy to be essentially brushed off, but he knew better than to be stubborn and put his need for answers above people's need for medical attention. So he nodded and gave one more look towards Sarutobi.
"I'll go with him Tsunade. I can do more good with him at the moment than I can here."
"Fine, then go."
So the two men left, allowing her to work. Tsunade's Gift had helped everyone recover for the most part, but there were two among them that she hadn't been able to help. Naruto and Sakura. The whiskered blonde was still without eyes, and the pinkette was for all intents and purposes in a coma. Fortunately she didn't show any signs of a miscarriage, but that was the only comfort so far.
'Of all the times to learn that my new healing ability does have limits, it had to be now.' She groaned, while assigning doctors and nurses to the others just to make sure that everyone was treated.
Hinata, Ino, Isaribi, Ayame, Ursha, Kushina, and Shinju were cleared and thus allowed to leave. But of course they refused.
"Look, I understand that you all are concerned-" A doctor started, only for Kushina to get right in his face.
"Listen here buster, last time I was here people were actively trying to murder my son. Now if you think I'm going to leave him alone here and give someone else a chance to kill him, you aren't smart enough to have a doctor's license."
"I assure you that no one will attempt anything." The doctor promised.
"They won't because I'll be there to make sure they don't."
"Ma'am, you can't-"
Kushina grabbed his throat and pull him closer. "What part of 'this is not up for debate' do you not understand?! I am staying near my son, period! If you want to fight me on that, kill me! I dare you!"
Deciding that this was not a hill he wanted to die on, the doctor nodded and was released. And so Kushina was allowed into the room where medic professionals were tending to Naruto, who was at the moment sedated. Sakura was in there too, mostly for convenience and to better assure Kushina.
The girls however were not given the same exception that Kushina had been, and so they were in the lobby. Tayuya and Mariko were standing by a wall keeping guard, well aware that they were getting a lot of looks from everyone.
"Where's Moegi?" Shinju asked, having been trying to find her daughter but she was nowhere to be seen.
"She should be here." Ino claimed.
Hinata activated her byakugan and searched. This was difficult since there were a lot of chakra signatures in the area and a lot of them moving around in a fast pace. But after checking and rechecking, she deactivated her doujutsu. "I... I couldn't find her. She's not in or around the hospital."
"Then where is she?" Shinju asked, worried.
Somewhere in the Land of Fire, a large hideous beast was heading towards Konoha. It walked like it was lumbering, yet it acted as if it knew exactly where it was going. Every animal in the environment ran or flew from it, as if sensing that this was an apex predator that ate other apex predators.
On one of its limbs there was Moegi, bound to its flesh with humans arms growing out of it. The pressure they exerted was incredible, like they could snap any bone in her body that they wanted to. She struggled to break free of course, but she couldn't get free.
"You might want to stop that. I could just rip out your eyes and kill you." The devil holding her warned, sounding like a teacher who was okay with a student pushing their luck. Almost like when Iruka-sensei wanted to see if Konohamaru was willing to deal with consequences.
"Then why haven't you?" Moegi asked back.
"The more I bring back to Hell alive, the better the reward. Plus it doesn't hurt to have leverage."
"Konoha will kill you." Moegi warned.
The devil chuckled. "My dear, Konoha already did. Why do you think I was in Hell in the first place?"
"Well obviously you did something to deserve it. Konoha can't be to blame for that."
"Oh yes, they are. You want my tragic backstory?"
"No, I would prefer to know what you did to me." Moegi claimed, glancing at her new fox body. Oddly, she didn't hate it. If anything she felt strangely proud of it, but she would have preferred to be her normal self again. But she couldn't make herself get back to normal.
"Oh that? Isn't it obvious? I gave you a devil's mark and now you're a devil. Just like me."
"You lie!" Moegi resisted.
The devil laughed. "What do you think happened to you? Did you eat something that didn't agree with you?"
"Then why? Why do that to me?"
The devil laughed some more. "Because I can."
Moegi blinked. "That's it? Simple as that? Because you can?"
"It's the one and only law in Hell kid. Whatever you have the ability to do, you have the right to do. I could turn you into a devil, so I did. I can do the same to the others, and unless I have a better idea by the time I get to the village, I think I will."
Moegi struggled to break free some more.
"The devil's mark is quite a thing, kid. At first, it turns you into nothing in particular. You're everything and nothing all at once, like your body can't decide what it's supposed to be. Quite like how it feels to arrive in Hell. Then you decide what you want to be, and the mark gives it to you. But there are no takebacks. Once you decide what you are, you stay that way. I don't know why you wanted to be a mongrel, but that's what you chose and that's what you're stuck with."
"Then what kind of man chooses the form you have?"
"Oh, I didn't choose this. This body was my punishment for my sins. But I've made it into my power, and now Konoha will know it."
"What sins?" Moegi asked, pretty sure she didn't want to know the answer.
The devil laughed more, this time more boisterous and menacing. Like it thought that question was beyond ridiculous, or just plain hilarious.
"My list of sins is too long to list. But rest assured, I'll make my big one clear to all once I get to the village and take those I'm assigned to bring back to Hell. And maybe a few others along the way."
"But they're innocent!" Moegi objected.
"Do I look like someone who cares about innocence?!" The devil barked, now devoid of any humor.
Moegi chose to shut up, and the devil marched on leisurely. 'He says I'm a devil now. If so, that means I can fight back. I just have to figure out what this new body can do. Hmm... if he's right and I for some reason chose this form, then I chose what it can do. I think when this happened, I was thinking that I wanted to be like Boss. Not exactly what I thought that would be like, but if he's right, then maybe I'm like a mini-Kyuubi? Maybe if I bide my time, wait until we're closer to Konoha, I can catch this creep off guard and hurt him. Maybe that will help them fight back.'
Time passed, and dawn was breaking over the horizon. Many people were either waking up or just now going to sleep. And the Konoha council, that which remained, was assembling in the meeting room. They had been told to get there immediately, even if it meant forsaking their morning coffee. And they all were there.
"Alright, is everyone here?" Jiraiya asked.
"If not, I'm punching whoever got here late in the back of the head." Tsume groaned, looking like she really was in need of that coffee among other things. But at least she looked presentable, at least by her standards.
"Okay everyone, I'm sure you all heard that something crazy happened last night, so how about you hear it from someone a little better qualified to answer questions than me." Jiraiya said.
For a moment, everyone thought he was going to tell them Tsunade was back and maybe she could explain the missing people. But that disappeared when they saw a door open and the Sandaime walk in, looking just as healthy as he did before Orochimaru ran a sword through him.
"Hello everyone, I'm sorry to have made your mourning redundant." Sarutobi said with a mirthful smile.
"This is impossible." Hiashi said, using his byakugan to see through the trickery, only to see no trick.
"Do you really think I would be here right now without our best debunkers able to confirm my well being? I can tell you how this is true, but first catch me up on what happened while I was away."
There was hesitation among the council, understandable given how they were still processing this.
"Tsunade was made the Godaime, Sasuke Uchiha attempted to defect to Orochimaru but was halted, Kushina came back from parts unknown, attempts to overthrow Konoha from within by civilians and civilian supporting ninja happened, Tsunade took Naruto Uzumaki and several others out of Konoha to protect them from the worst of the incident, the primary culprits of this insurrection were identified and arrested, and somehow dozens of people have simply vanished into thin air. What is most perplexing is that the majority of those that are gone were directly involved in the revolt in the first place." Shikaku managed to get out.
Sarutobi nodded. "Alright, that checks out with what Jiraiya told me. I am concerned about the missing people. This suggests that someone has effectively manipulated our village from within using puppets. It could be Orochimaru, but something tells me it wasn't."
"Since a good number of the missing people had a dislike of Naruto in common, a part of me wonders if this was a long term ploy of Akatsuki. Designed to make it easier for them to abduct people by preemptively making the village collectively be happy that the victim was taken in the first place." Jiraiya guessed.
"Could someone really do that?" Chouza asked.
"The ways of ninja are not limited to fireballs and shurikens." Inoichi stated.
"What is this Akatsuki?" Hiashi asked.
"It is essentially a terrorist cell made up of missing nin, several of which considered to be S-ranked. Itachi Uchiha is confirmed as a member now, and Orochimaru was once part of the group." Jiraiya answered. "As for what they want, so far they have expressed an idea to take the power of the Kyuubi from Naruto, and according to my sources they have already done that to two other jinchuuriki across the Elemental Nations. For what purpose, that remains unknown."
"Could someone really be capable of creating hundreds of fake people and seeding them in several hidden villages unnoticed, and at the same time patient enough to wait long enough so that in the future one person in the village is so hated that they'd just hand him over to a group of criminals?" Shibi asked.
"To be fair, we don't know how long these fakes have been here." Tsume pointed out.
"It doesn't matter, the facts are someone did replace a portion of our population with fakes who sought out to tear down Konoha's infrastructure and turn the majority against Naruto. And it's likely that whoever did this has other plans. But they sadly are not the worst we have to deal with."
"What else do we have to fear?" Hiashi asked.
"Here's the story. It turns out that Kushina Uzumaki was not a biological Uzumaki but adopted into the clan. On the night of the Kyuubi attack, her bio family found her and abducted her, taking advantage of the chaos to take her back to their country, a land far far away from here. And it's taken her this long to get back."
Sarutobi and the others had agreed to only give out an abridged version of what happened. It would have been practically impossible to convince everyone that they had traveled to other worlds. Better to keep it simple where it was possible to.
"While Kushina was protecting her son from everything happening here, her family caught up to her intending to bring them both back this time. There was some fighting, some new abilities discovered, but ultimately they managed to fight them off. But Kushina has warned me that her bio family will come back in due time to wage war, but we will have time to prepare and fight them back."
"Could they be responsible for the fake people?" Chouza asked.
"My gut tells me no, but their abilities are strange and unfamiliar to us, so we cannot rule it out as a possibility. But that's not the worst part. Now, you're all no doubt wondering how I am alive right now. Well, Kushina's bio family had access to an unknown ability that was sort of the reverse of summoning the shinigami. Instead of bringing death to your enemy, it sends your enemy to the underworld. Naruto and a few others had been caught in it, and so they were sent to the afterlife while still alive."
"That's ludicrous." Shikaku countered.
"I assure you, it is not. I encountered them there, as I was dead of course. The shinigami however gave them a chance to return to the world of the living should they complete a challenge, and to their credit they did. A way to the world of the living was available, and so I and another joined them in coming back here when we had the chance. Right now I am as alive as any of you. But there's a problem. Apparently the shinigami is a sore loser and never intended for them to survive the challenge. So now, demons from Hell itself have come here with the intention of bringing us all back to the underworld. We've escaped, but they are surely on their way here right now."
A silence fell over the room.
"Please tell me that the Yondaime came back with you, if that is true." Shikaku stated.
Sarutobi shook his head, and a sense of dread grew in their hearts.
"This can't be true, is it?" Tsume asked.
"Whether it's true or not will be proven in a matter or time, how much I cannot say. But if you trust me at all, please know that a creature from Hell is on its way here to take whoever it can straight down to the depths. Now, does anyone have any ideas on how to fight something on par with the Kyuubi if not greater?"
"I think right now, Kushina is the only person in Konoha with any chance of doing that." Hiashi noted. 'Good thing Neji's out of the village, but will there be a village for him to come back to?'
In the hospital, Naruto roused into consciousness, trying to open his eyes but was unable to see anything. Confused, he felt his face only to discover gauze, and that was when the memory came back to him.
"Naruto-kun?" He heard Hinata call out.
"Hinata-chan?"
Within moments he felt a hug, which he returned. In that moment his blindness hurt the most. Then he felt another hug.
"It's good that you're awake." Ino said.
"Where's Sakura-chan?" He asked.
"In the next bed over, she's still asleep. What she did last night saved us all, but it took a lot out of her. I think she needs more rest." Hinata explained.
"How long until I get new eyes?" He asked, getting right to it rather than delay the inevitable.
He couldn't see it, but everyone in the room fidgeted a little.
"The doctors said they don't have any available at the moment. Apparently most people in need of organs don't need eyes so they usually aren't saved. So it won't be until someone new dies that a pair will be available." Isaribi answered on behalf of everyone.
"Tsunade-sama tried to see if she could regenerate some new ones for you, but apparently her new power can't do that." Ayame added.
Naruto sighed and hung his head. "Damn. I was really hoping to be able to see you all again."
"It's okay. That monster will be back sooner or later, and then we'll kill him and get your eyes back." Ursha stated.
Isaribi nodded. "What other choice do we have? It's not like we can just grow new eyes ourselves."
Ino blinked. "Or maybe we can."
"Huh?"
Ino smiled and held out her hands. "I'm such an idiot. Why didn't I think of this sooner?"
She concentrated, and on each palm grew a sphere that turned into an eyeball complete with nerves and blue irises.
Everyone was stunned.
"I was right. If I can grow clothes from my body sure I could grow organs too." Ino said, happy with her achievement.
"I'm getting Tsunade-sama right now! Keep those things moist!" Ayame exclaimed before rushing out the door.
"What just happened?" Naruto asked.
Hinata smiled and leaned in to kiss his cheek. "You're going to be able to see again very soon, and you owe Ino one hell of a thank you for it."
The shaking of the ground roused many people alert, and the shaking of trees on the horizon added to the sense of wrongness. This was not Konoha, but a small lumber mill town on the edge of the great forests of the country. People were getting ready for work or whatever else they were going to do for the day, but this tremor told them that today was not going to be a normal day.
Then from above the trees they could see the top of a beast. Something that looked like an ape, deer, and octopus all at once, covered from head to toe in eyes. People screamed and ran for cover.
"It's happening." An elderly woman said, gathering a kusarigama. With her several people grabbed their own weapons.
"Can we really fight this off? Our best devil fighters are off in Konoha right now." A middle-aged man asked, though he holstered a sword.
"We have to. Our weapons and Shields will do for now, but we must send a messenger to the others. We must get them ready. Now let's prove we are Kiohens and send this devil back to Hell!"
There were cheers to rally them to fight, and they went off to fight the monster. All the while two girls were tasked to flee instead of fight, and they rushed off towards Konoha as fast as they could. If they were lucky, the devil would be gone before the strongest devil slayers in the Elemental Nations got back home. And if they were unlucky, at least they'd have one more chance to kill the monster.