Chapter 84: 1 vs 8

Riku filled his grandmother in on the current situation the world was in. All Mito had known so far was that she had been brought back with others by Orochimaru and someone else performing the Edo Tensei. With her had been her husband and brother-in-law during her resurrection.

Both Jiraiya and Riku had expected it. Just like they had expected her to suffer the same fate. Why else would Obito, the snake sanin and Zetsu have stolen their corpses?

Mito had then been separated from the group immediately to be brought up here, in this location. She was ordered to fortify the place with fuinjutsu from the ground up. Most notably against space-time fuinjutsu. She had been well renowned for her mastery of the art in her youth but very few knew that fuinjutsu had multiple branches. It was so complex to understand that fuinjutsu was mysterious to almost everyone. That was why when Obito had given his orders to Mito she was unable to carry it out. She understood the principle behind the concept and could practice it a bit but wasn’t a mistress at it.

Of course, she never shared that with Obito nor Orochimaru. Mito had been expected to know and there was no reason she wouldn’t in their minds. It allowed her barriers to be flawed right from the beginning against space-time. As such it was impossible for anyone to teleport inside or outside the base but they could teleport from point A to point B inside of it.

She had hope that since they tasked her with this, someone out there would be able to reach her and perhaps deal with her. Once she was incapacitated somehow, Orochimaru wouldn’t have any more access to new seals that would counter seals breaking the mind control of the resurrected. Obito had made sure to separate her from the snake to not have it double cross him with fuinjutsu bullshit.

“Thank you, Ri-kun.” Mito smiled at him when her great grandson activated the seal he had been drawing on her. She was now back in control of her own actions and very grateful for it.

Riku gave her a small smile but said nothing about it. Jiraiya, on the other hand, had a very pertinent question.

“What now, Lady Mito?” He asked with politeness Riku had never heard from the man. “Are you going back to the pure lands?”

The evil grin the former jinchuriki of the Kyubi gave him had him shudder in fear.

“After I teach a lesson or two about not bringing back people with that awful ju-”

She stopped talking when behind her, the demonic statue of the outer path disappeared in a puff of smoke. Right before Jiraiya and Riku’s eyes, their secondary target vanished somewhere else. The only reason they could think of was because Obito had summoned it. And the only reason for this was because he needed it. Meaning, he either had captured Naruto or Karin and was preparing to extract the Kyubi.

“We need to go.” Riku was alarmed. Mito had confirmed that she had been the only fuinjutsu master resurrected as far as she knew. That made his mission a success as the enemy didn’t have access to more seals and wouldn’t be able to counter the undead’s capture and freeing.

His grandmother had other plans however. “Not yet.”

“Grandmother, our forces are badly outnumbered. We need-”

“This place is where they are creating those white soldiers.” She cut him off.

Without giving the men in front of her the time to react, she grabbed them both by their coats and jumped down the hole where the gigantic lotus flower, the statue was sitting on, was.

That was a very long descent. Riku was almost certain that if they weren’t already under the sea level they would be soon. As the ground approached at unbelievable speed, Riku threw a shurifuin at the ground and teleported them all there, nullifying the expected crash landing and the resulting death.

Jiraiya’s heart was beating up a storm. Mito had jumped way too far from any surface for them to use chakra to stick on something. “My life passed in front of my eyes.”

“Is that… Hashi-ji?” Riku’s eyes were focused on something on the flower’s steam.

“It is.”

Mito’s cold and harsh voice caught the Toad sage’s attention. Right there, at the base of the stem, was a perfect lookalike of the Shodaime’s hokage. It was like a sprout getting out from the stem, surrounded by eight hands. All made of wood.

“They’re using Hashirama-kun’s cells to produce those white soldiers deep underground. The mokuton is giving a boost to this flower. I’m not sure how but it allows their production, they’re like flowers or fruits blooming on the roots.” Mito explained.

“So that’s why they all have your husband cells in them. They are being made from the Shodai's." Jiraiya remarked.

Riku had understood something else. “More than that. It explains how they were able to infiltrate Konoha so easily. They use the roots of any plant, any trees through the ground to move around. It wasn’t space-time jutsu to begin with, Obito’s mangekyo’s ability aside. It was this. No wonder I wasn’t able to block them, I wasn’t working on the right thing.”

Raising his hand, Riku channeled his chakra at the tip of his finger. There, obvious to the naked eye, a marble made of chakra formed.

“Oh.”

Jiraiya immediately jumped back a few dozen feet. He was even more sure of his decision when he saw the marble’s bright white color turned into green. Mito watched attentively, curious. She wasn’t disappointed.

Riku flicked the marble right onto the tree and exploded. A powerful gust of wind was released with a very loud and acute grinding sound. It lasted a second or two at most but the whole stem of the flower was destroyed. What was left of it, without anything to support it, had its base touched the ground while the rest tilted forward. It would have fallen down had the space the flower had sprouted in not been a small square in perimeter. As a result it leaned against the wall.

“Well, that’s that. No more. White Zetsu,” Riku said.

“I think you should have burned it to ash.” Jiraiya disagreed. “With the mokuton, who knows if they can’t just reattach it or make another?”

Mito nodded. “Fair point.”

Riku simply grinned at them and summoned a few dozen shadow clones. Immediately they scattered around and began to draw seals all over the place. At first neither of his companions understood what he and his clones were doing as there wasn’t much to go on. However, soon enough, Mito began to chuckle.

“What is he doing?” Jiraiya asked, not having caught on.

“He’s booby trapping the whole area. That pesky space-time ninjutsu from Obito wouldn’t work. He won’t be able to leave. At the same time,” She pointed at the original Riku to the side. “He’s applying what I believe to be a seal slowing down time almost to a stand still. I wasn’t able to look properly at the seal from those kunai of his earlier but the kanjis are similar.”

“I am!” Riku said from a few feet away, having heard his grandmother. “If he ever retreats here he’d be stuck and we will be alerted. We will have plenty of time to find a way to deal with him properly.”

“Until the seals run out of chakra.” Mito pointed out.

“Not with that seal over there.” Riku pointed out to a clone at the back of the stem, barely visible. “It draws in nature energy and makes nature chakra. It will make the whole thing last longer.”

Satisfied with the answer she got and very impressed, Mito nodded in acknowledgement. Part of her wished she could have the time to discuss fuinjutsu with her grandson. It was clear as day to her that he was an exceptional individual and she was glad that finally her descendants got the knack for fuinjutsu. Neither her daughter or grandchildren got it. Not even an interest. It had been a source of great sadness for her.

Riku debated asking Katsuyu to relay everything that had happened here to Mei at the Headquarters but decided against it. Some information needed to be kept secret just in case the enemy found a way to spy and learn of it. All the little slug share was that Jiraiya and Riku captured the seal master working for the enemy and that was it.

Once Riku was done with his trap, the trio left the headquarters. It would have taken too long for Mito to undo the multiple seals prohibiting Riku to be able to flash them away. Once out, he was about to bring everyone back to the headquarters when they saw from a distance a sight they hadn’t expected.

“What the…”

Riku’s mind raced. Right there, a few kilometers away eight bijus were gathered and, from what he could tell, were fighting someone or something.

“This is not good. That deep into enemy territory… It could only be Team Kakashi or Team 7.”

“You can’t stay here.” Mito remarked. She was right. A single biju could redefine the landscape alone, so eight of them in the same place? It didn’t look good for anyone’s survival odds.

Riku shook his head however. He dropped a wood shuriken on the ground and flashed away with Jiraiya. Ten seconds later and he was back. Mito had waited for him, having understood that he would be coming back.

“You’re definitely as reckless as Hashirama-kun.” she said flatly.

“Funny. I was always told I was more like Tobirama-ji.” Riku replied as he began to hop from branch to branch in the direction of the fight.

Knowing full well how her brother-in-law always had contingencies in place she asked him a question. “So you have a plan then?”

“Yes. Use Mokuton and seals to restrain them. On each team is an Uzumaki with the Adamantine chains too so we might be working something out.”

“Two? That’s… The adamantine chains are so rare. Did Kushina have a daughter?”

“No, a son. My wife did inherit them though, along with the eye of Kagura and the healing chakra.”

Mito’s eyes widened in surprise when she heard that. “The three kekkei genkai of our clan?”

Riku nodded but said nothing else and instead increased his speed. He knew that each member of the team had a hiraishin bracelet on them but if the team had been taken by surprise then the possibility of someone being knocked out and unable to use it was possible. Furthermore, Obito might be there and either take Karin or Naruto while the bijus distracted the teams. He hoped that wasn’t the case but the fact that the demonic statue had been summoned didn’t make good odds.

They arrived just in time to act. The eight biju shot their bijudama in the direction of Kakashi and Gai who were side by side. There was no trace of Karin or the rest of the team. Something obviously went wrong and Riku needed answers.

He landed right in front of his friends and in a split moment decision, instead of throwing his wood shurifuin at the bijudamas, Riku slapped his hand on the ground. It was a move he had developed speaking with his father and by studying the report on Obito’s phasing ability.

Much like for a summoning jutsu, a seal matrix appeared on the ground, written in Riku’s chakra. It surrounded the three shinobi just in time. The bijudama hit their position and obliterated everything it touched after exploding.

“How are we still alive?” Gai’s voice echoed inside a huge cloud of smoke and dust.

“Fuinjutsu,” Riku replied, standing up and reaching from his book of seals in his back pouch. He didn’t need to see to achieve this. The movement was well practiced. Neither did he to open it to the page he needed and summoned a few hiraishin bracelets. “The rest of your team?”

“Retreated when the jinchurikis shifted into their biju form. Gai and I’s bracelet were destroyed and we were stuck.” Kakashi replied as he used the gale palm to clear the cloud.

Riku tossed each one a bracelet then focused on the eight enemies in front of him. “Go.”

“Hokage-sama!”

Kakashi grabbed Gai’s shoulder and shook his head. He knew Riku enough to know he would survive the encounter, unlike them.

“You’re needed elsewhere.” Riku was all he said as the bijus all shot another bijudama at them.

Frowning, Gai let it go and channeled a bit of chakra into the hiraishin seal after pouring a bit of his blood on it. He disappeared in a green flash.

“Good Luck.” was all Kakashi said to his friend before following Gai.

Riku was sure he could survive the encounter. The intangibility of his barrier alone would insure that. The problem was that he needed to do more than just survive. He needed the jinchuriki out for the count. He was outclassed in chakra and endurance by a mile and he didn’t know if his mokuton had a powerful enough effect on the chakra beasts.

“Fuck it.” He said to himself and entered sage mode on the spot.

Not a single day passed without him patting himself on the back for working on his chakra control to the extreme ever since he had unlocked his chakra. It made gathering nature energy and balancing it with his physical and spiritual ones very easy and more importantly: fast. Chaining hand signs at incredible speed, he completed the jutsu he had in mind. He pressed his palms together, his voice steady, and the earth itself began to rise in response.

“Sage Art Mokuton: True Several Thousand Hands”

The landscape split open, and from it surged an immense wooden titan. It towered high above the clouds, its vast frame rooted in the soil and its carved face calm as a god’s. Thousands of arms unfolded from its back, layer upon layer, spreading wide until they seemed to hold the sky itself. Each hand flexed with divine precision, the motion alone strong enough to bend the air and send ripples across the world.

At the center of it all, Riku stood on the statue’s forehead, cloaked in the glow of sage mode. His eyes shone with perfect focus. The moment he moved his own hands, the giant followed, mimicking him in perfect synchrony.

“Hokage-Style Sixty-Year-Old Technique — Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands”

The hands behind the buddha shot forward in the direction of each beast. They circled their bodies and caught them in a tight vice. One landed on the forehead of each biju and began to apply the jutsu he had just used.

Restrained, the tailed beast could do nothing but have their chakra suppressed. They shrunk in size at a terrifying speed, the wood around them getting tighter still. Unfortunately it was too thick to properly tie up the jinchurikis and their human forms. What was worse was that Riku’s sage mode faded. Turned off by him because he had no chakra left after using all his reserves for those two jutsu.

Panting on the top of the buddha’s head, he knew he was in big trouble. He didn’t even have enough chakra to activate the hiraishin and he only needed a drop of it. Any more use of chakra and Riku would probably die.

He wasn’t giving up however. Not even when the eight undead containers all moved in his direction, running up the buddha to get to him. He was confident and he was right to be.

He felt a gentle hand rest on his shoulder and adamantine chains speed in front of him to catch all his attackers and tie them up for good this time.

“That was a marvelous display of Mokuton, Ri-kun. Hashirama-kun would be proud.”

Tired beyond belief, Riku could only look sideways at his grandmother smiling at him, chains sprouting from her torso. He smiled back but focused on recovering his breath.

Pulling out tags from his book of seals, he stumbled to the jinchurikis to put them on them.

“I’ll seal you for a bit,” he said to Gaara, the closest to him. “I don’t have the time to free you from your mind control.”

Despite contortioning his body to get free of the chains, Gaara spoke his own mind. “Thank you. My sister?”

“Leading Suna like she was born for it.” Riku smiled, adding another tag. “She was safe the last time I saw her. That was almost a day ago.”

He finished with Gaara and went to the next target. A short girl with tan skin and green hair. If Riku wasn’t wrong, she was the nanabi’s jinchuriki.

“Hi.” The girl said jiovally in total contrast to the serious situation.

“Hello.”

“Sorry about attacking you. We don’t have much of a choice.” Despite her words, her smile never wavered.

“I know.”

“Never have a choice in much of anything when we’re jinchuriki.” A tall man with long black hair said to her side. Riku recognized him as the vessel of the Rokubi.

“Once we have our hands on the rinnegan, we can bring you all back to life. You’d have a choice now that you’re free of the bijus.”

“To do what? My village is gone!”

Continuing to apply the tags on the Taki’s kunoichi, Riku looked at the Kumo one. The one who had once held the two tails inside of her.

“Even if we have a village to go back to, we’ll just be made jinchuriki again.”

This time Riku recognized the man as Han, the holder of the five tails. Minato had spoken a lot about the encounter with the iwa shinobi during the Third Shinobi war.

“After everything I did against my people, even against my will, I do not foresee them welcoming me with open arms.” ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ NoveIＦire.net

The yondaime Mizukage’s words finally prompted Riku’s to answer.

“First off, if you want to enjoy a new life or not, it is your choice.” he said as he switched to the rokubi’s jinchuriki. “You don’t have to be brought back to life if you don’t want to, in that case you’ll be told the hand seals sequence to release the Edo Tensei and you’d be back to the Pure Lands. No one will force you to do anything. Second: Iwa doesn’t exist anymore.”

“What?” Han didn’t exclaim as his voice was quite calm but it contained a good amount of disbelief.

“I got tired of Konoha always having to kick Iwagakure’s ass every twenty years because they don’t want peace. So I dealt with the problem permanently.”

His words were nonchalant. As if he was talking about something mundane like doing groceries. They all felt the insane killing intent emanating from him however and that kept everyone quiet.

“Kumo has still a few people left. Some have even joined the alliance and are fighting as we speak. What will happen to them? I didn’t have the time to think about it yet.” He switched to the Kumo’s kunoichi. “If what you want is peace, then Konoha, Kiri or Suna will welcome you. It might not be your village but it can be a place that you can one day call home. You also won’t have the stigma of being a jinchuriki as your identity as vessels is not that spread to the population. You won’t even have to be a shinobi if you don’t want to.”

He looked at her dead in the eyes, before switching to the bearded man with glasses in front of him.

“Yo, Konoha’s new Hokage makin’ offers so fly,

But I’m a cloud ninja, freedom’s my sky.

Without my bro and my Eight-Tails crew,

Ain’t no point, fool, you fool, yo.”

Riku froze. Tag in hand a few inches away from the man’s torso.

“Don’t mind him, he’s an idiot.” The Kumo’s kunoichi said flatly.

“Ookay.” was Riku’s reply, his body moving again. “That brings me to my third point. The bijus will be removed from the world.” Mito looked at him with interest when she heard that. So did all the jinchuriki. “For now I intend to seal them on the remnant of Uzushiogakure and make sure no one will be able to seal them into a human being ever again. The Mizukage, Kazekage and I are all in agreement about this. In the long term, the plan is to find a way for them to be free while removing them from the human world. Their power has no place among humanity but they shouldn’t be imprisoned because of it. Existing is not a crime.”

The conversation ended there, no one having much to say anymore. Riku quickly finished the last three he needed to paralyze and stored everyone inside a storage seal.

“You really want the bijus to be free?” his grandmother asked.

Without hesitation, Riku answered with all the seriousness he could muster. “Yes. They’re not just beasts to put in a cage. They’re sentient and should be treated as such. Emprisonning and selling them like you and Hashi-ji did was wrong. I understand why you did it in the case of the Kyubi but the others didn’t deserve that fate. All because of humans’ greed and lust for power.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be that way. I disagreed strongly with what Hashirama-kun ended up doing. Like you, he believed the bijus’ place wasn’t among humanity but he didn’t know how to go about it.”

“In the end lots of people suffered from his decisions.” Riku sighed, tired of this conversation he had talked about so much recently. “I don’t blame him. He did what he thought was best. Now it’s my turn. Only time will tell if it’s good or not.”

A flash of light coming from the right illuminated the sky making it look like it was day for a brief second. Far away in this direction Riku saw the giant statue. Sighing, he grabbed Mito and used the bit of chakra he had recovered to flash away back to his Botib.

The war wasn’t over yet.