Memories

The Izanami Clan

Chapter 11

They disappeared out of sight, leaving me alone with the Tsuchikage. 'Wait, Kira,' he said quickly, 'when I activate the seal, you must suppress your chakra entirely and allow Amaterasu to come to the surface.' As I watched, he pulled out a scroll and summoned a corpse. I backed away from it. 'We're going to fake your death.'

My eyes widened. Fake my death? If this didn't work, we were putting the entire shinobi world at risk. But the Tsuchikage said,

'You are too important to give up. We need you in the war effort. So now, cooperate with me.'

I nodded once. He put the dead body in the middle of the seal. I remembered what they'd said: "We will then contact Madara," which meant that we would have a small window of time in between now and then to figure out how to deal with the fact that Amaterasu would not be inside the jar.

To begin with, we needed Naruto and Bee to escape – but that would all come later.

The Tsuchikage held up three fingers. Two. One.

He activated the seal using the key he'd been given, and I willed Amaterasu to come out. She rose to the surface, her powerful chakra encompassing everything. Even if they wanted to, the shinobi outside couldn't miss it. She slowly disappeared back into my body. The corpse had been decimated to ashes.

'To my office, quickly!'

I teleported to his office just before Amaterasu's chakra presence faded. The shinobi outside, having clearly felt Amaterasu's chakra, probably thought she'd been extracted from me.

I found myself in the Tsuchikage's office. Quickly cutting off all mind links as to not give away my living status to the other Kage, I hid myself underneath his desk in case anybody were to come in.

I thought of Kakashi and hoped he wouldn't be too devastated.

***

The news spread like wildfire. The Tsuchikage, who was in contact with the other Kage via Inoichi's telepathy device, told me all about it, knowing I'd be touched and even honored to hear about the many shinobi mourning my "death."

For starters, the five Kage were devastated because I'd been a powerful ally. Tsunade, who of course had personal ties to me, reportedly drank an entire bottle of sake as soon as she found out the news. That wasn't good for her health.

Kakashi had closed off, focusing only on fulfilling his shinobi duties as everyone prepared for war. The Tsuchikage said to me knowingly, throwing in a wink for good measure, "I hope he doesn't mourn for too long." Yeah, okay, Tsuchikage. I get it.

Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke, of course, were shocked. All they knew was that I had died at the hands of unknown shinobi, so it was no wonder that they were surprised I'd actually been taken down by somebody. If they'd known that I had gone willingly, it would've made more sense to them.

Speaking of Sasuke, the annoying little fellow constantly invaded my mind, as though hoping I would answer. I never did, making him think he was talking to empty air and "convincing" him that I was "dead."

There was even a memorial ceremony. Every village lit a flare so bright that it could be seen from neighboring lands. At this point, I started to feel bad, knowing that I was costing many people a lot of time and effort for my sake.