Jashinists
Shimon Hijiri looked at the team that had come to back them up on this mission. He really didn't like the things that Dark Phoenix told them about the workings of the seal and what it could cause.
"That's truly a mess. How are we going to prevent that?" He asked.
"The main problem is that you need to dismantle the whole seal. Once it is set up completely, it's tricky to undo. From the design that you sent to Konoha, this one is finished. They only need to get their sacrifices to the seal to begin. The best way to act is by wrongly triggering the seal. Meaning by either giving the wrong kind of sacrifice, fruit juice or something else that is sweet would work perfectly if we can get enough of it here, or by unloading a shit load of water on the seal, which will dissolve the seal's structure with enough time," Naruto explained, "Though the second one takes time and you can bet that the Jashinist that aspires to become a high priest will notice and attack to protect his seal."
"Truly a problem," Shimon agreed, "What if he has already started? We don't know when they will start after all."
"Then we only have one chance. As soon as the first bit of sacrificial blood has been added to the seal, the process will start and the rift will be opened to call forth the reaper spirit. The whole amount of blood will need to be sacrificed for the process to work properly and seal the reaper spirit in the Jashinist, but if a rift is open, it is actually dangerous to mess things up if you don't know what to do. You need to have another sealing array prepared and either a team of fuinjutsu specialists working together to have enough chakra or one fuinjutsu master that has enough chakra to seal up the reaper spirit before it can enter the Jashinist. For us this means this, our first plan has to be getting rid of the seal as soon as possible. We only have me and while I'm a fuinjutsu master, I would really prefer to not have to fight against a reaper spirit for dominance through fuinjutsu. There is no guarantee that it will work the way I planned, and I have never done this before. I have the old Uzumaki seals, thanks to Hokage Sama and Naruto agreeing to let me study them, but I would rather not force the issue," Naruto told them.
"I understand. Yes, dealing with an inactive seal would be much easier than having to deal with a reaper spirit," Shimon agreed looking sickly.
While ninjas had to deal with all kinds of bloodshed in their careers, a spirit was something completely different. You had a damn hard time with some ninjas already, but spirits couldn't be fought with normal ninjutsu. And as Dark Phoenix said, fuinjutsu was not widely understood on a higher level.
"We can go to the seal immediately. I doubt that we can organise the same amount of fruit juice that sacrificing fifty people would get, therefore we have to go with the water blasting. My elemental affinity is water and Kotetsu has it as well I think," Shimon looked at the younger man.
"That's correct," Kotetsu nodded, "But I don't have any wide area water jutsus in my arsenal."
"Is there a river close to the seal?" Naruto asked.
"No, it's about three kilometres away from any source of water, which makes sense if you know how to mess it up," Izumo said.
"Then we need to use water storage scrolls to bring enough water there to be used for jutsus. I have six prepared on my person and I can make a few more if you give me an hour," Naruto said, "You can fill the six that I have up at the river while I work on the others."
"Good, we will do that. Hinata, keep watch and warn us if anybody comes closer," Shimon ordered.
"I will," Hinata confirmed the order.
Naruto set to work making five shadow clones to not give away too much of his abilities while Izumo, Kotetsu and Shikamaru went out to fill the scrolls at the river. There was no time to waste. They didn't know when the Jashinist would attempt his ritual after all.
Naruto looked over all of the filled sealing scrolls. They now had twenty four filled scrolls full of water. That should be enough to erase the seal on the ground. It would still be hard getting the water on all parts and then waiting for it to be ruined before the Jashinist interfered. And he would bet that he was close to act. In his place he wouldn't set up the seal until he was ready to act. It was an unnecessary risk.
"Alright, we need to go," Shimon told the group and they nodded, setting out immediately to the location of the seal.
It was about fifteen minutes at running speed away from their camp, which meant that it should be outside of normal senor range. They didn't speak during the run, as they didn't know when an opponent would appear, no matter if Hinata kept watch with her byakugan. They reached the outer part of the seal and the new group was shocked how large it actually was. The diameter had to be at least ten metres.
"He was busy. Those structures all around weren't there last time, when we found the seal," Kotetsu commented gravely in a low voice.
"What could they be for?" Hinata whispered.
"There are twenty five of them and from how they look like, they are large enough to hold two people each. They are probably for the ritual to tie up the sacrifices," Shikamaru commented.
"We really need to hurry," Shimon grumbled, "Set to work."
He had just given the order, when the ground outside of the seal broke open and some kind of black vines lifted unconscious people from the ground. The vines then proceeded to stick the people to the structures, hanging with their heads down and the arms spread to the sides. Then a black-clad woman with long violet hair appeared inside the seal's centre, also from the ground, riding on a black vine. She was clad in tight black leggings, high healed black boots, a black bra with a blood red shawl around her otherwise bare upper body.
"Shit, that has to be the Jashinist," Shimon cursed, "Can we still dissolve the seal before she starts?"
"Improbable. Shit, if we only had enough sugar to turn the water sweet, we could try to substitute the blood with something sugary," Naruto cursed.
"Would treacle do?" Izumo asked suddenly.
"Yes, but where would we get that?" Naruto asked.
"I have a jutsu that turns the ground into treacle. I use it as a trap normally," Izumo answered, "I can hide in the treacle and normally attack from it, surprising my opponent."
"It's probably our best shot. We will use the water to attack the Jashinist. That way we may be able to delay her enough that the seal is ruined. Target the places under the structures first. There are the absorbing parts," Naruto hurriedly replied.
"Shikamaru, try trapping her in your shadow, Hinata, disable her with your gentle fist. We will only have one proper shot at this," Shimon ordered, "Kotetsu, you will cover for Izumo while he uses his jutsu. Dark Phoenix and I will attack the Jashinist directly."
"Understood," they all replied and moved.
"Ah, the rats that thought they could stop my ascension," the woman greeted them, looking more or less bored, "You truly think that you can stop me from becoming a high priestess of God Jashin."
She laughed crazily.
"As if I didn't notice you sneaking around here. Hm, let's see. Konoha pests. How would you like to see how to truly use plants to your advantage?" She asked cackling and a large number of black vines attacked the group from all kinds of places underground.
The Konoha group jumped away to avoid being impaled by the vines. Kotetsu and Izumo tried getting close to the places where the planned sacrifices were held, but the vines were really nasty and sharp as razors. Naruto decided to cut them down, literally. He flew through a sequence of handseals.
"Wind release: Cutting whirlwind," Naruto whispered and threw his arms outwards while spinning on the spot.
Thanks to his mastery over the wind element, he was able to cut down a good number of vines. A problem was that the vines grew back after the initial cutting.
"Hm, rare to find a wind element of that level," The woman commented, "But useless in the long run."
She made a few handseals of her own.
"Secret Art: Vine spear barrage," she exclaimed and had loads of spears made from the black vines shoot at the attacking Konoha team.
"Water release: Water walls," Shimon cried out and a large wall of water stopped the spears, but they still got through a good part of the walls that now protected the Konoha shinobi.
"You are only delaying the inevitable," The woman cackled, "Secret art: Black vine hell."
From all over the ground the vines shot up and raced after the Konoha team.
"We can't get close," Shikamaru cursed, running next to Hinata to prevent being speared by a vine, "This way she will start the ritual before we can take her out."
"I know, but do you have an idea how to neutralise these vines? They are really annoying," Hinata asked.
"Not yet. They are too unpredictable in their movements," Shikamaru replied, "Do they have their own chakra supply or is it the chakra of the woman?"
"Let me check, byakugan," Hinata answered and looked at the vines and how they operated, "There seems to be some kind of source of the vines in the ground. It isn't her chakra that moves them, it seems that she controls whatever the source is with her jutsus."
"Can we reach the source in any way?" Shikamaru asked.
"No, it's right beside the seal and the concentration of vines is strongest there. We would be killed before we get close enough to actually strike at the source," Hinata denied.
"Damn it all to hell," Shikamaru cursed and they continued running and jumping out of the way of the vines.
Meanwhile the woman started her ritual, not bothered by the Konoha shinobi, sure in the protection that her jutsu would give her.
"God Jashin, please accept my sacrifice of blood and allow me into the esteemed ranks of your high priests and priestesses," she started and then went through a long sequence of handseals.
Naruto watched helplessly as the woman finished her handseals, as he was too busy with dodging and cutting down the vines to actually attack the Jashinist. It would be hard as hell to stop this cursed ritual from starting. This was no simple opponent, it was more than likely a high A rank opponent. And they didn't have any high ranking jonin on their team. He was the highest ranking ninja at special jonin. All the others were chunin, with Hinata and Shikamaru only being rookie chunin. Well, this would need special jutsus. Those overpowered things that he normally didn't use in battle, as they had the bad habit to blow up in your face. But the vines needed to go so that they could stop the Jashinist.
He quickly unsealed one of the flying backpacks that he always carried on his person and activated it, shooting into the air, out of reach of the vines. He flew above the seal and watched how the insane woman made five earth clones, which walked over to the captives, a knife in hand. He knew that the woman intended to kill the prisoners to activate the ritual. He needed to prevent that. He sped through the thirty two handseals for this jutsu. It was the only chance he had now. Now the fact that the vines didn't let the others inside was a good thing.
"Water and Lightning release: True thunderstorm," Naruto called out and used one of the full storage scrolls with water to flood the seal and the Jashinist.
The electricity from the lightning chakra that he had moulded had charged each part of the water and his manipulation of the water chakra in combination with the lightning chakra enabled him to control the movement of the water. Right now the Jashinist had to feel thousands of litres of highly charged water hitting her in violent waves, while the water was held back from getting outside by her vines. He could hear her scream. He hoped that the victims, who were tied up on wooden structures, would not be hit by the lightning. But he sadly couldn't be considerate right now. The Jashinist would become a horrible threat, should she manage to become a high priestess.
When his jutsu stopped working, he found the woman staggering around, clearly disorientated. He was honestly surprised that she was still alive after a point blank hit.
"You will pay for that!" She screamed and made clones from the water, as the water had destroyed her original clones.
But Naruto only had to flare his own chakra to make them fall apart. That water was charged with his chakra, which meant he had full control over it. The problem was, it wasn't enough water by far to dissolve the stupid seal. Just enough for his more powerful ninjutsus. The woman now went through handseals again and Naruto was confronted with having to manoeuvre in the air to avoid flying boulders. He also noticed that the vines had lost some speed. That could be a hint on what kind of jutsu it was and how to stop it. He made two shadow clones that quickly flew to the sides to find out if the people had survived his attack. When they dispelled, he found out that, while some had been hit, the charge they were hit with had been too small to kill them.
They were hurt, but if given medical treatment within the next day, they would recover. And he could set some scheme up to make it look as if he had summoned himself from Konoha via one of the flying thundergod kunai. It was known to a few people that Naruto Namikaze and Dark Phoenix worked on fuinjutsu projects together from time to time. It wouldn't be too hard to explain away. But first this Jashinist had to die. Otherwise any healing wouldn't do these people any good anymore, as they would have been killed already. He took a few premade seals from his pouch and used the cover of the boulders to direct them using his wind chakra. The seals only needed to be attached to the woman in some way to work. He needed two to make the trap spring.
He noticed the first one landing and attaching itself to the right leg of the woman, who thankfully didn't notice the contact. A second one got close, but was intercepted by a boulder that was thrown at him again. Three more seals were stopped by boulders until finally the last one landed on her bare back. She noticed and grabbed for the seal, but the two that had landed activated as soon as they were both on the same body. The seals made pure lightning chakra, about one thousand volts each, shoot through the woman's body. She screamed in pain and Naruto used the now dropping boulders to send out fifty shadow clones to free the captives.
If he could get them away from the seal, he could prevent the ritual. To his utter shock the woman still was alive.
"No stupid attack can harm those serving God Jashin," she growled kneeling on the ground with her whole body shaking.
"What a freak," Naruto mumbled. He found that his shadow clones had made short work out of the vines tying the captives up and had transported them out of the seal's range via body flicker.
"I will first kill you, then I will kill your team, then I will kill the captives and I will become a high priestess. Then I can finally unite with Hidan and we can bring back God Jashin in human form. Nothing will stop the rule of Lord Jashin," she cackled in the end.
Naruto felt sick, understanding that she planned some sick sexual ritual with the other known high priest of Jashin to become pregnant with a child. He didn't know if it was possible to have child that could bear a god be sired by two high priests, but he would rather not risk finding it out. Suddenly the woman didn't move anymore and seemed to struggle. Naruto found a thin line of shadows connected to her and followed it with his eyes, finding Shikamaru, who was kneeling behind a sealing barrier that kept the attacking vines from him and Hinata, at the end.
Naruto was glad that the two were safe and had found a way to help him. Probably Hinata had directed Shikamaru with the help of her byakugan. Then a large fireball slammed into the vines and they burned down before some new ones came from the ground. But the burned vines had given Izumo an opening to cover the seal with treacle.
"You didn't think we would leave all the fun to you?" Izumo called out, grinning how his treacle was sucked into the seal.
"About time you acted," Naruto called back, "That woman is a freak with how much damage she can take."
"I doubt she can survive getting cut into small pieces," Shimon commented, raising his sword over his head.
The seal seemed to shake as the treacle was absorbed more and more.
"Uh oh, I think the seal has indigestion," Izumo joked.
"You won't stop me!" The woman screeched and forced her hands to move.
Shimon was about to bring his sword down when a large scythe was thrown into the way of the sword, stopping it dead in its tracks.
"A pity Mala, you were so close," a male voice stated, "Now get those f*ing tree huggers killed so we can make you a proper high priestess."
"Hidan," The woman called Mala greeted happily.
"Shit, the Jashinist high priest," Kotetsu cursed.
Hidan gave an imposing sight with his scythe already back in his hand. He emitted self confidence in each movement. He was also fast and knocked Kotetsu and Izumo away as if they were nothing but annoying flies. Naruto quickly calculated in his mind what to do. The shadow clones had brought the intended victims away, which meant that this Mala needed to find new victims, if he was successful in getting far enough away fast enough. This wasn't an opponent he could deal with. He was good, yes, but this guy was S-rank and he wasn't that good. Not without taking him by surprise.
The only way to solve this problem was the flying thundergod jutsu, but it bore the risk of giving up his identity. Well, their lives were more important that this secret and he could avoid letting these two find out. The Konoha team could be sworn to secrecy if he couldn't pull off a ruse. He quickly had four clones set up a barrier around the whole seal area, which caused Hidan to swear like a sailor, and body flickered everybody away. The two would at least be stuck for an hour, which was enough time to get everybody to safety. And the amount of treacle that the seal had sucked up should be enough to prevent a quick activation of the ritual. This needed the ANBU to take over.
He reached Shikamaru and Hinata at the same time as Shimon. Kotetsu and Izumo were brought there by the clones.
"What now? We aren't prepared to take on a high priest that we can't kill," Shimon asked.
"The seal won't work properly for about a day I think, thanks to the amount of treacle Izumo managed to get into it. It wasn't enough to fully shut it down, but it will buy us enough time to call for the ANBU from Konoha. We can't take on an S-rank ninja and expect to win or even survive," Shikamaru stated before Naruto could do it.
"He is right. This is far beyond our abilities. The barrier I created will hold them up for a while and I doubt that Mala will be able to perform the ritual any time soon with the amount of electricity that I sent through her with my seals and the true thunderstorm jutsu. She's only going on by pure stubbornness. We need to get away with the captives. This will also delay them and give us time to call in ANBU," Naruto pointed out.
"Alright, this is the best course of action. But we need to get farther away than our camp and that will be difficult with the two only being held up for an hour, should they not find a way out of the barrier," Shimon commented.
"Say what you want about Hidan, he might be powerful and impossible to kill, but he isn't said to be a smart guy. His tactics are brutal and straight forward. With enough preparation you could take him out of the equation," Shikamaru said, remembering the bingo book entry, "The Hokage and the ANBU will be able to figure out a solution. And it will take them time to find new victims. You don't simply catch fifty people in a short time when there are no larger villages around. Especially as a large scale operation would call the ninja villages around onto the plan."
The others nodded.
"Still, how do we evacuate?" Shimon asked.
"I have one of Naruto's flying thundergod kunai at the camp. It was a last option measure that the Hokage decided upon. I can call him and he can take the group back to Konoha," Naruto said, thinking that his original plan might still work and preserve his identity. But they really needed to get away now. They didn't have much time left.
At the camp the group quickly sealed up the equipment that they had brought with them while Naruto secretly made a clone outside of the tent and changed positions with it to be able to flash into the tent while the clone used the kunai. Hinata treated the captives as well as she could to stabilise them. Some had got burns from the electricity, but they were a minority. And thankfully not all of them had been hit. The attack had been concentrated on the centre of the seal where Mala had stood. The medics in Konoha would have them back on their feet soon enough.
When they had everything ready to go, the shadow clone took out a marked kunai and threw it onto the ground after pushing chakra into it. Naruto flashed to the kunai's position in fighting stance, already changed into his normal clothes. He relaxed a little when he spotted the group and made a show of nodding to 'Dark Phoenix'.
"Why did you call me, Dark Phoenix?" Naruto asked.
"We need an emergency evacuation to Konoha, Naruto. The mission turned too dangerous. We were able to prevent the ultimate worst scenario for the meantime, but this is a mission where ANBU are needed," Phoenix explained shortly.
"Alright, Kakashi sensei already told me to expect a call in case of emergencies and to simply do what you wanted, Phoenix," Naruto nodded, "How many people are we talking about?"
"Fifty unconscious victims that we could save and six Konoha ninjas from the two teams that were on this mission," Phoenix answered.
"I see. That's going to require good organisation and some shadow clones," Naruto stated and made about ten clones, "I need you to bring the victims into the centre of the circle me and my clones make. We will then do a transportation to Konoha. Let me think a moment about the location. We can't fit all those people into Kakashi sensei's office after all."
Naruto thought about the positions of his kunai inside the village and decided upon the arrival room for the T & I division of ANBU, as it was simply the largest and fairly close to the hospital.
"Alright, get ready for transport," Naruto instructed and the group got the unconscious people into the middle of the circle.
Naruto concentrated and was only briefly disturbed when a shadow clone from the barrier was dispelled, thanks to Hidan managing to break through the barrier ten minutes before planned. But it wouldn't matter. He connected his chakra through the clones and then he flashed the whole group back to Konoha, long before the two Jashinists burst into the abandoned camp, furious that the ritual wouldn't take place now.
TO BE CONTINUED...