Mission: Stop the Jashinists
Naruto stood in front of Kakashi, giving his report on the mission, with Shimon adding his observations. Then the other four gave their reports before Kakashi dismissed them. He only let Naruto in his Dark Phoenix disguise stay.
"ANBU teams seven and fifteen are to be ready to go in ten minutes," Kakashi ordered and a slight blip leaving was the only indication for Naruto that an ANBU had left to follow the order, "Now, Naruto," Kakashi turned to his student, "I wonder why you decided that retreat was the best course of action."
"I knew that I wouldn't be able to protect all the victims from two Jashinists, sensei," Naruto answered, pulling off the hood and lower face mask, "While, if the worst would have happened and the only way to kill the aspiring high priestess, before she could start the ritual, was to also kill the captives, I would have done so, with Hidan in the picture as well though, it wasn't an option anymore. I know that I could take on one Jashinist with enough preparation, even Hidan, but not when he had the stronger position. With two of them there, he could have covered Mala to let her do the ritual. We needed to get everybody away.
"After all, the ritual didn't really care if the people were already dead before you bled them out. And it takes some time before a body doesn't bleed anymore after dying. It wasn't possible within the time perimeters, sensei," Naruto explained.
"Good to see that your success on other missions hasn't gone to your head, Naruto, and you are able to judge when you should rather retreat and make a better plan," Kakashi stated satisfied, "I was a bit concerned about it. What we need are some seals that the two won't expect to equip the ANBU teams with. I want you and your shadow clones to draw as many seals as you can until the ANBU teams will arrive here. I need standard explosive tags, poison seals, elemental seals, poisoned senbon shooter seals, chakra suppressor seals, those nasty new blood vessel bursting seals and the chakra beam shooter seals that Neji tested in Snow Country," Kakashi listed.
"Understood," Naruto confirmed and made twenty five shadow clones, which immediately flashed away, then he repeated the process six more times, simply because the office wasn't large enough for more clones at once.
He knelt on the floor and created the poison seals himself, with a bottle of liquid poison that Kakashi handed him. He mixed the poison into the ink and the poison would enter the body of the victim on contact. Any kind of liquid or powdered poison was suited for this, as they could be mixed with the ink. Though liquid form was better. Once they were done, he also made the counter seals. It wouldn't do after all if an ANBU was accidentally poisoned to have him die from it. The time for the ANBU to get to the office was gone and Naruto back in disguise when they appeared. Only those ANBU that constantly guarded the Hokage in his office and a few others were privy to his identity after all.
"The mission is the termination of Jashinists Hidan and Mala. A team of chunin has encountered them and managed to just get their captives away before they could perform a ritual that would have summoned a reaper spirit to turn Mala into a high priestess of Jashin. It won't take the two too long to find replacement victims. While there aren't any villages close by, it will only give us four to five days at most. If they want to get things done quickly, they will not care for stealth this time around. They know that we're up to their attempt now and that will lead to them rushing their plans.
"The seal that they set up was handicapped, but it will be back to working order by the time they will need to catch replacement sacrifices. They need fifty of them to call forth the reaper spirit. Hidan can't be killed, even if you stab him, behead him, or burn him. You would need to totally destroy his body to succeed. He already has absorbed a reaper spirit after massacring his old village, the Hot Springs Village.
"The team that was on the mission overheard that the two intend to bring God Jashin into this world by Hidan impregnating Mala, once she has reached high priestess status. It has to be prevented. We don't need a god in human form, should it be possible, that delights in causing pain and massacring people. We would be thrown into a new war, should that happen. Dark Phoenix has encountered the two and can give you an estimation of some of their abilities," Kakashi informed the ANBU teams and Naruto continued by retelling the way the fight went. Then the ANBUs were given the seals Naruto had prepared.
"You will be taken to the last known location by Naruto Namikaze, as he has left a flying thundergod kunai there. Naruto will then return to Konoha. This kind of mission is beyond his level so far. The seal is located about five kilometres from the camp site where you will start. Dark Phoenix will stay with you as a seal supplying back-up. He will only engage should he be needed as a seals master. We can't afford to let him face S-ranked ninjas before he's ready," Kakashi informed the ANBU team, which confirmed the orders.
Then five of Naruto's shadow clones entered the office to get the ANBUs to the site. Soon Kakashi was the only one left in the office, before one clone returned, confirming that they were at the previous camp site and dispelled. Now Kakashi could only hope that they would be able to stop the Jashinists before they could manage to perform their ritual.
The two ANBU teams and Naruto dashed towards the site of the seal. There was just one problem. Mala had been busy and had created a veritable forest of black thorny vines that attacked at the slightest approach.
"Damn, this is going to be tricky," ANBU Badger commented.
"What can you tell us about the vines, Dark Phoenix?" Dove asked.
"They are controlled by Mala's chakra. During the fight she used them both for attack and defence and the source was buried underground, which made it difficult to take out," Naruto answered.
"I see," Dove replied, "We need an estimation how high they grow. Let's take to the trees around and get a better idea."
The team did just that and found out that the vines had created a large dome over the whole seal.
"They must have suspected that we would return to sabotage the seal," Naruto stated, "Therefore they set up the best kind of defence that they could muster. Those vines are really tricky to deal with. They can be burned down, but they regrow very fast."
"I see. Well, let's see how they deal with this," Mantis stated and let a swarm of insects loose, which told Naruto that he was an Aburame.
The group observed if the insects could get through the vines or destroy them. Right now they needed to work carefully and not risk their lives. The two Jashinists couldn't have got new victims yet. Perhaps in a few hours they might be able to get them if they were lucky, but not right now, as the first team had only been in Konoha for two hours before the ANBU were sent out by the Hokage.
Then a smaller number of insects returned to Mantis and he listened to their report.
"The vines have a potent chakra reactive venom in them. My insects can't destroy them. The recovery rate is too fast for any damage they can cause before they die to actually count," Mantis reported.
"There is chakra that streams from the ground into the vines," Bear reported, making Naruto believe that he was a Hyuga, "The pods from which the vines originate are about four metres deep inside the earth. No way that we can direct a strike there with the vines attacking."
"Dark Phoenix, do you have any strong fire seals?" Badger asked.
"Yes," Naruto answered and took a pile of twenty seals out, "These cover about twenty metres in diameter. They release fire for about three minutes before they burn up."
"It won't be enough to destroy all vines, but maybe enough to let us clear an aisle through the wall of vines. The question is how to destroy the pods in the ground before the fire goes out and the vines grow back. After all, the fire would also hinder us from reaching them," Dove pondered.
"No real idea on that front. You would probably need a powerful earth jutsu to just loosen one of those pods," Bear stated, "I doubt we would have enough time to get them destroyed while the fire rages."
"How many of the pods are inside the ground and are there vines that go downwards?" Naruto asked, having a crazy idea.
"As far as I can see, there aren't any vines going down. All parts grow upwards. And there is a close net of them all around the seal. I would say at least a hundred of the things," Bear answered.
"Hm, let me think this through," Naruto requested and started to draw on a notepad.
The ANBU watched him while thinking about ways to get through the dome as well.
"This might work, but I'm not totally sure. Hokage Sama asked me to create poison tags for the Jashinists after I reported for the first part of this mission. I also have a number of different poisons in my arsenal that can be used to target plants. Mantis, could your insects determine what kind of poison it is that runs through the vines?" Naruto addressed the Aburame ANBU.
"As far as they can tell, it is blood based and makes the erythrocytes burst," Mantis answered.
"Okay, they would have to be adapted to consuming mammals then, otherwise that kind of venom doesn't make sense. No plant produces a venom that doesn't help with gathering food or defence against its natural predators. Meaning this one is most probably a carnivore. And carnivorous plants normally react badly against acid," Naruto concluded.
"Where are you going with this?" Dove asked.
"If we manage to inject a strong and fast acting acid into the pods from below, we might have a chance to take them out. While the fire will rage on the surface, keeping the pods too busy to notice anything underground, an Earth Style user could use the underground fish projection technique to inject a number of the pods. We only need to take out enough that the regrown vines can't reach us anymore. We only need access to the seal, not take down the whole dome. After all, they can't afford to plant those things everywhere, as their vines would mess up the seal. They will be a good distance away from it," Naruto reasoned.
"It could work. Do you have such an acid?" Dove asked.
"No, but I know how to make it. I would need an hour of preparation time, as I don't have the right equipment here," Naruto informed him.
"Then get started. This is our best shot. We will try some other ways as well. Better to not bet on one way that might not work. We are on a tight schedule after all," Dove ordered and the ANBU spread out to see if there were any weak spots in the dome.
One hour later Naruto was ready and handed the acid mixture to Badger, who used earth style jutsus. The other ANBUs took the fire seals and lined up to burn down the vine hedge. Badger sank into the ground and after waiting for five minutes, the ANBU activated the fire seals, creating a raging inferno. They waited, hoping that their plan would work. Three long minutes the fire burned before the seals stopped releasing it, burning in the process. Fire seals were simply by nature not reusable.
They watched if the vines would return in that spot, but so far it seemed as if the plan had worked. They waited for a minute to let some of the heat disappear and then the ANBU team rushed in, while Naruto stayed outside on orders of Dove. He was to be lookout and they didn't want him to get caught up in any kind of trap that might be located inside before they had checked. The ANBU group had been told that Dark Phoenix was a special jonin in rank, which meant that he wasn't really ready for S-rank missions like this one.
The one to prevent the seal being used the first time around was an A-rank and it was only because of Naruto's special abilities that he had been sent there. It was too dangerous to send the village's leading seal master on missions like that one, when you had other options. And Naruto's seals had improved the success rate of missions overall by a got amount, which meant that he was even more valuable than the previous seal master in charge of keeping the armoury supplied had been. He saw a huge wave of water appearing inside the broken dome of vines, which meant that the ANBU teams had started to erase the seal. He could only hope that it would be fast enough. Had he been the one securing the place, he would at least have left alarms. Or set up a second location for the seal and use the known location as a distraction for the enemies he knew to come.
His blood went cold. That could actually be possible. They would need to check all around here for a second seal. Had this been his plan, with so much riding on the success, he would have had a contingency plan, including a second seal. He created fifty shadow clones and turned them into small birds. They flew off, searching for a possible second seal. This needed to be done properly. They couldn't afford to overlook anything.
The seal was gone one hour after the ANBU teams got inside. It turned out that Badger had had some trouble underground, but managed to circumvent a defence against exactly what he had done, attacking the pods from below. There had been a number of much smaller seeds in the ground that could grow into vine spears at high speed, impaling a careless attacker. Not at all a bad scheme. Had Badger not been on the lookout for something like that from the beginning, he would be dead now.
Just when Dove wanted to call the mission a success, Naruto started cursing, loudly.
"We have a problem. I sent a few shadow clones out to scout if there was a second seal, as I pondered what I would have done to make sure that an important event like this would go off without a hitch. I came to the conclusion that I would set up a second seal, in a location a good distance away from here," Naruto told Dove.
"The results?" Dove asked.
"I was right. There is a second seal twenty kilometres in that direction," He pointed towards it, "And they even went further than I would have gone. They are ready to perform the ritual. My clone overheard Hidan boast that he had been right in preparing a second group of sacrifices, just in case some heretics were to interfere. The ritual is about to start."
"Shit, we won't get there in time!" Dove cursed, "Can your clone do anything?"
"No, it was noticed and killed," Naruto shook his head, "And the others are too far away to do anything. We would need about ten minutes at full speed to get there and by then the reaper spirit will be out and entering Mala."
"We can't allow for them to succeed. We don't need another shinobi war," Bear declared.
"No, we can't, but we have no way to get there in time," Naruto replied, cursing the fact that he didn't have a flying thundergod seal there.
Then he had an idea.
"We can probably cut the time to get there down to five minutes. That way we might at least have a chance to prevent the unison between Mala and the reaper spirit. Here, I developed these flying devices for the invasion of Konoha. They are tested and I have four of them sealed on my person. If half of us took them to fly ahead and the others ran there, we might be able to interfere at least," Naruto told them and unsealed the flying devices.
"How do they work?" Dove asked.
"Just channel chakra into them and it will be turned into wind chakra, which will propel you," Naruto answered.
"I have been put onto the flying unit and I have my own device and am proficient in using it," Seagull stated.
"I have at least some training in using one of them, but I wasn't made part of the unit," Cheetah added.
"Then you two are going to be part of the advance team for sure. Dark Phoenix will need to go as well, as much as I want to keep him out of the heated part of the battle. If the seal is activated, we need his abilities as a seal master to stop them from going through with things. Kraken and I will take the last devices and the others will head to the targets' location at top speed. Dark Phoenix, leave them a shadow clone to lead them there," Dove ordered.
"Yes," Naruto said and made two clones, one dispelling immediately to inform the other transformed clones to head to the second seal to run interference where they could.
It would be a race against time. They all just hoped, when the five members of the advance team took off, that they would be just in time to prevent the worst.
TO BE CONTINUED...