With Naruto's guidance in mind, Satsuki closed her eyes.
She let her consciousness sink into the depths of her Rinnegan, reaching for the invisible bond connecting her to the Gedo Statue. It was a strange sensation -- like countless fine threads extending from the core of her ocular power, winding around that colossal form and holding it in place.
She could feel the Gedo Statue's existence.
Not life. Not consciousness. Not anything with a soul behind it. It was more like an empty vessel -- a body waiting to be inhabited, a machine that knew only how to receive orders.
And she could direct it with her will.
Satsuki opened her eyes.
She sent the Gedo Statue a single simple command.
Not in words. Only through the power of those eyes, transmitting a single thought.
Retreat.
The next mont, every White Zetsu -- every one of the tens of thousands of pale figures born from that ancient husk -- responded simultaneously.
They raised their heads in unison, all turning to face the direction of Satsuki's gaze.
Then, one by one, they sank into the ground.
Like a tide going out. Like fog dissolving in morning light. Like they had never been there at all.
"This -- this -- this..."
Jiraiya stood on the wall with his mouth open and his eyes on the verge of leaving his face entirely.
The army that had been raging and threatening to flatten Konoha monts ago was just -- leaving? Just disappearing?
He turned to Hiruzen.
Hiruzen's face held the sa expression of total disbelief.
"Is it... over?"
His voice had gone sowhere between dazed and lost. He had braced himself for a grueling defensive battle -- possibly the most dangerous threat Konoha had faced in years, second only to nma's attack. Tens of thousands of chunin-level enemies. He and Jiraiya had both steeled themselves to fight with everything they had.
And it was over like this?
A soft sound ca from below as the Gedo Statue released its summoning state, the mountainous form dissolving into white smoke and fading from existence.
On the watchtowers, the Konoha ninja who had been braced for battle stared at what they were seeing.
They had watched Satsuki drop from the wall. They had watched her summon sothing enormous and ancient and unlike anything they had ever seen. They had felt a wave of ocular power so massive it pressed against them like a physical weight.
And then the white enemy had retreated.
They didn't understand the specifics. They didn't know what the Gedo Statue was, or what Rinnegan ant, or why the White Zetsu would follow Satsuki's command. They didn't need to.
The danger seed to be over.
A brief silence.
"We did it --!"
Soone shouted it first.
Then the wall erupted.
"We won --!"
"We won --!"
"The Uchiha -- incredible --!"
Ninja pumped their arms and cheered until their faces went red. The older veterans let out long breaths and let their bodies finally unclench. As far as most of them could tell, Satsuki had used so extraordinarily powerful genjutsu that brought the entire White Zetsu army under simultaneous effect. Sharingan genjutsu was legendary for a reason. Nobody knew why her ocular power had suddenly grown to these proportions, but that was irrelevant -- she was one of theirs, and stronger was better.
The cheering rose into the night air and spread across the whole village.
"It's over?"
Jiraiya's voice still carried a note of uncertainty. He stood on the wall with his eyes fixed on the plain that had been white monts ago and was now empty. His sensory range stretched outward in every direction, searching through every inch of it for any trace of those chakra signatures.
Nothing. Every last one of them was gone.
"They really all left?"
He turned to Naruto, still unable to shake the unreality of how quickly everything had ended.
"Yes." Naruto nodded, his voice quiet.
"It's over."
He paused. His eyes remained on the empty plain below.
"The new power Satsuki recently awakened... drew in sothing unexpected, as a side effect."
His voice was even. But Jiraiya noticed.
Naruto's expression was off.
Not exhaustion. Not the residue of battle. Not anything to do with the near-conflict that had just dissolved without a proper fight.
Because now that the White Zetsu had cleared away, what they had been covering was visible.
In the distance, the nearest villages to Konoha were gone.
The places where smoke had risen from cooking fires. The places where children had played. The places full of the ordinary sound and texture of people's lives -- all of it reduced to wreckage. Collapsed buildings. Broken roads. Fires that had not yet finished burning, sending columns of smoke up into the night sky.
And along with the villages, missing too were the ninja who had been on patrol outside the village, and those who had been out on missions, and those who hadn't made it back inside before the wave arrived.
Not every White Zetsu had co underground. So had crossed over the surface, through those villages, eting whatever they encountered along the way.
Jiraiya followed Naruto's gaze. He saw the ruins. He saw the fires still burning. He saw --
He was quiet.
He had been about to ask Naruto what those white things were, where they had co from, what they ant by demanding a "new master." But now he didn't want to ask any of that.
He had seen the expression on his student's face. He recognized it.
That was the expression of soone whose heart was too soft -- the face that appeared only on people who saw innocent casualties and imdiately absorbed the weight of them as their own fault. On people who could not put the deaths of others in a separate compartnt from their own responsibility.
"...Naruto." Jiraiya's voice ca out gentler than it usually did.
"You should know -- no matter how strong a ninja is, they cannot predict what the next mont will bring."
"This has nothing to do with you. Of course it doesn't. Don't worry -- I'll take care of everything."
He reached over and rested a hand briefly on Naruto's shoulder. "Go and rest."
Naruto nodded slowly.
But he knew, without needing to analyze it, that Jiraiya's words weren't going to bring him peace.
Those who had died. Those villages now gone. Tragedies that could have been avoided -- all of it had happened because of his and Satsuki's existence, because of the eyes Satsuki had awakened, because the White Zetsu had felt a new master and moved toward her.
He couldn't pretend he had nothing to do with it.
But sothing else clarified itself in his mind as well.
Despite everything -- despite the scale of power he now carried -- he had not beco soone who looked down on life from a comfortable distance. The people who had died still made him grieve. The tragedies still made him feel responsible.
He couldn't manage the cold calculation that would let him write off those deaths as an acceptable cost. He couldn't stand that far above the world.
So he made a decision. When he got back, he would go to the Pure Land.
He would find every soul the White Zetsu had taken, and bring them all ho.
Return them to the world. Return them to the lives they should have gone on living.
"Naruto."
A voice cut through his thoughts.
He turned.
Satsuki had returned to his side without him noticing -- standing half a step behind him, her eyes watching his face with an expression that held everything she wasn't saying.
She read his face. She saw what was in those blue eyes. She saw the slight tightening at the corner of his mouth.
She understood imdiately.
"...I think I understand." She spoke quietly. A statent, not a question. "Those things ca because of ."
A pause.
"Don't worry."
She reached out and took his hand in both of hers.
The touch was warm, and gentle. "Since I'm the cause of this, I'll handle it properly."
"I won't let Naruto be sad."
She released his hand.
Stepped back.
Raised both hands and began forming a seal. The snake sign. Just one. But the power channeling into it was the deepest and most essential power those eyes contained.
A sweeping wave of ocular force radiated outward from her body -- massive, oceanic, pressing against the air so that everyone nearby felt the weight of it.
"Rinne Rebirth Jutsu!"
User Comments
0 comments from readers