The sound that followed was not an explosion so much as an unmaking.
A concussive wave of pure force erupted from the heart of the cavern, vaporizing the blood pool in an instant and transforming it into a fine, crimson mist that coated the shuddering walls.
The stone trough that had contained it was simply gone—erased from existence by the microscopic, whirring annihilation of the Sage Art: Wind Release: Rasenshuriken.
The ground beneath it split open with a sound like the world breaking, creating fissures so deep their bottoms were lost to darkness.
Yuta hovered outside the cave entrance, the last of the children safely gathered behind him. He watched the cave's death throes with a detached calm, the sage markings around his eyes already fading.
'Sage Mode was the only reason I made it out in time with all of them,' he acknowledged silently.
The enhanced speed had been the difference between a successful rescue and a catastrophic failure.
As for the entity that had been forming in the blood… he believed it was a homunculus—a twisted construct born of forbidden rituals and fanatical belief, not a true deity.
And if it was merely a monster, then the technique he had just unleashed was more than enough to scour it from this world and the next.
He waited, his senses stretched thin, tasting the air and listening to the settling stone. Only when he was absolutely certain that no trace of malevolent chakra, no flicker of movement, nothing but the ghost of the explosion remained, did he finally turn his back on the ruin.
Among the huddled, traumatized children, one boy stood out. He was slightly older, and where the others wept or stared in vacant shock, he held himself with a quiet, resolute stillness that spoke of a maturity beyond his years.
Yuta approached him. "Do you know the way home?" he asked, his voice low and steady, designed not to startle.
"If you do, you need to lead the others back. Your parents will be frantic. If you can't find your way, or if you can't find your family, go to the shinobi of the Land of Hot Water. Tell them what happened. They will help you."
He was confident in this advice. The Land of Hot Water and its hidden village were renowned for their neutrality and pacifism.
They would not turn away a group of lost, frightened children.
With the situation as handled as it could be, Yuta prepared to leave. The thought of the hot springs he'd paid for was now a distant, soured memory.
The relaxation he'd sought had been obliterated, replaced by the metallic scent of blood and the echo of a madman's screams.
'Another time,' he promised himself. 'I'll come back with Tsunade and the others. The company will be better, and the view… infinitely preferable to this.'
As he turned to go, the brave boy stepped forward. He bowed deeply, a formal gesture of respect that seemed both poignant and out of place in the midst of the wilderness.
"Thank you, Ninja-sama," the boy said, his voice thick with emotion.
—
—
"...And that's more or less what happened."
Yuta finished his account under the collective, expectant gaze of his teammates.
He had carefully edited the story, omitting the Root-sanctioned assassination of Kakuzu entirely and focusing on the disturbing, but ultimately peripheral, incident with the cult.
The moment the last word left his mouth, Jiraiya's brain, as predictable as the sunrise, latched onto the most trivial detail.
"Hold on. Let me get this straight," Jiraiya interrupted, his voice rising. "You finished your mission, and then you just… decided to take a vacation? In the Land of Hot Water? You actually went to an onsen!?"
BAM!
He slammed his palm down on the table, making the wood groan. His face was a masterpiece of self-righteous indignation.
Yuta knew, with certainty, that his friend's outrage had nothing to do with protocol and everything to do with personal grievance.
"You didn't invite me! You went to a paradise of steamy waters and… and leisurely bathing with girls, and you didn't even think to send a message? All those potential sources of 'inspiration,' lost forever! It's a tragedy!"
Since accepting that Tsunade's focus had permanently shifted to Yuta, Jiraiya had shed the last vestiges of his dignified facade.
He now paraded his true nature with a perverse pride, as if being a lecher was a noble calling.
"An… Evil God?" Orochimaru's reaction was a study in contrast.
His golden, serpentine eyes gleamed with curiosity, and a slow, intrigued smile crept across his lips. His tongue darted out in a characteristic gesture.
The concept of gods was not frightening to him; it was a fascinating variable in the grand equation of the world.
"A god?" Kurama Meyuri mused, her head tilting. Her focus was more philosophical. "Do such beings truly exist among us? I wonder… what form would a god take?"
'You have no idea,' Yuta thought, an internal ledger of the Naruto world's absurd power scale flashing through his mind.
The Sage of Six Paths, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, the so-called "God of Shinobi" Hashirama, the "Demigod" Hanzō, the literal Shinigami… the list was long and, frankly, ridiculous. In his experience, "god" was just a title claimed by the powerful or bestowed by the awestruck.
The topic of the cult was swiftly abandoned, the conversation pivoting to a more pressing matter.
"Yesterday, while the old man was drowning in his paperwork, I heard him muttering," Jiraiya said, his tone shifting to something marginally more serious. "He said Iwagakure is in the middle of a massive military expansion. What do you think they're playing at? With that many new shinobi, they'll be starving for missions. They'll have to look outside their borders."
A stunned silence fell over the group.
The shock wasn't at the news itself, but at the fact that Jiraiya—the least discreet man in Konoha—had just casually divulged what was obviously classified intelligence.
"Who knows? It's Iwagakure's problem, not ours," Sarutobi Osamu said with a nonchalant shrug, entirely missing the implication.
But Orochimaru, with his keen political instincts, and Tsunade, who had been raised in the shadow of the Hokage's desk, understood the implications. A subtle tension entered their postures.
Yuta's own eyes narrowed to slits.
'Iwagakure is already expanding its forces.'
The pieces of the puzzle were snapping together with grim finality. The countdown to the Second Great Shinobi War had begun.
The decade-plus of peace following the First War had been a period of rapid growth for all the great villages. This wasn't unique to Iwagakure; Konoha, Kumo, Kiri, and Suna all faced the same pressure.
More shinobi meant more mouths to feed, but the number of missions within a village's own country was finite. The inevitable result would be a violent scramble for external missions and resources.
And the meteoric rise of Hanzō and his Amegakure was the spark waiting to fall onto this tinderbox of competition.
"Speaking of powerful figures," Meyuri added, her mind still circling the concept of divinity, "that man Hanzō from Amegakure has become incredibly famous. They're calling him a 'Demigod' now. I wonder what one has to do to earn a title like that."
Her expression was openly skeptical.
Each of these data points was a warning flare. The Second Great Shinobi War was no longer a distant specter; it was a storm gathering on the horizon.
The only consolation was the system he now held in his hands. He had a few years left—a narrow window to grow stronger still.
'Assuming my life simulations finally start getting better.'
If they didn't, his path was clear, if arduous: relentless research into chakra nature transformation, striving to achieve what no one but the Fourth Hokage would later accomplish.
Rest? Yuta almost laughed at the thought. There's no such thing. The world would never stop demanding more.
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