The massed army of The Land of Bears begins their charge towards our forces. They have massed fifty thousand samurai against our one thousand shinobi. Each of our shinobi begins to raise themselves on wood platforms, allowing them all to have a clear line of sight on the enemy. What follows is an artillery officer's wet dream.
With a clear line of sight all of our forces begin a ninjutsu barrage. Earth bullets rain on the enemy like drugged up cannonballs. Every jutsu that lands proceeds to kill tens of samurai. By the time the enemy are halfway towards us they drop their weapons and surrender. The shinobi continue their barrage. We already have more than enough test subjects captured from The Land of Earth, more would just take up unnecessary space.
When they see that their surrender did not stop the ongoing bombardment the samurai pick their swords back up and begin their charge once again. By the time they reach us they are a tenth of their former number. I use Amaterasu and Kagutsuchi to form a wall of black flames between us and them. The samurai in the front try to charge through, with nothing coming out on our side. Our shinobi jump from their platforms into the massed samurai untouched by the wall of black flames.
The enemy samurai are then quickly massacred, with none left alive. All that's left now is to march towards their capital, kill their daimyo along with his family and annex their country.
—
To celebrate our victory we are holding a military parade through the previous capital of The Land of Bears. Sakura, Hinata and I are all lounging atop of the giant wooden dragon serving as the head of the parade. Our shinobi are all marching behind us, their numbers somewhat underwhelming to the watching civilians. The purpose of this parade is two-fold. To announce the change of leadership in the newly annexed lands and to root out any would be rebels. That is why some of the massed shinobi are actually shadow clones from the three of us.
If the disgruntled population sees a small number of enemies parading their town they might assume us to be weak, since they are mostly used to seeing samurai massed by the tens of thousands. If they expose themselves afterwa- "A murder-suicide has been attempted. My clones managed to capture the perpetrator."
I nod at Hinata. "I'm honestly somewhat surprised that none happened inside of our village. We'll bring the would-be murderer with us to Sakuragakure, hopefully he'll have some interesting things to say to us."
Hinata and Sakura both nod. We spend some more time just lazing on the dragon's head before the parade gets interrupted by samurai charging into us from the crowd. Our shadow clones quickly take all of them down non-lethally with taijutsu. They'll tell us what we need to know regardless of whether they want to or not.
—
After the parade was over we just shunshined away and began our rush towards Sakuragakure with the captured murderer. When we arrive, Sakura quickly begins his interrogation.
Sakura looks at the man. "Let's start with something simple. What is your name?"
The murderer smiles. "Atasine. My name is Atasine."
Sakura nods. "Very well Atasine. Why did you kill your neighbours then attempted suicide?"
The murderer smiles. "Because it's the right thing to do. I killed my neighbours because it's the right thing to do."
Sakura writes his answer down. "And why did you try to kill yourself?"
The murderer smiles. "So others could do the right thing. I tried to kill myself so that others could do the right thing."
Sakura looks at him. "And what is the right thing?"
The murderer smiles. "Murder. The right thing is murder."
Sakura sighs. "You're fucking useless"
Before the man can respond she knocks him unconscious with a straight punch to his temple. Sakura then turns towards Hinata and I. "I'll run some tests on the guy, it's almost a certainty there's something really weird going on with him."
Hinata and I nod before we leave towards our apartment. We don't really have much to contribute to this any further. If Sakura needs either of us she'll send someone to get us.
—
While we're having dinner, steak and eggs, Sakura gives us the news regarding the murderer. "The murders are an attempt to form pseudo tailed beasts."
I pause, fork halfway to my mouth. "Can you please elaborate on that a little?"
She takes a deep breath. "Each murder gathers the chakra of the murderers. When the chakra is passed onto the next murderer it is larger in quantity. From the way the jutsu itself works it will simply break if a gargantuan amount of chakra is gathered. More than enough chakra to theoretically coalesce into a sentient being."
I stare at her, fork still halfway. "And why the fuck would anyone do that? We haven't sealed any of the tailed beasts into Ita-""Itachi sealed a tailed beast."
Sakura and I both turn towards Hinata. She elaborates. "The only thing that would cause this to occur is if one of the tailed beasts was made unavailable. The only ways to do so are the Reaper death seal and the Sword of Totsuka."
I drop my fork on my plate. "That makes way too much sense. Itachi sealed one of the tailed beasts then fucked off to get himself killed."
Sakura stays still. "It's Killer Bee. Killer Bee seemingly disappeared into thin air, ending the war. Everyone presumed him dead but we didn't actually know what happened. He was presumed dead at that time. Gyuki would have manifested itself long ago if he had been killed, so eventually even Kumo must have started to assume him to have simply gone rogue."
I nod. "Except he isn't either dead or rogue. Itachi was probably told to capture him and decided to screw over Obito instead. He sealed Killer Bee and Gyuki both, before rushing to his death."
Sakura puts her fork down. "What we need to do now is clear. Dispose of Itachi's body as soon as possible and stop the murders from progressing any further. At this pace it would take hundreds of years for a single chain to form a tailed beast, so Obito or Black Zetsu are sure to have a way to merge the gathered chakra from all murderers somehow."
I sigh. "We need to convene another Kage council to announce this to everyone, don't we? Since without the byakugan it's almost impossible to detect the murderers before they kill again. The hyuga in Konoha probably didn't notice anything because the chakra accumulated was way too low at that time. That's certainly why there are none in our village too, since Hinata would immediately detect them with her byakugan."
Hinata nods. "Once whoever is behind this realised the byakugan is a straight counter to their plan they stopped their attempts in Konoha entirely."
I get up from my chair. "Let's not waste any time. I'll go burn Itachi's body with Amaterasu, you two send word to all of the other countries. We need to convene for a summit as soon as possible."
-two weeks later.
Tsunade is the last to enter the meeting room. After she takes her seat I don't waste any time. "We have discovered the reason for the murder suicides. Someone is attempting to form a pseudo-tailed beast."
Darui, Mei and Kurotsuchi all go still at my words. Tsunade sighs. "I hope you have some proof of this, otherwise no one is going to take you seriously kid, especially after you gathered everyone so soon after another summit."
I nod. "We have the reports regarding the methodology of this compiled for all of you."
I take said reports from Hirogi and pass a copy to each of the gathered Kage. Afterwards I take a deep breath. "That is an analysis of the ritualistic jutsu used for the spreading of the murder-suicide. We also have captured one of the murderers and will gladly allow anyone to come and see them for themselves."
Tsunade briefly closes her eyes when she is done reading the report. Once she opens them she gives me a tired look. "You're right. The way this jutsu works would indeed lead to a gargantuan amount of chakra being gathered. I'll come over and take a look at the murderer, both to check for myself and see if you ended up missing anything."
Kurotsuchi nods. "We will also send our experts."
All of the other Kage end up either agreeing with the issue we face or deciding to get the opinion of their own experts before committing to anything. Tsunade sighs. "If anyone needs any help I can station hyuga in some of your towns. That should slow down the progress of this jutsu, but we don't have enough hyuga to actually station all of the major population centers in the elemental nations."
Mei frowns. "We will also need to investigate the cult of Janshin much more closely, their involvement in this insane scheme is more than guaranteed."
Tsunade sighs. "The amount of chakra required for the completion of this jutsu is over the amount of chakra that even the nine tails possesses. This is not just an attempt at making a tailed beast, it is an attempt at forming something even stronger than the tailed beasts."
Darui nods. "Very well. I propose we all collaborate to stop this from occurring. It is in all of our interests for whoever is behind this scheme to fail. Are all of us in agreement?"
Tsunade nods. "I agree."
Mei thinks for a bit before nodding. "I am in agreement as well."
I nod. "I agree."
Kurotsuchi nods. "I agree."
I clap my hands. "Then it is settled. We will trade any new information we have on this between each other. Does anyone have anything else to say?"
They all shake their heads. The summit has been concluded.