We've received word from Konoha. Tsunade will arrive in around three days. She is bringing my old team with her, since they insisted on coming. I'm curious to see how they've changed from when I last saw them. We spend the time until their arrival training and double-checking the murderer, making sure there isn't anything we missed.
Once they arrive at our village Tsunade does not waste any time with pleasantries. As soon as she meets us she immediately asks to see the prisoner.
—
Tsunade crosses her arms. "I can confirm that what you've said is true. The man possesses an unusual amount of chakra for a civilian, closer to your average chunin than a random civilian."
Sakura nods. "It's good to have a second opinion. Is there anything we missed?"
Tsunade shakes her head. "You did miss one thing. While the jutsu will indeed fail automatically once the amount of gathered chakra reaches astronomical levels, more than enough to coalesce into some form of spirit. There isn't anything to actually shape the formed spirit, so it could be some form of pseudo-tailed beast, or it could also form anything from spiritual objects all the way to some here to unknown form of chakra construct."
This can't be the doing of Black Zetsu. Everyone else's plans relied more on the inherent powers of the ten-tails instead of the coalescence of Kaguya's chakra and her subsequent revival. With Pain supposedly dead the only remaining players are Obito and Madara. Since I burned Itachi's body with Amaterasu we don't have to worry about the tailed beasts anymore thankfully.
It's still good to have confirmation that we weren't wrong. After Tsunade re-checks and confirms her findings she promptly leaves towards the casino's. She'll stay overnight because the journey to Konoha is pretty long.
—
After we finished our business we decided to take Wakemi, Hidesho and TenTen out for some barbeque. Instead of trying and failing to find a restaurant as good as the Akimichi ones in Konoha are, we're just doing the barbeque ourselves near a lake outside of Sakuragakure.
Hidesho and I are manning the grill, the girls are huddled over in a circle and gossiping. Whenever one of us looks at them they all just stare at us until we leave them alone.
Hidesho just shrugs. "By the way, when you guys come to Konoha I wanna show you my new cat, his name is Jingles. I taught him how to use chakra."
I flip a piece of chicken. "You taught a cat how to use chakra? Can it even do handsigns?"
He takes a piece of chicken and promptly eats it.. "He can make a fireball, but afterwards he'll get tired and go to sleep. I want to train it until it can rival our clans ninja dogs."
I nod. "Alright, please keep me updated on that. By the way, you do know that piece of chicken was kinda undercooked right?"
He shrugs. "I like my meat medium-rare."
I don't think that's how chicken works. "You do realise chicken needs to be fully cooked right?"
He shakes his head. "Nah, I've been eating it like this since I was a kid, if there was anything wrong with medium-rare chicken someone would've told me by now."
You know what? I'm not gonna bother with a lost cause. I just shrug in response. "Alright then. You do you."
We spent the rest of the time in relative silence until we finished cooking the meat, with Hidesho occasionally picking up and eating pieces of barely cooked chicken. Once we were done we all sit down together to eat. We all sit down in a circle with the food in the middle.
Wakemi sighs. "Ever since we took over The Land of Fire the village has started taking a larger cut from our missions. As a recompense they're just giving us a regular salary."
Tenten takes a kebab. "It's honestly much better this way. At least now we can continue training without worrying about money."
Hidesho nods. "The salary is the only reason I can commit time to training Jingles, otherwise I'd need to spend way too much time doing missions for money."
Wakemi snorts derisively. "You're both stupid. Before I could send two shadow clones over to do the nobles inane D-Ranks and get paid, now I have to pay taxes."
Hinata smiles. "I am glad all of you are doing well."
Tenten smiles as well. "We're also glad you are alright. All of us got pretty depressed when you left, we thought you abandoned us. Hearing what actually happened was an immense relief to us."
I cough. "Speaking of Danzo and all that. If you guys want we can give you some pretty neat implants, you just gotta keep it a secret on what they actually are."
Hidesho and Tenten are somewhat on the fence regarding the offer. Wakemi immediately raises her hand. "If that's how Sakura keeps those pretty eyes of hers then I want some of that!".
I nod. "Yeah. That's what allows Sakura to keep her sharingan without being an Uchiha. We could get you the eyes too, Danzo stuck like ten of em in his arm."
Tenten raises her arm as soon as she hears about the sharingan. "That would be the most useful thing for me you could probably offer."
We are all now looking at Hidesho with anticipation. He sighs. "Alright, but I'm only doing this if you give sharingan to the cat too, since that would help him learn jutsu."
Sakura smiles. "Don't worry, by the time you get Jingles here I'll have that all figured out. Let's go get you enhanced now, since you're going to leave tomorrow."
-one month later
We're going to The Land of Wind. Since Shukaku is the weakest of the tailed beasts Sakura wants to see if getting him under genjutsu is possible. If Sakura can get him under genjutsu we'll seal him inside her, allowing her to become a perfect jinchuriki via sharingan genjutsu.
Finding him does not prove itself too difficult. Within a week of arriving in The Land of Wind we have him tracked down. A giant sand-tanuki is not exactly the definition of subtle.
We're currently on a sand dune near him, as close as we could comfortably get. Hiding about half a kilometer away from the sand controlling sand demon. Shukaku is currently curled up, seemingly sleeping.
Before jumping him we open four of the eight gates. Even given two years, that's as far as we've comfortably come with them. We can open more gates, up to the sixth, but opening more would tire us way too quickly since we've not trained for them explicitly.
As soon as we open the gates he immediately rises up and turns towards us. While he is doing so we jump off of the sand dune, blasting most of it behind us.
While flying off towards him I activate my susanoo, violently smashing into him on arrival. Sakura and Hinata land on the shoulders of the susanoo, since we cannot risk sitting on the sand.
Our goal in this fight is simple. Force him to look into Sakura's eyes. Compared to her I just suck at genjutsu, so it's pointless for me to try to get him under. Hinata prepares herself to fire off an explosive arrow the instant there is distance between us and Shukaku.
As such my next move is using wood release to push wooden spikes into him from my susanoo, hopefully weakening him. Shukaku takes offense to what I'm doing and swats me aside like an annoying bug, sending me flying.
Right as I'm about to land Hinata knocks her arrow and shoots Shukaku, blowing some of the sand composing him off of him. Thankfully that's enough to distract him so that I can jump off of the desert's floor back towards him without getting squashed inside of the sand.
Halfway towards him Hinata fires off another arrow, resetting his regeneration. By the time we reach him he is almost fully regenerated. Almost but not fully.
I shove the hand of my susanoo into his wound, growing as much wood as I can with wood release. He attempts to swat me again but I manage to duck underneath his arm. His next attack is trying to impale me with his tail, thankfully the Susanoo held strong. His third move is slower, but not by much, allowing me to dodge his grabbing hand.
His tail strikes me again, this time successfully dislodging me and throwing us straight into the air. Hinata does not waste time, continuously firing off arrows into Shukaku during both our descent and ascent, preventing him from attacking us further.
During the descent I form a giant lance with wood release, impaling him on the head with it when I land. His tail still strikes me like a truck, cracking the ribcage of the susanoo, but it is somewhat slower than before once more.
Sakura jumps off of my shoulder. I activate the fifth and sixth gates and grab Shukaku's head with my Susanoo, forcing him to look at the descending Sakura. One hand goes towards one of his eyes, forcefully opening it and forcefully turning it right into Sakura's blazing sharingan.
As soon as I manage to align his gaze with her eyes he goes limp and I deactivate the gates and the susanoo. We've successfully secured a tailed beast for our village. Sakura and Hinata land next to me, both having deactivated the gates. Hinata's byakugan has been deactivated as well.
We sit in silence for a while, basking in our victory, before Black Zetsu bursts upwards from the sand beneath Shukaku and seals him inside himself. Sakura and Hinata still have some gas left in their tank, opening the fifth and sixth gate left me running on fumes.
By the time I rise up a lightning lance leaves a gaping hole inside my chest. Activating the healing seals fixes that. I turn towards Hinata a-