Chapter no.147

Read ( +30 ) advance chapters on Patr.eon.

p.atreon.com/wwwpatreoncreativvefactory

....

After Naruto had verified that the remains were still workable, he glanced at what was left of his blade and sighed. While the blade had been previously rendered unusable, it was now almost completely melted within the palm of his hand. He turned the palm of his downwards and kept his hand open so that what remained of his blade was discarded onto the ground. He would need to get his hand on a sword that was able to withstand the heat of his techniques. He was actually surprised that it lasted as long as it did by just being in the general vicinity of his flames.

He also unstrapped the scabbard that was resting on his back and discarded it as well. No sense in keeping something that would only slow him down.

Naruto quickly let the phoenix flames within his body heal him to the best of their ability, so that all of his bones were regenerated and he was able to move properly again. Whoever it was that he was fighting packed a punch, it felt like the entire Hokage Monument had been dropped onto his back.

The raven-haired boy, who was now partially covered by blue flames as they were doing their job, walked over to the dismembered remains of Jūgo and pulled out one of his empty storage scrolls. He bent down on one knee as he picked up each piece of the man, one by one, and sealed them within the scroll, and successfully completing a portion of his assignment.

While the fight seemed to go on for hours, it had only been a few minutes due to how fast-paced and intense it was. There was still plenty of time before the explosive notes were set to go off automatically, that was why they had set the time constraint before entering the hideout. With those thoughts in mind, Naruto limped towards the section of this level that contained the laboratory while his flames continued to regenerate him, albeit at a much slower rate.

Even with his body broken, he still had a mission to complete.

Fourth Level Below

After searching the entirety of the laboratory on the level above and recovering many documents pertaining to the cursed seals and setting the explosive tags all over its vicinity, Naruto had finally made it down to the fourth and final level of the compound.

Level wasn't exactly an appropriate word to describe it, as the entire floor only had the large staircase leading up to the their level and a large, dark tunnel that was lit only by lanterns as it went on for miles, perhaps even further than that.

The tunnel was easily a quarter of the size of all of Konoha and was surely capable of holding all of Otogakure's invading forces. This area was definitely how so many Oto-nin got past the border and where they planned the final stages of the invasion during the one month reprieve between the preliminary exams and the final exams that was given to prepare for the chūnin exams.

Naruto spread out his senses using his sensing abilities and Kenbunshoku Haki to find the status of his teammates before he decided on how to deal with his current situation. He smiled when he found that all of the explosive notes had already been planted with Narumi and Natsuki already back at the designated meeting place and Mikoto and Satsuki making their way up the final flight of stairs at the moment.

Seeing that almost all of his team was out of the hideout, Naruto made a cross-shaped hand seal and created ten Kage Bunshin (Shadow Clones), after which he threw the scroll with his leftover explosive notes to one of them, after which, they took off running into the darkness of the tunnel. Since he had the scroll in his possession when he created the clones, they also had a copy of the scroll and would be able to plant those explosive tags as well to cover the distance of the tunnel. Since he had melted over half of the third floor, he only needed to use half of the explosive tags there coupled with the fact that when they went off it would collapse inwardly from the explosions above and below it. This gave him a surplus of explosives to use down here.

Though those tags would be planted further down the hall by his clones. Jinchūrikis were the optimal users of the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Jutsu) because of their vast chakra reserves, but almost every shinobi in Konoha who was jounin level knew the technique and were capable of making at least ten to fifteen clones. Couple his large chakra reserves with the fact that he was an Uzumaki and he could easily use this technique better than anyone, minus jinchūriki.

Naruto's scroll had contained approximately twenty-five explosive tags, which he had given to one of the clones he had produced. Due to them being exact copies of Naruto, each of them also possessed a scroll that contained twenty-five explosive tags. This added up to two hundred seventy-five explosive tags, such a large amount of explosives were enough to destroy a majority of Konoha. It should be more than enough to cause this tunnel to collapse.

Though since he couldn't tell exactly how long the tunnel reached since his Haki didn't have than kind of range yet, he had assigned the clones to take care of the middle and far end of the tunnel and leave him to deal with this section.

Seeing as how his clones were finally out of range from his senses, he closed his eyes and began expelling large amounts of heat energy from his body. No flames were given off because he didn't want to risk any of the explosive tags in the vicinity going off prematurely, so he merely increased the temperature of the flames that made up his body, giving off heat ranging far above what any normal human could withstand.

Nothing happened for a few moments as the heat continued to be emitted, but then the bonds that held the walls, ceiling, and ground in place began to weaken and slowly but surely melt off into a magma-like substance or make the surrounding surfaces especially malleable. This went on for a few minutes at such a rate that the walls would have collapsed if they were even touched with the slightest amount of force. That should be more than enough to ensure that the passageway was rendered unusable in the future.

Leaving everything else up to his Kage Bunshins, Naruto faded out of sight, signifying that he had disappeared in his favored Shunshin.