Chapter 27:

Ichigo's POV

It all happened so quick, like a flash of lightning powerful explosions surged from underneath the floating island and destabilized my footing.

But even at times like this, I didn't lose sight of my priorities, my heart forcibly slowed down as an excess amount of calming hormones rushed into my bloodstream and helped me think clearly.

This allowed me to draw the conclusion that Soragakure was indeed under attack. Sadly we hadn't found the intruder yet and now that they decided to go ahead with it's destruction then they might have already left.

Under these circumstances, I was ordered to prioritize the safety of my teammates and my secondary objective would be Ichinose whom I was already protecting from a wooden beam that almost crushed her.

I simply swung my forearm and changed the trajectory of the thick wooden beam causing it to be splintered and cut in half. But I wasn't affected in any way.

Ichinose's other guards appeared and encircled the entire room to shield her. I shared a brief nod with their leader clearly conveying my intention for them to escape.

The masked man returned my nod and picked up the stunned woman and flickered out of the room. I followed behind them leaving the residence and heading towards the location where the zero tails was most likely kept.

All around me carnage ensued as people were either crushed by buildings or screamed in fear as the whole place shook violently.

"Asahi let's regroup at location alpha." I spoke calmly into my earpiece and waited for a response.

"Copy!" He replied quickly, I could decipher the slight panic in his voice which was to be expected in a situation like this.

"Remember, stay calm, move quick and kill any witnesses our primary objective is to recover package zero." I spoke sternly as I moved passed the ninja who were quickly evacuating the civilians down to safety.

"Affirmative." Asahi gravely replied.

.....

3rd Person POV. Hidden room within Soragakure.

"Shit, the whole place is going down the power grid has been destroyed and the zero tails might break free if we don't seal it quickly!" A man in a white coat exclaimed to his collegues.

The entire room was filled with shouts as other people also reported failures of some sort within their sealing arrays.

"Fuck, whoever blew up the island knew exactly which places to target. We must seal the 0 tails and evacuate immediately." The lead researcher spoke seriously, in such a situation Ichinose had directly ordered the men to make containing and preserving the 0 tails as the first priority.

They all moved in a practiced manner and started taking out seals and placing them in various coners of the room.

The room itself was shaped like a cylinder and all sorts of writing lined the wall..From an inexperienced eye it seemed like the words were written harpazadly and had no order, but that was far from the truth. Each character was written in a specific place and meant to work in tandem with the others to power various power grids within Soragakure's flying city. Whether it be to power flight, charging stations for their flight technology and other various facilities.

The room itself was shaped like a cylinder because the shape was much more effective than any other and at the highest point, on the calling. Within a flexible yellowish membrane lay the very powersource. The beast within tossed and turned yearning for freedom as it tried to break through the seals but failed.

As the researchers began the process, five people made various hand seals simultaneously and slammed their hands on the ground. Strange black letters came from their hands and ran across the walls before attaching to the membrane. Then the thing within started shrinking forcibly, the beast howled in pain but nobody paid it any mind. Another person threw up a completely white cube made of the purest chakra metals. The box started sucking in thr beast, the beast roared in defiance but ultimately failed and was sealed within the box that turned released a small amount of black mist before going silent.

"Hurry up We must leave the island will fall in 20 minutes or less! Remember to take the other boxes with you and keep a timer since we have to switch them out every 72 hours." The leading figure within the group spoke.

""Hai!""" His subordinates replied unanimously and started packing anything of importance in their storage seals.

As the were about to leave however, the doors to the room blasted open, instead of their escorting guards however, two figures ran inside. Before any of them could put up any sort of fight they were all tranquilized and tied up.

"We successfully retrieved the targets, requesting extraction at given coordinates." Ichigo spoke coldly as she went towards the box and put it inside a bag. Using her knowledge of the research team members, she picked up the leader and the second in command. Asahi picked up two more members who were observed sealing the beast before Ichigo released a drone that started taking live high definition footage of the seals lining the walls.

"Good, ETA for extraction is 20 minutes the wryven will pick you up." Nero spoke seriously.

Ichigo and Asahi nodded and started heading towards the location which was located on the far edges of the city.

With her body it was easy for Ichigo to carry two men towards the location without breaking a swear. Asahi on the other hand had to rely on his overdrive ability in order to keep up, but the made it and found a plane hovering in wait as per their request.

Ichigo and Asahi jumped in the plane and it took off leaving no trace of what had just happened, and the were too busy to notice anything. Not that they would be suspicious since only few knew of the zero tails.

.....

Back at Nero's base.

The wryven landed swiftly and dropped off all it's passengers before once again shooting off towards the sky to keep patrolling and sending any relevant information.

Ichigo and Asahi walked inside the seemingly abandoned place and entered through a hidden door in the basement. What awaited them from within was a simple white room filled with stretchers where all the resellers were placed and restrained. Ichigo handed over the cube to Nero who happily took it and started observing the surface.

"Good job Ichigo, rest for now. Also call back the sister duo." Nero instructed before heading deeper within the base without waiting for her confirmation.

Although Nero was excited, He didn't want to miss out on such an opportunity, there was also the fact that the cube the zero tails was sealed in was a ticking time bomb. He had heard everything. Now he had two options, toss the thing before it escapes or convince the people he brought in seal it within another container.

...

Nero didn't waste time, directly awakening the men within a special isolated room. He had used runes to secure the room into a makeshift bunker that could tank powerful attacks and even prevent anything from leaving or entering without his permission. Unless these people had teleportation the it was doubtful they would be able to leave the room.

Nero slowly released a gas that stimulated the passed out men to wake up. As they all groaned and looked around in confusion.

Nero's voice resounded from the room.

"Hello gentlemen, excuse the rude awakening but time is of the essence." Nero explained calmly to the confused men.

"As you know I captured you and the zero tails from Sora in the midst of the chaos." Nero spoke in an emotionless tone.

"What do you want with us coward!! So may people died because of your attack." One of the more passionate men screamed angrily.

"I am in a sort of dilemma you see. Originally I planned to only take the 0 tails but due to lack of seal masters such as yourselves I couldn't transfer the 0 tails and keep it subdued so here we are."

"What makes you think we'll help you!" The leader spoke.

"I was hoping you could tell me, what is it you want? Just ask and I'll give it to you." Nero spoke in a tempting tone, like a devil offering a deal.

"I want you to assure me that you'll let me keep studying the 0 tails as much as I'd like. That includes human experiments and any process I deem necessary." The lead researcher said without hesitation. He was not a patriotic man or a man held down by emotion. To him all that mattered was the continous research and discoveries on the different laws that governed the world.

"Done. I promise you acess to technology far beyond the current world cam offer. What do the rest of you say?" Nero inquired, happy that he didn't have to struggle as much as he thought.

Two more people nodded after slight hesitation, but one man remained unmoved, he thrashed and cursed his collegues for turning coat so readily and promised them nothing but pain in hell for their action.

"This is quite a problem, I heard that atleast four people were required for the seals to work." Nero said with a neutral tone.

"Don't worry, the number of people just ensures the speed at which the seals are placed and put into action." The lead researcher assured.

"Well then, that's good news. And if you happen to be lying or plan to betray me later, well that won't be possible." Nero stated in a cold tone as the men felt a slight prick in their necks.

"What you just felt was a tiny micro chip being inserted in your brain. I'll know and see everything you do and if I even smell a hint of betrayal." Nero stated, with every word the room got colder and the atmosphere tunred oppressive.He didn't even complete his sentence before the man's head who was cursing him exploded in a show of bloody gore.

"Understood?" Nero asked, the lead researcher nodded calmly while his collegues turned pale due to fear.

...

Well I plan to speed up a few things now that the plot has changed. I'm also thinking of relaunching my patreon account where I'll post my other two novels. But before then I'd like to know know if y'all would be willing to pay for advanced chapters.