The Capital

Naruto: Tales of Ashihara

Prologue – Arc 2: The Daitengu

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Chapter 22 – The Capital

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Two days have passed since Tsubai was captured by the Daimyo's guards. Now, only a few hours, or even just minutes, remain before he's executed in the Land of Fire's capital.

In Konoha, in the Hokage's office, the 6th Hokage sits and worries about his two former students. He's pulled out of his train of thought when a falcon, wearing a scroll strapped to its back, flies in through the window and lands on a perch next to the Hokage's seat. This must be Sasuke finally answering his latest message. Kakashi takes the scroll off the bird's back and opens it to read its content. He's pleasantly surprised by the signature that ends the note.

Kakashi-sensei,

I have found Sasuke with a group of foreign ninjas. Tsubai Minamoto has been captured by the Daimyo's troops. Sasuke's team is targeting a man who'll want to interfere with the execution as much as we do. Do not send anyone to the capital until I'm back from my mission. We plan to take care of everything before it plays out.

Uzumaki Naruto

This message means that Naruto accomplished his mission but decided to stay and help Sasuke with his. Kakashi is glad that he got an update, but this only worries him even more. Is Sasuke's target, the so-called Daitengu, something that needs to be dealt with by the two of them at once? And more important, Is Naruto serious about fighting him within the capital? Nothing fortunate could result of such a scenario. Naruto is asking for the Hokage to not intervene when the Daimyo's life and the whole capital are at stake.

"What are you thinking, Naruto?" wonders the Hokage as he watches the village of Konoha wake up in the morning through the office's windows.

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In the middle of the land of Fire sits the capital of Fire: the biggest, most fortunate place of the country and the Fire Daimyo's home city. This city is twice as big as the hidden village of the country, and is inhabited mostly by fortunate lords and rich merchants. All of the working citizens that live here are only serving the upper class. North of the town is a gigantic palace, alone as large as a Konoha district, that stands on a high ground above the downtown area. This palace is the Daimyo's residence.

And downtown, in the exact middle of the village, is the main place of the city, where Tsubai will be executed in about 2 hours. The city is heavily protected and guarded by an important amount of ninjas. All of them were trained in Konoha and later joined the Daimyo's troops when they were offered to, for obvious economic and comfort reasons. The ninjas work to secure the city and its surroundings. All this territory is protected by a 30 meters high wall going all around it. The few roads that guide you inside the village are constantly being watched over.

Already inside the wall's area, Naruto and the members of Karasu are hiding in high trees, while keeping an eye on the village's main entrance. They are looking for a proper way to get inside while keeping their guard on, carefully looking for Inosawa Yamanaka in the area. Sasuke and Naruto are there, with Kobo, Z, Minaa and Sana, but also Daisuke. The samurai got back to the rest of the group after he successfully led Naomi and Kokoro out of the country.

Karasu left Tokiwa behind to avoid the Daitengu's gaze and progressed to the capital. They're now a few minutes away from an ultimate confrontation and use these last moments to focus their minds. Sasuke stands up with Naruto, both ready to get into action.

"Okay… I'll go first." says Naruto. "I'll try to get us in."

"How will you do that?" asks Minaa.

"Um… By going at the door… and politely ask?" he answers, stupidly. "You know. I may not look like it, but I'm kinda popular and well-trusted among ninjas around the world. It should work if I insist a bit."

"Go then." says Sasuke who turns to face and address all of his friends. "Everyone, the Daitengu may be weakened, but he's still dangerous, even for me. With Naruto by our side, we will definitely win this time. But I still want to make one thing clear with you. I… we are here to kill the Daitengu, and this only. This will be my only concern. If any of you gets in life-threatening danger, don't expect me to save you. Put simply, you're not my problem as of now. If you fight here, It's to take enemy's life, or to save your own."

They all look at each other with worried faces. Sana steps aside to hide behind Kobo, in her way to ask for his protection. Kobo just gently smiles at her, confidently. Minaa and Z stare at one another too. Daisuke just stays sitting behind them. Naruto looks at Sasuke with a concerned face, and then at the others.

"No problem guys! I'll watch after you if he doesn't." says the Uzumaki who then jumps off the branch and goes to blend in the crowd of people trying to pass the gate.

"That's it. We look after each other!" says Z who grabs Minaa by the shoulders. "Last time he took advantage every time you stood still or got too close. I'll cover you the best I can this time."

"Right!" she answers as she holds Z's shoulders too. "Let's do this!"

"Count on me." says Daisuke who stands up and goes next to Sasuke. "But except for you two girls… I'm on Sasuke's side. I only aim to take the Daitengu's head."

As they're all speaking and exposing their determination, Naruto speaks with the gate guards who easily recognized the hero of the fourth war. As he anticipated, this seems to lower their guard enough for him.

"If we let you in, we'll definitely have to warn the Lord. I'm sure he'd like to meet you." says one of the guards enthusiastically.

"So Sir Uzumaki, is it just you or are you with a team?" asks another guard.

"Glad you ask!" answers Naruto who keeps it cool with a bright smile. "It's me and a bunch of colleagues that are standing in a tree around there."

Naruto turns around to search the tree from where Karasu is still spectating the scene. When he raises his hand to point at the right tree, he's surprised by a stranger's arm coming out of the crowd behind him and grabbing his shoulder. At first, it doesn't bother him. He just sees it as another traveler who recognized him. Naruto looks along the arm and sees the person it belongs to. A tall white man wearing a hood.

Kioku Kyuin

Inside of Naruto, Kurama sits quietly and is suddenly struck by confusion, as if he had no idea where and when he was. He looks around and notices his Jinchuriki standing with his back to him in this inner-world. Kurama thinks of the last thing that he believes happened to him.

The last thing he remembers is the 4th Hokage and Kushina Uzumaki sealing him in their son's body. The son is standing here, but he looks grown-up. More bothered by his situation than by the host's look, Kurama ignroes this detail. As he understands that he's been sealed again, he gets full of anger but quickly realizes something: there is no barrier standing between him and the jinchuriki.

"What that old man want?" asks Naruto to Kurama while turning around, having no clue about what this stranger just did with his hand.

Before he can fully face the Biju who just lost all memory of the last 19 years, he's crushed by its hand and feels his mind being taken over.

In front of the capital, a powerful wave of chakra pushes everyone near Naruto away. The jinchuriki starts to scream in anger and agony as the Biju chakra inside of him leaks out and covers his body. Karasu, alerted by the scream and shock wave, see all the citizens flying back. Among them, Kobo sees Inosawa who's hood falls off due to the power he unleashed. He's pushed away like everyone else, but instead of falling to the ground. He sinks in the ground like in water.

"THERE HE GOES!" screams the young Uhiha as he jumps off to run after the ground-water stream moving on the soil, while unknowingly still holding Sana by the hand, dragging her around with him.

Daisuke hurries to follow him. Sasuke prepares to go with him, but stops and sees Naruto still howling and slowly transforming into Kyubi.

"That bastard!" he yells before jumping to the gate, finally understanding Sojobo's plan to get to Tsubai.

Minaa and Z go to follow Daisuke while Sasuke gets to Naruto. All the Karasu members, except the leader, run in the city over the roofs. Inside of the village, people at the main place hear the noise coming from the gate. They also see the agitation among the ninjas of the town. All the guards are running to reach the entrance. Among the citizens running on backard flow is Tokiwa.

She found her way in the village earlier by using the mermaid's call on a guard, and was just sitting in a coffee shop, waiting for Karasu's move. On her own and unsure of Sasuke's plan, she's hoping to get Tsubai out of this alone. With every ninja running in direction of the Kyubi, she notices that the way to the upper village and the Daimyo's prison gets easier to navigate.

Mutai

Unnoticed, she sinks through the ground too and goes swimming across the village to the main palace's underground jail facility, in order to find and free the man she came to save from his cell.

In the town, Kobo is still running after Sojobo while Sana tries to stay focused on the foe's chakra and keep up with her friend's running pace. To put an end this pursuit, Daisuke leaps over Kobo and Sana, and draws his sword.

Yawarakai – Tatsumaki

The blue samurai uses a stronger version of the jutsu he used to take Moritaka down. He throws a giant slash that slices the ground open just in front of Sojobo underground.

The Daitengu jumps out of the soil and stops his progression to avoid the attack. As soon as he stands still, he gets surrounded by all the Karasu members who were chasing him. The body he's using still has the damages caused by the battle that took place two days ago. He's still missing an arm and has his skin burnt and melted. He gazes at those who surround him, firmly standing, ready to fight.

All of their attention is suddenly grabbed by crackling sounds and vibrations coming from the city's gate. In the distance, they see Naruto in his 7th state of Biju transformation being carried in the air.

Chibaku Tensei

Sasuke is containing Kurama to stop his rampage, but still has no idea what to do next. He's trying to think of a way to save Naruto's life, but can't risk to let his attention off the Biju. He guessed that his Biju must have lost all memories of their friendship. But without Tsubai, he has no way to save both Naruto and Kyubi.

Close to the capital's downtown, Kobo uses the distraction to assault Sojobo first. He flames his blades on and takes the enemy on. The Daitengu notices him soon enough and barely dodges the blades who manage to leave a small cut on his shoulder. Inosawa's body lights up and he uses his super-speed to dodge every next strike of the young Uchiha's blades. Unable to touch him, Kobo jumps back and tries something else.

Katon – Gokakyu

He throws a fireball to him, but Sojobo moves faster than the jutsu and kicks the flames back at him like a huge soccer ball. Kobo is hit but is fortunately sent flying back to Sana who catches him and immediately proceeds to heal the all new injuries. Not giving the Daitengu a break, Daisuke and Minaa get in fight position. The samurai readies his sword, and the kumo-nin activates her Lightning Strike Armor, immediately in sceond cat-like stage. They then both come to attack the target together. Sojobo focuses on them and avoids the lightning and blade with ease. After only a few moves, they both step a bit back and let Z make his.

Ranton – Waterbolt

The Gale style user creates two water orbs around his hands and makes lightning-shaped electric water streams emerge from them. The water thunderbolts head to Sojobo who covers himself with Tenshi's chakra wings.

Yawarakai – Iaigiri

While Sojobo has his vision hidden by his own wing, Daisuke uses his unique sword to stab through the wing. His sword's tip goes all the way through it and even stabs Inosawa in the abdomen. Sojobo makes a shocked face and steps back as quick as he can to pull the sword out. Daisuke lifts his hands up to slice the wing off. When it falls down, the first thing Sojobo sees behind is Minaa in her enhanced lightning armor hovering to him.

Before Sojobo reacts, she lands a powerful kick right in his chest, and stabs him at the same time with the claws on her toes. The Daitengu is pushed away, flies through many walls, and lands in the center of the downtown area. All the team hurries to follow him there, to keep him surrounded. On his knees, Sojobo turns to the Daimyo's castle, standing above the town, and precisely looks at the clock on the tower. Daisuke, Kobo, Sana, Minaa and Z stay still and ready to get back at him, but he stays down.

Sojobo checks on Kokoro through her eyes to see where she is. He sees people and streets of a village he's never seen before, but recognizes the uniform of Kiri. She's safe. Suddenly, still through Kokoro he feels a strange chakra nearby. Kokoro looks around, bothered just as much as the Daitengu spying on her. She's unable to find where the chakra comes from, but Sojobo is. This new born chakra is nowhere to be found around Kokoro, because it lies inside of her.

Kawahime, the ghost of love, the last tengu to be reborn, has just awaken in her yamabushi's body. Sojobo gets his full attention back to his own place, quietly grins, and stands up.

"Looks like I managed to reach it after all." he says. "After all these years… Time to say farewell, Inosawa."

His body gets surrounded by a large aura of black and white chakra. His skin starts to fall off, not like he's shedding, but like he's hatching from a shell. All his opponents prepares to charge him again, but are all pushed away by a strong chakra wave that he suddenly emits. The body he inhabits, that of Inosawa Yamanaka, begins to scream, as if it was just waken up from a centuries long sleep by the pain it's enduring.

"What's that?" asks Minaa, holding her ground. "Don't tell me he's evolving!"

"No way! This can't be!" yells Z next to her. "We should still have at least a week left before this!"

The ground and buildings around them shatter under the pression of the power being released from Inosawa's breaking body. It gets covered in crackles that let an extremely bright light pass through from inside it. His pupils fade away and his eyes turn completely red. On his forehead, the skin cracks and fall off, revealing vertical eyelids in the middle above his eyes.

As he's experiencing his own evolution, Sojobo sees his last heir, Tsubai Minamoto, appear out of nowhere before him. Freed from his jail a minute ago by Tokiwa, he got all the context he needed from her. After a short heartfelt reunion with rescuer, he went as fast as he could, looking for a way to help Sasuke with the Kyubi situation, leaving Tokiwa alone, worrying for him again.

He used Tentoki's speed and Daikoku's Time pause combined to reach the Daitengu unseen. Sojobo is unable to move while evolving but he isn't worried. His emerging body is almost impossible to hurt and damaging Inosawa now won't undo anything, so Tsubai can't do any harm right now. Still, the Minamoto raises his hand and holds on the collapsing body's face.

Kioku Kyuin

Instead of trying to attack Sojobo, Tsubai simply absorbs a piece of his memories and immediately runs away. Sojobo starts to worry. What memory did he take away? What did he forget? Oh… It seems to just be the 19 years of bonding he took from the Kyubi. Tentoki and Tsubai probably considered that saving Naruto Uzumaki was the priority right now.

Uninterrupted, Sojobo reaches the end of his transformation. The whole body and mind of Inosawa Yamanaka, the man who served as a host to the Daitengu's power for more than 300 years, are being shattered to pieces as a new soul and body takes its place. The eye on his forehead opens and reveals a red spiral pupil with a dark sclera.

Out of the shell finally emerges a much taller humanoid form. The same form that Tsubai saw when Tenshi was absorbed. A very tall person, around 2.40 meters, all white, with the same body marks as Inosawa on the same half of its body. The down part of its body appears to be wearing a mantle that is merged with its body. On his head and face, no mouth, no nose, no ears, no hair. Just two red glowing eyes, and a third eye on his forehead.

Sojobo in his new perfect form stands in the middle of the village, and turns to see where Tsubai just ran off too. The giant meteor that contains the Kyubi is falling to pieces. The Daitengu understands that the Biju recovered its memories and that Sasuke, Naruto and Tsubai will be here any minute. He then turns around to see the opponents still facing him.

"This may be hard to believe, but this is the really first time I'm in my original form, in the physical world, and able to move freely." he says calmly to everyone who has to hear it. "Now, I'll take you all down before Indra even reaches this place. Maybe you'll see the difference with the new me."

Jikanteido

Without any hand sign, just by standing still, Sojobo stops time and freezes everything in the universe. He first turns to Sana, who's the most important member of the team, and runs to kick her away. He then goes to Daisuke, Minaa and Z and shoots light beams at all three of them. As his chakra is now far bigger than any of their's, these attacks didn't even interfere with the time pause.

Sojobo now looks at Kobo Uchiha, the last present person he didn't harm. He looks at Sana's body ready to flutter away from his kick, and back at the Uchiha. Thanks to Kawahime's power, Sojobo is now able to feel strong positive emotions, including love. He elects that hitting Kobo won't be needed, due to what move he totally foresees him doing. Instead he simply undoes the time pause by himself.

Time resumes and they all undergo the consequences of what he's done. Minaa, Daisuke and Z are pushed in the building behind them by the light beams, and Sana is sent toward another building. Kobo, who was ignored by Sojobo's offensive, sees Sana go through the air, and hurries to catch her before she hits anything. Getting in her back, he didn't plan the strength with which she was pushed, and finds himself sent fluttering with the girl, acting as an airbag to soften her landing.

After seeing all his enemies fall in a fraction of second, the Daitengu stands still for a moment. He looks at the sky and lets satisfaction fill his heart.

Kinton – Kochu

Daisuke, who hurried to get back on his feet, makes several steel pillars emerge from the ground, bend and go to squash Sojobo. But the Daitengu, with way faster senses and reaction time, grabs all of them with his robe that turns into several chakra arms. He then cover the pillars with Meiton, freezing them and sucking the chakra out of the jutsu. The darkness runs through the pillars to reach Daisuke, but he slices them off off before it does.

Without anyone having seen him move, Sojobo already stands behind Daisuke. Minaa and Z turn their head and see him there. But before they can move any muscle, Sojobo raises his right leg, presses his foot on Daisuke's head, and stomps him to the ground. Due to the surprise and strength he just felt, Daisuke immediately loses consciousness. Minaa unleashes her feline Lightning Strike Mode again and jumps to Sojobo's face, to kick him like she did earlier.

But this time, the Daitengu easily grabs her foot, and absorbs the chakra surrounding her, which turns the lighting armor off. Before she can react in consequence to this, he firmly holds her foot and slams her violently in the ground. Z who stands up sees Minaa now motionless in front of Sojobo. He knows what this means. He knows what Sojobo will do now. But he also knows what promise he made to Minaa before they engaged in this last fight.

Jinton – Genkai Hakuri

Sojobo has his two hands held forward and makes a white cube appear around Minaa, who's almost knocked out by the last hit she took. Before he detonates the jutsu and changes the kunoichi to dust, Z throws a kunai at him. The kunai only ricochets on his skin but draws his attention. Z performs a series of hand sign and creates a water stream that channels lightning around his body. He then runs and bounds over Minaa to reach Sojobo. Effortlessly, the Daitengu raises his hands to place the cube higher and detonates the jutsu.

Minaa sees her best friend in the air above her, surrounded by his lightning, with a calm face, promptly vanish in the flash of the Daitengu's jutsu. The cube disappears, with everything it contained, having reduced the Kumo-nin war veteran to dust.

Horrified, Minaa Nii stays agape lying on the ground, totally defenseless. Sojobo looks back at her right in the eyes, and sees his reflection in the tears that start going down her cheeks. In the reflection he also sees Kobo, full of determination, attack him with his flamed on swords again. Sojobo doesn't move and lets Kobo strike him.

He hits him many times but doesn't cause any damage. His blades and his fire are just not strong enough to even scratch him. While he's being assaulted, Sojobo raises his leg in his back and gently pushes Kobo several meters back. The young Uchiha doesn't let this bother him and directly stands up, running back to the Daitengu. Way faster than him, Sojobo reaches him sooner and raises his hand to grab him by the neck.

Ameno Tejikara

Kobo is replaced by Sasuke who immediately stops the Daitengu's hand with his sword.

Chimatakami

A black portal appears around the Rinnegan user and the Daitengu, absorbs them and transports them in another world. The portal stays open. Kobo appears where Sasuke was, next to Naruto and Tsubai running to the scene. He looks at the two men and decides to follow them. They all jump through the portal and join Sasuke and Sojobo where they were sent.

On the other side of the portal, Everyone except Sasuke looks around in confusion.

"What is this place?" asks Kobo, who sees the endless dunes, the cracks in the broken soil and the yellow sky.

"Dude, it isn't even the damn same place as last time." complains Tsubai, already aware of where they are.

"Sasuke, is this Kaguya's main world?" asks Naruto who recognizes the place where they ended their fight with the goddess a few years ago.

"It is." answers Sasuke.

Sojobo looks up and sees the moon in which the rabbit demon is sealed in the sky. He looks back at the four men facing him and then at Sasuke.

"Not very respectful of you to bring us on the lands of a goddess without her permission." he says ironically. "… So I can't escape from here for sure. But don't you see it's too late? I'm already in my original form."

"Whatever form you have, you're trapped here with us now." answers Sasuke. "And this time will be the last."

"… Well, this time at least, I agree." comments the Daitengu about the last part as he readies himself, full of confidence.

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End of Chapter 22 – Next Chapter: The Curse of Time Part I