章 2712: 102
Sakura had decided to personally handle a few things for the checkup she'd given Orochimaru earlier, having asked the woman to come back mid-morning tomorrow. The information already available could hold for another day or two without any issue and it was better to provide as complete an answer as possible. Luckily chakra made things a lot faster, easier, and more accurate...assuming she did everything correctly, anyway.
That she could then plug all the resulting information into Uzushio's computers and let them do the next stage had been the next major benefit. At least until she'd gotten the results of the checks. Requesting a lock on said results had immediately followed because she felt that she had to have gotten two or three things wrong, and a request for Karin to repeat the entire thing tomorrow followed. Maybe Shizune as well?
Thinking on it for a moment, definitely Shizune as well. Any two of them getting the same results would be faster as if something had gone wrong then Karin would get a different result. Then they'd need Shizune to go through things anyway, so might as well get her in to help immediately. One less visit for Orochimaru that way as well.
Hopefully the woman would be content to wait for second and third opinions without any fuss, though there was a good chance that she'd request that Tsunade do her own checks just to be sure later...
Gaara sighed as he once again considered things that were 'known' about Uzushio in general and Naruto in particular. He was reasonably certain that nothing they knew was entirely accurate, but there were a number of things that seemed to fit far too well in the rumor and gossip area. For example, it was known that the rinnegan allowed manifesting incredibly advanced technology from your body for some reason, though nobody knew where that technology came from. Generally used to form weapons, but there were records of other things being used depending on the situation. At the same time, word from agents in Konoha was that the sharingan was powered from the same source as the rinnegan...and Naruto was uncontrollably absorbing that power source for some reason.
If true, that would nicely explain the sudden technological launch of Uzushio better than some of the other theories, especially if the absorption granted Naruto knowledge of how to build the items instead of just more ability to manifest them.
Where Naruto obtained the rinnegan was another question entirely, of course. No amount of digging had revealed anything believable there, and that was before taking into account that his sharingan was the wrong color. Combined with it also apparently being a byakugan, something that researchers had indicated shouldn't be possible under normal circumstances, it painted a very odd picture.
Davaa was under pressure to get answers fast, if only because of how many people had memories of a settlement that no longer existed in their written documentation. Why a research team was important for that hadn't really been elaborated on, though part of the explanation he'd been given for his own choice was his complete lack of prior interaction. In theory, he was going in without any preconceptions...but also with basically no combat-capable backup either.
He didn't like the latter detail at all.
They'd reached a suitable 'base camp' for exploring the area he'd been pointed at last night and had opted to set up camp instead of beginning to explore. Some of that was because it would be easier to explore during the day, but most of it was because a possible storm had been coming in and having their camp ready for a downpour felt slightly more important. That storm had hit, and they'd been quite happy to be ready for it. The rain had let up by morning though, which meant it wasn't an excuse to not get started.
Marching to the point that supposedly had the new wasn't-there-before structures was...surprisingly easy, as they found a cleared path through the trees almost immediately after leaving camp. Which was a little freaky, because the men with him didn't recall seeing such a thing when they were doing scouting around the camp the night before, but could've been there because they were rushing to ensure that they'd be ready for the coming storm. Coming to the fence with an obvious gate had them finding an addition that hadn't been reported in the form of signs.
In multiple languages, which made getting pictures of each sign for deeper examination important if they all said the same things. Taking those pictures, in triplicate just in case, was followed by actually reading the signs they could understand. Those described the mountain as a holy place where multiple gods were...enshrined? That didn't make a lot of sense to Davaa, but he also knew that there were more religious practices than the ones he was familiar with. He also didn't ascribe to the ones he was familiar with though, so wasn't sure how to take these. Rules for entering, leaving, and acting within the confines of the overall complex, denoted by the fence and gates, were also included.
Going over those rules with the men, just in case, was followed by carefully entering the complex. Bowing as they entered, not crossing through the center of the gate, trying not to stumble as they could tell that something had changed when they'd crossed the gate, and eventually making their way up the mountain. Additional signs were posted with reminders and new details, each set being captured in pictures and examined as they made their way up.
Things changed when they came to another gate before a break in the path...and a person standing on the far side of the gate. A red-haired young woman in decidedly foreign looking, yet obviously ceremonial, garb. More shockingly, she had fox ears and a fox tail, her hairstyle easily showing that there were no human ears present. Closer examination of her face revealed that she had whiskers as well. That she was standing there, very obviously waiting for them and being quite patient with their lack of immediate response to their presence was...either comforting or worrying.
Gulping, he realized that he couldn't recall much about what to do when it came to interacting with others from the instructions...if there had been much there. Deciding to attempt to stay polite, he bowed. "My apologies, but your appearance took us by surprise. I am Davaa."
"I am Yoko," the woman replied. "The...spiritual leader, I believe is the best term in your language, of the Land of Shrines. We have none who would function as a local leader who can speak your language right now, so I came to meet you personally."
"We are...unfamiliar with the 'Land of Shrines' you speak of."
She did something that caused a burst of smoke next to her, and suddenly there was a table with a globe sitting on it. This was spun to show what was obviously this continent, with a marker that looked to be on this very mountain. "We are here, the first shrine complex set up on this continent." The globe was then spun to show other markers on the far side. One in the water near a continent he didn't recognize was pointed at next. "This is the main island of the Land of Shrines. The other markers all show shrines we are currently affiliated with."
"...and you came all that way just to meet with us?"
"For you it would be quite the journey, but it was not a significant hardship for me." She gestured to the side of them, and he jumped upon realizing that there was now another path on their side of the gate. "Would you like a demonstration?"
Gulping, but feeling that additional information would be a good thing, he nodded. "That would be appreciated."
She came forward, turning to bow back the way she came, before leading them down the newly-revealed path. This led to a structure nicely integrated into the trees, and inside was a stone slab with markings on it. Next to that was a...control terminal of some kind? But nothing like anything he'd seen before. They were beckoned onto the slab as she produced a card and used it with the terminal, a screen lighting up and allowing her to select an item.
A moment later they'd gone from inside the small structure to standing outside somewhere entirely different. The very air felt different, more pure, and the feeling from simply crossing the gate from before was far stronger. Looking around, he found that it looked like the night sky sat above them...except that what appeared to be a false sun sat above a group of floating islands. Water impossibly flowed off of one of the islands, with no obvious source, and incredibly dense fog surrounded the obvious island they were standing on when he turned to take in the entire area around them.
"Welcome to Shrine Island," the woman said.
"But," Davaa said, before gulping. "We were just..."
"As I said, the trip was not a significant hardship for me. Would you like to pay your respects at one or more of the shrines here, since you've made the trip?"
That...seemed like it might not be the worst idea, if only to not offend, but he had to consider what the others with them would be likely to do once the shock wore off as well...
Morning on the examination island brought with it the beginning of testing...without any fancy speeches. Packets had been dropped off for each genin with instructions overnight...and none of them had woken up early enough to notice that testing started two hours before sunrise.
A lot of genin had gone into a semi-panic over having lost a few hours already upon noticing.
Hinata was sitting in the monitoring center keeping an eye on things and found the panic mildly amusing while noting down the ones that weren't panicking and simply getting to things in a somewhat-professional manner. The three kunoichi who were trying to rush an hour-long morning makeup routine were also noted, because unless your mission required makeup that was just wasting time.
The testing itself wasn't really much different from previous exams though...just with basically half of the possible testing stations active. Naruto had said that he'd have turned them all on if they didn't have overlapping safety buffers, but it also made sense to allow varying things quite a bit. Really, turning on as many as he had was more showing off the capabilities of the island itself than for the testing of the genin.
Yoko had spent far too long with the group from the other continent, most of it giving them lessons on how the gods were seen in the Elemental Nations. She'd not really considered how much this was likely to spread belief in those gods though, given the various 'no way for it to work otherwise' displays for those unfamiliar with things such as seals and magic. She'd sent them off with the globe she'd prepared, paper maps, and a box full of books prepared in both languages.
Despite that, she was expecting them to return multiple times over the coming days, which meant keeping her sleep schedule decidedly shifted from her usual. Luckily there weren't any other meetings she needed to worry about in the next few days, but in a little over a week she was expecting a daimyo or two to want to see her about possibly having the Land of Shrines take over or install shrines in their capital cities.
The most likely candidates were...poor choices for such a thing in the first place, but not meeting with them would just make them more obstinate. She should be able to placate them with a combination of 'the needs of the people' and 'a lack of suitable priests and priestesses' though, perhaps with 'the gods have directed them to set up elsewhere' included? She had time to think on it, and it would be a welcome distraction from dealing with researchers.
Shisui looked over some of the aggregate results from the 'genin' testing, in particular the average chakra levels shown per region and village. Generally the non-shinobi numbers were reasonably consistent from previous tests, but the shinobi side of things was interesting. Konoha was obviously significantly improved, but Uzushio was outstripping everyone. Their spread was higher than anyone else's, but their midpoint was easily what everyone else probably considered high chunin level right now and they had mid to high jounin level chakra in some genin.
Obviously the 'improve chakra capacity' dance had improved significantly since Naruto's last pass on it in Konoha.
Initial observations from the chunin side of the exam revealed no real surprises either, at least regarding methodology. The categories you needed to fill were different this time, but the general process was still the same. There were just an impossible number of testing stations open due to the automation of that part of things and the digital maps indicated approximately where different categories could be found across the island...and real-time statistics available. After the first day of testing there weren't any obvious outliers, but this morning Uzushio's genin had gotten started a lot sooner than most. As though they needed less sleep, which might be the case. Oto's genin had been active next, followed by Konoha's, and then basically everyone else. This put Konoha in third on average for completion percentages as lunch approached, but the difference wasn't all that significant.
What everyone was curious about was what the next stage would look like. The 'teamwork' tests were present and required in this stage, the proctors throwing three genin together across village lines for that, making everyone wonder how Naruto had arranged for things to go.
Shizune shook her head as she compared her results to Sakura's, though was reasonably certain that she knew exactly what was going on. There was minor deviation in a couple of spots, but that was expected and the important portions were all essentially identical. Karin had already reported the same thing, though likely hadn't overridden the lockout Sakura had put into the computer to keep the final conclusion private.
Whether or not they'd discussed things at home after getting an essentially-identical result was another question entirely.
"I suppose that we'll be calling Lady Tsunade in," Shizune finally said, putting the results down.
"Already put in a request," Sakura confirmed. "Though you haven't looked at the final findings yet, have you?"
"There's enough here for me to put everything together already. I don't know if Lady Tsunade will want to confirm things for herself or simply trust our work though. This is something that's never come up before."
"...and yet you're able to figure it out without all the information?"
"I have information you don't, though I suppose if you checked observation logs you might find some of it. Assuming that Uzushio is keeping any with significant detail?"
Sakura shrugged. "We might. They're not generally accessible to medics if we are."
"That does make some sense."
"Though I suppose I can put in a request for any that might be relevant as an extra data point."
"I think I'd appreciate it if you did, at least."
It didn't take long for Sakura to move over to the computer and submit the request, followed by bringing up the locked record. "Might as well have you double-check my entry here as well, now that you've compared the hardcopies."
That made sense too, though when looking at the final results there were definitely surprises. "Why would...hmmm."
"You can see why I originally thought I'd done something wrong."
"Yes, I can see that now, but in hindsight I'm not all that surprised.'
Naruto's continued work on the moon project was going well, and he was hoping to be able to start in-place construction in the near future. It had just slowed down a little due to needing clones monitoring the exams and Yoko dealing with the other continent. The exams themselves were also going quite well, and amazingly few questions were making it through to the team responsible for aiding the automated systems in answering them.
Well, beyond questions about the second stage, anyway. There were lots of those, from the genin and their sensei. And visitors, for that matter. But the automated systems and those monitoring for questions that didn't have answers didn't know what the second stage was, so the questions were going unanswered for now. Only five people other than him and Yoko knew at all, even if twenty had permission to check in the system. Perhaps they'd eventually realize that they should check the system to see if they were cleared for things?
Regardless of that, everything was ready except for the final list of genin that passed the first exam. It was yet to be seen how many of them would see past the surface to spot the comparatively easy way through the stage though. No scroll battles this time, everything those would've tested being included in the current stage.
The other village leaders were doing quite a bit to try to figure things about the island out though, so he'd be doing a tour run of things that would normally be unseen even when renting it out for their own exams. He was thinking that it was going to be eye-opening for them.
Jiraiya looked around nervously, feeling like something was possibly going to show up to haunt him shortly. He had no clue what that was, or perhaps who that was. He supposed that there was a chance that there was a problem with his contact, but he didn't think it was that kind of feeling. An anticipation of someone being irrationally angry with him, perhaps?
It was decidedly weird, but he needed to focus on the here and now. Uzushio may have leapfrogged everyone in the spy network game, but that was no reason to slack off on his own network. Even if it was a little annoying whenever he determined that something he got from his people had been handed off to them directly or indirectly by Uzushio. Very good practice in general to keep their meddling deniable, but still annoying.
That the Uzushio network didn't actually seem to include any traitors feeding information from inside of other villages was the harder to believe bit. If you knew what to look for then you could spot their people in all kinds of places, and three quarters of those he was reasonably certain were 'visible' to distract from others, but all indications were that they did their direct observations of other hidden villages through slipping in from outside. Likely aided by the bunkers Naruto had put in under the major ones, but they were oddly effective for a group running things that way.
Then again, the joint training program with Konoha was producing some stupidly stealthy infiltrators, so perhaps it wasn't so hard to believe after all.
His contact showing up with a girl in tow pulled him out of his musing. "Good afternoon. Out for a stroll?"
"Can we not?" his contact asked, before turning the girl and lifting her shirt to show a seal on her back. "I'm really hoping you can figure out what this is supposed to be doing to her."
And now the information on the 'slave seal' used by one of the smaller villages that he'd picked up on his previous stop made a hell of a lot more sense. Uzushio must've known that the thing had been used and pulled it out of their archives...and they'd even ensured that copies of all in-use keys for the thing were included. Which was going to make him look like a miracle worker for little to no effort on his own part and very likely permanently cement the loyalty of this contact. And because he knew that the situation had been manipulated he was feeling grateful to Uzushio.
It really showed just how far beyond everyone else Uzushio currently was, but for the moment it was more important to take care of this seal.
A was doing mornings on the flying island and afternoons in Kumo. The former was in part to see what he could personally figure out about the capabilities of the place, aided by Naruto arranging for a guided tour for village leaders that had time to show up. They'd met up at one of the many 'generic offices' spread around, though it seemed odd that Orochimaru was the only 'minor village' leader present.
"Did you invite everyone?" Onoki asked.
"A lot of the smaller village leaders can't afford to run off for the day without sufficient warning," Naruto replied. "Honestly, I'm surprised Orochimaru came."
"I have an appointment on the island this afternoon," Orochimaru replied. "Though I've also got a competent second-in-command and an...abnormal for a hidden village command structure."
"Well, let's get started then. You've obviously seen most of the surface details, so we'll head into the underbelly."
He led them into a back hallway, then immediately turned around and opened a door that shouldn't have been able to sit there. In fact, a quick look showed that it should have opened clear back into the room they'd entered the hallway from, yet didn't. Instead it had stairs leading down.
"Things are a bit folded up," Naruto continued as they descended. "So there's a lot more than what's visible. This allows for far better security on basically all the important areas, which should prevent the issues that occurred with the previous island."
"Folded up how?" Mei asked, sounding like she didn't really want to know.
"It was built in more than three physical dimensions, of course. Basically every single building will appear to be bigger on the inside if you pay attention, and in doing that the entire island was made ten to fifteen times more durable than you'd expect it to be."
He might've continued, but A had gone into a state of mild shock as they came out onto a catwalk above six domes. Five of them appeared to hold things, and those were recognizable as the environments that the island's main dome could contain. The sixth was obviously empty, and likely the storage location for the forest that currently sat inside of the surface dome.
The implications for the size of this space alone were quite significant.
Eventually he shook himself out of his shock, to find that the others were doing the same and Naruto was smirking. Once everyone had recovered the young man continued. "Normally the shutters to the domes are kept closed so you can't see the others, but I figured that it would make for a better show with them open. You can see the rings that go around each dome from here that allow access to them while they're in storage though, whether that's to get people out or do prep-work and checks. The access points for those rings will be available to anyone renting the island, of course."
Over the next two hours he'd show them where the secondary testing platforms retracted into, the interior of one of those and the similar dome access for them, the frankly ridiculous storage areas for flying machines and other items, and pointed out but didn't show them the central computer core that controlled everything. They then exited back to the surface in an entirely different point on the island than where they'd started, coming out through a nondescript door in an alley between two buildings. One that A would bet would appear to need to go into the building itself instead of a stairwell if you attempted to locate where it went by checking the interior of the building.
...except that Naruto then pulled the just-closed door back open and gestured for them to enter it again, and this time it did lead into the building. Which meant that the island had context-sensitive doors, somehow.
"So," Naruto asked after they'd been given drinks. "Any questions?"
"How?" Shisui asked.
"Careful examination of the right Tome."
"...that makes far, far too much sense."
"Cryptic references or codewords are annoying," Onoki grumbled, most of them nodding along. "But this is definitely far beyond what anyone else is even remotely capable of."
Gaara snorted, having been largely silent until now. "He's got a rinnegan. Likely capable of manifesting advanced technology seemingly out of nothing, and rumor has it that whatever powers the sharingan and rinnegan is being absorbed into his."
It looked like Naruto was surprised to hear that...but not surprised at the statement. Really, the reaction felt like surprise that the rumor was spreading at all, in the way that an unexpected reveal of a well-kept secret. One that implied that the sharingan was going to stop functioning...and Naruto's rinnegan was likely getting stronger.
As if the blond needed to be any stronger, though the rinnegan likely helping him build impossible things made far more sense than it should.
"You three shouldn't need to call me in," Tsunade said as they moved down the hall. "At least for anything short of an emergency, and at that point I fully expect that Karin would just have the patient bite her."
"That doesn't work on all conditions," Karin replied. "And Sakura has that trick now too, for that matter. But this isn't quite an emergency."
"But still quite important," Shizune quickly added, as though to prevent her from running off. As if she'd run off without finding out what the hell was going on that had all three of them wanting her there.
"You did clear your afternoon, right?" Sakura questioned.
"...yes," Tsunade replied. "Though if it isn't an emergency then I don't know why I needed to."
No answer came from the three, annoying her, but they reached their apparent target examination room. Entering, she saw that Orochi was sitting there. Which could mean a number of things, if not for the woman looking surprised.
"Orochimaru came to us in hopes that her chakra control problems were something that she couldn't spot due to her control being impacted," Sakura said once the door was closed, pulling a patient file folder out of a seal a moment later. "We went through standard questions and checks, and that led to discovering an anomaly. Being able to think of at least two possible explanations, I decided to do a gene sequencing."
"Ugh," Orochi said. "Is my immortality technique resurfacing on me and fighting the chipmunk features? Because if so then that's going to be a horrible mess to figure out how to stop."
"No," Karin answered. "And what Sakura found didn't match either explanation she'd originally come up with, so she called in Shizune and I to double-check her work. All three of us came up with identical results."
Tsunade accepted a single sheet that Sakura pulled from the file folder and looked it over, frowning and thinking back...only to freeze as she considered the timing. "That's about when we got blackout drunk with Jiraiya."
"And you two left him passed out in the bar," Shizune quickly interjected. "I had to drag him to his hotel room two hours later."
Snapping a mystic palm into place, she checked herself, then checked Orochi. The woman seemed to have figured things out on her own given the look on her face. Scowling, Tsunade looked back at the other three. "That someone apparently managed to take advantage of things and get Orochi pregnant isn't quite at the 'call me in' level of importance."
"Oh no," Karin said, shaking her head. "We're more concerned with the parentage of the child."
"I originally thought that perhaps this was an unexpected self-cloning incident," Sakura added as she pulled more sheets out of the file folder. "Given the negative answers to self-experimentation and sexual activity over the time period involved. Instead, I found out that Orochimaru is, genetically speaking, the father despite being the one carrying the child."
Tsunade grabbed the sheets and looked at them, freezing once she saw what they said. She recovered a moment later, flipping through them to see how that conclusion had been come to, then threw them to the side and started checking Orochi more completely. Comparing an unborn child's genetics to present samples was generally trivial, and it didn't take long to confirm everything that the other three had seen for herself.
"Er," Orochi said. "I think I missed a detail or fifty."
Shizune gave her a smile. "You're currently pregnant with Lady Tsunade's child, though we aren't sure why she used one of her eggs as a base instead of yours."
"The Senju and Uzumaki have better mitochondria," Tsunade answered as she tried to dig out why they'd done this at all from her memory. She wasn't coming up with anything there though. "Meaning that the child would be, on average, healthier that way. I'm currently more concerned with why we did this at all."
"You spent the last hour in the bar talking about how Orochimaru was conflicted because she thought she wanted another child, but without any real sexual attraction to anyone. With how loud you three were being, I imagine it stayed a common topic amongst the local gossips for at least a couple of weeks afterwards."
That made an unfortunate amount of sense, and their drunk asses probably thought that this was a wonderful solution to Orochi wanting a kid and a bunch of annoyances wanting Tsunade to have a kid to keep the Senju line from ending. On the latter, the worst part of this entire drunken escapade was probably going to be the paperwork for having a kid out of wedlock that would continue the Senju line. She'd done enough 'two women want a child of their own' procedures for that part to at least be reasonably streamlined by now though.
"Does Naruto know about this?" Orochi asked.
"Why would you ask that?" Tsunade questioned in return.
"I thought it slightly odd that he gave the other leaders alcohol earlier but defaulted to non-alcoholic options for me, though at the time I assumed it was because I'd mentioned having an appointment."
"He could likely see that you're pregnant even if he couldn't feel the start of the child's chakra network forming, though I think any of us would've walloped him if he'd given you alcohol before a known appointment even without that. I doubt he bothered to check the details unless something else made them important though."
Ten minutes later the others had left the two of them to talk things through.
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