Chương 2703: 93
Yoko was making a point of putting on a show for the first few shrines, at least until they had sufficiently-public honden for all five deities on the mainland anyway. Bringing in Shion from the Land of Demons for 'legitimacy' and camera crews to document the entire journey for the first shrine hadn't been anything that the Fire Daimyo had expected, but that was okay and he liked the idea of having the whole thing recorded for posterity. And probably bragging rights, for that matter. A 'shrine ship' and a set of 'mobile shrine houses' had been assembled for the journey, though the latter were only for the portion on the continent itself.
The ship had some superficial shrine-like styling across the entirety of it, but the big deal with it was the center of it that had a shrine-like area complete with a torii. It wasn't exactly like a shrine for various reasons, including space constraints and the needs on the ocean, but it should be good enough for 'transporting' a god or two. That detail aside, it was a general 'passenger vessel' designed to carry a couple dozen people comfortably without issue. Some of the shrine maidens with experience on smaller vessels were quickly trained on the larger one for the journey to and from Shrine Island.
It also held five different mikoshi in storage, one styled for each of the five gods 'enshrined' on Shrine Island. Up to three of these could be secured in the ship's shrine at a time, the same number that could be secured in the appropriate 'mobile shrine' they'd be using to cross the mainland, but for this trip only the Amaterasu and Omoikane ones would be used. As such, those had been moved up to sit in front of the shrine ahead of time, on two of the three holders that could be lifted out of the deck of the ship there.
Yesterday the camera crews had been shown around the ship and quarters for those coming along for the over-water journey were assigned. Kushi, as the new priestess for the shrine in the Land of Fire's capital, had assigned quarters as well but would be joining them at Shrine Island. Today a single camera crew would record the ship leaving, that same crew also being in charge of recording the ship's return, as they departed for the island.
Skipping most of the journey with transport pads, or just arriving out of nowhere in a procession that seemed to have come from a far-off shrine, would probably have been accepted...but sadly wouldn't have any hope of sending some of the same messages. No, going the long and overly-formal route was the best option for the first few shrines.
Hanabi was somewhat enjoying being an actual genin, complete with getting a collar that didn't include sewn-in bows, and had even been teamed up with Himeki. They both found the chipmunk-featured Dohide to be annoying though. The boy had an attitude, was dismissive of puppetry and taijutsu in general, and thought he was the favorite of Haini-sensei because she was focused on getting some of his basic skills caught up. Completely ignoring that he wasn't trusted with 'help academy students' tasks during his essentially-remedial training.
It was going to be another month at a minimum before they could be trusted to do an out-of-village mission, but it was giving Hanabi time to work on building new puppets. He was up to being able to create two paperwork clones, and coupling that with his real self using more traditional methods meant he should be able to run three puppets at once if the third held his transformed self. Transforming into a combat puppet didn't work for him, sadly.
Ideally, he wanted to build another human puppet to hold his real self as the 'young child' puppet he already had was too small and too chore-focused right now. It was also still regularly used for chores, so he didn't want to dismantle those aspects. Then there was the rabbit puppet he wanted to make to go with the cat puppet, though he wasn't sure how Himeki would take that side of things.
He'd largely sketched out what he wanted to do for both, including internal mechanisms, but hadn't figured out the best armor plating to protect his real self yet. Hiding in the puppet as a doll or small cat wouldn't be ideal if a stray hit could pierce that cavity and cause him actual injury. Unfortunately, Yoko wasn't available at the shrine, so he was kind of stuck waiting for Hinata to visit to get some of the materials he couldn't make himself. Making the incredibly strong wood and the protective rubber for the joints was something that very few could do, and he wasn't old enough to be attempting to visit Bloodline Island to get the bloodline traits needed. And then there were some of the seals that he just couldn't wrap his head around but Yoko was willing to apply for him.
"Do you think Dohide actually listened to Haini-sensei today?" Himeki asked as they made their way back to the compound after helping academy students with chakra control exercises.
"I hope so," Hanabi replied. "Anyone looking at our mission stats is going to wonder why he's only got three to our nearing twenty as it is."
Entering the compound had them splitting up. Himeki wasn't allowed to stay in the main house, even if she helped take care of it regularly, and they both were going to want to clean up. Except that he was distracted upon reaching his room, because it appeared he had mail. A small box that contained a couple of scrolls and metal tags?
Opening it, he found that it was better-drawn versions of his puppet plans...with a pile of corrections for where things wouldn't have worked. Some suggestions for armor inserts with pros and cons for each material were also included in the human puppet design's drawing. Then a listing of which tags contained which materials for building the puppets followed...along with a list of materials that hadn't been provided and that he'd need to acquire himself. Most of those were related to the weapons he wanted to install, though it also included any clothing he wanted to put on the human puppet in particular.
"That entire team is insane," he finally said, realizing that Yoko had ignored being out of the country and apparently reviewed his notes, improved them, and provided the materials he couldn't for assembling the puppets. Complete with seals already applied and instructions for how to connect the few that needed connecting before use, though he already knew how to do that because he needed to be able to disassemble and reassemble his other puppets that used those seals already.
The couple of days on the ocean had been somewhat boring for Yoko, even with taking time to build supplies to surprise Hanabi with, but now she was back in overly-formal clothing and making her way to the front of the ship, putting on a show for the cameras. Two of the cameras were operated by shrine maidens that wouldn't be as likely to forget what they were supposed to be doing when the shocks started as well. Somewhat fortuitously, they'd reached the 'fog bank' as the sun was setting and that should put on a good show.
Reaching the bow of the ship, she pulled her medallion out of a hidden pocket. Holding it up, she pushed light chakra into it, the corresponding seal on her back tingling as it authenticated her to the medallion's seals. A beam of light chakra left the medallion a moment later, reaching out to the ring around the island and striking the fog. But they were somewhat intentionally in the wrong spot for sailing in, so the fog lit up with bright purple light chakra and the ocean currents grabbed the ship to guide it through.
The ship swung around the island to the side the port sat on, a gap opening in the protective fog and allowing the light of the Amaterasu shrine's 'sun' to spill out as the ship was guided in. All the 'visitors' on the ship seemed to stiffen further as they crossed the point where you could feel the effects of the light chakra infusing the entire island, one of the shrine maidens specifically catching Shion's reaction. Other shrine maidens were present at the dock as the ship settled into place, helping the couple tasked with preparing for them to disembark with getting ropes tied and the ramp in place.
Once the ship was secured a group of eight shrine maidens moved to the two mikoshi. In groups of four they released them from the holders and lifted them up, joining Yoko at the ramp to head down to the dock. Shion and her group trailed behind the nine of them, though one of the shrine maidens running a camera had gone ahead to be able to capture them coming down the ramp. The normal camera crew was...probably going to be half-useless here, based on their existing reactions.
When the group reached the first torii they bowed before passing through, which was probably going to result in a scene cut or two as even those operating cameras had done so. In fact, the shrine maidens were intentionally catching each other in shots, which was probably going to be fun for the editors to decide what to do with. Then again, it was a documentary, so having cameras appear in shots probably wasn't horrible. But both cameras caught the torii lighting up with bright purple light chakra sparkles as Yoko, the shrine maidens, and Shion passed through. But not the others with Shion.
Climbing the stairs up to the tower was followed by climbing the tower itself. The Omoikane mikoshi broke off at the first stop up the tower, but the rest of them eventually reached the Amaterasu island. There the cameras held back, outside of the island's main torii, simply recording from there as Yoko led the smaller procession in bowing before entering. She, the four shrine maidens carrying the mikoshi, and Shion were met by one of the shrine maidens that had already been present and led to the honden where Kushi was waiting.
Protections on the honden reacted to the medallion and revealed the hidden door, allowing Yoko and Kushi to enter. Even Shion stayed back at this, and it wasn't long before Yoko and Kushi carried an ornate box out of the honden to place it in the mikoshi. This box had a chakra battery and should be able to maintain a light chakra 'bubble' for almost a month without needing to be recharged, to hopefully keep the area around the box and the mikoshi feeling 'spiritual' to those who could feel it.
The honden sealed itself behind them as they were sealing the mikoshi, and then the procession started back with Kushi joining them. Bowing back to the Amaterasu shrine was done when they crossed the floating island's primary torii gate, and then they carefully made their way down the tower to the Omoikane island. Here the process repeated with the other mikoshi, and then they departed to head down to the ship. As expected, they stopped at the last torii and bowed back to the tower before then boarding the ship, the shrine maidens on the ship and dock having worked together in the meantime to turn the ship around to make it easier to depart.
Settling the two mikoshi into the specially-built area on the ship intended to hold them was followed by going through the motions needed to depart. Once they were moving again Yoko had to move back to the bow of the ship to open the way back out. This time the currents simply left them just outside of the fog and they had to travel around the island a bit to get back to their proper return heading.
Shion had been dismissive of Yoko's claimed ability to train properly-spiritual shrine maidens and priestesses, or possibly priests. It was an inherited role in the Land of Demons for a reason, because they knew that most just didn't have the ability to channel the spiritual energies. Even Yoko hadn't had that ability back when first introduced to Shion...but she had awoken it along that first journey. If not for that, the invitation to participate in this trip would've been turned down.
Meeting a group of fox-featured shrine maidens that also felt like they had the ability to channel the spiritual energies was eye-opening, but they didn't seem to have the right personalities to do the job properly. A couple were even proudly wearing the 'honorary genin' forehead protectors that Uzushio had given out last year.
Then they'd arrived at Shrine Island. A pretentious-sounding name as far as Shion had been concerned, at least at first. Watching the dark fog light up with spiritual energies, and then open to reveal the island itself? It made her feel like her own shrines were inadequate, even before the feeling from the entire place resonated with her in ways that no shrine ever really had before. The ship hadn't even settled at the dock before she felt spiritually cleaner than she could recall feeling at any time in her life, making it obvious that she'd never been in a truly spiritual location before now. She even swore that she could feel a connection with the trees and birds once she'd set foot on the island proper. It also didn't escape her notice that foxes were calmly watching them from the trees.
Seeing the first torii react to Yoko and the shrine maidens passing under it had her wondering if it was a trick or if it was actually reacting to their spiritual energy. But they reacted almost identically to her as well, and she could even feel her spiritual energy interacting with the gate, yet didn't react at all to a couple of her retinue that were dressed the part but didn't have true spiritual abilities.
She was a bit embarrassed at how poorly she'd handled the sheer number of steps involved in climbing up to the tower and then up the tower itself. More physical exercise was obviously needed, but the shrine maidens obviously dealt with this kind of thing regularly as they didn't even seem slightly winded. At some point she might have to ask for tips for what exercises would be best to increase her own stamina.
The new priestess they met at the Amaterasu shrine had more spiritual presence than the shrine maidens did, though nowhere near as much as Yoko herself. At least on Shion's own level, which was humbling, though Yoko's presence was...impressive at this point. That both of the other priestesses had fox features, just like every shrine maiden had so far, just helped to differentiate them from others. Possibly from lessers that didn't have divine approval.
The loss of the spiritual feeling when the ship had finally left the island's protective fog was honestly somewhat jarring. Perhaps she needed to work with Yoko to properly cleanse the shrines in the Land of Demons? Staying close to the ship's shrine where the mikoshi were stored brought some of the feeling back though, as the mikoshi themselves obviously radiated spiritual energies in a manner that defied all of Shion's previous experiences with this kind of journey.
Arriving back at Uzushio's mainland dock facility had been far less directly impressive than the stop at Shrine Island, but they still made a show of transferring the two mikoshi from the ship to the mobile house specifically designed to hold them. Yoko ensured that the rest of the procession was ready in the other mobile houses before starting off, the one holding the two mikoshi being the only one without someone driving it. One of Yoko's clones was actually 'inside' the seals of it, treating it like a puppet, but that wasn't obvious to anyone watching.
There was no threat of attack within Uzushio's holdings, but they needed to travel through the Land of Hot Water to reach the Land of Fire. That had been arranged in advance, likely helped by the Fire Daimyo extending an invitation to the Hot Water Daimyo to attend, and an honor guard of Yugakure shinobi met them at the border. The best-maintained road passed through a number of smaller villages and the country's capital before turning to the Land of Fire, a somewhat deliberate thing to encourage travelers to stop at various hot springs on their way through.
Unlike most passing through, for them zero attempts were made to encourage 'unnecessary stops' as they moved along. They traveled until nightfall was imminent, stayed in an inn, then continued on the next morning. The second day ended at the country's capital, though they probably could have continued on to the next settlement after it. But they were picking up others here, so instead they took time to perform a small ceremony at a shrine there before turning in for the night.
In the morning their procession grew. The Frost and Lightning Daimyo had already traveled to the Hot Water capital to join the Hot Water Daimyo for the journey. This added a longer string of carriages to the procession as they continued on to the Land of Fire, led by the more impressive mobile houses. This slowed them down a little as his carriages and guards weren't able to move as quickly or steadily, but they didn't exactly make bad time. When they reached the border the bulk of the Yugakure honor guard shinobi stayed behind and Konoha teams took over, though the personal guards of the three daimyo continued with them as well.
No attempt was made to detour through Konoha itself as they headed for the capital, mostly because there was nobody to 'pick up' there for the procession. No official representatives of hidden villages were supposed to be present at all, beyond personal guards for the various daimyo, as Shisui had declined the Fire Daimyo's invitation. Instead, they passed through a couple of larger towns where nobles joined them instead. The Sound Daimyo and his honor guard from the Otogakure ranks met them along the route, but all other attending leaders should be present when they reached the capital.
...though why Orochimaru had decided to play honor guard with Ruri along for the trip was beyond Yoko's personal knowledge. The woman was very obviously not acting in the capacity of a hidden village leader though, deferring to the Sound Daimyo and seemingly not even leading the guard team.
Orochimaru had heard through the chipmunks that the shrine being revitalized in the Land of Fire's capital was going to be a 'spectacular show' and had, somewhat reluctantly, agreed to go. Mostly because Ruri wanted to see for herself. That Konoha had apparently removed her from their bounty books and missing-nin list helped though, as it removed a pile of the special permission dances needed.
She had simply taken the place of one member of the honor guard, leaving the leadership of things untouched so that she could treat it more as a vacation trip than anything else. Making Ruri do the assigned guard shifts with her was just a teaching moment for how not everything was exciting in the field. Doubly so in a spectacle like this. Nobody was going to come anywhere near this procession intentionally. They'd passed at least three bandit camps without drawing any attention from them at all.
It was the single most boring guard duty rotation she'd ever participated in, surrounded by overly-serious nobles, and Ruri was still overly excited for the final show.
Of course, there was the odd question of the two mikoshi giving off...something. It was obviously a form of chakra, but it wasn't any normal kind. Oddly...clean and pure, perhaps? But not in the same way as nature chakra was. Almost like it represented the best of humanity instead of anything else, but not quite. All of the 'Land of Shrines' girls seemed to possess similar chakra, as did the priestess from the Land of Demons, but she wasn't about to start attributing it to something actually spiritual just yet. Possibly a chakra bloodline that Uzushio had figured out how to grant alongside everything else they could do, even if that didn't explain how it was being emitted in the manner it seemed to be.
It was at least a mystery that required thought and distracted from the incredibly boring and tedious guard portion of things. Seals were almost certainly involved, at least, even if there was no hope of being able to examine them.
Despite looking calm, Yoko was very busy the night before they would make it to the capital. Most of that was being handled through clones though, building out the shrine's bunker and preparing for the next day's show. The weather didn't look like it was going to cooperate, but that was a minor thing in the grand scheme of things. An overcast day just meant taking that into account for the lighting of things, such as being ready to light lanterns in the shrine immediately after it was 'revitalized'.
Experimentation with a selection of seals and techniques had led to a method to rebuild things such that only the rinnegan could see the direct manipulations. The byakugan and all levels of the sharingan couldn't see through the privacy aspects, and even chakra sensing was largely negated for identifying where things were being run from. Clones would handle some things, seals would handle more, and using all the materials obtained by the Fire Daimyo for parts of the construction should make for an impressive show. Some of the run-down shrine's materials could be reused as well, where they hadn't rotted away entirely anyway.
Seals were being pre-hidden inside a number of things to serve as anchor points or for generating various effects, such as the 'pass through the torii' sparkles...and a bit more for the arrival and triggering phase, of course. The others participating had been run through a sample of what might happen already so that they wouldn't react in shock, of course, but didn't know the specifics because those hadn't been decided ahead of time.
By the time she turned in for the night she had everything she needed basically set up, though clones would be doing an extra pass in the morning in case things were moved out of place or added to. Final connections between the bunker and buildings on the surface, as well as other secret passages into and out of the bunker, would wait a few days. Though the shrine's public telephones and a couple of other things were in the mobile houses already so that they could be openly unloaded after the fact.
Kakashi definitely hadn't wanted to attend the shrine opening as an official representative of Konoha, but had arranged to be in the guard rotation for the event. Mostly because he wanted to see what was pulled off, given the show that had been put on in the Land of Snow. He knew he'd missed half the show by not being on the ship that had gone out to Shrine Island, but that wasn't the portion he was interested in anyway.
He'd personally examined the run-down shrine that was going to be 'revitalized' as part of the whole project. Repeatedly examined, with and without Asuma helping. There was no sign that anything had been done yet at all. Nothing new underground, nothing rebuilt and hidden by illusions, nothing at all. Materials had been gathered by the Daimyo for rebuilding to the new priestess's specifications once she arrived, sitting next to the shrine grounds in a gathering that had grown each day, but that was it.
The guards for the various visiting daimyo had also done their own checks, necessitating repeated checks in case they'd laid traps, but there was still nothing. Back in the Land of Snow they'd had things prepared ahead of time, but here there was no sign of that. There wasn't even anything visible to the sharingan as the procession appeared in the distance, and he was starting to worry that there wasn't a grand show being planned. The weather was even annoyingly dreary.
An official welcoming of the procession, both the main 'religious' group and the following nobles of various descriptions, happened before everyone observing got into position to do so. Kakashi dragged Asuma into a last-minute check of the shrine grounds, 'just in case of sabotage', and still found no obvious preparations for a show...but did notice that in the past day the land under the shrine had become impenetrable a handful of meters down. So perhaps there was going to be a show after all.
He perched near one of the cameras to make sure he had a good view of things as Yoko and the others made their final approach to the shrine grounds. The first sign that he'd missed something was the torii sparkling as Yoko and the new priestess stepped through it...and that sparkling spreading around the shrine's border as the shrine maidens following brought the two mikoshi through. Obviously-struggling plants sprang to life as the procession passed them, and then the materials gathered for the rebuilding of the shrine started to sparkle as well...
...before they all lifted into the air, the existing structures of the shrine falling to pieces and floating into the air at the same time as the procession moved off to the side of where the honden had sat mere moments ago. They obviously ignored the impossibility of what was happening around them as the very earth reshaped itself before a new honden assembled itself to the side.
The ritual of enshrining Amaterasu in the impossibly-built honden followed, and as soon as the door to the honden closed and sealed itself a wave of bright purple chakra flowed from the structure. This seemed to be the trigger for the second honden to assemble itself on the other half of the shrine grounds, even as the tamagaki and worship hall for the Amaterasu honden started to assemble themselves. Enshrining Omoikane in the new honden triggered a second wave of the chakra and the assembling of its tamagaki and worship hall...but also a secondary meeting hall between the two honden for some reason
With both gods enshrined, the rest of the shrine's land also started to shift in a wave from the two honden. Paths were paved with stones and river rocks laid themselves to the sides, shared structures for the shrine grounds assembled themselves, trees grew in some spots, more torii assembled themselves along the paths. As the wave of reconstruction approached the outer wall it was almost as though the wall itself was replaced by trees, but from outside you could see the wall rebuilding itself larger and stronger as well. All of the materials from the old shrine structures and the provided materials from the Fire Daimyo had been used to construct the new dual shrine, seemingly nothing going to waste.
Then, just as the sparkling chakra started to fade, the clouds parted and bathed the rebuilt and restored shrine grounds in sunlight. It was as though Amaterasu personally approved of things, even as a subtle wave of clean-feeling spilled out of the shrine grounds and over those watching. After a moment the hole in the clouds started to expand, gradually lighting up the city around the shrine itself even as Yoko and the others made their way back out of the shrine. Each new torii gate sparkled anew as they passed through, and Kakashi had no clue how the whole show had been pulled off. Paint had even flowed from buckets to perfectly apply itself before the buckets tore themselves apart to form additional items!
He was so proud, because if he was clueless and hadn't seen anything with the sharingan then it was likely that everyone else present had even less of a clue how any of it had been accomplished. Actually, from here it even looked like Orochimaru was standing there with her daughter, both of them staring at the shrine grounds absolutely speechless. Just like basically everyone else, but if you could pull one over on her then you'd done good. And the clouds parting to allow the sun to stream through had been an inspired touch.
Once the two mikoshi were placed into storage areas the unloading of things began. Luggage for those who would be remaining, public-use telephones for a hut next to the entrance, initial stocks of items for sale, office supplies, and boxes that were harder to identify and might not contain anything of import at all.
...most of this was likely for show instead of having it set up in the amazing display, and who knew how much was already set up behind the scenes or would be brought in secretly as though it was always there.
Kushi had expected a show when they arrived at the shrine, and had even gone through a couple of dry runs in a remote location with the environment assembling itself around them so that she could properly ignore it all for the show. It wouldn't do for the new priestess of the shrine to be shocked when the shrine built itself.
...she hadn't been expecting it to be quite as impressive as Yoko had made it though. The place was unrecognizable compared to how it had looked before they crossed the torii. Foxes had slipped through at some point as the post-rebuilding festival had started up, and nobody had said anything about manipulating the clouds to let the light shine on the shrine at the perfect moment to sell divine approval.
But it was now evening and the shrine had been largely closed up. A quick meal and then setting up her personal quarters would follow. Being a priestess instead of a shrine maiden was going to be a bit of a shift, and doing it in the capital was going to be a little stressful.
"You could've warned us about the sun suddenly shining through the clouds," Asami said to Yoko as she entered the room.
"Wasn't part of the plan," Yoko admitted with a shrug. "Having anyone flying up there probably would've created trails in the clouds that would've been noticeable."
"...that wasn't your doing?" Kushi questioned, blinking.
"Not at all. The forecast hadn't even had clouds when we started the whole trip, that was a storm system that shifted course once we were on the ocean. My best guess on the timing, at least if it wasn't pure coincidence, is that the excess chakra released as the show was ending destabilized the cloud layer. That really should've taken another half an hour with the distances involved though."
Knowing that everything else was being faked with chakra and seals made that explanation sound likely, but the timing being perfect? That made it almost seem like they might've accidentally earned the actual approval of the gods. Becoming a shrine maiden for her had originally been out of actual respect to the gods, only to learn that it was all being done with seals and other tricks, but perhaps the gods approved of doing the right things in their name so long as you didn't offend them with the specifics?
The very possibility made being the shrine's priestess feel even more important.
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