Pre-Chapter A/N:I think at this point, we just have to accept that I will inevitably show up with two chapters a week. As for when those chapters show up, I think it's best I not make any particular promises. If you haven't already, I recommend turning on notifications for my stuff so you can see when new stuff drops right as it drops. More chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
The Tower had collapsed in the explosion. That was problem number one, because that tower had Kushina in it, and there was no one more important in that village. Other than perhaps Mito. I teleported to the marker I had on her, not too shocked to find myself underground after going in. Underground might have been the wrong way to put it. The best way to put it was to say that she was buried under a non-trivial amount of rubble. I reached out to the rubble with my earth release, lifting it all with a wave of my hand while holding on to Kushina with the other.
Gyuki's chakra had already surrounded her in a version one cloak with a single tail so her wounds were healing faster than any of the med-nin we had on hand could manage, so I kept her held against my chest as I shot off next, lightening the both of us before flying straight to my next target.
With Kushina sorted, the next matter to my attention was the fires. Fires were dangerous because of how difficult they could be to manage. Water was the wrong idea. At least the wrong idea for the most part. Any powerful water release jutsu came with the downside of causing enough blunt damage to basically ruin whatever I was trying to save.
There was fighting fire with fire, but I didn't have a strong enough fire release affinity to take control of so many fires outside my body. The entire merchant district, along with a good portion of the civilian residential district, was aflame. Too much fire for me to control from a distance.
That left one element. Wind. My tertiary affinity. And true enough, there was a subset of jutsus that seemed perfectly made for this.
With Kushina slumped over my shoulder and supported by my right hand, I had only a free hand. It would suffice.
I formed three one-handed seals— bird, snake, and ram. And then I began to mould my chakra. The vacuum ball jutsu was a good base. It had the right shape release for what I was planning. I formed multiple of them, creating the vacuums to work in a certain way that tossed physics out of the window, but chakra didn't care about silly things like obeying the laws of physics.
I spun in the air, firing multiple vacuum balls into the area. The balls flew through the air, absorbing the flames from the buildings caught on fire as they did so.
I formed another one-handed seal, this one a ram seal. I dropped out of sage mode, pulling as much of Kurama's chakra into myself as I could on such short notice.
"Tajuu Kage Bunshin no jutsu!" And then where there had just been one of me in the air, we were suddenly blocking off the sun itself with our numbers, casting a shadow over the village.
This time, not a single one of them decided to be a smart-arse. They just got to work.
First of all were rescues. Hiraishin markers flew all over the place as hundreds of my clones began to dig through rubble and previously inflamed buildings, searching for survivors. Another group— the smallest one— moved to the hospital. Having a tiered security apparatus for the village might just have saved everything. Because somehow the hospital was still intact. Whatever Chiyo had done hadn't made it that far, thankfully.
That set of clones were working with the doctors to prepare to receive the patients that would be coming.
We didn't have the space in the hospital to contain all the probably injured, I realised as a clone popped with that knowledge. I nodded, and then I was off. I flew to the ground next to the hospital, and whispered an apology to Hashirama as I slammed my hand on the ground. The garden he had created which had stood from Konoha's earliest days next to the hospital was going to be another casualty of Chiyo's madness as my mud release got to work. I sunk the trees into the ground before beginning to build on the now solid ground.
Multiple pillars of mud rose from the ground. Those pillars then acted as paths for more mud to reach the top and then begin to stretch to form a roof over the shelter. I formed walls on three sides, leaving one open. One of my clones landed on the floor even as my building proceeded. He slammed a kunai into the ground at the entrance, setting the arrival point. Then, he dispelled, spreading the knowledge. The medical clones teleported in next, most of them coming and bringing doctors from within the hospital along.
I turned away from that, commanding the rest of the mud to rise into beds of stone. Before hardening the whole thing into a complete structure. My clones thought like me, I noticed, not even surprised to see dozens already arriving, bedding held underarm and beginning to prepare the beds.
The injured began to troop in thanks to the rescue clones and then the treatment began.
I shot back upwards again, noticing as I did so, that Gyuki's chakra had receded. Kushina was fully healed. Good. That was one thing that thankfully hadn't ended completely disastrously. It ended up taking just under an hour. Even with all my clones marching about, Konoha was an extremely large village and there were enough bottlenecks that made things less than cut and dry. At the end of it, I just wanted to crawl into bed and sleep my worries away, but not yet. I couldn't. Not until I had a complete picture.
I'd set up shop in the Uzumaki clan compound, finding that it was more efficient for me to focus on directing my clones about and maintaining a larger view of the situation than getting involved in the weeds. Now that the rescue was over and most of the injured were stabilized, my attention was turned to getting a complete report of what was damaged and having my clones fix what they could.
"Did you do it?" I asked, not looking up from the seal I had decided to busy myself with as she walked into the room. I'd spotted her even before she entered the clan compound and had been able to figure out her intended direction relatively easily.
"Fuinjutsu, puppets, poison, and perhaps passable wind release. He was no true challenge," she said. I nodded, not saying anything about the state of her clothing, or even the freshly healed cut on her cheek that was somewhat obvious to my eyes. The Kazekage had been a challenge. Admitting it, though, that was one step Uzume would never take.
"Good. Good that he is dead. But perhaps we should have left him alive so he could suffer for Chiyo's actions," I said.
"Things seem in order outside now," she said.
"You should have seen it shortly after it happened. It was a mess. A flaming mess."
"Indeed. Your clones have done a great job."
"One of them told you where to find me, yes?"
"I didn't know you could make so many. You've been holding back on me, Shori."
"I have only about as much chakra as a chunin in this state. You'd tear through the clones like paper if you put your mind to it," I reassured, not wanting to create the impression that I had been holding back on her out of not feeling she was strong enough. She was much older and wiser now, but there was still enough of the old Uzume in there that I knew pushing back on that impression would not end well.
"Hmmm. I see it. Uraume and Shika are looking into the explosions," she said.
"No need. My clones already found fragments of some of the explosives. It was definitely triggered by fuinjutsu— Chiyo's work," I said.
"Is that what you are working on?" she asked, stepping closer to look at the seal.
"No. Just a bit of revenge. But enough of that, have you been able to look at the clan compounds?" I asked. It was one of the blind spots I had in the village. I would have my clones check more closely but since I had confirmed they hadn't suffered any serious damage in the attack, I'd ignored them in favour of more pressing issues.
"The Uchiha compound had some rubble fly in, but no one was harmed. Much seems to be the case with the other proper compounds. The smaller clans that lived closer to the civilian districts have more damage and a few injuries, but I didn't notice anything more serious while looking around," she said. I nodded. That was good at least.
It was a terrible thing to say, but the clans were the ones with the power to make things inconvenient for me so it was best for me to keep them happy for the time being.
"So what do you want to do now?"
"Now? I want to take a hot shower and go to bed. But life isn't about what I want. We need to have a meeting. And to do that, we need a Hokage tower," I said.
"You really want to wait that long?" she asked, eyes panning across the room.
"You could probably fit everyone in here," she said.
"No. Because it sends the wrong message. We want the message to be that we were hit, but we're back to business as usual."
"And delaying the meeting sends that message?"
"Who said anything about delaying the meeting. Do you have any recollection of who I am?" I asked as I body flickered out the window.
I didn't need my byakugan to see her follow. Part of me wanted to challenge her to a race, but what was the point in that. It wasn't even going to be a challenge. I lightened myself and then shot from the ground, flying towards the mound of rubble where the Hokage tower had been.
When I arrived, I dropped to the ground, looking around and making decisions as to what was going to happen now. What the new tower would look like.
"So what are you going to do?" Uzume asked, landing by my side. "And when did you learn to fly?" she asked immediately after. It was like she had been unable to choose which to ask first.
"Today, as to your second question. As for the first, the answer is rebuild," I said.
"You want to reconstruct the entire Hokage tower?" she asked.
"Yes. Of course."
"Pardon the disbelief, but I've seen what your clones can make with your mud release. And I can see how much chakra you have. No chance," she said.
"Well, you've forgotten a very basic fact," I said.
'Ready Kurama?' I asked.
'You're the one I've been waiting for,' he growled in my head, and then I felt his chakra flood its way into my network. Controlling Kurama's chakra for precise ninjutsu was basically impossible. But the fight with the Raikage had left me with an idea. So instead of allowing Kurama's chakra enter my coils just as it was, I smashed my own chakra into his. I looked down at my body with my eyes to make sure I got it right. With how much chakra I had at this point, a 50:50 split would be stupid. But I had other options.
Since Kurama was cooperating, his chakra wasn't going to fuck with me like nature energy would if I tilted the ratio in his favour a bit too much. 80:20 felt like a good ratio, drops of my chakra mixing with his to make a concoction greater than either of us put together. Denser than mine by far, but far easier to control than Kurama's had ever been.
I felt Uzume take a step back as small embers of golden power bubbled from my skin.
I felt my body become filled with strength beyond my wildest dreams.
"I can fight the world," I said, not even sure where the words had come from. I heard Kurama laughing in my head at that.
"That's just a fraction of my power, boy. Don't go getting ahead of yourself," he said, and I looked down again, not even sure when my head had turned straightforward.
There was a golden chakra armour surrounding my body. It flowed around my body, wrapped around my armour, molded to fit my form. It created a golden haze around my body itself. The light bleeding off of me and influencing the very air around me.
"Are you going to get to work now or just stand there?" I heard Kurama's voice in my head again.
Oh, I had come here to do something, hadn't I? I just wanted to run. Punch something. A spar would be good now. I turned to look at Uzume in her position. She would be a good spar right about now.
"Focus," Kurama's hiss again.
Wait. What was I supposed to be doing? The tower, I thought when I looked at the rubble. I was supposed to be rebuilding the tower.
But I needed the rubble out of the way first. I felt a sliver of chakra flow to my hand and begin to gather and spin itself even before I formed the intention. I squeezed my hand shut, ending the rasengan before it could form. We would still need to get someone to look through that eventually. I pushed out with my hands, wanting to get the rubble out of the way, and the chakra around my arms flowed where my hands stopped, and kept going.
I formed the intention, and the chakra limbs expanded until either of my hands was large enough to wrap around a house. I used them to push the rubble away, pushing it forward and forward until it was thoroughly out of the way.
Now it was time to build the tower, I thought when my hands returned to normal.
Mud release. I could build anything with mud release. I just had to set my mind to it. And this didn't need to be a permanent structure. I just needed something to last until we were back on our feet and could begin constructing another one.
I didn't need handseals for my mud release. It was part and parcel of who I was at this point. I slammed my hands to the ground, moving so quickly that it almost felt dizzying.
"Mud release secret art: reconstruction of the lost world!" The jutsu's name came to me almost of its own accord. The first step was mud transformation. I turned the circle that would form the base of the tower into mud, and then within that circumference, I dug deep. I turned it into mud miles and miles into the ground. First step complete. The ground did not resist, easily accepting my will to take a new form as my water release affinity merged with the earth.
And then came the shape manipulation. I formed three pillars first— each at different sides of a mental triangle, reaching straight to the sky. Perhaps one hundred and fifty feet straight upwards. And then I began to spread the mud, forming the curved exterior of the tower. I could hear Uzume's gasp behind me but I didn't have the time to focus on that.
The mud followed my iny so quickly that any second of misattention could lead to it forming strange features. Like the picture of Uzume's face that appeared on one of the sides. I cleared my mind of all other thoughts, clearing the engraving with a flex of my will and hoping that she hadn't seen that. When the sides had joined from the outside, forming a circular cylinder that reached high into the sky, I focused on the interior.
I formed another pillar that went straight through the middle of the circle, not attached to any of the other pillars. It reached close to the top, and when I got there, I stopped, and then I smoothed out the top, forming a flat surface that joined the pillar with edges of the tower about twelve feet before the top of the tower.
That would be my floor, I decided. Then with another flex of my will, the pillar began to alter itself as I carved stairs into its side. It was going to be the way to get from floor to floor. There were eight floors on the original tower, so I formed the seven below fine, cutting up the tower every twenty feet or so to ensure the tower kept the high ceilings that had been one of its core features.
And then next were the windows. This one I had to be more careful with. Finding glass for the windows and getting someone to install it was probably going to take a while. But then trapping everyone in a hot clay box was one way to ensure that no one liked me ever again. So I formed the windows, making sure to keep them as thin slits rather than the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that certain offices and rooms had enjoyed. That was all I managed to do at first. Furniture would have to be figured out by someone else. And while I knew the rough layout of the tower, I didn't know enough to begin constructing offices or cubicles. Everyone would have to be satisfied with open-plan living for the time being.
I took a deep inhale and exhale as I stared at the complete work. The golden chakra armour around my body had faded as I constructed the tower. I didn't have the chakra to maintain something so inefficient. I pushed myself to my feet then and almost went face first to the ground as I felt dizzy. Uzume was there though. Never letting me fall.
"That's so impressive," she said, and maybe it was the tiredness. Maybe it was the lack of chakra flowing to my brain that made me do it. Maybe it was none of them. I leaned in and kissed her. Sadly, I would never find out if she kissed me back. I lost consciousness the second our lips touched.
A/N: Am I a tease? Yes. Next six up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.