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Demon Desert.
Naruto was blindly wandering, following his intuition. The sky was almost dark, and he still hadn't met his brother-in-law.
He had, however, encountered two groups of dead bodies: one from Konoha, one from the Sand Shinobi. Deaths were quite normal in the Chunin Exams; it would be abnormal if no one died.
Dusk was approaching, bringing a slight chill. Naruto wrapped himself in a blanket.
Then, he received a message from Naruko, telling him to send a Shadow Clone to deliver food to Guren.
Naruko had been continuously executing her nefarious plan, codenamed "Sweet Potato No. 2," without interruption.
And fearing that a clone might not possess his main body's "orange-ization passive," she always fetched the supplies from his main body for deliveries.
Naruko's plan was to make Guren imperceptibly gain weight. She sent food once or twice a week, not too much; otherwise, Guren would get fat quickly and become suspicious.
She was highly manipulative.
After all, her heart had been pierced before.
What grew back after an injury was bound to be thicker than before.
So, the blame for Guren getting fat lay with Orochimaru.
From morning till evening, Naruko's side hadn't stopped fighting.
There were simply too many ants, seemingly endless, impossible to completely exterminate. Still, Naruto's clones were superior in strength and had pushed forward significantly.
At 8:30 PM, the well-rested Naruto got ready. He activated the Transformation Jutsu: "Let us hunt those who have fallen into darkness."
It was a phrase that came with its own soundtrack.
Then, after only two steps, he received another message from Naruko, telling him to go to her.
Since Naruko killed a clone to send the message, Naruto teleported directly to the destination.
Ignoring the surrounding ant corpses, Naruto held a light-emitting pill and took out a cloth to wipe the wall carvings.
Naruko, the Avatar of Vengeful Flames, had led her clone army deeper along the ant tunnels. Upon reaching this spot, they discovered an underground structure.
The building was entirely constructed from stone, resembling a temple. From its scale, the above-ground portion must also have been considerable. The walls were very dilapidated, indicating it was at least several hundred years old.
After cleaning all the wall carvings, Naruto stood back to observe from a distance.
The first carving depicted a deep pit with simple equipment beside it, people carrying stones and soil on their shoulders and by hand.
The second carving showed a desolate land, with emaciated people performing rituals at graves before animal carcasses.
The third carving showed a visitor from afar entering their sight...
The last carving showed a man, depicted with radiating light, leading the people in celebration, their hands raised high. A pillar of water shot up from the deep pit behind him.
Ermmm, this looked exactly like that goofy Asura.
Asura, you actually dug a well in the Land of Wind. Serves you right that it took you so long to dig it out.
There were also words on the wall carvings, but Naruto couldn't read them.
"Big Fox, do you know these words?"
These words were like a foreign language to Naruto, so he could only seek help from the ancient fox.
The Nine-Tails was indeed a millennia-old fox, exceptionally knowledgeable. "From afar... returning to afar... bringing... taking away... leaving behind..."
Most of the words on the wall were damaged, so the Nine-Tails' translation was fragmented.
Sure enough, to learn a foreign language, it's best to find a fox spirit.
With that thought, Naruto listened carefully, his mind racing.
Before, he had only seen ants and hadn't thought much of it, but upon seeing this underground temple, he remembered this place.
In the original story, during this particular Chunin Exam, Tenten fell into the ground from a dilapidated structure that was unremarkable above ground. She was chased by a swarm of ants and finally escaped by summoning a large amount of seawater to push away the blocking mud.
When the Nine-Tails translated just now, it also mentioned that Asura left something behind. No matter what was left, as long as it wasn't just a legend—even if he left a kidney stone—it would be a treasure.
Since there was a treasure, it was only natural for Tenten, the ultimate lucky devil, to fall down here.
She was just too busy being chased by ants to find the treasure.
Since Tenten and his brother-in-law were coming here, he needed to prepare well.
He remembered Tenten falling during the daytime, which meant he still had a whole night.
With plenty of time, Naruto decided to first try to find the treasure in the temple.
Holding a Rasengan, Naruto sent out Shadow Clones to scout ahead, with his main body following.
In movies, such ancient structures always had traps. It was better to be careful.
But after searching around, they found nothing. Forget traps, there wasn't even a single lamp.
Finally, Naruto and his clones arrived at a long passage, so long that its end was out of sight.
"I'll scout ahead."
With that, a clone formed a Rasengan and rushed into the passage without looking back.
If the Rasengan could be thrown, Naruto would have thrown it to kill the clone.
Damn it, you run so fast, how am I supposed to know which brick you stepped on? What if I step on the wrong one and there's a trap?
"Multiple Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Better safe than sorry. Naruto created more clones to scout the path. Traps or no traps, I'll just overwhelm them.
Finally, Naruto teleported to the room at the end of the passage, having forgotten about his frustration for a moment.
In the center of the room stood a statue, its form indistinguishable, but it was likely Asura. Around the statue were piled numerous farming tools: picks, sickles, and even cleavers… all very old and rusted to the point of disintegration.
Could these also trigger Tenten's treasure-finding passive when she picks them up as ninja tools?
The ancients were truly simple-hearted, using farming tools as offerings...
Naruto stared intently at the statue. Under some mysterious connection, his gaze slowly shifted to the statue's left hand.
"Go check it out…" Naruto commanded.
A clone stepped forward to examine it. After a moment of fumbling, it pulled out… a piece of fingernail, less than three millimeters long.
The fingernail had clearly undergone special treatment to be preserved for a thousand years, though its color was somewhat gray.
No way, is this Asura's fingernail from when he was digging the well?
Are Asura's ancient fans that fanatical, to collect even this??
Leaving a clone to explore the room, Naruto returned to a storage room he had passed earlier, staring blankly at this tiny piece of what was supposedly Asura's gray fingernail.
What good is this thing?!
It was too small for an Edo Tensei.
Is it for soaking in wine?
Naruto kept pondering until the next morning, but he still couldn't figure out its use.
Unable to figure it out, he simply gave up. Executing the plan was more important.
He sent a clone to deliver a message to Naruko, telling her to herd the ants this way, while Naruto waited for the lucky devil.
Above ground.
The ruins were vast and easy to spot.
The first to arrive at the ruins was the Rain Shinobi squad, led by Ajisai.
"How is it? Did you sense any enemies?" Ajisai asked.
"Yes, they also have a sensor ninja; they've already detected us."
"Get ready," Ajisai ordered.
On the other side, Neji and his two teammates, who had followed the Rain Shinobi, also entered the ruins.
Neji quietly told his teammates, "They're here. It seems they intend to ambush us."
Then, he pulled out a scroll from his pouch and shouted, "We have the Heaven Scroll. If you do too, we can leave."
He was trying to lure the enemy out.
"I'm sorry, what we want is the Heaven Scroll." Ajisai pulled out a paper with sealing patterns from her pouch.
"Unsealing Jutsu: Shuriken!"
Sealed shuriken flew out from the paper.
"That move is!" Tenten exclaimed in surprise.
This technique was almost identical to her own.
Rarely encountering a ninja of the same specialization, Tenten was greatly intrigued. "Leave this to me."
The two exchanged blows several times. Ajisai then pulled out another piece of paper: "Unsealing Jutsu: Paper Blizzard."
Numerous paper pieces flew out from the paper, and she also mixed in explosive tags.
Judging by the paper's shape and size, this paper came from the ninja world's wealthiest person—Konan.
Tenten saw the explosive tags and summoned defensive ninja tools, then threw a few kunai with explosive tags back at Ajisai.
"Summoning Jutsu: Rain Gate!"
Boom!
The explosive tags detonated almost simultaneously. Both remained unharmed, but the dilapidated ground could not withstand the explosions and collapsed.
"Tenten!" Neji, who was fighting an enemy, shouted as he saw Tenten fall through the ground.
While fighting, his Byakugan pierced through the ground to observe the underground area where Tenten had fallen.
Then he yelled, "Stop! Everyone stop! They're in danger!!"
There's actually someone else underground! And... how many ants did this person kill?!
I can't even count them all?!
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