Chapter 176: The War Scientist and Orochimaru's Help
The roar was getting closer, and the rainbow-colored light in the sky was getting clearer.
It was clearly the Heavenly Transfer Jutsu. Neither Dana nor the Third Raikage were strangers to it.
Two familiar delivery pods flew in from the horizon, one after the other. They gradually lowered their altitude and landed in the vacant lot in front of them, sending a shower of rocks and dust flying.
The pods slowly opened. One contained several super-sized sealing scrolls. From the other, a person walked out. It was Hiroto Uzumaki.
So that's why he hadn't seen him before. He had been a part of the experiment. After their last experience, the Cloud had verified the effectiveness of Dodai's Lava Release rubber. Now, the physical requirements for riding in a Heavenly Transfer pod had been greatly reduced.
Hiroto didn't bother to take out the sealing scrolls and unseal them. He just used the improved Tectonic Shift jutsu.
A much larger cloud of white smoke than before appeared, and then Dana felt the ground beneath his feet sinking, as if a ridiculously large vacuum cleaner was sucking up the earth. He almost lost his balance.
A few breaths later, a steel-reinforced concrete fortress, dozens of meters high, rose from the ground.
From the design, it looked like a scaled-down version of Asuka Castle.
Dana: "..."
Third Raikage: "Interesting!"
"My lords," Taro said excitedly, "I have integrated the unsealing jutsu of the sealing scrolls into the improved Tectonic Shift. In conjunction with the Heavenly Transfer Jutsu, we can now instantly build a permanent fortification anywhere in the ninja world! And depending on the blueprint, it can be above ground, underground, for defense, or for offense!"
Dana was a little numb. Ninja really did have a habit of turning everything into a weapon of war. Not only could they descend from the heavens, but they could also bring a fortress with them.
"And there are various other variations, like this!" Taro gave Hiroto a "1" gesture. He nodded, took out a new blueprint from his ninja pouch, and used the jutsu again.
After a puff of white smoke, the newly built concrete fortress, as if it were being sucked up by some terrifying creature, was twisted and gathered at a single point.
And then, with a massive tremor, the steel fortress was twisted into a giant sphere, a tangled mess of steel rebar, concrete, rock, and earth.
"If the blueprint is a pre-designed solid structure," Taro explained, "and it is limited to only absorbing materials from above the ground, then the jutsu will absorb all the required materials from a radius of several hundred meters and create this effect."
His smile turned strange. "All the buildings within a radius of several hundred meters will be fused into a single sphere. And the people inside those buildings will be..."
He made a crushing gesture.
Dana broke into a cold sweat. He had thought this guy was just a mad scientist. It turned out he was a warmonger.
What is this? A cheap version of the Planetary Devastation?
"The potential of this jutsu is far from its limit! I have many more ideas for its development!"
Dana looked at the fanatical Taro and the very interested Third Raikage, a little dazed.
I just wanted a jutsu for infrastructure.
It feels like the other villages are getting less and less of a chance to play.
Konoha, Orochimaru's underground laboratory.
Jiraiya and Orochimaru were sitting opposite each other.
"You've been secretly building a secret base?" Jiraiya said, looking around. The room was filled with all sorts of instruments he didn't recognize. It looked very advanced, but the atmosphere was a bit cold.
Orochimaru sneered inwardly. This was not a secret base, just one of his more commonly used labs. He would never have brought Jiraiya to his real secret base. The guy would have had a fit. Though he didn't think he had done anything wrong, he didn't want to cause any trouble.
"This is just an ordinary laboratory," he said. "Jiraiya, even if, as you say, the Cloud has the Shikkotsu Forest contract, how can you be sure that Tsunade is in their hands?"
Seeing that he was getting to the point, Jiraiya also stopped joking. "I can't be sure," he said seriously. "But I believe that if she were free, she would have informed the village of something as important as the loss of the Shikkotsu Forest contract."
"Then how do you know," Orochimaru said, "that she's not already dead?"
Jiraiya's expression did not change. He was not a naive child. He had, of course, considered this possibility.
"I don't know," he said. "But as long as I don't know for sure, I won't give up. The Cloud may not be the final answer, but they definitely have clues. Tsunade has the Senju bloodline, and her status is special. It's unlikely that she would have been killed."
In fact, it was precisely because of this that she was also a target. In the worst-case scenario, she might have already suffered an inhuman fate.
His fists clenched, his nails digging into his flesh.
"Jiraiya," Orochimaru said, staring at him, "you also know that Tsunade's status is special. Have you ever thought that if the Cloud had captured her again, why wouldn't they use her to gain more benefits, like the last two times?"
Like the last two times.
Such an important prisoner, to be used as a research subject was one option, but to use her as a hostage to pressure Konoha would be much more profitable. This was what had happened when she had been captured by the Cloud and by Hanzo.
Jiraiya said nothing, but his fists clenched even tighter.
"Before Tsunade left the village," Orochimaru said, shaking his head, "she secretly stole the Shikkotsu Forest contract scroll, which was in the possession of the Senju clan. That in itself is unreasonable. If she just wanted to travel the world like you, or to get some air, there was no need for her to take the scroll. And considering the Cloud's reaction, I suspect that they didn't steal it, but that she brought it to them."
"Tsunade would never... betray..." Jiraiya couldn't hold it in any longer. He slammed his fist on the table, and the test tubes on it rattled.
Orochimaru steadied the test tube rack. "I've thought about this for a long time," he said calmly. "After we were ransomed back from the Land of Rain, she was never the same. Do you remember Dan Kato?"
Of course he remembered. He had been his rival for Tsunade's affection. At the time, the war had been so busy, and he and Tsunade had not even been on the same front. Dan Kato had taken the opportunity and had quickly become her boyfriend. But not long after, he had heard that he had died. He had sighed for a long time when he had heard the news.
"The village elders came to me to ask about her," Orochimaru said. "From their words, they were speculating on whether she had defected. So I did some investigating on my own. In the attack where Dan Kato died, Tsunade was the only one of her three-man squad to return, with the news of the other two's deaths. But neither at the time, nor afterwards, were their bodies ever found. Even after the war, when the villages exchanged their dead, those two were not among them."
"What are you trying to say?!"
"You're still as stupid as ever, Jiraiya," Orochimaru sneered. "The bodies that are exchanged after a war are usually the ones that have already been thoroughly studied. There's no point in hiding them. The fact that those two were not among them, isn't that suspicious? Especially that Kokuto. He was just a civilian ninja, with no research value."
"It's not unusual for a body or two to not be recovered," he argued. "It happens all the time on the battlefield."
"It's not strange," he said slowly. "But for Tsunade to not even look for them, that is strange."
Jiraiya's breath caught in his throat.
"I'm telling you this," he said, "so that you can be prepared. You want to save her, and as it happens, I also want an answer. I will help you. But you, you idiot, don't be so emotional. Don't think of this as just a hero rescuing a damsel in distress."
Jiraiya took several deep breaths, and finally calmed down. He had to admit, Orochimaru had a point. There were many suspicious things about Tsunade.
But it also strengthened his resolve to save her, to clear her name.
"Orochimaru," he said, "what are your ideas?"
"Now that you've finally calmed down," he said, "the situation is this: the village is not willing to get involved, and they can't afford to. So we have to act on our own. But we're facing an entire village, the strongest in the ninja world. So we'll need some help."
"What kind of help?"