Chapter 15
Yeah, yeah, back to square zero, but at least he knew from where to begin.
Scratch that, he always knew from where to begin with… his living arrangements, he sure as hell wasn’t going to move into the Uzumaki-Namikaze state, he rather have his own place thank you very much.
Which he has, or had.
As he stands now at edge of the village, in a rocky clearing deep within the woods near a stream that ends in lake of putrid water he looks down at the burnt remains of the ramshackle shack he once called home.
He looks around, vultures and crows fly all over the sky, picking on the rancid flesh of all the dead animals illegally and improperly disposed.
The Rot Pit, The Vulture’s Buffet, The Carrion Valley, is how this appropriated named place is known, the place where villagers and shinobi alike come to dispose the dead animals, where aborted unwanted children and even some unwanted clan bastards lands after floating down the stream to be eaten by the scavengers. The place Naruto used to call home.
You know the old Naruto, the boy with hopes and dreams used to look at this place and hate it, hate that he had to love hire amongst the carrion eaters and the rancid smell of death amd rot.
The new Naruto, a bona fide certified necromancer of the highest level, the maximum level and beyond could not be happier to see that this dump still the same.
Taking in a full breath of the intoxicating miasma, admiring the clouds of flies and other insects, the legions of maggots and the symphony of the anguished soul of the never born children, wronged innocent bastard children and the occasional legitimate child that was born wrong for the clan, Naruto is practically salivating with all the undead plagues he can concoct here.
But first, he needs a place to live, which can be easily fixed. With a sweep of his hand the burnt remains of his old shack vanish, with another move of his hand, a screen appears, he still have the overpowered isekai abilities The Light gave him and he makes good use of them.
He buys himself a nice western style two store, three bedroom, two-bathroom, master suit house with a basement and an attic with a good few square meters of backyard. After he’s settle in he starts working.
It was a struck of luck that Jiraiya was in the Village, he had come back to report directly to Minato some very concerning and very secret finds he made and when he was over, he couldn’t help but notice the anguished expression his students had on his face.
“wait, are you telling me Naruto is back?!”, Jiraiya says, with bulged out eyes, “from the dead?!”.
“yes”, Minato answers with an anguished tone.
“and he attacked Menma and Nemuri…”, Jiraiya says with narrowed eyes, he had been hearing whispers that some demon had attacked the Hokage’s children.
“no, Menma came across him at Ichiraku and apparently his temper got the best of him when he tried to convince Naruto to come back with and Naruto must had felt threatened and reacted to that”, Minato explains, that was the truth, “Nemuri tried to intervene but, she too got caught in the fight, they are both fine, some bruises and a little shaken, but fine”.
“well… I’m surprised he didn’t flied out the handle”, Jiraiya says, seeing Minato’s distress, “did he said anything?”.
“he said he’s willing to give it a chance, for us to be a family again”, Minato confesses, “but on his terms”.
“it’s honestly a better outcome than I expected”, Jiraiya says.
“I know, but still, the way he said that”, Minato sighs, “I’m keeping my hopes low and I’m trying to convince Kushina to do the same, we lost him once and I don’t want to lose him again”.
“if you had heard me sooner, you wouldn’t had lost him in the first place”, Jiraiya says, he was one of the if not the most vocal person about how odd Minato’s behavior towards Naruto was, “but that’s not the time for an ‘I told you so’ speech, where is he now?”.
“I don’t know”, Minato says.
“you don’t know”, Jiraiya adds.
“I don’t know and I’m afraid of sending people searching for him”, Minato completes, “I’m afraid he’ll take this the wrong way and leave the village”.
“ok, I can give you that one”, Jiraiya says, “and how is the council taking it?”.
“you know the elders, they couldn’t be bothered”, Minato says, “the clan heads on the other hand, some are taking it in better than others, the Uzumaki in particular are… interested to say the least”.
“that’s not good”, Jiraiya says, “what did the squirt do to pick their interest?”.
“he escaped Nemuri’s Adamantine chains”, Minato says.
“that’s impossible!!”, Jiraiya snaps, “the adamantine chains literally make it so the target can’t use chakra”.
“whatever he used zap Nemuri begs to differ”, Minato points out, “and now word of that had been sent to Uzu and now I have old man Ashina on my case”.
“don’t tell me they…”, Jiraiya’s ayes go wide.
“are demanding Naruto for study and possible sealing in exchange for a halving on the village’s debt, because apparently my not quite dead and not quite alive son managed to break free from the grasp of one of their prized kekkei genkais?”, Minato says, anger showing on his voice, “yes they are”.
“you aren’t going to…”, Jiraiya says.
“no, of course not!!”, Minato interjects, “he’s my son for fucks sake, he may not have anything to do with me, but keeping him safe is the least I can do!!”.
“good, that’s a start”, Jiraiya says, turning around to leave.
“sensei, were are you going?”, Minato asks.
“I’m going to try and find my godson”, Jiraiya says, “and hope he doesn’t do anything stupid”.
Naruto was doing something stupid…
Something stupidly funny that is and Mito was all for it.
Which brings up the question.
“how the hell did you knew I was here?”, he asks, looking at the red haired headache sticking to him like a tick.
“just a hunch”, she answers, looking as Naruto was working on something after building another pile of round smoothed rocks, “what are those for?”.
“that’s none of your business”, Naruto says.
“oh come on, you seem to be having fun, what are you doing?”, Mito asks again with a whine.
“I’m doing a prank, that’s what I’m doing”, Naruto says hoping that would be the last of that.
“oh, I want in!”, Mito says.
“no!”, Naruto barks and ground shakes.
“oh come on!!”, Mito whines, “it will be fun!!”.
“I know it will, that’s why I’m doing it”, Naruto replies.
“at least tell me what are you doing”, Mito sais, pouting.
“I’m doing a ‘Last Laugh’”, Naruto answers.
“the fuck is that?”, Mito asks, curious.
“you’ll have to wait like everybody else”, Naruto says.
This whole time they were walking and talking and soon they arrive at Naruto’s new and considerably nicer house.
“since you came all the way here to be a pain in my ass and I’ll probably won’t be able to get rid of you, do you want to come in and have some tea?”, Naruto asks.
“would you believe that Tobirama told me the exactly same thing when I married Hashirama?”, Mito says with a chuckle, “and yes, please, I would love some tea, especially if you have some snacks to go with it”.
“who do you think I am? Of course, I have snacks! What kind of barbarian do you take me for?”, Naruto says with fake anger.
“a very polite one”, Mito answers, following Naruto inside.
From the distance, Jiraiya was in equal measures concerned and relieved.
Concerned because what in the hell could Naruto be planning to do to get back at the village. He was a seal master, he could recognize the makings of a barrier when he saw one and Naruto sure as hell had laid the groundwork for one.
Which, being fair was not that much of a bad idea.
Relieved because it seemed he had a friend, an Uzumaki who seemed to annoy the shit out of him, but he kept her around nonetheless. Whoever that unknown Uzumaki girl is, he already shipped them both, and kami knows that Naruto needed a good thing in his life, one big enough to stop him from actually going postal on the village.
“what are you doing?”, Asura asks, from inside Naruto’s mind scape.
Its fifteen minutes until midnight now, Mito had long gone back home after spending hours in a very feverous discussion about seals and the like.
Naruto was standing in the attic, drawing on the floor with a golden tipped black quill; right now he was using it to draw a second circle inside a bigger one.
“what you think I’m doing?”, Naruto asks, finishing the inner circle.
“I think you are doing something that should probably go into the forbidden scroll”, Hiruzen says.
“on that you are right”, Naruto says, drawing inside the inner circle an hexagram with three eyes arranged into a triangle in the middle of the hexagram while lines upon lines of runes were written in the free spaces between the star’s points.
It wasn’t exactly drawing, he just tapped the tip of the quill on the floor and lines of red would sprout forming what he wanted drawn.
“please, I know you are justified in you distaste of the village but to commit such an act is going too far”, Asura pleads, “think about the innocent that would be caught on this mess, this will brand you as a monster forever”.
“if I wanted this whole village dead, I would had done it the moment I woke up from my grave”, Naruto says, moving to the space between the inner circle and the outer circle.
He again taps the tip of the quill on the floor and glyphs appear at every tip of the star with more lines of runes start to fill the space between the glyphs, soon filling up all the remaining free space between circles.
As soon as the array was finished, it started glowing, synchronizing with the similar one in the basement and the stone piles laid at the cardinal points around the clearing.
The stones, each being engraved with its own glyphs and lines of runes too start glowing blue and begin to float, forming a circle in the air before plunging on the ground, burying themselves deep.
From the tree lines, Jiraiya was frantically rubbing his eyes, trying to make heads and tails of what he just saw. He could not feel any chakra coming from the stones but he could feel in an instinctive level that, kami himself would have a hard time getting past that barrier.
“I wonder if he would agree to raise one of those around the village”, he thinks for a second, having to contain a laugh as he dismiss the idea, “bah! He would probably tell everyone to fuck off and die or charge an arm and a leg for it and the village’s budget is tight right now”.
Back inside, as Naruto watches the array circle blend with the wood, the bricks and mortar of the house he also prepares for his great come back.
“oh, so that creepy seal array was a barrier”, Hiruzen says, “not the worst idea… and what are you doing?”.
“showing that the laws of the universe are for pussies”, Naruto says, having stored his quill in the storage and pulled out one of his staffs.
A long staff made of smooth bone with a brass tip at the end that touched the ground. At the top was what it looked like a three dyson spheres inside each other, spinning around a miniature sun that burned golden as well, floating above a red gem firmly held in place by a golden socket.
“I can feel the that thing from here”, Asura says, trying to put as much space between himself and that staff, even though he wasn’t even in the same plane of existence.
Naruto does not answer; he simply keeps walking until he reaches outside.
With a short chant in a tongue, no one ever heard and could not understand as the clock rings midnight, he taps the staff against the ground three times, sparks fly and at the third tap blue flames spread all across the place, consuming the dead and freeing their souls from their tormented prisons and a malevolent green fog raises with the ghosts.
Soon the air gets filled with moans, cries and shrieks of the never born, the wronged and unwanted bastards and the unloved as they steadily march to the village to haunt the leaving ones who condemned them to that destiny before ascending to the Pure Lands.
“what did you just do?!”, Hiruzen ask as he watches in horror the procession of the dead.
“The Last Laugh”, Naruto explain, “is an especial of mine, it’s the combination of four different spells into a single one that unleashes a parade of ghosts to haunt the living, physically is harmless, but mentally… ha! The Yamanaka’s gonna make some serious dough after tonight”.
“this is sick!”, Hiruzen says, disgusted.
“oh please, it’s also good for the ghosts, because after tonight they grunges and regrets will be whipped clean and they’ll be free to ascend to the Pure Lands and re-enter the cycle of reincarnation”, Naruto explain, “and to boot, it will also purify the lands, making it rich and fertile”.
Naruto explains while walking next to the parade, there’s no way in hell he was missing that one, specially once it reached the local cemetery, boy that was going to be fun.
Jiraiya, hidden in the trees could not believe his eyes, his godson who came back from the dead was raising the dead… ok that wasn’t that far-fetched, but still, the last person he knew to disrespect the natural order like that was Tobirama, he had to report that to Minato, although considering the cherry mood of Naruto, he had no intention of not taking credit for that.
And that night, when the moon turned red and the dead walked, Konoha knew for the first time terror as legions of damned souls marched through the streets haunting all who lived, while the resurrected demon as Naruto was being called behind his back, cackled at the sight.
And it brought a tear to his eye when the few ghosts who actually sought forgiveness and closure from the living got it, with the old White Fang having a heart to heart with his son and Granny-Tsunade getting the chance of saying goodbye to her loved ones who were so, so proud of her.
And Mito was laughing her ass off at the symphony of terrorized screams that echoed through the night, now she got why Naruto didn’t wanted to spoil her.
And Minato was having a headache.