Chapter 42
War was raging all over the continent, Iwa and Kumo’s forces were out of for blood, devouring any small village they crossed paths with, annexing territory wherever they go.
“this war is a disaster”, Shikaku says, looking at a map, “we are completely sieged”.
“rations are down another 20% and so is our soldier pills stocks”, Chouza says, reading tally on a clipboard.
“I got news, the invading forces in the eastern front were defeated!”, Inoichi announces bursting into the room pausing for a few seconds as he gets another mental message, “and word from the Suna front just got in, they managed to retake the wind capital and are exterminated bulk the Iwa-Kumo forces”.
“we still suffering losses”, the venerable elder Utatane says with a disgusted face, “what’s the point of having a ressurector if he won’t bring our fallen comrades?”.
“what about I just up and leave?”, Naruto asks, “if you did not notice, I’ve split myself into thousands and my shards are what is stopping Kumo from stomping trough the Fire Country, also I have no good reason to cast mass resurrection”.
“instead of arguing we should focus on the task at hand”, Minato calls the attention back to the meaning if that meeting, “the undead legions are keeping the borders together and stopping the bulk of the forces from breaking through”.
“the problem is we don’t have a clear break through and despite the setbacks, the alliance keeps gaining momentum”, Shikaku says, “retaking Wind Country is surely to put a damp on the alliance’s plans, but it’s overall meaningless, they have more routs to reach us and above all, their supply lines are intact, in a war of attrition we lose”.
“we have a necromancer on our side, if we grind enough of the enemies armies we can turn the tides of this war”, councilman Mitokado says.
“the problem is, we don’t have the man power to sustain the grinding”, Inoichi says, “a good chunk of our forces, alive and undead are being spent keeping the capital from being taken”.
“can’t you just…”, Fugaku asks, turning to Naruto, “I don’t known, swing your stick and kill everybody?”.
“first, it’s a staff and it’s called Sarinal”, Naruto corrects, “what are you suggesting is a higher spell, I can cast it and I’m already in process of doing it”.
“then why didn’t you already did it!?!”, Haiashi asks with anger in his voice.
“because higher spells take time to cast for a damn good reason, the raw power condensed on those are so high that even an microdecimal miscalculation could cause it to backfire on the caster”, Naruto explains, half lying, the half-truth was that he just did not wanted to use a ‘end the war’ card.
He still doesn’t like the village and thinks some strife will do marvels at knocking them down a peg.
The other half of the truth is that he saw in the stars something… concerning.
“and… it’s done”, Naruto says, startling them all.
“what?”, Minato asks.
“the spell”, Naruto clarifies, “the preparations are done”.
“then cast it already!!”, the elders scream in unison.
“already did, it takes a few seconds to the full effect to take place”, Naruto explains.
“just to be clear, what exactly did you do?”, Haiashi asks with a shiver running down his spine.
“I capitalized on the fact three quarters of the general shinobi population is male”, Naruto says, “basically I targeted every single male shinobi above the age of twelve, with a few exceptions of course and let’s say the least you know about what I did the better”
There’s a tense silence in the room as they stare at Naruto who simply smiles ominously.
“holy shit sensei!!”, Kakashi teleports into the war room.
“Kakashi!”, Minato springs to his feet seeing his student covered from head to toe in blood and gore, “you’re covered in blood, are you ok?!”.
“I’m perfectly fine, but holy shit!!”, Kakashi exclaims, with a crazed eyes, “I was in the western front, fighting some Iwa nin when all of sudden, I hear Naruto’s clone scream ‘by the ten hells’ or some shit like that and bang his staff against the ground…”.
He says, crazed all the while Naruto nods.
“sounds about right”, Naruto says.
“all of a sudden, all the Iwa nin tuned inside out, while still alive before exploding in a squall of gore!!”, Kakashi says and everybody goes pale.
They all turn to Naruto who was inspecting his nails like it was just another Tuesday.
“you shonbi fight pretty gruesome wars, I’ll give you that”, he says, taking a drag from his pipe, “but you ain’t got shit on a wizard war, that was the leas war crime-y spell I know”.
There’s another beat of silence,
“well, now to use all the blood and gore as a sacrifice to cast a curse upon the wounded enemies”, Naruto rubs his hands, “oh, the Carrion Mother would love a few years of endless night, it’s been quite some time since her offspring feasted on the flesh of the living!”.
“I think you already did enough”, Minato says, scared at the sight of his son planning to seek… whatever that was onto an already defeated enemy, “I think now it’s time to hammer down some treaties, everyone agrees?”.
“yes!”, the whole council answer as one.
“party pooper”, Naruto says, with a disappointed tone, “well, I think my work here is done, may leave?”.
“yes, you can leave”, Minato says and Naruto vanishes into a portal, “kami above”.
He slumps into his chair.
“good thing he’s on our side”, Tsume says.
The following weeks were tense, much had to be done and much diplomacy was done.
“so, I’m getting shafted?”, Naruto asks as he… or at least a astral projection sits in the council room.
“well…”, Minato says, unure on how to proceed.
“does it mean I can retire?”, Naruto flows up with another question.
“kind of”, Kushina adds.
“then why am I here?”, Naruto asks.
“mostly for formalities”, Minato says, “you see, the Daimyo was really satisfied with your actions during the war and…”.
“no”, Naruto answers, “I know where this is going and the answer is no”.
“are you sure?”, Minato asks, “being invited to join the twelve guardians is a great honor”.
“not for me, I’ve already spent too much time as a court magician and let me tell you, honor be damned it’s not worth it”, Naruto says, “by the way, keep an eye open, something big is about to happen and when I say big, I mean big enough to affect the whole elemental nations”.
“we just got out of a shinobi war, what can be bigger than that?”, Kushina asks.
“oh believe me, it is big and may or may not spell the end of the world”, Naruto says in quizzical tone, “any way, bye!”.
Two days later, the world was in uproar as a weird purple-ish shimmer coming out of nowhere had covered the planet, as panic spread a council meeting was called.
“alrigh, no time for bullshit!”, Tsume says, cutting off Minato and turning to Naruto, “the fuck is this?!”.
“why are you asking me?”, Naruto asks.
“because this looks like the kind of shit you would know about!”, Inoichi says.
“as matter of fact, I know what it is”, Naruto answers puffing some smoke, “this a very rare phenomenon called the Desilus Shimmer”.
“so… what the fuck is it doing?”, Tsume asks.
“no clue”, Naruto answers.
“what?”, Minato asks.
“the thing about the Desilus Shimmer is that you know what it does but not will gonna do”, Naruto explains.
“please, explain”, Tobirama, who was also a projection says.
“ok, is everyone familiar with the phrase ‘the chance is low, but not zero?”, Naruto asks and everyone nods, “ok that’s make things easy, you see, there’s no such thing as absolutely, mathematically speaking of course, is just that the probability of some things happening are so low that they are functionally impossible”.
He takes a pause to blow some smoke from his pipe and to let the info sink in.
“everything is mutable and everything is possible the Desilus Shimmer, named after the Desilus empire is a phenomenon that alters reality, it basically and makes it unchangeable”, Naruto says, “what it will do, it’s absolute random and there’s no better example than what happened to the empire the shimmer was named after”.
Naruto makes another pause.
“when the Shimmer hit the Desilus empire’s old capital it made it so that the whole city was turned into a time bubble that forced them to live the last five decades of the empire on loop”, Naruto explains and a shiver runs down everyone’s spine, “and I don’t mean the cool regressor way, I mean the automaton way. All of the capital’s citizens were painfully aware they were in loop, cursed to live every day of their lives repeating the same actions over and over again, unable to change anything, they are like characters in a movie playing the same roles over and over again forever, and they are fully aware of it, so much every single person in the old capital was driven mad”.
“with a life like that, I would embrace the sweet release of death”, Shibi says with a sad tone.
“the Desilus empire tried to give them release, the problem is killing one of the ‘actors’ restart the ‘movie’ from the beginning, the same applies to whipping the whole city of the map”, Naruto says with a sight, “that was something you don’t forget easily, one day you turned the city into a crater, whipping it out the map, not leaving even ravens to scave the earth, the next day the city was back like it had never gone away”.
Everybody pales.
“so, you are telling is that we could become a new Desilus?”, Hashirama who was also safe and sound in the Senju compound asks.
“it’s a possibility, whatever the shimmer changes becomes permanent, there’s only one being in all of existence and none existence that can undo it”, Naruto says, “the thing is, it couldn’t be bothered to do so”.
“we can’t stop it, but can we mitigate it?”, Minato asks, “is there a way to avoid getting affected by it?”.
“not being touched by it, but considering that the shimmer had swallowed the whole galaxy, that would be impossible”, Naruto points, “lucky for me, my barrier keeps out anything I do not want inside it, so there’s that, but unfortunately there’s no saving the rest of you”.
“so that’s explain why you stopped us from leaving the compound”, Tsunade speaks as she was also a projection in the room.
“what?!”, Tsume asks.
“look at your hands”, Naruto, calmly says.
They all do and their eyes almost pop of their faces as they see their finger prints phasing and contorting.
“you are all already infected, all you can do now is wait and pray you guys don’t wake tomorrow with six buttholes or something like that”, Naruto explains.
When the next day came, Naruto didn’t’ knew if he should laugh or cry.
He was inclined to laugh, because the Desilus Shimmer had turned all humanoid races in the galaxy into female only species, but not in the sense where all looked female and could reproduce, no, everyone just turned into women and that’s it.
He wanted to cry because now he was the only of three males in the planet, not as bad as if he was the only left, but hey, still bad.
“well, I can say without a shadow of a doubt”, Naruto says, looking at the council “I knew I hit the jackpot when I invested on that bra manufactory company”.
“are you making fun of us?!”, Haiashi asks, fighting to keep her newly grown boobs from flying off her kimono.
“of course I am, this is hilarious”, Naruto says, barely holding a laugh, “I know a few of my female coworkers were always complaining about the lack of kunoichi compared to shinobi, and let me tell you, this one hell of a way to get that rectified”.
There’s light grow coming from all side.
“hey, look on the bright side”, Naruto says.
“which is?”, Hiruzen asks, no real bite behind his words.
“without a steady way to regrow the population and how cleverly their numbers were cut, our enemies are now on an all time low, we possibly juts fought the last the war in history”, Naruto says, “that is, if our lovely Hokage can hammer a treaty”.