aircannonsinc Chapter 382 Unidentified Creatures
Chapter 382 Unidentified Creatures
Chapter 382 Unidentified Creatures
Light jumped out from behind the bushes and cursed.
"Chase!"
The four of them gave chase from different directions. Hikaru was in the lead; his Byakugan gave him a much wider field of vision than the others. He could see the grayish-white chakra reaction darting left and right deep in the forest, moving extremely fast, but not in a straight line, like a frightened little animal running aimlessly. But its route was strange—it kept circling, circling towards Iwami Village, never straying beyond a five-kilometer radius of the village. Hikaru chased for about ten minutes, noticed this pattern, and suddenly stopped.
"Stop chasing," Guang said.
The Jonin behind him nearly bumped into him, managing to stop abruptly and asking, panting, "Why?"
Guang turned around and looked at his face.
"It's taking us for a walk."
Light led the group out of the forest and onto the wasteland outside. The withered grass swayed in the wind; the frost had melted, and the dewdrops on the tips of the grass glistened in the sunlight, each one like a handful of scattered diamonds. Light crouched down, placed his hand on the ground, and surveyed the ground with his white eyes.
The one underground is still there. Forty meters deep, completely still. The one above ground is now stationary about a kilometer north of the forest.
Guang took his hands off the ground, stood up, and patted the dirt off his knees.
"Write a report," Hikaru said. "In the mixed forest northwest of Iwami Village, one unidentified creature, suspected to be a White Zetsu, was discovered. The number is tentatively estimated at one. Another unidentified chakra reaction was discovered forty meters underground. It is similar in size and shape to a White Zetsu, and the number is tentatively estimated at one. The unidentified creature has the ability to speak and can utter human language syllables, but the meaning is unclear. No combat occurred during the operation. The unidentified creature withdrew voluntarily, seemingly testing our reaction speed and combat capabilities."
The Jonin beside him took out paper and pen from his backpack, squatted down, and began to write. The paper was waterproof, and the pen was an oil-based pen, which made a scratching sound when writing on the rough paper, like a snake crawling on a withered leaf.
Guang looked up towards the woods. In the darkness where the branches intertwined, there was no movement. But he knew that thing was still there. It hadn't gone far; it was waiting for something. Perhaps it was waiting for nightfall. Perhaps it was waiting for them to leave. Perhaps it was waiting for something else to grow out of the ground.
Guang pulled his headband back up, covering the slightly protruding blue vein on his forehead.
"We're not leaving tonight. We'll inform Hamada Village that we'll go again tomorrow."
"Captain, there's something coming from Hamada Village."
"Hamada Village won't run away," Hikaru said. "This thing will."
That evening, in Konoha Village, at the Hokage Building.
Tsunade sat behind her desk, a report from Hyuga Hikaru sent from Iwami Village spread out in front of her. The report was short, less than three hundred words, but she had read it three times. Shikamaru wasn't there, Izumi wasn't there, and she sat alone in her spacious office. The overhead light cast her shadow on the wall behind her, large and dark, like a large bird spreading its wings.
As she watched it for the fourth time, someone knocked on the door.
"Come in."
Jingyin entered, holding Tuntun in her arms and carrying a bowl of soup. The soup was hot, steaming, and the steam swirled and rose under the light, looking almost alive.
"Lady Tsunade, you haven't had dinner yet."
"Put it there."
Jingyin placed the soup in the corner of her desk and put Tuntun on the floor. As soon as Tuntun landed, it ran to the corner and squatted there, its nose pointing towards the door, without moving.
Tsunade pushed the report to Shizune.
"Take a look."
Shizune took the report and quickly read it. Her expression changed from calm to serious, and then from serious to confused.
"Iwami Village? That's so far away?"
"Whether it's far or not isn't important. What's important is that White Zetsu has appeared within the Land of Fire. Not the border, but within the territory. Iwami Village is thirty miles from the border of the Land of Wind, and less than a hundred miles from Konoha."
"A hundred li?" The silent voice rose slightly. "Isn't that—a day's ride on horseback?"
"If the ninjas ran, it would take them most of the day." Tsunade took the report back from Shizune, folded it twice, and stuffed it into the drawer. "The report only says that the thing can speak human language. It said 'pain.' Just one word."
Jingyin picked Tun Tun up from the corner, and Tun Tun snuggled in her arms, finding a comfortable position and staying still.
"Bai Jue cannot speak."
"I know. White Zetsu can't speak. The White Zetsu from the Fourth Shinobi World War could make sounds, but not human language. The things created by the God Tree don't have independent language abilities. They can imitate and repeat sounds they hear, but they can't utter a single word with clear meaning on their own. 'Pain' wasn't imitated; it was spoken by itself."
Jingyin thought for a moment and said, "Could it be imitating something it heard before? Like someone cried out in pain in front of it, and it remembered it."
"Possibly," Tsunade said, "but in what context did it hear the pain? Who cried out in pain in front of it? Where did it cry out? When did it cry out? These are questions that can't be answered by just me. I can't answer them either. Izumi can't answer them either."
Jingyin lifted Tun Tun in front of her face and looked at it. Tun Tun's little eyes were bright black, and its nose was wet and twitching.
"When will Chi Quan be back?" Shizune asked.
"I've gone to find Orochimaru. It'll take at least three days."
"What should we do for the next three days? What if that thing comes again from Iwami Village?" Tsunade stood up, walked to the window, and opened it. The night wind blew in, cool and refreshing, making the documents on the table rustle. She didn't close the window, just stood there at the window, looking at the lights of the village. The night in Konoha was very quiet, with only one or two barks occasionally coming from afar, intermittent, like a radio with a bad signal.
"Let Hikaru stay in Iwami Village for a couple more days. Send another small team to provide support. Four people: one Jonin and three Chunin."
Do not actively search, and do not venture deep into the mixed forest. Stay at the village entrance; the safety of the villagers is paramount. If the creature approaches the village, drive it away. Do not kill it.
"Don't kill?" Shizune frowned.
"Killing them is useless. If you kill one, there's another underground. If you kill two, there might be ten more underground. What we want isn't the corpses of White Zetsu, but where they came from, why they came, and what they want to do. Only living White Zetsu can tell us these things."
Shizune put Tun Tun down, walked to her desk, picked up a pen and paper, and began writing the order to deploy the squad. She wrote quickly, her handwriting messy but clear, finishing in two minutes. She rolled it up, sealed it with sealing wax, and walked to the door to hand it to the messenger ninja in the corridor.
The messenger ninja took the scroll, bowed, and ran off. His footsteps grew fainter in the corridor, finally disappearing around the corner of the stairs.
Tsunade closed the window, sat back in her chair, picked up the bowl of soup that Shizune had brought, and took a sip. The soup was already cold, and a thin film of oil had formed on the surface, but she didn't mind. She finished it in a few gulps and put the empty bowl back on the table.
"Izumi isn't here, Shikamaru isn't here, and Kiba isn't here either," Tsunade muttered to herself. "One went to the Land of Rice Fields to find Orochimaru, one is distributing farm tools on the southwestern border, and one is burying limestone in the southeastern border. The best fighters in Konoha are now scattered in three different directions."
Silent stood beside the table, holding a pen in her hand.
"Are you worried that this was designed by someone?"
Tsunade pushed the empty bowl aside and placed her hands on the table, crossed them.
"I don't know. It might be a setup, or it might not. If it is, this person's methods are very clever. He doesn't attack Konoha, doesn't attack villages, and doesn't attack people. He planted a few seeds in the fields around Konoha and made us dig them up ourselves. After digging them up, we had to fill them in, after filling them in, we had to guard them, after guarding them, we had to investigate, and after investigating, we had to send people. Our forces were gradually drawn into those inconspicuous little villages. Four people were sent to each village, so forty people were sent to ten villages. With forty ninjas not in Konoha, Konoha was left empty."
"But we have no evidence to prove that this was one person's plan," said Shizune. "Maybe it really was just the roots of the Divine Tree that grew out of themselves."
Tsunade looked at her.
Do you believe it?
Shizune opened her mouth, then closed it again. She looked down at Tun Tun, who was intently nudging her shoelaces with its nose, as if it were doing something very important.
"I don't believe it," said Shizune.
"I don't believe it either." Tsunade pushed her chair back a little, crossed her legs, and tapped her toes on the ground. "But 'not believing' isn't evidence. Without evidence, you can't arrest people. If you can't arrest them, you can't stop them. If you can't stop them, they'll continue. Today it's Iwami Village, tomorrow Hamada Village, the day after tomorrow Tsuruta Village, Ashihara Village, Mitani. One by one, slowly. By the time we discover them, the entire southwestern part of the Land of Fire will be overrun with White Zetsu. Then we won't know whether to fight or not. If we fight, we won't have enough troops. If we don't fight, the people's hearts will be unsettled."
Shizune picked up Tun Tun and pressed her face against it.
"What should we do then?"
Tsunade stood up and walked to the large map hanging on the wall. The map was enormous, stretching from the ceiling to the floor, and marked with different colored pins indicating the troop deployments, patrol routes, and supply reserves of each ninja village. Her gaze started from Konoha, moving southwest, passing Hamada Village and Iwami Village, until it slid to the border of the Land of Wind. She tapped Iwami Village, then moved a little north, tapping the location of Chiba Valley. Then her finger continued north, tracing the border of the Land of Rice Fields, stopping at an unmarked blank area.
"Wait for Izumi to return," Tsunade said. "He said Orochimaru knows how to kill the God Tree. If that's true, we won't need to kill the White Zetsu one by one. If we kill the root, the fruit will rot naturally."
Mute rested her chin on top of Tun Tun's head.
"What if Orochimaru doesn't know?"
Tsunade withdrew her fingers from the map, put them into her coat pocket, and felt something—maybe a piece of candy, maybe a coin, maybe something else. She didn't take it out; her fingers lingered inside for a few seconds before she pulled them out.
"Then we'll figure it out ourselves."
Footsteps echoed down the corridor, approaching slowly but surely, like someone walking on stone slabs in wooden clogs, one step at a time, each step equally spaced. The footsteps paused briefly at the entrance to the Hokage Building, then resumed, this time faster, taking three steps in two.
There was a knock at the door. This time it wasn't a soft, silent knock, but a heavy, rhythmic knock with a hint of urgency yet politeness—three knocks.
"Come in."
The door was pushed open, and a middle-aged man wearing a green vest entered. He had a scar on his face that ran diagonally from his forehead to his chin, but it wasn't a knife wound; it looked like something had scratched him. He was breathing rapidly, and the buttons of his vest were taut, bobbing up and down.
"Lady Tsunade, a new report from Iwami Village."
Tsunade took the report from him, unfolded it, and read it through. Her brow furrowed slightly when she read the third line, tightened into a knot when she read the fifth line, and suddenly relaxed the moment she finished reading the last line.
Silently leaned closer to take a look.
The report contained only one line of text.
"The unexplained chakra activity four thousand meters underground in the mixed forest has disappeared. There are no signs of damage on the surface. It is suspected to have been actively moved. Its whereabouts are unknown."
Tsunade crumpled the report into a ball and threw it into the wastebasket.
"Is Hikaru still in Iwami Village?"
"Yes," the middle-aged man said. "He applied for an extension of his stay. His reason is that the unidentified creature may reappear, requiring continued observation."
Tsunade stood at her desk for a while, tapping the surface with her right index and middle fingers alternately, making a ticking sound like the ticking of a second hand. After about a dozen taps, she stopped.
"Agreed to extend the stay. Give him three more men. Six men in Iwami Village, in two shifts, taking turns resting. Tell him not to chase, not to kill, and not to go into the mixed forest. Just guard the village entrance. Bai will never attack the village, at least not now. It will wait until we relax, until we think it's not scary anymore, until we shift our attention away from it."
The middle-aged man nodded, turned around, and went out to make the arrangements.
Jingyin placed Tun Tun on the desk. Tun Tun wandered around in the pile of documents, its nose knocking over a pen holder. The pens rolled out and rolled around on the desk. One red pen rolled to the edge of the desk, wobbled, and fell off, landing with a thud on the floor.
Tsunade bent down to pick up the red pen, checked the nib, and saw it wasn't broken. She put the pen back in the pen holder, lifted Tonton off the pile of documents, and placed it on the ground.
"Didn't that White Zetsu from Iwami Village say something?" Tsunade said.
"Yes, I said it hurts." Shizune said.
Tsunade turned her chair around to face the window. Outside, the lights of Konoha twinkled in the night, some brighter, some dimmer, some moving as patrolling ninja changed shifts. She watched the lights, neither moving nor speaking.
After a long time, she finally spoke a sentence, her voice so soft that I almost couldn't hear it when I was on silent.
"What hurts?"
Konoha Village, 4:17 AM.
Before dawn, people were already at the training ground on the east side of the village. It wasn't Rock Lee—he was off today; his leg was bandaged, and he was lying in bed doing leg raises, counting quietly but intently. On the training ground was Hyuga Neji, standing alone in front of a wooden stake, eyes closed, arms hanging naturally, breathing very slowly, so slowly that his chest barely rose and fell.