182. The Tower
Orochimaru jumped up quickly while weaving hand signs.
He broke the top of the earth dome he was in, with his elbow.
He also ignored the projectiles which found themselves stuck to his body.
Suddenly, Orochimaru found himself unable to move his body.
'Lightning release? Those weren't present in the shurikens which he threw in the front before. I fell for it,' Orochimaru cursed as a black dragon came from the ground and swallowed Orochimaru's entire body.
This time, the flames did not stop burning until Orochimaru's full body was burned.
The battlefield now was silent.
"I will just check around in this area to make sure that his clone is really dead," Sasuke said and started checking.
"Yeah," Kakashi said.
He wasn't worried about running out of chakra to hold the barrier.
He had enough to hold it for a few hours.
In the last three years, due to training, not only had his chakra increased, but that increase had been significant as he had used the seal Sora gave him to seal Sharingan directly and used it rarely.
Sora had given him the seal when they left the village.
(A/N— Reference to chapters 91 {Lol, exactly half of this chapter number, what a coincidence} and 127)
After checking it out thoroughly, Sasuke nodded and Kakashi dispelled the barrier.
"Now we have dealt with that major problem, we are mostly done with our trip," Kakashi said while stretching a bit.
"Yeah, though we have to still do the mission Lady Hokage gave us," Sasuke said.
"Let's do it and officially end this trip."
---
Time— Two Years since Naruto left Konoha with Jiraiya.
Sora could be seen lying on the head of the Second Hokage while looking at the village.
"It is today, huh," Sora sighed as he thought about what was going to happen.
He got up and from his position directly flickered.
In a parabolic trajectory, he travelled through the air until directly landing on the terrace of the Hokage Tower.
He quickly made his way inside.
"I need a leave for six months," Sora immediately said after entering the office.
'What leave? It's called a leave when you actually do missions,' Tsunade rolled her eyes.
"Why?"
"I am going to Prank Land to increase my capabilities in Fuinjutsu. It's time for me to reach the Grandmaster realm."
"Hmm. Well, I would have liked you to focus on Iryoninjutsu, but you have already reached a decent level. Apart from some of my personally created techniques, you have learned mostly everything," Tsunade hummed.
"Fine, you are granted leave."
"Thanks, baa-chan. I will bring you a good wine from the Prank Land," Sora bolted out of the room while slamming the door closed.
"It better be of good quality!" Tsunade yelled to make sure that he heard.
Sora went to a very familiar training ground.
A white-eyed girl could be seen, around the same age as Sora.
A blue ball could be seen rotating on the girl's hand.
"I am finally done making it consistent to use," she said while dispelling the blue ball and looking at Sora.
"Good job," Sora nodded.
In the next instant, Hanabi poofed out in smoke, indicating that she was a shadow clone all along.
Sora flickered and reached the original body which was lying on the ground while panting.
"It is still nauseating to get the memories despite using this Jutsu for nearly half a year," Hanabi groaned.
"Well, you will get used to it at some point," Sora shrugged.
He didn't have much problem adapting to it whenever he increased the number of shadow clones he could create.
"Anyway, I have finally learned Rasengan. It really is useless for me to use it. It requires so much chakra," Hanabi said while getting up from the ground.
"Well, it was supposed to help you with training your shape transformation with the jutsu you are trying to learn. Also, I think now that your chakra output has increased, your gentle fist should also become more lethal. I would rather not fight you at close range at all, which would be true for all your future enemies if they knew your abilities. Though, you being a Hyuga would make them cautious anyway," Sora shrugged.
Hanabi sighed. "Whatever. I will let my future self deal with it."
"I think your future self would curse at you for that," Sora chuckled.
"Anyway, I am here to say that I am going to Prank Land to train. It's time for me to become a grandmaster in Fuinjutsu," Sora declared.
"I still can't understand how you can learn that. It's so complex. Well, for how long?" Hanabi said while remembering the time when she tried to learn Fuinjutsu.
"It just requires strong foundational skills. After that, things become easier. Six months."
"I was talking about foundations only being complex. Anyway, go now. I am going to learn that jutsu and work on my chakra enhancement," Hanabi said while shooing him away with her fingers.
Sora rolled his eyes and flickered away.
He sent some chakra into the apricot in the necklace he had, and a few moments later, he was reverse summoned.
"So you are finally here, brat. As promised, my gift for you is to train you in Fuinjutsu," Zashiki Warashi—the head of Prank—said in all his glory.
Previously, Zashiki had given a few gifts to people who were contributors to him getting freed—Ino-Shika-Cho, with Sora the only one who hadn't gotten his gift until now.
"I am ready, ancestor!" Sora said with his most serious expression.
"Very well," the squirrel clicked his fingers, and in the next instant, Sora's surroundings changed.
'Space-Time jutsu?' Sora thought as he looked at his current surroundings.
He was in an open space with a ceiling around 30 meters from the ground.
'Now this is a big space,' Sora thought.
Suddenly, he looked at multiple golems appearing in his vision.
All had a big complex seal on their abdomen.
"Wait, are they similar to the golem I fought before? The one who could tank Rasengan effortlessly?" Sora nervously asked.
"Indeed. However, this time to defeat them, you would have to disable the seal on their abdomen. There would be different kinds of seals on each level. You are level 1. To go to level 2, you need to solve the complex seal present on the walls," he heard the familiar old squirrel's voice.
"Also, each floor's golems have their speciality. There are 100 levels. Enjoy!" Sora could almost hear the sadistic tone of Zashiki.
Sora could currently see three golems close to him, with 17 more in his sensory field.
'This area is like a square if I am not wrong, with an edge length of a kilometre. At least these guys are very slow, so I should be able to think of something,' Sora thought while looking at one of the nearby walls of the room.
"So, your objective is to improve my Fuinjutsu by disabling them using it? However, there is one flaw," Sora grinned.
"I am not the same as the person who was two years ago."
'Flying Dama.' A blue ball materialized near Sora and in the next instant, it disappeared.
WHOOOSH.
In one more instant, the ball collided with the edge of the wall of the space.
And contrary to one's expectations, the wall was the one that broke.
Not only that but 3 golems that were in its path were obliterated too.
"Impressive. That's an S-rank jutsu, and the chakra it took relative to yourself makes it spammable considerable times," the old squirrel's voice could be heard.
Sora gulped audibly.
The reason was not due to the wall he broke starting to reconstruct.
It was due to new golems appearing.
"Oh, I forgot to mention, but golems would keep spawning to keep the number of golems in the room constant, which in this room is 20. So, your goal should be to solve the seal on the wall to move onto the next level."
Though Sora's chakra reserves were very large, he couldn't keep spamming to buy time.
So, he started using his shadow clones to buy time.
He reached near one wall.
All six walls in the space had the same seal to be studied.
He tried to stick his foot to the wall.
'As expected, it won't work. To remove this anti-chakra seal, I would have to first solve this complex seal,' Sora cursed as he looked at the wall in annoyance.
And with that, Sora's six gruelling months of tor-training started along with his quest to climb the tower.
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