Chapter 613: Safe Exploration
- Location
- USA
Hazō hunched against the side of the wall, head pounding as he sorted through the incoming memories of his various shadow clones. Various threads of sealing research, theory, and training ran through his mind. He'd weathered the initial clone shock, but he needed to isolate the memories of the Shadow Clone that had been working on the failed seal if he wanted to…
Noburi came around the corner, saying something to the Sages with a smile that quickly melted off his face as he saw Hazō.
"Dude," Noburi hissed, "what are you doing? The Sages weren't happy about being summoned, and now you're walking out on them? You don't want them thinking that you're standing them up or slighting them intentionally, because then you're never getting anything out of them. As far as they're concerned, they're being incredibly gracious to meet you on the Human Path."
"Sealing failure," Hazō said. "It's potentially bad. Make some excuses, ask them to try to recreate that stone. We need to go and check it out."
"Sealing failure?" Noburi asked. "How did you-"
Hazō glanced up at Noburi, who was staring at something behind Hazō. "Right," Noburi said. "Sealing failure. I'll send them off."
Noburi shuffled away, and Hazō turned to see a spire of violet flame slowly poking above the treetops at the next research facility over.
A minute later, Noburi came around the corner, barrel and scroll already strapped to his back and ready for a run. Hazō pushed himself away from the wall and stumbled as his head spun. Noburi caught him by the arm.
"You good?" Noburi asked. "Maybe you should stay here. Did the sealing failure affect your mind?"
Hazō shook his head. "I'm fine," he said. "There was some psychic backlash, but nothing dangerous."
Hazō pulled himself back up to his feet, righting his body with practiced motions that wouldn't falter no matter how unsteady the world felt to his damaged senses.
"Let's go."
o-o-o
Hazō and Kagome had already wrapped up their day's work on the first, or zeroth, Rift Seal, so Kagome quickly responded when Hazō's flared the Banshee code for sealing failures. Leaf wouldn't hear them from this far out in the woods, and Noburi and Hazō were both dry on chakra after their conversation with the Toad Sages, so they couldn't send summons back to Leaf. Hazō wished he'd kept around the genin Noburi had drained to summon the Toad Sages, but instead he'd sent them back to Leaf. Hopefully the genin had heard the Banshees and would convey the message to Leaf to be alert.
A giant dome of faintly translucent violet flames had completely consumed Gōketsu Research Facility #55.
It hadn't always been a dome. It had been something pyramidal at first. As Hazō and Noburi had run over, it had turned into a cube, then into one inscrutable shape after another, each one looking like a giant dice from board games with increasingly complex rules. Eventually, it must have run out of shapes to make.
Now the dome was steadily deflating. As Hazō, Noburi, and Kagome watched from the trees a healthy quarter-mile from the facility, the dome steadily surrendered ground: around a meter every thirty seconds. The ground it left behind was lifeless and smooth. There was no sign of the former facility's high granite outer walls, defenses, various inner buildings, windbreaks, blast shields, or anything. Even the grass hadn't been spared, as the retreating wall of violet flame left behind only barren and scorched dirt.
"What did you say was in the middle of it?" Kagome asked.
"A sinkhole," Hazō said. "Not like the pits caused after the Collapse, more like an angled antlion trap. It went really deep though. Something crushed me before I could see clearly, but I think it connected into a cave system."
The retreating barrier illustrated Hazō's words. From their vantage point, they could see the ground steadily dropping into a pit until the incline of the ground prevented any further observation. They'd already searched from skywalker height, and hadn't been able to see anything at the site of the sealing failure due to the distance.
Kagome stroked his chin thoughtfully. "We could just blow it up. Once the dome's down, bombard the place with explosives from skywalker height with a summon out. Either the caves collapse, or something comes out that we reverse summon away from."
"There may be valuable things in there, Kagome-sensei," Hazō said. "I agree we should block it off, but not permanently."
"How do we fortify a sinkhole?" Kagome asked. "We can lay a skyslicer over the top, sure. But then what?"
Hazō shrugged. "We could spread around pressure triggered explosives and Force Walls? We can set it up so that if something tries to get out of there, a MARS-chain collapses the cave. Then, at least nothing else will come out."
"Hm. Fine. Noburi, take chakra from me, and send a Water Clone into the facility. If it doesn't die horribly, I'll send a summon into the facility. If it reports that things aren't totally screwed, we go in on skywalkers. We don't touch anything on the ground that the failure left behind, and we absolutely do not get above the sinkhole. Don't want anything reaching out and grabbing us before we can react and pulling us in and carefully stripping us apart into component pieces to keep in separately labeled jars while we remain alive but unable to do anything but experience pain."
"..."
"Noburi?" Kagome asked.
"Right," Noburi said, jolting forward. "One Water Clone, coming right up."
o-o-o
The mouth of the cave at the bottom of the sinkhole was quite large. It looked to be ten meters across, and though it opened up vertically, it seemed to level off somewhere in its depths. Hazō assumed it leveled off because of the sounds coming from within the cave – Hazō could hear faint sounds of chittering and scraping, but the cave was too dark beyond a couple of feet for him to see anything that made the noises. With the sun still out and fairly high in the sky, it was unnaturally dark.
"Let's get eyes on what's in there," Hazō said. He attached a Daybright Lantern seal to a kunai, then threw it into the mouth of the cave.
The patch of light provided by the Lantern was invisible in the broad sunlight, but it started to illuminate the cave as it flew closer. Hazō saw the stone of the cave clearly – yellow-brown and rough in quality, black-speckled as if dotted by millions of tiny pores. The kunai made it two meters into the mouth of the cave before there was a small burst of violet flame, then the light shone no more.
"Was that an attack from a monster in there?" Hazō asked. "Or is there something interfering with seals down there? Or just chakra sources?"
Kagome shook his head. "Dunno. Doesn't matter. Whatever's down there, it doesn't want to be disturbed. If we don't bother it, my guess is that it won't come up. I say we close it off and get back to Leaf. Sealing failures run out of energy. Usually. At least the ones that don't make living things. Or self-replicating things. Or-"
"Got it," Hazō said. "We can't clear it out right now anyway. But it does seem like there's living things down there, Kagome-sensei, and if they're made by the sealing failure, we should kill them off before they become part of the local wildlife."
"So, traps?" Noburi asked.
"Traps," Kagome said. "We block it off as best we can, rig the rest of it as lethal as we can, and if anything comes out through that, we leave as much boom as we can so that we hear and evacuate Leaf before it reaches us.
"But don't worry, Hazō," he said quickly. "I doubt you managed to rip a hole right under a Titan-class Asura. We're fine. Probably."
o-o-o
"...and that's the summary of the situation," Hazō said.
Sarutobi Asuma sighed. He reached toward the corner of his desk where he used to keep his tobacco tin, then winced. He picked up the bubble pipe, sighed, and put it down again.
"Well, I suppose that explains what happened to Seal Locker Number 25," he said.
"What happened?" Hazō asked.
"The pigeonhole and all of its contents burst into purple flames," Asuma said. "Apparently, nothing anyone tried could put it out, but around a minute later, the fire extinguished on its own. Seal Lockers 24 and 26 were completely unharmed, of course."
Hazō felt a sinking feeling in his gut. "Is that where you kept backup notes for the seal?"
"Correct," Asuma said. "Older research notes for the Fourfold Seal of Preservation, made by a less pedagogically skilled sealmaster."
"The pages of the notes I hadn't taken with me to the research facility also disappeared," Hazō said. "It's impossible to predict sealing failures, but it sounds like everything conceptually similar to the seal has been taken."
Asuma raised an eyebrow. "'Taken'? Not destroyed?"
Hazō bowed his head for a moment as he considered. "The notes being destroyed is the most likely outcome. However, destruction sometimes looks like Yūdai's sealing failure, where chunks of reality are carved out as sealing failure eats everything that it can. The lack of destruction in my desk and in the seal lockers sounds like this was a little more targeted."
Asuma frowned slightly. "The destruction of the Moritaka Clan was very targeted. They left their clothes behind. Are you telling me that they might not have been killed, but just… taken?"
Hazō nodded.
Asuma considered that for a moment, then shuddered.
"Sealmasters."
"Anyway," the Hokage said after a long pause, "I'll send out a dig team or two to see how far the caves extend. There's no cave system under Leaf that reaches that far, so if they've linked up, we'll need to do some targeted demolition. I trust you can give them the right directions? Otherwise, I defer to you on what to do about the sealing failure."
"We're thinking it would be best to kill everything in there," Hazō said. "The cave system might have multiple exits, and we want to move sooner than later before some sealing failure-born monstrosity emerges or tunnels out into Fire and starts reproducing. We'll do an initial threat assessment, and if it's too hard for Gōketsu to handle, it may be best to send in a jōnin strike force or a Zoo Rush."
"Why restrict it to only Gōketsu?" Asuma asked. "This is a potential risk to Leaf if emerging beasts threaten our outlying farmers or come up to our walls. Again, I am no expert, but a swift and disproportionate response seems optimal."
Hazō shook his head. "First, not necessarily. We need to do a threat assessment because of the potential risks. If we send in a squad of jōnin for some creature in there to mind-control and suborn, we've just made a very expensive problem for ourselves. Second, looting rights."
"What loot do you expect to find down there?" Asuma asked. "Surely sealing failures don't produce valuables."
Hazō shrugged. "The main thing I want to retrieve are the research notes for the Fourfold Seal of Preservation, if in fact they are down there."
Asuma raised an eyebrow. "Hazō. You are not still thinking about researching the seal, are you?"
"I am, sir. You assigned a mission to me. I will complete the mission."
"Hazō…" Asuma trailed off. "No. I assigned the mission under the condition that you would refuse it if it risked sealing failure. It has caused a sealing failure. It is clearly too risky for you to research – which is fine, Hazō. I do not want you to kill yourself to finish the mission. If you manage to retrieve the research notes against all odds, please do not continue work on the seal."
"I can do it," Hazō said. "I just need time. I don't want to fail the first mission you assigned me at my new rank."
Asuma inclined his head, tilting the conical point of the Hokage's hat and causing the side streamers to shift on his shoulders. After a moment, he straightened up again.
"Hazō, in running a village, I've realized there are many types of missions. One type of mission is so important that if it is not completed, the village will pay in blood. For these missions, it makes sense to accept great risks. For other missions, the value that completion gains is far lower than the value lost if the operative, someone who the village has invested with a decade or more of training, dies.
"This mission is the latter type. Having a small supply of the Fourfold Seal of Preservation would be helpful in certain situations, but the seal is limited enough that it is not going to substantially affect the village's ability to do general missions. It is not worth your life.
"On the other hand, your mission to fix the Great Seal is vastly more important than finishing this seal. If you had died in this sealing failure, for all Orochimaru's skills, I think our odds of successfully navigating the Dragon crisis would have plummeted. I would have felt like an absolute fool for asking you to research the seal, knowing that by doing so I would have doomed the Seventh Path for a marginal gain.
"So put it down, Hazō. It is fine to fail to complete a mission. I have failed many, many missions in my life, and many of those failures were marked with the blood of my comrades. In the space of jōnin's-first-missions, this is a wholly acceptable failure. Unlike ordinary jōnin-level missions, you can put this one down and wait for a couple years. Once your skills have advanced, you can attempt the seal again. Until then, we will prioritize the risks that it actually makes sense to take."
Hazō knew that he could easily research the Fourfold Seal of Preservation. His memories were still scrambled, but he could tell it was well within his reach. If he tapped his corrupted memories of the Pangolin Summoning Scroll, if he actually focused on just that one project instead of splitting himself a dozen ways, he would easily replicate the seal. But how would he say that to Asuma? That he'd taken the assigned jōnin mission and half-assed it thanks to all the other seals he was trying to research at the same time?
Asuma seemed to read his doubtful expression. "What is it, Hazō? It is fine if you disagree with my decision here, and I would rather hear your thoughts than let you bottle it up."
"Sir," Hazō said. "I am very confident that I will be able to research the seal with my current ability. I only caused a sealing failure because I… I cut corners in the research process. I didn't give it my full time and attention. If I were to do so, I would be able to finish it. After causing the sealing failure, replacing the notes is the least I can do."
Asuma took that in. "So you were… hasty, or careless, or just didn't try very hard, and that's what caused the failure?"
"Yes, sir."
Asuma thought for a long moment. His finger twitched slightly. He clearly missed his cigarettes.
"I think," Asuma said carefully, "that many skills are learned in time. Perhaps your skill in sealing is adequate to the task. I am no sealmaster. On the one hand, your confidence is promising. On the other, today provides a key piece of evidence against you. However, sealing skill isn't the only thing that comes with time. Good judgment, wisdom, and a respect for the unknown – these are also valuable tools. Even if you're confident you can research the seal, I still think it would be wise for you to wait before you try it again. Like I said, this is nothing critical to Leaf, and you have other far more critical things to work on. I am happy that you are alive, and I am in no way angry with you over the sealing failure. You should feel no guilt over not completing the project."
"Fine," Hazō said. If he managed to retrieve the notes, he didn't need to tell Asuma. Or he could trace them out and keep them in the Iron Nerve, or… it was something to think about later. "We'll cautiously explore the caves and see if there's sealing failure aftereffects that require action. If it's out of our depth, I'll tell you. Is there anything else you need to know?"
Asuma shook his head. "Two requests, Hazō. First, never send yourself and Kagome into the cave at the same time. In the worst case, I would rather have at least one person who isn't a complete maniac working on the Great Seal – and it's a testament to Orochimaru's unique perspective on being a ninja that Goutkesu Kagome is the sane one.
"Second, take it easy with Shadow Clone for a bit. You've suffered clone backlash, haven't you? I see you moving your head as gingerly as possible."
Hazō nodded slowly. His headache wasn't all backlash, of course, but he didn't need to say that.
"Well, be careful. Know your limits, and keep safety margins. Clone sickness is no joke, and just like the seal research, it does no one any good for you to get marginal benefits out of slightly more Shadow Clones, only for you to end up dead as a result of overdoing it."
"Understood, sir."
o-o-o
For once, Hazō could stand back as Kagome took the cave-delving team through their checklists. Yuno, Jin, and Shinji were used to being on the front lines, but this time, two pairs of massive scorpions and pangolins would be taking the lead. Kagome, Noburi, and a half-dozen Snowflake-sisters would be staying in the back. With Noburi's help, Kagome and every Snowflake would have full chakra reserves despite the extensive use of summoning and shadow clones.
Hazō watched as Yuno and Noburi hugged, then separated so Yuno could coach the summons and Gōketsu chūnin through their combat formations. Yuno had never been much of a tactician, but Hazō could tell that the responsibility of managing a genin team was affecting her. She seemed much more confident in her leadership.
"Hazō," Kagome said. "If I don't come back, you know what to do. Finish up the rift seals and find us in Naraka."
Hazō quickly raised a finger to his lips and glanced at the other Gōketsu. "Shh," he said. "It's still a secret."
Kagome shrugged.
"Kagome," Snowflake said. "If we fail to return, Hazō will not remain uncertain as to our fates. While the likelihood of catastrophic failure remains regrettably high, it seems particularly improbable that something exists within the depths that would prevent my memories from returning to Kei. At the very least, she will be able to recreate me so that I might confirm the fate of the expedition."
"While calling sealing failures unpredictable goes past tautology to comedic understatement," Kei said, "I do not think a party wipe is particularly likely. The cave exploration will receive Kagome's entirely appropriate level of paranoia, and if he thought this expedition meaningfully risked any of our team's lives, he would not have approved it. Every reasonable contingency and many unreasonable ones are accounted for. I understand he intends to solve every problem with overwhelming firepower and retreat as soon as said firepower wanes."
"In other words," Noburi said, stepping over to the square, "it'll be fine. There's not a thing down there that can hurt us."
Kei and Snowflake groaned, and Hazō shook his head. "Why do you have to tempt fate, Noburi?"
Noburi grinned. "If fate wants me, it can come and get it."
The cavern exploration team had a fruitful two days. The caverns are indeed supernaturally dark. There is some effect within the cavern that causes light sources to spread far less, whether created by seals or flames. Kagome calls it "Dark Miasma", and it has increased the level of caution he wants while exploring. Otherwise, the caverns are filled with various monstrosities. Yuno enjoys describing one creature which was all teeth and eyes and curiously no blood, while Kei describes another which appeared to have no sensory organs, being nothing but a giant, sinuous series of heavily armored chitinous segments.
No meaningful combats have happened. Any creature that appears is blasted to oblivion with explosives, then shredded by either Yuno or the pangolins depending on who is closer. The team's steady progress at a Kagome pace has cleared the first room, about thirty-five meters deep, and identified two tunnels leading out of it. One leads eastwards, vaguely towards Leaf, while the other seems to go deeper under the ground. Both have been sealed.
The creatures are not dangerous, but in the initial minutes of their exploration, many of them reported seeing wisps of violet flame out of the corner of their eyes. No one saw anything clearly, but Kagome insisted that any further sighting be called out immediately. On the second day, looking down the second cave branch that heads vertically downward, Noburi reported seeing another distant wisp of violet flame. Whatever the strange wisps of violet flame are, they don't seem to be increasing in intensity over time.
This pace is perfectly safe, but extremely slow. Yuno has begged off of the slow, time-consuming exploration on account of having a genin team to teach, while Shinji seems glad to be free of the endless explosive seal scribing for the Team Akane Seal Bank. Apart from the curious flames, Kagome has seen no signs of anything that is worse than a normal chakra beast, nor anything that has reproductive organs or seems likely to reproduce. Kagome wants to pack the cave with a mind-boggling amount of explosives and collapse it all in, then just abandon the site.
XP Award: 5 + 2 (brevity) XP
Vote time! What to do now?
Voting ends on
