Naruto: Uchiha Youngjo's Konoha Spring

Chapter 270 Merchants from the Land of Thunder Flee South

After Genma Shiranui and the other two escorted Tokio Uchiha to the border post, Tokio told them to return to the village first, while he headed alone toward the place where Jiraiya had sent the message.

When Uchiha Touko arrived, the area had already been sealed off by the Rain Village's barrier team. When the Amegakure ninjas on guard outside saw Uchiha Touko arrive, they went in to report. Not long after, Konan personally came to the entrance of the barrier to welcome Uchiha Touko inside.

"Hokage, please."

As Uchiha Touko followed Konan into the barrier, he asked, "How's the situation? Have you found anything?"

"Nagato is maintaining the black rods that can seal that special energy, and Jiraiya-sensei is studying those things. We can basically conclude that the squad that attacked us was not human," Konan said.

"Let me go take a look first." Uchiha Touko nodded and followed Konan to Jiraiya and Nagato, who were currently studying the dozen or so artificial human corpses with Nagato.

"Touko, you've arrived." Jiraiya stood up and made way for Uchiha Touko after seeing him. "Come and take a look. These people don't have blood in their bodies, and their internal organs are all mechanical devices. However, their bodies look like real flesh and blood, and there are different kinds of chakra inside their bodies."

"Is there chakra present?" Uchiha Touko reached out and flipped over the body of one of the attackers. Looking at the shell-like pattern on the armor, his expression hardened. It really was the Shell Organization. Then, these guys must be artificial humans.

"I'll take these bodies back to Konoha and hand them over to professionals for research," Uchiha Touko said.

"Lord Hokage, if I'm not around, these black rods that suppress the special energy in their armor won't last long. Once these rods disappear, that energy will instantly go berserk and explode," Nagato said, pointing to the deep crater caused by the explosion of the armor of the previous raider squad leader not far away.

"Explosion? What explosion?" At that moment, a blond-haired guy came over.

"There's nothing for you to do here. Go and take care of the other guests." Seeing this, Konan grabbed Deidara by the ear and walked out.

"Jiraiya, can Sage Chakra also suppress this energy?" Uchiha Touko turned to Jiraiya and asked.

“Sage Chakra is useless. Only pure natural energy can suppress this thing. When Sage Chakra encounters this energy, the chakra portion of it will be rapidly decomposed. If the remaining pure natural energy cannot be controlled, it will be even more dangerous,” Jiraiya said.

"So we can only use natural energy? I understand now." Uchiha Touko nodded, closed his eyes and opened them again, and silver eyeshadow appeared at the corner of his eyes.

Then, Uchiha Tokko took a deep breath and began to guide the natural energy in the air with Sage Chakra. Then, to Jiraiya's disbelief, Uchiha Tokko used pure natural energy to construct a sealing technique, enveloping the corpse of an attacker within it.

"Try removing the black rods," Uchiha Touko said to Nagato after he had done all that.

Nagato nodded, and with a flash of his Rinnegan, the black rod stuck in the corpse slowly dissipated. At this moment, the Six Paths of Pain puppets stood ready, prepared to retreat with the others as soon as they sensed something was wrong.

However, after the black rod disappeared, the sealing technique set up by Uchiha Touko tightly locked the remaining energy inside the armor, preventing any leakage.

"Sealing techniques can be used like this?" Jiraiya exclaimed in astonishment upon seeing this.

“Why not?” Uchiha Touko chuckled. “Unlike ninjutsu that can only be released with chakra, sealing techniques can be activated with any energy as long as the principle is understood.”

Although Jiraiya's mastery of sealing techniques is among the best in the current ninja world, he received ninja training from a young age and has little mathematical thinking ability, so his sealing techniques are mostly based on rote memorization of formulas.

"Your sealing techniques are already stronger than those of Minato and Kushina back then. I wish Naruto could learn this technique from you," Jiraiya sighed upon seeing this.

"There's nothing we can do, we just can't do it." Uchiha Touko shrugged, the two exchanged a glance, and then looked at Naruto, who was hanging out with Deidara and laughing like an idiot not far away, and shook their heads helplessly.

Both Uchiha Tokō's math teaching method and Jiraiya's rote memorization method have been tried on Naruto, but Naruto has only learned the most basic Ryougi Seal, and it is not always effective.

"Teacher? Grandpa Jiraiya? What are you talking about?" Since the Nine-Tails' seal was completely broken, Naruto's senses have become extremely sharp. The two people's gazes only lasted a moment before Naruto noticed them and leaned over to ask.

"I'm talking about your sealing techniques!" Jiraiya said irritably.

"What's so great about my sealing technique? I just can't learn it, so what? My teacher couldn't learn it either..." Naruto's voice gradually faded as he spoke, because he suddenly sensed the malice emanating from Uchiha Touko.

Naruto slowly turned his head and saw that Uchiha Touko was already unbuckling his belt, so he quickly said, "Sensei, that's not what I meant..."

"I think you've been out for too long and your skin is starting to itch," Uchiha Touko said with a sneer.

The next moment, Naruto began to spin like a top, screaming in agony as he spun.

"Brother Kurama! Don't just stand there!" Naruto screamed for a while before trying to enter Kurama Mode to escape. However, this time, his request to transform was directly rejected by Kurama, even though he had been able to enter this mode successfully every time before.

"Don't drag me into this if you're looking for a beating." Inside the sealed space, the Nine-Tails, who was sleeping on its stomach, changed its position and said without raising its head.

"Hey, you stinky fox, you have someone you're afraid of too?" At that moment, Shukaku's sarcastic voice rang in Kurama's ears.

"If you're so great, go fight him. If you can beat him, then I'll acknowledge your skill," Nine-Tailed Fox said without even looking up.

Of the nine tailed beasts, only Shukaku, which was sealed by the monk Bunpuku when Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha were capturing tailed beasts in the ninja world, has never been beaten. Now that there is such an opportunity, Kurama (the Nine-Tails) really wants to see this stinky tanuki get a beating.

As everyone knows, the phrase "You're amazing" is often extremely effective against males. Upon hearing Kurama's words, Shukaku immediately said to Gaara, "Kid, hand over control of your body to me!"

"No, that's Naruto's teacher." Gaara refused Shukaku without hesitation. He didn't care about being Hokage; the main thing was that Uchiha Touko was his only friend and elder in the ninja world. "That's not up to you!" Tempted by the words "You're so tough," Shukaku immediately began to seize control of Gaara's body.

Sensing the unusual chakra fluctuations, Uchiha Touko turned around and immediately frowned.

The Mangekyou Sharingan instantly activated, and after arriving beside Gaara, its spiritual power directly entered his sealed space.

As Shukaku struggled for control of its body, a giant black hand pressed down above its head, smashing a huge crater into Shukaku's sealed space.

"Who?" Inside the sealed space, Shukaku roared and turned around, and then with just one glance, Shukaku's eyes became clear.

The reason is simple: the Susanoo of Uchiha Touko that appeared in the sealed space was even larger than the Nine-Tails at its peak.

"You...you...you...what are you going to do?" Shukaku said, cowering. He finally understood why Kurama hadn't bothered to help when his Jinchūriki was getting beaten up.

Uchiha Touko said nothing, but after beating Shukaku, he came to Gaara's side in the sealing space. He then examined Shukaku's seal, frowned, and said, "Your Sand Village's seal is too crude. At most, the tailed beasts from other villages can only erode the Jinchuriki's sanity through the sealing system. But yours can directly take over control of your body?"

“Things have been fine lately,” Gaara said, scratching his head. “He seems to be quite afraid of the giant fox inside Naruto, so he hasn’t been causing me any trouble.”

"From now on, he won't have a chance to cause you any more trouble." As Uchiha Touko spoke, he directly released Gaara's seal from the outside, and before Shukaku could react, he used the Bagua seal composed of two Four Symbols seals to reorganize the sealed space.

Then, Uchiha Touko handed Gaara a key to a sealing technique, saying, "This seal allows you to unilaterally extract his chakra for your use. When he's willing to get along with you properly, you can use this to open the seal."

"Thank you." Gaara took the key to the seal and hesitated for a moment before speaking.

“Your sister is already taking care of your problem, and you’ll be able to go back soon,” Uchiha Touko said.

After Uchiha Tokō finished speaking, he took Gaara and left the sealed space, leaving Shukaku, who was already stunned, bewildered.

This minor incident didn't take much time. After returning to the corpses, Uchiha Touko used the same method again, sealing them all with a sealing technique constructed from natural energy.

"Should we leave you a copy for research?" After packing up all the corpses and armor, Uchiha Touko asked Nagato. After all, this was on Nagato's territory, and it was spoils of war that they had acquired with Nagato's help. Uchiha Touko felt it would be impolite to take everything.

“No need. There’s no one in Amegakure who’s good at this. If we keep it here, I’ll have to worry about it exploding all the time,” Nagato shook his head and refused.

"Then I'll take them all." Uchiha Touko nodded, then turned to Naruto, who had quickly recovered after being beaten, and asked, "What about you? Do you want to come back to the village with me?"

"Master, Kurama asked me to go to Sister Fu's place to meet the other tailed beasts," Naruto said.

"Oh? Is that so?" Uchiha Touko nodded, then his mental energy entered the Nine-Tails' sealing space.

Upon seeing Uchiha Touko, Kurama immediately became wary: "What are you doing here?"

"Why should Naruto meet the other tailed beasts?" Uchiha Touko asked.

“Didn’t your eyes see me fighting alongside this brat? Then you should know who our enemy really is,” Nine-Tails said.

"Is it the Ten-Tails? This energy that can decompose chakra comes from the Ten-Tails, right?" Uchiha Touko asked.

“So you really do know these things,” Kurama said, sitting up and looking at Uchiha Touko with a serious expression. “Since you understand what that thing is, you should also know what it means to us tailed beasts. It can be said that the people in this world who least want that thing to return to the world are us tailed beasts.”

Uchiha Touko nodded. Kurama's words confirmed his guess. The armor of these artificial humans indeed contained the power that Otsutsuki Isshiki extracted from the other Ten-Tails' hand. That's why this power had such a huge restraining effect on chakra. After all, the Ten-Tails can be said to be the source of all chakra in the entire ninja world.

"And after you've seen the other tailed beasts?" Uchiha Touko then turned to look at Naruto.

“After meeting the other tailed beasts, I plan to continue my travels in the ninja world,” Naruto said. “I’ve already completed a little over half of my plan, so I can’t just give up halfway.”

“You’ve seen the enemy’s strength. With that kind of energy, you probably can’t handle them with just the Nine-Tails’ power,” Uchiha Touko reminded him. “How’s your Sage Mode training from Mount Myōboku coming along?”

"That's about right, but it seems like Kurama isn't too keen on me learning that," Naruto said, scratching his head.

"What's so great about learning the techniques of those stinky toads?" Nine-Tailed Fox sneered.

“Kurama, as you just saw, natural energy is currently the only power that Naruto can obtain to deal with the Ten-Tails,” Uchiha Touko said.

"Yes, yes, I understand. I won't bother this kid learning those toad techniques anymore," Nine-Tails said somewhat impatiently.

……

After Uchiha Touko returned to Konoha with the corpses and armor of the dozen or so artificial humans, he sent three to Konoha's current Scientific Ninja Tool Research Institute, and then sent five to Orochimaru, who was currently hiding in Ryuchi Cave. Of course, Uchiha Touko also left two research materials for the older generation scientist, Senju Tobirama. With these three approaches combined, he should be able to research something soon.

More than a month has passed, and there has been little progress in the research on the artificial human corpses. However, during this time, many wealthy merchants from the Land of Thunder fled to the Land of Fire with large sums of cash.

(End of this chapter)