Chapter 264: Playing with Death? (1)
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Hanabi was curious about just what Neji was up to. They were training in the Pocket Planet, when all of a sudden everything turned into gold clouds. Minutes later, after the girls looked around and called for Neji to help (to no avail), the terrain changed once more and they found themselves inside a palace. A goddamn well one at that.
Hanabi doubted if even the Daimyos ever stepped in a place like this.
Though suspicious and wary of their new surroundings, the girls began to explore the palace, and it took them hours to do so— it was just that enormous of a place. Yet, even when they were out of the palace, they only found themselves out in a garden, an endlessly stretching garden, given Hanabi's Byakugan couldn't see the end of it. They explored the garden for another few hours yet never found an exit.
At last, Toga volunteered to go and take a look around— since she could fly. Hanabi didn't like that girl very much, she always kept sucking up to Neji (in all the ways possible) but Hanabi was still worried if the girl would be fine alone or not. In the end, everyone decided there was no choice but for Toga to go around and take a stroll since Neji wasn't in the mood to reply to their calls (or maybe he couldn't, which was the worst-case scenario).
It had been ten minutes since then.
"Haah," Temari sighed as she sat on a circular concrete platform in the middle of where a shiny tree was coming out. "That girl isn't coming back. I think we got teleported somewhere, and Toga may have found the exit accidentally and left this place unwillingly, unable to warn us." she grabbed one of the golden apples hanging from the tree. "Anybody got any idea on what we can do?"
"Oh, oh, I know!" Tenten cheered as she turned to Kiana and Nemuri. "Why don't you two transform and give us a ride out of here? With your larger bodies, moving will be faster."
"That's not very smart since we aren't sure if we'd be able to control that form," Nemuri said. "Just wait here, Neji will probably come here anytime now."
"You got a lot of trust in him for a person who planned to kill him." Temari scoffed as she took a bite out of her fruit, blinking pleasantly at the taste.
"...I saw what he is capable of, that's why I trust him. And no, I wasn't planning to kill him. Just…" Nemuri sighed, crossing her arms and looking away.
"Can you guys stop being passive-aggressive for a moment?" Hanabi grumbled. She didn't like Nemuri and Kiana either, but since Neji trusted them enough to leave them with her and the other girls, she knew they couldn't be that bad. She did have this conversation with him already, after all. "Also, Temari, is it really smart to eat fruit from an unknown, clearly suspicious tree? Look, it's even glowing!"
Sakura seemed to agree with her words, while Tenten just shrugged. Temari, who had finished an apple and gone for another by then— stopped as she plucked an apple but it was from the same spot in the tree as before.
She looked surprised. "The fruit regrew in seconds. Also, the taste… Ufff. Guys, guys, this is heaven! I am sure of it now!"
Hanabi smirked and decided to tease her since the older girl did so wherever she got a chance. "That's worse. If this really is heaven, then that apple may as well be the Forbidden Fruit. Hey, everyone, stay away from Temari! She's gonna get exiled!"
"What?!" Temari gasped aloud, looking at her. "T-then, if I am going down then I guess I will bring you with me!" Then Temari leapt at her, Hanabi's eyes shook as she tried to escape her attack but the older girl grabbed her and tried to force her to take a bite out of the golden apple. When she managed to resist for a minute, Temari grumbled and took a bite out of the apple and then forcefully kissed Hanabi, pushing the piece of apple inside her mouth. "Mhmm~"
After ten seconds of resisting to no avail, Hanabi launched a gentle fist on Temari's stomach, pushing her back, and glared at her. "I am complaining to Onii-sama. This is child abuse!"
While the other girls were losing themselves, laughing while grabbing their stomachs, even the two foxes giggling softly to themselves, Temari just shrugged. "Eh, go ahead, I don't care. I rather hope he punishes this criminal little me."
Hanabi was about to sigh in defeat before suddenly, a portal opened beside them and Neji walked out of it with Toga in his arms.
"Hm? Who wants punishment?" He asked before his eyes looked at the glowing tree. "Huh. You already ate two Forbidden Fruit? Time to banish you, I guess."
Everyone blinked. For real?
—-—
Despite the fun they were having and the cheerful demeanour everyone shared, it all turned bleak as they fell silent once Neji teleported them to Konoha. They had many questions about all that heaven thing they witnessed, yet, their minds went blank when they stood in the desert, the empty hole in the earth that was once Konoha.
Hanabi's face had grown into a denying expression, she probably thought this was a Genjutsu that started upon eating that apple. Sakura was like that as well, except she was already running around, her eyes red and teary as she tried to locate where her house should have been before. Tenten looked worried, but she was doing better than the other two— she just looked at Neji for an answer.
Toga and Temari reacted the least, with the latter at least showing something while the former wore a blank expression. Nemuri and Kiana reacted somewhat, but it was mostly pity for the first three girls.
"O-onii-sama?!" Hanabi was choking for breath as she turned to him. "Is this really the place? You didn't make a mistake, r-right? Where is father, mother, and Hinata nee-chan?!"
Neji smiled sadly at her and pointed his chin at the shelters ahead. "Come with me."
Neji spawned a clone who grabbed a crying Sakura and then all of them made their way to the shelters. In the open, outside the wooden houses, they found Tsunade sitting on a chair, a blonde Loli on her lap as she talked with a few villagers. Amongst the villagers, Amira Hyuga was present as well, seeing whom Hanabi ran forward immediately, followed by the other girls who soon surrounded Tsunade.
Tsunade looked at Neji who gave her a nod and she then started to explain everything to the newcomers.
—-
Everyone had fallen silent after Tsunade gave them a summary of Pain's assault in Konoha. Sakura learned both her parents had died, and Hanabi learned about her father's death. But Hanabi's mother was there and was hugging Hanabi, so it helped the little girl calm down somewhat. In Tenten's case, she was an orphan and only had her uncle and aunt as her closest relatives, and luckily this pair of uncle and aunt was one of the fortunate ones who survived the assault. That had greatly relieved the weapon-user girl.
Sakura had lost all the light in her eyes and Shizune was hugging her softly. Hanabi was in her mother's embrace, but she had stopped crying. The others were relatively fine.
"About Pain, you don't have to worry about him anymore. Neji took care of him." Tsunade finished as she leaned back on her chair, patting Yue's head on her lap, and sighed. "...That was all."
Sakura and Hanabi didn't move while Tenten hugged and buried her face in his chest.
Neji let everyone stay like that for a while before shaking his head. "They may not be all." He said, making everyone turn to him. "As the eight of you saw, that place I brought you from was heaven. My heaven. The fruit Temari ate and forced Hanabi to eat was the fruit of immortality. Congratulations to you two, you won't die of old age. Anyway, the point is I have a heaven of my own and with the Hokage's permission, I may use a special jutsu to summon all the deceased souls from yesterday to there— where they can live happily ever after. They will have no lack of food or entertainment in that place."
Arima frowned in confusion as she looked at him. Tsunade on the other hand looked at the other girls' reactions first. They had turned to Neji to look at him with wide eyes, and they looked hopeful as well. So she judged he wasn't lying about his heaven— and frankly, Tsunade had accepted he wasn't more of a Deity than a human already. So she sighed and shook her head.
"I see. So you have your own heaven as well." She said. "Oh well, go ahead, do what you must. Weird how you ask me about such a thing at all." Tsunade said, making him smile like an idiot, which in turn made Tsunade smile. "Now, now, don't give me that weird smile. Just do what you must."
Neji nodded and looked around. The girls had their attention on him entirely, along with Tsunade and the few of the villagers who had heard of their conversation— but most others were dazed, their spirits too broken to care about whatever was going on around here.
"Yue, come with me." Neji said, making Yue nod as she leapt from Tsunade's lap, making the older woman blink in surprise, before she followed Neji to walk over to an empty spot. "I will need your and Kurai's help since I have never done this before. Watch my back, okay?"
Yue nodded with an 'Un!', while Neji channelled his will to summon Kurai in his shoulders.
Kurai was gulping on a small fish, and at the sudden summon, almost choked on it. When she regained her senses, she looked at Neji disapprovingly.
"Sorry."
"Grr," Kurai purred. "Oh, wow, look who it is. Let me guess, you need me for something again." Her eyes looked around briefly, realising it was Konoha before she looked back at him. "You summon me only when you need something from me. What a great father."
Neji immediately felt guilty, making the cat scoff since she could feel his emotions. "Whatever. I see you are a God now. Finally worthy to be my papa. What do you need from me this time?"
Neji sighed. "I am sorry for neglecting you. I will make up for it, okay?" she nodded after a while. "As for why I brought you here. As you can see, this is what is left of Konoha. Around eighty-thousand people lived here, and more than 99% of them died."
Kurai nodded. "Okay. But you know since I lost most of my levels, I therefore lost my divinities as well, right? Though I did reach up to Level 531 recently and gained [Anti-Life] again… but that can't help you revive them."
"I don't need your help on that," Neji shook his head. "I am going to summon their souls. You will help me hold the souls back from escaping to this world's underworld. Yue will support you too. Okay?"
"Oh?" Kurai tilted her head as her ears twitched. "So there is an underworld here. No wonder I have been feeling the gaze of someone with death divinity for a while now. Probably the death God of this place. Grr, go ahead, Papa, I will do my best."
Neji smiled, cuddling her cheeks with his for a moment before he activated Jōgan. His sclera became black and his pupils shone bright blue. Then he chanted, "‹King of Hell›", as a huge spiritual head popped out of the ground. Nobody except for Neji and Kurai seemed to be seeing it. Then Neji chanted once more, "‹Gedo Art of Rinne Rebirth›"
The spiritual head of King of the Hell opened its mouth, and a second later countless souls— thousands upon thousands of them, flew out of its opened jaw. Neji materialised his (now heavenly) planet in front of him, looking like a ball of cloud. Yue was already at work, but Kurai was busy transforming. Her size didn't increase, but her golden eyes shone while orange lines spread to her body. Then she used her authority to help Yue guide all the souls toward the planet.
The King of Hell didn't hold these souls inside it, it rather sucked the souls out of the land that its lower body was buried into and then let those souls come out of its mouth. So he couldn't have done this while staying on the Heavenly Planet. Also, it could only get the souls that have died in the prior 24 hours. Everyone watched as the souls, blobs of green light, rushed in Neji's direction.
Most of the souls were quiet, but some made horrific sounds. Some had faces that were recognised by the people around, while some didn't. Everyone watched as the souls were guided inside the ball of cloud by Kurai's authority. Seconds become minutes and around three minutes later, all of the souls that had died in the last 24 hours had found their ways inside the ball that was heaven.
"Haaah~" Kurai whimpered as she returned to normal, falling limply on Neji's shoulders. "That was tiring."
Neji apologised to her once more, rubbing her cheeks with his– yet right then, he disappeared along with her.
One moment he was there, the next moment he was gone.
"Huh?" Amongst the girls, Temari blinked first. "What the hell happened? Hey, loli, you know what happened?"
—-
Neji and Kurai reappeared in a dark throne room, where he clearly wasn't teleported willingly. He was forcefully brought here by… the being in front of him.
[Jashin — God of Death — Mid Tier 14]
[Image Here]
The beautiful woman with glossy black hair and bright green eyes was decorated with gold as she wore nothing more than a thin black bra and panties, with a cape leaving her shoulders. She rested calmly on her throne, one leg above another, as she looked down on Neji with a bored expression.
"First my Avatar Hidan," the woman's lips moved softly as her ethereal voice sounded out. "Now souls that were supposed to be mine. You are playing with death, my child." The Goddess Jashin spoke as her red eyes gleamed. "It may cost you things you can't afford to lose."
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