Minato found himself in a site of carnage.
He had just decided to check up on the squad at around noon since he had some free time from his duties and with Naruto and Kushina.
But all he found was a destroyed landscape and dead shinobi forces.
As Minato looked around warily, a kunai in hand he found Kyoto lying on the floor with a blank look on his face.
Minato looked around cautiously.
"Was this the use of the strange ability you used in our duel?"
Kyoto nodded, acknowledging Minato's presence. He had been lying down for a while now.
Minato spoke again.
"What happened to the Jonin-Squad."
Kyoto's voice was bitter.
"Dead. All of them."
"I'm the only one left."
Minato let out a hefty sigh.
"I'll let the families know."
Before Minato could vanish, Kyoto held onto the hem of his cape.
"Wait."
The two met eyes.
Kyoto spoke uncannily.
"What am I meant to do?"
Minato looked around bizarrely.
"I feel bad locking you up in this place. So I'm giving you an order."
Kyoto felt his shoulders tense.
Minato looked at the setting sun despite the disturbing quantity of blood around him.
"Explore the vast world of shinobi, find allies for the leaf and defeat our enemies along the way. As long as you find yourself at the end of it all, then I'll be glad that I made this choice."
Kyoto nodded, tired and exhausted.
Just before Minato left, Kyoto gave some words.
"Do you think you could beat the nine-tails? The Kyuubi?"
Minato tilted his head oddly.
"Who knows, I think I have a reliable chance at least."
Kyoto nodded.
"I hope those words are true. Watch out for October 10th, A certain fox may reach your doorstep. And it may strip your entire life from your hands."
Minato's eyebrows furrowed.
"Thanks."
"I'm just repaying a favor."
And he vanished.
Kyoto sighed.
"So now I explore the ninja world?"
Minato seemed to have felt bad trapping him under the duel conclusion. It seemed like Konoha didn't need firepower either.
So he asked Kyoto to gather allies and conquer enemies.
The third great shinobi war should've been stagnating and coming to an end if it had not already ended.
Kyoto decided then and there his plan.
Strutting around with a hand on his chin, a light bulb manifested above him.
"Alright."
"I need more power. So first, I'll work on my chakra and physical prowess. For this, I'll need..."
"Tsunade."
Kyoto continued strutting on.
"Next, I'll need to work on my chakra and my overall power. For this, I'll require..."
"Sage mode."
"Lastly, I'll need to defeat Madara before he inevitably becomes Kaguya. For this, I must have..."
"Allies."
Kyoto put his thoughts on hold.
"I should probably acquire a summon. Always utilizing my chakra to maneuver is a pain."
Kyoto headed for the leaf, using a map that was hidden within the corpse of Ponat, his ex-teammate.
Kyoto realized that judging by the location of the Sun, the leaf was to his south and by a few 10s of Kilometres.
"Well, it's time to go back to the leaf."
Kyoto activated his lightning steps immaculately.
His figure was a holographic blur as he charged toward Konoha.
A few hours passed.
Kyoto's figure stumbled through the gates of Konoha.
Kyoto swiftly found a bench and rested.
It had been further than he expected to get to Konoha.
Nevertheless, he now rested in ease.
Still, there was an issue on his mind.
'How do I get a summoning scroll for the jutsu?"
But alas, like a messiah.
Minato Uzumaki strolled right past Kyoto.
"Eh? Why are you still here?"
Kyoto looked up as if his God had arrived.
"Minato, you don't have a summoning scroll in the Hokage office by any chance right?"
Kyoto's hands were clamped together tightly.
Minato's eyebrows furrowed.
"There's probably a lot of them in the storage block, I'm assuming you require one?"
Kyoto nodded eagerly.
Minato chuckled.
"Sure, consider it your reward for defeating the Rock-Jonin, and my apologies for the miscalculation from Konoha's end."
Kyoto stretched his arms as Minato disappeared in a blink.
Things were connecting just fine now.
Soon, Minato reappeared with a red scroll in hand.
"Here, there are instructions on the note inside."
Kyoto didn't need instructions, he had been taught the method long ago.
"Thanks, after this I'll be off."
Minato summoned a frown.
"Oh. Well, I suppose this is goodbye."
Kyoto smirked.
"Yup, I hope all goes well."
Minato looked back as he wandered off.
"For you as well."
Blink.
The two would most likely never see each other again.
With the summoning scroll in hand, Kyoto wandered outside of Konoha, to a small closing in a forest.
Painting symbols with his blood, Kyoto's face irked as he felt quite queasy.
Soon, the symbols were complete and Kyoto just had to compress his chakra to form a summoning seal.
"Summoning Jutsu."
Kyoto put in as much chakra as he could, enough to unleash a mountain-sized Dosijin. Scrap that.
It felt like Kyoto had dumped in enough Chakra to summon a tailed beast.
A huge aroma of salty water entered his nose.
A web of black symbols soon manifested, on the floor spreading to a huge radius.
The entire enclosing was filled to the brink with puffy grey smoke.
A sound of hissing ensued.
As the smoke slowly subsided, Kyoto met eyes with something that could only be described as...
Goofy.
It was a whale.
A rock-sized whale.
It seemed that it didn't need water as it was still alive and breathing.
The whale had quite a blank and childish look on its face.
Its body was a night blue with a pure white undercoat.
Kyoto had no idea how he had summoned a childish whale of all things.
"Gah, I'm thirsty."
Kyoto felt quite drained from using so much chakra in his summoning. It seemed like a big waste now.
"Water style: Water fountain."
As Kyoto's face was bombarded with fresh luscious water, he found a bit of it hitting the whale due to his carelessness.
"Does it drown in water?"
Kyoto shook off this question as he de-activated his jutsu.
He went to check up on the rock-sized whale only to realize that now it was twice its first size.
"Wait-."
A thought came into Kyoto's mind.
' Does it get bigger if it touches water? '
'Or what if instead of water, what if it's when it touches... Jutsu?"
Kyoto's eyes deviously darted to the whale.
"Stay still, small one."
Kyoto did some basic hand signs. If he was right, then this summon should be quite the catch.
"This won't hurt a bit."
"Fire style: Fireball Jutsu."
A small cloud of flames blew out from Kyoto's mouth.
He had made sure to use minimal chakra
As the flames made contact with the small whale, rather than scorching it the orange flames seemed to be sucked into the whale.
The small whale expanded until it reached the size of a boulder. From there, it stopped growing as fast.
Kyoto smirked to himself.
"Nice."
It still had a dumb-founded look on its face.
Kyoto sat on the whale. He didn't know why. He just had this burning intent in his heart to sit on such a plump and gluttonous beast.
And he didn't know why.
But the whale started floating.
At first, it was just a few centimeters off the ground, but then in one swift movement, it floated above the trees.
Kyoto who was sat on the whale looked around in disfigurement.
"What the.-"
Kyoto checked the map he had received from the deceased Ponet.
Tugging at the head of the whale, Kyoto tried to point it towards the land of Earth.
He found out that just pointing would suffice.
Soon the whale started flying forwards, just above the tree level.
Kyoto realized that his body was being sucked into the whale so he didn't need to hold on or even sit firmly.
Kyoto just relaxed under the warm wind in the land of Fire.
Kyoto didn't know how many hours had passed when he woke up but the whale looked like a shriveled grape. Wrinkles had surfaced all over it and its flight had become wonky.
Worried for it and himself, Kyoto instantly released a fire-style jutsu.
"Fire style: Fire dragon jutsu."
An artistic fire dragon soon emerged before being immediately sucked into the whale. The chakra input caused the whale to essentially inflate.
Kyoto looked under himself to see his surroundings.
There still seemed to be grass fields but there was a lake too.
Had the whale backtracked to the land of water?
Kyoto checked his map and found a lake that would've been in their line of path towards the land of Earth.
Kyoto wielded a sigh of relief.
' Close one.'
But as the whale sailed through the wind, closer to the lake, Kyoto's eyes loomed.
The entire lake or at least a huge part of it had been frozen over.
It was not entirely flat either. There were frozen shinobi standing atop the lake. Their siding was unknown. This lake was somewhat close to the edge of the Land of Fire so it could've been shinobi from any side.
Kyoto pointed downwards, the whale was quite high as of now.
And so Kyoto and the balloon-like whale sailed down into the scene of crisis.