The Zero Tails Jinchuriki #3

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Land of Fire

–Hiroto “Dragon” Hiruzen–

The man tilted his head at him, as if trying to study an interesting specimen. The gesture, coupled with the blank expression on the man’s face, set off alarms in his head. Remembering the instructions and trusting the Third Hokage, he sheathed the kunai and took on a formal, more relaxed stance before taking out the scroll meant only for his eyes.

Kenta Akimichi.

His eyes widened as he suddenly felt it. The absolute ocean of chakra that he had stepped on. He turned ramrod straight as the scroll was taken from his hands using what appeared to be a chakra string, one of the many that he could now feel littered on the ground.

He didn’t even feel stepping on them when he came here, and it was probably the reason why Kenta was alerted of his presence, considering the man was underwater at the time.

There must be thousands of them here!

He had never even heard of someone capable of using thousands of chakra strings just to keep them around for some reason. The chakra drain alone was something that no one bar the Jinchu–

His eyes widened in shock as he looked at the man who was now going through the scroll. Could he be? But how? Whose exactly?

Before he could voice out his concerns, he felt the chakra strings dissipate as the man walked towards him, with slow but deliberate steps. “Come on, we have to make haste,”

He looked around him and seeing nothing of importance, just backed away from the land around the lake, not knowing if there were any other traps. He passed through the door of the barrier and just as he was about to reach for the kunai, a string wrapped itself around the handle and pulled it to the side, as the barrier became visible for a split second before the scene in front of him turned to the same dense forest that was all around them.

“Let’s go,” Kenta said before rushing to the Land of Fire. He struggled to keep pace and, in the end, embarrassingly enough, despite his vehement protests, had to be literally carried using chakra strings as they sped through the Land of Fire, in the direction of Konoha.

So far, aside from the visible lack of vitality, Kenta Akimichi seems to be a very powerful shinobi and Konoha, at the moment, could use very powerful shinobis. He just hoped that the Third Hokage-sama could control this shinobi, because he did not like the way the man had an apathetic expression on his face the whole time, despite presumably being informed about the greatest tragedy that had ever struck Konoha.

_____xx____

Hokage Rock, Konoha, Land of Fire

–Hiruzen “The Professor” Sarutobi–

He was standing on top of the Hokage Rock, looking in the distance, as even the remote areas of Konoha now had movement in them. Even the least affected areas had some damage done to them, due to the tremors and even civilians getting chakra poisoning due to the Nine Tails just throwing around enough chakra to suffuse the very air with it.

Damages were assessed and early estimates put Konoha’s treasury in the very risky category, if they were to pay all the reparations without any help from their Daimyo, which was very unlikely because the Daimyo was going to be here for the State funeral next week and that was going to be the time he would secure funding for Konoha.

It was all politics and as much as a part of him hated the whole thing, especially during such an important event, another part of him knew that Daimyos, the whole lot of them really, were really fickle and shallow men. The loss of his people would barely even matter to the Daimyo, as long as Konoha itself showed itself to be mighty enough to deter anyone from eyeing the piece of meat that was the Land of Fire, the strongest and the wealthiest nation in the Elemental Nations.

He so desperately wished to rest, to sleep and yet, every time he even tried to sleep, the bloodied face of Minato, Biwako and the hundreds of other shinobi he found as cold, unmoving corpses flashed through his mind, waking him up as they were no less than a nightmare on their own.

He had already given orders to essentially ignore any order that could come from the Hokage Elder Council, by wrapping it up in a reorganisation package, stopping Danzo from doing something that might have very well fractured the village in a very devastating manner.

The matter of the Sharingan in the Nine Tails’ eyes was seen by everyone, even Fugaku would not argue with that but to relocate the entire clan to the corner, just based on that, was clearly going a step too far.

All of that depended on the fact that the Uchiha clan, the most proud and arrogant (well maybe, after the Hyuga) clan in all of Konoha somehow hid someone capable of controlling the Nine Tails for all this time was preposterous. It would be like saying that the only reason Hashirama-sama built Konoha was to create a bigger army.

So, that matter was pushed further back, after the State funeral, during the Clan Head meeting that was scheduled for more important issues, like the future and how Konoha as a whole would go about doing it. For one thing, Clan participation was going to be a key cornerstone on how he planned on Konoha quickly regaining the top spot in military might once more.

As they were now, without Jiraiya and Tsunade in the mix, they were weaker than Kumo by a wide margin and barely stronger than Iwa, with the advantage being a far greater mix of stronger nin in their overall forces, as opposed to Iwa’s thousands of genins.

Clearly, it would not do for their enemies to realise that and for that, he had a plan. A plan to cement Konoha’s position as number one, even after all that had happened and for that to happen, he needed Kenta to be in the village.

After living in what was essentially exile for the past decade and a half, Kenta was bound to have changed but he could almost certainly guarantee that the Will of Fire still burned within the man, perhaps not as brightly as before but it certainly existed.

He could still remember the horrifying report he had received back during the raid on the Land of Sky. To think they were so close to creating an artificial tailed beast, something that thrived on negative emotions.

He shuddered to imagine the damage it would have done to every single Great Village, if it had been deployed in a Great War, with Wars being a cesspool of every single imaginable negative emotion available in plentiful amounts.

When it was reported to him that the Zero Tails, as was aptly named in the records they managed to recover from their flying fortress, had been sealed or more accurately, taken shelter in one of Konoha’s shinobi, his first reaction had been to order the shinobi taken into custody, chakra sealed and awaiting their decision of either execution or long term suspended stasis.

The only reason Kenta was even conscious when they met was when he realised who he was. The only shinobi in Konoha who had a strong connection to the Senju Clan, other than Tsunade herself. Some weird genetic anomaly made him more of a Senju than an Akimichi. 

He could still use their techniques but better, because he was more like a pure bred Senju in his physique. 

As for the solution for the Zero Tails, it came directly from Kenta himself. He smartly realised that his situation was a lose-lose situation for Konoha if it ever came to light. He could not stay in Konoha because he was essentially a ticking bomb, with the Zero Tails coming out to wreak havoc, because at the time, they had no idea what the Zero Tails could actually do.

Secondly, if it was ever revealed that Konoha had somehow found itself an artificial Jinchuriki, it would find itself under siege from every single side, including the Daimyos, which would be the final straw and break Konoha.

So, in the end, Kenta suggested something, a temporary exile from Konoha, at least until he got the Zero Tails under control, with the understanding being that both of them knew at the time that there was very little chance of that happening.

He had little hopes for that as well, and kept a small contingent of ANBU with specialised chakra blades created to slice through chakra, to make sure that if the time came, they could neutralise Kenta and bury him in his home.

However, as the years went by, and he received positive reports after positive reports, he decided to finally visit Kenta and what he found astonished him.

Kenta had become a Jinchuriki, in all senses of the word. He knew that Kumo had some secret leading to Perfect Jinchurikis, allowing for an Eight Tails perfect Jinchuriki to exert power as their own imperfect Nine Tails Jinchuriki.

Kenta had somehow become the perfect version of the Zero Tails Jinchuriki, by staying away from civilization, sacrificing most of his emotions, in his own words and meditating, to find inner peace.

Even Minato had agreed that there was no need to place any seal on Kenta when he had facilitated a meeting after Minato was crowned Yondaime, resulting in Konoha gaining a hidden trump card, a S-class shinobi who could unleash devastating amounts of destruction over a large group of shinobi in a very short period of time, without the attack ever being tied back to Konoha.

And yet, due to the Nine Tails attack, he was going to have to push his plans down the drain and very publicly, reveal Kenta to the world. Thankfully, his training over the past decade and a half was very fruitful, so he could just introduce the man as a very strong shinobi they kept hidden, instead of being the Jinchuriki of an Artificial Tailed Beast that might set the entire continent on fire.