Naruto: Konoha Spring of the Uchiha Prodigies

"Isn't it common sense to be wary of self-destruct devices on something that looks so high-tech?" Naruto said. Having frequently visited Konoha's Scientific Ninja Tool Research Institute to test new equipment, Naruto knew very well that such equipment, which contains complex technology, usually has a self-destruct mechanism to prevent it from falling into enemy hands.

Take Neji for example. If all the scientific ninja tools he carries were to trigger their self-destruct mechanisms at the same time, they would be enough to create an explosion that rivals the Tailed Beast Ball.

"Looks like I really am outdated." Jiraiya shook his head and said with a wry smile, then asked, "So what do we do now?"

"These black rods that Uncle Nagato created seem to have a restraining effect on this energy, so it's best not to touch them for now," Naruto said, "Let's go check on the other people's armor."

“Alright.” Nagato nodded, then had Pain take Naruto and Jiraiya with him. At the same time, the main body in the wheelchair was prepared to use the Summoning Jutsu to summon Pain and the two of them back at any time.

This time, the armor remnants, whose energy flow was blocked by the black rods, did not explode.

However, for safety's sake, the two people and the puppet still observed the armor from a distance.

"This should be their organization's symbol," Jiraiya noticed. Each suit of armor had the same symbol engraved on top. "Judging by the shape, it looks like a seashell... Is there any organization in the ninja world that uses this kind of symbol as their representative?"

“It seems not.” Pain shook his head. “At least, none of our Akatsuki members have ever seen anyone wearing a similar pattern before.”

"Shell?" Naruto frowned immediately upon hearing this word.

"Naruto? Have you seen this organization before?" Jiraiya asked hastily upon seeing this.

"No, not at all." Naruto shook his head. "But before I came out, my teacher told me to keep an eye out for an organization called Kara in the ninja world. Do you think it could be them?"

"Has Douguang heard of this organization?" Jiraiya nodded. "Then it seems we have no choice but to inform him first."

“Jiraiya-sensei, these people don’t seem to be human.” At this moment, Pain also spoke up.

"Hmm?" Jiraiya looked at the other person with some surprise.

“They…don’t bleed.” Pain said, gesturing for the two to look at the places where the black rods had pierced the bodies. Normally, with such gruesome deaths, the area should have been covered in blood, but now it was unusually clean.

"Not human? Could they be puppets?" Jiraiya asked in surprise. He originally thought that the reason these people's corpses were not bleeding was because Nagato's black rods had a similar effect of high-temperature burning, which directly stopped the bleeding. But since Nagato had spoken up, he naturally ruled out this possibility. And the only thing in the ninja world that could achieve a similar effect was a puppet.

“No, it shouldn’t be puppets.” Naruto said at this moment. “Before, when I sensed their existence using the ability my older brother gave me, I could clearly feel the malice that each of them had towards me. If they were puppets, I should only be able to sense the malice of the puppeteer behind them.”

"Is that so?" Jiraiya nodded upon hearing this. "In that case, we can only maintain the status quo for now. Nagato, can you have the area sealed off? Since Touko knows some clues about this secret organization, we can only send a message to him now and ask him to come here."

“Alright, I’ll have someone come and seal off this area right away.” Pain nodded.

……

That afternoon, Deidara, who had volunteered to lead the team to seal off the scene, arrived with a team of barrier-protecting soldiers from the Land of Rain. Meanwhile, in the Hokage's office, Uchiha Touko received a message from Jiraiya delivered by the communication frog of Mount Myōboku.

"First, he personally went to Orochimaru to steal the Edo Tensei, and then he sent the Kara organization to attack. Is that guy hiding in the shadows finally going to show himself?" After reading the news, Uchiha Touko frowned.

The fact that the Kara organization, which was supposed to appear and operate decades later, has now emerged is definitely not good news for Uchiha Touko. According to the information Jiraiya sent back, those puppet-like people should be artificial humans created by the other side, and the special energy they use should be the power extracted from the other Ten-Tails in Otsutsuki Isshiki's possession.

Uchiha Tokō originally planned to unify the ninja world and then use all its power to deal with these invaders from other planets. However, it seems that they may have already sensed something from his actions in the ninja world, so they have jumped out ahead of time.

"This is really troublesome." Uchiha Touko sighed. Putting everything else aside, the artificial humans and the ability to use the Ten-Tails that the Kara organization is currently displaying are a huge variable for the upcoming war in the ninja world.

In short, let's first figure out exactly how far their technology has developed.

Uchiha Touko thought for a moment, then got up, picked up the Flying Thunder God Technique, and said loudly, "Inahime, I need to go out of the village and ask Genma and his Flying Thunder God team to come over. As for the documents that need to be processed in the next few days, gather them up. Send the less important documents directly to the General Staff Headquarters and let the Chief of Staff handle them."

"Understood," Uchiha Inahi replied from outside the door.

Before long, Genma Shiranui and the other two arrived at the Hokage's office. Touko Uchiha had already changed into his battle suit and instructed the three of them, "Let's go to the border post in the direction of the Land of Rain."

……

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 whether Shukaku was the Hokage or not; 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 really something," 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?”