[Chapter Size: 2000 Words.]
Third Person POV
Uzushiogakure, Year 42.
...
...
Minato gathered with the clan leaders in the main square of the island at its center, while he spoke with Masaki and the other elders.
Mikoto, Hanabi, Kushina, and Tsuna were also there, with the last two having their original bodies while their clones were still spread across the island helping heal the wounded.
"Well, now we just have to take care of the last wounded and clean up the dead. Soon the common citizens will be able to return to their homes", Mu said, while Masaki beside him nodded. The wind from the high altitude they were at filled the island and made most of the red hair sway.
Masaki looked at the clouds they were entering before turning back to Minato. "Where do you plan to take the island, Lord Minato?" he asked.
"How about leaving the island in the sky? No one will bother you while I'm here. And, since I'm now a ninja without a home..." Minato pointed to his scratched headband. "And since you no longer have allies, we should stay together."
The Uzumaki immediately agreed with his words. "You ended up freeing us from a deadly trap created by four nations, Lord Minato. You may have even been prepared to marry an important member of the clan like Hashirama many years ago, but there's no doubt that right now, you hold greater prestige than the First Hokage and may consider Uzushiogakure your home", Masaki said at this moment, and all the elders agreed.
"That's true." Another elder stepped forward. "At first, I doubted. I believed I would die along with everyone in the clan, even with your help… something you can't blame me for, after all, of all the reinforcements we received in the end, only five people showed up. But now I see how wrong I was. You brought so much power to the clan, created a true miracle. The Uzumaki clan will never forget this debt."
Only two elders had fallen — two out of ten in total — which included the leader and those who made decisions for the entire clan.
"Mayou Uzumaki speaks with wisdom, Lord Minato", the clan leader said with a smile toward the blond boy. "Uzushiogakure will never forget this, and I don't doubt that you hold even greater privilege than the First Hokage, even as a friend of the clan. You were the one who abandoned Konoha, your home, to fight for us with courage in your decisions and defended us." He paused, smiling even more sincerely.
"You and your fiancées will always have a place to live among the Uzumaki, and you will never lack anything — whether food, housing, or even seals and our secrets. The entire clan will be willing to give you whatever you want. I would even hand over the leadership to you", he said, laughing. It was clear that was a joke, at least for the moment.
Minato nodded in silence and also opened a smile. "Well, I would love to have a place to live for now and also to see some of your techniques. After all, Mito-sama taught me everything about your techniques and foundations, but I'm sure she didn't have all the knowledge of the clan. I'd like to see everything from the simplest and discarded techniques to the most powerful and incomplete ones...", Minato said sincerely.
It was a unique opportunity to learn new seals — seals the Uzumaki had discarded as impossible to master even for themselves, without even knowing for sure what he might find there. After all, creating combinations of fūinjutsu must have led to many tests and many failures as well. He wanted to obtain that and maybe develop what the Uzumaki had failed at, if he became interested in the results.
"Well, that will be provided later and we can celebrate later with everyone gathered, a great feast for our victory, but we have a problem about staying in the sky. This altitude will certainly harm the more common people of the clan", Masaki said. The wind and even the atmospheric pressure were different from what they were used to. They were over three thousand meters high; the wind was bothersome, and even the ninjas could feel the difference when breathing that air. A common person could have serious difficulty breathing.
"Kushina, can't you create a shield around the island?" Minato asked. It would be perfect for that. The wind would be blocked and it would stabilize the air and atmosphere through the shield that could block even bijūdama — and Kushina had already done that before.
This drew everyone's eyes to the girl. There was no one more suitable to create the shield: what thousands of Uzumaki would take months or even years to do, that girl could create in less than a day.
"I can do it", Kushina said. With her almost limitless chakra, she began summoning more clones, spreading them across the island quickly to now create the Eight-Layer Protection Seal.
Most of the Uzumaki were gathered there, while everyone listened to the conversation. Minato and the others could also see Guren in the sky, his serpentine body controlling Uzushiogakure as they entered a huge area surrounded by clouds, to hide from the eyes below — eyes that certainly wouldn't be few, after all, an island suddenly starting to fly across the Five Elemental Nations would be hard to hide from the people beneath them.
Minato talked a bit more with the leaders and then returned to Guren, asking him to park the island in a corner of the sky, deciding to keep it there. He would renew the levitation clouds every few days. Since Guren was willing to do it, Minato didn't refuse the suggestion.
In the end, a shield was raised by Kushina, and the wind pressing against the island was blocked. Even the air felt much lighter now.
The enemy bodies were placed all in a corner of the island, while the clan's casualties had already been placed in coffins prepared by the Uzumaki, now waiting for their families to come and say their farewells.
Minato joined his fiancées while Masaki helped move the non-combatant Uzumaki out of the hiding spots. They looked stunned when they realized that the clan's island was in the middle of the sky. It was a strange feeling, but at the same time they noticed that their homes were almost perfectly fine.
At least the great majority of them, while some couldn't avoid a bit of damage — not destroyed or anything like that, at least not those outside the south — just a few houses with some broken parts, roofs, or windows due to uncontrolled jutsu or the attacks Minato had launched together with Ōnoki at the beginning of the nations' arrival.
In any case, families began finding their relatives who had returned victorious from the war, while others, upon learning of the deaths of their loved ones, started crying and running toward the area where they were being buried. There was both sadness and joy on the island at that moment — even though the clan had been saved in the end, losing family members would never be easy to bear, even if they needed to celebrate the victory, many did not.
Minato could feel the explosion of emotions erupting across the island. He almost felt like Fujitora in Dressrosa — but unlike him, he didn't feel only joy. He could feel the negative emotions as well, especially in the area of the coffins.
"Minato, are you okay?" Minato blinked when he heard Mikoto, who looked at him half worried after seeing him make some grimaces.
He just sighed. The negative emotion was a horrible thing to feel, but at the same time he was in the ninja world — he should know that this would be quite normal. After all, he had felt that from his enemies himself. He remembered how A had looked after the Third Raikage was killed: hateful eyes, frustration, anger, and even more hatred from the ninjas of Kumo, Kiri, and even Suna.
Minato hadn't necessarily fought against Iwa at that moment, but their emotions wouldn't be much better — especially after he teleported Ōnoki away, leaving them without a commander, creating chaos in the Iwa army.
In any case, Minato looked back at Mikoto. "It's nothing… just some thoughts", he said, while she nodded, along with the other girls who also looked at him with concern.
The original Kushina looked at Minato as well before blinking, and her eyes widened when she saw someone appear.
"Kushina!" shouted the woman, making her daughter immediately leave the group and run to her.
"Mom! We won, dattebane!" Kushina shouted, hugging her mother tightly.
"Yes, my Kushina, we won this fight. You all won… many things happened just on the way here", her mother said proudly, while beside her an elderly Hyūga man appeared.
Hanabi smiled when she saw her grandfather and approached to hug him. "Grandpa, are you okay?" Hanabi asked, while he opened a smile.
"Yes, I'm fine, thanks to you… I presume." He said.
"We did our part," Hanabi replied with a slightly shy smile. Despite that, she felt deep in her heart that the others had done much more than she did. She felt distant, perhaps the weakest of the four. But she didn't let that affect her at that moment — now was the time to celebrate.
She was there, free from the clan, without the Caged Bird Seal. She and her grandfather were free — in other words, free from the Hyūga, free from Konoha.
Minato stayed there with Mikoto and Tsuna watching Hanabi meet her relatives, while more and more Uzumaki embraced each other to celebrate in that square.
"Minato-boy!"
At that moment, the toads Fukasaku and Shima came to him, hopping before landing on his shoulder. Minato crossed his arms, giving them a smile.
"Well, it seems it's over," he said.
"It seems so. Well… I never imagined that dragon of yours would do something like this," Fukasaku commented, looking at the sky and then at Guren, who was still controlling the island.
"We're going to settle here for now. Guren is capable of keeping us in the sky for a while, and we intend to stay like this. Anyway, it's over. I need to talk to Jiraiya-sensei now... and deal with things." Minato said with a slightly amused smile.
"We wanted to talk about that from the beginning, to be honest," Fukasaku began. "But when you summoned us, we were already in the middle of the war!"
Minato raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean by that?"
The toads looked at each other.
"Before you came looking for us, we immediately received news from Jiraiya. We believed you should have called us earlier. Otherwise, we would have tried to reach you. But there was a response from Konoha with the new leadership… that's what he told us," Shima explained.
Minato couldn't help but feel intrigued. "What do you mean by that?" he asked cautiously.
"She's saying that Konoha…"
While he was finishing the explanation... deep inside the forests of the Land of Fire, everything seemed calm — until footsteps began to shake through the tree branches, thousands of them feeling their trunks vibrate.
Jiraiya was among them, wearing battle-ready armor.
And he was not alone.
Orochimaru.
Tsunade.
Mizu Uchiha.
Shikaku Nara's father.
And Sakumo Hatake himself leading all of them.
All marched at the front of a huge army wearing Konoha vests and headbands, as they approached the eastern coast more and more.
"I hope it's not too late…" Jiraiya murmured as the Leaf army advanced.
They were coming to try to reverse their terrible decision of turning their backs on an ally, at the same time five Leaf ninjas had defected — not to mention the retired ninja, Hanabi's grandfather — and were fighting alone against four nations.
Konoha had made a decision… and now came trying to remedy it. Jiraiya only hoped it wasn't too late.
But as they marched, the island was already moving away, rising higher and higher and disappearing into the clouds.
What Konoha would find there… would be nothing but the absence of the island.
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