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You can now get early access up to Chapter 150 of Re: Naruto Uzumaki on my Patreon.
Up to Chapter 10 of Marvel: Star Wars System is also available on my Patreon. Each chapter averages 5,000 words.
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The first 5 chapters of Marvel: Star Wars System are now available, completely free on my Patreon!
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Naruto and Shūen, together with the girls, finally regrouped at the palace entrance after several hours of fruitless searching. None of them had found the slightest trace of the Fūinjutsu that was draining the life energy of the entire city.
"This has just gotten even more complicated…" murmured Shion, sitting on the steps, arms crossed and chin resting on her hands.
Naruto looked carefully at the girls—Hinata, Reika, Sakura, and Shion herself—and frowned. Their facial features remained the same, but their bodies no longer resembled those of young Kunoichi… they now looked like adult women in their thirties.
"Our bodies are already starting to deteriorate because of the sealing technique…" Hinata said softly, placing her hands over her chest, clearly worried.
"I‑is this permanent?" Sakura whispered, casting an anxious glance at Shūen, who did not seem very hopeful either.
"I don't think it's that bad." Reika shrugged, then looked at Naruto with a suggestive smile, raising an eyebrow. "Mature bodies have their advantages, don't they?"
Naruto, though less affected due to his immense life force, had not come out untouched. He now looked like a young adult just over his twenties.
He didn't feel heavier… nor slower. He might even say he felt stronger. He didn't hate this at all.
And, as Reika had said, there were… certain advantages.
Naruto's gaze drifted almost reflexively toward Hinata.
If she had already been voluptuous, now… well, it was as if the Fūinjutsu had granted a generous upgrade.
Her curves had sharpened, her hips had broadened, and her bust looked to have doubled in size.
For a moment Naruto thought something absurd: "Hinata has the same hips as Mewtwo…" and almost burst into laughter.
Then he looked at Reika. She hadn't changed as drastically in proportions, but her face now carried a mature and dangerous air — the beauty of a woman who knew exactly how to trap you with a single look. And while her bust didn't compare to Hinata's, her rear certainly deserved special mention.
Naruto sighed, placing a hand on his forehead. "It's not that I'm a pervert…" he told himself.
But seeing his girlfriends with the appearance of grown-up, mature women, even he couldn't prevent his mind from wandering a bit.
His gaze even lingered for a moment on Sakura, and the thought made him shudder. Not because it was unpleasant… quite the opposite. Though he wouldn't admit it out loud, she looked good. Very good.
She was completely different from how he remembered her — more elegant, with a beauty he'd never quite noticed so clearly before.
Of course, Naruto would never try anything with Sakura. Not even in his wildest dreams would he dare lay a hand on her…
And then there was Shion…
Her face remained the same, finely sculpted, with high cheekbones and an arrogant expression, but it now conveyed a maturity she had previously only tried to fake.
Her curves were subtle but well-defined.
"Relax." Naruto raised a hand, attempting to calm them and himself, to avoid jumping on all of them right then. "I can reverse it once we find the source of this technique."
Reversing it wouldn't be a problem. If they could find the origin point, he could redirect the stolen energy and restore it to its rightful owners.
The real issue was that time was running against them. And they had no idea how long they had before their bodies aged enough to resemble…
He cast a glance toward Shūen. Yes. He definitely had to hurry.
He couldn't allow everyone to end up as ancient, wrinkled versions of themselves—like had happened to him.
"I have no idea why I didn't think of doing this from the start…" Naruto murmured to himself.
The problem with having so many techniques, abilities, and Kekkei Genkai is that you simply can't use them all at once. Sometimes, you even forget that you have some of them.
That was why he had completely overlooked Kagura's Mind's Eye.
Had he remembered it earlier, finding Shūen would have been twice as easy, though, in reality, it hadn't been that complicated.
But now he could use it for something much more important—trace the source of the Fūinjutsu, detecting the massive concentration of life energy that had been stolen.
He closed his eyes and focused on opening the eyes of his mind. His sensory perception expanded over a radius of more than a hundred kilometers.
He exhaled a long breath as he felt it.
He could clearly perceive how a small portion of life energy was constantly being extracted from their bodies, all funneling in a single direction…
Directly beneath them.
…
"Are you sure it's directly below us…? Couldn't we find stairs or something?" asked Shion, her voice trembling. She clung to Naruto's neck, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist as if her life depended on it.
Naruto, with a resigned expression, also carried Shūen under his left arm.
"Are you sure you'd rather stay up here, slowly aging while we search for a damn staircase?" Naruto replied, turning his head slightly toward her without stopping.
Shion made a pout and clung more tightly to his neck.
Naruto scoffed.
"A little respect for your elders… I'm not luggage for you to carry like this, you know…?" grumbled the old man, trying to reposition his cane with his other hand.
"Yes, sure, now shut up," Naruto growled while performing a short sequence of hand seals with his only free hand.
With a dry explosion, the ground beneath their feet erupted.
Naruto hadn't even warned them when the floor beneath them suddenly collapsed.
Without warning, they all began plummeting down a dark vertical chasm opening below the palace.
A surge of air burst in their ears as they fell at full speed.
"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Shion screamed so loudly Naruto thought for a moment her scream might shatter his eardrums.
She clung desperately to Naruto's neck, her legs strangling his waist with force, and her arms wrapped around him so tightly that, unintentionally, she covered his eyes completely with both hands.
"NOOOOOOOO, WE'RE GOING TO DIE! I HATE HEIGHTS, I HATE HEIGHTS!!! I'M GOING TO FAINT, NARUTOOOO!!!"
"I… can't… see!" Naruto protested, turning his head, trying in vain to pull Shion's hands away from his face as they continued falling. His face showed a mix of stress and utter resignation.
Shūen, still under his arm, also yelled… but for different reasons.
"YOU'RE GOING TO DISLOCATE MY HIP, BRAT! LET ME GO!"
Below, the bottom grew ever closer, though no sign of impact yet.
Before they crashed into the ground and became stains of blood and gore, Naruto managed to open his eyes slightly between Shion's fingers, which still covered his face in desperation.
With his one free hand, he quickly unsheathed his sword and thrust it firmly into one of the tunnel walls. The blade embedded in the stone with a metallic screech, and despite the speed of the fall, the edge scraped along the wall, sparking as it gradually slowed their descent.
Just a few meters above the ground, they finally came to a halt, hanging from the sword wedged in the rock.
Reika, for her part, had done the same. Using her own sword, she had stopped the fall with Hinata on her back and Sakura under her arm like luggage, just as he had with Shūen.
Still hanging, Naruto turned his head with a mocking smile, looking at Sakura, who hung with little dignity in Reika's arms.
"So you finally got Sasuke to hold you, huh?" he teased.
Sakura frowned, visibly annoyed. "I'd almost forgotten, idiot…"
Reika just rolled her eyes, sighed… and dropped Sakura without warning.
"Hey, wait, wait—!"
THUD!
Sakura fell the remaining few meters, landing face‑first on the dusty ground.
From above, Naruto had to fight back laughter. Shion, meanwhile, continued hugging him as if they were still falling.
"It's over…?" she murmured, voice trembling and eyes closed as if she never wanted to open them.
"Yes… and thanks for almost blinding me in the process."
At some point during the fall, while she screamed as if she were dying, Shion had scratched his right eye with one of her nails.
Naruto still felt a constant stinging sensation, like sand under his eyelid. It had taken him a couple of minutes to restore vision, rubbing carefully while muttering curses under his breath. Fortunately, the injury wasn't serious…
When they finally landed, Shion sat down on the ground with trembling legs, her eyes still wide open and face pale.
"I wasn't born to fly! I was born to walk on solid ground!" she screeched sharply, hugging her knees.
Naruto said nothing more and simply began scanning around. The darkness was so dense he could barely make out the ground beneath his feet. In those conditions, the only ones who could see clearly were Hinata, Reika, and himself.
Thanks to her Byakugan, Hinata was already scanning the surroundings attentively.
"I see something," Hinata murmured, arms crossed and visibly uncomfortable.
"Speak for yourself… I already hit my knee twice," complained Shion, feeling blindly until she finally found Naruto.
When she located him, she clung to his arm as if her life depended on it, trembling slightly.
"Is it a good time to confess I don't like the dark either…?" she whispered, voice trembling.
Naruto let out a long, resigned sigh.
"Better tell me what you're not afraid of, crybaby, so we save time."
Naruto decided to ignore Shion's words and focus on his surroundings. As Hinata had said, something was off.
This was not an ancient crypt nor abandoned catacombs… it was a laboratory.
Not a modern one like those in Konoha, but recent enough to still be operational. The walls were reinforced with metal panels and the air smelled of chemicals. Thick tubes stretched along the ceiling, connecting a row of glass tanks filled with a glowing purple liquid.
Naruto realized this was concentrated life energy…
All those tanks were linked by complex conduits intertwining into a single point at the back of the laboratory—a much larger tank in whose interior hundreds of dark snakes swirled, enveloped in a faint murky purple aura.
"Those are the snakes Yomi and the Banda de los Cuatro used…" Reika murmured, astonished.
"Well, now we know where Yomi conducted his experiments and created his Dark Medical Techniques," Naruto said, taking a quick glance around the lab.
"I'd like to take a look at his research," Sakura interjected suddenly.
They all looked at her with raised eyebrows.
"After we've dealt with the life energy extraction, of course," she clarified.
Although they were Dark Medical Techniques, as a medical ninja, Sakura felt curious about Yomi's research.
"You can do it now—I'll handle stopping the extraction. Hinata, stay with Shion and Shūen. Reika, look for traps; I doubt Yomi was careless."
They all nodded and began to carry out their tasks.