Konohagakure No Sato :
Uzumaki Residence :
The deep orange glow of the evening sun draped over the Hidden Leaf Village, signaling the end of an exhaustingly long day. Between the official inauguration of the Fifth Hokage and the sudden invasion by two S-rank Akatsuki members, the village was more than ready to welcome the quiet blanket of night.
That same sunset illuminated the sprawling grounds of the Uzumaki Estate, which had welcomed its master home just a few minutes prior.
Inside the compound, an entire squad of Naruto's shadow clones were scattered around, maintaining the estate in a highly orderly fashion. A few clones were taking Simba out for his evening walk, while others were tending to his raven summons, Rem and Ram, carefully feeding them their dinner.
The division of labor didn't stop at the pets. Clones bustled throughout the house—some prepping dinner in the kitchen, others sorting laundry in the side rooms, a few organizing the adjacent tower, and one quietly pruning the garden.
Looking at the estate from the inside, it seemed like a perfectly normal, peaceful evening.
But looking from the outside, the reality of the situation was violently clear. Multiple squads of elite ANBU Black Ops had completely surrounded the perimeter of the Uzumaki compound.
Every single operative had their senses dialed up to the absolute peak. The sudden ambush by two elite Akatsuki rogues—especially right after the Konoha Crush and right in the middle of the Hokage's inauguration—had deeply rattled the entire military chain of command, from the top brass/Elders all the way down to the grunts/Genins.
While the village's Jinchuriki had emerged completely unscathed, successfully counter-killing one monster and capturing another hidden hostile, the situation was far from simple.
The village was currently a political powder keg. The Daimyo, high-ranking nobles, and various foreign delegates were still within the walls. Most notably, the Sunagakure delegates were present—a village that had just lost the invasion war, lost their Kazekage, and had their Jinchuriki captured alive by Konoha forces.
The only reason this heavy ANBU detail was currently babysitting the estate was because Tsunade fully understood the reality of high-level combat. She knew that while Naruto hadn't suffered any visible injuries, he had definetly pushed himself to the absolute limit and would be suffering from severe fatigue.
The ANBU were there to protect him, ensuring that no foreign spies, bitter Suna shinobi, or opportunistic enemies could pull anything underhanded while Konoha's Jinchuriki was running on empty.
Just like before , afterall the village has quiet few records of enemy invading Kidnapping , Much less assasination.
Meanwhile, as his clones handled the cooking, the laundry, and the chores, the protagonist in question was currently melting.
"....OHHH, what a blessing."
Naruto was fully submerged in the underground hot springs beneath his home. After arriving at the estate and immediately dispatching a fresh clone to the Hokage's office with his battle report, Naruto hadn't wasted a single second. He stripped off his gear and sank his achingfatigued body into the hot springs water.
[ Lone Wolf ]
[ Duelist ]
[ Crouching Tiger ]
The moment those three high-level buffs finally wore off and cleared from his system, a crushing, suffocating wave of physical weakness had spread through his entire body.
Chatting with Tsunade and the others in the clearing had only taken a few minutes, but the adrenaline crash that followed was ridiculous.
The physical backlash was so violently heavy that Naruto actually had to use the Flying Thunder God technique just to cross the village and get home before he collapsed after delivering Hostage to Sealing division.
(.....To think using three buffs simultaneously would leave me in this kind of state in the aftermath.)
Naruto knew the buffs weren't solely responsible for his condition. The mental fatigue of that battle was completely off the charts. Analyzing Itachi's genjutsu, countering Kisame's monstrous raw power, and setting a multi-layered trap for the hidden White Zetsu... those three opponents had demanded flawless concentration and Mentality.
He was mentally fried and physically drained. Now that the fight was over, Naruto realized his physical exhaustion was far heavier than he had initially calculated.
(....It's good I got to understand this now instead of any other time )
Feeling the soothing, mineral-rich water seeping into his skin, Naruto stared blankly at the stone ceiling above. Slowly, his sharp blue eyes regained their focus.
".....but it's still not the time to sleep."
Speaking his resolve into the quiet, steamy air, Naruto raised his arms. Slowly, his hands came together to form the first seal.
Despite having barely ten percent of his massive chakra reserves remaining, Naruto didn't hesitate to execute the highly complex sequence of hand signs—a sequence that belonged to a minimum A-rank jutsu.
Given his depleted state and the importance of the jutsu, he was incredibly patient with the seals, pouring every ounce of his remaining concentration into his hands to ensure not a single micro-mistake occurred.
As he wove the signs, Naruto shifted his weight, sliding backward until he was resting against the corner of the hot spring. His lower body remained submerged in the restorative water, while his upper half lay flat back against the smooth, heated stone floor.
Finally, the long, arduous sequence of hand seals came to an end. Naruto sharply clapped his hands together, his eyes flashing in the dim light as he whispered the jutsu's name.
"Spirit Transformation Technique."
Suddenly, a warm, ethereal blue glow washed over Naruto's body. Slowly, 'Naruto' detached from his Body or His physical vessel.
It was his spirit/soul , slipping cleanly from the exhausted confines of his flesh. Floating freely above the boiling water, the blonde instinctively took a deep breath, only to chuckle quietly to himself as he realized he didn't actually need to breathe.
Drifting weightlessly around the steamy hot spring, Naruto phased right through the heavy wooden door. As he floated into the hallway, he glanced up at the small overhead beam. Perched silently in the shadows was an ANBU operative.
Seeing her, Naruto massaged his ghostly temples in exasperation.
(...Isn't Yugao-nee a little too diligent?)
Uzuki Yugao was the Only exception to the security perimeter. While the rest of the ANBU were strictly stationed at the outer walls and would likely leave in a day or two, she was the only operative permitted inside the Uzumaki estate.
She had full clearance to intrude without needing permission from the Hokage or Naruto himself.
What Naruto didn't fully grasp was just how much psychological damage he had inflicted on the purple-haired kunoichi earlier that day. During the skirmish with the Akatsuki, he had ordered her to fall back with Sasuke and call for reinforcements.
By the time the dust settled, the twelve-year-old had slaughtered an S-rank monster entirely on his own.
(...Am I just a decoration? or something like A human flare gun???)
YUgao thought bitterly while crouching on the high Beam , her mentality taking hits again and again
Despite feeling completely inadequate and thrown into a spiral of weakness, Yugao was just trying to be as useful as she possibly could. She remained hyper-vigilant, completely unaware that the boy she was guarding was currently floating mere inches from her masked face.
Looking through the porcelain mask and seeing her expression clouded with doubt and worry, Naruto shook his head.
(...Sorry, Yugao-nee... but I have bigger things to take care of right now.)
He floated directly upward, phasing cleanly through Yugao's body, passing through the reinforced ceilings, and breaking out into the evening sky.
Hovering high above his estate, Naruto closed his ghostly eyes and extended his senses. He bypassed his normal sensory abilities, instead tapping into the unique spatial network tied to his Flying Thunder God technique.
Instantly, dense clusters of markers flickered to life in his mind's eye. These were the tags he had strategically planted across the entire village and beyond—his 'just in case' network. But he ignored the dense clusters, letting his focus sweep outward until he locked onto the newest Hiraishin mark, the one he had planted mere minutes ago.
(...Found ya.)
Locking onto his target, Naruto shot across the sky at a terrifying velocity. This wasn't standard Hiraishin teleportation, which required a physical medium and a body to trigger. This was simply the base travel speed of the Spirit Transformation Technique.
Without mass or physical drag to anchor it, a soul's speed increased exponentially.
He crossed nearly a kilometer of village airspace in a mere two seconds. It was this exact mechanic that had allowed Dan Kato to cross entire continents to reach Tsunade's side in a matter of seconds or minutes during the 4th war .
Having practiced this jutsu relentlessly for almost a year, Naruto was perfectly accustomed to the sensation.
Gazing down at his destination, Naruto sighed in relief as this was the reason he pushed himself without any rest this time .
(.....Good. It seems they still haven't had enough time to move him.)
Naruto hovered directly above the Sealing Division Headquarters—the exact underground bunker where he had just dumped White Zetsu. Tracking the mark, Naruto slowly descended, phasing seamlessly through one heavily fortified floor after another until he reached his target.
White Zetsu was lying flat on a circular wooden bed in the dead center of a grand, underground containment room.
It was a highly specialized vault used only for the village's most dangerous secrets, including ceremonies as delicate as a Nine-Tails transfer. The stark white walls were plastered in dense Black fuinjutsu runes.
Three division members were frantically moving around the room, painting even more sealing formulas onto the floor and walls.
(...As expected, they still haven't had time to fully seal him. It's a good thing I came as fast as possible.)
It hadn't even been ten minutes since he dropped the prisoner off. Seeing Zetsu strapped down like a fish on a chopping board, Naruto took a moment to observe. The creature's head was locked inside a dense sealing helmet, and his clothes were etched with chakra-suppressing runes.
Thick chains forged from precious chakra metal bound his wrists, neck, torso, and feet, anchoring him tightly to the room.
Even the wooden bed was coated in fresh ink. Two older veterans—one of whom Naruto vaguely recognized as an acquaintance—were working rapidly to finish the core containment matrix.
obeserving everything with his own sealing attainments and Confirming that his presence wouldn't disrupt their work, Naruto took a phantom breath out of habit and began weaving hand seals.
This wasn't standard ninjutsu or jutsu from Spirit transformation Technique. Traditional jutsu required chakra, which was molded by combining physical and spiritual energy. Being entirely in a soul state made molding standard chakra impossible unless he possessed a physical host.
But thanks to a year of brutal training with the Spirit Transformation Technique, and with a heavy assist from the Great Sage, Naruto had developed an original jutsu that relied purely on spiritual energy.
It sounded simple in theory, but it was incredibly complex in practice. Standard genjutsu, chakra sensing, and even Mangekyou abilities like Tsukuyomi all still fundamentally relied on Yang release or a physical baseline to function , despite being heavily Yin based .
Slowly, just before the complex sequence of seals concluded.
Naruto expanded his senses.
He didn't use Kagura's Mind Eye. Instead, he relied on the unique spirit-sensing technique embedded within the Spirit Transformation Jutsu itself. Just as the Flying Thunder God required a unique sensory net to track space-time marks, this jutsu required a user to learn how to sense their own soul, release it, travel with it, and eventually weaponize it.
(.....As expected... while he doesn't have much physical presence or normal chakra because of his weird constitution, he still has a soul.)
Naruto smiled, a major lingering theory finally confirmed.
White Zetsu did have a soul. The White Zetsu army was originally composed of ancient human victims trapped inside Kaguya's Infinite Tsukuyomi. Over centuries, their bodies had mutated into plant-like humanoids and their individual personalities had eroded, but their fundamental spiritual essence remained completely intact.
Which was all Naruto Needed .
Naruto had doubted before as much, considering Orochimaru actively used White Zetsu clones as living vessels and sacrifices for the Edo Tensei—a forbidden reanimation jutsu that strictly required a living human body to anchor the soul of the dead.
Confirming it with his own spiritual senses , Naruto concluded the hand-seals and stretched out his translucent hands and whispered the name of his one and only original spiritual ninjutsu.
"Blue Spirit Mark."
[ IMAGE ]
A small, brilliantly blue insignia detached from his glowing palm. It was the stark opposite of his Hiraishin mark, which represented a jagged red and black sun; this mark resembled a noble Blue Moon carrying a faint, ethereal purple glow.
The mark left his outstretched hand and slowly drifted toward Zetsu's bound body.
Because it was manifested entirely from raw spiritual energy, the projectile was agonizingly slow. It took a full ninety seconds for the glowing moon to cross a single meter of space. Naruto watched in tense anticipation, carefully guiding the mark until it sank seamlessly through Zetsu's chest, burning itself as a permanent, invisible tattoo directly onto the creature's soul.
(...It's done.)
Naruto nodded in satisfaction. The basic spirit-sensing tied to the Spirit Transformation Technique could easily track one's own soul or overly familiar chakras, but actively locating a foreign, unfamiliar soul maxed out at a severely limited range of about a thousand meters.
Kato dan was able to sense Tsuande because they were too familiar with each other , but the same can not be said for Naruto and his enemies whether white zetsu or anyone else .
Furthermore, recognizing specific targets purely by their soul signature in a chaotic environment was nearly impossible.
Even Hiraishin uses it's own trackers and not Chakra senses to teleport , while Blue spirit mark doesn't allow teleportation , it allows tracking .
tracking that can encompass whole continents , but this kind of tracking is only possible in soul state and not physically .
regardless with zerro mass of soul and a speed reaching near the speed of light , and then the time limit of 30 minute to hour , Naruto was already satisfied with this jutsu .
using spirit sensing while phyical state doesn't even have near 1000 meter of sensing distance , and then to use the technique possess and destroy soul will also sorten all this time even furter , and all this will also endanger the body .
It was a massive operational flaw—the exact flaw that had cost Dan Kato his life when he tried to possess enemies on a sprawling, chaotic battlefield. By planting this specific spiritual tracker, Naruto had bypassed that limitation entirely.
Now he can stay in KOnoha , Travel continents using the mark , spy on zetsu or even kill it anytime , all the while keeping his body safe .
Choosing White zetsu was a decision Naruto decided over long time even before calculating today's events.
Something like White zetsu , a creature of pure instinct , broken consiousness and a trustworthy right hand , especially when it doesn't have rinnegan , Black zetsu's mistery or Obito's unpredicatableness .
considering all this , naruto decided to not kill zetsu but use him .
Suddenly, a heavy, lethargic pull tugged violently at the edges of his consciousness and Naruto understood .
After the whole day of events , plus spirit trasnformation and finally planting the Blue spirit mark , all this made his spiritual energy more fatigued and depleated than even before .
His time limit was up.
Understanding that his physical body & spirit was demanding his return, Naruto cast one last glance at the White Zetsu. His eyes locked onto the hidden blue moon branded on the spy's soul—a mark only he could see.
and then onto the other mark
(...The Mark also reached it's time limit )
naruto also saw the Hiraishin mark dissolving slowly , which he planted on top of the white zetsu's head , hidden under those green hair .
Something naruto planted when he fell back while travelling with Jiraiya and others , in that microframe of the second while slowing down .
It was not some remote controlled mark , but naruto just used a dissolving ink to plant that Hiraishin mark . which will disappear itself in 15 to 20 minutes because of the dissoliving ink that he researched previousely .
(....with this , there will be no traces of hirasihin Left )
Seeing everything in perfect order, Naruto departed, snapping back to the Uzumaki estate at full speed.
Unburdened by physical mass, his soul traversed the distance almost at the speed of light, plunging directly down through the estate and slamming seamlessly back into his waiting body in seconds .
Slowly, painfully, Naruto tried to regain control of his limbs. His fingers twitched. His entire body felt unbelievably stiff, mirroring the cold, terrifying rigidity of a fresh corpse. It took a few agonizing seconds for the boiling heat of the hot spring and the heavy, rhythmic pulsing of his own blood to reassure him.
The phantom paralysis was just a sensory illusion—a nasty side effect of leaving his physical vessel empty for a prolonged period of time.
(....Well, using that jutsu really did take a toll on my soul.)
Unlike Orochimaru, who actively mutilated and cleaved his own soul apart for his forbidden arts, Naruto had simply molded his raw spiritual energy to forge the tracking seal.
But that method came with its own severe drawbacks. It meant Naruto would have to track down the spy and plant the mark again and again, every single month.
Yes , The Mark was not permanent like Hiraishin Mark or Curse Seal of the Snake
While the Blue Moon Mark was a complete jutsu, it was still functionally imperfect. Unlike the Hiraishin seal, which anchored itself permanently to physical matter, the Blue Moon Mark was anchored directly to a living soul.
Even though it was completely hidden from the target's consciousness and bypassed standard chakra sensory, it was still constantly submerged in the target's natural spiritual energy.
That ambient spiritual energy acted like a slow, incredibly ineffective, but persistent eraser, constantly wearing away at the edges of the mark over time. To ensure he didn't lose his only lead on the Akatsuki's spy network, Naruto would have to reapply the jutsu before it completely faded in thirty days.
Thanks to flying thunder god Mark and it's prequisites , Naruto was able to Research Blue spirit mark easily over the course of a year with assistance to spirit transformation and Great sage .
"Flying Thunder God mark for physical bodies..." Naruto muttered under his breath, his voice raspy in the thick steam. "...and the Blue Spirit/Moon Mark for souls."
Killing Hoshigaki KIsame and then using his body as a Bait for the Bigger fish Known as White zetsu .
And now capturing White zetsu and then Using his body, soul and life as a bait to catch the bigger fish .
( A better Bait For the Bigger Fish )
THis was Naruto's Choice .
As for the Bigger fish , it was neither Pain , black zetsu or Madara but
(.....uChIHa oBiTo )
Just thinking about this , Naruto felt his blood boiling , Shaking his head that was spliting in headache & Feeling his skin burning red from the prolonged exposure to the boiling water .
And Finally getting aware of the crushing, suffocating weakness magnifying in his muscles and soul , Naruto decided it was time to hit the bed.
He dragged himself out of the water, his legs shaking violently under his own weight. Securing a small towel tightly around his waist, he stumbled toward the dressing area near the front entrance.
He reached out, his trembling fingers brushing against the door handle.
Suddenly, the world violently spun.
A diizy wave of vertigo slammed into his brain. Despite the suffocating heat of the bathhouse, his body rapidly turned ice cold. A complete loss of motor control swept through his limbs like a paralytic poison, and his vision violently tilted downward as his knees gave out entirely.
Watching the wet stone floor rapidly rushing up to meet his face, Naruto had one final, fleeting realization.
(....I shouldn't have pushed myself this much.)
THUD!
That was his last conscious thought for the day as Naruto hit the solid stone floor, completely out cold.
*Knock*Knock*
The heavy silence of the hot spring lasted only a fraction of a seconds before it was violently shattered. The heavy wooden door burst open, nearly tearing off its hinges as a frantic, purple-haired ANBU operative rushed into the steam.
"NARUTO...!!" Yugao screamed, her voice echoing in pure panic.
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Author's note :
Hmm , a little Info dump Chapter I Guess .
1 more like this before I start land of snow
considering all of you already watched naruto and the movies , I am gonna speed boat the novel before reaching shippuden .