Chapter 416: A Nerve-Racking Cleanup
Main Area.
With Might Guy, Rock Lee, and Hyuga Neji spinning at high speed to hold the line, Yamato finally got the chance to seal the opening that Hatake Kakashi had been forced to leave when using Kamui earlier.
"Finally… finally it's over, ugh…"
Guy collapsed to the ground, dizzy and nauseous, and started vomiting.
He already had motion sickness to begin with, and after spinning for so long, the dizziness hit him even harder than usual.
On top of that, the smell only made things worse.
Over on Lee's side, he was just as disoriented.
He didn't really get motion sickness, but his stamina and strength were far below Guy's.
After vomiting once, he simply dropped flat and passed out.
As for Neji, he was in the best condition of the three.
Since his Rotation technique already required spinning, he had a high resistance to dizziness.
Although the prolonged duration this time still made him somewhat uncomfortable, it was ultimately within what he could endure.
However, the moment Neji lowered his head and saw his white clothes had turned yellow, his vision went dark.
And with more and more people rushing over…
After noticing that Lee had already fainted, Neji decided to play dead as well and collapsed.
To make it convincing, he even deliberately held his breath.
Guy and Lee were carried off on stretchers by the arriving medical ninja.
The situation with those two was truly terrifying.
Their green jumpsuits had multiple functions, breathable, sweat-absorbing, and so on. When Guy once recommended them to Uzumaki Naruto, Naruto even found them quite comfortable.
The only downside used to be that they looked terrible.
Now, there was a second drawback: they absorbed too much liquid.
Both of their suits were completely soaked and swollen. Even after all that high-speed spinning, they hadn't turned into a washing machine to spin the water out.
The medical ninja had no choice but to take them aside, strip off the jumpsuits, and rinse them clean.
And just like that, a secret known only to Kakashi and Guy was suddenly exposed.
Even though it was only visible for a brief moment before being covered with clean cloth, the medical ninja still caught a glimpse of the so-called "little acorn."
Neji, holding his breath with his eyes shut, heard everything happening on Guy and Lee's side, and couldn't help but feel terrified.
Fortunately, his clothes were loose-fitting, and he was properly dressed underneath.
"Not good, Neji's breathing is weak! He needs artificial respiration!"
Hearing the medical ninja checking on him shout this, Neji immediately sensed something was wrong.
Artificial respiration?
This is bad!
Just as Neji was about to speak, another voice rang out: "No way, who would dare do that? Neji must have accidentally swallowed some of that while spinning earlier and got choked. If anyone gives him mouth-to-mouth, wouldn't that basically mean eating… that?"
Swallowed what?
Neji felt utterly insulted.
He hadn't swallowed anything!
He was ready to give up pretending.
He had only been faking unconsciousness to avoid embarrassment in front of so many people.
But now they were spreading nonsense about him, taking advantage of the fact that he couldn't respond, this was going too far.
"I… mmph!"
Just as Neji opened his eyes and mouth to speak, a rubber tube was shoved into his mouth.
"Huh? Neji's awake!"
"Neji, why did you wake up? We haven't even started treating you yet!"
The medical ninja looked surprised.
"Mmph"
"Oh, sorry about that."
They quickly pulled the tube out.
"I'm not injured. Just get me a change of clothes and rinse me off."
Neji said expressionlessly.
---
Meanwhile, on the other side, Yamato was handling the cleanup.
"Yamato, can you seal all this stuff? If not, at least close it off somehow, the smell is too strong."
Morino Ibiki approached while covering his nose.
As the head of the Konoha Torture and Interrogation Force, he was used to encountering this kind of smell when interrogating prisoners.
But this much, this intense, it was a first.
His original intention was that if Yamato couldn't handle it, they could step in to help.
That "oven" combination jutsu, if they skipped the Lightning Release at the start and the Fire Release at the end, could function as a kind of sealing technique.
"Ah, of course. Leave it to me."
Yamato nodded seriously.
If Kakashi was awake, or if Sarutobi Hiruzen was present, they would definitely have stopped him.
But the others didn't understand Yamato's tendencies.
Like Sai, Yamato had a certain "emotionless machine-like" quality.
Yamato had left Root earlier, so he was only half that way; Sai, on the other hand, was entirely like that.
Yamato stretched out his hand toward the massive square wooden wall in the distance, preparing to seal it with a lid. To prevent leakage or collapse, he even added a layer of "wooden flooring" underneath.
Once everything was done, Ibiki grinned.
"Yamato, impressive. Truly worthy of being the successor to the First Hokage's Wood Release. You, what are you doing?!"
As he spoke, his expression suddenly turned to one of horror.
Because after completing the "seal", Yamato didn't stop, he continued forming hand seals.
"Wood Release: Deep Forest Binding Eternal Burial!"
With a look that said, "Oops, I got carried away", Yamato made a crushing gesture toward the sealed giant wooden cube.
The newly sealed structure began to shrink rapidly.
Everyone watching felt their hearts leap into their throats.
Even the medical ninja paused their work.
If the strength of the Wood Release were even slightly insufficient, this thing would turn into an explosive, scattering its contents all over the Konohagakure Village.
"Seal!"
Yamato stepped forward, pressing his hand against the wooden wall to stabilize it.
Just like that, the massive structure was compressed smaller and smaller until it became a tiny spherical object.
He then took out a scroll and placed it inside, performing a second layer of sealing.
"If this thing were brought onto a battlefield and thrown like an explosive tag at the enemy…"
Ibiki stared at the small wooden sphere, an idea forming in his mind.
---
With that, the sealing on this side was complete.
Inside the Kamui dimension, the masked man also mercilessly sealed away the "grandmother" who was wrapped inside White Zetsu.
Things had truly flipped upside down.
In the original Fourth Great Ninja War, when faced with reanimated shinobi that couldn't be killed, the Allied Shinobi Forces could only seal them.
Now, it was the masked man who, faced with an Impure World Reincarnation he couldn't undo, had no choice but to use sealing techniques.
And why seal her?
Because he simply didn't dare face her, he wanted to avoid it.
Wasn't Kamui, that eye technique reflecting the user's psyche, born from his desire to "escape" this world?
It just showed that his nature hadn't changed at all.
"You foolish Kakashi, just rest well for the next few days."
The masked man stood within the still-fragmented Kamui space, a faint smile appearing on his face.
His agreement to fight Kakashi in ten days was essentially a way to stall him, to make Kakashi believe he would be safe during that time.
In reality, he intended to use those ten days to seize Uchiha Sasuke's Rinnegan.
(End of this chapter)