"You dare to sit in such a situation? I ought to erase the lot of you with my Jinton(Dust Release) here and now..." remarked Onoki, his brows furrowed to their limits—his expression a textbook representation of hate.
"If you will sit down after, please, feel free," responded Minato, offering a curt, untroubled nod that left Onoki and the other Kage present more than a little confused.
"Minato-kun...?" muttered Hiruzen, his smile cramping and a tiny bead of sweat adorning the left side of his face as even he wasn't expecting that Minato would invite Onoki to attack.
"Everything will be okay," affirmed Minato, meeting Hiruzen's gaze with a clear-eyed smile—the type of smile reserved for those who believed in a power greater than their own.
"Tsk...you asked for this...!" exclaimed Onoki, the glowing cone between his hands increasing in size like an object being scaled within a modeling program. To his immense surprise, Minato, Hiruzen, and Jiraiya didn't try to evade. Instead, the trio closed their eyes as his Jutsu overlapped them and took effect, producing a white light that reduced everything within to its constituent, dust-like molecules.
"Were those Bunshin(Clones)...?" muttered Onoki, his jaw slack and expression one of abject disbelief as he and the remaining Kage eyed the large, perfectly smooth, cone-shaped hole his Jutsu had produced in the stony terrain.
"If so, they were very convincing..." said Genzo, one of the most talented Sensor types in his village, Kirigakure(Village Hidden in Mist). As far as he could tell, Minato, Hiruzen, and Jiraiya were their actual selves, but if that were the case, surely they would have dodged.
Before the four surviving Kage could continue chatting or fighting among themselves, their tension and vigilance increased as Minato, Hiruzen, and Jiraiya reappeared from flashes of golden light that briefly lingered, giving them the appearance that they were glowing.
"So this is how it feels to respawn..." muttered Hiruzen, giving himself a once-over and smiling appreciatively as he hummed, "It's very refreshing. The pain in my joints and the fatigue I've accumulated over the past week have completely disappeared."
"Curiously enough, it actually feels more refreshing each time," professed Jiraiya, flexing his hands open and closed as he explained, "Evidently, the procedure ousts poisons, toxins, and other damaging substances from the body and rejuvenates spiritual energy at the cost of mental energy, so it's an effective method to cultivate spiritual arts—supposing you can endure the mental strain of dying over and over again."
"Hooo? Is that so...?" hummed Hiruzen, habitually reaching into his inner pocket to produce and relight his pipe. Fortunately, respawning appeared to recreate everything on their person at their deaths, sparing himself and everyone present the indignity of his reappearing naked.
While Jiraiya and Hiruzen were having their exchange, Minato spread his hands disarmingly, his gaze focused on the airborne Onoki as he stated, "As Tsuchikage-dono and the other Kage have just witnessed, it doesn't matter if you attack or even kill us. The Dragon God, Vahn Mason-sama, has sanctified this land at my behest. The Shinigami's influence no longer reaches here, so even if we fight, mutilate, and kill one another, we will recover from our wounds and resurrect indefinitely."
"Enough of this nonsense!" barked Ay, spittle bursting from his mouth and the bright, bluish-white lightning cloak enveloping his body intensifying in strength as he pressed, "Return my brother, Bee, and the Jinchuriki of the Nibi(Two-Tails), or Kumo will spare no effort to obliterate Konoha from the annals of history itself...!"
"I understand your concern, Raikage-dono," affirmed Minato, offering an affirming nod before assuring, "Once our discussion has concluded, your brother and most of the other missing Jinchuriki will be returned safe and sound. Their Bijū(Tailed Beasts) have been removed from their bodies and freed, but they are alive and have been treated with care by the Dragon's Pavilion."
"You bastard! What have you done to my brother!?' exclaimed Ay, moving with speed comparable to lightning as he attempted to separate Minato's head from his body with a fearsome lariat. Minato initially didn't react, his gaze focused on Onoki. It wasn't until Ay's lightning cloak got within three millimeters of touching him that he disappeared with an audible fwish, the enraged Raikage's attack hitting empty air.
"I apologize, Tsuchikage-dono, but things will be much quicker this way..." asserted Minato, causing Onoki's eyes to widen and his body to tense as the former appeared behind him with a three-pronged kunai at his throat. In the very next moment, he felt paradoxically hot and cold as he reached up to try and stymy the warm blood gushing from his throat—cut nearly to his spine.
As Onoki fell from the sky, Minato left the remaining Kage stunned as he unveiled ten gold-tinted angel wings that allowed him to remain in the air, emitting warm, purifying light from his body and the golden halo above his head. Venelana felt he had needed something decisive to distinguish him from humans, so with Gabriel's assistance, he had been reincarnated as a high-ranking Angel.
Seeing Minato shift his smiling gaze to him, Rasa's beady eyes contracted as, before he had time to tense, the golden-haired, blue-eyed Angel was standing right in front of him, stabbing through his gold-infused barrier to pierce his heart with a kunai. Before that, all he saw was a flash of golden light before the strength abruptly left his body—his eyes rolling back, and his vision fading to black as he crumpled and thought, 'This is not a power a mortal should possess...'
"Just die, you bastard...!" exclaimed Ay, barreling toward Minato with the momentum of a bullet train at maximum acceleration before punching at the back of the latter's head with a fist nearly as large. This time, Minato didn't dodge. Instead, he remained completely still, resulting in a sizeable shockwave and bands of bright, bluish-white lightning flashing across the ground as Ay's fist was stopped in its tracks.
'What is this...?' groaned Ay, gnashing his teeth as the bones in his hand were reduced to pulp. Meanwhile, Minato wasn't so much as affected as he turned to face him with a smile, causing Ay's heart to tense before he released a loud war cry and used his severely injured hand to try and slap the golden-haired devil across the face.
"Raikage-dono's spirit is as impressive as ever..." noted Minato, placing his hand on Ay's chest before the latter had a chance to react. Ordinarily, his opponents would desperately avoid contacting him to avoid sustaining damage to their nervous system, but Minato appeared borderline unaware of his lightning cloak as he endured a slap to the face without so much as blinking.
Before Ay could launch a third attack, Minato sent a beam of golden light through the burly Raikage's body, leaving a charred, ten-centimeter-wide hole in its wake. The lightning cloak immediately disappeared from around Ay's body, but before collapsing, he demonstrated his remarkable tenacity by lunging forward and embracing Minato, bellowing, "The spirit of Kumo can never be broken...!" before self-destructing in a large, lightning-fueled explosion.
"Talk about being overdramatic..." muttered Jiraiya, standing relaxedly beside Hiruzen with crossed arms and a relaxed posture. He had briefly considered chasing Genzo, who immediately escaped into a puddle the moment Minato began his Kage onslaught, but since his former disciple had previously asked him not to intervene, he settled on bearing witness.
"Do you think so?" asked Hiruzen, taking a protracted puff from his pipe before exhaling two streams of smoke from his nose and remarking, "As men who matured on the battlefield, doesn't going out in a blaze of glory have a certain allure to it? Of course, I would prefer my final moments to be in bed, surrounded by family, friends, children, and grandchildren one final time..."
"I get that," affirmed Jiraiya, nodding. "Though, if we're allowed to choose how we die, I would personally choose to suffocate in Tsunade's massive melons or beneath her—if you catch my meaning..."
"Hoho...indeed..." hummed Hiruzen, a perverted sheen flashing across his eyes. Meanwhile, Minato used his wings to disperse the staticky cloud of dust and debris lingering around him, completely devoid of even a hint of damage.
"It appears we're one short," remarked Minato, briefly meeting the gazes of Hiruzen and Jiraiya before staring in the direction Genzo had hurriedly departed. Even he couldn't follow the man into the subdimensional plane linking the various puddles present, but with Althaea's help, he could lock onto Genzo's position and simply summon him back.
Extending his left hand, Minato caused Genzo's perennially shut eyes to open wide as he grabbed the man by his collar the moment he appeared. Then, as it was important for everyone to be on the same page, he drove his kunai into the stunned Mizukage's stomach, driving it up through his diaphragm and piercing his heart as he said, "There is no escaping what's to come. Once you return, please hear what I have to say."
Though he wanted to say something then and there, all that came out of Genzo's mouth when he opened it was blood. Shortly thereafter, his body slumped, prompting Minato to support and guide him to lie down instead of allowing him to fall.
fwoom
As the first to die, Onoki was the first to be enveloped in golden light, the wound in his throat closing within seconds—the blood coating the front of his body and pooling around him disappearing before his eyes opened to their limits.
"What...what just happened..." muttered Onoki, rising to a seated position and reaching up to touch his throat, the sensation of Minato slicing it open still fresh in his memory. His first thought was that he had been put under a powerful Genjutsu, but after experiencing Madara's ocular prowess as a youth, he had proactively developed a resistance against them. If nothing else, he would have felt something was amiss. But all of his senses were telling him that everything he was experiencing was real...
fwoom
While Rasa respawned nearby, Minato responded to Onoki, stating, "Rest assured, Tsuchikage-dono. I will explain everything once the others have awoken. Please cooperate from here on."
Witnessing Minato's sublimely calm, ten-winged appearance, Onoki found himself at a loss for words. The young Konoha-nin resembled a deity that had descended from the Heavens to shepherd them with compassion. But as he and the other Kage had just experienced, he was more than capable of meting out judgment in equal measure.
"I...will hear what you have to say..." muttered Onoki, his expression grim, his throat tight, and his palms sweating as he concealed his hands behind his back. There were few things he hated more than capitulating to those younger than him, but even if he would respawn each time, he wasn't in a hurry to experience having his throat cut a second time...
"You have my gratitude~" hummed Minato, adopting a closed-eye smile that quite literally illuminated his surroundings. It briefly waned when Ay respawned and immediately resumed attacking him, but after putting the obstinate Raikage down an additional seven times, Minato was able to get everyone at the same table for a lengthy conversation about the Dragon's Pavilion and his intentions for their world—culminating in the transplantion of Ame and the summoning of the faux Tower of Ascension, an impossibly tall structure extending nearly 32,000km before merging into the fabric of space-time itself...
...
..
.
[February 7th TST/September 30th DBT]
Seeing the faux Tower of Ascension rising from the former location of Amegakure before emitting blue light that could ostensibly be seen from every corner of the Elemental Nations, Vahn hummed ruminatively and remarked, "I was starting to think they would never finish talking..." in a dull tone. He understood that such political discussions commonly took place over many days, weeks, or even months, depending on the degree of bureaucracy involved. However, as nothing mandated Minato to make concessions to the other villages, he felt the discussion had dragged on needlessly.
"But now that it's over, we can entrust things to Minato, Sona, Serafall, and Shadow Garden moving forward," reminded Venelana. "That will give you more time to focus on the situation with Bonney and the world of One Piece."
"Mmn...true enough..." responded Vahn, using his Domain to weightlessly rise and raise Venelana and Grayfia from the sofa they had spent nearly a full day snuggling—and more—on. It was already the morning of the next day, but before setting out to complete his morning routine, he made sure to thank the two devilish beauties plentily for attending him during such a long and tedious ordeal...
...
..
.