Chapter 3:
Oil and Fire
-
"We barely had enough time to cast it on our end, Jiraiya-boy." Said the oldest, smallest toad Naruto had ever seen in his life. Save maybe the one next to him.
"We spent all afternoon preparing everything to your specification. The storage toads are waiting for your next order." Said the female one.
"Spit everyone out into the oil! Naruto, get clones ready to fish out anybody who can't swim." Jiraiya ordered.
Naruto formed the hand signs and his clones were running to the lake as soon as they appeared.
The toads hopped to the edge of the lake of oil and began vomiting. First came the civilians — wide-eyed, blood-smeared, half-conscious and not expecting a cold dunk into oil.Then the shinobi — coughing, limping, dragging injured comrades behind them.
It turns out, a lot of people who grow up in the desert don't know how to swim.
They hit the surface in heaps. Tumbled. Sank. And as per Jiraiya's orders, his closed dragged each of them out until the beach was covered in survivors. Each was slicked in thick yellow fluid that smelled of incense and mushrooms and something worse.
Sakura was one of the last out, and before his very eyes she removed her top and bra in a single motion.
“Sanitize everything!” Sakura bellowed, throwing her clothes back into the oil. “NOW!”
Naruto watched as she removed everything from her bottom half too and looked to Jiraiya for confirmation, only to find him already disrobed.
The rest of the refugees got with the program, stripping down until fully nude and so Naruto relented and do the same.
The ground shook just as he finally had the courage to do away with his boxers.
Giant toads arrived — towering temple guardians with spiked gauntlets and scrolls embedded in their foreheads. They lumbered to the edge of the crowd, huffing, and opened wide.
From their mouths came a controlled spray of toad acid — fresh from their stomach. The cleansing mix hissed and steamed as it struck the crowd. It burned. Not deep. But enough to hurt.
"Yeah, it stings, bare with it." Jiraiya said. "You're gonna have a mild sunburn for a few days."
Cries rang out but people continued to strip, tearing off tunics, armor, and boots as the acid flared against their skin. Bags were flung. Weapons discarded. The oil burned off in visible tendrils of green and black smoke.
The stripped clothing and gear were hurled back into the pool. The only things they kept were wagons with what looked like large water tanks on top. They were then ushered away from the beach.
And then — with reverence and timing — one of the elder toad made hand signs and belched the smallest fireball Naruto had ever seen.
FWOOM.
The pool ignited, the sacred oil torching upward in a great fireball that painted the evening morning sky. Spores, fabric, and every remaining trace of the infestation burned to ash.
Jiraiya stood at the edge of the flames, completely nude, arms crossed, eyes narrow. He was thinking. Surrounded by nude people, including the bodacious Samui, and he was deep in thought. He never knew his sensei knew how to turn it off.
He lifted a scroll and slammed it down.
POOF.
A hundred messenger toads burst into being, each one with scroll pouches and urgency already in their stance.
“Go!” Jiraiya barked. “Tell every Kage, every Daimyō, every village leader on the continent what happened here! Tell them to send fire shinobi — dozens! Hundreds! I want the entire desert turned to glass!”
The toads bowed. Then vanished, one after another.
Jiraiya turned and began walking off toward the mountain path, still completely bare, still issuing commands to junior toads and quartermasters in the distance. One final spray of acid misted his back, scrubbing away the last of the contamination.
"I'll be right back. Do not leave this area." Jiraiya ordered.
He then performed the handsigns for the reverse summoning jutsu and vanished.
The air calmed. The bonfire at their back burning bright and hot.
What remained of the survivors stood in the twilight breeze, smoking slightly, their nerves raw and clothes gone.
His cheeks burned red.
He tried not to look as Sakura approached. But he’d already seen the tuft of pink hair down below and two perfect brown discs against pale, flawless ivory skin.
She seemed completely composed. She was leaning forward with her hands clasped behind her back — a position which, Naruto couldn’t help but notice, only further emphasized everything he was desperately trying not to notice as he looked everywhere except at here.
She tilted her head with a smile.
“What? Not even a peek?” she teased. “Some student of Jiraiya you are.”
He felt himself redden. He wanted to say he'd already gotten more than a peak when she first stripped down, but kept that thought to himself.
She glanced down and smirked.
“I can see that you at least want to look.”
Naruto immediately sat down and pulled his knees to his chest — arms wrapped tight, body hunched, like he was cold. Having a public erection was bad enough with clothes on, but this was humiliating.
Sakura laughed — not cruelly, but amused — and finally relented.
She stepped behind him, still barefoot on the mossy stone, and sat with her back pressed to his.
Facing away.
Letting him breathe.
He exhaled, slow and grateful. Little him did not calm down, not with a fully nude Sakura sitting behind him with her back pressed to his. But he tried.
They were like that for a few moments before hords of smaller toads, all female, entered the clearing and hopped around them with quiet dignity. They offered woven robes crafted from lotus petals and magnolia leaves, cinched with strips of bark and spider silk.
Naruto took one and quickly put it on.
No sooner did he do so than did Jiraiya's voice echo through the clearing.
"Alright! I have good news and bad news." He said.
But when Naruto looked up, he saw a hairless man in a hospital gown flanked by people in hazmat suits.
"Good news is we'll all be leaving here today. The bad news is we're all getting buzz cuts and we'll be doing some medical procedures that none of you will enjoy. Or at least I hope not." Jiraiya said.
Naruto and Sakura both looked at eachother, and their eyes trailed to eachothers hair. Sakura lifted up a petite hand and plucked something from his hair. She held it in front of him so he could see what it was. A single green spore.
And so the shaving began. And it was thorough. Men and women were lined up towards two different, hastily raised tents. They went in with hair, and came out bald. It wasn't until Naruto went in until he discovered they were removing ALL of the body hair, and that the medical nin insisted on doing it themselves. First with clippers, then with chakra enhanced razor blades.
The single most humiliating moment of his life had happened not ten moments earlier, and it was already supplanted by this new one.
With that done they were rubbed down with antifungal powder and handed inhalers.
"Keep sucking on that until it runs out." Said a mediwitch. "It should last until moment."
Naruto took a deep puff and almsot choked on it. It tasted like battery acid! But it felt like a cup of coffee.
After that they were made to walk single file through an area with four people without Hazmats. It wasn't until he was up close that he recognized them.
"Hinata?" He asked. "Shino! Kiba! Where do you guys get off growing so much taller? And wow, Kurenai. You haven't aged a day since I last saw you."
"Jiraiya trains you well." Kurenai said with a bashful smile.
Ah, the rare lady who at least pretended to be flattered.
"Naruto..." Hinata said, ever the quiet one. "We have to check you to make sure no spores or worse got into you."
She then activated her Byakugan without warning and Naruto flinched away, instinctively covering his groin.
Hinata burst out laughing, louder than he'd ever heard from her before. She did her best to stifle the laughter with her hands.
"Naruto!" Hinata gasped through her giggles. "I have the byakugan. I've seen you naked many times. I've seen everyone naked. Every time I use it."
Naruto blanched.
"Right. Duh. It's just, you're always so pure and sweet that I feel bad about anything indecent around you." He admitted.
He couldn't quite place the look she gave him, but it made him feel things. Things he also couldn't place. Her lips slightly parted, her eyes vulnerable, and cheeks flushed. Flattered maybe?
She averted her gaze.
"I, um. I need to look you over." She repeated, reactivating her byakugan.
He held still in a t-pose as she looked him over while Kiba and Akamaru, who Naruto registered was now a wolf, sniffed him over.
"He's clean." Kiba said.
Hinata nodded her agreement.
Naruto turned to Shino.
"Do you have to check me over next?" He asked.
"No. I'm here for where somebody is found to be unclean." He said in a way that made Naruto fearful for his life. "Why you may ask? Becuase when somebody is found with spores in their wounds my insects can burrow in and remove the infected flesh."
His explanation made the vague threat even more terrifying. Kurenai took pity on him.
"Relax Naruto. I sedate them first. We've only had a few and it was all shallow wounds." She promised. "Now keep up with the inhaler and be on your way."
He recalled the device in his hand and put it back to his mouth. The second time inhaling that crap was just as bad as the first.
"Good luck Naruto. See you soon." Hinata said.
He waved goodbye to her through his cooughing fit.
He walked out of the small clearing, noticing jars full of mold covered beetles being examined by more hazmat wearing medical nin as he did so.
So even Shino's beetles couldn't handle the spores. Hopefully his creepy friend didn't run out of them.
It was nearing night time again when it was all said and done and Naruto was knackered. He sat down near the still burning lake of oil next to a bald man with an eye patch.
"Hey Ao." Naruto said.
"Huh?" The man beside him said, confused.
Naruto recognized the voice, but not the face.
"Kakashi!" Naruto said.
He recalled that he hadn't spotted his sensei for the entirety of the day, and realized now he must have ditched his mask and headband very first thing. With the oil taming his gravity defying hair he would not have possibly recognized him. With that hair gone? Doubly so.
"You seem surprised. Did you think I didn't have a face?" He asked.
Naruto drank in his master's real face. It was about what he expected the man to look like. Save for one blemish.
"I wasn't expecting the beauty mark." He said, pointing to the mole near his chin.
Kakashi smiled.
They were quiet after that, waiting for the last of the work to be done. It was well and truly night once it was. The crowds of survivors, all however many thousand of them, were all seated and barely conscious. When the leaf medical ninja came with sleeping mats and blankets they all sighed in relief, but they were not handed out until Jiraiya had the last word.
"In the morning we start getting everybody one last check up then getting you out of here." He said. "Through toad travel again. Leaf, Stone, Lightning and Mist Shinobi first. Then sand. Non combatants will have to walk. It's a long journey."
There was mixture of groans and sighs of relief. Groans of people who didn't want to walk. Sighs from people who didn't want to be eaten by toads again. Naruto could relate to both.
But his real frustration is that he was here, and he wanted to be in the fight. With Gaara.
-
Asuma Sarutobi brushed the last of the clippings off his shoulders, his bare scalp still tingling from the shock of the clippers. His head felt lighter. Exposed. Vulnerable.
Around him, every other shinobi being deployed was being fitted with the same uniform: skin-tight tan jumpsuits, full facial masks, and thick gloves. The red insignia of the Leaf was emblazoned across their backs and chests in oil-based paint, bright against the neutral fabric. It was the opposite of camouflage — but they weren’t here to hide.
They were here to burn. Each and every one of them was a fire or wind style specialist.
They approached the transportation point. There, standing in front of a giant blue slug, was Tsunade and the FTG trio. The three students of the fourth Hokage, trained in the use of his teleportation technique.
Each and every one of them was handed a smaller version of that same slug which they stuffed into their shirts for it to latch onto them like leaches.
Tsunade waited for them to gather, her eyes sharp, coat flapping in the wind.
“You will arrive with injuries,” she said flatly. “The Flying Thunder God technique has never been used like this — mass, long-range, with non-volunteers. You’ll feel it. Katsuyu will do her best to keep you from dying.”
She pointed to the slug fragment on her shoulder with her thumb.
“She’ll also serve as a relay. She will relay to me and everyone else any information that needs relaying. Coordinate through her. You get separated, you yell. Someone will come for you.”
No one nodded. They just understood.
Behind Tsunade, Genma, Raido and Iwashi adjusted glowing kunai in holsters strapped to their thighs — each inscribed with the Fourth Hokage’s original formula. The Flying Thunder Corps, they were called now if the words on their chests were any indication. His last students. Apprentices in everything but name.
They didn’t speak. They just had everyone walk single file into the circle and did their thing. One by one they vanished. Teleported hundreds of kilometers in an instant.
Asuma landed with a scream. He felt a sharp pain in his spine, and most of his limbs.
"Hang on." Katsuyu said in her soothing voice. "I will stabilize you."
The pain faded, probably from some toxin the slug released, and he felt the odd sensation of healing chakra flowing through him, stitching his numbe body back together while he got on task.
He surveyed his surroundings.
The forward staging zone lay just outside the twisted remnants of Sunagakure’s border, a cracked saltpan clearing where tents had been thrown up in organized chaos. It had once been forested — sparse desert woods, but alive.
Now?
A green fog hung low in the air like rot-scented soup. The ground glistened wet where the spores had congealed. Trees bent under their own weight, their bark already blistered with fungal tumors the size of fists. Veins of green-black mycelium crept up trunks like a disease made visible.
The sound was worst of all. Not screams. Not gunfire. Just… breathing.
The first wave of evacuees dropped out of space with howls of pain, their jumps sloppy and near-fatal. Bodies hit sand and stone with thuds, limbs twitching, chakra burned from the strain of dimensional folding.
Med-nin, the shinobi sent before him, surged forward, already slathering salves and funneling green chakra through trembling limbs. Katsuyu fragments swelled and hissed as they reknit muscle and nerve endings.
Then another flash — and another group dropped in. And another.
The pain was expected. The peace was not.
There were no enemies. Not the gren giants, not the green midgets, and not the myriad of mouths on legs they had been warned about. There was no fight to be had yet. But everything else was already infected.
Asuma stared across the mist-choked treeline. He sighed at the ruination of the beautiful forest he loved so much. He sighed because the other option was to weep.
He lit a cigarette and brought it to his mouth — and immediately thunked it against the mesh of his faceplate.
He sighed again. Right. Inhalation of spores was not acceptable.
He waited a few moments for an acceptable number of shinobi to be
“Burn the forest down.”
Dozens of fire shinobi stepped forward — some already priming their chakra, others mid-seal.
They were not quiet.
They did not hesitate.
And when the jutsu released, the world became light.
At the southern border between the Land of Rain and the edge of the Great Desert, the Animal Path of Pain landed with a soft thump on cracked earth. The air was still dry here — brittle and silent — but it carried the faintest tang of something wrong.
He moved quickly, running through the hand signs of the summoning seal and slamming one palm to the ground.
In an instant, seven figures surrounded him — the remaining Paths of Pain, the stoic form of Konan, and Nagato himself, cocooned inside his mechanical throne, suspended by cables and steel limbs.
The spores had not yet reached this far. But they woul soon.
A wall of humid pressure rolled in as Nagato’s chakra flooded the region. The cracked sands quivered. Dust trembled. Deva Path stepped forward, barefoot, the wind of his own presence rippling outward.
Behind him, Konan hovered like a silent wraith, wings of razor-edged paper catching the thermal winds.
At his side, a spiral of warped space twisted into being — and Obito stepped out of the void.
“They’re not like anything you’ve seen,” Obito said without greeting. “They breed like Zetsu. You don’t kill them — you contain them. Think of it as a plague. A plague that fights back.”
Konan's voice was soft, but firm.
“What course of action do you recommend? What is our top priority?”
Obito didn’t hesitate.
“Shukaku is handling the fighters — for now. Our concern is the spread. The spores.That’s what we stop.”
Deva Path gave a short nod and moved forward, performing the seals for the Rain Tiger at Will technique.
Above them, the sky darkened. The cloud banks over Amegakure migrated southward in an unnatural formation — massive storm systems drawn along like beasts on a leash. Heavy droplets began to fall across the borderlands, sizzling faintly on the sand.
“That ought to do it,” Obito said.
Pain did not respond immediately. His Rinnegan eyes swept the horizon, measuring invisible variables.
“What of the others?” he asked.
“I’ve already deployed Deidara and Sasori to the western flank of the desert,” Obito replied. “I’ll retrieve the rest. All missions are canceled. Their only job now is containment.”
It made sense. With no major nation bordering the western edge of the desert, it was logical for the Akatsuki to fill the gap.
Pain turned slightly toward Konan.
“Return to the Village. Deploy everyone here,” he ordered. “Leave only a skeleton crew — just enough to keep Amegakure running.”
Konan nodded silently and took to the air, her wings expanding as she disappeared in a flurry of drifting sheets.
Moments later, Zetsu rose from the earth.
Only his mouth moved.
“Shukaku’s only clearing what’s on the surface,” he said. “But they’re spreading beneath the sand. Burrowing. Feeding. Mutating.”
That was most unwelcome news.
-
Orochimaru hummed quietly to himself as he leafed through the latest report from Guren, fingers tapping against the table like a metronome. Her handwriting was getting sharper. Less petulant. Progress.
“Cursed seal survivability improving. Adverse mutations down. Compliance stable. Morale low.”
Predictable.
He sipped from a porcelain cup of herbal tea, clicked his tongue in disapproval, and made a small note in the margins:
“Sedate and re-educate. Apply music therapy.”
Then came the unexpected sound.
Ribbit.
A squat, familiar shape landed on the windowsill — squat body, bug eyes, bright orange skin. A messenger toad.
Orochimaru stared at it for a moment before letting it in.
Jiraiya’s little amphibian telephone. This was the one line of communication they kept open with each other. They usually used it to exchange chess moves or gloat over small moral victories.
This one hopped toward him and croaked again.
Orochimaru arched a single thin eyebrow.
The toad opened its mouth.
“Alien invasion. No, not a joke. The entire Land of Wind is as good as gone. Send help. All you can send.”
The image crackled and vanished.
The toad gave a last, dismissive ribbit before it disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Silence reclaimed the room.
Orochimaru blinked slowly.
He looked at the tea. Then at the window.
Then slapped himself across the face.
Hard.
Still awake.
He smacked his lips. Rubbed his tongue across his teeth. He didn't taste any toast, so he wasn't having a stroke.
He stood up, paused, then drew in a long, slow breath.
“KABUTOOOOO!”
-
I have to admit, I'm both annoyed and impressed by how you guys keep guessing the next parts of the story. I left out the part where jiraiya told naruto that he reverse summoned directly into the containment ward of Konoha hospital because I thought it would break the flow, but I want to assure you no spores escaped that room and Konoha is safe... For now.
This chapter was a breather after the all out violence that preceeded it, and will proceed it.
Thanks as always to my patrons and comissioners. And to fans leaving feedback.