IN WAVE
A small girl heard a knock on the door of her house.
"Hello?" She called out. "Mama? Who is that?"
Her mother came down the stairs, confused.
She walked over to the door and opened it, finding no one there.
But when she looked down, there was a box.
Opening it up revealed a small kitten, it was currently occupied tapping the box it came in, seemingly fascinated by its own paw hitting the wood.
There was a small letter attached to the side of the box, the little girl couldn't read very well yet, but she could read this.
'It's name is Shinigami, pet him alot.'
***
BACK TO THE BATTLEFIELD
I made the sky turn back to normal, and then used some DP to fix up the damage I caused, the land shifting and reforming back into how it once was.
The Shrine rebuilt itself, all the masks that survived were cleaned and all the ones that were destroyed were replaced by perfect copies.
This was a pretty minor expenditure, so might as well be polite.
Once everything was fixed, I dropped the barrier, and at the same time, returned to my Divine Realm.
I'd talk to Tsunade tomorrow, Haruka would probably be pretty annoyed if she had to deal with this whole mess, so I guess I could do the proper thing and clean up my mess.
***
NEXT MORNING
Tsunade was back in her office, staring at her desk, she was penning a letter to The Order, but stumped on what to write.
'Hey, why was your god fighting the Shinigami in Konoha's backyard?' was not exactly formal.
But how did she ask that question without offending a religion?
The fact that had to add an actual god to The Order's military report was very surreal.
'Shikaku, I need a battle plan on how we are going to fight a god.'
If the situation was not this serious, then she would have found it funny.
"Hello!" A voice rang out in her office, causing her to immediately reach for a kunai. "You look very tense, is everything alright?"
She immediately calmed down, giving Ayumu an unimpressed look.
The bastard merely smiled innocently at her.
"Ayumu, why are you here?" She asked slowly, annoyance clear in her tone.
"Well, I just wanted to inform you about what happened yesterday." He said casually. "But if you are too busy, I can come back later."
Tsunade closed her eyes and took a deep breath.
This wasn't Jiraya, she couldn't just punch him, even if he was being a little shit.
"No, that is fine, sit down." She said after a few seconds. "What happened yesterday?"
Ayumu sat down with a small smile on his face.
"Well, turns out the Shinigami was kinda divine, and he didn't like me poking around, so he tried killing me." He explained casually. "I'm a renowned pacifist, so I called in my sky daddy to beat him up."
Who the fuck referred to their god as sky daddy?
Tsunade had the disturbing thought that The Order actually considered that an official term, but no way she was walking up to them to ask if it was appropriate.
"So what happened to the Shinigami? After the second barrier went down, everything returned to normal, except what, I assume, was the Shinigami mask missing." She questioned, the best way to deal with this man was probably to just ignore his antics.
"Its... well, not exactly dead, but not a problem anymore, also, you should add a note to the Reaper Death Seal you have in that little forbidden scroll that it will not work, so your Hokage will have to find another way of sacrificing their lives."
That actually made Tsunade a bit angry, both Minato and Hiruzen were willing to die for the village, and they shouldn't be disrespected like that.
"Careful." She warned, her tone cold.
Ayumu's expression turned more serious at her warning.
"I suppose I'm being unfair to Minato, my grudge against him is personal and petty."
That had implications that damped Tsunade's anger faster than she liked to admit.
"But don't idolize Hiruzen, you of all people should be aware of the darkness that he allowed to exist in this world." He said solemnly. "Orochimaru and Danzo are just the biggest example, but they are far from the only ones."
And that killed the rest of her anger, she was well aware of her Sensei's many failings, having access to all the restricted information made it clear that the man was not the paragon that Konoha's citizens liked to imagine him as.
Even with her cynicism, the sheer amount of mistakes her Sensei made was... sobering.
There was silence in the room for a few seconds, before Ayumu spoke again.
"Enough about that heavy subject, and onto another heavy subject." He said with a slightly forced smile. "You know that technique you have hidden away that allows you to revive someone at the cost of another life?"
Tsunade rubbed her forehead.
"Yes, I know about the highly restricted Kinjutsu." She muttered tiredly. "The one you really shouldn't know about, since only the Hokage can access it."
Ayumu turned serious again, this time it was different though, his voice was harder, more stern.
"Don't use it." He advised simply. "There is a small chance you could doom the world, or maybe bring about a paradise, I don't know, but I'm not willing to take that risk."
Now that was just ominous and confusing.
"What are you talking about?" She asked with frustration.
"The Pure Lands... Are the personal domain of a very powerful being, it is asleep at the moment, the last time that technique was used, it didn't wake, I'm fairly confident that using to summon a small army would not lead to anything bad, but..."
He trailed off ominously, joy, more things for the Intelligence Department to bash their heads against.
"...But if the whole world banded together, including the Bijuu, every Summoning clan, every Great Village, they couldn't kill said God."
Tsunade stared at him for a few seconds, he seemed absolutely serious, he had just told her something incredibly terrifying, so she took a deep breath, before nodding.
Tsunade had never thought about using that technique anyway, it was an abomination of a Jutsu in her opinion.
So destroying was something she would have done for a bottle of sake, maybe two.
"Very well, I will destroy all documents relating to that technique." She said solemnly. "But in exchange, I want some answers on what exactly The Watcher is, and how he came to be."
Ayumu raised an eyebrow, for some reason she felt like she was asking for something foolish, but she ignored that feeling and continued.
"Well, if you really want to know, it all started thousands of years ago, I don't know exactly what happened, but there existed an ancient people..."
And Tsunade got a full story on how The Order of The Watcher came to be, and how Ayumu became The Saint, it was interesting.
But at the end of it, she was frustrated, she wanted actual facts, but every time she asked for exact mechanics or the abilities of The Watcher, he would shrug and say:
'He's a God, innit.'
She had the surreal thought that it would probably be easier to convert to The Watcher and ask him directly than trying to get a religious zealot to give her good info about the Divine.