Yeah, I know it's been a while, sue me, but once I rewatched Rio and watched Rio 2, I got a bout of inspiration bigger than any I've ever had in the five and a half years I've written stories, and as a result, my new story series, in only two months, has the same progress as this one, and has become what seems to be a breakout star on Archive of Our Own thanks to the fact barely any Rio stories exist, let alone in-work series.
But it's finally time to return to The Trials of Destiny, and after two months, I've got a lot of new ideas to work on. Starting this chapter (in the A/N at the bottom), the VS Battles Tier List will be implemented. I'm going to do my best to make it as concise as possible, especially for FFNet users since I'm not trying to pad the word count, but we'll have to see how it goes.
All that said, it's time for Chapter 20! Thanks for sticking around as long as some of you guys have, and leave a review if you liked the chapter or have any suggestions or corrections!
Chapter 20: Discordant Dilemma
Žiara took her arms off from around Naruto and let him sit up in the bed, leaning against the frame as Redheart and the nurses took steadying breaths to calm themselves and walked in the room through what was left of the broken window, Tsunade standing nearby and grumbling about fragile glass.
As Naruto stretched his atrophied muscles – his left arm and right leg weirdly felt like they were missing, even though he could see them plain as day – Redheart and the nurses approached the bedside. "Excuse me, Mr. Otsutsuki. I'm Nurse Redheart, and I have to run a few check on you to make sure you're physically and mentally sound."
Huh, that's weird. I feel stronger than I ever have. Why would I need to do this? Naruto turned a curious gaze to Žiara, and she used another of her divine abilities to pass on her knowledge of what had just happened before he'd woken up.
Naruto's eyes went wide for a brief moment before he settled his train of thought down. He went to speak to Redheart, but no words came out; his vocal cords hadn't been used in four months, and as a result, speech was instead replaced with a wheezing croak that was unrecognizable. Naruto coughed violently as he tried to regain his composure. How freaking long have I been out?!
Instead of trying to speak again, now that he realized it wasn't a good idea for the time being, he instead nodded to Redheart and the nurses beside her.
Redheart turned to the other occupants of the room and asked them to leave aside from Tsunade and Žiara, who she recognized could very well help her administer the exams, while Naruto flashed Tsunade a set of ANBU signals that roughly translated to: "How long have I been out? And how are you here? You were one of the ones trapped in the Infinite Tsukuyomi."
Tsunade sent him a set of signals back that he made out as: "Just over four months, ever since your and Sasuke's battle against the Shinigami. And Sasuke broke Infinite Tsukuyomi."
Naruto nodded as Redheart ushered the others out of the room and, with Žiara and Tsunade's assistance, began the exams.
Sasuke's head snapped up as he felt Naruto's chakra begin rapidly strengthening itself, and he stopped his kenjutsu practice with Isobu. "Seems like Naruto's back in the land of the living."
Isobu nodded. "That's always a good thing. Though now the question becomes, for Naruto to so suddenly awaken after four months of him being a hairs-breadth away from death, and to feel his chakra already rising back to its old level… that kind of thing is not natural. Even weaker shinobi and fighters, such as myself and my kin, have a minimum time that we have to wait to recover our chakra. For one of strength such as yourself or Naruto, it should take several days, if not a week or more, to fully recover such massive amounts of chakra. What could cause Naruto to recover his energy so quickly… and knowing Naruto's tendency to be a trouble magnet, what new threat must we face in the coming days?"
Sasuke nodded as he pulled out the grindstone for his chokuto, sharpening and cleaning the blade as he did whenever he wasn't using it to keep it in top quality. "Hopefully, it isn't as bad as us having to fight Shin-sama. I'll be honest, the thought that I would die that day crossed my mind more than once while we battled. It's one thing to be so powerful that simply flexing your strength can actually damage moons and asteroids, but to be pitted against a literal god who, if they so wanted, could wipe whole planets from existence with but a gesture? I know that Shin-sama was going easy on us… very easy. He only stopped actively trying to kill us after Naruto nearly killed himself with that last resort of his."
Since the battle four months ago, the Nine had had to leave their positions due to Shin's anger, and while Hagoromo was more than a little salty that the original plan was derailed, he understood. If any of them stood as much a chance of facing such threats as Naruto and Sasuke had, there could be no time for trivial pursuits of success or clout. The entire group would have to throw themselves into back-breaking training like they'd never had, and so they did.
And much progress had been made. Tsunade, Minato, Jiraiya, and Hiruzen had all come out significantly stronger. Tsunade and Jiraiya were now at least as strong as Hashirama was back in the days of the Warring States, and could perform the same insane chakra feats that Naruto was capable of in the closing days of the Fourth War, Minato was now as strong as Hiruzen was in his prime and had massively increased the utility of Flying Raijin by creating less complex sealing matrices that allowed the technique to be used by other people, and Hiruzen had finally attained total mastery of all five basic elemental types, becoming as strong as Ashura and beginning work on Yin and Yang manipulation.
The Nine were now much stronger, as well. Every single one of the warriors was now at least three times stronger than Kurama had been back during the Warring States period. Shukaku had gained total mastery over the sand manipulation that Gaara used and was now making progress toward learning Magnet Style, Matatabi had fully developed her abilities with Blue-Fire Style and began training to incorporate her ninjutsu abilities into her Predator taijutsu style, Isobu had learned and mastered from Sasuke to wield the blade he now held in his hands, as well as making his Water Style extremely deadly by concentrating the water at such high temperatures and pressures that it became a jet of death sharper than most medical scalpels, Son Goku mastered his Flying Fist taijutsu style, as well as incorporating Lava Style into his natural armor, Kokuo figured out a way to manifest her Tailed Beast appendages and adapted the knowledge into her Flowing Water taijutsu stance for added surprise, Saiken had mastered the defensive aspect of his Bubble Style, making his bubbles ten times stronger than chakra-reinforced steel, Chomei figured out how to manifest her Tailed Beast form's wings in her human form and could now fly in addition to mastering her Scale Powder abilities, Gyuki had begun adapting his old jinchuuriki's fighting style, having mastered using one sword and working on two, and Kurama began training with a sword of her own, in addition to mastering and transforming her Fire Style into… White Fire… as unoriginal as the name sounded.
Isobu nodded. "I am certain I need not tell you how stupid such a stunt was, even though you did not instigate it. No matter how much power you wield, it is a horrible idea to go against a god, for one reason and one reason alone: even if you are able to beat them, the collateral caused from fighting someone of such unfathomable strength renders the victory pyrrhic at best."
Sasuke put his grindstone away as he finished sharpening his blade. "Yeah, I know that now. But we didn't exactly have a choice, did we? Žiara's rather childish actions put our entire home planet in danger, and we weren't about to just let it get blown into space dust."
Isobu sighed as he put his own sword away. "Right, I guess it could not be helped. But we cannot afford to make such rash decisions in the future, regardless of the stakes." He walked over to Sasuke, who was now staring in the direction of Ponyville. "Well, what say we go see how Naruto is faring? He never liked hospitals."
Sasuke chuckled. "No, he never did. He's probably going stir crazy right about now." Sasuke flared his Rinnegan and chakra, and a portal to Convergence opened, which the two used to get to Ponyville.
Naruto looked in their direction as the exams concluded, waving an arm. "Hey, Sasuke, Isobu."
Sasuke nodded his head. "Naruto."
Isobu nodded as well. "How are you feeling? Ever since your reckless stunt against the Death God, you've been in a coma."
"Damn, I have? These two haven't let me know that."
Redheart stepped forward as she finished taking notes on her clipboard. "You've been comatose for the last four months, and on the edge of death the entire time. It was all we could do to keep you stable until you woke up."
Naruto nodded, before the realization of his remembrance of his conversation and battle with Discord hit him like a speeding train. "Get me Celestia, Luna, Nightmare, and Shining Armor. All of this Earth is in great danger."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. Looks like Isobu was right, but what could have Naruto this worried? He just won a pyrrhic shared victory against a literal god.
Naruto briefly saw Sasuke's look, and the slight tinting of his Rinnegan, and knew Sasuke was suspicious. "Don't worry, you'll all find out what's going on, but I'd prefer to not repeat what I have to say."
"Discord is well on his way to returning." Those eight words started an uproar in the hospital room.
"Silence!" Celestia eventually had enough of the constant high noise and used what she dubbed her Royal Canterlot Voice to immediately halt any verbal expression. "Now, Naruto, start from the beginning. How do you know Discord is returning." It might have sounded like a question, but it had been delivered with a professional smoothness that left no room for argument.
And so Naruto informed the group of his brief conversation with Discord and his battle with the mad trickster god, and of how he'd found out his desperate move against Shin four months ago had nearly destroyed his soul.
Hagoromo tapped a finger to his chin in thought. "From what I can gather, the energy Discord gave to you in the final moments you were in that world was some kind of boosting energy, which would explain why your chakra recovered so quickly and why your chakra capacity is fifty percent higher than it was before. It might have also fixed your soul. Tell us, do you feel anything different about your personality?"
After a minute, Naruto hesitantly nodded. "I feel much calmer… more… at peace with myself than I could ever remember being. I don't think it has anything to do with Discord, though. I think actually being able to save our world and repent for being unable to break the Infinite Tsukuyomi has given me a sort of closure on that chapter of my life. It's like a weight I knew was there all this time, but couldn't get rid of has finally been lifted from my shoulders."
"So nothing as a result of that stunt has… changed you?"
"I don't believe so." Naruto's eyes imperceptibly narrowed. "Celestia, Luna, Nightmare, Shining, I'm sure you four will be able to hold Discord off while we come up with a strategy. Hagoromo-sensei, Hamura-sensei, Žiara-sensei, Sasuke, grab on. We need to head to Convergence, now."
Naruto hadn't been the only one to sense it, and Celestia and Luna immediately knew what Naruto was talking about. The five immediately left to Convergence, disappearing behind the portal that had spawned under the bed.
"Well, I didn't expect they'd be able to pick up on my being here, but that's the pesky Otsutsuki Clan for you," Discord remarked as he stepped right out of a wall, filing his nails with a stick of butter like it didn't somehow violate several laws of physics. He then took a bite out of said stick, before throwing it at the wall, where it proceeded to disintegrate the entire wall and a nearby support beam, causing a part of the ceiling to collapse around them, exposing the remainder of the group to the open air. He used a sink that came out of nowhere to wash his hands, and then a kitchen towel came into – and subsequently out of – being in front of Discord's mouth, disintegrating as he belched a bit of fire. "Well, how's the audience doing today? Good, I hope, I hope you'll enjoy the show I'm about to give you."
Who the hell is he talking to? Everyone in the room thought at the same time.
Discord chuckled as he summoned and twirled a horribly bent pitchfork in the air. "Of course, I wouldn't call it a show. More of a… massacre," he said as an ominous yellow glint appeared in his eyes.
Naruto Otsutsuki
Attack Potency: Planet Level (5-B) / Speed: Mach 15 (Hypersonic+) / Lifting Strength: 5.0*107 kg (Class M) / Striking Strength: Planet Level (5-B) / Durability: Planet Level (5-B) / Range: Kilometers / Intelligence: Extraordinary Genius / Final Tier – Tier 5-B (Planet Level)
Sasuke Otsutsuki
AP: Moon Level (5-C) / S: Mach 20 (Hypersonic+) / LS: 2.2*108 kg (Class M) / SS: Moon Level (5-C) / D: Moon Level (5-C) / R: Tens of Kilometers / I: Supergenius / FT – Tier Low 5-B (Small Planet Level)
Hagoromo Otsutsuki
AP: Large Planet Level (5-A) / S: Mach 40 (High Hypersonic+) / LS: 1.35*109 kg (Class G) / SS: Planet Level (5-B) / D: Large Planet Level (5-A) / R: Tens of Kilometers / I: Supergenius / FT – Tier 5-A (Large Planet Level)
Hamura Otsutsuki
AP: Large Planet Level (5-A) / S: Mach 35 (High Hypersonic+) / LS: 6.7*108 kg (Class M) / SS: Moon Level (5-C) / D: Large Planet Level (5-A) / R: Kilometers / I: Supergenius / FT – Tier 5-B (Planet Level)
Žiara
AP: Dwarf Star Level (High 5-A) / S: Mach 150 (Massively Hypersonic) / LS: 9.0*1012 kg (Class T) / SS: Dwarf Star Level (High 5-A) / D: Dwarf Star Level (High 5-A) / R: Tens of Kilometers / I: Supergenius / FT – Tier High 5-A (Dwarf Star Level)
Princess Celestia
AP: Large Island Level (High 6-C) / S: Mach 1 (Transonic) / LS: 3.0*105 kg (Class K) / SS: Mountain Level (7-A) / D: Mountain Level (7-A) / R: Hundreds of Meters / I: Extraordinary Genius / FT – Tier 7-A (Mountain Level)
Princess Luna
AP: City Level (7-B) / S: Mach 0.7 (Subsonic+) / LS: 8.5*104 kg (Class 100) / SS: City Level (7-B) / D: Small City Level (Low 7-B) / R: Hundreds of Meters / I: Genius / FT – Tier Low 7-B (Small City Level)
Discord
AP: Large Country Level (High 6-B) / S: Mach 250 (Massively Hypersonic+) / LS: 5*1025 kg (Class Y) / SS: Large Country Level (High 6-B) / D: Small Star Level (Low 4-C) / R: Planetary (5*104 km) / I: Nigh Omniscient / FT – Tier 4-B (Solar System Level)
It's good to be finally back and working on this story after the last two months. I don't know when the next chapter will be out, but I'm trying to aim for sometime in October. I won't be able to do any writing for the next week and a half anyway because I have to prepare to make a trip to San Diego for my brother's Marines graduation.
See you guys in the next one!