As the white feathers filled the arena and the enemy ninjas suddenly sprang into action, Ren was caught flat-footed.

This was too soon. They were supposed to start their invasion during Sasuke and Gaara’s match!

Whipping out a kunai, he deflected a shuriken aimed at his head, causing it to fly at a sleeping civilian girl who sat in the row in front of him.

Some other Konoha ninja might have panicked upon seeing that, but Ren inwardly smiled. Instead of injuring the girl, the shuriken bounced against a faint chakra barrier covering her.

Catching the shuriken with a chakra string, Ren absentmindedly sent it back at its unprepared sender, giving him a new, gushing gash across his neck.

This happened in at most two seconds as Ren scanned the spectator area of the arena, which turned into a battlefield as ninjas started clashing, trying to fervently kill each other.

Some fool from Konoha was even throwing kunai with exploding tags around like confetti!

Ren wryly smiled and shook his head, glancing back toward the girl sleeping in front of him and the barrier that slowly shimmered into invisibility. At least, the civilians were protected. It was the least he could have done with so much time to prepare.

Nevertheless, creating something that could cover only the civilians in such a large space was hard. He had to create several new seals and then figure out how to join them together into a sealing array barrier without it all going up in flames.

Fortunately, he had the time and several clones to figure it out.

This sealing array of his created a chakra barrier around anybody who had less than a genin-level chakra reserve. Hence, the civilians in the arena should be fine. At least for now.

A stronger Jonin could no doubt breach the chakra barrier with some effort. But those Jonin were too preoccupied fighting other Jonin right now. They could not give it an honest try, so the civilians were safe.

As Ren threw another kunai at a nearby enemy ninja, aiming to distract him during his fight and give his opponent a chance to strike, Ren had this strange feeling that something was missing.

He blinked, and suddenly it came to him. His eyes full of concern whipped toward the contestant booth, and his throat squeezed.

“Oh, shit.” Ren whispered under his nose as he noticed that he missed Gaara disappearing.

For a moment, Ren panicked before he remembered the precaution he had asked Ino to put on the tanuki boy. A relieved sigh escaped him as he ducked under a… why the hell were these idiots throwing fireballs around with so many civilians present!?

Ren sent a wind blade at the caster, bisecting him without even caring if he was from Konoha, Suna, or Oto. He had bigger issues at hand.

Quickly body-flickering through the emergency exit, Ren found himself in an empty hallway leading outside of the arena, but a few enemy ninjas followed him. Not having the time to play with them, Ren simply threw a kunai with a petrification tag toward the floor near the doorway.

“It’s the Stoner!”

He heard a shrill, panicked shout full of fear as the ninjas slowly started turning into stone, legs first, as the seal affected them and the effect quickly spread upward.

Ren’s eyes twitched, but he inwardly shook his head with a sigh. He so hated that nickname.

With nobody alive around, Ren used his Kamui seal, and with a swirl of spatial distortion in the air, he transported himself to his secret training area.

He had a pre-prepared area on the furthest side from his house, already set up for this next part. There was a large, square stone slab created by an Earth technique, covering a part of the grassland. On it was a massive sealing array with hundreds of seals interconnected and feeding into each other.

It was a work of absolute art that took Ren and most of his clones months of intense effort. Compared to this, the protective barrier for the civilians was a breeze.

Thankfully, he knew the Chunin Exams and the Invasion were coming years in advance. This, right here, was the primary reason why his strength hadn’t improved all that much in the recent months.

This was the most important thing in his whole plan.

Konoha? It could get destroyed. He would have been sad. But as long as this next bit succeeded, then Ren wouldn’t mind that outcome.

He even sacrificed his personal strength development just to make this happen.

And now… now was finally the time to use it.

Ren’s eyes gleamed with excitement, and he started feeling giddy like a kid in a candy store. Recognizing that such a state of mind was not good, Ren quickly took a few calming breaths and started walking toward the middle of the inactive sealing array.

The stone slab was altogether a hundred square meters big, so Ren had a dozen or so seconds to calm down properly before he arrived there.

He closed his eyes and let the gentle breeze caress his face for a second, enjoying the peacefulness of that moment, and hoping that everything would go smoothly.

“Here we go.” He whispered, and his hands clapped together, activating the Kamui seal once more.

This time, it was aimed toward the small seal Ino snuck on Gaara’s sandal. The air rapidly swirled in front of him, and a confused, half-transformed jinchuuriki boy looking like some sort of rabid human-sand hybrid with a tail was transported through the spatial distortion straight in front of Ren.

Ren let out a small relieved sigh. So far so goo-

Suddenly, he felt something else enter his Kamui’s spatial distortion, and an arm started appearing through the spatial swirl, pushing into his side of space through his technique and the inherent resistance there was for ‘unauthorized passengers’.

He instantly recognized the owner of said arm. It was Temari. And judging by how frantically she was trying to get through the spatial distortion, she was desperate.

Ren grimaced.

Now that she had her arm on his side of the spatial distortion, he could do only two things. Let her fully through or end the technique. But that would brutally tear her in two pieces without any hope for resistance as the spatial distortion closed.

Worse yet, the stupid girl had already started to push a bit of her face through it!

Ren grimaced harder.

He knew he should have just closed the technique. Temari was his enemy. But in the end, his closet simping tendencies won the inner conflict, and he let Temari easily pass through the spatial distortion while letting out a small, annoyed groan.

What else could he do? Temari was one of his favorite female characters from the Narutoverse in his past life.

Killing her… haa. He didn’t want to do it unless it was absolutely necessary.

What a sad excuse of a simp, right? But he was proud of it, too.

Because of the effort the girl was putting into passing through the spatial distortion, the moment Ren let up the resistance, Temari had tumbled forward headfirst, doing a few rolls before ending up sprawled in the middle of the stone slab, right in front of the transformed and very angry Gaara.

Groaning in pain, Temari opened her eyes, only to see Shukaku-esque eyes coldly staring straight at her, causing her to freeze in fright.

For a split second, the moment halted.

But then, everybody burst into a flurry of action. Temari tried to push herself away from Gaara. Ren connected a chakra string to her torso and pulled her away from the jinchuuriki before she got herself squashed. And Gaara…

Ren cursed under his breath, already slightly regretting saving Temari’s life because Gaara realized the threat and used the three seconds of distraction to snap his seal wide open, and suddenly, Ren was no longer dealing with just a half-transformed jinchuuriki.

Waves of sand came crashing out of the seal and rose high into the air, forming themselves into Shukaku as it let out a massive roar of triumph while Ren gained a profound headache.

If that was not enough, this Gaara was more… trained.

Ren instantly activated the sealing array, and a multitude of seals rapidly restrained Shukaku’s body. But Gaara didn’t hesitate. The second the full form of Shukaku was out, he instantly performed his fake-sleep technique to let the tailed beast’s consciousness take over, almost at the same time as Ren’s sealing array activated.

Ren caught Temari and body-flickered to the edge of the sealing array before almost toppling over as he felt half his chakra reserves vaporize. It was yanked into the seals while Shukaku defiantly roared and tried to move, stretching the sealing restraints to the absolute limit with his immense size and the heavy density of his chakra

Ren was not prepared to deal with a freaking mostly free bijuu. He thought he would be restraining Gaara. Not Shukaku. This was so not going according to his plans!

But it was too late to complain now.

Glancing at the reason this whole thing went tits up, he had to admit that at least she was pretty before he snuck paralysis and silencing seals onto her and threw her on the grass beside him.

He didn’t need Temari to distract him or try to stop him. It was in the best interest of both of them, unless they wanted to get torn apart by rampaging Shukaku, for her to stay still while he did his job. But she most likely wouldn’t realize that and would only see some stranger from Konoha trying to put unknown seals on her brother.

Then came the fun part. The chakra tug of war with a freaking bijuu.

Ren groaned as sweat poured down his forehead, washing over him and making him feel as if he was showering in it.

Soon enough, in just thirty seconds, his chakra storage seal kicked in when his reserves depleted to barely ten percent as Shukaku tried to wildly thrash around.

Feeling his chakra reserves topped up once more as the chakra storage seal emptied was a very invigorating feeling, and it gave Ren the second wind he needed to exert his will on the bijuu.

Fortunately for him, seals were a natural weakness for bijuu, and Shukaku was the weakest of their lot. Ren was working under a massive advantage here, and still, he felt as if he was trying to lift the sky itself.

This was undoubtedly one of the hardest things he had ever done, but there was no regretting it or quitting now. He could only endure and hope it would end soon. Hopefully, before he ran out of chakra.

Slowly, Shukaku’s thrashing started to stop as more and more seals took a grip on his being and anchored themselves all over him. With each passing second, he was more subdued, the suppression of the sealing array working wonders as even the newly replenished chakra reserves of Ren steadily dropped.

After a minute passed, Shukaku let out one last defiant roar and shouted a high-pitched, “NOOOOOOO!” toward the heavens as Ren felt his sealing array finally constrict around him before his consciousness was bound. Shukaku’s eyes dulled, and he stopped struggling.

Ren fell to his knees in apparent weakness as relief flooded him, not even caring that Temari was silently watching him from the side. He let out a contented moan and planted his ass onto the grass. He wanted nothing more than to pass out, but he knew he couldn’t do that. The sealing was not done yet. Shukaku was subdued and bound, but not yet resealed.

Sealing a bijuu like this was not something that was supposed to be done by one person. Usually, there would be a dozen Jonin doing this. But Ren was counting on dealing with a jinchuuriki, not a bijuu, so he was not prepared for this.

Grimacing for the third time in a short time, Ren’s shoulders sagged as he realized he had wildly miscalculated. Since he was the only ninja here and his chakra reserves were barely sixty percent full, he would need to take the slow and steady approach in resealing Shukaku.

The good news? It didn’t require much focus or chakra for a sealing expert like him.

The bad news? Fucking hell… This was going to take at least an hour! He was going to miss most of the invasion.

This was supposed to be a five-minute job!

Ren’s eyes angrily twitched as he turned toward the paralyzed but conscious Temari and gave her a highly unamused look.

Of course, it would be another stupid blonde who would do something as absurd as jumping into a spatial distortion. Narutoverse and its ridiculous blonde inhabitants! Ren silently swore.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep