Chapter 45 Treasure

The curse seal tattoo on Naruto's arm gradually disappeared as his chakra faded, and he watched it all with curiosity.

The nine-tailed fox told him that resting would be enough to restore his remaining chakra, and now that it was safe, Naruto let the nine-tailed fox rest on its own.

At this time, a small problem was placed before Naruto.

"What am I supposed to do with all this?" He looked around, his eyes sweeping over the room's mountains of books and shelves filled with strange artifacts.

He felt a new sense of relief when he realized that part of this treasure trove of knowledge might be destroyed or carried off by robbers.

"What should I take with me?"

"You said you came in by activating the blood seal, right?" asked the nine-tailed fox.

"Yeah." Naruto replied.

"That seal is likely the only thing protecting this place from marauders. Now that you've broken the seal, it's fair to say that that protection may be gone forever."

Naruto looked around at the countless treasures and knowledge spread out throughout this warehouse, and felt a pang of pain in his heart at the thought of any part of it being torn apart or carried off by bandits.

"What on earth should I take with me?"

"This is your legacy, child. Fate has led you here for a reason. It's best to leave nothing behind."

"How can I possibly bring all these things back to Konoha Village?" Naruto said in distress.

"You unlocked an elite-level seal in less than a day. I'm sure you'll figure it out." The nine-tailed fox encouraged.

Naruto walked out of the main room and circled the room once more, his eyes scanning the names of his clans, searching for some inner clue that would hopefully lead him in the right direction.

He got what he wanted.

His eyes were drawn to a family crest on the other side of the room, a partially unrolled scroll with three spirals arranged closely together.

The longer Naruto looked at it, the more the spirals seemed to move, creating a hypnotic optical illusion.

He walked closer and saw that several rows of bookshelves were filled with various theoretical books, most of which were related to the dynamics of dimensional space or barrier jutsu, but almost all of the space was taken up by dozens of huge scrolls, some even as high as his shoulders, just like the scrolls of forbidden jutsu that Naruto found the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed in. However, the similarities ended there.

The scrolls are beautiful objects, rolled in deep steel grey, shiny silver, and burnished gold.

They are arranged according to size and the colors also vary according to the size.

The smallest scroll was a dark brown, like tanned leather, and was about as long as his forearm, the slightly larger one was a steel grey, and ran from wrist to shoulder length, and the second largest was a bright silver, with a blue rim, and reached above his hip.

The largest was a deep gold like a low-hanging sun, with black edges, and was tall enough to touch his collar when he stood. There were exactly thirteen of these huge golden scrolls, and Naruto doubted that was a coincidence.

"Very clever. This is a contingency plan if I've ever seen one. It probably took decades to draw such a powerful storage scroll." The nine-tailed fox said in a low voice.

Naruto picked up the smallest scroll and unrolled the thick paper, tracing the twisted lines of the seal within.

"Wow," he whispered in surprise.

The lines of the seal were so precise and intricate that it made his head spin - he couldn't imagine how many hours it would take just to ink those structures, let alone channel the required chakra grids at the same time.

Naruto didn't have the patience, let alone the chakra control, to complete even a fraction of it.

"These look like they're made to seal specific things." Naruto judged based on the lock and key mechanism he could see. "Paper?"

"Books and non-chakra scrolls, I guess." The nine-tailed fox replied.

Now that Naruto thought about it, the leather scroll did look like it had been cut from a book binding, like the spines of a hundred books had been peeled off and sewn together.

"So like some kind of library scroll?"

“That’s certainly one way of putting it.”

He placed the scroll back on its pile of companions and reached for a dark grey variety, longer and thinner than its smaller cousin. He unrolled the layers of parchment and scanned the contents.

The storage seals of the library scrolls are intricately connected and small.

These were larger, with sharper lines and deeper curves, and the structure varied in clusters separated by empty spaces. One cluster reminded him clearly of a sword, another vaguely of a shuriken.

"Weapons?" Naruto asked.

"Possibly. By type. If the pattern continues, the large silver scroll will be for the artifact."

Naruto rerolled the grey scroll and reached for a silver scroll with cobalt blue trim and unrolled it on the floor in front of him. This scroll was curved like a thin sheet of metal, and the seal inside was engraved instead of drawn in ink, with some kind of black lacquer filling the lines.

It seemed the Nine-Tailed Fox was right; the seals within were large, unique, and intricate, separated by compartmentalized guards to prevent the chakra within the seals from mixing.

He rolled the silver scroll back and looked at the golden scrolls that sat on intricately carved wooden stands against the far wall.

If the small one is used to hold books, the gray one is used to hold equipment, and the silver one is used to hold clan treasures, then...

He didn't finish the thought. He strode over to where the golden scrolls lay, leaning against the far wall, gleaming in the firelight.

He noticed for the first time the family crests painted on the end of each scroll, and how some of the golden scrolls were thicker than others—the one with the Chikan family crest was about the width of his open hand, while the one with the Sumilan crest was almost twice as thick.

"What did you tell your sensei when you left?" the nine-tailed fox asked him as he unfolded the golden Chikan scroll and began searching the nearby pile of books for instructions on how to operate them. Naruto froze, feeling guilty.

"I... didn't." He stammered.

"what?"

"I left him a note! What else could I say? 'Hey, Iruka-sensei, I won't be back for a while, I'm going to Uzumaki Country to change my seal.' He would never let me go!"

"I wouldn't blame him, kid. It was reckless."

"I don't care," Naruto insisted stubbornly, a book on the theory of dimensional stacking resting on his lap.

“I know, kid. Really, I’m proud of you.”

Naruto tried to focus on the words and diagrams detailing mass capacity and chakra networks, but the nine-tailed fox's words made his cheeks heat up and his mind wander.

"So, what did you write in the note to Iruka-sensei?" asked the nine-tailed fox.

"I said I'd be away for a week to train. I've said that before, so Iruka-sensei shouldn't find it too weird. And he's the only one who'll check on me," Naruto replied.

"Then we don't have much time. Have you figured out what happened to those scrolls?"

Naruto nodded.