Now Arthur understood why he hadn't picked up their signatures with his Crimson Gaze prior: they were both masking their chakras.
This was bad. Very bad. They were going to ruin his plans.
While the two were still a fair bit away and oblivious to things, the Tailed Beast was about to rise.
Arthur's mind raced with possibilities.
Confronting Jasper and Alice openly this early was not something he wanted to do. Doing so would cause the others to discover his whereabouts and swarm this country in a heartbeat until he was found.
A new plan, a desperate one, finally formed.
As the water in the distance churned violently and a monstrous head crowned with razor-sharp horns broke the surface, Arthur seized his opportunity by sprinting half a mile away while having Minato dive into the water.
'Giant rasengan…'
One technique later, that struck right in the beast's plastron, and the unsuspecting creature let out a roar that echoed across the land.
Arthur wasted no time teleporting Minato by his side. Then he deactivated Minato's Nine-Tails Chakra Mode and chose to remain hidden until he understood the two's motifs.
Suppressing both his own and Minato's chakra signatures, he kept himself low behind a towering hill, hoping the distance was enough to further mask their presence.
This whole thing had become a mess now since he didn't want to provoke the Three-Tails; he had planned to approach it once it surfaced and then reason with it like he had done with the Six-Tails. Now, thanks to this impulsive display of power, he had a raging Tailed Beast to be used as a distraction.
The colossal devil lashed out with a massive tail and began pulverizing the land.
Boom-bang-boom!
In the distance, Arthur's senses picked up Jasper's and Alice's figures moving faster. They were drawn in by its rampage.
As they neared with trepidation, the Three-Tails whipped its head around and spotted the tiny figures. It then loudly growled at them, sending quakes through the ground.
"What the…?!" Alice gasped. "What's causing it to go crazy all of a sudden?"
Arthur couldn't hear their conversation, but with his Crimson Gaze, he could easily read their lips.
Jasper, unlike Alice, remained eerily calm. He activated his Byakugan and said, "Stay here... I'll handle this."
Without waiting for a response, he then activated the Fourth Gate like flicking a switch and launched himself towards the rampaging beast.
A flailing tentacle lashed at him, but he dodged it with ease.
Arthur watched, impressed at how much stronger Jasper had become since the last time they fought.
Reaching the top of the colossal beast's head, Jasper deactivated his technique. Then he slowly placed a hand on the Three-Tails.
"Calm down," he said in a surprisingly lax tone. "There's no need to be so angry, Isobu…"
The Three-Tails, astonishingly, seemed to respond to Jasper's touch. Its thrashing subsided as it gave low, mournful growls.
'How did he…?' Arthur asked himself. Then he remembered something: Jasper was said to have a special ability called 'Tailed Beast Whisper,' which allowed him to pacify these powerful creatures. 'I see…'
Now it started to make a little sense why these two were present.
As if on cue, the Three-Tails rumbled a response. Its voice filled with a tinge of sadness as it recounted its version of events. "I… I was suddenly attacked from out of nowhere!"
Jasper smiled—a smile that never quite reached his eyes. Arthur recognized the insincerity of the gesture.
"That so?" Jasper said. "It seems you've been wronged. But fear not, Isobu. I'm what you would call a prophet, and I've seen a future where your power will be crucial."
His false sense of sympathy continued to spew words of nonsense. Like wishing to rebuild the world together with the other Tailed Beast. He even went as far as to call them by their names.
It was different than what Arthur had done, for Arthur never lied.
Jasper, however, was spouting ridiculous tales about a world of peace, a world where the beasts' power wouldn't be misused—all to gain this creature's loyalty.
And just as Arthur expected, the Three-Tails believed Jasper's false claims.
What surprisingly transpired next was a summoning contract being formed with the beast.
Now Arthur had lost the Three-Tails. While he still had the Six-Tails, the advantage of having multiple Tailed Beasts under his control was gone.
But just what sort of reason did Jasper and Alice have for doing this? Were they also trying to collect the other Tailed Beast like him? If so, they'd have a hard time doing that since the Three-Tails was the only one roaming outside a host.
Arthur felt a tad frustrated. Anger, however, wouldn't solve anything right now. He had to adapt to this unforeseen situation.
So he began to think of a new strategy.
A frontal assault was out of the question. Not with the Three-Tails now on Jasper's side.
Before he could think of anything more, he noticed Alice approaching Jasper from a safe distance away and asked, "Did it tell you what happened?"
"It's a 'he,' just so you know," Jasper corrected after jumping down from the beast's head.
"Umm… okay?"
"Everything's under control, babe. My new friend here must have been attacked by a ninja. There's a clear wound on its belly."
Alice's brow furrowed. "Who'd be bold enough to attack a Tailed Beast?"
Jasper had been thinking about the same thing. He shrugged it off, assuming that it might have had something to do with Orochimaru since the Akatsuki would most certainly not be involved this early.
Plus, there was an arc dedicated to the Three-Tails in the original story. The only problem was that it wouldn't unfold for another three years.
"And your Byakugan didn't pick up on anyone close by?"
He shook his head. Whoever or whatever it was that attacked the beast was no longer present.
The two, therefore, decided not to spend too much time dwelling on the mysterious event.
"Next up is Saiken," Jasper finally declared.
Arthur was right. They had indeed been targeting Tailed Beasts. But the real question was if they had interacted with anyone else prior to the Three-Tails.
As the two began walking away, allowing the Three-Tails to return to the depths of the lake, Arthur used that moment to retreat with Minato.
'Flying raijin…'
✟
Now back in town, he deactivated the Reanimation technique and returned to the hotel.
Today was a complete defeat.
All he could do now was consider things. He might have lost the Three-Tails, but he still had the Six. And more importantly, he had learned valuable information.
The players were not sitting idly by, waiting for him to make a move.
Capturing more Tailed Beasts, it seemed, wasn't the most prudent course of action anymore for him. It was simply asking to attract unwanted attention.
Thankfully, the Six-Tails remained safe in an area no traveler was allowed to venture to.
Despite Jasper and Alice claiming to be after it, they wouldn't know that its former host was currently dead. News of this fact wouldn't reach the public for a while.
Long as Arthur kept the Six-Tails hidden, of course.
Moreover, he had cleverly placed a mark on the beast during their initial contract formation. If any one person happened to stumble upon the closed-off location where it roamed, he could summon the beast away.
He also understood one more thing, and it was that he wasn't the only one with a keen eye for survival. The others, skilled and resourceful as they were, might be harbouring similar ambitions to gain more power.
Unlike Arthur, though, they possessed a deeper understanding of the Narutoverse, which made them potentially more dangerous than him.
They might not be directly targeting Tailed Beasts, he believed, but perhaps they were chasing after other legendary artifacts that he himself wasn't aware of.
Most of the players, through their trials in the Leaf Village, had already proven themselves capable of becoming Jōnin. It wouldn't be a stretch to imagine them requesting permission to leave the village in pursuit of mythical items like the "Hero Water" or the "Infinite Armour."
The former could boost one's chakra tenfold, while the latter was a chest plate that could absorb the chakra of anyone or anything that came into contact with it.
Many of the deadly items and mystic artifacts in this world originated from movies and filler arcs, of which all the players would have some sort of knowledge on.
A sense of worry almost threatened Arthur as he thought about it.
He hadn't considered this new angle; he'd assumed their aims were not aligned with his own, as they claimed a collective effort to improve this world.
But if certain players, like Alexander or Jada, got their hands on powerful weapons like the Petrification Gauntlet or the Garian Sword, also known as the Dark Sword, they'd evolve into even more formidable adversaries.
Or worse, they could reverse engineer something unique and use it against him.
No, Arthur couldn't allow that to happen.
There were specific weapons he'd rather have in his possession than risk them falling into the wrong hands.
His gaze narrowed at the thought of putting aside the other Tailed Beast. There was something more lethal worth his attention?
What was that, one may ask? Hagoromo's Treasured Tools!
The Treasured Tools, also known as the Six Paths Sacred Treasures, were a set of weapons created by Hagoromo himself. They are considered five of the most powerful ninja tools and have been passed down through generations.
In order was the Leaf Fan, a large fan that could generate all five basic elemental chakra natures with a mental command. Next was the Gold Rope, a thick length of rope that could draw out the "word soul" of anyone it came into contact with. That word soul could then be severed by the Seven Stars Blade, a light blue broadsword with a brown talisman hanging from the bottom.
Regarding what a word soul even was, it's the word a person uttered the most.
Once the Seven Stars Blade severed the word soul struck by the Gold Rope, it could absorb it into the Crimson Gourd. The Crimson Gourd was a giant brown-coloured gourd with a red cloth around it. It could take a word soul hostage by saying a specific command and sealing the person inside the gourd.
The final tool was the Amber Purification Jar, a large pot that could seal anyone within it if they respond to its call. It was used to temporarily seal the Eight-Tails in the Cloud Village.
The Treasured Tools were both written and shown to be incredibly resourceful, being even more powerful than the weapons from the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist.
However, there was a costly prerequisite when using any one of them: they consumed enormous amounts of chakra, making it difficult for a normal person to wield without fatal repercussions.
The last characters even spotted with four out of the five tools were the notorious "Gold and Silver Brothers."
It was possible for them to wield them effectively because of their already-immense chakra reserves and the Nine-Tails' chakra within them—something they acquired after eating the beasts' flesh.
They were so strong, in fact, that they even fought against the second Hokage and the second Raikage (leader of the Cloud Village).
After the brothers' deaths, all except the Amber Purification Jar were lost.
Obtaining the Amber Purification Jar, currently housed within the heavily guarded Cloud Village, was an improbable feat. But regarding the rest of the Treasured Tools, Arthur had a slight idea of where he could find them.