Chapter 114 - Arc 8 - Forest of Quest - "Don't Do that." (Patreon)

I've been looking forward to this for a very long time, and I have a ton of plans. I've spent probably 20 extra hours planning and putting work into this arc over what I normally do, and there's still far more to do. If you didn't see policy changes, all chapters are around 2400 words now, and there's two a week. So of course the very first chapter in this format is 3000.

Enjoy ya'll, and thanks for supporting me!

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Her feet landing on tree branch after tree branch, Sakura can’t help but smile at the feeling of wind flowing through her hair and the leafy smell of a forest. She’s spent too much time recently cooped up and unable to explore the great outdoors in the way she’d like. It feels nice to be darting through trees, and the undead dog trailing behind them on the ground level is totally missing out.

Sixty teams and forty four gates means some people had to double up. Teams that doubled up are forbidden to fight each-other for the first hour of the exam, which wasn’t a concern for her given she doubled up with Hinata, Kiba, and Shino, but is a nice and well thought out ruling she can appreciate.

Shino put a tracker on her, and agreed to come to her if they find themselves in real trouble and needing help, and that was about it for that interaction. Off they went on their merry way to go find and probably destroy teams from other villages. This is their home turf, they have the advantage, and they plan to apply it ruthlessly.

The other four teams she cares about are a little more complicated. Gaara’s not that far away, and will likely try to find her before the second day is up. Ino’s team is to their right, and she’ll need to intercept them before too long.

The real problem is Karin’s team. The Uzumaki is on the very opposite side of the Forest, and she’ll likely be sprinting straight towards her the moment she has a good way to keep the other teams safe.

She is now in a real life or death gauntlet, with limited resources, and it’s the kind of situation she’s been waiting for. It makes her grin almost malicious, her heart is trying to pound its way out of her chest and she’s more grateful to Kakashi for this opportunity than she has a good way to express.

Necromancy, she plans to explore it here in a way she simply hasn’t been able to at home. She’s only had Necromancy for maybe a month at this point, the rest of her time was spent getting the Mind necessary to use the first level. After getting the skill, she’s failed quite a bit, but her testing has been extremely limited by the amount of test subjects, and her inability to leave Konoha until very recently.

Necromancy is a part of why she was so disappointed to not find a dungeon in Suna. She wanted somewhere big and full of life to let loose and just learn. Now she has no such limits, and she has a reason to raise as many creatures as physically possible.

[Necromancy, Level 1: EXP Requirement for Advancement Met, 120 Mind Prerequisite for Advancement Not Met

Description: You’ve taken the first steps on the path to being a lord of death. Life is ephemeral, and those who hold it frequently leave. Once they’ve vacated, they enter your domain.

Gain the Abilities: Soul Sense, Soul Grasp, Raise Dead, Maintain Corpse, Soul Explosion

Each level of necromancy will add new abilities, and increase the rank of the abilities you already have.]

[Soul Sense, Level 1: Locked to Necromancy level

You may now sense souls before they have passed on, this includes the souls inside the living. Range and strength of this sense is based on the power of the soul, and the distance from you .]

[Soul Grasp, Level 1: Locked to Necromancy Level

Description: You may now capture souls that have not yet passed on. You may only Grasp the same soul one time, though it may be stored and moved between bodies as long as the body it’s contained in is not destroyed. Souls stronger than you may have a chance to resist Grasping.]

[Raise Dead, Level 1: Locked to Necromancy Level

Description: You may now use souls you have in your grasp to raise weak entities. You may use multiple souls to create a stronger entity. In the event you do not have a body for the souls to possess, they may be raised without one, but will lack in physical capabilities.]

[Maintain Corpse, Level 1: Locked to Necromancy Level

Description: Be aware that dead you raise will continue to rot and decay, weakening the summon, eventually leading to them returning to death and releasing the soul from Grasp. You may use Mana to negate this effect, and with enough mana may even enhance the corpse. You may not enhance the corpse past the level of the souls used in raising it.]

[Soul Explosion, Level 1: Locked to Necromancy Level

Description: You may now use souls you have in your Grasp for offensive purposes, using them as bombs. Afterwards you will lose Grasp of the soul, and they will continue on as if you had never touched them.]

The skill descriptions are a little misleading. Soul Sense is accurate, as is Maintain Corpse, but Soul Grasp is either really broad on what it considers ‘stronger than you’ or it’s lying about them needing to be stronger than her entirely, because she has failed on some rather weak creatures.

It’s more likely that the chance goes up the stronger the creature is in comparison to her Necromancy level, not her strength in general. Which is one way to interpret that description, but she would have appreciated it if it was clearer before she went and repeatedly traumatized herself thinking that she was too weak to save the pups. Bodies she moves a soul to do not have to be corpses, as she found out later in testing. It turns out the Goblin Soul Crystals she was given are not in fact some form of condensed crystal that mimics a goblin soul, they are literally goblin souls moved into a crystal as a form of body, before being put in a bag, and handed to her as a reward. She only used a handful of them in testing so far, so she has most of them which is going to be very useful for her short-term plans here.

Raise Dead is also misleading as the definition of “weak entity” seems to mean freaking squirrels. It took three different Inuzuka Dog souls just to get a dog body functioning the time she finally managed it, and the body was small so it rejected the process quite soundly. They ended up having to construct a much bigger, more functional body and transfer the souls to it, which seemed to work a lot better than trying to implant fresh souls in a stronger body in the first place. Either that or she got lucky. Whatever the case, the line between too strong and too weak is very finicky and she’d love it if her experiments in the Forest of Death made things clearer for her.

She’s never used Soul Explosion, but she’s happy to know she doesn’t destroy the soul. If she did, it would have entered her ‘never use’ category, instead it might be powerful, might suck. She’s excited to find out.

Sakura grins wildly as her gaze finds itself stuck on a giant snake in the distance. “Let’s kill a giant snake and then I want to talk to you guys about our basic plan..”

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She hasn’t trained with Hunger as much as she’d like since she couldn’t train with him in class and a lot of her after-class training was hand-to-hand or endurance slash strength training. She was hopeful to pass the quest she was given to truly understand him before she was allowed back on missions but that just didn’t happen, and she’s quite mournful over that. Hunger is too actually, they whine together as mother and son... at least that's what he calls it.

But she has trained with him enough that he can call her into the Red Room while she sleeps now, and with that level of mutual closeness came a few new tricks that she’s eager to test out on this freaking snake.

First is what she’s nicknamed Fatal Slash. By using enough blood to coat the blade and channeling her fire chakra into Hunger, she can now slash and send that blood flying outward as a boiling surge of biohazard goodness. She had already learned how to do this before, but now she can do it without melting her hands to the handle which is a pretty huge improvement.

She starts the fight out like that, blasting the monumental snake in front of her in the face and carving into its flesh before it even notices her. The second trick she’s learned is to focus less on killing strikes and mix a little sadism into her attacks. Her goal isn’t to kill the enemy - although that would be really cool - it’s to cause as much bleeding as possible so that she can do her third trick. “Siphon!”

When you attack something with your chakra your power ends up in the wound, and the blood that seeps from that wound holds residue of it. Now she currently can’t do anything with that residue on her own, she doesn’t have a Kekkei Genkai based around blood and she’s not currently trying to learn blood magic, so she’s shit out of luck.

But Hunger can do something. It turns out Hunger doesn’t differentiate between her blood and the enemy’s blood at all, and if it’s saturated with her chakra she can call upon it using his will and form. Naruto and Sasuke watch as the seeping gore from the giant snake flies through the air and coats her sword once more, wreathing it in pain ready to be inflicted once again. It’s invigorating, it’s awesome, and she’s pretty sure if she knew how to do this back then she could have turned Gato’s whole chamber into a nightmare for him.

The colossal snake is backing away from her, giving her a glare that promises death. Unfortunately for it, her sword is coated again. “Fatal Slash!” She can do this all freaking day! She watches the blast fly out and push the creature back, cutting into its side and tearing scales from its flesh. It’s too big to properly slip through the treeline, and they’re blocking the biggest route which means it’s making rapid fire decisions and she’s here to stress it even further.

As long as she keeps Fatal Slash as mostly blood and only a little fire chakra, there’s no need to heal herself. That was the mistake she made against that Chunin in the One-shot dungeon, she overcharged it out of fear and while the power was something to behold, the state she was left in was only able to be undone with a First-Aid Spray. She only has seven of those, she’d rather not use one every time she uses Hunger’s skill.

“You can get involved anytime boys.” She growls at them, as she charges a third slash intended for a creature that’s backed up against the treeline and contemplating if it should try to climb over the trees behind it or charge her. They jump into action just in time as its decision is made and it lunges for her. “Fatal Slash!” A third blast rips outwards from her now skilled motion, a surge intercepting its lunge and stunning it just long enough for the boys to land on a wound her third strike leaves on its neck. Sasuke’s already stabbing, ripping, and tearing. He has no hesitance, while Naruto seems like he could still use a little training on following through. His softness makes her smile.

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Of course, Naruto has to go to the bathroom the moment they’re done with the snake.

She has so much to talk about, and they still need to open up their packages and see how many points they actually got. Seated on the giant snake’s corpse, she’s watching its timer with annoyance.

[5 Hours 56 Minutes left before Soul Completely Passes On]

It’s another variable in the Necromancy tree. Different creatures have different times, and it’s not even consistent between different members of the same species. From what she can tell, the older the creature the longer the timer, and their attachment to life also seems to have a varying effect on the math.

On the surface it’s not that important. Most souls have timers in the hours and that’s more than enough for her to do what she needs. The problem is that there seems to be a hidden correlation between the percentage of the initial timer that’s left, and how likely the soul is to juke her completely.

She waits another minute, and then decides she can’t wait any longer, on a personal level, she has plenty of time on the timer. She stands up on the snake’s corpse, and holds her hand outward above it. A deep breath meets her lungs, and power flows through her. Mana feels differently from Chakra. Whereas Chakra is a mixture of the body and mind, Mana is like an ocean unleashed directly from the mind. Floodgates exist for a reason, and releasing them to call upon her will in a spiritual sense has an effect on her. Maybe once she has more control she’ll be able to do without the visual effects, but as is, merely channeling her mana causes her whole body to be wreathed in a blue glow that pervades through the air in all directions. Once it’s flowing over her, cold and endless, she locks eyes with the soul that wishes to evade her.

The skill level of Soul Grasp might not have raised, but her consistency and performance has increased quite a bit through her practice, which is why she’s confident and deliberate in her course of action. “Soul Grasp!” The flow of mana coalesces around her hand, before flowing out like a whip and penetrating the snake corpse with a powerful glow that only brightens by the second. She watches the slippery creature’s soul try to wriggle out of her grasp, and accounts for its movements in her own control. It attempts to run as it should have in life, but she’s having none of it. She grips it tightly and tears into it, slowly prying it from the fallen foe in front of her with great effort. She’s careful as she pulls it back to her hand, this is the point a soul escapes if it manages to, and she has no intentions of letting it go. She forcefully crushes it into compliance, grinding into it on its journey towards her until all resistance stops.

Only when it sits limp in her palm as a snake soul, does she loosen her grip and let its struggle end. She sighs in relief, reaching up to wipe her forehead of sweat. This takes so much out of her, it’s insane.

“What, the, fuck.” Her gaze takes her to Naruto, staring wide eyed just a few feet away from them, or at least it looks like Naruto. If she wasn’t actively using Necromancy she might have missed it. Naruto’s soul is so bright and overwhelming, it’s difficult to discern if he’s right next to her or somewhat distant, at least passively.

While actively calling upon her mana and holding a soul in her palms, she can tell the difference intrinsically. The Naruto in front of her is dim, dull, and even if she was dumb enough she couldn’t tell the difference between the sun and a cold dark night, there’s no triangle above his head to tell her his location and condition.

To his credit, Sasuke is already moving to intercept and beat the everloving shit out of the imposter before she’s finished thinking, but he didn’t need to move. “Soul Explosion.” She tosses the snake, and watches as the entire area is suddenly engulfed in netherworldly flames.

For a skill she’s never used before, she was expecting a small poof or maybe a fireball equivalent. She expected something that was reasonable to throw in the direction Sasuke is moving in. Maybe it’s that the snake is strong, but instead of a piddly fireball, she’s met with earth shaking force and a light so bright she has to close her eyes. She’s knocked off her feet by the quake she’s caused, and she’s only spared slamming face first into the dirt below by strong arms catching her and holding her close. The wind that hits her face is enough to ruin her hair, and the force from the otherworldly explosion continues to push them back even as she gets her bearings enough to dig her heels into the dirt and help Sasuke’s efforts in resisting.

Blue flame takes to the sky like the cry of a freshly reawakened phoenix soaring in its first flight, and she’s damn sure everyone in the vicinity now knows exactly where her team is. It’s so bright she has to squint to look in its direction, and the ambient heat is so strong it causes her cheeks to flare up. At least she’s going to pretend that it’s the heat, and not that Sasuke is still holding her and that’s incredibly embarrassing.

As the flames die down, she finds herself short of breath and at a loss.

There’s no corpse there, just a scorched patch of land that will likely never grow grass or trees again. She’s left a spot barren, forever without the ability to foster life, and she did it with a flick of her wrist and an expendable resource that is constant in this forest. The imposter is gone. Whoever that was, they no longer are. She can’t even detect their soul, because with their entire body gone their soul immediately passed on. “Sakura, you destroyed their point balls.” Sasuke chides her with a bit of a glare she can feel on the side of her head, “don’t do that.”

“Sorry.” Half the snake corpse is gone too, which is a real drag, she needed that. She’ll need to collect another after they have their team meeting. “We should go get Naruto, the rest of that guy’s team probably has him hostage.”