Celestial Path Chapter 14 (Patreon)

"You need to push more power between your steps and leaps with tree running Akari." Jiraiya called out with humor at seeing me struggle at the whole tree-leaping shit Konoha ninja's were famous for.

Konoha ninjas were infamous for being able to run through the thick tall tree's of the Land of Fire with such speed that they were supposed to almost match the speed of a ninja running across the forest floor with mild terrain.

"I barely have actual Tree Walking down Jiraiya. And now you throw me right into leaping between tree's like a damned monkey! Wait is this what the Third Hokage did to you when he trained you?" I yelled back.

Jiraiya hearing my question burst into laughter and said proudly. "Yup! I am very much a sink-or-swim and hands-on type of learner. I needed the fear of breaking my legs after missing a jump to get my butt in gear."

We had already left Konoha after I had finished packing up my stuff and taking a quick shower to get rid of the debris I had over me after the Sage had wiped the forest floor with my face during our sparring match.

"So where are the bandits you wanted to blood me on?" I called out as we landed on a large branch before continuing on further west as we headed toward the Capital of the Land of Fire in Akahono.

Jiraiya's easygoing voice cooled and he said bluntly. "It's a gang of escaped convicts that were used as forced labor in a local mine that's held by a cruel noble. Who believes criminals deserve to be worked to death rather than left to rot."

We hit a couple more branches and closed back in before Jiraiya continued. "The mission is to eliminate all the convicts turned bandits for both escaping their life sentences. And for their bandit activities." 

I swallowed hearing I would need to kill a bunch of people with no possible survivors and for a while I was quiet until I had a question rise up that interested me. "Oh, what do we do with any loot we find? I know some clan and independent ninja's keep whatever loot they find, but what will happen with us?" 

Jiraiya chuckled and he gave me a smile before he said easily. "Tell you what Akari, you can keep whatever you can carry haha!"

I just gave Jiraiya a bland look and silenced his laughter as I retorted. "I know how to use a storage seal Sensei, and I have several in my backpack..." 

And I saw as Jiraiya's face pinched before he chuckled in amusement. "Well there goes my plan in training you to scavenge for food and such as I assume you also have such things sealed away."

At my nod he just shrugged and we kept running through the endless sea of forestry and although I knew the Land of Fire was named it's name sake due it's high average temperature, and the few volcanoes it had on the border it shared with Hot Spring Country.

I really think the Land of Fire should have been named the Endless Forest or something as no matter if I flew into the air, all I could see all the way to the horizon was just endless fucking forests and mountains.

A few minutes later Jiraiya called out firmly. "Alright Akari, slow down. We need to talk for a bit." 

We came down from our tree running, sliding down the tree to hit the softer forest ground with Jiraiya making barely a noise despite his heavy form hitting said ground. 

Jiraiya took a deep breath before leaning on the tree and looking at me before he said calmly. "Akari, I like to have this conversation well out of the way before you actually see real combat. But do you know if you are going to freeze up when you see someone die?" 

Unbidden my mind went back to me working on my Gates and the memory of parts of my body literally exploding from within. Not to mention my trip through the Youkai Forest near the Forest of Death.

"Well... I killed a few animals and some spiritually enhanced creatures. But I don't think I will lock up and become a liability in the heat of a fight or purge." I said honestly.

And Jiraiya folded his arms across his chest as he slowly nodded in understanding. "That's good. Having a little breakdown well after the battle is the best place to have it." Jiraiya said bluntly.

"But just... I won't look down on you if ya get a little stuffy or messed up after it you know Akari. I hate killing all things said, but some people for one. Truly just need it done to them. And second, if we don't do it, those criminals and enemies will continue to do bad things." 

"I get it, Teacher." I said with a deep exhale as I popped my shoulder and then as I took a breath through my nose I could smell smoke in the distance. "Wait, is that there camp I can smell in the distance?" I asked before continuing. "How did you even figure out its location without looking?"

Jiraiya snorted and said flatly. "It's simple Akari, bandits are lazy evil pieces of scum. So they need access to three things. First a major road and smaller villages for them to pillage, then a river or lake for them to get fresh water discreetly, and lastly... A cave, as should the bandits have any loot they won't have it open to the elements." 

"You will learn how to take all the information from reports to map out situations in time Akari. As for example, in the reports for this large bandit group. Because they are all escaped common prisoners, none of them have any ninja or samurai training, nor any horses to carry their loot. So it's impossible for them to be far from any of the previous things I mentioned." 

I nodded in understanding and mentally noted down his advice about these sorts of situations and so we began moving silently across the forest floor as we headed towards the bandit camp.

Once we got closer to it, I realized the camp was built into a large hill that was exposed to the elements and had a large cave going into the hill and downwards out of sight. "See that cave Akari. See how they have fire lit torches on the walls. It means there is another exit, or at least a series of cracks and holes in the tunnel leading outside as they aren't afraid of thin air." Jiraiya advised quietly.

The camp itself was obviously built to survive the attack of other commoners and maybe a samurai or something. As the camp was surrounded by a small wall of wooden logs, and as I took in the wall in more detail. I grimaced as I saw decomposing heads had seemingly been staked on top of the walls.

I patted Jiraiya on the arm and at his glance, I pointed up at a nearby tree as though to tell him I was going up and he smiled nodding as he understood I wanted more information on the camp.

Tree walking up said tree, I took in the camp in more detail. I hummed as I took it all in and then frowned as I quickly saw how there were dozens of the bandits... Literally at the very least more then thirty.

'Well he did say a whole mining crew escaped from their prison mine.' I mused before coming down to the ground and said. "It looks like there is thirty people running around down there."

Jiraiya nodded and said confidently. "Good noticing that, however that is just how many are active. There will be more in the stolen tents, and even more that are higher up in position in the cave."

I nodded slowly to his advice as I took it in and then I said. "Well... How do we do this?" I asked unsurely.

And Jiraiya took a deep breath before he said bluntly. "You kill every person inside the bandit camp. That's the whole point of me taking this mission after all. I need you to be used to extreme violence. How you do it, is up to you." 

I swallowed at having Jiraiya looking down at me so seriously from his taller position and I took a deep breath and looked out at the group of bandits and brigands. 'Well... I chose to stick with being a ninja rather than giving up and becoming an overpowered hermit.' I mused to myself as I manned up for what I needed to do.

I jumped back into the nearby tree and coming up as high as possible in the tree. I took a deep breath as I did several hand signs. "Wood Style... Forest Wall Jutsu." I muttered as a loud cracking noise rang out as thick tree's grew out of the ground to surround the bandit camp.

Then with that done so none of them could flee, I took out the Black Knife even as the Celestial Grimoire pinged as it pulled down a perk as though to spite me for what I was going to do.

[ Darkness- A wielder of darkness and other negative power. the power wielded is useful only for slaughter. This allows you to feed your life force directly into your weapon, before unleashing it in a wave of dark energy.]

[The dark-elemental energy will strike all opponents in a large radius for roughly the damage of a full swing of your blade, but will also ignore any armor and physical resistance they may have. Innate resistance to soul or darkness attacks will still protect them, however. Additionally, any other dark, evil, or soullike (or similar) elemental attacks will pierce through physical protections as Darkness does.]

I could feel the Mending Rune of Living Death within myself strengthen as the perk boosted it's power and the shard of Destined Death embedded within my Black Knife was also boosted as the Darkness power from Final Fantasy Four filled me with it's unnatural strength.

Once again I drew upon my mending rune for power as I did when I fought Jiraiya in the sparring match and Amaterasu's altered halo darkened above my head as my white and orange colored tail and ears darkened into black and bloody red. "God... Why do I have an edgy transformation." I muttered trying to make humor of it.

But I just took a deep breath at seeing the camp in full on panic mode at how their exit and the camp was blocked off by thirty-meter trees.

I jumped off the large tree with myself landing in one of the branches that shot out from the wall I created and I fell down into the camp with my chakra breaking the fall onto the ground.

"Ninja! A ninja is here! Get Olbossa!" One of the bandits shrieked and I sliced towards him with the Black Knife and his form burst in the black flames of Destined Death and he didn't even get a moment to scream before all his life force burned away from within himself.

I saw several of the bandits running into the cave to go get the Olbossa or whoever that was, but I was busy as several of the bandits ran at me with mostly spears and axes that they tried to impale or crush me with.

And even though I had only a few months of actual ninja training under my belt. I was... Hilarously way off their match with my chakra enhancement making me very much super human.

To say nothing of the fact that I literally had three of the Eight Gate's constantly active giving me even further physical strength and speed.

One bandit came in from behind me as I carved open another and with a simple spin kick, the back of my heel hit the bandit in the face so hard and fast that his jaw was literally ripped off with the force of the impact.

That was the difference between a civilian and a ninja as I had junior-level physical strength according to Jiraiya. And Samurai were supposed to be much physically stronger than ninjas as well.

Tree's raised up front the ground and smashed into bandits as I got a moment to do hand signs and their screams as they were crushed under heavy wood would undoubtedly haunt my mind as I could feel Jiraiya watching me as I worked.

But a couple of minutes later, after I killed a couple dozen of the bandits and they had fled their tents and elsewhere to try to find an escape from me. Olbossa came out of the cave with a roar and I saw he must have had Oni blood within him as he had red skin.

And he was wielding a massive wooden club that had several short swords put through the club in random places to act as spikes for the club.

Olbossa seeing me, wordlessly roared with the signature rage of an Oni who reminded me of the Oni in my class. With Olbossa rushing towards me with violence clear in his mind.

But I just whipped several kunai at him with the kunai slamming into his face and neck with loud crunches as the angled daggers slammed home into the bones of his skull, jaw and orbital socket as the brace of a half dozen kunai I threw had one of them go into his right eye.

But even with him losing a fucking eye, and having several kunai buried within his skull and probably scraping at his brain matter. Olbossa's oni blood made him ignore the probably lethal wounds as he charged at me with the club coming down at me with a loud crashing noise as it cratered the ground after I dodged it.

I slammed my Black Knife into the oni blooded man's side directly into his liver with his body shrinking as Destined Death burnt away his life force. But he still launched a backhand at me that whistled through the air with the simple natural overwhelming physical strength behind it.

But for all that he had some Oni blood... I had three Gate's open. I grabbed his back hand with one of my own and then I kicked the back of his knee to make him collapse as I used his held wrist as a fulcrum to control his fall.

Then as he fell to the ground, I slammed the Black Knife that was aflame with Destined Death directly into the back of his skull ending him, the ringleader of this bandit group.

The death of Olbossa was the deathkeel of the bandits as some of them charged in with suicidal bravery having accepted their deaths while a few just kneeled in defeat and just stared at me in horror.

"Wood style... Wood dragon jutsu!" I spoke as the wood dragon construct roared before it smashed through the charging bandits. Shattering bones, mulching organs, and reducing them to naught but smears across the ground as the serpentine dragon made quick work of the last bandits.

I looked towards the bandits who kneeled and literally had their hands over their heads and seeing me. They began shouting. "I surrender! We surrender! We will go back to the mines!"

They didn't want to die in such a messy and violent way... 

I looked over at Jiraiya and he just silently met my gaze with myself looking away as I took a breath before one of the bandits cried out. "Wait! If you kill us all, you won't get Olbossa's buried treasure! He hid an Oni treasure he stole from the noble we escaped from!"

I gave the man a dull look and said. "I am a human... Well a kitsune, why would I want an Oni treasure."

The man as though sensing his salvation said quickly. "It's an Oni enchanted wine gourd! You don't need to be an Oni to drink from it or use its enchantment of having water poured into it. Turns the water into Sake!"

Wordlessly I just shook my head. "If he truly was an Oni... He wouldn't have hidden it far. But good try." I said softly as I did a couple more hand signs with the wood dragon construct opening its mouth and like a firing squad. It send hundreds of wooden bullets at high speed into the kneeling bandits to silence them.

The camp had gone silent and I took a deep breath before shuddering at the gory mess I had created with myself jolting as I felt a hand fell on my shoulders. "You are the type who overthinks and broods huh... My last student Minato was like that." Jiraiya spoke quietly.

I swallowed down my bile and said quietly. "How did he get over it?"

And Jiraiya was silent for a long minute before he answered with a wry smile. "Well... He had the greatest treasure in a freaky redhead who was his equal, who would happily fuck all the thoughts out of his head before he could even brood." 

I was reminded how in canon Minato had basically locked down Kushina as his wife when he saved her from some Kumo agents back when they were barely even teens... Though things were obviously different here, I had no doubt that things were too different with how Naruko was very much Minato and Kushina's daughter.

"Great... Now I just need to find myself a spunky redhead." I said with a wry smile with Jiraiya patting my shoulder and saying proudly.

"Haha that's the spirit Akari! Well, you already have Eleanor back in the village so you don't need to be in a rush." He said proudly before squeezing my shoulder and said quietly. "Now Akari... This is the most important part of these missions, dealing with the aftermath."

I nodded in understanding as from day one of being in the academy they stressed how anyone who was killed in the field needed to have their remains buried or burnt so that they couldn't come back as a grudge or some other form of monster.

And that was for both friend or foe. Leaving piles of dead like this was a good way to get a five-story tall skeleton demon kaiju to spawn and go destroy a nearby village/town.

 So I used my Mokuton to shift the dirt so all the dead would be pushed underground deeply so if they weren't restful the ground would keep the dead under the ground until their grudge was exhausted and they returned to their natural death.

With the bodies dealt with. I looked around and said. "Well... Is it time to loot now?" I asked after I took a drink to wash away the smell of death.

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow before shrugging and saying. "If you want to look for that Oni treasure I will give you... Fifteen minutes, I need to work on touching up one of my future hit novels hehe." He finished with a perverted giggle that made me deadpan at him.

'Damned pervert.' I thought but I just filled my eyes with chakra as I headed down into the cave to see if there was anything of value seeing as that's where their leader was previously living.

Coming down into the caves I found first a small room that had a good bit of preserved food, probably stolen seeing as it was quality beef that was smoked and cured with salt. Along with some other goodies like a couple rice bags filled with low denomination Ryo coins.

Which obviously came from the merchants they had robbed that didn't bother to hire a ninja, ronin, or samurai to escort their wares. "Sweet! This will be good for in the capital." I mused happily before my lips twitched as I realized something.

My Celestial Grimoire had given me a good number of perks obviously at this point... But literally none of them had anything to do with crafting or anything like that funny enough.

But then I hit the next larger room that was at the end of the of the cave and I did find little tube like tunnels that led up out of the cave to the surface. Though those tunnels were obviously gopher or maybe even snake holes which provided the bottom of the cave good air even a few torchs were lighting up the interior.

As I took in the bottom of the cave I sighed in relief seeing there wasn't like any trapped maidens or sex slaves... Which was a perfectly valid worry with how the leader of the bandits was a fucking Oni!

But either way it was clear beyond a few hidden bear traps hidden under the leaves covering the floor of the room that I easily dealt with.

I came over to a large chest next to the bed of the bandit leader that was seemingly a sheet that was stuffed with more sheets. And checking out the chest, I found a good store of more common silver bar's and some small gold jewelry. 

"Hmm, now where would an Oni hide his enchanted wine gourd." I mused before I kicked the check out of the way and snorted seeing a small alcove below the chest and sitting nice and pretty in the hole was a sapphire blue large gourd.

I almost went to pick up the enchanted gourd before pausing as I saw a glint around it and so I flicked a shurikan into the hole at the glint and a loud angry hiss rang out as my ninja star stabbed into a highly venomous black snake that slithered away into a hole or something away from the gourd.

With that I picked up the gourd with a hum as I inspected it. It's main top and bottom body was made out of what looked like a giant sapphire with the center thinner area being a beaten up rusted copper of some kind.

I popped open the jar and as soon as I opened it up I made a wolf whistling noise and shook my head as that sake in there was fucking strong to say the least.

With my little loot run done I headed back up and the moment Jiraya saw 'MY' wine gourd his face darkened and he said slowly. "Akari... I don't want to be a total hypocrite and terrible teacher. But you should either give that to me, or you throw it into a river."

Instead I just poured out the sake/wine that was in here before I filled it up with fresh water I knew wasn't contaminated before shaking it as I somehow knew that was exactly what I needed to do. 

"Uhh why? Isn't it at least worth selling if its got something troublesome about it? It's not cursed is it?" I asked curiously.

Jiraiya audibly sighed and looked at the gourd with a complicated look. "It's supposed to be in the capital... Back during my team's glory days. We were part of a great warhost with the Land of Fire's Samurai General and his best men. And our goal was the eradication of the Oni army on the unholy Mt Etna."

I saw Jiraiya's face colored in distaste at the memory before he said slowly. "That gourd belonged to the leader Shuten Doji... She was an Oni who had transcended her race and became a divine Oni by being the most Oni an Oni could be. That gourd... Is literally a symbol of her power to the Oni old guard."

"Is the gourd cursed or is the corrupt capital officials going to demand it from me Sensei?" I asked bluntly.

And he just snorted and he retorted in the same blunt manner. "No, and yes of course. Obviously a corrupt official sold it off to the noble who the bandits collected it off of. And they would love to have another chance to sell it again." 

I shrugged and said blandly. "They can try to take it off my cold dead hands... I literally glow with the goddess of the land's stamp over my head. If they want to publicly offer themselves up to go against their goddesses champion." I drew off at the end.

Jiraiya gave a shake of the head and said with amusment. "Well there is that, and the fact that any Oni who see's that gourd will happily challenge you to a battle to the death. You woudn't survive if Yuugi or Suika the divine Oni's heard you have this as well."

Once again I looked at the fucking divine tool that had landed in my lap, I looked back up to Jiraiya and I said simply. "I will take responsibility for it." 

He just shook his head again as he muttered while drawing a hand across his face. "Damn brats... Why does all my apprentices get involved in the most troublesome nonsense." 

And that made me a bit curious. With how Danzo got microwaved via Amaterasu. How was Nagato/Pain? Was he the leader of Rain Country or something? 

But I just continued shaking the gourd for a couple of minutes as Jiraiya had his little mental breakdown about how troublesome all his disciples were. And then I popped open the divine wine gourd.

The smell of strong Sake burst out from it and without a moment of hesitation, I took a swig of it from the large gourd.

Soft glugging noises distracted Jiraiya whose face twitched seeing me power chug the booze down. "Are you an alcoholic?" He asked flatly.

I brought down the large gourd and I looked him straight in the eye before I said with complete honesty. "Jiraiya, beyond the booze wiping away the stupid feelings about the mass murder I just did. It also is the best-tasting drink I have had in my life."

The Hourai Elixer that made me conceptually immortal tasted like liquid fire in my soul so that most certainly wasn't a good drink either. The whole soul-burning bit was in part due to how a phoenix was rendered down to it's essence in a blender as one of the primary ingredients in the elixer, fun fact.

"You are going to be trouble I just know it... At least like the rest of my apprentices, you have good taste in women, but I just hoped you would be easy." Jiraiya said with an exasperated sigh.

Wordlessly we left the devastated bandit camp and began heading further towards the capital as Jiraiya wanted to introduce me to some people in the capital along with dealing a couple of youkai that were in the capital when they weren't supposed to be in the capital.

"Jiraiya, why do we need to deal with the youkai in the capital. Aren't there a boatload of priests and miko's in the capital that deal with that kind of stuff?" I asked curiously as we were tree-running.

Jiraiya at my question grunted in amusement before he said humouresly. "Yeah those virgin priests and yummy miko's are busy dealing with youkai in the capital for sure with that being one of their most important jobs. But there are some things ninja's excel in, in this case."

Jiraiya even at my pestering for more information just told me to be quiet and wait to see the surprise.

The thing was though, Konoha itself wasn't far from the Land of Fire's capital with a chunin's running speed according to Jiraiya. So we were only running for a couple more hours until the stupidly thick endless forests began to thin out due to the capital's logging operations.

And as we crested over a small mountain I could finally see the capital city of the Land of Fire.

It was surrounded completely by a massive river that forked around it with tributaries seemingly man-made led into the city with wastewater seemingly going down to the merged mega river at the end.

The capital itself was massive, a circle of smaller castles belonging to nobles lied in the center of the city with the poorer districts on the edges near the rivers with Jiraiya saying joyfully. "Come on Akari, we will be heading for one of my special entertainment businesses I have in the city haha."

And I couldn't help but think with some despair that I was literally being brought to a whore house. With no doubt in my mind, I knew that was what was happening.

Within the city of Akahono the poorer people of the outer ring of the city were still filled with life and had hope. This made sense actually as people who died terribly, would be reborn as youkai and would become an issue for everyone.

"Let me tell you Akari, the Yuuki Onna of Snow Country, and the Land of Water are totally top-notch! They give the best post-love-making snuggles and actually sleeping with one of them is a life-changing experience after getting all sweaty with them ahaha!" Jiraiya happily told me as I pulled my hood over my head and I hid my cringe.

"Just... Stop pervy sage." I groaned with Jiraiya smacking my shoulder for calling him that.

And then like I fucking knew! Jirayia happily strolled up to a large two story building with a couple girls in tight fitting and low cut clothes coming out with giggles escaping them. "Ladies! I am homeee!" Jiraiya called out gloriously as his wooden shoes making clopping noises as he happily ran into their arms.

Then he looked back at me and said with an utterly shameless grin. "Akari, your job is to meet the rest of my lovely friends who aren't working. They can help you learn more about the capital while I am having my own fun haha!"