Hazō hit the ground hard and rolled.
Land, sweet land! We hit the ground rolling.
Everything reminded him of a party where the hosts really wanted you to leave but were too polite to say so: slightly cool and everything fixed in place like stage-wrought 'smiles'.
Antihomeless architecture, the demiplane.
All that, and he had been stabbed in the back by Orochimaru?
Good information. Surprised he is surprised.
Yes, he would. Tsunade had been there, had understood that Hazō was under orders and not missing. She would speak up for the others. Kei could be with Shikamaru and her gazillion other loves again. Noburi could work on being a good husband and Yuno could work on not killing any woman who looked at Noburi for more than two point eight seconds. Mari could sink back into the sybaritic lifestyle that she loved, meanwhile running rings around Leaf's political elite. Hopefully, she would take the position as Clan Lady with Tsunade's backing.
Puuuure delusion.
He was dead, yes, but he was going to be a mature, stoic ninja about it. He was Gōketsu Hazō, Lord of Clan Gōketsu, the first runemaster in a thousand years, slayer of Deidara the Explosion Master of Akatsuki. He could handle this. It was just a setback. He knew of one rift that led out of the afterlife and maybe there were more. If that failed, maybe he could research something.
Speech! Leo pointing meme.
Actually, that would be exactly like her. In fact, that was almost certainly what she had done, damnit. He had been forcing himself not to think about this until now, but once he focused on it there was no way to turn aside: Mari had lied her ass off. There was no way she would end the world simply because Hazō had died, no matter what she had claimed.
Weak deadman's switch if "Do you sincerely believe your allies will deliver?" punctures the bubble - and tricky to arm, rearm self activating switches going into a precarious fight with Akatsuki.
Might be our most evil act if Mari followed through.
His second chakra coil. The one that Orochimaru had implanted in order to enlarge Hazō's reserves enough that he could summon Cannai to the battle. It was gone. There was a giant hole where it should have been, the parallel tracks of chakra surging through himself were once more only a single path, his maximum reserves reduced to only what nature had granted.
A surprise tool that will help us later.
Was there something about the afterlife that made his bloodline different? He knew that his physical body was back on the Human Path and what he inhabited now was a construct; was that construct somehow more efficient? Was human flesh a barrier to the Iron Nerve, sand in the gears that kept the machine from running smoothly?
Ooooohu.
The other man was older than Hazō, perhaps in his forties, with olive skin and scars across his knuckles. Familiar scars, the kind that came from live combat with one's fists. The robe that swaddled him was a shapeless brown mass, its fabric bland and unremarkable in its flat, even texture and color. It was secured with a piece of rope made of twisted grasses. The man's feet were bare but he seemed unconcerned about the rough and uneven stone they stood upon.
New Taijutsu sensei? Rough, fiber clothes suggest you cannot dupe gear or body by dying. Bet the newly dead "whale falls" were better before storage seals.
"Hm? Oh, Gōketsu. Yeah, you just need to hold onto them. Your memories, I mean. Go through them in your mind, mentally relive as much as you can. It's easier for some people than others. You'll make new memories while you're here; tying those to older ones will help you hold onto both." He raised a finger. "I said it will help. It'll let you hold them longer, but you'll always lose them eventually."
Never conceptualized fading away as losing more memories than you form new ones before.
"Things are fairly stable around the settlements. No one knows why, but I think it's because the escaping memories bleed into the environment and mold reality into something that those memories fit into. We all remember trees that stay trees, so the trees around the settlements do. Get too far away, things get wonky. That's the Wilds for you."
Seems like Daizen's death loop would have eventually broken down. Wonder if settlements stay in the same position relative to each other or wiggle around in a sea of change.
Genjutsu OP. Low chakra targets. Unstable reality. People hungry to feel novel sensations. Memory loss shortcut to hacking sacrificial genjutsu like Truth Lost in the Fog?
Hazō looked carefully and after a moment he caught what Daiji was pointing at. A region of the forest shimmered with a faint blue light. Searching carefully, he noticed two other such areas, widely dispersed.
"Dunno where they come from," Daiji continued. "Best guess is that somehow chakra leaks through from the first world. Anyway, there's chakra in those places. If you go to one and sit around, your coils will drink up the chakra. There's never very much and once it's gone, it's gone. Still, it's something. They aren't common and they don't tend to happen around the settlements as much...or maybe people are sneaking out and soaking up what's there. Dunno. Anyway, you'll probably need to get out to the edge of the Wilds if you want to find one."
Reminds me of Vagrants from Dark Souls. Feels like it will be hard to stay net positive on chakra in the deep wilds.
Daiji turned and leaped off the cliff, plunging down to the ground far below. Hazō rushed to the edge, but it was far too late to interfere. All he could do was watch helplessly as the only other human for miles around fell to his death.
No sensei.
The adventure rebegins! How long will the someone falling to their death at the end of the chapter streak go?
