"Oh my God, you appear to be pregnant by an alien!"
"You have the worst bedside manners of any medic I have ever met." Karai says glumly to his friend, looking at me.
"At least she isn't the Slug Sannin." Amai counters It seems like soliciting help from an outsider is a blow to his pride. That is why they had come to me despite the sannin presence in town. I would like to express my condolences, but being escorted by two estranger ninjas into an abandoned house in the middle of nowhere has me justifiably spooked.
"Enough of this small talk. We brought you here to heal him, so please do it already!" A shortens the small talk. I couldn't help but flinch back. My little accident was promptly answered with a head grip + tongue lashing combo from the Raikage. A has the straitlaced father of a moron routine down to an art form, something he seems to have refined over decades if his knee-jerk reaction is anything to go by. I learned to avoid tripping over whatever flag he used to judge morons after tripping over it once.
I walk over to Karai and start to probe the arachnid-looking tumor with palpation and sounding practice, releasing my aura through the fingers in each strike and spreading it through the body to give me a picture of what I have to work with, as if it was an ultrasound scan.
"Well, you are fucked. This thing is basically a parasite similar to the bugs of the Aburame clan, though they use the water concept of absorption instead of their earth-based grounding for chakra vampirism. This means that instead of steady growth, they exploit great influxes of capital to rapidly inflate. These things could go weeks to months undetected in an ordinary person but are exceedingly lethal to shinobi in moments of high exertion. By the egg bags on it, this is a female and she has already gotten laid. This is not sustainable either. My guess? This is the end of their reproductible circle. Bugs don't mind dying to ensure the success of the species. She intends to kill you with herself and turn you both into a nursery bed for her babies. "
A makes a concerned face that he soon masks with fury. "While useful intel, it doesn't answer whether you can save him or not! So go on with it or tell straight to me that you can't. "
Now it is my turn to make a face to the Raikage. " Lord A, killing the bug is easy enough, but insects' nervous systems are primitive to the point where it can still kill him with muscle memory alone, like a mantis. This bug must be specialized in targeting magical beasts that use chakra as primary targets in their mating season. Ninjas usually forage for supplies, so he most likely got those by consuming rare meat or drinking untreated water. That is why I said you are fucked. He is not the only one with his head on the chopping block, is he? "
There had been some casualties among them, judging by their expressions. "Look, for what I can see, this bug's position is highly irregular. It would much prefer the stomach or urinary track as a more optimal position." As it is, they would only grow after a shinobi performed a breathing technique; it's similar to a porcine tapeworm accidentally ending in the eyes or brain instead of the digestive track. "
A is now taking the new information into consideration. Something seems to have clicked in his mind. "What are the odds someone could have weaponized said bug?"
"Normally I would just write that hypothesis off, but when shinobi are involved, there is no such thing as coincidences." Aburame is infamous enough as a core component of the Konoha FBI that someone is bound to try to imitate them. Great, why did I have to develop a phobia of disgusting things again this time?
I turned around and saw an awfully still fly. "I am so demanding an extra day of hazard working conditions after this." We have visitors incoming. "
The Raikage and Amai took notice of the bug, their faces turning red with fury and worry. A crushes the bug and turns to leave.
"No, you don't. If I did suspect that you were infected, then this confirms it. They will harry you along until you keel over and die. Taking care of you will be quicker than you subordinate due to how advanced his condition is, plus you are our main combatant. "
"That doesn't matter; I can't let such an offense come to pass." They already took the life of Nigai. It's my responsibility to see them dealt with. " His resolve was set. He really didn't mind dying—no, more like it was his responsibility to be on the frontline. He accepted that he could die... What a drag! My life would be so much simpler if he was a detestable man devoid of virtue who just used his subordinates as disposable pawns.
"Wait, lord Raikage, the doctor here is right! Your situation is more important than mine; you should get medical treatment first! I implore you." While more due to emotions than common sense, he was right. A was our only hope here. An incompetent medical ninja, a half-dead ninja, and myself, a complete newbie that has never killed anyone, would be of no help.
"While you boys play hard man, making hard decisions, why don't you sit and let me do what I can?" This can even give me hints of how to treat your friend. " It seems that my concession of not stopping him mollified him enough to accept preparations that could increase his odds of victory. He still had death on his shoulders but made the same conclusion I did. If he dies, we are toast. Goddamn ninjas!
He takes a seat and continues to argue with his subordinate about things I mostly didn't care about with the clock ticking. I performed the same palpitation on the Raikage... most impressive. How to explain? This is the first time a ninja's chakra network doesn't trigger my OCD, his network is uniformly developed, nothing like the atrophied to the point of being deformed networks of most shinobi. He also has some elements that lead his body to perform body reinforcement similar to my Wrought Iron Body. He must be quite impressive on the battlefield. Alas, I have little time to study it. You have already been infected, "It's as I feared." My guess is that the parasite didn't respond the same way Mister Karai did due to the direction of the flux wasn't optimal for it. You don't favor breathing techniques like most ninjas, do you? "
"...You are right, I used chakra, but my ways are different from most. Can you get me in fighting shape in the next five minutes? "
"Sure, the size is still minuscule. Due to its present size and your body's sturdiness, I feel we can risk killing it now. Even if you get internal hemorrhage from it, this would at least give you hours instead of minutes. Good enough for you? "
"Wait, you bitch! I said to heal him, not send him to die.
"Karai! That is enough of you. We are not in a position to make demands. The Nokizaru Troop are experts in shinobi takedowns, and now we know why. They must have used that trick countless times, covertly infecting their enemies then instigating them until the bug did them in or their nerves made them easy prey. "
The chastisement stops the growing man in his tracks, as if he had been reprehended by his father. A face that goes from hard to a more sober expression.
A cool head is what we need here... and options. This became a lethal game of patience. Some of them must be quite impatient by now, but it seems their leader is especially careful about not having pressed his advantage back then. A coward that only fights when victory is guaranteed. This is why we will triumph. "
Having stroked hope in his subordinate, he turns to me and says, "How fast can you get Karai back on his feet?" Due to our binding vow, lying here can end badly for me.
"Ideally, One day. But if it is just back to battle readiness, then about twelve hours would be enough. Yourself will be ready to go by the sunrise. " That really seems to surprise him. Did I give too much away?
"Do it then. We will discuss price later on. "
Well, I can't argue with being paid. He seems to have taken the Binding Vow as seriously as the parasite. I reach for my medical supplies and take from them an acupuncture kit and instruct A to disrobe his cloak. Shrouding the needle with my aura, I then start to carefully insert them around his chest, in the nodes around the parasite's location.
"Lord Raikage, I will eliminate the parasite with a literal surgical strike," Because of the obstruction and the possibility of the needles breaking despite chakra reinforcement, his iron body will make this procedure difficult. "After that, I will put you to rest for the rest of the night. Hope you are familiar with seat meditation because all these needles in your chest are just to restrict the flow of chakra around the parasite and facilitate its elimination, but the next batch in your back will accelerate your rehabilitation at the cost of repose."
Having finished closing the pressure points around the parasite, I bring my two fingers over it while positioning my other hand in the position of the palpitation "Brace yourself, whatever you do, don't move an inch." I struck the finger in the motion of a palpitation test, but this time I focused an aura beam right where I thought the parasite was.
The Raikage didn't flinch, but it was a close thing. At least the parasite is dead. While this resembles the Hyuga's gentle fist attack on internal organs, I actually got that idea from Leorio's nen ability to take care of tumors. Some damage was dealt, but A remained steady, so I got back to work. He first took off some of the needles that were obstructing his network, then struck the ones that remained to stimulate circulation, and finally started to place new ones over his front and back, turning A into a living needle pad.
The peanut gallery watched in both fascination and trepidation, but A himself simply watched as I worked. I don't fault him there; the feeling of this therapy is amazing enough that I got offers to work as a "masseuse" by some unsavory clients. He observed the process intensely and I knew why. This was nothing like the traditional medical ninjutsu he must be familiar with, but that was because it wasn't.
Tsunade exploits popularized the Senju style of healing, which itself is a branch of the Tobirama school of ninjutsu, to use Yang Release to actualize mitotic regeneration by stimulating cellular division. My style of healing can be best described as a "curse of restoration" that I came up with after figuring out the operation principle of the shadow clone. Fundamentally, it is the soul that gives shape to the body, existing as an eternal and perfect record of a person in the Pure World. But alas, in the impure world, all are subjected to dukha (suffering, unhappiness, pain) due to the bond with the body. It is a verisimilitude principle for Sephiroth and its relationship with Qliphoth.
I exploited said principle after noticing that injuries and maladies cause disruption to the proper chakra flow, forcibly correcting it to promote the opposite effect and effectively heal patients. Since then, I have picked up a lot of tricks in the last two months of sixteen-hour shifts. The grinding has paid off. While not the pump and dump style Tsunade favors, requiring down time in administration of treatment and repose, I am confident eventually even crippling injuries and mental illnesses can be treated.
As of right now, I can relieve fatigue and restore vitality to anyone with massage and acupuncture. It can also burn off excess fat and cure arthritis, muscle tension, and locked joints! It is particularly useful for recovery purposes and to treat aging ailments, earning me a lot of old, rich, and influential clients. With my power, 30 minutes of sleep will be equivalent to eight hours, making it great for training purposes. It not only relieves physical and mental fatigue but also accelerates the restoration of the life and mental energy of the person receiving the massage, effectively stimulating chakra regeneration. Thanks to this ability, someone born with natural talent at the level of Apollo or myself would be able to concentrate over one year's worth of training in just one month, with diminished results as they progress.
The Raikage will be as good as new by sunrise, 110% even. "Now you need to relax. Any extraneous exertion will force me to re-do the treatment from the beginning."
"H-how are you feeling, Lord A?" The dying Karai questions, which was good because A was about to fall asleep and land on his back.
With a jerk, he answers, "This is dangerously relaxing but also effective." Nothing a regular medic-nin could do. Where did you come from, really? "
"It is nothing that miraculous just yet. Anyone could learn it on their own with a decade or so of effort." It wouldn't replace medic-nin in a war machine either; it is too time-consuming to administrate in the field.
Amai wanted to intervene with something, his professional curiosity could be tasted from afar. But A has kept his head in the game.
"Amai, you need to do a quick check-up before we move to Makai. I am counting on you."
That mollified the guy enough for him to do his job without complaining, but his amazed face was really concerning. Was it that outstanding? The medic ninjas of Konoha could do much the same without problem.
"How do you intend to treat Karai, Ms. Touko?" A question, already figuring out that things were solid between us. As if anyone could get away with crossing a kage! Changing identity wouldn't be enough to get away from retaliation. Even if I had the power, this kind of life in the long run is not something I would take lightly. That said, a show of force is sometimes the best peacekeeper.
This topic is not even something I was really looking forward to, despite the knowledge of its inevitability. Both ethically and theologically, the use of chakra as a weapon can be called nothing but a sin. Even if the power was never to be actually used, the very ill thoughts behind its conception are a source of bad karma. Although it seems extreme, there is sound logic in it. Anyone would be concerned for a friend that thought about suicide as an option enough to actually have a plan; this would be ground for intervention. To plan on causing harm and deceiving others to the point of putting effort and preparation into it can only result in disaster.
I was never that much of a pacifist in the past, but discovering souls are real has a way of instilling fear of eternal damnation in you. Samsara has eternity to deliver bad karma back with interest, so it's logical to not take bad actions lightly. While both Christianity and Buddhism preach non-violence in their scriptures, life is not so simple and both have ample historical records of choices that promoted violence and warfare. Some can't even be said to be unjust, but this contradiction between thoughts and actions illustrates the curse of the Three Unwholesome Roots that preside over Samsara.
'Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.' It sounds really stupid, but five hundred years later it is validated. But I am not that great a person; I don't have this all-embracing compassion. I can sympathize with those around me because, in the end, everyone is the same, but if I had to choose between saving Apollo or a burning orphanage, there is no doubt about my priorities. I would anguish, suffer and torture myself with this, but I still wouldn't even hesitate, consequences be dammed.
Even the home I created here is for his sake. When I finish reverse engineering the principle behind the Impure World Resurrection, I will be able to summon both him and Kurama in an avatar vessel like the Shadow Clone. While I lack the power myself, they have it in spades. I am tired of waiting for the villagers to turn around, and don't care if giving Apollo a taste of freedom will sour his view on the Leaf either. That place is killing him. I can't bear to deprive him of having a taste of normal life with ordinary friends that don't talk about stabbing people like every prospective shinobi spawn does. A place where everybody doesn't look at him like he is a monster! While I don't care for revenge, I won't let them decide his fate as they please! As a parent, I will give him options even if it kills me. That is my binding vow. Whether he decides to hate Konoha and abandon it or forgive it and seek coexistence, it will be his choice. If it comes to a fight, then I have a grumpy brother with a bone to pick with Konoha... But it hasn't reached that point yet; Lord, I beg of you, deliver my body from harm.
It's best to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a warzone. If I don't step up, it will be Apollo that will be forced to walk to the battlefield.
I need more power.
Besides, which is better – to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort? Can something harmless and deprived of potency really be called good? Or is it wiser to follow Carl Jung's advice and look at the greatest evils of humanity in the face and accept that you could come to do the same should circumstances align? That the capacity for evil is part of human nature and you should respect yourself with the wariness of a loaded gun as a matter of prudence.
It turns out I am really good at being evil.
I knew eventually I would get embroiled in conflict, so I used my spare time to develop a way to take down opponents nonlethally. The illusion arts looked promising, but my Rikugan was far better at breaking and seeing through lies, deceptions, and illusions than promoting them. Which makes sense, since genjutsu can be best described as the weaponization of the universal latent capability to connect to each other's hearts and tell a lie, the promotion of the Klesha (poison of the mind) of Confusion.
While everyone knows debuffs are annoying to deal with when you are the victim, they can be just as frustratingly unreliable when you are trying to deliver them yourself. Yet the pleasure of turning a buff into a debuff to break a boss gimmick with support-oriented deflection magic to make his constant spam of Curaga spells work to your benefit has taught me as a boy that the shortest path between two points isn't always a straight line.
But if we are to engage in Poison, why stop half-way through? To begin with, it would be a waste to not exploit my affinity for Yang Release in the first place, and there is a perfect prototype already made.
Bringer of Darkness jutsu. One of the Darkness jutsu. One of the series of spells forbidden after the founding of Konoha, though this one is more due to politics. It's an Uchiha killing jutsu, so it was something deemed unnecessary and dangerous to keep around when they supposedly became allies. Despite being qualified as genjutsu, it actually falls into Yang Release, as the jutsu generates "true" darkness over a certain range. Like the D&D Darkness spell—which is from the evocation school instead of illusion.
My Stigmatas compound their power over each other in ways I don't understand. My grasp on the water element, which I had always struggled with, steadily improved after I completed the Dragon Gate Torii. I likely didn't notice it with wood due to how easy it was to begin with or the Perfect Lotus Stigmata did its job. These are all parts of myself now, and I did everything I could to ensure they followed their natural principles while stacking the deck in my favor; these efforts have paid off more dividends than I could have imagined. Over the last months of my studies of magic based on "recomposing the raw materials in one's own body", I found my talent for what basically amounts to the arts of curses and blessings, basically witchcraft.
One of the interesting things about the water element is that while it usually embodies flow, it can also cover stagnation. This concept is likened to diseases and places that promote them, such as sewers and swamps. But they can also be used for another purpose – fermentation. The means by which alcoholic beverages are first created by the fermentation of fruits, like the ones I can produce through wood release.
Humanity's history with alcohol is a torrid one. Some place it as the motivation behind civilization and sedentary lifestyle (Epic of Gilgamesh), while others as a blight from Satan himself. Over half of people who murder and are murdered are drunk. It is the third leading preventable cause of death. It dampers anxiety, making people live in a perpetual yet transient present while uncaring for the past and future yet settling a craving that is both chemical and psychological. It's basically poison that people embrace with good grace, the embodiment of Klesha. Attachment that leads to confusion and lets unrestrained emotions like hatred flourish.
This is true even here, where the three ninja vices – women, gambling, and alcohol. It is ironic for me to become the embodiment of all three. Three vices for three poisons.
Using the Dragon Gate Stigmata and its presumed powers of eloquence and clarity ("words flowing like nectar in well-reasoned discourse") as a foundation and exploiting its proximity with the Perfect Lotus Stigmata, I grafted this curse into my very body-no, I guess I discovered this latent potential in my body and let it flourish.
I call it Mara's Nectar: Aroma of Alcoholic Fruit.
Essentially, a charisma and charm compound curse. Like Diarmuid's Love Spot, the entire body becomes the vehicle for the curse, which can make anyone dead drunk (more like charmed) from one's tone of voice, sigh, or even just their gaze, which possesses the aroma of a fruit's alcoholic scent. Unlike genjutsu, the effects can't be simply dispelled by disbelief as it affects people in the same way and effectiveness as alcohol would. Those with an acquired or natural propensity will suffer a "penalty check" and it is even possible to go the targets into a short-term bolt of 'insanity' as the present takes priority over the past and future. It might even be possible to cause addiction; after all, the First Noble Truth states that dukkha (incapable of satisfying) is an innate characteristic of existence in the realm of Samsara, inciting the victim to indulge more and more in their hunger.
Honestly, I am the caster, and even I am creeped out by this power and how neat and easy it came to be crystalized. I genuinely panicked at first, fearing there was no way to turn it off but the Rikugan balance, and mitigating this to be an intention-based activation power. Even to the point of inverting the effect of the curse to dispel similar effects when I activate my eyes. At least I can now literally play the role of Gandalf the White. Something good to make up for the bad. Curing addiction has already helped many people in this town. But that which is born of ill intentions will follow wicked ends. This is also Karma. And these three are about to be my first victims.
I turned, giving my back to the Raikage, locked eyes with Karai, and smiled. It was not a nice smile. My intentions and state of mind alone are enough to cause a previously undetectable rotten-sweet aroma to become unmistakable to an overwhelming degree.
All three froze with the clear change in atmosphere, flatfooted by the shift in my presence. While Amai and Karai were completely overtaken by their desire, the dangerous smell A was giving off showed he had retained enough presence of mind to keep his wits around himself instead of going with the flow. It's best for me to be gentle with myself right now.
"Now, now, mister ninja. Your situation is quite delicate, you know." I punctuated this with a contained laugh, which he latched onto with a fascinated expression of rapture, clearly trying and failing to suppress.
"R-really?" Karai asks, practically drinking my company. It is actually a bit creepy, but this is for his own good.
"Huhum, that is why I am putting you in a bit of a torpor. After all, humans can hold their liquor rather well compared to other lifeforms. This will filter to the parasite, ensuring he is knocked out and won't blow us both up during your procedure. " My voice is dripping like honey being swallowed up by Karai, an elite ninja reduced to a clingy child. How cute.
"I-I guess there is no helping it then. This is for the procedure." The token resistance Karai was putting forth crumbled and he truly gave in. Whatever reservations he previously had about me were forgotten as he rode the dragon.
"That is right, it can't be helped. But I promise you it will be worthwhile. I can use my nectar much better to bring you back to top shape than some acupuncture implements. So why don't you try to relax and sleep through the surgery? It will make things simpler for both of us. " Karai was knocked out like a light by my evil little laughter...I still find it really weird to act all sexy and stuff. I can't help but feel I am catfishing him. It was like a malicious prank to send an awkward friend to heartbreak, something I thought I outgrew.
At least the fact that I feel worse about leading him on and giving him false hope shows that the last few months have paid off and I am starting to settle into this new skin by taking my new situation seriously. While Buddhism considers womanhood a bad reincarnation, I feel inclined to discount this as plain misogynism—the more I see, the more I convince myself that although all humans have a shard of the divine, they are still powerless to their circumstances and prone to bias. Buddhism also has a low opinion of children, to the point that I favor the Christian perspective over Buddhism... No, it has nothing to do with the little angel I have back home. Shut up!
In the end, it is just a plain coin flip. Both men and women are helplessly beholden to nature in different ways. I could bother to start to count advantages and disadvantages all day, but in the end, it is all spurious and transient. Until I achieve Parinirvana and leave Samsara behind, I will keep incarnating in one or other gender, so it is best I get over this awkwardness because there are good odds I will never forget from here on out.
A sad fact about both religions is that the seed of nihilism they carry rejects existence itself as painful and pursues a 'better' otherworld at the expense of this one. There is something really crooked about it that I can't really put my finger on. The best I could express is that even if it is painful, there is still significance in this world and these struggles. Even if everything and everyone rots, my love will at least be everlasting while it lasts. If I can't love myself, then how can others do so? Maybe I simply don't want to hate myself, so I blindly affirm this about me regardless of circumstances, but at the end of the day, this is my life.
But enough musings, time to work.
In this case, open surgery is unavoidable, yet normal medico-legal tools are not really good enough for this. This parasite is so deeply attacked by Karai's chakra network that any disruption to it caused by the trauma of being cut open could instigate a knee-jerk reaction that would blow me sky high. That is why I will have to resort to other means to weave his form without overly injuring and disrupting his flesh.
Raising my hands up to my head level so as to be clearly visible to A and Amai, I channel my Pneuma into my fingernail through Psychometabolism, a subsect discipline between Enhancement and Transmutation that centers around changing the physical properties of some creature, thing, or condition. Once more, the newly mastered grip over the element of water shines through. Another subsect of principles associated with stagnation and fermentation are corrosion and dissolution.
My nails grow into cruel-looking blue talons with a purple sheen at the tips. I call it Flesh-Sculpting Art. By compromising the conceptual structure of any living being touched by my hands, I am able to sculpt flesh like clay without causing damage, no matter how intrusive.
This is basically the practice of homeopathy as found in the Spiritism religious sect. Both of which have deep roots in my former homeland, are based on the principle of "similia similibus curantur" – "like cures like" and "let like be cured by like". The treatment is based on the dissolution and dispersion of disruptive elements that are deviating from the proper operation of the subtle-body by the management and manipulation of "vital fluids". I elevated it to the point that it even allows me to sink my fingers inside my patient without harming him, reshaping the patient's body and shrugging off the need for tools and open surgery. An amazing but macabre display.
Call me Dr. Gilgamesh, the foremost expert in open-heart surgery since 5.000 B.C.
With a basic diagnostic, I verify that the parasite is knocked out and start to weave Karai's flesh out of its rooks, breaking them off for a smother removal. After finishing, the bug is practically loose over Karai's ribcage, so now I weave an opening through his muscles and skin like untangling a ticked cotton fabric until it is big enough for me to pull this bug out with a smooth tug.
Wow God! It looks far worse than I imagined! Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting! As if the mega-fauna with dinosaurs and giant dire versions of wild animals wasn't bad enough! The boutique hippies that romanticize nature wouldn't last one day here; I would exchange all this biodiversity for an asphalted parking lot as far as the eyes can see in a heartbeat!
I quickly placed the alien parasite in the tablet and wove Karai back into shape, ensuring that he healed properly. With Mara's Nectar running through his system, it is easy to stimulate the healing process. Medicines and poisons are fundamentally the same, especially in Homeopathy. After finishing everything, I return to A and Amai to-
"Jesus Christ!"" I was so startled that the explosive parasite almost got knocked out of the tablet, this disaster being averted by a last-second save. The near-death experience gives me a good excuse to avert my gaze.
The Raikage's face goes from distracted amazement at my skill to confusion at my emotional display until he realizes his... situation, A is a grower. Thankfully he quickly moves his hands to cover his shame, genuinely mortified to get caught slipping in such a crude way. Blessed be his gentleman's heart.
I turn to Amai, intending to say something ridiculous to alleviate the awkwardness, but the guy is a goner; there's something predatory and hungry in his gaze that sends shivers down my spine...I am a moron. The Four Noble Truths are a compound effect with each other, the Second Truth – samudaya (cause): Dukkha arises from tahna ("thirst"-craving, desire). By implementing a curse using the first as its operational principle, the other three were pulled along.
Is this karma? My punishment for engaging in foul practices that promote dukkha? This body has effectively zero combat power, as it was calibrated to have large reserves and good sturdiness with a steady hand at best. I am no stronger than a genin right now. I could set this room on fire, but Karai doesn't deserve to suffer for my dereliction when playing with dangerous forces. I couldn't even drag him out in time. Dispelling is not an easy option either. Since this unit was tasked with a long-term deployment, I implemented safeguards to prevent it from accidentally dispelling when relaxing or sleeping. That will take many minutes. I don't have to disable, so the only way to get rid of this me is to destroy the vessel...I now have a geas in my Root Gate that prevents me from killing myself, which I now realize does not mix well with shadow clone mechanics.
After realizing the potential of witchcraft with Mara's Nectar, I tried to maximize the effectiveness of the Perfect Lotus Stigmata by exploiting its related concept of "survival" to improve the efficiency of the Stigmata at the cost of imposing a geas on myself that I thought would never bite me in the ass one day. Now, something as simple as a split throat would not do the job. Wounds close shunt by themselves as the disrupted flow of pneuma forcibly corrects itself and heals on its own to the point that many conventionally fatal wounds that involve bleeding to death are more of an inconvenience as long as My Stigmata still has pneuma to keep body and soul tied together like a magical life-support system. Total destruction of the heart or brain is the only sure way to one-shot me.
"AMAI!!!" The shout of the Raikage shocked me out of my reveries, and I wasn't the only one. It broke through the fog over Amai's mind, his eyes losing the thousand mile stare as Amai slowly realizes where he is.
That is my cue.
"Soyouandyourfriendsareonthemendtimeformetogoseeyouaround." I take just what is in reach while marching to the door, more than happy to put that experience behind me.
"Wait, Touko."
My legs lock up as if made of wood logs. God, I hate how my heart is about to jump out of my chest. But I slowly turn toward A and, luckily, he is also averting his gaze, still embarrassed by the compromising position, which calms me more than I would like to admit. Things would have probably gotten out of hand if he wasn't here. The third Noble Truth: nirodha (cessation, ending): dukkha can be ended or contained by the renouncement or letting go of this tahna; the confinement of tanha releases the excessive bind of dukkha.
While he was affected by Mara's nectar, he resisted it and kept his wits by putting his duty above his desire. I don't want to imagine what would have happened to me if he hadn't been here, ever.
You have said that one of the enemies has found a way to control the bugs. If that scouter bug has already found us, then there is no way you can go back to your home in time. "
"I-I can still use the body flicker technique to get back to town."
"They already saw your face; your looks are distinctive and your position notorious. There is no telling what they will do to extract information from you. For your own safety, it is best to remain with us. "
"You went beyond the call of duty of our agreement and saved not only my subordinate but also my life." I promise you in the name of A that I will protect you.
Now I'm feeling guilty about his situation, as if it's my fault he's in such an awkward position. Which kind of is-
Nope. Not going there. This is stupid, this situation is ridiculous, and my position is self-inflicted. It's all because I wanted to lawyer my way out of violence while still not subjugating myself to others' good will. Yes, the ethics around mind control did belong to the realm of sci-fi in the past, but they are very real and accessible here; they might even be one of the reasons this realm is a mess in the first place.
This is indeed an amazing and terrifying power, capable of subverting the will of even seasoned shinobi like Amai and Karai while compromising a big-shot like A. Yet I lack the power to capitalize on it. In my rejection of downright destructible force, I instead robbed these people of their will and volution without the means of taking responsibility for them. Is it any better than punching them in the face and taking what I want by force? Violence might even be a more honest answer.
In the end, I might be too soft and high-strung to tangle with the Ninja. All this cloak and dagger goes all over my head! While I have some talent with tactics, my ability with strategy and patience is nonexistent. This game of gay chicken is shinobi bread and butter. I feel useless and needlessly paranoid. Even if shadow clones are supposed to be disposable, I don't enjoy the experience of being cannon fodder. I swear that I will master Goku's art of hitting things really hard after this is all over.
Alas, I first have to survive this day... A quick glance at the drunk bug by the tablet just gave me an idea. If I am hopeless in those waiting games, then I just have to not play them. I will make the enemy act instead. I reach into my bag and retrieve the stethoscope, gauze compress, bandage, and sewing kit.
"What are you doing?"
"Setting up a trap."
--//-
Day break arrives and with it the promise of violence. Exploiting the principle of grounding found in the Earth element to create a radar with the emission of aura pulses through the ground is sound in theory but too intense in practice. The enemies could easily scout ahead at a distance of half a kilometer if competent enough. A has more experience in such matters and has determined that the best time to sprint the trap is at noon. So we waited.
Surely enough, at about 10 AM, the smell of dangerous and evil intentions reaches my nose. I give him the heads-up but he elects to wait further; starting immediately after their arrival would be suspicious. Next came the more agonizing hour of my life. My heart was a drum and I was bouncing from one leg to another, like a child bad at playing hide and seek, desiring to pee just after finding a good hiding place. Was this the stress of ninja life or was I simply not cut for it?
Regardless, A finally gives the signal so that his subordinates and myself take our position barricaded behind the door, two rooms over in the abandoned building where we had taken refuge. This is now his show. Using the comatose parasite as a lure, he will trigger its detonation with a simple kunai trap. As the room Karai was resting in was chosen precisely to allow easy escape, this will give the Nokizaru Troop first roils to the death of the Raikage just after his remaining subordinates tragically died in a botched surgery.
To make things more believable, I used the few blood bags I brought with me. They were preserved with one of my more recent successes with the Sealing Arts. A flame at the core of the cardinal directions, with four minor illustrations of ice to each corner, styled with frost mist and sparks, is drawn over the bags. It was a pretty simple concept, as the fire element is associated with the principle of thermodynamics, so I attempted to invert its nature, bringing things into stasis, leading the recipient of the array to lose more heat to the ambient than it absorbs. Simple and efficient, the array is also fueled by the ambient Chakra, so there is no draining after being created.
Unfortunately, my bag of holding project is still in the trial stage, so I couldn't bring more than three bags of blood with me. This forces A to improvise to get realistically splashed with his subordinates' blood while maintaining a distance enough for his survival to be attributed to luck.
An explosion rocks the building. I look at Karai and Amai. So far from the unflattering image they have both given off, they are the picture of professionalism. Again, it is their boss that is risking his bacon out there to give them a chance to ambush the enemy. The Raikage has an earnestness that inspires loyalty. I doubt any of the old bags of bones of the higher-ups back home could be that inspiring, Sarutobi aside. But then again, that is probably why they get to be old in a profession where so many die young.
Karai is twenty-three tops and Amai isn't much older. That is a good age for soldiers; they aren't impressionable children being duped into a death-dealing profession. I know that, objectively, the actions are just as bad, but after seeing for myself the young prodigy of the Uchiha clan people love gossiping about, a snot-nosed small chick of a child that doesn't look ten years old, this makes it better. A grim business best left to adults, and a basic decency.
Do people expect me to be like him? Hell, do they expect me to cut down any child like him that wears the wrong headband? I-
"Can I help you with anything, Dr. Touko?" Karai interrupts my mussing and I notice that I zoned out while staring at them, something that made them both uncomfortable. God damn it! It seems that Mara's Nectar has left some side effects that persist even after it is gone. I really hope these are kunai in their pockets!
"So, do you guys get a signal or something?" Even if it was a desperate and spurious comment, they were happy to move on from this.
"No, in this case, we were ordered to give him a fifteen-minute head start." I am sorry to abandon you like this, but bringing you along would be to invite disaster. If we don't return in forty minutes, you should evacuate the building. Shinobi combat is usually a short affair, so our defeat should be apparent. "
I nodded, thankful for the heads-up, and did my best to not get into another awkward situation. I never thought about it, but since I designed the Mara's Nectar to exploit the natural condition of human existence, their thirst, it makes sense that after-effects would remain, much like alcohol itself has an addictive property.
The worst part is that it isn't a poison so kind as to limit itself to gender or sex drive. This is just the rationalization of their strongest desire, something that I myself can sympathize with since I have been a man in my previous transmigration. It is not only possible, but also likely that it can easily induce anyone to engage in their worst impulses and forbidden desires.It lives up to its name; everyone has desires. Only a true holy man would be able to brush it aside. It's not even a matter of power level. I have seen Tsunabe while she was in town and there is no way that a drunken gambler could resist like the Raikage did; hell, she might fare worse than those two!
I just intended it as a non-lethal alternative to stun and knock down people while minimizing the risk of harming them or myself. The difference in physical parameters varies so wildly that something capable of stunning someone might kill another, and ordinary chemistry wasn't an exception to this either. Now I have to struggle with the guilt of these two. While Karai is simply smitten, I don't need super senses to notice Amai's shame and awkwardness around me. He wants to dig a hole and burry himself there forever. Even as a mercenary, there is a code of honor and dignity in being a shinobi of a major village. Realizing he might engage in the sort of behavior expected of criminals and missin-nin has shocked him to the core and shattered his self-image.
I underestimated it and magic as a whole too, it seems. The fact that it became a "quality of the body" I can't ever forsake that came to me so easily also gives me worry. People in the past understood gods as entities that manifested not only forces of nature but states of mind, living inside everyone and permeating and influencing their minds. People in love were victims of cupid, while bloodthirsty berserkers were possessed by Ares the warrior spirit. Even madness was a "sacred disease," which meant that one was taken over by the gods and granted inspiration and creativity equal to a fraction of the divine's power in all creation myths. If there is no self, then does that mean there really is a mega Satan out there that took offence at me and decided to offer an "easy way" from inside my own head, like in the legends of Mara? How does a mortal stand up to this?
I don't know yet, but any confirmation would be just as dreadful as ignorance. I hope and pray that this is all the result of my naivety and carelessness. Fifteen minutes pass, and both leave me to assist A. Forty minutes pass and I can hear them returning. The ambush was successful.
I didn't move from my spot this entire time. This neuroticism is just as bad. I will find no answers inside this abandoned building either! Time to go home and drown myself in ice-cream, courtesy of my home-made ice-cream machine I created based on Earth's technology. I am starting to understand Tokiomi's disdain for modern technology. He was basically a do-it-yourself kind of guy.
I marched to meet the Raikage. He looked fine. Most of the blood was not his own and he reached to take away the fake parasite bomb made of repurposed stethoscope. I disguised it with "Texture Surprise", in truth just a henge variant.
"I take it everything went as planned then?"
A nodded to me. "Yes, they intended to bargain for an item in our possession, offering a cure for the parasite." Their looks of shock were worth the humiliation of groveling. "
I nodded along, knowing better than to disagree, even if I felt queasy talking so casually about the death of another human being. It was inevitable and they all knew the risk involved, so I have no room or authority to complain. They could have turned Fukuoka town into a battlefield, so I should count my lucky stars. Things happened out of sight.
Well then, it seems Amai already treated your injuries as well. "I guess my job here is done," I say, but then remember Raikage is under a very serious binding vow, arresting my steps.
He seems to remember it too, by his face. "Lady Touko, as the Raikage, I thank you for your assistance in our mission. You saved not only my subordinate but also myself and gave me the means to avenge my subordinate and accomplish our mission. As per our agreement, I have the obligation to see that you are appropriately compensated for your services. Ask away, and I will do my best to bring any wish you have into reality. "
Yeah, I have been through enough shit tests to realize when I am in one. Although I have a sneaking suspicion A has more than a character test in mind. He wants to know what makes me tick, what I value, and what I do with power and influence. Once again, I almost feel bad for putting him off like that, but there isn't much he can offer that I couldn't get on my own. It feels like it is becoming a habit by now... Yet, there is one resource that hidden villages might have that I do value.
"Back when we met, you seemed to recognize my gesture. Are you perhaps familiar with Ninshu, Lord Raikage?"
"Do you hold an interest in the Sage of Six Paths, Lady Touko?" He really is a straight-forward guy after all. If we went after the Byakugan himself, then he probably would have tried to take it directly from a big shot in a duel. I've seen enough of Sarutobi to know that politics in hidden villages is far more complicated and tortuous than first appears. I am not the only one underequipped to deal with this cloak and dagger routine, it seems. I couldn't help but laugh.
"Nothing so dramatic as chasing a legend." As sparse as it is, there is still a remaining prof that what we now call ninjutsu started as a religious creed that promoted peace and understanding. While I am a bit too old to chase after tall tales of demi-god like beings using super powers to create the moon, I am fascinated by this peaceful origin and would like to broaden my understanding of it. " While my expression started as open, it quickly soured.
"The reason most of the Sage of Six Paths' teachings have been lost was due to selfish attempts to monopolize the knowledge of chakra after it started to be used as a weapon. While such measures are no longer necessary, Hidden Villages are most likely the largest repository of this knowledge." I parroted it to him.
"Do you want his teachings more than any information about him and his power?" A looks perplexed at me. Honestly, they are the weird ones. The second Hokage is notorious enough for other villages to have intel about the Impure World Resurrection. They know the soul exists, but they continue to live a sinful lifestyle that will bring them misery in this or the next life. Shinobi might exist because they are wanted, but if they refused to do these jobs, then it would also collapse. Neither A nor his friends nor this troop had any personal vendetta with each other until they decided to sell their services to a third party. It seems so pointless.
"Pretty much. You can even curate what you want to keep to yourself as long as you do so in good faith. "
His stare is really intense and scary. I was sweating a little under it, but eventually he relented.
"Very well, it will be done."
--//-
Well, I have delayed and procrastinated this for long enough, but my last adventure has shown that Kurama was right. I need more traditional firepower. And I know where to reach to get it.
The Next Gate is mostly comprised of the Fire Element and heavily governs digestion and metabolism. It is often called in esoteric tradition the "Jewel City" and has syncretic relations with the "dantian" (energy center) where "essence" and "spirit" are stored.
This Gate is associated with the Fire's power of transformation due to its existence, symbolizing life and death, destruction and creation. converting food into energy for the body while at the same time radiating 'Prana' (life fluid) throughout the body.
In the Earth's lore, the Manipura Chakra has the role of absorbing and assimilation Prana from the sun while also being related to the sense of sight, being associated with the eyes, and being associated with movement and consequently with the feet. The Manipura Chakra is also linked with the concept of power, which is also linked with the fire element, together with light, heat, and energy. It can be said that it takes the more static elements of the previous chakras and transforms them into energy.
Interestingly enough, it is also associated with willpower and the capacity to transform through willpower. It reminds me of the fire bending of Avatar and its relationship with positive and negative emotions. Isn't that an idea?
If the two previous gates allowed me to ground my vital energy and circulate it, then this one will be optimized for the conversion of said potential into energy and the storage of said energy into mass and vitality. That is why I will baptize it the Gate of Meeting.
Far better than its native name, Gate of Limit, due to the barbaric Extreme Lotus, a fighting style only a senju would get away with using more than once. I compared the Senju to the Tohnos before, but I didn't expect them to also have a family fighting style that capitalizes on their unique biology. Without the Asura factor, the internal damage caused by prying the gates completely open would be crippling. A normal person's chakra network would never heal by themselves from this kind of damage; it would be no different from short-circuiting magic circuits. The fact that they made a semi-viable fighting style out of it instead of simply blowing themselves up is actually galling.
But enough of nonsense green beasts; here I outperform him. The Celestial Noon Stigmata is the image of a sun with ten petals containing the Valknut symbol inside the yellow disk. Each of the ten petals represents one of the Pranas and Vrittis, who can be syncretic compared to Sephirot and Qliphoth. The Valknut is also known as Odin's Knot or the Lord of the Hanged Knot, looking like three interlocking triangles that represent Death itself, the principle of entropy, and as it stands as the symbolism for the Nine Realms with each of its tips, this also makes the Valknut heavily associated with fate since all are bound by Death.
But its most important element in the Stigmata is the association with Odin's power to lay bonds upon the mind, so that men become helpless in battle or loosen the tensions of fear and strain by his gifts of battle-madness, intoxication, and inspiration. While this unfortunately will only strengthen Mara's Poison, I am more interested in its self-inflicted effects, especially as the Valknut three triangles are a good representation of the holy trinity of soul, mind, and body; the last one, which already features heavily in the last three Gates, starts to focus more on 'vaporous' concepts.
Its primary power will be a 'curse' placed over the Golden Bones Logic Formula that will use its ability to reject foreigner chakra to convert and process any form of foreign chakra that tries to bind to it into a more basic energy; chakra is a bind force by the will of the Sage of Six Paths, so this is a good workaround. The petals were put there so as to best process the "irrational" elements contained in the foreigner's mental energy as the ten Vrittis of spiritual ignorance, thirst, jealousy, treachery, shame, fear, disgust, delusion, foolishness, and sadness are broken into the ten pranas.
This, in essence, would operate closer to the Arcueid power of adaptability to attacks instead of conventional D&D magical resistance, with the bonus of partially refreshing all my dedicated polls anchored by the other stigmata. Even if I am familiar with a fire jutsu, different people will have different waves of their mental and physical energies, so it still would take some time for me to completely adapt, and even then, some attacks could pierce through by outpacing the rate of absorption with the damage output. Not a silver bullet, but a great card in the arsenal. As a side bonus, the perfected metabolism means I no longer produce waste of any kind, including sweat, except the most egregious of impurities whose pattern surpasses the Celestial Noon Stigmata itself. After discovering stories can come into reality due to the Tale of The Gallant Jiraya, I am hoping to meet a Monkey D. Luffy asking me if I poop so I can brag to someone.
But the most noticeable benefit granted by this Stigmata is the simple and raw explosive power. While the previous stigmata anchored my vital force in the body and ensured its proper flow in the face of adversity, this one allows this potential to be transformed into haw energy to empower the body. Without the Wrought Iron Body, this would have blown off my limbs. There is a reason the natives call it the Gate of Limit.
That said, those are just the passives. Mara's Nectar has shown that I can imprint a certain amount of powerful spell-like abilities that would be hard to come by normally and will progressively grow as more Tori are created. By the time I am done with all eight gates, my effective free reserves will be reduced to proportionally 20% of everyone else's, and I cannot change it once I have chosen it either. While the Root Gate lacks one, this is more a feature to prioritize its function related to survival. As long as there is chakra committed to it and neither my brain nor heart are completely destroyed, I can survive; a life-support system like magic crests.
Fortunately, I know the perfect power to be engraved on this new Stigmata. Apollo's bastard of a father not only scattered samples of it throughout the entirety of Konoha, but he even taught a team version of it to his personal bodyguards, the Hokage Guard Platoon. The Thunder God Flying Technique.
This is one of the most infamous powers of the ninja world, which made his two most renowned masters the fastest ninjas of their generations. It can be summarized as a weaponized summoning jutsu that itself can be described as a repurposed two-way sealing scroll that itself is a Yang Release technique that literally creates an "imaginary space".
While more complex than that, at the end of the day, these "imaginary spaces" are literal; they are rooms devised in the mind and breathed into reality with Yang Release. Due to the complexity involved with directly manipulating space-time, as my failed bag of holding has remonstrated, the easiest mode of use is by isolating it entirely from conventional space-time and continuing with a parallel limited dimension. How ironic that it is easier to create a parallel dimension than increase the size of a bag.
Although I doubt most people even understand how it actually works, once you understand it, a lot of possibilities open to you. I have succeeded in creating a 4D pocket anchored to my own shadow, exploiting the Ying aspect of the technique, and in time I can augment it to be my sanctum sanatorium, a Fourth-Dimensional Mansion I can easily retreat to or take items from, even creating my own tag to use as a medium for creating portals. Basically, recreating Knov's Hide and Seek Nen ability. Ninjutsu is such a bullshit power. This basically allows Mass Effect style space travel and I don't have anyone to share it with! These people would sooner use it to decapitate people than explore the cosmos.
That said, I am not about to be satisfied by simply stealing the bastard's jutsu. I have to tea-bag him from the grave at the very least to feel satisfied. That is why instead of space, I will put my focus on time instead.
There is a reason I chose the Valknut. In Scandinavian mythology, it is said that a person can't avoid their fated death, so it is better to die with a sword in hand and go to Valhalla after death than to avoid conflict and go to Niflheim. While a cynical analysis says this was just their way of talking people into throwing their lives away, the Principle of Karma that governs cause and effect is very real, although not air-tight absolute.
I used the Gate of Meeting's association with feet, Will Power, and light plus my limited Aether Essence and its association with light and "movement" to create a 'curse/blessing' similar to Kiritsugo's Time Excel, exploiting Fate as a compass to ensure I don't erase myself or jump outside time-space continue.
The final result is closer to Krato's Realm Shift than Dio's Time Stop. Time slows to a standstill, granting me a heartbeat's worth of frozen time in which to move between moments. The major restriction is that while attempting to interact with the environment in frozen time, the normal flow resumes a split-second before I touch anything; it looks like a blur, almost imperceptible to onlookers, but this will make it hard to do a Dio impression.
Although I feel I could actually move for longer if I pushed, the energy cost rises prohibitively high the longer you push against time. While just a heartbeat is like holding your breath while running in the middle of a marathon, I can still span it often enough to breeze through most fights and counter most gimmicks, like the Flying Thunder God himself, with just one heartbeat.
Now that is a good Dio impression, Kakyoining the fourth Hokage.
[AUTHOR'S ROOM]
Megumi uses charm, it is not very effective.
A uses man-spread. It is super-effective.
As always, Megumin's writing is a delight; it is like she swings between 20 intelligence and 7 wisdom, or vice-versa, at the drop of a hat, overlooking basic but crucial details in her excitement and experimentation to min-max the hell of her character sheet. I myself am surprised at how much like Rin she feels sometimes. I wasn't even planning for this Mara's Nectar, but eventually I just put her in a position where she had to make a show of force and I looked at what she had already unlocked and thought about the most powerful non-lethal move she could create with what she had. It is unnecessary to say that Megumi's first steps on the road of womanhood have been bumping ones.
Due to the trauma, she has elected to seal that move for a while. Which basically means I had not thought about how such a powerful skill would affect the story and had no interest in writing about it. This also opened the door for a discussion about relinquishing power. While both Naruto and Sasuke had this conversation for a while with Mangekyo and Kyubi, they both got over it for the sake of the story. While I appreciate that Sasuke kept the lost arm as a form of punishment, the fact that he has no reservation about using Susano with his dead brother's eyes to fly around kind of cheapens it.
If you haven't picked it up by now, I like covert magic systems like in LOTR and Exalted Charms. Mara's Poison is practically Saruman's hypnotic voice, and her healing ability is based on Elron's own proficiency. This kind of healing magic is far better than the light show Tsunade does. But again, Exalted also has this and it is anything but subtle in combat. While its major theme is how to remain mortal when blessed with divine powers that make you better than everyone else. Is it sentimentality to cling to such concepts when the very cosmos validates you as better than everyone else?
There is a saying that alcohol is the manumission of the soul. Mara's Poison is not "mind control", being a "natural", if supernaturally augmented, social influence that instigates people's worst impulses, a little push to our shoulder devil, like an anti-talk-no-jutsu. The social equivalent of martial "super strength". After seeing Naruto conquer the Ninja World, I don't need to say how devastating this power can be.
