Chapter 145 - Arc 10 - The Game: The Mountain Notification

4400 words or so, big ol chappie.
I am so glad I had this one outlined already. Getting sick really screwed me up, I guess that's the problem with tight schedules.

Really giving the side characters a focal point here. This arc is largely about them, before Arc 11 switches back to a Sakura focus.

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“Ugh, do you ever just sit and wait for something bad to happen?” Sakura asks, sitting back in a comfy chair and contemplating her lot in life. Her hair has started to show pink in her roots, just a little, she saw it this morning while getting ready. It’s probably not a big deal but her pink hair looks a lot less intimidating and her intimidation factor is probably one of the only things keeping her safe at the moment so it only served to help cause her dread.

The game in front of them is in a bit of a problem state and she’s not super enjoying the puzzle, because the puzzle is her friends’ lives and she’s never been very good under pressure. Okay, she’s great under pressure but only in the stab it and keep stabbing away. “I often try to do something to mitigate the issue when something is looming over me.” The dragon slayer to her side says, looking over the ‘board’ with a hand on her own chin and a finger lifted up to tap it. “I am struggling to figure out a solution here, but a part of that is that I do not understand the problem.”

“It’s day four, the mountain opens today.” Sakura reminds her. Day two passed largely uneventfully. Mostly, they ground their hearts out. Ino actually allowed them to use the cabin so their team didn’t spend the whole night fighting shadows, which was cool. She’d put a ‘don’t sleep’ item in Shikamaru’s shop just in case they still wanted to be outside but Shikamaru laughed out loud upon seeing it and didn’t mention it to anyone. She should have seen that coming. She wouldn’t betray him by mentioning it, that was answer enough.

Day three was grinding and powering up. They gained a good amount of experience, but that trickle has really slowed down a lot despite their best efforts because the bosses don’t show up until the mountain is unlocked and they’ve been playing it safe by the actual cabins. Most of them are level five, Chouji, Shikamaru, Kiba and Temari are level six. She says playing it safe but that’s not actually terrible expectation wise. It’s just not an overwhelming advantage like they started with, and boy does she want an overwhelming advantage for her friends.

To get incredible odds, she has to hope that their opponent’s side is slacking, or that they take out a lot of bosses very quickly once the beasts start spawning. “They’ll soon be in life or death battles with other people.” Sakura explains, “it’s not as simple as ‘kill the enemy’ when it screams and cries.”

“I’ve never seen a difference. If I’m trying to kill someone it’s because they did something evil and need to be slayed.” Samael retorts, “I guess being in a life or death game would change things, but it’s still them or the enemy. Why would they hesitate?”

“I don’t know either, but they will.” As much as she’d like to relate, she can’t. Her life isn’t great for this kind of psychological problem. “I just hope that the enemy hesitates too, maybe the lost reaction time won’t be so bad if they’re both suffering from it.”

“You both have such basic issues, how am I supposed to solve this?” Rosalia complains with a loud groan from the other side of the room. It’s another puzzle Rosalia faces, and as much as she’d like to help with the complicated issues at play they’re just not that important to her. Sure, her charges are Leaf ninja and that does matter, but it’s not her friends. Her side has a lot of level threes, even one level four, and Akari’s team - Rosalia’s opponent - is probably half dead. Why’s it matter?

Still. “What are they doing now?” Sakura asks, allowing her eyes to draw to the short girl’s table and give her the amount of energy social convention demands. They are her people, so saying she doesn’t care like her actual team would be wrong. She hasn’t checked in on them, but she knows they’re not dead. She took some of the stuff she threw into her friend’s shops and filled their shops with them so it’s not like they don’t have a player it’s just, half her team wants her dead. What does she care about them? She hasn’t even checked what they’ve been buying, she’s just let them go to town on whatever’s available. She’s somewhat surprised they seem to be doing well. There hasn’t been a single death, Rosalia’s team is missing a person from a snake bite. They added anti-venom to everyone’s shop on every team after that.

“Well, er… I still can’t get them to split up, and I’m worried when bosses are introduced later today they’ll be too weak.” The girl says with a bit of a pitiful pout, “what if they get team wiped by one big monster?”

“Try adding some equipment with anti-boss specific buffs or something, or defensive upgrades. I could give you the schematics for Uzumaki regeneration? It probably won’t be as effective without the inborn genetics but as leaf ninja there’s a chance they’ll grasp the concept from the name.” It’s the best Sakura can do. She has her own issue to deal with. “Try a sword with a boss-killer specific effect.”

“I guess…” Pouty girl deflates a little, letting out air long and sorrowful. Her blonde hair sags over her shoulders.

“You know what, let’s go get breakfast and contemplate this over food.” Sakura says as she stands, stretching one arm to her side while the other hangs up high. “Food tends to help me brainstorm.”

Sakura’s contemplating adding in a bloodlust curse item to their shops - well, Sasuke already has one - the same concept as hunger but weaker. Just like, what are the odds they buy it? Even if she nags them, they probably won’t… she’ll try her best, it’s all she can do. Most of this game is outside her hands, which is a bad place for it to be because she’s gotten very used to doing everything herself. She’s not sure how to deal with helplessness when she doesn’t have Hunger clutched in her hands and something in front of her to start stabbing. Relying on other people is a good skill to learn, she just wishes it wasn’t always life or death when she’s forced to learn. Whatever happened to books?

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[The Mountain Will Open In One Minute]

The only reason they see the announcement at all is that the sky rumbles, lightning strikes, and their hair stands up on end. Ino heads out the front door to check what’s going on just in time for the world to shake and for her to have to hastily brace herself against the railing next to their cabin steps. The sound of wailing metal screeches into the air, and Ino finds herself gaping up at the message above while the sky turns an ominous blood red. Purple mist flows outwards from the message box that hangs high above, tainting their nice sky into one reminiscent of toxic mist. She’s expecting it to rain death any moment, but as the seconds go on the visual effect stays just that, harmlessly visual and in the sky.

Despite the display, Karin is standing confidently beside her. She’s the most changed of all of them since they started. While Ino’s gotten lots of cute clothes, a pair of razor sharp daggers, a real life pair of fuzzy blonde bunny ears atop her head - they can hear for miles, it’s actually probably a big part of why the sky was so loud - and even shoes designed to help chakra control for wall walking and sticking to enemies.

Karin has changed, really changed. Her hair is shifting, constantly moving around and standing on end a living inferno that glows even redder than its natural shade. Ino sometimes finds she has a hard time taking her eyes off of it, it’s ridiculously pretty and Sakura will forgive her, if she would even care in the first place. They’ve put a lot of their coins together to buy her physical augmentation based on Naruto’s, and while Shikamaru had pointed out that physical body modifications are likely very stressful on the body, which caused them to worry it might be too much for her, it seems like there’s either no limit to what one can change here or the Uzumaki are incredibly resilient to problematic factors. She has more chakra, her muscles go further, her gaze is sharper and more monsterlike. Her teeth are sharp, her hands have claws, and yesterday she got stabbed only for the wound to close up before the blade was even out of her chest. Ino’s not really sure what half of these have to do with Naruto, but they’re effective. Effective and vicious, she’s turned into a bit of a powerhouse and it shows in how she holds herself.

No longer does Karin seem meek, instead Ino feels a little meekness herself when she looks at her. Her senses are stronger, and she was actually out here before her which implies she’s gotten physically faster as well. Which is another thing, Karin’s stats are bonkers, she just has absolutely no training.

“I don’t like that, I don’t like that at all.” Ino grumbles at the sky, “that has implications I don’t like.”

“Sakura will probably give a speech about it when the shop opens.” Karin reminds her, with a stern tone of voice.

The door opens behind them, and funnily enough it’s Shikamaru that steps out not Chouji. The big boned boy is currently laying down after a stomach ache from breakfast. Karin was tending to him but she must have found the sky crackling more important, Ino doesn’t blame her. “She did say day four was when the actual game would start.” He says, hands in his chainmail pockets. He bought a lot of armor, he said he wouldn’t have to move as much if he didn't have to dodge.

She can’t fault the logic. “Even if she did, are you ready for an all out war?” Ino asks, looking her oldest friend directly in the eyes. He seems stoic, Karin probably thinks he’s emotionless, but Ino knows better. They’ve known each-other longer than she has Sakura. They’ve shared more experiences than she can even comprehend. She imagines if she went into her own head her forming memories would be a mix of Sakura, Shikamaru, Chouji, and her parents. So she can make out the little twitch of his lips, the held back wrinkle of his nose. The flicker of doubt and nervous energy in his eyes. He’s not unfeeling, it’s that expressing emotions takes an energy amount he can’t afford to give. She’s not sure why the Nara clan is like this, what genetic mishap led to them being more related to sloths than people - energy wise at least - but she knows fear when she sees it. It’s possible her charm is so high because Shikamaru and Sakura’s is so low. That it’s not some natural affinity, but that she put so much effort into translating them that she learned how people work intrinsically.

How could a normal person ever hold a challenge for her when her two best friends have a vitality deficiency?

Whatever the case, his answer is given without words. He’s not ready, none of them are ready. “Are we going to die?” Karin’s question shocks Ino out of staring, she takes a deep breath and shakes her head instead.

Her ears flop a little, it’s stupid but she might get a hat with bunny ears when she’s free and the changes are reversed. it’s very comfortable and warm and helps her be even more expressive for her socially inept friends… Assuming the changes reverse. They are going to reverse, right? “I won’t let us die like that, we have to get back to Sakura.” She really hopes no one important is on the other team, because later today they’ll be coming for them.

“Guuuaaaaaaaahhhoooooooooo!” Chouji’s groan from inside the cabin breaks the icy atmosphere, shattering the intention while they fall into giggles. Well, Ino and Karin break into giggles, Shikamaru smirks gently and leans against the wall, conserving his energy for the bloody slaughter that may come later today.

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With her fan and an elegant outfit on she’ll be looking into getting back home, Temari floats a monolith in front of a field of dead lizard monsters. She found a purple dye in the shop because Sakura likes her, and she even got a chest piece of metal that hasn’t been restricting her movements. It’s very shiny and looks very nice, covering her front and protecting her from her own winds. Her skirt magically stays down and sticks to her legs so she doesn’t have to worry about panty shots despite literally flying, and her leggings are reinforced with powerful runic magic that makes her jumps three times as high even before she’s using her natural affinity. She’s come into herself the last two days and become a powerhouse raining death from the sky. She doesn’t need wings or a glider, a few affinity boosts, practice, and this fan is all she needs to stay in the air indefinitely.

It feels like she’s become an avatar of wind based destruction, and she’s enjoying that greatly. She’s never felt powerful before, even if she was she’d be overshown by Gaara standing two feet to her side so the thought that she could be the strong one never occurred to her before. Down below Kankuro is still messing with the bundles of wood and tools he can get while scavenging materials from the remains, Sakura really messed him up with her nonchalant dismissal of his entire craft, but Sasuke has thrived where Kankuro has slacked.

While Kankuro scavenges individual materials from the corpses, Sasuke is darting from creature to creature on heels that leave trails of flame. He’s a moving bloody shadow, a whisper that loots everything well before it can disappear into the ground as husks of black mist. Sasuke has informed her this phenomenon is called despawning.

[The Mountain Will Open In One Minute]

Closer to it than probably anyone else, she looks up at the glowing gold lettering in the sky and the ominous spreading of some kind of malicious gas far up above and promptly flips it off without a second thought. She’s rapidly learned that all these messages are meant to unnerve them. So what if the mountain is opening. What’s it going to lead to? Fights with the other team? She came to these exams to take out other teams, why’s that change anything? She’s been assuming the other groups on their team might stab her at any minute.

And Sasuke, down there, ripping the heart of a kobold right out of its chest to put in his bottomless bag? He looks satisfied with how quickly he’s gotten better at that, she has no doubt in her mind that he’s going to be as decisive as Gaara is while slicing through their foes. Sakura put some version of her possessed sword in his shop, and he’s been showing exactly why it’s probably a good thing that it’s Sakura’s weapon and not his. The gore has been what some might call a display, it makes Gaara look like a precision tool.

Friend, foe, it doesn’t matter. She’s not intimidated, the mountain is another obstacle to fly over and she’s prepared for a blade from all sides. She does find it a little unnerving how well he takes to violence though, he’s so docile when she’s forcing him to eat real food and he helps with the chores without even having to be asked. He comes across as just a scared young boy needing a hug pretty much everywhere but the battlefield, where he suddenly takes on the role of some kind of sadistic demigod. May she have mercy on their enemies, because he won’t.

“Did Sakura put that file in your shop? It’s not in mine!” Kankuro shouts from below, making her roll her eyes. No Kankuro, she probably didn’t read your request, she’s watching everyone and you wrote it on a piece of paper you left on the table. Why would she check the table?

She doesn’t say that though. She merely takes a deep breath. “I’ll check when I get back, currently grinding!” She shouts the obvious instead.

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“Others have already entered.” It’s Shino’s voice that makes Hinata jump this time, it’s normally Kiba, he has the habit of saying the most insane things at complete random and he’s loud too. Akamaru’s barking doesn’t bother her too much, she likes animals, but the pup could do with a little less boisterousness as well. Shino doesn’t talk unless spoken to, half the time he doesn’t do it then. If he’s making a joke it’s a rare victory, and if he’s opening his mouth it’s to deliver something of extreme tactical importance or to express his distaste for their sudden dinner plans. He can get very vocal about dinner, but they just had breakfast so she knows it’s not that.

It takes her a few moments to register what he’s saying, and in that time he decides to explain a little bit. “The mountains were always going to be important, so I have had a group there scouting and sending messages back. An enemy team has crossed over. I do not have the entire mountain scoured, so it is likely there are more.”

“A team of three?” Hinata asks, getting a prompt nod from the boy. It seems that the enemy is overeager, and the sky’s message meant more for them than it likely did any of their friends. “Blood thirsty.” She mumbles, shyly looking out to see if any are getting close to them with the closest thing to the Byakugan Sakura could properly understand and design to put in her shop. It’s x-ray vision, with a long scope like range, but it lacks proper three sixty degrees. Hinata’s not sure why that’s so hard, but perhaps the brain differences that allow the angles are missing in this game and Sakura can’t figure out how to not cause her to collapse when she uses it?

Whatever the case, she looks all around and does her best to simulate the effect by turning her head. She knows no one is actually around yet, Shino would have mentioned it if there was someone coming towards them, but part of being a team is built in redundancy.

Another nod meets her peripheral vision, and she readies herself for a long night of scanning and being on guard. It’s morning, so maybe she’s getting ahead of herself, but she doubts they’ll attack in broad daylight. They likely snuck over to try and catch them off guard, crossing the boundary before it would naturally be scouted and then slitting their throats in their sleep. “We should inform the others. You know where they are?”

Shino doesn’t talk, he just starts walking. “Kiba, come on!” She shouts into the house, and races after the quiet boy.

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“I don’t know what to do.” The sky’s message didn’t stir up much attention from their group. Naruto’s been informed several times now that he’s a powerhouse beyond reason and even without the others they probably wouldn’t need much. His stats have skyrocketed over the last couple of days, and even ignoring all the stat boosts and increases to his natural abilities that all the extra money has allowed, Naruto’s reached level eight. Getting clones back was the clincher. While the constructs of magical energy are feral beings without much logic to them, they share a portion of his stats and race around hungry and destructive. He watches as a jaw is ripped from a still living monster’s body, its screams silenced by its own gurgles.

It’s unsettling, but he can’t look away. He did that by summoning them, he’s done that every time. The memories come back just like a normal clone when they dispel, and they dispel often, so if nothing else he’s learned some truly brutal techniques he’ll never use. “We go kill the enemy team.” Gaara suggests.

“And what, let that happen to them?” He points towards the thrashing creature, he’s not even sure what it is, there’s too much blood and it’s a constant display that makes his head fuzzy.

He wouldn’t call buying the ability a mistake, but he feels a little bit of himself die everytime he uses the bastardized powers their Player has put in his shop. As Saruka explained it on day three, Sakura gave her a rundown of his kit and she put a lot of that in the shop for him. It doesn’t seem like Sakura explained very well though, and this woman is so bloodthirsty and destructive that everything is a haunting reflection of what his powerset might be if it was designed by Orochimaru.

His blood steams when he heals, so of course she made his blood acid so getting hurt is an attack. “They’re people, Gaara.”

“They’re the enemy.” Gaara says assertively, standing in a full desert robe. It’s manilla and covers him almost regally. The vase on his back has been replaced with a full gourd, and it has dozens of little spots cut into it to let the sand out instead of just coming out of the top, which means his attacks can come from basically anywhere. Naruto has no doubt that’ll see a place in real life, even if the magic to keep it inside instead of leaking isn’t there outside.

“I don’t want to kill people, I definitely don’t want to torture them. That’s… messed up. The person who designed it is messed up.” There’s a blood curdling scream, and he’s pretty sure the clones turned into zombies and started eating things again. “Guuuh…”

“Then don’t. I am plenty strong.” Gaara’s also gotten just plain out fuzzy, every upgrade takes him further into animaldom. He wonders if tomorrow Gaara will even be walking on two feet. He’s clearly really missing his Biju, which is odd because Naruto finds he’s sleeping much better without his. He can’t help but wonder if the Kyuubi has been haunting his dreams. “You can hide behind me while I kill them.”

“I don’t want that either.” Naruto can’t help the way he grimaces at the thought. “That’s what I’ve been doing, hiding behind Sakura. I don’t want to be a coward, not anymore, I just don’t want people to die… I’m not sure why that’s so difficult.”

A hand lands on Naruto’s shoulder, and he looks behind him to see Lee beaming brightly at him. That boy has seen remarkably little changes. New equipment, mostly green, and gauntlets and shoes that send shockwaves through whatever he hits. He insists he’s happy with that, while Tenten has gone full out with making some kind of mech and Neji’s trying to learn Telekinesis… which seems dumb but what does he know? “Gai says that sometimes being true to ourselves means sacrificing the truth of others. As long as you recognize that, and do your best to save as many truths as you can along the way, you always know you did what you could.”

“Uh… thanks, Lee.” Naruto holds back a wince, lectured by Gai as well? Is he the weird one? Why is it weird to not want bloodshed, let alone that nonsense Saruka’s been giving him?

“Gaara and I will do our best to protect your truth, so don’t worry so much. Look up at the sky and take it!” And back to saying nonsense, Naruto quickly tunes out his loud rambling.

This is so hard. “No, please stop eating the monsters!” He has to put down a few clones, this is ridiculous. At least his real clones don’t get hungry halfway through a fight and eat the enemy.

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“Do you think they serve nonsense because they like it, or because they want us to suffer?” Sakura asks, staring at her tray of bubbling gruel. “This cafeteria is for nobles, I don’t understand.”

“It’s a mid-way point.” Samael explains, taking a bite of her own gloop without question. Rosalia, looking like someone who would be picky to a fault, doesn’t seem to have any issue with the mess in front of her. “Monsters are carnivorous to a fault, humans tend to throw a fit if we throw human flesh on the plate.”

“As we should be.” Rosalia interrupts with a huff.

“But we can’t go throwing monsters on the plate either, because this is a neutral ground and that’d be handing over experience rich materials,” Samael continues, “no one can win or lose here, or the entire place is destabilized. So, instead, all the food naturally served here is calorically dense glop.”

“I have better food in my room, but I can’t go get it because I’ll die.” Rosalia reminds them of the ominous problem before slipping her spoon in her mouth. Sakura watches, and it does come out clean and without sludge. She’s never thought of herself as picky, she’s never complained about Haku shoving whatever he made in her mouth and on the trip to Suna she made the team eat leaves. This stuff tastes like charcoal though, and the consistency is putrid. “You get used to it if you come to these enough.”

“Uh-huh…” It’s not like she hasn’t been eating it, but she still finds herself squirming a little in place every time she looks down at her tray. She gets so excited for food and then she gets here and it’s like, oh right. “Well, four more days of game if you count today, then we can go home right?”

“You’ll be coming with me.” Samael points out with a twitch of her fingers.

“Yeah just, uh, what I mean is it won’t be all.. You’re not gonna make me eat people are you?” Sakura asks with a big wrinkle of her nose and a full body twitch. Her cheeks green a little in disgusted apprehension.

“No, don’t be ridiculous.” Samael shakes her head, “lots of monsters are practically designed to be farmed, not every creature is intelligent. There’ll be plenty to eat, at least when we’re not underground… then it might be this.”

The thought makes her rest her face in her arms and groan.

She misses Haku.
She misses home.