Chapter 144 - Arc 10 - The Game: The Item Shop!

Thank you for being patient with me.
As I said in the discord, I do tentatively think this might be the last late chapter for quite some time. I'm mostly caught up on things, and my stress levels are way down.

The beta and I had some fun discussions about this chapter, and we'll be brainstorming a lot this week to come up with items and skills and other stuff to introduce after the timeskip next chapter. I don't see a reason to go through this day for day, I don't think the story would benefit.

Please have fun.

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[The Shop is Now Opening]

The sky has ominous words in bold black font hanging above, despite that Ino’s pretty sure it’s a good thing. The odds the ‘shop’ is some kind of challenge menu is pretty low, let alone a forced challenge menu they are required to submit crazy stunts to. “What if they let us buy our freedom or something?” Karin asks from her side, and Ino has to resist a shake of her head and a laugh. It’s naive but she understands her, from what she can tell Karin should never have been in the exams with them. She’s not a ninja, Ino’d be surprised if she was even taught how to throw a punch. Six year old her could probably wreck the redhead, and that’s an issue when you’re in a death game. They’ll need to put a lot of effort into making sure Karin survives, she’s important to Naruto but more importantly she’s important to Sakura… Actually, she’s not sure which matters more to her. Sakura’s always been a beacon for her, but Naruto’s a good friend and this is his family.

The motive doesn’t matter, whether it’s for Sakura or Naruto, she’ll get Karin home. It’s just odd for her to doubt which motivation is driving her in the first place. Sakura killing her must have sent her head places she’s not sure how to reconcile.

Regardless, outside of a death game Karin’s antics and energy would be very cute. Maybe she’ll snag her if Sakura doesn’t smarten up. Maybe she’ll snag her if she does, even in the best case scenario Sakura’s probably not going to be ready for any sort of ‘next step’ for like ten years and she’s willing to bet she wouldn’t find anything weird with there being a third watching them awkwardly flirt from the couch like ‘hey, me too.’

She shakes her head, that’s dumb, she’s just not sure where her thoughts are recently and it’s starting to feel like one big Sakura introspection moment but with her whole life.

Dying is supposed to put your life into perspective, but all Ino can do is wonder how to improve her situation, even if it means the unorthodox. Is that another way of coping? Is this secretly her harem story and Sakura’s a set dressing? Probably not.

She looks over just in time to see Karin swinging a stick at a goblin while shrieking, which is embarrassing but at least she’s picked up a stick to swing in the first place instead of curling into a ball. She’s untrained, not unwilling, and the inner fire in her shines through in a way that just shouts ‘Naruto’s family’ more clearly than she could ever scream. Even if Shikamaru hadn’t pointed it out she’d be putting it together by now. That’s such a Naruto thing to do… She’s reminded of running from Mizuki, when even as a child he stood in front of her when they got cornered… You know, most students don’t have their first near-death experience at like six, they’re so lucky she’s an heiress and people are actively looking out for her, there’s no way Anbu would have found them so quickly otherwise.

“Uh, I imagine it’ll be items, weapons, maybe clothes?” Ino finally speaks up to lower Karin’s expectations a little, “could be some stat boosting food or something.”

[Please report to your nearest cabin and open the closet in the bedroom for the shop]

“Told you we should have listened.” Shikamaru chides her, “now we have to walk.” Ino snickers to herself.

“Yeah, you’re right.” She’ll let him have this one, she shouldn’t have tried to ignore Sakura and him even if she thought she knew better. “Let's set up a comfortable home and access this shop. No resting though, it’s not even mid-day and we have a lot of work to do.” She readies herself to go at Shikamaru with a frying pan if he lays down for any notable period before they’re out of the cabin, maybe there’ll be items to better cosplay as his mother so she can really get into character whipping him into shape.

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“From what this says, the shop’s items are designed by our player - in this case that vampire looking lady, apparently her name’s Samael - and then the system that governs this assigns values. Meaning we’re heavily limited by the creativity of the person above.” Temari explains.

“I know… I can read.” Sasuke stares coldly.

Awkwardly.

Several seconds pass, and Temari has to hold in a bit of an eep. It’s bad enough her entire face feels like it’s on fire. “Sorry…” She’s not going to try to explain why she assumed he couldn’t, she’s just going to move on. “It doesn’t seem very fair to me that the people above have this much of an impact on us.”

“It’s their game too.” Sasuke explains, looking through the shop with a sharp eye. “They’re being tested more than us, in some ways… and they’re failing.”

“Failing?” Temari asks.

“A lot of these items are pointless…” Sasuke trails, boredly skipping past a ‘friendly fire Kunai’.

“Well yeah but-oh wow, Sakura’s definitely involved in this.” Temari says, “not that we didn’t already know that, but I mean even the item design part. I can’t see any reason why Samael would know to include a giant wind-nature enhancing fan…” She admires the image on the screen, and the statistics mentioned to the side of the cloth fan’s side. It’ll enhance wind affinity by three points, whatever that means, and it also boasts a high durability and metallic base for physical attacks or deflections whenever necessary. It’s expensive, but if they cheap out with their items today and let her take charge of combat, they could earn stuff for them pretty quickly. It even makes sense to divy up the money to boost someone instead of everyone getting mediocre gear, their players even said someone should be higher level.

“There’s just a letter in here for one coin that’s titled ‘For Kankuro’.” Kankuro says, pointing at it, and depositing a coin without asking. She finds herself frowning at that. It’s not that she’d tell him no, it’s just that they share the group coins, it’d be nice to discuss it before they spend anything.

There’s a flash of light, and suddenly a piece of paper flows out of the closet into his hands as if knowing exactly where it needs to go. “Sorry, I’m not really sure how your doll thing works but I know it includes a lot of ninja wire so I added some blocks of wood and a huge pile of ninja wire to the shop.” Kankuro stares at the paper, “yeah Sakura was involved here, what the fuck.”

“At least she gave you wood.” Sasuke says, continuing to look over the items and scrolling through it like a menu. His finger touches a glowing panel that exists only in this interface. He’d never admit it to Sakura but he’s played with enough technology over the years to know how to work something like this, so while the others are struggling he’s just pushing through. There’s not a lot to do when your family is dead and you’re too traumatized to learn normal person skills, it’s train and play games and he had money so when he was too injured or tired to train more he turned to electronics. The only reason they aren’t regularly bonding over their shared hobby is that he’s afraid if he encourages her they’ll never get her out of her room again, or she’ll stop sleeping.

From what he can tell they all have entirely different menus that occupy the same space, as no one’s told him to scroll less quickly and Kankuro got that item without him ever seeing it in the shop.

He doesn’t see that wood either, do they have different shops?

“The only weapons she included here for me are friendly fire variants… I bet my collection burned up in the forest, damn…” He shakes his head, nibbles his lip with a little bit of timid rage.

“That’s your concern?” Temari asks him, “I wonder if she’s trying to give you the option to kill us for that hero fragment thing… Please don’t kill us.” She finds herself iterating with a flat stare that he returns with a shrug.

“There’s a battle axe in here. I guess I’m class changing. It’s friendly fire too but like, I’m not going to stab you.” She watches as he too deposits coins without consulting her. “Why is there a wig with my hair that’s just labeled duck?”

Well, if they find there’s no reason to discuss their expenses, she slots in what she can and takes her fan with a big dopey grin. The axe was cheap, Kankuro’s letter didn’t seem to push him towards anything, if they’re not going to talk with her she’s not talking either. She’ll take the power, and use today’s bounty to try and get them something nice for tomorrow.

She basks in the familiar weight when a giant fan lands in her hands, a big dopey smile on her lips that the others make no comment on.

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“Why is this all garbage?” Ino asks, looking through the catalog. There’s so much cosmetic nonsense, there’s a stylish fur coat that gives extra heat resistance, there’s bunny ears which make her run faster, there’s a mirror which increases Charm when used in tandem with a cosmetic technique. There’s goggles, a barrel of wine… Her entire wardrobe appears to be in here, most of which not even giving a stat boost. “Doesn’t she want us to survive and win? How does Charm help?”

“She’s telling us to stop taking it so seriously.” Shikamaru explains, scrolling through the list himself, “we stayed out last night so you could feel like we weren’t stalling.”

“I admitted I was wrong.” Ino huffs, eyes flicking over to him with a bit of rage.

“I’m not criticizing you, I’m explaining.” He releases a long sigh. “She’s saying we’re way ahead of schedule, and we can relax.” He stops the display on one item. “It’s not all garbage, I bet everyone has one or two items that should jump out at them, the rest is just filler stuff to send a message.”

“And what jumps out at you?” Ino asks.

He inserts a few coins, and pulls out an umbrella of all things. A very big umbrella, it’s black with a long cloth around it holding it together and waiting to be released. Its tip has a sharp and shiny point which draws the eye. “It’s strange I’ve never thought of this, but this should create a field of shadow for me to abuse in any situation. It’s flexible, and should provide a melee option given its reinforcements. It has five physical attack upgrades, a durability boost, and I think she gave it a sharp point so I could lazily stab things that get too close.”

“And for me?” Ino asks, lowering her crossed arms and taking a steadying breath. She’s so annoyed at Sakura, who gives their not-girlfriend crap items and clothes? Wait, is this Sakura’s attempt to understand her?

“I think we have different items.” He explains, “unless you have a shadow step skill token, just gonna buy that…” A moment later an actual golden coin flows out of the closet. As it lands in his hand, he crushes it like he knew exactly what to do with it, which somewhat confirms what he said. She has no such token in her inventory, and there’s no skill use description anywhere to tell her to crush big coins and - well she takes in the light around him changing. He glows very brightly- before he’s suddenly enveloped by a large veil of darkness that blocks him from view entirely. It’s a thick smog that overcomes his body in seconds and as if with a flash of light - but somehow in reverse - he’s gone. “Yeah, that’s pretty cool.” She hears his voice behind her, and she holds back a shiver. None of their jutsu have really worked since they got here, so to see him pull a new version of substitution like that…

Will they have to work for their old skills? They kept the basics of their kit, she seems to have some sort of intuition which allows her to better predict the actions of others - it’s the only reason the shadow monsters were able to be dealt with so easily last night while Shikamaru slept - but she can’t actually take anything over. Shikamaru has control over the shadow monsters but doesn’t seem to be able to hold anything in place. Chouji’s still big and strong and can even expand but he’s not using calories to do it and the utility of his expansion has been made very linear.

Karin… she doubts she had any abilities to begin with.

“Oh wow, can I have a few coins?” Karin asks, reminding them of the fact that they’ve been picking up the coins as they kill stuff, and since Karin hasn’t killed anything she has nothing.

“Sure, but what has your eye?” Ino asks, fishing for information on her shop while she reaches into a small pack she managed to pick up off a kobold yesterday for a few stray coins. Karin’ll ask for more if she needs it, though she is a little iffy on giving the worst member of their team the fruits of their labor.

“Uzumaki regeneration, Uzumaki healing, Uzumaki stat boost.” She lists off, “It just goes on, it looks like Sakura built me a kit off of Naruto’s? I don’t know how strong these are but-”

“Shut up and take my money!” Ino shoves a huge bundle of coins into Karin’s hands, causing the girl to stumble in surprise.

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“This crazy lady has some really cool ideas.” Naruto says, looking through his catalogue while Gaara does his own. “She’s also mean.”

He says that a moment before Gaara puts a few coins in, and very suddenly sprouts a tail. It’s fluffy, not that long, has an outline of black fur but is mostly filled in with a mix of brown-yellow-ish colored strands. The boy seems pleased with himself, and continues searching.

“She’s clearly being mean, why would you buy a Tanuki tail?” Naruto asks with a prolonged sigh, looking at his own extremely extensive list of Fox based cosmetics, including nine tails.

“I miss her.” Gaara explains with a simple shrug, “she did say I’d look better with a tail.”

“I doubt you’ll get to keep it.” Naruto’s met with another shrug after pointing out reality. “Err, does it at least give good stats?” A lot of his items do. It appears like items vary in effectiveness to price ratio drastically based on a class of sorts. Physical items are powerful but can be lost or destroyed so their value is middle range. Physical mutations are very powerful and can’t be lost, but they drastically alter the body so they’re also middle cost. Then there’s skills which are very costly, tools which are also physical items but aren’t meant to do anything directly or meaningful which are cheap - like this set of kunai - and then there’s instruction manuals like ‘how to build a tent.’ Those are just cheap. They’re words written on a page, so…

“It did.” That’s before Gaara grows pointy ears atop his head, “as do these.”

“Gaara…” The rapidly fuzzing boy gives him the equivalent of a toneless stare.

Naruto shakes his head and buys a skill with some of his coins. He’s somewhat overflowing with the currency, defeating these monsters has been as easy as breathing and they each drop so much money. It feels like the game was designed around them being a lot weaker and he got an overtuned character so he’s starting with an advantage and is snowballing hard. The ‘Giant laser beam’ skill costs a lot of his coins, but it also sounds cool, and because he’s been feeling very empty he also buys a ‘magic energy’ stat boost. Stats are a lot like skills, costly but permanent and not able to be lost. They also don’t morph the body which is a huge boon.

The description says to just crush it so, he does, and can immediately feel energy flowing to the surface of his body. It’s not as huge as he’d like, but then his stats are probably really high already so… Crushing the skill, he walks over to the window and opens it, before pointing his hand into the distance. The sand is everywhere, he doesn’t have to find a target, it’s in all parts of the all consuming desert. Trying to think of anything in particular to shoot would be a bit like walking up to the ocean and deciding on a small patch of water he’s going to purify and drink.

“Giant laser beam.” He intones just as the description said and he feels his energy flow to his fingertips before leaving and hanging in the air in front of him. The space in front of his palm makes a crackling noise, and the space heats up enough he slightly worries about his skin as the energy builds. Skills in this world are a lot about intent, so he focuses on his desire to blow up the sand in the distance, and just as the amount of energy he’s putting off starts to make him feel a little woozy, he watches it collect enough to start spinning in the air with enough potency to be glowing white and sparking erratically. “Haa-”

As suddenly as it started, the energy in front of him shoots off through the window. It travels faster than his eyes can track, and he watches the sand in the distance disappear. He expects an explosion, or for it to kick into the air, instead a tunnel of glass forms around where the blast went through which leaves an empty pocket that goes deep enough he can’t see the end. It’s wide too, probably about half a chest in width?

“That’s pretty cool.” Tenten’s voice catches his ear to his right, and he turns just in time to stumble. The energy cost is intense, enough so if he was near a bed- wait, he is, they’re indoors. He blinks before plopping down on a cot and falling over.

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Lee got running shoes, which Tenten notes somehow make him even faster. He’s not where he was in their world, but the rate at which he’s keeping up is intense. The level system here involves getting a very similar amount of stat points you started with, so every single level intensely increases your power, at least for the range they’re expected to level up to. She imagines the difference between two hundred and two hundred one isn’t very noticeable. She imagines it’s an exaggerated system, but maybe that’s just the power of the Hero Shard they were told about when they got here. Every step Lee takes pushes the sand into the air while he ‘wahoos’ his way around.

“I can hear the sand.” Neji says, looking both perplexed and very amused. There’s a red blindfold covering his eyes, which would be dumb but while the Byakugan doesn’t work perfectly here, he does still have X-ray vision. “It’s not quite a three sixty degree field of view going through walls and telling me everyone’s pathways, but I feel like it’s unlikely I get snuck up on while wearing this.

She feels bad for him, but luckily after Sakura pulled them into a horrific dungeon they started training to handle things without their main kit. The person who built her shop didn’t seem to realize she was a ranged specialist, so there’s no shotgun or anything - she hopes her guns didn’t blow up when she did - but she does have an axe, a katana, a mallet and a fairly protective combat outfit that’s unfortunately as green and bright as Lee’s normal outfit. To contrast, Lee’s in yellow because apparently yellow running gear makes you faster because of ‘lightning bolts.’ It’s dumb, but the lack of seriousness in their new reality allows her a moment to get a grip and accept that as intense as this all is, there is room to breathe. Their shop isn’t filled with sweaty try-hard gear or crazy skill combinations that rewrite reality, they’re filled with comedic twists and items written with a sense of humor.

It tells her that these players are people too, and that the enemy team is unlikely to be kitted with reality breaking broken bullshit. “I can hear the sand too, Neji, it’s pretty loud.” Tenten laughs, listening to Lee kick up everything around and how it skitters to the ground loudly.

“No I mean like, there’s a sand worm beneath us and I can hear it circling.” Neji explains.

“Ah, gross.” She takes her katana out anyway, readying herself to stab it into the sand. “Can’t wait to buy those hand crossbows tomorrow when we have more money.”

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It only takes a small break before Naruto is back at the shop, pulling out a weapon. Gaara seems disappointed he hasn’t bought any tails or something, he can see Gaara’s got sharp claws and movement tracking slit eyes. Gaara isn’t quite covered in fluff but Naruto gets the feeling he would be if it was a shop item. “You know, I got a set of these and I never actually trained with them. It was a cool concept.” Naruto purchases an item, and takes a moment to feel it in his hand. Metal plated nun-chucks. “Guess now’s the time.”

“I got an item too.” Gaara points out, pointing towards the giant vase on his back. It’s tied to him with thick and sturdy looking rope. The boy looks mighty proud of himself.

“We’re in a desert, do you need that?” Naruto asks.

“I worry they might not be in a desert.” He explains, “and the mountains… and the weight on my back will feel familiar.” He’s gotten a little more vocal over the past day. Naruto’s not sure why being separated from something he seems to think is a family member is having such a profound and positive effect on him, but maybe that’s life sometimes.

Maybe the things that you think are good are sometimes worse than poison.

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“Hey everyone! Sorry about this!” It’s just when they’re about to close the shop that the display comes to life, and Ino’s staring at Sakura’s face. She’s got some short blonde girl looking exhausted and leaning against her side. Samael - the lady with the cloak that doesn’t cover enough - is sitting in a chair behind her and giving her a thumbs up. There’s a scrape on Sakura’s forehead, just a little one but the red mark draws Ino’s eyes and makes her wonder what’s going on over there. “I get two minutes to talk to you every day, let’s make them count by making sure we’re all in front of the shop at noon, okay?” Ino nods, and waves, only for Sakura to continue.

“I say talk but I actually can’t hear you. I have a feed of what you’re all doing but there’s a little bit of a delay because this world managed to work out multiverse travel, governing system communication, resurrection, and even how the cycle of life works on an energy per measurement of matter ratio but live video is out of the question… That’s not a joke.” Sakura laughs to herself like she’s told the funniest zinger. “So if you want to say stuff I’ll hear it after this but can’t respond right now. Uhh, anyway!” Sakura jumps up a little, brightly beaming at the camera and doing a pose of all things. It’s energetic, and involves a half punch in the air, Ino wonders where she learned that. “The shops are custom, Samael and I stayed up all night coming up with what to give you all. You’ll notice they’re filled with stuff but not necessarily useful stuff. The coins monsters give at your level aren’t worth a lot, so I can’t give you cool stuff like flight yet. That being said, some of you may have noticed that your shops have less than even that explanation justifies and I apologize.”

Sakura coughs a little, looking sheepish, “look, so, we had to prioritize the shops of people doing worse. I know you want a better answer, especially you Ino, but you’re doing so well I had to prioritize my creativity for Karin. So instead of coming up with cool mechanics I uh, filled your shop with cute stuff I’ve seen you wear and some stuff that jumped into mind. Please wear the bunny ears, I wanna see it. Either version, really.”

“... Great.” Ino palms her face, shaking her head. By either version, she’s referring to the fact that there are two copies, a medium effectiveness headband and actual bunny ears she can morph onto her body for a big boost to speed and hearing.

“You’re all doing amazing, and if Kiba doesn’t buy the predator's stomach I’m gonna be sad.” Sakura nods to herself, “alright uh, your goal today is to try and get everyone to level four if possible. Please do your best!” Sakura claps her hands, and the screen goes black.

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“She knows you too well.” Hinata snickers, looking over at Kiba, who’s currently eating a goblin leg, he’s sharing a portion with Akamaru because of course he is. Akamaru’s got a party hat, and Kiba’s got a leather jacket on.

“The ability to gain slight power from whatever I eat, and process monster meats efficiently?” Kiba asks, “I went ahead and bought it for Akamaru too.”

“I am happy.” Shino allows himself to muster the energy to say, “this was thoughtful.” Shino only had the money for one purchase, a generator and a strap on pouch with it that takes ambient energy and translates it into food for his bugs. “I knew she was an ally.”

Hinata, for her part, is happy her actual coat was in the shop. It’s a little awkward that it’s probably the only thing that Sakura remembers about her, but it’s comfy and feels the same. It’s almost like Sakura’s worn it before and knows exactly how it should feel. She probably has, it’s no secret that Ino buys clothes specifically to dress Sakura up. How Sakura hasn’t noticed the connotations is beyond her, but she does wonder if Ino went full out and dyed her hair or if they just toed the line of cosplaying as her. “We should do better today and get more coins so when her creativity is aimed towards us instead of this Karin, we have the money.” Hinata suggests.

“Agreed, let’s go Akamaru!” Kiba jumps to his feet, already racing towards the door before Shino can give his affirmative nod of understanding.