Alvarcus's Room, One Hour After Shirokumo Left
"Where the hell is he?" Waiting for a reply is killing me. Did Tsunade realize that all I did was an act? Did she play along that well or did I really go too far this time? What was her response to my letter? "Fuck it, I'll just summon him back here."
POOF
"Arachne no not the peanut butter!" Shirokumo yells in fear while cowering in fright.
"Uh... what?" What the fuck did I just hear?
"Al?" Shirokumo peaks through his arms that he has shielding his face. "Al! Thank you so much for summoning me! Do you have any idea how hard it is to clean peanut butter off of an exoskeleton? It gets in every crack. Every. Single. One."
"You know what? I'm not even going to ask. I'm just going to chalk it up to some strange mating ritual I don't know about or want to know about."
"Oi." Shirokumo points at me in mock anger. "You can't say shit about strange mating rituals. We had spiders watch your fight with Leiko. Whips? Candles? Mistress? Hell now that I think about it maybe the only reason you got Spiders as a summon is so that you can tie people up easier. We are experts at that."
"Oh my Kami that was all an act! Why does everyone take that so seriously? I was just trying to unnerve her! Knock her off her A game!"
"Alvarcus you have serious issues." Shirokumo states. "You know there are support groups you can sign up for."
"Nope! Not having this conversation! I'm perfectly sane thank you!" I awkwardly clear my throat. "Ahem. That's not why I called you here at all. How did things go with Tsunade? Obviously you didn't get squished, that's good. Right?"
"Oh. Uh... well..." Shirokumo trials off. "Funny thing about that. You see the thing is... how do I put this delicately?"
"Man up and tell me already! If this is about the new Bingo Book ranking I already know about that."
"Tsunade maybe sorta... declared that you're a true missing nin now and that she doesn't want anymore contact from or with you." Shirokumo rapidly says as he scurries up the wall to the highest point in his webs. "Don't hurt me?"
"She doesn't even want my reports about Orochimaru?" I ask for clarification. That can't be right. There's no way. I am actually a missing nin now?
"Nor the Akatsuki. I name dropped them to try and get her to see the error of her ways. Didn't work. She all but threatened to squish me the next time I pop in so I won't be going back there. I like living, thank you very much!"
"I... uh... wow." I fall down onto my bed. "I went too far. Stupid Alvarcus! Real stupid! I should have let her kill him. I should have watched. It should have been enough, but no! My stupid idiotic need to make him suffer got in the damn way! I'm as bad as Sasuke is when it comes to Itachi."
How am I supposed to warn her about the looming threats? If she doesn't even want to talk to me then I can't tell her about anything. Not Gaara getting kidnapped, not Kakuzu and Hidan being immortal and Asuma dying, not the rest of the Akatsuki, I won't be able to warn her if Pain decides to level Konoha.
"Hey there's no need to be so harsh on yourself. It was Tsunade's choice to cut you out of her life. This one is on Tsunade. She could have still kept in contact with you."
"No this is all on me." I rasp out. "I gave her no choice. I never thought that I would actually be kicked out of Konoha forever. I mean sure most everyone thought I was gone but Tsunade knew that I am still helping Konoha. She knew that I'm taking a huge risk, she new that I'm still on her side. But now? I can't go back. Everything I said to my friends is actually true now. The only way I can go back to Konoha is in chains."
"You still have me. The Spiders will not abandon a Summoner for something so petty. Plus, as much as it pains me to admit this about a Snake Summoner, Sasuke will always be there for you too."
"Wow I think that's the nicest thing you've said about Sasuke." I chuckle darkly at that. "So this is who I have left to help me. The Spiders and Sasuke. Oh hell what is Kakashi going to think? Will he side with Tsunade or will he understand that what I did was an act?"
"Al, he's a Konoha jonin. Not only that he's one of the best jonin Konoha has. He has to pick the Hokage's side. The Hokage can't be seen as weak, she can't be seen as unable to control her underlings. Kakashi knows this so he'll be forced to pick her."
"Are you willing to run him letters?" Maybe if I can't send the reports to Tsunade then Kakashi can act as a middle man. Say that he found a contact in Oto or some other bullshit reason like that so she doesn't know it's from me. Then I can still help, I can still potentially save lives.
"She'd know exactly who gave him the reports. It won't work. I'll still take him personal letters but there's no way that she's going to take anything from you now. I'm sorry, she's turned her back on you."
"Fucking DAMMIT!" I roar up at my ceiling in rage. "Shit! Shit shit shit!"
I lash out in anger and punch the wall. A dull thud is heard as a new dent forms in the concrete.
"We can pop over to the Nest if you want to vent a bit." Shirokumo offers from his spot in the webs. "I've still got that spot picked out from when I had to tell you about Tayuya."
"No." I sit up and wipe off the concrete dust from my fist. "I can't waste time doing that. So what I'm on my own? That just means I need to do it all myself, starting with tearing Otogakure to the ground. It's time to stop fantasizing about burning it down and time to grab the gasoline and the matches and set it on fire. But how can I destroy something as big as this base?"
I get up and start pacing back and forth across my room.
"I don't have one singular technique that can level this base all in one go. Even if I used Devouring Earth it would take at least an hour to destroy everything. I can't have that much time for people to escape it has to be an instant all consuming attack. Not even my ridiculous Elemental Monstrosity would work and that drains me of all my chakra. It's a last resort jutsu meant to throw whatever I have left at an opponent in hopes that it'll kill them. Plus it's a massive laser, it's linear. No, I don't have anything in my ninjutsu library that massive. I'm not even sure Orochimaru knows a jutsu that destructive, he's probably have to summon Manda to rampage and flatten it with his sheer size."
"Better learn something new then." Shirokumo says from a lower spot in the webs. He's moved down now that it's clear I'm not going to freak out. "Good luck finding a jutsu that'll blow up that much and is one that you can launch from far away."
"Yeah too bad I can't just flip a switch and then... huh." I can work with that. I'll just need a few pieces to come together first. "Shirokumo I need a spider that can dig through anything."
"What for? Can't you just use and earth jutsu to make a hole yourself?" He raises a good point.
"Yes but I can't be seen doing this. Is there one?"
"Yeah we've got a few that can dig pretty well. There's a whole colony of trapdoor spiders that dig into all sorts of things. Wood, dirt, hell some even dig into rock! They're a quiet bunch the whole lot of them. They're not good talkers since most of the time they seclude themselves in their traps but they're a hard working bunch."
"Can they make tunnels?"
"Sure they could but they're all pretty small and they don't normally dig too far. All they usually do is go just deep enough to have spacious living quarters. That being said spacious to them is freaking small to us. They make me look massive, they're just a tiny bit larger than the spiders of this realm. Seriously they're like millimeters big. It would take a long time for you to make a human sized tunnel with them, you'd be better off using a jutsu of your own and take the risk of being caught."
"No they sound perfect! They wouldn't be making me a tunnel this is for something completely different. How many of them are there?"
"They're one of the few subspecies that has a colony. The smaller the spider the higher the reproduction rate. Their egg sacs have way more than others. Hundreds, maybe even thousands."
"Good, good. That'll make it go quicker. Could you get in touch with them? Let them know that I want to talk? I might have a task for them. Only those that are willing of course."
"Sure. This is all pretty specific stuff, want to tell me why you're suddenly taking an interest in them? Don't get me wrong it's great that you are branching out from me, Arachne and Murasakino but this seems like more than just wanting to know about them."
"One more question first. Do you know if their web is chakra conductive?"
"Uh... maybe? I think so. They use their chakra to help hide their trapdoors. By lacing in their webs they can weave in a genjutsu to help alter their surroundings."
"Holy shit this might actually work."
"What might actually work? I don't like being left out of the loop!"
"Shirokumo my friend, I think I'm about to prove Orochimaru and Sasuke right. Now here's what I want to happen..."
The Next Day, Noon, at the Lounge
"Stupid Shirokumo. I can't believe that he said it'll take a while to find them. How the hell does it take a spider that can reverse summon himself to other spiders long to find one? He can just pop over to them! Hell stupid Tsunade while I'm at it! Who just straight up refuses information on their enemies?"
The door to the lounge creaks open slowly.
A dirty and frazzled Sasuke stiffly shuffles in. He's completely ignoring everything and making his way towards the steaming pot of coffee. When he reaches the counter he struggles to lift his arms up to get and pour a cup, then he turns and shuffles over to his favorite chair in the Lounge. He doesn't sit down in it, he falls down in it. He let's out a pitiful whine and with a shaky hand manages to take a sip of his coffee. Finally his glazed over eyes focus and he takes in his surroundings. His eyes settle on me.
I'm wearing a smirk. "How was training?"
"Fuck you." He groans out.
"Let me guess, stamina training?" My smirk turns into a full on grin.
"Fuck you."
"I told you his training was hell." Ah it's so nice to have someone else suffer along with me.
"You severely underplayed it. It's worse than hell." Sasuke dully says.
"Oh longer sentences! That's good, it's a sign of recovery. Or it's just the coffee kicking in." This is worth it. I've never seen Sasuke so unkempt before! "Now you know why I sleep all the time. It's a coping mechanism. Just wait until dodge training, that one is really bad."
"Fuck you." Sasuke groans out again, then he smirks himself. "Orochimaru said to tell you it's your turn."
"Oh. Well then. I'll be off to go get my ass kicked. Can't wait!"
Meanwhile in Konohagakure
"So." Ino casually looks at all the males assembled before her. She has Kiba, Choji, Shino, Lee and Neji cornered. "I bet you're all wondering why I gathered you all here."
"More like trapped us all but yeah let's go with what you said." Kiba sassily remarks.
"It did cross my mind." Shino adds.
"I want it to be on the record that I feel uncomfortable about this and I would like to leave." Neji states.
"Too bad." Ino smirks.
"Yeah when she get's like this there is no escape." Choji admits in defeat. "It's best to just get this over with."
"So... why are we here?" Lee carefully asks.
"Oh it's very simple. You see I'm here to figure out what you're all willing to give me to keep my mouth shut." Ino smiles with a glint of victory in her eyes.
"For what? There's nothing you've got on all of us!" Kiba boasts.
"Okay then. So you're all okay with me telling the whole village that you all called a certain someone hot during the Chunin Exams?" Ino revels in the feeling of souls breaking. It's not quite enough yet, she want to add salt in the wound. "Well it'll certainly make my life harder if I have to compete against all of you boys for him. I hear he has limitless stamina, imagine how good he is in – "
"NO! Don't say it! Just... what do you want?" Choji quickly and shamelessly asks.
Every other male present quickly follows suit.
After Ino extracts promises from each of them to honor her demands – requests. She meant requests – they all walk away with their heads held in shame.
"I've still got it." She smirks to herself.
"Now correct me if I'm wrong," A very interested voice says from above Ino, "you definitely said limitless stamina."
Ino whirls around at the unexpected voice to see a lady wearing a long open trench coat and... very little else. "Who're you?"
"Anko Mitarashi at your service." The kunoichi drops to the ground and gives a sweeping bow while somehow her modesty remains intact.
"Wow that was impressive. How'd you keep your coat closed? You're like the ultimate tease with that, always promising a glimpse of hidden treasures but never revealing them. Wish I could do that." Ino blurts out then immediately covers her mouth with her hands. "Sorry?"
"No need to apologize, in fact I can teach you how." Anko smirks at the innocent girl before her. "All you have to do is tell me who has limitless stamina. I'm satisfied with Iruka," Ino let's out a high pitched squeak at the mention of her former sensei, "but I have this friend who desperately needs a damn good lay. Stupid ANBU duties has made her way stressed out and her boyfriend died back before the invasion so she's had absolutely zero relief except for her own hand. Oops forget I said that part about the ANBU."
"Uh... sure?" Ino hesitantly agrees. "You'll teach me your trick if I tell you who it is?"
"Yep!" Anko throws an arm over Ino's shoulders. "So come on girlie, who has the limitless stamina? And can you introduce me to him so I can force him to fuck Yugao until she's little more than a drooling mess of satisfaction. Who am I kidding, have you seen her? I doubt I'd have to force anything! Just throw them both into a dark room with a good mattress and get out of the way!"
"Al-alvarcus!" Ino stutters out while turning beet red. "Don't say such crass things! How could you? Isn't she your friend?"
"Oh honey that wasn't crass at all. You'll realize once you've found a boy or two to ride, there's nothing like it." Anko sighs in blissful memories. "Anyways I'm going to need a last name too. Alvarcus..."
"Mar." Ino turns ever redder at the words of her senior. "His name is Alvarcus Mar."
"No shit? He's got limitless stamina?" Anko taps her chin. "Nah, that won't work. He's too young, hell he's practically your age! Guess he's all yours honey."
Ino's face is so red it could put tomatoes to shame.
"What's this?" Anko smirks at the gennin she still has her arm around. "Could it be..."
"NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Ino shouts.
"Oh honey." Anko grins in evil satisfaction. "The things I'm going to teach you. You'll have no issues wooing him with your feminine charms."
"NO! The only thing you need to teach me is that trick of yours!" Ino quickly yells. "No not even that! We can call it even! There's no need to take an interest in me!"
"Too late." Anko tightens her grip. "You've piqued my interest. Plus I've always wanted an apprentice, looks like you've won the lottery!"
"Nooooo! Someone save me!" Ino cries out.
"Something is wrong." Inoichi looks up from the unfortunate person he's working on. "Something is very wrong."
Sound's Training Field with Orochimaru and Alvarcus
"Alvarcus how nice to see you!" Orochimaru is still radiant from yesterday. He's still giddy with happiness that I picked him. "How are you today?"
"You know considering all that went on recently I'm in a surprisingly good mood." Especially since I have a plan to start tearing down Otogakure. Before it was on my list of things to do but now? I know how I'm going to do it. It's going to be magnificent!
"Wonderful!" Orochimaru claps and then rubs his hand together. "What shall we work on today? You said you had a list of things you wanted to learn?"
"Oh yeah that." I sheepishly rub the back of my head. "I actually have a list. Like on paper. I have it on me if you want to read through it really quick."
"Let's see it." Orochimaru holds out his hand as I dig through my coats various pockets. I'm keeping the coats as part of my new look, I like them. They've grown on me plus now I can make them any color I want. I suppose it's actually the Weavers that will change the colors, I just have to ask and they'll be excited to make it for me.
"Here it is." I pull out a piece of paper and hand it over.
"Hmm." Orochimaru takes it then unfolds it. Then unfolds it again. And again. "You weren't kidding about a list."
"Nope. I know that it's a bit ridiculous to go through all of it but I figured I might as well write down what I want to learn."
"A good third of this is just expanding your ninjutsu library more. Genjutsu though we'll have to see about. It's not for everyone, it takes a certain type of mind to craft more complex illusions and you just might have one. We've started seals and can work through all the things you have for them – is that learning how to seal a bijuu into a jinchuriki?" Orochimaru looks up from my list.
"Yep. You never know when a bijuu needs to be sealed. Plus it doesn't have to be a jinchuriki, I know that the Ichibi was sealed into a tea pot for a while and that the Hachibi was also sealed into an item. Not really sure what that one was though. Also it's gotta be a lot harder to seal a bijuu than a human so I can maybe alter a seal or two to make the sealing formula for my project."
Maybe I should look into those two items for a point of reference when I work on the Sword of Totsuka? If they can hold a bijuu then surely they can hold humans, they would be excellent to study to make the container for the people I seal away since they have to go somewhere. Eh that'll have to be much later, I need to get further into fuinjutsu first. I barely know some of the basics and recreating the sword will be a master level project.
"Practical. You'll have to learn this bijuu chakra suppressing seal first. It's a good stepping stone. Kenjutsu? Perhaps. It's not your style but if you do manage to recreate the Sword of Totsuka then it would make sense to at least be familiar with the art more than just 'the pointy end goes in the other guy.' Everything you have here about the Spiders I cannot help with, it's something you'll have to discover yourself. Anything else you would like to add?"
"Yes but it's not really something for you to teach me. I want access to your lab." I say with an even tone.
"My laboratory?" Orochimaru looks confused, it's a whole new look for him. Usually he can figure out exactly what I'm thinking and if not he's excited to analyze my thought for himself. "Why would you need access to my laboratory?"
"I need a sterile environment to test things. Why else would I need to use a lab?"
"Careful Alvarcus, even with you I will only tolerate so much sass." Alright so there's the line. I'll make sure to not cross it. "Be specific. What do you plan to do in my laboratory?"
"I'm attempting to make the Sword of Totsuka. I need to test the chakra conductivity and other attributes of various liquids. It's best to have as little contaminates as possible, dirty water won't react the same as pure water and so on. Plus I'll need to test various liquids to see which is the best, then there's the whole how do I make a liquid act like a sword thing, and finding the right material to actually house the entities that are sealed away since they have to be sealed into something. Not to mention putting it all together. Basically I need a place to work where people won't mess with my stuff, hence your lab. No one goes in there without your explicit permission."
Orochimaru's face splits into a wild smile. "I shall see to it that you have your own. Who would have guessed that you'd have a scientific side to you as well! Truly we are father and son! We're too much alike to be anything else!"
"You're giving me my own lab?" That's not what I expected at all. It's actually rather nice to be honest. I'll have to make sure it's well protected from nosy people but I'm confident I can come up with something.
"Of course. If we shared neither of us would get anything done. We'd constantly be distracted by what the other was working on." That's a very good point. Orochimaru would always be checking on my progress while I'd be distracted by the screams of agony from his experiments.
"Cool. When can I expect it?" If making the sword will be as hard as I think it is I'll need every moment I can get.
"A month from now." Orochimaru happily says. "We'll be moving to a new base after the news of our scuffle against the Konoha group dies down and I have a few unused labs already there. You're welcome to your pick of them."
"One month." That should be enough time to finish up here. "That'll work. I can focus on other things until then. Like genjutsu for instance."
"Would you like to start with that?" Orochimaru pleasantly asks.
"Yeah. Let's start with that. Once I get some of the basics down I can always work on improving them on my own. I'm sure the Sound Flunkies wouldn't mind being my test subjects." I can picture it now! I can trick them all into thinking the girls bathroom is the guys! Or that there's one less step on the flight of stairs they're on! Or that –
"You know I do have actual test subjects you can use." Orochimaru states, pulling me out of my fantasy of subtly torturing the Sound Flunkies.
"Wait really?" He'd actually let me do that? "You're willing to let me use your test subjects for my own purposes?"
"Yes, especially at the next base. That one has a much larger prison complex than this one. In fact it's mostly a prison complex, it takes up almost the entire island it's on." He smiles fondly to himself. "Some of my best work is done there. It's a rather sentimental place to me."
"I... uh... huh. I didn't think you were the sharing type."
"I'm not to most people but there are always exceptions. I've given Kabuto free reign as well. He uses them to improve on his medical techniques and you're much more important to me than he is. How could I not give my child the tools necessary for his improvement?"
I don't know how to react to that. On one hand it's Orochimaru genuinely trying to be nice and help me but on the other he's literally giving me people to kill without a second thought.
"Thanks?" I need to make this conversation move on. "So, how about that genjutsu?"
Wow that wasn't subtle at all.
"Yes, genjutsu. I'll teach you one of the more basic ones, the Hell Viewing Technique and you shall try and cast it on me. I will let you know if you're successful and how well you've crafted the illusion. Try and dazzle me, I expect great things to come out of your mind!"
He's letting me show him crazy things? He's letting me place genjutsu after genjutsu on him? I think I'm going to enjoy this.
One Hour Later
"Anything?" I ask Orochimaru.
"No."
I fly through the hand signs again and use a staggering amount of chakra to fuel the simple genjutsu.
"How about now?"
"Nothing."
"What the fuck am I doing wrong!?" I yell at myself. "It's a simple Kami damned genjutsu! The freaking Eyes of the Damned should be harder than this! Why can't I get it?! I've tried almost no chakra, way too much chakra, placing a string on you since that seems to solve all my problems and everything else I could think of! Sasuke can do this with a glance but I can't do it when my target is literally letting me place a genjutsu on them?!"
"I may know why." Orochimaru says while watching me have my outburst. "It could be interference from the Jiongu."
"What? Impossible. The Jiongu isn't chakra it's a living being." It can't be the Jiongu so what the hell is it?!
"You misunderstand, it isn't the Jiongu itself that is the problem but rather what the Jiongu does." Orochimaru is going into lecture mode and I'm listening intently. It's rare that he's wrong. "How many hearts do you have now?"
"Five. One of each element." I clarify for unknown reasons. Orochimaru should already know that.
"These hearts all came from different people, hence they make different chakra. Correct?"
"Yes. Still not following here." What is he getting at? We both already know all of this, it's nothing new.
"Tell me, what are the main ways to break a genjutsu?"
"To cause pain, the shock to the system will jolt you out of the genjutsu. Another way is to disrupt your own chakra, the sudden surge will break the foreign chakra that's in your system, and the last that I know about is to have someone inject their own chakra into your system. Adding in the third type will dismantle the genjutsu chakra in your system."
Orochimaru is patiently waiting for something. He's waiting for me to figure it out.
"Okay, so I know it's not the pain one since you're not hurting yourself. It's not you disrupting your own chakra since you want me to place the genjutsu on you. No one is here to disrupt your chakra so it's not that one. Wait, hold on a moment. You said it was the Jiongu. No, it was a byproduct of the Jiongu. You brought up that I have five unique types of chakra."
There's a beat of silence.
"Oh Kami that's it isn't it?" It all makes sense now. "It's not that I can't cast the genjutsu it's that I'm trying to make five unique chakras all work in unison. That's not how genjutsu works, the different types naturally break apart the genjutsu. In the same moment I place it on you I also break you out of it. That also explains why I can use Henge and Eyes of the Damned. They're physical manifestations of my chakra which is a whole different branch of genjutsu than crafting illusions. A physical manifestations is much more durable than a subtly place illusion in the mind of an enemy."
"Precisely." Orochimaru grins at my conclusion.
"So genjutsu is something I can't learn thanks to the parasitic thread monster that gave me unlimited stamina, insane strength, immunity to genjutsu, immunity to poisons, access to all five elements, up to four ridiculously hard to kill minions, let's me recover from just about any amount of physical damage, let's me stitch other people's limbs back on, negates my need to breathe, talks to me on a regular basis and gave me a bastardized form of immortality."
"Yes." And the award for the biggest understatement today goes to Orochimaru.
"You win some and you lose some." I shrug. It's not like I needed to learn it, it just would have been nice if I could. "I think I'll be okay without genjutsu."
"I would certainly hope so. That's quite the impressive list you have. Not to mention how formidable you are with chakra strings and that you've started to take up fuinjutsu."
"I'm just a little overpowered for how long I've been in the game. I don't feel bad about it, I'm going to have some strong people after my head now. An A-rank bounty is nothing to scoff at and with me being so young they'll think I'm easy pickings."
"Yes, about that." Orochimaru turns deadly serious. "You won't be going out for a while, even when we relocate to the next base."
"Why? I get that I have a shiny new bounty and everything but come on! I'm freaking scary!" I strike a menacing and intimidating pose.
Orochimaru merely raises an eyebrow at me as if he's sarcastically asking 'really?'
"Okay fine I'm only thirteen I won't look scary for a while. When can I expect to go on missions again?"
"When I deem you capable of defending yourself adequately from those who would go after your head. Consider it extra motivation to improve quickly."
This feels like I'm being placed on house arrest. Whatever, I can make this work. It'll give me plenty of time to work on making myself better. Even with all of my strengths that we just talked about someone like Kakashi would easily defeat me. I'm slow and being slow will end up getting you killed. By no means do I have to be the fastest person in the world but I need to be capable of keeping up with my opponents. Lucky for me I've decided to take on a bunch of S-rank missing nin.
"Okay fine. I'll agree to that on one condition. I need something from you." I sort of demand.
"Yes? What is it?"
"Since I'm stuck down here, genjutsu turned out to be a bust and I don't get a lab yet I'm going to throw myself into seals hardcore. It's the only 'new' thing to me and it's one I'll need to advance rapidly in. I'm going to need a bunch of sealing tags. Like say... ten or twenty."
"Ten or twenty?" Orochimaru incredulously says. "I thought you would ask for more than that. Of course I can provide something so meager."
"Crates. Ten or twenty crates." I cheekily smirk at him.
His jaw drops open a little in shock. "That's... you do know that each crate has a thousand sealing tags?"
"Yep! That's why I asked for them, buy in bulk and whatnot." I casually reply.
"You want ten to twenty thousand sealing tags? What could you possibly need those for?"
"I'm going to do a lot of trial and error. A lot. It's how I plan on learning them, seeing what gets me what reaction. Sure your journal explained a lot of information about them but there's some ideas I want to test myself."
"You plan to learn by trial and error, intentionally making seals wrong to see if they have the desired effect? Seals tend to blow up if they're made incorrectly. Hypothetically even if I do get you only ten crates worth and you make fifty seals a day – which is a feat that only experts at making seals would be crazy enough to attempt – it would still take you two hundred days to create them all."
"Yeah. I can take an explosion or ten. Plus it's not like I'll be supercharging them with chakra, they'll be little booms. I doubt they'd even leave a mark. And please, do you really think that I'm going to not devote like eight hours a day to working on seals for the foreseeable future? If I only make fifty a day then I am not working hard enough. I want to be able to make basic seals in my sleep."
Orochimaru stares intently at me for a few seconds, then he makes up his mind. "Oh well, it's not like the explosions would be any more damaging than training. I will pull some out of storage for you. Don't waste them, ten crates would keep all of my other seal users satisfied for a year. You know what, feel free to waste them. At least this way I know they're going to a good purpose. I swear half of those idiots have trouble making a simple storage scroll. You learned how to do that in a day! Morons, the whole lot! I don't even know why I still devote resources to them."
"Sweet. So when can I get those?"
"I'll send someone to drop them off at your room. If you're going to use them then you get to store them."
"Cool. If you hear a lot of loud booms coming from a training field tomorrow feel free to ignore it. Oh and I finished the first journal you gave me, you wouldn't happen to have another would you? It was a huge help even though it only covered the basics."
"Yes." Orochimaru reaches into his robes and pulls out another worn yellow leather bound book. "Again, cherish this. I've spent years making each one of these."
"Do you always carry them around?" I ask as I place it next to the other one. They're both sitting snugly in my gut. There's no way anyone can steal it off of me there. Now that I'm back at Sound I should just leave them in my room. Especially when I go to training, who knows if Orochimaru will accidentally hit them or not.
"No, I had a feeling that you'd learn the art of fuinjutsu quickly and guessed that you've finished the first one." Orochimaru smiles fondly at me. "It seems I was correct, you're taking to it faster than I did. Given I had to learn from these terrible books and work out most of it myself while you have my expertly crafted notes. They certainly speed things along."
"Yes they do." I may dislike Orochimaru but the man really does know his stuff. He's meticulous, specific and clear with his notes. "Should I let you know when I finish this one?"
"Please do! I want to know how quickly you advance. The faster you learn them then the sooner I can start seeking your help for some of my more... unorthodox experiments. Another mind, especially one such as yours, would be beneficial. Although from this point on each new journal will take longer to get through. They cover more complex theories and techniques that will get harder and more advanced with each one. The days of you getting through a journal in a few days are gone, it'll take weeks now and eventually months."
He wants me to help in his lab? He actually wants me to help him with his experiments, with twisting and deforming humans in unique ways just to see what happens? That's really fucked up.
"No time to waste then!" I put on a mask of eagerness even though I want nothing more than to leave. "I've got a journal to read and some stuff to set on fire. Seals to test! Totally meant seals to test any fire is a complete accident! Definitely not done on purpose!"
Orochimaru sighs. "Just make sure to put the fires out."
Later That Night, Alvarcus's Room
"Too much." I place my elbows on my desk and hold my head in my hands. "Too much information. Too much seals. Too much everything. Need break."
This new journal isn't talking about any specific seals, rather this entire book is all about how to craft seal arrays. It's the bread and butter to make the more complex and impressive seals work since they all have interlocking parts. This is all about how to make that happen, how to make something happen in a specific order for instance.
And holy shit is it complex.
Why can't it be simple like just drawing an arrow to the next part? No, that would be too easy.
"Fuck it. I'm stopping for tonight. I need to test what I've covered so far to see if I grasp the concept or not anyways. It's best to catch any errors now instead of when I've finished the damn journal."
I straighten up and lean way back in my chair getting in much needed stretch. I haven't moved from this spot for hours.
"I wonder if Shirokumo found the trapdoor spiders or not? There's one way I can find out."
I fly through the necessary hand seals and place my hand on my desk. I'm too lazy to get up right now.
With a small plume of smoke my favorite white spider pops into existence. "Sup Al? How's things here?"
"Same old same old." I let out a sigh. "Working myself ragged while Orochimaru insists I do stranger and more questionable things. He's pushing me to advance in fuinjutsu quickly so I can help out with his experiments."
"Really?" Shirokumo hops off the desk and quickly scuttles up me to rest on top of my head. "That's a new one. I thought he was more of the 'I'll experiment on you' kind of guy."
"Oh he is. I've lived through three? Four? I don't even know anymore. Let's see, Jiongu, that seal, and the whole Edo Tensi thing. Three, I've lived through three."
"Dude. That's so depressing." Shirokumo pauses for a moment. "Wait doesn't he say your his child?"
"Yep." I grimly confirm. "He's experimented three separate times on his child. Imagine what he does to those he doesn't value, if they're lucky they die after the first one."
"New topic. I hate talking about him, it makes me want to ask you to leave, then you'll say no because of Sasuke and training and shit, then I'll feel bad for you and it all sucks because no matter how hard I try you're not going to leave until he's dead. So new topic!"
"Hey you're learning!" I sassily say to him. "But yeah new topic. Plus I didn't summon you here as a social call, I want to know if you've got in touch with the trapdoor spiders yet."
"Them? Yeah I did. They're in." He pats my head with one of his legs. "Aren't I just the best spider ever?"
"Wait you filled them in and everything? I was going to do that!"
"Sorry Al but they couldn't reply to you, none of them are capable of speech. Well they're not capable of speech that you can understand but as another spider I understand it perfectly fine. I went ahead and lined out your plan and what you want them to do, they're all for helping you out."
"Fantastic! That's great news!" This insane idea of mine is shaping up to be possible! "Oh Kami do I have to summon them one at a time? That will take forever."
"Nah that would be crazy! Just summon a Nest Egg." Shirokumo chuckles to himself. "Summoning them one by one, how stupid."
"Wait I can do that? I can summon part of the Nest here?" That's a thing I can do? How the hell didn't I know this earlier?
"Well it's not actually part of the Nest but rather a mass of webs that's been crafted to make summoning smaller spiders easier on our Summoner. We had some of our expert web builders make a bunch of them for a whole lot of different types of the smaller spiders, the ones that don't make sense to call one at a time since the strain of keeping a few hundred of them here is easier than keeping me here. In fact we had this one Summoner a long time ago that would summon a Nest Egg of smaller poisonous spiders right to their hand then they'd throw it at their enemies. The Nest Egg would break open and hundreds upon hundreds of spiders would pour out of it."
"Huh. So it's pretty much a ball of web that can function as a mobile Nest?"
"Yep, got it in one."
"So I can just summon a Nest Egg here and they'll know exactly what to do already? I don't have to explain anything?"
"I covered it all with them already. They're good to go whenever."
"Sweet!" This is great! All I have to do now is keep tabs on my chakra levels to make sure I don't overexert myself. Well... I do have the chakra of five jonin, not to mention that I recover it insanely quick. I doubt I'll even notice the strain on my chakra. "Could you take the Nest Egg up into your webs? That way it's hidden in plain sight. Why would a clump of webbing be strange to see in a massive web that's taking up my entire ceiling?"
"Good thinking. Plus it won't be strange for the Spider Summoner to have an unusual amount of spiders in his room either."
"I know right?" I quickly move through the hand signs for the jutsu. "Summoning Jutsu: Nest Egg!"
A large mass of webs appears in my hands. Large doesn't do it justice, it's the size of a basketball.
"Holy crap. I thought it would be smaller." I heft the ball of webs up to study it closer. "Damn. And this thing is packed with trapdoor spiders?"
"It is." Shirokumo hops off my head and lands on my desk. He crawls over to the wall an makes his way up to his webs. "Hand it over will you? I'll place it in one of the corners."
"You sure you can hold it? It's bigger than you are."
"I'll be fine, hand it over. This is nothing."
"If you say so." I tenderly pass him the Nest Egg and he snatches it up with half of his legs, he's holding it above his back as he moves towards one of the corners. "Damn. Consider me impressed, I never knew you were that strong."
"Please that was nothing." He scoffs. "I've moved heavier things than a simple Nest Egg. Now, just to poke a hole in it so they know to go ahead and start digging."
Shirokumo gently pokes one of his legs through the outer shell of the webbing and a steady trickle of small black, brown and gray spiders pours out. Each of them quickly makes their way to the wall and starts to dig into it.
"They certainly seem eager." I halfheartedly comment as I return a wave from a few of the spiders that are waiting to start digging.
"Yep. It's unusual for any of the smaller spiders to get a task from a Summoner. Usually Summoners go for the more larger and scary spiders. They're motivated, they want to impress you."
"If they finish this project in a month I'll be damn impressed. For their size I gave them a staggering task."
"Hear that ladies and gents?" Shirokumo addresses the swarm of spiders. "Think you can do this in one month?"
Ninety percent of them turn to me and salute cutely with one of their front legs while the other ten percent have already disappeared down a tunnel. It's freaking adorable, I have my own little army.
"I'll take that as a yes." I smile at the sight. "Don't burn yourselves out, feel free to take shifts and rest as much as you need to. If you all need anything tell Shirokumo and he'll tell me and I'll see what I can do. As crazy as it is, I do have some pull here. Perks of being Orochimaru's prized student and child. Oh no! Now I'm saying it too! Not his child! Not ever!"
Some of the spiders beam in pride because I care about them, others bashfully swat a leg in my direction and a few even look embarrassed from the attention.
"Now you've really won them over." Shirokumo says from next to the Nest Egg. "Don't be shocked if this is finished a week early."
"If they can do that it'd be awesome!" Knowing that this is complete well before I have to leave will be nice. "And on that lovely note, I'm all burned out myself. I need to get to sleep since it is... three in the morning? When did that happen? I really must have gotten lost in that journal Orochimaru gave me. Oh well it's not like I haven't run on zero sleep before."
"Then I'm outta here." Shirokumo waves at me. "See ya next time. Whenever that is."
"Soon. Sometime in the next day or two." I tiredly push myself up from my desk and shuffle over to my bed. "I need to get in touch with Kakashi. I need to tell him some stuff so I'll be making a letter for him. Maybe he can tell me about what's going on in Konoha."
"I could do that. We've got a network set up there." Shirokumo blandly points out. "Honestly the only major places we don't have one set up is Iwa, Kumo, and Ame. Which is rather interesting since according to you and history they're the three most likely placed to attack Konoha."
"True but I doubt anything extreme will happen until the Akatsuki makes their first big move. But asking Kakashi about Konoha will give us something to talk about. Whatever that's for another time, it's sleep time now. Hell four hours ago was sleep time."
"Yeah. Bye." He poofs away.
"Oh sweet bed. I've missed you. Your four day absence was so hard on me!"
One Week Later, One of the Training Fields
"Okay, so I wonder what happens if I -"
BANG!
"Right. That is what happens. Maybe if I do it this way?"
BANG!
"Nope. I just want to make the explosive seal have a variable timer! Is that too much to ask?"
BANG!
"Wow. How are none of these working? You know what fine! I'll just sink a bunch of chakra into the next one!"
BOOM!
I'm lifted up into the air and haphazardly tossed across the large open room. I bounce off the cold and hard unforgiving ground at least four times, turning end over end countless times as I sail through the air like a rag doll. Eventually this all comes to a stop. It's an abrupt and sudden halt, in other words I slammed into a wall.
"Right. That was a bad idea." I say from my impression in the wall. I'm upside down with my feet above my head. "So more chakra equals a bigger boom and has absolutely no effect in jump-starting a new part to a seal. Holy shit I'm a good twenty meters away!"
"You alright over there?" Sasuke calls from his half of the training field. Neither of us wanted to train alone so we figured we'd use the same field since we both want to work on different things. I'm tweaking seals while he's swiftly moving through endless forms of kenjutsu.
Usually it's up to Orochimaru to train us but for some strange reason he's been busy lately. He's left us on our own for a while to work on things we already know. It's working out alright for now but if this keeps continuing... well let's just say I'll make it worth his time. I didn't let him live so I can be ignored. I let him live to make use of him myself.
"Yeah. Can't say the same for the wall though." I pry myself out of the deep body-sized dent and gracefully fall onto my feet even though I'm upside down. Shinobi training does pay off in surprising ways. "I don't get why this isn't working."
"What are you attempting to do?" Sasuke asks as he's fluidly moving from one pose to the next.
"Alright, so you know how most explosive seals have a default timer of five seconds?" I dust myself off and move back to where I was working. There's a crater in the ground and the table I was using is obliterated.
"Yes." Sasuke does an elaborate twist with his sword as if he's batting away an enemies blade that is aimed at is back. It's a brilliant display of flexibility and coordination.
"Well I'm trying to make it so that you can choose how long the timer is going to be. Unfortunately it doesn't seem like I can make it completely up to the user." Using a minor earth jutsu I raise up a platform of stone as a makeshift table and lay out a new piece of sealing paper.
"Shame. What's your plan now that it failed?" Sasuke flips through the air and throws a kunai at an imaginary foe before landing and swiping twice at the foe's ankles. He's slowly moving faster and faster.
"It didn't fail. Well I suppose from you're point of view it did but in reality I discovered a new way to not accomplish it. With each 'failure' I come that much closer to succeeding. Anyways I'm going to tweak my design a bit, instead of leaving the fuse time up to the user I'll make preset increments. Something like channel your chakra into this branch to make it last five seconds, over here for ten, there for thirty, and finally here for a minute. If this works I could make any combination of timers I want."
"Why would you possibly need that?" Sasuke asks as his blade starts to move so quickly it's a blur. He's no longer ramping up his speed, he's moving as fast as he can. It's actually very impressive to move that quickly and still be able to aim precisely. No doubt his fancy red eyes are helping him out.
"Honestly I probably never will. As long as I have a blank sealing tag it's feasible that I'll be able to craft one to exactly my specifications whenever I need to and on top of that it'll be a rare occurrence when I have to use a tag instead of one of my jutsu. Let's be honest my jutsu can be way more destructive than a simple explosive tag. I bet I can outdo even the really high end ones too."
"You don't need to tell me that. I've seen your fire and wind combo, it melts stone. Why are you wasting time making the seal then? If your jutsu is so much better and you can craft one to exactly as long as you need it, why make the variations?" He starts twisting and twirling becoming a whirlwind of flashing steel. With each rotation his sword is in a new angle, no two spins are the same. This is an attack meant to overwhelm someone with the sheer number and speed of his strikes.
"Proof of concept I guess? I wanted to see if I could leave a crucial part of a seal up to the user. That was what it was an hour ago at least, now it's more of a challenge to see if I can make a seal with varying fuse times so I'm willing to cheat a bit. And done!" I admire the four identical seals on the table.
"So you're saying brace for incoming explosions?" Sasuke dully says from his spot.
"Oh do shut up it's not like they're even bothering you. They're a good addition to your training, it tests how well you can work under duress and stay focused. Nothing like a good explosion to distract you." I spread out the seals a fair distance apart, far enough that their own underpowered explosions won't damage the integrity of the others. They're basically fancy fireworks. Hey I'm testing things I don't need to make huge explosions!
"Here we go! Testing five second fuse." I pump chakra into the seal and wait. Five seconds later the seal illuminates and a small bang echoes across the field.
"Sweet. It didn't break itself with the extra parts. Testing ten second fuse." Sure enough ten seconds later there's a bang.
"Fantastic! I thought that the added parts would make it too unstable but it is completely ignoring them. This is great!" I spark up the thirty second one next. After a very long half minute passes I'm rewarded with a bang.
"Yes! If this next one passes then it's a success!" I supply chakra to the final seal.
Nothing happens.
"Is it a dud?" Sasuke asks after a long pause. "Should it have gone off by now?"
"I think so? I don't exactly have a clock down here. I mean it's only a minute how long can that be?"
BANG!
"WOOT!" I jump up and do a victory fist pump. "Take that you stupid seal arrays! I know how you work now bitches! Muahahaha! Kneel before my almighty power! Bow to your savior, no, your god! Submit to my awesome awesomeness!"
"Alvarcus."
"I am both the beginning and the end! I am the one who controls your very existence! I am your maker and your destroyer! Bow I say! Bow and maybe I shall spare you!"
"Alvarcus!"
"Hmm what?" I turn to Sasuke. He's staring at me like I'm a lunatic.
"You have serious issues. What the hell was all of that?"
"I... uh... got a little excited?" I sheepishly scratch the back of my head with an innocent smile. "Nothing to worry about."
"Just don't do anything stupid like that again. What kind of an idiot says he's a god? Bow before me? I am the beginning and the end? Seriously if you keep this up I might start thinking you need professional help. They're just seals! That's it! Seals! Not that big of a deal!"
"For now. Sure I'm barely past using the basics but just wait until I get to the more advanced stuff. Who knows, maybe I'll make a conceptual seal or something."
"A conceptual seal? What the hell is that?"
"A seal that seals away a concept. For example it could seal away your concept of pain then you'd have no idea how much damage you're actually taking. I could cut off a limb and you wouldn't even feel it."
"... Have I ever mentioned how much I cherish and treasure our friendship? Because I do."
"Smart move Sasuke, smart move."
Too bad only the best of the best, the seal masters that stand above even other seal masters, have started to dabble in that particular branch of fuinjutsu. It's something that only a handful of people have attempted and fewer have succeeded. I don't think Jiraya has touched them at all and he's considered one of the best – if not the best – seal master alive right now. I doubt I'll ever be able to reach that level, especially since I plan on focusing on a whole different branch entirely to make the Sword of Totsuka but Sasuke doesn't need to know that.
One Week Later, Two Weeks Until Departure for the Next Base
"OI!" I pound on the door to Orochimaru's office. According to Sakon he should be in here. "Orochimaru-sama you in here?"
"What?" Orochimaru hisses out in rage and a very large amount of killing intent wafts through the door.
"Cool!" I open the door and casually stroll into his office. "How's things? I haven't seen much of you lately."
"I am busy Alvarcus! Even you should know better to confidently stride into my office uninvited!" He rises up with fury in his eyes. He has every intention of harshly punishing me for my actions.
"Yeah but I'm here to make your life easier! You've been busy lately and have had less time to train me and I will not be shortchanged!" I hold up a large box and eagerly shake it. "See? Look at how nice I am!"
"You're returning one of the sealing paper crates I so generously gave you?" Orochimaru fumes in anger. "You actually think this is worthy of my time? You think that I would appreciate something so meager, so pointless? I've already replaced all twenty crates I gave you!"
"Just open the damn thing. If this is what I get for doing something nice for you then I'll stop. Jeez, I'm just trying to help out a bit!" I shake the box at him again. "Go on! Take it! If you don't like it then you can punish me or whatever."
"Fine." He hisses out as he snatches the box from my hands. "I have just the thing in mind too. It's something you'll hate but has me moderately curious."
"Oh really? And it would be..." I trail off.
"You've reattached a limb before that is not your own. Can you do it with organs? For instance say someone's kidney is failing, could you assimilate another kidney from a 'donor' into the patient?"
"Huh." That's a great question. Could I do that? "I don't actually know. I take in hearts myself just fine and I'm pretty sure Kakuzu took in other organs as well to stay alive as long as he has but I have no idea if I can do it for someone else."
"Then if I don't like your gift we will find out." Orochimaru threatens me. Then he storms over to his desk and plonks the box down and harshly yanks the lid off. "You bumbling fool! I thought you were smarter than this! It's just sealing paper! Alvarcus I expect better from you! You're supposed to be a prodigy, the likes of which your generation has no equal!"
"Pull one out you ungrateful ass."
With an untraceable blur Orochimaru lashes out at me, the only reason I know he did was because my left arm separated from my body and fell to the floor.
"I will not stand for such insolence!" Orochimaru roars. "Barging into my office uninvited! Giving such a useless gift! Blatantly insulting me! You're lucky I don't kill you where you stand! If you were anyone else you'd be a smear on the walls!"
I leave my arm on the ground and stomp up to his desk and pull out one of the horizontally stacked sealing tags. Then I slam it down onto his desk. "Yeah I'm a lot of things but a dumbass isn't one of them."
I promptly spin on my heel and stomp over to my arm and pick it up in my hand. "You should know that!" I angrily point my severed arm at him, I'm using it as a prop. What's very interesting though is that I can still manipulate it, so the severed limb is also pointing a finger at Orochimaru accusingly. "How little do you think of me? You think that I would just give back blank paper? No I'm better than that!"
I hook my arm over my shoulder, bending it at the elbow to fit snugly over it. "And here I thought you'd appreciate help! Shows what I know! I will be taking my leave now, thank you very much!"
I swiftly stomp towards is office door.
"Alvarcus wait!" Orochimaru calls out to me.
I pause and look over my stumpy shoulder at him. "Yes?"
"Are... are they all... you made one thousand explosive tags?" Orochimaru is truly and genuinely shock. He's so surprised that he had trouble forming a sentence.
"Nope." I smirk at him. "Half are simple storage seals. They won't hold anything big but each should be able to hold around a backpacks worth of stuff. I'd need scrolls to make storage seal capable of sealing away larger stuff like camping gear, there's just not enough room on a tag to craft a seal that's stable enough for bigger things. I tested that, there's a few new holes in one of the training fields. I'm not sorry."
"Five hundred storage seals and another five hundred explosive seals?" Orochimaru whispers out. "I don't believe it. How long have you been making these?"
"Two weeks? Since we got back from Kusa and you gave me the crates. Thanks again for that by the way." I shrug. Wow that feels weird to do with only one arm.
"That's seventy two seals a day!" Orochimaru shouts at me, I've never seen him raise his voice in anything but anger before. It's good to know that I can knock him out of his always composed persona. "How did you not push yourself into chakra exhaustion? Even if you didn't activate each seal it takes a minute amount of chakra to craft seals, one must add their own chakra into the ink to make it work! That's why not everyone can make seals, it takes a shinobi to make them!"
"Trade secret." I smirk at him. "This does help right? I remember a while ago you said that your other seal makers were a bunch of incompetent morons that struggled to make a simple storage seal."
"Yes." Orochimaru sighs and a contented smile forms on his face. "Yes it does. How often could you supply me with seals in such large quantities?"
"Honestly? Making these in two weeks was pushing it." That's a lie. I can make so many seals it's insane. My chakra doesn't dive from adding it to the ink and I can make them in bulk, like hundreds at a time if I have enough brushes. It's totally broken. "I can manage to make a crate a month. Only if it's simple seals though, any more complex than those and it'll take way longer."
"Alvarcus, you've just freed up fifty shinobi to regularly take missions for me." Orochimaru beams at me in pride. Then he glances at my shoulder. "Also, I apologize about your arm."
"Eh whatever. I've had worse." Hold on. "Fifty shinobi? You have fifty shinobi making you seals and I outpaced them all combined?"
"Yes. You would think that their production rate would be much higher but they're so terrible that I have to scrap half of their work outright. Then even more fail miserably when they actually go into use, I've had to phase out explosive seals as a tool for my shinobi because of that unreliability."
"Wow they suck."
"I know. That's why they'll be taking the more extreme missions, they've become exceedingly disposable and their days of irking me are now over."
"Sucks to be them. Well I'll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing." I leave through the door while happily swinging my arm around.
"Put your arm back on!" Orochimaru shouts after me.
One Week Later, One Week Until Departure for New Base
"How's the progress going on the tunnels?" I ask Shirokumo as we're both lounging in my room.
He's up in his webs lazily adding and fixing them while I am simply laying on my bed and watching him. It's strangely captivating to watch a spider work on making a web. There's almost an art to it, like Shirokumo is an artist of great skill and his artwork is his web.
"They're going to be done soon. A day, maybe two at the most." Shirokumo slowly starts making his way over to the Nest Egg and gives it a tender pat. "They're not used to making anything near this size but they haven't once complained. They make me proud."
"They make me proud too." I sigh in contentment. "I'm so glad this is all coming together."
"Hey Al, I've been meaning to ask you something." Shirokumo nervously says.
"Yeah?" I quirk an eyebrow at him as my black eyes observe him.
"Why haven't you written a letter to Kakashi yet?" He softly inquires. "You said that you were going to around two or three weeks ago but never did."
"So do the trapdoor spiders know what the next step is? It's a lot different from making a simple tunnel, if they need me to I can go over it again. It's not an issue."
"They know." He quietly says as he glances at the Nest Egg. "They've known since before they got here."
"Fantastic! You're really a good leader. You've got me a spy network set up, you know all about the other Spiders for me to summon and you've got this bunch perfectly managed!"
"Thank you. Why haven't you written Kakashi?" Shirokumo asks again.
"I... uh..." My eyes dart nervously around the room. I'm looking anywhere, everywhere that Shirokumo isn't. "Just never got around to it?"
"Al. Come on. I know that's a fake excuse. What's the real reason?" He tenderly asks from his web.
"I could say that it's because I'm trying to limit contact with Konoha now that I'm an actual missing nin. I could say that if he gets caught with a letter from me it would hurt his standing with Tsunade. I could say that he might try to use the letter against me. I could say that I'm afraid that he won't reply. None of them are the real reason though. It's not that I'm scared of what might happen to the letter, what really scares me is his response."
I shrink on myself. I'm no longer splayed out across my bed, I've leaned forward and pulled up my legs. I've wrapped my arms around them like I'm holding myself in a vain attempt to comfort me. I'm not the Heart Thief right now, I'm not the Host of the Jiongu, I'm not even a shinobi. I'm a scared lonesome child who is lost.
I force myself to say these next words. The words don't come out at a normal volume, they're barely a whisper. It took every single piece of my willpower to utter them yet they still came out so weakly.
"I don't want to know if he hates me."
"Al there's no way he'd hate you." Shirokumo softly ties to comfort me.
"Really?" I darkly snort out. "The last major contact we had was a letter he gave me. You want to know what it said? It all boiled down to this: you didn't have to leave. Then that letter goes unanswered. He goes on to watch me progress through the Chunin Exams. He sits there and watches as Lee gives me a beating of a lifetime. He does nothing as my head gets fully rotated and then some because he can't go check on his student or my spying gig is up. Then what happens next? Does he get a reply from me? No, he get's to watch as I slowly pick apart my own skill set. He got to witness me giving away my own weaknesses, something a shinobi should never do. Could he approach me afterwards and scold me? Could he intervene and teach me better? No, he was forced to do nothing. Again. Then what? A response? No. Not even then, instead he has to watch not one but both of his wayward students compete in the finals against Leiko. And what do I do? I let her catch me. I let her toy with me, letting her use tactic after tactic. Hell I let her cut off my head! Yet throughout all of that Kakashi had to sit there and watch it all. He had to feel so powerless. He couldn't save me and that alone must have driven him to the point of insanity."
"So is that the end? Is his suffering over finally? No! That would be too easy! He's drafted to be part of the group to assassinate Orochimaru and the two gennin he's with which happen to be his students! No doubt Tsunade and he thought long and hard about who would attack who and with Kakashi being the best assassin shinobi there of course he'd have to target Orochimaru. That means that both of his students will have true attempts on their lives coming from two of his friends. But can he tell them? Can he ask his friends to hold back? No, he can't because Orochimaru would notice. So he holds his tongue. His reward is witnessing Sasuke's severed arm wetly fall to the ground."
"Can he help his gennin then? Can he step up and save us? No he can't! He has to go off to fight against Orochimaru because even with all five of them there's still no guarantee that they will win so he has to leave us to Konoha's gennin. In other words he has to knowingly let our friends attack us with the intent to kill. Do you think that was an easy choice? Do you not think that it caused him any loss of sleep? No, it had to pain him greatly to do nothing. To say nothing. To simply hold his tongue."
"Is this the end of Kakashi's suffering? Is it finally over? Nope! Because once Orochimaru was thrown back into the clearing he got to see Sasuke and I both be outed then he had to watch me – who he knows is actually on Konoha's side the entire time – choose to go back with Orochimaru! And how did I miraculously make that happen? By taking my friends hostage!"
"You truly want to know if he has a reason to hate me? He has plenty. He has every right to hate me. But I don't want to know if he does. He's still family to me, a strange and perverted uncle but family none the less. Does he still feel the same way about me? Does he still want to protect me, to teach me, does he still care for me? Or do those feelings no longer exist? Have they been replaced with hate and loathing? I don't want to find out, not out of some misguided idea or want to avoid the issue but because I don't know if I can stand him abandoning me too."
"Tsunade turn her back on me and with her goes 99% of Konoha. That 1% left over is my friends who also might hate me now and Kakashi. It's possible that he could be the only person in Konoha that cares about me now. I don't know if I can take the news that he sided with Tsunade. I don't know if I'll be able to cope with it. So I'm not going to find out because it could be the final straw that pushes me into insanity. I'm not coping well. I'm a mess. I have so much stuff to plan for, so many things that I know could happen yet I have no idea if I can change them or if I even should! I simply can't deal with Kakashi right now. I just can't."
"I put on this fake face of confidence. I always act like I know exactly what I'm doing all the time. Even when I get my limbs severed I still play it off like it's no big deal, sometimes I even act like I planned for that to happen, like I let it happen. That face is nothing more than a mask I constantly hide behind. I'm a fragile wreck, a mess, a disaster waiting to happen. I am a timebomb and eventually I'm going to explode. Violently."
"There's so much pressure on me and me alone. There's no one else who knows the full story, no one who knows the true horrors to come. Only me. That means that only I can change them, only I can lessen the impact. Me. Just little old me. One man – one kid against the world's most powerful foes."
"The stress is getting to me. I've changed, don't think I didn't notice it too. Rewind the clock to when I was still in Konoha. I'd never under any circumstances even so much as think about killing someone for their heart. Now though? I've already done it. That ragged man, the tenor, I have no idea who he was. I don't know if he was a criminal or a innocent and frankly it doesn't matter to me. He was the best fit, so I took his life to make mine easier."
"Not to mention my choices with Orochimaru. You could argue that I'm preventing a threat to humanity as a whole by thwarting his plans and eventually killing him but in reality that's not my goal. It isn't a noble and praiseworthy goal like that, it's much simpler. He took from me, he took the most important people in my life from me and I want him to suffer. That's it. There's no exalted reason behind it all, I just want to cause him pain. I want him to feel my agony, to feel my rage. It's... it's consuming me."
"My idiotic and absurd need to hurt him has pushed me straight to his open arms. I've eaten dinner with my family's murderer. I face him every day just to wake up and do it tomorrow because he's the only one willing to train me to one day stand as his equal, as his superior. But by letting him do this, by letting him be around me something very bad has happened. I've changed. I'm more violent, I resort to brute force too quickly. I pick killing over negotiating simply because it's easier to deal with a dead man than a live one. Now when I lash out it isn't at the ground or trees, it's at people. I've killed just because I was pissed and someone said something that irked me. Orochimaru is slowly twisting and corrupting me with his mere presence. I'm becoming more and more like him the longer I stay here."
"That's not even the worst part about me staying here. Orochimaru and I get along surprisingly well. As long as he's not trying to force me to do something I'm truly and utterly against we get along well. Really well. I don't even have to act that much around him anymore. It's fucking with my head. I'm supposed to hate that man, and I do. But the worst part about me staying here is that the longer I am here, the longer I'm around Orochimaru, the less hate I feel."
"He picked me. Back when Kakashi, Gai and Asuma tried their assassination and failed he saved me. He knows the Jiongu, he knows that I could have taken that hit and come away relatively okay. At the worst I'd have to pull myself together and I do that all the time during training. He knows this as an irrefutable fact. Yet when given a choice between me and his next body he picked me. He left his precious next body behind to die to save me. He truly cares about me in his own way. He's offered to get me things that no one else would even dream of asking for. He listens when I have something to say, he treats me differently than everyone else. The Snake Sannin has a soft spot for me. I don't want to admit it, my very being should be against this, but I think that I'm forming one for him too."
"So not only do I have to deal with what could happen next and if I can change it, not only do I have to wait patiently for the final thing to make the timebomb that is me go off, not only do I have to deal with coming to terms with my own changes and actions, I get to deal with Orochimaru and what I feel for him because after two more years of this I don't know if I'll still hate him or not! And you want me to add on the stress of finding out if Kakashi hates me? You want me to write to him? No thank you, I have enough shit on my plate for decades. I don't need to add that to the pile."
Shirokumo is starring at me in shock. He didn't move a single millimeter from when I started ranting all the way to the end. He sat there with a dumbstruck look on his face and listened.
"I... uh... wow." He finally says after a long silence. "I honestly don't know what to do with any of that."
"Me neither and that's the fucking problem." I harshly spit out. "So why don't you fuck off for a bit. I'm not in a talking mood anymore, come back when I've cooled down."
I get out of my bed and stomp over to the exit. On my way there I pick up a inconspicuous crate.
"Where are you going to go?" Shirokumo asks me. He's concerned for me, I can hear it in his voice. I know he is, of course he is after everything I said.
"I'm going to go blow some shit up." I fling the door open. "Who knows, maybe Kabuto will stumble into the training field and accidentally be caught up in the boom. I fucking wish. Oh better yet I can catch him with the Jiongu and then test some of my ideas for the sealing process for the sword. They're just barely formed thoughts right now so I'm sure they'll fail in miraculously horrendous ways, I don't even know how to make a seal do a tenth of what would be needed for the simplest idea. It's the perfect solution, he dies and I progress."
I slam the door shut behind me leaving Shirokumo all alone in my room.
"Alvarcus wasn't ready. He wasn't ready for Konoha to turn on him. I pushed Tsunade too far and her reaction hurt him, hurt my summoner." Shirokumo leaps down from his web and lands on the floor without a sound. "I hurt my summoner. I knew he'd take it poorly but how could I possibly expect this? No, this has been a long time coming. Like a festering wound Alvarcus has slowly been getting worse. He's slipping, he's descending into madness and it's consuming him. At this rate he'll never be able to use the Spider's Sage Mode, the madness will tear him apart. I need to do something to stop it. I need to somehow make amends, to start to patch up the wound. But how? How can I possibly give him something positive to counterbalance all of those negative things? How?"
Konoha, Kakashi's Apartment
Kakashi is laying down on his bed. He's not underneath the sheets. He's not even in pajamas. He's in full mission gear while staring blankly up at the ceiling. This isn't anything new to him, he's had nights like these since he was barely a teenager.
But the reason behind these nights has changed. Now there is another one to add to his impressive list of things that keep him from blissful sleep. It's his gennin, all three of them. He has never gotten over the loss of Sakura, but what truly worries him now are the other two. They've changed so much from the little that he's seen. They've grown under the tutelage of a Sannin.
Especially Alvarcus.
Kakashi doesn't know if it's a good thing or not. The teachings of a Sannin could do wonders, and it's paying off physically for both of them. Two people taking down eight is an impressive feat regardless of who it is. It's even more impressive the closer in skill level they are but even Kakashi isn't sure how far Alvarcus and Sasuke were pushed during their battle. But mentally? How have they changed mentally? Sasuke seemed much more subdued, he actually differed to Alvarcus without a fight. He's relying on his friend more than before. While Alvarcus –
POOF
Kakashi instantaneously spawns a shadow clone in his closet then uses the kawarmi to swap places with it. Someone had the balls to try and get into his home. They're going to die but he wants to see who it is first.
"Kakashi." A white spider address his shadow clone. "I need a moment of your time."
"Oh?" The Kakashi-clone quips back to him. "You know I've been specifically ordered by the Hokage to take you out and if you managed to escape I am to immediately inform her of everything that happened. I have no idea what you did but you've royally pissed her off. Why should I give you a damn second?"
"I'm here for Alvarcus. Kakashi please." Shirokumo asks.
"Fine, drop the letter then go. Just this once I'll let you leave alive, should you come back I'll kill you." The clone promises as Kakashi is readying himself to use the Chidori should the situation call for it. If Shirokumo makes one aggressive move, whether it is a comment or an action, Kakashi will act.
"You misunderstand, I'm not here on behalf of Alvarcus I'm here for Alvarcus." Shirokumo starts to explain. "It's just... well... he..."
"Spit it out." The clone growls out. "Don't waste my time. I'm feeling a little... twitchy. Things die when I get twitchy."
"The reason he hasn't written you is because he's afraid that you'll write back saying you hate him now. I came here to see how you really feel about him and to possibly bring back a letter to Alvarcus should you react favorably. If not then I'll forget this interaction ever happened."
"What?" Kakashi's clone evenly says.
"You heard me." Shirokumo turns to the closet where the real Kakashi is. "So, how about it? Will you write your student a letter? Do you hate him or do you have faith in him still? Kakashi, how do you feel about Alvarcus now?"
"You want to know how I feel about him?" Kakashi steps out of the closet. "YOU WANT TO KNOW HOW I FEEL ABOUT HIM!? I'LL TELL YOU HOW I FEEL ABOUT HIM!"