20: Not Of This World

Seija found herself floating in a strange swirling dimension. She had a funny feeling she was supposed to be moving, yet she appeared to be stationary.

"[Seija. You only have a few moments of frozen time here to activate the scroll.]"

'On it.'

She pulled the digital scroll out of her hip pouch and unfurled it.

[Consumable Item used: Summoning Realm Enhancement Scroll - Monster Hunter]

The pixels seemed to crumble apart in her hands, and she began to fall deeper into the vortex below.

'Here we go...' This was a level of speed that she had never experienced even when using the Body Flicker Jutsu. It would've been more exciting if she hadn't just said goodbye to the closest people to her in this entire world without knowing when she would ever see them again.

The darkness gave way beneath her and she had to quickly reorient her body so that she would land feet first as the sudden light revealed the area around her.

*Crack*

She landed on a wooden surface that cracked slightly beneath her weight. Shaking the dizziness out of her mind she looked around expecting to see a forest, or perhaps a mountain.

Well, she got a bit of both.

She was standing on the deck of an old wooden ship that had somehow become suspended half-way up a cliff, overlooking a vast coastline to the west and south and a large woodland area to the north. The cliff took up the entirety of the eastern side.

"[Seija. A report.]"

'What is it, Firewall?'

"[With our arrival in this summoning realm the Great System has provided me with previously unknown information about the scroll you used.]"

That got her attention. 'Tell me.'

"[You have arrived in a summoning realm containing creatures and biomes based on a certain video game franchise. The monsters in this realm do not speak, unlike most summons, and unlike the game they came from they will not endlessly respawn so you have to be careful to not let them die in battle, lest their numbers eventually run out. They will still need to eat as well so you cannot keep them summoned forever without giving them time to return home and feed.]"

"[Many of the monsters here are incredibly powerful, and you cannot summon them until they decide that you are powerful enough to do so. You must also find them first. At least you do not have to actively prove yourself to them. They will know when you are ready to summon them whenever the time comes.]"

'...Right. How do I find them then?' Seija was eager to get started. She only had two weeks to train here at least and knowing everything she could summon would be invaluable once she got back.

"[If you would direct yourself to the map in the center of the deck, you will see.]"

Seija walked over to the large table with the map covering it to examine her options. There was a large collection of labeled biomes that she could apparently teleport over to.

'The Hoarfrost Reach, the Rotten Vale, the Guiding Lands, the Elder's Recess... What's with these names?'

"[I'm afraid I do not know. All the Great System told me about the biomes is that they are from a specific video game franchise.]"

'Well alright then. Which one do you think looks the safest?'

"[The monsters here will not deliberately attack you. They will however still attack and kill each other for food, so try not to get in their way. Besides that, you need only worry about the environment. Which you are already rather resistant to thanks to your chakra. Avoid the lava-filled areas like the Elder's Recess for now, and the spore-filled Rotten Vale. Anything else should be fine.]"

'That's somewhat helpful. So will I have to watch them to find out what they are capable of?'

"[I will automatically receive data about any species that you find and observe for a few seconds. Statistics such as their species name, approximate threat level, their primary methods of attack, et cetera.]"

With that confirmation she decided to select the first option, the Hoarfrost Reach.

*Poof*

In just a burst of smoke she was already there, standing in a small camp shaded by a few boulders and trees, all of which were completely covered with thick snow. The table had teleported with her.

'I was expecting something flashier than that...'

Disregarding the normalcy of her apparent teleportation, she activated her Byakugan and pushed it to it's current maximum three hundred meter range. Closest to her she saw a small group of quadrupedal canine creatures, each longer than an adult man's height, not even including their bushy tails which were almost as long as their main bodies. The creatures lived in a shallow cave a short distance from her. 

Flickering in front of them, she found that they were totally unbothered by her sudden appearance, nor her continued presence in their den, poking and prodding at them since they didn't seem too dangerous, at least according to the small size of their chakra cores. Their black and white fur was soft to the touch, but she was still wearing gloves since she didn't know what they even were or if they possessed some kind of poison. They looked like some kind of cross between wolves and... some kind of skunk or badger? Their heads were rather pointier than a normal canine's would be and their ears lay flat on top of their heads, blending into their neck fur.

"[Seija, now that you have encountered these creatures, I can confirm their identities. These are called 'Wulgs' and are a type of small-sized Fanged-Wyvern inhabiting the Hoarfrost Reach. They are large enough to ride for some distance even for a typical adult human and they possess hidden spurs tucked away next to their front feet. While they would be absolutely lethal to a civilian and a pack of them could even defeat a weak Chunin if they got lucky, they are not very powerful on their own and require the support of their pack in most situations.]"

Seija was somewhat bothered by the length of that explanation.

'Is there any way you can shorten that? I think I might go crazy if I have to listen to a description like that for every single creature I find in this place.' She requested. She could feel the chakra of dozens of different species in just this one biome. She sure as hell didn't feel like remembering all of them in such detail.

"[I can arrange it into a typical system status sheet, if you wish.]"

'Do it.'

A screen appeared in front of her eyes with a photorealistic model of the Wulg in front of her and its basic information.

[-Monster Species: Wulg-]

[Body-type: Fanged-Wyvern]

[Category: Small Monster]

[Body length including tail: 4 meters]

[Traits: hidden spurs, keen nose, pack creature]

[Rideability: 5/10, Thick paws make them ideal for riding through snow or mud. Can climb. Cannot fly, glide or leap. Limited speed compared to larger monsters of similar body-shape due to smaller stature.]

[Approximate individual threat level: Low Genin]

Seija nodded to herself after confirming the information in front of her.

'That's a little easier on the eyes, thank you. Aren't they mammals though? I could've sworn that wyverns are typically reptilian.'

Great Firewall responded. "[Most creatures in this world appear to be classified as 'wyverns' regardless of whether they are actually reptilian or not.]"

'Well I guess that must be the archetype of animals I've got then. Jiraiya has toads, Orochimaru has snakes, Kakashi has dogs and I have wyverns. Hell yeah.'

Leaving the Wulgs behind her Seija set out to add more of these 'wyverns' to her list of available summons. She would attempt to liberally explore her options for what she could summon here before she got started on training. She expected this to take a few days, but she could always return to the wooden ship if she needed to sleep. There was a cabin that presumably contained a bedroom there. Plus, all of her stuff from home, including her actual bed, was all there in her giant scroll ready to be unsealed.

She shivered when she stepped back out of the cave into the frigid snowscape of the Hoarfrost reach and decided that she should probably try one of the other biomes first, for now.

- - - - -

Shikaku Nara had been feeling tired of life. He had just been assigned to the position of acting-commander for this platoon that had just taken over the small settlement of Itami Village. He hadn't even wanted to be here but according to High Command, his own budding expertise as a commander would be needed to curb the rash personality of the current commander, Hiiro Hyuga.

'Whole lot of good that did... Now he's run off to take those two back to Konoha, and I'm stuck here managing this band of barbarians that call themselves shinobi. I can't believe they seriously separated me from my team for this!' He thought back to his friends, Inoichi Yamanaka and Choza Akimichi.

'What a drag...'

So, for the past day after assigning the shinobi under his command to patrol different parts of the town, with strict orders to not touch any of the residents, Shikaku had been occupying his mind with a puzzle that he had noticed after the commander left.

'Why does this house seem so strange? Two rooms in particular seem out of place, as well as a whole bunch of shelves and drawers.'

Shikaku was currently standing in the living room of the home that had belonged to the commander's sister and her husband. At a glance it appeared to be an ordinary home. Clean floors, nice furniture with clear markings left by years of usage, food stored in the pantry...

And yet as he walked through the building he noticed small discrepancies here and there. Like how some of the shelves were displaying photos of the family, yet there were clear rectangular gaps between them with not even a trace of dust visible within those gaps.

'There must have been other photos here, but they were removed recently.' He noted.

And that was just the start. Next he found a room off to the side of the main upstairs hallway that contained... crates of building materials? It made no sense for this to be here. This room was warm, there was a nice window built into one of the walls; this was the perfect spot for a bedroom. The real kicker for this room was that there were shelves here too - empty, of course - but covered in more rectangular, dustless patches just like the spaces on the shelves downstairs.

'Photos here too. And removed like the ones in the living room. What the hell is going on with this house? It's almost like...' His eyes widened as his brain caught up, '...Someone else used to live here with them! But evidence of their existence has been removed.'

The room he was standing in really had been a bedroom, he realised. Checking the floor he found a large rectangular space mostly covered by the boxes where the floor was shinier; newer looking. A tell-tale sign that there used to be a bed covering it before the boxes were moved into its place.

From there Shikaku actively searched the entire house and its back yard for evidence of this third resident. He found old plastic cutlery buried at the very bottom of the drawers in the kitchen, designed to be used by an infant. He found that the basement had been cleared out just as much as the bedroom upstairs had. He found the trees and walls in the backyard covered in markings and battle scars clearly made by kunai and shuriken.

He came to a single conclusion.

'They must've had a child. There was a child living in this house who the parents were teaching to become a shinobi. Yet they removed most evidence of their existence before we arrived. Of course, the mother is a Hyuga, so she must have spotted our camp one day with her Byakugan and prepared for our arrival. She knew we were coming and she couldn't let us know about the child. Of course she couldn't! The child would be born a Hyuga like her, and rogue clan-births outside of the village are considered a major security risk for the clan in question.'

His mind continued to ramble on and on about the various reasons and implications of the child's hidden existence until after almost an hour of thinking he was suddenly stopped by a more important thought.

'Wait... I know that they exist now... but then, where is this child? How did they escape or hide when we had sensor-nin watching the area surrounding the town before we struck? They could never have gotten away!'

He felt around the entire building with his Shadow Manipulation Jutsu, but found no secret rooms or illusion Seals. All he found was a small spot of dried blood in the center of the basement.

'I'm not sure where this came from but I doubt it's relevant. The mother and child could've simply been training down here and one of them got cut, for example...'

As his preliminary investigation started to slow down, Shikaku decided to move his equipment into the house.

'I'll use this place as my temporary base of operations while I'm here. It's not like the family will be here to use it, and there's food in the pantry that needs eating anyways. No sense in wasting our preserved rations when I could eat real food here instead.'

Slowly but surely, Shikaku Nara was trying to piece the story together. He needed something to distract him from his work, and a good mystery was just what the young Nara needed.

- - -

"Sir!" A Genin burst into the front doorway a few hours after Shikaku moved his stuff into the house.

"What is it, Genin?"

"There's been an incident on the outskirts of the town. Two of our men told their team that they were going to break into an abandoned house to look for food. They did not return for over three hours now, so their friends went searching for them. The two of them have been found dead."

Shikaku immediately stood up from where he was examining a diagram of the house and headed outside. "Take me there."

They crossed the town to the isolated home. Honestly, Shikaku didn't know how the two idiots could've mistaken the building as abandoned. It even had working electricity!

Stepping into the room where the two bodies had been found, he immediately noticed something strange upon examining the two broken bodies.

'Why are there bloodstains in this room when neither of these two Genin were cut or stabbed? Sure, they've been shattered, broken, and bruised... but they have no external injuries that would've resulted in bleeding...'

Looking around a little more he found a single bloody kunai tossed into the corner of the room.

'Did this kunai belong to these Genin? They must have encountered and killed the residents of this home, against my orders. But then... where are the residents' bodies?' At that moment he was interrupted by the Genin he had brought with him.

"Sir. There's a pair of fresh-looking graves out the back."

Shikaku followed the Genin outside and examined the very shallow graves, and the wooden markers that had been carved into by a second kunai that had been left next to it:

"Mom, Fuso." He read, then checked the second one. "Dad, Ise."

'...Damn. What is it with mysterious kids in this town? First, one is deliberately hidden from us and somehow vanishes without a trace, now one has somehow killed two Genin with nothing but blunt force trauma, and then also disappears.'

Shikaku couldn't help but feel a little happy despite two of his idiotic subordinates being killed. He now had not just one, but two mysteries to solve! More distractions, more excuses to skip work! 

'Perfect.'