53 53: Recoup
Mishima snarled in anger as he searched around for his enemy. So much had suddenly gone wrong in the last few seconds of the fight that he found it hard to comprehend.
His Particle Style attack had hit his enemy. Sure, it'd only just brushed against the Uchiha, but it still should've carved right through the spine, and even shaved away the back-side of the Uchiha's lungs. Instead, when the light touched his foe its potency was weakened, eating through his armored shirt and the flesh of his back, but failing to destroy the boy's spine or lungs even slightly!
And that was only the first issue, because then a fucking hand came out of the earth and dragged the Uchiha away underground! Mishima didn't even get to land a finishing blow, and he was left awfully unsatisfied by the whole ordeal.
'That's such bullshit! What the fuck am I supposed to do about that?! What a fucking unfair random encounter.' He complained to himself as he trudged back to the Dungeon Portal.
Then, right as he got back - silently glowering at the smug-looking catgirl behind the barrier - he remembered that Pakura was still injured from the fight and he had to walk back over to the battlefield to go and fetch her from the forest.
And now, after dealing with all of that bullshit, he had to sit there by the blocked-off Portal and wait around regenerating his chakra, hoping that whoever grabbed the Uchiha brat wasn't going to come back to take advantage of his weakened state.
- - -
'Oooowwwwww... Wh-Where am I???' Ichiro thought to himself as his world spun in the darkness of the underground.
His movement through complete darkness was horribly disorienting. He couldn't tell which way was up or down, and he couldn't move his limbs at all, completely at the mercy of whatever had grabbed onto him.
He couldn't even breathe, forced to hold on and hope that his apparent kidnapper was nice enough to give him some air soon. The one silver lining was that the pain in his back was starting to fade somehow...
A few more moments passed before a flash of light burst through the ground and he gasped for air under the morning sun.
*cough, cough*
"Haaah... Ugh... God that fucking sucked..." He panted as he lay flat on his back.
Glancing around he found himself amongst the trees of the forest, lying down on a slightly elevated, grassy hillside. In the distance, he could see the steam and dust rising from the site of his battle with Mishima, roughly two hundred meters away, if his guess was correct. Far enough that neither himself nor Mishima could see or sense each other through the trees.
The swaying of the trees around him still looked like it was in slow motion for some reason...
"You should turn that off if you don't want to die from chakra exhaustion in the next few minutes."
Broken out of his thoughts by a sudden voice from behind him, he clambered to his feet and whipped around to confront the speaker, but found nothing when he turned. Just more trees.
"Wh-Who are you? Where are you, even?" He stammered nervously. He was still in no condition to fight, he could tell.
"Not important," The voice echoed from behind him again, "What's important is that you're alive, and if you don't turn that off soon you're not going to be alive much longer."
"Turn what off?! You're not making any sense!"
"Your Sharingan. Have you seriously not noticed it yet? The way that everything seems to be in slow-motion? And that it is slowly draining your chakra?" The voice questioned him incredulously. He could practically hear them raising an eyebrow, wherever they were...
"M-My... what?"
He looked around again at the slow-motion trees before pulling a pocket mirror out of a storage scroll to check his eyes. He'd used this mirror every day to see if his Sharingan would awaken while working with the Konoha scouting corps, with no luck until today.
Now, he could finally see it. Two red eyes sat there in their sockets, a single black tomoe in each slowly spinning around his pupils. He couldn't be happier that he got it... Well... Maybe he'd have preferred to start out with two or three tomoe rather than just one in each eye, but still!
He had a Sharingan!
"Hello~? Earth to Ichiro? Turn off your damn eyes. You're almost out of chakra." The voice chided him again.
Right...
He focussed on his eyes for a moment and willed them to deactivate, returning the world around him to its usual speed. It almost felt weird to go back to normal after experiencing the Sharingan's view of the world.
"Um... So, like, I'm thankful that you pulled me out of that battle and reminded me to turn my Sharingan off, Miss-mysterious-voice... But I still don't know who you are." He spoke to his benefactor.
"Take a wild guess." They responded.
"Well, you're clearly a Reincarnator, that's for sure. And you sound kinda like a girl, but it's hard to tell since every Reincarnator should still be a kid right now, and young kids all kinda sound the same to me."
"Good enough. Now, let's talk about what you're going to do now, Ichiro." The voice continued.
"What? What am I going to do?" Ichiro asked.
"You tell me."
"I mean... I'm not going back over there until Mishima is dead. He was way stronger than I expected... Well, maybe not 'stronger' exactly, that's the wrong word to use here..." Ichiro paused for a moment to get his thoughts in order.
"He was only about as fast as any other slightly-above-average Genin, and his Bukijutsu wasn't the most accurate I've ever seen. The issue was that his Ninjutsu was so ridiculously over-the-top and his Danger Sense allowed him to avoid attacks that anyone else with his level of speed wouldn't be able to dodge." He concluded.
"True, none of us knew he had access to Particle Style, of all things, until he used it against you just then. I'm suddenly a lot less surprised that he was able to beat Renji, if that's the kind of power he's packing." The voice agreed.
They continued, "Still, there were actually several ways that you could've won that fight."
Ichiro blinked.
"Wait, really?" He asked. He knew he'd made some errors during the fight, but he hadn't been able to put his finger on what they were or how he could've avoided them.
"Yes. If you had fired another one of your shockwaves at him while he was charging or firing his beam, you could have interrupted him even if you could not affect the beam itself. Alternatively, if you had run towards Pakura instead of away from her, he would've been forced to cancel the attack in order to avoid killing her. And the less said about your pitiful attempt to out-run the beam, the better..."
"Hey! How was I supposed to know the beam would get faster-"
"It's basic physics, Ichiro. Practically every highschooler knows it. Rotating objects move slower at the base, and faster at the tip. All you had to do was run towards Mishima and get around him in order to outrun the beam. Instead, you ran away from him, cutting off your own escape."
"Oh... I... might've skipped that highschool lesson back in my old life." He admitted.
"Well, now you know." The voice said.
There was and awkward silence for a moment before Ichiro spoke again.
"So... You're definitely not going to tell me who you are?"
"Nope."
"Damn. Well... I guess I'm gonna wait here and get my chakra back while I wait for more Reincarnators to show up. Apparently a whole bunch from Sub-Group A1 are gonna show up to try and deal with Mishima. Since B1 was all about sharing and I don't think I've ever heard of you, I'm guessing you're from A1 like the rest?"
"Correct. By our Group Chat's estimation, the next one will arrive in a couple of hours."
"Won't that give Mishima enough time to get most of his chakra back?" Ichiro asked before his eyes went wide and he shouted at the voice.
"Hey wait a second! Why haven't you gone over there and killed him?! He should be totally exhausted after using Particle Style like that! Couldn't you just finish him off?" He accused them.
The voice chuckled at him for a moment.
"I could. It wouldn't be hard at all, even. But right now, he's more useful to me alive, and Number #11 can still wait about two-and-a-half more days before being rescued. So no, I'm not going to kill him yet. Plus, I want to see him fight other Reincarnators. Really get a good look at all their abilities. You know, just to be safe."
Ichiro narrowed his eyes at the voice, wherever they were.
"I don't think you should play with people's lives like that. Mishima's too dangerous to risk letting him kill someone-" He began before being cut-off by the voice.
"Did you notice something, Ichiro? Your spine got hit by a Particle Style Ninjutsu. You shouldn't be alive right now, and even if you had survived the initial hit, everything below your neck would've been paralysed for good, including your heart and lungs. Why do you think you're still alive, exactly?" They lazily responded, as if they were annoyed at him for making them say it.
Ichiro's face reddened with embarrassment as he realised the implications.
"Ah. I'm guessing... You must have weakened his attack somehow from underground?"
"Correct. And that's what I'm going to do to him during every other fight with the other Reincarnators. Now, I'm going to head back over to the barrier. Stay here, and don't get yourself killed. Goodbye." The voice trailed off as it seemingly faded into nothing.
"Uh, bye..." Ichiro waved to nobody as he sat down on the hillside to regenerate his chakra and rest his sore back.
- - -
Twenty meters underground, beneath Mimi's barrier...
'Alright, now that that's out of the way, it's time to prepare for the next one.'
Seija appeared in her new hiding spot. Unbeknownst to Ichiro, she'd arrived earlier than anybody else, waking up at the crack of dawn to set out to find Mimi's location.
Legiana's pale underside was well suited to blending in with the sky, so she wasn't worried about any other Reincarnators spotting her while she scouted from over five kilometers in the air.
With her Sharingan enhancing the fine-details of her vision, she could spot her targets from vastly further away than most other humans could, similar to an eagle or similar bird of prey.
It only took her fifteen minutes since leaving Ishigaki Town to spot the barrier, and once she knew the exact location, she could land Legiana far away and run the rest of the distance. Upon arriving at the locale itself, she dove into the ground with an Earth Style Jutsu, the 'Hidden Mole' technique. Then all it took was creating a small opening through which she could bring fresh air underground with her and just like that, she was hidden right underneath Mimi's barrier.
From this spot, she could sense the whole area around the Dungeon Portal, and beyond, with ease.
When she first got within range of sensing Mishima and Pakura, she debated for a moment about just killing Mishima while he slept. Even if his danger sense activated, there would be little he could do from a sleeping position to stop her from ending him with a single attack.
The reason why she eventually chose not to was an obvious one: She was going to farm him for System Experience. Since there were numerous other Reincarnators coming to fight him, she would have many opportunities to siphon the power of everyone's Skills and Items for Great Firewall's benefit.
Was it selfish? Oh, absolutely. Ichiro had implied as much too when she spoke to him. But she was entirely confident that she could keep everyone else alive and kicking. There was a brief scare when Ichiro fumbled his dodge and she had to quickly swim through the ground to get both him and Mishima into range of her System Breaker's power.
Once she did, she was able to weaken the power of Mishima's Particle Style - which was revealed to her to be powered by a Skill, not a properly trained ability, which allowed Firewall to weaken it - and she was able to reduce the Jutsu's power enough to pull Ichiro out of that fight alive.
Just weakening that one attack had brought Firewall roughly twelve percent closer to Level 3, which was a good sign for how much she could earn from the next fight.
Honestly, the harder challenge would be keeping Mishima alive until the end. Keeping him alive left a bad taste in her mouth for a brief moment, but since she was going to let him die once the fighting reached its end anyways, it ultimately didn't matter. Letting him suffer through multiple fights, unaware that he was being used by her the whole time, felt like a fitting punishment for someone like him.
- - -
Seija hummed to herself once she sat back down in her hiding spot and enjoyed the feeling of testing a new Jutsu in the field. Hiding underground had its benefits, but what wasn't one of those was the fact that she wouldn't be able to hear anyone on the surface.
This was where one of her new techniques - which she'd had her shadow clones working on while she had been training Magnet Style - came into play.
She'd searched through the entire Amegakure shinobi library, and her own collection from home, but hadn't found any techniques that matched the exact nature of this one. So, she had her clones work on inventing it themselves while she trained her Kekkei Genkai.
This took far longer than simply learning an existing Jutsu of course, taking the clones working together almost six entire months to get a satisfactory result, but it was certainly worth it.
The result in question was a new Wind Style technique that she named the 'Gossiping Wind Jutsu', a pseudo-sensory technique that allowed her to directly control the current of the wind. She used this Jutsu for a number of applications - such as circulating the air within her underground cave to keep replacing it with new air from the surface - but the true purpose of the technique - as its name suggested - was to carry the sound of other people's conversations to her ears, or carry her own voice to theirs.
It had worked perfectly, allowing her to have a full-on conversation with Ichiro even after she'd hid back underground. He'd had no idea where she was, but they could both hear each other perfectly. Exactly as intended.
The Jutsu itself wasn't without flaws, of course. Maintaining it required the user to be stood or sat mostly stationary, much like her Typhoon Release which she'd partially based the design on, and much like other Sensory Jutsu such as her Mind's Eye of Kagura.
But still, even now she was using it to listen in on Mishima complaining to himself about how his fight against Ichiro had ended, a whole two hours after the battle had already concluded.
But it seemed that he wouldn't have time to complain for much longer.
Her wind caught the sound of heavy footsteps out in the forest.
- - -
Having had a couple of hours to recover from the shock of the fight, Mimi was beginning to reconsider asking everyone else for help. Shinobi combat was so much more hectic and violent than she had been expecting. She imagined that without her improved senses, she might not have even been able to track their movements as they fought.
Still, even if the circumstances weren't ideal, she was thrilled to have witnessed a real demonstration of shinobi power for the first time. Since she had little else to do while waiting behind the barrier, she broached the subject to Reincarnator #1 in search of knowledge that she would have received years ago had she been born in an actual shinobi Village.
[Reincarnator #11: "...And you say this is a LOW LEVEL fight?!"]
[Reincarnator #1: "Yes. Mishima's Ninjutsu is particularly deadly due to its specific properties, but other than that and Ichiro's shockwave power, this was a fairly standard upper-Genin level fight."]
[Reincarnator #11: "That's crazy... Would I really be capable of something like that if I learned how to do it?"]
[Reincarnator #1: "You'd need to train pretty hard to catch up. You're already ten years old and you haven't started training yet, so you've missed about five years of training time compared to everyone else. So long as you start training to build up your chakra supply before you hit your first puberty growth spurts, you should be able to catch up with enough effort."]
[Reincarnator #11: "Does it specifically have to be before puberty?"]
[Reincarnator #1: "Not necessarily, but puberty is the time when both your body and your chakra core will experience the most growth, so it's always good to have some chakra-building exercises already planned out before you hit it. I hit it about a year ago, and I'm already noticeably more powerful than I was back then."]
[Reincarnator #11: "I'm cutting it pretty close already then... Do you know any ways I can learn it faster?"]
Mimi was hopeful that Number #1 could help her with this. She'd been finding her progress with her System Quests lacking and since the only other way for her to build strength was to adhere to the power system of the world itself and train like a battle-junkie, she hoped that she could get some advice from the oldest of her peers.
[Reincarnator #1: "I'd say it depends on your circumstances, but that's not helpful to the conversation. I imagine that you want a more clear answer than that, so I'll put it as simply as I can: You need an experienced teacher with a solid supply of tools to teach you with. Without the benefits of a teacher, very few shinobi will ever get anywhere with their foundational training, let alone branch out into their own specialties."]
Mimi sighed.
[Reincarnator #11: "Yeah... figures. I don't know how I'm supposed to get a teacher though. I mean, wherever I've gone I've been ostracised for what I am. I know just two places isn't a large sample size, but it seems indicative of a wider issue. This world's populace are superstitious as heck, and I don't know the first thing about where to search for a teacher..."]
[Reincarnator #1: "Why search, then? Aren't you planning to join The Reincarnated Union? Surely they can teach you."]
[Reincarnator #11: "...Oh yeah! Hold on I'll ask them."]
[Reincarnator #1: "You might want to do it quickly, or hold off for a bit. I can sense someone else approaching the clearing pretty quickly. Sit back and enjoy the show."]
Mimi nodded to Number #1, who she knew was hiding underground, and navigated her Menu to her conversation with Rumi, where she asked her questions.
[Reincarnator #6: "...I must admit something to you, #11... We don't have much here. We have a little money which Killua would not tell us how he obtained, and with my System, I can purchase basic equipment, materials and food with Coins earned from my Quests. We would absolutely love to have you here, and our invitation to join will always be open, but it is highly unlikely that we will be able to assist you with your own training beyond the most rudimentary of basics..."]
[Reincarnator #11: "Oh... Th-That's fine! I'll figure something out! Thank you for telling me."]
Downcast, Mimi closed that Chat and returned to the one with Number #1.
[Reincarnator #11: "Rumi said that they don't have the resources to properly teach me anything past the basics..."]
There was a long pause before she received a response. Long enough that it made her wonder what was causing such a hold-up.
Just as she was getting worried that Number #1 had gotten into trouble somehow, a response came through.
[Reincarnator #1: "Alright then. Sounds like there are two paths you can take."]
[Reincarnator #11: "Really!? You figured out a way for me to improve?"]
[Reincarnator #1: "Whoa, slow down there. Yes, that's one of the options, but let me elaborate first. Your first path is security. If you want to be relatively safe and among other Reincarnators, then you should sign up with the Union like you were already planning..."]
[Reincarnator #11: "Or?"]
[Reincarnator #1: "You could join my organisation. Unlike the Union, we're well equipped to train new recruits up to a high standard. Sounds like an ideal situation, right? Well, I hesitate to offer this to you because it requires a great deal of secrecy from you. My organisation is a known factor from the original timeline, so if you start describing us to the other Reincarnators, they're going to figure out information about me that I'd rather not get out."]
[Reincarnator #1: "Oh, and we're also slightly doomed by the narrative to either die or become major villains, but that's a significantly smaller issue with all the Reincarnators running around and changing the timeline. So, if you want to take that risk, and you don't mind keeping secrets... you could always come with us."]
Mimi was genuinely stunned by the sudden recruitment pitch.
'They're inviting me to join them?! Just like that? I mean... they did say it could be dangerous, but is it any more dangerous than needing to cross the entire Land of Fire during a war in order to simply reach the Union? Hey, Nekomata-'
Before she could query her System for its opinion on the situation, her thought process was interrupted by a sudden sound echoing from the forest.
Boisterous laughter and heavy footsteps.
There was a sudden loud crash as a cloud of dust rose in the distance, and then another, closer one a few moments later. Then again, and again. And the laughter got louder every time.
- - -
"HAHAHAHAHAHAAA!"
*Crash*
Outside the barrier, Mishima pushed himself up off the ground and darted to the side as his Danger Sense warned him of something crashing down on him from above.
The object... or rather, the cackling maniac made a small crater in the ground on impact, with clouds of dust sent flying from the sheer force.
'Oh what the fuck is this now?!' Mishima complained as the figure stepped out of the newly-made divot in the soil, chuckling to himself like a lunatic.
"Haha! See, bro? We got here so much faster using my way!" The huge figure joked to the person he was holding flung over his shoulder.
"For fuck's sake, put me down, please. And NEVER do that to me again." The second person groaned before being dropped. He managed to land on his feet before adjusting his glasses and looking around.
"Right." He said as he turned towards Mishima, "How are we going to handle this, exactly?" He questioned his companion.
The big guy barked out another laugh and turned to Mishima as well.
"Well, I'm gonna fight him, aren't I?" He asked with almost creepily childish glee.
Mishima couldn't be bothered for the two extras in front of him to continue their conversation. In lieu of a 'skip dialogue' button, he simply formed a string of fireballs between his hands and fired at both of them.
The response was quick and decisive enough to almost unnerve him. The big guy's grinning face suddenly turned serious as he casually back-handed a pair of fireballs aimed at him, destroying them instantly. The glasses-wearing boy next to him drew a fairly short katana from his waist and sliced the shots aimed at him into pieces using only one hand, harmlessly scattering the chakra to the wind.
"Well, that was rude." The four-eyes spoke, mirth seeping into his tone of voice.
"Yep." The big guy concurred, "It was weak too. I didn't even feel a thing. Don't tell me..."
His glare hardened with a tinge of strangely genuine sadness at the edges of it.
"...Is this guy going to be a boring fight?" He lamented.
Mishima growled at being underestimated so severely and prepared to attack again when the big guy suddenly started... wandering off into the forest?
"I don't wanna fight this guy after all, Yuta. I'll go fight the other guy you sensed out in the forest earlier. Not the injured one, the other one who was gonna arrive before us before I realised that we'd get here faster if I carried you-"
"Yes, Ryu, I know the one you're talking about. Fine, go fight him, then. I'll deal with the murderer." Four-eyes - apparently named Yuta - waved off his companion and turned back towards Mishima.
"Well then, I suppose introductions are in order? I am Reincarnator #12, and as you heard that big lug blurt out, my name is Yuta. I'd say it's a pleasure to meet you, but we both know that's not true. Would you do me the favor of lowering your head and letting me cut it off?" He asked after introducing himself.
Mishima's response was a simple one.
"Fuck you."
Yuta let out a small, amused huff and leveled his katana in front of himself.
"You really do make yourself so easy to dislike, don't you? I'll be having a little fun with this, if you don't mind!"
With that final announcement, his body blurred with speed as he charged straight into battle.
