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Chapter 130 - Arc 8 - Forest of Quest: Questioning Existence
🕑 Added 2025-02-01 00:07:34 +0000 UTCA lot is coming together here, and while it's not 100% how my outline originally intended this to go, I actually like this more. It's close. I had planned for a bit more in between but this is already long enough and the feeling is the same as I intended.
Enjoy, and thank you for your continued support!
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Despite being told to stay away, Ino’s never ran faster in her life. That explosion couldn’t have been Sakura. She’s looked at her skills, she’s been inside her body, nothing she’s capable of could ever do that. So whatever she’s up against can make the world shake and the sky disappear. Her legs move faster than any of her teammates can keep up with despite being the physically weakest of them. Tears stain her eyes and a branch cuts her as she darts past, but she doesn’t care. The system can go fuck itself, if she can buy Sakura three seconds she’ll be there. It’s not even about love, she’d do the same for Shikamaru, Chouji, and even Naruto.
Kakashi tried to teach her not to get in the way, and she understood the lesson. She still has a scar from it, she’ll never forget how much faster a backliner dies compared to a frontliner, and why they each have their own tactical place on the field. None of that matters, she’ll become a frontliner for Sakura. She can’t even hear their shouts anymore. She’s not that far, how come no one’s there yet? Are they all going about this tactically like it’s not one of their own in danger? They are, aren’t they? Every Jonin here is looking at the situation and waiting for the perfect time while Sakura suffers alone.
She can’t even hate them, because if it wasn’t someone essential she’d do the same. Sakura would too, she’d get mad at her for even thinking otherwise. Something truly powerful is up ahead and every tactical move needs to be made with weight and consideration beyond her years. That doesn’t stop her feet from moving so fast she feels her bones creak in irritation.
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[For damaging an enemy at the measurable level cap of 300, you have been awarded the trait Titan Slayer 1, the effects have been reduced as the rules were broken to achieve this accomplishment]
“Don’t let your guard down, he’s not gone.” She shouts out to them, watching Gaara land on the branch beside her, and seeing Sasuke nod his head with a slow determination. She can’t help but notice that there’s a squirrel on Gaara’s head, and she hasn’t heard any wet thumps or poofs from the one she substituted with. She doesn’t have any time to think why Gaara saved the squirrel, but she’s happy he’s feeling better these days and crushing everything into bloody mulch isn’t his first reaction. She’d love to get a real explanation for that though, from what she can tell his life was hell and she walked in and suddenly it’s better without her doing a damn thing. That’s weird, and probably related to the system. Before any more whimsical thought, she needs to see if that trait is relevant and then she needs to come up with a plan for how to survive the next three minutes.
[Titan Slayer 1 - You’ve dealt at least 1 damage to someone at the trackable maximum, (600 in each stat) and as such your stats are now considered 25% stronger when acting against someone stronger than you.
Obtained by Cheating: Effects are halved, this may be removed by simply obtaining the trait again within the rules.]
Why even let her do it if it’s going to punish her? It gave her the ability, it prompted her to use it, it- well it’s a positive she wouldn’t have gotten otherwise, it’s not like it matters. Every day she questions this system a little more. If its motive is to make her strong, shouldn’t it be rewarding her for random stuff? Why not just give her a hundred stat points for free because ‘Mondays’?
Either she’s wrong about its motivation, or something is heavily restricting it. Whatever the case, she doesn’t have any time to think about it because a voice brings her eyes to a flaming tree across from them. “And how exactly did you know I wasn’t dead?” His face is burnt, rotted flesh drips off of him to the ground below to reveal a new perfectly smooth skin that neglects to remember what even happened. A lot of his flesh is peeling like that, grossly sloughing off of his abused body. His clothes are untouched, meaning he was damaged conceptually and not with physical force. He really is undead, or at least so dark in nature the rules of the world can’t discern the difference.
More importantly, he looks absolutely furious with her and she gets why. Rage burns in his eyes, fire doesn’t so much simmer behind them as a blazing inferno thrashes around in an attempt to get out and devour her whole. She’s probably left the peace making part of their engagement which means she’s dead the moment he attacks. His sword is pointed at the dirt below, his free hand twitching with eagerness to tear her in half. Beyond the flame deep inside him she can see his shiny yellow eyes glow brightly and visibly despite the mid-day light beaming down on them from above. Three minutes, five seconds. They don’t win this unless they do something stupid. So she takes a breath, and she answers him to buy an extra few moments of life. “The system hadn’t informed me you were dead.” She looks up at the timer with concern, and swipes open her inventory. It doesn’t actually let her pull anything out, yet another weirdness that doesn’t make sense if the sole motivation is to make her strong.
What it does do is let her see all of the items she has on her person and let her mind race while Orochimaru is staring her down instead of attacking. He’s cautious, concerned, what she just did hurt him and for the first time in the entire fight this isn’t playtime. He’s only hesitating to remove her head from her shoulders because he’s worried she might be able to do that again, and when he realizes she can’t he’ll enjoy shoving his hand through her chest. She can feel the heart beating in her chest much stronger than she’s ever felt it before, she’s breathing one of her last breaths and her only hope is that whoever arrives next is enough to stall him for the person after them to arrive and so on. The worst part is she can feel a lot of their souls nearby, but not approaching. They’re strategizing, trying to figure out the best approach and she’s a sacrifice for that time.
She can’t even be mad. The system’s lying to her by telling her they’ll be here soon, but it’s doing its best and desperately screaming into the void, isn’t it. It’s just like her in that way. It wants to believe but unlike her it isn’t restricted enough by reality to understand that if they don’t move in it’s just over. Was the five minute timer ever really important? It wasn’t, was it, it was just there to give her hope, give her something to pay attention to. Just like what it did to Ino…
That’s cute, in that she’s about to die so everything’s cute kind of way.
This is out of her hands, besides the next few seconds that is. Max level? What does any of that matter? He’s too strong for her efforts to really make a difference, that’s the only thing there that has any significance. Her eyes catch something in the inventory, and she reaches into her pouch and unseals her only hope. Something that’ll matter so much in thirty seconds that it might save Sasuke’s life. Probably not hers, but the system maybe revived her once right?
She’s not a fool. It either won’t let her die, or none of it matters anyway. Sasuke matters, Gaara matters, everyone coming to save her matters. She’s pretty sure they’re going to pepper in one after another so all she needs is to buy thirty seconds for the next person and she needs to hope that they can buy thirty seconds for the next person after that. “Run, now.” She mumbles.
“I’m not leaving you.” Sasuke shakes his head.
“You’re planning something dumb, I will be there for it.” Gaara grumbles at her.
“I’m serious guys, fucking run, now-”
Sasuke grabs her chin, makes her look at him right in his pretty almost girly eyes. Some find the Sharingan intimidating, she doesn’t, and she can only think back to when he said the Uchiha find red eyes attractive. “No.” He says with so much vehemence her system doesn’t even need to tell her, and she ignores the prompt telling her that he’s truly going to refuse. It almost looks like he’s going to kiss her like Ino did, and it’s their last moment so she’s not going to ruin it by saying something. She feels her cheeks heat up just like they did when it was clear Ino was about to pull something. Is she actually lacking in romance or is she just stupid? Luckily, maybe unluckily? Who even knows, he lets her go and coughs into his fist.
This was an awkward moment for Orochimaru to stare at them through, she’s grateful he appears to have taken something nostalgic and personal from the action. Gaara pats her shoulder in a much less weird display of standing by her side.
“It can tell something like that?” Orochimaru asks her, making her have to blink and think back to their exchange only a few seconds prior. His death, right, it told her he wasn’t dead. His voice is thick with curiosity but also hatred. He’s no longer more interested than he is bloodthirsty, without his hesitance she’d be dead. Without answering him she’d be a rotting corpse already smeared across the forest floor. She’d originally held back from calling him out but he’s going to move in a second, Sasuke’s going to get in the way, Gaara will be right behind him, and all three of them will die.
She needs to piss him off, focus everything he has on her, for the first time since this started she has a real tangible plan and hopefully the boys will get cold feet and leave because this is officially a sacrificial gambit..
“It knows how strong you are, it knows your name, it even knows why you’re here.” She explains, the man’s grip on his sword causes his knuckles to become whiter as she talks. “Orochimaru, invading the exams to steal the Uchiha and-”
Instinct alone allows her to fall backwards just in time for him to fly over her with rage. A screech of pure fury fills the air with enough killing intent that only her acceptance that she’s dead no matter what happens stops her from being stopped still in place. She’s lucky he’s still off balance from that explosion she’d probably have died from that strike otherwise.
Her brain shows her a thousand ways she’ll die as his sword bisects the area her face just was, but the only detail worth taking in is the way reality shimmers for a second where his sword passes. It wasn’t doing that before, and it confirms something she’d already suspected deep in the back of her brain where hope goes to die. A smile graces her lips, the system didn’t just ask for help from those here, did it? She shoulda eaten more salt.
Abandon her? A mere fear tactic to push her to buy it time at all costs, it’s ready and willing to sacrifice everything to ensure whatever goal it has in mind isn’t ruined. The only reason her status would be redacted is because she’s so dead it can’t do anything to save her… She hopes.
She’s gambled on worse odds.
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Jiraiya left a shadow clone to wait around and wait for her call. He ordered it to stay there, firmly waiting until the message could get through no matter what while he finished up some tasks in Konoha proper, including a meeting with Sarutobi. Trials are for growing and she’d never grow if he just appeared beside her the moment there was trouble, he’d stunt Naruto’s growth too simply by appearing in their time of need and making them expect it anytime they were in trouble. He could have sent a shadow clone to at least watch, but he’s too soft-hearted and is well aware he’d spring in too early if they were in any danger.
There’s a rough line in the sand between coddling and providing reasonable protection, and where that line lies is a matter of opinion that almost no one can agree on. He’s of the opinion children should grow with guidance, but not a shield. Some will die, it’s the unfortunate truth, but no matter what you do you can’t save everyone from the ninja life they signed up for. Their odds of survival when he’s not around go up if he doesn’t ruin their chances at growth, and he’s okay with that math. Odds were his old teammate’s thing anyway, he just does what he feels is right. In a perfect world he would save every child, but he just can’t do that, so he does his best and that means leaving a shadow clone in the forest and not waiting in the trees right outside her meeting point with his strongest jutsu ready just because a Genin is a little scared.
So one would expect that when Asuma’s clone arrives with Shino’s bugs they’d find him waiting on a log like he had planned, a small toad in his lap ready to give Sakura crap for needing to crawl to him for help. Just enough planned guilt that combined with the price he charged her - some fun posing training - she shouldn’t just expect his help whenever. His clone should be more than enough to kill whatever Chunin snuck into the exam to mess with her anyway, or if it does happen to be a Jonin a clone would easily hold it off long enough for him to properly get there himself. The intent was to be there waiting, a smile on his wrinkled old artificial cloney face, but when Asuma’s shadow clone touches down in the clearing he finds an empty log and pops himself to pass the message along.
The moment a plume of smoke erupted in the forest and Jiraiya’s senses tingled all the way in Konoha proper, he knew he made a mistake by not already being in place. Sarutobi said she had anxiety and panic attacks in the academy, how was he supposed to know she meant Orochimaru was in the forest! Where was the panic, where was the fear in her eyes, why was a little discomfort able to override a very real and not exaggerated fear of certain death? He’d made her pose and that seemed to be the worst part of her day, why!?
He’s heard of people growing quickly out of the academy before, graduating the academy very early isn’t unheard of either. Minato did, and boy did Minato have baggage. But graduating the academy a perfectly normal girl and changing into someone so unphased by their own death they manage to trick him into thinking this isn’t that serious? That’s unheard of. Skills are one thing but the mindset of a ninja shouldn’t just flip like a switch. Danzo’s probably involved in this… he’ll be telling the old man on the bastard.
He’s made a lot of mistakes in his day, this might be up there in the book of top regrets he plans to write one day to teach the next generation what not to do. At least in this instance, the message that appeared in his vision telling him to go actually arrived after he started moving so he reacted faster than even the stupid system wanted him to.
“Kakashi!” His feet slam down next to the silver haired cyclops and kick off immediately to prevent slowing either of them down. He doesn’t even allow the elite Jonin a moment of recognition before he’s barking. “How interesting is that girl?”
“Why is that, hah, the question?” Kakashi’s struggling to keep his breath steady, good, it means he doesn’t have to stress the importance of a quick response. “She might be breaking records for how long I would have to list what’s not normal.”
“Good, then she probably has a few minutes. Full speed.” Unfortunately for Kakashi, Jiraiya will be there first. He just hopes it’s before they’re forced to make graves - “What the fuck!?” His feet slam to a halt, taking in the world in front of him. It’s not just him speaking without thought and halting, he finds Kakashi stopping right beside him. They both stand stock still, watching as the world explodes in the distance. A light surges into the sky, shattering the clouds and banishing all that dares to be aligned with the darkness.
“That wasn’t from Orochimaru.” Jiraiya gawks with eyes wide enough that they threaten to pop out of his skull.
“No, that was Sakura being interesting again.” Kakashi allows himself a soft exhale, knowing that Sakura will probably be okay for a little longer. “If that much firepower is being thrown around we need to find the others and move in at once, trickling in will just get everyone killed.”
Jiraiya doesn’t like it, he’s sure Kakashi doesn’t either, but the Anbu Captain of the past speaks the truth. He probably has more experience acting in crisis than even the Sannin… okay maybe close. “You go, I can handle it.” With that, Jiraiya kicks off and heads straight towards her as fast as he reasonably can without wasting resources he’ll need to fight another Sannin. Hopefully whatever she’s sensing that lets her know he’s there isn’t too fried by Orochimaru standing right in front of her, and she knows she just needs to hold on another minute. If it was a normal Jonin he’d already be there, he could easily have expended a ton of chakra and gotten there in seconds, but with the foe being Orochimaru that’d just leave him weak and easily picked off.
There’s no point in showing up just to die.
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The first dodge was luck, the second a group effort of Gaara’s sand and a fireball from Sasuke to slow him down. The third is the happenstance of the right tree being in the right place.
The fourth? She wouldn’t even call it a dodge. The magical crossbow she calls to her arms makes him hesitate for just long enough for her to shift to the side. Even that only buys her enough time that his slash only makes her lose her weapon. It sucks to lose a powerful tool like that but she has bigger concerns. He spends just enough time vengefully smashing the crossbow that hurt him into the dirt for her to whip out Hunger. He doesn’t even properly look at her, instead he kicks the weapon beneath him hard enough to send wooden splinters flying into the air just as she shoves her sword through her arm. She doesn’t care about a minute from now, what’s it matter if she causes herself a little damage if it gives her the power to survive ten more seconds?
She’s happy to watch the sword slide out of her flesh and seal most of the wound behind it. She’s never tested it because stabbing herself is insane, but the confirmation that the damage mitigation from stabbing herself with her own sword is conceptual and not physical is important. It confirms what she already suspected, her body is less a real world object and more a projection of magic. When did that become fact? Was it when she died in Wave, or was it before that point?
Did she ever exist, or was she placed into a world without her, warping everything up to her graduation because some otherworldly force needed her here? Does Ino look the same in all of her old memories because she’s bad at this, or because one day she poofed into existence and an entire simulation had to be run? If so, whoever came up with her pathetic backstory is an asshole.
Does the answer to any of that matter? It’s funny how staring at death makes her question everything.
She moves forward while channeling her chakra enough the blood on Hunger glows. “Fatal slash!” She shouts at the top of her lungs, not even sparing a second before spawning a five elemental sword above her head. It spins with wind and sparks with lightning as she sends it off after the frantically moving Sannin. Hunger’s bloody path of flaming vengeance is an afterthought for the god amongst men, as is the five elemental sword, so she’s using the moisture in the air from the river nearby and entirely too much chakra to send a barrage of water shuriken before the constructed sword is even finished blowing up.
Another sword is sent before the shuriken are dodged, and another volley of water shuriken is sent before the sword is deflected. She stands her ground because focusing any of her energy on anything other than bursting everything she has out at top speed won’t stop him for more than a second. A sand hand slams where Orochimaru just was and she curses that Gaara caught up so fast, half the point of throwing everything into this was to create a hostile enough space around her they would break away long enough that she could do what she needs to with the bag nestled in her kunai pouch. It’s not just Gaara though, despite her best wishes ninja wire takes to the fray and ignites in a display that she would normally call beautiful if they weren’t sealing their fates by following her.
She can’t blame them though, they’re in the list of people she’d sacrifice for, she can’t judge their list. “Get behind me! Now!” She shouts just as she hears Orochimaru growl and get serious, standing his ground instead of dodging. He’s planning on killing her in the next strike, but that’s fine. She gave up on surviving when he got serious, it doesn’t bother her.
Her fingers reach into her pouch and grab the bag she released from the seal earlier. She feels the energy of a hundred souls contained within her hands, and that’s all the confirmation she needs that she has the right object in her grasp. It was her reward for a job she didn’t even know she was doing at the time and now it’s the most important piece in a suicidal plan that she now needs to figure out how to make sure Gaara and Sasuke survive.
She pulls a big rock of salt she carries around for cooking out of a seal in her sleeve, and throws both the bag full of souls and the rock forward. Her energy charges, her magic swirls, and she casts forth a spell into the expanse between her and death, forcing her bidding on the aftermath of a massacre in another world. “Soul Explosion!”
Back when she was given the goblin souls her system had said that salt was the catalyst for the transfer to the rest point between worlds, and the scary woman had claimed enough power could tear open reality. She doesn’t like putting her faith in others but just this once she’ll gamble on the hope that she wasn’t lied to. “Rollout!” She doesn’t wait to find out what happens, she has to trust the system called out for help from every possible source. She has to trust that her jutsu is good enough, she has to trust that Orochimaru doesn’t make it out in time to finish off her and her friends if she really does manage to save them.
She puts everything she has left into creating the strongest barrier she’s ever even attempted. Gaara and Sasuke are right behind her and need her absolute best, they need a shield like nothing else she’s ever even dreamt of. She asks for a miracle, she pushes everything into this. She begs the system to let her break the rules again, and finds no such prompt arriving when it matters.
She has just enough time to see light engulf the world for a second time in short order, before the ball closes around them, and she loses consciousness from Chakra exhaustion.
Comments
Ryoshuu
Like whoah. What is going to happen with this explosive attack against Orochimaru?!!! The whole bag?! Maybe there might be a permanent portal made? Black hole creation? I also enjoyed the System reflection, and the existential crisis Sakura has while dodging for life. I'm rubbing my hands together in excited anticipation for the next chapter. Excellent cliffhanger. Thanks for sharing!
Dopplerdee
That was heavy.
Christopher Cummins
"Do I even exist?"
Dopplerdee
Man, Jiraiya not understanding the situation and probably not reading all the info has made Sakura's life so much worse. Also love Sakura psychoanalysis on her own system.
