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Chapter 80 - Arc 5.5 - Otherworlders - Catching Up On Herself
🕑 Added 2024-09-03 11:24:17 +0000 UTCChapter 80, this is such a freaking accomplishment. Like, wow, I've never had anything go nearly this far.
Thank you for supporting me, both in general and for so long.
I love writing Sakura, it's one of the few sources of joy I have in my life these days. I have so many ideas I want to do. Some of them probably bad, some great, some just plain experimental. This small arc is about to be that third one, and probably one of the other two.
Changelog: Chapter 57 was edited for clarity, quite a few of the paragraphs were rather confusing. Like I wasn't even sure what was happening on reread, so I fixed that. The edits ended up adding about 300 words.
Chapter 58 just received some very simple description fixes and wording fixups. Only about an extra 100 words, nothing noticeable or worth a reread.
Ch 59 Changed some flavortext at the start of the chapter, mostly just fixed up some wordings and made the description a little clearer. Added a few hundred words.
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She’s exactly where she wants to be after all that nonsense; back home, napped, and at her desk. She can’t help but think about everything that’s happened recently, but the thoughts are quick to pass for once. Far more important than her time with Tenten, or her revelations with the sword, or her small adventure with Ino, is the to-do list. She made a great list of things she needs to do to improve, and it’s time she starts doing that stuff before it grows and overwhelms her. Which means stalking over to her desk, sitting back, and figuring out what she wants.
She gets writing and quickly has a small list of things written out on paper.
Crafting Tutorial
Cooking Skill
Escape Rope
Ambidextrous
Ranged Training
Medical Skills
Other Weapons
Necromancy
Mind Training so she can do Necromancy
Make Friends
Work on her anger issues so Tenten will game with her
It looks like a lot, but she can probably get like half of that done in like a week… probably.
First though, she’s got new skills and traits since the last time she checked on those, and they’re rather prevalent. She went through a whole damned dungeon, and it was so much she has a hard time remembering it all. One-shot dungeons kinda suck. She got a lot stronger statistically, so why not skillswise? She couldn’t check on them when she was with Ino, there was too much going on and Ino’s stats were far too distracting for her to think about herself for even a second, but now that she’s alone in her room…
First she looks to her skills, and finds that despite her efforts there aren’t many changes.
Item Appraisal and First Aid she already knew of, Water clones got to Proto Level 5, Scan leveled up to Moderate - but she might have already known that - and Great Hammer Moderate is, while awesome, not particularly practical outside of a zombie infestation situation. She is happy to report Tenten let her keep the hammer though, so maybe she’ll train with it. It could be really cool, and she’s going to ask Gai to help her with it at her nearest convenience. As much as she wants to focus on the jutsu aspect of her skills for the near future, Gai’s a great teacher that she can’t pass up. She especially can’t ignore Gai when Kakashi has told her that he wouldn’t be offended by her seeking help elsewhere, which was something she was worried about.
As cool as that dungeon was for her stats, she didn’t gain a lot of skills. She could have tried harder, or worked towards more things, but she’ll just have to be happy with what she did advance. Learning that she doesn’t have to follow the rules with her abilities is probably better than a bunch of upgrades anyway. Magic rules. She will have to be okay with that. Is what she thinks, but looking at her Traits tells her she won’t have to be okay with anything, there’s so much here! Whereas she gained very little in skills, her trait list exploded. Her Water Affinity is level five, her earth is level six, and fire’s proto-affinity has hit four. That’s where the basic upgrades stop, and the crazy begins.
[Brutal
You haven’t just killed people, you’ve done so in such a horrific, gruesome way that your allies fear you and your enemies wake up in chills. You strike terror into the hearts of all that oppose you, and you’ve made it clear; there are fates worse than death, one is facing you.]
That feels a little much, she stabbed one guy a bunch of times. She was having a panic attack, it’s not like she ate his insides while giggling. Still, if the flavor text’s implication is true, she does more morale damage now, and that’s huge. Well, it’ll be huge if she ever ends up in a war or anything, which is super unlikely. It’s also unlikely she gets assigned another mission to kill an entire rebellion and needs to demoralize them internally.
[Walking Nightmare
You’ve killed enough people that it’s clear it wasn’t because you had to. You’re not going to stop killing until you’re forced to, and you’ve chosen your path in life. Some people are gentle, some are stained, you’re a walking nightmare. Your intimidation checks now use Strength instead of Charm. Blood no longer makes you look dirty or feel dirty, it looks like it belongs and feels like it too.]
Well that’s awesome. Her strength will likely always be higher than Charm, but the far more important part is the implication that she can circumvent Charm for certain checks if she gains the right traits. She’s not sure how often she’ll be making intimidation checks, but she loves the idea. She also loves the idea that blood will no longer feel gross. She gets covered in it a lot, and she’s pretty sure she can place exactly when she got this trait in the dungeon. It was when she killed that guy right before Fierro, she got covered and she didn’t care in the least. It felt nice, actually.
[Regenerator
You’ve healed a lot of damage without proper medical means. Your ability to heal from any source that is not medical in nature is now 1.2x stronger.]
Unfortunately, the only non-medical method of healing she has is sleep, which is a full heal, but the skill does bring plenty of build ideas to mind. What if she figured out a proper way to gain sustain? Like a life-steal weapon or maybe some kind of blood drinking power like her sword has? She needs to spend time on that, her list is getting very long. The concept of adding regeneration - now improved - to her arsenal is also huge. One of the few things stopping her from being immortal - besides instant kills - is the time she needs to recover. Five hours is fast enough she can ignore sickness, a lot of poisons, and even some critical injuries if she can get the care. But even low regeneration might be able to fight off blood loss while she rests.
[Tank
You’ve taken enough damage while still standing that you no longer feel pain during combat. You’ll still notice hit locations and be aware of damage, but it will not hurt unless you are severely injured all at once. Pain will resume the moment combat is over, try not to get wrecked by the wave hitting all at once.]
That just seems useful, not that pain has ever truly bothered her much. She’s just good like that.
[Purger of Undead
You have killed countless undead, far more than any normal mortal is capable of. You now do Passive Holy damage along with your Normal damage.]
“Oh, okay, sure.” She nods at that, for many reasons. The most noticeable being that she’s not even sure what that means in the context of the Elemental Nations. Does holy damage even apply to normal people, or does it only matter if she fights undead again? Extra damage is cool but if it doesn’t actually do damage, what’s the point? She’ll need to investigate.
[Rebellion Quasher
You’ve killed them. You took on your duty and slaughtered without a second thought. You put down an organization without even knowing its greater purpose, and in doing so you’ve ensured that your way of life can survive thoughtlessly another day. You’re a real hero, promise, no one’s judging you at all.]
Yeah, that sounds a lot like the system is judging her. Cool. There was probably some kind of secondary meaning she was supposed to interpret in that dungeon, but as far as she’s concerned, expecting her to betray her country for a freaking necromancer and her band of weak followers is dumb. She’ll take the judgment. Too bad it doesn’t seem to give any bonuses…
[Enemy Lvl 2
A group of largely non-threats - to you - has made it their new life goal to stop you from breathing. If left alone, they will grow, and you may have to eradicate a force of some note eventually.]
That’s easy to place, three of the Genin escaped from the dungeon. It’s interesting that they’re not a threat to her at all even when not cornered, but it’s not that crazy to think they want revenge on her. It sucks that it’s specifically on her, but she did go out of her way to intimidate and scare the enemy. Every great ninja eventually has a bounty of some sort, Kakashi’s wanted in like three countries at least. Having a few random kids that want her dead isn’t that big a deal. You can’t make everyone love you, in fact, some people will hate you just for existing. Plus, there’s always the possibility that she could meet them when they come to fight her and she can go all super sensei and train them to defeat her, creating several awesome underlings that slowly lose their hate and become loyal… Probably not.
[Sharing is Caring
You’ve let someone else touch the Core. In doing so, you’ve added them to your System Registry. This will have Grave Consequence.]
That’s an issue, that’s a huge issue. She doesn’t like that at all, and she can’t help but chitter her teeth at the sight of those words. System Registry? What does that mean in this context? More importantly, what kind of Grave Consequence? Why did it capitalize those words in the middle of a sentence? Half of her wants to sprint to Ino and tell her about this right now, but the other half of her would kinda rather avoid her for a few days. She’ll meet her on Saturday, and obviously Ino won’t be leaving the village before then either.
It makes sense to put it off, especially when it’s not like that gives her any real information. She should investigate, Ino deserves the best she can give her, not small and concerning scraps one thing at a time.
Finally, she has just one more trait.
[Killer of Fierro
You have killed an Otherworlder, and have been marked with their essence. Should anyone wish to find them, the trail will lead to you, and should you ever wish to travel outward, their essence will aid you in opening the door]
There’s a lot to process there, but before she can think about any of it, a prompt arrives with the blaring force of Tenten’s rifle.
[Quest Notice: A Requested Meeting
You went and killed an Otherworlder that had a bounty back in their home world. It just so happens that a high authority there would still like to make due on that and has invited you to meet with them at your next convenience. If you would like to meet with them, eat a lot of salt before Resting
Reward: A Very Temporary Meeting Outside the Veil
Trait: Otherworlder]
“What?” She can’t help but gasp in surprise at that. She thought that otherworlder crap from Fierro was just a dungeon flavor text! She smacks herself on both cheeks, huffing, and feeling like a real idiot for still not internalizing that this is all real.
“Guess I better go ask for something salty for dinner…” Like she’s passing that up!
That’s so stupidly ominous!
Comments
Alexander
Half of those traits were ominous as heck
Dopplerdee
That is pretty damn ominous.
