CHAPTER 1
"WIN YOUR FREEDOM…"
I woke up in the middle of an encampment surrounded by thick forest with a mysterious feel coming off the trees. As I observed the place, I was approached by a young man.
He had tan skin, dark red hair in a mohawk, and his eyes looks like it was blind but from the way he was staring at me, I could tell he had no visual impairment whatsoever. He looked like a lovechild of an Uzumaki and a Hyuga. He wore a purple vest on top of a sleeveless purple shirt. He had purple pants, purple boots, purple shin guards and purple armguard. The way he held his weapon suggested that he's an expert combatant and the color of the twin curved blades he had is you guessed it, purple. From now on I'm going to call him Mr. Purple. He was the first to talk to me.
"You look lost. First time coming here?" Mr. Purple started.
"Yeah, I guess I am. What is this place, anyway?" was my reply.
"You're inside the Radiant camp. Name's Magina, by the way but you can call me by my title 'Anti-Mage'"
"Hello Magina-san, I'm Tsunade also known as the Fifth Hokage,"I shook his hands. "Can you tell me more about this place?"
"I most certainly can. We are currently situated in the inner most sanctum of the Radiant encampment but not far away, there's an ongoing battle. There's a war going on between the Radiant and the Dire forces and we cannot escape the proximity of the battlefield unless we attain victory…or defeat."
Another war? Damn it I just participated in one not even a decade ago. "I see. It seems like you've been in this situation before, can you help me learn the basics so I can get out of this mess?"
"While I can teach you a thing or two in order to help increase your survival from this whole ordeal, I'm afraid I cannot teach you how exactly to get out this situation completely. You are correct in assuming that I have been in this situation before but for all intents and purposes, it's pretty much a 'game' of war. A game of the gods, if you will. In fact, I've been participating countless matches like this for as long as I can remember. I have yet to attain the promise of freedom upon my victory."
Does it mean I have to win a lot of "game of war" before I can get out of here? While I suck at games, I've yet to lose a game betting my life on the line. Then again, maybe this is just a genjutsu. I tried summoning my chakra to dispel what I thought was an illusion but to my horror, I can't even do a simple "kai". I can still feel my chakra but it just won't obey me. It's like it has a mind of its own.
Taking note of my silence and having seen my failed attempt at a dispelling jutsu, Magina looked apprehensive and started asking multiple questions in quick succession, "What are you doing? Are by chance a mage or wizard? Tell me!"
"No, I'm no mage nor wizard. I am what you call a ninja. A person practicing shinobi arts," I replied calmly in hopes of calming him.
"Hmn. Well I guess it doesn't matter if you are. What matters now is that we are allies and have to cooperate in order to win this round. I'll tell you more about this game after we hear the horn of battle," he's back to a nonchalant demeanor.
"By the way Magina-san, why are you called the 'Anti-Mage'," I asked, curious.
"It all started when I was just a young boy, an acolyte of the Turstarkuri…." And then he proceeded to tell me his backstory.
The monks of Turstarkuri watched the rugged valleys below their mountain monastery as wave after wave of invaders swept through the lower kingdoms. Ascetic and pragmatic, in their remote monastic eyrie they remained aloof from mundane strife, wrapped in meditation that knew no gods or elements of magic. Then came the Legion of the Dead God, crusaders with a sinister mandate to replace all local worship with their Unliving Lord's poisonous nihilosophy. From a landscape that had known nothing but blood and battle for a thousand years, they tore the souls and bones of countless fallen legions and pitched them against Turstarkuri. The monastery stood scarcely a fortnight against the assault, and the few monks who bothered to surface from their meditations believed the invaders were but demonic visions sent to distract them from meditation. They died where they sat on their silken cushions. Only one youth survived-a pilgrim who had come as an acolyte, seeking wisdom, but had yet to be admitted to the monastery. He watched in horror as the monks to whom he had served tea and nettles were first slaughtered, then raised to join the ranks of the Dead God's priesthood. With nothing but a few of Turstarkuri's prized dogmatic scrolls, he crept away to the comparative safety of other lands, swearing to obliterate not only the Dead God's magic users-but to put an end to magic altogether.
He went and lived with the Highland Nomads. A tribe whose members dress themselves in high collars, chain link armor, and carry curved blades. Initiates sport a short, simple haircut. He was one such initiate. He also learned some techniques from the dogmatic scrolls of the Turstarkuri and continued to meditate in the ways of the monks.
Even today, he still felt guilty about being the only survivor, and continues to see his old friends through his mind's eye.
After hearing it, I felt bad asking him so I apologized. He told me not to worry about it. It's already been years since that event. Still feeling guilty, I ended up sharing a little bit of my backstory to make it even. I told him about the circumstances that lead to me being the last Senju and in a way, we share the same similarity of being the only last of our kind and having the lone survivor guilt. After a couple more minutes of small talk, we heard the horn of battle and a feminine voice.
"THE BATTLE BEGINS!"
"Alright…well, the battle has begun so take me through this. What are we trying to do?"
"Our goal is to destroy the Dire's Ancient. We will do so by sending melee and ranged forces," was his brisk reply.
"Sounds like a good plan. Full frontal assault with your…" I paused to take a closer look at our Radiant 'forces'. "…army of creeps."
"Well actually, we're going to send four at once. Three melee and one ranged creep. At the exact same time, the Dire also send their…" he made a pause seemingly realizing something just now, "…their four." He then looked me in the eye and said, "You're just going to have to accept this and move on."
Dumbfounded, all I could do was nod.
"Now, we will want to kill creeps. Delivering the killing blow in order to gain gold," as he said this, a Dire creep walked towards him. As his blades hit the creep, decapitating it, I saw a figure that looked like +38 colored in gold materialize where the head of the creep was previously. "Give it a try!"
Looking at him weirdly, then to the melee creep that was approaching me, I heard the little guy say a jovial "hello!" before I punched it right in face. A similar thing happened to my killed creep but mine was +49 and somehow I could just tell that the gold was sent directly somewhere within my person.
"HOHOHOHOHOhohohohoho very nice!" Anti-Mage look pleased. His expression suddenly turned all serious when he added, "…now rinse, and repeat."
We kept at it until kami-knows-when. Along the way, he taught me how to spend our "farmed" gold on stuff like weapons and armors. After what felt like an eternity and a mountain of dead creeps later… It would seem Magina felt satisfied with the massacre we were doing which he insist we call "farming" and decided to stop for the moment.
"Alright. We got our bounty, bought our items. We're ready to go," he finally said.
"Go where," I asked.
He gave me a funny look before answering, "Go help our team."
"This is a TEAM game?"
A/N: Had this idea for a long time now. Might as well post it here.