The New World

A Crossover

Hey All! Tankou001 here with an all new chapter of The New World!

Enjoy!

{HR}

Chapter Three: Sekai Mae No Obake

Chouji walked through the woods of Oregon. Largely, the Oregon forests had taken over completely, even areas once civilized were covered in new forest and old forest alike. It was like many areas history said were thriving masses decades ago never happened at all here. The city of Bend didn't exist, nor did the area, where The Legacy Of Eight had arrived. Portland was little in comparison to it's standard 21st century double and Salem was practically nonexistent.

Chouji didn't mind it, though. He was fine with untamed wilderness having taken over, even when there were zombies galore down below. They walked on foot in the undergrowth now but in time old growth good for jumping on and from would grow dense and hearty and it would provide good wood. Outposts could be made into the trees by redirecting the branches and letting them grow into place. Naturally speaking, it could work very well.

Yuko hadn't spoken to him for quite some time but she did seem very determined to let herself work through the experience rather than pull some crazy magic stunt, which Chouji had actually hoped for a while ago. He wanted to talk to her about something but she was an enigma to him, and not of his world. How could he know what her world was or what that world was like? She walked ahead of him for hours until the forest grew very thick, thick with trees far too old and dense to belong to nature. The old growth was mixed in with new growth and some trees that would have been considered "middle aged" in tree terms, Chouji supposed. Yuko was suddenly nowhere in sight. Chouji called out to her but his cries went on deaf ears, or none but those of trees. He turned around, balking from his quest only to find that the way he had come had grown over with thicker trees than in front. Turning back to where he had been going proved even less successful. The trees were surrounding him, closing in like an army. Every time he turned his head more trees were covering him!

Then, he calmed himself. He didn't know what was going on and all seemed impossible. Chouji used kai, but it was not a genjutsu. Then he punched a nearby tree but it did not budge. Then he focused and really punched, breaking into the tree and shattering the wood clean through, but the wood grew back fast almost crushing his hand. He started to worry, then he climbed. He climbed and climbed until he felt he should have been to the very top but the forest didn't stop. He found a ledge of wood and sat on it. He did not move, he did not breath, but he felt the forest around him grow in, touching at him, feeling his presence and drinking it up as if it were rays of the sun. This was not normal wood. He made a seal in his hand, that which Shikamaru would use when thinking, planning. Shikamaru appeared in front of him, as if through the wood.

"What's up?" Shikamaru asked, smoking a cigarette nonchalantly.

"You smoke?" Chouji asked

"Do now." Shikamaru said, "What of it?"

"It doesn't matter," Chouji said, "I'm stuck in a super forest and don't know the way out. It just grows around me."

"Why?"

"What do you mean?"

"Ask yourself."

Chouji thought on this and Shikamaru was gone. He meditated on this thing. Why is this forest growing around me like it is, he asked himself; Because it wanted to, because he was a foreign entity that could potentially be dangerous, because it was a test, because he needed help with the situation, because Yuko had left him there. These and many more thoughts sprouted from Chouji's mind but he couldn't find an answer to his real question; why was the forest entrapping him.

He bit into his thumb and wiped it along his palm before speaking "Kuchiyose No Jutsu" and jamming the hand down on his crown; silence came, no summon. He tried again and the summon failed. He was cut off from his summons, the Polar Clan of Hyōga Sanmyaku. He closed his eyes and sighed. This wasn't as easy as he had hoped for it to be. He just wanted to be home, where everything was as it should be.

That's your problem a ghostly voice echoed from the trees that ever so slowly crept in on the Akimichi, You want, knowing that you cannot have. Chouji swung out behind him and tore the tree from stump... and it didn't grow back. Chouji looked into the hollow and stepped into it. The trees parted for him, though only just. Don't follow the path given easily, the voice echoed at him, but he ignored it, You'll only get more lost.

Chouji pushed through the trees when they let him through and tore through the trees when they would not and when he was allowed to the roar of a bear in the distance alerted him but it was from behind and he was only moving forward...

And then he was lost, once again caught in an even tighter cage of wood, so fit around him that he could scarcely turn in place. I told you not to follow the path given the voice said with an inhuman chuckle Now you're more lost.

"Shut up..." Chouji muttered. Why should I? The voice asked back, Not like you listen to me. Not like you ever did. Care to turn your head? "Shut up." Chouji said more forcefully this time. No I don't think I will. The voice said with a strange similarity to Chouji's own voice, Not gonna let you run away from things this time now that it's just me and you, big guy. "SHUT UP!" Chouji roared, letting his arms turn huge and tearing through the forest...

And Chouji looked through the debris seeing safety and openness. Don't do it, buddy! The voice called out, getting dimmer in his ears. We'll be stuck here forever!

"You don't exist and neither does this world..." Chouji said solemnly as he stepped into the debris and into the clearing ahead.

Aw, we're all gonna die, Big guy. Just turn around and go back before it's too late! The voice was steadily turning more like Chouji's with each sentence but Chouji didn't like it and continued. And he fell. He didn't understand at first but his eyes flitted up to see teeth, big fat long teeth dozens of feet long and several feet wide swallowing him up; the biggest row of canines Chouji had ever seen.

He panicked and struggled and kept falling. The tunnel was flesh and cartilage, not earth and stone as Chouji was used to. He reached out for the debris, hoping for anchor but to no avail. He kept falling until the light at the mouth of the tunnel closed and he was in complete darkness. He fell and fell and kept falling until...

He hit the bottom with a thud. He looked around, blind by the absence of light, the sound of inquiring noses huffed in the darkness around him. "You have been devoured by the forest." A rumbling voice said, "You are damned to wait here until saved or until you get out in the way the forest allows... or until you die."

Well we're doomed. The voice of Chouji's counterpart said in the dark. It was a good run, really.

Chouji finally turned his head to snap at whatever had been bothering him and there, clear as day in the pitch... was himself. This Chouji wasn't him though. This Chouji was styled in leather pants of red and silk shirt of maroon. From the mane of red that lie atop his crown came two horns, similar to those of a goat and from behind him twitched a pronged tail. He gave a white smile in the darkness. "Bout time, big guy. But we're dead."

"Who are you?" Chouji asked, looking... himself, up and down.

"I am your demon, Chouji, an extension of chakra that has life unto its own and helps you through the more... sensitive parts of your life, like that mean habit of punching people in the face when they call you fat. I also instigated your training voyage back in the old world."

"You mean my home?" Chouji asked

"No, I mean the old world," The demon Chouji repeated. "This is home now, Chouji and it's never going to change. You're dead now and it's not going to change either. Yuko is gone and I'm the only one that can walk you out of this place."

"You're some kind of hallucination..." Chouji said, "Some kind of genjutsu I can't shake off..."

"Chouji..." The demon Chouji said, "You're the only ninja in this whole world capable of Genjutsu and its not even your thing. The animals of this world haven't yet gained sapience like the old world and clearly the forests have. Right now you can't just lumber around as if you were a ninja of Konoha. You're a ruler now, of the new world. You want to get out of here?" Chouji paused before nodding,. Though only just. "Then you have to be nice. This world is real whether you want to accept it or not. The fact that you're stuck underground in the forest is the main evidence. These trees see you. You must see them for what they have become in the years of zombie outbreak."

Chouji looked around. Why had the trees grown in around him and why had they devoured him. Chouji nodded again, just briefly "Apologize," Demon Chouji ordered. Chouji rose an eyebrow, "Apologize to the forest for encroaching on its territory and for damaging their children."

Chouji sighed, "I'm sorry for trespassing and I am sorry for the damage."

Suddenly there was light. The dark around him became an open forest clearing, filled with great brown bears. The wandered around, catching fish from a nearby stream. Some of the looked at Chouji as he stepped from he gut of the world but none of them looked at him as a threat. "Now apologize?" Demon Chouji said, walking out next to Chouji, "Apologize for not listening to me earlier."

Chouji looked up and down at his demon formed self. "Why?" he asked, "You're still just a part of me already and you don't even want home back..."

"Not back, ahead," The demon said, "Guess Yuko-san isn't gonna be picking you up anytime soon, but you'll learn. I guess it's good enough to get you to accept things as they are now than not at all. On to the next one. Talk to me later when you've made your decision." Demon Chouji was gone and Chouji left in the clearing with trees so thick surrounding it that Chouji couldn't hope to get through if he tried ad he had already apologized to the forest for damaging it. To damage it again in hopes of escape would just be rude.

Instead he wandered the clearing. Large as it was it was still nothing truly sizable. The bears didn't bother him at all, though they did occasionally bump into him or sniff him or splash water at him Chouji understood that it was just bears being bears. These were normal though more placid than their size and breed would have indicated. He stepped up to the largest bear, an elderly female probably a grand mother of bears already. He looked at him with wise eyes as he approached, though she did not fear him, certainly not. Chouji sat in front of her as she lounged in the noon-day sun. He stared into her eyes, trying to see then intelligence in them that wasn't there.

"She's a pretty thing, isn't she?" Chouji heard his own voice from behind. Chouji turned to chastise his demon for being there after just leaving but this time it wasn't the demon Chouji. This was a new Chouji; a Chouji surrounded by a cloud of light and in a shirt of the finest of linen. His pants were wool but expertly woven and looked softer than the finest cotton, without the slightest itchiness. "Ya, oldest one in the lot. Kinda reminds me of the bears back home, back in the old world but less white and less intelligent."

Chouji looked at his angelic self up and down, not quite sure what to think of it. "At least you think of home as home..." He said somberly, looking back to the old she-bear.

"Animals of this world have no sapience yet," The angel Chouji continued, ignoring his original's comment. "It was the ninja arts that breathed intelligence into the beasts, Chouji, especially the Polar Clan and the other Bear clans. The remaining bears of the clans that didn't take to sapience became huge and dangerous, hundreds of stories tall with the urge to devour everything or sleep until their hunger next set pangs in their colossal guts. These bears are all docile and placid from years in the forest lone and free from zombies. None of them are particularly young and all of them have seen sights that make ordinary things unfit for notice. A zombie to them wouldn't be too much trouble. They would just walk off without much care instead of fleeing at high speed as other animals do."

"What's your point?" Chouji asked, not understanding why his angelic counterpart was saying these things.

"Establish a pecking order and it will run itself. Become top of the order and you are the boss. Bears aren't any different in small communities, as you may know. These bears are more powerful than normal bears but you are used to fighting amongst the Polar Clan."

"Are you telling me to fight these bears?" Chouji asked

"Of course not,"Angel Chouji said with a smirk, "But I am telling you that you could if you wanted. Right now they see you as another tree, or something of equal import. No different than a bird at the river washing the dirt from it's feathers, beneath notice..."

Chouji felt a pang of anger at this. He understood that it was true for he had not been attacked yet but didn't know why it angered him. He stood and then looked around. There was a tall male galumphing about the clearing in a territorial manner. He was probably one of the younger of the males but he was definitely old enough to know certain tricks and hold dominance in the group. Chouji stepped up to it and the male stopped his lumbering and looked at Chouji. It sniffed in his direction lazily.

Chouji stripped off his armor and then his clothes until he wore only the pants that he had come with. He let his throat vibrate, a low growl coming forth. His lips rose, his teeth in a snarl. He knew the signs. What looked a smile was a challenge, what looked posture was a threat. The male picked up on this. Chouji gave a wide grin and humphed at him. The bear stood, twice as tall as Chouji on his hindquarters.

The Akimichi looked up at the bear and Angelic Chouji gave a whistle. "Looks like a big'un." he said, "You sure you want to get this far in the order? I don't have to tell you what happens to people who lose fights with wild bears, right?"

Chouji didn't care anymore. He stomped at the ground and gave small bear calls, egging the male on. The other bears were gathering, seeing the fight for what it was. This was a territory fight. The male switched from standing straight to standing on all fours every now and then. Chouji and him circled each other. The angelic Chouji had no reason for being around anymore, this was a battle Chouji had wanted, some bear beast fighting him just like home.

The other bears let in their calls, Kodiak in size and then some, all roaring for action. The male stepped forward first, a great paw swinging to maul Chouji's head off. The Akimichi stepped back and then forward after the swing missed. He gave the first genuine smile in a week. He was in his place again, with the bears. The bear swung again but Chouji ducked this one and rose, "Hiri!" Chouji called as he dealt a blow to the gut of the bear, "Dari!" He cried as he turned and elbowed the bear's side, "Sandi!" He cried a third call as he stepped behind the bear, grabbing it about the waist with over-sized arms. He groaned at the weight of the bear, much heavier than it should have been for its size. His feet cratered the ground as he lifted it. "G-Goami!" Chouji finished, lifting the bear from the ground and launching him backward, head first into the dirt some feet away. The other bears roared in passion and excitement. Even wild bears appreciated a good show.

Chouji hit the ground back first. He saw inverted the bear getting up, shaking off the throw. It advanced and Chouji had only the time to roll out of the way before the place he had been lying was rent from the ground. The other bears roared in applause, watching the fight patiently but still bristling with excitement.

Chouji regained his footing just in time for the paw to come out from his blind spot and send him flying into he row of bears behind him. The big brown furry masses pushed him back into the "ring" as it were. He stumbled, trying to regain his breath but the gigantic paw came from straight in front and tore is face wide open. He screamed, blood filling his eyes. His hand went to his cheek and he couldn't find it, just his tongue in his mouth. The bear had cleaved the lower left side of his face clean off. He could taste his blood and spit it out as best he could before turning back to the bear male. "Okay..." He said quietly, letting out a roar of bear might and he grew to match the size of his opponent.

The opponent hesitated long enough for Chouji to reach out and punch it in the jaw. The bear's teeth flew and lodged themselves into Chouji's fist in that one swing but the bear didn't fall, just turned and sought to finish the job on Chouji's right side. Chouji caught the arm and looked dead in the eyes of the male. He let out an ear splitting bear call right in his opponent's face.

And the real action began. Chouji and the bear wrestled in the muck, rolling from one side of the clearing to another. Every time the male got to his feet he would deal Chouji a blow but every time a blow was dealt Chouji would tackle the bear to the ground and deliver his own blows, not quite as piercing but definitely just as hard and more in number. The blood loss started to get to him after some time, though. Chouji knew he had to finish this quick. He hoped Polar Katas would do the trick.

Disengaging was difficult to say the least. The male was in fight mode and Chouji needed to get away before he started a kata. He slipped out of the rising strike, extended his leg and kicked the bear to its back before starting his kata. Chouji dodged around the next attack and leaped... and as he hit the ground beside his opponent he struck upward, double handed fists accompanied by a blast of pink snow gales from his mouth. They froze to the side of the bear and the male flew upward. As he came back down and hit the ground he stirred but Chouji was already above him, Kicking him into the air and stomping, blowing his icy breath at the ground to cover the area in snow.

The bear landed on his shoulders and Chouji caught him, lifting him up and growing further, time and a half the size of the bear he fought. The other bears roared and stirred and some backed off from the fright of Chouji growing and fighting on more than equal terms with a bear of such size. Chouji threw the bear down and then grew, now twice the size of his opponent. The other bear stood and look up at him, standing full height for a moment before realizing he was outmatched and falling back to all-fours. He backed off slowly, his head bowed.

Chouji shrank, the other bears walked off, continuing what they were doing. Chouji collapsed. The breath of ice that he had made had kept him from bleeding but the frost around him was melting, the blood starting once again to flow. Chouji felt his cheek, or lack thereof. That would certainly scar. His body was riddled with scars from his training but Chouji had always tried to keep his face untouched. First time for everything, he guessed. "You okay, big guy?" The angel Chouji asked, "Oh don't die on me here, buddy, we're almost done!"

Chouji didn't answer, he passed out instead. His angelic self was yelling Yuko's name when the black covered him.

And Chouji woke, this time in a room, in a bed, with Yuko leaning over him, a frown upon her lips. "Fighting bears..." She said simply, "Possibly the stupidest thing a human can think of doing and you won. Next time stay closer to me, Chouji-san." Chouji made to speak but pain coursed though his face, "And don't talk or you'll rip your stitches. I don't want to have to deal with that face again. I hope you'll appreciate these scars. You've earned word fame in the bears." Chouji closed his eyes soberly and went back to sleep.

He woke again, his face healed as it would ever be, a gnarled scar from the corner of his lip branching in four directions across his face. His ear was fine, fortunately but his left eye had lost a lot of good vision. He looked into the mirror Yuko gave him and got used to his new face. "When we get back home I'm sure Ed-chan will be able to fix it up a bit more but this was the bet I could do. Until then we have work to do."

"What kind of work?" Chouji asked simply, standing from his bed. "And where are we?"

Yuko didn't bother answering Chouji's second question, instead answering his first. She said, "I was once known as he Dimensional Witch. Little did I know this would happen but it has fatigued me. My power lies on the dimensions I have contact with, which in this case, is only one; Zombie World Earth. I need to set up a new nexus to restore my power or I may die." She didn't seem phased by this knowledge, either. Yuko kept straight faced as she spoke, "Even bringing you back with cheap parlor tricks wore me out considerably. I'll have to ask if you could carry me the rest of the way."

Chouji rose an eyebrow but didn't question anything... not anything except, "Why me?"

"You are an enigma to me, Chouji-san." Yuko responded, still not having stood since Chouji woke. Chouji wished he could have said the same but he guessed she already knew that, "Of all of the wishes have granted your is the only one I cannot. It interests me, teases and frustrates me. I am vexed that I have been put in this place and you are vexed as well, though far more than I. You're the only one of our fold that has not yet accepted their fate as a resident of this new world."

Chouji paused and then shook his head slowly, looking at the floor, "All I want to do is go home..."

"All any of us want is home, maybe not ours, but a home nonetheless. We have all accepted that there is no return save for you and now try to make it. Why can you not?" Yuko asked, her eyes half lidded. She produced her pipe and loaded it from a small bag in her sleeve. "Join me in a bit of alternative thinking, if you would..." Yuko sad, Chouji gigantic pipe suddenly in her hand and full as she handed it to Chouji before lighting her own pipe and drawing from it. The heavy green smell filled the room as she exhaled and smoke wafted about the ceiling. "What is it that you want from home?" She asked

Chouji pressed his thumb against the greenery in the bowl and drew from it, holding for a ten count as he thought. He spoke as the smoke drifted from his lips, "I want my friends..."

"You spent so long away from them I am surprised it matters. Who of your friends do you wish for most?" Yuko asked in response, her voice still flat and simple.

Chouji thought back. All of his images, of course, would have been skewed. The last memories of his friends, Shikamaru included, were ten years old. He wouldn't remember the accurately. He thought, "Ino and Shikamaru, my old team."

"Do you not have your friend, Shikamaru-san, in your dreams and thoughts?"

"Not the same..." Chouji mumbled

"Nor is he the same as when you left him. The Shikamaru you returned to may have been stupid and a complete failure, having given up on things after you left."

Chouji had to admit that Shikamaru did give up a lot... But still, "I miss the Polar Clan."

Yuko drew again from her pipe and, as she spoke Chouji took his turn, "The bears from your world are a thousands of years old civilization. They cannot exist here, no civilization yet does. If you want to make the Polar Clan then find polar bears and make it but you cannot return to that nor would they let you if they found out you are reacting to such a thing as you are."

Chouji thought on this as he smoked. "The world of the ninja," Kuma-Oumono had once told him, "Is not the only world that lives. Hyōga Sanmyaku is truly to massive to take residence in your world. We work in portals, way points from world to world. If you ever find yourself in a world where you cannot reach us, give it up. If we cannot reach you then you cannot reach anyone. There are other worlds that are yet to be settled. You have always aspired to be The Beast Man, cub. You know enough to be the genesis, you just need to accept it and work toward a better future."

Chouji sighed, "I'll help you build your nexus..." he said to Yuko, "But I won't give up on my homeland."

Yuko nodded and the room disappeared. They were back in the clearing with the bears. Yuko was passed out at Chouji's feet, The Akimichi was standing next to his clothes, wearing his pants, face still tight and scarred. The bears approached him. He understood. He was alpha after that show of power, whenever ago that had been. Bears didn't forget such things, they didn't forget the smell of a victor.

Chouji looked at the unconscious body of Yuko. Was she really as drained as she said? Surely laying on the ground couldn't be taking too much effort from her but Chouji had no doubt her power was dangerously depleted; she hardly breathed at all. He sat and smoked, breathing the musk into the faces of passing bears, thinking on what to do. Some bears sat with him, some ignored him. Some brought small dead animals to him; for food of course.

And he thought. "So you want to know how it's done?" a rumbling bestial mirror of Chouji's voice echoed from beside him. He turned his head and there stood something ferocious. It was a man, Chouji thought, a man covered in elk blood tattoos and with gnarled features but certainly still a mirror image of the Akimichi in a different circumstance.

"What" Chouji asked?

"Them, ascention." The man pointed at some of the bears.

Chouji balked at the comment. What did the beast Chouji mean?

"Bears are human creatures by nature. They have the claws of man in a paw and a mind as useful as yours when utilized correctly. They are curious but cautious and well wise in the ways of everything. Show them what they can do here and they will do it."

Chouji was confused. "Ask and you shall receive," Beast Chouji said, disappearing.

Chouji shook his head in confusion. What had that meant. He looked at the other bears. What could Chouji's counterpart have meant by ascention. Surely he didn't mean to make them as intelligent as the polar clan...

Chouji thought again. "What can they do?" Chouji asked himself.

"What could they do then?" Shikamaru's voice popped in Chouji's head

That was a good question. Polar Bears could do anything a man could do and do it better. Chouji thought to their works of star cast, one of the purest, strongest metals to exist. He looked at his armor, the scroll at his belt that lie on the ground. His mind worked. He rushed to his scroll and opened it. The forge came alive. Chouji carried a forge in one of his storage scrolls for armor maintenance but he knew better than to fix his banded plate right now. He blew the fires into existence and walked to the edge of the clearing, the wall of trees stopping him from further advance. "Ask and you shall receive," Chouji parroted. "May I please take your wood from you?"

A nearby tree fell with a crack. It wasn't huge but it would do the job. Chouji smiled. He chopped the wood and put it in the forge. In mere hours the fires had been brought to full life and the forge that Chouji had constructed long ago was being once again put to use. He took his armor and bent it, rending the steel and tossing it into the melting pot. He took his chain and mail and tossed that in too. It was all steel, it would melt together. He blew at the fires with the bellows and the bears gathered, curious to what what their new alpha was doing. In more hours the metal was melted down. Chouji poured the liquid metal into a cast. The bears watched silently at his artifice.

As Chouji reached for the tongs he thought on something. The Polar Clan used no tools save for their hammers. He looked at the cooling metal and then at his tools... and threw them all down save for his hammer.

The bears watched and Chouji grabbed the hot steel, his hands blistering instantly. He resisted the urge to scream as he worked, banging and folding, sweating and grunting in agony as the hot metal burned his hands away to charred bone and muscle. The bears continued to watch.

Days went by, Yuko did not rise, though she did not weaken. Chouji melted down work after work, new thing after new thing Armor, swords, knives, ornaments, jewelry. He knew so little in comparison to the Polar Clan but he knew that bears probably had better say of this forest than he and he worked to teach them what he knew.

And after days, the first bear stepped up to him, tall on her hindquarters, the she-bear he had met first. She stepped toward the fire, inquiry in her wise old eyes and that spark of intelligence that Chouji had not seen but days before. Clumsily she touched the hot steel as Chouji pounded at it. She pulled back momentarily at the heat but then let her paws rest back on it, sizzling noise from her pads. She fumbled with the hammer for a moment, then lifted it in her long claws, and then tapped it gently on the red metal, a "ching" sound coming forth. Chouji realized something, she was associating. It was the first steps toward intelligence, sapience. She repeated, this time a little harder and then again, and again!

The other bears took notice and learned. Their progress over the next few days was ground-breaking. They seemed to learn off of each other more than Chouji, and twice as effectively as a human. They had the drive to learn, Chouji figured, having been piqued in their interests and eager to experiment Chouji taught them how to build huts and how to shape metal. He taught them how to cut the wood for the coal to run their fires. He taught them how to drink from containers and he taught the how to speak the human language, though only just, almost non-proficient but broken enough to get key concepts down.

For an individual who quite literally spoke bear, as Chouji was, it was easier than he thought. These bears didn't speak the high tongue of the Polar Clan but what seemed a bastardization of it and his words got across well enough to them, though apparently a bit strange.

The last male had stepped up and challenged him but Chouji knew what he had to do and ended the fight quickly at seven stories tall, dominating the clearing. All bears knew that Chouji was the head bear, whether they liked it or not.

Yuko regained consciousness after that, groggy and weak but still just as eloquent. She smiled dryly at the little village the bears had been making, sitting in the wooden pavilion they had set up for her. "My, my, Chouji-san. I didn't know you could do it."

"Shh." Chouji urged from just outside as he and the bears looked at the stars, reading them, finding out things that the bears surely could have never found out on their own without his help. He pointed to a star, "North Star." He said the the three bears who sat on their haunches next to him, "Always know the way home by this star and home you will all know when we see it." He spoke in the bear tongue

The three bears all gave nods. "This is Yuko-san." He pointed to Yuko, "She is my friend." The bears again nodded. "You have been taught by me to help her. In whatever she needs of you until we come to my home." The bears looked at Yuko and sniffed at her. The Dimensional Witch did not flinch. The bears each sniffed at her in turn and then parted from her to sit near Chouji once more. They all nodded. "We are to help her through the forest when the time has come. She will say."

Yuko raised an eyebrow. It was evident that she did not actually speak bear, though her lips were curved into a wry smirk. Chouji gave a nervous look to Yuko. "They're new to sapience." He told her, "They'll have a hard time understanding things not of bear nature."

Yuko looked around at the budding species. Bears she hadn't know were so intelligent, just trudging along that fine line between sapience and sentience. How strange it must seem to them, this new outlook on life and a human to know their language enough to teach them. They knew very little but experience. I was what they had done, not what they had potential to do for they knew not what that potential was. These beasts knew how to hunt, live in the wild, and pound metal.

Yuko knew it was time for the plan to progress. She envied Chouji a bit, which was an interesting prospect since she clearly had more power now than he did, in practical thought power, at least. In a way she also pitied him. He didn't know what he was going to become. Yuko came from the web of dimensions that Chouji did. This was under her jurisdiction. Chouji had lifted the bears to sapience, inserting Akimichi Chouji into a web of dimensions where he did not belong. The goal now was to make it stick, to make it a bigger, more permanent construct. Chouji had to make himself known to a countrywide scale. He had to make history. "Chouji-san?" Yuko spoke with a calming command. "Are you ready to take the next step in this process?"

Chouji looked back to Yuko. "Why am I doing this, Yuko-san?"

"To let go of your lost past," Yuko explained, "You must accept and acknowledge it's presence and yet understand that those days are forever lost to you. These are new days in a new world. You must carry what you may, as Blackstar does in his fighting gear. You must bring you ninja ways and work them into the new civilization, as all of us are. We come from Zombie successful timelines and dimensions and that is all they care about in this case."

Chouji sighed. "Am I going to get a choice in this?"

And the world became space. Yuko floated through the cosmos around Chouji, his eyes threatening to bun out of his skull as he peered into... everything. He couldn't close his orbs nor move his hands to shield them. An orchestra of action was displayed before him as the cosmic forces slammed into each other, galaxies doing battle with galaxies on the universal scale. Yuko floated just in his view, just so his attention could barely latch onto hers and keep his attention behind everything else.

"You are currently the smallest pawn in the biggest game of chess anyone could ever know. It is a game you cannot help but to play, for whenever you die you are recycled. Eventually you'll become human again. Your memories will stay behind and, eventually, you'll know what you are part of. Ask yourself if you have a choice in it, Akimichi Chouji, and you will know what you want in life and what will be your attachment to this world." Her voice was like silk lain upon velvet landscape, the galaxies changing, molding into something complete, into something greater and better. "The Grand Scale does indeed have your fondest wish in mind when it puts you to the test but it is because something cannot be gained without something paid in return. It must always be equal, no more and no less. The Universe gets that payment regardless of your will."

Chouji struggled to blink and, when he finally got it the scene was gone and Yuko sat beside him, back in the clearing with the bears. "So that's a no." Chouji muttered

"That's a question you have to figure out yourself," Yuko's deep feminine voice whispered into his ears.

Chouji sighed. "I'll never be unlike the stone, Yuko-San. I dislike change, it uneases me."

"But the stones in galaxies are the size of this world and they smash together and make new worlds. You will live to see races uplifted into sapience, world will form and develop and fall before your life ends and you take to the ultimate world beyond."

Chouji grumbled. "I'm not saying yes to this... But I'll work with you for now."

He stood and looked upon his family, his clan. What would this be? "My Friends," He called out in the bear tongue, "My Friend Yuko-san says we must move. What we have built we shall leave or bring but we must be away. How say you we do this?"

The bears looked at each other, exchanged noises of contemplation. The eldest female gave a call. Chouji nodded.

He turned to Yuko, "You have made an accord?" Yuko asked in a bit of confusion. Bear was a language she did not know, despite knowing many.

"They will bring their first tools with them. Some fear not being connected to the tool will steal the secrets from their heads. Some just have pride in their work." Chouji said

"Every bear you find you must uplift. Bring out their true nature and add them to your group. The bears of this world are yours to assist in their own enlightenment. They will aid each other in finding out what they are and what to do."

Chouji nodded somberly. Yuko could tell he still didn't want this. It wasn't his time to take on such responsibility and, due to powers beyond even Yuko's control, He had been thrust into his new place without so much as having seen his own kind in his own village. Now he had to deal with new people, new powers, a new village and the fact that all the people he had been training to impress would never be able to see the progress he had made just for them. Hopefully Yuko would be able to get him through the very worst of the shock of that long earned luxury so cruelly taken from him soon and only have to leave him with a begrudging acceptance of the reality of it all until he could truly learn peace with it. Chouji was against the thought but he was still a logical person. Nobody had a choice in living in the apocalypse.

They walked for two days through the thick forests. Soon the ground grew rockier, the trees began to thin and the prey items began to show; rich in presence and profound in variety and health. Some creatures Yuko herself had never seen, though were still mundane in quality. Many animals were friendly, some were skittish. Others were large and reclusive but cunningly watched from afar, guardian of the wood. Chouji walked with his bears and every bear they found they engaged in conversation of the bear tongue. Chouji and his bears issued dominance and earned respect in the animal community. Food bearing plants were plentiful and the bears lack of selected flesh with woodland guardians onlooking was not without satisfaction in nature's goodies. Every bear learned of the pounding of metal that they passed, following the band. At the dawn of day three 100 bears had been uplifted to Sapience.

Chouji awoke early, the bears around them mostly awake as the dawn sliver peeked over the horizon. He looked upon Yuko as she lay asleep. She had been more and more tired the past couple of days. She would still march on but she nodded off fast as they walked and needed prompting more often than not on direction, since Chouji was a little clueless as to where they were going. Yuko did lead the way well, though. They were never without shelter at night at least. This last night it had been a large tree with a hollow area inside; a wayward pine. Chouji and Yuko had found comfort under it and many of the bears were laden down with fat and fur enough to not need shelter from the rain. "Yuko-san, why are we on this trek?"

Yuko looked back at Chouji, trying to keep composure. It was getting harder and harder for her to move. It was hard to tell anymore how old she was as well. Was it forty or four-hundred? Everything was buzzing together, trying to access a network Yuko had no chance of getting information from anymore. She needed to get to that point, wherever it was that she was being pulled. She had enough power yet to detect the source. "We're going to get me a job in this web."

Chouji cocked his head in confusion. "I don't get it."

"My job," Yuko began as they stepped through the sparse undergrowth, "Was to grant wishes in my old dimension. I was the dimensional witch, who was connected to all places in my little shop. My position in the new world will be something a bit more grandiose, I believe but it is still what I will do. I must connect to the spirits of this world." Yuko stumbled and Chouji reached for her but she caught herself on a tree trunk nearby instead. "After I set up a nexus for my powers at the new capital I will not have to worry about anything"

"Then why are we here instead of there?" Chouji asked

"Because there is nothing magical there but there is where we are going." Yuko responded simply.

Chouji was a bit taken aback. It all sounded very silly really. As the day passed on the two did not talk much save for Chouji's pointing things out to everyone for the betterment of the bears. They encountered a few who came along and a few who did not, looming on Sapience to become rogues. Some didn't learn at all. Some they didn't teach. Eventually they crested the forests and encountered civilization, or what could have been civilization at one point. Now it was a complex guarded by scraps of the old world. Inside were people who knew fear at all times of the day and probably didn't intend fully on living as long as the day would prove to test them. Many suspected that before the day was done they would be dead. On the horizon a herd of people, slowly marching toward the stronghold. Chouji could hear the moans despite being miles away; the monstrous cacophony of demonic hellish moaning. They needed help. Hundreds of people, perhaps more, were waiting to die inside the stronghold. They could be brought to safety, that many people. Yuko smiled grinned silently behind Chouji. He bears grew agitated.

"Those," Chouji began aloud in the human tongue of Japan, "Are a plague on the world, brothers. Those people will become as we are and the monsters are to be destroyed. Do not allow their teeth to pierce your flesh or you will surely die, no matter ho strong your blood. If you smell the taint on a man from a wound kill him. Break their skulls or they will not die." The bears all grunted and groaned in agreement. Yuko knew that the ones who did not understand Chouji's human words understood the intention and would get word along the grapevine. Bears were organized when they had to be, Yuko had come to find. It was their way.

Yuko could see it around Chouji, the aura of godhood. She was making a god, she knew. Chouji could not uplift a new species and help her set up a nexus of power for a new humanity without ascending to such a level. None of the Legacy Of Eight would be able to escape that fate. The traces of divinity rapped around Chouji. Though he hadn't started the most powerful the Dimensional Witch knew that Chouji's position would be closely related to the people. He was not a tactician or a warrior but he was a person who could put people in line. His portion of the government would be just and right; to the heart of the law, not the letter. The strong chains of gossamer silk that enshrouded him in the witch's eyes grew stronger even now, gradually spinning themselves into existence around the former ninja.

"You are changing, Chouji-san." Yuko said with a smile "Soon I may have to start referring to you with a different honorific."

"I am not in my world anymore," Chouji said quietly as the bears bristled for combat, the journey to the hoard just short of the village. And you are not in Japan. This is the new world and I am a ghost of the old world. So too will all people who join the organization."

"You were so resistant too." Yuko said. "This is all false, I still believe." Chouji said. "But if I must do it that is what I must do."

Yuko sighed. He would be difficult to sway, even if he was slowly pulling his way into godhood. Soon, though. Yuko knew that he would fall to the realization that there was no hope.

Chouji roared. The bears roared. One especially large bear who had held quite some territory before uplift raced forward and soon the other bears drowned him out in a wall of ursine figures, 118 strong. Yuko was swept up at some point on the back of a bear. Chouji had bulled through and, at some points, leaped entirely out of the horde, landing far ahead. The bears charged for three hours, full roar and battle ready. There would be every zombie in the world around wanting to come to them now. The dimensional witch even saw zombies behind them that they had passed and were left behind. This was madness. They would be surrounded. Was that Chouji's plan?

When they finally arrived the zombies were closing in on the location of the walled village. The bears had arrived just when they needed to and they didn't even seem tired. The moaning from hours travel wasn't bad but up close Yuko was discomfited to say the least. She looked up to the walls of the village to see people mounting up crude defenses for their little place. Chouji was roaring out in the bear tongue to his bears, all of which but a few were listening, the remainder ion lookout, no doubt still able to hear the Akimichi's words. Yuko was let down. The bears roared fiercely as Chouji formed some mudras, growing to three stories tall, enough to simply crush any zombie with his metal lined boots. There were screams from the village. These people, Yuko remembered, had never seen anything but standard technology. They had the potential for anything imagined but they weren't aware of it and had no reason to be.

There had once been a point where Ichihara Yuko had been no different, she supposed. But... when had that been? Yuko put a hand to her head. In the village, she knew. She had to get into the village. She stepped away. Chouji had this. The moaning was so loud. Her feet were weak but strong enough at least to pull her to the town "gate;" a school bus with metal over the side of it. People saw her, she knew. It was hard not to see the only human in the sea of bears with a giant. She could tell they didn't trust it just yet.

Just one more parlor trick would do it, but at what cost, Yuko couldn't help but wonder. It was worth the chance she would take. The goal was just inside...

And as the bears charged forth to meet the zombie horde, thousands strong against just over a hundred bears, the crash met with Yuko's voice echoing in everybody's head in the village. We are friends to all of you. Do not fire on us. Please, let me in and we shall speak terms. Yuko's soul seemed to tug hard at her mind. It needed energy from her that she did not have. Her body grew subtly hollow. If she lived through this it would leave a scar on her soul that would take some doing to heal.

As she leaned against the wall next to the gate a zombie somehow had slipped through the bears. It came on her and Yuko, for a moment, grew fearful. The zombie's head blew apart and it fell away from her. The bus moved a few feet and two men with strong arms came out and carried her inside before the bus moved back. Nothing looked quite right. Her vision was growing weak. "Who are you and what's going on?" A strong voice asked her.

She had to do this didn't she? "I am Ichihara Yuko," She said, pushing the two people back and pushing herself up in her tattered dress, beautiful as it was but now torn and unattractive, just like any clothing in the wasteland. "The Dimensional Witch. I ask of you to lead me to a place in your village. It is of the utmost importance."

The man in front of her, black of hair and broad of shoulders but not too tall, cocked his head. "You presume to come into our home during war and demand to get a guided tour?"

"If you won't forget my friends are the ones winning this war for you." And soon enough you will all be serving under the new world order that is the Legacy Of Eight Yuko wanted to say, but she didn't have the power anymore to back that statement.

"There will be words when this is all over. Jowls, take her wherever she wants to go." The man said as he walked away

"It will be something natural, like a stream or a boulder." Yuko spoke up as her guide came, a short round man with more skin on his face and neck than a turkey. "Maybe a pond."

"Something like a tree?" A child's voice asked from behind her. "We got a big tree in the back we does."

"Thank you child." Yuko said as she turned to see a little redhead, freckles everywhere. There was a glow to her. Yuko couldn't put her finger on it. "The tree is how big?"

"Big," the growling voice of Jowls said, taking Yuko by the wrist and dragging her along. She near fell over from exhaustion several times but managed to hang on just enough to keep walking, wobbling off one foot onto another.

They turned around a corner and then through a wall and around another corner and... That was it! "Oh thank all gods." Yuko muttered. Jowls growled "Huh?" but Yuko had already slipped through his grip and started walking to the tree. The fat man waddled after her but her walking was more fall than walk. She almost ran as she neared the tree and dove face-first into it.

The world was dark. She floated serenely inside the tree, wide as a sedan was long, green as could be and so healthy. It was full of magical energy, full of life and power. The voice was around her, little children from all sides, hundreds of them. "What are you doing here?" it asked, thousands of little voices chattering in the background.

"I'm here to make a pact with you and access the power of this web of dimensions." Yuko spoke immediately.

"You had power once." The one true voice of thousands spoke, deep and commanding. "Why would you consort with a lesser being such as myself. Spirits of communities or great forests. I am but one lone tree and its children."

"Yet you have the power to become more. I will help you if you will only become the conduit for me. Lend me your children and lend me yourself as a pathway to me. You will in time profit from the connection. I draw more power to myself than you would think."

The tree's deep voice did not answer. Buzzing gossip in child voice roared around her, too many voices to differentiate one from the other. Please just consent Yuko begged in her mind, away from the tree's hearing The tree spoke. "My children wonder what will come to them for serving you. I know my time is not horribly far but what will my countless daughters receive from your bondage?"

"I promise no damage shall befall them. How about we work on this in the decade. Surely a pact of friendship will work this through. I will help that time to slip away a bit faster than you approach it. Your children are not far from expansion and you will be given the chance to bore true children and expand through the astral."

The silence slowly crept on as the buzzing in the background grew fierce. Yuko knew not to listen to them, she wanted to big voice. Trees always did take a while to make up their minds. It seemed like an hour when the deep commanding voice spoke. "The humans do not ever chop me down. Make sure of it. And unbind me from this harder than stone prison. Then we shall wait a decade to decide a full deal. Until then I will have you connect to the spirits through me. I know not what you are to do, human, but I shall work with you for at least that long."

"In time you will know of me as Ichihara Yuko," She said, "And I am glad we could make a deal. I will repay you. Everything must be equal."

The tree grew monumentally. The metal walls were pushed out and the roots widened and sank deeper into the earth. Leaves grew, split and fell, grew, split, opened and multiplied again. Yuko stepped out of the bark as the folk, who had chainsaws ready, scrambled back. "This tree is to never be trimmed by human kind. You all have borne witness to this. It shall protect you and I shall protect it upon its power." Yuko threw her hands up and a branch twisted around her waist placing her daintily on a high bough. "This power is enough to save our bears from death, at least." Yuko mused quietly, "For that you will receive great thanks."

Yuko snapped her fingers and seeds formed in her palm. The heavy bough stretched over the near battlefield and she tossed them effortlessly onto the field. Wood spikes came from the ground, piercing through heads. The tree was fulfilling its end of the bargain. It was taking care of the zombie threat for her so the people would not cut it down and so she could set up a nexus. It wasn't too great a place to start but to link it back to the capital would be good enough to open the first few doors into her old position. Her power had diminished vastly but now that she had an in her knowledge ha returned fully of what she would need to do. Trees were often very good starting points for this sort of thing. Trees held themselves firmly in place under even the most unrelenting force. The battle was won, whether anyone believed what was going on or not.

After an hour of the tree growing and conquering the leaves, having been deep green before, were red from the taking in of so much blood. Yuko knew the tree would be fine. It could process the virus like animals could not. Solanum had never been a threat to plants. Zombies corpses would be turned under the soil every now and then from the roots. The already powerful tree didn't need to worry that blood wasn't good for it. The power of being connected heavily into the supernatural would bolster it from any amount of corpses. In three weeks it would be healthier than ever before. It just had to kick this cold first.

The people were dumbstruck, their village having been completely destroyed and yet none of them were dead. "You have seen that we can protect you and this is all we wish to do," Yuko called out from a low bough. "We have a home that we can take you to if you will walk for some days. The bears will not eat you and we will feed you. Just come with us."

The people didn't know what to say, it was clear. A few hundred people who had been raised to think magic didn't exist had just undeniably seen it. Some were praying to gods. Some were slack jawed. Some were already walking to Yuko's side. Chouji was already stepping back as his bears were mopping up the battlefield, crushing what heads they knocked off but hadn't destroyed yet. In time the tree would dispose of those bodies too, as no wildlife would dare eat it. It would be tilled under the earth in time and decay back into what it was meant to be; more dirt for the land. Chouji could see it in the people, fear. He knew that people had just seen something like never before. They wanted out but they knew that out meant death and staying with these strange people with a herd of bears was the safest way if there ever was one.

"This man is who is responsible for bringing me. He is more responsible for saving you than I. Respect him for he is a great man and he will protect you in the years to come." She called

Chouji stepped forward as Yuko beckoned him, his body now more human and less giant. He was still big, that much was obvious. But at least he was just human sized again. "I am Akimichi Chouji." He called out in English. Magic was what bound this speech though, as Chouji knew very well he couldn't actually speak english but Yuko's presence certainly let his words be heard, no matter the language barrier. "I am here to bring you back to a home where you do not have to fear zombie hordes walking up on you in the night. You can learn ways to fight this as we do, with skill and power instead of fear and weaponry of a time past. You are trying to be ghosts of the old world. We have a place for that. All of you who do not want to remain ghosts of the past, all of you who don't want the life of an old world survivalist, come with us and embrace the new world, a new civilization under a better system than you had before. We are just and have supplies and we only ask that you do a hard day's work for the food in your mouth, clothes on your back and roof over your head. Help us build this world anew and the new world will support you!"

The remaining people stood in shock. Half of them crossed over to their side right off. Three score more people filtered slowly over, eventually leaving nobody behind. Mothers with babes at the breast to strong armed men who had lived before the time of the zombie and fought the entire way just to survive caved under the logical reasoning that this man had a hundred trained bears and could grow four stories tall and this woman made a big tree turn monumental and kill half the oncoming zombies, shattering the force for the bears to clean up. The tree was still growing quickly, fruits of all shapes and sizes growing and falling and regrowing as it gradually grew outward. To them the gods had either answered their prayers or the devil himself had arrived with temptation. They took it either way.

And the two week journey back was hardly stressed at all. The number of bears doubled, two hundred bears at their heels when they arrived back home, five hundred individuals as a whole; five hundred mouths to feed, just over two hundred of them bear mouths. Chouji and Yuko alike were happy that so many people had put lots of food on their lists, enough to feed cities.

The remainder of the Legacy Of Eight were dumbfounded. No sooner had Chouji gotten everyone in place had the bears been sent out to scour the area for zombies and gather loose materials from the land. Chouji addressed the people. He assured them that they would be taken care of well and that they would find homes if they would make them. There were plenty of trees and they would be taught how to make new homes. Some people were sent to chopping wood for structures while Yuko walked over the land and asked of willing plants.

Chouji knew what was going to need to happen now. He was a ghost of the old world. He needed children to take to raise them into the system. Sekai Mae No Obake was the organization he would bring to this world; The Ghosts of The Old World. He would need to train children in the ways of his world, the way of the ninja of the hidden villages. He had a feeling Yuko would be choosing children as well for her world's works; for dimensional magic.

He had fled to the capital building for some hours. Yuko sauntered into the room, more brilliant than the first day Chouji had seen her, now all dressed back up and clean, full of life. Chouji was serious. He had lost two bears in the battle, unkempt masses of fur and teeth and claws and only two of them had died. He didn't get just what he had created. "You have founded your organization, Sekai Mae No Obake. I hope that it and Nexus will be working closely henceforth, Akimichi-dono." She spoke satisfied, a kimono of gray with maroon bears dotted throughout. Her hair was laced up in some fancy work of art, less hair more art it seemed. Chouji didn't quite know what to think of it.

He was the boss ghost, ultimate say in Sekai Mae No Obake. He was the line that everyone drew to keep from corruption. Chouji sighed out his frustration. "This is Yakuza." He said quietly as he stood and lifted his armor over his head, placing it on the floor. "We must be willing to move with the times. We work for the common people and their business... We have no other choice."

Yuko smiled as Chouji took off his battle worn clothing, the mantle of a warrior that he was removing, nude underneath the two layers of clothing he had. He was built like stone, not jiggling or sagging at all, just steel hard flesh that would have no give were one to poke it with a finger. Scars riddled his body. So much training he had had, Yuko knew, all for impressing a group he would never see again. Yuko chanced a look between Chouji's legs and almost giggled in embarrassment. That one would suffice, she thought with an impish smile. Chouji stepped to his closet, paying her peeking no mind. She said, "You must take it upon yourself to wear the mark."

"Of all Yakuza, I'm aware." Chouji confessed. "You're better with tattoo than I." Chouji had only the tattoos on his face, the swirls like any of his clan would get or something similar at birth.

Yuko's hands pressed lightly on his back as Chouji searched through the closet, pulling out a black silk suit with maroon dress shirt and black dress slacks. Yuko ran her hands through his hair and the Akimichi's mane evened out: growing less untamed, more straightened, glossier. The unhealthy hair fell to the ground and his hair thinned but Yuko could tell it would grow back to normal in a month. She rubbed her hands about his back slowly, calmly. "This will hurt. It will never fade like some guns or needles. You will never know freedom from its mark."

"You know I must." Chouji spoke.

"You do not lie" Yuko spoke as she lay Chouji down on his bed stomach-first. She straddled his waist, her thin body nothing on his wide, heavy frame. Her nails dug in and he groaned. The ink splashed through his back from nowhere as if his pores meant nothing, as if a million tattoo needles were already at work invisibly doing what they were meant to, full of ink and masterful in artistic prowess. Chouji took it all very well. Normal Yakuza back in Yuko's old Japan would take their full body tattoos in sessions, too painful was it to bear. Chouji couldn't have been feeling too different, his knuckles white as he gripped the bed but he did not make a sound.

The ink cast about his back in colors that took turns moving. The yellow would splash ahead of the deep reds and the green would sting into the picture, lacing across here and there to line things up properly. Perspective came into play and the picture literally moved into place. Shapes took form and those forms danced across Chouji's back magically, looking for the best place to stop and remain eternally. Some moved arther from his flesh, into the picture and shrinking in the distance. Some images came coser to the surface of the flesh, looming at th edge of magic and reality just underneath the Akimcihi's skin. Chouji thought that the tattoo would remain until he died and rotted away no doubt. Yuko couldn't find it in her to tell him that he would never be allowed to die no matter how long he lived. None of them would.

Finally, after some minutes, the shapes stopped in place, content on their location and identity. Chouji tattoos chose him, not the other way around. Chouji hadn't even shed tears. The brush and canvas had accepted each other and found the true way. Chouji's back was covered and it curved around and about his flesh. Bears dotted his body with one great polar bear in the center of his back holding a yin/yang. Butterflies floated in between the framework as butterflies do, unable to be caught, freely doing what they would. From one scapula the wing of a beautiful blue tropical bird grew but the opposing scapula sprouted the wing of a gargoyle, stony and demonic in appearance. Down his arms sleeves of plant-life braided into themselves. Tree branches and vine patterns, tropical herbs and basic herbal ingredients to "Grandma's Stew." The mundane plants and extraordinary ones met harmony on the muscles of his arms.

Fire dancedbetween the wings of bird and gargoyle both, licking up from his back onto his neck and shoulders, curving up his cheeks and extending to eleven fingers, one hand with six. It represented the people he had left behind, the black shadow fingers like ashen burns, long and grasping upward from his throat. The swirls of his Akimichi heritage burned themselves deeper into his flesh: a darker red, angrier and more vibrant than before, burning through the shadow fingers that tried to crawl up to his eyes. His chest was a Banyan tree surrounded by a graveyard as he stood, the verdant tree overshadowing the land happy and thriving more than any tree could in the bleak gray wasteland that lie around it. Ghosts of animals and humans alike loomed half inside graves, crawling out mournfully.

Eight moons loomed above the banyan, each with a different symbol etched into the face: A ghostly figure with a pipe etched behind it, a comet, a black road with a black star at the end, a hand with crossed middle and index fingers with a nondescript motherly figure looming behind with open arms, a multicolored whirlpool, a hand pointing straight up and its shadow more finely detailed than it, a full cornucopia with a syringe, microscope and test tube next to it and a textbook with the symbol for infinity on the cover.

His legs were stone and metal, craggy in design and gray in appearance. Healthy brown also worked along his legs and, occasionally, some veins of platinum or gold, even some purest shining black. The works of earth melded into the background, only there if you cared to look for it and what you saw who could say. Chouji's legs had become a mystery in "find whatever you want to see." It almost looked like Chouji's legs were truly made of stone and earth and metal but, when Yuko touched them and Chouji's leg twitched back she found it still just flesh. It was stern, well muscled flesh but flesh nonetheless. Chouji stood and dressed himself, finally taking a fedora from Yuko to top himself off. His business suit with maroon dress shirt underneath was smashing and the over-sized fedora fit just right around his head and mane. The scar on the left side of his face was marked over, strange as it seemed, the shadow hands reaching up effortlessly through the scarred flesh where a bear had torn half his face off. His hands were leopard printed on the front. The backs of them were like the stony fingers of a demon, claw illustrations worked into his knuckles to add realism.

Looking at Yuko Chouji found himself feeling more comfortable than he had thought he would be. His back screamed in pain but underneath the suit she had made for him from elsewhereness the pain didn't feel so bad. This was the skin for him, he knew. The ink would never leave because it would kill him to make it so. Ink and flesh longed for each other and now together they would never handle being away, even if magic of prodigious type separated them. He breathed deep through his nose and gathered his pipe, hanging it by his belt through a net of threads where it was held. He tucked a knife in each sleeve and in one shoe. He put a knife in his breast pocket and a small sheet of metal he put in his left breast pocket to guard his heart. He slid a razor into the brim of his fedora "Bring me to them. I must find apprentices."

"A fine idea." Yuko said smiling.

As they went the people who wanted out, the ones who were old or young or feeble or just plain not for the wasteland; they stepped aside, knowing Chouji for who he was. Some young women gossiped quietly, though Chouji's sharp ears heard them talking about how attractive he was cleaned up from battle. The scar on his face itched but he didn't scratch it. The innocents did their best not to meet his gaze. He didn't give them much of a fight in that regard. Vash was already gathering some able people up for building things. Chouji looked at those who had flocked to him and chose first of all not to take them under his wing. They looked peace loving. He needed volunteers. Nobody would be a part of the ghosts if they didn't want to. These people would be policemen and drug salesmen, if that made any sense. Though to Chouji it made sense, for that was the only way the two companies wouldn't start wars with each other.

There was already a lineup, so it seemed. Vincent had gathered the able men and women for him to inspect. Chouji was thankful Vincent, a man with a cool head and ample battle sense, was the one picking people out who may be useful in the cause of protecting and serving. He could judge a good cop from a potentially corrupt thug.

Chouji could too. He walked the length of the line a few times. Told a couple girls to excuse themselves, told a couple more men to excuse themselves, cuffed one for attacking him over not thinking he was good enough. Chouji didn't want people like that and he had to open this with a cold, hard iron hand until he could prove he wasn't all horrible power and hard stony intentions. He spoke to some people. Alayne Marks was an infant when the zombies happened, she was 25 years old and had fought zombies all her life, having been born in one of the first cities to be infected. Her parents got into an in-city bunker and held in for some years but when her mother died on a food run up top her and her father had to get out of town and start anew. Well her father got bit and she had to put him down. Years later she was here, still just trying to survive. Chouji appreciated it. She would be one of his four first students. She was fit and active, well coordinated and had a hold of her anger.

She was fine with getting her entire body tattooed, it turned out, but that did turn some people away. Yakuza had to wear the mark of full body tattooing. Chouji wasn't about to change that age old tradition. One individual who was more than happy to do it was Xollo Robinson, whose mother had been from the middle east and whose father had been an American. He liked to train for battle but he also liked to smoke the cannabis that had grown like weeds in Oregon after the zombies took over. Years of cross-pollination in the wild had only proven to make the many strains of the area more pure and potent. Chouji asked him if he would be willing to take a challenge and he said yes. Fifteen minutes later Chouji slid The Mace back into it's belt net and moved onto the next potential student. Vincent knew to mark Xollo's name down on the list. Chouji had smoked him to the dirt and then just a bit more. Chouji hadn't smiled the entire time but would have been lying outrageously if he had said that Xollo hadn't made him ease his mind a little. He was an upbeat sort, at least.

Chouji met a girl named Alexis Meriwether who wanted to help people but didn't want to be seen doing. She didn't care how much pain she had to go through to get it so long as she could just become nothing when she wanted. Chouji knew how to give her that power. The girl needn't mar her face and she was plain enough that such a thing wouldn't even be difficult to grant to her. She would be his third apprentice. Lastly, a boy of 12 named Alexander Graham who looked like a young man of 17. He already had a light beard trying to grow in and he was tall and broad like Chouji. He'd gotten his growth spurt earlier though. His messy dirty blond hair was cut short and he was put into some twenty pound leg weights directly under Chouji's teaching. He was hesitant at first but Yuko was the one to talk him into it, convincing the poor child that this would be where he put himself aside for the new world. Chouji brought them to the training building he had built some weeks ago, the training hall.

"You have all agreed to become my apprentices." He said. Poor Xollo was baked out of his head. Kid probably couldn't process a word Chouji was saying. "Becoming leading ghosts of the old world. You must learn jutsu, such as this." Chouji formed three mudras and snapped his fingers. The dark of the training hall lit up between them, a flame afloat above Chouji's hand. "Depending on your element you will learn this but until then I will teach you the basics at an advanced pace. You four are my personal apprentices and, for now, we cannot afford to train you at a normal pace. You must become better than you have ever been expected to be. We are Sekai Mae No Obake. We are the ghosts that hold the new world together.

"You will learn," Chouji said calmly, "You will practice." His other hand formed stone in its palm, a pebble lifting into the air, "And you will utilize," The stone and fire came together, burning brighter and melting into one another. "And if you have the right blood in you." The rock fell and rolled alight to the center of the all an blew up, flashing through the room. "You may be able to unlock unique things about yourself that nobody could have told you about but myself. Welcome to the Yakuza. Serve me well and I will reward you likewise. Do not ask questions, do as I say and train to your utmost and you will understand why I do this to you. Refer to me as Akimichi-dono or just Boss or Sir."

"Yes Boss." the four echoed in unison.

"Very good," Chouji spoke, turning around. "Now the game begins." He mumbled quiet enough for them not to hear.

{HR}