Hop and Skip

Last time on Cloud Gamer

"Yes. Now shut up and let me focus." Kurama inserted the orb into Vix, watching it sink in before a rush of killing intent flooded the room, enough to even trigger Kurama's natural instincts.

"What… was that?" Shin's palms were drenched in sweat, the outburst having awakened a primal fear within him, like prey standing before an apex predator he looked at his summon's unconscious body.

*ZZZZT*

A blue bolt of lightning zipped across Shin's vision and he suddenly fell unconscious.

"This has been a long time coming, little doll."

Chapter 49

*Badump*

*Badump*

*Badump*

It happened in a flash, a familiar one. I was staring at Kurama doing something to Vix before a streak of blue lightning crossed my eyes and I fainted, it was a familiar sight, one I hadn't been privy to in over 7 years.

First things first, I had no idea where I was, I stood up and gained my bearings in the surroundings of my mindscape, thought they were twisted in some way, like someone had released a virus inside of it.

"Tehehe"

I swerved my head, catching the sight of a small bolt of lightning before it disappeared again. The sound of laughter echoed again, like an imp playing a trick. Quickly, I caught another flash of lightning before reaching my hand out towards it and grasping it tightly, not letting it go.

"Hey! No fun! No fun!"

"What are you?" The bolt stretched up into a small, rotund body similar to that of a toddlers, except well, sparking and stuff. Its eyes glowed brightly before he reeled back a hand and smacked it against me, dealing no damage. "You're quite weak… mind answering my question?"

"Shut up! Let go of me!"

I sighed and brought it up to my face, dangling it by its tail. "You know, you aren't really in the position to argue right now?" I held up my right fist tightly, promising a slightly painful method of coercion if it continues to be annoying.

"Eep!" The little creature put its hands together, making a keyboard before rapidly typing. Suddenly, a bright blue box appeared in front of me, just as 2 dimensional as I remembered it.

"This target cannot be attacked."

"Hm? Is this… the system?" I mentally closed the box and squinted at the impish thing. "Oi, are you the one who controls the system… or like, are you the system personified?" I shook it around slightly, not enough to be considered an attack before it sparked brightly and I let go.

"A-And if I am?" It seemed slightly more docile than before, floating down to the grass before sitting down, which I mirrored. I softened my glare slightly and it smiled, putting its hands together in a tiger seal and exploding in a cloud of staticy clouds.

"Ninjutsu?" I gaped, watching the clouds dissolve before they were replaced with the figure of a small girl in a blue-black yukata with two lightning bolt looking hairpins on either side of her long black hair. Her heart shaped face contained a pair of beady brown eyes and light pink lips that nearly blended in with her pale skin. "So you're… the system?"

"To a degree, yes." She cryptically responded, hiding her face behind her yukata.

"Well, why're you back? What happened up there for you to end up down here? Why did you leave?"

"O-One at a time please!" She cried, waving her hands around while blushing heavily. I narrowed my gaze and sighed, letting out a deep breath before I laid back and looked up at the sky. Itachi and Kakashi were probably scrambling right now after the burst of KI, maybe even some ANBU…

"Let's start with why you are here."

"I was kicked out of the realm above, and uhh, sent here?"

I could hear her own confusion in her voice, she probably didn't know why she came to me specifically, or she didn't know how to formulate it into words. "Well why were you kicked out?"

"The deal we made… it broke numerous agreements between the lords and us, especially the imprisonment of Prometheus."

"Ah yeah, he definitely went and bitched about that…"

Flashback, The land of Iron…

.

.

.

'Hey Dion, is there any way one of you up there would want to be in a sword for a while? At least until this life is finished.'

"There may be some, but it will come at a cost, a large one."

'What would it be?'

"It will make itself clear soon."

'It can't be that great, right?'

It was right after I… helped that girl Maka forge her sword, which I took. I was angry, jealous, and then I killed her…Wow.

.

.

Flashback end

"So what? Since Prometheus is back up there, you had to come down here as punishment for that?"

"Well, not just that."

"C'mon, don't hold back now." I was beginning to get impatient, she kept dodging questions and I could tell she was uncertain with even confirming things I said. Vix needed to be checked on, but I was stuck here with this until it's finished. I'd already tried to leave but found something blocking me, something unnatural.

"For impersonating Dionysus, and tricking Prometheus, I'm sentenced to be your guide until you enter the holy land." She sighed, her head down looking towards her legs. I heard some sniffling before I sat up and saw her crying into her yukata on her lap.

I gently smiled and hooked my arms around her, bringing her into a soft embrace. "Come on, it won't be so bad. Just me and you through my lives."

"T-That's not the issue."

"Hm? Then what's wrong?"

"I have to be stuck with a stupid guy like you!"

I let her out of my embrace, slowly sitting back, before falling on my back and belly laughing. It was just too funny, sad sure, but also hilarious.

"Shut up!"

"Hahaha! T-There's no way you're serious!" I continued to laugh before she stood up and kicked me in the balls, stopping my laughter immediately as I groaned in pain. "That wasn't nice." I chuckled, listening to her sit back down and sigh.

"Since I'm stuck here, should I give you a rundown of the mechanics again? Because you missed quite a few updates."

"Huh? Updates? There were updates?"

"Obviously! You're so dumb I swear, can't believe I'm stuck with you…"

My interest quickly piqued, I sat up before placing my hand in a stop motion. "Before you begin, I need to check on Vix, mind if we pick this up when I fall asleep?"

"Whatever, I'll be waiting here."

I grinned and gave her another hug before looking around the plains area. "Now how can I leave…"

"Domain, close." Her voice was soft, but commanding as she ordered my mindscape, or the domain in the place to disappear. The world shattered and I woke back up to see Kurama in my clone's body continuing to operate its chakra through Vix's body.

"Vix! Are you okay?" I quickly questioned the unconscious fox, running up to the desk where she was laying.

"I just told you to be quiet so I could focus, now sit down and shut up, or go talk to the two other humans sitting outside the door." Kurama huffed. I dumbly nodded and walked past my clone, opening the door to see Kakashi and Itachi wide eyed, fear evident on their faces. 'So no time passed while I was in the domain, that's helpful to know.'

"Yes, no time passes outside a domain without external forces." The system responded helpfully. Her voice sounded much more soothing than before, but still carried the annoyance, or arrogance I faced in the domain.

'Glad you can talk to me outside of my mindscape, now are these two frozen by choice, or fear?' I looked down at the two and laughed, ruffling my hair with my right hand. "Sorry about that guys, the old fox had something to do and accidentally let its control slip for a second." The two perked up and laughed lightly as well, clearly not buying it.

"Let's go get some lunch, I'm starving." I hooked my arms around the two of them, whispering something into Kakashi's ear. "Get Naruto, I can't trust him with the Uchiha right now." He nodded quickly, a slight hint of fear clear in his eyes. "Itachi, what do you want for lunch? Kakashi's going to go grab Naruto and meet us there."

"I-I don't really have a preference." He meekly responded, still recovering from the killing intent that had flooded the apartment. My smile dropped slightly, but I put it back on full strength before turning to Kakashi.

"We're going to go get some barbeque, you know the place, right?" He nodded and put his hands in a tiger seal, disappearing in a flicker. "Itachi, be honest with me, and explain the changes with your father."

"Well it started with…"

The other side of Konoha

.

.

.

"It's good to see you Kakashi." Mikoto smiled and gave Kakashi a tight hug, but something felt off, very off. Her smile seemed strained, like she was trying not to scowl at the mere sight of him. Was Naruto being a problem? Is this about Itachi? Kakashi was unsure, but he followed the woman deeper into her home where Naruto and Sasuke were sitting at the dining room table drinking from bottles.

Kakashi eye smiled at the sight of Naruto, his little brother in his eyes. Right as he went to pick him up, every cell in his body screamed at him to move as he rolled to the side and up against the wall, right as a katana pierced the ground where he was standing. "Fucking scum, why did you dodge? Why couldn't you have just made this easy?"

He didn't want to believe it, like it was some sort of genjutsu, an illusion, anything! There was no way, in no conceivable universe had Mikoto just uttered that with such spite. Kakashi stared in fear and confusion as she pulled her sword out from the boards of the floor and brought it up to her face, staring at the flat of the blade where it reflected her pinwheel style eyes, 3 tomoe burning brightly.

"M-Mikoto, what's going on? What's wrong with you?!" Kakashi yelled, scrambling to his feet before he weaved under another slash, Mikoto growling almost feral as she tore apart her own wall.

Kakashi threw both of his hands out, attaching 10 chakra strings to Mikoto's sword from his fingertips, and trying to pull it away. A bright blue aura flickered from her sword and the strings fell limp, causing Kakashi to gape before Mikoto rushed him down, slashing over and over again as he attempted to calm the woman down. "Mikoto please!" Kakashi dodged under an side swipe and curled his arms around her throat in an attempt to grapple her, but Mikoto wasn't a jonin for no reason, she slammed her elbow into his solar plexus, knocking him to the ground before she prepared to end it, raising her sword over her head.

The boy rolled to the side, his eardrums ringing from the sound of planks splitting behind his back. Kakashi put his hands together, blowing out a mist that overtook the entire room. He quickly darted to the kitchen, grabbing Naruto before Mikoto's sword pierced his bicep. Kakashi groaned before flipping his headband up, holding Naruto in his injured arm. He flipped around fully, catching Mikoto as she was about to behead him and dropped to the ground, kicking her in the knee.

Mikoto clattered to the floor, but by the time she looked up, Kakashi was already gone. "Damn it, god– Huh? What happened here?" She looked around dumbly, eyeing the slashes in the walls and the mess made. "It happened again… this epidemic may just be the end of the Uchiha." She looked up at Sasuke, who didn't even seem perturbed by the destruction that had happened.

Kakashi quickly leapt across the rooftops, running towards the restaurant at top speeds. He would tell the Hokage straight after he dropped off Naruto. 'Is that happening to all the Uchiha? Just Mikoto? It's like she completely flipped, from being kind to cynical, like a flip of a switch. If this isn't just affecting her… how long until the Uchiha, no, the entirety of Konoha is changed?' He came to a stop in front of Yakiniku Q, an established restaurant owned by a kind civilian family that Shin and Kakashi often visited while off missions. Kakashi spotted Shin through the shop window, sitting in their usual booth with Itachi opposite him.

He walked inside, slightly faster than his usual pace and turned towards the booth, but something spread into his vision, a smear of orange, yellow? Something slowed him down, 'What was that earlier… the little thing that traveled through my chakra strings… what was it?'

"Kakashi!" Shin rushed over, sliding across the waxed floors to catch both Naruto and Kakashi as the older boy toppled over. "You alright man? What's up?"

"I-I don't know. There's some orange stuff in my vision, and, and I can't move."

"We'll get you propped up okay? I'll give you a diagnosis while we eat, we'll get you some strength and head straight to the hospital, alright?" Shin gave Naruto a kiss on the forehead and took Kakashi over his shoulder, sliding the boy into the booth across from Itachi.

"What's wrong with him?" Itachi was leaning over the table to get a closer look into Kakashi's eyes, having overheard the conversation earlier. I flicked up the boy's headband to look at his other eye, and I could just barely, barely make out a slight tint of orange stretching across his retina. "There, his sharingan looks a bit odd, can you tell?" Shin pointed to the area and Itachi activated his own patterned eyes.

"It's… like a miasma, a black cloud is coming from the left side of his face, like inside his head behind the eye." Itachi analyzed, his tomoe spinning all the while in a mesmerizing pattern.

"Then that makes this easy… but far scarier. His chakra system is under attack, and considering it went straight for his eye, and…" Shin moved his hand away from Kakashi's shoulder, revealing it to be coated in blood. "It's going for the brain. This behavior is indicative of a chakra parasite of some kind, it feasted and replicated inside of his bloodstream and used the gate in the heart to enter the chakra stream, attacking his body's fuel and control center. At least, that's what I make out of it. The reason it's far scarier is because of Obito's gift, his chakra is always circulating to his eyes, he could go blind." Shin's tone turned icy as he finished, looking back at Itachi.

"Let's finish here quickly and go." The food arrived while they were talking, the waitress barely sparing a glance at Kakashi before running off, muttering something about 'ninja stuff'. Shin began to cook some meat while Naruto was watching the hot charcoal with stars in his eyes.

"About my father, can we keep that between us?" Itachi asked politely. Shin nodded in response and, after a little while, fetched the pieces of meat from the grill and plated up for Itachi and himself, something unexpected popping at the corner of his vision.

[Cooking skill increased! 97 98]

'It was only 20 something when I last had my system, hey, do you know what happened? Also, what should I call you? It feels weird just saying 'hey' all the time.'

"Call me what you want, but did you think your skills weren't increasing while you learned new things, practiced old ones, etc? Everyone has skills and such, you're just the only one that can see them, along with the rest of the services that come along with it, like traits and skills and such, it happens automatically, similar to adaptations or evolution."

'So, everyone has a system, they just can't use or manipulate it?'

"Yes."

'And stats and such are applied automatically?'

"Yes."

'That… actually makes a lot of sense…' I took some of the food from my plate and swallowed it whole, spying how fast Itachi was eating, he definitely wanted to rush out of here. Consider it my own arrogance, but I was in no real rush since we would be teleporting straight to the hospital via body flicker, and then right to the Hokage with another. Emergency it may be, it's better not to panic and make sure you're not cutting any corners than to rush a dangerous, and important task.

I finally finished my food after a couple more minutes, letting Naruto enjoy his bottle since he wasn't allowed any of the meat just yet, being a baby and all. After placing 10,000 ryo on the table, a generous tip, I held my hand out to Itachi and placed Naruto in my left arm, Kakashi over my right shoulder again. "To the hospital!" I flickered away, traveling at extreme speeds to the emergency sector. Having already closed the wound with the mystical palm technique while we were eating, all I needed to tell the doctors was my theory and we could get out of there, but there was a faster way.

"Itachi, you stay with Kakashi here, I'll get you to explain what I said, I'm going to the hokage's office immediately." I took Kakashi off of my shoulder once we reached the front of the hospital and Itachi caught him easily, running into the emergency ward and explaining the problem to the clerk.

'Things are happening too fast, I need to take it slow and regain my composure.' First Vix's situation, then the system's return, and now Kakashi's situation, how long was it going to take for a war to break out!? I heard Naruto whimper and I looked down at him, giving a reassuring smile and offering his bottle with a shake.

He let out a sound similar to a burp while reaching for the container, so I let him play with it while we traveled. 'I'm glad someone's calm.' I laughed slightly at Naruto's carefree, if baby-like reaction before landing on the Hokage's window sill, where a clone was hard at work with Hiruzen checking over a few papers on his secondary table.

I knocked lightly before the clone opened the window and ushered me inside. "Ah, Shin, to what do I owe the pleasure?" He smiled at the baby Naruto in my hand and I offered him to the old man, who gratefully accepted, rocking him slightly in his arms.

"Kakashi's in the hospital with some sort of chakra infection, Itachi's taken him to the emergency ward." Hiruzen froze for a moment, almost letting the pipe fall out of his mouth before he clenched his teeth. "Shit. The Uchiha have something similar, but they've ignored all summons and commands for the past week, so we haven't seen them. Even our Uchiha members of ANBU have gone completely silent."

"Do you think this is–?"

"A protest of some form? Maybe, but my focus lies in the protection of the people for now, we must keep them safe, and if that isn't possible, contained." Hiruzen looked to be in pain as he uttered every word.

"Contained? Like a quarantine? How're you going to communicate this to the public without it blowing up in your face? They're already weary of the Uchiha, and they've replied with violence. They might think you're trying to cut them off or something." I retorted, remembering a certain incident I saw not 3 days ago, where an Uchiha had demanded payment for his services after stopping a purse snatcher, then turned to violence when the victim refused to do so.

"It's all going downhill, there has to be a way we can 1, cover this up, and 2, keep things calm at least until the chunin exams are over." Hiruzen gripped the papers in his hand before looking up at me with a small smile. "Are you looking to become an academy teacher?"

"Hell no." I shut that thought down immediately, teaching wasn't for me, especially a group of 30 snot nosed brats. I have my own kid brother here to worry about, I can't be leaving him 6 hours a day.

"Tch, a pity, we just had a position open up after the head of shinobi history resigned, she was an Uchiha by the way. Have you had any contact with them?" He chucked the paper back on the pile and took a long drag of his pipe.

"No, but Kakashi… wait!" Everything suddenly clicked together, it was obvious to most sure, but I was more focused on getting Kakashi treated than worrying about the source of the problem. "He went to pick up Naruto from Fugaku's house! That must be where he was attacked, but what about the infection… Was it poison from that stab wound?" I mumbled about possibilities before looking at Hiruzen who was idly bouncing Naruto on his lap while scanning the papers in front of him, expression unreadable.

"Old man, I know it sounds crazy coming from me… but should we just wait it out? At least until Kakashi is healed and he can report, or one of your ANBU comes back, or anyone." I grit my teeth, nails digging into my skin, I had the answer, I had it, there was just one thing missing.

"I get your position…" Hiruzen spoke, his voice clouded in sorrow and disappointment. "There's just nothing we can do without information, we could end up endangering the entire village, not just one clan. I'll have someone look into this, but with so many ANBU out…" Hiruzen handed Naruto back to me and I knew what he was about to say. "The only person I can trust with this is–"

"Me." Itachi finished, landing into the office with a soft thud. "I'm a part of their clan, far closer to them than Shin is. Plus, he's a proctor for the chunin exams coming up, he'll be busy out of the country and I can investigate the Uchiha."

"That's not a good idea–" I began, but stopped when Hiruzen interrupted me.

"We can't risk you young Itachi, you're our only chain to the clan within arm's reach, and with them so unsettled right now…"

"There's no better person to be covert than one of their own. I won't have to hide for days on end, because I'm one of them. All I need to do is see what they're up to and return." Itachi had a soft smile on his face, one of kindness, but his eyes had a fire of determination I hadn't seen in men 3 times his age.

"This… stay safe Itachi." I said, choosing to support his determination. "If you ever need me, just call." I walked towards him, Naruto in hand and pulled him into a hug. "Will you be able to return after discarding your patch?" I whispered, though I doubt Hiruzen didn't hear.

"It'll be easy, I'm the clan head's son after all." The signature Uchiha arrogance on full display, he pushed away from me and hopped onto the window sill, looking back at Naruto and I before vanishing in his own body flicker.

[Chapter 49 complete]

Continue? [Y/N]

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Sup everyone, I'm sure you definitely didn't expect this! It's been a year, and I think the Cloud Gamer should become a Gamer again, this time, with more experience and maturity!

As always, like, review and all of that, hope you enjoy the early upload!

P.S Party system or no system? I've seen backlash against them, but I find them fun… I'll make a poll on my profile so be sure to vote!