The Chosen
A/N: "The following is a fan-based work. Naruto is owned by Shueisha, Viz Media, and Masashi Kishimoto. Please support the official release."
Prologue: Countdown...
I was sitting with the others, tapping my foot impatiently…I want to say that I was waiting for something nice, a date perhaps…but the truth was, that instead, I was running out of time.
8h 14m 28s
I could see the numbers just barely out of the corner of my eye, slowly drifting lower, and lower. I didn't like to think about what would happen when it hit zero…I'd never let it hit zero in the past year, no matter how much I hated this entire thing.
Kill
"Kureizu, you okay?" my current teammate, Saisho, asked.
I nodded, before answering, "Yeah, just a bit restless. I think I'll take the next patrol, get my mind clear."
Kill
"Hm, yeah alright. You need any company?" He asks, motioning to the others.
"Nah, I'll be fine. A couple of laps around the village and I'll be great." I reply, standing up and stretching.
Kill
The two other Chunin with us nod at me as I make my way out of the small office. We'd been set a simple watch, one of the easier missions we could be assigned as newly minted Chunin. Random patrols around the village, while others in different spots around doing the same, made for good, random coverage of the entire place. Less likely for enemies to sneak in when the entire patrol schedule is randomized by virtue of human nature. As the door closed behind me, the light cut off, I pushed Chakra into my legs, and with a leap, landed softly on the roof nearby. A good 30 feet, if my estimate was right.
Kill
I'd been trapped in the village the past two weeks, otherwise, I'd have taken care of this already. I hated nothing more than having to do this here, the place where I live…I hated having to do it at all.
Kill
I crept along the roofs, jumping softly between them, every now and then whistling the signals to other potential patrols to alert them that I was a friend. As I traveled along, I kept my eyes peeled, mostly on the streets but the occasional window as well. The timer in my mind slowly tick-ticking away, a constant reminder…
'There…' I thought, spotting what I had been looking for at last.
Below me, a man, mid-30s perhaps, was stumbling along the alleyway, clearly very drunk. I looked around, ensuring that no one was nearby, no other patrols, no other Ninja, before dropping softly into the alleyway. The drunk bent over, quietly vomiting, as I silently snuck up behind him. As he remained bent over, still heaving, I leaped forward, one hand covering his mouth, the other the back of his head. Before he could react, I push him forward, slamming his forehead into the stone wall he'd leaned against. There was a crunch, and he was out, as I slowly lowered him to the ground. I carefully laid him on his back, nausea threatening to rise up inside of me, as I watched him slowly choke to death on his vomit. It took several minutes, several minutes that I was jumping at every sound in the night, worried that another patrol could find me. At long last, his body stopped shaking, and out of the corner of my eye, the slowly dwindling timer reset.
13d 23h 59m 57s
ALERT!
Mission Complete
Sacrifices For Jashin(Recurring)
Objective 1: Sacrifice an Innocent for Jashin +800 xp
Success!
ALERT!
New Mission!
Sacrifices For Jashin(Recurring)
Objective 1: Sacrifice an Innocent for Jashin - 800 xp
OR
Objective 1: Sacrifice a Ninja for Jashin - 2000 xp
Failure: Death
As I leaped back to the top of the building and quickly left the area, I couldn't help the anger that filled me. It wasn't fair that I had to make that choice…to kill or to die. Fighting for my life was different, kill or be killed…murdering someone in cold blood? I hated everything about it…that I had to do it every two weeks or just drop dead? I hated that even more. At least now the voice that whispered in my head would be silent once more…
I'm sure it's easy to wonder why, then? Why not just die, and stop killing them?.. Because I'd seen what lay on the other side…and I'd do anything I could to never go there again.
One Year Prior
"Sensei!" I whispered, grabbing his attention at last.
I had been motioning at him for a minute, but his attention had been elsewhere. Now that I had his eyes on me, it was simple enough to sign to him my original message.
'Six, 200 meters,'
A simple message, but one that let him know that I'd found our objective. To everyone else…I was a sensor. It was the easiest way I could explain what I could do, without making myself sound crazy. The truth is much more interesting, in my opinion, but that much more unbelievable for it. The truth was, two years ago I'd woken up on the eve of my Academy Graduation, and the entire world had changed. Overlaid across my vision was information I had no way to know, names, health, chakra, that sort of thing. People I'd never met, yet I knew their entire names somehow. It took me only a few moments to confirm the information was true, asking a random stranger their name. All around me, even further if I focused, I could see thousands of floating names. Walls couldn't stop it if I didn't want it to, and I learned later on neither could Genjutsu…and yet it got even weirder since then.
I'd played a few video games in my life before at a cousin's home, but not something that I'd truly focused on. I was much more intent on becoming a Ninja, which coming from a commoner family wasn't nearly as easy as it was for the kids from official Ninja clans. Yet when I'd arrived at the Academy, and received a POP UP for the graduation exam mission, I had to hold on to the wall to not pass out. I thought I was dreaming, but no amount of pinches could wake me up…Somehow, someway…my life had become a video game.
And so here I was, two years later, three weeks past my Chunin Graduation, searching the Land Of Tea for a group of missing girls that had been kidnapped from several towns. Thanks to my abilities, tracking them down hadn't been an issue, I mean I had a MAP MARKER(More on this later), that pointed right to them, but there really wasn't a way to explain that to anyone…So instead, I was a "Sensor" and just really good at it.
Sensei tracked where I pointed, and motioned us forward. My two teammates followed, silently moving with us through the trees till we got to where I had pointed. I motioned to Sensei that they were underground, and with a few signs himself, told us to spread out and find the entrance.
'Likely a cave of some sort…' I thought as we split up.
I'd like to tell you that we found it, that we saved those girls and partied all night in celebration…The truth is that not even a few minutes into our search I was knocked unconscious by someone I never even felt approach. I awoke, my HP and CH refilled as always, to myself, my Sensei, and my teammates tied to posts surrounding a pit, just barely lit with torches. Around the pit were 6 more posts, to each a different woman was tied. I say women, but some were definitely girls, as young as maybe ten or eleven. Each post was angled so that we dangled over the pit, our toes right on the edge, a pit which was only a foot deep, maybe 5 feet across.
I struggled against the bonds, feeling sharp wire digging into my wrists, and arms. Whoever had tied us had wasted no effort…I was tied from my palms to my elbows, my arms locked in a painful position, as were the other Ninja. The women were much more simply tied, but their chances to escape were no better than ours.
Jashin no Jūsha Lvl 16
I turn my head swiftly, catching sight of the name floating in the darkness, as a man steps forward into the light of the torches. He studies each of us in turn, before nodding after studying me. Worry was setting in at this point.
'Sensei!' I whisper, as the man goes back to where he came from, a small room off to the side of this chamber. 'Wake the fuck up!'
"It's too late for him, Chosen one." I hear a soft voice whisper in the darkness.
I jerk back, finding the man standing in the light once more. He moves then to the first post, pulling a curved blade from over his shoulder. With a pull, he slid it easily over the girl's neck, a line of red so dark it was black in the torchlight, as the blood began spurting into the pit, drenching the girl in the meantime.
"S-SENSEI!" I yelled now, trying desperately to wake the man up.
The kidnapper moved to the next girl, repeating the process, on and on, till he reached the first of my teammates. I struggled harder, begging him not to do it, but he didn't even hesitate, slicing his throat as well. My second teammate followed, the floor of the pit was soaked with blood, appearing nearly bottomless it was so black. My Sensei, who had not awoken, followed next, even more blood adding to the pool below. I closed my eyes, tensing as the man walked behind me, expecting the pain, but he instead walked on, continuing down the line of captives.
As he finished with the last one, he checked the first girl, her blood had slowed to a dribble. With his knife, he sliced through the ropes holding her upper body in place, lowering her till she was hanging down, her feet now higher than her head, as more blood began pouring out of the cut on her neck.
"Oh fuck…Oh, Kami…" I whispered as he made his way around the circle again, repeating the process, again skipping.
"Oh Lord Jashin, I bring to you today these sacrifices, at the birthing pit, to create for you a new vessel in your image." He intoned as he began to raise the bodies in order, the blood had stopped by the time he made it back around.
"Nine Lives, invoking the Imagery of Rebirth" He whispers, as he passes by me. "Your Chosen bearing witness to your greatness."
Kill
The word came from everywhere, and nowhere, all at once. The word pressed down upon me, as though smothering me, the smell of burning incense and the coppery smell of blood filling my nose.
He continued to circle the pit, whispering, his words were so quiet at times that I couldn't hear them over the pounding of my own heart. He stopped behind me, his hand gripping my shoulder. There was a sharp pain on the back of my neck, not the explosion of pain I had expected, and then suddenly I was falling, cut free from the post. I landed hard, splashing in the pooled blood, face first. My arms, while freed from the post, were still tied to each other. I managed to roll over but was suddenly in agony as pain exploded in my feet. I looked up, finding that the man had changed. His body, now naked, was solid black with strange lines and symbols of white splashed over it. He was hanging above the pit, a sharp hook dug through his feet, allowing him to hang right above me.
As he began to talk again, the blood began to bubble, almost as though boiling. "The preparations are complete…Lord Jashin, your Vessel awaits."
With a sharp motion, he sliced his own throat, his blood spraying down onto me, and the pit. I realized then that my own throat had been cut, when, how, I didn't know. I tried to clamp my head down, and stem the bleeding, but the cut was so deep it was impossible. The man's eyes bored into my own, as my heart shuddered in my chest, trying desperately to keep me alive despite my lifeblood pouring out, all while his smile grew and grew. The blood had darkened even more, solid black, as it began to move all around. As my vision faded, the blood formed together into a roughly humanoid shape. It reached for me and I-
Darkness
Fire
Agony
…and Laughter
I shook my head, clearing the "Flashback Memory" from my mind. One of the weirdest things about this ability I'd awoken with was that if I thought overly hard about a past experience, I'd have a "Flashback" and relive it. Thankfully at some point in the memory, I could pull myself out of it if I concentrated hard enough. I'd lived that night enough times already…what had happened after it all went black was burned into my mind, one of the few things I had nightmares about…
When I awoke, the man was gone, the pit was empty…and there were two changes to my 'Character Sheet'. Where before the "N/A" next to "Bloodline" reminded me of my commoner family, now it was replaced instead with a reminder of the hell that was my life...of the suffering I would bring to others; now reading Bloodline: Jashin's Chosen.
...and the second change? An infinity symbol where my HP used to be.
A/N: Well…That was a thing! Welcome, ladies, gentlemen, dogs, cats, pigeons, and meerkats to what I think will be my next story.
The idea just came to me…what if the MC was a Jashinist…but not by choice? So, we're going to explore that, but with my always favorite gamer twist. A DARKER story, for much more mature audiences. Yes, that is saying a lot considering my last naruto story involved a significant amount of child murders. My stories tend to change over time, but, I've already got some fun plot points to write between, so we shall see where we go…
Don't forget to review! Reviews mean faster chapters, faster chapters mean more enjoyment, and more enjoyment means more reviews! Join me in this feedback loop. O.O
Haven't mentioned this in a long while, but I have a discord. Me and a few other writers, plus a bunch of readers(Just like you!) hang out. I tend to talk about my stories, answer questions, etc over there. You can find that at discord dot com (slash)invite(slash)UZWUKsh
Until next time…on Naruto: The Chosen…
