Blood.
Orochimaru was a rigorous taskmaster. We trained every day we didn't go on missions, and every mission we killed around 40 Iwa ninja. I saw we, because I killed around 5 or 6 every mission. It was weak picking compared to his increasingly macabre displays, but it was good.
Each kill got me more xp, got me more points, made me stronger. Well, I had yet to use, them, but I needed to keep them just in case. I checked, and the points could be administered at any time, no matter the situation. So, if I ran out of chakra, instead of suffering chakra exhaustion, I just use a point and get to not die in agony.
It also let me hide my powers from someone as perceptive as the Snake lord, he would notice even if I used them out of sight, seeing inconsistent growth. I didn't need nor want to progress in that kind of way, so it was easy to just do stretches, crunches, press ups and pull ups and stances with him.
He was impressed by both my ability to self-preserve and my copying of his moves. I explained it was a perception based ability, that I couldn't copy jutsus, just their movements, but he found it interesting nonetheless. It seems at this point in time his obsession with the sharingan hadn't started.
He taught me jutsus too. I had learnt:
Fire ball jutsu; Borrowed from his master, letting me scorch targets no matter the situation.
Wind gust jutsu; From his own affinity, a viscous push of deadly air.
Rock wall jutsu; A great defensive ability.
Water blade jutsu: Offensive, a natural counter to fire, and sharp enough to cut through defenses. Only problem was the need of a source, and its poor range.
And Lightning strike jutsu: A crack of lightning from above, shot out from your fingers, then striking when the jutsu is cast again. A timed trap good at destroying rock formations.
Each element, and each a C-rank Jutsu. Strong and varied, he saw no reason in only teaching what you are comfortable with. Having knowledge, and eventually mastery of all is part of why the third is so strong after all. Giving it to me was a sign of respect, one I was grateful for.
At the end of each training session, my arms were sore, my lungs burning, and chakra drained.
Strength: 30
Agility: 42
Perception: 45
Intelligence: 50
Chakra: 83
Luck: 19
I got a new perk for both strength and agility;
Miracle strength:
Allows the user, at deaths door to gain an inhuman strength and burst of stamina. They might think you are done, but you are only getting started.
Bendy figure:
When dodging attacks, people's attacks seem to go right past you. Grazes will not hit, you can only be nailed by direct blows.
Both based on survivability, which might have been the system's message that I was very likely to get killed soon.
Ominous, but I am insane enough to ignore that warning and continue my pursuit for power.
The only question was with my luck stat. How did it increase, and what did it do?
…
A large blonde haired man sat me down. I wanted to say he was a Yamanaka, but though he was a jonin he lacked their irisless eyes and teal colouration. That was the biggest identifier of being a mind reader, the blond hair was rare enough, being part of a wave of immigrants from north of Iwa about 300 years ago, but the teal eyes were the real marker. Gingers and even brown haired people's were members of their clan, but the eyes were always needed.
"Did your teammates get killed by an Iwa ninja?"
The interrogation room they had put me in was meant to be scary, was meant to make me feel claustrophobic and want to get out of there as quickly as possible, but I had killed a man. Died myself. A dark room with a bright light pointed at my eyes wasn't going to defeat me.
I told him what Orochimaru told me to say, no inflection, eyes pointed at his, determined face and no way of telling if I was lying or not. He could reason that Orochimaru made me say this if I was afraid, but I wasn't. I told him it couldn't have been him, and my face filled with courage told him that was the truth.
He released me to go home, and the next day when I showed up Orochimaru was there, sly look on his face, and serpent eyes looking at me.
…
One day, me and Orochimaru were sprinting at top speed to an area, some delivery or another, when I smelt blood on the wind. The smell of battle is a disgusting one, shit and piss and rot and dirt and fire and iron, but the smell of death was sweet, contrasted to all that was around it.
My teacher smelt it too, turning out direction as he swung around a tree, changing his direction. He could have gone faster, but he stayed slow to let me catch up.
And then we came to a clearing.
I remember a quote, war is hell.
I also remember a quote, went something like, 'Hell is hell and war is war, and out of the two war is worse since innocents aren't in hell'.
I guess what I am trying to say is, peering out of those trees, I saw an image of something close to what hell must be like.
A great big battlefield of brown and black, flickers of red and yellow fire eating at the scenery like some ravenous dragon, hungry and viscous.
Smoke billowed out across the horizon, a hellish smog opening up into the sky, like some evil spirit come to destroy heaven.
And the dead, the war, the fighting! The coalescing chaos collected into some hellish blood red whirlwind. It rampaged around like nothing else, mud kicked up and jutsus thrown, and dead bodies slamming against live ones like wet sacks of useless flesh.
The ground was wet, mud soaked, but not with the rain of the day previous, but blood, leaking from necks, and millions of little wounds. A great big puddle of stagnant water lie, entire squads pouring their slick life juice into it like some macabre ritual. And everything was dead.
The trees were ash, blackened with the evil effect of heat, grass trampled and hurt, cut into green fur by blade strikes rending flesh, the clouds above only serving to coat leg and arm in mud, an early end to once covered in the weighty muck. Yet, when the bodies are all left, and time passes, nature would swallow them up whole, and in a years time the only things left would be the lush forestry of green beauty, and bones.
A man walked from an explosion, body immolated in flame, screaming something mad, clawing at his face, rushing towards any source of water, his skin pealing away to nothing before he even got close. A lady got a pillar of stone to the stomach, the thing piecing her and suspending her mid air, like a sadistic art piece. So many ran at each other, and so many only came out with cuts and bruises and blood and tears and pain.
Orochimaru looked to me, his perfectly sharp face, like a crescent blade, pointing towards me.
"This, Kizashi, is war."
I decided I loved it.
…
One day, when we were back in Konoha, my teacher talked to me.
The vista was a picturesque one, green trees blowing in the wind, leaves falling of branches like drops of water. It burst out the top of a flat-topped house, layered upon another, upon another, upon another. The lush forest green contrasted against the neutral browns and wood of the man made settlements.
The light bounced off his skin, off the purple of his appearance, and shone evermore. He spoke.
"People call me a monster. I am sure you in some ways think that yourself. They are right, but only because we are all monsters. I am one, you will be one, my sensei was one before me. We kill to survive, or worse, to win. Simply to say 'I am the strongest' we kill and pillage and destroy so much and so many. I accept that, I do not know if my master does yet. Maybe he does, and he has fooled even me into thinking he is a good person. He started this war. Revenge. The Leaf lost 2 kage in the last war, and we have yet to lose one. It was retribution for both of his teachers, but also a way to say he surpassed them. He is smarter, better, a more adjusted leader.
I want to be hokage. Not because I love this village, not even because I want their respect. Because I want to do him well. He is... the closest thing I have to a father.
But he hasn't made me the 4th yet, and as far as I know I am still not his successor, that being an old friend. One nobody trusts, not even me.
He would give it to Jiraiya, if it weren't for him not wanting it, absconding with money and whores and pretending he isn't one of our best.
He would give it to Tsunade, if it weren't for he disconnection with reality, with wanting to move away, with steadily hating ninja more and more.
He would have given it to me, if I didn't remind him of himself so much."
Then we sat, eating noodles in the hot summer weather.
I realised I like my sensei. I probably shouldn't. He was a backstabbing, psychopathic, power hungry bastard. Though that described me as much as it did Orochimaru.
He was strong though, and had all the qualities that an impressive person was meant to have, with the caveat that he was an immoral maniac. Well, not all of us can be perfect.
"Sensei, why don't you kill more people when we are on missions? I'm not slowing you down am I?"
He looked into the space in front and frowned.
"I can't fight any longer. If I do, if someone strong enough to kill me shows up, I'll get killed because I will lack the strength to fight them. If you have stronger people to rely upon, like me, you can do that, but the strongest member of a team can't waste their energy and end up dying. They should always be the last to fall."
"Because they can sacrifice other people?"
"Because they are the most important person there, and if they die, everyone else does too. Keep that in mind. If you ever command a squad, make sure they are willing to die for you. Failing that, make sure you are strong enough so that it doesn't matter."
I took that advice to heart.
…
A new stat had unlocked, or rather a skill.
Fire mastery: Novice; your flame flickers.
Wind mastery; A light breeze
Rock mastery; Pebbles in a pile
Water mastery; Puddles
Lightning mastery; Static shock
Fuck knows what it all means, but since these are all small things, I assume it is related to my level, of which I would consider novice. I would need to make all of these better.
I asked Orochimaru how one would figure out their affinity, and he said it didn't matter. Testing your nature made little sense when you had to learn each affinity anyway, and if I did have a particularly large bias, I would just be pulled to it naturally. It was good to find a specification, but there was little point if you were giving up your range of abilities.
I agreed.
…
A/N: Yet another chapter. If you wonder why most of this is descriptions of the world, keep wondering.
Orochimaru remains an interesting character to me. He must have had some good in him for Sarutobi to not kill him, and I begin to think more and more, that it would be interesting for him to be the monster that made Orochimaru.
Remember to review and whatever, suggestions will be taken into account. Have a good day all.