Chapter 31: The Shadow over Insumasu
Part 8: Dodgeroll Like a Hedgehog
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It is about an hour till dusk, and Konami had finally wake up from her sleep.
To begin with, Youkais are nocturnal. Their species is sort of an odd mix of supernatural and biology. There are youkai that originated from mutated human caused by corrupted chakra. There are youkai that originated by animals that transcend their biological construct through chakra. And then there are youkai that just randomly popped outta nowhere.
Basically, Youkai is an umbrella term for a branch of lifeforms that no one quite sure how to classify. The gist of it was that they mostly come from two of Six Realm of Reincarnation, the Realm of the Beast and the Realm of Asura. If the Youkai is animal based, its from the Beast Path. If they are demonic based, they're from Asura Path. Youkai that comes from Preta Path was a bit of guessworks since they're much more rare. And we don't talk about beings from Naraka Path. Its very rare for entities of Naraka to escaped the realm of penance.
It was said that Hagoromo, the God of Rebirth had been reborn across the Six Paths of Reincarnation with his memories across the six realms remain intact, and he become a full fledge god when he finally reincarnated into the Deva Realm. Seriously, the lore The Writer made up confused the fuck outta me coz it really throw my ability to predict what's going on to the gutter. This fanfic is beyond mere AU at this point. Its basically borderline OG and the fact that my psychopath of a Writer just write this shit up for free scares the shit outta me.
The flames man. I dread the day some canon bishops declare this fanfic to be apocryphal and launch a witch hunt and flame the shit outta this fic. My survival depends on the whims of a cruel, capricious Writer.
I don't want to survive as a hobo in a Danmachi fic. Hah? What did you mean I am making a shameless ads for Corvid's Éclair second fic? Nah man, must be the wind.
Anyway. Before the next round of Night of Hyakki Yakou starts, I figure I asked some more loredrops from Konami.
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"Sure, I come from the Central Plains.", Konami answered me as she tying up her arm bracers.
"Then how come you ended up in Zabuza's Genin team? You're from Land of Fire and Zabuza was from far to the east, from Land of Water.", yea, that do quite confused me.
Konami just looked at me as if I am asking an obviously stupid question.
"To start with, I'm not a ninja. Its more accurate to say that I am a Martial Artist."
Say what now.
Oh fuck me, I knew something was up when the term Central Plains, otherwise also known as the World of Jianghu if what I recall from a copious amount of wuxia manhwas I had in my memories was correct, came up.
"So, you guys are a bunch of battle maniacs who going around waging sect wars all over the place over which is cooler, pretentious Taoist sects or edgy demonic sects?"
Konami made this adorable curious flick. "Huh? I don't know what a Taoist is but if you mean pretentious elitists, then sure. That's quite an accurate description of what's my hometown was like. Well, technically I come from the pretentious side of the group."
"So what, the Youkai of Central Plains is split between not eating human and eating them?"
"Pretty much. To start with, the Nine Dai-Youkai were all students of the God of Rebirth. While many of them had abandoned the teachings of Lord Otsusuki Hagoromo, Lord Kurama maintain a stance of not interfering with humanity and not harming them without cause. Which as you may guess, is not a popular political stance in the world of Youkai."
Well shit, so not only there's a wuxia manhwa ripoff right in the middle of Land of Fire, they're also beefing over whether Youkai should be vegan or not.
"Lord Kurama is perhaps the only pure Kitsune left. He's the only one that can manifest full Nine Tails of our clan. Most of the Kitsune clan are Hanyo of several generations. The result of Lord Kurama efforts to co-exist with humans back when he was young."
Hanyo, the term that refer to youkai that was born with human blood mixed in their lineage.
"So, how much generation away are you?"
"I'm a third generation. Good riddance that only my great grandfather was human. If I have too much human blood in me, I'll have to depend on a Mask like Haku all the time to control my power."
"Heeee…"
Dafak did you mean Haku has to depend on a Mask???
Konami had this smirk on her. Crap. I forgot she can read my mind.
"Youkai and Human chakra doesn't blend well. A Hanyo doesn't necessarily will awaken a Youkai power, but when they do, the Youkai-side will went berserk to take control over the Human-side. The more human blood you have, the worst does it gets. Haku is a third generation Hanyo like me, but she had instead had more human blood in her lineage than youkai. Because of that, she needs to have her Mask on all the time."
Oh for fucks sake. Don't tell me this fic now ripping off Bleach!
"Bleach?"
"Nothing. Just some random ideas I have. Anyway, do you have your own Mask?"
"Oh sure. Wanna see?", Konami tail swish around excitedly, like a kid that about to show another kid something cool. She clawed over her face like Ichigo did whenever he wants to put on his Hollow Mask. Then, she clawed down her face and a burst of blue flame hover over her face before quickly solidify into a fox mask.
I clapped my hands. That is very cool. I always hyped up when Ichigo went Hollow mode back when I was watching Bleach. Was really annoyed that shit was not pulled out during TYBW arc and Horn of Salvation Ichigo looks so lame. I hate the single horn thing. Go back to Vasto Lorde form damnit!
"Hehe! I don't need to use my Mask to use my power most of the time, but if I need to pull some big moves, then I put on my Youkai Mask."
"Purebloods don't need a mask like you?"
"It's a bit of a way to keep the Youkai-side in check whenever we want to use our powers without going berserk. Let's say Hanyo has two personalities. In order to not go berserk, we contained the Youkai personality into a Mask."
Hmm, that's a lot to take in. I gonna have to prep Naruto to control his Inner Youkai and get his own Mask. Hell, maybe he can even manifest a fucking Zanpakutou. Wonder if its gonna be like a Shinigami or a Hollow kind of release tho.
"Wait a minute, that still doesn't asnwer why you're in Zabuza's Angel! What do you have anything to do with a ninja that comes from Kiri?"
Konami answered me with a deadpan face. "Anti-Homovore Movement is an international NGO. Zabuza came to our seminar in Central Plains all the time back when he's still a Mist-nin. When he failed the coup and fled Water, obviously he took refuge in Central Plains. To cut a long story short, I want to travel outside and joined him."
Urrghh, what an Ojou-sama. She just join a political terrorist group just because she was bored.
Konami pinched my cheeks in irritation of my thoughts.
"The Night Parade of One-Hundred Demons is about to start, so I have no time to deal with your nonsense. Are you sure you want to join in the defense? Those shadow demons are no joke."
Yea, I know. It's why Konami and Haku took turns to repel the invading horde. They have huge AOE skills that easily crowd-control the horde. Itachi that's more suited for ST skill only monitor and take down Boss-type shadows that survive the AOE spam.
"While you guys had told me a lot, I still need to see for myself what is up with these shadows."
"We're not going to cover for you, just to be clear. Once the Parade starts, we'll be too busy keeping the horde in check."
"That's fine. I'll have you know that I am good at Soulsborne game."
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I fucking lied. I never played Soulsborne game.
To be clear, my predecessor ain't much of a gamer. This is the guy that think multiplayer games is too much socializing. So much that he once puked coz he got tired of dealing with people in a Counter Strike party. What a true anti-social that guy was. He doesn't even like mingling with other weebs.
My memories of gaming is limited because of what I can only deduce was that the dude was a poor bastard in some third world country and had never been able to afford a proper gaming system even as an adult. He thinks playing a game without story is boring and a waste of time, and he really couldn't care less about being absurdly skilled at gaming.
This means that aside of staring at videos of Bloodborne gameplay among the many action games' animation choreography he watched for learning to draw combat as well as taking in the gothic vibe, I really don't know much about Soulsborne games.
I do think its stupidly suspicious that the shadows looks a lot like Bloodborne monsters. Scourge Beast, Church Giant, Blood Licker, Cramped Casket are some of the monsters I had encountered outside the ice walls of Insumasu Town. I just gonna chalk it off as the Writer being too lazy to came up with his own of designs. There's limit for how much effort he gives to a fanfic he wrote for free.
I had taken down 10 of the shadows already. And you know what?
They are so game-like.
When I had fought and ran from the Flame Tigers on my way here, I found that fighting an animal is so much pain in the ass. Intelligent beings like Human and Youkai is somewhat predictable. They fight with proper techniques and think what they should do.
Animals are mostly instincts. They are both easy to control their behavior if you know what you're doing and yet, they can also be unpredictable. Its why many elite jounin had somehow been taken down by random animals. Fighting beasts is so much different than fighting humanoids.
The Shadows were so pattern-based that its laughable against someone with high speed reflex which works even better with foreknowledge of movesets.
It didn't take me long to learn the animation frames pattern of each type of Hyakki Yakou I faced.
For example, I am now facing a Cleric Beast. After a few minutes of dodgerolling like I'm fucking Sonic the Hedgehog, I learned enough of its animation patterns that I can dodge it with one of my eyes closed. It has the same exact angle of strikes, the same exact speed. The same exact Frame per Second animation. If it go into Pose A, it will do Combo A. If you see it in Pose C it will do Combo C. This makes them stupidly predictable.
Mind you, they're terrifying monsters, but as long as you pay attention its nothing much. Especially when you are a superhuman not limited to normies' physical limitations.
After I took down the Cleric Beast with a precise stab to its jugular artery, I watch it fades back into the shadow.
Or rather, ink. Ink that quickly vaporised into air. Ink made out from chakra. The world of ninja tend to forgot that shadows is not actually matter. Its simply the byproduct of the light being blocked by an object. A state of non-existence.
Shadow Monsters? More like Chakra Ink Monsters. What is this, Bendy and the Ink Machine ripoff?
My predecessor never actually read HP Lovecraft works. Well, he tried once, and proceed to noped out when he was met with a wall of text that gives him migraine. He was however, heard some snippets of the lore. Azathoth. King in the Yellow. That one anime with Nyaruko and of coz, the most commonly known, Chtullu. I never get what Lovecraft so afraid about squids. Fear of the Unknown was kinda overrated in my opinion and I have no idea what unknown has to do with tentacles.
I do know enough that The Shadow over Innsmouth revolves about some dude discovering the Chtullu cult in Innsmouth.
Cthullu, which was slumbering in the deep see.
Chtullu, which has tentacles.
And what has tentacles?
Squids.
And what squids do when they're about to get eaten by a predator?
They squirt out ink.
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An island and a town which is the japanized name of Innsmouth.
Puppet monsters made out of ink.
A youkai known to have tentacles like squid and used ink as part of its skillset.
Fuck me. Is Killa B the main villain of this arc?
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this is just a test to see if thi app still bugged . don mind this random note.
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