Gacha System in Naruto

---Third POV---

"In other words, now I can also... become a help to you!" Obito clenched his fists, speaking with a tone of disbelief.

Ryouma and Minato had come all the way to invite him to join them on a mission, this felt like something out of a dream.

Thinking of this, he quickly pinched his thigh hard.

Ouch!

It really hurt! This wasn't some daydream from overtraining.

"What about Kakashi? Is he coming too?"

"No," Ryouma replied honestly. "This mission is very dangerous, it's not suitable for him."

"Ah~" Obito was overjoyed. A mission, dangerous, not suitable for Kakashi, but he was personally invited by Ryouma.

What a thrill!

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's go already!"

With a grin on his face, he urged them repeatedly. He reached out and grabbed the arms of Minato and Ryouma. The black in his eyes faded away, replaced by a pair of crimson eyes with triangular pinwheel patterns.

The swirling space unique to Kamui distorted, swallowing up the three figures completely.

---

Obito, along with Minato-sensei and Ryouma, emerged from the Kamui space at Konoha's camp in the Land of Grass.

"Impressive. Your space-time ninjutsu has already surpassed mine." Minato observed their surroundings while continuously praising Obito, who wiped his nose, feeling smug inside.

"Hehe, it's nothing, really."

"But for the next part of the mission, Ryouma and I will handle it. You wait for us here at the camp, Obito."

"Huh?" Obito looked a bit disappointed. "Why?"

"This mission is too dangerous, we might face an enemy even my teacher couldn't defeat."

"But…" Obito wanted to say that he was strong enough now, but because of his past, he couldn't bring himself to say it. As much as he hated to admit it, he had always been the one holding the team back.

Ryouma glanced sideways slightly. Obito's disappointed expression was impossible to miss. With a helpless sigh, he spoke up, "Take him with us, Captain Minato. When it comes to survival skills, he is probably stronger than both of us. Don't underestimate him."

Minato looked at Ryouma, then turned to Obito and let out a light sigh.

"You're right. Sorry, Obito, I didn't mean to doubt your abilities just now, it's just…"

Just that Jiraiya's disappearance had left a deep impact on him. Though he always appeared decisive, he was actually a very thoughtful person, someone who valued his comrades more than anyone else.

"Don't worry. We will definitely rescue Jiraiya-sama." Obito was full of confidence. In his eyes, as long as his teacher and Ryouma were together, no mission was impossible.

With everyone in agreement, the mission officially began.

First, they needed to find Orochimaru to gather more specific intel. They stepped into the command center.

"You move fast, as expected of you two."

Although their speed was astonishing, Orochimaru didn't plan to question it. What mattered now was retrieving Jiraiya.

"Do you have any intel on Jiraiya-sensei?"

"Don't be so impatient." Orochimaru pulled out a scroll from behind and tossed it to him. "Take a look at this first."

Minato caught the scroll and opened it. Inside was a method for casting a sensory-type ninjutsu. Following the instructions, he formed the hand seals. A second later, a faint signal appeared within his sensory range.

"Heh, you sensed it?" Orochimaru said in his hoarse voice. "This is a technique I left on Jiraiya. The signal had been interrupted for a while, but just shortly before you three arrived, it resumed."

"What does that mean?" Obito nudged Ryouma with his elbow and whispered.

Ryouma didn't keep him guessing and replied directly, "It means the enemy is deliberately revealing their location, clearly trying to lure us into a trap."

"So what do we do?" Obito scratched his head. He hated these thinking-type problems the most. He wondered if people who played these mind games even schemed while using the bathroom.

Orochimaru had anticipated this concern. He pointed to a spot on the map of the Land of Grass laid out on the table and began explaining his plan.

"This is a major Iwa base, and currently where Jiraiya is being held. Conservatively estimated, there are at least 6,000 Iwa ninjas stationed there. Even though the enemy is deliberately trying to lure us in, in the end it will come down to a clash of strength. To prevent a repeat of what happened with the Third Raikage, I want the two of you to perform a forward reconnaissance. Depending on the situation, we'll decide how to rescue Jiraiya. I'll lead the Konoha forces and move out as well, ready to provide support along the way."

Although it was just a rough outline, Orochimaru's plan sounded fairly reasonable.

"Take Obito with you too," Ryouma added. "If there's a large barrier around the base, we'll need his ability to silently infiltrate."

Orochimaru glanced at Obito with some surprise, it seemed this hot-blooded fool under Minato wasn't just there to fill out the team.

Minato and Orochimaru confirmed the signal relay protocols.

"Then, let's begin the operation."

---

The Land of Grass wasn't remarkable in size among the smaller nations, but its terrain was highly diverse, forests, grasslands, rivers, valleys, everything was there.

The target location of Ryouma's team stood in the middle of a vast grassland. The fortress had a yellowish-brown stone design, clearly an architectural style from Iwa. It was situated very close to the border between the Lands of Grass and Earth, but technically still within Grass' territory. In principle, Iwa had no legitimate reason to establish such a large war base there.

However, in the shinobi world, strength was everything. Faced with a giant like Iwa, the small Kusa didn't resist these thugs' demands. They barely put up a fight, in fact, they practically rolled out the red carpet for them.

This Iwa base was positioned very strategically. For over a hundred kilometers in all directions, the area was flat with low grass, making stealth nearly impossible. In the distance, tall watchtowers loomed, preventing Ryouma's team from getting close enough to scout the outer patrols.

None of them had suitable summoning animals. Ryouma and Obito hadn't signed any contracts at all, and although Minato had one, the idea of summoning a giant toad out in the open grassland was absurd.

"So what do we do? Should we force our way in? I think I can use Kamui to teleport us inside." Obito looked to Minato and Ryouma for their thoughts.

"The feasibility is low," Minato pondered. "The enemy has clearly made ample preparations and raised alerts. With the outside so tightly guarded, there must also be all sorts of detection methods inside. It's very likely we'll be discovered the moment we enter."

Considering that the enemy's goal was to actively lure them in, Jiraiya's life should be temporarily safe.

On the other hand, as the rescue team, they absolutely could not let their guard down. The shinobi world held too many strange and mysterious jutsu. Even though space-time ninjutsu was a high priority, overconfidence would be dangerous.

"My suggestion is not to alert the enemy prematurely. Let's wait for Orochimaru's forces to arrive and attack together, drawing the bulk of the enemy's attention and creating an opening for us to sneak in. What do you think?"

As he spoke, Minato turned to Ryouma, hoping to hear his thoughts.

Ryouma plucked a blade of wild grass from the ground, pinching it between his fingers as the strong wind blew.

"We might no longer have a choice. There's a faint chakra reaction in this wind, the enemy has discovered our position."

"What? From this far away?" Obito's eyes widened slightly in disbelief.

Minato's bright blue eyes narrowed, his brows furrowed tightly, a heavy expression settling on his face. Just as he was about to give an order, a chilling black light suddenly erupted from above the Iwa outpost, hundreds of miles away.

In an instant, a tremendous gust of wind surged forth like a raging flood, howling toward them with overwhelming force. The storm, filled with sand and debris, carried a massive Tailed Beast Ball, dragging a long trail of white vapor behind it, hurtling toward them!

Wherever it passed, the very air was torn apart, releasing sharp, ear-piercing detonations.

Now that their movements had been exposed, Ryouma abandoned all attempts at concealment.

Suddenly, he burst forth with a flash, leaping from behind the hill that had served as cover. Midair, he twisted his body and swiftly grabbed Lostvayne at his waist with his right hand.

Then, with a sweep of his arm, he slashed horizontally with it.

"Full Counter!"

An invisible domain rapidly expanded. The moment it touched the Tailed Beast Ball, it rebounded it at even greater speed.

If that thing exploded, it would likely turn half of Iwa's base into rubble. Considering Jiraiya was still inside, he slightly adjusted the trajectory, launching the Tailed Beast Ball skyward instead.

BOOM!

A red explosion bloomed in the distant sky, sending shockwaves rippling across the grasslands, as if making up for the fireworks Obito had longed to see back in the Land of Hot Water, but never did.

"It seems that sensory jutsu relying on natural wind isn't very accurate, otherwise, they wouldn't have launched that kind of attack at you," Minato calmly analyzed the situation. Of course, it was also possible that the enemy felt emboldened knowing Jiraiya's importance to Konoha.

"Looks like we'll have to go in by force."

"Yes, that seems to be our only option."

Iwa's sensory techniques covered a vast range. While not very precise, they were more than sufficient to detect Konoha's reinforcements approaching. This completely killed off the earlier plan for a surprise attack. There was still a chance to rescue Jiraiya if they acted now, but if they waited until Orochimaru arrived with his ninja forces and all-out war broke out, there would be far too many unpredictable variables.

"Obito, teleport us directly into the enemy outpost ahead."

"Leave it to me!"

Kamui's space expanded, swallowing all three of them.

---

Atop the high walls of the Iwa outpost, a hundred miles away, Black Zetsu slowly released his hand seal.

"The chakra reaction has vanished."

Hearing this, Han withdrew from his tailed beast transformation, returning to his original towering, muscular human form. He turned to Ōnoki, who was floating nearby in midair, and asked, "What now, Tsuchikage-sama?"

Without hesitation, Ōnoki gave a series of firm commands to the surrounding Iwa ninjas. "Activate the wide-area sensory formation inside the base. Pay special attention to the area where Jiraiya is being held. Raise the barrier around the outer perimeter and initiate Level One wartime alert status."

"Yes!"

Black Zetsu gave a grim smile.

"Judging from that earlier disturbance, the Leaf's Gale is definitely among the enemy. Are you so certain he's already infiltrated the base?"

Ryouma could use space-time ninjutsu. What if, after all the trouble Iwa went through to lock things down, he had never entered at all and was already long gone?

Ōnoki glanced sideways at the half-black, eerie figure, but for the sake of their collaboration, offered a bit of explanation. "It seems that you don't understand how ninjas think."

"Oh?" Black Zetsu sounded intrigued. "Please, enlighten me."

"It's a kind of unspoken understanding among ninjas. Konoha surely knows by now that Jiraiya is nothing but bait, and the point of bait is to lure prey. If the prey doesn't bite, then the bait, having lost its scent…"

Ōnoki didn't finish the sentence, but everyone present understood what would happen to bait that no longer served a purpose.

"I see… So you're forcing Konoha to make a choice: either abandon Jiraiya's life and retreat to prepare for a flawless counterattack, or seize the moment and go all-in for a final gamble."

Black Zetsu found humans endlessly fascinating. The ways they schemed against their own kind never ceased to amaze him.

Still, this saved him the trouble of acting himself.

---

As Ōnoki's orders spread, the entire outpost began to operate like a well-oiled war machine. Dozens of massive sensory formations, pre-embedded deep underground, were activated. Invisible waves of detection swept over the entire facility.

These weren't the same imprecise wide-range sensory techniques from earlier. They could automatically identify intruders by chakra intensity, even detect how many enemies there were.

At the same time, Iwa's Barrier Division had taken their positions. Teams of five spread out to their assigned posts. Years of working together in coordinated battles allowed them to perform their hand seals in perfect unison.

Six dazzling, earthen-yellow beams of light erupted from the ground outside the outpost, surging skyward with overwhelming force as if the earth itself had roared to life. From each point of contact between beams, waves of churning earth chakra exploded forth. In the blink of an eye, a massive hexagonal barrier was formed.

Combat units inside the outpost were also deployed in full force, conducting a sweeping search of every corner, not even a single toad would escape detection.

---

Note: Maybe you're interested in another Minecraft story?

One Piece: A Minecraft Player?

---

30 advance chapters!

[email protected]/Malphegor

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I need your help with some suggestions for a story I'm currently writing. My problem is, I don't know if the players' world should be a normal advanced Earth or something fictional, like Marvel. Below is Chapter 1, it's still in the early phase. I'll delete the chapter below after getting some ideas.

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Some warnings first:

This idea has been plaguing me for a while, though I don't know how long I'll have the motivation to work on it. Suggestions are welcome, I've only planned a few chapters so far.

Premise: A Nara ninja "summons" players, similar to MoP, but set in the Naruto world. It takes place in Rōran.

The MC is quite flawed and will grow stronger by using the players.

The novel is called Shadow Leveling.

No system.

AU.

##########

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The cave smelled like shit and copper pennies.

That was Shikaki's first coherent thought in what felt like days, though time had become a bit negotiable since that explosive tag turned his left side into ground meat. The shit smell was probably from when his bowels gave up sometime during the first night. The copper was definitely blood... his, his teammates', the Iwa ninjas', all mixing into a horrible cocktail that had attracted flies.

If there were a cocktail named after this, it'd be the Bloddy Shinobi, two parts blood, one part shit, served warm with flies.

So many fucking flies.

He tried to move his head and immediately regretted it. Pain shot through his neck like someone was hammering senbon into his spine. His left eye wouldn't open at all, crusted shut with blood and god knows what else. The right eye managed a crack, just enough to see the dim cave entrance about ten meters away.

Ten meters.

Might as well be ten kilometers.

"Still breathing, huh?" he croaked to nobody, his voice sounding like he'd been gargling gravel. "That's... unfortunate."

A bitter laugh tried to escape but turned into a wet cough that brought up something chunky. Blood, probably. Or maybe a piece of lung. Did lungs come up in pieces? He should've paid more attention during the field medic course instead of sleeping through it.

Twenty years.

Twenty fucking years in this world of child soldiers and war, and this was how it ended. In a cave, covered in shit and blood, forgotten before he was even dead.

The memories of his life, this life, started flooding back. Maybe that's what happened when you died. Your brain desperately trying to find meaning in the meaninglessness.

----------

He'd been five when he first realized something was wrong with this picture. Sitting in the Nara compound, watching his cousins play ninja, and thinking "children shouldn't be learning how to kill." The thought had come from nowhere and everywhere, like an echo of something he couldn't quite remember.

By six, he was in the Academy, learning to throw kunai at human-shaped targets. The instructor praised his accuracy. His mother was proud. His father said he had the Nara gift for strategy. Nobody seemed to notice or care that they were training children to be weapons.

"Why do we have to fight?" he'd asked his father once.

"It's troublesome," his father had replied. "But it's our duty to the village."

Duty. That word had followed him through the Academy, through genin team assignments, through his first kill at twelve, a missing-nin who'd been stealing food from civilians. The man had begged at the end. Shikaki's shadow holding him still while his teammate slit the throat.

Clean.

Efficient.

Troublesome.

He'd tried, for a while, to be what they wanted. Trained his body until he threw up, attempting to match the taijutsu specialists. Lasted exactly three weeks before his muscles gave out and he spent a month in the hospital with severe chakra exhaustion and torn ligaments. The medic-nin had been blunt: "Your body isn't built for that kind of training. You're trying to be the Third Raikage without his physiology."

So he'd pivoted. If he couldn't be strong, he'd be smart. Started collecting jutsu scrolls like other kids collected trading cards. Earth, water, fire, wind, lightning, learned the basics of everything. C-rank techniques mostly, nothing flashy.

Jack of all trades, master of none.

Except shadows. Shadows, he understood.

The Nara techniques came naturally, but he'd pushed further. Spent hours experimenting with shadow manipulation, finding new applications. Could make his shadow three-dimensional for a few seconds. Could use it to "feel" textures and temperatures. Small improvements that nobody noticed because why would they? He was just another Nara, doing Nara things.

The real revelation had been fūinjutsu. Started learning at fifteen, after watching his captain demonstrate a storage seal. The complexity had appealed to him, all puzzle and no brute force. His shadow clone, he could only maintain one, would study while he practiced shadow techniques.

Slow progress, but progress.

Three years of seal work. Three years of headaches and chakra exhaustion and tiny incremental improvements. He'd gotten good enough to modify storage seals, create basic barrier seals, even developed a personal seal that could display his chakra levels like a gauge. Nothing revolutionary. Just another special jonin with average skills and above-average intelligence.

The promotion had been a joke. They'd needed someone who could hold a position and use shadow techniques for battlefield control. Not strong enough to be a real jonin, but too useful to waste as a regular chunin. Special jonin, the participation trophy of ninja ranks.

----------

The memories kept coming as he lay dying, his brain's last desperate attempt to find meaning.

----------

Three days earlier.

Captain Inoka, a normal Yamanaka ninja by Konoha standard, stood at the front of their forty-three man platoon, his scarred face grim as he outlined what everyone already knew was a suicide mission.

"Intel says Iwa's moving a thousand-man force through the valley. Our job is to make them think we're the vanguard of a larger force. Hold for three days while the real army repositions." He didn't say what everyone was thinking: we're bait.

Shikaki stood in the back, studying the terrain map. The valley was a killbox. Steep walls on both sides, one way in, one way out. Perfect for an ambush. Also perfect for getting slaughtered.

"Nara," the captain called out. "You're our forward scout. Shadow possession for captures if they send scouts ahead."

"Hai," Shikaki responded automatically, though his brain was already calculating survival odds. Forty-three versus a thousand. Maybe 0.3% chance if they played it perfect. More likely 0%.

The problem with being a Nara was everyone expected miracles from your brain. Like somehow being smart could make up for shit odds and no chakra reserves. He could make one shadow clone that'd last two hours if he didn't fight. Special jonin, his ass... he was just a chunin who'd survived long enough to get a field promotion.

Chozen, all three hundred pounds of him, clapped Shikaki on the shoulder hard enough to bruise. "Don't look so gloomy. We might get lucky."

"Our luck ran out at birth," Shikaki replied.

The genin, three kids fresh from the academy who shouldn't even be here, were trying to look brave. The one with the glasses kept adjusting them, likely a nervous tic. Another was writing what looked like a last letter home. The third just stared at nothing, already in shock and they hadn't even started fighting yet.

They reached the valley at dawn. Shikaki created a single shadow clone and sent it ahead to scout. The drain was immediate, like someone had opened a valve in his chakra network. He'd have maybe forty minutes before it dispersed.

"I need a vantage point," he told Inoka. "High ground where I can actually see them coming."

"Take position on the east ridge. Hyūga's got the west."

Shikaki climbed. When he reached the ridge, he lay flat and pulled out the stolen binoculars, regular ones, not chakra-enhanced. Those were for real jonin.

Then he waited.

His clone made it thirty-eight minutes before popping. The memories rushed back: Iwa forces, three columns, at least two hundred in the vanguard alone.

"Contact!" he shouted down. "Lead elements entering the valley. Two hundred, maybe two fifty."

"Just the vanguard then," Inoka called back. "All right, first wave positions. Make them think we've got an army up here."

The first exchange was textbook. Kunai and shuriken raining down from prepared positions. Explosive tags in a cascading pattern that made it seem like they had three times their actual numbers. The Iwa ninjas fell back, regrouped, came again.

By noon, the illusion was failing. The enemy was probing, testing, realizing the defensive fire was coming from the same positions. Shikaki watched through his binoculars as the Iwa commander, a scarred woman with acid burns across half her face, drew diagrams in the dirt.

"They've figured us out," he told Inoka after sliding down from his perch. "She's planning a pincer movement. Send climbers up the cliff faces while the main force pushes through."

"How do you know?"

"Because it's what I'd do. We've been firing from the same eight positions for hours. She's not stupid."

"Shit." The captain wiped blood from a graze on his cheek. "How long?"

"Twenty minutes, maybe thirty."

---

It was eighteen minutes.

The climbers came up the sides like spiders, earth jutsu making handholds where none existed. The defending Konoha ninjas had to split their attention, and that's when the main force surged forward.

Shikaki caught one climber with his shadow imitation. Made the man jump backward off the cliff. The second one he tried to catch broke free after two seconds; Shikaki didn't have enough chakra left to hold him. A kunai opened a line across his ribs as he dove behind cover.

That's when Inoka's head exploded.

No warning, no dramatic last words. One second he was shouting orders, the next his skull came apart like overripe fruit. Some kind of compression jutsu, air or maybe sound-based. The genin with glasses was standing right next to him, got painted red and brown and gray. Kid just stood there, touching his face, trying to understand why it was wet.

An earth spear took him through the stomach before he figured it out.

"FORMATION'S BROKEN!" Chozen roared, his body expanding with his clan's technique. "FALL BACK TO—"

The sentence never finished. Earth spears erupted from the ground like a forest of death, turning him into a massive pincushion. His expansion jutsu made him a bigger target, more places to hurt. He deflated slowly, like a punctured balloon, blood pouring from fifty wounds.

The second genin, the letter writer, tried to run. Caught a kunai in the spine, fell forward, tried crawling with just his arms. An Iwa ninja stepped on his back, pushed the kunai deeper until it came out through his chest. The kid spent thirty seconds dying, calling for his mother in increasingly wet gasps.

Shikaki's position was overrun. He was down to taijutsu and kunai, his chakra nearly spent. An Iwa ninja came at him with a tantō. Shikaki deflected with a kunai, but the force drove him backward. The second strike opened his shoulder to the bone. The third would have taken his head if he hadn't done something that would haunt him forever.

He grabbed the dying genin, the letter writer, still gasping, and pulled him up as a shield.

The tantō went through the kid's chest, got stuck in bone. The Iwa ninja's eyes widened in surprise, giving Shikaki just enough time to drive a kunai up under his jaw into his brain. Both bodies fell together, the genin's last breath a wet rattle against Shikaki's ear.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to the corpse, but sorry didn't mean shit to the dead.

Another Iwa ninja came at him. Shikaki had just enough chakra left for one technique. He used it on himself, forcing his own shadow to pull him down flat just as a sword swept where his neck had been.

The momentum made it look like he'd been hit. He went limp, fell into the growing pile of corpses, suppressed his chakra to civilian levels. The Iwa ninja stabbed down once to make sure, the blade went through his already-injured shoulder, grinding against bone. It was painful, but he kept himself limp, let his eyes go vacant, released his bladder for authenticity.

Playing dead while your comrades died around you wasn't exactly Konoha standard, but then again, neither was surviving.

The third genin lasted longer than expected. Kid went absolutely feral when he realized he was going to die, biting an enemy's throat out before they cut him apart. Took six of them to bring him down. Shikaki watched through slitted eyes as they literally pulled the kid into pieces, his screams going on way too long.

By nightfall of the first day, he was the only one left alive, buried under two corpses and pretending to be a third. The Iwa forces set up camp in the valley, using the Konoha corpses as latrine markers. Someone pissed on the pile Shikaki was under. Warm liquid soaked through his vest, and he had to bite through his own tongue to keep from moving.

Three days. He played dead for three fucking days.

The Iwa ninjas looted the bodies on day two. Someone pulled the corpse off him, rifled through his pockets. Took his kunai, his ration bars, missed the things in his inner pocket. When they rolled him over to check for hidden pouches, shit and piss soaked and covered in other people's blood. The looter muttered something about "fucking tree huggers" and moved on.

By day three, the flies had found them. They crawled across his face, into his nose, his ears. Laid eggs in the wounds. He felt maggots starting to move in the shoulder wound and had to not react.

The main Iwa force moved through on the evening of day three. A thousand ninjas marching through the valley, stepping on corpses, laughing about how easy it had been. Shikaki counted them through the sound of their footsteps. Nine hundred eighty-six. The intelligence had been close.

He waited another six hours after the last one passed before moving. Even then, it was almost too late. His muscles had locked up, wounds had started to fester. The shoulder wound was definitely infected, probably gangrenous. When he tried to stand, his legs gave out immediately.

So he crawled.

Away from the killing field...

Away from the dead kids who'd called for their mothers...

Away from Chozen's deflated corpse and Inoka's headless body....

Away from the genin he'd used as a human shield, whose letter home would never be sent.

Found an animal trail leading to a cave. Dragged himself inside to die properly, alone, where nobody would piss on his corpse or use it as a territorial marker.

Except he'd been dying for three days now and his body apparently hadn't gotten the memo.

----------

"Troublesome," Shikaki muttered, the Nara clan's favorite. "Can't even die properly."

His hand, the right one, the left was definitely broken in at least four places, fumbled at his vest pocket. Two ration bars that had been soaked in someone else's blood.

The smart move would be saving them, trying to heal enough to make it back to the border. Report the mission's failure. Watch them carve forty-three names into the memorial stone. Get another suicide mission because that's what special jonin were for, cannon fodder with slightly better jutsu.

"Special jonin," he said, laughing until it hurt too much to continue. "Congratulations, Shikaki, you're now qualified to die for your village with a fancier title."

The laughter turned into crying, which was even more pathetic than dying in a cave. But fuck it, nobody was here to see. His parents were already dead, letter had arrived the day before deployment. Training accident, they said. His father trying to save civilians from a misaimed jutsu during a public demonstration. His mother attempting to help and catching the backlash.

Dead heroes. Just like their son would be, eventually.

If he could actually manage to die.

Something glinted deeper in the cave. Not sunlight, it was already dark outside, had been for hours.

He stared at it with his one good eye.

Could be a trap.

Could be some kind of poisonous gas that would finally finish the job.

Could be his brain shutting down and showing him pretty lights before the end.

"Fuck it," he decided.

Moving was agony. Every inch forward required dragging himself with his one functional arm, legs refusing to cooperate beyond weak pushes. The blood trail he was leaving would've made him easy to track if anyone gave a shit about one more dead Konoha ninja.

The light grew stronger as he went deeper. The cave expanded into a proper chamber, and that's when he saw it, seal work covering the walls. The symbols hurt to look at, like they were written in dimensions his brain couldn't quite process.

"Uzumaki?" he guessed, recognizing maybe one character in twenty. The Uzumaki clan had been seal masters before they got wiped out. This looked like their work had a baby with something older and meaner.

The light source was in the center, a pool of something that definitely wasn't water. It glowed with that blueish. The seals all pointed toward it like it was something important.

Or dangerous.

Probably both.

Shikaki dragged himself to the edge and looked down. His reflection stared back, and Jesus Christ he looked bad. The left side of his face was hamburger. His vest was more red than green. Something white was poking through a tear in his shoulder that was probably bone.

"Well," he said to his fucked-up reflection, "I wanted to die anyway."

He tried to form hand seals for a diagnostic jutsu, maybe figure out what this thing was. His broken fingers didn't cooperate, resulting in something between Bird and Dog. But somehow, the malformed seal activated something in the array.

The pool erupted.

The blue light became solid, wrapping around him like liquid chakra. It burned and froze simultaneously, flooding into every wound. He screamed, or tried to, but the energy was already forcing its way down his throat.

And this was his first deepthroat. He hoped it would be his last.

Too much too much too much...

His chakra pathway, already damaged from overuse during the battle, couldn't handle the influx. They burst like overfilled water balloons, the foreign energy immediately rebuilding them wider. The pain transcended physical sensation into something almost philosophical.

It was damn painful!

This is what dying should feel like, some part of his brain noted. The rest of him was too busy being unmade and remade to care.

The cave disappeared. Reality became a tunnel of light and sensation, pulling him down, down, down... Then nothing.

Then...

"—ound him here, Sāra-sama. Still breathing but barely."

"Bring him to the medical chambers. Carefully, look at these injuries."

Shikaki tried to open his eyes. Both of them worked this time, which was probably not how anatomy worked but whatever. He was lying on something soft. An actual bed with actual sheets that didn't smell like blood and shit.

A woman leaned over him. Young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with red hair and concerned eyes. She wore elaborate robes that marked her as someone important, and the way the other person deferred to her confirmed it.

"You're awake," she said. "That's... that's good. We weren't sure you would survive. What's your name?"

His throat felt like sandpaper that had been set on fire. The girl gestured and someone brought water. Cool, clean water that tasted better than anything he'd remembered.

"Shika," he managed, cutting off his clan name. "I'm... a merchant. Traveling merchant."

"A merchant," the girl repeated, and he could hear the doubt. "The healers said you had terrible burns, like you'd been too close to an explosion. And your wounds..."

She trailed off, clearly disturbed by what she'd seen. Probably wasn't used to seeing what ninjas did to each other. Civilian ruler of a civilian city.

"Bandits," he croaked. "They had explosives. Mining equipment they'd stolen, maybe. Got lucky. They were amateurs with it."

"Bandits with explosives?" She looked to her guard, who shrugged. It wasn't impossible, the war had scattered enough dangerous shit across the countryside that anyone could get their hands on something nasty.

"You were found near the Ryūmyaku," she said carefully. "That's... unusual. The passages to that chamber have been sealed for generations. How did you get there?"

Ryūmyaku.

Shikaki's brain, even half-fried from whatever the fuck had happened, started putting pieces together. The Ryūmyaku was in Rōran, a city-state in the Land of Wind. Isolationist to the extreme, protected by some kind of power that made the desert around it bloom.

"I don't know," he said, which was technically true. "I was dying. Crawled into a cave to get away from the sandstorm. There was this blue light, and I followed it. Thought I was hallucinating. Then I woke up here."

Sāra bit her lip, looking far too young to be ruling anything. "The Ryūmyaku is supposed to be dormant. My mother sealed them before she died."

"Maybe they're not as sealed as you thought," Shikaki suggested weakly.

She looked troubled by that but didn't pursue it. "What about your family? Is there someone we should send word to?"

"No one," he said flatly. "They're dead. Plague hit our village two months ago." The dead was dead, whether from plague or a training accident.

"I'm sorry," she said, and meant it. This girl wore her heart on her face like an open book. No ninja training. Just a teenager trying to rule a city.

"I'm Sāra," she said finally. "Queen of Rōran, though that probably doesn't mean much to an outsider. You're under my protection while you heal. The healers say you'll need at least a month before you can walk properly."

"I can't pay—"

"I'm not asking for payment," she interrupted, looking almost offended. "You appeared in our most sacred place, half-dead. Either the Ryūmyaku brought you here for a reason, or it's the strangest coincidence I've ever heard. Either way, I'm not throwing an injured man into the desert."

She stood, robes trailing like water. "Rest. Heal. When you're better, perhaps you can tell me about the world outside. We don't get many visitors here."

The guard gave him one last look before following her out. That one had some training. Not ninja level, but something. He'd have to be careful around that one.

Shikaki stared at the ceiling, carved stone depicting dragons or serpents or something in between. He was alive, somehow. In a place ruled by a girl who didn't know enough about chakra to realize a "merchant" shouldn't have chakra burns. Where nobody knew him, nobody expected anything from him, and most importantly, nobody would come looking for him.

The Konoha records would list him as MIA, presumed dead. Another name on the stone.

His shoulder throbbed where the sword had gone through. The Ryūmyaku had kept him alive but hadn't fixed everything. He'd have scars. Reminders of the day he'd used a dying kid as a shield and played dead while his comrades were butchered.

Some ninja he'd turned out to be.

"Troublesome."