Naruto: Summoning System

The mist lingering on the 10Th floor of the Orario dungeon made the place look ethereal, like some sort of dream. The white grasslands and trees further enforced that dream-like vision. Yet, it wasn't the type of dream that a human being would want to experience. It was the kind that would bring the worst of misery, the kind where the monsters would crawl from the ground and bit off your leg.

And, right now, one of those monsters was not a monster at all, but a man in agony. His name was Blake and he was on the brink of passing out. If only his determination were to be lost against the enticing grassland, which looked so comfortable, he would already be dead. However, he wasn't, but he was struggling, that was for sure.

The pain around his injuries was extreme, forcing him to lose the sensation of his own body. It was so numb that Blake had to look down to remember that he was a functioning being. Despite his weakness, Blake's mind was more active than ever before.

As he was laying against the tree, Blake's dark, nasty eyes were scanning the surroundings. His chakra was slowly being consumed by the transformation jutsu, yet he hadn't seen Ais or anyone yet, but he knew they would come. Bete was surely using all of his senses to find the bastard who shot him in the leg.

Thus, Blake waited. His body growing apart from his senses, his mind growing weak and his chakra depleting slowly. The grasslands continued to move, forced by some invisible wind, when Blake spotted an Imp slowly walking up to him. The Imp was looking at Blake's transformed body, scratching its head with its finger.

Blake stared at it, not in the mood to even move an inch. He was so tired and he didn't feel like wasting his energy on this annoying creature. Therefore Blake did the only sensible thing. He raised his hand into the air and then slowly pulled down all of his fingers except the middle one.

The Imp spotted the gesture, but Blake followed up on making a fist. The Imp scratched its head, stared at the hand, understanding the gesture. Then the Imp simply shrugged and walked away, letting Blake continue to scan the field in peace.

-

"Something is wrong." Bete stopped abruptly, grunting as his injured foot came to a halt. He removed his hand from Tione's shoulder, sniffing the air with narrowed expression. "I can sense that bastard everywhere."

"You can sense him everywhere?" Finn put a finger to his chin, scrutinizing the white grassland in concentration. He glanced at Ais, whose expression didn't betray any emotions. "He must have understood how we were trying to find him. I think he might have spread his scent all over this floor in order to confuse us."

"That's pretty smart, and he isn't that weak either, considering that he managed to run away from Ais." Tione mumbled, bored, shotting a glance at Ais, who, even then, didn't bat an eye. "If he wasn't a murdered, he would have been a great adventurer."

Riveria listened to Tione's words, nodding. "However, his strength is mysterious. I have never seen skills like that, he must have quite a powerful backing."

The group pondered upon the background of the mysterious man, as they began to walk further into the 10th floor, constantly looking around. Bete kept grunting and sniffing, whilst Ais walked in the front, defending them from any of approaching monsters. Once Orcs showed up, the two Tione sisters aided her.

"Look!" Riveria said, walking up to one of the trees and picking up a crimson bandage from the ground. She brought it back to the group, letting them take a good look. "It seems that these bondages are spread out around the entire perimeter of the floor. It is a bit troubling."

Finn nodded. "The 10th floor is big , we don't have that much time to search the entire floor."

"So, we should just give up?"

Everyone turned to Ais, but she didn't seem like she wanted to continue.

Finn sighed. "Let's divide into three teams and search for the man. He must be hiding somewhere, but it wouldn't be that hard to spot a person in midst of all the monsters and the white setting."

"And, unless he has a healing potion, he must be pretty exhausted from all those injuries. Once you spot him, it shouldn't be difficult to defeat him, but be aware of his strange explosives."

Finn looked around. "Now, Tione sisters, you are going to stay with Bete and slowly walk around the perimeter. You should be able to take care of the monsters on this floor pretty easily, but don't overtax yourself. Bete, you aren't in fighting condition, so just focus on sensing anything peculiar in the air."

He turned to Ais. "Ais, you are going with me. Riveria can manage alone. We gather in this spot in 30 minutes and asses what to do next if we don't find him."

Everyone nodded and turned into action, no questions asked. This was how the Loki familiar operated, with Finn being the brains, for he was the one who always delivered the best result, along with being one of the strongest.

However, they found no trace of the man. They discovered a bunch of new bandages laying in random spots, some of them even picked up by the monsters, but the blonde hair man was nowhere to be seen. Riveria raised her hand, aimed at the pile of bandages on the ground and burned it into ash.

"Bete, now that there is less of his scent, can you locate him?"

Bete shook his head, grunting in both fury and pain. "His scent still lingers, and we have definitely not found all of the sources. In some places, the smell is stronger, but not by much."

Finn breathed out in mild irritation, which he didn't show on his expression. "Well, we can try searching for him in the places where the smell is stronger, but it seems like it is going to take a lot of time."

Riveria added. "The longer we linger here, the more monsters will congregate around us. Damn it."

Yet, as the hope got dim, Bete suddenly smiled. "I can sense something."

Everyone turned to him.

"There is one distinctive trail of smell going to the 11th floor. The man…he fooled us." Bete was irritated, to say the least. "The bastard must have spread his foul smell around this floor to make us waste our time, whilst he slowly descends further into the dungeon. Come on, let's go!"

"Wait." Finn stopped him, raising a hand, thinking. His eyes scanned the area."Let's just consider ourselves in his position for a second. He is injured, tired and probably on the brink of passing out. If I was him, going deeper into the dungeon wouldn't be my objective, as it would be much more dangerous than above. He might have some tricks up his sleeve, yet would it be enough to survive in the deeper floors?"

"That's a good point." Tione nodded. "However, why did he kill those guys in the first place? He didn't even take their gear or anything. Was it a brawl between teammates or did he just kill them in cold blood?"

"What are you implying?" Her sister asked.

"The man was definitely not stupid, tricking us so well. He has some sort of objective, which has something to do with murder, and we know that he must have backing as well. Maybe he is going deeper into the dungeon to meet up with some allies, whilst we wait here in doubt and give him time to do that?"

Everyone stared at Tione for a while. It was rare that she said something that actually made sense. Finn pondered on her words, tapping his foot on the ground. Riveria was looking at Finn, whilst Ais kept scanning the surroundings. Bete's face was a snarl.

"He might be aiming for the Sanctuary." Finn concluded, scanning the surroundings. "Wasting time on this floor and searching for him will take a lot of time. I might be wrong, but I say that we follow the scent going deeper into the dungeon. If the trail vanishes at some point, then we rush back into the 10th floor."

Everyone nodded, as Bete pointed which way to go. They promptly began walking, whilst Ais kept looking around, when her eyes suddenly came to a halt. An Imp lay behind one of trees, his face even more scrawny than that of the normal ones. Ais made eye contact with the creature, its eyes dark. The creature immediately rolled behind the tree, hiding.

Ais took out her sword, beginning to walk forward, when Riveria put a hand on her shoulder. "Ais, let's not waste our energy on these monster. One Imp means that there are a few more hiding around in ambush. We are on tight schedule. Let the adventurers appropriate to this level deal with them."

Ais considered the words, still staring at the white tree, before she nodded and put away her blade. She began to stroll away from the Imp, following her team as they made their way deeper into the dungeon. On the other hand, the Imp behind the tree was clutching his heart, sweating rapidly, until finally breathing a sigh of relief.

Blake waited for a few minutes before stopping the transformation jutsu, releasing a puff of smoke and revealing his true being. The injuries all over his body opened up again and his chakra reserves were empty. Blake's face was pale, featuring dark eyebags and red eyes. Nothing was left in his stamina and even raising to his feet required extreme effort. Yet, he was alive, and he needed to kill two more people. Fast.

He couldn't just make his way back into the city, as they probably raised the security and he would be invited for a questioning. He needed to kill two people. Just two. Blake frowned, for the regret about killing people disappeared completely, and simply turned into number.

Two for one.

Taking a sip from his water bottle, Blake strapped it to his back and grabbed the gun from the ground. It was still sturdy and hadn't begun melting. He had a dagger, ice gun, poison bombs and a drained body. Killing someone in this state would be hard, yet at this point, Blake was willing to give anything.

Slowly and carefully, Blake made his way across the expanse, careful not to attract any creatures. He kept his head low, his body hunched. "I can't feel my arm at all." Blake scowled, trying to move his right hand, which proved futile. There was no sensation in it, and Blake feared that he might not feel it anymore at all, but he kept his thoughts at bay.

He focused on the mission instead.

It seemed that his high luck stat had played its role for once. Despite walking extremely slowly, Blake encountered only a few Imps and one Orc, from which Blake simply hid by laying low on the ground and waiting until they passed. It proved quite effective, considering that he basically blended with the white grass with his white hair, bandages and bare skin.

Blake continued to walk, until finally reaching the 9th floor, and that's where his luck disappeared.

"Fuck me."

In front of him stood five abnormally huge ants, staring at him with the same stupiditidy as in Blake's gaze. Before they could do anything, Blake raised the gun with his left hand, beginning to fire shots. Now that the gun was actually accurate, Blake killed three ants whilst they were advancing at him. The other two were too close already, one of the jumping on top of Blake, trying to stab him in his face.

Blake released the gun from his hand, reaching towards his belt and grabbing his dagger. He used it to stab the ant in the bondmen numerous times, as it pressed him to his knees, releasing its green fluids on top of him. And, then, it vanished, dead. The crystal fell onto his head, as Blake promptly threw the dagger towards the remaining ant that was trying to jump him.

It penetrated it from the side, stopping it advance. Blake grabbed the gun at that moment, raised towards the ant, its eyes blazing with death. "Eat this, you freaking steroidal ant."

He pulled the trigger, causing an explosion. Together with the explosion, the ant disappeared, releasing some gas that lingered in the air. Blake knew that as soon as they died, more would come, so he pushed on his legs and tried to stand up. Yet, he couldn't.

"Curse this." Blake punched himself in the leg twice and then stood up promptly, grabbing two more monster crystal from the ground, along with his dagger. Breathing heavily, vision blurring, Blake stumbled further into the floor, sometimes losing his footing and hitting the wall.

His vision blurred, headache overwhelmed him, yet he kept going. The blurriness continued, with darkness spreading from the corners of his vision. Blake kept hitting himself in the head to make the darkness disappear, yet it kept engulfing his sight. It was so bad that Blake had to stop in his tracks, not able to see anything.

At that moment, Blake felt something push him hard against the wall. His breath left his lungs, vision reappearing for an instant to portray an ant on top of him. Blake aimed the gun, shooting multiple times, killing the ant. Yet, now, Blake was on the ground, unable to move. No matter how hard did he try, he couldn't raise his body. For a single moment, Blake closed his eyes, and that was mistake, for he didn't open them again.