Chapter 53

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Chapter 53

Summoning was kind of weird.

Why, one may wonder. The answer is, because the summoner more often than not doesn't know who they'll summon. One could try to call for one specific individual, but it wasn't a guaranteed thing that the one they wanted would appear.

The Jutsu was, in my opinion, kind of like asking for delivery but much quicker. Once cast, the contracted individuals that could be summoned with that amount of chakra got the 'message' and they could choose if someone answered or not. When Kumohoshi explained that to me I was very confused as to how they could decide in the split second it took for the Jutsu to work its magic, but she said that for most of them, it was kind of an instinctual thing.

Why this explanation? Because I was currently standing in the Forest of Death once more, a week after my Genjutsu testing with Shirakumo, getting ready to try and summon someone to continue with that after having, hopefully, corrected all the mistakes and re-worked the techniques. Kumohoshi had assured me just the day before that she would have someone ready for me to use as a test subject and I just had to go for what the System had dubbed as an 'Advanced Spider'.

I didn't know where the name came from, but I had unlocked a bunch of them during my testing of the technique prior to my full-time delving into Genjutsu Creation. The so-called Advanced Spiders were the step behind the Giant Spiders, which were as big as Kumohoshi, if not nearly as strong, obviously.

Advanced Spiders were, however, fearsome warriors on par with those of bigger size. Many of them trained under the likes of Kumoken and Kumoyoroi, with either blades on their limbs (that I still didn't know where they came from) or armor over their whole bodies. What they lacked in height and such, they more than made up for with skill.

"Eiji?" Shirakumo broke me from my musings, making me roll my eyes up as if trying to see the white spider currently sitting on top of my head. "Are you still spacing out?" She asked, sounding positively unimpressed.

"Kind of," I admitted with a shrug, earning myself a huff and a pull on my hair. "So, any idea of who will appear?"

"Mother didn't tell me," She replied casually, almost making me trip on air even though I hadn't even been walking. 'Mother? She is Kumohoshi's daughter?...' I shook my head, clearing those thoughts from my mind.

"Well, let's find out then," I decided.

"About time, I was starting to wonder what I had even come for if you would just stand there," The little spider shot at me and I almost laughed.

"Because you like coming to visit, admit it," I teased. I couldn't help but chuckle as Shirakumo started sputtering denials. "For now..." I focused, running through the hand seals for Summoning once more, this time pouring much more chakra in it than I needed for Shirakumo.

In a cloud of smoke, a spider the size of a not-so-small room appeared in front of me, light brown with black beady eyes and blades on its front legs. Its remaining legs had spearhead-like ends that made every limb look like a weapon. The arachnid then seemed to twist its body from side to side, as if getting a feeling of its body after appearing in a different place. That wasn't my focus though…

"Aren't you the one I battled when I got the contract?" I asked as a way of greeting, tilting my head to the side. I looked over the spider's body and tried to decide if my memory was right or not.

"I am, indeed," A male voice replied as the spider warrior gave me their equivalent of a nod, moving his body up and down while leaning it forward. "Kumogari, in case you didn't remember, Eiji Satou."

"Wow, way to make me feel bad about forgetting your name, buddy," I replied wryly.

"Hmph, our summoner is a fool, Kumogari," Shirakumo huffed from on top of me, making me give the bigger spider a half-grin that I was almost sure he returned, at least in sentiment.

"He sure is, Princess Shirakumo," The now named Kumogari agreed, although it sounded more like he was indulging a child than anything else. 'Princess, huh?' I mused. 'Na, Shira-chan sounds cuter.'

"Well," Anko interrupted the chat with a sharp clap. "Time to get to the testing, yeah?" She pointed out and I nodded. I wanted to be done with this as much as she did, maybe more. That wasn't to say that my sensei had it easy. With each day that passed, she looked worse and worse. One would think that she was the one working non-stop.

This made me wonder what she was going through as of late. Was she being pressured instead of me for this mission? Which is more, was Danzo pressuring her? Because I knew that, at the very least, she knew about him, which wouldn't make it a stretch to say that she might have to deal with him too.

'The quickest way to help is to be done with this,' I told myself and it was true, as far as I knew.

"So, you ready, buddy?" I asked Kumogari, focusing on the task at hand. My hands opened my notebook as I gave a last read through the first prototype to test this time. I had all of them pretty much memorized to the letter at that point, but the last thing I wanted was to mix them up in a dumb mistake.

"I am, contractor," The spider replied and I rolled my eyes. 'Every single one of them, I swear,' I thought tiredly.

"Call me Eiji, please," I told him as I closed the notebook and set it on the ground. "Here we go, buddy," I warned, and he took it as it was, apparently. His body stiffened, legs straightening and leaning down, as if he was about to receive a hit. Evidently, the spiders had taken Shirakumo's word for it. It was nice to see the Void getting the respect it deserved, if only a bit.

Once the first prototype was cast, I counted down a couple of seconds, paying careful attention to Kumogari's reaction. The large arachnid twitched here and there, once even twisting his whole body to the side. Eventually, I dispelled the technique from him.

"A most unsettling technique you have there, contractor," He praised. My eyebrow twitched at the title. 'A stubborn one, I see,' I realized wryly. "I could, however, still smell things, which isn't the intended effect, I was led to believe."

"No, it isn't," I confirmed with a long sigh before I started my questioning about everything that he had experienced during those seconds. Picking the notebook once more, I started taking notes. Unfortunately, this time there weren't many prototypes to be scratched, mainly because the list was short after the first round of testing.

"If I may, contractor," Kumogari started, and I withhold the need to smack him and tell him, once more, to call me Eiji. 'Is this why everyone was telling me to call them by their names? It feels really weird to be called titles of any kind,' I thought to myself with a grimace. "Wouldn't the Genjutsu simply be dispelled? It is, after all, quite obvious."

"I know that," I nodded, my eyes still focused on the pages in front of them. "But I have a theory to work around that. I also will make it as hard to notice as possible so it'll take longer to dispel."

"I'll leave it to you, then. I'm not, after all, very knowledgeable in Genjutsu," Kumogari admitted easily and I suddenly turned to him.

"Is there a branch of the Spider Clan that uses Genjutsu?" I asked, my eyes narrowing. 'Why wouldn't Kumohoshi mention that though?' My mind questioned. However, the Boss Spider had already made it pretty clear that the Clan wouldn't just bend over backwards for whatever I needed. So, maybe it was-

"There aren't. Or, at least, as far as I am aware. There might be an estranged branch of the clan that does," The spider replied calmly.

"Well, that's a pity," I said, hiding my disappointment. "Now, onto the next one, if that's ok with you?" I added in the end. After all, I knew how the Void could affect people.

"I'm ready, contractor."

And like that, I went through the shorter list, only having to cast five prototypes before all others were scratched out. All of them failed in this or that sense, but I had narrowed it down already. With this session, I was pretty sure that I could get the real deal done in a few days. 'Hell, I could even start working on making only one,' I thought, looking over the notes I had taken.

"Brat, I'm liking that grin," Anko pointed out and I felt Shirakumo start climbing down to my shoulder, probably to take a look at my face. "Tell me everything," My sensei all but demanded.

"I think I'm almost done, at least with this part. I just need to work on one version, work on details and then the second part of it," I said, licking my lower lip as a smile threatened to split my face in two. "Almost done," I repeated, taking a pencil and starting to scribble down on a blank page.

"Brilliant, but scary," Anko muttered, earning an affirmative sound from Shirakumo and Kumogari.

I ignored them.

[}-o-{]

"A month and a week, brat," Anko informed me unnecessarily. It was approaching the time I had guesstimated about how long it would take me to make the Jutsu. I could stretch it a bit, most probably, at most until two months passed. But that might be pushing it a little when I had said around one month.

I looked over my notes on the one Genjutsu that I had made through so much work. Nights working until late. Meals skipped more than once. Sacrificing time to myself. All that resulted in this one technique.

"You ready, Chief?" I asked Kumohoshi, who had insisted on being the one the final testing was done on. Shirakumo had, apparently, told the boss spider that I wouldn't be using the final thing on anyone that wasn't an enemy and the building-sized arachnid had decided that this was her one chance to experience the technique made by her contractor.

I hated it. I absolutely despised how everyone seemed more curious than afraid of the technique I had made. The only one that really had any respect for the thing was Shirakumo and Kumogari, who had felt the effect of the unfinished technique. This was the Void I had emulated here. And even if they only had a vague idea of what it did, it should be enough. Moreover, knowing that it had affected the Shade of Orochimaru as it did, how could they not have at least some healthy respect for it? It was the one thing I could admit that I agreed with the Snake Bastard about.

The Void shouldn't be underestimated.

"I am, Eiji," Kumohoshi nodded imperiously, something that I didn't know how she managed to pull off in the body of a spider, but she did. I nodded back, swallowing, once more, my hesitation to cast the Genjutsu on an ally.

As I finished the series of hand seals, I saw the now familiar reaction in the huge spider. The stiffening was, however, accompanied by trembling this time, something that was very noticeable with the size of the Spider Clan Head. And then…

I felt Shirakume pull on my hair as her mother whimpered. Then, she twitched and just as I was about to dash on top of her to dispel the Genjutsu, she let out an audible sigh in relief, her legs gave out and she fell on the ground, making the earth under my feet tremble slightly. Shakily, the boss spider stood up once again.

"I apologize," I heard Kumohoshi breathe out. "I have, evidently, underestimated and disrespected your technique to the extreme, Eiji."

"Don't worry, Chief," I reassured. Even if her accepting it made me feel somewhat smug, it also left a bitter taste in my mouth. After all, I had made her experience the Void.

"What did you make, Eiji?" Anko asked next to me and I turned to see her looking between me and the boss spider. 'So, now you believe it's a serious thing, huh?' I thought to myself. I could understand though. Something that could get that kind of reaction from someone like Kumohoshi was something to be taken as seriously as possible.

"A mortal reminder," I answered her, smiling grimly as the System screens appeared in front of me.

[New Skill Acquired: Yin Release: Mortal Reminder Lvl 1]

[Quest Complete: Create a functional Genjutsu.

Reward:

+ Stage of Chakra Control]

I let a grin take over my expression as I read over the Quest. 'Almost there,' I thought, cracking my neck and turning to my notebook once more. I still needed to work on it. One last thing to add to the technique to take it to a completely new level. It would be another Jutsu altogether.

But first...

[Yin Release: Mortal Reminder – Lvl 1

A-rank technique with which the user negates all the senses of their target.

Hand Seals – 20

Consumption – 95 Chakra Points.

+Creator Bonus:

? ?.]

'What the hell is that?' I thought, very disturbed by the 'Creator Bonus' if it could even be called that. It was the very first time that the System was corrupted in any way. The first time I couldn't even read something on the screens. I had, however, a very solid idea of what was hidden behind that unreadable piece of text. The Jutsu had, after all, been based on something very particular. 'And that's all I need to know, honestly,' I added in my mind.

'Now, about this, I would need to use a bit less chakra for this next part or it'll be just plain crazy,' I thought, looking over the details in the notebook and the calculations that sat next to them. 'And even if I make that work,' I continued, scribbling on the pages as I started cutting corners here and there on the technique's chakra usage. 'I'll probably still need the Mark,' I grimaced at that realization.

[Cursed Seal: First Stage – Lvl 12

Sacrificing their own chakra, the user can access the well of chakra given by the Seal at the cost of their own mind.

Increases the efficacy of jutsu by 60%.

Consumption – 18 Chakra Points every second.]

'I need this maxed… Or that would be the ideal, but if I really get this second Jutsu done in a week, then I don't have enough time… But I can certainly try,' I decided, grunting as I activated the Seal and felt its corrupted chakra feel me.

Turning to my arm, I saw the black lines extending under my short-sleeved shirt. I hadn't been able to see the Mark's design before, what with my long sleeves and bandages. Now that most of my arms were exposed, I could distinguish it pretty well. Slowly, just like the burn that accompanied it, the lines branched out like lightning in the sky. 'Or… what were lightning scars called again?' I mused through the now somewhat dulled pain the thing provoked me.

It was still very annoying but I was not the torture it had been before. Still, it left my body aching like a training session with Maito Gai and the slightest movement made it worse. Which made me be incredibly grateful that I wasn't training physically anymore now that I had to focus on Mortal Reminder and its much more scary counterpart.

"Eiji, are you alright?" Anko asked, and I turned to look at her, meeting concerned brown eyes. I wondered, for a second, how I looked to her. With the Cursed Seal's markings all over my body, probably grunting and groaning through the pain and sweating bullets, all the while still with a notebook in my hands and working. "We can take a break, you know?"

"I really can't," I replied, shaking my head. "Not now that I'm so close. And I'm sure I'll need the Mark to cast it, so I need to train it while I work on this. I need to have it as under control as I possibly can. I can't fail."

Her expression grew into a pained grimace that I ignored. I understood that she might have felt bad that someone as young as me was doing so much. Had to do so much. However, it was what it was and I couldn't stop doing it just to make her feel better. There were more important things going on now. I would catch a break after the Crush was no longer an issue and there wasn't a threat of World War hanging over my head.

I felt Shirakumo climb on my lap and continue her way up my arm towards my shoulder.

"We chose a commendable contractor," Kumohoshi said, her voice softer than usual. Those words felt like great praise, and I took them as such, a small smile growing on my face as I continued working.

[}-o-{]

[Kabuto Yakushi]

He didn't know how they realized what was up. He just knew that, one moment, he was waiting for Sasuke Uchiha to get checked over for the Mark, maybe even be hospitalized, and the next one he was surrounded by ANBU ninja from all sides. He hadn't even had time to react before he was thrown in a cell.

Still, he could wait. Kabuto was sure that Orochimaru would find a way to free him during the invasion. So, he sat in his cell, refused to talk, and just let time pass by. The problem was that a month passed, and nothing happened. He admitted to himself that maybe it was a bit presumptuous to expect Orochimaru to come and help him. However, he knew that the Snake of the Sannin couldn't risk leaving the secrets in Kabuto's head in the hands of Konoha.

Regardless of all that though, a month was the time that had been given for the Finals of the Chuunin Exams, and a month had passed. Nothing had happened. There was no rescue, there wasn't even a battle, he was sure. After all, the invasion would have been noticed, even from his isolated cell.

Still, Kabuto remained silent. Even through all the tortures that Ibiki Morino could cook up in that scarred head of his. The silver-haired boy had been trained by Danzo and Orochimaru, nothing would make him crack, not even a Yamanaka.

So he found himself in the interrogation room again. This time, there were no tools around him, just the metallic table with two chairs on opposite sides. Were they going to try to talk the secrets out of him? That was just sad, honestly. Had they run out of ideas so they would try to convince him to spill his guts willingly? They were delusional if that was the case.

Onyx eyes moved up as the door in front of him opened. He blinked, surprised, when in came none other than Eiji Satou, his ex-'teammate'. The younger boy looked, in a word, awful. There were bags under his eyes, he looked paler than usual, and his hair was even more of a mess. 'Did they think he was in on it?' Kabuto considered. The other boy had been in his team too. And if Yoroi had been taken too and found to be guilty of anything, then Eiji would have been a suspect too. 'Why is he here though?'

"I'm angry, Kabuto," The other boy said as a way of greeting. He let out a short and sharp chuckle as he sat, red eyes locking on his black ones. "Very angry. Do you have any idea of what I've been through all this time?"

"Sorry?"

"You will be," The scowl that had been there on Eiji's face vanished at those words. In its place, a grin started spreading. "Oh, you will be."

Kabuto felt his shoulders tense in preparation, just like they did before all the interrogations.

"They sent you to make me talk?" He said, despite internally readying himself for anything. Eiji was no normal Genin, he had learned that much after his time with the boy. Would he use Lightning on him? It would be blunt, and ineffective, but it was the only option that he could think of. Maybe poison? That would be laughable. "I don't know if they are desperate or just stupid."

Eiji didn't reply to that. Instead, he just laughed. A weary, low sound that made the hair on Kabuto's neck stand on end and a chill run down his spine. The younger boy leaned back on the metalic chair before snapping forward, his palms hitting the table making a loud sound.

Kabuto didn't even blink at that.

"I know you are not scared," Eiji voiced calmly, and Kabuto allowed a smirk to show on his face. He wasn't wrong there, at least. "You are not… for now. I'm not here to talk to you, Kabuto. I wanted to try but, honestly, I don't care enough to do that."

"Oh, you wound me, Eiji. Remember the good times we spent in the Forest," He said mockingly. He wished he could have seen the Satou's face when he was told that he was a spy.

"Oh shut up," Eiji replied with a roll of his eyes.

"You don't understand how an interrogation is supposed to go, do you? I'm supposed to talk," The silver haired boy pointed out.

"Yeah yeah. But you won't say anything useful unless I make you," He shot back. "As I was saying. I don't care enough to spare you of what I had to prepare during this time. You see, I've been making something very special for you. Just. For. You. Ain't I nice?"

"So, you prepared a new poison or something? I'm an Iryo-nin. It'll do nothing to me." Another laugh escaped Eiji's mouth. This time, it sounded like he had found his comment really funny, which made Kabuto wonder how tired he really was. He sounded a little out of it, after all.

"Poison… that's a good one," The Satou breathed out. "No, no," He shook his index finger at Kabuto, like a parent would a disobedient child. "No, what I made is a Genjutsu, actually."

The older boy, strapped to his metallic chair, stared.

"You kind of gave away your trick there, Eiji," He pointed out, baffled. "Are you trying to bluff?" He added with a frown.

"No, it's actually a Genjutsu," Eiji confirmed, and all of Kabuto's knowledge in people reading told him that he was being 100% truthful.

"I can just dispel it now, you know?" Eiji laughed once again, but where the first one had been tired and the second real laughter, this last one sounded a lot more malicious.

"Dispel it… you should have been a comedian, Kabuto, you really should have," Eiji told him. "It would have saved you from this, at least," He added as he stood up. "See you in a bit, yeah? Hopefully you'll talk then."

"Keep dreaming," Kabuto said, bored of the Satou's attempt at intimidation. The boy clearly had a long way to go. Was Anko trying to train him? Was that what he was now? A training dummy?

His focus was pulled as he saw Eiji gulp and soon lines spread over his pale skin from his shoulder. 'The Cursed Mark,' Kabuto recognized instantly. It was fitting, in a way, that someone that used so much Lightning Release got the markings that resembled that element in particular.

"Ready or not..." The black haired boy warned as he started running through hand seals. It was a long sequence, but that was all that Kabuto could make out before he finished. Then, everything disappeared.

And when he said everything, he meant everything. There was absolutely nothing around him. No objects, no surfaces, no colors. And it wasn't only visually. Kabuto had stopped feeling the chair beneath him. Hell, he had stopped feeling the clothes on him.

'I can't even feel my own body,' He thought, disturbed, just before something else grabbed his attention. 'Am I upside down? Or… I can't tell...'

Suddenly much less amused by the Satou's attempt at threatening, he focused inwardly to catch a feel of his chakra, which thankfully he could still feel. It seemed that there was something Eiji couldn't block from him, at the very least. Easily, he caught every single anomaly inside his chakra network. He would give the younger boy credit though, it took him a few seconds to do so.

However, in the end, it had all been useless. He started dispelling it without further ado. The sooner he escaped whatever… this was, the better.

Except, it turned out that his efforts were the ones that were in vain. Even after correcting every single thing, he could still feel nothing, hear nothing, taste nothing- 'Why can't I?' He thought desperately, willing an arm that he couldn't feel to move, smack something, anything and snap himself out of this Genjutsu.

It was for naught. Nothing changed and nothingness remained.

But not for long.

He started seeing things in the middle of the empty surroundings. However, Kabuto couldn't, for the life of him, describe anything he saw. Whispers reached his ears, despite there being nothing to hear. Unintelligible sounds that he couldn't catch any sort of meaning to.

The moment everything came back was abrupt, but so very welcome.

Kabuto felt his breathing come out ragged, erratic, his heart beating inside him, something he never thought he would miss. He looked down at his hands, specifically the one he had been trying to use. His wrist was bleeding, from what the cuffs had done to him when he, apparently, moved.

Why hadn't the Genjutsu been broken?

"How did you like your first five seconds in a hell of my own making, Kabuto?" Eiji asked and only one thought crossed the spy's mind.

'Five seconds?'

"So, how about it? Will you talk, or do I have to put you back in there?" The younger boy asked.

"What… What was that?" Kabuto whimpered.

"That's a Genjutsu of my own making. I call it Wit's End. So, up for more or will you talk now?"

"I'm… not… talking," Kabuto gritted out with a snarl. Inside, however, he whimpered as he saw the black markings appear once more on the Satou's skin and his hands moving through seals.

After all the monsters Kabuto had met in his life, some of which included Orochimaru, Danzo and Sasori, he thought he would never be scared of anyone again. One gets over that fear of the strong eventually, after so much exposure. That had allowed him to laugh in the face of Ibiki Morino every time he came in to interrogate him. As if he stood a chance.

Eiji Satou, however, wasn't a strong person, not yet at least.

Eiji Satou wasn't a monster either.

No, he realized, Eiji Satou was in a league of his own.

As he stared into those blood red eyes, Kabuto Yakushi knew that what was in front of him was a demon. A creature that had come from the deepest, darkest and most disturbing pit of hell to drag him into it too. And as Eiji did just that, Kabuto tried to scream.

He couldn't hear it though, because there was nothing to hear.

Nothing to see.

Nothing to feel.

There was nothing.

[} Chapter End {]

Hey guys! How's it going?

I apologize if this chapter's quality seems to have gone down. I had to deal with some stuff IRL and I had less time than usual to work on this. Had around half the usual time, actually. Here's hoping that I managed to keep it up to the usual standards.

Finally we are done with the Genjutsu Creation arc, with both Mortal Reminder and Wit's End coming out of it. I hope the wait was worth it for you, guys.

As always, if you can't wait until next week for next chapter, there's up to three new chapters in my Pa tre on:

P a treon . com (slash) AdrianKing

Random Fact: Yes, both techniques' names came from League of Legends items.

Random Question: What would you rather visit, the mountains or the beach?

See you.