A/N - Hello everyone, I'm alive, though that could be debatable at best (haha insert self-deprecating joke here)! Unfortunately, I faced a serious writer's block in the direction I wanted to take in this story, and wrote three pretty long drafts of this chapter, two of which didn't really go anywhere I could work with. (kinda blocked me from writing anything else)
I decided to go to the sealing route a bit earlier than planned, but what can you do with life :P. Anyway, thank you for reading!
Obligatory Disclaimer: I own Naruto! Sike no I don't. My OCs are mine though.
Confinement
-75% CP and HP gains while in this zone.
"You are alone here."
Sealing was such a strange, esoteric practice, yet touched with a sense of beauty you only found in art.
That was what came to mind as my eyes gazed at the faded black lines in wonder. The purpose of said art piece had been twisted into something else entirely over time, but the passion of the sealer was clear in each stroke.
I was somewhat of an art hobbyist in my past life. You just get these feelings from certain paintings, sculptures and such when looked at face value, and things you realise and unravel the deeper you look into the meaning of each stroke of the brush, each indent of the chisel.
If you were wondering what I was doing, then you would see that I was positively drooling over a set of admittedly gorgeous array of black brushstrokes on a pair of wooden cuffs.
And yes, I was currently in captivity at an unknown time and an unknown location. I'd gotten a bit ahead of myself and had gotten caught in a matter of minutes, now held by people who wanted to do all sorts of unsavoury things to me, undoubtedly.
Greed was ever-present, wherever you went, it seemed.
Anyhow, I was left to wait for my apparent verdict in a rather dingy wooden cell that had the bare minimum for a 'short' stay; toilet, hard stone bed, and the company of just your echoing thoughts.
Joy.
Having nothing better to do in the meantime, I idly wondered what system sealing was based on, like if it was an all-powerful computer terminal, an ode written in a god's words, or just puzzle pieces like Lego that you'd mix and match to build the ultimate creation.
Reality bending seals…that would be so cool.
(Every half-decent sealmaster across the Elemental Nations sneezed and rubbed their arms, wondering why they felt like someone had crawled over their grave.)
◀ Sealing check fail 1/100
Worth a shot.
The seal painted onto the cuffs wasn't that complicated, I reckoned, as my eyes raked over each part of the intricately painted array. I decided to call the seal one-tiered, as it only spanned one layer on the 2D plane that was my cuffs. Something like the combination of the Shiki Fūjin (Dead Demon Consuming Seal) and the Gogyō Fūin (Five Elements Seal) that were both once placed over Naruto's seal would be considered two-tiered, even if it was to the detriment of Naruto's chakra control. It still served Orochimaru's purpose after all.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it, I guess.
Beyond that, it had three 'properties' on that one tier, arranged in a triangular formation and connected by mysterious lines that I didn't grasp at all, though it seemed more shape-oriented than anything else. There was one kanji I couldn't for the life of me understand as my kanji knowledge was limited to somewhat of an early highschool student's vocabulary. My pride took a rather big blow as I had spent years of studying Japanese, and not understanding this annoyed me to no end as I pored over the odd symbol.
The other two though, however, were rather easy to understand, being the kanji for 'restrict' or 'bind', and the second one being 'to dispel'.
It took me a good minute more than I'd like to admit, to realise that the mysterious kanji was one that didn't actually exist in Modern Japanese. Rather, it was more a hunch than anything, as I suspected that the symbol meant 'chakra', being the only plausible thing that cuffs would restrict that existed in the Narutoverse.
Oh, fun tip for whoever is learning Japanese; a kanji's meaning can be guessed from the radicals that make it up. *
◀ You have gained +1 INT for your thoughts!
Paranoid, weren't they? The extra intelligence point was nice though.
I gave a cursory glance around the cell, searching for anything remotely pencil shaped I could use to inscribe with. Yes, I did realise it was probably suicidal to try to make anything seal related without any sort of formal training, but really, what other choice did I have?
A contradictory, conspiratorial decision I had made earlier, which was to choose the harder life over one that may have been easier in many ways was because I believed that my new life wouldn't be without strife, and either way it'd be better to be prepared more than being prepared less and getting punted into the afterlife early. Perhaps even literally.
I'll admit I'm not the best at making life-changing decisions, but in that moment, I felt like that was the option that would pay off the most afterwards.
Risk and reward; nothing given nothing gained.
I gave my restraints a cautionary smack against the cool stone floor, but to no avail. The wood was rather durable for something rather thin in size.
Pursing my lips, I tried to scrape the stone with my cuffs, but that only served to frustrate me even more as not one fleck of wood was produced from my efforts. I huffed and lay down onto the uncomfortable surface that was dubbed 'my bed,' and let myself fall into a dreamless sleep.
Conservation of energy was my primary goal if I was to escape.
[Mandatory Quest!] – The Lost
The story doesn't end here now, does it? Break out of the prison, be it strength or seals, anything to regain your freedom!
OBJECTIVES
Find a tool or means of escape
Escape the prison
Find a safe place
REWARD
+1500EXP, 2 Week of Supplies
FAILURE
Possibility of death
A familiar red box, yet again without a NO option.
Hm. Well, I'll just deal with this when I wake up again; too tired…to…do much…
…
..
.
"Oi maggot, get up!"
The near-infantile boy was rather rudely woken up by a passing guard, who resumed his snickers at the dishevelled appearance of the child.
The boy rose up from his hard bed, blinking blearily while rubbing his eyes.
The guard started a tirade of insults, beginning with; "Ha. What a little piece of-"
Deeming it unimportant, the boy tuned out the guard's verbal abuse and checked for anything new in his cell. His eyes brightened when he spotted the tray laid out on the floor, food sparsely dotting the board.
The irate guard had realised by now that the brat was ignoring him and kicked the food off the tray, sneering while he did it. The boy showed absolutely no outward reaction to the vicious act.
"Tch," he muttered as he faced forward, away from the door of the cell, "why do I get babysitting duty…"
Behind his back, the raven-haired boy gave a grin that would've sent the Kages running. In a voice quieter than a mouse, he uttered, "now, it begins…"
◀ [Mandatory Quest update!] The Lost - Found a means of escape
LB
Long after the guards had snoozed off, the boy quietly unsheathed an inconspicuous small metal spoon from his worn garments, swiped unnoticed from the meal tray that had been present before.
He tiptoed to the outer wall of the room, opposite of the dreary metal door, and carefully began to file the blunt edge of the spoon into a razor-sharp edge. This continued for a few nerve-wracking minutes as the whispers of shaved metal echoed in the small cell.
Finally satisfied with his handiwork, the boy grimaced as he swiped his thumb against the now-sharp spoon's edge. Droplets of blood leaked to the surface of his digit, numerous and unending in number.
◀ You have lost 5HP! (42/100)
◀ You have been afflicted with the condition: Bleeding! (2 minutes)
◀ You have lost 1HP! (41/100)
This was the timed, more risky and difficult part of the plan, as he started to smear a rough circle the size of his torso into the wall. Cautious to not let any more precious blood spill, he traced a character with his stinging digit to completion. He hissed in pain as a small stone ran down the length of his cut.
This didn't rouse the unconscious sentry as he finished up drawing the character 'sky', in the very centre of the circle. This kanji specifically had multiple meanings, a few of which meant 'empty,' or 'void.'
I'm sure you have figured out what his plan was by now.
He drew three more characters, all of them in a triangular formation surrounding the already drawn one, the first being the character for 'midnight', the second being 'absorb', and the last, his assumed deduction of 'chakra'.
◀ Sealing check success: Seal 1/10 – Calligraphy: 70/5!
◀ [Three Point Void Seal] [Blood] [Faulty] created!
◀ Warning! The seal has a 56% chance of success!
◀ [Sealing] has gained a level!
◀ [Sealing] has gained a level!
◀ [Calligraphy] has gained a level!
[Sealing] (Active): Lvl.3 [71.39%]
Boom, bang, crash! Time to wreak havoc on those who dare oppose a master of Sealing! Be warned though, little one, as power always comes at a price. CP cost dependent on seal
[Calligraphy] (Active): Lvl.71 [12.25%]
The art of producing decorative handwriting or lettering with a pen or brush, with various uses beyond the paintbrush and canvas.
The odds weren't that great, but hey, what could you do? He assumed that his lacking sealing level was made up by his [Calligraphy] level. Had he not had such a high level, there was no doubt in his mind that the seal would just explode in a spectacular fashion and in doing so, kill him.
Though it seemed that not all his art skills had been lost in the transition between worlds, so he allowed himself a small smile at the message, and looked up through the shutters of his cell, at the oh-so-blue moon.
The wind rustled faintly as the clouds passed by, moonlight flickering uncertainly between the cottony wisps. The boy snapped out of his reverie as the moon neared the apex of its journey, and approached his makeshift seal, and placed one of his cuffed hands onto the character 'absorb'.
Luckily for the boy, these cuffs were simply expelling his chakra willy-nilly, so they had no say in what happened to his chakra afterwards. The leaking chakra that gave a light-blue shine to his hands was sucked towards the crimson seal, twisting and swirling as it was absorbed.
The bloody lines seemed to glow, almost ethereally as they burned brighter and brighter, the character for 'midnight' being the brightest.
◀ Seal activation success!
◀ You have lost 80CP! (22/102)
He scrambled back and watched in morbid fascination as the space itself seemed to stretch, warp and distort, before collapsing and vanishing, leaving a perfectly round hole, exactly where he had drawn it. Unfortunately, the disappearance of such a volume of air caused the surrounding air to abruptly realise that there was a sphere of complete nothingness that needed to be filled, and in doing so, caused a rather large clap of sound.
Someone would definitely hear that, especially the guard that was snoozing in front of his cell. His fears were affirmed when he heard a snort, then a tell-tale scrabbling to see if the prisoner was still in his cell.
Which he most certainly wasn't.
Time was a-ticking, he thought as he leapt through the hole, dashing at his fastest speed the moment his feet impacted the ground. With his pathetic, toddling four-year-old body, he needed every millisecond of head start he could get. Faint yells could be heard in the distance, but he ignored them, focusing on running.
In and out.
In and out.
Another notification popped up, along with the tinkle that told him a skill had levelled up. He dismissed both with barely a thought, the scenery slowly falling away; seconds stretching into minutes, minutes to hours as he fell into a state of pure concentration and awareness.
You have discovered the skill [Hyperfocus]!
[Hyperfocus] (Active): Lvl.1 [3.12%]
A state in which your brain registers and reacts to everything faster! The higher the level, the longer you can stay in a hyperfocused state. There is a post-use backlash that causes [slowness] for half the time you were in a state of hyperfocus, taking into account the player's vitality. 10mins/per day
Useful, if not damning after activation, but he'd take whatever he got at the moment.
The path had spluttered to a halt long before he leaped over a few bramble-covered bushes to reveal a lively, running river, one that was far too wide to jump across. He gritted his teeth, briefly weighing the pros and cons of diving into a deadly cold river, then nodded resolutely and jumped.
This way they had an even less chance of finding him after this; no scent to be tracked and he could disappear anywhere downstream. Assuming of course he didn't just make a huge mistake and Geronimo'd to his doom.
He flailed to the surface of the water (sue him, he never learnt how to swim in his last life), stutteringly gulping air in before being forcefully submerged by the next sluice of water, rinse and repeating for minutes on end until he belatedly realised his arms had become alarmingly leaden.
The Forest
+50% EXP gains to all skills while in this zone.
[x-x-x]
"Nature is watching your back."
I would never be able to tell whether or not it was pure dumb luck or the blessings of the gods when my foot snagged into a thick mossy root looping through the hidden rapids.
I should've been more surprised that I hadn't been more cut up than a fish at a sushi restaurant.
That was how the nameless boy, exhausted and gasping like a fish out of water, reached his first sanctuary that would house him for many years to come.
*very useful tip for whoever is learning Japanese; a kanji's meaning can be guessed from the radicals that make it up. While not always 100% accurate, you can still use the radicals to connect the meanings easier in your head! (i.e. The sanzui (氵) is very often used in kanji related to the idea of liquids or water, hence 海 (sea/umi), 池 (pond/ike), 湖 (lake/mizuumi). I study Japanese so there ya have it.
Also, I am assuming blood contains chakra so that if a seal is drawn with blood it will still work regardless. Regular ink needs chakra to be imbued to be active etc.