After he was – rather rudely – thrown out of the Inuzuka's home, Yohei covered himself in a Transformation and went back home.
After he was sent to the bath by his mother, he and Nanami had dinner and then went back down to the underground level of the house, where they once more went through all of his rewards, with Nanami giving him an outside perspective on the things he had already been using.
For the sake of being thorough, Yohei endeavored to go into great detail about every single component of his rewards, which… brought some problems.
The first came when Yohei – reminded that, since the scrolls from his past Bloodlines disappeared upon use – nonchalantly explained the ones he had used before revealing the Chaos Scroll to Nanami.
This included, of course, the Ever-Blooming Essence.
Fool that he was, he even went ahead and explained to her his vague plans of offering his genetic material as a service to noble ladies of the capital, giving them back their youth in exchange for rivers of money. It took an entire minute after he finished speaking for him to notice the eerie silence that had settled over the room.
Raising his head from the Hitting Quake Manual that he had obtained back during the mission – and had been 'scanning' with his Chakra Circuits – Yohei looked at his mother and was greeted by a sight that would stay in his memories forever – especially because it, too, had been crystallized in the Circuits.
Nanami was staring limply at the wall, eyes lifeless, the corners of her mouth turned down and her eyebrows lightly furrowed. It was, Yohei believed, something like the expression a man would make if he saw the moon falling on the horizon.
A profound indignation at the fate to come, coupled with the hopelessness born from the inevitability of it.
"Yohei…" she croaked, the words leaving her mouth as if they were her last breath.
Hesitantly, he answered, "… That's my name."
She ignored his quip, eyes flitting frantically over the mostly featureless room.
"You don't like older women, do you?"
…
His silence was answer enough.
It took a lot of promises and reassurances to break her out of her spiral, but he managed it after only a couple dozen minutes.
He had the uncomfortable feeling that this would come back to bite him in the ass in the future, but for now she let it be after getting a few samples of his hair, saliva, and blood to test the effectiveness of its 'restorative' properties.
Then, they extracted the new rewards he had gained from the Scroll during the day – one for registering himself as the leader of a new Clan; another for his conversation with the Hokage; and a final one from his victory against Hana.
… He couldn't help but feel like his luck had taken a turn for the best when he compared them to the several 'weaker' rewards he had gained previously.
Of course, that was also in great part because the feats themselves were more impressive.
First, the jutsu he had gained from his spar.
[過剰投与 - Kajō Tōyo - Overdose]
|E-Rank Jutsu|
This jutsu stimulates the user's endocrine system, flooding the body with incredible amounts of adrenaline, norepinephrine, cortisol, endorphins, testosterone, and dopamine, forcing it into an enhanced combat state. Simultaneously, Yang Chakra is used to mitigate the negative consequences of truly overdosing on those chemicals and hormones.
Technically, this was something he should be capable of doing by himself without the need to use chakra once he truly mastered Total Concentration Breathing.
… Probably.
He wasn't at that point yet, however. Besides, there was one aspect of this technique that made it invaluable even so – the part where it used Yang Chakra to prevent the body from being damaged by the chemicals, which was one area that TCB lacked, even if it increased the body's resistance.
Needless to say, it was a very welcome passive power booster – not only for casual combat, but also to make his Warframe even more fearsome than it already was, especially now that his greatly increased chakra reserves and his Chakra Circuits opened up the opportunity to increase the number of jutsu he could keep active concurrently and for longer periods of time.
His mom, however, was looking through the text of the scroll with a slightly troubled expression.
"Something wrong?" Yohei asked, brows furrowing.
Nanami let out a sigh, shaking her head. "Not… quite, Yo-kun. Just something that's bothering me about the wording of it." She opened the scroll further, eyes quickly going through walls of text that Yohei found himself somewhat surprised at being able to at least follow – if not completely comprehend – thanks to the medical texts he had stored in his Circuits. "While the technique does protect you from the damage that this amount of hormones flowing through your body should cause, it doesn't seem to do much against the other consequences of it."
"Consequences like…?"
"Like the precocious puberty you'll make your body go through after pushing so much testosterone into your metabolism," she said. Then, seeing that he actually seemed to enjoy the prospect of it, she continued dryly, "As well as possible loss of tolerance towards calm and boredom, difficulty getting out of a fighting mindset, increased impulsiveness and aggression, irritability, emotional flattening, difficulty connecting to others and recognizing fear and distress… not to mention how the accumulation of memories under high stress – which is what this technique puts your body under – can lead to trauma and frequent nightmares."
"… Oh," Yohei said lamely.
Nanami snorted, a small smile tugging at her lips. "Quite."
"Are you sure the jutsu doesn't protect against those things too? I don't think the Chaos Scroll would give me something that has so many negative points."
"You can't know that," Nanami pointed out, before letting out a bothered grunt. "I'm sure that it at least protects against the worst of it – but you're twelve years old, Yohei. Your brain's still developing, so even a smaller consequence can still end up being a big problem. I'm not telling you not to use it, but keep it sparse. Don't activate it for every fight unless you feel it's necessary."
Yohei nodded easily, giving her a thumbs up. "Can do."
In the back of his mind, however, the promise of filling his smooth baby face with a proper beard and getting a Conan-level physique remained close to the surface.
'Wait, since all of the chemicals are coming from my body, would that still make me a natty or no?' he questioned himself seriously. 'Does chakra count as doping?'
Musing on it for a few minutes, he couldn't reach a satisfactory enough answer and decided to leave such a philosophical inner debate for later, proceeding to open the next reward – the one he got from establishing the Kuroyama Clan.
[下位畜生道 - Kai Chikushō-dō - Lesser Animal Path]
|B-Rank Bloodline|
You are gifted with an innate affinity towards the space-time techniques used as the basis for Summoning. As such, the cost of such jutsu is reduced, and your chakra can even enhance the capabilities of summoned beings and creatures, making them more powerful and more likely to build affection towards you. Furthermore, you require no blood or hand seals to use the Summoning Jutsu.
He had already been pleasantly surprised by the grade of the reward, but its name had truly caught him unaware.
"A lesser version of one of the Six Paths…" Yohei murmured, eyes wide.
Nanami let out a startled sound by his side. "Lemme see!"
He handed it to her with a chuckle, settling beside her to read it along.
It was probably the least directly combative technique of the Six – technically Seven – especially in this minor form, but…
'It's still one of the Rikudō,' he thought eagerly, then blinked in realization, letting out a chuckle.
"What are you laughing about?" his mom asked with a raised eyebrow and a smile, nudging his shoulder.
"Technically," he started, stressing the word with a grin, "I also have a lesser form of the Preta Path, with my Dark Release. That's two out of seven already."
Nanami giggled, pinching his cheek and making the mirth fall from his face as his eyes went flat. "Ownt, my cute little sage."
"Hish ish hegraging," he said dryly.
"Hehehe," Nanami laughed, pulling more until he pretended to lunge to bite her hand, making her let go. "Alright, alright. Go on then, eat the candy," she said, gesturing to the scroll.
Yohei looked at it with apprehension, now that he had been reminded that this was going to need another transformation.
Holding back his shivers, he completely unfurled the scroll and –
Hand raising, mouth opening, wet warmth, the feeling of his teeth on his thumb and the tearing of skin as blood touched his mouth.
– activated his Chakra Circuits once more, engraving the view in front of him.
Deactivating them immediately afterwards to avoid raising his body's temperature too much, Yohei quickly pressed his hand against the seal and pushed chakra into it.
Poof.
What he was left with, after the smoke dispersed, was a small candy that looked like a crystallized drop of blood, curved and shaped into a magatama.
Glaring suspiciously at it, Yohei decided to avoid the risk of the taste being awful and tossed it into his mouth, immediately swallowing it.
His eyes widened.
"Oh!" Yohei said, straightening. "That's weird."
This was, most definitely, his mildest transformation to date. He could feel the blood drop somehow move straight to his heart the moment he swallowed it, and from there it was like it dissolved, its contents spreading through his body with each heartbeat – the sensation akin to a spatula 'flipping' each individual cell.
Once it was done, he blinked, shaking his arms and not feeling any different, his new state feeling so natural he couldn't really remember how it was beforehand.
"So?" Nanami asked eagerly.
Yohei grinned, giving her a nod.
"Then what are you waiting for? Test it! Just don't summon Mu-chan, please – I don't think there's enough space for her down here," Nanami said jokingly.
Yohei chuckled. "Not with that attitude, there isn't. But fine, in that case…"
Touching on the new instinct he quickly found inside himself when he bothered to look for it, Yohei pressed his hand to the ground, a flex of will starting the technique.
"Summoning Jutsu: Yin Shadow."
Rather than a puff of white smoke, Yohei watched as his chakra sank into what he believed to be his shadow, thanks to the lack of "tint" that the lightbulb gave everything around it.
He was pleasantly surprised when he saw his chakra turn dark, allowing him to once more see his shadow – or, more accurately, see Kara mimicking it. He had been worried his new vision would make him unable to see her body.
One cyan eye opened in the darkness, the black surrounding it coalescing as it rose from the ground.
It had been some time since Yohei had last seen Kara. He always took every chance he could to summon her, but before this whole "Bloodline" business he had been too afraid of her being discovered by the Village, so those opportunities had been scarce.
Still, one thing they all had in common was that, no matter how much time went by, Kara wouldn't change between summonings. While away from this world, she was placed in what was essentially suspended animation – sleeping peacefully in the void of her home dimension. Being unsummoned and then brought back was like taking a long blink, from what he had been able to gather.
This time, however, her appearance had become different.
Rather than the vaguely snake-shaped form she usually took, her body was now decidedly more defined.
A serpentine, horned head rose from the shadow, with two pairs of eyes and an extra one in the forehead, placed sideways. Her body, too, was littered with an odd dozen eyes – the result of Yohei's and Mugetsu's efforts hunting during his "taming" of the giant chakra beast.
Her personality hadn't changed in the least, however.
"Dad!" she exclaimed, her voice – as always – sounding like his, but with an added reverberation and higher pitch.
"Hey, Kara," Yohei greeted warmly, smiling widely as the not-so-distant shadow danced eagerly in place.
Yohei blinked.
Why was he feeling killing intent?
His eyes widened. Woodenly, he turned his head to look to the side.
His mother was staring fixedly at him, face devoid of emotion – except for her eyes, which burned with the intensity of a thousand suns as she glared at him without so much as a twitch.
A bead of cold sweat ran down his back.
"… What did she call you?" Nanami whispered her question.
'Fuck.'
"Dad?" Kara, the sweetheart, repeated, her tone questioning – but her desire to be helpful transmitted to him through their link.
Yohei closed his eyes and found himself achieving the level of peace and clarity only the doomed and the enlightened could reach.
He wondered if he should go get the belt himself or wait to see if Nanami had some other method of correction in mind.
"Yohei."
He was so fucked.
-~=~-
"It's stupendous."
"What?"
"How he managed to become even uglier in just a few days. Oi, dumbass, wake up."
That was the fantastic start to Yohei's morning after a very productive – but also… rather intense – night of work.
Thankfully, his Bloodline made him basically a nocturnal animal.
Unfortunately, instead of going to sleep like normal, his last endeavor in the late-early morning had ended up with him almost emptying his chakra reserves and once more collapsing into sleep.
Which… was becoming something of a trend when it came to going down to the underground floor.
Therefore, he was understandably grumpy and groggy when he woke up.
"Shut the fuck up, Wimpy," he said in a rough voice, sitting up in his bed and rubbing his eyes as his covers fell to his waist. "I'm fucking gorgeous."
Ren scoffed as Souma chuckled.
Yohei turned to the side, seeing his two teammates standing by his bed, ready and set to start a new week with the early morning Total Concentration Breathing training he had forced on them since he managed to achieve it by himself.
Yohei's eyes widened, and he let out an impressed, "Wow."
Ren raised an eyebrow, unimpressed, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Did you become smaller?" Yohei asked the boy, who just rolled his eyes.
"Just because I think for the two of us doesn't mean I'm your brain. Get things straight," the red-eyed boy replied with a smirk.
"That was a good one," Souma commented with a smile, earning a grin from Ren.
Yohei grumbled, tsk'ing as he swung his legs over the bed. "I can't think of an answer right now because I'm still half asleep, but I'll consider it my victory because I'm the taller one."
Before Ren could say anything in response to that, he was interrupted by Yohei putting his arms around both of them and pulling them into a hug.
"Thanks for coming," he said sincerely. "And sorry for not going to talk to you two yesterday."
"Good thing you didn't," Ren said with a scoff. "I needed a break from your mug."
Souma chuckled as Yohei let them go. "He says that, but he was grumbling the whole way here."
Ren glared at the taller boy in a way that made Yohei wonder if he was about to set him on fire with a jutsu.
Souma, for his part, didn't seem to care in the least – or even notice – instead looking searchingly at Yohei, though his eyes kept drifting upward.
"Are you alright?" he asked seriously, now almost unable to look away from Yohei's forehead, who gave him a flat look.
"Do you want to touch my horns, Souma?"
"Can I?" the white-haired boy asked excitedly – but before he could even get an answer, he was already doing so, letting out an amazed sound.
"You didn't answer the question, dumbass," Ren reminded, looking at the scene with weirded amusement. "You're usually the early riser."
"My biological clock got fucked by the transformation," Yohei explained. "I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to sleep during the day and stay awake in the night now."
Ren snorted. "Sucks to be you."
"I wouldn't say that," Yohei replied with a chuckle, Souma now moving from his horns to his ear.
Ren looked to the wall behind Yohei's table, where Nanami had placed a white banner painted with his new Clan's symbol in black.
"Hmm… I wouldn't either," the red-eyed boy agreed, looking consideringly at it before turning to Yohei. "Full disclosure? I'm going to abuse the fuck out of the fact that you're a Clan Head now."
Yohei chuckled. "That's fair. As long as you help me with this whole Clan business – I have no idea what I'm doing."
"No shit?" Ren said sarcastically with a smile. "I wouldn't know if you hadn't told me! I mean, sure, you snubbed a lot of people by not planning a party to commemorate your rise in the Village, but I'm sure that's part of your strategy."
"… Is that something I should have done?"
Ren nodded with a smirk.
Yohei dragged a hand down his face. "Fuuuuuuck."
Ren laughed. "Relax, it's not actually that much of a problem. You're greener than a leaf, so no one's really expecting that kind of thing from ya."
"Ouch," Yohei said flatly.
Ren shrugged with a smile. "Just telling you the truth, man. Actually, since we're on the subject, did you know that I have a cousin who's-"
"No."
"No, really, look-"
"No," Yohei repeated firmly with a smile, getting a tsk without heat from Ren that made him laugh. "Actually, what time is it now?"
"Early enough that we can get some training done before meeting up with Sensei," Ren said with a shrug.
"Or a few spars," Souma offered, his tone making it clear which option he preferred.
"Eh… better to leave that for later, big guy," Yohei said, scratching his head. "I've got a good grip on my strength, but I'm pretty sure Hayama-sensei would prefer it if we did it under his supervision. Did you guys bring the gourds?"
He barely finished talking before Ren threw one at his head, which he easily caught, earning a raised eyebrow.
Yohei ignored it, smiling at the object in his hand and the cracks covering it.
"Nice, you're almost finished with your first one. Hopefully we'll get you started on another by today."
"Actually, I did blow mine already," Souma noted, raising his hand. Yohei looked at him with pleasant surprise before turning to Ren with a shit-eating grin.
"Wimpy…"
Ren groaned, putting a hand over his face. "Urgh, shut up, you freaks. Who the hell can even blow a gourd in a single breath without chakra anyway? I'm half convinced now that that shit was all your Bloodline."
"It wasn't," Yohei said seriously. "I'm not wasting your time, I promise."
Ren didn't even look at him, only rolling his eyes. "I know, dumbass. You're way too much… you, to lie about something like this."
Yohei's heart tightened, but thankfully a distraction appeared in the form of his mom shouting at them to come down for some breakfast.
"Come on," Yohei said, passing an arm over their shoulders and guiding them out of the room. "You guys can go ahead and eat. I'll take a bath and come down."
-~=~-
Yohei had been teaching his teammates Total Concentration Breathing for a while now, through a mostly trial-and-error process, bringing them to his early morning training sessions every other day.
His own issues with Water Breathing had made it clear enough that he'd have to approach things a bit differently with them. Yohei's personal training had been so intrinsically linked with his learning of Water Nature Transformation that one had become a trigger for the other.
For Souma, it wasn't that much of a problem – and might even be beneficial, in fact – considering that his fighting style already revolved around Chakra Flow and Lightning Nature Transformation. Still, it was better to retain the capacity to perform normal jutsu should the need arise than to lose that flexibility.
For Ren, however, having all his chakra immediately kneaded into Fire Nature would make it almost impossible for him to use his Hiden, and that simply wouldn't be worth it – except perhaps as an alternative tool to rely on when his Genjutsu proved ineffective for one reason or another.
Therefore, Yohei endeavored to teach them the breathing arts through more 'neutral' exercises and meditations rather than basing the training around an element.
Gourd blowing was one such method, and Yohei followed along with them in that – though in his case he used harder ones made by Gōdo with Earth Release.
This morning, though, rather than working on reinforcing their bodies, he focused on teaching them technique, going through the motions of instructing them on how to maximize air intake through correct posture and the shifting of organs to make space for the lungs.
It was an all-around bad experience for all of them – and Yohei found out that if hearing your own organs slosh around was disgusting, hearing those of others was a hundred times worse. And he had to do it again and again, because he couldn't hear inside their bodies as well as he could his own with Thousand Sound Perception.
Still, they made reasonably good progress at it – which is to say that maybe after a few more days or weeks of it, Yohei could say they had mastered it as much as he had by the end of the first morning he attempted the technique.
'The learning boost of the Chaos Scroll is such bullshit,' Yohei thought with a grin as the three of them moved toward the front of the Academy, where Hayama was already waiting for them.
"Heya, Sensei!" Yohei greeted.
"Boys," Hayama nodded back, his eyes flitting to Yohei's new features and his leaf headband – which he now wore on his waist until he could have it modified to work with his horns – before moving to the strained faces of his teammates. "Starting early, I see. I hope you left some energy for the afternoon. I'd hate to see you collapse during training."
Yohei laughed. "What? No way, Sensei, that was only a warm-up! Why, Ren even told me earlier that he was thinking of asking you to double his number of targets on the field."
Ren glared hatefully at him, opening his mouth to say something – only to break into a coughing fit as he let out the air he had been instructed to keep in.
Hayama snorted, shaking his head and turning around, gesturing for them to follow him as he walked through the doors of the Academy.
With a pat on the back of the still-coughing boy, Yohei followed along, almost skipping in his steps.
Hayama looked at him – and at the star symbol his mother had sewn into his clothes – a small smile on his face.
"Everything's okay?"
Yohei took a moment to think before nodding firmly. "Everything's okay, Sensei."
"Good," Hayama said, ruffling his hair and walking on.
And that was that.
It was impressive how, even after so many things had happened and changed in such a small amount of time, the world just continued on.
Revealing his secrets to his mom, the transformation from the Kuroyama Bloodline, becoming the leader of a Clan – none of that stopped him from going out to train with his friends in the morning and then getting together to do a D-Rank mission after they all delivered their written reports.
Team 5 went out to meet their client – a weapon-smith who worked mainly with throwing weapons – spent a few hours cleaning up three different training grounds from discarded, missed, and forgotten kunai and shuriken, delivered them to him, and went back to the Academy to receive their rewards, with nothing special happening besides some gazes and whispers directed at him.
Frankly, he didn't know what he had even been expecting to happen.
Whatever the case, after they were done, they ate some lunch and were soon headed back to the Training Grounds.
While Ren and Souma were sent right back to what had been kindly dubbed "Target Hell," Hayama was more interested in getting a measure of Yohei's new physical parameters than anything else.
And the result… well, it was mind-blowing, to say the least.
Without any use of chakra, Yohei's base stats were now firmly superhuman – to the point that Hayama had to check multiple times that he really wasn't using any Enhancement.
Strength, speed, endurance, resistance – all of it was comparable to that of a Genin.
The positive side of it? When he actually used chakra, his strength skyrocketed to the upper end of what a chūnin or even a special jōnin might achieve.
The negative?
His previous training methods had been rendered all but useless.
"We're definitely going to have to get weights for you," Hayama said with a sigh, making notes on his notepad as Yohei tossed to the ground the stone – bigger than himself – that he had been lifting overhead.
"Nice!" he commemorated, punching the air.
Hayama looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "Nice, huh? You know you'll have to wear them constantly, right?"
"Yup!"
"And you think you'll keep up this attitude when you realize that, after a point, even moving to take a bath or go to bed – or lifting your chopsticks to eat – will make your muscles scream and cry?" Hayama asked curiously.
"Oh, come on, Sensei! What's a little pain compared to the sheer potential for badassery that comes from using training weights!?"
Hayama looked at him dryly, drawing out his words. "Enlighten me."
"Okay, look," Yohei started with a wide smile, jumping onto the rock he had thrown to the ground and gesticulating as he talked. "Imagine the following: you're fighting an opponent, okay? And you're kind of evenly matched – or better yet, he's faster, or stronger than you, or has a really good defense. You can keep up, but not enough to defeat him, and you both know that if this turns into a battle of attrition, that'll be your loss. What do you do?"
"Retreat and reassess," Hayama said simply. "Or, if something keeps me from disengaging, I'll look for a weakness I can exploit – or plan a maneuver that lets me sacrifice the least while giving me an upper hand."
"Boooooo!" Yohei said, cupping his mouth with his hands. "Boring! And wrong! What you do is praise your enemy for their skills, and then say something like – 'Unfortunately, this isn't even my final form.' Then you jump to a higher place and take off your weights – but don't set them down yet! You have to wait so the opponent sees what you're doing. They'll be confused, thinking something like – 'What is he doing? Training weights? He can't possibly think that'll make a differen–' –don't let them finish their thoughts, that's a very important detail. The moment before they finish thinking is when you let the weights fall to the ground…"
Yohei mimicked the action over the stone, then whistled, simulating the sound of the weights falling as he crouched, one hand extended and descending as if following their trajectory.
"Fweeeeeeeeeeeeeet– BOOOOOOM!" he shouted, throwing his arms up. "The weights hit the ground, making a crater and throwing dust into the air. The battlefield trembles, and your enemy watches, transfixed and unbelieving at the scene they've just witnessed – knowing there's no chance they can win now."
Yohei finished his tale with a wide, fanged smile, eyes shining as he looked at Hayama – who had his arms crossed, his face hidden in his hands as he tried to restrain his chuckles.
"There are so many things wrong with all of… that, that I don't even know where to start," the jōnin said humorously, rolling his eyes as he looked at Yohei. "I think the simplest way to prevent that particular bout of stupidity from coming to life is making sure you understand that if you ever think about bringing weights to a mission where a fight may happen, I'll personally break your arms and legs so you can spend some time in the hospital reflecting on your mistakes."
"Don't you think that's kind of extreme?" Yohei asked, sweat dropping.
"No, I think it's a perfectly appropriate response," Hayama said simply, before changing the subject. "You said that your strength grows as the sun goes down, right?"
"It's more about light in general than the sun, I think, but yes," Yohei said, sitting down and crossing his legs.
"In that case, we'll have to do the tests again during sunset, and then once more at night so we can get a more precise measure of how much it grows," Hayama told him, jotting the note down on paper. "Meanwhile…"
Yohei raised a hand. "I know today's for physical training, but since we can't really do it until I get the weights, could you help me with another part of my Bloodline?"
Hayama hummed, drumming the pen against the paper before shrugging. "Sure, why not. What do you need help with?"
"Summoning."
"…What?" Hayama asked, confused.
Yohei chuckled, lifting the backs of his hands so Hayama could see as he flowed chakra to them, making the otherwise invisible seals his mom had painted there appear.
"I got these after this whole thing happened, and it seems like they're summoning seals."
Hayama's eyebrows rose as he examined the star-shaped markings. "A contract passed through blood? Hm… I suppose it's something like the inverse of the Animal Clans' contracts. I must say, your Kekkei Genkai is one of the most varied and unique ones I've ever even heard of – it's fascinating. Did you test this?"
Rather than answering, Yohei pointed down at his shadow with a grin.
Hayama followed the gesture, blinking in surprise as multiple eyes – identical to Yohei's own – opened within it.
The darkness stirred, coagulating and flowing up Yohei's legs, slipping over his back and chest before rising along his right shoulder, where it formed into the shape of a serpentine head with five eyes.
"Her name's Kara," Yohei said with a smile, his finger 'tickling' beneath her chin – though in truth no physical contact happened.
"Would you look at that…" Hayama murmured, stepping closer. "What manner of being is she?"
"When I think of her, the name that comes to mind is Yin Shadow," Yohei said with a shrug.
Hayama chuckled. "Quite on the nose, isn't it? But appropriate, I suppose. I can only barely feel her, even this close – and only because you pointed her out. Her chakra feels almost exactly like yours, though entirely made of Yin. I imagine she's something of a Genjutsu specialist? Or, perhaps, like a living version of the Nara's secret technique. If that's the case, I recommend you either keep her on the down-low for as long as possible or consider expanding your list of possible future wives."
"I don't have a list of possible future wives – that's all you," Yohei said dryly, then tilted his head and amended, "Well, you and Ren. And no, she can't really physically interact with things. She's my portable Ren – only a lot cuter and a thousand times better."
The little shadow 'eye-smiled,' all the eyes in her body curving at once as her head 'nuzzled' against Yohei's.
"Yeah, you're the best, sweety," Yohei told her with a smile.
"The best!" she said back, making Hayama raise an eyebrow at her voice.
"I see. I'd better prepare myself for the headache you two will give me with your arguments, then. For now, is she what you want help with?"
"Ah," Yohei blinked. "Actually, no. I summoned her kind of by accident – it's how I discovered that I could do it at all. I want to summon something else, but I thought it would be better to do it with supervision and in the open."
"Well reasoned," Hayama said in agreement. He tilted his head, gesturing with one hand. "Go on, then. I'll be ready should it come to a fight."
Nodding, Yohei hopped off the rock and stepped forward, pausing for a moment to think.
At this point, he had five different summons available to him.
First, Mugetsu – who right now was probably also being trained by Hana's partners.
Second, Kozuki, the… adapted version of Renamon, whom he had yet to activate. His mother had told him that she hadn't heard of the Fox Clan before, but that was understandable. They had also gone through some ideas on how to get him open access to her, coming up with a pretty solid game plan – but that would wait until after he had the chance to try a blind summoning.
Which… well, Nanami had done a good job of impressing on him how not ready he was to attempt something like that right now.
The third was Kara – his kind-of daughter – who had been joyfully watching his daily life from his shadow, occasionally sending him mental impressions that filled his heart with warmth and mirth.
The fourth – and the one, or rather the ones, he was about to summon now – were the Yōma, the Goat Demons, though he was aware of their original name now that he had finally managed to remember where he had seen them before.
Frankly, he was sure the reason he hadn't been able to remember earlier was because he had involuntarily blocked away the traumatic memories from his many, many, many encounters with one of the most frustrating and rage-inducing mini-bosses in the Dark Souls series.
He wasn't sure whether to be thankful or disappointed that the monster dogs weren't included as part of the scroll.
And finally, the fifth – which he had only summoned last night, and the one who would be the most essential tool in his and Nanami's plans for dealing with the entire mess to come with the Chūnin Exams.
He had recognized that one quite easily by the name.
[武楽祭刃守 "ブラック・サバス" – Burakku Sabasu – Black Sabbath]
|C-Rank Summon|
Black Sabbath is an autonomous chakra construct that can merge with shadows and bind itself to inanimate objects. Black Sabbath can precisely follow direct preset commands and instructions, doing its best to accomplish its task – such as attacking someone should they perform certain acts and fulfill predetermined conditions. Otherwise, it can simply be set to hunt an opponent or directly protect you. Black Sabbath draws power from shadows. At base, its strength is equal to its creator's baseline, but when inside shadows or in darkness this grows to the point that, even starting from the strength of an average human, it would be able to bend metal. Should it be killed in battle, it can instantly be reformed by its creator as long as they have chakra.
'Chakra! Bloodline Limits! Hahahahaha… and Stand Power!'
Black Sabbath was an unexpected joy and surprise, and he considered it the perfect reward considering whom it had come from.
It was different from his other summons in that it wasn't a creature who had been inserted into this world. Rather, it was similar to Kara – made from his chakra – only instead of originating from a different dimension, it had been brought into being through a 'ritual.'
That had been what exhausted his chakra.
Because of its nature, Yohei had been sure that as long as it was hidden inside a shadow it would be pretty much undetectable, but he had wanted to test to make sure. His mom hadn't been able to feel it even when she was fully aware of it and touching the shadow it was hiding in – but she wasn't exactly a trained sensor.
Just now, he had used his sensei as a test subject. While he had shown him Kara, he had kept Black Sabbath hidden, waiting to see if the man would react to it at all or point it out. Seeing as he hadn't, Yohei was a lot more comfortable in his plans for the future.
'Better focus back on the present, tho.'
Thinking so, he pressed a hand against the earth and flowed his chakra into it.
'How much should I use?' he mused, before mentally shrugging. 'Let's start small. If it isn't enough, I can try again.'
"Summoning Jutsu: Goat Demon!"
He watched as his turquoise chakra moved forward a few paces, the color shifting from blue to an angry red halfway through, heat visibly emanating from it.
Boff.
With a 'blast' of smoke that was tar-black rather than the common white, the summoning jutsu was completed, and Yohei looked at the pair of creatures in front of him with awe.
They were twice – almost thrice – his size, with humanoid frames covered in grayish skin, 'veins' of glowing red chakra running through their bodies. The drags they were dressed in didn't look like cloth, but rather ashes compacted into shape. Their massive, four-eyed, bone-like heads were predictably shaped like that of caprines – however, here was where he saw a difference between the two: while one had horns elongated sideways and pointed forward, the other had horns that curved straight upward.
He worried that they would require some kind of task or test in order to obey him, but instead he could feel something approaching submission coming from a newfound link to their… he was hesitant to call it consciousness, as they seemed more like chakra given shape than true living beings.
Like an elemental clone with extra steps.
They were both on their knees, heads lowered, their arms holding their paired weapons – tips on the ground and blades turned back in their direction.
Despite the feeling in his gut telling him that those raw machetes of cast iron were no danger to him, he couldn't help but shiver at their appearance. It was something straight out of a horror movie.
… Yohei had scarcely felt as awesome as he felt right now, standing in front of two giant demons bowing to him. Every single one of Nicola's chūnibyō dreams had been realized and validated right now.
"… Are you crying?" Hayama asked, perplexed, hand on the handle of his sword.
Yohei nodded absentmindedly. "They're beautiful."
Hayama looked incredulous at him, gazing at the nightmarish creatures his student had summoned.
"I'm beginning to see why you awakened your Bloodline where your mother – and presumably her own parents – didn't," he said with a sigh. "Or perhaps you are like this because of the bloodline? A question for the ages."
Yohei laughed. "Oh, come on, look at them, they're amazing!"
Hayama waved a hand as if to ward the idea away. "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Still… Goat Demons, hm? I suppose this makes you the Summoner of the Akuma Clan."
"Looks like it!" Yohei replied with a smile, happy both for his new partners and for the success of his mother's plan.
"Are they self-aware?" Hayama asked, looking at the creatures who had remained completely immobile since they first appeared.
Yohei slowly shook his head. "Not… really. There's something like the framework of a mind here, but it lacks a certain… spark, I think."
"But that can follow orders, right?"
Pursing his lips, Yohei thought about how he should test this before commanding, "Stand up."
He smiled, seeing the results.
"Yup, looks like they can – and there's a connection that lets me give them more context behind an order, so I don't think I need to be super specific in my wording."
While he had commanded both to stand, in his mind he had directed the one on the right to stand on a single foot, and the left one to stand with its arms raised.
The sound of a burst of displaced air next to him made Yohei jump in surprise, both of the Demons leaping to stand between him and Souma, who had used the Body Flicker to move.
"… They also seem to work with some autonomy," Yohei said dryly, looking at the white-haired boy's eager face as he panted, smiling widely and pointing his sword at one of the Demons.
"Can I fight them!?"
Yohei chuckled, entirely unsurprised at the question, before shrugging. "Dunno, not really sure how strong they are. What do you think, Sensei?"
Hayama hummed, holding his chin in consideration before nodding and pulling out his sword. Only now did Yohei notice – from the way his eyes shone eagerly and the badly hidden smile he had – that the man wanted to fight them just as much as Souma did.
'Why are the sword obsessed idiots always like this?' Yohei asked himself, amused.
"Tell this one to strike me as quickly and strongly as it can," Hayama said, pointing to the one with the horns turned up.
"Attack," Yohei commanded without hesitation.
The Demon, too, moved without hesitation, both arms moving over its left shoulder for a brutal chop, the two machetes moving in tandem.
Yohei frowned.
As he expected from the moment the monster started moving to attack, it was stopped completely by Hayama's blade, the man having barely moved it besides adjusting the angle to better position the block.
The slight disappointment on his face was almost enough to make Yohei laugh.
"It's somewhere between a Genin and a Chūnin in strength, but only slightly above the average Genin," Hayama admitted. "Definitely a powerful force multiplier against most enemies, even if you can only summon a small number of them."
Yohei looked back at Souma, and this time he couldn't hold back his laughter, seeing how the boy seemed to have deflated, his sword hanging limply in his grip.
"Why are you making that face?" Yohei asked with mirth.
"They're too slow," Souma said, shaking his head. "It would be too easy to cut their necks."
Yohei lifted an eyebrow, smiling at the gruesome comment. "You don't know that. Maybe they're tough enough that you can't cut their skin."
That seemed to make the taller boy perk up, looking up at the demons with newfound, tentative appreciation.
Yohei rolled his eyes, chuckling.
"Here," he said, touching the ground and sending much more chakra than he had spent in his initial summoning.
For a moment, black smoke covered the grounds before it vanished, leaving the three of them surrounded by more than a dozen Goat Demons.
"Go wild," Yohei commanded – both the creatures and his teammate.
Souma jumped back, easily avoiding a blade that had moved to bisect him from shoulder to hip. He smiled like a kid who had just seen Christmas arrive early and gave Yohei a look like he was Santa Claus himself.
In a single moment, chakra enveloped his blade. It took only a few seconds for it to crackle with electricity – and then he was dashing forward, a streak of light following in his wake.
Yohei looked back at Hayama with a smile, satisfied that his friend was having fun, only to stop at the incredulous look his sensei was giving him.
"What the fuck."