7 Chapter 5: How to summon...geese
Size is, without an ounce of doubt, the most important quality for a shinobi. Oh, some people may say that technique also matters, and I'm not saying it doesn't, but the indisputable truth is that size is what the other people will feel the most is the size. Plus, there's always that sense of accomplishment when you manage to impress others with sheer size.
I would like to clarify that I was referring to ninjutsu techniques. The age of stealthy shinobi dressed as the night attacking from the shadows was lost when people that can summon gigantic avatars made of chakra capable of slicing through entire mountains appeared on the battlefield for the first time. Who needs a poisonous dagger when you have the equivalent of C4 at your hands (literally in the case of some Iwa ninjas like Deidara)?
Of course, these kinds of things require a certain degree of responsibility and preparation to be used safely. To exemplify this, let's talk about the art of summoning. Before attempting to perform the technique, it is recommended that the aspiring summoner ask a shinobi who already has a contract in question for help. Without a contract previously established by an older and more experienced shinobi, the aspirant would be transported to the territory of the animal which he is most compatible with. This does not make the process any safer, in fact, it has been confirmed that the survival rate for this is even worse than Suna's economy.
In summary, one should never attempt to establish a summoning contract without the supervision of a responsible adult capable of vailing one out when the said attempt fails miserably.
"Mom, I'm going to the park to create a hole in time-space elastic fabric in order to obtain an army willing to follow my orders in exchange of my chakra or fulfilling a prophecy that has something to do with my hair color."
Although you can always skip these boring security measures if you have a certain degree of plot armor. Such is the for most protagonists in any series or fanfic.
"Oh, okay."
"Then… yeah."
"I see."
"Mmmh, don't you have anything to say about it?"
"Yes?"
"Yes?"
"Remember not to be late for dinner?"
"Dinner?"
"Yes… dinner."
"Well ... see you at dinner."
It was during these awkward family conversations that Sasuke Uchiha regretted rejecting the Gamer System. Right now, he would appreciate the emotional manipulation and brainwashi-...the help given by the system in order to increase his "Reputation" and "Bond level" with others. Part of him considered accepting his own inability to maintain meaningful relationships that did not require an immense amount of patience and one-sided sacrifice from other person and played with the idea of to changing himself for the better. Said part was ignored in favor of blaming all his faults on own the Uchiha genes like sensible person, such and Danzo and Tobirama, would do.
- Maybe I should use genjutsu to make friends more easily. I don't see how is that different from the therapy no jutsu used by canon Naruto every time he fought against a villain. In fact, the genjutsu may be way less violent.-
With those ideas in his mind, the boy walked for a long time until he arrived to an abandoned park with its carousels and swings covered in rust and weeds from lack of maintenance. This would serve as the ideal place to do something extremely risky without the supervision of a responsible adult.
The three other children, whom he had invited under the threat of going to their homes and kidnap them if they did not come, were sitting on one of the few clean benches in the park. Kiba and Neji both looked annoyed at the forced invitation and curious about the scroll in Sasuke's hands. Hinata just seemed happy to be invited.
"I would like to thank everyone for voluntarily coming here to witness my first summoning. It's something that I really wanted to share with all of you, my friends... and Hinata."
"Hey." An affronted Neji protested at the choice of words.
"What? She is still in probation."
It was heartwarming that the boy had become so close to his little cousin even if it only happened because her presence could be used to lower Sasuke's level of insanity. Now the two had a relationship equivalent to a tsundere older brother with serious emotional problems that should be discussed with a professional and a shy younger sister with a self-esteem lower than the value of most Latin American countries' currencies. Simply adorable.
"My first decree as the emperor of humanity will be offering you all a place in my army as I march towards world domination. "
"Should we do something?"
"Just ignore him. He will forget about that by tomorrow."
Ignoring the murmurs, Sasuke took out a kunai from his pocket and stabbed his. Once the blood began to come out from the small cut, he carefully wrote his name on the scroll as he put some of his chakra into the seal.
* POOF *
In less than a blink, the Uchiha disappeared in a cloud of smoke leaving the other children staring curiously at the scroll. As the most impatient person in the group, Kiba was the first to approach. He couldn't believe that not even his nose could locate the crazy Uchiha and tried to touch the parchment on the floor, an idea that many seven years old boys would agree with, but before his finger came into contact with the scroll...
* POOF *
"Oh my psycho MILF moon rabbit goddess! " Sasuke muttered while shivering uncontrollably.
The boy reappeared seconds after leaving, but he looked very different. His trembling body was covered from head to toe by feathers, blood and other things that smelled like a dirty bathroom or one of those adult buildings that they weren't allow to visit. Even so, the most striking thing were Sasuke's eyes, they had some red orbs that were spinning like crazy without any sign of stopping.
"Neji, Hinata, go get some tea and light food. I'll stay here to calm him down. "
It was rare for the others to follow the orders of the self-proclaimed leader of the group, but no one said anything about it given the urgency of the situation. Making use of all of his miniscule experience helping out at his family's veterinary clinic, the Inuzuka did his best to help his friend to calm down.
"No more beheadings please, that's not even the hole from where that thing should come out."
His best wasn't enough.
Fortunately, the Hyuugas returned right away with tea and some dango. Hinata even brought a bag of tomatoes with her. After spending a few minutes eating in silence, Sasuke managed to cool his head.
"Hinata, you are promoted to official friend."
The girl made a small gesture of triumph.
"Ignoring your unhealthy obsession with tomatoes. What happened and why are you covered in blood and feathers?" Neji asked.
"It was horrible." The Uchiha replied while he remembered all the horror.
"Emmh, Sasuke-kun, you're staring at the trees without saying anything. "
"I was having a flashback Hinata. It is very rude to interrupt one. Maybe you're not ready for our friendship yet. A shame."
"SORRY."
"Stop emotionally manipulating my cousin and tell us what happened."
"Fine. Hinata, cover your ears, close your eyes and sing that song I taught you the other day, you are too innocent to hear this."
"But..."
"Friendship."
*Tch*
"♫En el desierto un viajero de amor desesperado quería morir, muy agotado ya iba a parar, pero un colibrí le cantó...♫"
When Hinata clicked her tongue, Sasuke felt strangely proud and concerned at the same time. He really was trying to not corrupt the girl. At most he wanted her to be to terrorize the world with a scarily sweet smile and looking adorable in the process.
"Okay, what happened was this..."
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(Flashback)
When Sasuke was taken to his future summon's territory he expected to find majestic landscapes like as a great rocky mountain piercing the clouds on the sky, a dark cave whose only form of light come from luminous crystals impossible to replicate by human hands, or even an infinite desert whose limits couldn't been seen even when if someone were to focus on the ever-distant horizon. Oh, what he found was certainly impressive and breath-taking from a certain point of view, but the only emotion that could describe that he felt was HORROR.
Rivers of red ran through the earth, splitting it into several sections full of sticky grasses painted in purple and reddish colors growing inside some almost unrecognizable skeletons laying on the ground. And the vision only grew worse the more he lifted his gaze, dozens of rotten corpses were hanging from the old and dried trees, their eye-sockets lacked their eyeballs but they weren't empty, no, they were filled with maggots that could also been seen crawling under what was left of the corpses' skin. Finally, the treetops were decorated with the broken bones of all kind of animals, from giant snake skeletons to…small human skulls.
Amid all that horror, an animal walked at a leisurely pace in Sasuke's direction. The boy didn't dare to look away from it, fearing the chance of being its next victim.
"You must be our new summoner candidate " Said the goose casually. "Nice to meet you. I am Bob."
"What is this?" Sasuke weakly asked, pointing to the hellish landscape.
"Oh, that is the children's pool. I'm sorry for the mess, but they are children. Follow me, I'll take you to the GREAT COUNCIL OF GEESE."
###Author's commentary: Many readers may wonder why an overgrown bird would live in a place similar to the most disturbing pictures of hell imagined by Renaissance artists. The answer is simple; geese are beings of pure evil. I am sure that now a reader of average or higher intelligence will think: ¨the author is using a meme to make an easy joke because his sense of humor sucks¨. These people would be absolutely right, but if they made the effort to lower their mental capacity for a few moments, they would see that there is a perfectly logical reason to justify the evil of these birds
In the Naruto universe, geese were the prototypical version of the white Zetsus that we can see in the series. They were first conceived to serve Kaguya and help with her plan to enslave humanity but, luckily for us, they were considered defective creations because they were unable control their brutality and bloodlust. (It should be clarified that the credibility of this theory is directly proportional to the reader's alcohol level in blood. I recommend a few bottles of alcoholic beverages or, in case you are a minor, a good blow to the head before thinking about this theory). ###
After a brief tour through the land of the geese that included a visit to the valley of sorrow, the mountain of pain, the forest of genocides and the nursery of sweet dreams (despite their sadism and genocidal tendencies, the geese have proven to be better parents than 90% of the ninja community, which is not so impressive in hindsight.), they made it to where the high council waited for him. A great variety of geese of various colors, sizes and ages were watching him with curiosity.
"Uchiha Sasuke, the great council of the geese has decided to give you the opportunity to prove yourself worthy of stablishing a contract with us. Usually we would put you through a series of tests, but we have decided to settle for a simple interview due to the fact that your hairstyle reminds us a lot of our tails. Someone who is willing to wear such a ridiculous hairstyle to make a good first impression deserves that. "
"This is my natural hairstyle. "
There was a full minute of silence.
"The council has decided to ignore that and continue with the interview. We've been searching for a worthy summoner that would allow us to unleash a new reign of terror on the human world and we don't want to ruin this opportunity. Although we still have not decided whether to paint our future throne made with the corpses of our enemies crimson red, like the blood of the innocents, or perhaps salmon."
"WHAT?"
"Salmon, it is a kind of pink. Anyway, let's get started."
For the sake of the little amount sanity he has left, Sasuke decided to ignore all mentions of genocide. Despite what some may believe, Sasuke wasn't evil, he simply has as much empathy as a bowl of fruit.
"First question: After winning a great battle, you find yourself before a wounded enemy soldier. Would you kill him?"
"No? I mean, the battle is over, there's no need for it anymore."
"Good answer. By refusing to give him a warrior death, you would let him to die in pain and then be eaten by scavengers. Not showing respect to a fallen enemy shows you think like us. You are already showing more promise than those failures called Dancho and Orocharama."
The young Uchiha wondered if Itachi would be willing to share his crows with him. Acting like an emo chunni wearing black and red while wrestling with an impractically large scythe sounded safer than this.
"You are a wise judge and two women appear before you with a baby; they both claim to be the child's mother. What would you do?"
"I think would threaten to cut the child in half and thus find out who the real mother is."
"BRILLIANT. Not only would you butcher a defenseless infant in front her real mother, traumatizing her for life, but you would also discover the criminal and punish her however you see fit. Boy, we certainly underestimated your evil. "
He could have asked Kakashi too. He loves dogs and it wasn't like the Jonin was hard to find.
"Final question: You are a doctor and you've come across an injured pregnant woman. You can only save her or the baby. Who do you save?"
"Do I really have to choose one? "
"How despicable! The response we were hoping for was to save the mother and then make sure she feels guilty about the baby's death for the rest of her life, but you went one step further and decided to kill both of them, an option we didn't even think about. You are simply the most horrible person to ever put a foot in this place. I feel like a pathetic saint compared to you. Forgive my previous doubts, future antichrist, your evil has no precedent."
* Honk *
* HONK *
* HONK * * HONK * * HONK *
"THE COUNCIL HAS SPOKEN. LONG LIVE TO SASUKE UCHIHA, OUR SUMMONER AND FUTURE ANTICHRIST."
"LONG LIVE TO THE ONE WHO WILL DESTROY THE WORLD. "
* Honk *
* HONK *
* HONK * * HONK * * HONK *
(Flashback)
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"And that was what happened."
"Dude, I have no idea what a Christ is, but why are you so scared?"
"Indeed. While disturbing, I can't not imagine you being so affected for something like that."
"♫ Cruel and cold like winds on the sea, Will you ever return to me? Hear my voice sing with the tide… ♫"
"Are you sure you want to hear the real reason? It is quite traumatic, even by my standards."
"You are a member of the pack. As the super arch mega leader, it is my duty to listen and help you. I'm not running away from some dumb ducks"
Sasuke felt touched by the boy's camaraderie. Even if he mostly started this friendship in order to to get close to talking dogs, he was now happy that it happened.
With great expectations he turned his head in the direction of his other friend.
"I'm curious." Neji shrugged.
Well... at least he enjoyed annoying the shit out of Neji.
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(Flashback)
Shortly after having read and signed the contract, which thankfully did not require him to performance of depraved blood sacrifice, the young Uchiha was taken to a big dome in order to celebrate the beginning of this new friendship between him and the geese. There wasn't anything interesting to see there, it was a good-sized room with some chairs and a big circle in the middle.
The geese walked one by one into the circle and ...Oh…OH MY DAVID BOWIE.
##### Author's commentary: The scene was regarded unsuitable for... any kind of audience, so I erased all proof that it has ever existed. For those who still desire to picture the scene, I ask you to imagine the most horrible and grotesque image you can think of, then add a pounce of the most depraved and realistic gore that can be found in the deepweb, after that add a bunch of sexual depravity and finally multiply that horror by ten. Only then you will have a decent idea of the content you've missed.
I am sorry for ruining your immersion in the story with this interruption. As an apology, I offer you this gif of a kitten in the comments and some of Sasuke's reactions:
"Why are they hanging him with his own skin? "
"Ears…are not for that. "
"There shouldn't be holes there. Please don't make a hole there. DO NOT PUT THAT THERE." #####
After Sasuke watched that... thing, he failed to hold back his vomit. He then turned toward the nearest goose.
"This... Is this an orgy or a massacre? "
"What is the difference? "
Needless to say, the next three hours in that place weren't very pleasant for him.
(Flashback)
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That day the boys lost what little innocence they had left...and most of their stomach's contents. The essence of the horror that should never be named would accompany them for the rest of their lives.
"I'm smelling something weird. Can I open my eyes? "
"KEEP SINGING." The three young boys shouted as one.
"No fair... ♫ Brains, brains, It's okay. It's not a matter if it isn't gray... ♫"
