Genius Loci

The world snapped from the war-torn nuclear wasteland that was imaginary Konoha. I was lying on the floor and it felt like my limbs were starting to wake up. I wasn't lying on the floor in the basement, though. I was in what looked like a concrete box, about a head taller than me and illuminated in the red light of seals scrawled all over the walls.

I stood up quickly, as I felt my perception start to bleed back into the shadow of the mushroom cloud. If I had to guess what happened, it's that I fell in or was swallowed by this cell, which then put me in a Genjutsu for whatever reason.

Nowhere to go but up.

I jumped up the wall and punched the roof, sending my fist up into open air. Progress! But then I felt the dirt around my fist start to reform, so punch, punch, punch! I felt like a mole, the way I crawled out of the cell and onto the basement floor, and used a chakra slide to finish pulling myself out even as the ground itself moved to try to force me back in.

Chakra-slide is awesome.

Quest Updated: Upon a Midnight Darkly.

Re-unite with your team.

That said, I jumped to the roof immediately as the ground didn't stop wanting to devour me simply because I escaped from the cell, the concrete trickling above my feet and sucking me down. Looking around, the entire basement was coated in red, glowing seals.

This entire house is just a giant network of seals.

Now the question is who set them off? And why?

The raven points to Itachi, but there's no conceivable reason for him to want to Genjutsu me and…didn't he use crows? Not ravens?

Something else is at work here.

The lights from the window wells had become suppressed, reaching only a foot from the windows. The only light across the shadowed floor above were the crimson seals, giving perhaps one of the most ominous views I had ever seen. I got goosebumps just thinking about what else this house had to offer.

Below me, the foundation writhed like a churning sea in a midnight-storm, the seals warping and shifting and I think it's just me, but I think I saw them form something of a face.

Ah, no….

Then the liquid stone shot up at me and I slid to my left to avoid it. It just turned into this tsunami wall of black to rage after me and I slid, since running on the ceiling seemed more difficult and a little bit risky, away from it.

However, as the liquid-evil began to rise to the ceiling, it reduced the visibility to almost nothing, the only light being the red glow of the seals, which only drew out the shadows around me and made it nearly impossible to see.

I dodged left, right, maneuvering through the impromptu maze and dodging tentacles that tried to wrap themselves around me as my various exits closed themselves off. I slipped and slid around, since I couldn't jump or gravity would just send me right down.

But I couldn't dodge forever. This eldritch abomination of a basement floor was going to get me at some point. It probably would have already if I wasn't one of the luckiest fools to grace Konoha, but I had to get out.

With that, I punched the ceiling. It didn't give.

I had to slide right to avoid a tentacle.

Come on…I punched the ceiling again. No give.

Slide to the left! Punch again!

Nope.

Come on!

The walls were starting to close in and I was getting less room to maneuver. I ducked under a wave, and another tentacle thing came to sweep my feet out from under me and I have no choice but to jump.

Time froze for just a second, as I contemplated the fact that I had just jumped right into the waiting tentacles of a dark, monstrous thing that was either going to throw me back into a nightmarish Genjutsu, or simply kill me outright.

This is gonna suck…

Wait.

You know how Chakra-strings can be used to control puppets and people?

I wonder if I can use them to pull myself around?

A string from each finger and tried really hard to pull myself back to the safety of the ceiling.

Chakra Control Check Success: 100/65

+30 EXP.

I stuck my hands back on the ceiling and did a cartwheel to avoid tentacle that came back after me.

YES!

Spider-nin! Spider-nin! Does whatever a spider can!

I gathered chakra in my foot and stomped on the floor, only for my foot to inexplicably go right through the wood and provide me with an escape route by hole in the roof.

…I love critical hits.

I ducked through the hole, even as I was pursued through. A large tentacle shot out through the hole and I slid to the right as it slammed on the floor…only too slink back down through the hole and out of sight.

Huh.

Since it was probably only animate through the seals, it was probably only chasing after me because I was in the basement for some reason. Okay, well, now that that's over, time to find my team.

The main room was trashed. Black scorch marks decorated the walls and bits of rock were strewn all over the floor. I'm betting that Nichiren and Hisako reacted first, hence why Kakashi presumably ran to their aid and didn't hear me if I called at all.

I only remember killing the rats, getting a quest update then suddenly NUKE. Well, the other two were sent to clean the Master Bathroom, so…

An explosion and shattered glass sounded from above me. Well, let's go see how my sensei's doing.

I jumped up the stair-case and rounded a corner. The Master bedroom seemed to be heavily abused, scorch marks everywhere. I came to the bathroom and there was a shinobi I didn't recognize. So, I punched him in the back and he exploded into bits of gravel and dirt.

+25 EXP.

Past the shinobi was Kakashi, Sharingan out, looking exhausted but uninjured. His clothes and hair were matted with dirt. I probably didn't look so good myself, if I were honest with myself.

"Hey Sensei," I said, trying to seem nonchalant. "Having a bad time?"

"Nah," Kakashi eye-smiled. "There's just a lot of earth clones. Have fun in the basement?"

"The floor tried to eat me alive," I answered. "So it could've been better. You know where Nichiren and Hisako are?"

"They're trapped somewhere," Kakashi said. "This house has a lot of secret rooms. You said the floor tried to eat you?"

"Uh huh," I nodded. "The entire house is just a giant network of seals. The floor got turned into this muddy ocean of evil."

"You don't seem too worse for wear," Kakashi said, straightening up.

"Honestly, I don't think you'd have had any trouble with that thing," I said with a nod. "It was pretty slow."

Perception Check Success: 8/8.

Alright, I heard someone behind me-OH OW GOSH WHY?!

-48 hp.

I felt a kunai dig itself into my back at high speeds and I collapsed forward in shock. I mean freaking ow that HURT! Blood was starting to leak from where the thing was buried.

Kakashi leapt over me and I heard the clone explode. I reached behind me and pulled the Kunai out, trying not to make it hurt any more than it already did.

-1 hp.

-1 hp.

Shut up, game. Ow.

200 HP left. Okay, I'm not in extreme danger yet. The earlier damage I took from the Genjutsu didn't carry over, thankfully.

It came out and my HP didn't start going down, so I wasn't going to bleed out, thankfully. That possibility didn't occur to me until right after it came out, but in this case, I'm kind of happy for game mechanics.

The kunai was actually a bunch of well-shaped pebbles that crumbled in my hand. Great, I got stabbed by rocks.

I stood up and turned around, Kakashi being surrounded by three new piles of dirt.

"So what's the plan?" I asked, keeping a very keen ear out for more spontaneously appearing earth clones.

"Find your teammates, leave the house," Kakashi replied quickly. "Then get a report to the Hokage as fast as possible to get this house trashed and its owner questioned."

…That was surprisingly sensible. We don't need to handle everything ourselves, there wasn't any reason for us to hang around. Just got to get us and ours and hightail it. I like this plan. Pity it's probably going to go wrong.

"So, are we just going to start exploding walls?" I asked, popping my knuckles.

"I've been trying," Kakashi responded. "The clones keep showing up to interrupt me."

"Oh," I said, nodding. "Can I keep them off of you? I don't have any jutsu that can reliably get past the seal-reinforcements, but I'm sure you have a lot of jutsu that would make short work of stuff like this."

Speech Check Success: 32/30.

+15 EXP.

"I'd rather make sure you didn't get another kunai in your back," Kakashi replied, before sighing in resignation. "But you make a good point. Try to keep them off of me while I look for the other two."

"Hai Sensei," With that, I started my watch. It took all of two seconds for the piles of dust and gravel to reform themselves back into clones. Alright, then! Come on, my little EXP nuggets! Bring it to me!

I snagged two of them with chakra strings and used them to slingshot my way to the third one, whose head I promptly disintegrated with a well-placed double-kick. I dodged backwards to avoid a punch from the left, which I promptly retaliated against with a punch to its side.

-24 hp.

I was caught by surprise when the other one kicked me in the shins. Ow! Geeze, man! I stuck to its leg and used that as leverage to land a kick of my own to its torso, and it burst like its friends.

+25 EXP.

+25 EXP.

+25 EXP.

The house shook with an explosion. "I found Hisako!"

Awesome!

I leapt over to where Kakashi was standing. There was a new hole in the bathroom, just past the shower, where a cell filled with red seals was built. Hisako was lying on the ground, sweating and mumbling in her sleep. Whatever she was seeing, it was bad.

Kakashi put a hand on her and a hand in half a seal. "Kai."

Hisako bolted away, kunai in hand in an attempt to take Kakashi's other eye, but Kakashi caught the hand. "Easy there. You've been under a Genjutsu."

She breathed uneasily for several seconds and-I dodge the incoming dirt Shuriken and rapidly turn to see four dirt clones coming at me. Freak, I dropped the ball on that. Alright. A kick dispersed the first one, cross punches took out two and three and then I stuck to the ceiling like monkey bars to swing into a kick to take out the final one.

If I couldn't take these things out in one punch, I would be having a much harder time of this, I'm sure.

+25 EXP.

+25 EXP.

+25 EXP.

+25 EXP.

880 more EXP until level 7. A level up would be welcome. I've been needing to improve my ranged weapon skill for a while, just to get Kakashi and Hisako off of my back about my aim. Whatever, now's not the time.

"Daisuke!" Kakashi called after me. "Hisako is going to stay back here with me, keep those clones off our backs."

"You got it!" I called back. You know, I wonder why the clones don't simply appear in the bathroom. I mean, the bathroom is a part of the house, so - Hisako screamed, followed by the sound of a dirt clone bursting. Well, that answers that question!

I hopped over to Kakashi.

"Change of plans," Kakashi said, looking over the wall with his Sharingan eye. "Stay close, Daisuke."

"Will do," I nodded, taking up a position at the door.

"So why don't you just destroy the entire wall?" Hisako asked, seeming to have composed herself.

"The walls absorb chakra," Kakashi answered with an audible frown.

"It does?" I asked. "But I can walk up them just fine."

"Well, I assume it only absorbs chakra from jutsu meant to harm the walls specifically," Kakashi elaborated. "Hides the walls' function extremely well from the prying eyes of the shinobi in Konoha. The seals are very well put together from what I can tell. But I can get through it by overloading the wall with enough concentrated force."

Oh. Same principle as a bullet. Less force than a baseball, punches through organs like paper, if I remember correctly. Which means he's using…

Kakashi performed hand seals in rapid succession. So rapid that I only caught the Ox seal at the beginning, monkey somewhere in the middle (ha!) and another monkey at the end.

Perception Check Failure: Success not possible.

…wow. Really? I guess it makes sense since SPECIAL stats get more powerful as I level but dang. So even if I had ten, I still wouldn't have caught all of that. Ox, monkey and monkey aren't enough to really go on.

Ninjutsu Check Failure: 20/85.

Yup.

Kakashi held up his hand with the other, and a massive amount of electricity gathered in his palm. The chakra was shaped like a jagged rock in his hand, pouring out streams of electricity that fell to the floor in what I considered to be the greatest lightshow ever.

This was the Chidori.

I want it.

He put his palm to the floor and dragged it so fast I couldn't follow the motion for all of two feet before hitting the wall, causing the seals around the immediate point of impact to burn red hot before the wall exploded, sending dust and dirt everywhere. But on the other side was Nichiren, who looked just as bad as Hisako. His glasses were on the floor, he was pale and sweating and mumbling to himself.

It just occurred to me that if anyone heard me mumble while in the Genjutsu-dream-thing, that might be terrifying. Or hilarious. I don't think 'Ad Victoriam' would register as anything other than gibberish to these Latin-less people.

-24 HP.

SONOFA-

Turned around, jumped at the clone and vaporized its head and torso. The rest of it more or less disintegrated on its own, which took some of the fun out of it-

+25 EXP.

-but that doesn't change the fact that I'm now at 176 HP and since this house won't stop spawning Earth Clones, I can't imagine that I'll last much longer if we don't get out of here now.

"So, where's our exit?" I called back, watching more clones form up.

"Right here," Kakashi called back, making another Chidori. Oh, we were going to escape through the wall. Smart.

A shadow passed over me and I felt this horrible chill. I looked back and there, sitting in the window sill was a raven. Probably the same one from the basement. I was more than certain that it was normal raven. This was confirmed when it suddenly grew in size and gained arms. It was now a Were-raven.

Quest Updated: Upon a Midnight Darkly

Completed: Re-unite with your team.

Defeat the Were-raven.

Most likely a Nin with a more complicated Henge, like Man-Beast Transformation or whatever it's called.

"Kakashi-sensei," I called back. "I found our problem."

The Were-raven made a hand sign, and the whole house lit up in seals. Yes indeed, this entire house is tattooed in a giant seal and…wait, don't tell me he's bringing the floor-

Intelligence Check Success: 10/7.

Oh crap.

Suddenly, the floor beneath us exploded as the concrete-abomination ripped its way from the basement to the currently floor, the Raven screaming a war-cry. Then the floor beneath my feet was burst by concrete which promptly engulfed me AND SWALLOWED ME NONONONONONO-!

"Daisuke!" I heard the muffled cry of Hisako as I was pulled under.

The light above me disappeared and I was tumbled and twirled around until I didn't know which way was up as I was dragged to oblivion. Chakra-slide proved useless as my limbs quickly had cords wrapped around them.

Part of me was amazed by the increase in capability and amused that it needed someone else's brain to get anything done. The rest was simply scared out of its mind. Doubly so when I was deposited back in the cell I first started in, only this time I was tied up in concrete ropes. My vision flashed rapidly between the crimson seals and the smoke dotted sky of Nuked!Konoha.

Perception Check Success: 8/8.

+50 EXP.

You know what?

Screw this.

I am not going to get Genjutsu-murdered by this sad, despicable Gaara rip-off! I…wait. You know, I think I might be able to just make a mini-Rasengan to grind through these tendrils with a significantly reduced chakra cost. Still don't think I can make it for more than a few seconds-

-BURNING SKY, ASH BLOCKING OUT THE SUN-

-Freaking Genjutsu. Okay, go!

Chakra Control Check Success! 100/65.

Nice!

However, it did approximately nothing, since the ropes simply absorbed my chakra before I could get it to form properly. My Chakra went down to zero really quickly. Like, dang! Although it occurred to me that being able to go from zero to full in less than a minute is really cheap. I wonder if there's deeper rules.

I felt the cell start to move and that just made me panic even more. I struggled, weaving against the tendrils, grunting in exertion as I twisted out of their stone grip.

Agility Check Success: 7/7.

+35 EXP.

I am never going to take my other SPECIAL stats for granted ever again.

I swear I heard a pop as I came out. Now what? Through the wall? It'll just absorb my chakra. Come on, there's got to be a weak point.

I jumped out of the way of the tentacle-things coming after me now that I had escaped.

Come on, show me your weak point like a good boss!

Dodge left, dodge right, the cell started to shrink in size.

I'm really just hoping you have a weak point right now.

Suddenly, there was an explosion and my vision blurred out of focus completely for a second and kai! KAI! KAAAAAAAAIIII!

Then I was sat down on the ground by Kakashi, who was a total boss by the way, and he looked over me with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Yes Sensei," I was breathing heavily. We were deep in some concrete tunnels. Clearly up to code, but they haven't actually been maintained either. "Is the other guy dead?"

"No," Kakashi answered. "He just dived into the writhing mass of nightmares after it grabbed you."

"Oh," I said, standing up. "Do you think killing whoever that is will stop the basement floor?"

"I hope so," Kakashi replied. "Because it's coming for us."

I looked up. The concrete beast filled the tunnel completely, blocking the path to wherever it was going. However, the path back to the house was completely unblocked. It surged forward at us and we ran like crazy back along the path.

Thankfully, I noticed that Hisako and Nichiren were nowhere to be found, so they were clearly back at the house.

Which was good, because the giant monster was mad and tailing us.