Around the World: Myth's of Olympus

Getting into Kumo was pretty simple.

Fly high into the mountains, find village in a secluded area, use binocular-jutsu to confirm that it's inhabitants were all wearing headbands then dive in. While the clones took care of the nitty gritty and the hawks flew out to signal intruders which the ninja immediately responded too.

The civilians remained at ease, though. It was nice, seeing these perfectly normal people being able to live in a ninja village just like Konoha. Just drives home that the wars prior were mostly about grudges and paranoia.

On today's docket was Myth's of Olympus. It was like the other quests in the Around the World docket, look for history on the other world wars as well as look for what they know about the other nations since I'm curious on the depth of their information gathering; these are the same people who had the audacity to try to kidnap the infant daughter of Konoha's most powerful clan during peace talks.

Holy cow did Konoha look weak in that instance of international diplomacy.

While the clones were handling the infiltration, I was looking for the Will of Lightning monument. I mean, I never heard of such a thing in all my years of history class, but then we didn't know much about other countries either. Only that Konoha was the first and put an end to the Warring States period by…utilizing fear.

They created peace by forcing the world into a cold war.

You know, that line of thought summarizes so much about the world I live in, it's almost funny. The world runs from hot to cold on the conflict engine. Judging from reports, judging how each war was just to avenge the wrongs of the previous one plus fear plus resource gain…but then they just kept at it. You'd think a pointless series of wars would just be resolved in peace treaties, right? Am I underestimating how vindictive people can be?

Well, I'm moved to violence by being called a child, so yes.

I just…I don't know. It's a feeling in my gut. It's telling me that these wars, at least in part, are being manufactured. Somehow. If I had to put my finger on it, maybe the Akatsuki is involved some how? I remember they had some crazy plan to put the whole world in a Genjutsu and it was called the Moon Eye Plan?

…well, they were already on the short-list of exceptions to my non-lethal run but remembering that means I need to depopulate their list of members to zero as fast as possible. Even Itachi. I know Sasuke called dibs on that monster, but the plan needs to be stopped. Now.

Anyway, that pleasant thought aside, if I were a symbolic monument to electricity discharging from the clouds to the ground, where would I be? At the top?

No…

Kumogakure was platforms. All platforms. It was made of platforms. Houses were built on platforms that had platforms built on top of them. Given their insane height into the mountains, I suppose this only makes sense.

Wait, is the monument that wall over there?

I zipped over to the wall that reminded me of a word-wall from Skyrim. Just a quarter-circle built into the center. The wall was just a mirror with two cracks coming down the center. The cracks were clearly deliberate because they made the shape of a lightning bolt going from top to bottom.

No one was conveniently around explaining the meaning behind the monument this time so I stood there, trying to figure out what it meant. The mirror obviously was supposed to represent us, i.e the people looking at the monument. The lightning through the mirror was also supposed to mean something but what?

That the village comes before anyone else? That everyone is meant to give everything to the village until you fizzle out in a blaze of glory like how a lightning bolt is blinding and deafening in real life but only lasts half of a second? What?

Come on, luck! Gimme someone to explain it to me.

No?

Quest Complete: Myth's of Olympus.

Com-yeah, yeah. I get it.

New insight into the battles, no new insight into the why of the wars. Though Iwa was hiring Akatsuki recently.

Bum-bum-bum-Bum!

Level up!

Oh. Level 32. Fine, all the skill points into barter, I don't care anymore. Get me the white-wash perk. Yay, I'm now another step stronger than everyone else except maybe the Hokage.

Anyway, just trying to outright replace the hidden villages by doing missions at cost isn't going to work, obviously. If it could work, it would've already. The organization's been trying this for a long time and they feel the need to resort to a Moon Eye plan to…end the cycle of hatred?

Okay, if that's how it started, it's been horrifically hijacked. Figuring out that story is going to be interesting. Maybe I can wrench it from Itachi as I'm stabbing out his eyes?

…mind rape is bad, kids. Not even once.

Whatever, I've got what I need. Even the knowledge that they're subtly preparing to militarize doesn't surprise me. They're going to war because they're afraid Konoha will seek vengeance. Which they will. Konoha is counting on me to win the war for them.

Konoha's just as guilty with what's wrong with the world as everyone else is. I mean, when I helped the penguins, at least they acknowledged the fact that their war had no good guys and they immediately seized upon a less brutal option the moment it cropped up.

But this war won't have a peaceful resolution. We're moving toward genocide. Every new war unearths new techniques and new super weapons with no civilian innovations coming in from those wars to at least make them profitable in that sense.

The constant cycle of war is a zero-sum game and the main problem is that the villages are spared of that.

Which is just contributing to that feeling that the wars are manufactured somehow.

Ugh, this hand-wringing is getting me nowhere. Let's go explore the rest of the Land of Clouds.

Hey, what's that?

That is a Kumo nin. One of the nin I saved, actually. From the blood worms? Yeah, Nogi Ayako. I'd recognize her Pikachu hair anywhere. Fittingly, she specialized in lightning jutsu. Sparring with her during the Chunin exam was kind of fun and she revealed an aptitude for Taijutsu.

She was standing at the foot of a cliff, rapidly making hand-signs and staring up the cliff. What was she aiming at? I looked up at the cliff itself and…wait…those aren't birds. I thought they were birds. I mean, they hand wings but those wings had hands that folded into the wings and their legs were very, very long. To top it off, they had human heads. Human!

Are those harpies?

Those are harpies!

What are harpies doing in the elemental nations?

That makes no sense!

I…you know what, I'll worry about it later. Right now, I think I want to find the rest of her team…holy cow, the harpies made nests, too. Her team is up there, unconscious and bleeding. Taken up to the nest to feed on later if I had to guess. Ayako was their last pest to deal with before they could chow down.

Sixteen birds in the air, adopting a circular attack pattern and beginning to rain feathers from above. You know, I would really have preferred the raven from the monster house to be the last time I ever saw weaponized feathers, but here we are.

Ayako was throwing lightning bolts into the sky, downing two of the birds but taking several hits to the arms and legs. The lacerations bled deeply.

Should I give that team a hand?

…I mean, yes, obviously, but as a bonus to satisfying my conscience, she could explain the Will of Lightning to me.

Step one, touch down on the mountain. Step two, henge into a homeless nin with a mask that conceals the whole face. Step three, grab kunai and attach ninja-wire to them. Step four, wipe mindless animals from the face of the earth.

Running up the mountain to get where Ayako was making her last stand was trivial. One of the harpies swooped down, feet first with it's talons extended. I crested the edge of the cliff and threw out both kunai, impaling it in the chest and head. Immediately, I pulled the harpy down as hard as I could, slamming it into the mountain wall and then withdrawing my kunai.

As the harpy fell off the mountain, Ayako looked at me with bewildered and bloodshot eyes. "Who are you?"

Hm. I think she's been up on this mountain for a few days, she sounded ragged. My response was terse by necessity – I didn't want her identifying me properly. "The backup."

I prepared the kunai and wires to throw again. I considered setting them on fire, but a good way to avoid getting figured out as Konoha's Monster is to limit myself to one element of jutsu. A shame, I wanted to feel like Kratos for the second.

A screeching in the air pulled our attention and we saw feathers start to rain down on us. We both flattened ourselves against the mountain wall. Flying through hand signs, I placed my hands on the wall.

Excavator.

The wall gave way to a long tunnel, excess dirt rushing past our feet. I waved her inside. "Come on!"

We both fled and we could hear the harpies screeching behind us. The tunnel wasn't very long, I just wanted to force the harpies into position where they had to enter a tight space in order to even get a shot at us. Given the screeching, they were going to take the bait.

"Why doesn't the tunnel go all the way through?" Ayako asked, her voice dripping with panic and desperation.

"I'm trying to lure the birds into a trap," I replied evenly, starting to spin the kunai. "Whip up some lightning for us?"

Then I threw the kunai down the tunnel, impaling one of the birds that I was knew was coming right through the head. I pulled the corpse down and funneled chakra down the wire to move the corpse down and to the left, using it to block another salvo of weaponized feathers coming from another harpy. Immediately threw my other kunai, stabbing one on the left side of the chest, about where the heart would be in a normal person.

Given that it went limp after a few seconds of sputtering blood from it's mouth, my guess was close enough.

"Lightning Style: Rolling Thunder Jutsu!" Ayako called, sending a roiling ball of lightning down the tunnel.

I recalled my kunai just in time to avoid getting zapped by the ball and it slammed into three of the harpies, sending them careening off the mountain. We were half-way done with these things. Three more harpies showed up. One of them charged and I rewarded their decision making my impaling it with both kunai and pulling myself toward it. I slammed into its torso with both feet and slid toward the other two while reeling my kunai in. I threw the kunai forward, one stabbed a harpy in the neck, the other through the shoulder. Sliding forward on this corpse, I kicked it off the mountain and swung both harpies after it.

The one I stabbed in the shoulder kept trying to desperately trying to fly while screeching at the top of it's lungs. I responded with a rock bullet to its skull.

Five more to go. I look up and catch two more, flying quickly off the mountain, throwing feathers down on me. I zipped back into the cave as the feathers embedded themselves into the mountain wall.

Ayako sprinted out of the cave, hands flying into seals. "Lightning Style: Chain Lightning!"

A bolt flew from her, hitting one which then bounced to the other. In a plume of smoke and twitching bird feet, they fell down the mountain. Three to go. Where are they? They've fled higher into the mountains with their tails between their legs.

"Come on," I waved Ayako forward. "They're on the run and we need to finish the job."

Ayako looked utterly confused. Her fortunes had completely reversed in a matter of seconds and I think her brain was having trouble catching up. "O-okay!"

She ran after me and together we ran up the mountain and after the harpies.

Making impromptu teams is actually kind of fun. Charisma is pretty useful in more ways than I was thinking at first.

Around the rock wall we went. We spotted another harpy streaking up into the sky as fast as it's wings could carry us. Ayako immediately slung a bolt of lightning at it, hitting true and sending it down to the abyss below.

Two more to go.

We climbed ever higher, going up and up, turning around the mountain, the sheer drop below us would've given me vertigo in my past life. We turned again and saw another harpy flying away. This one was mine, I sent a salvo of stone missiles after it with a flurry of hand-signs. Each stone hit it, breaking the things hollow bones with every impact.

Just one more.

Up we went, running in an orbit around us, looking up to find the final harpy. So focused was I on the sky that I almost missed the harpy waiting around the corner on a landing that lead inside a cave. Almost.

With a screech, it waved and slashed with it's wings, razor-sharp feathers cutting through the wind. I let myself drop five feet to dodge the attacks before reattaching to the mountainside. A few hand seals and I plunged my fists into the mountain, pulling them out with my brand-new stone gauntlets.

Then I zipped up, ramming my rock-covered fist onto the things knee. It screeched until I plunged my other fist into the things rib cage, the bones each snapping satisfyingly under the weight. Finally, I took the fist that I had hit the things knee with and smashed the harpies head against the stone wall, reducing its head to a thick red paste on the mountain wall.

Well, that's over.

Letting out a sigh of relief, I got up onto the cliff, sitting down and helping Ayako onto the cliff.

"I think that's all of them," I said while examining my fists, the blood colored stone gradually fading away into dust in the wind as the jutsu faded. I clenched and unclenched my fingers almost by reflex. The thrill of watching something fly apart in a spurt of red, glorious liquid pumping through my heart setting my brain a light.

…I've missed this.

"Alright," Ayako said. "Now I need answers. Who are you?"

"Who I am isn't important," I replied to her question, keenly aware that she had drawn a kunai behind me. "I saw someone in trouble and I wanted to help."

"You expect me to believe that?" Ayako asked incredulously.

"No," I admitted with a shrug. "But it's the truth. Besides, you and I both know that you're not in any condition to fight, so I say we find the other members of your team see if they need help and then I can be on my way. Sound good?"

That was too many words from me. Trying to be short and terse.

She was breathing heavily, but it was slowing down. I couldn't see her, but I could picture her tired and blood shot eyes moving from side to side as she considered my words.

"Where do you think your team is going to be?" I asked, starting to stand up.

"Huh?" She shook herself out of her reverie. "One of the nests, probably."

I only knew where they were because I saw the nests from above. As far as she knew, I came from the ground, so I couldn't just tell her where they came from. "We should probably start searching, huh?"

She was quiet for just a minute. "…Yeah, you're right."

We retrieved the two teammates, Yoshi and Takeo and got them to that cave at the top of the mountain. It was a miracle that hadn't, at the very least, been nibbled on.

"These things have been raiding caravans for months," Ayako started to explain as she gave her teammates blood and soldier pills. "At first, we thought they were just ninja using some sort of Ninjutsu, but no. They're actual, flying bird monsters. After a few days, we managed to find the lab where they came from."

"They were grown in a lab?" I asked curiously.

"We found this lab with vats full of green liquid," Ayako shook her head. "We burned it and got to work killing the rest of the bird monsters. There were so many and my teammates collapsed from exhaustion a few hours before you got here. They got flown off to the nests."

Green liquid. Like the anglers, who were grown from the FEV. Which I still don't understand how that came to this world. I mean, I might've accepted it if Orochimaru was able to invent the FEV in this universe, but even he didn't know where it came from. Someone, or something, is randomly mutating random people with the FEV to monsters to torment the people of the Elemental Nations with.

I need to figure this out. And soon.

"Thanks to you, we're all alive," Ayako said, sitting down around the campfire that she had been carrying around in a storage scroll. "So…thanks. I guess."

"You're welcome," I replied.

We sat in silence for a minute, the sun setting off in the west as it usually did. The cool mountain air grew chillier. Some of the plants growing out of the mountain side were waving listlessly in the breeze.

I cleared my throat. "Actually, there is something you can do for me."

Ayako's head snapped in my direction with a frown. "What?"

"You can explain the Will of Lightning to me," I replied, noting that she was expecting a…baser favor. Which made me feel a little bit sick.

"Explain the…" She blinked. "Alright. Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm trying to understand the world," I explained with a shrug.

"Well," Ayako paused, looking toward her teammates. "Alright. So…the Will of Lightning. The Path of Determination. You know how lightning starts, right?"

An electrical discharge taking place between a cloud and the ground, or in between two points of charge in the clouds if you want intra-cloud lightning. "Yeah."

"Well, when it goes from the cloud to the ground, it's because both sides have lightning coursing through them," Ayako began.

Well, both sides have an electrical charge so I guess it's…right in its own way.

"So, the lightning in the cloud, it really wants to get to the lightning in the ground," Ayako continued. "So, it starts to travel down the air. But every time it makes a move down the air, it encounters a roadblock. Instead of giving up and going back up to the cloud, it finds another route. Then another. And another. Until finally it reaches the ground and the sky lights up."

That is a very, very interesting way of saying it. It is technically right? Sort of?

"So, what does that have to do with the philosophy your village operates under?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm getting there," Ayako replied with a frown. "We in the village are the lightning in the cloud. The lightning at the bottom are our goals. As shinobi and as a village. On our way to achieving our goals, we will run into obstacles. Instead of giving up and going home, we find another route. And another route. Until finally we achieve our goal and light up the sky."

I cupped my masked chin in thought.

"And we, as shinobi and as a village don't stop," She gave me a steely glare. "For anyone. Because we are all capable of lighting up the sky like a strike of lightning."

A philosophy dedicated to absolute determination.

I can honestly say that pre-Charisma me would've vastly preferred being in Hidden Cloud village to Hidden Leaf if it wasn't for Naruto and the rest of my friends.

"Does that make sense?" She asked with a frown.

"It makes perfect sense," I replied with a nod. "Thank you."

Takeo began to stir, groaning and trying to sit up.

"Well, you three have a safe night," I said standing up.

"Wait," Ayako stood up, her hand outstretched. "…maybe you could come to the village with us? We could use someone like you."

"Nah," I said with a smile beneath my henged mask. "I value my independence too much."

She looked a little disappointed. "Then…be safe."

"Always," I replied right before I jumped off the mountain.

On the way down, I circled the mountain until I was out of sight of her. Then I dropped my henge and FTG'd my way back to the vault.

As far as my exits to the vault go, that was fairly smooth and organic. The steel walls and sterile environment felt more like home to me than ever and that, honestly, seemed a little bit depressing. But home is where the heart is.

Honestly, the Will of Lightning kind of explains why they thought it was a good idea to try to abduct Hinata during peace talks – the potential for peace was just another obstacle to overcome. That's also depressing and explains why they've been such a pernicious foe to Konoha. Konoha wants to stop the conquest and bloodshed and by their very nature and culture, Kumo absolutely cannot abide that.

But does Konoha as a whole really want to stop the wars with anything other than total victory? Naruto does. My friends do, I think. Well, maybe not. Conditioning to fight against the other villages for your countrymen begins in the academy.

The world honestly does suck.

Why does everything seem to be getting more and more hopeless the more I learn? I was hoping to find the solution in this pilgrimage but I'm no closer than to it now then to when I started.

I'll still look into the Hidden Mist Village just in case there's something I'm missing, but I don't think the solution to the worlds problems is in the Hidden Villages. At all.

But right now, let's take a break.

In my office of the vault, beside my desk was a weapon-rack. It was ornamentally fashioned and on it was my gun. I had long since stripped it of it's seals, and it sat there, mounted on my wall as both a souvenir and a reminder. A reminder of how when I first made the thing, my first thought was joy that it could kill me. It was the perfect culmination of just how wrong my perspective was back then.

But here I am, having just come back from a bloody engagement with a pack of wild animals. Thugs and bandits won't back down and there will be a time when I won't be able to just leave justice to proper authorities. But only because, here? In this world? In this day and age? There often aren't any proper authorities to hand it off too.

That's normally why and how most gangs and posse's got started in my old world; there was no other way to make sure that justice was done. Sometimes that duty is going to fall to me. I don't like it, but I think I should get ahead of it.

But let's think about it for a second. Am I only thinking this way because I've started to miss when my problems could be solved by punching harder? Well, maybe. But is the logic flawed somehow?

No, it isn't. But that doesn't mean a lethal solution is always the only solution. I've learned that quite well.

So instead of taking up the gun again, let's make a new one. Upgrade it. I've got access to a lot more elemental releases so I can make it look like an actual gun, not just a mangled kunai. Something that actually looks like a weapon you could use. Besides, I was always a huge fan of That Gun from New Vegas.

Getting started, I knew I wanted a sleek, black grip. So it was fairly simple to just 'solid release' one into existence. Next came the frame to hold the cylinder. I had made the first weapon, symbolically, to be a revolver simply because I thought revolvers were cool.

I've had some time to think about it, and I think that limiting myself to six shots, even if they did each 'recharge' individually, just to give tribute to one of my favorite class of weapons. No. I mean, the recharge idea itself was a pretty good idea, but the design itself needed to be streamlined.

So, next let's make the cylinder.

Because revolvers only fire one shot at a time, with each squeeze of a trigger, they are considered semi-automatic. Almost all modern-day weapons of my old world fell into either the semi-automatic or fully automatic category. I'd like to conserve my chakra since all of my defenses rely on my having at least some chakra to work with.

Hm. The seal work is going to have to be super compressed to get the effect I want. I already wanted the cylinder to have hollow spots to make for more surface area but maybe having bullet shaped 'inserts' that were hollow would also be good for the actual 'damage' part of the weapon.

I'm not making an assault rifle, so space is at a premium. Plus, I don't need the ability to switch between semi-automatic and fully-automatic. So yeah. Space. Let's start to make the barrel now. Actually, having a barrel inside the barrel for more surface area for the seal might be good.

You know, thinking about assault rifles got me to thinking. I remember my favorite weapon from Battlefield 2 was the F2000, which had the ability to alternate between a submachine and a grenade launcher. It was just about the coolest thing ever in my mind. Actually, I don't think that was an assault rifle since, in the game, you couldn't switch between firing modes and you have to be able to switch for it to count. I do know that the AR-15 or ArmaLite Rifle 15 was not an assault rifle since it was only semi-automatic. At least I think, I've really only seen one once and it was a long time ago.

The reason I'm thinking about this is because…maybe I can make this pistol look like a compressed F2000 or AR-15. Like, use some of the design aesthetic for that weapon here in my weapon. I liked the aesthetic of both…hm. The F2000 wins out for nostalgia points. Having the barrel(s) sticking out of the front might be good for my surface area…hm.

Okay. Now for the inserts.

The cylinder was made with Three large holes in it and it fit smoothly onto the pin and snapping easily into the frame. The inserts were quickly made, shaped like shot cartridges with several rings of metal fit inside. I made three. It should be enough area for it.

Let's get the gun ready.

The seals for my previous gun took no effort to recreate. Improving on them was a bit more of a challenge, but since this gun had significantly more surface area in it, it made it easier to breathe and make improvements. Once the rig for sending the line of chakra out was in place, augmented by space-release to fold the space the laser occupied to artificially extend its range, I got to work on the inserts.

The three 'bullets' each had a different function. One completely and nonlethally incapacitated the target, knocking them out for hours at a time. More reliable than punching them in the button, I'd say. The second was very much the traditional gun, puncturing and piercing anything in it's path.

The third bullet was something I was kind of proud of.

I remember playing Team Fortress 2 and sometimes I tried out the medic. I never liked it, but I've gone and put his healing beam here in bullet form – slamming a stimpacks into their bodies. Obviously, I was going to need to input some level of safety feature to make sure it absolutely was on the healing function when I was shooting my allies, if needed.

Let's test the weapon first.

I flushed the seals with a wave of chakra and noted, happily, that the small symbol for the First Aid Round on top of the barrel lit up red – a small cross in loving memory of the Red Cross. Awesome people who did awesome work.

Another wave of chakra to turn the cylinder and ready the next charge. This time the symbol, a blue symbol for the handicapped shined – a person on a wheelchair. The pistol wouldn't permanently disable someone like was often the case for the handicapped, it would seriously inhibit their ability to do anything for a couple of hours.

Final wave of chakra and the orange symbol for lethal shined through, a Greek Omega symbol. This would do nicely.

For the final touch, let's install the safety mechanism. Just drill a hole here, create a pin, layer that pin with seals, lock in in place…okay. So to lock it, I just move it so that I can't switch fire settings. Place the safety on for the healing and I won't ever accidentally switch it to lethal while trying to heal someone.

I mean, given my chakra control, I don't think that'll happen but it never hurts to be prepared. If I get my head crippled again, I'll take a penalty to chakra control and all bets are off then.

Final safety measure: What are the rules of gun safety?

Number 1, keep the weapon pointed in a safe direction, number 2, always keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to fire and number 3, always leave the weapon unloaded until it's time to use it.

Okay, my gun is ready.

It was sleek and black, curving up like a perfectly sloped hill. The cylinder was mounted near the back and spun sharply and easily. The grip felt good in my fingers and my finger slid into the trigger guard easily enough. Just a spark of chakra was all it took to fire the weapon.

Okay. Now I'm taking this with me to the Land of Water and I hope I won't need it. I probably will though, given what that place is.