Chapter 14

"Cough....cough...."

'Where am I'

Asahi's mind raced as he struggled to comprehend his surroundings. His whole body is aching as he spits ocean water that fills his lungs.

His eyes fluttered open, adjusting to the dim place as he saw himself in what seemed to be inside a cave, judging by the rugged stone ceiling above him.

As Asahi stood up with trembling legs, he saw a sight he would never forget in his life.

There, in front of him stood a gigantic octopus with half of its body submerged in the water.

The octopus is at least five times the five-foot-tall Asahi as the gigantic stature of the beast towers over the kid.

Asahi's heart pounded as his body sprang and scrambled backward, raising his arms and taking a fighting stance.

"What...what do you want?" Asahi's voice trembles as he carefully tries to communicate with the beast.

"Need...Help...."

A hoarse voice was heard by Asahi but strangely enough, the voice seemed to be coming from his mind.

'Mind Jutsu!'

Asahi as traveling rouge ninja, had heard of this kind of jutsu that directly attacks the mind. Its key difference from a Genjutsu is that mind jutsu doesn't cast an illusion to confuse the enemy's sense but allows the user to transfer their consciousness, read minds, and communicate telepathically. 

The Kekkei Genkai of the Yamanaka Clan from Konoha is categorized as a mind jutsu technique and they are also the only known user of this jutsu.

"What...what do you mean?"Asahi gulped his saliva as his voice trembled in fear facing a beast that Asahi suspected to have the same jutsu as the scary Yamanaka clan.

"Child....child....child!"

The octopus seems to have a hard time speaking as it repeatedly says 'child' over and over again.

'Child? Is he talking about me?' Asahi asked himself in confusion but this seemed to enrage the octopus as it roared.

*ROAR!*

"AH!"

The octopus' roar was so loud that Asahi screamed because his head was in excruciating pain as if it was being split apart.

All of a sudden, one of the octopus' tentacles emerges from the water as it wraps Asahi, lifting him from the ground.

"L-let me go!"

Asahi tried to free himself but it was a pointless struggle as the octopus threw him above a tall place where he landed on a body of water filled with seawater around the size of a small lake. 

'Shit! fuck this octopus!' was Asahi's thoughts as he submerged in the water.

 He tried to swim back to the top when something caught his attention. 

Asahi noticed a bunch of octopuses, around eight in number, which looked exactly like the octopus he faced except they were much smaller, around the size of a normal adult octopus.

His eyes widen as he suddenly realizes something.

'So that's what it is' 

The baby octopuses all have a pained expression plastered as they sleep.

Holding the baby octopuses in his hands, Asahi swims and places each of them on the shallow part of the sea lake.

The parent octopus meticulously watched his every movement and Asahi made sure to perceive as friendly as possible.

Placing the children in shallow water makes it easier for him to observe them.

The first thing that he noticed was their relatively hot temperature, especially for a water creature.

"They're sick!" Asahi said which enraged the parent octopus, prompting it to roar once again.

Fortunately, it wasn't as loud compared to earlier, enough for Asahi to bear as he continued examining the children.

It is a basic necessity for a wandering ninja such as Asahi to learn at least basic medical knowledge to survive in this chaotic world where wounds and diseases can take down even the strongest ninjas.

Manipulating his chakra inside one of the baby octopuses, Asahi discovers that there is something that blocks the chakra pathways of the octopus.

'They are poisoned!' This time, Asahi learned his lesson as he speaks in his mind only.

The poison that blocks chakra pathways is a relatively known and common poison used by many ninjas showcasing its usefulness.

There are many variants of this kind of poison and everyone inflicted will not access their chakra and perform ninjutsu because the poison blocks the chakra nodes within the person's body.

This type of poison is more often harmless except for the fact that the person who takes it won't be able to use their chakra,

However, some can be deadly to the body and cause the chakra to go frenzy and uncontrol such as in the case of the baby octopuses here.

After inspecting the babies, Asahi stood up and faced the gigantic octopus beast and said,

"I can heal them under one condition!" He yelled

 *ROAR* 

"You can't kill me because your babies will also die if I don't save them!" Asahi's hand was trembling as he faced the enraged beast but he steeled his resolve.

The octopus didn't speak nor roar much to Asahi's delight knowing that his words were working.

'It works!'

"Form a summon contract seal with me, it's the only way that I can save your children!" Asahi explained

However, the octopus was skeptical upon hearing Asahi's condition thinking that he is taking advantage of his predicament.

"You....Lying..." 

"No, I am not!" 

"To save your children, I need you to form a summon contract seal with me!"

The octopus doesn't know how Asahi will be able to heal his children by having a summon contract seal with him but in the end, he relents and agrees.

After all, the summon contract seal doesn't forbid the summon to attack its summoner so if ever Asahi doesn't fulfill his promise, the octopus will make sure he will follow its babies to heaven.

The octopus raised its tentacle as it pointed to an empty wall and said.

"Sign...name...blood....here"

The black-haired boy wasted no time as he bit the ring finger of his left hand and wrote his name on the wall.

{Shinji Asahi}