Don't mind me, I'm just your resident Shinobi! - The Chapter 10 (Patreon)

[Time Skip Warning]

Disclaimer- I don’t actually own anything that the Mouse lays a claim to. He could own me at this moment; I wouldn’t know. All hail to the Mighty Mouse!

Kamar Taj, Kathmandu, Nepal

–Alex Warner–

“Focus!” He was hit right in his ribs, by the stupid rope, whip, stick combo of one Karl motherf*cker Mordo, as he was pushed back, right up until his back hit the wall, which was not smooth, mind you. 

He could feel the imperfections in the wall behind him, and before he could comment on the crude craftsmanship which was just laziness because these people had access to magic, he had to throw himself to the ground, the area where his head previously was now a small hole, with chunks of concrete, and pointy rocks hitting him on the side of his head.

He was tempted to scream at the man and express his outrage, but experience told him that would just increase the intensity of this spar, which was just a way for the sadist bastard to express all the pent up anger he had at the world. So, he did the next best thing. He jumped the guy, chakra pooling at all the extremities of his body as he all but glided on the floor, the motion so fluid it seemed as if he was riding a wave of solid matter as he reached within spitting distance of the Master of the Mystic Art.

Unfortunately, he could spot the telltale signs of a smirk forming on the man’s face a metaphorical mile away as his gambit to get up close in an effort to use his lightning jutsu fell flat on its face as all he could see was a small wooden dot adorned with fiery little sparks, growing bigger by the millisecond, soon poised to encompass his entire field of vision.

Miraculously, his body seemed to respond to his desperate desire not to sport a giant bruise of a face, as his back seemingly cracked, shooting pain down his spine, as he all but bent in half, the whip-rope-stick missing him by inches, as the air from the speed of the damned thing hit his face. 

Mid painful position, he got a crazy idea, and in the heat of the battle, he just jumped at the next thing his mind told him to do, unheeding of the consequences as he thrust his arms up, chakra copating his entire hands and simply….grabbed.

He hissed, as his body contorted back into what could pass for a human’s normal posture, his hands holding onto the whip-rope-stick, which was also glowing a fiery red, which was definitely felt by him.

In the haze of pain and the fiery embers blowing so close to his face, he saw Mordo’s face turn into a frown, which sent a brief moment of happiness at his brain, before he had to bite back a scream as the whip-rope-stick, which was just a stick a moment ago, now turned into a rope which coiled all around his wrists, burning at a stupidly high temperature, forcing him to burn through chakra at a blistering rate.

In comparison to the pain and the burns on his hands, the tugging from Mordo was almost inconsequential, the man’s decidedly mortal strength only enhanced a little by the Mystic Arts, nothing compared to his own natural physical strength enhanced by chakra.

Against his will, a scream escaped his lips as the Staff of the Living Tribunal, seemed to reject him with its full strength, overpowering his chakra sheathing, forcing his mind into a haze of pain where he almost went delirious before something seemed to snap inside of him.

___xx___

–Karl Mordo–

He watched with a grim expression on his face, as the newest recruit of Kamar Taj, brought in personally by the Ancient One, screamed in pain as the Staff seemed to express its displeasure at being held by someone other than its chosen wielder.

Not everyone knew this, but the Staff was extremely temperamental, and it did not help things that it was made up of magic that was once wielded by one of the strongest cosmic entities in the universe. Suffice to say, that even the Ancient One had to be careful handling a relic that still held onto a spark of the Living Tribunal, and yet, this newbie, in his utter foolishness, decided to trap it in his innate energy, expecting the staff to give up its struggle and become docile.

Once again, Alex proved his warnings, which he repeated time and time again to the Ancient One, that the man was not suited to become a Master of the Mystic Arts. He simply did not have the temperament for it. He was a brute, someone born for the fight.

He could see it in his eyes, the way they glazed over whenever important information about the Mystic Arts, the warnings, were being spoken, and how his eyes were filled with battle lust at the mere mention of a spar, when any novice with a brain cell would know to avoid it with a Master of the Mystic Arts.

The only reason he still continued to train Alex was simply because the Ancient One answered his questions with a truly vexing answer.

“Then train him to become a warrior, not a Master. Not everyone at Kamar Taj can become a Master of the Mystic Arts; you of all people should know that. That does not mean we should not try our best and help them achieve their potential.”

Credit where Credit was due, though. Alex never once shied away from a fight, from the very first day he had been brought here, bruised and battered, presumably after a battle with the Ancient One. He still possessed the sceptre that radiated such danger to his senses that it went against all his sensibilities to let a novice hold onto such a weapon, but once again, the Sorcerer Supreme’s words were final, and he could do nothing but obey.

But without that sceptre? He was no threat to any MAster here, at least at first anyway.

It had been a month of Alex being at Kamar Taj, during which time he had done nothing but train, eat, heal and fight once more, with no rest in between. Art first, any one of the Masters here could have defeated him, even the less combat oriented ones. 

Now? He could only count four people, aside from the Ancient One herself, who was present at Kamar Taj, who could soundly defeat Alex in a one on one fight.

His battle senses were extraordinary, which is why he was perplexed as to why Alex continued to hold onto something that was so damaging to him. Sure, he could heal extremely fast, with seemingly the only bottleneck being food, but even he had to realise that he could not just heal from severed wrists, right?

Soon, he could tell that the Staff would ratchet up the assault, and by then, even he wouldn't be able to help Axel. The painful scream that came from the novice made him wince internally, debating whether to back down at this point or not, only for the scream to stop abruptly a moment later.

Then, he didn't know how to properly describe it, but a wave of energy seemed to come from the man, the air becoming heavy all around them as he could feel the Staff beginning to act differently–desperate, as it doubled down on its assault, the fiery embers now full blown blazes that threatened to blot out his vision.

Despite all of that, despite knowing that Alex still held onto the Staff, he could not hear a peep of pain from the man, as the Staff, seemingly furious, began to burn even his hands. Before he could tell Alex and the Staff to cease, he heard Alex whisper, “Shinra Tensei,” before all he knew was black, the last thing in his vision being the Staff retracting on its own before it too was slammed into his chest.

The feeling of multiple ribs breaking made him jolt mid air, but the shock of being slammed against the wall made him black out once more.

__xx__

–Alex Warner–

His eyes fluttered open, his throat feeling as dry as sandpaper, as he tried to gurgle out something. His vision still hazy, he tried to focus on the ceiling, only for what could only be described as an avalanche of pain to assault his senses, nearly forcing him back to unconsciousness.

Hell, the sweet release of blacking out due to pain was very tempting but mama didn’t raise no bitches, so, against all the signals his body was sending him, he tried to move, only for a pained groan to escape his lips as he found out that just will could only take you so far when your entire body was battered and exhausted beyond its usual limits.

Which was odd in and of itself because he had never been this exhausted before, and he had done some pretty physically demanding things. Aside from his body, his chakra–it felt empty, as if someone had taken the container of chakra in his body, emptied it of every last scrap, and then, for good measure, turned it upside down to make sure nothing remained inside of it.

He had never known this feeling of chakra exhaustion before, never this bad. Even after the invasion, he had been more than ready to move, his chakra reserves low but not critically so.

Is this what chakra exhaustion felt like? This f*cking sucked!

“Back to the land of the living, I see,” He heard the voice of the bald monster who dragged him here, almost against his will, as he craned his neck towards her or tried to do so anyway, as his vision blacked out at the edges the moment he did so.

He almost moaned out loud in relief as a small stream of water appeared on top of him as it was slowly lowered into his mouth, as he greedily drank it as if his life depended on it. Maybe it actually did, he had no way of knowing, as he was now.

As if the water had a mind of its own, it stopped right before he could feel that it was enough, as the bed he was on, moved on its own, moving his body into an upright position, allowing him the opportunity to look at the state of the medical room and to his dismay, found it exactly identically to the numerous rooms that littered Kamar Taj’s magically expanded space.

He expected a magical healing place to be more…magical?

“Not to your liking?” She prompted him and he was once again reminded of the fact that her future sight did not work on him, and as such, she had to actually talk to him. Well, she was centuries old and knew more about expression and body language reading than anyone alive but even so, one could only glean so much off of them.

She needed him to talk, to share his plans so that her excessive need to know about the future could be fulfilled.

Why she didn't just kill him and be done with it, he did not know but he was very glad that it was not an option for her, presumably because her overlords ordered her not to?

“I,” The first word came out expressing its displeasure against his throat, “I-expected it to be different. It looks like an ordinary room, no healing relic or magic circles in sight.”

Her amusement was plainly visible, “How do you know this room, itself, is not a relic?”

“Touche.”

Then, there was a minute of companionable silence, where he knew she was just dying to know what he did at the end of the spar with Mordo, and to be honest, had it not been for the two words that he remembered out of the whole ordeal, he would not have known either.

To think, extreme pain and proximity to cosmic energy was what was required to actually activate his eyes!

He, too, was dying to share with her the overwhelming prowess of the Rinnegan he had in his sockets, but refrained from doing so. Mainly because it would be embarrassing for her to realise that a single activation left him bone dry, with not even the sparring grounds destroyed for it.

Nagato must really have been a chakra monster for him to destroy an entire village with just a single application.

Still, silver linings and all.

He could Shinra Tensei people now, and no one could take that from him. Well, as long as he still had his eyes on him, that is.

Naruto showed everyone that complex optical surgeries were just absent when it came to chakra eyes. They were just plug-and-play, provided you have the juice to power them. 

He hoped that the stupid anime mechanics did not apply here. He would much rather destroy them than risk them falling into the wrong hands.

Apparently, just that small interaction was enough to sap him of whatever meagre little energy his body had scrounged up during whatever period of unconsciousness he had been in, so he faded back to sleep, only this time, it was much more comfortable.

Also, he saw the roof spark orange and red for a moment, which gave a little more credence to the Ancient One’s claims of this entire room being a relic, for healing or something else.