There was a certain set of expectations I carried with me whenever I climbed into bed at night. The first was that I would wake up again, and the second was that I would be in the same relative condition. The third, and perhaps the most important, was that I would wake up in the same place I'd gone to sleep in the first place—certainly not on a beach, with the sound of ocean waves in my ears, the feeling of sand shifting beneath me, and the heat of the sun burning the skin of my neck. There was an auxiliary expectation, but it only really made itself known as I managed to open my eyes.

Status

Name – Sora

Age – 24

Money – 100

Health Points – 100.25/100.25

Mana Points – 100.25/100.25

Stamina Points – 100.25/100.25

Vitality – 10

Strength – 10

Speed – 10

Intelligence – 10

Luck – 10

HP Recovery – 0.25/s

MP Recovery – 0.25/s

SP Recovery – 0.25/s

Mana Cost Reduction – 0.25

Skill Creation Resistance – 0

A flat, opaque panel sitting in mid-air, directly in front of my face, containing an entire list of words that just about anyone would have recognized if they'd ever so much as glanced at a video game. Before I could give it the proper amount of consideration that such an abnormality actually deserved, I began to realise that the sand was growing increasingly hot. It crossed my threshold of tolerance within a few short moments, and by the time I'd made it to my feet, I was scrambling towards the water in an attempt to minimize contact.

The water wasn't anywhere near as cold as I was expecting, but it more than made up for the attempted murder that had just occurred. From my new vantage point of more than two feet off the ground and actually facing the landmass, it quickly became clear that I had absolutely no fucking idea where I was. Trees took over the beach after perhaps twenty meters inland, and beyond that, they stretched far past the point that I could see.

Towering above them in the distance was a massive rocky mountain, far enough away that I couldn't really make out anything about the terrain other than that it was there. When I returned my gaze to the beach, I could see that it curved away and out of sight, stopping me from being able to see much further than a few hundred meters in either direction—I was on an island, obviously.

Intelligence has increased by 1.

"Shut up," I insisted, swiping my hand through the words. "Don't reward me for something like that."

There wasn't any kind of island near where I lived, and there wasn't even an ocean—which meant that I would have had to travel a great distance just to get to a body of water in the first place. Given the position of the sun directly overhead, I had maybe five or six hours before it became night, and then I'd be stuck on an island in the dark. I checked both ways again, weighing which one was the better option and then moved in the direction I thought might be east—I turned my attention back to the status panel.

Annoyingly enough, my Intelligence had risen an entire point, just as the floating words had stated. Nothing new stood out to me about it other than the oddness of the total health, mana and stamina totals having a decimal point and a quarter of a point. It was mirrored by the recovery amounts and the mana cost reduction. Had I suddenly become an RPG character? Able to regenerate health and use mana? Could I cast spells? Maybe there was a spell to get me off this fucking beach—I paused in the shallows as I spotted a dark spot of motion way out in the distance.

People? Or some kind of animal that would attempt to eat me on sight? I checked the treeline, hesitated at crossing the burning hot sand, and then decided to risk it. I cursed the fact that I hadn't slept in my shoes, and by the time I'd actually made it to the trees, my feet were reporting a clear agony straight to my brain. I gritted my teeth and slipped into the trees, moving far enough back that I could use the shade to help hide my presence.

A fallen branch became an impromptu spear after I'd done my best to split the end of it into a jagged mess of wood. It took almost fifteen minutes of hiding in the trees and watching the beach before I actually spotted movement—I breathed a sigh of relief. Three men walked along the middle of the beach like Egyptian gods, immune to the heat and carried along by their fancy sandals. Each of them had a set of words floating above their heads. Maybe I wasn't stranded after all.

#

I was completely and utterly stranded—if not in the same way as I had initially assumed. This was an island, just like I'd deduced with my incredible ability to use my eyes. But it wasn't deserted, abandoned or otherwise unpopulated. In fact, it actually seemed to be very, very populated. The three men I'd observed from the trees—and made no attempt to approach because one of them had been carrying a spear that might well have been a legendary quality item compared to my hunk of rotted wood—had been an accurate representation of the people here.

They all seemed to share the same kind of ethnicity, although whatever it was eluded me—some strange mixture of Asian and Caucasian features that was actually quite striking—but also didn't belong to any country I could pin down on a map. If the people were strange, the city was far stranger. It was an odd place, multistory buildings with large sheets of clear glass in the frontages and windows. Buried deep in the mess of brick and mortar was a massive high-definition monitor, playing a sequence of aerial shots of the city that could only have been taken by some kind of helicopter.

The city was sprawling, with wide roads, and the buildings were packed close together. For all intents and purposes, it was a big city with what I'd assumed to be a large tourist population, given the massive dock I could see from my place in the trees. The oddities came, however, from the complete lack of cars and the massive population of horse-drawn carriages, wagons and carts being moved around the roads. The ships tied down at the docks were wooden monstrosities that looked nothing like the boats I was used to seeing in pictures—a pair of women passed by the copse of trees I was hiding in, and I was forced back into hiding for my own safety. While they weren't carrying spears like the three men on the beach had been, they did look a bit too spry, and I really didn't want to have to sort them out in the event that they came after me.

"That's what I thought," I muttered, shaking a fist at them. "Keep walking—I eat level thirteens for breakfast."

There had been an odd pressure in my mind every time someone came too close, and I hadn't quite been able to pin down what it was yet—it did seem to rise up in response to what I was mentally calling my 'hiding spirit,' because 'desire to hide' made me feel like a wuss. I closed my eyes for a minute, groping for the odd feeling to see if I could figure out what it was. It rose up readily, the feeling like a mess of shadows, muffled noises and vanishing from sight—

You have unlocked a new skill, Stealth.

"Like hell I did," I complained, "I'm not even hiding—I just like it here."

The pressure had vanished from my mind, fading into obscurity like the very skill I'd just unlocked, and I was left to wonder exactly what the hell I was supposed to do with it. Was it some kind of passive enhancement to my 'hiding spirit,' or was it an active skill that I was supposed to use somehow? Why didn't it come with instructions? Maybe there was some kind of verbal activation like the Status Screen had?

"Skill screen—" I said, "Just skills, huh?"

Sure enough, a new panel had opened up, detailing what looked like an entire wall worth of passive skills—and right at the bottom, two active ones. A quick read-through made me realise that I actually recognized the entire system after all—or at least parts of it—from a manhwa I'd read through what felt like millennia ago.

Game Body(LvMax)

The user will not falter until their HP reaches zero.

Eating, drinking and sleeping are optional.

Sleeping in a bed restores HP, MP and cures all status effects.

Immunity to mental and perception-based attacks.

All benefits, as far as I could see, except for the fact that I only had about a hundred Health Points, and now I suddenly felt like I could see my death looming above me—how many health would I lose from getting punched in the face? Could I have actually beaten those two level thirteen women after all, or was I a half dozen slaps away from getting taken out? I needed to get more Health Points. Actually, what constituted perception-based attacks? Had I just lost the ability to get drunk? Or would that not fall under the classification of an attack? What if someone peer-pressured me into getting drunk or forcibly poured it down my throat? Still no? Maybe? I was willing to find out.

Health Recovery(Lv1)

Increases health regenerated per second by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Regenerating health grants EXP towards this skill.

Mana Recovery(Lv1)

Increases mana regenerated per second by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Regenerating mana grants EXP towards this skill.

Stamina Recovery(Lv1)

Increases stamina regenerated per second by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Regenerating stamina grants EXP towards this skill.

All obvious enough at first glance, although I was pretty sure the Health Recovery put me squarely in the realm of the superhuman. With a hundred points of health, I could essentially regenerate my entire pool of life in roughly four hundred seconds. Same with the stamina, I suppose, no matter how exhausted I got, I should be back to full in what amounted to six minutes—that was pretty crazy to think about.

Health Core(Lv1)

Increases total health by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Depleting health grants EXP towards this skill.

Mana Core(Lv1)

Increases total mana by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Depleting mana grants EXP towards this skill.

Stamina Core(Lv1)

Increases total stamina by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Depleting stamina grants EXP towards this skill.

More fairly self-explanatory skills, although the repeated use of zero-point-two-five was starting to become a theme. Actually, that's where the decimal point had come from in the Status Screen, hadn't it? These three skills had risen it above what must have been the hundred-point standard. I liked the fact that my health pool was able to increase, but I absolutely hated the fact that it would need to deplete in order for that to happen—what exactly did that mean? There wasn't a chance in hell that I was going to be stabbing myself in order to increase it; it just wasn't happening. Maybe I could poison myself with something mild? Then again, that might end with me running out of Health Points before the poison ran out, so table that idea.

Mana Mastery(Lv1)

Reduces the mana cost of skills by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Using skills with reduced mana cost grants EXP towards this skill.

Something I'd already noted in the Status Screen, but whatever.

Acrobatics(Lv1)

Reduces complexity of acrobatic movements by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Performing acrobatics grants EXP towards this skill.

Martial Arts(Lv1)

Reduces complexity of hand-to-hand combat by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Performing unarmed attacks grants EXP towards this skill.

Weapon Mastery(Lv1)

Reduces complexity of using weapons by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Using melee weapons grants EXP towards this skill.

Reduces complexity? What the hell did that even mean? If I did a cartwheel, how would the complexity of the movement be reduced? Why the hell were they all zero-point-two-five? Zero-point-two-five of what? A punch to the face wasn't complex—annoyed, I scrolled the panel down to get to the last two skills.

Observe(Lv1)

Exchange 99.75(100) mana to receive detailed information about a target.

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

I'd been sort of vaguely expecting to see the Observe skill since I'd first looked at the Status Screen. That had crystallised more concretely after I'd seen the Game Body skill. What I hadn't prepared myself for was the absolutely ludicrous cost of the thing. One hundred mana for a single Observe? Was it even supposed to cost anything at all? Shouldn't I be able to fire it off whenever the hell I felt like it? That was my entire god damned mana pool, gone in a single skill—six minutes of my life I'd never get back.

Stealth(Lv1)

Reserve 99.75(100) mana to reduce visual detection and noise emission by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

Stealth was just as fucking bad—or was it? What did reserve mean here? Did I get to keep the mana after I turned the skill off? Was it just stopping me from being able to use that reserved portion—instead of thinking about it, why didn't I just try it? How did I use it again?

"Stealth?" I tried.

The Status Screen flickered slightly, and when I turned to look at it, I saw that it had reflected the change. I turned my attention to the skill menu and found a little highlighted ring around the skill to indicate it was in use. I tapped my finger against it as a test, and it toggled the skill off again. My mana returned to full, and I toggled it back on again, assured that I hadn't been robbed. As interesting as it was to see the skill take effect, I couldn't actually detect any kind of change in me or the immediate environment. Before, I'd been a complete loser, standing inside a copse of trees and peeking at the people passing by, now I was exactly the same as before, but just a sliver more effective—a level nineteen woman passed by the trees, and I dropped down behind the bush before she could spot me.

"Jesus Christ, lady," I said in alarm. "What are they feeding you—level tens? Fucking relax."

#

Two hours of training my 'hiding spirit' in the bushes had given me ample time to take in the city at large—there had been a few close calls, but other than a drunkard attempting to piss on the tree I was standing behind, it was relatively peaceful. I'd gain four levels of Stealth, which, while motivational, didn't seem like a lot considering the time involved. I'd been hesitant to drop Stealth since it had started up, but the longer I waited, the darker it got, and then I'd miss the chance to gain any kind of real knowledge until tomorrow—I toggled Stealth off, unshackling my true power, and allowing me to access the full might of my mana pool. I picked out a target that looked at least three times more interesting than everybody else in the vicinity and—

"Observe," I said.

Name: Sano Takumi

Gender: Male.

Age: 49

Level: 23

Health: 274/280

Chakra: 10/10

Status Effects: None.

Emotions: Content.

History: Sano Takumi was born in the Land of Demons. He works at the docks, loading and unloading cargo from the ships that dock in the Land of Moon. Sano has a wife, Kiko, and a daughter, Keiko.

I skipped over most of it to get to the big thick wad of text at the bottom, hoping for answers. Land of fucking what now? The guy was born in the Land of Demons? What the hell did that mean? Since when was there a land filled with fucking demons? When did that happen? Was this even earth? Status Effects—hungry? For human flesh? Just how dangerous was this guy. Level 23, that was the strongest person I'd seen today, which made sense since the guy was a fucking—

"Chakra?" I said.

Chakra like the shinobi, chakra? Land of Demons, like Land of Fire? Land of Moon like—I couldn't actually remember any others. Land of Sand—no, it was called Land of Wind, wasn't it? Was I in Naruto?

Primary Quest Unlocked.

Stop the world from ending.

Failure – Capture, Enslavement, Death.

A fucking quest? I was absolutely in Naruto—or the world of Naruto—whatever that was called. Elemental planet? Shinobi earth? That was why everybody looked so bizarre and why their names were all Japanese, but they spoke in English. Why they had a giant high-definition monitor playing looped footage of the island while they still used horses to pull their carts around. Why the design of the clothing was oddly simple—built to last rather than for style.

"Motherfucker," I said, alarmed. "What do you mean—capture, enslavement, death?"

I didn't want any of those things. In fact, I wanted the direct opposite; freedom—uh—freedom again, and life. I couldn't contribute anything to stopping the world from ending. I couldn't even survive a hot walk on the beach, for fucks sake. I fled my hiding spot, moving back into the forest, angling down towards where the trees met the sand—while I was relatively sure I wasn't going to get speared to death by the guys on the beach, it couldn't say the same for the guys with the riot shields.

Stealth has increased by 1.

"Shut the fuck up," I muttered, attempting to dispel the message.

What was the quest even referring to? This whole movie was just three salty shinobi trying to merc the king for Shabooba, or whatever the heck his name was. Was it referring to something further down the line? Kaguya? The guy trying to drop-ship the moon down to the Elemental Nations? Knock knock—it's the moon, motherfucker, sign here. If the movies were real, then were other things real? What about video games? The tower of illusion crap? The Dragonblade? Was the fucking Dragonblade real? Could this stupid quest be any vaguer about its requirements?

There were plenty of different things that could have constituted a world-ending threat here—even the ones that weren't immediately world-ending might grow to become it if they were dealt with—Pain, for instance, was stopped before he could ramp up to his end game, but if he hadn't been stopped, he would have had the nuts of the world in a vice. The creation of a super-weapon that nuked continents would probably have counted as a world-ending threat to most people. Madara Uchiha had an entire plan to swoop in and yoink Pain's hard work out from under him, with Obito Uchiha as the fulcrum. The two of them planting the entire world in a permanent illusion while humanity—shinobimanity—wasting away inside cocoons of bandages must have counted as world-ending. Black Zetsu's plan to yoink the end game out from under Madara in order to revive Kaguya most definitely counted, considering her goal was about as shit for the world as everybody else.

The Otsutsuki clan running around eating all of the chakra fruits like they were trying to become the damn pirate king was right up there as well. But even with all of those problems, there were still potentially dozens of lesser-known threats that were waiting in the wings. The zero-tail—trying to absorb and channel all the hatred in the world like some kind of eight-grade Sasuke cosplaying avenger—along with the rest of the Sky Shinobi with that flying country-nuking-laser and the buff immortal guy who was kicking everyone's ass. Depending on the timeline, if that guy succeeded, Pain might get into a dick-swinging contest with him or, more likely, simply kill the guy and steal his castle as a fast track to peace-through-weapon-of-mass-destruction-deterrent.

It didn't even end there, either; there were more—potentially worse—problems. The unkillable, mind-reading demon monster that could only be fought with Sage Mode that came out of pandora's box at that blood prison place was one. Kabuto's attempt to become a god with that superpowered tower thing was another. There was that immortal army of statues in the Land of Demons and their shadowy demon leader. The time-travelling puppet guy who went back in time to murder the Fourth Hokage—if that motherfucker succeeded, then Minato wouldn't even be around to stop Obito from destroying the leaf and taking the Kyuubi, which would retroactively fuck the entire timeline up.

The Stone of Gelato movie with the sword guy was probably a problem as well; didn't they have an army that was doing something nasty in Wind Country? There was even that one guy who was stealing all of the best bloodlines to become the ultimate Gary-Stu because he was sad about Kakashi's dad being cooler or something. There were more threats running around with the potential for destroying the world than there were regular fucking people—exactly which thing was I supposed to be preventing?

"Fucking hell," I managed.

Almost all of those plots were driven by insane S-rank shinobi or people with comparable levels of power, something that was far, far outside of my ability to combat directly. I couldn't just do nothing about it, though, not if the outcome was capture, enslavement and death. I needed to figure out exactly when the hell these things took place, and then I needed to work out how to resolve them. That meant I would need to get strong enough to survive a fight with these people—and attempt to recruit a series of shinobi to do the fighting for me.

I would need to get the Hidden Leaf on my side at some point, considering they were probably the most likely to take me seriously—although Danzo might just shove a knife up my ass if I showed up without the ability to protect myself. For all my concerns about the future, I wasn't even sure I was safe right now—I couldn't sit around thinking about Pain, Akatsuki and Kaguya when I couldn't even handle the three movie villains that might end up appearing on this island. I needed to figure out the current situation and make some moves to put myself in a stronger position as quickly as possible.

"Exactly where am I in the timeline?" I muttered. "Land of Moon—when did that take place?"

The king died in the movie after one of the bad guys turned him to stone, an ability one of the shinobi could use by touching someone. At the end of the movie, after the heroes had prevailed, the king's son took charge of the country. That meant I could figure out where I was in the timeline by checking if the old man with long hair was the king or if it was the guy who was built like a four-seater couch turned up on one end—I suppose it could actually be Shabooba if Naruto had never come to deal with the situation. When exactly did the movie take place?

The composition of the team that went on the mission was odd. It was Team-7-minus-Sasuke-plus-Rock Lee, and each of the members of the squad had been in their pre-Shippuden clothes. That dated the movie as taking place sometime after Sasuke had run off to Orochimaru but before Naruto had gone on his training trip with Jiraiya. If the old man king was dead, then I would need to find a way off the island as soon as I could manage because I was no use to anyone way out here. If the old man king was alive, then I needed to start preparing for Team-7-minus-Sasuke-plus-Rock Lee to potentially show up and start handing out kunai sandwiches—or for Shabooba to try and kill the king with his three hired shinobi before taking over the Land of Moon.

I needed several things right around immediately—the first was money to either flee the island or to leave the island in search of something to flee from at a later date. I wasn't sure how much '100' would get me or what kind of currency it actually was. The second was the ability to survive being turned into collateral damage, and the third was some way to kill a shinobi. 'Make some money' went on the list I was building right after 'see if I could create a new skill that was more immediately useful than becoming slightly harder to see in a bush,' and 'discover who the king is.'

I knew it was 'create' and not 'learn' because the Skill Creation Resistance at the bottom of my Status Screen had risen from a zero to a one after I'd unlocked Stealth. The idea that creating skills would become more difficult didn't seem very fair, considering I might end up fighting Kaguya one day. It meant that I had to be careful about the kinds of skills I created because I couldn't just make one for every occasion; I needed to be smart about it. What kind of skills would serve me in this new world? A method of preventing my health from hitting zero was the first thing on the list—some kind of healing skill.

A skill that would let me regenerate mana quickly—Meditate, if it existed was probably what I was looking for there. A skill that would allow me to kill a shinobi would be nice as well, considering how many of the fuckers would be running around—preferably something I could use from a distance. A skill that would allow me to escape from dangerous situations—some kind of teleportation skill? Obito, Tobirama, Minato, Sasuke—those guys could all teleport long distances, and it had served to put them all in the upper echelons of the universe in terms of ability. What else would I get the most benefit out of? Something to help me recruit allies? How could I manage that?

"How do I get people to help me?" I muttered.

Money? Power? I thought about all of the shinobi who had sycophants following them around—Orochimaru had a bunch of them; why did they follow him? The sound four wanted power. Sasuke wanted power. Karin wanted—what did she want? To not get killed? Kimmimaro wanted to be of use to the man that had given him some kind of purpose. Kabuto was the same, although it was identity rather than purpose. Anko had followed him because he could apparently really put on the charm before he'd gone mad scientist on everyone. Did it have to be a shinobi that I recruited? If the old man king was still alive, I could wait until he gets turned to stone and then figure out a skill that could deal with that. Having the resources of a grateful king would be enough to put me in a good place financially—

Intelligence has increased by 1.

"Just—how are you so distracting," I accused, dispelling the words. "Shit."

My train of thought had been vanquished, and I was left to stare at the still-fading words. I could improve my attributes by doing certain tasks; I should make use of that while I still had the chance. I knew that the average adult in the Land of Moon was between level ten and level thirty. If I could become strong enough to beat up a villager, I'd at least feel a bit safer when things got dicey. A healing skill, a range attack skill, a teleport skill, a skill that could fix being turned to stone and a vigorous exercise regime—I'd be folding S-ranks within the week.

#

Strength has increased by 1.

"This is bullshit," I managed.

I collapsed onto the ground, my arms burning from the endless pushups, and lay there in the dark, panting for breath. Six minutes to recuperate was definitely something in the realm of the superhuman, but exercising was just as uncomfortable as I remembered it being—only this time, I couldn't even quit after I got tired. Watching the stats actually rise higher was bizarrely motivational, though, and despite my general avoidance of discomfort, it was just enough to keep me interested—a carrot dangling in front of my face, telling me to just do one more set.

"Fuck that," I sighed. "I need a break."

I turned my mind towards the skill creation I'd been thinking about since earlier. A healing skill to ensure I could stop myself from bleeding out or something equally as terrible. I closed my eyes, seeking out that pressure in my mind that I remembered from the last time. It felt a bit further away than before, most likely a result of that resistance I'd noted. I groped around at it, trying to channel my desire towards it in the same manner I'd done earlier. I pushed away the thoughts of hiding and instead sought out healing. Rejuvenation, recovery, fixing broken people, mending, healing. The feeling grew stronger as I repeated the words in my mind like a mantra, every interaction adding just a bit more substance to it. It began to solidify, the pressure growing stronger—

"Cure?" I tried. "Healing?"

You have learned a new skill, Heal.

I brought up the Skill menu and scrolled down to see the new addition to the list.

Heal(Lv1)

Exchange 99.75(100) mana to restore 0.25 health (+0.25 per level)

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

"Disgusting," I accused. "Terrible. Bad. Garbage."

I was starting to see an alarming pattern amongst the skills, and it started with zero-point-two-five and ended with one-hundred-fucking-mana. Were they all going to be like this? Looking at how the system seemed to function, the more I levelled up Mana Mastery, the more useful every other skill would become, but until then, they were all basically unusable. I would literally regenerate more health naturally in a few seconds than I would receive from dumping my entire mana pool into one cast of Heal—where was the justice? I couldn't even really train it, given the cost. One cast per six minutes was absolute garbage. I pushed on to the next skill, reaching out with my mind to get a hold of that odd pressure.

"Where are you?" I muttered, searching for it. "Come out—there."

It was faint, more distant, and harder to wrangle than ever before. It was like water slipping through my fingers, but I struggled onwards, trying to wrap my mental grip around it. Once I'd managed it, I lost some ground as I tried to remember what skill I was even trying to make—Meditate. Mana regeneration, mana recovery, I needed to be able to rebuild my pool of resources as quickly as possible. I fought against the slippery mess, trying to condense it all into a ball that would give me what I wanted, but it was an uphill battle. Seconds turned into minutes, into dozens of minutes, and when it finally clicked together, I was moments from giving up entirely.

You have unlocked a new skill, Meditate.

I struggled to actually pull myself back from the odd state of mind I'd fallen into, a complete detachment from my surroundings that left me feeling almost numb to everything. I sat in the dark, waiting for the veil to pull itself back from my mind, unable to do much more than rub at my eyes and cheeks in an attempt to get the blood flowing in my face.

"What a horrible feeling," I mumbled.

When I finally felt present enough to actually investigate what I'd managed to create, I pulled up the Skill menu to view the details.

Meditate(Lv1)

Increase mana and stamina recovery by 0.25 (+0.25 per level) so long as the user remains completely still.

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

Pretty much what I'd expected, more or less. Being forced to remain still while using it was annoying, but it did include both mana and stamina. I toggled it on—and felt a rush of energy washing through my body, a spiral that passed through skin, bone and sinew before meeting inside the centre of my chest. Nothing amazing as far as actual effects went, but the feeling was actually pretty invigorating. Now I just had to start dumping my mana and regenerating it—maybe mix in some more pushups if I could muster up the desire.

#

By the time morning had come again, I was well and truly bored. The kind of boredom that left me restless and with a clear desire to move—a desire I'd been incapable of indulging in without the ability to see jack shit. The very second I was able to make out vague shapes in the early morning light, I got up again and started moving back towards the city. My main goal for the day was simple but of vital importance—I needed to find out who was the current ruler of the Land of Moon. I returned to my copse of trees, but further north than the last time, wary now after almost getting pissed on.

After I found a relatively nice spot, I sat down and toggled Stealth back on. Ideally, I would get it to the point where I could have it active at all times without impeding my ability to use skills—partially because I wanted to raise my 'hiding spirit' in the event that I ran into a shinobi that wanted to knife me, but mostly because it seemed to be contributing directly towards levelling up Mana Mastery, through which the mana cost of all of my other skills was slowly decreasing. Through some finicky nonsense brought on by the process of reserving mana to use the skill instead of spending it, it didn't seem to be levelling up Mana Core, or Mana Recovery, which was annoying. On the other hand, I was able to use Meditate at the same time, so there was some potential for stacking skills for training purposes. I toggled it on, feeling the rush of spiralling energy return.

Stealth has increased by 1.

It was odd to realise that I hadn't eaten anything in what must have been sixteen hours—eighteen hours if I considered time back on earth—and that I wasn't feeling hungry at all. I wasn't feeling thirsty either. I wanted to eat something, not because I needed to, but to check if I could still derive any kind of pleasure out of it or if the skill had stolen that away as well. The whole RPG character thing had done wonders for distracting me from the sheer terror of everything—of waking up in a world that wasn't my own and of spending the entire night in the pitch-black forest with the sounds of the wildlife echoing around me.

It even helped with the horror that everyone I knew wasn't within any kind of reach any longer—not that I'd had much of those, to begin with, but still. The uncertainty of what lay ahead of me was uncomfortable as well because I had no real idea of when someone might appear to try and shove a kunai in my face—or to eat me. There were things here, in this insane world, things like the monsters in the forest of death, giant leeches, bears, and other horrible creatures. Giant animal summons existed as well—giant spiders, for instance, like the multi-armed dude from the sound four used, or snakes from Orochimaru. Those things could reverse summon themselves, couldn't they? Did they spend much time running around the elemental nations, looking for people to eat? Manda had wanted human sacrifices, and that probably wasn't unique to just him. Even people like Itachi were sneaking around forests and jamming crows down people's throats—birds were riddled with diseases; no wonder the guy was so sick.

"Disgusting," I complained.

Mana Mastery has increased by 1.

My mind circled over the same topics in an endless, listless spin, making no real ground but slowly unearthing more of my buried knowledge about the terrible place I'd found myself within. By the time the sun had crept up into visibility, people finally emerged from their houses, and I watched them from the bushes like a pervert, only occasionally using Observe to try and gather information. Each cast cost me a few minutes of recovery in which Meditate quickly dragged my mana high enough to reengage Stealth. Six Observes later, I finally hit upon something that sparked a thrill of excitement through me.

Name: Mochi Wakita

Gender: Male.

Age: 34

Level: 21

Health Points: 250/250

Chakra: 10/10

Status Effects: None.

Emotions: Invigorated.

History: Mochi Wakita was born in the Land of Moon. He works as the head librarian at the palace and is an avid supporter of King Kakeru Tsuki. He spends his nights going over each of the king's speeches, hoping to learn from him. Mochi has no living family.

"Mochi, you son of a bitch, you've only gone and done it," I said, "King Kakeru Tsuki—now, who the hell is that?"

It wasn't Shabooba, which was good, but it didn't clear up whether it was the son, the father or even the little kid that had been shooting arrows at everyone in that movie—there was a distinct possibility that this was actually decades after the movie had taken place. That was something I could probably figure out by pulling someone aside and asking them a question—social engineering at its finest. Before I could think better of it, I pushed myself to my feet and crossed through the trees until I reached the road. I made my way down into the city, making an effort to pull my shoulders back and keep my head up—I belonged here, obviously.

I got a few odd glances as I went, although I couldn't tell if that was because of my clothes, the fact that I wasn't the same ethnic mix as the rest of them or maybe just because I was two heads taller than just about everyone else—these people were kind of short on average, honestly. That didn't really mean anything, though, because, despite the small package they came in, each of these people had levels floating above their heads, and I didn't even have something as reassuring as that to use as a gauge. There was some of that fleeting motivation to throw myself into exercising again and lift my stats high enough that levels no longer mattered. Not that I had any idea of what that looked like—what was the average level of stats here, anyway?

Everything I started with had been around the ten mark, and there was no real way for me to quantify what that meant in regard to everyone else. They had Health Points, though, and those seemed to vary based on the level of the person. My own Health Points were clearly tied to my Vitality attribute because halfway through my attempts to exercise, it had increased one level—alongside my Health Points increasing by ten points in turn. That meant that someone like Mochi Wakita, with his two-hundred-fifty Health Points, had somewhere in the vicinity of twenty-five Vitality. The first man I'd Observed had two-hundred-and-eighty Health Points, which placed him at twenty-eight Vitality. The other half dozen people I'd checked had been somewhere around those two numbers—that placed the average Vitality of a villager in the Land of Moon at about twenty-five. Twice and a half more than my own original score of ten. If that was the case across my other attributes—Strength, Speed, Intelligence, Luck—then I was woefully behind.

Intelligence has increased by 1.

"Fuck you—not you. Me. Fuck me." I corrected, holding up my hand in apology. "I'm just talking to myself."

"If you say so," The woman said, bemused. "You a foreigner?"

"No, it's just the way I did my makeup today," I said, "Listen, I've got a question that only you have the ability to answer—because you are more special than the rest of the villagers, you have a destiny."

"Is that right?" The woman said, raising an eyebrow. "If I'm so special, any answer I give must be worth a lot."

"You're not that special," I corrected, "Just a little bit special—let's say one, uh, money worth."

"Ouch. Some destiny, huh?" The woman said, tilting her head. "What is the question?"

"The current king of the Land of Moon is one Kakeru Tsuki," I said, clicking my fingers together and then pointing at her expectantly. "How old is that guy?"

"The king?" The woman said, "I suppose he must be pushing seventy by now if I had to guess."

"Your destiny grows larger and your fortune vaster," I said, holding my arms out. "Does this king have a son, and if so, what is his name?"

"Prince Michiru," The woman said, "How vast are we talking, here?"

I reached down to my pocket to bring out a little motivation for her and then paused as I realised I had nothing on me. How did I access the '100' money that my Status Screen indicated I possessed? How did you—oh, it was obvious after giving it a moment of direct thought.

"One moment," I said, spinning around until I was facing away. "Inventory?"

A new panel opened up in front of me, a series of empty boxes with absolutely nothing inside of them. At the bottom left corner of the panel was a drop-down box. The default currency seemed to be Moon Dollars, which was both hilarious and a little bit sad. I clicked on the drop-down box, and a list of other currencies appeared, none of which I really recognized. Giving up on it, I tapped on the money, and a prompt appeared, asking how much I wanted to remove. I removed half a dozen Moon Dollars, noting the way they'd just appeared in my hand, as if by magic, and then dumped most of them into my pocket before spinning back around.

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"I've finished consulting with the fates—your current fortune is two Moon Dollars, but there is a third on the horizon," I said, holding up the three coins between my fingers. "Do you wish to push onward?"

"Not the usual way I make ends meet, but I'll take it," The woman said, shrugging. "What else you got for me?"

"Where is Prince Michiru right now?" I asked, "Is he currently on the island, or is he still on the main continent?"

"Prince Michiru and his son left a very long time ago?" The woman hedged, "There is, however, a welcoming party being set up for his return; he's supposed to be back—sixteen days from now?"

The information she was giving me was both revealing and absolutely terrifying to hear. Kakeru Tsuki was still the king, Prince Michiru was in the process of returning from his trip alongside Team Seven, and that meant he had sixteen days before the shit hit the fan. Shabooba had either already hired the shinobi in preparation for the coup or was in the process of hiring them. The king had died after Team 7 had arrived in the Land of Moon, so the plan to merc the king was probably in its final stages right about now. If I went ahead and tried to warn the man, then I might end up kick-starting the coup even earlier—and probably end up getting killed in the process.

"This displeases me greatly," I said, holding out the three coins for her to take. "Here."

The woman cupped both of her hands around my own in a way that created far more contact than was needed for the exchange—the touch lingering and extraordinarily deliberate.

"Thanks," The woman said, "You sure you don't have any more questions for me?"

"I'm considering it," I said, "What did you say your name was again?"

"Yuna," Yuna said, "Do I get paid for that one?"

"Not a chance," I said.

#

I hit her with an Observe before she turned the corner and then turned, heading back towards the beach. I read through the cascade of information as I walked, wondering at all the physical contact she'd been making as I went—she'd been going out of her way to signal that she was interested, which was bizarre considering she had no idea if I was some kind of serial killer or something.

Name: Yuna Daichi

Gender: Female

Age: 21

Level: 17

Health Points: 210/210

Chakra: 10/10

Status Effects: None.

Emotions: Curious.

History: Yuna Dachi was born in the Land of Moon. She works in the red light district as a prostitute and spends most of her free time painting. Yuna has an older sister who works on the Yuzukimaru as a navigator.

Well, that explained it—how much was something like that anyway? Could I have afforded to spend some time with her? Maybe I'd look into it. For now, however, I had more important things to think about, things that didn't involve my dick.

"Sixteen days," I muttered, "That is not a lot of time."

That put a very visible timer on how long I had to get ready for the arrival of Team 7—and for the king's encroaching death. I needed to figure out a skill to revert the whole turned-to-stone transformation and something to attack the enemy shinobi with. Could I muster up the willpower to overcome the Skill Creation Resistance? I brought up my Status to check what it was currently at—three. Did it ever go back down? Or would I have to battle against the increasingly difficult mind state to unlock skills for the rest of time? I'd have to push through and try to unlock something else—even if it took most of the day to manage or if it left me feeling like shit. The question was, which skill would be easier to make?

Something I could attack with felt more concrete than some nebulous stone reversion process. I dropped down onto the sand in the shade of a tree and closed my eyes. What kind of skill would allow me to kill a shinobi from a distance? It would need to be fast, for one thing. A projectile of some kind—did they have guns here? They had that train in the snow movie that had automated kunai firing; that must have been done with gunpowder, right? A fast-moving projectile—and one that could bypass defences. Shinobi could bring up walls of earth, water, wood, metal, and even crystal in some cases. Orochimaru had his giant gates. Sasuke got off on letting his snakes take the hit for him. Zabuza, Kisame, and anyone else with a large melee weapon would take cover behind the slab of metal. Kakuzu had his diamond skin technique that would nullify just about everything thrown his way.

Shinobi, in general, were also fast enough to get behind natural defences, like rocks, trees, buildings and whatever else. All of those would render an attack completely useless unless it could pass through the material to reach the target. So a fast-moving projectile that penetrated defences—what exactly did that look like? Piercing attacks were effective because of the narrow space they attacked; the thinner the attack, the more efficiently it would use the force and the deeper the attack would get. So a needle-thin projectile of some kind? Could I create something like that? I'd created Heal, and that was a pretty esoteric thing when you looked at its component pieces. A skill that restored health, except the way in which it did that was like an amorphous cloud—maybe it would seal a cut, vanish a bruise, or wash away a burn to accomplish its goal. This was far more straightforward.

"A thin, piercing line of energy," I muttered. "Something that just keeps on going, through obstacles, barriers, and shinobi."

The pressure of Skill Creation was fainter than ever, and my fingers passed through it like a cloud, unable to find purchase. I kept at it, using what I'd learned from the previous tries to better guide my attempts. It was like chasing a shadow, and while some of it was collecting, it was at such a poor rate that I could barely feel it. I pulled Stealth and Meditate up because I could already see that it was going to take a very, very long time to manage, and I was surprised to find that it actually helped in the way of concentration—I'd thought the name was more of a namesake, but apparently, it actually did have something in common with the practice of meditation. I settled down on the sand, my back pressed against the trunk of the tree and turned the full force of my concentration to the task.

#

Two hours later, I was desperately trying to hold everything I'd collected together. My mind bore down on the pressure like the fist of god. My jaw burned from clenching my teeth, a mixture of determination and pure frustration fueling me onwards. I was starting to hate the fact that Stealth had been so easily obtainable, to the point where I'd stumbled onto it without any kind of higher thought. I could have used that to learn this fucking skill with nothing more than a few seconds of concentration. I started up a mantra well in advance before I actually needed it to make sure I wouldn't lose any ground when the time actually came. A piercing line of energy. A penetrating energy beam. A finger laser to smite my enemies from afar. The mantra had an odd and noticeable effect on the whole process, the pressure folding more easily to my whims almost the second I started it—had I been doing this wrong the entire time? Was I supposed to direct it towards the end goal from the start rather than try and collect enough of the pressure first?

"A piercing line of energy. A penetrating energy beam." I murmured, "A piercing line of energy. A penetrating energy beam. A piercing line of—"

You have learned a new skill, Line Spear.

I twisted away from the trunk of the tree that had been driving a splinter of bark into my shoulder for the last two hours, and Meditate shattered at the movement as I collapsed on the sand. That veil of grey hovered over my mind, an almost intangible depression stripping me of the motivation to do anything other than lay there and breathe—if that hadn't been an automated process, I might well have discarded it as well. The sand seeped into the gap in my shirt and the seam of my waistband in a way that I would absolutely detest later, but for now, I just couldn't bring myself to care. What was even going on here? It was like the pit that followed after a dopamine spike, a force that stripped away the desire to move, the desire to do things, the desire for anything at all. Would this grow stronger with every skill I created? Would I really have to inflict this on myself every time?

"Gross," I managed. "Meditate."

The rush of invigorating energy came back, sweeping through my body and chasing away some of the veil as it went—not entirely, but enough that I could push through the sluggishness enough to investigate the outcome of my suffering.

Line Spear

Exchange 148.50(150) mana to fire a piercing line of mana with up to 0.25m range and 0.25 penetration (+0.25 per level)

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

I couldn't even use it—I simply didn't have enough mana to manage it. I wouldn't have enough mana to use it until Mana Mastery, and Mana Core hit a much higher level—reducing the mana cost or increasing my total mana pool, respectively. Which meant more training by spamming all my spells.

"Heal," I muttered.

I watched my mana vanish in an instant before Meditate began dragging it back up again. Being able to cast Line Spear was decent enough, as far as goals went. The question became, how far could I get in sixteen days?

#

The looming threat of the coup had done a lot to counteract my general boredom, at least for the most part—but three days of doing nothing but casting Heal, exercising on the beach until I got tired, then Meditating until I was rejuvenated before doing it all over again was starting to grind that sense of panic down. It was outright impossible for me to remain on edge when literally nothing was fucking happening. I'd made three different trips into the city, one each morning, to try and get a sense of the general populace. The villagers seemed to have no real sense of urgency to them, which made me think they were entirely unaware of what was going to happen to their generally beloved king.

The guys with the riot shields, on the other hand, seemed to grow tenser as the days passed, with Observe informing me that they were feeling things like 'Concerned,' 'Excited,' 'Frustrated,' and more of the like. I couldn't really tell who was involved because the general energy seemed to be affecting all of them—the ones who were probably going to betray the king were affecting the ones who had no idea, simply by the push and pull of their daily lives. Living with a secret like that had turned them snappish and on edge. I'd grown quite a bit in that time; my own dogged efforts to not suck were slowly but assuredly bearing fruit.

With Meditate active, I could now regenerate six-point-two-five mana per second, something which was cutting the downtime between casts massively. In turn, the higher level of the individual skills became, the longer it took to increase them—something expected but incredibly annoying. What was also interesting was that none of the skills seemed to rise at the same rate. Mana Mastery and Mana Core seemed to rise quickly, whereas Mana Recovery was much, much slower. The same could be said for Stamina Core, rising faster than Stamina Recovery, and presumedly it would carry over to Health Core and Health Recovery as well, had I been willing to lose any of my precious Health Points. My exercise regime—an absolute tyranny—had taught me several things as well.

The first was that certain exercises were more effective for specific attributes and that the number in which I was required to do was getting progressively larger as the state rose. Running only affected Speed, while Swimming affected both Speed and Vitality. Crunches, planking, squats and star jumps affected Vitality. Pullups, pushups, and lifting heavy objects like rocks affected Strength. Strategizing and attempting to memorise long strings of numbers seemed to work for increasing Intelligence, but the former was far more effective than the latter. I hadn't really attempted to do anything for Luck yet—maybe I should attempt that now. I brought up my Inventory and removed a single Moon Dollar, flipping it over in my hand to check both sides. A crescent moon on one side, a paper fan imprinted on the other.

"Paper Fan," I declared.

I flipped the coin up into the air and then caught it, slapping it down onto the back of my hand. Peeking, I noted that it was a crescent moon, and ten luck was apparently worthless. I stuck with a paper fan and did a series of rapid-fire rolls, seeing if I could brute force my way to winning—three crescent moons in a row had my eye twitching, and then the fifth one finally turned up a paper fan.

"Nothing?" I accused. "Paper Fan. Paper Fan. Paper Fan. Crescent Moon? Fuck you. Crescent Moon. Crescent Moon—"

Your Luck has increased by 1.

That solved that—the question was, on an island known as a destination for vacation, casinos and gambling, was I really going to waste an opportunity to train up an attribute and earn some money at the same time?

#

"There you are," I said, pointing directly at her. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"You have?" Yuna said, bemused.

"What are you doing right now?" I said, eyeing her. "I have more questions, and you have my answers."

"I'm going to buy something to eat," Yuna said, "I could probably be convinced to answer some questions in exchange for lunch?"

It was clear enough to me that Yuna could sense the ninety-seven Moon Dollars in my inventory and had decided to target them with reckless abandon. Still, I did want to see what would happen after I ate something.

"Very well," I agreed, "I know where absolutely nothing is in this city—take me somewhere cheap but tasty."

"I know just the place," Yuna said, taking hold of my arm. "Come on—uh—guy who's buying me lunch."

"Yuna," I said, shaking my head. "I can't believe you don't remember my name."

"You never told me your name," Yuna defended. "That's not my fault."

"First question," I said, going out of my way not to tell her my name. "How much do you know about the world outside of your oddly shaped island?"

"A lot?" Yuna guessed, "Some?"

"What about the leaders of the different Hidden Villages?" I asked. "You know any of their names?"

"Uh," Yuna managed. "Maybe I'm not the best person for this?"

"You seem to have a problem with names, don't you?" I said pointedly. "Fine, what about—who's the current Hokage? First, second, third, fourth or fifth?"

"It's the old guy," Yuna said, hesitating. "I think the fourth died, didn't he? He got done in by one of the tailed beasts?"

"Sarutobi Hiruzen is the Third Hokage," I prompted. "That's the one you think is the current leader?"

"Yeah," Yuna said, nodding. "That's definitely him—I'd recognize that name anywhere."

"You're totally just guessing, aren't you?" I sighed.

"Maybe?" Yuna hedged.

#

"If I were to ask—has Sunagakure attacked Konohagakure in the last ten years?" I said, pointing the Dango skewer at her. "Would you say yes, or no?"

"Yes?" Yuna said, attempting to deflect my skewer with her own. "That was earlier this year, wasn't it?"

"Sarutobi Hiruzen died during that battle," I said, humming. "The current Hokage should be Tsunade of the Sannin—unless they are still searching for her?"

No, that didn't make sense given the events that occurred during the Land of Moon movie—Sakura had medical training, which she only received after Tsunade became the Fifth Hokage. That meant if Team seven showed up in—nine days' time—she must already have undergone some of that training in order to use the medical techniques. Ergo, Tsunade was already the Hokage.

"If you already knew, why are you asking me?" Yuna said, scrunching her face up. "You're just making fun of me, aren't you?"

"I am absolutely making fun of you," I said, "This was actually all just a plan to get you to go on a date with me where I could bully you to my heart's content—surprise."

"I can't tell if you're messing with me or not," Yuna said, pointing the skewer at my face. "Behave yourself."

"I refuse to behave myself in front of someone who can't even be bothered to remember my name," I said, "Yuna—who's the most famous shinobi you know of that is currently still alive."

"If you actually told me your name in the first place, I'd use it," Yuna insisted, "Tsunade, like you said, is pretty famous. Orochimaru and Jiraiya as well, since the three of them were a team."

"I'm discounting that answer because I already mentioned Tsunade to you less than a minute ago," I said, trying not to smile. "Try again, Yuna."

I stretched the name out, taking pleasure in it, and then cracked an eye open to peek at her.

"You're only using my name because I don't know yours—behave, or I'll order two more servings and eat them all in front of you," Yuna said, flushing a bit. "Famous shinobi, famous shinobi—Kakashi of the Sharingan? Itachi Uchiha? Onoki the Fencesitter? Sasori of the Red Sand?"

I hadn't realised that Sasori was famous enough to be known outside of Suna or the rest of the big five—but then again, didn't he take over a country or something? He was probably famous everywhere for something like that.

"Who is the current leader of Sunagakure?" I said, eyeing her for a moment. "Is it Gaara of the Desert?"

"I don't know who that is," Yuna said, blinking. "The Fourth Kazekage was some guy called Rasa, I think?"

"He died prior to the invasion," I said, a bit distracted. "Orochimaru of the Sannin got him—and then wore his skin to infiltrate Konoha."

Gaara wasn't yet the Kazekage, Tsunade was the Hokage, Sasuke was with Orochimaru, Sakura was learning medical techniques, and Naruto was going to go away on a training trip with Jiraiya sometime after this mission took place. That put me somewhere just before the time skip between part one and Shippudden took place. That also meant that a bunch of unfortunate things had been locked in already. Zabuza and Haku were both dead, which sucked balls because they deserved better than what happened to them. Kimmimaro was also dead, which was a mega-fucking-waste, considering I might have been able to figure out a way to cure him—although whether or not I could have yoinked him out of Orochimaru's orbit was another thing entirely.

The snow movie had likely already taken place—or had it? When exactly did that movie take place? Naruto had already learned the Rasengan, which meant that it was sometime after the mission to bring Tsunade back to become the Hokage. I would have expected that to have taken place before they'd come to the Land of Moon because Sasuke was still around for that one. That was a pretty tight schedule, though, considering they were supposed to arrive here in just over a week's time. What would have happened if both of those missions had actually occurred at roughly the same time?

What if Naruto had chosen to come to the Land of Moon instead of the Land of Snow? What would have happened if Naruto had actually chosen to go to the Land of Snow, and Team 7-minus-Sasuke-plus-Rock Lee didn't even come here at all? Was that what the quest had been referring to by preventing the world from ending? Maybe I was supposed to deal with the non-canon events that took place at the same time as the canon ones, the events where Naruto couldn't be present because he was somewhere else, saving the world from a different threat?

"Damn," I said, "This might be even harder than I first thought."

"What's that?" Yuna asked.

"Have you heard anything about the Land of Snow?" I asked, "More specifically, whether it's being run by a guy called uh—Doto—or a princess named—Yukie?"

"I have no idea," Yuna admitted.

"Yuna," I said, rolling the name again. "You're not being very helpful."

Yuna blew a long breath out of her nose at the sound of her name before standing up and planting both of her hands flat on top of the table.

"Why don't you tell me your name," Yuna said, "Then, we can go back to my place, and I'll practice saying it until you're satisfied."

"That's a very tempting offer, Yuna," I admitted, pointing my skewer at her. "But just so we're clear—you're a really messy eater, and you've had food on your face for a while."

Yuna flushed.

#

I stepped through the massive open doors and into the building. It was surprising just how colourful the inside was. Patterned carpet, bright lights, game tables adorned with brightly dye cloth and most baffling of all—slot machines. The technology of this world had never made much sense to me. They had cameras and computers in the Chunin Exams, and there was a massive monitor outside, so I knew they had this stuff, but it was bizarre that it wasn't more widespread. It was also weird that they had technology like this, but not guns or cars—they had trains, and that one guy in the Land of Snow made a machine that could defrost a country without toasting everyone. Orochimaru had literal glass tanks that he kept his experiments in as well, most of which had been connected to computers. The haphazard nature of it all annoyed me greatly.

"Sir," A woman said, greeting me a few feet in the door. "Would you like a tour of the premises?"

"Nope," I said, stepping past her. "Thanks, though."

I sat down at the slot machine that was closest to the door, took out one of the Moon Dollars I'd spent hours grinding out my luck with, and then dropped it into the machine—I pressed the button, waited for it to stop, and then scrunched my face up as I lost.

"God dammit," I complained. "Again."

#

I returned to the beach hours later, and with three thousand Moon Dollars burning a hole in my inventory, entirely unsure whether or not I'd won so much because of my Luck or in spite of it. Either way, I had no intention of going back—gambling was somehow even more boring than sitting on a beach twiddling my thumbs. I turned my mind to something more productive, more specifically, all of the different events that had taken place in this world in an attempt to figure out a straightforward timeline to deal with. The Land of Moon was currently happening, which meant that all of the others had the potential to exist as well.

The Land of Snow movie and the Stone of Gelel were things that might have already happened. The Land of Demons movie, the sky shinobi movie, the bloodline limit theft movie, the time-travel puppet movie, the blood prison movie, the weird movie that didn't really happen in Obito's genjutsu, the guy on the moon movie—were all things that would eventually happen. Along with all of the canon events, like the Akatsuki going after each of the Jinchuriki, Gaara getting ganked by Deidara and Sasori, Sasuke blasting Orochimaru and striking out on his own with Team Hebi, Itachi getting summarily deleted by Kirin, Pain nuking Konoha, the Kage Summit, the whole shinobi war arc and everything beyond it.

"How the fuck am I supposed to fix this?" I muttered, "What events am I supposed to address?"

Almost the entire point of Shippudden had been the lead-up to Kaguya's revival, and almost everything that had happened had contributed to that in some way. The Akatsuki might have already been preparing to collect the Tailed Beasts. Should I try an interfere with that? If they couldn't abduct the Jinchuriki, then they wouldn't be able to put them in the Gedou Statue, and their plans would be in shambles. I could make sure that Konohagakure knew about Pain and Konan's upcoming attack. I could also inform them of Sasori, Deidara and the plan to attack Sunagakure and take Garaa. What about the other ones?

"Who did Akatsuki go after first?" I wondered.

I couldn't remember the exact order, but I thought I had a rough idea of it. I knew that they weren't strictly going after the Jinchuriki by the number of tails—the first one might have been that steam guy in the red armour? One of the two Jinchuriki from Iwagakure. Then it was the green-haired girl from Takigakure. That took place right after the Suna-Leaf joint chunin exams—which happened a couple of months before Shippuden started. Kakuzu and Hidan had gone after her. The immortal duo also went after the two tails at some point—and they killed Asuma as well.

The bastards were putting in work, that was for sure. Sasori and Deidara went after Gaara next, which was one of the first episodes of Shippudden—that was squarely ahead of me, though. If I wanted to interfere with Akatsuki, the best place was to prevent the red-armoured-steam-guy or the green-haired-winged-girl from getting taken. That meant I'd need some way to fight off either Kakuzu and Hidan or—whoever the hell had gone after the steam guy. Deidara and Sasori maybe? He was a stone shinobi, wasn't he? Neither of those was a good starting fight.

Heal has increased by 1.

Hidan was probably the weakest member of Akatsuki, but from what I remembered, he'd been going head-to-head with Kakashi for a long while, and he'd killed Asuma. He was durable enough to tank Kakuzu's elemental attacks at point-blank range without a scratch, he was strong enough to swing around that massive scythe, and he would keep on fighting until he'd been entirely delimbed. Kakuzu was just a monster, able to use every element and in combination. He possessed the ability to send his masks out autonomously to attack his enemies, he was strong enough to ragdoll Choji, and he had that Earth Release durability technique that made him impossible to hurt without a good elemental counter—and he turned into a tentacle monster.

Mana Core has increased by 1.

Deidara and Sasori could fuck entirely off for now—I had no intention of trying to fight a guy who spammed bombs and a guy who could pull out a thousand puppets, each wielding weapons that were coated in a lethal, pain-inflicting poison. Kakuzu and Hidan seemed like the safer bet—if there even was such a thing. I'd need to make sure I was near Takigakure around the time of the Suna-Konoha Joint Chunin Exams so I could intervene—or rather, engineer a situation in which they got dogpiled by Jounin-level shinobi. As soon as I got off this island, I'd make those two my initial targets—

Quest Unlocked

Immortal Duo

Objectives

Enter Takigakure

Fight and Kill Hidan

Fight and Kill Kakuzu

Rewards

Save Green-haired-girl

Save Two-tails-girl

Save Asuma

Failure – Capture, Enslavement, Death.

"No," I said, "You mother fucker—no."

#

Five days passed by in the same sluggish monotony of training, and through it all, only two things of note emerged from the boredom. The first was that on the seventh day since I'd woken up in the Land of Moon, the Skill Creation Resistance had dropped from four to three. Seven days was a hell of a long time to wait for one measly point—but it was better than dealing with the fact that it would never go down at all. The second thing of note was the man I was currently watching walk down the middle of the street, surrounded by about twenty men carrying riot shields and spears.

Name: Shabadaba

Gender: Male

Age: 57

Level: 29

Health Points: 240/240

Chakra: 10/10

Status Effects: None.

Emotions: Paranoid. Excited. Frustrated.

History: Shabadaba was born in the Land of Moon. He is a prominent political figure and an advisor to Kakeru Tsuki. He has long advocated for harsher tax rates but has yet to get any legislation passed. Shabadaba is currently planning to overthrow the current regime and take control of the Land of Moon. Shabadaba has two children, both of which are now deceased.

"Shabooba," I muttered, "Paranoid of what, exactly? That someone is going to discover your secret?"

I retreated immediately, not willing to oust myself as a potentially suspicious person to any of the shinobi that were almost definitely following Shabooba around. Could I even continue my training like this? If any of them caught sight of me practising weird techniques on the beach in the middle of the night, they might decide to take me out of the game, just in case. I'd made some serious progress towards my goals—being able to spend twenty-four hours a day practising without getting tired, hungry or thirsty was pretty amazing—but I still hadn't managed to reach the level needed to cast Line Spear. Nor did I have the ability to fix Kakeru if he did end up being turned to stone, and I'd used up roughly half of my time, with only eight days left until Prince Michiru returned. If I created a new skill right now, I'd have one more chance to make another one before they arrived, but it would leave me with only one day to practice with it. What did I need right now—the ability to fix Kakeru or the ability to tell if there was a shinobi watching me? The former was important for my future, but the latter would allow me to keep training with some degree of safety—and that was also important.

"Motherfucker," I muttered.

I toggled Meditate on and then added Stealth for good measure before turning my mind inwards. This time, instead of groping around for the pressure in my mind, I started up the mantra of what I wanted right away—a sensory technique, sensing chakra, finding enemies, sensing energy—just as I'd discovered the last time, it made the process more tenable by an entire order of magnitude. It still wasn't easy by any stretch of the imagination, and the process was a gruelling test of patience that stole away hours of my time, but when all was said and done, I managed it.

You have learned a new skill, Energy Sense.

This time, I left Meditate on in an effort to combat the despair and lack of motivation that followed. It took the edge off, but it was just as terrible as it had been the first time I'd subjected myself to it. Once I'd finally managed to drag myself back from the pit I'd dug myself into, I took a look at the skill description.

Energy Sense

Reserves 83.25(100) mana to sense sources of energy within a radius of 0.25m (+0.25 per level)

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

The fact that I could actually use the thing was a weight off my shoulders, and I immediately dropped Stealth in order to activate it—and found that basically nothing had happened because there was nothing within the minuscule radius that could have possessed a source of energy. It was another reserve skill as well, which meant that I wouldn't be levelling Mana Mastery or Mana Core from it.

"For fucks sake," I groaned. "Can't anything be easy?"

I dug my hand into the sand beside my thigh, dropped Energy Sense, and then dumped all my mana into a Heal, hiding the effect of the spell beneath the sand. I had a grand total of one-hundred-and-sixteen mana right now, and factoring in the cost reduction, the amount of mana needed to cast Line Spear was one-hundred-thirty-three mana—meaning that I was exactly sixteen Total Mana, or Cost Reduction off being able to attack.

#

It took four more days of hiding in the forest before I'd reached the point where I could cast Line Spear. I kept up my routine of checking on the city every morning just to make sure nothing had happened, but I'd stopped actually going in entirely—there was too much chance of being spotted by the shinobi. Two days left until I could create another skill and four days until Prince Michiru would arrive. I could almost feel the energy in the air; the emotions of the guards and their general unease had bled their way into the populace at large.

I was genuinely surprised Shabooba was leaving it so close to the wire to start, but then again, he probably didn't know that Prince Michiru was bringing Konohagakure Shinobi back with him in the first place. The general number of guards in the city was increasing as well; where before they'd apparently spent most of their time up at the Palace, now they were actively standing on corners—apparently to help keep things under wraps for Prince Michiru's long-awaited return, or so Yuna had told me the last time I'd gone into the city. I disliked the idea of leaving her down there in the middle of everything, but I wasn't willing to put myself at such an extreme risk by mouthing off about Shabooba and an attempted coup—not when it would invariably lead to bringing the three shinobi down on my head.

I'd had so much time to think, but there was so much that I couldn't really plan for. My autonomy was shackled here until the point where I could actively contest even a garbage-tier shinobi. All I could do was practice, train and try to build myself up to a level where I wouldn't immediately get deleted as soon as even a genin turned their attention in my direction. What rank were these shinobi anyway? The one with the stone-transformation technique had actually defeated Kakashi in their first engagement, and while some of that must have been Kakashi underestimating the enemy for the sake of rising tension in the movie, in reality, it meant that the enemy shinobi was solidly in the class of a Jounin. He'd been fast enough, strong enough and skilled enough to fight Kakashi of the fucking Sharingan and not immediately get destroyed—I'd wager that ninety percent of Jounin across the world weren't up to that task. The other two were less threatening, but both of their defeats had been odd—Naruto had kicked the big guy around while using the fox's chakra, where he'd survived it pretty much unharmed and then turned up ready for another fight less than a day later.

Mana Mastery has increased by 1.

Lee had to go goblin mode to defeat the big guy—dropping his weights and maybe using one of the gates, considering the amount of collateral damage he'd managed. That placed the guy at somewhere in the upper echelons of Chunin or maybe a weak Jounin. The third member of their team was harder to pin down. She had lost to Sakura, of all people—but if my memory was working, Sakura had her super strength technique already, and she'd been running around smashing concrete to dust throughout the movie. It only took one punch like that to merc just about anyone, to the point where I very much doubted Kakashi would like to be on the receiving end. Aside from the very last moment when Sakura had managed to actually land a punch, she'd been losing the entire time—that shinobi had some kind of stealth focus; I remembered the invisibility technique, the cherry blossoms, and the poison? I'd put her down as solidly in the Chunin box. One strong Jounin, one weaker Jounin, and one Chunin—not good odds for someone like me, but I'd have to make do.

Line Spear has increased by 1.

I pulled my finger out of the sand and checked to make sure it was still attached—not even a scratch. Meditate dragged my mana back up to full in a few short moments, and then I did a visual scan of the area, trying to determine if I could get away with using the skill out in the open. I had no real idea what it looked like; using it under the sand did nothing more than shift a few grains around.

"Seize the day, motherfucker," I said, trying to pump myself up. "Line Spear."

A streak of white light, about the width of a needle, burst forward—and then immediately hit the limit of its range. It faded from the air unevenly, the line turning patchy before vanishing entirely. One-hundred-and-twenty-four-point-five mana for a single cast, which left me with exactly one mana left over—and it couldn't hit anything further away than half a meter.

"Ugh," I groaned, falling back onto the sand.

#

I'd given up on exercising almost entirely, my motivation decreasing as I realised just how little time I had left before everything would kick off. Two days left until Prince Michiru returned, and with him, I'd learn about my path forward. If Team 7-minus-Sasuke-plus-Rock Lee was with him, then everything would crystalise into reality—and I could ask them if they'd ever gone to the Land of Snow. If Prince Michiru was alone, then I was either going to have to figure out a way to assassinate Shabooba, or the Land of Moon fell to him, and I might well get hit with a penalty for failing to prevent the end of the world—not that I could really see how this plan could result in that happening, but I'd woken up here, on this beach, in the Land of Moon, at this time for a reason. I was hesitant about trying to create a skill to save Kakeru Tsuki from petrification, mostly because I still wasn't sure what kind of skill I could even manage it.

"Heal and Meditate both seem to work on game logic," I muttered, closing my eyes. "How do I fix petrification?"

Petrification in video games was almost always considered a status effect and one that usually had to be dealt with by a special item, a special potion, or a specific healing spell. I knew that there were status effects listed in the Observe panels, but none of the ones I'd seen so far had contained anything. I could try for something that removed status effects—and bank on the fact that the Petrification actually counted as one. The alternative was to avoid creating any spells until I ran into the king and then Observe him to see if it showed up. He'd been hiding in a cave somewhere on the mountain to the North-west—I'd have to go investigate that later today, see if I couldn't figure out the location in advance. If I waited until I could meet the man, then I'd have to spend two hours attempting to make the skill on-site, potentially while under duress and without the ability to level it in advance.

"Fuck it," I decided.

Remove Status Effect. Status Effect Removal. Cure Status Effects. Cure Petrification. I launched straight into it, leading with the mantra and with an internal cry of, 'what's the worst that could happen?' Either It was a status effect, or it wasn't. I just hoped that it didn't have a mana cost above my threshold to cast because that would ruin the entire plan before it had a chance to start. Remove Status Effect. Status Effect Removal. Cure Status Effects. Cure Petrification. The closer I came to making the skill, the more hesitant I felt about the direct aftermath and the terrible despair that would be washing over me. Remove Status Effect. Status Effect Removal. Cure Status Effects. Cure Petrification. Time wasted away beneath the unending repetition of the mantra, and by the time everything started to crystalise, I was actively hesitating to finish the skill, knowing the feeling that was going to overcome me. Eventually, it completed itself through the effort of the mantra, taking the choice out of my hand.

You have learned a new skill, Status Removal.

The feeling was just as horrible as I'd been expecting, colour bled out of the world, and I remained in place, staring straight ahead without care or motivation. Meditate worked to bring me back, the spiralling currents tearing through the feeling. I managed to push through it all eventually, but as the feeling withdrew, I made a promise to just wait the four weeks out and let the Skill Creation Resistance return to zero. I couldn't keep blasting myself with an episode of depression every single time; it was just too much.

"Skills," I muttered.

Status Removal(Lv1)

Exchange 124.50(150) mana to lower the durability of the status effect by 0.25 (+0.25 per level)

Active skill use grants EXP towards this skill.

It had the same mana cost as Line Spear, which meant that I could cast it, if only just. The description was a bit odd—lower the durability of the status effect. Is that how status effects worked here? If Petrification was a status effect, what kind of Durability would it have? If I chipped away at it, with zero-point-two-five damage, just how long would it take me to fix it? Would it destabilise the status effect and cause it to vanish, or did I have to keep using it until the durability hit zero? I suppose I'd find out in two days time. I pushed myself up to my feet with a great deal of effort, retreating into the forest with a kind of sluggishness that I was very much disgusted by. I aimed for the general direction of the mountain, catching hints of the slate-grey rock through the gaps in the trees—there was a cave somewhere up there with my name on it.

#

The next day, after I'd come back down from the mountain, I'd made my morning trip to the edge of the city just to see if anything had changed—and it had. There was smoke coming from the eastern forest, around the area where I knew the Palace to be, and there were guards storming through the streets, chasing people back into their homes. Some of the guards were killing each other, fighting to determine the ruler of a country, and leaving their once cherished comrades dead and dying in the streets. I watched from the trees in a sort of mute horror as a group of people were dragged up in the direction of the Palace. Shabadaba had initiated his plan to take over the Land of Moon, and the people were dying for it. Call me cowardly, but I fled back into the forest and towards the mountain, unwilling to get involved in the fighting. As much as I was sure that I could now kill a man with the strength of my body, I had no real desire to carry it out and not for or against either of the sides of the ongoing conflict. Instead, I retreated deep into the woods, found a place where I could keep an eye on the cave that I thought the king might flee to, and then dropped into Meditate. I hadn't spent nearly as much time turning myself into a killing machine as I should have.

"What a fucking waste of time," I managed. "Line Spear. Line Spear. Line Spear."

#

The day trudged onwards and into the night, the isolation I'd brought down upon myself almost enough for me to think that nothing had really changed. There was no smoke here, no blood, no violence, just the wind rustling the trees and the birds calling out to one another above. My own repeated muttering of the command phrase for Line Spear had vanished almost entirely as I'd figured out that I could get away with mouthing the words without putting any real noise to them. The hole I was digging out of the mass of stone beside me showed that I was making a decent amount of progress. I'd also figured out that 'with up to 9m range and 9 penetration' meant that I could actually undercharge the spell and dictate the range of it—kind of a result of my intent when I cast it, picturing it in my mind. Hitting enough solid mass was enough to stop the skill cold at the moment, whatever calculation was determining what '9 penetration' meant when it came into contact with something causing it to falter. I'd considered testing it on my foot for all of a fraction of a second before scattering the terrible thought to the wind. There was no way in hell I would willingly inflict that kind of pain on myself. It didn't matter that I would likely regenerate the damage or that I could use Heal to vanish it in an instant—it just wasn't going to happen.

Line Spear has increased by 1.

Maybe I could convince someone else to let me shoot them in the foot as a test—If I downplayed how much it would hurt and promised them that I'd heal it afterwards. Then again, I'd probably wouldn't get the chance, given the way things had been going. I hadn't expected—I stilled before very carefully lowering myself further down behind the bush I'd been hiding behind as a group of six men scrambled up onto the rock shelf ahead of me, carrying an old man between them. They vanished into the cave I'd been watching for the past eight hours, and I was left to wonder if this was the true power of sixteen Luck. Rather than risk it, I carefully crawled further into the trees, away from the cave, and activated Stealth as I went.

These guys would more than likely kill me on sight, given what they'd probably just been through. I hadn't considered that at all during all of my planning, but seeing the weapons each of them was carrying and the fact that almost all of their clothes were stained red with blood, I wasn't going to chance a confrontation yet. Once I was far enough away and deep enough under a bush that they couldn't possibly have seen me, I made a tiny hole in the leaves to get eyes on the cave again. I dropped Stealth and brought up Energy Sense, but the thirteen-meter range of the skill wasn't quite enough to reach inside of the cave.

I pulled Meditate up in an effort to calm my racing mind and then settled in to watch. It had been a long time since I'd seen the movie these events had been based on, but I was almost certain that Team 7 had met the king at this cave. That meant that the man was already petrified and dying in there. It also meant that the shinobi of Konohagakure was either already on the island or they would be arriving in the morning. I hadn't seen a ship arrive before midday, so I was banking on it being tomorrow—was this guy really going to last the night, half transformed to stone? Shouldn't something like that have killed him from the lack of blood flow already? Maybe it was more surface-level stuff than what I'd been thinking.

Energy Sense has increased by 1.

The additional quarter of a meter brought a signature with it, part of a man's arm, and then a second man as they moved to huddle by the entrance to the cave. How did these guys even get the king away from a fucking Jounin? Even Genin should have been able to merc the lot of them. Had they let the man escape, knowing that he couldn't recover from the stone affliction? Leaving him to die a long, tortuous death instead of giving him the mercy of a quick one? Not me, that's for sure; I'd have worked up the courage to delete myself rather than deal with hours of horrific pain before dying anyway.

The group at the mouth of the cave grew, more of them emerging until all six of the guards were just within my range. I could just see the edge of one of their levels, poking out of the cave. Level 49—Jesus Christ, he was more than twice as big as the strongest girl in the village. I considered Observing him, but I couldn't even see the guy's body, and I didn't want to drop Energy Sense. The six of them seemed intent on doing something; one of them, in particular, seemed to be slapping backs and clapping shoulders, clearly in an attempt to raise the group's morale.

"We did it, boys—absolutely crushed it," I murmured under my breath, "Pack of shinobi could never keep us down, am I right or what? Backslap—"

Quest Unlocked

Defeat Shabadaba, and regain control of the Land of Moon.

Reward

Save Kakeru Tsuki

Save Michiru Tsuki

Save Hikaru Tsuki

10,000 Moon

Failure - Capture, Enslavement, Death.

I flinched at the words and again as a man stepped away from the mouth of the cave, the others following along in his wake—two of them were over level fifty, the other four were all hovering just below, forty-nines and forty-eights. I dropped Energy Sense and pulled up Stealth as they moved into the forest directly to my right, passing within two meters of my hiding place.

"The ship is supposed to dock in about four hours' time," A man said, voice low. "The King can't move, so we need to secure Prince Michiru before he attempts to make it up to the Palace."

"How are we going to do that with these shinobi running around?" Another man muttered. "They'll have eyes on the docks. Korega, you saw what they were capable of—"

"Keep your helmets on; most everyone not part of the coup has already fled," Korega said, shaking his head. "Avoid talking; we don't want anyone to recognize us; we'll post up on the street near the docks—if anyone asks, we've got orders to keep anyone from fleeing."

"What about the king?" A third man said, pausing beside the bush I was in. "Are we really going to just leave him here?"

"You heard what he said," Korega managed, clearly at odds with the decision. "We get Prince Michiru, and then once he's safe, we'll return—there is nothing any of us can do for him."

"Captain, we can't just—" The man tried again. "It's the king."

I couldn't believe the guy had chosen my fucking bush to start his own coup—hadn't we dealt with enough today?

"This is the most we can do for him," Korega said, "We must follow his will, even at a time like this—no, especially at a time like this. Come, our job isn't finished."

I tracked the sounds of their footsteps until I couldn't hear them any longer—and then switched back to Energy Sense to make sure they weren't waiting behind the tree to pull off the old wait until he stands up before stabbing him trick—once I was certain it was clear, I slipped out of the bush and approached the cave from a blind angle, until my range overlapped everything inside. Once I was certain it was only the king present, I let out a long breath, trying to muster up the courage to get everything started. This was the moment—likely the last moment—in which I'd be able to back out. Actually, considering the quest I'd just received, the moment the back out was most likely way the fuck behind me—god dammit.

"You are my friend," I said, stepping into the cave. "You still remember the dream we had that day, don't you?"

The old man, lying flat on the slab of stone, watched me as I entered, looking nothing like the king he was supposed to be.

"An odd tune, one of which I've not heard before," Kakeru managed, "Have you come to kill me?"

"Are you kidding me?" I said, "What kind of idiot sings a song before he kills someone? I'm obviously here to heal you—or at least attempt to."

"I wasn't aware healers sang songs either," Kakeru said before descending into a coughing fit.

"Yeah, well, I'm starting a movement," I said, dropping down onto the ground beside him. "Mind if I take a look under the uh—flap, big fella?"

I pinched a part of his robe between my thumb and forefinger to indicate what I was talking about. Kakeru still hadn't quite recovered from his coughing fit, so I went ahead and flipped his flap up to get a look at the goods—

"Dude, you're as hard as a rock," I said, "How'd this happen?"

"A powerful shinobi, hired by my long-time friend, is responsible for my current state," Kakeru managed, voice ragged. "A technique that emerged from contact with his hand—I know not the details of its function, only that he sought to take my life."

I sub-vocalised the command for Observe and took a peek at the panel as he spoke.

Name: Kakeru Tsuki

Title: King

Gender: Male.

Age: 64

Level: 20

Health Points: 35/240

Chakra Points: 10/10

Status Effects: Petrification.

Emotions: Despair. Hopelessness. Curiosity.

History: Kakeru Tsuki became the king when he was young, taking on the mantle after his father died during civil unrest. Kakeru is a benevolent man whose youth shaped him into a kind and generous king. Kakeru seeks to raise his people's standard of living and hopes to eliminate poverty in the Land of Moon. Kakeru has a son Michiru, and a grandson, Hikaru.

I tapped on the status effect in an attempt to see if I could gain any information on it, but it refused to reveal its secrets.

"You've been petrified, my guy," I said, "Shinobi, huh? Imagine turning someone into a statue when you're strong enough to punch through a tree? The inefficiency of it is galling."

"It's not quite the mystery you are imagining," Kakeru managed, "Shabadaba made it quite clear that he wished to prolong my suffering."

"Jesus Christ, man, and this guy was your friend?" I said, taken aback. "You've got to start picking your friends better—because that guy sounds like a total prick."

Kakeru sucked in a breath of air—and then it turned into another fit of coughs again.

"Anyway, I might be able to fix this," I said, ignoring the fact that I'd been the one to set him off. "I've got a technique that might work."

"You are—a shinobi?" Kakeru gasped.

"Not even close," I said, shaking my head. "I'm actually just a guy with some cool abilities—do I have your permission to fix you up, chief?"

Kakeru couldn't quite manage to vocalise his agreement, but he flapped his hand at me, and I thought it might roughly translate to 'yeah man, that sounds baller,' so I went ahead and placed my hand against his grey, stone-covered leg.

"Heal," I said, watching his Health Points return on the still-open panel. "God, why do my techniques all suck so bad? Heal."

Twenty-three Health Points per cast. Roughly ten uses of Heal to get him out of the critical zone and back to full health, but it did nothing to affect the Petrification. His previously pale skin, and his ragged breathing, however, vanished like they'd never been there.

"Miraculous," Kakeru said, lifting one of his hands up off the stone. "I can feel my body once more—it's even more painful than before."

"Yikes," I said, alarmed. "Let's see if I can do something about the whole stone thing."

My mana vanished, and a flash of white light appeared between my palm and his leg as I cast Status Removal—and when I stopped to check if it had worked, I found a tiny sliver of skin about the width of my fingernail. I dropped into Meditate in order to get ready for what I was certain was going to be a long, gruelling process.

"Well, the good news is that it worked," I said, "Bad news is that it's going to take hours to get rid of all of it—you weren't planning on going walkabouts any time soon, were you?"

"No, my evening plans have been well and truly cancelled," Kakeru admitted, "To think you could fix this at all—what is your name?"

"Sora," I offered, "Who were you again?"

"You do not know me?" Kakeru asked. "How did you come to know I needed to be healed?"

"I literally saw a bunch of dudes carry you into the cave—you looked pretty messed up," I said, "Totally not a coward, but I was hiding in the forest after everyone in the city started killing each other, you know?"

"I see," Kakeru said, "I am Kakeru Tsuki, the king of the Land of Moon."