Gniniart

Teleportation. Teleportation is what I gained. I could be in one place one second and another in the next without traveling between them. Why I didn’t get Brion’s ability to warp space I have no idea, but I couldn’t say instantaneous travel wasn’t useful.

Now, in the Naruto world one might think teleportation wasn’t all that impressive; what with the Body Flicker and the Hiraishin and what not. But calling teleportation common was far from true: the Hiraishin required an anchor to transport to, the Body Flicker was actually just extremely high speed movement (and causes combat debilitating disorientation), Kamui is slow and can only go to places you’ve been before, Sasuke’s eye more opened portals than actual teleportation, Kaguya’s power was similar to Sasuke. I had no such weakness.

I could instantly transport from one place to the other with no side effects; it was disorienting at first to suddenly be somewhere else, but it had no physically deletrius effects and was completely instant. Bouncing around the ruined village a few times helped me get over the mentally and visually off putting sensation of suddenly being elsewhere. At first my brain seemed to skid out when I teleported; my mind trying desperately to understand how my perspective had suddenly changed.

I grabbed my stuff (hidden a few miles outside the compound) and was about to teleport back to the store when a thought struck me. “Fuck!” I snap fingers, “That binder full of info got mashed when I lost my second body. Damn it, I bet that mind control seal he had was in there.”

I turned to look back at the burning compound, scowling in irritation as the main building finally collapsed in on itself. I turned away with a weary sigh, only to come to a grinding halt as Jashin spoke up.

“You needn’t worry.” My shadow darkened, turning from a mere discolouring of the ground to a pool of seemingly depthless darkness; a ripple spreading across the surface as something slowly rose out of it. My eyes widened and a grin spread across my face as the thin black binder revealed itself. “I stored it away in the void before it was destroyed.”

My grin nearly split my face as I snatched up the file, flipping through it, “Jashin, have I ever told you I love you? ‘Cause I fuckin’ do.” My flippant declaration sent a thrill of surprise through Jashin.

“Are… are you sure?” Her voice was uncharacteristically hesitant and small.

I laughed aloud, “Hell yeah! Name me a country and I’ll see about exterminating it in your name!” My eyes scanned each page closely as I flipped through them rapidly, “It probably won’t be any time soon, nations don’t tend to be that easy to eradicate, but I guarantee I’ll get to it eventually.” I paused , looking up from the binder for a moment and looking up at the sky as storm clouds gathered. “Call it a wedding present.”

The world suddenly grew significantly darker, turning day to night for a moment as all things dark and vile were bolstered and madness spiked, violence erupting randomly across the globe and conflicts being made more vicious and hateful. An ear piercing noise, high and shrill, left the more psychically attuned deafened and seers brain-dead. The moment faded as swiftly as it came, leaving the spiritually knowledgeable and the paranoid on equal footing; freaking the fuck out and preparing for the end times.

I blinked, clearing my ear with my pinky and glancing about in confusion before going back to flipping through Brion’s little black book. Jashin quietly speaking up returned my attention to her.

“You’re not joking… are you?”

I raised an eyebrow. I hadn’t been entirely serious in the moment, but upon reflection I didn’t regret it. “Well; we are gonna be stuck together forever anyway, why not take a symbolic step.” For an instant the sun turned black, buffeting all who stood beneath its gaze with pure evil and inflicting otherworldly malice upon reality. In that single instant a thousand psychos were born and a million little grievances suddenly seemed so much more important. The results of this split second would echoe in history as the world was made a worse place and its denizens just that little bit more monstrous.

I gave a faint shudder, a slight jolt of pleasure my only reaction to an exposure of cosmic evil. Disregarding the event, my eyes lit up as they settled upon what I had been looking for. Near the back, tucked between several boring, dry, and unimportant dossiers was a detailed instruction and diagram of exactly what I wanted.

It wasn’t outright mind control, nor was it just one seal. The two seals were linked; one placed on the victim and one on the victor. The seal placed on the master had two effects; the first was to link the second seal so that the bearer of the first was the target, and the second was essentially a lightened version of the second seal’s effects as an aura around the bearer. The seal for the victim was where it got interesting; instead of outright mind control the seal slowly conditioned the victim to love and obey the master. Any positive thoughts about the first seal bearer caused a very slight amount of pleasure whilst negative thoughts caused equally slight pain.

It was brilliant. All creatures innately sought to avoid pain and seek pleasure (excluding the occasional nutter or things that have no concept of pain); this seal would subtly program them to want to obey me, and to never dissent. The pleasure and pain were so subtle that even if you were looking for such things you likely wouldn’t notice it, but at the same time it was enough for your subconscious to notice and act on.

My grin quite literally split my face; combine this with what the slaver could teach and I’d have my slave harem soon enough.

My musings were interrupted by Jashin speaking up once more, “The Land Of Fire.”

I raised an eyebrow, “What about it?”

“Destroy it. Take the largest concentration of life and hope and reduce it to an ashen wasteland that will never again support life.”

My laughter sent birds fleeing in all directions, “HmhmhmhmhehehehehahahahaHAHAHAHAHA! I like the way you think. Done; the forest shall perish in the flames that defended it.” Torching the Leaf sounds like a bloody good time; though, there are some people there I might want to “recruit". “Do I have to kill everyone; there are some that would make decent slaves.”

“Hmm, there is something appealing in the only survivors serving the killer. Fine, take your slaves.”

I grinned, thinking of just how and when I would sack the Leaf and burn the Fire. Just before I teleported to the shop I was struck by a thought; I know where the mountain graveyard is. Which means I know where Madara is. A weak, old, crippled Madara who likely could barely defend himself (though, I’d wager a decrepit Madara is still tougher than the average ninja). Those eyes… I want his eyes.

Unfortunately, I have no way of keeping them from body to body and am somewhat afraid my regeneration might overwrite them, making acquiring them worse than pointless.

“Kill 28 more people. We are close enough that all I need are a number of souls and you'll be able to modify the blueprint of your soul; including keeping additions.”

I frowned, considering the logistics. A small peasant village with no ninja would likely have about that many people in it… but I have no idea where any such easy targets would be. I could once again just randomly wander, but that's far from efficient. Besides, I'm not entirely sure I could even kill Madara as he is and even if I could I want to wait until Obito finishes his training (no way do I want to accidentally prevent the Akatsuki from forming!). Best to learn what I could from the shop keep and wait until I can actually use real jutsu before I challenge the deadliest man to ever live.

Decision made, I teleported back to the slaver’s shop. I smiled from the shadowy corner I had warped to, watching the doctor struggle to stay awake at his desk. I, of course, took the opportunity to fuck with him.

I silently crept up behind him, stopping when I was just out of arm’s reach. Just before I could shout at the top of my lungs he spoke up, “You really think I'm so rusty I couldn't sense you sneaking up on me, brat?”

I straightened up, chuckling and scratching the back of my head sheepishly, “Heh heh heh heh. Nah, just testin’ ya.” Sure, let’s go with that. I dropped my hand from my neck into a pocket as the shopkeep turned around, I could see his eyebrows rise as he took in my ill-fitting clothes. Before he could comment on my attire, I tossed him the human storage scroll. “Got’cha some slaves, old man; more than you asked for even.”

I smirked as he caught the scroll, unfurling it quickly and widening his eyes at what he saw. Apparently something on the seal told you what was contained; if I knew anything about seals I probably would have already known that.

He looked from me to the scroll and back twice, “Forty? You caught forty slaves in that time? How exactly?” Well, at least that implies that putting more than expected in the scroll didn't damage the goods or scroll. Good to know; I was worried there for a bit that I’d open the scroll and all that would pour out would be a pile of crushed people.

I smirked, shrugging my shoulders theatrically, “Heh, it was easy; I just ransacked a village.”

He outright gaped at me for seven solid seconds before throwing his finance book at me. “Are you fucking insane, you damned idiot! You think nobody’ll notice a whole town full of people going missing!?” I hid a grin as the books pages fluttered on there way to me; the milliseconds each page was exposed to my gaze was not nearly long enough for anyone without a Sharingan to memorize, but Jashin wasn't just anyone.

I just chuckled, “I covered my tracks, old man. Not only did I loot and burn the place, I also scattered bits of corpses from their morgue and a couple that put up a fight.” I shrugged again, “Hell, a nearby village turned out to be a compound for a violent death cult that got wiped out in a religious debacle. Anyone who investigates will just think it was either bandits or collateral damage from the mini holy war that went down nearby.” Fuck, I forgot to steal that guy’s Nazi/Jashinist outfit before I tossed him into the fire! Damnit, I’ll probably never find another. Oh well, it probably wouldn’t have fit anyway.

The “customizer” sighed, “So long as nothing can be traced back to me, it's fine.”

I waved a hand dismissively, “Not a chance.” A grin spread across my face, “Now, why don't you take stock of your new goods and then we can get down to my payment; I believe we agreed that you'd teach me what you know of seals in exchange for a discounted rate?”

He nodded distractedly, eyes glued to the scroll as he walked towards the back room. “Yes yes, I'll teach you what I know.” His eyes flicked up to look me over, “Though I suggest you get some clothes that actually fit first.”

I laughed, “Heh, sure. I'll just grab something from your stocks, eh?” I didn't wait for him to respond, already moving to find something that wasn't horrifically uncomfortable.

I quickly threw on some bright purple pants with an electric green lightning pattern zigging down the right leg and red rings going down the left (because fuck it, I can dress how I want! All the strongest ninja are eccentric anyway), a mint green t-shirt with hot pink vertical stripes (which I once more drew a Jashinist symbol on the front of in blood), and I acquired a pair of bright red combat boots. I was about to head to the back room when I saw it; there, tucked away in a dark corner, was something I never knew just how much I needed it until I saw it.

“Really, not being a touch over dramatic are we?”

I grinned so wide my cheeks tore, “Not in the slightest.” I pulled the beautiful jacket out from the shadows, revealing a bright purple feather coat to the light. “Where have you been all my life, beautiful?” I immediately threw it over my shoulders, wearing it as a cape as is proper.

I jumped and twirled a bit, testing if it stayed in place. Somehow, defying my previous experience and all expectations, even though I had no way of actually holding it to my shoulders (my chakra control had improved, but not enough that I would be willing to risk something this magnificent) it acted as if it were attached to my shoulders, only coming off if I was actively attempting to pull it off.

I grinned from ear to ear, quickly searching around for some matching sunglasses. While I couldn't find any perfect copies, a pair did exist; rather than red lenses and a white frame it had blue lenses and a green frame.

My grin could be pulled off and used as a razor sharp boomerang, “Fuck yeah, I'm Hidan cosplaying as a pallet swapped Doflamingo! Two of my favorite characters combined!” I rubbed my chin, “Hmm, I wonder if I could convince Sasori to teach me chakra strings… and if that would even be useful…” Probably not, doesn't really seem like something I'd get much use out of.

Grin still firmly in place, I swaggered into the back room. The doctor had a young, blonde chick strapped to his table, tears streaming down her face past her apparent paralysis as he took a scalpel to her chest. The rest of the slaves were stacked like cordwood in the cells, clearly also paralysed.

“Heh heh, wassup doc?” Had I a carrot, I most assuredly would have bitten into it to punctuate my words. As it was I simply leaned against one of the cages and poked a slave with the ring of a kunai.

He glanced over at me, raising an eyebrow at my… eye-catching apparel. “Well, that's certainly a more… flamboyant ensemble than I expected.” He grunted, turning back to his work, “Hmph, all the best ninjas had a signature look; strikes fear into their enemies and makes it easier to blend in when your not wearing it.”

“True enough, true enough. I figured the bright coloration would match my charming personality.” I said with a straight face.

The slave trader snorted from where he had resumed vivisecting a woman, “Heh, yeah, you’re just a sterling example of the kindness inherent in man’s heart, eh?”

I laughed, “Heh heh heh heh! Sure sure,” I sauntered over to the doctor and watched him work. “So, what is it your doin’ here; makin’ her tits bigger?”

He shrugged, briefly glancing over at a manila folder splayed open on a little tray amongst his tools. “Eventually. See, I'm not like other slave traders; people usually don't just buy in bulk from me. In point if fact, I'm paid to order, each slave customized separately and usually uniquely; though I do have some standard packages.”

I stared into the woman's opened chest cavity curiously, watching the doctor fiddle with her lungs. “Such as?”

He waved a bloodsoaked, gloved hand as he set down his scalpel and reached for what appeared to be a hot glue gun. “I have standards models based on the desired purpose of each slave; you know, weather they’re for sex or manual labour or an arena and what not.” The strange tool poured out a fluid that was decidedly not heated glue, seemingly melding a price of foreign (and artificial looking) flesh to a cut in the woman's right lung.

The doctor set the tool aside, pointing generally at the woman's tear stained face, “This one here is headed for a specialty brothel, so she’ll be getting a bit more than the standard battery of sex worker modifications. In general, I increase their lung capacity, make their skin softer and more elastic, their muscles a bit springy-er at the cost of being less effective, make the heart bigger and have it pump fast, give them more and more sensitive nerves, remove most of their higher thought processes and capacity for violence while increasing their base desires, increasing bone flexibility and joint rotation limits, increase regeneration speed, and other such things for sex slaves.” The slave looked increasingly unhappy as the doctor described some of what he intended to do to her.

He waved his hand dismissively, setting aside the unnamed tool before taking up what appeared to be an obsidian tipped scalpel. He used said scalpel to gesture at the woman, trailing it along her skin before pointing at her eyes, “The buyer requested this one get blue skin, solid black eyes, green hair and nails, and make her vagina and the inside of her mouth orange with purple fluids.” He shrugged, starting to cut open her heart and do unspeakable things to it, “Meh, no accounting for taste, I suppose.”

I raised an eyebrow, “You can do all that?” This had potential beyond even my initial thoughts if that was true.

He scoffed, “Are you doubting my skills, brat?” He shook his head, once more picking up his strange tool and fusing, pale, artificial flesh to the innards of the woman's heart (a seal on her arteries seemingly performing the hearts duties in its place). The grey flesh quickly turned red when blood rushed in and began performing its unknown function. “Aye kid, I can do all that. Better yet, I can make it stick.” He patted the woman's thigh with a wry grin, “Once I'm done with ‘er, even if she were skinned alive it would grow back blue.”

I smirked, “Really? And, what do you do for gladiators, exactly?”

His smirk matched my own, “Why, lookin’ to get yourself the combat suite?”

I shrugged, “Perhaps.”

He laughed, “Ha! Before I'll hack you up and make you better,” he turned, poking me in the chest with a blood covered finger (luckily not staining anything or I would of had to kill him), “You need to perfect what you already have.”

I raise an eyebrow, exaggerating the gesture to be seen behind my shades. “Oh, and are you going to help my with that and fulfil your side of our little deal.”

He smirked, waving a hand at the packed cages. “You have gone above and beyond the bounds of our agreement; so to shall I.” He tossed a scalpel into a bloody bowl, grabbing a clamp and using it pinch a tendon out of place for reasons I couldn't begin to guess.

I grinned to match my coat, “Well then, when do we start?”

He tossed me a pair of gloves, “Right now.”

____________:______________

Three years passed in a blur of boredom, training, kidnapping, and murder. Thirty six murders to be specific. A depressingly low amount considering the time it took, but training and mass murder have one major thing in common; they both take time. My schedule isn't quite big enough to slot in both. Yet.

Luckily, thirty six kills still more than got me over the threshold to be able to manipulate the blueprint of my soul. The first thing I did was make myself taller and give myself a bigger dick; because I'm a red blooded man and of fucking course I did. I briefly considered making myself ten feet tall, but eventually decided that would be more of a hindrance than a help and settled on six foot six.

The second thing I did was make my clothes and gear part of me. This meant that said items would regenerate if they were damaged and means that when I grab or generate a new body, I wouldn't lose them. It also gave me essentially unlimited ammo for ranged weapons.

The doctor (who’s name I learned was Rinri Ketsujo) turned out to be a competent if utterly psychotic teacher (I’m at least a hundred percent sure he tried to kill me several times). My handwriting proved too atrocious for him to even consider teaching me seals until art critics would jizz their pants looking at my writing; which took up most of the first year. After he learned I didn’t require any sort of break at any point for any reason he kicked it into overdrive; when I wasn’t doing physical and chakra control training (usually simultaneously because God hates me no matter how many times Jashin vehemently disagrees) I was learning sealing or the arcane medical practises involved in the varied modifications he inflicted on his merchandise, many of the which he had developed seals to do for him, though the seals didn’t work as quickly.

One particular custom seal based procedure brought a perversely pleased grin to my face; see, female slaves were more sought after than male slaves but male slaves are more common, so Rinri decided to solve this little problem. I laughed aloud when he told me he did it so often he had decided to just make a seal for it; because why wouldn’t I want to fuck female versions of my favorite characters, especially when someone makes it so easy for me?

Despite having all of my plans altered heavily because of one bit of ink, my training definitely paid off. Physically I got faster and stronger, though my growth here wasn’t very impressive considering I started pretty strong and increasing my musculature through regeneration of my level was… difficult to say the least. Where my training really shone was in chakra manipulation and control.

Where as when I started I accidentally blew up trees when I tried to cling to them, now I could water walk without disrupting the surface. While I still wasted a shitload of chakra with every expenditure (which was mostly irrelevant considering how much I had, though it still annoyed me to have anything less than perfection), my control had gotten good enough that I could actually start making use of the scrolls I stoll. Most notably, the primer on mixing elements.

Of course, first I had to master two elements at least. My primary affinity turned out to be for lightning; which could be slightly problematic. Lightning is one of the more variable elements, useful for just about everything; so I’m not exactly upset about it. The problem is that lightning is also the most difficult to master and has relatively few known/confirmed combinations.

As far as combinations go, while there are several theorised subelements using lightning, only one of them is actually confirmed to be true. This means that in mixing elements I’ll be mostly on my own regarding what the elements will combine into. Given this, I decided to focus on the only confirmed combination, which also just so happened to fire fucking lasers; Storm Release.

Again, I still had to master lightning first; which is far from easy. Lightning liked to do its own thing and go where it wanted to go and had to be fought for control unlike anything but fire. I had managed to get the creation of lightning down pat, actual control was more difficult (my dreams of blitzing around in lightning armour went down in flames the third time I electrocuted myself… for now). I could send blasts of lightning in the direction I wanted them to go (fuck hand seals, I’ll do it without or I won’t do it at all!), shoot weak bolts in every direction (because, fuck it; why not?), mimic Sith lightning, and perform a crude (and self damaging) imitation of the chidori. I could kind of control a bolt after I fire it, curving it jaggedly in directions in wide and barely controlled arcs.

As for water… it was barely worth speaking about. I could make my hands wet and fling a couple droplets around (fuck ambient water manipulation, I will allow no handicap or weakness! Besides, I have enough chakra that unless I want to make truly ludicrous amounts of water from thin air I would be fine. When I eventually get to Earth Release, I’ll make an exception to not using ambient material; though I still plan to see if earth could be made from chakra alone) and I suppose I could use that as a distraction or if a companion needed water (I never will), but I was far from making moving oceans or huge water dragons. The best I could do was send water balls that hit like a light punch a few feet from me. My progress with other elements could be summed up entirely as nonexistent.

Rinri was of little help when it came to controlling my element; the only element he knew was earth and he was far from a master.

Seals are fucking hard… for anyone who doesn’t possess an eidetic memory. While I myself do not have an absolutely perfect memory, Jashin does. The rules and logic behind seals are arcane and baffling, but they do exist, and Jashin, who doesn’t necessarily think like a human and never forgets anything, could easily follow them. She turned out to be a fucking master at seals, easily understanding and even semi-frequently improving upon Rinri’s designs. Currently my clothes had strengthening, environmental regulation, weight reduction, and flexibility enhancing seals all over the insides of them; most of them designed by Jashin. I could trust my clothes to reliably turn away any thrown weapons and possibly bladed melee weapons. I would strengthen them even further, but if I did they wouldn’t be able to function as clothes, even with enhanced flexibility they simply wouldn’t bend after a certain point, nor would they be comfortable. Given I’m immortal, I’ll prioritize being comfortable over safety everytime. For the same reason, I didn't cover my skin in seals; it felt awful. The only seal on my skin was the master part of the indoctrination seal disguised as a crimson symbol of Jashin on my chest.

The only reason I wasn’t covered in seals to enhance everything and block everything was that the same thing that made Jashin extraordinarily good at remembering and improving seals, also made her shit at coming up with new ones based on ideas she hadn’t already seen. I could make bigger or smaller explosion seals, but I couldn’t make an implosion seal. I would need to find a seal master or more scrolls on sealing to expand my little arsenal; the doctor’s seal knowledge wasn’t very focused on combat, the only reason I had the generally useful things I did was because Rinri used them on some slaves.

The doctor offered to modify me in similar ways to those he gives to Gladiators (minus some of the less beneficial things, like lobotomization and reduction of nerves) and some more… exclusive things. Apparently when he said I needed to “perfect what I already have" he only meant physically, not chakra wise. Knowing there wouldn’t really be a downside if I decided I don’t like the changes; I took him up on it.

Now, considering I’m immortal and don't need plebian things like food, water, air, sleep, and pretty much everything else; I also didn’t need most of my organs. When I told Rinri such, the massive grin that spread across his face conjured images of Nazi scientists to my mind and I got a sinking feeling. I gave the doctor three strict rules: one; I have to have human proportions (roughly). Two; I still need to be able to use chakra. And three; My dick still needs to work.

With these restraints in place, the good doctor proceeded to almost entirely hollow me out; replacing all the useless guff with sweet, sweet enhancements. Now, while my soul controlled my body, I still needed said body to be able to move in the ways I want it to unless I want to tear myself apart with every step. Luckily, Rinri has quite a bit of experience doing heinous things to the human body and managed to not fuck me to hell.

All my decorative innards were replaced with enhanced muscles, a layer of chakra conductive mesh lay under my skin, I have more and faster nerves, my bones were replaced with stronger, more solid variants. I still have a cardiovascular system, because apparently “chakra coils" follow the veins (which explains why blood is so useful for seals and my rituals; it's the second most chakra saturated part of the body behind the heart, the literal seat of one's chakra core); but even that was expanded to enlarge my chakra system. I also needed blood for rituals Jashin assured me I could do that require them and so I can get hard.

To anyone else the surgery would leave them covered in horrific scars for a grand total gain of a painful death; thankfully, I don't scar, nor do I die. Other than being heavier and moving differently, I felt completely and utterly inhuman and strange. Which is actually kinda cool.

The only other thing of real note that had changed was that I poisoned each blade of my scythe: the top blade was coated in a neurotoxin, the middle had a hemotoxic coat, the last had a cytotoxic coating.

Rinri’s voice drew me from my musings, “Hey brat, I just got word that Iwa’s army got massacred. With a great nation licking their wounds and mostly undefended, all the minor villages and towns under their protection are vulnerable; this is a golden opportunity to grab some choice subjects and get some bulk stock.” He jabbed a finger at me, “Go grab some.”

I grinned. So the third war is over, eh? Laughter leaked between my now shark-like teeth as my smile spread from ear to ear (having widened my jaw specifically for this purpose, even if I did claim it was to be able to use biting as an actual weapon to Rinri).

Time to rip some magic eyes from a decrepit (and possibly dead) old man.