The Awakened Soul (Naruto SI)

[Lillie Jones]

thanks for the chapter

 

[Welydora]

The moment I shifted into Shikkotsu Forest, I felt damp soil beneath my feet as a faint acidic scent hit my nose. Looking around, I was greeted by arches and curved obelisks filling the space, bone-like structures overgrown with fluorescent moss. All of it in a dim setting, as though it were evening outside.

Unusual, I noted. Though I suppose that's how it should be in another world?

The Forest of Damp Bones. A very fitting name.

Originally, I'd come here to study senchakra, but I decided to explore my surroundings first. Approaching one of the bone-trees, I ran my hand over the cool, damp moss.

So it's not actually bone after all, the thought crossed my mind. Just calcium deposits from slug secretions. How many years have they lived here to build all this?

Hopping onto a large bone, I surveyed the forest stretching for kilometers beyond the horizon.

My exploration didn't last long, though. My hearing picked up movement just over a kilometer away…

A blink, and I found myself before a fairly large slug, roughly my size, resting on a rib that hung suspended above the ground. And it… differed from the Katsuyu I remembered: the body of the slug before me was simply translucent.

"Hello," I greeted in a friendly tone, and a pair of eyestalks slowly turned toward me without so much as a flinch, the creature's eyes resting at their tips.

"Greetings, Uzumaki-san…" came a very soft, and what seemed to me, shy female voice. "Katsuyu was expecting you closer. We are far from the Heart."

"Oh, so Tsunade actually bothered to give a heads-up about me, rather than just handing over the scroll. Nice."

"I know little. Tsunade-san spoke with the main consciousness. But for those like us, it's difficult to receive much information… It's troublesome."

"Those like you?" I clarified.

"I don't think it would be useful for you to hear about the life of simple slugs," the little slug deflected with apparent embarrassment, steering away from the topic. "You need to go that way." She turned, indicating a direction with one eyestalk. "You won't miss the right place; it… stands out. But if you stray from the path, just wait. Those like me will find you and show the way. Also… don't approach the transparent lakes. The acid there is incredibly strong. Even the fumes will kill you… Good luck on your journey…"

Modestly finishing her instructions, she continued watching me with the same expression.

I told her something along the lines of, okay, I won't force you to talk if you don't want to, and hopped off in the indicated direction. Just like a regular shinobi, only way stronger, so my leaps carried me hundreds of meters at a time. Along the way, I did encounter the mentioned lakes, which I gave a wide berth.

After covering twenty kilometers, I was met with the sight of a massive, simply colossal ribcage belonging to some unknown creature, over seven hundred meters in height alone. In the mild gloom, the glowing moss that covered these "bones," just as it covered everything else around, looked especially enchanting.

Soon, I approached the entrance of this enormous structure, right up to large, wide-open gates that appeared to be made of bone. Around it were huge thoroughfares crafted from the same material, and in the distance, many smaller buildings. There were also a lot of slugs moving in every direction, though most of them looked the way I remembered: white with three blue stripes running the length of their bodies.

One of the latter, about four times my height, smoothly slid up to me.

"Uzumaki-san," I heard a voice slightly different from the other slug's. Still soft, but less timid, maybe? "I've been waiting for you. Call me Katsuyu."

"A pleasure to meet you. Life's really bustling around here, huh?" I said, smoothly taking another look around.

"Shikkotsu Forest requires constant supervision… so that anomalies don't occur. We take care to ensure this world is safe for both us and our guests. But let's move to the main body."

I agreed, and we headed inside. This "Heart" wasn't the kind of structure familiar to humans, not like the toads' buildings. It was far more natural and unified with nature, its interior completely filled with greenery.

After walking about half a kilometer, we entered a massive hall. On a small green pedestal sat a low, black basin, and inside it was a slug body with the exact same coloring as my guide… Only the size! She was enormous!

I'd previously thought the toad bosses were big, but this Katsuyu's body was about four times larger! Her head towered hundreds of meters high, making me look really, really small next to her.

The basin itself was much larger, and the ceiling even higher, so this slug could comfortably fit here even if she were several times bigger.

Walking up, I craned my neck back and waved to her in greeting.

"So, I came to learn the Slug Sage Mode. Will you teach me?"

"Tsunade-san said you would come with this request, Uzumaki-san…" the same voice came from the larger version of Katsuyu. Now, however, worry had crept into her timbre. "But I see you've already mastered three types of senchakra… Each natural energy seeks to transform the vessel in its own image. A-are you sure you can resist?"

"Quite."

Instead of verbal proof, I gave a visual demonstration. Black lines, like cracks, instantly surfaced across my face as three types of senchakra invaded my body simultaneously.

"This is remarkable…" my conversant above seemed to whisper. "Usually, you humans evoke feelings of interest and affection in me… So warlike, yet so fragile. Only a handful among you are even capable of touching natural energy. Only to die a terrible death…"

"You could say I've spurned weakness," I replied, spreading my hands, then exited Sage Mode. "I'm all ears, Katsuyu-san."

"Very well. I will fulfill Tsunade-san's wishes," she said, and began her explanation.

Since ancient times, Shikkotsu Forest had been the summoning contract of the Senju clan. Having gone through so much with that family, Katsuyu held deep loyalty to the last Senju, Tsunade.

Slug senjutsu didn't have a specific human-oriented style. The shinobi who could have developed one were simply too few, and even those struggled terribly with the natural energy itself, spending all their focus just trying not to die. Inventing a style and techniques was a long way off for them. The slugs themselves weren't a warlike race, but rather a utilitarian one. Or rather, Katsuyu herself was…

The primary ability of slug senjutsu, which unfortunately only worked fully on the slugs themselves, was division. In fact, almost all the slugs were one being: Katsuyu! She had simply divided herself. But she could gather back together, reaching a size roughly ten times that of a toad boss.

When divided, each part of Katsuyu maintained an incredibly strong and broad connection with her. This was another ability of slug senjutsu. Through this connection, they could transmit chakra and communicate directly, and all of it worked across any distance on an Earth-like planet, as well as between dimensions.

Naturally, there was also the fact that slugs, and by extension their senchakra, had a massive predisposition for regeneration. In seconds, Katsuyu could split into thousands of slugs, then reassemble just as quickly.

As for combat, the slugs basically only had acid. Very corrosive, by the way, and they could shoot it in a wide or concentrated stream. But that was it.

Having told me about the peculiarities of her senchakra, Katsuyu suggested I head to the Silent Cavities. That was what they called the caves in this world where senchakra condensed. In some of them, though, alongside the senchakra, there were densely placed acid lakes. Humans were better off not wandering this world on their own; it was dangerous. But they'd take me to a safe spot.

However, I decided to propose a simpler route: have Katsuyu separate a small slug from herself and personally transmit a bit of senchakra through it to me.

That's what we tried, and with her full assistance, it took me only about ten seconds, even without clones, to grasp how to absorb yet another type of senchakra.

A new sensation again, a kind of slickness this time, as if my body had been slathered in top-grade lubricant. Felt like if I wanted, I could squeeze through the narrowest of openings.

"Now let's try all of them…" I wanted to absorb every type of senchakra, and soon enough I… succeeded, with mixed results. "Whoa. Now I look like some kind of poisonous dart frog…"

I commented on the pigmentation that had bloomed across my face from all four natural energies, covering it entirely in markings. Not by my choice. Four types of senchakra were simply too much even for me right now, and my body had taken on somewhat bestial traits.

My skin became genuinely slimy, and I could feel my canines growing in, along with an acidic tang in my mouth.

"Ptui." I spat out the accumulated saliva, and where it hit, a small patch of grass inside the Heart began hissing, as though melting everything beneath it. But it stopped soon after.

"Are you alright, Uzumaki-san?" Katsuyu asked with concern.

"More or less…"

Those weren't the only changes. My fingernails had grown out, sharpening to points, and my body had become just slightly, toad-like in its mass. The last one was only visible from the slight thickening of my limbs.

Not exactly some eldritch abomination; my human features still substantially predominated. But the absorbed power thrummed through my entire being. Like shouldering a heavy mace. But if you got a good swing going, the impact would be devastating.

Studying the changes in myself, I extended my hand out in front of me… And then my palm, along with part of my wrist, simply dropped onto the grass.

Seeing this, Katsuyu rippled with alarm.

"Everything's fine," I preempted her reaction. "Turns out the slugs' division ability works better than expected."

Meanwhile, my hand in the grass pushed itself up on its fingers, as if it were still part of me. Wiggling them, it attempted some clumsy little dance, then quickly scrambled up my pant leg and reattached to its original spot with a hiss.

"See?" I showed the slug that my hand was perfectly fine.

"This… is more than previous human sages could demonstrate."

"Thanks for the praise. And… hmm. I feel like with practice, I'll be able to adapt and hold all four types of senchakra just fine. I think my limit is six. Do you happen to know of any other sage animals besides toads and snakes?"

Katsuyu silently lowered her eye-antennae. That alone was more than enough to convey her emotions. "…No."

"A pity. Then, will you tell me more about this place?"

She agreed, glad for the chance to move away from what she'd just witnessed.

Katsuyu didn't know if there were other slugs out there besides her. Sentient ones, that is. She had been born over a thousand years ago as the renewed consciousness of an older slug just like herself. When Katsuyu eventually aged, which wouldn't be anytime soon since her lifespan spanned several millennia, she would sort of cocoon, and from the old slug's body a new one would emerge, with a different personality.

Theoretically, every part currently connected to Katsuyu could be reborn as a different slug.

Long ago, when she first reincarnated… this world had been different. Much more aggressive, completely flooded with acid, with only remnants of life remaining. Katsuyu suspected that perhaps there had been many slugs before her, but her predecessor had simply devoured them all. And then, having lived in an empty world for some time, decided to pass on herself.

Because of that, Katsuyu found motivation to live differently. The world she was born into was unpleasant to her, and the world itself was hostile right back. So, to avoid ending her existence just as meaninglessly, Katsuyu became the architect of this world.

Year after year, being colossally huge from birth and capable of using the local senchakra, she used her smaller clones to physically move the acid, pooling it into large lakes, thereby freeing up most of the space for vegetation. She also meditated, filtering the senchakra of the entire world, which had been too aggressive for the world to recover quickly on its own.

And so, year after year, this world transformed.

Later, after a couple of millennia, several humans managed to get here. A few sentient beings, deciding to bind themselves with chakra for safety, rushed into a reverse summoning and ended up in this world.

Katsuyu was curious about other creatures. Until then, she had seen nothing but plants in this world, no one sentient.

Sending out a small clone, she discovered that the newcomers were quite friendly, and their temperaments meshed well with hers.

Allocating a space for the new residents, the slug coexisted with them for hundreds of years. And over time, she noted, those who could come to this world became increasingly warlike… Not toward Katsuyu, just in general.

Not too long ago, about a hundred and some years back, the Senju begged the slug to occasionally help them in battles in their world. And Katsuyu, having grown quite attached to them by then, almost like pets… didn't refuse.

However, not much came of it. Katsuyu's clones couldn't significantly help in battle, and very few could summon her massive form. And even sheer size wasn't that useful; more the opposite, actually.

Generally, Katsuyu was always summoned in parts. Tsunade, for instance, could summon a tenth of her, which was about the size of a toad boss. But summoning all of Katsuyu was inadvisable: it wouldn't significantly boost her combat power, while her mobility would drop substantially. Plus, as long as the main part of the slug remained in her world, she was immortal and could regenerate. The optimal size, right around a toad boss, let her produce enough acid for damage while maintaining mobility and immortality. Though with her regeneration and ability to divide, killing Katsuyu was extremely difficult regardless.

But the Senju wanted to make the slug stronger. That was how the different slug variants came to be. Previously, Katsuyu hadn't created new varieties of herself since she saw no particular need. Later, humans filled her desire for communication. But eventually, the slug allowed them to experiment on her small parts.

The Senju tried grafting parts of other animals onto the slugs, artificially inducing mutations through chakra exposure, and doing other selective breeding. But they achieved very little.

Most of the variants simply died, which made Katsuyu sad. Those that survived were often very weak and either soon met the same fate, or simply lived out incomplete existences.

In the end, after years, only a handful of more or less successful variants remained today. But even those were fundamentally flawed, incapable of surviving outside Shikkotsu Forest.

There was the Sayu variant, the translucent sensor slugs, like the first one I'd met in this world. Although their sensory abilities weren't all that impressive. Besides them, there were many with various bone-like growths; some of them literally looked like mobile basins, and those were handy for transporting acid. Others had additional front limbs with hard claws, similar to a lizard's. And this whole menagerie could fluctuate in size fairly well.

As it turned out, the modified slugs could only survive in this world if they retained at least some sufficient connection to Katsuyu. They were dependent on her; without her chakra, they'd die. And they were also quite similar to her in temperament.

These slugs connected to her, but not her clones, Katsuyu could reproduce, gradually increase or decrease in size, and give commands to. In practice, Katsuyu held absolute power here, because even if someone rebelled, nothing would come of it. And "rebellions" almost never happened here, considering that all the slugs shared their leader's calm temperament, and on top of that were completely dependent on her.

Ultimately, a full-fledged settlement had formed here. Somewhat similar to an ant colony, but even more devoted to its purpose.

When Katsuyu finished her story and received my thanks, she gave me a clone to show me the way to one more place.

This was the Hall of Contracts, or as the slugs more practically called it, the Bone Rotunda. A large, dome-shaped building of interwoven bones. Stepping inside and seeing the interior, I was surprised to note it was far more human-like. The floor was level, still bone, but without vegetation. Inside were various rooms, the most notable being the Senju library, where they'd mostly left records on slug breeding, and the summoning hall that shared the building's name. The latter was a round room in the center of the building, with a seal on the floor and a small raised platform in the middle. This mechanism facilitated summoning in both directions, and logically, if I had signed the contract with the slugs and properly used the summoning technique, I would've appeared right here. But my great intellect preferred to simply figure out where this world was from the scroll and tear a portal open at random.

With that, my journey to the slug world was over. I returned home and spent a couple of days mulling over the data I'd gathered, while also constantly bugging Orochimaru to share his.

And when I got a little tired of that, just a tiny bit, I switched gears.

Namely, I relaunched cycles of trials on test subjects, this time to address the problem of soul mortality.

Katsuyu had an immortal body; I'd studied that at some point out of curiosity. But her soul still aged over time; I'd tracked that through her emanations as well. Sure, thousands of years was way better than a human's hundred, but I wanted much greater limits for my loved ones.

Except it didn't work right away. The hole problem remained. To strengthen the soul's core, I needed to reach it, boring holes with my energy. But life with those holes was impossible.

I needed to find a way to either force the soul to regenerate… or shove the necessary energy in without damaging it. And the first, as it turned out, I could pull off.

There's a rule in this world: don't know how to do something, throw more juice at it. With care, of course, and accounting for a whole bunch of other factors. But in general terms, that's it. So, by pumping a literal kiloton of my soul energy into one test subject on my lab's surgical table, pouring in nearly all my knowledge of healing, I managed to get some kind of result after about a week. But, unfortunately, it was highly questionable.

Fortunately, the parallel development of the second stage of body enhancement was going better. Though even there, the result was only just starting to come together into a complete picture.

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[AAAustinYu]

It's nice how you make lore

 

[Lillie Jones]

impressive
Thanks for the chapter