Game of Shadow

Chapter 49

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Chapter 49

It was a half-asleep me that walked into the Forest of Death that day, and it showed. My feet dragged over the ground, my eyes were more closed than open and shoulders were slumped. My lips, however, curled into a very satisfied grin.

"You look like shit," Anko pointed out, ignoring any sort of manners while doing so. "You also look entirely too smug, brat."

"I think it's possible to get it done by the Finals," I replied instead of addressing her words. A second later, I let out a long, drawn out yawn. Pulling an all nighter might not have been the best of ideas. But I had gotten through all the scrolls and books I had gotten on Elemental Jutsu Creation that Anko had given me. And I had also spent an hour or so checking if my idea was possible and how complicated it would be to actually pull it off. "I also slept an hour at most last night," I explained.

"Seriously, sometimes I worry about you, brat."

"Really?"

"Nah," She shrugged with a wide grin, as if I didn't know she was lying. I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes. "So, are you gonna be ok to work on anything today?" She asked with a raised eyebrow.

"I mean, if we are gonna work on the Mark, I'll be wide awake, that's for sure," I commented with a grimace. After all, even with time passing, I wasn't even close to being used to the Cursed Mark enough for it to not feel like my chakra coils were burning me from the inside. That would change over the month… I hoped.

"Do you want to leave it for tomorrow? We can work on your Summons instead," She offered, and I gave her a half-smile that might as well have been another grimace. I knew that she didn't want to work on it. Especially since she was still working on her Mindscape to allow her to try to do the same thing. But I was confident that my defenses would hold.

"I want to do it," I nodded resolutely, and watched as her shoulders slumped. "The more I practice, the more under control I'll have it by the time I really need to use the thing. Besides, my Jutsu idea relies almost completely on it."

"Fair enough," She nodded, and I almost couldn't see the reluctance that she still held to. However, she seemed to ignore it herself well enough. "You've already delved into it in your battle with the eyebrowless freak," She pointed out, referring to my match with Gaara. "You only need to do it again… only for a few seconds. We only have to train you to be able to use it without feeling pain, not on how long you can maintain it. Afterwards, we'll do some routine training. Nothing too strenuous since it's just to do something while your body gets used to the effects of the Mark."

"Sounds about right… also, did you get the scroll?" I asked excitedly and she threw it at me with a roll of her eyes. Where she had taken it from, I didn't know, but my bet was a storage seal without smoke effect somewhere on her person. Catching it, I looked at the first few words.

'Yin Release: Intermediate Mirage,' I read with a grin. Genjutsu wasn't going to be my focus in the month of training, but I had slowly grown fond of the Illusion Arts. Besides, after seeing what the Void did to the Orochimaru Fake, I wanted to see if I could weaponize it out of my Mindscape too. It would take time though, since that entered the territory of much higher leveled Genjutsu.

"Great," I nodded, throwing the scroll back to my sensei as I took a deep breath in. It was time to get started, even if neither of us really wanted to do that. It was a necessity. Slowly letting the air escape through my mouth, I mentally called for the Cursed Seal skill. Instantly, I felt my shoulder burn, like I had stabbed a white hot knife through where Mark sat. Then, the burn spread through my body inside my chakra coils and I gritted my teeth. Hunching forward, I groaned and felt my nails dig into my palms as my hands curled into fists.