The Journey (Naruto x Solo Leveling Fanfiction)

Strange Creatures

I don't own solo leveling or Naruto

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'I will not be your puppet!’

Sasuke Uchiha resolved himself. He was thinking about how ‘that man’ told him to kill his closest friend to gain the power of the Mangekyou Sharingan. For a moment in his fight with Naruto Uzumaki he considered that a path to power, but after he had acknowledged Naruto, his closest friend, as an equal in combat he decided to refuse striking him down in their fight.

He realised that if he had struck down Naruto at that moment he would be no better than 'that man', and so Sasuke decided to reject the way ‘that man' gained power to validate his own path to power.

The exhausted form of Sasuke threaded through the dense forest to Orochimaru's hideout without any weapons, without any allies, just his determination and vindictive sense of justice. He would avenge the Uchiha Clan, no matter what, they deserved that much at the least…

Sasuke wondered about the endless forest expanse for a long time. He realised that he had been walking for quite some time. His body was very fatigued evidenced by his limping gait and droopy onyx eyes.

He figured he would have reached the checkpoint to Orochimaru's hideout by now, or at least would have encountered one of his sound ninja. Even with a tired body his mind was trained to be as alert as ever, always scanning his surroundings searching for anything out of place. And something was definitely out of place.

'Genjutsu? It's not out of the question since I couldn't even see through it in my exhausted state...' Sasuke frowned deeply as continued sluggishly through the dense woods. He was growing more and more tense with each step on the dirt path. The sounds of rustling leaves, chirping birds and creaking tree branches served only to heighten his sense of trepidation.

Sasuke widened his eyes as soon as he heard the gushing of a flowing river in the distance. It meant that he had stumbled upon a path towards the hideout. 'Sound 4 did mention something about a river...' Sasuke thought. He was relieved that he had found the way towards his new master's hideout, but he still couldn't ignore the eeriness of the forest. It felt strange...like the air had changed or the energy around him was different. His chakra reserves were too exhausted for him to tell the difference through his senses, but the atmosphere around the thirteen year old felt denser and more chaotic.
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'What are...those?' Sasuke widened his eyes. He saw three small, grotesque looking creatures. They had green skin, sharp ears and even sharper teeth with glowing red eyes.

It looked like they were feeding on the dead carcass of a wolf. All of their claws and teeth were painted red with its blood as they ate at its insides with vigour. He saw them shove each other and one even tried to bite the other's head off.

To Sasuke they gave off a vibe more chaotic than a wild animal. They seemed unpredictable, erratic and uncontrollable. He noticed the small axes and sickles lying carelessly on the river bank across from him.

It showed Sasuke that these things were natural hunters or adept at weapons combat. He didn't want to get into an altercation in his current state and so with the little Chakra he had left silently leapt away, without alerting his presence to the dwarf-like monstrosities the whole time.

'What were those things? Summon Creatures...? I've never heard or seen ones like those before. Just where the hell am I?' the last Uchiha thought in distress. He was tired, injured, and weaponless; he needed to find this hideout fast before he passed out from chakra depletion. That last move was necessary, but didn't help his current drained state.

After a few minutes of walking he soon came across a giant tree with a huge branch perfect for resting, at least to him. Not many would view trees as an optimal resting point, but for him it was suitable. It was a natural vantage point and was a safe distance away from ground predators as well as provided him some good camouflage from enemy ninja.

'I'll just recover my chakra here for a bit before I head out...' Sasuke thought as he dozed off into a light slumber.

The light creeping through the trees was what woke Sasuke up from his slumber. He groaned in mild discomfort as he brushed away the long strands of his raven hair from his face.

'I slept longer than I should have. But, I feel much better, my chakra reserves have recovered to around half of what they should be,' Sasuke climbed down the huge tree branch with cat-like grace. Now that he had recovered it was time to get a move on to Orochimaru and train.

He leapt through the trees with the speed and grace of an experienced shinobi. Eventually reaching a clearing with craters and burn marks everywhere. He saw corpses scattered on the ground, some half eaten and others with limbs bent at impossible angles.

The carnage in front of Sasuke was a gruesome sight enough to have a grown man wrench his guts out, but not him. He was desensitised to such gory scenes and so scanned the area with a blank face.

'It seems there was a battle here... No, they were ambushed by some kind of serpent,' Sasuke inspected the enormous, long red scaly serpent's corpse that spanned the length of 5m.

'Was this Orochimaru's doing?' He knew that the Sanin used snake summons as his main form of attack. But upon closer inspection he noticed that the unfortunate souls on the receiving end of the giant serpent's ambush wore strange armour.

'I've never seen this type of armour before... Samurai perhaps?' Sasuke commented internally as he picked up the thick, heavy metal breastplate off the chest of one of the corpses.

"Hn," Sasuke grunted as his three tomoe Sharingan swirled into action. He narrowly blocked three incoming projectiles from his blind spot with the metal in his hands.

"Kiek! Kiek!"

"Kiee! Kiee!”

"Kriek! Kriek!”

Sasuke heard the high pitched chatter of the green skinned, grotesque looking, dwarf-like creatures from within the treeline.

"It's those things again... What are they? They have energy unlike any I've seen before," Sasuke frowned as the creatures suddenly ran full speed towards Sasuke.

He casually side stepped a swipe from the vicious creature and kicked it away. He saw another one coming at him from the air with an axe in its hand, but he caught the head of the axe with his hand and then socked it in the face with a vicious right hook.

He caught the arrow flying straight for his head from the green creature in the distance. He kicked up the metal breastplate that he used to block the previous barrage of arrows and launched it like a deadly frisbee straight at the cackling goblin. It's head went flying off in a spray of purple blood.

'It's...moving' Sasuke widened his scarlet eyes in shock as he jumped away to avoid the giant red serpent's body moving. The goblins weren't so lucky and ended up getting flinged hundreds of metres away into a tree.

Sasuke frowned as the serpent rose to its full 5m length to face him head on. He saw its gleaming yellow eyes, metallic fangs, and long windy tongue. All in all it was a terrifying beast and Sasuke could sense it was a powerful opponent from the bloodlust it was emitting.