Karp
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Pokénin 003
🕑 Added 2025-02-26 21:12:02 +0000 UTCAdvancing deeper into the cavern, over 2 hours had passed since the trial began.
Currently, Tekai found himself lurking next to some thick green pondweed.
Remaining motionless underwater, his eyes were narrowed to slits. Tekai observed his surroundings like a predator, patiently awaiting its prey.
Thanks to his bloodline, when he was underwater, he could see the slightest movement, and his skin felt every pulse.
Plus, he also did not have to worry about losing his breath because of his bond with Gil.
Water was a natural home for dragons, and much to his surprise, Tekai felt more comfortable within it than walking on land.
While he was waiting in ambush, Gil had been sent out to act as bait. The magikarp proved to be faster underwater than any other Pokémon they had come across so far, and Tekai had had an idea.
The weak, defenseless, shiny magikarp would act as the perfect bait for any other Pokémon looking to score an easy kill. Since Gil was so fast, Tekai figured this would be the best use of his abilities, and they had already hunted eight other Pokémon using this method.
While he was reminiscing on their successful kills, he saw a golden reflection of light rocketing his way.
‘One. Tentacle. Hungry!’ Gil shared through their bond.
Tekai rolled his eyes, the magikarp was always hungry.
But then again, so was he.
As Gil swam past his hiding spot, a tentacool chased after him.
When the blue octo-mon was about to pass him by, Tekai swiped his hands forward, and clamped down on its eyes.
His fingers were hard, like claws, and plunged deep into its head.
The tentacool's tentacles uselessly flopped around, a purple poisonous energy coated them, yet Tekai was quick to kick it away.
The tentacool twitched for a moment, then slumped, dead.
Tekai glanced around, then moved to take the Pokémon above water.
Flopping it down onto a small islet, Tekai grimaced at the lack of fire, or ability to make fire.
The Dragons Den was so slick and misty, he didn't even try to find some plants to burn.
Stomach grumbling, Tekai unconsciously found himself licking his lips as he stared at the seafood.
It was still kind of crazy to him that he looked at some Pokémon, and thought ‘food’ but as a growing young man, he would take anything out in front of him and chow down.
Taking a nearby sharp rock, Tekai tried to butcher the tentacool as best he could. He fed the organs to Gil, and cut a huge gap away from the tentacruel’s ink sac.
He had hunted several tentacool by this point, and the first time he had slain one, he had ruined it by popping the ink sac, and sprayed himself in the face.
Gil had gotten a good laugh at him, but he stopped laughing when he tried to take a bite, and found the meat to be unpalatable.
Tekai grinned at the memory as he began to chew on the ‘calamari.’
In between bites, he would look around for any threats, and tear off a piece to feed Gil.
Placing his hand on the magikarp, Tekai shared the experience of the fight he had with the tentacool through simple thoughts, and the emotions of victory, they both learned how to better themselves.
Gil reciprocated, and spat out a tiny chakra orb, but Tekai had him spit it out due to an analysis he had made after conducting some research.
At this point, Tekai had slain several different natives to this cavern, and noticed a slightly different color between each chakra orb that Gil spat out.
It was hard to notice at first amongst the white-blue mass, but he saw that tentacool had a hint of green, krabby red, goldeen red, zubat blue, psyduck purple, slowpoke pink, and geodude yellow.
Based on these colorings, Tekai was assigning each of them an attribute: red was attack, blue was speed, green was special defense, yellow was defense, and pink affected the total chakra capacity instead of health.
While consuming these orbs, he noticed that he got more ‘full’ when the Pokémon he fought was stronger. And that when he reached a ‘stuffed’ state, he felt something dangerous inside of him, as if he might die or explode. Which considering it was chakra, wasn't a metaphor for a congested stomach, he really might explode!
He tried extreme exercise and other exhausting methods to make that bloated feeling go away, but it seemed to only slightly reduce this bloated feeling.
One ground breaking discovery however, was that Dragons Dance of all things helped him digest this excess chakra!
It truly was a mystical technique, and reduced the wait time for his satiety to decrease to zero by half.
In short, the Dragons Dance acted like a super metabolism system on his body, and let him digest the chakra that Gil shared even faster.
Meaning, he was practically cheating when farming chakra orbs when compared to the average shinobi.
Knowing all of this, Tekai primarily focused on the red and blue orbs for now. When he spread out the colors that he absorbed, he didn't really feel a thing. But after absorbing 5 red orbs in a row, he could say that his punching power increased by a few percent.
At some point, he would like to increase his special defense to resist jutsu, or his chakra capacity, however, speed and attack power were the most useful to surviving his current situation.
While he didn't have any system, or screen telling him how much attack he had, he could noticeably tell that his punch now was just a smidgen stronger than the punch he could throw 2 hours ago.
As it stood, 5 orbs was his limit before he felt over encumbered/bloated, and had to keep performing the Dragon Dance to ‘burn his extra chakra calories.’
In conclusion, this discovery of specialized chakra orbs, and the effects of Dragon Dance were huge!
The last two hours had provided Tekai with extremely fruitful results, and he looked forward to conducting more with his Pokémon companion. It was a cruel cruel world, and the only way he stood a snowballs chance in hell was to abuse his meta knowledge of things like EV's. Following this train of thought, Tekai couldn't wait to earn some money, and buy some berries to experiment with. If Gregor Mendel could breed recessive alleles for beneficial traits, then so could Tekai!
After some time had passed, and Tekai had digested his gains, Tekai patted Gil on the side, then stood up with a satisfying stretch. He had thought about this experiment enough, it was time to get moving.
During his stretch, he spotted a cliff, upon which, a dark, almost midnight black tree was perched.
Tekai recognized this as a Black Apricorn tree. The signature plant exclusive to the Dragons Den.
The fruit could be transformed into a Heavy Ball, or it could be mixed into an herbal blend that minorly enhanced a person in all physical fields.
In short, it boosted Yang energy, something anyone who engaged in taijutsu treasured. It was also known to cure ailments, and curses. However, the Black Apricorn was especially coveted by men for its other enhancing properties.
Wealthy, yet impotent men paid fortunes for this fruit. Not only did it cure erectile dysfunction, but it also enhanced a man's prowess.
It was no joke to say that the Ryu Clan had fought several bloody wars over this cavern, yet had emerged victorious every time.
So many had died in the pursuit of this fruit, that the formation of the Land of Dragons, and the Tatsushiro named as Feudal Lords developed naturally since all nearby rival clans had been killed off or subsumed.
Speaking honestly, even Tekai was tempted by the properties of this legendary fruit.
Making his way to the cliff face, he noticed something large lurking within some pondweed.
A part of him was screaming to confront, overcome, and remain unyielding.
On the other hand, his rational side was telling him to grab Gil, and climb the cliff. As he very much doubted whatever was lurking in the water had the ability to scale such a large vertical cliff.
As instinct and rationality warred within him, the hunger made his mouth wet with saliva, and he swore his vision was pulsing in time with his heartbeat.
He wanted a fight.
He wanted a challenge.
This damned bloodline was urging him to conquer!
Shaking his head, Tekai decided he would test this beast first, then retreat if things got dicy.
Afterall, the greater the challenge, the greater the reward!
Diving underwater, Tekai got a good look at his opponent.
It was roughly the size of an ox, big, blue, and had 8 tentacles.
His opponent was a tentacruel, and it was pissed.
The blue Pokémon launched a dozen finger long, thin needles at him. Each one was coated in a purple light, and looked just like a senbon.
‘It must be Poison Sting!’ Tekai thought to himself as he scrambled to dodge.
Although it didn't really see much use in the Naruto series, getting poisoned was actually one of the scariest things that could happen in the ninja world.
Tekai could only thank the Swift Swim ability he got from Gil, as he barely swam around the poisoned senbon, and moved towards the tentacruel.
As he drew near, the octopod began to spray out ink from its mouth, obfuscating Tekai's vision.
A second later, he felt a vibration in the water, and struck towards his upper left quadrant with his fist.
His knuckles collided with a fleshy appendage, but unlike every other Pokémon he had fought, it did not break!
Sensing several more vibrations, he twisted his body, and felt the water woosh within an inch of himself.
A pair of tentacles barely missed him!
Tekai dived deeper down to evade another swipe, then moved forward in a straight line as fast as he could.
Swimming past most of the ink cloud, Tekai had flanked the tentacruel, when he was about to strike it in the back, the two red bulbs on its head lit up, and Tekai found himself punching at nothing.
A second later, the scene shattered like glass, and he found his entire body trapped within a constriction!
‘Genjutsu! The fucker trapped me in a genjutsu!’ Tekai realized.
However, he had little time to worry about that, as he was having the life squeezed out of him. His bones shuddered, and no matter how much he struggled, Tekai found that he couldn't brute force his way out of this!
As his vision began to dim, and thoughts became few, Tekai let instinct take over.
Without thinking, Tekai opened his jaw wide, and bit down hard.
Where his fists dealt negligible damage to the tentacruel, his teeth proved to be super effective!
The taste of blood sent him into a frenzy, and he began to nom on the binds holding him in place like a man possessed.
Tekai pushed out with his arms, relieving his strained ribs, then slipped out of the tentacruel's grasp and swam away.
Moving towards the cliff face, Tekai broke to the surface, and looked around for Gil. However, couldn't see him no matter how hard he searched.
Jumping onto the cliff, he stuck his landing, and looked down into the water.
“Karp!”
Looking to the side, Tekai saw his golden magikarp, following in his wake was the tomboy girl and her bagon running along on a path beside the water.
“Need some help, shiny?” The girl laughed.
Tekai saw his clothes were ripped, but he had no time to be embarrassed, as he was forced to dodge another hail of Poison Sting.
“Bagon, use Dragon Breath!” The girl pointed at the tentacruel.
A moment later, the little dinosaur-looking Pokémon shot out a small stream of purple-blue flames.
The fire traversed through the water as if it were magic, and began to cook the tentacruel alive.
Scarred, the tentacruel pulled back, and began to retreat.
‘Dragon type techniques really are something else.’ Tekai thought to himself in wonder. ‘No, wait, if my partner was a dratini, I could be doing the same thing!’ Tekai glanced at his fishy companion with a hint of regret.
Gil didn't seem to care about Tekai's internal turmoil, as he swam circles around the girl.
‘Strong. Pretty. Mate.’ Gil transferred to Tekai.
“Really not the time, Gil!” Tekkai growled as he dove down, and stomped on top of the injured tentacruel’s head like a comet.
He aimed his feet at the red caps on top of its head, knowing from killing many tentacool earlier, that that was a soft spot.
Puncturing through its head, Tekai hit a gooey center, and the blue octopus dropped dead.
Hauling the tentacruel up, he tossed it onto the path that the girl was on so he could share its flesh.
“Thanks for the help, my name's Tekai, what's yours?” Tekai smiled at her as he began to systematically gut the tentacruel.
“I think everyone knows your name, shiny.” The girl patted her bagon on the head, and laughed. “As for me? You can call me Zinnia!”
‘Zinnia. Zinnia. Zinnia!’ Gil chirped in their mental bond.
“Karp. Karp. Karp!” Gil also chirped in reality.
“Hm, well thanks for your help, how about we split the spoils?” Tekai gestured to the corpse.
“Your kill, your prize. Besides, I'm after something bigger than that.” Zinnia grinned with all her teeth showing.
“Gon, gon!” The bagon blew a small flame in the air, and agreed with its partner.
‘Okay, this girl is a crazy battle maniac.’ Tekai nodded his head.
‘New plan. Get the apricorn fruit, and get out of here!’ Tekai nodded again.
“You sure like nodding to yourself, huh? You're a weird one, shiny, but you've got spunk!” Zinnia good naturedly pushed him on the shoulder, inadvertently moving him back a step.
“You're no slouch either.” Tekai complimented, and turned his body to covertly rub his arm.
The girl was strong as a gorilla too!
“Well, if you're sure you don't want anything.” Tekai shrugged his shoulders, and began to feed pieces to Gil.
In between bites, he would crinkle some plants he found in the cave onto the meat as seasoning. Tekai noticed that the tentacruel was richer in flavor than the tentacool, and its flesh provided more nourishment.
“Karp, karp!” Gil happily chowed down on the bits he was being fed.
While he was doing so, he noticed the bagon practically drooling from the side.
Seasoning a piece of tentacle, Tekai tossed it to the mon.
The little guy instinctively snapped open his jaws, and caught it like a dog snapping at a treat.
Within seconds, the 4ft long tentacle had disappeared down the bagons gullet.
“Gon!” Bagon excitedly wagged its tail, and looked at Zinnia like a puppy begging for more.
“He helped me out a lot, at least let him have a little.” Tekai tried to persuade.
“I don't know…” Zinnia said with a conflicted look on her face. However, as she crossed her arms, and was about to refuse, her stomach growled.
“Table for two?” Tekai joked, and held out an herb infused tentacle for her to try.
Zinnia rolled her eyes, and snatched it out of his hands.
“Y'know shiny, you're not half bad. Everyone says you're a freak who likes to talk to himself while he sweeps, but I can see you've really put a lot of effort into training. No one our age can dance like you!” Zinnia said in between huge nomming bites.
Tekai didn't know whether he should be offended, or pleased with her statement. Instead, he settled on minor shocked horror. Because good God could this woman eat!
And here he thought he was gross for devouring this raw squid flesh. But Zinnia, Zinnia took it to another level!
For a family that held the title of Feudal Lord, he wondered if everyone else was just like her? So much for the vaunted noble etiquette! Although, from what he had seen, she wasn't nearly as arrogant as the typical Ryu clan member he had come across.
Finishing up, he rejected the chakra orb Gil had presented. However, he noticed it was larger, and had a slightly deeper green color to it. It would seem that his theory of more powerful Pokémon yielding greater rewards held up.
Washing his hands in the water, Tekai turned his attention to the apricorn tree.
Eight plump fruits, colored dark like a black crayon caught his eye. Greed tickled his heart. If he took some of these out, he could sell them for a fortune. With that money, he could buy some weapons, or maybe hire a shinobi tutor to learn some jutsu.
After every Egg Ceremony and trial, the foreign dignitaries, ninja, samurai, and merchants would sell their services for an apricorn.
“Take one for your Pokémon and one for yourself. Then we each get two to use however we like.” Zinnia suggested, and smacked her lips in hunger as she pulled up next to him.
“Oh.” Tekai slumped his shoulders in disappointment.
‘Go. Hungry. Mate!’ Gil urged Tekai.
Rolling his eyes, and ignoring the perpetually glutinous, lusty magikarp, Tekai chased after Zinnia.
When he got to the top, he saw her reach out a hand to grab a fruit, but at the same time, a sinister, sharp tail was poised to strike her in the back.
“Watch out!” Tekai warned.
Pushing his Dragon Dance to the limit, he collided with the tail, and began to wrestle it away from Zinnia.
Opening his mouth wide, he took the lesson he had learned from the tentacruel to heart, and nommed down on the scaly black appendage, drawing blood.
He heard a hiss of pain, and felt a creeping chill on his back.
Moving on instinct, he interposed himself between the perceived threat, and put the tail forward as a shield.
Within a second of moving, a large fang filled maw snapped shut where he had been.
Purple-pink poison dripped off the fangs, and when it fell to the cave floor, patches of dirt began to bubble and hiss as they melted due to the acidity contained within that poison.
Tekai gulped, and felt his heart rate skyrocket a million times a minute.
He was excited, scared, and well, excited once again at the sudden ambush!
What just tried to kill him was the snake-like Pokémon, seviper! Currently, this monstrous beast the length of an SUV had reared back, and was trying to reposition itself after biting its own tail.
“Nice moves!” Zinnia laughed as she came down upon the distracted snake with a falling knee.
The seviper swiped its head to the side, dodging her attack.
Then, when bagon came up for a breath attack, the seviper's eyes glowed, and all three of them were paralyzed in place.
“Genjustu! Grr, I hate this! Try and do the Dragon Dance, Yang natured chakra can break the hold of Yin!” Zinnia hurriedly explained a solution to their current predicament.
Trying with all his might, Tekai found he could wiggle his finger. No way he was going to be able to perform the Dragon Dance, what was Zinnia saying?!
Tekai began to feel fear creep into his heart as the seviper slowly slithered into a prime position to attack. This Pokémon was intelligent, and it had them right where it wanted them!
Panicking, Tekai wracked his brains to remember if there was some solution in the scrolls he had read, or the info Uncle had taught him.
Then it hit him.
The Dragon Dance could be activated-if minorly-without having to move!
Those dragon shouts that his Uncle had taught him alongside ninja hand signs were a means to channel chakra!
He could ignite the beginnings of the technique without moving after all!
Struggling to work the muscles in his diaphragm, Tekai tried to roar with all his might, but all that came out was a weak hiss.
The seviper seemed to chuckle at him, its fangs took on an ominous glow, it was about to strike!
However, the weak growl he had performed jolted the chakra in his system, and he found himself gaining some slight autonomy.
It was just enough to get the mnemonic off, and jumpstart the Dragon Dance!
“AAA-RGH-AAA-RGH-AAA-UUU!!!” Tekai roared out the sequence that activated the Dragon Dance.
His voice echoed around the cavern, and traveled for untold miles.
A well spring of Yang chakra energy spread throughout his body, and disrupted the Yin energy that had infiltrated his system.
Free to move, Tekai was about to meet the seviper in combat, when an absolutely beastly roar came from the other end of the Dragons Den.
“AAA-RGH-AAA-RGH-AAA-UUU!!!!!!!”
The same shout came back, and Tekai’s entire world shook. It was so monstrous, so tyrannical, so majestic, he couldn't help but fall to his knees.
A heavy pressure pushed down on him, and he found he couldn't move. Yet this was no genjutsu, no, it was the weight, and density of chakra in its purest form!
This was power!
After the echo of the dragon's roar subsided, the seviper turned tail at record speeds, and slithered into a crevice, disappearing from sight.
Tekai shakily stood to his feet, and used the tree as support.
“That. Was. Awesome! One of the ancestor Pokémon must have answered your call!” Zinnia excitedly ran up to Tekai, and held both of his hands. Her bright amber eyes, and wide smile were infectious.
“Y-yeah, now let's collect these fruits, I'm curious as to how they taste.” Tekai was quick to pull away.
“Mhm, me too! C'mon bagon!” Zinnia beckoned her companion.
Tekai ate one, and found it to taste similarly to the nastiest black liquorice he had ever eaten.
Yet he made sure to keep on chewing, knowing it would be beneficial.
Looking at the core of the fruit, Tekai marveled that this thing could be transformed into a pokeball. It was so strange that a fruit of all things could trap someone inside an alternate dimension, but then again, he lived in a world filled with ninja, so it was best not to question this wacky nonsense.
A second later, Tekai felt his body warm up, and suddenly had the urge to use the restroom.
Looking at the dark crevice that the seviper had retreated too, Tekai positioned himself in such a way that he could look at that spot whilst he relieved himself.
As the stream came out, Tekai felt himself grow about an inch in height all around, and noticed some slight musculature developing on his biceps.
He was absolutely brimming with vigor, and felt like he could go 20 rounds at sparring.
The legends of the Black Apricorn were true. It made Tekai wonder what benefits the other colored apricorn fruits would bring.
After relieving himself, Tekai injected some of his chakra into an apricorn-just as the scrolls had instructed-and tossed it down to Gil. At the same time, he carefully pocketed two more for later.
‘Strong. Strong. Strong!’ Gil crazily sent back as he swallowed the apricorn whole.
An energy suffused Gil, and he glowed white. A moment later, he disappeared into a black ball. The orb rocked around for a bit, then flew into Tekai's hand.
Examining it closely, the orb looked something like a bootleg pokeball. It even had a ‘button’ where the stem for the fruit would be.
‘You okay?’ Tekai sent to his magikarp instinctively.
‘Tired. Resting.’ Gil replied.
Raising an eyebrow, it seemed that he could still communicate with his Pokémon when they were within the pokeball. That was pretty neat.
Pressing on the button looking stem, Gil was released into the world via a light beam.
“Karp, karp!” Gil flopped around in confusion.
Tekai picked him up, and held onto the magikarp soothingly.
While he was comforting Gil, Zinnia stepped up next to him.
“Woah, you can see so much from up here!” Zinnia looked out from the cliff face.
Tekai glanced at the crevice, then took a look.
“It's quite breathtaking.” Tekai remarked.
From this vantage point, the cavern wasn't quite so dark, and he could see a faint glow in the water, creating a pretty, and soothing atmosphere.
Taking in the scenery, Tekai smiled. He always appreciated grand vistas, and nature. This was a moment he would treasure for a long time to come.
After a moment, Tekai clapped his hands.
“Well, I had better get going. It's been a few hours, and I think now would be a good time to return.” Tekai said aloud to hint at his intentions, but also somewhat suggesting that they travel together.
“Yep, mhm, I'll see you around, shiny!” Zinnia punched Tekai on the shoulder, and started to leave.
“Yeah, see you around…” Tekai replied, and was about to jump down to the water, when he stopped due to Zinnia making a loud noise.
“No way that Clair is going to beat me to the Valley of Bones! Come on, bagon! See ya, Tekai!” Zinnia took bagon in her arms, and jumped ahead.
Tekai froze in place. He recalled the Clair saying some pretty suicidal sounding things earlier.
His desire to keep to himself and stay out of trouble warred with his desire to see a little girl live. Where Clair was going was bound to be dangerous…but that thought only seemed to spur something on in him.
The thrill of a challenge was calling to him.
‘Fuck it. I can always swim away.’ Tekai thought to himself.
“Hey, Zinnia, wait up, let's go together!” Tekai shouted at the tomboyish girl's back.
“Karp, karp!”
‘Good. Fight. Mate!’
Comments
Kasikan
Towards the end it's 20% personal power, 30% friendship bullshit and 50% stupid bloodline power bullshit. They had to stop the flashbacks as they'd interfere with the curb stomping swirly eyes give.
Sarratugga Rites
Also doesn't he know The Naruto world power system is 10% personal power 30% teamwork 30% hacks and a final 30% swing set flashback
Kasikan
A chance to grow stronger and gain stuff is a reason to never leave a dungeon early. The girl at least has her priorities straight. He definitely needs to work on his if he wants to survive in a world like that.
