บท 13: Almost meeting God in the Forest of Death.

(Voidne's POV)

I sneaked through the alleyways trying my best not to be noticed. With Hika sensing the chakra of others, I snuck easily between the alleyways with my small body.

Searching around, I found myself behind Ichiraku ramen where I heard the voice of Ino crying again. I started peeking from the edge of the alleyway to see what was happening just to find Iruka and Ayame trying to calm Ino down. She seemed to have lost her way while trying so hard to win the hide and seek.

I thought naturally 'since I am out, why shouldn't I test Mind Body Withering Technique at the forest of death'. I knew for a fact that my Mind Body Withering Technique could nurture my soul, so it would be a good thing to try it on wild animals on the forest of death. If my information is correct, the forest of death is created by the First Hokage, and is looked over by the Anbu not the Root. So me going there will be fine!

I didn't waste more time, as I knew that soon the people will start searching for me. I slipped through the alleyways faster than a rat slipping through the sewers of Paris. Despite Hika warning me that this might be a bad idea, I insisted because I know I wouldn't have the chance to go outside and try my technique in practice instead of only theorizing it.

It didn't take long for me to reach near the death forest. Remembering correctly; the building in the middle of the forest should have cameras in them that the Anbu use for their tests. In case I needed rescue, I can just rush toward the building in the middle. While it takes half a day for a trained Anbu to reach there, it should take me less than that by using the chakra of Hika, but it will overexert my body really badly, so I can just do this when I am in a very dangerous situation.

Anyway, there is no need to worry, with Hika's censoring ability, I should be able to avoid anyone who isn't actively scanning the area with their censoring Jutsu.

I keep encouraging myself, 'ok we are doing this!', as I enter inside the forest of death. I kept on my keen senses as I try to find any small pray for me to try my technique on. After searching for around 20 minutes, I found a rabbit jumping around. As I made my special hand sign, Hika starts circling his chakra in my body, and as I focus on the rabbit, I make it my will to use Mind Body Withering Technique, and Hika's chakra follows my will instantly as if it was mine. I feel my vision leap forward with a fast speed reaching toward the rabbit, but I don't feel confined with my body anymore. The speed in which my conscious moves is so fast, that I can't see the things around me clearly, but I can sense them.

After what seemed to be fractions of a second, my vision finally changed, I could feel that I've gained control over the rabbit's body, but it is not as I expected... It feels painful! I am feeling the pain of the rabbit's body. My conscious is fading away from pain. As I start to lose conscious, I can hear the songs of death in my mind, as if my soul is being claimed by death himself. My world starts to fade away and disappear. Are the plants are covered with blood? or is it my eyes that are bleeding?

I am scared, scared of death! Last time I was lucky to not have met god, but this time... This time there is no guarantee of me escaping the inevitable, the judgement. Just at those moments, I felt all my fears from years ago return back to me.

In a matter of seconds, my view changed again, and now I returned back to normal. I know I am fine, but I am still scared... I am still unable to move, my hands are shaking, my mind is collapsing. This fear that I feel, is the fear of standing in front of an omnipotent, omnipresent god that could inflict endless torture on me. This fear brings back the nostalgia of that dark place.

As I stand in my place lifeless, I can hear a distant voice. It was Hika's. I tried to focus in his voice, to distract me of such thoughts. I could hear him calling my name. His voice becomes clearer and clearer as I continue to focus on it, I hear him say "Voidne! Wake up! What happened to you? Are you alright?".

I didn't take long to reply "Yes, I am fine, we need to fix the technique!". He asked me about what happened, and I told him all the issues with the techniques that we overlooked. First, my conscious will be controlling the body as it withers, which will feel very painful. Second, My conscious will be controlling the target as it dies, which is similar to dying myself. Third, I can't handle this feeling of almost dying, it makes me scared to the point of disabling me.

Taking 30 minutes, we managed to find solutions to each issue. For the pain, we just have to disable the pray's nervous system with a chakra that has no affinity before starting to wither its body. For the second issue; before the symptoms of death starts appearing in the pray, I should retract my conscious so it doesn't affect my conscious negatively.

I am still scared, but I made up my mind. I need to do this! I gathered my resolve as I use my Mind Body Withering Technique on another rabbit that I happened to find on the outer part of the forest of death.

This time, I carried half of the amount of the yin chakra than the last time, leaving me open space to carry some of my natural attributeless chakra with me. As my conscious launched forward, I become very focused as I need to first use the attributeless chakra to disable the nervous system of the rabbit and scan it's body so I can know when to retract my conscious.

As my conscious enters inside the rabbit's body I start following my plan step by step. First, I use my attributeless chakra to disable the nervous system from the rabbit, and then I start using the Yin chakra to wither it's body, and meanwhile I start doing check ups on it's body every second and counting. I continue counting until it's body is withered to the point of guaranteed death, then retracted my conscious.

I can see the rabbit in front of me rolling while it has it last breath. It must be painful to it since I retracted my conscious and my chakra from it's body. It's nervous system is no longer disabled.

It doesn't take long for it to die. Meanwhile, I feel my chest getting a little warm. The feeling was comfortable; it was a really nice feeling. As I enjoy the feeling, Hika starts talking to me with a serious tone "I have confirmed it! You get a burst of Yang energy when you kill something. It is the same as when you killed the last rabbit, but you were very distracted to notice is. My Yin energy nurture your soul, while killing something nurture your body with Yang energy! You know how great this is? With time, you can accumulate a lot of Yang energy that you can gain the Extreme Yang Body that my other half has!"

I was excited to hear that my power won't be limited to only my soul and conscious, but it will also include a strong body that can defend itself! With the good news, I kept on using my Mind Body Withering Technique on whatever animal I found in front of me, all while counting the time it took my withering to destroy it's body to the point where it guaranteed death. My estimates were around 3 seconds for a rabbit, 8 seconds for a snake, and around 5 seconds for acid spitting huge bugs.

I forgot to count the time I spent killing animals from my excitement. My body was getting strengthened nicely, I could feel that I am much stronger than before.

Just when I was about to use my Mind Body Withering Technique to hunt more, Hika told me that we have been discovered, and that there is a Chunin rushing toward us right now. I told Hika to hide his chakra so the Chunin rushing here doesn't find out.

I wait patiently for him to arrive...