บท 20: Forced

When Chojusen used his wind coated hands to grab Danzo's arms, the excited wind particles covering his hand not only cut into the bandages, but also scraped off a layer of Danzo's skin. Even though the skin was savagely flayed off, it didn't take long for Danzo's arm to heal. What Chojusen saw after the arm healed wasn't a regular arm, instead it looked like a his enemy had fused his right arm with some sort of white gunk.

Most unsettling though, was that his arm had strange eyes embedded in them. Chojusen was deeply disgusted and Danzo was thinking of what his options were. He had already shown his identity and Chojusen even knew about his secret right arm. If he didn't take Chojusen with him now, he would be labeled a traitor to the village.

Danzo weighed his options, but upon recognizing how amazing Chojusen was as a mere child, he threw caution to the wind and decided to take a gamble. He "accidentally" failed to block one of Chojusen's attack and appeared to have died with Chojusen's hand sticking through his body.

But in reality he casted an Izanagi, discarding one of the Sharingan eyes in his arm for a chance to seal and capture Chojusen. Chojusen didn't expect this to happen as he never intended to kill Danzo. He was fine with killing beasts in the forest for a year, but taking another human's life? That was a line he had yet to cross and had was still against going about it.

As Chojusen stared at the lifeless body that his arm impaled, he was too shocked and disturbed to realize it not a real corpse, but one made of Yin Laws. Chojusen's Energy Manipulation was around the 80s of its second Rank Up; with his current level of skill he could start to see law constructs if he focused all his senses.

However, Danzo didn't give Chojusen the time to collect himself and like a shadow, he appeared behind Chojusen. He used a Self Cursing Seal on Chojusen. Because Chojusen was limited to around Danzo's level with regards to stats, he couldn't immediately break out of the seal and was knocked out by Danzo before he could do anything else.

Danzo took Chojusen's now limb body and escaped back to his hideout. Once he arrived, he told some of his Root henchmen to clean up the site of his battle with Chojusen and gave them the coordinates to find the location. Nobody knew that of Danzo's actions because he used a genjutsu barrier to make it seem like the battlefield left behind didn't exist and unless someone knew the exact coordinates, they wouldn't be able to find the location.

A couples hours passed, and Chojusen woke up. His unrestrained body had ridiculous self healing properties, but they couldn't eliminate the curse mark Danzo placed on Chojusen's tongue.

Danzo was impressed that Chojusen was already awake and said "Now then, I expect you to behave now that you have my mark on your tongue. One wrong move and I'll make you wish you were dead."

"What do you want?"

"I want a strong army! I want to protect the village! I want for my people to prosper and for there to be no threats to their prosperity! And with you, we can make that more than probable after you grow a little."

Chojusen asked the system "Hey, can I buy a skill to unlock seals?"

[Yeah. Do you want the Omniseal Unlock, or just the unlocking method for the curse mark inflicted on your body?]

"How much do each of the skills cost?"

[The Omniseal Unlock will cost 9001 shop points and the unlocking solution for SSS Rank Seals and below only costs 100 shop points.]

"Are you playing games with me? Why would anyone make the price of something over nine thousand by just one point?"

[Your level isn't high enough to know that information.]

"Fine… just buy me the Omniseal Unlock."

[Host has learned the skill: Omniseal Unlock

Omniseal Unlock (Rank SSS | 0/100): This skill comes with a compendium of all sealing skills in existence. The user can unseal any technique so longs as his proficiency in sealing arts is higher than the person who created the seal he wishes to unseal. Current Effect: None (until the user learns at least one unlocking formula)]

Chojusen was now in a rut, he had to play the fool with Danzo until he figured out the unlocking formulas to his Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal. It wasn't as easy as picking that seal out of all the unlocking formulas in the unsealing compendium and be done. Chojusen had to learn the unlocking methods for D Rank Seals, then C Rank, all the way up to S Rank before he was able to get rid of the seal that Danzo placed on him.

Danzo kept talking down on Chojusen, now that he had his curse seal on him it didn't matter what he said, Chojusen would have to comply with his orders. To make sure Chojusen feared him a bit, he activated the seal slightly to caused Chojusen some pain and said "This is the kind of pain you will be under if you disobey me. And if you don't care about the pain, I can always find the people you care about and make them join you as a member of Root. Yes, now that I think about it, wouldn't you like your little girlfriend to come join you? Hahahaha."

These were all empty threats that Danzo was making to cause Chojusen to fear him. If he didn't mind the pain, at least would care about his friends and family. Danzo did a bit of research and learned about Chojusen's constant interactions with Karin. Karin was only usable to Danzo as leverage in case Chojusen ever got complacent.

Hearing Danzo's remarks Chojusen almost lost himself, but he calmed down and used his reasoning to form a plan. He contacted the system again "Is there a way I can use my shop points to unlock the seal without having to learn the technique?"

[Yeah you can. Unfortunately it costs 1000 shop points to get rid of an S Rank seal so with your pitiful 999 shop points your outta luck.]

Chojusen was really about to flip out after hearing the system. He had just been played! Why was he cursed to receiving such a snarky supporting tool? Chojusen found a thread of patience within the sea of rage and wrath that had been bubbling in his psyche to force himself to accept his situation and work quickly to get out of it.

Chojusen looked at Danzo and said "I don't have much of choice, now do I? What do you want me to do first?"

Danzo thought for a moment and then called some of his Root henchmen into the room. He said "Bring prisoner 1301 to us."

The henchmen wordlessly left and quickly came back while restraining an unruly prisoner. The prisoner entered the room yelling curses which became especially nasty after seeing Danzo's face. He said "Look what we have here! The village's scum graces me with his despicable presence? Oh who honored I feel. You worthless failure! Now that you've finally brought me before you, are you planning on killing me once and for all?"

Danzo didn't bat an eye at the man's constant insults, instead he smiled and said "No, you're wrong. You will be dying today, but I won't be killing you." Danzo turned to Chojusen and said "Here's your first task. Go kill him."

"What? Why?"

"Tsk tsk, that was a mistake. The first thing I told you was that disobeying me would put you in a ton of pain." Danzo activated Chojusen's curse mark to several times its potency when he used it earlier.

He stopped the curse seal and repeated "Do it."

Chojusen was on the floor sweating and breathing raggedly. He was thinking as fast as his brain allowed him. But struggled to accept this task of killing another person. He got up from the floor and said "No."

"Hah! Just like I thought, you're just a little soft kid. Even though you're as strong as me, you have a long way to go. Kill that man or the pain will only get stronger." Danzo activated the curse mark again.

Chojusen kept refusing to kill the man and was knocked down to the floor in pain from the curse seal over and over again until Danzo lost patience and said "Do you think what I said about your girlfriend was just fun and games? Say "no" one more time and see what happens."

After Chojusen heard this he froze and didn't do anything for the longest time. His mind was close to shattering and his eyes were shivering as if he couldn't hold back some immense pressure coming out from within.

As this was happening, the prisoner who was originally rowdy and unrestrained spoke up once again. He had planned on dying ever since had been captured by Danzo, but Danzo never finished him off. Seeing what Danzo was doing now with Chojusen, the prisoner guessed his time was up and was expecting Chojusen to finish him off after the first time the curse seal activated.

The prisoner began to respect Chojusen more and more as he saw him rather take pain himself than kill of another person. And now that the prisoner heard that Danzo was planning on using Chojusen's girlfriend as hostage if he failed to comply, he pushed himself towards Chojusen and said "Kid just do it. He's going to kill me anyways, you've already won my respect."

Even after gaining the prisoner's permission, Chojusen couldn't find it within himself to end another person's life. The prisoner knew Danzo well, and just before Danzo activated the curse mark once again, he forced a kunai into Chojusen's hand and while still holding on the his hand commited suicide.