Medium Meld (Naruto/Gamer, Male OC)

Chapter Fourteen - Dreaming of Keys

I had been so worried about this place because it was the first movie I actually remembered watching the demon thing had stuck with me, but absolutely nothing had happened. That priest chick hadn't arrived to demand our help against the demon, the gang of weird-ass ninja didn't appear to kick our asses, and we didn't get dragged into anything weird.

So far, we had passed through two countries without anything weird happening, and it made me incredibly suspicious. It did make it easy to get a decent amount of training in, and I felt like I was finally making some headway.

Karenbana still kicked the shit out of me with ease, but I felt like I could have beaten Yoko solidly now, maybe? It was embarrassing that I hadn't thought to climb up the wall of the building to get at her, but at the time, I was panicking, in pain, and filled with adrenaline. Karenbana had spent several days just teaching me how to fight on places other than the ground, on the sides of trees, upside down on branches, on top of the water at the beach.

I had gotten my ass kicked everywhere, honestly.

It must have been a ninja thing, but whatever instinct they had to take the fighting up on top of things wasn't really in me, I much preferred staying on the ground, but at least I had the option now.

So here we were, another week worth of traveling into the Land of Neck, a place that Karenbana had actually been to, although she said she had come by one of the many ferry's that stopped in the Land of Bean Jam.

These names were terrible, Bean Jam? Honestly.

I had some vague knowledge of this place as well, who could forget that giant chameleon that was pretending to be a castle and had tried to eat Naruto that one time. I couldn't remember exactly when it had happened though it was definitely while Naruto was a kid, I think it had been after Sasuke had defected. Naruto had to have solved the situation already if he was going back to go on his training trip with Jiraiya when he got back to Konoha.

Karenbana took us past where she remembered the worn-down old castle was supposed to be located right at the heart of the destroyed capital. It was going to be hilarious when we got there, and the castle was just gone.

I was going to give her so much shit.

I saw it long before it was within my sensory range, but even without being able to sense it, I knew that something had gone wrong. Instead of an empty foundation, there was a massive worn-down looking castle sitting exactly where Karenbana said it was.

"That is not supposed to be here," I said dryly.

Karenbana looked at me strangely.

"I told you it was here ages ago," Karenbana said bemused. "When we were talking about that time I went to Bean-"

"Do not sully my ears with that silly name." I cut her off urgently, "I remember the discussion, but I had prior knowledge that it had been taken care of already, and it's clearly not."

Karenbana tilted her head for a moment.

"What do you mean taken care of?" Karenbana demanded. "And why didn't you tell me that earlier?"

I nodded thoughtfully at the questions.

"Moving on," I said cheerfully, "That isn't actually a castle."

"It's obviously a castle," Karenbana said strangely.

"It's obviously a giant shapeshifting chameleon summon animal," I said snootily.

"You're just fucking with me again," Karenbana said immediately.

"Nope." I said evenly, "There's a summon scroll hidden in one of the rooms inside, but the summon will try to kill anyone who goes inside unless their name is on the scroll."