The Deep
Ardelia was a fairly nice winged lion in the grand scheme of things, and Sakura could only feel grateful as she ate the cooked fish. How exactly the winged lions had managed to cook it, she wasn’t entirely sure. To her though, all that mattered was that it tasted nice. Explanations could wait until after she was full. She had been unconscious for little over a day, Ardelia informed her, which rather explained her ravenous appetite. The steady stream of cooked fish which had been dumped before her went a long way towards quelling the growling noises her stomach had been making only moments before the food-bearing winged lion had appeared.
“So,” Sakura mumbled, swallowing her mouthful of fish. “What do you tend to do down here when you’re not busy hunting for food?” she asked, peering at Ardelia who had seemingly decided to stay and converse with the poor, injured human.
She tilted her head, ears flicking back – or at least Sakura thought she saw her ears twitch. It was rather hard to tell in the diminished lighting. Something that she would undoubtedly have to adjust to, especially once she could use chakra again, if only because of how she needed to fight a manticore if she wanted to get out of there and continue on with the madness that her life had become.
There was a small part of her which still reeled in disbelief at it all – the new world, the strange creatures, and the sheer weirdness which was her supposedly integrating herself more with that strange, foreign place. Talking winged lions could be attributed to summons, though she doubted anything of a summoning contract even existed in that world. She hadn’t seen anything about that, but then again, she hadn’t exactly scoured the library for it. Figuring out information for survival had been more important, and Sakura only bitterly wished she had researched the hunting grounds of wild dragons and wyverns just a bit more. Though it was too late for longing and lamentations. She was down in the depths of the crevasse and there was a five-thousand year old manticore between her and freedom.
“The younger ones entertain themselves by going hunting or otherwise figuring out the many passageways that this crevasse has. They are wide and numerous, and all too many of them lead to the manticore’s den…” Ardelia trailed off, looking terribly pensive. “There is not much else to do besides that and talk amongst ourselves. Had we open spaces we would practice our flying to amuse ourselves, but it is too dangerous to do that with the manticore so close at hand. All those born in this chasm have rarely flown, if at all…”
Sakura sighed softly, ever reminded of how both she and the winged lions needed to beat the damned manticore. Part of her wasn’t sure she was ready to face off against such a beast, but what sort of training could prepare her for that much? Once her leg was healed and she exercised somewhat to ensure she hadn’t lose any muscle or strength, then she was in fighting shape and supposedly and hopefully ready to do battle.
She wondered how her fists would fare against the depiction of the creature she had only seen in that textbook what felt like weeks ago, when really it had been a matter of days. How quickly the situation could change… That, at least, was something of a constant between both of the worlds she lived in. Time seemed to pass all too slowly in the depths of the crevasse where even the sunlight didn’t reach. Instead there were glowing blue deposits of mana which had hardened into unbreakable stones and stalagmites which provided light for the winged lions to see. They were also what kept the manticore exactly where it was.
Those solidified mana stones – Sakura wasn’t exactly sure what the technical names for them were, and so that was what she was going with – were poison to the manticore, which was how they had managed to survive in the first place. It would probably have been harder if the very beast had free reign over where it ventured. Which was how she learnt the first rule of the chasm: don’t go where there were no blue glowing deposits or stones, because there was likely a manticore around the corner.
A flying, fire breathing, five thousand year old manticore.
Sakura closed her eyes.
There was no time for her to lose her nerve.
Time passed far too quickly, chakra usage coming back to her far too swiftly as she fumbled around in the deep. Enhancing her senses was simple enough, and her eyes had adjusted as much as she thought capable, though she had no idea if it would be enough. She had never been in a situation just like that before, and it was bizarre and confusing. How did one prepare to do solo combat with a manticore?
Apparently, according to Adelais, that involved practicing fighting while holding a rather large shield. Manticores, the one she faced at least, could breathe fire once matured. And boy was the one she was about to face ‘mature’. The shield itself had belonged to a so-called hero long dead – which didn’t exactly instil confidence within her when it came to thinking about her survival prospects. Part of her wondered if she couldn’t simply slip away from it all, but then what did she know of that world and its dangers. She had already been tossed into the crevasse thanks to her lack of knowledge of the beasts of that world. Either she could fumble about on her own for a while longer, or she could kill a manticore and try and continue with that Quest she had accepted, perhaps in a fit of reckless courage or indignation. Now she might as well be staring injury or death in the face.
But she was a shinobi, of course. Death had been something she had faced daily, and getting caught up in the comforts and protections of a new world did not change that fact. War, death, and survival were her trade, and it was time for her to make good on them.
The winged lions had given her the information needed for her to escape, and Sakura couldn’t bring it in herself to doubt them. What did she really know about that world? Perhaps if she knew more she would be more suspicious of others and their motives. Perhaps she should not have decided to go on that Quest. Perhaps she should have just waited for Naruto to come to her rescue like a helpless damsel in distress. Yet she wasn’t one to sit around and do nothing, and she was in the dark about far too many things.
If survival came at the price of a fight with a manticore, then she would take it.
“You are quiet, Young Quester,” Adelais murmured, sitting beside her as she practiced with the sword and the shield she had been granted. They were different to the weapons she usually used, but a manticore’s hide was tough and only able to be pierced by certain, longer, sharper blades. The shield was something of a protection against the flames – not something she was used to given how shinobi were supposed to avoid attacks rather than face them head on. Yet what did she know about that world? Her lack of knowledge was always being thrown in her face there, and the winged lions could hardly fill in the gaps. They didn’t even know where to start. Sakura didn’t quite know where to start either.
“I’m thinking,” she said, staring at the cavern wall in front of her.
Eyes bore into her, their stare prickling her skin. “About what?” he asked, and Sakura stared at the blade, wondering if she really could use it. She was far more accustomed to beating things with her bare fists. Yet those were the weapons which were apparently best for her to use – what right did she have to think that she knew better? She was a stranger, a foreigner in that place, and that fact was finally sinking in when she might as well be staring impending death and doom in the face.
“My impending doom? How to fight a manticore? The likelihood of my own continued survival?” she spoke, glaring at the blue mana deposit there on the wall and wishing she could somehow move them around to create a safe passage for the winged lions and herself. Nothing could ever be that easy for her, or so she was learning, even worlds away from home. “There’s lots to think about. Too much to think about… Nothing is ever simple when it comes to me, or so it seems, even without the rest of my team.”
“Perhaps it’s simpler than you think?” Adelais offered. “Oftentimes, humans, especially Questers from another world, make things more convoluted than it needs to be.”
“How is fighting a five-thousand year old manticore simple?” she asked, wrapping her arms around herself as she sat there, knees hugged to her chest. “That’s the simplest thing I can think of, and I’m certain it won’t be as simple as impaling it on this blade you’ve given me.”
“It is simple: the winner lives, the loser dies. The law of survival,” he supplied, and Sakura could only sigh at that.
“Matters of life and death are rarely that simple,” she muttered.
“The only advice I think I can offer you is this then: fight, win, and live,” Adelais said unhelpfully, and Sakura only sighed once more. Deeply.
“Fine,” she mumbled, picking up her blade. She could train there for five more years and she doubted she’d feel any readier than she already did. “I’ll fight. If there’s anything I’ve been halfway decent at, it’s surviving through it all… but that’s usually because I’ve had others around me.”
The winged lion looked at her. “You have us.”
“I barely know you and your people, and you barely know me,” she replied, tightening her grip on the hilt of her sword and her shield. “Yet it seems I have no choice but to fight for both you and me… for both of our sakes if we are to live rather than merely survive…”
“And we have no choice but to be at your back, for you are all the hope we have. Perhaps we are strangers, but strangers can still fight together, united in cause and hope for the futures we want,” Adelais responded, and Sakura closed her eyes, took a deep breath, knowing she was in the best condition she could possibly be for the fight ahead, and began her solemn walk to the place where no mana stones lay.
Her heartbeat echoed in her ears like a drum – the thumping of a war drum to be precise – and Sakura knew she might as well be going off to war again. The air was still and deadly silent, a trickle of sweat running, ice cold, down her back as she stepped forwards. Her footsteps were silent, eyes darting about wildly, looking for any signs of the beast she had only seen in pictures. The walls of the passageway were close on either side of her, the near black rock wet and dripping as she passed amidst it. A faint rushing sound of water met her ears, and she knew that there must have been some form of water – likely a waterfall, if the distinct sounds were anything to go off of nearby or within the manticore’s den. That much would explain why it was difficult for the winged lions to fight the beast ahead.
She sucked in a soft, shaky breath, edging onwards, feeling cold water drip down on her as she stepped beneath an odd, naturally formed archway and into the unknown space beyond which was lit by a soft glow from above the crevasse. A sliver of moonlight was her salvation there, even deep in the crevasse as she was, the soft blue glow of the mana stones left far behind. Almost immediately, the passage widened out, becoming a larger, circular arena of sorts. It was an intersection, where numerous passageways met, and it was there the manticore’s den lay. Sakura stepped forwards hesitantly, hairs standing on end, feeling sand give way beneath her feet as she made her way down the bank of sorts which must’ve formed over the years. Chakra hummed in her feet as she stepped onto the slow moving river and into the circular island.
It was almost like a sparring ring, and Sakura found an almost poetic irony in that before—a flash of amber light in the corner of her eye was the only warning she got. “Quester!” Adelais yelled only seconds later from where he lingered close by the archway she had walked through only moments before. She lifted her shield up, crouching behind it, hissing in pain as the air all around her was bathed in fire and flame. A torrent of flames covered her, her only shield between her flammable body and the fires being the metal shield which was slowly but surely heating from the onslaught. It stung her skin, and Sakura wasted no time in releasing her Yin Seal, certain that she wouldn’t be able to fight properly without using it and every last drop of her strength and wit. That wasn’t the time to hold back and be meek.
She breathed carefully, conserving oxygen, silently counting the seconds until twenty had gone by and the amber flames came to a stop. There was a rush of cool air, mind barely comprehending the fact that she had survived the first lot of flames before there was a harsh impact against her shield and she went flying across the sands. Her feet dug into the soft silt, brow lined with sweat as she peered around her too-warm shield and stared at the monster before her.
It was like something out of her nightmares – a human-like face where she would have thought a lion’s face to be, covered in soft, fine tawny fur. Eyes of molten amber stared at her, saliva bubbling around yellowing teeth rimmed with black gums. A powerful lion’s body rippling with muscle and deep, jagged scars was tense and ready to strike once more as they took each other in again, each eyeing up their respective opponent as the tense stillness between them remained, like a rubber band ready to snap. Wings like a bat’s erupted from its back, their span immense, and huge gusts of air were blown her way, lifting up sand into her eyes and mouth, and she coughed then, eyes watering from the dusty attack.
The main danger loomed behind all of that, where the harmless tail should have been had it been any sort of normal creature. A scorpion’s tail and stinger arched up over its back, a black exoskeleton seeming to gleam in the pale light which streamed down from the moonlit sky above, ready to strike with its venom to which Sakura didn’t have a counter for. It was powerful, old, and very, very lethal. Even without any background information, she would have been able to tell that much.
“Well then,” she murmured in the stillness, entirely uncertain of where she got her confidence from. “Are we going to stand around here all day… or are we going to fight?”