Naruto: Tango with Death

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[Sukaina's POV]

As I opened my eyes, all I saw around me was gold. I was… in a liquid. Sacred Water Pool?

As those thoughts crossed my mind, the earlier events also sprung up.

Sighing softly at what happened, I took a look at my Gate of Opening, where a small red bead laid. It was… Senjutsu Chakra.

But there seemed to be something more…

Curious about it, and now in a safe place, I carefully led some chakra towards the Gate, without any Blood Essence this time, and slowly moved it towards the red bead.

The moment my chakra came in contact with it, I felt something change. It wasn't Sage Mode, but I could feel something that felt similar to the red aura that had corroded everything around me.

In a way, it felt good, it was power life I had never seen before, but at the same time, it also felt strange. I couldn't exactly tell what, but there was something wrong with it.

Still, my curiosity was ablaze, and sensing it was getting consumed, I stopped feeding chakra to it.

But then, I was faced with a problem. I wanted to activate the Gates to absorb more of the Sacred Water and thus heal quicker, but the bead was in the way…

After a moment though, I remembered something about my Gates.

They were always in a state of being half opened, as my Yin Chakra passed through all the Gates I had already opened, and the next one for me to open, which allowed me to have an enhanced perception of the world.

And in this case, it was already half opened up to the 6th Gate, the Gate of View. Until now I had always only sent in Neutral Chakra, but since that was impossible, what would happen if I tried to infuse them with a trail of Yang Chakra?

Curious, I started doing exactly that. Manipulating Yin or Yang Chakra separately, in their most basic form, was something that most people were unable to do even after a lifetime of training, but my hypersensitivity to chakra really came in a clutch for this.

Slowly guiding my Yang Chakra to my left brain, I carefully avoided the red bead, and tried to force my Yang Chakra into the next Gate.

And to my great surprise, it actually worked! I did not find the usual resistance I would find in a Gate. Instead, the energy seemed to naturally move towards the next Gate.

It went on until the fifth Gate, and although I hoped it would also be able to move into the 6th one, it unfortunately stopped before it.

I felt my Yang Chakra quickly deplete as it went through the Gates, but my pores also opened up as the Gates become slightly more opened than before, and absorbed a great amount of Yang Chakra from the surrounding water.

Although my Gates weren't fully opened, the effects were almost equal to that. If I had to put a number on it, I would say that all Five of my Gates are 75-80% opened. That was the most I could get without influencing the red bead.

That was already good enough as I expected to be unable to use the Gates at all, but now, even though I'm a little weaker physically, the strain on my healing factor was drastically lowered.

In other words, my fighting strength had ever so slightly lowered, and honestly, it shouldn't be very noticeable, while I not only got to get more out of my healing factor, but the signs of the opened gates also didn't show.

This meant that even at my top power, no one would see the difference in power, until they were attacked. And here I thought I was experiencing the dreaded nerf…

Opening my eyes, I noticed the water around me had turned into a vortex as my body put a strong a suction force on the water around me. Smiling at the familiar sight, I once again closed my eyes, and entered meditation to finish my healing.

I remained in the water for a couple of hours before my body stabilized. I expected the full healing of my body back to prime would take around 48 hours, the damage was extensive after all, but I couldn't just stay here for that long, unnoticed.

So I left early, and as I did, I found both Jashin and Yami to be there, waiting. Upon seeing Yami, I coughed and said, "Sorry about the mountain, didn't have a choice…"

Yami sighed, "It's fine, I understand. I would rather know how you are?"

I nodded with a smile and replied, "Fine, should take less than a week to heal. I'm still not sure of what happened though… I didn't expect Sage Mode to do something like this."

Jashin nodded and replied, "That was your Authority. Beautiful I must say."

"Care to elaborate?"

Yami took over here, "Even we don't know that much about Authorities, other than the fact that it is a power that comes with Senjutsu Chakra. For True Sages, that is. They are an inner power that affects the world around us. I, for example, am the Sage of Darkness, and thus possess an innate control over darkness. Jashin is the Sage of Blood, so he controls blood."

I raised an eyebrow and commented, "But I never felt anything."

Jashin laughed, "We control ours. Besides, they were slowly incorporated into techniques over the thousands of years we lived. Yami's Stealth Technique became so elaborate that he managed to teach it to others too."

I nodded, before asking, "How strong is Authority?"

Jashin shrugged, which looked a little cute as a cat, and replied, "Theoretically, all Authorities are as strong as each other. What differentiate their power is merely how complete they are, and to what extent its user mastered it. For you, you have an incomplete Authority that you don't master, but you already saw its effects by yourself."

Yami continued, "In simpler words, Authority is what allowed us to match the Otsotsuki's Yin-Yang affinity, which is the peak of chakra manipulation. I know you didn't get much contact with your Authority, but do you have any idea over what it is?"

"Does it matter?"

Yami nodded, and explained, "It does. There is a running theory among Sages that Authority is actually one's understanding on the world, and works by forcing what makes you into this. If this theory were to prove to be true, then you would theoretically be able to work on your Authority and perfect it before achieving Sage Mode."

Titling my head, I asked, "Why should I perfect it before achieving Sage Mode? You yourself were born with an incomplete one, and you managed to perfect it."

Yami replied, "We used the power of Fate, something you cannot do. Besides, even though I'm saying we perfected our Authority, in reality this wasn't a power achieved by ourselves, so there undoubtedly are flaws in it. That's why having you understand what your Authority is is important, to better understand how you must work onto perfecting it."

I nodded slowly, as I scratched my head and remembered the feeling. After a while, I muttered, "Now that I really think about it, I do have a term that comes to mind."

Jashin nodded, "It's your Authority, it's normal for you to know what it is. So? Bloody Death? Hell? Heaven?"

Yami sent a glare at Jashin at the mention of the last word, but I did not pick on it as I instead replied, "Tyranny."