BANG
Jack peered down the iron sights as the tail end of the pink ostrich ran off. Today was the day that he and Taro were taught how to shoot their game by Tea. Jack was first to be taught, and over thirty minutes of stalking, aiming, and firing taught everyone there one thing.
Jack Williams, aspiring shinobi, was shit with a gun.
Jack really didn’t get why he was so bad with a gun. He used to go to gun ranges as a teenager with his father to shoot. He always thought of it as a good time. Although, now that Jack is confronted with his bad aim, he is starting to remember something he seems to have repressed…
“Jeeze, Jackie boy, you can’t hit anything with that, can you?” Tea asked as both a tease and in awe at just how bad Jack was. “I mean, you only had 10 meters or so to shoot him, and you somehow missed. Hmph, I hope Taro isn’t the same as you, or all of this teaching may have been for nothing.” Jack slowly turned back to the rest of the group. His ears burning red from embarrassment. “Alright, Taro, let’s get you- Taro?”
Tea’s sudden question jolted Jack to check on his fellow student. He turned his head at Taro, who wasn’t looking at them at all. He was sweating, seeing something on the tree behind him that he couldn’t turn away from. Jack and Tea followed his line of sight to search for it. There, a glint in the trunk. Still marked by soot from gunpowder, there was a bullet that was positioned just slightly to the right of his head.
Tea sucked in air from his teeth, while Jack grimaced from just how close his friend almost became his first kill of the hunt. Tea, without looking, held out his hand towards Jack. Jack noticed and slowly handed over the rifle. Now Jack remembers why he never went to gun ranges after those first ten times he went to one with his dad. His dad was trying to help him with a paper target at 20 meters in an indoor gun range, when his first few shots all missed. While he was firing, the owner, who was watching over all of the current customers using it, yelped out.
Turns out, Teen Jack’s aim was so bad that he didn’t hit the target at all, and the bullet ricocheted off the back wall into the hat on the owner’s head. This caused it to fly off and catch several strands of his hair on fire. Shortly thereafter, he and his father were banned from the gun range, and his dad told him to just pick a different hobby. Jack never went to another one since, and he repressed the memories of what happened to get that ban because of how embarrassing it was.
Tea clicked his tongue and walked over to Taro. “Welp, it’s your turn, Taro. Let’s hope you’re not as bad as Jack, or we’re going to bring a body that the town can’t eat.” Taro seemed to snap out of his death stare and turned back just in time to take the gun. Still, Jack could tell that Taro did it without realizing as he was still hung up on that bullet. Jack would’ve just let Taro think on it for a bit before having him yell at Jack.
Tea, though, took a different approach. “Come on, now. Chop chop. The meat isn’t going to hunt itself.” He clapped Taro on his shoulder and walked off, heading toward where the ostrich went. Taro followed after, now more ‘in the moment’ than he was before.
Jack took a second, before following as well. He caught up to Taro as he was taking a large step over a prominent root from the ground. Jack talked first. “I’m sorry.” He said this as formally and as sincerely as possible. “I- I didn’t think it would- I don’t know how I-” The rest of his apology was nothing more than a stuttering mess as he tried to articulate just how sorry he was.
Taro finally responded for the first time. “I-It’s okay, Jack.” He appeared to try and get his emotions under control. Jack wouldn’t blame him, a close friend almost killed him. “I just- could you please not talk to me, right now?” That hurt, but Jack still understood. He was the one at fault, not Taro. “Of course.” Jack told him. He waited a few seconds to allow Taro to get ahead of him before continuing to follow.
For the next 10 minutes, the three were as silent as a group of mice. Or maybe a group of wolves. Mice don’t really hunt, unlike what these three were doing.
At the end of those 10 minutes, Tea stopped and crouched. He held up his arm and waved forward. Taro got the signal and crouched while waddling forward. Jack followed soon after. However, Jack decided to just stay a few feet behind so Taro could have his space. He didn’t want to inconvenience Taro, or mess up his aiming and shoot off his dick or something.
Still, Jack did try and see what they were looking at. As his head contorted to look past them, he saw what looked like a deer that decided to become a blue reptilian. It had both scales and fur on it and had a long neck like a stegosaurus. It also had a much darker blue mane on its neck. Jack knew what this animal was, as he was told by Tea in a previous hunt. Do you know what they call this blue deer reptilian/mammal abomination?
They called it a deer.
Yup. A deer. What a banger.
Anyways, Taro was aiming at this one deer and was taking his time doing so. Jack could feel his head starting to sweat as Taro was really taking his time to aim. Finally, after what feels like forever, Taro took his shot.
BANG
Jack watched as the deer jolted and ran away. However, looking closer showed him that the deer had been bleeding its blue blood. So Taro did hit it, but not in a fatal area. That means they all had to follow the trail for possibly miles before they find the corpse.
Tea sighed as he saw the results. “Alright, you two. Come on, we gotta go get it.”
The three accepted the next couple of hours and proceeded to track the trail of blood.
Line Break Here
Jack looked down at Taro, who was currently using his knowledge of meat and animals as well as the teachings from Tea to cut the deer into edible parts. Taro still wasn’t talking to him, but that was fine. He’ll wait until tomorrow, after he was done exposing Merci with his voice recording to her parents before the party. Until then, he won’t bother Taro.
“Hm. Hm. Ohp, don’t cut there, Taro.” Tea continued to overlook his student’s cuts, putting his gun down on the ground as he crouched closer to point out what to do next. Jack was going to also crouch down, but then he noticed something out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head to what got his attention. He saw only a small bush swaying before stopping.
He took a few seconds to check around the bush, before deciding to shrug and go back to watching Taro.
Jack stopped when a thought came to him. ‘Why did the bush move if I didn’t feel any wind?’ He quickly turned back to the bush before taking a wider search around him as he didn’t see anything. He pulled out his hunting knife at his side and got into a simple stance to get his knife ready for stabbing. “Guys,” Jack whispered, before saying it louder when he still heard them focusing on the butchering.
After hearing them stop, he told them, “I think we’re not alon-” Jack stopped once he noticed what cause the bush to sway. There, in the shade of the surrounding trees and tall grass, was an absolutely massive bear. Its fur was grey, and it seemed to have black stripes that looked like scars. Its eyes seemed to glow with a baleful yellow light, and drool was running down its maw.
Now that Jack has noticed it, and the bear has noticed being noticed, it let off a deep growl. It shifted forward into the light. Its paws having claws as big as his knife. Jack could feel sweat dripping down his body as he now had a much clearer picture of the bear’s size. It was as big as a BMW van. Its fur not concealing the muscles bulging and shifting underneath. Its teeth looking like they should belong in a shark’s mouth.
Jack felt an indescribable terror upon seeing and hearing this gigantic beast. He could feel his legs shaking, and heard his knife fall out of his hand onto the ground. His heart was beating so hard he could hear nothing else but the sound of his blood in his ears and the sound of the bear’s growling.
Jack just stared at the beast, but soon stopped focusing on it as he heard Tea and Taro scrambling to get up. He heard the cocking of the rifle, and tried to step out of Tea’s line of sight. The fear slowed him down as he tried to take a step, almost falling from how weak his legs were. “Get out of the way, you fool!” Tea shouted behind him, which caused Jack to fall on his behind.
Those words and Jack’s sudden fall were the signal the bear needed to roar as he charged. Jack heard Tea’s gun go off and saw a small spray of blood from the bear’s left shoulder. Still, that didn’t stop his charge. Jack, faced with approaching death, couldn’t move a muscle. Then he heard Taro’s voice. “Dammit, Jack! Move!” Hearing his friend’s voice snapped Jack from ‘freeze’ node to ‘flight’ mode, and just in the nick of time.
The bear was close enough that it lunged upwards and forwards towards Jack on the ground, both paws in the air with its claws out. Jack instinctively used his Body Enhancement Technique to ‘inhale’ his Chakra throughout his body. This sudden boost of power allowed him to roll almost 10 feet to the side in the time it took for the bear to slam both paws right where he was.
The bear seemed to pause for an instant from surprise at its prey escaping at the last minute, before beginning to push itself forward towards the deer carcass. Taro had already rolled out of the way, while Tea was aiming while it was lunging forward. Unfortunately, due to Tea aiming rather than dodging, the bear took a chance and managed to lightly swiped Tea in the shoulder. Tea tumbled down, his gun flying behind him as he clutched to his injured shoulder.
The bear picked up the carcass with his teeth and tossed it away, before turning to the prone form of Tea. It reared up its paw, ready to kill him. Jack had already recovered by this point and used a burst of his technique to run in, grab Tea, and haul him away right before the paw hit him in the head. It did hit him in the foot, however. Thankfully, Tea wasn’t too badly injured as his boot and shoe were pulled off thanks to the claw puncturing through them. There was a somewhat light scratch running down his foot that was bleeding somewhat heavily.
Jack let Tea down almost 50 feet away as he saw that the bear was turning to where Taro had dodged away from. Taro, in the time it took Jack to rescue Tea, had gotten up on his feet and was giving the bear a wide berth as he ran around it to get closer to Jack and Tea.
Jack clenched his teeth as he saw the bear start to lock on to Taro and move closer to him. Jack reached down for the knife at his side, but then realized that he dropped the knife when he first saw the bear. He looked at the area he dropped it and saw the handle sticking up from the ground. The knife landed straight onto its point, burying the blade quite deeply into the ground.
He looked back to the bear and Taro and saw it was still trying to get him. Once more, Jack ‘inhaled’ his Chakra and bursted to his knife. He picked it up and ran towards the in-need Taro. “Hey!” Jack shouted. The bear didn’t turn to him, still locked on his new target. “I said,” Jack’s speed was much better compared to the bear’s, so he blitz by it while trying to cut its neck. His knife felt resistance. “-Look at me!”
Jack didn’t look back to check his handiwork as he hauled Taro up onto his shoulder like a bag of concrete. He then immediately blitzed his way past the bear once more to get back to Tea. As he flew by it, Jack took a look to see what kind of damage he managed to make. His heart plummeted as all he saw was the bear’s new thin, bald patch. Not a single drop of red blood to be seen.
‘Oh, well.’ He thought to himself. ‘It’s not like we’re going to be sticking around much longer.’ He caught up to Tea and let Taro down on his feet. “What the- Jack?” Taro questioned as he realized that he was suddenly on the other side of the battlefield. He looked at Jack with surprise and awe at what he just did. Jack, on the other hand, was focusing on something else.
“Taro,” Jack commanded to his friend in as serious and soft voice as he could. “I can’t pick you and Tea up at the same time. You need to pick up Tea and run!” Jack turned towards the bear, who wasn’t charging at them and instead just staring as it stood by the fresh deer carcass.
Jack didn’t look towards Taro as he stuttered out his affirmative. “Y-Yes. Come on, sir. Hrngh. Work with me! Hrrgh. We have to escape!” Jack just continued to stare at the bear in its eyes, his blade in hand and ready to be used. Neither were moving from their spots.
The pained sounds of Tea’s voice sent a wave of frustration into his heart. “N-No… My pack, it has the medicine…” Jack cursed inwardly as he took a glance at the pack in front of the beast. One of its straps was clearly torn, most likely from when Tea got swiped. Jack and Taro also had some gauze pads and this world’s equivalent of NeoSporin on them, but Tea’s pack had a lot of the heavy stuff. Stitches. Hydrogen Peroxide. Stronger anti-bacterial medicine in both pill and gel form. Pain killers. Rolls of one-foot wide gauze that sticks to the body.
He remembered what Tea’s shoulder looked like. He was going to need that med-kit.
So, with one more ‘inhale’, Jack bursts forth to grasp the handle on top of the pack. As he gripped it, he saw the bear charging forwards at him. He immediately turned around and sprinted back to his companions. However, halfway there, he turned his head to take a look at the angry animal chasing him.
It wasn’t stopping to go back to the deer.
He made a decision. Jack threw the pack in his mentor’s and friends’ direction. “Go!” He shouted at them as he turned around to face the threat with nothing but a knife in hand. “I’ll distract him while you guys get away!” Jack heard Taro voice his objection. “But-” The beast was in his face. “Do it!” Jack didn’t want to hear any back talk. The paw swiped.
He narrowly dodged and swiped out with his knife at where he thought the bear’s eye was at. He couldn’t tell because his entire world was only focusing on where the bear’s paws and body was heading. Yet, based on the resistance he felt from his knife, he missed it.
The bear roared and immediately stopped. It moved its body sideways, towards Jack, despite not having any sight on him. Jack leapt back a good 5 feet, swiping once more at it. Nothing but hair. Still, the bear roared out. ‘Hmm,’ Jack thought to himself, ‘It might not hurt it, but it probably isn’t pleasant feeling a ‘claw’ graze his skin.’ The bear turned towards Jack, no longer interested on Taro and Tea.
Jack took a glance to make sure that Taro was doing as told, and he was. Now that he didn’t have to worry about them, he could make a plan on how to survive long enough for Taro to escape and patch up Tea. ‘I know animals can use Chakra like I can, that first pink ostrich showed me that. I don’t know if this bear has been using it so far. He seems pretty fast and strong to me, so maybe-’
Jack’s eyes widened as the bear suddenly blurred forward. It was in front of him in less than a second with one of its paws up high and glowing faintly.
He ‘inhaled’.
The sound of clothes tearing and bark splintering filled the air. Jack panted as he had once more dodged, but not unscathed. Three torn sections of his long sleeved camouflaged shirt were exposing the cuts the bear gave him. Jack wasn’t focusing on that. He was focusing on the three almost cleanly sliced marks in the tree the bear hit. They looked to be almost six inches deep and cut with a chainsaw. The bear paused once more as it realized its target was cut to pieces in front of it. It blinked at where its newly cut meal should be.
Said meal was thinking about this new information. ‘Okay! So it wasn’t using Chakra up til now. It can enhance its body, like I and that ostrich did. That must mean my technique is something incredibly basic that all Chakra users have. That thing it did with its claws is different, though.’ He glanced at his arm, the one that was cut and holding his knife. His fingers were still gripping strongly onto its handle. A few tests of his arm muscles showed that it was still fully functional.
‘Good. It’s only superficial, and I’m not bleeding like crazy. No muscles or important arteries or veins were hit.’ Jack focused on the bear’s still raised paw as it tried to see if maybe its food was just stuck underneath it. ‘He used some kind of technique to sharpen and extend the reach of its claws. I know that I dodged its claws by a noticeable amount, but I still got hit. That’s how I know it’s Chakra related. Is it instinctive? Can I also learn it? No, that’s not important right now. It seems to extend its length by about double its claws. So, maybe six inches.’
Uh oh, looks like the bear just noticed him. Its growl could be heard, and it almost seemed to echo in Jack’s ears. Jack tensed, ready to ‘inhale’ at the slightest motion. The bear blurred, and so did Jack.
For the next while, two blurs of color smeared themselves across the battlefield. Multiple times a grey smear got close to the much smaller camouflage smear with a bright red head. Multiple times the smaller smear moved out of the grey smear’s way. Multiple times, the smaller smear was turning redder and redder as multiple superficial cuts opened on his body. Sometimes the smaller smear would swipe at the bigger, grey smear. Yet, the grey smear didn’t get any red to it at all.
Finally, the big grey smear stopped, and the smaller smear stopped, too. Jack was only a few yards, or meters, away from the bear. He could see it panting and could understand its pain. Jack was panting hard as well.
‘Ah man. My Chakra is starting to feel pretty strained right now. The last time I tested how long I could use Body Enhancement, it was only around 3 minutes. It almost feels like 2 minutes or more have passed! I can’t keep doing this for another minute.’ Jack stared at the bear, still prepping himself for its sudden movement. He gripped tightly onto his knife. ‘I’ll have to, though. Taro couldn’t have gotten far enough in just the two minutes I gave him. I’ll just have to be passive and let this giant carpet come to me.’
A few seconds passed as they stared at each other, panting. A few more seconds passed. Then half a minute. ‘What’s going on?’ Jack was confused. ‘Why isn’t he charging again? He’s been doing it for the past two minutes, so why isn’t he doing so now?’ Jack took a closer look at the bear’s state.
It was panting, not just heavily, but quickly, too. You could almost see steam flowing out of its mouth! Its back legs seem to tremble noticeably, even from how far away he was. Its front paws, having been using its simple claw technique, had the claws sheathe themselves back. Only the tips of the claws were visible. You could see the bear’s diaphragm inflating as large as it could go from its torso, or whatever four legged creatures call that main body part area.
Most importantly, the bear’s head was swaying, just slightly, back and forth. Jack looked at this collection of somewhat familiar information and came to a realization.
‘Oh! It strained its own Chakra!’ Jack could feel his panting mouth quirk at this thought. ‘Why, though? It should’ve been using Chakra for most of its life. I’ve literally started almost 4 months ago. Why doesn’t it have more endurance than I do? Shouldn’t it be using it all day, every-’
Jack’s eyes brightened as he heard the contradiction. ‘No, just like that ostrich that fought us, it only used Chakra as a last resort. Stealth makes Chakra useless since it needs to be activated consciously. This must mean that the bear, and every other predator, uses Chakra only when its prey fights back. Most of those fights must end in seconds. I used Chakra by sheer instinct to save Larry’s life, while animals do so to save their own. They also don’t have the concept of training, so of course they don’t train every day like I do. I must be even better at using Chakra than every other animal on Earth!’
The bear growled and lowered its body, almost getting ready to pounce. Jack refocused. ‘Still, just because its Chakra exhausted doesn’t mean it’ll be easy from here on out. Its hide is strong enough to resist my blade without Chakra. If only I could use Piercing Fang as well as I could use Body Enhancement. One second of concentration is enough to get my head lobbed off!’
The bear, without blurring as it did earlier, charged at Jack. ‘So, it can’t use Body Enhancement anymore, huh? Maybe I can win this?’ The bear raised its right paw up as it got close. ‘Okay, just move right and back- Ugh! Huh?’ Jack stopped cold as he Body Enhanced slammed into a tree he didn’t realize was there. The bear, seeming to have planned this, slammed its upraised paw onto the ground while its other paw, closer and more accurate to where he was, swiped up from below. Its claws were glowing faintly with Chakra.
‘Shit! Did it plan this?’ Jack didn’t have time to follow that thought as he used Body Enhancement once more to jump up high into the tree. He landed onto a thick branch and windmilled his arms as he fought for balance before finally getting Tree Walking into effect. He gave an inward sigh of relief as he crouched on the branch.
‘Phew! That was close.’ He preened down at the bear below. It looked up at him in the tree, giving what seemed like a little roar of frustration at him. Jack just gave a small, yet loud, series of laughs at that shaggy carpet. ‘Man, he almost looks normal from up here. Why didn’t I think of just jumping up here before? He can’t reach me at all!’
His laughs abruptly stopped as his tree jerked. He looked down to see the bear has stood fully on its hind legs to reach as far up as it could. Considering he called this thing as big as a BMW’s van, that meant its claws were less than a foot away from his branch. ‘Oh, yeah! I forgot. Bears can fucking climb trees!’ It got even worse as he felt the bear start extremely shaking the tree back and forth.
“Waaawwwahwaahwaah.” Said Jack as he clung to the tree with his hands and Tree Walking. ‘No! If I fall out of this tree, I probably won’t land on my feet. If that happens, the bear will have me right where it wants me.’ He stared down at the roaring open mouth of death itself. ‘As dinner.’
Jack William’s life hangs in the balance as he faces death itself! Did Taro and Tea get away in time? Will Jack get isekai’d again?! Find out, next time on
A Naruto SuperFan in a Non-Naruto World!
AN: Hey, guys, sorry for the delay. As I said before, I had my schedule changed and my electricity went out due to the storm on Friday. Managed to complete it today, though! Don’t worry about the cliffhanger, I won’t be at my Dad’s tomorrow because he decided to go on vacation this weekend. That means I’ll have all day tomorrow to write!
Most likely, it’ll be out either tomorrow or Monday. I won’t post another chapter on Spacebattles, either. Meaning you guys will be 4 chapters ahead of everyone else! How cool is that?!
Once more, thank you for reading and pledging to me. See you guys in just a couple of days!