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Chapter 150 What the Soul Sees
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Night had settled gently over Tazuna's house. The crickets outside hummed low and steady, the kind of sound that seemed to lull the world into calm. Inside, Naruto sat cross-legged on the floor, his gaze fixed on Sakura as she spoke.
"Humanity," she said, holding up her palm as if to catch the weight of her words. "It didn't just boost my strength. My chakra pool is deeper now, denser. I think... it changed something inside me." She smiled, soft and grateful. "So... thank you, Naruto. For saving my life."
Naruto gave a quiet nod, his thoughts distant, distracted. Without a word, he reached into his inventory and drew out a fragment of liquid darkness. The moment the oily black essence touched the air, both Sakura and Sasuke stiffened as Naruto could see with numbers what humanity does to a body.
He absorbed it and opened his status screen instinctively, watching as small changes flickered to life: increased physical and elemental resistances, higher item discovery, increased physical attack power, and increased curse resistance.
"Item discovery and Curse?" he muttered. How were these two affected by something like humanity? Unless... unless humanity touched more than the body.
He sat still.
And then, he looked.
The room dimmed not in light, but in perception as Naruto activated his soul sense. Reality peeled away in thin layers, revealing the world in its purest form. Everything, everyone, was reduced to essence and outline. The floor, the walls, the people were interwoven with faint lines of energy, threads of meaning and identity.
His own soul was wrapped in a shimmering film of liquid humanity.
Naruto turned his soul-sense outward and froze.
Sakura's soul shimmered pink, a gentle, familiar hue. But something was wrong. The left side of her face... it looked like it was melting. Skin sloughing off in ghostly ribbons, reshaping into a second face. A mirror Sakura, twisted and newborn, forming from her neck and shoulder like a parasite of self. It grinned with silent teeth.
He recoiled, only for his eyes to land on Sasuke.
Sasuke's soul was a deep violet flame. Controlled. Compressed. But he wasn't alone. Behind him stood someone.
Not a soul silhouette, but a person.
The man had brown hair cropped short, two long locks wrapped in bandages framing his pale face. Eyes like carved obsidian, cold and commanding. His robes were formal, ancient, adorned with magatama and rich fabric that seemed to hum with myth. A faint aura of judgement clung to him.
He looked straight at Naruto and, with lips unmoving, mouthed words that struck like a blade to the chest.
You killed Ashura.
Naruto gasped.
Reality snapped back. He was on the floor, Sakura clutching his shoulders, her voice laced with panic. "Naruto! What's wrong? Say something!"
"I'm fine," he managed, his throat dry.
Sweat clung to his temples. He turned, found Oscar curled beside him, and pulled the lizard into his arms. He ran his fingers along Oscar's head to steady himself.
Rickert's voice echoed like a warning: Everything in Lordran has a cost. For magic? It's the mind. The soul starts to see, and seeing becomes yearning. And yearning becomes obsession. That's the beginning of Hollowing, boy.
Naruto took a long breath. Pull back. Look to your hand. He glanced down. Oscar blinked up at him, chirped softly, and nudged his hand. Naruto smiled faintly, grounding himself in the moment.
"Hey," Sasuke's voice cut through, cautious. "You good?"
Naruto nodded too fast. "Yeah, yeah. Totally. Just... chakra backlash."
Sakura didn't look convinced. Sasuke narrowed his eyes but said nothing.
Naruto forced a grin. "So, uh... we didn't finish our swordsmanship trade. Still wanna go over that, teme?"
Sasuke raised a brow, caught off guard by the sudden shift. "Now?"
"Why not?" Naruto said, shrugging with one arm still around Oscar.
Sasuke glanced at Sakura, who looked unsure, but nodded.
"Fine," Sasuke said, folding his arms. "But only because you actually look like you need a distraction."
As Sasuke began explaining the trade they'd made days ago, Naruto let his mind slip into stillness, tuning out everything except his teammate's voice and the comforting weight of Oscar nestled in his arms.
But his thoughts churned beneath the surface. Why was there a soul bound to Sasuke? And who the hell was Ashura?
The world he thought he understood was starting to feel just as strange, dangerous, and unknowable as Lordran. But Sasuke's calm tone kept him anchored, and when Sakura leaned forward, her interest clearly piqued, he found himself pulled back into the moment.
"Can I join?" she asked.
Sasuke and Naruto turned to her in unison. "You wanna learn swordsmanship?" they asked, almost identically.
"No, but I think we can make this a team thing. An exchange of skills. You two already made your trade, so I'll make a proposal too. I can teach you how to break out of genjutsu. And I've been working on explosive tag formulas. I can show you how to make custom ones."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed in thought, then gave a rare nod. "That's useful. From the Uchiha library, I've studied several taijutsu forms. Aikido does suit your style. I'll teach you that."
Naruto raised his hand. "I'll give you a weapon."
"A weapon?"
He grinned. "Something cool. Trust me."
She smiled with genuine excitement. "I can't wait for tomorrow."
And for a moment, the world felt normal again. Just three kids, talking about training and growth, building something stronger together. Even if none of the three were normal by any stretch of the word.
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Naruto could barely sleep.
No matter how long he lay still, eyes closed and breathing slow, his mind kept drifting back to what he saw when he looked at the world through his soul. Sakura's warped second face. The figure behind Sasuke. The accusation whispered without voice: You killed Ashura.
The images wouldn't leave him. They clung to the edges of his thoughts like wet cloth.
Finally, with a low sigh, Naruto sat up and pulled on his jacket. If he couldn't sleep, he might as well do something useful.
He stepped outside into the cool night air and found Kiba leaning against the wooden fence, Akamaru curled at his feet. It was just past 1 a.m.
"Yo," Naruto said quietly.
Kiba looked over and raised a brow. "You're up early."
Naruto shrugged. "Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd start Oscar's training. Gonna turn him into a ninchū partner."
Kiba blinked, then gave a short nod. "Huh. You know, I've got nothing better to do."
They moved to the clearing behind the house, where the moonlight cut clean shadows into the grass. Akamaru followed with a lazy yawn.
Kiba began walking Naruto through the process—how the binding worked, what the seals meant, the importance of the sequence of hand signs.
After a few rounds of practice, Naruto had the basics down.
"Alright," Kiba said, stretching his arms. "Let's run it once or twice more before you go for the real thing."
Naruto caught the shift in his tone. Just a faint hesitation. And Akamaru gave a soft bark, like a quiet reprimand.
"Kiba," Naruto said. "You okay?"
Kiba paused. For a moment, he didn't answer.
Then, with a sigh, he muttered, "The binding's not hard to mess up."
"What happens if I do?"
"Normally, when the contract is perfect, a ninken gains the ability to speak... like a person. But if you mess up? Well... let's just say, things don't go as planned."
Naruto blinked, then looked down at Akamaru.
"Yeah. I... botched Akamaru's contract when I was a kid."
Akamaru gave an irritated bark, then immediately jumped on Kiba, licking his face aggressively.
Naruto watched the scene unfold with a soft smile. "Honestly? It's kinda cool how close you two are. You don't need words."
Akamaru barked again, proud and smug.
Kiba sat up, still wiping dog slobber off his cheek. "Thanks, man."
Naruto gave a nod. "Let's try the real one."
He turned to Oscar, who had been perched quietly on a log, watching with curious eyes.
Naruto bit his thumb, drawing a line of blood, and channeled chakra into it. With slow precision, he sketched a binding seal across Oscar's forehead, his hand steady. Then he formed the hand seals as Kiba had taught him. He placed his palm to the seal, feeling his chakra surge.
"Oscar," he said quietly. "You're more than just a companion. You're my partner. My blade. My shield. Will you walk this path with me?"
Oscar's eyes gleamed. His voice rang out—not from his mouth, but from the soul.
I SHALL.
The seal flared. The glow surged outward like a sunburst, blindingly bright.
Kiba stumbled back, shielding his face. "What the hell is happening?!"
Oscar wasn't exactly a lizard.
Yes, physically he looked like one. But when Naruto gazed at him through the lens of soul-sight, it became clear that Oscar was something else entirely.
A crystal construct. A living, breathing creature made not of flesh or blood, but of crystallized soul. His body shimmered like carved diamond, smooth and jagged all at once.
And beneath it all, Naruto could barely see a trace of any organic soul. If there was something soft beneath that crystalline shell, it was long since buried under layers of condensed essence.
Then Naruto's breath hitched.
His stomach dropped with the force of a falling boulder. I just gave chakra to a creature made of crystallized soul.
His thoughts raced back to Lordran, to the magic hand axe, to the moment he added chakra and it exploded into brittle fragments.
What had he just done?
"Oscar!" Naruto barked, panic sharpening his voice. "Expel the energy! Push it out, NOW!"
Oscar chirped, confused, his tiny head tilting as the glow around his body began to intensify. Light poured from his joints and mouth like a furnace about to crack. He didn't know what was happening.
Naruto didn't wait.
He lunged forward, pressed both palms to Oscar's back, and pushed his soul in sync, to redirect. He closed his eyes and visualized his Spiraling Soul Cannon technique—how the energy twisted and compressed, how it was shaped by will.
Come on... just like before. You're not a weapon, Oscar. You're a partner. Move with me.
And Oscar did.
He squeaked low in his throat, body trembling, and then the pressure shifted. His crystalline body flexed and aligned with Naruto's intent.
Then Oscar opened his tiny jaws.
A beam of white light erupted as the lizard fired his laser.
It hissed and cracked the air, warping the world around it as it cut across the clearing.
Naruto's vision went white, then black.
A sharp ringing filled his ears, like a thousand bells clanging at once. His body thudded to the ground. He couldn't tell if he was cold or hot. Couldn't tell up from down. His fingers were numb, and his lips tasted like iron.
But as the world slowly steadied, as the colors returned, sound dimming as he opened his eyes—Oscar stood in front of him, blinking, his glow now calm and contained, no longer wild or unstable.
Alive.
Whole.
Naruto smiled, shaky and slow, and let out a breath that rattled his ribs.
"Good... job... partner," he mumbled, pulling Oscar into his arm. The little lizard chirped once, curling up against his chest.
And Naruto finally let himself slip into sleep, heart steady, soul light, the two of them together under the stars.
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Meanwhile, Kiba trembled as he held Akamaru close, the pup whimpering and curling into his chest. He tried to be brave, tried to be composed like he was taught to be. But his hands were shaking. His eyes were wet.
Two flickers of movement broke the edge of the trees, and Kiba turned to see Kakashi and Kurenai stepping into the clearing.
"Kiba, report," Kurenai said quickly. Her voice was sharp and commanding, but her hands were gentle, steadying him by the shoulders. She wasn't just his superior right now.
She was his sensei.
Kiba gave his report as best he could, stumbling through what he saw—the binding ritual, the light, the beam, the blinding explosion.
Kakashi barely responded.
His full attention was locked on the scorched clearing ahead, on what remained.
In the middle of the forest, a massive spire of crystal had erupted from the earth. Like a glacier frozen mid-burst, it rose in jagged veins of gleaming soul-glass, its surface laced with fractal patterns and pale, pulsing veins.
At the top, a bird landed. It chirped once, then trembled.
Kakashi activated his Sharingan just as it happened. The white-haired man watched, horrified, as the dark energy within the crystal surged upward. A web of dense Yin chakra spread through the spire like a sickness, infecting the bird. In seconds, its body turned gray. Then white. Then...
Crack.
It became a statue of itself, frozen in place and then it shattered, falling into dust and glitter.
The forest beneath the spire began to rot.
Grass curled and browned. Trees withered, bark flaking like ash. Bugs caught in the radius simply dropped, their bodies already hollow.
Kurenai stepped forward after she had commanded Kiba to take Naruto back to the house and get some sleep. "Is that... crystal release?"
Kakashi didn't respond.
"What kind of summoning clan has a Kekkei Genkai?" she asked, more quietly now.
Still, Kakashi said nothing.
"I'll clean up this area, and you can make the report to the Hokage about all of this. Seriously, it feels like Naruto drops a new migraine every other day," Kurenai muttered.
"You don't even know the half of it," Kakashi sighed, picking up a stray crystal beetle. It shimmered for a moment in his palm before dissolving into glittering dust.
One thing was certain, Naruto's summoning clan held answers Kakashi needed. If he didn't uncover the truth before this mission ended, the danger surrounding Naruto would only grow. And Kakashi had already lost too much to let that happen again.
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Author Note:
1 – Naruto's Soul Vision of Sakura and Sasuke:
Let's not beat around the bush: What Naruto saw latched onto Sasuke's soul was Indra's soul.
This decision was my way of making some sense out of Kishimoto's bullshit. Excuse my language, I love Kishimoto and deeply respect his work but I still don't know what he was thinking with the whole reincarnation concept.
By definition, reincarnation means: "The rebirth of a soul in a new body after biological death."
So technically, Indra and Ashura should've been reborn with new souls and new identities. But canon tells us otherwise. Hashirama and Madara had their own souls. Naruto and Sasuke have theirs. So… what gives?
That's why I'm going with a more popular fan theory: Ashura and Indra's chakra didn't reincarnate in the true sense, it latched on. And that, to me, sounds more like soul-parasitism than true reincarnation.
Which brings us to Dark Souls Naruto—he's already messed with the laws of life and death. Because of that, Ashura's soul (or what was left of it) has basically been obliterated inside him. It's gone. No more "destiny cycle" nonsense. Just Naruto.
As for Sakura's soul… If you want a visual, think Junji Ito's Tomie Kawakami and her iconic double face. Yeah. That's the vibe. (Look her up if you don't know—creepy, right?)
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2 – Oscar's Crystal Breath:
Oscar's finally done it—he showed off his Crystal Release breath attack. If you've played DS3, you'll recognize it from the Ravenous Crystal Lizard—which, by the way, is Oscar's adult form.
In Dark Souls 1, crystal attacks often carry a curse effect which is essentially instant death, ignoring most forms of resistance. So yeah. Oscar's not just the adorable pet anymore—he's a walking death ray who can bypass durability and erase you from existence if you mess with Naruto.
And that's exactly why he's Naruto's partner.
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Let me know what you think of these developments! Always open to thoughts, theories, or wild speculations.
—Adam
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[ Personal Note: First off, thanks a ton to all of you for sticking with this story. Seriously, you guys are awesome. Now, if you're interested in supporting me on P@treon, let me just say that over there, I post these massive 5k-word chapters. But heads up, if you're jumping to P@treon, you'll need to start from Chapter 73, since that's where this chapter lines up with the content there.
To everyone here just reading along, please don't forget to leave a comment! Honestly, your comments make my day, and they let me know you're as invested in this story as I am. So yeah, thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!