"New topic. I hate talking about him, it makes me want to ask you to leave, then you'll say no because of Sasuke and training and shit, then I'll feel bad for you and it all sucks because no matter how hard I try you're not going to leave until he's dead. So new topic!"
...
"Hey you're learning!" I sassily say to him. "But yeah new topic. Plus I didn't summon you here as a social call, I want to know if you've got in touch with the trapdoor spiders yet."
"Them? Yeah I did. They're in." He pats my head with one of his legs. "Aren't I just the best spider ever?"
"Wait you filled them in and everything? I was going to do that!"
"Sorry Al but they couldn't reply to you, none of them are capable of speech. Well they're not capable of speech that you can understand but as another spider I understand it perfectly fine. I went ahead and lined out your plan and what you want them to do, they're all for helping you out."
"Fantastic! That's great news!" This insane idea of mine is shaping up to be possible! "Oh Kami do I have to summon them one at a time? That will take forever."
"Nah that would be crazy! Just summon a Nest Egg." Shirokumo chuckles to himself. "Summoning them one by one, how stupid."
"Wait I can do that? I can summon part of the Nest here?" That's a thing I can do? How the hell didn't I know this earlier?
"Well it's not actually part of the Nest but rather a mass of webs that's been crafted to make summoning smaller spiders easier on our Summoner. We had some of our expert web builders make a bunch of them for a whole lot of different types of the smaller spiders, the ones that don't make sense to call one at a time since the strain of keeping a few hundred of them here is easier than keeping me here. In fact we had this one Summoner a long time ago that would summon a Nest Egg of smaller poisonous spiders right to their hand then they'd throw it at their enemies. The Nest Egg would break open and hundreds upon hundreds of spiders would pour out of it."
"Huh. So it's pretty much a ball of web that can function as a mobile Nest?"
"Yep, got it in one."
"So I can just summon a Nest Egg here and they'll know exactly what to do already? I don't have to explain anything?"
"I covered it all with them already. They're good to go whenever."
"Sweet!" This is great! All I have to do now is keep tabs on my chakra levels to make sure I don't overexert myself. Well... I do have the chakra of five jonin, not to mention that I recover it insanely quick. I doubt I'll even notice the strain on my chakra. "Could you take the Nest Egg up into your webs? That way it's hidden in plain sight. Why would a clump of webbing be strange to see in a massive web that's taking up my entire ceiling?"
"Good thinking. Plus it won't be strange for the Spider Summoner to have an unusual amount of spiders in his room either."
"I know right?" I quickly move through the hand signs for the jutsu. "Summoning Jutsu: Nest Egg!"
A large mass of webs appears in my hands. Large doesn't do it justice, it's the size of a basketball.
"Holy crap. I thought it would be smaller." I heft the ball of webs up to study it closer. "Damn. And this thing is packed with trapdoor spiders?"
"It is." Shirokumo hops off my head and lands on my desk. He crawls over to the wall an makes his way up to his webs. "Hand it over will you? I'll place it in one of the corners."
"You sure you can hold it? It's bigger than you are."
"I'll be fine, hand it over. This is nothing."
"If you say so." I tenderly pass him the Nest Egg and he snatches it up with half of his legs, he's holding it above his back as he moves towards one of the corners. "Damn. Consider me impressed, I never knew you were that strong."
"Please that was nothing." He scoffs. "I've moved heavier things than a simple Nest Egg. Now, just to poke a hole in it so they know to go ahead and start digging."
Shirokumo gently pokes one of his legs through the outer shell of the webbing and a steady trickle of small black, brown and gray spiders pours out. Each of them quickly makes their way to the wall and starts to dig into it.
"They certainly seem eager." I halfheartedly comment as I return a wave from a few of the spiders that are waiting to start digging.
"Yep. It's unusual for any of the smaller spiders to get a task from a Summoner. Usually Summoners go for the more larger and scary spiders. They're motivated, they want to impress you."
"If they finish this project in a month I'll be damn impressed. For their size I gave them a staggering task."
"Hear that ladies and gents?" Shirokumo addresses the swarm of spiders. "Think you can do this in one month?"
Ninety percent of them turn to me and salute cutely with one of their front legs while the other ten percent have already disappeared down a tunnel. It's freaking adorable, I have my own little army.
"I'll take that as a yes." I smile at the sight. "Don't burn yourselves out, feel free to take shifts and rest as much as you need to. If you all need anything tell Shirokumo and he'll tell me and I'll see what I can do. As crazy as it is, I do have some pull here. Perks of being Orochimaru's prized student and child. Oh no! Now I'm saying it too! Not his child! Not ever!"
Some of the spiders beam in pride because I care about them, others bashfully swat a leg in my direction and a few even look embarrassed from the attention.
"Now you've really won them over." Shirokumo says from next to the Nest Egg. "Don't be shocked if this is finished a week early."
"If they can do that it'd be awesome!" Knowing that this is complete well before I have to leave will be nice. "And on that lovely note, I'm all burned out myself. I need to get to sleep since it is... three in the morning? When did that happen? I really must have gotten lost in that journal Orochimaru gave me. Oh well it's not like I haven't run on zero sleep before."
"Then I'm outta here." Shirokumo waves at me. "See ya next time. Whenever that is."
"Soon. Sometime in the next day or two." I tiredly push myself up from my desk and shuffle over to my bed. "I need to get in touch with Kakashi. I need to tell him some stuff so I'll be making a letter for him. Maybe he can tell me about what's going on in Konoha."
"I could do that. We've got a network set up there." Shirokumo blandly points out. "Honestly the only major places we don't have one set up is Iwa, Kumo, and Ame. Which is rather interesting since according to you and history they're the three most likely placed to attack Konoha."
"True but I doubt anything extreme will happen until the Akatsuki makes their first big move. But asking Kakashi about Konoha will give us something to talk about. Whatever that's for another time, it's sleep time now. Hell four hours ago was sleep time."
"Yeah. Bye." He poofs away.
"Oh sweet bed. I've missed you. Your four day absence was so hard on me!"
...
One Week Later, One of the Training Fields
"Okay, so I wonder what happens if I -"
BANG!
"Right. That is what happens. Maybe if I do it this way?"
BANG!
"Nope. I just want to make the explosive seal have a variable timer! Is that too much to ask?"
BANG!
"Wow. How are none of these working? You know what fine! I'll just sink a bunch of chakra into the next one!"
BOOM!
I'm lifted up into the air and haphazardly tossed across the large open room. I bounce off the cold and hard unforgiving ground at least four times, turning end over end countless times as I sail through the air like a rag doll. Eventually this all comes to a stop. It's an abrupt and sudden halt, in other words I slammed into a wall.
"Right. That was a bad idea." I say from my impression in the wall. I'm upside down with my feet above my head. "So more chakra equals a bigger boom and has absolutely no effect in jump-starting a new part to a seal. Holy shit I'm a good twenty meters away!"
"You alright over there?" Sasuke calls from his half of the training field. Neither of us wanted to train alone so we figured we'd use the same field since we both want to work on different things. I'm tweaking seals while he's swiftly moving through endless forms of kenjutsu.
Usually it's up to Orochimaru to train us but for some strange reason he's been busy lately. He's left us on our own for a while to work on things we already know. It's working out alright for now but if this keeps continuing... well let's just say I'll make it worth his time. I didn't let him live so I can be ignored. I let him live to make use of him myself.
...
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