Arthev forgot to breathe.
The mask of indifference he wore like a second skin didn't just crack; it disintegrated. The impossible was staring him in the face.
Shukaku.
Memories that weren't quite his, stories from a life he hadn't lived slammed into his skull. He knew those markings. He knew that bloating, sandy bulk. The One-Tail. The desert terror of the Hidden Sand. But this wasn't the Elemental Nations. This wasn't Konoha.
"You look like you've swallowed a lemon, kid."
The voice was a tectonic plate shifting, a deep, grating vibration that rattled Arthev's bones. The massive tanuki shifted, and a landslide of sand poured off its flank, splashing into the black water beneath them.
"Cat got your tongue?" Shukaku leaned in, amber eyes burning with predatory intelligence. "Or should I say... raccoon?"
Arthev forced his heart out of his throat. He needed a anchor. He clenched his fists, the bite of his nails against his palms grounding him.
"You're Shukaku," Arthev said. It wasn't a question. It was an accusation. "The One-Tail."
"Oh, look at that. The twig speaks." Shukaku let out a bark of laughter that whipped up a gale across the dark ocean. "Gold star for the obvious. Yeah, I'm Shukaku. And since you're currently gawking like a fish, I'm naming you 'Stunned Face.' It fits."
Arthev's eye twitched. The shock was fading, replaced by a cold, calculating confusion. "Skip the nicknames. Where is this? Why are you here?"
He gestured to the void around them. No stars. No horizon. Just an endless, ripple-less black ocean and a mountain of sand that shouldn't exist.
"Straight to business. I like that." Shukaku scratched his belly, the sound like sandpaper on stone. "This is your head, kid. Your inner world. A bit damp for my liking,needs more dunes, less... wet, but it's what you've got."
"My subconscious?" Arthev felt the pieces clicking together, disjointed and terrifying. The breakthrough in the grove. The snap of something breaking inside him as he hit the bottleneck. "So I reach Level 10, and my reward is a psychological hallucination?"
"Watch your mouth," Shukaku growled, dragging a massive claw through the water. "I'm no hallucination. I'm the tenant. You see that fancy tree spirit you've been dragging around?"
Arthev stiffened. "My martial spirit."
"The very one. You think that's just a piece of wood?" Shukaku snorted. "That thing is primal. It holds memories and shapes older than you can comprehend. You hit the threshold, poured energy into the roots, and the Tree manifested me to handle the load. I'm not some outside squatter, kid; I'm grown from the source. Which means, unfortunately, I'm attached to you."
Arthev ran a hand through his hair. The Wood Release... the strange vitality... it made sense, and yet it didn't. "A Tailed Beast attached to a martial spirit," he muttered. "That shouldn't be possible."
"And stop looking at me like you've read my biography," Shukaku drawled, mistaking Arthev's recognition for mere shock.
"Whatever you think is happening, the reality is simple: You've got me. You get the sand, the density, the soul power as you stiff-necked locals call it, and a whole lot of chaos."
"Chaos," Arthev repeated, latching onto the one detail that mattered right now. "The ring. The red ring."
He remembered the sensation of the breakthrough. The heat. It hadn't been the yellow of a hundred-year ring, or even the purple of a thousand. It had been blood-red.
"A hundred-thousand-year ring on a Level 10 Spirit Master," Arthev said, his voice dropping. "If walk out of here with a red ring, and I'm dead. The Spirit Hall, the Empires, they'll dissect me before I can cast a single skill."
Shukaku rolled onto his back, floating buoyantly. "Yeah, red is a bit loud. Screams 'freak of nature,' doesn't it?" He peered at Arthev with one eye open. "You want to hide it."
"I want to survive," Arthev corrected. "Can you mask it?"
"Pick, picky." Shukaku grinned, exposing rows of jagged teeth. "Sure. I can compress the visual signature. Wrap a little illusion around the core. The power stays the same,you'll still hit like a freight train, but to the rest of the world? It'll look purple."
"Purple," Arthev mused. A thousand-year ring for a first ring was still monstrous, still genius-level, but it wasn't impossible. It would draw attention, but not an execution squad. "Purple I can work with."
"Done." Shukaku snapped his claws. A pulse of energy, heavy and dry, washed over Arthev. "Enjoy the camouflage. But don't get comfortable, Stunned Face."
"Why?" Arthev asked, the hair on his arms standing up.
"Because I'm just the first fruit to fall from that tree." Shukaku's grin widened, stretching too far, becoming something truly demonic. "That spirit of yours is waking up. And the roots go down a hell of a lot deeper than you think."
Arthev stared into the amber eyes of the beast, realizing this wasn't a power-up. It was the start of something dangerous.
"Great," Arthev muttered, turning away as the dreamscape began to dissolve into waking light. "Just what I needed. A roommate."
"See you around, landlord!" Shukaku's cackle followed him, echoing long after the water faded to black.
To be continued.....