Celestial Path Chapter 9 (Patreon)

Quelaag... What the actual fuckity fuck was I going to do with a Dark Souls, demi-goddess basically?

 I could see it already.

Kushina/The Fourth Hokage- "Why the hell is a Daiyoukai spider following you?"
My dumbass- "Uhhh... She found me!"

"Why do you look so vexed?" Quelaag spoke and I realized that the thin slip of a dress covering her form was made out of silk. And I had no doubt of the origin of the silk in question.

I took a deep breath and said bluntly. "I have no idea how to explain your arrival Quelaag. I live in a city of assassins and mercenaries basically with myself having a very valuable magical bloodline that will undoubtedly have people watching my moves in the future."

'If I am not being watched even as I speak now...' I thought with a mental groan.

There was a pause before Quelaag spoke bluntly. "I see... Then use whatever excuse you need, but it's not like I can hide my power and control over other spider kind." 

I blinked hearing that and I had a light bulb go off in my head. "Uhh... Actually, I do have an idea." I then went on to speak about the Youkai of the world and I was thinking that maybe if we were lucky Quelaag could take over a number of spider Youkai and have herself just... Fall into being labeled a higher tier spider youkai.

Quelaag gave a slight hum before shrugging and saying without a change to her demure expression. "Hmm... Very well. When night rolls around and the spiders hunt, we will take the measure of my local kin and I will bring them into my web." 

Her eyes then sharpened onto my form before she questioned slowly. "But yourself... How does your mortal fire have no decay is my question Akari Sadra."

I stilled hearing that and to that, I shook my head before saying quietly. "Later... No idea if there are any other ears."

Quelaag's molten golden eyes gazed into mine for a long uncomfortable moment before I heard a loud snap of her neck as her head blurred to the side and looked into the darkness of the other side of the river we were beside.

She stared into the darkness and her head tilted to the side as I felt a pressure fill the surroundings before she spoke with velvet soft murder in her tone. "Begone to the depths, filth... I feel your grasping hands and they are an eyesore." 

I saw her scowl as if nothing happened and then she snapped her fingers and a loud rumble rang out before I saw a violent pillar of flames and smoke shoot up past the tree line in the distance.

"What happened?" I asked before covering my ears as a sharp piercing scream rang out that made me likewise scream as the water vibrated like it was placed in front of a massive concert stereo system.

As I screamed when I felt my eardrums quite literally pop within my ears very painfully... And worse even as my immortality was repaired. I felt my eardrums pop again, and again before I felt Quelaag's hand land on my shoulder and then within a couple of moments the pain went away as my eardrums fixed themselves.

And besides the icky feeling of a fuck load of exploded ear drums stuck in my ears. I was fine.

But it was a brutal reminder... That despite being immortal, if I got overloaded by sensory overload or just crippled I could still be fucked over.

"What... The fuck was that?" I demanded as I took some water from the river to wash out the gore stuck in my ears.

Quelaag shifted and finally looked towards me and then back outwards where she spoke. "A treader of darkness. Something that belongs in death, and buried long ago. It has fled though."

I grimaced hearing that... Abomination still lived.

So I took a deep breath and spoke. "Alright. Let's go to the base I already started a good bit away from the river." 

And Quelaag silently nodded and followed me without a word towards the large wood cabin I made.

Once we got into there I sat down on the bed of thick leaves I made that gave me a good bit of padding. And I noted with a wry smile that Quelaag's eyes glowed with enough molten orange light that the direction she was looking was visibly lit up.

"So... How much do you remember" I asked as I brushed a hand across my face. Before I added on seeing the Chaos Witches obvious confusion. "Of your previous life that is being the daughter of Izalith?" 

Quelaag gave me a long look before speaking slowly as I surrounded the cabin with more Mokuton wood to make the area stronger and to keep our voices from leaking out in any way.

"I remember it all Akari, I remember standing beside my mother to cast down the immortal dragons, I remember the Fire fading and my mother attempting to make her own flame." She paused with a hand of hers going to her waist and I could all but imagine what she was thinking.

She was thinking of her monstrous body. A monstrous molten spider demonic body that began just below her waist and the demonic energy that drove her mad.

She took a deep breath and looked me in the eye as she said. "I remember everything... Including my death, and then the Celestial Grimoire took my soul with a promise that should you become powerful enough. You could set my world to order, a lasting peace that would not face the fading of the Fire." 

I blinked hearing that. And after a moment I spoke slowly. "Your world... Is complicated to say the least. Literally, everything was Gwyn's fault though. Making the world revolve around a fire which would by its very nature fade without fuel was a terrible idea when the world was fine before he made the First Flame." 

That and cursing humanity born of the Pygmy was a fucking stupid idea as the immortal cursed nature basically turbo fucked the world when the abyss and the cursed nature of the dark soul filled the First Flame.

Quelaag tilted her head to the side and said bluntly. "I personally don't care for my world all that much. I swore a soul-binding oath for a new chance at life and if you can one day become powerful enough to return to my world and save my family that are cursed beyond understanding then I will be beyond happy."

I got what she meant as I added on.

"But you aren't holding your breath." 

To which Quelaag's glowing eyes tightened on my form before she gave a wane smile and nodded. "Yes. After all, you are still but a young man. Great potential is still but potential in the face of true power." 

There was a solid silence for a while before Quelaag spoke up again with some force in her voice. "Now that we are in a private area... Will you explain why your flame of humanity is unfading?" 

I gave Quelaag a look before I spoke slowly. "One of my powers gave me true immortality. I am going to age until I reach my twenties, and then my aging will end. But I am truly simply incapable of dying with my wounds quickly healing." 

Quelaag's lips twitched for some reason and to that, I gave her a weird look as I said. "I mean... It's good for you, as with you being my companion you also will share in my lifespan as far as I am aware." 

But then I stilled as I shivered like someone was walking over my grave or something as a soft crunching noise rang out.

I held up a hand sign and I flared my chakra outwards with the mokuton wood of my cabin snapping outwards with tendrils that violently whipped the surroundings.

"Jake, are you in there?" A soft inhuman voice whispered and I shivered hearing my old life's name.

Then I scowled as whatever was out there... It wasn't human and was obviously something that needed to die.

"Quelaag, I-" I paused seeing the pure anger in Quelaag's face with her molten eyes aglow as she visibly took a deep breath to steady herself. 

"The abomination out there knows my mother's voice along with the nickname she gave me." 

Without another word, we left my cabin and I frowned as the forest was darker than it should be with it still being before noon. But the dim sunlight streaming through the thick tree cover was the amber light of the late afternoon.

"This way... I am close to the river." The voice continued and we followed the voice.

I could feel and knew this was a terrible idea. Like a fly to a spider's web. But I didn't want some spooky ass voice messing with my cabin and taunting me throughout the night to say nothing of whatever Quelaag scared off previously.

And soon enough we found our target at a small pond a bit of a ways away from the river.

A... Woman, with long black hair that fell into the pond she was leaning in front of.

I couldn't see her face as it was covered in dark hair, but she was clad in a tight-fitting a ratty but eerily clean shift that clung to her voluptuous form.

"My little boy died in this pond you know." She whispered and I staggered as some fae magic filled my body with lethargy and leaden weight.

"He was going to become a big strong ninja as he always said... But he was so young that the academy back then took non-clan children at ten during the Second Great Ninja War." 

The woman... No, the youkai looked directly towards me, and her face was uncovered to be a compressed face that seemed too small for her overly voluptuous form which was more easily seen with how she turned towards us.

"He was so tired after practicing his water walking... That, was when he fell into these waters. He never came up. And when I went in to get him. I never came back either." She finished with a grin with white teeth and a too-large grin that stretched literally from ear to ear.

And unbidden my inherited memories of Akari stirred as I knew what this thing was. "Chīnouya." I groaned out as I realized why my Mokuton whips didn't hurt her in the slightest.

Chīnouya were spirits that cared for the souls of lost children who died and weren't collected by the Shinigami and left to fester in the world. They were noted for their caring natures to all the souls of children they adopted with their dead milk forming within their enlarged breasts giving the child souls the strength needed to pass on by themselves.

The issue was when a Chīnouya formed of a mother who lost their children and wasn't properly buried and given their burial rites in a location far from any children to nurture. That dead spirit milk within their bosom would curdle and twist their minds. 

Making the Chīnouya desire to bring children who were untainted by sin into their arms so they could nurture them all the same.

'Chīnouya are tree spirits... This is a whole damned forest, which one is she bound to, and is the tree even around here at the pond?' 

I grabbed Quelaag's wrist as I felt the heat building up in the surroundings. "Miss, I do not need your care. Please let us go our separate ways lest this erupt in violence." 

The Chīnouya frowned before she gave a weak smile and said. "Little one... I know you are an orphan going through so many changes. I will be watching you, if you need a mother just call for me. I will be able to hear your whispers from any lake, river, or mirror." 

And then the tree's shuddered with the Chīnouya's form breaking apart into fog that blew away in a heavy wind with the light streaming through the tree cover above brightening.

'Oh joy... Got a youkai offering a nice comfortable suicide that's lovely.' I thought with an exhale.

"I feel like burning this forest down would be for the best." Quelaag muttered and my lips twitched before I dryly agreed.

"That would likely be for the best. But that would get me in a lot of trouble, to say the least."

I brushed a hand across my face and took a deep breath as I centered my heart as I remembered how Yokai quite literally fed on a mortal's fear and negative emotions.

"Alright... Time to just get out of trouble for now." I spoke as I flexed my chakra with a large square of Mokuton wood surrounding us. And then we were pulled into the earth where we went back to my cabin with us being deep under the earth.

-

"Seriously... I looked in the library Yugao, but I still can't find out what the hell a Lorax is!" Anko whined as she and the anbu agent were standing within a tree as they painfully tried to follow Akari's meandering and random as-hell tracks through the forest.

"And what the hell is this brat's malfunction!? How the hell are we supposed to follow someone who can fly? Why didn't he have like a dozen anbu on his ass before he even entered the forest?" Anko continued to whine.

Yugao Uzuki gave a sigh and said with some annoyance. "Lord Hokage ordered for us to follow after him so we wouldn't be in sight of him... The Hokage wants for Akari to think he is on his own or with his own teammates. Not being babysat by jonin." 

To that, Anko gave Yugao a dirty look as they continued running through the Youkai Forrest. "Yugao... The brat likes to hide underground and can fly. Subtle tracking isn't really a thing with him." 

And after a few minutes of running through the enchanted forest with them flaring their jonin level chakra to scare off some youkai and chakra beasts. They found Akari's not at all subtle base.

A large square building covered in wooden spikes with vicious curved thorns covering the spikes and the few flatter areas with large green leaves that had a strong musty smell appearing everywhere.

With Anko coming closer and let out an exhale as she muttered. "The thorns are from Nightshade... And the leaves are Hemlock. This kid is making sure the boars won't fuck with his house at least."

Anko carefully retreated backwards before she sniffed and her senses that were attuned via being a serpent contract holder made her stiffen. "I smell... A spider, a woman was beside Akari, and she went into the house or she was stalking him and she is still here."

Yugao gave a slight hum before she leaned down and placed her hand onto the ground before Anko's senses picked up the anbu pulsing her chakra into the ground to see what Akari was up to. Which was how they caught Akari in his 'Lorax?' technique before.

And the purple-haired anbu woman went still as she saw that Akari and the mystery woman were deep... Deep underground under Akari's main base that was obviously just a patsy with Akari laying on a bed while the youkai had crawled up above his head and with its large monstrous spider body was making a web around the ceiling!