Pain flickers at the edges of my awareness like a guttering candle flame, refracted shards of consciousness filtering through layer upon layer of leaden fog. My eyelids twitch, the smallest movement sending new waves of aching intensity radiating through my body. Somewhere, a rhythmic beeping pierces the veil of oblivion, dragging me by inches from the comforting abyss of nothingness.
The first thing I register is the smell - astringent, clinical, with an undercurrent of something sickly sweet. It fills my nostrils, my throat, my lungs, until I feel like I'm drowning in it. Then the light, a harsh whiteness that stabs through the thin membranes of my closed eyelids, igniting fireworks of pain behind them.
I try to turn my head away, to burrow back into the dark, but even that slight motion sends agony lancing through every nerve. A groan tears from my throat, raw and ragged and entirely foreign to my own ears. It's the sound of an animal in pain, a broken thing.
The beeping quickens, sharpens, and I realize dimly that it's tracking the erratic stutter of my own heartbeat. Other sounds filter in, muffled as if through layers of cotton - the squeak of rubber soles on tile, the soft rustling of fabric, a hushed murmur of voices just beyond the edge of comprehension.
I force my eyes open, the lids gummy and heavy as if weighted with lead. The light assaults me, prismatic bursts of color that resolve slowly into the blurred outlines of a white-tiled ceiling, a strip of fluorescent lighting, the chrome railing of a hospital bed.
Memory returns in ragged shards, as sharp and merciless as broken glass. The mission. The convoy. The chaos of the explosion, heat and pressure and force slamming into me like a hammer of the gods. Kaori, her broken body half-buried in the rubble. Takeshi, reduced to a smear of blood and ruin.
And the pain, the searing agony that had swallowed me whole in the wake of the blast, that had dragged me down into a darkness deeper than any I had ever known.
A face swims into view above me, blurred at first, then sharpening into focus. A medical-nin, her brow creased with professional concern, her eyes searching mine for signs of awareness.
"Akira-san," she says, her voice carefully modulated, a soothing counterpoint to the ragged race of my pulse. "Can you hear me? You're in the hospital. You were injured in an... incident."
Incident. The word is too small, too clinical to encompass the scope of what happened. The ruin and the carnage, the loss that rips at my chest like claws sunk deep. I try to speak, but my throat is as dry and cracked as old parchment. I swallow painfully, feeling the click of my larynx, the parched rasp of my tongue against my palate.
"How... long?" The words are little more than a croak, forced out through sheer force of will.
"Three days," she says gently. "You've been unconscious for three days. We had to perform several surgeries. Your injuries were... extensive."
I close my eyes against the glare of the light, against the weight of that revelation. Three days. An eternity, and yet no time at all. My mind shies away from the implications, from the dark chasm of all that could have happened while I lay insensate and unaware.
"Your teammates..." I force out, each word an individual battle against the tightness in my chest, the dread that coils like a living thing in my gut. "Kaori and Takeshi. Are they...?"
I can't finish the question, can't give voice to the awful possibility that lurks at the edges of my mind. But I can see the answer in the medic's face, in the way her eyes flinch away from mine, in the carefully controlled neutrality of her expression.
"I'm so sorry, Akira-san," she says softly, and in that moment, the last fragile thread of hope snaps like an overtaxed wire.
The world tilts, spins, the edges of my vision going dark. The beeping of the heart monitor ratchets up into a frantic staccato, the drip of my IV suddenly as loud as the roar of a waterfall. I can feel the panic clawing at my throat, a scream building in my chest like a pressurized boiler about to rupture.
They're gone. The realization hits me like a physical blow, driving the air from my lungs in a ragged gasp. Kaori, with her quick mind and quicker smile. Takeshi, all bravado and heart, loyal to the last. My teammates, my friends. Gone, snuffed out in a single instant of fire and fury.
My hands are trembling, I realize dimly. My whole body is shaking, fine tremors that build into convulsive shudders. I can hear my own breath, shallow and rapid, the ragged sawing of air in and out of my lungs. The room spins around me, the white tiles and chrome fixtures blurring into a nauseating kaleidoscope.
"Akira-san, you need to calm down." The medic's voice seems to come from a great distance, muffled as if through layers of static. I feel her hands on me, cool and impersonal, checking my pulse, my pupils. "Nurse, I need a sedative over here, stat!"
There's a flurry of activity around me, a rush of footsteps and urgent voices. I feel a sharp prick in the crook of my elbow, a cold rush of something flowing into my veins. The edges of the world start to soften, to blur, the agony in my body receding to a dull, distant roar.
As I sink back into the waiting embrace of unconsciousness, my eyes catch on a glimpse of my own reflection in the polished surface of a medical instrument. A face I barely recognize stares back at me - gaunt, hollow-eyed, a thick bandage obscuring the left half. And there, peeking out from beneath the edge of the gauze, the livid red of a fresh scar, jagged and brutal.
The face of a stranger. The face of a survivor.
The darkness rises up to claim me once more, and I fall into it gratefully, letting the drug-induced oblivion numb the agony of body and soul alike. But even as awareness slips away, I know that this is only a temporary reprieve.
The real pain, the true reckoning, is still to come.
————————————————-
The nurse's hands are gentle but efficient as she unwinds the bandages from my face, the soft rasp of fabric against skin a familiar rhythm in the sterile hush of the hospital room. I keep my gaze fixed on the opposite wall, tracing the hairline cracks in the plaster, the small imperfections that mar the unblemished white. Anything to avoid catching a glimpse of my own reflection in the small mirror the nurse holds.
I feel the cool touch of air on my newly exposed skin, the faint sting as the adhesive edges of the bandages pull free. The nurse makes a small, approving sound in the back of her throat as she surveys her handiwork, the neat line of sutures marching across my temple like the stitching on a ragdoll.
"Healing nicely," she murmurs, more to herself than to me. "The scarring should be minimal, with time."
I make a noncommittal sound, my eyes still fixed on the far wall. Scarring. As if that's the worst of my concerns, the most pressing of my wounds. As if the ragged gash carved into my flesh can even begin to compare to the yawning chasm that has opened up inside me, the void left behind by Kaori and Takeshi's absence.
The nurse is still talking, something about changing the dressings daily, about keeping the area clean and dry. I let the words wash over me, a meaningless babble of sound that does nothing to penetrate the fog of numbness that has settled over me like a heavy shroud.
She's just finished applying the fresh bandages, her fingers deft and sure as they smooth the edges down, when there's a knock at the door. I turn my head slightly, wincing at the pull of the stitches, as Shikaku pokes his head into the room.
"Hey," he says softly, his usually sharp eyes shadowed with concern. "Up for some company?"
I shrug, the motion feeling stiff and unnatural. "Sure," I rasp, my voice rough from disuse. "Come on in."
Shikaku steps into the room, a small wooden box tucked under one arm. I recognize the familiar shape of a shogi board, the polished surface gleaming dully in the muted light.
"Thought we could play a game or two," he says, setting the board down on the small table next to my bed. "Help pass the time."
I nod, watching as he begins to unpack the pieces, setting them out in their starting positions with practiced ease. The nurse slips out of the room quietly, leaving us alone in the thick, heavy silence.
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. Shikaku finishes setting up the board, then leans back in his chair, his gaze steady on my face. I can feel the weight of all the things unsaid hanging in the air between us, the condolences and the pity and the awkward, fumbling attempts at comfort.
But Shikaku, bless him, doesn't try to fill the silence with platitudes or empty words. He simply reaches out and makes the first move, the soft clack of the tile against the board as loud as a thunderclap in the stillness of the room.
I lean forward, my eyes tracing the familiar patterns of the pieces, the intricate dance of strategy and countermove. For a moment, just a moment, I can almost forget the aching void inside me, the raw, ragged edges of my grief. For a moment, I am simply a shogi player, my mind consumed by the intricacies of the game.
We play in silence for a while, the only sound the soft click of tiles and the occasional rustle of fabric as one of us shifts in our seat. Shikaku is as canny an opponent as ever, his moves calculated and precise, but I can sense the uncharacteristic hesitancy in his play, the way he pauses just a fraction too long before each turn.
"How are things out there?" I ask finally, breaking the silence. "With the war, I mean."
Shikaku's hand hovers over the board, a captured knight clutched between his fingers. His brow furrows, his mouth tightening into a grim line.
"Not great," he admits after a long moment. "We're holding our own, but barely. Casualty rates are high, and morale is low. People are starting to talk about the possibility of a drawn-out conflict, a war of attrition."
I nod, absently rubbing at the edge of my bandage. A war of attrition. A polite way of saying that we'll keep throwing lives into the meat grinder until one side or the other runs out of bodies to feed it.
"There was some good news, though," Shikaku continues, his voice carefully neutral. "Shiori-sensei got a promotion. She's been reassigned to the front lines, to help shore up our defenses there."
I feel a dull pang in my chest at the mention of my former teacher, a throb of some unidentifiable emotion. Pride, perhaps, at her recognition. Or fear, at the thought of her facing the enemy head-on. Or maybe just a bone-deep weariness, a numb acceptance of the relentless march of loss and change.
"She came to see you, you know," Shikaku says quietly. "While you were still unconscious. Sat with you for hours, just watching you breathe."
He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a small scroll. It's sealed with a complex array of symbols, the patterns unmistakably Shiori-sensei's work.
"She left this for you," he says, holding it out to me. "Said to give it to you when you woke up."
I take the scroll with hands that shake slightly, the paper feeling heavy and fragile in my grip. I can feel the faint hum of Shiori's chakra signature emanating from the seal, as familiar to me as my own heartbeat.
For a long moment, I simply stare at it, my thumb tracing over the intricate curves and whorls of the sealing array. Part of me wants to rip it open right there, to devour whatever message or wisdom Shiori has seen fit to impart. But another part, the part that is still raw and bleeding, shies away from the thought, from the finality of this last communication.
I set the scroll down on the bedside table, my hand lingering on it for a moment before I pull away.
"I'll read it later," I say, my voice sounding distant and hollow to my own ears. "When I'm... when I'm ready."
Shikaku nods, his eyes filled with a quiet understanding. He doesn't push, doesn't pry. Just reaches out and makes his next move on the shogi board, the game continuing as if the moment had never happened.
We play in silence for a few minutes more, the familiar rhythm of the game a temporary balm to my battered soul. But something has shifted in the air between us, some intangible balance tipped by the weight of that unopened scroll.
I stare down at the board, at the complex interplay of pieces and positions. And suddenly, I see an opening, a bold move that I would have never considered before. A risk, a gambit that could shift the entire flow of the game.
Almost without conscious thought, I reach out and make the move, my hand steady and sure as I place my piece with a decisive click. Shikaku's eyes widen fractionally, his brows rising in surprise.
"Interesting choice," he murmurs, leaning forward to study the new configuration of the board. "Risky, but potentially rewarding."
I shrug, feeling a flicker of something that might be the ghost of a smile tug at the corners of my mouth. "Sometimes, you have to take a chance," I say quietly. "Even when it seems like all the odds are stacked against you."
Shikaku looks up at me, his dark eyes searching my face. For a moment, I feel like he can see straight through me, down to the broken, jagged pieces of my soul. But there's no pity in his gaze, no condescension. Just a quiet, steady understanding, a silent offer of support.
He nods once, a simple dip of his chin. Then he turns back to the board, his attention once again consumed by the intricate dance of strategy and counter-strategy.
But something has changed between us, some unspoken understanding forged in the quiet spaces between the moves. A recognition that the game we are playing is not just on this board, but in the greater arena of life and death and duty.
And as I watch Shikaku ponder his next move, his brow furrowed in concentration, I feel a flicker of something that might just be the first stirring of hope in my chest. A tentative, fragile thing, but present nonetheless.
The game is not over yet. And neither, I am starting to realize, am I.
————————————————
Kushina breezes into my hospital room like a breath of fresh air, her arms laden with containers of homemade food and her face set in a determinedly cheerful smile. Her hair is a vivid splash of color against the sterile white of the walls, her presence as bright and overwhelming as a fireworks display in the subdued hush of the ward.
"Akira-kun!" she sings out, her voice just a touch too loud, a touch too forcefully upbeat. "I brought you some of your favorites - miso ramen with extra pork, those little dango you always loved from the stand by the academy. Figured you could use some real food after all that hospital slop, you know?"
I muster a wan smile, my facial muscles feeling stiff and uncooperative. "Thanks, Kushina," I manage, my voice sounding rusty and disused to my own ears. "That's really thoughtful of you."
She waves a dismissive hand, already busying herself with unpacking the containers and setting them out on the small table by my bedside. The rich, savory scent of the ramen broth wafts through the room, mingling incongruously with the sharp tang of antiseptic.
"Nonsense," she says briskly, pressing a pair of disposable chopsticks into my hand. "What are friends for, if not to make sure you don't waste away on nothing but jello and IV fluids, right?"
I make a noncommittal sound, staring down at the steaming bowl of noodles in front of me. Logically, I know I should be hungry - I can't remember the last time I ate anything substantial. But my appetite seems to have abandoned me, along with my sense of taste and any interest in food.
Still, to appease Kushina, I pick listlessly at the ramen, twirling a few noodles around my chopsticks and bringing them to my mouth. They taste like ashes on my tongue, dry and gritty and devoid of flavor.
Kushina chatters brightly as I force myself to eat, filling the silence with inconsequential gossip and anecdotes from the village. I let the words wash over me, making the occasional grunt of acknowledgement but otherwise remaining silent. It's exhausting, this pretense of normalcy, this facade of coping.
But Kushina, bless her, keeps up the one-sided conversation with determined cheer, seeming not to notice or care about my lack of reciprocation. It's only when she mentions visiting the memorial stone to pay respects to Kaori and Takeshi that my facade cracks, a visible flinch rippling through my body like a seismic tremor.
Kushina pauses mid-sentence, her blue eyes widening with concern. "Akira-kun?" she asks softly, reaching out to lay a gentle hand over mine. "Are you okay?"
I jerk away from her touch as if scalded, my skin crawling with a sudden, irrational revulsion. The chopsticks fall from my nerveless fingers, clattering against the edge of the bowl with a discordant clang.
"No," I rasp, my voice sounding harsh and alien to my own ears. "No, I'm not okay. How could I be? They're dead, Kushina. Kaori and Takeshi are dead, and it's my fault."
Kushina makes a soft, wounded sound, her hand still hovering in the air between us. "Akira-kun, no," she murmurs, her voice thick with emotion. "You can't blame yourself for what happened. It wasn't your fault."
A harsh, bitter laugh tears itself from my throat, the sound like shards of glass scraping against my vocal cords. "Wasn't it?" I demand, self-loathing dripping from every word. "I was the one who checked those seals. I was the one who should have noticed something was wrong. If I'd just been faster, just been better..."
I trail off, my chest heaving with the force of my emotions. The anger, the guilt, the crushing weight of my own inadequacy - they boil up inside me like poison, scorching my insides with their corrosive touch.
Kushina is shaking her head, her eyes bright with unshed tears. "You couldn't have known," she insists, her voice trembling but fierce. "Nobody could have. You did everything you could, Akira-kun. You can't torture yourself with what-ifs and maybes."
"But I should have known!" I explode, my voice cracking under the strain. "I should have been able to protect them! What good am I, what use is all my training and skill, if I can't even keep my own teammates safe?"
I'm breathing hard, my heart slamming against my ribcage like a caged bird desperate for release. The wounds on my face throb in time with my pulse, a dull, insistent pain that pales in comparison to the agony in my chest.
"It should have been me," I whisper, the words tasting like bile on my tongue. "I should have died with them. It would have been better than this, than living with the knowledge that I failed them when they needed me most."
Kushina goes very still, her face draining of color. For a moment, she looks as if I've struck her, her eyes wide and stricken in her too-pale face.
Then, with a suddenness that startles me, she surges to her feet, her chair clattering to the floor behind her. Her hair whips around her face in a crimson banner, her eyes blazing with a fury that steals the breath from my lungs.
"Don't you dare say that!" she shouts, her voice raw and anguished. "Don't you dare wish yourself dead, Akira Sato! Do you think that's what Kaori and Takeshi would want? For you to just give up, to throw your life away out of some misplaced sense of guilt?"
She's crying now, hot, angry tears that spill down her cheeks in glistening trails. Her hands are balled into fists at her sides, the knuckles white with the force of her emotion.
"If you had died," she chokes out, the words seeming to tear themselves from her throat, "then I would be mourning you too. Is that what you want? To break my heart, to leave me with nothing but ashes and regrets?"
Her words hit me like a physical blow, driving the air from my lungs in a ragged gasp. I stare at her, my mouth opening and closing soundlessly, my mind reeling with the force of her anguish.
In that moment, I see myself through her eyes - a broken, defeated shell of a man, so mired in his own pain and self-loathing that he's lost sight of everything else. Of the people who still care for him, who still need him.
Of the simple, inescapable fact that, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how unworthy he feels... he's still alive. Still breathing, still fighting, in a world that has taken so much from so many.
My eyes sting with sudden, unshed tears, my throat tight and aching. "Kushina," I rasp, my voice little more than a broken whisper. "I... I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
But she's already moving, closing the distance between us in a few quick strides. Her arms come around me, pulling me into an embrace that is fierce and desperate and achingly tender.
I stiffen for a moment, my body going rigid with instinctive resistance. But then, slowly, incrementally, I feel myself relax into her hold, my head coming to rest on her shoulder as the first hot tears begin to slide down my cheeks.
We stay like that for a long time, clinging to each other amidst the detritus of our forgotten meal. The spilled ramen has seeped into the sheets, leaving a spreading stain that will no doubt earn me a scolding from the nurses. But I can't bring myself to care, not when Kushina's arms are the only thing keeping me anchored, the only thing holding back the howling void that threatens to consume me.
When she finally pulls back, her eyes are red-rimmed but soft, her hands infinitely gentle as she reaches up to brush the tears from my cheeks.
"You're not alone, Akira-kun," she says quietly, her voice rough with spent emotion. "I know it feels like it right now, like the whole world has been ripped away from under you. But you're not alone. You have people who care about you, who need you. Don't push us away. Let us help you carry this burden."
I draw in a shuddering breath, letting her words sink into me like rain into parched earth. It hurts, letting myself feel again after so long spent in numb isolation. But it's a good hurt, a necessary one. The pain of healing, of slowly, painstakingly knitting oneself back together.
"Okay," I whisper, my voice little more than a thready rasp. "Okay. I'll try."
It's not a promise, not really. But it's a start. A tentative, fragile step back towards the land of the living, towards a future that holds more than just grief and regret.
Kushina smiles at me, a small, watery thing that nonetheless warms me to my core. "That's all any of us can do," she murmurs. "Just keep trying. One day at a time."
And for the first time since I woke up in this sterile, colorless room, I feel a flicker of something that might just be hope kindling in my battered chest. It's a tiny, fragile thing, easily smothered by the weight of my guilt and sorrow.
But it's there. Stubborn, tenacious, refusing to be extinguished completely. A reminder that even in the darkest of times, there is always the possibility of light.
Of life, moving forward.
———————————————
Dawn breaks cold and clear over the memorial stone, the first pale fingers of light skating across the obsidian surface like a caress. The air is preternaturally still, the whole world seeming to hold its breath in the hushed, liminal space between night and day. I stand before the monument, my breath frosting in the chill morning air, my eyes tracing over the names etched into the dark, gleaming stone.
So many names. So many lives cut short, so many futures left unfulfilled. Each one a story ended too soon, a light snuffed out before its time.
My gaze lingers on two names in particular, the characters still sharp and new against the weathered surface of the stone. Kaori Matsuda. Takeshi Yamamoto. My teammates, my friends. The people I failed, in the end, to save.
I raise a hand, my fingers hovering over their names, not quite touching. It still doesn't feel real, even now. Some part of me still expects to turn around and see them standing there, Kaori with her wry smile and Takeshi with his cocky grin. Still expects to wake up from this nightmare to a world where they're alive and whole and by my side, the way they were always meant to be.
But that world is gone, shattered in a single instant of blood and fire and searing, unendurable loss. And in its place is this - a cold stone monument and an aching, empty space where they used to be.
I close my eyes, my throat tight and aching. The grief is still there, a yawning chasm in the center of my chest that threatens to swallow me whole. But there's something else too, a small, stubborn flicker of something that feels almost like purpose.
Slowly, carefully, I reach into my pocket and withdraw the scroll Shiori-sensei left for me. The parchment is soft and worn beneath my fingers, the edges crumbling slightly with age. I can feel the hum of her chakra signature woven into the paper, as familiar and comforting as a hand on my shoulder.
With a deep breath, I break the seal and unroll the scroll.
The sealing technique within is a work of art, the ink strokes elegant and precise, the symbols intricately interwoven in a complex dance of form and function. I recognize Shiori-sensei's distinctive style in the flowing curves and sharp angles, the way each line seems to vibrate with barely contained power.
But there's something else there too, a new element that I've never seen before. A twisting, spiraling motif that weaves through the design like a thread of molten silver, binding the disparate parts together into a cohesive whole. It's breathtaking in its complexity, awe-inspiring in its potential applications.
And there, at the bottom of the scroll, is a single line of text, written in Shiori-sensei's bold, uncompromising hand.
"For when you're ready to move forward. Don't waste what they gave you."
The words seem to sear themselves into my mind, etching themselves into my very soul. I stare at them for a long moment, my vision blurring with unshed tears.
She knew. Of course she knew. Shiori-sensei always could see right through me, always understood the workings of my mind better than I did myself. She knew that I would be lost, that I would be drowning in my own guilt and grief. And she knew that I would need something to pull me back, to give me a reason to keep going.
This scroll, this incredible, mind-bending feat of sealing mastery... it's more than just a technique. It's a lifeline, a tether to a future that I couldn't see before. A way to honor Kaori and Takeshi's sacrifice, to make their deaths mean something more than just senseless tragedy.
I run my fingers over the inked lines, my mind already racing with the possibilities. I can see the ways this technique could be adapted, could be honed into a tool of unparalleled versatility and power. A way to protect, to defend, to ensure that no one else has to suffer the way we did.
The way I did.
I'm so lost in thought, so consumed by the intricacies of the scroll, that I almost don't notice the figure approaching from the treeline. It's only when they're a few meters away that I look up, my body tensing with instinctive wariness.
An ANBU operative stands before me, their porcelain mask gleaming in the early morning light. The stylized visage of a rat stares back at me, the painted features twisted into an unsettling grin.
"Akira Sato?" the operative says, their voice distorted and androgynous behind the mask. "Your presence is requested by the Hokage."
I blink, my mind struggling to process the abrupt shift in gears. "The Hokage?" I echo, my voice sounding distant and strange to my own ears. "Why?"
The ANBU tilts their head, the motion somehow conveying a sense of impatience despite the blank, unchanging expression of the mask. "Your skills have come to the attention of certain parties," they say cryptically. "The Hokage wishes to discuss your future."
My future. The words seem to hang in the air between us, heavy with unspoken meaning. I look down at the scroll in my hands, at the names carved into the memorial stone. Kaori, Takeshi, Shiori-sensei... they all gave their lives for Konoha, for the future of our village.
Can I do any less?
Slowly, deliberately, I roll up the scroll and tuck it away, my movements steady and sure. Then I turn to face the ANBU fully, squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin.
"Lead the way," I say, my voice ringing with a clarity and certainty that I haven't felt in a long, long time.
The ANBU nods once, a sharp, efficient motion. Then they turn and begin to walk back towards the village, their black cloak billowing behind them like a shadow.
I fall into step beside them, my strides lengthening to match their brisk pace. With each step, I feel something shifting inside me, a sense of purpose settling into my bones like steel.
This is my path now. This is how I'll honor my fallen comrades, how I'll ensure that their sacrifice wasn't in vain. I'll take the skills they taught me, the strength they gave me, and I'll use them to protect our village, our people.
No matter the cost.
As we walk, the rising sun breaks over the horizon, bathing the world in a wash of golden light. I feel its warmth on my face, chasing away the lingering chill of the night.
The light catches on the scar that traces its jagged path down my temple, throwing it into stark relief against my skin. But for once, I don't flinch away from it, don't try to hide it beneath my hair or my hitai-ate.
Let it show. Let the world see the mark of what I've endured, what I've survived. Let it stand as a testament to the unbreakable bonds of teamwork, of friendship, of sacrifice.
I am Akira Sato. Survivor of Team Seven. Seal master in training.
And ANBU hopeful.
The future stretches out before me, unknown and uncharted. But for the first time since that fateful day on the war-torn road, I find that I'm not afraid to face it.
Because I know, with a bone-deep certainty, that I won't be facing it alone.
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A/N: For anyone that did not pick up on the intent, the story is going to start getting darker and the training wheels are off for young Akira. Moving forward, the title "Beneath the Leaf" will start to show its worth. For all of the early typos and inconsistencies... I apologize. I was using ChatGBT to edit for me but it was changing structure and adding a bunch of random none sense. I have since switched to Sudowrite so the quality of chapters should improve.
I am looking for an editor so that I can eventually stop using AI all together. I often create run on sentences and other huge pet peeve errors on my own which would drive most of you crazy too! Anyways, thanks for reading!
Please let me know your thoughts or suggestions below! If you enjoy your read - leave a stone!!
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Release Tempo: 5-10 Chapters weekly.