Body flicker
I stared at their shocked faces
They stared back
One of them coughed
I continued to stare.
Suddenly a dark haired man was beside me – seemingly materialising out of thin air. 'A shunshin' I realised.
The man began to speak, but his voice lacked emotion "why did you destroy the door?" his eyebrow was raised. I noticed that several wood chips were littering his hair and his green combat vest had become dusty.
I cleared my throat and replied in a similar voice to his "when I descended the stairs, I noticed that the house was deserted – despite my mother's calls. I assumed shinobi had infiltrated the building, and took appropriate measures to ensure a surprise attack"
The man looked unimpressed with this answer. "Because the house was silent, you assumed shinobi were attacking?"
"yes." I continued, unperturbed. "I have been expecting a kidnap attempt for quite a while, due to my potential as a shinobi." I replied unemotionally.
The man's face remained unaffected, however his eyes showed new-found respect.
"Well then, we had better begin the party before someone chokes on a fly" the man drawled, and I noticed that a large portion of the guests still hadn't moved yet. "One last thing" the man said quietly "Hokage-sama requests to meet you when the party has finished." The man stepped backwards and disappeared once again.
I felt hugely underwhelmed 'I guess he's a no nonsense kind of guy… he never said his name either' I thought before sweat dropping.
'I need to learn that Jutsu one day' I lamented, before walking towards the shocked guests.
…
Children
Not long after the party had started, I became irritable and annoyed.
Ever since my 'grand entrance', the partygoers (mostly friends of my parents) were incredibly nervous of me. Furthermore, they were completely unused to my staring. As a result, their presence here began to corrode on my patience. It was obvious that they had only come here to support my caretakers and could care less about my wellbeing. In fact, I doubt that they would have minded me never coming at all. To my own birthday!
Eventually, they got tired of my company and sent me to the corner where the other children were. The kids were annoying as hell. They ended up doing the regular one year old thing and chewed on some toys whilst gurgling… fun…
Seeing as there was nothing else to do, I sat down (as far away from the children as possible) and began training.
Now that I had worked on my fitness for several months, I was capable of feats that would have shocked me in my past life (such as smashing rocks with my fist or walking up walls – I only broke the wall twice trying to learn that!)
And so, putting those skills to the test, I began to practice my taijutsu. Considering my large background in martial arts (I had been training in kung-Fu and some taekwondo since I was ten years old) and my enhanced senses - my speed, strength and awareness had all increased with the addition of chakra - I found myself surpassing my past life's ability by far. In my old life I may have been more comfortable with my body's movements, but here I made up for it with raw power and athletics.
Whereas before, I would have been stationary and slow moving, I was now able to twist, bend and jump – as if defying gravity – to the point where I could breeze through forms and accomplish mid-air strikes.
Despite only practicing for three weeks, I had regained nearly full muscle memory and was well on my way to perfecting my Yoda-like fighting style. Never had I guessed that chakra could be so useful!
Anyway…
I was completing a particularly complicated set of moves (involving a spinning kick which morphed into a backhand strike and then a follow-up punch) when I noticed some low powered chakra signatures approaching.
Pausing mid strike, I allowed my head to turn minutely – just enough to glance at the new arrivals.
There were three in total, all of them short. The one in the middle looked to be the leader, and he was dressed quite peculiarly. The first thing I noticed was his massive blue scarf; it trailed down between his legs, and dragged along the ground as he walked. On his head he wore a strange white skull cap that allowed an offshoot of spiky brown hair to poke out. Upon his yellow shirt there featured a konoha leaf in faded red.
The other two were almost as obscure. The girl to his left had a duo of pointy orange ponytails which stood up as if electrified. She wore a red shirt and a headband which appeared navy blue. The other boy wore a large blue coat, a pair of wide circular glasses, and a bowl-cut like hairdo.
They all looked around two to three years old and were staring at me with frank admiration.
"WHOAH, ARE YOU A NINJA!?" the lead toddler blurted out – his voice full of childish enthusiasm.
'Hn… children… must they be so loud… and abrasive?' I thought despairingly whilst sweat dropping.
'Maybe I should scare them away? …Naaah… too much effort…' my inner thoughts continued.
"HEY, I WAS AASKING IF YOU WERE A NIIINJAA!" he continued to yell, scrunching his face with the effort.
I sweat dropped a third time. 'He sure does remind me of Naruto'
"Uhh… no, not really… I just trained myself how to fight and use chakra" I replied impassively. "And please refrain from shouting at me all the time. It's annoying" the last statement was accompanied by a grimace.
Instantly I was faced with a huddle of awed faces and a smattering of 'whoa's and 'cool's.
"Can you teach us, peeeeaase?" the girl asked. They looked ready to start graveling on the floor at my feet.
"…"
"PEEEEEEAAAASE?" the coat wearing boy asked.
With a violently twitching eye I answered disdainfully; "Gah! Fine… if you shut up about it, I'll give you some pointers on chakra control and exercises. But after that can you leave me alone?" my childish voice just didn't do my threat justice.
"Plus, you must refer to me as: Daichi sensei"
The leader figure gave me a hip-toothed grin and bowed down in mock reverence. Thanks to my past life's practice in observation, I could make out the shivers of excitement that he gave off, and raised my eyebrow in response. 'I don't know what they're expecting from me, but maybe I can use this opportunity to gain some… accomplices?' my inner self contemplated – 'Jiraiya won't be the only shinobi with a spy network for much longer… hehehe'.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you Daichi-sensei!" the girl chirped. "My name is Moegi and this is Konohamaru and that's Udon!" she shouted happily whilst pointing to her friends.
Said boys stood up proudly, and the leader – Konohamaru – gestured to himself proudly "that's right! We're gonna be ninjas, the best ever!" if he'd added a 'believe it' to that sentence, he could have been Naruto's spitting image.
Now that we had introduced ourselves, I decided that we should start the training I had promised them.
"Okay you guys, what do you know about chakra?" I asked in my best teacher impression. I doubted that they knew much, but it's always good to set the benchmark for future learning.
"Uuuuuh… what's chakra?"
I face vaulted in response…
…
Learn from your Urn
The rest of the party went by quickly.
The terrible trio had drilled me with questions for an hour until the brown haired man from earlier had collected the leader and the rest dispersed. Apparently the guy was their guardian and the kid was the hokage's grandson. (I knew that name rung a bell)
After that I was escorted back into the kitchen, where there was a handful of presents piled up. I was slightly interested in what they were until I opened the first three 'gifts'. All of them were textbooks! All. Of. Them.
And not ninja textbooks either, they were about civilian numeracy and science literature. After opening all of my presents, I decided that my parents must have some kind of obsession with academics. That, or they had somehow misinterpreted my ninja skills for those budding scientist. What a joke. About the only useful things I had received were some scrolls about medicine and anatomy. Not because I wanted to become a medic nin, but because of my growing senbon collection that I had no clue how to handle. I mean, they were pretty badass on the show so it's only natural for me to want them.
Eventually, I resigned myself to my fate, and decided to retreat into my room for some training before I had to meet up with the hokage. Upon entering, I noticed that a few of my belongings had been misplaced, and that there was a faint chakra signature remaining. Curious, I slunk into the room stealthily in order to catch a glimpse of anything suspicious.
There, in the centre of the room, was a giant urn.
It was almost twice as tall as I was (four and a half feet) and was half as wide. Its sides were dark brown in colour and featured a large etching of the konoha leaf which had been highlighted in a beige paint. Directly below the lid and encompassing the spout, was the depiction of a serpentine dragon.
There was something about finding an ancient relic – the urn was noticeably aged due to its dusty appearance and fading colours – being abandoned in your room that put me on edge. Why was it here? What point did it serve? Was it for me and what did it contain anyway?
Paused once again when I noticed a scroll attached to the urn's lid by a string. It was well kept and looked official.
Curiosity piqued, I walked up to the giant urn and snatched the scroll so that I could uncover the "great Urn mystery".
Up close, the scroll looked even fancier than before. It was wrapped intricately but firmly, and was enclosed using the seal of the sandaime hokage. 'So, Hiruzen decided to finally take an interest in my affairs… I wonder what we'll discuss during our interview.' Shrugging, I opened the scroll carefully and read its contents.
Greetings Daichi Ganryu.
Over this past year it has become obvious that you are a capable and powerful shinobi, despite your lack of age and experience.
My ANBU have been able to deduce from their observations that you are almost equal to Genin rank currently and should no longer be overlooked training-wise. To remedy this, I have provided you with a training tool from your ancestry – yes, your ancestors were part of konoha's shinobi ranks.
Within the urn is a number of randomly sized stones. In order to increase your chakra control, you must channel your energy into the stones until you gain complete control over them, and then attempt to levitate or manipulate their position under your own willpower. By gradually increasing the size and amount of stones you carry, you will gain an incredible degree of finesse that only you and you're ancestors could achieved.
Also within the urn, is a set of training scrolls for the academy standard jutsus and a piece of chakra paper so that you can discover your natural element. Whilst directing chakra into the material, take note of the reaction that it gives as this will be the indicator of the affinity you have.
If you work hard and master the provided materials, I shall arrange for you to be tutored privately. Until then,
Happy birthday
Hokage of konhagakure
After examining the scroll, I let out a sigh of relief. 'Finally!' I thought to myself, a big grin adorning my face.
