It's been 5 years he crossed over to this world, the world of shinobi. Fortunately he was born in a village that was moderately peaceful compared to the other four great villages.
He was born in the same year nine-tails attacked the hidden leaf village. His parents lived through the disaster unharmed.
It took almost five years to adjust to his new body. If one wants to put it in analogy of computer it would be like installing windows 10 in a computer with 512 MB RAM, and intel atom processor. At least the RAM size can increase.
But he wasn't complaining because although the last five years were very boring, an adult mind in an infant body helped in a rapid development of his brain. Even though he was like a glutton, eating two times more than other children, he didn't gain any weight. Almost all the nutrition and energy were used in the development of his brain. Surprisingly he could understand many difficult mathematical problem his previous self couldn't even start to comprehend. Also he could memorise things very easily.
Now that he had adjusted to his new body, he could start planning his next move. He didn't want to change the canon timeline, even if he wanted to, he couldn't. He was powerless. He was just a five year old boy born in a civilian family with no special bloodline.
It was also a blessing in disguise, he didn't have the responsibility that a children from a clan had.
But still, from what he remembered, the world of Naruto would be flung into chaos in the future, and if he wanted to survive or have an influence in the said future he would have to be powerful enough.
Chakra, what a fascinating energy! He closely examined the rotating leaf on the tip of his finger. He then picked another four leaf, each on the tip of the remaing fingers of his right hand. They started rotating at a high speed. The leaf couldn't withstand the force, as they disintegrated into numerous bits of pieces.
"Ku ku ku...," he crackled manically. He was satisfied with his chakra control.
When he first tried the leaf sticking exercise as described in the anime, he was surprised how easy it was. So he started dabbling in different ways to manipulate the leaf. And like the first time, they were easy. After few trials, he concluded that his fine chakra control must be due his developed brain. Chakra, was after all a part of your body that can be controlled consciously.
Should I? He was in a dilemma. He wanted to infuse chakra in every part of his body just like shinobis do to increase their speed, strength and reflex. But he wanted to do it differently. What he wanted to do was to continuously infuse chakra in every part of his body without stopping. The process should be slow such that his rate of recovery of chakra would be slightly faster than the rate at which his chakra would infuse with his body cells.
Fortune favours the bold. With that thought he closed his eyes, steadied his breath, started to gather chakra into his fingers, then palm, then wrist and slowly it covered his entire right arm, and he repeated the same process with his left arm.
If anyone would look at him, they would only see a normal child with black hair meditating. It would require a hyuuga to see that the concentration of chakra was more on his hands than any other parts of his body.
"Phew!" he exhaled out loud. It was really difficult to maintain his concentration.
It was working He was excited that his experiment was successful.
Its really difficult though. He lamented.
"Son, why are you here? Didn't I tell you to play with other children in the park?" A female voice was heard from outside the room.
"But mom, I don't want to play..."
"ITSU, HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE–"
"Okay okay, I am going," he agreed. He couldn't win against his mom. She was so overbearing sometimes.
"Okay, make sure to come home before sunset," she said in a sweet voice.
"Old witch," he grumbled in a low voice.
"Did you say anything, Itsu?"
"Nothing mom, just some random thoughts," he hastily replied.
He then put on a black shirt, combed his messy hair. He didn't bother to change his blue pants as they were decent enough according to his own opinion.
"Mom, I'll be going then."
"Okay son, take care."
The park was nice, well one couldn't call it a proper park, rather it was an open field.
Itsu always like to sit under one of the trees bordering the field. He didn't like to play with the children, well he wasn't a child afterall.
My valuable time! He was sad. He could use this time to experiment with chakra in his home. He couldn't do it in the open as it would attract unwanted attention.
The person whose attention he was most afraid of attracting was Danzo. He could remember that Danzo was behind the massacre of Uchiha clan. Well, it didn't happen yet. He didn't know the exact timeline though. Even if he wanted to stop it, he couldn't, he was too weak. He could only bury his guilty conscience deep down.
As for the reason for not attracting Danzo's attention, he didn't want to become like those Root shinobis, emotionless puppets.
Time went by slowly, as Itsu became more proficient in maintaining the infusion of chakra at a steady rate. It took almost a year of continuous practice to achieve such result. He didn't need to consciously infuse chakra into his muscles any longer, it became more of a autonomous function, for which he was glad. He was much more powerful, his strength, stamina, speed and reflex increased to a satisfactory level. He was pretty confident he could evade attack from the genins pretty easily, as for chunins or Jonins, they were a different matter all together. He had two years left, before he joined the Shinobi academy.
At first, his parents were very reluctant when he said he wanted to become a shinobi. He didn't give up though. After continuous bickering–convincing, they gave in to his demands.
Academy was not exciting as he thought it would be. Iruka sensei mainly taught about the history of five great nation, especially land of fire. He was passionate when talking about the first hokage, how great he was, all that.
But Itsu had different opinion. Although the first hokage was great, he made a great mistake, mistake of confining the tailed beast inside humans and using them as gift to five great nations. It was the beginning of another cycle of war. Tobirama was even bigger as*ole. He was the reason Uchiha and other clans in the village never got along. Although Uchiha were a little emotionally unstable due to their sharingan but allocating the clan to the outskirts of village was a big mistake. It was inevitable that the Uchiha clan would start to resent the village and with time resentment would only grow.
Nonetheless it was foolish to think of the things happened in the past, which he didn't have the power to change.
The first year in the academy was very uneventful. They were taught basic martial arts, practicing with blunt kunai, running to increase stamina, the basic leaf sticking exercises and so on.
Itsu was very careful not to perform extraordinarily in class, he didn't have the backing of a clan after all. It would do him no good to out-perform everyone and being the centre of attention. He kept his grade average.
He also kept the interaction with clan kids to a minimum. He pretended to be normal kid, a bit antisocial, that's all.
But despite all his cautiousness he was bound to get noticed by someone. Fortunately it wasn't a teacher, instead it was a student, the one, Itsu was very familiar with, Shikamaru because both employed the same tactics, holding back in class, scoring average. But their reason was different, Shikamaru was too lazy and Itsu was afraid.
"You are Itsu, right?" asked Shikamaru from behind.
"Why are you asking me something you know already?" Itsu replied with a sarcastic tone. Itsu knew it was difficult to deceive a genius like Shikamaru.
"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered, but it didn't escape Itsu's enhanced hearing.
"Well, why do you hold back in the class?" Shikamaru asked.
Straight to the point, ha. Itsu sighed mentally.
"The same reason you do," Itsu replied nonchalantly.
"Too troublesome," Itsu added copying Shikamaru's catch phrase.
There was a hint of surprises in Shikamaru's eyes for a moment. Then he chuckled and asked, "how about a game of shogi?"
Itsu was surprised at the sudden invitation but soon it was replaced by wariness.
A game of shogi... It might be a simple game for others, but for a Nara, they can evaluate one's mentality through the game. Should I accept? He was hesitant.
I don't want a spotlight but befriending a Nara isn't bad either. Finally he decided.
"Sure, when?" Itsu replied.
"How about you come to my house after school?" Shikamaru offered.
"Okay," Itsu agreed.
It was during evening, he went to Shikamaru's place. After returning home, he realised that he didn't know where did Shikamaru lived, so he had to ask for direction to the Nara clan.
He was standing in front of a traditional japanese home. The house was pretty big.
Shikamaru's dad is the clan head after all. Itsu thought.
He was about to ring the bell when a man who looked just like a older version of Shikamaru came out.
It must Shikamaru's dad, Shikaku Nara. He concluded seeing the uncanny resemblance.
"Good afternoon, Nara-san," Itsu bowed as in Japanese tradition.
"You must be Itsu, my son is inside," Shikamaru's dad replied lazily.
Shikamaru must have told him about me. Itsu realised.
"Thank you," Itsu bowed as he entered the house. Shikaku didn't wait as he walked away.
He must be in a hurry. Itsu mused.
After two hours...
"You truly are a genius," Itsu sighed. It was the 13th game he lost. He was amazed by Shikamaru's tactics. But he wasn't embarrassed, although he was an adult in child's body, he knew that shogi, or chess weren't his cup of tea.
"You are also good," Shikamaru praised him.
"You don't have to be modest. I never stood a chance," Itsu replied.
"Troublesome..." Shikamaru muttered as he gazed at the clouds.
"It's getting late, I should be going," Itsu stood up.
"See you tomorrow," Shikamaru said with a yawn.
From that day onward, Itsu would occasionally play shogi with Shikamaru, sometimes he would also hang out with Shikamaru and Choji.
Despite being in academy, Itsu didn't slack off in his own training. Unintentionally his method of continuos infusion of Chakra into his muscles had some qualitative effect on his body. He was more lean and flexible. His skin was smooth, even a pretty girl like Ino Yamanaka would envy. But he wasn't amused, he looked so girly. If the method didn't help in increasing his speed and strength, he wouldn't have continued.
But now, he wanted to try something new, well not new, but he wanted to infuse chakra into his spinal cord and eyes. The more time went by, he noticed his reflex couldn't keep up with his speed anymore.
Infusing chakra into spine might solve the problem. But its dangerous. He was hesitating. It was very risky, if for a moment he infused too much, he might die or even worse crippled.
But in another five years, konoha would be invaded. Sometimes he thought it would be better to inform the Hokage about his foreknowledge, then his self induced burden would reduce.
But I don't know what they would do to me. Best case scenario would be like house arrest, under constant surveillance of ANBU and worst case scenario would be death. An involuntary shudder crept through his spine.
And there's also my Parents. No, I will never share my foreknowledge with anyone, he determined himself.
Okay then. He sat straight in a meditative pose, closed his eyes, focused on his breathe.
Breath in... Breath out... Breath in... Breath out...
After calming down his focus shifted to his chakra. He could feel his chakra reserve has increased. He guided his chakra to the back of the neck. A cool sensation spread through out his back, but it didn't affect his concentration, he slowly moved his chakra downward through his spine. After coveing his whole spinal cord, he stopped. Now, he only needed to maintain this condition.
"Phew," he exhaled out a mouthful of air as he collapsed on the floor. He was exhausted. He was not sure if he could maintain the balance between chakra infusion and chakra recovery.
I still have three years worth of time before graduation. He was not in a hurry. l