Do you remember the first time you breathe?
People don't. Usually. With the whole trauma of the birth process, the memory decay or other scientific or psychological theory-thingy that makes me want to crack open a beer and think about something else.
Well. I remembered. Maybe because I was fully conscious at that time and only six month had passed.
I remember everything.
So, sorry, my hypothetical future wife and mother of my hypothetical future children, if you exist somewhere. But I'll politely stay in the waiting room and wait for the all clear.
Because giving birth is a shitstorm. Literally.
But that's not my problem right now.
Breathing is a natural part of living. No one has to teach you how to do it.
You just do it.
You just know how to breathe the very second you step (heh) into this world.
Air is life. Breathing is an important part of life.
In this world, so is Chakra.
Everything 'living' by my simplistic definition of it breathes chakra. The water seeps with it, the air breathes with it, the fire burns with it…
In this world, oxygen is a simple component of life, chakra is the rest.
Ninjas are, by definition in this world, the one that can use it. Bend it to their will and influence the world around it. Ninjas are a conduit, so that it becomes physical.
So, if you ask a ninja if they remember the first time they awaken their 'sense', some of them might answer with the positive. Because it's always recorded.
Not everyone has access to it. It's a gift. It's not something you learn, someday you wake up and it's there. And you use it.
Those that never 'awaken' are civilians and they tend to live pretty fulfilling lives. They live, they laugh, they learn, they teach and they pass away.
Those that 'awaken' have the choice to stay civilian. They live the same fulfilling life.
The rest that answer the call become ninja, sages, monks or sometimes bandits. It depends where they are born or what they choose. And they live the kind of life that people Remember. Capital R.
So, yeah, awakening your chakra sense is a Pretty Big Deal.
In Konoha, being a ninja is a way of life. Even if not everyone can do it. But if you can, you are expected to follow it.
In a way, it reminds me of the saying 'participation is by choice, this sign is mandatory'
So, when someone in this village awakens his Chakra sense, it's a huge moment. Close to a birthday. I wondered if it may be a birthday for orphans.
And so people remember it. It gets recorded. Usually it happens during the first years of a child's life.
Notice the plural.
I was laying in my crib, doing everything I could to breathe.
Something was wrong with me. I tried my best to breathe. It wouldn't let me. My lungs were hampered by something. Something sticky, gross and large. My lungs were filled with it.
Something denser than air.
I tried to scream, but my lungs were already full. There WAS something in it that took all the place.
There was no room for air.
So I tried to get rid of it.
To throw everything away and just breathe.
My struggle woke up my big sister, Hana (written like "nose", don't ask), who was sleeping in the same room as me. The Inuzuka were not a major clan so our house was not a mansion. We slept in the same room adjacent to our parents.
"Shinji! Is everything alright? What's going on?"
My older sister was young, maybe two or three years older than me which makes her...Well… Three years old. She already has the face tattoo of our clan which means she already had her imprint (or should I say imprints, since three dogs siblings took a liking to her at once) and had already awakened to Chakra.
But it couldn't scream. It couldn't speak. There was no SPACE in my lungs for any kind of screaming.
I just looked at her, my eyes filled with fear. I was suffocating.
Help me!
"DAD! SHINJI IS WRONG! DAD! DAD! DAAAAAAAAD! "
Something entered my room with a boom of… pure force.
My father literally destroyed the door, his entrance would have been bad-ass and his worry would have been palpable in the air if I could FUCKING HAVE SOME OF IT!
Also his pajamas decorated by fire hydrants would have made me laugh if I could.
"What… is happening here, Hana!?"
"Shinji…. He started to… cry… but he became silent! Something's wrong dad! Do something!"
"I'll take Shinji to the hospital! Stay here with mommy!"
I felt my father take me in his arms just before I passed the fuck out due to asphyxia.
…
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
I hate hospitals.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
Seriously.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
Hospitals sucks. Hard. The food is bad. The bed stinks when you have the nose of an Inuzuka.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
Also it reeks of death. Someone died on my bed maybe one or two weeks ago. The standard Konoha detergent is bullshit.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
Also, the nurses talk. A lot. Loudly.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
Apparently I'm not worthy of Shinobi's Dr. House.
Precocious Chakra Development is the name of the affliction.
It means that your "hara" (or something? Not sure of the correct spelling or sense since I am, you know, half a year old) starts to generate Chakra before your "Coils" (still don't ask me please, no clue) are even made. So this life energy take the path of least resistance and use your fucking veins to circulate, taking every room available.
If not stopped, then you have what happened to me. First you suffocate, then the blood in your system stops flowing and finally your brain shuts down.
A textbook case of a death sentence for any normal human. If you weren't born in the village with the most prodigious medical-nin that ever existed, who designed a way to prevent death by preventing Chakra generation.
I had no intention of lying here and laughed at the irony of sending me to this place to deprive me of any chance to make it better.
I sensed my mothers angry emotions when the medic told them. I felt my father refusal to accept it.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
I still hate hospitals.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
That noise? My EKG. I like it. It means that I'm alive and not drowning in my own life force.
It can stay.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
Well, maybe I could politely ask if they could tone it down?
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
Shit, I can't talk yet. Too young. Just my luck.
*beeep* *beeep* *beeep*
… fuck my life.
Later that night, when the nurses drove my parents out of my room, I began my inner search of what I could do.
What I could do without killing myself by way of Chakra overdose, but do I need to spell it?
The doctors put Chakra suppressors on me. They were some kind of tiny bracelets around my ankles, decorated with a pretty pattern only an idiot could take for anything else than a seal and artificially reduced the maximum capacity of Chakra my body was trying to create.
No, I didn't figure that out myself. Nurses talk a lot around me, sometimes even TO me because they are sooooo sure I can't understand them.
And no, Akari whatsyourname, I DON'T think your husband uses his missions as an excuse to see someone else. Ask the mission board for fuck sake, not me! Missions are regulated for a fucking reason.
Also, I don't give a fuck about your love life. I AM A CHILD!
But since I now have a fuckton of time and no intention to sleep my mind began to wonder about those seals.
Slap this on an S-rank nin and they are fucked. They won't be able to restock their Chakra reserves after a few high level techniques.
No mention of sage mode. Fuck it's actually an anti bullshit Senin mode! Did no one ever think of that?
Wait, no. We are talking… errrr Thinking about actual ninja here, of course they already thought about it.
That means this measure is not foolproof. There must be ways to get rid of it. No way I'm stuck to civilian life!
Not that civilian life sucks, by the way, it's just that if I'm given the choice between living as a merchant or jumping around buildings while sending fireballs on things I don't like and dying at the venerable age of less-than-thirty due to an unexpected (notice the sarcasm) s-rank shinobi attack…
Being deprived of Chakra is a death sentence for a shinobi, unless you are exceptional.
I'll just have to prove them right.