Chapter 2: Chapter 2
At age seven Naruko Uzumaki was a strange child to most. She seemed to be one step in their world and another step in another. She had a collective of insects almost a mile in circumference. Her mind had to learn to adapt to the onslaught of information fed to her. With each new connection it became easier to guide. Through the collective mind she grew in intelligence and so did her chosen. Though their own was in the zero point one growth. The had begun to understand not just the basic commands but more advanced ones. It was no longer move here or there. It was go here, get this or swarm that. She never stopped them from feeding on each other or their own. However each new birth was now born into that connection. Being inquisitive but knowing that people hated her chosen friends she decided to find out if there was information available for what this was.
It turned out that the library when she asked for where she could learn was Kami sent. Books on insect behavior and there network took awhile to go through. However it all helped her to better understand her chosen. It was the books on bee's and ants that an idea started to from. When the librarian, a middle aged but very nice lady with green hair directed her to the science fiction section that she found what she was looking for. In the absolute opposite of her own collective. She found it in a book on the theory of collective intelligence through collection of books written by a Arashi Yamanaka. The theory matched what she was experiencing and adapting. The more she grew her as she decided to call it hive-mind. The greater the collective, the greater the mind worked.
Naruko knew she would have to keep it to her self. She saw the way people reacted to her friends and her self was enough evidence. So then what was she to do? She already knew she would continue to grew and include more insect and arachnid into her self made family. That was a given fact. What she needed though was a way to use it more and adapt with it. Learn what was possible through that collective mind. She began to think what could be not just given to her collective but what could she gain. She already knew she could through the Hokage and his talks to the orphanage children, that she was a budding intelligence master. Her chosen could be anywhere and hear anything without being seen. . Two months back she had fully learned to hear what they did and break it down till she could understand it. The sounds were different and for now required her to hear from multiple sources to get enough information. Sight would take far longer. None of them had eyes like her own and it gave her headaches to try. However she was learning and persisting. Her lack of anything else to interact with gave her a drive to learn not seen in scientists.
Without other people to tell her what was impossible she broke every convention of what was possible with chakra. She had learned through the Hokage's speeches what it was and she also knew it was more than the normal chakra described. It was intense and she knew with a far thrown back instinct not to channel it through her. That she couldn't handle it. At least not yet she couldn't. Naruko with her long hair tied in a ponytail and scruffy dirty clothes from always being outside sat down in the quiet little spot she made in the woods near the orphanage. Closing her eyes she focused and felt through her connection. She was always aware know and connected to it but she could really dive into it when she could concentrate without distraction.
Though she wasn't aware she began to channel the natural chakra around her with her as a funnel. Letting it pass through her and then around her. Connecting her to everything. Had she opened her eye's she would have seen the flowers lean towards her, the insects gather and small animals quiet and flock about her. Her awareness was channeled through her self made family. As she fed them the chakra mixed with her own and through them back to her. She took care never to keep the almost golden and green mixed chakra. Soon she wasn't in her own body but in hundreds. Learning to adapt to them and the various sources of information. Shared collectively so that the influx of information could be understood. She witnessed acts of carnal pleasures in a quarter of a mile away. She heard of the local gossip in the market and the ninja who talked quietly among themselves. Processing it all she began to make it into a representation. Had anyone been able to view this they would have thought it resembled a three dimensional map of a third of Konoha.
Naruko intended to build it to a full scale understanding around her. She wanted to make it grow to were she could find anything. With more members growing in her collective mind, she was slowly expanding it. Although she herself wasn't aware with each new member she was also infusing with chakra she was getting stronger. Naruko had invented a one of a kind chakra control practice. Learning to channel the potency of the natural chakra and her own through her and around her to back to her again. With this she gave parts of her own chakra to her chosen and took the smallest sliver of their own.
Naruko however wanted more than that. She wanted to adapt to the way they survived. To grow stronger and be more than the little girl that while never targeted for violence was ignored by everyone. She didn't want to be her. She wanted to change. While her intelligence grew she was still a child with a child's concept of things. So she studied her collective. Seeing how they worked and then went to the library to learn more about them. She devoured books on insects and arachnids. She studiously learned what was different between them and her through books on human anatomy versus insect anatomy. It was through a startlingly intellect she now had to bear that she was learning. Her mind now able to collect and diversify what she needed. She wanted to change and nothing was going to stop her. She would be more. She would grow. She would adapt. She would evolve.
It was through her channeling that she wandered if she could do more than be apart of her collective but adapt them as she wanted to as well. Through her connecting and filter she felt as she once concentrated in the park for a cockroach to change. She visualized what she wanted as she willed it. She wanted it grow a stronger pair of legs. More chitin on them to strengthen them and more power in the tiny muscles to move the added weight. It ended in failure. Disappointed she wasn't willing to give up. She left the imprint of what she wanted and went to sleep in the apartment that she know slept in thanks to the Hokage giving her the place.
It was a shock when finding the next generation a day later of that roach that they had all adapted the change. Her mind reeled with the implications. With this knowledge she closer to learning how she could adapt herself. She was fascinated as the stronger breed quickly took over and the older unchanged died out. Through a superior design Naruko had created a new breed of insect. Delighted she focused on what would be useful and practical for her collective. She studied what she knew and what each insect and arachnid needed. Stronger venom's and faster responses, stronger carapaces and exoskeletons. More intelligence and awareness. Before her eyes n a month her new breeds were made and were quickly taking over from there older less evolved counter parts.
Though she wasn't aware of it, Naruko also caused quite the insect problem for Konoha as the new breeds were far tougher and harder to kill. There however was one clan that wasn't annoyed with this however. They were quite fascinated at what was happening. The Aburame where now aware that something had caused a large change in the local ecosystem at a rapid rate. They were now more than curious. The Aburame wanted to know the how, when, and the why. Something they would in time discover. Change after all fascinated them.