Can a computer system architect also be a fan of Naruto? Sure, they can. Luckily for him, chakra is like any shonen power source that relies on three main components: imagination, repetition and modularity. Modularity? Oh, structuring complicated problems into smaller, easier ones. How about shadow clone jutsu that creates only copies of minds and behaves like a mind hive? No clone dialogues. Si OC reincarnation transportation reborn
Chapter 1
In a cozy family home, a small boy, around four-and-a-half years old, sat in his little room, drawing with charcoal on a sheet of paper.
Upon closer inspection, one would see him drawing a small town square with an obelisk in the middle, which extended like a gargantuan pillar supporting the celestial vault.
Lying beside him were multiple other sketches of various buildings and scenes from this place, shown from different angles and with varying levels of detail. It was clear that Askuna, as this was the boy's name, had worked tirelessly on this project for months.
He had meticulously drawn different perspectives, layouts, and added details to the environment, putting a lot of effort into getting to know the space intimately. And it paid off, as he could effortlessly navigate the scene with his eyes closed.
One might wonder why he was dedicating so much time and energy to this project. Well, it all started when he failed to access his mind palace - his inner world - during the first few years of his reincarnated life.
At first, he was uncertain in which universe he had been reincarnated. Nevertheless, he continued to explore magical energies through meditation, imagination, and visualization training - all in all, common practices for reincarnators. Well, that is for anyone who takes it seriously enough.
In this spirit, the moment his ears adjusted to the sounds of what he recognized as the Japanese language, his first guess on the list of possible reincarnations was Naruto, and it wasn't long before it was proven correct.
Therefore, as of now, if he can't access his inner world, meaning that, apparently, just his meditation and desire to do so are not enough, he will continue constructing the aforementioned imaginary mindscape until it superimposes his inner sanctum to resemble it.
"It's a ridiculous concept anyway," shrugged Askuna.
Creating his own mind palace was his plan, because in the real world, if you spend hours upon hours visualizing something... you get better at visualizing it. This applies to many things: mental calculation, memorization, art, connections, pattern recognition, and even imagining conjuring swords and manipulating orbs of colorful fire.
Everything mentioned above, when repeated long enough while pushing one's boundaries, is achievable, well, to a certain degree. However, what can you do with being able to visualize a Rasengan in your hand in the real world? Nothing, that's what.
But the world of Naruto is all about imagination yielding results. Like most fictional worlds, it uses some form of intent and manifests concepts through specialized training. In other words, the art of bullshido.
Do you want to cut things with wind chakra? Start with imagination training of your chakra splitting a leaf, then repeat it, making progress over time. When you feel confident, upgrade your training to a waterfall, and so on.
Chakra walking, leaf sticking, some elemental techniques, and hand seals all seem to follow the simple logic of deconstructing complex processes into simpler ones and mastering them through repetitive training, where one increases their understanding of this mystical "chakra."
Well, he might be wrong, but for now, he will expect it to be as easy, especially considering the numerous examples where some shinobi thought about a concept and tried to recreate it. Otherwise, how would academy children be capable of creating henges, clones, and kawarimi?
If they fine-tuned everything and followed research on how chakra works, then how would they adjust all the parameters or make the henge function, or have the clones resemble them and perform tasks? Kakashi's creation of Chidori after attempting to emulate the concept of lightning armor in his hand, Shisui becoming proficient with body flicker, Jiraiya training for Rasengan, dozens of hand seals for the water dragon technique, and not even mentioning elemental training.
It doesn't all seem too complicated. What could Naruto have possibly read in that scroll that taught him the shadow clones? Some complex theory about chakra and how it all works? No, Askuna was betting that he could recreate many techniques himself just by breaking them down into simpler components, metaphorically assigning them some hand seals he feels are more appropriate than others, and integrating them all into a concept that he understands, or if one prefers to call it, increasing his comprehension.
Then there's the training montage of grinding the simpler steps and convincing some hidden chakra compiler(*cough* the audience) to accept the program and execute it. If it looks like nonsense and smells like nonsense, wait, why were you even sniffing it?
In this case, Naruto probably received some mystical gibberish about releasing his chakra from his entire body, which takes a snapshot of it, and then creates a corporeal vessel for the clone, filling it with half of his chakra to create a copy of himself in both a spiritual and physical sense.
Well, by analyzing numerous examples from the Naruto series, our protagonist Askuna is truly convinced that the creation of techniques is just that. Creating an objective, then developing a model of how it could work, and then breaking the model into simpler states that form some kind of automaton that flows from one state to another in the grand procedure called jutsu.
Chakra control, then, would be just how skilled we are in getting our chakra to do what we want. And if you have a ton of it, then your power to convince chakra to do what you want increases, where one can often circumvent low efficiency with brute force and great imagination, or rip it apart if they are not careful.
That's why he didn't need leaves or other things to train his chakra for the past couple of years. No, he hadn't been given access to hand seals by his parents yet, nor had he ventured out to find things to stick to his forehead. Sure, it probably works, but it is stupid. Well, nothing that works is stupid.
Admittedly, unlocking his chakra was the hardest part and took him a few months of meditation. He thought he could achieve something similar with his inner world, but it seems he had no such luck, so he decided to try another approach.
That's how it works: if something doesn't work, it means that for some more or less mystical reason, you're doing something wrong and should think of a creative way to circumvent the problem... or leave it to the community to patch and proudly call it a "feature". Small digression, where were we? Oh, so hence him trying drawings and the "creation" approach to the inner world, rather than "gaining access through some doors or keys" to some inner space.
Well, he tried different methods like imagining traveling to his heart with chakra, to his brain, some visualization, even his stomach, because for some reason Naruto had his seal there, but it didn't work.
Anyway, getting back to the topic of chakra control, as it was essentially that: visualizing chakra doing things and magically getting better at it. Certainly, some things are more useful than others, like walking on trees or water, which will be useful for every ninja.
The most important part was to even know that you are moving chakra. Contrary to how it appears in the anime, Askuna couldn't see the chakra and wasn't able to control it in minute details. No, he had to start by achieving something normally thought impossible.
Children in the academy were taught to stick a leaf to their head, but it wasn't them controlling the chakra and making some thread or glue-like substance that controlled or repelled it. No, something like that comes with mastership, or so he thinks, assuming his experiences mirror everyone else's.
People generally like to put labels on things and describe and visualize them by other things. There is the process of understanding what a certain person can do with chakra, how they see it, etc. This can very easily lead to a place of a comfort zone, where a person can't progress because the chakra behaves exactly as they envision it in their head and they don't realize that it is against their best interests.
For example, if a person likes to think their chakra flows through them like water and is fluid, and they think it is a fact, then it would be much harder for that person to have their chakra form strings, fire, or anything unrelated to water. One method hardly fits any purpose, and some visualizations aren't optimal for certain tasks.
Sure, one may become quite good at tree walking or jutsu with their chakra behaving like that, but it isn't fitting the model tightly; they will not do it optimally and will learn bad habits.
Based on his divagations, the leaf sticking exercise is just that: putting a leaf on the head and concentrating on it not falling out, just sticking to the forehead, as children do. Their frustration, grind, intent, or whatever you call it, manifests in the leaf being able to do their bidding.
With experience, they can assign the cause of this effect to their chakra, mirroring where it is, how it moves, and what they can do with it. So, the basic first concept must be simple, which is just intent and time spent focusing on that intent, which would be able to nudge chakra into complying. This then feeds a feedback loop and allows one to better understand their chakra.
Then they train longer, are able to control it in more detail, and after some time, some of those children start imagining their chakra to look like a substance that they can move through their body. Well, some were clever and from the beginning were imagining something about their chakra which fits the task or hinders them.
Doesn't matter, there are many ways to do it.
That's why Askuna didn't need a leaf; he just wanted his fingers to stick together, and when he got the knack for it, he worked on his cloth sticking to his body. For a long time, he wondered how he wanted to see his chakra accomplishing the task of sticking to things.
For a long time, he wondered how he wanted to see his chakra accomplishing the task of sticking to things. In one way, one could imagine some kind of air suction being used, but this is a weak representation of the real world, as it is generally limited by the vacuum being perfect suction. Not like he knew much about suction and pumps in general.
A more promising idea would be to imagine some kind of rough substance that generates friction by fusing with the material, like Velcro or glue. However, this is only as strong as the surface area of an object, which could create trouble if someone tries to stick to a weak surface like mud and redistributing force when someone pushes them, or the foundation is not strong enough to support one's weight.
The current idea is a combination of several concepts. It starts by sticking to the surface with chakra before the shock is transferred, providing an initial cushion and giving anchor, then by chakra drills going deeper, fusing into the material, and covering a larger area, the object is strengthened, like roots or steel supports, so it doesn't collapse during the next phase, which is force distribution throughout the object.
This is important because we generally wouldn't want the bark we walk on to break away. Additionally, we wouldn't want to disturb the environment when we land somewhere or jump from there, and ideally, we would dampen vibrations so they don't release sound or ground waves.
It would also be best not to release too much chakra when doing this. When leaping away, something needs to be done with the roots if one wants to be stealthy and move with greater force.
So in essence, Askuna was thinking about deploying preemptive roots in the sandals, feet, or any point of contact, and when landing, deploying them through the air just before contacting the foreign body. It would swiftly create a cushion between the ground and the skin and sandals(which also may have internal roots and cushioning for better effect) before the whole force is transferred to the ground or tree. The roots would extend through the surface and stabilize the material.
On the other hand, when leaving the surface, preferably by propulsion, one should be able to use greater force on this structure and leave the roots there for a second before they remotely go through a process of disintegration and return to the user, hopefully without disturbing chakra sensors too much.
Ideally, the roots would distribute the force and vibrations in a fraction of a second and be able to retract from an object and come back to the person with high speed, to the feet that just left the ground, faster than the person is moving.
Sounds complicated? Fret not, the essence of chakra is training steps, that is all in all, these processes that compound the procedure of sticking could be trained individually, and then different combinations could be tested and adapted based on application.
No one says we have to end there. The modularity of this technique suggests we could replace or add small submodules if needed later on.
For example, it would be useful to have an ongoing scan if the substance one adheres to is changing, like water for example, or to determine the best ways of stabilizing it. Should it be more uniform in a particular case, or should the roots be used at all? How deep should they extend based on certain factors like fighting, blocking someone's strike, etc.?
However, notice how our protagonist is four-and-a-half years old? Well, the story started here to skip the initial training of this technique. It isn't an SI Naruto fic if the protagonist can't do Spider-Man stuff by the age of two. Here is just a quick rundown:
Mastering the sub-steps was one kind of a grind, but with time, he was able to notice his chakra a bit better and manipulate the cause (that is, chakra moving how he wants) and not just the effect.
Also, there is always a point when expectations meet reality. He had to adjust many parts of his theoretical model of how it should work and make some changes so it was usable and efficient. But after some months of perfecting it, he could basically stick to everything.
Then came other adjustments, like if one can stabilize materials when sticking to them, why not stabilize their own body? For example, an electric field can polarize something to straighten it out, helping it maintain its shape, or literally just like miniature metal strings and pillars, helping maintain the body's center of gravity. This especially helped him stand and walk faster, as the load on his body was lessened.
It came with a perk: he could perform Matrix-like dodging maneuvers by keeping balanced structural pathways running through his body in an arc, traveling down to his feet and to the ground, preventing him from falling and maintaining internal forces at manageable levels.
He was two-and-a-half years old by this point. Not seeing why he couldn't extrapolate his technique, he went fully into Tarazan or Spider-web mode. He first tried rather timidly, then later more confidently, using strings that could detach from his fingers and do the whole sticking he could do.
In principle they were the same as his roots he was fusing with objects, just going through the air as a medium. Combining it with the propulsion method he developed, he was a real ball in a pinball machine of his room, just closing his eyes and being rocketed through the room, making contact with different surfaces by whatever body part comes first, and sticking roots through everything at the point of contact, which stops things from breaking.
Well, that was the point he was at, at 4 and a half years old. But sadly, although he could implement those ideas and learn them to a high level pretty fast, further advancements slowed down into logarithmic scales, as his own mind lacked the necessary raw power to implement more things happening at once, which limited his ragdolling speed quite considerably.
You may wonder, how he even accomplished it in the first place? Well, falling on the oak floor repeatedly makes one implement concepts pretty fast into reality, especially those related to cushioning. Though it doesn't change the fact that, for his own sanity, when he ragdolls, he prefers to make first contact with a wall using his hands or legs, rather than his head. It's way easier to be prepared in 4 places of contact, rather than the whole body.
However, this deficiency, which could be exploited in combat, saddened him a bit. By his calculations, it would take him many years to master, not to mention the hundreds of other mystical arts he would like to learn. Therefore, he decided to increase his mind's capabilities by creating more copies of himself.
Truly, when in a shonen-like world, the best skills are growth-type skills, that is those that let other abilities and stats develop faster. Shadow clones, useful as they are for training and chakra manipulation (e.g., Naruto's double clone Rasengan help), come with a considerable drawback of chakra expenditure and probably turning your brain into mush with overuse.
Therefore, he decided to become a hive mind of some sort, creating his mental copies not in the real world but in his own mindscape, while sharing his chakra with them and allowing them all to control his body, aiding him in techniques and chakra manipulation. Also, he would add better memory updating protocols and lessen mental strain.
Not surprisingly, his mental clones would have probably rebelled against him to take control over his body. Therefore, the main point of his technique is creating a core, like a mothership, from which all instances of the mind would be created and updated, including himself.
That would mean he would lose ownership of his body and become one of the instances controlled by far superior to him the mother core, updated by her, and even possibly terminated. But he doesn't really care, as for Askuna, the core would be the real him, and the rest would just update with time. There is no need to consider who is the original, as all will be a part of the core, which originated from him.
For the swarm! There needs to be a hierarchy and considering the safety of the system, being an instance of a frontend controlling his body, Askuna would feel much more secure if there existed far more optimal and secure for information processing and gathering server side core.
Henceforth, Askuna is now creating a visual representation of his mindscape, as well as a general model for creating a main hub of himself and protocols between different copies being created. He doesn't really care much about the individuality of his copies; it's better to let them stay as a swarm and update/flush at frequent intervals to prevent desynchronization. Well, depends, he will delegate management issues to his copies soon. He just needs to create the initial framework and copies.
'Nothing to do about it but grind my visualization skills and perfect sub-steps in creating my mental clones,' Askuna shrugged while continuing to draw with a smile.
Meanwhile, his parents hugged in the doorway, looking at their son happily drawing. The mother muttered, "Look, honey, how cute he looks! Do you think he could be an artist?"
"Maybe, we will see if we can get him some tutoring to get into a better school," added the dad.
'Huh? Civilian school?' Askuna was caught off guard. They were in Konoha, the ninja village, so he thought he would go to the Academy.
His parents were still talking, while Askuna was deciding if he should play the role of Eminence in the Shadows and troll everybody by being a mob character.
'However, if I were to pretend to be a mob character in the future, it would get boring if I didn't create a so-called secret organization pulling the strings and doing my bidding. I don't think I would be capable of pulling that off, especially in a ninja village, without resources, manpower, etc.,' contemplated Askuna glancing above.
Then, seeing his parents' happy expressions, the joyful atmosphere around them, and their planning of his immediate future, he decided to smash it all to pieces by giving his own two cents. "I want to go to the Academy and become a Shinobi!" Then he added mentally, 'So I can troll genius ninjas later on, showing them how much better I am than them, making them question if they are good enough!'
The horrified faces of his parents stung a bit, but well, he is his own person. 'Got to make my own life choices,' he shrugged mentally, and returned to drawing, pretending ignorance, and letting the protests of his parents fall on deaf ears while continuing to draw big tungsten of the mothercore.