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AN
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This chapter is a bit later than usual because I got caught up playing games... whoops.
Happy reading.
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--Konohagakure, Nine Years Before Naruto's Birth, Forest Clearing, Morning--
Yuuki woke to birdsong and a patch of pale sunlight resting across his closed eyelids.
For one confused second, he wondered why his bed felt so hard. Then the smell of damp soil filled his nose, and the previous evening returned in a rush, chakra, Predator, the darkening sky, and his decision to keep playing with both until he had fallen asleep in the clearing.
He sat up with a sheepish wince. "That was probably not the smartest place to sleep."
His clothes were dusty, his hair had leaves in it, and his breath fogged in the morning air. He should have been shivering. It was still the middle of January. Yet a steady warmth lingered beneath his skin, gentler than a blanket and more constant than sunlight.
Yuuki closed his eyes and searched for it. The warm current answered almost immediately, flowing through him in those strange internal paths he had only begun to understand.
'So chakra really is keeping me warm.'
The realization made his grin return. A few days ago, he would have called that impossible. Now he could feel the impossible humming quietly inside his own body.
He stood, stretched his stiff limbs, and took a moment to look around. Morning mist clung to the grass at the edge of the trees. The clearing was peaceful enough that it was hard to believe it sat in a village that trained children for war.
'I should get home, wash up, eat breakfast, and go to school,' he thought.
Then he spotted a low branch hanging over the path.
'...One quick experiment first.'
Yuuki plucked a leaf from the branch and pressed it to his forehead. He focused on the warmth beneath his skin and tried to send a little of it into the leaf.
The leaf slid down his nose and drifted away on the breeze.
Yuuki watched it go. "Aw. Why won't it just stick?"
He grabbed another leaf and tried again. This time, he pushed too hard. The leaf shivered against his forehead, shot upward, and landed in his hair.
"That was worse."
For the rest of the walk home, he tried whenever he passed a tree. Sometimes the leaf fell immediately. Sometimes it held for the length of a breath before dropping. Once, it stuck to his cheek instead of his forehead, which felt less like progress and more like the universe making fun of him.
Yuuki refused to let it discourage him. He had chakra. A leaf refusing to cooperate could not change that.
At home, he washed the dirt from his face, changed his clothes, and ate a quick breakfast. The empty house felt less oppressive than usual because his mind was too busy replaying the sensation of chakra. He could not stop himself from placing another leaf against his forehead at the kitchen table.
It fell into his rice.
Yuuki sighed, picked it out, and decided that he might be getting a little obsessed.
He headed back to the clearing before class.
"They say you have to learn to walk before you can run," he told the trees. "But I really, really want to run."
He placed both hands against the trunk of a broad tree and looked up. The lowest branch was well above his head. In the anime, tree climbing had always looked simple: put chakra in your feet, run upward, and try not to fall. Now that he could actually feel chakra, it seemed even more tempting.
'I haven't even done the leaf exercise yet,' he admitted. 'But I know the basic idea. I just have to get the amount right.'
Yuuki backed up, took a breath, and ran.
He struck the tree with one foot.
The bark beneath his sandal cracked with a sharp pop. Yuuki bounced backward, landed badly, and rolled through the grass.
"Oof."
He lay there staring at the sky. The tree had won without moving.
'Too much chakra,' he thought. 'Great. I know that now.'
Fortunately, he had read enough fanfiction in his old life to know a safer way to begin. It was slow, boring, and much less impressive than sprinting up a trunk, but it gave him a way to feel each adjustment instead of burning through chakra with every fall.
Yuuki sat beside the scuffed tree, placed one foot against the bark, and added chakra in a thin, careful trickle. He tugged backward.
His foot stayed in place.
He froze. "Okay. Nice."
He added his other foot, tested it, and found that it held as well. Then, keeping both hands braced against the trunk, he eased the chakra out of his lower foot, moved it upward, and fed chakra back into it before his weight could pull him down.
One step.
Then another.
It was painfully slow. Each time he moved, he had to stop and listen to the tiny difference between too little chakra and too much. Too little made his sandal scrape downward. Too much made the bark creak beneath him. His thighs burned. His forehead pressed against the trunk. More than once, he slid down a few inches and had to begin again.
But he was climbing.
'This is mind-numbingly boring,' Yuuki thought as he made his way up for what felt like the twentieth time. 'But it also beats launching myself off a tree and wasting all my chakra.'
By the time he judged that he needed to leave for the Academy, he had reached nearly twice his own height using the slow method. That was not enough for him.
"One more try," he said.
Yuuki stepped back, took a breath, and ran at the tree again. He placed chakra into the soles of his feet more carefully this time. His first step held. Then the second. Third. Fourth.
He reached six steps before the chakra in his raised foot ran thin. His foot slipped, and he fell backward into the grass.
The impact knocked the breath out of him, but Yuuki was already smiling.
"I can do it," he said, breathless. "I can walk on walls. If barely."
He hurried toward the Academy before he could talk himself into another attempt.
--Konohagakure Academy, Morning--
Several of Yuuki's more enthusiastic classmates greeted him when he entered Classroom 1-A. He returned their greetings with a distracted smile and sat at his usual desk.
Almost immediately, his eyes shifted toward Kakashi's seat.
It was empty.
Yuuki frowned before he could stop himself. Kakashi being early had become so expected that the empty desk felt wrong. The classroom was still noisy, but without the silver-haired prodigy sitting in his usual place, one small piece of it seemed out of alignment.
'Why does that bother me?' Yuuki wondered. 'It's not like we're friends.'
The thought did not answer the question.
Kazu entered before Yuuki could dwell on it. He clapped once, waited for the louder students to settle, and looked around the room with the same firm expression he always wore when he wanted their attention.
"I trust each of you read the sections from Chakra Theory and the Chakra Awakening Guide," he said. "From this point onward, chakra will be one of the most important parts of your shinobi education. For some of you, it may become the most important part."
Even Obito, who usually seemed to have a comment ready, sat up straight.
Kazu's gaze moved across the class. It paused on several children from prominent clans, then shifted toward the students whose families were civilian or ordinary shinobi. When his eyes reached Yuuki, they rested there for just a moment longer.
"Some of you have already awakened chakra," Kazu continued. "Many clan children begin receiving guidance earlier than the Academy can provide. That is not a reason for anyone else to panic. Awakening at a different pace does not decide who will become a capable shinobi."
Yuuki felt himself sit a little straighter. Kazu had clearly expected him to be among those still working toward it.
"Those who have awakened chakra, move to the left side of the room. I will begin your control instruction. Those who have not, remain where you are. A sensory shinobi is here to help guide your first attempt safely."
Chairs scraped across the floor. More students moved left than Yuuki had expected, mostly clan children but also a few children with the assured expressions of those who had been training at home for years.
Yuuki stayed in his seat.
After a moment, Kazu looked directly at him. "Yuuki. Do you have a question?"
"Uh, no," Yuuki said. He pointed at himself, suddenly uncertain whether he had misunderstood the instruction. "I stayed because I awakened mine already, Kazu-sensei."
Kazu blinked.
It was a small reaction, but Yuuki caught it. The teacher's eyes flicked toward the door, where Aito Sanshiro leaned against the frame with his arms folded and a bright smile on his face. Aito gave the slightest nod, as if confirming that Yuuki was not making it up. "I checked him myself yesterday," Aito said. "Locked door. Today he's practically glowing."
Kazu cleared his throat. "I see. You must have stayed up very late preparing for today's lesson."
Yuuki scratched the back of his head. "Hehe. I got excited. I couldn't really stop myself."
Aito's smile widened. "A dangerous habit in a shinobi, but an understandable one."
"Do not encourage it," Kazu said flatly.
"I didn't say I approved," Aito replied, still cheerful.
A few students laughed. Yuuki ducked his head, trying not to look too pleased with himself.
Kazu clapped his hands again. "For the awakened students, we will begin with a simple chakra-control exercise. Each of you will take one leaf. Your task is to hold it against your forehead with chakra for five uninterrupted minutes."
He picked a leaf from the small basket Aito carried, placed it on his forehead, and removed his hand. The leaf remained where it was.
"Don't overpower it," Kazu said. "And don't shove in more chakra just because you're frustrated. Precision beats force. If you can maintain it for five minutes, you may move to the next exercise."
Aito passed out leaves while Kazu directed the students to sit in meditation posture. A chorus of complaints followed almost immediately.
"My legs hurt already," Obito muttered.
"You sat down ten seconds ago," Kazu said.
"Exactly!"
Yuuki accepted his leaf with a confidence he had not earned. He sat, straightened his back, pressed the leaf against his forehead, and focused.
'Come on. I climbed part of a tree this morning. This should be easy.'
The leaf stayed for three breaths. Four.
Then it slipped down his forehead and landed in his lap.
Yuuki stared at it.
'I really thought tree climbing would help more than that.'
He tried again. The leaf fell almost immediately. On the third attempt, it held long enough for him to start feeling proud, only to flutter loose after a minute.
Across the room, a few students were already doing well. One girl sat rigidly still with a leaf fixed to her brow. Another boy kept adjusting his expression whenever his leaf slid, as if glaring at it might make it cooperate.
The classroom door opened.
Yuuki looked up as Kakashi stepped inside. He was late, but he did not look flustered. He carried himself with the same calm confidence as always, and the faint dust on his sandals was the only sign that he had been somewhere else.
Kazu walked over to him. "Hatake. We are working on leaf adhesion."
Kakashi glanced around the room. "Really? I completed that when I was three."
Obito's leaf dropped from his forehead. "Show-off."
Kakashi ignored him. He placed one leaf on his forehead, another on each cheek, and a fourth against the back of his hand. All of them stayed in place.
Yuuki's expression went blank.
'Of course he did.'
Kazu rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Fine. Since you are already past this exercise, I will show you the next one."
He led Kakashi to a reinforced practice wall at the rear of the room, marked by scuffs from generations of Academy students. Kazu demonstrated once: a measured step onto the wall, chakra feeding into the sole of his sandal, then a second step and a third before he descended normally.
"Control the output continuously," Kazu instructed. "A burst will repel you. Too little will make you fall. Your chakra has to match your movement."
Kakashi nodded, took a running start, and managed several steps before sliding down. He landed awkwardly, a brief wince crossing his face before he smoothed it away.
"All right," Kakashi said. "Give me an hour."
Yuuki's hands curled around his leaf. Kakashi had barely been in the room two minutes, and somehow he had already made Yuuki want to throw something at him.
'Why am I getting irritated at a four-year-old?' he asked himself.
The answer was obvious and embarrassing.
'Because he's better than me.'
Yuuki breathed out slowly, picked the leaf from his lap, and pressed it back to his forehead. Being angry would not make the chakra steadier. If anything, it made the warmth in him jump in uneven little pulses.
'Fine. If he can finish the wall exercise today, I'll finish this one. Focus.'
Time passed differently after that. Yuuki stopped checking the others. He stopped listening to Obito complain and stopped tracking how many times the leaf fell. He concentrated on the small thread of chakra leaving him, on the leaf's weight, and on the moment it began to shift.
When it drifted, he eased back. When it loosened, he added only a little more.
The leaf stayed.
One minute. Two. His neck began to itch. Three. A bead of sweat slid down his temple, and Yuuki refused to move. Four. His legs had gone numb beneath him.
"Five minutes," Aito announced from beside him.
Yuuki's eyes flew open. "Ha! Finally! Kazu-sensei, look!"
Kazu turned from another student, caught sight of the leaf still fixed to Yuuki's forehead, and paused. "Good work, Yuuki. You can begin the wall exercise. You watched the demonstration, correct?"
Before Yuuki could answer, a voice came from directly above them.
"It took a little longer than I expected, but I finished it."
Everyone looked up.
Kakashi stood upside down on the ceiling, one hand braced nearby as though the room had simply been built that way. He let go, twisted through the air, and landed lightly on his feet.
The silence that followed lasted a full second.
Then Obito stared. "You can walk on the ceiling now?!"
"Obviously, can't you see that?" Kakashi said.
Kazu's mouth opened and closed once. He looked at Kakashi, then at Yuuki, and muttered, "First Kakashi, now Yuuki. It's like having two monsters in the same class."
Yuuki heard him. He could not decide whether to feel proud or insulted that the comparison still began with Kakashi.
Kakashi bowed to Kazu. "If that's all for today, I have to meet my father. Thank you for the instruction, Sensei."
Kazu recovered enough to nod. "Go. And don't make a habit of leaving in the middle of my lesson."
"I won't." Kakashi turned and left before anyone could say more.
Yuuki watched the empty doorway, then looked at the reinforced wall.
'He really is amazing,' he admitted. 'Only four, and he is already finishing exercises everyone else is still starting.'
The thought stung. It also settled something hard and determined in his chest.
'Just wait, Kakashi. By the end of this year, I'll catch up.'
He took a breath.
'No. I'll surpass you.'
Yuuki ran at the wall. His first step held. The second did too. He managed seven steps before his focus fractured and he slid onto his back.
"Again," he said, pushing himself upright.
--Konohagakure Academy, End of the School Day--
By the time Kazu called an end to the lesson, Yuuki's legs trembled every time he stood. He had not managed more than nine steps, but nine was more than seven, and that mattered.
"Good work today," Kazu told the class. "You have all made progress. Keep working on your assigned exercise outside class, but do not train until you cannot stand. A shinobi who hurts himself through impatience is still hurt."
His gaze stopped on Yuuki just long enough to make the warning unmistakable.
Yuuki smiled innocently. "Of course, Kazu-sensei."
A student near the window raised a hand. "When are the others going to join us?"
"The quicker students should begin chakra-control work within a few days," Kazu answered. "For others, awakening may take a week or more. That is normal. Do not measure your worth by someone else's pace."
Yuuki looked around the room. Several students who had not awakened chakra yet were listening with tense faces. For a moment, his excitement softened.
'It really can take that long,' he thought. 'I only did it overnight because I got lucky. Or because of the reincarnation. Maybe both.'
He resisted the urge to announce that he had figured it out on his own. The thought of their disappointed expressions made the victory feel less simple.
"Class dismissed," Kazu said.
Yuuki left the Academy in a rush anyway. He tried walking calmly for half a street, failed, and broke into a run toward the clearing, humming under his breath as he went.
At the clearing, he did not stop.
The trees grew closer together deeper in the woods. Yuuki had always wondered why this particular area remained so quiet despite being close to the village. After asking around carefully and pretending it was only curiosity, he had learned the answer.
Beyond the old boundary gate lay a section of the Forest of Death.
The name had felt exaggerated when he first heard it. In the original story, it was where the Chūnin Exams happened, a dangerous training ground, certainly, but still a place he knew mostly from dramatic episodes and panels.
Now he stood before a gate nearly three times his height, its old wood dark with weather and its warning signs faded by rain. On the other side, the forest looked different. The canopy swallowed the afternoon light. Even the birds sounded farther away.
'The Forest of Death,' Yuuki thought. 'And, more importantly, all the huge animals inside it.'
He climbed over the gate before the sensible part of his mind could finish objecting.
The difference was immediate. The air beneath the canopy was humid and heavy. Roots knotted across the ground, thick enough to catch his feet. The undergrowth hid the forest floor in tangled layers of ferns and thorny vines.
Yuuki moved slowly, trying to place each foot without snapping a twig. He had no plan beyond finding something small enough that he could escape if it went wrong.
That plan began to seem optimistic when he saw a squirrel nearly the size of a house cat watching him from a branch. A few minutes later, a dog-sized mouse darted through the brush and vanished beneath a root.
'Okay,' Yuuki thought, keeping very still. 'Maybe small has a different meaning in here.'
He swallowed and continued. Predator sat beneath his awareness like a patient shadow. He wanted to test it on something living. The idea made his stomach twist with equal parts curiosity and guilt, but every time he imagined using the ability, a warmer and more reckless thought followed.
'If I can consume an animal, maybe I can get an actual skill. Something useful. Just one easy target.'
Something scuttled overhead.
Yuuki froze.
At first, he could not identify the sound. It was too quick and too light, a repeated scratch moving through leaves above him. Then a drop of clear fluid landed on the back of his hand.
He looked up.
The spider clung to the underside of a thick branch. Its body was wider than Yuuki's torso. Its legs sprawled through the leaves, and its oversized mandibles gleamed wetly in the dim light.
For a heartbeat, Yuuki could only stare.
'Nope.'
He ran.
Behind him, branches shook. Yuuki did not stop to see whether the spider followed. He had made it several yards when he glanced back over his shoulder.
That was enough to miss the web stretched between two trees.
He hit it face-first.
The silk gave slightly, then held. It clung to his hair, his sleeves, and his clothes. Yuuki yanked one arm free only to trap the other more tightly.
"No, no, no!"
The web trembled. Above him, the spider began moving closer.
Then the underbrush exploded.
Three massive primates burst from the greenery. Each was larger than an adult man, with long arms, heavy shoulders, and dark hair plastered with leaves. The spider had made the mistake of showing itself near them.
One ape swung a huge hand down. The spider skittered aside just before the blow crushed the ground. A second ape lunged, but the spider ducked beneath the strike and drove one jagged leg into the primate's foot.
The ape screamed. It thrashed backward and knocked into the third, sending both of them crashing through a stand of ferns.
The spider leapt onto the fallen ape before it could recover. Its mandibles bit down, pumping dark purple venom into the animal's shoulder.
Yuuki stared at the fight while struggling uselessly against the web.
'What is this place? It took one minute for everything to go straight to hell!'
Another primate roared and slammed both fists down. The spider escaped the impact, but two of its legs bent at wrong angles beneath it. It hissed and sprang away.
'Forget that. I need out of this web now.'
Yuuki reached for Predator.
Black smoke seeped from his hands. It swallowed the silk first. The web vanished in the same soundless way the Academy books had vanished, releasing him so suddenly that he stumbled forward.
He spun toward the fight.
The spider had managed one last strike against the ape that had crushed its legs, leaving it sprawled and barely moving. But the ape with the injured foot had seized a loose rock. With a furious bellow, it brought the rock down on the spider's head.
The spider went still.
For a moment, only the wounded animals' breathing filled the forest.
Yuuki should have run.
Instead, Predator stirred again.
'Four large beasts,' he thought, heart racing. 'This is an incredible opportunity.'
The surviving ape stood over the spider's body, heaving for breath. It never saw the smoke rise behind it.
Darkness enveloped it in an instant.
Yuuki felt a violent rush, not pain, but a flood of heat and unfamiliar sensation. Strength in heavy arms. The instinctive awareness of branches that could bear weight and those that could not. The need to keep a troop close. The sharp, immediate knowledge of how to launch from one limb to another.
The ape was gone when the smoke cleared.
Yuuki staggered, one hand against a tree. "Whoa."
The other bodies followed. The spider's mass disappeared into Predator, carrying a faint awareness of web tension and vibrations. The injured and poisoned primates gave him more impressions of balance, grip, and movement through the canopy. The warmth that filled his bones was so intense that his hunger vanished completely.
Yuuki looked at his hands, terrified for exactly two seconds.
Then excitement won.
"I actually did it," he whispered. "I got something from them."
A roar shook the trees.
Yuuki turned slowly.
A bear emerged through the undergrowth. It was enormous, its shoulders nearly level with Yuuki's head even while it moved on all fours. It had smelled blood, noise, and something it did not understand in the place where several animals had just been.
Yuuki's excitement disappeared.
"...I should leave."
The bear charged.
Yuuki ran, but the animal closed the distance with terrifying speed. He could not outrun it on the ground. The new instincts moved before he had time to form a plan.
He jumped for a low branch. Chakra surged into his palms and soles at the moment of contact, and he stuck to the bark instead of slipping free.
Yuuki hung there, startled by his own success. Then he pulled himself higher.
His body did not become a primate's body. His arms still strained, his grip still hurt, and his chakra control remained clumsy. But the creatures he had consumed had not survived in this forest by swinging through the trees like ordinary animals. Somewhere in the long, dangerous history of this chakra-filled world, their kind had learned to use it as naturally as claws or teeth.
Yuuki could feel the echo of that instinct. He knew where to reach, how to shift his weight, how to use the bend of a branch instead of fighting it, and where to feed chakra into his palms and soles so he would not tear free from the bark. It was not mastery. It was closer to watching someone else's body move and understanding, for one frightened second, why it worked.
He moved from branch to branch above the bear.
"Ha!" Yuuki gasped. "I can-"
The bear crashed through the tree beneath him.
"-mostly do it!"
It kept rampaging, uprooting smaller trees and sending tremors through the ground. Yuuki clung to a branch as the forest shook around him.
The noise attracted something worse.
A huge snake slid from the darkness between the trees, thick enough that its scales scraped against the trunks on either side. It raised its head toward the bear, tongue flicking through the air.
Yuuki did not wait to see who won.
'Enough Forest of Death for one day!'
He fled through the canopy, making mistakes, catching himself, and leaping again. Somewhere along the way he crossed above a small grove sheltered under thick branches, untouched by any trail, and some stubborn part of his mind marked its location before he could tell it not to. Every time he felt the new primate instincts guide him, he fed a little chakra into his hands or feet and kept moving. By the time he reached the boundary gate, his arms were shaking and his lungs burned, but the darkness behind him had finally stopped pursuing him.
He climbed the gate, dropped to the safer side, and ran all the way home.
--Konohagakure, Yuuki's House, Past Midnight--
Yuuki stumbled through his front door and collapsed onto the couch. His chest heaved. Dirt streaked his clothes. A new cut on his palm stung every time he moved it.
For several seconds, he could not do anything except breathe.
Then a grin spread across his face.
"That was fun," he said, laughing weakly. "I need to go back."
The sane part of him tried to protest. It reminded him about the spider, the bear, the snake, and the fact that he had almost become lunch several times before dinner.
Yuuki nodded at the empty room. "Okay. I need to go back smarter."
He cleaned himself up as quietly as possible. When he checked the kitchen, he realized that he was not hungry at all. The animals Predator had consumed had left him strangely full, as though his body had accepted the warmth from them as food.
That was another thing to figure out later.
Tomorrow was the last Academy day of the week. After that, he would have more time to train, experiment, and hopefully avoid being eaten.
Yuuki climbed into bed long after midnight. The warm current of chakra still moved beneath his skin, and the unfamiliar instincts from the forest lingered at the edges of his thoughts.
He should have been afraid.
Instead, as sleep finally pulled him under, he smiled.
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AN
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I'm not entirely sure how good this chapter is but I like it, it also helps set up some future events to come
Anyways leave any reviews/criticism in the comments so I know what to improve, thanks for reading!
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