--
AN
--
Happy reading.
--
--Konohagakure, Nine Years Before Naruto's Birth, Academy, Morning--
Yuuki entered Classroom 1-A with a restless amount of energy still buzzing under his skin.
He had barely slept. The hidden grove he had glimpsed in the Forest of Death kept returning to his thoughts: the thick canopy, the quiet, the way nothing seemed to have claimed it yet. It was dangerous. It was reckless. It was also exactly what he needed.
He grinned to himself as he took his usual seat.
Then he looked toward Kakashi's desk.
Empty again.
Yuuki's smile faded. Kakashi had been absent yesterday morning too. One late day could have meant anything. Two in a row felt deliberate.
'I suppose one day being late wouldn't be abnormal. But two?'
He did not know what Kakashi was doing, only that the other boy had been moving far ahead of the class ever since the Academy started. The thought scraped at Yuuki's pride in a way he did not like.
'Is he already learning something else? Testing for something?'
Kazu entered before Yuuki could work himself into a worse mood. He waited for the room to quiet, then placed a stack of papers on the front desk.
"Good morning," he said. "Today will be similar to yesterday. Before chakra training begins, you will take a quiz covering Chapter One of your assigned texts."
Obito went very still.
Kazu's gaze immediately settled on him. "Uchiha. Why do you look like you have just received terrible medical news?"
"I don't," Obito said far too quickly. "I look completely ready."
"Then this should be easy for you."
Obito's face became even more panicked.
Kazu continued as if he had not noticed. "This tests what you actually understand. No cheating, no copying, no whispering answers, and no 'creative solutions.' Review quietly. When you're ready, take a paper and go to the next room. There will be proctors."
Yuuki had already stood before Kazu finished speaking.
"Mori," Kazu said.
"Yes, Sensei?"
"Sit. I'm not done."
Yuuki sat again, trying and failing to look patient. The moment Kazu dismissed them to review, he grabbed a paper and headed for the next room.
Kazu watched him go. "That boy is going to give himself gray hair before he reaches genin."
--A Few Moments Later--
Yuuki's pencil moved quickly across the page.
Predator had done the hard part. It had absorbed the words, diagrams, and definitions, then arranged them in his mind. Still, seeing the answers come to him so easily gave Yuuki a private, pleased warmth.
'I know Predator helped,' he thought, suppressing a grin. 'But I still understand it. That has to count for something.'
He finished the first page, turned it over, and continued writing. The questions on chakra theory were straightforward. The history questions were easier. The short-answer section took longer only because he had to turn the knowledge in his head into sentences that did not sound like he had swallowed a textbook.
Two proctors kept glancing in his direction.
Yuuki noticed but did not slow down. He was not doing anything wrong. He was simply finishing first.
Around him, the adjoining classroom gradually filled with students from 1-A and other Academy rooms. Some worked steadily. Others chewed the ends of their pencils, reread the same question several times, or stared at the ceiling as though the answer might be hidden there.
Yuuki stretched once he had completed every section except the final writing prompt.
That was when Obito slipped into the room.
The moment he spotted Yuuki, his eyes lit up. He looked over his shoulder at the proctors, then hurried to the empty seat beside him with the least suspicious sneaking Yuuki had ever seen.
"Hey," Obito whispered. "Psst. Yuuki."
Yuuki kept his eyes on his paper. "You're terrible at whispering."
"I need help," Obito said, clasping his hands together. He tried his best puppy-eyed expression. "Just a little. Please."
"You know I can't. Kazu-sensei just said no cheating, and I don't want my test invalidated."
"Come on, please. I swear on my dream of becoming the future Hokage that I'll pay you back."
The last part came out too loud.
One of the proctors looked up. Obito immediately bent over his paper and began writing random lines with intense concentration.
Yuuki bit down on a laugh. He should have refused. He knew that. But Obito looked so desperate, and Yuuki knew exactly why. The other boy had barely opened the books after class.
'This is a terrible idea,' Yuuki thought.
He sighed and tilted his paper an inch toward Obito. "Fine. But if we get caught, this is entirely on you."
Obito grinned so hard it seemed painful. "You're the best."
"Write faster."
Obito hurriedly copied a few answers while Yuuki kept one eye on the proctors. By the time the final writing prompt was called, both boys had returned their papers to their own sides of the desk.
Yuuki completed the last answer, handed in his test, and left the room trying not to think too hard about whether he had just made his first Academy mistake.
--An Hour Later--
The written tests had ended. Kazu brought the awakened students to the reinforced training wall while the rest of the class continued working on chakra awakening with the sensory instructor.
Kazu folded his arms. "Yuuki, I assume you went home and continued the wall-climbing exercise."
Yuuki remembered branches whipping past his face, the bear crashing through the forest floor, and the instinctive certainty that had guided chakra into his hands and feet.
"Yes, Sensei," he said. "I think I'm proficient enough now."
Kazu's eyebrows lifted. "Proficient enough is a large claim for someone who fell after nine steps yesterday."
"Then I guess I should show you."
Before Kazu could answer, Yuuki ran at the wall. Chakra spread across the soles of his feet. He took one step, then another, and kept going. The wall became the ceiling. He crossed it without breaking stride and stopped directly above the class, upside down in the spot where Kakashi had stood the day before.
The room fell quiet.
Yuuki's heart beat faster than it should have. He could feel the method in his body: not just pushing chakra against a surface, but feeding it precisely where his weight shifted. The primates he had consumed had survived in the Forest of Death by doing this without thought. Their instincts had filled in the gaps that he had spent all day struggling to understand.
'It became so much easier after I consumed those monkeys. They use chakra adhesion to move through the forest, and Predator let me understand it.'
Yuuki released the chakra from his feet and dropped headfirst.
Several students gasped.
At the last moment, he slapped one hand against the wall. Chakra caught him. His descent slowed into an awkward but controlled slide until his feet touched the ground.
Yuuki straightened, pretending his arms were not shaking from the effort. "Well? What do you think, Sensei? Impressed?"
Kazu pinched the bridge of his nose. He looked less impressed than burdened.
"Yesterday you couldn't manage ten steps," he said. "Today you're showing me the end-of-semester exercise." His eyes narrowed slightly, not in anger but calculation. "And you chose to test it by diving at the floor."
Yuuki's confidence wilted a little. "It worked."
"That is not the same as it being a good idea."
"Show-off," Obito called from somewhere in the classroom.
Yuuki turned toward the voice with a smug smile. "Yes, I am."
Kazu exhaled through his nose. The expression on his face made Yuuki suspect his teacher was already imagining forms, recommendations, and conversations with people Yuuki had never met.
"I'm impressed," Kazu finally said. "I'm also concerned. That kind of progress isn't normal."
The words took some of the brightness out of Yuuki's grin.
Kazu continued before he could answer. "This was the intended end goal for the semester. While the class works toward it, you will receive further reading and different assignments. You will not use your free time to leap from ceilings or invent new ways to fracture your skull."
"I won't," Yuuki said.
Kazu gave him a long look.
"...I'll try not to."
"Better." Kazu collected the remaining instructional papers. "You are dismissed for today. Enjoy your weekend. On Monday, meet me before class. I will have the next set of books and assignments for you."
Yuuki's excitement returned immediately. More books meant more knowledge. More knowledge meant more ways to catch Kakashi.
'Sweet. This will give me more time to catch up to him.'
--A Few Hours Later, Village Center--
Yuuki wandered through the village market with his hands tucked into his pockets, looking at every stall and shop with new interest.
The Forest of Death had given him a place to train without an instructor watching every mistake. It had also made one fact impossible to ignore: he could not keep returning there empty-handed and hope enthusiasm would protect him from animals the size of houses.
'The forest is perfect for training,' he thought. 'The gigantic animals are the problem.'
He needed a place to retreat to. Somewhere dry, hidden, and sturdy enough to survive a curious animal. A base.
The idea sounded ridiculous when he thought it in those terms. He was four years old. Four-year-olds did not build secret bases in forbidden forests.
Then again, normal four-year-olds did not have a skill called Predator.
Yuuki stopped outside a woodworking shop. The smell of fresh cedar and sawdust drifted through the open front. Stacks of planks rested under an awning, while beams and smaller offcuts filled the interior.
The shopkeeper looked up from behind the counter. "Lost, kid?"
"No," Yuuki said. "I want to buy some wood."
The man blinked. "For what?"
Yuuki had not planned that far ahead. "A project."
"What sort of project?"
"A private one."
The shopkeeper stared at him for a moment, then laughed under his breath. "All right. What do you need?"
Yuuki pointed out a few processed boards, two smaller support beams, and several thin strips of wood. He did not buy enough to build a whole house. That would have been impossible to explain. He bought enough samples to study how a craftsman had cut, smoothed, and prepared the material.
'Rimuru could reproduce Kaijin's craftsmanship after consuming his swords,' Yuuki thought as he counted out the money. 'Great Sage helped with that, but maybe I can figure out some processed planks on my own.'
The shopkeeper rang him up, then carried the order outside. He gave Yuuki another skeptical look as the boy gathered the wood.
Yuuki waited until no one was watching closely. Black smoke slid from his palm and swallowed the boards.
The wood vanished into Predator's storage.
'Next stop: the library.'
Yuuki entered the library quietly and took only a few books. He already knew the pressure behind his eyes grew with every text. The quiet, dusty building smelled of old paper and ink. He selected only a few books: woodworking, basic house construction, exterior and interior design, and local wildlife.
The librarian looked from the titles to Yuuki. "Those are ambitious choices."
"I'm ambitious," Yuuki said.
"I can see that. Do you need help carrying them?"
"No, thank you."
She arranged copies for him without asking further questions. Yuuki left with the books tucked under his arm, resisting the urge to run all the way back to the forest.
--Evening, Forest of Death--
Yuuki returned to the Forest of Death while the last daylight still filtered through the canopy. He had found a small grove the day before, far enough from the boundary gate that it felt hidden but close enough that he could still retreat if something went wrong.
At least, that was what he told himself.
The grove was quiet when he arrived. No tracks crossed the leaf-littered ground, and no large animal scent lingered between the trees. The place was not safe—nothing inside the Forest of Death deserved that word—but it was empty for the moment.
He took out the woodworking book first.
"All right," he whispered. "This one seems most important."
Black smoke emerged from his palm and swallowed the book. The knowledge entered with a sharp pressure behind his eyes.
Yuuki crouched and pressed one hand to his forehead. "It hurt more than the Academy manuals had."
Then something changed.
His chakra flowed toward his head. The edges of the grove sharpened. A leaf drifting between branches seemed to take longer to fall. He could hear a beetle moving beneath a strip of bark and the distant creak of a branch settling under its own weight.
Yuuki held still.
'What the heck is going on? I'm not secretly an Uchiha, am I?'
He searched his memories and found no answer. After a moment, he let out a slow breath.
'No use panicking. My headache is easing, and I think I know where this came from.'
He pulled out the wildlife book and consumed it next. Information about the Forest of Death's altered animals and their behavior passed through his mind. Alongside it came a clearer understanding of the spider he had consumed.
'Just as I thought. Spiders in this world can use chakra to sharpen their perception and process information faster. That must be why everything slowed down and the headache eased.'
It also explained the faint bitter tang that had lingered at the back of his throat since the forest. He remembered the purple venom the spider had pumped into that ape's shoulder. A weak version of it had come along with everything else.
The realization was exciting enough that he nearly consumed the rest of the books at once. He stopped himself, breathed, and took them one at a time.
Woodworking. Construction. Exterior design. Interior design.
Each book hurt a little more than the last. Each left him with more pieces of a plan.
By the time the pressure faded, the grove had grown dim. Yuuki rubbed his temples and smiled despite the lingering ache.
'This information is going to be useful. I can build a base of my own.'
He began by consuming the shrubs and tangled weeds crowding the grove. The ground opened around the unfinished frame, revealing uneven soil and shallow roots. Yuuki worked carefully this time, removing only what he could identify and leaving the larger trees standing as cover.
Using the construction knowledge, he widened the shallow foundation pit and leveled the ground as well as he could with child-sized hands and Predator. The cabin would be simple: one open main room, one tiny sleeping room, and another narrow space that could eventually become a washroom.
He summoned the stored processed wood first. The boards emerged from black smoke in the same condition they had entered. He studied their grain, their smooth cut edges, and the way the support beams had been shaped. Then he consumed several straight young trees from the grove's edge, careful not to leave a visible gap in the canopy.
Predator did not simply turn raw trees into a finished house. Yuuki still had to understand what he wanted, choose the pieces, and work through the construction step by step. But the stored boards gave him a reference, and the absorbed books gave him enough knowledge to reproduce rough beams and planks from the wood he had taken.
The work was slow. He made mistakes. One beam came out uneven and had to be consumed again. He set another support too shallow, shoved it, and watched it wobble. Muttering complaints to himself, Yuuki reset it deeper into the foundation.
At last, the frame stood: posts sunk into the ground, crossbeams tied together, and the outline of a modest cabin visible in the deepening shadows. It would mainly be an open room, with two small connected spaces that might someday hold a bed and a wash basin.
Yuuki wiped sweat from his forehead and shoved one of the posts with both hands.
The frame barely moved.
"Great," he said. "Nice and sturdy."
The sky was darkening too quickly. He could continue, but he would be working in a forest full of predators with fading light and a headache. Even Yuuki knew that was a bad combination.
"Enough for today."
Before leaving, he examined the empty ground around the frame.
'A shelter is only useful if nothing eats me before I reach it.'
Yuuki raised both hands. Thin, silky threads slipped from his palms, taking the place of the physical thread he did not possess. They cost chakra to make, and he could feel the drain immediately—a steady pull rather than the sharp exhaustion of failed wall climbing.
The spider's instincts guided his hands. He ran strands from tree to tree, low through bushes, high between branches, and across routes an animal would likely use. The web was not perfect, and he doubted it could hold one of the larger Forest of Death predators. But anything that touched it would make the strands tremble.
That alone could give him time to run.
Yuuki stepped back from the grove. In the dim light, the unfinished cabin frame looked less like a home and more like a secret he had built in the middle of the woods.
He smiled.
Then he turned toward the boundary gate and headed home.
--The Next Day--
Yuuki returned to the grove shortly after sunrise, half expecting to find the cabin frame scattered across the ground.
Instead, a dog-sized rabbit hung helplessly in one of the web lines near the path. It kicked frantically whenever the silk shifted, its long ears twitching toward every sound in the trees.
Yuuki stopped beneath the branch. "Oh. Neat. Free food."
The rabbit made a frightened noise.
For a second, Yuuki felt bad. Then he remembered the spider, the bear, and the simple fact that this forest would not hesitate to eat him if the situation were reversed.
"Sorry," he said, raising a hand. "I'm trying not to be at the bottom of the food chain."
Black smoke swallowed the rabbit. The warmth that followed settled mostly in his legs and ears. His calves tightened with a springy, unfamiliar readiness, while distant sounds sharpened: water moving over stones, a bird's wings several trees away, the tiny scrape of an insect beneath bark.
'Fast legs and better hearing,' Yuuki realized. 'That is actually useful.'
He spent the rest of the morning completing the cabin. Walls rose around the frame, rough but solid. He added a simple door, a narrow shuttered window, and a few small decorations inside and out—not because any of them were necessary, but because the cabin looked less like a pile of lumber once it had them.
By midday, Yuuki stood in the open main room with both hands on his hips. The small bed space and washroom were crude, but they existed.
"Even though it took most of yesterday and today," he said, "it's perfect."
It was not perfect. The floor still needed smoothing, rain could find its way through several gaps, and a sufficiently angry animal could probably tear the door off its hinges. But it was hidden, dry enough, and his.
'Now that I have a base in the forest, I can afford to be a little riskier while hunting.'
The predatory grin that followed made him look much too pleased with himself. Before leaving, he refreshed the alarm webbing around the cabin and set several strands along likely animal paths.
--Later, Forest of Death Riverbank--
Yuuki lay motionless in a bush beside the largest nearby river. The water was broad, cold, and loud enough to cover small sounds, but every animal in the area eventually needed to drink.
The rabbit's hearing warned him of movement long before he saw it. The spider's perception let him track the ripples in the brush. Together with the stillness and patience he had gained from prey animals, the skills made hiding feel almost natural.
Almost.
His legs were cramping, and the cold had crept through his sleeves until he could barely feel his fingers.
'Being a hunter is less cool when you have to wait this long,' Yuuki thought.
Winter should have driven the cold-blooded animals into hiding. The Forest of Death did not seem to care.
The first creature to approach was a beetle as long as his hand, its shell striped in muddy yellow. It paused at the water's edge, antennae trembling. Yuuki waited until it bent to drink before smoke took it.
The next was a lizard with a frilled neck and pale green scales. It gave him little beyond sharper scent and motion awareness, but Yuuki accepted it anyway. Every small advantage mattered.
A venomous snake came later, sliding through the grass with almost no sound. Yuuki did not attack until it had moved past him and turned toward the river. When Predator consumed it, a bitter heat settled behind his eyes. He understood, instinctively, how to see warmth in the dark and how to make the poison in his spider-derived venom more potent.
The final catch was not one animal but several small prey creatures: mice, birds, and another rabbit. Their instincts layered over one another until Yuuki felt the first faint warning before a branch fell upstream—an uneasy prickle that told him something nearby had moved wrong.
'A danger sense?' He held still until the feeling faded. 'Not perfect, but I'll take it.'
By late afternoon, Yuuki finally spotted a black panther drinking on the far bank.
It moved without wasting a sound. Its muscles shifted beneath its fur, and even at a distance Yuuki could tell that it was not prey he could overwhelm through cleverness. The animal lifted its head once, looking directly toward the bush where he hid.
Yuuki stopped breathing.
After several long seconds, the panther turned away.
"All right," Yuuki whispered once it was gone. "That's enough hunting for now."
He had consumed animals. He had gained traits. But looking at the panther made the truth obvious: instincts were not experience, and new abilities did not make him invincible.
'I need mastery. Just because I have an instinctive sense for these skills doesn't mean I'm proficient.'
--Forest Grove, Dusk--
Yuuki converted part of the open ground near his cabin into a crude training course. He set up low logs to vault, hanging branches to swing from, and a padded practice post assembled from wood and packed earth.
He ran the course once without chakra. His rabbit-enhanced legs carried him over a log before he expected it; he caught himself on a branch, landed badly, and nearly stumbled into the practice post.
"Okay," he muttered. "Still have to steer."
The second run went better. He fed chakra into his legs, felt strength gather, and vaulted over the highest obstacle. He shifted chakra into his arms, caught a low branch, and swung himself up. The primate instincts showed him where to place his hands. The rabbit instincts told him when to spring. The spider's perception made the gap between branches easier to judge.
For the first time, the different traits began to feel like parts of a single movement rather than a pile of strange memories.
Yuuki launched himself up a large tree and reached the top panting. The sun was setting beyond the canopy, painting the horizon orange and purple.
'All I want to do is devour everything in this forest,' he admitted. 'But I can't. I need to train what I already have.'
He used a line of chakra-made silk to control his descent, catching branches as he went. It was nowhere near as graceful as the heroes from his old world, but it kept him from breaking his neck.
When he returned to the grove, someone was standing beside the cabin.
Yuuki froze.
The man wore a white animal mask marked with red, and the symbol was familiar enough to make Yuuki's stomach drop.
ANBU.
"Hello, Yuuki Mori," the masked man said.
Yuuki had not heard a single footstep. The rabbit's hearing had caught nothing, the faint danger sense at the back of his skull had stayed silent, and not one strand of his web had so much as trembled.
'How long has he been standing there? And how does he know my name? Crap. Crap, crap, crap. How much did he see? Does he know about Predator?'
Yuuki forced his face into something close to calm. "Hello, sir."
"Inu," the man said. "You may call me Inu."
Yuuki's mind snagged on the name, but he did not show it. The masked shinobi continued, his tone even.
"I have been assigned to this part of the Forest of Death for several days. The reason is not something I can discuss with an Academy student."
Yuuki swallowed. That explained why an ANBU was here. It did not explain why nobody had stopped him from walking in.
"Then you found my cabin," he said.
"I found a child sprinting through an obstacle course, using chakra reinforcement in his limbs and a silk line to descend from a tree." Inu tilted his head. "The cabin came after."
Yuuki coughed into his fist. "I didn't build it. I found it mostly destroyed and fixed it up a little. It's a home away from home."
Inu said nothing for a moment.
Yuuki could not see his eyes behind the mask, but he felt the silent judgment anyway.
"I see," Inu said at last. He plainly did not believe a word of it. "Using the forest to train is clever. Doing it alone at your age is also exceptionally foolish."
Yuuki looked down. "Yeah. I know it's dangerous. I just wanted a head start on the other students." He hesitated, then admitted, "A head start on Kakashi."
Inu went still.
For just a moment, the experienced shinobi's calm seemed to crack. Then it was gone.
"I see," he repeated.
Yuuki hurried on. "I know I'm not as strong as him. I know there are things in here that could kill me. But I don't want to keep being behind."
The mask turned toward the trees. "There is always something stronger than you. In this forest, there are many things stronger than you. Remember that, no matter how quickly you improve."
The warning carried more weight than Kazu's had. Yuuki nodded.
"I will."
"You will try," Inu corrected.
Yuuki blinked. "...I'll try."
For the first time, something almost amused entered Inu's voice. "Good." He looked once more at the cabin. "You are skilled enough to survive this forest for now. Do not mistake that for permission to become careless."
Yuuki had barely opened his mouth to answer when the masked man disappeared in a soft rush of air.
Yuuki stood alone in the grove for several seconds.
Then his knees gave out. He sank onto the cabin floor with a long, shaking breath.
"That was exhausting," he muttered. "I can't believe someone found my hideout that fast."
He looked at the door, then at the webbed trees outside.
Inu had not dragged him home. He had not reported him to Kazu, at least not yet. Yuuki did not know why, but he was not about to waste the reprieve.
"Fine," he said, pushing himself up. "I'll make the most of it. Smarter this time."
Under the moonlight, Yuuki returned to the training course.
--
AN
--
This chapter sets up more of the story. I think there are roughly three more chapters at this slower pace before it speeds up, so bear with me until then.
Anyways, leave any reviews or criticism in the comments so I know what to improve. Thanks for reading!
--
4615 Words