Yohei yawned as he got dressed after his morning shower.
He wanted to say that he regretted asking his mother for help studying last night – judging by how tired he'd woken up – but that was exactly the kind of thinking he needed to get rid of. So he swallowed his childish complaints, slapped his cheeks, and took a deep breath of the crisp morning air.
"Haa… alright, let's do this," he said with a grin, bringing his hands together.
Rat → Tiger → Hare → Dog → Bird.
"Thousand-Sound Perception," he called out, feeling the chakra pooled in his gut rush upward and concentrate along the meridians in his head. It felt like static – or maybe a tingling coolness – as it saturated three specific tenketsu:
Tang-Hui, located below the ermen, in front of the incisura intertragica, where a depression forms when the mouth is wide open.
Yi-Feng, located behind the lobule of the auricle, between the mastoid process and the mandible, where a depression forms when the mouth opens.
Erh-Men, located in front of the tuberculum supratragicum, where a depression forms when the mouth is opened.
…He only knew the meaning of about half of those words, but he'd at least memorized the text straight from the scroll.
As the jutsu took effect, it felt like unclogging his ears – or… no. That wasn't quite right. It was more like dusting cobwebs out of his brain.
All of a sudden, Yohei was aware of everything.
Well. Everything he could hear, at least – which, to be fair, was quite a lot.
Humans constantly use their ears to convert air vibrations into neural signals, but their conscious awareness of those signals is heavily limited. An individual made aware of every sound at all times – fabric rubbing, their own heartbeat, distant traffic, the faint electrical hum in the walls – would be quickly overwhelmed and rendered unable to function.
To prevent that, the brain employs several filtering mechanisms. Sensory gating, for instance, suppresses repetitive, predictable, or irrelevant stimuli before they ever reach conscious awareness. Predictive processing allows the brain to anticipate incoming sensory input, ensuring that only sounds which deviate from expectation are consciously registered. And those were only the most prominent of dozens of such systems.
The Thousand-Sound Perception Jutsu broke all of that.
It stripped away the filters entirely, using chakra not only as fuel to endure the sudden sensory overload, but also as a translation layer – forcing the flood of raw input into patterns the brain could actually understand.
So now, Yohei was acutely aware of the wood groaning beneath his feet, the wind buffeting against his window, the insect crawling along the ceiling, the steady hum of his fan, and the electricity running through the cables in the walls. He was aware of the shift of his clothes, the faint metallic ringing of his ninja mesh, the air rushing through his nose as he breathed, the blood flowing through his veins, and the beat of his heart – along with every other sound his body made as it digested his breakfast.
It was disgusting.
It was awesome.
The grin on his face was painfully wide.
Experimentally, he closed his eyes and tried to move around his room, finding it far easier than he had expected.
He had thought he'd get some kind of three-dimensional map in his head, or that his consciousness would expand outward in waves, revealing the world in stark black and white like Toph from that old Avatar cartoon. But it wasn't anything like that.
Rather, it was just… awareness.
He stepped forward and knew that if he took another step he'd hit his chair – because he could hear the way the wind passed through it, hear how it vibrated faintly when he walked.
"I love chakra," he said joyfully, laughing before opening his eyes and looking at his reflection in the mirror above his desk.
He moved his head from side to side, watching carefully, then nodded with satisfaction.
"Not a trace of anything different," he said. "I mean, a Hyuuga could absolutely tell I'm doing something. Maybe an Uchiha too. Maybe. Possibly. You never know with the Sharingan."
A reasonable risk to take.
Even in the unlikely situation that a Hyuuga paid enough attention to him with their Byakugan active to notice something off, they'd still have to care enough about a harmless-looking genin to either question him or report it to someone – neither of which seemed particularly likely.
No, the real danger would be the involuntary tells.
Reacting to things he shouldn't react to. Moving in subtly strange ways because of the added awareness.
"Still," he muttered, "better to get used to it as soon as possible."
With that decided, he turned off the electric fan, shut off his room's lights, stepped onto the window frame, and leapt onto the neighboring roof.
"Early day, Yohei-kun?" called out an amused man's voice from the porch below. He was dressed in traditional – if comfortable – clothes.
Yohei looked down with a grin. "Hey, Satoru-san! Good morning! I'm going to meet my team for our first mission."
"Hoh! Is that so, Yohei-kun?" Satoru-san said with a laugh. "I'll make sure to commission a mission from your team! Sana-chan sent the last genin I hired running for the hills, hahahaha!"
Yohei snickered. "I don't know if Team 5 is prepared to deal with Sana, Satoru-san. Maybe after we get some more experience dealing with bandits and beasts." He said as he started walking off.
"Oi! You brat! That's my daughter you're talking about!" the man shouted with faux indignation. "Just because she has no manners, eats like a starving animal, beats up people she doesn't like, and keeps trying to get her grubby hands on other people's belongings doesn't mean you can call her a bandit or a beast!"
"Daddy!" came a whining shout from inside the house.
"Only I can call her that!"
"DAAAADDYYY!"
"Daddy's here, princess!"
Yohei laughed as he leapt away, leaving behind the heartwarming sight of a father chasing after his daughter, trying to scoop her into his arms while she pelted him with whatever she could grab.
Heading north toward the Academy, he moved slower than usual, taking his time to get used to the heightened awareness brought on by his jutsu – which he quickly noticed made it much easier to move, adjust his positioning, keep his balance, and avoid obstacles.
…But part of it was also because he was genuinely having fun with the trek.
Clay tiles rattled beneath his boots – and he once more made a mental note to procure steel-toed ones – as he landed, knees bending to drink in the shock before the sound could fully escape.
Then he was already moving again, feet drumming along the spine of the roof, arms spread for balance as a loose tile skidded away and clattered into the alley below.
"Oi!"
"Sorry!" he shouted back with a wince, adjusting mid-stride and leaping toward the street-
He caught the post of a streetlamp with both hands, fingers burning as his weight yanked at them. For less than a heartbeat, he found himself dangling, feet kicking uselessly in a way that reminded him of The Lion King. Then, with a soft grunt that turned into a chuckle, he hauled himself forward, let go, and rolled to bleed off momentum as he landed on the next roof.
He nearly stood up straight into a cluster of laundry lines, but the sound of damp fabric snapping together in the wind made him duck instinctively. He laughed under his breath as he vaulted over a low chimney, pushing off its warm stone with one hand.
The rooftops of Konoha weren't smooth, even paths. The city's architecture – despite sharing the same general aesthetic – was chaotic, clustered at times and sparse at others, one could even call it messy.
It was also perfect for shinobi to traverse.
He skidded once, heel scraping, and had to slap a palm flat against the wooden roof he found himself on to keep from sliding off entirely.
A cat hissed as he bounded past, fur bristling, and he nearly collided with a wooden sign jutting from an upper window that he didn't remember being there the last time he'd taken this route.
He grabbed it on reflex, the sign creaking ominously as it swung, then used the motion to fling himself sideways onto a narrower roof.
Well… it seemed like he'd found a limitation to the technique.
He already knew it, really, but it didn't increase his hearing – only his ability to use what he already had. If he couldn't hear something because either he or it was moving too fast, or because it was simply too quiet, then it would still be beyond his perception.
"I really have to work on something to give me super hearing," he mumbled before cracking his neck and looking forward, his grin returning as he picked up speed and leapt off again.
-~=~-
When he arrived at the Academy, dropping from a tree in the playground near the infamous Swing of Sadness and Sorrow, he spotted another group of genin coming out of the building – Team 10, this generation's Ino–Shika–Chō, and their jōnin, Sarutobi Asuma.
Son of the Hokage, and a pretty cool-looking guy, even if he was a chain-smoker – which docked him about a hundred points on the coolness scale.
Yohei waved to the group, who had already noticed him, with an easy smile.
Their sensei nodded back good-naturedly. Chōji waved with the hand holding a chip, Shikamaru inclined his head in acknowledgment, and Ino merely raised an eyebrow and let out a sniff before turning away, making Yohei roll his eyes even as Asuma laughed.
From his own team, he could only see Souma nearby, the boy holding his sheathed sword as he reclined against a wall in the shade, eyes closed.
"Hey, big guy," Yohei greeted him with a tap on the shoulder, making him open his eyes and smile down at him. "Been waiting long?"
Souma glanced up at the sky, considering, before answering nonchalantly, "A bit more than an hour."
Yohei blinked, brow furrowing. "Wait. Am I late?"
Sōma shook his head. "I don't think so."
"Then… you came here more than an hour before the call time?"
Sōma nodded.
Yohei sweatdropped. "Why, though?"
"Punctuality is important," the other boy said solemnly.
"Yeah, bu-"
"I'm here! I'm here!" interrupted a panting Ren as he jumped between them. "Whew."
Looking at the smaller boy, Yohei grinned teasingly before forcing his face into a disappointed frown.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Again, Ren?" Yohei scolded. "You can't keep showing up late to our meetups. Don't you know punctuality is important? Poor Souma here has been waiting for almost two hours for you."
"Oh, fuck off," Ren said, flipping him the bird and rolling his eyes. "I had a problem with my alarm. Besides, if you're going to lie, at least do it convincingly – there's no way I'm that late."
"You think I'd lie to one of my teammates?" Yohei asked with faux indignation, turning to their white-haired teammate. "Souma, weren't you waiting here for almost two hours?"
Contrary to what Yohei expected, the other boy let a small grin tug at the corner of his mouth – one he quickly smothered before Ren could notice – before simply nodding in affirmation.
"No way," Ren said, shaking his head, though a seed of doubt crept in as he glanced up at the sky. "Am I actually late?"
"You're not," Hayama said from behind them.
Yohei had to force himself to jump along with the rest of his team at the sudden voice, despite the fact that he was already aware of the man's position from the sound of his movement.
Normally, it would have been masked by the other noises in the environment and ignored by the brain as 'natural.' But Yohei had latched onto the oddity of it just as easily as he latched onto the thousands of other sounds around him.
Good to know that while it's not as overpowered as I expected, this is still incredibly useful for more than just moving around.
Hayama looked down at the three of them with a small, amused smile before inclining his head toward the building. "Come on. Let's get you your first mission."
-~=~-
In his memories, Yohei recalled what he used to imagine when he thought about shinobi receiving missions: a dark, candlelit room; the Hokage sitting on a throne behind a curtain, only his silhouette visible; shinobi kneeling on the floor with lowered heads and the weight of responsibility heavy on their backs.
He knew from his foreign memories that this wasn't true – but, as if to remind him that his… other self wasn't quite a perfect encyclopedia of this world, those memories were wrong too.
He remembered a small room, the Hokage smoking a pipe behind a desk piled with books, portraits of the past Hokage lining the walls.
The truth was very different – and also a bit of a… shock.
Yeah. A shock.
The Mission Assignment Desk stood in a room in the Administrative Wing of the Academy. It was a wide, open space, with six large windows at the back and two stick-like lights hanging from the ceiling. Painted overhead was the kanji "忍" – Shinobi. Facing anyone who entered was a long table where the Hokage and a small staff of ninja sat, distributing missions.
Set in front of the desk was a white banner that read "Mission Assignment This Way", with another banner above it proclaiming, "Everybody, do your best!"
'Cute,' Yohei thought with a blink, resisting the urge to sigh. 'Way to break my expectations. This is… a lot lighter than I was expecting. But then again, most ninja are young – and this is Konoha. It's generally not a dark place. Until it is.'
As they stepped inside, the Hokage stopped reading from the scroll in his hands and looked up at them, his long wooden pipe lit and resting between his lips.
Yohei… wasn't sure what to think of the Hokage anymore.
He – he just didn't know.
Too many bad things had happened during the Third's tenure. Things he had allowed to happen. Things he should have stopped. But how much of it was his fault? How much had been deliberate? How much was inaction? And how much was simply a fallible man placed in circumstances he couldn't fully control, doing the best he could?
Yohei knew that the Third hated war, that he wanted a better future for Konoha and for its children. They were the 'King', after all. But that didn't excuse everything Yohei knew – or thought he knew.
Once more, his other memories failed him. They weren't a perfect recollection of this world, nor had they consumed all of its 'source material.' He couldn't be sure of anything.
Was he supposed to be angry at Hiruzen? Hate him? Pity him? Be indifferent?
Yohei was starting to worry that the conflict might show on his face when Hiruzen's gaze fell on him – and the man smiled.
It was a warm smile, filled with pride.
Yohei froze, then smiled bashfully despite himself and bowed deeply, a motion mirrored by the rest of his team.
The old man in his wide hat chuckled softly and returned to his reading as Yohei's team moved on.
'Well… damn,' Yohei thought in shock. 'Is this indoctrination? Does indoctrination even work like that? Or are my feelings for the Third still the same, despite what I know—and what I think I know?'
He didn't have much time to dwell on it. They had already reached the desk, behind which stood a peppy-looking beautiful young woman with the traditional light hair and blue eyes of the Yamanaka.
"Hello there!" she said cheerfully, beaming at them.
Yohei's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately started regulating his breathing to avoid blushing – though, judging by the sidelong, squinting grins Ren kept throwing his way, he wasn't being particularly successful.
"Good morning," Hayama-sensei greeted neutrally. "Team Hayama reporting for a mission."
"Another one already, Shirakumo-san?" the woman asked rhetorically, lifting an eyebrow as she looked them over. "You're really lucky, aren't you?" She sighed a moment later. "I tried to get a team last year, but the kids were no good."
Hayama merely hummed noncommittally in response.
The woman laughed sheepishly, then straightened and returned to a more professional posture, smiling at them. "Alright then – missions. You got here pretty early, so we've got a good selection to go around. Any preferences?"
Shirakumo glanced over his team, considering their expressions.
Ren was practically vibrating in place, barely containing himself as he waited to hear what their sensei had in mind for their first mission. Souma, meanwhile, wore a focused expression, as if he were already preparing himself to cut down enemies.
Yohei, on the other hand, had the same expression a lot of jōnin did – the look of someone who knew exactly what the genin were about to be subjected to, and was eagerly anticipating the moment their romantic notions of what ninja work was would be shattered.
Hayama met his gaze and offered him a secretive smile.
Yohei answered with a wink.
"Something to get their blood pumping," Hayama said at last. "A good workout."
The woman's eyes lit up, even as she kept her expression professional. "A good workout, huh? I don't know, Shirakumo-san – they're fresh out of the Academy. You really think they're strong enough for something like that?"
Thanks to his technique, Yohei caught the sound of a snort from the other side of the room, quickly disguised by a cough and the scratch of a pen against paper.
He glanced at his teammates. Ren was barely restraining himself from blurting something out, while Souma stared at their sensei with wide, intense eyes.
Hayama placed a hand on each of their shoulders, his smile gentle and confident.
"I'm sure they can handle whatever you have," he said.
The other two nodded frantically.
Yohei had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.
The woman gave them an appropriately impressed look. "Wow, really? Well, in that case… I have just the thing!"
She slid a green scroll across the table, the letter D painted on it several times.
Hayama opened the latch and read its contents for a moment before giving her a grateful nod.
"It's perfect." He said with a smile.