'Fuck me…'
The thought sat heavy and dry on my tongue. Even though I hadn't spoken aloud, I was repeating myself a little here, because the implications of any suspicion I might generate if I replied to someone in English were bouncing around in my noggin.
'Will I be instantly suspected of accidentally speaking in some sort of code, labeled a spy, and sent to T&I for knowledge extraction?' The thought settled ominously in my head. I kept staring at the unfurled scroll in my lap, feeling my pulse thrum quietly in my ears. The kanji brushed across the parchment looked stark and unmistakable—complex characters written by a steady, practiced hand and then mass produced by a printing press.
And yet, despite the foreignness of my original thoughts, despite every reasonable part of my brain insisting I should have been squinting at them like a confused tourist looking around, navigating through Google Lens, the meaning slotted into my mind with unsettling ease.
I froze, not because it felt unnatural. But because something inside me had deciphered it quite easily without a care, the knowledge of a foreign language just rested there.
I tore my gaze away for a moment, exhaling slowly as the reality of it settled like a cold stone in my stomach. I wasn't just dealing with inherited memories now—I was actively using them. Memories of a lost soul, whose fate was unknown, tapping directly into them, using them for my own benefit. And that realization carried a strange kind of weight, as if acknowledging it made the world around me just a little more solid.
'Alright, I'm not going to debate the morality of this, but it is an actual advantage from another perspective,' I thought, rubbing my thumb along the scroll's edge, feeling the roughness of parchment. 'If I know the language, that means that everything else, like chakra control and physical skills like taijutsu, should be easy, or at least I could relearn it faster.'
I focused deliberately—consciously—on the Kanji, translating it easily as I tried to align my thoughts with the new knowledge, forcing myself to think in Japanese.
It was like shifting gears. A deliberate act. An intentional switch that kept flipping back.
'This entire situation is completely insane, and I'm probably going to develop multiple crises like this before lunch.' I cursed, and my thoughts kept switching back to English. 'Can't force too much too soon. I will have to make do with a silent personality type for now, and don't speak much to anybody, at least from my memories. Yori was a reclusive kid, so that shouldn't stand out.'
Then, hesitantly, I nudged my thoughts toward Japanese as I focused on the text, onto the next crisis, as this one will take a while longer to adjust to. Japanese was simply available to me now—like an app in the background that I could open when needed.
'Don't think about your phone again,' I thought as I pushed the urge to pull it out of my pocket for just brainrot doomscrolling.
I glanced down at the scroll again, at the diagram showing the human body posed rigidly, each tenketsu marked like pinholes in a constellation spread around the whole body. It still felt a little surreal to me as I looked away from the diagram and focused on the text.
{Chakra is the foundation of all shinobi arts. Before a student can hope to perform even the most straightforward technique, they must understand what chakra is, how it is formed, and how it moves through the body.
Chakra is formed by the combination of two energies within a person: physical and spiritual. The body constantly gathers physical energy from its cells, muscles, and organs as it grows, rests, and recovers. Spiritual energy accumulates through the mind—through thoughts, discipline, memory, and experiences. When these two are drawn together and balanced correctly, they form chakra. If either side is neglected, it results in a condition called chakra imbalance. A strong body but a dull mind will lead to poor chakra control. A sharp mind but a weak body will lead to reasonably good chakra control, but the amount of chakra you generate will be limited. For this reason, shinobi must train both their bodies and minds.
Once formed, the chakra travels through a network of pathways throughout the body. This system, known as the chakra pathway system (keirakukei), is invisible to the eye but can be felt with proper training and deep meditation. Within it, larger channels carry chakra between the body's center and its major limbs and organs, while finer branches extend outward to the most minor points of the hands, feet, and head. If they are overstressed by reckless training or injured by specific techniques, chakra may leak, become blocked, or flow unevenly, causing fatigue, weakness, or worse.
Note*: During training, once you start to feel mental fatigue and dullness, you should stop and only begin training again after a proper meal and some rest.
Along these pathways are special points called tenketsu. There are hundreds of such points in the human body. Each one functions like a small valve or gate that can release, draw in, or regulate chakra flow. For students at the Academy level, it is not necessary to know the exact number of tenketsu or their precise names. It is enough to learn that some are more important than others. Those in the forehead, hands, and feet will become significant targets for basic training through the early part of your shinobi career. In time, a shinobi may learn to control many of them at once, but for the beginner, even one properly controlled tenketsu is a major step.
Jutsu is the art of using handseals to stimulate multiple tenketsu at once, control, and manipulate the chakra stuck within these tenketsu loops to do something supernatural. For example, the Tiger seal that is used as a part of the handseal sequence for many firestyle ninjutsu, always simulates the tenketsu around the core along the way through your throat, allowing you control over this extended pathway that could be used to mold and release fire jutsu.
Note*: Though the tiger seal is a rather specialized hand seal, other handseals could also simulate the same tenketsu and could be used to create a similar effect, but with diminished effect.
Note*: It is theoretically possible to use jutsu with a single or even no handseals at all. To achieve a no-handseal jutsu, you need to have complete control over your complete chakra network, theoretically. Highly experienced shinobi, like the Lord First and Second Hokage, could use their entire jutsu repertoire with just a single handseal, with the power of the jutsu remaining undiminished.}
'So that's how it works,' I realized, a bit of awe threading through me as I read the details of how jutsu worked. 'It makes sense, though the show or manga didn't focus much on this part from what I remember. So, the handseals allow shinobi to open and close the tenketsu, and then with intent and the interaction between the tenketsu itself, a jutsu like the Fireball is born... Who the fuck managed to create a jutsu first with so many trial and error possibilities?'
The absurdity of that nearly made me laugh.
Instead, I drew in a slow breath, letting the steady thrum of chakra beneath my skin settle me again. 'Chakra control would probably take precedence among my training. I don't think I would ever like going close for a taijutsu contest, so having better control of chakra seems like the ideal scenario, and maybe a sword later for increased range in close-' My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of knocking on the front door.
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
I froze for a split second as I heard a squeaky voice call out, "Yori! Seriously, are you up? We're gonna be late!"
'Kei. My supposed travelling companion for the short trip to the academy.' Of course, I had totally forgotten about that.
I scrubbed a hand over my face, quickly gathering the scroll and shoving it on the desk before Kei decided to poke his head in like a nosy cat. With a final glance at the room that had been my haven for the past...10-15 minutes, I grabbed a jacket that was hanging on the door, and headed out.
When I swung it open, Kei was standing there with the expression of a kid who had already resigned himself to the apocalypse that was Academy drills.
"You look… weird," he said, squinting at me. "You didn't even take a bath in the morning, did you. Come on, we don't have much time, and walk downwind, will you?" The harsh words felt like fresh breath, there was no speculation about me being an imposter.
'Focus,' I thought. "Just… wait a second," I said with the straightest face I could manage as I grunted the words out in Japanese.
"Whatever. Hurry up. Morita-sensei's already pissed with us two. You know what that means."
I did.
Extra laps.
Extra drills.
Extra bruises.
I dashed in, draping my jacket on the sofa as I swiftly moved to the wardrobe and changed into a fresh pair of t-shirts. Missing my trusty cologne, I once again did a quick sniff test and found it passable. From memory, Yori had taken a bath before going to sleep, so I should be fine.
I dashed back out of the apartment and got a nod from Kei as we began to make our way down the stairs of the building.
Into Konoha's cool morning air.
'Not that bad, even considering we are in the slums.' It wasn't exactly in the seedy parts of Konoha, but it was pretty close to it.
'Alright, at least the rent is cheap,' I thought, tightening my grip on my jacket as I discreetly tried to look around in wonder at the village passing by. Another sense of dread awaited me as my steps took me closer to the academy.
...
'I should be fine....right?'
---
AN: Took a while to finalize the chakra part. Will be designing a whole system for chakra and jutsu, which will help with power scaling. In this novel, learning high-rank ninjutsu would be super hard, as it would involve new tenketsu requiring control training. Also, I will introduce the workings of the Nintendo DS in the next chapter.