The next day, when Koichi woke up, a new nurse arrived to handle his discharge from the hospital. According to her orders, he was already well enough to be released, but he still shouldn't think about going on missions for the time being.
"Thank you, Tsubame-san, I promise I won't overexert myself." Koichi nodded to the older woman, preparing to leave the hospital.
After a full day of rest, the pain in his head and the recurring confusion in his memories had improved considerably.
As for his identity… he was still the Koichi of that world, a Chūnin of Konoha. But he was also the Koichi from another world, someone who possessed prior knowledge of the events that were yet to come.
He would be the best fusion of the two, accepting that fate as an opportunity for growth.
"Yes, that's it!" He clenched his fists, determined.
As soon as Tsubame left the room, Koichi began changing his clothes, removing the hospital garments.
Luckily, as someone who had always been prepared, he carried a storage scroll containing a few spare sets of clothes, along with dry rations and water.
His outfit was simple, yet functional.
A black jacket, dark-blue ninja pants, and over them, his traditional gray Chūnin vest. The Konoha forehead protector was tied to his right arm instead of his forehead.
Part of that was due to the bandage still present on his head.
"It hasn't been that long, but it feels so nostalgic." He murmured, observing his appearance.
After making sure everything was in order, Koichi left the room to sign the last necessary papers before finally leaving.
As he walked through the corridors, his eyes scanned the place in search of that pink-haired figure, but he couldn't find her anywhere. After a few moments, he gave up and moved on.
"It's probably not her shift." He adjusted the gloves on his hands.
About ten minutes later, he was already outside the hospital, with the warm morning sun shining directly on his face.
"Ah, I can finally feel fresh air again." He took a deep breath, relieved to no longer be surrounded by the smell of antiseptic and medicine.
"Now… let's go home." A faint smile appeared on his lips as he began walking through the streets of Konoha, appreciating the familiarity between his old memories and his recent ones.
The village was quite lively, with children running all over the place and small shops beginning to open their doors.
"If I remember correctly, this should be around the time when the Ninja Academy is forming the new Genin teams." He reflected, recalling his own graduation.
Because of that, it wasn't hard to see one or two teams running around excitedly to carry out Rank D missions.
Koichi had once been a member of Team 15, but the other two members had abandoned the ninja path after a dangerous mission. Since then, he had chosen to work alone, taking on smaller and safer missions.
"Fate really likes to play games," he thought, shaking his head as a nostalgic smile formed on his lips.
As he passed in front of a particular shop, he stopped and observed the place for a few moments.
"Yamanaka Flower Shop…" He murmured before moving on, after finding no sign of the girl he had hoped to see.
"Yamanaka Ino, huh… I wonder if she's as beautiful in person as she was in the anime." At the very least, Sakura had been a pleasant surprise, since in person she was far better than he had imagined.
With that, Koichi smiled, turned around, and disappeared from that street a few minutes later.
Moments later, the doors of the flower shop opened, and a beautiful girl with blonde hair and fair skin stepped out alongside a middle-aged man.
If Koichi were still there, he would have recognized the girl immediately. Unfortunately, he was nowhere to be found anymore.
---
One week later, Koichi was standing in a small forest not far from his home. His physical condition had improved considerably, and the bandage that once wrapped around his head was no longer there.
"Let's begin!"
Suddenly, the air around him seemed to change abruptly. The wind rustled the leaves of the trees, and Koichi reacted.
With a movement too fast for human eyes to follow, his body flickered and vanished from the spot.
In the next instant—
Boooom!
He appeared beside a tree thick as a pillar like a ghost, delivering a single powerful punch that blew away half of the trunk, making the surrounding trees tremble.
"What absurd destructive power." Koichi smiled in satisfaction, pulling his fist out of the shattered wood. "So that's how Tsunade's and Sakura's explosive strength works. It doesn't seem that hard to use." He rubbed his hand, noticing there wasn't a single injury.
The mechanics of the strike were simple.
Concentrate a large amount of chakra in the fist and release it at the exact moment of impact. Although it looked easy, it required extremely refined control; any mistake could result in the explosion of one's own arm.
He wouldn't have dared to try it before achieving nearly perfect chakra control.
"If this is this easy for me now, could I also use that jutsu?" He thought, letting his arms relax at his sides.
The jutsu in question was Rank B, obtained among the belongings of a Cloud Village nukenin he had eliminated months earlier. After a failed attempt that left him injured, Koichi had decided to suspend the training temporarily.
"If I try again…"
Doubt overtook him. On top of that, the fear of pain still seemed ingrained in his body since that accident.
"Damn it!" He clenched his fists, consumed by indecision.
Koichi remained silent.
For about five minutes, he stood with his head lowered, reflecting, until with a poof of smoke, a yellow scroll with blue stripes appeared in his hands.
[Raiton: Denryū Kekkai] was written vertically in the center of the scroll.
"Let's do this." He narrowed his eyes and made his decision.
If he was afraid to master a Rank B Ninjutsu just because of pain, then he would never be qualified to reach the same level as Naruto and Sasuke at their peaks.
Upon opening the scroll, Koichi saw the familiar contents: the detailed explanation of the jutsu and, just below it, the sequence of twelve hand seals required.
"Breathe… calm down…"
He murmured to himself.
Placing the scroll on the ground, he began forming the seals slowly, feeling the chakra flow through his body, changing direction with each new movement of his hands.
When he completed the final seal, bringing both hands together, Koichi separated them and slammed them against the ground at the same time.
"Raiton: Denryū Kekkai!"
Zzzzzz~
The electric sound echoed like a furious swarm.
Lines of lightning chakra burst from his hands and spread across the ground, drawing irregular symbols around him.
The earth trembled slightly, and a translucent barrier of electricity emerged, forming an imperfect dome about four meters in diameter.
Zzzzt… crack!
Blue and white sparks danced through the air, snapping like invisible whips. The smell of ozone spread through the forest, causing nearby birds to take flight in panic.
Koichi's eyes widened slightly.
"I did it…?"
In the next instant, a wave of pain surged through his arms, as if thousands of needles were being driven beneath his skin. His teeth clenched automatically.
"Guuh…!"
He fell to his knees, bracing one hand against the ground while the other trembled visibly. The electric barrier wavered, becoming unstable for a few seconds, before dissipating into particles of chakra that vanished into the air.
Silence once again dominated the forest.
Koichi breathed heavily, beads of sweat running down his face.
"Damn… it still hurts."