Chapter 2: A New Life, and New Challenges

Being conscious as a fetus, and especially during birth, was not an experience I am fond of remembering. I do not advise it, and will speak not much more of it than to say that it was months of tedium, through which I struggled mightily to maintain my mind. As one may imagine, I spent much of this time in meditation, going over my previous life. I was not fully conscious of the fact that I was alive again until after the birthing process, an explosion of noise and light and sensation and pain.

Being a baby was itself confusing. To begin, babies are functionally blind. Their brains do not yet know which nerves control which motions. Their muscles are further too weak to do anything but turn their head.

It took me days, perhaps weeks to realize what was going on, weeks more to have any sort of controlled motion, months to build the muscles necessary to crawl, further weeks to have the balance to stand and walk. As a baby, emotions and body are unstable; think puberty but a hundred times more intense, and then remember that the baby brain is forming and developing too. It was far too similar to my illness for my tastes, and I wanted it over with as soon as possible.

Luckily, I was male. I wouldn't want to deal with gender confusion on top of everything else. Soon enough I learned my name: Daichi, or great wisdom. My parents picked well.

During this time, I had four other focuses beyond existing and experiencing infant-hood. The first was learning the language, which sounded similar to Japanese; though as I did not speak Japanese, I could not tell how linguistically similar they were. I would by carried about by 'Kaa-san much of the time, and whenever I wasn't obsessed with playing with her red hair (surprisingly distracting for a child), I would point and squawk at objects as we passed, getting her to name them. I endeavored to learn the language as quickly as possible. Eventually, I learned my parents' names: Kohaku was Tou-san's name, Kohaku Uzumaki. He was named after amber for his hair color, which apparently as a kid was more orange than red. Kaa-san's name was Tomomi.

The second focus was on my mind. A developing brain is a very interesting thing. Depending on how you focus your time and effort, combined with natural inclination, neural-plasticity leads to the formation of specialized thought capacity. Having babies, and even young children, do a lot of math, for example, will make them more likely to be good at it, especially faster at it, so long as they associate the math with good things. I was, of course, focused on making my brain as sharp as it could be; my identity, the essence of my mind and self, may have been linked to the soul, but the processing speed and power was definitely at least partially physical.

The third focus was on my spirit. I wanted to make sure that I did the necessary maintenance keeping mind and spirit linked. Infant mortality, especially in this relatively low-tech world I seemed to have found myself in, was definitely a thing, and I want to ensure that if the worst happened, I would once again be reborn in my full capacity. During this, and the associated meditations on my body, I found something interesting.

And this interesting thing leads into the fourth focus; my internal energy. I discovered that my ki there in that new land was much more real than in my previous life. On Earth, it was, at least as I thought, a way of envisioning and having a semi-conscious control over normal biological processes. On Chakyu, my new planet, it was the same, except there was this greater energy to it, and it was far easier to move and use.

After some months of focus, I realized this energy had its own circulatory system, and seemed to have a color to it too: a dark blue in the pool near my navel, the traditional seat of physical energies (ki), a pale silver in the well near my forehead, presumably my mental/spiritual energies (chi), and a rather nice sky blue near my heart where they mixed (chakra).

This gave me ideas. Back before, I had read a number of stories with chakra-based magic systems, including Naruto. I hypothesized that in such a system, there would be five important attributes to someone's chakra: how much chakra you have (volume), how potent your chakra is (density), how quickly you can release the chakra (flow), how finely you can manipulate the chakra (control), and how quickly it recharged (vitality). While all of these are somewhat inherent, all can also be trained like muscles, especially if the chakra system has a circulatory system attached. And so, I began my chakra control exercises.

The main exercises I focused on were internal techniques effective in increasing volume, density, control, internal flow, and vitality. The small points on my skin where chakra could escape kind of freaked me out, and I decided not to experiment with those without a bit of advice and more knowledge. What I could do, was the following.

First, I spent days meditating solely on my own chakra flows. Once I had a decent understanding, the next step was the first of the exercises. I would compress my internal chakra, making it denser, then form it into little balls that were slightly larger than the channels, increasing volume a bit, as well as control, and significantly increasing flow. I would then focus on moving these balls through my chakra system as quickly as possible while maintaining coherency, further improving flow and control. Vitality would come into it as my body would have to replace the low-density areas left behind by increasing my chakra density. As a second exercise, I would focus on making the chakra in my ki-pool and chi-well denser, then shaping it against the sides of the pool or well, and making it slightly larger. This was most effective in increasing density and volume.

My third chakra related exercise was to try and track my own chakra as some naturally flowed outside of my body, and do minor control exercises, like keeping it close. This led me to noticing other sources of chakra nearby, and my fourth chakra exercises. At first, I could only notice them if enough of my own chakra came into contact and was absorbed by the chakra of the object or person I was sensing, which made me lose control of the chakra that used to be mine; eventually, I noticed familiar chakra sources like my parents, then even later, unfamiliar chakra sources within range, whether they had any of my chakra in them or not. I would meditate on this daily, training to expand my range and refine my focus, while also trying to multitask on whatever it was I was doing normally.

This in turn led to my fourth exercise, where I would try to re-absorb my own chakra, and the chakra of others. I found that my own could be reabsorbed safely, but that others had to be mixed with my own chakra, at which point it would be infected by my chakra's essence, for lack of a better term, and made available to my control. When alone, I would purposefully leak chakra out, keep it close, wait till my system was full again, then re-absorb it, increasing my volume and density, and improving my external chakra control.

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As a baby, with little to do other than focus on learning 'Kaa-san and Tou-san's language, doing memory and math game in my head to improve my mind, and a bit of meditation on my spirit, I had plenty of time when I was “sleeping” to muck about with these exercises. Though I didn't know it at the time, they would provide an excellent base to build the type of skills I'd need to survive.

I was about one year old when I discovered that I was living in a Naruto-verse, and more importantly in Uzushiogakure as an Uzumaki. I nearly wept I was so happy I had started my training early enough. It turns out, 'Kaa-san and Tou-san's red hair? The weird spiral symbol I'd sometimes see? All of these were signs that didn't really click until I was better with the language.

I wasn't sure how to feel about this.

I wasn't particularly familiar with Naruto, more's the pity. I had read a good number of fanfics, but the original was far too annoying to get into. I didn't know much, and had no guarantee that we were in fact in a canon Naruto-verse, nor whether a canon verse is reflective of the majority of possible Naruto-verses.

In other words, the multi-versal identity was certainly uncertain.

Less philosophically, I had no idea where the canon of Naruto fell in relation to reality. Was it truly historical, or at least a semi-child friendly depiction of true events? Was it fiction from the same setting, similar to Jiraiya’s Tale of the Utter Gutsy Shinobi? Or was it even less relevant? In other words, I didn’t know whether I had a cheat sheet, a loose guide, or whether I was about to do something as stupid as thinking that reading Shakespeare’s Macbeth qualified me as an expert on the War of the Roses.

I decided to work off of the assumption that I was in canon, or at least something closely related, until I knew better.

That aside, I was in Uzushio, which I knew fell in canon, but I didn't know when, my best guess being “sometime after Mito requests a replacement to hold the nine-tails”, nor could I locate myself in time. Further, I was well familiar with the butterfly effect, so assuming I was not in a static time-stream, in which case [everything I do] is something [I will have done in the canonical future] so I may as well [do as I would and hope for the best] – and yes, I did study modern philosophy in school – then the butterfly effect meant that this far out, nothing was certain of the absolute shit-storm that may be coming. On the other hand, considering it was the result of a centuries old conspiracy, and I was basically living in a death-world, I decided I should definitely prepare as well as I could.

Still, if there was a clan to be part of, the Uzumaki's were among the top choices. Maybe without the cheating eyes of the Uchiha or all-seeing Hyuga (both of whose capabilities I resolved to copy or duplicate at some point), but we didn't have the whole Hatred or Servitude fetishes either. Plus canonically, until it got destroyed, Uzushio was as far as I could recall a pretty good place to be. Bonuses included high levels of prosperity and technology, a virtual monopoly on high-level sealing, defensible and somewhat removed from the concerns of the mainland other than our, somewhat unfortunate, military alliance with Konoha. And, most critical for me, access to the sealing libraries of Uzushio, peerless repositories of a discipline which was interpreted back on Earth as a mix of magic, science and art.

As soon as I found this out, I forced my parents to start teaching me how to draw. I sucked. I was a baby, so it was expected. But, I brought a level of focus to it that impressed my parents. Turns out, Kaa-san was a fairly decently ranked sealer, and was ecstatic to start teaching me, calling me “her little genius” at the speed I learned the meaning of symbols and making Tou-san extremely jealous. Honestly, Kaa-san was pretty amazing.

I always thought of her as this huge (compared to me), but svelte and reasonably fit and just the right height (compared to Tou-san, who was kind of a beast, and always has 5-o'clock shadow), always dressed well, and gentle person who spent a lot of time writing in the office, but always with time to change or feed or play with me whenever I fussed, and infinite patience to point out and explain things in simple terms that I would hopefully understand. I took a while before I realized exactly what she was writing while in her office, to learn that she was this world's equivalent to, I'm not sure: a journeyman enchanter? A math-mancer or Pythagorean mage? A scientist? And at such a young age too. My eyes were full of admiration for Kaa-san.

Tou-san, who was part of the clan-guard (which was somewhere between ninja and national-guard), seemed to have focused a bit more on kenjutsu and physical combat, which I guessed from his rather manly appearance, sword, and callouses; I was just hoping he could teach jutsu too. Being a bit competitive with Kaa-san, he started me off on a proper physical training regime, getting me ready for martial arts and swordplay with a series of exercises, stretches and games which I took to amazingly well.

It was a wet, muddy, cold, painful, and exhausting process. I loved it. It had been literally a lifetime since my body was fit enough to do so, and I had seriously missed being able to feel that burn and the sweet exhaustion of an honest work-out. Tou-san pushed just the right amount, and always made sure to explain how this game or exercise wasn't only great in its own way, but would make me an awesome man in the future. It wasn’t hard to convince me. Being able to do what really amounted to martial-arts magic, and protect those we loved like Kaa-san and Uzushiogakure meant I was living the dream.

I theorized that chakra, which I had been improving at a rapid rate for over a year by that point, improved muscular and mental development too, because there was no way a one year old should be able to survive all that otherwise. And so my days passed, eating with Tou-san and Kaa-san, increasing my vocabulary, being taught to read and write by memorizing the meanings and usage of seals with Kaa-san in her office during the day, running and playing hide-and-seek, and doing basic exercises and pre-martial arts foundational work with Tou-san either early or late depending on his shift.

As I grew, and gained mobility, basic speech, the ability to eat solid foods, was finally a bit more sturdy, and had passed the all important first-year, where child mortality was so brutal, I was finally exposed to more of the village. It was a beautiful place. Relatively large, with a population in the tens of thousands, about a tenth of whom would fall under the broad umbrella of “ninja” (in reality often samurai or simply chakra-active with potential combat-applicable skills), Uzushio was also a trading hub, and made a fortune on selling seals and sealing services.

The buildings, mostly Japanese in style but with much more stone and solid materials than usual, tended to be bright and colorful. Clothes were made of fine fabrics and vibrant colors. The market had large supplies of local and foreign foodstuffs and goods. The people were pleasant, and my family well respected. We were not the very elite expected to inherit clan leadership, but were Uzumaki clan members, both of my parents being approximately Jonin within their specialties and thus of similar social position as a great-clan special Jonin in another village.

I loved life, as always, and I loved my new life too. I decide that I refused to allow it to be ruined by anyone. I would put forth my full effort, the understanding of science and technology of a highly-educated, 21st century engineer, and every ounce of cunning and viciousness. I resolved to protect this life, and the lives of those I value.

For that task, few measures were too far. I would become a monster so fearful that we were left without enemies, lest my gaze have reason to turn on them. I would advocate a policy of isolationism and neutrality to avoid conflict. But if anyone attempted to topple Uzushiogakure, the last thing they would find in their lives was me, waiting, and I would visit ruin unto their village.

Again, I had a goal. And I, who had transcended Death, refused to fail.