Chereads / Transmigrated - A Dreary Soul in Naruto / Chapter 4 - One step at a time

Chapter 4 - One step at a time

Chakra.. It feels amazing, like a torrents of warm, thick blood rushing through your veins. Your whole perception of the world changes, you feel yourself become stronger. Power, this is power. Kenshin marvels at the changes he feels before rising and bowing to the teacher "Thank you for helping me, Teacher" He says solemnly

Nakamura smiles relaxedly while waving his hand "No problem, you've done well. Here's your new schedule, I've already talked to the principal."

Kenshin takes the paper and glances over it before looking back up at nakamura "So should i just meet up with the rest of the class tomorrow?"

"Yes, your new teacher is called Hoshi. He'll explain everything tomorrow, including what you should do to catch up. Though I believe it won't be much of problem, am I right?" He says while winking at Kenshin. Kenshin embarrassedly scratches his head while smiling proudly "Yeah, I got this teach. See ya later!" He yells before running out of the classroom.

Getting to the academy gate Kenshin turns around and look over it once more with a happy smile before returning to the Orphanage.

On the way back to the orphanage Kenshin felt something strange 'Hm? Why do I feel so light? It feels like I can touch the skies if i only jump' Testing his theory Kenshin tries jumping. As such came the scene of a child no more than five jumping 2 meters high, a lot higher than he thought and therefore ended up landing on his face. "WHOA THAT WAS SCARY" He screams really loudly while civilians snicker at him, used to seeing newly awakened kids defy gravity, Living in a ninja village they had all done the same at some point. They might look innocent, but they were all, if not warriors, awakened. Chakra being a simple concept were widespread an used by all to some small extent.

Embarrassed by his high pitched scream Kenshin ran away to some remote corner before thinking to himself 'That way really cool.. And embarrassing.. But mostly cool! How come nakamura didn't tell me? That bastard!" Fuming to himself he ran back to the orphanage, intent on getting something to eat before exploring this chakra further. "Hahaha, I haven't had this much fun.. Since ever!" He thought to himself.

At the orphanage he runs up to Mrs. Surei to ask when dinner is done. Surei looks at him fondly, being somewhat clean and orderly with a boyish charm "Dinner will be done soon, go play with your friends meanwhile, I think Draken" She grimaces at that name "Just got back"

Having no intention of becoming buddy buddy with draken, Kenshin just nods and smiles before heading to his room to explore chakra further. Half an hour later of meditation, coming no closer to understanding the mystery that is chakra, however interests satisfied, he jump up at the sound of 'the bell'. When the bell ring all the children are supposed to meet up because there will either be an announcement, or it's dinner. Usually it rings for dinner. The bell was made a way for the matron to get everyone around without shouting herself hoarse each time. When kenshin first heard this from Bakura he was a bit speechless that the mrs.Surei didn't have the bell from the beginning, what about the past matrons? Did they all die from a dry throat?

Regardless, after chugging the mud of a meal we get here while talking animatedly with Akira, Kenshin tell them about how he'll go train afterwards, to test his new abilities. Before going he decided to weed as much information from Akira as possible, but it was decidedly few snippets. Bakura would have an insightful comment once in a while, which surprised me as he was, still a child. Though Akira didn't say anything especially useful and wrinkled his nose at joining me to train, as expected, he was nowhere near as bad as Draken. Kenshin wonders if he's been dropped on the head as a kid with the stuff that comes out of his mouth, but, he might be setting his expectations too high. Not that it matters much, saying his goodbyes Kenshin ran of to the academy training grounds, told to him by Akira. Bakura gave him a tip about reading up on the library if there was something he wondered about, a public library! Kenshin were astonished, but happy all the same.

Deciding it's too boring to walk, kenshin began to run towards the Academy, running faster than ever before. Kenshin, being quite fond of Parkour as child and teenager felt that he had enough power to pull of some ridiculously cool stuff and jumped upon a crate to get the extra height to reach the top of a metal pole a few meter above the ground, catching it he felt his body begin to swing with inertia, pulling it together to get more speed in his swing he grins wildly before seeing a building at his height.. Wide eyed at the feats of physical miracle he'd just accomplished, Kenshin let go when directed towards the building, filled with confidence and laughter at the adrenaline rush he took hold of the roof, only to slam into the wall. "Oof, bad plan" Kenshin says to himself while pulling up on the roof, ignoring the complaints of the people on the ground when his feet scraped paint from the wall.

Breathless, Kenshin smiles at what he'd just done. "I'll never get tired of this" he thinks to himself, knowing it is false, but enjoying the moment in favour of logic. Standing up from his position on the roof, he looks around and see the roofs perfectly space to jump from one another. Grinning to himself he runs along, unheeding of the noise for those living under and jumps! "Hahah" Seeing the ground beneath his feet, knowing that he would die if he fell from here in his last life is a rush he could never compare to before. Jumping the lengths that he does now, the simplicity of how much power just unlocking chakra gave. 'Incredible' Kenshin thinks while jumping from roof to roof, when he arrives before the academy he simply jumped from the building to another metal phone, spinning on it till he reached halfway down where he let go and jumped to the ground. It stang his feet a bit from the impact, but it didn't feel so bad. 'Ouch, let's practice landing, yeah?' Kenshin thinks to himself before going to the training ground at the academy. 'Wait' He thinks with a face palm 'I've already tested this body now, I don't need to go here anymore'. Chastising himself for his stupidity, he goes to the library instead to find something interesting to read. Greeting the receptionist with a wave, she becomes a bit astonished but didn't deny his entry. 'Kids nowadays' She thinks to herself 'They learn reading early'. Musing back to the time it took them several years to learn to read a book by themselves. Caught in her nostalgia she didn't notice Kenshin walking past the 'children section' and go further into the advanced library. Not that she'd stop him if she'd seen him.

Kenshin was ecstatic with the size of this library, not so much with the content. For as friendly and peaceful as the leaf village seemed, the censorship was huge. Propaganda leaked from every book and actual content was too far between to find. I would ask the librarian, but i'd probably get laughed at and shooed out, or been directed to texts below my comprehension. I've never understood 'comprehension', what is there to comprehend? It is as it is written, 'comprehension' is just pure memorization, as long as you know the words being used you would be able to comprehend something with ease. That's why i'm searching for basic chakra texts so that I have something to build the advanced knowledge

He would have asked the librarian for help, but he believed he'd probably get laughed at and shooed out. If not, be directed to actual children texts instead of something with more substance. Kenshin has never understood 'comprehension', as long as you memorize the fundamentals and know the words used everything is memorization. Memorization is comprehension. Except when it comes to problem solving like mathematics.

Finding the basic chakra texts Kenshin begin to read eagerly, and continue to read. At some point the library had turned dark, Kenshin decided to borrow some books for the night.

Going up to the librarian with the stack of books, she gaped at him for a second before asking for identification. Kenshin stared at her for a moment before asking hesitantly "What identification?"

The librarian narrowed her eyes at him for a moment "School token, your academy identification!"

"Oh…" Kenshin said slowly and noticed she'd become a bit irritated by now. Smiling slightly he said "I don't have those yet, I'll come back later?" He phrased it as a question at the end.

The librarian just huffed and told him that he should. "One more thing" He said "When do you close?" The librarian, her name tag says Akiko, looked at her watch and said "In two hours" Kenshin smiled brightly at that "Great! I'll take these with me then" He smiled at her before taking the books to a table in the corner, reading until it got dark.

Walking under the moon Kenshin muses on what he's learned in the past few hours, not much were 'known' about what chakra were and how it came to be. But how to use it was widespread, common knowledge. It's a wonder the ninja villages can keep their supremacy, but Kenshin isn't one for politics, so he doesn't dwell on it for long. Earlier in the day he'd already tried the 'leaf' exercise so common to Narutoverse and found it utterly impossible, reading these books made it clear why he couldn't manage. Some might say failure is the root of success, but knowledge makes success so much easier. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Molding his chakra in the correct way, swirls and bumps included, Kenshin focused on getting the Leaf to stick. 'That said, my control is still horrendous' Kenshin says bitterly then begins walking again. Arriving at the orphanage to a worried matron, who scolded him severely for being so late, he explained himself but she would have none of it. He then had to clean the cafeteria, Kenshin suspect that this 'punishment' are things which Mrs. Surei cannot be bothered to do herself. Kenshin made a vow to be smarter about curfew in the future and to get that library card as soon as possible.

After quickly cleaning the cafeteria to an acceptable level, Kenshin rushes to his room sluggishly before falling face first on his bed. It doesn't take long before the room fills with sounds of snoring.

Waking up the next day is a repeat of the former, Kenshin goes down to eat some mud, talk some shit with Akira and Bakura, shit being literal, before going to school together. Turns out, we're all in the same class now! So that's fun. 'For them' Kenshin thinks in anger 'Just acting as a child disgust me and I have to do it consistently for years upon years from now. Better buckle up, I've heard some rumours that you become what you act, let's hope that's only halfway true.' Kenshin boredly thinks while listening to Hoshi talking, once in a while he'd say something interesting and Kenshin would perk up, but mostly he's just talking propaganda. Obviously Kenshin would need to know this propaganda, but he feels like it's so demotivation learning false information. False information! This is what happens when the education system is used not to educate, but to indoctrinate. But, Kenshin could understand why they would do this, Konoha as a whole thrived on criminal activities, deceit and secrecy. If their ninja's weren't loyal they already fail on the most basic level. Kenshin wouldn't be surprised if they used some kind of brainwashing technique to keep their Ninjas in line, which is kind of scary, but he didn't mind getting brainwashed a bit in return for the ninja arts.

But his expression did turn grim as he realised just how important this 'false information' was to him, if he didn't know this he wouldn't be indoctrinated, and if he weren't indoctrinated he wouldn't be trusted. From then on Kenshin made a plan to slowly become a staunch Konoha supporter, to let Konoha support him and vice versa. As Kakashi would say, look underneath the underneath. Nodding to himself, Kenshin listened to the lecture with double the vigor than previously. Though you would see no change in his expression as he'd appeared attentive and curious through the whole lecture, now however, he was taking notes. '

'After a hard day at the indoctrination camp, ops, I mean academy' Kenshin snickers to himself 'I'm going to practice chakra control for the rest of the day' Walking towards the exit of the academy Kenshin suddenly remembers something. 'Oh right, the student identification'. Turning around Kenshin quickly find his teacher about to leave with the gaggle of students. Running energetically up to him Kenshin smiles and waves "Hey teach!" The teacher, Hoshi, looks started for a moment before energetically calling back "Hey, Kenshin right? Whats up!?"

"Oh nothing much" Kenshin says while jumping on the balls of his feet "I need that, whats it called, student identification to get books!"

Hoshi makes a expression of realization "Right! I completely forgot about that" While putting a hand on his face. "Come with me!" He says brightly then walks into the academy. Kenshin follow quickly "How do you like the Konoha so far?"

Kenshin grins brightly "Oh it's great, Konoha is so cool. I've already made many friends!" Then he keeps rambling about his 'friends' from the orphanage for a few minutes. By the end even Hoshi looks a bit put out by the overly energetic student "Right, Sounds great. Oh we've arrived! I'll just talk with the principal real quick, ait? Ok" He says before going into the principal office.

A few minutes later of waiting he comes out, smiling he yells out to Kenshin "Here, catch!" while throwing a small brick of wood over. Kenshin's looks down at it doubtfully. "Haha! Don't worry and don't lose it. There is some sealing arts on it to make it valid. Cool, right? Anyways, just give it to the librarian and she'll know what to do." He grins at Kenshin

"Hey, thanks teach! See you later!" Kenshin smiles brightly before running off

"See ya" The teacher yells back before shaking his head amusedly "Where does he get all that energy" If some other teachers heard him say that they'd gape at him, being infamous for all his energy, only bested by Maito Gai himself.

Running out of the academy Kenshin headed straight for the library while thinking "Maybe I should put off some more time for friends, dunno how normal it's for a kiddo to spend as much time as me reading. Thought I do have motivation to get 'revenge'. Is it really enough?" Kenshin knows that the attention span of children aren't very much and unless they're somehow socially incapable won't spend all their time reading books. "Hmm, we'll see. I need to have some oddities. Can't be perfect after all, it's not only suspicious, but also a persona that crumbles easily." Nodding to himself Kenshin arrives before the Library after jumping down from a building. "For now, though, I'm way too interested in this thing called chakra" He grins genuinely.