I awoke in a panic, sweat dripping down my forehead as my body burned, my vision blurry. I could not make sense of my surroundings, a deep ache pierced my head, as memories came rushing in. As I got up, my vision returned to me and I could see what happened. Everyone that this body knew was dead, slaughtered like animals even as they struggled against their attackers, his parents, his uncles, aunts and cousins.
The people who had taught him everything he knew, now lay dead before his very eyes, just as he had, up until a few moments ago, a kunai through his eye, until I took possession of this body. While I have no idea how this happened, I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. A second chance at life is more than I could ever ask for, especially since I now have the potential(man) to become one of the stronger beings in this world.
This child's former clan worked as a mercenary clan, constantly moving from one place to the next, unwilling to change with the times, taking jobs from whoever would offer them a good sum. As I imagined, this caused the clan to be the target of resentment from many different powers, which has now caught up to them.
As I was observing the former head of the clan, the father of this body, I noticed that he had engraved Konoha's symbol in the wall closest to him. Despite the fact that I did not particularly care for these people, tears still poured down my face as it contorted in despair, as my body grieved their deaths . While I would not have minded staying in the familiar environment of the clans camp, the assassins who did this could still be around. As such, I moved as quickly as I could, scavenging everything that is usable and taking my clans secret stash of jutsu's from my fathers tent.
After organizing everything in a backpack, I headed towards the nearest village I could find on the map. And so, as the sun was rising in the east, I, the newly awakened Naoya Zenin, set out.
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Turns out, its quite hard to cover ground on foot. Especially so when you are inhabiting the body of a child, even one as trained as this one. Although I was moving quickly for a ten year old, I was not going to make it into the city before nightfall. While I had traveled about a quarter of the way, the sun had already made its way west. Given the fact that I have enough supplies to last me 4 days, I decided to set up camp near a river. With this, also came the opportunity to check my new bodies appearance, and see if my stunning looks came through from my previous life.
On the way towards the river, I consulted the clans techniques and ranked them in order of importance for my new way of life as an aspiring one-man army. Even as memories of my clans death kept coming into my mind, I knew that the best way to avoid having anything similar happening in the future is to become strong enough to prevent it.
After I finished setting up my tent, I went to the river to check myself out. As I peered into the water I saw a child with a diamond shaped face, puffy with baby fat. His hair reached his ears, it was a dirty blonde, and the tips were black. His eyes shared their colour with his hair, his pupils small and predatory, seemingly looking down on everything in his surroundings. Another striking feature was the blood that was smeared all over his face. MY FACE. In my rush to put as much distance between myself and probability of the shinobi finding me I had completely forgotten that fact hat I was drenched in blood from head to toe.
I undressed and entered the water to clean myself. I had taken a few spare pieces of clothes with me in case my current outfit ripped or got dirty. However, what I hadn't taken into account is the fact that my current set of clothes was already caked with blood. After cleaning myself thoroughly, I dried myself and clocked in for the night.
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The next three days were uneventful, with me falling into a boring routine. As I reached the final part of my trek through the wilderness, I came upon the sight of the village, nestled beautifully between two rivers. Satisfaction and relief went over me as I could now gather some more information about the exact date, while I knew that 9 years have passed since the Third Shinobi War and the Kyuubi attack, the exact date certainly wouldn't hurt.
Another thing I needed to look for was a bigger map, that I could use to navigate towards a smaller nation, with a lesser shinobi population, where I could make my services of use without worry of coming upon a jonin or another such obstacle. I am currently debating whether to go into Kusagakure or Amegakure. And then a memory struck me. That of a orange haired man, dressed in a black trench coat with red cloud-like patterns on it, with purple eyes, and black rings circling his pupils.
As I realised who was most probably leading Amekagure at this point in time, I decided that going to Kusagakure is the best option for the time being, as long as I could leave that country before Orochimaru made it his main base of operations. While I would have liked to not be put at risk in such a way, getting to any other minor nation would require a trek through much more of the world and the Land of Fire. Plus if push really does come to shove I can simply run away to Takigakure. While it is a 'major' nation, it is one in name only, as even with its jinchuriki, it does not have anything near the power necessary to compete with the other main villages.
And Takegakure is much more expensive and has greater shinobi presence than Kusagakure, which would make my position worse, losing a lot of my leverage. My current plan was to become a Kusagakure ninja and train under their protection until I mastered my clans techniques. While the protection isn't that important, their shinobi are. Even if they are of a lesser quality then those of the major nations, their experience is still valuable, and having a few bodies to slow down any threats I can't defeat is always appreciated.
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As approached the village gates I prepared a disguise, a.k.a. I used one of the three foundational jutsus that my clan had thaught me. Henge no Jutsu, to transform myself into an unassuming looking man, to hopefully dodge awkward questions such as 'Why is a ten year old alone in the middle of nowhere?'.
There were two guards armed with spears in front of the village as protection. While they couldn't even stop genin, civilian criminals were another matter. As one of them spotted me approaching, they got their guards up and prepared to chase me off should it come to it. Would they be able to? No. But they didn't know that.
"Hey! State your name and your intentions!" Both of the guards were unassuming men with forgettable faces. That didn't mean I could ignore them, I mean I could, but that would make obtaining a place to stay for the night and some information much harder than it needed to be.
"My name is Kagura Bachi. I am a traveling merchant, and I would like to rest in your village before setting off again."
While rare, it is not unusual for merchants to come to small villages to sell their wares and rest. As such, the guards relaxed slightly as one of them spoke:
"We still need to check your belongings and ensure you aren't carrying any contraband before letting you enter."
After a nice chat with the guards as they checked my luggage, I found out that they had quite the problem with bandits. An outpost had formed quite close to their village and it has been causing them trouble.
Thankfully, no shinobi were present in their ranks, which means I can test out my skills. Since the bandits have no one capable of using chakra, I would be in no danger, and I would see how much of this kids training stuck with me after I took over.
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After paying for a room and getting dinner, I promptly dropped the Henge I had put on myself and prepared to set out in search of the bandits.
Now my clan has three main techniques that ensured their survival: an extremely powerful modified Kawarimi, lovingly named Projection Jutsu, which requires expert chakra control and massive chackra reserves to pull off successfully. A chakra augmentation technique, called Reinforcement Jutsu, that strengthens ones physique, making it comparable to the Senju, with some geniuses even surpassing them. And finally, the most important out of all of them, an extremely potent recovery technique, which is close to impossible to use, requiring an even greater amount of chakra control, and a deep understanding of the human body.
My predecessor had managed to learn the basics of the modified Kawarimi, effectively creating two highly concentrated spots of chakra outside his body, allowing him to blink to either one of them, and catch his enemy off guard. While impressive for his age, it was nothing next to what others had achieved in the past, with legends of a Zenin from the warring states period who had managed to create twenty one such spots.
He had also mastered the chakra augmentation technique, his raw strength greater then what anyone would expect from a genin. While he had been taught how to perform the recovery technique, he was nowhere near close to actually healing any kind of threatening injury. Reaching a bottle neck where most of his clan did, and only being able to close minor scratches faster.
My hope is that with my modern understanding of the human body, I would be able to more efficiently use the technique, but I would only find out after bringing my chakra control to a higher level.
He was also trained in our clans taijutsu and was regarded as a genius, with most clan members only reaching his level of skill in the clan jutsus only when they became adults. Did I retain all that skill? Hopefully. His muscle memory shouldn't have disappeared after I took over and I absorbed all of his memories, which includes his combat experience. Still, its better to test everything out in a controlled environment.
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As I was searching for any sign of the bandits I saw smoke billowing towards the sky. I immediately rushed towards it, while masking my presence for practice. As I reached the source of the fire, I found a massive fire burning in the middle of a campfire. Who would have thought bandits are so considerate? There were only three people awake, with the other seven bandits sleeping near the fire.
I decided to test out how rusty my Projection Jutsu was. Turns out, I lost a lot of my chakra control as even setting up one projection took a lot out of me. My chakra reinforcement, however was still just as good as this kid remembers. I didn't have any kunais or knives, but my clan prided in its lethality, even unarmed.
The three nameless bandits were sitting in a triangle, each looking at a different part of the forest. It was quite dumb of them to leave their backs unguarded. Though I guess most people and animals cant simply appear behind them. I reinforced my forearms in preparation to burst the first guards head into pieces.
I took a deep breath, before jumping into action. I appeared behind the first bandit and as soon as I touched his head it burst into a thousand pieces. I turned around and rushed bandit number two, who barely had time to turn his head before I was upon him. I kicked his chest and my leg went through him like a hot knife through butter. The third bandit screamed as he realised that a shinobi had descended upon them. This time, I went slower, stomping on the sleeping bandits bodies, turning them into mush and giving them an agonizing death. The remaining bandits had now awoken and scrambled to run away. Unfortunately for them, I was much faster. I descended upon them one by one, either crushing their heads or punching through them.
As I was chasing the last bandit I realised that this is what I was made for. Not working as a corporate slave, not as a bureaucrat, nor as a doctor. This has purpose, even if I don't have any connection to these guys victims, knowing that the world is just a little bit better. And that is enough for me to appreciate this feeling of power, of making my own justice. Once I caught up to him, I gave him a little love tap which promptly smeared his insides all over the forest floor
After that, I started gathering all the loot the bandits had amassed, I could sell it for more money. They had a lot of jewelry and other things. They even had a top notch mirror, in which I saw the boys expression. MY EXPRESSION. It was a hideous grin, stretching from one ear to the other. My whole face contorted in pleasure. I guess this feeling was something we both shared.
I kept my smile as I returned to the village silently to get a good nights rest.