A week had passed after our first mission, and I had now fully recovered. Turns out that pumping a quarter of my chackra reserves into Reinforcement created many micro-fractures in my leg, From my hip all the way to my toes. Dekiru made me not bother Karin by getting her to heal me, 'because she needs to practice helping with bigger wounds'. And as much as I would have liked to have my leg healed quickly, I could use this to train my Recovery.
And train it I did, turns out healing bones is much harder and takes much more concentration than healing surface level scratches. It took me two days to be able to pin point the problem with my chackra, and it took me close to five hours a day to heal each portion of the bones. It also drained my chakra like crazy, so I would have to deal with headaches between the mentally draining healing sessions. But it did improve my control by a substantial margin, I was now able to make three Projections, without instantly feeling the drain of chackra exhaustion.
Between that time, I got to educating myself on the history of Kusagakure, and the current political scene. Pretty much all of the influence was held by me, the Kusakage and the two other jonin. One of them being my sensei, and the other one being a guy who survived the war with great injuries, and is now retired. But instead of pushing for things, he just works as an assistant and helps with paperwork.
A respectable decision, and he is a very great individual. During this week I went to him after my sensei recommended him to me to catch me up to date with Kusagakures dealings. We have even set up a time to play shogi, during which he teaches me about strategies or tells me stories of the war. And he also donates most of his salary to projects to better the infrastructure of the whole Country of Grass. Although he is wrapped in bandages from head to toe, he is a really trustworthy individual, I nicknamed him Hōtai. I gave him some of my money for him to invest in different businesses.
-----------------
-Two years later-
After my complete recovery, I quickly found a routine, and time started to fly. Train with the team, go to Hōtai and discuss with him, then go home, ignore the hole in my office wall, and either study my clans techniques, or train taijutsu. With close to no aberrations to this schedule, besides the occasional bandit removal or escort mission.
I had grown taller, and my frame was filled in by some more muscles, but besides that, not much had changed with me. Baki was the same height as me, although he had grown to be slightly bulkier than me during this time. Karin had also grown taller, she has ditched the glasses, and her hair now reached down to her waist. Her body has also started to develop nicely.
During this time, I had also started to come to terms with the fact that I was now Naoya Zenin. Not the kid before his clans massacre, nor the teenager whom had possessed his body, but a mix of both, and I have been pondering about the day of my reincarnation. As I have come to terms with my situation, my chackra reserves also grew, presumably from the better mental clarity I gained. As opposed to before, when I would get lost in my thoughts and would lose track of my surroundings, now I was extremely attentive.
I could discern what people were saying from tens of meters away, I could track flies with ease, wherever they were, and my own body feels much more responsive. Even with the training Dekiru sensei had put me through, my reflexes were still lacking, but now, I could confidently react in time to the attacks he used to train me back then, even if caught off guard.
Besides all of that, my memories of both lives were clearer, as they were no longer trying to suppress the other. Although the day in which I transmigrated are blank in both lives, I don't even remember ever waking up in either of them. But that is unimportant. The man who was of great help to this rifting of my two battling egos was Hōtai, just talking with him about his own conflicts, and learning about his battles between his morality and his desperation to survive, had helped me understand my own situation better.
In the end, time was the most important factor, with my behavior slowly but surely merging the two egos into a whole. Although, until I completely I deal with the trauma left within them both from the day of the transmigration, I won't be fully whole.
----------------
I had cleared out my agenda for today, with the plan to travel towards one of the villages I sponsored, to see if there were any children that could be recruited, and if the funds donated by Kusa had been used well. This was a pretty normal occurrence, with me being entrusted by Hōtai to punish the administrators who stole the funds instead of using it correctly.
Today, I was to check a village that is right on the border with the Land of Fire, it had received funds for renovating the main road, which was used by many merchants to travel between Kusa and Konoha.
Now, the man who was in charge of this place has always been an honest man, and had used everything as he was meant to. So this is more of a road trip for me than anything else. And scouting for talent. For a country and a shinobi village as small as the Land of Grass and Kusagakure, any scrap of potential needs to be nurtured.
With my line of thought reaching its end, I had also reached the destination. It was a modest village, with a brand new stone road built on the main street, contrasting the unimpressive houses besides it, which were exactly what you would imagine from a small rural settlement like this. All the houses were the same rough size, though they had slight differences in material and shape. But they were all at ground level, and were only big enough for about four rooms, a hallway, a pantry, a main room, and a storage room for non perishables.
I went to the house that had hosted me last time I had come to this village. It was inhabited by a family of six, who were great hosts. After getting settled in once again, and giving my hosts a gift as thanks for having me, I decided to wander around the village for a bit. It was a small place, populated by only about one hundred people, despite being a well traveled road.
The Kusakages and Daymos hope was that by investing in this villages infrastructure, it would become a sort of local trade center and would bring both more talent in the country and would bolster the economy.
After wandering about for a while, I decided to go for a walk in the forest near this village, the one on the border with the Land of Fire. It has always been one of my great pleasures, one gained in my past life, to wander through a forest. Passing by so many critters you wouldn't normally get to see in the modern world, and being able to sense them in all their disgusting writhing. It reminds me of how superior we are to insects, and even to other animals.
As I pondered upon those things, I noticed the sound of strained breathing from a great distance away. I decided to investigate the sound, rapidly approaching the source of it, while cloaking my chackra and making as little sound as possible. To my great surprise, as I got closer to the source of the strained breathing, I found that, instead of a civilian running from a beast, the source of the strained breathing was one of three Konoha genin. They were slightly injured, and one of them was holding a scroll.
The most noticeable of them bore pure white eyes, without any pupils. He had long black hair, that contrasted with his eyes and fair skin, clearly a member of the Hyuuga clan. He wore some brown shorts paired with a beige jacket, and he was the least affected by whatever encounter they just had. The next one to jump to my eyes was a kid with a bowlcut, his hair being a shiny black, he had round eyes, his eyebrows bushy. He was dressed in an all green jumpsuit, with orange leg warmers.
The last member of their team was the one from whom the noise was coming from. It was a girl with dark brown hair and eyes, her hair tied into two buns that lay on each side of her head. She was dressed in a pink sleeveless blouse, and she wore a pair of blue pants.
It was clear that they were on a mission and that they had been attacked by someone. I tried to remember if there was any information exchange mission sent to Konoha in recent memory, as I was searching my memory, the Hyuuga turned to my location in the trees and said;
"One is hiding up in that tree." Upon his words, the girl took out a pair of kunai and threw them at me with impressive speed. I sighed, and dropped down to the ground. I raised my hands in the air as I spoke; "I heard a scuffle going on in the forest and came to investigate; I am a Kusa shinobi."
They still kept their guards up as they looked me up and down. My forehead protector was tied to my left arm, on my bicep, I turned my arm to show them the Kusa symbol, after which the two non-clan shinobi let out a relaxed sigh and dropped their guards, while the Hyuuga kept himself ready for the worst. I approached them slowly, after I let my hands return to my sides.
Before I could get near them, however, a kunai flew towards the girl of the group. I projected behind her and caught the kunai before it could get to her. Out of the surroundings came out three rogue shinobi, who immediatly attacked all pf us. I threw the kunai I caught at one of them, then Projected behind his back. I then punched him in the back of the head, I then turned to look at the others, only to be met with an elbow to the face. The rogue shinobi had not been harmed by my attack.
I flew through he air into a tree, my nose broken. I projected on top of the man I had previously attacked, and threw an axe kick onto his parietal lobe. This time, I saw his neck go inside his body with a sickening crack. The Hyuuga had managed to paralyze his opponent, while his two teammates had killed their opponent. The kid in the green jumpsuit had managed to hold the rogue shinobi in place while the bun girl had thrown a kunai between his eyes.
After this brief encounter, they quickly informed me that they were here to deliver a trade proposal to the Kusa Daymo from the Land of Fire. I agreed to help escort them, after all, it would not only better the relationship between Kusa and Konoha, but if this deal went through, it would improve my own reputation.
I first brought them to the village I was inspecting for them to recover. After settling my own duties there, we set off towards Kusagakure. The trip was uneventful, I mostly let the bowl cut genin speak his mind, sometimes nodding and giving some responses to show him I was paying attention to what he was saying. Thanks to his endless buzzing, we got to Kusa in what felt like more than it should have. I also found out their names, Hyuuga Neji, Rock Lee and Tenten.
Upon reaching the gates of Kusa, I turned around, only to feel a powerful wind threaten to sweep me off the ground, In front of us appeared what seemed to be a grown up version of the Lee. He started shouting something about youth, tears pouring from his eyes like waterfalls, as he went to hug his team. The young Rock Lee hugged him with the same expression on his face, A rainbow materialisng behind them, together with flowers. Tenten looked embarrassed to be near them, while Neji looked unbothered by their display, though his brow was twitching a little.
I rubbed my eyes a few times and tried to dispel any genjutsu I may have been trapped in. Only to find that I was under no genjutsu, and that their rainbow was real. I promptly entered the village, and tried finding something to distract myself from what such a thing entailed.
After I guided them to the Kusakage, Team Guy, as I was told they were called, asked me for a spar.