The morning sun barely touched the training field when I arrived. The dew still clung to the grass, coating the ground in a thin layer of moisture that made every step slick. Perfect for balance training.
I had begun to see my own body as a constantly evolving weapon. The limit wasn't the technique itself it was how the technique connected to every other one. My MMA instincts told me to think in terms of combinations, transitions, and counters, but here in this world, there was no octagon, no weight classes, no referee. A fight could involve chakra-enhanced speed, supernatural strength, or even moves that defied the laws of physics. If I wanted to stand a chance, my body had to adapt beyond human norms.
I started with stance conditioning. Barefoot, I set myself into a deep horse stance, thighs parallel to the ground. The slick grass forced my stabilizers to work overtime. I shifted my weight forward into a low lunge, then into a deep side stance, feeling each transition in my legs and hips.
From there, I added chakra channeling not to perform a flashy jutsu, but to send a steady trickle into my muscles. I wanted to see if it could replace or supplement the slow-burning endurance I'd developed in my past life. As the chakra seeped into my quads and calves, I felt the faintest buzz of energy like the first moments of adrenaline before a fight.
Next came striking flow drills. I moved through a series of combinations:
Lead jab to spinning backfist.
Roundhouse kick flowing into a sweep.
Elbow hook transitioning into a knee strike.
Every move was followed by a micro-adjustment in foot placement, as if anticipating a counter. This was second nature from MMA don't just hit, prepare for what comes after.
But here, I didn't stop at muscle memory. I began incorporating elements from Naruto-world taijutsu I'd studied. I imagined the raw explosiveness of the Hachimon Tonkō, the fluid acrobatics of the Strong Fist, and the rotational redirection of the Gentle Fist's footwork though without the chakra point strikes. I had no Byakugan, but I could adapt the angles.
For an hour, I worked purely on movement integration. If I executed a Hachimon-inspired burst step, how could I follow it with a boxing cross that had the maximum torque? If I used a Strong Fist-style spinning kick, could I chain it into a judo throw without losing momentum? My body became a testing ground, each movement followed by silent evaluation.
By midday, the sun burned overhead and sweat ran down my back. I took no break rest was for after the work was done. Instead, I moved into impact conditioning.
In my MMA days, we had heavy bags. Here, I had a tree.
I stood in front of it, gauging its thickness. My fists clenched, and I began the old-school bone conditioning I'd learned from Muay Thai gradual, repetitive strikes to harden the knuckles and shins. The first blows stung like hell, but the pain was a familiar, almost nostalgic burn. Every impact sent micro-shocks through my forearms, and I focused on letting my tendons absorb and redirect the force instead of resisting it.
After several sets, I switched to plyometric bursts short, explosive sprints from a crouched stance, rebounding off the tree into spinning strikes. The idea was simple: in combat, you rarely got to start from a perfect position. Being able to explode into movement from awkward or off-balance states was vital.
Hours passed. My legs trembled from constant low stances, my forearms burned from impact, and my lungs pulled in air like a man drowning. But I wasn't done.
I dropped into pushups first standard, then explosive claps, then one-arm with chakra running to my stabilizers. When my arms began to give, I flipped into handstand pushups, feeling my shoulder joints protest. My vision blurred from the blood rushing to my head, but I pushed until my form broke.
That was the line. That was where the real training began.
In my old life, coaches warned about overtraining. Here, overtraining wasn't a luxury I could avoid it was a necessity to push my body beyond normal human capacity. Recovery would come with chakra-assisted healing, but the stimulus had to be severe enough to force change.
The final stage of today's regimen was integration under fatigue. I took all the strikes, stances, and movements I'd drilled earlier and ran them again but now, in a state where my legs shook and my lungs burned. If I could execute under exhaustion, then in a real fight, I could perform when it mattered.
My movements were slower now, but each one was deliberate. Jab, hook, step, sweep. Burst forward, spinning back kick, judo hip throw. Grapple into a takedown, follow with a knee strike. Sweat blurred my vision, but I imagined an opponent in front of me at all times. An opponent faster, stronger, more skilled. The pressure forced my mind to adapt to think not just about what I was doing, but about the split-second responses that might be required.
When I finally collapsed to one knee, the sun was dipping low, staining the sky orange. My arms hung heavy, my legs throbbed, and my skin was slick with sweat and dirt. Every fiber of me screamed for rest.
But my mind was sharper than it had been that morning.
I wasn't just building muscle or endurance. I was building a language of movement, a system where every technique had a place, every stance flowed into the next, and no wasted motion existed. The shinobi of this world had their ninjutsu and bloodlines; I had this.
And I would turn it into something they had never seen before.