"And the One Piece is-"
I watched as Nico Robin shouted out the translation of the final poneglyph on Laugh Tale while everyone on the straw hat crew looked on with absolute curiosity.
Only-
'...'
'...'
"Huh?"
"What?"
"Why did everything get stuck? Did the internet go down again because some stupid pirate cut the cables?!!?"
My hand was about to move the mouse to make it do a little dance on the screen to check if the video was still playing since the buffering circle hadn't shown up.
'Is this some trick from Oda-sensei? Did he fall off the map before completing the series!?'
*FWOOP*
"Huh? Did the lights go out!? Where am I? Why does my head feel like it's being squished!?"
*SNICKER* *SNICKER* *SNICKER* *SNICKER* *SNICKER*
"What's that? A mouse? Or is someone laughing at me?"
I felt a sudden pressure tighten around my head as I tried pushing myself back against it to break free.
Except, the snickers that were stifled till now suddenly broke free, turning into full blown high pitched laughters that came from all around me.
'Laughter?'
'What's going on!?'
'What happened to my One Piece!?'
"Awake again, Katsumino?"
'Huh?'
'Katsumino? Who was that arrogant sounding rich second generation young master brat?'
"...how did you fall asleep within seven seconds? Again." the voice sounded from above me as the tightening feeling around my head loosened, that coupled with my pushing force to break free from it caused my head to shoot back as I slammed into what felt like a wooden backrest rather painfully.
'Hell! Where did my 'but can you do this' chair go?'
Only, I didn't scream out loud since I could barely comprehend the view imprinted into my eyes after I opened them.
Little kids, barely six, sat in perfectly arranged university style stepped benches, all looking back at me, who was sitting in the last ring on the highest step, like they'd seen the most interesting circus freak in the world.
'Did I get drunk or something after learning about the One Piece?'
'God damn it! Why did I get black out drunk right after!!!'
'Wait! This is good! Now I can watch it once again!!'
The laughter slowly stopped and a kid with wild brown hair I wasn't quite familiar with whispered to his shady looking deskmate, who was wearing sunglasses indoors, loud enough for everyone to hear. ""Ne~ Ne~, Shino, has he lost it? Why's he smiling so creepily?"
'Huh?'
'Creepy?'
'Who?'
'Who's making these kids so afraid! Don't you know it's not good to make kids feel unsafe!?'
I quickly looked around, my eyes barely registering my strangely low distance to the rather 'tall' table I was sitting at, before they landed on the strangely dressed 'tall' person beside me.
'Is that a kunai in his hand? And while he isn't smiling, his face does indeed look quite scary.' I thought to myself watching the man with a scar over his right blind eye looking down at me with a serious expression.
'I can see how he's causing the children to think he's cracked. After all, which self respecting adult would cosplay preparing for a school shooting in a kindergarten?'
That was when my eyes fell on the man's headband.
"Oh! You're cosplaying a ninja!! Then your dress makes sense I guess. I used to love the show as a kid too. But I'm personally more a fan of Iwagakure's red than Konoha's green if I do say so myself, maybe even the Uchiha Madara armour red."
The man's eyes widened like I'd suddenly said something blasphemous.
'Wait, why's my voice so high pitched?'
'...'
'What did I drink last night?'
The silence continued until the man asked with a tone that sounded rather afraid to know what he would hear next.
"...What did you eat before coming to school?"
My eyes trembled as things started to slowly sink into my mind.
'But…but everything's in three dimensions now!'
The familiar two dimensional cell shaded characters that I came to know and love were nowhere. The cell shaded backgrounds, the bloom on random things to highlight the main characters, the featureless extra character faces, the eyeballs large enough to fill the head, all of it was missing!
'I…transmigrated?'
"...are you alright?" The man before me asked softly once he noticed that something about my expression felt off.
I gulped softly as my palms turned sweaty, a strange feeling of disembodiment filled my mind. As if I wasn't the one in control at all.
I didn't know what had happened, and how any of what was happening was possible.
'How do I know this strange new language?'
'How do I suddenly have memories of all my classmates that I'd never met only a few seconds ago?'
'How do I know my way back to a 'home' that I've never even seen before?'
I felt my head hurt and ache as the world around me spun slowly, multiplying each time into after images that seemed just as real. But dizziness was only the beginning before a strong piercing buzz sprung up in my ear, like the ring of a triangle inside my head.
'Wh- What's happening!?'
"Ka- Katsumino!!" I heard the man before me shout but before I could respond, I was out, like a light.
The world turned black and I felt myself wrapped in the comfort of something smooth and warm. Like I was back in the embrace of a thick warm blanket during the deep of a cold winter night.
"...so it was tension?"
"Yes Genichi-sensei. According to the reports his family died with a debt of about three hundred thousand ryo to the village and about a million ryo to other money lenders after their most recent trip to the capital for supplies for a new business venture."
"...is that the trip-"
"-Yes, sensei. The one where everyone but that uchiha child was left alive."
I heard a soft sigh before the chair creaked and someone stood up.
"If that is the case, I'll postpone his evaluation for the next few months until you say he is well Kinoshita-san."
"I'll pass on a signed certificate for you to hand over to the vice principal, but…"
"But?"
"I'm afraid given his condition, the boy won't be able to afford the…medicine…"
Another deep sigh was released before the man spoke up calmly.
"I'll pay for him this time…how long will this course run? Three months?"
"Hm~m. That time is usually how long it takes for ninja on duty to recover. But the most important part is that he must be well involved in group activities in the class. Separating him would be a risk to both himself and everyone else."
"Group activities huh…that'll be a little…hard. Katsumino-kun isn't exactly well known for his… friendliness."
"It's what he needs, Sensei."
"I understand, I will do my best."
The door opened and closed soon after that indicating that someone had left the room but I just kept staring at the blank white ceiling.
'I'm in the world of Naruto.'
'It doesn't seem to matter how long I repeat that sentence for…it doesn't seem to change anything…'
My eyes singed with slight pain as I struggled to keep my tears in and my sniffles unheard.
I heard a soft rustle of clothes behind the curtains keeping my bed covered so I quickly wiped away everything unseemingly on my face with my sleeves.
Only, it seemed like that wasn't a very good solution because when the doctor or nurse, looking after what I assumed was the academy hospital, looked at me after pulling open the curtains she sighed softly.
She stood there with a writing pad in her hand, clipped to which were several papers along with a normal pen, the presence of which surprised me a little since I definitely had memories of using brushes to write in class.
"You're awake." the woman said softly as I pushed myself up to sit with the support of the hard grilled backrest of the bed frame.
"It would seem so." I said in response, causing her to nod before she took a seat on the chair close to my bed.
There was a quiet silence for half a minute before she began speaking with calm and gentleness.
"I know it must be very hard for you right now…but you mustn't let adversities defeat you so easily. Don't you want to be Hokage someday!? How can a simple adversity such as this scare you!!??"
I just nodded plainly.
My eyes couldn't believe it. And neither could my ears.
The woman had just called a child losing their parents a 'simple adversity'. And the worst part was, she believed it. She believed it was just a 'simple adversity' given her warm expression and gentle big sister smile.
'Crazy…'
'The people in this world are crazy…'
I could feel myself developing an intense sense of innate revulsion to what I was hearing but then I paused.
'Kids like myself should be quite common right now, shouldn't they?'
'Given the Kyuubi attack happened only about half a decade ago?'
Suddenly what the woman was saying made 'some' sense, maybe she was one of those people that had lost her family in the incident. But still, to refer to such an incident as a 'simple adversity' made my head spin.
'This is the world I live in now.'
'A world of constant pain and destruction.'
'A world of madness and adversity where the weak rule over the strong.'
'Where bloodlines rule over everything else.'
'Where aliens truly decide the lay of the world.'
'This isn't some scenario from a random botman board from my previous world where people thought the Illuminati controlled everything. This was the true reality of this world. Everyone here was just a cog in the system, spinning until they burnt their lives out so that one freak could resurrect his mother.'
"Good. It is important that you understand that. After all, as the Hokage said, 'When the tree leaves dance, one shall find flames. The fire's shadow will illuminate the village, and once again, tree leaves shall bud anew.'"
My mouth hung slightly loose.
'What is this?' I thought in heavy confusion. 'Why is the brainwashing so strong all of a sudden? Did I do something to set them off? Did they scan my memories or something while I was asleep?'
'Oh…Is this because I said that I liked the Iwagakure red colour and Madara's armour more than the Konoha green colour?'
My brain short circuited for a second, rebooting only when an autopilot for general social interactions took over.
"Yes! I shall become Hokage one day and gain the strength to surpass all my adversities while making friends along the way!!"
Those words fell out of my mouth involuntarily and seemed to have settled the nurse since she finally smiled as she spoke happily.
"Good job. Now, let's decide your pill routine."
After learning what pills I had to take, I was allowed to leave the hospital, and by extension the academy since it was already past closing time.
I thought about visiting the class's homeroom teacher, Genichi-sensei, since I overheard that he'd paid for all the medicine, but I found it difficult to eventually do so since I had a bizarre and strange feeling that even his kindness wasn't as it seemed to be.
Nevertheless, since I wasn't in a mood to get disappointed in humanity once again by being forced to listen to the will of fire for another time in the same day, I decided it was best for my current mental health to return to some place where I could simply collapse and fall asleep, home.
Except, even as I followed the instinctive steps burnt into my mind from the academy to the grand mansion I called home, I found myself face to face with strange looking people standing in front of it, emptying its contents onto a cart.
I stood weakly on the street, watching all the action happen for a solid minute before gathering the courage to ask the person who seemed to be in charge about the obvious.
"Is it to collect the debts?"
The man looked at me, his eyes softening when he saw me before he patted my shoulder and spoke quietly, "Ah, finally, you're here. I was worried when I got the news that you fainted in class that you kicked the bucket! Who'll repay your loan if you drop dead! You've got to make sure you repay the interest each month from now on if you don't want us to take this matter both to the Hokage and to the Daimyo's court."
I stood there dumbfounded.
The world felt dizzying once again, the darker spots in my vision growing, drowning, suffocating, soundless.
And before I knew it I was standing in the street once again.
Apparently the mansion was confiscated for repaying the debts left behind.
'My' new house was supposedly a unit rented to me by the debt collector who was loaning it to me out of the kindness of his heart.
Of course, I needed to pay the rent for it each month to show my gratitude to the 'landlord with a big heart', otherwise I'd have to make do with living in the forest of death apparently.
'What the heck is wrong with this world…'
I stood there on the street for what felt like an eternity. Staring at the mansion in front of me blankly as the carts were continuously loaded up. Not even picture frames and family albums were left behind for reasons only god could decipher, and the mansion was emptied faster than my luck for today.
I looked at the keys in my hands and vaguely recollected the address I was informed off by the Landlord as I began walking in the dead of the night towards my new 'home'.
It was a long walk since my new home was on the other side of the village.
'It's not far from the Hokage tower so I hope it'll be decent…'
As I passed by two large gates to enter the right street I noticed large fan symbols painted on them.
'The Uchiha clan?'
It took a few seconds but I connected the vague dots in my memories.
'Is this the place they were dislocated from after the Nine Tails attack?'
I sighed softly.
At least I would be safe here since no one would come to commit crime in a place where the Uchiha once lived would they? That'd be like committing a crime inside a police station.
'Ah…'
I'd spoken too soon.
I watched the scum all around me.
Graffiti of blood, unknown fluids, terrible smelling chemicals, rotting dead animals, rats and definitely snakes.
My brain had already shut down from the repeated shocks by now.
I couldn't comprehend what was happening anymore.
My eyes vaguely made out the correct house number in the darkness, since there were no more street lights, before I tried opening the lock with the key only to realise that the lock didn't work at all. It was jammed. Someone had blocked the door from the inside with something else.
I looked at the moon for a second and nodded unconsciously.
'I think I understand why everyone in this world is so mentally retarded…'
'Because that's the only way…'
'The only way to keep yourself from going totally wonderful.'
I didn't realise when I fell asleep after that, but I was woken up once again to a rat chewing my sandals in the early morning when the sun had just peeked over the horizon.
I quickly patted my pockets to check if any of the pills had been contaminated and relaxed when it hadn't before grabbing a handful and stuffing them down my throat.
I didn't know what they did, anything the nurse had informed me about had gone in through one ear and fallen out the other because it was interspersed with so many references to the Will of the Fire.
I only knew I needed them to continue living in this bizarre messed up world.
The fresh morning breeze brought scents of new chemicals, fluids and rotting flesh from places far away, reinvigorating the strong headache that even the pills could not seem to drown.
The sun shining brightly like a gem in the sky felt like needles pricking my eyeballs and the dark blue sky felt like a coffin lid.
I simply stared up at the world, lost in thoughts, my pupils wide and dilated as I lay like a part of the thriving flora and decomposing fauna.
'What am I to even do in this world?'
'Become like Ninja Jesus?'
'How?'
'I've got no bloodlines.'
'No talent.'
'No money.'
'No connections.'
'Nothing.'
The only reason I had even qualified to get into class 1-A was through the generous donations of my parents. If not I wasn't sure if I was even qualified to become cannon fodder that triggered explosion tags given my talent.
From my memories of a childhood I never lived, the will of fire only ever seemed like a meaningless ramble to me since I'd seen very well just how it could be bent and twisted with the right amount of palm grease.
And so I was brutish in class. Even the dream I'd spouted so wildly at the beginning of the year, about becoming a Hokage, was one made in mockery after listening to several of my other classmates repeating the same thing over and over again with stars in their eyes.
No one would have trusted me on a battlefield since everyone would know that if I were to be one among the many in the final line up of true soldiers being led by Erwin, I would've deserted the moment everyone rode off.
In fact, I would go so far as to wager that had there been a war that I was a part of, my own allies would gut me first, or maybe even gift me to the enemy as a sign of trojan 'peace' so that I would've ruined their days.
I scratched a random itch on the back of my hand before staring at my palms.
'Did I have the guts to take a life for another?'
'Did I even want to fight for myself anymore?' I asked, looking at the absolute mess around me.
'Shouldn't I be happy that I got a chance many others do not?' I asked again, trying to wipe away the dampness on my cheeks.
'At least it could've just been One Piece…then I could've just lazed about on an island, selling nails for boats for all I cared.'
I didn't know what to do anymore, so I broke into my new home by throwing a rock into a window.
I crawled in carefully and walked up to the bathroom.
I waited for a minute, deciding if I should piss inside the bowl and take a gamble on there being enough water in it to flush the toilet, or just pissing outside in the filth for now.
But I was quickly forced to use the toilet since I didn't have the strength to hold on long enough to make it all the way back outside.
*FLUSH*
Surprisingly, the flush worked.
Water swirled as I looked at it, hallucinating the same symbol I'd seen a million times yesterday, the Leaf Village Symbol.
My stomach grumbled and I closed my eyes and sighed to myself.
I looked at the kitchen for a miracle like the water in the flush, but other than potatoes that had somehow fused into the shelves and grown more potatoes, there was nothing else in the cupboards.
And so I forced myself to crawl out of the broken window once again, making my way to any random store from my memory that would sell me something on credit.
But that turned out to be a sunny dream fulfilled only at the end of the rainbow. Not a place I could reach with my abilities because each place I went kicked me out when I brought up the possibility of paying on credit.
'Will I just die?'
I asked myself, sitting in class, arriving a full hour before school even began, because this was the cleanest place I knew that I could sleep in without being disturbed by rats.
I felt like I'd only closed my eyes for a moment before a sharp irritating buzz caused them to snap back open.
'Ah…classes have begun…' I thought as I watched the homeroom teacher walk in.
He looked the same as I remembered seeing him yesterday. A neatly combed hair, with a three fourth part, wearing a green flak jacket along with a headband on his forehead.
He looked rather ordinary, yet an unsettling aura remained frozen around him. An aura that reminded me not of the loan sharks from yesterday, but of someone like the person inside the mirror in the bathroom from today.
No, of someone like that but with a sharp edge to it, something dangerous, something waiting to unleash on prey.
Sensei's gaze lingered on the class for a few seconds before that gaze reached me, and it instantly vanished, replaced by a pitting smile as it scanned my clear disheveled state.
I matched his gaze and sent a grateful smile for yesterday to which he returned a nod before settling behind his table on the teacher's podium.
"Alright everyone, today we'll be looking at the second most important point in Ninja battles! Perception!"
The kids around the class, all still only half awake because it was so early in the day, looked at the teacher like it was a pain to even listen to his voice.
He looked slightly ticked off but held it in as he continued teaching.
"Can someone here tell me what part of a shinobi skill set directly controls an enemy's perception?"
No hands shot up so the dreaded crane of the teacher's gaze scanned around the class to pick up one on its own. And unfortunately for a black haired kid he was picked first.
"Sasuke-kun, why don't you tell us all what the answer is?"
I paid attention to the boy the teacher had picked with slightly wide eyes.
'So, he is the Ninja Jesus number two…'
Given that people looked wildly different in real life when compared to anime I was having some difficulty putting names and faces together since not everyone here looked like I'd imagined them. There were several black haired kids, and several kids had a depressed look like the world had robbed them of their most prized possession so early in the morning.
And given I'd never interacted much with the other kids in the academy other than bullying the weak, I felt pretty confused about who was who.
My eyes fell on white eyed girl near the front when that thought struck me, 'Their eyes do look rather strange in real life…'
I wanted to look at the other characters too, but I didn't have that time since Sasuke began his answer in the most entitled tone I'd ever heard from a student towards a teacher.
It was as if Sasuke found the teacher himself beneath his view. As if a mere insect had dared challenge an elephant into a fist fight.
"Genjutsu."
That was all Sasuke said, but he did so without standing, without looking at the teacher, and without even taking his gaze away from the window he was peering out of, all in a tone so condescending that it felt like the teacher was the stupider of the two.
'No wonder people hate them so much…'
It was one thing to see such an arrogant person in an anime, but in real life, it felt rather unsettling. Especially since I was rather sure that if the teacher wanted to, he could thrash Sasuke up in seconds and have him bleeding from his neck before he could even utter a single word for help.
The teacher's brows quivered visibly before he clenched his fist to calm down as he continued to address the rest of the class.
"Exactly, it is as Sasuke-kun here just sai-"
"OOooo~~~!!! Sasuke-kun!!!!"
"Sasuke!!! My beloved!!!!"
"Tsk~ What's so great about him!!!?"
"Shut your hole you ugly orphan!"
"As expected of the Uchiha clan!!! You are the only one fit to marry this noble lady!!!"
"Noble~? Girl, your dad runs a fertilizer shop!"
'....'
As if nothing happened, the teacher continued.
"-d. Genjutsu is the foundation of any battle in perception among Shinobi. Even a well timed defence can fall flat to an attack that was hidden under the guise of an illusion!"
'....something is very wrong with this world.'
"Today." Genichi continued, "We will learn the basics of Genjutsu. And by the evening, as a surprise, we will all learn the hand signs for the first basic academy jutsu! The transformation jutsu!!"
'Huh? It's a genjutsu?'
'....ok?'
I looked on, paying attention to what was my first in person super power class as a strange sense of excitement I had nearly forgotten existed within me bubbled up to the surface.
'Isn't the first thing a transmigrator comes across usually their super power in a novel? Then…perhaps I can use Genjutsu to rise to the peak of this world?'
But before that thought could fully settle I suddenly remembered the fatal meme that instead of making me laugh like it usually did, made me fall face first into the stinky ground I'd crawled out of this morning.
'Yeah…no, not happening…I'm not using Genjutsu on Itachi…'
'What would even happen if I used Genjutsu against Madra? Against Kaguya? Would they even get distracted?'
'Maybe when I get put into the Infinite Tsukuyomi I'll dream about putting them into a genjutsu…yes that is the only way I ever win.'
With my mood settling into reality I focused on the teacher once again as he pulled out a chart depicting the tenketsu of the human body and pinned it to the board using shuriken.
"Since you've all probably not yet become fully familiar with the tenketsu of the human body I'm putting this chart up for our explanation, but in the future for the next two jutsus, I expect all of you to be fully prepared!"
Most kids nodded excitedly since this was the first jutsu we were learning, while the others that I realised were probably from clans or just rich, like I previously was, looked thoroughly bored.
"Alright, the fist step of performing a genjutsu is to establish a connection between your chakra pathway and your targets. This can be done through a variety of means through combat, but that isn't the point of this lesson, so for now all you have to do is to insert some of your chakra into your opponent's chakra system, usually using the largest tenketsu in the body, the one on the stomach."
We nodded and he looked around for a second before his eyes locked on me again.
"Would you like to come up for a demonstration, Katsumino-kun?"
Caught off guard it took me a second to respond but I nodded and slowly stood up under the slightly envious gazes of some of my classmates before walking up to the teacher's podium and standing beside him.
"Alright, now I will insert some of my chakra into your pathway system, you must feel and tell me exactly what you feel when I do so, ok?"
I nodded silently before letting him place his hand on my stomach as he softly pumped something into it.
The feeling was unpleasant, disgusting and nauseating.
One instant I felt my body light and healthy, the next it felt like someone had dropped ice into my veins.
It took me a few seconds to connect what was happening to the faint memories of the previous classes in my mind.
This was the feeling of one's chakra.
If Naruto's chakra could be described as warm and 'sunny', the teacher's could only be described as an ice cold lake.
'Isn't this a disadvantage?'
'Wouldn't someone immediately know that you're putting them in a Genjutsu if you did it like this?"
Seemingly noticing my complaint the teacher only smiled mysteriously before stepping back quietly, only the horror of what was to come hadn't settled into me just yet.
All of a sudden I wasn't just standing in a simple class.
In front, and all around me were students who all had leering grins on their faces. Their teeth annoyingly sharpened, as their tongues slipped out and drooled onto the tables.
Their figures grew excruciatingly tall in my vision as they all looked down upon my insignificant self.
Perhaps an anime representation of such a scene might seem slightly unsettling at best, but I felt myself shivering.
I couldn't find it in me to hold it in to become a dummy for demonstration anymore so I brought my hands into the ram seal to focus my chakra into the stomach tenketsu and expunge the chilling sensation lingering within it.
I hadn't cared enough to pay attention to chakra before now but once I closed my eyes and tried to feel if there was anything different about my body, I failed to feel anything different about it.
'Huh?'
'Do I just not have chakra in me?'
No, that can't be right, I felt the distinctly warm feeling floating about when the teacher injected his cold chakra into my system.
'That must be my chakra…'
So I focused on my body, trying to remember the tricks I had to use. It was a bit like trying to feel your blood, impossible to do very easily at first, but easy once you learnt the trick of watching your heart beats.
Similarly, to feel the chakra inside one's body, they had to feel its flow after it was kneaded using the spiritual and physical energy in the body.
On a tangential note, there was no organ in the body that did the kneading for you. Chakra had to be kneaded manually and stored in the body until it was used. So simply finishing chakra wouldn't kill a person, but depleting all the physical and spiritual energy at once would.
From what I vaguely remember from my new set of memories, chakra is kneaded by simply focusing on any tenketsu inside your body. Focusing drags spiritual energy from your head to the tenketsu and where it fuses with the physical energy in the region to form chakra that fills the pathways.
The process normally takes about thirty to forty minutes right now but it could be sped up if I had better control, but I did not.
The chakra in the system, once created, constantly flows all around inside the body, nourishing it like blood, strengthening everything it comes in contact with slowly, filling it with more vitality than normal for the next time one created chakra out of it.
So I turned my focus to the hazy feeling of warmth flowing inside my body, distinct from the icy cold feeling that had invaded me, experiencing it as it seemed to move soundlessly, intertwined with the organs, slipping in and out of them, like life with death.
It took some time but soon enough I had a semi clear view of my body, it felt like looking through fogged up glasses in a hot shower, but I persisted until I could vaguely feel some control over the chakra to move it to the tenketsu over my stomach and fill it to expel everything else inside it.
And, when the world rapidly flickered back to normal, I found myself face to face with a kunai resting its tip on my head.
I gulped audibly in the silence of the classroom before several students suddenly broke out into claps.
"Oh~ The sensei is so powerful!"
"He was personally chosen by Hokage-sama for our class!"
"No wonder he is so capable!"
"Tsk what genjutsu. Even my dad can make a person experience such fear with a simple fart."
"Ew. What dad, your silent farts are just as deadly. That's why I never sit beside you after lunch."
"Shit~ That's him!? I thought you always went away after slipping a bomb!!"
Genichi softly patted my shoulder and spoke calmly, "You did good Katsumino-kun, much better than I expected. One minute and thirty seconds to break out of a chunin's genjutsu is not a short time at all. Keep it up."
I nodded rather listlessly before going back up into my seat and collapsing into it with slightly sweaty palms.
'A minute and thirty seconds is good?'
'I mean…I just spent the time inside it because I didn't know I had to break out of it and I thought the teacher would break it himself. But I guess he was just trying to keep my spirits up since he wasn't really being serious. No way a random student in year two of the academy can break out of a chunin's genjutsu so easily.'
Having convinced myself of the inevitable truth, I focused back onto the lecture as the other students quietened.
"As you just saw, even if Katsumino-kun broke out of the genjutsu, it took him time to do so. Time that on the battlefield can be used to kill you. And once you're down, with a hole in the positioning, it can be used to take all your friends down with you too."
A tense silence spread across the room before the teacher clapped his hands lightly to dispel the gloomy atmosphere as he continued.
He looked at me and asked me a question.
"Katsumino-kun, could you tell us what you felt when I put you into the genjutsu?"
I paused slightly, still getting used to being in a class, but I nodded and continued speaking nonetheless.
"I felt a cold sensation emerge in my stomach before it spread around in my body, I lost sight of it soon after because by then the world around me transformed into that strange distorted scene you showed me earlier, sensei."
"Oh?" Genichi's eyes seemed slightly surprised before he nodded and carried on, "To be able to sense the minute chakra dissipating into your chakra system from the source, that is truly remarkable. As I was telling everyone, inserting chakra is the first step in a genjutsu, and as Katsumino-kun described, the second step is diffusing your chakra into the target's chakra pathways. The smaller portions you diffuse the more undetected your actions will be, but that also means it will be hard to finish applying the genjutsu quicker and keep it sustained. As such, you need to find the right balance based on your chakra control skills."
Everyone nodded again to indicate they were following, seeing this the teacher continued softly.
"The point of diffusing your chakra into the target's chakra pathways is simple, to reach this tenketsu." he said, pointing at the tenketsu on the neck of the figure on the chart paper.
"The position varies slightly based on body type and size, but given that, the directive is the same, all you have to do is flood the general area with your chakra so that one portion of it at least reaches the tenketsu."
"Can anyone tell me what's so special about this tenketsu?" He paused to ask, causing a pink haired girl on the front row to raise her hand.
"Yes, Haruno-chan."
"It's the tenketsu that interacts with the spine, sensei."
"Correct. And given that it interacts with the spine, we can manipulate the signals the brain receives. So as long as chakra is continuously supplied to this tenketsu, you can manipulate your target's perception."
Sakura raised her hand again, making the teacher pause as he looked at her, waiting for her question.
"But Sensei, then why don't we protect this tenketsu directly? Would flooding this tenketsu with our chakra proactively not be enough to stop others from interfering with it?"
"An excellent observation Haruno-san, but that is only possible for pure taijutsu ninja. For everyone else, we need chakra to perform various other Jutsus, and this tenketsu just so happens to be in a spot that is connected to various other tenketsus, drastically shortening travel time around the body, so as long as we need to finish our jutsus quickly we're usually forced to keep moving chakra in and out of this place in the system, leaving it vulnerable. And even if you are still a pure taijutsu ninja, there is a question of whose chakra control is better."
"Another reason is because you might accidentally cause a self induced hypnosis effect doing something like that. While not entirely fatal since most people can break out of it easily as that is not their intention, sometimes, it's not very easy to figure out what you've done to yourself unless someone points it out."
But it seemed like Sakura wasn't done just yet, "Why not attack this tenketsu directly then? Why waste time inserting chakra into some other tenketsu and directing it towards this point?"
Genichi gave a wry smile as he explained, "Why would I waste time applying a genjutsu on you if you allow me to touch your neck in battle?"
Sakura ducked her head in embarrassment causing Genichi and several other students to chuckle softly as he continued teaching.
"That said, to begin with, we will start learning in pairs by directly sticking out our necks since we want to learn how to apply genjutsu first."
Everyone nodded and turned silent for the teacher to finally get to the good part, which was how a genjutsu was constructed in the first place.
"The contents of a genjutsu depends purely on your focus and imagination provided your chakra has fully flooded this tenketsu."
I could see the words ringing across the minds of little children but to me, it felt a little confusing.
'Does that mean anyone can make Itachi's Tsukuyomi and its time expansion?'
'Or what about, pain and pleasure?'
Without letting the children's imaginations run wild, Genichi continued speaking, "Of course, you can't just imagine making the enemy feel pain and make them think you stabbed them or hypnotise them into forgetting their identities, that is a feat nearly impossible unless you are from the Kurama clan or the famed Uchiha clan and even then it is very difficult and only rumoured to be possible."
"But apart from that, as long as you wish to manipulate the five senses, all you have to do is put your chakra into this tenketsu, you are only limited by your focus or in other words to simply things a little, you are limited by your chakra control." he said tapping the chart paper to show the neck again.
So even though he hadn't spoken about time manipulation, I found my question answered. It was probably impossible unless one had the sharingan, something I probably shouldn't even think about getting.
'Could I still become a decent ninja if I became a Genjutsu specialist? Maybe a Chunin if I had some half decent skills?'
'The Uchiha are going to get no diff'd anyway, so as long as I survive on day to day missions, I should be alright with those skills, right?'
I felt a sense of hope sprout within me.
Perhaps, I could climb out of my depressing state of survival, and move to the next tier.
But then I remembered something that popped the bubble of my dreams.
'Ah…I'm still in the second year of the academy and only six years old…'
'If anything, I'll have to spend the next six years in that dump…at the very least until I graduate out of the academy and go on missions to earn some money.'
"Alright, that is all for the theory part. With the easiest sense to manipulate being sight, and the hardest being touch, you will learn each level of Genjutsu throughout your years at the academy, we will begin practicals now so pair up with your benchmate."
I looked beside me, and found no one.
A seat that had been mostly empty since the academy had begun.
Seemingly noticing my plight, Genichi spoke softly, "You can just practice it on yourself for now, Katsumino-kun. The principles are the same, it'll just be a little bit easier since you won't have to fight anyone to stay in control. But since this is a basic class it's alright."
I nodded, slightly unsure of the approach but was ready to try it out anyway.
'Wasn't I supposed to be more 'involved' in group activities?'
As everyone paired up with their deskmates, I simply closed my eyes to focus on the chakra flowing through my body.
With my focus on the neck, I dragged my chakra from my stomach tenketsu towards it, once it was fully filled however, I felt nothing.
No different than I already did, depressed and heartbroken, like a betrayed character in a Shakespearean play. It was almost like I was about to melt away from my desk and slobber onto the floor into a puddle of goo.
No wait, there is a difference, I'm somehow even more depressed and listless.
'Is this what the teacher meant by self hypnosis?'
'But why can I manipulate my emotions? Shouldn't the easiest have been sight? And emotions can't be manipulated, can they?'
'...I'll ask him about it after class.'
'Now to think of the appropriate hallucination for this situation.'
And suddenly, almost as soon as my eyes focused on the image in my mind, I could see it.
With my eyes closed, and not in my mind's eye, but actually see, as if I still had my eyes open and the light was reflecting onto my retina.
Of course, the image was of the moment my One Piece episode paused, inexplicably.
'Only a way to make myself more depressed…' I heaved a mental sigh.
I opened my eyes and scanned around the classroom, looking at everyone else as I checked them out to see if anyone else had succeeded.
'Looks like I was the only one?'
'Maybe because I did it on myself?'
With nothing else to do since the teacher was busy with the other kids, I closed my eyes and went back to applying genjutsu to myself to pass the time.
'....oh, if I could remember the entire series clearly, I could watch the whole thing again…'
'I could even rewatch Naruto if that was the case..'
'Haha, rewatching Naruto in the world of Naruto…'
'Imagine if I could watch Naruto in the world of Naruto, while inside Naruto!'
'Now that I think about it, I've never seen Naruto in my memories…'
'Has he not been admitted into the school yet?'
I tried to dig into my memories a little further, but they were vague and without any real contact with anyone named Naruto in the class, I was having a hard time remembering if Naruto was even in this class or not.
'He should be here…'
'Maybe he's just out skipping class, playing pranks or something again?'
'But if the transformation jutsu is a genjutsu, then Naruto should've attended this class right? Since he created his own variations of it?'
'...perhaps he'll be here in a while?'
Class ended soon after with the teacher leaving us alone, taking a break for lunch.
And since I hadn't brought any, I simply hung around at the desk, watching the other kids open up their bento boxes and fill their stomachs, with absolutely no jealousy, envy or greed.
"Katsumino-san." Someone said, stepping into the classroom from the corridor after a few minutes.
It was an upperclassman that I didn't recognise.
It caused the heads of a few classmates to turn towards me, but they quickly looked away and went back to their own conversation, uninterested in something unrelated to them.
'Huh? Am I going to get beat up?'
I used my status as the son of a rich merchant to bully other kids before, so perhaps now that 'news' has gotten time to spread around the academy, someone's come to me looking for revenge?
'But why does he look afraid to even look into my eyes?'
"What happened?" I asked as politely as I could, but my rather rough appearance from last night and slightly sore throat made it seem brutish and rude, making the boy tremble some more as he almost whispered out his request.
"Genichi-sensei is calling for you."
And before I could even respond, he rushed away without even a greeting.
'Am I really that scary?'
I sighed once again, getting up from my desk before walking up to the teacher's lounge that was close to the entrance of the Hokage building from the academy.
Waiting outside was Genichi, just standing there holding a clothed bag, leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.
"Ahem, Sensei, you called for me?"
His eyes snapped open as he looked right down at me.
It made me feel fear for just a moment before I realised we were in the academy and nothing could really go wrong here.
And it seemed like I was right.
Genichi smiled soon after, giving me a warm look as he spoke kindly, "You didn't bring any lunch I assume?"
My eyes widened just a little but I quickly nodded.
I was hungry.
The last 'meal' that had touched my lips was an energy drink and a protein bar. It had been about thirty seven hours since then and I was really hungry.
My gaze shifted to the clothed bag in his hand as my mouth turned watery, prompting him to chuckle slightly as he spoke with an equally gentle tone.
"You can have it. I cooked extra today."
I nodded again and was about to grab the lunch bag before I paused and asked him a quick question, "You knew my parents?"
Genichi nodded calmly, a wry somewhat sad smile on his lips as he spoke, "Your dad, we became acquaintances when I helped his family on a mission during my days as a Genin."
'...why do I get the feeling that he's lying?'
Either way, I didn't have the patience to question the motives of the man feeding me, and so I showed a similarly sorrow filled expression before unburdening him of the lunch bag and thanking him with a deep bow.
"Thank you, sensei. I promise I will make it up to you in the future."
He paused momentarily, as if taken aback by my sincerity before choosing to encourage me, "I know you will, Katsumino-kun, I'm sure you will make your sensei proud."
It was a strange conversation nonetheless.
One that played on my mind as I walked back to the class and sat at my desk.
'Is he someone like Mizuki?'
'Aiming to use me and make me do something against the village?'
'Well, whatever, it's not like I'm even capable of hurting a fly right now, and I'm hungry more than anything, I really need to figure out a way to make money!'
Putting aside my worries for the moment, I pulled out my bento and slipped its lid open.
There was no burst of fragrance, or even a dazzling shine that erupted from the inside. Only a plain box with three simple rice cakes along with some pickles.
It might not have looked like much or even tasted like anything good from either of my lives, but it went down into my stomach faster than ever.
I choked for a second, but thankfully borrowed the bottle from Shikamaru who offered it at the last second when I 'accidentally' kicked him in the butt while choking.
We didn't talk after that, but I did get to hear the famous, 'Troublesome.'
Classes started once again after that, and we were about to learn the hand signs for the Transformation Jutsu before the end of the day.
"Alright, class, I know you're all excited, but before we begin, can anyone answer my question!"
Given our excitement to learn our first jutsu ever, everyone was paying full attention to the teacher even though it was right after lunch.
So when Genichi saw our bright burning eyes that seemed to be waiting for his question, he didn't drag things out and placed the prize in front of us immediately.
"The question is rather simple, can you only use the Transformation jutsu after coming in contact with someone to pour your chakra into them and putting them in your genjutsu?"
The question left everyone pondering.
After all, it wasn't entirely possible to keep touching every enemy you met to use a genjutsu, was it?
I too pondered on the question, wondering how a genjutsu could be applied to a target without touching them.
'How does the Sharingan work if it applies genjutsu through eye contact?'
'Is there some 'particle' in this universe that carries genjutsu from one place to another?'
'No, no way, that's way too sci-fi.'
'What other scenes of genjutsu were there in the show?'
'There was the Kurenai one, the Maruboshi one, and a couple that used sound on Orochimaru's team, along with some others if I recall correctly.'
'I don't know how Kurenai did it since that was never explained, but everyone else used something as a medium didn't they? Maruboshi used the light, and the sound village people used sound?'
'So it needs a medium?'
'Can anything be a medium?'
'But wouldn't all that need some sort of nature transformation?'
'So are little kids really able to do that here?'
'No that can't be the case too.'
I paused for a second with my eyes closed, trying to picture the steps of a genjutsu once again, hoping to find a hint in the process.
'The first step was to diffuse the chakra into the target's chakra system…'
'Diffuse?'
'Oh!'
Having begun the process of putting myself into a genjutsu to search for a clue, I inadvertently played a famous sound effect from Detective Conan without even realising it.
'Got it!'
Without even knowing it, my hand shot up in the class.
Genichi noticed too and smiled wryly.
'Is he thinking that I'm only raising my hand to make him happy? Because I was never this intelligent before?'
'...'
I quietly put my hand back down. And since I was at the back of the class no one else noticed.
'What am I even doing?'
'I'm in a world that gets people killed the sharper they are.'
I then returned a similar wry smile to Genichi and waited for him to answer his own question since the kids in the knowhow didn't want to answer and the others couldn't figure it out on their own.
Genichi clapped his hands after half a minute more before he explained.
"The answer is diffusion."
'So I was right!'
"Yes. Diffusion." Genichi reiterated seeing the confused looks on everyone's faces before explaining, "You must diffuse your chakra into the air and let it find its way into the target's chakra system naturally."
Everyone's faces went from excited to confused as they comprehended the answer.
The method was beyond impractical.
Even more so, it was nightmarish for poor little second year academy students who had only a glass full of chakra in them.
And while the teacher didn't explain why we were supposed to do this, I could more or less guess it.
'Probably to make us keep using our chakra and extract more and more physical and mental energy from our bodies. To get us used to the process of kneading chakra faster.'
Before today we never really had a purpose to generate chakra in our bodies as kids other than the fact that having it around was 'cool' and put you in the 'cool' kids category and separated you from a generic civilian.
Especially since the meager amount of chakra in our bodies didn't nourish it all that much.
And since it was never used, the chakra kneaded remained in our bodies for large amounts of time, leaving us with no reason to practice kneading chakra efficiently.
So the first jutsu being such an inefficient genjutsu was likely to force us to train in the art of 'kneading chakra efficiently'. After all, on a battlefield, where jutsus were probably thrown left and right, no one would wait or even have the time to properly knead chakra if you ever ran out of its stock in you.
A method utterly useless for those that were trained specially, but very useful for civilian students that didn't know how or didn't have trainers.
Genichi looked at everyone with a slightly proud smile as he quietly dropped a bomb, "The record for getting this exercise right is thirty minutes! If you can beat it, I'll personally write you a recommendation letter to meet Hokage-sama!"
Squeals of excitement instantly rang across the classroom as kids instantly paired up with each other to achieve the seemingly impossible task while I simply sat dumbfounded in my seat.
'So who do I pair up for this exercise?'
Noticing my situation Genichi quickly spoke up, "You'll be pairing with me Katsumino-kun, so please wait for a while. Until then, keep trying to affect any random student, I'm sure you'll be a lot more ready by the time you're trying it out with me."
I nodded as my eyes instantly snapped on to the 'target' in front of me, causing a shiver to run down 'its' spine.
Shikamaru turned around and gave me a wry look before nodding and turning towards Choji once again before they both simply relaxed in their seats, ready to test the jutsu on each other.
"Could you trap me in a genjutsu where it is raining chips?"
Shikamaru paused for a second, thought about it and nodded, before speaking up himself, "I'd like a sky with clouds."
"Alright." Choji nodded too and they both began to work on trying to diffuse their chakra into the air and letting it penetrate into each other's systems.
I closed my eyes in the meanwhile and focused on sensing the chakra within myself.
'I have quite a bit left, I think?'
And so after forming the ram seal I began to slowly push it out of the tenketsu over the stomach.
The feeling was quite 'ethereal' to say the least.
Almost as soon as the chakra left my body, I began to feel strange. Almost as if I were fighting my chakra itself as it fought to get out of my control and dissipate into the air.
'Ah…'
'The hard part isn't diffusing the chakra into the air…'
'It's controlling it to reach the target...'
'This also doubles as a chakra control exercise.'
And so the grind began.