I opened my eyes, staring at the stained ceiling of my apartment.
Yesterday's training pain throbbed through my entire body. My quadriceps screamed. My knuckles, wrapped in cheap bandages, pulsed with pain.
"Shit…" I groaned, rolling off the futon like an old man.
My feet touched the cold floor. I forced myself to stand, ignoring the protests of my joints.
"Status."
A blue panel appeared in the air.
[USER INTERFACE]
Name: Kael
Age: 20
Affiliation: Konoha Civilian
Strength: 0.80 ➔ 0.84
Speed: 0.90 ➔ 0.91
Stamina: 0.70 ➔ 0.75
Defense: 0.80 ➔ 0.82
Chakra: Inaccessible (Calcified Channels)
Skills: None
A crooked smile crossed my face as I looked at myself in the cracked bathroom mirror.
0.84.
Three days ago, when I woke up in this body, Strength had been a pathetic 0.80. The original "Kael" was a waste of oxygen: an orphan of the Kyuubi attack who had survived for years on apathy and government subsidies.
I didn't have that luxury.
I knew what was coming. I knew that in a few years, a "god" with ringed eyes would float above this village and wipe it off the map. I knew the Fourth War would turn civilians like me into fertilizer for the Divine Tree.
"0.84… I'm still weaker than the baker on the corner," I muttered, spitting toothpaste into the sink. "But it's more than yesterday."
I dressed quickly: gray pants and a black sleeveless shirt that showed my thin but wiry arms. I laced up my boots and stepped outside.
The Civilian District was waking up. The smell of grilled fish, charcoal, and sewage blended into the unique fragrance of poverty.
Mrs. Tanaka was sweeping the entrance to her tea shop. When my boots hit the pavement, she looked up, expecting the usual: the invisible boy stepping aside with his head down.
I didn't.
I paused for a second to adjust my gloves, back straight, gaze fixed on the horizon.
"Good morning, Tanaka-san," I said. My voice didn't shake. It was steady.
The old woman blinked, confused.
"Eh… ah… good morning, Kael-kun," she stammered. "You look… different. Going to look for work at last?"
"I'm going to train," I replied.
"Train?" She let out a small laugh. "At your age? Ninja kids are already jumping across rooftops at twelve. You're twenty. Your "channels" are dry. You should find a wife."
"I'd rather try than sit around waiting for death."
I left her standing there, mouth open, and kept walking. I didn't have time to explain that "impossible" is just lack of effort. My goal was clear: break my physical limit to force my chakra energy to push through. If I couldn't use Ninjutsu, I'd use Taijutsu. If I couldn't use Taijutsu, I'd use rocks. But I was going to unlock that damn chakra.
I walked toward the main street, crowded with people. Merchants shouting, civilians shopping, and the occasional ninja leaping between rooftops.
My mind was elsewhere. I visualized the bark of the trees in the Forest of Death. I calculated how many squats I could do before my muscles failed. I was so focused that the world blurred into noise and color.
I didn't notice the small figure dressed in orange coming from the opposite direction, walking against the current.
I stared ahead, eyes distant. She looked at the ground, hands in her pockets, trying to shrink under the villagers' stares.
We passed each other.
Barely half a meter apart.
In my mind, I reviewed chakra theory. I felt nothing. Maybe a faint breeze as we crossed paths, but my concentration was absolute. I simply kept walking, one step after another, toward my training spot.
Naruko Uzumaki stopped dead in her tracks.
It was instantaneous.
One second earlier, her head had been a hornet's nest. The Fox's whispers—that constant static of hatred vibrating at the base of her skull since forever—were at full volume. They mixed with the murmurs of the villagers: "Monster." "Demon." "Why doesn't she just die?"
And then… silence.
As if the world had held its breath.
The moment that tall boy in the black shirt passed by her, the static in her head cut out. The Fox went quiet. The anxiety squeezing her chest dissolved, replaced by a calm so deep, so strange, it made her dizzy.
Naruko froze, blue eyes wide. Her hands stopped trembling.
She took two more steps before her brain processed what had just happened.
"What…?" she whispered.
She spun around abruptly, her pigtails slapping against her cheeks.
Her eyes scanned the crowd desperately, searching for the source of that peace. She didn't know what she was looking for. She only knew that for one second, for the first time since she could remember, she hadn't felt alone inside her own skin.
But the street was full of people. The boy in black had already turned a corner or vanished into the crowd.
No one stood out. No one looked at her.
And as quickly as it had come, the feeling faded.
The buzzing returned. First soft, then rising like a badly tuned radio.
"…stupid brat… they hate you…"
The usual headache came back, stabbing behind her eyes.
Naruko pressed a hand to her temple, grimacing. Her heart pounded—not from fear, but from the loss of that calm.
"Hello?" she called into the crowd, her voice small and cracked.
No one answered. A man glanced at her in disgust and stepped aside.
Naruko slowly lowered her hand.
"My imagination…" she muttered, kicking the ground. "I must be going crazy. The old Hokage was right, I'm training too much."
She shook her head hard, trying to erase the memory of that impossible peace, and forced a bright smile onto her face.
"Ramen!" she exclaimed. "I just need a giant bowl of ramen and I'll be fine!"
She ran toward Ichiraku, trying to outrun the silence that was no longer there.
Meanwhile, three streets away, Kael kept walking toward the forest, completely unaware that he had just become the most potent drug in the world for the most dangerous person in the village.