Itsuki Kaguya, Hidden Cloud Village
There are some moments in life that all people share. Life achievements which would stay with you until the day you died, like losing your virginity, landing your first job, or having your first child. In my past life these were some of the most important milestones for the average person.
In the life of a ninja however, priorities tended to be a bit different. Unlocking your Chakra, learning your first Jutsu, killing for the first time, were all high up on the list of life highlights.
And I had just ticked off one such goal.
As I walked home from the academy, I adorned a new, shiny headband, reflecting off the smiles of the people who knew me and gave their congratulations as I passed through the village streets.
At my request, I had been presented with my new head accessory at the front of the class, and left with a standing ovation behind me. Well, from some of my classmates anyway, most were annoyed that I had been given the chance to become a Genin months before they were.
But it was no secret. Those unlucky enough to be paired up with me in spars knew I was too strong to stay, along with my high grades and that I had told them how much I'm able to train because of my bloodline.
As much as the village were playing favourites with me, they couldn't really argue that I shouldn't have been given the opportunity to graduate when I had, rather just the unfairness that they were not born with the same talents.
Seriously, I had waltzed into each new classroom, younger than everyone else, beat them all up, then went on up to the next year a few months later. Rinse and repeat.
I'd probably be a bit of a hater too if I was them.
"You've been grinning like a jackass the whole way back."
Like the current hater beside me.
"Oh, little academy student. I remember when I was just like you. So young, so eager to prove myself to the world, but with nothing yet to show. I understand why you're trying to put me down with your mean words," I turned said grin towards Tomoki as he walked beside me. "But you'll grow out of that jealousy soon. One day you can be just like me." I flashed my headband at him.
"But did you really graduate? I wouldn't say so, 'cus you're not going out of the village. All you really got was a long summer break from the academy." Tomoki's incessant attacks on my vibe were unrelenting, "big Genin on house arrest."
"Oh, poor little academy student, I think you'll find that I did actually graduate, but I simply have too much more awesome locked away in me to leave right now." I gave a heavy sigh, "I'm truly suffering from all my success. To be given a mission to keep being me, instead of D-ranks? It's devastating, but I think I can manage."
"My! Itsuki, did you graduate already? Way to go, sweetie!" A civilian woman across the street called out as we walked by. Her voice acted as an announcement to the other Cloud residents around us.
"You did!? Good job, little dude!"
"You're the man, Itsuki!"
"Congratulations, son!"
It took a lot of restraint to not burst out laughing as I replied, "thank you, thank you. I only work as hard as I do because I know all of you are cheering me on!"
I could see Tomoki's deadpan in my peripheral view.
The kind words carried on until we reached the end of the street, "sorry about that, but you know how fans can get." My grin couldn't have been any larger as I continued my conversation with Tomoki, "you wanna hear a cool fact, little academy student?"
"No. I don't"
"Oh, you do? It's always nice to get to impart some wisdom to my juniors." I continued on, "did you know that I'm actually the youngest person to graduate from a ninja academy."
Which was true. Not just in Kumo, but the whole world. It was only a few weeks before my sixth birthday, and nobody had ever graduated at the age of five before.
And Kakashi wasn't here to tie with my record.
"I know. This is the fourth time you've told me since we left the academy."
"It is? Huh. Silly me and my short-term memory."
As we arrived at the orphanage, I reached out for the door handle, but was beaten to the chase as the door swung open before me, with a beaming Tabui in the doorway.
"Oh Itsu! My new little Genin!" She ducked down and squeezed me into a hug, "I'm so proud of you! All your hard work has paid off!"
"Thanks, Ms Tabui. I couldn't have done it without all your training." I managed to mumble out with my face pressing into her body. Hearing this made her grab Tomoki with her other arm to bring him into the crushing embrace.
"Such a sweet boy. Both of you are! And you look like such a handsome young man in your new headband!" She pulled back to look at me, "though I think it may look nicer if you showed off your dots. It'll make you look even fiercer."
"That's what I told them, but they were all out of belts and armbands. I'm gonna have to go back to get those," I said as we began to walk in and were swarmed. "You may want to talk to Tomoki here; he's a little upset he can't be a Genin too."
"No I'm n-"
"Oh Tomo, you can't rush these things. You and Itsu are two different people, there's no need to compare yourselves. You're on your way to becoming a fine young ninja yourself." Tabui put an encouraging arm around him to lift his spirits.
"Yeah, you're on your way Tomoki. Just a few more years to go!" I added on.
"I'm moving out," Tomoki grumbled.
"Woah! You got your headband already, Itsuki bro? That's so cool!" A young voice called out in awe as he charged forward.
"It sure is, Besui," I ruffled the hair of the boy as he ran towards us. He was training to go into the academy, and he was pretty talented at that. The dark-skinned boy's reserves were large for his age, and he had been pushing himself hard, even managing to train with the academy students for a little while before he gets tired. "Not just anyone can be a ninja."
"Hey, Tomoki! You're as old as Itsuki! How come you don't have a headband? You been slacking, bro!?" Besui sent an accusatory look Tomoki's way.
"Not you too, Besui. Don't you start with me," Tomoki grimaced.
"Oh, just ignore him, Besui. He's a bit grumpy 'cus he knows he has to go to the academy tomorrow." I came to the rescue of Tomoki by changing the boys focus, "hey Besui, do you wanna hear a cool fact?"
"Urgh!" Tomoki held his head in his hands.
…
Standing in one of the most sanitized rooms in the village, isolated away from the public, myself and the other students faced the challenge that was given to us for the day. In front of us, was a row of tables, each holding up a fish tank with an injured Koi inside. Our task was simple: make sure they didn't die.
I was currently six, and it had been months since I had become a Genin. Soon after I had, knowing all of the extra time I would have, I went to one of Kumo's hospitals to get some very needed instruction on medical ninjutsu.
Almost dying to Blue B all that time ago had been a very humbling moment for me. Not because I had expected myself to win against him or anything, I was only five at the time. No, it was because it took all the hopes that I had of shrugging off any and all damage like I was Majin Buu and set them on fire.
In that brief moment where he had hit me, my body got jacked up. And I mean really jacked up. Blown off legs, organs flying about, the corrosive damage caused by his tailed-beast Chakra, it was a lot for my body to deal with. And deal with it it did, as anyone else would've been long since buried.
Before that I hadn't actually tested the limits of my healing factor, because even though I and the Kumo doctors were almost positive I could grow back anything if I had the reserves, something like cutting off a limb would leave me with a permanent and pretty stupid mistake if we were proven wrong. So, I was thankful that we were shown to be correct with Blue B's outburst. The only issue was just how much it had taken out of me.
As it was early in the morning, I hadn't yet begun to practice with any of my Jutsus, so my reserves were still at full. But after that stunt, those reserves had plummeted all the way down to 5%.
5% Chakra reserves is not where you wanted to be at.
It had taken around 20 seconds for me to be completely restored. But the same moment my brain had processed that I had been damaged and my Regeneration Chakra began to spread around my insides, my body had decided to also make a pretty dangerous decision and flooded me with more adrenaline than I had ever felt before. So much, that it actually took me a little while to realize how low my Jutsu tank was.
This really put a dampener on the whole immortality fantasy that I was having at the time, as I apparently only had one get-out-of-jail card in me.
So, knowing that it was safe to test, I later went and cut off my arm, because I'm hardcore like that. Instead of taking 20 seconds to come back however, it instantly sprang back into place, and the same adrenaline rush overtook me. It had taken my reserves down to a little over 60%, which to me didn't really add up with what I had done against my sensei.
I had done the same thing with my three other limbs, and had even gone as far as ripping out my heart and having it grow right back inside of me. All yielded me similar results, which allowed me to come to an understanding of just what my healing was about.
If I took what my body deemed to be a life-threatening injury, it would panic and surge out Regeneration Chakra into me, with my reserves being a secondary priority, to fix the issue as fast as possible. It would overflood my body with medical Chakra, with much of it being wasted, as its goal is to heal the damage instantly.
But if my reserves dip down to about 20%, then my Chakra level rises back up to a high priority, and will try to use my Chakra much more sparingly from that point on, by compromising with taking less time to heal me.
It would also fill me up with adrenaline in such a scenario, presumably so I can ignore the pain and focus on whatever battle I had gotten myself into, which sends me into a little bit of a battle haze.
There were a lot of problems with this, the main being that my body seems to think that Chakra grows on trees (which it does, but that's beside the point) and will use far more than it should if I ever get hurt. I can feel that a lot of the medical chakra that my body haphazardly supercharges me with, is unused and was only made because my body had no care for efficiency whatsoever, just that I should be healed as quickly as it can manage.
I wasn't sure what I could do about the whole "battle haze" thing, but there was a pretty obvious solution to my Chakra wastage: learn how to control the damn stuff. If I could dictate when and how much I would use, then it should be a lot less costly to heal myself. Which was why I had waltzed my way over to the hospital as soon as I knew I would have room in my schedule.
"Everyone, step forward and get started. Feel no shame if you are unable to get it right today. As I have said, it is a skill that is more advanced than what you are use to, and will take some time to learn," encouraged the medical kunoichi who was instructing us.
I moved towards my patient and looked down at the little guy. Each fish had slightly different injuries, but all were running out of time before death took hold of them, an added pressure we needed to be able to work under for the future.
What had started off with an ungodly amount of reading material, which I was still having to go through, had soon turned into more practical sessions.
Medical ninjutsu was a pretty interesting art, I found, and was one that was left relatively unexplained in the show. It was based around three factors: intent, Yang release and Chakra control.
To even begin learning medical ninjutsu, a good level of Chakra control was necessary. Altering the aspects of your Chakra is a vital step before it can even be used, and it then needs meticulous control to thread through and around a person's body.
When casting whatever medical technique you wanted, your intent had to be focused. If healing was your goal, then that needed to be elicited in both your thoughts and Chakra, otherwise you would find your invading medical Chakra being rejected by the foreign body.
Chakra is made of both physical and mental energy, and its usual docile state is both forceful and oppressive. So, in order to heal, a medic nin needs to be able to go against this flow to create a gentle, soothing Chakra, because cooperation is necessary for pushing your medical Chakra through their coils.
That physical aspect of your Chakra is called Yang release, while the mental side is Yin release. And medical ninjutsu is all about Yang release, as the physical nature of the element is responsible for vitality, so an imbalance leaning more towards the Yang side is needed for all medical techniques.
Doing this is a lot easier said than done however, as the two elements are extensively more difficult to manipulate than the main five, and there are not many ways to improve your control over them.
Focusing my intent, I cast the Diagnostic Jutsu on the Koi. 'Punctured air sac, tears in the Kidney and Dorsal fin, failing heartbeat…' I mentally listed off its injuries.
Medical ninjutsu, as it turns out, was a relatively new shinobi art, being less than three hundred years old. The name of its founder was lost to time, but whoever she was had done so by pure accident.
She was a strong sensor Kunoichi, with a high level of Chakra control and a good understanding of the inner workings of Chakra, who one day cast the Clone Jutsu, but realized something: her Chakra felt a little off. Somehow imbalanced. And when she compared it to her Chakras natural state, the difference became strikingly clear.
She spent her life investigating her findings and travelling the world, befriending many in her hunt for knowledge. Finding that both Genjutsu, and the Yamanaka Clan's secret techniques shared the same feeling, but to an even greater extent. She coined the term "Yin and Yang," and claimed that within us all "yin and yang lies in perfect harmony, but that balance can be shifted to aid in techniques of the spirit."
Apparently, the Yamanaka Clan hadn't even noticed the shift in their Chakra when they cast their Jutsu, only relying on the innate ease of using Yin release that had been etched into their clan over generations. And with this discovery they were able to delve further into their mind techniques.
Bringing my hands together, I ended my Diagnostic Jutsu and calmed my mind once again. Cleansing myself from any distractions and focused only on harmony, the blank slate that was taught to be your first step. I then channeled my will to heal, to repair and breathe life into all things and called upon my Chakra. I wasn't controlling Yin release when I did so, only my Yang aspect, as I willed it to overpower its other half.
A bright green hue coated my hand as I closed in on my subject.
As a thanks to the woman for sharing her knowledge, the Yamanakas introduced her to the Akamichi, believing their techniques to be fundamentally different to their own with the new understanding they had. And they were right, the Expansion Jutsu of the Akamichi Clan was the polar opposite. Where the Yamanakas were more so inclined to their spirits, the Akamichis leaned towards vitality. The property of Yang release she realized.
Which happened to catch her interest more so, and thus her creation of Medical Ninjutsu was born. As she travelled, she shared her research to any who were interested, which also led to the worldwide improvement of other ninja arts, such as Genjutsu.
As I mentioned, there was no real way to practice your control over Yin or Yang release beyond getting started on the basics. Which was to learn one of the simplest Jutsus, like the Clone Jutsu, which creates an imbalance in your Chakra through its hand signs, and master it to a point where you could do it yourself without hand signs. But this only really teaches you how to differentiate between the two aspects as the imbalance is small with those techniques.
From there, repetition is the only way to get better, becoming more efficient with medical techniques, and over time you can tip the scales more in whichever direction you trained in, allowing you to learn more powerful Jutsus.
The first one that was taught to us all was the Diagnostic Jutsu, which was the first medical technique to be created. What I was using now was the Mystic Hand Jutsu, the precursor to the famous Mystic Palm Jutsu. It couldn't heal injuries as critical and was mainly used to stop bleeding, either external or internal, but was the step above the appropriately named Healing Hands Jutsu.
The bleeding began to cease on the Koi as I ran my hands over it, its breathing beginning to slow down.
"Oh, yes very good, Itsuki. Hold it there and maintain the flow," the instructor loomed over my shoulder.
Just because there weren't any training methods, didn't mean some people weren't talented with Yang release. Like how I assume the Yamanaka Clan and Uchiha Clan had an easier time than others with Yin release, my bloodline was very much focused on the Yang element, and gave me an edge. I had advanced faster than that of my peers, similar to how Sakura would've done to become so proficient in less than three years.
To put it in numbers, the percentage of Yang release needed in your Chakra to cast the Mystic Palm Jutsu was about 80%, whereas my Recovery Chakra seemed to be at 90%, and my Regeneration Chakra at 99%. This gap is absurd when you know that the difficulty of adding more of the Yang aspect increases exponentially as you go, with no other known Medical ninjutsu coming close to 99%.
My Regeneration Chakra was pretty much an all-purpose miracle cure, which resolves any and all injuries. There was no need to alter any of its aspects to work on different wounds, it would heal anything. It's probably the pinnacle of what Medical ninjutsu could do.
After some time training in the medical field, I could closely feel exactly what my body was doing, but I still couldn't replicate it. The level of control was simply beyond what I could manage right now, and any time I attempted to grasp any of it when using my bloodline, it pretty much refused to listen. It was the same with my Recovery Chakra.
My hope of course was to eventually be able to control them both in their entirety and to create them without the help of my body. But the shorter-term goal was to be able to reduce its wastage when I get seriously injured. If I can convert back any Regeneration Chakra, by altering the properties of its intent and Yin-Yang balance, it should hopefully be cycled back through into my network and into my reserves.
"Now, increase its potency, steadily," the instructor continued to watch on.
It was only my tenth attempt at this, so I wasn't yet proficient with the technique. I tried to do as she said, but accidentally added more Chakra than necessary. The fish began to convulse at my attempts.
"Reduce your flow! You're overpowering the Koi's Chakra network!"
As hard as I tried, my efforts weren't enough to save the Koi. Sighing as I looked down at its unmoving body, I could only resolve myself to do better the next time.
…
Looking down at my finger, I marvelled at what I had just done. I was still focusing, desperately trying to keep active what I had managed, but I couldn't help but stare.
I had finally done it. After more than two years of dedicated effort since I had first begun, I had finally reached it. Just barely, not really anything that was usable yet, but now it was only a matter of time.
I admired the small bone jutting out of my fingertip, because unlike all the others, this one boasted a dark brown colour. Denser, heavier and oh so much stronger. I had figured out how to coat my bones with the earth release.
It took a long time to raise my earth release to this level, and it seemed like covering a greater surface in earth chakra would take an even greater amount of control, but this was the biggest step.
Standing alone on the training grounds, I held back a smile as I focused on pumping as much nature release into my finger as I could without losing control. As it was, it may not seem like much, but I had no doubt that it would be one of my most devastating moves in time.
…
With my recently acquired set of training weights, I joined my fellow orphans in our sets of handstand pushups, which we were all doing with a single hand.
All of the kids here began to push themselves harder after seeing me exercise. It had begun at first with just my own year group, but slowly spread into incorporating those older than us.
Now, it was commonplace for everyone to train together, with the older ones encouraging the younger to go further.
"Switch!" Tomoki called out from his upside down position, causing everyone to change hands. The light-skinned boy, with short, silver hair was highly respected here. His own prodigious talent had him always being one of the last people standing in these exercises.
He had actually advanced into the same fourth year class that I was in, but that was after I had already left.
While Kumo had no clans, because of its strength loving culture, the average shinobi tended to train harder than those of the other villages. Which led to the Hidden Cloud having both the largest force, and on average, the strongest Ninjas.
We didn't have the benefit of as many Shinobi with S-ranks potential, but plenty of people pushed themselves to the heights of Jonin. And my addition just happened to cause this group to push themselves even further than the average in Kumo.
I cared about these kids. I wanted them to be as strong as possible, and with how motivated they were, I very much had a goal in mind here that I was hoping to one day achieve with them.
But at the end of the day, it would be a long, tiring road to reach what I imagined, and would be their own choice to pursue. We had begun to walk in the right direction for it, and even if they all decided to not see it through, this extra training was still to their benefit.
It was a long-term project that I wanted for both myself and them.
The goal I was talking about of course, was the eight inner gates. The guaranteed road to power that was open to everybody.
Honestly, why Hiruzen never said "fuck it, Guy, take this year's batch of Genin corps and train them all to use the eight gates," was beyond me. Tsunade wants every team to have a medic nin? Well, I'd set up every team with a Shinobi equipped with nothing but their hands and their youth.
The only real issue was the amount of time that needed to be spent towards learning the technique.
See, living in this world, I had learnt that the way ninjas of a higher level actually move at the ridiculously fast speeds that they fight with, was by simply using a higher refinement of Chakra augmentation on their limbs. Well, that and any other various techniques they might use.
Sure, there is some amount of conditioning that everyone would have gone through to get to that stage, but the majority of their physical prowess was thanks to their chakra amplifying their body's base strength (which is also why chakra dampening seals are such devastating weapons in the shinobi world, and makes prisoners virtually helpless around anyone with control over their own Chakra).
If somebody was moving faster than someone else, it was either because they have a stronger body to enhance, the ability to pump more chakra into themselves, better chakra control to augment their limbs with, or a mix of all three. They're the only components that go into Chakra enhancement.
Augmentation was the key to everything. It's how Kimimaro, after being kept in a cage all his life, with seemingly no combat experience whatsoever, was able to slaughter what looked like multiple Kiri Chuunins with ease, in his very first fight. His reserves were likely higher than mine currently were thanks to being older, and his Chakra control would've been only slightly less thanks to the natural high level of control our bloodline grants us, meaning figuring out how to use Chakra augmentation was an easy task.
Even the way Tsunade's super strength technique worked was no secret, everyone knew how she did it, it was just an application of Chakra augmentation. But nobody could replicate it due to the ridiculous level of chakra control it requires.
But that's the thing, Might Guy and Lee were not using this method. Their strength was purely thanks to their body's natural physical ability that they spent countless hours cultivating, not through boosting themselves physically with their Chakra. Which is insane to think about.
They really did get all their strength through sheer hard work. The only Chakra augmentation that they used were the eight gates themselves, the ultimate enhancement technique.
As funny as Lee and Guy spending all day running around Konoha on their hands was, it implied that that was the level you needed to be at to awaken your gates. More than that really, since Lee couldn't even safely use the fifth gate.
Maybe that was the reason for Kakashi being so mad at Guy, not for the fact that he taught Lee the technique, but rather how soon he had done so.
It had only been a year since Lee left the academy and he was already on the fifth gate, something Guy likely only learned at a later age. Or maybe Guy was just as reckless when he was young, and Kakashi might have recalled how dangerous it was for Guy's health.
To make it worse, to be able to train the amount that the youthful duo do, would require you to have a large amount of your reserves remaining at all times.
The more Chakra running through your body, the faster you can recover from fatigue and injuries. Meaning there was hardly any time to practice with anything which required you to actually spend your reserves.
This all honestly made Kakashi knowing how to open the first Gate all the more impressive.
It's why barely anybody in history ever bothered learning the eight gates, as for most people, dedicating the amount of time necessary would practically mean closing off all other paths of Shinobi arts.
It makes Kakashi knowing how to open the first Gate all the more impressive.
"Switch!" Tomoki shouted again.
I had asked around the village and it wasn't a secret technique, Might Duy hadn't discovered them, and people knew how they worked. Hell, even I knew where my first Gate was thanks to Tabui unlocking my Chakra.
But there were no users in Kumo. Which meant that nobody was quite sure to what degree of strength you needed your body to be at to safely use the gates, just that it's high enough that there's no point in ever attempting to open them.
Training for the eight gates is never shown in the show, but it had been explained to me by Kumo Shinobi as a mix of conditioning the body and then opening each gate to slowly get used to them when they're opened, so the damage done to the body is lessened each time.
So, while the eight gates would work very well with my healing, I wasn't going to touch it with a ten-foot pole as of right now. It was something that messes with your chakra system. If you opened them in the wrong order, a crippled chakra network would be the best-case scenario.
"This… might be it for me…" An exhausted Besui panted out on quaking arms.
"You've got more in you than this, Besui! Dropping now is giving up! Don't stop until you finish the set!"
But my healing makes me unique. I can train myself at a much faster rate than anybody else can, and this fast track is what will hopefully solve the time issue that others face with working on the famous technique.
And if my efforts to control my Recovery Chakra pay off, maybe I could even speed up my rate of recovery further. Hell, if I could push that Chakra out of my body, I could help them in much the same way.
"Switch!"
…
Leaning slightly forward, I kept myself in the loose stance that I had crafted over the years, waiting in anticipation for the fight to come. This wasn't just a spar, it was a test. A test to determine if I was ready to leave the village.
At my insistence, and with the vouch from Blue B that I was ready, I found myself in front of the man who I needed to convince.
I was now seven years old and standing across from me was the Raikage, the leader of the Hidden Cloud village.
AN: some chakra theory on your head top. Imagine how slightly displeased I was when I looked up Yang release training methods and couldn't find any. Creativity? Yuck!
But seriously, I spent a couple days thinking over how it could be trained, and the clone thing was the best I had. If anyone can come up with something better, it's too late for me to add it, but I'd still love to hear it.
Also, Might Guy would make a great Hokage, sue me.