Thump.
Thump thump.
Thump.
Thump thump.
The sound of his heartbeat drumming in his ears was almost enough to drown out the noise of the tea boiling in the kitchen, and the soft clink of porcelain as Nanami took teacups from the drawer.
Yohei took a slow, mostly steady breath, and flexed the muscles in his chest, arms, and neck in a way meant to regulate his blood flow, forcing his heart to slow down a little and break its frantic rhythm, even if the nervousness and stress themselves didn't truly abate in the slightest.
He had already bitten all his nails down to nothing, and was now cracking his fingers one by one for the third time; the lack of satisfying pops was really starting to fray his nerves.
The sound of a teacup being placed on the table in front of him pulled him out of his reverie. Nanami set her own beside it, the mist wafting from the soft green liquid in both cups curling upward and mixing in the air between them.
He picked up his cup and took a sip, noticing that she had sweetened it for him. Neither of his lives had ever much enjoyed the taste of tea, and the fact that she had taken care to do it even in a situation like this made him feel the ghost of a smile tug at his lips.
He'd still have preferred coffee, though.
Nanami didn't say anything as she sat by his side, only humming softly as she took the towel from around his shoulders and used it to dry the parts of his body he hadn't bothered with as they made their way downstairs.
His back, his neck, beneath his arms, his hair and his ears as well – every part attended to with the same gentleness she always put into anything related to him.
Knowing that, depending on how things went in the next few minutes, he might never feel something like this again was enough to make him nearly start crying. But the same exercises that helped regulate his heart also helped him separate his feelings from his body's instinctual reactions.
Once she was done, she folded the towel and placed it back over his shoulders, scooting closer and slipping an arm around him, pulling him into a hug without saying a word.
Yohei closed his eyes and let himself enjoy the moment.
…
He was drawn out of it, however, by the sound of her own heartbeat, which – just like his had been moments ago – threatened to burst out of her chest from how loud and frantic it was.
Noticing how worried she was, despite the calm front she was putting up, was enough for him to decide not to drag this out any further. Straightening himself out of her hug, he set his teacup back down on the table and turned so he could face her fully.
It was the least he could do – to look into her eyes while he revealed the secrets he had been hiding for months now.
Blue met blue, and for a moment he almost faltered under the look she gave him. But that same look was also all the reason he needed to steel himself.
He thought about how to start, and with a quick count noticed something that almost made him snort at the coincidence.
"I was born sixty days ago," he finally said.
Nanami's eyebrows drew together in a frown, confusion plain on her face even as she tensed.
"I don't know exactly when, how, or why it happened, but something happened on Graduation Day," Yohei continued, lips pursed. "Everything that was Kuroyama Yohei – memories, feelings, dreams, fears, desires – was… fused. Or mixed. Or smashed together with everything that was someone else. Someone from outside the Land of Fire… from outside this world."
He finished lamely, acutely aware of how stupid it sounded now that he had said it out loud. It sounded insane even to him, and he wouldn't fault Nanami for thinking this was some dumb and cruel joke, or that he was suffering from something.
The look she gave him wasn't one of annoyance, though, nor the pitying, worried expression people wore when they thought someone was losing their grip on reality. Instead, despite the confusion still evident on her face, he could see how focused she was, taking every stupid word that came out of his mouth seriously.
Nanami didn't say anything, and he took that as his cue to continue, doing so only after taking a deep breath.
"In his world… the Land of Fire, the Village, shinobi – even chakra – it's all fiction. Elements in a fantasy tale, no different from any of a thousand others, except for how popular it was. That tale told the story of Naruto Uzumaki," he said, noticing the tightening of her eyes at the name, only for them to widen more and more with each word that followed, "the jinchūriki of the Nine-Tailed Fox; the son of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, and his wife, Kushina Uzumaki; the reincarnation of Asura, son of the Sage of Six Paths; the Child of Prophecy, destined to save this world from the Cycle of Hate."
He let out a weak chuckle at her flummoxed expression before sighing.
"When I first woke up, I didn't remember anything from either of my lives. I was… really numb and confused about everything. When the memories started coming back, though… well, the confusion didn't really disappear, but most of it was replaced by dread and panic." With a grimace, he looked down at his hands, tightening them into fists and pressing them together, grinding knuckles against knuckles. "Each set of memories I had was violently contradicting the other. My memories from Terra, compared to the ones from here, all felt… bland. The colors were lacking, the sounds were lacking, the textures were lacking. Compared to this world, everything was gray and tasteless."
"But my local memories? Compared to Terra, they felt surreal, like a dream – unbelievable, exaggerated, too bright, too colorful, as if the whole world had been painted over with an unnatural texture. This… really didn't help me deal with the knowledge that I was in a fictional world."
He closed his eyes, letting himself slip back into that moment from two months ago, and it all came back far more vividly than he wanted it to.
"So I was there, sitting in my classroom, surrounded by people I had known for years. People I had grown up with. But none of them felt familiar. All I could see were characters who had jumped out of the pages of a story. And I wasn't even one of them," he said with a weak chuckle, his face scrunching up. "Definitely not a protagonist. Not a secondary character either. Not a face in the crowd, or even a shadow in the back of the scenery. I was no one."
The feeling of Nanami's hands cupping his face made him open his eyes, pulled out of his recollection. He saw the tear trailing down her cheek and felt his own eyes burn as well.
"But then I walked out the doors of the Academy and you were there," he said roughly. "I saw the love in your eyes, and I heard the pride in your voice, and for the first time since I woke up I felt like a real person – and I was so afraid of losing that. I'm so afraid that you won't see me as your son anymore, because I don't know. I really don't know if I'm Yohei, or a ghost wearing his body and memories."
He did his best not to cry, holding Nanami's gaze as firmly as he could. Her eyes flicked this way and that across his face, as if searching for something – something different, something strange, something missing.
He didn't know whether she found it, because instead of saying anything she let go of his face, looked off to the side, and then closed her eyes. That silence hurt worse than every single beating Gōdo had ever given him put together.
He could admit to himself that he wished she would just accept it all without question. That she would say that whatever had happened, he was her son and nothing would change that.
But… if that wasn't possible, then he wished she would just do whatever it was she was going to do as quickly as possible. This whole thing had been slowly boiling for months; all he wanted now was for it to be over.
But that wasn't what happened.
Nanami simply remained there, eyes closed, processing.
She didn't hug him or strike him. She didn't accuse him of killing her son, nor try to take him to the Yamanaka so they could see what was wrong with him. She didn't do anything beyond breathing and thinking.
An entire eternity – or what felt like one – passed before she opened her eyes. Her hand reached for her own teacup, which had long since gone cold, and she shakily brought it to her mouth, practically inhaling its contents before setting it back down on the table with a long, unsteady sigh.
She turned to him, and Yohei had no idea what kind of face he was making at that moment, but something about it seemed to call to Nanami. She huffed tiredly, a small smile forming on her lips, then took his hand, pulling it into her grip and running her fingers absently over his palm. Lifting his hand, she bent his fingers, placing them in the position for the Seal of Confrontation.
Yohei watched, unsure of what was happening or what he was supposed to do, but guessing her intention, he allowed the mnemonic trigger to work, his stamina being molded into chakra.
"You probably haven't seen anything about it in your studies yet, but after a certain point it's inevitable that a med-nin has to start studying the soul. Our main objective, after all, is treating ninja and dealing with the damage caused by the ninja arts. Chakra, being the cornerstone of them all, is half powered by the body and half powered by the soul, and as such has the power to affect it. Forbidden jutsu that can seal the soul, cursed weapons that can damage it, wild demons that can weaken it, and spiritual parasites that can feed on it or take its place in control of a body…" she said in a clinical tone that sent a chill down his spine.
"This isn't an area I'm particularly versed in, but I do have training to recognize such things. To be honest, in most cases it's not that hard," She admitted, "The secret is in the chakra, you see? A chakra signature is incredibly unique – you could search the whole world, both past and future, and I doubt you'd find two people whose chakra feels exactly the same. For a good enough sensor, changes in the body can be felt purely through the chakra signature of someone – changes in the soul are even easier to identify. There are still techniques and means to hide or mask it, of course, but none of them, to my knowledge, is perfect – especially not when examined closely. Here it is…"
Just as she had said, Yohei's chakra, which had been steadily building, began to take form around his body as his reserves overflowed. A turquoise aura of light flared up, moving like living flame.
Her own chakra surged from her hand – similar in color to his, but a touch paler, with a faint purplish tint.
For a moment they were both quiet as the two flames danced together, Yohei getting a little lost in the mesmerizing sight.
"…what was your name?" she asked softly. "In your other life?"
Yohei hesitated.
All this time, from the very beginning, he had avoided thinking about it. Had avoided naming himself anything other than Yohei, because then he could at least lie to himself that he merely carried memories of another life, or that it had been something like a past reincarnation.
…but since he had already gone ahead and stopped lying to Nanami, there was no reason left to keep lying to himself.
"Nicolas," he said, the pronunciation of the word on his tongue feeling both incredibly strange and painfully familiar.
Nanami snorted softly, a small smile quirking at the corner of her mouth. "Ni-ko-ras."
"Nicolas," he corrected gently. "Nicolas Montenegro."
She laughed. "What a strange name."
"Montenegro means Black Mountain," he said, for reasons he couldn't quite identify.
She looked at him in surprise and let out a short but amused laugh, before falling quiet again.
"Mine was Hoshino Seira," she said lightly.
The carelessness of her tone made him look up at her, startled and confused. She chuckled at his reaction.
"Don't get it wrong, I don't have any memories from another world. Hoshino Seira is simply the name my parents gave me. It's the name I was known by in the Land of Snow, before… before I came to Konoha. I haven't used it in a long time, but I still love it dearly." She took her hand out of his and cupped his face, "It's part of the reason I named you Yohei. My calm ocean, my sunlit peace. You shouldn't forget your names, Yo-kun, even if you don't use them."
A knot formed in his throat, and Yohei stopped even trying to control the tears running down his face. "What– what does my chakra feel like?"
Nanami hummed, a wide smile spreading across her face as she pulled him into her chest. "Bright like a star, but cool and flowing like the sea. It's stronger than it has ever been, and there's a certain smell to it, like rain – but I would never mistake it for anything other than my son's chakra."
Yohei laughed through a sob. "I'm glad."
Nanami laughed as well. "So am I. You almost scared me to death, you know?"
"I'm sorry," Yohei said, though the words rang hollow with how happy and relieved he felt.
"No, you're not," she teased, drying her face with the back of her hand. Then she took a deep breath and pushed him back slightly, fixing him with a serious look. "Now, tell me everything."
-~=~-
It took hours for Yohei to go through everything that had happened to him since he had first woken up, especially because Nanami stopped him several times to make him clarify certain points – like when she made him go on an entire thirty-minute-long tangent explaining everything he remembered about the plot of Demon Slayer, after he had mentioned the source of his Total Concentration Breathing technique.
At some point, they reheated some food from the kitchen and ate dinner, though Yohei couldn't say what it had been, so focused was he on the task of recounting everything.
The worst part came after that, though. Once Nanami was satisfied that she understood everything Yohei had gone through over the past two months, she proceeded to put him through a thorough interrogation about every single thing he remembered about "Naruto" from his past life – which turned out to be far less than he had expected.
He knew the general beats of it, of course.
Naruto's childhood, the theft of the Scroll of Seals, the Wave Mission, the Chūnin Exams, the Konoha Crush, the retrieval of Tsunade, and then Sasuke leaving the village in search of power.
Shippuden, however… he remembered a whole lot less of that.
The Akatsuki started moving, Gaara was captured and then retrieved, there was the Bridge Mission, and following that…
'What came after that?' Yohei asked himself with a frown.
He remembered Sasuke betraying Orochimaru and forming a team to hunt down his brother. The Akatsuki attacked the village once more and Asuma died. Naruto developed the Rasenshuriken and killed Kakuzu. Jiraiya went to Rain and discovered that his former students had become the leaders of the Akatsuki before dying. Naruto became a Sage. Pain destroyed Konoha before reviving everyone. Sasuke killed Itachi and learned the truth behind the Uchiha Massacre – which had left his mother shocked and furious to learn about. Then Sasuke attacked Danzō and the Kage, Danzō died, and Naruto became able to use the power of Kurama.
Everything past that was honestly a blur. Yohei didn't know what happened between that point and the Fourth Ninja War, and even the events of the war itself were mostly forgotten, save for the final battles.
Nanami made sure to wrangle every drop of information she could out of him, though – not only about the pasts and motivations of various individuals and organizations, but also about their future actions, abilities, tools, and weaknesses. No comment was made on what that information would be used for, however.
It was well past midnight by the time they were done. Yohei's throat was parched, but he felt lighter than he could ever remember being.
He was honestly more than a little sleepy by then, but they weren't finished yet. He and his mother had gone down to the basement – something he hadn't even known their house had at all – and he was about to show her something he had already explained at length but had yet to provide proof of: the Chaos Scroll.
He was extremely surprised when, after going up to his room before heading down, she went straight to the spot beneath his wardrobe where he stored his past rewards. She laughed at the look on his face.
"Yohei, I clean your room. You really thought I wouldn't find them? I just didn't open them before because I thought it was porn."
He squeaked in embarrassed outrage, but didn't argue, because honestly, her assumption had saved his hide. If she had opened those and questioned him about their source before he had opened up to her himself…
Well. A lot of bad shit could have happened.
Anyhow, right now he was sitting on the floor, idly reading through his newest manual while his mother went through his older scrolls.
"And you say you learn faster from these?" she asked.
"Yup," Yohei said, rubbing at his eyes. "I mean, I think it kind of varies. I'm still learning Total Concentration Breathing, but I learned Extreme Muscle Assault in a few hours, so…"
He blinked. She was glaring at him with a pout.
"What did I do?" he asked, genuinely lost.
She squinted at him even harder, then let out a huff and mumbled under her breath.
"Do you have any idea how worried I was? Stupid Yo-kun, making his mama feel bad…"
He didn't quite catch what she was muttering, but when she didn't say anything else he shrugged and went back to reading.
…
"Yohei, what's this?" Nanami asked icily.
Taking a sharp breath as her voice dragged him out of an unintended nap, Yohei squinted to make out the words on the page, his heart stopping the moment he saw what she was holding.
'Milk Gland Activation Technique.'
He looked at her with wide eyes. She sniffed. "Pervert."
"I don't choose what I get!" Yohei protested.
"Did you learn it?" she asked dryly, and his embarrassed silence was answer enough. She sniffed again. "Pervert."
Yohei groaned, burying his face in his hands. "It's not like that! It's a useful technique! I defeated a chūnin just yesterday using that, you know?"
Nanami kept glaring at him for a few seconds longer, making him sweat, before she suddenly burst out laughing.
"Yes, I know, Yo-kun, I'm just kidding. You're adorable when you're flustered – I was missing that look," she said, mirth shining in her eyes. He groaned again, but she ignored it and went back to the scroll. "This is actually a great technique. There are jutsu that allow a kunoichi to make herself lactate, but that requires Yang Release, which isn't something just anyone can learn."
She said that while staring fixedly at him, huffing before continuing.
"And it takes far too much time for a med-nin to do this on others when we could be treating far more serious conditions, especially since formula became a thing. Many mothers still wish to feed their children themselves, though, and this technique is simple and fast enough that it could be used on entire groups at once. Not to mention how much farmers and cattle owners would pay for a D-rank to use this on their animals."
"It could also serve as a good basis to create actual offensive Yang techniques," Yohei said.
Nanami waved a hand dismissively. "Yes, yes, but I was thinking about more productive uses. Honestly, when did you become such a bloodthirsty child, Yo-kun? Where did you get this from? It couldn't possibly have been me," she added in a faux-innocent tone.
"Wasn't assassination your specialty before you became a med-nin?" Yohei asked dryly.
Nanami blew a raspberry. "I'm going to mess with Sana's bento. How dare she fill your head with those horrible, terrible, no-good truths about my past? Unforgivable."
Yohei rolled his eyes, blinking as a faint itchiness set in from how dry they were.
Something occurred to him then, and he fell silent for a moment before speaking again. "If this technique is that good, then I should submit it to the village."
Nanami hummed in agreement as she read through its technical details. "You'd get a pretty penny for that. It would be better to sell it directly to the Hospital, though. It wouldn't bring as much fame, but the reward would be roughly the same, and it would limit access to people who are actually trained not to mess it up."
Yohei nodded, but his thoughts were already drifting toward his next suggestion. "…I should reveal it to Hokage-sama, too. All of it. The Chaos Scroll, and… my knowledge of the future."
Nanami froze, stopping mid-read to look at him.
She didn't say anything, letting the silence stretch before finally letting out a sigh. Looking over the scrolls, she picked one she had apparently already gone through and held it up for him to see.
"Can you do this jutsu, Yo-kun?" she asked curiously.
Yohei blinked, focusing on it. The Four-Arms Technique. He nodded. "Yeah, I can."
Without thinking too much about it, Yohei stood up – then paused. Doing this technique while sleepy was definitely not a good idea. He shifted into a relaxed stance and drew in a sharp, long breath.
Total Concentration Breathing.
He only kept it up for a few seconds, but the rush of energy and adrenaline was enough to wake him properly. With that done, and his focus sharpened enough to meet the technique's demands, Yohei went through the hand seals and began the transformation.
The Four-Armed Technique was probably his most expensive jutsu to activate, though its upkeep was relatively cheap. It was also, without a doubt, the one that felt the most alien.
The change began at the axis.
His vertebral column had its proportions rapidly reassigned with a static-like sensation. Each thoracic vertebra broadened, the bodies thickening front to back as the transverse processes extended outward. The spinous processes, on the other hand, flattened and widened, overlapping more tightly.
Around this altered scaffold, his ribcage subtly deepened. Rather than multiplying, as he had initially expected, his ribs instead arced farther back before curving forward again, increasing the depth of the thorax without expanding its width. The sternum lengthened downward by a few degrees, its surface area increasing to receive new muscular attachments.
At the shoulders, an even more dramatic divergence appeared.
Beneath his scapulae, a second pair differentiated from connective tissue that had once served only as fascia and muscle anchors. These new scapular plates mineralized gradually – not emerging, but condensing – edges sharpening into bone along lines of stress. They settled lower and slightly posterior, offset rather than stacked directly beneath the original pair. Each found its place along the reinforced thoracic wall, rotating minutely until the angles of leverage aligned.
Clavicular structures responded in kind. The original clavicles thickened and curved more deeply, while secondary struts formed beneath them. Together, they created a double shoulder girdle – interlocked but not fused – capable of acting as a single frame or splitting into two, depending on demand.
Muscle followed bone.
The pectorals split along their fiber directions, upper segments claiming the original arms while the lower segments migrated toward the new pair. The latissimus dorsi expanded downward and inward, its lower fibers growing broader, gripping the spine with increased authority. Between the shoulder layers, new sheets of muscle formed – thin, dense stabilizers whose sole function was to prevent torsion when force was applied asymmetrically.
From those anchoring points, the additional arms took shape.
Humeri extended from the lower scapulae, slightly shorter than the upper pair but thicker through the shaft. Their joints seated deeper, trading range of motion for stability. The elbows aligned closer to the torso, allowing the forearms to clear the ribcage without collision. Radius and ulna differentiated normally, but with expanded attachment ridges, prepared for sustained tension rather than rapid articulation. The hands formed last.
The diaphragm lowered and thickened, its dome reshaped to manage increased thoracic pressure. The heart shifted a fraction to accommodate the deeper chest cavity. The lungs expanded posteriorly, maintaining balance. Nerve bundles reorganized at the brachial plexus, ensuring no signal would cross or compete.
When it was done, his body didn't appear heavily altered in silhouette at first glance – only… denser. Deeper, somehow.
The whole process, despite how slow it appeared, happened in a matter of seconds, and Yohei wasn't fully aware of all of it as it occurred. For him, it felt like an intense pressure at his back and sides, followed by a sensation not unlike pulling a barb out of the skin.
"Fascinating," Nanami muttered, a gleam in her eye as she moved closer, fingers trailing along the lines of his newly formed anatomical changes. "How does it feel?"
Yohei tilted his head to consider it, his lower pair of arms planting their fists on his waist while the upper pair crossed over his chest, one hand coming up to hold his chin. He smiled involuntarily.
'I really like it when my body is like this.'
"Well… it doesn't feel weird after it happens. Just as natural as when I only have one pair. There are some things I've noticed, though."
"Like what?" she asked curiously, pressing her knuckles against his new shoulder plates.
"My spine gets optimized for stability when I'm like this, and the trade-off is that I lose some mobility – so twisting or whip-like motions take a lot more effort. I also lose some flexibility. On the other hand, I can boost myself more with Extreme Muscle Assault like this, and because of the changes to my thorax my Total Concentration Breathing is more powerful."
He demonstrated, inhaling deeply and forcefully. His abdomen expanded first, and only after a moment did his chest follow, though it didn't flare outward the way it had before, even with his increased air capacity. A powerful corona of turquoise light washed over him as he began producing Water Chakra en masse, only to release it – and the Four-Arms Technique – on the exhale.
His new limbs shriveled as white mist poured off them, his torso shrinking back to its normal proportions. A good portion of his chakra was lost in the reversion, but enough returned that he didn't feel lethargic.
Remembering why he had used the jutsu in the first place, he turned toward his mother curiously, finding her watching him with a disbelieving smile still tugging at her lips.
"How long did you take to learn this, Yo-kun?" she asked with open humor.
Yohei squinted, searching his memory for the exact date. "I think… half a week? That was mostly because I was focused on other things, though."
Nanami hummed, the sound bubbling into a giggle that quickly turned into a laugh.
"Yohei, I don't think I could learn this technique in less than half a decade," she told him, and he boggled his eyes in response. Before he could say anything, she continued smoothly, "And how long did it take you to learn Total Concentration Breathing?"
"A bit more than a month," Yohei replied more quickly this time. "But I only learned the most basic part of it, and even then there are some kinks."
Nanami nodded, smiling thoughtfully. "It's funny – with the manual in hand, I think I could learn it in less than a year."
Yohei nodded slowly, his eyebrows furrowing. "Okay, but what does that mean?"
Nanami lowered her gaze to the scroll she held, her eyes flicking over the description for Recovery Breathing. "I'm not a genius, Yohei. Above average in talent, yes, and more willing to put in the work than most, but not a genius. And yet, I could still learn this faster than it takes to train a med-nin. I think that, given those detailed instructions, any taijutsu specialist in the village could do it in roughly the same time it would take me. But even for the ordinary – the Academy rejects, and the hundreds of genin in the corps – learning this would still be faster than, say, mastering Nature Transformation."
She snorted, "Why, if your case applies to everyone, then this is actually a shortcut to mastering Nature Transformation as well. And with just that, in a few years Konoha would gain an army of nintaijutsu specialists, all on average on the level of high chūnin to special jōnin. And that's, of course, without even talking about how much of a power multiplier this would be for those who are already strong. There is little doubt in my mind that we would never lose a war against any other nation – not unless most of all of them joined forces."
The implication that this was exactly what such a scenario would bring was left unsaid.
"And this is just a C-Rank reward. What about a B-Rank? What about an A-Rank? Sage, what about an S-Rank, if those exist?" she asked sardonically, before shaking her head and stepping closer to him. She held his head gently in her hands. "Yōhei, this… Chaos Scroll. It isn't just a tool, or a gimmick, or an equivalent to a Bloodline Limit. If it is capable of even half of what we believe it can do, then it is the single most powerful thing in this world. It can both provide new sources of power that completely upend the balance of things, and make you – who is the only one who can make full use of what it provides – a weapon unlike any other. And the only thing that comes second to it is the knowledge you possess of the past and future."
Yohei frowned, pain creasing his face as he held his mother's hands and looked intently at her. "Shouldn't I use this power to protect my home? My friends? My family?"
"Of course you should," Nanami said gently. "That's the only real use for power, after all. And this village is my home as well, and the people who live here are also my precious people. For all of its problems, for all of the dark secrets you've made me aware of, I would still gladly take my own life if it meant protecting it – to make sure you, and your children, and your children's children can grow behind these walls and know the peace and happiness it can bring. But Konoha is not my priority. You are."
Her face was emotionless – or perhaps it was better to say that it was so full of emotion that it couldn't express any single one of them. Even so, that did nothing to diminish the intense burn in her eyes.
"I would personally murder every man, woman, elder, and infant in this village if it meant protecting you, Yohei," she said firmly, and he knew, without a shadow of doubt, that she was telling the truth. "It would tear my heart apart. I don't think I could ever recover from it, but I would still do it. Do you understand that?"
"…Yes," he whispered.
Nanami nodded. "Good. Now, knowing that those are my two highest priorities – your well-being and the village's – do you think I can, in good conscience, tell you that you should expose the Chaos Scroll and your foreknowledge to anyone? You yourself admitted to me that your knowledge of who the Hokage is as a person is not perfect, and you described him to me as 'a flawed man who tries to do his best.' Can you tell me, with absolute certainty, that if you tell him, nothing is going to go wrong?"
She didn't pause for an answer.
"Different from me, Yohei, the first and greatest priority of the Hokage is the safety of the village. If that means turning you into a weapon, then that's what he will do. If that means exposing you to increasingly more danger in order to make you obtain more rewards, then that's what he will do. If that means sealing you so that you can never present a risk to the village by being subverted or by going rogue, then that's what he will do," she stressed.
"But even if he doesn't – supposing that he will be fully supportive of you, despite not having any particular emotional bond to you, like the ones he had to those he spared in the past despite knowing it was the objectively wrong decision – can you guarantee to me that Danzō won't hear of what you can do? I don't need to tell you what he would do with that knowledge, right? Do you think he wouldn't burn all of his assets – and Konoha itself – as long as it meant acquiring what you hold within yourself? So he could break you in a thousand ways and bind you in a thousand more in order to use your abilities for his gain, while he searches for a method of directly stealing it from you? And if not him, then Orochimaru. And if not Orochimaru, then Nagato. And if not Nagato, then Obito. Each and every single one of them would destroy everything and everyone you love to get you, if they had even an inkling of what you know and what you can do."
"But if I don't do anything, then I'm partially responsible for every single death that comes from my inaction!" He argued hotly.
She gave him an unimpressed stare. "First of all, don't take that tone with me or I'll make you unable to sit for a month. And second, we will do something – but we'll do it smartly."
"More secrets and lies, then," Yohei said with a grimace, properly chastised.
Nanami blinked, looking at him oddly, before letting out a short laugh. "Yes, Yo-kun. More secrets and lies. Have you forgotten? We are ninja. Secrets and lies are our currency and our strength. You think I'm mad at you for hiding those things from me? I'm not, dear. I'm proud," she said, making him stare at her in startled surprise, which only made her laugh again as she rolled her eyes. "In the bathroom, you used your dōjutsu to make sure I could be trusted before deciding to tell me the truth, right? You did the right thing."
Yohei looked at her incomprehendingly before letting out a distressed sound. "But this – this isn't right, Mom. Is my whole life going to be like this? Constantly lying to everyone? Always wearing a mask? Is every single interaction I'll ever have with someone else a theatre?" He felt his eyes burn. "Am I never going to have a single genuine relationship in my life?"
"Ohhhhh," Nanami said in a tone of sudden realization, before continuing dryly, "You're becoming a monk, then."
"Stop joking about it!"
Nanami flicked him on the forehead with a chakra-coated finger, making him hiss at the pulsing sting left by the strike.
"I already told you not to use that tone with me, so do it again at your own peril," she said with a huff, before sighing. "Yo-kun, look at me."
He did, eyes narrowed, still clutching his burning forehead, wearing an expression that made her smile and actively restrain herself from pinching his cheeks.
"Stop being dramatic," she said simply, making him blink, befuddled. "This is life. It has always been like this. Think back to your two sets of memories. Have you, even once in your life, ever been completely, absolutely truthful with anyone? Have you ever been truly unguarded with your emotions? Fully exposed, holding no secret feelings or thoughts? Have you ever talked to anyone without filtering your thoughts first, just saying the very first thing that comes to mind? Of course not. That's not how humans work. When you meet someone you're interested in, don't you put your best qualities on display? When you're interacting with a client, don't you act respectful and professional? When you're with your friends, don't you act differently than you do with me? When you see someone attractive, don't you try to hide your glances, or do you openly perv on them?"
"Okay, okay, I got it!" Yohei said, face burning red. "Can you not?"
Nanami giggled. "I was just trying to illustrate my point. Sweetie, the only way you can ever achieve a truly truthful life is by living like a monk – by attaining Ninshū – and even then, it would only happen if the person you're trying to be truthful with wishes to reciprocate."
She sighed, shaking her head, "But you don't actually want that, Yohei. The problem here is that you've somehow, for some kami-forsaken reason, decided that you are, in any way, shape, or form, similar to a piece-of-shit slaver and his psychotic son. I mean, what the hell, love? You're smarter than that," she said with humor, snorting when he grumbled.
She placed a hand on his head and began patting his hair. "I'm not telling you to lie to people about how you feel about them. I'm not telling you to pretend to care about things you don't. I'm not telling you to hide after cheating on your girlfriend – I will, in fact, break half the bones in your body if you do that. And I am most definitely not telling you to run away from your responsibilities or to manipulate others into doing your dirty work so you can satisfy your selfish pride and sadistic desires, so stop pretending this is the same thing at all."
"But it's not nothing, either," Yohei continued to argue, though his voice sounded tired now.
"It's not," Nanami agreed. "It's a big, heavy secret, but it's a necessary one in order to protect not only yourself, but also those around you – the very people you don't want to hide it from. When the time comes that you're strong enough to protect yourself and what you treasure from the consequences of your actions, then feel free to shout it from the rooftops. Until then, keep it to yourself."
She stopped to think, before snorting, "Hell, if I could seal this whole conversation out of my memories to ensure no one could ever reach you through me, I would do it gladly."
Yohei stared at Nanami in frustration.
Nanami stared back at Yohei, serious – but with a glint of humor still lingering in her eyes.
They kept staring at one another without blinking for a solid minute.
Until Yohei broke first.
"Ah, fuck it. You win," he said with a tsk, crossing his arms and looking away.
"I always do," Nanami replied with a grin.
Very maturely, Yohei stuck out his tongue and blew a raspberry at her, making her chuckle.
"What should we do now, then?" he asked, a bit more seriously. "Plan for the future?"
Nanami hummed, tapping a finger to her mouth before shaking her head with a soft smile. "No. If you're right, then the next significant event will be during the Chūnin Exams, and that won't happen for a few months yet. We can leave planning for later."
"Sleep, then?" Yohei asked hopefully.
Nanami's grin widened.
"Well, we can certainly do that, Yo-kun. Or…" she paused, eyes gleaming, "…we can look into what you've gained from your new feats. You haven't actually shown me the Chaos Scroll, after all."
Yohei's eyes lit up, a familiar shine appearing as eagerness bubbled up at finally getting the chance to show someone his 'toy'.
With quick, practiced movements, he bit into his finger and went through the seals to summon the artifact. With a poof of white smoke, it appeared on the floor – black and gold, imposing and unmistakable.
Nanami stared at it with a mix of apprehension and awe, and Yohei grinned, gesturing for her to touch it. His mom raised an eyebrow and hesitated, but slowly she did bring her hand closer, gripping it more securely once she realized that nothing happened. With a flick of her wrist, she undid the latch and rolled the scroll open, revealing five seals within.
"This one," he said, pointing to the first seal, painted in bronze, "was from… giving some aid to a girl. It'll almost definitely be another summon, which will be a pain to find an explanation for."
Nanami hummed.
"This one," he continued, pointing to the second, also painted in bronze, "was from getting a scroll filled with firearms from Ren. I think it's going to be an item reward, but maybe it'll also be a summon."
"Firearms?" Nanami asked quietly. "Are you planning on using them?"
Yohei blinked. "Uh… no, not really. I just like how they look. Why?"
"I have bad memories associated with them," Nanami said simply.
"I promise I won't use them, then," Yohei said seriously immediately.
Nanami smiled – and then promptly chopped him on the head. "Idiot. If those things can ever help you at all, then you should absolutely use them. There are few things that would make me happier than having them be used to protect someone I love rather than…"
She didn't finish, and Yohei didn't pry. He simply took her hand in his, earning a grateful look in return.
"I don't see how they could help, though," she continued after a moment. "Firearms are loud, not all that accurate, a pain to reload, and they leave a trail that even someone without enhanced senses can follow. I know of samurai who make use of them, but for ninja they're largely useless."
"Back on Terra, they're the most widely used instrument of murder," Yohei said.
"Really?" Nanami asked, surprised. "Huh. I wonder why. Come to think of it, you haven't told me a whole lot about the other world. I'd like to hear about it later."
"Sounds good to me," Yohei said happily.
Nanami smiled, mussing up his hair. "You're adorable. Back to the magical artifact, though – what about the other seals?"
Yohei looked down and sighed, though there was an eager grin in his face. "Silver, gold, and gold. I honestly have no fucking idea what they're going to be or where they came from. I think I got all of them once the Hokage declared our mission completed, so I guess that was it? Maybe a second one could've come from it technically being two missions instead of one, but I honestly don't know what the third one would be for."
"Hm~ well, only one way to find out, right?" Nanami said with a smile.
Yohei nodded and moved to activate the seals. Before he could, though, an idea crossed his mind.
"Mom… what if you activated one of them?"
"Absolutely not," Nanami denied instantly.
"What – why?" Yohei asked, confused.
"Because you need everything you can get much more than I do, Yohei. Besides, you worked for those. I won't take them from you. A mother who steals from her child is no mother at all," Nanami said firmly.
Yohei pursed his lips. "Okay… but this is a necessary test, you know? We need to find out if I'm the only one who can use the Chaos Scroll. And isn't it much safer to test it with you – someone I trust – rather than someone else?"
Seeing that she still didn't seem moved in the least, Yohei pulled out the puppy-dog eyes as he grabbed her by the arm and shook it back and forth. "Oh, come on~"
"No."
Yohei huffed. "Come on! Try the second seal. It's just bronze, so it won't be much of a loss even if I miss it. Besides, it's either an item or a summon, and both of those can be shared with me even if you're the one who draws them."
Nanami still didn't look inclined to do it, but Yohei kept pestering her, stubbornly refusing to actually start until she did. Eventually, she gave up.
"Alright! Alright! Okay! Fine! Urgh, you're lucky you're adorable, son of mine," she said with a glare.
Yohei smirked victoriously. "I got it from you."
"Flattery will get you nowhere."
Yohei snorted. "Why are you blushing and smiling like that, then?"
"Hush," Nanami said happily.
Taking a deep breath, she looked down at the scroll and, under Yohei's eager eyes, placed her hand against the second seal, flowing chakra through it…
Only for nothing to happen.
"Oh, pfft," Yohei said with a huff.
Nanami, however, looked relieved and satisfied. "Now that that's over with, why don't you get started?"
"Yeah, yeah," Yohei replied, his annoyed look quickly turning into eagerness as he activated the first seal.
[羊魔 – Yōma – Goat Demons]
|D-Rank Summon|
Yōma are demons formed from a dimension of Fire and Chaos. They possess inhuman size and strength, as well as an innate resistance to fire. Depending on the amount of chakra expended at the start, multiple Yōma can be summoned at once.
'They're kind of like Kara,' Yohei thought.
"Quite fearsome-looking," Nanami said with an impressed smile, studying the illustration on the scroll.
It depicted a large humanoid creature with a horned, goat-like skull in place of a head, four glowing red-yellow eyes burning within its sockets. Its skin was blackish-gray, textured like rough leather, and it wore a ragged skirt made of straw. From its back extended a long tail that seemed to be made entirely of bone, frozen mid-swing, and in its hands it wielded two gruesome, hooked, machete-like blades of cast iron.
Yohei had the distinct feeling he had seen creatures like these before, though he couldn't place where. What he did know was that the idea of fighting alongside a small army of them, with Mugetsu at his back and Kara lurking in his shadows, made for an undeniably awesome mental image.
'…Do I need to change my clothes to fit this theme?' he wondered in dismay.
"How do these work again?" Nanami asked curiously as she read through the text.
"Like a normal Summoning Scroll," Yohei explained, pointing to one of the empty boxes. "I just need to write my name in one of those spaces, and that'll activate it. The summon gets retroactively added to the world, and the scroll unfurls a bit more to show a map pointing out where I am in relation to the summon – though I guess that won't be all that useful in this case, since they're from another dimension."
"…I think you're being a bit blasé about the 'retroactively added to the world' part," Nanami said dryly.
"I'm not," Yohei replied seriously, then shrugged. "I just don't want to think about it too much."
Nanami looked at him quietly for a few moments before sighing. Still, she let the matter rest. "Having a self-updating map is still a fantastic tool."
Yohei nodded in agreement, then groaned. "Yeah, I just wish the summons themselves were easy to explain. It's going to be such a pain to justify them."
"What were you planning before?" Nanami asked, amused, one eyebrow lifting.
"I was thinking of summoning Kozuki beforehand and making up this whole scene during a mission with my team where she gives me her scroll at the end for some reason," Yohei said. At his mother's unimpressed look, he shrugged. "I didn't put that much thought into it, because I wasn't planning on summoning her for a while yet. And for Kara… well, just appearing with her after taking a solo mission outside the village was my best idea."
"It's not… terrible," Nanami said carefully. "In general, shinobi won't pry into each other's business unless someone does something very suspicious. Still, her nature and abilities would have raised attention."
Yohei let out a frustrated sigh, leaning back on his hands. "So what should I do, then?"
Nanami smiled, something secretive glinting in her eyes. "I've got some ideas, but let's look at the rest of the seals first. There might be something that changes my mind."
"Sure," Yohei said easily, nodding as he pressed his hand against the second seal and activated it. "Another D-Rank, huh."
[闇月の弓 – Yamitsuki no Yumi – Darkmoon Bow]
|D-Rank Weapon|
The weapon of a lonely moon demigod. Wielding this bow empowers the arrows shot with the chakra of the user and grants them a slight sliver of Moon Chakra. It comes paired with special moonlight arrows that receive further benefits from these effects.
Beneath the description was an illustration of the weapon: a tall, elegantly curved bow with a slender, crescent-like frame, crafted from a black, polished material. At the grip, ornate golden embellishments – made of the same substance as the bowstring – caught the light. Below it was another drawing, this one of a slender, ornate golden arrow, its fletching patterned like lightning, the upper section formed from a diamond-shaped chain that extended all the way to the arrowhead.
"Pretty," Nanami remarked with a smile, as Yohei groaned.
"I'll have to learn archery," he said in a whining tone.
"But your aim is horrible," Nanami said, laughing.
"I know!" Yohei replied miserably. "But look at this! It's way too cool for me to just ignore!"
Nanami rolled her eyes, amused. "Is this really what you should be prioritizing? Still… I wonder what it means by 'Moon Chakra.'"
Yohei shrugged. "Could be related to the Ōtsutsuki Clan on the moon. The 'lonely demigod' part kind of points that way. But then again, it could be something like the Star Chakra from Hoshigakure, or some equivalent to Nature Chakra. Who knows."
"Who knows indeed," Nanami said thoughtfully. "In that case, it's better to keep it sealed until we can go somewhere remote to test it. Best not to risk leaving strange chakra signatures here."
"Can do," Yohei agreed. "Next one, then?"
Nanami nodded eagerly, and Yohei touched the third seal –
– and froze.
"Holy shit," Yohei breathed, staring at the blue coloring spreading across the scroll.
Nanami, who immediately understood what it meant, stared as well, looking at it the way one might look at a diamond half-buried in mud… or a venomous snake curled up on their bed.
With a trace of nervousness, Yohei undid the latch and slowly spread it open.
[Chakra Circuits]
|B-Ranked Bloodline|
Chakra Circuits can be considered a secondary Chakra Network System which can be activated to increase the speed of chakra production, as well as its speed and efficiency. As a secondary ability, Chakra Circuits can also be used to record, store, and process information.
Reading through the description, Yohei was certainly impressed. However…
"I kind of expected more," he said frankly, only to get slapped upside the head by Nanami, who looked at him as if he had just committed a grave crime against common sense. When he shot her an offended look, she quickly kissed his forehead in apology before snatching the scroll out of his hands.
"Gimme that," she said with a huff, immediately engrossing herself in the notes and diagrams that followed the short description. She began mumbling to herself as she read, her eyes growing simultaneously wider and more focused with each passing word.
Despite the sharp sting, Yohei had to admit that it felt good to see her like this – animated, energized – especially after a day that had been nothing but heavy emotions and one revelation after another dropped onto her lap.
Holding his head with one arm while watching her fondly, he grinned at how adorable she looked, barely managing to stay still under the weight of her manic curiosity.
"So," Yohei asked, "how good is it really?"
She turned to him with a wide, incredulous smile and jabbed a finger at the scroll. "It's an entire mirrored Chakra Network."
"Yeah, I saw that," Yohei said teasingly. "Double the number of filaments means double the speed at drawing on my stamina, right?"
"That's so incredibly reductive," she replied in amused outrage. "That's literally the least impressive part of this. For starters, a doubled Chakra Network that can be activated on demand means an extra three hundred and sixty-one tenketsu, for a total of seven hundred and twenty-two. This isn't just a quantitative increase, it's a qualitative one. Yes, it means you can draw on stamina faster – but more importantly, your chakra will circulate more smoothly and at higher speeds throughout your body, and the number of exit points you can expel it from is doubled."
Yohei's face twisted into horror. "I'll have to learn tree walking all over again!?"
Nanami gave him a flat look – then promptly snorted and broke into giggles. "Maybe? Only when you're using it? I don't know! I've never seen something like this!" She huffed, still laughing. "Honestly, this would be a lot more your papa's specialty than mine."
"You're doing just fine," Yohei said easily, patting her on the head.
"Yes, yes, I'm amazing! Praise me more!" Nanami replied smugly, chin lifted high.
Yohei rolled his eyes. "Maybe after you finish explaining."
She chuckled. "Alright. The next thing you should consider is that this effectively doubles the number of Gates in your body. Which makes sense – double the volume of chakra means double the number of limiters and controllers, otherwise you'd tear yourself apart."
Yohei's eyes lit up with interest. "Does that mean I could 'half-activate' a Gate with this?"
Nanami blinked, then squinted upward thoughtfully. "Technically? No. This doesn't split your existing Gates in half – it creates eight entirely new ones. But functionally… yes. Opening the tenth fifth Gate would be roughly equivalent to 'half-opening' the Gate of Death, if that's what you're thinking." She paused, then frowned at him. "But should you really be thinking about that? The only person in history who's managed to truly turn the Eight Gates into a usable technique instead of a suicide method is Might Guy – and he's been obsessively training for years to pull that off."
"It's something to keep in mind," Yohei said with a shrug. "The lower Gates are still incredible power modifiers, and they're supposedly a lot easier to learn than the middle ones."
"Easier to learn, but not necessarily easier to master," Nanami corrected. "For most people, it still takes years to open them with enough control to close them back up again, instead of just running out of chakra and dying – or destroying their bodies from the sudden influx of power. There's a reason we have those limiters, Yohei. They're not there to make us weak; they're there to keep us alive."
"I know, Mom. I'm just thinking about possibilities," Yohei said gently.
"Try not to think of possibilities that end with your body broken," Nanami replied, tapping his nose before returning her attention to the scroll. "Speaking of that, this is something you should start being aware of while using those Chakra Circuits. There's apparently some factor to them that allows you to handle a larger influx of chakra running through your body – but it's not perfect. Keeping them active for too long, or overtaxing them, will still lead to damage. I suppose that's why they need a trigger to activate in the first place."
"What kind of trigger?"
"A psychological one," Nanami said. "Chosen by you, apparently, the first time chakra runs through the Circuits. A memory or an action with a strong enough impact on you to serve as the starting point for the activation."
Yohei blinked. "Oh. That – huh. I think I know where this came from."
Nanami turned to look at him. "Another work of fiction?"
Yohei nodded. "Yeah. The Nasuverse. It's… actually, I'm not sure how to explain it quickly in a way that would make sense to you. It's not that important, though. I don't remember enough about its power system to see if it really applies here, and I don't think it does anyway, since the Magic Circuits seem to have been heavily adapted to fit the local system."
"How so?" Nanami asked, interested.
"Well, for starters, Magic Circuits are supposed to be graded by quality and quantity. That doesn't really apply here, does it?"
Nanami shook her head with a small smile. "No. Every Chakra System is basically the same – same number of tenketsu, same number of filaments, same overall 'quality.' You'll occasionally see defective ones that are atrophied in some way, or systems that develop strangely due to physical deformities someone is born with."
Yohei nodded. "Yeah. Not the same thing at all. Anything else?"
Nanami's smile widened, and for some reason the expression sent a chill down Yohei's spine.
"Of course. How could we forget what may very well be the most impressive part of it?" she said. "The ability of those 'Chakra Circuits' to act as a pseudo-neural system, capable of storing and utilizing data. From the way it's described here, it sounds like it simply creates a copy of anything you deliberately think or experience, compiling it so it can be reviewed later with perfect recall. And if that's the case…"
Her grin grew even wider. "Well, you have been tearing through your reading material at an incredible pace – courtesy of the Reading Comprehension Handbook, I assume – but with this-"
"I can just go through all of it and won't need to study anymore!" Yohei finished excitedly, shouting as he jumped to his feet.
His moment of celebration was cut short by a sharp bark of laughter from Nanami.
"What? No!" she said between laughs. "Where did you get that impression, silly? No – what it means is that you can scan the books, so you'll be able to read them anytime, anywhere. You can only make use of the information stored in the Circuits while they're active, after all, and it would be an incredible weakness if all your medical knowledge vanished just because you're low on stamina or have already taxed it too much."
Yohei deflated, dropping to his knees and glaring at the scroll in her hand. "I don't think I want it anymore."
"Of course you do," Nanami said, amused.
"Of course I do," Yohei agreed with a sigh, letting out a small chuckle. He sat back down and extended his hand, Nanami handing him the scroll – but closing it just before doing so, which made him look at her in confusion.
"Let's see what else you've got before you start using those," she said. "There's also the one you gained back during your mission, right?"
Yohei nodded, eyes widening. "Right," he said, moving to where he had left his bag earlier when they had come down, and pulling out the scroll with the Reptilian Affinity bloodline.
Sitting back down beside his mother, he handed her both scrolls and activated the fourth seal, silently praying that this time the golden one would give him something better than it had before.
Puff.
He blinked in surprise when an unexpected development followed. The moment the seal activated, the Chaos Scroll vanished back into his chest, despite a fifth seal still remaining on it. In its place on the floor, however, lay a single scroll painted in shades of gray and green.
"Well," he mumbled as he picked it up, "today's been full of surprises, hasn't it?"
Nanami sighed, letting her head rest against his as she watched him unfurl the scroll with interest. "You tell me."
[冥山の悪魔（くろやまのあくま） – Kuroyama no Akuma – Demon of the Dark Mountain]
| C(+)-Ranked Bloodline |
A Bloodline entrenched in shadows. Those who possess it have greatly enhanced physical and chakra parameters, both of which are further amplified during the night and in darkness. In addition to that, it grants access to Dark Release.
Yohei let out a startled laugh. "Holy shi-"
Nanami made an amazed sound, gently taking the scroll from his hands to read it as he let himself fall back onto the floor, laughing.
"This is perfect!" she said in a tone of genuine marvel.
"I know, right!?" Yohei said happily. "That's what I was expecting from the last scroll – and it even has my name!"
"That's not what I-" Nanami started, before letting out an amused sigh. "Those scrolls disappear after you use them, right?"
Yohei nodded.
"Then go grab something so we can write down the details for the Chakra Circuits before you use it," she said, shooing him with her hand.
Yohei's face fell as he looked down miserably at the thick scroll filled with said details.
"This is going to take a while, isn't it?"
Nanami grinned, pinching his cheek. "The longer you wait, the longer it'll take."
Yohei groaned.
-~=~-
It did take almost an hour before they were finished, especially since Nanami insisted on carefully redrawing the diagrams that showed the exact position of each new tenketsu that would appear in his body. Yohei helped without whining, though he did grow progressively sleepier as time passed.
It was only to be expected. He had woken up the previous morning and run several kilometers to reach Konoha, and since then he hadn't truly had a chance to rest.
Still, they eventually finished, and once they did, he hurried to activate the seal, being left holding what looked like a Fini candy shaped like a blue vascular system as the scroll vanished.
Looking at his mom – who held a notepad in hand and was watching him with a mix of worry, fascination, and intense focus – he gave her a wink and tossed it into his mouth.
The effect was instantaneous.
It had been a long while since he had last used a Bloodline Candy, and each one was truly unique, but none of them ever failed to be uncomfortable – and in some ways gruesome – while taking effect on his body.
This time there were no dramatic external signs that anything was happening, but internally it was an entirely different story.
It felt as if hundreds of minuscule needles had been transported inside his body, each one slowly forcing its way inward, piercing muscle, skin, organs, and even bone, all while threading impossibly thin lines in their wake.
It wasn't painful, per se, but he honestly thought pain might have helped distract from how horrific the sensation was. As it stood, he could barely hold himself back from throwing himself to the ground and rolling around in sheer discomfort, scratching at his skin in a desperate attempt to distract himself from it.
The reason he didn't was right in front of him – watching with visible concern, despite the rapid-fire scratching of her pen against paper as she took notes on the process. She couldn't actually see what was happening inside his body, and she was far too cautious to use any Medical Ninjutsu to observe the changes in real time, fearing she might interfere with the transformation.
Still, just like before, it was over almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving no lingering pain or soreness behind.
In fact, he couldn't feel anything different at all.
'Must be because it's inactive,' Yohei thought, pursing his lips as he closed his eyes. 'I should pick a trigger, right? What should it be?'
His first idea was breathing. It was an essential part of himself, something he was almost constantly aware of nowadays. Even without being able to use Total Concentration Breathing Constant, he still maintained a breathing form that – while 'wrong' from the perspective of someone like Yoriichi – helped him stay focused and alert.
That was… precisely why he didn't choose it.
Despite its significance, he hesitated to make something so ever-present in his day-to-day life the trigger for the Chakra Circuits. He already had one bad habit he needed to break when it came to his Breathing – it would be terrible if, on top of instinctively molding his chakra into Water Nature every time he breathed, he also activated the Circuits along with it.
'What, then?' he asked himself.
After a few moments of consideration, he arrived at an answer.
If it was about significance, then there were few things that could compare.
Putting one hand forward in the Seal of Confrontation –
He raised his hand and opened his mouth, hot breath rushing against his skin. He brought his thumb closer and closed his teeth around it. A sharp sting, the sensation of biting into flesh, the metallic tang of blood.
- his body came alive in ways it never had before.
The first thing to come was a sucking, drawing sensation that pulled at his mind and body like a black hole – an inner hunger he had never felt before. That was followed by a rush: chakra flooding through his entire system at worrying speeds, only accelerating with every passing moment. New paths were rapidly explored and filled by the mystical substance, and soon enough he was subjected to one of the most pleasurable – and deeply unnerving – sensations he had ever experienced.
Imagine it in the following way: from one moment to the next, your stomach is completely empty, and all you can feel is hunger. You start eating, but you go through an entire plate of food without abating it in the slightest. So you keep eating and eating, until your fridge is empty and the horrible need is finally fulfilled. You look down at your belly, satisfied, expecting to see it large and round – but instead, there's nothing. Not a single sign that you had just eaten as much as you did, and all you can think is – where did it go?
Yohei knew where it had gone.
All of that chakra had been used to fill the 361 brand-new tenketsu he had just developed, in a process that was still ongoing.
"Yohei?" His mother's voice pulled his attention back. She looked relieved. "Did it work?"
"Yup!" Yohei said with a grin. "Pretty sure I'm going to sleep for a whole day after we're done, though."
Nanami huffed, smiling. "Then we'd better hurry up. Why don't you try it out?"
Nodding, Yohei jumped to his feet, forming another seal.
Ox.
So quickly he could barely follow it, a portion of his chakra was converted into Yang Nature and spread through his muscles. A second wave of normal chakra followed immediately after, bringing him from zero to one hundred percent of the Extreme Muscle Assault technique almost instantly with a puff, in a way that reminded him of All Might from his past life.
"Wow," he said in amazement, looking down at himself. "That was quick."
"Wasteful, too," Nanami commented critically, though there was a glimmer in her eye. "All of that smoke is excess chakra that was thrown away."
Yohei simply nodded in agreement, quickly releasing the technique.
"Here," Nanami said, rolling open the other Bloodline Scrolls on the floor.
Yohei dropped to his knees and focused on them.
He honestly thought it would be harder, but it was simply a matter of intent – guiding a sliver of Spiritual Energy to concentrate in one of his tenketsu and… condense. Or crystallize, for lack of a better term.
Closing his eyes, he found that all he needed to do to access that crystallized memory was pass a bit of chakra through it. Soon enough, it was as if he were once again looking at the open scrolls, every word and figure perfectly preserved.
He opened his eyes with a grin, giving his mom a thumbs-up before deactivating the Circuits.
As soon as he did, though, the adrenaline rush vanished, and the sudden hush of energy sent him crashing. He nearly went limp, pitching forward and very much on track to hit his face on the floor if Nanami hadn't caught him.
She tsked. "You're pretty much running a fever."
"Oh, right," Yohei groaned as he sat down. "The body is supposed to heat up while the Circuits are in use."
"I know," Nanami said with a sigh. "I just didn't expect it to be so fast – and so high."
"I think that's because it was the first time," Yohei said while massaging his throbbing eyes. He shook himself and looked intently at his next target. "Alright, let's get this done with."
Pressing his hand against the seal holding the Reptilian Affinity Bloodline Candy, it quickly poofed away, leaving him holding what looked like an iridescent scale.
Not really caring to examine its appearance, he tossed it straight into his mouth, finding it to have an oily and… watery taste? It was also surprisingly dry.
Dry was also a word that could be applied to his skin at the moment, as it quickly began to thicken slightly and dry out, turning spongy and faintly gray in color.
Guessing what was happening, Yohei merely closed his eyes with a scowl and waited as the candy forced him through a molting process – despite the absence of any actual scales on his skin.
'… is that even a requirement for molting?' he asked himself to pass the time.
Whatever the answer was, he went through it all the same. Thankfully, it didn't take more than a few minutes in total, and it wasn't even close to being the most disgusting transformation he had been subjected to.
Having his eyes pop out of his head probably still took the cake.
It was, however, the most troublesome to deal with, because the dead skin didn't simply fall off once it was done. Instead, he had to peel it off himself in a slightly disgusting – but also very bothersome – process.
Furiously scratching his head and watching flakes of dead skin fall into his lap, Yohei let out an annoyed sigh. "Urgh, whatever, I can do this later."
Nanami was holding back her laughter. "Are you sure? Isn't it going to itch down there?" she asked, pointing at his loose black shorts.
Eyes twitching, Yohei took a slow breath – then widened his eyes and punched his palm as an idea struck him.
Jumping to his feet, he ran through a series of hand seals.
Perspiration Control Technique.
He forced his body to sweat, creating a thin layer of moisture between the new skin and the old.
Sound Wave Amplification Technique.
Amplifying the sound of his beating heart, he sent vibrations rippling through his body, shaking the dead skin loose.
Extreme Muscle Assault.
His muscles swelled, stretching and tearing the old skin apart, which fell to the ground in tatters as he returned to his normal size.
Nanami clapped, making an appropriately impressed sound.
Kicking the fallen skin toward a corner and very deliberately not making eye contact with it, Yohei returned to his previous spot on the floor. Before he could place his hand on the multicolored scroll, however, he was interrupted.
"Wait, wait," Nanami said, hurriedly picking up some of the dead skin from the floor and grinding it between her fingers. The dried flakes fell into a small pot resting in her lap, already containing a mixture of sealing ink and some of his blood.
Yohei looked on in disgust. "What are you even going to use this for?"
"Stop being a baby," Nanami teased. When he huffed and shot her an expectant look, she rolled her eyes with a smile. "Until now, you've been doing a great job finding ways to masquerade the things you got from the Chaos Scroll, but there's a problem."
"The long-term, right?" Yohei asked more seriously.
Nanami nodded. "Yes. At some point, being lucky is going to stop being amusing and surprising and start being suspicious. Not for everything, of course. With your jutsu, for example, you did wonderfully by cultivating the impression that you're a genius. People who know you will hardly find it strange if you come up with something new now – and people who don't know you will be reassured and informed of your 'capabilities' by those who do. This won't cut it for other things, though, like Bloodlines, Summons, and Items. You should have done something similar to the whole Yang Genius business and found a single excuse that could explain away the greatest number of future rewards possible."
Yohei sighed in frustration, scowling when he noticed there was still dry skin tangled in his hair.
'Right, no muscles in my head to push it out. Fucking great.'
"I know," he said tiredly. "I was really just focusing on being able to use whatever I got as soon as possible. But to be fair, it's really hard to plan for the future when I don't know what I'll get in the future."
"Stop pouting," Nanami said with a giggle as she took his head in her hands and began scratching his scalp for him, drawing a relieved sigh from his chest. "You're right, of course. And it's actually good that you didn't make an excuse beforehand, because we have the perfect opportunity right now."
"Which is?" Yohei asked with his eyes closed. Nanami withdrew her hands, earning a small grumble from him.
"Eat the candy," she said simply.
Blowing a raspberry, he opened his eyes and looked down at the multicolored scroll, pressing his hand against the last seal and doing exactly that.
Poof.
The scroll vanished, leaving him holding what looked like a miniature glossy horned skull, matte black and crowned with blue fire burning in its eye sockets. Grinning at the sight, he didn't hesitate to toss it into his mouth – only to blink in surprise.
"Huh. It doesn't actually taste like any-"
He was cut off as the candy burst apart inside his mouth, flooding it with a thick, viscous liquid that tasted like death in all the worst ways imaginable.
Terrified of losing the effect, Yohei's eyes widened as he gulped it down as fast as he could.
It didn't matter much. Even in his stomach, the candy somehow continued to produce more and more of the substance, bloating his abdomen before surging back up his throat. His veins darkened to black, his sclera following suit, and Nanami rushed to his side with a face full of shock and worry as a tar-like liquid began spilling not only from his mouth, but also from his eyes, ears, and nose.
It crawled across his skin, coating his head in seconds before flowing down the rest of his body, enveloping him entirely in what looked like a cocoon made of living latex.
He remained still within it for nearly a full minute – long, torturous seconds during which Nanami's mind and heart warred over whether she should intervene in a transformation she didn't fully understand.
In the end, fear of interrupting a process she couldn't comprehend kept her frozen long enough for Yohei to begin moving again. His arms flexed as he struggled, tearing his way free of the cocoon, the latex-like material ripping apart with a sound disturbingly close to tearing flesh as he dragged himself out with a sharp gasp.
She massaged his back as he coughed, taking in the changes the transformation had wrought on his appearance – the first ones to ever truly alter him.
His ears had lengthened slightly, tapering into sharper points. His teeth had shifted as well, the upper and lower canines growing longer and more pronounced, not quite fangs, but close enough to resemble those of the Inuzuka. At the top of his forehead, small mounds pressed outward beneath the skin – what she suspected were the beginnings of horns, though for now they looked more like a matching pair of bruised swellings.
More noticeable than any of that, however, was his gaze.
There was a glow to his eyes now, subtle but unmistakable.
A smile tugged at her lips before she could stop it. This really was the perfect opportunity.
Once he'd finished catching his breath, Yohei turned to his mother.
"Now what?" he asked, his voice a little hoarse.
Blinking, Nanami shook herself out of her reverie. "Right – just a moment, Yo-kun. Stay put," she said as she turned to retrieve the ink and brush, missing the lazy salute he threw at her back.
When she returned, she took hold of his arms and put them over her lap, beginning to paint a symbol across the backs of his hands.
"What's that for?" he asked curiously, forcing himself to keep his eyes open.
"Sometimes, Yo-kun, certain techniques, bloodlines, or even contracts with animal clans will leave marks on the skin," she explained calmly. "Most of the time, they don't seem to serve any function beyond signifying that something is active, or that some change has taken place. There are even people who are born with such marks. What I'm painting right now is what you could call a useless seal – it doesn't do anything beyond disappearing once it's painted and reappearing when you flow chakra through it. I've seen it being used as a tattoo before, bu what I want is for it to pass as one of those markings."
"…I recognize that symbol."
Nanami hummed softly. "Yes. You've seen it carved into a piece of rock on the altar in my room. It's one of the last remnants of the Iwagami that once stood at the center of the village I lived in, in the Land of Snow."
"What does it mean?" he asked quietly.
Nanami chuckled. "I have no idea. But it looks like a star, and it's pretty enough, isn't it?"
Yohei snorted. "Yeah…" His voice trailed off. "I like stars."
"Me too," Nanami said, smiling at him.
"Are we going to pretend that I awakened a Bloodline?"
"You did awaken a bloodline," she replied impishly, before her tone shifted into something more serious. "Today, because of a series of conditions we aren't aware of, coupled with your unstable mental state after returning from an intense first mission outside the village and a disturbing conversation with an unnerving individual that triggered your fight-or-flight instinct, you awakened a Bloodline. Neither you nor I had any prior knowledge of it, but the markings on your hands seem to indicate ties to my side of the family – and to some unknown past of my home village. This Bloodline appears to be the source of your prodigious Yang affinity, and it has caused several alterations to your body. More than that, it seems to have both aesthetic and literal ties to akuma, because upon awakening it, you felt a new connection form to new summons that fit that description."
"…Like a being made of shadows and covered in eyes, and a monstrous humanoid creature," Yohei said with a grin.
"Exactly," Nanami said with one to match. "Since we have no idea about the details of this bloodline, who can say if this is all there is to it of if it will develop further? Maybe your transformation isn't done yet? Maybe you'll get access to more akuma? Maybe you'll also be able to summon equipment from other dimensions?"
"You're the best." Yohei said with a chuckle.
Nanami hummed happily, "I know! And- done!"
Blearily Yohei looked down at his hands again, seeing the twin marks painted into them.
"Push some chakra into them," Nanami instructed, and he did so, seeing just a faint glow of turquoise light as it mixed with the paint and fused, the ink disappearing into his skin just as him mom had said it would.
He huffed a smile, struggling to stay awake.
"What now?" He asked.
Nanami turned to him with a smile and shook her head, holding him up and setting his head on her lap.
"Now, you sleep."
He did.