It was the end of the first academic year. Mid-spring had settled over the land. A warm breeze stirred the villagers' hair — perfectly ordinary weather for the Land of Fire.
I sat in the Ninja Academy classroom, occasionally glancing out the window. My deskmate, Shikamaru, was faithfully continuing his sacred tea ceremony with Morpheus. We'd become fairly good friends, if that was the right way to describe it. Most of the time he slept or lazed around, and I was probably the only person who genuinely couldn't understand how someone with that attitude toward life could still get good grades.
And trust me — you wouldn't be able to pull it off.
That's genetics, baby.
He'd also introduced me to another guy who was almost always eating. Choji Akimichi — decent guy, often shared his food. Seriously, what was wrong with these clans and their habits? No, I understood the cause-and-effect behind it, but that didn't make it any less strange. Kishimoto, what exactly was wrong with you? Though at least it was more logical than the world of One Piece.
Over the course of the year, I learned a great deal at the academy. Even things I hadn't known in my previous life. Seriously, ninja were superhuman.
We'd already covered multiplication tables and simple equations. In the second half of the year, we began studying shuriken and kunai throwing, movement, stances, Konoha taijutsu strikes, and other ninja disciplines.
Academically, I ranked second in the class.
First place belonged to Sasuke.
Why not first? There was no point. Second place was more than sufficient and didn't attract unnecessary attention.
But there was one surprising thing.
For some reason, I possessed a phenomenal photographic memory. I absorbed information like a sponge, which meant I spent a huge amount of time in the academy library poring over scrolls and books. Surprisingly, there was a lot of useful material there — nothing supernatural, just the fundamentals of various ninja disciplines. But with my memory, it was a treasure trove of information.
I'd developed an addiction to knowledge.
Give me another three years, and I'd probably finish the entire academy library.
I also trained my sensory ability. I'd close my eyes and try to perceive chakra. I shut off my other senses — hearing, smell. I even dove underwater and attempted to sense chakra from a distance. Shame I didn't have sealing techniques for chakra suppression — progress would've been much faster. Even so, my range had grown from fifty meters to one hundred.
What else interesting happened during that time?
There was one moment.
The awakening of chakra.
It was… unusual.
To put it mildly.
For someone who'd never possessed chakra before, the experience itself was strange enough. But thanks to Kagura's Eye, I could see and sense other people's chakra and compare it to my own.
And that's when the real surprise began.
---
Flashback
"So then, children — who can tell me what chakra is?"
Iruka asked.
"Yes, Sakura?"
"Chakra is the combination of physical and spiritual energy that allows ninja to perform techniques."
"Very good. You may sit down."
"So now, I'm going to teach you how to release chakra—"
Before he could finish, excited cries erupted across the classroom.
"YEAH!"
"Finally!"
"I'm gonna throw fireballs!"
"Quiet!" Iruka raised his voice. "Chakra is not a joke. If you extract it incorrectly and burn your chakra pathways, you can forget about becoming a ninja!"
The class fell silent instantly.
"As Sakura correctly said, chakra is the balance of physical and spiritual energy. Sit comfortably, focus below your stomach — that is your chakra center. Imagine warmth, like a flame, and allow it to flow through your body."
The classroom became silent.
One after another, the children began sensing chakra.
I could see energy ignite within them — like tiny sparks.
But for me, things went differently.
I began.
If you really thought about it, chakra was primarily physical energy, while spiritual energy — the mind itself — was the will that controlled that energy. Yet at the same time, that too was energy: the energy of thought, the energy of the self.
Through will, we forced the energy inside our bodies to do what we desired.
Almost like gods.
Except they did it through thought alone, while we did it through the body.
So I imagined a blue metaphysical flame within my stomach. Warmth. Color. Weight. Every property of chakra that I knew or could imagine.
The spark appeared almost instantly.
But then everything turned into complete chaos.
And the Nine-Tails had nothing to do with it.
My little flame slipped beyond my control. At first I thought I'd simply failed, but then I realized — it hadn't escaped my control. It had escaped my surface thoughts.
It had gone deeper than my conscious will.
Deeper, toward the foundation of my very self.
I felt strange.
All distractions vanished.
Before my eyes remained only the flame, which slowly grew into a blazing sphere.
It began to feel different.
Like an extension of my will.
Of myself.
Before my eyes, it turned white.
Bright white — like a white dwarf star.
Its form began to shift.
Into something anthropomorphic.
Until it took the shape of a human.
Wait. What?
A human?
I froze.
Or… could someone even freeze in this state?
My thoughts descended into confusion.
What the hell is happening to my chakra?
Then came the turning point.
I calmed down on my own, without understanding how or why. My mind became empty and strangely light. I raised my hand — at least I thought I did — and the little figure raised its hand as well.
Then realization struck.
I was the figure.
I looked at my hands. They looked coated in white paint, glowing with neon light. There was an unnatural warmth to them, while my emotions had settled into something balanced, almost perfectly neutral.
I had never felt anything like it.
What kind of chakra is this?
I've never seen chakra like this in anyone I've observed.
What is happening?
I couldn't understand it.
And yet somehow, I did.
I was strangely calm for someone caught in a situation like this.
But what happened next went beyond all comprehension — assuming such limits even existed.
Suddenly the world before my eyes distorted, as though I were falling somewhere far away. Images flashed past me.
Crosses.
Eyes.
Wings.
So many wings.
The light is too bright…
It's light, yet I can't look away. It's like I'm glued to it.
And… I liked it? What is this?
I saw something impossible to describe.
Not human, but not animal either.
Not woman, yet not man.
Not heaven, yet not earth.
It possessed no permanent form.
Then came a piercing scream.
Blood.
And trumpets — seven different trumpets — accompanied by a choir so horrifying it felt capable of deafening me.
I thought I was losing consciousness.
Then I saw something even stranger.
A planet.
I was a goddamn planet.
Then a tree — an enormous tree whose crown touched the clouds.
Another moment, and I was the tree.
A white-robed woman with horns.
Wait… is that Kaguya?
But I couldn't focus. The images flashed too quickly and too vaguely.
A young man appeared, and suddenly I became him as well.
Wait… that's Ashura.
Then dozens of others I didn't recognize.
And finally another face I knew very well — one I saw every day carved into the Hokage Monument.
Hashirama.
Then I drifted through a white void. To my left and right flashed Minato and Kushina. For a brief instant, it seemed as though they were surprised by me.
And then came the final image.
A gigantic blood-red eye with a vertical slit pupil.
A fox's eye.
In the next instant, I was violently ripped back out, as though sucked through a straw.
And suddenly I was sitting in the classroom again exactly as before, expressionless on the outside while internally thrown into complete turmoil.
My ears rang.
My vision blurred.
Gradually, I began hearing someone shouting my name while shaking my shoulder.
"NARUTO! NARUTO UZUMAKI!"
Iruka had apparently been trying to get through to Naruto for nearly half a minute. Everyone else had already finished extracting chakra.
"Ah… right… sorry, sensei. I extracted chakra."
My vision had mostly cleared by then. The entire class stared at me strangely. Turning my head, I saw Shikamaru, who had apparently been the one shaking me.
"That's good. Try not to sleep during class. Alright everyone, since you all successfully extracted chakra, here's your homework for tomorrow: chakra control training. It's important. Without chakra control, you'll never become successful ninja, so train hard. Tomorrow I'll evaluate your progress. That's all for today — you're dismissed. If anyone has questions, feel free to come ask."
"Hey, Naruto, you okay?" Shikamaru yawned. "I didn't know you could pass out that instantly. Think you could teach me how to sleep with my eyes open?"
"Ah… Shikamaru. Yeah, I'm fine. Sorry. I was just extracting chakra and somehow fell asleep."
"You're weird," he yawned again. "But whatever."
No.
Something was definitely wrong with me.
That was not how chakra extraction was supposed to work.
My chakra was completely different — I could feel it and see it clearly. It was utterly emotionless, calm as a still lake. Dense like water, yet perfectly obedient to my control, like an additional limb.
My chakra control was clearly beyond normal standards.
And the chakra itself was white.
Not red.
Not blue.
Not any other color.
White.
How often do you see white chakra?
And that wasn't even mentioning the other abnormalities.
Something strange was definitely happening.
I had no idea what this was.
Was this my golden finger? Cheats? Some kind of anomaly?
And those visions?
I had clearly connected through chakra somehow. From canon, I knew such things were possible, but like this?
The Sage of Six Paths taught humanity mutual understanding through chakra. Naruto and Kurama merged their chakra. The reincarnations of Indra and Ashura did the same.
But this…
This was something new.
Those images — the Tree, Kaguya, Ashura, Hashirama, my parents, Kurama.
Was this chakra memory?
In a way, that should've been possible. The logic lined up: all chakra on this planet originated from the Divine Tree.
But the other images had no explanation.
The planet.
Was that connected to chakra being derived from natural energy?
And the remaining visions seemed entirely beyond this world altogether: the cross, the wings.
The only explanation I could come up with was that, for some reason — perhaps because of reincarnation — my will had become so powerful that it merged with chakra, or nearly merged with it, somehow pulling imagery from the memories of my past life.
But why?
And for what purpose?
Perhaps because will itself was ephemeral, but with chakra it became something more fundamental. And in order to oppose the will of chakra itself — the will of the Divine Tree, represented by those visions — it borrowed equally powerful imagery from my previous life's memories.
For now, that was the only theory I had.
My thoughts were interrupted when someone tugged my shoulder again.
"Hey, Naruto, are you heading home?"
"Uh, yeah. Let's go, Shikamaru. Did Choji already leave?"
"Yep, ran off already. His mom finished making dinner, so there's no way he'd be late. Heh. Dinner comes first."
"Haha, yeah, no doubt. That guy really loves to eat."
I'd become so lost in thought that I hadn't even noticed everyone else had already left the classroom and the sun was beginning to set.
It had been a difficult day.
"See you tomorrow, Shikamaru. Later."
"Yeah. Later, Naruto."