The Secret of Chakra

Early the next morning, Shinichi was awakened by a frantic pounding on his window.

It was not the matron. The matron woke people by striking the stair railing with a spatula, steady in rhythm and even in force, like a human metronome. This window-pounding was chaotic, fast one moment and slow the next, mixed with the screech of fingernails accidentally scraping glass. Clearly, it was an amateur. He rolled out of bed and pulled back the curtains, only to find an upside-down face outside the window—spiky blond hair, wide blue eyes, and three whisker marks squeezed into curved lines by an inverted grin.

"Shinichi! Wake up! The sun's already shining on Hokage Rock!"

Shinichi glanced at the sky outside. It was gray and dim, the sun not yet fully risen. The three Hokage on Hokage Rock were still shrouded in the deep blue darkness before dawn. Forget sunlight—it had not even reached the First Hokage's chin yet. He looked down at Naruto again. Somehow, the boy had climbed the crooked tree outside the orphanage's back wall and hung upside down from a branch like a sloth, his toes hooked around the fork while his upper body dangled right before Shinichi's window.

"How did you find my room?"

"I asked the matron! She said yours was the room at the end of the second floor with the hole in the window!"

Shinichi turned to look at the fist-sized hole in his window. It had been made by hail last winter. The matron had said she would fix it when spring came, but she still had not. By sheer coincidence, it had become his personal address marker. He pushed open the window, and Naruto jumped down from the tree, landing with a backflip—an extremely unstable one. He staggered several steps and nearly plunged headfirst into the rain barrel by the wall. From those two moves alone, it was obvious that his taijutsu foundation was nearly nonexistent, though his courage was real enough.

"Why did you come looking for me so early?"

"You said you'd teach me something today!" Naruto climbed up from the ground and dusted off his knees, wearing the expression of a golden retriever waiting for its owner to wake up with a frisbee in its mouth.

Shinichi remembered now. Last night, after leaving Ichiraku Ramen, Naruto had asked, "You seem to know everything. Can you teach me?" Shinichi had agreed without thinking much of it. He had only said it casually, but this kid had remembered it all night and showed up hanging outside his window before dawn. In his previous life, this was the kind of developer who received a request right before getting off work on Friday and delivered the code at seven on Monday morning. But he would also be the kind who messaged you at two in the morning asking, "You there? Can we add this requirement?"

"Fine." Shinichi put on his coat. "Breakfast first."

Breakfast at the orphanage was the same as always—thin porridge, pickles, and half a coarse-grain bun for each person. Naruto sat beside Shinichi. The matron glanced at him without saying anything, but when she ladled out the porridge, Naruto's bowl was noticeably thicker than everyone else's. It was not deliberate favoritism, but a skill honed over thirty years at the ladle—dip it a little deeper into the bottom of the pot before scooping, and that bowl would get more rice. Naruto's hands trembled slightly when he took the bowl, probably unsure whether he was allowed to eat it. Shinichi tapped the rim of his bowl with his chopsticks. "Eat. It'll get cold." Only then did Naruto lower his head and start drinking.

After breakfast, the two headed out, passed through the still-quiet morning market, and walked toward the small river to the south. Shinichi had chosen this route for a reason—after nearly half a year of ineffective surveillance by Root, the alert level in the woods southeast of the village had been lowered. This route also passed through a residential area first, then went through a stretch of sparsely populated mixed woodland, making it unlikely they would run into a patrol head-on.

"By the way, do you know any ninjutsu?" Shinichi asked as they walked.

"I know the Transformation Technique!"

"Show me."

Naruto stopped and formed hand seals—Ram, Snake, Tiger. They were crooked and far from standard, obviously memorized by rote. Then he shouted, "Transformation Technique!" With a puff, white smoke dispersed, and standing there was not Naruto Uzumaki, but a tall, curvy—

"Change back." Shinichi pressed a hand to his forehead.

Puff. Naruto changed back and asked smugly, "Well?"

Shinichi fell silent for a moment. In his previous life, he had thought Naruto's Sexy Technique was merely a gag. Seeing it in person left him with complicated feelings. It was like a teacher discovering that a student had answered the first fill-in-the-blank question with something as nonsensical as "my ex's current partner is their current partner's ex."

"The practical combat value of this technique is zero," he said, enunciating every word.

"But the Third Grandpa said it was creative!"

"The Third said it was 'creative,' not 'useful.' There's about the distance of the Valley of the End between those two words."

Naruto clearly did not understand what "the distance of the Valley of the End" meant, but he could tell from Shinichi's tone that it was not praise. He dejectedly scuffed the sole of his shoe against the ground. Looking at him, Shinichi suddenly realized something—Naruto did not lack the desire to learn proper ninjutsu. No one had taught him. Everything Mizuki taught him was meant to lead him down the wrong path. The Third Hokage was too busy to visit the orphanage children more than a few times a year, and as for the other teachers, they either treated him coldly or avoided him altogether. He had no parents, no older brother, no mentor. All his knowledge of ninjutsu came from classroom theory he did not fully understand and the occasional damaged scroll he found. Under those circumstances, managing to develop the Sexy Technique on his own was already the peak of self-learning ability.

Thinking of this, Shinichi sighed inwardly, then adjusted his tone back to normal. He could not be too gentle, or Naruto would not be used to it. He could not be too harsh, or Naruto would shrink back. The right balance was probably somewhere around "strict, but won't abandon you."

"There's nothing wrong with the Transformation Technique itself," he said. "The problem is that you only developed the change in appearance. You didn't change your chakra presence along with it. Against an opponent with even a little sensory ability, your transformation would be exposed in a second. Later, I'll help you improve your chakra control, and your technique will be completely transformed."

Naruto's eyes lit up. "Really?"

"Only if you learn what I'm teaching you today."

"I'll definitely learn it!"

Naruto raised his right hand as if taking an oath. Then he followed Shinichi onward, constantly asking, "What are we practicing first?" "How long will it take before I can transform like you said?" "Can you just teach me that Wind Release: Shuriken thing?" One question followed another, and before Shinichi could answer one, Naruto had already moved on to the next. This was classic Naruto-style thinking—his brain ran half a beat ahead of his mouth, and his mouth ran two beats ahead of reality. With the patience of a middle-aged product manager, Shinichi summarized each answer in a single sentence and kept walking. It was not that he did not want to explain more. He just needed Naruto to focus on one thing at a time.

When they reached the pebble beach by the southern river, Shinichi took out a piece of chalk and drew a circle on a large rock. He had borrowed the chalk from the matron before leaving, saying it was for "teaching someone to read." That was not exactly a lie. The first step of chakra control really was "learning to read"—recognizing the chakra inside one's body and understanding how it flowed through the chakra pathways.

"Today, we're only learning one thing." Shinichi put away the chalk and slipped both hands into his pockets. "The basics of chakra control. Not ninjutsu, not taijutsu—the basics. The starting line for all ninjutsu. Whether it's the Transformation Technique, Shadow Clone, or shuriken, without chakra control, it's all useless."

"But I heard chakra control is boring—" Naruto scratched his head.

"Why are the clothes on the people you make with that Sexy Technique always wrong?" Shinichi asked instead.

Naruto opened his mouth, stunned. The versions produced by his Sexy Technique really did vary every time. Sometimes there was a missing button, sometimes half a sleeve was gone. He did not know why himself.

"If your chakra control isn't precise, you can't create the fine details of an appearance. If you want to transform into the Third Grandpa, but your chakra control is too weak, you won't be able to control whether his beard grows on his chin or his ears."

"I want to turn into the Third Grandpa! Not one with a beard growing all over the place!"

"Then train." Shinichi pointed at the pebble beach by the river. "Can you climb trees?"

"I can!" Naruto immediately charged toward the nearest tree, scrambled up with all four limbs, and climbed onto a branch in no time. Looking down, he shouted, "I'm up!"

"Run up it. Don't use your hands."

"...Huh?"

"Run up it," Shinichi repeated. "Don't use your hands. Gather chakra in the soles of your feet and stick to the trunk."

Naruto slid down from the tree and walked uncertainly to the trunk. He gathered chakra in his feet, then stepped onto it—only to lean backward and crash onto the pebble beach with a smack, scattering stones everywhere.

"Ow ow ow ow ow—"

"Again." Shinichi found a large rock and sat down, crossing one leg over the other. He took out a boiled egg from his pocket and began peeling it. The matron had given him an extra one that morning, and he had saved it until now.

Naruto got up and gathered his chakra again. This time, he cautiously pressed his foot against the tree trunk, then slowly took a second step—only for the chakra in his feet to disperse as soon as he moved. He tipped sideways like a kite with its string cut and slammed onto the ground again.

"Why did I fall again?!"

"Your chakra is uneven. Too much in your left foot, too little in your right. The force is unbalanced." Shinichi took a bite of his boiled egg.

Naruto charged at the tree a third time. He fell. A fourth time. He fell. On the fifth try, he took three steps and stood steadily on the trunk, perpendicular to the ground, for several seconds. Then a gust of wind passed by. His attention slipped for an instant, the chakra beneath his feet collapsed at once, and he fell again with a heavy thud. This time, it really hurt. He rubbed his lower back and lay on the pebbles, gasping for a long while without getting up.

Watching him lie on the pebble beach in the morning light, breathing hard, Shinichi felt that this child truly was different. In his previous life, he had mentored interns for five or six years, and there had been no shortage of people who complained they were tired before even finishing the handover documents on their first day. Naruto had already fallen five times, each harder than the last, yet every time he got up, he was more focused than before. He wailed loudly, but his hands never stopped moving. A child who had been looked at coldly by the entire village since he was young, whose first response to hardship was not making excuses or asking for shortcuts, but stubbornly grinding through it head-on—such willpower was not innate. It had been forged through countless trials endured alone.

"Don't lie there too long. Once your muscles cool down, you'll have to warm up all over again." He took out a handkerchief and handed it to Naruto. "The hardest part of chakra control is getting started. Once you get past that, the rest comes easier."

Naruto took the handkerchief, wiped his face, and stood up again before walking to the tree trunk. This time, he did not rush. He closed his eyes and took three deep breaths. Then he opened them, gathered chakra in the soles of his feet, and stepped onto the trunk. Two steps, three steps, four steps. He kept going until he reached halfway up the tree, then turned around and looked back—he was standing several meters above the ground.

"I walked up!" Naruto's voice exploded across the entire pebble beach, startling several water birds by the river into flapping away. "Shinichi, look! I walked up! Without using my hands! I walked up!!"

Shinichi stood from the large rock, brushed the chalk dust from his pants, looked at Naruto standing straight on the tree trunk, and nodded.

"Not bad."

"Not bad? This is genius-level progress! Genius-level! I said so! I gave myself the award!"

"Alright, genius. Since tree climbing is no problem now, next comes water walking."

"Water walking?"

Shinichi pointed toward the small river beside them. Morning light shimmered on its surface. The river was not deep, and its current was neither too fast nor too slow—the ideal conditions for learning water walking. Naruto jumped down from the tree trunk and looked at the water. The hesitation of Can this really work? that he had shown earlier was already gone from his face.

Shinichi noticed it. What this child lacked most was not talent, but someone to tell him that he could do it. Now, he believed it.