The Awakened Soul (Naruto SI)

[Welydora]

Same day. Kakashi's hospital room

The jonin was finally sprawled out in bed, reading his little book as usual. The day had been… intense. He was still processing what he'd seen in the Land of Waves.

The way the door slid open without a sound caught him completely off guard, and in the doorway appeared an elderly woman known in and beyond Konoha.

"…Elder-sama?" Hatake's only visible eye went wide in surprise. He instinctively tried to hide the book under the blanket, but it was already too late.

"Exactly, brat," Utatane Koharu stepped into the room, her cane thudding dully against the floor. "I heard about your mission after your… 'vacation.'" She practically spat the last word. Then she quietly slid the door shut behind her. "You've completely lost both your strength and your wits, Kakashi. You let the enemy lure you into the simplest trap. You didn't do reconnaissance, despite the direct suggestion of the junior member of your team. You endangered genin and would be dead if not for my student. Over the years, the only thing you've really improved at is jerking off." Utatane jabbed her cane contemptuously toward the little book. "But in every other respect, you've just gone soft and predictable. I've got a few things to say to you."

Pointedly ignoring the chair, she stayed standing over his bed, looking down at him. What followed for the white‑haired man were twenty very humiliating minutes of insults, mixed with a tactical breakdown of exactly how he should have acted on that mission. Although Koharu definitely spent more time comparing his professional qualities to various types of organic waste…


The next day, I managed to join Hinata's team. Technically, they were called Team Aoba, since he was their commander. But it was more convenient for me to call them something else.

First thing in the morning, I dragged my ass over to their training ground.

"Yo," I called out, stepping out from behind a tree. "Feel like going on a mission?"

Just like that, I threw it out there.

Hinata lit up the moment she saw me and nodded without hesitation. Kiba and Shino exchanged glances. Their sensei, Aoba Yamashiro, looked up from the scroll he was reading and eyed me with interest.

"Uzumaki-san," he said calmly, then paused for a few seconds to think. "Unexpected. I believe your assistance would be useful to my team. And if we're going, we might as well take something more serious than a D-rank."

Holy shit. I thought I'd have to talk them into it… But here he is: sharp, decisive, reasonable, and flexible. Not like some other sensei… flashed through my head.

I nodded in agreement. A moment later, our ears were assaulted by Kiba's joyous yelp-slash-roar; he was clearly thrilled about a higher-ranked mission.

It turned out to be their first C-rank mission. Getting it really perked the whole team up. You could tell they were probably getting bored with constant work in Konoha. It showed especially on the dog boy. Riding that wave of positivity, Inuzuka called me his bro and, in his excitement, tried to hug me, but a fatherly smack upside the head calmed him down.

After that, we headed to the Hokage's residence.


Finding a merchant's missing daughter. That was the mission we were given.

A hundred kilometers is nothing to a shinobi. Moving at a leisurely pace along the tree branches, we reached the merchant's small estate in less than an hour. We were met by a sweaty, short man whose face showed a mix of desperation and hope.

"Shinobi-sama! Thank the gods you're here!" he wailed as his servants led us inside. "My daughter… She didn't just disappear, she was kidnapped! I've heard of this gang, and they're demanding a ransom! A huge ransom! I don't have that kind of money!"

He looked at us hopefully. The client didn't really understand why there was one more of us than usual, but he was clearly happy about it.

Aoba was about to open his mouth to offer sympathy and agree to the new terms, but I beat him to it, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"One moment, Aoba-san." I turned to the merchant, my tone going cold and businesslike. "So you're saying the mission's changed from a 'search' to 'combat against an armed group and hostage rescue'?"

"Y-yes, but—"

"You do value your daughter, don't you?" I went on, not letting him cut in. "Our team, as you can see, consists of young genin. We were also geared up for a different type of assignment. We're going to have to push ourselves to take on an entire gang. Risk our lives." I swept my gaze over my temporary teammates. Kiba, Shino, and Hinata were looking at me with a bit of skepticism, clearly not seeing yet where I was going with this. They were genin; beating up regular bandits really wasn't a problem for them. "Tell me, Mister Merchant, do workers you pay that little really bust their asses for you?"

The client went pale as he caught the hint. Aoba, on the other hand, watched with interest, seeming to understand I was giving his students a lesson they wouldn't find in textbooks.

"I… I…" the merchant stammered. "I'll increase the reward! Five times! Just bring my daughter back!"

I turned back to my temporary teammates. Their faces were stretched in shock. You could practically read on them something between Wait, you can do that? and Damn, this guy…

"Deal," I nodded, seeing from their faces that they agreed. "But there's one more condition. After we return your daughter, you're going to tell all your friends and colleagues what valiant shinobi work in Konoha, how lucky you were that I, Uzumaki Naruto, personally ended up on your mission, and what a kindness we showed you by agreeing to such modest terms."

The merchant nodded hastily, though in his eyes I clearly read the fleeting thought: Next time I request a mission from Konoha, I'm going to make sure you're not on it.


Once we were away from the house, Shino quietly remarked that it had been a pretty dirty move on my part to force the price up. Kiba, catching the vibe and being his usual brash self, decided to butt heads too, declaring that this was their mission and they'd try to finish it themselves first. To his surprise, I agreed.

"Fine. It's your mission now. I'm just support and a coordinator, if needed."

Then I explained what technique I'd be using to coordinate them.

Well, what did he expect when, basically, he asked me not to bother too much? Besides, there was another plus in this: Hinata's team would be able to polish their teamwork even more. And to make sure everything went even better, I added one last touch, speaking through the mind-link:

Yamashiro-san, don't interfere unless there's a real chance of someone dying. Let them show what they can do.

He gave a barely noticeable nod.

And Team 8, in fact, showed some solid teamwork.

Kiba and Akamaru, like hounds, picked up the girl's scent from one of her things, and in just an hour we were at the gang's hideout.

Shino sent his kikaichū out for recon, and ten minutes later we had a complete map of the hideout—an old, abandoned warehouse—and the exact number of enemies. Hinata, using her Byakugan, confirmed Shino's data and spotted several primitive traps on the approach.

For genin, their coordination was impressive, at least by what I knew of Konoha's average genin level.

The assault plan was simple and effective. Shino's bugs silently "put to sleep" the two sentries at the entrance, draining enough chakra to leave them weak and drowsy. Then Kiba and Akamaru crashed through a small wooden gate like a pair of rhinos, going in with their Fang Over Fang tactic. The move worked off the jutsu of the same name, where Akamaru takes on his master's form; then the two of them drop to all fours, leap, and spin rapidly, creating visible whirlwinds and delivering a barrage of quick strikes to their target. Right off the bat they created chaos and dragged most of the bandits' attention onto themselves.

That was when Hinata went to work. While everyone's eyes were glued to the Inuzuka's furious charge, she slipped into the building like a shadow through a side entrance.

I watched her especially closely. There wasn't a trace of her old hesitation left in her movements.

Coolheaded, with precise Jūken strikes almost invisible to their targets, she disabled the bandits in her path, shutting down their tenketsu. If Kiba was charging through like a runaway freight train, Hinata's actions were just as decisive, but completely different in their finesse and precision.

In one of the back rooms she found the merchant's daughter, tied up and scared. After freeing her, she gave the signal, and a few minutes later the entire gang was down and trussed up.

The leader of these poor bastards, by the way, turned out to be smart enough not to harm the hostage, hoping for a lighter sentence. He probably understood that this kind of business doesn't last long before you get bagged. What he didn't factor in was that confiscation of all his "hard‑earned" loot could also be part of the punishment. But he could be surprised by that in court.

After the beatdown… that is, the main part of the mission, I walked over and started praising the team's actions, especially Hinata's, which made her a little embarrassed.

Aoba also expressed how pleased he was with the team's results, talking about how much they'd grown…

After that, we returned the girl to the merchant. Sure, the mission hadn't been carried out perfectly; we could've arranged everything way more subtly. But it worked like this too, didn't it?

On the way back to Konoha, the group's mood was high.

Kiba wouldn't shut up about how he and Akamaru had wrecked the bandits, Shino nodded silently along, and Aoba listened with a faint smile, occasionally throwing in tactical comments. I, for my part, noted with satisfaction how well they'd meshed. Their specialties complemented each other perfectly. But what pleased me most was Hinata's progress. She hadn't just done her part of the plan—she'd done it coolly, efficiently, without a hint of her old indecision. A real shinobi had awakened in her… and it was disgustingly cute. With that face of hers she looked like an ultra‑cute combat kitten. If she had cried out "Nya!" with every strike, I would've just melted on the spot.


"I'd like to see how much you've grown," I said to Hinata the next day when we met at our usual training ground. "Want a quick spar?"

She hesitated for a moment, then determination flashed in her eyes. She nodded firmly, taking the Hyūga clan's fighting stance.

We'd done plenty of spars back in the Academy and even a few outside it. Hinata was used to me being stronger, and she knew that in a fight with me she didn't have to hold back.

I didn't underestimate her, rushing in right away with the kind of speed that usually left my peers stumped. I wanted to see her limit and how she'd react to real pressure. But what happened next genuinely surprised me.

Hinata didn't retreat or block. Instead, she started spinning, releasing blue streams of chakra from every tenketsu in her body.

"Kaiten!" Her voice, though quiet, was full of resolve.

A rotating sphere of blue chakra formed around her. Before I could reach her, I had to jump back so the technique wouldn't just launch me away.

I stared ahead in surprise. Absolute Defense… that's what they call it. She'd mastered one of her clan's most difficult techniques.

"Good, Hinata. Very good." I couldn't hide my admiration. "But you can't win a fight with defense alone."

"I know," she replied and, stopping her rotation, rushed into the attack herself.

Her movements had become faster and more precise; training in the clan had clearly intensified. Had she kept quiet about it just to surprise and impress me? It'd make sense—she knows my personality and could easily have predicted that. And that, together with what she was showing now, was really impressive.

She activated her Byakugan, and her chakra-laced fingers immediately went for my tenketsu.

I dodged her thrusts easily, and even parried some of them in a similar way, flooding my own limbs with chakra and releasing it at the moment of contact.

For several seconds, blue flashes and waves of chakra flew from us in all directions.

But she didn't give up, trying to force me into a combo. And I didn't back off, waiting to see what else Hinata would show.

"Eight Trigrams, Thirty-Two Palms!"

Her attacks turned into a flurry of precise, lightning-fast strikes. Our arms blurred from the speed. Two palms. Four palms. Eight. Sixteen. I parried each blow, not letting her hurt me—or herself. The exchange only grew in speed and power.

Thirty-two palms…

Hinata exhaled heavily as I knocked aside her final strike.

The fight stopped.

I wouldn't say it had been hard for me, but it wasn't exactly effortless either.

"Definitely chunin level," I said, without a trace of irony in my voice. "Kaiten and Thirty-Two Palms… Hinata, that's incredible progress. I'm honestly impressed."

A familiar blush spread over her cheeks, but she didn't lower her eyes. Instead, she looked up proudly… not at me, but off to the side. And that alone was already big progress…

"Thank you… Naruto-kun."

"This calls for a celebration," I suggested. "My treat."

The evening at a small, cozy restaurant that served the best dango in Konoha went by surprisingly easily. Hinata still got flustered when I praised her, but again, much less than before. She could hold a conversation, laughed at my jokes about Kiba and his "rhino" tactics, and even talked about her training and how cutely her little sister Hanabi huffs and puffs during practice. I pointed out that Hinata was no less cute during our spars, which made her blush even harder.

Our friendship, it turned out, was getting warmer and deeper. I felt calm around her. That comfort was a pleasant break from my endless race for strength and all my other dark plans.

All in all, the rest had gone well. I'd recovered my strength, helped a friend become even stronger and more confident, and spent time with someone I genuinely liked. But as I headed back late that night to my empty, quiet mansion, I knew the break was over.

Down in the basement, in the cold of the sealing fuin, the material I'd obtained in the Land of Waves was waiting for me. My main project demanded attention, and now I had everything I needed to take the next step.

It was time to push science forward.

---

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[Welydora]

My teammates were still in the hospital and were supposed to be discharged tomorrow. So I dedicated the whole day to experiments.

No, I didn't immediately jump into the final testing of my pile of theory-hypotheses on live "material." Instead, for the first half of the day my brain got hijacked by a different topic—also pretty damn interesting.

Soul research.

Same old lab. I was looming over the operating table with Subject One, while above me—hanging a bit off to the side—were massive metal rigs with black inlays stuffed to the brim with my chakra: fūin analyzers and stabilizers. The first one was self-explanatory. The second existed so the "material" wouldn't die ahead of schedule. Both devices radiated energy loaded with huge bundles of properties, doing their jobs the way a normal ninja would with jutsu—only on a much deeper, more efficient, and more powerful level.

First, I put my hand on the subject and, using a not-particularly-high-end technique, instantly drained his chakra circulatory system—CCS—of excess energy.

After that, dozens of blue chakra threads burst out of me.

The soul sits like it's not quite in the same space as the normal world… but I could shift my chakra into that, so to speak, "other" space and still touch the soul with it. And even though other people's souls weren't visible to my soul-sight because of their chakra… despite the whole "different spaces" thing, it turned out it wasn't that simple.

Whatever. That problem was fixable for analysis.

The threads sank into the subject's arm with surgical precision. Some of them, picking the right "layer" of reality, groped for the soul, while others methodically ripped major chakra channels out of the body.

On my earlier command, the stabilizing seal pumped blood away from the work area, while the analyzer calibrated under my control, sending streams of information straight into my consciousness.

Soon I found the metric I needed, and first in soul-sight—and then, thanks to the fūin analyzer tuning itself to match that ability's properties—in my mind, the subject's soul "aura" flared up in microscopic detail.

"Green-yellow?" I noted the color.

As expected, souls came in different colors.

With the right properties set, I latched my chakra threads onto the subject's soul with a technique similar to how ninja stick to vertical surfaces.

Thanks to the analyzer, I had a read on the structure—barely different from my own—and the soul's durability. The second part differed a lot, and not in a good way… which just meant I had to spread my grip over a larger area. Anything to keep the body pinned to the table and slowly, relentlessly drag the soul out.

The subject was under insanely strong anesthesia, so his body didn't even twitch. But the space where his soul existed filled up with emanations from the tiny doses of energy leaking out of him—emanations with properties that read as emotions: agony, terror, and other similar stuff, just less pronounced. With the analyzer, I couldn't just tell if someone was lying—deepest, smallest emotions couldn't hide from me either.

The CCS—even heavily drained—still held the soul in place. So to separate body and soul I had to burn through the CCS's internal reserves hard, to pull the soul out in one piece.

Soon, held in my threads, a green-yellowish soul hung in front of me. Same outline as the subject's short body. Same sphere with a core inside the "aura."

And even this kind of desecration didn't wake the soul up… damn it.

I had a long list—very long—of what I needed to test in a soul: traits, functions, abilities. But I started with one of the most interesting items.

The threads slowly cut an opening in the chest, opposite the core. The part of the soul that used to be "aura" peeled back like skin as a slow current of energy pushed out from the subject's soul. The energy was almost transparent, but faintly tinted with the soul's color.

The analyzer and my sphere-sight immediately pushed inside the soul, running yet another comprehensive scan. A cloudy sphere—old and stagnant.

Ten minutes later, almost all the energy had flowed out of the subject's aura, though it didn't stop completely, still trickling thanks to the internal reserves of the sphere.

Next part of the experiment: the threads—this time using noticeably more force, though still nowhere near my possible maximum—punched an opening in the outer core. Energy from the subject's soul rushed out under much higher pressure.

In terms of raw volume, what got released here wasn't even a drop of my chakra. But the stream looked powerful—and because of that, beautifully detailed—purely thanks to how hard I was pushing my sphere-sight sensory output while focusing on the subject's sphere, plus the analyzer. Figuratively speaking, it's like a fart: normally you can't even see it. But put on a thermal imager… Yeah, not the best association, but with that soul color? Kinda symbolic.

There were properties in the subject's energy, but they were extremely weak and scattered. And barely interpretable for me. A lot of them were even smaller—so small that even with the analyzer I couldn't make sense of them. Souls were one hell of a puzzle… but that didn't mean—not even close—that I wasn't getting data. I was getting a ton, and I could sort and process it for a long time. And I've still got other projects, by the way.

When the flow almost stopped, now releasing only little by little from energy generated by the core and, to a much lesser degree, by the walls of the outer core, I moved my threads toward the core to open that up too.

In general, all energy generates energy. Weird law of the world. Why, and where it comes from—no clue. But it's just how it is. The higher the concentration of energy—like in a shell, for example—the higher the generation.

Once I did it, the emanations of terror quickly died down, while the core's own energy radiation increased. My perception got flooded by literal oceans of properties—some sharply imprinted, some so faint I could barely tell them apart. All intertwined, all moving in a strange, incomprehensible, chaotic dance.

For about half an hour I tried to make sense of it; the process sucked me in that hard. By then the core had barely started to dissolve. And something else was interesting: the CCS—and then the body—started dying off after the core got damaged. Like there was a connection, and when the soul that they depended on apparently died, everything else followed right after.

Yeah… so that was my first kill. And it happened pretty damn routinely…

And what's worse: the soul isn't immortal. It's very much destroyable. Meaning, presumably, I can be killed completely and permanently too.

Those facts put me in a mild melancholy. Still, it didn't stop me from continuing to study.

When I opened the third subject's soul—purple, by the way; everyone's souls had pretty different colors, while mine was still gray—a hypothesis popped into my head.

I'm Ashura's reincarnation, right? Meta-knowledge says yes.

After that thought, I finished up with Number Three quickly and, without much enthusiasm, moved on to studying myself.

I didn't have to poke holes in myself, since I was working with my own energy—energy that, ever since my soul awakened, could pass through my own shells without any resistance.

But at first, I couldn't find it.

Then I figured: if souls exist in those weird layers, I should probably search in that direction. So I did.

The world felt multidimensional. And with my energies—without fully understanding how exactly it worked or what it precisely led to—I could affect those other dimensions. Similar chakra manipulation I'd only seen in high-class space-time techniques. And even then, that field was barely studied.

The search went on until evening. And ended in failure too…

Nope. Not that simple. Maybe Ashura's soul—the one I'm reincarnating—sits too deep. Maybe I need a different approach.

Whatever. I'm stubborn. And I'm almost completely sure something has to be there.

So, deciding I'd keep trying for a month and if it didn't work I'd come back later when my skills improved, I went to sleep. Today was productive.


The morning was normal. I slept well as always and woke up in my little mansion feeling pretty energized. Three "numbers" I'd deprived not just of life, but even of the possibility of reincarnation, still didn't make me feel pity. When I think about it, yeah, it stirs up a weak, unpleasant feeling—but nothing more. So, to fully detach from it, I went back to business.

My teammates were supposed to be discharged already, and despite the pretty extensive circumstances, our mission continued.

First thing I did was swing by Sakura's place. She lived in a normal-looking, two-story house—standard Konoha.

So I wouldn't have to meet her parents and waste time, I climbed up to the second floor, to Sakura's room window, and knocked.

She was in her room, and when she came over she saw my face—pretty damn surprised.

Even as I approached, my sphere-sight picked up Sakura's appearance, which had… changed.

"…Naruto?" Sakura asked calmly (!)—even though she absolutely should've pointed out I'd climbed up to her like a creep instead of using the damn door. "Why not through the door?"

She said it just as calmly, and when she noticed my stare she looked away, embarrassed.

"It doesn't suit me, does it?"

She drew my attention to the thing that surprised me: her hair had been cut into a bob.

"Well, it actually does," I said. She looked good even without long hair. "How're you feeling?"

I hopped down onto the floor softly, trying not to think too hard about why she decided to change her image… Teen brains. I'm afraid if I truly understand how they work, my psychiatrist's note might stop being valid.

"Good. And… thank you. For everything." She hesitated again and looked away. Her eyes snagged on the note I'd left on the nightstand, the one with fūin on it. "That was really direct… and nice. Thanks for that too."

Her words—and her expression—were disgustingly cute. So I couldn't help it: I reached out and ran my fingers through her pink hair.

She got even more flustered.

"You're welcome." I shrugged, then pulled my hand back.

For a second there was this weird silence between us. I broke it without shame.

"Ready to head out to the Land of Waves today?"

"Yeah. Five minutes."

Nodding, I teleported off to gather the rest of the team. No point peeking in on minors. Now, digging around in corpses—that's different, that's my thing. But staring at living people is usually unethical.

After a while, when it turned out everyone really was ready for a quick move—even Hatake—we arrived at Tazuna's place. And then I got to witness a pretty weird scene.

"Sasuke," Sakura addressed him. Her voice—unlike her previous attempts to talk to him—was firmer than ever, without that extra timidity.

The guy slowly turned his gaze to her.

"I want you to apologize," she said, looking him straight in the eyes. "For what happened on the bridge."

"…" The Uchiha didn't get it right away. But when he realized who said it—and what exactly—his eyes widened to unnatural sizes and his mouth fell open on its own.

"Until you apologize, we don't talk outside of missions. I'm not your property, and I'm not an obstacle you can throw away when it's in your way."

Then she simply crossed her arms and turned away, waiting.

But under my and Kakashi's surprised looks, she obviously didn't get anything.

Sasuke snorted and turned away too.

So we stood there like that for about twenty seconds.

"M-ma…" Kakashi summed up the situation.

"Yeah," I agreed.

Sakura, still not getting an apology, shot the Uchiha a look full of hurt.

"You sure you're okay?" I asked gently, trying not to provoke… possibly someone who wasn't entirely stable, with sharp movements or tone.

"Uh… yeah?" She gave me a confused look.

"…If anything, I've got good connections at the hospital. Come to me if something's wrong."

"…" Sakura didn't understand what I was getting at, but nodded.

After that we headed for Tazuna. He turned out to be at the construction site, not home. Looked a bit worn out for so early, and he had a black eye under one eye.

"Greetings to the honored ninja of Konoha," he said, bending in a bow like he'd never bowed in his life, which surprised me again.

"And what the hell happened to you?" I asked.

"Excuse me?.." Tazuna didn't get it either, but he noticed my whole team staring at him weird and started to panic.

"Yeah… forget it." I waved him off. Honestly, it wasn't that interesting. And I could already guess—his own people probably smacked him around for that sideways attitude toward terrifying demo—ahem. Toward respected ninja.

"Any incidents while we were gone?" Kakashi asked, finally getting to the point.

"None, Hatake-sama," the bridge builder reported respectfully.

"M-gh. Good," Kakashi noted, then stepped a couple of paces away and turned to us. "Team Seven. You might not know this, but your teammate—Naruto—not only dealt with those two ninja, but also Gato's cartel."

That surprised all three of us. Sakura and Sasuke because I wiped out the cartel, and me because Kakashi actually bothered to verify mission intel after my report to the Hokage. Did Koharu bite him back there when I sicced her on him? No, they're not like that… or are they?

"However," Hatake continued, briefly glancing at Tazuna's confirming nods. "Our mission isn't over. Until the bridge is finished, we'll guard the perimeter of the construction site. And we'll guard Tazuna at night, when he's home. But first, I have something to tell you."

No, she definitely bit him. Where else would Kakashi get a sudden attack of responsibility and a craving for work?

We moved away from Tazuna, leaving him to do his thing. And Kakashi just… started breaking down our fight: what Sakura could've done better, what Sasuke could've done better, where they screwed up, what they did okay, what they did well. He even broke down his own fight. Me, he didn't mention at all—probably just in case.

After that, Hatake went on watch with Sasuke. The jōnin would instruct him on what to do and how. Yeah, we got taught this in the Academy, but Hatake would show more—and in practice.

Sakura and I were left alone with our own schedule. In six hours it'd be Sakura's turn to go, where she'd get the same kind of instruction; after that, mine; after that, Kakashi's.

"What a morning," I said, watching the two of them walk off. Then I turned to Sakura. "How about a light training session? Feels like the perfect time."

"Tell me, Naruto…" she started, also watching them. "If you… finished Gato off. Doesn't that mean our mission has no point?"

"Heh. Glad you noticed. The mission isn't mandatory. But it's a good time for me—I can just send a clone, and it'll barely burn any energy. And it's a good time for you guys: nobody's distracting you, tons of free time. You can focus on getting stronger."

"That's so you," she said, turning her head toward me. "Will you tell me more? Like… how you dealt with the cartel?"

"It's not a bright story."

"Please."

I glanced at her. At least her curiosity survived.

"Fine."

After I told her—and Sakura listened closely, asking a few clarifying questions along the way—we did a short spar. Then I gave her a new chakra-control exercise that didn't take much stamina, told her I was leaving a clone with her, and went to the lab to handle my own stuff.

Days moved forward.

While my clone stood watch over Tazuna and patrolled the area, it still spent most of its time training with Sakura—polishing her chakra control, taijutsu, and helping her process the lessons from that fight. That's how it happened, by the way, that Sakura and the clone (rotating replacements), so random people wouldn't distract them, moved into the mansion that used to belong to Gato.

In my lab, I—the original—buried myself in experiments. Days and nights flew by while, scanning my own chakra core, I tried to feel out, to catch that anomaly—"Ashura's construct"—which I was sure was hidden somewhere deep, in other "layers" of reality. It was exhausting, meditative work that demanded absolute concentration specifically from me, the original.

But doing only one thing was way too little for me. So, on top of that, I tasked dozens of other clones with parallel work in the sterile halls of the underground complex.

On many tables, under the light of fūin lamps, lay immobilized test subjects. My clones started the final verification of my hypotheses.

One clone, using a modified Mystical Palm, sent hair-thin chakra impulses into the subjects' muscle fibers, stimulating accelerated growth and transformation even without micro-damage—on a different principle, where muscle changes without the extra intermediate stages. The results showed up right in front of our eyes: the fūin analyzer streamed models and live graphs of tissue density and strength changing in real time.

Another clone worked with the nervous system of several people one after another. The chakra flows, boosted through fūin, were crammed with so many properties the technique was more complex than Hiraishin. The energy wrapped the spinal cord and major nerve nodes, stimulating myelination of nerve fibers—done to increase signal speed and push reflexes even closer to absolute.

A third—actually, a whole group of clones—tested and studied the body's natural renewal processes. They also tried, after breaking the Hayflick limit—the cell division limit I'd learned to remove a while back—to test different ways of increasing cellular resistance to cancer, DNA damage, and restoring that DNA; and on top of that, ways to detect, isolate, and destroy whatever cancer cells still appeared anyway. That group was basically working toward biological immortality. But besides hacking the cell-division limit, there were still a lot of obstacles on the path to that goal… Over years of studying, I'd figured out how to bypass many of them. Still, everything had to be tested.

And there were other clone groups too. We were working on every system in the body.

Work was boiling on all fronts for my body-improvement project. Data piled up.

And I… could feel it. I was standing on the edge of a huge discovery.

---

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