Chapter Text
When I awoke in this world I was blind, or at least, everything was blurry. And my body felt completely weird. I soon figured out that I was a baby. Though for a while, time was a strange concept that had no meaning for me when my days revolved around sleeping, eating and pooping. None of this made any sense, but where I was from, the concept of reincarnation and being reborn after dying was universally a topic for fantasy. Which is why I was trying to figure out where I might have ended up. Was I still on Earth? If so, where. That theory was quickly dispatched once my eyes started to clear up. I could finally start to control my limbs a little bit and actually see what was around me. When this happened I was able to see my mother more clearly. Seeing her and the other people I would go on to see, I could clearly make out some energy that was with-in her and others.
She was an unassuming woman who wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants, but was still very pretty and had nice symmetrical features. She had green eyes that were dull and almost lifeless. I was able to see that she was a seamstress when she actually pulled me from my room instead of leaving me there all the time. Clients would come to get new clothes made or repaired. The main room would always be full of cloth and fabric.
My mother took care of me to the bare minimum it seemed. I was left in my diapers longer than I would have liked, and fed semi-regularly. She did talk to me consistently though so at least I was able to start learning the language. It was clear that I was going to need to learn everything I could to potentially leave if things got abusive. There was just something about her that made the back of my neck itch.
When she took me out of the little house of hers to the market, I was able to see where we lived. I was curious obviously so I made sure to take everything in. I was very focused on everyone that had an abundance of that flowing color inside them. I had already made up my mind about some things and it dictated how I acted in front of others. Until I knew more about this world and what was what I wasn’t going to speak. I didn’t want to give away how progressed I was mentally or what knowledge I had so I figured keeping my mouth shut was the best course. So, here’s what I DO know.
I live with my mother, who may or may not hate me. Our house is very small with just one small bedroom, one bathroom, and the main living area attached but separated by a half wall to the kitchen. She operates her business out of there and we reside in a small village out in the middle of nowhere. The area around us is a mixture of rocky area and trees. There IS something off about this world because i’ve seen some people lift things that probably shouldn’t have been able to lift. So, I’m thinking this place does have some type of power. I don’t see any defining symbols. It does look like this world has some technology. They have some appliances and toilets with plumbing systems. Yet they have simple ways of transportation like carriages and horses.
The language and food seem to resemble Japan.
In my past life I was from an English speaking country and was a surgeon. I died fairly young but thinking about the life I lived and where I am now, I don’t really have any regrets. I grew up with an okay family, if not a little distant. They supported me when needed. Our little family was kind of emotionally stunted I would say. If not, objectively, on the side of psychopath in regards to empathy. It’s what helped me when I started cutting people open. Blood and gore didn’t make me squeamish. I just found the color red fascinating. My short life was fulfilling. I went to different countries and explored. My biggest passions were actually jujutsu martial arts and tinkering around my workshop creating little gadgets. I also loved reading all kinds of books on just about any subject. Maybe this was only because of my photographic memory.I found it soothing and used it to pass the time when I actually had it. I actually only became a doctor because I knew it would make me money. It wasn’t something I was passionate about, just something I was good at.
Now, amidst all of this, I could also tell that while I did have the mind of an adult, this body was actually different from my old one. I could tell pretty quickly that my previous disposition wouldn't completely carry over. Before I died, I had done a little research on my family and myself. Our prefrontal cortexes showed signs of disruption leading me to the conclusion that our slight disconnect was due to this genetic anomaly. It affected our emotional responses and relationships making it hard to connect and empathize. While none of us were violent or had those thoughts, we did struggle to feel the same way as others. This body was definitely different because I could tell that an emotional response was always right there. I could cry and feel anger. I just was better at controlling my responses because I was older in my mind. My body still reacted according to my age though as I would come to find out. I would come to appreciate that because feeling those emotions would be new for me and slightly fascinating.
Back to my mother and her neglect. I was actually correct in my prediction of abuse. Somewhere after my first year of life and before my second she started talking about how she was going to be the one to help on my way to greatness. The look in her eye was slightly more crazed as she finally started on what she would call the path of pain. I would come to find out from her crazed ramblings that decades ago a family member was given a prophecy that one of our lineage would awaken a new bloodline ability and that it would have something to do with pain. That was it. No actual knowledge of how to awake it or conditions. No knowledge of how to control it. Just a hearsay that this would someday happen by some crackpot on the side of the road. My relative must have been some fool to have taken it for anything related to truth.
This all led to my mother using some knife to cut me. She would grab my arms hard enough that no matter how hard I pulled ( which wasn’t very hard- I wasn’t even two), I couldn’t get out of it. From there she would start cutting my arms with a knife. This body and these emotions, while fascinating for someone who had never really experienced it, did not enjoy this and made sure to react appropriately. I cried and screamed bloody murder every time she did this. Over the course of a year she would cut both my arms up and had started on my legs. I guess I should be thankful that most of them were shallow cuts. I had hidden a lot of my development from her, so soon after my second birthday, she had started to let up. She was under the impression that I was broken because I wouldn't speak and I didn't move around. I still haven't walked in front of her, and very seldomly crawled. She was getting tired of caring for me so much. Instead her mutterings would just increase. It was during this that she would just mutter quite frequently about a silver haired bastard. Seeing as I had silver hair, I was assuming that she was talking about my father. I was quite conflicted about this because I knew nothing about him, and didn’t know if that was a good thing. But if she hated him, maybe he might actually be a good guy? She's awful, so maybe he's the opposite of her. I couldn’t make any judgments about him unfortunately. All I knew was my mother hated me. Or at least the image I presented.
This was all part of my plan. While this village was small, we did have a lot of merchants passing through because we were near a main road that was a route to a few different bigger towns. I had seen one merchant who was a customer of my mothers whenever they came through and their eyes were full of sympathy when they saw me. I was just waiting until I was older and could mostly fend for myself. I was planning to either ask for help or sneak onto a cargo carriage to go to a bigger place. There is anonymity in more people. Plus, I figured an orphanage would take one look at me and at least feel bad enough to take me somewhere. They would have to see the scars for what they were. Abuse.
This whole time I had been preparing in secret. Moving around and gaining mobility whenever I could. My mother had started leaving me by myself once I had turned one. I used this time to start walking. I stretched and used my young age to gain flexibility as I was able. During these times I also meditated to try to reach that glowing energy I saw in people. I felt it in myself as well and just knew that if I could access it I could maybe unlock some type of strength to help me fend for myself. I still didn’t know what it was or what it could do but I was planning to figure it out myself.
My meditation helped me sort my memories and I was able to build my mental landscape up to organize my knowledge. It was a very slow process but my efforts achieved a lot of success. This meditation helped me reach my energy and circulate it through my body. This helped me find more strength and stamina. As a doctor I knew I had to be careful of not pushing my body too much, but there is definitely something in training young that can be helpful if you do it right. Some cultures in my old world did have children train young, though I dont know at what age that actually started. Either way this energy once it started its circulation, was very helpful in getting my body up to speed.
I was also able to start sensing other energy when I was meditating. This ended up becoming valuable because it helped me know when my mother was coming back. I was almost caught walking but had sensed her energy and was able to make it back to my bed before she was inside the house. I started using this method all the time. When we were home and outside. Eventually, I was able to even sense when I was asleep. Before this, I would wake up only by the gripping hands of my mother as she pulled me from bed to start her knife torture. Once I was able to keep this sensing up, I would sense when she walked close enough. This at least helped me not be woken so abruptly. It couldnt help me get out of the torture, but I finally was able to at least prepare myself mentally.
These sessions would happen at all random times and I know that our neighbors heard my screaming. Knowing that they knew and did nothing made me experience a type of anger I’d never had before. I used this as motivation to try to increase the amount of my energy. While I was never a person who read a lot of manga/fantasy or watched anime, I had read my fair share as a child and one concept that I was testing out was the box method. In my trips around our village, something I had noticed was that people had different amounts of this energy. Most of the people here had small amounts, but there were some who were clearly guards for merchants. And seeing them, it was clear that there was a difference in the amount of energy. I was testing the theory that I could increase the amount if I compressed what I had.
I had this idea not only after seeing the difference between the guards and civilians but after I had seen this scuffle. Someone had tried to attack this merchant and one of the guards had protected them. I didn't see a lot of the fight but there was fire (which confirmed that there was either magic or some type of power here) and that particular person's energy level decreased after that fire spell was used. So taking all this into account, I wanted to compress my energy and see if my stores would fill up to the capacity- therefore leaving me with more energy than I previously had. I actually DID find that this worked, but the success of it was astronomically slow. I made progress, but it was very very small. I assumed with age your stores grew naturally since I saw kids my age have very small amounts. However, I hypothesized that the usage of this energy would increase your control and grow the amount of energy, but I was hoping to have larger than average stores of this energy. I had to if I was going to have any hope of protecting myself in the future.
With this energy, I was able to harden my skin. I was able to use it for stamina, strength and as I found out, healing. Though the healing was also slow going. It actually didn’t really heal yet, but I was able to start the process a little. I assumed it was because I didn’t have enough energy yet. So, I put the healing on the back burner until I was sure that I was able to actually make a difference.
All of this progress was made over the span of just over two years. When it was nearing my third birthday, I awoke to the sound of voices coming from the main living space. I didn't flare my energy out to search how many people because I had found that some people could sense it, so I crept up to the door and enhanced my hearing until I could make out what was being said.
“Jirain, we agreed that we wouldn’t take her until she was five. We’re happy to take her off your hands early but didn’t want enough time to try to awaken an ability in your line.” The tenor of a male voice said.
“Kck, she’s useless. I’m starting to believe that my grandfather was right and it was all nonsense. This girl is stupid. She doesn’t speak, does not walk…she’s almost three and still wears a diaper. I’ve tried to get this fabled bloodline to awaken, but after all I’ve put her through, I’m not sure she would be worth anything even IF she did have it. I’m pretty sure she’s mentally handicapped. I picked out a great candidate to have the best chance at this but it’s not working and I refuse to keep wiping her fucking ass. I want her gone. So I want the money and to get rid of her. How soon can you take her?” My mother grumbled.
“Not for a few weeks yet. I have to set up a shipment. You know we don’t keep them in the town we acquire them. Give me a few weeks and when I have it set up, I’ll come collect her. I’ll ask just one more time though, because once I make this deal, there is no going back. Are you sure you want to sell her to a whorehouse? Granted they won't put her to work just yet with as young as she is, but eventually she will be a prostitute. At least that's only the option unless they find her to have chakra potential. You could probably put her in an orphanage if you wanted. Not that I’m trying to talk you out of it, but I just don’t want you to come crying to me about how you changed your mind. This isn’t the same as those others. This one is yours” This mysterious man said.
“Yes. I’m sure. I will NOT change my mind. She’s a lost cause. You’ve known me for a long time jin-ji, you know what type of person I am. Do I strike you as the type to change my mind?”
“Alright, alright! Just have her ready for me around that time and I’ll take her off your hands. Oh, though just because I’m curious, who’s her father? If I know who I could use that to gain her clients. I have clients that like to sample goods from famous shinobi if I’m able to get a hold of them. Is he well known?”
“No, he’s just some bastard from Konoha. I don't even know his real name. I’m pretty sure he used an alias with me. Our one night stand only resulted in her because I took fertility medicine to increase the chance and poked a hole in the condom he used. Poor sod doesn't even know he has a kid. I didn’t want him to have any rights to her if I was able to awaken her bloodline.”
“Well, I can work with that. Konoha has some enemies, so I’m sure I can markert her for that alone.” I heard the sound of a slap, like he was slapping his thighs. The floor creaked and it sounded like he was walking to the front door. “I’ll see you soon. Try not to mess her up too much from now on, I want her in as good condition as possible for the trip. All those scars on her don’t help her value but I’m hoping they will fade with age. See ya.” The front door opened and closed. I darted back to the bed to pretend to be asleep. My heart was pounding for two reasons.
Because…I knew where I was. The Naruto world. Oh and mother was trying to sell me to a freakin’ whorehouse. Fuck.