The day started the way most did for Akai—horribly.
At the crack of dawn, before the sun had even fully crested the horizon, he was yanked from his futon by a familiar, ever-constipated elder. No warnings, no mercy—just a sharp tug and a gruff command, sending him stumbling half-conscious into yet another round of morning hell.
What followed was the usual torment: relentless Gentle Fist drills, each strike precise and punishing, repeated until his arms felt like soggy noodles. His muscles burned, his vision swam, and somewhere in the distance, birds were chirping far too cheerfully for the occasion.
By the time the first session ended, he collapsed onto the ground, unmoving. Maybe if I stay still long enough, they'll think I've died and leave me alone.
No such luck.
Round Two arrived in the form of Neji and Hinata, heralding a new wave of suffering. This time, he didn't just have to endure—he had to spar. With them.
For a while, he managed. Then he made the fatal mistake of trying to be clever.
He had thought he was onto something. If he used Reversed Cursed Technique every time exhaustion set in, then technically, he could keep himself going indefinitely. Right?
Wrong.
Horribly, painfully, devastatingly wrong.
Instead of keeping him fresh, the technique wrung him dry. Chakra and cursed energy drained from him like water through a sieve, leaving behind something barely resembling a human being. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body refused to move, and his mind—normally sharp, calculating—was sluggish, muddled.
This was worse than exhaustion. This was complete and utter depletion.
And of course, of course, it was at this moment—when he was teetering on the edge of consciousness—that Neji finally decided to acknowledge his existence.
The other boy, up until now silently dismantling his training dummy with brutal efficiency, cast him a sidelong glance.
"What did you do yesterday?" Obviously, he was talking about yesterday's sparring session.
Akai barely managed to turn his head, meeting Neji's gaze through bleary, half-lidded eyes.
Lie. Lie. Play dumb.
His brain—traitorous, sluggish thing that it was—could barely string together a coherent thought.
His body? His body had already forsaken him.
What came out of his mouth was possibly the most pathetic, breathless response in existence:
"What are you talking about~? I have no idea~"
Neji sweatdropped.
Hinata, who had been stealing nervous glances at them every five seconds, visibly flinched.
Neji took one look at Akai's very obvious state of imminent death and wisely decided not to press further.
Even through the haze of exhaustion, Akai noticed something... odd.
Neji looked relaxed.
No, that wasn't quite right. The usual simmering resentment he carried toward the main house was... muted. His movements remained sharp, precise, but there was an eerie detachment—like someone had hit a reset button on his emotions.
...Did I accidentally purge his emotions along with his cursed energy?
The thought was so ridiculous that even in his near-unconscious state, Akai found it hilarious.
He was seconds away from making the dumbest face he could muster just to break Neji's focus—
And then his body betrayed him completely.
His vision tunneled, his muscles gave out, and he collapsed.
The first thing he heard was Hinata's frantic voice.
"Akai-nii-san?!"
He could barely move, but he could feel both her and Neji shifting toward him, probably about to drag his corpse somewhere.
But before they could—
Snatch!
His whole body jerked as he was suddenly lifted.
Not gently.
More like a sack of discount potatoes. No, wait—given his current state, pathetic sack of rice might be more accurate.
His legs dangled uselessly as he hovered in the air.
With great effort, he turned his head, his blurred vision focusing on the culprit.
Of course.
Takahiro.
Takahiro held him up by the tasuke of his kimono like a cat gripping its misbehaving kitten. His expression was, as always, deadpan.
"Since you look like you're about to die, that means you've trained properly," he stated matter-of-factly, as if this was the most normal thing in the world. "I'll drop you off in your room. Go and rest."
Akai, barely holding onto consciousness, decided this was his moment.
This time, he wouldn't fumble.
Deep within his heart, he cursed with all his might—
I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON YOUR OWN SALIVA, YOU CONSTIPATED OLD FUCK
...Of course, what actually left his mouth, in between ragged breaths, was:
"Thank you... pant... elder..."
THWACK!
Pain bloomed across his skull.
"WHAT DID I DO?!" Akai yelped, clutching his freshly assaulted head.
Takahiro raised an eyebrow.
"Huh? Weren't you cursing at me like usual?"
Akai froze.
"This time, I didn't say it aloud, oka—???"
And then.
It happened.
A presence.
Not chakra. Not cursed energy.
Just... a terrifying aura.
Takahiro's blank, pupil-less eyes felt like an endless abyss, his face unreadable and eerily calm.
Every survival instinct in Akai's body screamed at him to run.
And then—
THWACK!
"So you were cursing me silently, you punk?!"
Akai reeled from the second, brain-cell-shattering smack.
At this point, he seriously considered sewing his own mouth shut.
.
.
.
After being spared another head-thwacking from Elder Takahiro, Akai resumed his usual routine. He was pardoned early today, which, honestly, was a relief. That meant he didn't have to sit through another hour of mind-numbing tradition lessons or hear more about how he was a disappointment to the Hyuga clan.
With his newfound freedom, he decided to go visit Naruto.
A mistake, really.
The moment Naruto saw him, he lit up like someone had just promised him free ramen for life.
"Akai! Let's play ball, ya know!"
Akai stared at the ball in Naruto's hands. Then he stared at Naruto.
...This was what kids did for fun? Running after a round object like a pack of hungry wolves?
No, absolutely not. He wasn't going to waste his time doing something so painfully dull.
"Naruto, you want to be Hokage, right?" Akai asked instead, already setting the bait.
As expected, Naruto immediately took it, his expression shifting to determination.
"Yeah!"
"Then shouldn't you be training instead?"
And like that, the ball was immediately forgotten. Akai almost felt bad at how easy it was to manipulate him.
"You're right! I gotta train! But..." Naruto's enthusiasm dimmed a little. "I dunno what to do, ya know."
Akai sighed. This kid.
"You said you train by running and doing push-ups, right?"
Naruto nodded eagerly. "Yeah! I even train near the trees while searching for mushrooms!"
Akai processed that for a second before deciding he didn't need to know.
"Alright then, I'll teach you how to walk on water."
Naruto gasped, eyes wide with awe. "You can do that?!"
Akai nodded.
Naruto was practically vibrating with excitement. Meanwhile, Akai was suppressing a smirk.
Because in truth?
He wasn't actually going to teach Naruto how to walk on water. He just wanted to use him as a test subject.
As much as he wanted to deny it, the elders' ramblings from yesterday about the Kyuubi still lingered in his mind. If his cursed energy could be mistaken for the Kyuubi's, then maybe there was something deeper to it. What better way to investigate than to use Naruto as an experiment?
So, to the riverbanks they went.
Akai sat on a rock, scribbling away in his journal, completely ignoring Naruto's suffering.
Naruto flailed in the water, spluttering and shouting complaints, but Akai only glanced up occasionally to jot down more notes.
Subject struggles with basic energy control. Possible signs of instability in chakra flow?
Naruto tripped over a rock, face-planting into the river with a loud splash.
Subject appears naturally resistant to aquatic environments. Surprising durability.
"AKAI!" Naruto wailed, soaked from head to toe. "What kind of training is this, ya know?!"
Akai finally put his pen down. "Do you even know what it takes to be a ninja?"
Naruto immediately straightened, puffing out his chest confidently.
"Catra!"
Akai blinked.
"...What?"
Naruto beamed at him. "Catra! You know, the stuff ninjas use!"
Akai stared at him.
There were many things he could say at this moment. Correct him? Maybe. Ask him where he even got that term from? Perhaps. But honestly? He had long since given up trying to correct people's weird personal definitions.
If some people could call "love" "violence," then sure. Chakra was now "Catra." at least in Naruto's presence. He wasn't going to fight it.
His pen moved once again, Subject appears to be an idiot. Thus he wrote before looking at Naruto once more.
"Alright," Akai said, adapting instantly. "Do you know how to control your Catra?"
"Of course I do!" Naruto replied, way too confidently.
Akai squinted at him. He was absolutely lying.
Not knowing something was probably embarrassing for him, so he was just saying "yes" to look cool.
Akai, being the mature and responsible individual (not), decided to explain it anyway.
After giving Naruto the dumbed-down version of chakra control, something occurred to him.
"Wait, are you enrolling in the Academy next year?"
Naruto puffed up his chest proudly.
"I already go there!"
Akai tilted his head. "Really? You're in the ninja academy?"
"Yeah! Ninja kindergarten!"
...What.
Akai's brain stalled for a second.
Naruto was the same age as him. Yet somehow, he had already gotten into kindergarten at the Academy before Akai even had the chance to enroll.
"How?" Akai asked flatly.
"The old man gave me a chance, ya know!" Naruto grinned.
Oh.
Of course, it was the Hokage.
Akai exhaled. So this wasn't because Naruto was a genius prodigy.
This was pure, unfiltered nepotism.
Though, looking at Naruto's lack of progress, Akai had a sneaking suspicion that the boy would probably get held back a year... and then end up in Akai's class anyway.
"Right." Akai sighed, rubbing his temples. "Well, what have they been teaching you in ninja kindergarten?"
Naruto lit up again. "Oh! We do leaf training!"
He immediately scrambled to find a leaf and slapped it onto his forehead.
Akai watched silently as the leaf spun three times before sliding off.
Naruto grinned sheepishly.
Akai put his journal away.
Then, for the first time, he actually used his Byakugan to get a proper look at Naruto.
...And what he saw was interesting.
Naruto had a seal on his stomach.
A big one.
It was suppressing something, but Akai had no idea what. He had only ever seen explosive tags before, so his knowledge of sealing was next to nothing.
Still, one thing was obvious.
Naruto's chakra was massive.
Not molded or too visible, but undeniably large. But he can't exactly say if it's Kyuubi chakra in the first place.
But Akai realizes some things.
Elder Takahiro's rant about "Kyuubi's chakra."
The way he had perfectly described Naruto's appearance.
This wasn't a coincidence.
"Naruto, stay still for a second."
Before Naruto could question it, Akai pressed his hand to his stomach.
The seal wasn't letting chakra flow properly. He had a theory—it might be similar to how his own Cursed Seal restricted energy flow.
Of course, he wasn't about to accidentally unseal something dangerous, to all his guesses that as cliche as it sounds, Akai could tell that seal is Kyuubi's seal. He'd start the same tragedy if that's the case.
Instead, he adjusted it slightly, restricting it even further.
Rather than an overwhelming, uncontrollable amount, Naruto's chakra was now just slightly higher than a civilian's.
A perfect training handicap.
"Alright, Naruto. Step to the right."
Naruto obeyed.
Akai formed a half-tiger sign.
"Follow me."
Naruto copied him.
"Do you feel something boiling in your stomach?"
"Uh... yeah?"
"Good. Bring that feeling to your hand."
Before Naruto could ask why, Akai grabbed his wrist and slammed his hand onto a tree.
Naruto blinked.
Then blinked again.
"...Huh?"
His hand was stuck.
"WHAT DID YOU DO, YA KNOW?!" Naruto shrieked. "YOU GLUED ME TO A TREE!"
Naruto panicked and pulled.
Instead of freeing himself—
CRACK!
A chunk of tree bark ripped off, and Naruto fell flat on his back.
Akai smirked.
"Think you can learn it? You need to know at least this much to be Hokage, ya know?" Akai mimicked his verbal tic at the end which caught Naruto's attention a bit.
.
.
.
To be continue.