The first thing I learned under Jiraiya wasn't how to throw a kunai or mold chakra into fireballs.
It was how to fall.
Off trees. Into rivers. Face-first into boulders. If there was a surface, I had probably screamed on my way down from it.
Apparently, "chakra control" meant "vertical humiliation drills."
"Balance your chakra at the soles of your feet," Jiraiya yelled from his perch up in a tree, lounging like a lazy jungle cat.
"I am balancing!" I shouted back. "It's the tree that's rebelling!"
I slid down the trunk for the twenty-seventh time, landed with a thud, and contemplated eating bark out of spite.
He snorted. "You're pouring too much chakra in. Again. It's not brute force. It's control. Flow. Rhythm."
I glared up at him, panting. "Say 'vibes' and I swear I will explode."
"Would be a cool way to go," he muttered.
On the thirty-eighth try, I stopped overthinking. I stopped copying the diagrams from the half-burned scroll. Instead of forcing the chakra into neat spirals, I just let it press outward. Not rise. Not coil. Just... spread. Like a dense fog settling into cracks.
And for five glorious seconds, I stood sideways on the bark of a tree.
I blinked. Breathed.
And screamed.
Then I fell.
Jiraiya didn't even try to hide the wheezing laughter. "There it is! Progress! You actually stuck to something besides sarcasm."
I wiped dirt off my cheek and held up a leaf. "Great. Can I put this on a resume?"
Training didn't stop. If anything, it got worse. Every morning started with 'warmups' that involved sprinting up trees, balancing on water buckets, and dodging frogs Jiraiya summoned for "reactive awareness."
"Sensei," I panted, soaked, scratched, and spiritually wounded, "your idea of training feels a lot like bullying."
"It builds character."
"It builds trauma."
He grinned.
We argued. We bantered. And somehow, I got stronger.
I learned my chakra affinities: Wind and Earth.
"Wind cuts," he said, drawing a line through the air with his finger. "It's motion. Precision. Disruption."
He tapped the ground. "Earth supports. Grounds. Defends. It's about anchoring, not aggression."
I nodded slowly. It made sense. Wind felt natural to me. It danced under my fingertips. But Earth... Earth was different.
When I tried to shape Earth chakra, it didn't solidify. It didn't rise.
It bent. Slid. Shifted.
The terrain didn't respond with strength. It responded like it was being unraveled.
Jiraiya squinted at the latest patch of collapsed dirt where I'd attempted a spike. "That's... not wrong. But it's definitely not textbook."
"My chakra's shy," I offered. "It folds under pressure. Literally."
"Or it refuses to follow the mold." He crouched and poked the ground. "Your chakra doesn't spiral. It ripples. Like a muscle twitch before a punch."
I smirked. "So what you're saying is—I've got rebellious chakra?"
He didn't laugh. This time, he just watched me.
"Maybe," he said. "Or maybe it's trying to teach you something."
That night, I stared at the stars and wondered if chakra could be sentient.
Or if maybe... just maybe...
Mine was remembering something I hadn't learned yet.
Enjoying Raika's journey? Drop a power stone, leave a comment, or whisper a review. 💎
Every bit of support keeps the Void walking forward.
— void_chakra