Chapitre 6: 6: Double Spiral
Seija was awoken on the day after her fourth birthday by her mother opening the door to her bedroom and splashing her with a few drops of water.
"Bwuh?! Mommy? Why did you splash me?
"Because today's the day, Seija, time to get up! Remember what I told you about your 'secret present' yesterday?"
The grogginess she felt from her rude awakening cleared instantly and she practically lept out of bed in her excitement. The perfect time for a chakra-flare to trigger, causing the wooden floorboard under her to bend and creak dangerously, threatening to snap under her suddenly multiplied weight.
"...Oops."
"Nothing to worry about, Seija. At least it wasn't a wind flare this time. You hit your head on the ceiling last time you jumped out of bed like that."
"Ugh~... that really hurt..."
"And you told us that hundreds of times when it happened. Now come on. You've got a breakfast to finish before you meet me down in the basement."
"Okay!"
She quickly got dressed while her mother left the room to head for the basement. Her father was the one in the kitchen making the breakfast today: plain rice with... more rice. Unfortunately rumors of a war brewing in the near future have begun to spread, causing some people to panic-buy many other types of food. Only rice was abundant enough for there to still be some left in the shops after everything else was sold out. Ryoku decided to add some shavings of a ninja food pill into the dish, just to give the meal a bit more nutrition. They had a lot of those pills just lying around in the basement among all the other equipment they stole from Konoha, so he figured they might as well use the stuff.
After almost wolfing down an entire bowl of rice in a matter of seconds, and being told to slow down by her father who had only just placed the bowl in front of her, Seija stood up to clean the dishes. Ryoku had hinted at her that she might need to be able to focus when she goes down to the basement with her mother, so getting a stomach ache now wouldn't be a good idea.
Finishing the cleaning, she skipped downstairs. She was slightly confused about what she could possibly need to focus for if she was just receiving a gift, but she was mostly too excited about it to care.
Opening the door at the bottom of the stairs she looked around the room, eyes stopping on that cool mask for a moment, before she spotted her mother leaning casually against a wall next to an open space that seemed to have been cleared out for today's purposes. She also didn't see any of those dangerous 'explosive crates' that her mother warned her about, so those must've been moved somewhere else.
"There you are."
Seija grinned. "Here I am!"
Himiko smiled warmly back at her before her expression hardened. That was an expression that Seija almost never saw.
"Seija, I'm going to be honest with you... what we're going to attempt to do today could seriously hurt you if we don't do it properly."
"Uhhh... Mommy?"
"I need you to tell me, with complete honesty, Seija: do you think you can focus today? Completely and utterly?"
That made Seija freeze. This was clearly something super serious, and she had indeed been distracted lately. She felt like she was really close to figuring out what was so important about Nagato's name, and as she had seen him multiple times in the past year or so, that feeling had only intensified.
But she could do it. She remembered something her dad had told her about a year ago, about properly breathing to relax, and emptying her mind. Maybe all that was to prepare her for today?
"I can do it."
Himiko nodded and pointed to the circle drawn on the ground in front of her. "Then sit down over here with your back turned towards me."
She did.
"What we are going to attempt to do today is unlock, or as some say: 'Awaken' your chakra. So that you can finally control it. No more chakra flare incidents. And you'll be able to gain the proper strength to protect yourself. Normally this happens on its own over the course of a few years, but some parents want their children to get a head start on training. And for you, we need to do this sooner rather than later before the chakra flares start to get even worse."
Himiko took a moment to breathe and handed Seija a mat to keep her legs comfortable while she was kneeling there.
"But if we do this wrong... you'll end up like your father."
"Like dad? What's wrong with dad?" Seija asked, tilting her head.
"He had the potential to become one of the most powerful ninja who ever lived. An unmatched fusion of bloodlines and power flowed through his veins. He could have been a legend to match Hashirama Senju, or Madara Uchiha. But it was all wasted. It wasn't his own fault of course. A very bad man called Danzo who lives in the Hidden Leaf Village was his caretaker. And Danzo tried to force his awakening early, before your father was old enough to understand the consequences of failing his awakening."
Seija's mind was, despite her efforts to relax, going haywire at all this information. It was the same feeling as when she thought about Nagato. Like this was all something insanely important that she should have already known. But she crushed that feeling. Now wasn't the time. She had to be serious.
"Your father tried to awaken, but he panicked at the unfamiliar sensation. And from how he described it, it was much worse for him than it is for any normal child. And it will be much worse for you too."
Himiko leaned in close and whispered directly into Seija's ear.
"Seija dear, are you ready to know pain like you've never known before? Remember the time you hit your head on the ceiling. Remember the times you burnt yourself with your own chakra. Remember the time a wind flare happened while scratching yourself with your nails. All those times you were hurt, try to imagine something even worse, and prepare yourself."
Seija had no idea how to do any of that. But she had confidence that she could handle it.
"...I am. I can do it. Dad taught me to breathe really good!"
"He taught you that? No wonder you seem so relaxed. My darling little genius..."
Himiko raised her palm and placed it on Seija's back.
"Once we start you'll need to find your chakra core deep within yourself, and discover the direction that it is trying to rotate. Ready?"
Seija nodded.
"Then let's begin."
And the chakra began to flow.
- - -
The word 'pain' was an understatement.
This was hell.
Seija felt like she was burning on the inside. Like she had been thrown into the wood fire that they used to keep the house warm in the winter, and the fire had somehow ended up inside her.
She clenched her fists and screwed her eyes shut as she let out a shuddering breath.
"Seija? Seija darling can you hear me?"
"I-I can... It really hurts..." She spoke through gritted teeth.
"I know baby... I know. I need you to 'feel' within yourself. Do you feel an energy?"
The energy in question was currently flowing into her veins. The heat intensified.
"Burning! Burning! I feel burning!"
"That's... I'm sure that's fine darling. Now I need you to breathe, stay calm, and tell me if you can feel the way that it is rotating inside you."
Seija desperately wanted to scream at her for acting so calm when she was in so much pain, but she knew it was all for her own benefit. She tried to feel within herself but it was all just burning. Worse yet, she felt what seemed like a time limit in the back of her mind. The food in her stomach was being burned away to provide her the energy to withstand this phenomenon, and it was fading fast. She needed to do something else or this wouldn't work.
She tried to see into the energy within her. It burned her mind's eyes.
She tried to pull the energy apart that was blinding her senses. It burned her mind's hands.
Her mind was burning and the energy supply from the food was down to less than fifteen percent.
And something within her snapped. Memories that she never knew she had started to pour through into her mind, but she ignored most of them. Right now she needed something specific. Her salvation was calling to her within those memories. She felt memories of a clan of people that looked like her mother pass by her and latched onto them. It was in there. Those stern, piercing white eyes that looked like they could see right through you. See through anything.
The eyes...
The eyes!
She needed the eyes!!!
[Byakugan]
The veins around her own eyes expanded and became visible on the outside while her black pupils temporarily faded into white to match her irises.
Looking down at her stomach where the schorching heat was originating from, she saw it. A blazing white inferno pouring out of a searing, spherical core. She may not have been able to feel the direction it was turning but with this she could see!
The sphere was twitching, trying to move, but she couldn't tell the direction. She needed to let it go, release her subconcious hold over it that she didn't even know she had. But if she did that the burning would become unbearable...
Her mother was trying to speak to her, but at this point she could hear nothing. She could only do this alone. Her own body might have been crying and screaming too, but she couldn't hear that either.
'No time. I need to do this. Breathe...'
As she released her grasp she almost shut off her Byakugan from the wave of pain that exploded out into the rest of her body. She raised her shaking hands and pried her eyelids open. It felt like staring into the sun, but she could see it! It wasn't a standard rotation, it spiraled outwards from the center as if two opposing hemispheres were glued together, rather than if a single sphere were spinning on its own.
She was almost out of energy when she willed her chakra to move faster along that pattern. Slowly at first, it began to truly rotate. Nothing changed for a moment but she soon noticed that the pain had stopped increasing. At some point her eyes returned to normal and she slammed them shut, no longer able to see the core, but now she knew what to feel on the other side of that burning veil. It rotated faster, and she began to visualise it in her mind. Like a pair of whirlpools sucking in water around it, the core sucked in the flames, faster and faster. And as the flames flowed inwards, gentle warmth flowed outwards through her entire body. She breathed again, unaware of how much time had passed and her tense shoulders relaxed.
"Seija!? Seija talk to me! Did you find the core? What is happening?!"
Her mother was totally panicking at this point. It seems like Seija skipped straight to the end though if her mother was still talking about that first step. She felt the hightened intelligence from that surge of memories start to recede and return to normal.
"I'm fine. I did it, mommy."
Himiko blinked, "You... did it?"
"It's spinning... I feel warm."
"You found the rotation! And you moved it all on your own? Without me telling you how?"
Seija yawned before she responded. "I wanted it to move faster the way it was going. And it did."
"Well... yes that's pretty much how you're supposed to do it anyways." Himiko sighed and ran a hand through her hair, "You look absolutely exhausted, dear."
"I wanna sleep..."
"That's perfectly fine, Seija. Here, I'll take you back to bed." Himiko picked Seija up and cringed from the wetness.
"...After I give you a bath. You're absolutely soaked in sweat!"
In the end Seija fell asleep in the bath and had to be taken back to bed while still slightly damp.
All in all, it was a good start to the day. Her dad even made her a second birthday meal with what little meat remained in their storage for dinner after she woke up hours later, since her stomach was totally emptied by the morning's excitement.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone