Capítulo 1: CH_1: Pilot
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———
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He looked around the strange room with nigh a thought in his brain. It was as though he had achieved the meditative state of zero thoughts, free from errant thoughts of worldly desire and the hundred things to worry about... or, as in his case, no thoughts at all.
His eyes wandered around the lecture hall with a pitched floor and tiered seating, so those in the rear were seated higher than those in the front, allowing them to see the lecturer— a man standing behind a podium, facing the blackboard, writing in chalk that made tapping sounds every time the hard chalk stick hit the coarse surface. Given that there was a teacher in the classroom, it was natural there were students as well, sitting at their tables, and he sat alongside them. They looked young— he couldn't tell how young from the back of their heads.
He was quite far and above the blackboard, sitting near the back. He didn't know if he was part of the backbenchers, for he didn't know what was behind him; his neck didn't seem to work, nor did he want to turn back to see. Only his eyes moved, allowing him to perceive the strangeness and unfamiliarity in front of him.
Shuffle. There was a movement beside him caught in his periphery. His body as a whole twitched as he jumped in his spot on the long sitting bench. And that seemingly released the lock that was binding his body; suddenly, he felt his clammy palms, the clothes sticking to his soaked back, the back of the head where the hair felt drenched, and his legs were shaking as if hell-bent on causing an earthquake. It was thanks to the sturdy furniture that no one noticed. His heart seemed to take inspiration from his legs as it then thumped like a junky on adrenaline. And when he raised his hand to wipe a sweat drop trickling down his brow, he noticed the labored breathing on his palm.
The mind followed the body, and suddenly the dam opened, and hundreds of thoughts rushed in. Where was he? How did he get there? Why couldn't he remember how he got here, where it was? Who were all these people? He seemed to be in a classroom, so why couldn't he recognize anyone? Where was he before this? Why couldn't he remember?!
His breathing hitched in the back of his windpipe as the question pushed through all the others.
...Who was he?
He felt hot like he was set on fire; his head felt heavy, and his eyes burned. Sitting straight felt uncomfortable, leaning against the chair's backrest felt even worse, and putting his head down on the table made breathing difficult. The large classroom felt small and congested, and all he wanted to do was to run outside and get some fresh air.
"Takuma."
The voice cut through the ringing in his ear, and suddenly everything torturing vanished like it never existed. He looked up and saw the teacher looking in his direction... no, the teacher was looking at him. He realized that the teacher was speaking to him. What did he call him by?
Takuma— that sounded familiar. That was his name, wasn't it?
Takuma... Takuma... Takuma...
"Takuma."
NO! That wasn't his name. That most definitely wasn't his name— then why sounded so... natural. Why?
Then the curtain was pulled back, and everything hidden behind it was revealed. The memories came rolling in. He knew who he was. The horror of remembering anything receded— and yet, the fear of the unknown still loomed over his neck like a sharpened guillotine ready to lop his head off. He wasn't supposed to be here, where his current location was supposed to be.
"Takuma!"
Finally, he reacted and jumped up and stood straight. "Yes," he said. He didn't know why, but the name instinctually made him respond, even though it wasn't his name.
The teacher stood frowning with his lips pressed into an unhappy white line. He could feel and see the eyes of other students on him; some were snickering as if his situation was humorous, while others just observed the show.
"Were you sleeping in the class, Takuma?" said the teacher, not pleased.
A voice inside his head whispered: 'Kibe-sensei.' That was the teacher's name, he knew instinctively.
"No, I was not," he said. Wait a second, he thought. The sound— the words— that came out of his mouth wasn't correct; he knew two languages, but the one he spoke was neither. He gulped and could acutely feel the tongue in his mouth that had formed the words with such ease and natural form, without a hint of awkwardness, as he was a native.
"Then you won't mind coming here and solving this question," Kibe said, slapping the backboard lightly beside the problem written in pink chalk.
There was something that was forcing-guiding-propelling him from within, something just at the edge of his attention, there but out of reach. Stopping him from giving up the pretense and giving into the bubbling pit of sheer force of emotions building in the space between his heart and stomach. He couldn't put his finger on it as his gaze went to the writing on the blackboard for the first time. For a split second, he didn't recognize the characters, but before the panic could set in, suddenly, he knew what everything on the board meant— well, there were a couple of characters he was doubtful about, but they were resolved through context. The characters on the board weren't alphabets; they were ideograms— another thing foreign to him, yet it seemed so familiar. He stepped out of his desk and began climbing down the steps on the pitched floor. Thankfully he was sitting on the corner and didn't have to face the awkwardness of pseudo-asking the person-or many- on the long table's edge to step out so he could move out.
His heartbeat spiked up with every step he took to move closer to the front of the classroom. He kept his gaze focused straight ahead on the blackboard, noticing it was more green than black, in fear that if he made eye contact with anyone, they would realize something was amiss. He also didn't dare look back in fear that all the eyes were on him, looking at him... looking at him with eyes full of suspicion.
The floor pitched up around the front, creating a shallow stage with the podium and the two blackboards making one long one. He arrived at the blackboard as Kibe stepped aside, inviting him to solve the question. Taking a second look at the question on the board, he found one thing he clearly recognized with no accompanying internal conflict. The ideographic language was accompanied by Western-Arabic numerals. It was small, but seeing the digits provided him comfort.
He picked up a white chalk stick from the lipped sill beneath the board and stepped back to study the pink question in its entirety. It was a problem that could be solved by division— it was nothing but simple. Feeling confident for once, he stepped forward and began writing the solution; it was easy enough that with some time, he could solve it mentally, so it was easier to solve in writing. He showed complete work through the long division method as he was in a classroom setting, and 'showing the work' was expected of him... or at least that was the convention taught to him.
"... That is correct," Kibe said as he saw the complete solution, sounding narrowly surprised. "Good work, you may return to your seat."
He gave a quick nod to Kibe and was more than happy to return to his. He turned back and was about to move when he noticed something. It was all automatic, subconsciously out of his control, and before he knew it, his eyes had widened, and he was looking back at Kibe. Kibe wore a green flak jacket with a blue full-sleeved vest with a round neck underneath and similarly colored pants of three-fourth length with a wrapping of bandages covering the rest of the distance to open-toed sandals adorning the feet. But the attire wasn't the thing that attracted his attention; it was the thing of metal attached to Kibe's left sleeve— and on it was an engraving of a leaf— a stylized leaf.
He would've dismissed Kibe's outfit as cosplay; if not for the fact he found himself in a strange place without the memory of getting there, where he could suddenly speak and read an unknown language he previously didn't know and that somehow, without knowing, he knew who exactly Kibe was.
A dreadful thought formed in his mind as he knew what the facts of the situation were pointing towards. He didn't want to look down and check, for he didn't know how he would react if his suspicions were correct.
"Is something wrong, Takuma?" Kibe asked when he continued to stare.
Takuma. Just hearing Kibe address him with that name was like a battering ram against his psyche, trying to force him to accept the situation.
"Can I-I go to the washroom?" he asked, his voice breaking in between.
He thought Kibe's gaze lingered for a moment too long. Was he found out? But then Kibe nonchalantly said, "Go, but return quickly."
He didn't know how he got to the washroom. He just followed his feet, and they walked him through the unknown corridors that seemed familiar to a part of his mind until he stood in front of large mirrors over the sinks. The reflective surface of the mirror showed a sight that he feared.
The reflection showed a young boy with black hair and eyes— and yet again, he felt the awful sensation of his mind split between registering the appearance as familiar and unfamiliar. The boy in the image wasn't him, and yet he knew who it was— Takuma. But who was Takuma? He had no clue.
He turned back, walked to one of the toilet stalls, bent over one before hurling his stomach's content into the bowl, and then did it again the second time, completely emptying whatever was inside his body. He would've sat there beside the toilet in stunned contemplation if not for the smell and the taste of vomit in his mouth. He cleaned up and without thought wandered in the hallways of the buildings, numbly taking in the environment he was in. He came across a large bulletin board with a lot of papers thumbed-tacked upon it. Every paper had messy calligraphy on it as though written by a child.
[ A shinobi must see the hidden meanings within the hidden meanings. ]
[ A shinobi must prepare before it is too late to. ]
[ A shinobi must never show any weakness. ]
[ A shinobi must follow their commander's instructions. ]
He stared at them for a moment before moving on until he somehow made it out of the school building. He found himself staring up into the distance at four faces carved into the side of a large cliff— it was as if the faces were looking over the city and its habitants.
There was no more denying the fact where he was. There were only two places he knew that had faces carved into a mountain, and the faces in front of him were in no form presidents of a certain country— so by the process of elimination, only one place remained.
Konohagakure, the village hidden in the leaves, or simply the Leaf village.
"I'm in Naruto," he said to himself, savoring how wrong the words felt in his mouth. He looked down at the young hands, which already had calluses forming; they were so unlike his own. He recalled the image he had seen in the mirror. "I am Takuma."
He didn't know how or why this was happening to him.
He only knew two things—
He was in Naruto.
His name was... Takuma.
———
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Capítulo 2: CH_2
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———
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Finding himself in a fictional world without any warning or reason wasn't the toughest part of the day for Takuma. After he had calmed himself down and had accepted the situation on the surface— there was still a part of his mind that wanted to believe that this was nothing but a lucid dream— he made his way back to the classroom, once again bewildered by the fact that he somehow knew how to return even.
He entered the classroom and made a split-second eye contact with Kibe, who didn't address him and continued to teach the class. Feeling lucky, Takuma climbed up the steps to his seat on the last bench. On his way, he roamed his eyes over his classmates who were of similar age to his current body. He recognized none of them.
He swallowed the bitter feeling that rose up and sat down on his seat with his head down. He wasn't unfamiliar with his current circumstances— transmigrated to another world— he had read enough light novels to recognize the situation, but that didn't make his situation any better because of the world he had been transmigrated to. Naruto. The world of constant war and strife fought with element-wielding super soldiers, each one with the potential of becoming a weapon of mass destruction. The cherry on top, there existed monsters, each capable of destroying countries on their own if they felt like it. Not to mention, there was even a god-like existence sealed away, whose release would spell the end of civilization and life on the planet.
'Why Naruto?!' Takuma lamented inside.
He was well acquainted with the Japanese media of anime, manga, and light novels. He would go back to it from time to time when something caught his interest. Yet, Naruto, one of the so-called Big-Three, wasn't one of his interests. The first time he had come across Naruto, he was intimidated by the length of its anime and had chosen not to commit to such a long show and had left it to the side for a rainy day. It was long after he had gotten into manga that he had chosen to indulge in Naruto through the original media, the manga— it might have taken a week or so for him to complete whatever many volumes and chapters there were. It was easier that way, much less time-consuming than watching hundreds of eighteen-minute long episodes. And that was it. He had read the manga once. Nothing more and nothing less.
It was an enjoyable read, but it wasn't his cup of tea. Maybe he would've enjoyed it more if he was younger or had picked it up when he was still new to the Japanese anime/manga scene.
The result? He didn't remember a lot of it.
Takuma grabbed his head and pressed it hard against the wooden desk. Binging was terrible for retention, especially when interest levels weren't at their peak. He was in an extremely dangerous world and he didn't know anything much about it— he couldn't even recall the names of the characters outside the main cast.
'Shit! Shit! Shit!'
He closed his eyes and tried to focus. Try to find out more. But after a few minutes, he couldn't deny the second outrageous problem that had presented itself to him.
He had no memories of 'Takuma.' The boy, whoever he was, had left behind no memories of himself or anything of his past or even basic general knowledge. He looked at Kibe teaching in the front; Kibe was the only one whose name he knew, and that too had popped up in his mind. Was Kibe special in some way? Why did he know Kibe's name, the language, and the way around the academy, yet he couldn't recall anything when he consciously tried to remember?
Takuma sighed. Without information, he was like a man on a wooden plank in the middle of the ocean with heavy rain making his life miserable and possibly short.
'Let's... Let's start with what I know.' Takuma looked around his desk for a bag, but he couldn't even find a notebook or even a pen. Did the boy not bring any stationary to the lesson? What was this, college? He sighed deeply.
Academy students graduated at age twelve. Given that information, Takuma needed to figure out how old he was so that he could find how many years he had left in school— how many years he had left... safe. Takuma patted himself down for any form of identification and found empty pockets. He clicked his tongue. The child had come out with nothing but clothes on his back.
'Next.' He had seen four faces on the mountain, which meant Fourth Hokage had taken office. 'What was his name?' Takuma frowned at his failure to recall the name of such an important figure. He then wondered how long it took to carve the face on the mountain, was it done manually by hand, or did they use chakra to speed up the process? The presence of the Fourth Hokage's face on the mountain meant that the Third Shinobi War was over, which was good for Takuma— no war participation in the near future. But was the Fourth Hokage alive? If he was dead, then for how long? Was he closer to Naruto's birth or to the Third Hokage's death? 'Or somewhere in between...' Takuma sighed— he had no way of knowing... yet.
The clock on the wall showed it was already past lunch (lunch that he had emptied out), but he didn't know how long a typical academy day ran. He couldn't wait to leave the academy and return home.
Home, Takuma sucked in a cold breath. He didn't know where home was. How would he make his way back when he couldn't remember a dime worth of memories. What about parents; will they come looking for him if he stays put somewhere around the academy? Once again, his head began to feel heavy with all the problems surrounding him. It wasn't even an hour since his arrival, and he already felt like he was drowning.
"Okay, class," Kibe clapped his hands to gain the students' attention, "let's move out to the training yard. I'm going to test your shurikenjutsu today; I hope everyone has been practicing; I would be very disappointed if you have not."
Takuma's heart leaped into his throat. He looked around, and everyone was already getting up from their seats. He followed suit and walked as part of the crowd as the students followed Kibe outside to the backside of the academy building. The training ground was devoid of grass except for some weeds popping here and there. Wooden stumps stood on the edges of the space, some thin and others thick; some looked like they had been slashed, others looked like they had been bashed in. Kibe gathered the class in front of five stumps standing adjacent to each other in a line; every stump had four bullseyes drawn on them with white paint— some were painted right in the middle, others were skewed some measure to the side.
"You'll know the drill," Kibe said. "Split into five lines and line up in front of the targets. You throw five. The first row throws at the target and then sprints to the target to retrieve their shurikens and sprint to the back of their line." He gave his students a stern look, "Only after the first row has run back would the second row throw their shuriken, not a second back, break the rule and be ready for hell. Do you all understand?"
The class chorused with a "yes."
"Good," Kibe smiled. "Before we start throwing practice, I want all of you to give me twenty rounds around the ground to get the blood pumping and sweat dripping. I told you last time, today's going to be tough," he grinned. "Now, what are you waiting for! Run! Run! Run!"
The students didn't need to be told twice as everyone took off running around the grounds. Takuma followed after them and placed himself right in the middle of the pack, letting the group decide his pace. He didn't know the body's physical condition; he assumed since the boy was studying in the academy, he should've enough physical endurance to not embarrass himself.
Takuma was all but lying on his back, wheezing his life out. His lungs were on fire as he stood with his hand on his knees, looking down at the ground wet with the sweat that dripped from his nose, chin, and hair. He was wrong. Sure, the boy's body had been conditioned enough to complete twenty rounds, but not enough to hold a middle-of-the-pack pace. He looked at others who were running behind and slower than him, and even they didn't look anywhere near as taxed him.
"Form the lines, quickly!" Kibe barked an order.
Takuma, still heaving, positioned himself at the back of the line. There were five wooden crates of shuriken, one for each line. The glint of the sharp metal made the panic from earlier come back, and without the running distracting him, it rose up like a tsunami over the shore. He didn't know how to throw a shuriken, he could barely throw a baseball properly. Throwing carriers of sharp death was out of the league for him, not even in the same stratosphere.
"Next!"
Takumi's eyes bulged when Kibe's voice snapped him out of his spiraling trance. He looked and found himself next in line. He watched as the girl in front of him picked up her shuriken and threw them two at a time and one solo towards the stump. They weren't dead center, but they weren't far from them.
"Very good," Kibe said with a smile, praise not hidden in his voice. He looked at Takuma, and the smile vanished. "Next," he said.
Takuma bent over the crate and carefully took out the shuriken to not cut his fingers on the edge and make a mockery out of himself. But he didn't need to worry about that as he made sure it happened a few moments after. Takuma stared at the stump several feet away from him, and he swore it didn't look that far when he was looking from behind. As he was looking, the others in the row all began throwing. Takuma panicked when he saw the others thrown and haphazardly picked a shuriken in his throwing arm and awkwardly threw it... and didn't even make it to the stump.
The snickers and laughs from behind made Takuma flush like a boiled lobster. He was the only one who had failed to cover the distance, even those who had missed the target had at least thrown it far enough. He glanced at Kibe, who didn't look shocked at his performance. No, the teacher looked like Takuma's abysmal performance wasn't anything special.
"What are you looking at? Continue throwing," Kibe frowned with his arm crossed when he saw Takuma looking at him. Kibe offered no advice or input.
Takuma straightened up immediately, and after four more throws that each failed to reach the stumps, he wanted nothing more than to be like an ostrich and bury his head in the ground to escape the mocking laughter from his classmates and the look of harsh disapproval from Kibe. It was even more embarrassing when only he had to cross halfway to recover his shuriken and come back quickly when everyone ran all the way to the stump to retrieve theirs.
The same humiliation was repeated multiple times over, and between the physical exhaustion and the red-hot shame, Takuma felt tears trickle down from his eyes. For the rest of that day, even after they returned to the classroom after another long set of laps around the training ground to finish the shurikenjutsu training, Takuma didn't raise his head. He kept it down until the end of school, until he was left in the classroom... alone.
Even with no one remaining to judge him, he couldn't raise his head.
———
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[ A/N: Yuta Okkotsu from Jujitsu Kaisen in the cover image is there for purely aesthetic features. It's how I am currently imagining Takuma— you're free to imagine him in any way you desire. Note: Takuma is currently is much younger than the portrayal in the cover image.]
———
.
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Just like always,
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