Chapter 8: Present Reality

Keitaro was home alone for the first time in quite a while. He could still recall the first time he had been left home alone and how strange that had been for him. He had honestly been a little confused when his father had so casually left him at home for the first time, but given the fact that children had a tendency to mature a lot faster in this world, it was apparently the norm for young children to be left at home as long as there was food in the house. 

Of course it would have normally been his mother who would have taken time off from work to ensure that he was well taken care of, but given their families current situation, it wasn't all that surprising that he was expected to take care of himself. 

Of course Keitaro wasn't too bothered about being home alone. If anything he preferred it, as it gave him a chance to really let loose. The first thing he did was head to the study. He had been trying to master the language of the village, and though he was pretty good when it came to speaking it, writing was a whole other story.

There were several scrolls in his room filled with his attempts at calligraphy. While he had been improving recently, his hand writing would still be considered ineligible for most people. Sadly the only thing that he could do was practice, as it seemed that the use of a brush and a ink well where still the preferred way to write and note things down for now. 

Keitaro opened the door to the study and paused for just a moment to truly appreciate the small haven before him. Even back when he was in high school, he had always had a appreciation for books. The smell of ink and paper, the sound of the paper crinkling as you turned the page. 

Just the feeling of the rough paper sliding between your fingers calm his over active mind and stoked his enthusiasm to uncover the books contents.

Sadly though, he hadn't had many chances back then to simply sit back and enjoy the books like he had wanted to, but now there wasn't any reason not to. 

Of course even though it was a study, there weren't too many things within in. Afterall, it was the study of a middle class citizen of the hidden leaf, and even if his father was a shinobi, he was technically only a chinin. There was still a limit to how much money and clearance he had.

The importance of clearance had been a surprise for Keitaro as he would have never had though that there were certain types of information that was simply not accessible to people unless they had the required level of clearance issued by the village to access them. Simple things like a detailed map of Fire country were only made available to high levelled Jonin. 

Of course this was done as a precaution in relation to enemy forces that might have infiltrated the village, but it still put into perspective just how different this world was from his own.

A lot of the things that where hidden behind lock and key by the leaders of the village, were things that a simple google search would have been able to pull up. Still it didn't matter all that much to Keitaro. Since he couldn't possibly change anything about the situation, why would he stress himself out by worrying about it?

Keitaro set down his calligraphy tools on the large oak desk in the room, making sure not spill any of the ink, before turning to the many shelves around him. 

There were several bookcases filled with scrolls and books and loss pieces of paper. Even then, most of these were practically useless to him. They mostly covered things like geography, history and general knowledge. There where even a few biography's of some semi-important people who had left their mark on the world in some way or the other, but there were too long and boring so Keitaro didn't care very much for them. 

Of course he had spent some time going over some of the text, if only so that he could gain a better understanding of the language and written word, but those boring books couldn't hold his interest for long.

No, the thing that had interested him the most, were the few scrolls that he had managed to find that delved into the study of chakra. 

One of the first things that Keitaro had done upon realizing his new world of abode, was to attempt to use his chakra. Like most fans of the show, he had memorized a few hands signs and had wasted no time in trying to weave chakra to perform his first technique ever. Of course all of his attempts ended in failure, but that didn't deter Keitaro in the slightest. 

If anything, it only spurred him on in his pursuit of chakra.

In the world of Naruto, no matter whether you wished to live a peaceful life in some far off corner of the world, or wanted to rein supreme in one of the five major villages, if you didn't want to become a stepping stone for someone else, then you needed to have chakra.

The more of it you had, the better.

All of the greats had massive reserves of chakra at their disposal, and since chakra served as the foundation from which all other abilities and powers that a shinobi developed stemmed from, it only made sense for him to do as much research as possible concerning it.

Sadly, while there were some text about chakra and its usage and importance, there where no scrolls that dealt with the actually awaking of ones chakra.

In Keitaro's mind, chakra existed in one of two states, the dormant state and the active state. Those who were unable to utilize their chakra in anyway whatsoever had dormant chakra. While those able to utilize their chakra, even if only a little bit, would be considered to have active chakra. 

It was common knowledge that all humans in the world of Naruto had some amount of chakra in their bodies, but that not everyone was able to make active practical use of said chakra. 

Civilians lived there day to day lives, never once utilizing the cakra within their bodies, even if it could have increased their productivity or improved their work load. Of course with training and dedication, it was possible for a civilian to gain control over their own chakra, but it would require a lot of training and guidance to do so.

The fact that there existed civilian shinobi within the village, some even becoming quite powerful in their own right, meant that there was a way to 'awaken' ones chakra. The fact that it was most likely hidden away from the general public wasn't all too surprising either, since it would be a hassle to have to deal with regular people suddenly being able to use jutsu and causing undue havoc throughout the village.

Of course what ever it was, once civilians were deemed fit to become shinobi, they began training their chakra at the academy, though by then they would have missed out on a lot of their chakra's growth potential.

Keitaro had always had the belief that the younger you were when you awakened your chakra, the better off you would be, and the text he had found in his fathers study only served to further supported that theory. 

It explained why most of the kids that came from the shinobi clans of the village where able to have better control and efficiency when utilizing their chakra, as well as relatively large chakra reserved from such young ages. A small advantage granted to them that could snowball into a devastating edge up on the civilian shinobi given time. 

Of course there was a chance that he would simply awaken his chakra naturally without any assistance at all, as there were lots of children from within the clans of Konoha that did so.

Given that he was technically a member of the Inuzuka clan, and that both his mother and father had been rather competent shinobi, the chances of him not only have decent chakra reserved in the future, but good potential as a shinobi in general was quite high. 

As long as he made sure to put in 110% in his future training, he'd be able to greatly excel. 

Of course, there was always the option to give up on the path of a shinobi and become a regular civilian, maybe become a merchant who travelled all around the world. But why would he chose such a reserved life?

With his knowledge of the main plots of the future, Keitaro had already been entertaining the idea of becoming an important shinobi within the village, and even if he wasn't able to become the most amazing shinobi ever, he'd at least be able to carve out a place for himself and his family in this turbulent world. 

He had never been able to make much of a life for himself in his previous world. Hard work and a willingness to persevere were practically useless when you didn't have the right connections and backing, but here, his hard work was bound to show results and his perseverance would be the tool that propelled him forward.