7 Progress

(A/N: I'd like to thank Murdock007 for being the first one to give this light novel a power stone and commemorate the event. Lets hope there will be even more in the future :3)

Kurenai just left the room a minute before Elma got back and stared at the open door with the most frustrated look Dix ever seen. She entered and closed the door behind herself, while looking like she was walking towards her execution. All this time Dix had a funny smile on his face, which Elma didn't fail to notice. Soon she dropped the worried face and let out a muffled chuckle.

"Heheh, look at you with that smug face, you know I slipped up here right? Please don't tell my boss, he will be angry with me... " she said laughing at her own antics. Dix assumed a seemingly quizzical expression which made Elma confused, so for a couple of seconds they just stared at each other dumbly. This silence was only broken by Dix's yawn which allowed Elma to regain proper brain functions and start her actual job, namely feeding the child.

As soon as all the food was consumed, the caretaker left Dix to his own devices. He took a short nap to help his body process the food, then started working on his chakra control with renewed energy and high spirits. He barely managed to progress, and got extremely tired after every single session, but it turned out that forcibly using his chakra made it regenerate a tiny bit faster and expands his reserves ever so slightly, almost like working working out a muscle, only way more complicated and slower.

The same schedule kept on repeating, thus days passed, then weeks, even months. Dix's mental state was slowly but surely deteriorating due to the contradictions his body and mind had. Having the body of a baby is extremely tiresome, boring and frustrating. Sometimes people came to check on his and the seal's condition, usually the same two, rarely unknown faces. He was slowly learning the language and could understand more and more of what his visitors were talking about. He could only listen though, actual speaking was way off into the future. He even tried working out his body, which didn't yield much results, but he kept on going anyway, he will need the fit body in the future for sure.

Once in a while he was taken out of his room to have some fresh air, some change of environment and to meet other people, usually the other orphans of the facility. Dix was always glad to move out of his small prison box, he liked to see new scenery, even though he didn't really like the other kids. Kids can be really mean and he knew that very well. Thus at his outings he rather admired the view and tried to map his surroundings rather than playing with others. Even though there wasn't much space to move around in the orphanage, it was close to the mountains which's base the village was build into. This offered a glorious view of the faces of the previous Hokages' that were carved into the mountain's side. This was a direct copy of the concept of Mount Rushmore, where some US president's faces were carved into the mountain the same way.

Dix could watch the structure for almost an hour, even though it was not complex, he simply felt marvelous looking at its grandness. Another reason was that Minato's face was next to the other Hokages, so this was the only way he could see the features of his 'father'. He did not mourn his death or was devastated by it like any other child would, but he still felt a bit of connection between them which made him sad at the though of his fate. Also, he just really liked the character in the anime, so he was sad on a base no one else would understand around him.

By the day his first birthday rolled in he was already crawling at full speed, and even took a few shaky steps which earned him the nickname 'Little Explorer' from Elma. He was already able to walk properly for a while, but he never showed this to anyone else yet, it would be a bit unusual for someone his age. Also he could talk mostly okay, but he only let out some babbling and dropped a few actual words and would even say Elma's name sometimes. It was extremely frustrating for him to plan when he wanted to reveal his abilities. He didn't have much knowledge of when do babies 'evolve' usually, so he had to time it by watching out for the reactions of others around him. He did not want them to think he is growing too fast, while lagging behind posed a few problems too, some which he did not want to encounter.

The most notable progression he made was with his chakra though. He got pretty good at guiding his chakra inside his body, he even had some success with enhancing his body parts to boost their functionality. He even experimented with boosting his organs. Focusing on his stomach he could increase his metabolism rate, which could boost his physical regeneration and chakra production. Enhancing his heart would make it pump blood faster and stronger, hastening his circulatory system, allowing him to experience a better version of the state what adrenaline can achieve. If he wanted to use this he had to enhance his lungs at the same time, so his body could constantly get oxygen rich blood, otherwise prolonged usage of this state would leave his blood with low amounts of oxygen that could even damage his health.

Dix learned which muscle groups he had to boost if he wanted to, lets say, throw a punch to achieve the maximum force his body can handle. Same for jumping and other movements. If he wanted to, he could probably sprint at the same speed as a normal adult human would jog in his previous life, but he never had enough space or freedom to try it. Actually, by that time, as he was mostly able to move around on his own his caretakers let him to his own devices, even more, which left him confused as all hell.

After his birth for quite a while he was locked in a single room with regular checkups and no visitors. After a year the checkups got less and less frequent and the security around him got really lax. He was able to move around unhindered and 'speak' with the other kids. He was never good at socializing, so he just kept to himself, only went to play with others when he was called, while never initiating on his own. He didn't have a reason to play, and even found the the games too dumb, so it was more like an act for his environment, rather than actual fun.

The caretakers noticed this too, but had no intention to do anything against it. They sometimes even tried to discourage the kids from playing with Dix. They only tried subtly, as they couldn't just tell the children that they can't play with one of their mates they live together with. Dix knew what was happening and why. They were afraid of him. Well, mostly of Kurama living in the seal on his stomach. The horror of the disaster that happened a year ago was still etched deep into their heads and they couldn't let go of their fears and grudges, even though they only made the real victim of the tragedy suffer more. But Dix couldn't care less. It was plainly obvious how this kind of mistreatment would affect a normal person, and in the anime Naruto suffered from this, but not Dix. He just went on his own way, this fit his plans perfectly.

On his birthday he was a bit surprised though. He never attended the birthday 'parties' of the other kids of the orphanage, and was mostly on neutral grounds with most of them. He didn't have any actual friends, even though he had some haters, so he didn't expect anything at that day. Even he himself didn't want a party, as this day signified something entirely different for him than for others. He did not care about him being one year old, and did not want to celebrate anything. This day was marking his progress in this life towards his goals, nothing more, nothing less.

Thus he was surprised when Elma showed up in his room with a few kids she managed to gather for the occasion. They didn't hate Dix, but didn't like him either. They knew he had a unique mindset and there was something about his behavior that gave them the chills. He did nothing against them that would make them hate him, but it was uncomfortable being around him, the same way he was annoyed with playing with them, which they also noticed. But when Elma, whom everyone liked came to invite them to his party, they couldn't say no.

Inside Dix Kurama was freaking out and was sweating bullets seeing how the human kid, less then a year old was already on his way towards mastering internal chakra control. He met quite a few rare geniuses trough his life, but he never seen something like this before. Every day the child woke up in the morning he started training his chakra control or working out his body right away and would do this all day except the occasional socializing with his peers. Kurama could sense something alien with a similar kind of negativity to his own emanating from the child's consciousness, which gave him the chills.