10 10: Awaken, Neighbor Boy!

About a month has passed since the day that Seija was taught the three E-rank academy Jutsu, and today was a special day for Seija. Her days of solo studying would finally be over! Nagato turned 4 years old yesterday, and his parents have agreed to let him undergo an awakening over at Seija's house.

Her memories of him had become a bit clearer now after Firewall returned, but most of it was still a complete mystery to her. All she knew was that there were two others that would beome close to him in... more than a year from now. And there was something strange about his eyes. For now, that's all she knew. Speaking of Firewall, though...

[-World Message-]

[-Reincarnator #15 has been born.-]

That message appeared a few days ago. The number of competitors grows ever higher, it seems.

- - - - -

Nagato wasn't really sure what the big fuss was about. Then again, he wasn't really sure what 'chakra' was either. Just that according to Seija's parents he'd be able to train and get stronger if he could use it.

Again, he wasn't really sure why he would need strength for anything. He was perfectly safe with his loving family in this quiet little town. But Seija had insisted that he should come with her to get his chakra awoken. Apparently she'd had the same done to her over a year ago and now she could change her appearance at will, or make copies of herself that his hand would go right through if he tried to touch.

So at least that had caught his interest. It was pretty neat if nothing else, and it would only take a few moments for him to go through a chakra awakening anyways.

'So this is Seija's back yard? There's not much here...'

Of course, Nagato wasn't aware that the back yard had to be wide and empty to make it more suitable for training. The basement was still the best place to train in peace, but there was no way Himiko or Ryoku would let him go down there, even if he ever asked. Which he never did.

"Hey! Mommy, Nagato's here!" Seija called out when she noticed him.

"Aha, so he is! Good morning little Nagato, did you eat plenty of breakfast? You'll need the energy to complete your awakening painlessly."

"G-Good morning Mrs Himiko... um... yes I ate breakfast." He lied.

Himiko narrowed her eyes at him.

"Hmm... I'm not so sure you did, young man. Come with me. We've got plenty of rice to spare and I'm being serious about the energy requirement. It'll feel like the worst stomach ache in the world if you try to do this without eating first."

Seija gave him a shocked look and put her hands on her hips.

"Nagato! Did you skip breakfast again?! You'll never grow if you don't eat!"

"...Wasn't hungry..."

"Yeah right, you were totally busy reading again! Now come on, we're going to the kitchen!"

After being dragged to the kitchen and force-fed an entire bowl of rice for breakfast, Nagato was once again brought outside to the back yard.

"Ok Nagato. Now that you've completed step zero, let us begin. Sit down in front of me, with your back turned towards me."

Nagato complied and sat down. Seija stood off to the side and watched with rapt attention.

"Good. Now, what's going to happen is that I am going to place my hand on your back, and send a small pulse of chakra into your body. This will make your chakra become active and start leaking out. With me so far?"

He nodded. Having his chakra leak out sounded like a bad thing, but he assumed that Mrs Himiko knew what she was doing.

"Once your chakra is leaking out you'll feel a strange sensation in your stomach. That's where your chakra core will be, and you need to visualise it in your mind. If you're not sure what that means, just try to find a blue orb inside your mind and describe which way it's spinning. Then I'll tell you the next step after that."

'A blue orb? Whatever she says, I guess.'

"Ok... can we start?"

"Very well. Here we go, Nagato. This'll feel weird."

Himiko placed her hand on Nagato's back and initiated the awakening.

Immediately, Nagato started to feel strange, like there was a small fire inside him slowly warming him up. He couldn't see any sort of blue orb though...

'Maybe if I close my eyes?'

He did just that and he started trying to imagine a blue orb. Soon, he found his thoughts being gently pulled in a different direction. He followed the trail in his mind, and sure enough the loose form of a 'blue orb' in his mind turned into a true image of a small, swirling blue ball of flame.

"Mrs Himiko? It's going right at the top and left at the bottom..."

"Excellent work. That means it's a clockwise rotation, just like how the hands on your mother's pocket watch turn. Now all you have to do is help it turn faster. I think it could help if you imagine gripping a wheel with both hands and turning it in the right direction."

Nagato dove back into his mind and gripped as he was told. It stopped moving for a moment as he held it but he assumed it would be bad to hold it for too long, so he quickly tried turning it. It worked just fine and so he did it again, faster this time. Faster and faster, he could see the surrounding flames being sucked into the core. Once they were all gone a sense of... completeness... filled him. He knew it was done.

"I did it..."

Himiko smiled. "That's wonderful, Nagato! That was much quicker than Seija's awakening."

"Hey!" Seija pouted.

"I know darling, I'm just teasing you. Yours was very different, so it's ok that Nagato was much faster."

'Seija's was different?' He thought. He decided to ask out loud to sate his curiosity.

"Oh don't worry about it, Nagato, Seija just had a small problem with her chakra core that made it feel hotter than normal. Yours would've felt normal, that is to say nice and warm, right?"

"Yeah. It was like being in bed."

"Very good. You see, Seija's core would've felt more like lying under the covers fully clothed in the middle of a hot summer. It was too hot for her to concentrate, so it took her a while to find her core. Is that all?" That was an absolutely massive lie on Himiko's part, but she couldn't exactly tell Nagato that his only friend had to internally immolate herself just to complete her awakening. Some things were better left unspoken.

"It was, thank you Mrs Himiko. I'm feeling sleepy so I'm going home."

"Alright Nagato. I'll walk you back. Seija?"

Seija looked up from where she was staring at Nagato's head. "Yes?"

"Keep what you saw to yourself."

"U-Uh... ok!"

Nagato tilted his head. 'Hmm? What did Mrs Himiko mean by that?'

Before he could ask, Himiko interrupted his train of thought.

"And Nagato? Make sure to ask your parents to bring you here every week. There's lots of stuff for you to learn about chakra and it's best to get started as early as possible."

"Sure."

- - -

As Nagato was being walked home by her mother, Seija was thinking about what she saw with her Byakugan while watching Nagato's awakening.

'Purple. Why did his eyes turn purple?'

Of course, Nagato's eyes being closed were no hinderance for her or her mother's Byakugan and so she had witnessed the change first-hand while his awakening was taking place. In fact her mother had done the same last year.

The only reason why Himiko hadn't seen Seija's Byakugan emerge on her awakening day was because Seija's chakra was too bright and overpowering to see through while it was leaking. As Seija herself had mentally put it at the time, it was like staring at the sun.

'They almost looked like they were... glued on? Stuck on? There's a word for that in my memories somewhere but I can't access it yet. Anyways, they looked like they weren't originally supposed to be there.'

Seija was shaken out of her thoughts when her father called out to her from the house.

"Seija, since Nagato's awakening is done we might as well continue your Taijutsu training. You've got nothing else to do for the rest of the day, right?"

"Oh yeah! Let's go!" She immediately rushed past him and practically sprinted down to the basement.

'Did she get faster after her awakening? I know that you're supposed to get stronger just by having your chakra flow properly but I think she's already a faster runner than most adult civilians...' Ryoku thought to himself.

*sigh*

'I can only hope she doesn't outpace me too quickly. I want to be able to keep teaching her for a while longer... maybe I can teach Nagato after Seija moves on to sparring with her mother? Hmm... It's unlikely that quiet boy will accept Taijutsu training though. And deffinitely not Bukijutsu. I've seen the face he makes when he sees the injured people at the clinic.'

With the future in mind, Ryoku headed down to the basement to start training his daughter by way of beating the stuffing out of her until she figures out how to dodge without the Substitution Jutsu.

He smirked.

'At least it's cathartic.'