Chapter 1

Waking up with a frown on his face, Zack looked around him in astonishment. A moment ago he had been fighting an enemy soldier, but before he could get the upper hand, a bomb exploded nearby and he was thrown back with such a force that it was impossible to tell for how many meters he flew.

Sitting dazedly on the bench, he looked around him in confusion, unable to understand where he is. Despite the familiar shapes, he knew very well that these types of buildings didn't exist anywhere in the Abyssland.

Not to mention the trees... He had only ever seen them in books and yet, here they are.

Then, out of nowhere, a mild migraine assaulted his head. Memories flooded in with unstoppable momentum, and it took him a while to recompose himself.

"This, it seems to be that anime that Jason was always talking about." Although he never watched it personally, he understood somethings about this universe very well because of his fellow brother in arms. It was an ancient relic of the World Before... It told about a fictional universe where people could wield a mysterious power through the fusion of their physical and spiritual energy.

Focusing on his memories, Zack learned that he was apparently a kid about to graduate from the Ninja School and that he only had a few minutes to arrive at the classroom.

Although slightly unwilling, Zack, or rather, Naruto, still stood up and walked to the Academy. In a world like this where people could wield supernatural powers, a strange desire had been born in his heart.

"Who knows... maybe I can achieve some very interesting things here."

....

The academy was full of life. Students of all sizes and shapes hurriedly arrived at their classrooms with big smiles on their faces. Even the teachers who were usually bored or just stressed, had relieved smiles too. After all, graduation also meant a long holiday for them. Even though their responsibilities as Shinobi wouldn't disappear, it would be a month before they had to do any energy-intensive job.

Sitting on his chair, Naruto had his eyes closed and his hands joined in a hand seal. His Chakra which usually lay in a passive state, circulating naturally, was being stimulated to rapidly rotate around his whole body.

Naruto didn't know much about this world besides the memories he inherited and what his brother in arms told him before he suddenly appeared here.

Most of his knowledge was only on things he had found interesting. Like Senjutsu, Chakra nature, Chakra control, Bijuus, Jinchurikis, and so on.

In a sense, he had only ever been interested in the story's power system because it allowed him to fantasize about being all powerful and killing anything that stood in his path.

Other than that, he was also aware of his identity as the protagonist and knew that there was something wrong with his body.

Jason had long told him about it, and he wasn't the type to wait for assistance from heavens. Until he could figure it out how to become a perfect Jinchuriki. His main goal was undoubtedly to fix his own glaring weaknesses.

For starters, his body is a lot stronger than his original one, but its dexterity was clearly much lower. Then there was a problem with his Chakra. It was very difficult to keep it under control and the best way to currently use it is by utilizing Jutsus that consumed large amounts of Chakra.

According to Jason, this was supposedly the work of the Nine Tails sleeping deep within him, it seemed to be using a small portion of its power to disrupt his control over his own energy.

'I remember that Jason mentioned before that this protagonist absorbed the nine tails Chakra and somehow got a powerful transformation ability. I wonder if I can do the same... even if I don't get any transformation whatsoever, it will be good enough if by reducing the amount of energy Nine Tails has to mess with me it manages to improve my control over of my own Chakra.'

While thinking about this, Naruto was completely oblivious to the outside world. In fact, he had been so detached of the events happening while absorbed in his thoughts that no one noticed him there.

So while nobody noticed Naruto, he also didn't notice Shikamaru when he arrived nor Sakura and Ino who caused a commotion because of a free seat next to Uchiha Sasuke.

When the bells rang, a teacher wearing a Ninja's well known Flack Jacket came in and spoke to everyone.

After explaining what would happen next and the distribution of the teams, he left while the kids were either laughing happily or sighing helplessly.

"Haha! I'm so lucky! Sasuke-kun, we will be teammates-"

Before Sakura could finish, Sasuke disappeared in a cloud of smoke leaving her dumbfounded on the spot.

Naruto who had barely paid attention to what Iruka explained, was also stunned at this moment, not because of surprise, but because Sasuke's loud escape had broke him out of his inner thoughts, greatly displeasing him.

"Hey, Naruto. You are lot quieter today, have you given up already?"

Still a little lost from the interruption, Naruto took a second to recognize the owner of the voice.

Sakura was a beautiful girl for her age, she had waist-length bright pink hair, green emerald eyes, and colorful lips that made it look like she was wearing a top-tier lipstick.

It seemed that this girl was about two years younger than him too. Eh, that's not right, he's twelve in this body so she should be the same age as him.

Looking at her with a frown on his face, he thought for a moment but after failing to find any relevant memory that might be related to her words, he answered in a straightforward and blunt manner. "I don't know what you're talking about."

When Sakura heard his words, not only her but the surrounding kids also had somewhat stunned looks on their face.

Naruto's foolish face was nowhere to be seen and his serious gaze was completely out of match with his identity.

"Hey, am I dreaming or was Naruto's words a bit cold just now?" A kid asked his desk mate.

"Yeah, the way he spoke... felt a lot more distant that usual... I mean, it's not like I know him well, but this is my first time seeing him answer like that."

As the kids spoke with each other in confusion. A cute girl with short hair and white eyes looked in his direction worryingly. 'Naruto...? Why do you feel... so cold?'

Confused by his sudden change of mood, Hinata thought for a moment and couldn't find any answers other than the scene at the graduation. Had Naruto reached a breaking point?

Before she could properly think of an answer, Sakura who was on the receiving end of the quite cold answer shrunk her neck a bit as her body shook slightly. When she looked at Naruto's narrowed eyes, she suddenly felt a chill going down her spine. 'Is this really Naruto? Why... why does he look so frightening out of sudden?'

Gulping Sakura shook her head hesitantly. "Eh... no, no, it's nothing."

Naruto frowned again and shook his head before standing up and leaving.

He still had some hours before the instructors of each team arrived. Knowing this, Naruto quickly arrived on the training ground at the back of the school.

Sitting cross legged under the shadow of a tree. Naruto recalled everything he knew about this world and the methods to become stronger in it.

In order to deal with his first weakness, Chakra control, he currently only knew of four methods. The first was the Leaf Concentration Method.

The idea was to stuck a leaf to a part of the body and use the feeling of the leaf touching his skin to guide the Chakra towards it as a focal point, pour the right amount in a stable manner and you will be able to stop the leaf from falling.

However, according to Naruto's memories he had already practiced it quite a number of times in the academy and unless he could increase the difficulty, maybe by using something heavier or more focal points, it would be useless.

The second method was based on the first, by coating a part of the body like the soles of his feet with Chakra in the right quantity and with a stable supply, he would be able to walk on the surface of anything. This method was also know as Tree Walking Technique, this one specifically wasn't present in the original Naruto's memories, but he remembered Jason mentioning it before.

The third is a more complex version of it that takes into consideration a constantly changing terrain that lacks density. If tree walking was classified as D rank Ninjutsu, then, this one would be considered a B rank. The difficult was much greater, but when mastered, his control over his chakra would also be greatly strengthened, it was water walking.

For the last method, it was the most straightforward, time consuming, and less effective one. According to Jason's words, the Manga had once mentioned that becoming proficient in a technique by using it many times would also help one better their Chakra control as they slowly learned to reduce the number of hand seals necessary to use it and also increased their spiritual energy by proxy.

"Tsk, this is so annoying. Based on the current options, the one that suits me the most is the leaf concentration technique, but in order to make it suitable, I would have to learn how to control my Chakra to move in multiple directions."

The more he thought about it, the more he felt his head hurt, but he couldn't help but admit that this idea of his was really good. It shouldn't be an exaggeration to say that he managed to think into a method to train chakra control that was a few times better than the original.

After all, the first one only involved moving Chakra in one direction and focusing it on a single point while his' needed two directions and two focal points simultaneously. Without multitasking, it's very difficult to achieve this, and once he mastered this training method, he was sure that his Chakra would be a lot more flexible and obedient.

Nodding to himself, Naruto picked the first leaves he saw and entered practice mode.