Chapter 2: Kaguya's Talisman
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any other references that you might notice in the fanfic.
Chapter 2
Stopping only a few feet away from the sitting monk, Kenji lowered his belongings to the floor and joined him on the ground, taking a spot right in front of him. "Hey can I ask you something?"
"What is it you seek little one," the monk said as he opened his eyes to stare at the curious child in front of him. He was wearing the traditional monk clothes that you would expect in anime and drawings, a shaved head reflected the sun, and he had a kind and understanding smile.
"I was hoping if you can tell me a bit more about your beliefs," the small boy said as he tried to lean in closer.
"What specifically would you like me to discuss?"
"I recently had an experience having to do with death, can you tell me what you think of life after it?"
"Death is a hard concept to understand little one, but from the pack you carry I feel it safe to assume that you are a training to be a shinobi. A very hazardous job in my opinion," the monk said as he gestured to his pack.
Kenji scratched his head as he answered back, "Yeah, but I'm only an academy student right now. I also don't know how I feel about taking the life of another living being."
"I understand, many people have often pondered on the matter of life and death. But the one thing you must understand is that both life and death are connect. Death gives meaning to life, just as how life gives meaning to death. It is natural to mourn for the departed but one must understand that death is just as natural as living."
Kenji nodded unsurely as if trying to wrap his head around the idea.
"But there is no need to worry child, for the body is only a temporary vessel for the spirit. The spirit itself is eternal, once the body dies all of the kami in the body is released and recycled back into nature while the spirit will go to the pure world," the monk said as he gestured to his surroundings, specifically to that of a weed that was growing beside him when he saw the boy look confused. "Take this small plant for example, despite it being so small it is filled with kami. Kami is the spiritual force that binds everything together, the birds, the plants, the rivers, even mountains are considered to have kami. Some deities or gods are made up of Kami, and these are the ones that we pray to."
'This kami thing, sounds an awful lot like nature chakra,' Kenji thought. "So what about people that have died, can they be return to the world?"
"They may visit the world on certain days and can even see into this world from the pure lands, but they can never again be allowed to walk the earth as they once were," the monk declared.
It didn't satisfy his curiosity, but he guessed that that was enough of an answer for the time being. He knew for a fact that reincarnation was a thing in this universe seeing as both Sasuke and Naruto were reincarnations, but what did that say about someone from another world.
Looking at the monk he asked something else, "Monk-san, do you happen to have any talisman that I can see."
He nodded before reaching into his robe and pulled out an ofuda, paper talisman, "I do infact have one, it is a good luck charm for safe travels."
Kenji took the extended charm into his hands with the outmost care.
Good Luck Talisman
Quality: Ordinary
+ 3% more luck during travels.
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 30
'So it is just as I thought, I can upgrade seals as well. Even better is the fact that this means that luck can also be improved. Perhaps I can find a talisman that will help improve the chances of upgrading equipment,' concluded the pudgy boy as he observed it carefully.
Although this was the first time holding one since his creation, Kenji was familiar with talismans on account of his older half. Kenji A came from a blacksmithing family that used such talismans during the forging process, in hopes that it would bless the steal. They were even given special permission by the local shrine to create such charms, so he was well versed in the making of such talismans.
Giving the charm back to the monk he stood up and took out a 500 Ryo bill before dropping it in his cup. "Thank you for the information."
The monk thanked him as he picked up his things and began to walk away, he still needed to get food and make even more supplies, but that talisman did give him some new ideas.
(Scene change)
Back in his apartment Kenji was sitting on his floor with different pieces of paper scattered around him, all with different designs.
"Huh, it seems that I can't just make my own. I wonder if I'm missing something?" he pondered out loud as he scratched his head. Looking at one of the pieces of rectangular papers, it had the basic characteristics of a talisman, the very center had the name of the deity who's power he had to invoke while on the bottom it had a basic prayer along what he wanted it to do. He tried feeding it chakra to see if that would do anything, but all it did was upgrade it by a point in defense, making it as stiff as a playing card.
It was then that he slabbed himself on his forehead, "Of course! The name of the deity doesn't work in this world because they don't exist here. But then how am I supposed to make talismans without a deity? Does Konoha even have a shrine? And if they did, would they even let me make talismans for myself?"
Standing up he stretched his limbs and walked to the newly stocked fridge. He had spent all the money he had taken with him on buying things he would need, it had been a hassle to drag it all back to his apartment until he remembered he had sealing scrolls. Opening the door of the fridge he scanned the inside for anything knew he hadn't tried yet, he still had taste buds that he wanted to break in. Taking out an onion from the vegetable compartment he bit into it and closed the doors. The juice of the onion hurt his eyes, but it didn't taste as bad as the memories told him it did.
It was already night out so he couldn't be too loud, but he paced around the room trying to think of a way to fix his problem. It had occurred to him that these talismans would be a big help to him in his crafting if they could increase the chances of upgrading items. What was better was that despite the enormous hype that fuinjustu received in being able to do anything, he had never once heard of a seal being able to increase something like luck before.
He stopped his pacing and walked over to the window by the bed.
Taking another bite of his onion he looked out to see the full moon shine over the citizens of his new home.
"The moon sure is big tonight. Hmm…" looking at the onion in his hand he noticed that he had bitten to the core, placing it side by side with the moon outside he began to get an idea, "Could it be possible?"
Deciding to give it a try he picked up a rectangular piece of parchment and a ink brush, dipping the tip of the brush into an ink bottle mixed with drops of his blood, he wrote down the character's for 'Kaguya' and then the rest of the prayer in what looked like three circles around the center to make it look like a rinnegan. He lit up a small candle and some incenses that he had bought earlier that day and passed the talisman through the fire and smoke three times before he placed them beside the candle.
All he needed to do now was wait for the candle to full burn out to see if it had worked. "It should work in theory. She is technically a deity since she absorbed the powers of the chakra fruit, and the Chakra Tree could be considered a god and was probably full of Kami, but will it be enough. Usually gods and deities gain their power from how many worshipers they have, and right now she is practically unknown by almost everyone except for Black Zetzu and me."
It took fifteen minutes but once the candle's flame finally went out he took a look at the talisman.
Kaguya Craftsman Talisman
Quality: Ordinary
+ 50 % increase in your luck during the crafting or upgrading of items.(Cannot be used to upgrade talismans.)
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 10
"Yes! It worked!" Kenji shouted as he stood up to his feet and did a little jig while holding the talisman. "Now all the parchment and paper I bought won't be put to waste."
He looked over at the boxes of materials he had bought earlier that day. He had two boxes full of such parchment which brought him to about a little less than 4,000 more tags he could create. Taking out about fifty pieces of parchment he began to go throw the monotone duty of repeating the process and the set them on the side until the small candle burned out. Now that he knew he could create talismans, it was time to get to other business.
He took his wooden sword, it was a shaped like a Chinese double-edged sword that was common in wuxia novels. Seeing as he was in a fantasy world, he hoped that maybe somethings would be the same, like the air walking since that would make running away much easier.
Wooden Sword
Quality: Ordinary
Attack: 80
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 25
Sending chakra into the wooden sword he planned to upgrade it as much as possible before passing out and letting his reserves get up full while he slept, then he would test it tomorrow.
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Wooden Sword +4
Quality: Ordinary
Attack: 80
+ 160 Attack
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 30
He felt his chakra plummet and his vision started to get fuzzy, he just had enough energy to clumsily throw himself on his bed with one final thought, 'I will be the greatest craftsman the world has ever known.'
It was several hours later before he woke up again and after stretching and making a quick breakfast he got his supplies and headed outside. Today was reserved for training in his new abilities, just because he didn't want to fight didn't mean that he was opposed to learn some of those chakra abilities.
He had the shinobi pack that he had won yesterday strapped to his back, which was almost the same size as him. The small boy had only briefly looked at the contents yesterday before he started to make the talismans.
He arrived at training ground 0-B, a place reserved for academy students that was only a few blocks away from the school. Luckily there was no one there, but that wasn't a surprise since it was barely 5 AM on a Sunday morning.
Unstrapping his backpack, he decided to get a workout before starting his experiments.
Kenji who had the memories of a writer, new that this was usually the part where the protagonist would say something motivating and start an outrageous training program that would be considered inhuman by man, usually involving running dozens of miles or doing hundreds of push-ups but unlike the people in Kenji A's stories, he was still human. He was only able to do 3 laps around the clearing before he had to rest, and was only able to do 23 ½ pushups before his body refused to get off the ground.
He turned himself over to stare at the sky from his down ward position, a heavy amount of sweat was dripping off him. "Training is harder than I thought. Damn main characters and their wills of steel, this just proves that fighting wasn't meant for a fluffy guy like me. Still, I should be fit enough to at least run away from danger."
Struggling to his feet, he dragged himself to his pack and unzipped the opening before proceeding to turn it over, so all of the items fell to the ground. He organized it into groups to get a better look at what he had to work with.
Kunai X 18
Shuriken X 30
Explosion Tag X 15
Flash Tag X 20
Smoke Pellets X 10
Spool of Ninja Wire X 5
Large Medical Kit X 1
Sealing Scroll X 1
Taking the large medical kit that looked like a rectangular green leather bag with a red cross on the front he opened up to see what it contained.
Blood replenishing Pills X 20
Solider Pills X 10
Ration Bar X 5
Bandages X 15
Band-Aid X 40
Disinfecting X 2
Healing paste X 1
Surgical tools X 1
Kenji took a single band-aid to see if he could upgrade it.
Band-aid
Quality: Ordinary
Defense: 0
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 1
"So it isn't just weapons and armor that can be upgraded, but also things like this. But what could upgrading something like this do, since it has no defense points at all. Still I should try it since it's only 1 point," the chubby student said as he began to upgrade the small band-aid.
Upgrade Successful
Band-aid +1
Quality: Ordinary
Defense: 0
+ 5 Vitality
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 1
"+ 5 Vitality? I wonder what that means. Is it talking about health or something like in those games or does it mean something else. Another thing that I'm now noticing is that some of the upgrade points needed to upgrade to the next level stay the same. Does it have anything to do with the quality of the item or the just the item in question. Oh well, only one way to find out?" he said with a shrug as he proceeding to upgrade it to the highest level possible.
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Failed
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Failed
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Upgrade Successful
Band-Aid +10
Quality: Ordinary
Defense: 0
+ 50 Vitality
+10: Triples the natural recover of any wound that is placed underneath the band-aid.
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 2
Looking at the normal looking band-aid between his fingers he wanted to test out the effect but didn't know how since he was unharmed, and he was not about to injure himself just for his curiosity.
Taking a couple more band-aids he decided to upgrade them as well since he had plenty of time.
A couple of minutes later, after many failures he finally had two more +10 band-aids and a +14 band-aid.
"So the talisman's really did work, although I had to use 10 just for this one band-aid alone. Perhaps I should make stronger ones in the future."
Band-Aid +14
Quality: Ordinary
Defense: 0
+ 70 Vitality
+10: Triples the natural recover of any wound that is placed underneath the band-aid.
+12: 1% chance to heal injury instantly
+14: 2% regeneration of injuries so long as they have enough chakra. Chakra will be slowly siphoned off from the host to make medical chakra.
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 2
He gently picked it up and inspected it before commenting on his latest discoveries, "Wow, so it gains a special skill once it reaches level 10, 12, 14. Would that mean that it also gains one at level 16 and 18? Plus those skills sure are incredible, if a simple band-aid is capable of converting chakra into medical chakra then it would be a huge selling point to shinobi teams that don't have a medic on the team. Looks like I found my first product for the store,"
He wanted to experiment some more, but right now his reserves were already at half capacity and he still wanted to test at least the academy jutsus.
Getting into a stance he slowly began to go through the handsigns for the substitution jutsu but didn't applying any chakra just yet. Once he felt that he had a clear grasp on the jutsu he molded his chakra to match each handsign. He felt chakra leave his body like whenever he upgraded an item, but this time he just felt it was being expelled from his body before his vision suddenly shifted.
One second, he was standing next to his pack on the ground, next he was floating 10 feet away covered in smoke and seeing how a random log had taken his place, worse yet was that the sky had decided to switch places with the ground. Kenji's only thought was, 'I forgot to set the destination before applying the jutsu,' then he fell to the ground face first.
He saw stars and it left him dazed for some minutes, he touched his nose and saw his fingers covered in blood. "So this is blood, I don't think I like it. Put at least now I can test one of the band-aids."
Taking out the first one he had created he took off the plastic back and after whipping his nose of some blood he applied it to the bridge of his nose. He immediately felt chakra get sucked into the band-aid and felt his pain lesson by some degree. "Oh! So this is the effect of a +10 band-aid. I felt a small amount of chakra get sucked inside, so does this mean that all special abilities need chakra to activate?"
The small ten-year old decided to leave those questions for later when he wasn't suffering from a head injury.
Walking over to his pack he began to inspect the rest of the items and upgrade at least some of them with the remainder of his chakra.
Explosive Tag +1
Quality: Ordinary
Attack: 350
+ 50 Attack
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 15
Kunai +1
Quality: Ordinary
Attack: 160
+40 Attack
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 24
Shuriken +1
Quality: Ordinary
Attack: 120
+30 Attack
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 7
He stopped before he could go on any longer since he was dangerously close to losing the rest of his chakra from upgrading all of those items and the substitution jutsu.
Chakra: Academy Student
Chakra Points: 10/115
"However there is still one thing I want to test, and I should have enough chakra for this," he said as he went to his pack and got out a small red bag that was tied with a string. Unwrapping the string, he opened it and saw dozens of cheap pieces of jewelry inside, most being made of plastic or colorful glass. There were rings, bracelets, necklaces, even some earing since he wanted to test out what effect they might have once he leveled them up. He had almost a hundred different pieces to test and it only costed him 5 yen each.
Red Glass Ring
Quality: Poor
Defense: 0
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 1
"No special attributes huh?"
Upgrade Successful
Red Glass Ring +1
Quality: Poor
Defense: 0
+ 10 Chakra Points
Chakra Points Needed to Upgrade: 1
"Nice," he said as he slipped onto his finger and immediately felt his chakra fill up again. Taking it off he felt it leave him again, "So the boost is only temporary. Figures. Still with more of these rings I could upgrade more stuff at a faster rate, I hope I can create one that will boost my chakra regeneration."
Sealing everything back in scroll, he decided it was time to explore a little more about the place that would be his new home. Plus he needed to know if there was any chances that he could get out of being a shinobi in the first place.
"To the library!" the excitable round boy shouted to no one in particular.
(Scene change)
He was seated in one of the long wooden tables in the public library completely hidden by the large mountain of books that he had gathered around him. Kenji could hear giggling around him, glancing up from the notebook he had been writing on he glanced around the room and spotted a couple of civilian girls pointing at him while covering their mouths. He supposed that the sight of a small boy surrounded by books and studying so intensely would be pretty funny, especially if their legs didn't even reach the floor and dangled off the seat.
'My to do list is growing bigger. If I want to protect myself from the things that are coming, I need a lot to do. First of all, I should work on my speed, if I hope to even survive until my twenties I must be able to escape dangerous situations. I'll practice the substitution jutsu, and the shushun jutsu until I can effectively dodge high level opponents,' he thought as he wrote it down on a new page.
'Next, I'll need to gain knowledge in healing if I'm ever unable to escape. Medical ninjutsu would be a huge help in that regard, I'm sure that I'll be able to find a scroll on the exact jutsus later.'
'Third, would be taijutsu. If I'm forced to fight an enemy, then I should at least be able to stall them until reinforcements come, or at least until I find an opportunity to escape. Thankfully Kenji A was well practiced in the art of fighting, as he had come from an old traditional Japanese family that still practiced fighting with weapons, plus he did plenty of research in Chinese Kempo for his novels. Kenji B was also at least knowledgeable in the Academy fighting style, so now I have multiple references.'
'The last order of business, is finding a safer place to live, or at least moving towards the outer part of the village. I don't fancy having my home being destroyed in a couple of years my Pein. Maybe I can move to the Capital, never heard of anything happening there. But to do that, I'm going to need money and a lot of it.'
Looking at the books around him he thought of an idea, 'Maybe I can write and sell novels like Kenji A. Of course I'm going to need to change a couple of things that they might not understand but I'm sure that I can at least sell enough to make a living.' The round dumpling looking boy once again thanked his past reincarnations for all of the information he received.
"Now then, it's time to start studying," he thought with a determined look.
He spent the next hours looking through books having to do with medicine, plants and herbs, crafting, law, and even just a children books, since anything having to do with chakra had been locked away in the shinobi library that was located in the Hokage Monument.
It was only until he could no longer ignore his growling stomach that he finally left the library.
Looking at the position of the sun, Kenji estimated that it was around four in the afternoon. He wondered the food stalls in the market area just buying small things, wanting to test everything. Finally, he arrived at a very familiar ramen stand, it was Ichiraku, thankfully there was no orange clad blonde there.
Hopping onto a seat he looked at the menu.
A brown-haired girl smiled at him and asked in a friendly tone, "What would you like to order?"
"Hmmm, I don't know. How about a miso ramen?" he said as he got out the money from his wallet, it was about 50 ryo per bowl.
"One miso coming up," she nodded before turning to the back where she yelled her order to her father. She didn't say anything else as she went back to cleaning the counter or preparing some of the sides but that was okay in Kenji's book. He didn't want to cause to much of a ripple by interacting with anyone too soon.
Five minutes later Ayame, placed a steaming hot bowl of ramen in front of him. Taking a pair of chopsticks he began to eat it slowly, trying to taste every single noodle and every drop of broth until it was all gone. "That was good."
"I glad you enjoyed it," Ayame said as she had taken to staring at him for some while, a large smile plastered on her face as she observed him.
"Thank you for the meal," he bowed to her before hopping off his seat and began to make his way out. However before he exited the stand he stopped and stood there conflicted on what he should do. With a sigh he turned back around and opened up his dumpling shaped purse and took about 1000 Ryo worth of money before placing it on the counter.
Ayame looked confused, "What's wrong, do you want another bowl?"
"No. …Yes," Kenji responded to her, "I do, but not for me."
"Okay, so who's this ramen going to?" the girl said as she took out a notepad to write down the order.
"Do you know a blonde kid wearing an orange jumpsuit that always yells about being Hokage. Give them to him if he is ever short on money," the small academy student said as he began to head back out again.
"Naruto-kun? Why would you do that?" she said shocked that anyone else would do something for the small boy she considered her little brother.
"The future Hokage shouldn't miss a meal," was all he said before walking away. He knew from Kenji A's memories that Naruto would have to go through many hardships if he ever wanted to achieve his dreams, and although he was unable to help him, that didn't mean that he couldn't show his support every now and then. He was cautious to interfere with anything having to do with him since he knew that every single death, every single moment of sadness, and every dangerous situation that the blonde would find himself in would ultimately shape him into the great hero that he would destined to be.
Taking a stroll back to the training ground he took out his wooden sword stood in front of a set of three large wooden logs that was in the middle of the clearing, "Now then, I should really get back to training."
He took the upgraded sword in his right hand and swung it as hard as he could in a downward strike. The sword smashed into it and amazingly left a small gash in the bark of the wood, inspecting the sword Kenji noticed that it didn't have a single scratch on it. Now that he knew that it wouldn't break at the first chance, he got into a proper stance, and began to go through the different kata's that his past self knew. He would swing, and then spin out of the way, before going in for a thrust and dodging to the side. He was constantly on the move, never staying still for even a second before going on the offensive again.
Stab, spin, swing, slash, jump back, twirl, block, block, block, kick, slash. It went on for some time until he collapsed to his knees and panted heavily, his wrist was sore from all of the hits and the logs had many marks, but Kenji was happy at the progress no matter how little it was.
Checking his chakra level again, he noticed that it had only raised by 20 points since the morning, a deal slower than when he would use up all of his chakra from upgrading. Usually he would sleep and two hours later his reserves would be full again with the added bonus of it gaining 5 more points to his total reserve.
Kenji planted the sword in the ground and started to do more stretching trying to limber himself up. He had plenty of time before he needed to go home, and he was going to use it to the best of his abilities. Once he felt that he wouldn't pull anything he began to go through some more katas but this time without the sword, only hands and feet. This style involved a lot of palm strikes and sweeping attacks, focusing on either dodging or directing the opponents attacks rather than taking them head on. It looked very similar to the Hyuuga fighting style in fact but without the chakra attacks, almost like more combat-oriented form of tai chi.
By the time that the sun had set, Kenji was exhausted. While the katas were done slowly it still took much stamina to maintain a steady rhythm and try to let one kata flow into another seamlessly.
Arriving back at his home, he took a bath to wash away all of the sweat and dirt from training, and after making dinner resumed his talisman making. He hopped to make enough to upgrade his sword to level 10.
While he set them to finish, he took a blank piece of paper and began the boring process of trying to rewrite all of the novels that Kenji A had ever written or read. "I think I'm going to need more paper. I also have to remember to sleep early, tomorrow I have school."
Taking a carful feel of his chakra reserves he noticed that they were two thirds of the way full, "I should probably upgrade more items before going to bed."
The small ten-year old stood hunched over a make shift cardboard desk, never noticing the talismans give off a strange aura before stopping.
A/N: Another chapter done. Hope you enjoyed it.
If there is any buff or ability that you would like to see in the story, write down in the comment section and it might get a place in later chapters.
The novel is called Upgrade Specialist in Another World and I read it in .
I will also work on my other fanfic like Bad Guys Need a Win Too and Neville the Gamer next if anyone was wondering.