Settling Down

It wasn't until after I had crudely tended to my wound that I realized I was still naked.

"I should have at least taken the pants," I muttered, irritated and slightly disgusted as I recalled the body of the kid I had killed.

By then, it was far too late to go back—not to mention the ongoing battle near the body. So, I fashioned a makeshift skirt out of leaves to cover myself as best I could.

"What should I train first?" I thought aloud. "It's too late for kunai practice, and I'm not in the mood for physical training. I guess... I'll try learning how to sense my chakra."

I recalled the instructions from the scroll about chakra and sat cross-legged on the ground. I focused, and almost immediately, I could sense my chakra.

"Why is my chakra flowing toward my hair?" I wondered, puzzled.

My hair seemed to naturally draw the chakra to it. I tried to stop the flow, and to my surprise, my chakra acted like a sixth limb, almost never used. The flow stopped, but for some reason, my hair felt weaker, as though something was missing.

"That's odd... I thought controlling chakra was supposed to be hard," I mused. "And why would my chakra be flowing toward my hair in the first place? Could it—" I paused, suddenly struck by an idea. Without thinking, I directed chakra to my hair to test my suspicions.

The chakra flowed easily through my hair, and I felt an unexpected connection to it, like I could control it.

"No way!" I gasped in disbelief, my eyes widening as I saw my hair floating around my head.

I knew this shouldn't be possible for someone who had just started sensing chakra. There was really only one explanation, according to the rules of the world I now found myself in.

"I have a kekkei genkai!" I exclaimed, incredulous.

The realization hit me hard, and I knew this ability could dramatically improve my chances of survival. Without wasting time, I started experimenting with my newfound power.

A Few Hours Later

"It seems my hair is constantly growing," I observed aloud, speaking to break the silence of the forest. "Even when I draw chakra away, it still seems to absorb something from my body to fuel its growth. My guess is that it's taking the physical energy in my body that hasn't been converted into chakra yet. I'm not sure if there are any consequences to this, so I should probably supply my hair with a small, steady stream of chakra—just enough to prevent it from drawing physical energy from me."

"The more chakra I supply, the faster and stronger it grows. Strangely, even when I give it barely any chakra, I can still control it with near-perfect precision. When I give it the most chakra I can, though... it becomes terrifyingly lethal." I glanced at the deep, jagged cuts in the cave walls, created when I lashed my hair around like a whip.

"I can think of a lot of ways to use this power," I mused. "But most of them require knowledge I don't have. Maybe one day I can create arms or physical clones out of my hair, like Sun Wukong..."

I sighed, lost in thoughts of the future, before looking out the cave entrance. The sun was setting, signaling that it was time to prepare for sleep. I gathered some extra branches I had used to conceal the entrance and made a bed. It was more of a bird's nest than anything, but I knew I needed warmth if I wanted to survive the night.

I lay down and quickly drifted off to sleep, exhaustion from the day overtaking me.