3: First steps, First encounter

3: First steps, First encounter

"Say ah! Come on, say ah!"

Lazy green eyes looked at the woman trying to feed him with boredom.

The woman pouted at his refusal and put the wooden spoon down on the plate, sighing as she watched the small child, no more than 2 years old, take the spoon himself and begin to calmly eat the baby food.

"Mu! Sukuna-chan won't let me feed him!"

She looked with tearful eyes at a man sitting beside her, the poor guy laughed helplessly and tried to console her.

"Come on, he's a big boy now, the time when you used to feed him is over, isn't it, Sukuna?"

Being suddenly called, the child looked up from his plate, his "innocent" green eyes gazing at the two adults before confidently smiling and nodding enthusiastically.

It was a good act and neither of the two adults in the room thought there was anything strange in his behavior.

The man laughed and reached out his hand, ruffling the already messy pink hair of the child.

The woman sighed, looked at her baby, and couldn't help but complain.

"They grow up so fast, at this rate he'll start throwing kunais and practicing jutsus before we even notice."

The man stopped his hand and his smile faded a little.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves, just because other kids do things like that doesn't mean we should expect the same from him, that would be putting too much on his plate."

They weren't a clan, maybe once they had been shinobi, but that was in the past, now they lived different lives.

The woman stayed silent for a moment, looked at her son, and nodded in agreement with her husband's words.

"Yes, Sukuna-chan can choose to be whatever he wants."

Sukuna, for his part, ate slowly; the baby food wasn't that bad.

Even so, he would kill to try some meat.

Metaphorically, of course, he wasn't a maniac.

He watched his "parents" chat cheerfully, Kizashi Haruno and Mebuki Haruno.

They were an... interesting duo, civilians but clearly something more than that, at least in the past.

From the brief conversations and information he had managed to overhear, they had served as genin during their youth before retiring once the Third Great Ninja War ended.

That made sense with what he sensed using his superior senses. The amount of chakra in them was weak, a little better than the chakra of common people, but that was all. Combined with their weak and fragile spirit, Sukuna could say without much doubt that they were weak.

There wasn't much to learn from them, so for the most part, he ignored them and pretended to be a normal child, or at least he tried his best and seemed to be quite good at it because so far they hadn't suspected anything.

Maybe it was cruel; after all, he had taken their "son" from them.

But he wasn't going to replace him. He was an adult, at least in mind, and had no interest in playing the role of a child for a pair of adults. That would be too pathetic.

Besides, they could have another child; he had verified that. Both were healthy and both were fertile, and if they couldn't, he would have done something to fix it for them.

Hey, he might not replace their son, but he wasn't ungrateful.

Setting aside the matter with his "parents," he focused more on his new energy.

Controlling chakra was becoming easier every day.

It was a different energy governed by different rules, but in the end, it served the same purpose as cursed energy.

To empower something, to create an effect.

Only now, there were additional steps.

"Come on, Sukuna-chan, today will be a very productive day."

Mebuki took him in her hands once he finished his meal and got him ready.

He looked at the woman carrying him with slightly furrowed brows, wondering who names their child Sukuna? It didn't even match the surname.

"Well, at least it's not something related to flowers."

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Some time later

Konoha was a large place. He didn't know if it had always been like this or if something had changed.

He didn't remember enough of "Naruto" to make a proper comparison.

Even so, the reason these thoughts came to his mind was that despite having been in this place for a little over three years, he still hadn't found any "familiar" faces.

Of course, for the most part, he spent his time "confined" to his house and its surroundings. Once he could walk and put in some effort, his parents began to take him to the family business.

His parents were merchants. They had a simple shop that sold many varied things.

They were not rich or anything like that, they still had a good life and sometimes it was entertaining to watch them work.

Of course, he didn't forget to train. He mainly experimented with chakra. His body was special, after all, and his type of training was different. Thanks to having devoured the King of Curses, he could now modify it to a certain degree. Combined with Itadori's special physique and the fact that he had devoured his three "brothers," this made it so that, even without a vast amount of chakra, his physical strength alone was monstrous. It was clear to him from the beginning that his physical strength would never be a problem.

Of course, having talent in something shouldn't exclude training it. He had already been thinking about how to do it but decided to postpone it until he resolved a small problem.

Carefully, he examined his chakra networks. They were something strange that he had never dealt with before, and "playing" with them could be dangerous. He could fix any other type of injury or physical imperfection if necessary by instinctively activating his reverse cursed technique, but the chakra networks were something beyond the physical.

He didn't know how his reverse cursed technique would affect an organ he had never had before, much less one that was both physical and spiritual. If he made a mistake, he could end up with an irreparable injury, which was why he was postponing his physical training.

In summary, until he had a good medical book in his hands that explained their function more clearly, he wouldn't mess with them beyond using them to move chakra.

And moving chakra was quite fun.

Unlike cursed energy, where you needed to constantly channel your negative emotions and maintain strict control over them, chakra came in any mental state.

You could be bored, sad, happy, angry—it didn't matter. As long as you had the slightest control over chakra, you could draw it to you and use it.

It was a change that might not sound significant, but for Sukuna, it was.

Forcing yourself to suppress negative emotions all the time could be quite exhausting over time.

At least now he felt quite relaxed and calm, something he hadn't experienced in a while.

He looked at his finger, and with some concentration, a small flame appeared on it. It was flickering, but its heat was evident.

"This is different."

Creating fire with cursed energy and doing it with chakra also felt strange.

He could still use the divine flame, but he could also use "fire" without it, simply by manipulating the chakra to adopt its properties.

Something almost impossible to do with conventional cursed energy unless you had some innate technique.

Chakra, by definition, was more "controllable and moldable." Cursed energy was like electricity, volatile and difficult to control, its properties almost fixed, easily capable of harming oneself if not careful.

Proper control was always necessary to use it correctly.

Chakra… Even if you didn't have great control, it was fine. Your own chakra wouldn't harm you unless you intended it to.

Of course, this could give the illusion that chakra was safer, but that notion couldn't be further from the truth.

Sukuna pointed his finger, and a weak, thin thread of fire was shot at high speed, forcefully breaking through the air and hitting a large rock in the distance. The thread pierced through it easily as if it were a piercing projectile. Then the rock began to glow red-hot in less than a second, and in the next instant, it exploded into a thousand pieces.

Sukuna looked at his finger more closely again.

"This energy is more destructive." He didn't know if it was because it was a combination of physical and spiritual energy or maybe something else, but the point was that its potency was much greater than that of cursed energy.

The fire shouldn't even have been able to pierce that rock. It was fire; melting the rock was fine, which was what he intended to do in the first place, but passing through it? Making it explode? Where the hell did that kinetic energy come from?

"Throwing nuclear explosions around like firecrackers, huh?" It made more sense now. If chakra could increase the destructiveness of something as simple as fire, then more advanced techniques and moves would undoubtedly be beyond this.

Not only that, the amount of energy needed was much less. Right now, he was still using the energy reserves his new body was born with, reserves so pathetic that his parents seemed like strong beings in comparison.

But despite that, Sukuna felt he could continue using this improvised, unnamed technique at least eight more times.

He did some basic calculations and a conversion based on what he knew so far.

"If this were my old world and my chakra were cursed energy, then I would currently have less than a quarter of the cursed energy of an average adult."

In his previous world, such an amount of energy was trash; it wouldn't be useful for anything.

"How interesting," he thought. How strong were the ninjas, really?

He made sure the fire didn't spread and began to return to the backyard of his parents' shop, where they had left him to play alone for a while.

Another different thing in this world was the treatment of infants. Who the hell leaves a little over 3-year-old child completely alone? Well, apparently, such a practice was normal in this place.

When he reached the yard, he heard some commotion in the streets of Konoha. Interested, he entered the shop and looked through one of its windows.

Listening to the idle chatter of people passing by on the main street, he learned what it was all about.

It seemed that ninjas from another village had arrived in Konoha to sign an agreement. He began to probe his mind until a name reached the tip of his tongue.

"Kumo?" He savored the name in his mouth; there was something about it, something he should remember.

"Kidnapping" Some images came to his mind, and then he had a vague idea that ended up disappointing him.

"How boring," he hoped it would be something different, but a matter that would resolve itself didn't interest him.

Of course, if he left it as it was, then a child would grow up without a father, but he didn't care enough to do anything about it.

Or maybe he would do something just to entertain himself.

"What should I do?" He had no objectives. Of course, there was the whole matter of defeating Mahoraga, but aside from that, he had no significant goals. His new life lacked meaning.

He didn't know if he wanted to change something or do anything at all.

The fate of this world, should he interfere?

He looked at the blue sky thoughtfully, he would meditate on it a little longer.

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Night.

Sukuna adjusted the wooden mask on his face; it was a bit big, but it would have to work for now. He looked at the full moon in the sky and settled into his position, one that gave him a clear view of the Hyuuga clan compound.

He wasn't here to interfere but to observe. He hadn't yet decided if he would change anything; he really didn't care if things remained as they should, but what he was interested in was answering one of his doubts.

How strong were the ninjas?

He deliberately chose a tall house with several inhabitants and suppressed his chakra as best he could. Finding the place had been both easier and harder than expected; with how big the village was, he had to go far from his home, so if he had to run, he couldn't return quickly.

Therefore, the best option was to pretend to be one of the local inhabitants. He was just a child with "little chakra"; who could suspect him?

"Should be fine, right?" he couldn't help but wonder. He didn't remember everything about the Hyuuga clan, but he knew the basics, their special eyes being one of those things.

360-degree vision, seeing through objects and bodies, and long-distance vision of at least hundreds of meters or several kilometers.

He was missing details, but that was all he could recall about them at the moment.

The problem was that long-distance vision. He didn't know how it worked, which was why he didn't get any closer.

"Oh, it's starting," he settled into his spot and watched while he seriously focused on his sixth sense, spiritual perception.

In his previous world, spiritual perception was something all sorcerers needed in one way or another. It allowed them to see cursed spirits while also perceiving cursed energy.

Sukuna had worked hard on this ability to the point of turning it into a sixth sense that he could use actively when needed. And although it was now chakra and not cursed energy, it didn't make it any less effective.

"Eh, it's quite strong," he saw the Hyuuga clan member stepping out and standing in front of the kidnapper, who now carried the clan's princess.

He could easily gauge the amount of chakra in both and knew the kidnapper was going to die quickly.

Disappointing.

Sukuna patiently waited for the moment, and when it came, he had to blink several times.

He almost missed it. In an instant, the distance between the two ninjas was closed, and the kidnapper died in less than a second.

Sukuna couldn't follow the movement with his eyes, only with his spiritual perception, and barely at that.

"Interesting," he could say it was due to his current weakened state. Special body or not, he was still an infant just over three years old.

But his perception ability wasn't limited by his physical state.

First grade? No, too low, more like special grade, at least in speed, maybe more.

He hadn't seen enough to make an exact calculation, but he had seen enough to know that not intervening had been a good idea.

"Chakra doesn't just make techniques stronger," those who use chakra to enhance and empower their bodies are much stronger as well.

However, the way they used chakra to enhance their bodies was less efficient.

They were simply doing something wrong. If that Kumo ninja had reinforced his body properly, he could have survived a few more moves.

And if the Hyuuga clan member had used his chakra not just for a momentary speed boost but for proper muscle reinforcement, he could have defeated the Kumo ninja without needing to kill him.

"Seems like I need to go to school," he needed to learn and understand all aspects of this world better, especially the ninjas.

Without further thought, he turned around and started to leave. He had seen everything he needed.

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"Ninja school?" Mebuki blinked and looked at her little son. Where had this idea come from?

"I heard it from some kids at the park, I want to be a ninja," Sukuna was straightforward. There was no need to beat around the bush. Mebuki didn't know what to say, so she turned to look at her husband, who also had a worried look on his face.

Maybe at another time, they would be less concerned, but Konoha was not peaceful at the moment. The death of the Kumo ambassador had caused tensions between the two ninja villages to skyrocket.

There was talk of another war, even though no one wanted one.

If their son embarked on the path of a ninja now...

"It's a bit early for that, Sukuna-chan. You're still very young. Enrollment doesn't start until age five," his father spoke kindly, trying to persuade him.

Sukuna remained silent. Well, he had forgotten that part. Wasn't there supposed to be a guy who graduated at 5 years old? How do you graduate at the same age you enter?

Interpreting his silence as stubbornness, his mother knelt down to look at him and spoke with comforting words.

"Don't worry, Sukuna-chan. The academy isn't going anywhere. For now, you can keep having fun. I heard they finished building a new, big park in the center of the village. Why don't you go there and play with the other kids?" his mother offered, and Sukuna could only sigh and nod. He said goodbye to them, not without getting his "allowance" first.

As he left his house, he looked at the village streets, pondering his next actions. He couldn't force his way into the academy, so he could only use his Plan B.

Find out where the library is and steal what you need.

Although that might be a bit difficult since Konoha was on high alert after the incident with Kumo.

"I wish I had kept sleeping," being a kid sucked.

Well, this would work too. It was time to try out these chakra exercises he remembered: walking on trees and walking on water. He would see how difficult they were; at least they would be useful skills.

He walked to the newly built "park," and when he arrived there half an hour later, he couldn't help but feel disappointed. It was more of a playground for children than a real park.

He thought he saw some familiar faces but decided to ignore them for now. Instead, he headed to a more secluded spot.

"There must be a place here where I can practice," he began walking among the trees, venturing into one of the many forests surrounding the village. Konoha was truly a place hidden among the leaves, as there were lots of "forests" and trees everywhere, providing plenty of places for privacy.

Well, if there weren't any ninjas nearby, of course.

Just to check, he focused on his spiritual perception. When he didn't use it actively, his spiritual perception only served as a much less detailed passive sensor, and if he wanted to really sense things in detail, he had to concentrate.

That's why it was only now that he noticed a huge amount of chakra not far from him. It was inactive chakra that wasn't yet interacting with the surrounding area, but it was undoubtedly there.

"Is not a ninja," once chakra starts being trained, it leaves traces outside the body. Chakra that has never been used remains inside the body.

He debated whether he should investigate until he felt something else.

"Negative emotions?" And a large amount...

His figure became blurry, disappearing from his previous spot, and soon he found himself on the branch of a large tree, looking towards the concentration of chakra and negative emotions.

It seemed he had found the first interesting thing in this place.

The soft crying that had been flooding the area suddenly stopped, and a pair of sky-blue eyes turned to look in his direction.

Had they noticed him? Of course, he hadn't been suppressing his chakra, but it seemed the perception of his target was much better than expected—a unique ability?

"H-how did you get up there?!" The shrill voice was a bit annoying but not unbearable. Sukuna crossed his arms over his chest and spoke casually.

"Because I can fly," he lied.

The already large eyes widened even more with astonishment.

"Really?!"

"No." The little blond boy froze at his response.

"Y-you!" and now there was a bit of anger.

Sukuna jumped down, finally landing on the ground not far from his target.

"Whoa!" The boy seemed surprised, and Sukuna was about to say something else but stopped. He inspected his target more closely, particularly his face. His features were much more delicate than they should be—something was wrong here.

"Why are you a girl?" he couldn't help but ask.

Wait, what was his surname again? Only now did Sukuna begin to recall the most useless and annoying character that ever existed, at least in his opinion.

Remembering the pink hair, green eyes, and the insignificant amount of chakra his body currently had, he couldn't help but curse inwardly, realizing what had happened.

"Hey! What do you mean by that!" The girl stood up, looking more angry than before and pointing her finger at him.

Well, this changed things; in fact, it made things more interesting. What else had changed?

"Hey, what's your name, brat?" he asked directly.

"Eh?" The girl blinked; this was the first time a boy her age had asked for her name. Still angry but mostly confused, she introduced herself directly.

"Naruko, Uzumaki Naruko."

Sukuna studied her for a moment. Were all the children in this world strange, or had he simply not interacted with enough kids in his two previous lives?

"Your name," she suddenly said, drawing Sukuna's attention back to her.

She had introduced herself, so he should do the same, right? At least that's what the girl thought.

"Sukuna, just call me Sukuna." He didn't like his last name; it didn't even go well with his first name.

Just Sukuna? Naruko didn't think much of it and simply accepted it. She was about to say something else but suddenly went quiet. What came next? This was the first time she had gotten this far.

"Why are you here?" Sukuna asked suddenly. Wasn't she something super important? You know, having a giant fox inside her stomach. There should be at least a dozen ninjas guarding her, right? So why was she here alone?

That was one of the reasons Sukuna hadn't bothered to find her before. He didn't want to draw that much attention just yet.

Naruko frowned, her expression darkening as she remembered what had happened.

"No one wants me around," she said quietly, and that was enough for Sukuna to figure out the rest. She had probably come to see the new park, but the parents of the other children made sure to exclude her or something like that.

Even he had heard the rumors the villagers whispered. It was hard not to.

Still, that didn't explain why there were no ninjas guarding her. He probably couldn't figure that out for now, and he doubted she had any idea that there should be ninjas around protecting her, so asking her would be useless.

He walked up to the girl and placed his hand on her head, ruffling her already untamable blonde hair. It was softer than it looked.

"I see, then ignore them. Ants are just nuisances you should crush if they mess with you." He deliberately used a bit of his ability to absorb negative emotions, but only enough to avoid hearing more crying and without risking another part of his body turning to stone.

"Ants?" She asked, looking up to meet his eyes. She didn't try to move away. It was the first time someone had patted her head. It was strangely relaxing and somehow made her feel less sad.

"Uh, ignore that for now. You seem hungry." As he finished saying this, a growl could be heard from the girl's stomach.

Naruko's eyes widened, and she blushed a bit, wrapping both hands over her stomach. She hadn't eaten anything all day.

"Come on, there should be a river nearby." Sukuna could smell the scent of water and fish coming from somewhere deeper in the forest, so he started walking in that direction.

The girl blinked, confused, processing his words. Did he just tell her to go with him?

Sukuna stopped and looked back at her when he noticed she was still in place.

"What are you waiting for?"

Her eyes widened in surprise, realizing that he did, in fact, want her to come with him. She quickly nodded, a smile starting to form on her face, and almost tripping, she began to run toward him.

Sukuna nodded at her and continued walking.

He still didn't know what his plans or goals in this world would be beyond surviving and living as he pleased, but if Sukuna knew one thing, it was that he would never die such a pathetic death again.

No matter what it took, he would seize all the advantages this world had to offer. And if the world offered its "protagonist" to him on a silver platter, who was he to refuse? Having a super weapon at your side was always the winning option.

He would deal with the possible consequences later.

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Note:

I underestimated the effort it would take to explain some things. I could simply say, "It works," but that feels too empty. The childhood arc will probably last a bit longer since there are still things I want to write before getting to the start of the series.