WRIN - Chapter 18 - Chakra Theory and First D Rank Mission (Patreon)

(Word Count: 3,013)

The very next morning, after my morning jog around the village, I made my way out to the team training grounds. There was still another hour or two for Kurenai and Shizune to get here, so I decided to work on my personal project. 

By now, I was really good at chakra control. With shape transformation, unless it was something insane like the pure chakra fuinjutsu, it was very likely that I could do it. My nature transformation was pretty good as well. Even if I didn't have any jutsu using them, I could already turn my chakra nature to earth, yin, yang, water, fire, and air. I was really only missing lightning, but that was always going to be the hardest one to get, seeing as it goes directly against my earth.

But that's not what I wanted to focus on. It was time to try dark chakra.

Chakra was the mixture of spiritual/mental energy and physical energy. My theory was that if I change something about these two energies, I could change the type of chakra I would get. In the movie that introduced dark chakra, the doctor went on to talk about negative emotions and how it was the pain and suffering of villagers that he collected to make it.

So, I'll start with that.

Instead of just kneading together normal, unfiltered spiritual energy, with the physical, I'll try to use only my negative emotions. I sat down and began meditating on my hatred towards Danzo, all of the pain I felt down in the ROOT base, my sadness and losses, my fears, my jealousy, my lust, my greed for power, my pride.

I took all of those feelings and began kneading it together with my physical energy in my chakra center. Slowly but surely, there was a tiny little nugget of black chakra forming in my center. I kept going, until about a fourth of my chakra was this dark chakra.

That's when I noticed something odd. I felt… cold. I immediately stopped making the dark chakra and analyzed what I was feeling. I was detached from all of my emotions, and nothing around me felt real. Even noticing this, I knew I should probably be panicking, but I just didn't care. In a purely logical way of thinking, I noted that I had most likely unbalanced my mind from drawing only on the negative half of my spiritual energies. This might be why that doctor chose to gather negative emotions from the surrounding people.

But if that was the case, and I was only left with the positive half of my spiritual energy, shouldn't I only be feeling positive emotions?

I immediately dispersed the dark chakra, and began trying to knead new chakra, this time using only the positive emotions. But I couldn't bring myself to summon those emotions.

I lay there in a sort of unfeeling fugue state for another hour. Gradually over time I felt my emotions come back to me. By the time Kurenai and Shizune showed up, I was back to normal, though I was somehow even more mentally exhausted than if I had spent all of my chakra.

What had happened? I may have been studying medicine all my life, but I was no psychologist. The Yamanaka might have answers, but the thought of asking them curled my stomach. There was no way I was going to be talking to them. I'll just go pick up a textbook somewhere.

I was laying on the ground when the girls showed up, and they came over concerned. “Sakai? Are you okay? You didn't hurt yourself, did you?” Kurenai asked.

I gave a thumbs up. “Nope! I'm all good. Just didn't get enough sleep last night.” 

I sat up with a groan. “Anyway, are you girls ready for your tree walking?” They nodded. “Actually, I noticed yesterday that both of you can already walk up the tree, right? You were even being chased around by Tsunade, and you only fell a couple of times. That's really good. I think you can already move on to water walking.”

“You really think so?” Shizune asked.

“Yup! I hope you're ready to get drenched, because you're going to be falling into the water a lot.”

“Um, can I go and get changed into my swimsuit? I'd rather not soak my clothes.” Shizune asked.

“Oh, yeah. That’s a good idea. Yeah, why don't you two go back and bring your swimsuits, and meet me over there by the river,” I said.

Just 30 minutes later, we met at the small river that flowed lazily through several of the training grounds. All three of us in our swimsuits. Shizune and Kurenai were in one piece bathing suits, and I was in trunks and a T-shirt. I felt I might as well change to, but I wasn’t about to be showing off all my scars, though some were visible on my arms and legs.

I stepped out onto the water. “Water walking works on the same principles as tree walking does. The difference is that the water moves and shifts, so instead of the constant output tree walking needs, you have to adjust your chakra to match the water. Also, since water's not solid, you'll need to output a lot more chakra. Now it’s your turn.”

Kurenai hesitantly stepped out, and immediately just plunged into the water. Shizune saw this and when she stepped onto the water, she used too much chakra and it exploded around her, causing her to fall in as well. The water sprayed me, getting me soaked.

They both came out of the water sputtering.

“You both know what went wrong, right?”

They nodded, and climbed out to try again. I went ahead and walked off to the side, and began studying the Byakugou Seal again. I still wasn’t anywhere near completely understanding all of the pieces. Though I may have to just draw it all out to get a good visual.

Hours passed, with them practicing, and me studying, before we called it quits.

It was about lunch time anyway.

“Hey, Sakai, we were wanting to go do a D rank mission as a team this afternoon. What do you think?” Shizune asked.

“That does sound like a good idea,” I agreed. I needed to start making some money, and our team did need to start putting some missions under our belt for experience. “Why don’t we head back home to shower and change back to our ninja gear and after lunch we can meet up at the Hokage’s building.”

That’s what we did. About an hour later, we met at the Hokage building.

“What type of mission should we look for?” Shizune asked.

“It'll probably be some sort of errand that needs to be done in the village. Paint some fences, find a cat, pull some weeds,” I said.

“Eh? But we're ninjas?” Shizune was shocked. It was very different from the image she had of the shinobi. She grew up with stories about Lady Tsunade and the Sannin, her uncle Dan Kato, and the White Fang.

I shrugged. “We won't be getting any combat missions for a while. Right now, our focus is building up teamwork and discipline. That comes from training together and a lot of menial labor. That's why most D rank missions are just chores. Besides, without Tsunade here, there's no way they would let us take anything that might get complicated.”

“That makes sense,” Kurenai said.

“Is there a D rank for taking care of animals?” Shizune asked.

“Let's go find out.”

Contrary to one might think, we didn't have to get a mission from the hokage each and every time we wanted one. That was just something we saw in the anime because the main POV followed the team with a jinchuriki. The hokage had to be very careful about which missions Naruto went on.

There were two ways to get a mission. The first way was the hokage ordering your team to go on a mission. The second way was what we were doing now. Without an emergency, teams had to apply to receive a mission and then those working the mission assignment desk would check which missions are available and assign you one. Unfortunately, teams couldn't pick what missions they got.

We went up to the help desk, which was a long table shaped like a bent “L” and had 4 guys behind it.

As the unofficial leader of Team 9, I stepped forward. “Team 9 requesting a mission!”

The first guy scowled at the three of us. “And where is your Jonin Captain? Lady Tsunade should be here with you on your missions!”

“Lady Tsunade is busy managing the hospital and performing life saving surgeries. She told us to come and get some D ranks done on our own. Unless you'd like to go and tell her her time is better spent watching us weed a garden or paint a fence?” I asked.

“Ah… No, that's not what I meant,” the man backpedaled.

“Then, if you would, what mission is available for us to do? There wouldn't happen to be one for taking care of an animal, would there?

“Why don't we let them take this one?” A different man behind the desk offered the first man a sheet of paper. He looked it over and nodded.

“Here, Team 9 is assigned to find the lost cat Tora. You have until the end of the day to find and retrieve the cat in one piece. Here are the details for you to go over.”

I blinked in surprise. It was years before Naruto was even born, and we still had to deal with that cat? Was this some predecessor?

Shizune smiled and took the paper. “Thank you!”

We went outside and Shizune read the paper for us. “Let's see here… it says Tora is an all brown cat and he can be identified by the red bow around his right ear. If we can find him, it's a 15,000 ryō reward. Split 3 ways, that's 5,000 ryō for each of us!”

It wasn't a lot. It was about the price a meal at Yakiniku Q would cost. But if they were quick, a team could get several D ranks in a single day. Though if this Tora cat was as tricky as the one shown in the anime, then we wouldn't be getting a second mission today.

“Alright, how do you think we should start this?” I asked the girls.

“I think we should check out some of the shadier places that are closer to any streets with restaurants on them. Tora might be in some of the alleys,” Shizune suggested. She obviously knew a decent amount about animals.

“We should split up to cover more ground. We can use our radios to tell each other if we spot him, and coordinate from there,” Kurenai said.

“That sounds good. Let's do that.”

Technology in this world was roughly around the time of the early 1930-70's, but more militant. We had televisions, radio stations, cinema, and home phones. Ninja headquarters and information centers had computers, but they were large pieces of machinery and not accessible to the public. Personal cell phones weren't a thing yet

When we were assigned a team, we were given team radios to communicate within the village. Yet, because those signals can easily be picked up and traced, there is a tech-blackout when going on a mission. While on missions, you couldn't use anything that emitted a signal.

It was only a matter of time before the internet was created and people started making memes.

We split up and began walking the streets, checking out every nook and cranny that had a bit of shade. It was about an hour later when my radio crackled to life. Kurenai's voice came through. “Tora spotted! He's heading down an alleyway off of 8th street, heading towards 10th!”

That was south of here about 4 blocks down. I changed direction and began running to the area. “Roger that. Approaching from the North.”

“Approaching from the East!” Shizune said.

I kept to the rooftops, though I didn't use the Body Flicker, just in case I went too fast and passed the cat. Soon enough, I saw them straight ahead. Running down one alleyway, with Kurenai hot in pursuit, was a young Tora. 

Shizune came around the corner just in time for Tora to jump above her. After all of that Taijutsu training I endured with the Might family, there was no way I was going to let a young cat escape me once I've seen it.

I sprinted forward and caught the cat while it was still in the air. It yowled desperately, trying to claw me and escape, but I held it in an iron grip. With a quick nerve strike, courtesy of my Iryojutsu, I put the cat to sleep.

Kurenai caught up to us. She wasn't out of breath, but her cheeks were flushed from the adrenaline. “You caught him! Good job!”

Shizune looked at the cat, troubled. “What did you do to him?”

“I used a nerve strike to knock him unconscious. Don't worry, he'll wake up in an hour or two without any problem,” I explained. “When a ninja knows the nervous system so well, he can learn how to use it to his advantage. You'll be able to learn this too.”

“Well, I guess we're done with the mission then,” Kurenai said.

“Yeah, we finished it way faster than I had thought we would,” Shizune said.

“Let's go return him to his owner,” I said, holding the cat in my arms.

After we turned the mission in, and 5,000 ryō richer, we all split up to head home. I went to the ninja library to see if I could find anything in psychology that would explain the incident from this morning.

Eventually,  I did find something. It was written by one of the Yamanaka members. He explained that the mind is in three parts: the Id, Ego, and Superego.

The Id is the emotion, the passion. It seeks pleasure and avoids pain. It is the unconscious thinking that we are born with. The Superego is the preconscious learned morals and social ideals. It was the rigid discipline of the mind. The Ego is the bridge between them, and acts as a mediator, the rational part of the psyche.

The Id reminded me of the episode in Naruto with the young girl from the Kurama clan. Her Id was too powerful and went rampant, capturing people around her in a genjutsu so powerful it could cause physical harm. 

When I drew on my negative emotions, I had probably drawn on my Id, leaving me with only the Superego and Ego, which is why I felt purely logical and detached from my emotions. Does that mean if I try the opposite, I would draw on my Superego, leaving me with only the Id, and become too emotional without inhibitions? I'd rather not find out… perhaps if I did it in moderation, I could get away with only slightly feeling the effects and still be able to control myself.

Would doing that give me the chakra that the monks use? It was called the gift of the hermit group. But they didn't go crazy with it, right? Did they train their Superego, or mental discipline, to such an extent that they could then use it to create this chakra, and it would only serve to return them to a more balanced state? The monks are known for their rigorous daily training. That did sound like it was lining up.

But what about the positive emotions? That didn't sound like what the monks were doing. It sounded like another half of Id. When I had gone all cold and logical, I wasn't just detached from the negative emotions, it was the positive as well. Maybe this was the hypothesized light chakra, made exactly the same way as the dark chakra, just using the positive emotions. I would have to test it out.

Going along those lines, could I teach the Kurama girl how to draw from her Id to make dark chakra to help her balance her mind? That seemed like free power to me.

To summarize my theories, I listed them out:

Normal spiritual energy and Physical energy gave normal chakra.

Negative emotions from the Id and Physical energy gave dark chakra.

Positive emotions from the Id and Physical energy gave light chakra.

Rigorous mental discipline from the Superego and Physical energy gave the Gift of the Hermit Group.

Would there be something for the ego? Maybe, but ego was my conscious thought. I don't think I wanted to use that at all, so I would just have to shelf that one. I don’t want to use up my conscious thoughts and become a mindless robot or something.

All of this sounded like it was just mental energy and physical energy. Where was the spiritual energy? I tried thinking through what I remember of the anime and movies. Demons were a thing. There was also that priestess. My bet was their chakra types included actual spiritual energy.

Were there types of physical energy I could use? The only thing I could think of was that this is where bloodlines came in. Maybe it's this different physical energy that comes from one's bloodlines that allows kekkei genkai. It might also be the key to the whole “only my children can unlock this” type of seal.

All of these different types of chakra, and that wasn’t including Natural Energy, Life Energy of the Galel stones, the chakra of the dragon vein, and that energy from the meteor that made star chakra.

A lot to think about. There was a lot to test, and from the mishap from this morning, it was clear I would have to proceed with extreme caution. The last thing I wanted to do was mentally or spiritually cripple myself.