Naruto: Pride - chapter 2 (Patreon)

Pride - Day 1

After my… sudden awakening at the hands of a strange woman, I was left with many questions, but no answers, something to look into on a later date.

Regarding my situation, I was no longer an Homunculus, at least not fully, my body had changed to… that of a human being, utterly disgusting, but even with my human condition, I had access to my shadows, meaning at the very least I would be able to deal with my situation a little bit better.

As for the woman carrying me out of the hospital, I can only assume she is what humans call a mother, in this specific case, my mother, not that it was hard to come to that conclusion, her body language and tone with me reminded me of how Wrath’s wife treated me to some extent. As for my biological father, he seemed bored and excited, I am not sure how those two emotions can mix, but I don’t care either.

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Pride - 1 Month

It’s been one month since my nightmare began, having the body of a human, it’s already a punishment as it is, but being a human baby, which by all means is the pinnacle of uselessness, it’s torture, having to rely on others for the most basic things it’s… I rather deal with Gluttony and his stupidity.

But I suppose this month has proved to be fruitful in a way, I have discovered more about my whereabouts, and my supposed new family, the place where I seem to be, looks to be located in nation of Xing, though I am not entirely sure, their language and fight style are a bit different to that of Greed’s vessel, but that could attributed to the area I am belonging to a xing originated clan I didn’t encounter during my lifetime.

As for my supposed family, I have discovered a lot about them, for what I gathered they seem to be part of a clan, the Nara clan, a clan apparently known for their great intellect, that is only overshadowed by their laziness, in short, the place was full of people that reminded me of Sloth.

Beyond that, I haven’t been able to acquire much information, mostly because the moment I realized I might be in Xing, I decided to keep a low profile until my current vessel was old enough to deal with any attackers.

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Pride - 6 Month

Six months after my… birth, I suddenly discovered I had a big brother, to be completely fair I just assumed the kid was an orphan living next door, or a new type of house plant, he barely moves, and when he does is to change the place he was sleeping, his name is Shikamaru Nara, and while he’s even more Slothful than Sloth himself, he seems to be highly intelligent, even for human standards.

Well, then again, everyone in this clan seems to be annoyingly smart, except for my mother, she seems average enough.

Anywho, Shikamaru is three years older than me and seems to be… rather uninterested in my existence, which is something I am rather thankful for. I already have enough humiliation with the fact two lowly humans have to change my diapers because my vessel can’t follow my commands all that well yet, and I don’t want to increase that number to three.

Putting aside my humiliation for now, I have discovered new things about my current situation. For one, I no longer think I am in Xing, while the architecture and language match, with slight differences in the dialect, the culture seems to be different.

Their warriors seem to be different, and their ruling system seems to be different. From what I have gathered, they… follow someone called the Hokage, and someone called the Fire Daimyō. I am not sure why this place has two rulers, further analysis is required.

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Pride - 1 Year

I am now one year old, and finally have conquered my vessel, and I am now able to fulfill my disgusting human needs without assistance from anybody, humans are truly disgusting.

As for communication, I have been able to communicate since I was three months old, but I have decided to keep my intellectual development to that of a normal baby, to avoid unnecessary confrontations.

On another note, my brother… seems to have taken a liking to me, one I don’t understand how it even began, we simply ignored each other, and now the little brat likes to… play with me, and the worse part is, I have to pretend I like it and play along whatever childish games he has in mind, after all, what baby doesn’t like to play? That is the type of question I don’t want them asking.

But I suppose my hours of torture with Shikamaru had proven to be, quite helpful, as thanks to that I have discovered even more about my whereabouts and my clan.

Apparently the clan I had been reborn into uses, ironically, shadows to fight their enemies, unlike mine their shadows seemed to be more on the defensive side, meaning most of the techniques I have seen are intended to suppress their enemy, but not to kill them, a waste of time if you ask me.

But what really caught my eye, was the fact whatever they were doing, didn’t seem to be alchemy, at least not in the traditional way, none of the people I have spied on used transmutation circles, but the exchange was there… meaning they were transmuting their energy in some way, perhaps those hand signs they would do before the technique had something to do with it, but this only brought more questions, had they seen the Truth? If so, was that how they managed to circumvent the transmutation circle? And what exactly are they exchanging for their desired result?

“Your little brother is as cute as ever!” Ino, the vain of my existence cooed, bringing me out of my train of thought. I hated the fact she treated me like a fool, she would get hers… and she would not see it coming.

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Pride - 2 Year

I can now finally communicate without raising some many red flags that I might as well start communicating on semaphore. And while two years is young for certain people to be able to speak like an adult with a coherent dialect with undersable pronunciation, it was normal for the Nara clan, and that’s what I was striving to be for now, normal under their standards.

Things beyond my freedom to speak haven’t changed that much, Shikamaru keeps bothering to accompany him to his play dates with his… friends, which I have now discovered the reason why Shikamaru took a liking to me a year ago… because he needed a sacrificial lamb to keep the psychopath of Ino entertained while he napped all day, and apparently I was the perfect lamb for the slaughter, because Ino loved carrying me around.

“Mom, can I take Hokori with me today too?” Shikamaru asked, and I smiled, if he wanted to play this game, two could do it.

“I wanna stay with you mommy,” I had more than enough practice being what humans call, adorable.

“Aww… sorry Shika, Hikaru wants to stay with mommy,” Mother cooed, hm, mission accomplished, go and suffer under Ino’s grasp, human.

“Can I stay then… I would miss my little brother… very much,” Shikamaru grinned ever so slightly towards my direction, that little bastard, “I would also miss you mommy,”

“Aww, no… I’m not an idiot Shika… I can see right through you,” Hm, it seems this woman is perhaps beyond average.

“He did it, and you let him get away with it,” Shikamaru pouted.

“I know, but he’s adorable,” wait, she also saw through me, this is insulting… I better keep an eye on her, it seems my analysis of her capabilities were wrong.

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Pride - 3 Year

Year three has been filled with epiphanies, for one I now fully understood how the political system of this country worked, the Hokage was the military leader while the Fire Daimyō was more of a… political figure that gave the country money.

As for their weird alchemy, it’s called ninjutsu, apparently they mold something inside them called chakra to get the desired result, depending on what they want, the bigger the price on chakra will be, in short it was like alchemy, but with a few extra steps.

On a entirely different note, it seems I also have chakra, and my father and mother have started to teach me how to tap into that energy, which was surprisingly easy, I can only imagine what I will be able to do… the first Homunculus, now also being the first Homunculus to do alchemy, it somehow feels fitting, perhaps I would get to reach the gate of Truth, to find out why exactly I had been given this second chance.

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Pride - 4 Year

Controlling my chakra was in essence pretty simple, but even then it was rather tiring, apparently thanks to my age, my reserves were small, and that limited my time to experiment on the strange energy, so far experimentation has proven I can stick to walls if I balance the energy with enough precision, making me wonder, what other places can I stick to if I balance my energy? Air? Water? Further experimentation is required.

As of now, I can barely keep myself on a walk for a few minutes before my chakra reserves get dangerously low, which has proven that chakra is directly correlated to life energy, meaning using too much chakra at once can ultimately lead to my doom.

As for my surrogate family, mother and father seemed to be… scared of my development, which was something I didn’t expect, had my experimentation go beyond their expectations? Had I misread their expectations after they taught me the leaf chakra exercise?

No… it seemed to be something else, they weren’t afraid or angry at me, but at something I might have triggered, it’s like they now expect a visit from someone they don’t want to see.

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Pride - 5 Year

I soon discovered what my surrogate family was so anxious about, a few months after I demonstrated my developments, a man came to talk with my father, his name, Danzo Shimura, and I could see why they were nervous. His aura was surprisingly ominous for a human.

It seemed the man, wanted to personally train me, this enraged my mother, who basically kicked the old man out of the house, saying she would be talking with the Hokage about this.

Danzo smiled at her, and for a second looked at me before leaving, and I knew, I would see him again, that much was certain, now that question was? Would I kill him?

After that, time passed, and I turned five, my body seemed to be growing like a normal human, perhaps I was now an Homunculus with a body like Wrath, anyway… Now that I was five, and my brother was eight, he started going to something called the ninja academy, where he would be teached more about ninjutsu and other ninja arts as they called it.

I was in a way intrigued about that place, and the knowledge it could grant me, at least it would be more so that the one I am getting on my supposed clan, that after the incident with Danzo, had stopped giving me any valuable lessons, though even without their resources, I had advance on my experimentation.

I could now walk on water, with close to no effort for more than an hour without exerting my chakra reserves. Beyond that, I had also experimented with my shadows, and what effect chakra would have on them in private, and so far, the results had been… very favorable, with chakra their overall strength increased by a lot, moving faster, cutting deeper and resisting more, the downside was unlike the water walking technique, or the tree walking one, this shadow enhancing one consumed my chakra rather fast.

I blame my chakra reserves for this development, even though according to my father I have an abnormally high amount of chakra for my age, on Genin level, apparently, not entirely sure what that means.

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Pride - 6 Year

I have been enrolled in the academy, earlier than expected, all because one night the Hokage came to our house and said the only way to keep Danzo away from me was to enroll me, not sure how that exactly works, killing him seems like a much more effective solution, but I doubt these simpletons would listen to me, anyways my surrogate family accepted, and I will be attending the ninja academy, with the new class of eight years old.

Meaning Shikamaru and his annoying friends would be a year ahead of me, meaning the overly affectionate psychopath of Ino would be far away from me, that’s already a win.

“You can say no,” Mother reminded me.

“But I think it will be lots of fun! New friends! New jutsus!” I smiled, I had to play my happy child persona to soothe her fragile human mind.

“You are so good at acting,” Mother smiled, “You must have gotten than from me,”

How can she keep seeing right through my act, well… not all, but still, this is getting infuriating… “He must have, I don’t have an acting bone on my body,” the lazy man I had the disgrace of calling my father chuckled in the back.

“Fine, life here is getting rather boring, and the academy looks like a good change,” I sighed, giving her a half truth.

“If only Shikamaru had that attitude,” Mother sighed, “Oh well… if you think you are ready, I won’t hold my cute baby back,” she cooed, with a smile.

“Thanks,” I mouthed, wondering if the academy would satisfy my curiosity of this strange world, or would it fail to live up to my expectations.