SO: CHAPTER 3 (Patreon)

Chapter 3

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'So cringe.'

Raki's stomach rumbled and she grunted softly.

Today was 31st January of year 100 of the new calendar. All orphans of Konohagakure are provided with rations at the start of each month, and oftentimes those rations would run out before the next batch arrives.

And that's what happened with Raki now.

There's only one day left until the new month's rations would be delivered, but Raki's current supplies were already finished. So even though she was hungrier than ever after exhausting her chakra like that, she couldn't do anything but drink water.

This reminded her of the early time of her life when she was a nobody who lived in a wooden hut. It was only when she was 7 years old that her life took a turn for the best because her brother took control of a huge island filled with lots of resources. Looking back, those times seemed so… distant; yet, at the same time, it felt as if she had experienced that damn war just yesterday.

But honestly, for most of her life she lived better than anyone in this whole universe could even dream of.

"So annoying..."

That is precisely why this situation was very annoying for her.

Raki put a stop to those thoughts and jumped out from under her blanket. She had been trying to fall asleep, but she couldn’t because of her empty stomach. Instead, useless memories of a distant past were coming back to her.

She didn't want to think of that since it caused her to recall the faces of people who were no more. So… She was simply going to try something else.

"This is kinda dangerous since I’m pretty tired and have no energy left, but fuck it."

Her chakra pool was way too small for her to pass the incoming graduation exam. A student needed to demonstrate the three basic Jutsus perfectly to pass the exam and officially become a Genin. With her current Chakra reserves, she would be able to pull off one jutsu but would fail to do the other two.

That won't work. She must graduate.

She wasn't going to lock herself in that school for an entire year, that would be such a waste of time…

But how exactly could she increase her Chakra reserves?

Chakra is a mixture of physical and mental energy, so increasing either the strength of one's body or mind should increase their chakra reserves.

Increasing the body's constitution would need consistent and hard training. It's not something she could do right now, as it was a long process. That left her with another option...

Increasing her Mental Constitution.

Mental power is something that can grow by itself over time, as a person matures, or sometimes it can happen in a single night.

For someone like Raki who's been existing for eons, her mental prowess should have been beyond anyone in this world, but no, her brother managed to fuck around with that too, somehow.

But there's a catch.

Her mind, or in other words, her soul, is the same one she had since forever. Her body was replaced with a new one, but she still had her good old mind and soul, albeit weaker than ever.

'But exactly because of that, I have the opportunity for very fast growth.'

For instance, let's assume Random Guy-A is overweight and weighs 250 Kilos, and he begins to lose weight and becomes as lightweight as one Random Guy-B, who's been 40 kg, aka underweight the entirety of his life. If, for some reason, both Random Guy-A and Random Guy-B decided to gain lots of weight, and so they started eating much more than usual every day, after a little time skip, the first to reach the overweight category would be the guy who was previously overweight, aka Random Guy-A, and he would stay ahead of Guy-B in this weight gaining business by a large margin.

This happens because Random Guy-B's body weight limit has always been 40-kg, so he needs to break his limits everytime to gain even one kilogram of weight. On the other hand, Guy-A's body's limits were already set at 250-kg, so reaching that number would be many times easier for him than that other guy.

That is the exact same case for Raki's mental powers.

She was once powerful enough to destroy dimensions, realities, and multiverses all at once, with only her thoughts. So, her mental growth, compared to the people of this world, would be many, many, times higher and faster.

This basically meant that Raki could train her mind and gain mental strength at a crazy speed. That alone should increase her chakra pool by a lot, and she would probably catch up to the chakra levels of the infamous Tailed Beasts in  just a few years worth of training.

Raki had multiple ways to train her mind, but she found only one of them suitable for her current world, and situation, which was being a resource-less orphan with only a shelter and a monthly rations.

It was to make a [Mental Domain].

Also called a Mind Palace, and it wasn't anything revolutionary. In fact, as far as she could remember, people of this world were already familiar with this concept. The place where the Nine-Tailed Fox and Naruto first met—the sewer where Kurama was locked—was such a palace.

It was just that Raki was going to make a much, much, larger mind palace, big enough to be called a Domain using a technique that luckily she still retained in her memories.

Her mind set, Raki sat with her back straight on the bed and her legs crossed. This position wasn't a necessity, but it helped most people concentrate. It was so effective that even people like Buddha, who existed in nearly every universe, used this position when they meditated.

Then, taking a deep breath in… Raki started to play a little with her mind.

—★—

Hunger was the biggest problem that stood between her and her desired concentration, but after a while, it was easy to ignore it.

After that, she finally managed to delve deeper into her mind which was a large void filled with her memories floating about in the form of pictures, videos, and texts.

That was… enraging, and annoying. She knew she lost everything, but to actually look at her mental space that was once vast enough to be compared to a small multiverse, now not existing anymore along with all the things she created in here… She wanted to bash a certain someone's head against a concrete wall.

But she kept calm. Getting angry here would only break her concentration.

Her first job was to stay focused and grasp the control of this area of her Mental Space. It was a long and tedious process, but after a while, she finally felt it. She finally gained… control.

After that, she very slowly started to brighten the ever-present darkness looming over her mental world.

'For now, a garden should do…'

Raki softly thought in her mind, causing her voice to ring around the area since she was, well, in her own mind. Gradually, she started to take hold of the darkness, and started to turn it into a creamy-white color. Then, she added a mixture of white and yellow clouds, and in front of her eyes, the void slowly started to change into heaven, instead.

After that, she closed her 'eyes' and imagined a small piece of land, an island, with a hundred meters of radius floating above the nearly golden clouds. She imagined the surface of this island to be filled with soft and pleasing to the touch grass, and coupled it with a garden filled with hundreds of different kinds of flowers. There would be a big bonsai tree having the texture of the night sky, filled with thousands of brightly lit stars. A swinger will hang from the tree, soft yellow in colour, and at last the whole island will be filled with a soft-sounding melody.

Time passed so… slowly that it felt as if entire days had passed. Only and that did she open her 'eyes' again and found herself sitting on the swinger that hung from a tree that wasn't green, and instead was cosmic black with shining stars on it.

Raki softly got down from the swinger and landed on the soft grass below her.

It all felt so real.

The smell of the roses around her, the breeze of the wind hitting her hair, and the touch of the ground.

Raki still looked like a 12-year-old, and she kind of liked this form. It was just that she made herself look more beautiful, like her original form, countless times more gorgeous than her physical world counterpart who was meditating.

Raki rested her arms on her waist and stood proudly. She took a deep breath and a broad smile appeared on her face by itself.

"Mhmm…"

This was probably the girliest thing she has done in her entire life, but for now, this would do.

"It… almost feels like home."

The cloudy horizon looked heavenly. Exactly like the place she was born in.

"Ahh, I wanna spend my whole life here.  But I can't do that now, can I?"

Raki's voice ended with the loud ringing of her alarm clock, just as the space around her began to twitch, and she was back to reality in a heartbeat.

"Because, ugh, I have school in 30 minutes." Raki said, smiling while still managing to look pissed.

Everything that happened was basically like a dream, but unlike how a dream shatters when a person is about to wake up, this time a simple black hole-like portal opened up behind Raki and sucked her inside, leaving the place intact with only Raki's consciousness returning to reality.

Just like that, the initial prototype of Raki's Mental Domain was formed perfectly.

—★—

Hinata, like usual, woke up early and got freshened up. She ate diligently with her parents and practised the Gentle Fist technique under her father's strict supervision. And, as usual, he was disappointed and angry with her performance.

After another harsh scolding, she left for school.

...No, she ran for school.

'I am late today…!'

Hinata ran, almost tripping and crashing onto some people, but somehow managing to slip by the side and keep running.

Only five minutes were left until school was about to start, and she mustn't break her streak of always being on time…!

But… even though she was being careful to slip between the crowded street, her head unfortunately came crashing on another person.

""Ouch!""

With a loud thud, Hinata almost fell back, but caught herself at the last moment. Unfortunately, the situation wasn't so lucky for the other party, who was practically thrown back as if hit by a wind Jutsu.

"A-are you oka- wait, Raki?!" Hinata, who had immediately run towards the other party to help it get back up, yelled in shock as she gawked at the girl's face.

It was Raki.

Raki, who looked as if she had been starving for the past 3 years.

"W-what happened to you? Are you okay?!"

Hinata crouched down and helped Raki sit up with a soft moan.

"Ugh… it's you Hinata… fuck, I wanted to bash some skull." Raki gritted her teeth, rubbing her forehead as Hinata flinched back hearing her cursing. "Never mind my face, I just haven't eaten anything since yesterday because my rations ran out. Anyway, let's run to school together, I can't wait for that sweet lunch break."

"You haven't eaten?!" Hinata already forgot about Raki cursing and instead looked at her with a horrified expression. "R-Raki, it's not good for your health to not eat after exhausting your chakra like that! You might end up with great consequences, l-like not being able to use chakra anymore! More so, lunch is in around 6 hours from now. You might lose consciousness and straight up die if you don't eat for that long, you know?!"

"Hey," Raki scratched the back of her head. "I said my rations ran out. I don't have anyone I can borrow food from, you know?"

"T-that's true, sorry…" Hinata lowered her head. She knew it wasn't her fault, but she still felt guilty. Then her face suddenly brightened up as an idea struck her. "Ah! I know! Let me buy you some food!"

"Oh…" Raki looked surprised.

"W-what's wrong?"

At Hinata's question, Raki only smiled broadly.

"It's nothing. You're a good girl, Hinata."

"Uh…" Hinata blushed, looking away and twiddling the fingers of her two hands.

"Anyways, let's go! I am starving!" Raki grabbed Hinata's hands and ran towards one of the many food stalls.

...Only later did they realise, they were more than late for class. Luckily, it was Iruka who was in charge of today's class, so the two of them didn't think much of it and instead enjoyed their time giggling and laughing amongst themselves, and as they talked, Hinata's stuttering… slowly settled down.

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