I am now a shinobi. The kind from Naruto. Sort of. After eight months of reflection and working with that cool current, I suddenly realized its resemblance to chakra from the world of Naruto. Or something like Hamon from the first part of JoJo. Or Nen. Alright, I'm not really much of a shinobi. In short — there is some kind of energy in my body.
I tried hand seals from Naruto, the ones I could remember. The substance flowing through me showed no reaction to the positions of my hands and fingers. Possibly I was forming them incorrectly somehow.
But from now on I will call it chakra. My control over it within my body is already excellent — I can spin and direct this current wherever I want, even while in the pool actively pulling water with my arms. And this current clearly goes unnoticed by those around me, or is noticed, but both mother and grandfather simply ignore all its manifestations.
Speaking of which — any physical exertion becomes easier when I run chakra through my body, which is yet another pointer toward Naruto, or any other story involving inner energy.
And I even have a suspicion as to how all this happened, and who is to blame. Vaguely, I... don't remember, but I understand that after my first death I was knocked out of some cold and unpleasant place, and then I was born. My hypothesis is that a soul from another world collided with mine, somehow transferring into my soul something that acted upon the body and made it possible for chakra to form within it.
I didn't dwell much on the causes, since it's a pointless exercise. Not pointless, however — the attempt to release this energy from the body. Perhaps it isn't chakra at all but mana, and I am now a wizard.
— You're a wizard, Damian, a great wizard!
— The time has come to move on to serious training. — Ra's al Ghul announced to his grandson one day.
— So childhoood iss ovah. — the year-and-a-half-old child sighed sadly — Faawell, I won't fowget you.
— Such is our lot, grandson. To become my heir and continue my mission you must work tirelessly, and we have no free time.
— "You could at least ask my opinion on whether I want to become your heir or not!" — Damian fumed inwardly — "I don't want this!"
Damian had nowhere to go, so from that day the daily schedule changed. Morning exercise, four hours of pre-school education, afternoon training focused on agility and balance with no heavy muscular strain, three hours of tactical and strategic skill training through games, a two-hour afternoon nap, three hours of pre-school education, evening training focused on endurance, a massage, two hours of free time, sleep. Naturally, all this alongside five meals a day. The child had been weaned.
A dense schedule, perfectly calibrated to the body's biorhythm, with strict, rigid time divisions, stocked with ideal, balanced nutrition. Development of both body and mind.
And despite his reluctance to go along with his grandfather, despite his desire to idle about, Damian tackled all the tasks placed at his disposal with enthusiasm and full dedication. He had always dreamed of changing the life he had lived in the past. The legendary sport, self-improvement, a vibrant life — in general, what everyone dreamed of. But everyone waited for the right moment, for some ephemeral signal from the universe that would serve as a trigger. And what hint from the universe could be more vivid than your own death and rebirth?
Damian wanted to become the best version of himself, and now the excuses arising in his mind seemed petty — incomparable to the universe's hint. Damian worked harder than he ever had or anywhere, genuinely enjoying his astonishingly rapid progress. The first year.
After that the enthusiasm waned, and training became more and more tedious, more boring with each passing day — everything had descended into routine. Talia and Ra's noticed this, personally overseeing the training of their heir and offspring. So at a certain point the training changed, becoming somewhat more varied. Simple physical exercises were supplemented with the basics of hand-to-hand combat, combat with bladed weapons, and throwing — shuriken, kunai, needles, stones, grenades, anything that could be thrown.
The adults couldn't get enough of praising the child's remarkable comprehension and extremely rare tantrums.
The adults' quick response paid off: interest returned to Damian's eyes, enthusiasm filled his body, and his dedication returned to its former level.
In education there was no such stumbling block. Damian, just as before, dispassionately absorbed all the knowledge of the school curriculum as though he had already studied it before, taking his time to reveal that this was indeed the case. Study time was, for him, time to work with chakra — in attempts to release it from his body.
He had no successful attempts.
When Damian turned three, the training changed again. Now it took place alongside other children who were being trained by the League of Shadows. There weren't as many children as Damian had initially assumed. At the specific base where Damian himself was growing up, there were no more than fifty, and they were all of different ages.
The numerous exercises were supplemented with sparring. Not for long — after just a month, Damian's superiority was too great. The chakra flowing through his body made him stronger and more resilient. It didn't add durability, but Damian attributed that to the fact that it was flowing inside his body.
The group of three-year-olds was quickly replaced by a group of six-year-olds. Here Damian was on equal footing with everyone. He took hits to the head as often as he dealt them. However, his throwing skill with all manner of objects reached an entirely different level. It's impossible to knock a bullet out of the air with a stone? Damian would argue otherwise. To deflect a bullet with a sword? The main thing is for the sword to withstand the energy of that tiny piece of lead flying at 150 meters per second.
— Genes will out. — Ra's al Ghul had taken to saying proudly.
— Sure, and I have nothing to do with it — it just happens on its own. Of course. Of cooourse. — Damian had taken to saying to himself.
You know what the best thing about my life is? The best thing is my brain. Seriously — it's a complete supercomputer. A quantum one. I don't know if it's because of chakra or a gift from my father, but my brain delivered simply off-the-charts computational power purely at an intuitive level.
Alright, I'm exaggerating a little. Or greatly exaggerating. But damn — calculating the flight path of a pebble to within a centimeter at a distance of a hundred meters, literally on the go — that is clearly not normal even for a trained person. Nor is the ability to memorize a page the first time you read it. Or calculating the multiplication of three-digit numbers. In a couple of seconds. Or analyzing a situation in a matter of moments. In short, my brain is my greatest pride! And I solemnly vow to protect this part of my body like the apple of my eye! I won't let anyone mess with it!
And what imagination this brain has! Just — wow. It, damn it, reconstructs a new reality, complete with all its sounds, sensations, smells, and colors. At least I couldn't do that in my past life. I can shadowbox here simply by reconstructing an opponent in my imagination — in such detail that my imagination can actually hit me; at least a couple of times I had the sensation of phantom pain after a missed block. And not just shadowboxing either — in general I can very effectively reconstruct an event inside my head. It's really cool to play out scenes from Naruto in the training hall, or replace the white snow on the surrounding mountains with a flower meadow. It... refreshes things, somehow.
— So then, Damian, there are thirteen coins on the table, — my mother spoke, sitting across from me — As you can see, one of them is black, and whoever picks it up loses. The rules are simple: each of us may take one, two, or three coins per turn. Each of us must take at least one coin on their turn. I'll give you the chance to decide who goes first.
Alright, let's think. Since there's a rule about mandatory coin-taking, my goal is for mother's turn to come when only the black coin remains on the table. So on my turn before that, there must be a minimum of four coins. Therefore I need to engineer it so that on her turn there are five coins on the table, one of which is black. That is the only way to win. The sixth, seventh, and eighth coins will be taken by me. The ninth, tenth, or eleventh will be taken by mother. So I absolutely need to leave nine coins on the table for her turn. That leaves coins ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen. I can take a maximum of three, leaving one on the table. So I need mother to go first.
Now working back — mother goes first, takes some number of coins, leaving either twelve, eleven, or ten on the table. My goal is for nine coins to remain on the table by her next turn. So I take three, two, or one.
— You go first. — I graciously allow.
Talia smirked and took two coins, leaving eleven on the table. I also take two. Nine coins remain on the table. She takes one, I take three. Five coins left. She confidently takes three more, leaving two on the table: the black and a normal one — from which I take the latter.
— Excellent, — she nods her head with pride.
And so it goes every time. Honestly I can't even imagine how many such puzzles they have — they give me dozens a day. Grandfather probably invented thousands of them over his six hundred years of boredom, or simply collected them from all over the world. But even now they're becoming monotonous — the underlying idea doesn't change that much.
— Mom, can I have the breast?
— Good lord, Damian, give it a rest, no you cannot. — mother rolled her eyes.
I fixed her with a sad gaze full of universal suffering — so pitiful that the cat from Shrek couldn't hold a candle to me.
— Don't make that face, it doesn't work anymore, not when every day I watch you beat up children twice your age.
— Excuse me, my acting skills are incredible. — I was deeply offended.
It works — they just don't want to give me the breast. And I don't really need it anyway; I just find it amusing to constantly ask my mother to nurse me. Never mind, when I become a teenager my request will take on such vivid new dimensions that her ears will curl from embarrassment. Or they won't — maybe she secretly dreams of giving me her breast not as her child, but as a man?
Well, dreaming is harmless! Not dreaming is harmful.
In truth I have no such feelings toward mother — I've probably just not grown into them yet. It's simply that visually I genuinely enjoy looking at her. An incredibly beautiful face, an elegant figure that bends at all manner of angles, neat round breasts with tiny nipples — I've bathed with mother, I know what truly great breasts she has, not to mention the nipples. Probably only I and my father have ever taken them in our mouths, at least that's what I hope. The thought that some other man might touch them stirs a revolting feeling in my chest and the urge to urgently trim the height of that imaginary fellow down to shoulder level. Or change the consistency of his body to something finer and more fragmented.