— You can do more, Damian. — Ra's al Ghul encouraged his grandson with a stern expression and an equally stern voice.
The tiny body of a four-year-old boy hung over an enormous, bottomless chasm, gripping a single rope stretched from one edge of the abyss to the other. The figure breathed heavily, white clouds of warm breath bursting from his mouth. His body trembled with strain, sweat running down his forehead and across his entire body — becoming a true magnet for the icy wind that swept between the mountains of Tibet. This moisture diligently drew out all the warmth the body produced, forcing the boy to endure incredible cold that did nothing to help the child's body cross the deadly gorge.
— "Maybe I should just let go?" — Damian thought, casting a glance beneath himself — "Just to spite this senile old man — let go and wreck his dreams of an heir."
Cowardice crept up unnoticed, whispering to the boy a simple solution to all his problems. And this cowardice was remarkably convincing — the boy genuinely began to consider this form of revenge for all the suffering that had rained down upon him over the past year. But the moment of weakness was brief: the will of a four-year-old body and a thirty-eight-year-old soul prevailed over weakness, over the pain in his body, over the searing cold that surrounded him.
The frozen hands, under the surge of an eruption of willpower, tensed — allowing the body to move another meter forward, and then another, until his feet felt the solid stone surface. Damian collapsed onto the icy rock, breathing heavily and unable to rise any further.
Two figures dressed in black immediately ran to him, quickly wrapping the body in a warm blanket and carrying him at a run to a bathhouse that had been prepared nearby. The head of the League of Shadows did not want his heir falling ill.
The limp child's body was thoroughly bathed in a hot tub, kept in an even hotter steam room, after which a skillful massage was administered with four hands, incorporating elements of acupuncture. And in that moment, something occurred that Damian had been trying to achieve for the past three years. From his body burst a gentle wave of that inner energy he had been cultivating all this time. A barely visible blue substance — resembling both water and mist — ran across the bare figure, enveloped the body, and vanished without a trace, dissolving into the air.
One of the figures, who had watched the unfolding miracle with astonishment, immediately rushed off to report to the head, while Damian listlessly cursed his fate. The boy wanted to curse colorfully — with profanity and active gesturing — but the body was so exhausted and relaxed that the mere twitch of an eyebrow was the pinnacle of activity for him.
Ra's al Ghul came to his grandson just a couple of minutes later.
— Do you have something to say, grandson? — the old man inquired with genuine curiosity.
— "Yeah, go to hell you old bastard," — the boy swore in his thoughts, but said something else aloud — Yeah, I'm apparently a wizard. Grandpa, where's my wand? I want to shoot fireballs.
— Heh, if you're joking then you're alright. Did you memorize the sensation during the release?
In response, a barely visible blue wave ran across the body once more. It seemed too simple to Damian now — natural.
— Excellent, — Ra's al Ghul gave a measured nod — It turns out your body has been keeping its secrets.
— Yep, — Damian responded listlessly.
— Well then, rest. This evening we will talk and begin studying this energy.
Damian fell asleep with sorrow in his heart just a few minutes later, right there on the cot — though his head was full of thoughts. Over the past four years he had come to know his grandfather well, and so, while not greatly, he did fear the fate of a laboratory rat. The chances of such an outcome were slim, but not zero. Besides that, Damian was clearly in for even more training, even more assurances to work harder — and working harder was not what Damian wanted. Yet at the same time, new opportunities were opening up before the boy. Ra's al Ghul was an extremely influential man with countless connections around the world. The amount of information in his hands was enormous, as were the advisors who could offer genuinely sound counsel on how to develop the energy within his body.
So that evening the boy was somewhat worried, if not greatly.
— Had you felt it before? — Ra's al Ghul asked, steadily sipping tea from a bowl.
— Yes. Since birth. — Damian answered, completely mirroring his grandfather's actions.
— Why didn't you say anything?
— I was afraid of the fate of a laboratory rat, — the boy shrugged — And of even more training.
— Ah, nothing is ever perfect, is it? You are an incredible genius — one in a thousand years — yet at the same time incredibly lazy.
— Hey — just lazy, without the incredibly, — the four-year-old child immediately puffed up, and continued inwardly — "And not a genius either — I just know a lot."
Ah, this was a very strange quirk of the reborn person's consciousness. He knew which world he had ended up in, knew that a mountain of trials awaited him simply by right of birth — but the mind that had spent thirty years indulging in laziness still could not switch to a new track, one where every second equaled a chance at survival against the next alien invasion or unhinged supervillain. And the knowledge of the necessity to train and work until the seventh sweat did not help much — well, it did help, the child overcame itself, did not allow its past, weaker self to whine with or without cause — but the desire to do nothing and surrender to mindless idleness still hung as a weight on its shoulders. Or not a weight — more like an anchor from a past life.
— Laziness is poison. Slow, imperceptible, but lethal. — Ra's al Ghul repeated the wisdom for the thousandth time.
— Yes, which is why — if you haven't noticed — I'm not being lazy, — Damian noted with importance in his voice, jabbing a finger at the ceiling — Who among those present finished the school curriculum at age four? I did. Who meets the physical standards of eight-year-olds? I do. So not lazy — just a normal child.
— Oh, so if you had free time you'd be playing with toy cars? — the old man in green robes squinted.
— Um.... — the boy thought, and a couple of seconds later answered with sadness and regret — No, I'd sit down with physics textbooks or go brawl with the other kids.
— Watch your language, grandson, — Ra's noted calmly but with sternness in his voice — You are not a dockside brat. You are the heir to the League of Shadows, its future head — if you survive that long.
— Understood. I would devote myself to intellectual pursuits or engage in combat with a worthy opponent.
Just two days later, the little Damian was visited by a presentable-looking man of fifty. The man was a mage — something he was immensely proud of — and under the attentive supervision of Ra's al Ghul, he conducted a scan of the four-year-old's body.
— Very curious, — the mage said, scratching his chin — The energy within your person is not mana. It is some kind of blend of physical and spiritual energy. Yin and Yang, if you will. His life is in no danger — quite the contrary, this energy makes him orders of magnitude healthier than either of us, strengthens him physically, and clearly aids him mentally. What to do with it I cannot advise — better to consult Chinese practitioners. I have a couple of acquaintances who would not mind studying this phenomenon.
As the mage spoke his last words his eyes lit up with sparks of interest — something that did not escape not only the head of the League of Shadows, but even the small person sitting on the medical cot.
Soon the man departed the base, and two days later his dead body was found in his own home — perfectly healthy on the outside, but poisoned, rotting from within.
You don't ogle small boys with hungry eyes.
Another week later, a grey-haired elder visited Damian to examine him — with a gait far too sprightly for his apparent age. During the examination his body was covered with yellow energy, and receiving no corresponding reaction, he could only spread his hands.
— This is not Ki. Something similar — connected to bodily energy — but different. Were I younger I might have wanted to figure it out, but I have no desire to become the bearer of secrets belonging to an organization of assassins.
— Thank you all the same. — Damian bowed politely. This old man had no wish to dissect him on an operating table in the name of science, which made him very likable.
Throughout all this time, while various special experts of the DC world visited Damian, the child worked diligently with his energy — growing ever more inclined to the view that it was chakra from the Naruto world, altered by the world in which he now lived. Primarily because the anime Naruto was simply closer to the boy than Hunter x Hunter or JoJo.
And it was precisely because of this resemblance that he tried everything he could remember from the anime. Hand seals — which he recalled far from completely — wall-walking, releasing energy from tenketsu which he could not feel at all. Nothing worked.
A month later, Ra's al Ghul brought yet another expert from the magical world. A lean Japanese elder, moving with extraordinary smoothness and unhurried grace. He silently examined the energy pouring from the four-year-old's body, three times pressed a sheet of paper covered in ink inscriptions to different parts of the child, moved his glowing hands over Damian, and after carefully examining the papers marked with curious patterns, addressed the head of the assassins:
— I can teach him. — his aged, creaking voice carried through the room — Not everything — his energy, while very similar to spirit energy, differs from it. I will pass on to him all the knowledge he is capable of mastering, if you let me go THERE.
— I am prepared to do that, — Ra's al Ghul nodded composedly — But first you will pass all your knowledge to my grandson — for however powerful you may be, the trial that awaits could shatter your mind.
— Reasonable, — the old Japanese man nodded in agreement — I will teach him illusion techniques and elemental transformation, but all remaining knowledge of the Onmyodo path and working with spirits he will receive only after my healing.
— Agreed.
The deal was struck, and no one had any interest in the opinion of the small person present.
— The energy flowing within you — which you call chakra — differs from mine only slightly, — the elder sitting in the lotus position intoned — Therefore the mudras will work for you. Memorize them carefully. They will become your foundation.
The old man's fingers began to dance, forming mudras — mentally labeled "hand seals" by Damian for their resemblance — one after another. With ease and grace, as though his fingers had been created for precisely such manipulations. Damian watched the performance with fascination, easily recognizing in the figures shaped by the wrinkled hands what he had seen in the ninja anime. But they were different. A slightly different positioning of one finger or another, a different angle of the wrist — and instead of twelve there were only ten.
— The most fundamental mudra for you is the Concentration mudra.
The old man's right hand folded into the shape of a gun — index and middle fingers extended toward the ceiling, ring and little fingers curled into a fist, and the thumb pressed flat against the palm.
— It helps you better control the flow of chakra, and serves as the trigger for the vast majority of Onmyodo techniques. — the Japanese man intoned, holding the mudra out before himself.
Catching a pause, Damian folded his own fingers exactly as his new teacher had — held the approximation of a hand seal from Naruto before himself — and indeed felt the flow of chakra grow more vigorous.