Naruto: Kage of Kages

Near a wooden building built on a forest clearing, several children could be seen scurrying about, playing with each other as a gentle looking woman, face showing the lines of time, looked over them with a snow white haired unnaturally perfect baby with gleaming violet eyes in her arms.

That baby had received the name Ryumon Shiki and even as a nascent life, it carried an important secret, it had awakened its previous life’s memories.

Carefully analyzing his surroundings as best he could, Shiki discovered his reincarnation was successful but he was still figuring out his situation.

He had already realized he was a child in an orphanage, the Konoha Orphanage based on the forest biome around the place.

Shiki was not quite sure about the timeline however. He was certain he was not in the Boruto Era from the lack of technology and he remembered Kabuto was in charge of the orphanage in said era so definitely an earlier temporal placement.

Only a few days after his awakening did more information come to Shiki, he spotted a group of visitors that came to the orphanage. They had come to take some of the older children to a place called the Academy.

It was quite unsettling for Shiki to see essentially orphans being taken to be made into child soldiers because that is exactly what the situation was.

The Konoha Orphanage on the village’s outskirts.

A place that gathered orphans from all over the nation and instilled in them the so-called Will of Fire, after which they were inducted into the Academy to be used as expendable shinobi forces under the command of the Clan born shinobi of higher status.

The show and manga had left a lot of cruel details out of the show but an Orphanage funded by a military organization like a Hidden Village? The purpose couldn’t be more obvious.

Then again, though it was dangerous, it did provide a chance to increase one’s standing and power and as orphans indoctrinated from a young age, they would have the trust of the higher ups which was a double edged sword.

While it could mean who would be trusted with important tasks and duties, it also meant that thankless roles of sacrifice that required a trusted minion to perform would be given to them.

Either way, Shiki knew showing himself as a talented shinobi was the way to go. And from the uniforms of the shinobi that came, he was able to deduce the timeline as well.

He was definitely significantly earlier in the timeline than the main series. The flak jackets worn by the shinobi that “graced” the orphanage were in an older style, gray and with no scroll pockets.

‘This style is the one shown to be used in the Second Great Shinobi War, though I’m not quite sure whether the current timeline is pre-war, mid-war or post-war.

The general state of the people he saw did not seem to be that bad but there was certainly some tension in the shinobi he saw, something which was curiously obvious to Shiki, a result of his enlightened spiritual self allowing him to read the spiritual states of others.

‘Konoha came out of the Second Great Shinobi War quite favorably if I remember correctly. But I don’t get the feeling of that tension before a big win.’ Shiki began theorizing

Not like he could do much else as a barely born baby. His lack of autonomy in his previous life was now serving as a blessing since being cared for as a baby did not feel like much of a change.

In fact, he was pain free and mostly comfortable so it was a massive improvement.

Back to his thought process however, Shiki began narrowing it down.

‘The village is probably not in the best condition as the orphanage was facing money and food problems while the shinobi that came by always seemed tense so a post-war recovery period seems unlikely as well.’

‘So either the pre-war tension or mid-war tension and war fatigue is what I’m getting from the shinobi around here, though it is hard to tell these feelings apart with my lack of experience.’

‘Based on the gear, it is either the Second Great Shinobi War or perhaps the First. If it’s the First then we could be at any point from pre-war to near the end as it was a conflict with no victors that ended in armistice after everyone ran out of resources to prolong the fighting.’

‘On the other hand, if it is the Second Great Shinobi War which turned out favorably for Konoha in its later stages, then it can be assumed we are in pre-war to mid-war.’

‘Trying to figure it out further would require more info that I don’t have.’ Shiki came to the conclusion and decided to turn his thoughts to other matters more directly related to himself.

Shiki had read some xianxia novels about certain heretical buddhists seeking enlightenment through all manner of worldly pursuits such as power, food, alcohol, female companionship, wealth and various other vices.

As such, being an “Enlightened Soul”, one supposed to be in search of further “enlightenment”, he simply decided to do so through such ways.

Cause why not?

It should definitely be more enjoyable.

Unfortunately, there was little a baby could do to train himself in order to attain the power required to enjoy the other things on his list. Regardless, Shiki still found himself pondering.

He checked his state, represented by a status screen, just as the voice had predicted.

*

*

’Is there truly nothing I can do?’ Shiki internally asked himself.

The only notable information was his natural affinity for each basic nature release and nothing else, no kekkei genkai so the genetic lottery did not favor him.

The shown affinities seemed quite low too even if Shiki did not know for sure since he had no one for comparison.

His trait on the other hand . . . Proved a different story.

Guaranteed effects.

And very powerful ones at that.

*

Trikaya

Possibility of perfect dominion over one’s Three Bodies each of which carries limitless potential.

The Manifested Body, corresponding to one’s physical form. Grants a perfectly adaptable physical body that naturally seeks perfection and allows one to train themselves to achieve total control over it, unlock any and all of its latent abilities, as well as evolve them further.

The Blissful Body, corresponding to the spirit and soul. Grants one immense spiritual prowess and the ability to achieve great success in all manner of spiritual practices. The perfection of spirit also translates to the ability to connect to and influence the spirits of others.

The True Body is exclusive to enlightened beings. While all beings possess physical and spiritual forms with the Trikaya trait merely providing greatly enhanced ones, the True Body is possessed solely by those with the trait or beings with a much higher state of existence.

Grants an immensely powerful form of “Greater Awareness” and allows one to access extremely powerful abilities exclusive to higher beings.

*

Although Shiki only manifested a single trait when there was a chance for a total of three, he got an extremely powerful one. He’d even wager his trait was one of the most powerful that could be achieved, at the very least it seemed powerful enough to warrant such opinions.

Shiki’s future was literally limitless with it after all.

All manner of training would show greater results and push his physical and spiritual states towards perfection. 

Physical conditioning, depending on how it was conducted, could result in not only increased strength, endurance, agility but even accelerated recovery and development of self healing capabilities.

As for most practices associated with chakra, they counted towards his Blissful Body’s abilities regarding spiritual practices.

He could literally perfect every aspect of chakra usage, every type of jutsu, every basic nature transformation could be elevated to the highest level of affinity through training alone, something normally impossible.

Traditionally, one’s natural affinity determines the types of jutsu and nature release one was more suited towards and the upper limit one could aspire to. 

Only with a particular affinity could one achieve the peaks of a certain nature transformation, for others, although possible to train to a high level with effort, they would inevitably have a lower ceiling.

Shiki however, had no such limitations. His natural affinities would merely represent a head start and all of them could be further raised by training in them. He could thus raise the ceiling of his ability along with his proficiency in it.

Perhaps maxing these affinities might even allow him to develop elemental kekkei genkai.

An endless Path of The Grind.

A Grind that truly never ended.

Not that any of that helped him now however, he was too young to experiment with such things, not to mention he did not even have any idea how to sense and manipulate his chakra.

Perhaps, as a baby, such things were innately locked as a form of self protection.It would be problematic if babies started to inadvertently belch small flames and such after all.

Still, Shiki was undeterred, sifting through his memories of the show and even other shows for inspiration to come upon an answer. Breathing.

Even babies breathed and that could be trained. In fact, staying still without doing anything and merely focusing on his breathing for meditation was one of the skills he had utterly perfected in his previous life, he did achieve an enlightenment and attained Nirvana after all.

Shiki also remembered Shira, a Suna genin that developed, or would develop, a technique for breathing he called the Seven Heavens Breathing Method, which could provide him with a power boost capable of matching that of the Eight Inner Gates, at least at the first few.

And so, the small child who could not even crawl around, dedicated himself to meditation and breathing exercises, trying to find a breathing method that granted him extraordinary benefits.

The caretakers however, had different opinions when seeing him meditate.

”That boy sure sleeps a lot . . . Do you think he’s sick?” One asked.

”He’s just lazy.” Another responded.

”He’s a baby, of course he sleeps a lot! Now get back to work!” Their supervisor clamored and the ladies got back to it.

Time passed and as Shiki grew older, he began to notice the effects of his relentless pursuit.

There was no secret technique of unrivaled power, not yet anyway but he turned out healthier and more energetic than his peers. It took longer for him to get tired and he recovered his expended energy much faster. 

Since he could move around by himself now that he was older, he also made sure to roll and crawl around a lot as a form of training which with his baby body was quite hard and, when he was dead tired, sit and meditate while practicing his breathing techniques.

One day like any other, he felt a mysterious energy within him as he practiced his breathing which he immediately knew was his chakra, at least that was the only reasonable conclusion.

Having gotten a feel for chakra, he tried adjusting his breath in ways that affected his own chakra flow positively, which acted as a sort of measuring tool to see if he was progressing down the right path or not.

He also tried to control his chakra which proved unexpectedly easy. This was because as a young child, he had very little chakra which made it far easier to control. After all, the more chakra one had, the harder it was to control it perfectly. 

Chakra was the combination of physical and spiritual energies. Shiki’s spirit was incredibly powerful but his physical body was that of a baby which heavily restricted the amount of chakra he could have.

That being the case, getting access to his chakra when it was still so very little, less than any academy student due to his very young age, made it very easy to manipulate and train control.

Soon however, he found an issue.

+++++

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