Chapter 2: What Remains After the Thunder
The first thing Raiden heard was water dripping into a bucket somewhere.
The second was the breathing of the others. Dozens of them, uneven, muffled by canvas. The air smelled of antiseptic, dried blood, and lamp smoke. He opened his eyes slowly, and the cloth ceiling swayed as if it were underwater.
Camp infirmary.
He lay on a narrow cot, his vest removed, bandages wrapped around his left arm. All around him, the wounded lay in rows. Some slept, others stared at the ceiling without blinking. A boy his age, two cots down, had his face turned to the wall, his shoulders shaking in silence.
On the stool beside him sat Raiden's forehead protector, cleaned, and a note on brown paper: "Weak pulse, weak eyes, but alive. Rest. Daigo, Patrol Team 4." Not a word more. One Konoha jōnin among thousands, who did what he had to do and went back to the war.
Raiden stared at the note until the letters stopped dancing.
I'm really here.
[SYSTEM ONLINE. Good morning, Raiden.]
Time unconscious: 9 hours, 12 minutes.
Status: stable. Residual ocular overload: 14%.
He closed his eyes out of reflex, but the voice was still inside him, calm and unhurried.
I need to understand what you are. Right now. No stalling.
Understood. I am an analysis implant bound to your Sharingan. Origin: undetermined. I was activated when your eye awakened, and your knowledge of your past life is my database. Everything you knew about this story, I know. Everything you forgot, I lost.
What do you actually do?
Three functions. First, analysis: the Sharingan copies a movement or a seal, and I break it down into chakra cost, weak points, and possible variations. Second, projection: I calculate combat probabilities, but I cannot see the future, only estimate it. Third, compilation: I take what your eye has copied and install it into your body, so you can use it.
He frowned.
Install it into my body?
A cold light opened at the edge of his vision, and the memory of the fight replayed in front of him, in slow motion, like a film. The enemy's hands. The fingers moving. Every seal trailing a pale line of chakra.
[ARCHIVE: Earth Release: Earth Style Wall.]
Seal sequence: Ox, Tiger, Dog, Boar.
Chakra nature: Earth.
Classification: Rank C.
Cost for a trained shinobi: 15 CP.
Estimated cost for you: 22 CP, due to inefficiency.
Status: copied, not installed.
Your Sharingan recorded the movement, but your fingers have never made these seals, and your chakra channels have never shaped this nature. I can fix that. I will break the technique down, rewrite the pattern into your muscles, and adjust your chakra channels for it. When I finish, it will be yours, as if you had trained it for years. But it takes time.
How long?
It depends on the technique's rank.
Rank E: 2 hours.
Rank D: 1 day.
Rank C: 7 days.
Rank B: 1 month.
Rank A: 3 months.
Rank S: 1 year or more.
Raiden stared at the ceiling. Seven days for a single wall of earth. It seemed short for someone who had survived by a thread, and long for someone who already knew what the war did to a slow shinobi.
And during those seven days?
I go inactive. All of my capacity goes into the installation. I will not be able to speak to you, analyze anything, or warn you of danger. You remain free to act and to fight. Just do not count on me.
So I'm on my own.
Yes. The Sharingan keeps working, but without my support. You will see what it shows you, without my analysis. I can only install one technique at a time.
He looked around. Canvas, cots, wounded men, a dripping bucket. It was the safest place he would find for a long time.
Before we start. What is my real condition? No sugarcoating.
Body: late-blooming genin, undernourished, with below-average endurance for your age.
Taijutsu: basic. Ninjutsu: almost nonexistent. Sharingan: 1 tomoe, unstable.
Chakra reserve: 38 CP.
CP?
Chakra Points. It is the scale I use to measure you, and everyone around you. Each level runs from 0 to 100. When the bar fills, the person moves on to the next level.
Genin: 0 to 100. The average is 50.
Chūnin: 100 to 200.
Jōnin: 200 to 300.
Elite Jōnin: 300 to 400.
Kage: 400 to 500 or more.
Raiden read the numbers twice. Between a genin and a Kage lay a gulf he could barely imagine.
And me?
38 CP. The genin average is 50, so you are below it. You can cast one Earth Style Wall, which costs you 22 CP, and you will have little left. After that, your body shuts down.
In plain terms: you survived by luck, by instinct, and because that man showed up.
Outside, a real thunderclap rolled across the sky, and some of the wounded flinched. The sound of distant explosions went on, the rhythm of a war that took no rest, not even at night.
Then the first thing I need to do is get strong.
Yes. And the number is not fixed. Your reserve grows with training, food, and rest. In six months, with discipline, you could double it, reaching about 76 CP.
Raiden thought about that. 76 was still a genin. Still far from a chūnin. Even farther from anything he had seen on the screens of his past life.
A medic passed by with a tray, left a bowl of thin broth beside the cot, and moved on without a word. Raiden took the bowl in both hands and drank slowly. It was lukewarm and tasteless, and it was the best thing he had felt since he arrived.
When he finished, the voice returned.
Proposal: begin compilation now. For the next seven days, your job is to eat, rest, and stay alive. Do not reveal anything about the sync. To anyone.
To anyone.
He was quiet for a moment. For the first time since he had woken in this world, he had a choice that did not involve surviving the next ten seconds.
Begin.
[COMPILATION MODE INITIATED.]
Technique: Earth Release: Earth Style Wall. Rank C.
Estimated duration: 7 days.
Q.I.R.A. entering inactive mode.
Good luck, Raiden.
The cold light went out at the edge of his vision.
Raiden waited. Nothing. He tried calling to her from within, once, then again.
Q.I.R.A.?
Only silence. The Sharingan was still there, burning faintly, but now without numbers, without warnings, without anyone to explain what he was seeing. Inside his arms and fingers, a strange sensation began to move, thin and distant, as if someone were stitching something beneath his skin.
Outside, the thunder rolled again. The war went on, and it would not wait seven days for him.
For the first time since he had been reborn, Raiden was alone inside his own head.
Seven days, he thought. Hold on.
He turned onto his side, facing the canvas, and closed his eyes.