Chapter 2: The Nonexistent Kekkei Genkai
In the original story, the Hidden Cloud Village was generally portrayed with a "fight first, ask questions later" mentality. Their strength was shown to be second only to Konoha, but other details were vague. The names of the Raikage were never revealed, only their shared title passed down through generations.
Simply put, they were one-dimensional.
This is a limitation of any story; it's impossible to describe every single element in perfect detail.
But the reality was that Kumogakure was a complete and complex major ninja village. Although the current timeline was between the First and Second Great Ninja Wars, and many things would surely be different decades later, the Cloud had its own systems, its own style, and its own deep-rooted heritage.
It wasn't the stereotypical force portrayed in the history books.
What surprised Dana the most was the Cloud's system of governance.
In his past life, many fans had speculated about it based on the different Raikage and the few tidbits of information available. The theory was that the Hidden Cloud was led by a single, powerful ruling family that united the smaller clans and civilian-born shinobi through immense strength and charisma.
That was the very family Dana had been born into: the Yotsuki clan.
They were a powerful ninja clan specializing in Lightning Release chakra and masters of taijutsu and frontal assaults.
And Dana was the second son of the Third Raikage, the younger brother of the future Fourth Raikage.
It was an incredible starting point in life.
If only he wasn't sick.
He had a Kekkei Genkai disease. That was the unanimous conclusion reached by the village's top shinobi and the elders of his own clan.
The evidence was the ceaseless, random electrical shocks that emanated from his body and the violet-colored spine visible through his skin.
Compared to other children his age, Dana's body was frail. This was especially noticeable in the Yotsuki clan, where men often grew to be well over six feet tall. His skin was also much paler than everyone else's, which made him stand out in a village where most people had darker complexions. His unusual physical traits were all attributed to the bloodline sickness—after all, such diseases could manifest in countless ways. The only thing he seemed to have properly inherited from the Yotsuki was his pale-yellow hair.
But all of that was secondary to the fact that he was also a human Pikachu.
He discharged electricity at random.
There was no pattern, no reason. From the moment of his birth, electrical arcs would just appear on his body. It could happen eighty times on a good day or over a hundred on a bad one. It was completely unpredictable, happening while he was eating, sleeping, or even using the toilet.
At its strongest, the shock was powerful enough to knock a normal person unconscious for days. Even at its weakest, it could make an adult jump and yelp in pain.
Fortunately, Dana himself was completely immune to it. If he wasn't, he would have been electrocuted to death by his own body long ago.
The combined medical knowledge of the Cloud Village and the Yotsuki clan's secret arts had failed to find a cure, or even an explanation, for his strange condition.
So, it was simply classified as a Kekkei Genkai disease.
This was the shinobi world, after all. When something couldn't be explained by logic, blaming it on a bloodline was a reasonable conclusion.
Even Dana himself had started to believe it.
The purple spine, which had discolored the skin along his back, was even stranger. Its cause was unknown, its function a mystery, but it certainly didn't look like a good thing.
Dana had wondered if it might be some kind of special ability—a cheat granted to him upon reincarnation. But aside from the electrical discharges, it showed no other miraculous properties. If anything, it terrified him. He had died from spinal cancer in his previous life, so his fear far outweighed his curiosity.
For now, Dana accepted the clan's judgment:
Through generations of training their secret lightning techniques, the Yotsuki clan's physiology was slowly evolving towards a true Kekkei Genkai. Dana was a key part of that evolution, but unfortunately, something had gone terribly wrong.
As for the purple spine, Dana privately suspected it was linked to the disease from his past life.
Although he hadn't been given much medicine due to his young age, the examinations had been relentless. A major check-up every three days, a minor one every two. The diagnosis of a bloodline disease was an unspoken truth everyone accepted, and Dan had long since understood his situation. He was a person who shouldn't have existed in the original story, born into a family with no known Kekkei Genkai, suffering from a disease that shouldn't exist.
Dana toddled into the inner hall and saw his mother already waiting at the dinner table. He was about to greet her when a pair of arms scooped him up from behind.
"Ambush successful, Dada!"
Hearing that goofy voice, Dana knew who it was without even looking. His older brother, Arashi Yotsuki, the man who would one day become the Fourth Raikage. Right now, though, he was just a ten-year-old boy, seven years older than Dana.
"Put me down! I wanna get down! Mother, he's bullying me!" Dana reflexively tattled.
A person's mind and personality are influenced by their body. In an aging body, ambition and desire fade. In the body of a child, thoughts are naturally constrained by hormones and physical development. He wasn't the stoic, all-knowing adult protagonist from so many novels.
Especially when he couldn't win a fight against his brother.
"Alright, Arashi, put Dada down. It's time to eat."
Arashi tossed Dana into the air like a ball several times. It was hard to believe a ten-year-old could have such strength, but this was the ninja world.
Dana squealed with a mix of anger and frustration until a bright arc of electricity suddenly flashed across his skin, striking Arashi's hand with a loud CRACK.
Even though he had already begun training in the Lightning Release Chakra Mode, Arashi's hand went stiff. He managed to steady himself and catch Dana just before his brother face-planted on the floor.
"Whoa, Dada, you're getting stronger. Even I felt that," Arashi said, shaking his hand.
In this household, only shinobi who had mastered the Lightning Release Chakra Mode dared to touch Dana freely. Other ninja, and especially the ordinary servants, kept their distance. There had been times when Dana had fallen, and they could only hover around him anxiously.
Once, a maid had instinctively reached out to grab Dana's hand and ended up with a serious injury that took her a month to recover from. Dana had felt guilty about it for a long time, relieved that she suffered no permanent damage.
Although Arashi had only just begun his training, the future Fourth Raikage's talent was undeniable. The fact that he was still stunned by the electric arcs was a clear sign that Dana's "sickness" was getting worse with each passing year.
Dana's mother, Satomi Yotsuki, watched with a worried glint in her eyes. When Arashi was Dana's age, he was already a stout and robust child, a perfect example of the strong physique passed down through the Yotsuki generations. In comparison, Dana was painfully thin.
Of course, from Dana's perspective, his own development was normal. It was Arashi who was the freak of nature.
A ten-year-old with a six-pack... is that even possible?
Worse, as a non-shinobi, Satomi had barely been able to hold her youngest son since his birth. The pain and guilt of that were a constant weight on her heart.
Dana's condition made him both a treasured prize and a terrible headache for the Yotsuki clan. He could be the key to their clan's future, the dawn of a new bloodline. But at the same time, no one could be sure if he would even live to adulthood. His mother, Satomi, was consumed with worry.
After wriggling free from Arashi's grasp, Dana straightened his clothes and looked up at his brother with a smirk. "Looks like your Lightning Chakra Mode training isn't going so well. Father never gets shocked by me. You've still got a long way to go!"
Arashi just grinned. Dana was the light of the family, and after a hard day of training, Arashi always looked forward to teasing his little brother.
Just then, the Third Raikage, A, walked through the door. A soft smile appeared on his face as he watched his sons playing.
After dinner, the Third Raikage spoke briefly with Satomi before taking Dana to the Yotsuki clan shrine.
The Yotsuki clan was one of the founding members of the Hidden Cloud Village and its ruling family. Their compound was vast, with the shrine located at the very back. It was used for festivals and ceremonies, as well as for discussing important clan matters.
The shrine was already filled with people—clan elders and elite shinobi. Dana, who had been feeling a bit sleepy after his meal, was now wide awake.
"Dana," his father said, his voice calm and steady. "Today, you will learn to mold chakra."
Finally, Dana thought.
It had been three years since his reincarnation. To a real infant, three years might have been a forgotten blur, but for Dana, it had felt like a long time. He often saw his clansmen practicing their jutsu—unleashing lightning into the ground, spewing fireballs, and burrowing into the earth.
How does that even work? Where's the resistance? How can lightning take on different shapes? How can they control it from a distance?
He had seen things that defied all logic, things that would make the founders of physics turn in their graves. But he had never had the chance to try it himself. No one was going to seriously teach a one or two-year-old about chakra. Was this finally his turn?
But the scale of this was far bigger than he'd expected. He always imagined A would teach him privately one day. He never thought his very first attempt at molding chakra would be such a major event. He even saw a few people holding paper and pens, ready to document every detail.
It seemed the clan's interest in him was even greater than he had realized.