Chapter 4: The Medical Wing
Three months into his first year at the Academy, Akira had settled into a routine that would have bored him to tears in his previous life. The curriculum was painfully slow, the instruction methods decades behind optimal efficiency, and the practical training exercises were designed more for entertainment than actual skill development.
But he was learning. Not from the Academy itself, but from observing everything around him.
The other students were like lab specimens—each one displaying different chakra affinities, different aptitudes, different weaknesses. Akira had mentally catalogued them all. Some students were naturally better at earth release techniques but wasted too much chakra while forming hand seals. Others had good physical strength but lacked precision in chakra control. A few displayed promising strategic instincts but were hindered by slow chakra circulation.
What truly fascinated Akira, however, was the human body itself.
Not in an emotional sense. He had moved past sentiment months ago. But in the physiological sense, chakra was fundamentally tied to biology. The network of pathways that formed the basis of all ninjutsu were not mystical constructs—they were physical phenomena that could be measured, mapped, and optimized. And if they could be optimized, then jutsu could be improved. Techniques could be refined. The entire system could be made more efficient.
The revelation had come during a medical theory lecture that Sensei Kurenai had conducted in the third week of the term. It was supposed to be basic instruction—how to wrap wounds, recognize poisoning symptoms, basic first aid that any shinobi needed to know. The other students had barely paid attention.
Akira had been taking mental notes on the circulatory system and how it intersected with chakra pathways.
That was when his hand had gone up.
"Yes, Akira?" Kurenai had asked, slightly surprised. Akira never volunteered in class.
"If the chakra pathways correlate with the nervous system," he had said carefully, each word chosen with precision, "then wouldn't targeted exercises that stimulate specific nerve clusters improve chakra flow efficiency through those pathways? And wouldn't that theoretically reduce the chakra cost of jutsu that rely on those pathways?"
The classroom had gone silent. Several students had stared at him. Kurenai's eyes had narrowed in that particular way that meant she was reassessing something.
"That's… an interesting theoretical observation," she had said slowly. "Most medical-nin spend years studying that exact principle. Where did you learn about nerve clustering?"
"I read it somewhere," Akira had lied smoothly. "In one of the library books."
He had seen her make a note in her teaching ledger after that. He had realized, with some irritation, that he had made a mistake. Showing too much knowledge. But it was too late to take it back.
Two weeks later, he had been summoned to the Academy's medical wing.
The medical wing was a smaller building attached to the main Academy structure, staffed by three full-time medical-nin and a rotation of fourth-year students studying advanced medicine. It smelled like herbs and antiseptic, and the walls were lined with scrolls detailing medical techniques and anatomical diagrams.
A woman with dark eyes and dark hair tied back in a practical bun had been waiting for him. Her name was Tanaka, and she was apparently the head medical instructor for the Academy. She had looked at him with the kind of expression that suggested she was examining a particularly interesting specimen.
"Akira, I understand you made some theoretical observations in Kurenai's class," she had said without preamble. "Observations about chakra pathway efficiency."
He had chosen his words carefully. "Just something I'd been thinking about."
"At six years old?" She hadn't phrased it as a question. "Most children your age are still struggling with basic chakra control. You've mastered the fundamental exercises in half the time of your peers. And your medical theory knowledge is unusual."
Akira had said nothing, which was usually the safest option.
"I'd like to conduct some tests," Tanaka had continued. "Purely theoretical, of course. And confidential. Your Academy performance would be unaffected. I'm simply… curious."
He had agreed, because refusing would have drawn more attention than accepting.
Over the following weeks, Akira had found himself spending several hours a week in the medical wing after Academy classes. Tanaka would ask him questions about chakra theory, about medical concepts, about physiological systems. She would show him diagrams and ask him to identify inefficiencies. She had been testing him, prodding at the boundaries of his knowledge to understand how deep it actually went.
And then, about a month into these sessions, she had brought him a sealed scroll.
"This is the Body Flicker technique," she had explained. "It's a foundational jutsu taught to second-year students. It allows short-range movement by using chakra to accelerate the body beyond normal perception. Do you understand the basic mechanics?"
Akira had nodded. He had already studied it in the Academy library. The technique itself was elegant but crude in its execution. Most ninja learned it through repetition, building muscle memory and chakra control simultaneously. But muscle memory was imprecise. Inefficient.
"What would you improve about it?" Tanaka had asked, almost casually.
That had been the moment everything changed.
Akira had spent three days thinking about that question. He had sketched diagrams in the margins of his Academy notes—careful, hidden diagrams that looked like random doodling to anyone watching. He had mapped the chakra pathways involved in the Body Flicker technique, analyzed the energy distribution required, identified the points of wasted motion and excess chakra expenditure.
And then he had written his analysis. Seventeen pages, carefully disguised as a first-year student's crude observations, but actually containing three separate optimization methods for the Body Flicker technique.
The first was simple—a modification to the hand seals that would reduce the number of movements required from seven to five, saving approximately two-tenths of a second in execution time.
The second was more complex a subtle shift in how chakra was distributed through the leg pathways, concentrating it in specific nerve clusters rather than distributing it evenly. This would reduce overall chakra consumption by approximately 15%.
The third was the most theoretical a discussion of rhythm-based activation, where the practitioner synchronized the technique with their natural heartbeat cycles to improve efficiency by another 8–10%.
He had submitted it to Tanaka with a note in his careful child's handwriting: "Ideas for improving Body Flicker efficiency."
He had expected her to praise him, perhaps suggest revisions. What he hadn't expected was for her to actually test his theories.
Two weeks later, she had summoned him again, and her expression had been something between shock and careful calculation.
"Akira, I've tested your first optimization method with four of our fourth-year medical students," she had said without preamble. "The hand seal reduction works exactly as you described. It shaves approximately 0.18 seconds off execution time with proper training. Do you understand what that means?"
He had understood perfectly. It meant his theory had merit. It meant that his knowledge, his understanding of efficiency and optimization, could actually improve the jutsu themselves.
"The second method is more complex to train," Tanaka had continued, "but preliminary results suggest it could work. However, Akira—" she had leaned forward slightly, "—where are you getting these ideas? This level of analysis isn't normal for a first-year student. It's not even normal for a second-year student."
He had met her eyes steadily. "I just think about how things work."
It wasn't a lie. Just incomplete, like most things he told adults in the shinobi world.
Tanaka had made another note, and he could see the wheels turning behind her eyes. She was trying to figure out what he was. A prodigy? Something abnormal? Someone with secret training?
"Keep working on your theories," she had finally said. "Quietly. Continue your normal Academy work, but submit your ideas to me. We'll see how many of them actually work in practice."
And that's where things stood now, three months into his first Academy year. Akira was still a quiet, well-behaved student who participated normally in class. But he was also the mysterious prodigy that Tanaka had taken under her wing—the child who understood jutsu theory better than students years his senior.
It was dangerous
But the medical wing had access to research materials that the regular Academy library didn't. And Akira was hungry for knowledge in a way that even his reincarnated memories couldn't quite explain.