Naruto : Monsters

*Several months later*

Underneath the dresser sitting behind me, an ant scurried across the floor. No more than a centimetre in length, it marched to the edge of the wall and snuck into a tiny crack there, one that would lead it to the outside.

Drawing my attention away, I turned my focus downwards. Looking down through the floorboards, past the hard-packed ground and into the sewage network that existed beneath the house, I witnessed a small family of rats nesting in an old abandoned pipe.

Next, I shifted my attention to my left. My head didn't even need to turn in that direction, all I had to do was focus and I could look past the room walls as if they weren't there and see the courtyard hidden beyond them, where a dozen and more of my relatives trained together or practised their morning kata. Whenever the hands of those sparring clashed, chakra erupted like electric sparks, filling the air around them in a dazzling display of flickering lights.

The Byakugan is amazing.

These eyes may not be on par with the Rinnegan but they were something truly extraordinary. In my mind, they were every bit as miraculous as my reincarnation. I couldn't believe how much I could see now. Every direction, through every obstacle, only limited by the amount my mind could take in at any moment.

Yes, it's official. The Byakugan rocked.

A sharp burning sensation in my eyes, one that had been steadily growing for a while, told me I was quickly approaching my limit. I didn't know what would happen if I pushed my eyes any further, but it didn't take a genius to realize that burning pain in your eyes wasn't a good sign. Reluctantly I turned off the Byakugan, cutting off the flow of my chakra to my eyes and returning them to their dormant state.

It was like being plunged into the dark after standing under the noon sun. Where once I could see everything, now all I saw was what laid before me and even that was limited to the light spectrum of the human eye. After the sights the Byakugan granted me I may as well have been blind.

All I could currently see through my eyes was the view of the now all too familiar ceiling of the children's playroom instead of the 360 vision that I'm already beginning to miss. The sounds of toddlers playing began to register in my mind now that I was no longer so focused on my sight.

Resisting the urge to rub my eyes even as they continued to burn, knowing from experience that it will only make things worse, I sat myself up. Around me, a dozen or so children babbled nonsensically as they played with their toys, not one over the age of four.

"Like this Neji." A voice drifted from my left, catching my attention. Beyond the bars of the crib that currently imprisoned me, was a middle-aged lady, one of the caretakers, holding a young toddler in her lap.

She kept trailing her fingers over the palm of the toddler's hand, repeating words of encouragement into his ears.

Little baby Neji looked down at his hands, his face marred with a frown of concentration, as he tried to understand what he was feeling. And oh my god was the little brat adorable. 

Nothing like the brooding teenager he'd grow up to one day be, right now he looked like a cross between a Panda and a water balloon. Even when he scowled in frustration he could not help but look adorable, the way his chubby cheeks puffed out made sure of that.

The caretaker said something else as she trailed her fingers again. Whatever it was I couldn't understand, my grasp of the language being what it was, but I didn't need to understand her words to know what she was doing, I already knew. She was teaching him how to use his chakra, just like she did with me.

To say I was confused when I was in Neji's place all those months ago was putting it mildly. At the time I had no idea what she was trying to do, only that every time she ran her fingers through my palms it felt like my hand was being dipped in running water. It took me a week to finally realize that what I was feeling was chakra as it poured out of her fingers, and another three days after that to understand that she wanted me to mimic her.

When I finally did succeed in figuring out how to make my own chakra flow out from my hand, which was roughly a month later, she was so surprised that she nearly dropped me. I had thought I may have done something a bit too unusual for a baby but my father put those fears to rest.

His stoic face remained unmoved even after the caretaker took me to him and made me demonstrate what I could do, though there was a look of quiet pride and knowing satisfaction in his eyes that I was learning to recognize. So I guess that meant I didn't do anything too abnormal.

Now when I awakened my Byakugan a week later, that was a completely different story. I swear I thought his eyeballs would roll out from their sockets from how large they opened before he quickly hid his reaction behind his usual indifference mask. Which is something I didn't understand as awakening the Byakugan was far easier than learning how to use chakra.

Around the room, the same scene was being repeated. Children who were not playing or resting were carried by caretakers who then ran chakra across their hands in hopes they'd learn to do it themselves. Some of the older kids, no more than a couple, had activated their Byakugan and were apparently staring blankly ahead, but I knew better.

None of the kids were anywhere near my current age, the youngest having just turned three just last month, making me ahead of the group by a large margin. 

For a while, I considered toning down my actions a bit and trying to act like a normal baby until I grew a little older, but I quickly discarded that option. While it may have been better in the long run there was no way I could have pulled it off. Being a baby was boring.

You couldn't walk, you couldn't talk, all you could do was lie on your back as giant heads hovered over you and made baby talk. Hell, this world didn't even have any television so it wasn't like I had access to any easy entertainment. Though considering that baby shows consisted of such horrors as the 'Teletubbies' it may have been a blessing in disguise.

Tinky Winky was nightmare fuel.

But now that I had the Byakugan that all changed. Sure I still couldn't do much other than watch, but at least I got to watch something useful, something that I could learn from. Something that will make me strong.

While it wasn't anywhere near as good as actually practising, I made sure to observe the clan's ninjas in their training every chance I had. I couldn't hear them speak, not that I would have been able to understand anything they said even if I could, but I still made sure to watch and take everything in. 

I did my best to memorise how they would place their feet just so, how the instructors would correct their forms, how they always seemed to parry blows and rarely block.

I knew little about actual combat, other than that year I took up karate in 8th grade, but what I did know was the basics were essential and even the smallest of flaws could make all the difference. So I watched, watched and watched, until I got so good I could visualize the entire basic katas in my head. It actually reached the point where I even dreamt about watching them train.

And most importantly, I watched how they molded their chakra.

I couldn't do the same things they did of course. My body's coils were still far too underdeveloped for anything of that level, and would probably break under the strain if I tried. As far as I could tell the Byakugan more or less emerged fully matured at birth, it was the only reason why the other children and I could use it at such a young age. But just because I couldn't mold chakra myself didn't mean I couldn't learn and understand how they did it. So I watched and learned.

Every hour of every day that I could, I watched. And whenever I couldn't find anyone training in range of my sight, or if I grew too tired to concentrate and my mind began to wander, I turned my eyes to the rest of the world that I found myself inhabiting.

I could not see very far at first, only a few dozen meters at most, but even with such a small range there was still so much to see. And with every passing week, my eyes grew a little better. I would see a little more clearly, a little bit farther, even if only an inch, so I kept pushing them. Besides, it wasn't as if I had anything else to do. It was either this or stare up at the ceiling in a constant state of perpetual boredom.

Constant boredom, I learned, was an excellent source of motivation.

So after allowing my eyes to rest for a while, I leaned back on my bedding, tuned out all the noises from around me and opened my Byakugan once more, and a new world unfolded before my eyes for me to explore.

Hmm, what's this? Is that my Dad? What's he still doing in the bedroom at this time in the morning? He was usually up at dawn. Normally he'd be off working somewhere. And is that my Mom- OH HELL NO!

I looked away as fast I could from the fornicating pair, trying to erase the image of my parents having sex from my mind but it was no use. The image was seared into my brain as it was done with a hot branding iron and it would just not go away.

God damn it Hiashi! It's nine o'clock in the freaking morning and there were kids around. I mean I'm happy for you and all but dear lord I did not want to see that. Even though they weren't my real parents, I did not want to see my new mom getting it on- Ahhh! Don't think about it, just don't freaking think about it.

Just look somewhere else to distract you, like…like where I'm looking at right now? Hmm. Where am I? I reflexively threw my sight as far away from my parents and I don't think I've seen this room before. That's weird, I was pretty sure I examined every room my eyes could reach. Well, everything except the toil-

Wait, is this the toilet- Ahh! My eyes!

I take it back, the Byakugan sucks.

...

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