Power... And Weakness!

...

All that talk about strength, and yet I'm here stuck in bed.

Unlike I was led to believe from other fiction and shonen shows, people do actually get sick, regardless of how strong they are.

"Achoo!" I sneezed into a crumpled tissue, groaning as I collapsed back onto the bed. My body feels like absolute shit, even worse than whenever I have the gravity seal on. At least I could take that off, for fuck's sake!

I think this is the first time I've gotten sick from training. I mean, it has been snowing, but come on, my Kekkei Genkai is literally ice! What the hell is this bullshit?!

I'm supposed to command literal icebergs, how is a mere cold doing me in like this? Shouldn't I be immune to this shit?

Argh!!

The door opened, and in entered my mother, who was holding a tray with miso soup and some rice crackers.

"Seems like you can still get sick, even with your Kekkei Genkai. Are you feeling any better, Amai?" she asked, setting the tray down with a hint of amusement in her voice.

"Never bett- Achoo!" I sneezed into another tissue. Fuck this!

My mother chuckled lightly, "You'll get better soon enough. Your friend is very nice, you know? I didn't even need to ask him to go to the nearest hospital to buy the medicine. He offered himself to go buy it."

I blinked at her, still groaning as I tried to settle back against the pillow. "I-Is that so, ma?"

Seems like despite how competitive Sora is, he really cares about me, doesn't he? I haven't had a single friend visit me whenever I fell sick before. At most, they only bothered sending me messages if I missed school for some reason, and then nothing else.

It's a weird feeling. Not the kind of attention I'm used to, but I'm not exactly complaining.

"Mm-hmm," she said with a knowing smile. "He's quite thoughtful. Even ran through the snow to get it. I think he cares about you more than you realize, you know? You should try getting him to visit more often. I like hearing the both of you play the guitar, it's much more different than the usual music we hear. What was that one you were practicing called? Guitar, lonel-"

"S-Shut up, mom! Don't say the name out loud!" I quickly interrupted, ashamed of the name. I had stolen it, but I was still gonna play it and I practiced at least once a week for it!

She laughed, clearly finding my reaction hilarious. Moooom! "Fine, fine. I won't say it, but seriously... It's beautiful. It's like you're truly pouring your heart out into the lyrics, and really expressing yourself through it. I think it's fitting for your character."

Can you not?! I buried my face into my pillow.

"I'll leave you be for now. Try to get some rest, and drink up the soup while it's still warm. Call me if you need anything, okay dear?" She said, before patting my head as if I was some child—which I had accepted a long time ago—and getting up to leave the room.

Prior to that, she turned around and with a knowing smile, "By the way, once you're feeling better we'll go to Ichiraku with your friend."

After that, she finally exited the room.

Ugh.

I absolutely hate fevers.

Not just because they make me feel like absolute garbage, but also because they give me way too much time to think. I'm more of the type to just do in the moment and think it later, y'know?

But when I'm stuck in bed, all weak and useless, all I can do is think. And it's the worst.

Can't chakra do something about this? This isn't even just a ninja world later on—it's straight-up magic wars between titans. People out here rewriting reality with a flick of their fingers, and I'm over here getting bodied by the common cold.

Yes, me. The one who comes from the Yuki clan. The one who left it all behind in Kirigakure.

...Not that I mind, though. Kirigakure's brutal.

I don't know the full extent of what happened to my clan, but I know enough. Enough to realize that staying there probably would've been a death sentence. Kekkei Genkai users weren't exactly welcomed with open arms, if I remember right.

So, yeah. Maybe I should be grateful I ended up here instead? I must've had some pretty crazy plot armor or something.

If there's a god, author whatever up there, just know that I'm grateful for giving me this second chance. Really grateful.

But also—what the hell, man? You drop me into this world with all these insane people, give me a cool bloodline—no pun intended, and I still get taken out by a damn fever? Where's my protagonist privilege?

Achoo!

Fuck this!!

I groaned and collapsed back into my pillow, feeling utterly defeated. My body feels like craaaap... Seriously, why did everything have to hurt right now? Even just existing felt like a chore.

Sighing, I pulled the blanket up higher. I probably just need to start eating more fruit and add more vitamins to my diet.

At least what I could do was practice my chakra control while being half dead. My eyes and nose weren't too hard to improve upon, honestly.

Took me around a month of studying with my clone and figuring out where every organ was, but I had finally gotten it around a week ago.

Eyes don't just pop with chakra, it just gives you some temporary blindness before recovering. I expected it to be somewhat like the Sharingan, but it didn't have the time slowing effect I was wanting.

Guess that makes sense, otherwise what would be the point of having a Dojutsu? They must have it because of a special mutation gene in their bodies or something.

Directing chakra to my eyes and the regions around it increased the amount of frames my brain could process at once, along with the quality, which allowed me to see far, far away.

I was hoping that I'd somehow manage in the future to increase the frames perceived to such a point, they'd slow down kind of like the Sharingan. Would that make sense? Tsunade can probably do this.

It made sense to me at least—if I could manipulate my brain's processing speed, maybe I could slow down time in my perception.

However, that didn't matter. Not when you're fucking dying like this.Wish I could just fall asleep already, and when I wake up, for this stupid-ass fever to disappear.

I wanna become a ninja already. I don't want to wait four extra years just to graduate.I want to kick ass and use cool jutsu. Like the Rasengan, Dodonpa, the Kamehameha... No, those aren't even from Naruto. This cold is even affecting my thought process!

God, I'll even have to kill at one point, don't I? I've... never attacked someone with the intent to kill them. I don't even know how I'll feel when I finally get my first blood.

They say some shinobi usually retire out of the job right after killing someone for the first time due to the trauma, and we are talking about trained child soldiers here. I'm slowly becoming one myself, but unlike them, I used to be normal.

Killing is wrong. Killing people will make you a criminal and send you straight to jail. Killing won't bring any good. That's what we've been taught.

But here? Anyone and their mother could kill each other at a moments notice. It could be a Jonin, a child, a teen, or even god himself that will lead you to your demise. It's normal to kill people for your job, and it was a means to an end. Some fucked up individuals even did it for fun, more than I'd like to count.

Even worse, there's an area specifically for torture, the one I'm so afraid of if they ever manage to see my memories. I'm finished if they ever do that.

You either break, or you don't. That was how it worked.

...I'll just leave that to the future me, for now.

Right now, what I have to do is to get over this dumb fever, and get back up as soon as I can.

Because the grind never stops.

I stared at the tray in front of me, eyeing the steaming soup and the rice crackers.

...Yeah. The grind never stops.