Improvements

Before my very eyes, the scenery of Tomo's house and the front porch was replaced by a green field.

My brain wanted to reel in shock from what had just happened but my stomach had other plans. 

"HRGKK!"

I crumpled to the floor as my gut did its best to empty its contents, luckily for me, I hadn't eaten much, otherwise, I'm sure that the leftovers from last night would be painting the freshly mowed grass I was now lying on.

'What just… happened?' I thought, my mind still slightly fuzzy. 

'Flicker… that was definitely the flicker.' it didn't take a genius to figure that out. My mind was in a disturbing mess of awe, confusion and anger. Awe at essentially being teleported, confusion at the entire situation and anger at not being warned, while these emotions brewed the man dusted himself off and spoke.

"Okey Dokey Aokey Let's not waste any more time!"

'AND WHO'S FAULT IS THAT?!' I wanted to shout out.

I looked up at the demon in human's clothing that stared at me, the witch's brew of emotions bubbling over as a heaping spoon of anger was added to the mix, this man had been pushing me for a while now. Arriving hours late, annoying me, and now, he had almost made me throw up.

'Does he have no soul? For all intents and purposes, he should only be treating me as a five-year-old…' I restrained myself from glaring at him.

I had noticed for a while now that my behaviour was not as it once was. I had the awareness of a 17-year-old, the mannerisms of one, the consciousness of one… but not the body of one. Where I could calmly assess a situation and choose the best path forward, I would find myself acting with my heart instead of my brain. 

The hormones and brain I possess make me temperamental, prone to outbursts, my patience reduced to a fraction of what it once was. I guessed that the only reason I could focus on my training as I had done before was due to how novel the concept of moving my body was, slowly but surely that novelty was wearing off.

Right now, I felt anger, more anger than I should. Anger that made the reasonable side of me want to scream at the man and maybe even cry a little, how pathetic was that? Recognising the volatility of my emotions just aggravated me more.

'Man the fuck up Aoki. Relax and breathe.'

I looked at the man as my emotions rose to an all-time high since being reborn, his eyes had a tinge of curiosity hidden beneath a pool of smugness.

'Use this. Every emotion you feel right now, use it to get stronger. Squeeze every drop of usefulness I can out of this fucker and get strong. That's what we're here for.' I thought, using spite as motivation to move.

There was nothing to gain from acting with my emotions.

There was everything to gain from being taught by this man.

I looked at the floor and shakily stood up, my stomach now settled and my mind more calm than before. 

I couldn't see that well but as I met his gaze I could see an expression of shock which was quickly replaced by an emotionless one, the expression was even harder to figure out given the giant scarf that covered most of his face.

"Ready." I said, steadying my stance.

"...Good." He said, his trademark smugness making a reappearance in his tone.

"Lord Third informs me that you've been training, show me your routine," his voice sounded much less droney, settling into a lower pitch that made it seem more natural.

'What? I never talked to Hiruzen about working out? Was it from when he saw me at the hospital? No, that's not recent…' I didn't answer as I was confused at what the man was eluding to; that was until I remembered one of the Hokage's more… questionable behaviours.

'That damn crystal ball!' A fantastical device that gave him sight into almost every single corner of the village, I remember him getting called out on it quite a few times… a complete oversight on my part.

I silenced my thoughts for now and did as he asked, first I got into my push-up position and cranked out 10, I was about to do more when the man stopped me.

"Hmm... there's a lot I wanna say but, in honour of you, I'll keep it short."

'Bitch, I'm five.' I complained internally.

"It's bad." he declared, his playful attitude growing a little serious.

"Huh? What's wrong?" I asked him, surprised.

"It'd be easier to tell you what's right... and that's nothing."

'??!?!'

I know I haven't been trained, hell, most of my workout regimen was taken out of anime and other shows I watched, but I didn't think it was as horrible as he just said! I even consulted Sasuke and he helped improve my form quite a bit. I'm sure he's just exaggerating to assert his leadershi-

"Your arms are too far forward, your range of motion's skewed, your hips aren't in line with the rest of your body and your elbows are flared... it's more like you're trying to get up from the ground and failing over and over again rather than doing a pushup." He said, waggling a finger in the air as he stomped on my soul.

If my heart could shatter, it would've done so halfway through that speech.

'Damn...'

"Not to worry though, could be worse," he added on.

"How?" I asked, more out of sarcasm than genuine curiosity.

"You could've not tried," He said with a smile. This was the first time I found him to be palatable.

I hummed and nodded, still slightly embarrassed.

The man chuckled and said "Copy me!", I thought that he might annoy me further but instead he dropped down and performed what I can only assume was a perfect push-up. 

I had never exercised in front of a mirror so I had no way of determining what it was that I looked like when I worked out, but even without that knowledge, I knew that our form was night and day. When he moved it looked as if his entire body was moving in tandem for a purpose... his analogy of me failing to push myself up from the ground was spot on.

He continued with the push-ups, and I did my best to lock his form into my memory. He got up and instructed me to try again, which I did to the best of my ability.

It felt amazing.

Before, my arms grew tired and the burn was concentrated on my forearms, now not only was my entire arm feeling it, but even my chest and abdomen started working. One proper pushup was more than equivalent to 3 or 4 of the ones I was doing before. 

"Alright, that's enough," he said after my tenth push-up.

I got up with a smile on my face and looked at the man in a new light, although he was a dick of the highest order, he had just given me a gift that I wouldn't have gotten until I joined the academy months later.

"It was better this time, not perfect but once practice more you should settle into a flow" he advised.

I nodded, part of me wanted to say thank you but I held off on that until the end of the session, he was much more pleasant now but I was still holding a small grudge.

"Right then, continue, show me the rest of your routine."

And so I did.

Sit-ups, lunges, squats, all of these were deconstructed by "Tokei" and made leaps and bounds superior to what they were before, sadly after I did a few of each he made me stop and told me to work on them on my own time. I'm sure this was to make our training more time efficient but I would've liked more of his insight.

"Now young Aokey..." he asked, using a strange version of my name to address me.

"What do you know about Chakra?"

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[A/N 3/5 chapters for the week, if we hit 400 power stones, or close enough to it, I'll release an extra chapter on Saturday :)

Words: 1424

P.S. improved the book cover quite a bit, I like this one more haha! Thank you to everyone for reading, special thanks to DRAVIDIAN and LifePlus for the massive support]