Chapter Text
Ono Tamachii was a mediocre student at best. He had no clan and neither had he the kind of talent as Minato Namikaze, the civilian born genius of the year. In this life time, Ono might’ve made it to Chunin rank with effort and struggle… that seemed to be his fate… until he found that strange fruit.
He was walking through the ruins of a clan compound. There were many like this, compounds which had once housed minor clans which had by now died out. Konoha tended to birth clans but not at a rate to fill out the countless districts which sat empty now.
He whistled as if he couldn’t care less whilst massaging his ribs. He had had the misfortune to have been paired against Minato during sparring. The battle was short and painful on his side. He hadn’t lasted more than 20 seconds.
Taijutsu wasn’t his strong suit, neither was genjutsu nor Ninjustu, his only talents were in chakra control and in his large chakra pool. He wasn’t a monster of chakra, like Kushina Uzumaki but he had more than most. He’d been told more than once that having a large chakra pool was like inheriting a warehouse with no tools inside. Impressive on paper, useless in practice.
His instructors had been kind, “Your control is excellent, Ono. If you keep training you will find your niche”
His classmates had not. He laughed along with them because it was easier than pretending the jokes didn’t sting.
A breeze stirred through the abandoned compound, carrying the scent of old wood and damp earth. Moss crawled over cracked stone paths and vines wrapped themselves around buildings whose owners had long since been forgotten, “Wonder who even lived here?” Ono muttered, his gaze drifting over the decaying roofs.
Out of a whim, he walked inside, his fingers tracing stone walls which had cracked, posts which had become brittle long ago. He opened one of the doors and found an old food storage, rotten fruits smelled of alcohol and rot had gotten to the chest but amongst the brown, decayed fruits, there was a perfectly pristine one, one which almost glowed. It was pink, with dark purple swirls on it.
It looked almost like some sort of candy which had been forgotten amongst the rotten fruit.
It entranced Ono, it looked tasty and he hadn’t eaten all day. His mom and Dad were on a business trip -they were both merchants- and his grandma only got up a few minutes before he had to leave for the academy, so he had had to skip breakfast.
It probably was pretty old but in that moment, Ono didn’t care, he took a bite.
It tasted like nothing. Neither sweet nor savory nor disgusting.
He couldn’t focus much on the taste however, as there was something settling within his core, near his gut, an energy, much like chakra, which swirled just centimeters over the chakra node in his abdomen.
He tried pulling from it, like he would pull chakra but instead, chakra flowed from his node, into that second core and mixed with that energy before leaking out of his hand as pink, smoke like essence.
The substance was looking for a medium, he could tell, some outlet. He pulled a kunai out of his pouch (yes he wasn’t a genin yet but it wasn’t like his parents had their own stock of kunai, like the clan kids, so he had to have his own) and guided the energy into the weapon.
The energy seeped into the metal like water into dry earth and the kunai began floating above his hand. A cartoony mouth and set of eyes appeared on it, “Hello Papa!”
It spoke! The kunai, that weapon made out of lifeless steel, spoke!
“What the hell?”, he cursed, staring at the weapon.
“Papa, is something wrong?”, the kunai asked, floating around his head with a childish enthusiasm.
“H- how can you talk? Did I do that? How did I do that?” He asked, this made no sense! He had never heard of a shinobi animating a lifeless object like that!
“Of course you did that, Papa! You enriched some of your chakra with your own soul and guided that energy into me!”
“M- my soul?”, He stared at the kunai, which was still merrily circling him, “Is this some sort of kekkei genkai?”
“That is one way to look at it”, the kunai smiled brightly, “I am feeling sluggish though. You didn’t put much chakra into me, papa. I can’t hold onto consciousness much longer”
“Wait! Explain how-”, the kunai’s face vanished and it fell to the ground, “What in kami’s name is going on? A kekkei genkai? I thought only the big clans had those!”
He picked up the kunai, lifeless, edge still sharp but no life inside of it.
Ono turned the kunai over in his hands again and again, no eyes, no mouth, “I’m hallucinating”
That had to be it. He’d eaten a fruit that had somehow survived a decade in an abandoned storehouse. Maybe it had been poisonous. Maybe he was currently unconscious on the floor, drooling on himself while dreaming about talking kunai.
He poked himself in the cheek. Ow. He slapped himself harder and it still hurt. He tried breaking a genjutsu, nothing happened, “Not a hallucination then… I have to tell someone… Nini sensei might know what is happening… ”
But how to find her? The academy day was long over and it wasn’t like Ono knew the chunin instructor’s home address. As much as he wanted answers now, it seemed as though he’d need to wait for the next day.
He couldn’t think of any other place to go. What was he going to do? Rush into the hokage building and demand to speak with lord third? Laughable, that idea.
Maybe he should tell granny…?
…No. He’d only worry her uselessly. He needed to figure this out and the best course of action was to wait for the academy day tomorrow.