No Strings Attached, Kakuzu Insert (Naruto)

"Kakuzu" I turn my head at my name being called. My grandfather Isu was sitting in an old chair, one that looked like it would fall apart any day now if not for the black threads holding it together. I stared into his dull eyes, distant and tired.

"Tomorrow we will begin your training in earnest." He said.

I nodded at the statement. It was always a given that I would be a shinobi. The lifestyle here simply wouldn't permit someone such as I to be any different. Any who could fight must fight. Too many enemies around us to permit otherwise. Too many of us descended from the lands of mist bearing grudges, even if we were a bit nicer than those barbarians

"You are almost six years old, soon you will start taking part on the battle field. Survive and prove your worth, and you will inherit one of our most prized techniques." Along his arm black threads came poring out. Some of them reached out to me, and I took them in my hands examining them. "These threads are an ancient creation. My own father claimed they came from a time almost as ancient as the Sage. Survive the trials ahead and I will tell you more of their origins and abilities.

I nodded my head again, though inwardly I withheld a grimace. The Earth Grudge Fear technique was undoubtedly powerful, but it had some drawbacks I didn't particularly care for. Having pseudo immortality, additional chakra, and cheating at having elemental mastery was nice. Being a string man was probably not pleasant though, and having to harvest hearts for power seemed a bit too monstrous for me. I also didn't completely trust the old Naruto show I watched to properly demonstrate its full capabilities and draw backs. Really, I didn't trust the show to be more than a reference, even if I didn't butterfly away events. If I thought I could get away with it, I wouldn't even be a ninja. After waking up a year ago in this body though, it became abundantly clear that as the last male in a dying clan with a terrifying history that not being a ninja was an option.

A hand slapped my head, breaking my musings. I grimaced and released the strings. As they retracted my grandfather looked me in the eyes. "Kakuzu, your days of wasting time playing and drawing are over. You have to step up now and be a man. Our little clan in the waterfall won't be here much longer, and we have a lot riding on this, on you. You are the hope of our dying clan. Your body has been uniquely bred to be the perfect host for this technique." He held up his arm. "I can only have one arm in this state. Your father had all his limbs transformed. Your grandmother from your mother's side managed to unlock some secrets of puppetry though. She had some heritage from the land of wind, and with her knowledge she had a plan to take this technique farther than any one before. But it will require a strong body, lots of study, and supreme control of yourself and your chakra to survive the procedure. Your must dedicate every moment to improving your body and mind."

I frowned at him and nodded yet again. I wasn't looking forward to this, but there wasn't much choice. If I refused, I would be disowned. He might even just kill me outright. I had seen such results among other clans who were displeased with their children. This was a brutal world after all. I would need to become strong enough to survive, and eventually to leave or change this place. The third choice was I could burn it all down. Any place that forced its children to fight generation after generation probably deserved to be destroyed. I don't think I had it in me to be the destroyer though. For all my stoicism and practical outlooks on life, I had a bit of a soft heart. Leaving was honestly my best hope but I wasn't in the position to make any decisions for myself yet.

I looked over at the setting sun, it was almost time for bed. I knew the next few days were going to be rough, so I asked to be dismissed. He waved me off and I went to my bedding. Unfortunately, we were only one step above poverty despite our name having some renown in this village. We really only had two rooms in our house and an outhouse. I was forced to sleep in the main room, which was difficult sometimes when grandpa had some of his old war buddies over and they drank and swapped stories. I had fashioned some earplugs out of cloth and wax, but it had a tendency to clog my ears and take an annoying amount of time to clean out. I wonder if some chakra could help either block sound or clean my ears more efficiently.
I took my pillow (or what passed as a pillow) and laid down. This was going to suck.

---

"Chakra, brain, body," Isu said. "Chakra is the basis for all ninja activity. It will be your most powerful and versatile tool. Your knowledge and experience will teach you how to use it properly. Your body carries out these tasks and keeps you alive. If you are to remember anything it must be how to use those three properly."

I sat in an open field, just outside our village. It was a bit humid even for the land of waterfall but I would simply have to endure it.

"Each day I will instruct you on these three fields." Isu continued "One hour to chakra exercises, one to physical exercise, and one to learning all the ninja arts. You will be expected to keep up with your chores as well. This time will increase as you get older and gain more stamina. Any time remaining will be yours, but if you have any plans to continue working with chakra you will approach me first. It can be dangerous. I have lost more than a few comrades over the years to their own jutsu backfiring."

I nodded along as he spoke. My 'chores' as he said were actually quite comprehensive, especially as he didn't do much himself these days. I was largely in charge of cleaning the house, repairing things, tending the small garden we had, fishing, checking the traps for game, and running errands in the village as needed. Each day would be pretty full. Couldn't wait to learn something like shadow clones.

"First I will help open your chakra." Isu declared.

He placed his hand on my back and I felt a warmth pulse from his hand that slowly transformed into pain. I frowned at the sensation. It actually hurt quite a bit

"Good, you at least have some pain tolerance. Brace yourself boy, this will hurt a lot more before we are through."

He wasn't lying. The pain continued to increase quite dramatically. I gritted my teeth as he continued this process. Soon I could feel a warmth in my body start to respond. It pushed back at the hot pain from my back which slowly started to ebb. This caused my grandpa to smile. It reminded me of a shark.

"Excellent. Looks like it worked."

I looked back at him and raised an eyebrow

"Quit that you brat. Your far too young to talk with just your face. Talking won't hurt you none. Silence is good, but not talking at all will just make people think you're an uptight bitch." He nodded as if him beating me for my 'annoying voice and questions' weren't the reasons for my usual silence. That and not wanting to out myself as a fake Kazuko. He still answered the unspoken question.

"There are several ways of opening chakra paths. Most take months of meditation and practice. My way is faster, I learned it in the land of mist. Use your chakra to gently attack the body and it makes the body fight back. As long as you survive the process that is. Some have died from taking it too far."

I scowled at that and turned away. The man cared. Not for me as a person or as his grandkid, but as the last heir of the clan at least. But it seemed he always was searching for a way to cause me pain. His mood was often quite volatile, especially when drinking. If this was back in the U.S. then I would have taken great joy in seeing him behind bars for child abuse. My grumbles also seemed to cause him joy, the man was a sadist.

"I had other reasons for it too brat. The procedure to get the threads is going to hurt. A lot more then this little love tap. Your body also needed to be able to respond correctly to their invasion to keep you alive. Glad to say you passed this test."

That did not comfort me much

Training from there wasn't anything special. At least in terms of pain. I learned the droplet exercise. Basically, I kept a droplet from falling off my body or running down it. I did some basic exercises and stretching. He also showed me a kunai and how to handle it. No throwing yet. It was actually a little different then in the show. More akin to a traditional knife then the throwing knives I remembered. I chalked it up to either changes in the world or being in the past. I imagine metal for weapons was harder to come by so throwing was not encouraged as much. Wanted to keep your expensive weapons rather than discard them for an enemy or the environment to take.

He seemed satisfied with my progress, or at least not outraged by it. After we were finished he spoke on last thing to me.

"We will practice like this for the next 3 years. When you are nine you will begin to partake in missions. When you are twelve and have proven worthy, we will see about the threads. I will change the training as I see fit. Complain and you will experience pain. Cower and you will be punished. Fail? You will wish you were never born. If you are not ready by the time you are twelve you will not live to see the thirteenth. I will either make you the most powerful ninja of your generation and see the revival of my clan, or it will end with you and I. Do you understand?"

I nodded, though this further confirmed that the timeline wasn't quite right. I don't think the original Kakuzu got his abilities until after his failed assassination attempt on the First Hokage, well after he was an adult. Either something was going to happen between now and then that I couldn't predict, or something was fundamentally different in this world. Going to have to play it by ear.

---

As I prepared for bed that night, I took out my drawings. I really wasn't that good of an artist; I lacked an artist's imagination. My handwriting had always been messy too. But that was exactly the point. Seals were probably going to be my most powerful tool in the long run, especially if I stuck around for ninety years. I needed to try and fix my fundamentals now before I got too old in this new body. Not quite sure how my old memories affected my brain (or how my chakra affected my brain for that matter) but I would act as if changing my sloppiness now would be easier than later. The other reason was my memories would fade eventually. I glanced down at the faces staring back at me. If I could I would preserve the images of my old family.

My heart ached at the thought. I refused to cry lest I earn Isu's ire, but it was a near thing. I missed them. I missed them so much it hurt as if a knife was in my heart. I missed my dad's easy laugh. I missed my mom's amazing cooking and somewhat prickly attitude. I missed all my siblings despite our fights. The thought of never seeing them again burned within me. If there was an answer to ever seeing them again it would almost certainly lie in the sealing arts.

I felt a droplet hit my hand. Tears had formed unbidden despite my resistance. I turned away from my grandpa's chair and quickly rubbed my eyes. It was too dangerous here. Not allowed to cry unless he was gone. Not that that was typically a problem but any tears were too many for his standards. A land of mist shinobi through and through. It was easy to see how the village that would be founded there would be such a hell-hole. Silently I crawled to my spot in the house and laid myself down. It was not going to be an easy 3 years.

---

Authors note:

First fic, so I'm unfamiliar with writing demands. I don't believe in long author notes, I would rather any relevant information be in the fic itself, but I am going to lay out a few things I want this fic to be as well as a few things it's not. This is not primarily a romance fic. There may be romance later but it will not be the focus. I want to keep real world politics to as close to zero as possible. Obviously, I will have biases and ideas from the real world, but I find real world politics poisons the well of most storytelling. This includes LGBT stuff, anything related to trump, real world slavery (it's a rough world though so in universe example might exist, like the Hyuuga. I just want to stay away from real world parallels). I am not going to get into real world religions or economics unless relevant to the story. I may touch on these subjects but I will keep it as in world as possible. Such as when the shinobi clans are forming. (I mean the Uzumaki can summon a Shinigami apparently. Amaterasu and others for the Uchiha. Jashin might be an interesting study ). Christianity, the Jews, the Muslims will be left out because they are not relevant to the world at hand unless I want the mc to have a background there, and it would only really affect him in that situation Basically, I want to write a NARUTO story not a right- or left-wing story. Or preach on a soap box story.

What I really want to write is a story about this oc/si into a pseudo immortal who explores the Naruto world as well as bending the chakra system into a pretzel. I want to enjoy doing it. I want to sharpen my skills. I want others to enjoy and engage in the story. I will try to get each chapter above 2k words, preferably to the 5k range. We will see if I succeed.

I welcome all to read this story, and if you find it is not to your taste then that's okay. I just ask you try and be constructive with any criticism you have. I did not like it die in a fire is not particularly useful to sharpening my skills, nor will it stop me from writing.

This story was originally posted on Space Battles, and that will have the most up to date chapters. User name is the same as here (Bossjut).

My head hit the ground, splattering the area around me with mud. A dull ringing filled my ears as my vision swam. Not wasting time, I struggled back to my feet only for a fist to slam into my stomach. Back to the ground I went, wheezing.

Isu shook his head, "You still don't respond fast enough brat. Also, don't just stand straight up. If you can roll to the side and stand at the same time it will work better. If an enemy wants to kill you, it's best to try and move as unpredictably as possible. A still shinobi is usually a dead one on the battlefield."

I nodded as I gasped for breath. Slowly I forced myself up. If there was one thing that grandpa hated it was cowardice or hesitance in the face of pain. I took my stance again, knife raised in front of me. He just grinned and launched himself forward.

I dodged his initial punch and swiped at him with the knife, which he blocked with the metal bracer on his hand. I kicked out at his groin but he shifted his body sideways and pushed forward. I let myself be pushed down and did a half handstand as I fell back and kicked toward his stomach with both my feet. Unfortunately, he grabbed my legs and lifted me over his head, slamming back down onto the ground with tremendous force.

I lay there for a minute, dazed. I heard him say something, but it only sounded like a distant mumbling. The clouds passed over head and idly I wondered if I was late for dinner. I still needed to pick up my car from the shop. Lazy mechanic would rue the day he tried to over charge me the bas-

Suddenly I was being picked up by my grandpa, his eyes peering into mine. He shook his head at me.

"That's enough for today, any further and I might mess up that head of yours. Go home and nap it off brat."

He set me down on the ground, where I promptly collapsed into a pile again. My mind had come back to the preset, but I found I had no strength in my limbs. Isu just sighed, and threw me over his shoulder. He started the trek back to the shack we called a home.

---

I spent the next day on bed rest, which really meant chores, because injury was no excuse for Isu to not dump all his responsibilities on his recently concussed grandchild. One amazing thing about chakra was it basically enhances every aspect in your body. Hearing, smell, taste, sight, reactions, strength, and in my case right now healing. What would have been a concussion and a week's bedrest would heal in about a day instead. He would never give me more than a day off unless he went too far, but that really only happened if we were using weapons and he got a bad gash or stab in. The most advanced medicine we had at this time was still fairly primitive, and infection killed as many shinobi as outright injuries.

I sat on a stool as I washed the day's dishes, wishing we had working plumbing and heating. I hadn't seen evidence for such, but frankly I hadn't been in other people's homes much in this life. As I scrubbed with the brush a sudden idea popped into my head. It had been about 6 months since we began training, and my droplet exercise had expanded greatly. I had gone from having a few droplets to having a small stream trickle from one hand, up and around my shoulders, and down to my other hand. It used the same attraction principle that I remembered from tree walking in the show.

I looked down at the crusty wooden bowl. Could I use that attraction and movement to wash these dishes? I placed my hand on the water and drew it around with chakra until my entire hand was covered in water. I placed my water coated hand on the plate, and tried to pull at the grime with my chakra infused water. Unfortunately, this was beyond my ability as I lost cohesion with the water. It splashed back into our sink. Frowning, I tried again only to be met with the same result. Three more tries ended with three more failures.

As I pondered this a new idea came to me. I simply paced the bowl in the water and tried from there. Without have to keep it on my hand it was much easier to use the chakra infuse water. Slowly a couple of the bigger pieces of old ramen broke away, but much of the grease and smaller pieces stayed stubbornly fused to the bowl. Perhaps if I tried with soap? The chakra infused the soap took a bit more effort than the water, but it worked even better at pulling the old ramen off. Just had to force it under the pieces a bit.

My next tactic was just as inspired. Dishes were easier to clean when soaked first right? I tried to inject water directly into the dried noodles, and this proved to be the best tactic yet. By my estimate about ten seconds of me injecting the chakra soap water directly into the noodles was roughly equivalent to about ten minutes of soaking. Not a bad chakra control exercise either.

Another thing I noticed was that material mattered. I had a number of different dishes from wood and clay bowls to tin forks and spoons. Wood bowls were the most clingy and difficult to work with, clay and metal were far easier in that they didn't absorb the chakra nearly as much as the wood. For the purpose of washing dishes this was ideal as it made it easier to both pull the grime off, and didn't lose as much chakra when infusing the dirt with water for soaking purposes. I wonder if the reason was that the wood was once living so it absorbed the chakra more easily. Today was a great day for discoveries.

A hand smacked my back hard as I was playing around with my discoveries. At least he avoided my head. Isu stood there with a disapproving look. "Didn't I say not to use your chakra unless I approved brat?" he said. "What are you doing anyway that's so important?"

Instead of saying anything I simply took the next dish and showered him. He looked down curiously despite his scowl. Slowly his scowl moved into a more thoughtful frown as his brain processed my newfound dishwashing skills.

"Move brat"

I moved aside he quickly took my place. Silently he copied what I was doing. It took just a minute of practice, but then he moved at a lightning pace and cleared the rest of the dishes. This made me profoundly jealous of his chakra control. He gave a nod and turned back to me.

"Alright, you can do that from now on." He proclaimed. "Not actually a bad control exercise. Might help with water manipulation too, though that works a bit differently. Cheeky brat, at least you got something of a brain in there. But no more using chakra on the chores unless you run it by me first. Water is usually a bit safer to play with, but if you tried fire to heat the water you could have boiled the water in your skin. Knew an idiot that tried that once. Knew nothing of fire release but thought it couldn't be that hard. Well, he managed it alright. Managed to completely fry his nerves, boil his blood and destroy his muscles. Had to amputate. He died a month later on a botched mission."

"Let that be a lesson to you boy, chakra is not a toy. Even something like increasing your own strength could tear your muscles in half. It's why we do so much exercise and sparing and not just flowing chakra through your body to increase speed and strength. Body learns how much it can handle better that way."

Well now, that sounded like Tsunade's super strength. Definitely going to have to learn that in the future. With clones of course, or maybe some animal experimentation. Actually, that sounded like a good reason why Tsunade's strength wasn't more common around the world. Maybe you had to have a pretty good idea of how much the body could handle and how to properly augment it in addition to the chakra control necessary. So, a medic nin figuring that out sounded a bit more likely.

"For that matter," he continued, "when trying new techniques, try to always be sure it's going to happen outside your body. That little water sticking and moving trick? Can do it with your blood too, real easy to mess up your insides though. Never try to manipulate your blood alright? At least not while it's in your body."

I nodded my ascent. Though now that I started thinking of new ways of playing with my chakra many of my chores looked like training opportunities. Watering plants? Water control. Weeding? Earth practice. Painting? Construction? Fishing? All of these were now control and elemental training.

I dipped my hand in the water, and sheathed it in the dirty liquid. I wandered if I could separate the dirt soap from the pure water? Could I do that with salt water? Salt might be a valuable money-making source. Was anyone already doing that?

"You're a curious sort, aren't you?" Isu stated more than asked. "Little tidbit for you, I know I told you about elemental transformation before. Water, earth, yadda yadda. But what you are doing is not actually water transformation."

I looked over at him with raised eyebrows

"Yeah, transformation is an actual transformation. Fire chakra actually becomes fire, at least in part. Still some differences that I don't fully understand it. Water chakra becomes and infuses with water, which places it under your control. What you're doing right here is manipulating it, but it's on an attraction principle. Your chakra isn't actually taking on the principles and properties of water, it's just forcing it to stick to your hand. Your kind of on a half-step right now. Good for when you actually fully succeed though."

Well, another mystery to solve. But one I will have to do on my own it seems. Isu was good for practice applications, but his theoretical knowledge was a bit lacking at times. He was a soldier, not a scientist.

---

The next few days passed in a blur. Getting my but kicked in sparing, learning new traps, and experimenting with chakra. With Isu's oversight of course.

Painting? Failure. Paint sticks too much to my hand for any practical applications. Took a lot of scrubbing to get out. No real benefit to infusing a brush with chakra. No better spread. It just makes me more tired. Maybe if I could control it remotely and with precision, but that is for future me.

Watering garden? Similar issues. Not enough control or power to get the whole garden. Watering can is easier. Surprising benefit is weed pulling. Chakra infusing the weed strengthens it enough so that I can pull out the roots instead of it breaking to pieces. Stops some of the more stubborn weeds that had been hanging around. I can slowly move earth around, but that was too slow and weak to use currently. Maybe after I could use earth release properly.

Construction and repairs were easier simply for being stronger. If I could directly manipulate the material of whatever I was repairing I bet I could become a handy man God. I didn't know much on the structures of housing though, so my one-man construction crew would have to be put on hold for the foreseeable future.

Fishing was a tremendous success, if I could actually touch the fish. Using chakra made them unable to slip from my hands. Took some practice though. A couple of times I hurt my hand on the water going in as the water would condense for a moment. I assume it was because I was kind of doing something similar to water walking. My traps were always kinda shoddy, no good material and limited experience. Isu showed me a few things but he was always more of a personal in your face guy. I made it a point to eat as much protein as I could get my hands on so more fish was always welcome

The next six months passed much like this, training in the mornings and experiments in the evenings. Town was just a bit too far for a casual trip, and I had no friends anyways. It was hard to befriend people you rarely saw, and frankly were just a bit too dumb to treat as real peers. Isu didn't really care one way or another. If this was my first go at life, he would have definitely have messed me up in the head for his neglect. Still might honestly. Fun thoughts.

That's not to say that I stayed in our home. I was exploring all the tunnels and land around our little shack. Gathering wood and wild foods for us, hunting some rabbits and other small game, I even started cataloguing plants and animals. Little pictures and explanations of edible and non-edible mushrooms, tree types, and anything else I could spy. Even found some maple trees. Going to try and harvest some syrup from them, after I finally get some money and hire a smith. I could learn smithing myself, but I would need either money for lessons, or an apprenticeship. From what I can tell must such things around here are family trades.

The time passed in the blink of an eye. A very painful eye blink with all the bruises I was getting. I was now a full year into my training. I was faster than I had ever been in my previous life. Had more stamina too. My strength, while strong for my age, was still weaker than my adult self. Still, I remembered Kakuzu being able to stop Choji's enlarged fist. Whether by nature or by the threads I was going to be a physical powerhouse.

I was starting to have enough chakra for some simple ninjutsu, of which I had learned the Henge so far. Really my biggest limiting factor was not having enough chakra to practice for more than half an hour or so. It took quite a bit more to use jutsu than the basic enhancing or little manipulation tricks I was doing. Also, the transformation was an illusion, no physical component. That was a bummer, though it made more sense than a real physical change. I knew such thigs were possible (such as the Akimichi) but not with this technique. Another thing I would have to discover as Isu had no idea how it worked beyond that it did.

I had no talent for genjutsu. I had the control, I had visualization, but something stopped me from manipulating his chakra directly. It was frustrating, but I had a roadblock. Isu was a taijutsu fighter first, a ninjutsu user second, and a genjutsu user never. So I was stuck for now. That being said I was decent at dispelling it.

It was about a week after my training anniversary had passed that Isu got a visitor. They spoke in hushed tones, and by the look on Isu's face he was not pleased. By the time the man left he was downright scowling at the man.

As the door closed Isu turned to me. "Alright Kakazu, we have a mission. Get ready whatever you have. I will look it over before bed and we will leave in the morning."

I gave him a long stare

"I know I know, I said we weren't going to take missions for another two years yet, but there has been a big bandit problem recently. Something about a war going on in the south and a bunch of deserters. They need me in the field, and frankly you need to get your hands bloodied. Don't think I haven't noticed your hesitation whenever you strike at me. I was content to ignore it for a while, but it's pass time for you to kill someone"

The casualness of his statement was a bit disconcerting. I was not a pacifist, but I didn't believe in killing as a first option either. Still, I knew this day would eventually come. I nodded my ascent and left to prepare my supplies.

"One more thing!" Isu called out, "We won't be alone on this mission. So, I expect you to be on your best behavior. That means talking brat. I've looked past your silent spells, but that won't work for a stranger. Do you understand me?"

I simply nodded. More people, joy.