You hate to admit it but you had more fingers than friends. But that was before you got to Konoha. Somehow before the night ended, everyone there had considered you to be a friend. They had even treated you like they had known you their whole life. It was quite a foreign feeling. But it felt nice, heartwarming even.

But you would be lying if you said you didn’t feel overwhelmed. You have been so used to spending time with only your family that it feels weird to have so many people around you. Sure, you faced tons of people when you helped your father sell products but they were just temporary. You couldn’t even remember most of their faces. But now that you’re going to live here, you’d have to see them almost daily, it was overwhelming.

That’s why you had purposely avoided main streets the day after that eventful dinner. You wanted to avoid them at all costs, at least for that day. The task wasn’t really that hard considering most of them were assigned with missions the very next day, while some had decided to continue their training.

Despite Konoha having many training grounds, training was out of the plan due to your injuries. As an alternative, you decided to go to the library after your classes at the academy. At first it was just because of your curiosity, you wondered what type of books they kept there. But when you stumbled upon a book about the different clans in Konoha, you couldn’t stop yourself from reaching for it and burying your nose in it. If one of the staff didn’t inform you that the library was about to close, you wouldn’t even know how late it had gotten.

The second day after the dinner, you no longer wanted to avoid your new friends so you started walking through the main streets again. Much to your dismay, there weren’t any signs that they were in the village. So you resigned to going back to the library and reading the same book again to continue where you left off. 

You were naturally curious about the people around you so you read about those who you’ve already met.

In three days’ time, you were able to know more about your new friends and their families, alongside their jutsus. You felt weird though, because you had to resign to reading about them instead of asking them yourself. The new found knowledge felt superficial to say the least.

Besides the information about your friends, you had also read up more about the Senju clan. The clan with a thousand skills, it said. But you focused on information about your great grandfather Tobirama.

Among the interesting information you learned about him was his ability to perform techniques with only one hand seal, his ability to accurately detect the presence and location of people by merely touching the ground with his finger, his ability to identify someone’s ancestry just by their chakra signature alone, and lastly, his ability to perform genjutsu that was too hard to dispel even for someone with Kage level.

He sounded like someone who’s too good to be true that you wondered why Lady Tsunade thought you were very much like him. Despite her expectations, you were motivated to train harder after learning all of these.

Based on the book you’ve read, in order to be able to perform complex techniques with just one hand seal, one must have advanced chakra control. The thought of being able to use the Water Dragon Jutsu with just one hand seal made you excited, considering it was one of the techniques that required a lot of hand signs. The more you thought about it, however, the more it made you wonder if it’s actually possible to perform a jutsu with a single hand. That would be extremely helpful if you were to get tied up somehow in a mission.

The next thing you focused on was Tobirama’s sensory skills. You had never thought about trying to sense people’s presence by touching the ground. The first thought that came to your mind when you read about it was how creative it was. You assumed it must have something to do with someone’s chakra frequency and its direct contact to the ground. You weren’t exactly sure but it’s highly likely. Your mother hasn’t really trained you with your sensory skills that much, only teaching you how to switch from sensory mode to fight mode and vice versa. So you make it one of your top priorities.

As for being able to identify someone’s lineage through their chakra signature, you would have to give up on that. Mainly because you weren’t even familiar with that many people to know about such a thing. It was just impossible for you.

Regarding Tobirama’s ability to perform genjutsu, you figured it was extremely hard to do, especially if even a Kage couldn’t counter it. To begin with, you only know the basics of casting a genjutsu. Your timing was always off back then so if you were to surpass Tobirama, you had to train so much more. Your lack of proficiency was due to the fact that your mother insisted you master your sensory skills first before she would train you on how to expertly use genjutsu. And since a couple of weeks ago, you weren’t really at the same caliber yet as your mother, although your range had significantly improved.

All these thoughts were running in your mind by the time you had left the library. Normally, this much knowledge would make your head hurt, but surprisingly, it didn’t. It gave you a weird kind of calm. Maybe because by the time you arrived home, you had managed to make a mental list of the things you had to work on and improve.

Before, you didn’t even know where to start in order to become stronger but now you had an idea. Having this list meant you’d know what to do instead of the loose “train harder” term. Although a list wasn’t something that amounts much, to you it was the beginning. And it made you look forward to the next day when you could actually train again.

When Friday came, the first thing you did was check up on the status of your injuries. You had almost screamed and jumped after finding out your cracked bone had been fully healed together with your internal injuries. The gash on your leg was healed two days ago and if you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t have thought you were stabbed because of the lack of scars.

You were in high spirits that you had leaped on your way to the Academy. You even arrived earlier than usual since you no longer had to bandage yourself. But just like the other days in the Academy, not much really happened aside from you diligently taking notes and listening to the instructors.

Before you knew it, your class had been dismissed and your excitement for training had increased tenfold. Your priority would be improving your sensory skills and you know just the right people to help you: Team Kurenai.

You were hoping you’d find them at the training grounds that they briefly mentioned as their “regular place” during the dinner you had with them. If they weren’t around or if they were on a mission… then… you’d had to delay your sensory skills training by nighttime when your mother could train you. The thought slightly dampened your mood. But you weren’t going home just yet if they weren’t there, instead, you’d just have to work on increasing your chakra reserves by physical training and exercise.

Speaking as a medical nin, your alternative isn’t really ideal, considering you just healed from your injuries, but you had no other choice. You weren’t just going to wait and do nothing. Who knows when the Akatsuki would make their next move? You had to prove that you’ve become stronger before then, so that they’d allow you to go on missions involving that organization and then find an opportunity to kill the person who murdered your father.

The reason you had to increase your chakra reserves was because