Perseverance

Waking up is gradual, fragmented and weird.

It's unlike any of the other waking ups Harry's done. The air when he breathes it in feels foreign, cleaner than he's used to and his magic is oddly... complacent. More so than it's ever been.

He slips under before he can make any progress with his sluggish thoughts.

"—perhaps, don't you think?"

"You will do no such." A voice seethes with so much venom, Harry almost chokes. But he's on his side, facing the wall, so no one sees him when he wakes up.

"Do you think the villagers will accept this lying down? Take it out of its misery now Shibuki-kun, —"

"It," is gritted out. "Is a child you old bastard."

There's a snort and a sharp intake of breath.
"You will regret saying that."

The door slides open, forcing the occupants of the room go silent. "I heard your arguments all the way down the hall. Get out, my patient needs to rest."

"Katsuki-san—"

"Get out."

Harry falls asleep again, and the next time he wakes up, there's strength in his limbs. He can even manage to sit up.

Finding it counterproductive to deny his curiosity, Harry decides to feel the world with his soul, make his body a live wire of sorts.

…….

……

….

…

..

.

The pain that follows almost splits his head in half.

He only 'feels' the world with his soul for a second....one tiny second, but it feels like an eternity. The sensory overload is unbearable, and only because there is magic... Or some form of divine energy floating around the very air around him does he not claw his eyes out in agony.

The energy- he can feel it in everyone in the whole hospital, burning, brighter more in some than others. He can feel it in the people outside his window, walking down the street, some in their houses, most at the markets, others in fields made of that very same energy. It stretches out to the forest surrounding the settlement, where Harry can feel every individual tree, burning with energy, then outlines the even larger tree perched over the village as well as the waterfall surrounding the whole area, and Harry can feel every individual drop of water, imbued with that energy.

He doesn’t scream, he can’t even breathe. His muscles lock up and he just bares through it, with the help of his occlumency shields, which somehow manage to dampen the pain to a certain degree.

He comes back to himself hours later in the same position, muscles aching as fiercely as his back. Gods, he feels like shit. But he has a new awareness to his surroundings, one he's never truly had before.

He can tell that he's being watched carefully by three pairs of eyes. Although he can't see them, he knows where they are. He doesn't bother looking in their direction, but calmly falls back onto the bed and closes his eyes.
He's very far from home.

Circe. So far.

In fact, he's probably not even on the same Earth. Thinking about it is making him feel light headed and nauseas, so he cuts off that train of thought.

Compartmentalization 101.

He will get to the bottom of this as soon as he gets out of the damn hospital.

His sleep is fitful and he wakes up hours later feeling as exhausted as when he fell asleep. He only stays up long enough to eat the warm broth left on the counter at the side of his bed, before falling back under.
This goes on for the next three days before the nurses’ start getting concerned. They poke and prod at him, furiously scribbling away at reports. Some of them can make their hands glow a pale green (had briefly freaked him out, but he's used to it now). Harry thinks it’s probably some mystical healing arts, because he may feel like shit when they touch him with their glowing hands, but he always feels less tired after their sessions.

"Is he alright?" The young man, Shibuki-sama asks.

"He's doing much better. I've never met a patient who responds this well to chakra transfusion. To be completely honest I've never seen a person survive without chakra as long as he did. It doesn't make any sense.
But we have good news. His coils aren't as irreparably damaged as we believed. I don't really know if his... tenant is just healing its host, or if he has some form of kekkie genkai that boosts cell regeneration."
The Head nurse, Katsuki-san as she insisted he call her, says.

"Is he going to be able to mold chakra then?"

"Judging by his level of recovery, I expect he'll be strong enough to do more than lie in bed tomorrow, in fact, I was thinking of discharging him in two days."

Harry watches silently as they discuss him. It’s all they've done since he woke up. Circe knows he doesn't understand much of what they're saying, but he's filing information away for later review.

He's out in four days instead of two and breathes a sigh of relief. The hospital was very boring and Harry hated every moment of it. He was left to his thoughts far too long and they weren’t pretty. The man, Shibuki-sama walks beside him.

Every once in a while he stops to greet someone, its apparent he's a very important person in this community.

Something is bothering him though.

Things are going a little too quickly for his tastes.

What is chakra? What is this place? Where is this world and how far is it from his home?

He'd tried magic yesterday, and he'd been completely surprised by what he could do. Wizards sometimes master some meager forms of wandless magic, nothing truly extraordinary, a simple accio or a levitating charm. Only those truly magically gifted could perform incredible feats, like Dumbledore and Tom Riddle.

Harry, though clearly special as he was once the chosen one (nothing wrong with accepting the hand dealt to him by fate), has magic hat is of simple garden variety, nothing too out of the norm. So it was with immense surprise, that he managed to blind himself when he attempted to cast a wandless lumos.

He didn’t really question how his eyesight returned on its own sometime later, hours after he'd floundered around the room like a fool.
When he'd accidently made himself a live wire, he'd been injured. Something about damaged chakra coils and pathways apparently. He'd flooded magic through them, thus the agony, so as soon as he was given the green light he'd tried the technique again.

It was something he'd been taught at the Auror department, a way to make sense of your location in case of a splinch.
Each continent had a different ambience, and Harry's fortunately made himself familiar with all of them. It’s how he knows he doesn't belong in this world. The magic does not have the same feel to anything he's familiar with.
It’s begging to used.

There is no test needed or trails to passed to understand it like he'd have done if he was in Africa, trying to navigate the ambient magic used by Shaman, the 'Old Strength' left behind by their many ancestors. Or the fluid Japanese magic, which could be infused into technology to make incredible gadgets.

No, it was untouched, except a ripple here and there. A whole fucking world’s worth of energy.

Harry knows he’s way out of his element.

This is mind bogging and....and gods—to make it worse, the proverbial cherry on top, he's stuck in fucking four year old's body.
That thought makes him giggle a bit hysterically.

How the fuck did that happen?

A glance around shows that the place is in shambles, there is a great amount of damage having been done to a great number of the buildings which are in the process of being rebuilt. This must be what the Seven Tails rampage caused, at least according to what pieces Harry can connect from what he's heard. 'I wonder who or what the seven tails is, and why I'm connected to them.' He thinks.
But destruction aside, the whole place is a beautiful blend of the past and the future, bits of outdated technology here and there, and a multitude of medieval crafts around each curving corner, tall building made of wood, some stone, others bricks and concrete, others paper, and the humongous tree leaning over the whole place, towering above the village by a couple hundred kilometers is fucking magnificent.

Yes, another thing that doesn't happen on his Earth.

He knows he isn't related to Shibuki-sama. There was an old man when he woke up, eyes cold, poised regally. He'd said that he was the youngest child at the orphanage, so Harry is a little confused that he's not returning there, but instead is being brought to Shibuki-sama's lavish house, (at least it seems like his house). Maybe this is something that involves the Seven Tails, yet again.
It looks like a tangent between a house and a large office building, because there are uniformed men and women entering and leaving the place whilst Harry and Shibuki-sama walk towards it, each of them holding a scroll of some sorts in their hands. The whole architecture looks like something out of a Japanese feudal movie. It’s all a bit confusing.

"Something on your mind?" Shibuki-sama asks, looking down at him.
There's a pause where Harry is afraid his voice will give way to his age, or his mannerisms will be considered unusual, but they've been watching him for days now, surely he'd already be dead if they thought something suspicious was up.
And isn't that something else to think about. He can spot a soldier from a mile away, and this place is filled with them.

‘Interesting fact,’ he thinks, ‘the gravity here is different, lighter’. It explains the ease with which some of the uniformed men and women leap onto building roofs like its child play...oh and look at that, children playing leaping onto building roofs.

"I was just taking note of the differences in infrastructure. The building in front of us seems a lot more traditional than any other building I've seen so far."

"Mmmh, that's all thanks to the Head Woman before my father. She felt the village was progressing too fast, taking on more modern values, when this it was built and upheld solely on our traditions. She wanted to keep that the roots alive, so it was decided that the Head Monument would be rebuilt in a traditional style."

They walk on a bit in silence before Shibuki-sama speaks again. "You haven't asked me anything.....about, well, anything that's happened."

"I wasn't aware that was on the table."

Shibuki-sama sighs, coming to a stop. "Fū, you're ......a jinchuriki."

“What’s a jinchuriki?” Harry asks.

“…a human sacrifice.”

"What was I sacrificed to?" And isn't that morbid. Twice now.

"You were sacrificed for the village." He says this, going down on his knees in front of Harry. "There are Nine Tailed Beasts, chakra constructs of great terror. One of them, the Seven Tails attacked our village just two weeks ago and there wasn't anyone in the village strong enough to stop it, myself included."

"What did you do?" Harry asks, slowly.

"We sealed it away in a live host. The only one we could find was—"

"Me." He interrupts.

"Yes." Shibuki says, remorseful. "I'm very sorry it had to be you, but there was no one else and the village —"

"I understand."

Shibuki-sama sighs again, standing up. "Do you know what it means being a jinchuriki?"

"No."

"I’m not sure you’re old enough to understand, but you being here keeps everyone in this village safe."

"I understand."

Oh, he understands. He understands alright. He needs to get out of this place. Harry is done playing the unwilling hero.

"You are our protector. Those who know it will appreciate you just as I do. Those who don't will spit on your name, but that's alright. Not everyone is supposed to like you."

No shit, Harry thinks. Fuck my life.