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Chapter Text

I stare up at the clouds with heavy limbs and half-lidded eyes, pondering the shapes of the fluffy mist. 

The one directly above me looks like a malformed cat with wide eyes. How cute.

“Win goes to Uzumaki Kushina! Do you need a medic, Seiko-chan?” 

I blink blearily, looking to my left and eyeing my sensei. Around me are many children who seem amused at my predicament. Good. Better to be seen as funny and incompetent than to get sent out to die in the war. 

“No, Taro-sensei. I’m just enjoying the dirt,” I say with a little grin, raising my arm to give a thumbs up. My leg aches from where Kushina swiped me off my feet, and so does my shoulder from hitting the ground. 

Bruises heal. I’ll be fine.

Taro-sensei, a teenage Chunin who’s gotten benched thanks to a bad experience with Ame poison, sighs at me. “Just do the seal of reconciliation, Seiko-chan.” 

I roll to my feet, holding out a hand to the redheaded girl in front of me. Kushina is so pretty and hits so unreasonably hard. I can already tell she’ll grow up into a monster, no foresight necessary. 

“You’re so lazy, Seiko-chan. We’ve been going over the counter for leg swipes for a week, dattebane!” Kushina whines, quickly reaching over and clasping her fingers in my own. “You should practice more.”

“Sorry, Kushina-chan, I was distracted thinking about lunch. I’ll do better next time,” I hum. I wasn’t thinking about lunch. I was mostly thinking about how scary Kushina will be once she taps into her demon powers and starts throwing chakra chains around. 

“If you were just distracted, you won’t mind another match, will you, Seiko-chan?” Taro-sensei asks shrewdly. 

His arms are crossed over his chunin vest, and his hands are gripped tight enough that they don’t tremble. Nerve poison isn’t a joke. I reaffirm my desire never to get ambushed by an Ame nin every time I see Taro-sensei. Which is every weekday. It’s a good reminder.

I suppose I lost too easily against Kushina. I’ll have to make it look more believable next time. 

“Yes, Sensei,” I say agreeably. I shake myself out with a few little hops before settling into a loose fighting stance. My left leg and right shoulder feel a little tender, but nothing I can’t move through easily.

I should probably win this one or make it look like I tried to win. Choices choices.

“This time you’d better try, dattebane!” Kushina says threateningly, doing the seal of confrontation with quick fingers before creating distance again. 

“Begin!” Taro-sensei commands. 

Kushina rushes forward, never the type to let her opponents or herself have time to think before punches go flying. 

I twist under a punch aimed for my face, my left forearm just barely shifting to push Kushina’s right arm off course. I grab the redhead’s left leg when it jerks out to smack into my side before I jab my fist forward to hit the girl’s nose. 

With a hiss, Kushina draws her head back to avoid the punch, and I quickly shift out of the punch to grasp her shirt and push her down. Kushina’s balance is unsteadied, what with her leg still in the air, and we both go down together.

I straddle the other girl’s stomach, both hands free and ready to start wailing punches down on her face. I raise my right fist and contemplate the morality of child soldiers for the eighth time today.

“Disengage! Win goes to Seiko,” Taro-sensei calls out. 

“No, Sensei, I can still beat her!” Kushina shouts, glaring over at the lanky man. Her hand was already reaching out to grab my right arm. 

“Not without a broken nose, you won’t. Disengage, Seiko,” Taro-sensei says with mild disgruntlement. He usually dislikes the girls hitting each other in the face, especially the clan girls. 

Which is why I did it! Silly me.

I lower my fist and step off of Kushina, happy I didn’t get any new bruises. Maybe I should’ve tried less hard and took the kick to my side before grabbing her leg. 

Oh well, spilled milk. 

“Seiko, please try not to get distracted next time. You can clearly do well in taijutsu when you focus,” Taro-sensei says as Kushina and I do the seal of reconciliation again . 

“I’ll do better next time, Sensei,” I say, blinking at him. I will not do better next time. I will continue to be mediocre with some level of promise and coast until we graduate next year.

With that, Kushina and I leave the fighting ring to let Taro call up the next pair of fighters. I brush the dirt off of my shirt while I walk, and Kushina glares at me. 

“Do you think I’m not good enough to fight?” Kushina asks with narrowed eyes, planting herself next to me when I stand at the edge of the ring. 

“Hm? No Kushina-chan. You’re pretty formidable. You’re gonna kill a lot of people one day!” I say obliviously, watching Akimichi Jiro and Yamagishi Masako get ready to fight. Yamagishi will probably lose, considering Akimichi has the advantage of clan training, but he’ll probably put up a good fight.

“Seiko-chan! You shouldn’t say things like that!” Suzuki Kyo mutters at my side, wide-eyed. 

“Why? Kushina-chan is super formidable.”

Being nine again isn’t so bad, I suppose. I get to pretend to be way denser than I am. 

—

The first thing I remember is being five years old and completely bored. 

Many people have much more interesting stories about when they gained consciousness or whatever. In my first life, my earliest memory was of my fourth birthday and playing with a new pony toy. 

In this life, it was of me glaring at a toy kunai. Mostly because I realized what the toy kunai and all the weirdos wearing headbands meant for the first time, and also realized how much shit I was in. 

I step into my apartment and kick my sandals off as I close the door. They’re worn, the strap on one of them is about to snap off from the way the threads are looking. I’ll have to buy a new pair soon. 

My meager savings and meager-er monthly stipend will just have to cope. The one good thing about war is that pretty much all shinobi basics are cheaper, thanks to government subsidies. And that there’s a lot of second hand shops full of items left behind by some of the unlucky people fighting in that war. 

“I’m home!” I announce to my plants on the windowsill. My little mint plant looks so cheerful in the afternoon sun. “If anyone but me is here, you’d better not have touched my snacks!”

One day, an intruder will actually be in my apartment without me knowing, and my joke will land. 

I hum a little tune to myself as I set my bag on my kitchen table and open my fridge to find a snack. I made some onigiri two nights ago, so there should still be one in there. 

I need to do some homework for the Academy after I eat, a worksheet quizzing on different standard procedures. How should you carry an injured comrade or client? Whose orders should you follow in this word problem? What did this person do wrong when breaking down their camp?

Boring. So boring. At least I’ll get to do some meditation afterward and practice my chakra control. 

Living in a shinobi world is more mind numbing than anyone said it would be. If you aren’t willing to throw yourself to the wolves and graduate early, it’s mostly homework and comparing your developmental levels to other kids your age so you don’t stand out. 

If only I had a death wish and wanted to go fight in the second shinobi war. I don’t, by the way, and I think the excitement would be tempered by how fast I’d be maimed or die. 

I take a bite out of my onigiri, settle in my chair, and pull out my workbook from my bag. 

I suppose I’ll need to speed up my development a little to make myself more promising for graduation next year. Uchiha Mikoto is the top kunoichi right now, closely followed by Kushina, and if I kick them down a rank, I’ll secure a Jonin sensei that won’t immediately fail me. Probably. 

It’s hard to judge these things when you’re an orphan or civilian-born. If I’m too promising, I’ll have to graduate early and disappear into ROOT. If I’m not promising enough, I end up in the genin corps and get stuck in admin or die on the frontlines. 

I’m just lucky I’ve balanced well enough to switch into the class with all the clan kids in it. The most “promising” group that will probably all graduate save a few, and most will get apprenticed or on a Jonin team. 

I finish my onigiri and flick through the two pages of work I need to do. I suppose I’ll just get all the answers correct for this one since I’ve resolved to finally make myself more “promising.” 

Not genius level. Just promising enough that they won’t send me off to die immediately. 

I should practice my hand signs after my homework. We’re covering the first of the academy three in a month, the replacement jutsu. Best to make sure my dexterity is where I want it to be when we do it in class. 

—

One part of the delicate balance I must uphold is my connections to others. 

“Isn’t Minato-kun cute, Seiko-chan?” Yamanaka Ayako hums to my left, her strange pupil-less blue eyes on the blonde boy in the front row of class. She’s pretty in the way most of her clan is. Unnerving and disarming all at the same time. Like a porcelain doll.

“He’s very pretty,” I offer diplomatically. Minato is , but in a more human way than a Yamanaka. He’s sociable and makes other people feel important when he speaks to them. A useful tool for a shinobi, especially one who wants to become a Kage. 

How strange that thought is. If I survive long enough, I’ll be bowing to the friendly boy in my class. If I get even farther, I may end up at his funeral. 

Grim thoughts. 

“Do you think you’d marry him?” Ayako asks conspiratorially. She does things like this often, where she just gets people to offload everything about themselves for entertainment. It’s definitely a Yamanaka thing, socialized into them early so they do well in information work.

I tap my pencil against the desk in a familiar rhythm, looking at the back of Minato’s spiky blonde head. He’s talking to another student a few rows up, gesturing with his hands and nodding. Something about a game of ninja he played yesterday. 

It’s so childish it hurts. 

To be honest, I don’t think I’ll ever marry anyone in this life. Let alone the boy who one day marries Uzumaki Kushina and has a protagonist baby with her. Sounds terribly complicated, disrupting fate and time so I can become a Kage’s wife. Seems boring too.

All that aside, I was allergic to attachment before I ended up in this lifetime and career, so now I think it’ll just be having one-night stands forever. 

Er, not that that’ll be happening anytime soon, though. I’m a strange child-adult amalgam in my mind, and I’m absolutely physically a nine-year-old. This is a problem for my teenage years. 

“Marriage sounds boring. Would you marry him, Ayako-chan?” I ask curiously, tilting my head at the girl and making my short brown hair sway with the movement.

“No, probably not. The boys in the year above us are much cuter,” Ayako says, tapping her dainty chin. “I’m sad Inoichi-nii’s year graduated the year before last. Chouza-senpai was so nice.”

I am not sad the Ino-Shika-Cho graduated. Shikaku always gave me looks like he knew what I was up to. It was disconcerting. 

“You see them around your clan compound, though, don’t you?”

Ayako sighs dramatically, lips pulling into a pout. “It’s not the same .”

Isn’t it odd how nine year old girls pine after possible marriages? It’s cultural here. Expected that you’ll marry young, since you’ll probably die young. Especially among the clan types where making more little clan kids is oh so important. I’m glad to be an orphaned clanless kid for that reason, even if it means the state treats me like a disposable resource. No surprise arranged marriages for me.

My mind shifts away from that awful line of thought, and I watch Ayako survey the room around us. 

In order to avoid getting disappeared, one must be well known by their peers. Well known enough that they will notice and be sad if you disappear. As such, I am very friendly with my classmates in my class, upper years and lower years. 

Something I learned in my last life is that most of the time, being friends with people gets you farther than just being technically skilled. In a few years, half these kids will be out on the frontlines with me, and their connection to me could be the difference between life and death. 

Also, a not insignificant portion of them will be desk nin. You always make buddies with the paperwork people. Always.

“Do you have a crush on anyone, Seiko-chan? You never say anything about it,” Suzuki Kyo asks behind me. Kyo’s from a shinobi family, but it’s not one important enough to be a clan. They don’t have any special moves or kekkei genkai. 

“I just don’t really like anyone like that. Some people are pretty, but that’s better admired from afar,” I say, leaning all the way back in my chair so I can look at Kyo with my head tilted. She looks funny when she’s upside down. 

“Like who?” Ayako asks. Something about her tone reminds me of a shark smelling blood in the water. Thrilled at the chase.

“I saw Orochimaru-sama when I was out shopping once. He was beautiful.”

Several of my classmates in the vicinity turn to look at me with wide eyes, especially the clan kids. They have better context for who Orochimaru is, considering they’re more tapped into the ninja side of the village as a whole. 

“Orochimaru the Sannin?” Ayako asks disbelievingly, blonde brows going high as she blinks. “Isn’t he the one that looks like a snake? Doesn’t that scare you?”

I hum, committing myself to the bit and returning to a more normal sitting position. My chair settles flat on the ground again with a clack. 

“Tigers are still pretty, even if they can maul your face off. You just have to make sure you’re looking from a safe distance,” I say as though I’m imparting some great wisdom. “It’s the same with some people.”

“But still, why have a crush on him? ” Yamagishi Masako asks to my right with a scrunched nose. 

“I don’t have a crush. I just think he’s nice to look at.”

“That’s the same thing!”

“Agree to disagree, Masako-kun,” I chirp with a cheerful grin. 

I do not want to be near or touch Orochimaru the Sannin with a ten-foot pole. The thought of it makes me want to break out into hives. 

He is interesting to watch, though. The way he walks is so graceful. You can tell immediately that he can kill you in a hundred ways with a flick of his hand. Maybe that would be attractive if he wasn’t twice my age and a psychopathic mad scientist. 

Well. Actually, he’s twenty-two or twenty-three right now, isn’t he? I died when I was twenty-one, so technically—

Nevermind. This is a line of thought that leads to doom. 

The rest of class follows much down the same line of interactions. Who has a crush on who, who did the best in taijutsu, who scored highest on the last test. 

So-and-so heard that someone died on the warfront. So-and-so heard that things are getting worse before they get better.

Not in those words, not said in those ways, but that’s what they mean. The Second Shinobi War has been in full swing, and there’s no sign of it stopping for another few years, at least. Children have grown up with it hanging over their heads, children in my class. Children have been and will keep dying in it. 

It’s becoming a war of attrition. Who will run out of bodies first?

Class ends fairly unceremoniously. Kushina pranked Taro-sensei, so she’s stuck with detention and stays seated, pouting. I wonder if it was worth the time wasted in detention, even if she managed to douse Taro-sensei in three buckets of water. He just used a fire jutsu to dry off. 

Everyone else around me starts heading out the door. 

“Seiko-chan,” Taro-sensei says abruptly, pulling me from my thoughts as I pack my things into my bag. 

I look up, blinking in surprise. Why oh why would he want to talk to me?

Did I do anything notable today?

Hm. 

Well, besides calling a sannin beautiful, nothing that stands out. Just normal nine year old, age appropriate behavior. 

Kushina eyes me with suspicion as I throw my bag over my shoulder and wander up front to where Taro-sensei stands, looking at me with some consideration. 

Ah. This is it, isn’t it?

I was hoping for more time. 

“There’s someone who would like to speak with you,” Taro-sensei says, gesturing to the door. “I’ll escort you there.”

He turns, giving Kushina a stern look. 

“You stay right where you are, Kushina-chan. I’m not going hunting through the village for you like last time, I’ll just inform your honorable aunt of your actions.”

Honorable aunt being the local kyuubi holder, Uzumaki Mito. Not a woman anyone wants to attract the ire of, not even her favorite great niece.

“Sure, whatever!” Kushina grumbles, arms folded and those shining violet eyes looking between Taro-sensei and I. She’s a smart cookie, I don’t doubt she’ll put together whatever it is that’s happening. 

I ponder on her spar with me yesterday. That, perhaps, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 

I trail after Taro-sensei’s slow gait through the halls of the academy. Students wander around on their way home, and senseis cluster together like gossiping hens. I get whiffs of intrigue as I pass by three senseis, one of them grumbling about how expensive the cost of ink has gotten. 

I wonder where we get our ink from for it to have gotten expensive. Normal wartime inflation from heavily battered trade routes? Or a specific country that specializes in its creation and most people import from them, and now it’s being trampled by thoughtless shinobi?

I reach up and run my fingers through my short hair. Pondering. I think that’s most of what I do, these days. A lot of thinking, a lot of waiting.

I suppose there’s no need to wait anymore. The violence and the death have finally arrived. 

“You’re quiet, Seiko-chan,” Taro-sensei says as we turn a corner. We’re leaving the academy proper to start into the administrative core of the village. I have a very good feeling that I know who we’re going to see. 

“Just enjoying the walk, Taro-sensei,” I say with a wry ambivalence. What point is there in stress? We roll with the punches and we kick back. “How are your hands?”

Taro-sensei huffs, peering back at me with the littlest bit of confusion. “Don’t worry about that, Seiko-chan. Why do you ask?”

“They’ve been trembling more today,” I say, gesturing vaguely to how he has them hidden in his standard flack pants pockets. “Is it because it’s going to rain?”

I could smell it in the air before class, then again when we did taijustu today. I turn to look out the window, watching darkening clouds amble lazily across the sky. 

“Maybe,” Taro-sensei replies. I don’t look back at him, I just keep my eyes on the clouds. 

We turn, no longer having windows for me to view out of and drifting deeper into the tower, twists and turns leading us to some stairs. 

A few jonin are leaned against the wall when we trudge up to the highest floor. 

I can smell the blood on them. They’re nosy, as all shinobi are, and watch us as we wander past. There’s a few rips on all of their clothes, and the faint smell of fire. 

Ah. One of them is an Uchiha, so that explains the fire. I didn’t notice the Uchiwa fan. 

Waiting to report, or just finishing reporting?

A little bit down the hall, Taro-sensei and I stop, and he points to the bench by the wall with a hard clenched fist. Hiding the tremors. 

“Take a seat, Seiko-chan. They’ll let you know when to go inside,” Taro-sensei says with some level of sternness. It’s ruined by how he’s only, what, eight years older than me?

I nod agreeably, plopping down on the cushioned bench and bouncing a little when I land. I see where all the funding for the ink is going. Nice chairs for outside the Hokage’s office.

Taro-sensei looks at me for a long moment, frowning. 

“I don’t need to tell you, of all my students, this, but be on your best behavior, Seiko-chan. This is serious,” Taro-sensei says, finally. He looks more worried about this than I do. 

Ah, am I his favorite? I’m easily the least work out of all his students. 

I give him a lopsided smile, showing off one of my missing canines. It’s growing back soon, but the baby tooth was lost in a very nasty spar last week. 

“Don’t worry so much about me, sensei. You should worry about what Kushina-chan has done since you left her alone,” I say reasonably. The jonin leaning nearby are watching our exchange with great interest. Sage save them all from bored and nosy jonin. 

Taro-sensei makes a face that conveys all the dread he has for dealing with whatever is waiting for him in their classroom. 

“Good luck, Seiko-chan.” Then, he begins his slow walk back, grumbling to himself. “And good luck to me.”

Yes. All the luck in the world for the poor teenager in charge of Uzumaki Kushina.

I swing my legs in the air where they dangle off the edge of my bench. Observe my surroundings like any good ninja in training. There’s four jonin. One is an Uchiha, another an Abrume, then a Hyuuga, and finally an Inuzuka. 

Tracker team. What they were tracking, I will probably never know. The fact that they’re all jonin-level and put on the same team for a mission screams so classified you get to spend a month with a Yamanaka if you hear a whisper of what it was. 

I wave at them, cheerfully. The Inuzuka snorts, and his dog yawns. 

There’s a tap on my shoulder, and I jump, blinking to see a masked shinobi pointing at the door. 

Anbu. I make a point of only looking a normal amount of curious at the person, rather than a Oh-Shit-Its-One-Of-Those-Fuckers-Who-Can-Really-Kill-Me amount of curious. 

It’s a very specific level of curiosity. Easily mistaken for other, panicked levels of curiosity but distinct in its own way. It’s bad to look like you know what an anbu is when you’re not even a genin.

I walk silently to the stately doors of the Hokage’s office, eyeing the shining lacquer of them. They look like they’re made out of Hashirama wood, which I suppose does make sense. Make the doors to the Hokage office out of the first Hokage’s signature wood. Really makes a statement. 

The anbu opens the door for me and I walk in, the door shutting with a quiet click behind me. 

Sarutobi Hiruzen is much younger than I expect everytime I see him. 

He’s, what, forty now? Barely? Young but not too young, stately and imposing. He looks up from his papers on his desk and eyes me with a considering gaze. I’m in the same class as his eldest son. Hopefully that makes me more endearing. 

It probably won’t, but a girl can hope. 

“Hokage-sama,” I greet agreeably, bowing at a ninety-degree angle. 

“Good afternoon, Seiko-kun. I don’t believe we’ve ever spoken before this,” the Hokage says, something parental in his tone. Probably to put me at ease.

“No, I don’t think so. Haruki-kun does talk about you a lot, though, so maybe that counts,” I hum, peering around the room. There’s a painting of the first Hokage, and another of the second. A few hanging scrolls about the will of fire. Potted plants. 

I wonder who waters the plants? Certainly not the Hokage. He’s a bit busy handling the war effort.

“What are you thinking, Seiko-kun?” the Hokage asks, surprising me. Most of the time adults get bemused and then correct my behavior when I’m overtly distracted. I suppose it’s more novel for him, since he’s constantly being given the full attention of others.

“About how you probably don’t have time to water those plants. There are too many things going on with the war.” I look back at him, noting the way his eyes flash with interest. Oh, my time has absolutely arrived. War rations and muddy fields here I come. 

“I see,” Hokage says, nodding. “What do you think about the war?”

Why does he want to know? Doesn’t he have better things to be doing?

Am I being thrown into ROOT? I’d be speaking to Danzo if so. 

“It seems tedious and long,” I say honestly, because children are often afforded leniency in their observations. Even in a world of child soldiers. “They’re talking about lowering the graduating age again, right? I don’t think any of my classmates are ready to fight yet.” 

The Hokage hums, then waves a hand to the chairs in front of his desk. 

“Please take a seat, Seiko-kun. I believe we have much to speak about.”

Maybe they’ll give me a half decent sensei, one that won’t be useless out on the field. That’s preferable to the genin corps. Anything but the fucking genin corps.

I take a seat in front of his desk, noting that these chairs are just as comfortable as the ones outside. 

“Why do you think your sensei brought you here today?” The Hokage reaches into his desk and pulls out a pipe, lighting it with a sealless fire jutsu. I eye the way he does it a bit greedily. We’ll start learning the academy three in a month, so I have no jutsu under my belt yet.

I kick my legs a little, looking at the wrinkles under Sarutobi’s eyes. 

“I’m a genius, and he’s figured it out finally,” I say with a shrug of my shoulders. “We need more shinobi in the war effort, so I’m probably graduating early.”

“A weighty claim, calling yourself a genius,” the Hokage says after taking a puff of his pipe, blowing it out to the side and away from me. Tobacco. The bitter smell is nostalgic, even after so long living as and being Seiko. 

“There’s nothing prideful about being smarter than other people.” I tilt my head. “You don’t earn it, it’s a part of your nature.”

In my last life I viewed my intellect as more of a burden than a boon. It benefited me, but it came with drawbacks. Ignorance is bliss, so the saying goes. Knowing and understanding things only gives you more problems to worry about.

Now, I’ve learned to accept myself for what I am. Life is too fleeting to worry about possible lifetimes where you’re more stupid and happier. 

The Hokage takes another puff of his pipe, eyeing me and stewing in silence for a moment. I take it as an opportunity to look out at the windows behind him, looking at the rain pouring down onto Konoha. You can’t even hear the rain faintly, in here. Seals for sound-proofing?

“Why have you hidden your talents from your teachers, Seiko-kun?”

My eyes shift back to the serious man before me. 

Honesty is usually the best policy. 

“I could have graduated when I was five,” I state, pausing. Thinking on my next words. “Then I would’ve been dead by now. Seems like a waste. I’ll last longer with a stronger body to match my mind, and kill more of Konoha’s enemies. Maybe live long enough to teach students what I know.”

We stew on those words together for a moment, the Hokage simply watching me and taking another puff from his pipe.

“Pragmatic.” The Hokage shuts his eyes. A weight seems to lay itself on his shoulders, making him slump just so. This isn’t what he imagined the future for Konoha’s children would look like when he became Hokage, I’m sure. “Perhaps you were right to do it. You were correct, earlier. This war has become… tedious .”

I have a feeling he’s only sharing this openly with me because I am a child and it doesn’t matter if I say the Hokage believes the war effort is going poorly. No one will believe me.

“It’s not your fault, Hokage-sama. You inherited this conflict, just like I have,” I hum with a careless wave of my small, callused hand. It’s more his fault than mine, but breaking cycles of violence from the center of the machine is very hard with no context of what else you can do. 

“Your sensei was correct. You are a very perceptive girl, Seiko-kun,” the Hokage says, looking off into the far distance, chewing on the end of his pipe. “You will graduate with your peers. You will also stop pretending to be less skilled than you are.”

An order is clear in the last sentence. I bow my head. 

“Hai, Hokage-sama. I will make Konoha proud with the time I have been given.”

That was easier than I thought it would be. No war rations for me!

“I will be watching your progress with interest. You are dismissed, Seiko-kun. Study hard.”

I hum an idle tune as I’m freed from the clutches of a man who could see me dead in seconds, stepping out the door of his office and almost running into one of the jonin from earlier. 

“Excuse me, Uchiha-san,” I say, having swiftly sidestepped around the frowning man. 

He’s tall, and more sturdily built than most of the Uchiha I’ve seen. They tend to be more lithe, like elegant wraiths out for your blood. That is how one can tell a Uchiha apart from a Hyuuga from behind. The inherent bloodlust. This Uchiha has a dirty uchiwa stamped flack jacket, and a solemn face with premature eye wrinkles. He looks like he could be closely related to Uchiha Fugaku, the clan heir in the year above me, but I can’t be sure. 

“Be more alert to your surroundings,” Uchiha says grimly, and I wonder how he got the slicing scar on his cheek. Probably someone trying to take his eyes out of the equation in a fight. 

“Only because you’ve asked,” I say with a solemn nod. Then I start towards the stairs, wondering if I remember the way out of this section of the administrative building. 

I’ll figure it out. It’s good practice for when I have to walk around here after graduating next year. 

I give myself only a few moments to be relieved at how close of a near miss that entire interaction was. I’ve been given my life basically on the whim of a tired man who decided to handle my situation personally, for whatever reason. There were probably men lower in the totem pole who could have spoken to an orphan genius, but Sarutobi did instead. Why?

My feet tap down the stairs, and the sound of rain is faintly heard hitting the roof. The Hokage’s office is absolutely sealed soundproof.

Hm. I definitely have to be Rookie of the Year now, or else the Hokage will be giving me a stern talking to. Unfortunate, but it must be done. Sorry Minato, you’re my direct competition now, I don’t care if you’re supposed to be Hokage in ten years. 

Chapter Text

When the Hokage orders you to stop pretending to be mediocre, you swiftly follow suit, regardless of how disorienting it is to your classmates. 

I stare down at Uzumaki Kushina, fist around her throat and knees keeping her arms pinned. The dirt of the training ground is still muddy from the rain yesterday, and I eye the streaks of brown lining Kushina’s clothes. She’ll be dirty for the rest of the day if she doesn’t get given permission to go home and change. 

Thirty seconds. I probably should’ve been faster. I’ll get better with more honest practice.

I let out a soft breath, gaze unstraying from Kushina’s wide violet eyes. 

“Winner, Seiko. Disengage, Seiko-chan,” Taro-sensei declares, despite the surprised murmurs of the students around us. 

I do as he bids, stepping away from Kushina with light steps. Mud squelches under my sandals.

“How?” Kushina asks, aghast. She leans up on her elbows, and the surprise is slowly turning to fury on her face.

“I was told that I’m not allowed to let myself lose anymore,” I explain with a sigh, rubbing the back of my aching neck. “It’s okay, Kushina-chan. You’re going to beat me as soon as you realize my tells.”

It won’t be as soon as Kushina wants, but she’ll outpace everyone here save maybe Minato one day. She just has to be patient.

“I want a rematch!” Kushina declares, and the rage is all visible now as she jumps to her feet, turning to Taro-sensei. 

“I suppose it is a good day to let everyone pair up and fight individually,” Taro-sensei says, more to himself than to us. Again, for the hundredth time, I wonder about why a teenager is teaching a group of children that will be on the frontlines within the next two years. 

“Seal of confrontation, now!” Kushina orders me, looking a bit menacing with her fingers held out. 

I shrug, and do as the girl bids. It’s good practice. There’s only so much someone can improve by just going through the academy kata on their own. And I go through the academy kata a lot.

The second our fingers stop touching, Kushina is going in for a sucker punch aimed at my face. I pivot, twisting my head out of the way as my fists come up close to my face to protect it. I swiftly aim a punch for her stomach, and am surprised when it actually lands. 

Kushina grunts, but takes it like a champ, immediately going to try and knee me in the face. I step back out of reach, smacking away her hand that goes to try and grab my shirt and keep me in place. 

“Don’t run from me now! I’m not letting you weasel your way out of fighting me honestly ever again, dattebane!” 

I hope I haven’t added to Kushina’s complex about proving her strength to everyone. Me faking mediocrity really wasn’t about her. I think she’s plenty scary. 

“I thank you for the training, Kushina-chan!” I reply, before rushing forward and tackling her to the ground. She lets out a distressed “Oof!” and resists very well when I start trying to turn her onto her front. 

She starts wiggling and bucking like a bull, but I hold on tight, finally getting her flat on her front and tightly gripping her arms. 

“Tap out,” I say evenly, contemplating on if I’m going to have to press her poor face into the mud. 

“Never.” Kushina is still wiggling despite her predicament. 

“I respect that,” I say with a nod, before pressing her face into the mud. 

Couldn’t they have dried off the training grounds before we started sparring? Doesn’t one in three shinobi have fire affinity around here?

“Quit it, Seiko-chan! Disengage, you win,” I hear Taro-sensei call farther away, presumably helping some of the other kids. 

I stop waterboarding— mudboarding(?) —Kushina and quickly remove myself before she does something risky. 

“Again!” Kushina cries through a mouthful of mud. That can’t be sanitary. 

“Switch partners, you two,” Taro-sensei calls sternly. 

“Sorry, Kushina-chan. You did very well,” I say apologetically, eyeing her like one may eye a hungry bear. 

I hold out the seal of reconciliation, and she begrudgingly stands and does it, getting mud all over my hand in the process. I don’t take it personally. I would be annoyed too if someone were beating me so soundly. 

“We’re going to start sparring after school, dattebane,” Kushina says ominously, violet eyes narrowed and her red hair looking suspiciously like it’s rising from her shoulders. 

“More practice is always good,” I say with a nod, gingerly taking my fingers out of her strong grip. Shake them out subtly in hopes it returns the feeling in them. “I don’t doubt that you’re going to be one of the most powerful shinobi in our year, so I’m happy to learn with you.”

Images of chakra chains and wasted fields of enemies flash before my eyes. If she hadn’t elected to hand the position off to Minato, she absolutely had the power levels required to be a Kage, no doubt about it. 

I’ll never have the chakra levels required to contend with her. I only beat her in intellect and physical understanding of my body, right now. As she gets older, and uses her power more, she’ll outpace me in her physical abilities easily. 

Well. Unless I contract a tailed beast. And I mean contract in the way one contracts an illness, not in a literal legal contract. I don’t want one of those things, and I think I’m starting to reach an age where it’s more likely to kill me than be useful if I got one shoved in me. 

Eugh. No. No tailed beasts. I’ll just settle for destroying all conventional shinobi, maybe inventing a few new jutsu. Standard, boring genius shinobi shit. I can see myself beating Minato in a fight before Kushina. 

Speaking of…

I peer off to my right, where I can see Minato fighting Uchiha Mikoto. Perfect. 

“Would you like to fight Mikoto-chan?” I ask Kushina, still watching Minato and Mikoto trade blows with much more grace than Kushina and I’s veritable brawl. 

“Yes,” Kushina says darkly. We both step around the few fights between us and the pair. I pull out a handkerchief and hold it out to Kushina. 

“What?” Kushina asks, squinting at it. Sometimes when she does things I am so deeply struck with nostalgia for her son, a boy who hasn’t even been born yet but who will be exactly like his mother. 

“For your face, Kushina-chan. It’s too nice to be covered in mud,” I say sincerely. 

I am ever so complimentary in this lifetime. In the past I think I kept most of my compliments to myself, not thinking about when there would be a time where I lost the ability to speak about how much I admired others. 

Then I died. You learn fairly quickly to put things into context and be more appreciative. 

Kushina stares at me for a moment, and the air is filled only with the sounds of nine year olds fighting each other, battlecries and smacks of skin on skin or skin to ground.

A bird warbles in the trees above. A turtle dove. How ironic. A dove observes a peace offering.

“You’re annoying,” Kushina decides, but takes the handkerchief. I take that as a win. That’s practically a compliment from an enraged nine year old child soldier in training.

She wipes her face with firm swipes of her hand, and I turn back to the two most academically and physically skilled students in our class. 

It’s fascinating watching Mikoto fight. She’s obviously trained in the Uchiha kata and forms, so her style is always more fluid than our classmates restricted to the academy kata. Powerful strikes like the gusts of flame her clan is so well known for, paired with quick footing. It’s similar to the Hyuuga, if you squint, but only because the forms are both geared around dojutsu. 

If only I had a sharingan. The orphan life is nice, considering how suspicious of a child I would be to any parents, but it is sad to realize you’ll never get any cheat-y bloodline limits. Well, not unless you randomly manifest them, or were secretly a product of bloodline theft. 

On second thought, it’s a good thing I don’t have any kekkei genkai. I don’t want to deal with the village elders breathing down the back of my neck about me making little babies to carry on the will of fire. It’s already bad enough that culturally women are fully expected to leave the forces once they reach a marriageable age, especially in more traditional clans. 

I watch Mikoto press a dulled kunai to Minato’s neck, and the two of them immediately disengage to do the seal of reconciliation. 

Mikoto will undoubtedly be impressive in a few years. And then she’ll walk away from it all to bear little clan heirs. 

Bear a son that will kill her and her entire family. 

“Can I spar with you next, Minato-kun?” I ask as the boy rolls his shoulders and blinks at Kushina and I. 

“Of course, Seiko-kun. What did you mean earlier, about not being allowed to lose anymore?” Minato asks, and his blue eyes are a bit owlish, wide and perceptive in the way intelligent children can be. 

Should I tell the truth here?

“Apparently it’s bad to lie about your skill level to avoid graduating early,” I say with a bit of long suffering, voice as high and childish as it always is. “It’s okay, though. Hokage-sama said I wouldn’t have to as long as I perform to my full capabilities until next year.”

Kushina makes a strangled little noise in the back of her throat. 

“Is that where sensei took you yesterday?” Kushina asks, pointing at me with my handkerchief still in her grubby fist.

“Yup,” I hum, popping the p. “Anyways, are you ready, Minato-kun?”

Minato nods, something contemplative in those sky blue eyes. He’s a real, home grown genius. The kind with no past life advantages or future knowledge guiding him. 

We get into starting positions, fingers clasping in the seal of confrontation.

“Weapons?” Minato asks before we part. His spiky blonde hair is sticking to his face from sweat.

“I’ll just be using taijutsu, I need to practice.” I manage an unconcerned shrug. “You do what you like.”

It doesn’t matter if he has a kunai. I’ll just have to beat him anyway. Maybe not this time, but I will. I have to.

“I’ll do the same, then.”

We separate quickly, both of us shifting into the starting academy stance. Watching eachother. The air around us is loud with the grunts and hits of other kids, all of them preparing for the real battles. The ones where they win or they die. 

I shift my left foot, and Minato is on me in a few breaths, sending a testing punch towards my face. 

I step quickly to the right, his fist missing me by a hair. I snap a foot out to try and trip him, but he hops out of the way, stomping hard on my foot. 

Pain lances up the small bones of my foot, and I wince. He’s stuck close to me as long as he’s pinning my foot, so I may as well take advantage. 

I shift my weight and send a punch slamming into his side, drawing back to jab him three more times before he disengages and jumps back. 

“Ow,” Minato murmurs, but his hands stay up by his face, eyes never leaving me. 

“I think you broke something,” I say idly, going to wiggle my toes and getting annoyed when I feel the pain pang sharply. I can work through it, for now. 

“We can stop,” Minato says, ever so kindly. He really is genuine about it, and it makes me feel bad that he’s going to have to kill some parts of himself to be the highly skilled child soldier he’ll be in a few years. 

“No it’s fine.” I’m rushing him before I finish my words, sending my left shin towards his already tender side. 

He blocks some of my attack with his arm, grabbing my leg and going to tug me down. In a strike of inspiration I jump, wrapping my legs around his abdomen and sending us both to the earth, a hand going to his neck. 

We slam into the earth with a thump , Minato letting out a small noise that’s a little bit like a wheeze. 

We’re both panting quietly, staring at one another.

“I think you win this one,” Minato says, frowning and looking at me a little bit like how I’ve seen him stare at some of the word problems the senseis give us. Calculating, well oiled gears of his mind whirling.

“I’m sure you’ll beat me next time. You’re very smart.” I mean it when I say it.

I get off of him as gracefully as I can, before holding out a hand to help him up. Man my foot really fucking hurts. 

He takes my hand, and I tug him up with a wince. We do the seal of reconciliation once he’s standing, and he rubs his side with a similarly pained expression. 

“You hit hard in spars.”

Minato usually spars against Mikoto, so I’m not surprised they both pull their punches. They’re not very aggressive people.

“It’s better to get used to pain now, while we have access to the hospital.” I stretch my arms high above my head. Feel my muscles stretch and ache.

Pain is a necessary part of being a shinobi. Working through it and despite it will keep you alive. 

“Man, you’re pretty serious about this shinobi stuff, huh, Seiko-kun?” Minato asks. He lifts his hand away from his sore side. He’s got mud all in his pretty blonde hair now. “You always seemed like you didn’t really care.”

“I don’t care that much, I’m just practical. Being a shinobi is required of us, since we’re orphans. It’s better to plan accordingly, isn’t it?”

Minato lives in the same apartment building as me, though we hadn’t lived in the same orphanage before the academy. I know he’s never known his parents, just like how mine died before I was two. We’re the same, in that way. Konoha’s forgotten canon fodder. 

He rises above that to become something great. I wonder if there’s any point in wishing I could stop what comes later. 

I’m just one person. It’s better to worry about more immediate problems than get lost in the drama of half remembered plotlines and intrigue. Minato is a real, living, breathing little boy. One with hopes and dreams and a mind of his own. How could I change the circumstances that may kill him when he grows up into a man? 

“Let’s go again.”

“...maybe we should let sensei look at your foot first, Seiko-kun.”

—

Everyday starts a little like this. 

My alarm goes off, the antiquated kind of clock with bells on the top ringing until I smack them into submission. 

I peer out my window, noting how the sky is still dark and how I could, in theory, go back to sleep. 

I don’t go back to sleep. Even though it’s tempting. 

I shuffle out of bed and start on my stretches. Then the academy kata, three times. Then, finally, meditation. 

Most nine year olds aren’t as regimented as me, but most nine year olds are much more prone to dying early deaths than me, too. 

I settle onto my futon in a cross-legged position, shutting my eyes and letting my hands rest on my knees. The birds have started their slow chirping outside, and it sounds like a water pipe is going somewhere in the building. But it’s peaceful.

Meditation is the best part of my day, ironically enough. Most people would say it’s a boring pastime, a part of training best gotten over with so you can move onto more entertaining things like learning how to set things on fire with your chakra or punch harder. 

I breathe in, slowly, let the air fill my lungs. Feel the way my ribs stretch. Hold. Breathe out, let my worries leave me. 

My chakra ebbs and flows like the tide at the beach of an ocean with every breath. Rolling and shifting through the little waterways of my body. 

It’s ill advised to use too much chakra at this age, but meditation helps with my control for when I will have to use it everyday. So I meditate, and trace that steady water in my body with a sense I didn’t have before I was reborn in a world of magic. With shut eyes I can feel and see the gentle ebbing of it all, nudge it into collecting in different parts of my body.

With a calm sweep of my hand, I lay my palm down onto my pillow, and push my chakra into that palm. Will it to be sticky. 

I lift my palm, and the weight of the pillow stays stuck to it. 

I hold it for two minutes, then release it. Switch hands. Repeat the process all over again. 

Chakra is power. Chakra is the life running through everything. From the lowliest of plants to the earth to the worms and to kages. Chakra permeates.

Chakra is also pretty easy to control. 

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. I don’t have extreme reserves like Naruto, so there’s no reason for me to struggle like he did with controlling chakra. I’ve seen what Kushina is working with, even if she hasn’t been given the kyuubi yet. She’s got an ocean, and I have a pond. 

That’s fine. I like my pond, and it’ll only get larger as I get older. I don’t doubt I probably have much more yin chakra than yang, but more frequent sparring will only help that. 

I wince, rolling my shoulders. So much sparring. Kushina was serious about training after school, so now I’ve been dragged into the Senju compound every school day over the past week to spar with her. 

It’s not the first time I’ve been inside a clan compound, I’ve had one or two sleepovers with Yamanaka Ayako, but the Senju are something else entirely. They founded the village with the Uchiha, and are, by default, the most prestigious clan. 

Even if half of them have died out in the past ten years. 

With a sigh I roll out of my cross-legged position on my futon, letting my pillow drop from my right hand with a soft thump . 

I need to water my plants, then eat something, then go out and buy some new shoes. 

My feet tap silently across the wooden floor as I walk into the kitchen. I don’t bother turning on the lights, since the sun will start rising soon. Better to just practice moving in the dark. 

I can’t wait until they teach us how to enhance our limbs. I want to try enhancing my eyes, but I’m not doing that shit without adult supervision. I may understand chakra better than your average child, but I’m still a child. 

Well. Sort of a child. Better not to think too hard about it. 

I grab a little glass from the counter, the one I usually use for the plants, and turn on the water at the sink.

After about thirty minutes of various chores and with a fuller stomach, I slip on my ratty sandals and head out the door. Both of the straps on the pair are about to pop off now thanks to all the extra physical activity, so it really can’t be helped. I’ll have to visit the surplus store and see what prices they have. If they’re too outrageous I’ll just go to the second hand supplier, but I’d rather save that as a last resort. 

Call me squeamish, but I’m not fond of the idea of wearing another dead kid’s shoes. Maybe I’ll get over that once I graduate, since it would be stupid not to take things off enemy bodies, but for now I can indulge my preferences. 

“Good morning, Higashi-san,” I cheerfully greet my neighbor. He’s a chunin, about seventeen, and he’s trying to enjoy the morning ambience to smoke a cigarette. 

Smoke trails from the little cigarette between his fingers, and he leans against the railing of the walkway. Blinks his bleary yellow eyes and stares at me like he wasn’t expecting anyone else to be awake.

“Not so loud, Seiko-chan. You’ll wake the whole neighborhood,” Higashi grumbles, reaching over to ruffle my hair as I walk past. 

“Of course, Higashi-san. How is your team?” 

Are they dead? 

He’s one of the lucky ones who still has the full set of his genin team. A sight that gets rarer and rarer by the month. 

“Still alive. Stop fishing for information. Have you graduated yet?” he pauses to take a pull from his cigarette, before continuing as the smoke blows from his mouth. “I heard they’re thinking about lowering the age to nine.”

“No. They tried to get me to do it early, but I explained I would kill more people if I had time to get my growth spurt,” I say faux seriously. “You should be careful smoking so much, Higashi-san. It’s bad for your lungs.”

“Mind your business, busybody,” Higashi replies, but there’s no bite in it. He shifts his stance, leaning a little more heavily against the railing, favoring one leg over the other. Is he injured? “You be careful walking around while it’s still dark.”

“I’ll just shout for you if I need help. I’m sure you’ll still be standing around up here when I get back.”

Higashi goes to ruffle my hair again, this time with more malice, but I’m already running away, snickering. 

Konoha may suck and be full of murderers, but there’s some nice people hanging around. If you’re willing to overlook the war crimes. 

I start down the dirt road, peering around at the few people up and doing things. Mostly shopkeeps opening up for the day, or setting up their stalls. A few ninja wandering around, probably on their way to training. 

I eye a team of familiar heads walking in the direction of the gates. 

Is that—?

“Really, couldn’t they just let us leave when the sun was up?” Yamanaka Inoichi complains, waving a pale hand. His blonde, silvery ponytail bouncing with every gesture.

Sage. It is them. 

“Ino-Shika-Cho?” I call in greeting. Better than saying all of their names. 

“Huh?” Inoichi pauses his complaining, and he and his fellow clan heirs turn. He tilts his head at me. “Oh. You’re Ayako’s little friend, aren’t you?”

“Her name is Seiko, Inoichi,” Chouza says with a sigh. Trust Chouza to actually remember my name, he’s the personable one. Even if everyone assumes Inoichi is. They only think that because he’s conventionally attractive.

All three of the boys have chunin vests on. I suppose I should’ve expected them to have gotten field promoted by now. And as implied by Inoichi’s complaining, they are kitted out for a mission.

“No, I am Ayako-chan’s little friend, he’s not wrong,” I hum contemplatively. “Congratulations on your promotions.”

“Thank you, Seiko-chan. How is the academy?” Chouza asks politely. 

“They’re thinking about lowering the graduation age,” I say with a shake of my head. They probably already know that. The gossip cycle has been pretty hot with that news for two weeks. “Ayako-chan misses seeing you around, by the way. She was complaining about it the other day.”

“I’m sure she was,” Inoichi says with a huff. The kind of huff of an older cousin who knows his younger cousin is pining after one of his friends. Possessive and bemused. “Why are you wandering around this early? It’s the weekend, the academy isn’t running classes.”

“I need to do some shopping, then training. Kushina-chan has been insisting on sparring everyday,” I say with a sigh. “Anyways, I won’t keep you all from whatever mission you were complaining about. Try not to die!”

Shikaku, who had been observing me silently with those freaky dark eyes of his, snorts. 

“Of course, Seiko-chan. Let Ayako-chan know we said hello,” Chouza says with a smile. I like him most out of the trio. Inoichi is a chronic shit stirrer who everyone thinks isn’t, and Shikaku—

Well. Less said about whatever the hell is going in that boy’s brain the better. I have no doubt he knows exactly what I am and is just not overly concerned about some kid four years younger than him avoiding dying in a war. It’s… weird. I never feel threatened by Minato, but maybe that’s because I’m pretty sure I’m just as intelligent as him. Shikaku, though? 

No shot in hell. I’m a very intelligent person, but not the culmination of Nara genius and perception. 

I wave goodbye and start off towards the clothing surplus store again, watching as the sky slowly turns a deep violet. It reminds me of Kushina’s eyes. 

I wonder if she really will hunt me down again for training today. The past few days she’s been able to drag me straight from the academy, and as far as I know she doesn’t know where I live. 

Ah. Are we rivals now? Is that a thing real nine year olds worry about?

Maybe I should just ask her next time I see her. That will probably illuminate things. 

If she doesn’t come to drag me into beat down hell, I should practice my chakra control more. See if I can wall walk. I’ve tried sticking my bare feet to the ground, but it requires a slightly different saturation of the chakra to do it through sandals. 

I swing my arms as I walk down the street, breathing in the cool morning air. It’s almost summer, so the sun will beat down and the air will be muggy with the heat by midday. I’ll enjoy the early morning chill while I can. 

—

I take another, slow step up the side of the tree at the park.

I would do this at home, indoors, hiding from the heat and curious eyes, but I can remember Naruto sending a tree bursting into splinters in the anime when he tried this. I would very much like to avoid attracting my landlord’s ire by doing chakra experiments inside my apartment and causing property damage. 

Property damage is bad. Unless it’s something you can get away with. Then it’s ok. This is my nindo. My ninja way. 

I start taking a few more steps, at a much more regular pace, eyeing my chakra levels. 

It’s not very chakra intensive. Really the only problem is that it’s giving my abs a serious workout. I’m straining to stay upright, and it’s disorienting being sideways with my blood flowing weird. 

With a huff, I walk back down to the grass, cutting off my chakra flow and pressing a hand to my abdomen. Note to self, start building up your core muscles. Ow.

The park is fairly busy, though I’ve wandered off into the small forest that leads to the shore of the Naka river. Distantly, I can hear kids shouting and squealing as they play ninjas or use the sparse play equipment. It’s strange, the entire time I’ve been conscious in this world, it’s just been in a Konoha that’s at war. Do the kids shout just as loud, when the village isn’t at war? Are there more parents around to watch their children? 

The breeze picks up a little, and all the leaves in the forest shake and rustle with it. 

I drop to a sitting position and lie down in the grass, peering up at the way the sun fans through the leaves of the Hashirama tree above me. I reach a hand up, indulgently, and watch the way the beams of light shine on my tanned skin. Warm and edged in pink. 

Well. Back to work. 

I’ll do twenty sit ups, rest to stretch, and then twenty five more. Maybe switch to tree walking again. 

I train for another hour or two, muscles sore but satisfied. The sun only gets higher and higher above my head, and the heat gets more and more oppressive.

I’m lucky that chakra seems to nullify a lot of the poor effects of overtraining at my age. No stunted growth for me, provided I get old enough to worry about that sort of thing. No, if kids like Lee can end up totally smashing concrete without any chakra enhancing bullshit and still grow up fine, I’ll be okay.

Kushina finds me resting in the shade of the tree, dozing and enjoying the heat like a cat curled up in a patch of sunlight. 

“Seiko-chan!” Is shouted loudly in front of me, and I jump. 

“Where’s the fire?” I mumble, blinking wide eyed and peering up at an index finger pointing very close to my face. I follow the finger up an arm, and to the determined face of Uzumaki Kushina. 

She’s panting, and looks a bit harried like she’s been doing a lot of moving. Is that a new training outfit?

“Good afternoon, Kushina-chan,” I say, slowly lifting a hand in greeting. 

“Why are you napping out at this park like a Nara? We should be sparring,” Kushina says, and she flicks my nose. I resist the sudden urge to sneeze. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

Has she? She didn’t say anything about us sparring today when I was at the Senju compound yesterday. 

“Are we rivals?” I ask, reaching up and carefully moving her hand farther away from my face. I have a strange impulse to bite it. “You’re acting like we’re rivals.”

Wasn’t she supposed to be more committed to a rivalry with Minato? Then again, it’s been so long since I saw any of the Naruto source material I could be wrong. Maybe she was originally going to be rivals with Mikoto. 

I think of serene, thoughtful Mikoto. Probably not rivals with her, nevermind. That girl doesn’t seem like she needs or wants a dedicated rival. They’re probably just best friends. 

Kushina stills, frowning. 

“Do you not want to train?”

It’s a bit less enthusiastic than her last words, as if expecting me to say no. I stare at her face, reminded suddenly of a kicked puppy. It pulls at my withered, sleepy heartstrings.

“Of course I want to train,” I reply with a roll of my eyes, letting go of her hand. “I meant it when I said you’re going to become the strongest kunoichi of our generation, Kushina. I’m glad to get stronger beside you.”

Ah. I dropped the honorific. Was that too forward?

Also, saying that to a child may give her a big head. 

Kushina blinks quickly, a flabbergasted look taking over her face, cheeks flushing with embarrassment. She sputters, first, then finally speaks. 

“Y—Yeah! Yeah I will be, dattebane. Now come on !” Her hand snaps out and grabs me by the forearm, firmly pulling me from my comfortable seat under the tree’s shade and into the sunlight. 

Her grip shifts, holding my little hand as she starts running off, away from the park and towards the Senju compound. 

I sigh, running along behind her. I can’t will myself to be displeased. It is good to train with her.

I hold her hand a little tighter in my own, even if she’s sweaty from all the running she’s been doing. I wonder when the last time I held someone’s hand while walking together was. Probably Ayako, when she was gossiping about other students. 

Konoha bustles around us, as we weave through the tide of activity on the road. Kushina is jabbering about a Senju cousin of hers being willing to help her train. We just barely avoid smacking into a pair of chunin, my side grazing one of their arms.

I blink. Red hair trailing and filling my vision. I think about Kushina older, blood soaked and having just given birth. Desperate to keep her son alive. Violet eyes going dull. Kushina commanding the third Hokage to take care of her baby.

I swallow, and feel a chill crawl up my neck despite the late spring heat.

…this may complicate things. 

Chapter Text

Somehow, I end up eating lunch with Uzumaki Kushina more often than not. 

It’s not to say I avoided the girl before, but she usually avoids Yamanaka Ayako’s court of girls like she’s gonna catch something from them. And I always sit by Ayako. 

It’s probably some leftover awkwardness from having transferred into the academy last year. She doesn’t have the advantage of knowing all the kids since they were four or five. Even worse, some of the boys made an attempt at bullying her for her hair, and she put the beat down on them so solidly that it created a sort of…air of separation between her and the rest of the class. 

Nobody wants to piss off the Red Hot Habanero (Kushina, as dubbed by one of her conquered enemies), and the Red Hot Habanero doesn’t want to deal with people calling her mean names. 

Apparently she’s not so worried about it now. 

“So. What’s with you and Kushina-chan?” Ayako asks when she follows me to the bathroom during lunch, slipping away from her cohort without any of them following. 

She’s going to be very scary when she gets older. I’m glad she finds me funny. 

“We’re rivals now.” I tug open the door to the girls bathroom and hold it open for the Yamanaka. Ayako’s outfit is very cute today. Lots of white carnations and daffodils are patterning her kunoichi yukata top. She brushes past me with all the grace of a princess. 

Ayako wrinkles her nose at the word rivals, going to the mirror and messing with her blonde hair. It’s tied up in a braid, and a few flyaways came loose during taijutsu today. 

“Isn’t being rivals for boys?” Ayako comments disparagingly, as if all things boys are icky. Which is funny, considering how much she talks about marriage. Boys are just useful for having babies with, I see how it is.

“Rivalry is more complicated than being for just one type of person, Ayako-chan,” I say idly, going into a stall to handle business. Ayako turns on one of the water faucets, like the good friend she is. 

Business gets handled and my bladder is safe from rupturing. I flush, and come back out to start washing my hands. 

“You aren’t going to be better friends with her than me, right?” Ayako asks, turning from where she was looking in the mirror to look at me with a deeply serious look on her doll-like face. I’m reminded once again that I am surrounded by children, even if they are children who are very good at punching. 

“I will be friends with her in a different way from how I’m friends with you, Ayako,” I say honestly, finishing washing my hands. “Besides, you have other friends too. You had a sleepover with Hyuuga Naoko last week.” 

Ayako sighs, deeply. “Kaa-chan made me have a sleepover with her, she’s going to marry the Hyuuga clan head,” Ayako explains as if it’s obvious. “You’re different. The other girls are boring.”

How adorable. I think that’s the nicest thing she’s ever said to me. 

I laugh despite myself, silly giggles falling from my lips. 

“Don’t laugh at me! It’s true!” Ayako orders, reaching over and hitting my arm. “You act like a Nara if Naras were more fun.”

“I’m telling Shikaku-senpai you said that next time I see him,” I say with a final little snort, covering my mouth. “You like Nara Mayu, in the year below us. And you like Shikaku-senpai!”

“They sleep and don’t pretend like you do. It’s funny when you say things people are thinking,” Ayako huffs, and I try not to think too hard about how a nine year old has sussed me out. “Anyways, we shouldn’t leave your rival waiting.”

I start towards the door, and hold it open for her again. 

“Maybe you should find a rival too, and that’ll make you feel better.”

Ayako makes a disgusted noise that I’m sure her mother would disapprove of. It’s too childlike and honest. 

“I don’t need a rival to be better than other people.”

No, no she doesn’t. She’s just fine the way she is. I can’t wait to see how she proves that to everyone else when she grows up. 

If she grows up. I just have to hope I’m on her team, so I can make sure she makes it through fine. 

We amble back to the girls sitting around under a tree outside the academy, bentos abound and chatter loud. Kushina sits close to the edge of it beside Uchiha Mikoto, and perks up when she sees me. 

I should be flattered that Kushina likes me so much. I hope I don’t die early either, it might be traumatizing. 

“Did we miss anything?” Ayako asks, voice sugary sweet as she eyes her court of girls. Plays them all like a fiddle.

Forget marrying Chouza, Ayako should marry the daimyo. Her talents are wasted here. 

Ah. Well, she’ll be even better when she starts doing espionage missions. Though maybe the village won’t subject her to that, I have a feeling they get squeamish at letting clan girls do anything close to seduction. Our kunoichi classes started this year and they’ve mostly focused on flower language and infiltration, no mention of seduction. 

That may be because I’m in the same class as a bunch of clan girls, now that I think about it. I may need to watch out for being assigned any seduction missions. I’m not sure if I’m well suited for it, but I am fairly pretty, for a child. Good bone structure, soft brown hair, even if it’s short. Green eyes.

As far as I know, nobody knows who my father is. My mother may have been involved in that work. I don’t know. I only know her name. 

Sachiko. No last name. No clan. Dead in one of the first skirmishes of the war. 

I don’t spend much time thinking about her. I’m sure she was someone who loved me, at least she probably was. But I don’t know her, and I really only owe her for giving birth to me. I feel more of a connection with my parents in my last life than with her. 

I wonder how much I look like her.

Ugh. This is a train of thought that leads to brooding. Best not. 

I settle down beside Kushina, pulling open my bento and downing some of my rice. All the sparring I’ve been doing has made me very, very hungry, and it’s really biting into my stipend. I only get 10,000 ryo per month, which sounds like a lot but absolutely is not a lot. Especially with wartime inflation. More than half of it goes into my food budget alone. 

“You that hungry?” Kushina asks, bewildered. 

I swallow the bite I put in my mouth, peering over at her. “I’ve been growing a lot of muscle and practicing my chakra control lately. It makes me very hungry.”

That’s ignoring the normal cusp of puberty hunger. I forgot how it felt to have an endless pit for a stomach. 

“You practice your chakra control?” Mikoto asks, taking a delicate bite of her salman onigiri. So graceful. I would be more envious if I didn’t have some teriyaki chicken to eat. 

“Often,” I hum, before taking a few bites of my aforementioned chicken. I may need to get more groceries when I get out of the academy today. Last I remember I only have milk and eggs left in the fridge. 

Maybe I can last on scrambled eggs until the end of the month. Eggs are good. 

I hate the idea of going off to war, but at least they pay you. I would very much like extra income to spend on food. Or better training gear. 

This is the life I’ve chosen. I’ll just have to cope.

“Hey, do you like ramen, Seiko?” Kushina asks. We dropped the honorifics after I proclaimed she would be the strongest kunoichi in the land. I’m glad for it. I don’t care overly much about them, which probably says something about me and the culture I came from before this. I very much was not Japanese. 

“I haven’t had much ramen,” I say. Ichiraku’s hasn’t even opened yet as far as I can tell, so I haven’t seen much reason to bother with spending the money to eat out. I could always make it at home, but that would require me to buy a cookbook. I don’t have the money for buying cookbooks. 

“You need to come with us to the ramen stand down the street after the academy,” Kushina says, narrow eyed and offended that I’m not a ramen lover. I’ve had ramen in my past life, usually of the instant variety. But that doesn’t really count, does it? These taste buds have only had it a few times. 

Is it worth it to spend the money to eat out? I guess it would be a nice treat. 

“I guess I can. But we can’t spar right after, one of us may throw up.” 

I am not a vomiter. I don’t plan on becoming one in this lifetime. 

Kushina groans, like a chance not to have the shit kicked out of her is some great chore. I wonder about this girl. Her priorities are pretty solid considering all the training will only serve to make her more formidable, but really. Don’t most of our classmates spend all of their time playing ninja?

Class goes fairly well for the rest of the day. Academically I dominate, though I’m still having to make up for my more average scores at the beginning of the year. It’s unlikely I’ll make number one for this year, but next year? Nobody stands a chance. 

Well. Minato will probably make me fight for it, and Mikoto, but I have the advantage of a sort of adult brain, and they don’t. So I can probably win. 

Probably. 

At the end of class I end up dragged by hand out of the academy building by a chattering Kushina, Mikoto in her other hand. 

“—and Tsunande-oba keeps telling me that she doesn’t want to train, even though she swore she would do it this week. She spends all of her time with her boyfriend. ”

Isn’t that boyfriend supposed to die?

…not my circus, not my monkeys. 

“Do you like her boyfriend?” I ask before Kushina can continue her tangent. 

Kushina huffs. “He’s fine. Boring, all smiley and polite. At least it’s not one of her creepy teammates.”

At least it’s not one of the other Sannin indeed. 

“The Sannin are very honorable, Kushina,” Mikoto chides, peering around at our surroundings with a critical eye, but smiling. It’s a small smile. It reminds me of her son. 

The son that kills her. Eugh. That may be my circus and my monkeys now. We’ll see. 

“You haven’t seen how Jiraiya looks at Tsu-oba’s boobs,” Kushina replies, unimpressed. 

Ew. And they’re letting that man be in charge of a team?

Sage, I hope I’m not on Minato’s team. If there is any god out there, I’ll be spared. I don’t care if I’ll get political clout by having one of the Hokage’s students as a teacher. Those twenty somethings are all fucking messes, regardless of the work Senju Tsunande is doing for the village’s hospital and healthcare system. 

“I hope I don’t get any of them as a jonin teacher,” I decide to comment aloud as we turn the corner, coming up fast on the ramen stand thanks to Kushina’s default fast walking speed. 

The village is bustling with afternoon traffic, bodies packed and moving all to their own destinations. I peer up at the sky, and watch the dark clouds slowly roll in from the horizon. It’s going to rain. A lot of these people are probably just rushing to get their errands done before then.

My new sandals scuff against the dirt road as I walk.

“Tsunade-oba wouldn’t be so bad,” Kushina disagrees. “But the other two? I’d rather have—”

We come to a stop in front of the stand. To my horror, there’s three very familiar people sitting at it. 

Fuck. Wasn’t Jiraiya supposed to be in Ame right now? And don’t these three hate each other?

Oh this is shaping up to be an eventful day. 

“Is that my ungrateful cousin I hear?” Senju Tsunade huffs, turning from her ramen to peer down at the three of us. She’s got heavy bags under her brown eyes, and an exhaustion in her strong shoulders. Her brother’s death was last year, from what I can remember. She’s been busy putting out healthcare reforms left and right since then when she’s not on the frontlines, or so says the gossip mill. 

“You get what you deserve. You won’t train with me, dattebane!” Kushina bites back, releasing Mikoto and I’s hands to point at the Sannin. 

“It’s called having a job, you brat. You wouldn’t get it,” Tsunade says, glaring at Kushina with no heat. She looks young, but about the same as her anime depiction. It makes sense. A highly skilled healer could look like she’s twenty for as long as she wants. 

Tsunade’s gaze shifts to Mikoto, then me, considering. 

“Who are your little friends?”

“Uchiha Mikoto,” Mikoto introduces, bowing the exact appropriate amount to the Senju heir. Or is she the clan head, already? I don’t think her parents are alive anymore. 

“Seiko,” I greet, raising a hand and smiling. 

An arm wraps around my neck and I get pulled into a sudden headlock. I blink, the world shifting sideways. I’m bent over awkwardly since Kushina is shorter than me.

“Seiko’s my rival! I need you to train me so I can destroy her!” Kushina noogies me as she says this, as if to accentuate her point. 

“I told you,” I grumble, but accept my fate, going limp against Kushina. “You’re gonna be much more powerful than me in five years. You just have to be patient.”

“I want to kick your ass now, dattebane!” Kushina insists, noogie intensifying. The friction digs into my skin, and my hair rubs this way and that. My poor scalp. 

“Your cousin is very loud, hime,” Orochimaru sighs, turning from his food just so to look over at us. Silky black hair swaying and falling down his back in waves. 

From closer up, I stand by my observation that he’s beautiful. Even when he’s looking at me with those unnerving slitted snake eyes. Such nice cheekbones. If only he wasn’t afflicted with a severe antisocial disorder and the desire to cut people open for science. 

“It’s good to see kids excited for training, Orochimaru,” Jiraiya says after what sounds like swallowing an unhealthy amount of noodles. 

How he can say that after seeing the horrors at Ame for two years, I don’t know. We’re just training to do more war crimes.

“Kushina, I’m going to flip you if you don’t stop hurting my head,” I comment, tone deceptively idle as I look up at the girl. If I shift my weight and grab her arm around my neck, I could absolutely flip her over my shoulder. My hand slowly starts creeping up to grasp her forearm.

Violence flashes in Kushina’s little eyes, all too eager for an excuse to start fighting. A pale hand reaches over and removes Kushina’s arm around my neck before either of us can get in a little pre-meal training. 

“Thank you, Mikoto-chan,” I quickly exhale, running my fingers through my abused tresses and half expecting some of it to fall out. I’m lucky I have thick hair.

“You’re welcome, Seiko-chan. Can we order our food now?” Mikoto offers, keeping us on track. 

“Oh, right,” Kushina says innocently, as if she wasn’t attempting to make me bald a minute ago. She hops onto the stool beside her cousin, and I follow with a sigh, Mikoto slotting between Kushina and I. Very smart of her. Kushina is over eager for fighting if I’m within arms reach. 

“When did you get a rival, Shina-chan?” Tsunande asks, peering between her and I like I did something to deserve this. I’m completely innocent! It’s not my fault Kushina perceived my previous lying and mischief as a personal attack.

“Two weeks ago,” Kushina explains eagerly, hand tapping against the worn wood of the stall. “Hokage-sama made Seiko stop losing fights on purpose, and now I have to put a proper beat down on her, dattebane! All this time I thought she was just distracted.”

Three pairs of eyes immediately zero in on me. Oh dear. If jonin are nosy, Sannin are probably chronically in other people’s business. Especially when it pertains to their sensei taking an interest in an academy student.

“Is that so? Why would the old man have to do that, kid?” Jiraiya asks, leaning forward around Tsunade so he can make eye contact with me. He looks so young. No wrinkles, handsome, and with those strange red lines trailing beneath his eyes. Perverts shouldn’t get to be hot. There’s something karmically unfair about it. 

It feels like life is intentionally trying to throw scenarios at me that make me stress out. I am not about to stress out. I signed up for a relatively calm, if murderous second life. This is practically my vacation!

Maybe I shouldn’t have been so honest with people when they asked about it. Then I wouldn’t be dealing with Kushina’s blabbermouth. She’s so much like Naruto it hurts. Or, I suppose, Naruto is going to be so much like her.

Two of Kushina…that’s going to be so loud.

“ Apparently it’s not okay to pretend to be less skilled to avoid graduating early,” I say obliviously, before turning to look at the menu. Maybe I should just get whatever Kushina orders. I have no idea what kind of ramen I want. “It’s okay though, Hokage-sama said I was allowed to graduate next year instead of now as long as I stop throwing fights.”

I’m going to stop explaining this to people. It’s becoming tedious. This entire situation is tedious, actually, and I am so fucking hungry.

I squint at items on the menu, then turn to Kushina. “What are you getting, Kushina? I don’t know what any of these are.”

Kushina, to her credit, has no idea what tension she’s started at the ramen stand. “Oh! You should get the pork ramen, dattebane!”

I nod solemnly. “Pork ramen it is. What are you getting Mikoto?”

Mikoto peers up at the menu and lets out a breath. “I wish they had udon.”

“It’s a ramen stand,” Kushina hisses, like Mikoto is saying sacrilege in a holy place. 

“We’re going to get udon tomorrow,” Mikoto mumbles with a small pout. Then, decides. “...I suppose I’ll have the beef ramen.”

The chef, who had been listening in on us gives a thumbs up, starting on the food.

I give Mikoto a reassuring pat on the shoulder. It’s tough being best friends with someone who only ever wants to eat one kind of food. She’s a saint for going along with it. 

“Why would you wish to remain at the academy if you could graduate?” Orochimaru asks suddenly, voice pointedly uncaring. Like whatever I answer won’t matter. That’s how you know you’ve gained a ninja’s interest. They pretend they don’t give a shit. 

I look up, meeting his strange eyes. I shift my gaze to Kushina and Mikoto, who are now having a whispered debate about the merits and flaws of eating udon tomorrow. Then back to Orochimaru. I don’t want to say anything too harsh in front of them. They deserve what little innocence they have. 

“I have better chances of surviving at ten than five,” I say simply. Practical. The same thing I told his sensei. “Kids like me don’t get jonin senseis.”

Seiko. No last name. No clan. Nobody to give a shit if I die in the final skirmishes of the second shinobi war. 

It’s funny, saying it like that. Cyclical. Like mother like daughter. 

“I think you’ll definitely get a jonin sensei,” Jiraiya says with a chuffed laugh, gaze considering. He would know, I suppose. He’s a no name orphan who got put on the future hokage’s team. So is Orochimaru, though Orochimaru clearly has some kind of bloodline going for him. 

I smile, shrug with an easy going grace. Smell the incoming rain in the air mixing with the savory food at the stall. “I will now. I suppose the rest doesn’t matter anymore.”

It doesn’t. Stressing about other possible timelines where I die earlier is silly. 

I turn to the arguing girls beside me, and reach over to ruffle Kushina’s red hair. 

“You have ramen everyday, don’t you? Let Mikoto have some udon for once.” I swiftly move my hand out of the way when Kushina goes to smack it. 

“What? Are you going to go with us to eat?” Kushina asks. 

“We’re training later tomorrow anyways. Might as well.”

My poor wallet. 

—

There’s something calming about fighting. Something I can’t quite describe.

It’s funny. For being a person who has little to no interest in fighting in wars, I do think I love fighting itself. Love the focus and the way it keeps me awake and alert to my surroundings. Blood humming and my skin burning with every hit.

“Again, this time with kunai,” Kushina says as we do the seal of reconciliation with a quick clasp of our fingers. It’s rote by now, no need to spend much time on it. We’ll be fighting again in minutes. 

The Senju’s training grounds are nice. Much nicer than the academy’s scuffed patch of earth, and not even comparable to my usual spot at my local park. They’ve got a bunch of training dummies for target practice, sturdy ones that won’t break easily. The circle Kushina and I fight in is actually painted on, and somehow doesn’t scuff when we send each other tumbling over it. It’s probably fuinjutsu, but I haven’t had the time to ask yet. 

I’ve been a bit busy kicking Kushina’s ass. 

“As long as you promise not to get me in the face,” I say all too agreeably, pushing my bangs off of where they’re sticking to my forehead and walking over to grab the dulled knives they keep in a bin for these purposes. 

Kushina has tells. That’s normal, considering she’s nine (almost ten in two months, as she loves to insist), and a nine year old isn’t going to have ironed out their weaknesses yet. 

For one, Kushina will always, without fail, try and hit someone in the face. 

Fists? Kunai? Shins? Doesn’t matter. She’s aiming for your face and you had better get out of the way before you get a broken nose or a fancy new scar to show off. 

The sun beats down on the both of us, and I am going to need a very long shower to get all the dirt and sweat off of me. And blood. I scraped my elbow in the last scuffle. 

“Just dodge faster and you won’t have to worry about it.” Kushina grabs a kunai as I grab my own, twirling it around her finger. 

That’s a good point. It’s been very good dodging practice. Really adds stakes when you can get a tooth popped out if you don’t get the hell out of the way of a suckerpunch. 

“I always dodge faster than you, Shina-tan,” I hum, and swiftly move out of the way of a kunai being thrown at my face. Really, this can’t be safe to do without adult supervision. A real nine year old would have taken that straight to the forehead. 

“Seal!” Kushina shouts, grabbing another kunai as she holds out her other hand. 

“You’re eager to continue the losing streak. I admire your endurance!” I clasp my fingers in her own in a barely there touch, and then I’m dashing out of reach, back to the training circle. 

“I beat you yesterday!” Kushina grabs the back of my shirt, tugging me back and no doubt about to knife me in the liver. 

She did beat me yesterday. It was well earned, I shouldn’t have let her kick me in the chest. I was left on the ground wheezing for ten minutes. 

“Broken clocks are right twice a day.” I drop into a crouch and go to sweep her off her feet, pleased when she jumps out of the way and releases my t-shirt. Kushina goes to kick me in the head, which really I was asking for by being at the perfect kicking level. 

I roll out of the way, feeling the baking earth through the fabric of my clothes and quickly getting back to a standing position. 

One thing that makes me well suited for fighting Kushina is her offensive aggression. She is alway trying to make the first move, always putting everything into each hit. 

In contrast, I’m defensive, and more precise with when and where I hit. 

Speed versus strength. That’s basically what it ends up being everytime.

Kushina is already rushing back into my space, going for a slash with her kunai aimed at my abdomen. I twist out of the way, and get a punch in the side for my trouble. 

Pain lances over my skin, and I let out a hissed breath through my teeth. My hand shoots out, clamping onto her forearm. My kunai blocks another slash from her own, sparks flying between our clashing weapons. They may be dulled, but they’re still steel. 

With a jerk I pull Kushina closer and loop a leg around her own, twisting and sending us falling into a tumble of limbs and complaints on Kushina’s part.

“You always turn things into grappling! I never see—” she pauses to try and stab me in the face, I get grazed on the side of my neck for my trouble trying to avoid it. I barely feel the pinch of the knife. “—real ninja grappling in spars!”

“Real ninja have more killing moves.” I lay my kunai on her neck, straining to pin her other arm with my knee before I get stabbed in the thigh.

“I’m gonna show you a killing move!”

Kushina and I are well matched, definitely. She makes my reaction times much faster, and points out habits I haven’t realized. 

I really do need to get better about not resorting to pinning people on the ground. Most shinobi have very punishing jutsu to use on you when you do that.

Our training will probably get more interesting when we can both do the academy three. She’d easily be able to get out of the way of my pins with a body replacement jutsu. 

Sage, I can’t wait. I’m practically desperate to finally learn some jutsu. I would’ve conned some older years into teaching me the techniques, since it’s not forbidden for academy students to know some jutsu, but it’s very frowned upon to try and learn it early. 

Unless you’re in a clan. Then it’s perfectly fine. 

Stupid ninja classism bullshit. 

Kushina groans, loudly, after one final wiggling attempt to get loose. I’m very good at keeping people pinned to the ground now, at least. That will surely help me in my future career. 

“Fine! You win.”

Finally.

I roll off of Kushina and lie on the ground beside her, panting. My neck and my side hurt. 

“Did you cut me deep? I don’t want to bleed out,” I ask, peering over at Kushina. We’ve been at this for four matches already. It’s about time to stop. 

“No, it’s not bleeding that bad,” Kushina replies with a careless wave of her hand, looking up at the sky and catching her breath. 

How does she classify something as “bad” bleeding? Don’t Uzumaki have advanced healing rates?

I may need an adult. 

“Do you have bandages at home?”

“‘Course I have bandages at home, what kind of kunoichi do you think I am, dattebane?” Kushina asks with a scoff, before sitting up and stretching her arms. “We can get Tsu-oba to look at it, or her dumb boyfriend.”

So harsh. Poor Dan. 

“I think Tsunade-hime may have better things to do than heal an academy student, Kushina,” I say with a little laugh, looking up at the clouds. There’s not many of them today. The sky is awash in endless, bright blue, and the sun sits high above. 

I also don’t have any interest in being near Tsunade. She inspires weird trains of thought in me. I wondered after we spoke to her a few days ago if I could’ve saved her brother if I graduated early. It was disconcerting. 

The answer is no, by the way. I couldn’t have. He was a genin out on a normal, low hostility mission. I never would’ve known which mission it would be. And Kami help me if I were on his team, I’d probably have just died too. 

Not my circus. Not my damn monkeys. 

Kushina’s head pops into my vision of the sky, shading my face from the burning sun. Her nose is scrunched up in concentration as she looks at my neck. 

“...we should probably go see Tsu-oba.”

Oh, great. I get to die in a training accident instead of by Iwa nin, or something similarly more reasonable. 

“That’s not a very reassuring thing to say, Kushina. You shouldn’t go into medicine, your bedside manner is terrible,” I comment, reaching up and pressing my fingers to the painful cut I can feel pulsing with a sharp ache. 

It pangs as I tap it, and I lift a hand away to find bright red blood. Oh dear. 

Well, head wounds and neck wounds tend to bleed a lot anyways. I’m sure it’s fine since I can still breathe and don’t feel lightheaded. 

“Shut up! I’m just trying to help.” Kushina pouts, and she jerks me up into standing by my arm. 

All of the blood rushes to my head now that I’m standing, and I note distantly that I am a bit lightheaded. 

Shit. Did she nick an artery? I don’t feel any spurting blood.

Now probably isn’t the time to worry about that. Best get to a medical professional and have them figure it out. 

…even if that medical professional is Tsunade the Sannin. Or her doomed boyfriend. 

My arm goes over Kushina’s shoulder, and we begin our walk away from the training ground. I press a hand to my neck to keep pressure. Hopefully it’s not that serious, and Tsunade will just tell us off about wasting her time while she’s on her short off time away from the frontlines. 

—

“How the hell did this happen?”

What a good question, Senju Tsunade the Sannin. I wonder that often, about everything.

“I dodged too slow,” I supply helpfully, leaning heavily against Kushina’s bony shoulder. 

I peer at the wide porch of Tsunade’s house. The building is probably the nicest one I’ve ever stood near, comparable to the Yamanaka head’s house. Better, actually, than the Yamanaka head’s house. Ornate furniture lines the porch, along with very well manicured potted plants. The windows are made of proper glass, too, a more expensive luxury in homes made longer than a decade ago. 

The wood of the walls looks seamless, as if it was grown from the ground. It probably was. Is this where the first Hokage lived?

“I can see that, and I’m not asking you—” Tsunade says, reaching out and jerking my hand away from where I was applying pressure to my neck. “You missed her artery by an inch, Kushina-chan. What were you doing training with kunai without supervision?”

Death by training accident was so close, yet so far. I’ll need to focus on getting the kunai out of her hands, next time. 

“Everyone was busy,” Kushina argues, waving a hand and pressing her shoulder more firmly into me. “You keep saying you’ll help me train, and then you spend more time with—”

“What’s going on out here?”

A young man peers around Tsunade’s shoulder, eyebrows raised at the sight of Kushina and I. 

Kushina groans, loudly. I would wince if I wasn’t busy thinking about how I can’t feel my lips. That’s probably from the blood loss. I’m going to have to eat so many iron rich foods after this. I may need to find a part time job to fund my food expenses.

“My cousin tried to kill her rival,” Tsunade huffs to the man who must be Kato Dan, and two of her fingers begin to glow with green chakra. It hovers over my neck, and I can feel her chakra tangling up under my skin, stitching tissue together. It’s weird. Very very weird.

“If I were trying to kill her, she would be dead, dattebane!” Kushina says, but she’s looking over at whatever Tsunade is doing with a concerned twist to her mouth. 

“You would have been dead before me, considering how I won the spar,” I comment. Not really to prove a point or anything, just to remind her. “I suppose if I died of blood loss after defeating you that would make it a tie.”

“Stop talking, you’re moving your neck muscles,” Tsunade orders, and I oblige. 

“Is she going to die, Tsu-oba?” Kushina asks, a slow growing horror starting on her face. “Seiko usually dodges faster, dattebane, I swear I didn’t think it would actually cut her!”

See? This is why we don’t give children knives. 

“She’s not even going to have a scar, you brat. What do you think I am? Some third rate Kumo medic? I’m telling Obaa-sama you aren’t allowed to play with kunai outside of the academy for a month.”

Obaa-sama— is that what Tsunade calls Uzumaki Mito? I never really thought about what kind of relationship Tsunade would have with her grandma. She is, after all, the honorable granddaughter of the first hokage. 

Tsunade’s hand pulls away from my neck, and that strange humming chakra saturating her fingers cuts away swiftly. Medical ninjutsu feels so sterile. Like she pulled all of the bits of her chakra that makes it hers out of it. I suppose that tracks with what canon said. You have to remove all the elemental chakra to make sure you don’t kill people.

I bow deeply, even if it makes my head spin and Kushina squawks when my arm leaves her shoulders. 

“Thank you for healing me, Tsunade-sama.” 

“Sage, you’re going to fall on your face, don’t do that!” Tsunade firmly pushes me back into a straight position by my head, hand ruffling my hair a little bit like how one pets a dog before it retreats back to her side. 

“Thank me by not getting gutted by my cousin, do you understand? I don’t want to be healing you for a long time, preferably never. Save the reckless training for when you’re a genin.”

I nod with an appropriate level of seriousness. “I promise. I won’t let Kushina’s kunai draw blood again. I was being sloppy.”

Really, I may be sort of nine, but I should be capable of dodging another nine year old with a knife. Kushina doesn’t even have a furry little problem yet! 

Kushina punches my shoulder, and I grunt. 

“What do you mean by that, dattebane? I could stab you anytime! In fac—” Kushina cuts herself off when she sees Tsunade’s glare, face blanching. “Er, I won’t though. I won’t stab you at all. You aren’t really going to tell Mito-obaa-chan about this, right, Tsu-oba? Right?”

“Why shouldn’t I tell her?” Tsunade asks, crossing her strong arms. She’s wearing a short sleeved shirt so I can see her impressive biceps flex. 

“You could have very badly hurt your friend, Kushina-chan,” Dan adds from where he’s been observing the proceedings over Tsunade’s shoulder. He’s very pretty, with delicate features, lavender hair and kind green eyes. I wonder where Konoha is getting all of these pretty shinobi from. Do murderous generational careers just create more attractive people? Natural selection? 

Knowing the way the Hyuuga and the Uchiha can be, I wouldn’t be surprised. 

“We won’t use kunai in our spars until next school year,” I decide to offer. Kushina looks over at me with sudden shock and betrayal. I shrug. “We were being irresponsible and need to prove we can use our tools in a safe manner.”

Tsunade peers down at me with narrowed eyes. I wonder if this is how people feel when they’re being judged in the afterlife, some higher power looking down at you with a gaze that implies they’re picking you apart with their mind. 

I wouldn’t know. I don’t remember any afterlife except for this one. 

“You should be more like your friend, Shina-chan,” Tsunade says finally, looking away from me to glare at Kushina. “Don’t maim her before she rubs off on you, brat.”

Kushina squawks like an offended bird. 

“Kushina is fine the way she is, Tsunade-sama,” I hum, reaching up to touch the tingling new skin of my neck. “She probably wouldn’t like being more like me.”

There’s enough room in the world for brash, excitable optimists. Nine year olds are supposed to make mistakes anyways. 

…and I’ll make sure we have someone watching us spar from now on when we’re using sharp objects. Just in case. 

Chapter Text

Jiraiya

Jiraiya watches the academy students skip off into the distance talking about taijutsu kata. Scratches his chin, pale little bristles rough against his callused fingers. 

“What scheme of sensei’s do you think we’ve just stumbled into?” Jiraiya asks once the girls disappear in the rushing crowd of bodies. The rain has started, a low drizzle that patters against the roof of the ramen stand. 

“What does it matter?” Tsunade asks, but she’s still staring at the spot they disappeared too. Thinking about the company her cousin keeps, most likely. Her cousin that will hold the nine tailed fox in a month or so. 

“Prodigies are in short supply these days,” Orochimaru decides to add, voice low and bored. “Perhaps he saw the wisdom in letting one grow big enough to keep from dying in its first skirmish.”

“She’s nothing like how you were,” Jiraiya comments idly, peering over at Orochimaru. “Maybe I should try giving you a noogie, see if all geniuses react the same.”

Orochimaru smiles, wide with curling eyes. Jiraiya knows that is a look that promises great pain. 

“You like this ramen stand, don’t you?” 

The threat in those words isn’t even hidden, and Jiraiya sees the cook, Jurou, glance nervously at them from where he’s preparing another batch of noodles. 

“Shut up, both of you. I’m trying to think,” Tsunade interrupts, looking over at them with a glare that also promises untold violence. Jiraiya wonders how he’s survived so long on a team with such sadists. He is not into masochism like this, and especially not involving Orochimaru, no matter how much he’s grown into a beautiful babe. It’s unfair, really. 

Jiraiya turns to give Orochimaru another look, more subtle this time. He supposes he could be convinced, if Orochimaru had any love in his heart for something other than finding new jutsu. He knows he doesn’t mess around with other jonin, or visit any brothels. 

Orochimaru’s eyes narrow. He speaks pleasantly. “You know, I recently found a new jutsu. It takes the opponent’s testicles and rips them—”

Jiraiya jerks away from the man to the other edge of his stool, hands raised in placation. 

“I wasn’t thinking about anything, Oro! Come on now, no need to get violent!”

A hand wrenches into Jiraiya’s hair and pulls, shaking his head around while his hands flail. 

“Ow ow ow—!”

“Can you be serious for one fucking minute, you horny asshole?” Tsunade hisses, punctuating each word with a shake of his thick head. Jiraiya hates how much he loves it. Maybe he is a masochist. He kind of missed being thrown around by her when he was in Ame. 

If only she wasn’t messing with that pretty boy Dan. He’s a good ninja, and a better medic nin than Jiraiya will ever be, but he can’t compare to Tsunade-hime. Jiraiya isn’t even worthy of the hime. 

“She said Kushina would be able to beat her easily in five years,” Tsunade says, finally releasing Jiraiya’s aching scalp. 

“A reasonable conclusion, if she has the context of how strong an Uzumaki shinobi usually is,” Orochimaru says, reaching over to grab his drink and take a sip. 

“Most prodigies don’t admit to future or current weaknesses,” Jiraiya hums. He carefully runs his fingers through his choppy white hair. He’ll need a haircut soon. He can’t be having anyone other than Tsunade-hime and maybe Orochimaru grabbing him by the hair. That would be so embarrassing on the frontlines. 

Tsunade nods, frowning. “She didn’t seem prideful. If Kushina hadn’t told me that the girl had spoken to sensei, I would've assumed she was a normal academy student.”

Jiraiya wouldn’t have. He saw something in those green eyes, an alertness greater than a normal child. If he’d have been outside the village building his spy network for sensei he would’ve flagged her as a possible asset. Little girls never get the kind of scrutiny boys do, and tend to give better reports besides.

“She mentioned no last name. Perhaps she’s a wayward Nara scion with all the inherited lack of motivation,” Orochimaru says, taking a bite of his long forgotten ramen. So dainty. So elegant. It makes Jiraiya want to dunk his head in the bowl. 

“Surely they’d have claimed her already. They’re good about that.” Jiraiya shakes his head at the idea. They’re not as anal about it as the Hyuuga or the Uchiha, considering Nara bastards aren’t likely to wake up any secret special eyes, but the Naras like to be on top of that sort of thing. 

It’s dangerous having that brand of intelligence wandering around without sharp eyes on them, and words leading them to the right conclusions. Not every Nara is a genius, or even particularly smart. But most of them are clever and starkly perceptive. There’s a lot of things a hidden village would rather not be perceived by its citizens.

All that being said, the girl doesn’t look mean enough. Every Nara looks a little bit like they’ve already figured out how to strangle you with your own shadow and are waiting for the chance.

“Whatever it is, I’d bet a lot of ryo that sensei is gearing to put her on the same team as Kushina. A frontliner. We’ll have to wait and see,” Tsunade huffs, reaching up and tucking her beautiful blonde hair behind her pale ear. She’s got a little earring in her lobe today, a small green jewel.

Jiraiya’s gaze dips lower. Hm. Her boobs have grown larger. They’re practically spilling out of her—

Suddenly a new hand is gripping Jiraiya’s hair, cold long fingers and unyielding. He cries out in pain, reaching up and grabbing the wrist. 

“Stop being disgusting, Jiraiya,” Orochimaru orders, low and bored. “You would think time in the muck of that backwater would make you less stupid. I fear the rain has only made your wits worse.”

“If you don’t get your hand off my head, Orochimaru, I’ll show you exactly how my wits have changed,” Jiraiya grunts, and admits only deep in his mind that it’s also nice when Orochimaru pulls his hair too. It’s only because he’s got the look of a damn inky haired lady of legend. Jiraiya doesn’t like men. He doesn’t .

Jiraiya’s head is released with a dismissive hum, and conversation resumes. Jurou the ramen chef looks relieved while he fiddles with his pots of broth and noodles, sweating from the heat of his work and the risk of three S class ninja threatening each other in his own business. 

Jiraiya is swiftly distracted by bickering about new gossip. A Konoha chunin ambassador has married a Kiri missing nin. Scandalous. Tsunade keeps hitting walls with the counsel to divert more funds to her medic nin projects. Exhausting. Orochimaru was threatened with a genin team assignment if he didn’t stop skulking into training grounds without reserving them. Horrifying. 

Jiraiya almost forgets the little girl with sharp green eyes completely. 

Almost. 

Jiraiya is something of an expert on smart, clanless orphans with a lot to prove. (And the kid is obviously an orphan, he recognizes the hand me downs and the frown she kept making at her coin pouch.) He wonders how this one will turn out. 

Hopefully he won’t see her again for a while. Hiruzen-sensei has also been dropping some very unsubtle hints about genin teams in Jiraiya’s future. Probably to keep him from turning tail and hiding from his duty again. Technically everything he did in Ame was sanctioned. Technically. The kind of technically you only get when you’re one of your village’s strongest shinobi and have the Hokage as a teacher. An exception. 

He’ll be making up for it for a while. Jiraiya is lucky Sarutobi Hiruzen is a forgiving man. Shimura Danzo keeps fucking chirping about desertion of duty whenever he spots him. Ugly fucker. No matter if the man was on sensei’s team with the honorable second, he’s turning into a bloodthirsty windbag of epic proportions.

—

Seiko

Jutsu. We’re finally learning some fucking ninjutsu. I think I may cry tears of joy. 

It’s early in the morning but everyone is excited, not a yawn in sight. I can hear people whispering to each other about various cool jutsu. Apparently an Inuzuka in the year below has a brother who saw a fire jutsu big enough to level a mile of forest last week. I’m sure someone saw a jutsu, but I doubt the brother would’ve lived to tell the tale to his sibling unless it was a suicide jutsu. 

The kind of people who can leverage that much elemental chakra don’t seem like they leave witnesses.

I will myself to sit still in my seat as Taro-sensei starts writing on the chalkboard. Everyone goes silent in a hush, listening to the chalk rub away.

“Today, we’ll begin learning the academy three jutsu,” Taro-sensei starts, ‘Academy Three’ coming into being on the board in swift jerks of his fingers. “Can anyone tell me what they are?”

A few hands come up, Minato’s I can see a few rows below me. 

Taro-sensei turns from the blackboard, and points at Minato’s raised hand with a chalky finger. “Minato-kun?”

“Kawarimi, bunshin, and henge.”

“Correct. Today, we’ll be starting with an example of each technique, and then you will all begin the leaf sticking exercise,” Taro-sensei explains, tossing his chalk stick back into its bin and rubbing his hands together to get rid of some of the residue. “First, the kawarimi. Also known as the body replacement technique.”

My eyes stay on his hands as he widens his stance, willing myself to feel that slow rolling chakra in him. It’s harder than if someone were within the same five feet as me, or if I were touching them, but I can smell the burning under my nose. Fire affinity. 

He goes through the hand signs slowly, so we can remember them. I soak the information in with zeal, committing the order to memory. Ram, boar, ox, dog, snake.

In a plume of chakra smoke, Taro-sensei is replaced with a log, one that had been sitting in the corner of the room the whole class period. 

The room is full of gasps and various appreciative noises, mostly from the more civilian oriented kids. The clan kids look like they’re trying to be more cool about it, but I can see the hunger for information in their eyes. Any good child of a shinobi covets knowledge.

I look at where the log once was, and see Taro-sensei looking at all of us. His eyes land on me. 

“Seiko-chan, throw your pencil at me,” he orders. I oblige immediately, tossing it like a senbon and aiming for his eye. We only use them every few target practices, but I’ve always been an accurate thrower. It’s roughly the same motion every time. 

The hand signs come much faster this time, and before the pencil lands in Taro-sensei’s face, it thunks firmly into the log. 

The log clack as it lands onto the floor, my pencil lodged into it three quarters of the way in. It sits there, as if taunting me with my suspiciously excellent strength. I remember, suddenly, that I forgot to bring my pencil case today. I peer thoughtfully on at my now forever lost pencil, wondering if I should instantly follow the orders of my superiors ever again. It may lead to things biting me in the ass. 

I’m just glad that it didn’t accidentally hit my teacher. That would’ve been bad. I, uh, didn’t even realize my throw was that strong. 

“As you can see, the kawarimi is an extremely important tool to have available to yourself on the field. There’s only so much you can dodge when tied up or worse,” Taro-sensei explains seriously, scanning the faces of his students. He’s good at commanding a room, and that’s probably why they let him become an academy teacher despite being seventeen. He could’ve easily fallen into more paperwork oriented work like working at the tower.

I like when he teaches us real skills he’s actually used in his career, because he gets this look in his eye like he understands the weight of what all of these kids are going to face. Like he understands his place in Konoha’s meat grinder. 

“Next, bunshin. Or, the clone jutsu.”

My eyes go to Taro-sensei’s hands again. Ram, tiger, snake. Easy. 

Two copies of Taro-sensei appear on each side of him, again in a plume of chakra smoke. I wonder if that’s just a thing everyone does, or if that means he’s inefficient with his chakra usage when casting the jutsu.

I peer at the clones, feeling the flow of their chakra. Their reserves feel noticeably smaller, something about them being… thinner than a real person. I wonder if you could change the flow of your own chakra to seem like you’re a clone?

“These clones are weak to physical damage, but they can be useful to trick your enemies in a pinch. Civilians won’t be able to tell the difference between you and a clone, and most low ranked shinobi can’t differentiate them at a glance.”

Taro-sensei gives everyone enough time to get a good look at the clones, before swiftly dismissing them with a flex of his chakra.

“The final jutsu. Henge, or the transformation jutsu.”

Dog, boar, ram. I really wish I hadn’t thrown my pencil at the log, I should be writing this down. 

In another poof of excess chakra, suddenly Taro-sensei looks like the third hokage. Billowing white robes and stern disposition on point. He is easily the most recognizable person that all of the students would know.

“Ah! He looks just like tou-san!” Sarutobi Haruki, the third’s eldest, says in a gasp. He points at Taro-sensei with wide eyes.

…shouldn’t the son of a hokage be less shocked at the sight of a ninjutsu? Unless his father spends very little time with him. I suppose that would explain it. Sarutobi Biwako, the third’s wife, probably doesn’t spend much time training Haruki either. She’s one of the village’s best medic-nin, she has other shit to do in the middle of a war. 

“A henge relies on your own personal memory, and your chakra control. A discerning shinobi will always be able to tell a fake apart from his real comrade,” Taro-sensei says in the hokage’s rough voice. The hokage should lay off the tobacco before Minato ascends early, or, worse, Orochimaru takes the hat. 

Anything but fourth hokage Orochimaru. I’d be forced to go missing nin. Spend my days wandering and hiding from anbu in between bounty missions.

…actually, that doesn’t sound too bad. That’s a good backup plan if I decide Konoha is too fucked up to be worth the trouble. Better to exploit its education system while I can for now. 

Taro-sensei is surrounded by another smokey poof— which, really, I’m almost certain now that that’s just from being inefficient with your chakra usage. I can’t test it yet, but the second I can try I’m going to do this thing with no smoke.

Well. Maybe not on the first try. Third or fourth sounds more reasonable. 

Taro-sensei stares us all down with his own face on again.

“Now. You all have leaves in front of you. I’m going to demonstrate the leaf sticking exercise to you all, and once you can manage sticking one to each hand, you can start working on the henge. Are there any questions?”

I don’t even bother with watching the explanation, grabbing both of the leaves in front of me and pressing them to my palms, making my chakra sticky. It’s much easier than pillows, since pillows are heavier and have more surface area. I suppose people with higher chakra levels would struggle with the leaf sticking more, since it’s hard to trickle out the required chakra without flooding your hands. 

I wait patiently for Taro-sensei to finish his explanation, while Yamanaka Ayako looks over at me from my side with wide eyes. 

“Did you already—!” she hisses, low enough that Taro-sensei doesn’t break his lecture. 

“I have good chakra control,” I murmur back, peering down at my hands and subtly waving them around. The leaves stay stuck to my palms, which is good. I’d be very annoyed if my skills suddenly left me the second I needed to show them to other people.

I raise a leaf-stuck hand the moment Taro-sensei finishes showing how to stick a leaf to his forehead. He pauses, and looks over at me with raised eyebrows. 

“Yes, Seiko-chan?” 

“I finished with the leaves. Can I start on the henge now?” I ask with some eagerness that’s to be expected with my age. I can’t help it. I finally get to do some fucking ninja bullshit magic! I can will the elements to do my bidding! Any rational, curious person would be interested in learning more. That’s most of why I bothered becoming a ninja at all. 

Well. Besides the lack of social mobility for civilians within the village and out of it. And the debt you incur as an orphan during wartime. It’s either get a trade apprenticeship or serve the minimum years of service for the village, and I didn’t care enough about learning blacksmithing  or whatever to try. 

Students around me start muttering about how fast I was with the leaves. I’m not worried. I just would like to start doing some hand seals now please. 

“Yes, Seiko-chan. You can start on the henge. Do you remember the hand signs?” 

How could I forget? “Dog, boar, ram,” I list off dutifully, hands moving in the required signs with no active chakra running through my fingers. That’s the key to avoiding students accidentally setting people on fire. You always, very seriously, tell them not to pump any intent into their pinkies when they’re practicing their hand signs. 

“Good! You can start on that, then, Seiko-chan. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t get it fast,” Taro-sensei says with a smile, something suspiciously proud in his eyes. I have a feeling I really am his favorite student. I remember being a teacher a lifetime ago. I know that face. 

Well. At least it’s useful to me. The academy teaches that a kunoichi takes every advantage available to her and exploits it with great efficiency. 

Around me students get started on their leaf sticking, though some noble clan kids have already gotten it or are much closer to getting the job done than others. Ayako hasn’t been able to stick a leaf yet, and she keeps sending me looks that imply she’ll start interrogating me on how I did it within the next fifteen minutes. 

Whatever. Right now I have very interesting problems to solve.

I stand from my seat into a wide stance, shutting my eyes and going through each hand sign again. Slowly. 

At first, back when they started teaching us them last year, the hand signs had been a problem. They’re awkward positions to put your hands in, and I was not very good at forcing my little hands into submission. It made me… very upset. So, I took home the little manual they gave us on each hand sign with diagrams, and I started practicing them. Every night. For two hours. 

I’m a pretty relaxed person, but I hate being bad at things. I suppose that’s my one prideful trait. Everyone deals with their own hubris, and that’s mine. I’m too used to being good at things, and so I get very agitated when they aren’t easy. 

So, my hands slip into the first sign with ease. 

Dog. Left hand flat over right fist. I tentatively run chakra through my hand, and feel my chakra…shift?

The flow of it changes through my body. Not in a bad way, and not enough to disrupt the normal shit chakra should be doing, like keeping me alive. 

Boar. Palms flat against one another upside down. My fingers tucked in so my nails touch. 

My chakra changes again, smells different. It starts saturating my skin. 

Ram. Index and middle fingers pointed up, with my left pinky and ring tucked on top of the right.

The chakra on my skin goes taught, like a bow that’s got no arrow to release. 

Oh. I need a person to become, don’t I? I forgot to visualize one. 

Taro-sensei seems safe. I know what he looks like. 

My resolve grows stronger with intent, and I picture Taro-sensei’s face. The folds of his chunin standard clothes. The small silvery scars over his fingers and the way his eyes squint when he’s thinking. 

Something happens, and I can smell my chakra wisping in front of my nose with a small pop sound. I open my eyes, and find myself much taller than I’m used to being. 

God. It’s been so long since I didn’t have to look up at adults to talk to them. 

“No way you got it on your first try, dattebane!” Kushina cries, outraged and pointing at me from her seat a few rows down and to the left. 

Oh! That bodes well for the success of my jutsu. I peer down at the chunin vest that’s been constructed with chakra on my chest. I press a hand to it, frowning when I realize the fabric feels artificially smooth. I didn’t think hard enough about how the clothes should feel, I suppose. I’ll do better on the next try. 

“Excellent first attempt, Seiko-chan!” Taro-sensei says from where he’s standing in front of a student, leaf in hand. “Keep practicing your henge for the rest of the day, I’m sure you’ll master it soon.”

I will. I glare down at the lack of stitching on my sandals. So many little details lost. This kind of work will never trick an enemy nin. I look up at Taro-sensei and take in his clothes a little closer. I wish I had a mirror to compare with. I can’t exactly see what my attempt looks like.

“Sensei, is there a mirror I can use for this?” I ask, and the teenaged chunin hums. 

“Usually we bring a mirror for when you guys start working on your henge, but I wasn’t expecting anyone to start so early. Maybe you could use the one in the bathroom?” Taro-sensei says, or more like asks from the tone of his voice. Ugh. Teenagers. 

“I’ll do that,” I say with a nod, disrupting the chakra saturating my skin and attempting to tug it back into me. It mostly works, and feels…weird, but there’s still a few wisps of chakra smoke around me. At least there wasn’t an audible pop noise. 

—

By the end of the school day most of the clan kids have started on the henge, with the exception of a few people with very poor chakra control. Kushina, though she was eager to threaten me about how soon she’ll destroy me with her super awesome jutsu skills, still had leaves shooting off of her everytime she tried to stick them to her skin. 

It makes me wonder how much worse her chakra control will get once she has the kyuubi. 

Ah. Whatever.

She’ll get there eventually. I’m not worried. 

I decided not to spar with her today to practice my henge some more, which Kushina was a little upset by. I promised I would spar her for twice as long tomorrow, though, so she got over it. 

I stare impassively into my bathroom mirror, peering at red hair and a familiar face. Trace the curve of Uzumaki Kushina’s chin and the slope of her button nose. She looks a little fox like, like mischief glimmers in her eyes and she is always planning something. 

I got Taro-sensei down by the time the school day ended, so now I have to practice with other people. Kushina is someone I spend the most time with, so it makes sense to try her next. 

The hair is the right length, and when I run my fingers through it it feels like real hair. I got the height correct, which means I’m just a little shorter than usual. The clothes feel like clothes, the hands have the same little scars and callus as her. 

I feel like I should be surprised that it’s so easy to cast jutsu. I suppose all the meditation and chakra control exercises did the work I needed them to. Now my biggest problem with jutsu is my own memory and focus. 

It’s almost instinctive after I press my fingers into the right hand signs for my chakra to do what it’s supposed to. The almost exact amount of chakra saturates, and it crafts a new shape for me to take. 

…I wonder if I could become a bird. Could I fly with henge? I press my fingers to “my” skin, and it feels real enough. But if people could just go around flying with henge, I’m sure I’d have seen them doing it more often!

Or maybe I wouldn’t. Considering they’d be, well. Disguised. With the shapeshifting disguise jutsu. 

I cast my mind to some birds I’ve seen as I disrupt the henge, noting that I’ve only got a few more henges in me before I start entering a very sleepy state where I need to eat more food than I have in the fridge to recover. Chakra exhaustion is my greatest enemy. Hopefully if I keep emptying my reserves to an almost exhausted state that will make them grow, like bringing a muscle to a state of strain so it gets stronger. 

I may need to consult a medical professional about that before I atrophy my chakra. Then again, Hatake Kakashi will be actively using chakra for fighting in a few years and he didn’t seem to have chakra problems as an adult. Outside of his sharingan being improperly implanted and not having the correct chakra pathways to accommodate it.

I stare at my normal face in the mirror, reaching up and running my fingers through my very real hair. Birds. Focus. What bird could I turn into?

Why not a crow? It’s been years, and I’ve forgotten much more than I remember, but I saw a lot of examples of crows in my time on the long gone internet. 

I shut my eyes, since I’m allowed to do that while I’m not in active combat and it really helps me focus, and think about a crow as I go through the hand signs quickly. Not as fast as Taro-sensei probably could’ve, but there’s time to improve. 

Sleek black wings, a long dark beak for pecking at interesting things, black eyes like dark shiny stones. Hopping little feet and a tilting head. 

Much more chakra than I expect saturates my skin, and I want to sneeze at it. Tight goes the bow string with a shift of the ram seal, and—

Something happens. I blink open my eyes, and am greeted with the sight of the bottom of my bathroom counter. I tilt my head to peer down at the off white tiled floor, and note I should probably mop the bathroom soon. Things look much less dirty from up high. 

I give a testing “Caw!” that sounds crow like enough. I’ll need to actually look at a few real crows and listen to them to be sure. 

I look up at my kitchen sink, shivering and feeling feathers that I do and do not have shake with the motion. I need to get up to the sink to figure out if I look like a real crow and not some misshapen idea of one. 

I seem to be the right size at least. I lift an arm—wing(?)—and look at the glossy feathers. Give them a testing flap. Feathers move and I feel it, sort of, so I suppose that means I am in theory capable of flight. 

Can I break my neck while in an animal form? Would that just dissipate the jutsu? I do have to maintain some level of focus to keep it going, but not a terrible amount. 

Thinking back now, I’m pretty sure most shinobi aren’t able to turn into small animals. Maybe there’s some sort of danger to it? Or a lack of familiarity with the differences of an animal body? I have a fairly active imagination and I’ve seen far more diagrams of animals than most shinobi. Being an artist with access to google in a past life will do that to you. 

I look back up at the counter, which seems unreasonably far away now. Most birds learn how to fly by falling, don’t they?

I dissipate the jutsu, a little dizzy by the sudden change in my size, and promptly sit on my counter. The porcelain of the edge of the sink is cold against my butt, but it’s a small price to pay for science!

Dog, boar, ram. I think my fingers are going to start cramping before I start hitting chakra exhaustion. 

—

I come back to class both exhausted and victorious. 

“You look tired,” Yamagishi Masako says on my right. He’s a blunt child, but he hits very hard. That will be useful to him if he manages to get better at dodging. 

I look over at his brown eyes and pink hair. I can’t think of pink hair without thinking of Haruno Sakura, who won’t be born for a very, very long time. A whole new war that hasn’t even started yet between me and her birth. I wonder if he’s somehow related to her. 

“I was practicing the henge a lot last night,” I say with a sleepy smile. “How was your sleep, Masako-kun?”

Masako frowns, full lips drawn and his light eyebrows furrowing. “Bad. Tou-san left on a mission in the middle of the night. He woke me up to say goodbye.”

Masako’s dad is a chunin, a trap specialist from what Masako says. I wonder what a trap specialist would be called off to do in the middle of the night. 

Something far above my pay grade. I settle for nodding in commiseration with Masako, as if I know what it’s like to have a parent run off on a possibly lethal mission in the middle of the night. 

“It’s good you got to say goodbye,” I say. It is good. Better to say goodbye than not say goodbye and wonder if there was something you could’ve said or done if they come back in a body scroll. Not that he’s thinking about any of that. 

Sage, I hope he isn’t thinking about that. Nine year olds shouldn’t be scared their parents are gonna up and die on them. War is terrible. If I wasn’t being ply-ed with jutsu I would’ve ran off and washed my hands of this mess. 

“Today we’ll be working on jutsu some more,” Taro-sensei says up front, looking at a few papers on his desk with bleary eyes. “Those of you who have started on the henge jutsu, please come up and show me your progress so I can help correct any mistakes you may be making.”

I end up in a line of various clan children, Minato, and myself. I put myself at the back of the line, figuring I don’t need help like the other kids. Better they get what they need first. 

I’m dozing on my feet while Mikoto shows Taro-sensei her henge. It’s of Taro-sensei, and it looks a little bit like it could be Taro-sensei’s brother, rather than him. 

“Are you nervous, Seiko-kun?” Minato asks in front of me, suddenly. He’s looking at me with a concerned expression and those blue eyes. I wonder if in another world he is happier and never kills anyone at all. I wonder if he would like the world I came from. Probably not. 

“No, I’m just tired,” I say with a wave of my hand. “I think I’ve got the henge down, though Taro-sensei will have to decide if I’m right.”

Minato nods, concern washing from his face into a pleasant little smile. 

“I’m sure you’ll do great, Seiko-kun. You’re very dedicated.”

I suppose. I’m mostly just bored and need some fucking enrichment in my enclosure. I already figured out wall walking, and water walking has been mostly a success. This jutsu is the most interesting thing I’ve been able to learn in months. 

“Not as dedicated as you, Minato-kun. You’re going to be very good at ninjutsu, I can already tell.”

I don’t explain how I know that. Better to leave these things in mystery. 

I stretch my fingers as we wait, the line going slowly. 

Eventually, it’s Minato’s turn. I watch curiously. Minato is usually a quick learner with everything they teach at the academy. I suppose that’s the luck of having a brain that makes connections faster than anyone else. He can watch something and quickly correct himself with each attempt.

“Go ahead Minato-kun,” Taro-sensei says with a wave of his hand. They aren’t trembling so bad today. 

“Yes, sensei,” Minato says, and goes through the hand signs quickly. Faster than I can, actually. I should probably focus on practicing that more now that I’m going to be doing jutsu. 

I feel the change in his chakra since I’m five feet away. His chakra always reminds me of a summer breeze, cold and making you forget the hot sun for a moment. I’m not a Hyuuga, so I can’t literally see the changes in the flow of his chakra, but I know something is flexing when he goes through his seals. 

A poof of chakra smoke, and there stands Taro-sensei. I note immediately that his fabric texture of the man’s pants are a little off, but that’s fine. 

“Excellent work as always, Minato-kun. Do a spin for me,” Taro-sensei praises, eyes scanning the henge with a critical air. “I can’t say there’s anything you need to improve for right now. I would suggest trying to look like some of your classmates now.”

What? No. He’s wrong. The way the bandages on Minato’s shins look are wrapped differently! And all of the fabric is off! It looks more like cotton than canvas!

Is he trying to sabotage Minato or is he unobservant? Ugh. 

I frown as Minato releases his jutsu and thanks Taro-sensei. I’ll talk to him later about it, and hopefully he won’t take it as me nitpicking his work. It’s important that he notices these things! If you want to convincingly trick an enemy nin or a hostile target, you have to be on point with these details. 

“You’re going to do great, Seiko-kun!” Minato says, patting my shoulder as he goes back to his seat. He’s a nice kid, he won’t react poorly to critique, right?

“Alright Seiko-chan. Please show me your jutsu,” Taro-sensei says, smiling at me. I step up in front of his desk and run through the seals quickly. 

Dog, boar, ram. Think way too hard about what Taro-sensei looks like. Bowstring goes tight tight tight overtop my skin—

The jutsu comes over me with minimal chakra smoke, but not completely gone. I glare at the wisps of it like they’ve personally insulted me, which they have! I am capable enough to do a jutsu without spitting my goddamn chakra everywhere. 

“Oh, wow, Seiko-chan. Good work!” Taro-sensei praises, which means less to me now that I saw how he looked at Minato’s work. Not to say Minato did a bad job! It just didn’t meet my personal standards, which are subjective. 

I do a full turn around for Taro-sensei, before stopping facing him again. 

“Can I show you a different one I was working on? It’s harder because I didn’t have any living examples to use,” I say, releasing the jutsu and blinking when I get shorter, suddenly. 

I still have no clue how henge does what it does, and I don’t want to think about it too hard, lest it make things more complicated than it needs to be. I don’t think it’s changing my literal physical body, but I also don’t think it’s not changing my literal physical body. 

“Of course. Show me.”

I learn very quickly in the next five minutes that most shinobi need to spend way more time looking at the animals before they get successful transformations into them. Oh well. I’m a very observant person, so that probably explains it. And I still can’t fly very well, so I’m not sure if I count it as a successful henge yet. 

Minato’s eyes keep ending up on me for the rest of the day, something unreadable in his little face. I try not to be weirded out.

Chapter Text

Final exams come and go as spring turns into the muggy heat of the Land of Fire’s summer. Year four of my academy experience goes out with the nonchalance of every other sort of significant life event. 

I run my fingers through my brown shaggy hair, disgruntled at how hot my neck is getting. I should probably beg one of my neighbors to cut it soon. Higashi, two doors down with the still living genin team, is usually who I’d bother into doing it but he’s off on a mission again. 

It’s rare that this happens, but I do wish I had a parent in this life at this moment. I remember my mom cutting my hair a lifetime ago; itchy strands falling on my shoulders and her sheers going shhk.

“Do you think you’ll rank highly?” Yamanaka Ayako asks to my right, pupiless eyes scanning the room of students all chatting and making plans for the summer. Today is our last day of the academy and Taro-sensei is off getting the class rankings from the teachers’ office a floor up. 

“I think so,” I hum, looking at the students chattering in the row below us. 

Akimichi Jiro waves his hands widely as he talks about the buffet the Akimichi usually put on in their compound for the Summer festival for the Yamanakas and Naras. Sarutobi Haruki is nodding along, apparently having eaten at it before, while Morishita Mei looks increasingly hungrier and hungrier. 

Mei is from a civilian merchant family, I think. A rich one too considering how expensive looking her clothes usually are. 

All of these kids are going to be high up in the social totem pole of the village one day, provided they live long enough to get there. Minato and I are very much outliers in class 4-A, soon to be 5-A.

“I’d be surprised if you’re not in the top ten,” Ayako continues, unbothered by my distraction. I’m surprised she hasn’t wandered away from our seats to start interrogating other people yet. Maybe I’m the most interesting prey for her attention right now? 

“I’ll be in the top three as far as I can tell,” I say, turning from where Jiro is waxing poetic about barbeque pork to look at Ayako’s inquisitive face. “Mikoto-chan and Minato-kun are the only people who can compete with me.”

Ayako wrinkles her nose, giving me a little side eye. “You shouldn’t say things like that. People will think you’re being mean.”

“I don’t mean it like that. A lot of our classmates will get much more skilled once they become genin,” I explain with a wave of a hand. 

Almost everyone in this class will become genin unless they rapidly lose pace with everyone else in the next year. The war needs more bodies. 

The people who are good enough to get jonin teachers, though? They’re all fighting each other for those positions. There’s five other classes in our year, and the majority of them will go straight to the genin corps. I’ve paid attention to the past few years of graduates, and that’s part of why I worked so hard to be shoved into the A class with all the fucking clan kids.

Ten teams will be made of class 4-A, and one or two of them will end up failing if they make an exceptionally poor showing for their prospective teacher. In the other classes maybe three or four teams will be formed each and stay formed. 

“Not everyone will graduate, though,” Ayako says primly, reaching up to adjust the collar of her top. It’s a new one, a pretty sky blue that goes nicely with skin tone. “They’re going to get jealous of you if you don’t be careful.”

“I’m too boring to be jealous of, Ayako-chan. Everyone is going to forget about me after next year, anyways. They’ll have bigger problems.”

Like avoiding death in the war and learning their clan techniques. I already know for a fact that Mikoto has started learning her clan’s fire release technique now that she’s been taught the academy three. 

Ayako looks even more disgruntled at my words. 

“I’m not going to forget you!” she says hotly, as if I was accusing her specifically of a great crime. “You have a lot of friends, Seiko-chan, you shouldn’t say things like that.”

Oh. Well, I didn’t mean it like that. 

“Of course not, Ayako-chan. But most of our friends are close because we spend so much time near each other in the academy. Once we start doing missions and fighting, we’ll have less time to maintain those friendships.” 

“But not me. Even if we’re not on a team together you will spend time with me,” Ayako orders, scowling in a way that her mother would hate. She looks less like a pretty doll right now and more like a real, breathing and thinking little girl when she shows an emotion other than pleased poise.

I sigh. I suppose I should be grateful that the one day wife of the future Akimichi clan head is so taken with me. Which Ayako will be if she lives long enough; her mother is the younger sister of the current Yamanaka clan head and is very set on the match. 

I wonder what it is about me that makes such scary children think I’m fun to be around. Maybe my sense of humor is even better than I thought it was?

“Of course I will, Ayako-chan, you’re my best friend. You’re also missing my point, but that’s okay.”

Something extremely pleased slips onto Yamanaka Ayako’s face at that statement, but I roll my eyes and look to where Taro-sensei has finally opened the door of the classroom, papers in hand. 

“Quiet, all of you! I pinned the rankings to the bulletin board outside the classroom. After I hand out your results on the exams you will be allowed to look. Please gather your things and file out the door in an orderly line.” 

We do as the man bids and get into a line, though kids are still talking loudly about their possible results with each other. Taro-sensei stands at the door and starts handing out papers to those who walk out. 

I find myself sandwiched in line between Ayako in front of me and Minato behind me. It’s a bit strange considering Minato should’ve gotten to the line way before us, considering he sits closer to the door, but whatever. 

“Are you excited for the results, Seiko-kun?” Minato asks, looking at me with a curious expression. He’s been talking to me more since we went over henge in class and I grilled him afterwards on his jutsu. He didn’t seem to take it personally, though he does keep…staring at me. Like he’s trying to dissect my brain with his eyes alone. 

I’m hoping that if I don’t acknowledge it he will eventually lose interest. It hasn’t worked yet. 

I hope I beat him in the ranking, but I doubt it. He’s had half a year's head start on perfect scores in written portions of our work and does very well in taijutsu. 

Next year I will beat him. It’s not a matter that I can leave up to chance.

“I’m excited! I’m hoping for the top three,” I say with a smile. “You’ll probably get first.”

“Why do you think that?” Minato asks, looking surprised and tilting his head. His hair is so fluffy looking, gravity defying as it is.

“You had a head start this year, same with Mikoto-chan. She’ll get second or third, especially since she’s less taijutsu focused than you.”

Less is relative. Mikoto still beats most of the class easily. Every spar I have with her is so thrilling that I was almost tempted to beg her to spar with me once a week over the summer break. I chickened out though. She’s more Kushina’s friend than mine and tends to keep to herself. I don’t want to try and force myself into their dynamic.

Minato nods, easily following my line of logic, but still looks unconvinced. “I think you could be first, though, Seiko-kun. You’re strong enough.”

“Next year I will be,” I agree honestly, even if it makes him blink and Ayako reaches back to pinch my arm. 

Minato stares at me for a moment. I wonder what he sees. A green eyed little girl with a wide smile and hair she needs to get cut, probably. 

“We should train together this summer,” Minato says finally after a long pause to think. There’s a sort of shiny calculation in his kind eyes. 

I nod, smile unwavering. He’s trying to keep an eye on my skills and use the training to improve himself more at the same time. I don’t mind. He’s going to be terrifying one day, almost as scary as his future wife. It’s better for me to train with him now before he gets too good for me to even risk a spar. 

The line shuffles forward every minute or so, and the door rapidly approaches.

“You still live in the same apartment building as me, right?” I ask Minato. 

“A floor below you. We can meet up tomorrow morning and talk about what days would be best, if that’s fine?” Minato asks so very politely. “Kushina-chan can train with us too if she wants.”

Kushina’s been getting shiftier and shiftier this week, more agitated during spars and keeps clamming up when the subject of the summer break comes up. 

She said, very quietly the day before yesterday, that Uzumaki Mito’s been sick. Violet eyes glassy and a stubborn set to her jaw. She’d been sitting on the patch of dirt we spar on in the Senju compound, hot sun baking the both of us.

I have a feeling (one steeped in dread) that Kushina will be too busy over the break for sparring. I mention none of this to Minato.

“We can ask her.”

Eventually it’s my turn to have papers handed off to me. Taro-sensei smiles down at me and his fingers aren’t trembling so much today. That’s been happening more and more often. I hope that means he’s getting better. 

Well. I hope he doesn’t get too well. They’ll send him off to die the second his fingers are better at fine motor control again.

“Have a good break, Seiko-chan. You’re a good kid. Keep up with your training,” Taro-sensei says, and then I’m walking out the door into the crowded hallway. Ayako has already made her way to the front of the bulletin board with her charm. 

“You’re second, Seiko-chan!” she announces to me loudly before I can even think of working my way over to her. 

Ah. I knew it. I’ll have to be on top of my game for next year. I have to be rookie of the year, lest the man in charge of this whole village thinks I’m slacking. 

“Is Minato-kun first?” I ask Ayako, peering through the crowd of chattering kids and squinting at the papers on the corkboard. I would worry that all of us are causing a disturbance out here in the hallway for other classes, but I see another room of fourth years is doing something similar down the hall.

“He is,” Akimichi Jiro answers off to my right, walking away from the board with a thoughtful frown. He shifts his gaze over my shoulder and smiles. “Congratulations, Minato-kun!”

“Thank you, Jiro-kun! How did you rank? I remember you saying you wanted to be in the top ten,” Minato says, walking up from behind me with his test results folded neatly in half in his hands. 

“I made eleventh place,” Jiro says with a small sigh. A missed goal always hurts worse when it feels close. 

I wonder if he would’ve made tenth if I hadn’t dedicated myself to destroying my fellow nine year olds in classwork. It’s fine. Failure is more formative and motivating than success, in my experience. Even if it sucks and makes you feel like shit.

“I made tenth, dattebane!” Kushina shouts from the front of the board, punching the air above her. 

Jiro seems to look deeply depressed at the sound of that. I wince. 

I take the opportunity to step away from the crowd of my classmates and stand by the opposite wall. I keep the window behind me as I peer down at my test results. 

Perfect score on the theoretical tests, math, Japanese, science, logic. Near perfect in taijutsu, near perfect in shinjutsu…

Perfect in ninjutsu! That’s nice. I wouldn’t give myself a perfect score, considering they only tested for the henge and I still can’t fly well in a crow henge, but whatever. I suppose my standards are high for myself, considering everyone else sees me as a basic nine year old. 

Well. Almost ten year old. I just have another month and I’ll be graduation aged. 

I fold my papers up until they’ll fit in my shorts’ pocket. I look up from my task and jerk back in surprise when I see Kushina is stomping towards me with a serious look on her face. 

“Seiko! Come with me!” Kushina orders. I look around for Mikoto in a vain hope that she will stop Kushina from dragging me to my doom, but I see she’s talking to two of her cousins right now.

“Where are we going?” I ask distantly, accepting my fate as the strong girl grabs my hand and starts dragging me away. We leave the crowd of our classmates behind and start heading down the hall towards the exit. 

“Somewhere, dattebane. Mikoto-chan is ranked third, by the way. She said congratulations,” Kushina says impatiently. Her pace is barely under a brisk jog. I wonder what the hell this is about. 

We don’t talk more after that, my hand grasped firmly by Kushina’s as we walk through the halls of the academy and stomp down the stairs. We pass by other released students in younger years, chattering about summer plans and their own rankings. I sidestep around a particularly oblivious first year before I run into him.

He looks over at me with wide Hyuuga eyes and a chubby baby face. I glance at how tiny his hands are and wonder how anyone could expect a five year old to hold a kunai and kill people so much bigger than them. 

Kushina and I bound out of the doors of the academy, and I’m left squinting in the afternoon sunshine, the humidity hitting me in the face as we walk out. 

Kushina keeps walking and then stops abruptly in front of a tree in the academy yard, one with a new swing swaying in the wind. I almost run into her. 

She lets go of my hand and turns to face me, frowning. 

“I…” Kushina starts, then stops, frown deepening and looking angry. Not at me, but maybe at herself. She shakes her head, then continues. “I can’t train this summer.”

She looks at me like she’s bracing for a punch. 

I shrug. I expected this. 

“That’s okay, Kushina. Can we hang out at all over the summer?” 

Kushina shakes her head no, red hair swaying with the motion. Then, she reaches into the pocket of her yellow dress and pulls out a handkerchief. 

Oh. That’s my handkerchief. The one I gave her after our first real taijutsu match when I tried waterboarding her with mud. It’s clean now, and carefully folded. 

“Here, dattebane. I wanted you to have this back. Just in case,” Kushina says stiltedly, holding out the fabric with a set to her jaw. 

Just in case she dies when she gets the Kyuubi, presumably. 

I swallow, some raw emotion tugging at the back of my throat. Empathy, probably. Care for the girl in front of me.

I grab her hand holding out the handkerchief and tug her close to me, ignoring the little squawk she makes as I pull her into a hug. 

I don’t ask what “just in case” means. 

“Whatever is going on, Uzumaki Kushina, you’re going to be okay,” I say firmly, patting her back as she sinks into the hug. “I’ll see you when the academy starts back up after break, and I’ll get right back to kicking your butt at taijutsu.”

Kushina wraps her arms around me tightly, and I ignore the damp spot I can feel forming on my shoulder. 

“I’m going to destroy you after break,” Kushina hisses wetly. “I’m your rival, not dumb Minato-kun. I’m going to catch up to you and make you work for it!”

I smile, shutting my eyes. “I can’t wait.”

And so summer begins with a little less nonchalance than I expected. 

I make Kushina keep the handkerchief, just in case she gets in any fights with puddles while we can’t see each other. She tries to punch me for the comment, but I’ve been getting much better at evasion since she almost made me bleed out a month ago.

—

During my previous summer breaks from the academy I would usually spend my time hanging out with other academy students. 

It’s useful to stay in the know with what your agemates are up to, and even more useful to keep an eye on them and how they’re progressing developmentally. I’m not an adult trapped in a child’s body. At least, I don’t think I am. But I’m not a normal child, either. 

So, the necessity of keeping myself on track and hitting all the right milestones was important. 

This summer I plan on spending most of my time training. 

Thanks to Taro-sensei helpfully showing the correct hand signs for all of the academy three in class, even if he only expected us to start learning henge before the summer break, I’ve been able to practice kawarimi and bunshin!

With varying success. 

“That feels like it should be nauseating but isn’t,” I grunt over to Minato, looking over at the log I replaced myself with with narrow eyes.

“Why would it make you nauseous?” Minato asks distractedly. He’s still trying to make his hand seals faster instead of focusing on actually using the jutsu. 

“My eardrums should be confused by the rapid movement— or is it teleportation?” I say, before I start running again and cast the jutsu. 

Better to get used to doing it while doing something else than to only practice standing still. 

Ram, boar, ox, dog, snake. My hands aren’t moving as fast as Minato, but that’s because Minato is a little weirdo who likes practicing hand sign speed first before the jutsu itself. 

Besides, if I’m going to be outside and training, I might as well actually cast the jutsu. I can spend time practicing the hand sign order tonight before bed.

Ram, my chakra gets a sort of floaty quality to it. Boar, it feels like it’s searching for something to tug on. Ox, I focus my attention on where the log stands in the center of the clearing. Dog, chakra tethers itself to the log in milliseconds. Snake—

I skid to a stop in a new position in a plume of chakra smoke, right where the log once was. I shake my head, disoriented at the change in surroundings. 

How does the jutsu do that? Am I moving so quickly that the human eye can’t comprehend it? Or is it really teleportation?

The academy training area is much less populated during the summer, both from the weather and lack of incentive to use it if you’re not getting graded. Minato and I are both little overachievers, though, so we’re here instead of playing ninja or enjoying our youth.

How convenient it is that the administrative tower has so many windows with direct view of the training grounds academy students use. I try not to think about that too hard. This is why I prefer using the park for training.

“Do you want to get a quick spar in before I have to go see Ayako-chan?” I ask Minato, looking over at where he’s shaking out his hands. He’s probably making them cramp from all the practice. 

“I forgot you were visiting her after training today. Tell her I say hello,” Minato says, smiling over at me and stopping his flapping hands. “I’m alright with doing a quick spar.”

Minato is a much more calm training partner than Kushina. I value his insights and his demeanor, and I probably end up getting more out of our sessions than I do with Kushina, but I still miss her. 

It’s silly. I just need to wait another month and a half and we’ll be back to trying to choke each other out. I’ll have to settle for beating up her future husband.

“Weapons or no weapons?” Minato asks. 

“You decide, Minato-kun,” I say agreeably. 

Minato chooses with weapons. I win the spar, but barely, and with a few more cuts on my arms than I would like. Minato is much faster than Kushina. I’m glad he offered to train with me. 

—

The Yamanaka compound is probably one of the more friendly ones. In the way a poisonous flower is friendly, of course. Pretty and doing its best to make you think it’s safe.

One chunin guards the gate, on account of his injury making him unable to serve on out of village missions. 

“Good afternoon, Seiko-chan,” Yamanaka Atsushi greets amicably, leaning up against the wall of the gate and whittling something wooden with deft flicks of a kunai. It’s impressive, since kunai aren’t very good for fine carving. Too big.

“Good afternoon, Atsushi-san. You got a new prosthetic,” I reply, peering at the finely carved wooden prosthesis strapped to Atsushi’s knee. It has seals on it, complicated looking ones in spiraling lines. Uzushio work, probably. Most of the seals Konoha uses are heavily influenced or done by Uzushio seal masters.

It’s going to be very bad for us all when Uzushio gets destroyed.

Atsushi glances up from the wood in his hands, smiling. He’s got the classic Yamanaka looks, blonde haired and pupiless eyes, though they're light brown instead of the usual blue. High cheekbones and a long friendly face.

“Oh, this?” Atsushi asks, waving his left leg around a little. The dark lacquered wood of his new prosthetic shines. “No, you must be mistaken. This is just how my leg has always looked.”

“Of course, of course. What are you carving?” I say faux apologetically, stepping up closer to get a better look at the wooden-something in his gloved hands. 

“A deer,” Atsushi announces, holding out the half carved wooden doe with a small flourish. It looks almost offensively good considering it’s being carved with a kunai. “What do you think? It’s for a friend and I want her to like it.”

“Is the friend a Nara?” I ask perceptively. The doe’s head is tilted in some approximation of curiosity. I note that one of the ears seems to be intentionally cut off. “Naras are known for enjoying deer.”

“She is! So bright, Seiko-chan,” Atsushi says with a half grin, reaching down and ruffling my hair. It reminds me a little bit like how someone praises a dog, but I think Atsushi was on a genin team with a Inuzuka, so I don’t take it personally. Even if there’s wood shavings in my hair now.

“Anyways, I won’t keep you, I’m sure you’ve got plenty of things to do. Tell Ayako-hime she’s training with me tomorrow at the usual time, alright?” Atsushi says, waving me off and returning to his comfortable lean and whittling. I hope I can look that casually cool when I’m older. 

I think I was cool in my past life, but I’m not sure if that translates to my second life. I’ll have to wait and see.

“I will, Atsushi-san. I hope your Nara friend likes the gift!”

I wonder if Atsushi’s Nara friend is a girlfriend. I’m sure I’ll find out eventually. 

I walk into the Yamanaka compound as the sun beats down on me, reaching up and attempting to brush wood shavings out of my hair. I still haven’t managed to find someone I trust with scissors enough to cut my hair and the length is really starting to get to me. I keep it short mostly so I don’t have to deal with it, and secondarily so I don’t get my hair pulled in any fights in the future. 

Shinobi who keep their hair long are either so scary they can kill anyone who tries to grab their hair, or think that they’re scary enough to do that. Most people are the latter, not the former, and I’m not willing to put my neck on the line for aesthetics. 

Aesthetics are for people like the Sannin. I’m just in this for the jutsu-creating possibilities and hitting people hard. 

The cobbled stone of the path crunches faintly under my sandals and I look around at the nice traditional homes lining the path. The Yamanaka compound is in a quieter part of the village, right next to the Nara and the Akimichi. There’s been some chatter about how so many younger Yamanaka have been moving to live in the village proper instead of staying in the compound. 

I don’t really understand the upset. As far as I can tell it only benefits a clan like the Yamanaka to be deeper in the beating heart of the village. How else will they hear all of the civilian gossip?

In a few minutes I come up to a house right next to the clan head’s and see Ayako’s mother stepping out the door of her home. 

“Good afternoon, Inoyuu-sama!” I greet the woman cheerfully, raising a hand and waving. 

Yamanaka Inoyuu is gorgeous. The kind of beauty that men go to war for and wish they could get one last glimpse of when they’re bleeding out. Wispy blond hair pulled into an artful bun, pouting lips, and soft blue eyes. The daintiness of her wrists and fingers has likely distracted many a man from her calluses and the calculation in her gaze. 

Inoyuu turns to look at me and raises her thin eyebrows, smiling. 

“Good afternoon, Seiko-chan. Ayako mentioned you would be visiting today. Did you just come from training?” 

I did get some dirt on my green shirt when Minato was pinning me down earlier, didn’t I?

“I did! We’ve been practicing the academy three all day. It’s been pretty tiring. Are you leaving for errands?” I ask, blinking at her with wide eyes. I always act more my age in front of Yamanaka Inoyuu. She’s a scary scary woman who seems to like me more when I seem like an overexcited child. 

I do value self preservation, even if the Hokage has been getting in the way of that lately.

“Yes, I’m going to be gone for a few hours. You and Ayako should be on your best behavior while I’m out— though, I don’t have to tell you that, do I, Seiko-chan?” Inoyuu hums, gracefully adjusting the sleeve of her elaborately patterned kimono. “Congratulations on achieving rank two in your year. Ayako was very pleased.”

Ayako talks about me to her mom? How horrifying. 

There’s a sharp look in Inoyuu’s eyes, an assessing one as she takes me in. For a second I feel like a bug pinned to a corkboard. 

Then it’s over, and Inoyuu starts walking down the steps, gently patting me on the head as she goes. Why are people always touching my head?

“Thank you, Inoyuu-sama. Enjoy your errands!” I say quickly, blinking at her and watching her trail down the path towards the compound gates. Every move of her body seems so elegant and I am suddenly reminded of Orochimaru. They aren’t the same kind of shinobi, but they’re on the same spectrum of shinobi. 

I shiver, even though it’s probably ninety degrees outside and I’m going to start melting if I stand out in the sun any longer. 

With a shake of my head I go up the steps of Ayako’s house and through the door. 

“I’m here!” I announce loudly, knowing only Ayako will be home. She’s an only child to a single mother. Her father died in the war years ago, and Inoyuu seems to be in no rush to remarry. 

“I’m on the porch!” Ayako calls back. I swiftly take off my sandals and slip on a pair of house shoes.

I step through the hallway and out the dining room door to find Ayako sitting seiza on the porch. She drops the book she was reading beside her and tilts her little head when she looks at me. 

“You smell,” Ayako announces. 

Ouch. 

“Training will do that to you,” I say agreeably, dropping heavily beside her and staring out at the courtyard garden her mother keeps. There’s all kinds of flowers planted and they look vibrant in the sunlight. I was warned off of touching any of them early thanks to some being poisonous. 

“You’ve been training with Minato-kun, haven’t you?” Ayako asks. “Has it been fun?”

“It’s very fun when I get him to try and hit me hard.” I stretch out my legs, satisfied when something in my knees pops. The burn of the stretch feels good after a day of physical activity. “What have you been reading?”

Ayako turns to look at the book between us with a disgruntled look. “Poetry. Kaa-sama says it’s important for my growth as a kunoichi to be well versed in it.”

When Ayako uses a lot of big words in a grammatically correct context, I know immediately that she’s directly quoting her mother. 

I pick it up and flip to a random page. I’m immediately greeted with a haiku about a frog needing a straw coat.

“Maybe you can kill someone with a very sharp haiku,” I say contemplatively. Ayako is probably learning this as a form of early infiltration training. Her mother worked as a diplomat in the Fire Daimyo’s court before she had Ayako, so she may be gearing Ayako for a similar career.

Ayako shakes her head, pulling the book from my hands and setting it down to her right, out of my reach. “If I could kill someone with a haiku someone would have done it already.”

Hm. Maybe with a genjutsu and serious dedication…

Nevermind. I don’t even read poetry, I’ll save creating a haiku murder jutsu to the professionals. 

“Anyways, I spoke to Inoichi-nii yesterday,” Ayako says with a clap of her hands. “He said hello, by the way, and that his team didn’t die. Whatever that means.”

Oh, good! I was hoping they wouldn’t. I grin over at Ayako slyly.

“That’s good! I was sure Chouza-senpai and Shikaku-senpai would be fine, but your cousin is…” I trail off, looking into the middle distance. 

Ayako hums with a solemn nod. “He’s the weakest link for sure. I wonder what he’ll be like when he’s clan head. Hopefully I won't have to worry about listening to what he says by then.”

I snort. She’s hoping she’s married to Chouza before then. How delightful. I wonder how Chouza feels about his hand being bartered for like a prized horse before he’s even fifteen. 

Ayako isn’t even ten yet. Actually, she turns ten in—

“Oh! You’re invited to my birthday party in a week, Kaa-sama approved. You do remember that my birthday is next week, right?” Ayako rambles on, narrowing her eyes at me when she gets to the end. 

“Of course I remembered. I already got your gift!”

I have a calendar in my kitchen where I keep track of birthdays. I like getting gifts early to avoid the stress of last minute buying and wrapping. 

“Is the party going to be formal?” I add once I think about her words. Her mother approved? What sort of people are going to this party?

Ayako waves a hand at me, stretching out from her prim seiza and slouching. Finally relaxing now that her mother’s been out of earshot for a while. “No, not formal at all. They’re using my birthday as an excuse for the three clans to gather, since there wasn’t a big celebration when the heirs all got promoted a few months ago.”

That makes me frown. 

“Will Shikaku-senpai be there?” I ask, thinking about how I’ll be willingly subjecting myself to the boy’s weird senses of perception.

Ayako’s facial expression twitches and then she looks deceptively innocent. 

“Why?” Ayako asks in a childish tone. “Do you want to marry him? He’s so boring.”

I wrinkle my nose. Always back to marriage with Ayako. 

“Marriage is boring in general,” I comment idly. “If I were a clan head’s wife I would have to stop going on missions.”

Ayako’s brows furrow. “Don’t you want babies, Seiko-chan? All girls like babies.”

That’s so a problem for me in my twenties, if not thirties. Everyone around here has children around their late teens to early twenties, so I’m not surprised that Ayako has taken ideas like this into her worldview. Someone has to give birth to the kids for the meat grinder that is Konoha’s war machine, and they have to do it as young as possible before they die. 

Suddenly I hope Ayako never marries at all. I hope she loves her work or her passions so much that she spites her mother’s wishes and makes her own path. 

It probably won’t happen, but a girl can dream.

“I’m a kid,” I say instead of anything else, looking over at Ayako with something soft coming over my face. “We’re both kids. We don’t need to worry about having any children for a long time, Ayako-chan.”

I feel old. Like a withered creature inside of a pudgy little body. 

That’s the unfortunate part of being what I am. I can never be just one thing. Just a nine year old, just a too-old reincarnated soul. People used to tell me in my first life that I acted like an old person, and these days I wonder if my spirit didn’t get washed clean before passing into this life. If I’ve always been reincarnated when I die, but something went wrong this time. 

It’s not worth worrying about. There’s a bluejay tweeting nearby, and I can hear the drilling of a woodpecker among the cicadas. It’s humid, but the shade feels like a cool balm on the skin. 

I’m alive. Whatever I am, whatever I was, whatever I will be, I’m alive.

Ayako watches me, incomprehension pulling over her little face. A furrowed brow like she's bewildered and can't find the source of why.

“I don’t understand you at all,” Ayako says slowly in her high childish voice. 

“So long as you try, that’s what matters.”

We spend the rest of the afternoon gossiping about what our classmates are doing over the break. Games of ninja have gotten more advanced now that some of the kids have started incorporating henge. Someone heard that Taro-sensei is being relocated from academy work to field work again. 

I wonder if he’ll die before I see him again. I wonder if that matters at all.

Chapter Text

Yamanaka Ayako’s birthday party starts as the sun sets on Konoha and the sharp heat finally starts to abate. 

I peer up at the orange and red washed sky, clouds floating lazily across it and soaking up the color of the dying sun. The wrapped gift box in my hand crinkles when I adjust my grip on it.

Half the people I pass on the path in the Yamanaka compound are injured in some way. A limp here, a bandage there. Akimichi, Yamanaka, and Nara cluster in small groups on porches or walking towards the clan head’s house. 

“All this for one birthday party?” a dry voice says near me, and I pointedly don’t look over at whoever is speaking. Best way to avoid getting caught for eavesdropping is to look like you don’t hear a thing. 

“It’s not just a birthday party, you know that,” another voice replies chidingly. “The clan heads want to announce something. Sage knows whatever it’ll be. I hope it’s not new rations restrictions.”

I step around a pair of Yamanaka, noting they’re both in their chunin fatigues while off-duty. Not uncommon, but notable when they’re going to a party instead of out drinking or something.

What could the clans possibly need to announce, and does Ayako know how her birthday has been completely co-opted for political intrigue?

Hm. Probably not. For all she’s a bright ten year old, she’s still ten. She’s aware that it’s being made a bigger deal but from what she told me she thinks it's to celebrate the promotions of the Ino-Shika-Cho team. Nothing deeper than that. 

I should probably mind my business and just spend my time worrying about finding a good shogi opponent to pass the time. I’m sure Ayako won’t mind me taking advantage of having so many Nara around to entertain myself. 

The wrapping paper in my hands crinkles again as I come up on the clan head’s house. 

It’s old, likely having been built when the village was founded almost fifty years ago. Sloped, darkly tiled roof. And, surprisingly, not built with Hashirama wood. I squint at it. It’s a dark wood. Cherry, maybe? That would explain the reddish-brownish color. 

In minutes I find myself walking around the side of the house and entering a large garden. 

Immediately it’s apparent that every off-duty member of all three of the clans is present. They all seem fairly at ease, but there’s a definite undercurrent of curiosity brewing under everyone’s skin. 

I flit around and through the groups of people, ignoring any eyes that may be following me. I’m not a part of any of these clans, and I don’t look like I fit in here. I may be brown haired and tan, but I’m not a Nara. It makes sense for them to watch me. 

I find Ayako holding court with a mismatched group of clan kids from our school year and the years below us. That includes a few Hyuuga, Uchiha, a single Inuzuka, and even a Shimura. Danzo’s daughter, if I remember correctly. I only know her by face because I got a cold sweat when someone offhandedly mentioned a Shimura in the year below us. 

Ayako turns from where she was monologuing to Hyuuga Naoko, smiling at the sight of me. She’s clad in what must be a new kimono, draped head to toe in expensive silk with a scene of cranes standing by a body of water painted onto it. It’s an excessive waste of money for a child who’s going to grow out of it in a few months, especially during wartime. 

“Seiko-chan! You’re early,” Ayako says cheerfully. From the amount of people here I’m starting to feel like I’m late.

I grin with all my teeth, showing off my new canine that’s finally grown back in after almost a month of waiting. It’s a bit…sharper, than my baby tooth was. I try not to think too hard about it. Maybe one of my parents just had very sharp teeth.

“I’d never dare be late for your birthday, Ayako-chan. Or should I say hime? You look very much like a hime right now.”

She does. Ayako looks like a princess who’s stepped out of a storybook painting, even if she is overdressed for her own party. Or maybe we’re all underdressed?

I put on a nice, unstained(!), yukata shirt and pair of shorts for the party. That’s the best I can do.

Ayako looks infinitely pleased at the observation, smile widening and her posture straightening. 

“Of course I do. Thank you, Seiko-chan. Is that my gift?” Ayako gestures at the little box in my hand. Her nails have been painted blue to match her kimono. “Kaa-san had a table set up by the porch for the gifts. You should put it there before she thinks I’m trying to open it early.”

“Will do, hime,” I say with faux seriousness, bowing deeper than necessary and getting a few of the girls around me to giggle, including Ayako, so I take that as a win. 

I turn on my heel and wander through the garden once again, wondering if I could find an excuse to locate a shogi board while I’m away from the other girls to bring back to the group. I do like playing shogi, much more than I enjoy playing ninja, but a lot of kids my age struggle with sitting long enough to play with me.

I miss the orphanage. I could goad older kids into playing and no one cared as long as I looked like I didn’t understand how the pieces worked. It was a lot of fun seeing how long I could beat them while still looking clueless.

Flowers and trees line the well manicured garden. There’s gravel paths through it all, almost taunting the people walking within the garden to do their best to avoid making noise when walking through it. 

Most of the adults present avoid making the crunch sound caused by walking on the uneven stones, but kids run past unbothered by the noise. 

As I step up onto the porch the smell of delicious food wafts out the open doors of the house. The Akimichi have commandeered the clan head’s kitchen I assume. I take a peek through the doors and see two full tables of food, some clearly in containers and premade. Maybe some of the Akimichi brought food instead of gifts?

With an idle hum I step up to the table on the porch with a sizable horde of gifts. Some are clearly weapon shaped, which is amusing. Will Ayako use a sword as tall as her? Only time will tell. 

I suppose this is what happens when you invite three full clans to one birthday party. Even if it’s a birthday party being co-opted for some clan politics bullshit. 

I set my small box down among the pile and turn when I hear someone far behind me let out a loud groan. 

Some ten feet away from me Nara Shikaku and Yamanaka Inoichi sit with a shogi board between them. Well. They were sitting. Inoichi seems to be standing in a huff, brushing off his nice summer yukata.

“I was so close this time. You know I was so close this time!” Inoichi whines pleadingly to his teammate. Shikaku seems to be smirking at the display. 

“Don’t be troublesome, Inoichi. You were as close this time as you were last time,” Shikaku says, already resetting the board with ambling movements. “Are you going to play again?”

Inoichi shakes his head swiftly, blonde hair swaying. It’s not up in a ponytail today, which is a rare sight for him. “No. No! I’m going to go wish my cousin a happy birthday, again , and you’re going to find a new victim, you sadist.”

Inoichi promptly stomps away before Shikaku can stop him, and the Nara watches him go for a long second, before turning to look right at me. 

I make an effort to not look guilty for watching their little spat. 

Shikaku observes me for a moment. 

“You know how to play shogi?”

This feels like a trap. A very well-laid trap. 

“It’s my favorite game. You wanna play?” I ask honestly, wondering if I should also run away to Ayako. I’m curious though. Maybe it’ll be fun to be destroyed by the Nara heir?

I will lose. No doubt about that. But sometimes that doesn’t matter.

“I seem to be out of a partner,” Shikaku says wryly. How unfortunate that his only options for an opponent is a nine, almost ten year old. He’s only thirteen though, he can’t afford to get uppity.

I hum, walking over and settling in the spot Inoichi left behind unceremoniously. I cross my legs and watch as he swiftly finishes setting up the board. 

Surely Ayako won’t miss me for the ten minutes it takes for us to play this? She’ll be all too happy to annoy her cousin until he wanders back over here.

“I probably won’t be as formidable of an opponent as Inoichi-senpai,” I warn Shikaku unnecessarily. I can smell curry cooking in the kitchen and it makes me unreasonably hungry. I can’t wait until they start bringing out the food. 

“I don’t expect you to be,” Shikaku says with a snort. “You’ll be better than him for sure. He keeps mixing up his generals.”

It doesn’t take ten minutes to play. We sit there silently, moving pieces for thirty minutes before either of us speak again. 

Shikaku shifts in his seat, propping a knee up so he can lean on it.

“You’re playing like you’re waiting to lose,” Shikaku comments as I move a silver general to block one of his lances. 

“Oh?” I ask curiously, watching him move a pawn forward. My eyes flick up to his own as he looks at me. 

“You aren’t trying to win,” Shikaku explains idly, dark brown eyes unreadable. “Just defend my possible moves.”

I look back down at the board, pondering where to move next. He’s right, of course. I’m a very defensive player by nature. In this game every piece taken can be used by the other player against you, so it becomes imperative to keep your pieces safe, or only strategically lose them.

I look at each of his pieces, pondering what they could do with the current board layout, and what they can do for each of the moves possible to me. 

Shogi is a slow game. A game focused on lots of thinking. It’s no wonder the Nara like it. 

I move a pawn forward, disrupting a possible plan to take one of my rooks. The piece clacks quietly as I set it down again. The party around us seems far away.

“Sometimes things aren’t about winning, Shikaku-senpai,” I say thoughtfully. “They’re about lasting as long as you can.”

I ignore the irony of the statement. Isn’t that all of my life? Just prolonging the inevitable?

“Kids shouldn’t be so defeatist,” a voice says behind me, sounding amused.

I turn my head and see Shikaku’s father looking down at the board with crossed arms. I’ve seen Nara Shikadaen maybe four times in my entire life, which makes sense. It’s not often someone like me has a reason to be anywhere near a clan head and the village’s Jonin Commander.

I wonder if Shikaku gets the Jonin Commander position because of nepotism. That would be classic Konoha behavior. Even if he is going to be very good at it.

“Survival isn’t defeatist, Nara-sama,” I say obliviously, blinking wide eyed at him. Always good to pretend to be a little more dense than you are around high-ranking adults. I’m lucky I’m a cute kid.

Shikadaen chuffs a laugh. “Forgive me, I didn’t realize I was debating a philosopher.” He looks over at Shikaku. “Who’s your friend, son?” 

I look over at the boy as well, noting that he’s observing the board instead of looking at his father. 

“Seiko-chan. She’s Ayako-chan’s little friend,” Shikaku says in a bored tone. The way he says it is clearly a callback to Inoichi’s words a few months ago. I laugh, surprised he remembered that.

“She’s been playing with you for a long while to just be Ayako-chan’s little friend,” Shikadaen says contemplatively. “Who are your parents, Seiko-chan?”

Shikaku’s fingers pause where he was moving a rook forward to threaten my silver general at those words, then sets his piece down, looking up at his father like he’s stupid.

This is the most entertaining part about being an orphan. Mentioning it in casual conversation and making other people uncomfortable. 

“My mother’s name was Sachiko. No clan. She was a chunin, I think? No clue who my father is,” I say contemplatively, tapping my chin as I look down at the board. “I would ask, but the memorial stone isn’t very talkative.”

I should probably have a family shrine for her in my apartment, that would be the respectful thing, but I don’t have a photo of her and I have no idea how to make a shrine. No way am I asking anyone and risking them thinking I’m a bad orphan who doesn’t pay homage to my dead ancestors. 

Maybe I could request her ninja registration photo from the Administration office. They only started taking those around the time the Sannin became genin, I think. So she should have one?

Thoughts for later.

Shikadaen coughs, awkwardly. “No, no I imagine it’s not. I apologize, Seiko-chan.”

“Did you need something, old man?” Shikaku asks bluntly, still staring at his father with those unnerving eyes. “You’re distracting my opponent.”

“Don’t be troublesome, Shikaku. I was just checking on my favorite son,” Shikadaen says with a sigh. 

“I’m your only son.”

“Nara-sama,” I interrupt politely as Shikadaen steps around to be beside the board instead of behind me. “Do you think I should move this piece, or this one?”

I gesture between two different pieces to block where Shikaku is threatening my silver general. One a pawn, and the other a knight.

“Don’t cheat, Seiko-chan,” Shikaku says with a sigh that is extremely similar to his father’s. I think this is the second time he’s ever used my name in front of me.

“A shinobi takes every advantage available to them, Shikaku-senpai. You’re a chunin, you know that,” I say serenely, grinning and showing off that newly sharp canine again. 

“Jonin, actually, as of last week,” Shikaku corrects with great bemusement. I blink in surprise. 

“Congratulations.”

Jonin at thirteen. That definitely won’t do untold damage to his psyche. At least he’s not in ANBU. 

…at least I hope he’s not in ANBU. My eyes flick his kimono covered arms and then back up at his face. I wouldn’t be able to see if he had an ANBU tattoo if I wanted.

The movement is a mistake, because he’s looking at me critically for a second before shifting his gaze over at his father, expression gone. 

Oops. 

Not suspicious at all that I was looking for an ANBU mark as an orphan academy student. Nothing to see here!

Luckily, Nara Shikadaen is only looking at the board, rubbing his bearded chin. He probably also noticed. I’m getting shipped off to T&I tomorrow. 

“Move the pawn,” Shikadaen says, pointing at it and oblivious to my internal worries. “He’s trying to goad you into using the knight and leaving your king open in three moves.”

“Tou-san!” Shikaku hisses, almost whining in the way I’d expect from a thirteen year old boy.

“Try harder, son,” Shikadaen says, smiling with mirth. Then he looks at me. “Good job so far, Seiko-chan. Make him work for it.”

Well. I’ll do my best, especially if the Jonin Commander is asking.

—

I end up spending an hour and a half playing shogi. Neither of us win, but Shikaku looks pleased anyways. I assume that means he was about to win and was only interrupted because he had to go do something with his father. I’m under no illusions that I can beat him at anything except surviving an unexpected reincarnation.

Ayako is less pleased about my disappearance. 

“You were playing an old man game this whole time?” Ayako says with a little disgust, arms crossed with her plate of food in front of her. The food is finally free to be eaten, set out in a buffet for people to enjoy. 

I hope Ayako doesn’t spill any of her curry on her expensive kimono. I may faint. 

“Shikaku-senpai is a very good player,” I say with a shrug, looking apologetic. “Are you having fun, though?”

Ayako pouts, but takes a bite of her curry and the expression melts away. She loves curry. It’s hard to stay upset when you have your favorite food in front of you.

“I’d have more fun if you were here while we played ninja,” Ayako says solemnly. “Nobody wants to play anymore now that we’re eating. They’ll be too sleepy afterwards.”

I reach over and pat her shoulder, internally marveling at how sleek her kimono feels. I’ll never touch fabric this expensive again!

No. Focus! 

“Sorry, Ayako-chan. It wasn’t nice of me to get distracted on your birthday. Is there any way I can make it up to you?” I ask. I do feel bad. I just get so bored doing kid stuff all the time, and it was fun using my brain for something interesting. 

Ayako takes another bite of her curry and rice, jutting her chin out and not looking at me. 

“Maybe,” Ayako says, looking at our surroundings with a sudden intentionality. A sense of foreboding starts building under my skin. I eat some of my own curry in hopes that it will soothe my nerves. 

She looks at me with a spark in her baby blue eyes, and then leans close to me conspiratorially. 

“I have a new crush,” she whispers, breath tickling my ear. I shiver and push her back, making a “Eugh!” sound.

“No more Chouza-senpai for you?” I ask in a similarly low tone. This is a new development. She’s been pretty set on Chouza for a year now, though if it was a crush that was pushed on her by her mother or developed naturally, that’s up in the air. 

“Maybe when we’re old enough to get married,” Ayako whispers with a careless wave of her pale hand. “No, I like someone else right now. Guess!”

I think back on my list of boys she’s talked about who may be here right now. Most of them were in the year above us or our year. 

“Akimichi Jiro?” I ask, and Ayako blushes. Huh. I got it in one. It makes sense it would be our classmate. It's a bit funny that he’s also an Akimichi.

“You,” Ayako says with authority, putting both her hands on my shoulders and looking at me sternly. “You are going to bring him over here so I can talk to him.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Can’t you just ask him to talk to you?”

Ayako sighs deeply, with feeling. “You’re so bad at this stuff, Seiko-chan. Girls don’t ask boys things. The boys have to come to you!”

How antiquated. And incompatible with her current plan. 

“Aren’t I asking him to do something right now?” I ask curiously. 

Ayako’s hands on my shoulders shake me a little. “No, Seiko-chan! Because you don’t have a crush on him, so it doesn’t count!”

Ayako pauses, then looks at me with narrow eyes. “You don’t have a crush on him, do you?”

Jiro is cute, but no. I don’t get crushes. We’re children. 

“No, sorry. I think he’s nice though,” I say, looking around for the boy. 

The two of us are seated just a little bit away from the other clan girls Ayako invited to her birthday party, and a lot of the adults seem to be seated at tables all around the garden. 

The clan heads and their families are up by the porch. I valiantly attempt not to send a longing glance at where Shikaku’s shogi board still sits with our game set up on it. 

Where oh where is Jiro?

I quickly scarf down the rest of my curry rice, ignoring the way the spice burns. I’ve been given a mission, and a kunoichi must deliver. 

I set down my plate on the table with a clack and get out of my seat. 

“Wait, are you going right now?” Ayako asks, looking flustered. 

I roll my eyes at her. “I’ve been given a mission, fair Ayako-hime. I’d be a poor ninja to take too long on it.”

“I’m not ready!” Ayako whisper yells, looking around frantically as if Jiro is going to appear any second. That would be convenient to me. I could consider my job done and get seconds of the food. 

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I hum as I set off, eyes scanning the crowd of eating and chatting people. Better to start on the opposite end of the garden and make my way back towards Ayako. More thorough that way. 

I pass by tables and flowers and adults who have finally broken out the sake. No one is drunk, especially not since there’s children here, but the bitter smell of the rice wine makes my nose twitch anyways.

“Are you enjoying the party, Seiko-chan?” Yamanaka Atsushi, the whittling gate guard, asks me as I pass him. He’s at a table with a one eared Nara woman and a few Akimichi. No Jiro, though. What a bummer.

“I got to play shogi earlier, so I’d call it a success,” I say, pausing my walk to scan my surroundings again. “Have you seen Akimichi Jiro? The academy student?”

One of the Akimichi, a tall, broad shouldered woman with a big smile hums consideringly. She turns to the other Akimichi beside her, a man with dark curly hair and a bandage over his hand. “Jiro-kun… isn’t that Mao-san’s boy? Who’s always practicing his taijutsu?”

“I think I saw him over that way, with his mother and sisters,” Curly-Haired-Man says, gesturing to the right of us. There’s a huge flower bush between us and whatever tables he’s talking about, but I’m sure he’s leading me in the right direction. He seems trustworthy.

“Thank you! Enjoy your food,” I say quickly in goodbye, raising a hand and waving as I make my way around the almost comically large flower bush. What are those, anyways? Hydrangeas? I should pay more attention in kunoichi class. What if I get a mission in five years when my life depends on recognizing a flower?

It’ll probably be fine. No use making mountains out of mole hills when I’ve got more current problems. Me in five years will figure it out just fine.

In my search for Jiro, though Jiro continues to elude me, I do get the opportunity to listen in on gossip. 

“And if Kusagakure decides to switch to Iwa’s side?” a Nara says dryly to another, bouncing a sleepy toddler on her lap. 

“They won’t do that. They’re more worried about avoiding any diplomatic incidents until they figure out who wins, and they’ve stayed neutral so far.”

“So far. Wonder how long so far will last. Is your son still stationed in Ame?”

Land of Grass, where Kusa is located, is between the Land of Fire and Land of Earth. I wouldn’t be surprised if they turn to one side or the other soon. If not in this war, then definitely during the Third Shinobi War. 

The sun has fully set now, and the garden is lit by paper lanterns. Cicadas sing under the murmur of conversation. Gravel crunches under my feet.

Finally, I spot him. 

“Jiro-kun!” I call to him when I see him chowing down beside a group of Akimichi women. 

Akimichi Jiro looks up from his plate of barbeque wide eyed, looking around until he spots me. He’s got a little sauce streaking the side of his tanned, freckled face. I come to a stop by the table.

“Seiko-kun?” Jiro asks through a mouthful of food. “Wha’ is it?”

“Swallow before you talk, Jiro,” the freckled, older woman beside him says. His mother. I remember her picking him up from the academy sometimes. 

“This your friend, Jiro-kun?” one of Jiro’s sisters asks. She was in the Ino-Shika-Cho’s year. 

Jiro nods, still looking at me with confusion. We’re not really that close, but I’d say we’re friends. We’ve been in the same class since we were both five, and he’s one of the boys who still uses the “kun” honorific for me. 

My classmates thought I was a boy for the first year of school. It was pretty funny. With my short haircut and androgynous face, it makes sense.

“Ayako-chan wants to talk to you,” I explain to Jiro, watching his eyes widen. 

“Ayako-chan? Why does Ayako-chan want to talk?” Jiro asks, bewildered. “I told her happy birthday earlier.”

“No clue, she just entrusted me with a mission to retrieve you,” I lie with a shrug, turning to where his mother is wiping one of Jiro’s little sisters’ faces. “May I take your son for a little bit, Akimichi-san?”

“Oh, only because you’re being so polite, Seiko-kun,” Jiro’s mother responds with a big smile. “Be good while you’re talking to Ayako-chan, Jiro! Make sure to come back when the adults all decide to go into the meeting hall.”

Meeting hall? 

Before I can ponder anymore about that, Jiro is out of his chair and standing beside me, obviously waiting for me to lead the way. I take his hand and start walking again.

His hand is sticky with barbeque sauce. I hope Ayako appreciates the sacrifices I’m making here and frees me to play more shogi later. 

“Did you enjoy the food?” I ask Jiro as we speed walk through the garden. 

“It’s good! I love barbeque,” Jiro says cheerfully. His good temperment makes up for the fact that I’ll need to wash my hands after this. “My clan made lots of good food today. You’ve eaten some, right?”

I nod with a smile. “I had the curry. It’s really good, I wish I knew how to make some at home.”

Jiro makes a thoughtful sound. “Oh, you have to make your own food, like Minato-kun, right? I can ask my mom to write down the recipe for you.”

Holy shit. An Akimichi recipe? Just for me? I look back at Jiro swiftly. 

“Is that okay? I know food is very important to your clan.”

“I don’t know why it would be bad. It’s not like it’s a clan secret.” Jiro swings our clasped hands, looking at our surroundings instead of me. “Everyone deserves to eat good food.”

Jiro is delivered safely to Ayako, who has managed to pull herself together and not enter a crush meltdown, or whatever it is that crushes do to you. I wouldn’t know. In my past life I usually just thought people were attractive and only did something about it if I thought it wouldn’t cause me drama. No strange fuzzy feelings included. 

All in all? It’s a good party. Even if I have to leave with all the other non-three-clans-members when the adults all get called to some elusive meeting hall. 

Clans. They’re always up to some kind of drama. I hope I never join one.

—

Akimichi Chouza

Akimichi Chouza sighs, lying back onto Inoichi’s bed. He’s tired after a big meal and a longer clan meeting. His brown hair fans out around his head. It’s been getting pretty long. Maybe he should cut it soon?

“Did they really need all three clans for that?” Chouza asks quietly. Inoichi flops down beside him, grunting and pushing him over a little so he can lay comfortably. Chouza lets him. It is his bed, after all.

“It had to do with their kids. Why wouldn’t they?” Inoichi replies, laying limply beside him. Chouza keeps his eyes on the ceiling as he hears Inoichi’s head move. “What do you think, Shikaku?” 

Shikaku hums distractedly. 

Inoichi reaches over Chouza and grabs a small blue pillow, and Chouza finally looks away from the ceiling to watch him throw it at Shikaku. It hits him in the ponytail, but he looks unbothered, eyes still on his shogi set. 

“Shiii-kaa-kuuuu,” Inoichi draws each syllable out, pouting. “We’re having a conversation here.”

“Our clan heads wanted to know what their people thought before they decided at the clan council. What is there to talk about?” Shikaku grumbles, looking up from his board to look at his teammates. 

“Oh that’s all? No other thoughts brewing in that big head of yours?” Inoichi asks, before looking at Chouza. “Back me up here, Chouza.”

Chouza hums, sitting up from where he’d been lying down and adjusting the collar of his red yukata. Shikaku is looking between Inoichi and Chouza like they’re distracting him from some sort of puzzle. Annoyed but unwilling to talk about why he’s annoyed. 

“What’s on your mind, Shikaku?” Chouza asks politely. Inoichi is good at getting people to do what he wants, with the exception of people he actually cares about. Then he gets demanding. Chouza, at least, is good at being polite. That usually gets him where he needs to be. 

Shikaku lifts a hand to the wall of Inoichi’s room, pressing a small flower shaped engraving just by the door. 

It glows for a second, and an almost oppressive silence comes over the room. The sounds of the compound and their parents still drinking fades away. Both Inoichi and Chouza sit up at attention. 

Inoichi had to bribe one of the Uzumaki sealing apprentices into installing that privacy seal. Chouza remembers him complaining about how hard it is to sneak a Uzumaki anywhere with that red hair.

“We’re not winning the war,” Shikaku says bluntly. Flinty obsidian eyes flick between Chouza and Inoichi swift as a kunai. “We’re not losing, either, but we’re definitely not winning.”

Chouza lets out a quiet little breath, easing the tension from his shoulders and furrowing his brows. 

“Where’s this coming from?” Chouza can see some of the pieces coming together. They did just have a clan meeting, a joint clan meeting where everyone voted on if they would support the graduation age being lowered. It doesn’t take someone with Shikaku’s intellect to put that much together. 

Shikaku waves a casual hand at his shogi board. “I’ve been thinking about it for a while, but playing some shogi earlier made it feel more…present.”

“A shogi game with an academy student made you think about this?” Inoichi huffs with some disbelief. “I saw who you replaced me with, it was one of Ayako-chan’s—!”

“Little friends, yes,” Shikaku finishes for him, rolling his eyes. “She actually remembered what all the pieces do, unlike some people I know.”

Inoichi reaches around Chouza and grabs another pillow and Chouza just sighs. 

“And what does this all have to do with us?” Chouza asks reasonably as Inoichi wails another pillow at Shikaku’s head. He doesn’t bother dodging this time either. “We’re not winning the war, and we aren’t losing it either. So the council thinks that adding more graduates will help?”

Inoichi scoffs. “Sure, they think it’d help, but imagine if they start putting fresh genin on the frontlines. You saw how it was on our last mission, Iwa won’t be impressed by us throwing nine-year-olds at their doton.”

“It would buy time,” Shikaku cuts in bluntly, turning to look back down at the board in front of him, fingers twitching like he wants to move some of the pieces. “We’re buying time until Iwa and their allies can’t afford to fight anymore.”

Chouza bites his lip. It’s a bad habit, his sensei has been telling him to knock it off now that they’re not genin anymore. 

“How long do you think we have?” Inoichi asks, suddenly serious. 

Shikaku shakes his head with an aggravated sigh. “There’s too many pieces and I don’t know them all. None of us are highly ranked enough to be told how many shinobi we have, and how many our enemies have. No access to supply routes, graduation rates…”

“You’re a jonin,” Chouza points out, freeing his sore lip from his teeth. He has to be stronger than this. 

“They don’t tell every jonin things like that, especially newly promoted ones,” Shikaku counters. Chouza thinks Shikaku could try asking his father, but that treds into dangerous territory. 

“Then we’ll have to wait and see,” Inoichi says with a sense of finality. “We can’t be the only ones who’ve figured this out. We have to trust that our superiors can handle the situation.”

They sit together for a moment, stewing in those words. Before they can say anything else someone knocks on the door, and Shikaku swiftly undoes the silencing seal, turning back to his shogi board as if they’d never spoken at all. 

“Come in!” Inoichi calls. He’s slumped back onto the bed in a casual lounge. 

The door slides open in a quiet shhh , and there stands Nara Shikadaen, scanning the room with an easy smile that sets Chouza’s hairs on end. He can never tell when he knows that they’re up to something. He supposes that that’s the point. The suspense. 

“Did you enjoy the party, boys?” Shikadaen asks casually, leaning a shoulder against the doorway. 

“Ayako-chan seemed like she had fun,” Chouza comments. 

“She loves attention, of course she did,” Inoichi says with a roll of his eyes. He’s always so rude. 

“Don’t be mean to your cousin, Inoichi,” Chouza says with a frown. 

Inoichi waves a finger in Chouza’s face. “She’s meaner than me, she just doesn’t show you because she likes you! ” Inoichi says the last bit in a sing-song voice. 

Chouza ignores the hand in his space and grabs a pillow, shoving it onto Inoichi’s smug face. Inoichi squawks indignantly. He should be glad Chouza isn’t actually trying to smother him to death. 

“Your kaa-san and I are leaving, Shikaku,” Shikadaen says with a chuckle. “Enjoy the rest of your evening, boys.”

And with that, he shuts the door again, and like good little ninja none of them relax until they’re sure he’s gone. 

Shikaku taps the silencing seal again and groans the second the oppressive silence starts again. 

“So scary,” Chouza mutters, shivering. “That Uzumaki didn’t give you a faulty seal, Inoichi, did he?”

Inoichi pushes the pillow in his face away, sitting up with blonde hair sticking in all directions. 

“I tested it! It works!” Inoichi says, aghast. He points at Shikaku, now, clearly not having learned his lesson from the last time he pointed at someone. “Your tou-san has got to have some kind of freaky jutsu that lets him tell when you’re up to something.”

“No, that’s your tou-san,” Shikaku says with a smirk. “Which one of us has the mind reading jutsu, again?”

Chouza sighs and lays back down on the bed with a solid thump , making Inoichi bounce as he continues his argument. 

Chouza is just going to sleep now. He’s sure his teammates won’t do anything interesting for the next few hours. 

—

Seiko

A week after Ayako’s birthday, I sleep in until almost noon. 

I grunt, rubbing my feet together under my blanket and blinking bleary eyed at my pale ceiling. The uneven swirls of plaster stare back, unbothered by my annoyance. Bright sunlight bleeds in a pale gradient on the plaster, casting small shadows.

There’s a knock at my door. Thump thump thump in quick succession. I assume that’s what woke me up. 

With a groan I roll off my futon and walk out of my room and towards the front door, mumbling a little good morning to my plants in the windowsill as I pass them. My sage plant has been attempting to sprout in my mint plant’s pot, so I was forced to separate them on opposite ends of the windowsill. 

It looks a little bit more droopy. I’ll give it nice fertilizer in apology.

I open the door as I rub my tired eyes.

“What is it?” I ask. Can’t a girl spend her entire tenth birthday sleeping in? I’ve been so responsible. If I had parents they would be very proud of my efforts and regimented schedule.

But noooo, no breaks for me. Of course not. Not in this economy. 

My blurry eyes clear and—

What the fuck. A genin? 

“I have a package for a Seiko?” a bemused looking Uchiha a year or two older than me says. He’s still fresh faced, not a sign of the eye lines that heavy sharingan use can cause in Uchiha. And impatient looking.

“That’s me,” I say, eyeing the boy. His hands are empty. 

He pulls a small scroll from his thigh pouch and channels some chakra, and a package pops into the air with a plume of chakra smoke. He catches it seamlessly and holds it out to me. It’s wrapped in some kind of cartoonish ramen wrapping paper. 

I take it and he’s shunshined off before I can say anything else. Leaves float and slowly land in front of my doorway, covering my welcome mat. I wrinkle my nose at all the chakra smoke. How wasteful.

So there I stand with bedhead, in my pajamas, holding a ramen-patterned gift box and staring out into space. 

Right. That’s normal. This is fine. 

I turn and walk out of my doorway, shutting my door behind me and sitting down heavily at my little kitchen table. 

A birthday gift from Kushina, and it must be Kushina with this kind of wrapping paper. Kushina, who is currently getting a tailed beast sealed into her or will be very soon. 

I stare at the box sitting before me, tracing the smiling ramen cups. I fear it may be too early for this. 

I glance outside my window at where the sun sits high in the sky. Well. Subjectively early. Early for me .

I carefully run my fingers under the seam of the wrapping paper, unsticking the tape holding it down without tearing it. I pull it off of the brown box beneath and fold it, setting it down to the side. 

I lift the lid of the box and am greeted by rows and rows of shiny new kunai. 

“What?” I mutter, pondering on how giving someone a weapon in my last life could’ve been perceived as some strange declaration of war. And in this life, if you’re pointed enough about it. That’s more a samurai thing than a shinobi one, though. Shinobi just start using weapons on you instead of giving you ammunition. 

I reach into the box and pull out a small, hand made card with a stick figure Kushina on the front. 

I open the card, reading it. 

‘Happy birthday Seiko!

Do NOT tell Tsunade-oba that I bought you these with my allowance.

Your rival,

Kushina.

PS. I AM GOING TO DESTROY YOU NEXT YEAR, EVEN WITH YOUR NEW KUNAI!’

(There’s a small drawing of Kushina punching me at the bottom. It’s hilarious.)

What an unhinged birthday card. I am unbearably fond of it and will be keeping this card until the day I die. 

I gently close the handmade card and set it on top of the wrapping paper, peering down at the collection of dark kunai. My throat feels tight and I wonder why. 

I draw a kunai from one of the little cardboard racks holding them separate from one another. Test the weight and twirl it on a finger. 

Kunai are a dime a dozen in a ninja village; they litter training grounds, the Naka river, and surplus stores. Really, it’s not that crazy of a gift for an academy student. 

I grip the wrappings around the hilt a little tighter, swallowing. My eyes sting.

Two dozen new kunai, just for me. 

I turn to look at my calendar. It’s July first. Kushina’s birthday is in nine days. I’ve already got her gift wrapped and taken care of, and I can’t even bring it to her until the school year starts in a month. 

“It’s not wrong of me to get emotional over a birthday gift, is it?” I ask the air, watching dust motes float in the sunlight. “This is normal orphan behavior.”

Ah. I should set about putting these kunai away in my thigh pouch. Maybe Minato would be up for a spar, just for my birthday? It’d be wasteful not to use my new gifts. Even if I was planning on spending the whole day doing nothing of importance.

Ten years old. In under a year I’ll be a genin. Hopefully with a team that doesn’t get me killed. 

Chapter Text

August first comes faster than expected. With it, my new year at the academy begins.

I wake slowly, stretch my arms high above my head and lament the way my shirt lifts a little too high over my stomach, practically to my ribs. 

The past few days I’ve been dogged by sore limbs and a hunger greater than my stipend can pay for. It’s increased thanks to me making it to the fifth year of the academy, but I’ve started penny pinching to make sure it can buy me all the food I need.

I’ll need new clothes soon. It’s looking like I’ll be hitting my growth spurt sooner rather than later. 

Regardless of my new problems I shuffle through my usual routine. The sun has yet to rise when I finish my meditation, now done with me sitting sideways on my wall. It’s…weird. Really weird. But I’ll have to kill people sideways one day, so I think I can manage sitting sideways for a while. 

I grab my bento I made the night before from the fridge and put it in my bookbag. With a good morning and goodbye to my plants, I’m tugging my sandals on and out the door. 

“Good morning, Higashi-san,” I say, blinking in surprise as I spot the man leaning against the railing of the walkway. He glances my way, smiling around the butt of his cigarette. 

“You’re taller,” Higashi comments. I am taller. He’s been gone since before summer break. 

I scan his ruffled t-shirt and regulation pants, looking for injuries. He looks the same as I last saw him, if more tired. No leaning most of his weight on one leg, so he’s healed that injury up. 

“I’m not injured,” Higashi breathes out smoke as he speaks, pulling his cigarette from his lips and flicking it over the railing. Little ember sparks fall at the motion. “Your hair is a mess, Seiko-chan. Have you cut it since I left?”

I shut my door with a huff. “Who else will cut my hair, Higashi-san? I’m not supposed to use scissors near my face.”

It’ll look very bad if I try to do it with just myself and a mirror. It’s not worth it unless I want to get a buzz cut.

Higashi looks a little stricken at me saying that, for some reason, and puts out his cigarette against the metal railing with the quickness of a shinobi. 

“No, you’re not. You haven’t tried, right?” he asks urgently, as if I would try something like that.

A seventeen-year-old lecturing me on proper scissor usage. How novel. 

“No, Higashi-san,” I say dutifully, wondering what brought this bout of protectiveness on. “Did your mission go well?”

Are his teammates still alive?

Higashi rolls his eyes at me, incinerating the last of his cigarette with a there and gone hand sign. Tiger. My hand itches to try it, but I’ll save it for later when I’m close to a body of water. 

“My teammates are still alive, yes. It’s always gossip with you,” Higashi grumbles. “Are you going to the academy?” 

I nod. “Today’s the first day of the year. I’m pretty early though,” I say, glancing over at the slowly brightening, cloudless sky. I still have another hour until class starts, and the academy is a few streets away.

“I’ll cut your hair,” Higashi says with a sigh. “I can’t be the only person who does this for you, right? You have friends with parents, don’t you?”

Hm. That’s a good question. I have a lot of friends, yeah, but the only ones I’m really close to are Ayako, Kushina, and Minato. Maybe Mikoto. Half of them are orphans, and I wouldn’t dream of asking Ayako’s or Mikoto’s mom for that. 

Apparently my silence is longer than Higashi is comfortable with, because he looks increasingly panicked. Maybe he’s realizing he is important to people’s lives outside of his team. Who knows?

“I suppose I could ask Minato-kun to cut my hair,” I decide to say, tapping my chin. He’s a good backup if Higashi moves or dies. I hope Higashi doesn’t die, he’s funny.

“Minato-kun— isn’t that the blonde kid who lives downstairs? He’s your age!” Higashi runs a hand down his face and walks over to the door of his apartment. “I’m getting my scissors and a chair. Don’t even think about leaving, I’m not risking you losing an ear to an academy student.”

And so I find myself sitting on a chair in the outdoor walkway of my apartment complex, waving hello to passing neighbors as an irate chunin cuts my hair. 

“Good morning, Takuto-san!” I greet the confused looking jonin as he goes to walk past, decked out in his mission gear. 

“Good morning, Seiko-chan, Higashi-san,” Nishikawa Takuto says back, taking in the scene before him. He’s my neighbor three doors down. 

Snip snip , brown hair falls onto my towel covered shoulders.

“Don’t move your head, Seiko-chan,” Higashi says distractedly, grabbing the top of my head and tilting me back into the right position. 

“Are you going on a mission, Takuto-san?” I ask the dark haired, completely unassuming jonin. He’s in his early twenties. If he were in a clan he’d be married already, but he’s not. And he’s gay, which really puts a wrench in most clan elders' baby making plans from what I’ve heard. 

I think he might be in ANBU. He never makes noise when he walks and is just socially awkward enough that I can see it.

“I am, Seiko-chan,” Takuto says slowly, still looking like a neighbor cutting another neighbor’s hair is a foreign concept. “Aren’t you in the academy? It’s starting soon, isn’t it?”

I’ve got forty minutes till class starts, so I’ll be fine. Higashi knows how to do a wind jutsu that makes all the itchy hair fly away. 

“I am, but Higashi-san finally got back from his mission, so now I can have my hair cut.” 

“Couldn’t you have asked any of your other neighbors for this, Seiko-chan, you know everyone by name,” Higashi grumbles under his breath. Snip snip. He’s right. The past three neighbors who have walked past us I did draw into conversation. 

“Oh, that’s a good idea. Do you know how to use scissors, Takuto-san? Higashi keeps leaving for such long missions,” I ask cheerfully, watching Takuto’s face go a little blank. I’ve learned that that’s kind of the baseline expression ninja default to when they don’t know what emotion to show. 

“Ah. Yes?” Takuto replies unsurely, like he’s looking for a ninja wire trap and is afraid any sudden movements will get him impaled.

“There, that’s two adults you can ask to cut your hair, Seiko-chan. Do not try to cut it yourself, and don’t even think about asking one of your academy friends,” Higashi orders. His hands smell like tobacco and his brand of fire chakra, so everytime he moves his scissors my nose twitches with it. 

“Of course, Higashi-sensei, I would never do that Higashi-sensei,” I drone faux seriously, and he flicks my ear. Rude!

Takuto has disappeared in a flurry of leaves by the time I stop trying to reach back and hit Higashi. What an artful escape. Someone is going to have to sweep up those leaves later. 

“You’re gonna make me light another cigarette, you brat,” Higashi grumbles with no heat. His hand is gentle when it grabs the top of my head to move me back into the right position. Kindness, I have found, exists in everyone. Even in shinobi with calloused, bloodied hands and bags under their eyes.

People who parrot the propaganda would call it the Will of Fire. But fire just likes to burn. Maybe kindness is just human nature.

“Those are bad for you, Higashi-san.”

It’s a good start to the day.

—

When I walk up to the academy fifteen minutes early, a red headed little girl with a demon in her belly stands apart from a crowd of students, looking around. Beside her is an Uchiha destined to marry her clan’s heir, and a blonde boy who will one day be Hokage. 

Strange to see Minato by Kushina. She thinks he’s girly and boring. Which is extremely funny, considering how she’ll feel about him in ten years. 

Actually, I note as I get closer, they seem to be arguing. 

“—why would you need to wait for her, dattebane? You live near her!” Kushina says loudly, scowling at Minato. Minato has both hands raised and is looking a little pink cheeked. He’s already got a crush on Kushina, then? Adorable. 

“She forgot one of her kunai at the training field yesterday, Kushina-chan, I’m just giving it back!” Minato insists, reaching into his bag and pulling out a kunai. One of the ones Kushina got for me. 

Kushina makes an indignant noise, going to grab the kunai. Minato moves it out of reach with swiftness. 

“That kunai was a birthday gift for her! You get your grubby hands off that—”

I make eye contact with Mikoto, who smiles and waves, unbothered by the two kids arguing in front of her. 

I wave back, before looking at the pair again. 

“Good morning, why are you both fighting over my kunai?” I ask curiously, watching Minato dodge another swipe for the kunai on Kushina’s end. They should train together. It would make his reflexes even faster. 

I decide to tell them so as I get close enough to stop beside Mikoto, watching Minato duck under a punch. 

“You two should train together.”

Both of them stop, Minato looking surprised and Kushina betrayed. I note, distantly, that Kushina has new marks on her cheeks. Like whiskers. A byproduct of the Kyuubi?

I’ll have to change my henge of her in the future. 

“What? Why?” Kushina asks incredulously. “I’m your rival!”

“You can have multiple,” I reply wisely, reaching forward and plucking the kunai from Minato’s hand. He lets me, obviously, since it’s my kunai. I flip it in my small hand, pondering how strange it is that the weight of a kunai is already so familiar it's comforting. “The more training partners, the better you get at fighting.”

“Would you like to train with me, Seiko-chan?” Mikoto asks suddenly, and I look over at her swiftly. 

“Really?” I sound so eager it should be embarrassing. 

Mikoto smiles a bit wider, and it looks just a little bloodthirsty. Oh, this year is going to be fun. 

We all make our way to class while I’m still thinking about fighting Mikoto. Her Uchiha kata is fast and brutal, likely because of their dojutsu and their (usually) smaller frames. Maybe I could convince her to keep training with me when she gets her sharingan? Oh, just imagining fighting someone with a sharingan makes me want to start warming up. 

We open the sliding door of our new classroom, a floor higher than last year and with a new sensei. Rumors say Toru-sensei is still on the active duty roster with little chance of returning to the academy anytime soon. It’s unfortunate, especially for me since I could get away with a lot in his class. 

My eyes go to our new teacher, watching him write on the chalkboard with quick movements. I can smell his chakra from here. Tobacco, smoke and burning hot embers. It’s a large pool of chakra too, not the kind you find in a chunin. 

A jonin? Surely they aren’t having a jonin teach an academy class. 

The uchiwa mon on the back of his shirt stands out proudly. I glance over at Mikoto, who hums with a little nod. She knows him? 

I look back at the teacher, taking in the room around him. There’s crutches leaning by his desk, and he’s standing carefully to avoid putting any weight on his left leg. A jonin benched for an injury. Maybe not a career ending one, but one that will have him out of commission long enough that he’s got a year-long desk position.

Why not give him a genin team, instead of an academy position? Maybe the injury was taken too late for him to get one of last year's graduates. 

Interesting. Very interesting. 

“Ah! You’re not Toru-sensei, dattebane!” Kushina shouts, pointing at him. Right. She was probably in seclusion the whole summer while they made sure the bijuu in her stayed in her. She doesn’t know.

“Toru-sensei is on the active mission roster again, Kushina,” I say, reaching over and forcing her arm down. Uchihas tend to be uptight and our new sensei probably won’t appreciate any pointing and shouting. I look around and see only a few of our classmates have gotten here. Good. Us being early makes up for Kushina’s social faux pas. 

“You’re correct,” Uchiha-sensei says, finally turning from the board with a scowl. Deep wrinkles go down from his eyes to his nose. Heavy sharingan use. He’s older than most shinobi, too. At least thirty. “Seiko-kun, second rank, correct?”

I nod easily, Kushina’s arm still in my hand. I pointedly don’t tighten my grip on it out of nerves. The jonin before us is a very skilled shinobi. 

Hm. Kushina’s chakra feels…different, now that I’m touching her. Still bright like the sun shining on glistening ocean waves, but there’s something underneath the smell of seafoam, now. Waiting, deep in the depths of the water—

No. Nevermind. Don’t think about it.

Uchiha-sensei looks away from me and to Kushina. 

“Uzumaki Kushina,” he says dully, looking unimpressed. “Tenth rank.”

Kushina makes a rude noise, obviously feeling disrespected. I do tighten my grip on her arm this time, giving her a sharp look. She closes her mouth with an audible clack, silencing whatever insults she was going to give. Pranks will be in our new sensei’s future, I’m sure. 

Uchiha-sensei turns to Mikoto. “Uchiha Mikoto, third rank.”

She nods deeply, respectfully. Trust Mikoto not to put her foot in her mouth. 

Then, finally, he looks at Minato. “Namikaze Minato. First rank.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Uchiha-sensei,” Minato says with a short bow. 

Uchiha-sensei offers a little “Hn” at that, eyes still narrow as he sweeps the four of us. There’s a palpable air of disinterest, as if we’re found lacking. I have a feeling it’s at least partially for show, though. Better to put us down and build us back up to his liking, highly ranked in class or not.

Or maybe he resents his new job. Who knows?

“Take your seats.” Uchiha-sensei looks away from us. We’re dismissed, then.

“Scary,” Kushina mutters under her breath, and I can only hear it because I’m right next to her. 

I don’t doubt that Uchiha-sensei heard it too, even if he’s not paused his writing. 

“Lets go sit down,” I say, moving my hand down from Kushina’s arm to grab her hand and pull her along.

Somehow I end up in a row between Kushina and Minato, with Mikoto on Kushina’s other side. Ayako isn’t in class yet, but I’m a little concerned for how she’ll react when she sees she can’t sit next to me. 

Kushina mutters complaints to Mikoto while I pull out my pencil case and get set up for class. 

“ Tenth rank ,” Kushina grumbles, imitating the sensei’s deep timber. “I’ll show him tenth rank, let’s see how he likes paint in his sandals dattebane—!”

“He can hear you,” I murmur as I open my new notebook, nudging her arm. 

“Huh?” Kushina looks over at me wide eyed, then at the still writing teacher, then back to me. “What do you mean?”

“He’s a jonin. He’s probably enhancing his hearing.” 

Kushina looks horrified at this realization. “People can do that?”

…this feels like a thing she should know. She’s literally in a clan of people with unreasonable chakra pools, do they not use it for enhancing their senses? Maybe she just didn’t pay attention when anyone talked about it.

“We covered it last year when Toru-sensei explained chakra natures, Kushina-chan,” Minato pipes up from my other side, looking curious. He looks at me with a tilted head. “How can you tell he’s a jonin?”

Uchiha-sensei finishes what he was writing with a small flourish, and drops the chalk onto the little shelf beneath the chalkboard. He turns and looks right at our group. 

“ Agh! ” Kushina comments helpfully, violet eyes wide. 

“Yes, how can you tell, Seiko-kun?” Uchiha-sensei asks, frowning. Maybe it’s not notable that he’s frowning, it seems like that’s his default expression. 

I blink, tapping the end of my pencil against my notebook idly. 

“The way you hold yourself, Uchiha-sensei. And your chakra,” I state clearly, instead of the low undertone we’d been whispering in. 

“Explain,” Uchiha-sensei orders gruffly. 

I do prefer when people don’t make me explain things. I may be acting more honest for the Hokage, but I like to keep some things to myself. Suppose that’s the sneaky shinobi in me. And the desperate to survive unnoticed part of me. Maybe they’re the same thing?

“Your chakra stores are large, and the way it flows reminds me of other jonin I’ve seen. Tightly controlled. How you hold yourself is different from a chunin, as well. Like you’re bigger than you are,” I state, then point to the crutches by his desk with the end of my pencil. 

“You’re injured, probably long term enough that you can be spared for academy duty. It’s not typical for someone of your rank to be given it though, so you must have been asked to do it directly by someone much higher than you, or asked for it.”

The classroom has gone quiet, and Uchiha-sensei and I stare at one another. I wonder if that was too much. 

“You are correct,” Uchiha-sensei says finally, still not looking away from me. So much eye contact. Maybe it’s supposed to be threatening because he can turn on his dojutsu and turn my brain to mush at any time. 

I’m not overly worried about that. Genjutsu-ing academy students to death is frowned upon. This isn’t Kiri, we can’t afford to kill off our kids willy-nilly. 

“You will all refer to me as Ryuu-sensei, as there are too many Uchiha and ‘Uchiha-sensei’ becomes too broad. Am I clear?” Uchiha-sensei, or rather, Uchiha Ryuu announces, finally breaking eye contact to survey the room. A few more students come trailing through the door and sit at their seats. 

“Hai, sensei!” the room of students choruses, my own voice joining them. 

“Good. Now ensure you all have your notebooks out and ready for when class begins.”

I notice how he doesn’t specify what I’m correct about, when it comes to why he was put into this position as an academy teacher. I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.

Over the course of our first day Ryuu-sensei ends up being a bit of a hard taskmaster. It’s to be expected, he’s our final academy sensei and he’s showing himself to be one who is invested in us surviving our first few C-Rank missions. 

Our fifth year will be dedicated to everyone accomplishing the academy three, along with final reviews of material from previous years. What new material we will be getting is mostly in our kunoichi classes and procedural. Where is the mission desk? How do you format a mission report? What is a body scroll? How do you use it?

Grim stuff. I’m just glad to almost be over with the academy, for all I’ve done to put off my graduation. My body is finally hitting its first puberty growth spurt, and my arms have decent enough reach that I’m not scared I can’t gut someone who’s trying to gut me. It’s all I can ask for in a world like this. 

—

A week into class, all is going well, until I wake up to—

Sirens blare, high and wailing and jerking me out of sleep. I’m moving before my mind can catch up with me.

In the pitch black darkness of my room I grab my thigh pouch and blindly strap it to my sleep shorts covered thigh. 

There’s a pounding knock on my door, boom boom boom , and there follows a serious voice. 

“Seiko-chan! You need to wake up and evacuate to the shelter!” 

It’s Higashi. What the fuck is going on?

I’m to my front door in seconds in a burst of speed, shoving on my sandals as I open it. 

“Are we being attacked?” I ask, and the siren is so much louder now, ringing in my ears. 

Higashi looks like he’s thrown on his uniform in a hurry, and his yellow eyes seem like they’re almost glowing in the dark of night. What time is it?

“Unclear. You need to go, Seiko-chan, do you remember the way?” Higashi asks. There’s a set to his jaw, and a slope to his shoulders that implies he’s waiting for something to attack him. Behind him I can see blurring figures running on rooftops, and down at street level there’s civilians pouring out of their homes urgently. 

“Yes! Go report, Higashi-san, I’ll be fine,” I reply, making a shooing motion with my hands. The nearest shelter to us is the one underneath the academy and administration building. I would take the rooftops if they weren’t so heavy with foot traffic right now. Better to stay on street level with the civilians than risk getting in the way of sprinting shinobi.

Higashi reaches down and ruffles my hair roughly, and then he’s gone in a flurry of leaves. 

I shut my door behind me and hurry down the stairs of my building, headed to the second floor. Before I evacuate, I need to check on Minato, make sure he’s alright. 

I turn the corner with quick steps, about to start down the walkway to his apartment, and just barely avoid running into him. 

“Minato!” I say, pressing both of my hands to his shoulders and looking him over. He’s blinking widely at me, and clad in his pajamas. His blonde hair is messy from sleep, one side flatter than the other. He doesn’t have his thigh pouch with him. 

“Seiko?” Minato says questioningly, and then I realize I dropped the honorific. Whoops.

“We’re evacuating to the shelters, there may be an attack.” I glide over my mistake and reach down into my kunai pouch, drawing one and pressing it into his hand. “Take this, just in case.”

“Thanks.” Minato looks over at the now crowded street. “We’re supposed to report to the academy, right?”

“Right. Let’s go and keep to ground level, in case the civilians are attacked.” 

Not that we’d be much help if the enemies are higher than genin level. What village attacks another village with genin? 

Are we being attacked? I can’t remember Konoha ever being attacked on home base prior to the Konoha Crush at the chunin exams. 

What could it be?

My mind is spinning as Minato and I walk through the crowd of civilians, twisting past mothers with crying babies and old men in barely there brushes of contact. Our hands stay clasped together so we don’t lose each other in the sea of bodies. 

“Please direct yourselves to the Section A shelter! No pushing! Please direct yourselves to the Section A shelter!” a chunin shouts from where she stands atop a sign, directing people forward. The streetlights are dim at this time of night.

I glance down at the red swirl on the chunin’s uniform sleeve, and almost stumble, one foot tripping just a little. Sloppy. 

“Seiko?” Minato asks, somehow heard under the noise of the people around us and the still blaring siren. 

Uzushio. Uzushio is attacked in the second shinobi war. Uzushio is our closest ally. 

How would I react if I were in command of the village and I got reports that Uzu was being flattened as we spoke?

Ah. 

“Sorry, Minato, I just realized something,” my mouth feels a little numb as I say so, visions of dead redheads in my mind's eye. All imagined, and yet they all look so much like Kushina. 

Minato’s hand tightens in my own, firm. 

“What is it?” 

I look back over at him and give him a grim smile. Bitter sadness wears at me under my skin. “Nothing that matters now.”

We get to the academy and are immediately shuffled into helping direct people into the shelter. It’s the sort of thing genin are probably supposed to do, but we’re vaguely genin-shaped enough that the chunin at the doors grabs us both by the shoulders and puts us to work. 

It’s probably my thigh pouch. It’s almost definitely because of my thigh pouch. 

“Kami, I should have brought my wallet. What if the village is destroyed and we don’t even have our money?” a civilian man says nervously as he helps his pregnant wife through the crowd. 

“We’ll have bigger problems if the village is destroyed, Shobi,” the wife drawls in an exhausted sort of way, eyes scanning the crowd. Off-duty kunoichi, likely on maternity leave. She has a nightgown on, but I can see needles in her hair that look a little too much like senbon.

I wonder how Kushina is doing. Does she know? She can’t know yet. Not as an academy student. They likely won’t tell us until they’re sure there’s no joint attack headed for Konoha. 

I flip a kunai in hand, pointing people in the direction of the shelter and scanning the crowd. Listening in on their conversations. 

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is a false alarm and I’m assuming too much. I’m ten years removed from the source of my knowledge, I could be misremembering. 

I hope I’m misremembering. 

“Genin! Who is your jonin sensei?” a voice orders behind me. I turn, curious, and then realize it’s a jonin looking directly at me. 

“I’m an academy student, jonin-san, but my sensei is Uchiha Ryuu,” I respond dutifully, blinking at the jonin. 

“Uchiha Ryuu— there’s no way he’s working at the academy. Stop lying to your superior officer,” the jonin says in a scoff. I’m pretty confused. Why is this person talking to me?

Suddenly, I get a whiff of tobacco and feel chakra fluctuation very close to me.

“Seiko-kun, why aren’t you inside the shelter?”

Speak of the devil and he shall appear, what the fuck.

I turn and Ryuu-sensei is standing beside me in his crutches-ridden glory, looking at me instead of the jonin. He looks very bemused, but I’m sure that’s how he normally looks. His hair is so long. It kind of reminds me of Madara. I will never tell him this.

“A chunin told me to direct the civilians into the shelter, Ryuu-sensei,” I say. 

Ryuu-sensei properly scowls now, and it pulls at his premature eye wrinkles. 

“What was their name?” 

Who is he going to be yelling at for this?

“First name Yasu, a man a few inches shorter than you, blonde with brown eyes. Minato was also told to do the same.” 

I feel bad throwing someone under the bus, but really, if I were a real ten-year-old academy student it would be irresponsible for them to do this. Minato is a real one and he only went along with it because I did.

Ryuu-sensei grunts a “Hn” that sounds a little bit like a death sentence.

“Put away that kunai and go to the shelter. Tell Minato-kun to do the same.”

“Hai, sensei.” I do as he says immediately, tucking my kunai away and starting towards where Minato is standing. I’m just able to pick up Ryuu-sensei start reaming the jonin who said I was lying a new one. I’m still confused as to why the jonin was talking to me at all. Was I doing something wrong?

The siren blares. Minato and I go into the shelter and wait. 

I try to convince myself it’s not Uzushio. That it’s a false alarm. 

I’m wrong. 

Chapter Text

They finally let us out of the shelter after a day, and we’re informed of what happened. 

Uzushio was attacked under the cover of night by a joint force of shinobi from Iwa, Kiri, and Kumo. There are presumed heavy casualties.

That’s it. That’s all we’re told. 

Gossip says most of the tracking teams in village have been dispatched to look for survivors, and almost all of them had what few Uzushio shinobi in Konoha with them. I’m not too certain if they’ll find anyone. 

I remember the surviving Uzumaki scattering with the wind, being snatched up by other villages or living in obscurity. Naruto was the only significant Uzumaki left in Konoha when he was a kid. 

I stand impassionately at taijutsu practice, waiting for my turn to fight. Ryuu-sensei has been having us do random matchups in front of class so he can judge our skill levels. Usually this sort of thing would be fun to me. 

Akimichi Jiro punches Yamagishi Masako out of the ring, and Ryuu-sensei writes something down in his notebook. 

I eye the empty spot next to Mikoto instead of watching Jiro pick Masako back up. 

Kushina has been out for three days. 

It’s to be expected. When you find out your whole village and family is dead, who could blame you for needing some time to grieve? 

“Seiko-kun, Mikoto-kun, please enter the ring,” Ryuu-sensei instructs. He doesn’t look up from his notes, but I know he’s watching anyway. Jonin never turn off their hypervigilant perception. It’s their curse.

I do as he bids, rolling my shoulder and clasping fingers with Mikoto to do the seal of confrontation. 

“Begin.” Ryuu-sensei looks up from his notebook, dark eyes sharp. 

I take a deep breath, and then we’re off.

Sparring with Mikoto is like dancing. 

It’s odd, when I spar with most other people, it feels like we’re two idiots trying to hit each other harder, regardless of technique. An exchange of blows wherein I try to put them down before they knock me on my ass. It’s fun, but has an inherent childishness to it. Like a step above a brawl.

I shift my feet just so, sliding out of the way of a kick aimed at my side and go to jab my fist into Mikoto’s stomach. With every action a reaction, faster and faster. 

Speed versus speed. Precision versus precision. 

Flow state takes over as I jump over Mikoto trying to kick my legs out from under me. She loves kicking. I go to try and kick her in the face while she’s still kneeling from her own attack and graze the top of her head with my shin. 

Mikoto flips in a complicated little twist, standing on her hands and trying to get me in the chin with her foot. 

I grab her leg, whip fast, and flip her over my shoulder, towards the outside of the ring. 

Mikoto hisses a little bit like a displeased cat. She doesn’t banter while she spars. Just focuses on the kill. 

I turn quickly, seeing Mikoto just barely land in a crouch at the edge of the ring. I push the advantage, going for another kick to her face. 

She grabs my ankle just as it makes connection with her cheek, and holy shit that must hurt, before she tries to physically haul me over the edge of the circle. 

I jump, and in a twist only possible because of the freaky stretches they’ve made us do since age five, nail her hard in the shoulder with my other foot. 

Mikoto cries out in pain as I land on my back, and I resist the urge to look at Ryuu-sensei. I can’t take my eyes off my opponent while she’s cornered and got my ankle in her hand. 

Mikoto taps my ankle three times and drops my foot, and I immediately remove myself from her bubble. 

“Sorry, Mikoto-chan,” I offer with a small wince. 

“It’s okay,” Mikoto mutters, clutching her cheek. 

I carefully walk over to her and offer a hand to help her up. She takes it, and we stand before each other as I fuss a little over her injuries. I was being too rough. I need to tone it back. 

Threatening to hit someone in the face is different from letting it connect. 

“Seiko-kun, refrain from hitting your classmates in the head in the future,” Ryuu-sensei instructs, and I can hear his pen scratching against his notebook. “Please help Mikoto-kun to the infirmary, as well.”

“Hai, sensei.”

Our classmates are muttering things to themselves like “So cool!” and “I wish I was that good at taijutsu” as I carefully take Mikoto’s hand into my own and lead her out of the training yard. 

They took the wrong message from my spar. Or I suppose the right one, if the point is to teach them all to be bloodthirsty.  

We enter the academy doors and the AC hits us like a glacial wall. Mikoto’s grip on my hand tightens as she bursts into a few shivers, skin hot compared to the air. I think it’s an Uchiha thing, running unreasonably hot. She probably won’t like missions to Suna if she ever takes any. 

The doors shut behind us and we walk silently over the lacquered wooden floors. There’s low sounds of classes taking place here on the first floor, especially since this is where all the first and second years are shoved and they can get loud. 

I should say sorry again. It’s not cool to hit your friends in the face, even if I wasn’t trying to kill her. Her eyes are really important to her clan. What if I damaged them?

“I really do apologize, Mikoto. When I fight you I get a weird impulse to stop holding back,” I state, lips pursed as I look at Mikoto beside me. 

She blinks, surprised as she looks at me. 

“Really?” Mikoto asks. Our hands swing between us. Her skin is so pale compared to my own, and her nails are painted a pretty pale lavender. “You’re more closely matched to Minato-kun than me. Why am I different?”

“It’s like we’re dancing,” I say nonsensically, turning from her and looking down the empty hallway. “We’re both so fast that it feels more real than other spars. Does that make sense?”

I hope it makes sense. I’ve been in a poor headspace since Uzu got fucking flattened, and it’s making it harder for me to focus on academy shit. 

I wonder what Kushina is doing right now? I hope people are with her. She’s probably sad and angry. 

“I think I feel the same,” Mikoto says slowly. We turn the corner and the infirmary is only three doors away. “When we fight I can only think about fighting. It’s like you suddenly take up my entire vision and all that matters is hitting you first.”

I nod in agreement. 

“Have you seen Kushina-chan since the evacuation?” Mikoto asks, and we stop just by the door of the infirmary. She looks at me, still with one hand clutching her bruising cheek and frowning. She flinches everytime her shoulder moves a little weird. “They wouldn’t let me into the Senju compound when I tried to visit her yesterday.”

What? Some kind of weird Uchiha discrimination, maybe? But that doesn’t make sense. It’s not old windbags guarding the front of the compound, it’s random, non-Senju chunin. The Uchiha are still a highly respected noble clan right now. 

“Did they explain why?” 

“They said Kushina-chan wasn’t to have any visitors. That’s all.” Mikoto pouts, dark eyes getting soulful. “You should try and see her today, if you can. I have clan training all this afternoon, so I can’t.”

Mikoto is giving me very pitiful puppy eyes. I give in almost instantly. What else am I meant to do? Say no to a ten-year-old I just kicked in the face?

We enter the infirmary and I go over my plan of attack. How does one approach a grieving, ten-year-old jinchuriki? 

—

This is a stupid idea. 

The bag of takeout in my hand sways with every step as I get closer to the Senju compound, and I know I’ve got a look of disgruntled determination on my face. 

Step. Step. Step. Crinkle goes the plastic bag. I wonder where they produce plastic in the shinobi nations. 

I come to a stop at the gate, because there’s a new, bored-looking chunin at the front of it. Before, it would have been a Senju clan member, but there’s fewer and fewer of them every year, and not enough to justify keeping someone at the gate at all times. 

So they outsource to random chunin. 

“Halt, what’s your business in this compound?” the chunin asks, and man does he look like he needs entertainment. He’s practically dozing where he’s leaned against the wall. 

I suppose not much happens in front of the Senju compound, and few people go in or out. Thus, bored chunin. 

“I’m here to visit my friend, Uzumaki Kushina,” I state. I wonder if the food is getting cold. I hope it’s not cold. I can smell it from the bag and the ramen is making me super hungry. 

The chunin straightens up and frowns. He’s unassuming, black haired and brown eyed. 

“Uzumaki Kushina isn’t to have visitors right now,” the chunin says dully. 

“Why?” 

It’s a dangerous question to ask in a shinobi village, but for Kushina? It’s worth it. 

“Because her entire clan was just killed, you oblivious brat,” the chunin says blandly, like I’m stupid. 

“No, I understand that,” I counter with a wave of my hand. “I mean, who ordered you to keep her from getting visitors?”

Did Kushina ask for this? Or did some meddling adult decide for her?

The chunin’s eyes get narrower. 

“Watch your tone. I don’t have to tell you who ordered me, so scurry along and visit later.”

Are we having two separate conversations right now? What’s happening? Where am I?

I glance around. The streets around us are relatively uncrowded, and nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Just clear skies and an asshole impeding my way to my friend. 

“No. I will not be. Why are you so on edge right now? I’m just an academy student,” I say, turning my face into oblivious confusion. 

Why is he getting defensive? If it didn’t matter who ordered him, he could just tell me. He’s the vision of a bored, mostly paper focused chunin. Those types love lording information over others and deferring to hierarchies. 

I get a whiff of sake and fresh tilled earth in the wind and turn to look behind me. 

Slowly ambling up the road towards us is Tsunade the Sannin. 

The chunin tenses, shoulders setting and feet widening just so. I smell something clinging to his chakra as it rolls uneasily. Fear. It’s salty. 

Unprofessional. How did he even get promoted with such obvious tells?

“Tsunade-sama!” I call out in greeting, waving at her. 

Tsunade squints her eyes at me as she gets closer, then seems to sigh. 

“Shina-chan’s rival. What are you doing loitering at my gates?” Tsunade asks, arms crossing. She’s wearing her jonin fatigues and looks like she’s been sparring, from the singe on her vest and the dirt clinging to her fists. 

“The guard says Kushina can’t have any visitors,” I parrot dutifully, then blink, as if remembering something, and turn to the guard. “What’s your name, chunin-san?”

Chunin-san looks like he wants to do anything but say his name in front of a Sannin. A pity. Maybe he shouldn’t be doing things at the Senju compound without the express consent of the Senju clan head. 

Tsunade comes to a stop beside me, looking irritated. 

“Yes, what’s your name?” Tsunade asks, tapping her manicured nails on her arm. They’ve held up very impressively considering she must have been punching boulders or something earlier. 

“Muto Koji,” the chunin replies. His eyes are nervously looking to Tsunade and away. Do they give just anyone a chunin promotion these days? I know the war is bad, but this is silly. He could at least have the dignity to pretend he’s collected.

“You’re dismissed, Muto Koji. Get the fuck off my property,” Tsunade orders with a flick of her hand, like swatting a bug. She looks like a princess right now, even covered in dirt. 

Muto Koji opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again , and then mercifully puts himself out of his misery and shunshins away. 

“Someone was paying him to do that,” I observe mildly, kicking one of the falling leaves now on the ground. “Someone high up enough that they could force him not to mention the name.”

I have my own ideas for who that could be. 

Let’s play a game called “Is it Danzo or the Hokage”, in which no one wins and only disappointment follows. It's probably Danzo, but the Sandaime did leave Naruto to rot by himself. 

He wouldn’t bother with subterfuge though. So Danzo. Definitely Danzo. 

“That’s adult business, you freaky little brat,” Tsunade grunts, grabbing me by the shoulder and walking me into the compound. 

Adult business until I get a headband in a few months. 

“I’m not freaky, am I?” I ask with genuine curiosity. “Definitely a little brat, but freaky seems out of character.”

Tsunade ignores me. “What’s in the bag?”

I lift the takeout bag and shake it a little. “Ramen. I figure Shina could use some of her favorite food right now.”

Tsunade frowns and looks away from me. There’s something violent brewing in her eyes, and—

Is that killing intent? I can feel it. An oppressive danger. The low rumble of a coming earthquake. The smell of it makes me breath in deep, air filling my lungs and the taste of iron just touching my tongue.

It’s not directed at me. 

“Yeah. She could use that right now,” Tsunade says instead of whatever else she’s thinking. 

I stare at her for a second. Take a guess at what she may be thinking and my mouth moves before I can stop it. 

“They’re your cousins too, Tsunade-sama. It’s alright if you need time to work through what happened as well.” 

Tsunade looks down at me sharply, and there’s danger in her eyes. Like a caged animal much bigger than me, and it knows it. 

There’s a little switch in most shinobi’s brains that they turn on and off. Trained killer here to reap death and destruction, and the human they are when they’re not doing it. Tsunade’s switch seems to be at the halfway mark. 

I’m not afraid. Fear does nothing for you in the face of death. I would know.

“Stay in your lane, kid, before I teach you how to,” Tsunade says threateningly, but her hand doesn’t tighten on my shoulder. I wonder if the bones of it feel tiny under her fingers, like a bird’s.

“Anger is justified in a time of great sorrow, Tsunade-sama.” I ignore the threat and reach up to gently pat her hand on my shoulder. The Senju compound is so quiet despite being full of homes and it being the afternoon. How many cousins has Tsunade lost these past few years? Just on her Senju side, and now her Uzumaki ones. 

No wonder she leaves the village when Dan dies. That would be my last straw too. 

Tsunade works her jaw for a second, and the killing intent washes away in the breeze, like it was never there at all. 

“You’re going to be a problem when you grow up,” Tsunade comments, looking very displeased. “Like if a Yamanaka, a Nara, and an Uchiha had a fucked up little baby.” 

I laugh, because life is too short not to laugh. Tsunade grumbles about children and we stop at the front of Kushina’s house. It was Mito’s house, but now I suppose it’s just Kushina’s.

My heart aches. One little girl in a big house, all alone.

“Are you coming with me?” I ask quietly, at risk of Kushina hearing. 

Tsunade lifts her hand from my shoulder like she’s being burned. 

“Absolutely not. Good luck,” Tsunade says, before fleeing like a coward. 

I frown at her retreating back. She’s twenty-three. Or is she twenty-four, now? She should be doing this. Not me. 

Something in me still whispers that that’s too young. In a better world Tsunade would be in college right now, drinking and partying and hopefully untouched by violence. 

I shake my head with a sigh, turning back to the door and knocking. People in Konoha are generally poorly adjusted to most social situations that don’t involve hitting people or drinking. This is to be expected. Honestly, more than a few people in my past life had similar problems and less excuses as to why.

I don’t blame Tsunade for running. But she is the last family Kushina has, bar a few elderly Senju cousins already retired from the forces. 

“Kushina!” I call into the Hashirama wood door, knocking again. “It’s Seiko! Can I come in?”

There’s a long pause, then the faint sound of footsteps that finally stop at the door. 

It opens. 

Kushina looks like shit. 

Red hair drapes lankly over her shoulders like she hasn’t showered since she heard the news, and she has puffy eyes like she’s just been crying. 

She’s in a comfortable pair of ramen printed pajamas. They look old, and probably are also what she was wearing when she evacuated if the grass stains at the bottom of the pants are to be believed. 

Oh Kushina . I’m so sorry. 

“I don’t want to train today, Seiko,” Kushina says with a scratchy voice, looking at me with exhaustion wearing down at her bones. 

“Good.” I lift up the takeout bag. “We’re eating, not training.”

It still feels warm. I’m glad the gate guard didn’t delay me too much. 

Kushina stares at the takeout bag and swallows, her stomach making a loud rumbling noise. 

“Ramen?” Kushina asks weakly, hopeful. 

“Your favorite. Pork ramen from that stand you like,” I say with a nod. “Can I come in, Shina-tan?”

Kushina’s nose wrinkles at the nickname but sighs deeply, moving to the side so I can walk into the dark house. 

“Has no one checked on you since the evacuation?” I ask as I step through the threshold. I’ve only been inside Kushina’s house a few times, mostly because she lived with Uzumaki Mito and it just wasn’t ok to let random academy kids near her. 

Now she’s gone. 

“Hokage-sama told me what happened at—“ Kushina shudders, voice breaking. “What happened to— to my clan, dattebane.”

Those fuckers. Did they just leave her to handle everything else on her own?

I set down the bag of food onto the dining room table, a big ornate thing made for much more impressive dinners than what Kushina and I will be eating. 

I turn to Kushina, looking her over again and again. Alive. Alive and miserable.

“Do you want a hug, Kushina?” I ask bluntly, because sometimes bluntness is necessary. 

In a blink I’ve got an armful of sobbing jinchuriki, and her chakra is rolling like there’s a storm in her. Ships sinking and great big salty waves.

My sensor abilities are always sharper when I’m touching someone. I press my face into the side of Kushina’s head with a sigh as she cries into my shoulder. It’s hard to ignore how much closer the Kyuubi feels to the surface of her when she’s emotional like this, but I do my best. Acknowledging things like that can attract attention. 

“I— I miss Mito-baa-chan,” Kushina whimpers into my shirt, fat tears soaking the fabric of it. “Why am I alone? Why did they all die?”

I grip her tighter, throat aching and eyes starting to sting. What do I even tell her? That the other villages wanted to press Konoha’s hand into surrendering? What does that even matter? Thousands of people are dead. 

“You’re not alone,” I say instead, voice cracking. Why isn’t an adult here with her, helping her through this? “I’m here right now, Kushina, and some of your family could have escaped.”

Some of them do escape, for all the good it does Kushina. She may never meet these survivors. The last Uzumaki of Konoha. 

Kushina jerks back, grips the side of my arms with sudden strength. Her face is blotchy from tears but there’s something determined in her violet eyes. 

“We’re going to find them!” Kushina declares, red hair raising on her head a little. Her chakra is a live wire, begging for something to be used on. “When we become ninja we’re going to find the rest of my family and bring them home, dattebane! And we’re going to kill anybody who gets in our way!”

Will we? Can we do a better job than the tracker teams trying to locate survivors right now?

Well. I do have a very good sense of smell, and I’m a sensor. I suppose if we end up on a team together we can figure something out. Even if we don’t, you can team up with whoever for missions once you hit chunin, and that promotion will be a piece of cake. If Muto Koji can manage it, and I’ll be remembering his name for a long long while, so can I.

Ah, fuck it. I don’t have any real life plans besides making it to twenty. Why not dedicate myself to Kushina’s dream?

“We will,” I say just as Kushina starts wilting from my silence, nodding. “We’re going to bring your family home.”

We’ll probably need to get the ones that were kidnapped into other villages while we’re still at war, so it doesn’t cause an international incident. 

Kushina’s hands squeeze my arms and a big watery grin splits her face. “We’re gonna be unstoppable, dattebane.”

We eat the ramen I brought while I tell Kushina what she’s missed at school. Apparently someone’s been dropping her homework off for her at her porch, but she hasn’t done any of it yet. 

“You should take a shower, Kushina, then we can work on your homework,” I say after she finishes her food. I’m only about halfway through my own ramen. Kushina is a much faster eater than me. 

Kushina looks a lot more alive now than she did earlier, if still prone to bouts of solemn silence.

“Fine,” Kushina mutters, pushing herself from her seat and standing. “You can’t leave while I’m gone, alright? I’ll be right back!”

I nod easily, slurping up some noodles and swallowing. “‘Course, Shina. I wouldn’t leave you here alone. That’d be rude.”

And I’m worried she isn’t going to take care of herself if I leave. I’ll need to tell Mikoto about what was happening with the gate guard tomorrow, and we’ll both have to do our best to keep an eye on Kushina. Someone wants her isolated and that just won’t do.

Kushina is my rival, and more importantly, my friend. Nobody gets to leave her to rot in her sorrow. I won’t let them.

Kushina hurries away, shouting about how fast she is. I offer a comment about how washing yourself probably shouldn’t be too fast. Kushina doesn’t dignify me with a response. 

I lean back from the table and look around the fine dining room. Paintings of nature line the walls, along with Senju and Uzumaki crests. There’s even an Uchiwa beside one of the Senju paintings. 

I shut my eyes, and breathe. 

Kushina isn’t the type to say she’s going to do things and forget, not when it’s paired with an emotional outburst. Before, she wanted to be the first female Hokage. Now? 

Uzushiogakure’s people lie scattered and battered. The Uzumaki clan, the clan that made up the majority of their population, may be wiped out almost completely. 

I have a lot of thinking and planning to do, I suppose. If Kushina wants this then I’m going to need to make sure it happens in a way that doesn’t get the both of us killed. Hopefully we’ll be on the same team and have a sensei that’s useful. 

Maybe an Uchiha sensei? Controlling the nine tails will be important in case Kushina loses control. 

…something about that thought makes my brain itch. Like a piece of a puzzle just clicked into place, but I’m not sure which puzzle it is.

Regardless!

I’ll need to focus on information gathering as a skillset. I’m already middlingly good at it, thanks to the work I’ve done to be memorable but unremarkable these past few years. Charming my way into knowing where any wayward redheads are will be essential for the plan. Whatever plan that this will end up being, besides “Bring Kushina’s family home.”

I open my eyes and take another bite of my ramen. Distantly I hear water running through the pipes in the house. I hope Kushina isn’t actually rushing herself, cleanliness is important. 

Ugh. Whatever. I’m not her mom. 

—

What was supposed to be a short visit to figure out how Kushina was doing has turned into a sleepover. I can’t find it in myself to be annoyed. 

“Are you going to school tomorrow?” I ask Kushina, having changed into a pair of her pajamas and now flipping through one of her books. Cartoon narutomaki fish cakes line my pants. This girl really is obsessed with ramen.

Kushina makes a face. She looks much better now that she's showered and changed clothes. She’s brushing her hair, though it looks more like she’s getting in a fight with the brush. And losing. 

“Do I have to?” Kushina asks, whining a little. At least she has a reasonable excuse for whining.

“No,” I respond simply, flipping a page of the book. It’s an adventure novel, and it feels vaguely familiar. The main character is named Naruto, too—

I pause, turning to look at the back of the book. 

‘By Jiraiya, the Toad Sage’

Oh. 

Uzumaki Naruto gets named after this book. I flip to the front again and reread the title. The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi . Eugh. He would’ve sold more copies if he had named it better. 

“Are you reading that book Tsu-oba gave me?” Kushina asks suddenly, pausing her battle with her brush to peer over at it. “Is it any good? Apparently her pervert teammate wrote it, so I didn’t bother.”

“It’s pretty good,” I murmur, distracted as I open back to the page I was on. The man’s prose is good for a first book. “When did it come out?”

Kushina clams up, looking away. 

“Just before the summer break. Tsu-oba said it would keep me busy while…”

I frown.

“Don’t worry about it, Shina-tan. I don’t need to know. Plausible deniability is good.”

I don’t doubt Kushina has had an ANBU assigned to her ever since she got the fluffy problem. I’d rather not get dragged off for an interrogation with the Hokage. 

Kushina looks over at me, wide eyed. 

“Plausible dene—deniability means you know!” she hisses, stumbling over the word deniability. It makes sense. She’s ten.

“I don’t know anything. I’m just a normal academy student who is oblivious to my surroundings and who can hit very hard. Nothing interesting to see here.” I reach over and carefully remove her brush from her thick crimson hair. Kushina sputters.

“You’re making fun of me!” Kushina hisses, grabbing my wrist as I brandish the brush, scooting over on the bed to help her with her hair. 

I remember a lifetime ago my hair was as long as hers and just as thick, and taking care of it was a task I didn’t master until well into highschool. Maybe I’m not that girl anymore, and I become less like her with every year that passes, but I did learn a thing or two.

“I’m making fun of your brushing skills, maybe, but everyone starts somewhere,” I say contemplatively, attempting to work away at the knot in her hair with my fingers. It’s a task that requires patience, something Kushina needs to work on. 

“Mito-obaa-chan used to help me,” Kushina admits quietly, looking away from me. 

My hands don’t pause in their mission to vanquish her knots, gentle and precise.

“Best thing to do when you have a knot like this is to slowly run your fingers through it,” I instruct as the tangle loosens. “If that doesn’t work, then you can get some conditioner and work it into the problem area. That makes the hair easier to work with.”

“How do you know this stuff?” Kushina asks. “Your hair is short.”

“My hair was long when I lived at the orphanage. The matrons wouldn’t let me cut it,” I say honestly. It’s true, my hair was long back in the orphanage, down to my mid back. I chopped it off the day they gave me an apartment, by myself. No neighbor needed.

It was pretty hair. Now it’s gone. Good riddance. 

Maybe when I’m older and as strong as a Sannin I’ll bother growing it out. Unlikely, but I could. 

“Did you know your parents?” Kushina asks suddenly. 

“No. My mother died when I was two. I don’t know who my father is, it’s not on my paperwork.”

“So he could be alive?” Kushina sounds curious at the prospect. A secret father out there, waiting for me. 

“Maybe. He’s probably dead, though, or a civilian.” Or an enemy shinobi. I don’t say that aloud. Better not to put things on my dear dead mother who can’t defend herself. 

Honestly I’d prefer a missing nin father over a civilian. The sexism with civilians is notably worse right now, not that the ninjas are much better. And I don’t want some random man thinking he’s in charge of what I do just because he got my mom pregnant. I’d have to do something drastic.

“My parents are dead,” Kushina says bluntly. I finally work my fingers through the knot and bring up the brush to run it through her hair. “My tou-san died before I came to Konoha, and my kaa-san died when I was really young.”

Orphans. So many orphans. We should start a club. 

“I like imagining that I’ll just make a family of friends when I get older. That I don’t need parents if I can just find people I like on my own,” I comment idly, the sort of thing I never say aloud. The brush goes through Kushina’s hair and outside the moon is rising. 

“We can be family, then. Along with Mikoto-chan, and even that mean Yamanaka you like so much,” Kushina says, fidgeting with her hands before grabbing a pillow to hug to herself. 

“What about Minato?” I ask with a giggle. Arguably she’ll like him as family most. 

Kushina makes a grossed out noise. I laugh properly now. 

“Do we have to? He’s annoying,” Kushina whines. 

“I think you’ll both be good friends one day.”

No way me being here would change that. Butterfly wings or not, why would I have the ability to keep them apart? Not like either of them will be dating me instead. 

A problem for my teenage years when the hormones start brewing. Provided I live that long.

I hope I do. I’ve started getting excited about the future, lately. Suppose letting myself stop pretending to be a normal child will do that. Real good for the old mental health.

Kushina’s hair gets fully brushed and I end up laying beside her in her bed. No futon, go me! Futons are easier to make and store, but a proper bed is always going to feel better on my back. 

The light is turned off, and I go through my nightly routine of running through hand signs while staring at the ceiling. Thinking. 

“You look so creepy right now,” Kushina grumbles, eyeing my fast moving hands. 

“Creepy is better than slow,” I hum agreeably. 

We both end up late for school in the morning, oversleeping. Kushina’s sharp knees make my back ache. It’s worth it.  

Chapter Text

Uchiha Ryuu

Uchiha Ryuu does not kneel before his Hokage. 

Not because he doesn’t wish to, but because the man’s student would rip his arms off and beat him with them if he aggravates the injury she just fixed. 

“Hokage-sama,” Ryuu intones, bowing his head. The crutches under his arms dig into his armpits and his entire body is sore. But he copes.

“Ryuu,” Sarutobi Hiruzen says in greeting. He takes a puff from his pipe, eyeing Ryuu’s form. “How is your leg?”

Ryuu meets his old friend’s eye and makes a face that has the other man laughing. 

“It has been reattached thanks to the skills of your student.”

Along with his own quick thinking to put the appendage into a storage scroll. If he had taken even an hour longer to return to Konoha…

Well. It doesn’t matter now. He survived and had his limb reattached with only a scar to show for it. And, most importantly, the mission was successful. Even Lord Second would have approved of Ryuu’s showing. 

“And the recovery time?” Hiruzen continues. 

“Two to four months. Tsunade-hime was very insistent that I not be assigned anything more physically taxing than a D-Rank in the meantime.”

It’s inconvenient, but it’s what must be done. He’s getting on in his years now, few active shinobi in his clan live to see forty like he will in a few months. He has to care for his body more now than when he was a young man. 

Though he isn’t eager to be subjected to the elders' needling that he remarries. He already tried to give them brats to turn into shinobi twice, and twice his wives passed on the childbed. He won’t kill any more excellent kunoichi over something as foolish as legacy. It’s wasteful.

And marrying a civilian is out of the question. He doesn’t know how to be what those creatures want and isn’t interested in trying. They deserve a man whose hands are less dirty.

“I have a mission for you. One that will, hopefully, be no more taxing than a D-Rank.” Hiruzen takes another draw of his infernal pipe, turns and blows the smoke in an exhale. That’s the nastiest habit he picked up from Lord Second. Ryuu wants to hit him over the head with the pipe everytime he sees him using it.

“The new Jinchuriki,” Hiruzen starts. 

Ryuu wishes to look skyward for patience. He doesn’t. It’s a close thing.

“The beast has been sealed within her for a month now, but I wish to have extra precaution in case of any incidents that could occur at the academy. Jiraiya assures me that the seals, though new, will hold, but I do not wish to risk her classmates unnecessarily,” Hiruzen explains, setting down his pipe and laying his hands flat on his large desk. 

“You wish for me to use the mangekyo on a child,” Ryuu says bluntly. He dislikes beating around the bush. Hiruzen knows what Ryuu’s skillset is. There is no other reason he would involve him in this.

“To protect her, should the Kyuubi overcome her defenses,” Hiruzen replies. He looks exhausted. Ryuu doesn’t envy his friend’s position as Hokage.

“Hn,” Ryuu grunts, thinking. 

They both sit in silence for a moment, Hiruzen recognizing Ryuu’s need to think before speaking.

“And under what capacity would I be near the girl? You can’t make me her academy sensei.”

A sheepish sort of smile grows on Hiruzen’s tanned face, and Ryuu truly wants to hit him with his pipe now. 

“I am a jonin ,” Ryuu states harshly. 

“Allowances can be made for extenuating circumstances,” Hiruzen says with a small nod. 

Ryuu glances away, takes in the room they stand within as if looking for the signs of a genjutsu. The potted plants by the back windows are just as they were weeks ago, as are all of the paintings on the paneled wooden walls. Ryuu can see that the portraits of the first and second Hokages are still there. Staring at him in judgment. 

Even the wooden floor is the same, though Ryuu spots a new bloodstain before the Hokage’s desk. A very recent one if it hasn’t been stripped from the wood yet. 

No genjutsu, no trick. He supposes he could flash his sharingan to be sure, but he has no wish for the ANBU in the ceiling to get nervous. 

Ryuu looks back at Hiruzen.

“How long?” Ryuu asks through gritted teeth. This is a mission he cannot refuse, even if he were in the habit of ignoring the Hokage’s orders. Ryuu is the most experienced sharingan user Hiruzen has on hand. He cannot leave such a task to foolish teenagers desperate to prove themselves. 

“Just until the academy school year is done. I have other arrangements for her genin team.” Hiruzen looks just a little bit pleading now. It’s unbecoming of a Hokage. 

“Wipe that look off your face, Hiruzen, you are a Hokage. You needn’t beg,” Ryuu says before he can stop himself, glaring at the man. 

Hiruzen picks up his pipe and takes a puff of it, looking away. Four years older than Ryuu and still acting like a child. Were this fifteen years ago, Ryuu would drag him by the collar of his shirt to a training ground for such a display.

“Unbelievable. Must you smoke? The room smells so much of tobacco I thought Lord Second had returned from the grave. Stop damaging yourself,” Ryuu demands, scowling. Maybe he should drag the man to his wife instead, he knows Biwako hates that he picked up the habit. 

Hiruzen sighs and picks up a mission scroll on his desk, tossing it to Ryuu. Ryuu catches it just a little slower than he usually would. Irritating, but physical rehab will fix such problems.

“The details are within the mission scroll, Ryuu. I think you will enjoy this mission, even if it’s different from your usual fare.”

His usual fare being turning the battlefield into a bloodied pile of corpses.

“What is there to enjoy about babysitting?” Ryuu says dubiously, adjusting his stance and his crutches so that he can open the scroll and skim its contents. 

“It is an interesting bunch, this year. The jinchuriki has made a rival that I think you will find particularly entertaining.”

There is nothing interesting or entertaining about a ten year old. 

—

“The brat’s file is inaccurate, Hiruzen,” Ryuu hisses through his teeth the second he walks through the doors, glaring at his Hokage.

It’s the first day of his new assignment and what does he get? A headache. A massive, pounding headache and the inherited incompetence of previous chunin teachers. 

“Which one?” Hiruzen asks, not looking up from some paper or other. Sloppy. What if Ryuu were an imposter?

“The prodigal orphan, you know which one.” Ryuu stops at the front of Hiruzen’s desk and drops the offensive file on top of whatever it is he was working on. Hiruzen sighs. Ryuu feels no remorse. 

“There are two very promising clanless orphans in Uzumaki Kushina’s class, Ryuu.”

“And only one recognized that I was a jonin, and immediately deduced it was your doing that I was placed there. Did you know that she’s a sensor? Her previous teachers had no idea.” Ryuu is honestly aghast that such a student has remained in the academy for so long. She should be on a genin team by now, not loitering in the academy.

“She had been intentionally hiding her intelligence,” Hiruzen says grimly, looking up at Ryuu with a frown. Ryuu traces the bags beneath his eyes and the wrinkles forming around his mouth. Compares the image to how his friend looked years ago in his mind’s eye. “She wished to avoid early graduation and used underperformance to get her way. I have corrected the behavior.”

“Personally?” Ryuu asks. He saw that she had visited the Hokage in the year previous for some sort of reprimand on the file, but that was all. No details on the reason or what the reprimand entailed. 

“Her previous sensei is a godson of mine,” Hiruzen murmurs, looking away, dark eyes going distant with thought. “He requested that I speak with her about intentionally losing fights. Taro-kun thought that perhaps seeing the Hokage would scare her into the straight and narrow.”

Hiruzen chuckles, looking back at Ryuu. “Evidently she had been doing more than intentionally losing fights. Tell me, what have you noticed about her?”

“She reminds me of Orochimaru-kun if the boy had more social graces at that age,” Ryuu says with a frown. “Sharp observational skills and sharper logical deductions. Is she a Nara bastard?”

“It’s unlikely. Shikadaen-sama already made an inquiry, and as far as her records are concerned her mother was not close to any Nara.” 

“Regardless, she is wasted at the academy. She mastered the henge in a day last year, and I observed her practicing the other academy three after school. With her sensor abilities she will likely grow into a formidable ninjutsu user,” Ryuu continues with a shake of his head. “We can’t afford to ignore resources like this, Hiruzen.”

Ryuu’s healing leg aches and he readjusts his stance just so to keep more pressure off of it. Damn him for not dodging that Kiri nin’s blade, and damn him further for not killing the woman faster.

“You sound like Danzo,” Hiruzen comments idly, eyes unerring from Ryuu’s face. Ryuu looks at him sharply.

“Don’t compare me to that fool.”

Shimura Danzo. Ryuu’s cousin Kagami may have liked his teammate, but he’s dead, and Ryuu has no patience left to play nice with Shimura. The man overreaches with his connections to Hiruzen, and that nasty program he’s started within ANBU is a clear display of the man’s desperation for acknowledgement. 

Shimura begs for the attention of a dead man even seventeen years after he’s died. It’s embarrassing.

“During my meeting with her she asked to graduate with her peers. She did not look like she expected me to grant it to her, either,” Hiruzen says finally, leaning back in his chair. “Do you know what she told me?”

Ryuu waves a hand for him to go on. 

“ It’s not your fault, Hokage-sama. You inherited this conflict, just like I have, ” Hiruzen quotes gravely. Ryuu is shocked that he can remember the exact words a child told him almost a year ago. “She is my son’s age, Ryuu. How can I send her to fight before she feels ready?”

“A frog that never leaps from its lilypad never learns to swim.”

“And this frog only asked for another year. I will give it to her. It is what Lord First would have wanted.”

Ryuu looks away, eyeing the paneling of the wall instead of looking at his friend’s face. How can he disagree with that? Hiruzen was one of the second Hokage’s genin students. He would know.

The clock on the wall ticks quietly. The second hand moving with slow certainty. 

“Observe her friendship with young Kushina, Ryuu, and her other peers. You will understand my judgment,” Hiruzen says finally, and there’s the sound of papers being shuffled. Ryuu catches the student’s file flying towards him without looking. 

“Hn.”

—

Seiko

Life is actually a bit better now that I have concrete life plans. 

Before it was more wishy washy, a lot of doing whatever seems fun at the time and just hoping it leads to me living longer. Befriend as many people in as broad of positions as possible, practice chakra control, go through kata until my brain is melting. 

Now? 

“We should figure out what Ryuu-sensei’s deal is, dattebane!” Kushina announces at lunch between Mikoto and I. 

Ayako, who has taken the spot at my other side with great narrow eyed consideration, scoffs at Kushina. 

“What his deal is? What do you mean by that?” Ayako asks, frowning. She hasn’t appreciated her spot next to me in class being supplanted by Kushina and Minato. I’ve done my best to smooth over any ruffled feathers, but she’s ten, and ten year olds can be possessive.

“I mean he’s not supposed to be teaching us, right?” Kushina presses forward, scowling and glaring at Ayako. “He’s a jonin, that means he’s got other cool ninja shit he’s supposed to be doing instead.”

Like killing people. And killing more people. 

Mikoto makes a distressed noise in the back of her throat. “Language, Kushina-chan.”

“Shit, balls, fu—” Kushina repeats loudly. Mikoto claps a hand over her mouth looking a bit mortified. Some of our classmates have turned to look over at us where we’re perched under the shade of a large oak tree. 

Such a creative vocabulary already.

The clouds have covered the sun enough to make the heat bearable. I can’t wait until autumn finally starts, even if that also means the rain will be back. 

“So you want to find out why he’s teaching us?” I ask, watching Kushina pounce on Mikoto as the girl keeps a hand firmly clasped on her, now shouting, face. 

Kushina makes a muffled noise that sounds like an affirmative. Mikoto knees her in the stomach and she slumps on top of the Uchiha. 

“You’re so heavy!” Mikoto complains, black hair frizzy from the sudden wrestling match. 

Kushina makes more muffled noises, this time insulting. 

I turn to Ayako, who’s watching the fight with a disgusted face. She turns to me and jerks her head towards the two girls as if to say “Is this really who you want to hang out with?”

I shrug. Ayako sighs deeply and with feeling. I take another bite of my curry. Akimichi Jiro gave me his mom’s recipe a week ago and it’s so delicious. 

“It could be good practice for information gathering,” I decide to comment, if only because Ayako will get behind it that way. 

And it’s true. Figuring out what my sensei’s deal is could be good training. He’s a friendly in our village and I already have tons of people I could in theory ask about him, so it’s low stakes. 

Hm. I’ll have to be careful about it, though. Asking around about a specific jonin would be suspicious. Maybe I’ll frame it as an interest in significant jonin generally and mix in questions about the Sannin and other popular figures.

“What do you know about him, Mikoto-chan?” I ask, watching as Mikoto shoves Kushina off of her with an elbow, panting. Not with exertion, we’re baby ninja and have better endurance than that, but because she’s flustered. Mikoto turns to look at me, blinking rapidly. 

“Who?” Mikoto asks, breathless.

“Ryuu-sensei,” Ayako repeats for me a bit too snidely. I reach over and flick her ear, ignoring her squawk of disapproval. 

“He’s in your clan, Mikoto-chan. What do you know about him?” I ask again, watching Mikoto run her fingers through her raven black hair and think. 

“He’s a very accomplished jonin,” Mikoto starts, quietly. “A first war veteran, and my kaa-san was very pleased that he’s teaching our class.”

“My okaa-san said the same. He has connections with the Hokage, and okaa-san said to treat him with respect.” Ayako looks a little more invested in the conversation as she speaks. 

Connections with the Hokage, huh? That explains who may have ordered him into being at the academy. 

My brain itches for a second, some unknown clue boring into my skull.

“If he’s super strong, how come he got injured?” Kushina asks from where she’s laying on the grass beside Mikoto, not bothering to get up after being shoved away. There’s blades of grass in her crimson hair now.

“Strong people get injured and die all the time,” I say contemplatively, wishing I had my notebook with me so I could make a list. “We should make a list of things we need to learn about him, like this is a real mission.”

Kushina perks up, grinning. “Yes! We should learn why he’s got crutches, dattebane.”

“His specialization may be important,” Mikoto adds. 

“I’d like to know how he knows the Hokage,” Ayako says primly. 

I sigh, standing from my spot on the grass. “I’m running back to class to get my notebook so we can write this down. Give me a minute and talk about what other info we may need.”

I’m jogging away before any of them can get up to try and come with me. I think Ayako needs some time alone with Kushina and Mikoto. Maybe working together will teach her to play nice. 

She’s usually pretty nice to Mikoto, so maybe Kushina is why she’s so touchy all of a sudden?

Is she jealous? Maybe she’s jealous. I’ll try and get her to talk about her feelings after we get started on this impromptu information gathering mission.

I go through the doors of the academy and start towards the stairs up to our classroom.

—

The list goes as follows:

• Age

• Specialty

• Chakra Nature Type

• Notable military accomplishments

• Why was he injured?

• Why has he been assigned to our class?

• What is his relationship to the Hokage?

• What is his favorite food?

• Is he married?

Is it the most professional of dossiers? No. But we’re ten. I don’t need to know too much about what the hell my jonin teacher is up to or his secret techniques. I have no interest in attracting his ire. He’s scary.

I stare down at the list as we start class back up again, Ryuu-sensei lecturing up front about protocol for body scrolls. It’s pretty grim stuff. 

A finger taps the side of my notebook, entering my vision. I cast a subtle glance to my left where Minato sits, and he gives me a questioning look, tapping the notebook again silently. 

I lift my pencil and write subtly on the corner of my paper so he can see. 

‘It’s for Ryuu-sensei. We’re training info-gathering.’

Minato blinks, pale eyebrows lifting in surprise. 

“—those with bloodline-limits must be prioritized when retrieving bodies. Other villages can and will steal the bodies of your comrades to be used against you in the future,” Ryuu-sensei continues up front. 

He’s right, but still. Disheartening to hear if you’re not a clan kid. 

“Seiko-kun,” Ryuu-sensei says suddenly, and I turn to look at my frowning teacher, noting how he’s glancing between both me and Minato. Busted for being distracted.

“Yes, Sensei?” I intone automatically. 

“Why do we prioritize the bodies of those with bloodline limits?” Ryuu-sensei asks.

How odd to hear that question from a man with a sharingan. Sure hope I don’t answer wrong.

“Enemies can harvest genetic material to steal bloodlines,” I say bluntly. “Though most often they will steal the eyes of dojutsu users to implant into their own shinobi. That’s why Uchiha and Hyuuga usually cremate their dead, right?” 

“Correct. What do you do if a body scroll is not available, and you have a fallen comrade with a dojutsu?” Ryuu-sensei asks. I don’t remember him going over this yet. 

Well. I’ll just go for the most logical answer. 

“Cremate or otherwise destroy the corpse unless the comrade expressed they wanted their dojutsu returned to their family.” 

God, I hope none of my Uchiha friends ever die, and especially not near me. I’m worried the curse of your Uchiha friends giving you their eyes is contagious and I do not want the Uchiha and Hyuuga begging for my blood. 

“Hn.” And with that, Ryuu-sensei returns to his lecture and turns back to the board. 

Minato gently touches my arm, and I look back at him, seeing him point to the corner of his own notebook.

‘Can I help?’ is written in Minato’s neat script. 

I give him a small thumbs up. A new asset is always good. Kushina may complain, but she’ll get over it.

Minato grins brightly, and with us so close together I can feel his chakra rushing like a refreshing breeze. Bright blue eyes squinting and his cheeks squished. 

Despite myself I grin back. It’s a contagious look. 

—

“You’d better not mess this up, Blondie, or I’ll kick your ass!”

Kushina reacts about as well as I expected. 

Together we all loiter at the ramen stand by the academy. I’m bracketed in by Minato and Kushina (much to Ayako’s annoyance) and get to be the buffer between the future married couple. 

“Can you threaten to kick his ass later? I’m between the both of you and think I may get hit in the crossfire,” I mutter, reaching up and grabbing Kushina’s pointing arm where it’s stretched out in front of me, aiming at Minato.

“I promise I’ll do my best, Kushina-chan,” Minato says with a smile. 

“What do you have against blondes?” Ayako adds from where she sits at Minato’s other side, pouting. 

I press Kushina’s arm back to her side and give Jurou, the cook behind the counter, a smile when he sets my bowl of ramen before me. 

“Thank you, Jurou-oji! Sorry if we’re being loud,” I chirp politely. 

“Oh, it’s no problem, Seiko-chan. It’s good to see young people excited.” Jurou waves me off. He’s an older man, probably around his fifties to early sixties. And he makes such good ramen.

Everyone gets their food laid out before them, which silences most of our group’s bickering for a second. Kushina immediately begins stuffing her face. 

“So. What’s our plan?” Mikoto asks beside Kushina, looking around her to stare at me. 

“Each of us should collect as much information on the target as we can. Mikoto, you should focus on clan specific sources. Get your elders talking about him if you can, they’ll have the most information,” I explain, cracking my disposable chopsticks apart and rubbing them together, in case there’s splinters. “Keep the list of information in mind, but if you can get extra info, write that down too.”

Mikoto nods seriously, turning to write something down in her school notebook. 

“Remember not to write anything down in front of anyone, of course. We don’t want people to know we’re bothering people about our sensei’s personal life. Make sure to sprinkle in other jonin to ask about so no one realizes our true target,” I continue, before stopping to take a bite of my beef ramen. 

It smells so good and it tastes even better. I think I could die right now and be happy. 

“W’ike who?” Kushina asks through a mouthful of ramen noodles. 

“The Sannin, the White Fang Hatake Sakumo, just any jonin you’ve heard the names of before who are cool,” I say after swallowing my own food. Sage I’m so hungry. Puberty is about to be in full swing and I can tell because my stomach feels endless.

“I can ask Tsu-oba about him,” Kushina says suddenly, looking over at me with hopeful eyes. 

“That may help us understand what his relationship to the Hokage is.” I nod, grinning. 

“Right, dattebane! ‘Cause Tsu-oba’s sensei is the Hokage! And I’ll ask some of the old Senju lazing around the compound.” 

“I’ll ask my cousins about him,” Ayako offers, and I turn to look at her. She has a thoughtful look on her little face, tapping her chin with white painted fingernails. “Not my okaa-san though. She’ll know that I’m up to something.”

Horrifying. The less Yamanaka Inoyuu knows about what we’re doing the better. 

“What about me?” Minato asks, frowning a little. “I don’t know any people like you guys do.”

I take another bite of my ramen, swallowing before looking at Minato.

“You have a lot of friends in the academy, right, Minato?” I ask. 

Minato nods. 

“Ask them what their senseis say about the target. They have to be talking about him, it’s unprecedented for a jonin to be assigned an academy position.”

Minato’s eyes light up in realization and he grins slyly. “I can follow some of the senseis around while they’re talking after school. It’ll be good reconnaissance practice.”

I see where some of Naruto’s more cunning moments come from. 

“Great, we all have our assignments. How about we give ourselves a week to see what we find out. We’ll reconvene with our information on next Tuesday,” I state with a level of finality, looking around as everyone nods and says their acknowledgement. 

“What will you be doing, Seiko?” Minato asks, just as I go to take another bite of ramen. 

I pause, thinking. 

“I know some chunin who work in the tower. They like to gossip, so I’ll just ask them for some information. And a few of my neighbors are jonin, so I’ll probably ask them too.”

It’s not as targeted as the others assignments, but that’s fine. I have a wider net of types of people who I can question, and I have the charisma to get one of them to show me their bingo books because “It’s just so cool that you can get on one of those! Are you in a bingo book, neighbor-san???”

People always tell excitable, curious children too much. Even overly suspicious shinobi. 

“Seiko-chan is functioning as our mission leader so she doesn’t really need as much of an assignment,” Ayako adds helpfully.

I blink. Oh. I am doing that, aren’t I?

“We should all practice making mission reports when we’re done,” Mikoto says contemplatively. 

Kushina groans. “ Extra homework?”

“This is all extra homework, Kushina,” I inform her with a grin, laughing when she makes a wounded noise. 

With that settled, we all focus on eating and chattering about our real classwork. I watch Jurou start on a new batch of noodles, strong arms rolling the dough with firm presses of his hands. I wonder if I should have become a ramen chef instead of a shinobi. It seems like it’s much more peaceful. 

The road behind us hums with the sounds of people. Walking, talking, doing nothing of importance. 

I take another bite of my ramen. 

—

Information gathering is slow work.

There’s an impulse to rush it. To get straight to what you really want to know as fast as possible and not bother with the fluff. 

Luckily, I’ve been doing this since I was five, so I’m pretty old hat at it. 

First, you get them comfortable. It helps if you already have an existing relationship with them.

“No, my team isn’t dead,” Higashi says dryly in greeting. Once again he stands at the railing outside of our apartments. Once again he smokes. I’m glad that he has such a consistent routine when he’s in village, it makes my job much easier.

Someone really should do something about all the smoking around here. If people end up living to see sixty they’re all gonna get lung cancer. 

Unlikely, but it could happen. Maybe we should worry about increasing combat survival rates instead.

“They’re very good at that,” I say contemplatively, before pausing and crouching down to adjust the strap of my sandal. Always good to have an excuse to loiter. “What’s you guys’ specialty again? Ryuu-sensei mentioned that most teams have them in class.”

“We’re frontliners. That’s why I was out on the field for the summer,” Higashi explains before taking a draw of his cigarette. He blows out the smoke. It floats up and off to the left thanks to the morning breeze.  

“Mmm. So you fight enemy nin on the front and protect the people behind you?” I ask as I stand from my crouch, wiggling my foot as if to test that the strap is secure. 

“That or push forward. It’s nasty sh— work , you should aim for a desk job and avoid it.” Higashi takes another nervous puff of his cigarette after he realizes he almost cussed in front of me. 

I nod solemnly as if actually internalizing what he says. I’ll probably be a frontliner or tracker at this rate, so I don’t think the desk life is in the cards for me. 

Maybe if I get a career ending injury. A girl can hope. 

“Which village do you like fighting the least?” I ask curiously. “My old sensei got nerve damage from Ame nin, so I think they freak me out the most.”

Higashi grimaces, eyes going a little distant as he looks out at the street. 

“Iwa nin. The doton jutsu can come from beneath you at any time.” Higashi pauses, then turns back to me, looking serious. The sun is slowly rising over the edges of the roofs across from us, silhouetting him in light. “Always watch the ground for signs that the earth has moved recently. Grass being uprooted, strange shaped dips or holes. Do you understand?”

Watch out for oddly shaped dirt and grass that’s uprooted. Got it. 

“I understand. Oh! Who’s the coolest Iwa nin you’ve fought?” 

It’s good to ease your target into the right subject of conversation. Being a competent conversationalist generally can help you get there.

Higashi flicks his cigarette between his fingers, ash falling from the end of it with bright sparks. He hums in thought.

What follows is an ambling conversation about Iwa shinobi. The deadliest of their number and the ones he’s either escaped or seen across the battlefield. The Crusher, Aya of the Red Waste, Ono Jiang (apparently too cool for even a nickname). Eventually he mentions bounties, and finally I can bring up the subject of bingo books. 

I glance at the sun finally over the roof. Class will start in about thirty minutes. 

“I think I need to go to class now, Higashi-san,” I hum, as if just realizing how much time has passed. Higashi has already finished his cigarette. “Can you show me your Iwa bingo book tomorrow? Before class?”

Higashi rolls his eyes and ruffles my hair. 

“Sure, sure. Get to class, I have training I need to be getting to, Seiko-chan.”

It’s that easy. 

I leave my apartment building and walk my way to class, hoping the others are just as successful in their efforts. Surely no one has learned anything too substantial since yesterday.

—

The next week passes by at an almost absurd pace. 

Between bothering my neighbors and other shinobi acquaintances, sparring with Kushina, Mikoto and Minato, along with doing my classwork, it’s Tuesday before I know it. 

Again we meet up at the ramen stand. Again I have to keep Kushina from beating up Minato. I wonder if it’ll take her almost being kidnapped and saved by him for her to tone down the bloodthirst. 

God, I hope it doesn’t require a kidnapping. I don’t think my blood pressure could handle having to run into the middle of nowhere after shinobi to save her. No way am I letting Minato do that alone, two sets of hands are always better than one.

I dodge a punch aimed for my face that Kushina tries to follow through to hit Minato next to me. 

Maybe a little kidnapping would be good for her, actually. Encourage character development and growth or something. 

“Shina, this is pretty excessive!” I hiss as Minato catches her fist. 

“You said I could have more than one rival, dattebane!” Kushina declares, violet eyes shiny with unspent energy. 

I reach over and wrap my arm around her neck swiftly, pressing her into a headlock even as she complains. Her head presses into my shoulder and I resist the urge to sneeze. Her hair smells like very fragrant flowers. She must have washed it today.

“Come on, Seiko!” Kushina whines.

“We’ll spar after this.”

God, this kid.

“Choke her out so we can have some quiet, Seiko-chan,” Ayako comments from where she’s observing beside Minato. Kushina jerks in my hold towards the Yamanaka and I groan. 

“Very unhelpful, Ayako-chan. Can everyone just get out their note—” I pause to grunt and tighten my hold around a wiggling Kushina. “—their notebooks so we can report?”

My friends do as I bid as I finally release Kushina’s neck from my hold, Kushina huffing and adjusting her shirt and hair. 

“I’m going to destroy you after this, dattebane. I’ve been getting faster,” Kushina threatens, punching my arm. 

She has been getting faster. I actually like that she’s faster. It makes sparring more fun. 

“You are getting faster, I’m proud of you,” I say honestly, opening my notebook and flipping the pale pages to stop at the right one. 

Kushina sputters. “You can’t just say that! You have to argue with me!”

“I’m not going to lie to you and tell you you’re bad at things you’re not.” I turn to look at her with scrunched brows, concern etching my face. “Are other people doing that? Do you need help?”

I understand the need to have her competitive spirit matched, but lying to her and leaving her skills unacknowledged will make her complex about being looked down on worse. Positive affirmation and encouragement always works better. 

Kushina goes to punch my arm again, looking annoyed, but this time I dodge. She hits so hard and my right arm is already throbbing. No need to give my soon to be bruises more bruises. 

“Ayako-chan, are you ready to report?” I ask, turning and leaning closer to the ramen bar to look at the Yamanaka. 

Ayako flips through her notebook quickly as Jurou, the ramen chef, distributes our ramen. Kushina squawks as she almost spills her bowl onto her notebook, but she jerks it away as I swiftly right her bowl.

“Alright, so my cousins said he’s not very social,” Ayako starts, frowning at her notebook and looking back at me. “He only really spends time with his clan and the Hokage’s family. Oh!”

She looks back down at her notes again, reading them. “He hates going to his psychiatric evaluations , and he doesn’t like my clan. Maybe he’s traumatized?” Ayako finishes in the blaise way children can speak about serious subjects. Blunt and unaware that they’re rude. She also says psychiatric evaluations like she’s copying the intonation of whoever said it to her first.

“I think most ninja are traumatized, but that’s a good find anyways,” I state. “What else did you find?”

Ayako makes a squished up face, doll-like features cracking in favor of looking like a real little girl. “The only other thing I could find was that he went to Tsunade-sama for an injury recently. Before the school year started. That’s probably why he has his crutches.”

“And if he went to Tsu-oba he was probably pretty messed up,” Kushina adds at my side between bites of ramen. She’s already a quarter of the way through the bowl. Her next words are said with a mouthful of noodles. “Ca’ I go nec’t?” 

“As soon as you swallow, sure.” 

Kushina swallows loudly, then points at her open notebook like it’s wronged her, finger tapping on it harshly. 

“Those damn Senju hags were rude as hell about Sensei!” Kushina hisses. I can see her red hair raising just a little off her shoulders, chakra rolling like a coming storm. “Said some shit about him being an alright Uchiha, Lord Second liked him or something, and that Sensei did the world a favor by not having any kids. ‘ No new Uchiha brats in the world is a good thing ’ my butt!” 

Kushina turns to grab Mikoto by the shoulder and points at her while looking at the rest of us. 

“Mikoto-chan isn’t a brat, Uchiha or not! She’s my best friend! I was going to hit that granny in the face but Tsu-oba found me and dragged me off,” Kushina continues indignantly, jutting her chin and looking like she’s daring any of us to disagree. 

“Thank you, Kushina-chan,” Mikoto murmurs, looking at Kushina wide eyed. Her dark shirt is ruffled from Kushina’s heavy hold, but she looks like she appreciates the loyalty. 

“Did Tsunade-hime say anything about him?” I ask curiously instead of addressing Kushina and Mikoto’s clearly unshakable friendship.

Kushina releases Mikoto’s shoulder with a huff. Crosses her tanned arms. 

“She was busy lecturing me about not threatening old people. I wasn’t threatening the hag, I was going to hit her! A threat means I might not,” Kushina grumbles. She waves a hand as she continues her tirade, glaring at the middle distance like she’s imagining the Senju old woman’s face. “All Tsu-oba said is that Ryuu-sensei was an old man and that he needed to vacation more. I asked how he got injured, and she told me if I ever get a limb cut off to put it in a sealing scroll and come back to her. Which makes no sense! I’d never get my arms cut off!”

Okay, so that puts some more of the puzzle together. Ryuu-sensei is close enough to Sarutobi Hiruzen that the Sannin are familiar with him, and he was well liked enough by the second Hokage that the last of the old Senju don’t mind him. And the injury—

“So Ryuu-sensei had his leg cut off, probably the right one considering how he doesn’t put as much weight on it. And Tsunade-hime was the one who reattached it after it was unsealed from a scroll.” I fiddle with my chopsticks, tapping them against the edge of my untouched ramen bow as I speak. 

The others nod and chime in their agreement. It’s a logical solution, and his long term recovery time makes sense considering the severity of his injury. 

“Mikoto-chan, what did you find?” I turn to Mikoto, watching her adjust her shirt. Hand smoothing away the wrinkles on her shoulder. 

Mikoto looks up and blinks with surprise, before turning to her own notebook. I can see from my seat that her notes look much more neat and organized than Kushina's, and there’s more of them.

“I found out his age. He’s thirty-nine. He’s been married twice, though both of his wives passed away. He has no children.” Mikoto trails a finger down her notes, reading aloud. “The elders really want him to remarry because he’s so accomplished, but he keeps refusing. He’s going to inherit an elder seat in a year, though no one thinks he’ll attend the meetings.”

Mikoto pauses, looking up and frowning. “The elders are very confusing when they talk about him. It was very easy to get them to praise his efforts in the previous war, but they complain about his insubordination in the next breath.”

They’re probably just really upset that he won't make more Uchiha babies to spread his greatness to the next generation. Elders like complaining about that sort of thing. It’s all legacy and thowing your fucked up ninja genes around to have more bodies to toss at the village’s problems. 

Mikoto turns back to her notes, continuing where she left off. She has a nice reading voice, very soothing. I like when she reads aloud in class. 

“His favorite food is tomato soup. He isn’t very social and spends most of his time with a few older aunties and uncles in the clan as well as with the Hokage. His fireball ninjutsu is very, very good.”

That adds up with his fire affinity. And he’s likely got a ninjutsu specialization as well. Everything so far checks out with my own research. 

“I can’t believe you found out his favorite food.” There’s a begrudging respect in Ayako’s voice.

“It was very hard. One of the elders knew his mother, and she made me water her plants and clean her kitchen before she told me,” Mikoto says with a little pout. “It was a very dusty kitchen.”

“We thank you for your service, Mikoto-chan,” I declare solemnly.

“Should I go now?” Minato asks. He’s been listening very intently this entire time, even if he hasn’t commented much. I wonder what’s going on in that little head of his.

I wave a hand for him to go on. Minato doesn’t look at his notebook.

“The senseis don’t like that Ryuu-sensei is in the academy,” Minato starts bluntly with a thoughtful little frown. “The senior ones think he’s disrupting the hierarchy they had before because he’s a higher rank than everyone else, and the younger ones don’t know if they should listen to him or the more senior teachers.”

I finally take a bite of my ramen as he goes on and stifle a groan at the flavor. Beef ramen…you have my whole heart. I never understood why Naruto was obsessed with this shit in my last life, but I take it all back. I love food. I love ramen. I love Jurou the ramen chef. 

“Some of them complained to the headmaster before the term started but the headmaster said he couldn’t do anything. The order to assign Ryuu-sensei to the academy came from the Hokage, like you assumed, Seiko,” Minato finishes. He’s got that weird look on his face again, like he’s taking my apart in his mind and putting me back together. 

I swallow my noodles in my mouth and nod. I expected this. 

“I figured as much. But that doesn’t solve our final question. Why did the Hokage assign him to our class?” I look around, scanning the faces of my friends. None of them seem to have an answer, all equally confused or thoughtful. 

I wonder at it. Why assign a prominent Uchiha jonin to an academy class—

Oh. 

My eyes flick to Kushina, watch her furrow her brows and scowl, thinking hard on the why as well. 

It’s for Kushina. Ryuu-sensei probably has the Mangekyou Sharingan and can control the Kyuubi if it escapes or acts out. 

I look away from her casually, reach down mechanically and roll some ramen noodles around my chopsticks, before taking a bite. 

Best not tell anyone that I figured that out. Especially not the impressionable children who shouldn’t be privy to state secrets, and Jurou the ramen chef who could be a spy.

I chew my food at a normal pace and swallow. 

“Well. I would call this a successful mission, how about you guys?” I ask idly. 

“You’re giving up, dattebane?” Kushina says incredulously. “We’re so close to knowing why Hokage-sama put him in our class!”

Right. And I won’t be telling all of you the why, or leading you any further down this path. 

“It could be classified. We should probably leave it where it is and it’ll be revealed later on in the year, if at all,” Minato states, looking between Kushina and I with an air of close observation I don’t like. He needs to mind his business for now. 

“Are we going to practice our mission reports now?” Ayako asks, deceptively innocent. She’s looking right at Kushina as she speaks. 

Kushina groans loudly, and then shoves a mouthful of ramen in her mouth in some sort of self soothing technique. 

“Let’s finish eating and then we’ll go over to one of our houses and work on it.”

All in all? A pretty productive week. I should’ve figured out why Ryuu-sensei was assigned to our class earlier, though.

I suppose I was distracted by spending time with my friends. The why didn’t really matter to me. Just the thrill of getting chunin to spill their secrets to me. 

Hm. That’s probably an unhealthy thought. At least it’s a useful hobby for a ninja.

I eat some more ramen, surrounded by the noise of friends, and wonder if Jurou is a spy. He’d be a very good one, seeing as his stand is right by the Hokage tower. And the Sannin eat here regularly enough that they probably spill state secrets. So he probably belongs to the Hokage. 

Ah. Let the old man hear about our shenanigans. This is the sort of thing ninja children are supposed to do. 

I pause, hand stilling from where I was about to put some more ramen in my mouth. I stare down at the shimmering, amber broth. 

I forgot to tell the others what I found out. Oops. And they’re all completely distracted talking about homework now. 

I resume my motion, chewing as I think. 

They’re probably better off not knowing. A man who has a nickname like Ryuu of the Bloody Tide has plenty of war crimes to match the label. Shouldn’t tell them and risk them getting nightmares or something. I’m surprised he got a leg cut off at all, considering his reputation. 

Fire ninjutsu is nasty, nasty business. I’ll have to learn as much of it as I can. 

Chapter Text

“Seiko?” Minato asks after everyone else leaves my apartment, hesitating at my worn front door. One of the hinges is starting to squeak. I need to oil it. 

“Hm?” I hum distantly. 

My hands are busy with cleaning up the practice mission reports everyone handed off to me. I lean over my table fiddling with the sheets of paper, stacking them. My eyes drift back over to Minato and I watch something churn in that big brain of his. His lips are pursed just a little, and his eyes are heavy on me. 

He has nice eyes. Pretty pale eyelashes and a shiny sky blue color that always seems to reflect the light in the right way. 

“Why did you look at Kushina like that? At the ramen place?”

I don’t pause the way I’m straightening out the stack of papers, tapping them against the table on their sides so they get neater. 

I’m pretty sure answering Minato honestly is some kind of treason. I don’t mind a little treason, but I do mind it when I know anybody could listen in on the conversation. 

I can’t bring myself to lie outright, though, especially when he’ll learn the truth in two or three years. 

I take a deep breath, then sort of sigh as I speak. Give Minato a look that I hope is serious instead of silly on my young face. “Sometimes we have to keep things to ourselves when we figure them out. Like if a neighbor is cheating on her husband or if we figured out troop movements we weren’t supposed to know.”

Minato’s lips get thinner, frown dipping greater down his face. 

“...okay,” Minato says after a moment of staring into my soul with those big blue eyes, sounding like he’s not actually okay with what I’ve said at all. 

I drop the stack of papers on my table, looking away from him and scrubbing a hand through my hair. 

“Listen, Minato, I can’t tell you even if I want to. You have to figure it out on your own,” I say with a shake of my head. “You will, you’re smart enough and did well with our extra training.”

I turn back to look at him, repeating myself with extra emphasis. “You have to figure it out on your own.”

‘It’s classified, it’s so classified that an academy student should never have learned about it in the first place. I cannot tell you.’

Minato fidgets with his hands for a moment, eyes looking through me before they focus again, and he nods sharply. 

“Alright. See you tomorrow, Seiko. We’re sparring after school!”

With that Namikaze Minato walks out of my slightly squeaky front door, waving and shutting it behind him. 

I stare at the door for a moment, pondering if this is enough to get me put into prison. Surely not. I’m too promising to waste in a cell. They’ll just increase surveillance of me and make me keep working as a ninja. 

Ugh. I’m not going to worry about this. Namikaze Minato has sniffed out a problem to solve and me helping or not helping him doesn’t matter. He’s going to follow the trail regardless. I’m innocent here. 

—

Fall turns to winter, and winter to spring. Sakura petals clog the water of the Naka river and cover the bridges across it. 

The smell is thick in the air, every breath coated in it. Bitter and green and vanilla mixing into a cocktail that heralds the new growth of spring. Most people don’t smell it. I’ve only heard Inuzuka Shinji complain about it in class and I’ve kept my own comments to myself.  

I fiddle with a petal between my small, callused fingers. The soft pink skin of it bruising when I press down the barest bit. 

Usually time takes longer to pass for me. The droll expanse of days at the academy taking their toll as I wait for it all to be over. Not that I didn’t enjoy some things, or like my classmates, but it’s always been…

Slow. Unbearably slow.

Now?

“Are you worried about final exams, Seiko-chan?”

I turn, shivering at the breeze as I look at Yamanaka Ayako. 

She’s got on a pretty burgundy kimono top with pale white embroidered flowers and her clan symbol on the back. It looks expensive. I hope she doesn’t get any dirt on it during class. 

“No. Are you?”

I drop the flower petal in my hands and watch it flutter to the grassy ground. Around us various girls talk about boys, crushes, exams, and everything in between. Kaede-sensei, our kunoichi teacher, basically left us to our own devices for this class period. 

I glance off to the left where she’s leaned against a cherry tree, observing us. 

I imagine that this is some sort of test to see what we’re all talking about, or some other contrived “look underneath the underneath” bullshit. I won’t waste brainpower trying to figure it out. 

Kunoichi class has its merits. A lot of the sex ed we get is through kunoichi class (though sparse), along with how to do traditional tea services, flower language, etcetera. 

But it’s easy. Soft arts already make sense to me, and I don’t need training on how to gossip competently. Half of my day is spent listening to gossip. It’s one of my favorite hobbies.

“I don’t think my taijutsu is as good as it could be, but I’m probably not going to be a taijutsu-focused kunoichi,” Ayako says, tossing her blonde braid over her shoulder and stepping closer to me. Grass crunches under her red sandals. She leans in to murmur in my ear in the exact way she knows freaks me out. 

“Okaa-san told me that Kaede-sensei is looking for girls to give infiltration apprenticeships,” Ayako whispers, breath blowing in my ear, and I hiss, shivering as I push her back by her squishy face. She giggles at me. 

“Is that why she’s staring at us like produce in the market?” I mutter, eyes scanning the girls. They’re just kids, hands in the grass as they talk about the things that matter to ten-year-olds.

“Probably! But you shouldn’t worry about it. You’re top in the class, you’ll probably get a genin team,” Ayako declares, before reaching over and tucking a small branch of cherry blossoms behind my ear. It itches. Where did she even get it?

“I’d be good at infiltration though. Maybe I should ask her to pick me so I can disappear into some small village at the Earth border for the next five years.” 

Ayako pouts, nose scrunching and her eyes squinting. Disgust and disbelief swirling on her pale face. 

“Don’t say things like that. I want you on my team, not in some dirty Earth village pretending to be a farmer .” Ayako is displaying some interesting levels of casual classism and xenophobia.

“Ayako, I promise you that the frontlines will be much dirtier than a farming village,” I drawl dryly. Then I set about mussing up her blonde hair. Ayako whines about just fixing her braid and smacks at my hand. 

Speaking of frontlines, we’ve managed to push them slowly out of Ame and into land of Earth. Apparently spiteful revenge is a good motivator to get shinobi on their last legs to start killing more Iwa nin than they can throw at us. Uzushio is gone, but not forgotten, and absolutely nobody in the forces is willing to let what happened there happen in Konoha.

They won’t tell the civilians what happened in detail, and that includes academy students. What I have heard is complete decimation the world hasn’t seen since the Warring States era. Six clans wiped off the face of the earth, the most numerous being the Uzumaki. Broken rubble and desecrated bodies left to be picked at by the birds.

Grim shit.

The war will be over soon. I’m not sure how soon, but I can’t see it going past my fourteenth birthday. Every village involved seems to be reaching levels of desperation that aren’t tenable to maintain for long. 

Konoha is lucky that it has so much farmable soil both inside the walls and around the village’s borders. Iwa has to fight for arable land in Grass and their more northern region. 

Man. I hope my new jonin sensei doesn’t get me killed. I didn’t go through all this work, almost make it through one war, just to die before it’s done.

“Hey, do you want to play some shogi after class?” I ask, turning to an annoyed Ayako. 

“No, you’re just as bad as Shikaku-senpai. I’m not playing an old man game with you!”

At this point I’m getting desperate. I should hunt Shikaku down for a rematch, even if he is unnerving. I wonder if he’s in village? Or maybe Minato would be better…

The rest of class plays out about as I expect, with Kaede-sensei staring at ten-year-olds in an over-calculating way and Ayako catching me up on the gossip in the academy. 

Kushina drags Mikoto over to us in the middle of Ayako explaining some complicated love triangle in the year below us to show off a toad. Ayako shrieks because she’s scared of toads. I laugh because Ayako won’t notice. She’s too busy trying to tackle Kushina without touching the too calm toad.

—

The final exams for graduates are structured roughly the same every year. 

First they do the mental portion. Tests on math, reading, writing, history and protocol. Easy if you paid attention at all during the final year for all of the refreshers the teachers did. 

Then, a physical portion. Taijutsu, shurikenjutsu, and ability to complete the academy three. 

All of it is crammed into one week of suffering, starting on Monday morning and ending on Friday with an evaluation of your academy three skills. 

“You will demonstrate your ability with the academy three. First the Kawarimi, then the Bunshin, and finally the Henge. Do you have any questions?” Ryuu-sensei asks from his seat behind the examination desk. 

On his right is Kaede-sensei and on his left is our assistant teacher, Hamasaki Huang. 

The room smells thick with mixing chakra natures, likely a leftover of all the chakra smoke my classmates have been popping off. It clings heavily to my throat and sticks to my skin like static. 

“No, sensei. No questions,” I state, resisting the urge to wrinkle my nose or sneeze from all the conflicting smells. Maybe Kakashi had the right idea when it came to always wearing a mask.

“Then begin.” Ryuu-sensei waves a hand, beckoning me to go on. All three of the teachers have their full attention on me. 

I flex my fingers and begin. Tiger. Boar. Ox. Dog. Snake.

In less than half a breath I’m standing four feet to the side, and a replaced log stands where I was before. All that with no chakra smoke to show for it. 

“Excellent. Now replace with the log again,” Ryuu-sensei comments, tapping his pen against the hard wood table.

I do as he says, faster this time, and end up directly in front of my teachers again. 

“The Bunshin.”

Ram, my chakra gathers under my skin. Snake, I visualize a copy of myself. Tiger—

The chakra releases, and beside me stands a perfect copy of myself. 

“So weird,” I comment under my breath. The clone technique isn’t hard, but it is disconcerting to make a mirror image of yourself. Clone me stares back, her lips pursed and brows furrowed. Likely copying my own expression. 

The teachers have me make the clone do a quick turn around so they can make sure it all looks right. Kaede-sensei is the one to speak next. 

“Henge into me, Seiko-chan,” Kaede-sensei orders. Her voice is always so smooth and her smile soft. It makes her orders feel less grating, like you want to do whatever it is for her. 

Huang-sensei makes a little noise in the back of his throat, turning to look at Kaede-sensei. She ignores him.

I’ve never henged into Kaede-sensei before, but I suppose on the field I’ll be changing into people I’ve never seen before, so it makes sense. 

I nod, murmuring a small “Hai,” as I take Kaede-sensei’s appearance in. Choppy blue hair cut to her chin, almond shaped brown eyes that always seem to shine a little orange in the light. 

Standard chunin vest, small stitches towards the bottom like she’s mended it. Dark blue long sleeved shirt, not standard issue, it's a few shades lighter and doesn’t have an uzushio swirl. Standard flack pants from what I can see under the table the teachers are sitting at. Black sandals. Painted finger and toe nails, black. 

Right. 

Hand signs pass through my fingers fast, practiced and familiar. My chakra rolls like the long stretch of a cat, satisfied. I better get the feeling of the shirt fabric right, I’m having to guess on it. 

A blink, and I’m half a foot taller. And I’ve got blue bangs in my eyes.

I give a futile blow up before schooling my expression into a soft smile, probably similar to the real Kaede-sensei. 

“Amazing.” Kaede-sensei looks very pleased as she says so. Ryuu-sensei makes a face, a little micro expression of annoyance. Not directed at me.

I walk out of the examination room with a cold metal and cloth headband in hand. I’m rookie of the year. It feels more like a noose than a prize. 

—

“The teams will be as follows,” Ryuu-sensei announces at the front of class, voice lifting above the chatter of the students. 

Everyone silences in a few breaths, moving to sit up at attention at their seats. 

I tap my fingers onto the desk quietly, feeling the uneven grain of the wood as I look ahead. This is it. It’s finally here. 

Here comes the rest of my life. Though how long it’ll be, I’m not sure. 

The first few teams aren’t notable. I don’t recognize any of the jonin senseis and the match ups of students seem to make sense. 

Yamagishi Masako, a pink haired boy who hits hard, is with a Hyuuga and Inuzuka Shinji, clearly a taijutsu team. Suzuki Kyo is shuffled into a team of all civilian kids, and all of them are suspiciously unassuming in features and have the right temperaments for infiltration. 

And then—

“Team seven,” Ryuu-sensei starts, and something odd sticks itself to my bones. A seventh sense (because my sixth sense is chakra related) for unluckiness and danger. It would be too cliche for me to be put on the same team number as Naruto and co eventually do, right?

“Seiko, Namikaze Minato, and Uzumaki Kushina. Assigned under Jiraiya the Sannin.”

“Oh, fuck me,” I say aloud, slumping into my seat and looking up at the ceiling. 

The fucking Toad Sage, and a team with Minato and Kushina. They definitely weren’t on the same team in my last life, right? Right? I could’ve sworn the usual choice was to put the top kunoichi, top shinobi, and dead last together! That’s how it played out in the last few years of graduates, I would know! I asked. I researched this shit and everything.

This is the Hokage’s fault. 

I am going to kill the Sandaime. 

Distantly I can hear Ryuu-sensei’s reprimand. Something about insubordinate language and how he has higher expectations for me. Kushina is elbowing me and muttering about perverts. I just keep staring at the pale plaster on the roof and idle on who put it there when the classroom was built. The academy building is around fifteen years old, there was an older one that got burnt down before that. 

“My apologies, sensei. I won’t interrupt you again,” my voice sounds dull in my own ears, but I bow my head anyways in penance. 

I could probably get away with killing the Sandaime. Maybe if I do it while he’s asleep? No, no he’d have ANBU with him. Maybe I should just get strong enough that I can kill the ANBU too, or knock them out.

Stupid meddling man. Jiraiya the fucking Sannin. I really was hoping I’d get placed with Ryuu-sensei, not him. If I catch him peeking on any women’s hotsprings I’ll have to go missing nin, there will be no helping that. Toad Sage, Sannin, Sealing Master, it doesn’t matter. I’m not letting him stay near Kushina or Minato if he’s like that.

“Do better in the future, Seiko-kun. You are the top student of your year, and I expect better from you at the start of your genin career,” Ryuu-sensei says with a severe frown. I’m going to miss his severe frowns.

With that, Ryuu-sensei continues announcing teams. My mind is clouded with plans, lips pulling down in thought. 

A hand presses onto my shoulder at my left, and I turn to look at Minato’s concerned furrowed brow. 

He tilts his head as if to ask what’s wrong. 

Kushina leans over behind me to whisper at Minato. I’m almost proud of how she actually makes her voice soft.

“Our new sensei is a pervert, she’s probably upset about that,” Kushina murmurs, violet eyes wide and serious. Minato blanches, looking back to me as if I’m going to tell him she’s wrong. 

I reach up and pat his hand on my shoulder, grimacing like we’re attending a funeral. Minato doesn’t look comforted by my response.

“Team nine. Akimichi Jiro, Uchiha Mikoto, and Yamanaka Ayako. Assigned under Sarutobi Shizuko.”

Well. At least Ayako and Mikoto probably aren’t getting a deviant for a sensei. 

I scrub a hand down my face as the final two teams are announced.  

Right. This is fine. I can work with this. Jiraiya is probably going to do the damn bell test, so that’ll be an easy pass for us. 

It’s the after I’m a little more concerned about, seeing as Minato’s canon teammates are probably dead around the time Naruto is born. Is that on Jiraiya? Or was it just bad luck?

It could be both. I am just going to assume it’s both until proven otherwise.

“You will all wait in class until you are retrieved by your new sensei. You will be respectful to them, and you will do Konoha proud as her newest genin. Is that clear?” Ryuu-sensei explains at the front of class, voice booming and his arms crossed over his chest. 

You know, I think I’m going to miss the grouchy old man. Maybe if I get lucky I’ll run a mission or two with him when I hit chunin or jonin. 

Or I can beg an apprenticeship off of him if Jiraiya turns out to be a bust. Not my best plan, nor does it have a high likelihood of success, but he has enough political clout with the Hokage to get a transfer approved. 

“Hai, sensei!” the room of canon fodder calls, my voice entering the fray in a sort of rote reaction. 

How am I going to keep both my squishy teammates alive long enough for them to become terrifying? They did it fine in the original timeline. Surely me being involved won’t change that much.

“What’s wrong, Seiko?” Minato asks when it’s finally socially acceptable for us to start talking. People are moving their seats around us to be beside their teammates, yapping loud enough that Minato’s concerned question gets lost under the hum of noise. 

“I was expecting to be put on Ayako’s team,” I lie bluntly, staring out into the middle distance as I ponder how many things can kill two brightly colored ten year olds. I need to train more. “Not a frontliner team. I’m rearranging my plans, mentally.”

Kushina wraps a warm arm around my neck, scoffing and pulling me closer. “No way, dattebane! You were always gonna be on a team with me , I’m your rival!” 

Kushina says this in a way that implies it’s preposterous that it would be any other way. 

This is definitely the meddling, stupid fucking Hokage’s fault. I’m going to hit him. Actually, I’m going to pay off Sarutobi Haruki to kick his father in the damn crotch. He can get away with that sort of thing, and I think he has a crush on me, so I can leverage that.

Speaking of, I didn’t hear Haruki’s name get mentioned when the teams were listed off. 

My eyes focus, and I scan the room, just in time to see Ryuu-sensei dragging him off, along with two of the three Uchiha in our class. They didn’t get their names called either. 

Oh. Well, the apprenticeship with Ryuu-sensei is a bust then. He definitely won’t fail kids from his own clan. The genin corps is for plebians. 

Maybe Orochimaru would be amenable? Surely he hasn’t developed any cursed seals yet. Tsunade won’t bite unless I pledge myself to healing, and I’m not really interested in being a medic nin. 

“Seiko? Are you in there?” Kushina physically shakes me from my thoughts with jerking hands on my shoulders and I sigh. The sigh comes out a bit silly while I’m wobbling back and forth.

“If our sensei peeps on any women while we’re on his team, I say we petition the Hokage for a new sensei,” I state, looking from Kushina to Minato. 

“Is he really like that? All I’ve heard is that he’s a sealing master, and a clanless orphan,” Minato says with a grimace, and what goes unsaid is “like you and me”.

“He’s a huge pervert. I catch him looking at Tsu-oba’s boobs all the time!” Kushina declares loudly, and her hands are still on my shoulders so she starts shaking me again for emphasis. “But then Tsu-oba punches him really hard, dattebane, and he stops. Maybe we should do that?”

Her hands stop moving and I’m saved from my brain turning into a smoothie. 

“If a jonin lets a punch from a genin land, he deserves what happens to him,” I mutter, eyeing the doorway to the classroom as different jonin start filing in. Lots of clan shinobi, a few of ambiguous descent. No white haired Toad Sage in sight.

What I remember about Jiraiya the Sannin isn’t great— and what I’ve heard in this life isn’t better. There’s been no talk of him peeping on hot springs as far as I can tell, but he does have a reputation for frequenting brothels and acting inappropriately with his teammates and fellow jonin. No gossip about inappropriate relations with subordinates, so no chunin or genin, but still. Not great.

“Whatever happens, all three of us are in this together, alright?” I find myself saying as Kushina’s hands on my shoulders tighten. My eyes don’t stray from the door. The asshole better not be late, he’s no Kakashi.

“Right,” Minato agrees immediately, and I see his pointy chin jerk in a firm nod in my periphery.

“As long as Minato doesn’t drag us down, we’re gonna do great, dattebane.” Kushina’s brash confidence in all situations is almost comforting right now. 

I was expecting to get one of these two on a team, most likely Minato, and with our class’s dead last Yang Dekai. Not ideal, as Dekai is a tempermental kid who scores best in throwing practice and poorly at everything else, but doable.

I can see why Kushina would get Jiraiya in theory, as he’s one of the foremost sealmasters in the village. What doesn’t make sense is how he wasn’t Kushina’s sensei in canon if this was an option. Am I really the deciding factor that pushed the Hokage over the edge into formulating this team? 

I’m going to think myself into a hole so deep I can’t crawl out of it. Fuck it, our teacher is a Sannin and my teammates are both going to die in roughly ten years— Not if I have anything to say about it, though. I’d planned to stick to Kushina like a burr regardless, even if I had assumed we wouldn’t be on the same team.

We roll with the punches and we kick back.

A familiar white haired man comes striding through the door of the classroom when there’s only three teams left waiting for our teachers. My eyes go to the clock on the opposite wall of the classroom, noting that twenty minutes late is five minutes too unfashionable. 

Jiraiya the Sannin looks much the same as the last time I saw him skulking around the Senju compound. His white hair looks shorter, but still to his shoulders and just as unruly. Clad in his jonin uniform and frowning like someone’s just shat in his udon.

“You’re late, Pervert-sensei!” Kushina shouts at Jiraiya, standing from her seat and pointing at the man. Something about it feels nostalgic. I see short blonde hair and an orange jumpsuit slot over her in my mind's eye.

The two teams left in our classroom stare at Kushina in wide eyed incomprehension. None of them are as committed gossips as Ayako, but kids love talking, and I’m sure Kushina’s greeting will be the talk of our graduating class for the next week or two.

Jiraiya looks mildly embarrassed, grimacing deeply and eyes flicking to the door. He also looks a little bit like he’s planning on killing the Hokage as soon as he gets the chance. 

At least I have something in common with my new sensei. Canonfodder orphan status notwithstanding. 

“Come on you three, stop causing a scene!” Jiraiya orders, jerking a thumb towards the door and waiting impatiently for us to get moving. 

For a jonin, he speaks with remarkably little authority in his voice. Like he expects to get ignored and will let us get away with it. Maybe he has no experience working with kids. Kids can smell weakness like that a mile off.

“No way! Not before you apologize for being late, dattebane,” Kushina insists with crossed arms, immediately proving my point. 

This team is going to be a disaster. 

Chapter Text

Jiraiya

“Two girls, sensei?” 

If Tsunade-hime knew that’s what Jiraiya asked first when it came to his new genin team, she’d brain him against the nearest hard surface. Probably break the surface too.

“The jinchuriki and rookie of the year, yes,” Hiruzen-sensei corrects, his dark eyes narrowing just so. He’s got emotive eyes. One second they’re twinkling with mirth, the next they’re pits sucking all the light out of a room. 

They’re in the Hokage office, because sensei is practically chained to his desk with no freetime to socialize anywhere else, and Jiraiya is sitting in one of the comfortable arm chairs. Jiraiya flicks through the file in his hands, the other two still sitting on his sensei’s desk. Words like “prodigy”, “genius”, and “leader” occur frequently as he skims through it. Heavy mantles for a little girl. A little girl he’s responsible for now.

“The jinchuriki, ” here Jiraiya emphasizes the word, not willing to start an argument with his teacher. “—isn’t her class’s dead last. She shouldn’t be on this team.”

It’s raining outside. Jiraiya can see water dripping down the windows behind Hiruzen-sensei’s desk. Good. The weather should match Jiraiya’s rapidly plummeting mood. 

He doesn’t particularly want a genin team, even if he was expecting to be handed one. But he sucked it up. He told his sensei he wanted all civilian orphans, kids like he was. He didn’t think he’d be given Tsunade-hime’s fox-bearing cousin and two baby prodigies. 

“I thought it prudent to put Kushina-chan on a team with a sealmaster,” Hiruzen-sensei says. Jiraiya looks up from the papers and waits for his sensei to say more. He doesn’t. 

“That can’t be the only reason.” It’s never that simple. Underneath the underneath, and all that bullshit.

“It is not. But you will have to learn more about your students to understand. You still have a few weeks before they graduate, study the files.” Hiruzen-sensei waves a hand in dismissal of the topic. There’s a new sunspot over his scarred knuckle, and a whole new set of gray hairs at his temple. 

When did his sensei get so old? Jiraiya shuts the file in his hands and drops it on top of the other two with a sigh.

“Is Orochimaru getting a team?” 

“No, he’s spending too much time at the front for it to be advisable. Perhaps next year.” Hiruzen-sensei reaches into his desk and grabs his pipe, trickling new tobacco into its bowl with practiced fingers.

“And I won’t be?” Jiraiya asks wryly. He knows his skillset, and he knows what the council has been chirping about to Sensei. He’s one of Konoha’s greatest assets, beside a few other frontliners. They won’t give him long before he’s tossed back into North Ame’s muggy embrace. 

“You are a spymaster, and can be excused for a time. I cannot promise longer than a few months, though, Jiraiya-kun. It’s not—” Hiruzen-sensei pauses, a sort of exhaustion turning the wrinkles on his face deeper. He looks away from Jiraiya, focused on lighting his pipe. Takes a long draw. 

“I would give you longer if I could, Jiraiya-kun. You know how things are,” Hiruzen-sensei exhales as he speaks, wisping smoke leaving his chapped lips.

Yeah. Jiraiya knows. 

They sit in silence, breathing in the bitter tobacco smoke. 

Namikaze Minato. Uzumaki Kushina. Seiko. Three new names to add to a list of students now six strong. One fated to change the ninja world forever, if Gamamaru-sama is to be believed. 

Some part of him wishes the old Toad Sage never told him that prophecy. He’ll be wondering the rest of his life about if he’s right to teach anyone at all. To risk that student doing something terrible and ripping the world as they know it apart, instead of saving it. 

He hopes Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan are alright. 

Jiraiya scratches his chin, bristles sharp against the pads of his fingers. He should worry about getting this set of genin to chunin before anything else, prophesy or not. Sage, what do genin even need to know? Isn’t he supposed to test the brats before he accepts them as his team?

“Hey sensei, d’you know anywhere that sells a good set of bells?” Jiraiya asks suddenly.

That weight on the Hokage’s face lightens up, and there’s the twinkle in Hiruzen-sensei’s eye again. Jiraiya will fully admit he’s not his teacher’s favorite student, that honor goes to Orochimaru, but of the three of them he can get the guy to smile easy. 

“I have a set at home, if you have a need for them. The same ones I used for your genin test.”

He sounds a little too pleased to be saying so, so Jiraiya comes quickly with a retort.

“Man, you really are getting old, Hiruzen-sensei. You look like a sentimental grandpa right now.”

Hiruzen-sensei sighs, just barely stopping himself from rolling his eyes. He takes a much moodier puff from his pipe.

“I have a meeting with the council soon, Jiraiya-kun. Begone with you, before I make you stay for it.”

Jiraiya leaves the office quickly after that. It’s fine, he has information to gather anyways. 

—

Two bells weigh heavy in one of Jiraiya’s pants pockets as he walks out of the academy with three ducklings trailing after him. All of them reluctantly. It was as bad as coaxing Orochimaru into drinking to get them all out of that fucking classroom.

Would it be mature of Jiraiya to say he already doesn’t like them?

“—and Tsu-oba told me you liked toads. I guess that makes sense, since you kinda look like one dattebane!” The most annoying of the bunch keeps talking. It’s like the brat has no respect for her elders!

The Rookie of the Year huffs a little laugh, and looks completely unrepentant when Jiraiya looks back and gives her a stink eye. 

“I’m glad we already have something in common, you brat,” Jiraiya grumbles more to himself than the chattering redhead. She squawks at the insult loudly, and then starts a tirade about how when she’s Hokage she’s going to make him do paperwork for the rest of his life. Sage, he hopes so.

Of the three the only boy seems to be the least annoying. But that’s only because he hasn’t talked yet. Jiraiya’s sure with his luck the kid is plotting his murder behind those wide blue eyes. 

“Where are we going, Sensei?” Namikaze Minato asks, looking around them at the bustling street. The group of them are getting stared at a little more than Jiraiya is used to. He supposes they make a good spectacle.

“To eat, of course. It’s lunchtime,” Jiraiya replies distractedly as he watches two chunin whisper to each other on the left side of the street, by a fancy weapons store. They stiffen when they see him looking at them, the damn amateurs, and hurry inside the shop with one final look at Kushina. 

There’s been some talk about who the new jinchuriki is over the past few months since Mito died. It’s not out in the open yet, especially since Kushina is a fresh genin and can’t handle that target on her back. 

But there is speculation. Jiraiya’s just glad people are more worried about war gossip than the new jinchuriki. It’s lucky that Mito was old, spent a lot of time at home and hadn’t been on the battlefield in a decade. Makes people forget that Konoha has a jinchuriki at all, and gives them time to train the new one up to par. 

Jiraiya comes to an abrupt stop in front of the Akimichi’s barbeque restaurant and quickly turns to look at the three students staring up at him. They look squishy, and at least slightly more interested in being here since he’s mentioned food. 

“Let’s be quiet in the restaurant so they don’t kick us out, alright? I’ll seal your mouth shut, you motormouth, don’t think I won’t!” Jiraiya points a stern finger at Uzumaki Kushina, but she just sticks her tongue out at him. 

“We’ll be as loud as you are, Sensei,” Seiko says agreeably, in that way people who are insulting you can be oh so agreeable. She loops a casual arm around Kushina’s shoulder, and somehow that makes the girl stop talking. “You’re paying, right?”

There’s a jonin trio of Akimichi, Nara and Yamanaka smoking outside the restaurant, staring at Jiraiya from behind the genin where they’re leaning against the wall. Trap specialists if Jiraiya remembers correctly. 

They’re openly listening in on them, like real shinobi who know there’s hot gossip at hand. If Jiraiya says no to paying in spite, the whole Jonin Corps will think he’s a nasty cheapskate by tomorrow, and women hate that in a man. 

“Yes, of course I’m paying for you, now get inside the restaurant,” Jiraiya says gruffly, as if he hadn’t been planning on making the kids all pay for themselves. He opens the door of the restaurant and waves them in impatiently. 

They all end up packed into a booth together, the students all electing to sit opposite to Jiraiya even if they’re a little squished. Meat to cook on the grill is ordered while the genins’ curious eyes never leave Jiraiya. 

Jiraiya idly brushes his pocket with the bells, then smacks a hand down on the table, making the genin jump. His students jump. They’re going to pass the bell test, he should stop pretending there’s any chance they don’t. He’s been watching them for weeks.

“So. You three are going to introduce yourselves to me,” Jiraiya starts, smirking.

“What, like our likes, dislikes, and dreams for the future?” Seiko asks dryly, as if it’s a joke. 

“Exactly!” Jiraiya says with a nod. “You go first, little Rookie, since you’re so helpful.”

Seiko. Birthday, July first, thirty-eight years after Konoha’s founding. Daughter of an infiltration specialist, no notable clan or bloodline through her mother. Unknown father. Rookie of the Year.

She idly taps her small, calloused fingers on the table, humming in thought. Her nails are painted hot pink, and it clashes with the rest of her earth toned clothes. Maybe she got them painted by that Yamanaka she spends time with?

“I’m Seiko. I like fighting, reading, and talking to people. I dislike cruelty, ignorance, and shellfish. My dream…” she pauses, looking over at her new teammates, looking contemplative. Then back to Jiraiya. “I suppose my dream is that me and my teammates grow old.”

“That’s so boring, Seiko!” Kushina says, looking at the girl with childish exasperation. “Your dream should be that you get super strong, or something.”

Seiko shrugs, smiling indulgently. It looks odd on a child’s face, too aware. “We will have to get stronger anyways to get old, Shina.”

She’s above her peers in most ways, from what Jiraiya could tell. He vaguely remembers meeting the girl a year ago, before Kushina had the fox put in her, and had thought she was a prodigy. He was right. 

Her social intelligence is promising, strong taijutsu and ninjutsu for her age, already documented leadership skills from organizing some information gathering on her academy teacher. But she’s a coaster, mostly interested in matching pace with her friends, enough that she hid her abilities for years. He’ll have to break that habit.

Jiraiya can see why Hiruzen-sensei put her on his team, she has the makings of being very good at his job in ten years and Konoha needs more spymasters right now. It’s the combination of the others that are giving him headaches.

“Next, blondie,” Jiraiya says abruptly before Kushina can start arguing back with Seiko. 

Minato blinks, as if surprised to be spoken to. He must get used to watching the others with how opinionated the rest of the girls he hangs around are. A little ladies’ man in the making, if he plays his cards right. 

Namikaze Minato. Birthday, January twenty-fifth, thirty-nine years after Konoha’s founding. Son of two civilian bookkeepers, no notable clan or bloodline. Top boy of his year.

“My name is Namikaze Minato, please take care of me.” Here the boy does a little bow, the first respect Jiraiya has gotten since he picked the brats up. “I like reading and ninjutsu. I dislike bullies and the people who won’t stand up to them. My dream is to be Hokage one day and take care of my friends.”

He was the expected top student of his year prior to Seiko’s sudden rise in the ranks. Extremely well liked by his peers, not jealous of the loss in status, which says a lot considering he’s ten. Another prodigy, if his perfect scores on his written exams are to be believed. 

Similarly high social intelligence, taijutsu, and ninjutsu skill. Observant. Flagged for infiltration training if he can be spared from the frontlines when he’s older. Did well in the small sealing course done in the final year of the academy. Another one where Jiraiya could easily understand why Hiruzen-sensei put him on his team.

Kushina groans. “I was going to say I’m gonna be Hokage, dattebane, now I have to pick something else!”

“We could both be Hokage,” Minato replies hopefully, smiling at the girl. Jiraiya can see a crush brewing from a mile away.

“No no, you can have it, I guess, ” Kushina grumbles, waving him off, then she looks at Jiraiya. “It’s my turn now, right?”

She doesn’t wait for Jiraiya to answer, puffing up her chest and straightening to look taller in her seat. She’s shorter than both her teammates, so it doesn’t get her far. 

Uzumaki Kushina. Birthday, July tenth, thirty-eight years after Konoha’s founding. Daughter of the late Second Uzukage’s sixth daughter, the last Uzumaki of Konoha. Jinchuriki of the Nine Tailed Fox.

“My name is Uzumaki Kushina, and you better remember it, Pervert-sensei!” Kushina declares loudly, making other tables turn to look at them. Jiraiya sinks down in his seat to hide. 

“I love ramen, and seals, and kicking Seiko-chan’s ass! I hate losing and wearing wet socks, ‘cause they feel awful. My dream is to bring my clan home, dattebane! So you’d better make me and Seiko strong!” Kushina announces, pumping a fist into the air. Her red hair starts rising off her shoulders, chakra rolling.

Uzumaki Kushina makes no sense. Not because she doesn’t deserve a sensei, or a team, but because she shouldn’t be on this team. This team is set up to be successors to Jiraiya’s craft, infiltrators and spymasters that can pack a mean punch and be sent to the frontlines during wartime. 

She’s an archetypical frontliner, an Uzumaki . Uzumaki don’t do subterfuge. Uzumaki hit you in the face from the front and knock your head off. Strong personality, quick fused, and taijutsu heavy. And that’s before she got a chakra monster shoved into her stomach. 

She’s Tsunade-hime’s baby cousin, the one he drew crisscrossing lines on in a dark room surrounded by Uzumaki sealmasters. Not that she remembers that. Thank the fucking Sage she doesn’t remember it; Jiraiya plays through watching the Kyuubi's chakra burn those little whisker marks into her face along with his other sins at night. 

“You’re disturbing the peace, Kushina,” Seiko says, tugging the girl to her left’s fist down with a roll of her eyes. 

“The peace needed to be disturbed, Seiko-chan,” Kushina whines at a notably more inside appropriate volume. She lets the other girl tug her back into a normal sitting position with mostly grumbled complaints. 

And there lies the problem. Or the solution, Jiraiya guesses. 

The girls are close rivals, and the Jinchuriki’s scores in the academy drastically improved when she started associating with the other girl. Hell, even Minato’s scores improved. 

No, Hiruzen-sensei has done something awful to Jiraiya. The sort of thing nobody should do to a student they love. 

Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina sit with Seiko between them, both looking at her in the sort of way Jiraiya stares at Orochimaru. Like something to chase and catch up with at all costs.

Hiruzen-sensei is enabling a three-way rivalry. And it’s going to be insufferable. The bells in Jiraiya’s pocket are heavy like lead.

The waitress comes over with a huge plate of meat, setting it down beside the hot stove at the middle of the table. She’s older, sort of matronly in the way most Akimichi end up looking in their civvy clothes. Hiding all the muscles and scars. She smiles wide at the sight of them. 

“Ah, it’s that time of the year again isn’t it?” she says with a sigh, looking at the three genin like she wants to pinch their cheeks. “Congratulations on your graduation, you three.”

“Thank you, oba-san,” Minato says politely, smiling. 

Well. At least Minato won’t be that much of a problem, rivalry aside. Sage, Jiraiya can’t believe Hiruzen-sensei gave him girls. He has no idea what to do with girls.

—

Seiko

Unlike with the canon Team Seven, the one Naruto gets to be on, Jiraiya doesn’t give us a day before our bell test.

We walk together to an unfamiliar training ground after Jiraiya feeds us, no memorial stones in sight, and Jiraiya holds out an ominous pair of bells.

Cicadas sing loudly, warbling their existence to the world. We stand within a clearing with packed dirt and roughed up grass, bracketed by woods at all sides. The trees around us rustle in the wind, a reprieve from the bright summer heat. 

“The three of you are going to try to get these bells off of me,” Jiraiya explains succinctly, jingling the two bells for emphasis between thick fingers. “If you don’t, then you fail, and I’ll have you sent straight to the Genin Corps.”

“What?” Kushina hisses. 

“But you already called us your students, you took us out to eat,” Minato asks, pale eyebrows furrowing beneath his new headband. 

Jiraiya grins smugly as he ties the bells to his pants, before crossing his arms. 

“I lied. You have until the sun sets to get your hands on one of these bells, starting—”

Chakra bursts from his tanned skin, smelling like sun baked clay. He calls “Now!” as he disappears in a whirlwind of leaves, leaving us all staring at where he was once standing. 

“We have six hours,” Minato says with a sort of bewilderment, looking up at where the sun sits high in the sky. 

“We can’t beat that damn pervert in six hours,” Kushina bites out, looking around wildly for wherever the man went. “I’ve trained with Tsu-oba before, if he’s as strong as her—”

“We aren’t going to be able to beat him,” I say with a swift nod. “Either he’s setting a intentionally unreachable goal, or—”

“Or the bells aren’t the real point of the test,” Minato finishes. We all stare at each other, and I wonder if these two would have put that together without me here. This must be some kind of record for figuring out the bell test is a load of bullshit. 

Kushina works her jaw, thinking hard. “So what then? What do we do? Try and get the bells anyways?”

“He didn’t say much when it came to his instructions,” Minato mutters, looking away to scan their surroundings. “We may have to fight him to figure out if there’s some kind of secret test.”

Okay. They probably could have figured out the test on their own. I knew Minato could’ve, but Kushina’s always been a hit first, think later kind of girl. 

“What do we know about him? His skills?” I ask. “His bingo book entry says he’s a toad summoner, a ninjutsu expert, and a seal master.”

“That’s what I’ve heard too.” Minato nods. 

Suddenly the air seems to change, and a barrage of kunai come falling towards the three of us. 

“Less talking, more chasing!” Jiraiya calls from the right, somewhere in the trees. 

Minato draws a kunai from his thigh pouch in a swift motion, blocking the few in trajectory to hit him. Kushina tackles me, sending the both of us flying out of the way of the kunai. 

I land hard onto the patchy grass, grunting as Kushina lands right on top of me. The blades of grass poke uncomfortably onto the skin of my arms and the dirt feels warm.

“He’s trying to skewer us!” Kushina shouts right by my poor ear, and I push her off of me, extending my senses outward to try and find the man. 

“Cover me,” I order her, taking a deep breath through my nose. 

“What? Why?” Kushina asks, but she’s drawing a kunai anyways. She's a bit harried by the sudden fighting, but she's always been good at acting under pressure.

I shut my eyes, letting the world become nothing but smell, sound, and the pulsing of chakra. Kushina is unbearably loud beside me, like a storm crashing over the cliffs of a shore, wrought with brine and iron.

Minato rushes to stand at my other side. I can feel his chakra rolling too, quieter than Kushina’s, more steady. A sunny breeze turning to a galing wind. 

I can smell the grass, the dirt beneath our feet, the shampoo and detergent of my teammates, our sweat. Birds are nearby, quick beating hearts making for tiny pinpricks of chakra. A fox under the thicket prowls. And—

Sun baked clay pulses from the trees, twenty meters away, no effort done to hide it. Probably intentional on Jiraiya’s part. He’s high up in the branches, hidden by them. 

“Twenty meters east north east, thirteen meters above in the branches,” I murmur under my breath, eyes opening and tapping Minato’s side, his white sweatshirt soft under my fingers. The thing is going to get stained by the end of today. “We push?”

Minato looks uncertain, eyes flicking from me to Kushina. 

“Let’s kick his ass!” Kushina decides for the both of us, rushing towards the spot he’s hiding in a burst of speed. 

Minato and I spare a moment to share a look, but then we’re following her to our doom. 

We reach the edge of the clearing in seconds, and Kushina elects to start throwing as many kunai as she can up at where Jiraiya is crouching in the branches, looking down at them. 

“So you are a sensor! You shouldn’t close your eyes when you do that, Seiko-chan, it’s way too obvious,” Jiraiya calls down, easily dodging Kushina’s kunai. 

I rush up the tree, because of the three of us I’m the only one who can wall walk, and aim a punch for Jiraiya’s metaphorical “bells”. 

He makes an annoyed little noise in the back of his throat, dodging and hopping off the branch he’d been on and down to ground level, which is mostly what I wanted. We really should’ve spent longer planning what we were gonna do.

Minato is on Jiraiya the second his feet touch the ground, sending strong kicks and slashes with his kunai at him. Every time Jiraiya moves to block his kicks or slide out of the way of his kunai, the twin bells jingle at his side in taunt. 

“You’ve got good form! It’s a pity you’re overshadowed by Seiko-chan,” Jiraiya taunts, catching Minato’s leg with a firm hand and tossing him at a nearby tree. He hits it with a muted grunt. “You’ll never be quite good enough, not since she started stealing the spotlight.”

Emotional manipulation? That’s low. We’re ten. 

I jump to the branches of the tree Minato is under. I’m a little bit thrilled at how weightless I feel soaring through the air, then my feet jolt onto the thick branch, before I shift to slide down the trunk to check on Minato. Kushina goes in to stab Jiraiya in his jugular below me. 

“Shut up!” Kushina shouts, baring her teeth. “You don’t know anything about us, dattebane!”

“You should be thanking me,” Jiraiya comments magnanimously, blocking her kunai with one of his own in a clang of sparks. “There’s only two bells. Only two of you get to pass. You don’t want one of them to be Minato-kun, do you?”

“What?” Kushina breathes out as I help Minato to a standing position, her wide violet eyes going from Jiraiya to us. I can see this getting ugly very quickly.

“He’s trying to mess with your head, Shina!” I state, mind rushing through possible plans as I stare at the bells at Jiraiya’s hip. “Genin teams are four man squads. He won’t fail only one of us.”

“Maybe Seiko-chan wants to be on a team with Minato-kun instead of you, Kushina-chan.”

“She doesn’t,” Minato says at my side, sounding completely certain as he takes a step forward, mostly recovered from his encounter with the tree. There’s a long scrape down the back of his sweatshirt, torn in a few places. “You’re testing us. For what? That we wouldn’t betray each other?” 

Kushina disengages from Jiraiya, kunai still raised as she jumps back to stand by Minato and I. She looks uncertain, lips pressed into a thin line as she keeps looking back at me and at Jiraiya.

“I don’t have time for three students,” Jiraiya lies bluntly, eyes flinty as he stares the three of us down.

“Then you’ll have to get a new team,” I declare. 

It feels a bit disingenuous to present myself like I didn’t expect this the whole time and just have a naturally strong moral center, but I’ve lied about worse things.

Minato nods, tossing down his kunai. After a moment, Kushina does it too, sending it into the ground beside his. 

Jiraiya keeps staring at us, expression unreadable. An oppressive wave of chakra starts to leak out of him, smelling like blood and decay and hatred. It’s so thick I can taste it. It feels a little bit like dying. I flinch, and Minato makes an aborted movement to step back and away from him. Just an inch closer to me and Kushina.

Kushina reaches back and grabs my arm, hands clammy on my skin.

Memories draw up to the forefront of my mind, unbidden. I can see headlights, hear the crunching of metal and plastic. The seatbelt is cutting into my skin, the glass, the fucking blood —

No. I swallow with a dry mouth, straightening and meeting Jiraiya’s gaze. That’s not worth thinking about. Killing intent. It’s like the chakra is wrapping itself around me and squeezing. Begging me to move so it can pounce and do something unknowably awful. 

But death isn't something to fear. Not for me. It hasn't been for a long time.

Then the act falls away from the Toad Sage’s frame, like a dog shaking off water. The killing intent vanishes as if it was never there, and Jiraiya groans, slumping and running a hand down his bemused face. 

“You three are unbelievable. It took my team four hours to pass this test. Four!” Jiraiya gripes waving around his kunai. “What has it been? Thirty minutes?”

“Wait, is he not gonna kill us?” Kushina stage whispers back to me, hand tightening around my arm. Her nails are biting my skin. I don’t pull away.

“No. He’s not allowed to kill you anyways,” I say slowly, careful not to let my voice shake. We watch the jonin moodily shove his kunai back into his thigh pouch and cross his arms. 

“The test was on teamwork, and you all passed, I guess. It’d have worked better if I told you from the start that only two of you get to pass. Not my damn fault I forgot sensei’s speech.”

Ah. I thought he did that on purpose. Like he was going to reveal it later to disrupt our teamwork at the worst possible moment. Good to know my sensei is both forgetful and a moderately skilled improviser. That certainly spells well for my future. 

“Alright. We’re a team now, properly. You brats pick up your stray kunai and we’ll head to the administrative office to get our photos taken,” Jiraiya orders, gesturing to Kushina’s kunai littering the area. 

“That’s it? You don’t want to test anything else?” Minato asks, frowning. He seems pretty unnerved by the past thirty minutes. I would be too if I was a real ten-year-old instead of whatever the hell I am. 

Jiraiya shakes his head, long white hair swaying with the motion. “No. You’ve passed. All three of you have impressive files, you’re worthy of your promotion. I expected you brats to meet my expectations, just not this fast.”

“When do we start D-Ranks?” I ask, shaking off Kushina’s grip on my arm and stepping forward to pluck Kushina and Minato’s kunai out of the ground. I toss them to their respective owners.

Jiraiya grimaces, and looks like he’s having flashbacks to his own genin years. “Aren’t genin supposed to hate those? You’re too eager.”

I’m too poor to care about whether I like them or not. I’ll take easy money while I can, soon they’ll start throwing me at people to murder. I need to start building savings for when I end up losing a leg or something in a war. And I don’t get a stipend anymore now that I’m a genin.

Maybe Kushina would let me live with her if I get forced to be a paper ninja until my discharge from service. Not that I want to mooch off of her, but she does live in a ridiculously empty house all alone. No rent except her utility bills…

“What’s wrong with D-Ranks?” Kushina says incredulously. “We’re finally ninja! Missions are supposed to be cool, right?”

“They’re missions with low chances of combat, Kushina-chan. Like painting buildings or helping at the farms,” Minato explains. Kushina should probably know this. Maybe we went over it on one of the days she was off leaving stink bombs in the teachers’ bathrooms. 

Kushina looks crestfallen, clutching her kunai close to her chest in some sort of self soothing technique. “But they'll still be cool, right?”

Jiraiya starts walking back in the direction of the village at a sedate pace.

“Talk about this later, pick up those kunai before I leave you here and pick up some new students!”

Kushina scoffs, but I shake my head at her, starting towards the nearest stray kunai to pick up. “Better to get this over with as fast as possible.”

I look back at Minato, who’s still frowning. He turns from where he’s watching Jiraiya’s retreating back and gives me a look. One that implies he’s still not sure about the man who’s meant to be our new sensei. 

I mouth a quick “Later,” and get back to the task at hand. Kushina threw a lot of kunai. 

Chapter Text

My team survives getting our photos taken by a harried looking photographer, having our ninja IDs issued, the works. And Jiraiya is there the whole time, watching us, occasionally bickering with Kushina. 

We part with strict instructions to meet at training ground three tomorrow morning. I use context clues to decide that’s probably the name of the training ground we were at earlier for our test. Jiraiya doesn’t actually explain before he lets out an offensive cloud of chakra smoke and shunshins away. The smell is still making my nose twitch.

Minato and I walk home in the burning afternoon sun, squinting as it turns everything too bright and loud.

All in all? I don’t have many complaints besides my suspicion that my sensei is twenty-four and probably not well equipped enough to remember to brush his teeth everyday, let alone teach three ten-year-olds. But hey, he is an unbelievably powerful twenty-four-year-old, so maybe everyone above us is just hoping it rubs off on us.

“I don’t like him,” Minato says bluntly as we pass through the main market, our hands coming to hold each other when things get a bit more crowded. “Him” refers to Jiraiya, presumably. 

I think for a moment before responding, Minato’s cold hand squeezing my own. His hands are so rough for being so petite. Like someone strapped sandpaper to a toddler. I should get him some lotion. The nice, scentless kind the Inuzuka sell.

“What do you dislike about him?” I ask diplomatically, which is impressive considering my own low expectations of our Sannin teacher. 

Minato casts me a long look, lips pursing while the cogs in that impressive brain of his turn swiftly. 

“He’s not well prepared. He tried to make us trust each other less for a test. He might be a pervert,” Minato lists off, voice hushing when he says the word pervert. He looks around to check if anyone heard, bashful.

I swing our joined hands, humming. 

“He might be the safest sensei we could have been assigned, bar Tsunade-hime. He’ll probably keep us alive through the war as long as we get good at running from S-tier problems.” 

I watch a sticky handed child wail loudly in front of a fruit stall, pointing to the oranges and making his civilian mother embarrassed. We sidestep around a large pair of Inuzuka dogs jogging through the crowd, panting in the heat. Their eyes are sharp though, watchful. Like they’re looking for something.

My nose twitches and I look away. 

“Safe doesn’t mean good,” Minato mutters, more to himself than me. 

“I know, I’m trying to be positive for once,” I say with a chuffed laugh. “He’s made a bad first impression, he might be a deviant, he doesn’t seem to be as good of a teacher as Ryuu-sensei. He smells weird.”

Minato’s eyes widen, intrigued at the new information. “Does he smell weird? I didn’t smell anything.”

I think back on the baked clay smell, the way his chakra was so thick. He shines like a beacon. It’s a wonder he doesn’t blind every more visual-focused sensor within fifty meters of him. I spend all my time with Kushina, so I’m kind of used to loud smelling chakra.

His flak vest also smelt like it needed a good wash. The old blood smell was icky. 

“His flak vest smelt like old blood, more than most jonin. He needs to wash it more thoroughly or replace it.” I grimace. Blood is a more common smell than people would expect in a hidden village, so you sort of get used to it when you have a really good sense of smell. But even my neighbors are better about cleaning their uniforms. 

Well. They probably have to worry about trackers more than Jiraiya. Jiraiya isn’t exactly able to do covert missions as anything but himself, and if he gets caught by a tracker he can probably just kill them. Actually, maybe he gets more blood on his uniform on average than most people.

Still. It’s sloppy. I dislike sloppiness in professionals responsible for keeping me alive. 

We walk through the main market and out onto the street our apartment building is on, a few minutes away. Minato seems content to walk in silence for a moment, so I let him. My mind is churning through what we’ve seen today, what work is to come, who Jiraiya is and if he can be trusted with Minato and Kushina’s lives. 

A group of old men crouch under the awning of a storefront, clacking through a game of mahjong. One complains about the heat in a gravelly voice, fanning his face with a thin skinned hand. Another says it’s barely June and he should stop complaining.

“Do you ever wonder why you can smell so well?” Minato asks, breaking my focus from people watching. I turn my gaze from the flipping of a tan tile to Minato. 

My nose twitches again and I scratch it with a huff. Our held hands are getting sweaty, so I let go. The crowds have thinned anyway.

“Sure. You wonder why you’re a blonde, don’t you? Most people are brown haired here, besides the Yamanaka,” I state, waving a careless hand. Minato doesn’t take the bait, blue eyes unerring from my face.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, you can tell me. I’m just curious,” Minato says, and he certainly sounds earnest. But people can sound like all sorts of things. He wants to know something specific, he isn’t “just curious”.

I nod like I believe him, but it's very sage-like and obvious that I don’t actually. His lips twist a little, bothered I didn’t take his own bait. 

“Did you know there’s two clans in Konoha with enhanced senses of smell?” I ask, apropos of nothing. Step around a pothole in the road and playfully knock my shoulder into Minato’s when I get close. He smiles, despite himself.

“I thought it was just the Inuzuka.” Here his tone sounds like when he’s answering a question in class. Agreeable, just the right amount of curious and thoughtful. Close enough to textbook that he could never get in trouble even if he’s wrong. 

I wonder if he knows he does that, or if he has to think about how to suit himself to different situations actively. He’s very good at being a social chameleon, much better at this age than I was at ten in my last life. It took me till highschool, from what I can remember, and it was harder because I was a little shit who knew I was smarter than everyone.

Then again, he’s also a little shit who knows he’s smarter than everyone, so maybe I’m just misremembering how good I was at manipulating people.

“The Hatake and Inuzuka.” I tick off my fingers as I list them. “Both tracker clans, both known for canine companions, both have sharp canine teeth.”

Minato nods, waiting for me to continue. I don’t.

We come up to our apartment building, turning to start up the concrete stairs. Two of our neighbors sit at the bottom of the steps, chunin from the second floor. Not on the same team, I don’t think.

“Oooh, look at those shiny headbands!” one says in greeting, a lopsided grin pulling at her scarred lips. I think her name is Kotone, but I could be wrong. They’re both from the graduating class a few years above us.

“You need to buff those down, they’re a risk when you’re on the field. Too reflective,” the other comments idly, her long legs thrown over Kotone’s lap, back on the wall railing. She fiddles with a strand of her brown hair. I have no clue what her name is.

“Thank you for the advice, Hibiki-senpai, Kotone-senpai,” Minato says next to me, luckily having a better memory for the names of his floor neighbors than me. He carefully steps over Hibiki’s legs that are taking up most of the first step, skipping over it entirely. I follow his lead. 

“No problem, Minato-chan. Make sure to not die on your first mission, okay? We’d miss you!” Kotone replies in that careless way teenagers can say cruel things, turning back to Hibiki and starting up whatever conversation they’d been having before we showed up.

Something about how a girl they know is pregnant who probably shouldn’t be pregnant, and especially not with the boy she got pregnant with (a branch Hyuuga boy, the horror!). I valiantly resist the urge to stay and listen in on the gossip.

We go up the steps, the genins’ words below us echoing up, and Minato doesn’t mention the conversation I dropped when he turns to start down his hallway. Not that it means he’s really dropped the subject. He’s too determined for that.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Seiko-kun,” Minato says, raising a hand in goodbye. I raise my own, eyeing the scratches down his white sweatshirt.

“We’ll walk together over to the training ground,” I say, and he nods. I pause to watch him walk away, just for a moment. 

Then I turn and I head up the steps. I need a shower, fast. And maybe a nap.

—

The first week of training as Jiraiya of the Sannin’s student is…

Well. It’s something. 

“Don’t they go over this in the academy?” Jiraiya asks obliviously, gesturing to the Naka river as it burbles along, waters clear and refreshing looking. Our task of the day was supposed to be sparring on water, but. Well.

“They don’t cover wall or water walking,” I reply, watching Kushina try to stick a sandal-ed foot down on the water and send it bursting out from under her shoe with a surprised sound.

“It’s just like leaves,” Kushina says, part whining, part in consideration. She shakes off the water she’s suddenly drenched in, scarlet hair dripping. “It took me two weeks to get one to stick!”

“Then why do you know how to do it?” Jiraiya asks me, eyes going a little narrow and his arms crossing. 

I shrug carelessly. It’s the sort of motion that would have made Ryuu-sensei’s stoic face turn stern. 

“I’m an overachiever.”

Chronically bored may be more accurate. It’s the least fun part of being intelligent at my age. You’re always looking for more things to do that aren’t unbearably easy, unengaging, or inadvisable. 

“How did you learn? Did you get someone to show you?” Jiraiya presses, which is novel. Most adults just take my excuses at face value.

“I watched other people do it and tried to make my chakra flow like theirs,” I state, looking away and watching Kushina make a second, no less water exploding attempt at water walking. “I meditate a lot, so it wasn’t hard to figure out how to stick to things.”

Not that water walking is about sticking to things. That was my mistake after I learned wall walking. Sticking yourself to a transient surface like liquid isn’t really possible. You have to use your chakra to maintain surface tension with the water to avoid sinking. 

Jiraiya makes a gruff, considering noise, dark eyes a bit too observant for my liking. Then his attention leaves me, and focuses on Kushina and Minato by the water.

“You two are learning how to tree walk, and when you figure that out, you’re learning how to water walk,” Jiraiya announces, clapping his hands. 

“Hai, sensei,” Minato replies, tone rote. Kushina repeats his words a second later after she’s shaken off some more water. 

“Rookie, you do kata or something while I show your teammates how to climb a tree. Actually, do kata on the water. I want to see you keep your concentration.”

And with that, I am banished to the river. 

I walk past Kushina and Minato as they shuffle to the nearest cropping of trees, Kushina flicking her wet hair at me with a grin. I grin back playfully.

I’m not bothered by the couple droplets landing on me. I’ll probably end up drenched by the end of the day. Training around water will do that to you. 

I let Jiraiya’s starting lecture fade into the background as I step onto the shore, wrapping a thin layer of chakra over the bottom of my sandal so I don’t sink into the Naka’s cool depths. Though it is tempting; the summer heat is coming back with a vengeance and won’t stop till it’s the rainy season again. 

A breeze ruffles my hair and my clothes as I walk on water, barely sending ripples out with each press of my foot. I’ve gotten the impression that you’re meant to aim for leaving no trace of your presence, but the few people I’ve seen water walk always seemed to leave ripples. It probably requires more chakra control to eliminate it entirely, like techniques to keep your feet from leaving tracks in snow or dirt.

Well. Something to think about for later. 

I stop at the center of the water, turning to face where my teammates are training, and move through my academy kata with the ease of having done it thousands of times before. 

In my past life I’d never done martial arts. 

I think I may have been happier if I’d done it back then. There’s a freedom to having so much control over your body. A freedom to feel as though it’s completely connected to your mind, rather than some distant thing you pilot.

I go through slow, controlled movements. A firm punch, the twist of a leg into a crouching position, the raise of a forearm in a blocking motion. In a turn I look down for a specific pose and see fish swimming beneath my feet, unbothered by the human above their watery world. 

I can see kunai at the bottom of the river, half covered by the mud and barely visible in the amber, sunlit water. 

I look away, shifting into the next pose. I wonder what kind of fish I saw. They’d been large, but not as large as a bass. I’ll need to see if there’s any books on fish in the shinobi library. 

My kata grow faster and faster as I run through them. Not in a sprinting sort of way, but controlled. My breathing stays steady as my body stomps its way through the Konoha standard like it was born to. Maybe it was. I don’t know how many of my ancestors were shinobi.

There’s a whistling in the air, the smell of iron on the wind, and I drop into a crouch. My head snaps towards the shore and a grinning Jiraiya looks all too pleased. 

A kunai thunks into the wood of a tree across the river. That’s good. I prefer it hitting a tree instead of my face. 

“You need to learn how to pay more attention,” Jiraiya says with little preamble. 

Behind him Kushina and Minato are running up the sides of two trees. Kushina loudly, Minato quietly. He does like to be quiet when he’s figuring out a new problem.

“Whatever happened to hello?” I mutter, standing from my crouch. My chakra control hadn’t slipped in surprise at least. Then, I speak louder. “Greeting me with sharp objects is impolite, sensei. I feel unsafe.”

Jiraiya walks onto the water towards me and I start actually feeling unsafe. I eye his hand hovering over his kunai pouch with an air of distrust. I also note that he leaves no ripples in the water he steps on. 

I shift into a loose stance. Kushina and Minato may not get to spar on water today, but that just means I get my freaky sannin teacher’s full attention instead. Very bothersome. 

“How are you leaving no ripples on the water?” I ask. Better to ask now and distract him from sparring. I’m not sure how I feel about sparring with a person who could kill me with a pinky finger. 

I’ll have to do it anyway, but it’s the thought that counts. Delaying the inevitable for some useful knowledge is totally reasonable. 

Jiraiya comes to a stop a few feet away from me. His hair shines in the morning light, absorbing the light refracting off the water and looking just a little pale gold and blue. 

He tilts his head consideringly, the picture of ease. I can still smell that faint hint of blood on his vest. Like a warning. I wonder if any Inuzuka have complained about it to him.

“I’ll tell you if you trade something with me.”

I narrow my eyes. “That’s creepy. You shouldn’t say things like that to little girls.”

Jiraiya sputters, going a little wide-eyed. 

“I’m not like that! I don’t know what the hell Tsunade-hime told you brats, but I’m not a damn pervert!” Jiraiya hisses, drawing a kunai from his side with incomprehensible speed. 

I duck under a wide swipe of his kunai. It’s a testing strike. Probably all of what he does will be testing strikes, intentionally slowing himself a great deal to avoid hurting me. At least I hope he will. I’m not interested in dying via my own jonin sensei. 

Swifter than a snake, Jiraiya grabs the front of my shirt and tosses me off to his right. I flip in the air, trying to keep eyes on him when I land with a skid across the water. A few waves rush out from around me, but I cover my entire legs in a layer of chakra to keep the surface tension and stay on top of it all. 

“You’ve got good reflexes, but you need better control of yourself in the air,” Jiraiya comments, and then he’s rushing towards me again. 

What follows are a flurry of punches and slides of his kunai that make me dizzy. My mind narrows down to the movements of his body, simplifying. There is no time to think, only to move. 

Move my head, hear the air disperse as his fist passes it. See the metal glinting and move enough to only get a scratch on my left arm. The pain stings. Breathe. Exhale as he tries to nail my stomach with a punch and jump back. 

“Pay attention—!” Ignore his words, leap over a kick and take a fist to the side in punishment. Use the momentum of the punch (ow ow fucking ow ) and use it to make distance. I need distance. Give me fucking distance!

My body hums with energy, the need to move, the need to get away. Adrenaline pumps so quickly it makes me light headed. 

His fists are crisscrossed with silvery little scars, webbing over his knuckles and the place where his thumb meets his palm. He isn’t even sweating, I can’t smell it on him—

“You’re a squirrelly one, aren’t you?” Jiraiya asks, but he doesn’t want an answer. If he did, he wouldn’t be closing the distance I’ve gained with his kunai held far too casually. Twirling around his index finger like a pinwheel.

My back slams into the water’s surface, shirt getting wet before I can quickly send my chakra out to cover my skin and clothes. All of it. Fuck only getting my legs, clearly all of me is going to get contact with the water today. 

A kunai presses to the hollow of my throat, Jiraiya crouched at my side. 

“Not bad for a genin,” Jiraiya says with a smirk. I get the very interesting urge to punch it off of him. I think I will, one day. That might be my new dream for the future. 

Then, he leans a bit closer, and the kunai’s edge makes contact with my skin. I still. His eyes and face have stayed friendly, but there’s a metallic edge to his chakra. Like killing intent, but small. Controlled.

I pant through my nose, willing myself still beneath his knife.

He smells like blood . I hate it. I hate that he smells like blood. It’s like death is waiting for me around the corner everytime I’m near him and nobody else can fucking tell. Maybe there’s a reason he keeps his vest smelling that way, an intimidation tactic.

“Seiko-chan, I’m going to ask you a question, and you’re going to answer honestly.” Jiraiya finally sounds like a commanding officer. There’s an iron edge to his voice. 

What could this possibly be about? I haven’t done anything treasonous outside my head in at least six months! 

Wait.

I reach up and press a hand to his wrist, frowning deeply. His heartbeat is slow beneath my thumb. He’s a bit too calm for a guy who’s threatening a ten-year-old. He should feel more morally complicated about this.

“If this is about Kushina, you don’t need to be so dramatic,” I state bluntly. Then— there it is. There’s a momentary change in his friendly face, a slight slackening of features and a blankness behind the eye. 

Shinobi are so predictable. They all love to claim they’re impervious and unreadable, but most of them have the same silly default face. 

It’s only a second or two that Jiraiya slips, barely legible, but then he’s back. His smile widens, just so, but his eyes are still less friendly. Openly considering.

“Really? What should I not be dramatic about, Seiko-chan?” He sounds casual. Teasing, even.

“Isn’t it illegal for me to say out loud? You’re not trying to trick me into treason, are you?” I ask, looking at him like he’s stupid. I tighten my grip on his wrist. “Of course I know about it. I’m her rival . I figured it out when she was gone over summer break and Mito-sama died.”

Jiraiya the Sannin stares at me for a long moment, and I realize my neck stings just a little. The asshole nicked me. I hope both sides of his pillow are warm forever more, and that he contracts some kind of illness from his next one-night-stand. A curse upon his house, a curse upon his tatami mats, and a curse upon his stinky flak vest.

The kunai lifts from my neck and he sighs. He sighs. As if this whole ordeal was bothersome for him and not me!

One day I am going to be strong enough to shove his face in the mud for this. I let go of his thick wrist and lie flat on the water, feeling the cold, silky surface soak up all the warmth in my skin.

All this trouble over me knowing who the Jinchuriki is. How ridiculous. How did he even find out I knew? And why does knowing about it mean I get the war prisoner treatment?

“At least you know how to keep a secret. Nobody can complain about you knowing if you haven’t told anyone yet,” Jiraiya grumbles to himself, looking down and through me. “Guess the old man was right.”

He groans, looking away and scrubbing a hand down his face. 

The Hokage told him to do this? The Hokage knows that I know about Kushina’s furry little parasite? Are you fucking kidding me. I hate ninja. I miss the Geneva Convention and wifi.

I ignore the lout above me, reaching up to press a careful finger to my neck where I feel it faintly stinging. I lift it up again to my face and see a thin line of blood. It’s nothing serious. I’d be more mad if it was, considering my sensei is supposed to have good control of his strength to be allowed near children. 

“Seiko-kun? Are you okay?” is called from the shoreline. I sit up, blinking dots out of my eyes and squinting to see Minato at the shore. He looks very concerned. 

I lift up a thumbs up, though my face probably doesn’t match it. My lips feel very much like they’re grimacing.

“Oi! Have you figured out wall walking yet?” Jiraiya shouts at the boy, doing his best to seem stern. 

Minato pauses for just a moment, then responds. 

“No, sensei.”

“Then hop to it!” Jiraiya waves him off, standing up. 

Minato does as he’s told, though his face doesn’t look very happy about it. I watch him walk away from the shore and back into the trees, hidden from view. 

I work my jaw, still unnerved by what’s just happened. 

“Jiraiya-sensei, if you do something like that again, I’m going to request a transfer to the Genin Corps.”

Jiraiya scoffs. “Yeah, sure you are, kid.”

I stand, reaching back at my shirt and wringing water from it, silent. He can think I’m joking all he likes. That was fucking stupid. Why would he think that a child who is supposed to learn to trust him would respond well to that?

If he had done that to Minato—

My hands tighten on my shirt, enough that my palms burn. I slowly relax them before I rip the fabric. I don’t have money for new clothes right now. 

“Let’s go again,” I say, stretching my limbs and cataloging any injuries. My side hurts where he punched me, more than it ever has in a sparring match, but that means I need to be faster. 

If nothing else, training under Jiraiya has taught me that jonin are in a different league and I’ll need to learn how to not be hit by them very soon. It fucking sucks when they land a hit on you, even when they aren’t trying to kill you. 

Minato figures out wall walking by the end of the day, Kushina doesn’t. That’s to be expected. I’ll probably need to watch her do it on our next training day and tell her what her chakra is doing wrong.

Jiraiya does teach me how to leave no ripples in the water. A thicker layer of chakra that circulates in tune with the water beneath it. It’s hard, Jiraiya says, it took him a few months to figure it out.

I get it within three days. I allow myself a great deal of gratification that Jiraiya seems bemused about it.

Chapter Text

Konoha could not run without its chunin. 

This is an undisputed fact, though it’s something that most people don’t think that hard about. The sky is blue, the sun sets in the west, and a chunin can always be found in any department save black ops. Even black ops. Someone has to handle the paperwork, after all. 

Most careers are centered around hitting chunin, too. The title of jonin is for the elite. Not just anyone can become one, and if they do, most just stop at special jonin and call it a day. 

My team and I amble through the crowded doors of the mission office, sidestepping around another group of newly graduated genin. They’re from our year, fresh genin corps members. There is no little envy in their eyes when they pass us. 

“Damn D-Ranks. Suppose everyone has to do a couple, just to be well rounded,” Jiraiya grumbles to himself as we enter the large room. There’s a line from the mission desk full of antsy genin teams. Some have jonin, some don’t.

“Looks like all the other sensei had the same idea,” I comment, eyeing the room. 

I’ve never been inside the mission office before. It’s nice, very airy even if it’s crowded right now. The first floor is apparently usually full of genin and chunin. There’s a less populated mission desk upstairs for more discrete missions. The ones that can’t have a room full of nosy shinobi listening in.

The walls are a nice tan color, and the occasional poster or bulletin board decorates it. There’s a great deal of scrolls lining the walls in little cubbies, chunin manning the desk quickly pulling different ones out and offering them to teams. All four chunin look harried, and Seiko doesn't envy them. 

“Maybe we should go train and come back when the line is shorter?” I ask, but as I speak another team comes through the door behind us. 

Right. It may just be this bad until mid-summer. 

“I want to do a mission, dattebane!” Kushina declares, throwing an arm over my shoulders and shaking me. She’s taking in the whole room like it’s the most interesting thing in the world. “Who cares about lines?”

Minato hums in agreement, looking over at one of the propaganda posters on a nearby wall. There’s a very artful depiction of a team of nondescript Konoha shinobi standing tall with dead Iwa nin at their feet. The kanji for “VICTORY!” is written proudly. 

The composition is well done, red and green clashing starkly against each other. 

I wonder who made the art. Looking at it makes me feel a little odd, remembering when my life was only as hard as working through the next contract or commission. Or when another life was like that. The semantics are odd.

“We’re getting a D-Rank— hell, maybe three so we don’t have to come back here too soon. No point trying to worm out of it, Rookie,” Jiraiya says. He keeps glancing back at the door like he wants to leave. His arms are crossed and he’s tapping his fingers impatiently against his bicep.

“Why do you keep calling me rookie?” I ask, bemused. 

Jiraiya spares me a glance and a smile. His tone is chiding. “You’re rookie of the year, aren’t you?” 

One day, I am going to become strong enough to slam his fat head into the ground like Tsunade. Hard. And hopefully his shiny little nose piercing reopens and gets infected from all the dirt. 

He seems to see what I’m thinking on my face and barks a laugh.

So we stand in line and I listen in on gossip. I don’t really mind the wait, patience is one of my greatest virtues. Along with intellect, great hair, and humility. So much humility. Kushina’s arm slides from my shoulders but her hand goes to mine and I take it easily. 

“—you do have to do D-Ranks again, Yuuma-kun. If you don’t want to, then you should be training harder for your promotion.” The Jonin two spots ahead of us is reprimanding one of his students. “You should be glad we’re taking a break from the front.”

“Yes, sensei,” a defeated student replies. I get a glimpse of them in the shuffling of bodies, a young teen with two new graduates on each side. He’s all wiry muscle and scars line his arms.

“What kind of mission do you think we’ll do?” Minato asks. 

“Sharpening kunai is common, isn’t it?” I reply, looking further up the line at the chunin handing over missions. “Maybe we’ll have to ferry messages between departments, I heard one of our neighbors complaining about it.”

“Maybe we’ll go and deal with bandits,” Kushina adds, swinging her hand in mine. There’s a childishness to how she says it that makes me want to frown. 

Killing is so normalized, but often it's rephrased. We aren’t massacring a bunch of starving civilians with pitchforks, we’re dealing with them. 

“No bandits,” Jiraiya vetoes boredly. “No bandits for at least a month.”

“What? Why?!” Kushina shouts, and a few teams look back at us.

“No yelling in the mission office,” Jiraiya orders in an attempt at sternness, scowling. Kushina ignores him. She is very good at ignoring when people tell her to do things she doesn’t agree with. I hope to see her do it to the Third Hokage one day, and a plethora of other annoying old people.

Before she can really make a scene I interrupt. This is an opportunity for information. 

“What do we need to learn?”

Jiraiya pauses, thinking. He roves his eyes over the three of us with clear calculation. 

“You’re already mission ready, Rookie,” he says finally, making Minato twitch and Kushina grumble. “Minato-kun, you’re close behind. You need to work on your tree jumping more and you’ll be fine. Kushina-chan—”

“I’m just as ready, dattebane!” Kushina insists, hand tightening around my own. 

“No, you’re not, you brat. Your taijutsu is fine against a couple civvy bandits, but you can’t stick your damn feet to a wall without taking out the wall. Once you figure that out, we’ll all be drilling tree jumping until I’m sure you won’t break your necks when my back is turned.” 

Kushina starts arguing about how she’s going to show Jiraiya how ready she is, letting go of my hand to gesture widely. Jiraiya, like the twenty-four year old he is, starts arguing back. The room starts to subtly and unsubtly watch them both. 

I’m unbothered. I have proof that our new teacher actually has thought about what we need to be sent off on an actual combat mission, along with actionable steps to get us where we need to be. Survival is possible and so is actual improvement. I don’t have to like Jiraiya so long as he fulfills both of those things.

I edge away from standing between Kushina and Jiraiya and stand beside Minato. 

Minato and I share a look. He frowns, gesturing his head towards the two of them and looking at me like I should be at least trying to stop it. 

“He’s an adult,” I say bluntly, listening to Kushina call him a pervert. She likes doing that, it’s like a button to make Jiraiya act more stupid. 

Minato looks even less happy at my words, because I’m right and he knows it. 

“Is that Jiraiya? The Sannin?” a genin mutters towards the front of the line, peering back at said man. 

“Shut up!” another hisses beside her. They both have the look of genin corps members, hand me down gear and no tall jonin watching them. 

We make it to the front of the line after fifteen more minutes. Jiraiya stops the argument with a hard “Genin, be silent ,” that has Kushina chafing but quiet. I stifle the impulse to palm a kunai and settle for tugging Kushina to be on Minato’s right side, furthest from the jonin. 

The chunin at the desk we see is missing a few fingers on her hands. Not a career-ending injury if you’re a almost sole-y taijutsu focused shinobi, but most ninja rely on basic ninjutsu. She could use it still, if she had the right chakra control to change the flow of her chakra—

“Team designation and mission class?” the woman says quickly, impatient. Her mouth is pulled into a frown and bags are under her dark eyes. 

Right. I should focus. I doubt the chunin wants me thinking about her career prospects like a rude voyeur.

“Team Seven under Jiraiya, D-Rank,” Jiraiya says, chancing a grin. It would be more charming if he were less annoying.

The woman quickly reaches back into a cubby without looking and shoves a scroll into Jiraiya’s hands, distinctly peeved. Probably because he was causing a scene but he’s too highly ranked and closely linked to the Hokage to reprimand. 

Jiraiya at least has the wherewithal to look sheepish. 

“Right. Thank you. Come on, kids,” He says, tucking the mission scroll into his flak pants pocket and grabbing Minato and I’s shoulders to steer us away. Mostly because we’re closest to him, and perhaps partially because Kushina would go for his hand with a kunai.

I give Jiraiya’s hand a sidelong glance but let myself be guided out of the room, smelling traces of weapon oil and the bright beacon of his chakra. Being close to people, especially touching them, can make my chakra sense heightened. Jiraiya the Sannin has got an ocean of chakra that comes from more than a decade of honing it. So I can sense his chakra even better than your average person. 

He smells a little embarrassed, the rumbling of earth and trying to hide that rumble. 

He should be, he did just show a room full of shinobi that he argues with children. Insubordinate children who are his responsibility to make obedient little soldiers. It’ll probably be a week’s worth of gossip until the next drama from the front comes back.

The only thing merciful about this situation is that my nose is finally getting used to the blood smell clinging to Jiraiya’s flak jacket. It’s faded since he was assigned to us a week and a half ago, but I’m sure that's only because he hasn’t been sent on any missions outside the village since then. 

I wave hello to a few of the newly graduated genin in the line who I recognize on our way out. They’re all students from the other classes in our year. Orphans, civilians, all just promising enough to fill in empty places in other genin teams. I hope they don’t get deployed too soon. 

Shit. I hope we don’t get deployed too soon.

We exit the doors of the mission office and Jiraiya sighs, letting go of Minato and I’s shoulders to scrub his hands through his hair. I feel a bit bad. Not bad enough to give him a second to breathe, of course.

“When are we being deployed to the front, sensei? Do you have a timeline?” I ask bluntly, stepping to the side so that a trio of genin can head through the doors we just exited. 

The morning sun is rising higher and higher over the tops of the buildings, casting shadows onto the road. The administrative building is only going to get busier and busier as the day goes on. 

All roads in Konoha eventually lead back to the admin building, if a bit winding, and I can see sleepy eyed civilians walking the streets alongside tired shinobi. On a nearby apartment balcony a woman beats a rug, chatting with a neighbor on the next balcony over.

Kushina and Minato both pause, Kushina a little panicked and Minato contemplative. 

“You think it’s soon?” Minato asks, looking between me and Jiraiya. Jiraiya looks skywards.

“It can’t be that soon, dattebane. We just graduated. Right, Per— Jiraiya-sensei?” Kushina says, but she doesn’t sound certain. She fiddles with her thigh pouch, opening and un-opening its flap with a click-click-click . A bad nervous tick, I’ll have to talk to her about it.

Or maybe I won’t. Maybe it isn’t worth killing every little tick and weakness, yet. I don’t know.

I watch Jiraiya say nothing for a few moments, eyes still on the clouds. 

He looks down, gives all of us an imperceptible glance, and then starts walking. 

“A few months,” Jiraiya says casually as we scramble to follow him. He’s pulling the mission scroll from his pocket and rolling it open. 

A few months. Soon. Soon, the mud, the rations, and the death. Soon.  

Something three steps to the left of relief and four steps to the right of grief rolls over my shoulders. Then I see the panicked look on Kushina’s face and guilt joins the rest of the feelings, mixing and unmixing itself. 

Kushina sidles up to me and takes my hand. She squeezes it too tight, the little bones of my hand creaking. I let her. I look at Minato on my other side and realize he’s gotten closer too, watching my face rather than Jiraiya’s back. 

“Then we’ll be ready by then,” I state calmly. I’m not afraid, nor am I particularly panicked. Even if I was, what use would it be? Plan, train, survive. The rest isn’t in our control.

My eyes still hold Minato’s and Kushina fingers grip my hand like I’m going to float away. 

“Not until you do a few D-ranks you won’t be, Rookie,” Jiraiya says wryly, shutting the scroll with a snap and tossing it back without looking. Minato catches it, breaking eye contact with me to do so, blonde brows furrowed. “All three of you familiarize yourself with that scroll, most mission scrolls follow the same format of information.”

Minato does as he says immediately, rolling open the scroll and peering down at it. He tilts it so Kushina and I can peek at it too. 

“All D-rank scrolls are marked with green, right, sensei?” Minato asks. Jiraiya hums an affirmative, still not looking back at us.

It’s something we went over in the academy. Green for D, yellow for C, blue for B, and red for A. 

Suzuki Kyo had asked what color denoted an S-rank. Ryuu-sensei said it was classified. That had only made people more interested in figuring it out. Denial is a very powerful way to make humans want things more. 

Regardless, the structure of the scroll is the same as we were shown in the academy. Rank at the very top, payer and payout after that, whether it’s in-village or out-of-village, and then the details of the mission. Konoha is the payer for this mission, and we’re meant to report to the North Gate for courier work. 

The scroll doesn’t specify what exactly we’re meant to be ferrying back and forth and to where, but that’s probably safer anyways. Even D-rank information carried by genin in-village could be problematic if leaked during a war.

I wish I were born in peacetime, maybe then I’d get to paint some fences instead of carry around documents. Then again, courier work is a good excuse to practice running on rooftops. And it’s less likely to get paint stuck to my clothes. I only have two sets of mission appropriate outfits, and I need them to last until I’ve done a few more D-ranks. 

My eyes flick up to the pay again and I frown. Splitting that much ryo four ways will be troublesome. Minato and I’s apartments are paid for as long as we’re a part of the active forces, but we have to pay for everything else. 

Kushina will probably be fine. If there’s something good about being one of the last Uzumaki, she did inherit all of Mito-sama’s possessions and money, along with any other Uzumaki who kept their money in Konoha’s bank. 

Maybe it would be more financially responsible for all three of us to move in together? But that would be an unequal exchange, considering Kushina doesn’t need roommates to help share costs with. 

Problems for later, I suppose. 

“Courier work?” Kushina comments, squinting at the scroll as she swings our hands together. 

“Courier work. Try not to cause property damage while you’re running on the roofs, Brat,” Jiraiya says, finally looking back at us. Kushina bristles.

“That’s my nindo,” I reply blandly. Jiraiya raises his eyebrows, hair shining gold at the edges from the sunlight. He’s searching my face for if I’m serious. I am. He laughs.

Minato closes the mission scroll in a swift shhhk and we make our way to the North Gate. I try not to think too hard about it when Minato hands the scroll to me, like it’s expected. I tuck it away in my thigh pouch. 

—

The D-rank is about what I expected. 

We’re meant to split up to ferry paperwork from the North Gate to different departments. Some of it is customs paperwork, others are registers denoting who’s been through the gate. 

“By ourselves?” Kushina clarifies with the bored-faced chunin at the gate station. Unlike many of the chunin you’ll see stationed in Konoha I can’t spot any sign of disability or injury on him. To be honest, he has the chakra levels to edge into jonin. 

The walls being safe probably requires shinobi in their top shape. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s also a healthy number of ANBU patrolling the perimeter as well. After Uzushio, that’s what I would do. 

“Why not by yourselves?” the chunin asks. He keeps glancing over at Jiraiya as if he’s surprised. Probably because he’s one of our strongest shinobi and he’s been saddled with ten-year-olds. 

“This is their first D-rank,” Jiraiya says, looking back at us and ignoring the chunin’s unsaid questions. 

The North Gate is by far the most patrolled, on account of the road there leading towards the Ame front. That means most returning shinobi teams come through here after deployment or missions in that region. Lots of injured shinobi, lots of shinobi who may be attempting infiltration, the works. 

The gate itself is massive, taller than any gate really need be and wide enough to allow five wagons through at once. That itself is probably an intimidation tactic. Look how big our gate is, you’re not coming through unless we let you. Punk. 

Or maybe the first Hokage just really liked large architecture. He did order we start sculpting massive faces into a mountain. This would be in character for him.

“Oh,” the chunin says with a blink and a frown. He has a tiny scar on his cheek that pulls at the motion. He’s mostly forgettable besides that feature. “Congratulations.” 

The congratulations sounds much less enthusiastic than it’s supposed to be. I appreciate the candor. 

“We could run one delivery together with Jiraiya-sensei, then split from there,” I offer, tucking my own scroll into my thigh bag. They’re deceptively roomy. I’m meant to deliver my paperwork to T&I, which I think I know the location of. It’s more a building to avoid than to remember the directions to. 

“No,” Jiraiya vetoes casually. “You’ll be fine alone, Rookie. Kushina-chan, I’ll run with you. Minato-kun, you should also go alone.” 

Kushina bristles at being singled out. Minato looks much more composed, if frowning a little. 

“I don’t know where R&D is, Jiraiya-sensei,” Minato says simply, putting his own scroll away. 

Jiraiya sighs. “You can come with me too, then, just once.”

He doesn’t explain why I’m going alone, but I can assume it’s probably for expediency. Maybe some kind of trust in my ability to be a good carrier hawk. Whatever it is, soon I’m being shoo-ed away all by my lonesome while Jiraiya does his best to show Kushina how not to make anyone’s wall explode to get up to the rooftops. All the while the chunin shakes his head and goes back to his post. 

So I go off on a solo adventure. Surely nothing bad will happen to my team while I’m gone.

I shouldn’t even be sarcastic about that. Of course something will go wrong. 

With a running start I jump and land on the wall of a restaurant by the gates. My chakra slides and lattices to stick to the surface, bricks scuffing against my sandals. The earth pulls me closer by my core, making me lurch just so before my core muscles straighten out. With a huff I take off running again, feet propelling me up and over the edge of the wall, landing on the roof. 

The smell of something flavorful wafts up from the business’s chimney making my mouth water.

Being a preteen is awful. There is no respite from hunger, none! And when you do eat, it’s never enough. I should make Jiraiya buy us dinner after this mission. He can afford it. I bet he spends all his money on weapons, paper, and brothels anyways. 

With a shake of my head to dislodge fantasies of gorging myself on expensive barbeque, I pump my legs onwards. The edge of the red, flat roof comes quick, and I’m leaping to the next in a breath or two. The weightlessness in the air is addictive, making me think of my bird henge. I really should work on that more. 

I land solidly on the next roof, orienting myself in the village. If I head straight I’ll eventually end up at the administrative tower, I can see it peaking above the other buildings in the distance. It's round and taller than everything else on this side of the village. It makes sense, I don’t think the civilian district is allowed to build their buildings as tall as the shinobi side. 

The village looks different from up high, new paths opening before my eyes between buildings of differing heights and similarly flat roofs. The landscape is familiar and not. With a glance down towards the street I can see the inns they usually shove travelers into, and down a road from my left I know the redlight district follows. 

Civilians and ninja look so small on the main street below, clumped in groups that seem to flow around one another. A trio of Inuzuka, a few teams of bloodied returning shinobi, a merchant barking orders at his caravan as they head out towards the gates, kids running down the road shouting ninjutsu moves. 

I turn away, settling in for my task. T&I should be in the shinobi district, a few streets off from the administrative building.

Another leap and a dash towards the right. The next few buildings come quicker and quicker, my eyes scanning for good footfalls and leaping points among the laundry lines and unbothered birds. In another village, a human sprinting and jumping past a couple of pigeons would make the lot of them burst off into flight. 

The pigeons of Konoha are too used to ninja. One goes to peck at my sandal indignantly when I land beside it. I squawk, jumping out of range and heading for the next roof. 

Fifteen minutes later and I’m hopping down into an alleyway across the street from what I’m certain is the T&I building. There’s a few men smoking at the entrance of the alleyway, all garbed in grey Intelligence uniforms. All three of them look nondescript, no clan affiliations as far as I can tell. Though one is a little Yamanaka looking around the eyes and cheekbones.

My nose twitches at the tobacco smell, along with a hint of something chemical clinging to the men. It’s a bit bitter and base-ish, like harsh soaps and cleaners. 

One takes a slow draw of his cigarette, then murmurs a quick, “Genin,” in greeting, jerking his chin at me. He’s the tallest of the three, almost slumped against the pale clay wall with deep under eye bags.

I take a little whiff of the air, eyeing him. His chakra feels muffled under the bitter smell, but as I start to walk past I can feel it roll like anyone else’s. 

“Sir,” I say with a nod, unsure of his rank and leery to figure out why they all smell so much like chemicals. I brush past them through the mouth of the alleyway and into the subdued street. 

The T&I building is fairly unassuming despite its reputation and purpose. It also isn’t really called T&I. Not that anyone cares about that. “Torture and Interrogation” is just much more intimidating.

Konoha Intelligence Division is spelled out plainly on a sign on the front of the mostly windowless building. A pair of Intelligence shinobi saunter out of the wide door, one holding the door open for me when she sees me heading to enter it. Probably a bad move optics wise, one shouldn’t look like they’re welcoming in unknown shinobi, even if they’re obviously genin. Especially if they’re genin looking. 

Then again, anyone with bad intentions in this village would probably not want to be anywhere near the division that tortures people. So nevermind. 

“Thank you,” I say politely, noting that the chemical smell I smelt on the alleyway smokers is a bit more pronounced as I enter the lobby. It’s not necessarily an offensive smell, just obvious and making every other smell a little bit duller.

That seems purposeful. There’s many reasons the Intel division would want to hide smells. Both for prisoners with enhanced senses and to hide the smell of the work that is probably done here. I file that away for later. 

The lobby is brightly lit with overhead fluorescents, bearing a small waiting area with uncomfortable looking chairs and a small front desk. There’s two large wooden doors at the back that the occasional shinobi in Intel uniforms walk through. All in all, it’s fairly underwhelming.

“Delivery?” the receptionist at the front desk asks impatiently, tapping a very well-manicured nail onto the desk. She’s a soft looking woman, dressed in pretty civilian clothes, but something is odd going on with her chakra. I can’t parse it well under the chemical smell, but it’s definitely fluctuating…weirdly. She must be a kunoichi.

I quickly draw the delivery scroll from my thigh pouch and step forward, placing it directly into her hand as per protocol. 

“Delivery from the North Gate,” I state, even though she looks like she probably knows that. 

Up close I can feel her chakra far better. Almost as though it’s cycling more…tightly? More condensed-ly. I blink. 

Oh. She’s hiding her chakra levels. I wonder how—

“Do you need anything else?” the receptionist asks blandly, pressing the scroll onto a small seal on her desk. It poofs in a short burst of chakra smoke, making me sneeze. I really should work on stifling my sneezes. It’s too obvious of a tell that I’m a sensor. I just get surprised!

“Sorry, allergies,” I say in a very unconvincing way, unabashedly studying the flow of her chakra. Always better to be obvious about these things. Trying to hide it is much more suspicious. 

She seems to have pressed her chakra more closely together and is making it channel more slowly through her body. It’s very interesting, I never noticed that civilians have their chakra flowing at a slower rate. I should try it out next time I meditate. 

Or ask my sensei about it first. But that feels a bit like cheating, and he doesn’t need to know I know how to do that until after I teach Minato. I’ll probably try to teach Kushina too, but she has so much chakra that it probably won’t help her in subterfuge. 

“Have a nice day!” I say cheerfully, excited at the prospect of a new technique. I start back towards the door. The kunoichi pretending to be a civilian watches me go and doesn’t say goodbye back, which is a bit rude. 

I hum a tune on my way back to the North Gate, twisting through the air and carefully avoiding stepping on any birds. The parkour is freeing in the same way tree jumping is. For a moment I get to be weightless in the air, then the next I’m landing solidly and sprinting into another leap. 

I almost convince myself that the others did fine without me. What could possibly go wrong during a D-Rank in mission?

—

My teammates arrive an hour after me and look suspiciously like they all got in a fight with a campfire. 

“How was you guys’ part of the mission?” I ask carefully, watching Minato brush soot off of his jacket. Kushina is suspiciously silent, and Jiraiya looks like he needs a drink. 

“We’re drilling chakra control for the rest of this week,” Jiraiya says cryptically. “And dodging.”

…Okay. That’s interesting. I look over at Minato, who mouths a grimaced, “Later,” and that’s that. 

“Well, Maboroshi-san said we’re done for the day. I did the rest of the deliveries while I waited for you guys,” I report, gesturing over at the gate guard we accepted the mission from. I’d been pestering him about how gate duty works while I waited for the others to get back. 

Jiraiya hums, reaching over and ruffling my hair roughly. He absolutely gets ash in my hair. And he smells a little bit like cooked meat, which is even more bewildering. What the hell happened? 

“Good work. Did anything interesting happen on your side?” 

“I noticed things about different departments' lobbies, but that’s probably illegal for me to talk about them in public,” I say with a shrug. “Oh, and Maboroshi-san says I should become a gate guard if you’re mean to me, because they’ll all be nice to me.”

“Maboroshi-san needs to scalp talent from somewhere else if he knows what’s good for him,” Jiraiya says, giving said man a little side eye. He’s currently searching a merchant cart for contraband. 

“But he was very convincing, sensei. He said that being a gate guard is the least boring home assignment,” I add dryly as Jiraiya starts walking back towards the village center.

“Because it’s the most lethal home assignment. Alright, all of you come on. We’re turning in this mission as a success, and then we’re done for the day.”

Maboroshi-san also mentioned that, but I like to think that’s a perk of the job rather than a negative. The actual bad parts would probably really be dealing with rude merchants and civilians. But it’s stable, and pays well. Very well after Uzugakure. 

Kushina and Minato file up next to me as we walk, Kushina looking very put out and Minato bemused. 

I don’t ask. Minato said later, and I can wait for later. 

“D-ranks suck, dattebane,” Kushina mutters. Some of her hair looks a little burnt, though the damaged hairs seem to be…mending? I can smell something going on in her chakra. Uzumaki healing factor weirdness. 

“The next one will be better,” I reply easily. Any D-rank mission will probably be better than whatever the hell happened. 

“Not if you’re not there,” Kushina says moodily, glaring over at Jiraiya and then staring out at the village. 

Kushina doesn’t seem to be looking for a reply to that, so I settle for reaching over and brushing ash off her shoulder. The soft particles stain my fingers.

I feel a bit guilty for not being there when they almost got set on fire, but Jiraiya wanted me to work alone. So what was there to be done? I think this mission was meant to be an independence exercise before Minato and Kushina’s unfamiliarity with where the village administrative stuff is put a wrench in it. 

It’s probably fine. Probably. 

Jiraiya pulls us to the mission office, money is handed to us after waiting in an excessive line, and then he says something about escorting Kushina home. Unceremoniously Minato and I are left to our own devices. 

“What happened?” I ask finally, after we make it back home to my apartment. We sit in my little kitchen while I pull out two cold juice boxes from the fridge. I set one before Minato before stabbing the straw into my own. 

Minato fiddles with his own juicebox, not opening it yet. 

“Kushina blew up a R&D project by accident, but it was because the researcher wasn’t being careful. He bumped into her and her chakra jumped and set it off. At least, that’s what Jiraiya-sensei said,” Minato explains.

“Ah. Chakra control and dodging.”

Minato nods seriously. “The entire lobby got pretty burnt. The only reason we didn’t get injured is because Jiraiya-sensei put up a doton jutsu and pulled us away.”

“Seems suspicious that the researcher bumped into her, though,” I murmur, quieter. It could have been clumsiness or intentional. You can never know when a jinchuuriki is the wounded party. 

Fuck. I should have been there. What if Jiraiya hadn’t saved her? I probably could have caught the researcher. I was doing deliveries none the wiser while my teammates almost got killed. 

Minato gives me a long look before responding. He nods. “I thought so too. Jiraiya-sensei looked very angry, and the researcher was too injured by the blast to explain himself.” 

That explains the cooked pork smell. How grim.

Minato looks down at his juicebox, tracing the cartoonish “Apple Juice” written on the front. 

“I shouldn’t have told him I didn’t know where R&D was,” Minato says finally. He looks so young, a frown marring his rounded cheeks. 

“You can’t take personal fault for an accident,” I disagree immediately. “That researcher was either clumsy and stupid, or stupid and trying to start trouble.”

“But it was my assignment, and I would have been able to dodge,” Minato replies, looking up and leveling a too serious gaze on me. “You were able to do your part of the mission alone. I should have just asked for directions.”

“You trusted your superior officer to make a choice, and he did. And he also saved you and Kushina. Whether you should have trusted him is a choice you have to make.”

Minato draws himself up, looking a little sick. “Of course I trust him. I’m not talking about what Jiraiya-sensei did.” 

Right. Military brainwashing. I need to explain this better. 

“The choice you made was to trust Jiraiya to help you with a problem, and probably to pressure him into allowing a combined group of all three of us. Jiraiya then chose to do what he did and just bring you and Kushina. Whether either of you were right or wrong doesn’t matter. The real problem here is the researcher,” I explain carefully, pushing past how unnerved Minato looks at the implication he’s disloyal or something. 

Minato doesn’t stop frowning. “Maybe,” he says, which is the most “I disagree with you but don’t want to fight about it” statement ever. 

I guess if we could logic ourselves out of guilt then the world wouldn’t have as many problems. I sigh. 

“Drink your juice, ‘Nato. Do you want to hear about a new technique I figured out while I was doing my deliveries?” 

Minato looks a bit less defensive, back on comfortable territory. He pulls his straw off of his juicebox and stabs it into the top of it, taking a little drink. 

“What technique?”

I explain the details of what I’m pretty sure is chakra suppression, and I don’t stop thinking about how Jiraiya escorted Kushina home. Or about suspicious researchers. Was it intentional? If so, why would someone try and blow up our jinchuuriki? It doesn’t make sense. 

I take a long drink of my juice box while Minato talks through how we could test the technique, and wonder if I should split off from my team ever again. Maybe I’ll allow it if Jiraiya is there instead. He may be an asshole, but he kept them safe today. I do care more about results than packaging. 

Chapter Text

Weeks blur into a haze of training and missions. 

Jiraiya becomes moderately better at teaching the longer time goes on, combined with more grim, lingering looks on the group of us that bode ill. Whether or not he thinks we’ll survive the front I have no idea. I know we’re luckier than other teams. Some went straight onto the out of village courier roster. Those things are higher mortality than the pay would imply. 

Kushina can competently tree jump by our second month, we’re all capable of wall and water walking, and there’s been plenty of dodging practice between us. 

I turn eleven, and a few days later we’re dropped into our first bandit assignment unceremoniously. 

“Yes!” Kushina crows on our way out of the mission office, punching her fists into the air and jumping around. She almost knocks into a limping, dirty chunin probably showing up for report. Jiraiya grabs her by the back of her green shirt and pulls her out of the way. 

I distract myself with the practicalities. It’ll be our first real combat engagement, and luckily safer than most others. The threats will be starving farmers and maybe a few academy dropouts. C-Rank pay is markedly better than D-Rank and I need the money for new gear. I wet my lips, wondering where I put my camping kit—

“Ne, Seiko, are you excited?” Kushina asks, arm looping around my neck and pulling the back of my head into her. I let out a breath, the smell of her chakra surrounding me. I can almost smell the salt of the ocean again. I wonder if I’ll ever see the ocean in this life?

“Missions like this are serious, Kushina,” I reply, awkwardly trying to walk as Kushina drags me along. She’s still shorter than me, more now that I’ve really hit my growth spurt. “They’re not meant to be exciting.”

“Bandits are never exciting,” Jiraiya agrees boredly behind us. They aren’t exciting for him because he could kill a jonin without blinking.

“What should we pack, sensei?” Minato asks, walking on my other side. His hands are shoved into his jacket pockets, stance casual.

“Right, this is all of you’s first time out of the village, isn’t it?” Jiraiya says contemplatively. “We’re going four days south, so pack your camping kits and regular gear.”

How vague. 

“By regular gear, how many kunai would you suggest we bring? And what kinds of food?” I ask for Kushina and Minato’s benefit, already thinking back on the lectures Ryuu-sensei gave on mission readiness. Our other sensei had done lectures on it too, but Ryuu-sensei was a jonin and had been extremely active in the war prior to his injury. He had the most recent and trustworthy info. 

I think I have notes back at my house. I’ll have to look at them again. 

“Do we have to eat rations? I hate ration bars,” Kushina adds, still not releasing me from her arm. I bemusedly begin to pry her from my neck, thinking about if I’ll have to toss her over my shoulder in public. We aren’t meant to spar in civilian areas. It’s a citation from the police if they spot you, and it may get back to Ryuu-sensei somehow. 

Maybe if I’m quick about it…

“Yes, we have to eat rations. As for kunai, how many kunai do you have? I forget you brats don’t own sealing scrolls.”

I scan the area around us. We’re walking past a few weapons shops and the occasional restaurant. I spot an Uchiha police member across the road and scrap my throwing plan. I reach a leg over and kick Minato in the calf, giving him a pleading look.

“I have sealing scrolls,” Kushina says. Benefits of being an Uzumaki. I think she knows the basics of sealing too, she said Mito had been teaching her before she passed. Maybe I should ask for a scroll as a belated birthday gift. Then again, she’s already gotten me another nice set of kunai.

Minato eyes me from the corner of his eye, then Kushina’s arm, and finally to oblivious Kushina herself. I can practically see the gears turning in his head. 

“Not everyone has sealing scrolls, Kushina-chan. Damn, I should probably make some for you other two. Ahhhh, but they take an hour each,” Jiraiya complains, and I hear the sound of him scrubbing at his bristly chin. He needs to shave. “How much did the academy teach you kids about sealing?”

Is he trying to see if he can just make us do it?

“How to activate seals, how to recognize a container scroll and how to recognize an explosive one. We also made seals that make light,” Minato lists off. Then he looks over at Kushina and shifts his tone of voice. Almost innocently curious. It reminds me of Ayako. “You made yours explode, didn’t you Kushina-chan?”

Kushina frees my poor neck instantly, using her arm to point at Minato. “Hey hey, I wanted it to explode, dattebane! Don’t look at me like that!”

I let out a soft breath, stretching my shoulders and neck. Minato puts on an appropriately abashed face, lifting his hands in surrender as Kushina sets up to start an argument. To be fair to Kushina, she definitely did make the seal explode on purpose. It was pink, loud, and perfectly placed to hit one of our teaching aids in the back with paint. 

“I don’t think we can make storage scrolls yet, sensei. Maybe after our mission,” I say, looking back at a bemused Jiraiya. Always so bemused. Isn’t he supposed to be the most unserious sannin? 

“You’re going to be very bored when we start camping. Shouldn’t you be excited to learn sealing from a master? You love training!” Jiraiya teases, reaching forward and ruffling my hair. I resist the urge to groan. Why is everyone touching me today? I should start hitting them in retaliation as soon as we aren’t near any Uchiha police.

“I don’t love training, I like being good at things,” I disagree, already planning my revenge as Jiraiya’s hand leaves my head. I could bite him next time. I have very sharp teeth.

“Sensei, could you look at what I pack before we leave?” Minato asks, dodging Kushina’s attempt to grab him by the shirt with quick feet. This time I grab her with an arm around her neck, ignoring her grumbling complaints. 

The Uchiha police member gives Jiraiya a judgemental look as we pass him. It’s very severe with his prominent eye wrinkles. Jiraiya seems to ignore it. Maybe he doesn’t respect fancy dojutsu eye wrinkles since he has his own weird eye marks.

Jiraiya sighs. “Yes, Minato-kun. I guess I’ll do you too, Rookie, since you live right by him. And Kushina-chan will be on the way to the gate anyway.” 

With that, we start towards Minato and I’s apartment building. Konoha wakes around us, bodies slowly filling her streets. The sky is blue. The stalls are emptier than they were a few months ago, and emptier still from a few months before that. 

“Don’t you need to pack, sensei?” Kushina asks after I’ve released her from my hold, turning around to walk backwards and stare at Jiraiya. The road isn’t so full that she’ll run into anyone, yet. 

“I always have my mission supplies on me,” Jiraiya says. I look back and see him pat his dark jonin vest. He must have his scrolls under it. None of his pouches seem to be big enough for a scroll. “Which is why you brats need to start carrying around container scrolls.”

Always mission ready, always wearing his uniform. The hypervigilance must be why he’s always spending his nights drinking or in the occasional brothel. How often did he get called into missions at random before he was given us as a team? Will that be our life?

Jiraiya locks eyes with me. “You’re making that face again. Share your thoughts with the class, Rookie.”

“I don’t make faces,” I disagree. And the thoughts I have are often treasonous. They’re far better served inside my skull. “I’m eleven. Most of the things I think aren’t very interesting.”

Hm. Kushina’s birthday will probably fall right after we get back from this mission, maybe during the mission if we’re unlucky. Should I pack her birthday present?

We turn around a street corner and get closer to Minato and I’s apartment building, more sleepy shinobi appearing around us than civilians. This is a pretty shinobi heavy area. You can tell because all of the roofs or railings have scuff marks from careless sandals.

“Uh huh,” Jiraiya says, thoroughly unconvinced.

“Do you keep the scrolls under your vest? Or is it sewn into the fabric?” I ask.

“You can’t sew a seal. The properties of the ink are important.” 

“But couldn’t you coat the thread in ink?” Kushina chimes in, practically skipping as she walks backwards. I’m sort of impressed. “Seals are seals, dattebane, you just need ink and the right matrixes. You could paint onto silk, like a fancy kimono.”

“Can you put a container scroll on yourself? Like a tattoo?” I ask. If I put one on my forearm I would never need a backpack again. I hate how the straps dig into your shoulders. 

“The Hyuuga tattoo seals onto themselves,” Minato adds contemplatively. Ah. He was good friends with a branch member in our year, Hyuuga Hideki. I bet they’d talked about the caged bird seal at least once. 

“None of you are ever putting seals like the Hyuuga use on yourselves,” Jiraiya says bluntly, before looking around to check if he’s been overheard. A pair of kunoichi drinking coffee outside their front door pretend not to hear us. The coffee smells bitter, and I think I can smell milk too. “This is a good discussion, though. We’ll table it till after we leave the gates. I don’t want any of you saying anything that’ll get me in trouble.”

I have a feeling he has negative opinions about caste system torture seals that he’d rather not cause political drama. The guy did write The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi . I still have the copy Kushina gave me on my little bookshelf, by my plants. The prose is fine. The novelty of a book that critiques the shinobi system at all is why I keep it around.

If Jiraiya wasn’t the student of the Hokage it’s the sort of thing he’d get a nice visit to T&I for.

We finally get to our apartment building and head to Minato’s first. Minato usually comes over to mine, so I don’t see his very often. 

“You kids are lucky you get apartments, back in my day if you didn’t have a family you had to live with your sensei till you had enough cash,” Jiraiya comments as we head up the concrete stairs. Kushina says something about racing Minato, and then starts taking them three at a time. Minato hurries to catch up, laughing. 

“Don’t say “Back in my day,” Jiraiya-sensei, it makes you sound old,” I reply. I can’t imagine living with Jiraiya. It sounds horrible. I bet he barely cleans and would make us do the dishes as “training”. 

Wait. Does this mean Jiraiya and Orochimaru lived with the Hokage when they were younger? Sage, no wonder he kept letting them do whatever they want, he was practically their dad.

We get up to Minato’s floor as Minato is unlocking his door. Kushina apparently won the race from her smug expression, but she's a good enough sport not to brag loudly. Probably because it's early enough in the morning that one of our neighbors may try to throw a kunai at her.

“It’s not very big,” Minato says as he lets us all in, face a little pink. I pay him no mind, pulling off my sandals and tucking them neatly to the side. 

“You’re a little kid, you don’t need big,” Jiraiya says with a chuffed laugh, ruffling Minato’s hair. Finally, I’m not the only one getting my hair messed up. 

“My house is too big,” Kushina agrees with a huff, hopping with one foot as she takes off her last sandal and sets her pair haphazardly beside my own. “I get freaked out walking down the hallway because of the empty rooms, and I never use the dining room.” 

My chest aches at the sound of that. I should start asking her if she wants to do sleepovers more. I know Mikoto comes over as often as she can, but with her clan obligations and her new team she’s pretty busy.

“I still can’t believe Tsunade-hime is keeping you in that big ass house,” Jiraiya grumbles under his breath. 

I step into the living area with silent taps of my feet. The layout of the apartment is the same as my own, but the decorations are a bit different. Minato has our team photo on the small kitchen counter and a few notebooks at his kitchen table. I peer off to the right, seeing the hallway and knowing the right door is his bathroom, and the left is his room. 

“I keep my gear in my room. I’ll bring it out now,” Minato says, before hurrying down the hall and into his room. 

I take a seat at the kitchen table, helping myself to his notebooks. I’ve seen him bring them to training before. I flick through a few pages, smiling when I see its detailed notes about different jutsu he’s seen people use. Minato has such neat handwriting, far better than my own.

“Ne, what is it, Seiko?” Kushina says, leaning over my shoulder. She groans once she reads skims through the words. “You two are so boring!” 

“Diligent, you mean diligent Shina-tan. Not everyone can just brute force their way into techniques,” I tease, closing the notebook and tapping her with it on the forehead. Kushina sputters. 

“No fighting indoors,” Jiraiya orders preemptively, coming up to the table and picking up one of the notebooks for himself. Nosy spymaster. He makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat at whatever he reads.

I pick up the rest of the notebooks and shove them into Jiraiya’s hands. “Put these on the counter, sensei, so Minato can lay out his gear on the table.” 

Jiraiya grunts, distracted, but does as I ask. He keeps the one in hand, flicking through it. 

Kushina leans her forearms on my shoulders and her chin on top of head while we wait. I glance out the window. The apartment smells like Minato, and a little bit like cleaning supplies. He must be very tidy naturally since he wasn’t expecting us over. I can smell what he ate last too. Tteokbokki. Where did he get tteokbokki? The only stand I know of that sold it has been closed since the owner’s daughter passed away a month ago. Maybe she reopened it yesterday. Now I’m craving it.

Jiraiya mutters something that sounds a little like “jutsu prodigy” under his breath, and then makes an indistinct complaint about the academy. The clouds roll outside, the sun’s warmth turning them to shades of orange and yellow. 

Minato finally comes out of his room with an academy standard backpack over his shoulder and a few pouches of what must be shuriken and kunai. 

“I have rations,” Minato is already explaining, distracted by adjusting his grip on his pouches. “They’re just in my kitchen cabinet.”

He blinks when he looks up and sees Jiraiya with his notebook in hand, but I wave him over to the table.

“You always take notes like these on jutsu you see, Minato-kun?” Jiraiya asks as Minato sets all of his bags down. 

“Seiko-kun and I do it all the time,” Minato says, before pausing and giving me an apologetic look. I sigh. 

“Do you now?” Jiraiya asks, and I can feel his eyes on me. I ignore him. 

“Seiko is really smart, dattebane. She learned henge in ten minutes!” Kushina says proudly, shifting her arms to grab me by the shoulders and shake me a little, back and forth. It was not ten minutes. It was more like an hour to be serviceable, and a day to have a proper grasp of my chakra output.

“I love packing. Let’s do packing,” I say blandly, pointing at Minato’s dark blue bag. He has a cute little frog patch on it. 

“We have to work on your communication skills, Rookie,” Jiraiya says in a huff. 

We do not work on my communication skills. We start packing, thank the sage. 

By the time we get to my own apartment I already have an idea of what I should pack. The only thing I’m really worried about is someone watering my plants while I’m gone. 

I unlock my apartment door for the others and then wander a door over, knocking. 

There’s a muffled curse, then the door opens a sliver. The faint smell of tobacco and, uh, other activities fills my nose. I can only see about half of Higashi’s sleepy face. All it takes is a breath to sense that there’s another chakra pulse inside of his apartment. 

Hm. That makes sense. He’s usually a pretty early riser. 

“Higashi-san, can you water my plants while I’m gone for my mission?” I ask very politely, not mentioning how he’s absolutely very undressed behind the door. 

Higashi sighs, rubbing at his eyes and opening the door slightly more. I can see his whole face and a bare shoulder now. Scandalous.

“Yes, kid. How long is the mission?” Higashi asks, voice rough. I must have woken him up. He really needs to lay off the cigarettes or he’ll sound like an old man by the time he’s thirty.

“About a week and a half at most. We’re killing a bunch of bandits.” I hold out my key to my apartment. I have an extra I keep in my thigh bag. 

Higashi wakes up a little at that, blinking. He reaches an arm out and takes the key from my hand. Bare arm! The horror. I should shut my eyes and save my virtue. “You are? I didn’t realize you graduated already. Be careful, some Jonin are sh— uh, awful teachers.”

“Rookie, why are you loitering outside? I want out of this damn village before nightfall,” Jiraiya complains, stepping out my door and wandering into view. Higashi chokes on air. 

“What the fuck,” Higashi says very astutely. 

Jiraiya looks distinctly unimpressed by the door-covered teenager in front of him. 

“My neighbor Higashi-san is going to water my plants while I’m gone. Bye bye, Higashi-san. Tell your friend I said hello!” I grab Jiraiya’s sleeve and start tugging him back towards my apartment. Higashi turns bright red. 

“You’re too young for a boyfriend,” Jiraiya says, still glaring back at my very nice neighbor even as I drag him away. Higashi shuts his door soundly.

“I’m eleven. Stop talking,” I say blandly. Shinigami save whoever would have had this oaf of a teacher in another life. It’s hard enough a burden for me and I have reincarnation cheats. 

“Such a rude student.”

We step inside my apartment and Kushina looks up from where she was raiding my fridge. Minato is looking at my windowsill plants. 

“Were you talking to Higashi-san?” Minato asks curiously. “You should stop asking him if his teammates are alive. It’s not very polite.” 

“I didn’t ask this time, I was embarrassing him instead.” I drop Jiraiya’s sleeve and head towards my room to grab my things. I already have pretty much everything packed except for my rations. 

It takes me only a few minutes to neatly pack all of my mission appropriate clothes into my bag and check that I didn’t leave any water in my water flask. I didn’t, thank goodness. 

I come wandering out with my bag on my shoulders to—

Kushina and Minato drinking juice boxes at my kitchen table, and Jiraiya staring at my small bookshelf. Okay. That’s not bad. 

“Where’d you get this book, Rookie?” Jiraiya asks, pulling out one and holding it up for me to see. 

The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi. Ugh. He does not need the ego boost of knowing I like his book.

“Kushina gave it to me, it’s an alright read,” I reply, going to my tap to refill my water flask. 

“Oh, just an alright one?” Jiraiya asks, teasing. “You know who wrote it, don’t you?”

“It’s boring,” Kushina chimes in, waving her apple juice box.

“It’s not written for kids! It’s meant to be philosophical . Do you know what philosophical means?” Jiraiya asks indignantly.

I fill my flask, listening to the water hit the bottom. “Philosophy is the study of questions related to life, existence, knowledge, and reason, Kushina. It’s a little bit like a nindo if you squint. Or maybe like questioning a nindo? Discovering a nindo?”

“What’s the book about? What is it questioning?” Minato asks. 

“Well—!” Jiraiya starts, puffing up his chest and looking proud. 

“Don’t spoil it for him, Jiraiya-sensei. Hand him the book, he can borrow it,” I cut in, shutting off my tap. This book would be important enough to Minato that he names his son after the main character. Kushina doesn’t really give a shit about it right now, but she probably will eventually. 

Jiraiya sighs, handing the book to an intrigued Minato. “We can talk about it after you read it, then.”

I tuck away my water flask. Onward to Kushina’s house and then we’ll be free.

—

It's midday by the time we get to the gate and the sun seems to be scorching the earth in its humid rage. Cicadas scream, there’s barely a breeze to speak of, and sweat is starting to gather at my headband.

I’m being dramatic mostly because we’re stuck in a line to leave. I hate long lines. 

I start practicing hand signs as we shuffle along behind a group of merchants, fingers swift. Kushina is explaining how hard it is to clean her kitchen to Minato, who’s nodding along dutifully. Jiraiya is flicking through our mission scroll. He shuts it with a quick shhk , and then swats at my moving hands. 

“Don’t do that, you’re going to freak out the civilians,” Jiraiya says. I swat at him back. 

“The civilians aren't paying attention,” I argue, gesturing at a couple of them fanning themselves by their wagons and complaining. None had noticed me doing hand signs yet. 

“Your file said you were such a good kid. Never mouthy. Those academy teachers are liars,” Jiraiya complains. 

“Ne, Seiko, do you think Taro-sensei is still alive?” Kushina asks out of the blue. 

I blink. Taro-sensei. I’d forgotten about him, he left the academy rotation a year and a half ago. 

“None of our old classmates have mentioned it yet, and our academy teachers would have gossiped about it during the school year when we were there,” I say, rolling through different gossip and rumors I’d heard in my mind. Mostly stuff about people’s new jonin sensei, drama about teams, drama about being shuffled into the genin corps. Nothing about Taro-sensei.

“He was nice. Not as good as Ryuu-sensei, but nice,” Kushina says, frowning thoughtfully. “His hands didn’t work because of poison, right?”

We shuffle forwards in line again. One of the merchant caravan’s oxen poops. 

“It was nerve damage from an Ame nin. They didn’t get the antidote fast enough. That’s why his hands would shake. I think he was getting regular treatment for it, and that’s why his hands stopped shaking as much at the end of the year.”

“Do you kids talk about all your sensei like this?” Jiraiya asks dryly. 

“A good shinobi—” I start, and Minato and Kushina quickly catch on and follow with, “—is a nosy shinobi.” 

Jiraiya goggles his eyes, experiencing the adult nightmare of children suddenly saying the same things at once. Always creepy. 

“What the hell.”

“We learned that in our second year, Jiraiya-sensei. They make us sing it in the shinobi rules song,” Minato explains, taking pity on him.

We shuffle forwards. The merchant caravan is finally heading through the gate at a faster civilian pace. They’re probably excited to finally be leaving. 

Our team probably could have skipped them in line on account of being shinobi and having a student of the Hokage with us, but Jiraiya apparently likes following rules only when it’s most inconvenient. 

Finally we reach the gate guard, and I’m happy to see it’s Maboroshi-san from our mission a few weeks ago. We’ve done a few more D-rank deliveries since then, and only two involving the gate. 

“Good afternoon, Maboroshi-san,” I say politely in greeting. The gate guard smiles, the motion pulling at the small scar on his cheek. 

“Good afternoon, Seiko-kun. Are you finally joining the gate guards?” Maboroshi says, joking. 

Jiraiya puts his hand on my head and maneuvers me half behind him. “Stop trying to poach my students. Mission one-one-three-six-two-eight for Team Seven, leaving on a C-rank.”

“Technically, gate guards have to be chunin. She’ll have to rank up first,” Maboroshi says, writing down our travel details nonchalantly. One of the other gate guards looks amused at a sannin trying to hide his student from them. “We’d never try to steal from the honorable Hokage’s student’s team.” 

Jiraiya rolls his eyes, flashing our mission scroll at the man and already walking out of the gates. I’m dragged along by my shoulder. So rude. 

“Wow, sensei, you do care about me,” I say wryly. His hand smells like weapon oil and ink. 

“Stop talking to strangers. Those gate guards could be perverts,” Jiraiya, notable pervert toad sage, future hotsprings peeper, says once we’re far enough away. He glances back to make sure Minato and Kushina are close behind. Minato makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat.

“Do you really think so, sensei?” Minato asks, sounding aghast. 

“They’re not. I can smell that sort of thing,” I say blandly, eyeing our surroundings. 

Outside the village is much like inside. There’s a perimeter of no trees about fifteen meters from the village walls, likely as a fire safety precaution. But past that is a deep forest of Hashirama trees, oaks, birches, and all sorts of fauna. It looks just like inside the village, really. 

Jiraiya lifts his hand from my shoulder, raising his eyebrows. “Can you really? Your nose is like an Inuzuka’s then?”

Ah, I never really explained my sense of smell to him. I suppose I can be less cagey now that it’s mission relevant.

“I can smell weapon oil on your hands, and the shampoo you use. It’s the scentless kind, so it’s harder to smell unless you're close and doesn’t leave a trail. I can sense your chakra through smell, too.” 

I also can smell when people are horny, or on their periods, or any other more TMI smells. I try to keep that to myself, though. Nobody wants anyone to know private things like that. So I can absolutely tell that the gate guards aren’t perverts. I’d have told Jiraiya and let him dole out justice.

“Does it get overwhelming?” Minato asks. 

I hum. “Sometimes. My sense of smell grew with me, so I’m fine in most situations. I don’t like when I can smell a lot of blood. That gets to me.”

“You’ll have to get used to that too,” Jiraiya says grimly. 

There’s a lull in conversation at that. Kushina and Minato catch up and walk to my right, all four of us making a line in the road. Far ahead is the merchant caravan, along with what seems to be a team of genin guarding them. None that I can recognize by sight at this distance, but they smell a bit familiar. I think they were in a different class than us.

“I can’t believe we’ve left the village,” Kushina says, looking around like she’s going to miss something important. 

“It’ll get boring eventually,” Jiraiya snorts. Then, he says something more useful. “I want you kids to walk at a normal pace today so I can get a feel for your endurance. Tomorrow we’ll tree jump and I’ll check how fast you can go at a shinobi speed.”

“And the bandits, do we know very much about them?” I ask.

“Maybe three dozen at most. They’ve been harassing the civilian farms and villages nearby, along with the occasional merchant. The local lord finally put in a bounty on them after enough complaints.” Jiraiya waves a careless hand, as though farmers being robbed and killed is typical. Maybe it is.

“Are there any shinobi?” Minato asks next, frowning. 

“Unknown, but the bandits are poorly organized and have no noticed jutsu users yet. If they do have shinobi, they’re genin level. Easy pickings for a team like you brats. You’re annoyingly competent.”

“Any genin aren’t a match for us, dattebane! We’re the best in the village!” Kushina says proudly, punching the air above. 

“And we’ll be the best chunin, and the best jonin. And then Minato will be Hokage, and nobody will ever tell us to do anything,” I add, ticking off my fingers. 

“Ah, Kushina-chan can be Hokage, Seiko-kun,” Minato says. He sounds just a little bashful. What a liar, I know he wants it bad.

“No, you’re going to be a great Hokage. Kushina is better as a clan head so she can still throw you around. And I suppose I can be an advisor, since Shikaku-senpai will be your jonin commander,” I explain simply. Jiraiya laughs. 

“Do I get to be an elder?” Jiraiya asks. 

“You, Tsunade-sama, and Orochimaru-sama would be good advisors,” Minato says with a serious nod. 

I really doubt they’ll still be in the village by then, but we’ll see. I think Orochimaru stays until after Minato dies, right?

Well. Minato won’t die this time. So perhaps Orochimaru won’t leave or do evil experiments. A girl can hope.

Tsunade is probably a lost cause though. Someone should really try to become her apprentice. Not me, though. I have no interest in being grounded in the village while learning healing and then forever being forced on the backline in any mission. Tsunade can do otherwise because she is a Senju, a clan head, and monstrously strong. I am not any of those things.

Well. Maybe I’ll be one of those things one day. I want to be as strong as Minato after all. 

“We’ll be better than the sannin,” Kushina declares, pointing at Jiraiya and almost hitting Minato in the face. For a moment I expect a “Believe it!” to follow that statement. “You’re going to get old and be so jealous. We’ll even kill that Hanzo guy you guys fought.” 

Jiraiya gets a sort of distant look in his eye even as he stares at Kushina. Then he grunts. “Be careful what you wish for. And don’t repeat that again outside the village.”

Everyone but the sannin had died in the fight with Hanzo of the Salamander. I don’t think I would want my students to experience that either.

Chapter Text

The thing about being on Jiraiya the sannin’s team is that you’re sort of expected to be interested in sealing. 

Kushina? One of the last Uzumaki, personally trained by Uzumaki Mito in the art. Minato? Future sealmaster, currently a noted quick learner when it comes to sealing. 

Me? Mostly bored.

The fire crackles at the center of our small camp, flames consuming the logs we’d found and casting long shadows past our tents. One tent for Jiraiya, one for Kushina, Minato and I. Jiraiya had offered his tent to Minato but he said he was fine. It makes sense, it’s not like we haven’t had sleep overs before. Mostly after training when it was too much work for him to stumble down to his own apartment.

I stare down at the sealing paper in my hands, then glance over at where Minato is very efficiently putting together the beginnings of a container seal. Even Kushina is focused on my other side, sticking out her tongue a bit as she speeds through what must be an Uzushio style container seal. 

“Stop looking so put out, Rookie,” Jiraiya comments from where he’s writing something. Not a seal, literally writing in a notebook with a pen. 

I bet he’s writing some proto-Icha Icha. What a pervert.

It’s not that sealing is hard. It’s just not as interesting as jutsu. I suppose I shouldn’t feel that way, since I had been an artist once and can appreciate a magic that requires pretty writing. It just seems so regimented. You have a core matrix that shows the elemental alignment of the seal, then additional layers to describe the intention of the seal. You can add different variables to each layer that work like words, and each layer is a sentence. With more layers, the more complicated and more likely to explode.

Booooring. It takes so long to figure out if you’ve done it right. With a jutsu you feel the chakra moving between your bones. Much more intuitive.

“Maybe I’m terrible at sealing,” I say blandly. “You should give up on me and teach me a jutsu.”

“Thank the Sage we found something you’re not good at, then,” Jiraiya says. “I was worried Minato-kun would never have one over on you.”

“Are you confused, Seiko-kun?” Minato asks very politely, looking over at my own work. I’ve finished the core matrix, and started on the second layer of the seal. He scans it, eyebrows furrowing as he goes. 

“You’ve done everything right. Do you not know what to do next?”

“Minato, I will teach you every jutsu I ever learn if you promise to make whatever seals I want,” I reply extremely seriously. 

“Hey hey, I wanna make you seals!” Kushina interjects, finally breaking her focus. Her seal looks much more complicated than mine and Minato’s. I wonder if it’s going to explode. 

“Perfect. You can both make me seals, and I never have to learn anything about this!” I say, setting down my brush and clapping my hands. 

“You have to learn it,” Jiraiya interrupts, pointing at me with his pen and finally looking up from his notebook. “Think about how many seals you can put in your house. You’ll never have to buy a bigger dresser again. Or a bigger fridge!” 

“Why would I need a bigger fridge? How much food do you have in your house?” I ask, curious. 

“A man who never has to go grocery shopping is a happy one,” Jiraiya says cryptically, as if imparting some great important knowledge. I throw a pebble at him. 

Jiraiya dodges, huffing at me. The pebble lands against the front of his tent and bounces onto the ground. “The village needs more sealmasters you brat! Just learn what I teach you and never think about it again for all I care.” 

“But the village will make me make seals for them. This is just like learning iryo-jutsu,” I say suspiciously, glaring down at my paper. 

“There’s nothing wrong with being a medic-nin!”

“They make you stay in the village for a year and then you never get to fight anyone! You have to have Tsunade-sama’s strength and connections to get otherwise. It’s a terrible deal if you want to be frontline.”

So maybe I’m a bit resentful about how iryo-jutsu is softlocked by a life path I don’t want. I would learn it if they promised I could just be a frontliner and never be made to work fifteen hour shifts at the hospital. 

I don’t want to be a medic. I don’t want to be forced to work shifts in the hospital. I want to be able to heal myself and my teammates. I’m very selfish.

“Tsunade-hime’s life goal is to change that, don’t you know that?” Jiraiya says, looking like he’s getting a little heated on her behalf. “Do you know how many arguments she has with the elders in a month?”

“But it hasn’t changed yet. I’m already a girl. If I choose to learn iryo-jutsu, I will be made to conform to what the village thinks a medic should be. I have to be a frontliner.” 

The fire cracks loudly. 

Jiraiya sighs. “Why do you have to be a frontliner?”

I shut my mouth. For reasons that are probably treasonous. I’ll be allowed enough power that I could leave the village, if I wanted. I could become physically powerful enough that I could deny any orders I dislike from the elder council, in combination with my social connections. But there’s at least one reason that isn’t treasonous. 

“I like to fight.” So simple. Perfectly childish. Very obviously not the whole story. 

Jiraiya stares at me for a moment, a frown on his lips that makes him look much older than he is in the firelight. He's only twenty-four. “Kid, sometimes you have to choose to trust people. You’re not in the academy anymore. You don’t have to bullshit me. I won’t report you unless you’re planning on killing anyone. That’s how a jonin sensei is supposed to be.”

I wonder if his own jonin-sensei had to give him that sort of speech.

Kushina and Minato are silent beside me, both watching me. The air starts to be charged with something strange. Expectation.

Jiraiya wrote a lot about the idea of a shinobi seeking peace, and using great power to do so. 

I suppose I just have to trust that. Even if he is a lousy pervert.

“I didn’t choose to become a shinobi,” I state, reaching up and tapping my headband. The engraving of it feels odd against the pad of my finger. On the back of the plate, I know a number is written there. “I didn’t want to be one. I just knew it would be worse if I was in debt to the village during an apprenticeship. But I get to choose what kind of shinobi I’ll be. One that’s strong enough to do what I want and never be forced to choose how my life will be again.” 

I’ll never be made to live with a clan I don’t care about. Never be made to marry anyone because it’s convenient to the village. Never be trapped in the village, unable to take missions outside of it. To be free if I decide to leave.

Kushina grabs my arm, opening her mouth, but words seem to escape her. She stops, looking over to Minato, then Jiraiya. 

“You’d better learn sealing, then,” Jiraiya says finally, words slow. “I’ve found sealing masters get a lot more leeway in life choices. Provided they have the right friends.”

I suppose he’s right. He did get to run off to Ame for two years.

“I’ll become Hokage,” Minato declares quietly at my side. He doesn’t elaborate. I suppose the implied is that he won’t make me do terrible shit either. Probably a lie, one made out of youth and kindness. One day he’ll damn his son in the name of saving our village. I don’t think I’ll be comparable. 

But I would sacrifice myself for him or Kushina, so I wouldn’t mind him asking for such a thing anyways.

“Now quit with the sappy shit and finish your seals! You have another hour before first watch,” Jiraiya says loudly. He turns back to his notebook and takes his pen to paper again, skimming what he wrote before. 

I pick up my brush again and dip it into my ink, before starting again on the second layer of my seal. Kushina squeezes my arm once, then drops her hand. 

—

Travelling for missions is novel in its newness, but the novelty seems to fade for Minato, and then Kushina once we start tree jumping instead of walking. With walking there’s time for chitchat. When tree jumping, you’re mostly focused on not getting hit in the face with leaves. 

I’m having a great time. 

“Keep up, brats!” Jiraiya calls back from ahead of us. He jumps through the trees like he was born doing it. He practically was. The old graduation age was six when he left the academy. He’s been leaping through trees for most of his life. 

Kushina is whining about something, but it gets lost in the wind. I jump from one branch to the next, focused completely on the task at hand. I’ve been following Jiraiya’s own footholds, leaping for a breathless moment and landing a few steps behind him, barely letting gravity work its way up my feet before jumping again. It’s a bit like flying. 

Hashirama trees have started to thin out a bit more the further we get from the village, but not enough to leave us without footholds. We’re following some kind of preordained path, I think, from the certainty Jiraiya has in leading us through the woods. We’re not very close to the road anymore. 

Some of the branches on the trees almost seem to have wider, smoother limbs. As if used to foot traffic. 

I’ll ask Jiraiya about it next time we stop to rest. 

There’s another fifteen minutes of travel, then Jiraiya jumps down into a small clearing. I follow, landing in front of him and stretching out my arms. We’ve been at it for an hour and a half, and my legs are starting to get tired. 

Tall Fire Country trees surround us, swaying slow in the wind and rustling together. The clearing is full of grass and flowers, along with a notable patch of dirt in the center. A place people have used for camping before, I’m sure.

Minato lands next to me, pulling out his water flask and downing a few gulps. Then Kushina drops on my other side. 

“Finally!” Kushina declares, pushing up her headband till it’s loose and wiping away sweat from her brow. “That took forever!” 

“Don’t take off your headband, Kushina-chan,” Jiraiya orders half-heartedly, running his hands through his bangs. Most of his hair is tied back. He looks like a proper, mission ready shinobi. I wonder when he’ll drop the uniform and get some geta. Surely after he’s thirty.

“Are we almost there?” I ask. I can still feel blood pumping in my legs. 

“We’ll be at the village in around fifteen. Can you sense it from here, Rookie?” 

I pause, catching my breath a bit before taking a deep breath through my nose, shutting my eyes. 

Sweat, my teammates, Jiraiya. The grass at our feet, a few birds in the trees, traces of something I don’t recognize— no, deer I think. It smells like when I passed by the Nara compound. Another breath, further. Searching for things that are loud. More animals, smelling unfamiliar. 

Something a little humanlike, faint to the south of us in the direction we’re heading. Barely a flicker. 

“Yes, I think. It’s very faint,” I say, finally opening my eyes and trying to tuck my senses inward again. 

“We’re two miles out, that’s pretty impressive, kid. Good job,” Jiraiya says, grinning. 

There aren’t many people around for me to get distracted by, so that helps. But I’ll take some praise. 

“When we get there, we’ll be looking for one of their elders. Kimura Rokuro. The lord expects us to deliver all of the heads to the old man after we’re done. We’ll put them all in a body scroll to avoid giving him a heart attack,” Jiraiya begins explaining, putting his hands on his hips. He’s in a good mood, smiling as he looks us over. 

Come to think of it, he’s been in a much better mood ever since we left the village.

“Kimura-san will give us an idea of where the bandits are, but all that will be up to you kids. I’ll be watching how you go about this from the sidelines. So act as though you don’t have me as an asset from here on. You’ll be leading this mission yourselves and I will observe.”

Kushina and Minato instantly look over at me, and I sigh. Kimura Rokuro. I repeat the name over and over again in my mind. Minato will likely have memorized it already, but better safe than sorry. We really must be in the sticks if someone named their kid “Tree-village Sixth-son”.

“We’ll meet with the old man and go from there. Do we have a description of him?” I ask Jiraiya. My hands start going through my pouches on instinct, checking that my kunai and shuriken are in place, along with my other supplies. 

“Old man,” Jiraiya says unhelpfully, smirking. Evil man. I take it back. He’s awful in a good mood. I miss when he was bemused. 

“I’m sure someone in the village will be friendly enough to help us poor, deadly ninja children find a nice old man. Kushina, Minato-kun, are you ready to go?” I ask, turning to each of them. 

Minato nods, tucking away his water flask. Kushina puts up two thumbs up, already looking perked up from the short break. Stupid jinchuriki cheats. 

“We’ll move out then and search for the old man. Any thoughts?”

Two shakes of the head. I start towards the trees, leaping onto a sturdy looking branch. It bends a little, but I’m already jumping to the next one. I keep where I felt the village in my mind, aiming for that direction. I sense Jiraiya following behind all of us. Figures he would turn our first C-Rank into an exercise in teamwork. 

—

We enter the tiny village from the road instead of the trees, pretending to be more civilized than we are. Kushina smacked into a branch though, and she’s still picking leaves from her hair. So much for a good first impression. 

The village doesn’t have a name, small as it is. There’s about a dozen buildings in it, all in a much older style than Konoha. All have thick looking thatch roofs and are made from dark colored wood. No glass windows, only wooden bars with shutters. Every house seems to have a garden, and a few have livestock. 

It’s a simple existence. I appreciate it for a few moments, wondering how they make their roofs. I think I can smell someone cooking something savory.

“Not even a bar,” Jiraiya grumbles under his breath. I reach back and hit him on his stupid jonin vest. He barely grunts. 

I take a deep breath through my nose. Most of the chakra signatures here seem civilian, closely condensed and slow flowing. The only outliers are the animals, whose chakra flows much differently than a human’s. 

“No shinobi, not unless they’re hiding their chakra. If they can hide their chakra that’s a you problem, sensei. Genin can’t do that,” I state. We keep walking down the dirt path, and I intentionally start making a bit more noise with my feet, scuffing the road a little. It’d be bad to unsettle the locals. 

“I’m an observer!” Jiraiya reminds me unhelpfully. I ignore him. 

We reach the edges of the village before people start noticing us. There’s a couple kids around our age playing a game of tag, straw sandaled and wearing short hemp kosode. I spot a few women in a garden nearby, and a man working on a fence. 

I hold a hand for the others to hold back and jog up to the kids playing tag, loosening my limbs. The casual half aware body language of a child drops onto my shoulders easily, well worn. I’d had to pretend to be a normal one for a long time. 

“Hey! Do you guys know where Kimura-ojii-san is?” I ask, smiling. 

The boys pause their game, turning to look at me. They give my headband curious looks, then wide eyed at Jiraiya by the others. 

“Kimura-ojii-san?” One says, a bit older than the others and myself. He’s lanky in the way of young teens, with dark-dark eyes and long hair. “Oh. Do you mean Rokuro-ojii? Are you the ninja they hired to fight the bandits? You don’t look like a ninja!” 

I huff a laugh. “That’s because I’m a genin, an apprentice ninja. My master is lazy and doesn’t want to ask around for Kimura-ojii-san himself.” 

Lanky boy squints his already small, pretty eyes at Jiraiya. He has long eyelashes. “Mn. He does look old. I guess I’ll show you where he is, genin-kun.” 

“Thank you, villager-kun,” I reply with a little grin. 

“My name is Kento!” Lanky boy, or Kento introduces, holding out a warm tanned hand. 

“Seiko,” I reply, taking his hand and shaking it. 

“What a weird name for a boy,” Kento says as he starts walking. I wave for the others to follow us. “Your mom must have really wanted a girl.”

“Probably,” I agree, following after him as we step through the village. The adults have started paying attention now, but their eyes are drawn to Jiraiya instead of myself. Just the way I prefer it.

“Have you ever fought bandits before?” Kento asks, peering back at me critically. As if he can see the signs of previous bandit battles on me. Kushina and Minato catch up, walking just behind me.

“No, but we do spar a lot. Most civilians can’t really defeat a genin like us unless they have chakra training,” I explain. 

“Yeah, we’re gonna beat the crap out of those bandits, dattebane!” Kushina adds. “You guys will have nothing to fear once we’re done.”

“Why’d you bring a girl?” Kento asks me, ignoring Kushina.

I snort, reaching back and holding Kushina before she can jump the poor idiot. I notice Minato has also grabbed her by her arm. Such good teamwork.

“Ehhh? Who the hell are you calling a girl? What’s wrong with being a girl?” Kushina starts, and I can feel her chakra start rolling. I’d bet money her hair has started raising too.

“Kento-kun, Kushina is very dangerous to your health and used to sparring with ninja. I wouldn’t say things like that,” I say very politely. Being a shinobi really is sometimes like customer service.

We make it to the front of a larger home, where a very old man is smoking a long pipe. The smell of tobacco reminds me of my neighbors, and a little bit of the Hokage. 

“This is Rokuro-ojii. Rokuro-ojii, this is Seiko-kun and his team,” Kento introduces, waving a hand at us. Minato makes a little noise of surprise. 

The old man hums, taking another puff of his pipe and eyeing us. He’s old-old, the kind of old you rarely find in places where you don’t have regular access to healthcare, old. He has a long wispy beard, mustache, and the same dark eyes as Kento. I’m surprised that he doesn’t have cataracts on them.

“Hello there, Seiko-kun. Is this your sensei and teammates behind you?” Kimura Rokuro asks. 

“Yes. Jiraiya-sensei, Kushina-kun, and Minato-kun,” I say, pointing to each. 

“Kento-kun, say an apology to the kunoichi,” Kimura says after another puff of his pipe. 

Kento sighs, turning to Kushina. Kimura shakes his head. “No, boy. The other one.” 

“It’s alright Kimura-san, he doesn’t need to apologize to me. People do get confused at times. He did say something impolite to my teammate Kushina, however, and I would like an apology for that,” I say with a smile. 

“What? Wait, you’re a girl?” Kento exclaims, eyebrows high and his eyes growing wide. “You didn’t tell me! You have short hair!” 

Kimura reaches for his cane and smacks the boy against the back of his legs with it, making him yelp. The act itself seems very nonchalant. 

“Apologize to the kunoichi, Kento-kun, before I tell your mother you’ve been misbehaving.”

Kento turns and bows to Kushina, grimacing. “I apologize for being rude, kunoichi-san.” 

“Now scurry off to your friends.” 

Kento does as he’s asked, glaring at me and Kushina as if we make him say the wrong things on purpose. It’s not my fault he’s sexist. It’s a pity. He has very pretty eyes. Kushina sticks her tongue out at him and I resist the urge to laugh.

“We’re here about the bandits, Kimura-san. If you know anything about their whereabouts and how many there are, that would be extremely helpful,” I say once Kento has left, watching Kimura blow smoke.

“They showed up a few months ago and started attacking the road to the north.” Here, Kimura waves his cane in the direction of the road we came from. “Farms all around have been hit by them, the occasional merchant. Nasty business. We told Fujisawa-sama, our lord, about our troubles. He hadn’t decided to pay for a bounty until now, when a wealthy merchant’s son was robbed.”

“Nobles,” I say disparagingly, nodding in commiseration. 

“Ne, do you know how many of them there are, Rokuro-ojii?” Kushina asks, leaning in closer. 

Kimura grunts. “No idea. They usually attack with around a dozen and a half. Enough to scare off a farmer. Was much more when they attacked the merchant’s son, though. I’d bet they have under fifty milling around.”

“How far north was the attack on the road? Is this village the furthest south they’ve bothered?” Minato asks. Very good questions.

“They haven't hit us yet, just a farm about a mile north from us. The furthest north…hm. Must have been the Yamada farm about six miles north. Real nasty business there. They killed one of the Yamada granddaughters.” 

“Only killed?” I ask. If these bandits are assaulting women too then that calls for a more messy execution, doesn’t it? I don’t think karma is real, no shinobi would live long if that were the case. But if I have the power to enforce some kind of karma, then maybe I should.

Or maybe not. I’d say it’s not my responsibility to decide whether people should live or die, but I’m already doing that. So might as well jump in head first.

Kimura catches what I’m asking quickly. “That’s a terrible thing for a girl to ask after. No, she wasn’t hurt like that. Ain’t been any reports of it neither.”

“Better to know than not know. Thank you, Kimura-san. If we have more questions, we’ll come straight to you,” I say with a short bow. I look back at my teammates, checking if they wanted to say anything else. 

Neither Kushina nor Minato seem to have anything to say. Jiraiya just watches me, looking entertained by the proceedings. 

“Let’s head north out of town and talk,” I order, and we start our march back out. 

“Can you believe that guy?” Kushina hisses, coming close beside me and glaring over at where Kento is talking to his friends. He glares back at us when he spots her. 

“People are going to look at you differently for being a woman everywhere, kid. Even in the village. Better to get so strong you can slam their heads into something hard,” Jiraiya says airily, probably thinking of Tsunade. 

“I wasn’t allowed to slam his head,” Kushina grumbles. 

“Because I like money more than I care about stupid boys. You would have accidentally killed him, Shina-tan, you’re used to fighting our classmates,” I throw an arm over her shoulders, eyeing our surroundings. It’s comforting to feel her chakra settle down at our closeness.

The villagers don’t seem particularly suspicious of us, just tired and wary. I’d bet a lot of money they’re paying high taxes and getting shit returns for it. After all, it took months for the local lord to get off his ass and handle a couple of bandits. And he even outsourced to shinobi instead of using his samurai. 

I keep watch for anyone who seems afraid to see us, taking deep breaths through my nose. Bandits, contrary to popular perception, do not simply appear fully formed and asking for your money. Bandits are a result of socio-economic disparity and poverty. And this village looks poor. 

I hope none of these people’s sons have joined the bandits, and I hope none of them are interested in warning them. 

Minato comes closer, and I loop an arm around his shoulders too. He smiles. 

“You were good at talking to Kento-kun before he found out you were a girl,” Minato says. The sun shines off of the plate of his headband, and I have to squint to look at him. His hair is too bright in the sunshine too. Like spun gold. 

“Thank you ‘nato. You know, if someone attacked us right now you two would have to defend me. My arms are all full,” I say in a very cheerful tone, squeezing my teammates closer. Wind and saltwater chakra. They go very well together. 

“I’d beat them all, and Minato-kun can carry you away,” Kushina says with a showy punch into the air in front of us.

“My heroes.”

I keep a sharp eye on the villagers until we’re out of a civilian’s hearing range and further from the edge of the village, and I think I can hear Jiraiya scribbling behind us in his damn notebook. A plan is threading together in my mind.

“So, to review. The old man thinks there’s under fifty total bandits. Our mission scroll says a few dozen. Their active area is about a mile out from here, and five from there. I’d bet their hideout is around the two point five mile mark between those points in the woods. Any other thoughts?” I start, suddenly feeling a bit nostalgic for the academy. This is almost like the time we harassed Ryuu-sensei. 

“Why’d you ask about the granddaughter, back there?” Kushina asks, looking over at me with wide, innocent violet eyes. I grimace, dropping my arms from Minato and Kushina’s shoulders. 

“Sensei,” I say. Rare is it that I defer to an adult, but I’d much prefer it here. I look back at Jiraiya, who has the look of a man hunted. 

“Don’t worry about it, Kushina-chan,” Jiraiya says a bit too quickly. Enough that Kushina can smell his fear. Such an amateur. 

“We can talk about it after the mission is over, because it’s serious and everyone who is doing field work should know, right sensei?” I ask, tone going a bit hard as I bore my eyes into him. 

“What? I can know now!” Kushina says, looking between Jiraiya and I. She turns to Minato. “Do you know, Blondie?”

Minato shakes his head, looking at Jiraiya and I with those damned furrowed brows. Oh god.

“Oh look, I just realized I needed to use the little shinobi’s room. I’ll be watching you kids!” Jiraiya suddenly declares. He promptly disappeared in a burst of white smoke and leaves. I sneeze. I try and take a deep breath to figure out where he’s run off to, but sneeze again, bowing over. 

“We should cover him in itching powder sometime,” I curse between sneezes. He used a ton of chakra on purpose!

By the time I’ve recovered I can’t sense Jiraiya nearby, but I know he’s probably still watching us either himself or with a clone. 

“Fuck,” I say, wiping my nose and shaking my head. Kushina laughs at my sudden curse. “Okay. Tabling that. Whatever. We need to figure out where the bandits are, and I want to attack them at night. Better odds for us.”

“Are you going to try and track them?” Minato asks helpfully, before Kushina can try asking about sexual assault again. Listen. I am not doing that right now. It’s bad enough we’re about to murder people. Jiraiya can handle it after the mission is over or I’m telling Tsunade. 

“Yes. I want one of us to keep an eye on this village and the other to come with me. No one knows shinobi have been sent to get rid of the bandits besides this village, and I want to ensure that no one there will try and warn them.”

I look directly at Kushina. This will be the hardest bit. “Kushina, I need you to stay and watch the village.”

Kushina starts drawing herself up, looking indignant as she opens her mouth. I cut her off. 

“Minato is more suited towards stealth than you, and you are a bright deterrent. I want you in the trees, visibly watching the village until we get back. If anyone starts leaving for the north, tail them and pulse your chakra. I’ll probably be able to feel it from a distance,” I explain, gesturing towards the treeline and  then towards the north to show my point. 

“What if you get in a fight?” Kushina bristles. 

“Then we’ll send a clone to come get you. It’s going to be boring, but it’s important, Kushina,” I say seriously. 

I don’t want any complications in this mission. The bandits will get no warning. We’ll find them, regroup, then kill them all in the night as cleanly as possible. I’m not leaving room for unexpected injuries or most worst case scenarios. 

If Jiraiya were leading he’d probably want us to show up at the camp with no planning and leave a bloodbath. But we aren’t as strong as Jiraiya yet, and I’d rather build good habits until we can afford to be careless. 

So I’m tracking them down, and I’m bringing Minato who is much quieter than Kushina, and if anyone is stupid enough to try and warn the bandits Kushina can beat the crap out of them. Everyone is happy!

Except the bandits. Still morally conflicted about that, but whatever. 

“Alright,” Kushina grumbles mulishly. “But I’m going to get more of them when we attack tonight.”

I hope not. I think the reality of what we’re doing will be less glorious than she thinks it is. 

Chapter Text

Minato and I follow the road in the trees.

Most of the roads in Fire Country I’ve seen so far are dirt, unpaved, and only maintained by virtue of regular foot traffic keeping the plants from overgrowing. Here, out in the boonies, it’s clear that the local penny pinching lord gets by with a six foot wide, occasionally grass patched thing that’s just asking for muddy holes next time it rains. 

I stop on the wide branch of a towering oak, feet sticking to it with chakra to halt my momentum. In a quiet rustle of fabric Minato lands at my side. His chakra feels a bit lesser than a civilian. Not quite to the level of your average animal, but still. Great progress.

“Your technique is working,” I comment quietly, looking at the road for interesting tracks. It’s odd to adjust the flow of your chakra while using it, but better safe than sorry. I feel a bit trapped under my skin when I’m doing it though.

Minato smiles hesitantly. “Have you found anything yet?”

The strange thing about hunting bandits is that it’s not unlike the tracking exercises they rushed us through in the academy. Instead of looking for my classmates, I’m trying to find adults. 

I take a deep breath through my nose, shutting my eyes. 

We’ve stopped around every five minutes for me to search for interesting smells. We may get unlucky and have to start surveying into the forest blind, but I don’t think we’ll have to. These roads aren’t used very often, and any newer smells will stand—

Something faint piques my interest. Not my chakra sense, a normal smell. Multiple smells mixing together, undeniably human. The stench of iron and something sweet mingles with it like an afterimage. It stands out against the greenery of the forest and the birds. 

“Ah,” I breathe out, opening my eyes. Minato stills beside me, expression sharp. “I think I found something.”

I wave for Minato to follow as I jump closer to the smell. I feel a bit like a dog being led by my nose. Further north, lower, at ground level. It’s being carried by the wind. The breeze feels nice on my face, ruffling my hair.

The closer we get a new smell becomes clear. Rot. I grimace, leaping through the trees with my eyes scanning the grassy ground. It grows stronger until I’m sure even Minato can smell it. We go further into the forest, the road left behind. 

My eyes catch on a bright scrap of fabric. I land with a crouch onto the next branch I can. Minato lets out a quiet gasp. 

A body lies half covered by a thick set of bushes. Fabric clings to it, bright in the few spots not sticking to the corpse. The stench is so strong I have to cover my nose and breathe through my mouth. I can’t see the face of it, only the stomach and legs are sticking out. I have no idea if it’s a man or a woman. Just that the kimono it’s wearing is thoroughly ruined. Flies buzz.

“Seiko?” Minato asks. I look over at where he’s stopped, a few branches above me. His eyes are wide and stuck on the corpse. 

This is the first time either of us have seen a dead person, I think. The first for me in this life. I’d spent a year working at a hospital once, back when I’d been in college. But that was like a distant dream, and very few of the bodies I’d encountered had been in advanced decay. 

I’d rather Minato not look at a rotting one first. The bandits will be better. I don’t need him throwing up here. Fuck, this is horrible.

“Stay there,” I order, sounding a bit stupid with a hand covering my nose. I’ll need to lift it to find the trail of whoever did this, but the smell is disgusting. Horrible. “Watch for if anyone is coming. I won’t be able to sense them well right now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” I reply, jumping down to the grass and taking in the scene. 

Fluids stain the grass around the body, along with what looks like old blood. Someone seems to have haphazardly shoved it into the bushes in an attempt to hide it. Sloppy. Burning or burying it would have been a better bet if they were aiming to be sneaky. It’s far enough from the road that no normal person will smell it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be found. 

“We’ll need to have Jiraiya give us a body scroll for whoever this is,” I tell Minato, leaning down to pull away the bush branches to get a better glimpse of the kimono. I try to discern if there’s still identifiable breasts, or if it’s a more masculine cut. 

“How do you think they died?” Minato asks. He sounds closer. I glance up to see he’s taken my spot on a lower branch. 

I look down again. The fabric seems to have holes at the front. I can’t tell if there was blood staining there from all the bile, but I have to assume there was stabbing involved. I still can’t tell if it’s a man or a woman, and I have no interest in looking at its face to investigate further. Not when just the covered parts of the body are bad enough. I drop the branches. 

“Someone stabbed them a few times in the chest. I’m almost sure it was the bandits. Hopefully they’ve left a trail from here to their hideout,” I explain. I take a few steps back. The body is missing one of its sandals. I wonder where it is. 

“I didn’t know bodies looked like that when they’re left alone,” Minato says morbidly. He’s still looking over at the body’s visible legs with those perceptive eyes. “It’s a bit like when you leave meat out of the fridge.” 

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised he’s a little desensitized about these things. A lot of the academy had built in compartmentalization related to death. And Minato in particular is going to massacre people one day with barely a blink. 

All of that feels a bit more real, now. I swat at a fly.

“You shouldn’t leave food out of the fridge long enough to do that,” I say distantly, hand still clinging tightly to my nose. Breathing through my mouth is barely better. Having enhanced senses is overrated. “We shouldn’t turn back now and waste daylight. We’ll let Jiraiya-sensei know about it when we get back.”

Sorry, nameless traveler. You’ll get your rest soon. Along with a return to wherever you came from, too. 

I pull my hand from my face with a disgusted scrunch to my nose. Kakashi had the right idea about wearing a mask all the time. 

It’s only a little difficult to find both the trail of whoever killed the traveller, but also to sense a distant grouping of chakra to the west of us. I’m so lucky that we got our first C-Rank in the middle of the woods, if there were more people around it would be much harder trying to find our marks. 

I jump back into the trees, a sense of unease following me the further we get from the traveller. Who were they? A merchant? They can’t have been a prosperous one, considering the lack of a wagon or guards. Perhaps that had been taken from them and brought into whatever hideout the bandits are using. A handcart would explain a lack of horse or oxen smells.

Cicadas sing and the breeze dies. Sweat starts pooling around my headband again. I’m going to have a breakout by the end of this mission. My feet jolt as I land on another branch, then another. The waxy skin of the body stays in my mind the closer we get. 

Finally, it comes into view. 

Minato and I crouch side by side, arms touching and hidden in the leaves. 

Two miles out from the road, at around a central point between what settlements I know of, sits a makeshift fort. Log walls stake into the earth around a few huts and tents. Crates of goods sit towards the center of the camp, and men walk between them in shabby kosode. A creek runs close by the camp, and I spot a few men washing off in it, complaining about the summer heat. 

“How many do you count?” I whisper, scanning for any outliers. Every man looks like the sort I’d expect. Between teens and middle aged. Scruffy, clearly recovering from lean times. All seem to have some sort of weapon near them, mostly repurposed farm tools.

“Thirty-one,” Minato murmurs. “No, thirty-three, two more were hiding in those shacks.” 

I shut my eyes, trying to detangle the different chakra I can sense from one another to get an accurate count. The problem is that all of them are civilians. Civilians’ chakra systems are far too underdeveloped to piece apart in a crowd, especially from our distance. That’s why Minato and I hiding our chakra at a civilian level is so useful. 

I open my eyes again, letting out an agitated breath. Minato fidgets, and I can feel his eyes on the side of my face. 

“I think we should attack at around two in the morning. The heat is going to make them drowsy, and when things cool down tonight they’ll be out like lights. They’ll probably only be guarding their main point of entry. We can scale the walls and start throat cutting from there.” 

The only entrance into the log walls was a single gate. Two bored looking men seem to be chatting at the front of it, leaning with a pitchfork and kama in hand. 

“While they’re sleeping?” Minato asks. I look over at him and see his frown. 

“I don’t want to give them any chances. It’s kinder to make it quick, Minato-kun.” 

This doesn’t seem to assuage any of his concerns. “What if they wake up?”

“Then we’ll have to be a little less kind about it,” I say darkly. Then add, “Which is why we’re bringing Kushina.”

Weapons or not, sneak attack or not, Kushina is a blunt instrument very good at brute forcing her way. When all else fails, I trust that she’ll be able to punch a bunch of bandits into submission.

Minato and I can too, of course, but there’s something to be said about eagerness. 

Minato huffs a laugh. 

“Now, let me make a quick drawing of the layout, then we can leave,” I say, reaching into my thigh pouch and pulling out a folded piece of paper and pencil. 

—

The sun is setting when we return to the little village, sweaty and successful. 

“‘nato, fill Kushina in on what we saw. I’ll find Jiraiya-sensei to handle the body,” I say as we come to a stop in the trees. Kushina is close by, I can sense her chakra rolling with boredom. 

Minato looks a bit like he wants to say something, but lets the thought pass. He nods once, then he’s leaping in Kushina’s direction. So much leaping. Us Konoha nin are always getting such good leg workouts. That must be why Iwa and Ame want to kill our guts. They’re jealous. 

Or it’s because of some sort of undeniable terrible war crime we did first. They didn’t tell us why the war started in the academy. Mostly there was propaganda about unfair trade infringements and skirmishes that totally weren’t Konoha’s fault. A load of bullshit only brainwashed children would believe.

I take a moment to myself, shutting my eyes and listening to the trees and cicadas. The air is balmy and warm. It’ll cool down in an hour or so, once the sun has set. I stretch my arms high above my head, feeling a few things pop. The mild ache and relief grounds me. 

The air suddenly shifts next to me, and I snap open my eyes, a kunai in hand in seconds. I slide my arm out, aiming for a thigh. I barely have time to pause the movement before I stab my teacher. 

“Good instincts,” Jiraiya praises casually, a bit like how someone talks to a dog. He looks very unperturbed by my kunai hovering a centimeter or two away from his leg. 

“That was impolite, sensei.” I tuck away my kunai, huffing. I didn’t realize I had those instincts. Must be the academy training kicking in. 

“Report,” Jiraiya says with a smile. 

“We located an unidentified body roughly four miles from here due north, maybe forty meters into the treeline. It was in a state of advanced decay. Unsure of the gender. Four stab wounds to the chest. The bandit base was two and a half miles west of there. Assumed perpetrators are the bandits.” 

Jiraiya sighs. “That’s messy. Did you do anything with it?” 

“No, we moved on to the bandit base and agreed to regroup with you to deal with it. None of us carry corpse scrolls, sensei. And I wasn’t going to try and make Minato-kun see it for longer than he had to,” I say, waving a hand. 

“Corpse scrolls are the same as container scrolls, you brat, they just have black ink around the sides to be identifiable,” Jiraiya says, pointing down at my thigh pouch. “You have one on you right now!”

I wrinkle my nose, pointedly not pouting. I do cross my arms though. “It smelled really bad, Jiraiya-sensei. Fresh ones are fine, but that was so gross. Can’t you have a clone do it?”

I know he is fully capable of a kage bunshin, he used them on us during dodging training. Terrible, evil dodging training. 

“You have to get used to nasty smells, Rookie. You’re supposed to be operating this mission like I’m not here.” Jiraiya is notably already making the hand sign for a clone, though he looks peeved about it. 

He forms a cross with his index and middle fingers, and I feel his chakra shift, seemingly cutting itself into half and rushing out of him. In a burst of chakra a second Jiraiya appears next to him. He looks identically irritated. 

I sneeze at the chakra smoke. Both Jiraiyas let out a sudden laugh. 

“Don’t laugh at me, you’re the one wasting chakra,” I grumble, waving a hand over my face as if to fan away the chakra. “I bet I could do that jutsu with half as much smoke.”

“You are the only person I’ve met who acts like chakra gives you allergies. And don’t even think about trying this jutsu, you’ll get yourself put in the hospital from the chakra drain!” Jiraiya says as he pulls out a black ringed scroll from one of his vest pockets, tossing it to his clone. The clone catches it without complaint and starts off in the direction of the body in a blurry shunshin. 

“Then teach me one that doesn’t halve my chakra. I have an earth affinity, you have earth affinity—”

“You can sense that?” Jiraiya cuts in, aghast. “When we get back you’re going to tell me your abilities. All of them.”

“As long as you teach me more jutsu. I’ve been going crazy trying to get my neighbors to show me things,” I say, looking away from him and in the direction I can sense Minato and Kushina. They don’t feel like they’re moving much. I assume Minato is still talking to her. 

Most of my neighbors are graduated shinobi, besides a few newer kids who moved in in the last year. A lot of chunin, a handful of jonin, and a smattering of genin. They’re all helpful enough when they’re home, but a bunch of them are on deployment right now. Losing Uzushio meant losing a significant fighting force of shinobi with huge chakra stores, Uzumaki or not, and they have to be replaced with other bodies on the fronts. Which is bad, because one Uzushio shinobi was worth ten regular ones. 

At least, that’s what my neighbors say. 

Anyway, the ones who are home are either injured, chakra exhausted, or unwilling to show a fresh genin any new tricks without their sensei knowing. Especially one on the jonin track like me. The only jutsu I know now are mostly party tricks or very practical things.

The academy three, shunshin, and a single hand sign jutsu to make a flame at the tip of my finger (usually shown by smokers). Technically the kage bunshin jutsu as well, though I am very aware using it will probably knock me on my ass. The list is very unimpressive. I want more. If Jiraiya doesn’t give me more, I will hunt down Orochimaru and pester him for some. 

Though that may be troublesome. Orochimaru has been on deployment since I graduated as far as I can tell.

“What chakra affinities do Minato-kun and Kushina-chan have?” Jiraiya asks, breaking my thoughts. 

I blink, surprised, and turn back to him. “Wind and water.” 

Jiraiya grunts, looking away from me and thinking. 

“I can work with that, I guess. Run along, Rookie, we’ll talk later.” He waves me off with a flick of his thick fingers, pulling out his notebook and a pencil from his vest. So many hidden things in his vest. 

I roll my eyes and comply, starting off towards Minato and Kushina. We’ll need to pick a place to camp and rest until it’s time for our attack. Damn, I should have asked Kushina to set up camp before we left. But she probably wouldn’t have done it since it’s more menial than staring at a village for hours. Ugh. 

I suppose we don’t need a full camp right now. We may not even stay here right after the mission is finished. Jiraiya has been complaining about how the ground is much worse than a roadside inn since we left Konoha. 

—

The plan, in the end, is quite simple. 

The unfortunate thing for the bandits is that they are civilian, human, and utterly unprepared for any sort of shinobi engagement. Or engagement at all. They have log walls that wouldn’t stand up to even a small group of civilian soldiers. They must sleep and are weak to the elements. They have no way to protect themselves from people who can move silently in the night and remain unseen even in more fortified, well lit areas. 

“This feels unfair,” Kushina whispers in my ear, making me shiver and want to swat at her. She knows I hate when people blow air into it. “And it’s boring.”

“Fairness gets you killed,” I murmur back, eyes sharp on the sight before us.

Genin who try to be fair die, because every other shinobi is stronger and wants you to die. Better to practice making yourself unfair advantages early. 

Before us lies the bandit camp, quiet with nothing but the sound of crickets and croaking frogs. It’s barely lit in the darkness, only a few campfires dying to embers and a torch at the flimsy front gate. There’s only one guard, half snoozing as he leans back into the log wall. 

Minato shifts at my left side, clothes barely rustling. We’re packed close together on this branch, Jiraiya hidden somewhere further up in the tree. I can sense him, and I know that’s because he wants to make sure I know he’s there.

This is a bit like a proctored exam, really. I have always liked acing tests. 

“I’ll kill the guard at the gate. Minato, I want you to take the left side of the camp. Kushina, take the right. Be silent, and try not to wake anyone. Remember to cover their mouths when you cut their throats in case they make noise.” 

I’d rather we not cut throats, on account of the blood, but snapping people who are lying down’s necks is very inconvenient. None of us have big enough hands for it to not be troublesome.

“Why do you get to kill the awake one? Oh, what if another one is awake?” Kushina whispers, fiddling with her kunai pouch. Open, close, open, close. 

“If someone is awake, kill them before they see you. If they see you, kill them before they start shouting,” I say simply, reaching down and stilling her hand. I don’t answer why I’m killing the awake one first. 

I don’t trust Kushina to be quiet enough in approach, and I’d rather Minato start on sleeping people for his first kills. 

“And if they all wake up?” Minato asks, stiff beside me. 

“Then we fight. We’re very good at that,” I say, patting his shoulder. My hand rests there, holding him just as I hold Kushina’s hand. “Are you both ready?” 

Minato nods. Kushina whispers “Hell yeah!” as loud as she can get away with. 

“Then let’s move,” I order. 

In but a breath I’m jumping to the ground below. I land in the grass in a silent roll, pulling a kunai from my pouch and keeping momentum. The dark absorbs me, humid and cool. I landed at the edge of the log walls, out of the guard’s sight. Fifteen meters away. I can feel his chakra, a flickering thing, edging into the small, calm rolls of sleep. He smells like smoke. 

I can’t throw my kunai and risk him crying out. My feet move. Ten meters. Five. The torchlight is bright, moths flying around it. I reach up and grasp the sleepy man by his cheeks, small palm covering his mouth. Bristles of facial hair dig into my fingers. I wrench him down by his face, looking into his wide dark eyes before sliding my kunai across his throat. 

He gargles, surprised. His lips move beneath my palm. Blood sprays from his arteries and I grimace, adjusting my grip on him as he slumps into me. Next time I’ll do this from behind. I let him fall onto the ground slowly, ignoring the way he jerks his hands to try and grab me. Hot blood sticks to my face. Iron and salt fills my nose. Like walking past a butcher shop.

I keep my hand over the man’s mouth until he stops moving. Every second feels too long and too short at once. I take a breath through my nose, ignoring the smell of blood and figuring out where Kushina and Minato are. 

Kushina’s chakra shines like a beacon behind me, in the camp. Minato’s is quieter, though he isn’t circulating his chakra to a civilian level like he was on our way here. He must have forgotten.

I look down at the man beneath me. I wonder what he thought when he saw me. I pull my hand from his face and wipe the blood on my kunai against the back of his shirt, then reach up for the torch. In moments I’ve doused it in the packed dirt. 

The darkness envelops me again. I leave the man face down on the earth and start inside of the camp. His chakra is so weak I can barely sense it. The barest tendrils of smoke leaving in the wind. 

The smell of blood slowly begins to fill the air as surely as it painted my face. I spot Minato’s pale hair flitting to another tent. Kushina sneaks into a shack, hands as red as her hair. I edge through the shadows cast by the dying campfires, feeling for any unsleeping chakra. When a person sleeps, their chakra becomes harder to sense, especially for civilians. 

I slip into a tent on Kushina’s side, further than she has reached yet. Inside two chakra cores mingle together. My eyes adjust to the darkness, seeing two barely clothed men holding each other on a pulled together set of pallets. It’s the sort of thing I’ve been told civilians look down on. I suppose among a band of outcasts, what’s does it matter if two men fuck? 

I pause for a moment, eyeing their positions. Wake one and the other will wake too. My eyes go to the ground, spotting their discarded clothes. I pick up a wad of fabric, a pair of long billowy summer pants. I cut it in half in a quick movement. 

Fabric is shoved into one’s mouth with rough fingers just as I cut his throat, then the other. Both gargle and gag, unable to shout and eyes opening suddenly into the dark. They grab each other disoriented and confused as to who’s hurt them. One goes for the fabric in his mouth, but his hands are too weak to dislodge it. It only takes fifty seven seconds for them both to slump. They die. 

I leave the tent. There’s an urge to murmur “I’m sorry,” and I let that die too.

Minato is making quick work of the left side of the camp, snuffing out chakra. Kushina is—

I stop, abruptly, sensing something both bigger and more awake than it should be in the center of camp. I look in that direction, spotting a shack. The chakra doesn’t feel like a civilians, developed in the way a jutsu user’s would be, but not quite a chunin. Genin sized. Big genin sized.

Ah. Fuck. 

Kushina flits out of the shack she was in and starts for the center shack. 

Fuck fuck fuck. 

I shove my kunai into my thigh pouch and make the tiger sign with such urgency I barely remember to use my chakra. The shunshin is disorienting, and I haven’t used it for sparring much at all, let alone a mission. Speed. Speed is all I know. My chakra buzzes through my limbs and my legs move faster than ever before. In a few nauseating seconds I’m skidding to a stop beside Kushina. 

A sleepy eyed teen opens the shack door before us, shuffling into the dark. On his forehead is a Konoha headband with a slash cutting through the middle. It looks like it's slumping on his face, almost covering his eyes, as if left on while he was sleeping.

I’m on him before he has time to realize what’s happening, slamming a knee into his stomach. He goes flying backwards, gagging, slamming into the flimsy wall of the shack and half breaking it. He lets out a disoriented yelp, and I recognize I’ve messed up my own plans for secrecy. 

Two chakra signatures come to life from sleeping within the shack, smaller than the teen boy but still properly genin sized. 

“Three genin hostiles!” I bark back to Kushina, sensing Minato coming close. The whole camp is going to wake up soon from the commotion. I guess Kushina will get that fight she wants. 

“What?” a feminine voice says in the shack. “We’re being attacked!” another says, a boy. Teens. We’ve stumbled on an older genin team of missing nin. How nice. 

No known jutsu users my ass, Jiraiya-sensei. 

I backpedal out of the doorway with quick feet, smelling the blood and the chakra signatures flickering to waking around us. No other active chakra systems. Good. Three surprises is three too many.

I draw three kunai, eyes not moving from the groaning teen pushing himself from the slumped in wall. Minato lands at my left side, and Kushina rushes up to my right. 

“Sorry, I think I ruined my own plan,” I tell the two of them, rapidly throwing two of my kunai at the teen and watching him curse and jump out of the doorway’s sightline. “Three genin sized chakra systems, one with a Konoha headband—”

I hear an incredulous voice in the shack, the girl, “They sent fucking baby genin after us?”

“All three presumably low priority deserters. We’ll neutralize them and then the waking bandits,” I finish. 

“I killed ten,” Minato offers. There’s a sharpness to his eyes I haven’t seen since the last time he and Mikoto sparred. It feels like it’s been ages. “How many did you get Kushina-chan?” 

“Six,” Kushina says mulishly. Her chakra is rolling with discomfort, hand tight around her kunai. “I’ll get more than you, dattebane.”

“Three. That makes Nineteen down out of thirty-six. Fourteen civilians and three genin left.” 

“Holy fuck, did you hear that?” says one of the boys in the shack. 

“We’re going to kill you brats!” the one I kicked wheezes. I must have knocked the air out of him. I’m certainly not stepping into an enclosed space with three hostiles to pursue my advantage, though. 

“Attack? There’s an attack!” someone shouts nearby. 

Plans fly through my mind, parsed and discarded before my next breath. I decide abruptly that I’d like to get all of the missing nin out of that stupid shack and kill them before we’re swarmed by bandits.

“Hand me that explosion tag, Minato-kun,” I say loudly, bluntly. I make no move to hold out a hand for said fake explosion tag. I throw another kunai into the shack. 

Three forms burst from the thatched roof of the shack, sending old straw everywhere. They land behind us, and I duck under a sudden kick aimed for the back of my head. 

“Sage above, they’re new grads,” the girl who tried to take my head off hisses. “Where’s your commanding officer?”

I twist to face her, shifting out of the way of another kick meant to hit me in the nose. Her foot passes by my ear. I stab her in the meat of that thigh and wrap my arm around it, standing abruptly to make her lose her balance. 

“Chouko!” one of the boys says. More like a young man, what with the patchy beard. He’s engaged with Minato to my right. The one I kicked is fighting Kushina to my left. 

Chouko’s head slams into the ground, now sideways and half upside down. She lets out an enraged shriek. I twist my kunai hard, before jerking it up to cut from her inner muscle to above her knee. She’s not wearing the right clothes for a fight at all. Nothing but a ratty pair of pajama shorts and shirt she must have taken with her from Konoha. 

Blood drips down her bare thigh. I got her femoral artery and seriously damaged her muscles. She’s not going to be as much of a problem now. 

Shinobi always like to surprise you, though. 

I drop her leg before she can try and choke me with her legs. Kushina’s opponent disengages with her, cursing and grabbing Chouko. He leaps backwards, out of my reach. 

I take the short reprieve to take in our opponents. The young woman Chouko has the muscle definition of a kunoichi but none of her gear. She’s panting, pale as her hand covers her wound. The teen I kicked is holding her protectively. He has his headband on, along with what must be his mission grade clothes. He has his thigh pouch. He is looking at me like he’s going to rip my heart out. The third—

Minato slashes him along the face, twisting out of the way of a punch. The third has a patchy beard, just a pair of boxers and his thigh pouch. He’s more muscular than the other two, but with less chakra. 

It doesn’t matter. This is practically a slaughter. They’re unprepared, surrounded by dead men, and clearly got complacent in their desertion. 

“If you surrender now we’ll be quick,” I call, if only to watch how they react. Minato dances with patchy beard, moves as exact and deadly as he was trained to be. 

“You’re a lying brat, you didn’t even have an exploding tag earlier,” the one I kicked shouts back. Men are stumbling out of their tents now, hastily pulling out weapons. “Aoto, we need to leave!” 

Patchy beard, or Aoto, has some trouble disengaging with Minato. Minato matches shifts around every punch, covering him in cuts and slashes for every gap in his technique. A frantic air begins to build in him, eyes widening more and more. 

“Aoto-san is busy right now, senpai. Maybe you should come closer and help him,” I say contemplatively, eyes unmoving from Chouko and the last unnamed shinobi. 

Kushina slams her fist into the face of a brave bandit two feet taller than her, sending him flying through the air. I hear something crack. 

Nameless shinobi forms the tiger seal and I have just enough time to shift out of the way of a kunai aimed for my throat. It grazes my cheek, a burning sting that grounds me. His chakra smells like freshly turned earth, like a petrichor that bellies a storm. I don’t have much time for thinking. 

Aim a fist for his stomach, step out of the way of a slash. Push his arm out of the way when he goes for another. Slash him in the arm. He’s taller, so account for the height difference when I aim hits. Cut the strap of his thigh pouch, grasp it and leap back when he tries to roundhouse kick me. 

Distantly I am reminded of sparring with Mikoto. She’s out of the village right now. I wonder if she’s alright. 

My blood pumps, the cut on my cheek stings. I feel terribly alive. 

“What’s your name?” I ask, throwing his ratty pouch in Kushina’s direction. She’s taking on three bandits a bit like how a cat plays with amusing mice. 

“Eiji,” my opponent bites out. No last name. He tries to slash me in the face. I duck. “Tell the shinigami who brings you to the Pure Land.”

“Seiko,” I reply. No last name. In a way, me ducking is a bit like a polite bow. “Banditry was a terrible idea as a missing nin.”

I would have become a farmer.

Eiji tries to kick me in the face. I don’t take it too personally. I slam my kunai into the soft part of his knee. One day, people are going to realize trying to kick someone who is short is a terrible idea. 

“Aoto!” I hear Chouko scream, anguished. She almost harmonizes with Eiji’s own shout, both at his ruined knee and his dying friend. I feel Aoto’s chakra dribble away. 

I don’t say sorry. 

This is what it means to be a shinobi.

Eiji stumbles back away from me, before his hands form a tiger sign again. In a blurry blink he’s past me, and I turn to see him drop beside his friend’s corpse. 

Aoto lies limply on the ground, a deep slash across his throat. Eiji leans over him, hands covering the wound. Minato stands a few feet away, watching the sight with that look on his face. The trained absence of feeling that seems to come easier to him than others. A cold calculation.

“Minato,” I say, watching those eyes turn to me. I twitch my head in the direction of Chouko. He nods, once. Then he starts towards her. She’s slumped forward weakly, looking pale. She’s lost far too much blood to do anything so long as she doesn’t know any surprise jutsu. 

I walk towards Eiji. Kushina’s fight seems to be letting up, as all I can hear are the groans of her vanquished foes unlucky enough to still live. We’ll have to cut their throats. 

“—Aoto, come on, come on, get up,” Eiji says to himself, sounding younger than he is. “We’re supposed to see the ocean.”

I eye his uncovered neck, estimating where the joints of his spine meet.

I throw my blood slick kunai. Eiji chokes, dropping like a puppet with his strings cut. 

I hope the Pure Land has an ocean. 

I look away from the two corpses, watching Minato stand up straight from handling Chouko. I look to my left, seeing Kushina looking around us with wide eyes. I can see recognition start to form in her face. Understanding. A tinge of disgust.

The air shifts, and the smell of sun baked clay fills my nose. Jiraiya lands in the center of the carnage with a casual air, squinting at all of us and our handywork. 

“What a bloodbath. I definitely didn’t get this many kills on my first out of village mission,” Jiraiya says cheerfully. 

Kushina promptly throws up. I sigh.