Alright people, here is my DOS fanfiction that I've had in the works for a while now. I've taken a lot of help and feedback from a beloved SI/OC author, Vixen Tail, without whom I couldn't have made all the improvements I made to this story over the past year. That said, I'll warn you all now that this story will be darker than Silver Queen's. It'll take a while to build to that, and I won't be excessively gory, but there are elements to my story that explore a part of the Naruto-verse I've never seen explored before. My narrative can be long and rambling at times, though I do ask you read it all, else you will miss the small things I have put in that change things. I am currently unsure of an upload schedule, but between school, and work, it'll probably be sporadic, since my writing opportunities are limited, and my hundred-mile-a-minute mind sometimes forces me to other stories I haven't published, and might not publish. For now though, enjoy my story. I look forward to constructive criticism and feedback, though, know I already have over ten chapters written, so don't expect any changes to that. I'm mostly looking for writing style improvement type feedback. Also, telling me what I did right and wrong and what I could have done better is always a good thing. But alas, I am waxing lyrical, so, without further adieu, I bid you welcome to my story, Dreams Within Dreams: Wind God's Origins.
I will admit to being dazed and confused. After all, I clearly remembered my own death. What was I supposed to do with that? I was born into a world where only the strong survive, and the weak choke to death on their own blood in the middle of the night. Thankfully, whatever force had put me here was merciful enough to block out my memories of being born, but starting what must have been about six hours after my birth, I started to become aware, and began memorizing the things going on around me. It wasn't fun. Being an infant newborn is an example of helplessness. You literally can't do anything for yourself.
That is hell, in my mind.
It wasn't long after I became aware that I was a passenger in my own body, at least at first. I was still "plugged in" to my five senses, so to speak, but I couldn't control my body. After a few months, I got that back, and immediately did my best to start walking. My lack of mobility had driven me insane in those months of helpless inactivity.
At five months old, I was able to walk, six and I could run. This, of course, exhausted my little body, forcing me to sleep for long periods of time. I didn't mind, it made time pass more quickly. Despite my mobility, I wasn't able to leave the orphanage I found myself in until I was about two years old. At that point, I got one of the older orphans, a boy named Ichirou to take me out and about. He didn't understand me, saying that I was far too smart to only be two years old. I agreed, and he had given me a look. But he didn't question me when I got him to take me to the Konohagakure public library. After a week, when it became clear that I was more interested in learning to read, and reading every book in the building, than going out into the streets, was Ichirou was comfortable with taking me there when it opened, leaving me there under the watchful eyes of some ninja, and coming back at closing time, did I really make some progress. I read, yes, but I would also subtly practice manipulating my chakra to see if I could start doing anything significant with it.
I had remembered Spider-Man, and him crawling up and down walls using his fingertips as well as his feet, and how ninja could walk on almost any surface using chakra. At first, I tried to crawl up a wall like Spidey, away from prying eyes, but that didn't work. Then I'd remembered- hadn't Peter had items sticking to himself before he ever found out he could cling to any surface? After wracking my brain, the answer was yes, which gave me ideas.
I hadn't known if it would work, but I was pleasantly surprised when it did, so I used that to my advantage. With all the books I was grabbing on a daily basis, I had plenty of ideas of how to get to where I could walk on walls and such.
It took a year of sticking sheets of paper, and then books to my hands before I thought I had the hang of what I was trying to do. At age three and a half, I read Japanese kanji better than I could speak Japanese, though that disparity was quickly shrinking as my vocabulary grew. Of course, I drew many stares from people in the library, after all, a toddler spending an entire day in a library, reading, no less, was quite unusual.
Everyday I would sit down with close to a dozen books, and burn through at least two, and read a smattering from the others if my mind caught something that I wanted to check in the books I was reading all the way through for that day. By the time I was five, I was well versed in chakra theory, chakra composition, elemental chakra, and had memorized countless chakra control exercises, along with several exercises that were designed to expand chakra reserves. I hadn't done the latter yet, the books indicating that I was too young to go risking the damage that would be necessary for me to expand my reserves. But that didn't mean I couldn't use the control exercises. Which I did.
Mercilessly.
I had first used paper, and then books before beginning to wall crawl around the library. I'd given several civilians, and a few ninja heart attacks when I was crawling head first towards the ground on the side of a bookshelf. There had been others, designed for medical ninja, and I'd found that even though I was young, my chakra was already in the upper ninetieth percentile for volume for medical jutsu, meaning I had to make my control perfect if I ever wanted to learn medical techniques. I didn't, but I challenged myself to make sure I had the control necessary for that.
It was difficult, but years later, I had been glad I had done that. It saved myself a lot of grief.
Of course, my control was helped in part by the fact that I could feel my own chakra even if I wasn't paying attention to it consciously. Matter of fact, I kind of had to make it a point to ignore my chakra. But even more pressing than that, was the fact that I could feel the chakra in those around me, their signatures like little blue LED lights in my mind, pulsing in time to the flow that particular person's chakra flowed at. I had to ignore them, or else I could spend hours in a seemingly catatonic state as I felt the chakra of those around me. I had done it when I was gaining back control over my infant body, so I made it a point to do my best to not do that ever again.
At age five, I was enrolled in the ninja academy, as was required by all hapless orphans of Konoha. I didn't mind, I actually wanted to be a ninja, though I failed to see how seven years of indoctrination of children made for good soldiers. I mean, long term, it wasn't a bad idea, assuming they lived long enough to pass on what they had learned, but the average lifespan of a ninja was, what, seventeen, eighteen years old? I didn't openly question it though, that would've brought a kind of attention down on me that I was looking to avoid. But I couldn't help myself when, on the first day of school, something completely unexpected happened.
I had expected the Third Hokage to make his little motivational speech, as he seemed to love doing in the manga, but what I hadn't expected afterwards was a name that I knew hadn't existed in canon Naruto-verse.
"Nara Shikako, Nara Shikamaru-" said Iruka.
I blinked. Nara Shikako? Who-? Then I saw her. A little thing, hiding in the shadow of what could have only have been her twin, the resemblance was too uncanny for her to not be. She seemed shy, quiet, and most of all, socially awkward. I watched as she held onto her brother's shirt, hiding in his shadow as he followed Iruka towards their classroom.
The next class's worth of children was not mine, nor the one after it, but it was the fourth one.
"…Kasai…" I raised my eyebrow before starting forward, slipping through the crowd like I had in my old life. I moved like a wraith, slipping between limbs and bodies, making nary a sound as I approached the platform everyone had gathered on before. I slid into the crowd of children without any of them being the wiser, though I felt a pair of eyes following my movements. Turning to where I felt a chakra spiking in intrigue, I saw the Third staring at me. I stared back. I'd spent too many years dealing drugs to fully loaded gangsters to bother being intimidated by some old man who was staring at me. I met his gaze evenly, a poker face overcoming my features, and watched as one of his eyebrows raised, even as a small smirk crossed his lips.
It was at that time that my new sensei, a grizzled old man named Kata called for us to follow him. Slowly, the children around me began filtering into the building, talking excitedly as they did. I rolled my eyes at their antics, before once again slipping between bodies, moving to the middle of the group. From there, upon us entering a classroom, I slipped back out of the group, and selected a seat all the way in the back, close, but not too close to the door. I kept a clear view of it through my peripherals on one side, and the windows on the other. Of course, everyone else was in front of me, letting me keep an eye on them. I gave a mental sigh as my neurotic paranoia from my last life showed through in this life. I wasn't sure if it was good, or just a show of how messed up I was if I hadn't let it go after all these years.
The first day of school was a lot of introductions, which I managed to avoid by simply staying quiet. I'd been good at that in my last life as well. Not that it had mattered in the end.
After a month of class work, we were finally allowed to start some physical training in the afternoon, which was carefully monitored by Kata-sensei.
I thanked my lucky stars that I had developed such good exercise habits in my last life, because when I had turned four in this new life, I had forced my new body to begin physical conditioning. Our first PT session, Kata-sensei had told us to just run for as long as we could. Most everyone else had stopped at a half mile, but I continued all the way up to one mile before pretending to be so out of breath that I couldn't continue. Then came the sit ups, which I could have easily done the best in, along with the push-ups, but I held back. It was one thing to be the best, but was another to be so good at everything that everyone knew who you were. I wanted to be seen as average, so I did my best to appear average. It worked against all but Kata-sensei, who once held me back after school one day.
"Kasai," he said, staring hard at me. "Why do you hold back so much?"
I looked at him for along moment before speaking, my voice hoarse with disuse. I had made it a point to not talk a lot in this new life of mine, so my voice wasn't very good.
"What's the point of being the best if there's no one to compete with?" I asked. "I'd rather be seen as average with no competition, than seen as extraordinary with no one able to come close to competing with me. I'd rather not crush any dreams so soon into people's hopeful careers as ninja."
With that, I'd turned and left, ignoring Kata-sensei as he called for me to come back and explain myself.
After that, the rest of the year passed quickly, and the year after that, all the way up until the Uchiha Massacre. I'd honestly forgotten about that little detail. After the Massacre though, I upped my personal training regime, reality having reminded me of something I'd subconsciously been preparing for.
Being a ninja capable of taking on S-rank ninja. After that, I stopped holding back. I still kept silent in class, but I stopped missing questions on purpose. My taijutsu became outright brutal, resulting in many children being taken to the hospital with broken bones, sprained joints, and in one memorable case, a minor case of internal bleeding. Kata-sensei became wary of me, especially after I responded to the other children's attempts at bullying.
"You can't be that tough," said some clan less civilian child one day during recess. "You can't even talk! You must be scared of us!"
I gave him an unimpressed look before responding.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand the language of Idiot at all." I said to him. "Now, I don't know your name, nor do I care to learn it since it would be a waste of my time that could be better spent learning something more worthwhile than the name of some random idiot that won't amount to anything."
Needless to say, none of the other children bothered me again, though they put through a petition making it so that I would only be allowed to spar with a chunin instructor, or someone of equal taijutsu skill. Unfortunately, there wasn't anybody in my class who was on my level in taijutsu. However, in an effort to keep me around people my own age, Kata-sensei asked the other academy instructors if they had any taijutsu prodigies.
Of course, with my luck, the person who they pitted me against, was none other than that strange girl Nara Shikako. Apparently, she'd been given the nickname KO Shikako since she tended to knock her opponents out of the ring fairly quickly, or just knock them out. I didn't care. She'd go down just like all the other children in my class.
"Kasai," Kata-sensei said before our match started. "I don't think I need to ask you to not hold back, but please try to avoid breaking any bones."
I just stared at him until he turned away. Looking around, I saw a couple of medic-nin nearby, and a few extra chunin instructors. Around me, my class jeered at me, hoping that this Shikako would "put me in my place" while her own class yelled the same thing about her. Amazing. Nobody seemed to be hoping that their own class's taijutsu monster would beat the other.
When Iruka began our fight, Shikako rushed forward, trying to take me off guard, and take me out fast.
This, of course, was not to be.
In my last life, I had been a black belt in Kung fu, and had dabbled in jujitsu with a smattering of tai chi, and had studied pressure points and nerve clusters, memorizing them just because I could. Add in my military martial arts training I'd received in the Marine Corps, and I was outright deadly. But I had never had need to use all that martial arts training and knowledge. Now though, that knowledge had a practical application. So, I sidestepped her punch at the last second, curled my index and pointer fingers on each hand into points, and jabbed at specific points along her outstretched arm. Then, as that arm went limp, I grabbed it, twisted as I pulled her towards me before allowing myself to fall back, and snap went her arm as she flipped over my body. I followed through, back rolling and bringing my knee down into her soft abdomen, making her expel her breath in an involuntary cry as her eyes went wide. Straddling her chest, I jabbed her still functional shoulder, and cocked a fist back, freezing in that position.
"Winner, Kasai!" Kata-sensei called, quickly moving in to pull me off the Nara girl. The medic-nin quickly followed, side-eying me as they approached the girl still lying prone on the ground. I didn't pay them any mind, instead looking around to see the reactions to my win, and how brutal its was.
Behind me, there was a gasp of breath as Shikako finally managed to get a breath back into her body with the assistance of the medics, and then came the cry of pain. I could hear the medics trying to talk calmingly to the girl, who, judging by the way her chakra was spiking, didn't like the chakra invading her system in an effort to heal her. Looking at her class, a set of eyes caught my attention. Looking at where I could feel the eyes boring into me, I saw one Nara Shikamaru glaring at me. I sighed, listening to the medic-nin as they tried to figure out what was wrong with Shikako's arms, and failing spectacularly as they thought that I'd done something to her tenketsu and chakra system. After they healed her arm, and continued fretting over her unresponsive arms, I grew frustrated, before stomping over towards them.
"Move," I growled, pushing passed them to the Nara girl.
"Bunch of dumbasses who can't even figure out that I attacked nerve clusters and not the chakra system." I grumbled in English. Just as I was about to start jabbing to un-deaden her arms, she stunned me.
"You speak English?!" She asked, incredulousness clear in her voice.
My head snapped around to look at her. "Yes, I do."
She stared at me, and I stared at her.
"Hold still." I said, and with that, I jabbed her arms once again, making her cry out.
"Better?" I asked.
"Yes." She said, flexing her fingers. "But my arms and hands tingle like I slept on them."
"Good, that just means you are fine." I said. "Attacking the nerves can be a very nasty business if done improperly."
That garnered me some looks, but Shikako seemed to take it in stride, before speaking in English once again.
"So, can we meet somewhere?" She asked. "It's nice to know there's someone here who speaks this language."
"Yes," I said. "Meet me at the Leaf Village Public Library an hour after classes let out for the day."
She nodded, giving me a shy smile, and I got up and walked away from her.
'Is she like me?' I thought to myself. 'Is she a reincarnation like me? What could all this mean? We're both making ripples in the timeline, but how much of it will be good, and how much will be detrimental to the future?'
The rest of the day passed without further incident, and as soon as class let out, I booked it for the library, anxious to meet up with this mysterious Nara Shikako. I didn't have to wait long for her to show up there, she was thoroughly out of breath when she showed up five minutes after I got there. Once she got her breath back, I gestured for her to follow me into the library, which she did without question. I led her to the far back of the library, a small table all to ourselves already there.
"So, first question," I said. "Are you reincarnated?"
That certainly got a reaction out of her, her eyes going wide, lips parting in shock. I let the silence stand, knowing that, like me, she'd felt incredibly lonely in this new life. Granted, she had a family, so she wasn't as lonely as me, but I knew that she must have felt lonely. I know I did.
A small part of my mind that was still stuck in responsible adult mode with nieces and nephews noted that Shikako was a cute kid, although that's what my mind said the same thing about me whenever I looked in the mirror.
"Shocked?" I asked. "Because I know that I am. I never would have thought that there would be someone else reincarnated into this universe, let alone someone so close to the main man himself."
That sentence seemed to bring Shikako out of her funk, and our afternoon passed too quickly for my taste, for soon, Shikako had to leave for dinner at her house. I bid her a good night, and turned to the books around me, intent on putting away at least five chapters of Chakra Theory: Advanced Edition before closing time.
I didn't manage that.
But for once, I didn't care.
After all, I was content in the knowledge that I wasn't totally alone.
I just wish it'd lasted.
So, that's a thing. I look forward to the reviews!