Chapter 1
"Hum … Are you certain about this, Louise?" The princess of Tristain asked hesitantly.
"Of course I am Henrietta." A seven year old Louise de la Vallière replied. "Am I ever wrong?"
"No!" The princess answered immediately, stressing the word. Louise smiled at her, a bright, happy smile, and continued with her drawing.
Henrietta paused for a second. Louise had been wrong before. There had been that time they ended up with their dresses torn and muddy. And the time Louise's mother found them and almost yelled at them, when they tried to climb the estate's tress. And there also was that one time with the wolf cubs.
Now that Henrietta thought about it, Louise was actually wrong a lot. Maybe they shouldn't be doing this.
"It's done!" Louise said happily. Henrietta blinked and focused on her friend's artwork. Either Louise was faster than she thought or she had spent a great amount of time in her own thoughts.
Henrietta looked at the circle that her friend drew. It was pretty, although it didn't really have a circular shape; it was a little too flat for that. The grossly carved runes were easy to see, resting just inside the circumference. From what she could see, the runes were mostly correct, although the only thing Louise and her knew about them was what had been in the book they had found on summoning familiars.
Henrietta started hesitating. Everything seemed alright, but maybe they shouldn't be doing this.
"Hmm, Louise …" She started slowly. "Are you sure we should do this? Maybe we should wait for an adult."
Louise looked at her incredulously. "No! We have to do this. Don't tell me you're scared."
Henrietta twitched indignant and replied hotly. "Of course not."
"Good!" Louise continued "If my mother found us here we wouldn't be allowed to do this."
"I know." Henrietta riposted. "I just thought we shouldn't do this without an adult nearby."
"They wouldn't let us summon a familiar."
Henrietta opened her mouth to reply, but Louise interrupted her. "Puppies."
The princess closed her mouth.
"You wanted a puppy right?" Louise continued. "That's why we decided to do this Ann, because of cute and fluffy puppies. Think about them."
Henrietta straightened as much as her seven year old body allowed, and royally declared. "Do as you must."
Louise grinned. It was always so easy to convince Henrietta. Slowly, she breathed and, with a nod to her royal friend, started to chant.
They had found the book on summoning familiars in one of the libraries belonging to the royal family. It was an old book, clearly used a lot over the years and written in Romanian.
Both girls were reasonably fluent in the language, as befitted nobility, and they had managed to slowly read the book; after finding its purpose they swiftly decided to actually try the familiar summoning ritual.
It wasn't hard to arrange what they needed to enact it and two days later, after they finally managed to escape their guards, they were ready to try.
Henrietta focused on Louise, seeing her friend excitedly waving her wand as she chanted. She shook her head and smiled, Louise was one of her best friends, perhaps her only friend; to see her so excited practicing magic was invigorating, especially with all the troubles her friend usually had in using it.
Louise continued for a few more moments until she finally drew to an end.
Both girls remained silent and still, waiting for something to happen.
When more than a minute passed and no animal appeared the girls looked at each other and sighed.
"We failed!" Louise said despondent.
Henrietta shook her head. "It's alright Louise, this is really advanced magic."
Louise sighed again at that, but nodded and started walking towards the princess … and promptly fell through the ground.
Henrietta looked at that for a few seconds, not believing what she had seen, before she started screaming.
"Help! Somebody help."
When the royal guard arrived at the scene, only moments later, the only thing they found out was the horrified princess trying to dig the ground near a magic circle with her bare hands and screaming for her friend.
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"Louise Vallière." She heard her teacher's voice coming from the entrance of the classroom. Iruka-sensei stood there, holding a small clipboard, and looking right at her.
The twelve year old Louise gave a small nod, stood and readied herself to follow her teacher.
"Good luck, Louise-chan." Naruto said from behind her.
She turned towards the blond for a second, and smiled at him.
Naruto smiled back and raised both his hands, thumbs extended in an ok sign, hoping to encourage her.
Louise waved at him and followed the teacher out of the classroom. A few moments later they arrived at the door to another, bigger, classroom. Mizuki-sensei was already inside, seated at the teacher's desk. Several forehead protectors, engraved with a leaf symbol, rested on top of it.
The leaf symbol represented the Village Hidden in the Leaves; also known has Konohagakure, or simply Konoha, the village that had been Louise's home for the last years.
Iruka gestured Louise towards the front of the desk and then seated himself at Mizuki's side.
"Usually," He started, even as Louise stood straight in front of both her teachers. "Only the students that demonstrate the ability to master the three academy basic jutsu are allowed to become genin."
Louise tensed for a moment.
"Nonetheless, there are some exceptions." Iruka continued. "The Hokage intervened in your case and decided to wave away that requirement in your evaluation. He did so only because your bloodline makes it almost impossible for you to master any regular jutsu. As such, your evaluation will depend exclusively on the other skills you've shown during your years at the academy."
Louise sighed and relaxed.
Iruka smiled at her before continuing. "In theoretical matters you are one of our best students. Not the best, but you're close to it. You've also shown a better grasp of tactics and strategy than most of your peers."
"In taijutsu," Mizuki said, speaking for the first time. "You're one of our best female students; you have a good technique and you don't quit easily. The main reason why we do not grade you higher is because you lack the strength and speed of some of your classmates."
"As such," Iruka continued. "And in accordance with what the Hokage willed, we grant you your forehead protector, and promote you to the rank of genin of Konohagakure no Sato."
Iruka picked one of the forehead protectors and passed it to Louise. She smiled and received it with a small thank you.
"Now, new genin are usually assigned a team a few days after graduating, but it appears that the Hokage has made some kind of arrangement in your case. He wanted you to meet him later in the day." Iruka said.
Louise looked at him, surprised.
"As such," Iruka continued before Louise could question him. "This will be the last time we will meet as student and sensei. From now on we will be comrades; both of us will be shinobi of the leaf. Good luck, Louise-chan."
"Thank you!" Louise replied with heartfelt sentiment. She smiled at both of her teachers, waved enthusiastically and left the room.
Louise felt happy. At first, she had been afraid that what most people perceived as her lack of ability to mold chakra would result in she being held back for one more year at the academy, but fortunately the Hokage intervened and that didn't happen.
A few moments later she arrived at the academy's entrance, and found out that a good number of parents and students were already there; most of the students present had a forehead protector and were being congratulated by their families and friends.
Louise stilled for a second, frozen – looking at the happy view – before she shook her head and held back her tears. This was the reason why Louise so desperately wanted to become a ninja; so that she could one day return home, to once again see her mother, father and sisters.
Louise knew her attempt at magic, back when she had been playing with Henrietta, sent her to this world and only magic could send her back. Unfortunately, magic as it was practiced back home didn't exist here; the closest thing to it where the shinobi arts.
Louise sighed and started leaving, until she saw a pink haired girl trading barbs with a blonde girl. The blonde parents seemed content to simply look at the spectacle, smiling. Louise grinned and shook her head, this time in bemusement; Sakura and Ino never changed. Without another thought Louise moved to join her friends.
Sakura saw her coming first and smiled at her. Louise showed her the forehead protector she held in her hand and Sakura's smile became bigger. Most people who didn't knew them seemed to think Louise and Sakura where related, at least at first sight. Pink was a basically unheard hair color and that, together with their similar coloring, tended to make people think of them as family, even if they really weren't.
Ino turned around to see what had made Sakura smile like that and ended up smiling herself seeing the new genin. "Managed to pass, uh?"
"Yep." Louise replied with a smile.
They spent the next minutes talking about the test. Both girls said they didn't have much difficulties passing and that most of their colleagues also managed to pass. Louise filled the information away and after a few more minutes of talk said her goodbyes and left. She needed to eat lunch before she visited the Hokage tower in the afternoon.
Her walk through the village wasn't long. She only needed around ten minutes to get from the academy to her apartment. It wasn't a very big apartment; compared to what was Louise's home before she arrived at this world it was incredibly tiny, but she didn't complain. It had the basic anyway; a bedroom, bathroom and a kitchen that also managed to be big enough to double as a study room.
Louise started preparing a light meal.
She thought about eating out today as celebration, but decided to simply prepare her own food; her allowance from the Konoha orphans fund wasn't much and Louise didn't want to get used to spending money carelessly.
Sometime later she left her home and set out for the Hokage's tower.
The tower was a big red building where the leader of the village lived and it also doubled as the seat of governance of the village, where most of the official ninja's businesses where conducted.
Louise entered the tower and followed up the stairs until she arrived at the entrance of the Hokage's office. She spoke to the secretary working there and after being told that the leader of the village was occupied she sat down and waited.
The pink haired girl had to patiently wait for almost an hour before she was ushered inside the office.
After entering the office Louise moved forwards and stood at attention. "Hokage-sama!"
"Good day, Louise." The old ninja greeted, smiling.
"You wanted to see me, sir?" Louise questioned after a few moments in which the Hokage remained quiet.
"Yes." The Hokage replied before stopping for a moment in order to light his smoking pipe. "I've wanted to speak to you about your team."
Louise continued silently waiting for the older man to speak, even as he puffed at his pipe.
"Unlike most of your classmates, you will be joining an already existing genin team. Team fourteen has been in circulation for over two years, but unfortunately one of their team members suffered a crippling injury a few months ago and will be unable to continue his ninja career."
Louise nodded at that, acknowledging what the old man was saying. It wasn't rare for ninja to suffer injuries like these. Most of them eventually integrated into the village's non-ninja population, although some remained working as ninjas in non-combat roles.
"Your teammates are several years older than you." The Hokage continued. "They are experienced genin and I believe they will be good companions for you to have."
The older man stopped for a moment to puff his pipe.
"I am going to be very honest with you, Louise; barring something completely unexpected, neither of your teammates will be a great ninja, or even a very good one."
Louise narrowed her eyes at that. Hadn't the Hokage already said they would be good companions?
"Both of them had to repeat the genin examination several times until there was a jounin-sensei that decided to give them a chance. Even then, they passed in great part because they were the first team that jounin was supposed to sponsor. He showed himself somewhat lenient with them and let them become genin. Nonetheless, in these years they have managed to shown they deserved to become genin."
Louise became confused. The Hokage seeing this gestured for her to speak.
"What does the jounin sensei have to do with becoming a genin?" She asked. "Isn't this why the genin examination exists?"
"No." The older ninja replied with a serious face. "The truth test to become a genin is done by the jounin-sensei that eventually will train the genin team. The examination realized at the academy will only serve to eliminate the really weak candidates, those that have no chance to become genin."
Louise opened and closed her mouth several times before she managed to ask. "Then I'm not a genin yet?"
The Hokage puffed at his pipe a little more before replying. "You are. By deciding to put you in this team, I've basically passed you on your final genin examination."
Louise stilled for a moment and then very slowly bowed, trying to convene her respect at the old man. "Thank you, Hokage-sama."
"Give me none of that Louise-chan." The old man said with a chuckle while shaking his finger at her, before he continued more seriously. "I did not choose you to complete team fourteen as a favor to you. It was simply that you were the more appropriated candidate to do it, taking in account the circumstances."
Louise looked curiously at that. "What circumstances?"
"Someone from your class would have to be the one to do it. We couldn't continue with team fourteen as a three man squad." He answered. "Also both of your new teammates have their ninja career basically planed and their skills very well defined. Most of the time they either train by themselves or have specific mentors to improve their specialties and as such their jounin-sensei has a great amount of free time. Time he will use to help you figure out your bloodline's abilities."
"Will he be able to help me?" Louise eagerly asked.
"The only one who will be truly able to figure out your bloodline is you Louise." The Hokage replied seriously. "Your sensei will only be able to give you a small push; you're the only one who can do it."
Louise looked crestfallen at that.
"I've told you all of that before, Louise." The older ninja said after seeing her face. "You have a completely unknown bloodline and it will be hard to master it, but you shouldn't despair; many other people found themselves in your situation and managed to prosper. Besides your blood does grant you powerful abilities, as we seen before."
Some hope seemed to return to the young girl.
"You must never give up or you will never manage to complete your goal."
"Yes Hokage-sama." Louise replied. She had her goal after all and the old man knew it, she had to master her magic, master her abilities in order to return home and see her family again.
"Very well." The Hokage said after seeing some fire return to the girl. "Later this year your new team will probably be selected to go onto the chunin examinations."
Louise opened her mouth in surprise again.
"It will be your teammates second time in the chunin exams." The older shinobi continued, not letting Louise interrupt him. "Probably this examination will be the last where they will compete in; they are good enough at their preferred skills that they will soon be promoted to chunin and assume bigger responsibilities in the village."
"What do you mean?"
"Ai-chan, your female teammate, is training in medicine and will eventually become either a nurse or assistant at the hospital. In a few years she might even rate as a med-nin, but that's a long way off." The Hokage explained. "Your other teammate is Hayato-kun. He has more cerebral skills and his understanding of mathematics will probably lead him to become an asset down in Intelligence, either designing or breaking cryptographic cyphers."
Louise nodded, signaling her understanding. From what the Hokage was saying both her teammates where more oriented to non-combat roles and as such they would eventually be promoted to chunin and probably spend the rest of their lives working inside Konoha itself, never again seeing combat unless the village itself was attacked or some great war occurred.
The Hokage puffed his pipe again before continuing. "I'm warning you about the chunin exams because I want you to use this opportunity to develop as a ninja. Not many rookies get sent on their first exam in their first year. You have a golden opportunity here Louise, that for the next few months you will basically have a jounin-sensei tending exclusively to your skills, don't waste it."
Louise bowed again and replied. "I won't."
"Good!" The old man replied with a smile. "Then don't let me hold you any longer. Tomorrow morning you may meet your new team in training ground number twelve at eight o'clock in the morning."
Louise nodded again at the older shinobi and left the room after saying her goodbyes.
So intent was she in her thoughts that she did not see the old man looking expectantly at her as she left.
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The Hokage kept his narrowed gaze fixed in Louise's back until she left the room. After a moment he sighed and seemingly relaxed. He kept quiet for a few moments before puffing his pipe a little and asking out loud. "What do you think?"
"She's a serious little thing, isn't she?" A man's voice replied. He became visible walking down the wall of the office, from where he had been hidden near the ceiling.
Kaito Watanabe was a short man with tanned skin and hair kept short, cut in a military fashion; he was also Louise's new jounin sensei.
The Hokage chuckled. "Louise-chan is very respectful to her elders, unlike most children her age, although she's less restrained when she is with her peers."
The other man nodded. "What do we know about her bloodline limit?"
"Not much." The Hokage started after puffing his pipe again. "For certain, we know that it's a completely unknown bloodline, but not much else. You can find most of the details we do know about it in the file we sent you about Louise."
Kaito made a mental note to finish reading Louise's file before meeting her the next day.
"We do know" The Hokage continued speaking. "That her bloodline somehow changes how her body produces chakra. She can produce chakra and a great amount of it, for someone her age, but the chakra she produces is … volatile; almost corrosive to regular chakra and prone to explode."
"Does that mean she won't be able to use any regular jutsu?" Kaito questioned, curious.
"No, I don't believe that will happen." The older ninja replied after a moment. "While's it's true she hasn't managed to successfully use any jutsu, she has managed to learn tree walking as well as water walking, so it seems she is capable of using chakra like we do, it simply is much harder for her to learn. She needed almost a year to learn both walking exercises."
Louise's jounin sensei stored that information away before questioning. "What was the ability she managed to create? The one you mention when talking to her?"
"Oh that?" The Hokage questioned amused. "Her explosive fist technique, as I've taken to call it? It's quite an impressive technique, for a genin, and quite similar to some abilities of members of the Iwagakure Blast Corps."
Kaito raised his eyebrow questionably.
The Hokage chuckled. "Let's say you will be quite surprised. I'm sure Louise will be happy to show it to you tomorrow."
The jounin-sensei nodded at that, it was usually better to see a live demonstration anyway. "There's something I still can't understand sir. Why did you go through all this trouble in order to accommodate a genin?"
The leader of the village took a few seconds to formulate his reply. "Louise's bloodline abilities might one day be of great use to our village; I believe there's great potential in it. If for some Louise won't reach that potential, she might pave the way so that one day some child of hers might be capable of doing so. In two or three generations we might have a new clan in Konoha and one more bloodline limit to call as our own."
"And you want me to help her."
"And you will help her." The Hokage affirmed.
Kaito waited for a moment, wondering if the older shinobi would say anything else about the situation.
The Hokage seemed to be in his thoughts until he obviously reached some conclusion and nodded to himself. "There's something else you need to know about Louise, something that's not in the file we sent you or in any other file about her."
Watanabe remained silent, wondering.
"Louise-chan wasn't born in Konoha," The Hokage started. "We don't actually know where she was born. She was brought a few years ago into the Village by Jiraiya when he found her in one of his travels."
"Found her?" the jounin questioned, even while he wondered why the great toad sage bothered bringing the girl to Konoha.
"Yes." The Hokage replied. "He found her in a small settlement in Tea Country. He became curious about her when he saw how the people behaved around her. Some people shunned her; some looked at her in what he described as wonder. He decided to stay a while in that place and find out why."
The old man paused for a moment to inhale some more tobacco.
"It didn't take him long to find out what he needed. It seemed Louise had appeared out of mid-air in their midst a few months before; from what some people described it was as if she fell up from the ground. Jiraiya didn't found that so strange, but he is a shinobi and these were simple people that lived in the middle of a forest. Shinobi and their arts are uncommon occurrences to most of them. Jiraiya started wondering how she arrived there; was it some kind of reverse-summoning or some kind of jutsu? He decided to ask her directly."
"What did he find out?" Kaito questioned, curious about his new student.
"Louise-chan was living with an older couple who had taken her in." The Hokage continued, not yet responding to the jounin's question. "She knew only a smattering of words of our language, but she managed to communicate well enough. Jiraiya questioned her, but the only answer she gave him was magic. Eventually he managed to find how more about the circumstances and discovered Louise had tried some kind of ritual that had brought her there. Seeing that she did not know how to return to her home he offered to bring her to where someone might be able to help her. He brought her to Konoha."
"She did not know our language?" The younger ninja questioned surprised.
"No." The Hokage replied. "Jiraiya thought she might be from some previously unknown country, further west, but we could never confirm it."
"So what happened after she arrived here?"
"Louise was tutored on our language, both spoken and written, for some months before we slowly questioned her about her origins. That's where things became strange."
"How so?" Louise's sensei questioned.
"Louise-chan believes she was born in another world."
"What?" The younger ninja questioned, confused.
"Louise believes she was born in another world," The Hokage repeated. "And that she came here because of the ritual she enacted. She did not use this exact wording, but the world she described as the one she was born is completely different from ours."
The jounin remained quiet for some time, stunned into silence. "That's ridiculous!" He said at last.
"Most people thought so."
"Most?" Louise's sensei questioned loudly.
"Jiraiya … I'm not going to say he believed her, but he thought there was something more to her story. Louise herself also never had any doubts about her origins." The Hokage replied hesitantly.
It took only a second for Kaito to process what the Hokage was telling him. "She still believes that? And you let her?"
"I did not let her, as you said." The Hokage denied. "She simply won't be convinced otherwise and, in the end of it, we couldn't disprove her story."
"How so?"
"How do you prove someone wasn't born on another world?" The Hokage questioned with a shrug. "Especially when they remember it in so much detail as Louise does. She remembers some fantastical things, even by ninja standards; she remembers a world with two moons and floating countries, and creatures such as dragons and unicorns. To her those are her childhood memories, and she believes them to be true."
Silence reined for a few moments, until Kaito broke it. "You think someone manipulated her memories. How? Genjutsu?"
The Hokage paused for a moment before replying. "No, I doubt it. Louise's bloodline makes her incredibly resistant to genjutsu - as I've told you before her chakra has an adverse effect on any other chakra; chakra that interacts with Louise's is usually disrupted. As such the only most powerful genjutsu will even affect her for more than a moment. I don't believe there's anyone powerful enough to manipulate her is such a manner."
"Maybe she hadn't awakened her bloodline yet?"
"Maybe," The Hokage replied. "And that doesn't cover other means of manipulation, especially manipulation of a small child; anyways the heart of the matter is another. Why would someone twist a child's memory so? What was the point? Was it simply to see if they could or was there some greater goal behind it? And did someone else have this done to them? We can't answer these questions and that's the real problem behind it."
The Hokage couldn't disguise the weariness in his voice as he spoke.
Kaito remained silent a few moments, thinking about what the older shinobi told him, before he focused on one of the Hokage's points. "You think Louise is some kind of spy?"
The Hokage smiled sadly at him for a moment, silently congratulating him, before replying. "No, not Louise-chan. The circumstances that brought her here are too … unpredictable, too random. For most of the time Jiraiya doesn't know where he will move next, or when; no one would foresee where he would go or that he would pay attention to what appeared to be the pariah of a small backwater village, much less that he would bring her back to Konoha. I truly believe that the fact he met her was a coincidence."
"But that doesn't exclude the fact that there might be someone else on Konoha that is a spy, someone who had his or hers memories manipulated." Kaito affirmed slowly.
"Yes." The Hokage confirmed. "If anyone is capable of doing something so far reaching as what was done to Louise's memories, they might have done it to someone else."
The younger shinobi nodded, worried about the thought.
"Or it might have been an isolated incident, someone who simply tried to see if it was possible." The Hokage continued after a while. "And we are simply worried about nothing. Or she wasn't actually manipulated and it's a simple delusion."
"Sir," Kaito started speaking hesitantly. "Shouldn't the members of the Yamanaka clan be capable of discerning if her memories are true, or simply manipulated?"
"Usually yes," The Hokage replied. "But her bloodline also affects their abilities. They never managed to gleam more than a few instants of her memories before they were evicted from her mind."
"That's a very useful ability." Kaito muttered to himself.
The Hokage heard him. "Yes it is, and the fact her mind is so protected is one more motive some people are weary of her. I want you to keep an eye on Louise. I don't doubt she is loyal to the leaf, I believe in her, but we must be careful; if someone really did manipulate Louise's mind like this she might be valuable to them and they might come to collect their prize. Be vigilant."
"I will, Hokage-sama. I won't disappoint you."
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It didn't take long for Louise to the entrance of her apartment's complex. She was starting to enter when someone ran out and crashed against her.
"Ouch." She said from where she ended up on the ground.
"Sorry Louise-chan." Naruto said sheepishly.
"Watch where you're going, Naruto." Louise said, grimacing. That had hurt.
"Sorry, I was just in a hurry." He said even as he reached down and helped her up.
"So, did you pass?" Louise asked after he helped her. She had noticed his lack of forehead protector, but maybe he only left it in his house or something.
Naruto shook his head, but grinned. "No, but don't worry Louise-chan, there's another way to pass."
"What?" Louise questioned confused, but Naruto ignored her and ran off before the pink haired girl could do anything.
"Idiot…" She muttered to herself, amused, even as the blond boy blasted away to get himself into some problem as usual.