Chapter One: The Third Great Shinobi World War

Summer days were the ones I hated the most.

It was always so hot and I could never find a reason to stay outside and enjoy the sun like everyone else. So instead, I spent my time ducking under the shady roofs of market stalls and hiding in the thickets of cool trees.

Where my summer days went I don't know. Sometimes I would go fishing at a nearby pond and get in trouble later with the local farmer for trespassing onto his property, and other days I'd go exploring the caves near the sea farther from the village.

Despite the scorching heat, the beach was one of my favorite places. The large waves that crashed down on me and the pretty shells I would dig up with my shovel and bucket to collect—the endless expanse of blue made me feel light and free.

For me, life was about passing as much time as possible, with mindless games and made-up play. There were not many children that were my age in the village but it didn't bother me. I liked my solitude.

I picked up a stick and dug stray marks in the wet sand. Small crabs scuttled away in haste at my coming, and I looked out over the field of bright blue.

What was it like, I sometimes wondered, to throw yourself out into the sea and start an adventure? It was a secret fantasy of mine to rush away into the horizons and live life out at sea on a big wooden boat—just me and my grandparents. It'd be pretty salty and wet, I imagined, but well-worth the fun…

There was a low rustle in the tall grass and thistles on top of the sand dunes a few feet away and my eyes immediately focused on the spot.

Probably just a seagull…I thought.

Suddenly a large, dark form burst from the thicket and my voice pitched into a scream.

I hit the sand with a thump and stared up to see a man with long dark hair towering above me. He was tall and gaunt looking but it wasn't his intimidating form that scared me, it was his eyes—his large, leering, golden eyes.

He glanced down at me with a rather bored expression, the kind that came after expecting something great but instead finding disappointment.

"Just a child…," I heard him muse softly.

"Oiiiiiii! Did you find anything?" A distant voice called from the other side of the dunes. Two more large figures appeared; another man and a woman.

Great, the guy had friends…

The woman had very light blonde hair while the other man had a conspicuous spiky, white mane. But the strangest part of all three of their appearances was their clothes.

I had never seen clothes like theirs before. They looked thick and tough, plated with heavy metal and looked difficult to move in. The strangers themselves looked tired and worn as if they had travelled a very long way.

This is probably the part where I was supposed to fear for my life and fear I did. It crept up on me with a sudden prickly feeling and my head screamed at my legs to get moving away from the potential attackers.

"What's the big idea? You can't just waltz off on your own! This is unknown territory," the woman reprimanded the dark-haired one harshly.

Uh, oh.

He stuck a finger in his ear as if to unplug it. "Stop yelling, woman. I'm going to become deaf because of you…"

"Deaf? DEAF? I'll show you deaf!"

"Whoa, whoa there," the white-haired man said cautiously, raising his palms in the air between his two companions. He looked at them in irritation. I kind of felt sorry for him. He looked like the one who always got stuck on the middle. The poor sucker.

"Let's calm down and take a deep breath. I know we're all tired and we've been on this mission for more than a month but we need to do what sensei told us and lay low here until those troops come by…"

The rest was lost on me as I took this opportunity to try and discreetly crawl away from their heated discussion. I took about three steps before they finally realized I wasn't there anymore and they came after me.

I shrieked in terror as the dark-haired one swooped down and grabbed me by the scruff of my yukata*.

"Don't think you'll get away so easily…"

"Put the kid down. You're going to give her heart attack."

Yes, please put down the poor little kid covered in sand.

The scary one dropped me reluctantly while the not-so-scary one knelt down in front of me. He smiled.

"Hey, little girl, do you know if there's a village anywhere nearby? We're weary ninja, you see, and we need a place to stay."

Ninja? What the heck was a ninja? I swore, this day just got weirder and weirder. All I wanted to do was kill some time by drawing in the sand. But no, instead, I get three funny-looking ninja to play with…

"The village is that way," I pointed to my right, off in a direction past a large yellow wheat field.

"You mind leading the way?" the woman persuaded with a small smile.

"No, I don't mind," I said quietly, not quite sure what I was doing bringing in complete strangers to the village. The village elders weren't going to be happy about this…

We walked together for about fifteen minutes until we reached the outskirts of town.

"Can you believe this?" the woman addressed her companions incredulously, surveying the clean surroundings and the small quaint buildings. "This place is completely untouched. It's like the war isn't even happening here."

"Some would count that as a blessing," the white-haired man said solemnly.

"Or stupidity; these people are much too vulnerable to a surprise attack," the morbid one said, his golden eyes taking in some of the shabbier huts and the meandering townsfolk with distaste.

Several villagers stopped what they were doing to stare down the unwelcome guests. The woman glared back just as fiercely; the white-haired one walked by with an uneasy expression while the black-haired one ignored his entire surrounding.

I guess it was a strange bunch walking down the main street—three foreigners and one girl leading the way. Oh, well. They'd get over it.

We finally reached the front of my house where my foster grandparents and I lived.

Yes, that's right, I'm an orphan. I guess that would on the surface make me look a tad more pitiful than the next kid who has loving, breathing parents, but to me, this kind of life suits me just fine.

I get the "parental nutrition" that every kid deserves as well as an extra dose of independence to help speed me along in my maturing process. It isn't so bad; being independent just means being more free.

And my grandparents are a very nice couple and know that it doesn't mean anything to spoil or smother me with any of their expectations or love.

My hand reached up to knock on the door and my grandmother opened it.

"Obaasan*, I think these people need help."

My grandmother's expression was friendly at first but then she turned to look up at the guests and her face turned to stone. She welcomed them rather stiffly as if she was being careful to not say anything offensive and immediately called my grandfather.

Well that was new. I had never seen her act so cold or so uncomfortable around guests before. She was usually pretty enthusiastic about guests laughing and serving them rice cakes and tea. Guess not today.

I tried to follow after them into the kitchen but was promptly sent out to the back garden while she and grandpa talked with the newcomers. Of course, me being the little brat, I wasn't allowed in during "grown-up talk"…

Ugh.

I pressed my face against the glass sliding door of the house in hopes of hearing what they were talking about but all I heard were loud muffled noises.

After an hour, I was allowed back inside the house to help my grandmother set up some extra futons for the ninja. The ninja left to scout out the village until dinner.

I wondered what where they were going…

"What are ninjas, obaasan?" I asked timidly, unsure if I should be asking such a thing, she seemed so fearful of them like a child and their closet monsters only to find that they're real and terrifying. A horror story come to life.

She froze in mid-action as she was smoothing out the comforter making the wrinkles on her face set in deeper.

"They are…weapons, my dear. Weapons controlled by even more powerful weapons to mold the world as how they see fit. We are the wood, my dear, and they are the knives. The world you see around you is carved in their vision."

I frowned confused.

"But do not fret," she said, taking my hand in her gnarled ones and patting it gently. "For wood always grows back."

I went to bed early that night missing the ninjas coming home and instead lay in my own futon contemplating what my grandmother had said.

But how long does it take for the wood to grow back?

The next morning I got up to brew the tea for my grandfather like I did every morning. It was an easy job and I didn't mind doing it.

As I reached up on my little stool to grab the tea leave canteen, a hand reached over my head and grabbed it for me.

It was the white-haired ninja. "You're up pretty early for a kid."

I smiled.

"My ojiisan* has a nasty cough when he gets up so I brew the tea the apothecary told us to give him—once in the morning and once at night."

I took the canteen and set to work.

"I make it in the morning so obasaan can sleep a few extra hours more."

The ninja laughed and ruffled up my hair. "You're a good kid." But then his laugh quickly died into a wry grimace. "I almost forgot what it was like to see people living their lives as normally as your family does. Makes me miss my own home," he admitted.

He watched as the sun broke across the horizon and the tiredness in his eyes shown. Weariness drew fine lines of constant worry and paranoia into his young face. He looked so sad.

I still didn't get what he was saying—try as I might.

"What's your name?" I asked. He forced himself to smile this time, the crinkle in his eye folded strangely.

"It's Jiraiya."

The week swept by and the ninjas from another land weren't around the house much except at night when they came in to eat dinner and then go to sleep.

Those free-loaders—eating up our food and then snoring away our space.

I asked Jaraiya one day what they were doing and he shrugged it off as top secret information. Funny thing was though sometimes I caught him napping in the branches of trees. Some secret mission.

My grandparents were just too nice—or too wary to chase them off.

"Ojiisan, are you alirght?"

My grandfather gave another violent cough.

"I'm alright, I'm alright. Don't worry about me. You and granny always fret about the tiniest croak," he waved me off, snatching a tissue to cover his mouth. He always tried to be casual about it but I knew better. He was worried about his just as much as grandmother and I.

"Turn on the radio for me, won't you?"

I did as I was told and walked out to the back porch to leave grandfather to his news and music. He usually sat there for hours listening to his wooden radio.

"He's going to die soon."

My head snapped up to see the mysterious dark-haired ninja. His skin was so pale, the black of his hair contrasted sharply with his features making them look pointed and unfriendly.

I was always afraid to be alone together with him without the comfort of Jiraiya or even the female ninja in the same room. Jiraiya told me his name was Orochimaru and that the woman's name was Tsunade. He said rather bitterly that they were famous for being known as the Three Legendary Sannin—a title which he seemed to detest in some way.

I wasn't sure how or why but I got the feeling that Orochimaru only stayed in line when the others were there with him. Otherwise he seemed scary and unstable…

"The apothecary told us the tea would heal him—"

"It doesn't matter. The old man's going to die either way."

Irritation set in. "He's not going to die! He'll be fine if he takes his medicine, alright?" I nearly shouted, annoyed with his condescending attitude and offended with his casual nonchalant attitude about another person's supposed death. I may have been a child but even I knew when someone was trying to make a fool of me.

He turned those luminous, golden eyes in my direction. "Trying to deny it won't help. You should give up and admit that he won't last till next winter."

"How do you know?" I challenged. "You're not even a doctor."

He smirked. "It's his breathing; I can tell that he used to be a heavy smoker. The old geezer's past due expiration—"

I cut him off by shoving against him with all my might as I stomped off angrily in the middle of his explanation not wanting to hear any more of it. He didn't even budge.

He looked back with a smug grin.

"These look great!" I talked to myself, walking down the street in the evening with sweet potatoes that I dug out and bought from a farmer half a mile from the village. His farm had the best sweet potatoes in the whole area. I always bought some every two weeks.

It was as I was walking home, mouth watering at the thought of the smell of warm, potatoey goodness that I noticed huge columns of smoke rising from the center of the village. Great plumes of red, orange and yellow swallowed building rooftop after rooftop and lit up the town in one huge fiery ball of flames.

My feet carried me faster to the village and soon I broke into a run right into the thick of it, not caring if the flames caught me or the smoke blinded my eyes.

"Obaasan! Ojiisan!"

I panicked as I heard the screams of terror from the villagers running about. Crowds of people pushed themselves this way and that, desperate to retrieve their belongings and their loved ones.

No, no, no! I thought in despair.

Several brave people attempted to douse the fires with water-filled buckets, but the fire just seemed to spread faster. I was knocked to the floor by an elbow.

"OBAASAN! OJIISAN!"

Suddenly there was a flurry of new movement, this one swifter and more skilled as the dark forms weaved in and out of the ensuing chaos. I squinted to try and decipher who they were.

They moved strangely running up behind fleeing villagers and knocking them down. It took me two seconds to realize what they were doing.

They were killing the villagers.

Screams turned bloody and the villagers were brought down one by one. More slashes, more sprays of blood and my own voice joined their chorus as a slick wetness hit my face.

I ran haphazardly farther into the smoke and choked on the black, carbon air.

Please! I prayed with all my might. Please someone help me!

My eyes squeezed shut with tears and my hands reached out for purchase. I think I was dying.

There was a yell close to me and I knew that I was doomed. The killers were closing in on me. I could feel my last scream bubbling up in my throat.

The next thing I knew I felt the swish of a blade but it missed me by a mere strand. They slashed at me again and I tried to swerve out of the way but in my panic ran headlong into an overhanging piece of broken wood.

There was a dull thud and then nothing.

I was gone.

Author's note: This story idea came to me one day when I thought about how there weren't many reverse harems or original characters under the Naruto category. I bet there are a lot of harem stories but not many reverse harems and I want to help change that statistic. If guys think it's alright to have a few extra lovers on hand, why can't girls?

For those of who may not know, a reverse harems is, obviously, the opposite of a harem. A reverse harem genre is when the main heroine(a girl) develops multiple love interests, relationships or connections to numerous male characters.

Original characters themselves are rare, whether it's the lack of interest or the difficulty in creating one but I find that it's a good challenge to take on.

One thing that you will see in my stories is whenever I use Japanese words in my fan fiction I will italicize them and put an asterisk on first reference and put the translation at the bottom of the chapter. Then after that they will not be italicized or have an asterisk next to it.

Here's the first set of words:

*yukata-- a Japanese garment, casual and usually worn as a summer kimono; they are also worn at traditional Japanese inns after bathing.

*Obaasan--grandmother; grandma

*Ojiisan-- grandfather; grandpa

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-Scripsisomnia