A/N: I can't believe I'm actually doing this. An SI. For shame. And yes, I am aware Deidara supposedly doesn't get his mouth hands until he steals that technique. But for the sake of making things easier, he was born with them.
She wasn't quite sure how exactly she ended up in this situation. This must have been what they called 'solitary confinement', and it was exactly how it sounded like—a room about as large as a medium-sized closet with a dramatic wooden door sealing her in. Had she been any taller, there wouldn't have been enough room for her to vertically stretch out her entire body.
Usually, the only kid that ended up in here was that weird blond kid everyone always avoided. She hadn't seen him much. Maybe once or twice. The orphanage was a big place.
But she digressed.
She must have been rising fast on the matron's shit-list.
She may have also been a pathological liar. Of course, she hadn't started out like that. You see, when people feel the need to constantly defend themselves, the lying tends to become more habitual the more it happens.
She was six and already developing shinobi tendencies.
Good.
Because being a shinobi meant one very important thing—money. No, She was not a miser. She wasn't Kakuzu—not by a longshot. Because, you see, Kakuzu was literally a massive ball of yearn with five hearts inserted in the midst of the tangle.
She was a six-year-old girl whose face would have blended perfectly with the rest of the orphans had she not been... herself. She was mentally sound. But she was someone with a passion—a dream. One that she hadn't gotten to fulfill in her old life. A dream that tended to have a little more... flair for the dramatic.
Oh, yes, I remember now, she thought, a small, slightly exasperated smile appearing on her lips. It's because no one can handle my genius!
Or rather, she had jumped off the roof and hang-glided halfway across the playground before a soft and gentle breeze caressed the delicate flaps of her marvelous invention and sent it toppling to the ground. About ten children had been injured—not grievously, mind you—but what was a science without a little sacrifice?
I was under the impression that declaring "for science" would automatically validate everything I do. Apparently, that is not the case.
She didn't remember much of her old life—she was unsure if she ever did have one to begin with—perhaps she was just a vivid dreamer. But whatever the it was... whatever it may be—
She stood up abruptly, thumping her fist on the wall, tears rolling down her cheeks in an exaggerated fashion.
I wish I had gotten a cooler anime name!
Ina was by no means a first name. It was, first and foremost, a surname, and it was the only name she had ever known since beginning her life in the Naruto world. She had figured it out pretty quickly when one of the matrons—a retired shinobi—had done a shunshin to catch her when she had thought that it would be a good idea to take a flying leap off the roof with a parachute made out of ten layers of potato peels.
Perhaps it was just her location, but the Narutoverse—her world, now—wasn't looking like anything special. She'd never met anyone who could use jutsu, other than that retired shinobi, and had never felt the buzz of chakra through her veins.
But chakra or not, the first thing Ina did when she got out from solitary confinement was return to her lab. Otherwise known as the shed on the roof that no one ever went up to because she had told the children that it was haunted and held up a bloody arm—she'd slashed the wounds herself, naturally.
It was just an arm. She could always get another one, right? And it wasn't as if she had lost it—the matrons just had a tendency to overreact. But she made her mind up to be more careful with her body parts after that—she wouldn't be able to fulfill her dream without it.
Besides, Ina told herself as she fixed her broken hang glider. She'd dug it up from the dumpster. I don't want to end up losing all four of my limbs and having to have to live in a wheelbarrow for the rest of my days, paying some hick five ryo a day to push me around and wipe my ass.
The wind blew especially hard against her, and she shouted as her one good wrench tipped out of her toolbox. Curse you wind! I curse thy mother! She left her hang glider unattended as she went to pick up her tools. As she did, she noticed a commotion right below her position on the roof.
"Ehh?" Ina sat down with her legs crossed, observing. "It's that blond kid... The troublemaker." He looks familiar... is he canon?
Whoever he was, he was certainly not Naruto, because she was an orphan in a place that was certainly not Konoha. The Konoha she imagined did not look like this. Not even during times of war, when everything was bleak and dark like it was right now.
And Naruto at this age had never gotten so worked up at being excluded before—normally, he was just depressed and walked around with his head hung low.
"Hrr!" the blond growled, throwing something at them with a strength that made Ina's eyes widen. "I said LEAVE ME ALONE!" The projectile smacked the tallest offender in the head.
It was clay.
Ina fully expected something big to happen. Perhaps something would explode.
This... must be...!
"Huh?" the second bully, who had watched the lead bully topple over, ogled his friend, a bead of sweat dripping down his cheek. "H-hey! You stole supplies from the art room, didn't ya?! I'm telling!"
"If you tell, I'll blow you all up, un!" the blond child hissed, and Ina nearly fell off the roof from how far she was leaning over the ledge. His sleeve fell back, revealing an already lit match. How the tiny flame hadn't burned his clothing, she didn't know.
The second and third bully stepped back, wariness in their eyes. But then the wind blew out the match.
The third bully started to gain confidence again. "Hah! You don't have your fire anymore—"
"I was kidding, jerk! I don't need something as prim-tive as fire, un! Katsu!"
There was a puff of white smoke, and Ina ducked her head. Whoa! Did he just blow off his face?!
That was...
Pretty cool, yet extremely violent. I like that.
The smoke dispersed quickly, and the lead bully had some minor burns at worst. Ina sweatdropped. Maybe I was hoping for too much.
Deidara—because that was who he was—looked down at his tongue-palmed hands. "Shit."
"GET HIM!"
With a war cry, the boys clashed, Deidara doing his best to fend off the bigger, taller bullies. He was an angry child, that was for sure, and he fought like his life depended on it. But, unfortunately, Deidara was about four and an untrained orphan, while the bullies were in their first year of the ninja academy.
When Deidara was smacked painfully to the ground, Ina frowned. Maybe I should do something... But what? I haven't unlocked any chakra as far as I know, and the only muscle I have is from building my inventions. And running. Lots of running from the matrons. To be fair, only the former shinobi one had ever managed to catch in an under an hour.
She didn't have to waste time thinking about saving Deidara too much, because karma was clearly a bitch to everyone, including those punks. The wind blew hard, and Ina's contraption—the hang glider—was carried off into the air. It all felt like slow motion. The hang glider whipped through the breeze... until the gale suddenly stopped, leaving the machine suspended in the air.
Her eyes followed the glider as it fell, wincing slightly when it landed right on top of the bullies. It knocked out one, but one was struggling to get up. Ina looked at the wrench in her hand, contemplative.
Then, without further notice, Ina dropped the wrench on the remaining boy's head.
He was out like a light.
Deidara glanced upward.
And Ina waved to him. "Yo. Can you pass that back up here? I paid for that wrench with my blood, sweat and tears. Dumpster-diving isn't easy, you know."
Bewildered, Deidara slowly picked up the tool and tossed it to her.
It smacked her in the chest, and she squawked. "Geez, if that were a kunai, I would have died!"
Deidara lifted his chin defiantly. "Gonna do something about it?"
"You bet I am, you brat!" Ina calmed down with a small huff. "I'm going to invite you into my shed. Wow, that sounds wrong, please don't take that the wrong way." She paused. "I've got candy and probably some clay somewhere. Wanna come?"
"... Okay."
Because four was a trusting age when you weren't Hatake Kakashi or Uchiha Itachi.
"But I'll blow you up if you try anything funny, un."
I take that back. But that doesn't matter... because I'm going to take this kid on amazing adventures in this screwball world and nobody's going to do jackshit about it. The story resolves itself, and Deidara only served as a minor antagonist in the series when compared to guys like Madara and Kaguya. No biggie.
They were not old enough to leave the orphanage by themselves yet, but Ina was not without a plan, if that one music video she remembered from her past life was any inspiration to her.
"There's no candy," Deidara said accusingly.
"Just a heads up, I'm a pathological liar."
"Shit."
Ina chopped him over the head, making him growl. "Don't swear, you're, like, three." Even if you grow up to be a total hottie in the series.
"Four, un!"
