By Falling Leaves and Raining Sky
Every theory, I figured, came with a good cause and effect. Just one step down and the final piece was already snatched. So which was the more preferable way to be done with it? As if my extra life was the unknown x, then I'd be a bitter loser who couldn't turn the tables. OC-Insert.
...
Disclaimer: Naruto story belongs to Masashi Kishimoto.
Naoki Hino. That, you could say, was my name.
Naoki is thy name.
Haha…
I was Naoki Hino in Amegakure, Konohagakure, Iwagakure, Kirigakure, Yuugakure, Sunagakure, Takigakure, and everywhere else. Period.
I, Naoki Hino, was born in Amegakure. To be exact, the orphanage that took up the three highest upper levels of the third tallest building in this city. Well… I wasn't born in the orphanage, but the Headmaster said that they took me in when I was one years old. Not old enough to remember a thing about mom or dad. Who, by the way, probably weren't rich enough to care for me; money was a huge problem here. That much any toddler could tell. Just look at all those zeroes at the market!
Though, the currency here always had a lot of zeroes. Unlike from before.
I knew my basic facts, also. Unlike the mean bullies at Hito's. We called the orphanage 'Hito', short for Akihito's Orphanage for Children, since most of us were stupid and needed it abbreviated for our short memories. Unlike them, my memory was sharp. And it was able to remember things from another life.
I had black hair (mind you, the really black hair. Not just dark brown or shades of grey) and bright blueish-green eyes. Sort of like teal, or turquoise. Not much of a difference there, between words. But this eye color would've have been extremely rare (that being so colorful and bright) in my first life.
Now, it must be a little odd and unnerving to remember another life. And in that life, there was advanced technology and everyone shared knowledge. Here, you had to read it since there wasn't something called 'online'. Or travel to all sorts of places for libraries. Or interrogate the person. There weren't too many options for information. Basic math and literature, no problem. S-ranked jutsu? Bleh.
You see, things here were a lot different from before. Classification rankings?
-Civilians/Everybody: E-rank.
-Genin and up: D-rank.
-Chunin and up: C-rank.
-Tokubetsu Jounin and up: B-rank.
-Jounin and up: A-rank.
-Kage and Elite Anbu level: S-rank.
But the biggest change from before and after was chakra.
Chakra is unexplainable. Scientist have done centuries of research, and yet nobody has a real, full explanation for it. Chakra is chakra. Easy. Says a chunin that swings by now and then. Pretty much everybody in Hito's wants to become a ninja mainly due to their visits. Ninja-nee-chan and Ninja-nee-san.
Chakra is what makes up this universe. Literally. Everyone has chakra. If you don't, you're dead. Like that.
Ninja, however, can manipulate the chakra in their bodies. And how good you are and what cool things you can do is given a classification level, like the above. Apparently, the jacked up myth of the Sage of Six Paths is real (A sage who created Ninshuu, then humanity changed it to Ninjutsu). Except nobody but me knows this. All the information and future knowledge of this world is tucked tight in my brain. I only recently came here, being a child, so my memory of before was good. I'd need to write it down in the language called English they used there, mainly so no one could decipher it. If they could decipher a code that hard, then that smartass definitely deserved to know. And all this fore-stuff centers around this anime/manga I watched/read. The show was called "Naruto". And by the time the new language was adapted to my tongue, I had figured that out. Finding out my exact location wasn't such a pleasant surprise. History lessons with the school teachers on the seventh floor of the building did all the work. Thanks a lot, Tamaki-sensei. Again, new stuff.
Since I was much more mature than the orphanage children, I viewed them as brats. Not exactly polite, but what they don't know won't hurt them. And we referred to each other by our plain names. Over here, that was considered rude. Honorifics were short suffixes attached to the end of our names for respect.
The term "–chan" usually was used for girls, endearment, or young children. "-San" was kind of formal, but not overly so, roughly meaning something similar to 'Miss' or 'Mister'. "-Kun" was a term for boys, or male friends. Perhaps a tomboy.
The most formal and most respected honorifics were "-sama", then "-dono". "-Sama" was repeatedly used, rather than "-dono", since usually people used that when that person was of general caliber. And nobody was really that high in ranking. You'd figure.
Common stuff was "sensei", "taicho", "nee-chan", "nee-san", blah, blah, blah. Not all had to be suffixes. Some roots. Teacher, captain, older sister, older brother, respectively. There were millions more, even having terms for 'honorable older brother'. Bleh. That was what Sasuke called Itachi before the massacre happened and turned all koo-koo ("Aniki").
Null honorific was plain name. Naoki-chan was what you'd expect, but toddlers were the epitome of indecency. So Naoki it was then.
And back to the unexplainable being explained. Chakra. You got a whole village of chakra-powered ninjas who could, together, demolish the whole country. Not including the Akatsuki and Nagato/Pain's unfair Rinnegan advantage.
Everybody had "chakra reserves", which was like an extra set of veins running throughout the whole body. They were manned by tenkutsu, a base for the running and filtering. You needed a rest and let other stuff pick up on the flow sometimes, right? And because of the tenkutsu points, chakra flowed freely within. Then, there was the core. It was the stomach, for better reasoning (to substitute the lack thereof).
Chakra was magic. Controlled magic. Or so I thought. People found it so easy to explain why chakra wasn't magic. "Chakra is the combination of our spiritual and physical energy, Naoki-chan!" Said Ninja-nee-chan. At least she used honorifics, even though brats like us deserved no formalities.
"Your spiritual energy will keep on expanding if you sleep so much and read so much," I liked libraries. Even though this new language was so darn difficult, reading fiction books and Ikebana (language of flowers) was cool.
"But," Ninja-nee-chan waved a finger around. "You won't balance it enough for your chakra control if the other counterpart is bad. Stop being so lazy!" My sleep was a good benefactor of the day. Sleep didn't involve the other bratty bullies. Sleep was good. Though, I once dreamed of all of the orphanage kids were types of flowers. All blame went on the Ikebana book I had read earlier. I had been a tulip in that dream. Surprising those grew here, considering that even potted plants (which they were) suffered…
But then again, the chunin that day had been right. And I only had one, weak, selfish thought that prevented any counterpart. I didn't like anybody else. It took a lot of nagging for the other girls to involve me in their games. And it took me a few days to finally accept the fact that Ninja-nee-chan had pointed out.
And I did want to become a ninja. Though Amegakure probably wasn't the best ideally place to train. There wasn't even an Academy. You just gathered a group of three with sufficient abilities, find a Jounin to teach you, and BAM. You're a ninja. Though, it took more work than that. Once the Jounin tested your individual abilities and whatnot, you went to the administrative building for a show of jutsu to the officials again, do the paperwork, and create a date with the camera man. They had technology here, but it was nothing compared to my first life. The cameras looked to be out of the nineteenth century. And I was from the twenty-first century.
Really, that was it. But a whole lot of the ninja here were middle-aged. No academy: no skills. Roughly speaking. Over half of the current ninja population were middle-aged genin.
The chunin and jounin we did have were always on missions, making money. The economy was pitifully poor. Nobody had excess weight. Nobody but the older people and the not-as-poor, who were more prone to gaining fat. Everyone else were under average or were average. I wasn't sure what my category was under. Scales were expensive and not really necessary. No wonder Rain ninja had rumors of bad tempers.
-o-
"Waaaaaaaa!" Cry-baby Kasumi was at it again. The caretakers merely groaned; they were too used to doing the dirty work. The crying triggered even more crying and soon half the room was filled with wailing children. How the poor adults ever caught a wink at night, the world may never know. I blearily rubbed my eyes and stomped out of the room with my thinning blanket while the caretakers dealt with Kasumi. Secretly.
It was dark in the building even without the help of the night. Like so many sleepless nights before, I crept down the hallways. Without worry, since we were too used to sleepless nights so nobody would bother getting out of the respective rooms. Besides me. And the walls had seals in the infrastructure to prevent sound being heard through. Apparently the carpenters were experts with children.
Actually, we had strict rules of staying in bed sans everyone over twelve. The curfew ended nine o' clock at night. I glanced to my right. The digital clock read past midnight, but not quite 1 a.m.
The stupid children of my age couldn't even read yet, but they could read numbers. Because they weren't that stupid. Sensei had a habit of calling out the dumb ones for detention. And detention ultimately made them miss free-time, which everybody liked. So they studied a bit. The caretakers didn't have to watch the children then, so they all made sure to sleep, making up the lost time from night. I did, too. Rather that or read, whenever the night was peaceful. Of course, I was missing out a lot, since most of us kids went outside to explore. The downside that didn't look too pleasant was that it always rained. All. The. Time. You'd think that the sky suddenly dried out when the rain subsided, but that was in fact a bad thing. Five minutes later, there's a storm going about, and you realize that the momentary gap of silence was just the sky getting ready for round two. Which isn't the best of thoughts.
There was a little corner in the library that displayed a human-sized window. A small, rolled up human. But it was on the top floor, so anybody who looked through could see an impressive view of Amegakure. I had niggling suspicion that Masashi Kishimoto designed the Hidden Village from Seattle. Eheh.
But the nice thing about the little crook in the wall was that a huge, over-stuffed couch faced it. And the back was tall enough (or I was short enough) to hide the top of my head. And I closed the library doors, so unless someone out there was really searching for a certain Naoki Hino, they'd never find her. I stole away into the night, reading wonderful works of fiction nobody my age could possible comprehend. Thanks to foreknowledge, my past life had known some of the language. It was only that I had to close the gaps. But as long as nobody really cared less about what I read, then that was fine.
-o-
The next morning, I got to the bathroom first. Probably because I couldn't sleep the rest of the night. Yeah, that was it. Earlier today, I had snuck into the kitchen. And heated an instant cup of tea. Yep, they had those. Weird. But cheap.
Even from before, in my past life, I had always been addicted to Earl Grey. And even the love for that certain tea carried over through worlds. Drinks, obviously, were universal. Even a two year old could say that, and know the meaning. Not in that exact format or lettering, since I had my doubts of a baby knowing or being able to speak the word 'universal'. Duh.
And in kanji and the number of strokes for hiragana, no thank you.
I did the routinely bathroom stuff (Everyone had bath time at the end of the day, thirty minutes long; good idea owning a personal orphanage onsen.) and headed out.
Everyone woke up at seven in the morning, even Sundays. Sadly. Breakfast started an hour later, enough time for the cooks (there was the head cook, Kinoe, and his assistant, Yusuke) to make the food. And as an afterthought, let the kids and chaperones get ready. The Headmaster got up at six. Sucks to be him. Though, that was a bit mean. But I wouldn't know, since I was always one of the first ready. Hmm. Earl Grey did have a considerable amount of caffeine. I'd have to watch it, though. Stunting my growth this early on wasn't healthy nor was it favorable. Better than coffee, at least. Before, I'd been allergic to the coffee bean. I didn't know about now. Whelp, better not try and find out. That upset stomach had been painful.
I had roughly an hour of free time. I spent it meditating. If I wanted to be a ninja, I would have to start sometime or later, right? Though, I could totally Shikamaru this one and not have to do any work. Just me and my brains. Hello, hello.
In the end, I had only sensed stuff in my stomach. If I was optimistic enough, I could say I found my center. Pessimistically, that meant my stomach acids were tumbling around due to hunger.
Breakfast was a carton of orange juice (since people cared about our vitamin D) and porridge. Everything tasted like ash. But I wolfed it down anyways, since I knew I needed the energy. And grey skin wasn't on my bucket list. It wasn't vanity. Grey skin not only looked bad, but it meant your very own body wasn't very healthy. Good grief. Then I carefully placed the bowl into the sink, under the watchful eyes of the still-eating cooks. Somebody forgot to take the trash out, so I volunteered to do so. Kinoe shrugged and mouthed a 'whatever' with orange juice still being swallowed. I turned my back to them fast enough to avoid seeing him gag on the juice. I still heard it. It was… gross.
Needless to say, I was still holding the now-empty carton because I didn't bother with reopening the trash bag and close it again just for a piece of cardboard.
And it certainly was a good idea to take the trash out. That meant scavenging the dumpster. I was young enough to pass the trash-y smell as toddler stink, albeit some odd looks. But I had gotten what I wanted.
The rest of the day compromised of two more meals, all tasting that of ash, and chores, and free time. I had slept during free time, since the caffeine had worn off a long time ago. Shouldn't mention that to the Headmaster. Boy, he'd get angry.
When cry-baby Kasumi and stuttering Setsuna awoke the whole room (again), I slipped off to the library corner again, with everything I needed covered in the dull green blanket.
A dull, rusty kunai. A pencil (Number Two). Several sheets of yellow paper that were water logged. A scrap of cardboard. Awesome.
The kunai was something I couldn't resist taking, so it wasn't that needed in my planning. But I let the papers dry for a few hours, keeping entertained with yet another book, then hatching my secret plan.
The pencil you could find anywhere in the classroom. But this pencil made all the characters look cool.
Later that day (mid-morning), everybody could hear a rather high-pitched girly scream coming from the Headmaster's office. He came out an hour later, much more dignified, but scathingly mad.
"Who," He asked in a venomous yet quiet tone. "Put those papers in my office?!"
It was lunch hour, so everybody was in the room. Kids looked around awkwardly, not daring to even breathe. My face was in perfect contortion of confusion. Inwardly, I was smiling wider than a Cheshire cat. My drawing skills were awesome, however arrogant that might seem to be thinking.
The days went on. Nothing was mentionable, really. Whenever someone started wailing midnight, I escaped to the library. That happened at least five times a week. And so the days went on. My fourth birthday was a day I had made up, since my biological parent(s) just dropped me off with an age and a name. "Oh, please take in this one year old. Her name's Naoki Hino. Bye-bye!"
Within a couple days, my fourth birthday would come and go. Parties weren't really allowed, since the shortage of money would be a huge problem. And by the time January seventh came and went, I had found my chakra.
You'd think that it would be easy, since I wasn't used to this… this extra limb of energy. But nooo… It was hard.
My mind and brain sensed the chakra within, identifying it as an intruder. Something fuzzy went on in the chakra coils, and the next thing I knew, my whole body was emitting a blue light. I had to wear a dunce cap for the rest of the day because the caretakers thought I was reading under the blanket with a flashlight. But, hey! Cool, cool. The bullies may have picked on me more than usual that day, but I ignored them, fervently day-dreaming about my future chakra skills. The chakra feels warm. It's not gooey, but it's not exactly a liquid either. If I let my body lax and meditate, I could feel it circulating all around. But by that time, I probably choked when the chakra starts fizzing to answer, and one of the veins leads a bit too close to the throat then what I would've liked. But, no puke. No puke.
And, by that time, the sensei calls out my name for attention, since I usually did this in class when stuff got too boring. Come on! I wasn't a child for heaven's sake!
Well, technically, yeah. In the physical world.
In the spiritual world, I probably outranked everyone in the class putting their ages altogether. Excluding the teacher. I wasn't that old.
No offense, Tamaki-sensei. Or should I say, Tamaki-baa-chan. Hehe…
Yes, the school teacher looked old enough to have grandkids. Which, in this world, was ridiculously young.
Again, another change.
The average lifespan was about thirty for ninja. Civilians lasted to, like, eighty. Ancient. So a lot of ninja, if they wanted to, had kids in their late teens or early twenties. By the time they died, the kid was old enough to get a job, since the standards were ridiculously low, and live in his/her own apartment till the paycheck got a raise, or they became ninja and died at thirty again. A never-ending cycle of family failures. Hallelujah.
The Sannin were pretty famous for their ninja caliber, and their old age. They were like, forty? What time zone had I been born in? Certainly not the Second Shinobi War. They wouldn't have history lessons about unknown strangers. And I couldn't tell if there was a war going on or not. Hard to tell when you're stuck in an orphanage all year long. Though, we hadn't gotten any newbies. Those made a mess of things in their first day, good God. And Amegakure definitely wasn't under the control of Hanzo. Anymore.
Konan "Angel-sama" swung by a week after my fourth birthday.
It was surprising.
One, the paper.
Two, the surprise.
Three… Oh my god she was so smack-down gorgeous…
We all gathered in the cafeteria, since that was the only room big enough to accommodate us all. The announcements were thrilling. And terrifying.
"Greetings, young people of Amegakure," Konan said.
"…" We said. Some brats were drooling. She wasn't fazed by our lack of talk and respect. I didn't want to cause a scene, so I smartly stayed quiet in the back of the cafeteria.
She continued on. "I am here today to encourage our youngsters to become shinobi…" Then she said something I couldn't quite understand, since Ameno was snoring to my left. I kicked her feet under the table. She shifted the other way, snoring at some random boy whose name I hadn't bothered to remember. Poor guy.
Eh.
And little brats started to raise their hands. Most of the room, in fact,
"Wait, what's going on?" I had no idea what the heck was going on. Seriously. Thanks a lot, Ameno.
The girl across the table rolled her eyes. "Can't you ever listen? Angel-sama asked us to raise our hands if we wanted to become a ninja." She rolled her eyes again.
Oh. Oh. Oh, that. I hastily rose my dominate hand, along with everyone else. That meant every brat in this orphanage wanted to become a ninja. Oh no. Competition.
Konan took stock of the whole room and smiled. (*oh my gosh, she so was friggin beautiful*)
"Thank you for your time, Daisuke-san." She said, turning to the Headmaster. He bowed, assuring that it was nothing. And he'd do anything for her, blah, blah, blah. Everybody loved Konan. But seriously? They didn't even know her real name. But then again, nobody could (and would) demand it. She was an S-rank ninja with a very close relationship of political matters and plain friendship with the leader of the village who could nearly rival a god in power. Nobody wanted to mess with her. Foreign ninja, don't be stupid. She could rival a Kage, I'm sure. And Nagato could rival, well, the Nine Tailed Fox. Even though Ame lacked in numbers, we had great quality.
Bargain priced. Haha.
And awesome potential. I mean, I'm no prodigy, but I was able to find my chakra at four years old. Think about all the other kids, and what they could do if they knew how to activate the energy.
Utter chaos. And powerful power.
And so, Angel-sama left with a gust of paper. It was the abridged version of the Shunshin jutsu, I was absolutely sure. Since Konohagakure kind of created the Shunshin, they weren't sharing, so we other nations had to adapt to their limited distance teleportation stuff.
Ame, I think, left little drops of water when teleporting. Typical. Besides Konan and her paper. Hmm… I wondered if Konan didn't actually make that paper jutsu up and it was actually some sort of long-lost kekkei genkai. That would explain a few things. No eight year old just suddenly created a whole new topic of Ninjutsu. It wasn't done. You'd figure.
She could be a distant relative to the Senju clan, seeing how paper originated from wood. And maybe really distant, so that was why Konan could only manipulate paper. Not wood.
Awesome. I just created a whole new conversational argument in my own head. And someone was shouting my name. Whoopsies.
"Huh?" I blinked, sitting upright on the cafeteria bench. The room filled with quiet giggles. I felt like blushing and demanding for them to stop, but I kept my head cool and played dumb.
"What's going on?" My head tilted sideways to show my confusion. And I didn't even have to act. This was just the exaggerated version of me wanting to know what was up. Curiosity killed the cat.
"Naoki. Detention. My office." Headmaster said. I was still confused. Wha…?
Cough, cough, cough, coughed the Headmaster. "As I was saying, Naoki," that sounded dangerous.
"-there will be tests next month to see if you are… well, good enough to become ninjas."
Great job dumbing down your vocabulary so everyone can understand.
"And I was asking you a question. Can you repeat it?" He turned to my direction, practically glowering.
What, me? "Umm…" I racked my head. What had he been saying? Oh. Haha. Wise-cracks.
"Sir, you were implying that you didn't know what I was doing." I was so getting reprimanded for this. But it was worth seeing that face.
"Detention all week, for your cheek, Naoki. And the dunce cap."
Holy hell. I pulled it off. He ignored my intelligent grammar and skipped straight ahead to the witty remark.
"Yessir."
He rubbed his temples. "I was asking you what I had said to make sure your act was together. Apparently it lead to even a greater mess of things." Haha. Sucks to be you.
And then he skived off topic to a better one.
Cough, cough. "So, the tests will take place February fourteenth."
On Valentine's Day. Kids like us were too young for celebrations like that though. Maybe the test was his Valentine's Day treat? Torture and Exams didn't sound so fun.
"And I will test all of you on your athletics in the morning. And if you can find your chakra by nighttime, then you pass."
Seriously? He's testing us on the worst subjects ever. None of us kids have done athletics in our whole lives (I'm not in on it), besides running and playing tag outside. So only the boys and girls who did would have a head start. Not to mention the eldest here was thirteen. (And he still wants to become a ninja?)
And chakra. Chakra. He's asking us to open our chakra in a span of less than twelve hours. It took me, a completely average person a whole week. What's wrong with that picture?
What's wrong with that picture?
What's wrong with that picture?
What's wrong with that picture?
Oh.
Oh god.
Am I that stupid?
He gave us a month's preparation. Holy smokes. I am stupid.
He probably hadn't realize that no normal person on this planet could open their chakra in a few hours, though. He wasn't a ninja, after all. His expectations, I thought dryly, was that ninja wore all black, had big, shiny weapons, and masks. Except, the best ninja is the one who can slip away unnoticed. Matching the populous, yes.
Image his face when in the far future, several years from now, the most powerful ninja was the one who wears orange and unabashedly shows his bright blond hair. No masks. And was a front-line fighter. Heavy hitter. Triple combo blast. Mwahahaha…
And the only weapon that was big and shiny was Hidan's scythe (so cool, by the way) and Zabuza's Kubikiribocho. But if you see them at all, you're dead. So… no glamour. No glamour.
Of course, you could always throw yourselves at them, saying you were fangirls or Jashinists. That would only deter Hidan, though. He was the dumb one. Zabuza was the smart one. Having reversed roles, that thought was so scary my chakra fizzed. That snapped me back to reality. I didn't want to explain why various body parts were glowing a bright blue to anybody. They might hail me a prodigy, even though it was ridiculously easy with time to open your center up. Act dumb. And dumber.
The days dragged on. A lot of kids came back from outside in time for bed with dripping noses and red faces. Looked like they were running in the rain for the physical test, since they knew that they'd flunk the chakra one.
Meh.
Even though it was certainly certain I'd fail the physicals, I would impress them with my chakra and get a pass anyways. If not…
…Well, then there was always more years to come. Gin was thirteen and hadn't been chosen for ninja life before, so I assumed that they only made this recently. Gin had been born while Hanzo was still ruling Ame, if you do the math.
Probably every two years or so. Ripe potential always started young, as Orochimaru followed his pedophilic ways. Kidnapping prepubescent boys and girls and drugging them to steal their body sounded… odd. Creepy. Strange. Fearful. That's off topic.
Now, what was I thinking about? Umm…
Right.
Test.
While it would be a lot easier to give up and live as a civilian, I just didn't want to. Why? Never those cliché "I-need-to-avenge-someone" moments, or "Because-then-I-can't-protect-myself".
Really, I think that ninjas get better pay so I don't have to do extra work cleaning beer bottles or something awfully atrocious. Yeah. I'm lazy. It's my flow of things. I'm so going to Shikamaru this whole ninja-crap. Just you wait world, just you wait…
A/N:
Hey. How's life? Edit number three is here. And so... Bye! Bye! Bye!