Author's Notes
So while writing this, I realize that as a self-insert OC, the character pretty much has two minds, the "modern" one and the one that is slowly being developed in the world itself. Most of the story will of course have the narrator be the one in the Naruto universe, but to show the "modern" influences on the characters thoughts, I've decided to use italics to show the "modern" voice talking.
If any of you have a better suggestion to convey this situation, feel free to tell me in a review or PM, constructive criticism is always helpful.
Disclaimer: Just playing with the Naruto world, if I owned it I would not be writing FANfiction now would I?
Adaptation
"Oh why did I stop watching the show, it would help me so much right now," I mused to myself. I watched the beginnings of the show, before it got way too long and drawn out and it became not ninja-like at all, so my memories were spotty.
I knew the Uchiha were very important as forum-goers always raged about Uchiha this and Uchiha that. They were a big part of the story, but it wasn't the clan itself, so I can still be cannon fodder for all I know. Why oh why were they so important again, Hyugas were a big clan and they don't get any focus, neither do the Inuzuka, Nara, or any of the similar sized clans.
"Shiina-chan, guess who's joining us for dinner today?" my mother chirped as she came and carried me to the dining room. I looked around and saw the Clan Head and his family getting themselves comfortable while dinner was being cooked. I smiled when I saw the two younger members of the family and went over to play with them, my thoughts momentarily forgotten.
I liked cousin Itachi the best, he was the nicest to us and he seems a very peaceful sort of kid. His eyes are so full of warmth and kindness and he does not get annoyed with a child's antics as much as my other cousins do. In this world or at least in a ninja clan anyways, the childhood we are used to in the modern world only lasts until about two years old, once our legs are strong enough to run, it's training. Granted, it's nothing that stressful, and they are all disguised as games of some sort, but with my adult mind, I can see the early conditioning of our bodies to adapt to the shinobi lifestyle. This leads to exasperation in the kids that are in my generation but a few years older than me because I cannot do the things they do and kids lack patience.
It was while we were picking up the blocks after Sasuke messed up and knocked down the tower we were building that sudden memories struck me:
"Foolish little brother, if you wish to kill me, hate me, detest me, and survive in an unsightly way."
"You are weak. Why are you so weak? Because you lack hatred…"
"No matter what happens, I will always love you."
Oh god, that's what I was missing. The Uchiha was so important to the storyline compared to the other clans was because there were barely any left. This person in front of me, who's looking at me with mildly concerned eyes after I dropped the blocks I held in my hands, who's trying to comfort me, he's going to kill me, kill me and everyone else. Oh my god, I'm gonnadiegonnadiegonnadie and my favorite cousin is going to be the one that offs me. This boy who's hugging me and murmuring comforting words in my ear is going to kill me, I feel tears running down my eyes. Why am I crying? I should be pushing him away, be scared of him, running away from him, but my tears do not stop and his arms are so comforting. The arms of my killer, and yet the arms of someone I consider a brother the tears don't stop because I can't control my conflicting emotions. I always did have a problem of getting attached very quickly to people that I spend a good amount of time with even in my previous life.
I know he's going to kill me, and yet I still find comfort in arms. This is my favorite cousin, I know what he's going to do to me, and yet I cannot find it in myself to hate him, or fear him, as I know he is a good person. He did it for the greater good despite the personal anguish it caused him, I just cannot hate that type of self-sacrificing person, but still how do you live with the person that you know will murder you one day, knowing that it's one of the people you love most?
I choked back my tears and put on a fake smile to show them that I'm ok. Ever since that realization, I never could become fully comfortable around Itachi ever again. I still interacted with him, but knowing the guy is going to kill you in a couple of years does make you wary. The wariness expressed itself in minor, insignificant ways, a slight hesitance here, a slower on the uptake there, some slight tension in my shoulders etc.
"Am I always cursed to die young?" I lamented to myself as I waved goodbye to the brothers and their family as they leave our home. I have always been afraid of death, but since I have died once before already, it no longer seems to be that scary. The unknown is always far scarier than what is known after all.
Well if I'm going to die young, I might as well make the most of my short life, when I'm old enough to start doing ninja tricks, I'm going to enjoy using ninja magic like the show had until Itachi comes and kills me. I know I can't change that, who's going to listen to an almost two year old saying her cousin is going to kill everyone?
It seems that the Head Family and our family are very close to each other judging by the number of visits we have with each other. I soon found out that Mikoto is actually my mother's sister, so the Head Family is the closest in blood to me besides my direct family.
During our visits, Itachi always seems to be weary and bruised. I can surmise that his dad is not as carefree as our dad when it comes to training. Rumors are already starting to spread of Itachi's prodigious skill, his mastering the basics in an unheard of amount of time. Shisui-nii set many records just three short years ago or so I heard as I was still back in our world where all this was fictional three years ago, and he was considered a once in a generation prodigy.
For all his pride in his clan of having two prodigies though, Fugaku always had an inferiority complex around my father. My father, Kagami was a war hero and served as clan head for a time. Eventually though, he resigned by choice as he was hand-picked by the Sandaime to serve as the jounin commander and still does today. There is no rule against serving as a clan head and jounin commander at the same time despite the bias a clan head would have for his clan. Kagami resigned because he did not want to handle both duties at once because of the workload. I had an older brother who would be around thirty years old that would have become the next Clan Head, but he perished on a mission eight years ago. When he resigned as Clan Head, since he had no offspring at the time Fugaku became the head in a unique fashion.
The Uchiha has an interesting heir system. The first male offspring of the current head is the default heir, and would usually become the head without much fanfare. However, at around the time of the transfer of power, if someone feels that they would be better suited to the task can "challenge" the current heir if they have half of the clan's support, a"coup" can also occur if the majority of the clan feels that the current Head is corrupt, despite the name, coups were not civil wars, there would be a set of competitions and a non-lethal duel that would be judged by the council. Because of this challenge system, many Heads would not step down until their heirs prove themselves strong so they can discourage any challenges. Since my father at the time of his resignation did not have any heirs as Shisui was not born yet and his son died a couple months beforehand, the next Head would be the closest blooded adult male. Since Mikoto is his wife's sister and she was the wife of Fugaku, Fugaku became head by being the closest male in blood. So now the Head family is transferred to Fugaku's family rather than ours.
Because of the way Fugaku attained his position, he always felt inferior to Kagami and felt that he had to prove that he deserved the position of Clan Head. He saw how well Itachi mastered the shinobi arts, he felt that he had to make Itachi better than Shisui to "show" the rest of the clan that he indeed deserves to be called clan head and his son heir and was not merely a placeholder because there was no one else.
Throughout the clan's history, the clan heads attained legendary reputations before becoming the Head. Madara, the first to awaken the Mangekyou and known as the greatest shinobi the Uchiha clan has produced, Benjiro, the successor to Madara, a successful "coup", rallied the Uchiha against the war-loving Madara leading the Uchiha through the first era of peace, and the first shinobi world war before dying in the last battle, and "Pinwheel Kagami", known for his mastery of shurikenjutsu during the war. Fugaku has done nothing of note before becoming Clan Head and feels that he needs to live up to the shadows of the former heads. This is all in his head though because Kagami has never looked down upon Fugaku and thinks of him as his own brother, and the rest of the Uchihas respect him. But, because that's the way Fugaku feels, well, I just feel sorry for Itachi and Sasuke as even the younger Uchiha who is barely two like I am is showing signs of chakra exhaustion.
My family is nowhere near as strict as Fugaku's is with his children; my training won't begin until at least I reach 2.5 years old. Since I figured out that I won't be enjoying this world for very long, to pass the time, I practiced my "chakra sense" whenever my brother or my parents take me out to town. Whoa, I guess social conditioning is working if 2.5 years old to start training to be killers is considered old, what happened to my 21st century thinking? I guess morals do develop when you are a child, since although my memories of the future find training child soldiers to be morally questionable, my current brain does not give a damn…I blame society, and my parents who at the moment is braiding my hair into so many different shapes I did not even know hair could make. Her favorite style is two hair loops that go from the center of my forehead to my ears hanging in front of two straight bangs tied together with some white wraps to keep the hair from spreading everywhere.
Being the youngest daughter in a pretty laid-back family by Uchiha standards has its perks, I'm getting pampered so much by my parents and brother especially from my mom who wanted a daughter in forever. Does a daughter with a guy's mind count? Whenever my mother is free from her ninja duties and housework, she spends time doing girly things with me. My manly pride is taking a thorough beating and to my horror, I find myself enjoying these activities. Natural curiosity, I'm going to assume as I never did these activities before in my past life and the company that I do it with, I just could not bring my discomfort with the activities up when I saw how happy my mother was. Whenever my mom takes me shopping for new clothes, we don't necessarily even buy anything, but we spend hours upon hours just finding outfits for me to try on while my mom just coos about how cute I look in this and that. When I look in the mirror though, I honestly do agree, long, straight hair that I inherited from my mom, big, round, obsidian eyes, and with the childhood innocence that all kids have, I was a pretty cute kid.
My manly pride was satisfied whenever I spent time with my big brother though. Despite having ninja duties as the Konoha headband proudly marks him as a genin, Shisui was only six years older than me and still likes to play games. When his teacher is done training him for the day if he isn't too tired, he always takes me out to play. Despite our dad telling him that I was too young to learn about being a shinobi, Shisui secretly teaches me simple tricks that I would be learning soon and includes me in his games of ninja with his friends. Games of ninja were essentially hide-and-seek tag and gave me an excellent method of practicing my "radar" as I wanted to be able to sense other people like the show has shown and maybe when the massacre comes, I'll be able to sense Itachi coming and get away though I doubt I will be able to escape, hey a guy can hope right?
By spending so much time with his friends who are all genin, I managed to fine tune my "chakra sense". The air in this universe is different from our world and because I'm so used to the air in our world, there is this constant energy that I feel around me. I manage to sort out chakra in the air to chakra in humans as I spent time with the group. The chakra in the air is freer, and so more spread out. Humans, on the other hand, act as a container of sorts, same with animals and plants and anything else living. I can distinguish humans from the air because there is a glob of concentrated chakra that tries to but cannot spread to the around, but flows within a boundary. At the moment I still can't tell how much a person has or how far they are, just that there is a human there, but to my interest, it seems that although a civilian adult has more chakra than the genin, the genin's chakra flows smoother, as if there are paths rather than randomness in the civilians.
Anyone that is willing to train can become a shinobi, what separates a civilian from a ninja is training. Everyone has enough chakra for basic shinobi techniques, it's training that allows you to control the chakra which forms the paths I'm sensing. I do not have the Byakugan so I don't know how developed each person's network is, but any basic shinobi that can utilize their chakra will have a basic path to allow the ninja to control the flow chakra that civilians do not have. I can only sense the most simple path that marks the difference between a shinobi and a civilian and I don't think I will get a more detailed "map" without the Byakugan.
Shisui's group of friends accepted me in stride and I think they somewhat see me as a tomboy since I enjoyed spending time with them so much. In our games, I could tell they went easy on me as they would stick their feet out when hiding or run slower than they actually could, but I was only two years old, we still had fun though and that's all the counts in the end after all. After roughhousing awhile with them, I would beg Shisui to teach me some ninja tricks. One of the best thing about reincarnated as cute little girl is I would finally be able to use the puppy-eyes trick that all girls seem to have. Gets him every time, and he would teach me throwing techniques and wire manipulation.
My arm muscles are still too weak to throw with any accuracy at more than meters, but Shisui got me started on wire manipulation by playing cat's cradle with me. It's a childish game, but by playing the game, it allows my fingers to get used to manipulating wire and start building muscle memory for the real thing.
To my disappointment, I grow tired at these sessions very quickly, even more quickly than other kids my age. After I get my breath back, I would use my puppy eyes one more time complete with a pout to get him to buy me candy or ice cream. It's good to be a little girl, I love my puppy eyes jutsu.
After dinner, my father would teach me to read and write in Japanese. He started off with children's books and as I got used to it would read me stories and make me repeat after him aloud. Currently, he is teaching me to read The Tale of the Gutsy Shinobi and teaching me the values a shinobi should have by using the story as a medium. He also reminisces about his past and tells stories from his youth during the wars. During these sessions, he would stare off into the distance and recall fondly his old teammates, the missions they had, and the jokes they pulled on each other. These stories usually come with a lesson in there about camaraderie, bonds, and teamwork.
Innocence has to end eventually, and I knew it would start to end once I started training for real and will die an untimely death when I become a ninja, assuming Itachi doesn't kill me first. There was never any question of whether or not I wanted to be a ninja, it was expected. From what I have learned in my 30 months of living here, a clan child has to try to become a ninja unless they were born with a disability. There is constant conflict in this world and even my young eyes have already seen death. A clan member coming back from a mission in a black scroll, medics rushing to the hospital carrying a grievously wounded shinobi, everyone tries to be a ninja because the corps always needs replenishing. It's not like I didn't want to become a shinobi, but coming from a previous life where I can choose whatever I wanted to be, to now where everyone decided for me what I would do with my life is still jarring.
My end of innocence began amongst a tragedy. I was going to start training with basic techniques the next morning and we were enjoying a dinner with the Head family again. I was giggling with mirth as Sasuke glared at me after an accident with a fish, a chopstick, and soy sauce which led me to now dubbing him Sauce-kun when a knock came on our door.
My eyes followed my dad as he went to open the door and after some muttered whisperings, he came back to our table, all of his previous amusement at the accident gone.
"Who was that daddy? Kaa-san is coming back home tonight from her mission right, is her mission longer than expected?" I asked as he sat back down at our table.
He closed his eyes and put his face in his hands as if fearing to see our expressions, I swore I saw some tears at the corner of his eyes and my heart stopped, I knew this type of expression, I saw it on my aunt two weeks ago when it was reported her husband died on a mission and I wanted to deny the words my dad uttered next:
"I-I'm sorry Shiina- chan, b-but your mom is not coming ba-ack ever again," he choked while trying to hold back his emotions, "s-she's gone."
Author's Corner
In my profile there is a poll for how I should write POV's of other characters, go on and give me your opinion as I want to make readers enjoy the story as much as possible.
Also, as a challenge, who can guess what affinity my OC-SI has, there's slight foreshadowing in these two chapters. If you can guess it, I'll make a cameo of an OC of your creation in my fic, will not play a huge part in the story though, it's just for fun. I'll only limit the cameos to the first three that get it right though.