Chapter Two
A/N: I don't know much Japanese and so at the beginning any words that I use will be from google, which is not very reliable but it is all I can do for now. I'm only using a few words at the beginning of the story just for the purpose of the story line, otherwise it will be completely in English. I apologize ahead of time for any mistakes I make. I'm only human and I do not have a Beta to catch any mistakes I might make, bear with me. Another thing; you may notice that the OC's personality makes a bit of a change once she wakes up. This was done on purpose. She has the body and physical brain of a child. She has all of the necessary chemicals for a growing child to have and so these physical and chemical changes do have an effect on her.
Previously:
My body… The thing that I was currently inhabiting, was approximately that of a two-year-old.
Fuck.
I do not know why this is happening to me, however, I do know that whatever was happening to me, survival just got exponentially harder. I was in the middle of nowhere. Wearing only a flimsy shift. In the body of a child. Why was I convinced I could go dive straight into a new ability with no prior training on my part? Oh… Right… I'm an extremely arrogant person. As idiotic as that may be. I know for a fact that no one will truly ever be the best at something. Someone else will come along with better skill and better knowledge and I will still place myself above them in my own mindscape. Stupid I know. The fact that I was highly aware of this flaw meant nothing when I continued to assume that I was automatically great at something. Even in failure I was arrogant. Needless to say, in my current situation, this was a fatal flaw that I needed to get rid of immediately.
First things first, I needed to decide my course of action. Based on the fact that I was in a forest, the temperature was slightly humid but not overly suffocating and over all very nice, and based on what I knew about geography in general, my best bet for survival would be to head east. I would eventually come across some sort of civilization. Heading west would only put me in a hotter climate as would heading south; too far north would be too cold for my fragile body and so that course of action would be detrimental at best. It was still mid-morning so I immediately took action to head towards the general direction of the sun.
While walking, I noticed a few edible plants such as patches of Trifolium repens (clover), a few Taraxacum officinale (dandelion) here and there, some reachable Pinus needles, as well as some other natural fauna to munch on. For now, I was glad of the forest cover. Now that my small stomach was no longer much of an issue, I began to notice the phenomena that was normally associated with someone following you, watching you, or just some random person who just happened to be in the general area and was something your body could automatically pick up on. Immediately I began to be more cautious. It didn't seem as if I were being followed, however I did get the feeling that someone noticed there was another person in the woods. Wrinkling my nose in distaste towards the situation I was in, I tried to erase my presence as much as possible. Slow, shallow breaths; cautious movements; hidden necessarily in the shadows of the looming trees around me. My heart steadily wanted to increase its beats with anxiety. I consciously took deeper, quieter cleansing breaths in an attempt to calm myself. I had no way of knowing who else resided in these woods and I would not survive an encounter with someone who had less than honorable intentions towards a two-year-old in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Two hours passed and I still felt a presence in the surrounding area. They didn't seem to be searching for me, whoever it was. It was more like they were waiting on something and because I couldn't risk detection, I had to move at a slower than average pace. This kept me within range of said stranger for quite some time. Another hour and the presence was joined by three more. Four all together. I moved even slower. Five more minutes passed and the four strangers moved quickly. Passing where I was by about ten meters. How the hell they didn't sense me I have no clue. Nor did I have any clue as to why the only glimpse I caught of them was the figures practically flying across solid tree branches about five meters into the air. They all wore these odd sandal like sneakers that covered everything but the toe. What kind of logic was that? Not only were they in the air traveling at impossible speeds, they were sporting odd clothing and weird shoes. In fact, the ONLY time I knew of such shoes existing were in one of my favorite anime and manga series. Naruto. Maybe I was in some weird forest near a convention. That doesn't really explain how they were able to do what it is they were doing. Maybe they were doing a live action. That is definitely something I would like to see.
Cautiously, I continued in the direction I was going, which just so happened to be the direction the cosplayers were heading. There is no way in hell I was about to call attention to myself though. They may be cosplayers and normally anyone associated with cosplay is somewhat trustworthy in my book, however, every group had their bad eggs and I was not about to find out if this particular group was one of them. Other than a vague idea of what they were wearing, I had no idea what shinobi they were cosplaying as. From my very low angle, I was unable to view their Hatai-ate and as a result, unable to tell which village they were associating with. Although, my first assumption would be Konohagakure due to the dark colors of various shades of green, black, and brown.
Thank god they weren't cosplaying with light to dark blue colors that are normally associated with Kirigakure. I don't think I would want to run into a group that could potentially be fans of mass murderers. Not that I had any right to judge, but Kiri was commonly known as the Bloody Mist and I definitely would be weary. Not that I don't have a thing for the lovingly crazy psychopaths of certain stories, I just know that a character and reality are vastly different. For instance, as a character, Tobi is a favorite of mine, however I would most definitely not want a live audience with someone as fucked up as Tobi. The lovable idiocy that is normally portrayed towards the audience is something that covers a seriously fucked up individual who would not hesitate to hang you by your intestines and make some lame joke about how you no longer had the guts to stand up to him only to bop you on the head a few moments later with a twig just for the hell of it.
If I ever did become so supremely fucked up, I would probably act no different. I realize Tobi is just a façade, however, if I ever lost my sanity I would supremely enjoy bopping my eviscerated victim on the head with a stick just for the hell of it. Especially if there was an audience. The darker side of my humor would be extremely gleeful with the prospect of annoying the shit out of people in the most deadly and idiotic manner I could possibly come up with.
It was well past noon now and I hadn't stopped. Currently I was tracking the local wildlife (while keeping to my original direction) in search of a source of water. I did not have any way to procure my own and so I would have to find a water source of some sort. I had kept munching on things I knew were edible but I really needed water more than anything. The wild elderberries I had found only had a small amount of water and so would not sustain me for long. I have no idea how long I had before finding civilization and I was slightly regretting not calling out to the earlier cosplayers even though that would have been idiotic. Although, what difference is the idiocy of seeing if someone was willing to help a two-year-old than dying from dehydration?
Because I did not sense anyone anywhere near me, I decided to test out my child like voice box. This would prove to be another frustration because although my mind was twenty years ahead of this body, the body itself did not have the muscle memory of forming words. Everything I tried to say came out as utter nonsense. The simplest words seemed to not even want to form. The only thing that even came close to a word was when I tried to say Hi. This only came out as Hai. If I ever made it to civilization, I was going to have an extremely difficult time conveying myself.
The atmosphere around me changed slightly and I could smell a stream ahead, excited at the prospect of finally getting something to drink after being in this body for over twelve hours, my tiny child-body involuntarily giggled with happiness. Immediately I ran towards the source of water. I was so focused that I did not notice the presence of the two people who appeared out of nowhere. On my hands and knees, I frantically clutched my hands together in a make-shift cup and drank as much and as fast as possible. It was probably about ten minutes after that I leaned a little too far towards the water and began to fall. It was shallow so I didn't really have anything to worry about except for the fact that my two-year-old body had the reflexes of an ancient turtle and so if I hit my head I was screwed.
Fortunately, I was grabbed before I fell. Unfortunately; I had no idea there were people around and immediately flipped the fuck out. Again; unfortunately, I was in no way strong enough to affect my savior with my puny strength and so I had no way to defend myself. Almost immediately after my crying and flailing, my arms were restrained and I forced myself to calm down. With the teary and wide eyed look that only a child could pull off, I faced the person that was holding my limbs down. Whoever it was I would never be able to tell. They had on a mask. To be specific, it was an ANBU mask.
"If I let your arms go, are you going to start flailing again?"
At least, that is what I discovered they had said later. At the moment though, it sounded like complete gibberish. The only thing I recognized was "Watashi-wa" And so, I was faced with yet another dilemma. My Japanese consisted of only a few words and even though I only watched subbed, without those subtitles, I was screwed. So for now I did the only thing I knew how to do. Scrunch my face in confusion.
"She doesn't seem to know how to speak yet much less understand what we are talking about, she can barely walk as it is. She probably isn't even two yet." The other ANBU was speaking to the one carrying me.
"Tch, I'm not even sure what a kid like her is doing out here in the middle of nowhere, although, we are about fifty meters from the main trade route, and three kilometers from the village, she probably got lost or something when her family was camping out during travel. Here features though are more than that of a civilian though."
I continued to watch the two converse in confusion.
The ANBU holding me turned his mask towards me again. Shifting so that I was only being held in one arm, he pointed at his mask, a tiger, and slowly began to speak.
"To-Ra" He said, tiger. Slowly, he repeated it again. "To-Ra".
Obediently I repeated when he pointed at me, gesturing for me to speak. I touched his mask and repeated the word back to him.
Nodding, he looked towards the other ANBU, this one was wearing a squirrel mask. ANBU Squirrel pointed to himself and relayed the Japanese word associated with said animal.
"Ri-Su", again in the same process, he repeated the word and had me say it back to him.
And so, as the child I was portraying myself to be, I smiled brightly and repeated both aliases while looking at each when speaking their respective names.
"Squirrel, lets head back to the village, I'll send a message ahead to appraise Hokage-sama of the situation at hand"
I pursed my lips, the only thing I recognized was the words for I, Squirrel, and Hokage-sama, and so, in the spirit of all things child like I pat the side of tigers' mask and said Hokage-sama while tripping over the tougher letters thanks to my inexperienced tongue.