DISCLAIMER: Anything in the original show is not owned by me. Which is like, ninty nine percent of this.
Constructive criticism is REALLY welcomed please leave it ;-;.
This chapter features three segments, they all take place after another and an unspecified amount of time passes between each one.
You know Chakra?
That thing where you know, like no one on Earth has?
Do you know what would happen if a person who came from Earth with no prior experience of Chakra were to be brought into a world that it was practically the basis of everything around? It's like having clean air, say you're a generic person, you live in a first world country and live life. Cool. You get brought into a third world country, where the air is literally pollution itself, not cool. Anyways, being used to nice, breathable air, when you suddenly find yourself breathing oxygen that has smoke and other nasty chemicals mixed to it, the quality of air becomes extremely apparent.
It's like an allergic reaction.
In my case, the quality of air would be the existence of Chakra.
Kinda like having perfect pitch or absolute pitch. Whatever you want to call it. Same difference right? It's not like it's to the point where I can sense Chakra from a far away place, that's for sensors. However, when I get close to someone, their Chakra paints itself as a certain colour. Kinda like how Tailed Beasts have red Chakra or how healing Chakra is green from my understanding. Then again, that comparison is kind of irrelevant as certain people's Chakra feels red to me even if they don't have Tailed Beasts.
Yeah, ninja exist.
Onto a different topic. When I was at a younger age I would crawl around like a crazy monkey on steroids. It was pretty tiring for the caretakers in the orphanage, they would often mutter under their breaths and run around trying to find me.
When I finally learned Japanese, I found various books to be very interesting, but there weren't many books. The shelf or "library" as the caretakers called it held three books total. Two of which couldn't be read by young children as they just didn't have the patience to sit through and read the entire ten centimeter wide book. Just looking at the titles, I think they weren't even meant for children, why they were in a place like this? No idea.
It was great for me since I was technically not a child and I could understand that.
The Legend of the Six Paths
Fundamentals and Basics of Chakra
The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi
I smiled, looking at Jiraiya's book.
I heard it was an utter failure, not even one person attended his fan-book signing thingy.
Even though the Fourth Hokage himself would name his only child after the protagonist in the story.
The first book was kind of a red covered picture book, I looked through it and from what I remember of the anime, the details about the great Sage were either completely wrong or censored to an extreme amount. Inside, there were coloured pages of their abridged version. Propaganda seemed very prevalent in this world.
Well, secrets are to be kept and I guess Ninja don't want civilians knowing about their Shinobi secrets.
The second book was more of a textbook to be handed out to students, why it was collecting dust in an orphanage shelf? I had no idea. I grabbed that book and held it between my body and arm, probably useful for later.
Before I left, I sneaked a glance at Jiraiya's humble book, it was simple brown with with a simple white cover in the middle. It spelled the title in the middle. This particular looked like it was brand new, but I asked the orphanage lady and she simply told me that was not the case, just no one typically read it and she only got it because it was really cheap at the time.
Leaving aside the first two books (Sage's legend and Jiraiya's book), the third last one gave me a lot of information.
To someone like me who came from a world without Chakra or mystical bullshit, it was surprisingly interesting.
Chakra is the most basic form of spiritual energy, and is the essential unit to sustain life. The majority of the population who can manipulate Chakra are those who are Shinobi and perform Ninja-arts. Through manipulating it, people can perform effects or create phenomenons that would be impossible to see otherwise. Usually, Chakra is not able to be seen by the naked eye unless a person is using a special technique to see it, being in a concentrated form, or it is an extremely large amount
Me "feeling" Chakra is something unique to me. Anyways, I watched the show a while ago, I don't remember much about Chakra other than it was used for fancy ninja explosives or walking on water, so a refresher is nice.
After reading the rest of the chapter I reviewed a couple of things.
"Those who run out of Chakra will die", if so then what about the people who lived before Kaguya?
"Skilled indivuduals can perform nature transformation to transform their Chakra into different types of elements". This was probably something that alluded to fireballs?
"There are 361 nodes called tenketsu that control the circuit of Chakra". I remember this, the Gentle Fist typically revolved around closing these points.
"Physical Energy and Spiritual Energy are the core components of Chakra". Ehh, I think I remember Sakura saying something about this in the Wave arc, but whatever.
The one that bugged me the most was the fact that the amount of Chakra one possessed was unable to grow after reaching adulthood and are limited by their genetics.
Then who were my parents? Was I gifted or was I unable to use it properly like Rock Lee?
I also found out that each person's Chakra had a unique signature, which wasn't really a surprise as everyone always felt a bit different to me anyways.
It's not like I had a problem with Chakra, it was actually quite soothing, but to have something suddenly change in the world as you know it would shock anyone right?
Either way, the textbook seemed to have came from Konoha, not surprisingly since I've figured out that I was in Uzhiogakure, an ally of Konoha.
Uzhiogakure was destined to be destroyed soon by other nations fearing their strength in sealing.
God damnit.
I have to get out of here soon, good thing I didn't have any attachment to anyone in particular here.
Come to think of it, I only know a couple of people... Lets see...
Orphanage lady, Shinobi guy that walked in, Annoying Joe, uhh... The rest of the orphanage kids who I didn't interact with...
That was about it.
I don't want to create any relationships yet.
This place was going to be destroyed soon either way, the safest place for me right now would be Konohagakure, right until it gets decimated by Pain, but either way I was going to be revived thanks to Naruto. Regardless, I turned my attention back to the textbook.
It seemed like skilled people like uh... Haku could use Jutsus without handseals.
I wonder why that is though, what was the skill that allowed usage of Jutsu without any sort of medium?
The first, most basic practice method in the book was the Leaf Concentration Practice Method that was shown in the anime. I think it was Iruka showing it to four of the Konoha 11 who were skipping class.
Anyways, I walked out of the orphanage temporary to grab myself a medium sized leaf and walked back in.
I put the leaf ontop of my forehead and concentrated Chakra into it. If the book is telling the truth, the Chakra SHOULD make the leaf stick to my forehead and...
It was like feeling my forehead become asleep. You know when your foot is asleep or something like that right? You feel the "static-TV" type of feeling? Nonetheless, the leaf was stuck to my forehead, I felt it.
Just to be sure, I waved my head around without breaking my concentration, and unsurprisingly, it didn't fall off. Right when I let my mind wander, it did though.
Ehh, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. Was it supposed to be this easy? The next thing was the use of a Henge, or transformation Jutsu if you wanted to call it that.
The textbook told me to form Dog, Boar, and finally Ram to initiate the technique.
Like the Chakra to Colour thing, was it something unique to me? Like, super Chakra-control? Even though I didn't know how to form the handseals, the back of the textbook had a full guide to all of them baring the special ones like the one used in Naruto's Shadow Clone Jutsu.
After a couple minutes of memorizing those three seals, and practicing them without channeling any sort of power into my hands, I let the fuzzy feeling flow into my arms and hoped for the best.
It worked.
I felt like I had makeup applied all over my body, and unlike the leaf exercise it wasn't unpleasant.
Good thing there was no one around me, because smoke was ejected out of seemingly nowhere.
I know I had transformed but I couldn't tell what I transformed into because there was no mirror near me. My arms were more slender and I was noticeably taller, I had long black hair an-
"Oh god!" I shrieked inside of my head, dispelling the Henge and letting smoke spill everywhere again.
I'm me, the me that was in the past world.
Did I still have emotional attachment to that world? Even though it was quite boring, I still won't forgot the times I had spent inside there, it was a part of me, as much as I was willing to forgot certain parts, some of it was important.
Still, the Henge only broke when I shrieked and panicked, I assume concentration is the key right?
Concentrate... Concentrate!
Once again, I felt the feeling of makeup being applied to myself, but the difference this time was that I wasn't me, well. I was me, but I wasn't me. Either way, I was now a certain small young blond mischievous kid.
Wait, I didn't use handseals this time!
Could it be that you only required the feeling of Chakra manipulation to manipulate it? Was the handsigns only there to guide the Chakra?
Aren't only exceptionally talented people able to do things like this?
What.
There's so many more advantages to doing it without seals than to do it with seals.
You don't have to memorize the pattern, you don't have to waste time doing them, and it's more convenient than performing some voodoo magic with your hands...
I guess it was kind of like a fan to a hand fan? You could do it manually with a hand fan, it would still work but with a electrical fan, you would be able to feel the wind without needing to do it yourself.
Seals, would perform the Chakra manipulation for you like how a electrical fan would blow at you without assistance, while sealless people manipulated it themselves like using a hand fan. Earlier when I looked through the book, I didn't see anything much on performing Ninjutsu without seals...
Was this a talent only I had?
Then I still wouldn't be able to explain Naruto and Sasuke using their respective signature attacks without seals...
Could it be that they felt the feeling so many times, they just unconsciously do it now?
Or maybe it's like the Chakra to Colour thing, something a unique talent that only I had?
Wait then I'm amazing right?
I just performed high level stuff without the help of anyone!
Or was I just lucky?
Well, it's better to think of myself as someone just lucky, because as Rock Lee showed, hardwork easily trumps talent. I'll just keep on repeating this over and over again until it becomes second nature.
That will give me an edge if I'm in danger right? Either way for now, I'll just continue with the leaf exercise... Wait...
Could it be that the leaf exercise was something related to wall walking or water walking? In both instances, the user has an outside object and themselves become stuck together with the usage of Chakra. Then wouldn't this be really good to practice for the future? I mean I'm not necessarily going to become a ninja but I already made it my goal to be able to manipulate Chakra well. Either way, I should probably get used to this annoying sensation though.
Because of my bright red hair that was covering my forehead since that day, no one realized that I had a leaf stuck on my forehead for the entire month.
"You want to learn how to use ninjutsu?" A slim, young woman asked me, she was dressed in a green flak jacket and had a headband with a swirl on it. She didn't have red hair, but brown instead, her voice was a very clear, unwavering voice that screamed determination. Frankly, it was a bit intimidating. She was clearly a Shinobi, but I don't know why she was working in an Orphanage. On her waist, she had a short katana - a wakizashi.
I nodded, being a young girl had certain advantages to it. This woman clearly adored children and since I was one of the "cuter" ones I would say, the chances of her listening to me compared to anyone else was a lot higher.
And so, I learned.
She didn't teach me much, and I never ever learned her name and just insisted on calling her "Sensei" with a cheery one instead.
Initially, she was skeptical and thought of to send me to a instructional academy for young and inspiring Shinobi but she was shot down when she was reminded my age by one of the other caretakers. I mean, you had to be at least eight to join the academy for any village...
First, she taught me the transformation Jutsu.
"What?!" She yelled out, "You can already do it without handseals?"
Was her first reaction... Come to think of it I accidentally did it without handseals because I just felt like it was more convenient.
"Is it a bad thing?" I asked innocently while looking like her, I clearly knew it wasn't a bad thing but I was supposed to be a five year old, so I feigned ignorance. How did it go... Ignorance is a Bliss?
"N-no!" She stammered, "But how?"
"I just kind of did it!" I reply.
She stopped questioning me after that, muttering to herself about how I'm going to become a monster one day.
After showing her that it wasn't just a fluke and performing it a couple more times she was satisfied. I didn't really learn much the first day, as she explained the basics of Chakra which I already knew and the Transformation Jutsu.
The next few days were much more interesting, doing the Clone Jutsu, the one that wasn't tangible was pretty interesting.
Instead of feeling like I had dunked myself with a liter of makeup, I formed the handseals, Ram, Tiger, and Snake. I then felt a tugging sensation in my stomach because smoke popped out and formed a...
Abysmal failure?
My first clone was a failure, Sensei looked a bit more calm then when I did the transformation Jutsu, but she continued giving me tips on how to do it properly. Did I just have a particular affinity for the Henge?
"You can do it!" Sensei gave me a voice of encouragement, and I continued.
After what seemed like to be hours, the sun was setting even though we started the class right in the afternoon... I finally performed one successful clone that didn't look like it was put through a laundry machine and wrung out. See, the problem was I was putting in way to much Chakra, initially I already thought of this but then I proceeded to put in too little...
I let out a gasp of excitement, and Sensei clapped her hands together for the five year old me. She obviously congratulated me.
I was told to learn how to perform at least three, that were actually alive before she would teach me anything else.
It was a lot harder than expected and months passed by.
I woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling, wait no, it wasn't even actually a ceiling. More like I was staring at the sky.
You know, the thing where stars shine in the night?
I wasn't even in a bed, hell I didn't even have a blanket on me. The orphanage seemed to have disappeared. It was actually completely gone as evident because I lay on the ground like a dead person. I seemed to be dressed in a short-sleeved Kimono style blouse that was red in colour, kind of like the colour you saw on maple leaves. Over the years, my hair grew longer and instead of being only to my shoulders, it's now at the place where my yet to have grown boobs would be.
Speaking of dead people, I was surrounded by them. Some of them were crushed by the rubble of the orphanage but I was lucky and was just inbetween a pillar and a part of what seemed to be the red roof.
Smoke was everywhere, in my lungs too, probably good idea to hold my breath as long as I can...
I looked around, even with the smoke everywhere, I could still see silhouettes
Silhouettes (get it?).
After playing dead for a few more minutes, I finally realized that there was a crushed arm that my head was resting ontop of. The owner of that arm was none other than Sensei.
Sorry for never learning your name.
The Nin from... Kumo? Or was it Iwa? I'll assume Kumo for now. Anyways, the Nin from Kumogakure were stabbing kunai into corpses just to make sure they were indeed dead. I didn't look, I was too scared.
My heart ached.
It's not that I couldn't do anything this time, I wasn't even given a chance to do anything this time.
How lame.
What could I do in this situation? I promised myself to live a good life this time... But I'm just a child, over there were countless Shinobi that were older than me (physically) and were more experienced. They were extremely dangerous people for me to fight, no wait, if I decided to fight them it would be more like a slaughter.
"Itsuka, go check the corpses in the red and white building over there!". A man in white clothing and fairly dark skin ordered his subordinate pointing towards my direction. The subordinate in question wore the standard Kumo uniform, he had kunai holsters on only his right leg and carried a fairly short sword on his back. He had black, generic hair and was while not muscular, quite toned.
He complied with his superior without question and immediately began stabbing a few corpses in my area.
... Only five more till he got to me. Four now...
His hands were incredibly bloody but he continued without using any Ninjutsu, preferring to only use the kunai. Why he wasn't using the sword strapped on his back? I don't know.
Nearing me even closer now, two more corpses before he got to me... Three if you included Sensei who was kind of squashed by the building. "Itsuka"'s face never wavered, he was trained and professional and continued to slice the chests of corpses in an X position.
The smell of blood got stronger and stronger, but I noticed something.
He skipped the children. Well, most of them were squashed underneath something, but he sliced the adults who were buried so...
Finally. He stood ontop of me, I closed my eyes and stopped my breathing in the most natural way I could. Sensei who was beside my body, was sliced apart with deadly accuracy.
And now he was eyeing me down. Well my eyes were closed, so I just kind of felt his glare... If would be super lame if I died because I stopped breathing right? No wait, I would automatically start breathing after falling unconscious and he would find out...
Suddenly, I feel the glare of me. He proceeds without stabbing me.
How lucky.
I open my eyes and see him walking away to check on the next corpse when the instant I start breathing again.
He completely changes.
A thirst of blood emerges from him, and even though I'm just a child who can perform two Jutsu which are pathetically academy level, I can feel it.
"Hm?" He turns around and walks back at me with silent pressure, this time my eyes are open though, so he knows for sure I am indeed alive.
Death,
I felt the pressure on me as he slowly creeps back towards me with a sadistic smile on his face.
I get it.
It wasn't that he didn't like harming already dead children, he just didn't see the point in killing when there wasn't a reaction. Was this guy a fucking pedophile or what? No wait, pedophile would be the wrong word. He liked killing children...
I instinctively grab the first thing beside me, Sensei's wakizashi that fell loose from her waist when she was crushed, and I perform the first part of the Transformation Jutsu, smoke pops up even though there is already smog everywhere, I don't know what I transformed into, but I immediately stopped the transformation.
If it was a trained Shinobi, there's no way a young child like me had any chance in defeating him, and even if I did, if the main army noticed me I was toast.
But he pays no attention, and charges right through the smoke to meet me. He should've bisected my head, but I knew that was coming and had the wakizashi held there already to intercept it.
I wasn't going to get lucky again.
This guy didn't scream out any battle cries, so it was going to harder to predict the next hit.
"Ohho... Child, you blocked an attack from a trained Chunin?" He laughed.
Right now, I need to get as far away as I can from the orphanage, but he outclasses me in literally everything, speed, power, usage in Ninjutsu, and everything else.
I do the smoke trick again in an attempt to be able to get another bit of distance, but instead of jumping back, this time I put all my strength in my right leg and push as much as my tiny little seven year old legs could push me away.
I see his sword, which looked distinctively just like Killer Bee's Supervibrato Lightning Release Swords, slice where my torso was just half a second ago. A sweat dropped, probably from my erratic breathing and increasing loudness of my heartrate.
What the fuck! No one was that fast, if a mere Chunin was faster than the God damned Usain Bolt, how fast was the Konoha's Yellow Flash or A?
Wait, why would he slice the air, if he was that fast, then why didn't he just immediately fly towards my location?
Oh wait, there WAS me.
Not actually me, but like me.
A clone, that I (might've left by) instinctively. Due to the smoke and smog being everywhere, he wasn't looking for a shadow to confirm for a Clone, but a measly academy Jutsu worked on a Chunin.
"U, uaaahh!"
Without thinking about it anymore, he looks at me but with a gasp in his mouth, he coughs and I see blood come splattering out of his mouth and onto... my hair?
When did I get so close? I came to my senses and realized I had plunged the wakizashi right into his heart and was underneath him.
He laughed again, then he fell.
My shoulders released all the tensing that it was doing.
My pale hand left go on the wakizashi and let his body fall down on the ground.
Around me, there were countless Kumogakure Nin running about, they didn't notice the seven year old girl standing with one of their own on the ground.
I looked at his dead corpse. I marked an X on it, slicing through his uniform.
I killed a man.
"Uh Sir, who is that?" Another subordinate points at me while questioning his superior.
Said superior opened his mouth, "Itsuka was sent in that direc-" He stopped talking when he saw me standing over his subordinate Itsuka.
"Leave her". He stated. His eyes were full of respect, why? I don't know.
The subordinate challenged him, "B-but she killed Itsuka!".
Once again, the superior repeated, "Leave her". The Superior continued walking, not even paying a single notice to me afterward.
The subordinate, bewildered couldn't understand the reasoning of the superior and ignored his orders, he charged at me. This time at a speed which a middle aged man back in the old world could've attained.
He took out a kunai and brandished it towards me without saying a word, his superior turned his head behind him and looked at him in disappointment.
Stopped by his superior who blinked into existence behind him (don't ask me how, I don't know how), he yelled, "Sir, the girl killed Itsuka! Sure he was a little bit insane but... He was a good guy! Sometimes he even made food for us! I'm not going to let a young girl be the one who tarnishes his reputation!"
The superior sighed and told him in defeat, "Do whatever you want" and continued walking while the Subordinate glared at me with eyes full of glee. The rest of the battalion left and continued advancing to somewhere I didn't know. He was the last one last here other than me, the smog, and the dead bodies everywhere.
"Thank you sir!" He continued to run at me with his kunai, while I couldn't do anything.
The smog was getting to me, I was exhausted, my heart was still thumping erratically.
Death once again reared it's ugly head at me.
This time I was completely powerless, exhausted without a weapon and still in shock of my first murder.
The guy was ten meters away from me when...
He suddenly stopped approaching me, no. Something stopped him from approaching.
I felt a hand on my shoulder as who I presumed to be a man laughed.
"Oi, Tsunade, we found a survivor." A erratic voice was behind me.
"Seems like she doesn't have any big wounds, don't waste your Chakra on healing." This time, a voice with a raspy texture.
"Don't speak like that, she has blood splattered all over her, even her hair is dyed red!". No woman, my hair is naturally red...
"IEEE!" The Kumogakure Nin dashed out of sight as soon as three voices were behind me.
The erratic voice that first spoke continued, "You've done good surviving this long." He let out a bellowing laugh, "Look how amazing I am Tsunade! Later I'll even take you on a date!"
He was met with anger, and maybe a fist.
"What... the... hell..." I muttered as I fell asleep.
4,684 Words. It isn't much to some people but to me that's quite a bit.
This storyline is something completely untouched from any fic that I've read personally so far so I hope you will enjoy it!
Please review!