Chapter 1

There is nothing quite right about this world.

They have families with mansions who live hidden, underground and in caves, and these are the same families are the ones who starve to death. These are the ones who look up to me and cry, 'Hime!' with their sunken eyes and skinny ribs, although I do not care enough to acknowledge them back.

There are people with magic powers and people who can walk on water. They are the ones who teach the children to fight. They are the ones who send the children out to fight in a pointless war that has lasted since forever.

"My mother's father - your grandfather - lived in the war also. And his father was the head of our clan," says the person that tells me I am her child. "And your eldest brother will inherit the clan after your father."

The person has warm, brown eyes, not unlike the mild ones of a cow, and long and straight, black hair that she keeps in a bun. There are small crows' feet in the corners of her eyes and her tan forehead is slightly blemished with wrinkles, even though she is only twenty-three.

She is called Nanami. It's unsurprisingly unoriginal, as 'nana' means 'seven,' while she is the seventh child in her family and the second youngest, although the only one who is still alive.

She smiles kindly but seems disappointed at my lack of a response when I show no signs of having understood what she has said. I do not particularly care. She does not interest me. I know that getting attached in a world like this, at a time like this, will only give to disappointment and sadness when they die.

I stare back coldly because at this point, there is not much more that I can do apart from gurgle incoherently and crawl a measly five metres. There is not much that I want to do.

"Ah, Naoko-chan, don't look at me like that," she says, chuckling softly as she slowly gets up. I do not reply. Her smile fades as she stands up again to finish cooking. I sit there, watching with a cool gaze as she leaves. As she turns to enter the room that has been dubbed 'the kitchen,' she gives me a final glance and a brief smile. I do not smile back.

Now here is something strange.

There are five people at the kitchen table instead of two. I can't quite place my finger on it, but their identities seem familiar.

At the head of the table sits the man that calls the woman who feeds me his wife. I suppose they are married, and that he is my 'father'. Then there are the two other children; one of which sits next to me, eating his food ravenously, and another who sits next to the man at the head of the table, his head dipped low as he scoops mush into his mouth carefully.

I watch them as the woman scoops the mush into my mouth. I have been upgraded to salty mush now, instead of the tasteless one I had a few months ago. I chew carefully without making a fuss, because even babies like me know that food is scarce nowadays and I care enough to not waste food.

I am skinny enough as it is.

I glare at the other two children. The first one grins as he eats, and he eats as if he has never been fed before. He has choppy, black hair and the same dark brown eyes which are customary of this clan.

This child is one that I am briefly acquainted with; his name is Isamu. I think I remember him as a child. He is nearly three years my elder and has recently started his training. Already there is a bulk of muscle on his arm and he eats with frightening speed.

The second child is Ichiro, someone that I remember slightly more fondly from a few days - or was it weeks or months? - ago. He is five years old and already a warrior.

He has already experienced war, because gone is the childish hope in his eyes, and instead there is only emptiness. This is the one who will inherit the clan after the man who sits at the head of the table.

He also has black hair, although it is slightly longer, but has the brown, mild eyes of the woman who feeds me, instead of the hardened hazelnut of the other child and the man who sits at the head of the table. He has a scar on the left side of his face, which is in the shape of a cross.

The man who sits at the head of the table has a permanent frown and deep-set wrinkles, and he is four years older than the woman who feeds me. His lips are tilted downwards and he glares at anyone he sees. I have never seen him smile before, but then again, he has never seen me smile either.

Once the three year old has finished eating, he is immediately whisked away by the man who sits at the head of the table. I suppose he has to complete his training so that he can fight in the war like the other child.

I do not worry. How could I when these people are only people from a screen? How could I when they didn't really exist? How could I when I didn't even know them in the first place?

We do not have a chance to eat at the table with five people again for another two years. I do not think I care enough to mind.

Two years is a long time. I am now two years old and the people who call me their child are disappointed that I still have not spoken my first word yet. They have yet to see me crack a smile, and perhaps if I cared, I would actually attempt something. But I don't.

Still, two years later, there has not been much change. People are born, and people die. Each family is encouraged to give at least two or three male children so that they will be able to replenish the stocks of warriors. All male children are trained to fight.

Children here are sent out to fight as soon as they are able to hold a kunai effectively enough. The clan is pumping out children to replace the ones that had died in the war. I suppose they're thinking quantity over quality, something that my English teacher in the Past disapproved of.

Perhaps I should have been glad that I was born a girl in this strange, twisted world. Perhaps I should be grateful that I do not have to fight and kill at the age of five, like both of the other two children.

But really, I can't bring myself to care anymore.

Like an impatient child who has gotten tired of the game, I sigh. I do not cry, because that is, quite frankly, degrading, and my pride wouldn't allow it. But my face is twitched into a furious pout anyway, because now the game has gotten boring.

I want to go home.

I was thirteen years old when I died.

I was quite well-off, I suppose you could say, before my death. I went to an academically excellent private school that was known throughout the country for its extraordinarily high standards.

I was part of a happy family. There was a large age gap between me and my brother, but we got on together well. My father was the manager of a business company that was successfully growing at a rapid rate. My mother cared for us lots.

Our family wasn't poor, and I had a content life where the worst thing I could imagine was getting less that 80% in an exam, which, in hindsight, is ridiculous.

I had many friends, but only a few that I spent most of my time with, and I managed to juggle playing the piano and violin with schoolwork, where we got two hours of homework a day, on top of seven hours at school, and extra-curricular activities. Oh yes - and anime. Don't forget anime.

So where, you might wonder, did it all go wrong?

It must have been in that one PE lesson where we were running long-distance. I had started coughing non-stop in the middle of it, even though I was fine after I had used my inhaler. It had died away after a while though, so I didn't mind much.

Then soon afterwards, came the uncontrollable coughing and wheezing whenever I breathed in too hard or laughed too much. I passed it off as asthma, because it never really inconvenienced me much.

And then there came the fateful day when we were celebrating the end of the summer exams. One minute, I was chatting and laughing with my friends. The next, I was wheezing and I couldn't breathe and I had blacked out. My inhaler was missing. I hadn't expected to need it. The ambulance was too slow.

What I remember afterwards is a continuous beeping, and then…

Silence.

And when the silence came, that's when the pain finally stopped.

"Brat, shouldn't you have some manners? Why the fuck did you spill the tea? Don't you know how expensive that shit is?!" he snarls at me.

I know that it is because of the death of his best friend and wife. I know it is because of the pressure which is making him crack and the anger he has is anger that he has no-where else to direct it to. I know that it is because the Senju and the Uchiha are too strong and we are too weak and we will die.

But it doesn't make it hurt any less.

Reining my emotions in, I wipe up the mess with the sleeve of my kimono, while the boy who calls me his little sister shakes beside me. The man starts to curse at me because the boy beside me spilled the tea.

I do not pretend to act apologetic, because I am not. But I cannot watch the boy beside me shake in fear and not do anything. The boy that calls me his little sister holds the teapot in his hands and bows, apologising for me. The man then grunts at him.

"Don't you have better things to do that bully two-year-olds?" I ask coolly. I keep my facial expressions calm and blank, and continue to wipe the carpet with the edge of my sleeve. To anyone else, perhaps this moment could have been worthy of celebration, because after two years of silence and two years of waiting, I have finally spoken.

"Bitch!" he growls back.

To me, though, the only thing that matters is the anger bubbling up in my veins, and the hatred that I cannot control. I stare at him coldly and do not attempt an apology that I do not want to give. I refuse.

"Do not speak to me in that manner!" I spit out. "I refuse to -!"

I flinch, as much as I don't want to, and my hand automatically moves to touch my right cheek. My face heats up where there appears a red imprint in the shape of a hand.

My head snaps to the side. "He hit me!" I shout. "He hit me! Are you just going to stand there?" The boy that calls me his little sister is frozen. I cradle my face tenderly and stare back heatedly, before turning on my heels and storming away, head held high.

Tears do not form, but I am ashamed when I leave. The boy that calls me his little sister finally recalls his senses and follows behind me. When I reach the door, I turn back towards him again.

"Is it because I'm a girl?" I yell, because I know for sure that this wouldn't have happened to anyone else. "Is that why you can treat me like filth? Is that why?!" There is no reply, although his face is now twisted into an ugly snarl.

Somebody else cries, "Hime!" but I ignore them, the non-existent tears blinding me. I know that I am being unreasonable because his best friend and his wife died, but I am still angry and hurt and I am not stupid.

I know that it is not his fault that I am not allowed to train like the other two children or the man who sits at the head of the table. I want to make a difference. I want to be strong, because I know that I will die if I am not.

It's not fair.

Why is it that children who do not want to fight must, while children who want to fight cannot? Why can't we choose for ourselves? Why does our gender make any difference to our outcome in life?

"Well fuck you!" I mutter heatedly under my breath as I exit, making sure that they can all hear me. "Fuck all of you!"

I remember the first time that I saw them. I hadn't cried at the cold, and I hadn't screamed or yelled or shrieked. I stayed curled up in a ball, because if I couldn't see those giant eyes and hands and faces, they couldn't see me. Only, that isn't quite what happened.

I was wrapped in a tight bundle of cloth.

The first pair of hands that held me is not of the person who feeds me. Nor are they the hands of the person who sits at the head of the table. They are soft and hold me tenderly and as if they are used to it. I know now that this was the midwife.

I opened my eyes, blinking blearily at the blurs of colour. My eyesight hadn't been that good before, either, so I was used to it.

"Shimura Naoko," I heard, along with giggling from the woman who feeds me. The man who sits at the head of the table for once didn't glare, but did not smile either. He sighed, almost frustratedly, and handed me over to the woman to feeds me again. "It's a girl," he said.

Then there was something grabbing at me, and then there was something yelling at me, which I know now as the two children - my brothers.

The youngest boy next to me gurgled and muttered something that I could not make out. He tried to grab at me but I refused to let him touch me. I could not cry out, much less speak, but with my limited control over motor movement, I managed to wriggle around in the woman's grasp and she scolded the child harshly.

He scowled and his face scrunched up. Then he quickly became bored and wailed something to the man who sits at the head of the table. He was then whisked away, though I did not know why. It was dark, so probably to sleep.

I did not complain when I was picked up and carried away to bed immediately afterwards. The second boy - who I know now as Ichiro - comes upstairs with the woman who feeds me.

She leaves to go tend to the other child, but the second child stays and sings to me a lullaby when he notices that I cannot sleep.

The melody is sweet but his voice is hoarse, undoubtedly from shouting and crying. "Nii-chan can't sleep either," he murmurs to me when he notices that I still lay awake. He sighs when I don't do anything - because aren't children supposed to be aware of their surroundings? - and crawls into my cot.

It is less of a cot and more of a small bed, and he is skinny from malnutrition, so we both fit inside easily. He murmurs a lot to me about the things that he has done and seen. He tells me about what he has experienced of war so far and from close up I could see the rings under his eyes.

He rubs my back and the continuous stream of noise in the background eventually lulls me to sleep. When I wake up, I am alone again, but I do not feel lonely.

I didn't see him for another three months, when he was at war. When I did see him again, he was crying and weeping and holding a dead boy's hands in his own. He flashed a brief smile at me, hiding the tears, then left.

He disappeared again for another five months.

For my third birthday, there are five people gathered at the table again. I am happy to see that we are all gathered, although I do not understand why.

"Naoko-chan, how do you feel about… training?" the boy who once sang me a lullaby asks. I carefully keep my facial expression schooled and relax my body. No matter what I say, it won't mean anything, and all five of us know it, but I say what I know they want me to say anyway.

I know it will not be training like they train. I know it will be degrading for me and I know that it will teach me nothing other than to be a whore and a fake. All the same, I know it is the only way to quell my thirst for control and power.

"Of course, Nii-sama," I reply. "It would be an honour and a privilege to take on this responsibility for the clan."

I know it is the correct answer when, for the first time in three years, the man who sits at the head of the table smiles.

The younger boy decides that he wants to show me something. I stand behind him as he leads me outside. It is the first time that I have seen what the outside world looks like. It is night, and the stars are out. I feel peaceful there, even though I know that we are breaking the rules, watching as the boy whips through four hand seals and blows.

The force of the technique blows me backwards, even though I am not in the blast range, and I notice that his energy has sunken to below half.

"I call it the Vacuum Wave, right?" he says, grinning.

I congratulate him, smiling. His beaming face makes me feel happy, and I am caught surprised when I notice how handsome he actually was. He wasn't like Ichiro, with his sunken bones and hollow appearance. He radiated a sort of energy that attracted you like moths to a flame.

The boy with the grin takes me back inside and although we are caught by guards, I do not care. I spend the entire night thinking about him, and even I am surprised at the feeling in my heart.

Once upon a time, I think I might have called it… warmth…

The boy with the grin leaves the next morning, following meekly behind the man with the walking stick. The boy that once sung me a lullaby departs with the man that sits at the head of the table.

They are both off to get stronger.

And now, so am I.

I follow the woman who feeds me. She tells me about chakra, and tells me that I am a natural sensor. She tells me about jutsu, which are what the boy with the grin showed me yesterday. She tells me about strength and loyalty and I nod along, absorbing the information like a sponge.

Now I want to get stronger.

I want to let go of the past (the things before the beginning) and I want to help with the future (the future that has already been determined). I have knowledge (knowledge comes with responsibility) and I intend to use it (don't raise suspicions). The boy who once sang me a lullaby and the boy with the grin will die otherwise.

They don't appear on a page - on the page - and it is frustrating because I know, but I do not know enough. What would happen to the woman who feeds me and the man who sits at the head of the table if I do not use this power?

What would happen to me?

What would happen to my family?

Another year passes and now I am four. The boy who once sung me a lullaby is already nine and the boy who grins is five. They do not come back for my birthday. They are too busy fighting in the war.

I am too busy to celebrate my birthday as well. I am learning how to arrange flowers and speak eloquently. I am learning to sing and dance like an angel, and to play the hocchiku - a bamboo flute - and the biwa - a sort of lute. I am learning how to appear to be gliding when I walk, and how to apply cosmetics and accessories and scents.

I am learning how to manipulate and how to read people, and to use my young age to my advantage. I am learning how to make people love me and I am learning the deepest, darkest secrets of the trade. I am learning, in short, how to be a spy.

It is a nasty work, but it makes me strong.

I am not bad with senbon needles either. I am improving my chakra control to become a medic and I am refining my manners to become a housewife.

It once made me angry. Now I am desperate enough to be happy that I can learn even this. As I quickly understand literature and mathematics, I am hailed as a prodigy, in the basic academic section anyway. I am hardly warrior material.

Little do they know that I am only a fake. And although it hurts me, I can suppress it. I can imagine that I really am Naoko. I am who I desperately want to not be.

I suppose they call me a sadist. I don't think I could care less.

When the woman who feeds me decides to start showing me techniques for torture and interrogations, I agree immediately. I learn what they teach me with zealousness and absorb the information like a sponge. I am a sponge. I soak up everything they teach me, because if I do not, I will die, and I know it, so despite everything, I am glad at the offer.

I have learnt to read people. I have learnt how to be a spy and an infiltrator. Now I am learning how to break people with the cruelest of techniques. These are the things that Ibiki Morino in the Future-Past will use.

I am learning to become strong.

Perhaps in another world, this would be a trade that I loathed. But I am desperate. This is my trade; this is my specialty. This is the way that I become powerful and this is my own little way of becoming important.

I am a manipulator. This is what I do.

A/N: Starting a new story. It seems really jerky and vague and confusing at the beginning of this story, but it becomes much more coherent later on as the story progresses. Naoko is kinda cold to others here. This is because she knows that her 'family' are probably going to die and so she doesn't want to become too attached before that happens.

Confusing name/labels: 'Person who feeds me' - her mother. 'Person who sits at the head of the table' - her father. 'Boy with the grin' - Isamu, youngest brother. 'Boy with the lullaby' - Ichiro, older brother.

Reviews, advice etc. appreciated.