| Chapter 1 - Beginning - For the wars to come |


For decades my clan was known to marry outside the family. It was not unheard of for her clansmen to bring in women. In fact, the Nara Clan, needed it. It was always going to be a boy, they say. Another Nara genius. It's a part of their blood. A boy offspring meant intelligence. Something they had to pay in exchange, they guess.

So, imagine their surprise when my father, Kazehiko Nara and his wife, Airi Nara gave birth to a girl.

For a second, I was told my father stood completely frozen, looking down at the proof that I was indeed, not male but female. I was told that he stupidly asked my mother 'Where is it' and informed her, breathlessly that 'i-it's missing'. When it was established, that I was indeed, a girl, my father apparently, hesitantly asked my mother, if he was really the father.

As my mother was weak from childbirth, my grandmother had to do the honors and then I was told that my father walked around our village with a handprint on his face for weeks with a pink bundle of myself in his arms.

Pink, not blue, green or 'whatever baby blanket' was there.

I was told that my clansmen, all of them, despite their laziness celebrated my birth and raided baby stores in search for anything that a baby girl would need. As if their genius suddenly short-circuited and they all thought a pink bottle was any different than a plain one.

I was told that even the Sandaime Hokage paid his tribute to me along with the rest of our village's clans - the Yamanaka and the Akimichi being especially attentive for the obvious reason that out clans were basically family.

You'd expect that I was going to be some kind of princess of the clan. Which in essence, I was. Nara boys would give me flowers, toys and despite their laziness would try and 'play' hide-and-seek, and ninja-ninja with me. It did not last long however. Because one day, I found that they did all those things at the behest of their parents.

And that all those times, they would play with me, they always found me 'troublesome', 'annoying' and 'noisy'.

After this revelation, I slowly realized out that despite myself being a precious female in a male-dominated clan, I was seen as as somewhat…something else. Something else that was not bright enough to play shoji and succeed in it, something else not bright enough to understand basic maths, and something else not to throw haphazardly into war. Because this something - a she was a girl who will then turn to a woman, a wife, and then a mother to more Nara children.

Despite of everything, this girl was something not completely… Nara.

For a few years, I've entertained the notion that my condition may have been due to an X-linked pattern of inheritance that the Nara genetics probably follow, which meant that geniuses are passed down to the male only. I liked this notion as a child. It brought some slight comfort. It was not my fault I was not smart enough as my clan peers, it was just nature. There was nothing I can do but accept it and adapt.

So overtime, I got over the injustice of it all and settled down in silent fury instead.

A fury I used everyday to power me through. Although more times than some, it wasn't just enough.