Against The World

"The Will of Fire... What nonsense."

-x-

Patriotism was one of the defining values in this place. Everyone was so proud to be a citizen of The Village Hidden in Leaves. They spoke of the village as if it was a person. They loved it. They were devoted to it. They held nothing in higher regard. They would do anything for it. They would die for it. They would kill for it.

Whatever you did on the village's behalf was right, it was for the greater good of the village. It was everyone's duty, even civilians, to put the "welfare" of the village first, before anything else. Before yourself, before your friends, before your lover, before your own children.

It was disgusting.

Everywhere you went its symbol was in sight. I hated it. I hated that as an academy student from the orphanage all my clothes bore the symbol. I hated that as a ninja I had to carry the symbol, cloth and metal, like a chain, tying me down, restricting me—and every other ninja from this fucking village, too. Seeing it reminded me of just how little choice I had in this life. Even the ones I thought that I made weren't even truly mine, I learned. They weren't mine, really. Nothing was.

Sometimes I wondered if anyone else hated this village the way I did. Sure, those who found themselves on the wrong end of our figurative (and literal) sword hated us, but they hate from the outside.

I hate it from the inside.

But it didn't really matter how much I hate this village. It's not like I would be any better off elsewhere.

This world...

-x-

Three

Hanako pulled through. When I went back to visit her a few days later she had a small scroll for me.

"Keep it on your person at all times. Do not take notes." she told me. "I had to call in a lot of favours to get my hands on that. Bring it back when you're done, and I'll get you another."

I was so excited, I actually grinned at her. She smiled indulgently, and shooed me from her room. "I have work to do!" she said, but it was obvious she knew how badly I wanted to go read the scroll.

I gave her a quick hug, secured the scroll in my pocket, and headed full speed towards the orphanage.

I nodded in response to Two-Face's greeting as I passed her on my way to my dorm room. I flopped down on my bed and pulled the scroll from my pocket. I unrolled it, but hesitated, glancing at my stack of notebooks.

Hanako said I couldn't take notes, but... If no one could understand my notes but me, did it matter? From what I'd seen and heard, there was only one language in this world, and nobody speaks English or French. There isn't even a name for the language we do speak, as far as I know. But dare I risk it? I could be wrong, after all. Information is so tightly controlled, it's perfectly plausible that there's at the very least records of English that I simply don't have access to.

I sighed and unrolled it further. I could decide later.

-x-

A week before the new term I was tested again. The written test was quite different from the last one. It tested me only on the subjects covered in the books I'd been given. Needless to say, I aced it. They physical portion was pretty much the same as before, however. Surprisingly I did much better this time. Not like, amazing or anything special, but there was definite improvement.

Which was why on the first Monday of October I found myself joining the third year class.

Apparently I wasn't supposed to finish all those books, and was further ahead than the class that had just graduated, so they decided putting me in first year would be a waste of time. Of course, my physical scores were nothing to write home about, hence not being placed in the graduating class. While my scores in that area were slightly below average for a first year, it was a drastic improvement from my initial assessment two months previous, and if I kept up that rate of improvement I'd catch up to my classmates in time for graduation.

The class was fairly large—I'd estimate at least fifty other students. Ages appeared to vary, but I was definitely the smallest and likely the youngest. I noticed that boys greatly outnumbered girls, nearly a two-to-one ratio.

After introducing myself at the front of the class, I chose a seat towards the back of the room. Once I was settled, the instructor, Kago-sensei, started the lesson.

To my disappointment nothing he was saying was new to me. I bit back a sigh, and opted to pull out the scroll on sealing I'd picked up from Hanako, but listening to the lecture with half an ear in case Kago-sensei switched topics.

-x-

Eventually we broke for taijutsu training. Kago-sensei led us outside to one of the training areas where three other instructors were waiting. I recognized one of them as Isamu-sensei.

"Hoshino-chan!" he called. "With me."

Inwardly, I groaned. Working with him would not be fun. Between my initial and most recent assessments, I'd learned the man was... difficult, to say the least. It was clear he took pleasure in watching me fail and playing mind games. (Or maybe that last bit was my paranoia speaking.)

The blue-haired chuunin led me away from the rest of my classmates, and I felt their eyes on me as I followed him, undoubtedly curious as to why I was (probably?) getting special treatment.

"We're starting with the basics." Isamu-sensei announced. "Your classmates covered this ages ago, so you're going to have to do your best to catch up, you got that?"

"Yes, sensei."

"Good. First, we're going to start with how to properly fall." Oh good. Falling. That used to be my specialty. I—

My legs were swept out from beneath me. I tucked my head and turned so I landed on my side, rolling to reduce the impact.

"Passable." Isamu-sensei commented, his arms crossed.

I glared at him as I stood. I wasn't ready! I didn't say. That was probably the point. Still, I was more prepared when I was sent flying just seconds after I stood.

Once again, I rolled with it. And then again, and again, until I felt like one giant bruise.

It seemed like an eternity before Isamu-sensei decided he was done literally throwing me around the training grounds.

Child abuse! Fucking child abuser, getting off on kicking little kids around! I wanted to scream at the tyrant. But this was a place where children are sent to fight in wars before they even hit puberty, so I bit my tongue. Besides, I wasn't actually a child.

But they think you are, part of me argued. They think you are, and they do it anyways. They do it to others, too. Others who are real children.

I did my best to ignore that part of me.

-x-

The days started to blend together. I woke up, dressed, ate, headed to the academy, and ran laps until shortly before class started.

During class, I'd listen with half an ear and focus on reading about seals. I learned the instructors were aware that I knew most of the book work, and while they were going over things I'd proven I'd learned, they cared little for what I did to occupy myself as long as it wasn't disruptive. So I swung my legs in little circles around each other to keep myself moving and focused on something worthwhile.

My current scroll was dedicated to the history of sealing, but fascinating none the less. Apparently, the reason seals were called such despite not always obviously "sealing" something away, was because back in the day that was all they could do—seal an object into something else. The only use in the past was storage.

But the Uzumaki clan revolutionized the art of sealing. To understand how they did so, you first need to understand how seals work at the most basic level.

Despite what most people think, when you seal an item away in a storage scroll, you aren't actually sealing it inside the scroll. The scroll is just a medium for the seal. The seal itself is basically a door to a pocket dimension. I wasn't sure myself if the seal created the pocket dimension and acted as the door, or if the dimension was always there and we just found a way to access it through seals, but that wasn't what was important.

Basic storage seals have been around for ages—no one knows who first invented them, the records are lost. But the Uzumaki were the first ones to successfully alter seals, and go beyond their typical use. The Uzumaki clan first started altering seals to fit certain conditions, like adjusting the temperature in the pocket dimension. They adjusted things so that they could seal away food and keep it warm or cold. Then they altered things to freeze time in the pocket dimension to prevent changes to what the sealed away all together.

That was their first big mark on the art of sealing.

The second was sealing chakra.

Most people don't think about explosive tags as sealing something inside a pocket dimension—they don't even realize that's how they work. But that's how all seals work. Explosive tags seal away chakra, and impose conditions on the chakra, directing it to create an explosion. It's funny, but apparently most ninja have no idea what they're actually doing when they use them. Explosive tags are doors to empty pocket dimensions, and when you "activate" them with chakra, what you're really doing is filling the pocket dimension with chakra. The seal then converts it and releases it as an explosion.

The Uzumaki clan were the ones to first figure out this sort of thing was even possible, and they found ways to do all sorts of things from there, leading to their rise to power.

Without them, we would—

A piece of chalk collided with my forehead, crumbling to dust upon impact. My classmates, the immature cretins that they were, snickered at me.

"Hoshino!" Kago-sensei scolded. "Put your scroll away. It's time for weapons practice."

"Apologies, sensei." I demurred, rolling the scroll back up and tucking it into my pocket.

"Do try to pay more attention, Hoshino-chan. It is unbecoming for a ninja to have such poor awareness of their surroundings."

With a sigh, I joined my classmates and instructor by the door, following them outside to the training ground with the targets.

Today, we were working with kunai. Unlike taijutsu where I was still taken aside by Isamu-sensei, after the first weapons lesson I was left with my classmates. Unlike my classmates, however, I stood much closer to the target as I threw the kunai, partially due to substandard aim and partially due to lacking the strength to throw the kunai far enough. Both, I was assured, would come with time. And they were coming, I thought. It was getting much easier to throw the kunai, but my aim wasn't much better.

After missing the target with sixty percent of my kunai, I sighed and retrieved them. Despite my poor aim, I consoled myself with the knowledge that the ones that did hit, hit hard enough that they were hard to pull out of the target, and the ones that didn't travelled a decent distance.

But my poor performance was still upsetting, so I mentally rearranged my training schedule for the evening to include extra kunai practice.

-x-

Two weeks later and even with extra practice, I made no further improvement with kunai. My vision was fine, unlike in The Before, so that wasn't the problem. I asked Kago-sensei and even Isamu-sensei for advice, but their tips didn't help. Throwing the knives at the targets repeatedly didn't help either.

What I was doing wasn't working, which meant I had to try something else. Brawn wasn't working, so perhaps brains would.

So one day after trying and failing to improve, I pulled out a notebook and pen and thought back to my hazy memories of high school physics.

I wasn't exactly a physics person. Sure, physics was basically applied math, but that was the thing. Applied math, which hadn't been the focus of my studies in The Before.

Still, with half-remembered formulas and laws, a bit of experimentation and good spatial awareness, surely I could puzzle things out eventually? I was just glad that my brain was much better at judging distances in this life. It wasn't perfect, but it was fairly accurate, and much, much better than I'd been able to do in The Before. Though next time I'd bring a measuring tape, simply for precision purposes.

I remember when throwing a ball on a flat plane, to achieve maximum distance you should throw it forty-five degrees. If you're throwing along a downwards slope, for every two degrees increase in slope, lower your throwing angle by one degree.

Which didn't help me a lot with aim. But still, I wrote it down in the notebook, and wrote down anything else I could remember that seemed relevant. Then I wrote down the external forces that could act on the kunai as it travelled that I could think of, and properties of the kunai itself that might affect things, including, but not limited to wind, gravity, angle thrown, how hard it was thrown, the mass of the kunai, and shape of it.

Then I stabbed two kunai into the ground to mark my starting line, and two more further down but parallel to the first two. I marked these kunai each with a piece of paper tucked into the wrappings around the handle so I didn't confuse them with the ones I'd be throwing. I then took the others, and carefully threw them at approximately the same angle each time, from the same position. Then, I recorded their position relative to the first four kunai.

I kept at this for a few hours, until the sky started to darken. Only then did I return the kunai I'd signed out for practice and depart from the academy.

As an academy student, I had much more flexibility in meal times, and was able to eat a large supper before heading to my dorm. Though the other children I roomed with were present, they were mostly asleep or reading quietly. I grabbed my pyjamas from the chest at the end of my bed and headed to the showers. Discarding my dirty clothes in the laundry shoot after transferring my scroll on sealing to the pocket of my pyjama pants, I stepped into a cubicle and let the warm water soothe my aching muscles.

All too soon, I forced myself out of the shower before the water could turn frigid. It was something I'd learned I had to do. If I ended up losing track of time and forgetting, the cold water brought back memories of those first few months in the orphanage, which led to sleepless nights. With how hard I had to train my body to catch up to my classmates and offset my chakra imbalance, I couldn't afford to lose sleep.

Returning to my dorm, I grabbed the notebook I'd filled with my observations earlier and settled into bed with it. After reviewing and processing the data, I let myself fall asleep.

-x-

The next day I borrowed a measuring tape from the orphanage. It was much too short to be of any use, so instead I made my own. I cut and glued strips of paper together, then used the measuring tape to mark the measurements correctly. My dorm mates gave me odd looks while I worked, but that wasn't unusual.

With my new measuring tape finished, I went back to the academy and signed out the same set of kunai from the day before. I took note of the strength of the wind and its direction, and then repeated my actions from the night before.

I continued this for several weeks. Over time I purposely altered things, like signing out a different set of kunai that felt lighter and seeing how that affected things. I also started using shuriken. Eventually, I was able to calculate the angle and strength of a throw needed to hit the target. After I could consistently hit the target, and adjust it for different targets and distances, I had to work on my speed of mental calculations. It didn't matter if I could hit the bulls eye all the time if it took me ages to throw my kunai and shuriken.

Once I was certain of the accuracy of my calculations, I stopped actively practising throwing weapons. Instead, I spent my time on my taijutsu and physical conditioning while mentally calculating trajectories required to hit random targets.

-x-

In the months since I'd joined the academy, I had yet to speak to any of my classmates. I had no interest in befriending children, and they seemed to have no interest in befriending me.

The closest I'd come to interacting with anyone was that time this blond first year that was a couple years older than me almost ran me over while I was leaving the academy. He yelled something at me as he ran away, but his voice was drowned out by the bustle of the village and I wasn't sure if he was apologizing or blaming me for getting in his way. I didn't particularly care.

But interaction with my classmates was limited to sparring in taijutsu class, and I liked things that way.

Especially after I heard the gossip about me.

I had expected the "creepy" and "weird" ones. Those I was used to in the orphanage. What I hadn't been expecting were the rumours of special treatment.

"She thinks she's so much better than us." I heard one of the older girls in the class say to her friends over lunch. They were sitting underneath the tree I was sitting in. I didn't know her name, but I recognized her as the brunette who usually sat in front of me. "Getting special treatment—they let her do whatever she wants during lectures! And she gets private taijutsu lessons with Isamu-sensei! I've never heard of anyone getting private taijutsu lessons before, and neither has anyone else I've asked in my clan."

"I know right? It's not fair! I want private lessons with him!" One of the other girls, probably a Yamanaka by the looks of her, giggled. "He's sooo dreamy!"

"They say it's because she's way behind in taijutsu." The first girl continued, waving her chopsticks. "But if she's so far behind why is she in the third year class? She's like, five."

"Yeah!" A third girl joined in. "Plus the times she does join us for spars she doesn't do that bad. Sure, her forms are a bit sloppy, but she's fast, and her punches hurt more than some of the boys' do!"

"I bet Isamu-sensei is teaching her some secret taijutsu style, and that's why she's so bad at the standard one—she's not used to it."

"It's not fair! Why her? She's just some orphan."

"Maybe she's the secret love child of some super important ninja!" The maybe-Yamanaka suggested.

"Psh, yeah right." The brunette dismissed, finishing the last of her lunch. "You guys done yet? I want to go see if Isamu-sensei can help me with my chakra control."

"But Suzu-chan, you have really good chakra control!" The third girl frowned, slightly confused. "Why—ooooh. I see. Yeah. I'm done."

The group of girls quickly packed up and set off to find Isamu-sensei, giggling the whole way.

I almost felt bad for the guy.

Once they left, I jumped down from the branch I'd been lounging on and headed back to my classroom. I slipped into my seat and folded my arms on the desk, resting my head on top of them. I felt strange. It wasn't that I cared what the other girls thought of me. They were just silly little girls, jealous that their crush was spending time with me. No, what bothered me was the accusations of special treatment.

I hadn't really thought about it before, but it was true that I was the only one getting one-on-one taijutsu training, even if it had been cut back to twice a week instead of everyday. I mean, I knew it was because I really was way behind, but I'd assumed this wasn't something too unusual—that it wasn't the norm, but it happened every now and then. From the sounds of that one girl, I was wrong. And I mean, I knew they let me do my own thing in class because I already knew the material. Was that not typical? I couldn't be the first student to be way ahead.

What really bothered me was why I was getting special treatment. I wasn't anyone special—an orphan, born to a poor, clanless teenager. Maybe that Yamanaka girl was onto something. I knew nothing about my father. My mother knew nothing about my father. But surely my father had put things together, and knew I was his kid. He knew what he did to my mother, and likely knew she got pregnant since it resulted in her losing her position. Maybe he was important? Maybe he had some sort of influence?

But Hanako and mother assumed he was from the Tominaga clan, and for good reason. But while the Tominaga were an incredibly wealthy clan, they weren't particularly influential. Their money was the only thing going for them, compared to other clans. They had influence over non-ninja matters through their wealth, but it didn't give them any real leverage over the Hokage—if he wanted their money he could just increase their taxes. As for other ninja high-up on the food chain, accepting bribes was seen as treason—some of them had enough power to really fuck over the village, even if it was just by looking the other way at someone's activities. Not to mention, not just any random clan member could exercise what little influence they did have. It would have to be the main family, if it was due to a clan.

So maybe they were wrong, and my father wasn't a member of the Tominaga clan, but someone who did have influence. I couldn't be from a clan with a bloodline limits—they would have snatched me up regardless of the circumstances, less I activate it. That goes for clans with secret techniques as well. If I were, then while I wouldn't be able to learn their techniques alone, I would have a predisposition to their techniques, and certain obvious clan traits. Over time, these predispositions can eventually turn into bloodline limits, so they keep track of their members, in case that one bastard kid is the one who inherits or passes on the new bloodline. And again, only the main family would have enough influence—which means if I was a clan bastard, I'd be connected to the main family, hence even less likely to be left outside the clan.

But the rest of the clans, the ones that don't have secret techniques or bloodlines, are generally worse off than the Tominaga in terms of influence.

That left individuals.

It wouldn't be easy, but after finishing up my method for throwing weapons, I could use another project.

-x-

Since my heritage was a more sensitive topic than my previous topic, I decided to first make my first basic storage seal to keep my notes and research in.

It wasn't advised to attempt to make a seal without supervision (or better yet, knowing what the fuck you're doing), but I didn't really care. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? I die? Meh, been there, done that.

Unfortunately, I no longer had the storage scroll from the academy, and couldn't just copy it, and the scrolls from Hanako didn't actually give instructions—they were still just theory and history based. But I figured I knew enough to take a stab at making one.

So I wandered around the village, looking for a secluded spot to practice without drawing attention. My usual haunts, the orphanage, the hospice, and the academy, were clearly unsuitable, so I needed to find somewhere else.

Eventually I settled on wandering deep into one of the forests by a park. It wasn't a training ground, so I was safe from stray weapons and jutsu, and none of the kids really ventured too far into these woods.

I plopped down by a random tree and rummaged through my bag for my notebook and the sealing ink Hanako bought for me. Most people used brushes, but I didn't like them, so instead I used a fountain pen, since it was just the ink that mattered.

The ink was expensive, and I didn't want to run out too soon, so I decided to first sketch my prototype with a pencil.

Connections, balance, order, and flow...

After a half hour of erasing, drawing, and redrawing, I was ready to test my seal.

I filled my pen with ink and copied the array onto a blank page in my notebook. Then, I tore another page out and ripped it into rough squares.

My first attempt wasn't a complete failure, but it wasn't a success either. I was able to seal a few squares of paper away, but I couldn't release them.

My second attempt took me another hour of re-configuring the seal and going over my kanji choices. This one released the squares... sort of. It released their ashes.

I spent hours redesigning the seal until I finally managed one that was able to store more than one item, release all the items, and not damage anything.

Fuck, it was like I was back in intro comp sci. I was far from a programming expert, but I did have to take two comp sci classes and learn basic java. I aced the classes, but there were hours spent trying to figure out which line of code was causing the bug. And if you fixed one thing it fucked up another.

Just like seals.

Once I had a successful seal, I re-sketched the failed seals and noted what went wrong with them and where it did. By the time I finished, I was straining my eyes in the dark. I sealed my notes into the functional seal and then tucked the seal into my sandal. The paper rubbed against my skin awkwardly, but I would figure something out later. It was long past time to return to the orphanage.

-x-

Author's Notes: Thanks for the reviews/favourites/follows everyone. I really appreciate them. I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I even included a canon cameo, can you tell who? I have finals in a week and instead of studying I wrote this. Good for you, bad for me, I'm afraid.

Lots of exposition this chapter, and more to come in the next, I think. An Sekai has started asking questions—but are they the right questions? Who is her father? Why is she receiving special treatment? Is she making a mountain out of a molehill?

Find out next time! Or not. Probably not. It's gonna be awhile. It's no fun if I tell you everything right away.

Oh, also... The cover image was drawn by myself. I posted a larger version over on sekai-against-the-world, and also a clean version there as well. There are other extras there too, remember. You can ask questions about the story on anon, too.

Once again, please forgive any errors.

All the best,

The Mathemagician