Disclaimer: I own nothing but the general plot and OCs

This chap was supposed to be in Kakashi pov, but every time I sat down to write it I'd get stuck because I'd realise 'oh wait Kakashi is a very smart super awesome ninja who is supposed to be creating tactics in this chap as someone with a deep understanding of Konoha shinobi politics and the Elemental Nations... I on the other hand... am not any of those things.'

So in order to put off having to think too deeply for at least a little while on my version of Konoha and the underneath workings of a mercenary based dictatorship with magical chakra, I wrote it in Sonaru's pov instead. Because she doesn't really understand that shit either.

Next chap will be in Kakashi pov though. Also zero editing again.

Thank you as well for all those who gave suggestions for her Kekkei Genkai! I'll keep them all in mind, but as for Sonaru she will have to figure it all out the slow way, since she doesn't have you amazing peeps for inspiration.

Thank you so much for awesome reviews, favs and follows! Let me know what works and what doesn't work for you, and Amy prompts you want to see for scenes going forward

Chapter 25 - Can You See The Real Me, Can You?

Everybody had secrets. It was pretty much a fact of life. Everyone had things they lied about or hid or just didn't speak about. Whether it was small or large.

It was an interesting side effect of my growing up with two parents who generally despised each other- and would use anything we said about the other parent whether inadvertently or explicitly, to prove to a court of law the other's shitty parenting techniques -that I felt inherently uncomfortable when I wasn't hiding things. I was used to being part of a small trio of people who pretty much held all the cards on the information front, and picked who knew what about each part of our life.

Lying came with the territory. But it was more than that- it was more than just having an excellent ability to distort the truth, or fabricate a believable lie that fit the facts within a moment, it was the ability to live a lie. I was used to it -living a lie was comfortable and felt safe to me. It wasn't living as someone who never spoke the truth, and was someone who was completely the opposite of the real me. It was more like... cherry picking different components of myself based upon what worked best in different scenarios and ramping those qualities up until it was as though I was someone else entirely- someone I was almost unable to understand when I was being one of the other versions of me.

Truthfully, people did a version of it all the time - for work, for family, for friends, for strangers. I was just excellent at it. For me, people who lived a transparent life all the time baffled me. I didn't know how they did it. I just didn't feel right if there wasn't some hidden shit going on in my life most of the time. I felt too exposed. Like someone could too easily watch me and know more of me than I would want them to.

I grew up being one person for dad; discerning, calculating, manipulative, quiet, selfish, sweet, energetic, physical, survivalist. Another for Mother; kind hearted, optimist, intuitive, polite, helpful, opinionated, generous, passionate, open minded. Another for school; focussed, smart, eloquent, driven, respectful, bossy, fair, neutral, well behaved, trustworthy.

As I grew these personalities evolved and changed slightly, but remained the same at their core. There was a reason I didn't like having school friends over to meet either of my parents. It was too difficult to be two people at once. There was a reason I was never one of those kids who just wanted their parents to get along and be together so they could have a happy family. My mother would not approve of who I was with dad- she'd view it as him having corrupted me and seek to purge his influence. My dad would see who I was with Mother as someone unable to keep secrets and thus a liability.

Splitting my life so carefully and never having the pieces interact was the norm for me. Other people struggled with it and felt pulled apart at the seams. One thing other people never did was wonder how I managed it, because they never saw the other segments of my life that they were not a part of, to know what I did.

Only my siblings and I stood in the centre of it all, needing no communication to know the who, what and when of the information we selectively shared.

We felt no guilt, no second guessing, no desire for something else. It was the way life was for me and it was the way we liked it.

Despite the inherent risks and dangers that surrounded my new life constantly thanks to some bullshit overpowered sounding dōjutsu, which my normally creative brain was drawing a complete blank for how it was useful, the moment DFB made it clear what solution he had come up with to minimise the chance of me being found out immediately, a part of me relaxed inside.

It was a part I hadn't even known had been wound up and tense until it wasn't anymore. During my two years in this new life I had had little personal interaction on any deep level with people other than DFB and Gai. I hadn't even realised how completely unwilling I had been to even try, until suddenly the idea of walking the streets of Konoha without DFB acting as a buffer wasn't such an uncompelling idea anymore, thanks to DFB's solution.

According to DFB and Gai, everyone had secrets, but shinobi lived and breathed secrets. If I wanted mine to go undiscovered for some time, I'd have to create a smokescreen by getting some new ones. Not only new secrets, but believably hidden ones too. Ones that could evolve over time with me as I aged, to still be relevant.

It was then, that my lifetime of practice of splitting my life apart was called upon. DFB wasn't stupid by any means, and I might not have told him in so many words but I had heavily implied to him that that was what I was comfortable and practiced with.

Both men watched me over the next few days as they ramped up my physical exercise, and threw curveballs at me. DFB tricked me a few times into thinking a scenario was more serious than it was. They spoke to me about some elements of Konoha shinobi politics to see what my jerk reaction was to it all. After all, there was no point in creating a persona if under pressure it cracked.

The best ones were based just enough on the truth that they were fluid and flexible and believable. Using their knowledge of my abilities and personality, budding shinobi Subaru was born.

It was in Subaru that the resemblance to the DFB everyone else knew was strongest. Subaru was efficient, calculating, manipulative, intelligent, perceptive, driven, with the quirk of occasional lateness, and a sprinkling of blunt irreverent slightly crass humour for those who got close to her. Subaru was loyal as a dog, but slippery as an eel. She was aloof, and slow to warm up to others, but mostly professional and neutral. She was practical, and androgynous in her dress and demeanour. She liked having the upper hand in any situation, and kept her issues close to her chest.

Underscoring Subaru was the deep love she had for her family and her desire to bring pride to her father. She was a daddy's girl, but she hid it well. It was only in the never ending patience she had for his own quirks and habits, their ability to have a conversation within a conversation together and the way she was more physically comfortable around him than others that allowed people to read between the lines. This would become slightly harder to do for strangers as she got older. Subaru was part of a shinobi family and it showed. Subaru knew the darkness and pain and moral ambiguity of life, and had strengthened herself from it.

Then there was Sona. Sona was feminine, and sweet, and smiley. She wore dresses and pretty clothing. Sona would grow up to wear small amounts of makeup, and charm everyone around her. She was polite, well behaved, amiable, light hearted, empathetic, optimistic, sweet. Sona was smart, but not opinionated. She was a little forgetful and occasionally a tad ditzy, but that was because Sona always had her head in a story. She was a writer, and loved books. She could be a bit distant because of this, and hard to reach from whatever fantasy world she was gallivanting off into. Sona observed as many social rules as she could without being too restrained, and got flustered when she made a mistake. Sona didn't speak about her family and she generally didn't speak too much about herself, she was interested in theoretical discussions, and other people's experiences or opinions. Sona made people want to dote on her.

Sona would die for someone she cared about. Subaru would kill for them.

Sona would cry at another's suffering and death, whereas Subaru would critique their murderer and only feel a cool contempt at the waste spent on unnecessary time and effort when hurting them if they were just going to die imminently anyway.

Sona was almost too forgiving or understanding, Subaru could almost be accused of being a sociopath at times.

They were not polar opposites by any means. Both were creative in different ways, intuitive, intelligent, eloquent and insightful at different times. They were just two sides of the same coin. And the only time they came together was around DFB and Gai in response to their relaxed body language with her, where there were no pretences needed.

Sona was not needed in entirety just yet, but she'd soon be reaching an age where she could walk the streets by herself and build a life outside of home. In the mean time, DFB and Gai worked with me to craft Subaru into existence.

There was more to it than that of course. Gai and DFB had a greater understanding of the workings of the Elemental Nations and of Konoha than I did, and so when they spoke about specific scenarios and people to keep me away from or introduce me to, much of the nuances of the conversation was lost to me. The breakdowns of their abilities and how they could improve was spoken in technical terms I didn't understand. During much of their talking, their real points and conclusions were supposed to be inferred rather than spelled out, and of course went over my head.

I picked up a few things here or there, and it really highlighted to me just how much I had to learn. I looked forward to a time when Gai, DFB and I could sit together and use the same terms and understand the multiple unspoken layers of each other's sentences and each contribute an equal amount. I imagined we'd be something incredibly powerful together by that point.

Nevertheless, my part was made clear to me, and in the mean time DFB pointed out a few areas in which I could improve my face to face lying when confronted with pointed questions - to reduce my gesticulating, to believe my own lie as I spoke it, to increase the references to myself in first person when I spoke a lie, rather than avoid saying 'I'. We delved into the art of lying, and for the first time in either lives I found myself having to focus on how often I blinked, how long each blink lasted, where my eyes darted as I spoke in various topics and how many times, how often I swallowed, how often I licked my lips or pursed them, what I did with my hands when I told the truth, and how quickly I spoke after someone if I was lying or telling the truth.

There were other things too, and DFB soon began playing an ongoing game with me at home in which I had to seamlessly slip in a lie to conversation, or to directly lie in response to a question, and he had to point out each time I did it, as well as what gave me away. If I got away with more than five in a day I got an extra piece of cake for pudding, if I failed I had to watch DFB eat the extra slice- it was torture.

I was good at getting away with telling lies in the middle of a conversation and tricked him over half the time, but when confronted with direct questions I'd not managed to slip a single one past DFB yet. Even as I got better, my blushing and increased pulse gave me away. Despite my annoyance at my inability to control that, DFB assured me that eventually it would not only go away, but I was in the highly fortunate position of having complete control over it with practice, once I learned how to direct my internal blood flow.

On top of that, both DFB and Gai designed a training schedule for me. They tried to include me in it at first, in order not to ask anything of me I didn't want to do, but soon learnt that if they suggested it to me I'd say yes. I trusted their expertise, and not to ask of me anything beyond what I could do. If that meant pushing me to an almost mind breaking limit, using ethically questionable methods... well fuck it, that was what I signed up for. I wanted to be the best I possibly could, and if the limits of my own mind was getting in the way which they knew the solution to, then there was no one I would rather have push me to the point that my body surpassed those limits.

Before my physical exercise was ramped up to insane levels, DFB first had me meditate. It was imperative that I become aware of my chakra inside my body, so that I could prevent it from reaching my eyes in situations that my subconscious mind felt it was required. It was no good putting all of our plans into practice and having them fall down around us the first time I felt almost murderously angry and my eyes turned blood red.

However, becoming aware of my chakra had me facing a truth I had been avoiding for quite some time now; I had chakra. It was stupid, and obvious and I had known all along that of course I had chakra. But actually feeling it inside me suddenly slapped me round the face with the truth that I was in some version of Naruto. I had no idea quite how much of the story was going to come true and how much of it wasn't possible or realistic in this world, or just wasn't going to happen. On one hand it would be foolish to rely on knowledge I knew to be at least partially false with my existence, on the other hand I had been shoving my head in the sand about the possibility that it was almost all true.

I had key information that had a chance of being really fucking helpful to DFB's continued survival and I was hoarding it to myself because... why? Why was I keeping this to myself? On a practical level, if I told DFB everything I knew I was certain by now that he wouldn't reveal me to anyone. On top of that, it could increase his and Gai's chances in the future, as well as the fact that by not being the only person who knew this, anyone willing to go to extremes to get the information if they discovered it had more than one target. There was a chance I would actually reduce the possibility of being targeted.

Also, DFB would have a far better idea of how much was true than I would, being more clued into what was going on behind the scenes. The only thing that had really been holding me back for some months was that I was terrified that DFB and Gai would believe me, and rely on the information too much, getting themselves killed if it turned out to not quite fit reality in one key aspect. I was also scared they would be able to prove most of the story to be true. As long as it was in my head it didn't feel real, and I could carry on viewing it as just a story.

The idea of people like that actually existing and coming for those I loved was terrifying to me. I was eight years behind the team 7 I knew of, and I didn't know if by the time everything actually kicked off, I'd be old enough to do anything but die or get in the way. But it wasn't just that, I had to admit to myself that I was avoiding a potential fight.

I understood why DFB was mad at me at the time when I revealed the secret I had been keeping about reincarnation. I had been allowing him to believe in a version of reality that didn't exist. It had hurt him, and screwed with his perception of family and I still felt regretful that it had hurt him when I looked back, no matter how much closer we were now. But I just didn't think I would be able to stay calm if DFB decided to get angry this time and blame me.

It was a far more uncertain situation, in which my main worry was spreading false information that would get my loved ones killed or harmed. I really didn't think there was a right answer for this one, whether I told them or not. But at the end of the day I just didn't want to keep secrets. Not from them.

Nevertheless, I spent a few days mulling the idea of telling them over in my head before I committed to doing so. Days I spent meditating on my chakra, and tentatively poking at it to get an idea of just where it was in the body.

Admittedly I probably would have become aware of my chakra much earlier if I viewed this body as anything more than a tool I could use. I wasn't... connected to it in the same way I had been to my last body. I still looked at the skin and wished it was a dusky tone, I looked at the face and wished the lips were smaller and rounder in a rose bud shape, I wished the eyebrows were thicker and darker as well as the eyelashes. I wished the body was more mature, and the wrists more slender, and the shins proportionately longer. I wished the fingers were a touch thicker and the palms larger.

I looked at my body and in the back of my mind I wanted something else, so beyond what it could do for me, or its ability to partake in cwtching with DFB, I largely didn't think about it.

As a result, when it came to feeling my chakra I struggled. It was like having part of my consciousness within my body, and in order to effectively access it one had to be connected with their body and their physical state. My difficulty still, to accept what I had as my own barred me from doing this. It wasn't impossible. It just wasn't easy. It wasn't made any easier by the sheer amount of Yin chakra compared to Yang chakra I had.

With Yin chakra being of the mind, coming from experience and imagination and studying. Well... truthfully things had been a bit odd there. After some discussion, DFB came up with the hypothesis that part of the reason I had shown up as having an average amount of chakra for a one year old when I was first tested, was that I had been so depressed at the time.

With my mental degradation, the amount of Yin chakra I produced, while still more than Yang, was very small. It was an interesting hypothesis, and something I thought more studies should be done around, the idea that depression could actually reduce the amount of Yin chakra produced, and perhaps other mental issues. I had my own suspicions by then on how DFB might have access to the ability to get stronger to such a drastic degree. He most definitely hadn't been entirely mentally healthy for some time, and Gai and I could clearly see how much he had improved since taking on being a parent. It was something to keep in mind at least.

Either way, for me at least, as I got better and started talking about my stuff and opening up, my Yin chakra production had shot up. The same amount of time that DFB had spent learning to be and living as a shinobi, I had spent studying, reading, learning. I wasn't super intelligent, but I wasn't of average intelligence either.

Truthfully, throughout my entire time at school I had put in about sixty percent effort and still managed to get top marks. I had also been increasingly bored. I probably could have learnt so much more and done much better, but I had so rarely been challenged, and classes had always gone too slowly for me. The only exceptions had been maths and physics. I'd worked hard for my maths skills, and I'd never been bored in physics because my teacher was okay with me falling asleep at the start every class until the last five minutes when I'd copy down the notes of the person sitting next to me.

But regardless, for me, that meant the moment my mental health was back to somewhere near where it should be, my Yin chakra absolutely dwarfed my Yang chakra. It was something that made it even more difficult for me to 'get in touch' with the chakra of my body. This...wasn't great, since it was my Yang chakra that was so important for my Kekkei Genkai.

Nevertheless, with patience and practice, I wrestled my internal chakra under my control (a little bit), and learnt how it flowed around my eyes, so that I could be sure not to allow too much of it to focus there and activate my dōjutsu. It was only after I succeeded in this, that I was allowed to start training properly with DFB and Gai.

I took the small gap in between succeeding in one task and starting the other, to stop being a fucking wimp and just tell them that they made awesome anime characters in my old world. Honestly I dreaded being the one to tell DFB about Obito.

Sooo she's telling them. I have no idea what is going to happen as a knock on effect of this. We'll see.

What do you guys think the reaction will be from both men to the existence of the manga/anime? How do you think Sonaru will come to accept her own body?

What do you think of the beginnings of Sonaru's training and step 1 of their solution to keep her safe by basically giving her a double life?