Thinking about my situation through the lens of isekai tropes was a stupid habit. I needed to be objective about this.
It was obvious I was in the Naruto universe. That, combined with being Bike-chan seemed like the kind of weird isekai/Naruto self-insert trope you'd find in a Self-Insert Naruto fanfiction. But, at the same time, the experience was too realistic for me to seriously believe I was a figment of someone's imagination - is was what I expected every other Naruto Self-Insert to say…
I guess it could always be a simulation, but that's always one of those theories you could throw at any situation and just navel gaze the day away. I didn't have any real proof that would make the theory more likely to be true than not, and I suspected I never would. Maybe that was just my experience from reading other stuff like this talking, but whatever. I'd grown to hate wasting time on existential 'what if's' and introspection. That was seriously the dumbest way to handicap yourself. It wasn't worth it.
Maybe one day, I would find something to prove the theory. Maybe I'd get a win screen and applause for figuring it out, but I wasn't counting on it.
I just didn't have enough information to go off of, so I spent my time bending the world to my whims. Or trying to, at least. My time perception was skewed. 'A long time', to me, was really only a week at most. Unfortunately, I mostly slept through the first couple of days.
After that, between the naps, being changed, nursed, and held, I tried to connect my thoughts to actions. I could lift my head, somewhat, and my vision steadily improved. Sometimes, my body would act without my control. If I needed changing, or I was hungry, I would, without fail, be unable to stop myself from crying. I had virtually no bladder control. For whatever reason, even a light brush of my cheek would cause my head to jerk in that direction, without my input. My body just knew how to suckle.
The random movements that came from instinct and the fact that I could lift my head were the only ways I could interact with reality. But I needed to solidly grasp the fundamental way that thoughts translated to specific muscle control.
I calmed myself and focused on all my senses. Then, I tried lifting my left index finger.
There was some slight movement, but it was really all my fingers at once.
I focused in on the one finger and tried to isolate the movement.
It didn't work.
I forced everything I had into trying to use the force on that finger.
A light, foggy, almost imperceptible tingling made its way through my arm, to the appendage.
Huh. I forgot about chakra.
I forgot all about trying to control my muscles after that. I had a new toy to play with. When I focused, I realized that I could follow the tingling across my body, trace it to my heart. I couldn't control it much, but sensing it was definitely new. The feeling was fuzzy, and I couldn't pin it down in exact locations in my body. I spent my time trying to move it around, get more of a feel for it.
Around two and a half weeks into my new life, something became worth noticing in my surroundings. Well, more like it made itself known to everything in a 10-mile radius. I was startled awake. My room was suffocating, filled with a gas that overwhelmed my senses. My whole being screamed, "Turn around! there's something behind you!" but 'behind you' was in every direction, and it wasn't like I could turn around that well anyway.
Inoichi slammed the door of my room open, his hand holding his wife's. We were out of the compound before I even noticed. Without hesitation, Inoichi carried both me and her, booking it toward what I guessed was the bunker in the side of the mountain. He scaled it, dropped us off, and immediately body flickered from the area.
The mother, Mio, seemed distracted, with me cradled in her arms. I could feel her heart rate pound, even if I could only hear my own. It was only after a minute or two that she finally directed her gaze at me. My face was stuck in an image of shock. I didn't cry, I just laid frozen in place. I could see worry and panic form on her, but I couldn't bring myself to care. The nine-tailed fox was here. And now, I had no doubt I wouldn't be able to forget being exposed to its chakra.
It was less excruciatingly violating in the safe room, and I had only been exposed to it directly for a few minutes, so I was able to gradually calm myself. Mio was still staring at me, so I schooled my expression. She seemed to accept this enough to direct her concentration elsewhere.
At this distance, I could compare the demon fox's chakra to my own. In both cases, there was a foggy feeling of presence. That was where the similarities ended. Without consciously doing so, I felt around myself for more of that signature sense of presence.
I hadn't noticed before, but Mio's chakra came to my attention. It was far more like mine than the demon fox's, and there was more of it. It was still easier to focus on mine, and I assumed I could only really detect it in the first place because I was so close to her. I couldn't detect anyone else's chakra in the room after all.
That was the event that led to my increased chakra awareness. After that, things went slowly.
It was around my second year that things started to get interesting again.
I picked up Japanese well enough. It was always easier to understand, than to speak it myself, though. I would frequently struggle to grasp at the word I wanted, so it became second nature to make mnemonics for any new words I learned. The words were usually a just a line of consonant-vowel syllables, which made them much easier to learn than they would have been otherwise. The new sentence structure was another thing to get used to. It took me a while to get into the habit of using it rather than the English structure. Luckily, pronunciation wasn't much of an issue, as I'd always been good at that in my old life.
Sometimes I looked in the mirror and was startled at the reflection of a toddler that also seemed startled.
I had previously thought that Ino's pupiless eyes were more of a stylistic choice, but given that I genuinely didn't seem to have any in this life, it left me with some questions, such as, How can I even see?, and, Are we related to the Hyuuga clan by any chance? Of course, we probably were, we were all ninja wizards after all, and our clan had a blood limit. I think. Or it might have just been a technique. I wasn't sure, but in any case, we were probably related to those flying, Japanese speaking, albino aliens because of the whole chakra thing. That brought up even more questions, so I resolved to worry later about why the aliens looked human, spoke in an existing human language, wore kimonos, and were able to have offspring with humans. I hoped it would make more sense in this world, because I needed an explanation, I would not let the universe get away with something this absurd, especially if I was going to live in it.
Anyway, I finally had some level of freedom and tried to take advantage of it as soon as I could. Children were left to their own devices as soon as they could run and string five words together at a time. Me and my six words easily blew the competition out of the water.
I left our home and darted through the Yamanaka complex. Various shades of light hair blurred past my curious eyes. My chakra sense had developed with me, and I could detect other people with varying levels of success. It was most similar to the sense of smell. The strength depended on the person and their proximity, and it emanated off them in varying degrees. I could even slightly detect differences, and just like with a scent, sensing it once made it easily recognizable later.
Our clan was smellier than the general populace, for lack of a better word. There was also a sort of theme going on, between a lot of the scents, that separated us from other shinobi. It was interesting to see that this aspect of chakra was so genetic. I only managed to pick up this up from being in the Yamanaka complex for so long. That was what made me realize that mine smelled off.
I couldn't pin down how exactly, and I only really noticed it because it was my chakra I was dealing with. There was still the Yamanaka theme, but if I inspected more closely, there was a twinge of something else. My chakra wasn't detectable in the same way as I could sense others'. I could feel it, more than 'smell' it, even though there still was a 'scent'. This distinction prevented mine from interfering with the recognition of foreign chakra. I supposed it would be harder to smell yourself than others, though, because you'd be used to your own scent, and generally ignore it.
But I could still smell it. The variation I was detecting was probably just from the normal amount of variation found in genes. One or both of my parents might not have been fully Yamanaka. The slight variation must have been a recessive trait that was expressed in me, but not my parents. After all, there were still differences among family members.
My family ran a flower shop, that my parents would sometimes take me to. Clan logos - sorry, symbols - were a mark of pride on shinobi. Many clans had them emblazoned on their clothes. We were not one of those clans. Probably because our symbol looked like an umbrella inside of a circle to emphasize it. After all, it was important to let civilians know we would protect Konoha from the rain.
The umbrella looked much more at home painted in the flower shop though. My parents took me to the shop sometimes, probably getting me used to the atmosphere, so they could indoctrinate me into the family business later on. They were already teaching me the meaning and difference behind whatever random flora they happened to be selling that week. I willfully got all their flower based questions wrong when reviewed. After all, I didn't want to give them the wrong idea- that I would wanna spend my time selling flowers rather than doing literally anything else.
Yeah, it was a bit selfish of me, but come on. My father was a jonin, we really didn't need the extra money. After all, when I became genin, I'd be making income too. And then there would be the chunin exams pretty early on, which I would make sure to pass, and I'd make even more from missions.
…Oh yeah, the *Plot*. Dang. I was gonna have to do something about that, wasn't I? Crap. I didn't really want to be a ninja, but the ninja magic was too shiny for me to pass up. And the only way I'd get my hands on more would be to basically hop into a flaming volcano.
Hmm. Yeah, I was gonna have to actually confront it. I'd been deliberately ignoring it, because that was how I normally dealt with causes of stress, but I'd have to stop being a squishy baby, or I'd end up dead. I was the Yamanaka heiress, I doubted I had a choice in becoming a shinobi. Or… I could escape responsibility by escaping the Plot. Naruto saves the day in the end after all, right?
I didn't like the feeling of guilt that came after that thought. I could save more lives, I knew some plot points, even if I was fuzzy on the later ones. Oddly enough, the memories of my past life weren't fading, so I could still prepare against certain things. And if nothing else, I still had a sense of self preservation.
I didn't want to get too attached to anyone lest they die. It would really suck if people that lived through the original plot ended up dying from my interference. The stress that came with responsibility sucked, and it was doubly so if it was actual human lives. That was the reason I decided to never become a doctor in my past life.
Maybe I was the chosen one. Maybe that's why I got dumped into this world without warning. Maybe I'd even discover some convenient care package in the future. But, if I were whoever it was that had the bright idea of chucking in some rando into the Plot, then I would have done my research about them first. I was not a hard worker. Despite being two years old, I did not have *The Fire of Youth*. I did dedicate all my time and effort to things I found interesting, but the second it stopped interesting me, I wouldn't bat an eyelash before dropping it in favor of something else.
Fear could drive me, but it would break me before I broke it. I had too much experience with that. I was not about to trap myself in that particular hellhole again. Alright. I would not stress myself out overthinking this. I would learn how to read, then research jutsu and whatever else I could get my hands on in the clan library. Then I'll deal with the flaming pile of crap that awaits me.