Hey! Quick AN my email is flooded with people favouring and following this story and me, and honestly my entire emotional being is *confused partying.* Idk why there's been a flood of new people reading (I changed the name and summary and also joined a fanfiction discord?) But honestly this has been a massive boost to my happiness ? thank you all so much ❤️
The street was swamped with people, but she had no problem weaving through the crowd. At a stunning 2 and a half years old, Oniyuri should still be hanging off the back of her mother. Instead, she carefully inspected marbles and smooth sea glass - an adorable reflection of the adults further down the street where food is sold. It's fun to skip around the stalls like this, an adult pretending to be a child pretending to be an adult. Often she sees the stall owners watching her like a hawk, but she's yet to determine if it's because they're wary of light hands or the lack of parental view.
She asks the pwice of thith item, pwease, waving a bright aqua sea glass, the inner colour almost glowing from the wave's treatment and the sun hitting it just right. The owner chuckles and lets her have it for a hundred yen. The older woman must have an eye of fabric quality because while her yukata isn't ragged, it doesn't shout money from five metres away.
Oniyuri carried onto the next stall, spotting Konoha's signature dish, vivid red toffee apples, lining the front rows. She's already had one, the first day in the Leaf Village, and while it's a flashback to another life, she doesn't pursue it anymore. And anyway, they preferred to use green apples instead of red. Toffee apples aren't the same if its Granny Apples.
She slipped the sea glass into her small handbag, feeling around for her other pieces of loot; a whistle in the shape of a monkey, a marble the size of her fist with a little mysterious spark inside, a small painting of the Hokage mountain neatly folded, a dark brown and ocean blue friendship bracelet, and finally the rest of her money. Most of the omiyage she'll give to other children of other villages, something to interest them so they won't notice she's not really a child. It's a tactic she's long developed.
The stalls are numerous but the stock begins to repeat itself soon enough. Now that the bright colours weren't so inviting, Oniyuri spread her gaze beyond the busy street. The mountain is the first thing that her eyes catch on, much like when Hanabi first stepped into Konoha, Oniyuri peaking over her shoulder. The faces fade in and out of focus as they moved across the city, and the omiyage street she's on is far enough that the edges of the eyes blend in with the cheeks.
Next is the Hokage Tower. It's by far the tallest and situated by the first Hokage's face. The gigantic fiery red sign on the top is like a small sun no matter where in the village. Closer, and the fire kanji steps out from the red, it's black ink not as noticeable. The tower is an impressive structure, the base massive and each level progressively shrinking until it's just a small spike, barely taller than the mountain itself. There's a multitude of balconies, windows and ledges littering the surface, making it interestingly unique. Its main colour is creamy white, the windows tinted black.
Every other building followed the creamy white brick structure, brown ceramic tiles topping every building. Apartment blocks rise to about an average of three stories, single-family residential areas all one story. There are a few four and five-story buildings, but other than that, there's nothing to challenge the Hokage Tower's superiority.
Yet despite the obvious psychological tactic, Oniyuri isn't afraid.
She follows a boy and his older sister, seeing the way he's pulling on her arm and she's faithfully following. True to her suspicions, the two of them lead her to a children's park, possibly one of the biggest she's seen. There are two seesaws, three sand pits (all about the size of 8-mat tatami rooms), one gigantic, three-story construction, featuring several slides, funky fireman poles, tunnels and even an attached spiders web. Needless to say, Oniyuri found herself on the third story in five seconds.
When she's done weaving through the children, exploring every story and feature, she turns her sight outwards again. She sees a swing set, which, to her surprise, has an empty seat. The children around her are screaming, shouting about unintelligible topics in whiny voices. Do they not know that swings are the best thing? She thinks to herself as she slips down a slide to the second story, finding a simple straight fireman's pole to slide down to the ground. With a little physical energy in her muscles, she dashes just a touch too fast for a two-year-old and jumps into the swing without a second thought.
It takes her a while to find a rhythm to get going, and she focuses on swinging higher and higher until she can see over the top of the bar. Then, Konoha fades from her mind; she stops thinking about her legs, stops watching the chaos of so many kids before her, and starts to view the world beyond the brown-white rocks that curved around Konoha's central body.
The first thing that sprung to mind was Ajisai. Yesterday, when they were travelling to Konoha, Oniyuri kept an eye on Asagao and her luggage. Travelling wasn't the most riveting pastime, and like Ajisai, Oniyuri passed out several times.
Oniyuri was lucky enough to bag a room next to Ajisai and Asagao, and Hanabi had asked if they wouldn't mind looking after Oniyuri for breakfast as she had a class nearly every morning.
Hanabi had been doing that recently, she mused, I wonder what her class is.
Nevertheless, Oniyuri had bagged a perfect time and excuse to watch Asagao's actions. And from this morning… it was pretty damning.
It wasn't like she was spoon feeding Ajisai, no, it was more subtle. She asked Ajisai how he was. She asked what was his plans for today. When told that he had nothing beyond practising the clan technique, Asagao beamed and verbally produced a schedule for him. There weren't many official classes, most of the activities that Asagao produced could be done between Asagao and Ajisai in their room. When Asagao got up to clear the table, Oniyuri quickly leaned over and lightly touched Ajisai's hand.
I get what you mean. You're not delusional she said, and it seemed to be the words that he was looking for.
But she couldn't do anything today, and probably couldn't do anything for a while. After she took her leave she left the private hotel the Suiei clan had rented for the wild streets of Konoha. Yesterday evening Hanabi told her that the city was safe enough to allow Oniyuri to wonder the streets by herself. The Suiei clan always had the local ninjas keeping an eye on them, both for village security and for the safety of a major economic source, but for most villages, Kiku always required for under ten-year-olds to be accompanied, under five with adults. It said a lot about Konoha that she allowed Oniyuri to go by herself.
Perhaps that's why she wasn't intimidated by the Hokage Tower; Mizu also utilised an almost identical tactic, but their tower was a black spike rising above the morning fog. Mizu felt like a dystopian world - Konoha felt like a city.
"How do you do that?!"
It took her a second to realise the voice was directed to her, and that it came from the swing beside her. She slowed down her movement, allowing the swing to lose momentum. The boy was slightly older than her, with the brightest blond hair. It, along with his clothes, was scruffy and dirty. Not quite the poverty dirty, but not the basic, 'I was playing in the sandpit' level either.
"I tried to copy your leg thing!" He continued when Oniyuri failed to do anything but stare at him. The boy tried to show his attempts but straight away Oniyuri could see that he was doing it wrong; his legs snapped out too late to do anything but jostle the swing.
"Oh no, you're supposed to bring your legs out as soon as you begin to descend." She brings her legs back into movement, her moment immediately picking back up. The boy hopped to it, determined, and a little bit of his tongue poking out of his mouth as he tried to copy Oniyuri's movement. While he did bring his legs forward slightly earlier than before, it was still too late.
"Here, I'll push you," she slipped off the swing when it slowed down enough for her to jump off safely, planting herself behind the boy's back. When the swing pulled back to meet her hands, she shouted: "Legs forward now!"
It took a few minutes, one more demonstration from Oniyuri, but now the boy was soaring higher and higher, a bright gleeful grin growing wider as his highest position was threatening the support bar's superiority. She smiled at his joy, slightly wondering why a boy his age had no idea how to use swings.
"What's your name?" She called, sliding into the second swing (suspicious that nobody had claimed it while it was vacant… maybe swings weren't popular here?). "I'm Oniyuri, like the flower."
"I'm Uzumaki Naruto!" He grinned so wide that his blue eyes vanished. "I don't know what my name is like!"
"A whirlpool perhaps? That would be really cool, it matches your last name. Everyone in my clan is named after something floral."
"That's wicked! I wish I was apart of a clan."
"There's a lot of Uzumakis in Water and Eastern Fire. Maybe there is?"
Naruto's eyes positively sparkled.
"You're so cool! And knowledgeable! Have you been outside of Konoha?"
Naruto found the concept of the Suiei clan 'incredibly cool' and their perpetual state of travelling 'amazingly awesome.' It was fun to describe the many cities and towns Oniyuri had been through, and it took so long that the sun was barely peeking over the surrounding forest canopy.
"Ahh," the sun had transformed from the soft afternoon light to a harsher, brighter red ball in the sky - like the sun was forcing its last breath out in one big shout. The two of them still were on the swings, Naruto going strong while Oniyuri had stopped a while back. "Sorry Naruto, but I have to go now. It was nice to meet you, maybe we can meet up tomorrow?"
The scruffy boy grinned, eyes disappearing once more. "I'd LOVE that! Is here ok?" Oniyuri smiled and nodded, waving the bright boy goodbye. He waved with his whole body, she found out, legs finally pausing from swinging to allow Naruto to jostle the swing with how hard he waved.
She made it back to the hotel in time, the sun vanished but the sky a smattering of pink, purple and blue. Hanabi was in their room, calmly reading a medium-sized book with a cup of green tea beside her. In one hand she had a toffee apple, half eaten.
"How was today? You were out for a long time."
"Made a local friend," Oniyuri answered, sifting through her belongings to prepare for a shower. "He seems fun, so I'll be out for the next few days. I'll still attend my classes though."
"Alright then," Hanabi gave Oniyuri a smile "have fun!"
Naruto was energetic and immensely enjoyed showing Oniyuri around town. He knew Konoha like the back of his hand, despite his age; sometimes a thirty-minute walk could be cut into half because Naruto would show Oniyuri the less crowded, more direct streets. One time they travelled across the entirety of Konoha in a time span which should've been impossible.
There was a decent amount of activities two children could do together. Naruto loved to run around in the empty fields that squatted around the west gate, and they often played tag there. They had convened at the swings they met at and were well on their way to the west gate, Naruto bouncing in excitement.
He was always like that, all limbs in a perpetual state of motion, notifying her for anything novel, chattering about everything. Sly comments about shop keepers, mundane tales of him and his chaotic friends, talking about school subjects -
"I don't know why, but all my teachers won't sign my library permission slip." he sighed, apparently reminded as they passed one of the few three-story buildings in Konoha, complete with the standard embellishment for a library. "They yell at me for not being able to do the work, but how can I do it without the books?"
Oniyuri gave it a thought, but probably not focusing on what Naruto was hung up about. Naruto was a stunning age of five - education should be an easy skin-level annoyance. Why was tuition so critical?
"What do you do at school?" she asked. Naruto paused in his riveting discussion why the owner of the omiyage shop they passed three minutes ago definitely deserved to have a cheating wife.
"Oh!" His face, while usually was bright, cracked into a smile so wide and toothy and full of euphoria. "I'm gonna be a NINJA! I'm gonna be SO cool 'n' powerful! I'm gonna be Hokage, the most powerful ninja in the village!" Oniyuri grinned at the outburst. Naruto took great pride in his chosen career and was putting his utmost effort into his studies as a result.
"I too want to be a ninja," she admitted, voice almost a whisper right after his shout "there's something magical about them, right?"
"YEAH!" Naruto was almost vibrating now "Chakra is so cool and that jounin example last week was so cool and Ojiisan is SO COOL AND NINJAS ARE SOOOOOO COOL!"
She was about to let the older boy nutter on about ninjas when a familiar scent entered the passing breeze. Catching Naruto on his sleeve, she leads him over to a small public botanical garden. The grass was luscious, the tree's leaves bordering the edge were an impressionist painting and - most importantly - the flowers were in full bloom.
"Wha-"
"Here, look, it's me." She gingerly brushed her fingers under the curled orange petal, thumb brushing over the black spots reverently.
"Huh?"
"It's a tiger lily." Her foot tapped the plaque, 鬼百合 carved deeply into a white-speckled granite rock. Naruto's hand touched one of the flowers with the utmost care as if the damage done to it would be done on her. The thought made her giggle. "Here, I'll introduce you to the clan. Sunflower is the library boy…"
Once Naruto had a little introduction to all clan members, Oniyuri turned to the next distraction. A smell wafted over to where they were in the garden; it was delicious and oil-flavoured at the same time. Her stomach applauded the combination.
"Want to get something to eat?" She asked Naruto, looking around to try and spot the source.
"That's the food stands over there," his hand waved slightly right of where Oniyuri was facing. His hand rested on his stomach and he winced. "...I dun need to eat though."
She gave Naruto a look - he must be hungry, they had been out together for hours and it was the perfect time for lunch. Maybe he had no money on him?
Oniyuri wandered through the stalls momentarily but didn't linger on choice for long, seeing as Naruto was back in the garden. She bought two anpan buns, the inside of the fluffy white bread filled with red bean paste.
Naruto was back over where the tiger lilies grew, a furious orange under overhanging pastel wisteria. He was staring up at the flowers with wonder.
"Naruto!" She called, holding out the second bun. As soon as his eyes caught on her present, his stomach rumbled with a mighty roar. He took the anpan bread, eyes avoiding Oniyuri's. "You like flowers now?" She teased.
"Yeah, I neva been in a flower garden. It's awesome!" She turned to reach for the lowest branch of the wisteria, inspecting the tiny flowers. Around her, she could hear the buzz of insects happily enjoying life.
The two of them sat underneath the tiger lilies, slowly eating away at the anpan bun as Oniyuri did or annihilating it in Naruto's case, enjoying the shade thrown by the trees lining the garden wall. The blonde didn't seem to mind waiting for Oniyuri to finish, immediately lying back onto the rich grass, hands behind his head.
Like the previous sessions in which Oniyuri was allowed to observe Naruto, her eyes dropped from the tiger lily peeking over the bed edge to the gaunt boy beside her.
He's too thin… A voice grumbled inside her, hyper-focusing on his thin wrists. He's almost six, and he's far too thin!
Shut up obaachan she snapped back, but one of her fingers hovered over his cheeks. Thin thin thin too thin. The lines on his marks - they looked like tattoos and a smear of dirt - did nothing to hide his lack of baby cheeks.
She needed another opinion. Hanabi could handle another mouth at the table, right?
"Naruto," she said "I have to drop by my hotel for a moment. Come with me?" Naruto, naive Naruto, followed her without complaint.
Now he was firmly seated beside Oniyuri as Hanabi prepared dinner. She was personally enjoying the warm cup of milk, watching Hanabi swiftly seat Naruto at the table. She calmly parried any excuse he drew upon. The boy finally sank into the pillow opposite Oniyuri with an indescribable face.
"What's for dinner?" She asked, watching Hanabi duck into the kitchen.
"Just rice and some vegetables." just as she disappeared from view, Naruto (lightly) slapped his hands on the table, leaning over the wooden object to shove his face into Oniyuri's.
"I didn't know you had a mum! She wasn't in the garden!"
Oniyuri took a sip of her milk. "Of course not, her name is Hanabi. Fireworks are a little rare in a garden. Do you want anything to drink? We have water and milk."
Naruto sat back into his pillow, crossing his arms. "Water please." He grumbled.
When Oniyuri joined Hanabi in the kitchen, the knife in the older lady's hand paused.
"He's too skinny. Too skinny." Oniyuri murmured, slipping the clay cup under the tap.
"I know starvation, Oniyuri. I think you know of the situation before the French Revolution of the 1700s, no? Well, I didn't get to see that - I had to hear about it from another clan member." Oniyuri set the cup down and went over to hug Hanabi's leg. It was always a little touchy to talk about your past life - some people had a decent life. Just as many didn't. "I know starvation, and that boy is hanging by mere scraps."
"I'll look out for him." She promised, lifting up the cup once more. Naruto was exactly where she left him, leg bouncing furiously as he looked around the room.
"Thank you," he took the cup and threw it back in one swallow. For a second, his skinny, awfully bony wrists extend from the oversized jumper.
God, someone's gotta help this kid.
Oniyuri picked the cup back up and smiled at Naruto.
"Thirsty, huh? I'll get you another cup."
A/N: just so you know, they are talking in Japanese. So when Oniyuri says sunflower shes actually saying himawari. When she says tiger lily, she's saying oniyuri. It's just so you the reader get to know the translations.