I love the internet for supplying my research with free, widely available information. Otherwise I'd have no idea what I'm doing. Apologies for all the grammar mistakes I haven't caught, and potential poor quality. This chapter leaves a lot be desired. Might come back in a few days to add some other changes.

Aside from that, this fanfic caught a lot more attention than I had expected. Not that that's a bad thing. Thanks for reading, you guys. And to those of you reviewing, thanks for taking the time to do that, too.

Chapter 2: Descend


A posse ad esse.

Latin to English:

From possibility to actuality.


It's early March in Konoha with birds chirping loudly outside, the trees no longer bare but instead bursting with green leaves, and morning breakfast as plain as ever.

Today is a little break from the normal routine; children are being approached throughout the day as for what their dreams, rather, career aspirations, are. It does make sense - they would want to get rough estimates for what they could expect out of the orphans, right? I'll just say "wanna be a shinobi" and get it over with.

"I want to be a shinobi", I quickly learn, is a very common answer. Not too common, as there are several who still aspire to other professions, but common enough. Propaganda this young, huh? Or maybe it's the whole "the Hokage came to visit us orphans". Regardless, my answer won't stick out among this crowd, which is… good. Yeah. I think it is.

"I wanna be a shinobi," I say. The man nods, writes it down, and moves on to the next person, quickly gathering answers.

There's an audible gasp from the person sitting next to me - some guy, dunno who - and I ignore it. Hope he's not choking on his rice, if he ends up vomiting over me I'm going to punch him. Hard.

"You can't be a shinobi." He instead whispers, loudly. It draws my attention, and I'm sure some other people are curious about this approaching conversation as well.

I stop all other thoughts of irrelevant topics like boring to-be lessons restarting, my chopsticks still in the air about to dig into my meal. "What?" I ask. Because, what.

"You can't be a shinobi," he repeats. "Look at you. You're so skinny! You're gonna fall over!" I stare at this… this, this kid. I don't recall his name. A quick glance (dark navy eyes, seaweed green hair, male, approximately 4 or 5 years NOW t old) reminds me of nothing other than the obvious of him being a fellow orphan and sitting next to me for breakfast. So who the fuck are you to care?

"Who are you again?" I ask. It's rude, I know, but I can't be bothered to remember most of who these people are. They don't matter to me, and none of them bother talking to me, so I see no resourcefulness in knowing them.

Not when I still have the occasional headaches, prolonged stress can't be good for the brain, on top of all the pain I'm already suppressing, not healthy is it I don't know too much on neurology I took an introductory class in high school for a year and that's basically all I know but I know stress it's bad bad bad for brain cells-

"See? You don't know who I am! How are you going to know your mission?" He says. He's smug about it, I can tell. I continue staring, giving him nothing to use against me other than my silence.

Seriously. I don't care about who you are. Nobody does. Knock it off.

I say nothing as I go back to focusing on my meal. It's a small bowl of white rice with a raw egg mixed in. A smaller bowl of miso soup. A small cup of water. Barely could be counted as a morning meal outside of Japan. I bite my lip.

...I need more food.

Since I've been working out a lot, I've been burning through calories like it's nothing. Recently however, I've noticed that I slimmed down a lot - too much, even. I barely have any baby fat left. This guy isn't wrong about that skinny part.

I need more food. More food means more calories which means more energy for my body, and I seriously need that energy if I want to keep up training.

Carbohydrates, protein, and fats - the three macro nutrients for the body. I want to go for carbs since they're the body's preferred source of energy, and protein maintains the musculoskeletal system. I also need more water and electrolytes, since I'm losing a lot of it in the form of sweat.

For the first time, likely ever, I need more sodium and more sugar. Naomi's diet, even in her time in service, always had a little too much sodium and/or sugar. Meanwhile, Hitori's diet has too little for my lifestyle. And if something isn't done about that, I'll get hyponatremia from sodium-deficiency and hypoglycemia from low blood sugar will eventually kill or hospitalize me. Neither of which I want.

Long story short: Exercise burns through a lot.

Aim: Get more calories and nutrients.

How do I even remember all this stuff? The last time I needed this was when I was 18 taking Nutritional Science and trying to figure out how to manage a decent meal, unless it was when I was in the ROTC program…

Irrelevant Conclusion: Memories are weird.

"-ri? Hey! HEY!"

"Ta Gueule." (French: Shut up.) I frown at the boy.

"...Hmph. Since you're not going to be a shinobi and I am, you should know my name." He grins, arrogant, not understanding my French and not caring. "I'm Shinchou, and you better know me." The boy jabs his thumb at himself, smiling wide.

I force a yawn. "Mhm." I'm not tired, not really. It's just easy to feel tired.

I might actually be tired. Not sure. Does lucid dreaming have negative effects on your body by not allowing your brain to properly enter a status of unconsciousness? Can't say I know with how bad Naomi's sleep schedule was. No, when you awaken you don't normally remember your dreams, it's the memory part I should be worried about…

"You're just a baby," Shinchou taunts. "You can't be a shinobi."

I sigh. He sounds like a kid.

He is a kid.

I have years of experience on me, getting mad at a kid is stupid.

Yeah… But… If he's going to be this annoying, might as well make him feel as uncomfortable about it as possible.

(For the next half hour NOW t, I stare into Shinchou head while slowly eating my rice, visibly making him uncomfortable as he fidgeted in his seat, sweating nervously. The only times I break my gaze are when I switch over from rice to miso soup, then to grab the water. And to go put away my dishes for the older kids to clean up.)

I leave for the classes 5 minutes NOW t ahead of my schedule, waiting outside the door. A sudden thought comes over me.

Wait, isn't Shinchou the guy who had a problem with me when it was raining?

...I think so.


I finish lunch virtually alone in the corner of the room by the wall and head out for the library, deliberately making sure I sat far, far away from Shinchou.

His name sounds stupid. Shin and Chou both have several meanings, but if his name translates to something along the lines of "gentleman" (by taking Shin from Shinshi) and "super" or "very" (from Chou)... his name is wrong.


I can not for the life of me figure out what flowers those were.

They came to me 2 weeks ago via an assistant librarian, and in my confused frustration, I had tossed them into the forest a few trees away from where I trained. They seemed to be from a shrub, and from what I understood not native to Konoha nor did it have the potential to be an invasive species either, so leaving it to wilt outdoors or get eaten by some animal should be fine. I didn't pay much attention to it other than for the white almost rose-like petals and strong scent. Unfortunately, I'm not a fan of flowers or being interrogated by other people as to where the flowers were from, so going without the flower to the orphanage was the best choice for me.

I should've paid more attention. Maybe then I'd figure what was meant behind those damned flowers. There's no point in trying to figure out who they're from, if a person wants to stay anonymous in a shinobi village they're staying fucking anonymous.

The book on the meaning behind flowers isn't in the public access section (there is one book for public but it's very vague). The one I want is in the Academy section. I'm not sure why there's not one in the public access section, and I don't exactly want to ask.

Even then, I'm not sure if the Academy section one is all that detailed. Besides, I'm not an Academy student, and I don't know how to use or maintain a henge of an Academy student.

Dammit.


I train today in the forest. Let's just say I fell and had trouble getting back up.

("I've fallen and I can't get up!" Heh.)

I had difficulty breathing for a bit after I finished my run. Physical exercise can trigger asthma attacks. Dammit, all I need is a professional to diagnose me-


I think that I saw another ANBU today, this time hiding not so subtly on the rooftop of the orphanage.

It's bothering me. Partly because I have reason to believe that I, or someone else at the orphanage, or multiple people are being watched and I thus can't continue my outdoor training as a privacy risk, and partly due to the fact that the ANBU is terrible at hiding which is a potential threat to the internal security of Konoha. Are all shinobi like this? Is this one just being extremely obvious on purpose?

It could just be that I'm good at finding. Enough time in the military train you to be good at that, especially if you're a sniper or some other long-distance range type (like Naomi, a pilot), even if it's peace time. One of those many "just in case" measures. You'll find there are several just in case measures.

Would the ANBU use a genjutsu at least to hide themselves? Or maybe that attracts too much attention to chakra sensors. I dunno because everything I fucking want isn't in public access-

Look, there's a good hiding spot by that corner of the rooftop, and judging by the angle you can probably look out without getting seen. No, you'll have trouble leaving if you get found… in that case, hiding just above the pillar is good- wait, but you're a shinobi. You can just, um, what do they call it, substitute yourself out of traps. That corner is good!

Unless you can't substitute yourself. I heard it's one of the three basic Academy jutsus though. ANBU person should be able to do that.

Pursing my lips, I sigh and retreat indoors. ANBU's problems aren't my problems. Besides, hearing the shrill screams of children outdoors makes me want to smash my head in. I allow my mind to wander as I block out reality, unconsciously making my way over to the showers.

...I should figure out how to do the stuff on my list soon, huh.


I dry myself as I continue thinking about how to meet my current major goals.

I can make contact with Naruto if I can just figure out where he is. Does he have parents? It's mentioned that he's an orphan, so I guess not. Is he in the orphanage? I dunno. If he is, is there more than one orphanage in Konoha? I think there is, it just wouldn't make sense for there to be just one. Is he being taken care of by someone else? Dunno. I need to figure this stuff out, and as quickly as possible.

I'll set a deadline. Deadlines are good at making me get things done. By the end of July, figure out how Naruto is faring. If good, then avoid him up until… Academy days. Since he's going to be there and it'll be impossible to completely avoid him then. Don't want to end up as suspicious if everyone else hates him and I come along with a request for friendship, so pretending I'm overall neutral about him will be more favorable for now. Might get to know him more later. In school of course.

I'm pretty sure there's some chakra beast hiding in him, and personally I don't plan on getting murdered by said beast (I don't even know what this so called chakra beast is, but I remember something about tails if that helps… it doesn't help), so I'm going to try to stay the fuck away from the emotionally unstable/unreliable part of his childhood/early years leading up until he's about 6.

If he's not good, I'm… alright, I don't have anything planned out for if he's not good, but I'm sure I can bring it up to someone who isn't an asshole and let them take care of it. Like an ANBU? Do ANBU step in if children are getting beat up? Shit, if they all hate him probably not… Fuck.

I don't wanna talk to the Hokage and civilians, from what I recall, hate him. Wait, but they'll all be incentivized to ignore him, right? Treat him like a disease. Fear him, but won't physically lash out against him, especially not with the chakra beast thing inside him. Chances are he's doing fine.

Still should check up on him, just in case. Then ignore him to focus on myself.

Uchiha Massacre. It relies solely on the fact that I somehow get involved with the Uchiha. I have yet to meet a Uchiha, anywhere.

None of them seem to go to the library - which is totally fair, clans all should have a private library, private training grounds, private… private a lot of things. Which is good for them, and bad for me. I'm not an Academy student either, so I can't interact any Uchiha from there. No Uchihas are orphans in the public orphanage(s?), thus have no reason to be hanging around this orphanage. Uchihas have the Military Police gig they run, meaning they probably aren't really ANBU.

I don't intend to get in trouble a lot to meet a Uchiha from the Military Police, so that's down.

I'll… put that off. For now. I may have a higher chance of meeting a Uchiha if I break away from my typical schedule, but that could warrant unwanted attention. And me getting lost in Konoha. Konoha is big through the eyes of a 3 year old.

It's fine, I have time. Until Sasuke is around 8 years old. I think it's 8 years old- shit, what if it's 6 years old? Augh. I'm not too sure. I'll still say 8 years old, just because it's buy me more time hopefully, and sounds a bit more accurate than 8 years old. I'm not sure when that will be. I still don't really know how old Naruto is because I've yet to find anyone willing to openly discuss the incident with the chakra monster or whatever to children, and I dunno if Sasuke is older than Naruto. Heck, I don't even know whether or not Orochimaru has left the village yet.

There's a lot of stuff I do know that's not entirely relevant to the storyline, but kinda relevant to the characters? Like some first names and a general idea of their clans/backgrounds. And some information regarding Naruto prior time skip.

To reiterate, I really don't know much. Plus the whole "everything I know about Shippuden part of Naruto is pretty much limited to something about a war, Uchiha Madara, and some rabbit goddess tree of life bullcrap". So y'know. I'm going to end up doing things my way. And figuring it out my way. Without fucking up too much for everyone else.

Is any of this information reliable? I hope so. If I get hung up on one detail only to find out it's wrong, I'll have wasted time and energy.

…Why am I even trying? It's not like I really care about these people. But then I'll end up feeling like shit cuz I did nothing when I could've done something… But I don't care…

Yeah, I guess I'm going to be doing this thing halfheartedly. Fuck me, I feel bad now. Guess part of me doesn't want to care but I do anyways.

Damn emotions. Child hormones. Ugh. These wouldn't exist if I had chosen to work in finance instead. People in finance are brutal as fuck, I swear they don't have morals at all.

I comb my wet hair (it's a bit on the long side, reaching around my mid-abdomen, I should get a haircut soon, and it's brown unnatural I hate hate hate it), thinking of other things.

Next point now. Academy. I'm not planning on joining the Academy until the important/relevant to canon characters do, or until after they're already in the Academy and I'll catch up to them. I don't remember what they're called collectively, just that it was a class full of clan heirs. By the time I'm… 6? Around 6, I'll enter the Academy. If 6 is the standard age for entering the Academy. It's probably around 6. I'm hoping it's 6.

I have a little under 3 years to get into the Academy and then I can begin actually learning chakra outside of personal trial runs. Before I graduate the Academy, as a small side-quest, I might want to set up a lab for testing. With chakra. On my three currently "favorite" organisms! Rats, fish, and plants.

Rats are good at reproducing quickly. Like, really good at it. My main problem with rats will most likely be population control. But that's good for me, because I have lots of mammal test subjects at hand.

Many fish are also reproduction machines. Not to mention how certain fish like goldfish (a hopefully easy to obtain fish) are tetraploids. That means they have more chromosomes than humans. This also means it's easy for them to mutate, so observing the process of evolution in regards to chakra in a short and efficient manner should be made more simple.

Plants, because plants are different from animals, and remarkably so with how they don't have anything even close to brains. They'll probably interact with chakra differently than animals or bacteria do. Information garnered from studying how plants react to chakra may be useful in my pursuit of understanding chakra.

I want to learn about chakra. The scientist in me wants information, reasoning. Chakra isn't necessarily energy, because you can't just use pure energy as fuel for fire (and what could be the fuel? If there's nothing but chakra and the oxygen in the surrounding air then what could be the fuel I still don't know), but it does retain some of the rules that energy follows.

Chakra is so… abstract. Chakra doesn't even seem to be able to be properly measured considering how flexible it is, and seeing how there's yet to be a unit of measurement for chakra.

How did humans come to be able to use chakra? Was it a mutation? An adaptation? Out of evolutionary necessity? What caused it? I want to know.

Cool. Nice. This will work itself out. The Academy thing, I mean. The chakra shit will work itself out too, but I'd say not for another few years. Not until I have a lab, and long after.

I wonder if Orochimaru started off like this too. Unless he's one of those insane people who just straight into human experimentation.

If that's the case, he would've loved World War II on the Axis Powers side. Germany and Japan sides of WWII were not nice (no human experimentation in Japan during WWII, at least not in the same way that Germany WWII was like… thinking about it already makes me want to puke. Nanking Massacre and Pacific POWs might've even been worse than the Holocaust and that's saying something). To be honest, I don't remember much about Italy to recall Italian crimes against humanity or whatnot.

I should stop thinking about war. But there's a war coming soon in this generation what are you going to do-

Nope nope nope. Take my used clothes with me, shove them in a bag, hand them off to the man over there, go eat dinner.


Some people from this orphanage are being moved out. Wonder why.

There are other orphans coming to replace them, though. Huh. Guess there is another orphanage around here. Noticed this since when I returned from my meal, some of the girls in my room were replaced. I hope they're not going to try to open my boxes, or worse, destroy them.


Mari, the lady in charge of this room, has begun story time today.

"Alright, since we all want to be shinobi-" She started. I zoned out right there, before my brain caught up.

When did everyone in this room want to become shinobi? I thought the girl bunking with me wanted to be a baker. She wouldn't shut up about it.

I glance at the girl next to me. She's new.

Realization flashes in me. Oh. So that's what all the new kids are for.

…Explains why this orphanage is so close to the Academy.


It's two weeks later and the classes I started in the orphanage meant for 5 year olds NOW t have been reset to the beginning of the curriculum. They never learned kanji.

…This is kinda sad.

These classes are stupid. I'm dropping them. I haven't learned much useful there. (Also, Choushin or what's his name is now in these classes, and I'd like to avoid people who despise me for whatever reason like the plague.)

I know over 2,000 kanji now, thanks a bunch library. The staff doesn't practice writing it with me anymore, but they let me read a bunch of the more advanced public-access books and have free paper for me to practice writing on my own anyways. Something I heard about Hitori being so cute and dedicated to books or some shit.

Am I actually a bookworm? Did my internet-addiction phase kick in and make me like this? Not that it really matters since this is rather convenient, but…

…So, uh, these classes are useless.

I've been in that class for months now. Since September last year, actually. Most of the kids in there ended up turning 6 and going to the Academy last week, where they learn kanji there, and new 5 year olds came to replace them.

I can no longer handle the boredom, and don't plan on playing house of all things with kids, and going to the library or the forest so early in the morning might be too suspicious, so I stay inside the shared bedroom.

Sometimes I'm meditating on my bed, looking out the window over my slightly crushed taped boxes (I haven't bothered to figure out who tried to mess with them and since nearly half my roommates have already been replaced I can't be bothered to care much), adding to my progress report notes which stay underneath or behind said boxes (not inside because if the boxes were opened enough for me to open them then the boxes would already be ripped to shreds by whoever has a bone to pick with me), and generally bored out of my mind.

When I think I'm in a safe position, I'll practice speaking a bit to myself (I already do it in lucid dreams whenever I get too bored with stuff like pretending to run around an empty track, but more actual practice doesn't hurt).

Chanting in Latin is always fun. It is. Sounds like I'm summoning something evil or whatever. Heh. It's funny.

Speaking Russian to myself, when I'm so used to speaking Japanese/Common now, makes my tongue feels weird. I have a slight accent I should fix.

English is familiar and I embrace it as it is. German is… German. French is French. There's still insignificant traces of a Konoha accent I want to eliminate with time, but otherwise it's mostly fine since they both share some similarities with English.

I mix up some words and phrases occasionally, sometimes due to the similarities between the three languages and the whole thing about being multilingual means you exchange one similar sounding word for another, or forget what one word means in another language, or sometimes there's no proper translation, and- look it's just kinda hard.

It's a bit concerning, hearing myself try to speak English and throwing in a diese instead of these or a "In actuel- shit no in English it's uhhh, uh, uh, it's in… in actual? FUCK what is it what does actuel mean in English again… is actuel French or German? I think it's French-"

I'm concerned. I have good reason to be concerned. It'd be funny if it wasn't concerning.

When I feel a bit more confident on certain days, I review science and math and history and all sorts of stuff aloud, quotes and people, time and places, stories from my travels around the world and from the internet. I'll get worried that I didn't write that shit down, then feel an urge to write it down, but I have no paper I can put inside my taped boxes so I'm left just scribbling the major points in whatever language I'm thinking at the time on the edges of the progress report sheets. Then I get depressed until I head for the library, where I may or may not be raiding their paper supply, but it's cheap paper and it's Konoha with big ass trees everywhere, I should be fine and the paper won't be missed.

I am abusing the relationships I have built with the civilian some-volunteers-turned-actual-librarians for my own personal benefit, and I don't feel bad about it. Not at all. I don't.

Okay, maybe a little. But I offer to help out sometimes! Like, with organizing books! It's not my fault all the books are already organized!

Eh. Headaches aren't a serious problem. If anything, I think they're gone for good now. I think.

(Working at NASA has fucked over most of my thoughts with certainty, because that one time a single omitted byte in code screwed us over by destroying a rocket back during the Cold War and cost us over half a billion in modern USD meant we all got it drilled into our heads unless we can predict the future or have checked over everything some hundred times then everything we do right is only a hopeful probability.)

…Not important, but I should expand my vocabulary.


There is this one time - approximately a week after I quit those crappy lessons - I saw a girl walking into the room holding scissors. Normally people don't enter this room during the morning between breakfast and lunch hours, but I stay here since I don't want to play with kids and every other kid that sleeps this room does.

I don't know what she was going to do and didn't care, so I just nodded in her direction as an acknowledgement of her presence and continued trying to recall what I remembered from "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

It was mostly me going something along the lines of "Lysander then falls in love with Hermia- was it Helena or Hermia? I think it was Hermia- and Demetrius is ready to duel him over this, so they kind of fight and this wouldn't be a problem if Robin or whatever his name was had just squeezed the flower juice into the right eye!"

And it took me a while to realize I was speaking in a blend of mostly Common/Japanese and English.

Just. Imagine walking into a room just planning on cutting or opening up something, scissor in hand, seeing this roommate of yours who never talks to anyone just spout off utter nonsense about people you don't know, and then ending said nonsense with something about squeezing something into an eye.

The cross between oh-shit-she's-crazy and what-the-actual-fuck-did-I-just-hear is nice on her face.

"Uh, you can just ignore me." I said.

She nods, slowly, and backs out of the room, closing the door.

...rude.


It's the first day of April, and nobody is approaching me. At all. Not even the staff here. They all seem to recoil from seeing me.

I heard someone call me a freak today. I guess that's why.

I'm not bothered by it. I do however want an explanation as to why I'm now branded a freak.

Eh. Whatever. I need to go to the library now. I've recently dropped physical training in favor of meditation in the forest or walking around because I find myself repeatedly collapsing and one time nearly fainted (I don't have enough energy to continue this, how do I get more calories? I need more food, how how how).


I have a feeling I should be panicking, since there is absolutely no way I can be showing perfect chakra control. But the leaves stick to my forehead, and whenever I try to exert what I believe to be chakra from my forehead it makes them stick even more and then I struggle with getting the leaves off my forehead.

This doesn't work with other parts of my body. The leaf still explodes.

I call bullshit. Ninja-magic is stupid.

…I hope this means I can move on to walking on water. I don't know where I can find enough water to walk on, and there aren't any bathtubs in the orphanage since they take up too much space and water. There is a major river in Konoha, but it's not anywhere close to the Orphanage.

I have a feeling there's supposed to be something else I'm supposed to do first, but I can't figure out what it is-

I may have to drop these chakra exercises. I think they're burning through my limited calories too.


Mid April. Today I've decided I'm going to stab- fine, I'm going to injure someone with a very pointy object.

One someone named Naruto Uzumaki, since he's apparently the asshole who found unfortunate little me sitting under the shade of a tree by the Academy with a library book and drenched me (luckily I was able to shield the book from the worst of the water; only the corner of the top cover is wet, and the ink isn't even stained, it's like magic. Or chakra).

Here's what happened:

I was kicked out of the library because one of the newer civilian volunteers there fucking hates orphans. Especially those born on October 10. (How anyone found out about my birthday and my orphanage status is beyond me, but I'm not going to look into it too much if the people here are going to remain unbothered about it.) Stupid, right? But she just hates them. I don't really get it, but sure.

Might be something her family has against "those child beggars living off our taxes ever since the Nine Tails" (her words, not mine). And she called me a demon, which I am relatively certain I am genetically a human, so. Uh. Maybe she needs to get her eyes checked.

The other people working or volunteering at the library just tried to calm her down, with one of them escorting me out to trying to put some distance between unreasonable newbie and me, and basically shoved a (new!) book into my hands telling me to come back tomorrow when the new bitch is gone.

At least there are people that care. I dunno what's her problem.

I'm supposed to spend more time in the library too, ever since I decided to drop nearly all my physical training until I can manage a way to get more nourishment. I don't think the staff there mind me sticking around longer hours, judging by last week.

But hey, I'm kicked out and have nowhere to be in mind. So I decided, you know what, it's kind of sunny today and I don't want to tan or risk sunburn (why else do you think I hide in the forest? Because shade, and even if this skin is an ugly Asian pale I'd rather it be more pale like Naomi had been than darkened tan or raw red). I sat under a tree in the shade near the library; namely the one by the Academy.

And there I was, sitting under a tree, minding my own business. Then a splash of water hits me and I'm just barely able to throw the book aside before the water reaches the paper, and I look up and blink, and there's laughter and-

"Is that an orange shirt?" I gape.

Yes, yes it is.

The boy - a shockingly young Naruto, by the looks of it - runs, laughing merrily, an empty bucket in his hand.

Now here I am, still soaked after staring into nothingness for a while, a book by my side.

...I know I said I wanted to check up on him, but not like this.

It's so strange, seeing a 2D character in 3D. Think cosplay, except, very, very detailed, and clean. (Naruto had some dirt in his hair though, so not precise on the clean bit.)

Nice to know that he's a troublemaker already. Guess he's doing alright. I wanna know if he's being treated well, though.

He ran by too fast for my child-eyes to recognize all the details, but… he has clothing. They seem a bit worn like mine, perhaps from playing outdoors a lot. Doesn't appear to be abnormally skinny, so I'd say being fed, relatively healthy. Looks about 3, or 4 years old, so I could be in the same age bracket as him, which I guess is good. He laughed, so he's able to feel happy - children should laugh. Nice.

Does he have friends or anyone to consider family? Not sure, and I don't want to be digging to deep in. I think not. I elect to ignore that for now. If he has them, good, if not, he's still young so I suppose it's fine right now.

Overall, on a scale of 1 to 10 with 1 being might as well be dead and 10 being I'm living the best life possible, I'd rank him 6.75. He appears to have good self esteem, he appears decently well taken care of, and he's being let outside. Not poor, but also not rich. Not starving, but also not eating too much. Just enough for hitting the requirements to physically healthy, and add a bonus 1.75 for happiness.

Doesn't seem like he's being hurt by anyone, or abused, or whatever. Very, very good.

...Yeah, I should expand my vocabulary. Is this because my brain is limited due to being that of a child's, or is some other factor at play here? Do I need to crack open a thesaurus? I don't have an English thesaurus and dictionaries in the library are about as good as I'll get… ah, ahem.

In any case, number one is done. All that's left is my training. And the Uchiha and Academy issue, which I'll put off.

I'll go back to training eventually. I've already hinted at several times that I want more food for my meals, and by bothering the adults with complaints of "I'm hungry" over the past few days has led to minor success. My bowls are slightly larger, and it doesn't seem as though anyone else at meal times has noticed - which is great. Granted, there's less meat for me, but I can live without it. More food is more food, even if it means less red meat (I have fish, and red meat isn't the only source of protein, there's also tofu).

I did go back to physical training, but it's not as much as I used to. It sucks. I wish I could train some more, it helps keep my mind off other topics.

Hopefully the ANBU aren't around. I see them a lot more nowadays, unsure as to why.


They were around. I sulked in the forest and just walked around a lot instead of running or meditation, because that's suspicious for a kid to be doing. My feet hurt.


It's the next day. They're still here.


Since the ANBU aren't leaving anytime soon, I decided to instead practice my language skills some more. Indoors. Where there aren't ANBU. It feels safe in here.

I don't see any ANBU from the window, and my boxes cover up most of the window anyways, so.

"Life sucks. These ANBU aren't leaving."

It's just me complaining a lot to myself in mostly English and French, with the occasional German and Russian thrown in there. Trying to make casual conversation Latin feels strange and I don't believe I'll try it again.

Ah. My outdoor training will have to be moved to indoors, then, until the ANBU decide to leave. When I build up enough fat (difficulty: hard,) or get a better diet (difficulty: medium-hard?), and I can confirm that none of the other girls will enter here during certain hours, I'll start. Push ups and sit ups are easy to hide, it's the running I'm concerned about.

I should hang out with the guys more, they run around a lot. I could run in the orphanage outdoor or indoor courtyards.

But… my eventual return to chakra practice too… ugh…

Sorry, many plans cancelled until I manage to get around the ANBU. I'll just hang around in the library and shared bedroom a lot, there's not much else I can do.


I returned the library book dry after I finished reading it (I call chakra-BS). Bitch is gone. I read some more. I write a little. I go back to the orphanage.

This, I can already tell, will get boring very quickly.


Naruto's in the same orphanage as me.

When was this? Why is he sitting across from me? I'm confused?

And there are like 3 ANBU "hiding", 1 in this room and about 2 from the closed but easy to open windows. Look, I can see you guys, hide better.

I ignore Naruto in favor of studying at these ANBU. They all wear masks with this strange armor-thing going on, and their armor is so- so- useless. I bet I could make something much more practical.

I sigh. I choose to stare at the ANBU indoors while I eat my meal of miso soup, white rice, and bits of fried tofu and fish. Watching a grown adult feel uncomfortable is fun. Oh, he moved. Too bad, my eyes will follow.

That… sounded a lot better in my head.


I just fucked up, didn't I.

Damn my child-immaturity. I thought I got over this-

...right. Hitori's brain. Hitori is still a kid. I'm going to act like a child sometimes, even if I don't want to.

Fucking chemical reactions in the brain had to ruin my cover by having short term entertainment over watching some grown man be uncomfortable.

I swear this shit sounds better in my head-


"That orphan - the plain looking one - she was able to see us-"

"-we're using elaborate genjutsu, at least A Rank. There's now way a child should be able to see through it!"

"Did she dispel it?"

"No, she wouldn't have been able to. Besides, she just walked in the room with everyone else, and she saw us."

"Genjutsu immunity?"

"Without being in the Uchiha or Hyuga clan, doubtful, and as a kid?"

"Perhaps it's-"

"Hard to believe."

"...It could be."

"Report-"

"Hai."


I don't see Naruto a lot. Just at meal times, and sometimes he's missing from those.

I don't see as many ANBU around either. And I check, everywhere, because I'm self conscious like that. To my understanding I'm not being tailed, so I should be fine. After a week from this observation and a 5 minute NOW t search, I deem it safe to return to the forest and continue my training (I have so much time I need to catch up on, thanks ANBU), while staying a bit longer for some chakra practice.

You're supposed to feel something when you use chakra, right? So when I use chakra to make the leaf stick, I should be able to feel it gathering up somewhere and going to my head. The issue is, I don't. I'm not sure why.

It's confusing, but I shrug it off. I'll write down that observation later. For now, I want to see if I can do any jutsu, even if I can't feel chakra. I can review the leaf thing either when I get my hands on a book or a teacher.

Hmm. The only jutsus I know I might be able to do would be… Henge and… it was Substitution, I believe. Clone is the other one of the Academy Three, though I don't think I could create a good clone without an understanding of how to split my chakra. Besides, there are so many types of clones, so the Academy one made from essentially near nothing is basically useless anyways (and how does that work that makes no sense you can't just make a clone from nothing can you none of this makes any sense at all-).

I know, I know. I don't have the hand seals for any of these techniques.

Well.

Fuck you.

Who said there had to be these specific 12 hand seals for you to channel chakra through for it to work? That's stupid, and anyone who believes that is stupid. You can do jutsu without hand seals, I'm sure of it. I don't recall if anyone in Naruto was able to do ninjutsu like that, but I know it's theoretically possible, and I don't particularly care if anyone else had done it or not.

Even if I need hand seals, I'm going to create my own hand seals instead of whatever bullshit "only these hand seals work" system everyone else uses. Because of course everyone uses the same damned hand seals. That's how people can steal techniques, they just learn your hand seals. I'll make my own hand seals with an entirely new construct of rules to abide by, and other people can't steal my techniques then. Sucks for them.

Pretty sure that the hand seals everyone knows aren't the only way as for how chakra is externalized. There has to be another angle to look at this. There's a reason why we have both Celcius and Farreinheit, you know.

Alright, NOW has just Celcius, and uses the metric system, and they're basically just not like the US in measuring things. I don't know what I was expecting.

Getting off track. I'm going to figure out the henge, without the hand seals.

I close my eyes, standing, my back facing a tree. I imagine myself as Naomi the researcher - at 5' 6", a short-sleeved collared white shirt, black leather belt and jeans, NASA's midnight blue colored sneakers, tired and tired and tired but smiling (fake? Is Naomi real?) - and I immerse myself into the role. I feel like I'm Naomi again.

Hello. I am Naomi.

I opened my eyes.

Nope. No results.

...lemme try again.


Around three weeks later, I get… results. Granted, they're not the best results, but the results are still results.

I got the general height and clothes colors down by then. All that's left would be the details.

In another two weeks, I manage to henge into a relatively solid version of Naomi the researcher.

By late April I get down some of the minor details. My skin feels different, no longer as soft like Hitori (child body is still a child body even after physical training, and you don't really develop muscles until you're older anyways because buff baby is scary and unrealistic). I have defined abs and calluses. I can comb my fingers through my lighter hair. My skin is pale, but a different pale. There are all these little details that come to life and I feel like I really am Naomi again, after all this time.

(But Naomi is dead dead dead dead dead. Am I Naomi? I am me. I am I. Naomi is me, but is "me" Naomi?)

I try it with other people - Naomi the pilot, Naomi the student, Naomi the friend (Naomi Naomi Naomi), Naomi's father, Naomi's friends, several well-known people from Earth, several fictional characters. I become so many other people, and by the time the first day of May rolls around, I get down the visual part of the henge to what I believe near perfection.

I feel solid. It's weird, going from tall to short to tall to taller to short again. But it's solid. The clothes feel real. The small, finer details - texture of hair, how different hands feel when interacting with the world, walking - my perception of reality changes with everyone.

And sure I get stronger headaches whenever I try to be more real (add glasses and worsen my eyesight, then changing back to Hitori with better eyesight is not a good idea, but it sounded like a fun experiment at the time), but that's fine.

The person I like the most so far is Naomi. I was Naomi, after all. And Naomi has become me.

I can do a henge! Yes!

I mean, I dunno if it's perfect. Have to check if my back is looking alright, my face, and the minor-minor details. Can I remove clothes in a henge? What happens if I do? What do my feet look like in a henge? Does my chakra signature stay the same in a henge? If not, can I change my chakra signature when I'm in a henge?

Questions, questions. Ahhhh. They're for the sake of science and satisfying my curiosity.

I still don't feel anything whenever I use chakra. I mean, yeah, I can feel chakra exhaustion symptoms, but not chakra as it's being used. At best, whenever I pour my energy into a henge, I just feel a small tingle in my body and open my eyes and… boom. No longer Hitori.

It feels weird, in that exciting, holy shit kind of way.

I like the henge. Chakra is cool. (But how does the henge work? Do you alter the way light reflects on your skin? Do you physically change yourself? Is it manipulation of the mind/brain? Questions questions questions so many questions.)

I can't do a henge with my eyes opened, sadly, but when I manage sensory I'll get to fixing that.


I want to start sensory.

I don't know where to start. The idea was that I'd have managed to get a good grasp on chakra and chakra signatures, though it appears I haven't done that.

This one difference is probably what mainly separates shinobi from civilians. From my perspective, civilians know about chakra, know it exists, know that it's "essential for life". But they can't detect it. Shinobi can. I guess it's like when you breathe unconsciously versus when you do so consciously. Breathing consciously, you're aware of your breaths, the rise and fall of your chest, but unconsciously you aren't really aware of anything.

Of course, a theory is just a theory, and I have no proof of this. I'll have to try to apply this to myself, then. Regardless, I can't begin sensory until I figure out how to sense chakra.

Setting aside my sensory goals (and med-nin goals because I can not get my hands on a single textbook on said topic, they're all at least genin-level books and strictly limited because fucking everything ninja related in this world is limited), I should go into more ninjutsu. Should I try to make fire?

...I'm in a forest. Bad idea.

Lightning is… if I want to create lightning and strike a tree, I'll attract too much unwanted attention.

The other options include water, which is nice and all but how the fuck do I get water to gather together and form a puddle without either destroying my body (for water) or somehow messing up the forest by extracting water vapor from the air around me (which is just… no, it's too hard to filter out), water from the soil (might mess up the dirt) or water from the trees (could kill tree)?

Earth? Yeah, but that's basically just dirt, maybe stone unless stone is it's own thing…

There's wind, which, there's barely any wind around to be considered "windy" now, and because it's summer after May and June mean sun and summer in Konoha-

Wait.

Sun.

Sunlight. Energy for plants. Photosynthesis.

But I'm not a plant…?

No. I can work with this.


Sunlight is radiation. From electromagnetic waves.

How does one control radiation? I have no clue. Well, I do, sort of, and it involves very dangerous potentially lethal work I am not willing to risk (outside the point where I have no money to get materials I need, and several other boring points).

Electromagnetic waves, on the other hand…

Lightning nature, if it's electro-magnetic. Think small. Think waves, wavelengths.

They're too small, though. Wavelengths are seriously too small, too unnoticeable. I'd have better luck with filtering out water vapor from the air around me than to change these wavelengths.

If I succeed- When I succeed, I think it would be like perceiving new colors, since the naked human eye can only see visible light from certain waves, but infrared and ultraviolet light can be observed if you have the right resources.

My current goal is to see whether or not I can change natural, visible sunlight into both infrared (increase wavelength) and ultraviolet (decrease wavelength) light. And I mean actually change visible light, or at the very least filter out IR or UV light and direct it somewhere. I'm not quite sure what I'm actually doing.

They didn't teach me this shit in NASA while I was helping out with trying to figure out how to sustain life on Mars. I kinda wish they did now.

Wait, could I give myself cancer from this? Could I give someone else cancer?

Very dangerous trail of thought. Hmm. The most realistic answer is yes. Fuck.


I give up. For now. No progress makes a very angry child (am I a child? Hitori is, and I must be Hitori), and I've learned my mistake with the tree incident.

This will work itself out… eventually. I'm putting off a lot of stuff. Future Hitori can deal with this, I'm out.


It's May, and rain falls down again. Just, not as much. And less frequently.

I steal an umbrella so frequently that the staff has decided they might as well give me one. The library staff I mean. The orphanage staff still avoids me, kinda. I mean, now I don't need to steal one to go outside for the library anymore.

I run around a lot inside when it rains, refraining from my regular exercise routine (because it's wet in the forest and ew, I'm not doing push-ups on wet dirt - also whenever it rains all the girls hang out since the shared room, and I'm not exercising with other kids watching me). Running inside means scrapes and bruises don't need to be hidden anymore, because everyone assumes they're from falling and sometimes fighting and whatnot.

At 3 and a half years old Hitori starts playing with the older kids, like the ones that are 4, 5, 6. (Choushin is there too, he's taken to calling Hitori a freak, which still doesn't make any sense, but whatever.) The 6 year olds are already in the Academy, and they flaunt their skills, their learning.

I'm not sure whether I'm trying to shove down horror or laughter when I realize there are only 3 hours NOW t of Academy classes a day, reserved for weekdays. Only 3 hours, because everyone goes straight home to lunch and clan kids stay home to train, civilians stay home to play and study, and I'm just broken by this weird rationalization.

There are kunoichi lessons after classes, but they're only on Fridays and barely 2 hours long after lunch.

Children from Earth would actually maim each other for a chance to get 3 hours of school instead of 8 a day. Sure, ErT time and NOW t are different, but the point is there's less time spent in school, and five year old Naomi would definitely murder seagulls for that.

Ahem. Eh… It lines up nicely with the classes the Orphanage offers to children, which is far too convenient. I'm not saying I'm not grateful for a chance to hear about the Academy from actual Academy students, because I am, but y'know it's kinda weird how well this is going so far. I thought someone would've busted my hard work and handed me on a silver platter to some antagonistic figure in the Naruto world.

Nevermind that, I hope I didn't jinx myself.

The Academy sounds dull so far. In your first year, you don't learn how to use an jutsu at all, so me trying to figure out Academy jutsus now doesn't matter there. There's just a lot of practice, training, and studying so far. Throw your kunai and shuriken at the center. Run 20 laps around the school yard. Name all the founding clans of Konoha. Kids, what's nine times three?

Sure, I could use the weapons practice, but otherwise? I'm basically ahead of everyone else in the first year. I've seen the Academy school yard before, and while it is a bit large, it's nothing compared to the amount of distance I can now cover in the forest. 20 laps? I'll be done in at most 10 minutes, faster if I figure out chakra body enhancement. The 6 year olds from the orphanage say that the fast kid in class finished in 7 minutes, and the slowest took around 25 minutes, so I'd be somewhere in the top or above average in the class even though I'm years younger. Katas and stances are easy if you're flexible, and I have good dexterity.

And studying. I've read almost every book available to me at the public library in Konoha (the only public library in Konoha from what I'm told, since books and scrolls are all handwritten and expensive, and printers for book-printing format don't fucking exist here but color printed photos from cameras have existed for decades and there's no jutsu equivalent of "copy and paste" so what the actual fuck I don't even know). I'd be insulted if it was assumed I didn't know basic calculus (and apparently geometry and basic trigonometry is the most advanced math this world has that I know of, I am insulted).

To be fair to the Academy, it's not like shinobi actually need to know advanced math above algebra level. They're shinobi, they learn to protect and kill. That's basically it.

…On another note, my pride is going to be the fall of me one day, huh.

But I'm going to be stuck in a class with idiots still? Seriously? Man, that sucks.

For now, I play a strange devierient of tag with these kids - most being guys, but a handful of girls thrown in the mix - and I pretend to get caught. It's hard, holding myself back enough so that it still looks like I'm trying to run, but not too much or too little.

It's not fun, but non-suspicious exercise is still non-suspicious and exercise.


There's a tap on my shoulder.

"Why do you want to be a shinobi?"

I blink. "Huh?" Some girl is frowning at me. I recognize her as… oh! One of my roommates, 4 years old. What does she want with me?

"Why do you want to be a shinobi?" She repeats. I raise a brow. "Why are you asking?"

She flushes, cheeks reddened. "Why do you want to know?" She demands. I'm confused, but answer her anyways. Not like it'll hurt to let her know.

"Because chakra is cool." I said. "And shinobis use chakra."

She nods, quickly walking away. Her face is still red. Is she sick? Strange.

It's 5 seconds later when another 4 year old tells me "We're both it now," that I realized she tagged me.


June arrives just as quickly as May passes, and the rain ends, and I've basically given up on the light experiment thing. I'm done. Light is not my forte.

I know I said earlier I'll put it off, but I didn't exactly stick to that. I revisited it.

Light is absolutely fucking everywhere. It's so difficult to focus on just a bit of light and filtering or changing that bit without the surrounding light rushing in to fix it back.

If this was a dark cave, maybe I could have an easier time with this. But nope.

Yeah, uh. Fuck this shit, I'm out.


Wait, what if this is because Lightning isn't my chakra nature? If a shinobi uses a jutsu outside their chakra nature, I read that it's a lot less easier to do said jutsu.

I don't know what my chakra nature is, actually. Huh. No chakra paper to confirm, and it might change with time.

Um. I'll set down fire as my chakra nature. This is the land of fire after all, so people born in this area are more likely to have fire as their chakra nature.

Maybe water as a potential second chakra nature? Surprisingly enough, water is a lot more common in this country/domain than expected, so it's the second common chakra nature (I don't know how it works, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it too).


Holy fuck, I just realized I'm older than Kakashi.

Kakashi was like, a teen when Naruto was born. According to the foreign Bingo Book I saw sitting on the table in the library (why was it there flipped on that exact page? Suspicious, dunno, can't really be bothered to care). It was flipped open to the page with Kakashi discussing his, well, profile. Age was on there. Kakshi's just barely a young adult, now, so he was certainly a teen when Naruto was born.

…So am I old, or is Kakashi young? (It's a mixture of both.)

Whoa. I don't know how I feel about this. Other than mind blown. Just… whoa.


Oh fuck me, I just realized have to go through puberty again.

Well, I realized it earlier, but it didn't really hit me until just now.

Periods. Breast growth means bras. Mood swings. Shitty teenage romances. The emergence of being super sensitive to everything people say about me.

Fuck. Me. Not like that.


It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts

Stop hurting.

Stop.

(The pain is duller, just a bit, yet always lingering. The headaches are nearly almost gone.)

I still have headaches. Fuck.


I try to practice military workouts in my dreams. Astral projection hasn't worked so far, so I'm stuck in my lucid dreams with nothing to do but wander, imagine, and talk to myself.

I always shove myself into an empty landscape somewhere on Earth. When there are people around I'm reminded that they're not real Naomi's dead but I'm in Naomi's body I'm not dead Naomi is gone is Naomi real and I blink and-

I wake up.

I dream of wandering, free running, reading books, parkour, flying, labs, graphs, big computer screens, clipboards, looking up at the starry night sky, working out, exercise, training.

I dream sometimes of sitting down and relaxing and close my eyes to rest-

And I wake up all over again.

(Blinking in lucid dreams wake you up. It's just one of those things you shouldn't do.)

(Does this apply to genjutsus too?)


For the rest of the summer, I follow a slightly altered schedule:

7:00 NOW t: Wake up for roll call. Get ready for breakfast, eat for around half an hour NOW t.

About 8:25 NOW t: Stay in shared bedroom for about 3 and a half NOW t hours.

12:00 NOW t: Lunch for an hour NOW t.

13:00 NOW t: Head to the library to read. Train if you think you have enough energy for it. Use the altered training regime.

Around 17:00 NOW t: Return for dinner, another hour NOW t.

18:00 NOW t: Get ready for bedtime stories, about 25-50 minutes NOW t. Spend this time doing nothing/relaxing.

19:25 NOW t: Curfew, but you can stay up as long as you don't bother anyone. Spend the next half hour NOW t or so meditating unless something of more importance needs attention. Maybe just lie in bed thinking aimlessly.

About 20-22:00 NOW t: Sleep maybe 9-11 hours NOW t for training in dreams. This time will decrease as Hitori ages since her body will require less sleep over time. More time awake means more time for meditation.


It's hot outside. I begin to carry my umbrella around with me at all times to avoid the sun.


I've read basically all the books available in the public access section. I'm not allowed to read anything else, so I reread books.

I steal more paper to practice writing, but there's no fun in that. I've drilled into my memory the kana and kanji.

Summer is long and aimless and oh so boring.

But Naomi would've had something to do-

Not Hitori.

Not me.


I exercise. It's all there is to do nowadays. There's not really a spark of any sort, no commitment to anything else, not when I've dropped nearly all of my chakra training.

I hang out in the library, no longer for reading, but because it's cooler indoors than outdoors and the orphanage is suffocating with idiocy.

I'd consider playing with Naruto if I knew where he was, but I don't and never do.

One time, I tried getting to the top of the Hokage Mount. I did get to the top, but there's nothing to see up there.

I stared off into the distance, eyes glazed over, not really processing the view, and returned back down.


Summer comes to an end, and relief fills me. It's freeing, somehow, to see it go.

The Academy kids return to the Academy. Everyone seems a bit more busy now.

I don't have much left to do, but exercise continues. I have larger food portions now than in the summer. This means I can go back to my original training.

It's a week later when I decide to add more to do. It's almost laughable, how easy I find the push-ups and sit-ups and running. I do more. I try to climb trees, scale them, jumping around in them. It's dangerous, but I'm looking for excitement in my life.

(Uncertainty develops into certainty when you're older. Hitori doesn't know about uncertainty, not yet.)

I stretch in ways I shouldn't be able to. It's nice to see myself curl in ways I couldn't as Naomi, but oh so frightening to realize the implications.

I try to do things with chakra, because chakra is new, and anything new now is stimulating, exhilarating, exciting.

I still go to the library, but just for the paper and new books. The staff there, I would talk with them if I knew how to approach them and how to manage a conversation appropriate for my age.

I'm more bored than anything at this point. There's not much for me to do.

I wish life would pass by faster.


September passes. It's colder.

I cough a lot.

I'm sick for a few days, marking the first time Hitori has been ill.

My body radiates heat, sweating profusely. Clothes cling to my body, and I stay indoors, drinking soup and eating rice and sleeping.

I lie in bed, wasting away for a few days, before I'm wasting away out of bed.


It's October 10 again. I'm four years old NOW t. I've now learned why people hate this day so much.

According to this drunk man I heard on my way from the library to the forest, 4 years ago, the Nine Tails Fox (chakra beast, as I've been referring to it) was released in Konoha. People are pissed even after all these years.

I was born on the same day as Naruto, in the exact same year.

Isn't that lovely.

Well, another birthday means another birthday gift. I asked for drawers- the locked kind. I was pointed towards underneath my bed, where there was enough space for both my boxes and a mini locked panties-and-sock drawer.

I shove both boxes under the bed (I would've done so earlier, but I didn't because I'm stupid). My pens and spare ink and loose and spare papers are now in the locked drawer. I'm keeping the key as a necklace of sorts.

It's a nice birthday gift.

I still wish time would pass faster.


October passes.

November passes.

December arrives.

...I'm bored.


It does snow in Konoha!

What the fuck was up with last year then? Climate change? A strange alteration in natural chakra influences?

Whatever. It's December now. Snow!

…Meaning everyone is outside playing in the snow. I step outside for a few minutes to breathe in the fresh, cool air, then return indoors after I just barely avoided an asthma attack when I forgot to breathe for a bit and nearly fall over some kid making snow angels in the process.

I think those were snow angels. I genuinely have no idea what he was trying to do.

Eh. Who cares? Snow is a thing, meaning… Snow cones.

I'm swear going to figure out how to get my hands on one, if it's the last thing I do this month-


They sell them at street vendors.

I don't have money.


Playing in the snow is fun, for the child-like brain. I like it, because it's different, it's new.

(Could chakra create snow?)

I am a scientist, above all else, but Hitori is not. Hitori is a child.

Hitori loves winter for the snow.


I miss Christmas.

Even though I never celebrated the holiday the same way some other people might have, with family and cookies and milk and Santa Claus and a Christmas tree and a fireplace-

I miss the traditional exchange of gifts, the struggle to get or make something someone didn't already have.

They don't celebrate Christmas in Konoha. At least, not in the orphanage. And even then, there's no origin for Christmas, so there'd be no reason for anyone to just decide to exchange gifts today.

Long story short, there are few holidays actually celebrated. Just some seasonal festivals and about 6 other holidays in observance.


December 28th.

Neji's father was killed yesterday when Kumo tried to kidnap Hinata. Everyone, and I mean everyone who has heard about this, is talking about it. Including the library staff. They don't bother hiding, likely thinking I didn't understand the topic being discussed.

Shit. So that's what I forgot.

Dammit.


I don't feel guilty.

Neji's father was going to die, and had I remembered I may have been able to prevent it.

But how? How does a child stop a murder without getting caught?

I… I don't know.

I'm sorry. (No, I'm not.) Even if I knew, there's a good chance I wouldn't have done anything. I value myself more than everyone else here, because Hitori is all I have left of Naomi - all I have left of me.


I have yet to meet a Uchiha.

It's January 1, a new year.

I've failed half of point 2.