Back when tigers used to smoke...

Beginnings C1


I was reborn Kaori, the same day I died. At first, it was a struggle. My awareness only came to me in brief snapshots, like a light switched on and off in a dark room. At first, all I can remember is white, white walls, white blankets, white clothes. Everything is so sterile, so clean, so silent. There is none of the colour, the vibrancy, the music of my old life. Then the faces start to drift into view, the fine features, pale skin, all with those eerie blank lavender eyes. At first, I believe that I have ascended to heaven and these soft, warm arms that carry me from white room to white room are my attending angels. One day, I glance in a mirror and meet a tawny skinned girl with large violet eyes and a mop of chestnut hair, there is a slight upturn to the button shape of her nose. I reach out and she reaches back, that was the first time I'd met my new self. I didn't know why I had been reborn, why I had been transported to this world, why I belonged to this clan. All I knew was that I had died young and I was grateful to whatever higher power had given me more time, a second chance to have a full life.

Perhaps the elders already sensed the challenging independence of my thoughts because from early on my wings were clipped. They began with small corrections, pinches to the backs of my ankles when I stomped through the hallways, to lemon juice rubbed on my gums when I was too chatty, to waxing floors and stinging smacks on my backside. I'd get sent to bed early without dinner, no parents to soothe or cuddle me. Whenever I asked about my parents, who they were, where I came from, I received stony silence, eventually I stopped asking. I was given hiragana books to do lines at the communal dinner table and wooden blocks to play with alone in my corner bedroom. The only day I remember the adults giving me any attention was when I was dressed up in black robes. I thought it was a special event, there were flowers and incense burning, a grand ceremony. I was lined up before the elders beside a boy, a year or two older than me. He smiled and I smiled back. And then they cut into our heads with a searing black brush and we were branded, enslaved to the clan. Little did they know I was a soul born of freedom and no cage could truly bind me.

In my old life I had a talent for archery, a childhood hobby I had developed into a skill advanced enough to shoot a leaping salmon in the air and pin it to a tree. A few years into this new life, there is some construction for an extension to the main family's wing, the matriarch is pregnant again and a new nursery is required. I scurry away some spare wood, a chisel and construct myself a bow. I collect stray feathers from the courtyard and craft a few arrows and then in the confines of my bedroom I practice with a makeshift target. Of course, in the Hyuuga compound nothing remains unseen.

I am brought before the patriarch, Hiashi-sama, along with a line of elders. My bow is held aloft and presented to me like an alien creature, "I believe this is your own creation?"

"Yes," I answer, chin up and unblinking. The elders frown and titter at me.

"It is rather unique craftsmanship…" Hiashi-sama says, examining the chiselled recurve bow with a string crafted from twined wire.

"I could only work with the materials at my disposal," I say.

"Materials stolen from the property of the main house!" One of the elders snaps, pinning me with a baleful stare. His pupil-less eyes are dull and cloudy with cataracts, milky grey.

I'm about to retort that it is only scrap wood, tail ends that I knew the builders would never use, when Hiashi-sama raises a hand and quells the elder's wrath, "This wood is hardly missed. Instead, it has been put to good use by Kaori. Archery was a favoured discipline of our ancestors, perhaps it is time the fine art is revived."

Hiashi-sama stands and gestures for me to follow. I am led into the courtyard and with a wave of his hand Hiashi-sama orders three targets to appear, brought in by the same servants that I shared my meals with at night.

"A demonstration is in order." He announces, returning my bow and arrows to me.

The elders line up on the veranda, even more crawling out of the woodwork to stand and watch my display. I line up the targets and nock three arrows to my bow, draw back and release, thunk, thunk, thunk, each arrow hits its target dead centre.

"Our ancestor's legacy lives on. Impressive, Kaori." Hiashi-sama says.

I'm allowed to keep my bow and after my chores are complete, I am allowed an hour of archery practice in the courtyard once a day. Often, Hiashi-sama steps out to observe me, sometimes a diminutive figure huddles into his side, the shy blushing heiress of the clan. I focus on my bow and imagine I'm in the forest, listening to the bubbling gurgle of the river eddies, the scent of bluebells on the breeze, the mossy earth under my boots. I picture my targets as my prey, a springing rabbit, a cautious deer, I fire and take them out with a clean, merciful shot.

I don't take any notice of my eyes until they are quite literally pointed out to me. The adults had congregated for a clan meeting and without the spare hands to stop me, I had waltzed right out of the compound and started exploring the village proper. I don't get far through the streets, before a couple of boys dash up to me.

"Who are you?" a squinting brunette demands.

"Kaori," I say.

"What's with the headband?" a bandana wearing boy asks.

"What's with the bandana?" I retort.

The two boys introduce themselves as Ken and Jiro, and invite me to join a game of ninja, basically a combination between hide & seek and tag with badly thrown projectiles. More children join and the game becomes chaotic. I climb a tree to gain a height advantage to start sniping people out, when there is a yelp of warning from Jiro.

"Oi, Kaori! Watch out!" A wooden throwing star collides with the tree trunk and rebounds to loosen a hornet's nest hanging right above me, the nest dangles precariously for a moment until gravity kicks in and sends it hurtling towards me. Something rises behind my eyes and a warm current draws to the fore, my eyesight sharpening to x-ray magnification as I not only see through the hornet's nest to the writhing little bugs within, but also behind me at the fearful faces of the other children. It is surreal.

I drop down from the tree and leap out of the way as the hornet's nest smashes into the ground and deflates, a horde of angry wasps swarming out. There are screams and a stampede of children as we all dash away. I try to offer as much helpful direction as I can, my magic eyesight giving me panoramic tracking of the wasps, but there are still casualties and quite a few tears.

"Best not to itch it," I say, to a crying girl with pink hair. If I had magic eyes, then I guess she could have pink hair. She looks up and watery green eyes go wide in horror as she stares at me.

"Your eyes!" she gasps.

A self-conscious hand creeps up to my cheek, only for it to brush against something hot and swollen. I turn away from the girl and run towards the nearest store front, the glass reflecting a stranger with blank violet eyes and bulging veins at the temples. I frown at the girl and lean forwards, startled as she does the same. I take in the mop of chestnut hair, the navy headband tied across her forehead with shaggy bangs flopping over, "My eyes…" I murmur, tentatively feeling the hot, swollen veins outlined against my skin. I peer closely at my reflection and discover that my pupils have not disappeared, instead faded to a pearly iridescence in the centre of my irises, "Huh… That's cool."

A Hyuuga clansman grabs the back of my collar and yanks me away, the air whooshes past and I'm unceremoniously dumped in front of the elders. Hiashi-sama sits before me, his right eyebrow raised a millimetre above his left, "Kaori. You have awakened your byakugan."

Other rumblings emerge from the elders, "Considering her bloodline…", "Akari did possess-", I blink and my vision changes, Hiashi-sama's skin disappearing, revealing his internal organs and muscular structures. I grimace and the image changes to a coiling network of grey-blue energy, flowing throughout his whole body. I close my eyes, the image remains, my magic eyes somehow seeing through my eyelids.

"Focus on your breathing, Kaori," Hiashi-sama murmurs to me.

I take a slow breath in through my nose and out from my mouth, focusing on breathing in and breathing out, the warm current recedes and the blue lines disappear. I open my eyes to find my vision has returned to normal, everyone's skin firmly intact.

"It appears you have activated your byakugan on a reflexive action. Tell me, was there an inciting incident?" Hiashi-sama says.

I nod, "I was playing ninja-"

"Departing clan grounds without permission, an intolerable-" The milky grey elder's words cut off by Hiashi-sama calmly raising a hand, "Please, Kaori. Continue."

"I was playing ninja with some kids in the playground, when a hornet's nest was dislodged. The nest was coming straight at me and then my vision just changed," I explain.

Hiashi-sama nods, "Thank you, Kaori. If you will take your leave, the elders and I have much to discuss."

I stand and bow, only to avoid receiving a smack later. I had completed my chores for the day, so I collect my bow and step out into the courtyard, setting up the targets at odd angles for more of a challenge. I nock an arrow to my bow and remember the precision of my vision earlier, the shifting depth, the circumference range, the warmth of the feeling. Concentrating, I can feel the warm current now, circulating through my body and strongest deep in my core, I can even detect the trace amounts of it lingering behind my eyes. I tap into the feeling and draw it forwards. The warm current pools at my temples and my vision changes. I can lock onto all three targets without even glancing at one, I can even see the grain of the wood, the cracks and dents from previous shots. I knock an arrow to my bow and lift it up and over my head, firing behind me, thunk, I hit the target dead centre.

I spin and knock another two arrows to my bow, my gaze directed towards the sky, even as the targets line up behind me and I take aim, thunk, thunk. With a twirl I line up my next target straight on, I see the fine grain of the wood and then my vision slips through the target, through the walls and I lock eyes with Hiashi-sama staring right back at me. My fingers slip and the arrow fires, shattering the target to pieces and juddering into a supporting beam of the elder's hall. A couple inches to the left and it would have gone through the paper door and landed in Hiashi-sama's forehead. I'm in such deep shit.

The Hyuuga clan head stands and my magic vision snaps away. Hiashi-sama appears on the veranda and plucks out the arrow from the beam.

"I didn't… I wasn't..." I choke out, my throat collapsing under the weight of his penetrative stare.

Hiashi-sama raises a hand and silences me in an instant, "From now on, you will practice at the training ground adjacent to the Hyuuga estate, it possesses the length your newfound range will acquire. You will be allotted two hours a day for training once your other duties are complete." He steps down into the courtyard and hands me the arrow, "Hinata-sama is due to begin the Academy in the preceding week. I think it appropriate that you shall also attend."

"Thank you, Hiashi-sama," I say, receiving the arrow with a low bow.

Hiashi-sama considers me for a moment longer and then to my surprise lays a hand across my shoulder, before departing.


"Kaori-neesan," The heiress greets, at the gates to the compound. I return the greeting with a low bow, disguising my surprise at the rather forward honorific. Hiashi-sama leads the procession to the Ninja Academy, the heiress and I escorted on either side by a couple of flak-jacketed Hyuuga clansmen. So I am to be a ninja, considering my options that is preferable to remaining a servant.

As we enter the Academy gates, I peel off from the group and head towards the gathered crowd of children. I take a seat next to a friendly looking blonde and introduce myself, "Hello, I'm Kaori."

She smiles, "I'm Ino." Her pale blue eyes survey the abandoned Hyuuga escort. "Did you come with them?" she asks, curiously glancing between us.

"I know. I look different and all…" I trail off.

Ino clasps my hand and gives it a tight squeeze, "You're an iris amongst the hydrangeas."

"Oh, thanks…?" I say, confused as to her meaning.

Ino pouts, disappointed I didn't understand her metaphor. Next thing, she is shuffling behind me and threading her fingers through my shaggy mop, "Can I braid your hair?"

"Only if I can braid yours after," I say.

She smiles, "It's a deal."

Ino chats away and tells me about her family's flower shop, the embarrassing antics of her dad and with a whisper admits to a newfound crush on the raven haired boy sat a couple rows ahead of us. I innocuously comment that his hairstyle is fashioned like a duck's tail, which gives Ino pause before she is biting back the giggles. "I see it now. Not a duck though, a goose." Ino whispers. I start giggling, Ino leans into me bent over with laughter and with that I've made my first friend.

A roll-call begins and the heiress appears next to me, shuffling to sit with a shy smile. An old man shuffles to the front and gives a rambling speech about falling leaves, it's dull and full of jingoistic propaganda. He finally finishes and a flustered flak-jacketed teacher appears with a clipboard and reels off a bunch of names before gesturing for us to follow. Ino clasps my hand, "We're in the same class! Let's sit together!" She pulls me up and leads me inside. We slide into a middle row bench, beside the pink haired girl from before. "Hello, I'm Ino and this is Kaori," Ino says, to the shy little pinkette.

I lean forwards with a friendly wave, "Hey we met before, with the wasps and everything."

The pinkette nods, "I remember you. Your eyes…"

Ino glances between us confused and then snaps her fingers, "Oh. You have the byakugan?"

"Yeah, I awakened it to fight off the wasp army," I joke and this earns a shy giggle from the pinkette.

Ino smiles, "So, what's your name?"

"Sakura. Haruno Sakura." The girl says softly.

"Ah! Like your hair!" Ino says, "So, you're a cherry blossom, Kaori is an iris and I'm a cosmos. I think we make quite the arrangement," She says, clasping both our hands.

The Academy lessons are tedious preschooler learning, I complete the assignments and turn the booklet over to doodle on the back. At lunchtime, I get to share bentos with my new friends and chat. I bask in the nostalgia of it, feeling like I was back in high school again.

In the afternoon, I finally learn the name of the mysterious blue energy that flows through my body and grants upon me magic eyes – chakra. Our first practice exercise with chakra is to use it to stick a leaf to our foreheads. I tap into the warm current and draw it forwards, my chakra gliding underneath the surface of the leaf and glueing it to my headband.

"Well done, Kaori. You have excellent chakra control," Iruka-sensei praises. Something in me lifts and unfurls under the warmth of his smile, like a flower turning to the sun, until now I hadn't realised how deprived I felt of acknowledgement, of true attention. I return his smile with a blushing one of my own.

After the final bell rings, I walk out with Ino & Sakura, still chattering away when the heiress appears by my side. "Oh, Hinata-sama," I say, bowing politely. Ino & Sakura both pause, Ino looking between us critically.

The heiress reddens and directs her words to her feet, "Natsu-san is here to collect us." I look over to see a flak-jacketed Hyuuga clansman standing by the gate.

"Oh. Of course," I say.

I say goodbye to Ino & Sakura and step away, when Ino lunges forwards and wraps me up in a tight hug. "I'm really glad we met today, Kaori," she whispers in my ear.

I return her hug and again feel that sun-deprived flower grow within me, the petals starting to bloom with colour. We separate and I return to the compound with the heiress and her guard, the smile never leaving my face.


I know what it is like to be ignored, to be dismissed, to be thought of as a dirty stain that everyone else just has to live with, making it all the more obvious when I see this happening to another. The grubby boy with whiskers.

A friendly smile and a wave breaks the ice, the boy scrambling off the swing. He's still hesitant to approach me, so I walk up to him, "Hi, I'm Kaori."

The boy stares at me wide-eyed like a deer caught in the headlights. I keep smiling and eventually the fearful expression morphs into a beaming grin, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto!"

"Do you want to come sit with us?" I say, gesturing over to Ino & Sakura, who sit watching by the tree line.

Naruto stares at me with a mixture of cautious hope and suspicion, perhaps fearful of a trap. Even when I start walking back towards the girls he remains rooted to the spot, it's only when I stop and wait for him to catch up that he comes bounding over.

"Ino, Sakura. This is Naruto," I say.

Ino smiles, "Nice to meet you."

"H-hello." Sakura whispers.

"Hi!" Naruto shouts.

"Did you bring lunch?" Ino says, glancing at Naruto's markedly empty hands.

Naruto's bouncing enthusiasm deflates as his expression crumples. "Um… urgh..." he stumbles. Ino takes his hand and draws him into the circle with us, sitting him down beside her.

"Mum always makes me extra tamagoyaki, so you can have it," Ino says, dividing her bento box up into a separate portion. Naruto looks between us nervously, still somewhat skittish. When we all continue eating, hunger wins him over and he starts tucking into Ino's rice.

"Ah, Ino-chan! This is really good!" Naruto says, between mouthfuls.

Ino tuts, "Keep it inside your mouth then."

Naruto flinches at the chastisement, turning to me with wide-eyed surprise when I start giggling.

Ino leans over and jabs a finger into my tummy. "Same for you, takoyaki-chan," she teases.

"That's takoyaki-sama," I retort and Ino laughs. Naruto relaxes, grinning around his chopsticks. The inclusion of a boy in our group shifts the dynamic and extends an unknowing invitation to a Nara kid who ambles over with a chip munching Akimichi.

"Yo." The Nara kid says in greeting, as he steps into our circle and slumps down by a tree. The Akimichi, shuffling in behind him. I recognised them from our class, but I don't know their names and so look to Ino for help.

"Kaori, Naruto, Sakura – this is Shikamaru and Chouji," Ino introduces. The two boys are friendly and easy-going. After we've finished eating, we are drawn into a game of ninja with Ken and Jiro, though it takes an arm thump from me for them to willingly include Naruto.

At the end of the day, I walk out with the heiress to meet with Natsu-san when Naruto comes bounding up to us, "Hey, hey, Kaori. Can we play tomorrow?"

"Yeah, sure thing," I say. Naruto's whiskers stretch in a beaming grin.

I walk over to Natsu-san who is frowning disapprovingly, though he doesn't make his complaints known until we're halfway back to the compound, "Kaori, stay away from that boy. You're of the noble Hyuuga Clan, it isn't proper to associate with such individuals."

I turn away and look up at the clouds.

The next day, I find Naruto sitting on the swing again. He sees me and looks away, cheeks starting to glisten. I walk up to him, "Morning, Naruto."

Naruto searches my face, suspicion etched into every line of his being. He looks over my shoulder at the heiress hiding behind her guard and then back to me. I jump onto the swing and tuck my feet beside his thighs, dropping my hips to swing us back and then kicking off the tree for a boosted swing forwards.

Naruto clutches the ropes, "W-what are you doing?!"

"Catching a ride." I say, dropping back again and boosting our momentum. Naruto gasps as we go flying into the air, laughing as we come swinging back down. We lose track of time and miss the registration bell. Iruka-sensei stomps outside to scold us, but when he sees Naruto clumsily trying to steer me on the swing his anger fades. "Come on you two, time for class!" He calls and we run inside, taking our seats.

During class Naruto begins to shuffle and fidget like my little brother used to do, bored and restless, and then inevitably frustrated when he doesn't understand the assignment. I free Naruto's warping pencil from his jaws and start underlining the hiragana to break down the word problem into smaller chunks. Naruto is staring at me again with that doe-eyed expression, so I flick his nose to concentrate, "I'm not going to help you, if you're not going to listen." Naruto blushes, bashfully rubbing the back of his head. I continue explaining the problem and after Naruto thoroughly questions me on some rather basic points, he is able to finish the assignment on his own.

Naruto joins us again at lunch, Ino's bento box now a bulkier cherry wood and filled with a large enough portion to split equally between the two of them. After we finish eating, Jiro calls us over for a game of ninja. Though before I can join the game, Sakura tugs on my hand and leads me behind one of the oak trees. She adjusts her sleeves before whispering to me, "I don't think we should let Naruto sit with us anymore."

"Did your parents say not to?" I say, cutting to the quick of it. Sakura trembles, her mouth quivering in a wobbly line as I realise the tone of my voice had been a tad sharp. I squeeze her hand and give her an apologetic smile.

"Whatever your parents say, you should make up your own mind about things," I say.

Sakura considers this, leaning out from behind the tree to observe the game, "I think… that it would be mean to exclude him."

"I think so too," I add. Sakura nods, a bolder green shining in her eyes as we go back to join the game.

At the end of school, I give Naruto a hug, he flinches at first before returning my hold with tenfold enthusiasm. Natsu-san scowls, if he says anything on the trip back to the compound I am unaware, my focus on the clouds.


Chakra is an incredible thing. Through active experimentation I discover a variety of purposes for it, channelling it to my palms and the soles of my feet I can use it to climb Spider-Man style around the confines of my bedroom. Unscrewing the bulb from my overhead light I can even channel it through the filament in a mimicry of electricity and cause little sparks to dance across my palms. The most entertaining by far is manipulating water, infusing my chakra into a small bowl of warm water I can mould it into various shapes, a square, a triangle, a sphere. It is an entertaining means to pass the long hours of the evening.

Clan affairs are not something I am party to, perhaps because of my age or my apparent half-blood status, but even I overhear the rumours of the matriarch's illness in the servants' quarters. It seems she never recovered from complications after the birth of her second child. During my first year at the Academy, she takes a drastic turn for the worse and there are a few tense days as a flock of doctors occupy the main house and the rest of us creep around on eggshells. And then one balmy summer's eve, she died.

They make me take the day off from the Academy to attend the funeral, presenting me with the same black robes they had branded me in to wear. I stand in a back row, head bowed even as I daydream about other things. At one point I look up and catch sight of a familiar face, a boy with bandages tied around his forehead, a square chin and large owlish eyes. He was the boy from the ceremony, the one who had shared my cries of pain. He catches me staring and frowns. I look away and bow my head.

I'm glued to the ceiling when there is a sudden knock on my door, my chakra control slips and I crash down onto my bed, rolling off and thumping onto the floor. I open my door and find the boy from the ceremony scrutinising me, "What was all that noise?"

"I fell down," I say.

"It sounded like you were jumping on the bed," He says, brows pinching.

"I landed on the bed, after I fell down from the ceiling," I explain.

The boy frowns at me, so I turn to the wall and demonstrate my Spider-Man technique, crawling up the wall and lying flat on my back upon the ceiling. He folds his fingers together in a hand sign and then activates his byakugan, irises crinkling as the veins bulge out around his temples.

"You're ensuring your grip with chakra glued between the micro-ridges in the plaster." The boy analyses, byakugan scanning over me. I dangle from the ceiling and activate my own magic eyes, the dull confines of my room expanding into a 3D print of the whole compound. My vision readjusts, narrowing in on the boy and outlining his own chakra network, eyes a beacon of blue as byakugan stares at byakugan.

He frowns, "I didn't think you possessed our clan's dōjutsu."

I scowl, "Why? Because I'm not a real Hyuuga?"

"Your eyes present differently to our other clansmen… it was a wrong assumption to have made," He says, in what I gather is a strained apology.

I pull myself up and shuffle over to the wall to slide back down onto the bed. I blink and deactivate my byakugan, there is never anything of interest to observe in the compound. The boy considers me for a moment longer and then forming another hand sign deactivates his byakugan.

"You do not require hand signs to channel your chakra," He says.

I flex my fingers and shoot out a burst of sparks to the boy's quiet gasp. "I have a lot of time to practice. So yeah, I'm pretty good with chakra," I say, threading my fingers together to draw out a cat's cradle of chakra strings.

The boy steps forward and peers at my hands curiously. "Do you want me to teach you?" I say, arranging the strings into a star formation. The boy nods and gracefully lowers to the floor to sit seiza, I join him and together we spend a couple hours moulding chakra until fat, loopy strings are dangling off his fingers.

The dinner bell rings and the boy stands, "I shall take my leave."

"Um, wait. I didn't catch your name," I say, catching up to him at the door.

The boy blinks bemused, "Neji."

"I'm Kaori," I say.

"I know," Neji tuts, before departing the room swiftly.

Scrawling down the necessary answers I discard my homework and head to my bed for an afternoon nap, when there is a knock on my door.

"I invite you to a spar," Neji announces, when I open the door.

"A spar? What, like a fight? You're politely asking to beat me up," I say.

Neji frowns, "A spar is a training exercise between shinobi. I am asking if you wish to partake in one."

In terms of fighting prowess I had my old wrestling scraps with my brother and the Academy's basic katas, I am hardly prepared enough for a 'spar'. My afternoon nap is all too tempting, but Neji is staring at me expectantly and the offer of some company finally wins me over. "Okay, but be warned. I suck," I say.

Neji huffs a short breath that I don't realise is a laugh until his lips twitch into a small smile, "Consider me warned."

He leads me through the compound and out into a smaller courtyard that I hadn't visited before, it is occupied by a small water feature at one end and a neat border of rose bushes along the other, by Hyuuga standards it is practically homey.

Neji draws his feet back into an on guard stance of some kind and raises his arms, palms outwards. I copy his stance and then without any warning he lunges at me, slapping a hand into my bicep and deadening the muscle.

"Ow!" I complain, the sound muffled in the dirt as Neji has already swiped out my legs from underneath me and flattened me into the floor.

"You're reflexes are poor. Defence non-existent. It appears your original assessment was correct, you do suck," Neji mocks from above, circling around to stand in front of me.

I slam a palm into the ground and send a burst of sparks scattering up his ankle, he hisses in pain and drops to the ground as his calf spasms in cramp. I spring to my feet and wave my hands in a comical karate move, "Oh how the tables have turned, young grasshopper."

My victory is short-lived as all too soon Neji recovers, lecturing me even as he folds me up like a piece of paper. At one point, he activates his byakugan and jams what can only be described as a glass pipe into my forearm.

"Wow, wow, wow. What the hell is that?" I say, stepping away from him to examine my arm with my byakugan. My description of a glass pipe isn't far off, as he had implanted a solid construction of chakra into a tiny hole in my arm.

"I sealed your tenketsu point. It is the first strike of the eight trigrams," Neji says, straightening up with pride.

I channel chakra to my fingertips to slip around the plug and slowly ease it out of my arm. The chakra is strange, a different variant to the usual blue current or the crackling white sparks I could produce, it is hard and solid to the touch. Honing my vision I could even pick up on the crystalline structure of it, a giant tetrahedral lattice like the structure of diamond, "How… how did you make this?"

Neji demonstrates a series of hand signs to me. I watch carefully as he moulds his chakra, the darker physical energy forming a denser component to the ratio than the lighter spiritual energy. "It is the basis of Jūken, the taijutsu style of the main branch family," Neji says with a low tone, something dark and angry crossing his face.

I flex my hands and channel my chakra, but I can't quite exact Neji's ratios, so with clumsy fingers imitate his hand signs from earlier. The hand signs trigger something within my chakra network, I watch as the flow of my chakra halts for a second and redirects, flowing into my hands in a different ratio of physical to spiritual energy, the hand signs acting as circuit breakers on a railway track. The chakra is stiff and viscous in my palms. I draw the chakra forth until it slowly protrudes from the skin, slicking out into a squidgy stick with a bulbous end until with a flex of my fingers hardening into a long, white arrow.

"You have adapted jūken chakra into a mould suitable for your discipline as an archer," Neji says, his byakugan examining my arrow.

I grin, "Free ammo."

My first experiment with using a jūken arrow ends in a casualty, my precious bowie exploding into pieces as the arrow blasts through the target and buries itself into the rising bank at the end of the training field. After that, well my archery is really put on hold. At least I had Neji routinely beating me up to fill my afternoons. A fortnight without practice and Hiashi-sama summons me to the elder's hall.

"Kaori. I understand that you have not been able to continue your archery training," He begins.

"I broke my bow," I explain.

"And may I inquire how?" Hiashi-sama says. Performing the hand signs, I craft a jūken arrow and present it to him.

Hiashi-sama twirls the arrow through his fingers in careful examination, the hard line of his mouth softening. "I see," He says, dismissing me with a wave of his hand.

A few days later, I find a yumi bamboo bow on my bed, a rose vine design engraved into its limbs. I pick up the bow and feel a faint trace of chakra brush against my fingertips, I activate my byakugan and discover the rose vines are in fact chakra channels to reinforce the rigidity of the bow. I infuse my chakra and the bow curves to attention, the tensile strength bringing back memories of my old competition compound bow. Underneath the bow are a pair of leather armguards with adjustable straps.

I head out to the training field with my new bow in hand, moulding a jūken arrow, I nock it to my bow and scan the training field for a worthwhile target. My vision hones in on a protruding rock, 10 metres ahead. It is the size of a soccer ball with a quartz mineral structure inside. I lock on and fire. My arrow fires with a clean, silent shot, embedding deep into the rock and parting it in two, revealing a core of sparkling violet quartz.

I retrieve the rock and take it to my bedroom, placing it against the wall by my bed. When I return from the Academy the next day, I find the rock placed on a newly built shelf, my bow hanging on a hook on the opposite wall.

One evening, Neji tells me about his father. All feeling disappears from my body, leaving behind a cold hollow of fear and a dark oily slick of anger.


I don't take much notice of village affairs until an event comes slamming into me with such brutal, shocking reality. Ino is the one who tells me, the dark tale of the teenage heir who took up his sword and in one night, one night, massacred his whole clan.

Horrific mass violence is by no means new to me, I come from a world of mass shootings, air strikes and subway bombings after all. Somehow I find the news even more disturbing to discover in a village of highly trained, militarised assassins. Perhaps I thought that within a shinobi village there is a mutually assured ceasefire, if everyone is trained then everyone can defend themselves or at least come to the aid of others, yet in one night a whole clan was reduced to just one.

All those people, whole families, little kids.

One mad teenager with a sword. Is this the world I was reborn into?

Sasuke, the sole survivor. Is he–? How is he–? I can't finish the thought, because I can't even imagine what he must be feeling.

At the end of the week, I make excuses to Natsu-san not giving him any time to reply before I dash away and activate my byakugan. I track Sasuke down to the ghost town of the Uchiha district and find him sitting at the end of a long pier. My footsteps clacker like gunshots on the wood and Sasuke immediately tenses, hackles up as he whirls on me with a vicious glare. My throat runs dry as I realise that I have nothing prepared. Sasuke's eyes narrow, jaw clenched in such vehement anger that I fear he might actually attack me.

"Do you want to spar?" I blurt out.

Sasuke's anger fades with slight surprise, before returning with another dark glare. "No," he bites out, a clear demand for me to leave.

I consider it, I really do, maybe it would be best to just leave him alone, when my feet move on their own and I find myself lowering down to sit beside him. Sasuke is staring at me, more stunned than angry. There is a coiled spring to his posture, one wrong move and it'll blow.

I lean down to the surface of the lake, threading out my chakra I draw up some water to play with. I mould the water into a sphere, a pyramid, a square and then shape the water into a whale tail glowing a cool blue in the palm of my hand.

"How are you doing that?" Sasuke snaps.

"Coat chakra along your palms," I say, cupping my hands and withdrawing the chakra, the water pooling back in.

Sasuke's dark gaze scrutinises me for a moment, before he performs a hand sign and then cups his hands the same as me. I lean over and pour in the water, Sasuke flinching at the slight brush of our wrists.

"Okay, now infuse your chakra into the water," I continue. Sasuke glances at me with a cautious expression, the water shimmering into a periwinkle shade.

"That's great," I praise with a smile, which he receives with that same watchful look. "Okay now, raise your hands and seal up the bowl, like you're making a snow globe and encasing the water within," I explain, making a curving gesture and moulding the water into a sphere.

Sasuke raises his hands, but instead of the water gliding along his palms it splatters into his lap. I laugh and Sasuke reddens, grumbling under his breath and glaring at me. I conceal my laughter in a cough. "Sorry, I'll dry you off" I say, reaching across to draw the water out of his lap when Sasuke smacks my hand away, the skin smarting at the strike.

I stand and brush myself down, recognising it is time for me to leave. "See you tomorrow, Sasuke," I say, giving him a parting wave before I briskly depart the pier. I don't need to activate my byakugan to know his dark gaze is following me all the way until I am out of sight.

The next day when I join him on the pier, Sasuke remains openly suspicious and watchful of my every move. I start experimenting with currents, manipulating the water into miniature whirlpools as I chatter about today's lessons at the Academy. Sasuke listens silently. A couple days later, I walk back with the heiress to the estate and practice with my bow for an hour before sparring with Neji, though he ends the session early, some Hyuuga jōnin is performing katas in the courtyard and he wants to observe. I join Sasuke on the pier and find him moulding water into a half-decent sphere. "Would you like to spar?" I say.

Sasuke looks up at me with one of those assessing half-glares.

"I was sparring with my cousin, but he ditched me," I continue.

Sasuke drops the water back into the lake and stands, stalking down the pier he leads me onto a grassy patch. Sasuke's taijutsu is fast and striking, but even if Neji is a prideful snoot he is also a pretty damn good teacher and I can match Sasuke blow for blow, evading the more fatal combinations and landing my own hits. At the end of it we're both flopped out on the grass sweaty and panting. The sky turns salmon pink and I roll to my feet, "I've got to be heading back now, see you tomorrow Sasuke."

"Bye, Kaori." A rough voice murmurs, as I carry on back to the Hyuuga compound.

A week later, Sasuke returns to school. I'm sitting in the back with Naruto, he walks along the row and sits down without saying a word. "Morning, Sasuke," I greet. He clasps his hands and stares out the window.