Chapter 2: Calla did a stupid thing - or so much for going unnoticed

Summary: In which Calla is warned about being too talented, starts at the Academy and gets disillusioned about the First Hokage. Oh, and she proves her awesome skills at subterfuge (non-existent).

This world was weird.

Her new powers were even weirder.

Unlike the myths, she did not eat souls. How would that even work? Minato had seemed to think he would fight the Kyuubi for an eternity in her stomach. … Yeah, that didn't even- where did that even come from? Seriously! This was her world, according to Death, and she certainly had never gone around eating souls or have any kind of fighting in her stomach, which even- what?

Anyway.

She was around 8 years old now. Possibly. Maybe? It was kind of hard to tell, to be fair. Calla had always been a tiny, scrawny thing – mainly thanks to the Dursleys not feeding her, of course, and excessive chores and work. So, yeah. The orphanage presumed her to be about 6 years old. Calla thought she was probably around 8-ish. Or thereabouts.

As it turned out transferring Minato's and Kushina's souls to the afterplace – heaven? What was it called here? Was this part of her job too? Did she manage that or someone else? Was there even any managing to be done? Was there any kind of guide or step by step guide for this sort of thing? Were there more Calla's out in different universes floundering like she was?

God, was she ever easy to distract. Calla had been certain her attention span as a kid had been better, but maybe that was just whitewashing her past. So. Apparently transferring souls – without eating, tasting them or any other weird thing, thank you ever so much – gave her power. And her four-year old body couldn't handle it. Et voila, 8-year-old Calla, aged up by using the power so this body wouldn't just spontaneously implode. Although a part of her wondered just how big an explosion that would've created.

Anyway, they had found her in the aftermath, although she had made sure she was a little further away. Only those close to death saw her, so Minato and Kushina were the only witnesses in the vicinity who qualified.

Being a child again was hard. The previous two times she had been largely alone in the wilderness interspersed with only small villages. Calla had gone out of her way not to interact much with people, wanting to experience the world before she approached people and to avoid the exact scenario she was now in.

Konoha saw her as a 6-year-old child, orphaned by the Kyubi's attack. Civilians, due to cost, often gave birth at home and there was no registry of civilians in the village. So she was presumed to be the daughter of either a Konohan civilian or a travelling merchant unluckily in town – there had been a few in the village with children during the attack.

And what was she supposed to do? Even as a six-year-old, Calla had often not been allowed to talk – not to other children or adults, and even if she had, it had been around 15 years since then. So how was she meant to act as one? And to top it all off, she hadn't expected to arrive here deaged and spent time learning how to speak and write the language.

How would a civilian young child talk? How much vocabulary would it know? How well could it write? How many Kanji would a child know? At what age would she go from being well-taught to being a prodigy?

So far, her solution was very simple. Don't talk. Struggle with writing (which, well… wasn't too far off (Shut up, Ron, it's not chicken scratch! It's perfectly readable. … you just kind of squint and turn the page to this angle and see? Perfectly readable… Mostly. You get the jist, at least – and anyway, like you're any better, Ron!)) and, in a fit of irony, the orphanage workers thought her to be retarded. They spoke extra slowly to her, enunciated carefully and gave her easier, less complicated chores.

Hermione would've said it was just Calla's luck. After her first three years of Hogwarts, Calla had given up refuting it. There was happenstance and coincidence, but at some point you had to own up to it.

The Kyuubi's attack had destroyed entire streets and buildings. There were still a lot of tents pitched around Konoha, even several months later. Calla didn't know how many there were, but there were more than three orphanages in Konoha and several Childcare centres (many had opened up in the aftermath due to the increased need for them). Single Shinobi parents could drop off their children in the childcare centres for weeks or months at a time.

The Hokage (after Minato's death the Dumbledore-lookalike had taken the seat) had recalled all Shinobi to active duty and parental leave was effectively cancelled, although recent mothers were sent on shorter missions. It was all hands on deck and everyone was struggling and working overtime.

Calla had been dumped in one of the orphanages who took in children over the age of five (literally, dumped in her case. A Shinobi had picked her up and dropped her off at the door a few seconds later without exchanging a single word with her).

Her main duties concerned taking care of the two four-year olds placed in her charge. Each of the orphanages had to take on more and more charges, yet Calla was happy to note that even shared, she still had so much more space than she ever had in that stupid cupboard.

Calla shared the room with a 3rd year Academy student and her two charges. The Academy would open again in a month's time. The building had withstood the Kyubi's attack and the threshold for exams had been lowered. Classes ran only half day which also freed up more Shinobi for the village. Assignments were short – for the benefit of freeing up both teachers and students time.

The remainder, who failed the exam, had been forcibly graduated and been put into the Genin corps, running smaller missions, like couriering messages. Everyone in third year or above was asked to help out in Konoha, whether that was carrying messages between departments, cooking, washing, blankets, hospital work – essentially, all of Konoha needed a hand and Academy students were 'asked' to chip in – a repayment of their debt to their village for the free education.

Calla maintained that it couldn't be called a free education if they held the debt over your head like that (she was used to it from the Dursleys, and Hermione had tried for years to help her get her head on straight with this very argument; it may be a little hypocritical to use it on others when she still struggled with it herself, but it's not like they would ever find out).

T&I sounded like a frightening place (Umbridge would've loved it) and she had no intention of appearing like a spy. So her first week here she had spent some time implanting memories in a few civilians. Her parents had been loving but her father's sense of humour had alienated a few so they mostly had acquaintances. Their family's close friends had also perished in the attack. No one expressed anything beyond a few empty sentiments and no one had been interested in taking on yet another mouth to feed, so she could stay in the orphanage.

Calla had impressed this onto all their minds – she had no idea how to deal with pseudo-parents. Even Mrs Weasley she only knew how to deal with in small dosages. The hugs were nice, but she didn't know how to handle them or how to respond appropriately to that much love and affection. Distance was better. People paid to take care of her may have a slight emotional investment but they wouldn't expect this kind of bond to build. Plus the supervision! She had been an adult, and even when she hadn't been, she'd never had any real boundaries (Sirius was awesome, but he had no interest in enforcing anything but having fun and escaping oppression of any kind – parental oppression included). So while a part of her longed for parents, and the unconditional parental love her parents had seemed to have for her, she would chafe under it now and so, in the orphanage she stayed. Ironic, considering how often the Dursleys had threatened her as a kid with horror stories of the orphanage and how much better off she was with them. Living in one now, she begged to differ.

Even with the threat of abduction and potential death if you stood out too much.

Um… yeah, so that was apparently a thing here.

Several of the older children had made it very clear to the younger children, as often and as clearly as they could, that it was important not be too clever, have too much chakra, or display talent or intelligence of any kind. And that they should, as soon as they could, join the Academy.

Once you joined the Academy, you were safer, they advised. You would be registered as a citizen of Konoha and your details would be on file. Children rarely disappeared from the Academy, but there was still a chance; so make friends with any and all clan kids. Impress your teacher. Make sure people remember you.

And never, ever mention the disappearances in public. Or in the open. Or anywhere but in a whisper with other orphaned children. Yua had told them all about Sota. Sota had been with her in the orphanage. He had disappeared after two years and the workers had told them all Sota had been picked by a wonderful family – except no family or prospective parents had been by the orphanage in the months beforehand, at least none which were interested in Sota. There had been no goodbye celebration and his favourite stuffed toy, a dinosaur, was still there. A year and a half later, Yua and Riko had found him dead in the woods; except he had been older and had scars he never had before. The workers told them it was another child, but Yua had recognised the burn scar on his wrist he'd gotten when he'd tried stealing food from the still-hot frying pan.

So the children knew and they were all aware the workers were in on it.

But not all heeded it.

Calla had noticed three children disappear in the last six months. No one said anything, but the older children exchanged dark glances. Babies and toddlers were safe, but 4 to 8 year olds were the ones often taken. Too much hassle to raise them, Calla privately suspected.

Hermione had always told her that immersion was the best way to learn. The best way to learn a language and a culture.

(Seriously, Calla, why do you think people join these remote communities and live like them? There is a difference to being part of the group and being on the outside looking in. This is why we have student exchange programs, in the Muggle world, you know. My parents considered one for me, you know, but they wanted to wait until I was ten and then, well, we got the invitation to Hogwarts so we cancelled all that. Anyway, immersion, Calla, is the key to learning.)

So, the question remained where to go from here.

Calla could start talking and writing (she was sure if she tried, her writing would be better) and show off, draw attention to herself. She could find out where these kids were taken and dismantle the operation from the inside out. Even now, she could still feel each time someone died in her vicinity, and there was an extraordinary number of children and babies dying with each week.

Or she could do as she had planned. This was her world and she wanted to fix it, but she could only do that once she understood them better. Calla was still vehemently opposed to child soldiers and barely understood chakra. If she was sold off as a slave or a child prostitute or whatever other depraved thing led to talented children disappearing and dying with new scars on them, barely older than when they were taken, well, it wouldn't help her learn about this world.

Ron and Hermione had always insisted she had a saving-people thing. Not helping these children would be the height of selfishness…

Except these kids would come to her and she could put them in the happy place and the young ones could be reincarnated into a happier family who loved them. And it was the duty of this place and the adults in this world to take care of this.

No.

Calla decided, she refused to become their saviour. Once she found an adult she trusted, she would alert them.

It was selfish. It was cold and children would continue to suffer because she refused to step in. Calla knew that. But she also knew she couldn't help everyone. There were people dying all across this world, young and old alike and she did not want to be the only one everyone looked to for solutions.

She was here to live and experience this world and to keep an eye on the little blonde baby whenever whoever he lived with now let him out into the world. It was understandable that whoever had adopted the previous Hokage's child would not show them off during all this chaos.

Nope, Calla was here in an observational capacity only. She would definitely not interfere, not this time, just, you know, nudge things here and there. No interfering whatsoever.

So here she was, signing up for the Academy, along with other orphans, some she knew others remained unfamiliar and she suspected were from the other orphanages across Konoha.

They didn't need parental approval, unlike civilians or clan shinobi. It didn't take long to figure out there was a heavy bias in favour of clans. To be fair, some of them had literally founded the village, so fair, kind of. But the rest?

Some of it made sense – the clan prepared them for the Academy, so entrance exams were waived unless the child wanted to skip grades immediately on entering. But teachers were more likely to call on and praise the clan kids and call out civilian or orphans who they knew would struggle. It wasn't the best system.

After her first week and the frankly somewhat contradictory statements she got in the Academy, she got sick of it.

Three clans came together to form Konoha. And yet they also said: The Senju and Uchiha co-founded Konoha.

or

The Second War ended because Konoha had dealt a significant blow to their manpower. Except she knew from Minato and his wife that it was the destruction of Uzushiogakure which had caused the end of the war as they had resisted with extreme prejudice. Uzushio and the Uzumaki were not mentioned.

There was more propaganda, hailing the Senju and naming their many important Shinobi and contributions while simultaneously brushing over the Uchiha and only focusing on their one traitor. Yeah. This was not great. Uchiha Akari, a girl in her class, had sat their quietly with a furrowed brow, but not spoken up.

There were two kids from the same clan in the class above her – the Hyuga clan. Both had white eyes – only that apparently meant they had the Byakugan and not that they were blind – and the only difference between them was that one of them had something on their forehead. Apparently that forehead thing meant the other thought himself entitled to order his cousin? Brother? around to fulfil his every whim. The other child obeyed and had flinched the one time the child had made a hand sign and laughed in his face when he didn't hand over his lunch immediately.

So yeah. Something was really, really hinky in Konoha. And not just one thing.

And so then Calla did a stupid thing.

Ginny would've insisted it was essentially a law of nature by now, the beginning of every one of her adventures, she'd insisted, could and should be prefaced with 'Calla did a stupid thing'.

For the record, the only living Potter vehemently disagreed with this. Nevertheless, she… well, she'd thought she needed to train her Death powers anyway, right? And she wanted a bit of perspective from someone alive in that time, right? So who better than one of the people who founded the village.

It had seemed like a good idea at the time, Calla would like to point out.

Seeing as the Kyubi had left her behind the moment Calla had told him she was staying behind in Konoha to experience life, there really wasn't much choice. He'd looked at her and told her point blank that she was an idiot for staying here and if she insisted on continuing with this idiocy, he would not be part of it and really, if she wasn't Death, he would insist she would be better of dying here and now rather than prolonging her misery.

Turns out the half-remnant of the fox was a little bit of a grouch.

So, back to it – she called Hashirama to her.

Erm… yes. He was sitting in a corner sprouting mushrooms over his head when he found out about the Kyubi attack, sulking about his wife having told him this would happen if he continued with his plan.

He was not… very helpful. Honestly, she was surprised Konoha had ever made it off the ground. The first Hokage was extremely powerful but boy, he was also kind of an idiot. He didn't know the first thing about infrastructure – of the very village he helped built – and his approach with politics amounted to chat their ear off and why wouldn't they want peace? This fool didn't appear to understand motivations people might have and had no idea how to deal with… anything. When she'd told him she was attending the Academy, he'd told her he had designed it and it was all for his younger brothers who had died before they were in their double digits.

For a moment, she'd been impressed. Until he told her he thought girls should learn about the pretty flowers and dance while the boys could learn how to fight. Poisons, when asked, were apparently dishonourable, it always should be a face-to-face confrontation.

Calla didn't know if her definition of ninja as Shinobi were off – sneaky, stealthy saboteurs who killed silently – or if Hashirama was just an idiot living in his own world; and if so, who designed the Academy?

Under more prodding, Hashirama finally revealed that his brother helped with the paperwork so everyone knew what the Hokage wanted.

After dismissing him, Calla rubbed her face tiredly. It was kind of amusing that the Hokage was literally translated to fire shadow when the very first one apparently had a real shadow to his fire shadow. Tobirama, by all accounts, did the real work behind the scenes and subverted each one of Hashirama's words with the real intention and crafted something which stood for generations as his brother's work when it was really his own. She wondered if that bothered him, not being recognised for the ingenious work he had done and have it all attributed to that fool.

Admittedly, Hashirama was the main reason there had been peace and Konoha in the first place, through his optimism and his close relationship with the leader of the Uchiha, but he didn't really make a great Hokage. Calla wondered what a Konoha under Madara's leadership would've looked like.

So, yes, she could call on the souls of the deceased and they remained for as long as she fed them her power – and were recalled back to the afterlife the moment she stopped. Easy enough, at least, but it seriously deterred her from trying again.

No wonder there was so much propaganda, you didn't really want the world to know they had been taken in by a very convincing, very happy fool who saw reality the way he wanted it to be and then made it so through sheer force. It was admirable in some ways and great for motivation but terrible in a leader.

But Calla was very cautious about calling on anyone else. Who would she even call on? Very few shinobi were named in history class, except for the village leaders.

She had signed up for an apartment – apparently children got apartments if they wanted to after entering the Academy, but this was only assigned to promising students, if their orphanage was full or through exigent circumstances (Calla presumed this meant when the child was abused at home, but did not know for certain; many things were left unexplained even after asking, being told that they would know if they were one. What kind of logic was that?). Due to the recent Kyubi attack, houses were still being rebuilt, so she had been added to the list but as a low priority. Understandable, given the circumstances.

Kondo-sensei called the class to attention at the beginning of her second week.

"Now that you've had time to get used to the schedule, we will be assigning you to places where you will be asked to help out."

Calla's objective to remain under the radar was being challenged – she was assigned to help out the Akimichi clan with cooking and preparations.

It was the beginning of the end of flying under the radar at the Academy. To be fair to them, it wasn't intentionally and the Akimichi certainly had been kind and nice, but it hadn't worked out as she intended.

"My name is Akimichi Ringo, you may call me Ringo-sensei as I will be teaching you how to cook so we can feed all our people. Now, Fujita, Anzo-chan, come with me and I'll show you to your station. Kara-chan, you are already just beside your station – I'll be with you in a moment after I've shown Anzo-chan what to do."

Apparently her workstation belonged to a shinobi who had been recalled abruptly, cutting short his recuperation period. So how was she meant to know that the Kanji she was reading were intended for adults? By the time the person overseeing her work got around to her after helping another kid with questions, Calla was already mid-task, peeling and chopping still familiar to her even after all these years.

"Oh, well done, Kara," then, when Ringo reached out to pat her head, the tiny black-haired girl flinched and ducked slightly – it was too ingrained, apparently. Cooking was something she had only done at the Dursleys and after getting hit with the frying pan or pot (Petunia) or be pushed against cooking instruments, the floor, anything within reach (Dudley and Vernon), you quickly learned that no attention was the only good attention. Calla tried to cover it up, but given the slight downturn to his lips for a moment and the way he started making his movements slower, more obvious, it was clear he had already seen.

The large man (and he was large! Larger than Vernon, but more in both muscle and fat, and, unlike her uncle, he seemed kind), went into a seiza position in front of her to be more at eye height. The joke was on him, though, as she would still had to look up at him to see his eyes. It was always a bit of a hit and miss, in Calla's experience, whether adults wanted her to meet their eyes. Meeting someone's eyes was simultaneously a sign of your respect for them, but it could also be interpreted as a challenge, as a sign that you saw yourself as equal to them. But ducking someone's eyes could also be a sign of disregard just as much as it could be submission. Calla was not great at telling which one was appropriate. Hermione had said Calla lacked in social graces due to her upbringing; Ron had laughed himself hoarse at the both of them.

"You're doing great, kiddo. Do you understand all the instructions?"

Calla was still going with being functionally mute, so merely nodded at his question, avoiding his eyes. The medic had already determined there was nothing physically stopping her so this was a psychological issue. Normally, she would have been referred to a Yamanaka, but senior Shinobi took priority at the moment and it was not stopping her from communicating through writing, so it was declared not a problem for now with the hope that she would sort herself out prior to graduation or the problem would be addressed then – with the presumption that graduation, if she achieved it at all, was years away.

Over the years, very few – as in she could count them on one hand – adults had shown concern over her health or wellbeing and she still had no idea how to handle this kind of attention. Calla practically felt him go "aww" in his head when her cheeks flushed and her hands played with the frayed ends of her shirt as she glanced up at his face periodically (best judge, hands down, for adult mood and whether or not they were in the mood to go after you. Once you knew they had it out for you, watch the rest of the body, but first the face).

"Alright then," Ringo at least knew when he was overwhelming a child and stepped up and away from her slightly, and she could feel her muscles unclenching slightly at the increased personal space. "Let me know if you need anything, alright, Kara-chan?"

She nodded and waited until he had turned to his own workstation before resuming her work. There was a new sheet at her workstation each afternoon and she worked until Ringo-sensei sent her back to the orphanage each evening, at which point she would take care of the two children which were still partially assigned to her. They didn't have enough civilian orphans to take over all the children and as a First Year they largely remained her responsibility for the morning and evening.

"Alright, we are only in week 3 but you need to get accustomed to tests. Don't worry too much, this one will not affect your grade. We just want to see how you're following the pace of the lesson and if there are any gaps we need to close up before we continue."

Kondo-sensei had seemed so eminently reasonable when he put it like that. What Calla hadn't realised as she made it a point not to look at other people's worksheets was that hers was made up of Kanji unlike other students. The fear of being accused of cheating off someone ran deep. She still didn't understand how that was meant to make sense considering Dudley's grade was far worse than hers, but Adults had never needed to use logic when accusing her of things.

Calla was rather proud of herself when she handed the test in. She had managed to simplify and explain things clearly and answer the question with Konoha propaganda. She had done so well, they'd never figure out she knew more than she should for her age. Calla for the win!

"Bunko-senpai, what do you do if you have a more talented kid in your class?" Eiko Kondo had only taken up the role as Academy sensei since the Kyubi attack. As a chunin, she had helped the Uchiha police with evacuation and securing safe passage, but had ended up too close to the nine-tailed demon fox through an unfortunate series of events and it had burned her chakra system when she tried to protect herself. According to the medics – she really missed Tsunade these days – she would either get better and heal herself or she wouldn't.

There was nothing they could do. So, she became teacher for first and second years; it allowed her to contribute to help out Konoha before the kids needed to learn how to use Chakra. Besides, coming from a civilian family, she would be able to better assist the children, she hoped.

Bunko, on the other hand, had been a teacher for a decade now and he had been a teacher when the Hatake kid had flown through the Academy in no time. Not that he showed that kind of skill now. Where was that supposed genius when he came home time and again abandoning and killing his teammates. Friend killer indeed. She would rather resign than run a mission at his side. The Yondaime must have been so disappointed.

But Bunko – ask me my first name at your own risk – would definitely know what to do with his little problem child. The man put his paperwork aside, cold blue eyes narrowing at her thoughtfully.

"Tell me about the child, Eiko-san. What makes you think she is talented?"

Quickly organising her paperwork, she pulled out the reports on Kara, no last name.

"The child is an orphan. No clan affiliation or kekkai genkai that we know of. Family lived in Konoha all their lives. Both civilians. She's been mute since the attack. Nothing abnormal stands out until then. But she was sent out to help with the Akimichi civilians cooking. Akimichi Ringo-san has reported that her reading skills are advanced and she had no problems answering an advanced test this morning – both in reading, writing and reasoning skills, she is very advanced. It looks like her parents pushed her hard from a young age, her writing is shaky and barely legible but vocabulary is very advanced. Her Kanji knowledge is frankly equal to most adults raised in clans, I suspect, given her response. I had to look some of these up."

Eiko blushed slightly at raising that point but continued on; she had been at the Academy only for a short time as she had graduated near the beginning of the Second War and the graduation age had been lowered due to wartime regulations. Her education hadn't been continued since – Shinobi skills took precedence.

Kara was impressive, for all that she was shy, meek and quiet, and she didn't know what to do with the child. If Kara had any attempts to reach out, she might have thought to keep it quiet to teach the kid to cherish her peers and socialise, but that was clearly not in the cards.

"But mostly, I was impressed with her reasoning skills. One of the question asked about why we have teams under a jonin-sensei and another asked about how we choose our Hokage. Have a read," she passed the test paper over to him and turned back to her other paperwork. Eiko's latest mission saw her helping out at the hospital with triage and first aid, another remnant of being in two wars, and she needed to be there by 4 pm. Luckily, you didn't need chakra to help, just skill and knowledge and knowing how to handle unconscious jonin and chunin.

She knew exactly what Bunko-senpai was reading, mainly because she had re-read it a few times herself.

The jonin is the new teacher. Unlike with a classroom of children, he can focus his attention on three and address deficiencies as well as improve their strengths. He guides the children through the process including wartime protocols and paperwork and is there to introduce them to mission. Missions include how to handle clients and appropriate response, how to handle things outwith mission parameters and where the line is between the mission objective and the spirit of the mission. The jonin is also responsible for teaching teamwork and teaching the new genin how to improve and where and when to go ask for help. He needs to teach them the basics about economics, politics etc to handle missions and be able to accurately assess likely responses from other nations. The students are adults upon graduation and need to learn how to handle finances, cooking, laundry, paperwork and personal affairs. They need to learn self-motivation and continue on their own initiative to train themselves. They need to learn to work together. The Academy is a deliberately competitive environment, and the students will then be forced to work together, be open about knowledge and skills, share training where possible and able to work cohesively in a fight. It takes a lot of experience together to anticipate the likely responses of teammates accurately. In a pinch, they at least need to learn not to hit each other or get in each other's way and communicate effectively or assign targets quickly.

What Hokage is chosen depends on whether the village is in peace time or at war, but in general terms they need to be well known and popular both with civilians and shinobi and among other nations. That means inherently that they also need to be powerful, powerful enough to be a deterrent. Our Hokage is a symbol of both our prowess at war and our desire to keep the peace. Hashirama Senju, the first Hokage, was extraordinarily powerful and nearly unmatched. He was well-known and well-liked. His skills did not extend to administration, which would have been a logical conclusion for a good Hokage. The second, his brother Tobirama, however, was equally skilled in the field as in administration. He was well-known and liked for his accomplishments but people were more afraid of his distant personality, nevertheless he became Hokage. T he first two Hokage were from clans as Konoha; the first chosen from a founding clan, but the third Hokage is only from a minor clan. Likely that was not just because of the skill, but also to appeal to non-noble clans and civilians, that they, too, could hope to one day aspire to be Hokage. The fourth Hokage was an orphan and he held not only military might but a large amount of civilian support before and during his short tenure. Orochimaru was highly skilled as well, but lacked the popularity of the people he would be working with. Another issue here is that as a civilian, Namikaze-sama was switched into many different teams during the war and gained a wide breadth of support as many knew him personally. Orochimaru-san, on the other hand, had only been part of one team and sent on many solo missions, which meant few knew him. His success were largely in other nations and while laudable, did not have the direct impact Namikaze-sama often had in front of many who could share news of his success. In conclusion, popularity, although it may not seem important at first glance, is one of the most important factors in becoming a Hokage, both from civilians and shinobi. Clan prestige and standing, as well as their skills and power are also important but do not weigh in as much, considering the Hokage will be confined behind his desk. They will need to be strong, but they need not be the strongest Konoha has to offer, as long as they have the backing to make up for the deficit.

Bunko-senpai snorted, shook his head and handed her the paperwork back.

"Yeah, we got another genius sitting in 1-A. Itachi, the heir of the Uchiha clan. Tiny child, very solemn and quiet – but he does talk. He's thoughtful and eloquent. He's going to be put in the graduation class, we'll see how he does there. He's young, but Konoha needs the manpower and given his clan, he'll be put under a sensei who will make sure he doesn't go out on missions until he can well and truly defend himself. Hatake was the same – both had clan backing. It is rare for a civilian or orphan to stand out – especially for education. Have you tested her in taijutsu or ninjutsu yet? I suspect she won't do well there. Little girl is exceptional in reasoning for her age, which is rare. There is a reason they say wisdom comes with age. Very interesting. If Danzo-sama was still active, I'd recommend her. In this case, I'd say put her in the second-to-last year. It'll be a jump up in skill and knowledge but still give her about two years to get her head around the physical side. And if not, her jonin can fill in the gaps or she can repeat a year."

Eiko nodded. That made sense. It was a shame, she liked the quiet child and it wouldn't give her a lot of time to learn how to speak again. Oh well, Konoha needed the manpower. It really was a shame. Danzo-sama had taken in some excellent shinobi and turned them into amazing – just a shame that it also meant few of them lived long as they were often into suicide missions and Lord Fourth had put a stop to the training programme despite its success. She sometimes wondered if Ayame was still alive and had been absorbed into ANBU or if she, too, had been sent out on a suicide mission.

Yeah, Calla told herself, she should definitely have known. The moment she called up the first Hokage and was disillusioned, she should have known not to be too critical in analysing the system, but really, what did they expect. Ginny had been right. It always started with her being stupid, and somehow, seemingly completely unrelated, she'd be drawn into something.

"Don't worry, Kara," Kondo-sensei said, bending down slightly as she handed her the transfer slip. "You'll do well there. It will be more interesting, but you will have to do a bit of catch up, just like you wrote the genin do upon graduation. Find time and train to catch up."

Calla made an agreeing hum, slipping the piece of paper into her beat-up bag (fifth-hand, she guessed, and with not-quite careful previous owners). So flying underneath the radar was kind of out.

Her next step would be then to graduate as soon as possible, she supposed, so a jonin sensei would notice if she went missing. God, this was so troublesome. Hand-to-hand was not something she was familiar with. Her only time wielding weapons was in the kitchen or the sword back in second year at Hogwarts. And the whole point of going to the Academy was to learn how to use chakra.

Another sigh. For a split second she noticed a tiny, doll-faced little boy stepping out his classroom in a reflection before she turned a corner. He looked adorable, dark hair, dark eyes and so tiny. She kind of wanted to cuddle him – only she was about the same size.

Another sigh escaped her. Given the rationing at the orphanage (still more at the Dursleys) she kind of doubted she would grow taller, even in this world. And she had liked working with the Akimichi. They had even let her help with actual cooking – one of their chefs had injured himself and needed to go to the hospital and she had been allowed to assist, given her clear skills (and lack of others available to step in).

Maybe she should give this a miss?

The sun was blinding as she stepped out and she paused for a second, blinking rapidly to adjust to the brightness, staring up at the brilliantly blue sky and fluffy white clouds moving gently across.

How often had she done this? Lying with Ron and Hermione by the lake after exams, bantering and being silly, laughing and watching the blue sky (according to Ron, every single cloud looked like something from either Chess or Quidditch, a quaffle here, a broom there – single-minded idiot; part of her wondered whether Charlie only ever saw dragons but she hadn't known him well enough to ask something so random). When she was growing up, working in the garden, staring up at the sky and wondering about the world, the adults therein and whether it would ever get better.

No.

This was Her world. She wanted to live in it, experience it, and she wanted to find out if she could change things, at least some of them, for the better. Without interfering at all, of course.