Against The World

"Follow the letter, not the intent."

-x-

The sound of the door opening and closing roused me from my afternoon nap.

"Mother?" I said blearily as I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was only just past one in the afternoon. "You're home early."

"There was a bit of an accident at work, love." She answered. "Someone ran into me while I was carrying a tray, and soup spilled all over me, so they sent me home. I'm exhausted, so I'm just going to bed, okay?"

"'Kay." I mumbled, and flopped over to go back to sleep, not realizing that was the last thing I'd ever say to my mother.

-x-

Eight

Our first team training session was with Tsunade-sensei, since Kairi-sensei and Kushina-sensei were out running missions for the next few days.

"Welcome to your first team session." Tsunade-sensei greeted. "Today, we're going to do a little training exercise. Usually, genin teams are tested by their jounin sensei, and if they fail, they're sent back to the academy. The three of you are lucky—you didn't have to deal with that." Sakura and Aiko, who both stood to my left, traded nervous glances, likely wondering where this was going. "But I'm going to give you the test I'd have given if that were the case." Tsunade-sensei smiled cruelly. "If you pass, you will be rewarded. If you fail, you will be harshly punished."

Sakura and Aiko gulped audibly, but I didn't react to her words. Tsunade-sensei reached inside her green haori and pulled out two small bells from what I assumed was an interior pocket. She held the two bells in front of us, and jingled them, smirking all the while.

"Your task is to take one of these from me. I'll be holding them in my right hand the whole time, and if I drop them unintentionally, then the test ends immediately. Whoever gets and keeps a bell throughout the test within the next hour passes. Those who don't, fail. Understood?" she explained brusquely.

"There are only two bells though." Aiko frowned. "Does that mean that at least one of us will fail?"

"I think the answer to that is quite obvious, isn't it?" Tsunade replied. "And we begin now."

As soon as she declared the test had commenced, all three of us put distance between both each other and Tsunade-sensei.

I took to the trees with the intention of taking a moment to plan and keep an eye on Tsunade-sensei while I did so. Tsunade-sensei was legendary—she was probably one of the top five most powerful Leaf ninja. There was no way I would be able to get one of those bells from her, let alone Aiko or Sakura.

That didn't stop Aiko from making the first move, though. She burst out of the trees and bushes and made a mad dash towards Tsunade-sensei, throwing a handful of kunai. The legendary ninja easily side stepped them, but my blonde teammate aimed another volley of kunai at her new position. They kept up the dance of projectiles and dodging for almost a minute, until Aiko was right in front of Tsunade-sensei and pulled on something, a wire, by my guess. All her projectiles were pulled from the ground and came flying towards the elder blonde's back. Tsunade dodged them by jumping into the air, causing the ground to crack and shake, and Aiko was forced to release the wire she'd been pulling on and make a clumsy retreat, lest she end up impaled by her own weapons. With a scowl on her face, she leaped into the trees once more.

Aiko's attempt made it all the more clear just how futile it was to face her head on. Not to mention, seeing Aiko's strategy through, it was obvious that at most, all it might have accomplished is cutting the strings Tsunade-sensei held the bells by, and only if she was lucky.

Then it hit me.

If I obtained a bell within an hour I passed. If Tsunade-sensei dropped the bells unintentionally, the test ended.

If she dropped the bells before the hour was up, I could still grab one within the hour time limit. After all, she never specified that I had to get a bell during the test, just that I had to get one within an hour. Not only that, but she didn't say we had to keep the bells after the test ends, so if we force it to end before we take the bells, then we can just pass the bells around between the three of us, and so we each got a bell within the time limit.

By my internal clock, only about eight minutes had passed since the start of the exam. That gave me roughly fifty-two minutes to grab my teammates, make a plan, and execute it.

Without further ado, I went off to find the other two genin.

I found Sakura first, and all I had to do was tell her that I found away for all three of us to pass, and she followed me in my search for Aiko.

Once we found her, I laid out the loophole I had discovered.

"Are you sure that will actually work, Sekai-chan?" Sakura asked as she gnawed at her bottom lip. "I mean, that's clearly not how the test is supposed to work..."

I shrugged. "My suggested course of action falls within the parameters of the mission." I paused for a moment, then corrected myself. "Test. The parameters of the test."

"But the test has already ended at that point." Aiko pointed out. "Can you pass a test that has already ended?"

I tilted my head and looked Aiko in the eye as best I could through the shiny lens of her glasses. "You can only pass or fail after the test."

Sakura frowned in thought for a moment, but quickly came to a conclusion. "There's no harm in trying..."

"I suppose." The blonde finally agreed. "Do you have a plan?"

-x-

Sakura ran towards her mentor, attempting a direct attack with taijutsu, being sure to go after the arm that held the bells. Tsunade-sensei smoothly dodged her first few attempts, but eventually grew bored of dodging and flicked Sakura away with her free hand.

My teammate flew a short distance through the air, and finally came to a rolling stop. Instead of trying again, Sakura fled back into the trees, where I was hiding. I gave her a thumbs up, and we started counting silently.

Just as we reached a hundred and fifty-three seconds, Aiko burst forth from the opposite side of the clearing. Like her first attempt, she threw barrages of kunai and shuriken at Tsunade-sensei, which the older blonde dodged with ease. The training ground was half covered by the time the Aiko pulled back.

I had no idea if Tsunade attempted to move from where she stood, but if she did, she failed.

When Sakura had been kicked back by Tsunade, she had planted a handful of what I called freeze tag seals as she rolled, and Aiko herded Tsunade right on top of them.

With Tsunade-sama disabled, I finally emerged from the trees, and slowly walked towards her, and then kicked the arm that held the bells with as much force as I could muster. Fortunately, it was enough to make her arm shake as the freeze tags resisted movement from the force of my kick, and the bells fell from her hand.

"Oh no." I said as I bent down to pick up the two bells. "The test is over."

My teammates walked over, and I handed each of them a bell.

"Indeed," Aiko agreed with a smirk. "But each of us still managed to get a bell within an hour."

"Which satisfies the conditions required to pass the test." Sakura finished.

With that, I released the seals, freeing Tsunade-sensei, who took a moment to roll her shoulders and flex her muscles.

She gave us a long, considering look, and then burst into laughter. "You got me, brats. I suppose that's what I get for modifying the test as I explained it to you." She shook her head. "Congratulations. That said, it's time I explained to you the real criterion for passing."

"What." The three of us chorused.

Tsunade chuckled again. "All three of you met the criteria that I told you, you needed to meet to pass, but that actually wasn't the real test."

"Fucking ninja mind games." I muttered to myself in English, resulting in strange looks from Sakura and her mentor.

"Just ignore her, she just says gibberish sometimes." Aiko explained.

"Right. Anyways, you also accomplished the actual criterion for passing—you worked together." She told us. "The test is supposed to discourage you from working with your teammates, which is why there are only two bells. Working together, however, is the only way any of you had a chance of accomplishing the "mission," so to speak. If you'd chosen not to work together, you wouldn't have put the mission first, and would have failed. But you were able to succeed because you put the mission before your own interests, and that is one of the most important lessons I can teach you."

Inwardly, I snorted. Put the mission first. Fuck that. I'm looking out for my interests first and foremost.

"Now, whoever came up with your plan, explain it."

Aiko and Sakura, the traitors, pointed at me. Throwing me under the bus? I would get them back for that...

"I figured out the loophole, and went to collect my teammates. From there, I thought to draw up my freeze tags, but small enough that they aren't obvious, and subtly place them on the ground, so their ranges overlapped. Once they were in place, it remained to force you over to them." I explained, not letting my annoyance take the form of sarcasm and bleed into my explanation. "After Aiko's initial display, I decided she would do the herding, and Sakura and I gave her all our kunai, shuriken, and senbon. When you stopped messing around with Aiko when she first attacked, I noticed that you sent her flying. Therefore I instructed Sakura to engage in a taijutsu battle with you, and when she was sent flying, to make sure to fall into a roll and discreetly place the seals."

"Not bad, brats." Tsunade acknowledged. "I'm proud of you."

-x-

I had been Kushina-sensei's student for just over a week when she asked me to join her family for dinner. I didn't particularly want to, but I had the feeling there wasn't really another option.

So one Tuesday afternoon we cut training short and sensei led me to her home in the Senju compound.

"The Senju compound...?" I asked as we passed through the gate.

Sensei hummed. "Yeah. The Uzumaki clan was closely related to the Senju, so when I came to Hidden Leaf from Whirlpool Country I stayed here. Back then I lived with Mito-sama, who was an Uzumaki that married into the Senju clan, but when she passed I moved into my own home."

"Oh." I nodded. "Most of these houses look uninhabited. Why?"

"The Senju clan is nearly dead." Sensei smiled sadly. "Tsunade-sama is the only one left, and she won't be having any children. She lives in the main house with Dan-sama. Jiraiya-sensei has a house here too, but he's not in the village much."

"That's..." I looked down, unsure what to say.

"After she dies, the compound will fall to me. I have plans for it, by then." Kushina-sensei confided. "I haven't told many people, just two or three other people know, but I figure if I can trust you with Uzumaki sealing techniques, I can trust you with this, yeah?"

I nodded wordlessly, unsure how to respond.

"Despite the fact that my clan was all but obliterated, there were a lot of survivors from the assault on Whirling Tides, the hidden village of Whirlpool country that was attacked because of my clan. Most of them came here, and I want to open up the compound to them, and rename it the Whirlpool compound."

"You should." I said, earning a soft smile.

The rest of the trip passed in silence, until we reached a large, round, pale blue house with a more saturated blue roof.

"Here we are!" Kushina-sensei announced as she unlocked the door with a pulse of chakra to the seal on the handle. "Come on in. My husband and son won't be home yet, so I'll give you the tour and then you can help me cook dinner, okay?"

I nodded as I followed her through the threshold. I slipped out of my sandals and into the guest slippers sensei pointed to, then followed Kushina-sensei around the house.

It was beautiful and had an open floor plan. The wooden floors were decorated with colourful rugs, and paintings hung on almost every wall. The ceiling was low, and stairs hugged the curved walls, spiralling around the house like a helix.

The first floor contained the dining area, kitchen and living room. A bathroom, a couple offices and a small library could be found on the second floor. The third and fourth floors held a bathroom and four bedrooms each. The furniture throughout the house was a combination of dark wood and bright fabrics.

"Is there anything you don't eat?" Sensei inquired after the tour.

"Shellfish." I replied. In The Before I'd been allergic. I wasn't in this life, but the avoidance was ingrained in me, and the few times I'd tried I couldn't make myself eat more than a couple bites.

"Hm... Alright. How do you feel about tonkatsu for dinner?"

"That sounds good." I agreed.

"Alright. Can you prepare the pork while I start on the miso soup and rice?"

I froze. "Sensei?"

"Yes, Sekai-chan?"

"... You should probably be made aware that I..."I paused for a moment, trying how to phrase it in a way that didn't sound pathetic. "I am lacking in talent and knowledge of the culinary variety."

What followed was an interrogation about my eating habits. Sensei was appalled to learn that the orphanage never taught me to cook, and that I'd mostly been surviving on instant ramen, raw vegetables, and plain rice since I left. In my defence, the foods here were very different from the things I ate in The Before, and even then I wasn't much of a cook.

Once she finished scolding me, she proceeded to show me how to cut off the fat and flatten the pork cutlets, and then how to coat them and fry them.

Half way through, her son arrived home from the academy. He shouted a greeting to his mother, but didn't seem to notice me, and headed straight up stairs, presumably to his room.

By the time her husband and a masked man with silver hair arrived home, I was setting the table.

"Oh, hello." the mother fucking Yellow Flash said. "You must be Kushina's apprentice. Sekai-chan, right?" I nodded. "I'm Uzumaki Minato. It's nice to meet you. This is Hatake Kakashi, my own former student."

"Yo." the masked man waved lazily.

"It's nice to meet you Uzumaki-san, Hatake-san. I'm Hoshino Sekai."

"Ah, Minato-san is fine! We're not very formal here." The Yellow Flash smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his neck.

His student nodded in agreement. "Kakashi is just fine."

"Okay, Minato-san, Kakashi-senpai."

"Naruto! Dinner's ready!" Kushina-sensei hollered as she carried the serving dishes into the dining room with huge, glowing yellow fucking chains coming out of her motherfucking back. What the actual fuck?

Sensei noticed my staring, and smirked. "Bloodline."

I let out a small sigh. Trust sensei to reveal her bloodline limit by using it to serve dinner.

A familiar blond boy came pounding down the stairs into the dining room. "Eh?" He squinted at me. "Who's this kid?"

"Naruto, this is my apprentice, Sekai-chan. Sekai-chan, this is my son, Naruto." Sensei introduced.

"Nice to meet you, Naruto-san." I said blandly. This was the kid who almost ran me over in my first year. Small world.

"What?! Mom, this shrimp is your apprentice?" He scoffed in disbelief. "No way! You mean this baby is already a genin and an awesome ninja like me is stuck in the academy?"

My eye twitched, but I remained silent. He was a brat, but just a kid. Kids are brats.

"Naruto!" Kushina-sensei scolded. "Don't, like, be so rude!"

Naruto huffed, but quieted under his mother's stern glare. "Whatever..." he muttered as he took a seat at the dining room table.

Sensei took the seat at the head of the table, and her husband took the one between her and their son. I took the seat across from Minato-san, and Kakashi-senpai slipped in the chair to my right.

"Thank you for the meal!" We all chorused.

Small talk was made while we ate, but I mostly kept silent, unless addressed directly. Unfortunately, Kushina-sensei wasn't too pleased with my silence.

"Come on, Sekai-chan! Speak up. You're family now." She cajoled.

"Oh." I faltered, unsure of what to say.

"You know," she said, her voice taking on a sly edge. "Maybe one day you'll marry Naruto and really become part of the family."

Naruto turned red and choked on his food, and I wrinkled my nose slightly. "I'm not interested in little kids." I said.

"Hey!" The blond boy protested. "Who are you calling little? I'm older than you! You're like, what, five?"

"I'm seven." I corrected with a sniff. "And I'll have you know I prefer older men."

Sensei burst out laughing, and Minato-san smiled too. "Well," he began teasingly. "Perhaps you'll marry Kakashi instead?"

Kakashi-senpai, who'd somehow managed to finish most of his portion without taking off his mask, froze, his single visible eye going wide.

"Well..." I said, focusing on the silver haired ninja and feigning consideration. "I don't think that's a viable option." Kakashi-senpai let out a small breath of relief. "I hardly want to marry someone who's old enough to be my grandfather."

The chopsticks in senpai's hands snapped in half, and the three Uzumaki burst into laughter.

-x-

Kairi-sensei led us on our first mission. Initially, I was excited for it, as were my teammates. Until we read the mission scroll.

Our mission was to act as intra-village carrier pigeons.

It was boring, but after going collecting the bag of mail to deliver, we didn't complain. It was a lot, but it was doable.

But then after we started delivering, people would hand us more and that was how we ended up running back and forth to different departments across the village for a whole day, and all Kairi-sensei did was smirk at us the entire time.

And that was how the month passed—doing important, but boring and tedious D-rank missions, and training.

There was little to say about training, other than that all three of us learned a lot from our mentors in that period, and improved our team work.

Well, that and I demonstrated how much of a disaster I was with projectiles.

It started when Kushina-sensei took me to training ground eighteen. Eighteen turned out to be one of the handful of indoor training grounds, specifically, it was the target room.

The room was the size of a gymnasium from The Before, and was filled with circular targets and wooden panels every where.

"Welcome to training ground eighteen!" Kushina grinned. "As you can see, we will be training with projectiles today! We'll start easy and slowly increase the difficulty!"

"...Must we?" I asked. I had a bad feeling about where this was going.

"Why are you so reluctant, your projectile scores were excellent at the academy?" Kushina-sensei asked with a furrowed brow. I didn't answer. "It's unlikely for you to ever be able to frequently use ninjutsu without risking chakra exhaustion, if you're even able to make the jutsu work properly. You need something you can use at a distance if necessary. Kunai, senbon, shuriken and the like are the best option for that. Now c'mon, get in the middle, and I'll go to the controls. Try to hit any target that you see, starting at the count of three."

Without further protest, I followed her directions. "One…" sensei counted. "Two… Three!"

Just after she shouted the number three, a handful of boards descended, each bearing numerous circular targets.

I quickly reached for my kunai and started tossing them at the targets as fast as I could calculate the trajectory, which was pretty damn fast, at this point. Once all the targets had a kunai embedded in the bull's eye, the boards rose out of the way.

"Good job, Sekai-chan!" Kushina encouraged. "There was no need to worry! You've got this! Time for round two!"

Round two consisted of moving targets. Fortunately, they were all moving at a uniform velocity, so it wasn't too terribly difficult to calculate the trajectory, but it took a bit longer, and I only hit a couple bull's eyes, and even missed a couple targets. The reason it took longer than before was partially because I had to add in a new variable, the velocity, and partially the time it to observe the moment of the targets to figure out their velocity.

From there, things only got worse. The targets started moving at varying speeds in unpredictable directions, and I completely fucked it all up.

After seeing my total failure, Kushina-sensei came down to talk to me about what was making things so difficult.

"My equations don't work." I told her.

"...What?"

"For calculating the trajectory. More variables have been added into the equation, some of which I can't predict because there is no pattern to the speed and direction of the targets' movement." I elaborated.

"...What?" Kushina-sensei repeated.

"I have terrible aim without the equations I use to predict the trajectory of the kunai."

"...What?"

I sighed, and that was the start of a very long discussion. By the end of it, we concluded that training with projectiles would be a waste of time, and Kushina-sensei decided that putting time into genjutsu would be much more productive.

-x-

I walked through the Uchiha district, following the directions to their private training ground that Kushina-sensei wrote out for me.

It was strange. There were so many people, but nearly everyone was clearly an Uchiha. I supposed that it made sense, considering the Uchiha clan was by far the largest clan in the village, with a population of approximately three thousand. For comparison, the population of the entire village was roughly ninety-three thousand.

I was relieved when I got off the main streets and into the outskirts of the training grounds. My purple hair stood out and garnered more attention than I'd like. I didn't think the clan was used to seeing outsiders too often.

When I finally arrived at the training ground it was already occupied by a young man with tousled black hair who was sitting in the middle of it.

"Hi." I said, unsure if he was my genjutsu tutor or if I was in the wrong spot. Sensei's directions weren't exactly easy to follow.

"You must be Sekai-chan." he smiled and stood up. "I'm Uchiha Shisui. It's nice to meet you."

"Thank you for agreeing to teach me." I bowed politely.

"Eh, well... It's not going to be just me, really. My cousin will be teaching you too. Or anyone else who's free and Kushina-nee-chan has blackmail on."

"Blackmail...?" I inquired warily.

Shisui scratched his cheek as he spoke. "Yeah... She's best friends with Aunt Mikoto, so she has loads of embarrassing pictures of me from my childhood. Among other things..."

"I see."

"Any ways, Kushina-nee-chan probably told you she's horrible with genjutsu, right? Which is why she's having us teach you. But Itachi and I are jounin, and frequently sent out of village, so we don't have time for even a part time student by ourselves, so you'll be shuffled around a bit." he explained. "Sorry about that. Anyways, you can call me Shisui-senpai!"

"I understand, senpai."

"Okay, then let's get started. Have a seat." He gestured for me to sit as he sunk down into the lotus position himself. "First, you need to understand that there are two types of genjutsu. The first, you cast on the environment. The second, you cast on people."

"So, targeted and area of effect?" I repeated for clarification. He nodded. I had to stop myself from letting my drift off to memories of playing mmorpgs.

(I used to play as a necromancer, and I loved to lure in a bunch of monsters, since I had ridiculously high physical defense for a mage, and then unleash my AoE skills. I missed that game. But I was there to learn about genjutsu, not reminisce about gaming.)

"Exactly. We won't be going too far into area of effect genjutsu, because in practice it should really be called ninjutsu." He lectured.

"What, why?" I asked, fingers dancing across my knees.

"You know the clone jutsu, correct?"

"Yeah. Why? Oh, you mean they function similarly to the clone jutsu?" I guessed.

"Exactly. They create chakra constructs that appears realistic, but you can dispel with contact. But they are tangible, and thus not technically genjutsu."

"But why are they called genjutsu then? And why isn't the clone jutsu considered genjutsu if it works on the same principle as techniques that are considered genjutsu?" My face scrunched up in confusion. (Well, scrunched up by my standards.)

"It's because people consider the chakra constructs illusions, though that's not quite true. As for the clone jutsu, it's a failed iteration of the shadow clone technique. Since it was intended to be a ninjutsu, it was classified as one."

"I suppose that makes sense." I conceded, tapping my fingers together instead of tapping my knee.

"Usually people start with that sort of genjutsu, because while it's really ninjutsu, it's still similar enough to genjutsu that it acts as a midway point to true genjutsu. In fact, type one is as far as most get. But Kushina-nee-chan said to skip it."

"Why?"

"You ask that a lot, don't you?" Shisui-senpai crossed his arms and leaned back slightly. I shrugged a single shoulder in response. "Well, I'm not actually sure. She just said it was a waste for you. Any idea?"

"I see..." I tapped two of my fingers against my chin as I thought. "Probably because of my skew?"

"You mean your chakra is skewed?"

"Yeah."

"What's the ratio?"

"As of the pre-graduation checkup it's sitting at eight physical, ninety two spiritual."

"Holy fucking shit." Shisui gaped at me. "Are you serious?"

"Yes." I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes. "I have no reason not to be."

"Damn, no wonder she wants us to skip over that." he chuckled. "I've never heard of chakra that skewed. It must be a record."

"It used to be only seven physical." I added helpfully.

"I don't even—fuck, kid. I can't..." he spluttered. "Uh, back on topic, we're going to focus on type two genjutsu.

"First thing to understand is that type two genjutsu is very different, and very few practice it. Outside of the Uchiha clan, the village has maybe four others who are proficient with it, and only one of them could be said to have mastered it. Inside the clan, there's probably about fifty. I mean, there are people who can cast some D- or C-rank type two genjutsu, but that's it."

"Why so few?" It was hard to believe in a village with over twenty thousand ninja had less than sixty practitioners? That was unreal. "Do other villages have more?"

"Well, it's basically because it's extremely difficult, and the true strength in it is to create and cast illusions on the fly. Other villages vary. Mist has a clan of true genjutsu users, but Rock and Sand have very few.

"Anyways, this type of genjutsu works by using your chakra to affect your opponent's brain. Complex preset illusions, like the one I assume they used on you in the academy, are almost never used by a true genjutsu master. We do use simple preset illusions a lot though. For example, there is a genjutsu to affect the targets balance. That one is pretty common, and there are others like it. But anything truly complex needs to be immediately—" Shisui paused as some sort of black bird landed on his shoulder. "—mutable. I'm afraid I must cut things short, I'm needed elsewhere."

"Ah." I nodded in acknowledgement, though I was a bit disappointed. It was an interesting topic.

"In the mean time..." He said, a hand rummaging in his weapons pouch. "You will need this."

He handed me a rectangular piece of steel embedded with three flat, circular stones, each a different colour. I turned it over in my hand and noticed a sequence of numbers across the back of it. "What is this for?"

"This token is what will get you into the D-rank section of the ninja library archives." He replied.

"The... ninja library archives." I repeated, and my lips parted ever so slightly. They actually had a ninja library? I was shocked.

-x-

The ninja library archives were generally just referred to as the archives. They were split into four different buildings across the village. I wasn't sure were the other three were, but the D-rank archives were hidden in the basement of an apartment building for retired ninja and other approved persons.

A very familiar apartment building. The building I spent the first five years of my life in.

Following Shisui-senpai's instructions, I made my way up to the second floor and found the door marked "staff only." Inside was a small, dark room with an elevator at the end. There were no buttons, but there was a slot for the token, which I inserted.

There was a loud clang as bars descended around me, and then clunking and hissing as the elevator descended. When it stopped, the bars rose up again and I found myself facing a woman sitting at a desk.

"Name, rank, sponsors, and token please." She requested tonelessly.

"Hoshino Sekai, genin, Uzumaki Kushina, Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi." I listed off, handing her my token. She took it, examined the serial number on the back and then touched each of the stones.

"Chakra signatures verified. I'll check the registry." she told me as she pulled out a thick black book. She flipped through it until she found what she was looking for. She compared the token to something in the book, then handed it back.

"Registration valid. You may access the D-rank archives, but are not permitted to remove anything. Food and drink are only allowed in the designated areas. Please keep noise to a minimum." she droned.

As I walked passed her, I noticed she was missing a leg.

The D-rank archives were basically like a science library. There were no jutsu or anything of the sort kept here, just information. And even then, they didn't share anything too advanced. The way I'd describe it is if this were a library of sorts from The Before, you could find a book about chemistry, but you wouldn't find one with information that would help you with creating a bomb. Like, if you took the information from one of the books, and applied it, you could probably make one, but it wouldn't give you instructions, if that makes any sense.

It wasn't surprising that they withheld so much information, even after all the hoops you need to jump through.

The token I had was registered by Shisui-senpai, Itachi-san, and Kushina-sensei with the sensors who worked the front desk, and one of the flat stones was filled with each of their chakra. No one can use the token but me, and they cannot all register any other tokens together.

I was also forbidden from even mentioning the archives to any other ninja outside of the archives themselves. I assume the upper ranks don't have to follow that rule, but a genin like myself was a security risk.

The reason I was given access to the D-rank archives was because to excel at true genjutsu, I needed to understand how the brain worked.

Walking through the stacks, I ignored the temptation of the math texts and worked my way into the neuroscience section to find the texts Shisui-senpai recommended.

-x-

"It's not fair!" Naruto fumed after Sekai left the Uzumaki home. He was standing in the middle of the kitchen while his father did the dishes and his mother was writing up a report at the kitchen table. "She's just a little kid! When I was her age you didn't even let me start the academy! I bet I could take her in a fight, believe it!"

"Naruto." Kushina said his name sternly, turning away from her work to face him. "When other people start the academy and when they graduate is decided by other people. When you start is decided by your father and me, and we both decided it was best for you to start when you were eight. As for my apprentice... She may be younger than you, but she's more skilled. She could beat you."

"No way! That little kid can't be stronger than me, the future hogake!" Naruto shouted back. "And why was it best for me to start at eight, huh? Why wasn't it best for her?"

"Naruto, she's stronger than you right now, but you'll catch up, okay?" The redhead attempted to placate her son. The scowl on his face deepened, so she hurried to reassure him further. "She had an earlier start than you did, that's why, okay? You'll catch up, I promise. And she had that earlier start because she's an orphan, and it was her own decision to do so. If I'd had any say, she wouldn't have started so early, but it's out of my hands."

Naruto huffed and stomped his foot. "But why?" he repeated. "Why was is best for me to only start at eight?"

"Because war was coming." Minato, who had just finished the dishes, said. "And now it's already been going on for almost two years. We wanted to keep you off the battlefield for as long as possible, to let you have as much of a childhood as we could."

"So what if there was a war coming! Why do you want me off the battlefield? I could have been out there kicking ass and the war would already be over if you let me start earlier!" Naruto protested.

Kushina shot Minato a look that seemed to say look what you've done now. "Naruto, even if we did let you start earlier, you'd still be only a genin, and you wouldn't be strong enough to make a difference yet, to battle enemy jounin. It takes years of hard work to be strong enough to make a real difference on a battlefield."

"Whatever! You're wrong! I could make a difference!" Naruto snarled, turning his back on his parents. He stomped up the stairs, and shortly afterwards Minato and Kushina heard a loud slam.

"Why did you have to go and say that?" Kushina hissed at her husband.

"He deserved the truth, 'Shina." Minato said softly.

"Don't you "'Shina" me!" she snarled, her hair rising around her in her fury. "He has no understanding of why we don't want him to go to war until it's absolutely necessary! He doesn't understand it's not all glory and adventure and saving people! And he just proved it!"

"Kushina, if you didn't shelter him so much—"

She barked out a laugh. "Me shelter him? You've sheltered him just as much as I have!"

"Oh really? Who decided—"

The argument between the blond and the redhead wouldn't end any time soon.

-x-

Notes: Tsunade is more powerful than Kakashi, so the bit about holding/dropping the bells was added to handicap her. Her intention was that if she dropped the bells, she'd call a draw, but she didn't say that out loud, so team four didn't know that.

The "freeze tag" seal is a type of barrier seal that Sekai created. It forms a thin, invisible, barrier around the target to prevent them from moving. She calls it "freeze tag" in reference to the game.

To be clear about Whirling Tides, the assailants targeted the Uzumaki primarily, resulting in only a handful of survivors. The other clans weren't hunted down the same way when they fled, therefore more survivors to make it to Leaf.

Regarding population, I took the numbers given in canon for the total allied forces in the war arc, then looked at the population ranks of each major village from the databooks to split that proportionally, and then added in the civilian population with numbers that made sense to me. For the Uchiha clan, I decided to make them so large because in canon the rebellion of them was apparently a viable threat to the village. I'll post more regarding the subject on the sekai-against-the-world tumblr eventually.

I decided to take the fanon "clone jutsu is really a genjutsu" and turn it into "some genjutsu is really ninjutsu" because I love being contrary like that with fanon I find stupid, or that goes against canon.

I chose an apartment building for the archives because I was like "What sort of large building has people coming and going that is not a business of sorts?" And voila! An apartment building. You have tenants and guests coming and going. But that's not terribly secure if anyone can move in. So it's subsidized housing for retired ninja, and other approved persons.

This was updated so quickly because the genjutsu/library scene and the meeting of the Uzumaki family scene were already written. The chapter cover/page thing for 503 says "a scene from theUzumaki family's daily morning ritual," which is why I had Minato take the name Uzumaki.

Thank you all for the reviews! Six and i got only like, three reviews, but then after posting Seven I got nearly thirty! Thank you all so much for your support

The Mathemagician

P.S. Sorry for the length of the notes on this chapter