Against The World

"Peace, whether personal or on a large scale, cannot last."

-x-

Sometimes, I wonder if this is my second life, or just the second one I can remember. If it wasn't the second, why didn't I remember any others? Had something gone wrong this time around?

I wasn't sure exactly how old I'd been before I died, but I think I'd been in my twenties.

Despite my physical age, I couldn't help count those years towards my actual age.

But it made me wonder. If this isn't only my second life, does that mean I should count the years from other lifetimes? Since I'm not counting just my current one? But then how old does that make me? Hundreds of years? Thousands? Only a few decades?

I don't know.

Even just counting this life and the one I remember, it makes things difficult. I've never been able to relate well to people my own age. I see them as children. I can't imagine ever dating someone my apparent age, I'd feel like a pedophile.

But the people who I could see myself dating, see me the way I see those children.

It makes me wonder if I'll end up alone.

But if this is just my second life, and I will remember every time I'm reborn, won't it just get worse and worse?

Won't I eventually consider myself to be hundreds or thousands of years old? Wouldn't I be even further away from everyone than I am now?

-x-

Thirteen

It was the end of February, and my time staying with Kakashi-senpai was coming to an end. He wouldn't be on active duty for another couple months, but by the end of the week he would hopefully be cleared to live solo.

To celebrate, I dragged him to the market to pick out his favourite foods, which I'd do my best to cook for him. For the most part Kakashi-senpai just trailed behind me quietly, but while I was examining eggplants, I noticed him speaking with another ninja.

Considering I had no idea what to look for in an eggplant, I just grabbed one and slunk over to the silver haired ninja's side.

"Oh? Who's this?" The bearded man he was speaking to asked. "They got you on babysitting duty, Kakashi?"

I scoffed. "Hardly. If anything, I'm babysitting him."

The man sent me a patronizing look, the kind you gave a kid when they told you they were going to be the next Hokage, that said uhuh, sure kid, you and everyone else.

"Mah..." Kakashi-senpai sighed. "I'm afraid it's true. I've been on medical leave for the past few months, and Sekai-chan here, who is Kushina-nee's apprentice, has been looking after me."

"Hoshino Sekai. A pleasure to meet you." I greeted him, bowing perhaps a bit too shallowly.

"Sarutobi Asuma. Nice to meet you, kid." Sarutobi-san's gaze was no longer dismissive, but rather assessing. "You're Uzumaki-san's apprentice, huh?"

I inclined my head. Wasn't that what Kakashi-senpai just said?

"I've heard of you. Guess I'll be seeing you around. Later, Kakashi."

-x-

"How is it?" I asked at dinner that night. "Be honest."

"Well... you made a good effort," he began and paused. Likely for dramatic effect. "It's decent. Not the best, but enjoyable."

My lips curved into a small smile. "I'm glad. I'm not much of a cook, as you know."

Kakashi-senpai's single visible eye seemed to soften. "Eh, it's the thought that counts, right Sekai-chan?"

"Indeed." I agreed.

"You know, you've been more talkative the past few months than I would have thought." Kakashi-senpai commented. "You barely spoke when you've had dinner at Minato-sensei's house."

I shrugged. "I talk with you because it's enjoyable. Conversation with The Nui—" I faked a cough, and took a gulp of water, before correcting myself. "Conversation with Naruto is annoying. And when he's around he makes it hard to have a good conversation with other people."

"You don't like Naruto much, do you?"

I paused, unsure what to say. He considered The Nuisance to be his little brother after all. With a mental shrug, I decided to be honest. "He's annoying and unintelligent. I have no interest in that sort of person, and would prefer to avoid them. I haven't the patience for people who can't keep up with me to at least some extent."

Kakashi-senpai chuckled. "He can be a bitch much, huh? Don't tell sensei, but he can be really annoying sometimes. Still, he's family. But he's not really that stupid, Sekai-chan. You're just a genius."

"Hardly. I'm above average, at best." I dismissed. If he knew that I was mentally older than he was, he'd agree. But I couldn't tell him that. This was the second time he called me a genius, and it seemed he wasn't going to let go of it.

My temporary roommate frowned (I think?), and looked at me for a long moment. "I know you don't believe it, Sekai-chan. But you're smarter than most adults I know. Sometimes I forget you're a kid, despite your size."

"You better not be calling me small."

"Of course not." he placated.

-x-

I moved back to my own apartment two days later. To my dismay, it was covered in dust, and I had to sacrifice some library time to clean it and wash my bedding.

On the bright side, that night I slept in my own bed on fresh sheets, which was lovely.

Sadly, I was awakened only two hours after I'd gone to bed—which was at five in the morning.

"Guess who's back~!" a voice shrieked as my covers were torn away from me.

"...The fuck?" I mumbled in English, sitting up and rubbing my eyes. I glanced at my clock, which read quarter past seven, and saw a mass of red hair standing by my bed. "...Kushina-sensei? When did you get back?"

"Yup!" My red-headed teacher beamed. "I got back last night. C'mon, it's time to see how much of a mess you made as acting seal master while I was gone."

I sighed, gathered my things, and headed to my bathroom, where I took a quick shower and got dressed. I stepped out, gave a forlorn look at my bed, and followed Kushina-sensei through the streets to the tower.

Once we were settled in her office, we went straight to business. I summarized the work I'd done as acting Seal Master in her absence and showed her the seals I'd completed.

"How do you do this all on top of everything else?" I asked her once I'd finished.

Her lips twisted into what could only be described as an evil grin. "Shadow clones."

"Shadow clones?" I repeated in confusion.

"The most, like, awesome kind of clone ever, you know! Everything they do, you remember it once they dispel, they can use chakra and do, like, anything you know how to do."

"That is so hax." I grumbled in my native tongue. "That jutsu is so OP."

I needed it.

"...What?" Kushina-sensei blinked dumbly.

"Irrelevant. Can you teach me?" Though phrased as a question, it came out as more of a demand.

"Probably not a good idea, at the moment." she replied. "It's a chakra intensive jutsu, and has a pretty high physical energy cost. Even if you have enough to make one, which I'm not sure you do, it would leave you basically useless."

I visibly wilted. Of course. No OP jutsu hax for me.

Sensei sighed. "Don't look so down, kiddo. If you keep up your work I'm sure you'll be able to make one in a few years."

"Sure," I agreed halfheartedly. "How many can you make, anyway?"

"W-well, I'm like... I'm a bit of a special case, you see." Kushina-sensei chuckled nervously, scratching the back of her neck. "I have... like, a lot more chakra than pretty much anyone else in the village, and the Uzumaki tend to have more physical energy than most people... So, I can safely make, like, about thirty in a day... but beyond twenty I start to notice the drain."

I stared. What the hell. Making one could kill me—and I may be young and have severely skewed chakra, but I had above average reserves for a genin—but she could make thirty?

That... there was something I didn't know about Kushina-sensei. There had to be.

With business out of the way, sensei dragged me back to the Uzumaki residence for lunch.

"Um. Sensei?"

"Yes, Sekai-chan?" the redhead answered absently as she prepared sandwiches.

"I... wanted to apologize for how I behaved the last I was over for dinner with you." I took a deep breath. "I shouldn't have let my emotions get to me like that, and remained polite."

Sensei sighed, and set down the knife she was using to cut crusts off and turned to face me. The expression on her face was warm and gentle.

"Sekai-chan, there's nothing to forgive." she assured me, resting a comforting hand on my shoulder.. "Your feelings about Jiraiya-sensei are understandable, given your experiences. I won't hold it against you, nor will Minato, and we won't force you to be around him, kay?"

I nodded. "Still, I was very rude, and confrontational."

"Maybe, but you're hardly the first person to lose their temper in this house. It's fine okay? Don't worry about it."

"...Alright."

"This has been bothering you, huh?"

I swallowed. "I was worried that you wouldn't come home, an-and the last time I'd seen you I'd been..."

"Oh, Sekai-chan!" Kushina-sensei wailed and pulled me into a hug. "Even if something like that happens again, I'll forgive you, okay? You're my precious student, after all."

Hesitantly, I returned the embrace. "Thank you, sensei."

"Now, is there anything else bothering you? You can talk to me about anything, you know."

"Well, I think Aiko and Sakura are mad at me, and I don't know why."

Sensei frowned. "What makes you think that?"

I shrugged a single shoulder, and avoided her gaze. "I didn't see them much while you were gone. I assumed it was because they were as busy as I was, however, then I ran into them a few weeks ago, and the way they behaved indicated they were upset with me, and avoiding me."

"Honestly, the best thing you can do is talk to them." she advised. "I know that kind of advice sounds unhelpful, but it's really all you can do, if you want to fix things."

She was right, and I knew it. "Okay. Thanks."

She reached over and ruffled my hair. "Anytime."

-x-

It was another week before I saw Aiko and Sakura again. Now that sensei was back and I was no longer babysitting Kakashi-senpai, team training had resumed. Our first session was led by Kushina-sensei, and it was awkward, to say the least.

As she ended the practice, sensei gave me a look, that I interpreted to mean she wanted me to speak to my teammates.

"Sakura, Aiko, can we talk?" I asked before they could leave like they clearly wanted to. The two exchanged a look, but agreed.

"Sure." Aiko said, her arms crossed over her chest. "What is it?"

My fingers tapped against my thigh restlessly. "Are you two upset with me?"

Aiko's neutral expression morphed into a scowl. "Do you really have to ask?"

I lifted my chin. "Yes. I do. Because I don't know what I could have possibly done to upset you."

She scoffed, and Sakura's expression was equally disbelieving. "Are you serious?"

"Yes."

"Oh, I don't know!" My blonde teammate exploded. "Maybe you completely ignored us on the last mission we went on, and then avoided us for months!"

I blinked dumbly. "I—that's—what are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb, Sekai." Sakura spoke up. "We all know you're far from it."

I shook my head. "I honestly have no idea what you're talking about. I didn't—that mission we had, I wasn't ignoring you. At least not on purpose," I explained. "I was upset—I'd had a big fight with Kushina-sensei the night before, and I was just...

"And I wasn't avoiding you, I was busy! With sensei out of the village, I was acting Seal Master, and I took over all the administration and a lot of the R&D work."

"If you weren't avoiding us, why didn't you ever answer your door? We stopped by loads of times!" Sakura argued, though with less fire than she had before.

"I wasn't living there for months. Kakashi-senpai was severely injured, and needed someone to supervise his recovery, so I was staying with him."

"...Oh."

"Still, you could have told us!"

"When? If I wasn't working or taking care of senpai, I was training. And it's not like I knew where either of you were." I defended myself.

"You could have stopped by one of our places!"

We carried on like that in circles for ages, until eventually we got everything we were thinking out.

In the end, the two older girls felt guilty they hadn't realized something was wrong and that I wasn't just ignoring them on that mission, and I realized that it wasn't normal to just not communicate or make much of an effort to for months just because I was busy.

"I don't know what I expected, really," Aiko commented once things were settled. "You're brilliant, but socially you're a moron."

All I could do was shrug, since she wasn't wrong. Before Aiko I never spent time with anyone but Hanako, who'd just always been there. Additionally, it wasn't like either of us needed to make an effort to see each other before the last few months. We either saw each other regularly at school or for training.

"In the future I'll attempt to at the very least inform you I'm otherwise occupied." I promised.

"And we'll try to take into the account the fact that you have no social skills in the future." Sakura added wryly.

And that was that.

-x-

Over the next few weeks, I noticed that Kushina-sensei was different. The last time she came back after being away she'd been exhausted, but this was something else. It was hard to put my finger on it, but eventually I concluded that she was always on edge, never relaxed, like she was expecting an attack at any moment.

Would that be me, someday? (Probably)

I did my best to ignore it, to pretend that nothing had changed, and she seemed to appreciate that.

After the whole misunderstanding with my teammates, I tried to visit Hanako more as well. Because though I knew she understood why my visits were infrequent, Sakura and Aiko made me realize I could still make more of an effort.

To my surprise, however, Hanako was nearly as busy as I was, if in a different way. Whenever I stopped in, she had piles of paperwork strewn across her hospice room. She seemed harried a lot of the time, but she always had a warm smile for me when I made it to visit.

My visits weren't always as long as they had been in the past, and some times we didn't speak much, but I could tell she was glad to have me around.

Hanako wasn't the only relationship I tried harder to maintain though. After living with Kakashi-senpai for months, I had come to consider him a friend, too, and so I tried to stop by and visit him and the dogs as well.

Currently, they were the only two I needed to try with at the moment, since I was once again regularly seeing my teammates in training and missions, and I saw Itachi-senpai and Shisui-senpai for genjutsu lessons semi-frequently.

My lessons with Shisui-senpai had finally progressed past him randomly trapping me in genjutsu, as I could now sense it whenever he did. He'd seemed very upset about that, but that was just because he enjoyed my embarrassment.

Our lessons now focused on genjutsu that were difficult to dispel even if you did detect them.

"You can't just disrupt your chakra to get out of this sort of genjutsu," he had explained. "You have to find the exact location of my chakra in your pathways and disrupt that."

It was trickier than it sounded, too. While his previous lessons helped with detecting foreign chakra in my system, it was harder to pinpoint its exact location, as there were hundreds of minuscule pathways in my brain.

I felt bad about how difficult it was, but after Itachi-senpai mentioned that the sort of genjutsu Shisui-senpai was using were S-rank, and few ninja could break out of them without the aid of a bloodline, I felt a lot better about it.

Itachi-senpai was still teaching me preset illusions, but he was having me focus more on what my chakra was doing when I cast them, to get an idea of what exactly it was doing. This included doing so while sparring, which still seemed impossible to me, even after several practice sessions, both with senpai and with Sakura and Aiko.

Team practices with Sakura were getting scary. She was creating craters with each punch, and was so used to using her chakra to enhance her hits, that sometimes she forgot to let up when sparring with us. This resulted in more than a few broken bones, which at least served as practice healing for the pink haired medic.

Aiko, meanwhile, had gotten better with her taijutsu, and learned several earth ninjutsu. Kairi-sensei had the three of us practice defensive maneuvers incorporating said jutsu, and combo attacks.

Team training was becoming brutal, and I couldn't help but wonder if it had to do with the way things were getting worse with the war.

-x-

"Alright, it's time to start you on one of the Uzumaki clan's secret jutsu!" Kushina-sensei declared one morning when we met for training at her home. "Let's go out back." she said, and gestured for me to follow her, which I obediently did, only to pause when I caught sight of the yard.

Spread across her back lawn were piles of huge chains.

"Sensei?"

She smirked, and flung her arm out to point at the chains. "The first step is to channel your chakra into these chains. Don't worry, they're made of chakra absorbing metal."

"..Why?" I asked.

"You'll see. Now hop to it! It'll take awhile! They have to be completely saturated in your chakra!" Kushina ordered with a manic gleam in her eyes.

Without further comment, I plopped down near the pile and began pumping my chakra into the chains as she demanded.

In the end it took me two weeks to finish saturating them with my chakra, and only then did Kushina-sensei tell me what they were for.

"You know how I have my chakra chains as part of my bloodline limit, right?" Sensei said. "Well, this is how they started.

"The next step is to create a seal to store them. Usually my clansmen had the seal somewhere on their body. But before we worry about that, we need to design the seal on paper, first."

I nodded in understanding. We were both sitting on the lawn, surrounded by chains thrumming with my chakra.

"Each clansmen started with the base seal," Kushina-sensei lectured as she placed piece of paper in front of me with an inactive seal. "Then built on it for their own needs.

"Now, I'm sure you're wondering how these things are used. The seal allows you to connect them to your chakra pathways, and thus to control them like a limb. It's a bit more complicated than that, but that's the idea. Anyway, the chains are then used as they are for attacks, or as conduits for various jutsu."

"Fucking sweet." I whispered to myself.

-x-

The mission wasn't anything new. We'd done several like it before. It was a simple run to one of the outposts to deliver supplies. Tsunade-sensei was leading us for the first half of the mission, and Kairi-sensei, who was at the outpost, would switch out with her for the trip back.

There were no problems on the way to the outpost near Pond Country—we made the trip in two and a half days, which was a reasonable time frame to travel almost five hundred kilometres for a team of genin. Once we arrived at the outpost, I unsealed the storage scrolls from my arm and passed them to the jounin in charge while Tsunade-sensei took Sakura to the medical station. Aiko and I checked in with Kairi-sensei, and then I drew up various types of storage seals for the ninja on base, according to what the jounin commander asked for.

The next morning Kairi-sensei asked me to store a couple of sensitive documents in my arm, once I'd done so, the four of us took off.

In order to avoid a major battle that the three of us genin weren't ready for, Kairi-sensei had us take a detour that brought us fairly close to Meadow Country.

"God dammit." Kairi-sensei hissed after a few hours of travel. "We've got three chuunin incoming, four o'clock."

"Orders, sensei?" Aiko asked, though we all knew what sensei would say. This wasn't the first time something like this had happened. In retrospect, we would realize this is where things started to go bad, but at the time it didn't seem like a big deal.

"The three of you keep going along the route planned, full speed. I'll take care of these three and then catch up with you. Understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." the three of us chorused.

"Good, now go!" Kairi-sensei shouted as she unsealed her spear and jumped down from the tree.

"Aiko, you set the pace." Sakura ordered, since Aiko had the worst stamina. "Sekai and I will match you."

"Right." Aiko nodded. She sped up and took the lead. I let Sakura follow behind her, and took the rear.

We travelled that way for nearly three hours, hopping from tree to tree. But the longer we travelled, the more anxious we became.

"Stop for a rest." I suggested when I noticed Aiko slowing down.

"Are you sure? We're still really close to the border with Meadow." the Yamanaka fretted.

"It's fine. You need to rest and replenish your strength." Sakura agreed.

Aiko nodded reluctantly, and the three of us retreated to the ground.

We each took out our water bottles and a niNRG bar, and collapsed on the ground in a tight circle.

"I'm glad we have you on this team, Sekai." Aiko said around a mouthful of the meal replacement. "My cousin was so jealous when he found out I have a seal that keeps my water cold."

"It is convenient." The medic in training agreed. "And we can carry enough for weeks, too."

We continued to make small talk as we rested, but after an hour we were starting to grow anxious.

"It's already been about four hours since sensei sent us ahead." I hedged.

"Yeah." Aiko agreed.

"Usually she's caught up with us by now." Sakura added.

The fact that we'd been stationary for a quarter of that time went unsaid.

"...We should get moving." I said as I stood.

"Yeah."

And that was when things really went wrong.

"Ninja art: Binding Web!" I heard someone shout before the three of us were covered in a sticky white substance that pinned my teammates to the ground and myself face first to a tree.

Before I knew it, I felt pain in the back of my head, and I faded out of consciousness.

-x-

The first time I woke up, the only thing that registered was pain and something digging into my wrists and ankles before I drifted off again.

The second time I woke, I was being dragged along by two men. The sound of their footsteps and the clanging of the chains around my ankles against the floor echoed through the hall.

"Good, she's awake."

Abruptly, I was shoved into a chair. One of the men fastened my shackles to the chair, and the other left, a heavy metal door slamming behind him.

The remaining man circled around me. "Well, well, well. What do we have here?" he sneered. "Looks like it was a team of little girls who stole the key. And just where is it, hm? Is it in one of those seals?" He traced the seal on my inner thigh, and I realized I was naked. "Or have you already passed it on?"

I blinked in confusion, but remained silent. What key?

"Not gonna talk? That's fine. I have other methods." He smirked, and took my face in his hands. I stared back at him, waiting for him to make his next move. He closed his eyes. And then I screamed.

I wasn't sure what he did, but it felt like my head was being split open.

"God fucking dammit!" he shouted, and tried to throw me to the ground, but my restraints held me in place. "No wonder the three of you were sent. You've all fucking immune. Tch. Our fucking luck. Looks like we'll have to do this the hard way."

-x-

Notes: Honestly, the Shadow Clone jutsu splitting your chakra evenly makes very little sense with the way Naruto uses it in canon. He makes loads of clones all the time—if he makes 99 clones, he is left with 1% of his total chakra. Regardless of how much chakra that is, it's still ridiculously wasteful. What it comes down to is that Kishi didn't think that through, so I'm making changes to the mechanics of it. And nerfing it to some extent. Also, what pisses me off about other fics and the shadow clone jutsu, is that they have Kakashi or someone say Naruto can't teach Sakura the jutsu because the chakra cost would kill her. (Speaking of genin Naruto and Sakura) Like... you're literally saying she'd die without half her chakra. That makes no sense. Sure she doesn't have a lot of chakra as a genin, but if the jutsu has a proportional chakra cost instead of a fixed cost, then she would be able to do it just fine. She'd be capable of at least a clone or two. It's stupid and illogical, and basically just perpetuated as fanon. And it's bad fanon, at that. I urge any writers reading this to avoid using it.

Tl;dr: the mechanics of the shadow clone jutsu in canon make no sense, and most fanfic writers are just as stupid about it as Kishi. Sorry not sorry.

Yeah, their fight was basically a misunderstanding and just regular drama. Sekai wasn't without fault, but she really didn't realize that it's not okay to just not make an effort to spend time with people you care about because you're busy, or not even tell them that. She just has shitty social skills, and Aiko and Sakura jumped to the conclusion that Sekai was being a bitch by ignoring them and avoiding them, without considering that something was wrong, and then that she just didn't know how to maintain a relationship when you don't see someone everyday anyways. For Sekai, she goes ages without seeing Hanako with little explanation, and Hanako doesn't hold that against her or comment on it. To Sekai you don't need to see someone very often to be friends with them. Furthermore, Aiko and Sakura didn't realize anything was wrong on that mission, because other than basically ignoring them, it didn't seem like anything was off. Sekai's typical lack of expression makes it hard to judge how she's feeling unless she says something.

The current (Genin) arc has just a couple more chapters left! Which means I've been busy planning the next arc. I spent like three hours in my room with my laptop open, my maps open, and notebooks spread all over making notes and brain storming. I've got some ideas, but is there anything you'd like to see?

Also, I've come to a decision about ships for this fic. I'm still not sure if I'll include them, but they're picked out for if I do. They could still change, but who knows? I will say that Sekai's potential ship is not with any of the canon rookie nine. If it happens, it won't be a major part of the story.

Pond Country is the canonically unnamed country Hidden Waterfall is in, and Meadow is the unnamed country Hidden Grass is in. I named them. There is a rough world map on the sekai-against-the-world tumblr. Eventually I'll post a more detailed one, but it is currently a WIP.

All the best,

The Mathemagician