Month one of school had passed with relatively little drama. It was a lot of adjustment and introduction, and nothing too intimidating had been forced upon us yet. But while keeping up with classes was definitely one of my worries—as a, for all intents and purposes, normal girl, I had to especially work hard just to survive—it was definitely not my biggest worry.
No, my biggest worry would be what I continued to pester Enma about whenever I happened upon him in my sleep.
"Enma-ō, it's been a month without any of these flashes of memories," I complained, basically venting my frustrations to who was essentially the head honcho of death and rebirth. No big deal.
Enma harrumphed and leaned his head on an open palm perched on his knee. I believe we have been over this, mortal. What you remember and do not remember is not within my designated power. You have already presented yourself as an anomaly in premature rebirth, surely anything you would have queries about would be out of my field of knowledge.
I pouted, mimicking Enma's position. "But I can't sit around and waste time! I have to figure out what's going to happen so I can prepare for it! I have to…" I sighed, trailing off and losing steam mid-sentence. "Meditating worked the first time. But since then, I haven't been able to recall anything. It's like my mind was coated in a haze of sorts."
A haze? Enma said, sounding almost interested. Go on.
"Wow, way to sound interested as soon as it involves a way I'm suffering," I murmured. "I don't know how else to say it. Whenever I try to think too hard, I hit a wall." I flex my hand in front of my eyes. "It's like trying to move a limb you once had but lost. I don't know, it only worked once, so maybe it was a fluke?"
What you are describing sounds familiar to me, Enma growled. Certain mortal-world herbs and concoctions are designed to block connections to the spiritual side of life. However...this may not be the case, as you have still been able to waste my time with these delightful little meetings.
"Concoctions? But why would someone try to stop me from accessing my spiritual side? No one even knows I have another life." The idea of someone knowing my secret sent a wash of cold fear down through my body into my toes.
That is not my question to answer. Enma placed a giant hand on the wheel and pushed it, freeing it from the catch it had apparently been stuck on. I guess somewhere out there in the cosmos, someone holding on had just died. I shuddered, remembering it could have been me if not for the strange screw-up the universe made.
I wasn't getting anywhere any time soon, so I stood up and dusted myself off. "Well, thanks for hearing me out anyway. I'll try to figure things out and update you."
No need. Your matters are of little importance to me, Enma grunted.
"I'll definitely be back with a whole bunch of news for you next time!" I assured him. "Trust me, you'll be so tired of hearing my voice next time that maybe you'll never want to see me again." I grinned at him cheekily.
I am already at that point, mortal. Enma tapped his fingers against his knee, but there was none of the imposing, booming malice he had had during our first encounter. This was just Enma-style annoyance.
"Later, Enma-ō," I chirped before waking up.
I stretched my arms above my head as I lumbered out of my closet groggily. While I did so enjoy my little meetings with Enma, they always left me feeling unrested. That was fine this time, though, because I had bigger fish to fry than sleep deprivation. I was going to get to the bottom of my lack of memories.
I plopped down at the table, where Imiki was surprisingly also seated at this morning, and fixed my aunt with my best sleuthing expression. "Imiki-nee, do you remember if I've hurt my head in the past month or so?" Reasonable place to start, right? Maybe I had hit my head somewhere and that had caused the blockage between my spirituality and my mind.
Imiki frowned, the good morning she had been uttering cut off by my question. "Past month or so? Futaba-chan, I can't even name all the times you've hit your head in the past week or so."
I winced. She had a point, there. Whether it was during taijutsu lessons at school—which, if I may add, taught a different style of taijutsu that Imiki had been teaching me for years, and as a result I was already struggling; thanks Imiki—or just in daily life, I seemed to have a penchant for acquiring mysterious bruises, scratches, and bumps. That wasn't exclusive to the past month, either, so I guess head injury had to be ruled out as a cause of spiritual blockage.
"What's going on now?" I heard Imiki say, snapping me out of my trance. She looked vaguely suspicious.
"Nothing," I tried to assure her casually. "I'm just wondering why I'm getting...headaches lately." Quick-wit Futaba to the rescue.
"Headaches...I wouldn't know," Imiki mused, standing up and wandering over to the sideboard. "If they get worse, let me know and we'll get you checked up."
"En," I grunted as I bit into an onigiri Imiki had purposely left behind on her plate. I followed Imiki with my eyes and saw her standing by the sideboard with a picture frame in her hands. The sideboard was usually decorated with an array of photographs, from one of Shuu, Kouko and I at the last New Year's festival to one of my parents and Imiki in their younger days—before I was born, clearly. I squinted curiously at the photo in her hand, and I made out the figures of four people. Three kids, one adult in the middle. "Team photo?" I wondered out loud.
Imiki smiled. "Yeah. Tairo's hair was so stupid back then." She laughed to herself. "Waki looked like a girl...I still remember thinking to myself, 'I thought I was supposed to be the only kunoichi on this team.'" That one made me laugh, too.
Until her words started to echo in my mind—or, being more specific, that one name. The smile dropped from my place. Waki? Why did that name make me feel so uneasy?
Something came back to me, something embedded in the fog of my not-as-recent memories. "Waki? Wasn't Waki over here that one time?"
Imiki hummed in confirmation, still studying the picture. "He was. He, eh, had tea with us, remember?"
"Oh." Vaguely, I recalled the misty-haired man's face smiling down at me as he handed me a cup of aromatic tea. The memory, why did it feel so vague and foggy? As if it had happened in my past life—no, worse, even. It was almost as if it hadn't even happened in my mind before Imiki mentioned it. The gears of suspicion creaked to life in my brain.
"Hurry along to school now, Futaba." Imiki set a bento box wrapped in a handkerchief in front of me on the table. "I've got a mission today, so if I'm not home by dark, warm up the leftovers in the fridge, ne? Have a good day."
I pushed myself out of the dining area, picking up my lunch with a begrudging sigh. I guessed the investigation would have to be put on hiatus until recess. Still, the photo of Imiki's genin team stayed in my mind as I kicked at the gravel lining my path to the academy.
"Ne, Naruto, wake up," I drawled, slipping into my seat beside his, leaning against the windowsill as I settled in. The blonde boy was conked out with his head pillowed in his arm across the desk in front of him. Finding it odd that Naruto was on time in the first place, I quirked a brow and asked the groaning boy, "Why are you here so early? Prank go wrong?" Lately, Naruto had started getting into mischief, something I was never really a fan of—well, not without cause. I wasn't really keen on getting on the bad sides of my teachers so early in my life, so whenever Naruto had offered me a participating role in his schemes, I'd been quick to turn him down. I had half a mind to try and deter him from this pranking business, but I'd come to realize that mischief was just a part of him, and I wasn't equipped to take that part away from him.
And he wasn't killing anyone or anything, contrary to what the village civilians loved to whisper about.
Naruto whined, slamming his arms down on the desk and glaring at air. "No, it went well, 'ttebayo. The only thing that went wrong was that I got caught." His glare morphed into a grin, though, as he seemed to recall something amusing. The intensity of emotion in all of Naruto's very diverse expressions never failed to catch me off-guard. "You should've been there, Futaba-chan, the look on that jii-jii's face was priceless." He burst into cackles.
"I told you, I'm not interested in your pranks on the Sandaime, Naruto," I sighed, shaking my head. "Besides, it landed you in detention this time. Morning detention?"
"Morning and afternoon," Naruto grunted, the scowl back on his face. "That crabby sensei Hyouroku was there, too. I bet he likes putting me in detention. But one of these days...one of these days I'll get him back for it, you just wait and see, 'ttebayo!"
"Count me out," I quipped, taking out my notebook with clumsy, chunky lettering on the front.
"Aw, come on, it'll be fun!" Naruto tried to convince me, but before I could give him another verbal eye-roll, the teacher walked in with the same stern expression he had worn since day uno. Hyouroku dropped his scroll down onto the podium before clearing his throat, indicating the start of class. The hustle and bustle of us six-year-olds settled into silence.
"Today we will be learning the basics of chakra usage," Hyouroku boomed, fixing us with a look that commanded subordinance. The longer I stayed in Hyouroku's class, the more I grew to resent the man, almost to the point where Naruto's proposed prank on the teacher seemed tempting. I mean, couldn't this man just chill out a bit? We were a bunch of six-year-olds, geez.
I opened my notebook to a blank page and got ready to jot down every bit of information I could get from the lesson. With the way I'd been performing in school so far in comparison to my peers, it was already clear I would be no natural-born taijutsu genius. That meant I really had to pour my efforts into studying and maybe scraping by with an above average in shinobi history and theory. I was an alright student in my old life, so this wouldn't be so bad, right?
The sound of Naruto's snores, my pencil swiping against the notebook paper, and Hyouroku's deep booming were the only sounds I heard for the rest of class, trying my damndest to seem interested in chakra theory when Imiki had effectively taught me the exact same lesson some couple years ago. Maybe this part of the curriculum would actually breeze by for me.
I was just murmuring "water...fire...earth...wind...lightning" to myself as I annotated my crude diagram of the chakra natures when Hyouroku spoke up again. "Now, we don't expect you children to know or utilize your chakra affinities at this point. After lunch we will be giving you a demonstration on how chakra is utilized in shinobi life to our aid, and, in coming lessons, we will be focusing more on the different utilizations of chakra. At first, chakra usage can be quite draining, so make sure you pack ample sustenance. We do not want to deal with students fainting during their field classes." Fixing us all with one last stern stare, he rolled up the scroll before him. "Class dismissed for lunch."
The students around me filed out, murmuring among themselves, leaving only Naruto and I and a few other stragglers at the back of the classroom. I nudged Naruto with an onigiri Imiki had packed me, noticing Naruto's lack of lunch, but he barely stirred. I left the onigiri leaned against his arm. I wouldn't be going out to play today, no—I had work to do.
I flipped to an empty section of the notebook and tried to sketch out a cohesive timeline of events I could recall from my past life's memories, then I drew a separate timeline for my current life's happenings. Maybe this way I could plot out what might have changed due to my involvement and what I could anticipate in the future.
This took me a good twenty minutes of hair-pulling and eraser-biting, but try as I might, I could only get so far. I wasn't an actual truth-seer, after all. All I had jotted down on my two timelines so far was:
(Early) Naruto bullied, alone. Sasuke also alone at one point.
(Later) Naruto hates Sasuke.
(Even later) Sakura Sasuke Naruto team.
On the timeline from this life, I made note of the canon characters I'd met, but it quickly devolved back into me questioning why I suddenly couldn't remember anything else from my past life. Why I had blockage in the first place. Other questions that lingered in my mind from time to time also came up on my paper of messy brainstorming. Why is Imiki weird sometimes? Why does Waki give me the creeps? What happens to the Uchihas?
Does Naruto's story have a happy ending?
I had gone and fake-died before the series had even concluded, leaving this distant but still important question drifting around in the recesses of my mind. It was something I was afraid I would never be able to answer. What if I died for real before I could see the story to completion?
"Oi, Futaba!" Shuu poked his head into my all-but-deserted classroom, dark eyes finding me by the window and breaking my concentration. He made his way over to my desk, wrinkling his nose at Naruto's sleeping form. Oh, he had started to drool. "Why aren't you outside today? I was looking all over for you," Shuu grumbled.
"I, uh...I'm making notes," I explained slowly, a hand protectively going over the mess of writing.
"On what? Class isn't going right now, dummy," Shuu scoffed. "Let me see." Why did Shuu have to be so nosy? I flipped to an empty page with a jerky motion, halting Shuu's hand mid-air. The boy frowned at me. "What's in there that I can't see, huh?"
"Blackmail notes," I said very seriously.
"Yeah, right. You always let me in on your stockpile of blackmail. Come on, let me see!"
I continued jerking the notebook away from him, but I sensed it had gone too far when a stormy expression appeared on Shuu's face all of a sudden.
"What is up with you sometimes? You get all weird and secretive and...you know, it's not that I'm worried, but it's lame," Shuu spat. "We're friends, right?"
I frowned right back at Shuu, feeling more than a little attacked. "Yeah, duh! But I'm allowed to have my secrets, aren't I? Why do I have to tell you everything?"
"I dunno, maybe so I don't feel so weird whenever you don't!" Shuu flailed his arms. His face heated up in frustration, and he had hit Naruto's head at some point in his flailing, but Naruto barely groaned. "Forget it." Shuu started his way out of the classroom, the bell ringing with impeccable timing. He left me with a burning question, a question that I hadn't really entertained before.
Would I ever be able to tell anyone about all of this?
As children began to file into the classroom again, Naruto finally came back to life. "Ugh, I hate morning detentions," he mumbled. He finally took notice of the onigiri leaned against his arm and perked up, looking at me with gratitude.
"Don't say anything, just eat it before Hyouroku-sensei comes back," I warned, trying to keep the sudden bad mood out of my tone.
I stood awkwardly near Ino and another boy with red markings on his face, staring at the expanse of training fields before our class. It was time for the field demonstration of chakra usage, and I wasn't really sure what to expect—Hyouroku had made it clear to us beforehand that what we would see in our field demonstration was not to be replicated by us for another year or two, and it was merely so we could visually understand the benefits of chakra usage, but I was still itching to see some legitimate shinobi coolness. Imiki's exercises had all been rather tame—at least, compared to what I expected a jounin shinobi's exercises to be like.
"Do you think they'll show us really cool jutsu?" Ino wondered excitedly, and I hummed with uncertainty in response before there was a sudden poof of smoke. When the smoke cleared, Hyouroku stood on the training field—talk about making a needlessly flashy entrance for yourself—and looked as stern as ever.
"Today, I will be showing you lot one of the most basic uses of chakra in shinobi life. So basic that it becomes second nature, all but subconscious to you by your second or third year as an academy student." Hyouroku paused, then launched himself high into the air, eliciting awed oohs from us as he soared above us. Even I allowed myself to be awed by the grumpy teacher's jump. He landed with little impact, expression unchanged from before. "As shinobi, we learn from very early on how to channel our chakra into boosting our physical capabilities, such as how high we are capable of jumping. You students are by no means ready to channel even small amounts of chakra, maybe barring a few...special exceptions," Hyouroku looked at Sasuke for the briefest of moments, "but still keep in mind the importance of chakra and chakra control at all times. A ninja without the ability to properly channel and control their chakra is hardly a ninja at all."
I gulped, my glowing condition coming to mind again. I sure hoped that wouldn't be a problem.
For the rest of the field class, Hyouroku dazzled us kids by jumping from tree to tree, walking across water (something I still remember attempting unsuccessfully before the school year had started), and so on and so forth. I couldn't help but grin through the entire class—this type of superhuman shit had always been so exciting to me. I remembered being awed by it back in my previous life watching the anime on my laptop, but seeing it in real life was an entirely different sort of thing.
It was amazing.
Time really flies when you're having fun, and the end of class came quicker than it ever had before. "Tomorrow we will be starting the fundamental basics of chakra control," Hyouroku reminded us before we all went our separate ways. "Do not forget to eat enough beforehand. Class dismissed."
I tore into the hallway, a grin threatening to split my face again. My legs itched with the temptation to try what I had just saw, to live out my life in this mystical world to the fullest—but first, I had to find Shuu and tell him all about it.
As soon as I reached the edge of his classroom, though, I suddenly remembered the little spat we had that lunch. And the worries and thoughts that had accompanied the spat. Oh, boy. Reality was a bitch.
The other kids filed out from around me, some familiar faces among them. I kept my eyes superglued to the ground after I glimpsed a pair of white eyes that were definitely not Hinata's. Eventually, I saw Shuu and was torn between exploding in excitement and apologizing meekly. Before I could decide on one, however, Shuu spotted me and spoke first.
"Futaba," he greeted shortly. "Forget what I said today. It's fine. I don't need to know all the icky secrets about you, okay?" He side-eyed me, trying to look casual. "So, what's the plan today? You look like you've just come up with a really stupid idea."
"It's not stupid," I answered instinctively before the rest of his words caught up with me. "Wait, really? You're okay with it now?"
"Yeah, I mean," Shuu fiddled with the hem of his clan shirt. "It's not a huge deal. I know that you'd tell me if it was really something worth knowing. Just don't do that stupid thing where you act all sad and then say it's nothing when people ask you about it." He crossed his arms. "Now, the stupid plan?"
Well, shit. Originally, my plan had been to go straight home and investigate some more about Waki's potential involvement in my memory issues, but that notion had been at war with the impulse to test out the chakra tricks I had seen in class today ever since the bell had rang. To back out now and not explain why would probably rouse Shuu's suspicions even more, too, especially since we had just come to an agreement moments before. But still, how much time did I even have to waste?
Enough. I couldn't just pass up the opportunity to act on all these impulses that were mere dreams in my old life. I had a (second) life to live too, right?
"It isn't stupid, it's amazing!" I couldn't keep the excitement in anymore, grinning in glee. "Listen, today we watched a chakra usage demonstration."
"Oh, that," Shuu mused, seeming to know exactly what demonstration I was referring to. "Wait, no way."
"Yes way! I don't have anything else happening today, so here's the plan: we go onto a rooftop. We start slow and small, then we evolve to jumping across neighbourhoods. It'll be amazing!"
"You'll break your nose," Shuu groaned, hand already on his way to his forehead to face-palm.
"That's what medic-nins are for! Isn't this world amazing? Now, come on!" I grabbed his wrist and tugged him out of the classroom, into the hall, and out of the front entrance.
I found a nice ledge that led onto the rooftop of a nearby shop once we'd walked for about five minutes, and mustering up a bit of my courage, I hopped from the ledge onto the rooftop. It was flat and stable, and the building was relatively close to the ground, so I had no right to be feeling as nervous as I did. But the regular human first life instincts I had were still intact, so doing anything like this still made my knees a little weak.
A thump followed my own landing on the roof, and soon Shuu stood next to me, giving me a look of disappointed exhaustion that only my best friend could have. "Do you even know how to do this?"
"We'll practice a little, first," I said, trying not to sound shaky. Gulping, I had just about urged the warmth in my core out of my chest and down into my legs when there was yet another thud next to us. We whirled at the same time and looked at the new addition incredulously. "Naruto, what are you doing here?"
Naruto grinned, folding his arms behind his head. "I saw you two standing here on the roof and thought whatever you were doing looked fun, 'ttebayo! Can I join?" He stopped. "Wait, what are you doing, anyway?"
"What Hyouroku-sensei was doing today in class." I redirected my attention to urging the chakra to move once again.
"Awesome! I'm in, knowing how to do that will definitely help me get away in time whenever jii-jii and his guards see me." Naruto stepped closer to us.
After a few moments of focused silence, I felt the warmth envelope the muscles in my legs in a strange yet comfortable sensation. I opened my eyes, surprised I was actually able to redirect my chakra so easily after around a month of not using it, and Naruto was gaping in wonder at me. I quickly realized why.
"Futaba-chan, your legs are glowing!" Naruto cried.
"She does that sometimes," Shuu sighed, his attitude crabbier now that Naruto was here.
"It's just a chakra thing I have, Naruto, don't worry about it," I assured the boy before inching over to the edge of the roof. The next building over was a safe distance away, so close that even without chakra boosting, I'd probably still be able to make the jump, but I felt my glowing legs get weak nonetheless. God, why was I such a coward in my past life? I had hardly even ever climbed a tree in my past life, and here I was doing...this. "Come on, Futaba, you can do this," I whispered to myself. Okay. Now or never.
I prepped myself for jumping, took a few steps back, and charged.
Enma be with me.
As soon as my foot felt the ledge, I jumped.
And I soared, the wind hitting my face and blowing my hair back. My fear was forgotten in the exhilaration of the moment. God, living in this world was awesome.
Then my feet made contact with solid surface again, and I was jolted out of my reverie as I struggled to regain balance. I blinked in shock, assessing my position. I was not just at the edge of the next house over, I was somewhere in the middle of their roof. I had way overshot my initial target. An adrenaline-fuelled grin took hold on my face. I turned around, giving my two pals an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Naruto cheered, and even Shuu looked a little impressed. "Let me try, Futaba-chan!" I heard Naruto say before he charged towards the edge of the roof. I froze in worry as he hastily jumped, but let out a sigh of relief as he safely made contact with the next roof over. Shuu caught onto it easily—damn Uchiha prodigies—but looked just as excited as I did when he landed just a couple feet away from where I stood.
"Awesome, right?" I grinned at him.
"Awesome," Shuu agreed.
The three of us then took off, excitedly launching ourselves from roof to roof. Admittedly, I had been a little ambitious—there was no way we'd be hopping neighbourhoods today, but I could feel my strength building with each leap, and with each jump I went a little farther. At some point during my jumps, my legs started to feel a little warm, and I was forced to take pause. I panted, looking down at my legs, and I patted them down. Wincing, I noticed that they had started to take on a fever-like temperature, but there were no burns yet.
Shuu noticed my pause. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," I sighed. Shuu gave me a dirty look, and I elaborated. "My legs are just getting a little warm from all the chakra usage, that's all."
Naruto landed next to us. "Why are we stopped?" He looked nearly unaffected from all of the jumping, but I vaguely remembered him having monstrous chakra stores thanks to his...condition.
I opened my mouth to explain when an unfamiliar fourth voice cut in. "What are you guys doing?"
We all looked down. A skeptical-faced pineapple head looked back up at us. "Shikamaru?" Naruto said, squinting.
The Nara had his arms crossed behind his head, posture slouched lazily. "Didn't Hyouroku-sensei tell us not to try that roof-jumping stuff until, like, next year?"
"Yeah, but it's awesome, Shikamaru! You should try, too, dattebayo!" Naruto cheered.
"No thanks, sounds troublesome," Shikamaru muttered, yawning.
As Naruto bickered with an uncooperative Shikamaru, I pondered over another thing Hyouroku had told us.
A ninja without the ability to properly channel and control their chakra is hardly a ninja at all.
A stroke of bitterness gripped my chest, and I stared down at my feet. I thought about all of the progress I'd made today. My life was a precarious, chaotic balance of trying to keep my footing in this world and keep my friends out of danger, and Hyouroku had just reminded me how easy it was to become a failure at either one of those things today.
Well, I'd show him. And everyone else, too. I could keep my footing in this world just fine.
Even if I'd have to break a few rules along the way.
EXTRA LONG THANKSGIVING UPDATE! thanks for your patience and happy thanksgiving long weekend! i didn't have much time to edit this chapter thanks to my family all piling into our house and generally stirring up chaos :'''') gotta love family, right?
also, on a side note, i love reading everyone's reviews, no matter how short! lately i've been getting bogged down by schoolwork and emails from profs but seeing a notification of another review always makes my day :) thank you all for the support!
see you next week!
