Disclaimer: I own nothing but the general plot and OCs

So I finally successfully moved! That was a lot of prevarication and sloth like behaviour from me. Shocker. (Yea there's a reason my username has Lazy in it).

Also fair warning I still have a lot to of shit to sort out so we're not out of the woods yet on slow updates.

There was supposed to be more DFB training Sonaru going on here but Tenzō had to get a hard on about this own shinobi stuff and then suddenly the chapter was way too long. Genma next? Yes? No?

No editing as usual so forgive my mistakes and rambling. Also I forgot to underline English words last chapter (or the one before I can't remember), but generally it's easy to guess by now which ones were likely English so I'm not in a hurry to go back and correct that any time soon.

Thank you so much for awesome reviews, as well as favs and follows! Let me know what works, or what doesn't work for you, as well as any prompts for scenes you'd like to see.

Chapter 30 - Plenty Of Ways That You Can Hurt A Man

Keeping my voice carefully even to avoid dropping into the sort of baby talk that I would never aim at actual babies, I murmured soft praises in Tora's ears for merely existing as a cat as she sat in my arms and purred. I balanced her gently as I opened the front door and carefully shut it behind me, making sure I didn't take my eyes off her and didn't jostle her too badly, rubbing my nose against the top of her head as I spoke.

I turned around to see DFB's back as he cooked dinner. "No," he droned without turning around at all. I pouted at the back of his head.

"But you don't even know if I was going to say anything," I complained half heartedly.

"You have Tora in your arms. Get her out."

"No I don't," I blatantly lied, to see if I could get him to turn around and actually acknowledge the soft furred beauty's existence.

"There're only two situations in which you coo-"

"I don't coo!"

"-while badly pretend you're not cooing. The first is when you're faced with a cat, the second is when you're faced with chocolate cake."

"Okay, first of all I don't coo, and secondly I do not talk to my food. No matter delightful and wonderfully well put together it may be."

"I'm not sure if it's more concerning that you coo at and praise your cake before you eat it, or that you're not aware that you do it," DFB blandly commented, "either way, I can smell and hear that cat from here. Get rid of it."

Grumbling under my breath, I apologised to Tora on behalf of the cat hating heathen, and carefully put her back outside, spending a further five minutes giving her a prolonged goodbye scritch. Returning inside afterward, I approached DFB and used him as a climbing frame to reach the counter and sit on it.

"Did anyone give you trouble?" DFB asked. I had just gone out on my first excursion around Konoha by myself, as Sona. It had been surprisingly intimidating, being knee height on a lot of people, and having to get through crowds by myself.

"No, I got a few looks, but they seemed mostly pleased when aimed at me. I think it's because my face is really cute, and I'm tiny. Some little kids almost approached me, but when I didn't seem to notice them they decided not to."

I had gone out in the feminine clothes I had bought, without a mask, with the slight curl in my hair made prominent to sit more around my face reminiscent of a 1920s style, and a pair of black eye contacts in - my natural red/purple eyes were far too easy to identify. It had been my first time out as sweet quiet Sona, and so far it had worked pretty well.

"The only issue I had - that I forgot was a thing I do - was that I got lost a dozen times. I really don't think I'm going to be finding my way around Konoha on the street level anytime soon. I lived in the same town for nine years and didn't know my way around it after all that time."

"You underestimate how much time the average citizen spends moving around Konoha growing up. There's no internet here, remember. Sometimes there's nothing to do but look for trouble as a child."

"I guess. Anyway, I should change before Tenzō arrives. I'm thinking bumblebee."

Climbing down DFB, I went to put the mask/top on, fluff my hair up into slanted spikes again, take the contacts out and wear the bumblebee outfit.

We had spent breakfast and lunch with DFB teaching me how to eat without anyone noticing. He told me that after I had learned how to do minor genjutsu I'd be able to place one over my mouth while eating most of the time and not have to focus as much, so that I could take my time with my food. It was slight of hand and distraction more than anything, which was far more applicable than just eating without people seeing.

With Gai on a mission, it had just been DFB and I. Whilst I had exercised like normal, for a given value of normal, and sparred with DFB which still resembled more of butt whooping than a spar, he had sat me down and started to teach me some of the more theoretical aspects of learning to be a shinobi.

It was all at beginning academy level, and so very little of it was anything I didn't already know, even if I had forgotten some of the details initially. To be honest, we blasted through the material in an extremely short length of time, successfully covering the two thirds of the first year in less than a day. I was used to intensive studying, and it was easy to compare my abilities in my old body to what my weird brain was capable of in this one. With most other things that were being taught to me, I had little to compare from my previous brain's learning capacities, due to the fact that it required levels of thought and instincts and learning that I simply hadn't needed to practice previously.

Academic studying though, was incredibly familiar. I wasn't entirely sure of the difference between my old brain and this new one, due to the material I was learning being aimed at kids less than half my age, but I knew that the material designed for the last two years of the academy would give me a better idea. I had always been very good at making jumps from nuggets of information to reach conclusions that most others my age took far longer to reach, but I never really stretched my capacity to do so. As I got older and better at it, I coasted by more and more on my ability to pay lip service to the work and still reach the right answers. I knew I wouldn't be able to do that here, and a part of me was intimidated at finding out what I might have been capable of in my old life if I hadn't spent so much time avoiding effort.

Distracted by my own thoughts, and pondering on how my altered brain would affect my mental capabilities as I got older, I impulsively opened my mouth and recited the English alphabet backward as fast as possible - something I had never done before, and so wondered if it would give me pause or if I would stumble - and found I could do so seamlessly, my head jumping ahead to the next few letters before I consciously made it do so.

"Huh," I turned to look at DFB, only to find that in the time between getting distracted by thoughts and turning to him, he had at some point gotten into his own bumblebee onesie and was now serving up food.

"You need to increase your awareness even when you're in deep thought," he half teased me, "tomorrow you can start practicing reading and walking through the market at the same time without touching anybody."

"Not Icha Icha."

"Why not?" He looked vaguely disappointed.

"Because I'm not getting a reputation as a two year old pervert the moment people look at me. Plus people would be horrified at your parenting possibly to the point of intervention. That would be annoying."

I rolled my eyes at DFB's continued disapproval at my lacklustre enthusiasm for the quality of Icha Icha. His obsession with the books still baffled me - for someone who had (for all that he hid it fairly well) a short attention span outside of shinobi matters, due to his intelligence and still underdeveloped emotional understanding, he had an absurd patience for flipping through the same old books over and over and over again, seeming enthralled and gleeful like it was his first time.

It made me wonder if there was genuinely something I was missing that he refused to point out to me, outside of a few well described pair of boobs and some very mildly kinky sex scenes; after all I could appreciate fictional fuckery as much as the next person. But then maybe I was just desensitised to something so... mild, due to all the porn and rampant sexual imagery I was surrounded with in my old world.

Just as DFB finished laying the food out, Tenzō arrived via the balcony - as he had been invited to do - right on time, which was something I suspected I would come to expect from him. Removing his footwear, and greeting DFB and I, I was once more struck by how quietly imposing he seemed.

Despite the fact that I would place my money on DFB if it came to a fight, Tenzō held a far more intimidating air than either Gai or DFB. It wasn't aggressive, or frightening, but forboding perhaps. I had no doubt that Tenzō could ramp that right up to create fear if that was what he needed to do to get the best results from his Anbu team.

However, the moment Tenzō noticed the once again matching outfits, I spotted a flicker of what could only be called 'what has my life come to' despair cross his face, and just like that his intimidating aura deflated in my eyes. Suppressing an amused snort, I stuck with a simple greeting in return, and shoved a huge mouthful into my face the moment he was distracted by DFB.

Sending silent thanks to DFB for ensuring Tenzō's attention remained away from me while I ate, I finished the meal at a ridiculously fast pace, before placing my chopsticks back in the bowl. By the time DFB had finished screwing with the poor guy, and he glanced at me, I was finished and my mask was in place, looking completely casual and unbothered.

Caught between alarm and resignation, Tenzō looked back at DFB, only to see that all of a sudden he too had eaten his meal. Much to my quiet delight, he spent a few moments looking at my empty bowl as though it had killed his mother, and I was fairly certain I heard him whisper to himself, 'it has begun' with a sort of dull horror. It wasn't too much longer afterward that Tenzō also finished, having clearly decided to withhold further comments for all that his face said everything for him.

I remained quiet and watchful afterward, finding myself more comfortable once there was minimal attention on me, as DFB and Tenzō became absorbed in their notes of fuuinjutsu like the day before. For all that I understood about two thirds of the words being used, I had absolutely no clue what they were talking about, and yet watching the two of them immersed in the art of seals had me unexpectedly yearning to know more.

I hadn't given the art any particular thought before, and had simply assumed that for all my above average smarts, it was probably something that would go over my head. I wasn't egotistical enough to think that I was in the top tier of minds of Konoha, and if fuuinjutsu was known for being difficult to the point that it was practical an extinct practice compared to yesteryears, I had doubted I would be someone who could crack the code of becoming proficient.

And yet listening to the two men discuss in depth the invention of a new seal, it felt like I was listening to someone talk a blend of science and arts in a way that made me think maybe I had underestimated myself. I didn't understand... but maybe I could if I tried. In my old world I had had a quirky passion for learning about historical dictators, and the bloodiest aspects of history, and for all that I threw myself with an almost frightening zeal into learning the shinobi arts, nothing yet had quite ignited my interest and intense focus like learning about the deaths of millions at the hands of few.

I suspected that once I had the time and energy, this might be something I could obsess over once more. But for now I was content to sit back and let the wash of intelligent debate soothe me, dreaming of the cake I would be getting later for having met my quota of getting lies successfully past DFB.

From that day forward, Tenzō became a semi regular presence in our home. He was sorta stiff and awkward and didn't know social etiquette if it bit him on the nose, which made liking him more difficult for me than I had hoped. He wasn't bad enough for it to be humorous, and he wasn't good enough to pass muster, which left me ever so slightly irritated with him almost constantly.

It was fairly clear that he didn't know what to do with me either. I was a child in his eyes, his friend and former superior's little girl, and I knew that perspective of me, regardless of my clear mental maturity, made him passively standoffish enough that even after consistent exposure to each other we were at arms length. Initially I felt like I might have been doing something wrong, and worried that perhaps DFB would say something, to point out a fault in my behaviour or attitude. But when it became apparent that DFB didn't really give a shit, as long as one of us wasn't trying to murder the other, I figured I would follow his example and pretend the subtly stilted air between Tenzō and I was non existent too.

For the first little while, Tenzō only had minimal input into my training, choosing to sit back and observe, only sometimes pointing things out to Gai or DFB if he had something to say. During this time he was around for my situational awareness training, which was something that I genuinely enjoyed, for all that I was slow to progress at first.

I liked reading history books during awareness training, even though they were filled with ridiculous amounts of propaganda, and I often found myself laughing (not a fucking giggle) at the blatant bias in them, in a manner reminiscent of DFB. During this time I would walk through Konoha's market and try to avoid touching anyone. I bumped into a lot of people at first, and it was only my mask that hid the embarrassed blush each time I was knocked to the ground or into stalls by adult shins.

Once I had managed to shove my circle of awareness from less than a metre from my body whilst preoccupied and on the move, to five times that amount, DFB and Gai began to set me challenges, such as being able to summarise the page I was supposed to be reading as well as accurately say how many women had their hair up that I passed on either side of me, evenly splitting my attention down the middle and having me practice in various situations doing so.

This then expanded to paying attention to three things at once, sometimes all at a distance from my body, and sometimes a mixture of something in my immediate awareness and a few things further away from me. Being able to concentrate on three things at once was expected for any half decent shinobi, with most Jōnin being able to manage four, and the more elite Jōnin managing five. What made the Hatake so special was that we were trained to manage five things at least, for our bodies to automatically take care of and react to from drills and muscles memory, whilst the brain concentrated on tactics that one usually didn't have the time to plan out in the heat of the moment, on top of that.

It was of no surprise to any of the men helping me train that when I finally wrapped my head around how to split my attention and expand my circle of awareness, I took to the exercises like a duck to water. Regardless of the other three's expectations, I was shocked by my own aptitude, and I was almost certain that the proficiency came from my new brain, or my new body, seeing as I had been Miss tunnel vision back in my original body.

Have two teams chuck a ball each back and forth with a bear dancing through the middle now, and I'd be able to report how many passes each ball had had, how long the bear had been on screen, how many blondes brunettes or red heads there had been and what their genders were.*

Tenzō was the one who told me that my awareness and reflexes would only improve with continued experience, and that whilst I could work on my reflexes in Konoha, it was out on missions that I would fine hone my ability not just to be aware of multiple things at once, but understand them and thus react to them best. It was another aspect of being a shinobi that the Hatake clan held in incredibly high regard, and something I knew I would work on for the rest of my life.

It was the difference between being able to tell that the man walking across the street seemed more dangerous and stood out more than the rest of the civilians, and understanding that his posture and his own awareness were indicative of an off duty Jōnin in foreign territory and not hiding it- thus likely in Konoha with permission -due to his foreign clothes and the sort of pouches he wore, but still cautious.

Once I had my awareness down to an acceptable standard, DFB and Gai informed me that this was something I should work on in my own time, and whilst they would occasionally test me to give me pointers, the methodology for improvement never really changed, and as such I could continue in the same manner without needing my hand held, for the rest of my shinobi career.

The comment had unexpectedly stung to be honest. I hadn't been described as needing my hand held since I was a socially anxious fourteen year old freaking out at being sent to pay at a restaurant for the first time in my life, and realising I had no idea what the social etiquette was in these situations. I didn't kid myself of anything but the truth; that when I was depressed, needing someone to hold my hand in some manner or another was exactly what happened. But I wasn't depressed, and yes I still had social anxiety, but I really hadn't been put in any sort of situation that would set it off. I knew I was currently entirely dependent on DFB and Gai to teach me how to protect and defend myself, but the idea that I was too reliant on them for other things too began to niggle at me.

A part of me knew that neither DFB nor Gai were likely aware of what had been implied with the comment, considering it had been said in English, but that didn't mean it didn't affect me. I realised, when I took a look at how I spent my time, that although I didn't get a lot of free time due to my training schedule, the little I did get was almost always spent needing to be with Gai or DFB. I didn't have anything else. It wasn't just that I had been baby sized for so long that I couldn't have built myself a private life away from them, it was also that I simply didn't have hobbies. I didn't have acquaintances beyond Tenzō, apart from DFB and Gai I didn't even have friends.

This honestly wouldn't have bothered me; I didn't need a large group of friends, and I didn't need many hobbies. I was an introvert without a doubt. But the thing was, DFB and Gai did have friends and acquaintances and hobbies. Sure, both men were supremely dysfunctional in their own ways, and in DFB's case he was emotionally as closed off as a clam to most others, but they still had private lives away from me. I'd known that, and hadn't minded it, and had barely paid it any attention, until I realised that they constantly had to work around me to have their private space.

My lack of having something separate from them was getting in the way of their own. Because I didn't have hobbies and I didn't watch TV, I got bored easily if I wasn't with someone. This left Gai and DFB with the job of constantly mentally stimulating me, since I hadn't set something up for myself. Neither had shown any sign of minding the set up between us at all, and even the hand holding comment was almost definitely something I was reading into that they hadn't intended to express, but once I noticed how reliant I was on them and therefore how much I dominated their down time, I couldn't let it go.

I realised that now was a perfect time to start investing some actual effort in Sona. The little civilian girl who was my smokescreen to all the darker secrets I held. So far that was all she had really been - a smokescreen, a hollow character with little effort or fleshing out done to her compared to Subaru. I didn't know what Sona really wanted in life, where she was going, and what else she could give me. I knew it was going to take a bit of patience to get there, but I figured I could at least make Sona a familiar face on the streets.

First thing first, though, I needed to truly convince any passer by that Sona was civilian - three things primarily gave me away; the way I stood and walked, the telling calluses on my fingers for any perceptive person who took my hand, and my chakra reserves. I could get away with standing and walking like a shinobi for a while longer, given that my childish limbs and body disguised much of it. In the future I could probably claim to have taken up dancing, and as long as I had the flexibility and fluidity accentuated rather than far more predatory physicality of many shinobi, I would convince others that the female associated past time explained away my muscle definition and movements. I would have to find something that explained the finger calluses or take up wearing gloves as Sona, but for now I was fine. The chakra on the other hand, needed dealing with imminently.

My noticeable reserves had less to do with my training, and almost everything to do with the fact that I was actually twenty two years old. My yin chakra was way too large, supported by the effect my altered brain had had on it, and also by the fact that genetically I was part of a long line of shinobi with higher reserves. They were still relatively small, having only had a couple of years of growing, but that was the point; they were growing. My yin chakra was growing at an exponential rate in order to accurately reflect me and my mental experience/intellect/education.

My Yang chakra too was growing, as DFB, Gai and I desperately pushed the body I wore to keep up with the Yin. So yes, my chakra reserves were small, but definitely not as small as they should have been for my physical age. It wasn't noticeable yet, given that much could been explained away with my heritage, but that wouldn't convince anyone for too much longer. My Yin chakra showed no signs of stopping, I had to keep training to increase my Yang, and soon I was going to start actively using chakra in training which would increase my reserves further.

They were currently nearer to a civilian adult's chakra reserves, and certainly larger than any shinobi-to-be child's chakra that I knew of at my age (barring one or glaring exceptions), but when it was a difference between small and smaller, no one who wasn't actively looking noticed a difference. DFB took on teaching me to suppress my chakra in the mornings and evenings. I hadn't really been sure what to expect, considering I still had difficulty even visualising the chakra existing inside me.

"There are two methods of suppressing chakra; suppressing the coils, and suppressing the pathways too. Suppressing your chakra coils will give you control over the impression people have over the size of your reserves, but suppressing the chakra in you pathways too can give you control over whether someone can sense you at all or not.

"For those shinobi who disguise themselves as other creatures or people, suppressing some pathways more than others can give an incorrect impression as to their size or shape to sensor nin. Suppressing one's chakra pathways takes far more practice and for now you only need to know how make your reserves appear safely young and civilian."

I sat across from DFB for hours, connecting my awareness to the active warm consciousness that existed within me and was my chakra, and then experimenting with slowing and cooling it down in my centre. As usual I found manipulating my chakra difficult at first, like something was missing in my understanding of it for me to make it do as I wanted it to. Eventually though, once I'd cooled and slowed it down at my core past a certain point, I came to the sudden and jolting realisation that if I suppressed my chakra all the way, I would feel like I had before chakra was something inside me.

I hadn't noticed that as my chakra reserves climbed, so did its presence in my awareness. It had happened slowly enough that I hadn't payed it any attention, but now that it was more obvious, the existence of the warm active consciousness that was my chakra was constantly there. According to DFB, generally shinobi didn't feel entirely comfortable suppressing their chakra because it didn't feel right to them; this thing that had existed within their body and was a part of them suddenly dimming and cooling and slowing. I didn't have that problem.

Yes it felt odd at first, because I had grown used to it, but I wasn't bothered by the effects of suppression and once I had a grasp on how to do so, I had no issue with suppressing the chakra in my coils until it was still and cooled to the point of being unnoticeable. If not the presence of it still in my pathways, which DFB was correct when he said I wouldn't be able to suppress it without much more practice, and if not for the continued concentration maintaining that state required it would nearly feel like I was in a body from my original world.

As it was, I was able to go about in public with my reserves appearing minuscule - on the low end of the spectrum for females and far too small to ever have a hope of joining the academy to become a kunoichi - which was where they would stay when I was Sona. I made an effort to get out at least once a week as Sona, whether that was on a small errand for DFB, or during my day off training. I took history books with me to read, making sure to look up every few seconds so that I could avoid people without it seeming like I had trained to do so, and also making sure they were never in the same time period or interest that I could be seen reading as Subaru.

It wasn't much, but it was a start, and it gave DFB time to himself for once to do whatever he wanted, whether that was seeing friends, taking missions, reading Icha Icha by himself, messing with people for laughs, or spending time at the memorial stone. Around the same time, DFB also clearly hit a crucial point in his work on the seal, because he took a backseat in training me for half the week, and allowed Tenzō to step forward for the first time.

The first day, he stood across from me in the training ground, looking like he wanted to fidget but was too professional to do so, and with the awkward stiltedness that still coloured his tone ever so slightly when he spoke directly to me, he said, "Kakashi-senpai wants me to teach you about traps."

There was a pause, in which he probably expected me to say something, before he cleared his throat and continued, "do you know any traps already, Subaru?"

A small, pleased smile flicked across my covered mouth, unknown to Tenzō, at the removal of honourifics from my name. I didn't want to be -chan to anyone but Gai and DFB, who could be excused once I was older as being incredibly fond of me, having raised me, in the former's case being way too extra, and the latter's case being an asshole.

"I don't, no."

"Traps are an incredibly versatile shinobi practice, for all that many don't see it that way. Most people just think a trap is something which ends in an explosion, a projectile weapon, or with the enemy restrained. I suppose to an extent this is true. But a trap master would never see it this way. The purpose of a trap is not just to end in explosion, with a dead or restrained enemy. There are so many more uses than that.

"It would be impossible to state the many uses for a trap, but some examples include demoralising the enemy, signalling their location to Konoha's shinobi, buying some time, distracting your opponent during a key moment, taking out as many numbers as possible before a fight in order to level the playing field, and there are many more. Traps are vastly underestimated, due to the perceived ease of escaping them for skilled shinobi, after all what's a barrage of kunai from a sprung trap when one can kawarimi?

"This is only because people so rarely take the time to perfect their trap making skills, choosing instead to stick to basic formulas that are relatively easy to predict. It's a false belief that the better traps are the more intricate and complicated ones - that in order to become a trap master the traps have to be multilayered and complex. Yes, the ability to make a multilayered trap placed in areas which accurately predict where a shinobi will step next is an ability of a trap expert, but not one of the most important ones.

"Can you guess the most important components of a trap?"

"I... don't know?"

"Trickery. Deception. That is a key element of any successful trap. It is to be where the enemy does not expect it to be. But how is this possible when the enemy is often a cautious and highly aware shinobi? The answer is know how the enemy thinks

"A well thought out trap by its nature is a low blow. Forget ideas of integrity and fair play with traps, and instead think smart. What exactly is a shinobi's blind spot? What will they take at face value if they see? Where will they let their guards down? This is where the traps are laid. In a fight traps are an excellent way of herding the enemy to where you need them, in order to gain the upper hand. There are two main rules when it comes to using traps in a fight; never rely on your trap to finish a fight without a backup plan, and never stop to wait and see if your trap worked when you could be implementing plans in case it didn't work as intended."

It was fascinating to see the previously quite taciturn man suddenly open up as he began to teach. As he continued to talk about something he was clearly fairly passionate about, I found myself almost spellbound. I had had no interest in traps before, and yet as he began to give examples of traps used in the field, and the thought behind them I found myself inspired. Some of the trap ideas really were low blows and I generally associated them with terrorist techniques, such as an explosion that injured one member and then a second one set a short while later to kill their allies who tried to help. Yet, these low blows were intelligent, and I liked intelligent fighting. Minimum risk maximum reward.

My mind immediately jumped to patriotism. Loyal shinobi were generally incredibly patriotic, and a trap that hit them right in a symbol of their belief would be demoralising like little else. I knew in the Vietnam war, trapping flags so that the American soldiers' moment of victory was marred with death was not replicable as a shinobi. Hidden villages were not represented by flags like my old world, and for a minute I was stumped at a replacement. Until suddenly I wasn't, when I saw Tenzō's headband and realised how dense I was being.

"What about headbands?" I interrupted whatever he was about to say next, before realising that I had done so and giving him a slightly sheepish look.

"Headbands?" He asked dubiously.

"You know, hit them where it hurts. A headband means a lot to shinobi. It's like... a symbol of their dedication to their village."

"You'll have to explain a bit more explicitly, Subaru."

"Well, just as an example, a lot of shinobi - particularly those belonging to clans - really care about what happens to the bodies of their fallen comrades. Head bands are generally considered to be an extension of the person, rather than a belonging; their loyalty and dedication for everyone to see, at the same time as it protects them.

"Say a shinobi belonging to... I don't know, Kumo, was killed by a Konoha shinobi. We'd know that their body would be collected by their comrades to prevent secrets from being discovered via their remains. They would either burn the whole body on the spot and bring back the forehead protector and dead shinobi's belongings, separate the head and bring it to their home village along with their forehead protector and any important belongings on them, or bring the whole body back in a scroll. Obviously it would depend on the importance of the individual in question and the urgency of their fellow shinobi to get rid of the body.

"In each case, the forehead protector would find its way back to the village it came from. Unless it was being brought back to a large camp -I don't know if shinobi do that in times of war. Regardless, fairly soon afterward the forehead protector would soon be surrounded by many other shinobi. The problem with a lot of exploding tags is that they're white, and even if someone gets caught in trap, they'll spot the tag before it explodes, and so if they're talented they can escape. But no one expects-"

"A shinobi's headband to be trapped long after they're dead. Slip a tag lined between the metal and fabric and no one will know until it detonates. Weaponising the dead comrades of our enemies, so that when their guards are down due to grief and distance, the trap goes off in a way that causes maximum physical and emotional damage," Tenzō finished my line of thought, sounding a mixture of impressed and mildly disturbed.

He glanced at me, assessing and cautious, "that would be considered an incredibly low blow. Many would find it despicable. Without honour. There would be civilian casualties too."

"I thought low blows are what traps are all about. And there are always civilian casualties caught up in conflicts between shinobi. These particular civilians would be the potential parents of the next generation of enemy shinobi, and the economic backbone of the hidden village, in all villages but Kiri. Also the centre of the blast... if made devastating enough, it would probably be very difficult to discern the truth of the trap. Most shinobi would not consider the head bands a potential bomb even afterward," I replied unapologetically.

Tenzō started at me for a long moment, and I stared back unafraid of his judgement. I knew I had surprised him with my thought process. I was often light hearted, I took little seriously out loud on a day to day basis, and found humour in both dark and light circumstances. Around Gai and DFB I was more playful and frivolous than anything else, when I had time or energy to talk. This was all that Tenzō had seen of me, so he didn't know like DFB did that I had already had years of a much more brutal and violent mentality being encouraged within me.

I knew how to be kind, and make people feel good about themselves, and how to be empathetic. A part of me liked making people happy. A part of me also like making people frightened, and quiet, and cautious. I had been called a monster before, a sociopath, evil, and heartless - increasingly as I got older. Each time I had been genuinely satisfied, it had always felt like a complement.

I hid none of this as Subaru, and was unflinching as Tenzō saw this honestly for the first time when he looked at me. Perhaps back in my old world I would have worried about my chances of being condemned by my friends and society, but not here.

I saw the slightest crinkling at the corners of Tenzō's eyes, a small relaxing of his shoulders, a little curve in his mouth, "you know, Kakashi-senpai and I know someone who is great at poisons. They go very well with traps. I have a feeling you'd be good at them combined. Why don't you ask Kakashi-senpai to introduce you to a shinobi called Shiranui Genma. I think he'd like you enough to share some of what he knows. In the mean time, let me tell you about how to successfully set up a trap designed to crush someone's head in at three times the speed of the average Jōnin."

And that was how Tenzō and I finally found common ground and became friends. DFB was horrified when he found out. And proud.

But mostly horrified.

*referring to a pretty well known video of a black team and white team each passing balls back and forth in a room as they move around each other. Before the video the viewer is asked to count the number of passes made by the white team. Generally the viewer is so caught up in that, they completely miss the man dressed in a bear/gorilla suit doing a crappy dance/moonwalk in between them all part way through the video.

So Tenzō becomes a surprising ally in Sonaru becoming a cute little psycho murder machine.

I know so far pretty much anything Sonaru has really put her hand to she's succeeded at and been good at and seemed to have found relatively easy. First of all she's working really really hard, secondly helpful brain and genes, and thirdly this is something people have a tendency to find infuriating about me when I actually try at something, so I thought I'd include in her.

She's just one of those annoying people. Much like Kakashi. Also this won't be something that happens for everything. Additionally this will make some failures incredibly difficult to handle for her. Much like I suspect it is for Kakashi.

Anywho, there are a couple things I have in mind for Sona, but it's largely a blank slate, so what do you guys want to see her get up to? Both in the short and long run? Seeing as she'll be mostly interacting with civilian issues and people and all that. Should it be mostly funny, or unexpectedly serious and plotty? Let me know.