A/N: I want to thank everyone that added this story to their favourites and follows.
It seemed like being a blind person in Xing was really a pain in the neck, Emma thought as the pedestrian glared at her and Huang. Even though they were wearing normal civilian clothes, the older boy was still receiving hateful looks from the public. It really felt silly for the people to hate the boy for something which was beyond his control. Was their superstitions so important to them that they forgot all logic? They must realize that the boy did not ask to be blind.
"Well, he technically did since he shouldn't have caused all those problems in his past life." Kurama reminded her as Huang stopped in front of the hotel. Emma sighed. In a way the fox inside of her was right. Truth would have never taken away her former friend's sight; if it was not for the crimes he committed. The being worked by equivalence exchange and the only befitting punishment was to take what Huang valued.
"You should focus on the streets and not with whatever is bothering you, Emma," Hunag commented as they turned to the next corridor.
"How the hell do you know that I am not focusing on the streets? I thought you were blind." She grumbled, fixing her orange scarf. Sometimes it was hard to believe that the bastard was blind. The way he acted, the way he moved and even the way he talked made her think that he was lying about the blindness. However, she knew that the boy would gain nothing from his disability.
"Because I can hear your footsteps slowing down," Huang replied and the blonde knew, without a doubt, that the boy was rolling his eyes at her. It was the type of behaviour he would do whenever he thought that she was asking a really stupid question. Honestly, the bastard only needed to add the word idiot to make it even more obvious about how much of an idiot he thought she was.
"Yes, but how can you pick up my footsteps? There must be fifty people in this street," Emma complained.
Huang sighed and pinched his nose. "Sometimes I think you were reborn an absolute genius and sometimes I think you were born an idiot. Did you forget that I can still sense chakra? You are the only person in this street, who has enough chakra to make a beacon."
"Why must you always insult me?"
"Let me ask you: why do you ask the dumbest questions?" Huang retorted and the blonde could only scowl at his question. It was times like these that Emma really questioned the sanity of her previous life. How the hell did Naruto end up liking this bastard? He insulted her and the number of times that the bastard smiled was like once every month.
Then again Naruto Uzumaki could make friends with her enemies, which was something Emma could never do. How could you make friends with the people who tried to kill you? Who hurt your friends? She might have fond memories of her friends but she would always ask this question whenever she used to watch her brothers sleep.
"I have a lot of things on my mind," Emma finally replied. "My past life might have been focused on you but I have so many things to worry about."
Huang stopped walking and twisted his head to look at her. She didn't need to feel his emotions to know that her former teammate was concerned for her. Maybe he could sense her turmoil but Emma did not feel like she could pour her heart out to him. Naruto Uzumaki used to be an open woman, who trusted the world around her but she was not that girl anymore. She did not know if she could trust him even if he had been her closest friend.
"You know you can talk to me about your problems."
"I don't think talking about my problems can solve it," Emma tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "Besides you never talk about your problems to me when you were Sasuke, so how can you expect me to do the same?"
"Do you really believe it was right for me not to talk to you or even Kakashi about my problems?"
It was never right, but I understand now why you avoided talking about your family and why you became that kind of person, Emma thought, remembering the number of times that she asked Sasuke about his family. How could Sasuke be willing to talk to them when it was his brother that murdered his family? How could Naruto expect Sasuke to come back to the village that destroyed his family? It had been so wrong to think like that.
'How could you understand my pain when you never had a family?'
In a way, Sasuke was right because Emma could never understand his pain. She might have lost her mother and her father abandoned her and her brothers, but they hadn't been murdered by their family members. However, he could never understand her pain. Could he understand the depth of her turmoil? Could he understand the number of arguments that she had with her two young brothers about their plans? The nightmares she had from what their consequence might be.
For the last four years, she had been the one raising her two brothers.
"You had your reasons for not telling us about your problems and I have my reasons for not telling you about my problems." Emma finally answered.
The blonde clutched her chest as she felt the overwhelming emotions, which flowed from him. Must he always suffocate her with his negative emotions? Why should he feel guilty? She didn't blame him for what happened in Konoha. She only blamed him for her death, for not giving up his revenge but that was it.
"You know you can't carry the world on your shoulders or think that you can fix everything," her former teammate informed her. The softness and gentleness of his tone unnerved her. The boy Naruto knew was never soft or gentle to her. He had always been guarded, always closing her off. "You need to start relying on people."
Rely on people? Emma smiled bitterly at his words. Wasn't it ironic that it was Sasuke's reincarnation was giving her this kind of advice? Did he think it was easy for her to talk about her brothers' plans? He didn't know about Alchemy. He didn't understand how it worked, which meant he didn't know about the equivalent exchange. He could never understand the nightmares or thoughts she had for the last couple of years.
He didn't have to know that his brother was attempting something pointless.
"You know I think we always expect each other to act like our previous lives," Emma took a deep breath and continued. "We always think that we will be books to each other since we know everything to each other. Yet, we always forget that we aren't completely Naruto and Sasuke; we are also Emma and Huang. The things that happened in this life also affects us, also changes us and it is shaping us to be different from our past life. Can you tell me that you haven't changed since living this life?"
Huang shook his head. "I will be an idiot to say otherwise."
"It is because of my experience in this life that I can't rely on people," Emma curled her lips into a sad smile as she recalled her father. "People always have the habit of making promises, only for them to break promises. You write them a letter, begging them to come home because your loved one is dying and only to find out that person isn't coming back. How can you rely on people?"
"You used to see the positive in the world."
Emma shook her head. "Naruto Uzumaki only saw what she wanted to see but I am not going to be like that. If I want to accomplish my dreams then I need to think realistically. I need to understand how the world works, how the cultures of other countries are because you can't enforce your vision on people. If you want to be a good leader then you must understand the people of the world."
She would never allow herself to become a foolish leader.
Emma could still distinctly recall the day that Naruto learnt Sealing. Her previous self-had been so curious about her mother's clan that she did all kinds of research about them. There were many things, which her previous life could not learn from her clan. However, seals were the only thing she could learn. It had been the first and last time that Naruto Uzumaki was willing to open a book to learn.
However, Alkahestry wasn't something which could be learnt from a book.
"You only brought her with you, Huang?" Mei yelled as the two of them entered her hotel room. Emma flickered her eyes towards her former teammate, who pinched his nose at his sister's yells. "Don't make that expression, Huang! You might be blind but you are still a prince of this country! Everyone knows that your mother hadn't trained you in defence! What if the first or the fifth prince tries to kill you?"
"Do you truly believe that our half-brothers give a shit about the blind kid? I am perfectly harmless," Huang commented, tapping his cane against the chair. Emma curled her lips at her former teammate's lie. He might look harmless but he probably still recalled how to use a sword.
His half-sister pinched her nose and sighed. "I might be seven but I'm not stupid when it comes to our family politics. You know that they think every male in this family is a threat."
The black-haired boy kept quiet at the mention of their family and Emma wondered how messed their family had to be. Had the Daimyo family been as a messed up as these people? Did all the Royals had a messed up family? She would probably never know and to be honest, she rather not know about how messed up these people were.
"I will keep your warning in mind," Huang finally commented, turning his body away from them. He tapped his cane before making his way towards Mei. The older boy had a small smile playing on his lips as he knelt to look at his sister. Emma felt her heart clenched when the boy flickered his finger against his sister's forehead, earning a tiny smile from the little girl. "Take care of yourself Mei and I will pick up Emma in an hour."
"You know I can go back by myself," Emma called out to him.
Huang chuckled. "Knowing you, you probably have memorized all the routes in this city but let us pretend that you are a girl, who has no sense of direction. Besides, Ling will annoy me if he finds out that I came back without you."
The blond-haired girl felt her lips twitched as Huang closed the door between them. The bastard wasn't wrong. On her second day of the job, she had memorized all the routes and sewers in this city. It was only natural as a prankster that she would find all the routes of escapes. The shinobi of her always needed to be reassured, always needed to be prepared…and maybe she had a plan to play a prank on Huang's biological mother.
She still needed to come up with a way to make sure that there was no chance that it could link back to her.
"Huang and you are very close," Mei commented. "He doesn't seem to treat you like the usual bodyguards—he actually likes you."
"Probably because I don't see him as a curse," she replied. Maybe also because a part of him still love me, Emma thought to herself as she recalled the fondness and love that Naruto and Sasuke had for each other. He would always be fond of her because they both knew the truth about each other because a part of them would still carry a torch for each other.
"It doesn't explain why he wanted me to teach you, Alkahestry," Mei Chang pointed out.
"Because he heard from Ling about my interest and my attempts to learn the art," Emma sighed. "He probably thinks that if I learn Alkahestry then I can protect his brother better."
Mei curled her lips but made no comment. The little girl might not be able to talk but Emma could feel the jealously that the girl had. It must be sad to know that one sibling was loved more than the other, or maybe there were many other reasons for her to have the green-eyed monster.
She probably would never know.
"What do you know about Alkahestry?" Mei asked, changing the topic. "If I am going to teach you Alkahestry then I need to know how much knowledge you have on the subject."
Emma rubbed the back of her neck as the information swirled around her head. "I know that your people seemed to have the belief that there is a flow of life energy within the Earth."
"Well you have the basic idea down," Mei Chang commented. "What you just described was the Dragon's Pulse. The energy that you described is found in everything and everywhere."
So it is similar to Senjutsu? Emma asked herself as Mei Chang continued to tell her about the origins of the Dragon's Pulse. The idea felt similar, but Senjutsu required them to mix her chakra with nature's energy. The Dragon's Pulse does not require her to do that instead, it seemed like she needed to learn how to manipulate the energy around her and inside her. She nodded her head as the girl continued to tell her about how the art was done.
Emma chewed on her bottom lip when the girl pulled out several kunais. She watched as the girl drew a transmutation circle with her kunais, destroying the carpet. Emma's eyes widened when she realized that the circle drawn was not the same as the one she knew. No, when she looked at it carefully, it was being drawn the other way around. This seemed interesting if you asked her.
She tilted her head when the girl placed her kunais on top of the circle.
"Why did you put your kunais there?"
"We need a marker for the energy to flow," Mei Chang explained. "How can energy flow if there is no medium for them to be guided?"
When the girl put it in that way then it made sense. It almost reminded her of the characters in the seals, because even though she placed her chakra into a piece of paper then it was not enough for it to be called a seal. Characters were needed for the seal to work and the location of each character was just as important. Alkahestry works in a similar idea, only except they needed a few mediums for it to work.
Or so she thought.
A flash of bright light occurred and Emma blinked her eyes at the sight of a tiny blue teddy bear. Alphonse would like that bear, Emma mused to herself as the little girl picked the bear up. Her younger brother always had a fondness for anything cute and fluffy. She forgot the number of times that she argued with him for bringing a stray cat into the house. That boy would always try to act cute, which was never fair.
He knew that she could never say no to him.
"You should try to do the same."
Emma nodded her head and took out the kunai from the carpet. It felt strange to touch a kunai if you asked her. It had been so long since she touched one; the last time being the days of the war that Naruto fought. She shook her head and copied the transmutation circle that the little girl made.
She placed the kunais on the corners of the circles and closed her eyes. What did Mei tell her? To use her chi energy? And to feel the energy around her? She closed her eyes and willed her chakra to flow into the circle drawn as well as gathering the energy from their surroundings, which was easier said than done. Emma was glad that she remembered how to do senjutsu because there was no way that this would be easy for anyone. Although would chakra be a good substitute? It was still a form of life energy.
She did say about using the life energy in her.
"You are doing it wrong. I don't know the energy that you are using but it isn't chi."
"You mean to tell me that I can only use chi energy?" The little girl nodded and Emma groaned. "Great, just great. Why the hell did no one mention this to me? Now I am going to be spending most of my time, trying to separate my chakra from my chi."
Mei blinked her eyes at her and Emma felt a sense of horror, when she saw the wonder and curiosity in the girl's eyes. Did no one in this country know how to use chakra? It made sense in her country but Xing was made up of two countries from her past life. It would make sense for the practice of chakra to be passed down. How could they ignore their past? Their history?
'But what is the point of them learning chakra when there are no more wars in this part of the region?' Kurama asked her.
Emma frowned at his question. She hated to admit it but the damn fox was right. Didn't she have plans of stopping the wars? Didn't she want the practice of child shinobi to be destroyed? What would be the point of having shinobi if there were no more wars in this region? There was no sense for continuing that tradition.
"Most foreigners, no most people, don't know about Chakra," Mei said, not giving Emma a chance to deny what she just said or to make up a cover story. "I only know about it because I was always so interested in the legend of Naruto and the times before Xing. They say that the people before us could use a type of life energy called Chakra but somewhere along the way, we have forgotten how to use it. They say that it was so powerful that there were techniques which could destroy a whole town. How can you use it? And…"
Because I'm Naruto? Emma thought as the girl continued to ask her questions about her knowledge of the energy. How the hell could she inform the girl that she was a reincarnated soul? There was no way that she could inform a stranger when she hadn't even told her brothers the truth.
'Do you truly believe they would believe your story?'
'I can dream, can't I?' Kurama laughed and the blonde could only scowl at the old fox. Was it wrong for her to hope that Ed and Al would believe in her stories? Then again, what could be her proof? They would need physical proof to believe her story and there was no evidence. It was not even like her friends were still alive. No, they were either dead or were now reincarnated souls.
Even if they were reincarnated souls, there was no telling if they had their memories of their times with each other or if they believed it had been a beautiful nightmare.
"Does everyone in the Yao Clan know that you can use chakra?" Mei Chang asked, snapping her from her thoughts.
Emma snorted. "Do you think I will be foolish to tell everyone that I can use it? The only person, who knows that I can use chakra is Huang."
It was not like she even told him that she could use chakra without any problems. The boy might have lost his sight, but he hadn't lost his ability to sense chakra. If he couldn't sense her chakra then she would never tell him about her abilities. She would keep it a secret because Emma did not want to hurt the boy with the knowledge that she could access her chakra without any problems. She might feel hurt and angry with him for killing her but Emma does not wish to hurt him with this knowledge.
"Why do you think it is foolish? The Emperor would be interested to know how you are able to access the chakra but he wouldn't do anything to you," Mei Chang smoothed her clothes. "Almost everyone in this land thinks that chakra is nothing but a legend, yet you were able to use life energy that wasn't chi. If it really is chakra then people will be curious to know how you are able to access this energy."
It was easy for Emma to forget that this girl was young. Despite being a little girl, Mei Chang did not talk like the average seven-year-old nor did she acted like one. Huang's sister talked like she was older than her age and was certainly a lot smarter than Ling, who certainly acted like an idiot. It was just easy to forget that a kid could still be so naïve. Maybe because her experience in life had made it hard for her to act like a kid.
"Because I don't want to be a tool or to be experimented upon," Emma gritted her teeth as she recalled the number of experiments done on her fellow shinobis that had Kekkai Genkai. How many people had Orochimaru had taken for his quest for immortality? How many people had he killed because of his experiments? She did not want to have that fate. "You are still young Mei Chang, but the world isn't as safe as you think it is. You might think that your family's politics is the only dangerous thing, but the government can be just as dangerous. People hate things that they don't understand and nothing in the world would allow them to understand how I have it."
Well not unless they had someone with the Byakugan, but Emma presumed that the Hyuga clan and their descendants had lost access to their eyes, due to the survival of the fittest.
"Is that why you keep it a secret from the Yao Clan?" Mei asked.
Emma nodded. "My own family doesn't know that I have access to this energy, so you and Huang are the only people that know about my ability. Please Mei, I know I am asking a lot from you but can you keep it a secret?"
The girl could only stare at her with wide eyes before nodding her head. Relaxing her shoulders, Emma stared out at the hotel window before glancing back to the transmutation circle that she made. Her biggest problem was going to be separating her chakra from her chi energy? Was it even possible for a person to separate two forms of energy? She knew that there could be more energy of one than the other but to separate them…it had never been done.
She grinned.
It would be nice to boast that she had been able to separate her energies.
Q&A:
Q: Would Emma make in time to see Ed's and Al's failed attempt at Human Transmutation?
A: You will just have to wait and see.
Q: Will there be an older/ younger sister relationship between Emma and Mei Chang?
A: I can see their relationship as one between sisters.
A/N: Please review and tell me what you think about this chapter. What do you think about the world building of this story? Do you believe the relationships between the characters are realistic? Also please continue to tell me about who you think Emma should be paired with. The poll for her pairings will remain open until chapter 20. Also, constructive criticism is always welcome.