7: Team Genius

Summary: My presence in this world as a child with an adult mind caused the formation of Team Genius, comprised of myself, Maito Gai, and Hatake Kakashi, lead by future Hokage Namikaze Minato. But being a child at war is hard enough without the added strain dying and being reborn puts on a person's psyche. I'm only good at being a shinobi because I'm terrible at being a person.

Disorientation.

Confusion.

Bemusement.

Curiosity.

Uneasiness.

Dawning Horror.

Panic.

Denial.

Greif.

Anger.

These were the stages I went through emotionally upon my reincarnation. It did not matter that I was in an anime, it did not matter that I had read countless fan fictions along these lines, nor that I had written many others. What mattered was that everything I knew and loved was gone. What mattered was that I had a new life before I'd even comprehended that my old life, my real life, was over.

But then again, in the end, nothing mattered. It didn't matter that I'd never wanted this to happen to me, it didn't matter that in my other life family therapy had started finally bring my brother and parents and I closer than ever, it didn't matter that I hadn't gotten to say goodbye or see my mother retire or my brother get married. Because life obviously didn't give a fuck what I want- otherwise I wouldn't be here in this shitty situation: completely alone in a war torn world. The fragments of emotional strength I had been building with my therapist shuddered and groaned under the weight of this enormous tragedy.

I knew myself very well. That is why I knew there are three bad habits, three coping mechanisms that I fall into. They were the ones I was working on before I came here and all that good work in therapy went down the drain. Avoidance. Masochism. Obedience. I distract myself from reality through books, I take my anger out at myself through punishing and brutal exercise, and I become compliant rather than taking on the responsibilities of making decisions for myself. I'm set to become the perfect shinobi. I am absolutely fucked.

Luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, my childhood didn't last long. The orphanage during wartime couldn't afford to be lenient towards troublesome children like me. A few short years of suffocating adult surveillance and supervision and I was booted from the orphanage to the academy at the tender age of four. I passed the entrance exams. As did Kakashi.

I didn't care. My mind was stuck in a rut, routine and monotony barely keeping me sane, and still there were times when I'd punch a tree so hard my knuckles bled and my hand swelled. If I were anywhere else but a ninja village someone would have been concerned. Instead they praised my diligence and patted me on the head. My anger at the world, at my situation fueled me, simmering barely restrained beneath an irritated façade.

Working the academy training into my coping routines and the way I'd go at it like a drowning man for air, it was no surprise that I took to it like a prodigy. And all the while I kept up my unapproachable mask. Just like a duck, serenely floating above the water and furiously paddling underneath. A year passed. There was talk of allowing me and Kakashi to graduate. In the end we didn't and for the first time in a while I felt something other than anger as I watched Obito and Rin standing at the graduation ceremony without Kakashi. They were four years older than us so it made some sense… but still. Unease. Curiosity. Confusion. I shook my head. It didn't matter.

Another year passed and Kakashi and I sat with the older kids as team placements were being announced. We didn't make eye contact. In general we tended to ignore each other. Not to mention Kakashi could barely spare a glance at anyone who wasn't his 'Eternal Rival!' proclaiming that he had finally caught up to his foe. I didn't pity him. I didn't.

"Under Namikaze Minato, team seven will be Maito Gai, Hatake Kakashi, and Yoko Uruki."

Huh. So I guess they held Kakashi and I back a year so we could team with Gai as the third child prodigy.

At this point… I didn't know what to feel.

I'd hated Sasuke when I watched the show. His anger pissed me off, ironically enough. I wanted him to get over himself, to live and forget and stop rejecting the opportunities of friendship he faced at every turn. He obviously didn't deserve them. In hindsight maybe he knew that too. And now here I am. Clothed in armor forged from anger, self-directed hate and sewn together with fear. So much fear. I spurned connection, intimidating my peers, not even considering the possibility that I could be anything but alone in the world. I was exactly like Sasuke. Did I care? Did I dare try to be anything other than the self-contained mass of negativity that had carried me this far? Dare I hope? Perhaps what I had was good enough. It was pretty stable, it could hold. The paradigm didn't need to go anywhere… That was the fear talking. I knew my mental state was precariously balanced on a precipice, and that to get from one cliff to another I would have to jump, braving the possibility of a fall. But now that I had a team… maybe I didn't have to be alone anymore. And maybe, just maybe, I could learn to rely on them to catch me before I hit the ground.

"My name is Yoko Uruki. I'm not a fan of standard introductions so I'll just tell you what you need to know about me." I informed my team in a quiet voice. "The orphanage where I live is under funded and the people there unreliable. I've learned not to trust easily or at all. I will do my best to break this habit when it comes to relying on you as my teammates. Forgive me when I make mistakes… and don't give me reason to mistrust you."

There was silence after my pronouncement. Was the language too advanced for an almost seven year old prodigy? Or was it the self awareness? I let out a long breath. For better or worse, the first step of the leap had begun, now it was up to them if they decide to catch my fall.

"Well," Minato said kindly, "I'm sure we'll all keep that in mind. Thank your for your bravery in sharing that with us, Uruki-chan."

I held myself back from rolling my eyes and forced myself to listen to what the others had to say. Teamwork was a two way street after all.

The bell test went smoothly. Kakashi saw through the trick immediately and I already knew it. Gai would have worked together with us regardless to teach our sensei a lesson if one of us hadn't alerted him it was an example for us and therefore supposed to be the other way around. Once we were done Minato-sensei was barely winded and fairly amused. "Well," he said, "I see they don't call you three prodigies for nothing." Gai preened and squawked out a 'Yosh!'

We were indeed good, and probably could have taken down a chunin working together, but Minato-sensei was a Jonin, and like us he was a prodigy. I began to feel an inkling of fear towards what kind of powerhouse team we were destined to be and what kind of things we would be forced to do. Fear was squashed by obedience and denial. I wouldn't think about it.

It is a big step to decide to start living again. In my past I had gone through traumas that had put me in a similar state to the one I was in now. The most comparable was when I had found out that everything my best friend and first love had told me was a lie and that she was in fact a pathological liar. Worst of all she turned our friends against me and in the end I felt like I was the one who was going mad. Everything I thought to be true was false and my world felt like it was crumbling. I didn't sleep for three days and three nights, occupying every spare minute with either obsessive exercise until my airways closed or marathoning anime to escape the agony that was reality.

It had been the coldest winter in seventy-five years; wind chill reached to negative sixty and icicles hung longer than I was tall. I considered lying down beneath the ice spears until one of them fell or I died from hypothermia. It was this thought that shocked me into action, asking for help. I had family I loved who loved me, and for their sake I couldn't let myself come to harm. In this world I had no one.

72 hours of hell, one phone call and four months of recovery. That was the extent of it, the farthest I had ever fallen until now. Looking back that seems like nothing. For as long as I can remember in this world I have read or trained until I passed out from exhaustion. Without my previous breathing condition to satisfyingly hurt I was forced to push even harder in physical exercise until my muscles ached and burned and my knuckles, shins and elbows were rubbed raw from the training posts. Six years spent so far in the darkness that I had forgotten there was such a thing as light. My unhealthy habits of coping were so entrenched that I was beyond addicted. Change was inconceivable. But something had to give.

It was the concern and alarm that peeked out of Minato-sensei's eyes when he looked at me, the way he always brought me food and watched me eat, how he inquired if I had slept and asked if I needed to see a doctor. To understand why he acted this way I looked in a mirror. I generally avoided mirrors, hating how they portrayed a face too young and features too foreign. Even when I cut my own hair I did it by feel instead of using a mirror. But to see what he saw I looked. And I too was alarmed. I looked like shit. Much too scrawny for a six year old, with more muscles than seemed proportionate or age appropriate, I was also tiny: shorter than my peers by a noticeable extent. Deep bags made my eyes droop and my cheeks were sallow and shrunken. Was that-? I leaned closer to get a better look. Indeed, I was even starting to get Itachi's signature stress lines. The comparison gave me pause and the thought that I'd had and suppressed during training came back to me full force. My team was obviously meant to be a heavy hitter; as three prodigies training under another one we were promising new weapons being sharpened to a deadly point before being thrown out onto the front lines of war. That was our fate and no matter how horrible my life felt now, worse was most certainly to come.

Hopelessness.

Fear.

Terror.

I'm too broken for this.

Crouching beneath the sink of the bathroom was definitely not the strangest place I've had a panic attack. People at the orphanage have gotten used to ignoring my strangled crying. Once it was over I was felt exhausted. Hollowed out. Empty but for the pounding behind my swollen eyes and a dull sense of self-loathing. And yet, however much I'd considered it, I was too much of a coward to die.

I'm too broken for this.

So I did the only I could do. I began the slow and agonizing task of putting myself together. It's a big task to decide to start living. But it's an even bigger task to actually do it.

Introspection is painful. But necessary. I knew I felt validation from pain. I knew it wasn't healthy. I also knew that this reality hurts like a mother fucking bitch and my choices were to either embrace it or be defeated by it. So I added the emotional pain of introspection to the list of unpleasant things I could feel accomplishment for. It was time to stop running from my emotions by hiding behind physical pain.

I started a diary. I wrote all my hate, anger, despair, and anguish into that book. Tears blurred already messy English handwriting and I began to use emotional exhaustion to help me sleep rather than physical. I didn't have a therapist and there was no one I could possibly talk to in this world so as soon as I learned the shadow clone technique I started giving therapy to myself. I talked to my clone about things I'd avoided thinking about for six years. I metaphorically pulled my heart out of my chest, squeezed, scrubbed with an exfoliating brush and salt and stuffed it back in. I worked with what I had. I made do. I tried to take a little better care of myself even if an inner voice snarked that I obviously didn't deserve it considering the immensity of the karmic punishment involved in just being here. I thought of my family and though they were out of reach, how they would have wanted me to be strong. I ignored the voice that said that my brother would've coped so much better than me and that he'd probably be aspiring to be Hokage by now.

Some days I felt like I wasn't making any progress at all, and that all I was doing was inflicting unnecessary pain. But Minato-sensei looked at me with less worry nowadays and barring the possibility that he was just becoming acclimated to my pathetic appearance that was probably a good sign. I felt slightly less desperate, less dependant on distraction. I still trained a bit too much, slept a bit too little and recited memorized words such as the shinobi rulebook under my breath when it all became a bit too much. But millimeter-by-millimeter I dared to hope that I was getting better.

Kakashi and Gai really were a lot like Sasuke and Naruto. Their bickering and challenges left them with little attention for anything but each other. This suited me fine. I was firmly working on myself, reconstructing and renovating my mind, giving myself an emotional overhaul. I didn't have the time or capacity to interact or think about anyone else. If I tried I'd probably end up being tactless and rude so really my solitude was for the best.

Minato-sensei disagreed. He withheld his much coveted sealing knowledge unless I interacted with the others in a friendly way at least once a day. He told the boys off for ignoring me and they'd even occasionally listen, to my chagrin. I blame Minato for Gai including me in his challenges. And once I'd actually beaten one of them his interest was piqued. Trying to downplay it merely resulted in Gai coming to the conclusion that I too was cool, and hip, just like his Eternal Rival. He then apologized profusely for ignoring me earlier and that though Kakashi would always be his Eternal Rival I would from there on out hold a special place in his heart as an Admirable Adversary.

It made me wonder what would happen to this world if I died. I thought about that a lot, actually, imagining with longing how nice it would be to slip away and simply be able to watch the story unfold as a ghost. When I thought of it that way, it was much easier to think rationally about how my existence might affect the timeline of this world without devolving into panic.

Minato thought there was something very, very wrong with his smallest genin student. Her green eyes stared blankly out of a sallow skinned face and her obviously self-cropped greasy blond hair hung limply at her pale sunken cheeks. Uruki acted like a robot most of the time, following orders without complaint or thought.

Besides her remarkably well defined muscles for a six year old, Uruki was skinny as a rail. He noticed one time when they all went out for a team meal that she avoided heavy foods and anything difficult to chew. She'd clean her plate every time though, scarffing it down quicker than even Kakashi. The sight broke his heart. Minato knew what it was like to be an orphan, and no doubt the war was only making the strain on the orphanage's resources worse. No doubt light mushy food was the only thing Uruki was used to and her speed eating was a habit formed to help her survive in a system of first come first serve. Minato always made sure to order a bit too much so that the three of them could take home leftovers. Still, Uruki didn't seem to be gaining much weight and Minato decided to do a little sleuthing. Peeking in on the orphanage during mealtime he was surprised to find that contrary to his memory the food was evenly divided and handed out in boxes that the children cleaned and returned. Next Minato took Uruki to get a 'check up'. "It's just routine, and as your sensei I act sort of like a guardian. The others will go with me another time." He lied. Uruki didn't look very convinced, especially when Minato asked the doctor to run extra tests for stomach parasites. They came back negative and by then Minato was stumped.

When Minato finally thought to ask Uruki herself the answer he got was a surprise. She tilted her head thoughtfully before asking, "Do you ever get nervous sensei? Like before you talk to a lot of people?" Minato blinked at the apparently unrelated question. Well, prodigy or not, she was only six and they tended to go on tangents. He decided to humor her. It was good to let a kid be a kid every once in a while and he could always bring up her eating habits later. "I think I know what you're talking about, Uruki-chan. It's called stage fright."

She nodded. "And you know when you have stage fright and you don't feel like eating? Like you just really, really don't want to?"

"Yeeees…" Minato answered, having an inkling where this was going but wanting to hear it said aloud.

I shrugged my tiny, bony shoulders. "It's like that. I don't like to eat." In my mind it was more analogous to being a prey in fight, flight, freeze mode and biologically unprepared for food: the opposite of rest and digest. I was caught in an endless tug of war between panic and despair with rage pulling me back from either cliff. But I was afraid if I said that they would think I'm really messed up and unfit for shinobi work. Honestly it was nothing a little serotonin reuptake inhibitor and some psychotherapy couldn't handle. Alas, those two things did not exist in this shinobi-forsaken world. I popped out of my thoughts when I realized Minato was no longer walking beside me. Looking back to where he had stopped walking I furrowed my brow. "Sensei?"

He blinked and in two long strides caught up to her. "Uruki-chan, have you always felt this way?"

I turned back forward. "For a long time." I answered.

Minato was quiet after that. Thinking the matter settled, I put my head down and followed, content in the knowledge that she could completely zone out all thought and trust her sensei to lead her safely home. It wasn't until he stopped did I look up and find that we were not, in fact, at the orphanage. I looked around in confusion. "Where are we?"

Minato patted me on the head with a reassuring smile. "This is the Yamanaka compound. I want you to meet an old friend of mine."

I instantly went pale. No. No, no, nonono! My feet trembled as I took a hesitant step back, then mentally cursed herself because was I really considering trying to run away from the yellow flash? But what other choice did I have? If a Yamanaka went digging into my head and found a past life I would be getting a one way ticket to T&I, Danzo, Orochimaru, or all three. Time for the oldest trick in the book. "Behind you!" I screamed, and then sprinted, not even looking to see if Minato fell for it. Predictably, I didn't even make it past the compound gates before I was tugged off my feet by the back of my shirt. Staring down at my dangling feet, I refused to look into sensei's eyes.

"What was that about?" Minato asked, stern under a layer of amusement.

At that moment I would've shuffled her feet if they were on the ground. "Don't want them in my head." I muttered petulantly. "I'll eat, I promise! Just don't let them do that thing they do to bad guys." Ah, yes. Yet another defense mechanism: the harmless little girl act. Granted, I was (sort of) a little girl, but I wasn't that harmless. None the less, the role fit like an old glove. Up until I'd physically grown out of it, one of my favorite security blankets in my past life was knowing that little girls were often underestimated or ignored. The timid demeanor was such a knee-jerk reaction that I didn't even consider that it might be seen as manipulation. Luckily Minato fell for it. His face softened as he gently placed his student back down on the ground.

"I'm not going to have you tortured so that you'd eat more, Uruki-chan." He knelt down in front of me to force me to look him in the eye. "Did you really think I'd do that to you?"

All I could do was shrug. Honestly, I didn't know mind walking was considered torture; I just didn't want it to happen to me. Minato frowned. Then, in one smooth motion pulled me into a hug, to my great surprise. My lips trembled as I slowly hugged him back. For the first time in six years it felt like someone cared.