She was a small thing. Dark hair, pale skin, fragile bones, and dirty clothes.

In any other moment, he would have looked right over her. His eyes skim past the unremarkable child with hardly a second though.

Then she placed her hands together in a near perfect ram sign and her chakra roared.

Chakra sensing, while a common skill for shinobi, wasn't something that many people honed enough to be considered a chakra sensor. This was partially because chakra sensing is a personal skill, one that can't easily be explained between individuals with different sensing tendencies. Every sensor distinguished chakra differently. Inuzuka had a tendency to scent, and colors were common amongst the inexperienced.

Personally, Orochimaru hears chakra, feels the vibrations in the air. He hears it roll through their coils and ricochets off their surroundings. It took a significant amount of chakra for it to register as a threat to him when he wasn't purposefully listening.

When this tiny, unassuming child's chakra roared like an eldritch tailed monster of old, he nearly killed her. A kunai was in his and his chakra pulled him through space behind the child before he blinked. His brain, quick as a viper, caught up milliseconds later and he aborted the assassination attempt millimeters before steel bit into her flesh.

Stand down, his fingers flicked through the standard signs, calming the other ninja in the vicinity. Silly child should have known such an aggressive flare of chakra would receive a violent reaction from surprised ninja.

Her chakra subsided to a dull growl, "Nope, can't feel them," she said.

Orochimaru decided she was the most interesting thing that happened to him all week, and there was no way he was letting this opportunity slip through his fingers.

There is an old shinobi superstition Masanori once told me when I first decided to become a ninja.

She was bent over a cutting board, dicing vegetables with the brutal efficiency gained by years and years of dicing her enemies. I was leaning against the counter next to her, sneaking slices of mushroom from under the flashing knife.

I nonchalantly mentioned my decision to pursue the career laid before me by my association with the orphanage. I said I was going to be legendary.

She nodded, "There are only three types of shinobi in the word. Survivors, casualties, and legends."

This made sense to me. Despite my fairly civilian childhood so far, bodies and blood were bought as easily as food in this village. I was no stranger to casualties. (The first was a 12-year-old genin, Shin. No last name. An Iwa chunin had ripped his heart clear out. He was not the last casualty from this orphanage.) It's frighteningly easy to forget that the foundation of this world is built on bones and blood.

The blue hair woman glanced at me and breathes a sigh before delicately placing her knife down and lowering herself to her knees in front of me. Callused hands grip my shoulders. "Natsuki, it's alright to simply survive." her grip tightens, "Something is coming and I have no doubt you will meet legends and alike monsters. When you do, know this: only two people meet the eyes of monsters. Legends and idiots. Idiots don't come back." Her eyes searched for mine. "Don't be an idiot."

"Be a monster," Madara said.

"I'll survive," I resolved. I wished I wouldn't meet a monster for a very long time.

Unfortunately, this universe sucks ass.

And I've found myself throwing a punch at Orochi-fucking-maru's face, and Masanori's lesson fell out of my head and onto the floor. Don't be an idiot.

"Can't feel what?" The man asks again when then only answer I can muster is a 'um'. He leers over me silky black hair slipping over his shoulders and lips pulling wider as his amusement grows. Only legends and idiots.

"Say something" Madara hisses feeling my agitation.

I don't break my gaze. "Seals." I say, forcing the word through my teeth, and try pulling my arm out of the sannin's grip. His hand tightens its hold in response until it's almost painful. "The Uzumaki. They have security seals." Madara rushes under my skin, soothing my rising panic. If this were a conversation between Orochimaru and Madara, Madara wouldn't be afraid at all.

"And you are trying to feel them?" The man prods.

"See them." The words are coming easier now with Madara at my back. "Technically." The sannin's gold eyes are surprisingly beautiful, in an incredibly unnerving way. Even an untrained civilian would recognize the chakra mutation identifying his status as a member of a shinobi clan. Orochimaru remains quiet and I realize he wants me to elaborate.

"If I push my chakra to my eyes then I thought I'd be able to see the chakra embedded in the seals. I figured it's like electromagnetic energy right? It produces wavelengths and my chakra could pick up on those wavelengths." That was the gist of my poorly considered theory of chakra in any case. I figured it has to follow at least some laws of physics.

Orochimaru continues to stare before chuckling and releasing my wrist. "That is a very amusing theory, child. How'd you come to think that?"

My brows furrow. Is he testing me or something? "Well. Ninja can expel chakra with enough force that it can be felt. Which means the energy is moving through the air and I figured it's like any other energy like light, or sound. It's a wave. Or a particle wave. Or something similar."

"And how do you know all of that, child? You are not attending any of the civilian schools."

"He's interrogating us." Madara says.

"I know. But I'd rather not make an enemy out of him."

"I like to read." That's not quite the truth. I did like to read in my old life, but I was also a student and my degree required I spend quite a bit of my time studying physics. I learned this from hours hunched over a textbook cramming for exams.

"You are training to be a ninja." He continues. He's not even asking anymore. Simply observing.

I'm suddenly hyperaware of the dirt and blood under our nails, of the grass burns and cuts on our hands from failing to handle a kunai correctly, of the thrumming in our chakra as Madara's wrestles mine into a false calm.

I nod.

He laughs again and uncoils himself to standing at his full height. Don't be an idiot.

"You're a bright child, so I will tell you this. There are only two clans within Konoha who can see chakra the way you described, but even they can't see seals that aren't there." He considers me for another second before stepping around me and continues down the road.

I heave a sigh of relief when he disappears into the crowd and Madara recedes.

"That coulda been worse."

"Could have been better, too" Madara says, "At the very least, you weren't an idiot."

Orochimaru's lips quirk. What an interesting child. She would certainly be entering an academy soon, in either this intake period or the next he would estimate. Perhaps he would even place a recommendation in for her if the administration was on the fence about her placement into the Konoha Shinobi Academy as opposed to a lesser academy. The administration is known to make poor decisions regarding the placement of orphans into the academy, after all.

And so what if he was being a little biased. Any child with chakra as unique as that was bound to attract attention. If he got to her first, well, who could blame him. Even without proper training her power was intoxicating.

For now, though, he'd leave her be.

Author's Note

Just a quick update to let everyone know that I am NOT abandoning this story. I'm currently in the middle of Stuvac and will be studying for my finals for the next month. Hopefully after that I will be abel to churn out a few more chapters before coming back to uni and having my time gobbled up by my way too overloaded schedule.

As always, thank you all for your support and continued interest in my writing. Your reviews are amazing to read and make my day.

This chapter was actually really interesting for me to write because there is so much foreshadowing and character analysis involved that I think I did a pretty good job of including. If you missed it, don't worry, that's the point. You aren't supposed to realize until later so that's fine.

Also, this is the last part of the Planck Era! Yay, I get to expand the universe now! (Haha, get it?) The next chapter will be the begin the Grand Unification Era.

Thanks again and please review! I love to hear your comments and thoughts!

Over and out,
Plouton