Life in Yugakure was comfortable.
He hadn't had a choice in where he was born, but if he could he'd pick here. The village was nice and calm and you could always hear laughter coming from somewhere. There were always new people to see and something new to learn. Of course going to the hot springs, something he'd done for the first time when he was five, was also something he enjoyed.
He would have thought he'd be reborn in Konoha, if he was going to start anywhere in the elemental nations. While he lacked in interpersonal relations in Yugakure, he was rather glad for the calm life he'd gotten to live here, free of the constant extremes Konoha always seemed to suffer. Yugakure wasn't a village of strong personalities like Konoha.
It wasn't like his classmates were all cardboard cutouts, but... they kind of were? It was certainly less stressful than he remembered of the clips of Naruto and Sasuke in Konoha's academy, and the eccentricities of the adult shinobi.
Here in Yu, appearances were important. It sometimes felt a bit false, like everyone was constantly pasting on their best customer service face, but it was a tourist destination and the way of life. If there were any traumatised shinobi like Kakashi, or just overblown ones like Gai, they must be sent out of the village proper to run patrols and the like, because he'd never seen a Yugakure shinobi like them.
The appearance of everything being pleasant and relaxing was visible in all the village's residents. It shone through in the way their sensei taught them, an attitude that was encouraged.
Hiseo had found it surprisingly easy to adopt the shared 'at ease' attitude, almost like a Yugakure accent. He would have thought that given his history – his life before all this – that he'd be high strung but it was the opposite really. In a way, having lived and died and lived again had taken away much of the fear he might have otherwise felt.
Perhaps he'd also learned a lesson which softened so much of his fear too: it always ended. By the end of his last life death had been a relief for him. Freedom from the pain of the cancer and its treatments. It would have been easy to fear pain more because he knew how bad it could get, but instead what he'd taken away was something entirely different, something that comforted him and allowed him to push through any pain he experienced now.
The pain always ended.
And death hadn't been so bad. Just a cessation pain really, of all of it.
So being at ease wasn't difficult for him at all. There was no point getting worked up about things outside of his control and quite frankly there were always going to be dangers out there, casting a dark shadow.
But fear for the future didn't stop anyone else from living their lives and it wasn't about to stop him either. Knowing that in his life time he was almost guaranteed to experience one war or another, given his knowledge of Naruto history if it did turn out to be accurate. He might not even live that long, perhaps killed by bandits on the road, but so what? Everyone lived despite their fear of death, and death wasn't as bad as he'd thought it was.
So Hiseo plodded on with his life, learning skills and keeping his eyes open for hints that might help him gauge what was going on in the land he lived in and the lands surrounding it. His main concerns were Hidan, major wars, and the creation of the Sound village headed by Orochimaru, mostly because lack of fear of death or not, he really didn't want to suffer as a science experiment for however long he might be kept alive if he fell into those merciless hands.
At present though, none of those threats were present or even close by – he'd not seen any hints of anything to worry about, not that lack of evidence meant that they weren't present. He had no idea when Hidan fit into the timeline, if he was even born yet, only that eventually he would attack Yugakure and leave.
He did fear what might happen to him if what he knew was revealed, but so far that was a non-issue. Not even his parents suspected that he had knowledge that didn't belong to him.
It was an odd distinction he'd made a long time ago now, something which had helped him recognise who he was as Hiseo.
Hiseo didn't feel like a fraud. He didn't feel Dan, who died of cancer, getting a second chance at life. He felt like Hiseo, who had memories of a life which came before. It was a small and seemingly insignificant distinction, who he identified as, but it made a difference between feeling like a foreigner trying to pretend his way through a second chance, instead as a Yugakure native who had memories of something before.
He'd never told anyone what he knew, not that he really had anyone to tell. He got on well enough with his classmates, but it wasn't as though he'd invite anyone to hang out with him at home – he wasn't close with anyone. His parents had always accepted him as he was, and eccentric-unwelcome or not, kids were diverse enough that his quirks hadn't been seen as anything to worry about. His odd development had just been seen as a partial prodigy – he had struggled with language but seemed to understand complex concepts and the like once he knew the words.
Otherwise Hiseo had just been a normal, quiet kid who never seemed to get worked up. He might cry if he got hurt in combat classes but never seemed to make a big deal of it like most other kids did, just carried on with tears on his face.
His teachers liked him well enough judging by his report card and their interactions with him – he was an easy student to have. Diligent, unobtrusive. A few had flagged him for being great at undercover work if he was interested, because of how easy he was to overlook – teachers could leave him to his own devices knowing they didn't have to worry about him, and realise they'd gone through the whole day without looking at him once because he rarely drew attention to himself and rarely needed extra help.
You'd have thought a boy with dark blue hair and eyes would stand out more, but his colours were just muted enough not to stand out. He usually kept his hair in a low ponytail hanging over one shoulder, just like his mother, and his skin tone was lightly tanned – not as much as his father, but not near as pale as his mother either.
All in all he didn't really stand out, which meant that his teachers noticed him but the other students didn't. It helped that he was eager to learn but not to show off and unlike his peers he spent much of his personal time investing in his future instead of playing childish games.
The academy was a great way to connect students with teachers in different fields, and there were just so many different fields! Rather than try and cram it all into his last year, Hiseo had eagerly sought to get a jump start where he could.
Unfortunately that had meant that he'd gotten stuck helping his academy teachers at first, carrying tools for classes the next day and marking test papers for the younger years. It turned out to be fairly interesting seeing the other side of things so it wasn't a wasted venture, but while seeing the psychology behind certain decisions, not to mention the small jutsu that got used (to prevent cheating, monitor a room and so on) were interesting, he had no interest in teaching children himself.
He wasn't about to get taken out on patrol or anything at his age, but his efforts were rewarded with some training sessions from different teachers who held in-village jobs. It meant he spent one of his free days working in a florist, and another shadowing a guard who worked in the jail. Another afternoon he intensely regretted his decision as a paper-pusher in the mission office desk. He'd already spent one life wasting away in the back rooms, spending all day in the same eight square feet, he wasn't about to do that again.
Three weeks later he was learning from one of the in-village shinobi who kept the peace in the onsen.
Unlike his other roles, this one required him to adjust his appearance so he would not stand out, which meant wearing kimono. Hiseo would never have thought that he'd be comfortable wearing kimono. It wasn't as restrictive as he feared though, actually was very comfortable. It could be because they were battle kimono rather than the more traditional style. Shorter at the front, easy to move in. Easier to hide weapons in too, which is why it was a style that young ninja were encouraged to use.
It certainly made him blend in even more, made him feel a bit more at home too. He decided to adopt it more regularly in his closet rather than stick with shirts and shorts as he had before. Having so much fabric around his legs, even though it was lesser than a regular kimono for a battle kimono like his, was still odd though. He debated the merits of keeping a full kimono versus just a kimono top, whether the tradeoff was worth it. He did like the idea of having fabric to use if needed, but didn't want to trip on it either.
It led Hiseo to wondering whether there was any way to control the fabric so it didn't trip him. He tried sending chakra through a strip of cloth at first and very nearly incinerated it. Clearly, this wasn't going to be something he managed right away.
For all that he'd practiced and learned, using chakra was probably always going to be a little bit odd to him. He could use it – they had the leaf exercise just like Konoha, though they'd be moving to water walking soon – it was more advanced for pre-genin but a requirement to pass the genin test because of the nature of their work (they had to be able to intervene in the hot springs if anything happened, and many were large enough that they'd be no use if they couldn't walk on water).
He didn't mind the limitation personally, it made sense to ensure that the village's shinobi were qualified to do their jobs, and protecting the village (and its hot springs) was pretty much the basic tenet. There had even been a segment in class about the protection of the springs and the ways that people had tried to destroy them in the past (one enemy nin had used acid and it had gone horribly terribly wrong, but it didn't stop people from trying the same thing sometimes even though everyone involved the first time had died awfully).
Now ten years old, his ninja studies were focusing more on practical skills instead of book learning. He wasn't free of classrooms entirely of course, but lessons had shifted from predominately classroom based, perhaps 80-90% so, to practicals taking the lead at 60-70%.
He finally learned how to use chakra to do more than stick things to his hands (and face, and feet, and anywhere else they were told to stick leaves to for however long). Nothing dramatic at first – they were taught the campfire jutsu. A simple spark-making technique, it was simple enough for even water-natured ninja to learn. They also learned a camouflage jutsu to help them blend in (and spy), along with the henge.
Hiseo struggled to wrap his head around how jutsu worked, but that didn't actually stop him from learning how to do it. While the mechanics of it still seemed ludicrous (he basically imagined coating himself in chakra in order to manage the henge & camouflage jutsus) he had no trouble using the techniques. If anything it was surprisingly easy – easy to move the chakra rather, not necessarily to get the result he wanted.
Using henge, he was only half-aware of the actual result of it; could feel himself holding the chakra in place. Unfortunately, while the coating of chakra over his body to change its appearance was successful, it was much more difficult to imprint detail onto the blank canvas he'd painted over himself. To that end, his henge tended to have very blank faces, if they had facial details at all, and lacked nearly any real detail like freckles or blemishes. It was easier to make a copy of someone else, but he had a habit of only filling in the detail of their faces from the front – looking at the henge from an angle, especially behind, left it blank or strange. It wasn't like he was able to see his own henge either, so had no idea what it looked like when he used it. The was a way of being able to tell from the chakra he was coating himself in, but Hiseo certainly couldn't seem to do that.
On the other hand, camouflage was much easier, blending in to what was already around him rather than trying to draw a new self over his own.
Hiseo actually found using chakra to be quite easy – he had worried that he'd not be able to use it at all but clearly that wasn't the case. His problem was that he couldn't seem to gauge his use of chakra – sending it out was easy, but knowing how much to use was harder without practice. He wasn't sure how people seemed to be able to tell how much chakra to use – it wasn't that he had too much chakra like Naruto, or two little control, also like Naruto. Hiseo could adjust how much he sent easily enough, he just didn't know how to tell how much he needed to use without obvious visible results.
For the basic techniques he was learning at least, it seemed to be him controlling how much chakra he used. The techniques didn't drain him – like casting spells in an rpg. He had to figure out how much to use himself, not just rely on 'casting' the 'spell' and it taking what it needed.
Most techniques didn't give much feedback to gauge results with, at least with the techniques he was learning. If his leaf wasn't on fire and it did stick, the amount of chakra that it could take varied, so it was hard to be 'precise'. Things like the henge were harder, because he could move the chakra over his body, but couldn't tell what it looked like without a mirror to see himself from all sides. He wasn't sure if he just needed a stronger image to imagine over him or if everyone else could tell from their chakra what their jutsu showed. His henge looked like a doll when he disguised himself as a person, the skin too smooth. It wasn't as obvious if he henged into a potted plant at least, which was meant to be harder.
Once he started getting used to using his chakra, it seemed natural to just emit it now and then, sending it into the air around him, or whatever he was holding or touching. Of course that got him in trouble sometimes since chakra could damage things that weren't meant to conduct the energy, not to mention making him something of a beacon in class when he did it.
He took to trying to limit his chakra to his clothing instead – once he'd bought some appropriate clothing to do so anyway. (The first time he'd started doing it habitually he'd been uncomfortably surprised when his clothes started falling off him, deteriorated by his chakra repeatedly imbued into the threads. His new clothing was much more durable.)
It wasn't like he could feel his chakra when he sent it out – he wasn't a sensor (rather the opposite if anything, to his chagrin) but he liked being able to control things around him, and spreading his chakra through it allowed him to do so.
His father thought it was hilarious, when he started doing it.
"Chakra has its own signature, something unique to each of us." He said. "So when I step into the house and can feel your chakra flaring all over the place, it feels kind of like having a pet that's marking its territory." He'd guffawed, laughing louder at Hiseo's slight flush.
While he didn't want to come across like a poorly trained house cat, he still couldn't help but spread his chakra around to have some control of his environment. He at least was getting better at concealing it, as well as in gauging how much he needed to use.
"Being able to easily thread or coat things with your chakra is a useful skill though." His father, Hayato, mused once he'd settled down. "If you have a good amount of chakra you could potentially use ninjutsu like 'hiding in the steam' or some equivalent. You can also use it for marking a path – leaving a trail for others to track you." Of course that could let enemies track him too, so he had to be careful about it.
It wasn't often that his father took the time to teach him new things, rather than just help him with whatever the academy was teaching him, so it was nice to have some guidance in how he could develop.
Not all his lessons were quite so pleasant however.
One of the hardest lessons Hiseo endured was a lesson on difficult customers. Hardly what you'd think of as a 'difficult lesson for shinobi' but it had been harder than the first time he had to catch and kill a bunny by far. It was held by a teacher who openly scorned them, disparaged them at every turn. Four of Hiseo's classmates broke down in tears in the first five minutes – before the teacher had even properly begun the exercise.
It was obvious to Hiseo that the exercise began the moment the sensei entered the classroom. That didn't make it any easier to endure the slurs or casual cruelty. They were ninja, but also children, and as much as they needed to learn how to maintain the polite façade in the face of such words, that was easier said than done. Even Hiseo struggled, and very little got to him.
The second day, when the class resumed but with the focus of dealing with difficult coworkers, Hiseo just walked out.
He could deal with shitty customers if he had to, but he'd struggled with cruelty coming from people he was meant to trust or work with in his last life. His solution? To not trust or work with them. His teacher, when he was confronted about it later, acknowledged it as a sound strategy but not always a viable one. Hiseo was adamant though – he wasn't going to tolerate being treated that way and expected to continue working with those people. Perhaps it was weak of him, but while he was laid back and unbothered now, he hadn't always been so and he knew the fast track to self harm was to be surrounded by people who treated you poorly. He wasn't going to risk being put in that position again.
He did get some flack for it from the other students, mostly because of his rep of being unflappable – they questioned whether it was a façade - his cool demeanor. It wasn't like he cared for their opinion though. They may eventually be his comrades, but none of them were really his friend and he could get by with that. As long as they didn't try and make trouble for him he didn't care.
Hiseo was something of a loner, though he worked fine with others when he had to he was more of a teacher's pet if anything.
He mostly just wanted to learn, and while he did miss out on friendship with his peers he wasn't unhappy with his life. Learning to be a ninja was fascinating. Watching Naruto had shown him only a small part of what that meant – mostly the 'massive attacks' aspect of it in truth, but there was so much more to it than that. It was like Kakashi had said: "Look underneath the underneath." He finally had some understanding of what that meant.
Being taught rather than being expected to just magically know helped though *cough* Kakashi *cough*.
Regardless of his doubts of Konoha's sensei, Hiseo was definitely thriving under Yugakure's.
It helped that he was motivated and the memories he held from his previous life gave him a maturity he likely otherwise wouldn't. Knowing that, regardless of where he was in the timeline, the future he knew of held a great deal of danger. As much as he enjoyed his peaceful life in Hot Springs, he doubted it'd last forever.
Despite his best efforts, Hiseo hadn't been able to gather much information to verify the knowledge he held. Only the broad strokes of history were shared in class so far, not the small details which much of his knowledge hinged upon and especially not for other villages. Hidden villages did keep secrets and despite its information trade it didn't share all its information with its ninja, so he couldn't gauge it based on solid information. He learned a lot about the history of Yugakure, but that didn't help him figure out where the timeline was because almost all of his knowledge was about Konoha, especially during Naruto's genin timeline.
He did know Konoha had suffered some severe strife a few years back, but whether that was the Kyuubi seal breaking, one war or another, or an invasion he couldn't confirm. It didn't really narrow it down. The last great war was over around the time of his birth, but Hiseo couldn't remember enough details about it to know which one it was, or how many wars there were in Naruto in the first place. It wasn't like he'd read up on the Naruto-verse history before he got here, unfortunately.
It wouldn't be for another year that Hiseo would learn where in the timeline he was. As their history classes continued he discovered that there had already been several shinobi wars, so he was further along the timeline than he'd thought or hoped. He wished his own memory was better however because he couldn't remember how many wars there had been in Naruto. The classes only skimmed most of it because it was no longer relevant – not to mention a good chunk of the information was suppressed to keep secrets, so they didn't necessarily know the names of key players which would allow him to pin it down.
It was frustrating having the information so close but just out of reach. He could probably find out more if he dug deeper, but it wasn't just having the information that mattered, it was being able to recognise the relevance of it. He'd looked in the past for information about Konoha but much of it came down to vague information that didn't make much sense without context. Like, the sannin existed, but Hiseo couldn't remember when that happened, or when they fell apart, and that wasn't the sort of information that Konoha would want spread around so it might have already happened and was kept quiet. At least it gave him a vague awareness of when he was, that the sannin were around.
So for the most part Hiseo focused on things he could work on instead of figuring out where he was in a timeline that may or may not be accurate anyway. He wanted to learn everything; how to cook traditional food from his parents, how to pass information in secret, or notice someone else trying to do the same. In the introductory class on elemental jutsu Hiseo learned that he was primarily water natured (not uncommon in Yu), but found wind transformation second easiest.
The students were only taught the very basics of elemental jutsu, just their existence and one extremely basic jutsu for each type. The spark-making jutsu for fire they already covered, a tiny breeze making jutsu (for blowing out candles and passing notes), the lightning spark which just felt like a bee sting, and a water jutsu that dispersed steam from the air. They weren't required to be able to perform all of them, but at least to try.
He even continued to work on making his compulsion to push out chakra into something useful – his parents started to buy him high quality clothing that could handle chakra so he could begin learning to use it more practically.
The first time he used his trailing kimono sleeves to wrap around a combatant's wrists during a spar while he punched the kid in the face, it gained him a few interested looks for sure.
This idyllic life was never going to last forever though, and one day it all came crashing down. It was a morning like any other and Hiseo was just on his way to the academy when the sound of screaming and raucous laughter broke out nearby.
That answered that question then, about where in the timeline he was. Looked like Hidan was going to start his slaughter right about now.
Shit.
Notes: So I'm not sure how I've gotten this far in with basically no actual conversation happening. My writing style is really awkward sometimes, exposition heavy, and actual talking just isn't really happening for me _ Sorry. Will keep trying. This just seems to be how I write now?