Chapter Two: Hiraeth. Yearning for a home that you can't return to/never was.


I think that ninja team really made it settle in, the stuff I was getting into. All the loose ends that I'd been noticing and picking up (the painful acidic feeling, the canvasses of paint in my mind, warm tree sap on my skin, asthma) seemed to snap into place.

The acid-that-should-not-be-remembered had been the Kyūbi. The colors I'd been seeing was the other people I'd been sensing. The warm tree sap had been the chakra in my body, and the asthma (if DoS was to be believed)? Me choking on ambient nature chakra.

(I'd always thought the overarching mosaic of whitewhitewhite in my head was weird.)

It all made terrifying sense.

This was a place of blood and strength. If you were weak, you died. And I was so pathetically weak.

Think! I thought to myself. Though I knew I'd died, I still carried the near-instinctual fear of death with me. You don't want to die a second time. What's the best way to rectify that?

The answer, obviously, was to grow strong. To become a ninja. But I got squeamish around worms. I was scared of the dark. I hated spicy food. And I hated ongoing attention on myself - and exercise. I was a lazy, self-doubting procrastinator with no real talent.

How would I cope with the blood and guts of the ninja world? How could I overcome the blatant sexism of the Elemental Continent? How could I become a ninja with the way I was?

Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.

Shut up, Yoda. I haven't even started doing anything yet.

The best way to do it is to do it.

Sometimes, your only transportation is a leap of faith.

Between two choices, people often choose the third: to not choose at all.

Screw it, I decided. This can wait until I have to decide.

But didn't you swear that you would work harder? a voice in my head reminded me. You swore to yourself that you would work harder to get better grades, to help more around the house. To get a job, to get your driver's license, all to not impede your parents. Where's that brittle resolve now?

… In the end, this was just like when I had to choose which characters to put in one of my stories. I couldn't always get what I wanted, so I had to discard some choices and move on with my life. This wasn't anything as trivial as that; this could've been life or death.

If I wanted to live, I had to become a ninja. Even if I took out Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, all those kids and their teachers out of the equation (Asuma, Itachi, Jiraiya, Neji), I still had to become a ninja.

The sudden desire for not my parents nor my friends but my room in my home as Farah struck me. I wanted those four, light purple walls and white curtains, the messy desk. I wanted the comfort of my computer.

Those things are gone, I reminded myself. It's just you now, displaced in a child's body.

(Why was it all too easy to let go of that past? To let go of simpler times?)

I sagged, heavily trudging back into the building where I lived. I needed a bed to think on.


Once I flopped onto my little bed, I started thinking.

Then I lamented the fact that I was born in Konoha. Why couldn't it have been in Fiore, where I knew almost the entire storyline, where I'd actually finished the anime? Why was it Naruto?

I'd only watched up to the Lee vs. Kimimaro fight in the Sound Four arc of the original, and then up to Guy vs. Kisame of Shippuden. True, I'd gotten spoilers beyond belief thanks to my indulgence and the fandom (looking at how much people hated Shippuden Sasuke and fillers, it was probably better I hadn't watched all of it), but I'd actually watched more of Boruto than either Naruto series!

Well, I consoled myself grimly, at least you vaguely know the plot. At least you're not in a video game world or One Piece or something like that.

I mulled over that thought for a second, and then I realized - I should've been really, really grateful I was in Konoha, arguably the friendliest ninja village. And that - I shuffled around for a second, just to make sure - I was reborn female. I'd read about when an SI-OC had ended up the opposite biological gender and the dysphoria was not pretty.

(Looking at you, Kumo and Itachi.)

Moving on. I could be grateful later.

I had to be a ninja, but I had to be sneaky about it. Now that I actually took my mind off regaining mobility and diction, I realized that I was in an orphanage, which meant my parents were either dead or absent (probably dead, considering the Kyūbi), and there was a very real danger of Danzo kidnapping me if I showed talent.

I did not want to become a mindless killing machine. I liked my free will, thanks. Danzo could go screw himself sideways with a spiny, toxic cactus.

Problem was, I wasn't very good at keeping secrets. Forgetting them, sure, but keeping them? I'd never been tested on that.

Well. Except for personal secrets that I'd never told anybody. Never mind. If I valued secrets enough, I could keep them and no one would ever know I had them in the first place. Hopefully.

I was pretty sure I could go on as I was. I was sorely missing my number one pastime, reading, but I was two years old. I was pretty sure kids learned to read around five or four. I could wait as long as I occupied myself with other things, such as building up my tubby muscles.

That over with, I turned my mind to other things. Immediately, it went to one boy - Uzumaki Naruto.

I knew when I was. I was born a little before the Kyūbi attack, which meant that if - no, it couldn't be if but when - I went into the ninja academy, I would be in his year.

There was two possibilities - one was that Naruto was in an orphanage, and it didn't have to be the one I was in. The other was that Naruto was being raised exclusively by perhaps a babysitter that the Sandaime could trust or ANBU.

I paused, then took a few seconds to thank the higher being that not only placed me in the same age group as Naruto, but the fact that they placed me in a world that had so many pre-canon rendings in fanfiction that I'd read, so I was prepared for a lot of scenarios now. Thank God for my voracious literary appetite!

(If you're wondering why I remember so much about fanfiction… not only did I read it more than canon manga, I also read it about three hours daily at least. Trust me, when it came to reading, I could have pretty good memory.)

If Naruto was in a different orphanage or being raised alone, then there was nothing I could do about his horrid situation until we were in the academy. I'd probably get kidnapped by a pedophile if I went to look for him, no matter how much I felt for him. As much as I wanted to tear down all the bigots in Konoha limb by limb and wrap the boy in blankets, I was a two year old child and had to limit my search to the orphanage.

As for the rest of the Konoha Twelve and Sasuke… really, they were in good situations except for Naruto (aforementioned bigotry), Sai (Ne), Hinata (Kumo Incident), Neji (Branch House), and possibly Tenten (the girl had no backstory whatsoever so I had no idea if she was starving in a ditch somewhere or something). All of the Konoha Twelve were clan children except for Sakura, Lee, and Tenten, so they were fine.

My most two immediate problems in relation to canon, other than Danzo: The Kumo Incident and Uchiha Massacre. Also, maybe something about a filler character called Yota? I'd never really watched any filler… whatever. Ignoring that.

As I recalled, the Kumo Incident occurred when Hinata was four and the Uchiha Massacre when Sasuke was seven and Itachi was thirteen. I had two years before Hyūga Hizashi died and five until the Uchiha were dead.

The question was, could I do anything about that?

The answer was a blunt no. Me versus a Kumo-nin? Me versus Uchiha Itachi and Obitobi? Heck no. I'd get slaughtered. I couldn't subvert the higher being known as politics and strife. Even if I tried to marched straight to the Hokage's office, to dispense all I knew like some kind of oracle… the previous getting-kidnapped-by-a-pedo comment still stood. I didn't know my way around, didn't have a good enough grasp of the language to ask for directions.

Even if I made it into the Hokage Tower, I'd likely get turned away at the front lobby, and who was to say that Sarutobi Hiruzen would believe me, if I made it in? Even if he did believe me, what stopped him from scraping through my mind via Yamanaka, then discarding me once he knew everything I knew? I didn't wish to be used, be made into a shell, nor die a second time.

I couldn't stop Hyūga Hizashi from dying, or Itachi from condemning himself to becoming his clan's murderer. I was but one slip of an orphan girl.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

… Wearily, I rolled over to ground my face into my pillow, hoping it would smother me, but with a sigh, I rolled back over - I couldn't die so soon, after all.

What could I do now? What did I have to do now?

… Well, it would probably be a good idea to improve my sensing (of all the SI-OC cliches…), and work my muscles. I didn't know if I had an overabundance of spiritual energy because of my memories, but I couldn't take any chances. I had to learn how to child and how to be a normal Konoha orphan.

The most efficient way of doing so, with my limits, was…

I can't believe I'm doing this, I mentally groaned to myself, glaring at the doorway that led to the hall, then outside with all the shrill tykes outside. Unfortunately, it was the best way to exercise while I was this small, and it would help me interact with others and blend in.

I dragged myself out of bed and trudged out the door.

I really, really wanted the retreat of my room right now.


Hello again. Here's the next chapter. Let's see. 32 views, 3 favorites, 2 follows, 2 reviews. Already. What have I done to deserve you people?

Probably should've done this in the previous chapter, but the DoS Ryūtama alludes to is Dreaming of Sunshine by Silver Queen. It's got an awesome SI-OC for a main character, already into the triple digits in terms of chapters, and just... it's pretty good. You should check it out, if you haven't yet.

The 'Kumo and Itachi' comment somewhere in the middle refers to Florence Kumo, the SI-OC main for Atrophying Scruples by axoplasmic (it's a One Piece fic and realistic, if squicky), and an SI!Uchiha Itachi from Blurred Lines by ijnt (again, realistic; haven't read it all the way through yet). I recommend both if you're not against reading about violence and gender dysphoria.

I'm pretty sure you all know where 'do or do not' comes from - Yoda from Star Wars. 'The best way to do it' is from Amelia Earhart. 'Leap of faith' comes from Margaret Shepard. The fourth quote's origin is unknown - I tried searching it up, but no dice. Hopefully, I'll be a little more cohesive about quotes and things like that. There's a reference to a Naruto filler in here, about a character named Yota. He probably won't show up, like a lot of filler characters. I've barely watched Naruto, let alone Shippuden.

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, I'd be set for life. Ha ha ha. No.

Hope you enjoyed. Iggy OUT.