Three

Oddity

The small streaks of life shining down on me through my window. I stretch and then grin. Today I was going to learn how to read. I could read but well that would crop up weird questions about who taught me how to read? How can I read at such a young age? But the biggest concern probably was that once I learned to read I was allowed in the Senju Library.

The Senju Library is a heavily guarded underground chamber filled with books, scrolls and journals. It was beautiful. I didn't cry though, okay maybe a little. I love to read. The amount of knowledge that you can gain from books and you can pass along with books is greater than the amount you can learn from a school. The library is full of information from different people about a number of topics. It is a treasure beyond all others.

Canon

Five years before Naruto was born, Konoha was plunged into a war. The third Shinobi World War to be exact. The war had slowed down slightly though. But after Sakumo Hatake's mission went wrong the tempo started increasing. Obito, Rin, Gai, Asuma and their age mates had just graduated from the Academy. Minato Namikaze was slowly gaining a reputation for being the fastest man alive. That might be the reason about why he was being targeted by A, the Raikage.

The Uchiha, Senju and Inuzuka have heirs (Itachi, Arashi, Hana). The other clans aren't willing to take this chance. They will wait for the war to end.

I glanced at the reference book on the left and the book in front of me. The reference book just had all the Hiragana characters written neatly by Daichi. Tsuki was sitting across the table copying characters from a similar book. This was becoming a practice while I sat and tried to read Tsukishima was learning to write, with both hands. I think it was really hard for him to write with his right hand but he seemed determined to get it right. I pointed at the large Hiragana character.

"Read, Tsuki," I whispered. Tsuki know looked up and then at the character. He frowned and then smiled.

"That's 'ra' for Ramen," he said proud of himself. I grinned before revising the first ten again. I needed some practice with the characters but that's all. I could read but I get stuck now and then. After I was sure I knew the characters I would show them to Daichi before reciting each one no matter how many times he shuffled those flash cards of his. I was getting good at Hiragana enough that I could read whole books, the thin ones before losing concentration and getting bored.

Afterwards I would grab Tsuki's hand and we'd play with Wataru. It was fun. I felt like I was living my childhood right. Last time round I had a younger sister when I was one and a half which gave my parents less time for me. By two and a half I was independent and was taken to the school my mom worked in. They let me sit in a Pre-kindergarten class which was mostly counting and ABCs. Three months later I had holidays during which my mom made me go through the course for Kindergarten. The next school promoted me to the first grade at three. This time round I probably won't have to go to the Academy till I am five, maybe six.

I'd always star to think about the differences in my past life and this one which made me become widrawn for some time. Tsuki had become really good at noticing my mood. He knew when I was going to become all quiet and then he would try to distract me. I appreciated it. I seriously did.

I skipped by the Library, Sakuraya was walking with me trying to explain chakra but I was too bored to actually attempt to listen to the man. He then did something astonishing, well not that astonishing. He walked up the walls of the Library. I just stared my mouth shaped like an 'o' as he took quick strides and moments later he was on the roof of the first floor. The first floor was the only one above ground. They rest were underneath. He beckoned me. I took it as a challenge and I hate to lose. I looked at the thick vine that was wrapped around a pillar and spilled on the roof. It didn't have a lot of footholds for a one and a half-year old. But I could manage as I climbed up the vine. Thankfully I was wearing a smaller version of a kimono that went to my thighs and underneath it there was a pair of shorts. Well I got up to six feet I guess before Uncle Rai tapped my back. I shrieked and let go of the vine. He laughed as I was hanging upside down. I think some sense came into him as he picked me and helped me climb. Sakuraya was amused when I reached the top with Uncle Rai cheering for me. He asked me to sit next to him as he pulled out a brown bag. I hugged him after I looked inside. Two sticks of Dango and some Jam buns. We are slowly enjoying the food and the view. The direction we were facing was mostly trees or 'the Senju back lawn' as Tetsuya called it fondly.

"Are you still trying the exercises I gave you?" I nodded with a slight pout. Sakuraya was teaching me chakra control so by two I should be able to manage it. My training with Orochimaru and Kushina starts when I turn two and I should have a basic idea of chakra by then. Kushina will be working on my calligraphy and see if I have potential for Fuuinjutsu. Orochimaru, however, was going to train me to be like this mysterious ancestor I looked like. Someone should take his name already.

"Do you still have trouble with chakra?" He sighed as he looked at my expression. "If you learn it I can teach you the wall walking trick." I frowned. I had worked on chakra control for five months now. It had obviously grown a bit, not a lot but still I couldn't manipulate it right. I had learned an E-rank sensory technique to give me an idea of chakra. Basically you send out pulses of chakra. Any signature in your memory is recognized and others are highlighted. I could push chakra out but I couldn't build up the right amounts. It's like pouring water into a small hole. You can pour all the water so only some of it passes through (that's what I can manage) or you can pour it in a controlled way so that the stream of water is thinner than the hole (that's what I can't do). It's like my body is willing to reject chakra readily but not use it.

"I'm trying, sensei," I told him as I swallowed the last of my Jam bun. "It just doesn't work the way you say it does."

"We could take you to the hospital and have your coils checked out." He frowned lightly before nudging me lightly. I sighed and looked up with an annoyed expression but that dissolved quickly. The sun was slowly disappearing behind the tall walls of Konoha. It lit up all the trees leaving a dull gold hue as it dipped behind the walls. Sakuraya immediately stood up and turned to the village which wasn't that visible from here. When he saw me squint he picked me up so I could see the view. I gasped. It was amazing. As the light diminished all the lights of Konoha turned on.

I think I could get used to this.

"I am!"

"Try harder. The leaf needs to stick. Actually it should stay all day. This way your chakra control and reserves increase." I glared at Sakuraya before sticking out a hand on which he placed a leaf. I slammed it on my forehead keeping it in place with my hand. After pushing the chakra around my stomach a bit I severed a small part. Sending it to my forehead was a simpler task.

Five minutes later the leaf was back on the floor. I had managed to tear them with chakra easily but this, this was so much harder. I groaned as I stared at the leaf. It was slightly torn which wasn't good for me. I reached out and Sakuraya handed me another leaf. I was hanging upside down from a tree. Thankfully I wasn't in a kimono. Grey shirts and a red full sleeved shirt was my training gear. Sakuraya said that hanging upside down made it harder andit was better.

"No pain no game!" That was the motto of our training regime. Three more minutes I thought, blissfully unaware of the fact that Sakuraya had increased the distance for my laps. Each torn leaf was equal to a lap around a certain distance. Last time it had been between two trees at five hundred meters from each other. With the amount of laps I had, that was a daunting task. This time the lap was six hundred meters long, each. Guessing by the markings on the tree vaguely similar to tally marks, twenty-eight laps. I only had thirty-five leaves. I groaned as Sensei cut the rope and I fell onto the floor trying to regain my senses. Too much blood in my head and Sensei, much to his delight knew a technique that doesn't allow one to pass out while hanging upside down. That was a D-rank. I managed it after blacking out thirteen times.

"Okay, twenty-eight laps," he said grinning sadistically. "And I want you to go through all twelve seals I have taught you. Before starting a lap perform five different katas as stretches, follow their order." I nearly cried but it was my decision to train hard. It was the only way I would survive. My generation and the previous two generations had a fair share of prodigies. I needed to be up to the mark. I didn't want to be the Rin of my team, I wanted to be able to fight. Not just be good at looking pretty and dying, I'd rather look like a barbarian and survive.

My hands danced through the seals which had become second nature because Sakuraya had me practice them everywhere, even at a funeral. That had been odd. We stood in the back, he yelled at me to go through them faster while I yelled back saying that I was trying. Daichi had to whisk us away from the funeral of what seems to be a Sarutobi, female. I slammed my back into the tree which wasn't a good practice but it gave me a slight surge of adrenaline. After slamming my hand into the starting point, a training post. I immediately started the kata, Sakuraya pointed out the mistakes and told me to start from the start when I ran out of kata that I knew.

It was obviously good for me but it left me tired. Too tired. Teru claimed that I was asleep during dinner last night, with my eyes open and Sakuraya poked every once in a while which made me take a few bites of the food while my hands twitched in a way that looked like hand seals.

I lay on the pristine white hospital bed as the man raised his hands a blue hue covering his hands. He frowned and shook his head before poking my stomach hard. His hands were now light green as his chakra seeped into my skin. I squirmed uncomfortably. It was like a sugar rush and adrenaline rush at the same time. Using chakra also felt the same.

"Nothing is wrong ," he said. He ran his right hand through his blond hair before resting it on a scar on his left wrist. He traced the thick white line as he thought. Sakuraya sat on one of the seats while Mother was seated on the other. She was wearing an overly patterned kimono again this time it had a veil which barely reached her chest. It was pinned up in her hair and was translucent.

"She can't use chakra properly. She understands all the methodologies I told her but she can't mold it right," said Sakuraya, confused. The man stared at me for a while before tapping his chin in a thoughtful way.

"Kid," he said, referring to me. "Push your chakra to your hands. His green glowing hands were on my stomach trying to see what I was doing wrong. I closed my eyes bring my hands up in the 'Dragon' seal. It helped me concentrate. After a few moments he told me to stop.

"Sensei?" Sakuraya just watched the man who was apparently his teacher. So is he like my grand-sensei or something.

"She can push out chakra efficiently but she can't seem to mold it. I think you should revisit the theory on molding chakra, she is only pushing out physical chakra. Other than that her spiritual chakra is oddly high, there is an imbalance but her physical chakra seems to have increased. I think time and practice should do." Sakuraya and Mother both nodded. Sakuraya muttered a quick thank you before the three of us left. Mother did an exaggerated expression of worry.

"Don't worry Kanade-sama, I'll teach her. Now, Tetsuya is waiting in the Reception Hall for you two, if you excuse me, I have an appointment." Mother made a dismissive hand gesture. Sakuraya bowed before returning to the room we had just left.

I lay in the futon disoriented. Recently, I had started getting nightmares. It was odd really, I'd wake up feeling confused about where I was. It was times like these I wished Tsuki would sleep in my nursery instead of his room. I couldn't distracted myself from the visions, memories. They were similar though. It would always start with me laughing. Then there was something on my chest and it hurt. Mostly I woke up around then but sometimes my dreams weren't so kind, when I was in a heavier sleep. The days I skipped training were the ones which led to detailed dreams about my past.

I would walk down the tiled corridor of my house. It's always dark, my hand instinctively reaches for the light switch. Some times I find it, sometimes I don't. Turning on the light switch is probably the worst thing I could do because that's when my memories start to play. I am sitting there saying words in English. Some of it seems hard to understand because I don't have control of my body. I try to scream for help. I try to call out to the familiar faces and I try to block the same conversations.

The worst memories rarely come to having me though. It's the good ones that come back again and again and again. The bad one's only come out rarely, so rarely that it is shocking.

I never really had a bad reaction to nightmares. I just lay in bed, shivering, trying to focus on the dream. I felt it was important to know what had left me so disoriented with tears streaming down my cheeks. It was the same case today, in a different world.

This time the dream had been different. I didn't find the light switch in fact I wasn't even in the corridor. I was in my brother's room. My youngest brother. I realized that I missed the boy. He had been seven when I died. I wonder how he had taken it. I loved him, I truly did. He was adorable, not good at studies. He wasn't the brightest crayon in the box but he was perfect all the same.

For the first time in this life I cried for my past life. I missed everything. I mourned over the loss of friends and family. I pulled my arm over my eyes and kept in crying. I wanted to stop but for some reason I also wanted to cry on. I felt the familiar chakra of Father before he managed to get to the door. I had learned how to remember chakra signatures and recognize them too.

"Arashi, are you crying?" I bit my lip trying to stop but I didn't know how.

"No," I said. It might have sounded childish but that's what I am. The strangest thought hit me then, one I hadn't considered.

If I took over this body, who was Arashi actually supposed to be? Had I killed their daughter?

"Then why are there tears on your face," he asked as he sat down next to me. He had been hesitant the first few times he came after a mission, I think he felt guilty for not applying for a leave and not being there for me or at least that's what he told Daichi when they thought I was asleep.

"Are not," I retorted puffing up my cheeks. He laid down besides me before pulling the blanket over himself. It was November, it was cold in Konoha. He wrapped his arms around me albeit a little awkwardly.

"You know its alright to cry," he said in a soft voice while rubbing circles into my back. "The strong can cry openly the weak however hide their tears."

"Then I am weak, Father," I said.

"Kunoichi aren't supposed to be weak, they are stronger than men."

"Father, what is a Shinobi?" He frowned lightly contemplating a good answer.

"You remember the stories I tell you," he started. I nodded. "All those people are brave Shinobi." I sighed, that wasn't the answer I wanted.

"No, Father, who is a Shinobi?"

"A Shinobi is someone who fights for his village. He puts his life on the line for the sake of his village." I nodded. So Shinobi were thought prestigious.

"Can a Shinobi fight for themselves?"

"Arashi, that just goes against everything a Shinobi is." I nodded in a semi-serious way. "Tomorrow I'll show you around the village, I take it that you've only been out once with Sakuraya."

I nodded.

"Okay then we will go out just me and you, okay?" I frowned.

"What about Mother?"

"Don't you love me? She has some sort of trading caravan to over see. That's normally my job but this one has more feminine things like Kimonos. She'll probably get you some." I smiled at him and he grinned back. He was a serious man but I think that grin suited him a lot. With his blond floppy hair that covered his ears and the hints of a beard which seemed like his style.

Glimpse

War was necessary because fighting is in human nature. So is wanting to be the best and if not wanting to get whatever the best had. I started the repeated mantra of I am a realist in my head. Pacifism led to no good.