I registered the pain before anything else. Every inch of my skin ached, and when I tried to shift in discomfort, I found that I couldn't. I was wrapped in bandages, and they weren't anything like the ones I normally wore. These were thicker, softer, and definitely weren't made for flexibility or mobility.

I was also wearing casts. Full limb casts on my left leg and arm, a smaller cast around my right forearm, and unyielding finger splints on the hand below it. There was a metal plate of some kind around my ribs as well, underneath all the bandages, and though my skin itched terribly, there was nothing I could do to alleviate the discomfort.

My head was fuzzy, and I had a hard time stringing thoughts together. My throat was terribly sore—it had probably played host to the breathing tube I saw at the edge of my vision. My mouth was also parched; the IVs inserted in my right forearm, underneath the bandages, implied it hadn't seen liquid in quite some time. I couldn't do anything about that, and there was no one to ask for water. I was alone, in a pure white room with not even a clock to help me count the passing minutes.

Finally, someone came to check on me. A female nurse whose face slightly resembled a pug's, topped with dark, curly hair.

"You're awake," she noted shrewdly, stepping forward to look at a monitor that was angled away from me.

"What…happened?" I asked horsley, voice cracking from dryness and disuse.

"Memory loss, hm? Are you experiencing brain damage, or were you like that before you blew yourself up?"

…never mind. I had briefly considered that my second life in Iwa had been a hallucination, and that I had somehow been fished out of the Baltic Sea and resuscitated. But an Earth doctor would have never spoken to me like that.

"The first," I muttered, craning my neck to see the rest of me. Sure enough, I was still in the body of a preschooler.

"I see. Well, then, I must inform you that you're one of the stupidest and luckiest children to ever find yourself in my care. Exploding tags? Really? One of the most dangerous common ninja tools, and you decide to use one as a toy?"

"Not as a toy," I gritted out. "I was making them."

"Oh, I'm very much aware," she said coldly. "That was its own fiasco. Why those imbecilic administrators thought it fit to approve a brat like you is a mystery. But they'll face the consequences, I'm sure."

Though hot fury flooded my canals, I didn't respond. What could I say? Obviously, she was right. I literally had no leg to stand on.

"I'm getting the Director," she announced. "He seems invested in your case."

She left, and I was left alone once more. My mouth was still parched, but I couldn't bring myself to ask for water.

I didn't know much, but one thing was clear. My exploding tag wasn't a dud. It worked perfectly. And, in activating it, I blew myself up. Probably along with a significant portion of my house. Why? How could I be so stupid?

Some time passed before a familiar man in a white coat entered. I recognized him easily; whenever I needed to go to the hospital, he usually attended me. Tsuneo-sensei, I believe his name was. I hadn't known he was the hospital director.

"You're awake, Imai-san," he said neutrally, and I gave a shallow nod, not trusting my voice. "I have been your attending physician for years, but I must say, I never expected this."

I expected better, was implied.

"...mōshiwake gozaimasen deshita, sensei." I apologized, the words feeling thick in my throat.

He gave a sharp nod. "Your body was unrecognizable when we recovered you. Your left side was well and truly crushed under a segment of collapsed wall; it required complete reconstruction. Even after your two week long coma, we are still working to fully put it back together."

Two fucking weeks? Shit.

"Not a single bone on that side was fully intact. Your right side fared better, but not by much. Two additional broken ribs, both bones in your forearm, at least one in each finger. A cracked skull and clavicle too. And then there are the burns. Your front was almost completely covered in second and third degree burns, though your back was spared."

He scowled. "Look at me."

I did.

"That stunt nearly killed you. It came very, very close, from the initial impact alone. And since you decided to do that by yourself, without even your brother to transport you to the hospital, we were almost too late in treating you. Many invasive surgeries were required to prevent bone fragments from piercing your organs, and more were required to put them back into proper position so that they could eventually be mended. That was the easy part. Your dermis and some parts of your epidermis needed to be completely reconstructed; you'll bear the scars for the rest of your life. And they're not pretty ones either. Then there was the matter of normalizing your nervous system, and repairing the lesions in your chakra coils. Time will tell if we were successful; I can't even be completely sure at this stage."

Frantically, I dove into my coils, and winced at the damage. I could feel it clearly.

"Let me be blunt," the doctor said, as if he wasn't already doing so. "If not for your standing in the academy, we wouldn't have even bothered. My superiors would have told me not to go through the effort, or to devote the resources required for your full recovery. We would have saved your life, but you likely would have been confined to the wheelchair, forced to live out the rest of your days in agony and disability."

He let that sink in, and I couldn't help but tremble. I had almost forgotten just how terrible Iwagakure—no, this world as a whole—actually was. I had no doubt Dr. Tsuneo was telling the truth.

"You will face consequences, beyond your physical condition," he warned. "I can't begin to imagine what. Personally, I would have you expelled from the academy. Kami knows we don't need such a self-destructive shinobi in our forces. But the fact that I've been tasked with fully repairing you implies that will not be the case. If I were you, I would be extremely cautious when dealing with any authority figures from here on out."

He turned his back on me. "A week ago, I never would have thought that I'd need to remind you of this. But seeing as you've now given me reason to doubt your rationality, I feel it prudent to iterate that you must not touch or otherwise disturb your bindings, casts or your IV. Do not attempt to get up, do not roll over, and remain as motionless as you can. You will already have a long recovery; do not do anything to lengthen it further."

He left, and I tried to move as little as possible as I sobbed.

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

My first visitor, later in the day, wasn't Kazuhiro (kami, I wish it was), or even Akane-obasan. It was Nyūdō and he was even less pleased than Dr. Tsuneo was. A lot less restrained in his anger as well, and, unlike how they would have in my old world, not a single person asked him to keep his voice down.

"You stupid girl!" he shouted, spittle catching in his short beard. "I knew this was foolish! I knew I should have never let a brat like you learn to make tags! And now look at you. Near dead, and it would have been my fault! Thank kami the investigators decided to lay full blame on the selection committee. My business would have been ruined!"

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." I was trying really hard not to cry, and to take my reprimands like the adult I really was. But I was finding it extremely difficult.

"A sorry, isn't going to cut it," he snarled, not pacified one bit. "You have no idea the shitstorm this has raised. This has escalated far past one idiotic girl's injuries. Restrictions are being passed, investigations conducted. And right on the brink of—bah! This was the last thing Iwagakure needed."

…I was fucking up war preparations. Kami. If someone died in the coming years because they couldn't get enough exploding tags, it would be my fault.

"It's my mistake!" I exclaimed, horrified. "It shouldn't dictate others' actions. Please, tell them…tell them…"

"Who? Tell who? What say do you think I have in all this?" he raged.

"I don't know, I don't know," I sobbed. "Please, I'll do anything to help make this right."

"Oh, you will be," he said with dark promise. "If my other suppliers are unable to give me enough product to match demand, you will be providing the difference."

I jerked against my bindings in shock. "You're gonna let me continue to make exploding tags?"

"It would be illogical to ban you from making them, not when you're clearly so successful," he sniped. "But you will be under strict supervision, and I will be monitoring you much more closely. And you will only be making exploding tags. Forget storage scrolls—I will never teach you how to make them, and neither will anyone else."

I felt like I had been dunked in ice water.

"No, please, sir!" I cried. "Please, I need to learn how to make storage scrolls! I can do it, I'll be safe, I promise!"

"You'll be safe?" He repeated, outraged. "You promise? Your word is worth nothing—nothing!—to me now. You swore you wouldn't test stages, much less a finished project, without my approval and supervision. You broke that promise twelve times—every fucking step of the way! And you expect me to believe you won't do it again? I. Don't. Trust you. I shouldn't have trusted you with exploding tags, and I sure as hell don't trust you with storage scrolls. You think this is bad?"

He gestured to my body, its true damage obscured by white cloth, and laughed coldly without a trace of humor.

"You can't even imagine what damage an improperly made storage scroll can cause."

He was right. I couldn't imagine. But it was irrelevant—if I had another guide like the one given to me for the exploding tags. It had been so fucking easy! Every stage worked perfectly for me, once I figured them out. And so did the final one, apparently. So how did I end up in this hospital bed?

"It won't! It won't happen, it shouldn't have happened! I don't know what went wrong!" I cried. "Maybe I did try the stages without your permission, and I shouldn't have. I'm sorry I broke your trust. But I got all the stages right! And when I connected them…I knew not to try it myself. I asked…a ninja to check it, and it didn't work! So I knew I must have messed up the connection. So I activated it to see where the disconnect was. If it worked, then why didn't it work for him?"

"Your brother—oh yes, we're very aware of his involvement—is not a seal master, or even adept," he spat. "If you had someone who knew a lick about seals present, they could have told you that you're missing an entire fucking step when it comes to creating exploding tags. Seals can only be activated by the person who created them—the person who's chakra is present in the ink. Unless a signature neutralization matrix is added. Only then can anyone activate someone else's tag."

"Why didn't you just tell me that?" I exploded. "This never would have happened if—"

"DON'T YOU DARE SAY THIS WAS MY FAULT!" Nyūdō roared. "Why should it have been relevant? You swore to only test the seals under my supervision! I would have told you when it was time to test your final product; you shouldn't have needed to know it before then!"

He was completely right, and I ducked my head in shame.

"I'm leaving," he muttered. "I can't stand the sight of you now. Find me once you're out of the hospital."

Then, he too was gone.

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

Akane-obasan visited next, and I was grateful to finally see someone who wasn't pissed off at me. Still, her presence was unbearable in different ways. She fussed over me continuously—through her I finally got some of the water I so desperately wanted but couldn't bear to ask for. It was clear she had no real idea what happened, and how responsible for it I actually was. I think she thought it was someone else's fault, and I had to beg her not to try to find someone to take out her righteous fury on. I also begged her not to talk to her son about it—I could only see that bringing trouble. I hoped she would do as I asked.

It didn't take long for the nurses to kick her out, and I was almost relieved when they did. I was already exhausted enough.

Later that night, well past what would have been considered acceptable visiting hours back on Earth, came Kazuhiro.

"Thank kami you're awake," he breathed, gingerly wrapping me in a hug.

"Ohayo, nii-san," I said softly, my eyes preemptively watering. "I'm okay."

"No you're not," he said, and I tucked my face into the crook of his neck. "I'm sorry."

"What are you apologizing for?" Kazuhiro had no reason to be sorry, but I could guess what prompted the apology.

"I should have insisted you talk to your instructor. In hindsight, it was common sense. And after our conversation…I should have known you would do something rash."

Something rash. I wanted to object to the statement, but again…objectively true.

"No. You trusted me to be safe, and to do the smart thing. I broke that trust. It's not your fault, and anyone who tells you different is wrong." Nyūdō's words flashed back to me. "I'm sorry I got you in trouble. And I'm sorry about the house."

"I don't want you to so much as think about either of those things," he said strongly. "All I want you to focus on is recovery, alright? I'm fine, and the house can be rebuilt. I'm just so glad you're alive."

Oh no, Kazuhiro was crying. I've rarely ever seen him cry.

"I'm alive," I assured him softly. "I'm alive, and they're even going to fix me right up again. Aside from a couple of scars, I'll be good as new."

He gave a watery chuckle. "Once your hair grows back."

Ah shit. I hadn't thought about that. All my hair was gone, wasn't it?

"Maybe I should wrap myself up completely and really make myself look like Lord Mu."

"You already take long enough in the morning."

"Hey, I do not!"

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

I didn't think that I should expect any more visitors, which is why I was surprised when, two days after I awoke, my nurse, who hadn't warmed up to me one bit, announced the presence of a man she described as a tall jonin with dark hair and a darker look in his eye. Turns out, she was referring to Yoshiro-sensei. I mentally prepared myself for another storm of epic proportions, exceeding by far the lashing that Nyūdō bestowed upon me.

However, Yoshiro-sensei always found a way to catch me off guard.

"Imai-san," he greeted neutrally.

"Sensei," I responded in kind, not voicing my confusion at his presence. Class was out for the semester—the fact that I was spending my singular break on bed rest filled me with rage—so I didn't think he was obligated to visit me. But I had learned by now not to volunteer any insight into my thoughts to Yoshiro-sensei.

He regarded my bandaged form for a moment, and his gaze made me itch. Of course, all I could do to alleviate that sensation was to fidget slightly.

"What happened?" He asked finally.

"Didn't they tell you?"

"Yes. But I want to hear it from you."

I laughed humorlessly. "I grew overconfident, sensei. I was impatient, and I tested seals without supervision. And it blew up in my face. Literally."

He hummed. "Yes, I saw your house. Quite spectacular work."

"No," I said instinctively, panicking slightly at the implication. "Clearly, it was a failure."

"I would say that a malfunctioning tag that explodes should still be considered effective," Yoshiro-sensei said blandly.

"I survived, didn't I?" I said. "It can't have been that effective."

"You're…upset that it didn't kill you?" He clarified.

"No. I'm annoyed by fuinjutsu as a concept. I've never studied a topic that is so aggravating and nonsensical."

"Yet you completed your explosion seal in record time," Yoshiro-sensei noted.

I knew it would be too much to ask for that to go unnoticed, even in the face of my spectacular failure.

"Have you learned how to make explosive tags, sensei?"

"No, I have never had the inclination," he admitted.

Good. "It isn't what you expect. I was given an instruction manual, which provided me with all the components needed to craft the seal. All I had to do was figure out how to put them together, which was a simple matter of trial and error. I devoted almost all of my free time to the task, and it still took me months. If not for my pride, or for my desire to help my nii-san, I would have given up long ago. I should have given up long ago, and accepted that fuinjutsu was beyond me."

Yoshiro-sensei surprised me yet again by grabbing the visitor's chair and dragging it to my bedside. Silently, he sank down onto the wooden seat.

"What a perfect little moral to your story," he said, sardonically.

I frowned at his tone. "I've had a long time to reflect, sensei, and to come to terms with my mistake."

"I'm sure." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "Cut the crap, Imai-san."

Uh oh. "Sensei?"

"Your attempts at manipulation and misdirection are impressive for your age, girl, but I am a jonin. I have been trained to detect and undermine subterfuge at the highest level, under great pressure and with stakes so high that you can scarcely comprehend them. So tell me, and don't lie. Why did you truly wish to pursue this knowledge in the first place? And more importantly, why did you choose to test your products without supervision, knowing the risks?"

I only half registered the words, my mind much more preoccupied by the sudden ache in my chest, and the clammy feeling of my healing skin as my bandages dampened with perspiration. Under sensei's—no, the jonin's—glare, I felt like I was drowning in the Baltic all over again. The edges of my vision began to darken, like they had as I quickly ran out of air, and the cold—god, the cold—froze the marrow in my bones. Time stretched and quickened as my ascension slowed, and slowed, and slowed, until my remaining energy had been completely sapped. I could only reach up towards the lighted water above me, as the bubbles from my last held breath escaped, my lungs refilled with brine, and I truly became one with the ocean.

Maybe I had lied to Kazuhiro. Maybe death did still scare me, after all.

"I don't want to die!" I gasped, ashamed of the tears that pricked my eyes. "You wanna know why I push myself so hard? That's it. I'm a coward, okay? I'm a coward, and I'm greedy, and the rest of my class might be too stupid to realize, but the war is going to restart soon, and I'm going to be stuck on the front lines, and I don't want to die!"

I gasped as the pressure in my chest lessened, and the darkness bordering my eyes began to recede.

"That's it?"

Immediately, terror gave way to indignation. "What do you mean, that's it! Is that not enough for you?"

"Oh, I don't mean to trivialize it," he said, in a tone that totally made it sound like he was trivializing it. "I'll confess, though, I was expecting something a bit more out of the ordinary. After all your speeches of avenging your murdered parents, and burning Konoha to the ground."

"My revenge will come," I said stiffly. "But I am in no rush to fulfill my destiny. If I can continue to grow at this rate, it will be inevitable."

"Provided you can survive long enough," he mused. "You fear returning to the pure world before you can fulfill your ambition?"

"I can't face my parents in the afterlife, if I haven't avenged their deaths."

"Lie," he said immediately. "If you can't be convincing, at least let your opponent come to their own conclusions."

In my defense, stringing two thoughts together was unusually difficult at the moment.

"What did you do to me?" I asked, still fighting to reign in my heartbeat. He didn't put me under a genjutsu; I knew what those felt like now. This was nothing alike. I felt no traces of foreign chakra in my canals.

"Do you truly care about avenging your parents?" he asked bluntly, ignoring my question altogether. "I wouldn't blame you if you didn't. I don't think I would if I were in your place, having not known or formed a connection with them. You didn't suffer from their absence either; your brother has provided for you more than adequately from a financial perspective, and I don't get the sense you felt lonely as a child. You seem quite comfortable in your solitude, among your peers in the academy."

Yet another conversation that would have been more than unacceptable back in my home world. Hell, it was still a really shitty thing to say here. Unfortunately, Yoshiro-sensei had demonstrated that successfully lying to him was beyond my current capabilities.

"My parents' death is very significant to me," I spat. "I don't need to have met them, and I don't care that my childhood was good despite their absence. Nii-san loved my parents as if they were his own, and he was—still is—devastated by their loss. That is reason enough for me to swear vengeance upon Konoha."

"Very well, then," he allowed. "But you can't delude me into thinking that your obsession with self-improvement—strong enough for you to blow up your home while still in it—is for their sake."

I broke eye-contact. "Think whatever you want." Then, "why did you even come here?"

"I needed to know if I should keep a look out for a repeat performance. And I'm not yet convinced that you won't try something like this again."

"I won't," I growled. "I've learned my lesson."

"What lesson?" He countered. "Tell me exactly what you've learned, not merely what you think I want to hear."

"Not to do dangerous stuff without the supervision of a professional."

"Exactly what I hoped you wouldn't say."

God fucking damnit. If I could have, I would have thrown my hands into the air.

"You don't think that was a good lesson for me to take away from all this?"

"Oh, it definitely is. However, it betrays your true intentions. You do not plan on changing your behavior, not really. You might be more safe about it, which is undoubtedly an improvement, but you will continue to pursue this childish notion of what makes a shinobi strong, in the hopes that it might save your life in the impending war. You believe your talents and intelligence will allow you to succeed where others fail, but you do not realize that, even if you were to become the ninja you strive to be, you will fall in battle just as easily as the rest."

"Stop dancing around the subject, sensei," I said, well and truly out of patience. "If you have something to say, say it."

"Very well. You, like almost every other ambitious student to grace our academy, have fallen into a trap. The idea that flashy techniques are what make a ninja strong. I can hardly fault you for that leap in logic—every great ninja we learn about has a certain skill that sets them apart from the rest. But the truth is, for each and every one of these figures, there are ten more almost just like them, buried and forgotten. They died, and do you know why? Because people, even shinobi, are very, very easy to kill."

He reached into a pouch at his side and pulled out a shuriken.

"The humble shuriken," he introduced, as if I didn't know what it was. "A simple weapon, and one that everyone carries and is expected to hold a great deal of proficiency in. They are easy to use, but just as easy to defend against. Anyone can dodge a shuriken, or just as easily block them with another weapon. Even a civilian is capable of that. And ninja have other options; plenty have defensive ninjutsu, and many can swat them out of the air with their bare hands, provided they hit them on the flat."

He set it on the bedside counter with a loud clack. "Do you know how many enemy ninja I've killed with shuriken?"

I licked my dry lips. "No, sir."

"Fifty-eight."

That was…a lot. Just with shuriken? The meme weapons?

"Shinobi who trained their entire lives to ward off shuriken," he stressed. "I am proficient with shurikenjutsu, but not any more so than other jonin. So why? How was I able to kill so many with such rudimentary weapons?"

This line of questioning really wasn't helping my nerves. "I don't know, sensei."

"It varied on a case to case basis, of course. In some instances, I predicted their dodges. Sometimes, I used the environment, my allies and even my own jutsu as distractions. A couple, though not many, were surprise attacks. In most cases, I watched, I learned, and I took advantage of every opening, every mistake, and every predilection my opponents displayed."

He left the shuriken where it was and sat back in his chair. "On the other hand. I've survived countless shuriken attacks where others did not, for the exact same reason. I outthought my enemies. I adapted. I learned from each ninja I've beaten what not to do in any specific situation, so that I will never fall in the same way I've felled others. This is not something that came naturally to me. It was something that I was forced to learn when my teammate, a once in a generation talent listed in the bingo books at age sixteen, died in my arms. Do you know what killed him?"

His gaze flickered to my bedside table.

"A shuriken?" My voice was so hoarse that the word was barely intelligible.

"In the most literal sense, yes," Yoshiro-sensei agreed. "A shuriken was what ended his life. But it was his overreliance on techniques that blinded him, and allowed the shuriken to land."

He let that sink in, and I turned my eyes up to the ceiling.

"Could you please teach me, sensei?"

"What, pray tell, do you think I've been doing this whole semester? What do you think I'll be doing for the rest of your time in the academy? Iwa does not waste her shinobi's time; if we've made the choice to put something in the curriculum, there is a damn good reason for it."

He stood. "If you fear death enough to take risks of this magnitude, follow my advice. For the time being, give up on all attempts at learning ninjutsu, fuinjutsu or anything you think sounds exciting. Put all of your time and energy into mastering the fundamentals. Gain a firm understanding of not just your chakra, but of your mind and your body. And finally, learn to read other people. Train your mind to notice and determine the significance of that which it would normally overlook. Once you are able to comprehend the hidden meaning behind every action, motion or uttered word, you will become a true shinobi. One who endures, and one who survives."

Look underneath the underneath. I shivered, despite the hot sweat that soaked into my bandages.

"Hai, sensei."

This incident had taught me another valuable lesson, one that I didn't share with the man before me. There were consequences to my actions, real ones. I had no plot armor to protect me. I was so excited to be in the world of Naruto, that I had unconsciously deluded myself into thinking that the stars would align in my favor, and that, if something bad were to befall me, there would be some reward, or some silver lining. Just like in the stories.

I needed to treat this world with the seriousness that it deserved. Which was all the more reason to follow Yoshiro-sensei's advice. He might be an asshole, but he knew what it took to become a major player in this world. I would finish mapping my body, I would continue stretching my coils, and I would continue mastering chakra enhancement with Sawamura-sensei (I considered each of these things fundamentals), but that was it. Anything else would be put on the back burner. It would be really fucking boring, and not at all what I fantasized about doing in the Naruto world, but I would cope.

"For now, rest, and for the love of Kami, don't do anything to prolong your recovery period," Yoshiro-sensei said. "You've already fallen behind the others; you can't afford to miss any more class. I expect to see you back as soon as the next semester begins, even if you can't participate in sparring."

His words reminded me of something. "Ah, sensei. When will I be able to make up the semester exam?"

He frowned at me. "Make up?"

Was that not a phrase people used here? "I mean, when will I be able to take it? Since I was unconscious at the time of the test."

"I understood what you meant," he said neutrally. "I was merely confused as to why you thought you would be allowed to make up the exam."

…what?

"Sensei," I stammered pathetically. "I was unconscious."

"Due to a foolish decision that you made of your own volition," he emphasized. "Didn't I tell you on the very first day? Any failure will beget consequences. And, just like that time, the punishment you have received is simply the natural consequences of your own actions. You rendered yourself unable to sit the exam. Failure. So you have received a zero as a score, placing you dead-last on the class rankings heading into next semester. Consequence. Do you understand?"

I looked desperately into his eyes, trying to find any hint of mercy. Of course, there was none.

"Hai, sensei."

"Good."

He whirled out of the room, and it took me a couple minutes to realize that he had left the shuriken on my bedside table. My casts rendered me unable to reach or otherwise move it, so there it stayed, lingering innocently in my peripheries. An ever present reminder, and a threat.

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

AN: Ugh. Sorry about the wait y'all. I'm still not 100% satisfied with all this. Feels a little cliche. Hopefully I got the point across. It was definitely interesting writing her hospital stay after just getting out of surgery myself (I'm fine, recovery sucks though). Definitely helped me with immersion, though I still didn't have it in me to go crazy on the details.

There's something I wanted to add in an author's note a while ago, but I decided I didn't want to spoil anything, so I didn't. Now, I'm kinda starting to regret that, because I think I'm losing some of y'alls interest.

This story isn't and was never going to be 500,000 words of Kasaiki's academy experience. After a couple chapters of managing the fallout, things are gonna get a little time-skippy. I was going for a girl from our world goes crazy trying to amass power and techniques before getting a reality check about what it truly means to be a powerful ninja kinda dig. After which, her approach will change, and so will the structure of the story.

I thought it was more authentic to do it this way, because, well, that's probably what would happen to me if I was dropped into the Naruto world (and at least half of you too, don't try and deny it). I would go feral trying to learn all the cool stuff, and then I would go out on, like, one real mission and die because I wouldn't notice a shuriken coming at me or something stupid like that. What's interesting about the shinobi world is that there are vital skills that are shown but not really discussed in the anime, which are massively overshadowed by all the flashy stuff. Detective skills, for example, and predictive abilities. Mind games. Whatever deductive reasoning that lets Kakashi or whoever get off a substitution jutsu a split second before they're attacked. If you don't have that down, it doesn't matter what bs you can do. You'll die all the same. That's what Kasaiki will develop during the rest of her time in the academy, so she'll be able to grow in more fun ways over the course of the war, under the figurative camera lens.

I'd like to reiterate. This is not a change of plans based on any comments that have been made. I would tell you if it was, I promise. This was always the plan, which is why I was so excited to get to this point. I was/am eager to get to graduation and the war thereafter.

Anyway, that's all for now. Gonna shoot for another chapter on Sunday, and hopefully get back on schedule. Let me know what you think!