Neiji chose to use me as his new 'training dummy' only about once or twice a month. It was a small amount, but coupled with the daily spars I have with my twin something interesting happened.

Apparently I'm actually really quite vicious to spar against.

I mean, I knew half the time I won against Lee by sheer stubbornness and being clever but it was still startling. One of the Uchiha girls (Sasuke's being impossible and grouchy egotistical-ness? Yeah. The girls have it times eighty.) whose name I never bothered to learn was my usual sparring partner. While I had to scrape for every victory when I was six and clueless, and still work at it before well; now that I was used to not only tackling my twin but also a few times the genius prodigy that was Neiji?

I learned to save every scrap of chakra I had and use the lessons on enhancing my muscle structure grandma and kaa-san were drilling into me without a second thought. The first time I went all out because I was tired and it had been a long week, the Uchiha-princess was laid out flat before she knew what happened.

Heck, I didn't even know what happened.

But, you know? It felt really good.

Up until I had her dark eyes staring at me from the ground, a stunned hush over the circled children there with us I think I had let my tiny chakra reserves mentally become a hurdle.

I knew I was above par because Lee and I were always fighting and he never let me win but forced me to work for the right, it was a healthy wonderful twin rivalry. I knew I played with Kou who made me work for every victory regarding my chakra and having to think and be clever because he had an nnate eye advantage and abused it. I knew Neiji absolutely would wipe the floor with me every time but I would get in a few spectacular hits that would have him being black and blue somewhere.

It had not occurred to me that I was working with the current absolute masters of our generation. I was comparing myself to the prodigies and the geniuses and two of them had magic eyes that just were nerfing the battle.

Against a normal person? Even one from the so called 'Noble Clan of Uchiha' that supposedly had a devastating unusual method of Taijutsu that was the basis for when they inherited their eye spookiness I was as far outclassing them as I could.

My opposition shrieked and rushed at me as swiftly as she could, one, two, five, eight times I not only blocked or dodged but turned her momentum against her, sending her backwards or to the ground with almost no motion wasted.

It had me in a slight bit of a daze as we let out after sparring and I went over to Sakura and Lee, the two still regularly eating together in quiet awkwardness.

"Lee?..I totally just wiped the floor with Bratty-Hime's face.." I muttered as I leaned into him, stealing something from his lunch -I had no idea what, it was the theft that always made it taste better and I pretended not to notice him swiping from me- "Seriously, isn't she the top kunoichi in our year too?"

Sakura smiled at me, in her timid way that was so different from the dangerous shrieking beast -and later the force of mother nature's fury-she would become. "Ano, You are rather good at taijutsu, Zi-chan."

I felt my forehead wrinkle. "Am I? Sakura-chan I'm used to fighting Lee here..I always just felt I was average.."

Sakura shook her head, an adorable pout on her tiny five year old face as her green eyes shone with the need to prove herself right. "Ziwei-chan works hard and shouldn't belittle her accomplishments."

I paused, halfway to biting into Lee's onigiri.

I have been training with the best. Just giving Sakura a smile and nod I resumed eating while the thoughts ran about in my head. I had sort of resigned myself to just being 'good enough' but it hadn't even entered my mind that by choosing to associate with Kou, the sort of frenemiship I had formed with Neiji, and of course my relation to Lee that I could have a chance to be formidable myself. I had fully intended to take the chakra route, well with control. This was opening up other options.

I needed a chance to focus. Whispering in Lee's ear so he would know not to worry -he'd been so much more clingy since I came home beat up and black and blue from my first fight with Neiji- I scampered off to find an empty classroom and pull out paper and pen.

All right, I had intended to become devastating with my chakra. That's still in. I have tiny reserves but I had been focused on finding my limits to my chakra control, as of right now we haven't found one. It has started to get me stares in the compound really as the Hyuuga don't know what to do with someone who has beyond perfect control. I'm an anomaly.

In canon wasn't Sakura suggested to become a genjutsu specialist with her control before she flopped around for a while and then found medical ninjutsu, more specifically Tsunade? I felt the edge of plastic as I nibbled my pen in thought. I like Tsunade, don't get me wrong, and I think Sakura became someone pretty amazing until she went all stupid and back to the Uchiha who shouldn't have been trusted again after what he pulled..

Right. Back on topic. Besides, Sakura and Lee are totally adorable when you see them in real life and I have every intention of nurturing those two together.

What if...What if Sakura had found being a medic but someone else as her teacher? Or more than one? Would she have been more like Kabuto, would she have pushed boundaries because she was trying to create even more techniques instead of learning anothers? Who knows..it was something to think of.

Which brings me back to my own situation. Okay, perfect chakra control means ideally medic or genjutsu specialist. I want to learn some medical works because Ninja get hurt and it's ideal but truthfully it is not something I wish to define me. Genjutsu though? Subtle, requires imagination..and with my previous life I certainly have more than a few things to draw on for inspiration. All right, and what about in battle? Sure there are some who won't be affected so it is important I avoid the one trick pony idea and spread myself out but I could probably find a lot of ways to mess with people without draining my reserves..

Look at that later.

I'm apparently much better in close combat than I thought. If I keep working on that, especially as later versions of the Yue style involve getting close, striking, getting out of counter attack range and then repeating I will be more of a mid to close range fighter. Paired with Genjutsu..

I'll have to brainstorm there a good bit.

Back to my reserves, they are improving. Already they are bigger than they were but I'll never be a chakra monster. That's fine because if I get smart about how I fight I should be able to chain my attacks and learn ones that aren't necessarily all S-class to be devastating. I need to focus on growing my reserves though as some level of them are needed or else I'll be a one hit dead wonder.

Also, on the dead topic, why are the Uchiha still alive? Weren't they supposed to all choke due to Danzo stupid headedness or something?

Not my problem.

I feel a little bad about that but it is true. As the existence of Kou, my frenemiship with Neiji, actually even my simple place in all of this proves that the story I knew is varied and not entirely accurate. There is no telling where else it deviates from the time line I knew and if so many events are even due to happen. With that in mind I need to finally decide once and for all I do not know what is coming and accept that, it is unnerving as having a time line even as crazy as it was, to follow, is rather reassuring. You know to be somewhere or not and to let that go, to trust that it will somehow work or be made to?

Not as easy as it sounds like I am making it.

I feel the air whooshing out of my lungs as I rub my eyes.

Okay, so to recap for my own use I am planning to be a mid to close range fighter with creative genjutsu, ideally with large enough chakra reserves to make full use of my insane control. Probably mid level by the time I am done which will at least let me utilize Jutsu's like anyone else even if I put enough thought into what and when to be an honorary Nara.

This attack plan, I can work with.

Now how to go about increasing my reserves? I have physical training methods already planned out for me now and both Kaa-san and granny have discussed sending me to distant cousins back in the Land of Iron once I graduate after a year or so to learn the higher levels they never did.

Genjutsu training doesn't really happen until after graduation as well besides the basics. I can study and at least make certain I have those down to the point I needn't think through them but those are a year or two above my level still. I will leave that alone for the time being but start writing down ideas for what I want when they strike me.

It all comes back to chakra.

The pen is being mauled by my teeth as I think through. There are actually a lot of ways to increase chakra. The best known are that you can increase your physical and mental energies which creates chakra, you can practice with it..but those two ways more increase how much you can handle and control at a time. Not something I struggle with. It's essentially learning how to not rip your hands up with wire reins if your chakra is a wild horse you're breaking in. My crazy control is more like I was given a custom fitted bit and bridle and special gloves with a horse that's already wanting to go along with whatever I would like.

If my chakra is a wild animal I'm the disney princess that it just coos at.

That is a creepy mental image.

See the problem is the size of my reserves. Kou has a Clydesdale, Neiji has some freaking warhorse, Lee's forgot to even show up. I'm on a tiny circus pony. Resilient and stubborn and a bit nasty when it wants for all it adores me and able to do tricks that the others couldn't even think of.

So what I need to look up is how to increase the total size of your reserves. I know in the show it seemed that happened just by time and battles. It seems to be a combination because those who are older do not necessarily fight a lot -like my Tou-san- and they don't grow their reserves much. Yet those who fight don't always advance either. Look at the hordes of genin and chunin who never go anywhere career wise but are always out running low level missions. They do end up fighting.

This means it's possibly the quality of fights.

My memories are a lot hazier as I'm nearly seven, which if I go by my old years rather than the double years here? It's almost a decade and a half since I was born into this world. I know I've forgotten many things. Some things though whisper about in my memories like I recall something called Dragon Ball Z and how the characters were always fighting, something about how those that came closest to death were the ones who improved the most.

There's a potential idea here. What if like muscle's being trained to exhaustion know you absolutely have to increase your stamina or strength to survive. That means all those times someone fights to the last bit and yet lives the body goes 'oh we need to now always have this much to spare to escape' because the body doesn't know you aren't using chakra to escape from a lion that wants to eat you.

Leaning back in my chair I frown, wrinkling my nose.

What if that's why chakra exhaustion is railed against so much? Because in the early days, maybe even a holdover from Konoha's founding, shinobi purposefully went to that almost too far threshold since it would help them improve? A dangerous place to be in a time and career where a moment's weakness would mean death. Could it be like the idea of not going out with wet hair, a fable that had been twisted around so everyone stated it and knew it to be true even if it was actually flawed?

What if going to Chakra exhaustion would raise those reserve levels...if almost full depletion was regularly hit upon? There would be risk of damage of course, but how much of that is because in the past doing so was likely to get you killed since you then had to recover before you could fight someone off? Now..

Hm.

Kou's tou-san often had me physically exhaust myself to use chakra to enhance things. Likely it was a training wheels method to start wearing oneself out but never more than half under their supervision unless I did something stupid. Such as the infamous tag among the evil koi or fighting Neiji who was furious and hurt to the point he acknowledged my worth. (As a training dummy but hey, that's practically Hyuuga speak for 'acquaintance I don't dislike') Both times there had been someone to observe me, and take care of things. I doubted they had any interest in my exhausting myself and certainly wouldn't wish for one of their precious own clan kids to get the idea.

Which means I needed someone who had eyes and was well skilled in them beyond Kou and Neiji's use, and didn't like me enough that they'd let me hit near exhaustion even though it was a 'bad idea'.

…...

Looks like I got to suck up to Ko.

Oh this was going to be awful.