Chapter 5: Unwanted youth

The smell of sterilized equipment and almost zealous use of cleaning agents was the first thing to register in my brain. A moment of confusion followed before the correct conclusion was reached: I was in a hospital.

My heart squeezed painfully and I fought my way to full consciousness. The sight of the pale ceiling was met with tears.

I took a slow rattling intake of breath in order to steady my chaotic emotions, which would leave me inclined to sob into my soft pillows at the first sight of a doctor or nurse if left unchecked. A smile slowly managed to find its way forth and I laughed shakenly.

That had been one crazy hallucination.

I shook my head, careful with not worsening the condition of my body, unable to believe the luck I had in surviving the accident. I hoped the car driver felt guilty, as soon as he had sobered up sufficiently. I was a bit upset at the lack of flowers surrounding my bedside, but it could be excused if it had not been that long since I was run over.

The sooner I could get back up and start working on my exam project the better. I would not redo the year just because an idiot lost control over his vehicle.

Not happening in a million years.

The sound of footsteps made me look up. A nurse in a strange outfit was standing in the door, looking at me from over a stack of papers.

I stared at her with an intensity I seldom managed, and received a light scowl in reply from the brunette. She finished taking her notes and moved on from the doorframe with determined steps.

The slight echo of her steeps made its way back to me long after she vanished from sight.

My head was empty of thoughts. Trapped somewhere between denial and silly suspicion I slowly raised one hand, before forcing my eyes to glance at the offending limp. It was quickly hidden from view under my bedsheets again.

Really, suicide was not enough?

·

So I was back at the hospital with its 'glaring is caring' and professional attitude which left much to desired. How nice.

It was time to face my royal screw up. Time to accept I was not waking up any time soon. I was trapped here in my big hospital bed with clean linens in a world of glamorized murderers, and I had no way of escaping. Worse, they expected me to become one of them and fight people with the powers to destroy cities with a flick of their fingers. This world had a freaking Goddess waiting to come down from the moon.

It was just lovely all-around.

My five stages of grief was missing bargaining, but I was ready to meet life again head-on.

If I had to experience life in first-person from the perspective of a female Naruto Uzumaki, then I was going to have fun while doing it. I was going to mess with this dream hallucination until it broke into pieces. My stubbornness knew no end when awakened and I would hammer on the doors of reality until they opened.

And if so be it; that would be my Nindō.

I shuddered at the thought, and was eminently grateful nobody was around to see me facepalm repeatedly

·

My first challenge after the 'incident' came in the familiar form of the Hokage, who started out with a round of frowning and puffing on his pipe thoughtfully. I endured it in silence and used the time to study my fingers, which bore not even a mark from my adventure with explosives.

Naruto was able to survive a hole in his chest, which canon dictated barely missed his heart, so my expectations for later capabilities were set rather high.

"Naruto." I met the Hokage's gaze unblinking. The man looked lost and sighed before taking another strengthening puff on his pipe. "What do remember from before waking up here?"

My wide selection of possible lies made it hard to form the words needed to explain. I opened my mouth a couple of times, before deciding to do a version of the truth. "I ran out of paper." I was a child, and children would destroy white boring walls if they had the chance. "I wanted to practice writing more, but Chi-san…"

The old man searched his clothes and drew forth a piece of paper, with the kanji baku, meaning 'explode', in its middle. It was a real explosive tag. "Have you been shown this before, Naruto?"

"I… can't remember." I tried to memorize its design while looking guilty. "It's… faint. I thought it was a dream."

"And what about this?" A piece of paper with the depiction of a sunlike seal was shown more slowly, like the man was unsure whether I should see it or not.

My eyes widened at the sign of the seal I clearly recognized resided on Naruto's stomach, before my mind began comparing my earlier efforts with the drawing. My memory of the seal had clearly been flawed, only remembering the basic shape with the spiral and the surrounding words sunbeam like appearance.

"Fire." My throat felt dry while I tried to remember what I had said last time we talked about dreams. "Fire and hate."

The Hokage was already putting the depiction away, and the small pause left me time to ponder the wisdom in telling anything about the night of the kyuubi's attack. I was already in danger of having mind readers ravage my mind, so the only question was whether more information would diminish or increase the chance.

He gave me a long hard stare. I could imagine he was searching for the proof of my human soul in my eyes and trying to dampen any fears about me being the kyuubi.

It was not the time to let ones lips twitch.

He finally gave up. "Have your nightmares been worsening, Naruto?"

I shook my head and started to response to the question, when I realized I had never called the old man by anything. It had always been Hokage or old man in my mind, but outside it I had never used any form of address which indicted I was speaking to him.

Probably not the best time to freeze up.

I received a comforting pat on my head, before he made me promise to tell him about any nightmares in the future. The subject changed to the matter of my future residence, since the apartment had taken damage and Chika… was unable to live with me any further.

It was more likely she had refused to have anything to do with me anymore.

I nodded when he explained he would find a new home for me, while I was in the hospital, so I just needed to wait patiently and not make any trouble in the meantime. If this was any indication of my future I would be known as the number one destructive ninja. I sighed as quietly as I could before charging up a puppy expression.

"Can I call you Jiji?"

I hate you Naruto Uzumaki and your cheerful endearing ways.

·

I hid under one of the countless stalls at Konoha's Marketplace, which enabled me to study my surrounding without the fear of being trampled upon. It proved barely more entertaining than lying in my bed at the hospital, and I had to suffer from the exhaustion of getting there, making me quite sure I was never getting back again by my own power.

Reserves of energy were awoken later in the afternoon when I spotted a familiar ninja. I was just beginning to get up, when I saw him duck slightly and start to move away from something my current position and viewpoint made me unable to see. I kept walked and spotted the approaching menace the ninja was trying to avoid.

The sight of man made me grin, and I hurried into action.

"Doggy-san" The white haired ninja stilled, slowly losing focus on the spandex wearing man with a bowl cut. "Found you!"

I grasped his leg with both hands and clutched it the best I could, stamping on one sandal covered foot while doing so in great pleasure.

"My eternal rival!" I smirked. The sharp high yell was the sound of victory over this fool of a ninja, who thought he could ignore me without consequences. My victory was short lived however since I was forced to release my prize merely seconds after gaining it. "And you found another most youthful friend!"

I blinked at the sudden appearance of Maito Gai's face and voiced my annoyance with a short commanding. "Down."

I was completely ignored.

"And what is the name of this most youthful girl!?" Gai was looking at Kakashi, not even noticing my pathetic tries to stump on his face.

"Set. Me. Down." I forced out through pressed lips. When he ignored me again to keep looking expectantly at Kakashi, I released a long sigh and turned my own gaze toward the copycat ninja, who strangely enough had not used his free mobility to run away.

The deadpan glare from a toddler seemed to amuse him if I interpreted his slightly raised brows correctly.

"I see she has the same hip attitude as you, my most youthful rival! I…"

"Greeny!" The power of a young child's voice was truly amazing when used with the highest tones possible. I glared at Kakashi, like this was his fault instead of my own. "Make him set me down!"

His chest moved like he snorted, but the indifferent gaze did not change.

"Dog-san, I will follow you to the end of the earth if you do stop this." Gai was beginning to say something again but the high pitch of my voice cut him off. "I will find your apartment, knock at your door every night, allowing you no time to rest, and find a way to paint you green." I threatened him. "And if not you, then your apartment."

I got a single blink in response, before my position was shifted and I was suddenly in the copycat's arms, held out at a safe distance usual only reserved for babies who had pooped their diapers.

I was not amused.

My emotional state was made clear by the act of folding my arms and narrowing my gaze at the copycat ninja. All it lacked was the words 'you suck', but given my apparent age I probably should limit myself in some ways.

Too bad I never actually had ever experienced the behavior of babies much, and since I had already exhibited strange behavior my hopeless acting was probably doing nothing to help.

"Why wear green?" I frowned at the Green Beast of Konoha. "Why not yellow or red?"

Kakashi was nodding beside me, like he agreed with my distaste. "Even children know it's wrong."

"Why wear green!?" The man in spandex boomed, an echo of my own question. "Green is the color of spring, it's the color of new fresh leaves, and so I show the world my youthfulness by donning it!"

"But youth means energy, and the purest first form of energy is from the sun." I made a vague gesture in the direction of the mentioned celestial body. "Every leaf and every flower blooms because of the shining sun, without it we would live in darkness, we…"

A slight murmur came from her left. "He actually managed to infect someone."

I hit the copycat ninja's arms with my small fists and gave a petulant scowl before continuing on. "Without it there would be no life, and so the very definition of youth and new life should be represented by yellow."

"You make a good point my most youthful friend, but it is not yellow with comes with spring!" The grown man in spandex gave a blinding smile. "The leaves of the trees are not yellow, but clear green, only becoming yellow in the fall when it's time to fade!"

I glanced to my left and saw Kakashi looked miserable, before returning the smile at the best of my abilities. "So you have taken this color both because of it connection to youthfulness and the village!" I concluded enthusiastically.

"Yes!" he boomed back. "What a smart youthful little friend you have, eternal rival!"

"It seems so." The indifferent gaze was not enough for my sadistic tendencies.

"And what is your name youthful little friend?!"

"Hh…" I had to remember my role in this charade. "Naruto!"

"Well met Naruto! I'm Konoha's sublime Green Beast of Prey…" Yes, and the master of bushy eyebrows. "Maito Gai!" His attention returned to the man to my left who continued to handle me like a shitty babe. "Now my eternal rival, I believe I was just about to challenge you…!"

"He promised to play with me!" I cut in, puppy eyes on full power. "Please Greeny Beast, let him play with me."

"Of course, if he has already promised so, I cannot interfere!" An overly serious nod followed. "I will return another time then, until then my eternal rival!" I was blinded by another smile and looked at the retreating figure in crowd with a slight frown, noticing for the first time how large an audience we had gained during the excitement.

I glanced at Kakashi, who looked sorely tempted to drop me and run way. "You owe me, you know." I said in a low voice. It was not the strangest thing I had said that day, so the idea of a toddler understanding the concept of one being indebted to another should not make him any more suspicious of me than he already was. "And you never visited, as you also know very well."

He was moving us away from the crowd now, most likely only using the streets instead of the roofs because he was still holding me at an arm's reach.

"Silence is not a nice way to answer another." I pouted dramatically in order to bait some sort of response from him.

It succeeded.

"The Hokage was right; you're a very peculiar child."

"And you're wallowing in self-pity, guilt and whatnot, not all of us are perfect." It spoke volumes he did not just drop me and walk away. "Are all ninja's psyche damaged in some way?"

He stopped to stare at me. "Are you sure you're a toddler?"

"Are you sure you're an…" I glanced up and down at him. "A teenager?"

One eyebrow was crooked at me. "Your level of perception is remarkable."

"Thank you." I dead panned. "You have no questions to my changed speech patterns or behavior towards your friend, Greeny?"

"I'm wondering whether the nicknames are a way of mocking us."

"And why would I ever mock fully independent people, who is in no need of the aid of others in order to satisfy basic needs and are not left to absolute boredom for hours on end." Since I was going full-blown 'adult trapped in toddler' I made the appropriate eyeroll. It was his own suggestion that I was a 'child prodigy', so it should justify me behavior, even if it was just a bit. "I don't even have my books anymore." I whined.

"So you like books?" The question was slightly surprising and I copied his expression by raising one brow.

"Yes. I'm pretty sure Chi-san never considered I would read half of them before turning 10, since very few of them were actually written with a child reader in mind."

He took a minute to just look at me, before emitting an 'Ah…' sound. "How is living with your Chi-san? Does she know you're out on your own?"

"Nope." I popped the word in reminisce of our first meeting. "In fact, I think she would be glad to never see me again. I had an accident you see." I fidgeted and tried to look convincingly guilty. "Jiji says he's going to find me a new home."

Awkward silence followed. The copycat ninja looked adorably bewildered, and yes I was allowed to use that word since he was younger than my real age.

It was so amusing I almost ruined it by snickering.

I turned sparkly eyes on him instead, that could be excused as being 'filled to the brink with tears'. We were going to have so much fun! The matters which I could tease him which were now in quite low supply, but I only had to wait until he was introduced to that series of his… better yet I could somehow arrange for him to fall across it early. Perhaps.

I was here to stay for an indeterminated amount of time, and by all gods, Kami or something, I was going to have fun.

Author's note: Nothing is nicer than character development, even if it seems to go in the wrong direction. I'm experiencing some troubles at the moment with the line dividers of FFN, so I apologize for the inconvenience.

And thank you for your very positive reviews ^^