Konoha reminded me of home. Not Kumo — that's always felt more like "the place where I am currently sleeping" than "home." No, I'm talking about my Earth. I grew up in Northern Georgia, southern Tennessee, and southern South Carolina. All of it was heavily forested hills. Unless you were at the top of a mountain, you could rarely see more than a few hundred feet in any direction as trees and buildings would block your view. Even the sky seemed smaller.

In contrast to my old world, Kumogakure made me slightly agoraphobic, emphasis on slightly. It didn't really bother me, so much as it unsettled me and made me feel like I was always far from home. My eyes only made the feeling worse, as I kept them on all the time.

And in contrast to Kumo, Konoha had trees by the millions, and they had chakra in them. All plants did, but only here did the implications of that truly stand out. I couldn't see nearly as far as before. The trees casted shadows, for lack of a better word, that degraded my vision of what lay directly behind them. It wouldn't stop me from identifying someone at great range, but it would stop me from reading any text that wasn't directly in line-of-sight for mundane vision. But, at the same time, it was the closest emulation my byakugan-sight would have to my old home's visual limitations. And when I deactivated them and took off my mask... well, I might as well have been home.

That was, if you discount the fact that:

A) I had lived in the middle of the 21st century rather than the 14th century with randomly supplied alien tech,

B) I'd lived in a time of economic prosperity that would have put the elemental nations to shame, and lived in rich cities on top of that,

C) I had lived in the United States instead of pseudo-Asia,

D) I'd lived in cities designed for cars rather than pedestrians and horse-and-buggies, and

E) none of the cities I'd lived in were military dictatorships.

So, excluding those and the myriad of implications that those five facts presented, it was like home. In other words, only at the most superficial level was Konoha anything like home, yet it was more like home than Kumo.

It was also too damn hot. Seriously. In this life and the last, I'd always been a rather warm-bodied individual that couldn't stand the heat (in the most literal of senses). Give me rain, snow, and ice any day, but nonstop sunshine? Blech. It was fine when I was running and had the wind to cool me, but here, having just entered the city? I was dying.

The four of us were led by a special jōnin to the Hokage's tower, though at a slow, easy pace that gave us time to look around. Unlike Kumo, there were no "shinobi" and "civilian" districts; rather, everything was evenly mixed together.

And speaking of mixing, I could see a surprising number of people actively having sex. Oh, I saw that all the time in every city, so I was neither shocked nor bothered, but this many at this time of day? Upon closer inspection, I saw that most of those couplings were inside buildings that were obviously brothels. The number of brothels surprised me as well. It was almost as if...

Oh, I get it. Konoha is the Amsterdam of the Ninja world. If, you know, the Netherlands allowed slavery and human trafficking so long as it was kept out of sight. Hey, I never said this world was perfect, or anything even approaching perfect. I just don't give a shit about it.

The Hokage's tower protruded out of the top of the Ninja Academy, standing out by virtue of the bright red color and the kanji for fire boldly written on it. We leapt onto the Academy roof, went around to the side that wasn't visible from the street, and were lead through a doorway on the middle floor. Two flights of stairs later, the special jōnin brought us into the Hokage's office. It was just like the Raikage's office, except smaller, lacking in gym weights, crammed full of paperwork, and utterly lacking in broken walls and window.

So, in other words, it wasn't anything like the Raikage's office at all.

Also, unlike the Raikage's office, the drawers of the desk and filing cabinets were protected against the byakugan — only enough that I couldn't read the contents of the drawer, but I could see that they were filled. I could also see and recognize a particular book in his drawer, one that I also had, kept safely stored within my seals.

Trust me, Jiraiya's books are not trash. For "porn with plot," they had a surprisingly good plot with well-written characters. They were just a bit... vanilla, for my tastes. Luxury, high-quality vanilla, but vanilla all the same. Of course, that's also probably why those books were so popular.

We entered the office; the Hokage was sitting there, waiting for us. Despite his advanced age, he was still in remarkably good shape with potent, well-controlled chakra flowing through his veins. Not a single wasted wisp of energy leaked into the air around him. Yet it wasn't suppressed — merely contained.

When he spoke, however, the chakra came out in his voice. It was just a drop, so little that he'd regenerate it by the time he took a breath for the next sentence, but it laced his very words. Every ninja did it. We all laced every single action we took with our chakra, the very essence of our mind, body, and soul, as we enforced our wills upon reality. For a man like Sarutobi, the sheer control he had over himself, and his chakra by extension, meant that even trace amounts he released had significant impacts. I could literally see the effect his chakra had on my own mind and the minds of my allies, as minuscule as it was.

In short, when he spoke, lesser men had no choice but to listen, even if he wasn't saying anything all that important. To others, especially those unaware of its effect, it made him seem more regal and profound. In contrast to my own kage's voice, which merely metaphorically muscled up to you and made his words seem powerful, the Hokage's voice slithered through my ears and into my brain.

I hated it. I despised it. I despised even more that there was nothing any of us could do about it, not even him. It was an entirely unconscious act.

"Ah, Kumogakure's team Haruka. I am pleased that you could make it," he said, though my read on his chakra and physiology indicated that he was a bit less pleased than his tone would have suggested. I can't read minds, but I can read micro-expressions, heart rate, breathing, and chakra flow. Together, those are almost as good as the real thing. Relations between Kumo and Konoha were still tense, thanks in no small part to what my second mother had done; it was no surprise, then, that Lord Sarutobi was secretly less-than-pleased with our presence in his village. "I trust your trip was uneventful?"

"It was quite pleasant, Lord Sarutobi," Haruka answered for us, though I and my peers silently nodded along. "There were no issues."

"Good, good." He produced an envelope containing a pair of keys and a short letter, which I read before Haruka could even grasp it. It was simply a notice of which room we'd be staying at in the Amber Jewel Hotel, plus general instructions regarding the test itself and the use of training grounds.

The building itself was in my range, so I also took a quick look there. It appeared quite fancy, deserving of its name. There were Suna and Ame ninja there already, so I assumed that's where they're keeping all the foreign contestants. I found our rooms easily enough; two, two-bed bedrooms that sat across the hall from one another.

By the time I'd found them, the Hokage was explaining exactly what I had seen. I turned my full attention back to the Hokage.

He was looking each of us over, but I noticed how his eyes skipped over the mask I wore, how he lingered on me the least of all. I counted that as a win in my books. But, in contrast, his eyes lingered the longest on Katsumi, and on the clan insignia she had tattooed on her upper chest. Despite her being a good-looking girl and him being a known pervert, there was no lust that I could spot within him. Perhaps, I think, what he was feeling was closer to anger and distrust.

Right. She was a Kaminyojin woman. My mother, among other clan women, had personally wronged the Hidden Leaf at the behest of their clan leader; there was no indication that Katsumi wouldn't do exactly the same thing. I'll have to keep an eye on her and those around her, then.

The four of us were walking out of the Hokage's tower when Katsumi finally shuddered. "The Hokage's scary."

"He's not called the God of the Shinobi for nothing," Haruka remarked. "He may be old, but he could still give even Lord Ay a run for his money."

"Katsumi, he was looking at you, specifically, out of all of us," I warned. "The tattoo of our clan symbol, to be specific."

She bent her head down, pressing her chin to her chest so that she could catch the barest glimpse of our clan insignia. "Oh."

"Yeah. That's probably not the best thing to be displaying around here," I added, having switched to our clan dialect. "But my Lady, I must insist that you not go anywhere alone, and limit your interactions with Leaf Ninja as much as possible."

"I can take care of myself," she huffed. "And what's with the my Lady thing?"

"My Lady, I'm speaking to you as a subordinate member of the Kaminyojin clan. Not as your friend, not as your teammate, but as your loyal family member," I answered.

She swallowed. I think she just realized how serious I was taking it. To drive the point home, I added, still speaking in the clan dialect, "We cannot even give the Leaf a chance to tarnish your reputation with even the suggestion that your conduct was less than perfect, much less give them the chance to actually hurt you."

Takeshi nodded along, while our Sensei added, "He does raise a good point, Katsumi." Her eyes swept back and forth, watching those whom we passed by. A lot of Konoha shinobi gave us long looks, and not all of them were friendly. "I think our relationship is better on paper than in reality."

"Sabotage?" Takeshi questioned.

Our teacher shook her head. "Unlikely. Konoha benefits from us being here almost as much as we do, if not more. They outnumber us in the exams thirty to one and have a lot of chances to force us out of the final round. If they can eliminate us fairly through the exams, to the point where we have no legitimate argument against them, they can use that as bragging rights to benefit the village. Hell, even if you three do make it to the end, or even win, they can still hypothetically pull merchants and business away from Kumo if they give a good enough of a showing. But if they cheat, we and the other villages can destroy their reputation."

Politics. Sometimes, we fight more with words, money, and reputation than we do with actual blades. I hate it; I'd love to be in the middle of a real fight, or just sitting back and watching the world metaphorically burn, but right now, that wasn't an option for me. Or, for that matter, anyone else on the team.

I wasn't an idiot. I knew the Kaminyojin clan had something on Haruka that would make or break her depending on what happens to Katsumi. I also strongly suspected that Takeshi and my clan's heir were only as close as they were because Takeshi was the "genius" of their year. Hell, I'm probably on her team because I'm the Kaminyojin's answer to Itachi Uchiha, minus the bloodthirsty clan-killing part.

(Actually, I think my own meteoric rise through the ranks stalled just shortly after the Uchiha Massacre. I've been a special chūnin — now a regular genin — for a long time now.)

In short, all four of us are standing here in Konoha at this moment for one reason: politics. "I just want to be done with this already," I said, both in response to the current conversation and my own train of supernaturally accelerated thoughts.

On my left, Katsumi snorted mirthfully. "I know that feeling. I just want to be a chūnin already, not dealing with stupid village stuff!"

By now, we were in sight of the Amber Jewel Hotel. Changing the subject, I said to my team, "Why don't you three get unpacked and settled into our room. I'm going to go scout out the training fields." What went unsaid but not unheard was that I was planning on scouting out the competition and the village itself.

"That sounds like a good idea," Haruka remarked. She gave me a little shooing motion. "Go ahead. We'll meet up with you later. I'm sure you can find us. Dinner time?"

"Yeah. That works." I turned, giving them a wave as I did so. "Later."

With a burst of chakra, I leaped upwards onto the roof of a nearby building and started running. There was a certain trio with a jinchūriki that I was interested in meeting.

It was not Gaara's will leaking out into the world, but Shukaku's. It was a faint, nearly invisible miasma that didn't extend far from Gaara's body. Unlike the other two jinchūriki I'd seen, the ichibi's chakra flowed fairly evenly through his chakra system, much more a liquid than a solid mass, and when it came into contact with Gaara's skin, an infinitesimally small amount of Shukaku's chakra boiled off and became the gas-like substance surrounding him. That chakra sank into the ground, grinding the very stone into sand, while also soaking into the gourd of sand on his back. In short, with every beat of Gaara's heart, Shukaku was preparing their weapon and their battlefield.

It was, I admit, eerily fascinating to watch. A normal shinobi would notice that sort of drain, but not Gaara. I could also understand why people felt so ill-at-ease with Gaara around; the chakra was hostile, lashing out at Gaara's siblings whenever they got too close. I doubt they could even consciously feel an amount that small, but their own chakra was definitely reacting to it. It was a silent battle of souls, and I don't think they were winning.

Moving a good bit closer, for the densely populated and forested village cast even more chakra shadows than the forest alone, I hopped into the trees and settled in place. My attention turned to the fan on Temari's back and the puppet on Kankurō's. Aside from being chakra conductive, and therefore nearly transparent to chakra, the fan was just a fan. The puppet, on the other hand, was far more interesting.

Geared mechanisms filled every available space, save for thin tubes to allow chakra to flow to the more complex mechanisms deeper inside. Unlike my DAKKA puppet, Kankurō's was definitely more focused on melee-ranged combat, as it was full of blades and joint reinforcements rather than my puppet's guns and rigid skeleton. Also unlike my puppet, which could use servos powered by my electric chakra, his was controlled entirely through strings. I don't know how that compares to mine in terms of controllability; I can use the voltage from each of my fingers as a sort of multi-bit input, but he can freely manipulate every single part without concern for electronics.

That warranted experimentation. I'm practically reinventing the art of puppetry here without external aid, so taking design advice from a practiced Suna puppet master might be a worthwhile idea.

"In the trees." Gaara stopped and stared directly at me, despite the fact that there was a pair of tree trunks between him and me, obscuring his vision. But then I noticed the sand grains on the branch; I almost couldn't tell them apart from the tree's own chakra.

Acknowledging that I'd been caught, I dropped down. It was as good of a conversation opener as any, and who was I to deny myself this opportunity? I crossed my arms over my chest, inhaled a bit deeper than usual to puff myself up, and pushed my chakra outwards a bit. Speaking in an extremely slow drawl, slow enough that it was lazy sounding even by their sluggish standards, I said, "My apologies. I didn't mean to stare."

"Who are you?" Gaara demanded. His eyes locked onto the eyes of my mask, and for some reason, he didn't look away. Did my effect not work on jinchūriki or something?

"Kaminyojin Kenta, just a cloud drifting by." I tilted my wrist a little bit so that the Kumogakure insignia on my gloves was easily visible. "Although, if my guess is right, I'll be competing against you in the exams."

"A Kumo ninja, in Konoha?" Kankurō asked, a bit shocked if his tone were any indication. "I was still under the impression your lot hated Konoha."

I waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, we're all friends here. On paper, at least. I'm sure you know that feeling. How is Suna, by the way?"

"It's fine," Kankurō grumbled.

"Why do you care?" Temari added.

Pointing my masked face at Temari, I shrugged. "I don't, not really. I was just curious." Then I turned to face Kankurō. "Sunagakure sounds like a place I would be miserable in. The torturous sun, the hot winds, the deadly sand..." I paused ever so slightly, turning my head to face Gaara. "...storms. Impressive ninja you may be, but I don't understand why you'd want to live out there. I like the cold and wet climate of Kumo, thank you very much."

Temari scoffed. "See, that sounds like hell to me. It explains why a creepy bastard like you exists."

"Creepy, am I?" I said, mocking offense. "You wound me. How am I creepy?"

"That mask," Kankurō answered for his sister, though she bobbed her head once in concordance.

"Hmm..." I reached a hand up to grab it. As I pulled, I performed a sealless, smokeless transformation jutsu on my face. Red, slit eyes replaced my own white ones, while my mouth stretched wider than anatomically possible. As a little extra flair, I stained the bits of beard and mustache around my mouth with fake blood to complete the illusion.

The mask came off. "sɓuıๅqıS puɐS əๅʇʇıๅ ʻɹəʇʇəq sıɥʇ sI?"

Temari and Kankurō jumped back and, in the latter's case, screamed. Gaara didn't look impressed. "Temari, Kankurō, control yourselves. It's only a transformation."

But they didn't listen. "Kai!" they yelled together, forming the hand sign and flaring their chakra in an attempt to purge their systems. As I expected, nothing happened — it was no genjutsu — making them try again.

I put my mask in place and released the transformation. "See? I'm not that creepy."

"No, but my siblings are idiots," Gaara replied. The siblings in question flinched. "Temari, Kankurō, let's go."

"Yeah. That's... Yeah," Kankurō muttered.

"Agreed," Temari quickly added.

The two of them continued on their way, leaving me standing there alone, and leaving me wondering. The biggest question on my mind: was Gaara immune to my distortion effect? And if he was, why? Was it Shukaku?

I needed to find Naruto. This was something to test. I turned and started walking in the other direction.

If I hadn't had Hyūga blood in me, if I hadn't had my byakugan active, or if I had still been watching him with a good portion of my attention, I would have missed it. But I did and I was.

Shukaku's chakra twitched. Gaara paused. He looked back at me, then frowned. It took less than half a second, but in that moment, I knew that the ichibi was paying attention to me. That's probably not a good thing.

Like Gaara, Uzumaki Naruto oozed chakra into the air. Unlike the desert jinchūriki, the orange-clad ninja's chakra cloud was all his own. Most likely driven by the pressure of holding the kyūbi at bay, his very human chakra was pushed out. But, at the same time, it was polarized. Kurama, as unbalanced as he was due to being half of himself, pushed the yang — the physical — aspect of Naruto's chakra out as it overloaded him with even more yang chakra.

Seeking mental energies to balance itself out with, Naruto's cloud of mostly-physical energy latched onto the minds of those around him. From where I was watching, I could clearly see it swarming around his teammates' heads, and the heads of anyone Naruto interacted with in any way. And as faint and nearly undetectable as it was, the effect was not negligible.

Sakura had the densest cloud by far, but in the time I'd been watching them, they'd spoken with both Asuma's team and Kurenai's, and it seemed to disproportionately favor the girls Naruto's age. I knew that there had to be some effect on their minds, but I didn't know them well enough, nor had I been watching for long enough, to be sure on exactly what the effect was.

And there was no way in hell I was getting close to him now. Sorry, Naruto, but supernatural mind manipulation is where I draw the line. Yes, I know I'm a hypocrite about that, especially considering what I just did to the sand siblings. Sue me.

I wish I knew what it was actually doing.

Okay, let me think about this. Yang chakra is the energy of life, but as it's not 100% pure physical energy, it still has the direction of his mind and soul guiding it. Maybe not consciously — and man, that's going to fuck with me so much if he's doing this willingly — but his unconscious mind has a say for sure. Chakra is the energy by which your will is enforced upon reality. What is his body's will? What is his subconscious desire?

Body. That's easy: pleasurable sensations. Good health, good food, physical contact, sex. What does his subconscious want? If he's even remotely close to canon, then that would be recognition, social contact, intimate connections, good physical contact with another human. If he's gone through puberty yet, and I'm almost certain he either has or is in the process, then sex is also on that list.

With that in mind...

Fuck, I have no idea if Sakura's more friendly or clingy to Naruto than in canon. It's been years, and I'm having a hard time mentally separating late-Shippuden Sakura from the original girl, what little I still remember of her, and from the fanon Sakura.

But the idea that he's blasting a "look at me/love me/fuck me" aura disturbed me. He wouldn't even know he's doing it, nor would anyone he's doing it on notice it. Hinata might, if she's trained her byakugan enough, but that all depends on her identifying the effect and realizing that something's off about it before she can normalize it.

And looking at Naruto himself, I don't think she'd ever care. His chakra is brilliantly bright and pleasing to look at, while his body... Imagine that hypothetical "perfect lover" male protagonist from an erotic novel, a kind but lustful man who's impossibly sexy and who couldn't actually exist in real life. That guy every guy, straight or gay, wishes they could be. Now imagine him as an innocent child, and put him in a startlingly bright orange jumpsuit that hides all his muscular definition and the already impressive size of his manhood.

That's Naruto.

Going by that alone, it's obvious why he would have caught Hinata's eyes specifically. Going by his personality — what vague generalizations of it I can remember — it's obvious why he kept her attention. If he put a little bit of effort into his appearance, I'm almost certain that he'd be the guy that gets... every... single... girl...

Oh, God.

Oh merciful Lord in Heaven, hallowed be thine name, I pray to you for a miracle! Tell me I'm not in a harem fic!

...

Wait.

I could copy that.

It would be hard, and I'd need to practice it a metric fuck-ton, but I could copy that.

Oh Satan, Lord of Sin, I would sell my soul for this! Please let this be a harem fic!

Actually, if this is some sort of fanfiction...

Yo, Author of mine! Can I get some nice ass here? Double puberty sucks!

...

I have no idea if that worked. I was never all that religious before, and it's not like my author would even give me copious amounts of sex whenever I felt like it. I'd write a good story, not smut.

... Oh, fuck. A good story means that something terrible is going to happen to me for the sake of drama. I'm doomed.

And on top of that, I've now given myself an existential crisis. Isn't that supposed to be saved for the fictional characters? Unless I'm now fictional too. Damn, finding Naruto was supposed to give me answers, not toss me down the rabbit hole of existential dread.

You know what? I'm just going to go back to the hotel. I've had enough for one day. I literally can't even.

See how bad it's getting? My brain isn't even completing its own thoughts.

Fuck.

"Kenta?" Haruka asked as I passed her in the hallway. "Your back early."

"Nope."

"Wait, what?"

"Nope."

"What do you mean, nope?"

I stared her straight in the eyes, dragon mask firmly in place. "Nope." Then I turned and walked into my room and flopped down on the futon that Takeshi hadn't claimed already. "Nope," I repeated once more, using a chakra thread to slam the door that I'd accidentally left open.

"Kenta, are you alright?"

"¡ꓯꓘꓵꓤꓯH ʻ⅄ꓯMꓯ ꓘꓛꓵꓞ ꓱHꓕ Oꓨ"

She got the message. Somehow.

Then I closed my eyes, shut off my byakugan, and noped the rest of the day away.

When the door to my hotel room opened, and the rest of my team entered, I had almost completely restored my supply of fucks to give. As it was, I was still curled up under my blankets.

The first thing out of Katsumi's mouth was, "Are you ready to start being a human being again?"

The first thing out of my mouth was, "HIISSSSSSSSSSS!" With a little unintentional chakra spilling into my throat, it came out a good bit more animalistic sounding than the already inhuman sound should have been.

"Sheesh, what's got you all worked up? What the hell happened?"

Aww, she really does care.

Fucks to give: +1.

"Bleh. It's not important," I muttered. "Just... something related to my old life."

"Right, that life where you were an alien," Haruka butts in. She's long since accepted the reincarnated part, but she still doesn't believe me when I say I wasn't human. A lie, technically, but one I chose to stick with. "What the hell did you even look like in your past life?"

An opportunity for pranking — fucks to give: +5.

I pulled the covers tightly over me, then weaved a couple hand signs. A few chakra threads to shut the door and the blinds, a few more hand signs to amp my bloodline's speed, and then I rocketed out from under the covers, throwing them towards my team as a distraction.

I latched onto the wall, then the ceiling, as I closed the gap between me and them. In a tiny fraction of a second, far faster than they could have reacted, considering my distraction, I was right above them.

I waited until they looked up, then I opened my transformed jaws, opened my second jaws, and roared at them.

Why yes, I was a xenomorph. A warrior caste, if you wanted to be specific. Being a sci-fi fan in ninja-land was awesome.

They all yelped, even the normally silent Takeshi, and jumped back. Laughing now, I let go and dropped to the floor. "Ask and you shall receive."

"Kami, that's terrifying."

I chuckled, then dropped the transformation. "Nah, what's terrifying is watching our face-huggers forcefully implant our children's embryos into creatures we captured, then watching as our babies explode out of their chests. Imagine my surprise when I found out you humans don't die horrible deaths to give birth to your own young." I put on the most innocent smile I could manage.

They all went a bit green. Katsumi especially looked like she was going to hurl, though no one actually did. After giving them a second to digest that, I said. "Actually, that's bullshit. I just made that up." Pause for effect. "But there are eggs involved." Technically, egg cells.

"Nope." Katsumi spun and walked out of the room.

I clapped my hands once. "And now she feels like I did earlier today."

"Ugh, did you have to do that?" Haruka demanded. We went out of our way to bring you dinner," — she held up a bag (though without my byakugan active, I couldn't see what was inside of it) and set it on the counter — "and you had to go and drop that on us. I'm going to have nightmares, I just know it."

"Ehh... shit, I'm really sorry. I didn't think that through."

She huffed and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, whatever. Enjoy your ramen." She too promptly left the hotel room, leaving me alone.

No, wait, Takeshi was still here.

"Are you going to freak out too?"

He shook his head. "That was cool."

I blinked. "Really?"

He nodded once.

"Huh. Neat."

I went and opened the container of ramen. It smelled heavenly. Hmm... I wonder if it's the same kind Naruto was so fond of?