I don't own Naruto

But I made Syouri :)

Keiri was holding me too tight, pressing my face into her chest so much I couldn't breathe as she gushed tears, babbling about this and that. Little worries, each babble mixed with old reminisce, reminding me and the others to wash our clothes, wash our hair, eat our vegetables and not stay up too late. Little things that she had been able to remind us to do every day until now. She then would move on to other subjects the first time we got in trouble, the first words we said and other such things. I didn't push her away even though I felt the desperate need for oxygen. She needed this, this last goodbye. I don't know if I'll ever be able to return; if I can, it won't be for many years. She knows this, which is why the usually stern and strict woman is breaking apart as she only does at goodbyes. I care about her and feel very grateful. After all, she was the primary person to raise me for the last five years.

Luckily, Kanpu is more put together in his goodbyes, with a gentle smile and a hand on my shoulder. He tells me to keep up my hard work and never let my 'curious nature' die. He was the one who taught me to read and who taught me about the world we live in. I'll miss him too. His eyes are sad, but he tries to hide it; too bad his chakra doesn't do nearly as good a job as his body does. He doesn't approve of spoon-feeding talented orphans to the shinobi academy, but I heard him once when he was drunk say that 'it's better than that one-eyed bastard getting them.' And I can't help but agree that he was thinking about whom I think he was. He gives me a small hug, and I smile and wave at all of them. Some of the smaller children are sobbing, telling us not to go, and some of the older children are envious not just of me, of course, of our whole little group headed off but me in particular.

I suppose these reactions are natural too. I am only five and a half. Most who end up at the academy don't leave until they are six. Still, old lady Koharu, the budding leaf orphanage's benefactor since after the nine-tails attack, made arrangements personally for me because of my intelligence.

I suppose compared to the average five-year-old, I am intelligent. I'm not sure if it's my IQ, the system, or the fact that I have grown up before, though is suspect it is all of the above.

In my old life, I was Paige Mason, a teenage high school honour student and minor-level genius. My whole life was ahead of me, just turning 18, and my parents treated me to a vacation overseas, one final family experience before I officially entered adulthood. I would have to live, sleep and breathe my schoolwork to keep my scholarship. Hawaii… I had never been, but it was fantastic. The water felt so good, and the whole island was so beautiful, everything was perfect... right until the flight home when the turbulence got a little too rough… the clouds seemed a little too dark… and I felt light-headed putting the falling mask over my and my younger brothers' faces as we went crashing into the ocean. I think they survived… god I hope so… I think so… I died on impact, but my last moments were them telling me it would be ok… my family… they were ok, and that was all that mattered to me.

Then I saw what could only be described as a screen glowing around the edges with bold black writing.

Welcome Gamer!

Character upload beginning

Realm-Naruto

Name Syouri

Good luck!

Before I could think, a bright light got really, really bright, and then it started to dim. When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't in the body of Paige. I was in a small squishy body of a baby, crying out as I took my first breath. That was the start of my next life, my current life.

The first month of my life was interesting… my parents and I moved from place to place with some other people. I couldn't pick out names because of the entirely different language, which was frustrating. I grieved the loss of… well, everything, but tried not to be too bad of a baby for my parents. I found I was calmer than I should be, but that only made me feel more disturbed. My parents were there to soothe me. I know they loved me very much.

My father had dark purple hair and dark red eyes. He was tall, and his hair was flat, falling to his shoulder in a gentle wave. He seemed gentle with my mother and, despite myself, managed to make me laugh with ridiculous faces and sounds. With my baby instinct, they were very comforting to be near.

My mother had pale blond hair that was spiky and green eyes with the same multi-circle pattern my father had. She had a beautiful smile and liked to hum. Sometimes, my father would join in, but he had his own lullabies to sing that he seemed to be teaching my mother. All in all, I thought that my life… my loved ones would want me to make more loved ones… just as I started to love my new family, tragedy struck.

A presence and power filled the air like nothing I had ever experienced, and I would have passed out if not for the strange calmness that washed over me. It felt like I was on fire, yet feeling no pain, like something was making every limb encased in the lead as someone hammered it, sending vibrations up my spine. It reminded me of the turbulence before the plane fell out of the air. Then as I whimpered and cried, something big flew through the air, hitting the ground in an explosion not far away, reminding me of an atomic bomb, except instead of a mushroom cloud, it was a half-circle cloud. The earthquake beneath us, the power blasted us back, and I must have been knocked unconscious because when I came too, my tiny baby body was lying on my parents' corpses… I had lost them already…

For a while, I cried there, an infantile wail as the calm continued to creep in despite knowing I was going to die again! Starve to death or be eaten by wild animals. Despite the fact I had lost my family a second time… despite the fact I finally realized what the realm being Naruto meant. One of my favourite tv shows… the most entertaining but incredibly dangerous world to be in, full of tailed beasts, chakra, and ninjas. The forest, so green and luscious with ridiculously large trees, no longer seemed so wonderful; it felt like a trap, like a world of nightmares engulfing me.

A day must have passed before I was discovered sickly and weak by that point. I was found by a ninja, in fact, with tan skin and dark hair. He brought me to the budding leaf orphanage. They used to have a woman named Nono here I later learned. I remembered her very vaguely from the show. She left a year before my arrival, but the ninja hadn't known that and so the only treatment I got was the non-chakra based, but I survived and was raised there after that.

At first, I wasn't really sure what to do. I couldn't really do anything as a baby, so I had to wait. As I started to move around more, I found some relief in just acting like the kid my body and, in a way, my mind were. So I spent my years learning and playing. I wanted to be happy. I knew… I knew my parents… both sets, would like that and my little brothers too. I wanted to enjoy what little of a childhood I would experience because a part of me knew it wouldn't last long, so that's what I did. I may have been an odd and disturbingly intelligent and observant child, but I was a child nonetheless who did childish things.

Five and a half years…

Syouri is my name. I don't know how they picked it. The kanji are 'ascending' and 'dragon.' A complete opposite to my calm, easy-going nature, as forced as it is at times, and my relatively small body. I don't think there is anything dragon-like about me.

I learnt fast and was clearly more intelligent than other children spending many days in the scarce but still fulfilling library at the orphanage, mostly medical books, but it was something.

Koharu was the benefactor of the orphanage from a year after my arrival onward, my arrival turns out, was caused by the nine-tails attack. Go figure, right?

I was happy and wanted. I helped out and even taught younger children to read after struggling to relearn myself. After all, I did not speak Japanese, and I wasn't even sure if it was Japanese and not some dialect. Still, of course, I had an advantage in the gamer system as I eventually figured out it allowed me to track my progress much better than any normal person would.

Koharu would come to the orphanage a few times a year, and some children with potential would leave for Konoha a few weeks later, usually at least six oldest nine. I was an oddity, but I was leaving at age five. I blinked back tears as a now familiar calm consumed me. I looked like my mother in complexion, with pale blond spiky hair butmore flat like my father and facing downwards. My skin was pale, and my eyes a dark red like my father's.

"Thank you for everything," I said with a bow to the two caretakers after they had finished squeezing me and the other two that would also be coming to Konoha, their names are Kousei and Masaki.

"You all better stay safe… and come back to visit sometime," Keiri said softly, softer than usual. I wonder if the others realize 'some time' is not until we are at least genin, if not later than that.

I look at the genin team sent to escort us. Urushi, one of the genin, was once an orphan here too and left while I was a baby. He is now 13 and a genin. Next to him is a girl who too familiar. She introduced herself as Izumi Uchiha, and though I may be forgetting things by now, Izumi had been one of my favourite characters, which, now, seeing her makes me both broken-hearted and totally fangirling out internally. She's younger than her teammates, looking about 11 years old, while the other two are undoubtedly new teenagers. The third is not someone I remember, some boy named Hiroshi with brown hair and eyes; my guess is either orphaned or civilian-born. They are all here with their jonin instructor Riku. I nod and give a small smile as we begin our walk to the village, which is a good day or so away at normal speeds but probably much less at ninja speeds. My backpack squarely on my shoulders, I turn around and start walking but can't help by look back just one more time, hoping to burn the image into my mind forever. The way the light hits the little wooden house, the smiling faces of the kids, some mixed with tears, the little garden out back and the field we would play in.

'Status' I think to myself as a distraction that is very much needed.

Syouri

Titles- Gentle Heart (increase chances of others underestimating you. 10% faster learning rate at defensive, healing and none lethal battle moves and techniques. Increased chance of others opening up to you.)

Age 5

Stamina- 98/100

Chakra- (locked)

Chakra Control- (locked)

Chakra Control- (locked)

——- (locked)

——- (locked)

VIT- 5

STR-3

AGI-5

DEX- 7

ACU- 13

INT- 18

CRE-8

WIS-15

CHA- 1

???- 1

???- 1

I breathe in and out as the calm makes me numb to the end of such a happy part of my life and the beginning of one that leads down a single path… of what that path is, I can't be sure.