My first semester in the academy was wrapping up, and my first major exam in this world was impending. Yoshiro-sensei was tight-lipped about exactly what it entailed, but I wasn't worried in the least. I would have to set aside a couple hours for memorization, both of kanji and of survival related information, but once I did that, I should have no issues.

But forget all that. I had something much more exciting on my horizon. And that something just so happened to be a rectangular piece of parchment about the size of my little kiddy hand.

I had finally finished my exploding tag. Only took me two and a half months. And I was so fucking ready to test it out.

Problem was, I didn't have the means to do so. Where the fuck in Iwagakure could I, a four-year-old, set off an exploding tag without people seeing/hearing and calling the Red Ogres?

Nowhere. Even if I were to sneak into one of the training grounds (which in itself was illegal for civilians, of which I was technically still considered despite my enrollment in the academy), the explosion of my hopefully functional tag would draw someone's attention.

If I wanted my creation tested, I would have to get someone else to do it. Which meant that it was time for Kazuhiro to learn what I had been up to all this time.

"Surprise?" I said weakly as, upon revealing the tag to Kazuhiro, he snatched it out of my hand.

"Where did you get this?" he asked seriously.

"I made it," I said with no small amount of pride.

"You're joking." He searched my face for some trace of deceit and came up empty. "Kami, you're not joking. Who the hell taught you how to make an exploding tag?"

"Relax, it's all above-board," I assured him. "I went to a seller, took a test and proved myself sufficient in chakra ability and calligraphy. They entered me in an Iwagakure database, and I got instructions on how to make them. And let me tell you, it was not easy. I totally understand why so few people manage to do it."

"It's legal?" Kazuhiro repeated, completely dumbfounded.

"For me," I said. "I promise. Iwa knows, my instructor knows, and Yoshiro-sensei knows. Well, they know that I'm learning, not that I've finished it. The only reason I haven't told you until now is that I wanted it to be a surprise."

"Wow," Kazuhiro breathed. "You never cease to amaze me, imouto. Do you know how expensive these are?"

I did. I could get six full sets of kunai (a set equaled a dozen) for the price of one exploding tag. According to Nyūdō, they used to cost even more.

"That's why I wanted to learn," I said brightly. "You'll still need to pay for the inspection, theoretically, and I have to buy the parchment and ink myself, but the final product will be so much cheaper. And if we're strung up on cash, I can sell them too."

Though I would definitely be doing that anyway, if only to fulfill my end of the bargain with Nyūdō and make him more likely to teach me how to create storage scrolls. That's what I was really after anyway—exploding tags only taught me a little about fuinjutsu. I was sure that I would learn a lot more from something complex.

"One little thing, though," I said, hesitantly. "I, uh, haven't gotten a chance to test them. Obviously, I can't just be blowing shit up around here. Could you do me a huge favor and test it for me somewhere?"

"Oh, I absolutely can," he assured.

"Great! Uh, please don't tell people I can do this yet. Again, some people know, but I don't really want word getting out to everyone. People will probably be badgering me for discounted exploding tags, and that would be annoying. Also, I don't plan on telling my teacher that I've finished for a while yet."

I tried to briefly explain the Atsuchi situation, and how I didn't want people to know how good at fuinjutsu I was. My god-brother didn't understand at first, but I eventually brought him over to my side.

"Alright, I'll respect your wishes," he finally agreed, and I sighed in relief. "I'll try and test your tag tomorrow, if my own training allows. They're cutting back the physical intensity in preparation for the surgery, but they're stuffing my head full of the theoreticals. It's exhausting."

Some of my enthusiasm was tempered by the reminder. Kazuhiro only had two more months before his scheduled, highly experimental surgery. I was extremely scared for him, and it didn't help my peace of mind at all that I had no idea what parts of my god-brother that they would be modifying.

"Have you learned any new information?" I whispered, even though we were in the privacy of our own home.

"No," he said, then hesitated. "But some of the material I'm learning now is…odd. Several jutsu that I can't perform yet, all wind natured, and instruction on how to perform Futon nature transformation. A lot of my practice before revolved around nature transformation as well, but for my earth affinity, which made sense."

I considered the information with a frown. Nature transformation into an element that you did not hold a strong affinity for was incredibly hard, so much so that many considered it impossible. And certainly not a worthwhile endeavor—even if someone managed the feat, what they could do with it would be extremely limited.

"Do the other people in your squad have earth affinities?" Kazuhiro grunted in affirmation. "And they're receiving the same training?"

"Yeah. It's all very strange."

They weren't going to try and give Kazuhiro an artificial bloodline, right? That shit never worked out. If Orochimaru wasn't capable of it, Iwagakure sure as hell wasn't either.

What would wind and earth even make? Magnet release? That would be an odd choice too. Any Kekkei Genkai—would it even be considered as much if it was artificially created?—would be useful, but there were certainly better options to both cover Iwa's weaknesses and boost their strengths. And that's assuming that they could make it work at all.

The Tsuchikage's dust release used both Earth and Wind too. And they had a master—two really, with the man's son still around—to provide instruction. But that Kekai Tota required a fire nature as well.

"You learn anything about Katon?" I asked.

"No. Only how to defend against it."

I was probably way off the mark. No one would be stupid enough to mimic bloodlines. From what I remember, one would have to alter their entire genetic makeup drastically to accomplish such a feat, something that was far beyond even the latest advances in my much more technologically and medically advanced home world. There must be something else I was missing.

"Don't worry so much, imouto," Kazuhiro said softly. "The future is already set. Fretting will change nothing."

I took a deep, slightly shaky breath. "I know." But when has telling someone not to worry ever worked?

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

Despite Kazuhiro's assurances, I was quite terrified for his safety. He and Akane-obasan were all I had in this world, and my pseudo aunt/grandmother was an elderly civilian. She didn't understand our way of life, and she certainly didn't understand me. Not like my brother did.

So I dove back into my medical texts, cramming my skull with as much information as physically possible. I don't know how the fuck Kazuhiro got his hands on them, because they even discussed the theory of medical ninjutsu, and how to perform the Mystic Palm. It was one of those umbrella jutsu that had the potential to serve a wide variety of functions, depending on the skill level of the one using it.

I tried to learn it. I tried really, really hard. But no matter how hard I fucking pushed, it wouldn't. Fucking. Stick!

I thought that transforming my chakra into medical chakra that wouldn't be rejected by other people's bodies would be the hard part. But no, that was actually moderately easy. Like other jutsu, the effect was coded into the hand seals I used, which, in this case, was a strange modified Ushi sign (first time I've tried to fuck with modified hand seals), followed by Tora. The modified Ushi made my chakra green and…weird. Like everything familiar about it had been stripped away, leaving a purified, impersonal shell. I didn't like it, but I stuffed down my distaste.

First step, complete on my second try. But that was as far as I could go. My external chakra control was beyond terrible; the moment it left my skin, I had as much control over my chakra as I did an exhaled breath.

What really sucked, was that my chakra control was so bad that I couldn't even train it. People normally practiced with chakra strings as a way to hone their ability to manipulate their chakra at a distance, but my attempts at making strings dissolved before they could make it a millimeter away from my finger. I wasn't making any progress at all, and there were no tips or tricks that I was missing. Some people had the ability to become medic-nin and some didn't, and I fell into the second category.

I could heal skin wounds, for whatever that was worth. As long as I could directly touch them. Though even then, heal was a bit of a stretch. All I could manage to do with my Mystic Palm was push medical chakra into someone else, which sped up their healing to a certain degree. Effective use of the Mystic Palm relied on the ability to target specific groups of cells in specific orders and at specific intensities, something that I was also pretty bad at. That, I think, I could grind with a great deal of practice, but when my skill was limited to surface-level lesions and bruises, what was the fucking point?

I know what you're thinking. Your external chakra control might be ass, but your internal chakra control is amazing. Wouldn't it be easy for you to become a regenerative god on par with Tsunade and Deadpool?

I thought so. Think so; it's not out of the realm of possibility, but I certainly understand why people with that ability are so rare.

First, a little background. Chakra is vitality, right? In its natural form, it enriches the body, strengthening it, increasing its functionality and even healing on its own (being spent in the process). Ninja, compared to humans in my original world, already possess superhuman healing ability, and the stronger a person's chakra, the better their natural healing factor is. That is the reason for Naruto's bullshit regeneration. Kurama didn't heal the kid out of the goodness of his heart; with the seal siphoning and purifying his corrosive chakra, the creature didn't have any choice in the matter.

So what makes medical chakra different from regular chakra? Well, it tricks the body into thinking that this foreign chakra is natural, and shouldn't be considered invasive and fought off like it normally would have been. And that's it. It doesn't have any special traits that makes it more effective at healing; it's simply external chakra that can be added to another person without backlash.

However, it does have another use. If a person gets cut, or receives some other injury, their body responds in a multitude of ways; it can signal for the wounded area to start forming blood clots, it can send pain receptors to the brain, and a whole lot more. Chakra itself doesn't respond to an injury, even though it has the capability to better heal it. It's as if the body is speaking one language and the chakra network is speaking another.

The only thing that can communicate with chakra, is chakra. Which means that, if medical chakra is applied to an injury, domestic chakra rushes to that injury as well, healing it more rapidly. As a result, the use of medical chakra doesn't merely drain chakra from the medic-nin, but the target as well.

In other words, using medical chakra on oneself is fucking stupid and pointless. It won't heal you any more effectively than your regular chakra already does. But, with a decent level of internal chakra control, you could effectively perform the second half of the technique easily and seallessly, by directing your own chakra to your injuries. This was common knowledge and abused heavily—though in the field, ninja had to be cautious. Sometimes it was more important to have extra chakra than it is to be healed.

That's not to say skilled medic-nin don't have the ability to actively mend their own injuries. They do, it just requires a completely different set of techniques, a baffling level of biological understanding, and yes, impeccable internal chakra control, beyond even what I can currently manage. I might reach that level some day, but I kinda doubt it. Intelligence was its own limitation, and while I was a genius for a four-year-old, I wasn't actually all that smart in general. My mental strengths lie on the creative, artistic side of the spectrum.

That was something I had come to terms with long ago, in my life prior to this one. What I couldn't come to terms with, was that I had been dumped into a world full of superpowers, and I didn't have the ability to use the coolest fucking ones. Shape manipulation? Jutsu customization? Healing others? I don't think I'd ever be able to do any of those things. I would probably only be able to perform ninjutsu their most basic states.

Like my birth father's Doro Nami O Tsukamu no Jutsu. I was scared to tell Kazuhiro, but I don't think I'll ever be able to use it to its full potential. My father could change the shape of the wave and control the exact moment it solidifies, but I'm afraid I won't be able to do either of those things. I might be limited to exactly what was hardcoded into the hand seals.

"FUCK," I all but sobbed, throwing the pencil I was trying to snag with chakra strings at my bedroom wall. "I can't fucking do this!"

I could only think of one way to overcome this body's limitations. And with Kazuhiro's surgery approaching, and the war shortly after, I was running out of time to master it.

Grabbing my clay ink pot and a brush, I began to draw. First came horse, drawn perfectly in black. Then there was monkey, directly to the right. I drew my surrounding canals, allowing the two seals to merge together just like they would have in my wrist. Then, finally, I added the snake seal below it, feeding off the amalgamation and creating a changed final product.

I went outside, smoothing a small pile of dirt near my fence. Paranoid, I hunched over, shielding my project from watching eyes with my own body, and dropped the parchment onto it face down. Then, I channeled my chakra, and underneath my seal, the soil rippled.

Swiping my hand through it before anyone could see, I ripped the parchment up into small pieces and shoved them into my pocket with my lips turned into a half-pleased snarl. Then, I went to my desk and put my brush to paper once more.

Doton: Dojō wasn't useful at all in any practical setting. But if I could turn it into a seal, I could turn something else into one as well.

Let's try the Kawarimi, this time.

A bit trickier to transcribe into fuinjutsu, but not impossible. However, I was pretty sure this one wouldn't be quite as simple. I was proven correct when, after I was certain I had written it properly, I activated it, and nothing happened.

Unlike my earth jutsu, the Kawarimi had a second component. It produced a tether, which had to be shot manually by the caster. I assume that my seal version also made the tether, but it wasn't capable of shooting said tether, much less aiming it.

So was it impossible to make the Kawarimi into a seal? I think it's too early to say. Maybe there's a new component that I need to add, one that will aim and fire the created tether. I sank into a meditative state and began to perform the jutsu again and again, focussing on the moment of release. How did I mold my chakra when it was time to fire my jutsu? What patterns were my coils in?

I soon realized that I was running before I could walk. Before I could find a generalized solution to my problem, I had to solve it for an ultra-specific case.

I dragged a chair into the middle of our living room and put pieces of tape on the floor to mark its location. Then, some distance away, I put another strip of tape on the ground and stood on top of it. With a couple more Kawarimis, I began to sketch my findings on a piece of paper, which soon became swooping strokes of ink.

I propped up my new seal on an empty vase, placing it on the piece of tape I recently occupied. Making sure the chair was in position, I activated the seal.

"Yes!" I cried as the parchment and the chair swapped (cracking the vase, not that I cared).

I had done it. But at the same time, I had learned what could potentially be a massive drawback to fuinjutsu. Whereas jutsu can be controlled and directed by their caster, either by changing their body's physical orientation or some aspects of the chakra, the effects of seals could only be changed by modifying the seal itself. A fact that was proven when I tried to replicate my Kawarmi seal, this time after moving the chair slightly to the left, and it failed once more.

However, I was pretty sure that, through continued trial and error, I could find a way to remove some (but probably not all) of the limiting conditions. I'd start by trying to make it so that my new kawarimi seal would work within a certain range, rather than a fixed point.

By the end of the night, I hadn't made any breakthroughs, but this wasn't something I'd make gradual progress on. I would crack this mystery—it would just take some time. And I was learning with every failure I made.

Good thing it was Sunday, and I wasn't already at high tide. My chakra reserves were low, and not just from casting the Kawarimi the normal way. Apparently, it costs chakra to activate seals; the same amount as the jutsu version required. So any hopes that I found a way to cast jutsu without losing any chakra were dashed. At least I could, one day, effectively cast some techniques without hand seals, restricted as they may be. That might just save my life when war breaks out.

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

Most of the following week had passed by the time Kazuhiro next returned home, bearing a sheepish grin, and palming a familiar slip of parchment.

"It didn't work?" I surmised, my happy grin at his return falling immediately.

"Sorry, imouto," he said placatingly.

I glared at the tag, eyes running over all the carefully placed squiggles. "What did it do?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" I repeated, an eyebrow raised. "Nothing at all? It just sat there? No smoke, no blinking, nothing?"

"Yeah. It was motionless. If I didn't know any better, I would have thought it was a regular piece of parchment."

That didn't make any sense at all. All of the components worked; this last step was just to connect them. If I didn't do that correctly, at least some if not all of the stages should have activated in one way or another. Unless tying them all together, for lack of a better word, shorted out the entire circuit.

"Well, that's frustrating."

Frustrating barely came close to describing what I currently felt. Overwhelming rage would have been more accurate. Fuinjutsu was my best bet at surviving this world, and protecting Kazuhiro. But I was hitting dead end, after dead end, after dead end. My breakthroughs, few and far between, haven't taught me a goddamn thing about actually coming up with seals or understanding any that were already made.

I thought that, in this new, amazing world, I could actually make something of myself. It's really easy, curled up in bed with a laptop, to fantasize about all the ninjutsu I'd learn/create if I was transmigrated into the Naruto world, all the changes I would make, all the disciplines I'd master. But now that I'm here, it's clear that all the cool things that can be done in this world are just as difficult and take just as much practice as any given subject in my old one. I can't become a fuinjutsu master here any easier than I could become a rocket scientist back there.

I was average back on Earth. How could I expect to be any better in this one?

"Imouto?" Kazuhiro asked, and I could hear the concern in his voice. "Are you okay?"

I wasn't sure why he asked that, until I went to rub away an itch on my face and my fingers came back wet.

"I'm just mad," I said, successfully keeping the waver out of my voice. Kazuhiro was training to be a jonin, though, so he saw through me.

"Fuinjutsu is an incredibly difficult art," he told me soothingly, crouching down like I was a fucking baby. "It's well beyond me, and almost everyone else too. Frankly, I don't think I've ever met anyone who actually understands how it works, rank be damned. That you can do this much at your age is in itself incredible. Everything you do is incredible."

"It's not enough," I warbled, bandaged fingers worrying the hem of my shirt.

Kazuhiro frowned. "What makes you say that? Is anyone pressuring you? Your sensei…me?"

"No, no." I took a deep inhale that didn't really help. "War's coming. I know it is." I couldn't say anymore, but I didn't need to either.

"You're frightened," Kazuhiro realized, sounding like a brick had been dropped on his stomach. He stood and lifted me into his arms, like he hadn't done since I learned to walk. "I'm sorry imouto. I wish I could tell you that everythings going to be okay, and that you don't have to worry. But I'd be lying."

I buried my head in his chest, too preoccupied with not sobbing to say anything.

"Remember a couple days ago, when you first told me about that?" He jerked his head at the dining room table, where my failed exploding tag sat. "You said you didn't want people to know about your fuinjutsu skill, because you didn't want to end up like Akane-obassan's son. But…would that be such a bad thing? You'd be safe there, and you wouldn't have to fight."

"No," I said automatically.

"Why not?" he pressed, and I had a hard time coming up with an answer.

I had thought about Atsuchi's position, specifically using it as a way to avoid being sent out to the field. But I had never considered it as an option for myself. Only as an option for a certain childish classmate of mine. But the idea was so repugnant that I literally shuddered. I did not get brought into my dream world—the subject of countless fantasies in my first life—just to work a desk job.

"Safe," I muttered, the word muffled against Kazuhiro's flak jacket. "I don't want to be safe. I'm not afraid of dying."

Been there, done that. It wasn't an enjoyable experience, but it wasn't my worst one either. I had experienced more physical pain and more mental anguish in other instances of my past life.

"Then what are you afraid of? Is it…me dying?"

"That scares me," I agree. "But if that happens…I don't think there's anything that I could do to prevent it."

Anything that could kill Kazuhiro at this point, I had no chance of stopping, whether it be his coming surgery or an enemy nin. Even if I happened to fight alongside him, which definitely wouldn't happen, it would be much more likely for my presence to cause his death rather than prevent it.

"I'm glad you recognize that," he said. "But if it's not your death, and it's not my death, then what do you have to fear?"

"Dying a nobody!" I blurted out. "Dying in a random, useless battle, never amounting to anything. Not even a footnote in history. With no one to remember or appreciate me. I want—I need—for my life to mean something."

I couldn't experience that again. I didn't want to leave this world behind like I had my last, without a disturbance, with only my dad and my brother to even notice my passing. I didn't want to be a statistic, I wanted to be a person. No, a legend.

"You?" he parroted, incredulous. "You're worried about being a nobody? Imouto, you couldn't be a nobody if you tried."

"You'd be surprised," I snarled, not appreciating this reaction to my heartfelt and highly-emotional confession.

"Imai Kasaiki, with your work ethic, your intelligence and your skill, you could become Tsuchikage," he said with surety, but he was wrong. He only thought that because he was comparing me to other four-year-olds. If he knew I was older than he was, he would realize just how average I was.

Kazuhiro would never know the truth about me. It's not even a trust thing; I want to leave my past life behind me, where it belongs. Here, I am Imai Kasaiki of Iwagakure. An entirely new person, complete with badass superpowers.

"And I'll do whatever it takes to make you realize that," he said more softly. Those words were much more successful at loosening the knot of negativity balled up inside me.

"Thank you, nii-san."

But it wasn't gone, not nearly. The next day, after school, Kazuhiro had departed once more, and I was left staring at my failed seal. There was absolutely nothing wrong with it, I was sure. I checked again, and again, and again. There was no situation in which it should have remained completely stagnant, without any physical indicators from the improperly connected stages.

Kazuhiro must have missed it. Some of the stage's effects were quite subtle, and he probably had a lot on his mind. I kept my eyes peeled for any irregularities as I activated the seal.

And everything went white.

- - - { ワナビー } - - -

AN: And so it begins. The very first of what I would call a crucial, plot-driving event. I've lured you all into complacency—I can tell from the comments. Now, get ready for the script to be flipped. Starting next chapter, the trajectory of this story will change completely. Stay tuned to see what I mean by that.

Some unrelated news. That Spider-Verse story I was talking about in the last author's note? I'm going to start posting it soon. I'm having a blast writing it, and I hope you'll enjoy reading it too.

Also, next week I'm going into surgery. Completely routine with low risks, but the recovery won't be pleasant. I've been trying get the next chapter (and everything else) done before that happens, but I'm not sure how productive I'll be afterward. Really gonna shoot for an upload at the same time next week, but this next chapter is a beast. I always try to post quality content, but this chapter needs to be especially great. If I can't get it to my standards in that headspace, it might come a couple days late.

Anyway, that's all for now! Hopefully, I'll see you next week.