Chapter one: Introduction
Kazama Hoshiko, that's who she is, right? You could ask her parents, her brother, and they'd tell you that she was Kazama Hoshiko, born on June 18 13:59 AM. They'd tell you she was a healthy if a bit quiet child, and maybe, if you're close enough, they'll tell you how dissecting her gaze looks, how intelligent, despite being a baby, the strange need to sleep all day, and the lack of baby babble.
They'd tell you that she was a strange child with stranger dreams.
It starts like this: She is born, confused and wailing like all other babies. She is born a normal healthy child, so why won't she stop crying? The baby wails and wails day in and day out. Her parents get concerned and take her to the hospital. There is nothing wrong with her, or so they think.
Later, she is diagnosed with separation anxiety. She cries and cries and clings to whatever is familiar. Time passes, and she calms down, to the relief of her parents, only to make them panic once more as they start noticing how quiet she is—too quiet for a toddler. She looks at things with wonder and confusion, as toddlers tend to do.
She pokes and prods, and anything that catches her fancy is always random. It can be anything from a simple chair to a kanji recently seen. Every time she gets an answer, she looks as if some great mystery has been solved. It is absolutely adorable.
She clings to her brother with fervor, a gaze of adoration and awe in her eyes. And when her brother announces that he wishes to be a shinobi? Well, of course, she follows in his footsteps (always following, always in their shadow).
She learns through instinct she didn't know she had—how to walk silently, better hand–eye–coordination, and the feel of the energy—chakra—in her body.
She was always aware of it, and though she didn't tell anyone, she had a suspicion that it hurt in the beginning before getting used to feeling so much. She isn't quite sure how she knows; she just does.
One more instinct that brings to question: who is she? She is Kazama Hoshiko, one who dreams of the fall of stars and the supernova that'll one day destroy all there is.
She is Kazama Hoshiko, a girl who can sense chakra way too well, someone who feels deja vu at the strangest of moments and adores her elder brother.
She is Kazama (the sound of wheels scrapping across the road) Hoshiko (she was dead the moment she stepped on the road) a girl ("a drunk driver hit a young girl–") born June 18 ("she died immediately upon impact) to Kazama (poor girl,) Akari (her parents must be devastated") and Kazama ("the father?) Asahi (he died a long time ago") younger sister to one Kazama ("the driver") Rikuto ("the one to Kill the girl was her brother")
She is six and learning how to do basic things (she is twenty-nine, a graduate from a no-name collage with the penchant to not talk a lot). Recess comes and goes; she isn't one for talking. She knows where she is: in another world, a fictional one that she'd thought to be, well, fictional.
It was evidently not, or this is just an elaborate ploy made up by her brain to try and give her an actual life. Which would be a bit weird, but who is she to dictate what the human brain can or cannot do? She isn't a doctor, nor is she a psychologist or really anything that has to do with the human brain.
She'll act as if this is reality. Does it really matter in the end? What could she possibly lose? (What if the only way to get out of here is to reject this reality? What if she has to die? Mother must be distraught.) She carefully, deliberately doesn't let her mind wander to the past. She has grieved, and now she needs to move on.
(But can you really move on when you've lost it all?) She'll deal with loss in this world too. (She doesn't understand why she's become a shinobi; she just has to.) She'll protect her own like she has always done. It was in her nature, after all.
Hoshiko walks out of the academy and goes to her older brother. They were only two years apart, and she adored him. He was different, sweeter than— they were so different it felt... nice.
She also knew the boy was antisocial, and she was always a bit territorial about her friendships and bonds. It was unfair to them, making them choose like that, and she'd always done her best to stamp it down. She was boring and tended not to talk a lot, so more often than not, people would leave, and she'd be left alone to wonder why.
Until she found that she just wasn't exciting. She didn't keep up with the same things everyone else did; she was different. In a bad way, one she desperately tried to change to fit in with others, but she just couldn't do it.
She couldn't hide by that charade of being so much like them. So, she reverted to being antisocial, answering only when spoken to and always, always being polite unless she knows she can get away with it.
Some passive-aggressive remarks there, some sarcasm here, and no one would be any the wiser. She didn't know if it was luck or if it was just how it was.
They weren't observant; they didn't overthink every action. Except... she couldn't enter their minds, nor could she read their body language that well, not before at least. Now, though, she's trying to learn, but it's hard. She isn't very good at motivating herself, and self-study was almost always a weak point for her.
Hoshiko knew that this could only be detrimental, that she needed to find something, anything to motivate her, but she found nothing.
But, she wanted to have something. She picked up former hobbies: knitting, writing, and martial arts. Now, she'll have to use those martial arts in real combat situations.
It felt scary to even think about it. It was hard for her to grasp the magnitude of the idea that she might just die here, that it would all be for naught.
But what would be for naught? Wouldn't she not need to lose everything if she had nothing at all? No, those types of thoughts only drive you to an early grave or depression. But she has some confirmation now, and maybe, just maybe, she won't have to remember the next time around...
They round the corner to their home, and she looks at her brother—so happy, so very kind, and too innocent—and thinks, "This man, this boy is going to be a shinobi, is going to kill and steal and murder all for a corrupt village. But... everyone here isn't corrupt, are they? We could." She could try to pull a Gojo and overthrow the government one student, one generation at a time. She just needed power.
And this, this was something that could motivate her, something that could push her to greater lengths. The corruption and cycle of hatred are long overdue for a reckoning because even if the village was being led by Naruto, it doesn't mean he had solved all conflicts and corruption.
Maybe, just maybe, she could change things, make a difference. She walks into the house and stares at her parents—the ones she had intended to leave behind—and found her resolve strengthening. She breathed in and out.
Hoshiko let the pen scratch paper as she put as much information onto these notebooks as she could. What does she remember? What does she not? How long in the timeline are they? The last one is an easy question to answer; she was, after all, in the same class as Naruto.
She hasn't taken over the place anyone of plot importance yet, at least. She isn't too sure what she wants to do. It would be hard to change things if she was in the genin corps, but she couldn't just break up a canon team, right? Plus, what team could she possibly control? There are too many clan children, important people, to really do anything.
Except... except there is one civilian kid there, one that passed due to intelligence, and the girl was put in a team that was impossible to fail. Hoshiko just had to be the number one Kunoichi... but does she really want to do this? To take the place of someone who would've been so brilliant if she didn't, when she cannot guarantee that she will too...
Hoshiko feels shame build in her chest to try and take her place, to take the girl's spot. Sakura deserved better than that... but how else would she reliably change the plot? So many things happen that revolve around team seven, so many things happen, and so many things don't.
Joining team seven... that will only leave her in danger again and again and again. But didn't she resolve to change the plot? To fix what was wrong? How could she do that if she didn't have comrades, people she knows aren't into the corruption? She knows the future; the characters do not know her nor do they know her conviction... She sleeps on it.
Waking up was a struggle; there was no need to wake other than not wanting to hear the disappointments and the angry look of her mother. But now, she had a direction, a goal to strive for, so she wakes up bright and early to make a change, to fix that which has been broken, to save those who needed saving— that was her goal now.
She couldn't save everyone; she was far too long into the future for that (saving everyone is an impossible task). She can't be at multiple places at once; she cannot save everyone, but she can try to make things easier. She doesn't want these characters, these people, to be dead in a ditch— Asuma, Neji, Haku, Zabuza, Jiraiya, and maybe even Obito. The Uchiha was dead now, and she isn't too sure how everyone would feel if she brought in one, but she can try; at least she'll always try.
The Uchiha was dead. It's very likely that she has taken one of their spots in the class. She was used to being lucky, which was clearly evident in how she was on the side of the class rankings. She used to be at the top in her old school. It wasn't pretty, she wasn't very well known, nor did they live a life of luxury, but they weren't poor. She was born in a country with a pretty strong middle class, and while Hoshiko didn't quite like the stereotypes, it was hard not to notice how most of the good ones were Asians, though that may have been a motivation thing.
Nothing is scarier than an angry Asian mother. Yes, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but a mother was so much more vicious when Hoshiko failed. It wasn't even painful; it was just that she didn't take disappointing others well. She didn't like the burn of embarrassment after a failure, the knowing that what you had done and said was ridiculous.
Hoshiko didn't want to think anymore about those she's lost; she will not see them again; she will never see them again. She breathed in before starting to make breakfast and getting ready for some running, stretching— anything to start the body moving.
She jogs at a steady pace. She has done her stretches and a run around the place; it was nice. She left a note at home for her family to look at; they wonder where she is. Hoshiko does her whole running routine and settles down for a few moments before going to shower. She was physically weaker than all of her classmates, and that was to be expected. She was going to drop out until recently; it was even expected of her at some point.
But she needed to build muscle fast, and there's something more to it. She had noticed it long ago, but her classmates are using their chakra. It seems so strange; aren't they, at the very least, wary of it? The civilians, at least, are, right? That's what she thought, at least.
They are unconsciously using it to bolster themselves. What exactly it does, she is still wondering, but so far, she is pretty certain that it's helping in their speed and stamina. Maybe even the other physical factors of the body. They may also help with pain resistance; the Narutoverse had some pretty interesting wounds.
Either way, she is still slightly wary of using chakra. It's a foreign energy in her body, one that she is constantly aware of. The rushing and swishing of her chakra feel weird; she sees stars falling, dimming, and she doesn't know if these impressions are somehow related to a person or not, and if they are, then in what way?
Her first thought was chakra natures; it was common in fanfictions, though she hasn't seen any sensors other than maybe that one blind guy in the Chunin exams (or was he from a FanFiction?). He'd have to have some sort of ability to let him see with the blindfold. Hoshiko breathes in the feeling of chakra nature power thrums through her, reaching her lungs. She holds her breath as if this was somehow effective, helping (it was not), and she breathes out.
She moves it, lets it stream around slightly. She pokes and prods and just hopes that nothing happens. She isn't too sure how to explain that one. Maybe they'd call her dumb, maybe worse. The idea makes her queasy, so she stops thinking about that and instead thinks about how to go about strengthening her body like her classmates do.
She brings it to her arms, spreading the energy across the whole appendage, and... nothing. "This..." she started, "may be a bit harder than I'd originally thought." A quiet sigh escapes her mouth as she redoubles her efforts into strength, speed, endurance to bring this thing that the others do to life. She can't be different; she can't stand out, but she has to. She will stand out in team seven because that team... is ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous.