A/N at bottom

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Warnings: T for swearing and violence

Reviewer replies:

lizyeh2000: True dat!

MadameGuillotineTheSeraph: Troll them all, she will X)

JimmyHall: *stuffs non-existent notes into closet* No spoilers!

JigokuShoujosRevenge: Thanks! hopefully there will be more makes to come!

Apocalypsebutterfly: Try reading crack at midnight, or during lunch while drinking something, it's worse.

Thanks for reviewing!

BTW: This chapter Might be a bit heavier/darker?

Chapter 7 Nomads and Ninjas

It's been two weeks since the hatching of my dear little otouto (and doesn't him being Orochimaru take things into perspective?) and therefore two months since a paradigm shift decided to drop me on my head and squeeze out the remaining brain cells that I have. To top it off, it's basically also two months since I've been stuck in denial (sort of).

Ignoring how my little brother could grow up into a mass-murdering traitor that experimented on (and killed) children, he would grow up to be one of the strongest shinobis in this world of killers.

No matter how much he'll be respected, or feared, or even that he eventually created a village (a home) for multitudes of others, no matter how he'll become revered as a Sannin, a ninja that rose to fame alongside the granddaughter of the Shodai Hokage and the Toad Sage.

It doesn't even matter that he'll be the first (mostly) human to achieve immortality, a feat that a fellow snake-faced man from a world of magic died trying to attain. (Granted, you either achieve immortality or die trying, but, details can be ignored.)

Either way, my newly-hatched sibling will be one of the few to go down in ninja history, and become one of the even fewer that can write their own.

As his older sister, that's not something I wanted for him. Writing one's history is fun and all, but being branded as a traitor, having his world shattered over and over and over again by those closest to him is not needed.

In this world of backstabbing and ninjas and chakra and war, it doesn't matter what Kishimoto drew (created) but as much as he portrayed this world as a place where friendships and bonds and family (and isn't that ironic?) triumphs above all, it is not. This is a world where four-year old Kakashi (an orphan) became a genin (a killer a murderer a weapon), where an entire nation was destroyed in a war, both physically erased (and erased from the memories of the people), where children were shunned for the burdens they bore (when they were holding back earth-shattering demons with cages of flesh and blood and lines of ink).

This is the legacy of the Elemental Nations, and my clan will not be one of the ones that survive.

I should've known the second that I realized that Manda is the violet behemoth Manda, favoured summon of Orochimaru, the Snake Sannin, I should've known after looking in the mirror and in the faces of all the Kinmes that srrounded me, saw the markings and realized, oh, should've realized that the map can't lie, and that the island that our clan migrates to at the beginning

of the season of falling leaves is Uzu-bloody-shio, with all their Uzumaki and fuinjutsu and hair redder than blood.

Now that all the signs (and my little bro who's smacking my face with a drool smeared hand) propels my thoughts in such a direction, I can only think the same thing that has been rocketing through my brain for the past two weeks.

Fuckin' crap-buckets, I'm in a world of magic ninja bullshit.

Presently being almost the middle of November, our clan was well on its long trek back to Suna from the Island of Uzushio, with occasional stops between here and there, some small, some large, and some… just a random clearing in the middle of a rainforest that can fit our clan. Our present location put us on a merchant path in the jungle in the direction of the mining town of Katabami, having left the artisan village, Takumi village, a day ago. Personally, Uzushio and Takumi village are the two favourite stops that our clan makes, everywhere else had climate that irritated my skin, or was either too hot, or too cold. Suna was fine during the winter, if you ignored the fact that the nights are freezing, there's barely any water, and oh kami how could sand get into places that don't exist?

Anyways, now with eyes open larger then before, little details that used to make no sense became crystal clear. Such as the fact that half the time we travel by snake-back, the other half by foot, and both of them just that much faster than a normal human's speed walking. Even though some of our clansmen had to pull along a couple wagons since horses and our snakes don't mix. At all. This, I speak from personal experience.

(Manda may have "accidentally" scared a poor traveler's horse shit-less somewhere in Rice country. I don't get how, he was just smiling? I think?)

Speaking of the giant venomous python/boa serpent, he was slithering on the well-sorn merchant's trail beside my kaa-san and I, while tou-chan was somewhere in the Snake's realm. He was reverse summoned there by the snakes using a vial of his blood kept in the summoning realm especially for that purpose, while standing in an intricate seal that our ancestors had haggled off of the fox summons. All of us had some blood stored there apparently (so getting poked with needles nowadays is normal), even if we can only get through via a combination of the blood, chakra of the summoned, and the aforementioned seal. For now though, it's so that little Orochi who needed to be able to crawl before being allowed out into our world could have some company other than the scale-clad partners of our clan.

On the topic of the dreaded needles, I've become long since accustomed to them. Our status as a nomad clan means that we would have to travel through a myriad of terrains, and meet a hell lot of people with different immunities. Hence, our resident poison masters*cough* did I say poison? I mean medically-inclined researchers, would identify, dissect, and immunize all diseases that we haven't yet come into contact with. If H1N1 was horrifying, try scale rot, or a chakra-bullshit version of whooping cough. Not fun, not fun at all.

Then somehow, it all equals locals missing a few pints of blood but somehow gaining some new tech. Hmm, I wonder.

Back to the present, these days, I just sort of stumble along holding my kaa-chan's hand, and try to keep up with the line of Kinmes. Dōsukēru, the lucky thing, got to ride on my shoulders, because the foliage "prevents her from following at a decent speed". That's bull, I've seen her escape faster than me when Manda's threatening to eat us. In the middle of Fire country.

Anyhow, at the head of the line was our clan head with her long, pale-green flying boa trailing in the air behind her. According to tou-san's stories, our esteemed Hebi-hime was so old that no one remembers her name, or those of her partner. I think it's because she had a parent that had a snake partner with no naming sense. Sort of like my drunk dad. Then to match, her partner is dubbed the Ryuujin, the dragon king. At least he flies?

The point is, over a quarter of the year our clan is on the move, a long line of humans, snakes, and wagons. To sometimes hide our identities when passing through non-Kinme friendly territory, kaa-san would paint my face, and hers and tou-san's with make-up to obscure our pale skin and clan markings. All of the serpents would hide under the swishy folds of our kimono, where they could choose to poke their heads out from within the sleeves if they wished.

The first time I was stuffed into a traveling kimono for hiding purposes, I nearly squealed when Dōsukēru moved under the fabric. Granted there was a shirt/tunic thing, but by kamis it tickled! But tickleness aside, it was worth it, seeing our entire clan with skin tones of varying colours instead of the unnatural whiteness we were known for. If it wasn't for the scattered handful of non-Kinme members that married into our clan, I wouldn't have known that "normal" humans with "normal" skin tones and temperatures existed until I was allowed to walk into towns.

That said, I'm rather proud of my clan for being logical ninjas that realized the risks of inbreeding, unlike some of the other clans present in this world, or at least not to the same extent. Pretty sure my parents would've told me if I had any other living relatives other than my rather… destructive katon-loving aunt. And her son. Not to mention their partners. You know what? Never mind.

Usually, we can make it to our next stop within three days on foot, considering the vast amounts of possible places that our clan can root down on, but this time we were delayed due to a torrential downpour a day's journey away from Takumi village. So camping out in the abnormally tall trees during night-time we go.

Flickers of light and bickering throughout the dark canopy accompanied the activation of barriers while faint flutters of chakra (little pinpricks that light up and die out like pissed off fireflies) revealed four-cornered hammocks. Off to the side somewhere, I could faintly hear my aunt yelling that the rain could piss off and destroy someone else's hair style.

"And up you go." Kaa-chan grunted, hefting me up from under my armpits before chucking Dōsukēru and I somehow up to my tou-chan's waiting arms in the hammock, despite me not even knowing he was back. Depending on if she was in a show-off mood or not, my kaa-chan would sometimes choose to use her chakra strings and weave me a net that would be pulled up to our hammock. A second after tou-chan settled me down on his lap, our hammock bounced again as kaa-chan hopped over five meters up to sit on the three by three meter piece of cloth. How chakra can get humans to break physics, I will never know.

"When did tou-chan get back?"

I didn't even notice the man reappearing.

"Your lazy tou-chan," here my kaa-chan reached over and pinched the man in question, eliciting a feigned wince, "came back a minute ago, just after your poor kaa-chan finished preparing our stay for the night."

Well, at least that's one question answered.

I couldn't see that well in the dark canopy yet, but my senses told me that a multitude of chakra was hanging around in the trees with us, like giant humanoid lanterns. Then with another burst, these chakras would become muted, as if they were blocked from my senses, barely there, but sensible like an afterimage out of the corner of your eye.

Speaking of, Manda reached over with his tail and flicked out a seal from the violet-rimmed eyed woman, before pulsing chakra into it that muffled off even more of the outside world.

That said, I couldn't even sense that far before, only a seven meter radius sphere or so. From this it can be deduced that our entire clan is rather squashed in this copse of trees. Sticking together I suppose? And all the barrier spheres do help keep the rain out, not to mention allow us who don't want to get wet travel to another hanging piece of cloth.

You know what? My clan is batshit insane, and so are the Uzumakis for trading seals and tech with us.

That however, didn't deter me from falling asleep sandwiched between my parents and two snakes, lulled to dreamland by the soothing waves of chakra emitted by clan and the barely audible sound of rain peppering the barrier.

Unfortunately, that was not to be, as eight hours and a barely rising sun later, a scream of pain and fury ripped through the treetops.

Groggy, I barely noticed when the sounds of clashing metal started to ring through the trees, and with the rain pelting us like a good Atlantic hurricane, all attempts of trying to discover the source were deterred. Not like leaning over a hammock five meters up would be very good for my health anyway.

Only a couple seconds later did I realize that kaa-chan and Manda were missing, and that my scientific tou-chan was clenching long steel needles of up to five inches long in a white-knuckled grip, his entire body hunched over my crouching form like an overprotective mama hawk. Even if outside sound was muffled, sounds of combat still filtered in through the barrier, unmistakable like screams of pain and thunderous impacts against the ground and surrounding vegetation.

Dōsukēru's scales bristled which tickled my neck, and her normally somewhat slitted pupils became nothing but a sea of black, almost her entire iris enveloped by the pupil that should have played the covering role. Then I noticed that her tail was twitching, almost vibrating against my bare bicep. After a particularly loud screech, she turned her dilated pupils on me in concern, (why? Summons and ninken are the ones that are killed, humans are the ones that become prisoners, but living prisoners, not dead ones), I noticed that my hands were quivering. Only the warmth of my dad's chest against my back and his chakra, curling around me like a protective boa, prevented me from full out hyperventilating. Because my dear, dear kaa-chan is a katon user with a secondary, but barely there, wind affinity. Tou-chan was the one that could make water dance to his call, but my kaa-chan, my mother, lacks one of her strongest weapons against the unknown enemy, in a world of ninjas, because of a damned rainstorm.

Maybe that's why I was so desperate that I forgot that I'm useless (a teen in a toddler's body), and that my nerdy dad never showed any combat abilities aside from escaping from Manda and occasionally fending off flying scrolls, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

"Go help kaa-chan! She can't fight in the rain!" Perhaps yelling at the person whose ears were literally above my head wasn't a wise idea, but, stress.

"She's strong and can defend herself, even if she doesn't have fire," but his hands were shaking and how long has it been since he might've last seen a battlefield?

"Manda not good in rainforest, we all in trees!"

He shot me a startled glance, gold rimmed eyes asking many questions, many of which probably to do with my sudden intelligence.

"Dunno who enemy is, how will kaa-chan find their weakness without tou-chan's help?" Because for so many missions my parents collaborated, with dad mapping out routes and planning attacks or defenses that can bring kaa-chan home the fastest and safest. I used to think that my parents just liked strategy games, but how wrong I once was.

The resolve in those golden orbs wavered, just one more push…

"Orochi will also want to have and know a kaa-chan too!" Low blow, but it worked.

His breathing hitched–just a bare blink-and-you-miss moment–and then he was gone like a drizzle on a summer day, off to find and aid the most important woman in our lives (this life).

I shivered again, this time from the sudden lack of heat. Despair settled over me when I realized that I sent my only protection away, when I possibly sent my dad to his death, when I had possibly triggered the event that orphaned Orochimaru.

Dear Kami, and Shinigami, If your shitty faces are up or down there somewhere, please, please let them come back to home…

As if mocking me, the storm raged on.

AN: I apologize for the somewhat late chapter (whoops?) But high school (grade 12) just started again and our coordinators are idiots that can't do their jobs correctly. As such, the update date will probably be changed to twice a month, the 15th and the last day, (excluding this 15 because this is coming out now)hopefully they will be more on time this way.

Thanks to all the favourites and follows, and also the reviews! As usual, if there are errors or inconsistencies, point them out and I will fix them.

Thanks for reading! Reviews are Love and Motivation!

~Cadriona Morningwing

Uploaded: September 11, 2016