Thank you to everyone who left their thoughts about the idea, like I said I know this story isn't for everyone and it isn't really built that way either but I appreciate the honesty either way. I still don't know how far I'll take this but it's a fun change of pace for the moment so we'll see. Either way, I hope you enjoy this second helping of Hebi-hime and that you'll continue to leave your feedback for me.
...
She was right to think the Academy would be an utter waste of her time.
She had thought that just gritting her teeth and throwing herself into the work would have been enough to at least distract her from the simplicity of it all but that had not turned out to be the case for very long. The problem was it was all too easy, there was no challenge, no push to think critically! Two months of the same tired questions like "Who were the founders of the village?" or, "What are the major hidden villages called?" or, "What was the first Hokage known for?".
She understood that they had to start somewhere but at this pace, she was almost certainly doomed to die of boredom before the halfway point. She had even begun debating skipping classes just out of spite for it all but that spit in the face of her promise to surpass Orochi and she couldn't rightly claim that if she flunked out for poor attendance of all things.
Thankfully, there was an upside to knowing all the material in advance and it was that she had no need to pay attention in class ever. She knew all the answers anyway so why would she waste her time? Instead, she'd taken to bringing her own study material with her and pouring over those while Iruka talked the class into a semi-lucid coma with hours of history.
Speaking of the man the two of them were still not on the best of terms to put it gently.
If he didn't like her before then he surely hated her by now. He routinely called her out for not paying attention to his instructions, reading in during lectures, "back talk", and any other grievance he could air out for her seemingly lackadaisical approach to learning. All of which was true to some extent given that she couldn't care less about relearning the history of the village that she already knew but it annoyed her nonetheless.
Still, her grades were perfect and conduct was only really a footnote so there was only so much he could say on the matter since she wasn't failing or falling behind. As of now they were more on a live and let live basis but she was sure he'd find something to complain about again eventually.
Returning to the topic of her studies, however, left her absolutely giddy. Without being able to delve into the realm of ninjutsu as deeply as she wanted, she was sadly not able to continue her walk in Orochimaru's footsteps meaning that she had to take her own initiative and find some other areas of study. This had inadvertently led her to the current two topics that now enthralled her.
The first was actually Iryō Ninjutsu or medical jutsu to the layman, where a person used their chakra to heal others. At first, she had discarded the practice since what use was there in learning how to heal others when most would probably choose to die over trusting her with their lives? It would just be a waste of time… at least that's what she'd thought initially until she had delved a little deeper and realized that medical jutsu didn't inherently mean that she had to be some kind of healer.
Medical ninjutsu were designed at their core to stimulate the body in different ways from what she'd read, mostly positive ways for sure such as increasing the production of red blood cells, hastening the clotting process, and overall just speeding up the bodies natural recovery systems but based on her research there was no reason it couldn't do the opposite. The more she looked into it the greater the application became such as the ability to stop a person's heart, rupture internal organs, scramble a person's nervous system, and cut off motor functions! Every opponent no matter how strong was still beholden to their body and its needs. If she could turn that against them they would be at her mercy.
Needlessly to say she had checked out more than a few books on the human body and its functions over the past few weeks. She'd also taken a passing interest in poisons but left that to the wayside for now, there was only so much time in a day and she still had other facets of her training to pay attention to.
Her second area of study, however, was where her true passion was.
Fuinjutsu.
The sealing arts were a treasure trove of untapped potential being held hostage by nothing more than a brush, some ink, and all the dangers that came with the infinite number of possibilities at the user's disposal. She had immediately been grabbed by the understanding that through seals she could arguably do anything she wanted, from simply storing objects away in scrolls to creating electricity and fire at the snap of her fingers or even altering gravity! Nothing was off-limits with the power of seals!
Well, other than the fuinjutsu section of the library that is…
The wind in her sails had died rather abruptly when she learned she wouldn't be able to access most of the material on seals until she was at minimum a fourth-year student and only if she received special permission from either an approved instructor or the acting Kage on top of that. Neither of which looked to be in the cards at the moment. The only saving grace was that she could still practice calligraphy at her leisure, something she would need to master if she ever even wanted to attempt delving into sealing. A single trip to a nearby supply store had provided her with enough ink and brushes to last her a few weeks and so she'd gotten to work slowly and painstakingly building up her penmanship.
She did hope that this would lay the proper groundwork for more engaging pursuits in the coming future but she supposed that anything worth learning had its boring elements as well and it wasn't like she had anything else to do.
…
"Hmmm, better but still not perfect." She sighed as she compared her writing to the example provided by her calligraphy notes, at least she was making some progress but the cramping in her hand was less than pleasant. At least during these breaks between classes, she could enjoy being outside while she worked, the fresh air helped keep her focused even if the shouting from the other children was not exactly helpful.
"Hey, freak!" A shrill voice shouted.
"I still need to work on my curves though, they are still too shaky." She clicked her teeth in annoyance as she inspected her latest work, it was hard to keep a steady hand without slowing down too much and using excessive amounts of ink but she was going to master this one way or another.
"Oi, we're talking to you!" The same voice shouted again, this time much louder.
"Could you please be quiet, I am trying to work here." She frowned, finally looking up from her paper and locking eyes with the group of girls that had interrupted her session. "Whatever it is you three want I don't have time for it so why don't you go bother someone else." She huffed waving the trio off like they were stray dogs in her path.
"Pay attention when we're talking to you and who do you think you are telling us what to do?!" The leader of the group glared at her and Natsumi quietly sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose as she was once again interrupted by their yelling. All she wanted was some peace to work with, she even went out of her way to pick the most isolated part of the yard just to make sure she wouldn't be bothered. She turned her eyes to the girl nearest to her, a brutish youth with uneven dark purple hair that stretched down to her neck. Ami, that was the girl's name she believed. A civilian born girl with a mean streak a mile long, likely compensating for her less than stellar grades.
A classic bully and nothing more.
"My name is Natsumi Uzumaki, something you would know if you bothered to pay attention to anything, Ami." She leveled the girl with a deadpan stare that conveyed her growing annoyance with the girl. "Now do you actually need something and if not then can you go away?"
Ami ground her teeth. "Shut it freak, I'll call you whatever I want!" She countered taking a bold step forward. "We want to play here so you need to get up and leave." She demanded, causing Natsumi to narrow her eyes at the command.
"I was here first so no I will not. If you'd like to play then you should go somewhere else." She was not going to move just because no one else liked the girl enough to play with her. "And don't call me that." She added, she had a name for a reason.
Ami snorted and took another step forward now entering the threshold of her personal space, Ami was a few inches taller than her and her rather petite frame did little to make her seem intimidating in comparison, but she eyed the purple-haired girl with a bored expression that showed she was not intimidated by the difference in their sizes.
"Oh yeah and what if I make you leave? What are you going to do about it, freak." Ami taunted emphasizing the word with a challenging pitch that told her exactly how Ami would move her.
She took a breath and closed her notebook. "You are free to try, but if you touch me you won't enjoy what happens to you." Her glare shifted from bored to outright chilling in an instant, cold eyes unfit for a child her age setting the trio of girls on edge with the abrupt shift. A moment of hesitation.
Still, Ami hadn't earned her reputation without taking a few bumps along the way and as long as she had her crew with her she wasn't going to let this lonely little bookworm intimidate her!
"O-Oh yeah, what are you going to do huh? Tell your parents, oh wait you can't!" She bit back cruelly trying to regain her control of the situation by taking potshots at her status as an orphan. Her biting laughter drawing slightly uncomfortable chuckles from her lackeys who flinched a bit at the insensitivity of their friend's comments but not wanting to seem unsupportive felt they still needed to back her up.
Maybe had they caught the sudden flash of fury in the eyes of their target they would have reconsidered their stance...
Ami's laughter switched to a pained yelp as Natsumi's fist smashed into her throat faster than she could process. All the air she thought she owned suddenly left her in a single moment as she was sent to her knees and her hands moved instinctually to her now throbbing neck, the sudden lack of air forcing fat, wet tears out her eyes as she began to cough violently in a series of choking hacks and gasps.
Natsumi stared blankly at the wheezing girl with not a shred of mercy or compassion as she sized the now kneeling girl by her stupid, ugly hair and pulled her head up. Ami's tearful gaze seemed all the more irritating to her now, where had that earlier bravado gone? Where was the girl who took pleasure in the suffering of a little orphan girl? Downed by a single hit.
She suddenly seemed so...small.
Ami's lackeys could only watch in shock and fear as their leader was pulled around by the class bookworm. They thought of jumping to her rescue but the frigid glare sent their way halted them in their tracks, something deep and primal within them demanding they not so much as breathe at the moment and so like the powerless bystanders they were, merely watched in silence.
"I'm going to keep this very simple because I know you aren't very bright, Ami." She tightened her grip on Ami's hair causing the girl to shriek but her screams were drowned out by the sounds of other children's' laughter and shouting, her terror mixing in with their jubilation masking her situation. "If you ever say that to me again or even mention my parents like that to me again, I will personally feed you your own teeth. Do you understand me?" She hissed.
Ami's only response was an incoherent sob of pain and so she tugged at her hair again, snapping her out of her fear-induced shock.
"I said, do you understand me?" She asked again this time much more forcefully.
Ami nodded through her tears, well nodded as best she could given the iron tight grip on her hair.
"Good, now get out of my sight." She scoffed and threw the now trembling bully away from her watching the trio scramble away like rats in the light with tears in their eyes as they ran to the main building for cover. Even with her victory, her mood was still soured by the exchange and the slight thrill she felt at seeing Ami on her knees before her didn't do much to soothe her anger.
Needless to say, her lack of parents was a touchy subject and she wasn't in the mood to practice her calligraphy anymore…
...
Another month had passed with little change to her routine. The incident with Ami, to her surprise, had gone unreported and the girl now gave her a wide berth whenever possible completely ignoring her existence when she could. That was fine with her though since she didn't much care for the girl either and she wasn't going to go out of her way to deal with her unless she ran her mouth off again.
The line in the sand had been drawn and so far Ami was steering well clear of it.
Her time at the Academy was still proving to be less than ideal but that was all about to change. Today was going to mark the first day of taijutsu practice and she was eager to begin the lesson if only to catch a break from the mind-numbing amount of repetitive information she was forced to relearn.
They had done about three weeks of physical conditioning under the watchful eye of the instructors to ensure everyone would at the very least be up to a reasonable standard of physical fitness. It paled in comparison to her routine, but having seen the state of some of her peers at the end of the first day she agreed it was needed.
With everyone caught up, they would be having practice matches to get a gauge on how well they would do in a fight. Of course, it was all supervised closely so no one was in any serious danger and Iruka was right there to break up any fights that began to get out of hand.
Right now she was watching a match between Shino and Choji and she had to admit that she wasn't very impressed with the Akimichi heir. He was too gentle, he spent most of his time trying to deflect or dodge Shino's attacks which given his size and Shino's speed was proving difficult for the rotund boy. Even though he was likely physically stronger than Shino was he made no use of his advantage. In the end, Shino pretty much bullied the heavier boy to the edge of the ring before winning his match with a simple shove that sent Choji tumbling out onto the dirt in a tired heap scoring him the win.
The other matches we all equally one-sided as well.
Kiba had blitzed his opponent with his clan's natural speed and ferocity ending his fight in only a couple of hits before the match was called when Iruka realized that there was no use in prolonging the match any longer. Even without access to his clan techniques, it was clear that the Inuzuka was going to be a terror in close range combat as he grew and she made a mental note to watch him closely in the future for any potential weaknesses should they be paired up.
Ino and Sakura had been paired up together and she had barely bothered to watch their fight, Ino seemed slightly reluctant to fight her friend but in the end, she had managed to push Sakura out of bounds earning herself the win. While Ino wasn't a taijutsu expert by any means, she was still a clan child and as such had received slightly more training than her civilian born friend which made all the difference.
Shikamaru's fight had been interesting to watch if only because of how he'd handled it. He won not through superior skill or quick reflexes but rather with a simple maneuver, baiting his opponent into charging in like a reckless bull and then allowing him to run out of bounds on his own. Iruka had scolded him for that, marking it a win begrudgingly but informed him that next time he would have to fight or it would count as a hit to his grade.
Hinata's fight was more amusing to her than anything. There was a weird sense of passive enjoyment to be had watching someone so timid and frail still utterly destroy their opponent while looking apologetic the entire time. It may have helped that her opponent was Ami and she enjoyed the knowledge that the girl's reputation and possibly self-confidence were in tatters by this point having lost to both herself and the shy little Hyuga.
The rest of the fights had been little more than glorified playground scuffles with nothing of real note.
"Sasuke, your opponent will be Natsumi!" Iruka called drawing the eyes of the entire class to ring. There was a surge of eagerness that went through the crowd as the prince of the Academy was called to fight the recluse and there were quite a few who were looking forward to seeing the result.
She spared their stares no thought as she walked into the ring where her opponent was already waiting for her. She didn't have any strong feelings for or against the Uchiha if she was being honest. He was a nice boy overall well behaved, very popular among the girls, respected by the boys, and overall quite intelligent falling just a few places behind her in academics. That said the two had never so much as spoken a word to one another before so she couldn't claim to know him very well other than what she'd observed of him in class.
Sasuke, however, did not appear to share her hesitation at their lack of communication and greeted her like he would anyone else. "Let's have a good match." He said flashing her a friendly smile and she was momentarily taken aback by this. She had expected some of the usual boasting or taunting that she'd seen in the other matches but she still nodded nonetheless.
"Agreed." She answered, bowing her head ever so slightly in respect.
Seeing the two were ready Iruka nodded and gave the signal to begin with the drop of his hand and a sharp whistle starting the match.
Sasuke began by immediately charging at her head-on likely thinking that he held the advantage over her in speed and power given his own limited clan training and possibly because she had purposely held back during their conditioning not wanting to reveal the extent of her ability just yet. While his speed was still higher than most of their class, in her eyes he was still quite slow.
Waiting until he was almost on top of her to, she leaned easily out of the way of his first punch before driving her elbow up into the joint of his arm bending it and send a wave of discomfort through his arm before lashing out with a hard palm thrust to his chest that sent him tumbling back onto the ground away from her. Her current studies of the human body had made her more conscious of its weak points and how to abuse them if needed.
She maintained her passive expression while she waited for him to get up. While she could have capitalized on her advantage and pin him now, she wanted to see what he was capable of and if he would be a rival to her or if he just happened to be slightly more talented than average.
He got up slowly, rubbing his now sore arm as he did so and she could see a newfound caution in his eyes when he looked at her, no longer did he seem as sure of himself as he had in his first charge. That was good, it meant that he would take her more seriously now.
She waited to see if he would rush her again but he did not and so she took it to mean that he was waiting for her to make the first move this time.
She rushed him using a bit more speed than he had to test his reaction time and she smirked internally when he managed to not only keep up but also block the kick she'd aimed for his torso though he didn't seem to expect the amount of force behind it judging by the wince she caught as her leg crashed into his arm. Her size was annoyingly enough one of her greatest assets, being rather small even for her age tended to make people underestimate her.
She was on him again in an instant. She may have lacked a proper taijutsu style but she more than made up for it with greater speed and near-perfect technique, raining blows down on him while he did his best to block her attacks. It became quite apparent that she was faster and far more nimble than he was and so despite his efforts, he couldn't stop every attack. The more hits she landed the sloppier his rebuttals became, he was panicking now.
Before his punches had been almost textbook but now, as she drove him to the edge of the arena he began to forgo precision in favor of wild frustrated swings, putting all his power and faith into landing a lucky hit that would maybe turn the tide but he kept overextending leaving her more than enough room to punish him.
She was fairly sure this was all he had to give and would admit that she was slightly disappointed but also not exactly surprised. None of them were masters of anything other than flailing around and this was the first time most of them had ever even been in a fight so she supposed it wasn't really fair of her to be so harsh.
Feeling confident that she had seen everything he had to show her she decided to end the fight now. Sliding her foot into his guard, she used his own weight to trip him and pulled out another palm thrust to push him out of the ring, securing her victory and satisfying her curiosity. He was not a threat to her at the moment but she couldn't relax too much. He was still young and clearly talented. She estimated right now that in pure hand to hand her only real concerns for the future were him, Kiba, and possibly Hinata if she ever managed to grow a spine.
Not exactly a long list.
"Winner, Natsumi!" Iruka called the match and she allowed a small smile to break through her mask of indifference for a brief moment. It still felt good to win after all especially when she didn't doubt there were quite a few people expecting her to lose. Seeing that Uchiha still laying on his back in a daze she decided to take pity on him and help him, offering a hand to the downed boy who took it after a moment allowing her to help him to his feet.
"You weren't bad, I enjoyed our match." She praised seeing no reason to gloat as she had enjoyed the fight even if it was stacked in her favor. "I look forward to sparring with you again."
Sasuke seemed surprised to hear that from her momentarily fumbling to find the right words before he caught himself, a slight dusting of red appearing on his cheeks at both having lost and her praise but she noted that he didn't appear bitter about it but rather determined.
"Thanks, you're really strong for a girl." He praised her though she didn't know if she was supposed to be flattered or insulted by that statement. "But next time I'm going to win so you better watch out!" He promised, sending her a challenging smirk and she scoffed at the thought turning her head in refusal of such an idea.
"That's not going to happen but you are free to think that." She shot back dismissively but the slight quirking of her lips revealed her own anticipation for their next bout, she thought it safe to say that he might very well end up as a decent rival after all.
"Hmph! You'll see!" He pushed back.
"Alright you two that's enough, get back to your spots so we can finish the rest of the matches." Iruka interrupted their little moment and they quickly nodded and returned to their places though not before sending each other one last passing before they separated and went their own ways.
…
The rest of the fights had concluded without much ceremony and after a few parting words Iruka released them. They would be beginning the first stances to the academy taijutsu style on Monday meaning they would finally start the road to be more than little urchin brawlers, a prospect that greatly appealed to her. Strength was all well and good but without proper technique, it would only amount to wasted potential.
"Natsumi would you hold on a moment, I'd like to speak with you before you leave."
She paused in her packing, her notes hanging from her hand as Iruka gestured for her to come down to his desk. The few students who hadn't yet rushed out the door stopped and began whispering among themselves likely conjuring outlandish ideas about why the chunin was calling her down. Of course, they didn't stay long enough to see why likely assuming she was being punished for something.
Granted she couldn't rule that out just yet…
She cursed under her breath and finished packing her things before making her way down to his desk. "Yes Iruka-sensei, is something wrong?" She asked. She wouldn't give anything away until she knew what he wanted from her.
"Other than you still aren't paying attention to my lectures, no." He gave a long look at that but she didn't flinch which he had expected. "I just wanted to talk to you about your performance today, you did very well." He praised sincerely and while on the outside she did little more than raise a brow in surprise on the inside she'd been thrown for a loop
This was... new. Iruka had never downplayed her achievements but at the same time, he'd never gone out of his way to praise her as he did with some of the other students so to hear that from him made her equal parts pleased and suspicious.
"Thank you Sensei." She bowed at his words and he nodded.
"You're welcome, I also wanted to ask if you had received any prior training." He asked and her eyes narrowed ever so slightly at the question. It was harmless enough but he'd never asked her that before when it came to the academic side of her progress.
"No sir, I do my own training on my own time but I don't have a teacher." That was technically the truth in a sense. She didn't have anyone physically teaching her anything and all that she knew had come from hours spent working her body and her mind. "Why?"
"No reason, you just have a very distinct style and your moves were nearly perfect that I thought maybe you were receiving instruction outside of class." He explained. "That was all I wanted to speak with you, you are free to go. I will see you on Monday."
"I see, I will see you on Monday then. Take care, Sensei." She turned and left without another word leaving the chunin to watch her go, a conflicted look crossing his face for a brief moment the second she was out of sight before he shook his head and began to pack his things.
He didn't know how to feel about her… on one hand, she was his student and he had an obligation to be fair to her and provide the same level of instruction and attention he afforded all of his students, which had been his vow when he had signed up to become a teacher in the first place. At the same time, she was also the holder of the beast that had decimated his village, harmed many of his loved ones, and even killed his parents...
His grip on his papers grew a bit tight as he was forced to remember that tidbit, just as he was forced to remember it every time he looked at her.
She was talented but cold, or rather distant he supposed. She didn't interact with the other children more than she had to unless he paired them up and even then she never spoke up more than necessary which made other children avoid her, though he wouldn't be surprised if there was an outside element coming into play there. Worse yet, she didn't even appear put off by her isolation in any visible way.
Like she'd come to expect it and had just accepted it as part of her life…
"Natsumi Uzumaki… what am I going to do with you?" He sighed, he would think on it later he had enough work to do as it was without getting bogged down by this. She wasn't struggling and she seemed to be content with where she was so what good would it do for him to interfere?
It was far easier to ignore a problem than confront it, but even small problems if left to fester can quickly grow out of hand…
AN. Chapter/Prompt Complete!
I'm happy that at least a few people took interest in the idea and I appreciate the honesty people have put forward in regards to it. By no means am I expecting this idea to be extremely popular or anything since I've admitted I only have a loose idea of what I want to do with it and it's more a playground to try some different things but nonetheless I'm glad some people are enjoying it for what it is.
As always I will now address my thought process as well as answer questions I got about this story:
#1. What is Natsumi's personality going to be like, is she just going to be Orochimaru or is she still going to be Naruto just with some tweaks?
My goal is to have some amalgamation of the two, I don't want her to just be female Orochimaru and leave it at that but I also don't intend for her to be Naruto exactly either. I think Naruto's strong personality is a bit too strong to completely suppress and so I try to keep clear elements of it within the story and I've also tried to add elements of her mother's personality to it. This can be seen when she deals with Ami because while it mirrors Orochimaru's own actions she takes it a step further in a way that Kushina might have such as attacking first indicating that Natsumi may have inherited some of her temper.
I still plan for her to take heavy inspiration from Orochimaru and we'll see that should this go on past a few chapters but I still want her to be very distinct, I don't want all her actions to boil down to "Oh this is what Orochimaru would do" because then it would become very obvious what choices and paths she would take. There should be an element of Uzumaki surprise after all.
#2. Why medical ninjutsu and fuinjutsu?
I want to be clear that Natsumi will have a wide range of skills but I wanted to toy around with each of these for individual reasons. Fuinjutsu was an obvious choice given the whole heritage thing but also because I have never touched it any other story I've written and I thought it would be an interesting addition to see. Medical ninjutsu, on the other hand, is a different matter, I wanted to try a different take with this in that she's obviously not interested in healing others but would rather lean into the far more lethal side hidden away behind the healing arts. Orochimaru himself is very much into body modification as well and so an understanding of medical jutsu also opens the future potential for her to explore those avenues in some capacity if she wishes.
Either way, none of this is to say that Natsumi won't be good at more traditional arts like ninjutsu and so on but I wanted to make these two interests apparent because I'd like to work with them going forward.
#3 Time Table of events?
So things have been pushed back a bit given some changes I've made, for example, the Academy starts at age 8 and Sasuke's clan gets murdered when he's 7 so he should be all broody and sad but he's not which begs the question when certain events will happen. Things will still proceed as normal to some extent, I'm just pushing the ages up a bit to make certain actions and thought processes feel a bit more natural/believable.
There are other questions but I think those will be answered with time should I continue this, again this is just an idea I want to play with and I do think it's important for writers to just write what they want regardless of if it'll be popular. I hope you all are still staying safe and I look forward to seeing you all again in one story or another!