Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

     It’s one thing to be raised in a place with no plumbing or air conditioning, and it’s another to be raised in a razed has-been city. With no plumbing or air conditioning. Not that Ichika is complaining or anything, it’s just that she has problems with the complete lack of hygiene her parents are displaying.

***

     As soon as Ichika can see on a non-inverted and yes-colored viewpoint, she is quick to discover why everything smells vaguely like a pyromaniac just rampaged through the streets of a fairly populated town. And she wants to undiscover it.

     To her dismay, her parents--with muddy blonde hair and dark circles telling of sleepless nights--don’t seem to be better off than their surroundings. Ichika contemplates her survival chances vaguely. Feeling overwhelmed by the acrid smell of her surroundings, her chest restricts and chokes on air. She has only known the mellow life of having everything already decided for her and has no idea what the future holds. Her minds fails to get a grasp on a logical reality, thinking of ghastly and fantasmic possibilities. As her breathing becomes erratic, her skin breaks into a cold sweat; her ears ring; and her vision blackens. She holds no hope for her future.

***

     For all it’s worth, Ichika tries to act both like a normal child and a very helpful child, a weird mix that has her thanking her lack of maturity and practice of fucking up her words for the fun of it.

     She learns to scavenge from her mother, whose voice rasps like she spent her whole life screaming her throat raw. Her mother manages to teach her how to read, finding tangible books and scrolls from the rubble that engulfs them.

     If Ichika notices a familiar spiral and her pupils shrink to pin-points, her mother just carries on searching for education materials, trying to make the best out of their situation.

***

     One day, when Ichika is sparing with her father and contemplating a world filled with child soldiers-- a world where some non-natives lived on an island that, for all intents and purposes, should have been left alone-- her father tells her that she needs to go out and meet others. See the world and thrive. For them.

***

     When they set off for the mainland from the barely-living island they called home for the past eight years, Ichika still hasn’t told them that she feels things. When she was born, she felt the cooling presence of her mother before she even knew that she had a new mother. Before she knew her name, she felt her father tend to an untouched garden, his presence outside of the shack-- her mother breastfeeding her inside-- but soothing her with its steady rhythm.

     Ichika always thought of telling them of the visitors that visited the island, presences grating against the charred ruble, trying to find valuables lost in the destruction. The visitors never get far before they turn back: at first stealthy and curious, then retreating and sorrowful. It isn’t until she sees the familiar spiral that she has some solid hypotheses as to why they do this, and with this she decides to not mention it to her parents.

     She is terrified of people who can manipulate their chakra with such skill and impartiality to the remains of an advanced civilization.

***

     She didn’t think the travel would take long, only that she wanted her family to be happy once they got to their destination. She always had a soft spot for soft-spoken fathers, despite only knowing one before, and she always had a soft spot for caring mothers, despite only knowing one before.

     She never thought she could care for the two as much as she did. Her mother wasn’t like her last. This one only saw use for reading when learning, and didn’t glomp when showing affection so much as ruffle her daughter’s hair. At first, Ichika’s father made her drown in nostalgia. She only got over it after her father gave her a hard stare when she told him a joke. He didn’t laugh and instead responded by reprimanding her for a disregard for life.

     She could only hope that they would reach their own land of dreams soon, before they ran out of drinking water.

***

     When they landed, she was the only one able to search for drinking water. Before she left, her parents reminded her of their briefing before they left the island. Ichika nodded frantically, wanting to help out her self-sacrificing parents before they left her for good.

     She ran frantically towards where she thought the purest water source would be, based on the natural chakra being so wetly flowing and not gritty.

     She reaches the source and starts puting her techniques to practice. She manages to mold a stone out of a nearby rock; she gathers firewood and lights it with a single-minded focus. She scoops water, boils it, then pours it into her water skin and repeats the process until the water skin is full. She puts the fire out with a ton of water painstakingly scooped out of the little creek and sprints back to the beach where her parents last sat.

     She returns to find them gone. She sits next to them laying on the sand. She sobs.

***

     She should’ve noticed their lack of preparing for the trip, as if all they wanted was to leave her behind. She doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know if she wants to know why.

***

     It isn’t until two days later that she finds the quaint little village.

Chapter Text

     Her guardians-- that’s what she calls them in her head-- are sympathetic but fairly absent in her life. This allows her to experiment. She spends most of her waking hours testing out her capabilities, trying to replicate cool ideas and trying to make some of her own.

     After a year, when she’s nine, she manages to make her chakra almost completely like the fish-seller at the market. A week later, she makes her chakra like the fly that she just can’t kill. After this she figures out how to change her appearance.

     At age ten, she decides she’s had enough of this frustrating village and tells her guardians she’s going out travelling. They’re worried. But they know that she was able to find them once--when she had nothing-- and she’ll be able to find them again-- if it happens again.

     Also, Ichika has been planning for this for the past two years, there is no way she wouldn’t have convinced them.

***

     While travelling, she looks like a twenty-something year old man--with the chakra of a twenty-something year old male civilian, too.

***

     “E-excuse me? I’m looking for work.”

     The gray haired woman behind the counter looks the youth up and down, eyes scrutinizing the his capability.

     “Why’re ya lookin’ for a job?”

     The youth looks a little taken aback by the question. He didn’t expect it.

     “I’m traveling... and need to earn some money to continue traveling.”

     He says it sheepishly, and he knows that work-places aren’t in the want of workers who will just leave. But this is a restaurant, and he thinks that restaurants tend to hire often, even though he has absolutely no experience in working for hire.

     “How’s busin’ tables sound t’ ya?”

     He has no idea how to respond. He tries anyways.

     “I’ll do it.”

     She nods and grabs a rag under the counter. She hands it to him, and he grabs it while praying that he won’t fuck up his first job.

***

     He only fucked up a little.

***

     It’s a month later, and between stocking up on supplies and finally practicing the sealing that he was exposed to in Uzushiogakure, he thinks he has enough money for at least a couple of hotel stays, something he will probably only do once since he’s just curious, not a money-spending fool.

     He’s forever thankful to his parents for teaching him how to survive without even a knife, and he’s thankful to the spritely lady who hired him. During his time in the village, she introduced him to her book-sharing club, and in return, he tried to show his gratitude in the bes way that he could.

     Whenever tableware broke, he made replacements. If the spritely lady ever wondered where the new dishes came from, she never asked. She only bought him a dango and went back to reading her latest action novel.

***

     The day before his last day of work, he asks something that’s been on his mind ever since he first thought it.

     “How do you get into Konohagakure?”

     She looks up from The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi and asks him her favorite question.

     “Why?”

     He sighs; maybe his curiosity will damn him. He manages a normal-sounding reply.

     “I was thinking of seeing the village before I see the Fire Temple.”

     She hums in response and continues humming while thinking of an answer. Finally, she speaks on the upbeat of her tune.

     “It’d be simple for ya. All ya’d hav’t do is walk up t’ the gates an’ they’ll ask for yer business there, and ya’d tell ‘em yer visitin’ an’ they’d do a search.”

     “What do they search for?”

     “Well, I think they jus’ search for the ninja things.”

     He nods and mentally crosses out that route.

Chapter Text

     As a fact, she is a fangirl. Ichika has no doubt about that.

     What she is not sure about is her intelligence. Or her wisdom.

***

     Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck

     “Fuck.”

     She has no idea why she is doing this. Why is she such an idiot? What could she possibly gain from this? Why isn’t she avoiding this completely avoidable risk ?

     She knows she can only blame herself: she spent the past week traveling and planning and debating in her head. Of course she would decide she needed to see every insane fangirl’s dream, and of course she would decide she needed to sneak in.

     Suddenly, a crow caws in the dark forest. Ichika startles, almost screeching and tumbling off of the safety of her tree branch.

     Ichika has her most recent invention painted onto the skin of her right shoulder blade, a seal to make her chakra seem non-existent, civilian, or ninja, depending on the setting. Best of all, she doesn’t have to be conscious to use it.

     … She thinks she doesn’t.

     It’s her most prided work, having tested it on unsuspecting animals in her path. She’s used it on herself, too. It’s just that she can only tell that it’s working when she’s awake… She also has managed to create a jutsu that makes her invisible to the naked eye, but she holds no hope of using that with Hyuga around.

     Maybe.

     Last but best, she has replicated the Shadow Clone Jutsu. This is her best bet to being a daring coward.

     Chakra suppressor turned off, she manually makes her chakra like that of an ant’s, just like the ant next to her. The ant starts towards Konohagakure’s wall, a daunting, towering figure for the tiny insect. It takes half an hour to reach the wall and an hour to get over it.

     By the end of the hike, the ant wants to collapse.

     By the end of the climb, the ant wants to die.

     On the other side of the wall, the ant collapses in a contented jerk of its legs. It has just made a huge accomplishment. That, or the ninja patrolling is fucking with it. The ant hopes it’s the accomplishment one.

     The ant then makes another ant, ant-like chakra twisting away from the first ant in a sentient whirl. Then the two ants wait. And wait. It isn’t until sunrise that the second ant starts the trek back to Ichika, hidden away outside of Konohagakure.

     Two hours later, the ant reaches Ichika and explodes. Or poofs. Ichika doesn’t really care but kinda likes how the word “explode” sounds when used like that. Ichika almost does a victory dance, but she decides that would ruin her cover. So instead, she explodes. Into an ant.

***

     She is now an ant.

     She starts on the hike that the first ant made. Still nervous. Always nervous. She realizes, as she is starting the climb, that she has no idea how she is going to introduce herself to Naruto. Or if she wants to.

     Scratch that. She definitely wants to, but she sure as hell won’t. Who the hell would break into a ninja village only to be caught by talking to the most tightly watched child known to her. At least she thinks that’s what they should do for the child they sealed a massive amount of volatile chakra into...

     As she’s climbing down the wall, she glances at the Hokage Monument.

     Yep, Minato’s head’s still there… and the third hokage has a painted mustache...

     She just had to know where she was in the timeline, and oddly enough, nobody talks about who the current hokage is outside of Hidden Villages. Ichika doesn’t really get why they do that, but figures it has something to do with security or some sort of unspoken politeness or something.

     Ichika lived on an island for the first eight years of her life, don’t blame her for being uninformed.

     On the other side of the wall in the form of an ant, she regrets not activating the chakra seal on her right shoulder. Or not making an ant’s chakra option. Really, the whole thing about making the seal was to make it easier on her to suppress her chakra, and if she doesn’t have the darn thing activated , well, that defeats the purpose. She really needs to look into activating seals while she’s in a non-humanoid state.

     And now she’s thinking about seals. Great.

***

     Feeling like an idiot and feeling hungry too, she sends a clone to do her shopping. Sitting in the corner of some abandoned shack in the village, she’s glad she can sense chakra. Because otherwise she’d probably have gotten caught using a forbidden technique to create a lackie to do her shopping for her, and there’s no way that she’s going to stroll into the middle of the market square when she’s technically an illegal alien. She is really curious about the village; she hopes her clone will be successful.

     Ichika’s anxious, now more than ever, but she figures that if nothing’s ventured, then nothing’s gained.