Chapter Text
Death is not as final as it seemed, it turned out. She came to this realization just a month ago after she regained her coherent thought.
Right after she realized that she is a baby again.
Not that she remembers being a baby in her previous life. Perhaps she too will lose her original consciousness when she grows up.
She is nothing special, after all. There is no reason for her to have a second chance in life. Did she even die? She didn't remember anything unusual. It felt like she was just waking up from a long dream.
Perhaps she did die, and reincarnation is real, but everyone just forgets their previous consciousness as they grew up. Yes, that could be the case.
With this revelation, she is determined to be petty as hell.
Babies are nightmares. They wake you up in the middle of the night, leave droll on every inch of your floor, and laugh at the most pitiful state you find yourself in. With this new revelation that babies originally had their previous life's memories, she has no reason to not play the part.
Her new parents are often not home, as she is usually looked after by a kind old lady that is their neighbor. From her, she learned that her name is Yuu. Mother turned out to be some doctor or nurse, judging by the smell of her clothes, though her clothes are not common for a doctor.
Or perhaps mother's clothes are not familiar to her because her new life apparently takes place in Japan?
She is no stranger to Japan, of course. In fact, due to her childhood to her teenage years, she learned her fair share of Japanese culture. She understands their basic speech and manners, their work ethics and principles.
Father is a typical laborer, she assumed. He always comes home sweaty, and some weeks he does not come home at all. Perhaps his workplace is afar and time-demanding.
She plays the adults like a fool every day. Babbling and throwing things are her forte, but of course she does all that with reasons. Babbling is good for tongue exercise, and she felt that she needs to at least ensure her future self's growth. Throwing things is also a good practice for hand coordination.
Kidding. She just wanted a reason to mess with the adults.
She also continues her passion to draw in this life. In her previous life, she had an artistic self. She was good at drawing and painting and she could play the guitar and sing. Her voice was not good, but she never hit the wrong note and her breathing technique was correct, or so her friend said. In this life, she draws animals and trees to occupy her time besides terrorizing the adults as her mouth hums the melodies of past songs.
It is not until she reached her first year of life that she grew curious. She has begun to walk and spoke, and the old lady, Naka-bacchan, started to teach her about the world around her. At first, she thought the old lady was telling a story about that one manga-turned-anime she followed during her earlier years of life. But her words were a bit confusing, and she did not speak of any characters she knew, just the main concept of the world. Terms such as Fire country, Hidden in Leaf village, the daimyo, Shinobi, and the neighboring village.
It doesn't make any sense.
Is the old lady crazy? How could she speak of that fictional world as if it is her world?
Her answer came later when she saw father return home by the front gate. With her short legs, Yuu waddled to the front door where she would greet her father. Father had not changed his clothes nor did he had put down his job gear.
A metal plate on his forehead, a weapon pouch around his thighs.
Father smiled softly at her, happiness ran through him as he saw his daughter welcome his return.
His joy was not shared with the said daughter.
Yuu blinked as she connected the dot. Father is a shinobi. Mother is a medic-nin. She lives in Leaf.
This is the Naruto-verse.
The first thought that occurred in her mind after she accepted the fact that she was in the Naruto universe was a resounding curse. She had rewatched Naruto with her boyfriend when she first moved in with him, and she knows for a fact that Fukuda Yuu did not exist among the main character.
She is a cannon fodder.
She starts to pay attention to what her parents are doing in the limited time they have at their home. Father trains every morning, and Yuu begin to wake up early to watch him. In her privacy, whenever they hand her to Naka-bacchan, she copies her father's training. She is only one year old, but that doesn't mean that she can't put a foundation in her training. She practices her balance and coordination. Yuu hopes that even after she lost her past memories, her routine had been built so that she has no reason to stop.
Mother coddles her and enjoys answering her questions as she cooks. Even if her answers are down-graded to infant-level comprehension, Yuu still gathers her knowledge from it.
A year passed, and Yuu has not forgotten who she was.
It is strange, she realizes. People say you begin to maintain your memories when you are two or three. That means her future self should have gained consciousness this year. She should have lost her past memories by now.
She has not.
Yuu doesn't mind that much. It means more time for her to prepare for the future Yuu. She hopes future Yuu won't be a cannon fodder.
Time passes by, and the third war is announced. Yuu is surprised to find out that she was born years before canon started. The beginning of the third war means that many major characters are still alive. The fucking fourth Hokage is alive. She does not know what to think. Her being here has confused her. Why is she here?
Why hasn't she lost her memories?
After entering the golden age of three and realizing that yes, her memories are still intact, she makes her decision.
She has no intention to be a cannon fodder. She did not know any Fukuda Yuu before, so her very existence had probably already disturbed this universe, so as that saying goes, the rice had been turned into porridge. She will have a pleasant time wrecking the plot. Not intentionally, of course, she just wants to survive until her old age, and that means preventing the fourth war or being strong enough to survive the fourth war.
When in doubt, do both options.
As she has determined her goals, she starts to work on them.
Being three is enough for her to build up her stamina, train her speed, and practice her aim. Since mother and father are busy with the war, Yuu basically got all her time to work on her training. Naka-bacchan is ignorant enough to think that Yuu will be satisfied by exploring the nearby forest and picking flowers and Yuu has no reason to enlighten her.
She'll be the freaking Mighty Guy and work on her physical.
In between her training, she often lost herself in her past memories. She had just broken up with her boyfriend of six years. It was... liberating. She thought, after two years of moving in with him that she was stuck with him for the rest of her life. But they came into an understanding, and they parted without drama. Her short life after that was lonely, but as long as she got her salary and her apartment room, she was content.
She had not met her previous parents for a year before she died. She had only several friends from college. Her work acquaintances were pleasant enough company. It felt like she was an island, unbound, and she remains to be an island in this new world.
She has no friends.
Not that finding friends is important. Her age group is not mentioned at all in the story. The elite Jounin from the story are currently attending the academy, or had graduated, in Kakashi's case. She has no intention to befriend someone that will potentially die in near future.
Another year passed, and her father is dead.
Yuu doesn't know how to react when mother told her the news. Mother is shaking, her voice trembled and her hands unsteadily comb her hair. Her eyes are swollen and wet.
Father is dead.
Father was pleasant company. Yuu liked being around him. He indulged her every time she wanted to watch him train, he taught her little things like why trees in Konoha were so big. She did not know him very well because he was always working.
And now he died in his work.
"Was daddy happy, mom?" She asks mother, following the silence that blanketed them after mother told her the news.
Mother broke down and she sobs. But her cry does not prevent her to answer. "Very much. He had you and me, and he was so, so, proud of you, Yuu." Shaky fingers caress her temple, sweat meets the remains of tears, "he always said that you were his precious girl, and he died knowing that he protected our home. He protected you."
Yuu gulps, and tears leaked from her eyes. This life is real. Her mother's pain is real.
This is so, so unfair for them.
Yuu wants to confess. Her attachment to them is not as strong as their attachment to her, and she feels so, so guilty. She can't empathize properly with her current mother.
Her mother misunderstands her tears of guilt, and she hugs Yuu in her sorrow. Yuu feels more guilt creeping into her chest.
This is just life in the Naruto universe, she thinks, as she pats mother's back. Every loss and pain is justified by the will of fire to protect their home. The urgency of her situation is real. Soon, it could be her mother that paid the price. Soon, it could be another cannon fodder. But that does not matter because Yuu is selfish. She just wants to be strong enough to survive the fourth war.
Guilt drills her mind.
One thing that is clear from her father's untimely death is that she needs to become stronger. If father, a chuunin, easily became the victim of war, then she would have a worse chance to survive. She needs to be a Jounin. An elite Jounin.
The positive side of her knowledge from her past life is that she knows how to work on a goal. First, she needs to define it clearly. Then, she needs to find the best method to achieve it.
In canon, the best Jounin specialised in one or two things. Kakashi was combat-oriented, and assassination and tracking were his specialties. His choice of method was his speed and ninjutsu. Summon dogs, Chidori, clone Jutsu, that log-replacement Jutsu. Guy was combat-oriented, and his choice of method was taijutsu and the gates opening. Kurenai's was genjutsu, Anko's was poison, ninjutsu, and her snake attributes such as flexibility and decisive attacks.
She needs to explore her specialty yesterday.
While she builds up her strength, stamina, speed, aim, and kata, she starts to read mother's scrolls on chakra control. She finds out that chakra control came easy on her, perhaps due to her mother's own talents passed down to her. She could become a medic, like mother. It will be a safe path.
But she will not have the option to prevent the fourth war just by becoming a medic.
She has not decided on that matter, but she figured that chakra control training will benefit her no matter what path she chooses.
At 6, mother asks her if she wants to become a medic like her.
This is an opportunity to join the academy, she figures. Yuu answers carefully. "Maybe? I don't know yet. But I very much like to learn, mother."
Mother smiles at her answer, her body is relieved from tension. "Take your time to decide your path, Yuu. You are always so smart, already reading my scrolls. Naka-bacchan must be very diligent when she taught you how to read."
Yuu blinks and smiles innocently. "I like to read!"
Mother laughs. "I know! You got that from me." A shadow of melancholy passes, "Your father was never fond of reading. He'd rather run laps than sit around."
Yuu smiles brighter. "I like to run too! Did I get that from daddy, mom?"
"Yes, Yuu. You got it from your father," mother indulges her, her face looking like she's fighting the urge to cry. Happy tears, Yuu presumed.
Yuu beams.
She is always willing to play innocent and childish for her parents. It encourages them to feel strongly about her, and she feels guilty about it, but she owes them that much for being their child. She had once asked her friends why they wanted to have kids, and they said it was to be happy. Because a child is innocent and pure, and they remind them of brighter times.
Yuu has no right to take away the joy of parenting from them.
That said, Yuu is happy to become an academy student. First, she wants to compare her overall skills with her age group. Second, being an academy student means that she has the privilege to go to the public library unaccompanied.
It means she can finally do her own research to determine her specialty.
When the entrance exam comes, Yuu is flabbergasted by how easy the exam was. No wonder those like Kakashi and Itachi could ace it. She has been eager to finish them as quickly as possible before a thought occurred to her.
She freezes.
Kakashi did this exam and got sent to the graduation class. He aced the test and got sent to the war.
Yuu is by no means ready to join the war.
There is also a lurking shadow for those who are deemed prodigies, as was the case with Itachi. Danzo Shimura, she remembers, is one of the biggest reasons why the conflicts were ongoing for decades in the story. He is a villain that hides in plain view, and he takes children for his own private army.
Yuu gulps. She needs to pass this test adequately but not more.
There is serenity in being an academy student. She trains her chakra control secretly in class, and that means she uses a third of her daily life to focus on chakra control. After school, she goes to the library to do her research.
She has ideas, of course, on how to build her skills. Years of being an ardent watcher of entertainments like movies and animes do that to you. Of course, her main inspiration would be the characters of Naruto, but there is no harm in taking inspiration from other movies and anime.
Like Black Panther. Black Panther was cool.
Her idea began with the thought of being a useless character, and her mind drifted to Sakura, a fill-in female character that she was never fond of. Just because of her chakra control and her sheer gut to ask an apprentice from the legendary sannin Tsunade, she got a free pass to grow her skill. Many said that she perfected Tsunade's jutsu but that's just an attempt to redeem her lackings, in her opinion. Of course, her ex-boyfriend disagreed, but hey, that was where their fun arguments came from. She might have been a bit biased about sakura to trigger those fun debates with her ex, but she would only admit that to an extent.
Anyway. Her seal to have chakra storage, Yuu wants it. But that's not all.
Tsunade's seal was located on her body, and she becomes curious about the possibility of having a seal on her body.
A seal to store kinetic force like Black Panther's suit.
The idea excites her, and then she remembered that there are two seal masters currently living in Konoha.
The Sealing arts, or Fuuinjutsu, is never explored by the canon, perhaps due to how overpowered it is. Almost everyone uses exploding seals or storage scrolls, yet no seal masters beside Jiraiya, Minato, and the Uzumakis were mentioned. Then again, if one has seals that can do almost everything, then the conflict will be solved too easily and that's too bad for the plot. But this is no canon, and she wants to learn sealing so bad.
Jiraiya and Minato both came from a civilian backgrounds. There is no reason to prevent her from studying the Sealing art.
Anyway. She wants to learn the Sealing art, and she wants to do seals on her skin so that she could have her Black Panther suit on her body.
For the first few months, she learns how to make explosion seals. Seals, like hand seals, work by directing the chakra to flow in a certain manner. Explosion seals work by directing the chakra infused in it to be an explosion. How, you might ask? Simple. The yin component in the infused chakra directs our chakra to link the word 'baku' or explode with how we associate or imagine that word would be, and the yang gives it physical energy. Then, using known fuuin-language, we build a foundation around it and it represents how we want the tag to affect the real world. Why around it? Well, she hypothesized that it is still linked with the works of our imagination. An explosion will always have a ground-zero, that is why the main kanji is put in the center, while the other fuuin language is directing what the effects would be. It is pretty simple, and it is a good thing that she maintained her artistic self from her past. In Fuinjutsu, we have to clearly express our imagination and intentions.
And she actually has to thank her teenage self from the past, because she could freely apply the science of physics here and apply precise effects in the fuuin-foundation.
After that, Yuu starts to seal everything, starting from small non-living objects and huge non-living objects. However, sealing living objects, no matter how small, is difficult. She has killed 14 lizards so far, and she has not succeeded. It is not until later that she found in one obscured scroll in the library that stated she could not just seal living things in this world. No, she needs to seal living things complete with their chakra in order for them to survive the sealing process.
But how do you seal chakra? The library scrolls do not mention it at all.
Yuu is eight when she started to dabble with energy sealings. Her research on sealing chakra has met a dead end, so she skips on how to seal living beings and starts to proceed with her black panther project.
Rather than infusing chakra into her seal all the time just to have her Black Panther suit, she aspires to have the seal to seal energies all the time starting from the first time she activates the seal and having them released with only limited chakra at any time she chooses.
The seal will have to make any energy her body receives become null when it touches her body and stored within her seals. How, you might ask? Isolate the time component when she seals the energy.
She knows that space-time seals exist in this world. Without time, the velocity became null. Without velocity, the momentum and kinetic energy became null. With this, she will become a tank. A monster with shock absorption, like that Nomu thing from Hero Academia.
Making a seal is like building a house with a certain function. She needs to build the foundation, the layers of floors, the classifying walls, little installations for functional purposes, and of course, the paints to make it a real finalized house.
Seals are also a representation of ideas. Like yin energy, it has the ability to shape reality, but unlike illusions, seals' effects are very much real. To represent her ideas, it needs to be in line with her imagination, with how she will it to happen.
So she makes a seal that looks like an armor across the body.
But to dabble with time is tricky, and when she experimented with the seal on a rabbit, the rabbit exploded right after she dropped it from the roof.
She throws up.
(Her puke blends with the rabbit's intestine and she throws up more.)
Minato is a naturally curious person, one who does not shy away to allow uncertainties just to see how things will proceed. Today is not an exception.
"Sensei, are we going to let her watch our training?" Came the grumpy voice of his student and Minato smiled. As usual, Kakashi's sensory skill does not disappoint.
"Perhaps. How long do you think your new teammates will realize it?"
Kakashi scowls. His new teammates are a sour subject for him. He has enjoyed the luxury of being the only student of Namikaze Minato, a genius like Kakashi himself, but then those two graduated and imposed their presence in his already perfect team. "They won't. They're oblivious and do not know anything about being a ninja." If they bothered to remember the shinobi rules, they would know that the third rule said that a shinobi must always be cautious and pay attention to their surroundings.
Minato chuckles, amused if not a bit exasperated. His little student has still not gotten rid of his arrogance, it seems. He smiles. "Well, let's see what she wants, alright? If she only came to watch, then she is welcome to do so as long as we are not hindered by her presence. If she moves, then we will know what her purpose is."
Kakashi nods.
For two hours, the girl watches them training and Minato starts to forget her presence occasionally until he actively searches for her chakra signature again. If he was not a good sensor, he would have lost her. The girl has a potential.
"Sensei!" Shouted the other boy in his team. "We've finished our taijutsu training for today!! Can you teach me a strong jutsu now?"
His team will be attending the chuunin exam this year, and Minato is happy to see them so motivated. "Sure, Obito. Rin, you can proceed to the hospital now."
Rin beams and says her goodbye, and Minato is only a bit disappointed that she did not sense the girl behind the bushes even when she walked past it.
He returns his attention to Obito and Kakashi, the former being pumped up as the latter stands in a lazy pose. He makes a clone. "Kakashi, you will perfect your Rasengan with me for today, and Obito will have my clone to learn a new jutsu." Obito frowns when he heard that he only got the clone but later grins as he will learn a new jutsu.
Another hour passed, and Minato finally detects movement from the girl.
What does she want?
Minato returns his attention to Kakashi. He has turned his Rasengan into an elemental release, but the compressed chakra disappeared right before it could fully be formed. He frowns. "Perhaps we can go back to the rubber ball exercise? It seems like you have succeeded in turning it into lightning but have difficulty in maintaining it. A chakra control exercise will help you in this."
"Yes, sir."
There! Minato widens his eyes. The girl is moving at high speed. Low-chuunin speed. Her kick meets his outer hand which he uses as a block and then it develops into a taijutsu spar.
"Wha-! Who's that?!"
Minato watches the full concentration face the girl makes and could not help but feel amused. She reminds him of Kakashi when he was her age. Is she 8? 9, perhaps? "Why are you not in the academy?"
The girl receives his punch but uses the momentum to spin and counterattack him with her kick. He felt that. This girl has potential.
But then she smirks.
Minato widens his eyes as he watches her increase her speed, and her feet crack the ground as she runs to him. Minato's eyebrows are up to his hairline.
He met her head-on. Her attacks hurt, and she almost catch him up that he started to use a bit of chakra. If she could do the academy three ninjutsu perfectly then she has already matched Kakashi at her age. He could sense Kakashi's surprise from here.
In a moment of distraction, the girl saw an opening, and Minato's eyes widened in surprise as he used his sensor ability to sense the flow of her chakra. He uses shunshin to make a distance when-
Crack!
Obito's jaw was wide open, and if Minato has less grace, his would have been too. That was..
"That is Tsunade-sama's technique." He stares at the ruined ground, dumbfounded.
The girl bows. "I have great chakra control. Please let me see your notes on sealing."
Minato blinks, his eloquence escaped him. "Seal?"
The girl lifted her head. "Seal. I want to learn the sealing art."
"Y-you!"
They both turn their attention to Obito. He still has not gotten over his shock. "How are you that strong?! You cracked the whole ground!"
She blinks slowly, not unlike a cat, as she explains in one word, "Chakra."
Obito twitches.
"Who are you?" Kakashi interrupts and that is a very good question. Minato wonders why it escapes him.
"Pardon me. I'm Fukuda Yuu," She bows again.
"Who's your sensei?"
Good question, Kakashi!
"Tanimura sensei."
Tanimura? Minato has heard that name before, for sure. But who-
"The academy teacher?" Kakashi cuts his thoughts, and Minato blinks. So that's why he had heard the name. "You're in the academy?"
"Evidently."
It was spoken with a tone so flat that Kakashi looks a second away from exploding.
Minato regains his senses.
He addressed the girl. "Yuu-chan, is it? Why are you not in the academy?"
She lifts an eyebrow. "I skipped."
Minato will keep his silence. The girl will have to elaborate.
He is the adult.
The girl sighs.
(Hah! Minato wins!)
"I want to see you. I want to learn to seal," the girl explains.
He hums, but before he could say anything, Obito speaks. "You're strong! Why are you still in the academy?"
The girl looks to the ground, frown marred her face as she thinks deeply. "I don't want to graduate yet. If I graduate, I will be sent to war. If they sent me to fight the war, I would die. Like my father."
Minato flinches, and so do his students, but the girl has not finished. She meets his eyes. "That's why I want to learn sealing. I want to be stronger."
The whole team grows quiet.
Seeing the resolve in her eyes, Minato straightens his back. The girl has proven to have great chakra control, as she successfully replicated the Sannin, Tsunade's technique.
Without guidance, his mind reminds him.
Minato blinks and turns his attention back to the girl. Small, black hair, dull green eyes. Cute she might be, but it is no wonder that she escapes the attention of others. She probably purposefuly lay low so that she won't graduate early and, he assumed, manages to hide the fact that she has replicated one of the Sannin's techniques.
This is another prodigy. A clanless prodigy.
He tilts his head, taking her in a different light. "If I let you study sealing arts, will you promise to never experiment with new seals without supervision?"
The girl tilts her head. "And who will supervise me? I'm just an academy student, after all."
Minato smiles patiently. "Your jounin teacher. You will have to graduate before you learn the sealing art, Yuu-chan. Sealing is dangerous. But before that, perhaps you can work on your calligraphy. Sealing is tightly related to it, after all."
The girl frowns, and she stares at him as though she is calculating something. She is.. reading him. Yes, she is reading him. There is a trace of.. suspicion? Disappointment? Well, she is probably disappointed that she could not learn fuuinjutsu faster.
"Are you sending me to war to die?"
He blinks.
How is that- oh. OH.
That's right- He's an idiot! Even his students are looking at him in horror. Horrified, he quickly restates his words. "That's not what I mean, Yuu-chan! I meant that you can't just learn fuuinjutsu from notes, and someone adequate has to supervise you all the time in your pursuit of sealing arts! You need a jounin sensei, that's all I meant!"
How could he forget right after she spoke about her fear of the war and suggested her to graduate? Minato thinks he has not regained all his senses after he saw one of the Sannin's techniques being used by a little girl. That must be the reason.
"I see.." The girl murmurs, looking completely unphased. "perhaps I will have to graduate this time?" The girl ponders out loud but immediately shakes her head. "No. Next year. Perhaps next year I will be strong enough. Do you think I will get a sensei who knows about fuuinjutsu, Minato-sama?"
The girl looks at him with her big green eyes, pleading, and Minato almost got sucked into it. "I'll... I'll talk to Sandaime-sama for you, Yuu-chan."
The girl widens her eyes. "Please! Please don't make me graduate this year! Talk about my interest in fuuinjutsu and my chakra control, but please don't make me graduate yet! I don't want to die!"
Minato flinches. "Of course, Yuu-chan. I promise."
The girl beams. "Thank you! I'll be on my way then!"
The team watches as the girl runs through the forest and disappears.
"What the hell was that?"
Minato blinks and looks at his student. He gives them his sad smile. "A desperate girl. After experiencing a loss, she must have a hard time and train herself to be stronger."
"Che." Kakashi throws away his face. "If she's so afraid to die then she shouldn't have chosen to be a shinobi."
Like a trigger has been pulled, Obito roars.
"How can you say that, Bakashi! That girl is obviously sad that she lost her father to the war!"
Minato sweatdropped. It seems like his day will continue as usual. He will have to talk to the Hokage about her, of course, but that could wait.
He blinks.
Turning his head to the trees, he realizes that his hiraishin kunai on one of the trees has gone. Did the girl take it?
He smiles. Perhaps she took it as a token? She won't understand anything from just a seal, after all, so there would be no harm done by letting the girl have one of his kunai.
His mind returns to his students.
If only her new life is a movie, she will have her evil laugh moment right there and then.
Sixteen months of training! Sixteen months of trying to replicate Tsunade's technique! It all resulted in this beauty of a kunai.
Yes. The hiraishin seal.
She has deduced that the hiraishin also isolates the time component to make the user travel space without being affected by time, and she will learn everything about the seal.
Due to her goal of having the chakra storage seal like Tsunade, she knew that it would be counterproductive for her to learn the hiraishin. The seal consumed a lot of chakra, and the chakra consumption increases as the volume the user brings with them increases. Using Hiraishin all the time probably would have sucked her chakra dry one day.
She doesn't want to risk it.
Therefore, the hiraishin does not interest her at the moment.
But the hiraishin is not just about teleportation. The secret to seal big living things such as a human is in it. She remembered that at the Chuunin exam Naruto went through, they needed to gather two thick scrolls, and that scroll contained a human each.
That seal maker was no Minato who can compress sealing big living things plus time-space sealing in one elegant sequence of seals, but it was still impressive.
That said, they totally bought her act. What she said was all true of course, she doesn't want to die in the war. But she also doesn't fear it to the extent like how she projected it. But well, it distracts them enough, and with her mud clone, she succeeded in stealing the seal.
Now it's time to study this seal.
Shisui was five when he entered the academy, and just after a year, they want him to move up to the graduation class. He can't say he's surprised, the lesson has been boring for him.
The now six-year-old is looking around his new class. The majority of them are ten, almost two times older than him, but Shisui puts on his big smile. Aunty says it will help him get through anything.
"Hi. Do you mind if I sit here?" He asks another boy who has the uchiwa in his shirt. Shisui doesn't recognize him, but all Uchiha is family, right?
"I save this seat for my friend, actually."
He maintains his smile. "Okay. Sorry to bother you."
As he walks, he hears the words being said by the boys he passes by.
Baby.
Big-headed.
Show-off.
It seems like even his family doesn't like him much, he tries to keep a frown away from his face. This is curious because he thought they will be happy if they have a strong Uchiha. And Shisui is strong.
The teacher enters the class and he announces that this class will be the graduating class. It turns out there are two new students in this class, including Shisui, and the teacher asks them to introduce themselves.
"Starting from the girl. Your name, age, and dream." the man commands.
Shisui turns his head to see a girl with black straight hair rising from her seat on the opposite side of the room. "Fukuda Yuu," her voice is clear and loud. "I'm 8. I want to be Jounin and retire peacefully in one piece and in good health after I get tired of becoming shinobi."
Shisui blinks. Retire? Can a healthy shinobi even do that?
The girl sits back, and it is Shisui's turn. He rises. "Hi! I'm Uchiha Shisui. I'm 6. I want to be strong and make my clan proud!"
A snort greets his introduction, but Shisui keeps his smile. As he sits back down, his eyes find their way to the new girl's. Black meets green. Shisui does not know what to do. Should he break away first?
Surprisingly, the girl smiles easily at him and waves her hand. Shisui beams and returns the gesture.
At lunch, all the boys are eating in their own groups, roughhousing and some are showing off the new jutsus they have learned. No one invites him and he feels a bit out of place. Should he join the younger kids? But he doesn't have any friends there as well. He looks at the girls. They are crowding in one place, giggling and pointing from one place to another. One of them caught him staring and she whispered at the others. They all giggles.
Shisui feels threatened.
Shuddering, he glances back at the classroom. Perhaps he should just quickly eat his bento and go back?
He did just that.
He is not surprised that there are others who share his sentiment. There are a Hyuuga boy and two other girls in the classroom. One of them is Fukuda Yuu. He considers his option, his gaze going back and forth between his seat and her seat. After some time, he smiles and approaches the girl.
"Hi! Yuu-chan, right?"
The girl looks up from her notes and blinks slowly. Then, "Yes. I am Yuu. You are Shisui."
She smiles.
Her speech is a bit odd, Shisui thinks. Perhaps she's nervous? "Yes! I'm Shisui! What are you writing?"
The girl tilts her head, her eyes stay on his. "My notes. I'm studying something that can help me be stronger."
His eyebrows shot up. "Really? What is it?"
The girl smiles smugly. "No telling. This is my way to become stronger. Find your own way."
He frowns. The girl is stingy. "You're not supposed to withhold that kind of information from your fellow shinobi. We must grow stronger together."
The girl snorts, and he is glad that her snort is different from the snort from his introduction. If that was her, Shisui doesn't know if he wants to talk to her again.
"Shinobi keeps secrets all the time, even from their friends. To be shinobi is to be sneaky." She frowns. "You should have known it. You're graduating next year."
He widens his eyes. "Being strong and smart is not enough to graduate?"
The girl stares. Then she smirks. "Of course not. To survive out there, you have to be cunning and resourceful. Perhaps you'll grow into it this year."
Shisui nods. He trains and studies hard, but there are still others who know things he does not. He has a lot to learn.
"So if I have my own way to be stronger, I don't have to show it to you?"
The girl pauses.
She tilts her head, reconsidering something. "You don't have to. But if you want to share it with your trusted friends," she emphasizes, "you could show it to them. Perhaps if we become friends, I can show you mine and you can show me yours."
Huh. She is open to changing her mind! He likes her! All his classmates from before were stubborn. They did not listen to him at all. Shisui beams. "I'll be your friend!"
The girl tuts. "That is not how you make friends. Befriending someone takes time."
"But it must start somewhere, right?" He argues.
She blinks, her deep forest green eyes bore at his. They're pretty, Shisui thinks.
"You're very right, Shisui." Yuu declares, her mind has apparently changed.
Shisui changed it. He changed her mind!
He beams.
Shisui is freaking cute.
!!!
From then on, Shisui becomes her closest friend in her new life.
It is hard for her to think that this adorable boy will become a strong and capable shinobi people called shunshin no Shisui, but there are moments that show his genius side, and her faith in him grows. He is a mere genin level, of course, and while his reaction time is nearly non-existent due to his prep training for the Sharingan, she is still a bit faster than him even without using chakra.
Training like Mighty Guy proved to be useful, indeed.
They hang out at the library or at the Uchiha training ground (a new privilege!) and they like to try snacks from various stands whenever they want to do something other than training and studying. It's fun, spending time with Shisui.
She also made friends with another girl, a Nara, and Yuu likes to say mood' whenever she flops to the desk and proceeds to take a nap. Shikamaru is said to be the laziest Nara ever, and if Sayuko is this lazy, then Yuu can't imagine how lazy Shikamaru is.
Yuu has thankfully made progress with her seal. Her rabbit has not exploded, but the energy released is blasted to the same vector as how the seal received the energy, and that means, if she is punched, the seal will only delay the punch effect until she activates the resealing.
Which is interesting, but not exactly what she's looking for.
She has also thought of other ideas, like gravity seal. No, she doesn't want the seal to simply make her target weight more, no. She wants to make an area of effect seal that makes anyone in the vicinity be pulled by a strengthened gravity.
Like that gadget from the guardian of the galaxy that pulls others to it.
She could try to make an artificial gravity. She knows that the bigger the mass is, the stronger the gravity will be, and the bigger the distance is, the weaker the gravity will be, but she still only has limited ideas to apply this. First, she needs to amplify mass. One does not simply amplify mass with sealing. No, she needs to seal something, like how they seal objects or chakra in storing seals. And she can't just make things up. It needs to exist first.
She reaches another dead end with this idea.
Shisui has often found her in one of her bad moods when none of her ideas works. He only puts candies on her desk and hopes that she will regain her good mood in the near time.
He has tried to pull her out of her bad mood by talking to her, and he receives the brunt of it.
(She almost destroyed an academy property and blamed Shisui for it. Shisui, being a six years old child, cries.)
Never again.
The only good thing that came from these past months is that she has perfected the seal to store her chakra like the way sakura 'perfected' it. It's only a matter of ideas and chakra control, really. The idea is that rather than storing a whole six months' worth of chakra reserve to the seal and limiting the seal-maker to use no chakra during the process, she will only store half of her chakra every day for a whole year, and that means only a number of chakra per second. Half of her reserve is rather a lot, but thanks to that, whenever she uses up her chakra, she can push her reserve to be bigger in time.
Mother is ecstatic when she found out that Yuu has great chakra control, as reported by the academy teacher, and she starts to teach her about basic medic, which is useful, but Yuu has not got the heart to tell her that she wants to become a shinobi.
You see, the work hour in the hospital is unhealthy bordering abusive. Mother is rarely home. Yuu gets it, this is the time of war, but can they just recruit more staff or something? Maybe rather than blindly advertising their shinobi program, they have to start advertising a much-needed program, like the medical program.
Her being not interested in healing is an entirely different matter, of course.
That said, mother is going to be so disappointed.
She eventually confides in Shishui as her guilt grows. How the mighty has fallen, confiding in a seven years old child.
"I think you should tell your mother," Shisui wisely advises her, his tone grievous but still full of rainbows. "I guess I can't fully understand you, having a supportive clan that supports my dream to become a strong shinobi and all, but I can imagine how it feels. Sometimes I want to play with you but my clan instructor will give me this look full of disappointment that makes me regret ever asking permission to play with you. But it's okay! I eventually get to play with you and have tons of fun."
Yuu sighs. His cuteness knows no bounds. His case example is sound, though. She smiles. "You're right. I'll be happier doing what I want and any discomfort I might have by telling mother about this will be temporary. Thanks, Shisui."
He beams.
As she walks home after that, she wonders how this sunshine boy will become a pacifist. The Shisui she knows wants to be stronger for his clan. What changed him in canon? Was it the horror of war? Perhaps it was, he had awoken his mangekyo during it after all.
She freezes.
The mangekyo... it awakens because of the loss of his precious ones.
She's a friend of Shisui.
Will she-
No.
She won't. She won't be a cannon fodder, she is strong.
It's not like it has to be her, right? Shisui has another family. Perhaps they'll die.
(What an awful thought. What a selfish thought. But Yuu wants to live. She doesn't want to die-)
The next day comes too soon, and Shisui's bright smile greets her.
She lowers her eyes.
He frowns.
"What's wrong?" He asks, noticing the way she avoids looking at him, concern leaking in his tone.
"Nothing. I have a lot in mind."
He isn't convinced, but she doesn't provide more answers. He sits.
In the weeks following it, Yuu keeps her distance from Shisui. Months of built friendship gone, just like that. As she suddenly has a lot of free time, she pours them into her fuuinjutsu study and taijutsu training. The black panther-inspired seal is ready. She has manipulated the vector so that it maintains the vector of her own move during the resealing process, rather than the vector of the original energy. She also makes another function in it, where she seals heat from around her. It will be awesome. She could reseal the heat and be like Iron man.
The rabbit survives, and she named him Mark-26, or just Maku. He's a successful super rabbit. He won't die even if she drops him from the roof. The resealing sequence is at his tiny little rabbit face, and she has never been so happy to be thrown seven meters away by a cute little rabbit. However, the heat seal is unfortunately not quick enough in gathering heat. She has to resort to using fire jutsu to test the seal, and unfortunately, she accidentally burnt Mark-26. She forgot that she has to be very clear in her seal so that she can determine the heat limit because even the most heat-resistant material has its limit.
Therefore, the ultimate rabbit, Mark-27, finally came to be. He comes with all the features Mark-26 had, but the difference is that he is made to withstand high temperatures, including 5000° Celcius of fire. How, you might ask? She set it so that it could seal even the temperature of the earth's core, which she knew from her previous knowledge is about 5000° Celcius. Working in journalism surely made it easy for her to gather these kinds of tidbits of information.
Now the armor can even store fire from fire release jutsu and double functioned as making the user heat-resistant. Of course, it won't save her from Amaterasu, but only Itachi and Sasuke will know how to use it so she's safe (Did she jinx it? Hopefully not.)
The chakra for her armor, unlike the rabbit's, will have to be strictly from her own chakra and no one else, just like how Minato designed his hiraishin. Now, she just has to practice drawing it before she tattoos the seals onto her skin.
The next project, her gravity seal, is much more complex.
What do you seal when you want to reproduce the effect of gravity?
She finds herself running around with the basic formula of gravity that she barely understood, but as she lays on the ground one day, wanting to give up this seal, her eyes squint at the sun.
The sun. Who has planets from miles away orbiting it because of her gravity.
That's it.
She needs to seal the sun's gravity. She can't use earth's gravity, because it won't be strong enough to actually pull things into it. No, she needs the strength of the sun's gravity and used an adjustment sequence to determine how strong she wants the gravity to be. It will work like a summoning seal, like she's summoning the sun's gravity, but the thing is,
How does one seal the sun's gravity into a summoning contract?
The answer, she realizes, is the fact that the sun's gravity reaches the earth. Oh, yes, it reaches the very planet she walks on and more. She doesn't need to seal the sun's gravity directly from the sun, but by the effect of it here on earth. Then, she can isolate the space aspect of it so that the distance's effect is minimized. Since the bigger the distance is the weaker the gravitational force will be, she has to make the space aspect adjustable.
Like the hiraishin seal.
She can imitate the sun's gravity, and it has the potential to be over twenty times more powerful than earth's gravity.
How delightful.
She begins to work.
The hard part will be to make the space-aspect adjustable so that the gravity effect is not always optimized. People will get crushed by over 20 times earth's gravity. Also, since this is an area of effect type of seal, she needs to also adjust the size of space affected by the seal. So complicated.
She begins her experiments.
With only one month away from graduation, Yuu notices that everyone starts to work harder in their training, including Shisui.
That's right. Shisui.
She has avoided him for the past two months. He has become a typical Uchiha who is distant and unapproachable, no matter how friendly he likes to present himself, and seemingly only cares about becoming stronger. Yuu doesn't know what to say to him, or what excuse will she give for her behavior.
(I'm sorry, I was afraid that I might die to awaken your super eyes?)
There is also the matter of whether she still wants to be his friend.
The answer to that question, to her surprise, is a resolute yes. She misses him and his kind words. His positive outlook on things always manages to cheer her up. And this building guilt in her chest is starting to weigh on her days. She doesn't want to live in regret.
And the one who he would inevitably lose is probably his teammates, right? He needs to witness their death firsthand, after all.
She has to make it up for him.
The curious thing is, after two whole weeks of realizing that she wants to be friends again with the boy, she still doesn't have any idea how to start to talk to him again. She spends two weeks gazing at his seat, and becomes undecided in her steps whenever he's near. Will an apology be enough?
Meeting a dead end with limited time to act, Yuu surrenders to her better judgment and decides to ask mother about it.
Then she is reminded that she hasn't talked to mother about her choice of career.
Grimacing, she walks back home that day intending to heed her friend's advice.
Mother, it turns out, has figured it out on her own.
"You can't train and study 20 hours a day without me noticing, you know?" Mum muses to her, amused. "Is that why you're nervous all this evening?"
Yuu gapes. She thought- "You keep teaching me medical ninjutsu though! I thought you didn't know, for sure.."
A melancholy passes her face, but it is quickly buried by peaceful resignation. "Well, I hoped you would change your mind after knowing how good you can be in healing. But perhaps it's just wishful thinking. You've worked so hard to become stronger, after all." Then, her face turns stern, making Yuu gulp. "But you can't skip dinner anytime I'm not home just because you're caught up in your training, Yuu. If you want to become a shinobi, become a healthy one."
Yuu nods vigorously. "I will, I promise. I will work until 30 then retire in good health with you, mom. We'll buy a house near the beach and eat fish every day!"
Mother's lips are unintentionally pulled up by the mention of their favorite food. "I'll be waiting for that time, then."
Yuu beams. Even with her adult mind, sometimes it's too easy to get into childlike-act, especially around her mother. All the things Yuu didn't have the chance to do for her parents in her previous life, she wants to do it for her parent now. She wants to give her a comfortable life. She wants to take her on vacations, a resort on an island, and expensive amusement parks- or the equal to those things in this shinobi world. Unfortunately, only fancy onsen exist in this world, or so Shisui said when she asked him about tourist destination.
That's right, thinking of Shisui... Yuu looks up to her mother again, who is busy combing through her hair right now. "Mom.."
She tells her about her friendship with Shisui, and how she actively avoided him these past months. She twists her reason a bit, because of course she couldn't possibly tell mother about mangekyo. But even then, mother still figures it out.
"You have another reason, don't you?" one of mother's eyebrows is raised.
Yuu grimaces. "Perhaps. But it's linked with my fear for death though.."
Mother nods. "Perhaps you should ask forgiveness first, Yuu," mother tells her gently. "You can tell him the reasons that he can hear, and tell him that you have some other reasons that you don't like to share. Then, it will be up to him if he wants to forgive you or not."
Yuu blinks. Is it really that simple? Walking up to him and asking his forgiveness? Mother apparently could read her mind.
"Maybe bring a peace offering," Mother suggests. "What does Shisui like?"
That one question makes Yuu's eyebrows shoot up in realization.
The day before the graduation exam, she finally tries to follow mother's suggestion and has prepared everything for her apology.
"I'm sorry!" She shouts, her body bows deeply and her hands are straight and directed to him to offer him a gift, a box of nori, for her apology. "I avoided you because I don't want to die! We were graduating in a few months and I felt like I'm not strong enough, so I focused on my training. My father died in the war and I don't want to die in the war. That is not all the reason, of course, but I'm afraid I can't tell you other reasons besides that. Now we'll be graduating anyway, and I have to apologize! I didn't mean to stop being your friend!"
Then she waits.
She waits even after a full minute.
The silence is burying her. Her apology isn't enough. She will lose her first friend here, just like she lost any other close friends before.
How can she be so bad at being a friend?
"Yuu."
It takes her a couple of seconds to process her name being called. She blinks away some tears and weakly replies. "Yeah?"
Shisui appears to be thinking solemnly as he asks, "so you still want to be my friend?"
She lifts her head, hope fills her chest. By his tone.. by his words.. could he be? "Y-yes. Do you?"
The curly-haired boy smiles, albeit sadly. "I thought you don't want to be friends anymore because I did something wrong."
"No!" She shakes her head vehemently. "It's me. I let myself be affected badly by my fears. I'm sorry. Please, it won't happen again."
It's just that she knows how bad things go for the main characters, and she doesn't want to be the casualty of the plot. Was it wrong of her? She just wants to survive, after all. This is her second chance in life, and she is blessed by her foreknowledge of this universe. She doesn't want to waste it. She didn't reach old age in her previous life, hadn't really known how to really live. It is normal to be cautious, right?
"I'm glad," his voice softly breaks apart her thoughts. She widens her eyes at the sight that meets her.
His smile is as adorable as usual, of course, but there is a hint of maturity there. A trace of acceptance is reflected in his black eyes. Yuu found it very charming. "I guess since you have explained the situation to me, I can be a bigger person and accept your apology." He beams, "I've missed your company, Yuu."
She beams back. She still can't believe how forgiving he is-
"-But I'm afraid your offering gift is not enough," his tone turns grievous, which throws her off.
"Huh?"
Shisui sighs dramatically, "without you I haven't been on my snack adventure for months, you know. You need to recompense that."
She blinks. Is he serious? Wait, no, there's a tilt there at the corner of his mouth!
Oh, he's teasing her!
She bows deeper, "You're right! How shallow of me! A box of nori is not enough!" She meets his eyes, all in seriousness. "I shall promise you a lifetime of nori."
Shisui guffaws, his cheeks turn a bit red. "Yeah! A lifetime!"
She can't help but join him in his laughter.
This life will be worth the while, She decides. Yuu will make sure of it.
She beams, and Shisui beams back.