Chapter Text
I realized I was in the Narutoverse when I woke up after a nap and stared into the stony face of the first four Hokage. I remember the night that must’ve been the fluffy mind controlled tantrum, but until now I’d thought it was just an insanely realistic nightmare or some baby thing.
From what I could tell I was probably in the same generation as Naruto.
This was confirmed when I turned 6.
As the good kid I was, I signed up for the ninja academy.
My parents were both civilian, my father was a merchant and my mother was a baker (it turned out my great-grandfather was an Akimichi, but he’d died in combat years ago). I didn’t really have clan backing, so I ended up in a class that wasn’t exactly full of top of the range students (we weren’t failing, but… well, the other class was the one with heirs and their younger siblings) and I was comfortably above average for our group, thanks to my stretching and daily runs growing up. I’d even had Might Guy compliment my youth once! My first canon character meeting went rather well, thank you very much. It was strange how much a simple thumbs up and well wishes could do for motivation when you’re just starting out.
My combat based marks could still use some work though. I didn’t like punching kids. It still felt wrong, something I’d carried over from my last life. I’d been interested in medicine then. Maybe I could become a medic-nin?
I worked until I was exhausted to bring up my fitness levels for class. I still felt trepidation upon hearing about spars, but I could keep up with kata. Maybe next year when the classes are shuffled I could try to join the better one.
I should’ve seen this coming, to be honest. In the old world I couldn’t even cook crab because I felt too bad about killing them. How could I hunt animals in the wild?
It had all started on a survival trip we went on 11 months into learning how to become shinobi. It turns out even now I can’t sleep in a tent. I could hear the wind and rain all night, it was too cold, I felt wet and sad. Never again.
And then there was The Rabbit.
I’d called her Hopscotch after the pattern on her back. She was adorable. She was mine. And I refused to eat my cute little bunny.
My class had skinned and eaten her family, but I’d refused and tried to stab anyone who got close.
I just ate what plants I could find. An Aburame classmate and a Hyuuga branch clan member helped me, which I was greatful for.
Aburame Komorebi was a bit stiff, but who could blame her considering the others avoidance. I was scared of the bugs at first, and I still was, but she was nice to me so I could just deal. Twas a me problem. I called her ‘Hive Queen’ once and she did what I can only assume to be the Aburame equivalent of a happy little dancey-dance. The nickname stuck.
Hyuuga Kohaku was also stiff, but who could blame him considering the fact that he was a member of the branch clan. He didn’t have the seal (yet) but would get it once he was a genin. His fate was sealed. Luckily he wasn’t fate obsessed like Neji, unfortunately he was possibly suffering from severe anxiety as a 6 year old child, but in his own words at least Neji was there to guard Hinata-sama as it meant he didn’t need to. Instead he just had to avoid all eye contact with her and bow when they crossed paths. Naturally, we all spent our lunches on the roof or in the classroom to avoid her so he didn’t have to.
They helped me defend my little Hopscotch and Kohaku even used his hair ribbon as a little bow for her.
I felt bad about quitting, but we remained friends. They understood that I wasn’t really built to be a shinobi. Hive Queen told me she’d know within a week I was too kind to survive the profession. I finally understood that too, it had just taken this wake up call to do so.
Life in civilian school was better and worse. Better because there was no sparring. Worse because I had no friends there. I went for one day, before deciding to just join in a month when the first school year began.
I still went on morning runs, did my kata, did my chakra exercises (we started 6 months into The Academy, by which point a quarter of my class had already dropped), but it didn’t feel like enough. I wasn’t going to be a shinobi but I was still so scared of what would happen in the future.
Hopscotch was solidly my pet rabbit now, but honestly, I had this little intrusive thought telling me to attempt to get mokuton or something, but start with animal experiments. Rats weren’t that hard to get a hold of. Guinea pigs a bit more so, but at the rate at which they reproduce…
I shut down those thoughts. The Academy was much better at the whole subtle brainwashing than I’d expected.
Hive Queen, Kohaku and I ended up at Ichiraku ramen.
I saw it in my peripheral and my dad had just got a very lucrative contract and in a generous move, he increased my allowance. It was borderline a liveable amount if I moved into a house bordering on the red light district and lived frugally, but I wasn’t exactly ready or willing to move from home. It was almost as much as the orphan stipend, though admittedly housing prices were pretty low. Lots of houses had been rebuilt, and not enough people had survived the Kyuubi to populate them all.
Ichiraku was pretty good. Not amazing, but decently above average. It was filling.
Aaaand there’s the protagonist well this is us bye.
He just looked us suspiciously and when we didn’t interact, he just sat down and ordered ramen. My friends and I chatted, finished, paid and left.
I don’t know if I’m more scared of destroying the timeline or more scared of potentially dying.
I decide not to go back to Ichiraku. Hive Queen liked it so much she wanted to go back, and I gave in. My friends are not canon, they are relatively safe.
Kohaku tells us he wants to become a medic-nin, but it’s unlikely he’ll be allowed to.
Hive Queen’s wish is to make 10 friends.
I get an apprenticeship with a sword smith in Iron for a month, thanks to my dad’s contacts. It’s nice there, if cold. I wouldn’t mind living there.
But I do miss my friends.
Messages are hard to send and expensive, so I package letters to them with my mother’s. I’m staying with my dad at the moment. He’s stern but he adores me and spoils me more than he probably should.
I start to write down what I can remember as storybooks.
Harry potter, but I have lore notes about Obito’s sharingan.
LOTR, except it’s got details of the fourth shinobi war.
The sandman, but a bit more like Gaara.
Naruto, but names and locations and genders and appearances and everything is changed, so it’s the story about Keiko Rimaru, the girl who is half bird demon, left as an orphan on an island village, in an archipelago where instead of jutsu there is magic and familiars. Her father is the old village chief, and she had been dropped on his doorstep.
I didn’t want to forget the old world.
Naturally my dad found these and thought they may be profitable with some changes. I rewrote them to become more like the originals, though I don’t think I did LOTR justice.
So life went on.
The books did well. Not as well as they did in the old world.
I travelled from time to time with my dad, but mostly stayed in Konoha.
HQ, Kohaku and I stayed friends, in fact we were best friends.
I’d almost forgotten when the Massacre occured.
I saw Uchiha-village relations turn sour.
I heard Shisui died.
It happened.
Itachi fled.
It was just Sasuke now.
And I did nothing to stop it.
I liked my second chance, and I didn’t want to give it up. I hated the loss of life but what did you expect, the 8 year old civilian girl with no ninja relatives to somehow defeat Danzo and ROOT? To alert the Hokage and hope that he hadn’t been taken over by kotoamatsukami?
I just kept my head down, was sad and mourned the loss like everyone else.
Kohaku lost his mother.
He cried, I cried, HQ cried. She’d always been frail after she’d disobeyed the clan and kept him, rather than terminating (he didn’t know his father). His mother had been sealed for it.
I burned with rage, but I could do nothing about it.
Instead I forced my friends to learn and train.
Turns out his bastard status was useful for one thing. Kohaku could never get the Byakugan. He cried, HQ and I comforted him. I smiled myself to sleep for the first time in ages. He wouldn’t get the seal if he couldn’t get the Byakugan.
I’d made good friends with the others in my civilian class. We had similar hobbies and interests. HQ and Kohaku had begun to get a little worrying at times, talking about which poisons they would use. I had my own input, but I didn’t get into it as much as they did. We were changing, for better or for worse. And to some degree, I had expected us to end up like this. I was still glad to call them friends. A small voice said I was scared of them. I shut it down.
I still did my morning runs, I could run more than either of them, much to my smugness. It wouldn’t take long for them to beat me but for now I had stamina beyond theirs. Starting early was a good idea. They joked about me coming back. It wasn’t really a joke, they really did want me back, but it had been almost three years since I’d quit and I didn’t want to go back. They still taught me how to do the academy three. I taught them how to make their own lunches, budgeting and started them on the path towards tree walking.
We were different.
Different isn’t always bad.
Most of my close friends were civilians. Kohaku and HQ scared them. Well, HQ scared them. They thought Kohaku was cute and I felt bad for him.
I kept my civilian and ex-academy lives separate after one friend actually tried to stalk him, which was bloody unforgivable. I told her so, and asked how she’d feel if creepy Chi sensei followed her around. She apologised, but the damage was done. I stopped taking to her.
Life is complicated. What a drag.