Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

As the Shinigami looked over the timeline from his corner of the universe, he came to a conclusion.

“I don’t like it.”

Technically, he was supposed to be impartial. As the manifestation of death, he should be happy with whatever conclusion the timeline came to.

But.

The thing about being the Shinigami is that, well, it’s really, really boring. Reaping souls gets old after a while, (unless it’s a particularly interesting one) and he rarely ever got summoned. The most interesting part of his job was the occasions on which he got to personally deliver souls places, or lay a smackdown on a particularly troublesome ghost.

So, most of the time, he watched the timeline. It was a lot like watching a TV show, or a particularly long movie. This, of course, came with all the accompanying risks.

Namely, he got attached.

And so, since he didn’t like the ending, like any dedicated fan, he decided to change it.

However, being the Shinigami, he couldn’t interact directly with the timeline without someone dying. He’d have to send someone else.

He just needed the right partner.

Chapter Text

Riley Smith lived a boring life. One little sibling, two happily divorced middle-class parents, average grades. She didn’t go to many parties, and hardly anything interesting happened to her. The highlight of her life was reading or watching various stories, and then exploring the attached fanbases.

She had a decently large friend group, who she mostly saw during school. She liked her teachers well enough, and she wanted to be a psychologist when she grew up. All and all, her life was… average.

Then, she died.

She drifted in the void, slowly making her way towards… something. She knew it was there, and she knew she was going, but she didn’t know what it was.

She was dead, though, so it didn’t really matter to her. At least she knew there was an afterlife, seeing as she had some self-awareness, and wasn’t just scattered energy in the vast universe. She wondered idly what her destination was.

She never got to see for herself, though, because all of a sudden something grabbed her.

There was a feeling that she imagined was much like being pulled through a rather large vat of jello, and suddenly she was face-to-face with — the Shinigami from Naruto?

“Oh, good,” he said, “You’re from one of those universes. That makes explanations much easier.”

“Yeah, hi,” Riley said, “What the fuck? I thought Naruto wasn’t real. And now I’m dead, and you’re real, unless I’m actually just in a coma or something, but that’s unlikely. Why am I here? I’m pretty sure I’m not supposed to be here.”

“Technically, you’re right!” The Shinigami grinned at her. “But I can’t affect the real world directly without killing people, so I need some help fixing my brother’s mess!”

Riley blinked. “Your brother…?”

“Hagoromo. His obsession with his sons kind of ruined everything.”

...Well. That was certainly different than what the manga said.

“Yeah, your world’s interpretation of mine was filtered through someone’s mind, so…” The Shinigami — Hamura — shrugged. “It’s sort of inaccurate. It wouldn’t be if he’d known it was real, but since he’s an author, he changed some things, made some… embellishments.”

Hm. Riley wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “Interesting. So. Why am I here, and what exactly are you fixing.”

“Well, that’s up to you, mostly, since you’re the one going in,” he said, “But ultimately I’d like to stop Mother from being released in the first place.”

“…About your mother.” Riley pressed her lips together. “She’s not really an alien, right? Because that made no sense .”

“No, no,” he shook his head. “She’s a god. And also, we didn’t create the moon. We did seal her into it, but that’s because she was god of the moon. So.” He shook his head, getting back on topic. “Anyway, as we’ve already established, the Manga you read, and the anime based off of it, is not entirely accurate. Specifically, the most inaccurate thing about it, is, well…” He grimaced. “The happy ending. You know that point in the Manga where the story starts to make no sense?”

“... Yes.” Riley squinted at him. “But we’ve already established that your mother is real, if not an actual space alien, so…?”

“Well, that’s the point where everything ended. The tipping point, frankly, was Neji’s death; everything went downhill from there. In the story, they had some trouble, but they eventually turned it around. In reality…”

“Ah.” That sounded… bad. “Can I— uh. Can I see?”

He hummed contemplatively. “I suppose.”

He brought her over to the point in the timeline he’d referenced. The timeline itself looked kind of like an insubstantially shifting thread made of light and smoke.

“Put your hand here.” He pointed to a section of it.

She did as she was told. The instant her hand made contact, she was thrust into a vision of it’s events. Neji, Inoichi, Shikaku, the nameless background shinobi, she knew about their deaths. They were in the story. But the others, the ones that weren’t…

Gai opened all eight gates. Unlike in the anime, though, there was no deus ex machina to save him. She watched as he crumbled to ash.

Most of the Rookie Nine got taken out in an impersonal mass attack, along with several shinobi she didn’t know.

The ones that survived didn’t last long, being picked off one by one.

Madara wanted to put the world in a genjutsu, but something was wrong. He was killing everyone, not just the ones that were a threat to his plan.

(He didn’t know it, but just like all Jinchuuriki, he was being influenced by his bijuu. But Kaguya was always much subtler than her pseudo grandchildren)

Naruto and Sasuke didn’t last very long past their miraculous resurrections. Sakura, exhausted from trying to heal them, was an easy target.

And Kakashi? Well, he died of chakra exhaustion. Again.

In the end, two figures stood above a lifeless world.

“ Please, ” said Obito, from where Black Zetsu held him next to Madara, “ Just let me die. ”

“ You betrayed me, O-bi-to. ” He gestured to the body-covered branches of the God Tree. “ Now you get to watch as I succeed anyway. ”

“Okay! Okay,” Riley said, yanking her hand back out of the timeline, “I’ll do it, I mean. Let’s… get to the doing of the thing. Whatever that entails.”

“Yeah, okay. Good.” The Shinigami cleared his throat, despite being a spiritual entity with no physical form. “So, usually, souls go through the reincarnation wheel, and in doing so, lose their memories of their past life. Sometimes, there’s some leakage of memories, in things you excelled at in your past life, or like deja vu, but really no memories are kept.”

He waved a hand at her. “But. Since I’m doing this personally, we have some… leeway. I still can’t let you keep all your memories, that’s not possible, but I can help you keep most of them.”  

He waved his hands some more. “The way this is going to work is that I’m going to seal some of your memories. Then, I’m going to send you to be reincarnated into my world. Initially, you won’t remember anything, since the seal will contain the memories. The seal will be released the next time I’m summoned.”

And that would probably be… “The Kyuubi attack?”

“The Kyuubi attack.” He frowned.  “Hmm. I’ll have to set you up to be born fairly soon before that. If you go through an abrupt personality change when you’re too old, people will be suspicious.”

“You can control when I’m born?”

“Well, not exactly, but I can, you know, get you within a certain area. Of time.” He frowned at his wording. “A certain time zone. Stretch of time? Time… Bracket? …You know what I mean.”

“Surprisingly, yes.”

“Shut up.” He jabbed a finger at her. “I’ve seen your life, you’re no better than me at this.”

Riley blinked. “You watched my life?”

He scoffed. “Not all of it, your world’s boring. I just got an overview when I grabbed you.”

So that’s how he knew she was from “ one of those universes ”. She didn’t really need an answer to that, but there it was.

With no more small talk to get in the way, they got down to business.

“Alright, come here.” The Shinigami beckoned her over. “This is probably going to feel weird.”

It did. His hand met her head, and suddenly it felt like her most important memories were being put in a box. A box made of the cold, inky void. Suddenly, Riley was very aware of the fact that she didn’t actually have a body. It was very weird.

“Now, I’ve never done this before, so there may be some odd side-effects.” Well that was reassuring. “But through connected-to-the-universe Death God Bullshit, somehow I know that they won’t be terribly detrimental. I mean, there might be some drawbacks, but that’s pretty par for the course with everything else in this world.” He sighed. “Anyway, bye. See you later, maybe.”

And with that, he straight up just chucked her into the timeline like an empty soda can.

Chapter Text

The child’s first memories were of the tube. She floated in it, observing. Mostly, that was very boring. Occasionally, a man would come into the room and observe her right back. That was the highlight of her days.

Then, he took her out of the tube.

Suddenly, life was much more interesting. She learned to walk, and talk, and eventually how to read and write. The man gave her puzzles to solve, and books to read. Whenever she did something new, he wrote it down.

She also learned that the man was called Orochimaru.

For some reason, she thought that fit him perfectly.

“What is my name?” She’d asked him one day.

“You don’t have one,” He said, “You are an artificial creation, a test subject.”

“Oh.” She didn’t think that was right, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why.

“Once you have reached a level of utility I am content with, you may have a name.”

She brightened at that. “Okay.”

Soon after that, he began teaching her about chakra.

“Chakra is essentially your life force. It is a combination of your physical and mental energies. Chakra can be used to affect the world around you through the use of jutsu. Jutsu are performed with hand signs, like so;” He ran through the signs, going slow enough for her to observe. Then, he breathed out a small lick of flame.

“Woah.” She’d never seen fire in person, up until now. There were images in the books he gave her, but those didn’t really capture the movement, or the heat.

Then, he had her meditate. “Close your eyes and focus inward. Chakra feels different to everyone, but you will know when you find it.”

She did as he instructed, but nothing really stood out. She furrowed her brow, searching harder. She sat in silence for a long while before she finally felt… something. She reached out to it in her mind, and was met with a rush of energy.

“Oh!” She opened her eyes, concentrating on the feeling. She looked at her hands. “It’s… tingly.”

“You found it then?” He frowned, but it was puzzled rather than unhappy. “That was… faster than I anticipated.”

She looked away from her hands towards him, and then tilted her head in confusion. “Yours is different. It’s bigger. And not as heavy.”

He blinked in surprise. “You can feel my chakra?”

“Well, yes. It’s not that hard, now that I know how to look.” She picked at the hem of her shirt. “Am I not supposed to?”

“No, no; this is actually a pleasant—if unexpected—surprise. Sensors are useful.” He wrote something in his notebook. “It also explains why you found your chakra so quickly. You can feel everyone’s chakra, why would you have trouble finding your own?”

She nodded, taking the information in. “I like your chakra. It’s sharp, and bright.”

“Oh.” He looked at her briefly, then back to his notes. “...Thank you.”

After that, she took to expanding her senses. She could tell where Orochimaru was, and when he sometimes had visitors. There was one signature that was consistent, and a few that varied. The consistent one was one she didn’t really like. She wasn’t sure what it was, but something about it rubbed her the wrong way. The others were weird. They were oddly… bland.

Outside the lab, she could eventually sense a lot of signatures, but they were muffled. She couldn’t really get much of a read on them, just that they were there. Everyday she stretched her senses, though, she could feel a little farther, and see the signatures a little more clearly. They still seemed far away, though, as if there was glass between her and them.

There was one she focused on, sometimes, because it was really odd. The signature had a lot of chakra, but it also had another signature inside of it. The second chakra roiled beneath the first, lashing out at times, but being countered by it. She wondered how the first kept winning, when the second was so much bigger.

She was trying to find the odd signature again when it happened. She couldn’t find it, at first, which meant it was out of her range. But then, something shifted at the edge of her senses, and the second signature unfurled. She could still only barely sense it, but apparently the two had been separated.

She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

A moment later, though, she had other things to worry about, because the chakra was suddenly there . It was bigger than she could have possibly imagined, and the weight of it pressed down on her, robbing her of her breath.

For a few minutes, that was all she knew. The press of angerangerhatehateRAGE , and the fear that filled her in response. Then, the signature was abruptly farther away. While not good, it was better. She could think again.

She gasped harshly, now that she was able to breathe. There was something, something about this, it was important, what was it—?

And suddenly, there was a hole in the world, and something in her mind unlocked.

Chapter Text

The thing about the memory box was that it didn’t hold everything . Just whatever Riley had considered important. That ended up being the Naruto storyline (since she was fixing it), music, psychology, other sciences, stories, her sense of humor, and prominent memories. That, along with whatever she had learned so much that it was ingrained into her brain, was what went into the box.

What went into the box is what she remembered when it opened.

When she came back to herself after the flood of memories, the signature ( the Kyuubi ) was gone. ( Minato had sealed him, he’s in Naruto now —)

Orochimaru was in the building, rapidly making his way towards her. He was probably worried. Whether he actually cared about her well being or only wanted to make sure an experiment hadn’t failed, she wasn’t sure.

She was still a little disjointed when he rushed into her room. He ran a glowing green hand over her head ( probably a diagnostic jutsu ).

“Are you alright?” Hm. He sounded a little frantic. That’s one check in the ‘Actually Cares’ column.

“Well, I am now.” She stared at her hands. Something was weird about them, but what…? “I wasn’t a few minutes ago. That was a lot of chakra. It was very overwhelming. Honestly I think it may have done something to me because I don’t really feel real at the moment.”

“Mild dissociation.” He sighed, probably in relief, but who knows. “Well, it could be worse. Some of the village’s children died from the sheer pressure.”

She squinted at her hands, focusing on her left palm. “There’s a key on my hand. Why is there a key on my hand? That’s a bit weird for a birthmark.” There was a small patch of paper-white skin on her palm in the shape of a simple key. While she wasn’t quite as pale (literally white) as Orochimaru, she was very nearly milk colored herself, which would explain why she’d never noticed it before.

He sighed, and this time it was definitely in exasperation. “Sleep it off. You’ll be fine tomorrow. In the morning, we will be starting your training.”

“Okay.” Training? Like ninja training? Probably, considering, but…

She went to bed. It was probably a good idea, with how out-of-sorts her head was.

When she woke up, her memories had settled. She couldn’t really do anything with them at the moment, however. So, she defaulted to her primary strategy for stuff she wasn’t sure how to deal with; She put it off.

She’d deal with it later.

As it turned out, “training” was ninja training. It started out with (surprise, surprise) more testing. How fast could she run, how long, how flexible was she, how strong, how good was her balance, aim, sight… Basically, he was setting a baseline.

Then they started on katas.

She didn’t really know anything about katas from either life, but they were sort of fun. Tiring, a little frustrating, but enjoyable. From what she could tell (without much of a reference, she couldn’t be sure) the katas were focused on flexibility and speed. Which would make sense if he was teaching her his taijutsu style.

She idly wondered why he was teaching her. If she was an experiment, she couldn’t really figure out what she was being tested for. Learning speed? Usefulness? General competence?

But that didn’t really matter, so she didn’t put too much thought into it. She was always very good at going with the flow.

After katas, she started learning about manipulating her chakra. Small exercises, like the leaf thing, and then basic jutsu.

Apparently, one thing that carried over from her old life was her phenomenal learning curve. She was definitely still physically a small child, which came with all the emotions and lack of muscle control children were known for, but she also was able to focus better than most children she’d known as Riley.

She wasn’t sure if that was entirely because of her memories, though. Maybe this body was just smarter than her last one.

Time passed that way for a while. In the mornings, she would learn taijutsu (as she had progressed from just katas) from Orochimaru. After that, he would teach her chakra manipulation, either an exercise, ninjutsu, or occasionally a simple genjutsu. In the evening, she would read and practice writing, and before bed, she would practice her sensing.

Apparently, what she’d been doing (looking at the signatures outside, expanding her range) was essentially meditation, which was something that she would have been told to do if she hadn’t done it herself.

Breakfast was first thing, lunch was in between taijutsu and chakra work, and dinner was after.

On the days where Orochimaru was somewhere else (probably a different lab, or missions) She stayed in her room all day, reading or writing or drawing. Sometimes, she’d practice katas on her own. On those days, her food was delivered by the bland signatures. She had a feeling, now that she had background knowledge, that they were Root agents. Which meant the other one, the one she didn’t like, was probably Danzo.

She was glad that even in her newly-reincarnated state, with no actual information, she still found the old bastard distasteful.

Her days continued in an, all considered, fairly interesting routine (she got to learn so much, without the pressure of the American school system!), until one day she felt Orochimaru’s chakra flare, outside the wards.

She closed her eyes, focusing on his location. Everything outside still felt like she was feeling it through a glass box, but she was pretty good at extrapolating.

Across from Orochimaru, another, stronger signature was burning with a mix of horror and righteous anger. Behind that one, a few muted signatures stood. Not bland, like the Root agents, but… watered down? So probably Anbu.

Which meant the other big signature was probably the Hokage. Which meant this was when he drove Orochimaru out of the village.

Her eyes snapped open. Had it really been two-ish years already? She wasn’t exactly sure when, originally, Orochimaru defected, but she thought it was about that long after the Kyuubi Attack.

She looked around her room, comparing her height to what she could see. To her surprise, yep, she’d definitely grown a lot between now and then. Which meant she was, what? Four, five years old? Maybe six? She didn’t exactly know when she was born, her earliest memories from this world was being in a tube. But the tube was the only one in the room, so at least she wasn’t a Mokuton experiment.

Man, she really should have tried to get more information while Orochimaru was here. She still had no idea what he’d done to her for her to be an experiment.

Orochimaru’s chakra and the Sandaime’s chakra flared in a pattern that suggested a fight. She should probably get out of here, since apparently Danzo knew about her. Or at least a few Root agents did? Being a kid sucked, she didn’t have any information!

She went over to the door, trying to figure out a way to open it from the inside. It just looked like a regular door. Had she ever tried to open it herself? She wracked her brain. No, she hadn’t. She hadn’t really had any reason to try.

She reached for the doorknob. She had to extend her arms all the way up, but she grabbed it. Damn, she was short. Was she short for her age? Were the adults just weirdly tall? Was the door built like this on purpose, to keep her in before she learned obedience?

She twisted the doorknob. Nope, locked. Apparently they didn’t think that much of her ability to behave herself.

Now, how to unlock it.

Her palm tingled. On instinct, she channeled chakra into it.

Click. The door unlocked.

She twisted the doorknob again. This time, the door opened. Once she was in the hallway, she stared at her palm, the one with the key. Was it literally a key? Was this a side-effect of her reincarnation? Was it a kekkei genkai? She’d never heard of anything like that, but the powers in this magic ninja world were fucking weird.

She shook herself out of her thoughts. She had to focus on escaping now. The problem was that she had no idea where to go; Orochimaru hadn’t exactly taken her on a tour of the place. She wandered through the hallways, trying to find where to go. At some point, it’d become a little less “escaping” and a little more “exploring.”

So sue her, she was curious. For all he was sorta evil (ethically dubious at best), Orochimaru was a genius scientist. She wanted to see his stuff! So, she got to practice her “Magic hand, please unlock this door”-no-jutsu a few more times. Mostly, she couldn’t really find anything interesting. A lot of the rooms were storage. But that sparked another thought.

Once she got outside, she had no idea what to do. She could feel what she assumed to be Konoha, but it was sort of far away. Not incredibly far, she was pretty sure this lab was close enough for reasonable travel time, but that was for a fully-fledged ninja.

She had learned tree-walking, sure, but she was tiny. A baby. Her chakra reserves were frankly pathetic. And worse, her stride lengths were minuscule. So she’d have a bit of a walk to get to the village.

So, while she was still inside, she grabbed a bag from storage, and went off to find supplies. There had to be food somewhere, since she was fed regular meals.

It took a while, but eventually she found… not a kitchen, but it had food, and a prep station, maybe? Anyway, she found what she was looking for, and she gathered as much of the food as she could find and put it in her bag. Then she went off to find anything else that could be useful.

In one room, she found a whole bunch of scalpels. She took a few, since knives are always good to have. In another, she found what looked like a lab coat, so she took that too. Of course, the lab coat was absolutely enormous on her, but whatever. It might be cold outside, so she would take all the clothes she could get.

One of the rooms, though, she made her most important discovery. She didn’t find any supplies, but she did find a mirror. As weird as it was, she’d been alive in this form for four or five years (she wasn’t quite sure) and she still didn’t know what she looked like. Oh, she knew she was pale, and that her hair was a frankly ridiculous shade of orange (It’s so bright, holy fuck), but you can’t really see your own face. She did know she had sharp teeth now, though, which was awesome.

She stepped in front of the mirror, took one look at her face, and blinked in disbelief.

“Well,” she said to herself, “That explains why he cares, I guess.”

If you looked beyond the hair (which was a feat, since it was big and really bright ) and the difference in skin tone (not much, but enough to be noticeable) she looked… a lot like Orochimaru. The most noticeable thing was her eyes. They were yellow, just like his, and they had the same violet markings over them.

So. Statistically speaking. She was his kid. Or something. She remembered being in a tube, so probably artificial? Yikes, this was going to be awkward when she got to Konoha. At least she’d be pretty when she grew up. Good genes, and all that.

Internal snark aside, the revelation didn’t really faze her? She was surprised, sure, even though she probably should have suspected it due to context clues (He taught her his fighting style, for crying out loud!) but all in all, she didn’t really care. Well, she cared, but she wasn’t… upset, or anything.

She liked him as a character when she was Riley, and she liked him in this life as a person. He was a little weird, in retrospect, but he was fairly nice to her, and…

It sounded bad, even in her own head, but she didn’t really care about all his other test subjects. He was nice to her, so she liked him. (It didn't hurt that they were sort of similar. The biggest difference was that she was more empathetic than him.)

And maybe, this would mean she could drag him from Chaotic Evil to True Neutral early. He’d be helpful to have on their side. Since she was fixing everything, and all.

Decided, after her mental… pep talk(? or something) she continued on her quest to get the hell out of here.

Eventually, she found the door. She unlocked it with her power (probably a kekkei genkai, she’d decided) and went out into the world.

Chapter Text

To the surprise of absolutely no one, outside was just a whole fucking bunch of trees. Literally the entire area close to Konoha was covered in forest.

Despite her best efforts, she hadn’t been able to find any shoes. Or even socks. So she had to walk barefoot through the woods all the way to the village. That wasn’t going to be fun, but staying here to wait for Danzo’s freak squad to come abduct her sounded even less fun.

She walked through the day, and the night, taking naps instead of sleeping for long chunks. She found a stream going the exact opposite direction she was walking; that was good, she hadn’t actually brought any water with her from the lab. (That was stupid of her. Well, at least she could have gone back for it.) During her walk, she contemplated the most important aspect of the plan she had never really made;

How the hell was she going to get into Konoha? She couldn’t exactly just walk in the gates — they had guards, and stuff. She’d be accused of being a spy, or something. Right? She actually had no idea how anything in that village worked. The manga hadn’t exactly been informative on, well, anything.

On the other hand, she was a sensor with a bloodline that let her unlock things. She’d probably be fine.

Eventually, she had the wall in sight. It had taken a couple days, and she’d eaten half her food, but she gotten there. (Also, her feet hurt. But, that would just mean she’d get calluses, right?) Now, she had two options.

Option one: take her chances with the gate guards, and all the bureaucracy and stuff.

Option two: try to climb the goddamn wall.

Both options had advantages and disadvantages. Option one was less hazardous to her life, but also had the potential to create long-term problems. She’d left the lab to make sure Danzo couldn’t get her. That would be for nothing if she tipped him off she was here too soon.

Option two, on the other hand, had the potential for immediate death in a variety of ways. She could fall off the wall, since her chakra reserves were tiny. She could set off the wards, and get murdered by Anbu. Or worse, Root. She could get down wrong and get caught in a trap.

Option one was not a great idea. Option two was absolutely fucking crazy.

Option two it was.

But first, she had some preparations to make. She reached back,and braided her hair into a long tail. (Hm, it was really long. That was sort of unwieldy.) Then, she twisted the braid into a bun, fastening it with a strip of fabric she’d cut from the bottom of the labcoat.

She looked at said coat. It was—very white. Not really great for sneaking. Hmm. She walked over to the stream. Mentally apologizing to lab coats everywhere, she dropped it to the ground, and rubbed mud into it. Then she hung it on a branch to dry. Once the mud had dried, she rinsed off the excess dirt. The coat was now a light brown color. It still wasn’t ideal, but it was better.

Leaning over the stream, she caught a flash of reflected purple. Oh, right. Shit, she should probably hide that. Sighing, she undid her hair, and grabbed one of her scalpels. Carefully, she cut some of her hair to form long bangs. Then, she re-did the rest of her hair. Bangs in front of her eyes wasn’t a sure-fire way to hide the marks, but no one noticed that Nagato had the motherfucking Rinnegan until he used it, so…

By then, it was starting to get dark. Making sure her hair-do was secure, she walked over to her bag. She ate as much as she could without over eating, and then — mentally apologizing to Sanji and the spirit of One Piece in general — dumped the rest.

She slipped the bag over her head, so it was covering her hair. Then she put on the former lab coat. It was really big on her, but she did her best to tie it until it was secure. Then, she made for the wall.

Instead of actually walking up the wall, she used her hands as well and just sort of—climbed. Like a monkey, or something. As she reached the top, she could feel some sort of bubble-like chakra structure. The village wards, presumably. It tasted unfortunately like soap. Carefully, she reached out with her left hand, and tried unlocking it.

Something happened, and she hoped that was a good sign. She slipped over the wall and made her way down. She dropped the last few feet to the ground, and turned towards the village.

“Holy shit,” she said, “I can’t believe that worked.”

“You can’t believe what worked?”

She let out a squeak and jumped away from the voice, flinging a scalpel in it’s direction.

The scalpel spun through the air, missing by a mile and hitting a tree blunt-end first.

The person who snuck up on her, presumably by suppressing their chakra signature, since she could sense it now, took a few steps forward. She couldn’t really see, since it was dark and her hair was in front of her eyes, but they were taller than her, which ruled out a baby or small summons.

“I’m not going back!” She whipped out another scalpel, this time simply pointing it at the person in the shadows. “I’ll fight you! I have a very small knife!”

“Not going back where?” The person was faster than her, as suddenly they were lifting her up by the back of her shirt from behind. “Is that a lab coat? Why do you have a bag on your head?”

They snatched the scalpel out of her hand. She retaliated by grabbing another and going to stab at the hand holding her in the air. That attack was too thwarted.

“How many of those do you have?” They were starting to sound amused, which she had mixed feelings about. “Just give it up, kid. You’re pretty good, but I’m better.”

She grumbled, but stopped fighting.

“Good. Now, I’m taking you to see the Hokage. You’re pretty suspicious.”

With a flare of chakra, they were flying through the air. It didn’t take long before they were at Hokage tower. Shunshin, probably. She’d never actually experienced one.

Once they were inside, she was unceremoniously dumped on the floor. As she picked herself up, she listened to the conversation going on next to her.

“You know, I was just heading out for the night.” That was the Hokage, probably, since the voice sounded old.

“Sorry ‘bout that!” That was her kidnapper. “But uh, we have a bit of a… situation.”

She looked up, finally getting a good look at the person who had apprehended her. He (probably he?) had black eyes and curly black hair.

Holy shit. Holy shit, was that —

“Shisui, you’re killing me.” The Hokage sighed. “Why on earth did you bring a child into my office at this hour?”

She wondered what he was thinking, looking at her. A tiny, dirty child, wearing a bag on her head and a lab coat about twelve sizes too big.

Well, she was tired of the bag. It wouldn’t do her any more good anyway. She shucked the bag and shook her head.

“Oh, the bag was to hide the hair.” Shusui grinned at her. “Nice, kid. Smart.”

“Thanks?” She didn’t have to fake her bewilderment at the situation. What the hell was going on?

“Shisui.” The Hokage sounded exasperated. Why wasn’t he more concerned? Did things like this happen often? “Explain. Please.”

“Alright, alright.” Shisui held out his hands in a placating motion. “So, there I was, at the training ground, practicing my stealth — ” (Well, that explained why she couldn’t sense him) “ — when all of a sudden, this kid practically falls off the wall!” He waved a hand towards her. “So naturally, I ask her what the hell she’s doing. Then, she performs the worst throw I’ve ever seen with a scalpel she pulled out of nowhere. So, I gotta wonder to myself;” He paused for dramatic affect. “Who is this kid, where did she come from, and why does she have such a random mish-mash of skills?”

“And you took her to me, why exactly?”

“Because she came over the wall.” Shisui dropped the over-exuberance. “But, as far as I know, the alarm didn’t go off.”

The Hokage’s eyes sharpened. “Oh?” He turned to look at her. “Would you like to explain?”

“Uh,” she reviewed the conversation mentally. “Which part?”

“How did you get past the wards?”

She couldn’t lie to the Hokage — he was too skilled, he’d notice. But, she could tell the truth in the most unhelpful way possible.

“I just sorta — ” She pushed outward with her left palm. “Unlocked it.”

“Unlocked it?” It was clearly a request for clarification, but she didn’t like him enough to comply.

“Yup.” She picked at the hem of her shirt. “If it makes you feel better, I don’t think anyone else could.”

The Hokage sighed. She would have felt bad, maybe, except that she didn’t care about his feelings at all.

“Let’s try from a different angle. Why did you climb the wall?”

“To get into the village.”

She was really enjoying this. Messing with people was one of her favorite pastimes, but often times she cared to much about what people thought to do it. But Sarutobi Hiruzen let a child live on his own, manage his own finances, and be shunned by the entire village. And that wasn’t even getting into the shit he let Danzo get away with.

He sighed again, more frustrated this time. “Why did you want to get into the village?”

“Because it’s safer.” True, even if not the whole truth.

But it caught his attention. “Safer than what?”

“The lab.”

Eyes widening in alarm, The Hokage turned and exchanged a glance with Shisui. Considering how recent it was, they’d evidently come to the right conclusion.

“While you were in the lab, you didn’t happen to see a man with black hair and gold eyes, did you?” he asked, sounding like he already knew the answer.

She spoke anyway. “You mean Orochimaru-san? I left because you two were fighting, you know. It seemed like a good a time as any.”

His eyes narrowed. “How did you know about that?”

She didn’t have to fake her confused head tilt. How could he not guess? There were only so many ways in this world that you could know about something happening a considerable distance away. “I felt it.”

He blinked. “Are you… a sensor?”

She nodded. “Obviously.” She shrugged. “There’s only so much a girl can do to entertain herself. My room was so boring, I used all my extra time in there watching this place. There’s so many interesting signatures. Not like the lab. Most of the visitors I got there were very bland.”

“How did you get out of the lab?”

She rolled her eyes, and repeated the pushing motion from earlier. “I unlocked the door.” Then she pursed her lips. “Several of them, actually. Had to get supplies for the trip, and all.”

The Hokage hummed thoughtfully. “It’s not quite the same, but, your manner of speech rather reminds me of Orochimaru.”

She deadpanned. “That would make sense, considering he’s the one who taught me to speak.”

The Hokage stared at her consideringly. “He taught you… to speak.” It wasn’t a question, exactly, but it was sort of inquisitive. “How long have you lived in that lab?”

“Always.” She bounced somewhat anxiously on the balls of her feet. They hurt, since days of walking in the woods with no shoes wasn’t really health conducive. “He gave me books, so I know about the outside world, but my earliest memories are of the tube.”

“The tube?”

She just nodded. He wanted more information, but in this case she actually didn’t know.

The Hokage nodded as well, but thoughtfully. “And after the tube? What was your life like?”

He was mining for information, but her biggest secret was something he’d never even think of. She was safe-ish, for now. “He gave me puzzles, and books, and writing utensils — ooh, and he taught me shinobi stuff! Like katas!”

“Shinobi stuff.” He looked pained. “How old are you?”

“Uh.” She actually wasn’t sure. “At least four? Five, probably. Maybe six, but unlikely. I don’t know if I have a birthday and it’s sort of hard to keep track of the days with no windows — ”

“Okay,” broke in Shisui, “I’ve been thinking. The bag, I get. The lab coat, the scalpels, even the ‘no shoes’ thing, I get those. What I don’t get, is your haircut. You did it yourself, I can tell. No mirror, probably with a scalpel. But why? Hair in your face is a hazard, and it also sort of defeats the purpose of the bag.”

Shit, she thought they were going to just ignore that. (But was it so bad, really? She was just playing this by ear, and her anonymity was blown clean out of the water anyway.)

“Um,” She tugged on a strand on the side of her face. “Well, it, uh — it wouldn’t really do me any good to get in to the village if I stuck out when I got here, right? So, uh — ”

“You hid your eyes.” The Hokage cut in, sending a considering glance between the two kids in his office. “Is it… a doujutsu?”

“Uh,” she grimaced. “No.” Deciding to get it over with, she brushed her bangs out of her eyes.

The Hokage stiffened. “Oh.”

“Well,” Shisui said with false cheer, “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Chapter Text

It was all very dramatic and ninja-y, but eventually it was decided she’d live in the orphanage and attend the Academy, while being watched closely to ensure she wasn’t a spy. She inferred that meant there’d be Anbu watching her, and resolved try to figure out how to sense suppressed chakra. It was still there, just… compressed? So it should be possible.

She and Shisui were on their way to the orphanage to get her settled in, when the Hokage spoke.

“Oh, my.” He puffed his pipe. “I seem to have forgotten a formality. What is your name, little one?”

For a moment, she considered saying ‘Riley.’ But, that wasn’t really her name anymore. She was someone new, now. So, she said;

“I don’t have one.”

“What?” Shisui whispered from beside her, sounding upset.

The Hokage evidently had similar feelings, as he frowned. “Five years old, and you never got a name?”

Objectively, she could see why that would bother someone. But her sense of self had never really relied on her name. “I didn’t really need one, until now. And he said I could have one once I reached a level of utility he was satisfied with.”

“Well,” Said the Hokage, looking like he was holding back anger, “Here, you don’t need to be useful to have a name. Would you like me to give you one, or would you like to pick one out for yourself…?”

She contemplated. She’d idly thought about names, before, in both this life and the last. “Could I be… Tomoko?”

“ ‘ Intelligent Child’ . It suits you.” He paused, visibly deliberating over something. “How about… Yashagorō Tomoko?”

“Yashagorō? Is that…” She ran a finger over one of the markings on her eyes.

“Your clan name, yes.” He gazed at her assessingly. “Did Orochimaru tell you about them?”

“No, just basic deductive reasoning.” She waved a hand dismissively. “I don’t need a last name, so it must have come from a parent. And the only person we know I’m related to is Orochimaru-san. So.”

“Intelligent child, indeed.” The Hokage waved them out of his office.

It was just starting to get light out, the sun peeking out over the horizon. The only people that should be up at this hour were bakers and night guards, but here they were.

“Tomoko, huh?” Shisui picked her up again, this time holding her properly. A normal person may have found it insulting, being carried around, but Tomoko ( she had a name now! ) had always had weird priorities. “Well, hold on tight, Tomoko-chan, we’re going the fast way.”

Which meant more Shunshin-ing. Well, it could be worse.

When they got to the orphanage, Shisui let her down. While he talked to the matron (who had presumably been woken up by Anbu to prepare for her arrival, since who cared about civilians), she looked around at what she could see.

The building was fairly well-maintained, unlike some fanfics she’d read before said, and everything was tidy. She had a feeling that would change once everyone woke up, and other that that, she couldn’t tell much from where she was standing.

Shisui and the Matron finished talking, and Shisui turned to face her.

He waved jauntily. “Bye Tomoko-chan!” Then he vanished.

Were all Uchiha socially incompetent in various ways? All she had to go on was the show and her interactions with Shisui, but so far all signs pointed to yes.

The Matron turned and led her to her new bed, grumbling all the way about ninjas and proper decency and getting eight hours of sleep. Tomoko felt sort of bad.

She tugged on the Matron’s sleeve. “Sorry,” she said, when the woman turned to look at her, “Didn’t mean to make them wake you up.”

The woman sighed. “ ‘s not your fault, kid. Shinobi just have no common sense. Bringin’ a new kid in at fuck’o’clock in the morning… What were they thinking… Some of us need to sleep…” She descended back into muttering.

Tomoko had a little more personal agency in the situation than was obvious, but she wasn’t about to explain that. Instead, she felt around the orphanage with her senses. Civilians didn’t have strong chakra signatures, but she could sense them just fine up-close. From far away, she could just barely tell they were there.

She didn’t realize, at first, when she came across Naruto’s chakra. It didn’t feel like Kushina’s had — like a large chakra signature being caged by a smaller one. In fact, it was until she’d gotten settled into her own bed that she’d realized why one of the signatures in the place was so weird.

It felt like the two were next to each other, instead of one-inside-the-other. And instead of large, Kurama’s chakra just felt deep. Very, very deep.

It sort of made sense, that the two jinchuuriki’s chakra felt so different. They had different seals, after all.

She drifted off to sleep thinking about the logistics of ninja magic and off-brand runes.

__________

The next day was interesting because apparently she’d showed up right before the new year of the academy, so she had to take the entrance exam like, immediately.

Despite the fact that she hadn’t gotten the chance to study for it, she was pretty sure she passed the exam with flying colors. She had an advantage, of course, since she’d gotten up to a high school education in her other life, but she was also just hella smart.

She had come to the conclusion that yes, this body was smarter than her last one. Riley was no slouch, of course, she’d been plenty smart, but apparently Tomoko had inherited Orochimaru’s prodigious intelligence.

It was both very cool, and kind of sucked.

Riley had been smart, but she hadn’t gotten very good grades, since she tended to get off track when she was bored. (It’s sort of hard to get full marks if you have no idea what’s going on.)

Tomoko was worried that’d be an aspect that carried over. Luckily, though, most ninja stuff seemed interesting enough to keep her interest. It was going to be the stuff she’d struggled with as Riley that bit her in the ass. Like history. And geography. And politics.

But that was stuff to worry about later, because after the exam Shisui showed up again to take her shopping.

“I got clothes at the orphanage, you know,” She said, while he dragged her by the hand through the marketplace.

“Yeah, hand-me-downs .” Shisui scoffed. “You look like a raggedy orphan.”

“I mean, technically…”

“Well, I can fix one of those things. I have money, we’re getting you at least one outfit that isn’t oversized on you.” He suddenly changed directions, heading into a clothing store. “Here we go!”

She tried on outfits he picked out, and picked somethings out of her own. They had distinctly different fashion senses. Tomoko went for things that were comfortable, prioritizing function over form. Shisui, possibly because the clothes were not for him, picked out outfits based on appearance alone.

Some of them were fine. Some of them were…

“Oh come on, you look adorable!”

“I am so uncomfortable. The seams on this are stabbing me.”

“Fine, how ‘bout this one.”

“I refuse to wear anything that has lace on it, on principle.”

“But Tomoko-chan~!”

After a while and a lot of whining, Tomoko had selected the clothes she wanted. Mostly, that was oversized hoodies.

“The point of this was to get you clothes that fit, Tomoko-chan,” Shisui said as she presented her selection, “You’re swimming in those.”

“Then I’ll have time to grow into them.” She trotted up to the counter, and attempted to put the pile down on top. She struggled, too short, until Shisui came over to help. “Beside, they’re comfy.”

“This is Fire Country,” he pointed out, “You do realise it’s like, almost always hot here, right?”

“I get cold easily,” she said, “I think it might be part of the, y’know — ” She gestured to her face, which she had covered with her bangs again. It wouldn’t do to upset the locals, now that she was living here.

“What, so you’re like, cold blooded?”

“Something like that.”

After that, he dropped her off back off at the orphanage with her new clothes.

She waved as she went in. “Bye, Shisui.”

He waved back, grinning. “See you later, Tomoko-chan!”

Shisui was nice, and sort of funny. She liked him. Apparently, he had taken a liking to her as well. She wasn’t quite sure why, but she’d go along with it.

She put her new clothes away in the small dresser by her bed. She’d only been in the village for a day and a half, and she already had one friend! Probably. It was always possible that Shisui was assigned to keep an eye on her, discreetly, but honestly at this point she didn’t care. Years of only seeing one other person had crept up on her. She was… lonely.

She started school soon, though. Maybe she’d be able to make friends there.

__________

She did not make friends at school. She was the youngest by far in her class, having tested in at a high level. All the other kids had had years to form friend groups and cliques, and none of them wanted to include the little genius new kid.

Tomoko didn’t really mind, considering they were all appropriately childish and she… wasn’t, but she wished they’d at least speak to her civilly. It’s like they decided that because she was smart, she thought she was better than them.

Did everyone in the village have an inferiority complex?

But the Academy was interesting , so it wasn’t all a waste. She learned lots of new things, mostly about chakra theory and application. And then, she made the discovery of her new favorite subject; sealing.

It was somewhere between art and math, and Tomoko loved it. They only learned basic sealing — beginner’s theory, basic exploding tags and sealing scrolls — but she wanted to learn more, so she went to the library. Academy students had access to materials that civilians didn’t, but not as much as full ninja.

What she found at the library was mostly just what they had learned in class, with a few fun facts and tidbits and history thrown in. In order to get more, she needed permission from a superior officer — someone above her in rank.

So she asked Shisui.

Shisui had started showing up randomly ever since he’d taken her shopping. She saw him as often as every other day when he was in the village. He’d show up, and they’d go somewhere. Sometimes they’d get something to eat, sometimes they’d go to a store, sometimes an activity, and sometimes he’d just show her something cool about the village.

When she asked him to get her books about sealing, he grinned at her. “Oh ho? My little minion has plans to be a seals master?”

She nodded vigorously, practically vibrating in her excitement. “It’s fascinating! Sealing has so many applications, the only limit is complexity and chakra capacity! You can accomplish anything with the correct seals, control and affect things, store items, set traps, even bend space and time! Please, Shisui, I neeeeeed it — !”

Shisui laughed. “Okay, okay! Settle down, kiddo, I’ll get you your books. But if you make something explode, you can’t blame me, alright?”

She agreed, and when she saw him next, he handed over the books. She squealed in excitement, and hugged him. “Thank you! You’re the best, Shisui!”

“Okay, so, and this is totally not a bribe to make you say yes or anything, but my family found out I sort of befriended a five-year-old and they want to meet you? So I told them I’d bring you to meet them and I think you should come because you sorta remind me of one of my cousins sometimes with how weirdly serious you get — ”

“Shisui.” She tugged on the bottom of his shirt, and he stopped talking. “It’s fine. I’d like to meet your family.” She smirked at him. “Also, you have to show me where you live so I can randomly appear at your house like you do to me.”

“Deal.”

So, Tomoko got to meet Shisui’s family, who just so happened to be the most important family in the clan, and one of the most important families in the anime.

It wasn’t a formal visit, so she didn’t have to dress up, which she was thankful for. She didn’t own any fancy clothing.

The visit was actually kind of boring, with Fugaku spending most of the time not-so-subtly interrogating her on her skill level and academic prowess. She answered honestly, because it wasn’t like he could actually make her do anything. The highlight of the visit was that two-year-old Sasuke was absolutely adorable.

Itachi, true to form, was serious the entire time. He was, frankly, no fun at all. But, he was kind of cute with how transparently devoted to Sasuke he was.

Tomoko left their house feeling like she never wanted to go back, unless maybe it was to babysit Sasuke. They were all so suffocatingly formal. It sort of reminded her of Riley’s visits to her mormon grandparents.

She liked Shisui much better.

Chapter Text

At first, it was just whispers. Occasionally, the people on the street would look at her and mutter at each other.

Then, they started avoiding her. They’d cross over to the other side of the street if they saw her coming, and send her sideways glances when they thought she wasn’t looking.

By the time it really escalated, and people started actively harassing her, she’d heard what they were whispering.

“ Snake girl .”

“ Monster child. ”

“ Spy. ”

Evidently, someone had figured out where she’d come from, and then leaked the information. Considering what was implied about Naruto’s situation in the show, her money was on Danzo.

(She started wearing her hair out of her face. What was the point in hiding her eyes if everyone knew who she was anyway?)

The point was, by the time she met Naruto, she had a pretty good understanding of how shitty his life was. Not a full one, since she had one (1) good friend and way more self confidence than he did, but…

Even knowing they were wrong, that she wasn’t a monster, a traitor, a spy , the constant fear and hate started to grate on her nerves. She told herself that what they thought didn’t matter, that Shisui liked her, at least, but sometimes, it got to her.

Speaking of Naruto, though, it’d been nearly a full year and a half and she still hadn’t run into him. Which was odd, considering they lived in the same building. At this point she was starting to wonder if maybe someone was keeping them apart deliberately. Usually one would dismiss such a thought as paranoid, but this was ninja land, and it’s not paranoia if they’re really out to get you.

She’d never sought him out, of course, because she was sort of worried that’d be taken wrong. Kid who looks like the village’s second most notorious criminal shows up and then proceeds to make a beeline for the resident superweapon? They’d worry, never mind that said kid and superweapon were both children .

She supposed she’d have to wait a while longer, and prove she was a Loyal Shinobi first. Which would be hard, considering she was no such thing. She wasn’t going to betray the village, per say, but she definitely didn’t buy in to the “best village” propaganda. She’d protect Konoha because it’s where she lived, and where her friends lived. But she wasn’t about to prioritize Leaf citizens over others.

Everyone outside her immediate social circle were interchangeable in her eyes. Also, possibly expendable. She wouldn't be cruel to civilians for no reason, or anything, but she was inherently selfish, and being raised as a Shinobi had only amplified that. Her priority was always going to be her people; then the world.

__________

She graduated after two years at the academy. Technically, if she’d wanted to, she could have done it faster, the key words there being if she wanted to. Instead, she’d wanted to acclimate to the environment outside the lab before she got assigned a team. Even if her first chunk of missions was going to be glorified chores, training was a thing.

Unless her teacher was Hatake Kakashi, she supposed. He hadn’t really done jack shit teacher-wise until Shippuden. Or maybe that was because team 7 was so, well, team 7?

The point, though, was that she was statistically likely to get a teacher that actually taught her things, and if she started off on false assumptions from the lab, she’d… be annoyed, she guessed. She’d just rather not deal with that.

But, intentions aside, she really couldn’t bring herself to go through another year of school, so after two years, she took the graduation exam. She was pretty set no matter which of the academy three they decided to end the exam with. She used henge a whole lot to go into town, so no one would recognize her. She could do bunshin fine, no more, no less. And kawarimi, well.

She’d had fun with that one, actually. Trying to figure out how it worked. As far as she could tell, the exchange of person and object was damn near instantaneous, and it was a true switch — not like how shunshin was just speed, rather than true teleportation — so if utilized properly, it could, theoretically, be used as a short-distance teleport hack.

That was, of course, if you could get the technique to work with air instead of, say, a log. Through the process of many, many experiments, she had discovered that the technique was easier the closer the object a shinobi switched with was to their size and mass. So switching with, say, a log about the same size as you, would be much easier than switching with say, a water balloon.

That also meant that switching with another person was possible. In theory. In practice, switching with another shinobi was dangerous, because the chakra you used to perform the technique tended to get disrupted by the other person's, destabilizing the entire process.

That setback could be overcome, though, (once again, only in theory) if you had either enough chakra or good enough control to basically hold down the other person’s chakra for the length of time of the switch. Which, while not very long generally, was a long time to suppress someone’s chakra with your own. Especially if they were an enemy.

She spent a lot of her spare time doing experiments. She knew it made people uneasy, reminded them of Orochimaru, but she wasn’t about to give up science just because people were scared of her parent.

Anyway, she passed the exams, to the surprise of absolutely no one, and in the name of becoming a real ninja, Shisui took her clothes shopping. Again.

“Is this your default reaction to something big happening?” She peered into the store from behind him. “‘Hey, welcome to your new life, let’s go shopping’?”

“Come on, Tomo-Chan, it’s traditional!” He dragged her inside, not with actual force, but through social obligation. “You’re officially a ninja now, so you need a ninja outfit.”

She ended up picking out long, reinforced fingerless gloves, black shorts, tall boots, and a sleeveless hoodie.

“Another hoodie?” Shisui mused, before humming in acquiescence. “Well, at least it fits.”

“Oversized hoodies are comfortable.” She folded her arms. “But, I must admit, they are rather… unwieldy.”

“Yeah-” He reached down and grabbed a handful of her sleeve, “-wouldn’t be too hard to pin this to a tree with a kunai. And then where would you be?”

She deadpanned. “Pinned to a tree, apparently.”

He took advantage of his grip on her sleeve to pull her over into a noogie in retaliation.

__________

The day after graduation, all geared up in her new outfit and her various sealed weaponry ( why didn’t more shinobi get into fuuinjutsu? It was damned convenient— ) she headed to the academy building to meet up with the other graduates, and get assigned a team.

When she entered the classroom, there wasn’t a single person there she recognized. None of her classmates had graduated with her, and there were no canon characters as far as she could tell. Which was both a blessing and a curse, as she didn’t have to be on a team with anyone she knew too much about, but also she was way out of her depth.

She went to the second-to-last row on the left side, which no one had sat at yet. She sat, resting her hand on her hands. No one came to sit by her, and she quietly pondered existence until the teacher came in to assign teams.

She listened for her name with half an ear, letting the rest of it wash over her. When her name was called though, it wasn’t what she expected.

“Yashagorō Tomoko!” The teacher read from his clipboard, “You’re being apprenticed. It’ll just be you and your jounin-sensei.”

What?

Well, she thought, I wasn’t expecting that.

Now that she thought about it, though, the number of genin in the room wasn’t divisible by three. And given she was technically a prodigy, it wasn’t super surprising. It had just never occurred to her to think about it.

Oh, but she’d wanted a team! A team meant friends, and as much as she loved Shisui, he was only one guy — and an elite shinobi, at that. She got lonely when he was gone for long stretches at a time.

Having only one person who didn’t think you were evil took a toll on one’s mental health. Not an unmanageable one, considering her… extra knowledge, but she didn’t even have a cat.

She was an introvert, but humans were social animals. She needed some positive interaction.

Hopefully whoever ended up being her sensei would be down with a clingy snake-brat.

__________

She’d waited until all the teams were gone before she let herself wonder.

Maybe I need to go meet them ?

Then she waited until the teacher gave up on waiting in the classroom with her until she let herself have a suspicion.

...Wait a second.

Then she waited another hour, and that was when she gave up on the flimsy denial.

Son of a motherfuck.

She knew who her teacher was going to be. It was going to be a long wait.

In the meantime, she decided to work on her fuuinjutsu. She pulled out her sealing paper, ink and a brush, and the reference scroll Shisui had checked out of the library for her. She was working on the more advanced level; instead of copying down pre-existing seals like exploding tags and sealing scrolls, and making small modifications, she was looking at aspects of seals and their meanings, in order to create her own.

She hummed while she worked, sometimes singing under her breath. She worked her way through an entire playlist’s worth of songs before she sensed another chakra signature approaching. The door opened, and, lo and behold, in came the incredibly tall figure of Hatake Kakashi. If her calculations were correct, he was fresh out of Anbu for this. So. That’d be fun.

She glanced up at him, then went back to her sealing. “Hang on a sec, I gotta finish this.”

He gazed at her impassively, but she could feel his chakra spike in agitation. “My first impression of you…” he said, “Is that you’re rude.”

“Yeah, well, if I had to wait for four hours for you to show up you can wait a couple seconds for me to make sure this won’t explode when I put it away.” She finished the seal with a flourish, and then started gathering her stuff. “There, done.” She put it in her ‘used’ scroll, and stood up. “Lead the way, sensei.”

They went up to the roof. Hm… This was following suspiciously close to the script of the anime, when he got team 7. Was he just that unoriginal, that he did the same thing every time? Or was whatever cosmic force that was arranging this just lazy?

“Introductions!” Tomoko didn’t know for sure, but Kakashi’s nonchalant act seemed rougher than in the show. Maybe he hadn’t had as much practice? “I don't know you, so tell me about yourself.”

“Hmm.” She gathered her thoughts. “My name’s Tomoko, I came here from the lab two years ago. I like science, reading, and tea, and I hate mint and creepy old men. I have one friend, Uchiha Shisui, and I want to specialize in fuuinjutsu.”

“Interesting.” Kakashi had a very good poker face, especially since she could only see about a fourth of it. But, she could tell from his chakra that he was uncomfortable. “In the interest of fairness, I suppose I should do the same. My name is Hatake Kakashi, and I’ll be your jounin-sensei.”

A few seconds of silence passed.

“That’s it?” Tomoko frowned at him. “You suck at this, Sensei.”

Okay, that was definitely an annoyed eye-twitch. He must’ve be what, eighteen at this point? He probably hadn’t gotten into his messing-with-people groove yet. It must rankle to get shown up by a seven-year-old.

“Meet me at training ground seven tomorrow at nine. Be prepared for a skill assessment.” Kakashi stood. “Don’t be late.”

And with that bit of hypocrisy, he vanished.

__________

Tomoko arrived right at nine; and, predictably, Kakashi wasn’t there. Once again, she passed the time by working on her sealing. He finally showed up three hours later, and the skill assessment commenced.

He basically just had her attack him. She guessed the bell test didn’t exactly work without a team to work with. She, of course, got her ass kicked. She was good, for a genin, but he was Anbu. She didn’t stand a chance. She liked to think she surprised him a bit, though.

He probably didn’t anticipate her seals, however rudimentary they were. She was pretty good at explosions, as they were one of the easiest things to make. They made good distractions.

But in the end, she collapsed into a heap on the ground, panting, and he gazed at her assessingly.

“I didn’t expect you to be able to tell me apart from my clone.” He tilted his head. “Your file is… somewhat vague.”

She sat up, struggling a bit at the beginning. “Clones are shallow. You just have to know how to look.”

He looked at her blankly. “What on earth does that mean.”

She unsealed a water bottle and took a long gulp. “Does my file not say I’m a sensor?”

“Well, yes, but…” She had a feeling he was frowning, but she couldn’t tell through the mask. His chakra felt frowny. “Usually that just means you can tell where chakra is.”

“Well, sucks to suck,” she said, “Because I can sense where chakra is, how much, what type, whether it’s alive, and what the person it’s attached to is feeling, among other things.”

His assessing gaze sharpened. “How wide is your range?”

“Uh,” She closed her eyes, and tried to estimate. “About the size of the village? If I concentrate I can go bigger, but not to another village, small or otherwise.”

“Hmm.” He nodded. “…We’re done for now. Meet here again tomorrow at six, and we’ll begin training.”

Then he vanished. What was with these elite shinobi and being unable to leave without being dramatic? Tomoko really wanted to learn shunshin, for sheer getting-out-of-conversations potential. Maybe even comedic potential.

Well, at least he didn’t fail her.

__________

As he sped away from the training ground, Kakashi mentally reviewed what he knew about his new… student. She was an interesting one, that’s for sure, and when the Hokage assigned her to him, he told Kakashi in no uncertain terms that he was not allowed to send her back to the academy.

He was actually to be her Sensei, but he was also supposed to act as an assessor. Tomoko could be an asset to Konoha, with how skilled it was clear she’d end up being, but she could also be a spy. They had investigated her after she’d shown up, but they hadn’t found much to tell them why Orochimaru had created her.

They’d tracked her path back to a lab, one they hadn’t been able to find previously. The thing about it was that, unlike the other labs, there were no test subjects to be found. No holding cells, no specimen jars. Just an empty child’s room, and various testing rooms.

Tomoko was clearly of importance to Orochimaru. The question was why.

He opened the window to the Hokage’s office and stepped through. Inside, along with the Sandaime himself, were Yamanaka Inoichi and Nara Shikaku.

“Kakashi,” the Hokage greeted, “Only fifteen minutes late.” He reached under his desk, and activated the privacy seal. The windows went dark, and the walls became soundproof. “Now, to business. Give us your initial assessment of Yashagorō Tomoko.”

“Most of what was written in the briefing was accurate. She is intelligent, quick-witted, and skilled. Her skill level is so far above average, I’m frankly surprised it even took her this long to graduate. She has taken to sealing, and utilized her knowledge effectively. Her sensing…” He trailed off.

The Hokage raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“It’s —.” He ran a tongue over his teeth and took a breath. “She can sense not only a person’s location, but also their chakra capacity, affinity, and mood, ‘among other things’.” Seeing the shocked looks, he continued. “And… Her range is the size of the village. Larger, maybe.”

“But…!” Inoichi spluttered. “She’s seven! That’s — absurd! The last person with that kind of skill was — ”

“The Nidaime,” Shikaku finished. “His range was wider, of course, but he was an adult. That’s the kind of sensor that the Uzumaki were famous for producing, before…”

They stood in silence, letting that thought linger.

The Hokage took a puff from his pipe. “Putting that aside. Kakashi. What is your opinion on her loyalty?”

“I can’t say for sure,” He said, “My observation time so far has been… short. But there was nothing that immediately concerned me. She’s odd, of course, but…”

The Hokage snorted. “Aren’t we all.” He deactivated the privacy seal, and waved a hand. “Thank you Kakashi, you’re free to go. Check in every week or so, unless something changes.”

Chapter Text

Kakashi wasn’t exactly a good teacher, but he was at least putting in the effort.

Evidently either his “hands off” approach to Team 7 was some sort of ineffective coping mechanism, or the manga was just straight-up wrong. He was sort of distant, and terrible at explaining in simple terms, but that worked for Tomoko because she knew the technical terms.

He answered all her questions about chakra theory and other technical fields, even if he was a little tight-lipped about himself. She wasn’t sure what of what she knew was accurate. Things that were in the manga weren’t always true in the real world.

For example, she was relieved to discover that ninja sandals weren’t a thing. (Why would they wear sandals?! Why would a mercenary culture wear open toed shoes??!) The mangaka apparently just had a foot fetish.

The people of Suna were also not pale, which made sense considering they lived in a desert. Other discrepancies included the whole “no one talks about Anbu” thing, because it was basically just the Secret Service; the idea of “Kunoichi classes”, which was actually a course called “Infiltration” that catered to anyone pretty enough to eventually go on seduction missions; and Konoha only having one language, when in reality there was Japanese and English.

(That was actually really interesting. Japanese was basically the “common” language, spoken by ninja and civilians alike. English was a shinobi language, allegedly created during the warring clans era as a code, before eventually being spread throughout the elemental nations. Civilians generally didn’t speak it, but in ninja villages there was a lot of mixing.)

And, of course, people actually looked different; like people, not characters. The Uchiha weren’t all identical save for face lines, the Hyuuga, while similar looking, weren’t clones of each other, and people’s clothes were imminently more practical than in the story.

People still had weird hair, though, with “spiky” apparently being a texture option along with “straight”, “wavy”, and “curly”. Her own hair had its very own gravity-defying tendencies, and she loved it. Of all the weird fucking quirks from anime to be real, she was glad the hair was one of them.

Kakashi’s hair was particularly spectacular — it stuck straight up, had spikes, and was silver. Like, actually metallic. It was fucking wild.

It looked like it would hold dye well.

(She’d have to suggest that to Naruto at some point.)

Kakashi looked over to where she was contemplating various colors of hair dye. “Whatever you’re planning, I suggest you don’t.”

She raised her eyebrows. “You don’t even know what it is.”

“I know that look on your face means nothing good.” He sighed. “Either don’t or don’t get caught.”

She smiled at him innocently. He didn’t buy it for a minute.

She went back to picking weeds. D-Ranks were simple. Uneventful. She sort of enjoyed some of them, as they reminded her of her life as Riley. A lot of the time she couldn’t actually remember what it was reminding her of, but there was a feeling of nostalgia. She liked weeding, and painting, and babysitting. She was slightly less pleased with dog walking, since she liked dogs, but big, excited ones made her anxious. And catching Tora was… an experience. She liked cats, and cats generally liked her, but Tora was called a demon cat for a reason .

When the day came that she finally got a C-Rank, she was pleasantly surprised. D-Ranks were all right, and she got money from them, but they got repetitive after a while. Plus C-Ranks paid more, so she could buy more stuff for science .

She was a little bit worried about the “C-Rank curse”. On the one hand, she wasn’t Team 7, so it couldn’t go too badly. On the other hand, she was with Kakashi , and the universe seemed to take every opportunity to fuck him over. On the ever-illusive third hand, she didn’t yet know what kind of luck she herself had.

The job was, to no one's surprise, a simple escort mission. A grain merchant going to another village wanted someone to protect his wares.

Why anyone would want to steal 500 pounds of rice was beyond her. You could sell it, but it wasn’t exactly expensive. There were plenty more valuable things to steal.

She supposed that was why it was a C-Rank, though. Low risk.

When they showed up at the gates to meet the client, he blinked down at her, confused.

“Aren’t you a little young to be a ninja?”

She returned his gaze.

“Yes,” she deadpanned, “yes I am.”

The guy just looked confused. References were less fun when no one else got them.

Kakashi, amazingly, was only five minutes late. Likely because of the client, but it was a nice change in pace.

They settled into position, Kakashi in front of the cart and Tomoko behind, and started off. It was… really boring, but she dutifully payed attention to her surroundings. She didn’t stretch her range out too far, but she split her attention between sensing and walking.

“Is she really a ninja?” The client was probably trying to be quiet, but shinobi had better hearing in general than civilians. “I mean… she’s so young.”

“I was younger,” Kakashi replied, “She’s competent, that’s all you need to worry about.”

__________

Sarutobi Hiruzen looked down at the message sent along with Kakashi’s ninken. The old, “C-Rank Curse” hopefully. If it was a report on Tomoko being a traitor, he might pull the rest of his hair out with how the rest of his day had been going.

“So, what is it, hmm?” He thought out loud as he opened the scroll, “A missing nin? Enemy involvement? A crime ring?”

He read the report, which was also a request for backup, and sighed. He'd been joking.

Kakashi had the worst luck of any of his shinobi, and it seemed that it had combined with the dreaded “C-Rank Curse” to form an unmitigated clusterfuck.

__________

Tomoko’s first C-Rank was a resounding success, even if everything went to shit the moment they got to the client’s village. And a group of missing nin had taken it over. And there was drugs under the rice.

On the plus side no one died (no one she cared about, anyway), they successfully sent for backup, and most importantly, she got paid when they got back.

“Are all C-Ranks like that?” she asked Kakashi, slightly rhetorically. “I mean I doubt it, considering, but I guess you never know.”

“No, C-Ranks are not usually like that.” He paused, considering. “Well, not all of it. The beginning, where nothing happened and we just walked for hours, was pretty standard. The most exciting thing that’s supposed to happen is bandits. But everyone’s first C-Rank goes wrong somehow.” He took out his book. “Granted, they don’t usually go wrong that spectacularly , but my luck is… not exactly the best.”

“Well, it was interesting.” She put her hands in her pockets. “I like your dogs. Can I have summons? How do you get summons? Do you have to get a scroll?”

“That’s the easiest way, but you could also reverse-summon yourself to a compatible summon realm.” He lowered his book enough to glare at her. “But you are not doing that until you have more chakra.”

“Aw.”

__________

Honestly, she was surprised it had taken this long.

She’d just been practicing katas, with Kakashi nominally overseeing, when an enormous, bright green figure burst out of the trees.

“KAKASHI!”

Wow. This was… amazing. Gai had literal sparkles surrounding him as he struck a pose, pointing at Kakashi.

“I HAVE DISCOVERED YOU HAVE TAKEN ON A MOST YOUTHFUL APPRENTICE, MY HIP AND COOL RIVAL!!!”

Kakashi looked… well he looked normal, but his chakra felt kind of — embarrassed, actually. Was it because she had found out about Gai or because Gai had found out about her?

“Gai, volume.”

Yeah, actually, now that she thought about it, if he kept shouting it might give her a headache. She nodded absentmindedly.

Gai cleared his throat, and obligingly lowered his volume. “My apologies! I was caught up in the Flames Of Passion and did not regulate my volume!” She could hear the capitalization.

“Right.” Kakashi sighed. “Well, Gai, this is my student, Yashagorō Tomoko. Tomoko, this is Maito Gai. He’s my…” He trailed off, trying to find the right word.

Gai struck a pose. “We are Eternal Rivals!!”

“…friend.”

“Okay.” She didn’t know when, but at some point she’d started smiling. Gai was one of her favorite characters, even if he was a little loud. “Nice to meet you.”

“And the same to you!!” He grinned, and his teeth actually did the sparkle thing. Tomoko blinked in disbelief. “I will let you return to your training now. Good luck in your most Youthful endeavors!!!”

And then he dashed back out of the training field, Kakashi waving lazily as he went.

Tomoko turned to face Kakashi, her eyes practically sparkling. She clasped her hands in front of her chest. “I love him.”

Kakashi choked.

She disregarded that completely and continued on. “Sorry, Sensei, he’s my new favorite adult.” She tilted her head in thought. “Wait, no, actually that’s Shisui. He’s my new second favorite adult.”

“I swear, if you start wearing a bodysuit and shouting about youth, I’m disowning you.”

She crossed her arms. “You can’t disown me, we aren’t related.”

He patted her head. “I’ll disown you as my student.”

“Is that allowed? Is that a thing that you can do?”

“Well, it’s not called disowning — ” Kakashi shrugged. “ — but the short answer is yes.”

“Oh.” Well, add that to the very long list of things to stress about when her anxiety acted up. “Well, you don’t have to worry about the bodysuit, I rather like my current setup.” She waved her arms, showing off her cool gloves.

“And no shouting about youth,” Kakashi insisted.

Tomoko smiled up at him with incredibly fake innocence. “No promises.”

Chapter Text

The weird thing about remembering things from when she was Riley was that she could remember them better now than she could when she was actually still Riley. She wasn’t sure why, probably something to do with seals and Death God Bullshit, but she utilized this fact as often as she could.

It was like she had a selective photographic memory. She could remember, down to the last detail, every episode of Naruto she’d ever watched, every song she’d ever listened to, and many of the books she’d read.

It didn’t extend to memories she made as Tomoko, evidently, but she had a fairly good regular memory so she wasn’t that salty about it.

Having full recall mean she could listen to any song, anytime she liked, which was cool, but since it was in her head, she couldn’t share them with anyone, which was not so cool.

So, she decided to learn to play the piano, which for some reason was still a thing in this world, if somewhat rare.

She’d… sort of known how to play as Riley? Like, she wasn’t great at it but she knew a couple songs. But Tomoko didn’t have the muscle memory, so she was back at square one; no experience but a good ear and some background knowledge.

It was slow going, but eventually she could play some of the simpler songs. When she wasn’t training or experimenting, there was a good chance you could find her in the back room of the music shop, playing songs no one else had ever heard.

Eventually, she wanted to save up enough money to buy her own piano. The one she was using was fine, but the owners of the shop kept looking at her funny. Like, she got it, alright, Orochimaru was creepy and evil and whatever but she was just playing piano! There is literally no way to hurt people by doing that!

But that was the only music store that had a piano available for the general public. So.

Still, she thought maybe they were overcharging her a bit, but she couldn’t prove anything. She wasn’t about to break into their records, and she wasn’t bored enough to spy on their other customers.

She headed home for the day, electing to take the streets this time, instead of the rooftops. Sometimes she just liked to wander.

The civilians still avoided her, along with some of the ninja, but a few of her fellow shinobi nodded at her. She was glad some people were starting to tolerate her.

As she rounded a corner, she noticed a group of civilians circled around something. They seemed angry.

She had a bad feeling about this.

As she walked silently towards them, she heard the tell-tale shouts of a small child, and through the shifting bodies she caught sight of yellow.

“You dirty little thief!” the one in the middle shouted.

“I didn’t steal nothin’!” Oh dear, that was definitely Naruto.

She got close enough to see what was going on through the gaps in their legs. (Being short was good for something after all!) The man in the middle had Naruto by the scruff of the neck, holding him by the collar of his shirt.

“Don’t try to worm your way out of this, you little monster!” One of the spectators said.

“Yeah, accept your punishment, brat!” Another added.

“I didn’t do anything!” Naruto insisted.

“A liar and a thief, huh?” The man in the middle shook Naruto around a bit. “Maybe I should show you what happens to criminals, demon.”

Tomoko decided she’d had enough. She hoped this would work.

“My, my.”

The group froze, falling into silence, before scrambling back and around to face her.

“So many of you,” she drawled, “Just for one boy? One might think you were… compensating for something.”

The men in the group twitched.

“This is none of your business, girl,” one of them snapped.

“Oh?” She smirked at them, raising her eyebrows. “Quite the contrary. A group of adults, harassing a child? As a shinobi of Konohagakure — ” she pointed to the hitai-ate around her neck, “ — I am obligated to… eliminate the problem. Keep the peace, and such.”

One of them scoffed. “A traitor doesn’t have any obligations.”

Her gaze hardened. “Perhaps.” She tilted her head. “But then, a traitor wouldn’t care to minimize casualties if they were provoked. ”

She took a step closer, and they flinched back. She knew they were scared of Orochimaru, and by extension her, but she was surprised her intimidation was working to this extent. She carefully didn’t let any of her surprise show on her face.

“Now, I suggest you release the child, before I feel the need to do something…” Her tongue flicked briefly out of her mouth, deliberately snake-like. “…Drastic.”

The man holding Naruto grimaced, then roughly dropped the boy on the ground. He turned to the mob of people, who at some point had all decided to hide behind him. “Let’s go.”

They left.

As soon as they were out of sight, Naruto spun around and beamed at her. She blinked, caught off-guard by the brightness.

“That was so cool, dattebayo!” He grinned. “You were like ‘ get lost, morons ’ and they totally freaked out and ran away! I was freakin’ out, ‘ttebayo, ‘cuz there was a lot of ‘em, and usually I can outrun ‘em, but they caught me and I totally thought they were gonna beat me up, dattebayo, but then you showed up and chased ‘em off so… uh…” He trailed off, suddenly sort of shy. “…Thanks.”

“No problem, kiddo.” She sighed, her heart rate finally returning to a decent speed. “Man, I wasn’t sure that was gonna work, I knew they were scared of me, but there was a lot of them.” She grinned. “I’m Yashagorō Tomoko! What’s your name?”

She knew, of course, probably would have even if she hadn’t had memories from Last Time, but she was being polite. She didn’t always do that, but she liked Naruto and wanted to make a good impression.

“I’m Uzumaki Naruto, dattebayo!” He struck a pose. “I’m gonna be Hokage!”

She snickered. As he relaxed his pose, pouting, she put her hand on his head. “You’re adorable.”

She didn’t miss the slight flinch he gave, just before contact, which only hardened her resolve.

She ruffled his hair. “I’ve decided.” She bent down until their faces were even. “I’m gonna keep you.”

“Huh?”

She stood back up. “You’re mine now. Be prepared for me to show up at random times to show you stuff and/or bring you cool things.”

Naruto blinked up at her, something like cautious hope building in his eyes. “Does that mean… you want… to be friends?”

She winked at him. “Us social outcasts gotta stick together.”

Chapter Text

The second time Tomoko met Itachi was on a courier mission.

Kakashi was out of village, probably on some super-secret S-Rank mission that she wasn’t allowed to know about. She still needed money, for food and stuff, so she ended up on a mission with various unattached genin and a chunin supervisor.

The chunin in question was, of course, Itachi. He was just as overly formal and awkward as he had been last time she saw him, but this time there was a lack of baby Sasuke to melt his cold exterior.

The other genin (all older than her) were less than thrilled to be working with Orochimaru’s kid. Luckily, they were at least professional enough to keep their discontent to the cold shoulder and dirty looks. If they had tried to start some shit, she was just uncomfortable enough with the situation to bring out the really cutting insults, and it was probably a bad idea to anger the people that were meant to keep her alive if anything went wrong.

Hopefully nothing would go wrong, but Itachi was an Important Character™ and that made her nervous. Things tended to happen around people who were important later, and she wasn’t about to get caught off guard just because it was supposed to be a simple mission.

After all, the Wave Arc was just supposed to be a C-Rank.

Kakashi wasn’t here, and this wasn’t Team 7, so the likelihood of it going that wrong was low. But Tomoko was a big believer in “hope for the best, plan for the worst”. So she’d be on guard.

Itachi was also on guard, but that was probably because he took everything comically seriously, even a mission to deliver a box to a small village.

Tomoko was a sensor, so she was on lookout. Ichirou and Kazuma, the other two genin, were combat-oriented, so they took the sides. Itachi was the leader and had the sharingan, so naturally, he took the front.

The trip was largely uneventful, with two run-ins with bandits and one lone shinobi trying to steal the box. The bandits were easy work, mostly civilians, and Itachi took care of the enemy nin easily.

After arriving at the client’s village, they learned that the thing in the box was some kind of ornate flute that they needed for a festival. Their client invited them to said festival, and, after pleading from all three of his subordinates, Itachi allowed them to stay for it.

“We will not be able to stay for the duration,” he warned, “We must return to Konoha within three days.”

“No problem, taicho.” Tomoko gave him a thumbs up. “I wouldn’t be able to handle too long around this many people anyway.”

They agreed to meet up at the end of the day at the hotel nearest to their drop point. Then they split up. Ichirou and Kazuma went off together, and Tomoko was about to go her own way, when she felt Itachi’s chakra twitch.

She looked back at him. He was hiding it very well behind his customary poker face, but his chakra was agitated. His eyes flicked around, and his eyebrows drew a fraction of an inch inward.

Ah. He was nervous. She huffed in amusement. Socially awkward geniuses. Not that she was really any better, but — 

She rolled her eyes, and went over and grabbed his sleeve. He looked down at her, his chakra doing a little surprised ripple thing.

“Come on, dork.” She tugged him into the crowd, glancing at all the stalls.

They got some food, Tomoko getting Taiyaki and Itachi getting dango (of course), and then she steered them towards the games.

“Come on, I want to get souvenirs for Shisui and Naruto.” They reached a ring-toss booth. “And Sensei, I guess.”

Being a ninja had its advantages, such as superior aiming skills. Tomoko quickly won the prizes she wanted.

She poked Itachi. “You should play one. Get some prizes to bring back.” His chakra seemed doubtful, so she went for the kill. “You could get one for that brother of yours. Sasuke, right?”

Predictably, at the mention of Sasuke he folded like a wet paper towel. He was even more proficient with projectiles than her, so he quickly had the desired prize.

Tomoko noted, with a detached sort of bewilderment, that said prize was the green dinosaur that Sasuke’d had in the anime.

Itachi’s chakra was slightly fuzzy with contentment when they headed back to the meet-up point, but you’d never guess from his face. Kid had his expressions on lock. (She wondered if he could fake emotion, because the blank look didn’t exactly blend in.)

The trip home was largely uneventful. The most interesting thing to happen was Kazuma misjudging the structural integrity of a branch and falling on the forest floor.

When all the bureaucracy back at the village was over with, Tomoko set off in search of her two and a half friends. Naruto had the most distinctive chakra signature, so he came first.

Following the beacon of chakra that signified her tiny friend, Tomoko found herself in front of the Academy. School had just been let out, and children were chattering at their parents and friends alike.

She scanned the crowd for Naruto’s trademark mop of bright yellow hair. When she found him, he was sitting on The Swing under the tree, looking sad.

Well that’s gotta go.

She made a beeline for him, greeting him with a pat on the head.

“Greetings, infant.” (Perhaps not the best opening line, but she had a brand to upkeep.)

“Ah!” He looked up at her. “Tomoko!”

“Just got back from a mission. It was fun, there was a festival nearby. Anyway — ” She pulled out the prize. “I got you something!”

It was a stuffed fox, because subtlety was for people dealing with someone who wasn’t super dense.

“That’s for me?” Naruto’s eyes sparkled. 

“Yes, that is what I said.” She plopped it into his lap.

He stared at it in wonder, feeling the soft ears. Then he beamed up at her, and she nearly went blind at the brightness.

“Thank you so much, dattebayo!”

After that she walked him home, subtly terrifying anyone stupid enough to sneer at them. She honestly didn’t really care about the civilian’s opinion of her, but she knew it bothered Naruto. If she could shift even some of the fear from him to her, that would be great.

After they got to his apartment, she declined his offer to stay, saying she had more gifts to deliver. Which was true.

Kakashi-sensei, at least, was in-village. 

He was apparently in the hospital. Which meant that he’d returned recently enough that he hadn’t yet had time to escape. That was convenient, because she wasn’t sure she could get into his apartment unscathed. She could only unlock things that she knew about and could touch, and there were bound to be many, many traps in his home.

She found his location via chakra signature, and then climbed into his room through the window. He was awake, sitting in his bed and looking slightly annoyed and very, very bored.

“Maa, maa,” he said upon seeing her, “my cute little student has come to visit me.”

“There was a festival at the client’s village during my last mission,” she said as she walked over, “I got you something.”

It was a dog plushie, because if one person got a blatantly uncreative gift, then so did the rest of them. Also she thought it was funny.

“Um,” he said , as she plopped it into his lap, “...thank you?”

His expression, despite being halfway covered, clearly said “ I am a grown man, what am I supposed to do with a stuffed animal? ” But social conventions were for losers, and everyone deserved something cute.

“It reminded me of you.” She papped a hand on the bed, like she would on a table but without the smack sound. “Now, please consider staying put until you are actually better, as I would like to not have to get a new sensei.”

“You know, I can actually take care of myself.”

“Yeah, but I’m afraid the nurses will eventually get so fed up with your escapes that they’ll kill you themselves.” She pointed at him. “And medics are objectively terrifying, they can mess you up like no one else.”

“Yes,” he said, voice flat and vaguely condescending, “that’s the point.”

She tilted her head to the side. “...yeah, okay, point. But my case still stands! Don’t die.”

He put a hand to his chest. “Aw, you do like me!”

“Yep,” she said simply, because embarrassment was for losers, “You’re one of the three people in the village that are nice to me, so I’d like to keep you.”

He didn’t seem to know what to say to that, so she bade him farewell, and slipped back out the window. Shisui wasn’t back yet, so she headed back to her own apartment.

She could pass the time with experiments.