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She never thought this would happen to her but then again who could have predicted that after a sudden ignoble death they would be reincarnated as a baby in a "fictional" universe? She thinks of "fictional" in quotations because she's now of the mind that this universe was never fictional to begin with. It's too real, the people, the smells, the sights and sounds. In some ways its more real than the life she remembers. Chakra, flowing through everything, has the added side effect of making everything feel that much more vibrant and alive.

Two year old Chihiro was found herself in the situation of a prototypical self-insertion type character. She was in Konoha's orphanage. A Chunnin had come by earlier that week and tested the young orphans to see who had the chakra potential to become shinobi. Chihiro herself was well within the acceptable range. It was a good thing in her mind. If she had to live in Konoha as a civilian it would have been a truly cruel joke from the universe.

Now she knew she would have the option of going to the Academy… which Chihiro fully intended to take. However she also knew what was coming more or less. She remembered the big plot points at any rate if not all the tiny particulars. Chihiro wasn't about to become a ninja that was mediocre… or hell even just good. Power was the only real freedom in the ninja world. The Sannin could come and go mostly as they pleased, Kakashi could get away with making important people wait on him for hours, Akatsuki members could run roughshod of the world with impunity. If anyone else tried that they'd find themselves in a jail cell or executed… perverse as it was to her previous life's sensibilities more power equaled more freedom and less power meant being further confined by strict rules and the whims of others.

Oh yeah and saving the world and stuff, she had to be strong for that too. Help save it anyway, or make it better, since Naruto and crew would likely take care of everything even without her help just like they did in the manga. But maybe Chihiro could make things better. Again though no one ever would take her seriously if she wasn't strong enough.

Honestly if she was an S-Class nin she could probably just boldly declare from the top of the Hokage monument that she had seen the future and was there to help. People would either believe her or they wouldn't but either way they wouldn't really mess with her. Not unless they were S-Class themselves. If she did that as a nobody? Yeah nothing good would be waiting for her at the end of that tunnel.

Thus led to the current avenue of consideration; how does one become a strong S-Class shinobi? Two year old Chihiro laying in a pile of worn blankets began trying to break things down in a comprehensible manner to figure out how such a thing could be achieved.

There was one thing virtually all S-Rank nin had; power or force multipliers. It was a term Chihiro had heard before and the idea was essentially like a pulley system. It was something that allowed you to use the same amount of power (Chakra) and achieve dramatically stronger effects. Powerful shinobi almost exclusively relied on this.

The most obvious use of this principle were Kekkei Genkai.

Deidara and his creepy mouth and explosions Kekkei Genkai.

Every single Uchiha who became extremely powerful in canon abused the hell out of the Sharingan.

Nagato and the Rinnegan… and everyone who used the Rinnegan after him.

Whatever the hell Zetzu was… she never quite got far enough to be entirely clear on that. Pretty safe bet that was a Kekkei Genkai too though.

Then there were those who weren't born with a Kekkei Genkai but through some forbidden jutsu or experiments or something changed their bodies in ways that functionally became a new Kekkei Genkai.

Sasori turning himself into a human puppet and all the advantages that brought.

Kakuzu and his hearts… gross but undoubtedly powerful.

Hidan becoming immortal through some mysterious cult and ritual.

Orochimaru to a lesser extent, being able to make his body do all sorts of creepy snake-like things. Plus the body snatching pseudo-immortality.

So for all practical purposes Kekkei Genkai or pseudo-Kekkei Genkai were not good or appealing options for Chihiro. Unless she wanted to find and kill people to steal their bloodlimit she was out of luck on the first option and that didn't seem to work all that well to begin with. The second option… well it was certainly distasteful for a number of reasons not to mention incredibly risky. She would shelve researching altering her own body as a "last resort" to gaining power. It didn't seem a good route when there were possibly other less icky options open to her.

Then there were the Chakra Monsters which was an option that was closed to Chihiro… she wasn't a Jinchuriki and she was almost positive she didn't have abnormally insane chakra reserves like Kisame did. Plus a good chunk of his strength had come from the badassery of Samehada. Another kind of force multiplier.

Then there were the other S-Rank shinobi who Chihiro felt might hold a more realistic path if she was ever going to achieve that kind of amazing strength. Those were some of the greatest and generally most admired and revered ninja in the elemental nations. In a lot of ways they were just ordinary people without abnormal biology backing them up.

The Third Hokage, aka God of Shinobi.

The Fourth Hokage, aka The Yellow Flash.

The Fifth Hokage, aka the Slug Princess.

Maybe, possibly Kakashi… though it's kind of hard to tell really if he would have been as strong as he was without the Sharingan eating up his Chakra reserves. His father had been S-Rank at least.

There was only one problem… all of those were geniuses. As in they picked up fighting, tracking, deception, etc etc ad nauseum with incredible ease. Oh they still had to work very hard to get to be the legends they became but that didn't change the fact that even as small children they were well known and praised for their abilities. Chihiro… was pretty sure she wasn't a natural born combat genius. Most likely she wasn't. She didn't feel like one at any rate but it was kind of hard to tell when walking was still something of a challenge. At least she knew she would pick up intellectual things at a rate that no other child could but beyond that… well it was safe to say she didn't think it was a good bet to hope she was on that kind of level. She would hope for the best but plan for the worst.

So who did that leave? Who were hailed as complete S-Rank shinobi but had not been known as prodigies as children? Obito doesn't count because she could hardly imitate the Sharingan. Only two people readily came to mind.

Jiraiya of the Sannin.

Konan of Akatsuki.

Maybe Might Guy and Kabuto… though Kabuto did go far more into body modifications than Chihiro was entirely comfortable with.

Chihiro decided to stick with analyzing Jiraiya and Konan for the time being. Thinking back even though Jiraiya was reputed to be a seal master his powers in higher level combat did not come from his proficiency in sealing. Instead they came from his cooperation and techniques with the Toads.

It turns out Jiraiya did have a power multiplier of sorts on careful consideration. That multiplier was the diverse and powerful number of techniques he learned and could use while fighting alongside the Toads. In a way it could almost be thought of as a replacement Kekkei Genkai. While a Sharingan user might have Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, Susanoo, etc etc Jiraiya had a lot of powerful combination elemental attacks, the support of powerful ninja Toads as big as buildings, an unbreakable genjutsu, not to mention the trump card that is Sage Mode and Natural Chakra.

Chihiro frowned with her tiny pudgy face. It was looking like everyone who was anyone had found some sort of power multiplier in the Naruto world. Some technique or family of techniques that pushed them beyond the regular rank and file Jounin and allowed them to be absolutely devastating. Chihiro could possibly recreate Jiraiya's path to greatness if she could get her hands on some powerful summoning contract… which seemed unlikely given that she was a nameless orphan. Maybe she could bribe Anko with some dango? Yeah, probably wouldn't work but maybe worth a try. Chihiro wasn't even sure if Anko could let others sign the Snake contract in the first place.

Then there was Konan… right off the bat Chihiro felt there might be some promise there. She was undoubtedly an S-Rank kunoichi, arguably the strongest kunoichi in raw combat ability in the entire series. While she didn't get a lot of screen time and fights she did manage to seriously injure Tobito without the aid of any special Kekkei Genkai or powerful summoning contract or just having the advantage of being born a genius.

How did Konan manage it? The same way it seemed many Shinobi managed to make themselves truly amazing. She made her own special type of jutsu. It all started from a love of origami into making paper shuriken that were deadly and then just escalated from there… until she could fly and turn her whole body into paper. It was never really explained how that technique worked but it was implied that it was just a technique, a jutsu, and not that she used a laboratory to turn herself into some kind of paper-based Frankenstein monster.

There was something to that. All the best shinobi designed their own styles and techniques. The Fourth was all about the Rasengan and the Hirashin for the most part, one technique of his own making and another that he perfected from when the Second Hokage had created it. Konan made her own paper based jutsu that earned her the S-Ranking and allowed her to fight one of the most dangerous characters in Naruto evenly with some preparation. Sasori and Deidara more or less created their own styles of fighting. There was definitely something to that.

Overall though Chihiro thought it all came back to one of her original thoughts; to be a truly S-Rank shinobi you needed some kind of badass amazing force multiplier. The only one who seemed to somewhat break that mold was the Third Hokage, maybe. Everyone else pretty much created or discovered their own best techniques.

So… if she wanted to be S-Class she needed to do a couple of things. One, she needed to get her basic skills up to a high level. Endurance, running, speed, taijutsu, weapons, etc etc. All the specialized jutsu in the world wouldn't save her if a Jounin could get behind her and knock her out faster than she could react. So her first order of business was getting her raw physical skills up to snuff. Simple enough in theory though undoubtedly painful in execution. Maybe she could end up as one of Guy's students? It seemed like a good idea as long as she didn't think about it too hard.

Oh, opening the gates? Another power/force multiplier. Chihiro felt more and more confident about her 'multiplier' theory as she looked at more and more shinobi.

Two, she needed to decide what she wanted to specialize in. Preferably sooner rather than later. The sooner you started working on something the more time you have to understand it, master it, push it to its limits. So, if she wanted to start making origami now and see what happened when she put her own chakra into them… well better to start now than years down the road. She wanted to become awesome as soon as possible after all.

With at least the bare skeleton of a framework worked out for her future as a Kunoichi Chihiro closed her eyes tiredness finally catching up with her tiny two year old body. Physically get herself ready to keep up with the highest levels of combat. Figure out what unique jutsu she wanted to create and start working on it soon. Not bad for one evening's planning.