Underlined - English

I never realized how small Konoha was.

I grew up in another world - one without chakra - as a normal, teenage girl who just happened to have read Naruto a couple of times. And then I somehow ended up here. I didn't realize it, not at first. But then things started to line up in a frankly disturbing way, and by age 4 I was moved up from 'Oblivious' into 'In Denial.'

Even that didn't last long.

But reading about Konoha wasn't the same as living in it. The most prominent building in the village - the flaming red Hokage Tower - was maybe five stories tall. Six? Nothing compared to New York or Chicago's towering skyscrapers. Nothing compared to average sized office buildings or even rich ass mansions. It was … eerie. The Hokage Monument reminded me eerily of Mount Rushmore, and the Memorial Stone was like a much smaller Vietnam Memorial. Even if I hadn't seen either of them in real life, I did see pictures.

Living in the Red Light District was not pleasant. I may have lived a rather sheltered first life, but that didn't mean that I wasn't fully aware of the risks involved in those kinds of places. You didn't have to go to a brothel to know to avoid one. You didn't have to meet an angry drunk to know to turn around when you hear one. A normal four year old would be dead - or traumatized - by now. It really was lucky I wasn't normal.

The only perks are that now I know this city inside and out - and I picked up some skills along the way.

Never thought I would end up a pickpocket.

Oh well. That bitch tried to kick Ruto. What goes around comes around.

I didn't actually intend to meet Naruto. I actually kinda forgot about him.

It's very difficult to forget about the main character of a book series you read a least three times - but when I arrived in Konoha I was more focused on how I could survive the now and set up groundwork for the later that I had pushed him to the back of my mind.

So when I saw some druggies from the Red Light District ganging up on a kid - I didn't stop to think that it could've been a "character" I knew before intervening.

(After living here for long enough - it's too difficult to think of these people only as characters in a book. They're as real as I was.)

I threw a rock at one of the druggies and drop kicked the other in the back of her knee. Grabbing the arm of the cowering kid, we ran. I even used the money I swiped from those assholes to buy him ramen, and only then did it hit me. Asking his name only confirmed it.

I said I had no place to live. He said he did. He asked if I wanted to stay with him. I said I did. He said he wanted to call me Nee-chan. I said he'd be my Ruto.

He hasn't left me alone since.

All it took was for me to cut my hand on a rusty door, swear like a sailor in English, and blush sheepishly for Ruto to be determined to learn 'my language'. It took a while, but as they say: 'The better you are the sooner you start.'

Or something.

I was still surprised that I even learned … was it Japanese? I guess it would be. I was terrible at Spanish in my last life. Even if I technically had over half a decade of it. Ruto picked it up fast though. I was impressed. Or maybe it was just because he was a kid.

Soon the both of us started to do what Ruto called 'mixing'. We'd start one sentence or thought or whatever in one language, and when we had trouble finishing it with our limited vocabularies, so we'd finish it in another. Eventually it just became how we talked, and despite how odd it was, I felt that this way I was learning more than I would've when I was speaking just Japanese. I felt like I knew more. Understood more.

Ruto - in his own way - explained that he felt the same.

We really began to feel like a family.

The way I met Uchiha Sasuke was only slightly more intentional than when I had met Ruto. I had been wondering how to deal with the upcoming Massacre. I was physically 5 - and had been in Konoha for little more than a year. I remembered - vaguely - from my past life that the Massacre happened when Sasuke was either 5 or 6. That meant that I had a year tops to plan.

I knew that I couldn't stop the Massacre. There was no way. I wasn't smart, powerful, political, or influential enough to stop Danzo at all.

But I might be able to lessen the fallout.

The same day I decided that I would try to enter the Academy with Ruto in order to meet Sasuke and befriend him - I ran into him.

Literally.

I landed on my prepubescent, boney butt.

It hurt. But not a lot. I was mentally 23 after all.

Sasuke was cute. A frankly adorable kid. However, I was never really one for crushes. Or pining. Or fangirling. Or most boys really. Honestly, girls were better, less likely to be sexist butts. Much cuter too. With some exceptions, of course.

But I digress.

Who knew that running into a kid on the playground, not crying but instead smiling, and asking how he got a cut on his thumb was the way to befriend a possible future Avenger?

Not I!

But somehow, after finding out that I 'wanted' to be a shinobi and didn't know how to throw a kunai or a shuriken, there I was. Throwing kunai. And shuriken. With Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Shisui as my instructors. (Well Itachi was instructing. Shisui was too busy teasing Itachi about how Sasuke already had a girlfriend.)

Ew. No. I prefer men my age thank you. Or nonexistent.

Again. Girls. Again. I digress.

Somehow I was tolerable enough to Itachi, funny enough to Shisui, and friendly enough to Sasuke that I became "Sasuke's little friend." At least I wasn't his 'little girlfriend'.

Gross.

With my luck - and my growing circle of prodigies - it didn't take long for me to gain some … attention.

Maybe it had to do with how I was completely untrained in every way and was already figuring out - on my own - how to mold chakra and make it do things that no one else ever considered.

Honestly. Wasn't there some saying? How "much could be done when there is ignorance of the impossible."

Or something.

From what I could tell about this world, hand signs were used as a medium to focus chakra - to get it to mold the way you wanted them to. Like a magic wand. No wand, no magic. But that kind of logic got me thinking - if chakra is kinda like magic and hand seals are the wand, could you do wandless magic?

I wondered if I could think 'result first, then mold the chakra to get the result' rather than 'mold the chakra to get the result'. If I could focus on what I wanted to get done and then trial and error until I could mold my chakra - without fancy hand signs - to get that result, then maybe I could do jutsu without proper training first.

I went ahead and experimented, because what could it hurt. I hated being unable to defend myself in this kind of world. But, apparently, physically manifesting your chakra into a tangible state and playing with it like silly putty is a good way to alert high ranking ninja that you are a person of interest.

I hate being a person of interest.

They were suspicious, and I got that. I was a strange, foreign girl who was too smart for her age, living with their Jinchuuriki, and speaking a foreign tongue they had literally never heard before. Honestly I would be worried if they weren't suspicious. Even so, the ANBU guard - that I wasn't entirely sure how I could detect - was just annoying at this point.

I heard a lot of griping from Shisui once - when I asked about the specifics of how shushin mechanics worked - that theory was important, but it was a pain in the ass and didn't always apply.

(I love being around Shisui. I pick up so many Common Language swear words.)

I disagreed however. It was only the theory that made it so I could do my jutsu - that Ruto gave the English name of them being my 'tricks' - and so I pressed on about the theory.

Apparently asking the meaning of simple Common terms and then mispronouncing them in a way only a foreigner could is a good shortcut to getting on a shinobi's List of People That Seem Suspicious and Need Investigation and/or a Visit Down To T&I.

I don't like being on that List. It's worse than having an ANBU watch.

Shisui collaborated with Itachi - who already seemed to glare at me more than the Uchiha norm - in subtly pestering me about my past and how I grew up. I subtly told them to fuck off.

So we tiptoed around each other for a while. Nearly a month.

Then Sasuke met Ruto.

Apparently that rivalry was destined to live on no matter what dimension or timeline.

Itachi and I sighed simultaneously when they declared a contest to see who got to take me to dinner. Shisui - the bastard - laughed his ass off in the back. I may have used a trick to trip him into some mud, but I'll never tell.

Unfortunately, Itachi - that damn eleven year old genius - noticed.

I have never had to lie so much in my life - either of them.

But now the Uchiha possess the knowledge that 'my parents were nomadic people that were headed to Konoha so I could live with my aunt because they didn't want me living their life but they died in the Kyuubi attack and my aunt had to take me in but she was in the Red Light District and no I didn't know her real name she was Auntie to me and yes that means Auntie and no I don't know where my parents were from and no I didn't ask - history is boring - and yes I care about Konoha and yes I was loyal to the Hokage and no I wasn't dating Sasuke OR Naruto and yes I was sure."

Shisui seemed to believe me. But he's a ninja - who the hell knows what he was really thinking. Itachi was Itachi. I ain't going to try and crack that Da Vinci Code thankyouverymuch.

I wasn't shipped off to T&I, so I'll just count that as my win.

Apparently, Ruto and I both could sense the ANBU that followed us around. Together we collaborated to give masks and names to each chakra signature. We gave them English names based off their masks, and wrote up stats on each ability of each ANBU, partially for fun and mostly for training.

Stats like how Hawk was a better tracker, but Lizard had better endurance. And how pulling pranks when Dog was on duty was just asking to be caught.

All written and discussed in English of course. It was kinda funny that Ruto's handwriting was better in English letters than his own, native kanji. It was surprising how the stats actually came in handy - Ruto used them to cut down on how many times he got caught during a prank.

Still got caught a lot, though.

Ruto and I decided to only mix speak or speak English when we were alone (or as alone as we could be with two ANBU guard rotations) so people wouldn't be more suspicious of either of us. It was harder than we thought - because so much of our ways of thinking now mixed the two languages. It was eventual that one of us would slip up.

But it was just my luck that Ruto would slip up and mix languages in front of the Hokage.

(At least Ruto now remembers that the word annoying is actually an English word.)

But then the summons to Hokage Tower came.

At least he did his research. I was almost flattered. The Sandaime Hokage had an entire manilla folder and Shisui and Itachi to help formulate his opinion on how soon I needed to be executed.

If I was going to die, ideally they'd kill me before puberty. I really don't need to go through that again.

But I was surprised. The Sandaime was actually kinda nice - in a grandfatherly way. Except the part where he released enough KI to down a water buffalo just to see what my reaction would be.

I nearly fainted. I did not actually faint. I just swayed dangerously and felt like a strong exhale would knock me over.

Then he proceeded to grandfatherly interrogate me.

(I didn't even know you could interrogate someone in a grandfather - y way!)

It's a good thing I did that one school play in my last life. My acting ability was being put to the test. (It's also a good thing I remembered my story from before.)

I still haven't met any Yamanaka or Morino Ibiki. I guess I passed.

Passed enough to get another grandfatherly smile and admittance into the Academy, at least. Officially starting my training as a shinobi. I read about that war. No way in hell am I standing by while Ruto and Sasuke fight on the front lines of it.