World 79: Naruto – Part 2.1

I WILL NOT BE HOKAGE, Part 1

Previously: If I’m not Me, are You?

Themesong: Chop Suey! by System of a Down

Okay… I was not expecting this. The moment of insertion is usually a bit fraught, new memories slotting into place with old identities, a new form to get used to, waking up in a room you’re both familiar with and yet have never seen before. This was… much worse.

For the first time, I awoke as someone I already knew, someone I thought of as another person, someone distinct from me. Or rather, someone EssJin thought of as another person. Haruno Sakura thought of herself as… well.. Haruno Sakura. Yes… for the first time ever, I was a canon character… well… kinda. I was a Sakura… just not the one normally seen in the manga or anime. For one thing, she didn’t have an eyepatch. For another… her hair was much less… manelike. And pink. Mine was white. But other than that… I/we were Sakura. If Sakura had… errr… issues.

What Issues, you ask? Well, for one thing, the canonical Sakura was not referred to behind her back as “Demon Princess Sakura”… because she didn’t have a demon inside her. My Demon was called “The Beast that Comes When You Speak Its Name” and… uh… apparently people thought that meant if they spoke my name I’d appear. So it was a lot of whispered “it’s her!” and “why do they let her stay in the village?” and “who’d win in a fight between you know who and her?” Yes… wonderful. Just… fucking wonderful. If Team 7 was formed just as it had been in canon, it was going to contain the Nine-Tailed Fox, The Demon Princess, and the boy whose family was murdered for betraying the village.

At least I didn’t have the Jinchuriki problems of Naruto. I could exert chakra no problem… No… My issue was the exact opposite. Everything I/Sakura did with Chakra was too much. Create a clone and end up with three, and they tended to explode when dispelled rather than just puff to dust. Use Chakra to boost a jump and I was liable to go much further than I anticipated. While Kurama (Naruto’s inner monster) was apparently stingy with the power, my Chara was more than happy to “help”… in the most frustrating and inept fashion possible.

That and my tendency to challenge everyone to a fight… which I’d been losing pretty steadily against anyone who had either an ounce of self-control or any serious training, hadn’t been helping my reputation around the town. Just… freaking… lovely.

Also lovely was the fact that I/Sakura was 12 years old and had one monster of a tweenage crush on Sasuke… which was a problem because I/EssJin was… either in her mid thirties or more than fifteen thousand years old and I’d found Sasuke to be an annoying dickbag since I’d been in my twenties and first read the first issue of Naruto and every issue that had followed had made me want to punch Angsty McNinjaEye in the shnooz… which meant that, day one, I lost a small amount of control at the wrong moment and did exactly that. Then I accused him of being a baka and having stupid hair and told him I hated him and then ran off crying… oh… goody, moodswings. Violent, Chara-Fueled, moodswings. This was going to be oh sooo much fun.

Thankfully, the part of us that wasn’t Sakura had spent millenia learning to meditate and even Chara and tween hormones and an insatiable lust for combat couldn’t completely fuck over my control. Still, I was really missing Vulcan calm… Yes, perks are a crutch, but I’d had my perks go missing enough before (either through drawbacks or gauntlets… or even toggling it off deliberately) that I had some measure of practice at controlling myself without them. And I still maintained the ‘Calm & Steady’ perk I’d gained when Mensarius had sent me to Firefly. It let me assume a Zen-like state of tranquility… but it wasn’t automatic. I had to actually have time (and focus) enough to get into that state… and with my speed, a lot of punches could be thrown in a a very short period of time.

Unfortunately… either due to whatever was fucking with my chakra control… and even though I hadn’t picked the ‘Out of Control’ Drawback I was fairly certain that it had been included somehow in the Nemesis Retest Package… probably to see how I reacted to Chara (among other stressors)… and even though said Drawback wasn’t supposed to hinder my other abilities (I checked with Squad Zero, who despite being twits, could still remember the phrasing of a Drawback… if separated, forced to write it out, then one compared the three samples and… and then remembered that the others would have read the Drawback even if they hadn’t taken it… yes.. Yes… I facepalmed hard. I’m clearly not doing my best.)… what was I saying? Oh yes, Unfortunately, ‘Out of Control’ seemed to be making it hard to control any of my supernatural abilities that I still had. I won’t go into the entire list… it’s mind bogglingly long… but of all the Perks and Powers that EssJay had purchased, gained, or learned over the ages, I was able to access less than 20% of my total perk-list.

We’d been a Drop-In a fair few times, which meant that I had access to most of the perks purchased by those individual incarnations of EssJay. For instance, I still could dig through the ground as if my hands were shovels or create burstone shards when I destroyed things, both abilities I’d gained as SkyJumper in Bastion… but sometimes I scooped out a kiddy shovel of dirt… and sometimes a snowshovel, and the burstone shards had a tendency to hum ominous when I held them and I couldn’t get them to combine.

I still had Sunset James (Mighty Morphin Power Rangers)’s ability to project my voice without an amplifier, and Sylvia Jane Rosenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)’s Slayer, Sorcerer, and Flight powers… but the Sorcery experienced annoying inaccuracies and the Flight was more rocket powered than I was entirely pleased with. Joyous Snake (Metal Gear Solid)’s Psychic powers were great as a hammer, but not ideal as a scalpel, which meant that if I turned on my telepathy the din could give me a migraine pretty damned fast. Silver Jade (RWBY)’s WinterTide Semblance had not only an unpredictable area of effect, but an irregularly shaped one as well. I hadn’t even bothered experimenting with Shoftiel (Dresden Files)’s Necromancy or Sojourner Violence (Demon’s Souls)’s Soul Gathering, but Sunny D Jammer (One Piece)’s Dook-Dook Fruit powers didn’t seem to be working at all, while her Conqueror’s Haki seemed to be on overdrive.

Some others seemed to work just fine. Sun Jia (Disney Princess)’s song abilities and personal trainer skill set appeared to be intact, as were the martial arts and swordsmanship perks fro Joyous Snake, and the technical insight from Senet (Firefly) and Dr Saj (Gargoyles), plus the ability to make delicious food out of practically anything and my Life Fiber Hybrid regeneration from Shu Jin (Kill-La-Kill). Also working just fine were Savant, Freerunner, and Physical Fitness from Pokemon… because those were my perks, Dog Gamn-It!

I even retained some of my signature abilities, those I used all the damned time… such as Third Eye of Satori (from Touhou), Mental Palace (from Great Detective), and Copycat Technique (from Ranma ½), but not other abilities linked to the same personas such as Hakutaku’s Gift (also Touhou), The Look (also Great Detective), and Hidden Weapon Space (also Ranma). I also didn’t have other signature perks such as Civilization’s ‘No Gods or Kings’ or ‘Art of War’.

And I didn’t have access to all the Drop-Ins… mostly those post Tortall for some reason… probably due to the disappearance of the Banker and Mensarius and the beginning of this whole mess. In fact, I didn’t seem to have any perks at all from after that period except for whatever I’d picked up in Undertale… and maybe whatever I’d bought Jouya, though since I had no idea what that might have been, I really couldn’t use any of it, now could I?

Anyway, That pretty much brings us up to the end of the first week of my Naruto Experience… i.e. me mostly trying not to go crazy and hurt someone while Naruto got his dumb ass tricked into stealing the Scroll of Forbidden Jutsus from which he learned his signature “Shadow Clone no Jutsu” move… which allowed him to create hundreds of non-illusory copies of himself and which he would then combine with his signature “Sexy no Jutsu”(which turned him into a naked babe wreathed in seductive mist) to make “Harem no Jutsu” (which did both things at once). And which I promptly copied at the first opportunity because I’m a thief baby… and a Super Pervert!

Also, it really annoyed Chara, so win-win! Not that I really needed it. The full me could totally spin off homunculi and then use Shard Administrator to shift one of my Astral Layers into the Homunculi… but still, Shadow Clones were quite a bit faster and more easily replaceable… and could be made into sexy naked ladies! Or dudes. I might not have my Jusenkyo gender-shifting powers any more… but copying and modifying a technique created by Naruto? Please. He’s no genius and I am smart enough to scoff at those with mere genius level IQs. Scoff, I say! Ahem. Sorry, got a bit carried away with my own excellence.

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So it was that, on the morning of the first day of the second week, all those of us who’d just recently graduated to Genin (lowest of the ninja ranks) all gathered in one auditorium at the academy. I, who’d read the comic, of course knew they were going to assign us to teams of three now… and how freaking odd is it that Sasuke (the best student in our class), myself (up until the day before the exam a fairly mediocre student, to be honest), and Naruto (who was lazy, a goof-off, and hampered by ADHD and poor chakra control) all managed to graduate at age twelve… especially since Naruto had canonically failed the Genin Exam twice! Shouldn’t he have been fourteen? But then again, technically, the youngest ever graduate was like six… so why hadn’t Sasuke graduated early? No fuckin clue, but that’s the force of Narrative Necessity for you.

Anyway, we all moved to take our seats, with me arriving about halfway through the gathering, having absolutely no intention of sitting anywhere near either the idiot or the moper… when Yamanaka Ino, Sakura’s ex-best friend and current (in her own mind) rival for the attention of Sasuke’s affections, happened to think, “Oooh… look! It’s Sasuke! I’m going to sit next to him… maybe I can even steal his first kiss!”

Now remember, she hadn’t said that outloud… and I was still struggling to get a hold of my powers at this point (a struggle that would take a good long while, let me tell you). So in the time it took the Jin part of my consciousness to tamp down the psychic-snooping, the Sakura part had confronted Naruto (currently sitting next to Sasuke) and demanded he move so that we could have that coveted spot. This of course prompted Naruto to glare at Sasuke, who did his best to ignore the other boy, despite the fact that Naruto was doing said glaring from approximately twenty centimeters in front of Sasuke’s face, while crouching like a toad (ooo foreshadowing!) on the desk in front of Sasuke.

Having read the manga and seen the entire first season of the anime, I knew damned well what was about to happen, but as I tried to stop it (not certain why I bothered, to be honest) time seemed to slow to a standstill as the nameless (I’m serious, we’d attended the school for eight fucking years and I’d never seen this kid before and I never saw him again after) genin sitting right in front of Sasuke accidentally bumped Naruto in the butt with his elbow… causing Naruto to lose his balance and fall, lips first, against Sasuke’s own lips. Sexy-Kissy time it wasn’t. Both boys were, of course, horrified because they’re almost painfully heterosexual and this was not a world high on the LGBTQ acceptance… though not nearly as bad as many other shonen titles are.

All the girls in class were also horrified, because twelve year old girls really care about who gets the hot boy’s first kiss. I can tell you right now, no. They don’t. I have been a twelve year old girl a lot of times. Including in Japan… we very much don’t care. We’re much more concerned about who we give our first kiss to. And even then, we’re pretty much aware that it doesn’t actually count as a first kiss unless it’s intentional on at least one of the two party’s part. So yes, stealing a first kiss counts… accidentally falling into liplock? Not counting!

Of course, no one had told any of the girls in the room that, and I was across the room and roundhouse kicking Naruto into the far wall before I could even think about restraining myself. Only the arrival of Iruka-Sensei, our chief teacher and the proctor of the Genin Exam (as well as Naruto’s only real friend at this point), stopped me from pounding the main-character into hamburger long enough to give myself a mental slap… oh… good god… I’m Inner Sakura!

Okay, short aside… Sakura as shown in the series has two… let’s call them personalities. The outward Sakura is somewhat shy, doubts herself quite a lot, and is far too polite most of the time, hiding what she’s really feeling behind a mask of civility. Inner Sakura on the other hand is shown to be an almost separate entity that voices what Sakura really thinks and feels, but usually only inside Sakura’s mind. Inner Sakura is shown to be extremely willful, and able to repel being possessed by Ino… whose primary ability is possessing others and who is able to take over ninja who seem far more confident that Sakura does. Anyway… apparently, I’m the Inner Sakura. Of course, I’m also the Outer Sakura… and we’re all in this one body together with Chara, queen of stabity.

So, while I-Jin was keeping Myself-Sakura from obsessing about the kiss and wallowing in doubt about how Sasuke would never be interested in a girl with such small breasts and non-existant butt and far too large a forehead… never freaking mind that we’re twelve and haven’t exactly hit our growth spurt… (Oh, lord of all that is! Save me from tweenage body-issues!!!) Iruka-Sensei began reading out the names of those in the first six groups.

Normally, I wouldn’t have bothered paying attention to this… a) because I could just check my memory later if it became important, b) because I’d be able to see the whole list when they posted it publicly, and c) because if he wasn’t saying my name, who the hell cared? oh, and d) because I was pretty damned certain that the universe was rigged so that I’d end up with these two idiots on Team 7. I say normally, because when Iruka got to Team 4, he said names that were important to EssJun… namely Nara Shinohana and the Shimura Triplets… apparently, Team 4 would consist of four genin instead of the traditional three, under Saku Hasu-Sensei (apparently they’d dropped the Senju since according to Sakura’s memories, there aren’t any living Senju… apparently only distaff members of the family still exist… or they all changed their name to avoid attention… the first two Hokage were both Senju Clan members). Maybe they hadn’t wanted to split up the triplets but hadn’t wanted to saddle a Jounin-Instructor with just those three twits? Anyway, the names were important because Hasu-Sensei was Toph, Shinohana was Vita, and the Shimura girls (Makiko, Machiko, and Mikiko) were Sterns, Levi, and Dearche respectively.

Okay, so not that important, but the names made connections that I hadn’t made before in the Sakura side of things. Turns out that our mother, Mebuki was something of a gossip hound, and kept talking about all the big deal families of the village… like the Shimuras… And the current head of the Shimura Family, the reclusive Danzo Shimura and his history of taking things too far. What things? Well, as a twelve year old, I didn’t know, but given that this is a Ninja Community we’re talking about… I’d say the odds are pretty good that we’re talking war-crimes here.

So, of course, I-Jin was mulling that over when Iruka-Sensei read off the names of the members of Team 7 (Haruno Sakura, Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke of course) and thus I-Jin was unable to restrain My-Sakura-Self from cheering “Hell Yeah!” when Sasuke’s name was spoken. Oy. I hope I don’t end up actually having this tool’s kid… though the art I’ve seen of Uchiha Sarada is pretty cute… okay, maybe for the kid’s sake. But Sasuke better fucking be a better man than… oh who am I kidding, I slept with Draco Malfoy… I have nooo standards. So Sasuke has eight years or so to become as bangworthy as ferret-boy… he’s not even close at the moment, no matter what the Sakura-Side has to say about it. Of course, she’s all about a kiss and maybe holding hands. Not going all the way. You know. Twelve year old.

Team 9 ended up being Uzufumi Zenji (Zane, name changed from Uzumaki as the family was in hiding apparently), Motabi Kanna (Kendra), and Kurushita (Darkseid) under the leadership of Mezanin Kaito (AJ). Likewise, Team 16 was headed by Mezanin Reo (Francine) and contained Hyuga Yakumo (Amaryllis), Yamanaka Ichika (Maggy) and Senbei Mamoru (Alex)… how anyone didn’t see through the name changes of Senju/Senbei and Uzufumi/Uzumaki, I don’t know. For those who don’t know the japanese writing system known as Kanji, allow me to explain. Uzumaki is written in Kanji using two very complex symbols (the first, Uzu, meaning Swirl, has twelve strokes, while the second, Maki, meaning roll or winding, or volume of a book, has nine strokes). The Fumi in Uzufumi also means volume or chapter… and is written with a Kanji having fifteen strokes. So far so confusing, right? Well… Kanji have multiple readings. That is, they can be pronounced multiple ways depending on if they’re being used in words or in names usually. That’s why there are often pronunciation guides over the Kanji in your favorite manga… Also because there’s a chance the readership hasn’t gotten to those lessons or needs a reminder because there are a lot of Kanji. Anyway. The symbol for Fumi has four different readings. Hen, Fuda, Fumi… and, you guessed it, maki.

Senbei was at least trying! Senju is written using two symbols meaning 1000 and hands, referring to the Senju Clan having “a thousand skills”. Senbei was written with the same first symbol, and the second symbol being the one for sleeve… as in a thousand sleeves… as in nothing up my sleeve. Why Sakahasu had been divided into two names instead of being a member of Clan Senbei I don’t know… but what all that told me was that someone clearly sentient was doing the tweaking to make certain everything fit as neatly as possible into the world building. There was someone working for Higher whose job it was to keep things running smoothly… and I doubted it was God.

But, I have this cellphone with his number on it… all the other contacts are missing, but it was on my / Sakura’s nightstand when I/we woke up, and if he didn’t want me to call, he shouldn’t have left me his number.

“Hey… got a question for you… I mean… Hello, this is EssJin, how’s your day going? Do you mind if I ask you a question? A game of Go? Sure, I’ve got some free time right now.” Long story short? I had a nice chat with God about the role of Mediators (the functionaries brought in to settle canon-jumpbuild disagreements) and in the process avoided having Naruto, disguised as Sasuke, act like a jerk while trying to woe me, then have to run off to the bathroom due to spoiled milk ingestion (idiot)… then having Sasuke act like a jerk because he is a jerk trying not to woe me. I also managed to avoid myself being an insensitive tool to Sasuke when talking about the fact that Naruto was the way he was because he didn’t have parents (Naruto being an orphan since his mother and father died sealing Kyubei the 9-Tailed Fox inside Naruto)… insensitive because Sasuke’s brother Itachi murdered their entire clan besides Sasuke back when Sasuke was eight… and Itachi was thirteen… how a thirteen year old murders an entire family of trained ninjas I do not know.

Regardless, I emerged from my game with God just in time for our meeting with Kakashi-Sensei… i.e. the junior pervert (senior pervert being Juraiya-Senin). Naruto, being Naruto, put a chalk-board eraser in the door so it would fall on Kakashi’s head as punishment for Sensei being late to the meet up. Unlike the canon, I did not lie about trying to stop him. Instead, I just smirked at the dust-covered Jounin and commented, “Apparently, juvenile traps aren’t worth avoiding?”

He called us annoying. That’s fair. Then he demanded we introduce ourselves, our likes, dislikes, dreams for the future and things like that. When Naruto asked for an introduction from Kakashi first, I couldn’t help myself but follow the script and point out that Kakashi does come across as pretty damned suspicious looking, what with his headband over one eye and most of his face covered by a nose-and-mouth mask. One eye, one ear, and half an eyebrow is not much to go on, visa vi the whole trust issue. Of course, I could have used Third-Eye… but in this world, that would require actually opening my third eye and would be as subtle as a box of hammers flung into a glass fan. I’d do it later.

As for his introduction, Sensei said, “Oh? Me? Well, my name is Kakashi Hatake and I have no desire to tell you my likes or dislikes. As for dreams for the future… hmmm… And I have lots of hobbies…” Which, you know… wasn’t any information at all besides his name. Which we already had. “Now, it’s your turn. Let’s start on the right.”

Right being the idiot, Naruto gave his name and then said, “What I like is cup ramen, and what I like even more is when Iruka-Sensei pays for my ramen. What I dislike is waiting three minutes for the ramen to cook, and my dream is to Be Hokage and have the people of this village acknowledge my existence.”

I interjected. “Better that they don’t acknowledge you at all than they acknowledge you only with fear and hatred.” Yeah, I/We weren’t bitter at all.

Naruto opened his mouth to call me something rude, then remembered that he was infatuated with me and turned back to Kakashi and said that his hobbies were pulling pranks.

Then it was Sasuke’s turn and he was all angsty and depressing. “There are lots of things I dislike and I don’t really like anything. I don’t really have a dream… but I have an ambition; the resurrection of my clan and to kill the man who destroyed it.”

That was slightly more information than he’d given in canon, where he’d just said “Kill a certain man.” but I guess this wasn’t the author keeping us readers in the dark about why Sasuke was a moody little shit.

I found myself blushing about how cool Sasuke was and mentally slapped myself, then glared at Sensei as he said, “OK… and lastly, the girl.”

“I don’t know if you’re being a sexist dickbag intentionally,” I said, “just to push my buttons or if you really do have your head so far up your ass as to use that tone, but you know my damned name. You visited Naruto’s apartment with Sarutobi-Sama right before this meet up and you were picked specifically to be Sasuke’s instructor because you’ve got a Sharingan eye. I’m not ‘The Girl’. I’m Haruno Sakura, the Deamon Princess of the Hidden Leaf Village, even if my family isn’t one of the important ones, and you don’t get to dismiss me as the third wheel just hanging out in the shadow of these two. I’m not less important just because I pee sitting down.” I pushed down Chara’s attempt to summon a knife and adjusted my eyepatch. Three eyes and I could use one of them… great.

“Oookay,” Kakashi drawled. “I stand corrected. Want to tell us anything else besides that you’re a strong woman who don’t need no man to define her?”

“It would be extremely rude of me to try to smash your face in on our first meeting, and your use of stale feminist rhetoric implies that you’re just trying to get on my nerves, so I’ll play along… and smash your face in tomorrow,” I said, smirking. “The things I like are ferrets and fighting people, and the things I dislike are people who think they know me without having ever actually bothered to find out anything about me… especially Naruto here.” that last slipped out before I could stop it, but I continued as he facefaulted… eh, worth it. “My dream for the future? To kick the asses of every other ninja and prove myself the undisputed Queen of the Ninja World.”

Sasuke snorted… I punched him in the foot. He glared. I glared back.

“Hobbies?” he asked.

“Reading porn,” I responded. “Especially books by Juraiya-Senin.” When you no longer have fiat-backed lying skills… take refuge in audacity. Also, watching Naruto’s jaw hit the floor was deeply amusing.

“Well… good introductions,” Kakashi said. “Tomorrow we’ll start our duties as shinobi.” When Naruto asked what duties, the response was “Survival Training… with me as your opponent… oh… and I should tell you… of the forty-nine graduates, only sixteen will be chosen to become genin. The rest will be sent back to the academy… this is your real final exam, and there’s a failure rate of more than sixty-six percent.”

“Sixteen… that means the Shimura triplets are already guaranteed a pass,” Sasuke said. Apparently he could do basic math. Good.

“Oh… I forgot about them,” Kakashi said, lying his ass off. “Might just be seventeen then.”

Interesting, I thought. The original/canon graduating class had only had twenty-seven students get this far and only nine were supposed to pass. Of course, it was a lie. The complete membership of four of the nine canon teams had passed, resulting in the creation of the Konaha 11 (so called because Sasuke defected for a time). Tenten, Rock Lee, and Hyuuga Neji on Team Two (always referred to as Team Guy); Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Choji on Team Ten (aka Team Asuma); Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino, and Hyuuga Hinata on Team Eight (aka Team Kurenai); and the three of us on Team Seven. Clearly, the Mediator had added more teams… and don’t ask me why there was a Team Ten with only nine teams, there is no Team One, I assume to keep anyone from claiming to be the best?… so that there could still be enough slots with three entire new teams almost guaranteed to pass. Of course, that took the total from twelve in nine slots to twenty-two in sixteen or seventeen… but it was still a lie.

“Is that a guaranteed number?” I asked, “Or are you just saying that the odds are one in three? Because the second way seems like a waste if you’re just going to pick the nine best. What if only Neji and myself are any good. I mean, Motabi and Tenten are pretty incredible, and Ino-Shika-Cho are pretty much guaranteed slots because they’re leading families and every generation has at least one trio from them… but I’m guessing they don’t get a bye unless nepotism is more important than actual talent.”

“You talk too much,” Kakashi said and Naruto laughed at that.

“It’s my Ninja way,” I snarked. “That and punching people in the face, but — as I already established — it’s rude to do that to someone you just met unless they’re the enemy… or a tool. So are you just trying to scare us or is the number actually fixed.”

“Mostly just scare you. Bring your A game tomorrow or you’re all going back to school.” And with that he rolled over the railing behind himself and disappeared… only to pop back up a moment later. “Almost forgot: Bring all the shinobi tools you have and skip breakfast. You might throw up.” He tossed a stack of papers at us and said “The details are there. Don’t be late.”

Of course, it was Kakashi who was late the next morning… and he showed up to see me eating riceballs. Quirking his visible eyebrow, he said, “I thought I told you to skip breakfast.”

“You phrased it as a suggestion, and said that we might throw up. Might throw up is not a reason to go into battle unfueled. Rice is good for medium range energy. The plum jam in here is good for the longer term, and the bean paste for endurance.” I took a looong pull of my drink. “And this is decarbonated cola, good for immediate energy. Want one?” I offered the bento that had two more in it. “You said bring all shinobi tools… a proper diet is the foundation of all shinobi tools… and since Choji is on one team, I’m assuming he didn’t leave food behind.” Choji, an Akimichi, gained power from being… well… extremely fat.

Kakashi’s actual expression was impossible to read, but he looked somewhat annoyed… then amused. Then he took one of the rice balls and tucked into it while I ate the last. Naruto looked aghast that he’d skipped breakfast… and annoyed that I hadn’t given him the last one. Idiot. “Well then. I guess two of you have more motivation to succeed than she does,” he said, pulling out an alarm clock showing the time as 10:10 in the morning (in arabic numerals no less). “This is set for noon,” he said, holding up a pair of cat-bells on strings. “Your task is to take these from me before the time’s up. “Those who don’t have a bell by noon get no lunch. I’ll not only time one of you to those stumps, but I’ll also…” he paused, blinking when he realized that he was only holding one bell. Well, I assume he blinked. He closed his one visible eye.

“I don’t know how you did that,” he said to me. “But please give it back. The exam hasn’t begun yet.” I tossed it back. “There are only two bells, so the person who doesn’t take a bell fails. And that means at least one of you will be sent back to the academy.”

“Liar,” I coughed. He frowned at me.

“You have an attitude problem,” he told me flat out.

“So they tell me,” I shot back. “So they tell me. But please, continue trying to motivate us when Sasuke is going to go all out no matter what because he’s driven to avenge his family and Naruto wants to prove he’s worthy to be Hokage. Clearly fear of being held back is what motivates us.”

“It’s easy to use words to make claims. Harder to back them up,” the Jounin said. “But if you don’t come at me intending to kill, you won’t succeed.”

“And there we go, more hyperbole,” I sneered, limbering up. “Killing you isn’t the mission. Getting the bell is.” I was deliberately goading him. The entire point of this exercise was about teamwork, not any of the nonsense either of us were spouting.

“Not like this will be hard,” Naruto scoffed. “You’re so slow you couldn’t even dodge a blackboard eraser.”

“In the real world, those with no talent often bark loudest. Ignore mr. Deadlast and start when I say…”

Naruto didn’t even wait for him to finish, so enraged was he by the name calling. He drew a Kunai, a ninja throwing knife, and was drawing back his hand to throw it when Kakashi moved faster than the human eye could follow (not mine, but it was faster than I could have moved back in the Pokemon Days.) and grabbed Naruto by the back of the head and the wrist.

“Calm down. I haven’t said start yet,” he said. The Sakura part of me was impressed… she hadn’t really realized how much we’d changed in the last nine days. Sasuke just looked smug… as always… jerk.

Anyway, Kakashi gave the word and we sprang away from him. Sasuke hid in a bush, I concealed myself in a tree… not expertly, but good enough for a twelve year old… I probably could have done better, but I’ve not exactly focused on Stealth on the Ninja level. I was, without most of my powers, about as good at stealth as Solid Snake if he’d had a few centuries of practice.

Naruto, on the other hand, stood in the middle of the exam area (a semi-open patch of wilderness with nothing to recommend it besides three wooden posts arranged in a line and an old memorial to Konoha ninjas fallen in the line of service) and challenged Kakashi straight up. Kakashi pulled out Come Come Paradise (one of Juriya’s books) and began reading it while largely mocking the boy’s attacks (even going so far as to use Kancho… a weird double hand ass poke thing that the Japanese and Koreans like doing… though the Koreans call it ddong chim… on him.)

Give Naruto credit, he did go all out, but eventually ended up hanging by his ankle from a tree. Probably some kind of tarot significance there, though he’s clearly the Fool, not the Hanged Man. It’s not that he’s inept. That kind of thing reflects more on his teachers than him, I fear. The education system in this village is honestly pathetic… but the same can be said for the entire world and I, for one, have little desire to improve it. Creating a system that turns out more effective killing machines isn’t my idea of fun, and I doubt anyone would listen to me if I tried to reform the education system to prioritize teamwork and mental health. I doubt they’d have listened to a saint, but certainly not to the Demon Princess.

Once Naruto was more or less out of the running, Sasuke thought he saw an opening and rushed forward to attack. He did better, actually forcing Kakashi-Sensei to take him semi-seriously and pulling off a firebreath jutsu, but in the end, he was no match for superior training, tactics, and experience. Which was, of course, the point.

While the Kakashi-Sasuke match was going on, I considered following the script and falling for the genjutsu trap Kakashi had set up to snare me, the one that featured an illusion of Sasuke, riddled with kunai and shuriken, bleeding, begging me for help… but I mean, come on. That scene had pissed me off no end reading the manga for the first time. No way was I going to be the guuuurl who passes out and doesn’t even fucking get a fight scene. Not a chance in hell.

Instead, I dropped out the tree at roughly the appointed time and confronted the illusion, saying “Oh. nooo… Sasuke, what happened…” in the loudest, most sarcastic tone I could manage. “Did you get a paper cut from Sensei’s unsigned copy of Come Come Paradise? The one that’s not even the limited edition with the author interview at the back? I wonder if Kakashi knows that Akane has been seeing Yume behind Satsuma’s back?”

From the other side of the trees that were now blocking my sight of the ‘battle’, I heard Kakashi-Sensei yell, “Hey! No Spoilers!” and Sasuke snap, “REALLY!?” I just chuckled and waited until it was my turn.

Once Sasuke had been buried up to his neck in the ground thanks to Kakashi’s Inner Decapitation Earth Release Technique, and Naruto had been captured by Kakashi for trying to steal the lunches, I emerged from the treeline and sat on Sasuke’s head. “Having a hard time there, killer?” I teased.

“Get off me! There’s not much time left until lunch! I’m going again!” he snapped as he wormed his way out of the ground.

“This is pointless, you know,” I commented.

“No, it’s not,” he growled, “I already touched the bell once; next time I’ll definitely get one.”

“Wow… you really are incredible Sasuke-Kun,” I said, mirroring the canon, but using a far less flattering tone. He just glared at me, I smirked back, but waved him off towards where Kakashi was tying Naruto to one of the three posts.

“I told you,” Sasuke snarled, “I cannot… will not be sent back to the Academy. I have to be the one to kill him. Only I… the crying…” his back stiffened as he relived the trauma that no one in this fucking village had bothered to get him therapy for over the last four years.

“I know,” I said sympathetically, “But this is the wrong way-”

“It’s my WAY!” he roared, then flinched as the alarm rang. His shoulders clenched and he balled his fists and groaned, “Damn! Wasted too much time.”

Kakashi had us gather around the posts to say his piece. “There’s no need for you guys to go back to the Academy,” he began.

“We passed?!” Naruto crowed, “Yaaay! We paaaasssed!”

Kakashi just looked at the blond twit for several long moments before saying, “No. You should all quit as Shinobi.”

“Before you go into all the reasons why you think that,” I said, pushing myself away from the post I’d been leaning against, “I think you should give me a go.”

“Why should I?” Sensei asked. “You didn’t even bother to come after the bells at all while the test was going on.”

“Of course I didn’t,” I replied coolly. “You’re Kakashi of the Sharingan Eye. You’re a master of anticipating attacks and countering them. You graduated the academy at age five, were elevated to chunin at age six, and have twenty years of experience on everyone in our class. You’re on the shortlist to be Hokage someday. The only way we’re getting a bell is if you let us.”

“So you’re too much a fangirl to even try?” he said, shaking his head. “That’s not an admirable trait in a-”

“Oh shut up,” I snapped. “I knew from the start what your goal was. I also know you’ve never passed a student before.”

“You do, do you?” He sounded intrigued. That last wasn’t common knowledge. “Okay, what was my goal, if you’re so smart?”

“Not smart, though I am the smartest person in this village. Informed. There’s a difference between knowing and understanding,” I cracked my neck and my knuckles. “I’ll tell you what your goal was… and then you can share that information with these two chuckleheads, but I felt it was important for you to understand something about me.”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“I’ll tell you after you make a serious attempt to keep the bells away from me.”

What followed was an honest to goodness fight. I didn’t go all out, but merely pushed my new form to its current physical limits. Say what you want about perks and the knowledge of ages, we were still in a twelve year old’s body, albeit a twelve year old at peak human stats, and my knowledge of ninjutsu techniques was effectively limited to Anything Goes Martial Arts and CQC. Now, that’s nothing to scoff at, and Ranma would have washed the floor with Kakashi’s stupid hairdo, but he’d have been banged up in the process. With a sword, I could probably have taken Kakashi myself, and I did deliver a couple of telling blows to the older (biologically speaking) ninja before jumping back and holding up three fingers of my left hand, the two bells between them, as I wiped the trickle of blood from my cheek with my right.

“I left a note with your goal in your pocket,” I said, “and the thing I wanted to tell you…” I tossed the bells at the boys. “I am not the third wheel. This is my god-damned story as much as it is theirs.” And with that, I dropped, lotus style, to the ground next to Naruto.

Kakashi seemed taken aback, as well he should have. A raw genin should not have been able to get the better of him, but in the heat of battle, I’d forced him to treat me as an actual threat for a second, and that tiny window had been enough for him to forget that the bells were the real prize. He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out an origami frog. On its back was written “Teamwork”. It’s important to know that that word doesn’t actually exist in japanese. Oh there are close cognates. Solidarity, unity, cooperation, collaboration… but there’s no actual japanese term for teamwork in classical japanese. Their word for the concept is Chimuwaku… a loanword from english. There’s a reason why these Ninjas have a problem with solidarity, and it boils down to the same problem that plagued Japan during the feudal era. Even the most loyal of cause-followers still was, ultimately, looking out for their own personal interests.

He chuckled. “I guess you did understand… and I’m impressed. So you pass, but the other two? They’re just punks who don’t deserve to be ninjas.”

Sasuke growled and charged Kakashi at that, screaming a wordless battle cry of frustration and rage, but the older man flattened him instantly, pinning him to the ground, one foot on the back of Sasuke’s head, the hand with which the boy had been attacking wrenched painfully behind his back.

“You really are underestimating me,” he sighed. “Why is it that the only one of you with the sense to understand why you were divided into teams to further your training is the one with the biggest problem working with others? Why is the Demon Princess the only one who understands the answer?”

“Answer?” Naruto asked. “What answer? What was the question?”

“The answer that helps you pass this test,” Sensei replied, “And no fair looking at miss smarty-pants for a hint.”

“Ah! Damn it! What’s the Answer Already!?” Naruto bellowed.

“It’s Teamwork,” was the reply. “Working together, the three… well, the two of you might have gotten the bells.”

Since someone had to say it, Naruto stole my line (not that I was going to be the audience proxy this time.) “But there are only two bells! Why should the three of us cooperate if one of us will fail?”

“Why indeed?,” Kakashi said. “This test is deliberately designed to make you fight amongst yourselves… so at least you didn’t do that. I’ll give you credit for not actually coming to blows. The purpose is to see whether you can set aside your own personal interest and successfully work together. Sakura, you were more concerned with showing off… though you did that quite well, than actually teaming up. Naruto, you were just running around by yourself. And Sasuke!! You simply assumed the others would get in your way and tried to do everything yourself. Superior individual ability is important in our line of work… but it doesn’t matter a hill of nato if you’ve got all the talent in the world if you can’t work with others to achieve a greater goal. Individuals who can’t set aside their own ambitions put everyone else in danger; your comrades, your family, our village. Being a ninja is all about risking your life in the pursuit of a greater goal; it’s important to be able to trust those you work with to have your back.”

He rose then, unaware that only Naruto was really listening to his words, that they were bouncing off Sasuke’s impenetrable wall of loathing for everyone and everything… including himself. Survivor’s guilt is a hell of a thing, especially when combined with murderous rage and abandonment issues. “Look at the names carved upon this stone,” Kakashi said, patting the memorial. “These are ninjas recognized as heroes of the village.”

Naruto, missing the point completely, immediately proclaimed that his name would be on that stone someday.

“Idiot,” I said quietly. “They’re not the kind of heroes you want to join.” My voice carried far more weight of memory, much of it bad, than any twelve year old could possibly encompass, but Naruto was oblivious and Kakashi too caught in his own memories to notice.

“What?” He said, looking back and forth between me and Kakashi. “What kind are they then?”

“They’re the ones who died in the line of duty,” Kakashi said softly, no heat and loads of regret in his tone. “This is a memorial… my best friend’s name is carved here… I’ll give you one more chance… after lunch. But this time, I’ll make it even tougher to get the bells.” He held them up from where he’d managed to retrieve them from the duo without either of them noticing. “Sasuke, if you want to give it a go, you can eat your lunch now… but don’t give any to Naruto.”

“Eh?” the idiot said.

“It’s punishment for trying to steal the food. Anyone who gives him any food fails immediately. Even you Sakura,” Kakashi instructed. “I’m the law here. Got it?” and with that he vanished without even a puff of smoke to hide his passage. Dude is fast, I’ll give him that.

“Heh! Shows him!” Naruto chuckled. “I don’t need any food! I’m fine!” his stomach rumbled loudly at that moment. Excellent timing.”

Sasuke tucked into his box, and I did likewise, waiting for angst boy to do the right thing. I’d give him this moment, since I’d already been showing off, and to be honest, I was wondering what exactly I was achieving if I proved that Sakura wasn’t useless while using my own abilities, gained over the ages that she would never have seen in the normal course of events. What will I have proven, since I gave her/myself a build that was unreal, more frontloaded with paths to success than even the most broken of shounen protagonists?

“Here,” Sasuke said, handing his half-eaten bento to the boy still tied to a post and unable to eat it.

At that moment, I realized… it doesn’t matter what I prove. This isn’t a fixfic, nor is it a feminist reconstruction of Naruto. I’m me, and I’m the one who’s here now, in this place and at this time. No matter what I’d said to Kakashi, this was my story, EssJay’s story. Not Naruto’s. Not Sasuke’s. Not even the original Sakura’s, and the only person I really had to prove anything to was myself. Well, and Higher. But while I had no idea what Higher was looking for, what I had to prove was that, as diminished as I was, crippled by the loss of so much of what I’d come to think of as parts of myself, that I still had what it took to be a Jumper.

With a chuckle, I cut the ropes holding Naruto to the post with the talons I’d suddenly grown, then handed him the rest of my bento as well, the talons already having retracted. Dook-Dook Fruit for the win? Yes. inanimate hemp rope… such an adversary.

Of course, Kakashi-Sensei chose that moment to bamf back into the area, grinning behind his mask. “You guys all Pass!”

“Pass?” Naruto asked. “But why?”

“You guys are the first. Everyone else just did whatever I told them.”

I snorted, “Morons.”

Kakashi gave me a look that spoke volumes. “Those who break the rules and codes of the ninja world are garbage,” he began.

“But those who don’t take care of their friends and comrades are worse than that,” I finished for him. “They’re a sickness. One that’s slowly killing the world.”

“Whoa, don’t get too dark on me,” Kakashi said. “That’s Sasuke’s job!” The boy in question snorted in derision at the snide aside. “Anyway, this ends today’s training. All of you pass. Starting tomorrow, Team Seven begins its official duties.”

Of course, our first mission was recovering the missing cat of the wife of the Lord of the Fire Nation… no, not the Avatar Fire Nation. The Naruto Fire Nation… that would be a weird crossover. Our second mission was babysitting an elder’s grandson, running some errands, and helping out with the potato harvest… or would have been but Naruto threw a hissy fit about the lameness of those D-Rank tasks, so we were given a C-Rank one… though only I knew that, technically, it should have been B-Rank… but I’m getting ahead of myself here.

Next: I Will Not Be Hokage, Part 2

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Author’s Note: My deepest apologies for the rather prolonged delay between parts of this log… and indeed for the near total silence from me over these last few months. As with most of the rest of the world, I’ve been dealing in my own way with the current COVID Crisis and the societal meltdown that has been 2020. I was stranded out of the country for nearly three months and not in a good place (either physically or mentally) to write anything. Even once I got back home, the demands of real life and the stress of everything made it exceptionally hard to focus on my writing, even though I love it and love giving you stories to read. It was also complicated by the fact that I’d fallen out of practice and so getting back in the groove was a challenge. I was hoping to get more written, but I thought I’d give you a taste… and it’s a decent sized one, so I don’t feel too bad about it. Don’t worry, I have no intention of making the Naruto Log as long as Honorverse or Undertale Isekai are becoming, and I haven’t forgotten about them.

If you like what I do, please consider supporting me on Patreon. I’d especially like to thank Parzival, bearblue, and Ryune, but all of you who read my work and comment are wonderful.

I also have an original Novel (it’s space opera) in very slow progress here. Please check it out. Let me know if I should create a Blog for it too. I also have two separate bonus stories here called EssJay’s Omake Theatre #1 (Big Box Isekai) and #2 (Zed’s Chain). And if you’re on Questionable Questing (No link provided) I have an adult story you might want to check out… if you’re of legal age. If you need the link, hunt me down in one of the forums.