A hot day in summer, hanging by my fingertips halfway up the cracked and crumbling masonry of an old bridge over a river near Bristol. An eager look on my face as I eyed the next handhold, it would take a low sweeping leap followed by a quick placement of feet to manage. Miles stands ready below, holding the rope that snakes through my harness and the anchor point. It has been a long day but his eyes still shine with focus. He knows I am relying on him.
Crouch, bounce, crouch, bounce, crouch, leap!
A perfect moment floating through the air towards the craggy hold.
Slap-crunch.
An eternity falling through the air with the broken hold in my hand.
Creak-snap.
The parting of the frayed strands of the borrowed rope, till now hidden within the sheath. A shocked shout from below. The whistling of the wind in the ears of a body hurtling towards terminal velocity.
Crunch.
ooo
Personal Log
For a time there was darkness, then light. I was handled and held by blurry giants cooing odd nonsense in adoring tones. I went under, and awoke looking upwards, lying between thick bars and barely able to move my arms, let alone lift my head. A few brief minutes of panic and again I dipped under the mental waterline, coming to in the arms of another giant feeling warm and protected. This continued for some time.
It was only later, once my eyes started working properly and I saw a Konoha headband on a passing shinobi that I figured out what was going on. I had thought I was reincarnated as a narcoleptic, imagine my joy to realise I had simply gone insane! Much better. I've always held that I would make a fantastic insane person. That brilliant insight didn't last long either: my surroundings were simply too boring to be explained by insanity. If I was going to go insane it would have been more interesting than this. I would have seen to that. So, I was in Naruto. All things considered, pretty good going.
Sure, my life expectancy was about 15 years and change, the village might be destroyed any number of times, respecting human rights was considered somewhere between eccentric and a glaring weakness and so on but I didn't care. Three reasons. One: I would get to be a bloody battle wizard. I don't care what they call themselves or how they dress it up, they are obviously wizards. They shoot fireballs, use lightning and teleport while fighting with golems. Wizards. Two: immortality; this world is within grasping distance of it and I want it. Death is a blight on humanity and I would see it ended. Three: perversion potential. I would have to wait till I was 18 or so and go for older women, but can you imagine what a dedicated ninja couple can get up to with clones and genjutsu? Can you fathom it? I can, and once I had hormones again it was going to be glorious.
Ahem. Anyway, I kept passing out. Naturally a baby's brain cannot support an adult's thought processes. Equally obviously, I was a baby thinking words like 'thought processes' then fading out for hours after every few minutes of thinking and waking up with new memories of acting like a baby. Clearly something funky was going on, and that something could pretty much only be chakra. After a few months real time and a few days conscious time I eventually figured that I was emulating my old brain using chakra, somehow, and because I was a baby with baby sized reserves I could only squeeze in short periods without running out.
So, knowledge and power. Priority one: copy my chakra-brain into my meat brain. I do not want to end up as a secondary guidance personality in some teenager's head who only gets turned on to solve maths questions and give dating advice. Not a chance in hell. I didn't go through death to end up as a glorified Nav Pixie! At the minute there's nothing in there but a bunch of mostly-unconnected neurons and some instincts for crying, crapping myself and looking at shiny things, and I need to get in there before that changes. I wouldn't mind control a person but I'm certainly not above re-seating myself within my own reincarnated body.
The next few months were... weird. All I can say is thank fuck for neural plasticity. This probably never would have worked on a fully grown brain. Running two minds in parallel thinking the same thoughts is a bizarre and distinctly unpleasant experience. Didn't actually give me twice the thought-power unfortunately, which would have been nice. I knew I'd never fit all the information into my tiny baby head, so I focused on the bits that were important and took savage joy in cutting the rest out. The most important thing was obviously my thought processes. I'd spent years in my last life building those things: polishing and refining and generally trying very hard to build a sparkling tower of diamond-bright thought. On the upside, that made it very hard to lie to myself. On the downside, it was very hard to lie to myself. You never quite realise how comforting and fluffy all those lies are until you remove the ability to believe them. My foreknowledge could largely wait until I was older and had more storage space, it would stay nice and preserved in my chakra-brain until I could finish moving all the bits I wanted over. I certainly wasn't going to bring the thought patterns for laziness across, what would be the point?
I spent every conscious moment inscribing my ways of thinking and feeling into my mind, and gradually as time went on I started being aware of more and more during the times when my secondary mind was offline. I even learned my new name: Nakano Tetsuo. Clear thinking iron man of the central fields. Poets, my parents are not but I was pretty happy with it. Whenever something dramatic happened I could shout KANEDA back at them and completely ruin the moment. It was perfect. Until I realised what it meant that I was a Nakano. No bloodline. I was stuck in Naruto without any bloodline abilities. I was doomed. Excessively doomed. This would need to be fixed as soon as possible. By hook or by crook I was getting me some of those mystic eyeballs. If possible a complete set: blue, red and purple. I'm a completionist, sue me.
ooo
Personal Log
Once I was six months old I had gotten into a pattern. My baby brain was well situated enough to follow basic plans, though not to make new ones. I would wake in the morning, then wake up a second time and give myself instructions for the day, spending as long as I could afterwards copying over new memories and thought processes before I was nearly out of chakra. Then I would drop the brain emulation and spend the rest of the day working on whatever I had thought best with my vague knowledge of kiddy development. Waggling my arms about trying to develop a mind-muscle connection and babbling like a brook that wanted to learn Japanese but only knew goobooglarb.
If something came up I'd re-activate the brain that actually knew how to make decisions, but that didn't happen often. At the end of the day I'd use up all the chakra that had returned to finish transferring my mind over. I was lasting longer by the week. Hopefully the chakra use would strengthen my reserves and not, say, cripple my potential permanently Rock Lee style.
I think I freaked my parents out a fair bit. Babies aren't supposed to spend a whole day clenching hands then arm muscles one by one while making random yet deliberate noises. They certainly aren't supposed to have intelligence suddenly fill their eyes only to look at you sharply, then shudder at the indignity of having diapers changed and fade away again. I was wasting my valuable chakra responding to them! I needed that! I had to get this finished before a real consciousness seated itself or else it wouldn't be me exploring this wonderful and deadly world. Just an incomplete copy. Unacceptable. I had to keep going till I could be happy with it and switch off the secondary brain for good. It wouldn't be good for much once I was done.
Anyway, I had a routine, a goal and the beginnings of a plan. I was going to take this world by storm like a furious Chihuahua with a football. First knowledge, then power. World Domination Optimisation was coming baby! I was feeling pretty good about myself.
Then the Kyuubi came.
A/N So there's probably not actually going to be much in the way of romance in this story apart from possibly in the epilogue. That up there is just the thoughts I'd think if I were in such a position, not a statement that the story will actually go to such places. I don't fancy writing that and it would feel too egotistical to have an SI go out to get some. So unlikely but not 100% ruled out, though I'd have to do a separate update on Ao3.
The story will be vaguely AU because many things in Konoha just don't make sense and I don't want to leave them in. Feel free to tell me if I've got a detail wrong, but don't be surprised if I respond by saying I like it better that way.
Also it should be noted that the SI is not a completely reliable narrator. His knowledge of canon is weak, largely derived from fanfiction, and he can be a bit unobservant from time to time. He will occasionally think that the world of Naruto does x when it actually does y, and y may in fact come and try to cave his face in for his presumption in not taking it into account.
ooo
Tetsuo was in his crib, waggling away and trying to flip himself over so he could progress onto crawling, that most noble of goals. There was a shuddering groan then a splintering crack through the foundations of the city, and he knew fear.
Imagine lying flat on your back with a door on your chest, then feel the weight of a series of very large stones being placed on it, much like how they used to execute certain criminals so very long ago. Know the crushing force just occasionally letting you breathe and the grinding feeling of your ribs just barely holding out. Further, know that every one of those stones hates you. Hates your kind, hates your family, hates that you dare to keep breathing in their presence.
That is how the Kyuubi's chakra feels to a baby. He lay there, to move was to push the world, and It was too close. The thoughts whipped round his head, too close and itwants me dead and there's nothingIcan do. Flashes of explosions showed through the window, I'm too close, I'm going to be crushed before I even get myself potty trained. No magic wizardry for me, back into the great roulette wheel of reincarnation and see if I get to keep my mind this time. Knowing what is apparently my luck I'll be born in Fukushima just before the tsunami and subsequent reactor breach.
It was probably for the best that his mother Ikuko took that moment to flicker to his side and gather him up to her shoulder, dark hair swirling like a maelstrom in the wind of her passage. Her husband, Eiji, shouted at her from the doorway. Tetsuo recognised the word for 'go!', then mother and son were flying out the window and through the air. She never looked back, but he could see over her shoulder as they fled. The Kyuubi was a mountain, roaring its defiance to the world. Tiny flickers of movement struck at it loosing jutsu and explosions. A nonchalant flick of a single tail, a desperate dodge by a terrified shinobi, and Tetsuo's house was crushed to splinters. He didn't see Eiji make it out, and Ikuko never looked back. He couldn't tell her, he wasn't old enough to speak yet, could barely even breathe through the oppressive chakra.
They sped past walls of flame towards the shelters, in the distance you could hear the snap-crackling of fires and howls of the dying. Thunder rumbled and waters hissed, elemental fury tore through the streets behind them. They arrived at the shelter and Tetsuo was handed to a nurse, who put him with the other children. The chakra had lessened with distance and he wanted to scream at Ikuko, to tell her to stay, that her husband was dead and she couldn't leave him alone. No grandparents had come to visit and he knew if she died too he would be all alone in this deadly world. He was still a baby though, so he could only scream and cry long syllables of pain and frustration. She didn't find his argument convincing.
He saw her, just for an instant, before she leapt off towards to fighting. Bloodshot orange eyes and backlit by flame, an expression of pure fury contorted her face, creating harsh creases in the soot that plastered her features. In that moment she was glorious. A lioness charging to battle against any who would dare to threaten her home. Low and dangerous she turned towards her enemy, hair streaming behind her like a banner. The image was seared into his mind. And then she was gone. It was the last he ever saw of her.
ooo
Personal Log
A week later, when the beast had presumably been sealed and the fires put out I finally accepted that no-one was coming for me. I had held out hope that a past team mate or a family friend, an uncle or a grandparent might walk in and spirit me away, but it was not to be. I was an orphan in Konoha. I was sad for my family, in the same vague way you might be sad if you heard a firefighter who saved you once had burned, or a teacher had a car accident. It was distant, I hadn't had time to really know them and I'd only recently become capable of staying aware the whole time I was awake.
I was more terrified of what came next. Danzo would be looking for Root members in the orphanages, I couldn't stand out. Orochimaru was looking for test subjects, I couldn't look scientifically interesting. Fuck, there was no way I could pass as a normal kid. I couldn't even manage that in my first childhood. I needed to become strong without looking like I was becoming strong. I needed people to know me, powerful people who would keep me from being disappeared. I needed to look like the kind of kid who would be missed, who would be noticed if he vanished. I couldn't trust the orphanage staff, they might be in on it. I don't care how stealthy you are, you can't wear a blank mask and stalk orphanages then expect to stay hidden in a village with Hyuuga walking around. It would be much more effective to subvert the staff.
God help me, I knew what I had to do. As soon as I could walk, I knew what needed to be done. It was a desperate move, a terrible idea, something I would never even have considered normally. In chess there is a thing called a forced move, the move you have to make if you want to continue to play. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but it had to be done. It was my only hope. I would have to befriend Maito Gai. He was only one I knew both open enough and important enough that I could secure his protection with a reasonable amount of effort. Gai would be maybe 12 and a Chunin by now, anyone watching would know he would search to the ends of the earth for a missing companion. He might even rope in Kakashi. Sure, Naruto would have the ear of the Hokage as soon as he was old enough to speak but that didn't stop him from getting kicked out of the orphanage onto the streets. Whatever influence he had wouldn't be quick enough to save me. This was going to suck. Why couldn't my life have depended on Shikamaru? He would have been chill about it.
On that day I made a promise to myself. No matter what happened there would be no orange jumpsuits, there would be no green spandex. I would not allow it, they would not corrupt me!
Personal Log
Time passed, I prepared and I trained. It didn't look like training, I made sure of that. I did my level best to pretend to be a normal infant. In a way, I was fortunate that there were so many others of my age in the orphanage. I made sure I was never the first or second to pass a given developmental milestone. Never the first to walk, or the second to talk. I even added a little randomness to my placement in the order to avoid becoming too predictable. Always being exactly third would be suspicious. I fell over on purpose and wept crocodile tears when I skinned my knees. I hid behind the nurse's skirts when visitors came and pretended to nap while I was feeling the swirling of chakra in my stomach.
When I wanted to train things I couldn't be seen doing I'd hide in the bushes and pretend to dig for bugs, while sticking a leaf to my palm or practising the few handseals I'd managed to see passing shinobi use. I made sure to use up at least half my chakra every day, to try and grow my reserves. I got questions wrong on purpose and pretended not to understand when people used long words. I muttered Japanese under my breath to get the pronunciations right and tensed my muscles against the floor when no-one was watching. I gave my all when playing, always trying to tire myself out in a game of tag or improve my reaction times or hiding skills or situational awareness. I invented a code language, a simple cipher as any kid might use to talk to his friends secretly and made sure at least one of the characters was a smiley face. I looked at the older kids and realised I couldn't let them know I could write till I was 5, so I burned the code. I watched the exits and learned the schedules of our minders and all the while I knew it couldn't last. I would slip and be discovered.
In that manner, three years passed.
ooo
Personal Log – year 3 month 6
I am bored. I am bored and I've come as far as I can by myself. I can't go fast enough during games to get a workout without standing out. I don't know enough handseals to practice properly, I can't do pushups where people might see and I don't know any Taijutsu apart from a singularly useless style from my old world that would probably do more harm than good. I even went back and recorded what seemed important about my time here so far. Turns out my chakra brain has perfect recall, so I decided use it to keep a record. Human memories are so fluid and imperfect, why not keep a better record that can likely never be accessed by another? Still, bored. I can't even turn to books, because then I'd have to reveal that I've been learning to read by watching the story book as the minder read to us for the last year without being branded a genius. I can't be branded a genius yet, I wouldn't survive the experience.
I would get taken to Root and abused and neglected and forced to make a friend then fight them to the death. I don't want to kill a 6 year old. I might even lose. I am under no illusions that as a shinobi I can avoid killing, but in Root I would have no freedom at all. I would be given the dirtiest jobs, and the meanest of rewards. My life would be shorter, and greyer. They wouldn't even give me power: Danzo kept all those eyes for himself. If he actually gave a crap about his fighting force he would have spread half of them over his many operatives. If a person can kill you five times without dying then five more isn't going to help you much, you're obviously outclassed. Once I have minions, I will treat them right.
The Hyuuga affair is coming up quickly, it might be only half a year away and I'm not nearly ready. I know Hinata was four when it happened and I'm three and a half now. My plans would be so much easier if I could just pull this off. The favour of a clan head and a clan heir is not to be sniffed at. It was almost a get out of jail free card, and would hopefully convince them to see what might be more... questionable acts in a positive light in future. Like Naruto, imagine if he'd pulled that kind of crap growing up as a no-name, he wouldn't get away with it nearly as easily. I need my attempts to get written off as childish enthusiasm, not malicious intent. I'm already going to push enough Orochimaru buttons as it is with the intelligence and the orange eyes and dark hair. At least my pupils aren't slitted.
If only I were more of a Naruto fan in my last life, I'm sure there's some kind of cheat code to ultimate power that a suitably dedicated fan could figure out. But no, I'm working off incomplete knowledge of the first bit of the manga and a whole lot of fanfiction. The very definition of reasoning under uncertainty, I can only be sorta-maybe sure about a few events that always get re-told.
So, I need a teacher, and I need a champion. It's time.
ooo
It was his seventh try at finding him. Tetsuo was glad the orphanage didn't really seem to care where he went so long as he turned up for mealtimes and lessons. He guessed they thought a hidden village was really safe, and he supposed it was for an average citizen. The response time could be measured in seconds. The first few tries he had snuck out during the day and asked people where to find Konoha's Green Beast, but either he wasn't well known or he hadn't picked up that nickname yet. He'd considered asking an Uchiha where the most noise complaints were, but didn't like to think of what would happen if they turned those lie-detector eyes on him. So now he was walking through the crowds on market day. It was the main market of Konoha, so there should be people from all over. If this didn't work he'd be reduced to checking the training grounds one by one at sunrise. Tetsuo spotted an obviously stressed, tired and annoyed housewife talking loudly at her friends in front of a tea room and wandered over. It turns out, you can get away with almost anything by looking like a curious kid.
"He's driving me mad! Every morning!" ranted the furious woman. "That spandex loving loon starts shouting at 5 am! That training post gets replaced so often it's like living near a damn logging operation." Her friends nodded and made consoling noises.
Paydirt, he thought. Now I've got to get this just right, just the right level of forthrightness and not understanding social rules. Wide eyes, open body language, loud voice. Come on...
"Hey! I know that guy! Tell me where he is so I can prank him!" Tetsuo shouted at the woman. She looked momentarily startled, her eyes darting around and then finally down. "He runs past and wakes my little sister up and then she cries! Tell me where that green meanie is and I'll get him good." He shouted, channelling an older Naruto, then started rubbing his hands together in feigned malicious glee.
A sly smile crept onto her face as she replied. "Why I couldn't possibly tell you that the honourable shinobi will be at training ground 14 every morning at sunrise, that would be just terrible of me. Really, what kind of person would I be to let you know that MetMart leaves their rotten eggs outside every Tuesday night? I'm afraid I can't help you." Tetsuo briefly boggled at her as her friends giggled, before shouting "Yes!" and running off.
This manipulation thing isn't so bad. Better make the most of my innocent face while I still have one, because it's only going to get harder.
ooo
And that is how Tetsuo came to be punching a log in training ground 14 looking like a cat that had learned that the cream is unguarded and who has a seven point plan to acquire the canary. At that moment a certain enthusiastic teenager tore into the clearing while walking on his hands. Though that hardly did the movement justice, more like he was pummelling the earth into following his will through sheer force of exertion than anything else. Tetsuo was lucky that the training grounds were self-regulated by the ancient tradition of shinobi telling civilians to bugger off and Gai would never try to discourage someone from training. Everyone else was asleep like sane people and thus couldn't get in the way.
"I had not expected to see anyone else up so early! And especially not one so small!" Roared the man, while moving through an incomprehensible series of movements halfway between a pushup and a backflip. "I am glad to see another fanning the Flames of their Youth!" Yes, this was a man who could shout in capital letters.
Tetsuo had a brief moment of panic in the face of the sheer force of his personality, as he abruptly understood exactly the level of sacrifice this plan was going to require and took a silent moment to curse the gods that made this his only option to reach his goals. "Yes!" He exclaimed in return, fighting down the urge to leave the field and scrub himself raw, perhaps to try another way that left him with more dignity. It is a funny thing that many who would happily face death drew the line at such things. "I'm going to be the youngest shinobi ever!" And here his eyes twinkled hungrily. "I came to find a better place after they tried to make me stop training!"
Tetsuo worried briefly that he was laying it on too thick, until he saw the telltale moistening of his companion's eyes. Encouraged, he plunged in. "Hey! Could you train with me!? Everyone else is asleep and you seem really awake." He no doubt looked like an adorable toddler trying to be an adult.
His eyes grew concerned as something occurred to him, his tone grew sombre. "Do your parents know where you are, boy? You seem a little small to be out alone." Ah, time to bring out the big guns, he mused, letting his eyes grow large and his shoulders slump. Surely he couldn't be immune to this. "Mu, mum and d-dad went away when the Kyuubi came. That's why I have to get strong, to pru-pruhtect everyone else. Will you help?"
At this point, he could tell his fate was sealed. The man's tears were flowing freely, and a sunset vista was starting to fade into existence behind him, although it was not yet sunrise. "How could I turn down such a Youthful Offer! I shall do a thousand pushups in celebration! Come. Let us stoke the Fires of our Youth!"
Tetsuo took one last moment to mourn all that had led him to this point, then started firmly towards the implausible sunset. He hoped to whatever gods there might be that his memories were accurate and that he had not just taken the first step into the wrong kind of madness. It was starting to seem distinctly plausible.
Four months later
A pained scream tore through the forest.
Smack
The wet thumping sounds of fists hitting something solid.
Smack, smack, smack, smack
A triumphant shout rent the air followed by panting. "Two hundred!"
"Congratulations my Most Youthful companion! Later I shall climb the Hokage monument with no feet in celebration of this achievement!" Gai replied in his default tone of voice; enthusiastic shouting. Tetsuo took a moment to notice that he was somehow doing one handed planche pushups on top of one of the training posts as if they were a light warmup. Chakra truly allows some insane physical training, he concluded.
"You do that, Gai-senpai." He replied, starting on kicks. They had settled into an easy rhythm by now. Tetsuo would come most mornings to watch Gai and emulate his more basic movements, occasionally asking questions or being told if he was doing something wrong. He didn't want to ask too often, or cut into Gai's training time. Tetsuo was working on his forbearance here and didn't want to push him. He was keenly aware that although Gai was the archetype of a (slightly insane) nice guy if he told him to leave then village law bound him to leave and not come back. Losing the training time help would be bad, he had thought, but that's nothing compared to losing my safety net. Without Gai I know no-one trustworthy, a tasty little morsel that could be disappeared into the cracks and never seen again. It would never even occur to anyone with a chance of finding me to look.
Tetsuo shook his head. Enough of that, things are finally going well. I'm getting training, no-one has tried to stab me yet and I have a ready-made excuse for anything odd I happen to do. Who's going to argue with 'Gai suggested it'? Exactly.
Sometimes Gai was away on missions or other duties. On those days Tetsuo focused on chakra control exercises or searched the training ground for lost and abandoned kunai. By now he had got a decent not-bent set that was only slightly scratched. Turns out you can bring them back to a central armoury for a small amount of money. Normally, he mused a civilian wouldn't be able to get to them because the training grounds are technically off limits without a headband, but everyone (somehow) seems to know that Gai likes me so most ninja won't kick me out. I suspect he shouted it from a rooftop somewhere, knowing him. Aside from that, they don't see the harm in an enthusiastic toddler. Presumably I'm too young to be up to anything. Gotta bleed that for all it's worth while I can.
ooo
Personal Log - year 3, month 10
I've been thinking about my diary. It's great that my chakra brain doesn't forget thing I put in there, but on the downside, the throughput is pretty low so I can't put pictures or anything in. I'm sure there's a way to exploit that... Anyway I've decided to use it to keep a diary of sorts. Nothing outside of my head is secure in this world, and I have doubts about the inside. The chakra brain might be sufficiently weird to confuse a Yamanaka, but I can't rely on it. I'm worried it'll start using more chakra as I put more information in as well, so I can't use it for every little thing.
Another of the boys disappeared from the orphanage today. Last month it was one of the girls. The staff say they were adopted, but I'm worried. They weren't the sort of kids to get adopted, too serious. I'm starting to stand out. After a few months with Gai I'm beginning to have unreasonable levels of fitness and body awareness for a three year old. You can avoid showing most of it by acting clumsy and slow but muscles and calluses don't hide so easy. My chakra is still growing as well and I can't be sure if Root or Orochimaru has sensors that could tell that my network is expanding beyond normal civilian limits. It's how I'd look for potential. I told a few of the other kids that 'Ryoko said that Kari said that they were taken away by bad men'. By the end of the day it was a hopelessly tangled mess and no-one knew where the rumour had started, but it gave me an excuse to announce the next day that 'I told Gai-sensei to come look for me if I disappear, he's a really great ninja so he can find me anywhere'. I won't call him sensei to his face, but I'll happily make use of it to give me a little extra protection. I made sure to say it loudly in front of as many of the staff as possible. I have no way of knowing who -if any- of them are compromised, so I need to spread the knowledge. If they aren't, I lose nothing.
I finally caved on my 'secret language' and wrote a note to Gai. I made him promise on his jumpsuit not to open it unless I don't show up for training for a few days and I'm not in the hospital or at the orphanage. I also made sure he promised to give it back when I've been in the Academy for a year. I should be safe by then, too many clan heirs will know me and I have other plans as well. There's a foreword in basic kanji that explains how to reach three places where I'd hidden the cipher key for my childish looking code. Smiley faces and hearts are some of the symbols, just to throw people off thinking I'm too smart. It's not the type of thing that could deter an actual sustained decoding, but it should suffice to stop an honest man from 'just taking a peek'. I trust Gai, but this stuff could get me a nice long all expenses paid visit to T&I if it gets read and I've not actually been taken.
The encoded part mostly talks about overhearing the staff talk about taking me 'under Konoha, like the others' and saying that 'the Root must grow to defend the leaves'. It's unlikely stuff for anyone competent to be dropping hints like that, but in the situation where it gets read I want them to actually have a chance of finding me and I can hardly explain how I really know. I'm hoping that he'll take it to Kakashi or the Hokage if I'm taken. Kakashi might be ex-Root by now so he'll know what to do, even if he's reduced to pointing, grunting, holding his tongue out and looking sad.
In truth, I was tempted to send off such a note anyway. Root ruins a lot of lives. Two things stopped me. One, even if I succeed Danzo would probably have me killed in a fit of pique and two, I have no idea how good Inuzuka are at tracking things by smell. We're in a shinobi village full of vaguely unstable killers and there isn't a murder every week, so either they all get covered up or they have some really good methods of catching people. Between Sharingan, Byakugan, Inuzuka and all the many other bizarre abilities people here have I've got no idea what kind of things could catch me out. For all I know my chakra could seep into the paper and they could find me that way. A lot of things are going to have to wait until I feel I can survive an assassination attempt. There's a reason three year olds don't start conspiracies.
I've decided on my long term plan as well. I'm putting together a dream team. Canon was shot to hell the second I was born in this world. It relies on too many split-second coincidences and actions to be robust to change. The butterfly effect would have made it unreliable even if I grew up a trader. The only way I could ensure it didn't would be infant suicide, which isn't on the table. I'm just not that noble a person. Still probably wouldn't work. I'll risk my life for a cause, but I'm not jumping off a cliff for one. Speaking of cliffs, I never migrated over the memory of my death, just the vague generalities. I figured PTSD and a fear of heights would be counter-productive to shinobi combat. Anyway, my next option is to become a shinobi but stay out of the way, possibly dooming the world. That's off the table too. I could learn some shinobi skills then flunk all the tests. That would be my favourite option really if it didn't also doom the world. Bloody doomed world, forcing me to make bad choices.
I'm pretty much stuck with jumping in both feet and buffing the main cast and general shinobi forces to the point where they can handle whatever's coming. The Hyuuga affair is coming up fast, and I don't have the skills to do anything about it. I can't even use transformation technique or make clones, or else I'd send a disguised clone up to the front door. I just don't see what I can bring to the table that a clan of all seeing eyes can't. Hell, I have no idea how anyone broke into that compound undetected to begin with, it really should be impossible. I have a plan, but it's shaky and it would rely on my lying standing up to a clan full of Hyuuga. Somehow I just don't think I can pull off a falsehood against a normal Jounin, let alone someone who can check my organs and chakra to see if they're giving me away. I'm not even sure if I should. If this were chess then Kumo's head ninja is a fair trade for a branch house member, well he'd be executed anyway though, so there's that. Or... that could work.
Yes... that could work. Time to practice my evil completely virtuous laughter. I miss my moustache. I would twirl it so hard right now.
ooo
"Ten! Onwards!" Bellowed the spandex wearing fitness nut. Tetsuo was starting to worry.
The rules of training with Gai are simple: do whatever random challenge he thinks up, and try not to think too hard about how insane you look to outside observers. Knowing this, Tetsuo had thought he had gotten off lightly to be running a fairly normal race to the main gate. Normal is a relative term when training with Gai. A while ago he had found out that Gai's weights could be adjusted a pretty extreme amount by varying the amount of chakra stored in them, and had immediately put together a handicap system to allow him to stand a chance at whatever competition they were doing that week. Which is all a roundabout way of saying that today Tetsuo was sprinting after a green-clad loon that was running on his hands through the streets of Konoha. As per the rules of their bet, Gai had his weights turned up to just shy of their maximum, and had to stop every 50 paces to crank out a set of handstand pushups. Tetsuo was allowed to run on his feet like a sane person.
And now Tetsuo really was worried. The man is a monster; all that and I'm still losing. His thoughts grew frantic, how could I still be losing? That's something like a metric ton on his ankles and wrists. Any normal human would break their arms just taking a single step! He might want anything for his victory, I'm not wearing spandex, it won't happen to meee! This thought in mind, he made a heroic effort and pulled on something deep within to bring out just a bit more speed. Just a little bit longer.
"Just, phe, a little, huw, more!" He huffed out between steps, being outpaced by Gai again. The gate was in sight. Gai didn't believe in letting people win, if he wanted to escape his fate, he would need to earn it. "Not, huf, gunna, hwa, happen, pha, to meee!" He shouted in what would have been a roar if he wasn't four years old, as it was though it came out uncomfortably reedy and high. Then, a stroke of luck; just before Gai would have crossed the gate he hunkered down to perform yet more handstand pushups allowing Tetsuo to streak past just in the nick of time. The young boy then collapsed in a bundle of limbs on the side of the road, feeling the warm glow of victory burning his muscles and lungs with its painful fire as he panted. That was close.
"Congratulations my Most Youthful Companion! You have won this day! I shall do any one thing you ask!" He exclaimed from his nice guy pose, teeth glinting with no respect for the laws that govern how light usually works. Abruptly he grew serious and moved to place himself between Tetsuo and the road. The younger boy was in a perfect position to peer between Gai's legs and watch, as a grim looking delegation of ninja wearing Kumogakure headbands with a one eyed man at its head and an escort of Konoha ninja touched down just outside the gate. There was just enough time to see a few contemptuous expressions flicker across the corners of the Kumo group's faces as they saw the collapsed child and his guard, and then they were gone again.
Tetsuo took a moment to catch his breath, get back to his feet and consider. I had a plan for this, but that was before I realised that it was almost time for the Hyuuga Affair. Is there anything I could ask Gai for that would help with that? No. Plan A then. Look adorable, and turtle like a mofo.
The young boy turned to the closest thing he had to a friend in this world and wow was that a depressing thought. He opened his orange eyes wide and tucked his hands behind his back, looking for all the world like a kid who had lost his mummy. "Gai-senpai, remember when they caught Oro-orochimaru last month?" Tetsuo certainly remembered. He'd spent a third of his meagre funds buying a small cake to celebrate. "They said he was taking kids from the orphanages."
"Indeed Tetsuo-kun. It was most sad to hear that he had been doing such things within these very walls." Gai replied in the quietest voice he had, which was a normal speaking voice for most people.
"For our bet, I want you to promise that if something like that happens to me you'll come find me, okay? Even if it's really, really hard." Tetsuo asked solemnly, eyes watering. It wasn't hard to make his eyes water; he just had to think of dying slowly, alone, in a dark lab as part of the Snake Pedo's twisted experiments while keeping in mind that that nearly happened.
"Do not worry Tetsuo-kun, he is gone and you are safe now." by this point, Gai was crying Manly Tears of Youth. "And if it does, I Shall Find You. This I promise.," he solemnly vowed. Tetsuo was sure to put a wavering smile onto his small face at that. "Now, let us Return to Training! We still have not done our Daily Pushups!"
"Yes!" If this is all it is, he thought, it's not so bad.
Years later he would look back at that day as the point his sanity first started to crumble.