Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Draga grew up an orphan, witnessed a war, and died of rabies at the ripe age of twenty-two. Her life wasn’t anything spectacular and she wasn’t a particularly pleasant person. She loved passionately and hated just as much. She was bulky, smoked like a chimney, worked as a part-time bodyguard in a strip club, and fed stray animals in her free time. She was cremated with a few parking tickets left unpaid.

Draga, as her friends often told her, was a person with contradictory traits. For some reason, no one ever expected a towering ugly woman with a boxer’s nose to be a history student. She never really got angry at those who were surprised. Some people were just narrow-minded enough to believe that liking to fight somehow made her unable to read.

Though ultimately, she didn’t get to finish her degree and that sucked. Draga thought that dying without a PhD would’ve been more or less acceptable, but it was a shame to pass a month away from her bachelor’s.

It was a painful way to go, rabies. The war left many animals on the streets and Draga always had a soft spot for strays. One bite and she soon found herself on her deathbed, going through the delirious reflection of her life’s highs and lows.

There was a repeating hallucination, the scariest sight of her lifetime following Draga in and out of consciousness. A rocket hitting the library, hundreds of books and artworks gone in the span of a few minutes. Priceless in their cultural heritage, voices of her long-dead countrymen dying in the fires of war.

She had never forgotten the sight and it followed her into the next lifetime.

***

Suzuki Ryuzen was born with grey hair, eight months after the Kyubi attack. She was given a male name because her mother wanted a boy and died before she could come up with anything else. She was a normal baby up until around five years of age when memories of being Draga started to slowly seep through.

It started small, asking the matron about a story of a princess and seven gnomes, only to get a confused look in return. It escalated when another kid decided to pick on her for having grey hair and she answered with a rather satisfying left hook.

”Good punch, girl!” She could hear the voice of her gym teacher at the back of her head.

She cried while the matron was scolding the hell out of her. Ryuzen was grateful for the lashing, it was a good excuse to cry. The memories were overwhelming, but coming to terms with her apparent reincarnation was even more so.

Sitting in the naughty corner while others ate dinner, Ryuzen was trying to make sense of the world that she’d found herself in. As a child, she was only told the very basics. The map in the main hall was that of Elemental Nations, her village was named Konoha, and it was very obviously a military dictatorship.

Kids were indoctrinated from a rather young age, orphanage being full of potential soldiers up for the picking. A ninja would come at least once a year to give a speech about their “really cool and honorable” profession. But as far as she understood, the conscription was pretty much voluntary. In addition, the matron often tried to subtly discourage girls from signing up for the ninja academy. The kunoichi were very “vulgar and unladylike” in her opinion.

Draga, now Ryuzen, loved beating the shit out of people when necessary. She didn’t really want to do it on someone’s orders. Ninja life wasn’t perfect for her, she decided. The orphanage didn’t get other visitors with presentations about different careers though, so she was lost about her options. Ryuzen needed to explore and ask around.

The next day, the matron dyed her hair black to “avoid future disturbances” and tasked her with cleaning the kitchen floor as an additional punishment for the punch. Before she could leave, Ryuzen decided to act like the curious child she was:

“Kanami-san, when I grow up, what jobs are good?” She tried to sound as naive as possible while moping the floor.

“You can clean, cook, or sew for money, young lady. And when you marry, taking care of your house and children should be the only job that you have. Now, I don’t want to see yesterday’s incident repeating itself! Leave the fighting to the boys and hope that one of them will be blind enough to take you for a wife in the future. Now mop the floors! I want to see my reflection in them once I’m back,” she took a sharp turn and left the room.

Ryuzen quickly realized that it was the wrong question to ask. She wondered what would happen if she ratted Kanami-san to the ninjas next time they visited. There was a matron of the orphanage, blatantly robbing their military of potential female recruits.

She also couldn’t help but wonder if Kanami-san's assessment of her career opportunities was accurate. How progressive was this society? Before getting her past life’s memories, Ryuzen never explored the village in depth. Were her options really that limited?

Ryuzen half-assed her cleaning job, she didn’t have time for such things and it was hard to feel scared of the matron now, having the memories of a grown and intimidating woman. She might not have the same muscle and height, but she did retain her attitude. What were they going to do, leave her without dinner again? Spank her?

She lived in the orphanage before, the food could always be stolen. And Draga died from rabies, the pain was nothing.

The orphanage had days when everyone was supposed to stay in place, but it was mostly a “just be back by curfew” type of system. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner were served to kids who were present to eat them, but you were free to explore around the village as soon as you were old enough to be left unattended. In Konoha,  “old enough” was quite young.

So Ryuzen found herself on a busy market street, trying to pay attention to what she was seeing. There were food stalls, clothing stores, and restaurants. It didn't look as technologically advanced as Draga was used to, but it was good enough. Ryuzen soon found herself inside a small bookstore.

There was a distinct lack of non-fictional literature. Adventure novels, romance books, even a whole 18+ section, but only one history text. A very carefully curated one, she suspected. No philosophy, science, or travel guides in sight. Ryuzen wasn’t surprised, she had a feeling that this was the state of affairs already. Still, she harbored some semblance of hope.

“Mister,” she came up to the shopkeeper, “Is there a place in Konoha where I can read for free? The orphanage doesn’t have much.”

“You mean a library, kid? Sure thing, it’s near the academy. See this red roof right there?” The existence of a library was good news. Ryuzen thanked the shopkeeper and was on her way.

The sight of a respectably sized building gave her hope, though it quickly dimmed as soon as she went inside. Only the first floor seemed to be open. In place of a sweet old librarian stood a ninja in the green west, greeting her with an indulging smile:

“Hey, sweetheart, first time here?”

Ninjas were much smarter and better trained than an average matron or shopkeeper, Ryuzen didn’t wish to encounter them one-on-one any time soon. What if they noticed that she was smarter than she should be? Would the conscription still be voluntary?

“Hello, yes! I read a-a-all the interesting stuff in the orphanage, I want something new!” She gestured exaggeratingly with her hands, like a cutesy little kid she was supposed to be.

“Maaa, really? You must be so smart! What do you want to read? I can tell you on what shelf it is,” her act seemed to be working so far.

“Are there any books on how the world works, ninja-san? Like why it rains or why the Fire Country is called the Fire Country? I’m almost six and nothing ever-ever burned here!”

“Well, aren’t you a curious one?” He chuckled, patting her on the head, “See the bookshelf number ten? Books like that are over there. You can go read them, but remember the rules, alright? You can’t drink or eat here, don’t be loud, and you can’t take any books out of the library.”

Ryuzen happily nodded and went to the bookshelf number ten, eager to get out of the conversation as fast as possible. It had a rather weird layout, this library. No reading nooks to hide in, all shelves and tables were positioned in a way that made visitors clearly visible to the ninja working there. She tried very hard not to be visibly disappointed in the bookshelf number ten.

There were a few history books. Another copy of the one she saw in a bookshop, simply titled “The World History”. She still placed it on the table to read, ready to consume whatever propaganda-filled drivel that was. She quickly skimmed through “The Greatest Konoha Shinobi” and put it back on the shelf. It was just a collection of chapters, each about a different ninja, written in an awe-struck tone about how cool they were. Nothing particularly useful or informative. Ryuzen thought that “The Clans of Konoha” would be an interesting read, but it only contained the names of different clans and very basic descriptions. She could guess that the clans were rather private and this piece of literature was only there to give them basic respect and help civilians distinguish them from one another. She still read through it, the book was useful enough.

Everything was even worse when it came to sciences. “Understanding the World” was at the level of a child’s first Encyclopedia, but she still took it out for a read. Math books didn’t contain anything more difficult than 5th-grade material, just enough for civilians to do their jobs. There was no physics, chemistry, or biology. No sign of psychology or social sciences either. Ryuzen tried not to beat herself over not studying those subjects in depth when she was still Draga. Sure, she still remembered a lot of things, but it was painful to think about everything that she didn’t. So much information and scientific research to loose simply because Draga didn’t have enough interest in them. Most of her history degree was essentially useless here.

Ryuzen sat at the table, trying to maintain a happy enough face, and started to read. At this point, any information was good information, however limited. She finished both “The World History” and “Understanding the World” before curfew, they weren’t exactly thick. The good news was that nature here seemed to obey similar rules to Earth. Chakra was a new thing and didn’t get a comprehensive enough explanation. Ryuzen understood why, it was the energy that the ninja weaponized.  Bad news, “The World History” was as bad as she’d expected. Though she could partially believe in the book’s truthfulness when it came to Konoha’s founding, the history of every other country was a different variation of “why those guys are bad”.

Ryuzen was thinking so hard that she failed to notice a looming shadow over her.

“We are going to close soon. Did you find answers to your questions?” The ninja scared the hell out of her, chuckling when she jumped in surprise.

“N-not all of them,” Ryuzen stuttered, “You guys should have more books.”

She was small enough to get away with saying such things. It was a fair enough statement too. They should’ve at least invested into publishing more propaganda-filled nonsense. If they already had a public library, some kind of illusion of access to information would do them good.

“Oh, we have them! If you make genin, I can open the second floor for you. There are so many more books in there!”

”Ah,” Ryuzen thought, ”Smart bastards.”

***

Ryuzen wasn’t left without dinner and managed to somehow avoid punishment. Apparently, Kanami-san got busy and didn’t fit in time to go back and check how clean the kitchen floors were before people started to pour into the room for lunch.

So she was unpunished, fed, and sad. She knew that knowledge was power, of course she knew, but  Ryuzen was unprepared to see how restricted it was here. It was a rather clever system too, every cog and screw of Konoha’s structure subtly pointing impressionable children to the voluntary conscription.

Every clothing store had some shinobi options, usually cooler looking and made of the better material. Ninjas rescued princesses in children’s books, and Hokage were carved into the mountain,  immortalized in their glory. Worst of all, every curious kid in their “1001 questions” phase would want to enter the academy for the chance of getting those questions answered. Children with present civilian parents would often have someone to stop them from such decisions. They were also likely to have some kind of a family business to fall back on.

Orphans though? Free pickings for the village. Sure, they could enter a civilian workforce if they wanted to, but they were less likely to be successful in it. Most businesses were family-owned and Ryuzen could imagine that the job market for people with no family was rather competitive.

Overall, Ryuzen didn’t like her perspectives up until she overheard the matron gossiping with another worker the next morning.

“A career genin, can you imagine? It’s such an embarrassment. Could’ve found an honest job on a farm, but no, he wanted to be a ninja. There is no chance to get promoted in Genin Corps, you know? The boy will be doing C and D-ranks for the rest of his life, cleaning rooms and delivering scrolls…”

Ryuzen didn’t know that being a lifelong genin with a low level of danger and no importance was an option. Suddenly, she had a plan for her future. Sometimes, obeying the system was the only way forward.

***

Kanami-san, Ryuzen concluded, wasn’t allowed to outright deny children their entry to the academy. She could tell the girls that ninja life was unladylike and they wouldn’t ever be able to find a loving husband, but she couldn’t say no once they asked to sign up.

So she threw a fit, told Ryuzen that she was incredibly disappointed, and sent her on her merry way to the academy.

Another observation Ryuzen made was an array of complicated feelings that civilians felt towards the Shinobi population. While respected, ninjas were still feared and kunoichi were deemed “improper” for their more revealing outfits and rumored seduction missions. The matron wasn’t as much of an outlier in her sexism as Ryuzen would’ve hoped.

If you entered the academy, you were often subtly segregated from the other kids in the orphanage for being “too dangerous to play with”. But if you dropped out, you were deemed a failure. If you were lucky enough to make genin, everyone acted like you were going to die soon. If you stayed genin long enough, you were a laughingstock. Chunin and jonin though, no one would ever dare say anything bad to their faces.

Ryuzen didn’t mind. She lived most of her past life being a laughingstock in some way or another. First she was ugly, then she was also too manly, then she didn’t fit the mold of a typical history student and had to listen to others “expecting her to fail” every single semester.

She never cared. She kept her knuckles bloody and her mind sharp.

Ryuzen had found herself a new dream to work for in this world. She wanted a library of her own, accurate information collected, written, and kept at the distance of her fingertips, to leave for any possible future children she might have or adopt. She wanted to gather the Intelligentsia and build a safe place for scholars, writers, teachers, and journalists to gather. And if this place already existed, she wanted to find it and join.

There was a plan:

The only way to get books was to buy them or write them. Konoha had a very limited selection, the only way to access new information within the village was to progress through ranks. She could make genin and stay in genin corps, devouring their dedicated library section and saving the money.

The only other way to gain information was to travel, buy every new book she saw, and write down everything she discovered on the way. Genin Corps workers didn’t really travel, but she couldn’t afford to skip the academy. She at least needed some skills with chakra to feel safe in this world.

At the end of the day, would someone really search hard for a deflected, orphaned, and ultimately unimportant career genin?

Chapter Text

The Academy was difficult and not in the way that you would expect. While Ryuzen made a point to try as hard as she could physically, she needed to restrain herself academically.  It wasn’t good to be too noticeable, or else it would become suspicious when she joined the Genin Corps.

So she was thankful to be in the body of an average Konoha orphan but struggled to publicly maintain the intelligence of one too. She continued dying her hair in unremarkable black while trying not to be too disgusted with herself when pretending that 1st-grade math was somehow a challenge.

Ryuzen’s classmates were all a bit older than her. While she just turned six, most of them were a few months or even a year older. A lot of clan heirs too, which complicated this situation even further. She couldn’t afford to be noticed by clans, they could make her future deflection harder. On the other hand, clans probably had their own libraries, and Ryuzen was all too happy to raid one.

But it was way too naive to hope that she could access their books even if she was invited into a compound. On the brighter side, the academy gave them textbooks, and those kept her busy for a while, mostly because she wasn’t allowed to take them back home. The clan kids and civilian-born children with their own houses could, though, which was a bit unfair. Iruka-sensei reasoned that it was out of safety concerns, they didn’t want other children in the orphanage to get too curious and hurt themselves.

So, for children like Ryuzen, there was an option to stay after classes and do your homework with those books still on hand while the teacher still used the place to check worksheets and write lesson plans.

Overall, her strategy was to stick to one of the other civilian kids in class, Watanabe Geto. His parents owned a bathhouse, and he was the fourth child in the family. He wasn’t all too smart, handsome, or strong - a fittingly unremarkable friend for her unremarkable persona.

She wanted to stick with Ami and her friend group at first; they were also civilians. But they were mean kids, targeting anyone who stood out too much, clan children included. Ryuzen didn’t like bullies. They were also too noticeable. It would’ve been perfect to have her fellow orphans around, but they were all in different classes.

One of the other civilian children that Ryuzen decided to ignore was Haruno Sakura. She was studious enough to be constantly complimented by teachers, her ninja career already too promising for Ryuzen’s taste. Sakura also stuck to the Yamanaka heiress like glue. The last thing that Ryuzen wanted was to be on that girl’s radar.

In fact, there were two clans that she wanted to avoid at all costs: Nara and Yamanaka. Yamanaka’s very short description in  “The Clans of Konoha” illustrated them as mind walkers and then spent a good paragraph reassuring all curious readers that this technique took time and was only used on Konoha’s enemies. It was good to know that they weren’t able to look inside Ryuzen’s head by simply glancing at her, but that was still an alarming ability.

The Nara clan, on the other hand, was smart. So apparently smart, in fact, that “The Clans of Konoha” talked about their intelligence as something seemingly more valuable than shadow-controlling techniques. If a Yamanaka needed to suspect her before even trying to use their mind-walking jutsu, a Nara just needed to get curious enough.

Unfortunately, the Nara clan heir was also in her class. Luckily, he also seemed to be completely bored by his surroundings and was currently going through his “Girls are icky” phase.

“Naruto, you didn’t do your homework again!”

“But Iruka-sensei, it was boring!”

Ryuzen sighed, watching the daily spectacle unravel in class. Naruto wasn’t always so loud, she remembered him from when he used to live in the orphanage. He was a shy kid, but the matron held a grudge against him for some reason anyway. He grew louder with time, seeking people’s attention,  only to disappear from the orphanage altogether several months ago.

The matron quickly forbade kids to ask about Naruto, just as she used to forbid them to play with him. Ryuzen wondered who adopted him; he looked too clean to live on the streets. Judging by Naruto’s behavior, she also wondered if they neglected him, too.

She actually wanted to befriend the kid somewhat, maybe help him with his studies a little. He was clearly struggling. Naruto wasn’t from a clan, so that wasn’t an obstacle.

The issue was that everyone had a problem with him for some mysterious reason. At first, Ryuzen thought that he was just annoying and pranked too many people, but the matron disliked him even when he acted normal.

Overall, Ryuzen decided to avoid this wasp nest and settled on pitying the kid from afar.

“Zen-chan, what did you get for number six?” Watanabe Geto whispered in her ear while Iruka-sensei was distracted by Naruto.

“I got B, but I’m not sure. This test is difficult…” she mumbled back.

Ryuzen was a dirty little liar, and she would have to stay one for a while.

***

Just as she suspected, the other girls at the orphanage slowly stopped talking to her. It took them a few weeks, but the kids were impressionable little shits. The matron was probably spewing some sexist rhetoric in their ears. Ryuzen couldn’t tell if it affected the boys, too, they weren’t really talking in the first place. Other academy kids were all slightly older than her and weren’t interested in having conversations with younger children.

Ryuzen didn’t mind anyway; she didn’t want any eyes on her new project. It took a few days and a lot of patience to successfully steal pathetically small amounts of money from the different orphanage workers. She couldn’t risk them noticing that something was missing, or else they’d start searching through everyone’s belongings regularly.

Thankfully, she didn’t need much money in the first place. She only wanted to buy a sturdy notebook. The academy already supplied kids with new stationery materials, but they didn’t provide more than necessary. And orphans didn’t get an allowance.

So here she was, with a new leather-bound journal in hand, sitting alone in the orphanage dormitory. It was the weekend, the kids were all playing outside, and Ryuzen was finally ready to take a first step towards her dream.

She was going to write down poems and songs that she had memorized in her past life before this new body grew up and forgot. They didn’t exist here, and Ryuzen would hate to lose them forever.

She started with Shakespeare’s sonnets 18 and 104, the only ones that she learned in school. Ryuzen tried writing down The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe but couldn’t manage to remember all of it. Still, it was better than nothing, she could try to fill in the blanks later. She did recall Stopping by Woods fully, and the Caged Bird was still fresh in her mind, having to learn it for one of her classes shortly before dying.

She started with English poems because she was most likely to forget them first. She wrote down the Ukrainian ones the next day, trying to keep her tears from falling onto the pages.

It was easy to remember several of Shevchenko’s works; she felt like they were burned into her brain. Ryuzen could almost hear her 4th-grade literature teacher proudly narrating every word.
There were also Stus, Symonenko, Kostenko, and Franko, though she was ashamed to admit that she didn’t memorize as many of their works as she would’ve liked now.

Ryuzen still remembered all of Draga’s favorites, and that would have to be enough.

She later wrote down as many song lyrics as she could master. And before she knew it, Ryuzen’s new notebook was full, making it the very first addition to her personal library.

Ryuzen was careful to always keep it on her, only getting it out when she was alone. It wasn’t exactly safe to keep anything you cherish in the orphanage, but it was also a risk to take it to the academy. She didn’t exactly translate those poems and songs into Japanese.

Thankfully, she was still as uninteresting as possible. No one would care enough to look through her stuff.

She knew that It was a temporary solution. If Ryuzen planned to expand her collection, it would soon become too heavy to carry around. She desperately needed a stash. Fortunately, a great idea has found her in a couple of weeks.

“Okay, class, we are talking about different ninja arts today!” Iruka-sensei always started his lectures energetically, “You have already begun learning taijutsu, it is one of the main three. Who can tell me the other two? Yes, Sakura-chan?”

“They are ninjutsu and genjutsu, Iruka-sensei,” the pink girl answered eagerly.

“Good job! You will be starting on those two later this week! Ninjutsu is something you kids think about when imagining what ninjas do. They tend to use one of the five chakra elements. Genjutsu is different because the effects are not physical, they go for people’s senses. Genjutsu will make you see, feel, smell, hear, or taste something that’s not really there. Are you guys following so far?”

“Yes, sensei!”

He continued, explaining both Ninjutsu and Genjutsu in greater detail and outlining their academic plans for the next semester. What really caught Ryuzen’s interest was something that Iruka-sensei has mentioned rather offhandedly:

“There are a lot of subtypes too, but the Academy doesn’t teach them in depth. If they sound interesting to you, you will need to ask your genin sensei once you graduate, okay? You can only learn so much in your academic years. We want to make sure that you have a strong foundation that you can build upon later.  For example, there is kenjutsu for those of you interested in swords, but you want to be really good at taijutsu first! There is medical ninjutsu, but you can only start learning it once you have good chakra control. There is also fuuinjutsu, but it is really-really difficult if you aren’t doing well in your math and calligraphy classes!”

“Iruka-sensei,” Naruto whined, “This fuuin-thingy sounds stupid, why do we need math for cool jutsu?”

“Naruto, just because you aren’t good at something doesn’t mean that it’s stupid! It can do a lot of great things! With enough mastery, you can make a seal for anything! When you’re older, you will have to carry storage scrolls too, pack everything you need, and still travel light!”

“You can buy them in ninja stores, so it’s useless to learn,” now Naruto was just provoking him.

“Well, someone has to make them for you to buy, brat!” Iruka was fuming. Once again, the class resigned to watching this spectacle for the next five minutes at the very least.

Meanwhile, Ryuzen was trying to hide how elated she was. Storage Seals? It was a solution to all her problems. A perfect and portable stash! She wondered how much stuff could be fitted in there.  Ryuzen made plans to go and visit one of those ninja stores after the academy. She needed to figure out how much they cost and if she could legally even buy one right now. Most of the ninja gear could only be purchased if you already had a headband.

Ryuzen was so excited that she didn’t notice a pair of curious dark eyes looking at her. If she did, she would’ve taken a thousand precautions and put all her plans on hold for at least a month.

***

Shikamaru Nara was bored. Father told him that it was expected for the first year in the academy, since they’d be mostly covering things that he already learned at home. He couldn’t skip a grade to make it more interesting, either. It was, first of all, a drag, and he also needed to be in class with Choji and Ino.

As a result, he spent most of his classes sleeping or cloud-watching. Iruka-sensei woke him up sometimes to ask trick questions, but he couldn’t stay angry once he realized that Shikamaru knew the answers.

Shikamaru was bored and complained to his father during their daily game of shogi.

“Here is something to keep you busy for a day or two,” Shikaku said, “Study other academy students. I know for a fact that you prefer ignoring everyone except Choji, but they are your future comrades, and you need to know them well.”

“I don’t really want to talk to them, Dad, most of them are too troublesome,” Shikamaru watched as Shikaku captured his king. He is yet to win against him even once.

“I said study them, not talk to them. Figure out who will most likely graduate or not, what everyone is good and bad at, what everyone’s interests are. Do a little training in intelligence gathering, you don’t have to speak to them at all. “

And his father was right; it did make the next couple of days less boring for Shikamaru. He decided not to speak to anyone but Choji and Ino if he could help it, or else this little quest would be over way too soon.

Still, it was easy. He already knew his future team members, so he didn’t bother with them. Naruto and Kiba were so loud that he already knew mostly everything about them. Looking a bit closer, though, he noticed that Naruto couldn’t really read. That was rather alarming, so Shikamaru made sure to mention it to Iruka-sensei after class.

Uchiha Sasuke tried to act cool and unbothered, but it all melted away as soon as he saw his brother. With this level of adoration, Shikamaru could guess that Sasuke would try following in Itachi’s footsteps. The other two Uchiha kids in class looked like possible genjutsu specialists.

Aburame Shino had a weird way of wording things and tried not to show distress when someone was openly disgusted by his bugs. Hinata Hyuga was painfully shy and apparently had a crush on Naruto. They both had potential in tracking. If Hinata could get out of her shell, she would also become better in close combat. So far, she felt bad for hitting other kids in spars.

Haruno Sakura had perfect grades in everything but taijutsu. She was also doing well in chakra control exercises. If Sakura didn’t end up as a paper ninja, she would make a good medic-nin or a genjutsu specialist.

Ami and her friends were mean and painfully untalented. Correction: Ami and her friends were mean because they were painfully untalented. If they managed to graduate, which he doubted, they wouldn’t probably go any further than Genin Corps. Not only due to their lack of skill but also because they were stupid enough to attempt insulting the clan children. They would often make comments about Choji’s weight, Shino’s bugs, his own apparent laziness, or Sakura’s “large” forehead. And sure, Sakura wasn’t a clan kid, but her association with Ino should’ve been enough to stop them.

While Ami and her friends were at least mean enough to notice, the other two civilian children were completely mundane.

Watanabe Geto would most likely drop out before graduation. It was only their first year, and he already struggled both physically and academically. Shikamaru listened in on one of his conversations with the other boring kid, Suzuki Ryuzen. He was complaining to her about his siblings. It didn’t take a lot of guesswork to understand that Geto only applied to the academy for his parent’s attention.

Suzuki Ryuzen was doing well enough in taijutsu classes and ended up being painfully average in everything else, including her looks and personality. She was quiet but not overly so. Responsible enough to do homework but not ambitious enough to go for an extra credit. Seemed to have good morals, but didn’t step out of her way to defend anyone. Ryuzen had a pleasant enough but overall forgettable face. Black eyes, black hair, nothing to make her stand out.

Shikamaru thought that she would probably graduate and go to Genin Corps. If she got very lucky with her genin sensei, there was a chance that Ryuzen could make a pretty average chunin. Nothing more and nothing less.

And just like that, Shikamaru was done and bored again. It was still the middle of the day, but he was already waiting to get out of the academy, eat dinner, and report his assessment back to his father over shogi. That is, up until one very boring classmate started to behave out of character.

Suzuki Ryuzen always showed a very predictable amount of interest in every presented topic. She was just as excited as most when it came to ninjutsu, just as whiny as most when it came to math, and just as bored as most when it came to shinobi regulation rules.  If you calculated an average and took all of his other classmates as variables, you would get Suzuki Ryuzen.

And while, yes, her sudden excitement over fuuinjustu of all things was seemingly out of character, it was her visible attempt to suppress this excitement that actually grabbed his attention. Shikamaru found himself hoping that it wasn’t a fluke, that there were more things to unravel about Suzuki Ryuzen.

Wouldn’t that be just interesting .

***

Later that week, Ryuzen was practically skipping towards the ninja equipment store. She hung around for a bit, finally concluding that it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for an academy student to step in, as curious as they usually were.

It was mostly weaponry and ninja-wear. Lots of different katana variations for someone with standard preferences, but plenty of options if you liked to experiment too. Ryuzen suddenly found herself missing Draga’s old brass knuckles. Those were always so great, it was a pity that she couldn’t buy new ones yet.

All of the seals and scrolls were stacked under the glass of a display case, right near the сash register. Ryuzen stepped closer to look at the prices. One storage scroll was sold at a cost of twenty leather-bound notebooks.

“Can’t sell you anything if you don’t have a headband, kiddo. Just saying,” The vendor finally decided to say something. He was pretty tall, a bit fat, and had kind eyes. Ryuzen thought that it was worth the risk to attempt playing on his heartstrings.

“I’m an academy student, though! That’s almost a ninja,” typical talk for a cute six-year-old: I’m a big girl, and yada-yada-yada.

“No can do,” the man smiled, “What do you want to buy anyway? You won’t need the stuff here until you graduate, I promise.”

“I wanted a storage scroll,” she mumbled, trying to sound as sad as possible, “So that I could keep my things on me always, you know? There are not a lot of places to keep stuff in the orphanage, and things sometimes go missing, too…”

Ryuzen stared at the ground, trying as hard as she could to sell the “poor neglected child” act. It was bad that she couldn’t exactly see the man’s reaction.

“Listen, squirt, I would love to sell you one, truly. But it isn’t legal. I write everything in this book: what I got, what I sold, and to whom I sold. All of the ninja-specific stores do that, you know, for safety reasons. Every couple of months, an Uchiha policeman comes in, checks it out, and copies everything, too, just in case. So, as much as I sympathize, there is nothing I could help you with.”

Ryuzen thought that she should’ve expected it. Of course, stores like that were monitored, it was stupid to think otherwise. They would obviously want to check if the vendors sold to civilians. There was also a small poison selection here, obviously kept track of in case there was a small domestic incident, so to speak.

“Do you know if I could get one somewhere else?”Ryuzen asked, now grasping at straws, “Or maybe someone could teach me how to make one?”

“Every jonin worth their salt knows how to make one, most chunin too! You can try convincing one of them to make it for you! But no, you can’t get it anywhere else. And if you wait a few more years, the academy should give you a couple for free!” He smiled like it solved her problems. It didn’t solve shit. Ryuzen didn’t want to interact with any jonin or chunin outside the academy classes.

It was good to know that she’d get them for free eventually, but she couldn’t exactly wait for years. Ryuzen’s only hope was for her sob story to work on Iruka-sensei, he was soft-hearted enough to try.

The vendor seemed to notice her mood getting worse, so he decided to tell her the next best thing:

“You know what? You come here after you graduate, and I will give you a discount on brass knuckles! I noticed you eyeing them earlier.”

“You fucking bet, old man!” Ryuzen was suddenly so happy that she didn’t care enough to play a character anymore. Thankfully, the vendor found it amusing, so she didn’t beat herself over it much.

***

The next day in the academy was full of terror, now that she finally noticed a usually disinterested Nara boy looking at her. Not once, not twice, but on three separate occasions. It was difficult to keep calm and not give away that his attention was actually extremely unwelcome. Ryuzen found herself hoping that he would come up and talk to her at some point. That way, she could at least know what this little gremlin found so interesting. If everything turned out well, she would satisfy his curiosity, and he would go back to being his usual self.

The Nara boy didn’t approach, though. He just continued to stare. He also sat at one of the desks behind her, near the window, which was simply inconvenient. She couldn’t discreetly check if he was looking at her during the class.

So Ryuzen resigned herself to acting as normal as possible, never wavering. To catch his interest, she must’ve done something wrong at some point. Whatever that was, she needed to show him that it was a fluke.

The only good thing about the past few days was her sob story actually working on Iruka-sensei, apparently a fellow orphanage sufferer. He patted her on the head and eventually gave her a storage scroll. The downside was that it would be taken away if she didn’t graduate, and it was not given to her in secret.

“I’ll just write down that I gave you one storage scroll earlier than scheduled, given your circumstances. Don’t worry about it, Ryuzen-chan, I’m always happy to help!” Iruka-sensei didn’t deserve to live in such a horrifying place, bless his kind soul.

It didn’t matter much, though, in a grand scheme of things. As long as she wasn’t caught stealing, no one would ever bother to search some poor orphan’s storage scroll. It was a very controlling society, but they all had more important things to do. She would be fine as long as she continued being unremarkable.

Luckily, she managed to shake off Shikamaru’s interest the very next day when Mizuki-sensei decided to be an ass for no reason and announced her situation to the class. She liked him much less than Iruka-sensei, mainly because of how he treated civilian children. He wasn’t exactly mean, and it wasn’t like he taught them differently, but Mizuki-sensei tended to throw out weird remarks once in a while. He said things with double meanings, words that could be taken as both insults and compliments.

In short, Ryuzen hated the rat. Unfortunately, she couldn’t show it.

“Just so everyone knows, the academy teachers are always there for you if you need help! For example, Ryuzen-chan apparently wanted a storage scroll to keep her stuff from getting stolen in the orphanage, so she got one earlier than all of you! Don’t be afraid to tell us things, we will help.”

Just like that, he informed every kid in class that she was an orphan that couldn’t keep track of her own possessions, getting a cool-ninja-thing earlier than everyone else. Clan kids wouldn’t care much, but Ryuzen understood that she was now Ami’s new target.

The Nara kid stopped looking at her soon enough though, and that was good. She realized that he probably saw her reaction to fuuinjutsu being explained in class. Well, mystery solved, for both of them. Now, her only problem was figuring out how an average child dealt with bullying. When Draga was a kid, she just punched her offenders; consequences be damned. That wasn’t an option now.

Ami and her friends started simply, with “you’re poor” and “you don’t deserve special treatment” kind of remarks. Ryuzen couldn’t act well enough to fake actual tears, so she decided to go the other way: she agreed with them and pretended to be plausibly stupid.

“I’m sorry that you can’t have the scroll too, Ami-chan. Maybe try asking Iruka-sensei? He was kind enough to give me one.”

Later, Ami figured out that the best insults didn’t provide her victims with any opportunity to reply and keep face. Ryuzen, with an appearance much more pleasant than in her past life, suddenly found herself listening to the same cruel remarks.

“Guys, I can’t eat lunch today, Suzuki is so ugly that I’ve lost my appetite,” Ami said, and her friends laughed.

“Ugh, I bet she will look like a gorilla when she grows up,” Ami whispered whenever Ryuzen sparred.

Nothing was said to Ryuzen directly, mind you, just close enough so that she could hear. That was good because both Ami and her didn’t want a direct confrontation for two completely different reasons. Ami didn’t want to risk Ryuzen replying smartly enough to make her look stupid. Ryuzen wasn’t confident enough in her skills to be sure that she wouldn’t laugh in Ami’s face.

She really found it hilarious. She knew for a fact that she wasn’t ugly. Draga was. Draga had some very asymmetrical features and a weirdly shaped nose from being decked in the face too many times. Draga had a huge scar on her cheek from a flying shrapnel. Draga was the kind of an ugly person who only ever received compliments for her personality.

Ryuzen wasn’t an otherworldly beauty, but she looked just as fine as all the other kids in class. Draga always stood out. Ryuzen, especially with her hair dyed, looked good enough to fit in.

Still, she needed to act like any other preteen child would in this situation. Ryuzen did her best to copy Aburame Shino’s reaction to being called creepy on the regular basis, the “I’ll do my best to look like your words don’t hurt me but they actually do” facial expression.

It was difficult, but the Nara boy’s curiously never rekindled, so Ryuzen counted that as success.

Later that year, Ryuzen was more than grateful for all the insults. It gave her a perfect excuse to start wearing a mask. Her baby teeth started to fall out, as was expected. What she didn’t expect was for them to grow back sharper. 

Chapter Text

It was a unique experience, being able to witness how quickly children grew and changed. If she had to compare her classmates in their first and last years of the academy, she would hardly recognize some of them. You don’t really notice it when you’re a kid yourself, undergoing similar changes. Now Ryuzen was only a child in appearance, watching how everyone grows for the better or worse.

They were at the age when personalities developed, when strengths and weaknesses blossomed and often stayed for life. When Ryuzen got a couple of black reusable face masks and started to wear them daily, not many questions were asked. She was just another child with a new insecurity, taking insults to heart.  Of course, to avoid the trap conversation about “accepting yourself just as you are”, she made sure to sound ostentatiously confident about it.

“Zen-chan, you shouldn’t let Ami’s insults get you like that. I don’t think you’re ugly at all,” Geto said.

“It’s not that! I just thought that it looked cool, that’s it,” she made sure to sound like she was lying and it was perfect. Everyone was sold on the idea.

It wasn’t even that weird of a fashion choice. No one batted an eye when ninjas wore strange things. Ryuzen has seen people walking around in monstrously green jumpsuits, for God’s sake, a mask wasn’t that odd. Too bad that instead of getting a cool ninja-gear one, she was now stuck reliving Draga’s COVID experience. Still, she would do anything to cover those teeth and get help with her suddenly improved sense of smell.

She could picture lots of situations where it would be useful, but that was a double-edged sword. She never wanted to know just how many people don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom, never wanted to be aware of every girl’s monthly cycle. The mask helped and Ryuzen was grateful.

The only Konoha clan to share her traits, as far as she knew, was Inuzuka. Ryuzen was even unlucky enough to have their heir in class. It seemed that practically every clan of Konoha had an heir in her year, it was one of the weirdest coincidences that Ryuzen has ever experienced. She theorized that they were all probably conceived at the end of the last war, a usual explanation for a baby boom.

Thankfully, despite Kiba’s sense of smell, he never recognized her as kin. Ryuzen concluded that her blood was probably too diluted, but she didn’t know for sure. She had no family to understand what they smelled like anyway. Still, even being some far-removed distant bastard was too much. She resigned to keeping her mouth covered for the foreseeable future.

Children grew and changed, affected by the world around them. Ami stopped being openly mean when a few of her friends dropped out, now she was simply bitter. Shino stopped trying to show his insects to other children, becoming even more closed off than he was before. Geto’s parents told him that he was useless unless he managed to finish the academy, he sometimes had panic attacks after tests.

“Naruto, I know that you were the one to paint over the Hokage mountain, don’t lie to me! You’re in huge trouble, young man!”

The blond kid was a rare breed of a person, her kind of person. It was clear as day how hurt he was by every mean word in his direction. They got to him, but he never caved in. Naruto pushed back instead, as loudly and obnoxiously as he could. He never understood why people hated him, so he started giving them an actual reason instead.  And it was glorious.

Ryuzen sometimes admired him from afar, sad that she couldn’t afford to be friends with him for the very same reason that she wanted to. Also, baffled by the amount of detentions and punishments he has gotten.

”The kid painted a whole ass mountain and didn’t get caught in the process. Sure it’s vandalism, but some praise must be warranted, no? We had a whole lecture on stealth last week,”, she thought.

Yes, Naruto was a rare breed of a person. Not quite like Draga in her younger years though. On rare occasions, he at least had some shame.

Some children became quieter as innocence was slowly getting lost, and some became crueler while trying to cling to theirs. When the massacre happened, and their class had only one Uchiha left, Ryuzen watched with devastation as the other girls turned vile in their ignorance.

And it was truly ignorance, a sheltered desire to continue living in a very innocent world. Still, it was disgusting. Sasuke Uchiha was now “cool and dark” instead of broken. “Mysterious” instead of traumatized. The rumor mill had it that Itachi Uchiha, the older brother that the little kid adored, simply snapped under the pressure of a military regime. He massacred his whole clan in a span of a single night and Sasuke saw it all.

It was undeniable how fishy this whole story sounded. Still, Ryuzen wasn’t in a position to investigate. Whatever happened, it left Sasuke completely devastated. He used to be a sweet kid. A bit grumpy and spoiled, but still sweet. He was now left a shell of his own self, angry and resentful.

For one scary moment, Ryuzen contemplated if she had to join the fan club. When every other girl was fighting for the poor kid’s attention, did she really want to stand out?

Ryuzen decided that, yes. She could pick her battles without betraying her morals, and she didn’t want to contribute to Uchiha Sasuke’s misery. It got to the point where even Haruno Sakura’s friendship with a Yamanaka heiress fell apart. The only other girl to continue behaving normally was Hyuga Hinata. She was still very shy and honestly adorable, her crush on Naruto painfully obvious to everyone but the boy himself.

In their second year, they moved on from normal physical conditioning and practicing katas to the actual spars. As a result, Ryuzen had to start holding back in taijutsu classes too. She had way too much fighting experience as Draga and a year of vigorous exercise only helped her to get this new body in shape. The clan kids at least had some training at home, it was rather visible, but they were still lacking in both confidence and experience. Still, as a mediocre orphan, she couldn’t risk winning against them.

So Ryuzen watched as her classmates sparred for the first time, most of them awkward and uncertain about kicking each other where it could hurt, and resigned to being bored in taijutsu classes too.

In their third year, an extra period of Kunoichi classes was added to the schedule. Ryuzen’s first reaction was an eye-roll to yet another sexist division since the boys had an extra hour of physical practice at the same time. However later, she decided that the truly compromised party in this situation wasn’t girls.

Ultimately, it was the most useful class in the whole curriculum. Most of the information was also new to her, so she almost didn’t have to play pretend at all.

“As women, you are seventy percent more likely to get a mission in infiltration. And our infiltration missions are often very different from those of our male counterparts. Do you know why?” Miva-sensei asked right after her introduction.

Ryuzen knew why, it was rather obvious, but she was never the one to raise a hand in class. The rest of the girls remained silent, so Miva-sensei sighed and continued:

“Okay, listen up! I’ll give you an easy example. Most other nations, just like this one, are built on two ruling bodies: Daimyo and Kage. A Kage answers to the Daimyo directly, is responsible for Daimyo’s safety, the country’s military force, and the hidden village. The Daimyo, on the other hand, is responsible for everything else and holds a court of people to constantly stay informed and make decisions for the entire nation. They live in a hidden village and the capital’s palace respectively. Now, who can tell me which one of the two is easier to infiltrate?”

“The Daimyo’s palace?” Ino Yamanaka was the one to speak up, “It is well-protected, but the hidden villages are home for ninja, so they’re worse.”

“And that’s correct! Now, Daiymo and his court, except the Kage, are civilians. They are representatives of noble families, most successful merchants, and simply the rich. Again, all civilian, powerful, and entitled men. Now, most of you have never interacted with the civilian side of our village, but we do have a few civilian-born girls in this class, so I’ll make it easier for everyone and ask one of them. Suzuki-chan, now that I’ve given you some context clues, why are kunoichi more likely to be sent on infiltration missions?”

“It’s because the civilians are sexist, right?” Ryuzen made sure to sound hesitant, “Women are rarely more than wives or helpers, performers or writers if they’re lucky. So it’s not like they will be careful around us if they don’t suspect we’re ninjas.”

“Good job, Suzuki-chan, you’re right! In fact, the most informed demographic of people are Geisha and sex workers. Never confuse the two, those are very different professions! What they do have in common, is that men feel safe enough to tell them things. Not just civilians, but some very lousy ninjas too. They are also very much present everywhere, Daiymo’s court and hidden villages included.”

Some girls looked justifiably disgusted at the prospect of pretending to be a sex worker and what that would entail. Sakura raised her hand:

“Miva-sensei, will we have to do…everything that the…scarlet women do when we’re sent on those missions?”

“Haruno-chan, do be more straightforward. You’re asking me if you’ll have to have sex with those men, right? I hope that all of you already know what sex is, by the way, otherwise, this lesson will become much longer. Going back to Haruno-chan’s question, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Seduction missions often intersect with infiltration, yes, but you’re always able to refuse them if the parameters include intercourse. Those are non-mandatory and we have a whole department of people who don’t mind going on them. Anyways, in most cases, you only need to lead those men in a secluded place and get them drunk or drugged enough to spill information.”

A palpable sigh of relief passed through the class. Miva-sensei smiled and continued:

“Now, there are a number of non-ninja related skills that you’ll need to know for your cover to be believable: singing, dancing, calligraphy, tea ceremonies, literature and customs of different nations, things like that. You’ll learn it here with me. Most importantly, you’ll learn to act. Most men, civilian or not, will always underestimate you to some degree. You’ll learn to use it against them.”

Ryuzen couldn’t help but be excited for this class. Finally, she was learning something completely new. Though it was still a mystery why the boys weren’t included. Miva-sensei did mention that infiltration missions weren’t exclusive to women.

Now that she thought about it, there were Taikomochi, the male versions of Geisha, in medieval Japan. The country that this world seemed to take a big amount of inspiration from, language included. Ryuzen would also bet that some people in power were queer. So why weren’t the boys here?

Terribly curious, she waited until after class and walked up to her new teacher:

“Miva-sensei, may I ask you a question?”

“Could’ve asked during the class, kid, but sure,” she chuckled while cleaning the desk.

“Why is this class just for girls? It sounds too useful for the guys to skip on it.”

Miva-sensei hummed and fully turned to her.

“Well, that’s complicated. You won’t really like the answer though. In short, guys learn this stuff too, but a bit later and only if they choose to. And you can only be given an infiltration mission if you have training. Do you see what I’m saying here?”

Ryuzen did. Apparently, institutional sexism wasn’t just a civilian thing.

“So, the girls take most infiltration missions because they are the ones who trained for them?”

“Yes and no,” Miva-sensei sighed, “It is true what I said in class, many missions are assigned to women for good reason. But the gender gap would be much smaller if the boys were trained from a young age too.”

“But, why don’t they?” While having a better grasp on the situation, Ryuzen was still confused, “I’ve heard how civilians back up their beliefs, but I can’t imagine why ninjas do it. “

“Oh, it’s actually not that different. Just like how some civilian men think that sewing is emasculating, the older generation of ninjas finds most infiltration missions to be solely women’s work. And I do mean it when I say the older generation. The fourth Hokage wanted to open up Kunoichi classes to everyone, and the Intelligence division is trying to make progress currently. It just takes time. In my memory, Lady Tsunade was the only one to escape the stigma. Coincidentally, she is also an exceptional battle medic who just happens to be the last member of our founding clan.”

Ryuzen walked out of the classroom deeply in thought, but happy to get more information. The system was unjust, but ultimately good for her plans. If the older generation of ninjas, the one currently in power, was predisposed to underestimate her as a woman, then it just made her a bit freer to do as she pleased.

During the next Kunoichi class, Ryuzen picked sanshin as her traditional instrument of choice, received a poetry book that she was allowed to keep (that’s the first one), and started learning how to dance with a fan.

The years have passed, the children have changed, and on the final day of the academy, Ryuzen couldn’t help but wonder how many of them would be lucky enough to continue growing up.

***

The headband was heavy in her hand. Ryuzen couldn’t believe that she finally did it, successfully pretended to be the most boring person in existence for six consecutive years. She would have to continue with the act, sure, but it would be much less stressful once she wasn’t constantly surrounded by the clan heirs and ninjas of higher rank.

It was fine work, to distance herself from every sociable kid in class without raising suspicion. Ryuzen made sure that everyone decided to ignore her themselves. With the exception of Watanabe Geto, of course, but he was a completely different matter. Ryuzen actually felt guilty about it. For the past six years, she was his only friend, just like he was hers. The problem was that it wasn’t truly friendship, since everything he knew about her was a lie.

The headband also meant independence, for the better or worse. She was now a legal adult in the eyes of the village, the orphanage would have grounds to kick her out in just two months.

Together with an official genin rank, Iruka-sensei has proudly given Ryuzen a free “standard genin pack” and a second storage scroll, the one she planned to use as an actual ninja storage instead of a portable bookshelf. Ryuzen tried not to run straight for the genin section in the library as soon as she graduated. Now, that would be a dead giveaway for her actual reasons to become a “loyal shinobi of the Leaf”.

Her collection slowly grew. She didn’t manage much in the past years. With the exception of a poetry book for the Kunoichi class, the only books Ryuzen could acquire were the ones that she wrote herself. Something she could only do if she stole enough money for the new notebooks and was alone in the orphanage for a long enough time to actually put something on a page. Undeniably, this was a rare window of opportunity.

Still, she settled on trying to rewrite her favorite works of fiction to the best of her ability. If Ryuzen wanted money, reworking some of those novels to fit this new world was certainly an option. Though she felt a bit guilty, thinking of publishing stories that weren’t written by her in the first place.

By graduation,  Ryuzen’s storage scroll contained The Hobbit, Jane Eyre, and as many Sherlock Holmes stories as she could manage. Ryuzen used to think about rewriting it as a story of some genius civilian and a retired ninja helping the Uchiha Police Force with their most difficult cases. But then the massacre happened, brutally robbing Konoha of its own Scotland Yard. One of the most useful structures gone in a span of the night, never to be reformed.

Ryuzen had to physically stop herself from forming any conspiracy theories. She knew herself well, she wouldn’t be able to distance herself once she’d gotten too curious.

The team placement day was nerve-wracking. With the number of important children in her age group, Ryuzen could only hope that her plan worked well enough to be put on the squad of equally unremarkable kids. There were only a few of them still left in class, enough to be put in teams and not hinder anyone with potential or good lineage.

Iruka-sensei was giving a standard “it’s time for the birds to fly out of the nest” speech, with Mizuki-sensei being strangely absent. Not that Ryuzen minded terribly, she would never miss the guy. Naruto was present though, as loud as he always was. Ryuzen could have sworn that he didn’t get a headband yesterday, she had mixed feelings about his graduation.

The kid worked so hard for this, for some kind of recognition, it would be a lie to say that she wasn’t happy for him. On the other hand, he was now a child soldier, just like all the other kids in class. Why couldn’t Naruto’s dream be to reach mastery in carpentry instead of this bullshit?

“Team two is Watanabe Geto, Nakamura Ami, and Suzuki Ryuzen. Your sensei is Hyuga Hideo.”

Ryuzen didn’t have to hide her happiness, everyone would assume that her good mood was due to being on Geto’s team. It was partly true, a full civilian-born team was more than great news. They had practically no prospects at all, wasn’t it awesome?

But no, what made her truly ecstatic was her sensei’s name.

Not a Nara and not a Yamanaka. Not even an Akimichi, who could be friends with some Nara and Yamanaka. Not an Inuzuka too, thank God. Not a civilian either, that would open them up to the dangers of a sensei who wanted to see them succeed. Out of all the clans for their teacher to be from, Hyuga was perfect. If the rumors about them rang true, Hinata’s kind and gentle nature was very out of character for the rest of the clan. They were largely stuck-up and were never spotted mingling with the civilian population outside of missions.

Ryuzen couldn’t wait for Hyuga Hideo to send their asses straight to Genin Corps.

***

He picked them up soon enough, leading the newly formed “team hopeless” into the nearby empty classroom for introductions. Shit went down almost immediately.

Hyuga Hideo was tall, long-haired, and evidently had a stick up his ass. Ryuzen loved him as soon as she saw him. Here he was, visibly ready to break some childhood dreams, fully unaware of how he would be fulfilling one of them instead.

“Now, introduce yourselves. Your name, your goals, and what you’re good at. I want to know if you’re even worth my time.”

Geto visibly deflated at his new sensei’s statement, while Ami looked spiteful instead. Ryuzen settled on acting a bit confused.

“My name is Watanabe Geto, I’m twelve years old, and I’m pretty good at running, I guess? My taijutsu scores weren’t that bad and I have good chakra control. I want to be a jonin someday!”

Ryuzen knew that Geto would probably never be one and it looked like Hyuga Hideo agreed, though she couldn’t be sure that they’d reached this conclusion on similar grounds. It’s not that Geto was talentless, but he lacked proper drive. He entered the academy for the wrong reasons and he wants to be a jonin for the wrong reasons too. If your only true goal is to impress your borderline abusive parents, you’re clearly doing something wrong. What Geto truly needed was a separate place of living and a more or less steady income to make it possible. Genin Corps was filled with people like him.

“My name is Suzuki Ryuzen, also twelve years old. My best grades were in Kunoichi classes. I want to be a good ninja,” short and sweet, as boring as she practiced for years. Now, if Ryuzen knew Ami as well as she thought she did, that was a girl to put a final nail in the coffin of her team’s career.

“I am Nakamura Ami, I’m also twelve, and I want to be as great as Tsunade-sama! I am good in taijutsu and my scores for Kunoichi classes were also decent.”

Full of unfounded aspirations and exaggerating her own abilities, Ami was exactly what the doctor ordered for getting Hyuga Hideo’s silk panties in a twist.

He puffed and sighed, eye twitching in annoyance, looking like a fancy irritated pigeon.

“Children like yourselves should abandon all naive notions like that. I was given your files, you’re all mediocre at best. Your sensei didn’t even leave any additional notes on possible hidden talents that I could help you nourish. As I see it, no matter how hard you try, you’re lucky if you make chunin during your lifetime at all.”

Ryuzen lowered her head, as if in shame. This was unquestionably bad news for Ami and Geto, but she felt happy for them too. There was no doubt in her mind that anything more dangerous than Genin Corps would’ve gotten those kids killed. Both of her teammates weren’t exceptional in ninja arts and they weren’t trying hard to improve themselves either. Ryuzen would rather see those children ashamed of being career genin than dead on a battlefield.

“You’ve got your headbands already, but I don’t see any prospects in teaching you. I hoped that meeting you could’ve opened my eyes to some potential, but I don’t see it at all. You could either go back to the academy and try again next year, report to Genin Corps tomorrow morning or retire. I don’t particularly care.”

And just like that, Hyuga Hideo left. No additional tests, no friendly sparring matches to see if the kids were worth it.

“Is he serious?” Ami was furious, “I’ve spent years in the academy, and for what? Genin Corps are a laughing stock, they’re losers! And who stays in the academy for so long? I’m not an idiot like Naruto!”

Geto kept silent, tears streaming down his face. He was probably thinking about the conversation he’d have with his parents tonight. Ryuzen decided to keep quiet too.

“You might be okay with this, but I’m not! I’d rather quit being a ninja. This is embarrassing!”

Ami stormed off, probably running home and finally settling on working for her parent’s business. Ryuzen was happy for her. Sure, she was a mean kid and spent a lot of her early years bullying others, but a ninja life was never really for her. She stayed in the Academy out of sheer stubbornness, constantly trying to prove to “Sasuke-kun” how cool she was. But Ami also cried for an hour after killing a rabbit during the survival exercise, couldn’t stand dirt under her fingernails, and starved herself to “stay in shape”.

“What should I do? My parents will say I’m a failure,” Geto was slowly entering a panic attack.

“You should go to the Genin Corps with me. Sure, it’s not as glorious as you wanted, but that’s still a job. You could start renting your own place in a month if you work hard. If you stay in the academy, there’s no guarantee that the next year won’t be the same.” Ryuzen petted him on the back.

“You think so?” He asked, eyes teary and hopeful.

“I know so.”

Ryuzen lied, she was just scared that he’d graduate next year with a more lenient jonin and die soon after. But the boy didn’t need to hear any of that.

***

Including her and Geto, there were only four new recruits to Genin Corps standing in front of Kurasaki Genji, their new commander. The other two Ryuzen remembered from the academy, they graduated a year ago. Something had to happen for them to be taken off the career track since their jonin seemed to pass them originally.

Kurasaki Genji wasn’t exactly an imposing man. He was of average height, had a soul-patch beard, and was getting grey in his hair. He looked slightly beaten down by life and had a nicotine addiction, but ninjas were entitled to their vices in this line of work. Ryuzen looked at the ashtray melancholically. Draga loved a good smoke, but she was hesitant to ruin her lungs in this lifetime too. With her enchanted senses, the smell of tobacco was also too much. She couldn’t even imagine what standing in this office without a mask would be like.

Unlike his subordinates, Kurasaki Genji was a jonin. Judging by a slight limp in his walk, he got saddled with this position due to an injury.

“Okay, kids, welcome to Genin Corps. I’m sure that it’s nothing as fancy as you’ve dreamed about, but it’s an honest job. We do D-ranks and C-ranks that normal genin teams don’t get. The pay is nothing grand, but you can make do if you work hard enough. If you still want to become a chunin, you can train in your spare time and make it to the exams in a couple of years with someone’s recommendation, though I doubt it. If you were good enough to make it, you wouldn’t be here. Any questions?”

They stayed silent, so Genji continued:

“Okay, now to quickly brief you about what we actually do. In short, when a jonin picks up some D-ranks for his genin team, it’s to build their teamwork. That leaves a huge number of tasks that can be done by a single person. There are also some D-rank missions that get ignored due to their…unpleasant nature. No civilians are permitted to work in the ninja facilities, like the Hokage tower, and someone’s got to clean the toilets and whatnot. So get used to it. The C-ranks we get are usually carrier missions within the village, they are only marked as grade C because whatever you deliver is at least semi-important. I will give you them personally if I think you’re responsible enough. Everything else is on the wall right there. If you see something you want to do, pick it up and bring it to me for approval. When you’re done, come back to me for your pay.”

“We don’t need to go to the Hokage to pick them up?” One of the boys, the last year’s graduate, asked.

“No, you only do that if you are a career track genin. There is no need for you to bother the Hokage if there’s a good chance that you’ll never do anything higher than a D-rank.”

The boy looked down, gritting his teeth. Kurasaki Genji sighed, lit a cigarette, and looked at the four of them with a tired gaze.

“Look, Genin Corps is an essential part of this village, despite the reputation. I’m not good at motivational speeches but trust me, Konoha would fall apart without us. Other ninjas are needed in the field, they can’t afford to waste their time on small tasks within the village. But those tasks still need to be done. I get that you wanted more, but it is what it is. You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to, you’re only obligated to report on drill days or if I have a mission for you personally. Otherwise, if you don’t need money, you can spend your time training. Or retire for all I care, you’re not exactly irreplaceable. If you were, you wouldn’t be here. You can find a purely civilian job or sign up for med-nin classes. Those are your options.”

Geto’s voice, quiet and innocent, broke the uncomfortable tension in the room:

“You won’t ask us to introduce ourselves, Kurasaki-san?”

“No, kid, I don’t need to. I have your files. Your jonin sensei usually asks because he wants to get a feel of the possible team dynamic and figure out your future specialization. None of that is relevant here.”

There was an aura of hopelessness in this cramped office. Ryuzen loved it.

“Now, go upstairs to get your ID picture taken, and come back with it tomorrow if you want to pick up a mission.”

Taking off her mask for a picture was certainly an experience, thankfully the room smelled pleasant enough. If Ryuzen didn’t smile, it was only because she was sad to be in the Genin Corps. No other reason.

***

The days were monotonous, but not as boring as they were in the academy. Ryuzen didn’t have to pretend as often as she used to, no one really paid her any mind. Any violent quirks or swear words could now be explained by getting taken off the carrier track.

Oh, look at this poor dear! She is in the Genin Corps, of course she behaves like that.

She only had to dumb herself down when the ninjas of higher rank were around, and that was a rarity.

Ryuzen’s typical schedule now looked like this: she would wake up at six in the morning, get out of the orphanage before the matron could catch her with another “should’ve never gone to the academy, now look at where you are” lecture, do a D-rank or two if she had time, and spend the rest of her day either consuming the genin section of the library or at the training field.

She finally got a proper ninja-gear mask and would be able to afford the rent for a crappy studio soon. In a couple of months, she could even get herself a pair of those brass knuckles she ogled years ago.

Geto started taking med-nin classes in the hospital and was surprisingly good at them. Thankfully, his parents thought that a career in medicine was respectable enough. Ryuzen was happy that she didn’t need to worry about the kid anymore. There wasn’t any shame in distancing herself from him now. He made new friends in the hospital, his home situation didn’t look dire, and they barely saw each other these days.

Life was good and as per the laws of the universe, it simply couldn’t stay that way. It was one of her “training field” evenings when a hurricane of green almost brought her a heart attack.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your training session, dear blossom! I was doing a seventy-fifth lap around the village before bed and couldn’t help but notice your youthfulness!”

Ryuzen just wanted to train in peace, without bothering to make herself look weaker like she did in the academy. She loved physical activity and she missed the feeling of punching things with all her might, but it looked like her little life’s joys were bound to bite her in the ass. Ryuzen simply didn’t expect someone to stumble upon her “constructive anger management” session this late in the evening. It was an honest mistake, but one with possibly disastrous consequences.

“Thank you, sir, but it’s nothing special. I also wanted to get some energy out before going to sleep,” not a single lie told.

“That is admirable! Whose genin team are you on? I’d schedule a youthful sparring session with your sensei!” The man was relentless and those seventy-five laps around the village didn’t make him even a little tired. Ryuzen’s brain was buzzing in panic.

She needed to get out of this and quickly, he was too loud and enthusiastic. If this man thought her to be interesting enough, he would no doubt babble. Or even worse, get an idea that she needed a recommendation for the chunin exams.

“Oh, I’m just in Genin Corps, no team to schedule sparring matches with. And I’m pretty bad in taijutsu anyways, I just like the exercise, you know?”

“Genin Corps, you say? You know, my father was in the Genin Corps. The “Eternal Genin” they called him, one of the greatest men I’ve ever known. If you ever want some help with practicing, don’t be afraid to ask. My name is Might Guy - Konoha's Sublime Green Beast of Prey! What is yours, youthful blossom?”

“Suzuki Ryuzen, sir,” she sweatdropped.

“It is my utmost pleasure to meet you! Now, I’ve never seen katas quite like these before. May I ask what were you practicing?”

”Oh, sure,”   Ryuzen thought, ”You see, I just felt nostalgic and decided to remember my Muay Thai classes from the past life. Could never show them off in the academy, you know how it is.”

Thankfully, Muay Thai wasn’t as drastically different from traditional academy katas as, for example, Jiu-Jitsu or Boxing would be. But it was, unfortunately, different enough to take notice. Still, Ryuzen was nothing if not a good storyteller.

“I just never got good in the academy style, you know? And you brawl a lot, living in the orphanage and all. So I sort of mixed and matched and it is what it is. Good for tiring me out, at least, I can’t afford not to fall asleep on time. Those missions won’t do themselves, right?”

Ryuzen pleaded to Gods for her measly attempt at changing the topic to work. The Gods didn’t listen.

“Well, it looks like you’ve developed this style of yours well! I’m Konoha’s number one taijutsu master, you see? I can certainly tell that it’s most youthful! Say, would you care for a quick spar?”

Oh, fuck no, she thought.

“Depends on what time it is, Might-san,” she answered, happy that the sun was already setting. She could get out of this if she acted well enough.

“It is currently seven thirty PM, my young friend!”

“Oh no!” She panicked as naturally as she could and didn’t even have to fake it much. This situation was actually panic-worthy, just not in the way Might Guy thought, “I am going to be late for curfew! I’m so sorry, Might-San, but the matron is going to kill me if I’m not there soon. I have to run!”

“Sure thing! I will run with you, I haven’t finished doing my laps just yet!”

Ryuzen almost lost her footing, and it took all of her mental capacity not to lose face too. The man was a trained ninja despite all the ridiculousness.

Why the hell couldn’t he just leave her be?

“Of course, let’s run!” And she bolted as fast as she could, hoping to get this over with quickly and hating herself for choosing a training ground so far from the orphanage.

Might Guy, of course, didn’t have any trouble keeping up with her.

“So, how does the Genin Corps life treat you?”, he wasn’t losing his breath at all, talking like they were taking a leisurely stroll.

“It’s nice, actually! I like being useful in all the little ways, you know?”

She understood that talking like a typical Genin Corps ninja wouldn’t do her any good in this conversation. If she acted like a girl who was sad to be off the career track, the Green Beast could be inspired to help her. That was the last thing she wanted.

“Being in Genin Corps is my dream job! In fact, I want to do D-ranks for the rest of my life! It is my childhood dream, my true purpose, my only passion!” She resorted to method-acting, giving herself a pep-talk inside her head.

It was too late to be boring, his curiosity was already peaked.

“What a great kid you are! No one ever wants to appreciate the work that the Genin Corps does. I’m truly happy to meet someone as youthful as you!”

The man was crying. There was some kind of genjutsu around him, making the sunset more vibrant and adding rainbows. Ryuzen was never as weirded out as she was at that moment. Thankfully, his “youthful” tirade continued all the way to the orphanage.

They said their goodbyes and Might Guy offered to train her again. Ryuzen told him that she would happily spar with him if they met again, knowing full well that she’d have to avoid the training grounds like plague from now on.

She entered the orphanage, did her best to avoid the matron, and went to sleep deeply disturbed.

She dreamt of green tigers and tear-inducing sunsets.

***

After getting her paycheck for cleaning the bathroom in the Hokage building, Ryuzen headed for the library with a few problems on her mind.

First and foremost, she needed to start looking for an apartment. She originally planned to wait for at least one more month in order to buy some furniture too, but staying in the orphanage was no longer an option. Not only did the matron become practically unbearable, but Ryuzen truly didn’t want to see Might Guy anytime soon. He now knew where she lived. She didn’t think that he’d visit, but Ryuzen would rather get this possibility fully out of the picture. Might Guy seemed way too inspired to simply forget her.

That brought on another problem, Ryuzen was too paranoid to enter the training fields right now. Acting boring in the academy has already hindered her physical progress. She hoped to finally get some unsupervised exercise in the evening when the training grounds were mostly empty, but yesterday taught her to fear the unexpected. Maybe she could train at her new apartment, but that was a huge amount of guaranteed noise complaints that Ryuzen didn’t even want to think about.

So she walked through the bookshelves of the genin section in the library, the only place she couldn’t imagine Might Guy entering, and weighed out her options.

“The Guide to Ninja Arts and Their Most Prominent Practitioners”, it was a lengthy title for a book, but what caught her eye was the state of it. It looked like it was falling apart. Meaning, it was useful enough to be opened by different people regularly. So she took it out of the shelf and started reading.

The genin section of the library was still supervised, but not as openly exposed as the civilian one. There were a few comfortable reading nooks and you could even hide behind some shelves if you wanted to. Overall, it seemed like the village trusted you more once you entered its military force. Ryuzen knew that this impression was superficial. The librarian was a Hyuga, so she was just as exposed as ever. Still, she was grateful for the comfort.

The book was good. It dove deep into different ninja specializations that weren’t heavily discussed in the academy. She especially enjoyed the section on Fuinjutsu.

It was something Ryuzen actually wanted to learn, though she was sad to find out how expensive the education seemed to be. Chakra-conductive paper wasn’t cheap at all.

It was “the most prominent user” section that truly caught her eye, particularly a single line that seemed to provide her with a solution to one of her problems.

Jiraiya the Sannin also holds a summoning contract with toads, one of the most coveted and intelligent summons. It is speculated that his extensive knowledge of Fuinjutsu comes from training in their realm.

This was groundbreaking.

Ryuzen knew about summons, they were briefly covered by the academy’s curriculum. What she didn’t know is that they had realms you could enter. An entire realm of intelligent animal species. A place to safely learn and train. Somewhere she wouldn’t have to act at all, since the summons were loyal to their summoners.

Ryuzen decided that she needed a contract of her own. But as excited as she was, this wasn’t an easy goal. Mainly because the contracts were either kept by clans or passed on from teacher to student. It wasn’t something you could buy or stumble upon by accident. The summons were rare and cherished.

So, without wasting any more daylight, Ryuzen left the library to start solving the only problem she could - her living situation.

There was a seemingly crumbling apartment complex near the Red Light District. She passed by it a few times and was sure that it was at least half empty.

“Who goes there?”

Ryuzen couldn’t help but compare the entire interaction to hobbits entering the village of Bree. It was honestly hilarious. The old woman - her hopefully future landlord, opened the apartment door just wide enough to peek her nose through.

“My name is Suzuki Ryuzen. The ad at the entrance said to knock on your door if I wanted to rent. Am I at the right place?”

Immediately, the door opened and the old lady started to talk business. After checking out her ninja ID and some usual questions about income, pets, and whatnot, Ryuzen was quickly green-lit for renting her own place. She asked for a small tour first, of course.

Ryuzen was ready to agree to practically anything, but she would rather risk dealing with her matron and Might Guy than black mold or cockroaches. Thankfully, the apartment didn’t have either of those. It was small and cramped, with a window view of an opposing wall. The floorboards were worn down and squeaky, there was no conditioning or a washing machine. But it was good for its price and Ryuzen couldn’t think of any other cheap place anyway.

So the next day, she came in with her deposit and moved in. Not like she had many things to move in the first place. A small backpack of clothes, a toothbrush, and a scroll full of books from a different world.

Truly, nothing of note.

***

Her goodbye to the matron was probably one of the most cathartic things that she allowed herself in a while. Ryuzen just couldn’t help herself.

“It is truly a pity to see how you turned out,” Konami-san said, “And all that for what, to be in Genin Corps? No proper boy will look at you now, but you didn’t even manage to become a proper ninja.”

“Yes, Kanami-san, that is truly a pity! I should’ve probably tried to be more like you instead. You are such a proper lady, with a husband and plenty of money to spare.”

That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Kanami-san was a single woman past the ideal “child-bearing age”, living off the measly wage of an orphanage matron. Enough for a normal apartment and all the necessities, but she still often sewed her own clothes and stared jealously at the jewelry store windows.

Now Ryuzen stared at the woman who projected her anger and misery onto poor orphaned kids and thought that getting so red in the face suited her. It made Kanami-san look more alive than she seemed to be in ages.

“Is that the thanks I get?”

Ryuzen thought of telling her to fuck off and walking away, but she ultimately decided to act like one of those period drama ladies that Draga liked to watch before bed. Mostly because this type of response seemed like something that would hurt Kanami-san most. She deserved it.

“I am truly thankful, Konami-san! That’s why I’m saying this. I just wish that while helping other girls to find their paths, you could finally find some happiness yourself. Say, I know a few single older men in the Genin Corps. I know that you wouldn’t typically go for one of them, but since you’re already in your fifties…”

“Get out! Get the hell out!” Kanami-san screamed and Ryuzen walked away laughing louder than ever.