In my last life, I had been a product of a teenage pregnancy. My mother had me at 16 with her 17 year old boyfriend. My grandparents on both side are furious, specially because of the place they grew up on was very religious. They made my parents marry when they turned 18, to 'legalize' my birth, a choice both my parents agreed to.
They tried, to raise me properly, juggling school and parttime jobs to make sure I was fed, but tragedy struck.
My maternal grandparents were killed in a mass shooting at mall when I was 4. My mother, an only child, was not in the right place since then. She often stared at nothing for hours at a time, but still, she managed to make forcefully wake up from her stupor every time to care for me. She managed to graduate from nursing school and started to work at the local hospital.
My paternal grandparents were very old, and died peacefully in their sleep when I was 9. My father, the youngest of four children, inherited the family business of selling watches. My uncles and aunts would visit form time to time but their visits stopped after my grandparents death. My father then ran the shop.
Life was peaceful then. Living in a house with loving parents who made sure I had everything I possibly need. I graduated high school, got accepted in a famous university, made friends, dated a few people, got a job as a paralegal in a famous law firm and was planning to become a lawyer.
But again, life struck.
My parents got divorced after 20 years of marriage, citing "irreconcilable differences". But really, both of them got tired of each other and started to date people on the side, met someone they 'loved' more that each other and decided that divorce was the answer to their problems.
Really, it did not bother me. I kind of knew that one day, they would separate. Because if they did loved each other, there would be signs, like a sibling to my lonesome. But no.
So I watched my parents ran off to their happy endings, formed new connections and families.
My mother married a doctor 3 years her senior. The man was widow with three children born from his first wife, all of them aged between 8-15. You can't believe my shocked expression when my mother churned out twins at 43 years old? It was a miracle, and I was happy for her.
My father married a woman 10 years his junior, his accountant at his shop. They had a four children in the span of three years. I was horrified and worried for her when my father announced her fourth pregnancy 4 months after she gave birth to her third child, I scolded my father but only got a hearty laugh in return. I was happy for him, too.
So I spent my early twenties surrounded by a gaggle of children. I would say I was happy, but sometimes I felt left out. Like I was not part of their picture perfect family, so I decided to move out of the country.
Easily enough, my parents did not oppose to my decisions. I feared the implications for that and decided to burry it deep at the back of my mind. The mere thought of my parents loathing my very existence, that my arrival at their lives ruined their supposed happy life, was too much for me.
So I escaped. At first, they called every other day, then once a week, twice a month, once a month, maybe during Christmas, my birthday, New Years, then nothing. They stopped calling three years after I left.
I cried, a lot. So much of my life was with them. I would remember the times when I asked for their attention when I was 7, the laughter at my father silly jokes, when my mother would comfort me after a bad break up with my three-week boyfriends during high school, the happiness that we had during my 22nd birthday, the last time we were together as a family of three.
But I learned to accept it, eventually. I called them at their birthdays wishing them happy life. I would hear the crack from my mother's voice, my father's shaky breath whenever I called. I sent gifts during Christmas with a letter from me. I don't know if they ever read it, but still I sent them. Even though I was one search away on social media, I kind off broadcasted my life there, hoping my parents see me living a happy life and feel less guilt (if they ever did).
I lived my life though. Got a degree (again), made friends, dated again, got even proposed to but it fell through because he cheated on me. All was well. I was happy with the life I had. I was part of an organization helping the unfortunate children from all over the world. I did good.
With all of this, manga, anime, and novels—fiction in the sense, was the only constant of my life. I discovered it during middle school. In a corner of the local book shop, sat a tiny shelf manga. What caught my attention was the orange, scroll-biting blonde boy standing atop of toad, NARUTO, it read.
Curiosity was what pulled me into opening the book and was fascinated. From then on, I followed the next releases like mad man, I was deep into fan sites trading theories on who could have been Obito, or who could have been the leader of Akatsuki , my bet was it was Naruto from the future. And from then on, I was obsessed until I hit university. Left it came back occasionally when I want to kill time. Then when I moved, picked it back up, I hated Boruto, and I would not elaborate. I met my friends in a book club, my ex-fiancé too.
I even planned on visiting my childhood house again and meet with my parents, but I never got to see them again, alas, life struck again, this time, it took me with it.
Shinami slowly opened her eyes. She saw the vast expanse of stars above her. Completely different from the world she once lived.
Tears were in her eyes, she guessed by the wet feeling it left her cheeks. It had been a long time since she dreamed of her past life. The memories were starting to fade, her earliest memories, in fact.
Often times she would get snippets but rarely is it she gets the whole flashback. The last she dreamt like this was during the time her parents came up to her and surprised her with the news that she was gonna be big sister.
She looked around and saw Kazuki-sensei perched high-up in a tree. She sat up.
"A nightmare?"
Shinami wiped her tears and nodded. "I just miss home, dattebana. Epp!" and before she realizes it, the famous verbal tic that the Uzumaki seem to have, escaped form her tongue.
Kazuki-sensei cackled. He leaped down from the tree. "I thought only Chikara reverts back to her Uzumaki roots when distracted, I never expected it from you, Shinami."
She covered her eyes in embarrassment; until that moment, she had never actually slipped in front of anyone but her mom and dad.
"Take the post, wake Hiroto up in three hours."
"Hai, Sensei."
Shinami acquiesced. She stood from her bedroll and jumped to the tree where her Sensei had been. Leaning back to the tree, she sighed. It had been just a fortnight since they left the village, Shinami is feeling kinda homesick.
The group had been travelling the Elemental Countries. Conveniently avoiding all the major participants to the ongoing war.
They had helped over 300 displaced red hairs. All of them are on now peacefully under the wings of the Sea Village. There had been tears and anger aimed at their group, but ultimately it had been resolved.
Shinami, had been given the moniker 'Red Ghost' specifically because she appear like a ghost, sticking paper bombs on people and her wild red hair, that at one point got cut. She had raged because of her hair that she had forgotten to keep up her seal and revealed her Uzushio qualities. She was not the only one though, their group had been known to the shinobi gossip mill on all major and minor Hidden Villages.
It happened when the group was on Grass Country, and they had found out that those with Uzushio coloring was being persecuted and traded like livestock and sold to the biggest bidder. Uzumaki Kazuki had raged so hard that he had flattened the area to the point where no vegetation grew after the battle. They were given a nickname 'Shinigami' by the witnesses that managed to survive.
After that, during the next three years, they scoured the whole continent to find similar black markets. They had discovered many such things all over the Elemental Countries but more so on Hidden Mist and Hidden Cloud. They had rescued all kinds of people, all of them were shipped to the Sea Village, especially the Uzushio residents.
When they reached the Fire Country, the most prosperous and wealthy country in all the Elemental Countries, they had found smuggling of children, children with the ability to become shinobi. They, too, flattened it to the ground. Much to Shinami's amusement to see the plot of Danzo crumble piece by piece.
Their group 'Shinigami', had been given a combination of a whopping 100 million Ryo from different sources. They have been even given an S-rank warning to all shinobi bingo books. It was even fun to Hiroto to escape bounty hunters wanting to take their bounty. With Chikara purposely running into traps to challenge their tails. Kazuki-sensei cleaning all their messes. And Shinami laughing at the sides.
Now, after all deliberations, Shinami had already altered a great deal of the story, at least the background story. She had yet to meet named characters from the story despite travelling all the known countries, even the Land of Iron. Shinami even thought at one point, that she was not in the same Naruto world, but then she heard the Kannabi Bridge incident. They were late for a few weeks and Shinami didn't get the chance to at least change something during that time.
Obito was already in Madara's and White Zetsu's hand. With the news of the three tails' release, Rin is already dead. Shinami do not really know what to do. Kazuki-Sensei, for some reason, avoided Konoha. She had brought out more than once about going to Konoha but was shut down every time.
Shinami had been thinking to herself when Chikara, now sixteen years old, nudged her at the side. "Hey, its your turn to hunt."
Shinami absentmindedly opened her senses and managed to spot a wild boar 10 kilometers souhteast of their camp. "Who wants roasted boar?"
Hiroto immediately raised his hands, even though he was sleeping on the ground. Chikara nodded aggressively, she mumbled that she was tired of eating ration bars. To her defend, ration bars tasted awful. Shinami instinctively activated her concealing seal and used her version of the Flying Thunder God Technique.
She had been in a lot of trouble when she proposed her idea of making this technique. Her Sensei had scolded her so much she still hears it from time to time. But because she insisted and pleaded with him for a whole month, he gave in and together they made a version of the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Because she had only knew the result of the technique and not the fundamentals, they had to build the technique from the ground up, so technically, this jutsu was nothing like the original but rather than an attempt of imitating the original. And like the rest of her people, she was lazy, she named the jutsu 'Niji no Hashi' or Rainbow bridge. Which her teammates found weird but her fangirl side totally squealed.
It only took her a few seconds to arrive at the place where she sensed the boar. It was still there, foraging.
Shinami took out a sealing paper and brush and quickly made a stunning seal. She used a chakra thread to attach the seal and threw it straight to the boar. The boar didn't even knew what happened to itself as it dropped to the ground.
Smiling to herself, she approached the stunned boar and conjured a small lightning and fried the boar's nerve endings. As she prepared to load the boar into a storage scroll, she felt something—someone, a presence, watching her.
Shinami quickly drew a kunai from her weapons pouch on her right thigh and threw it at the direction from where she felt the presence. Instead of hitting someone, she hit a rabbit.
A rabbit? A dead rabbit high up on a tree?
Realizing this, she immediately gave chase, and used her chakra sensing to locate the peeper. But even with her 50 Kilometer range, there were no presence other than animals on the forest. She gave chase until the trail stopped at a cliff, she observed the dense forest below her. After awhile, she turned around and went back to her boar.
Was that my imagination? Highly unlikely.
Just below the cliff, situated in a small cave that can only fit a three-year old, were two individual. Both of them held their breath and waited until their lungs were burning before daring to breath again, praying to the sage to not let them get caught.
"Sensei, what was that?" the younger boy asked through labored but controlled breathing.
The Sensei replied in the same way, "That was a Fuinjutsu Master in action. Not just a Fuinjutsu Master but also a Master of Lightning." He chuckled, "Whew! That was intense!"
After catching his breath the younger boy asked. "Why did we run? We found the boar first. You could have defeated her."
"Kakashi, it is an insult to attack someone who did nothing wrong. Besides, she attacked the boar first. Let's go back. I can't wait to tell Kushina about this master!"
As they run back to their camp, Kakashi couldn't help but think about the girl from earlier. Welp. He thought.
Few months later...
"FINALLY!!"
The birds sitting on the tree nearby was startled and flew away.
"Shut up, Hiroto! You are making a scene!" Chikara yanked Hiroto and smiled apologetically at the people around them.
Uzumaki Kazuki pretended he doesn't not know the two teenagers, three actually, as he observed Shinami walking with tears threatening to fall from her eyes.
Why am I surrounded by idiots?
Shinami felt very emotional when they approached the massive gate in front with equally massive characters あん (an) written on them. They had finally arrived at the only major village they had yet to visit. Albeit rather late, considering Konoha was their sister village and was an ally, and logically speaking the first place they should have visited but Shinami felt that Kazuki-sensei avoided Konoha until now because he just hasn't move on from the fall of Uzushio, and deep down inside, Kazuki-sensei partly blamed Konoha.
Their sensei is already 33, he was a teen when Uzushio fell. Shinami felt his feelings were valid. And with Danzo's twisted ways, maybe at some point, Konoha was involved with the fall of Uzushio. She was saddened with the thought. Her earlier happiness slowly vanished.
By the time they reached the gate, their group looked disheveled. The shinobi assigned at guard duty looked at them funny and a little bit suspicious, he alerted the ANBU situated at the gate.
"Identification?" Katsuo, the shinobi guard, asked. It was routine to ask for a type of identification, specially now that the inaugural of their Fourth Hokage is happening in a few days.
All three teenagers looked at the bearded man that stood at their back, they sides-stepped and let the man stand in front. Katsuo raised an eybrow.
"Sensei, you have our identifications, right?" asked the short-haired girl.
When the man didn't answer and silence floated between them, the girl with the braids grasped their Sensei's arms and lightly shook it, her eyes slightly widening.
"Kazuki-sensei! You have our identification, right?" she asked again.
When the Kazuki-sensei still did not answer, Katsuo was ready to draw his senbon hidden on his sleeve to attack them, Kazuki answered.
"I... may have misplaced it."
Katsuo could see the girl(?) with a ponytail closed their eyes and lips twitched, the braided girl slumped to the ground while still holding their Sensei's sleeve, and the short-haired girl blanched and she looked like she is about to puke.
"I cannot believe it, we don not have identifications..." braid girl said, clearly she was out of it.
"If you don't have identification, then you cannot enter. Next!"
"W-wait!" Kazuki blurted out. "It may be inside my bag, please, Shinobi-san, a moment."
If a brow can be raised until the hairline, Katsuo's would have been in the hairline. "Please make it fast."
Katsuo and the ANBU watched the four people with scramble to open the bag the older man had on his back pack. The ANBU noted the weird accent on the four people, something mixed with the accent from the Land of Fire and the Land of Water. Though his suspicions stopped there. Most people from the south and southeast share some similarities of accent from Water.
"Sensei! You cannot be serious! This has got to be one of your jokes!" - short-hair girl
"Oh my Kami... I cannot enter because of an identification card. What has my life accounted to?" - braid girl
"Shut up, you brats! If you had not insisted on coming here, we would not have this problem!" -Kazuki
"Sensei... you promised us... you cannot go back on your words." - ponytail bo...y?
Katsuo watched as the four of them panicked. One still slumped on the ground, her tears were already pooling in her eyes. The other girl was trying her best to scour the insides of the bag their sensei held. The other boy(?) was silent but held the arms of his sensei tighter by the second. The sensei was sweating buckets at this point.
"If you don—"
"I found it!" Kazuki shouted. "Here! I dentification!" and handed it to Katsuo.
The braided girl slumped to the ground was suddenly invigorated, she shoot up from the ground almost knocking her Sensei out. "Really?!"
"Shinami!" Kazuki roared.
The braid—Shinami, winced and shuffled to the side of the other girl. The boy(?) stood beside his teammates with a sigh of relief escaping him.
"Ahem!" Katsuo cleared his throat. He read the documents, there were four of them. He read their names. "Uchiumi Kazuki. Hamada Hiroto, Nakajima Chikara, Hamasaki Shinami." He watched as all of them said yes when their names were called.
"Hmmm.." Katsuo gave them one last quick look. "You don't look like you're from Fire. You people are from Wave?"
Kazuki smiled and said, "We are from a remote village southeast of Fire. We had intermingled with people from Wave and Water so our surname reflect that."
Katsuo nodded and continued to read their documents, "It said here that you are from a line of wandering shinobi family and these three are your students and you're teaching the ninja arts? But you're mainly travels to see the world and find a place your people can trade with?"
There was a moment of silence before Kazuki answered; his students behind him held their breath. They had never had to use their identities, so they were not aware of their 'background' as a group.
"Ah yes. My family goes back to the Warring Clans Era. They had tired of the fighting and moved down south for a peaceful life, but it is never peaceful in those parts, you know?. So they still passed down the techniques and here we are. I am the last of my family and these children will become the last too, if I die."
"Sensei..."
"It's fine, Shinami. We have discussed this."
"Hai."
Katsuo watched the interaction and was about to let them in when a person stood beside him.
"You are advised to follow me to the police station."
A Chuunin Uchiha Shinobi stood before Katsuo and stared at the group. Katsuo blanched at the site of an Uchiha, thinking to himself, Yikes! I was about to let them in!
"Yes. Follow this shinobi to the police station."
The four people looked at each other before Kazuki stepped forward and led the teens to follow the Uchiha. They thanked Katsuo and left.
Katsuo managed to sigh in relief when they were out of sight.
"You know, you're gonna write an incident report, right?"
The guard on the other side of the gate informed Katsuo, who then proceeded to gag.
This was one hell of a day already; it just past nine AM!!