The last half of my second to last year at the Academy has been… strange. It seems, against all odds, that I've made a friend. Despite my somewhat introverted and rather reclusive habits, and my times spending way too long out training and wandering the city.

Somewhere along the way, Asako managed to get me talking.

---

At first, it was something simple. She showed up at a training ground one afternoon as I was finishing up a workout and held up that scratched coin. She flipped it at me and I reflexively grabbed it, dropping it into my hand. “Round three, let's go,” she called out, and I only looked at her with the barest hint of exasperation.

Hands up, coin displayed. Grab her attention.

Hands together, hands curling as I start flipping the coin, the flicker of the bright metal clear across my slightly calloused young fingers. Then the switch, the start of the third cycle, the coin is the same color, but the size has changed slightly, the speed is fast enough that it hides the motion of my thumb loosening slightly, the coins swapping. Toss it up, making sure it spins and blurs. The coin is already moving, flowing down from my hand, angled down to her pocket, as the new coin bright and flashy catches the attention. Hands come together, the clap timed to match with the landing of the coin, just a bit distracting, just a bit surprising. Hands rub, 50 ryo sliding between fingers as I hold up my hands.

She smirks and pulls the coin from her pocket, flashing the scratch. I can feel my mouth curve not into a smirk, but a grin.

“I found my answer, or rather you showed me. It’s all the misdirection. Once you see the change you just have to watch for it.” She smirks and looks at the fifty in my hand. “And you seem very, very good at misdirection.”

…Gah, bragging time. I’ve been working on this stuff for years! Curse my roguish pride! “What can I say, I’m a charlatan to my core.”

She tilts her head “Charlatan?” Oh, Duh, it’s a bit of a rare word choice, and she’s eleven, but I've always liked my vocabulary.

I grin and clarify, hands pulling a deck of cards from my jacket, and sliding them from their box in a practiced motion. The cards begin to flip, long rows of colors as I perform some cardistry, shuffling the deck. “Ah, it means part magician, trickster, liar, heretic, and fraud. It is my ideal, my Nindo, you could say. Never fight fair.” I draw five random cards, showing the ace of spades on the bottom of the hand, before fanning them to show a Royal Flush, in Spades. “And cheat often.” I pulse chakra to the hand that holds the deck while flourishing it behind my back, before slowly pulling it forward, and fan the top five cards of the deck, showing a second Royal Flush.

Also Spades.

I grinned as she looked back and forth between my hands, mouth open in confusion. Then I bring my hands together, and while showing the spades, flip both sets of cards upside down and pass them by each other and back, as I pulled the chakra to my left hand before flipping it back, the faint smoke already waved away as I dispelled a partial transformation. In my right hand, I was still showing the Royal Flush, but the second hand was a mishmash. Ten-five-four-three-ace, mixed suits.

“But- Wait- was that a transformation?” Her voice got a bit squeaky at the end.

I can’t help but grin, I can feel it, sharper than my last life's grin. The consequence of more slender features. Oh, I still had some baby fat around my face, but my entire figure is a lot more spindly than my last life. Though… I wonder if I'll get my shoulders again... I liked being a bit broad at the shoulder. “It’s only mostly a transformation. Took forever to figure out how to do it as only a partial shift, and to include the cards individually.” I had spent a lot of time working on that. My full body transformation was still annoyingly flawed, but only affecting the cards is simpler. Three possible colors, and simple shapes. I also know cards well, years of feeling and looking at every edge and shape, every corner and curve of the cards. Of seeing how they move and shift in motion.

My early attempts at a transformation technique usually were an illusion, with only the most basic of physical changes applied by a shell of chakra. It wraps the user up and builds an illusion over it. Other than hands and feet, most of a transformation is only visual, any real interaction and it acts like shadow clones. Poof. The real form that I had to make to pass the Acadamy tests is far more physical, wreathing the user in chakra and physically distorting their body to make what appears to be a perfect physical copy that's only skin deep. It’s… not crazy hard, but the more off from your shape it is, the harder to maintain it becomes.

Full body physical transformation? Uses just under a fourth of my current chakra. My Illusion Henge, a tenth of that, A deck of cards? Barely five percent of that. I could hold an illusion on a henge for hours. A good practice that.

I shuffled the deck and stashed it in my pocket. Looking up to watch as Asako seems to look at me in a new light. I’m fairly certain I know what she thought of me. A bored loner, uninterested in the shinobi lifestyle. I didn’t really contradict that. I mean, I was always distracted, never really excelled in class. My jutsu skills were rough but passable, and my taijutsu is my weakest point. I’m good seemingly at two things, card tricks, and throwing things.

My taijutsu was actually pretty bad. Not ‘dead last everyone beats me’, but I’m definitely in the bottom half of the class on hand to hand. Top fourth or so when it came to throwing weapons, and probably top third or so in test scores.

I started walking, only to pause and look back at her as she stands there watching me.

“Come on. I’m feeling a bit hungry, and I bet you have questions. I’ll pay.” She perked up and then skips a bit to catch up as I resume walking.

And that was the start. Skip forward a few months and it’s become common for us to spend lunches and the occasional afternoon hanging out. She's revealed she’s specializing in cryptography and intelligence gathering, while I let slip I've been studying chakra manipulation.

“Nothing spectacular,” I said, waving off her interest. “I’ve just been practicing the basics.”

---

It's now late spring, the last month and a half has been mostly spent studying for the yearly exams, and slowly becoming friends with Asako. With the exams now completed and a week off school till we get our results, I’ve taken to wandering the city for the last few days.

And by wandering I meant learning to roof jump.

“WHHHOOOOO!”

I was on the southwest edge of the city today, nearing the edge of the old Uchiha district and along the southern edge of the open street markets. I sprinted forwards, hands slapping down on the ledge of a roof as I vaulted over a narrow alley, falling into a shoulder roll to bleed off the half story drop to the next roof. I was keeping chakra use down today, having nearly exhausted my reserves yesterday when I finally completed the tree walking exercise.

That's right, I finished the Tree Walking Exercise. Who’s the badass who can stand on walls? Me, that's right. Suck it gravity. And today, I’m riding that high. My chakra's hovering about two-thirds of my usual cap, but that's enough for today.

I jumped to the wall of the next building, grabbing the edge of a window to pull myself up and over, keeping the motion smooth and fluid. A deep breath and I was moving forwards again, heading to the corner and the roof across from it. A leap and a step off the ledge and I was airborne, arms spread slightly for balance before I landed one arm down and pushing off before I had stopped falling completely.

I kept moving onwards and made a leap onto a tall fence surrounding the outskirts of one of the clan compounds fields. On my left the street and walls of a dozen buildings, on my right a grove of trees that seems to lead out past the village walls, a few deer looking up at the sound of my passing. Nara compound maybe? Forget about it, keep moving. The fence was half a foot wide and made a great balance beam for running. I held an arm out to steady my first steps, and then leaned forwards, all but sprinting across the narrow path arms swinging to keep my balance.

Half a block later, I leaped off back towards town, latching onto a tree branch and swinging up and over a ledge. There was a second of weightlessness, my upward momentum and gravity shaking hands as they passed me off to each other.

And then I was touching down, rolling to bleed off the impact.

I couldn’t help my smile as I ran across the building using towards a large open space. I angled to another building, looking out over the courtyard. I let just a touch of chakra flow to step laterally off the wall, once-twice-three times, and then back down, having crossed the gap. If it wouldn’t break my stride, if it wouldn’t take my breathing out of rhythm, I would be laughing right now.

God. This… this is what I loved about my new life.

It’s so hard to put into words, but the feeling of sun on my face, the adrenaline in my veins and the chakra, god the chakra. It felt almost like a bass guitar in my soul. A thumping rhythmic pulse, that matched every step, every movement. In the manga, they talk about how chakra is formed from yin and yang. Body and spirit, form and substance. They never really go into the explanation of it. But when you move, when you push yourself, parts of your chakra flow. But if you keep your mind focused on the motion, if you put your focus behind it, your Spiritual and Physical side, then it gets interesting. Because ALL of your chakra Moves, it dances and twists and pushes against you.

This, this feeling of both of them working in sequence. I finally understand it. It’s… it’s like listening to your favorite song, one that hits you somewhere deep, that just the sound of it makes you move to the beat. It's reading that touching romance novel, and the writing makes you feel along with the story and its characters. It's watching a friend make a bad joke that is just so bad that you have to laugh at it. It's all of those things and more.

I wonder if this is what Maito Gai talks about when he rants about the Flames Of Youth? I… I could understand that. The feeling of everything just... clicking. Oh my god I could accept Maito Gai’s logic if this was what he meant.

It might just be because of the fact I know life without this feeling that I can understand it, how valuable it is.

But if this feeling is what I’m fighting for? I‘m going to fight like hell to keep it. I might not fight for Konoha, or for its ‘Will of Fire’. But Konoha is where my family is. Konoha is where my friends and more practically my supplies and tools are. Yeah, there's issues. Root and Danzo, the barely painted over the veneer of ‘dictatorship’, the fact that I know of at least three times in the not so far off future where the city is attacked with nearly overwhelming force.

You know, it's funny. Until now, I was fighting for survival only, and it's led to me being safe. But that safety is coming to an end. The world keeps turning and I won't be able to stop it. There are too many gears in motion. I could help Naruto sure, but where does that line of thought end. I feel bad for Neji Hyuuga’s past, should I help him overcome it? I can emphasize with Gaara’s loneliness, should I help him out? I can respect Naruto’s idealism, do I follow him?

No. No, I won’t. Empathy is nice. For my sanity and any sake of my humanity, I need empathy. But I won't base my actions off it. I remember dozens of stories where an SI or OC tried to ‘make things better’. It won't work, I can't force the world to my perspectives and morals. Can’t guide them to peace or prosperity.

They can take care of it themselves.

But my goals, my drives....

I’m not letting this feeling of freedom, of the world, moving in sync for the first time. I’m not letting the peace go without a fight. Four years. Four years to make chunin, kick ass, get strong enough to survive what comes my way.

I need to stop following the story of ‘Naruto’. I need to start my own story.

I think back to my Nindo, words I’ve been mulling over.

Fight dirty. Cheat often. Win whenever possible.

I think I need one more line.

Let the rest of the cards fall as they may.

End of Act 0- The Fool.