Part 2 – Konoha

Gradually getting out of the deep forest, she lays her eyes on a gravel path.

Without ever making a sound, she steps onto the path and walks towards the huge gates in the distance.

Will they even let me in?

Not knowing what else to do, she just continues further towards the gates.

I should conceal my presence though, she thought as she pulled her chakra inwards.

No, this is probably not enough. Having no chakra presence at all seems suspicious instead.

Sensing the chakra presences in the city again, she decided to adapt an average civilian-range chakra capacity.

It just feels so natural to control chakra, as if I had been using it all my life, I only need to imagine it gathering in my stomach and then fill it with intent, before it does what I want it to do. I guess the mind plays a big role in controlling it.

Upon reaching the gates, she spots two guards sitting on chairs in front of a table.

They wore signature flak-jackets and had their forehead-protectors fastened to their heads.

Silently, she walks up to them and waited for them to start speaking.

It was only a minute later that one of them finally raised his head. And when he did, his eyes widened, and he fell back into his chair: “God?! I didn’t even notice her approach …”

Tapping on his partner’s shoulder, he started assessing the woman in front of him.

She looks familiar, in a way, he thought to himself.

“What brings you here?” He asked with a small smile on his face after calming down.

“I want to enter the village.” She said in a quiet voice.

Damn, her voice is soft, one of the guards thought.

“Alright, alright, do you have a fire country identification paper?”

The woman shook her head.

Looking her over again, making sure to carefully assess her chakra reserves, the two guards deemed her as being no threat. One of them moved his hands across the table and reached for a piece of paper.

“Alright, please tell me your Name, Age, where you came from and your purpose for coming to Konoha.” He said.

For a few seconds, the woman remained silent, her nearly emotionless face made the guards tense up. They looked at each other, preparing to attack her if she remained silent for much longer … it just shouldn’t take that long to think about your own name.

One of them reached for his weapon pouch when she finally spoke again: “My name is Uzu, no family name. I’m 18-years-old. I’ve lived with distant family in the forests for my whole life. They died and I decided to search for a place to live at. They always told me that Konoha was a nice and safe place, so I decided to come here.”

She finished her sentence with a small smile that instantly calmed the two men.

One of them wrote down the information before looking her once over again.

Damn, she looks pitiful. Her cloak is slightly bloodied, and her feet are bare. Hopefully she even has enough money to get into an inn. Though, she is quite beautiful, her cloak cannot hide her figure, she shouldn’t have a problem of getting a place to live at here. The villagers like beautiful faces, so maybe she can work in a café after proving to be trust-worthy? He thought, before handing her the paper: “Alright, here you go. Make sure not to lose that! Have a nice day, Uzu-san and welcome to Konoha.” Smiling at her, he waved her through, motioning for her to enter Konoha.

Walking past the two of them, she felt their gazes on her back.

I got in. That was actually quite easy … though that talk was uncomfortable. When they reached for their weapons, I slightly feared that they’d attack me … but honestly, I needed some time think of whatever shit story to give them.

Slowly she strolled into the street.

People stared at her as she walked. She felt the wariness in their gazes.

Newcomers aren’t welcome, I see. Well, it was to be expected. With the way they treated Naruto, I shouldn’t have expected much. Though, then again, things aren’t always so black and white. Sure, they shouldn’t have treated Naruto they way that they did, but they had their reasons for that. One cannot just condemn them for that, they are only human after all. It’s a matter of perspective. As someone close to Naruto, you would never forgive these people. As someone that lost loved ones during the incident, you would never be able to quite look at Naruto without thinking of what he holds inside of him.

She lazily strolled through the streets, seeing familiar places.

This really is … Konoha. All the things that I thought were fantasy are real. I need to make sure not to think of the people living here as characters in a story anymore.

She passed a familiar flower shop, a sweet smell reaching her nose.

She walked up to the flowers on display just outside the shop and reached out to take a vibrant red rose.

Beautiful. In this life, I’ll take the time to enjoy the things that I like. I feel so free here and in this new body, my old internet addiction seems so insignificant in comparison to all this.

She smelled at the rose, taking in its gentle scent.

Feeling a gaze on her, she slowly put the rose back and looked into the shop.

Meeting a gentle pair of eyes, she looked at the adolescent girl standing behind the counter.

Ino.

Uzu smiled slightly, receiving a small smile in return.

Uzu closed her eyes before turning around and continuing on her path.

She felt the gaze of the young Yamanaka-heiress on the back of her head, but she decided not to think too much of it.

Walking again, she passed the academy gates adjacent to the Hokage tower. She felt a rather big chakra presence inside of the highest floor of the tower.

It’s soft, yet firm.

Deciding to look at the window for a second, she met the eyes of a blond-haired woman looking down at her.

Tsunade? So, this is after the Chunin-exam parts. Well, Ino already looks a bit more mature, so maybe this is around the time of Naruto’s returns to the village?

Uzu continued staring at Tsunade for a while before Tsunade’s eyes suddenly widened and she quickly moved out of sight.

Not thinking much about it, Uzu continued walking, soon arriving at an abandoned compound.

Uchiha, huh. I really don’t know what to think about Sasuke. In some way I thought of him as cool, but … in reality, he was an ass. How could he treat Naruto like that anyway? Doesn’t he know that revenge is almost pointless, it shouldn’t be worth more than those that still care about you, if you have people like that. And he surely had, or rather, still has. Pink-hair likes him, probably? I still don’t know whether this place here moves along with canon. Though, judging from the fact that Ino is here, Tsunade is already Hokage and the Uchiha compound is empty and silent, I should probably expect the rest to be real too.

Stepping away from the Uchiha clan’s gates, she continued walking.

As the sky turned darker and the streets grew a little more populated with laughing groups of people sitting in restaurants and cafés, a mouth-watering smell of meat being grilled surrounded Uzu.

Though, even if she felt some desire to taste the meat, she did not feel any hunger.

Ah … I see. Those scientists really thought about everything. A weapon wouldn’t be perfect if it needed to eat, right?

As long as I have chakra, I won’t die. Without chakra, however, I’m a normal human.

Stopping in front of the restaurant, she looked inside, seeing four familiar faces sitting around a table.

Choji was currently heaving large amounts of meat into his mouth, making a pleased sound after carefully chewing and swallowing the meat.

Shikamaru was carefully and lazily preparing more meat.

Ino ate a lot of salad and only small pieces of meat, probably because of her diet.

Asuma was drinking sake, enjoying himself, while watching his team with gentle eyes.

Noticing her gaze, Asuma looked at her and furrowed his brows when she stared for a bit too long.

Her emotionless face unnerved him and made him wary, even in his slightly drunken state.

He only relaxed when she finally averted her eyes and continued walking.

The merry atmosphere returned to the table, though Shikamaru turned towards Asuma, also having noticed the stranger looking at them.

“Ever seen her before?” Shikamaru asked.

“No, but her hair seemed familiar. Just, where have I seen red hair like that before …” Asuma mumbled, taking another sip of his alcohol.

Shikamaru just shrugged before asking: “She seemed to be a bit lost. Judging from her dirty clothes, she has just arrived in Konoha and her chakra capacity just screams civilian, but … there’s something different about her.”

“What? Haha, love at first sight?” Asuma laughed, forgetting the slight feeling of fear he had when he felt her eyes on him.

“Sigh … sensei, really?” Shikamaru closed his eyes, slightly annoyed. He’s even worse when he is slightly drunk, but that’s nothing new, huh.

The atmosphere finally returned to its usual cheerfulness as Ino started talking about her day and Choji stuffed himself with more food.

Meanwhile, Uzu reached a familiar-looking shop.

A loud and cheerful voice permeated the area surrounding the small stall.

“I’m so glad to be back! I missed eating your Ramen!” The young man said before laughing loudly.

To think I’d see him so soon. He sounds exactly how I imagined him.

Feeling drawn to the voice, she slowly walked towards the cloth covering the entrance to the stall.

Through the slits, she could already see his orange-black jumpsuit and his blonde hair.

Next to him sat an older man with long white hair. The man looked at Uzu and she recognized the marks on his face.

Stopping in her tracks, she just continued staring at Naruto.

Sending out a wave of chakra to sense his chakra presence, she couldn’t mistake the huge chakra pool of his for anything but the nine-tails.

So, he is the Jinchuuriki after all, and apparently this is the beginning of Shippuden.

Her gaze lingered on Naruto for a bit longer. She considered just walking up to him, but … she did not have any money to buy food and she certainly did not know anyone currently in the shop, so just walking in there would be suspicious.

The gaze Jiraiya was giving her was also continuously getting more tense and alert.

Another time, another time, she thought before averting her eyes and walking away.

She could still feel Jiraiya’s gaze on her back, carefully studying her body. At some point, his stare turned … offensive? All the alertness and tense nature of it evaporated, instead … it felt as if she was laid bare in front of his eyes.

Heaving a tired sigh, she finally realized how girls usually knew when someone was staring at their boobs or ass.

Annoying.

Turning around, her eyes met Jiraiya’s again. Instantly, he averted his eyes and smiled while scratching the back of his head in embarrassment at being caught.

Uzu turned around again and started walking when she felt another gaze on her.

It came from a rooftop not farm from her, she only noticed the presence when it finally entered her sensing-wave range.

A head of gray hair looked down at her, his hitai-ate covering one eye and his facemask completely hiding his emotions.

She turned her eyes to look at him.

His eyes widened and his posture instantly turned alert and tense.

He body-flickered down and appeared a few meters away from her.

He studied her for a bit before finally speaking: “Tsunade-sama would like to see you. Follow me, Uzu-san.”

After that, he simply walked past her, not waiting for her to even answer.

Well … what to do. I don’t have a place to stay at either way, so … maybe I should just come with him? Though, they might try to imprison me? Since this is reality now and not fiction anymore, I need to always remember the fact that this world is inherently cruel, and paranoia is a necessary skill to survive.

Honestly, I do not exactly know how I caught her attention, but … let’s follow him for now. Well, my clothing is kind of suspicious? If it gets bad, I’ll just need to … kill my way out of here. Though that will certainly break any chance of getting to know Naruto and other interesting people in this village.

Either way, I don’t want to be imprisoned and if they even dare to try to get a Yamanaka to invade my mind, then I’ll just slaughter them.

Making up her mind, she followed Kakashi.

As they walked past Ichiraku, she felt Jiraiya’s and Naruto’s gaze on her back.

Soon enough, they were following a good distance behind her, clearly curious about what was going on.

A few minutes later, Kakashi lazily strolled into the Hokage tower, greeting the few paper ninjas (desk job ninja) working hard even in the evening.

Uzu silently followed behind him, observing each of the new faces only for a second before deeming them a non-threat.

A few staircases and rooms later, Kakashi stopped in front of a room and knocked three times.

A pleasant female voice said: “Come in.”

Kakashi opened the door and held it open, waiting for Uzu to follow him into the room.

Just as Kakashi was about to close the door, Tsunade spoke up: “Keep it open.”

Kakashi looked back at her and nodded.

So they will be allowed inside too? Perhaps this is a rather serious meeting after all … the whole platoon of Anbu outside seem rather tense as well, Uzu thought, sensing the presences closing in on her.

However, she felt no fear. Even if they were to attack her, her forcefully calm mind felt no fear. If she were still her old self, she would be shaking right now, she couldn’t deal with being the center of attention. Even now, it still felt incredibly uncomfortable, but she could suppress that feeling now, it was too weak to influence her too much if she didn’t want it to.

The people inside of the room stared at Uzu, making her feel uncomfortable.

Her senses told her that the few Anbu were getting tense and preparing to attack as silence continued permeating the room.

Aren’t they going to talk? Uzu wondered.

The presence of the Anbu outside were getting more hostile by the second.

Uzu prepared for their attack and readied her chains, thus letting her chakra presence rush out, making the people in the room widen their eyes.

The sheer amount of Chakra she held was too different from the amount she had before, no one had been able to even sense her hidden chakra capacity.

The Anbu drew their weapons and were about to move when Tsunade raised her hand, causing most of them to stop.

Two of the Anbu, however, still rushed at Uzu with the intent to kill her.

Their swords moved towards her head and heart as the sound of chains rang through the room.

A mere second later, the two attacking Anbu were bound by abyssal black chains, already draining their chakra.

Their weapons fell to the ground as Uzu slowly moved towards them.

Reaching out with one finger each, she tapped onto their masks, sending a wave of chakra through them into their heads.

The chakra started destroying their pathways, making them scream out in pain. Medical chakra can be used to heal, just as it can be used to destroy. Uzu already loved her medical knowledge about tenketsu.

Their ear-piercing screeches made the people in the room furrow their brows. None of them were innocent, they had all heard screams like this before.

Uzu watched the two Anbu without changing her expression even one bit.

Aren’t they a bit loud for being Danzo’s men?

Being tired of their screams, she tapped onto their throats, destroying their ability to make any kind of sound.

Soon enough, the chains had sucked them dry, effectively ending their life’s.

The chains faded and she let the bodies drop to the floor.

She crouched down, hugging her knees with one arm before moving the other to uncover both of their faces.

I still feel nothing. Even after seeing their fearful eyes and hearing their traumatizing screams. I’m a monster. Probably.

At the thought, a soft laugh escaped her throat.

Closing her eyes, she slowly stood up again and faced the people in the room.

 

…

 

A/N: Alright, here we go, another chapter. Let me know what you think! ?