Naruto 1. Chapter 1

Now don't get me wrong or anything, when the idea occurred to me, I was entirely against it. I'm not vain or anything, and I really don't want to be the main character of a popular, best selling, or even horrible book, because if there is one thing that is currently stamped across books right now is angst.

And other than that, I'm honest enough with myself to admit that with my brown, slightly wavy hair, hazel eyes, and my lightly freckle covered, lightly tanned skin, I'd hardly be the idea protagonist, especially since my grades aren"t anything special, just bs with the occasional A.

I'm also one of those kids who has almost no social life outside of band, in which I play flute, and FanFictionsass that I read. That's probably the only reason, that after I was hit by a car on my way home from the supermarket, that after a long period of confusion, fear, tastes, smells, sounds, and feelings, I wasn't all that surprised to find myself blinking up at a woman wearing white who had black hair, singing to meas she rocks me, her face getting clearer each time I wake instead of my parents sleeping or crying and holding my hand.

It was probably because of this, and that one time I'd gone on a rampage as I wrote a SIOC fic that I'd never posted and that facts I'd looked up on baby development for that fic, that I know that that is the way baby's scenes develop.

A while after I can see, I'm brought to a party and set down in a room full of items, and even though I was aware that my family was rich from the way the woman in white kept on pointing at a picture and calling the beautiful woman in it my Kaa-San, but honestly, the amount of silver, gold, precious stones, and extremely intricate looking carvings made of expensive looking wood was really annoying. I sigh mentally, and start pushing the expensive looking things across the room and drop the plainer looking things into a pile where I had been sat down. A long while later (like literally, I think it was two hours later, I plop down in front of the pile of plainer objects to examine them.

There's a small hand held mirror in which I catch a glimpse of a golden eye and brilliant red hair, that was not intricately jeweled , or even really decorated at all, unlike the other which all had some quality that set them apart from a normal mirror, and I examine it carefully before I set it off to the right. The next thing I pick up is a well cared for, but obviously used bridle, and I frown at it for a moment, taking the time to rub my fingers along the leather and smell it before I set it to my right. I turn back to the pile in front of me and quickly sort through it, a brush and ink pot tied together to the right, , a set of plain knitting needles to the left, embroidery thread to the left, a sewing kit with good strong thread in a case the size of my old glasses case went to the right, a sandal wood comb quickly following it, and after a moment of hesitation, the simple traditional kimono goes to the right as well.

I get to my feet again, and carefully waddle the things I had put to the left over to the other side to leave them with all of the shiny baubles. As I put them back, I catch sight of a worn leather thing hidden under some shiny things, and I fish it out, giving a small cry of happiness when I find it to be a small knife, and I drag it back, leaving the knitting needles and embroidery thread behind. I settle down with the things I want and go about carefully arranging them as I listen to the people who had been coming into the room steadily chatter.

" . . . well you certainly seem to have given birth to quite the wild child Suzuki-San," I hear someone comment, and I listen to them as I use my new sandal wood comb. "The plainest mirror, an old bridle, a brush and inkwell, the sturdy sewing kit, sandalwood comb, kimono, and knife has got to be the wildest range I've heard of."

I turn to see a tall, but wiry looking man talking to a woman who looked like the picture my nanny kept pointing to.

Then I blink as I realize she is the one from the picture, and take this opportunity to watch her. Her brilliant red hair is pulled up in a bun by enameled hair sticks and her purple eyes blink from behind her deep blue fan, startling against her pale skin.

I frown as I realize that she looks a lot like that one woman - Kushina - from the manga Naruto.

"Mizuki," my nanny calls as I crawl towards the two. "Mizuki - don't! Ah, my Lady!"

The red haired lady stares at me hanging on her leg before she smiles and gestures for the nanny to pick me up, turning to the tall man, and I keep staring at her as I'm lifted.

"Takeru-San, this is my daughter," the woman said, and as I get a clearer view of the man, I notice he's much younger than I thought, only twenty or so. Then the lady says my name. "Uzumaki Mizuki."

That makes me pause, as I remember that the woman from that anime's name was Uzumaki Kushina, but even as I stare at the two, my nanny is taking me away to be fed. I catch the man's last sentence as we go away.

"I'm worried about my son Gaara, his earl doesn't seem to be working . . . "

_. . . and that just makes me more sure that I'm in Naruto, which is not a good thing._

_Although,_ I thing as my nanny feeds me a warm mash,_ shouldn't Gaara not have been insane if an Uzumaki looked at his seal?_

Then I shrug to myself. I'm sure I'll find out later.

* * *

><p>I do find out. It's not pleasant.<p>

* * *

><p>It's been about a month since my birthday, and my nanny, who I still haven't been able to get the name of, finally puts a full body mirror in my room, and I'm looking myself over in it. I have very pale skin now, like my new mother, the kind of skin that wouldn't tan, even after burning or being in a desert, red hair that was more of a blood red than my mother's slightly lighter shade, sharp amber eyes that almost seem to glow in the soft light filtering through the shade on my window. I had just finished my assessment and was about to decide which colors I would look best in when a man bursts into the room.<p>

"Run! They're here to kill the Lady!" he yelled before he was running away, and I turn to find my nanny pale as she stares at the empty doorway for a moment before she pulls a draw-string bag off the hook on the back of the door and starts stuffing my clothes in it, only pausing to out the things I had chosen on my birthday into the bag before she carefully open the curtain on my window and places me to the right of the window on the ledge that goes on for a long ways, set the pack next to me and covered me with a shawl before closing the curtain.

I hold my breath as footsteps echo closer, instinctively pulling on the almost forgotten river that I remember bothered me when I first came, buzzing around my body and never letting my sleep, but I had gotten used to it, and like people forget a river as it goes underground, but now it was bubbling up as I desperately grasp at it, my nanny scream piercing as I frantically think _hide! hide! hide!_

I squeeze my eyes shut as I hear the curtain ripped aside, and I hold my breath as there's silence, still and quiet before the footsteps go away, and I let my breath out as silently as I can, letting my chakra flow down into it's normal pathways. But now that I'm aware of it, I can feel it everywhere, on my skin and inside my lungs and in my shawl, and in the strange sandstone beneath me, and I can feel it in my lungs like I've already drowned in water, and now I'm just a zombie, unable to move or do anything but think and try to breathe, and I'm desperately holding my breath because I know that if I try to breathe, I will probably cough, and the man will hear it and come back to kill me and -

* * *

><p><em>Darkness<em>

* * *

><p>I slowly open my eyes, blinking at the numb feeling of just being tiered as I stare at something white on black on white.<p>

What?

Sobs slowly come to me and I blink, my vision clearing as I realize that the thing is just a person.

Who?

I blink again slowly taking in the the person's long black hair and extremely pale skin, like mine and this mother's, but his face is masculine, and when he looks up after a while of me just staring at him, his eyes are a warm gold, and are slitted. He looks like - no. Don't think that.

Someone knocks on the door and I sigh slightly as the person's eyes leave me.

"What is it?" he calls, his voice smooth, in a way it shouldn't be after the sobs I had headed earlier, but I ignore that when I hear the person's name.

"It's the Kazekage. He says you called him here," who ever was on the other side of the door said, and the man closes his eyes.

"Let him in."

Foot steps go away, and the man turns back to me, wiping his eyes before the footsteps come back and some one knocks on the door again. "The Kazekage sir."

"Come in," the man said, and the door opens to revel Takeru in a set of white robes, lined with blue, and he shoots me a worried glance as he sits down in front of the other man.

"Takeru-San, as you know, my wife was killed earlier this week, and my daughter was left a live," the man said, glancing at me.

"Yes, I did," said Takeru.

"Because I am in no condition to take care of her," the man said almost robotically, " I would like you to take care of her."

Takeru's eyes widen, but before he can say no, the man with black hair scoops me up and presses me into his arms as turns, walking out the door. Takeru stares at the door for a moment before sighing. "That man."

He looks down at me with a slight smile as I blink uncertainly up at him. "Hello Mizuki! I'm your godfather, Subaku no Takeru, and you'll be living with me from now on."

I blink up at him before I grab the thing attached to my chest with string and start gumming it.


	2. Chapter 2

After he picks me up, he goes outside and orders his men to go and find everything of mine or my mothers that they could find as he absently picked up the cube that was sitting outside my door and handing it to me. A couple minutes later, the men came back with the news that there was nothing, not even in the servant's quarters, and literally everything that wasn't sandstone was gone. I fell asleep during this, and when I next woke up, it was to being changed by Yashamaru, and the cube that Takeru had absently given me was still in my grasp, and I could see my bag when he helped me sit up after he finished.

The first time I see a seal is a few days after that, when Yashmaru is changing Gaara's diaper, and I catch sight of the seal on his left hip. I bite town on my teething aid in shock as I suppress a cry as the faint whispering song, that like my chakra I had gotten used to ignoring suddenly turned up to a blast and I read what I'd seen of the sweeping lines like they were the simplest thing ever.

I'd turned away as fast as I could, but not before the _wrongness_ of the seal impressed itself into my mind, the only part that was _right_ was tiny in sealing terms, and the words themselves were tucked up in a corner of my mind, almost itching to be found and rearranged into something that was _right_ and would do what it was supposed to, a song that sounded a lot like the chanting in Howl's Moving Castle whispering around them.

_Beast conceal human shell into seal. Sacrifice offer we this child. Flow power easy. Village protect people and. I wish to protect my son._

That was the words of the seal I had seen, and I blink at a tapestry on the wall as I rearrange them almost unconsciously, blinking as I realize that my eyes are following the hypnotic pattern on in, but letting them as I rearrange and add to the seal, blinking as I see the pattern bloom before me for a moment, a swirling patter in the center surrounding a stylized symbol of the moon.

_Let this beast be concealed by it's human vessel. We sacrifice this child to protect our village and it's people, and so this child may give help and hope. Let the power flow easily, but protect the child's mind. We offer in exchange a place for your shaping, for yourself alone. Let the mother's helping hand guard the child when he should break or die. So wills the moon. So wills the tide._

I blink again, shaking my head when I realize that he the tapestry I had been staring at was gone, and Yashamaru was shaking my lightly. "Mizuki-chan are you alright?"

I blink once more before I smile up at him and point at Gaara. "Mi wa' Gaa!"

"You want Gaara?" Yashamaru says with a puzzled smile as he picks me up.

"I don't think I've ever said his name to you," he muttered as he set me down next to the red haired child.

_Oops._ I smile at the child next to me, and roll over to hug him. As the warmth of the room and the heat of another human next to me, as chubby and unwieldy as we both are, lulls me to sleep, the whispering song that I don't hear with my ears gains a harsh note, and I grumble, opening my eyes so I can locate Gaara's seal. I slap a hand on it - softly - and let out a song that I can't sing with my mouth and vocal cords slip out, burning and eradicating parts of the seal under my hand, leaving just enough to hold the Tailed One beneath back before I reweave a new net over it, pushing the Tailed One back and into the pocket dimension, and when I finnish, eradicate everything of the old seal but the part that had felt _right_, and weave the small song into the greater role I had given it.

Then I fall asleep exaughsted from a sudden loss of energy.

* * *

><p>I'm a little surprised when they don't take me away from Gaara after a few weeks, though I wasn't surprised when Gaara's new seal wasn't mentioned. As soon as we could walk, Yashamaru stared us on physical exercises that were meant to increase our flexibility and some exercises with rubber band added in a couple months later. About a week before out birthdays, which were apparently only a week apart, mine six days after his, we were running around with out a care in the world, and Yashamaru introduced us to something that was a combination of hopschotch and jump rope. We both took the sport eagerly, jumping from predrawn spot to spot as we keep the jump rope spinning which I had to keep away from the bag that the cube that had been left to me had been sewn into.<p>

On our birthday (we'd split the difference and celebrated on Janurary 22), Yashamaru gave me a book full of characters and after dinner was over (Temari, Kankuro and Takeru had been invited) he had helped me take out the brush and inkwell that I had chosen last year and sat down with my to tell me what each one was. With the dexterity exercises that we had been practicing for the last year it was a simple matter for me to draw the page of hiragana on a fresh sheet of paper, and I startled Yashamaru with easily remembering the few kanji he taught me, simple ones I had learned in my last life. After that, we did pretty much the same things as last year, just a little more intensive, and we were learning to read and write along with the physical exercises.

* * *

><p>For our third birthday, we got to go to a festivale in March, and Yashamaru helped me take out the kimono I'd chosen two years ago, that fit me just right now, and put it on and the sandal wood comb in. That year we started learning kanji and Yashamaru helped us unlock our chakra in August.<p>

* * *

><p>It wasn't until I was four that I got to see any seals other than Gaara's, when Yashamaru gave me a book on basic seals. I eagerly flip the book open as soon as I can, and there on the first page is the standard sealing tag, and I blink as once again the singing roars in my ears for a moment before settling down, confirming my thoughts even as I blink down at the seal, easily reading it.<p>

_Explode with a two foot diameter, leave smoke thick enough so only siouettes can be seen, disapate after a second._

"So what does this seal do, Mizuki-chan?" Yashamaru asks in amusement as he watched me lean so that Gaara can see. I absently recite what I'd read, tracing the relating parts of the seal.

"That's right!" Yashamaru smiles, and I can see the love in his expression as he asks Gaara what he thinks of his present. I smile slightly as Gaara replies enthusiastically.

_I won't let anything happen to him!_ I think suddenly, the thought fierce as I watch the people who, for all practical purposes had become my family with a fierce sense of pride. _I won't let him become what the Shukaku wants him to be!_

* * *

><p>On my fifth birthday (not the day when we celebrate it), the door is knocked on in the middle of dinner, a couple of minutes later, Takeru, who had been over for dinner like always (he spent the rest of his time with Kankuro and Temerai), leads an exaughsted looking Orochimaru and a small child in. When I see my father, I immeadeatly jump out of my seat, Gaara following in my shadow like always as I run up to Orochimaru and kick him in the shin before I grab him hand and drag him over to my chair, hitting the back of his knee to make him sit when he doesn't do so on his own after a moment.<p>

"The only thing you are going to leave that chair for is sleep, do you understand?" I say sternly, and for a moment he looks like he's going to laugh before he gives me a tiered nod and a smile.

"Of course, Mizuki-chan," he said, and I frown slightly as the brighter light of the kitchen makes his skin look even paler, and his eyes look more sepia than the bright gold mine were, or even the more tarnished bronze color they had been when I saw him as a baby. "Gaara, make sure he doesn't get up, okay?"

Gaara nods and climbs onto Orochimaru's lap. I keep my thoughts about my father to myself as I turn back to the hooded child and walk cautiously up to him where he's hiding behind the pilar thing. As I draw closer, I can see him shivering slightly despite the thick layers he has on, and I once again frown slightly as I alter my normal stalking into something more meant to soothe a frightened animal as I creep towards him.

The shadows shift slightly as the child raises his head, giving me a glimpse of two red dots and a stretch of pale skin before the shadows shift again, becoming even deeper then before. I mentally tick off all the people I can think of with really pale skin in Naruto before I remember the one with two red dots, Kimimaro, Kaguya Kimimaro of the Kaguya clan that was wiped out except for him.

The boy tries to shift a way as I get closer, but I pounce, grabbing his arm.

Alone, I manage to drag the struggling Kimimaro to the dinner table as my father replies to something Takeru said, watching me with amusement. When we get to the table, I drop him the same way I did to Orochimaru, and promptly sits on him to keep him from getting up again as I stare up at the man, who by all rights I really shouldn't know.

"Who is this and why is he here?" I demand in my usual blunt way, ignoring the squirming of the boy beneath me.

"That is Kaguya Kimimaro," Orochmaru started confirming my suspicions, "And he is here to guard you."

Yeah, like that makes any sense when I just defeated him.

"So he's mine?" I ask, and I can see Yashamaru's look of horror on the other side of the table. I'd never really gotten along with any children other than Gaara, especially after Gaara started getting rejected in fear so his response was justified, but before he could say anything, Orochimaru replied.

"I guess?"

I nod, and look down at the boy I was straddling (and doesn't that just sound weird?) before I nod and look up to meet Gaara's calm eyes, telling him in the way that twins can that he can get down as I hop off Kimimaro and pull him up.

"Otouto, this is ours. He's Kimimaro," I say, a little possessively. (Blame my genetics) Gaara looks the boy beside me up and down once before nodding. I grab the boys wrist and walk over to Yashamaru. "I'm full. We're going to bed."

Then I walk away, dragging Kimimaro with me as Gaara follows. That night, after I's gotten Kimimaro out of the top layers, leaving him and a pair of shorts and a tee shirt, I pull him over to my bed and get him to lie down. He does this all with out speaking once, and when he does lie down, I curl around him as best I can, Gaara on the other side as I hum gently, and soon his breathing slips into the rhythmic patters of sleep. While this may be a different concept that what people normally mean, I do take care of my things well, and well, you know what I was just told.

* * *

><p>It isn't till a couple months after that, when I'm proficient in drawing all of the seals in the book I had gotten a year and a half ago, and unknown to Yashamaru, I'd even managed to make a chakra stamp with the most basic versions of explosion seals and storage seals, that I get the history scrolls I'd asked for, or rather, Gaara and I had been deemed old enough to get out and about if we stayed together and kept Kimimaro with us, and I'd managed to get Yashamaru to show me the library, before promptly dragging my boys there every chance I get, and reading the history scrolls, especially the ones on Orochimaru and the Sannin.<p>

As I read them, I notice slight differences between the history here and what had happened in the mange in my old life. Orochimaru had disappeared with Jiraiya for those two years when I'm sure that the Ame orphans were being trained, and he wasn't found experimenting of test subjects, but he had been found with a lab full of half-programmed children.

It also doesn't take me long to realize that, at least in this world, each of the Sannin must be a seal master from the number of times seals were mentioned in conjunction with each of them, and the way it was casually mentioned that most of the machines in hospitals were dependent on seals, and that most of them had been made by Tsunade. Orochimaru . . . well, like Jiraiya, he was also known as a seal master, and from what I could tell from the scrolls, the team balance was about the same as it had been in the manga.


End file.
