35What happened. What's that pain? You grasp your head in pain. Everything feels wrong, this wasn't your head. You clutch your hair and it was clearly not your own hair. Not your nose, not anything.
And then a large hand touched your head and you the pain started to going away, but not the existential crisis.
"Can you open your eyes?" A voice asked.
You could.
"How many fingers am I holding up?" The man said, who you know recognized as Iruka from the well-known anime Naruto.
"Three," you replied.
"You remember what my name is?" he asked.
"It's Iruka right?" You said.
"Right, and your own name?" He asked.
"My own name," you repeated. You'd no idea what your name was. Sure you know your real name, but not here in this world. So you had to admit, "I don't know."
"Your name is Uzumaki Sota. Do you remember how old you are?" He asked.
You shook your head.
"Do you know where you are?" He asked.
"Konoha."
"Right, your eyes are fine and you remember things, not just anything about yourself. Can you tell me the colour of your hair without looking?"
"Yellow?" you guessed based on Naruto's hair.
"No, that's Naruto, your hair is red," he said.
"I don't understand anything, memory isn't supposed to work like that," he mumbled to himself, before turning to you. "You're six years old and you're at the academy training to become a ninja. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes," you replied. "What happened?"
"Another student thought it was funny to drop a rock on your head while you were walking under the roof"
"Who was it?" You asked.
"I'm not telling you as I don't want you to go and take revenge on them, but they're getting punished."
"I wouldn't do that," you pouted. You had to use some of the powers your young age granted you.
"I'm not taking any chances."
"And what would I do?" You asked you kind of need to know to act like yourself.
"I'm not giving you ideas," Iruka replied.
Damn it. What kind of kid were you since Iruka was worried? Were you as much of a prankster as Naruto?
"I'm getting someone to check on you, you should lie down and get some rest. Hopefully, your head will get better," he said and left you on the bed.
There was a mirror in the room, so you ignored the request to rest and took a look at yourself.
And right as Iruka had said, a cute kid with green eyes was looking at you in the mirror. This was you now. With vibrant red hair, kind of like an early Kushina, a true Uzumaki.
You tried locating the head wound, though finding blood in within your hair wasn't the easiest task, especially now as the pain was gone. You knew it was in the top of your head since the rock was dropped on you, so it had to be there somewhere.
And as you tilted your head forward, you could see it in the mirror, a smidge of red not fitting the rest of your bushy redhead. As you parted your hair to get a better look at your scalp, you could see no injury at all. Double checked and triple checked but your head was completely fine.
Did this mean that your awesome Uzumaki genes gave you similar healing ability to Naruto, that wasn't all Kyuubi?
You needed to recollect what you knew and didn't know.
You knew that you somehow got into the world of Naruto with the same people as in the series. Naruto was still there, you had not replaced him. But your existence was out of place. You know nothing about yourself and you couldn't have been a canon character who died too early. If Naruto had known another Uzumaki in the village, they would for sure be mentioned somewhere. I
When was this? Iruka looked younger than you remembered him to be and he knew Naruto, so that meant that Naruto would be attending the academy now. Which meant that if you were the same age, this would be six years before the events of the manga started.
It wouldn't take long to confirm any of this, but it was nice to see that your head was working properly and that you were able to make proper deductions. You may have the body of a six-year-old, but the mind was not. But that would make sense in a world where magic was commonplace.
It would also make it impossible to pretend that something wasn't strange about you, so the best was to just act strange.
And in came another man you recognized.
"Do you know who I am?" He asked as he sat down on a chair next to your bed.
You nodded.
"What do you know about me?" He asked.
"You're Yamanaka Inoichi and you're Ino's father. Are you here to step into my mind to see what's wrong with me?" You asked.
"No, I'm not allowed. But how do you know that, are you friends with Ino?"
"I don't think so. How old is she?" You asked in an attempt to probe him for some information.
"She's in your class, so around your age," he said.
"Oh," you answered. From his perspective, this would make even less sense.
It was at this point a horrifying though got into your head. Would you ever get any fangirls? It would just be wrong, so you hoped fate was on your side. But as long as you didn't save Hinata from bullying and wasn't Sasuke, you should be completely safe. And given your age, you should be safe for at least six years. And by then you'd placed on teams making the problem less likely later on.
Did you have any fun Kekkei Genkai, like those chakra chains?
You were an Uzumaki with wonderful hair. You could try exploring seals. It was always a mystery in canon. How they worked, what they could do, how to make them and why they weren't more widely used.
Sota was probably already a better student than Naruto, and now definitely. Given that your mind would be that of an adult and your brain what of a child, shouldn't this give you a massive boost to your learning rate?
"Do you still remember your name?" He asked you.
"Yes, Uzumaki Sota," you told him.
"Good, you seem to be able to form new memories, at least in the short term. It's a good sign. You can go now, I'll check in on your in a few days, and Iruka will see to you too. You can go home now," he said and tousled your hair.
But there was one problem.
"Where do I live and do I have parents?" You asked before he could leave you.
"You're an orphan," he said. "I don't know anything about your parents, I'm sorry. I'll ask Iruka to show you your way home."
-x-
As you were walking through the streets with Iruka you got to get a real look at the village. You'd not seen it like this before. It was a real place, not like in the games you've played where only the stuff to developers bothered to make was put in place.
"Do things seem new to you?" Iruka asked as he if could see on you that it seemed this was the first time you've seen the village.
"Some, but not everything, I recognize the Mountain with all the faces and the Hokage tower. Could we stop for ramen on the way?" You asked.
"Oh no, don't tell me that your head injury turned you into another Naruto," he said.
"Don't worry, I'm not going to skip class or pull pranks on you. I just want to taste it," you said.
"Very well, I just got my paycheck and you've been through a lot today, but only one bowl."
"Thanks, sensei," you said and smiled to him.
-x-
That was another titbit of information down. Teuchi's ramen was good, but you wouldn't go there every day. You would need to figure out how much pocket money you got each month. Until then you better just buy cheap, so you wouldn't run out of money.
As the two of you entered your apartment, another question came to your mind.
"Where can I buy food?" You asked.
"You don't have to worry about that, someone will deliver it to you regularly," he said.
"I thought Naruto had to get that himself and he's an orphan too, right?" You asked, trying to discern the differences between this world and the canon world.
"I don't know how you know about that, but Naruto ended up not eating much of his food, so he got money to buy himself ramen instead. But please, eat what you're given, it is better for you than what you'll end up buying yourself," Iruka told you. "But you're getting some spending money for snacks and other stuff you might want. You should have a wallet here somewhere."
Or nobody wanted to deliver food to the demon kid. If you were both six, that would mean that the Kyuubi attack happened around six years ago. That was not enough to heal the wounds.
It gave you a bit of comfort that orphans weren't as badly neglected as canon could suggest. But expecting a kid to make their own balanced meals was still a bit too much in your view.
"How can I learn Fuuinjutsu?" You asked.
"Why do you want to learn that?" He asked.
"Head injury," you replied. It was the best you could come up with.
-x-
"You had something you wanted to report?" Hokage asked his two visitors.
Umino Iruka and Yamanaka Inoichi were in front of him.
"Uzumaki Sota suffered a head injury today, he's fine but his memory is all over the place. He has forgotten basic information about himself and gained memories of things he shouldn't have known." Inoichi explained. "May I ask about something?"
"Go ahead,"
"Has Danzo tried getting hands on the boy?" He asked.
"No," Hiruzen said without implying anything further.
"Why would Danzo want anything to do with him?" Iruka asked.
"It's none of your business Iruka," he answered.
"He's my student, that makes it my business. And it makes no sense, he got a head injury nothing more."
"Could be a genjutsu. You may be an excellent school teacher, but that doesn't mean you couldn't be fooled. The only mark left after the incident was a smidge of blood which could have gotten there another way," Inoichi explained.
"We'll talk more about this later, Inoichi. Iruka, did you notice anything other strange things about him?" The Hokage asked Iruka.
"He seems more mature, he wanted ramen, doesn't seem to mind yellow hair anymore and he wanted to learn to learn Fuuinjutsu."
"Kids usually aren't interested in those things. I'll make sure that he'll get a decent tutor. If he gets half as good as the average Uzumaki, he'd be a good resource for the village," The Hokage said.
-x-
Next day you realized how boring school was for six-year-olds. So you were resting your chin on your desk while Iruka was talking about basic maths. You started to understand Naruto now. Though unlike Naruto, you knew all this stuff and you probably knew stuff Iruka had no idea about. As you doubted the ninja maths curriculum went that far.
And you had no interest in socializing with a bunch of small children, it would just be weird.
Last class of the day was all about more practical skills. Target shooting.
It was clear that the Japanese came to you as it was your first language in this world, but how would you fare with ninja abilities. You never had the habit of throwing knives in your previous life, but that was a habit you had to change as an aspiring ninja.
As you observed your fellow students and their below-par performance, you realized how stupid you were right now. You were a small kid, you weren't supposed to be good at it. Most didn't even manage to hit the target, much less hit the bullseye. All you knew was that Sasuke should be somewhat decent at it, as Itachi had probably have tried teaching him a bit. So you decided to study him. Repeating his movements with your own wrist as you were watching.
And when it was your turn you tried staying focused. The key to this exercise was two-fold. Enough power and consistency, then you could adjust your aim for the next throw.
The first throw hit the edge of the target, so you nudged the next one closer to the centre. And for each kunai, you got slightly closer to the middle, till you almost scored a bullseye with your last one.
"Good job as usual Sota," Iruka commented, as you were the only one apart from Sasuke to manage to hit with all kunai on the target.
So you didn't impress him. Sure, you were competing with other six-year-olds. But they had actually done this before. So you wished you could get acknowledgement for your first attempt.
So next piece of information. Compared to a pre-amnesia Uzumaki Sota, your knowledge was new but your skills were not.
"I'm going to beat you!" Naruto yelled and pointed at you.
Wait… was what happening? He was supposed to be challenging Sasuke not you. Don't screw over the timeline so I cannot predict anything Naruto!
Naruto was quick, but not focused as he threw his five in rapid succession. Not one hit the target nor the tree the target was tied to.
The class responded with mocking laughter while you stayed silent.
You wanted to interfere. But everything turned well in the end, the less you did here the better. Even if you turned into another Sasuke with a vocabulary of just 'hn'.
If you didn't know better you'd be worried about stealing Sasuke's spot in Team 7. But the whole best with the worst talk was just a ploy to get Naruto to accept his fate. Going through the other teams and everyone was either together due to family connections or synergy when it came to tracking. Team 7 was the leftovers. That still left you as the fourth wheel, with no clear place when you all graduated.
As the class had ended, you turned to Iruka to ask him about earlier.
"Why do Naruto hate me?"
"You used to bully him, and told him that he wasn't a real Uzumaki due to his yellow hair. You really hurt his feelings," he explained to you.
"Why would I do that?" You questioned.
"If I understood that, my job would have been much easier. Just be nice to him would you?" He asked.
You gave him a nod.
"Are you Sota," a man with a senbon sticking out of his mouth asked from behind you.
"Yes, you're Genma right?"
"So the rumour is true, you really know everyone's name. Iruka told me that you wanted to learn to make seals, so I'm going to be your teacher."
"Nice, we're starting now?" You asked.
"I was thinking so, follow me and we can find an empty classroom," he said.
-x-
On the desk between you, he put down his bag and withdrew some supplies.
"What do you know about sealing already?"
"You can do all kind of cool things. Make explosions, store items, seal tailed-beast," you said. And why did you mention that last bit? Did your Uzumaki genes remove all your filters?
Better to just note that with every one of your other discoveries. Your behaviour was clearly a mix of yourself and this new body you've gained. And combined with the previous discoveries, you could already draw out a convincing conclusion. You'd always been a prodigy, as even in the ninja world, the brain wasn't there just as decoration. And based on your knowledge about Naruto prodigies, that wouldn't end well for you.
Genma was a professional and wouldn't tell you if he thought you were suspicious or not, he just moved on and gave you the first exercise.
And it couldn't start more boring. He drew a few shapes, characters and some random scribbles and told you to replicate them, starting with the easiest.
But you got the idea, accuracy and calligraphy were important for seals along with replication. And this exercise let him check and measure your abilities.
May your Uzumaki genes save you.
Shapes were easy, as it turned out that your eye to hand coordination was much better here than in real life. Despite its size, your new body was much better than your old one.
Kanji a bit worse, but you knew something about how it all worked and taking your time and do it one line at a time wasn't that bad. Though your muscle memories didn't help you out with these, so these were obviously above your skill level. And you were as good at writing and reading as the old Sota it seemed like.
It made sense, he wouldn't have much interest in seeing you write stuff you already knew, but rather see your process in tackling new problems.
And you did a pretty good job if you were allowed to say so.
His last scribbles were messy. No clear lines, rather loops. Was he going to drop you if you couldn't do this last part?
Better not take the chance.
From the pile of supplies, you picked up a ruler and started making small markings around the different scribbles. But Genma stayed shut and just let you continue on with your plan.
This was a trick you've seen in children activity books ages ago. You had a small picture with a grid overlayed and a bigger grid where you were supposed to copy it in. This divided the bigger problem into smaller more manageable problems.
And from there it was just getting an overview of the overall structure and start copying.
But you were happy enough with the result.
"Did I pass?" You asked.
"This wasn't a test, I just wanted to see where we should begin," Genma stated and added. "I see why some call you next Itachi."
"Don't compare me to him. Besides, he graduated when he was seven. All I did was copy some scribbles," You stated. Even if it was for the greater good, Itachi had still slaughtered his entire clan. So the comparison gave you a chill down your back.
"And Kakashi graduated when he was five, and Itachi is better than him. You're an orphan with no clan to teach you, and there is no pressing conflict to make you graduate early.
"What I'm wanting to say is that the way you approach problems is rare for someone your age. If it isn't perfect it's not good enough, but its not a healthy way of thinking."
"Thanks, can we go back to seals?" you said. No reason to argue with him, people gave six-year-olds too much credit. People wanted to see prodigies, so they attributed any accomplishments to a supposed superior intellect.
"Impatience isn't a good trait for a ninja. But first some ground rules. Until I permit you to do so, you're not to practise any seal on your own. You'll get homework, but any proper seals would be made under my guidance. Is that clear?"
You nodded.
"Good, we'll start with storage seals, practical and easy," he said and picked out one set of brush and ink for both of you, along with stripes of paper and stone pebbles.
You followed his steps. Keep in mind your intent with the seal, then channel your chakra.
You had a problem.
"How do I channel chakra?" You asked
"Shouldn't you already know it? Given that you're the next Itachi," he said.
"Head injury," you said and pointed to your head for emphasis. Though you were unsure if he was joking, as you didn't know the curriculum or that you should actually have learnt it by now.
"Right, this is not exactly my field. At a certain level, you just do it without thinking, so I might be a bit rusty at teaching it. But I want you to meditate and see if you can feel a source of energy within you."
You got into one of the positions you remembered from the anime, close your eyes and empty your thoughts.
Slowly, something began to flare up around the stomach area. You began to tug a bit at it and draw at it, pulling it through your limbs and to your fingers. It was a strange feeling. Kind of like getting contrast agents at the hospital. Just nicer and less of the needing to pee feeling.
"I can feel it and I can pull it through your body," you told Genma.
"Good, but that's just expected of someone like you. Most kids, even Sasuke can't form chakra this age. Too little control, too little chakra to draw on."
"So I knew it already, I had just forgotten like everything else?"
"Yes," Genma replied.
"You're putting too many expectations in me. I'm only six, just because I'm a quick learner now doesn't mean I'll surpass Itachi's growth. Can we just get on with the sealing?"
Couldn't people get in their head that this was how they created mentally unstable ninja? Always pushing on some unachievable expectations on people that they could never live up to.
At least this would probably end after the Uchiha massacre. They wouldn't want you to snap too, and any Itachi references would be quickly retracted.
Genma got the hint for the rest of that session and stopped the small talk.
You quickly manage to seal the pebbles in your seals. Of course you did, as you were an Uzumaki, paraphrasing Genma. You hoped Naruto wouldn't hear such words, as it would just fuel his anger towards you and that was not part of the plan.
"How does it work?" You asked. Learning how to perform them was something. But you wanted the theory behind them, not just the hand-wavy 'it just works', explanation.
"I don't know exactly, I can make them but I don't understand the theory behind it."
"Oh," you replied.
"I'll think we stop there for today if that's okay for you?"
"Yeah," you didn't really have any choice.
"Alright then. Remember, you're not allowed to practise at home. If you want to be my student, you need to be patient as this kind of stuff can be dangerous. Goodbye and we'll see each other at the next lesson," he said.
"Goodbye," you replied and left the academy.
-x-
You wished this world have internet or TV so you had something to do. What would someone like you do? You'd no real homework yet to pour-over.
Best you could do was to explore the village. And it wasn't that interesting when you got another look at it. As the clan hideout, or compounds as they called it was off-limits.
If there was one thing this village had a lot of, it was trees.
Which meant a perfect opportunity for trying out tree-walking.
That would be a project for the coming weeks. Even if it would take you a month now. You'd get it fifty percentage earlier in life than if you learnt it at a random mission to wave.
You still had a kunai on you, so you could mark your progress up the tree. Why did they give six-year-olds these to bring home anyway? Or had you accidentally taken it with you back home from the academy without permission. It didn't matter, you weren't going to go back and hand it back if that was the case.
You didn't need any Sakura to provide you with handy exposition or a lazy teacher not teaching. All you needed to do was to put your foot towards the tree and feel for it.
Too much chakra and you'd be pushed off, and too little chakra and you didn't get traction.
How to make sense of this?
Too much chakra and you destroyed the tree. So you should really pick something more solid. The Hokage tower seemed sturdy, but you'd get in a lot of problems if you ended up blowing holes in it. Besides, the ninja keeping guard wouldn't just let you casually walk up and down all day.
So it had to be the tree.
You had a plan. You put your foot on the tree trunk and channelled as much chakra as you could until it exploded.
Alright, now you had a baseline. Now you just had to stay below that try to keep a constant chakra output.
You found a new tree and put your foot back on the truck. You started channel chakra into it and found a nice sweet spot for your chakra usage, but then it just blew up on you for no good reason.
"Why tree? Why did you blow up?" You asked the tree.
The tree being a tree, refused to answer.
You sighed and tried again this time with less chakra, but with the same result and another damaged tree trunk.
And you kept on trying this until you finally managed to succeed, only to realize that you could no longer stick to the tree.
So that plan failed spectacularly.
It wasn't the only thing you did wrong you realized. When walking up trees, you wouldn't keep your grip constant, you would turn it on and off. Perhaps forgetting about cheating the system and just do it the normal way would help?
That meant actually gaining height. and heights weren't your favourite. You could hope that this kid you stole the body from was braver than you.
The faster you ran up, the less you needed to stick at the time. This was the exact opposite of your first plan. You wanted a controlled slow pace, not running up like a madman.
At least the ground was soft enough, you hoped.
And ninja was sturdy, and even if you fell down badly, you'd be just hospitalised and then you'd be fine. Getting hurt was part of the job, better get used to it earlier than later.
You took a deep breath and prepared for your first real attempt.
Step up and that was it. But your timing was off and you applied chakra before you even made contact with your other foot. Thus repelling away the trunk instead, flipping you over so you landed with your butt up on the ground.
This was going to be a long month.
And after several hours, all you had to show for was two steps and your stomach was rumbling. The sky had also gotten a lot darker.
You didn't feel like cooking. You were tired and your body hurt.
Though you should have some pocket money. Another bowl of ramen would taste nice.
So you walked towards Teuchi's stand trying to remember the way, and it was surprisingly easy. You blamed your Uzumaki genes trying to lead you to there.
When you got there, you were the only customer. Probably not the most popular time at day for ramen. But you weren't there for the company but rather to eat. You ordered a simple bowl of ramen and started wondering about your life a bit more.
What had really happened to you? And would it really matter? Trying to escape this place seemed fruitless, you were better off just making the best of it. And if you could keep stuff up, maybe you could be someone of importance in this world. Or you just ended up dead.
Before your pessimism could take overhand, Teuchi served you a bowl of hot steaming ramen.
Food tasted so good when you were exhausted, but it was perhaps not a good idea to train on an empty stomach every day.
"Hey old man!" A childish voice shouting behind you, Naruto. But he stopped when he saw the red mop of your hair. As you turned your head towards him, he was already running away.
You really needed to apologize to him tomorrow.
-x-
Iruka's class was soon over, and you prepared to steel your nerves.
He's just a six-year-old you told to yourself. But your brain did its effort to make you nervous. You were still human, and your human brain currently cared about what your classmates thought about you, even if neither you nor the previous you would admit it.
The moment your teacher called off the class you stepped up to Naruto's desk.
"Hi, I just want to apologize for what I've done. I don't remember anything, got my head hit hard," you said and pointed to said head for emphasis. "But I regret bullying you and you are a real Uzumaki, your yellow hair doesn't matter."
A light began to shine within Naruto it looked like.
"Does that mean you'll be my friend?" He asked, with way too much hope in his voice.
"No," you said. "I don't need friends."
In a way to say it's not you, it's me. But it was both. Both the age difference, not tampering with his character development, and the fact that you had widely different interest. He liked pranking people and you liked browsing the internet mindlessly all day.
"But we're family, both Uzumaki," he cried out. Getting the attention of your other classmates.
But it didn't worry you that much. That they would think about you as stone-cold would just make things easier for you.
You just walked away and out in the fresh air. You had apologized, Naruto couldn't expect more. And why he wanted to be friends with his previous bully was beyond you. He needed to see past the blood and rather form friendships on a meaningful basis. Neji and Hinata was a perfect example of how people didn't get along just because they were close relatives. And you had no idea how closely related you and Naruto was. And if you were closely related, someone would probably have told you two.
At the end of the day, it was practical ninja training as usual. And your first spar.
You had no idea how to fight. So you hoped your instincts would help you out here. From what everyone had told you, you should win this. Even if you were against Sasuke.
You weren't exactly sure what the common greetings were in before the spar. All you could remember about that part was Naruto ignoring it. But you just copied Sasuke and stayed happy with that.
The spar itself was the art of 'My body just moved of itself'. And ended with a grumpy Sasuke on the ground with you victorious.
You should find a way to practise sparring so you could actually consciously do it and not just move. But you had years of sparring practise in front of you. And by time, the teachers would probably teach you new moves and techniques.
Now it seemed like getting students used to fighting was the priorities for the teachers. Not exactly how most schools handled things, but you were ninja.
You didn't care much for the other fights. It was kind of pathetic, and your fight was probably the same too. But you were a bunch of children, the skill levels wouldn't be that high anyway. In a year or two, even the worst of you would be better than the strongest now.
After that, it was more lessons with Genma.
"Today we're going be sealing bigger stuff," he explained.
"What's the difference?" You asked trying to learn something and not just monkey see, monkey do.
"You require more chakra or more advanced seals if you want to store bigger more massive items."
That made sense. 'Why though?' was your question. Why couldn't you get a proper indebt explanation and not just an oversimplification for children?
"I heard your apology to Naruto didn't go so well, what happened?" He asked you.
Couldn't he just focus on the lesson?
"Nothing went wrong, he seemed to forgive me. That he wants to be my friend is not my problem," you replied.
"Don't you feel you need friends?" he asked.
"No," you grunted and starring him directly in the eyes. Hoping he would end this.
"Is anything bothering you?" He asked.
"There is a jounin that keeps on bothering me," you grunted even harder.
He looked a bit upset. Couldn't he just stop being a caring teacher and just teach. It was almost like he was keeping tabs on you. Though why would he do that? No, he was just nosy.
In the end, it was another easy lesson and you successfully managed to both seal and unseal the blunt kunai he had brought with him.
-x-
Then you had another date with that damn tree.
Life was going to get quite repetitive from here. You really needed a friend, but the only other person in your situation was Yagura, and you couldn't imagine you two being friends anytime soon.
And just because you were both adults trapped in a child's body didn't mean you had anything else in common. And you would grow up one day, he wouldn't.
You kind of wanted to save him somehow. He was not vital for the canon plotline to continue, so fair game and he'd be a valuable ally. The 4th war would probably need to happen to unite the five villages against a common enemy. But that could be done even if Obito never managed to collect all nine Jinchuuriki.
Obito should try Isekai himself into Pokemon, then he could catch monsters all day and no one would blame him for "Gonna Catch 'em All".
Days became weeks and weeks became a month.
And all the effort culminated in you running up the tree trunk with no issue. And as you were standing on top of the tall tree looking over the village you felt a sense of pride and accomplishment. But anyone else would just say it was just what they expected from a prodigy like you.
Genma had also promised you to start teaching you explosive seals tomorrow. It went too slow with him. But he had insisted on seeing you complete more copying exercises along with ensuring your storage seals was flawless before he let you near something more dangerous. It didn't help that he still refused to let you practise seals on your own. But at least you were allowed to do calligraphy, and you'd gotten surprisingly good at replicating all the symbols Genma had given you and you were becoming faster and faster.
The chore of each day began to be somewhat comforting, and seeing your improved skills made you happy. And you were just one month in. Still, calling you a prodigy was nothing more than an empty attempt to bloat your ego and bring everyone else down.
"Good work," came a voice from below.
Looking down you saw a familiar face with a comforting smile. A bit shorter hair than you were used to, but still unmistakably Itachi.
You didn't know how you feel about him. It was just two years till he'd kill his entire clan and leave his brother broken.
"Thanks," you replied. Itachi would probably understand you better, given his prodigy label. Though unlike yours, his reputation was actually deserved.
He leapt up the tree trunk beside you and it wasn't until now you saw him carrying two sticks of Dango, he handed one of them to you.
"Thanks, Itachi," you replied. "I'm starving."
"You're Sota, right. Do Sasuke talk about me?" he asked.
"We don't talk to each other" you stated.
"I'm surprised, he complains about you a lot."
"Oh," you said, taken by surprise.
"He tells me that you're beating him in everything," Itachi said.
"I'm just doing my best, I'm not trying to beat anyone," you said. Competing against young kids gave you no pleasure. Why did you have to start this young, rather than at a time where you could feel you belong more. Six years later would probably be nicer, you would still be an adult in a child's body, just a bit older child. Add to that fewer worries to worry about and fewer chances to mess things up.
Next to you was the catalyst for many future events. But you couldn't see the killer you associated with him. Only an adorable Itachi trying to make friends with you.
It was a friendship that could only last two years.
You gave him your smile. No reason to push away this one. He could probably give you some advice for the future too.
"Let us spar," he stated abruptly.
"Up here?" You questioned. It was a bit of a fall, but Itachi wouldn't have asked is it was dangerous.
He nodded and grinned towards you.
You didn't remember this part from Kakashi's tree walking exercise. But you took the challenge and let your body move you into a fighting stance and kept the focus on your grip.
But it didn't last long. And you didn't get a hit in, because the first thing Itachi did was to break off the branch you were standing on by pushing chakra to his feet till it broke.
Which meant you were now falling perhaps 10 meters down which would last you 1.4 seconds before you hit the ground.
And it didn't help that you were falling back first. There was no time to think only do. Turn around and brace yourself.
He would for sure step in in the last second to catch you. But if not, there was only one thing you could think about. Push as much chakra through your limbs and hope to dampen the fall.
It didn't help much. As you landed you tried to push off the ground with your arm, but it did nothing, and a crushing sound filled your ears along with immense pain in your arm. Along with the rest of your body.
It was first now that Itachi came to the rescue and pressed his hand against your head. One thing you were certain of was that you were grateful for how simple pain medication was in this world.
Though it wasn't getting rid of all pain, it did turn it from unbearable to manageable.
"Did you try to kill me?!" You raged at him.
"My Jounin-sensei did the same thing towards me when I first successfully managed to walk up a tree. And I was a bit worse off than just a broken arm and a sprained leg. Father was furious about it. But it's a good lesson in acting quickly in a tense situation, and to never fight on unsafe ground," Itachi explained and picked you up.
"I guess I'm going to thank you then Itachi-senpai. And since I'm an orphan you don't have to worry about my parents," you said and smiled at him.
He wasn't trying to harm you, just make you grow and impart the lesson onto you that was imparted onto him. It was a bit extreme but well-meaning.
As he was carrying you to the hospital, it was clear to you that you had made your first friend here. And perhaps you should nudge Itachi away from the path he was fated to follow.
AN: Thanks for reading. I know that second-person POV can be a bit unusual for many, so I'll hope you'll give it a chance.
If you like it, please let me know what you think about it in a review, I will really appreciate it.