Tag: naruto

Into Thin Air x Naruto drabble (2015-05-27)

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Spiky blonde hair and bright blue eyes?

Well, zie can’t deny it–the kid would be a shoe-in for Nibelheim’s most infamous siblings. And vice versa apparently.

Hir grasp of the Wutaian language is shaky to passable; on top of that, what the people speak here isn’t quite the same. More like a distant relative. Or descendant.

The kid is staring at hir with wide hopeful eyes, somehow more painfully earnest than hir brother during his most naive moments. He hasn’t looked away from hir since he and his team entered the room.

It’s fair, since zie keeps hir own gaze darting around, only briefly landing on him before moving on.

The old man next to hir plays at being feeble and soft, but zie knows better. Zie would be defeated quite soundly if it came to it. And that’s not including the two hidden guards, or the silver-haired man slouching against the wall.

Zie tries not to shudder in apprehension. It’s the same color as General Sephiroth’s hair, though far more unruly. He might be a clone. Zie can’t tell, due to the mask and strange slanted headband. It wouldn’t be a surprise, considering the Strife look alike.

Perhaps this is all a hallucination, or a fever dream. Aren’t dreams supposed to take faces and images from real life?

The stoic black haired boy might as well be a young Vincent in blue instead of red.

But that wouldn’t make any sense. Because as far as zie remembers, zie’s dead. Dead dead dead dead dead.

And not ever coming back.

That’s what happens when you get stabbed through the heart by a sword taller than you.

But…

No. Dead.

But zie did die in the Forgotten Capital of the Ancients. In place of the Last Ancient. Surely…

The old man says something to the kid, which somehow makes his stare even more intense. The lone visible eye of the masked clone widens slightly.

So something… significant, but not dangerous. The pink-haired girl, at least, hasn’t given hir more than a passing glance. A mildly shocked look, before fading away into polite disinterest.

The old man then says something to hir. Which zie doesn’t understand why, considering they’ve already hit up against a serious language barrier.

But he writes down something, and while the oral language is an effort in futility, the written language at least is comprehensible.

Name.

He passes the pen over to hir, a prompt for hir to answer.

There is no reason to lie. So zie doesn’t.

Namikaze, zie learned long ago, is written with the kanji for waves and wind. But a more poetic interpretation of the name is strife. It’s easy enough to remember, and convenient, as it encompasses hir full born name.

Namikaze, zie later learns, is the name of a dead hero.

A hero with spiky blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

~

A/N: Yet another terrible crossover with and OC. This time, my genderfluid twin sibling of Cloud Strife, aka Windy Strife aka Winter the Turk aka many other things, wakes up in the world of Naruto after hir death (which… spoilers?… I was going to have hir die trying to protect Aerith from Sephiroth).

I don’t really have a cohesive outline/plot for this. It was a random idea I had when I was at work and then I had to wait until I got home to type it out so it’s a bit haphazard than I would normally do.

Don’t think I’m going to continue this, anyway, since the whole language barrier thing would get really annoying and unwieldy pretty early in.

Word Prompts (N16): Numbers

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This exam is a farce. She knows it, Anko-senpai knows it, even the Hokage knows it. But she still has to participate anyway.

Standing amongst the other victors of the preliminaries is so strange. All of them lined up on the arena floor, as if they were all equals. As if she weren’t superior to them.

She’s proud of her chuunin rank, and it grates to be considered a talented genin instead. On the other hand, it’s ridiculously amusing that her two bunshin teammates are also standing in the line. As if they were as human as the rest.

Anko-senpai offers the box full of papers for the final tournament, a sly smile curling on her lips. Normally Tetsuki, the Tetsuki of Konoha, would make a silly face back perhaps stick out her tongue because she is a coworker and a junior and a friend; confident in her place. But here and now she is Tetsuki of Kumo, a genin from an enemy land, whose confidence would be nothing more than bravado when faced with a Konoha jounin.

So Tetsuki bares her teeth. Next to her, her bunshin teammates react accordingly. Hibari-senpai’s stoicism doesn’t waver, but Ryohei’s smile edges just that little bit towards manic.

The papers are altered tags which can change their content however it pleases the holder of the box. In this case, Anko-senpai.

Tetsuki of Konoha trusts her. Anko-senpai wouldn’t make her suffer through this cover for an additional month if it weren’t for a good reason.

But the Tetsuki of Kumo doesn’t know that. She looks at the numbers, at the match-ups, and sees how her two teammates are paired off against each other. All the better to reduce Kumo’s odds of promotion, no doubt. Tetsuki of Konoha knows that it’s really to keep her bunshin’s strength in reserve, but that is not her right now. And so she can only glare balefully at the Konoha jounin around her. Can only turn away from the Konoha genin, especially the one that looks too chillingly like the nightmare fodder of Yellow Flash, and walk away.

~

A/N: I DID NOT KNOW I WAS PAST MIDNIGHT. HAVE THIS TINY-ASS DRABBLE OF EXTERNALITY. And, remember, kids, Externality is a SI!OC from my KHR fic Trailblazers reincarnated into the Naruto universe.

Externality drabble (2015-03-26)

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When creating her cover identities, it’s easy to build from memories. Those half-remembered dreams of a place that doesn’t exist; of people she’s never met during a time that never happened.

(Don’t build from memory. It’s dangerous.

Does it matter if they’re not real memories?)

Appearances are easy. She (didn’t) spend over a decade looking at their faces, listening to them speak, watching them move. So are personalities. She (doesn’t) know their dispositions inside out, what they fight for and how they do so.

She gets some details muddled– How old were they when they got this scar? Did they always cartwheel into battle, or only during spars? And she is forced to improvise, in order to adapt them to her new world.  but her creations are unmistakably them. No one else but her know the originals, and so there is no one to point out any mistakes.

They all wear black, because it never made any sense to her for ninja not to wear black, but that doesn’t mean they wear all black. Fashion is different in this world, because fighting is different in this world, but she tries to stay true nonetheless. And each of them have pops of color, just a little reference to their heritage and the fires that once burned within.

When she makes them, it rings hollow in her chest. She misses them, but what she builds aren’t really them. Just empty reflections of a past life.

~

A/N: So… I may have missed the deadline because I was creating online dolls of various characters and well, when I realized what time it was I guess my brain was still in that mode. An Externality drabble! It’s so vague though that it really could be anything, I guess. But in less annoyingly vague terms: Tetsuki, a double SI!OC in the Naruto world creates “cover identities” from her past SI!OC life in the KHR world.

Uzu no Kuni brainstorm (2015-03-17)

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Headcanon brainstoming on Uzu no Kuni, aka Land of Whirlpools, aka home of Uzushiogakure.

I like to imagine that Uzu no Kuni is a series of islands with the largest one being the one where the village is. Additionally, I like to consider there being volcanos, because many island nations in the real world are made out of volcanic activity. It would explain Terumi Mei’s lava-jutsu, since Mizu no Kuni is also a series of (far larger) islands. Also, that due to the naturally bright hair color of the Uzumaki, at least, that maybe the islands are tropical and the people also sort of evolved to be colorful like the rest of the surrounding flora/fauna.

Obviously, the Uzumaki were a significant clan both in the village and in the country. But I think there was more to it–doesn’t there have to be? To that end, maybe the other islands of Uzu no Kuni are much smaller than the main one and maybe they keep them hidden behind seals. Perhaps each clan was in charge of a different island, with the Uzumaki island being the largest and most influential, it would become both the capitol and the ninja center–unlike the other nations in which the capitol for civilians and the shinobi hidden villages were separate, in Uzu they were one in the same. Whereas most other countries (or perhaps, not, we do only hear the origin story of Konoha) were clans banding together as martial alliances… I’m thinking that Uzushio was formed more as a university of sorts. A metropolis where all of the different clans could interact.

Which leaves an opening for what the other islands are doing and who they are controlled by. I’ll be honest, mostly this is a way to fit in cameos from other media:
edit: The seven islands of Uzushio are named things like destiny and amity and prosperity, but for the most part they are called by the names of the ruling clan. 
Unmei Island = Destiny Island = Kingdom Hearts, anyone?
Hamaguri Island = Clam Island = Katekyo Hitman Reborn
etc. etc.

Mostly because the reason why the other nations went after Uzushio wasn’t just because they were allied with Konoha but because they were too powerful. And while the Uzumaki longevity/chakra weapons/sealing is interesting, strictly put… longevity isn’t so much a threat, really. Chakra weapons didn’t seem like a bloodlimit per se, and sealing can be taught. So there must have been other things that made Uzushio a threat. Say, a clan of people whose fire actually can melt Mizu’s Yuki clan’s Hyoton? A clan whose swords can change and do jutsu in contrast to Mizu’s Seven Swordsmen? I DON’T KNOW. The possibilities are endless.

~

A/N: Just some short headcanon brainstorming for Uzushio. BECAUSE THEY DESERVE BETTER.

(In)Difference drabble (2015-03-12)

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She makes plans, has arrangements waiting in the wings, to leave. But she holds, because she doesn’t want to do so in the dark night, like a secret. She’s not running away, fleeing like a criminal, like prey, but it is leaving. She lets her friends know, murmurs it to them in between snippets of normal conversation. She states her intentions, because she is not going to be convinced otherwise. But there is one person whose blessing she needs, whose word would make her postpone but not completely forgo her plans.

Her eldest son is six years old, a child still, but with knives in his hands and an even more dangerous mind. Technically, with that stamped metal plate tied around his head, he’s a soldier and so an adult. But he’s just a boy, and while she knows he can do amazing things without her, she’s not just going to abandon her son.

The twins are only two, too young to fully understand, and though it breaks her heart, they may not even remember her (but their eyes gleam with that same cognizant genius that allowed her eldest to skip years ahead of the pack). Her eldest, though, he may see her leaving as betrayal, as her picking his newest baby sibling over him.

She goes down on her knees before him. Ostensibly to put them at similar eye levels, but it feels almost supplicant. They are at home, at the house so large and protected, like an empty shell; they can speak freely because no one is there to eavesdrop. She is sometimes struck with the thought that she tried to fill it with children, only to have doomed them to rattling around this prison with her.

But her eldest darling boy understands too well, has tried to do the same with pups of every breed. He listens and, after a tense silence, acquiesces. He is envious, but he knows it is too late for him and for the twins.

It is the last time they see each other for a decade.

A caravan of civilians are making their way out of Konoha, among their number is a black-haired woman breast-feeding a similarly black-haired baby. In the comfort of their own home, the gate guards are lax and as squeamish as any single man–they do not look at her closely; and anyway, two groups behind the caravan is the Sannin Tsunade, scowl on her pretty face and as frightening as ever.

The Yondaime Hokage is told that his wife and unborn child died during labor. He hasn’t seen her in three weeks, so accepts it as true.

~
A/N: Geez, why do I keep wanting to write the end of (In)Difference? This is some serious terrible marriage shit, why am I doing this to Sakumo? He’s supposed to be a nice person, right? Oh, yeah, context: in (In)Difference, OC is Kakashi’s mother and makes it so that Sakumo chooses the mission over his teammates… meaning he doesn’t commit suicide and eventually leading to him being the Yondaime right before the Third(? Second? Whichever one Kakashi is alive for) Shinobi World War.

A Year With The Moon brainstorm (2015-03-11)

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I love brainstorming. It’s one of my pitfalls as a writer because I can world-build and outline but as soon as I need to start on prose I just… can’t. It’s part of the reason why I made this blog.

Usually a stray thought just develops into a gargantuan potential plot–practically a mental storyboard of certain scenes I would want to write, certain imagery that I would want to describe. But for some reason there are a few, I guess, “prompts” that I would really like to run off and play with but just aren’t inspiring anything beyond a desire to do something with it. So what follows is literally me just rambling about the ideas, hoping that in the process I’ll shake something out.

1) A Year With The Moon – Satoshi and Satsuki
While I have sort of hinted at using this in my Naruto fanfiction, (In)Difference–as my OC’s middle children, Kakashi’s younger brother and sister respectively, I don’t actually know if that’s a route I want to go down… and even so, I haven’t developed them enough to be anything but faceless sibling stand-ins.

I’ll be honest, I’m kind of doing this for the pun. I mean, Satoshi and Satsuki? A Year With The Moon? Like… that’s totally the title of whatever I’m going to write, but I don’t actually know. Do I want it to be an (In)Difference spinoff/sequel? Do I want it to be an SI!twin!OC for the Pokemon cartoon series? I don’t really know what else to do with it… the only other Satsuki I know is Momoi Satsuki from Kuroko no Basket… and, well… unless I want to make a basketball playing Satoshi and somehow insert him into the series… but that series really is very much so Kuroko’s story… so it wouldn’t be much of a difference.

Anyway. Either (In)Difference spinoff/sequel or twin!SI!OC for Pokemon. Either way, I think the Satoshis of both would be similar, as well as the Satsukis. Hm… while I’m not too keen on the binary “one twin is this while the other is this” I do think Satoshi would be the more… average of the two. Even strictly appearance-wise, Satoshi has black hair and brown eyes. And Satoshi doesn’t have genius-level intellect, but he has heart and instincts and, apparently, aura powers? For everyday things, Satoshi is kind of hopeless or inferior to his sister–he’s not as smart or as skilled–but he works miracles under pressure.

In contrast, Satsuki is visually striking–in (In)Difference, she’d have the Hatake silver hair, but maybe it translates to something different the Pokemon universe. Or maybe it doesn’t–silver hair in young people is a real world phenomena too. Wait a second… I think I’ve written something like this before. Here it is. So maybe she does keep silver hair in the Pokemon universe too. Hm… as for her Pokemon starter… I’m thinking either a Sandshrew or a Vulpix.

Ability-wise, she is better than her brother more often than not, but it’s the kind of ability that’s… static. She doesn’t get better when there’s pressure, her skill level remains the same regardless of situation. Obviously she’s not stagnant, she grows and develops and improves, but when it comes to crises–if she’s not up to par, then she’s just not up to par. She’ll most likely still fight, of course, but she kind of accepts that she’ll fail and it’s more of a stall for time or a go out swinging sort of fight. And then her brother somehow pulls out a win from nowhere, which she’s usually okay with.

Personality, hm… this is what I’m having difficulty with, which is I guess part of the reason why this plot-bunny isn’t developing as quickly as they usually do. She’s not a strait-laced monotonous robot, she’s not just a female version of her brother. She’s more sarcastic and pessimistic but she’s still playful–she’ll tease, she’ll compete, she’ll make mistakes, she’ll be afraid. It’s just that I can’t quite think of specific scenarios to toss her in to elicit such reactions.

… I think… if I were to write this (In)Difference spinoff with the twins. It would be when they’re adults (or at least chuunin) already. Then again, considering their older brother Kakashi made chuunin at like… eight, that’s not saying much. But I’m thinking… well… they’re OC’s living in a universe after an SI!OC has already made significant changes to the Naruto universe. Whether or not they themselves are also SI!OC’s or just regular OC’s means that there are a lot of ways to present the changes. Given how (In)Difference may end, the twins get a mission (whether official or not) to find Utsugi Kiyoshi, aka Hatake Kiyoshi, aka their mother. Either their younger sister Shizuka (who their mother took away from Konoha and named Utsugi) is the client, or the twins receive a letter from their mother talking about changes or… either Nawaki or Orochimaru, whose lives Kiyoshi had changed irrevocably and who are the only two who know about her “prophecies,” are being confronted with something that they need her knowledge… or their father, Sakumo, the Yondaime realizes that his wife has been gone for a decade and he should probably make efforts to find her. Something.

So the twins try to track her down, but a lot of it is them interviewing the various people she changed and hinting at the various repercussions of her meddling. Maybe Kiyoshi has been hiding out in Rain this entire time in order to head off the Akatsuki, or is skulking around trying to find and destroy Madara… I don’t know.

(Next time on strange brainstorming ideas:

Just Harry… An HPxNarnia crossover/fusion featuring Harry the Just. Hermione the Magnificent. Ronald the Valiant. Neville the Gentle.

And Rowan(/Bromley/Branton) Evans, brother to Petunia and Lily Evans, uncle to Harry Potter. And mafioso. An HPxKHR crossover/fusion featuring the Ministry Six plus surprise Hogwarts student as the newest generation of Flame users in organized crime.)

~

A/N: I was going to do all three ideas… and it was going to be a recorded ramble. But midnight deadline so… I really am not that fond of putting my streams of consciousness brainstorming here… I usually put it on my lj, but this is what I was working on all day and I didn’t want to put nothing.

Externality drabble (2015-03-06)

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When it comes to cover identities, sometimes less information is more. While creating full-proof backstories might seem like a good idea, it’s usually leads to contradicting details which ultimately give you away. Instead, just don’t say anything. People will make assumptions, and it’s better to be vaguely incorrect than specifically. Also people acknowledge that it’s natural to have secrets, they may not like it but they’ll accept it.

–

It’s about thirty minutes before the official end of the survival part of the exam that she realizes she needs a jounin-sensei in order to keep her cover as a genin. And not just any jounin-sensei, a Kumo jounin.

It’s widely known that jounin, no matter the country, are the elite, practically deities in comparison to chuunin. But it’s also acknowledged that they are batshit insane. Even the most mild of jounin would be considered quirky; eccentricity seems to be part and parcel for strength.

But Kumo ninja are known for their… boldness. All Kumo ninja have a certain confidence and swagger, regardless of ability. But while usually it’s all hot air, their jounin actually have the skills to back up their ego. It’s a little frightening, but more frustrating, to be honest.

And suddenly, she knows exactly what to do.

She pops another soldier pill, replenishes her chakra supply, and gets to work making another kata kage bunshin. Luckily, her bunshin teammates are taijutsu specialists, so they still have enough chakra to keep themselves running, but the person she has in mind for her jounin sensei requires more. He has to give the feeling of a jounin level strength, even if she doesn’t have the skills to back it up–he’s got to be able to fake it or at least intimidate people enough not to risk checking.

The bunshin she makes is like obsidian, everything about him is dark and sharp, beautiful but dangerous. In comparison to Kakashi-sensei who looks like he just woke up from a nap, mussed hair and clothes; her bunshin sensei’s uniform sits neatly on his shoulders, the creases picture perfect, his hair  spikes angled to make his silhouette all the more intimidating.

He’s perfect. Annoyingly so, which means she can’t help but scowl when Anko-senpai’s reaction to his flirting is to blush outrageously.

~

A/N: Ugh, I would like to write other stuff already… go away bunny, go away. Again, Externality is a spinoff/sequel to Trailblazers. Meaning that the jounin sensei she made is supposedly Reborn.

Externality drabble (2015-03-05)

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There are times when a operation develops into something larger and more complex than what you expected when you first began. The key is not to panic. Panicking will not only blow your cover, it’ll waste time and you may end up missing valuable opportunities. Such as strengthening your cover, or even turning a potential enemy into an ally.

–

She knows she literally did this to herself, but she’s glad that this hell of a week is almost over. At least, she’s glad until her emergency radio, which had been silent for the past four days, suddenly bursts into noise and activity. Considering the only person who is supposed to be on her frequency is Anko-senpai, the fact that it’s very distinctly not her voice is worrying. That it’s ANBU, who are taught covert sign language to minimize the need for talking, is even more worrying. And that’s not even including what’s being said.

Orochimaru is back in Konoha? Fucking shit.

She can’t contribute much, not with ANBU already on the case. And to be honest? She doesn’t really want to–she’s a chuunin, she doesn’t stand a chance against an S-class nin, much less that particular S-class nin. So it’s for the best that she’s told to continue with her current orders. Patrolling around the tower in Taining Ground 44 to bully teams of genin isn’t exactly at the top of her favorite activities, but in comparison to that clusterfuck? It’s practically a picnic.

So she contentedly, if not cheerily, proceeds to do the same thing she’s been doing for the past four days. She picks off a Kusa team and one of the weaker Konoha teams, trying hard not to be smug at how they’re older than she is, and takes their scrolls and most of their supplies. A Heaven from the Kusa team and an Earth from the Konoha team, giving her a total of three of the former and four of the latter. Considering she wasn’t actually given either kind of scroll, not being a true participant of the exams, she thinks she should be proud. Sure, they’re genin and she’s a chuunin. But if three chuunin-hopefuls can’t handle a single chuunin (and, okay, her two kage bunshin “teammates”) then do they really deserve to be chuunin? No.

After that, she sees an unconscious team of idiots who opened their scroll outside the tower, tags them for pick up, and again steals most of their supplies. It’s not like she needs it–Anko-senpai has occasionally bringing her meals and equipment, and she’s not sure what she’s going to do with 57 extra kunai, 34 extra shuriken, and 12 senbon (especially since one of her favorite moves from her repertoire is to electromagnetically fling all metal objects away from herself)–but it’s fun. And a passive aggressive way of taking out her frustration at her self-imposed situation on morons who can’t follow simple instructions.

It’s eighteen hours after the initial radio chatter on the Orochimaru situation, five of those which were spent sleeping (luckily her bunshin “teammates” don’t have to sleep), when Anko-senpai comes to see her in person. And it’s not good. Of course she knows that Anko-senpai has terrible history with Orochimaru, having been his apprentice and first guinea pig (or at least, first successful guinea pig), but she can hardly imagine what this must feel like for her. Beyond fucking terrible, that is. But what makes her wary is that Anko-senpai doesn’t look mad, she looks kind of apologetic.

And then, of course she gets told that her one week Kumo genin cover has to be extended for another month until the finals. It’s already the fifth day, which means, if she wants to pass like all the actual genin exam takers are doing, then she has to get into the tower today. She has more than enough scrolls, that isn’t the problem, but it’ll weird to explain to the genin she let through on why she decided to suffer for an additional four days outside the tower when she could’ve “passed” on the first day.

Luckily, Kumo has a reputation for being over the top and scorning the “bloated weakness of Leaf trash,” she says with a smirk as her bunshin teammates reveal all eight of her scrolls. One of her bunshin tacks on that herbivores deserve to be bitten to death, and the Inuzuka practically bristles at that. She’s secretly enjoying how the Konoha nin scowl at the words–Anko-senpai’s sadistic tendencies must be rubbing off on her.

But what’s most interesting is how the Suna kunoichi approaches her. Considering the Konoha-Suna alliance, and Konoha’s not-so-secret cold war with Kumo the Suna kunoichi–especially the Kazekage’s daughter–should know better than to make such a political misstep. It could just be an overture of friendship between the two kunoichi participants who don’t act like they’re on a team merely to fill a gender quota. Time will tell. She’s got another month to figure it out.

~

A/N: Another Externality drabble! Uh… so… it’s a double SI!OC, in that Externality is sort of the sequel/spin-off of Trailblazers. So Tetsuki originally is an OC from a KHR fic, who becomes the Lightning Guardian instead of Lambo, eventually dies and is reborn (hahaha) into the Naruto world. But Naruto is a manga in the KHR world so she knows what’s going on a little.

Uh, her “specialty” is to “create” incredibly complex “cover identities” which is actually just her friends/fellow Guardians from the KHR world. And she may have learned how to do kage bunshin from Naruto (though she can only do three max).

Externality drabble (2015-03-02)

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Except for the international Chuunin Exams, which is more of a pageant than a test, promotions are done differently in each village. In Konoha, it’s at the discretion of the certain key individuals–the Hokage, rank commanders and captains, and heads of departments. Of course, field promotions can be done by anyone of superior rank, but those always have to be justified later on to stick.

Konoha, in a position of power and a great many resources, has the luxury of adding a little… pageantry to their own promotions. Even the ANBU are not above their own little ceremonies, though theirs involve a little more cloak and dagger–literally. It’s not such a surprise that different departments have unique methods of internal promotions. The laziest–or they would argue, the most efficient–department is Torture & Interrogation.

To be fair, they’re already in charge of putting on the spectacle that is the international Chuunin Exam. That on top of their actual job of maintaining Konoha’s information network– via espionage, counter-espionage, and good old-fashion data collection–is a lot of work. They don’t have the time or resources to plan parties and initiations… but they are rather fond of mind games and it’s a good opportunity.

Just like how there’s an increase in skill between genin and chuunin, the difference between chuunin and tokubetsu jounin is distinct. It’s why the Chuunin Exams are unofficially and secretly considered to be the Tokubetsu Jounin Trial.

It’s how Morino Ibiki and Mitarashi Anko got their rank. It’s how she’ll be promoted, too. Well, it’s a littler more complicated than that.

~

A/N: I did want to continue, buuuuuut deadline. So, here’s a little preview, I may go back to it eventually. The context is particularly headache inducing, so I won’t get into it here. If you want to wade through it, you can check it out at my livejournal here. It should be under Externality.

(In)Difference drabble (2015-03-01) [2]

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When it comes to our clan’s heritage, there’s a disparity in what we tell people and what we keep to ourselves. Father claims we share ancestry with the Hyuuga (brags it more like). Superficially it passes muster–we share the same basic coloring of black hair, pale skin and eyes. But while our eyesight is sharp, it’s still within baseline human ability–we have nothing on the Hyuuga or even the Uchiha. It still helps with our archery techniques, though–which is yet another thing which sets us apart from our supposed cousins who use mostly close range taijutsu.

But our clan’s skills, like our keen eyes, straddle the line between the truth of our ancestry and the falsehood of our Hyuuga relations. While most people know of the Byakugan, there’s more to the Hyuuga blood limit than that. Jyuuken, their family taijutsu style, relies on the blocking of an opponent’s tenketsu. This is done by making one’s own chakra an almost solid plug–chakra is energy, it dissipates in most circumstances. Unless you are a Hyuuga. But our clan’s archery doesn’t need physical arrows because we make them out of our chakra. Just like the Hyuuga, Father attributes, in the rare occasions it comes up.

For the most part, when Father says we’re distantly related to the Hyuuga, everyone knows it’s a lie–which makes it harmless and a good cover that no one bothers to crack. In everything, Father tells the truth, unless a lie is necessary. Father is the clan head. The lie is necessary.

There is an art to teaching children of our clan’s true heritage. We are never told outrightly, not when the walls have ears, not in this political climate, but by the time we are of training age we know. Those born to our clan develop an extra sense, one which we are encouraged to keep quiet, to keep hidden. The sense isn’t flashy, as invisible as the magnetic fields it corresponds to. But sometimes we slip, children do not always know what is secret and what is normal.

We master cardinal directions as children before figuring out the idea of left and right. We claim that it makes communication more precise, that we are simply maintaining our family’s reputation as excellent navigators. Even as children we can always find our way Home, regardless of where in the village we are. Our clan buys property in the north part of Konoha for a reason.

It’s the arrows that gives it away to a close observer. They are made from chakra, yes, but not pure chakra like the Hyuuga use. This is our secret: our arrows are Lightning natured chakra wrapped in Wind natured chakra. The latter is not a secret, there is no harm in Wind affinity–the Sarutobi family occasionally has natural Wind affinity, and one of them is the Hokage.

It’s the former which we hide, careful and unspoken; we try not to bring much attention to ourselves and our techniques even less so. But when we do, when that attention is on us, we mimic what Father says: the Hyuuga, we’re just like them. And we fall back into obscurity soon enough–we are a minor clan trying to ride the coattails of a Noble clan, one of the oldest stories in the book. Boring, predictable, obvious.

Except for how it’s a lie.

~

A/N: Ugh, it’s all over the place. I’ll post this for now so it’s technically still 0301, but I think I’ll edit it a bit in the future so it flows better. Obviously Naruto fanfiction, probably in the (In)Difference ‘verse featuring Kiyoshi Utsugi.

But basically, the Utsugi family naturally has Lightning (and Wind) affinities which is heavily implied to be because they are from the Fire-Lightning border. And it’s greatly encouraged to keep it a secret due to the whole… anti Lightning country thing. Their Lightning affinity is so ingrained that they’re practically walking electromagnets.