you can tell a lot about a person from a game of truth or dare;
someone who chooses truth has nothing to hide,
and someone who chooses dare has nothing to lose.

- - -

When I had died I expected to finally be at peace; that I would be in some sort of peaceful place with my late grandparents and my first dog Shishi and my bastard of a cat Jackyl. I did not, at all, expect to be reborn into a new life in which I knew everything, and yet nothing, about.

At first, I hadn't thought much about being reborn and to be far at that point in time I hadn't really been aware of my surroundings. I had, faintly, understood that I had been reborn, I had known that my family was overly doting, I had known that we were either currently fighting a war or one was on the brink of starting or one had just ended, but I hadn't known much else.

Though my last name was never provided at that point in time, I had learned my name was Aoi. I also learned how disgusting it was to be an infant and I refused to take breast milk meaning my mother had to bottle it if I was hungry. This disgust led me to force myself to learn how to properly care for myself; by the age of one, I was toddling around and using the, admittedly old fashioned, washroom because the absolutely revolting feeling of soiling myself made me understand Stewie's hate of the world. 

I had also been doing my best to talk and read, re-learning how to do these things was easy, the only struggle coming from the new alphabet not being phonetic but something similar to Japan's Kanji, Katakana, and Hiragana. When my eyesight had become better at seven months of age I had started to understand, or I suppose I should say I was even more convinced, to my newfound whereabouts; I was in the Naruto world.

More specifically, I was from a clan of civilians known as the Haruno's but I wasn't in Naruto's peace-time. Perhaps it was due to the fact that the technology and clothing style was clearly taken straight from the Edo-period, or maybe it was due to the single carved head in the mountain face but I knew I was far off from what would eventually be Naruto's time of peace. I was hoping that I was alive during the sannin period, if all went well then maybe I would meet the sannin and help them. It had been, from my hazy memory surrounding Naruto, their lack of teamwork and bond that drove them away from one another. 

My discovery had left me shaken for a while, trying to come to terms with the life I had just been thrust into when not even a few months ago I had been scrolling through tik-tok, excitedly awaiting the next episode of WandaVision while reading through different theories. A child untouched by any sort of hardship other than a bit of drama; the usual high-school treatment and a father who had cheated and left me with a distant mother. In other words, it hit me that I was a normal child in a world of literal super-powered beings, and I could feel my hero-complex rearing its head.

It's the hero-complex that made me start to concentrate on the tenketsu points I knew existed from years of research and time spent in the Naruto fandom. It was funny to look back at things like that; time spent on things that seemed useless until one day they became useful. Granted I'm sure not everyone dies and is reborn into a world where they know the future of a child who wasn't even alive yet. 

From what I knew, children couldn't control or even feel their chakra before a certain age with the exception of a few children; Kakashi Hatake and Itachi Uchiha being the most notable examples. I, unfortunately, could feel the invasive power that was chakra; it was a foreign sort of thing like an ever-present weighted-blanket was wrapped around my body but instead of keeping me warm it just tripped me up and made me feel claustrophobic. Feeling it didn't mean it was easier to manipulate, focusing on it was easy of course, but moving it through the thin and still underdeveloped tenketsu of my body was extremely hard. Also, I literally had no clear memory of where the tenketsu points of the body were.

Doing my best to meditate and open them was the best thing I could do without drawing too much attention. But I discovered that even meditating with civilian parents was hard. Simply because if you did anything ninja-like they would immediately smirk and brag about how good, and quiet, and well-behaved their child was to others which brought eyes onto the child which was how people realized the child was manipulating chakra, which led to being marked as a child prodigy. Which is a big no thanks in my books, keep Danzo away from me even if ROOT hasn't started yet, or has it? I'm not entirely sure how the Naruto timeline works, it's really convoluted if I remember correctly.

Anyways, I was limited to meditating when I was supposed to be sleeping or whenever I was sure no one was around, so I could avoid prying eyes. This left me in bad moods and meant that I was constantly paranoid someone would find me in the middle of the night. Apparently, children actually need sleep to have a healthy brain, which was unfortunate because as a teenager I had spent hours awake into the night. 

When I was one-and-a-half, I finally manage to make three tenketsu open in each palm. It was a small amount but it was enough to allow me the ability to channel chakra to my hands, I was putting so much chakra into my hands that it started to glow creating an unending light source that would probably burn anything it touched. Amusedly I thought about how it looked like Iron Man's repulsors, and with that thought I was off, trying to dispel the chakra from my hands solidly. 

It was a failure, I was only able to heat my hands up to the point that it burned my own palms but, it was still progress.

It wasn't until I was two that I attempted to walk on trees and walls. I started with the trees that were located farther back from the house my family stayed in, blowing most of them to nothing but splinters as I trained as best I could. My family noticed the broken trees rather late, confused over the broken trees that scattered across the backyard, not a single one thought to question me. Not surprising considering I was a literal toddler who had no business blowing up trees. (no but seriously, my family was completely lax in keeping their eyes on me once I left the house to go play, it was almost worrying).

Other than training like mad I didn't really have any hobbies, and reading didn't count because I read in order to learn and study not to relax. There wasn't any time to relax in my eyes, I was literally in a war-zone, dodging mines until I could make it to clear ground.

The day my story, or the more interesting parts of it, begins like any other; it was hot on that day and the breeze is cool and gentle, rustling the dense leaves of the Hashirama tree that stood tall outside my bedroom window. The Hashirama trees that were scattered throughout Konoha were just as tall as they always were and children were laughing in the streets as they ran past our house or climbed up the trees, jumping across them like they are the ninja jumping along the rooftops on a secret mission.

That day my older sisters had managed to get me (read: force me) from our humble abode because they had wanted to go play at the park but had been stuck on babysitting duty. They were seven while I was two, going on three. Though they acted more like two-year-old's than I ever did. To be fair, it was normal for them to act like children, they aren't mentally mature like I was.

My middle sister, younger by twelve minutes Kure likes to remind us, is named Niko. She got all of her looks from our mother, dark green eyes that were a solid colour of the shadowed leaves of the trees that were indigenous to Konoha, solid because her eyes didn't contain pupils and her red hair was a shade lighter than raspberries. She was smart too, taking our mother's lessons to the heart and admiring her every move. Kure was similar looking to Niko, with her hair only a shade darker than Niko's and eyes the colour of the river as sunlight reflected through it, unlike Niko however, she had pupils in her eyes. She was also more muscular, training to work in construction as our father did. 

Both of them were incredibly extroverted, making friends at the drop of a hat and always happy to talk to people.

I'm the odd one out in the family, the youngest with pink hair and red eyes the colour of deep wine. My eyes were always a controversy among our family, my pink hair could be explained through Obaasan but my eyes couldn't be explained. Haruno's mostly had green eyes, a few blue ones here and there but never red. My father's family didn't have my eye colour either, I knew that for certain considering the fact that my father had been a Yamanaka.

It was odd, to say the least, but currently, it was the least of my problems. I pretended to listen to my older sister, Niko, as she rambles about what she is learning in civilian school, "...Culinary arts Aoi! You get to learn all the best dishes to cook for your future husband!" 

Oh, Edo-period sexism, how you weren't at all missed. Thankfully joining the shinobi academy was an option that was open to me and even if my parents protested I would sign up of my own volition. Death before dishonour and all that.

"Aoi look!" Niko coos into my ears, snapping me from my thoughts and into focus to look at where she's pointing; "That over there is Tsunade Senju, the Hokage's granddaughter! And the Hokage himself! You should totally go over there and try to be friends with her!"

I watched the toddler Senju princess as she played in the sand, glaring at the other kids who were seemingly trying to impress the girl with a variety of different tricks, all of them not meeting her standards. This point rubbed in when she began throwing sand and rocks at the other children, I frowned, turned to look Niko in the eyes, and spoke; "No thanks, I don't play with rude people."

Niko sputters at my words, before trying to reassure me that Tsunade probably won't throw anything at me while Kure smiled behind her hand at my overly blunt statement. I simply roll my eyes and observe the other children, over half are civilians while the others are from ninja clans but all of them are crowding around the Senju brothers.

Well, all apart from one.

Niko grabs for my hand, wanting to join the group surrounding the Hokage but I expertly dodge and move to where the child is sitting by himself. Kure laughs and herds Niko towards the group crowding the Senju's, assuring the younger girl that I would be fine. Kure has always trusted me when it comes to going off on my own, knowing that I wouldn't wander too far away or do anything dangerous.

I smiled to myself, waving quickly to both Niko and Kure before I bee-lined for the boy who was sitting alone. He was tossing a ball between himself and a tree.

That, I thought morosely, is a mood.

"Hey, you okay?"

He startled, forgetting his ball and wincing when it hit him in the face. I blinked in surprise, bringing a hand to my mouth to hide a grin as his face turned bright red, "I'm fine, uhm, just, no one wanted to play with me so..." He trailed off with a slight shrug, lifting the rubber ball in his hand as if to prove his story.

"I'd like to play with you, if you want," I said, watching the pink petals fall from the tree above us, "It'll stop hurting the tree if we played together."

"Hurting the tree?"

I hummed, sitting down and smiling secretly, "I think trees are just alive as we are, that's why the Hokage's mokuton is so powerful."

"Because the trees can fell?

"Because they can feel the Hokage's feelings."

"Okay," He said, smiling at me for the first time since I'd come over, "I won't hurt the tree anymore." He paused for a moment, moving the ball around in his hands before looking at me seriously, "But are you sure you want to hang out with me? It's just not a lot of people like me so hanging around me will probably lower your chances of making more friends."

"Why? Is it because you sorta look like a snake? Cause if that the case then you don't have to worry because I love snakes, and as for your clan," I grinned lazily and leant back, throwing a few cherry blossom petals into the air, "I'm from a civilian clan so I don't really care, in fact, let's forget about clans all together alright?" I looked at him as the petals fell lazily, frowning when I saw him looking uneasily at his rubber ball. With an internal sigh, I forced myself to my feet, turning I held out my hand to him, "I'm Aoi, by the way, now, let's go steal the sandbox."

The boy's eyes, a small smile overtaking his face and he took my hand; "My name is—"

- - -

AN: dun dun dun!!

This chapter has now been edited!! 

Not Aoi literally destroying trees all chapter long and then telling Orochimaru not to hurt the trees afterwards, hypocrite energy. 

Not sure what editing does to comments; maybe it'll just break Wattpad altogether? Wouldn't surprise me tbh.