Sugira wakes up groggy and sore. And not in a good, post-night-of-fun way. More like a 'got the shit beat out of him' way.

Except he hasn't seriously, no-holds-barred, fought anyone in years, and he hasn't even sparred this week. Was there a raid he forgot - but he should still be on parental leave -

There's wood, smooth, pressing into his cheeks, and he forces his eyes open. His vision's clear, and the night seems well illuminated.

...His limbs are short. What the hell? Was he undercover as a kid? Sugira pushes himself up, doesn't activate his ring to return his apparent age to normal quite yet, and looks around -

What. What the fuck why are there bodies -

Two. Killed with a bladed weapon. Likely a sword. Someone standing behind them. The person was right handed, short. A teenager at most, likely a preteen, Sugira analyzes, fading into professional mode. The two bodies show no signs of regenerating, so they don't have Phoenix…

He shouldn't touch the bodies. He's not crime scene. He'll need to give a report on this, though, and being on the witness end always sucks -

He looks around, notes the blood splatter - they likely died fast - and no signs of struggle.

Sugira takes a deep breath, and reaches for his mental connections to Mu-Shita and Ishara, which he really should have done earlier -

Nothing.

His connections to both women are blank.

He gropes at his hand, and - he doesn't have a ring on, doesn't have any jewelry on, can't summon the interface for making new rings -

The fuck is going on?

...And if he doesn't have his rings, doesn't have his invulnerability, he should not be hanging around a recent crime scene.

He slinks out through the doors, glancing around, but hears no one. Just wind, distantly. The settling of an old house. There's no sign of the killer.

Sugira… Doesn't quite know what to do here. He can't contact anyone, not even the emergency telepathic channels the city maintains. He's in a child's body for some goddess-forsaken reason, at the site of murders -

No.

A massacre.

He steps onto the street, and sees death like he hasn't since he was on Ur-Namush's trail. The woman had destroyed entire towns and all those in them, except the children…

Did someone cast an illusion over him, to give him the perspective of one of her survivors? Did Inanna do something? He knows he's adjacent to people who've caught the goddess's attention, it's not unreasonable she decided to make a story of him -

He needs to secure his own safety. He's a witness, even if only to some sick fuck's idea of an illusion. He needs to contact allies - he doesn't know who allies would be here, but he'll assume anyone unarmed is a potential -

First: does he have any powers left? His ring powers - teleportation, speed, invulnerability, telepathy, extraordinary senses, his damage capabilities - are gone, but he started with basic magical talent and clawed his way up to one of the more powerful mages on his planet -

He rubs his fingers together… And discovers he still has his cantrips slotted in his head. Nothing else, and no signs of a spellbook. Inanna fucking damn it.

He's really not used to listening without the benefit of enhanced senses and cognition, but he does his best to figure out how to get out of the compound without stepping in any blood (difficult) and without drawing attention. He can hear no one, see no signs of the attacker, and the bodies are rapidly cooling.

Sugira reaches a set of gates, swinging open in the wind, takes a deep breath, and darts through. There's a road, and -

Distantly, lights through the trees. Artificial ones.

He breaks into a run.

He's not quite at the town (electric lights and buildings of stone, brick, and clay, backing onto an exposed cliffside with four faces carved into it) when two figures swing down into his path. They're wearing matched sets of body armor in dark, muted colors and white masks that cover their faces, one shaped vaguely like a dog and one reminiscent of a horse.

Horse holds up a hand to stop him. "Whoa there, little Uchiha. What are you running from?"

He skids to a stop. He's not even having to pretend to be wary and kind of panicked (and startled at them appearing, holy shit he'd forgotten how bad baseline senses are).

"There's bodies. A massacre."

Also 'little Uchiha' - that sounds like a name. Kind of weirdly like that one boyfriend of his mom's. Implies - he's in media res? There's a backstory to this? He can dissect this later, but for now he'll lean towards 'he shouldn't start claiming to be someone other than who they think he is.'

"A massacre?" Horse repeats. Dog's head tilts, and he flashes some sign language at Horse. "In the compound?"

"Yes. I didn't see anyone alive. Blood was wet." A kid also shouldn't be able to estimate how long ago it was, unfortunately...

He's hoping they're on his side. They're acting kind of like it, at least.

Horse signs something to Dog, and Dog vanishes, too fast for the eye to follow.

"Come with me, little Uchiha. I'll take you somewhere safe."

Well if he tries to run the speedster just proved he won't be able to. Stupid baseline body.

He nods, slowly.

Horse escorts him into town. The streets are almost deserted at this time of night, and the few people that are out take one glance at the mask and steer well clear. They come to a round building painted red at the center of town, right at the base of the cliff. Horse takes him around to a side door that's almost but not quite hidden and slaps the side of the frame. Tiny, incomprehensible scribblings fan out across the door then disappear, and it swings open. Inside is a hallway such as might be found in any office building. Horse steers him to the right and down a set of stairs, and then into a small, plain room with two metal chairs on either side of a square table and one lonely light fixture overhead.

"Have a seat, kid," Horse suggests. "Do you want something to drink?"

He sits.

Possible interrogation room, great. Hopefully just being repurposed as a panic room, or he's misinterpreting it and it's the universe's most depressing office break room.

He'd almost prefer it be an interrogation room. The Empire basically doesn't have depressing office break rooms, and you can usually judge how reasonable a place to live a frontier planet is by its workers' amenities.

He shakes his head. He's not thirsty, and he's also not stupid enough to willingly put possible drugs in his system. "Not now..." he says, quietly.

"All right. You sit tight and just take it easy, okay? I'll be back in a bit, I'm just going to tell some people we picked you up."

"Alright."

Horse exits the room and clicks the door shut behind him.

He doesn't see any obvious cameras but that obviously doesn't mean he's not being observed. Scrying is common, after all - at least where he's from, he didn't notice rings on the two masked men.

He makes a point of evening out his breathing, and mostly just... Thinks. Head down, so it's plausible he's hiding some kind of strong emotional reaction.

They're acting like he's familiar. Like he's a charge. 'Little Uchiha' - not the only one of the Uchiha family. Was the massacred - compound? - the Uchiha?

...He hadn't really paid attention to people's faces. Hadn't checked if they were anyone he actually knows. At least... At least he's a kid, and his younger siblings and own kids can't have been among them without breaking the logic of this place. And... He's increasingly assuming Inanna is behind this. Horror stories usually aren't her style. 'Tragic backstory to the dark and mysterious love interest' might be, which, ugh.

To the masked men - they communicated in sign. Didn't emote much. A cultural tendency away from strong expressions of emotion? Matches with the masks. Sign... Something he wasn't expected to know. Looked more like field-codes than a full signed language. They're used to communicating silently, and were able to follow each other's motions even in the dark. The people on the street studiously ignored them. Secret police of some kind? Worrying, that.

There's more, but... He really only has scraps, for now. Their armor wasn't blatantly magical, he hasn't seen signs of common magic amenities. People are mostly inside at night. A curfew? He's more used to places this size having significant nightlife, given that a decent chunk of the population doesn't need sleep anyways.

It's perhaps twenty minutes before the door opens again, this time admitting a tall, blond man with his hair tied back in a ponytail.

"Sasuke?" He says. "Do you remember me? I'm Yamanaka Inoichi, Ino's dad."

...Sasuke is kind of close to Sugira if he squints.

"Not really well," he says, figuring that's the best middle ground.

Inoichi sits down in the other chair, posture open and friendly.

"The Anbu said he found you on the road outside the compound, running away. Do you remember that?"

"Yeah..."

Quiet and not volunteering information is reasonable traumatized kid, even if it rankles a bit to not be reporting properly.

But- "There were bodies. In the compound."

"How many did you see?"

"A lot. I didn't count, or look at the faces. Two in the room I woke up in." No hiding that, probably. He suspects they'll be able to track his scent around. "The house was at the back, so..."

"'Woke up'? You were unconscious?"

"I woke up in a room. I don't know how I got there. I was sore. Face down on the floor. There were two bodies. I couldn't see their faces. I left the house, and there were more, and... I didn't see anyone alive until the Anbu."

"Sasuke... That was your house. Those were your parents."

"Oh."

He didn't really know his dad, but his mom - 

"Everyone else?" he asks, voice a bit weak. His older sisters would be the only ones born when he's this young, and he'd kind of expected, but...

Death isn't supposed to happen.

And they're not acting like there's an unfortunately long resurrection queue.

They're acting like people do after someone erases themselves.

"They haven't... finished counting everyone yet, but so far... your brother is the only other body missing. Sasuke, do you remember anything, anything at all?"

...He has one brother who is twenty years younger than him. This. Maybe isn't at all like his world.

"I. Don't know what my last memory is. Or who did it. It's - jumbled."

And it's true. For some reason he can't remember what he was doing before waking up. Where he was. It's terrifying, more so than the kind of unreal massive death.

"Sasuke, your brother- you may have been put under a genjutsu. I'm going to have to check your memories for signs of tampering."

... Crap. Hopefully they won't go deep...

He bites his lip, since it'll already have been obvious he's nervous, and nods.

Inoichi forms a triangle with his hands and aims them at Sasuke. His eyes go slightly unfocused for a brief moment before returning, and then he puts his hands down and sighs.

"...You'll be fine. You should stay here where it's safe for tonight, and tomorrow we can figure out something more permanent."

He nods. "Is there. Something normal?"

"Ordinarily you'd become a ward of the village, but with the circumstances and your clan, the Hokage will have to make a ruling."

He nods. ...It's weird he wouldn't be adopted. Orphans don't really happen, not for long, but there's a plenty big mismatch between people who want to get pregnant and people who want kids.

"What did you find in my head? Did you see who -"

"It seems like your brother, Itachi, he laid some kind of powerful genjutsu on you. As far as I can tell, it should be over. But there may be residual effects, which could explain any memory problems you're experiencing."

"Oh. Okay." Itachi. That doesn't really sound like any of his siblings... Though he supposes Sasuke isn't too similar to Sugira either. Belatedly: "...Thanks."

Inoichi smiles and stands. "Let's take you somewhere more comfortable."

He nods, standing as well, and follows.

He takes the boy to another room with a pair of beds, shows him where to find the bathroom, with a toilet, sink, and shower and some basic personal hygiene items, and asks if he needs anything else.

It's been long enough he's thirsty, and his body feels like he skipped dinner then had a violent bout of nausea. "A cup for water."

There's what looks like an office break room, with a small fridge, coffeemaker, and hotpad. Inoichi fetches him a cup and says to help himself to anything in the fridge if he feels like it.

"Right." He'll investigate the fridge and any unlocked cabinets for - crackers or something? Rice?

There's a couple servings of rice, a vegetable dish, and mystery curry in the fridge. There's cup ramen and instant coffee in the cupboards.

So a pretty depressing break room. A small amount of rice shouldn't hurt his stomach, though, and, well, he's mostly currently weighing being paranoid about food versus going hungry (and probably coming off as suspicious), and they at least are assuming he thinks they're trustworthy. Or putting forward that front.

He hates double-think.

Water and rice for dinner it is.

When Inoichi is satisfied that he's settled in all right, he'll be left alone for the rest of the night.

...He should probably sleep. Sleep is important.

He can't, though. Spends the night mentally spinning through his lost spells, trying to reconstruct something -

Morning comes all too soon, and with it two new masked guards, this time a bat and a bird. They take him upstairs to the Hokage's office at the top of the building, a wide space with a balcony overlooking the town. The Hokage is seated at his desk, an old man with a diamond-shaped red and white hat smoking a long pipe.

"Ah, young Sasuke. Come in, have a seat."

...If they don't have immortality rings he's probably as old as he looks.

...If Sugira remembers the older settings on his ring right that'd put him in - sixties? To eighties? Sugira is probably twice his age...

He comes in and sits. Holds still. "You wanted to see me, sir?" he asks, keeping his voice quiet. (He hates formality, hates authority, but, well, sometime around age ninety he learned how to play along for his goals.)

The Hokage has a big speech, says how tragic last night was, offers his sympathy and condolences, some words of comfort, and gradually winds around to the question of what to do with him. As the last remaining member of the Uchiha Clan associated with Konoha, he is now technically the clan head and heir to all Uchiha property and assets. Coupled with the fact that he is old enough to be enrolled in the Academy, this means that he is legally considered an adult and not strictly eligible for the support the village provides to orphans. However, the Hokage can bend the rules and get him placed in the free housing and provide him with the stipend if he would rather not have to deal with that right now.

WHAT THE FUCK WHY IS A SMALL CONSIDERED AN ADULT.

Ahem.

"I can handle the property and stuff. I... Don't want to stay - there. So someone to help me find an apartment?"

Of course that can be arranged. There's just some paperwork to take care of first...

Oh joy. Paperwork.

He'll very thoroughly read everything and do his due diligence.

If the Hokage thinks this is out of character, he gives no sign of it.

Once that's done, a man with a large scar running horizontally across his face will show Sasuke around some of the apartments that are available.

Something small, one bedroom. Easy to maintain. Room for books. Relatively quiet; he doesn't mind walking a while to get to stuff, and that'll make it cheaper anyways.

He doesn't really give any sign of recognizing the man or not.

He introduces himself as Raido, and doesn't act like he knows Sasuke.

There are two good options for apartments, one nearer the clan compound, the other across town.

Near is more likely to get him people who already knew Sasuke. But it'll be convenient if he needs to get anything from the compound... Including any clues to this body's life and story. Reluctantly, he chooses the one nearer.

Raido helps him get set up with the landlady, who peers at Sasuke with some suspicion. The apartment is pre-furnished, which is fortunate because everything in his house is currently under analysis. If he wants anything from there particularly, Raido says the Hokage instructed him to make a note of it and they'll expedite its return.

Not really anything he can think of specifically. (He never kept journals and doubts this other him did. Books might be interesting, but he won't be able to go through them quickly without acceleration anyways).

"Do you know when I'm going back to the Academy?" he asks, figuring that's the most relevant thing right now.

No one will expect him back for at least a week. Or if he wanted to return sooner, that would be up to him.

...A week seems good. (Way too short a mourning period, but what isn't fucked up here.)

Where's the nearest stores? 

There's a small convenience store on the corner, and the shopping district is that way.

"Thanks. I guess... I'm probably good for now."

Raido nods, and departs.

He'll get essentials, first, because he's actually sensible despite all indications to the contrary -

And then he buys a stack of notebooks and pens. He'll have to figure out creating a spellbook out of proper materials later. 

For now, he works on recreating spells. Utility ones, ones easy to test surreptitiously...

He hasn't gotten anything by the end of the week, but he's made notable progress in the components.

He makes more progress going places and listening. What rumors are there? What do people think is appropriate to talk about when they notice a kid around or not? Are people generally afraid, content, happy?

(This is exhausting so he doesn't do it much. A few decades ago he wouldn't have been able to at all.)

There's a lot of gossip about the massacre. People are initially sort of morbidly curious about what could have happened. It seems his family was the local police force. When word gets around that it was one of their own who killed the rest, attitudes shift to more of a 'they got what was coming'. His data about what people will and won't talk about around kids are slightly confounded by the fact that when he's noticed, people tend to stop talking. He gets a lot of stares and whispers behind his back about the last Uchiha boy. Other than that, things seem peaceful. No wars or border skirmishes or anything terribly interesting politically.

Some kind of tension, between the Uchiha and the rest of the village? He knows police aren't looked kindly on everywhere - he can't imagine anyone liking the enforcers of a police state.

He doesn't have to fight to pretend to be bothered by the gossip. This... Is just mean spirited.

He's not the only target. There's another boy, small and blond, likes to wear screamingly orange outfits, who is, if anything, even worse off. At least the shopkeepers will take Sugira's money.

He does not approve. At all. He's not really able to figure out why people hate the boy - is he foreign? Did his parents do something? But he doesn't have enough information to go on, and this whole place is worse than the vast majority of frontier planets so the hypothesis space is incredibly broad.

He goes up to the kid one day, just before he's due back at the Academy. His hands are in his pockets, but he's keeping his gaze level and his shoulders from hunching. It's late in the day, and he's tracked the boy down to a now-deserted playground.

"Hey," he says, simply.

"What do you want?" the boy asks, voice sharp, glancing at Sugira out of the corner of his eye.

He shrugs. Fatherhood hadn't made him magically good with kids, so, actually, he doesn't really have a plan here, but - "You seemed lonely," he picks out of possibility space.

The boy narrows his eyes. "None of your business, jerk!"

...He mishandled that apparently, though it seems like the boy might already know this 'Sasuke.' Awkward.

He steps back a bit, hunches his shoulders, says, "I'm not trying to be a jerk." He shakes his head. "I... Can I sit."

Some suspicious eyeing, but he nods slowly and scooches over.

Sugira sits next to him, tilts his head back. "My family died," he says, bluntly. "And people are saying they had it coming. So. You seemed lonely." He shrugs.

"...Oh." The boy twists fully towards Sugira. "...I'm an orphan, too. I don't know my parents, but maybe people hated them, too." It's one of the many possibilities Naruto's spun through for why everyone hates him. That his parents were assholes is a thought that hurts less than that there's something wrong with him specifically.

His first thought is: wow this village sucks at taking care of kids.

His second: his wife's going to tease him for adopting yet another child within a week of being in a new world.

Outwardly, he nods, and turns back to the boy. "I'm Uchiha Sasuke," he says, ignoring how it feels a bit weird to be introducing himself under a fake name. He's done it before.

"Uzumaki Naruto." And then, leaning uncomfortably close because what are boundaries, he says in the grave way of a kid making an observation about the universe, "Your eyes are the same as mine."

Not the weirdest thing a kid's ever said to him by a long shot, so. He puts a little smile on his face, and says, "Want to come to my place? I can make dinner."

(He's going to need a bigger apartment if the village has this many hated orphans...)

"Sure! We're having ramen, right, ramen's the best - "

"I'll see what I can make."

He gets Naruto a proper meal, convinces the boy to crash on his couch because children should not be home alone, what the fuck, and then there's the bonus of the kid can help him get to the Academy the next day...

Arriving with Naruto causes a bit of a stir. Sasuke is apparently popular with the girls of his class, and they try to socially extricate him from his companion, as best eight year olds can.

What. Ew. No.

He'll tells them they should focus on class and leave him be. He doesn't have the energy for managing this many new people and all their drama.

But Saaasukeeeee~

They back off a little but are still orbiting in his general vicinity when the teacher comes in and makes everyone sit down. The morning lesson today is trigonometry as related to calculating kunai throwing trajectories.

Seems advanced for kids... Also why the fuck are they using weapons as an example for children.

He'll do any work assigned, not so quickly it indicates he already graduated from higher education (even if he didn't specialize in math, trig is in a lot of art), keep half an eye on Naruto... Who seems to be a bit distracted and agitated, but there's not much Sugira can do about that now.

Mostly he keeps his head down. Doesn't raise his hand to be called on.

This seems like usual behavior as far as the teacher's concerned.

At lunchtime the flock of admirers gathers again, each jockeying to be the one to share the extra portion they 'accidentally' brought with him.

No no and no. He's firm and quiet in his refusal. Absolutely not. He won't budge on this, and he won't appreciate it if they keep pushing.

(He hadn't had a fanclub in his world. Sure, he hadn't lacked for potential partners once he was older, but - the teachers and a good number of random adults in the vicinity would've come down like a hurricane on anyone not respecting even an indirect 'no'.)

...Maybe he should invite them to be his friends and create Rules. Children seem to respect Rules. And one of them can be 'no means no.' Teach the hellions some manners. Except for how that sounds utterly exhausting, and likely to take time away from recreating spells. His wife's the social one. He's the one who communicates through meaningful nods at other introverts.

Maybe if he pointedly and not exactly quietly explains to Naruto how persisting when someone says no is rude and disrespectful where they can hear, they'll get the hint.

That gets them to leave him alone, at least for today. Some of the girls look more thoughtful than others as they disperse.

After lunch there's a short quiz on the material they learned yesterday which Sasuke is exempted from, and then it's outside for physical education. This consists of conditioning exercise and martial arts basics.

His body's fit, and he has good control of it. He doesn't know these precise forms but they're not exactly hard to pick up. (The concept of martial arts itself doesn't bother him, a lot of places have traditions they pass on, but these look actually usable, not the half-dance he learned as a kid, and combined with the focus on weapons elsewhere...)

There's also the older kids in the next yard doing unarmed sparring and practicing with blunted weapons on training dummies.

Yeah. Martial culture plus thinking children are adults is not going anywhere promising.

Everyone else is pretty excited to be attending the Academy and learning Real Shinobi Skills. Except for one boy with dark hair up in a topknot who seems to have a talent for knowing exactly how much he has to try before the teacher stops looking at him and he can go back to lazing around.

School ends towards the end of the afternoon.

He's very not excited. This is a horrible culture.

Naruto runs off before Sugira can invite him over again, which, okay, Sugira won't chase him, and he does need to focus on his work...

He spends the next while until any of his body's original stuff is released alternatively working on reconstructing spells (hard), catching up on schoolwork (easy), and wrangling Naruto into eating actual food and attending to basic hygiene (extremely hard).

He hadn't expected to feel the lack of a social life, but he misses the people he knows. His family, obviously, but even his coworkers and classmates and neighbors and the girl at the bar he shares introvert moments with but doesn't know the name of despite having been sporadically sitting next to her three years. (He hates talking, okay.) And he's the focus of too much attention, even indirectly, to just peacefully go and mope in a bar or cafe or something. Maybe a library...

Konoha does have a library. Large portions of it are restricted-access, but there's tables and chairs for studying and a few small reading nooks.

Censorship. Double ugh.

He's probably going to develop a reputation as a bookworm, but a secondary project to rebuilding arcana from semi-scratch is figuring out how the magic works here - clearly they have some, that Anbu was a speedster, but it's not magical ring based... Also what is 'genjutsu,' that was mentioned several times but never explained.

There is a basic primer on chakra available for him to read! 'Chakra' is the basis of magic here, and it is formed by the combination of physical and spiritual energy. There is a helpful diagram. Focusing and using chakra is how shinobi techniques, called ninjutsu, are performed. Things like tree climbing, water walking, strength and speed enhancements are all applications. Genjutsu is described as a branch of ninjutsu focused on mental manipulation. More advanced techniques involve what's called a nature transformation to change your chakra into elemental chakra. There is another helpful diagram. The five elements are wind, lightning, earth, water, and fire.

Weird but not as weirdly arbitrary as the schools of magic or Inanna's taste in superpowers. And also does mean he might be able to disguise some of his spells as ninjutsu.

Not using cantrips to correct his notes when he makes a mistake (like he's been doing in private) is surprisingly hard, but he manages. He marks a few notebooks for chakra, and starts outlining a plan to try learning this. Cautiously, he doesn't have a dedicated teacher yet to tell him if he's doing something dangerous.

Also genjutsu being mental manipulation makes sense for the context it'd been raised in. He'll need to figure out techniques to get around that...

The books are fairly light on any actual details about implementation. They do mention that trying techniques that exceed your chakra capacity can lead to chakra exhaustion which is potentially fatal.

Great. His spells are a bigger priority anyways for now...

A few weeks later, he wakes up to a bundle on his doorstep containing Sasuke's personal effects from the Uchiha Compound and a note saying that other items are being kept in storage in a certain warehouse, which he can access upon request.

He'll do that later. For now: he'll go through Sasuke's things, see what he can learn. Pictures (he recognizes his mom. He kind of recognizes his maybe dad. His 'brother' looks related to him but not much like an existing sibling. He memorizes the face, though.), past homework, books... Nothing much indicative, Sugira has never been one for stuff. Still, he'll keep ahold of all this. He plans to find out what happened to Sasuke some day, after all. He'll want to be able to return things then.

He waits a few days before asking for access to the warehouse.

The warehouse is filled with racks upon racks of scrolls. Storage scrolls, explains the clerk, as they show him the way to the Uchiha section. After everything was sorted through, they sealed each room's contents into a series of scrolls for convenience of storage, sorted by bulk furniture, clothing, knickknacks, paper goods, artwork, and so forth. If he knows where he wants to look at was originally located, they can retrieve the proper scroll and open it up, then re-seal anything he doesn't want to take with him.

Storage scrolls: something to keep in mind. Seem more useful than a bag of holding at least.

He wasn't really familiar with most people's houses, and he's... Not sure he wants his parents' things (which is a convenient fiction for why he doesn't know what they would have had). He's looking for books? If there was anywhere that had a lot...

Most houses had enough that it was worth dedicating a scroll, if he knows whose books he's looking for.

His parents then he guesses. (He doesn't know any other relatives and should probably fix that... Which he doesn't say out loud. Maybe his parents had like a clan photo album).

The clerk hums and runs their fingers over the racks until they reach the correct scroll. They unroll it out on the floor and tap a small circle on one end. With a puff a smoke, a pile of several bookcases worth of books appear on top of the scroll.

Definitely his mom, though that's significantly smaller than her library at home. Probably because the her of this world hasn't had centuries to develop one and read...

He starts sorting through the books, keeping: at least one cookbook, nonfiction (which seems to be his mom's stuff; the fiction books don't look her taste. Maybe his dad), and anything that looks highly personal. Photo albums, journals... A fit of nostalgia has him looking for a poetry book. He finds a very small one, not the reams his mom'd written and read to him. Most of the poems aren't suitable for kids, but, it's still his mom's handwriting.

He ends up with slightly less than half the initial pile.

The clerk makes a note of which ones he's taking, seals the rest back up, and fetches a little hand cart to help him take the books home.

He nods, sets those up in his 'bedroom' (which is more a study, he'll probably be sleeping in the living room soon), and sets in to read about geography and politics and history... Plus what they know about science, but that's something his mom is less interested in and also not his field.

The continent (as far as the books are concerned, there's only the one worth talking about) is divided into countries, called the Elemental Nations, each ruled by a daimyo. The five largest nations are Land of Fire, Land of Wind, Land of Stone, Land of Lightning, and Land of Water. Each of these is also home to a great ninja village; Konohagakure, Sunagakure, Iwagakure, Kumogakure, and Kirigakure. Smaller nations often also have ninja villages, but those are smaller as well. It's unclear which way the causality flows.

The villages are a relatively recent arrangement, only about a hundred years old. In that time, there have been three Shinobi World Wars, though this is still a vast improvement on the world before villages, which was essentially just constant fighting everywhere.

That sounds vaguely like what he kind of remembers of pre-Imperial history. Constant fighting. Factionalism. But it's weird, even prior to the planets really being open it'd been known multiple exist, and people knew there were other continents.

How do you even fit three wars into under a hundred years, anyways. The handful of squabbles among frontier planets he's heard about can easily burn for decades.

But clearly they've adapted before to massive social changes. He... Is increasingly sure his goal, beyond just getting home, should be fixing this planet. He usually doesn't care that much but they are so far below minimum standards. The international penalty for invasion would probably even be waived and that effectively never happens.

There are some descriptions of the wars in the books. An invasion might be possible, but would certainly not be easy.

Yeah, hostile takeovers almost never work out well for anyone. But - if he can get the Empire, and the Empress has several hundred forks and each can individually flatten a team of archmages... Though the usual 'be conspicuously a good deal until people agree on their own to enter the fold' is enough for getting frontier planets in at a decent clip, probably would work here within a few generations, he just... The thought of leaving this place as is sits ill with him.

Still, he can at least try his hand at unfucking their politics from the inside. He's unlikely to make things worse.

So: he'll keep his head down. He'll learn chakra, and the assorted facts about this world. He'll help Naruto out, because what the fuck. He'll work on his spells - he's expecting to be probably up to second level spells, maybe some third level spells, by the time he graduates, which is far behind his previous peak of six level spells, but, well, you do what you can. It's slower without a structure of existing spells in place, and without being able to openly experiment too much.

Over time, the village settles down and the Uchiha massacre fades into memory.

And about six months later, a new student arrives in his class. She introduces herself as Chihiro and evinces no emotion at all as she takes an empty seat behind and to the left of Sasuke.

Creepy.

He doesn't bother introducing himself to her. (He's kind of busy keeping Naruto from biting Kiba.)

(He doesn't have a problem with rough-housing but classrooms are not the place.)

He's polite when they get rotated into group projects or spars together (or against each other), though.

Chihiro consistently excels at schoolwork, but loses spars often enough to stay in the middle of the rankings. Though when she's fighting Sasuke, it's hard to see how she loses. He might get the sense she's trying to push him.

He doesn't respond very strongly to provocation, and he doesn't show signs of being used to a different sized body - by now his forms are precise, textbook perfect, and he's shading into building on those. He definitely watches her, especially when they spar, picking apart all the oddities once the inconsistency in her skill level shows itself.

Something's more rotten than usual, but he's not sure what.

Hard to tell, really. Chihiro might as well not exist outside of school.

And then, almost before you'd know it, four years have passed and it's time for the graduation exam.

He doesn't find anything exceptionally interesting or groundbreaking in his delves into both the public library and his family's books. He helps Naruto with his schoolwork, but not enough to keep the boy from failing - and apparently having an adventure Sugira scolds him for.

Rebuilding his spells is glacial. Usually, you write the spell out, burn it into your mind, then the casting of it erases it from your mind - or, if you're casting from a scroll, from the scroll itself. This means that he only remembers spells he has active. Which is his cantrips, which don't get erased. He doesn't have his written out spellbook, and he's by the standard rules of magic completely incapable of remembering anything but the end effects of spells.

But his cantrips contain building blocks. Pieces of greater works. And he's able to build on those... But it takes him years, and especially without being able to live-fire test anything beyond first level spells is currently out of his grasp. At least he's managed a total of nine of the first level spells (though he can only cast four in a day), which should form a good foundation for future research. He's specialized towards conjuration spells, set aside enchantment and necromancy. (Conjuration is the path with teleportation and movement spells, so, is his best bet for getting home).

He easily graduates top of his class.

The day after the exam, the make-up of their genin teams are announced. Sugira will be on Team Seven with Chihiro, who was second in the class, and Naruto. Their jounin instructor will be Hatake Kakashi.

One by one, the other teams are called by their jounin and leave the classroom. By the end of the morning, only the three of them are left waiting.

"When's he gonna get here," Naruto whines. "It's been forever - Sasuke we should trap the door - "

"What happens if you succeed and what happens when you fail," Sugira asks, sounding kind of bored.

"Argh!" Naruto flops back on the floor. "He decides he doesn't like me if I succeed and I get in trouble either way. I always get in trouble, and no one likes me. So, nothing."

"Attacking a fellow Konoha shinobi in the absence of a direct order or an immediate threat to the village is prohibited."

Naruto sticks his tongue out at her.

"Embarrassing someone isn't attacking them. Naruto won't do damage - though our sensei might not be the only one to come through the door."

"Wouldn't want to catch Iruka-sensei," Naruto says, amiably.

She has nothing to say to this.

A man with a shock of grey-white hair and a forehead protector pulled low over one eye steps through the door.

"Ah, excuse me. I'm looking for Team Seven. Could you kind youngsters point me in the correct direction?"

"We're Team Seven!" Naruto says, bouncing to his feet. "Hi!"

"Oh." He sounds vaguely disappointed. "Well. I suppose you'd better meet me on the roof, then." He turns and ambles out of the room.

"He seems boring," Naruto complains.

Sugira sighs. "Come on, let's get to the roof." They head up.

Kakashi is sitting on the edge of the roof when they get up there, reading. He regretfully puts the book away when the group gets close.

"Let's get this over with, then. Why don't we start with introducing ourselves; your name, likes, dislikes, hobbies, plans for the future, that sort of thing. I'll go first. My name is Hatake Kakashi. I don't want to tell you about the things I like. I don't particularly dislike anything. I have plenty of hobbies. My plans for the future involve finishing this book. Okay, next." He points at Naruto.

"That was lame, we didn't learn anything!" But at a nudge from Sasuke, he relents and says, "I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I like ramen! And Sasuke! And Sasuke's cooking! And Iruka-sensei! I don't like your hair, it's dumb. I like to spar with Sasuke, and learn about stuff! My dream - I'm gonna become Hokage and change the ninja system!"

Originally he'd wanted to be acknowledged, but, well, he has Sasuke.

And also when he told Sasuke he wanted to be Hokage the other boy had said, 'Great, you're sensible and more charismatic than me. Here's a list of everything fucked up. Fix it.'

It was a long list. With bullet points. And footnotes.

Naruto doesn't like lists, but he won't let his friend down!

"Great. Moving on." He points at Chihiro.

"My name is Chihiro. I like sparring. I dislike fighting genjutsu-types. I do not have any hobbies. My plan for the future is to become a shinobi and serve my village." She recites the list tonelessly.

"You're kind of creepy you know," Naruto grumbles.

Sugira kicks him.

"Anyways... I'm Sasuke. I like things being quiet. I dislike pettiness. My hobby is reading. My dream for the future..." He shrugs. He has a lot. Reuniting with his family, fixing this world... "Is to make things better."

"Great! So now that we're all best of friends, let me tell you that of you three and the other twenty-four kids in your class who just graduated, only nine will actually become genin! There's one more test you have to pass, and it has a sixty-six percent failure rate. I'm looking forward to administering it."

"Why didn't they tell us? That's unfair - Sasuke add that to the list, this is dumb - "

"If we told you, you wouldn't take the last test seriously enough. Anyway. The short version is that this will be a survival test, and your opponent will be me. You can bring whatever tools and equipment you think you'll need."

"Will there be a time limit?"

"Yep!"

"When and where?"

"Tomorrow morning, first thing. Training field seventeen. I'd advise against breakfast. Heavy exercise on a full stomach can lead to gastrointestinal troubles. And now I've got to run. I'd say I have urgent business to attend to, but I was told to stop lying to children young enough to believe me. Don't be late!" He disappears in a swirl of leaves.

He sighs. "Come on. Chihiro, you too. We should work together on a plan."

"To what end?"

"We don't know what the exercise will be, but we can work on different scenarios, figure out what's likely, and get to know each other as a team. Avoids us tripping over each other."

"I could show you guys my cool new technique!"

"...Understood."

"Neither of our apartments are good for that - Naruto, do you know somewhere that'll be empty?"

" - Oh! A secret place I found while exploring. I can show you guys!" He's bouncing. "You okay with going now Chihiro?"

"I have no duties currently pending."

"You talk weird," he says cheerily, then, "Come on!" and leads the way into the woods around Konoha. After a good bit of running, they come to a large shrine, that looks like it half collapsed at some point and has since been (inexpertly) repaired. "This's the shrine! I found it all destroyed, and I thought maybe it had spirits, and they'd be sad if their house was destroyed, so I promised them I'd fix their house! There's a barrier around it, I can get through but other stuff can't unless I'm holding onto them, so you guys have to take my hands."

Chihiro looks at his outstretched hand with an expression of something like confusion, disdain, or perhaps unease.

"...You don't have to hold it for long? Maybe you can just - hold my forearm, or poke me while we pass it? Or try, maybe the barrier likes humans and not squirrels."

...She grips his arm just above the wrist.

And into the shrine they go! He lets her known once they're past the barrier.

She immediately lets go of his arm.

He leads the way in, into a sort of foyer. There's paint cans in one corner, and further building supplies in the others. "So!" he announces, bouncing. "Plans?"

"We should figure out scenarios first. Chihiro, ideas?"

"A survival test where the instructor declares himself our opponent indicates that he will be fighting us. That a time limit was acknowledged to exist but not explicitly defined implies it will last less than a day."

"He's unlikely to demand we actually defeat him. He'll probably be explicitly or implicitly looking for us to show specific qualities. He'll likely set us a task; hence 'survival exercise' instead of just 'fight.' Options... Probably mimic common missions. Protect a target, destroy a target, obtain something material from him, gather information."

"I agree with that assessment. Based on the displayed qualities of this squad's membership at the Academy and the history of its jounin instructor, it is likely that it was formed with the intention of an assault specialization. Therefore, our objective will most likely test our capabilities in that area. Reconnaissance is unlikely, protection is possible, destruction or retrieval are the most plausible candidates."

He nods, and thinks over his spells. It's easy with only nine.

He's been burning one of his four slots on the Rite of Centered Mind everyday. Mage Armor is useful enough - and lasts long enough - he should stick it on whoever is drawing attacks. Grease and Shield... Probably not as useful, not against a jounin.

That leaves Expeditious Retreat, Blurred Movement, Illusion of Calm, Shocking Grasp, and True Strike. He mentally discards Shocking Grasp. ...Maybe he should not use Mage Armor, if a jounin wants to hit a genin he suspects the jounin will succeed, no matter how many spells the genin has layered.

But Blurred Movement gives a miss chance no matter what. That, combined with Expeditious Retreat, will make someone highly mobile. But each only lasts two minutes right now. True Strike is only useful for one blow... And Illusion of Calm is only useful if he's preparing another spell. But he's figured out five-foot-step Dimension Doors, for movement, and can do six a day, which are probably more useful...

So. 

The Rite of Centered Mind, to improve his resistance to mental effects for the day.

Illusion of Calm, to hide what he's doing.

True Strike, his one divination spell, to guide one blow.

And...

It's between Shocking Grasp and Mage Armor, then. Defense, or offense.

He turns to his team. 

"I have techniques I can use. Not ones he'll recognize. I'll only be able to get off three - but I think I can string some together well. I can make an illusion that looks like I'm standing still - I don't think it'll be enough for a jounin, but he might allow it for whichever scenario, if he's playing someone less powerful." Except actually the original Illusion of Calm spell can't be disbelieved until you hit the person who cast it. Sugira's just not sure he built it correctly. "I have one that'll analyze, and make my next attack more accurate. And then I can either use a force technique, to make myself - or someone else - harder to hit, or use a lightning technique, to make my blow land harder. I'm unsure if we'd rather put all our energy into one blow or try for a longer play."

"Hatake Kakashi will have more stamina than we do at our level and a wider variety of techniques. Delaying would only allow him more time to use them."

"So hit hard, hit fast. We should try to hit him together, as well. Close off escape routes, make my contribution less obvious.."

"Yes. He is allowing us the chance to prepare the ground. We should use that."

"That means traps! My specialty!"

Chihiro nods. "You also said you had a new technique."

"Oh yeah! Shadow clone technique!" And he forms four perfect copies of himself in puffs of smoke. "They can do stuff!"

She blinks. "Where... did you learn that?"

"Um! Okay so I failed the graduation test, right. And then Mizuki is apparently secretly an asshole and told me there was a secret second test, and I had to steal a scroll from the Hokage tower and learn a technique from it. And the shadow clone was the first one listed, but then Mizuki showed up and tried to kill me and Iruka-sensei got involved trying to stop him so I made a whole bunch of clones, I can't remember how many but I could basically just see me, and beat Mizuki up."

Sugira, who had not previously heard the entire story, has his head in his hands.

"The shadow clone is an extremely chakra-intensive technique. The average jounin is capable of no more than three."

" - Uh I have a lot of chakra. For reasons. Secret reasons. That I can't tell you, but I can maybe bug the Old Man once we're officially a team?" He doesn't trust Chihiro enough, though she's so creepy she probably wouldn't react about the Nine Tails. And Sasuke would probably attempt to adopt the demon fox. He's like that.

"That much is obvious."

"What can the shadow clone do?" Sugira asks.

He shrugs. "Everything I can? They're smart, but doesn't take a hard hit to pop them."

He hums. "Chihiro, what do you know about the clones?"

"A shadow clone, unlike other elemental clones, is composed of pure chakra. For that reason, they are both more versatile and weaker than other clones," she recites. "They replicate the user's knowledge and skills, and are capable of acting independently without direction and using any technique they have enough chakra to perform. Any information learned by a clone is returned to the original when the clone is dispelled, along with the chakra used to create the clone."

"- Impressive. And a reason for us two to build up our chakra stores; even one would be a big difference in learning speed. It'd also be safer to have a clone developing techniques..."

"Incorrect. Chakra is always divided evenly among shadow clones. If one creates a single shadow clone, then it will consume half of the available chakra. If one creates two shadow clones, each instance and the original will possess one-third of one's maximum chakra capacity."

"Mine sometimes explode." And don't use chakra.

"In almost every circumstance, the reduction in available chakra will be enough of a hindrance to eliminate any benefit gained."

"It'd be something to consider."

"...Our strategy should focus on the shadow clones. It is the most unexpected technique we have available, given the volume you are capable of. We can perform a transformation technique to disguise ourselves as you when you create the clones and use the crowd to hide."

"Clever," he says. "And will provide further misdirection for my attack."

"I can have clones turn into you guys too!"

"If you are capable."

"The transform is my best technique."

"Very well."

"Any other ideas?"

"No."

He nods. "I know you guys' fighting from Academy but maybe we should practice together. And I can tell you about my traps."

Chihiro nods.

He describes everything, gets paper and some pencils out of his supplies for illustrations. He has a lot of trap ideas, not all practical, but most creative and effective.

Sugira helps him with design refinement.

Chihiro will occasionally comment when something is especially impractical or overly difficult to engineer under real-world circumstances.

He's a bit bummed about some of those but bounces back fast.

He's also enthusiastic about sparring later.

She is as good as Sugira is when they practice today, which may come as a surprise to Naruto.

"Why didn't you fight like this in class?" he asks.

"I have been practicing."

"Since. A week ago?"

"Yes."

"You're not that good a liar, you know."

"I don't know what you mean by that."

"That's not a realistic lie. And you always did better against Sasuke that you should've."

"I see."

"Did you have a reason?"

"A reason for what?"

"Lying."

"...The truth would be uninteresting."

"Truth's usually pretty neat!"

"Naruto, drop it. Pushing her won't make her tell you." He's suspicious but he doesn't like cornering people like this.

"We should go lay the traps."

"Some of it we don't want to leave overnight, but we can do most, yeah!"

Off to the training field, then.

Traps! Even with a lot of his fun ideas nixed, Naruto has a lot, and all of them can even be constructed without extra materials!

He does have some talent, even if he is terribly undisciplined.

Once everything is ready, Chihiro disappears like she always does.

He gets Naruto fed, insists the blond stay the night, and then prepares rice and protein powder for the both of them the next day, well before dawn. Should stay down well, if throwing up was even the concern.

He's there, Naruto in tow, just as the sun rises.

Chihiro arrives shortly afterwards. They should work quickly to prepare the last of the traps.

"You two take care of that. I'm going to check last night's traps for tampering or damage."

Everything's just the way they left it.

And by the time he's done with that Chihiro and Naruto should be done with the new traps.

He returns to the central clearing.

They're both there. There's no sign of Kakashi.

"Chihiro, have you eaten?"

"Yes."

"Good. We should be ready, then - Naruto, I know you're anxious, but no more than stretching, alright?"

"You don't need to mother me, you know," Naruto says, as he switches from bouncing to stretching.

Chihiro has no comment, but moves into her own stretching routine, not the same as the one they were taught at the Academy.

She's really not subtle. Given that the last liar who dropped subtlety turned out to be a murderous traitor, Naruto's keeping an eye on her.

Of course, Sasuke has his own stretches and so does Naruto, but there's a lot of weird around Chihiro.

Now to figure out how to befriend her...

Sugira stretches for a little bit, then stops, sits, and gets out a small notebook. He appears to be working on math.

Kakashi still hasn't shown up after an hour. Chihiro has run through her entire set twice.

"...What are you working on?"

"Technique theory."

"What techniques?"

"More advanced versions of the ones I told you about." Even technically true.

"That does not look very much like ninjutsu theory."

"It blows up less if I work the theory like this." Also it's not ninjutsu theory, it's arcana theory. He tries to word a 'I come at techniques sideways' and gives up.

Chihiro's skeptical face is indistinguishable from her normal face.

He shrugs, scribbles an approximation-of-an-arcane-symbol (they won't actually be right without magical inscription, ink can't give them enough depth, but approximations are good if he doesn't want things randomly activating) and goes back to solving equations. Does seem to involve combining these different symbols with little links between them.

Three hours later, Kakashi shows up.

Sugira has gotten a lot of math done.

"You're late!" Naruto half shouts, half whines.

"Ah, sorry about that. There was this black cat, you see. I had to take the long way."

"Why is everyone on this team a bad liar!"

Kakashi shrugs.

"Eh. Birds of a feather, and so forth. Now, where did I put..." He pats the pockets of his flak jacket, and pulls out an alarm clock and a pair of small bells hanging from string. He sets the alarm for noon and places the clock on a nearby stump. "So! This test is very simple. I have two bells here. Your objective is to take the bells from me before the alarm goes off. If you have a bell at that time, you pass! If you don't have a bell, you fail!"

" - But there's two bells and three of us."

"Well spotted! Remember what I said about this test having a sixty-six percent failure rate? This way I'm already guaranteed to be rid of one of you."

"You're an asshole and probably a shitty teacher, can we have Sasuke as a sensei instead."

"Naruto, focus, we're running down the clock. Rules for the test?"

He has zero intention of letting them split up, of course. If Kakashi isn't trying to trick them, Sugira has zero problem with more time to dedicate to arcana studies, so.

"There are none. If you don't come at me with intent to kill, you won't get far."

Chihiro suddenly has a kunai in her hand and is lunging at Kakashi, the fastest she's ever moved-

-but Kakashi is faster, and has her wrist in a lock and one hand braced against the back of her head before she gets to his original position.

"Now, now. I didn't say 'start' yet."

"Now you did."

He hadn't told Chihiro about the telepathy cantrip. It's one-way anyways, and it's not like he trusts her that much.

'Naruto, clones,' he whispers into the blond's mind.

And then he uses the substitution technique with Chihiro - hopefully she won't fight him on that -

And have a field of about a thousand blonds.

She doesn't fight the substitution, and immediately transforms and does a substitution of her own to get lost in the crowd.

Kakashi lets go of the one he's holding and disappears into the trees.

Transform and substitute as well.

Naruto almost seamlessly has the ones they substitute with turn into them.

And then the clones scatter for the trees.

It's possible to track Kakashi's path by the series of snapped traps and dispelled clones.

If you mistook Naruto for an endless clone machine you would be only slightly off the mark. Also he had an idea from Chihiro saying his clones should be able to use all his techniques, so 'the one producing more clones' is no longer an accurate way to find Naruto.

(It's hard to make this many when he's calm but he's worked up right now, so.)

Also, at Sasuke's nudging, he'll find the not-clone that's also a not-Sasuke, and say, "Sasuke's gonna go for the hit, can you try to get the bells then? I'll be keeping rushing him with clones."

Not-Clone Not-Sasuke nods, and takes off to circle around behind.

Sugira waits for her to be in probable position (as confirmed by Naruto, who's using clone dismissals as a communication method). 

And then he joins the Naruto crowd around Kakashi - 

There's several Naruto clones holding back, apparently waiting (providing cover for Sugira's image of himself standing still, and it makes him effectively invisible as he casts True Strike, and then Shocking Grasp, lunging for Kakashi - 

He'd be able to hit an archmage with this combination, even if any archmage worth the title would shrug off the damaging spell - 

Sugira's hand connects with Kakashi's body, and there's a visible twitch as the lightning discharges-

-and Chihiro darts past, snatching the pair of bells dangling from his pocket.

He lands, de-transforms (now visible, his Illusion of Calm having broken), and says, "Do we win?"

He's out of non-cantrips so if they don't...

"At least one of you does."

Chihiro tosses a bell at Sasuke.

He catches it. "I'm not passing without my whole team."

"Well then. I suppose I have no choice. I'll see you back at the start." He poofs away.

He rolls his eyes, and starts walking over.

Naruto gets there first. He seems to have more energy than he did when they started.

"In the Academy," Kakashi says once everyone's there, "your teachers wanted you to succeed. That is no longer the case. From now on, your opponents want nothing more than to see you fail. They will lie to you, make you angry, try to divide you, trick you, stack the odds against you. You will face situations where it is almost certain not all of you will come back alive. To succeed, you must be able to trust and work with your comrades no matter what. Remember, those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their teammates are worse than trash."

"Congratulations! As of now, all three of you are genin of Konohagakure!"

"Ahahahaha we're the best! Go team awesome!" Naruto jumps up, punches the air, hugs Sasuke, and grins at Chihiro.

"When do we start training?" he asks, disentangling himself and patting Naruto's head.

"Tomorrow. I'll be honest, I was expecting this to take a little longer. Here are your registration forms. We'll say your assignment today is to turn them in and get your ID cards."

"Most teams don't bother working together, do they?" He takes his form.

"Not when the stakes are perceived to be high enough."

Honestly he doesn't know a single non-disaster preteen, he's not surprised.

He nods.

Kakashi claps once. "Well! You children have fun with your paperwork. That's the second most important part of being a shinobi, after teamwork." He begins ambling off, pulling his book out.

He sighs. He just knows he's going to be stuck helping Naruto. The blond's already squinting suspiciously at his papers.

He glances at Chihiro. "I'm going to help Naruto with his registration. Do you want to hang out with us?"

"Hang... out?"

"Spend time together. Get to know each other."

"Like friends!" Naruto declares.

"Would we not be better served by individual training?"

" - Nobody can cover everything. It's important to have specialties within the team, and to have team that works well together. We'll be stronger, that way. Also humans need downtime that isn't training." Especially children, the fuck is wrong with this culture.

"Very well."

"We should go get ramen! To celebrate!"

"After we get our I.D. cards."

And off?

Off they go.

The registration form is fairly simple: name, date of birth, date of graduation, home address, jounin instructor's name, team number, next of kin (if applicable).

Naruto puts down 'Uchiha Sasuke' and 'Umino Iruka' under 'next of kin' because close enough.

His apartment, by now, is shared with Sasuke, too, because Sasuke is a complete mother hen.

Fortunately, Sugira has by now figured out his body's date of birth.

He just puts 'Uzumaki Naruto' under 'next of kin.'

Chihiro lives in an apartment on the other side of town, apparently. She lives the next-of-kin field blank.

...Is he going to have to adopt his entire team.

Once they're done: "Let's go get ramen to celebrate!"

"Why is ramen celebratory?"

"Because graduating for real is great and if we say it's a celebration, it's a celebration. Also ramen is delicious."

"...I see."

"I'll convince you of the value of fun someday."

"I do not understand what that is intended to mean."

"You don't have fun, like, ever, that I've seen. Fun's stuff you enjoy doing just 'cause it brings you joy. Fun's important!"

"'Fun' does not have any bearing on being a better shinobi."

"Naw-aw! Sasuke said fun is really important to childhood development and, like, mental health!"

"Children learn better through play. The same is variably true of adults. Additionally, unrelieved stress impacts every system in the body, usually for the worse. A stressed shinobi is one who makes avoidable mistakes."

"You have strange ideas."

"I'm unsure what part of that sounds strange."

"Stress means your focus is lacking. Further distraction will only exacerbate the problem."

"Cortisol isn't just released in response to unregulated emotions, and laughter does decrease it. It's also more likely you've suppressed your ability to acknowledge and react to emotions, than the hormones and neurotransmitters tied to emotion themselves - if you had no cortisol, dopamine, serotonin, adrenaline, or others, you'd be in serious medical trouble. Though a medic would know more." He practically memorized a massive ream of 'have fun someday you fucking idiot' to shove at his sister, after all. Chihiro's argument feels familiar.

"Where did you learn this?"

"I read a lot, and have access to my family's old libraries. There were medics among the Uchiha." All technically true.

"I see."

He shrugs. "Regardless, do you want to join us?"

"...I do not know."

"You don't have to, and it'll probably be loud."

She blinks slowly, several times.

"..I think. That I would prefer. To go with you," she says, haltingly.

He nods.

"Yay! Ramen!" And he takes off.

Chihiro follows, more sedately.

The ramen stand owners seem to like Naruto a lot, chuckling, calling him their best customer, and asking about his friends. He tells them about graduating for real, Ichiraku laughs and says they can each have one bowl on the house...

"Is payment for service not customary?"

"Usually is," Naruto says with a grin.

"Eh, it's not like we're getting rich off this," Ichiraku says, laughing. "And Naruto always orders enough to make up for it."

"I see."

Chihiro will have whatever the default order is.

Naruto gets a bowl of each flavor for himself, having saved up for this since only one's free.

The food's good quality.

That's... impressive.

Naruto is apparently something of a bottomless pit, though he isn't too enthusiastic about moving when he's done.

As far as a 'celebration' goes, that was tolerable.

"Do you want to spend the rest of today with us?" Sugira asks. Honestly he wouldn't mind if she said no. He'd like to flop for a while.

"Are there further celebratory activities?"

"No," he says before Naruto can. "Just - talking, probably. Or getting used to each other."

"Then- no."

"Alright. See you tomorrow, then."

She nods, and heads out. She leaves a small pile of coins on the counter.

Ichiraku grumbles about that, to Naruto's amusement.

And Sugira gets both himself and Naruto to the same training field the next morning. He's... Not actually sure where they're supposed to meet, and doesn't have any spells suitable for locating things. Maybe something to fix.

The training field seems to be a reasonable choice, as Chihiro is there as well.

He nods to her, and occupies Naruto's attention so he doesn't bother her too much.

Kakashi shows up a while later.

"Good morning, everyone. Not too much the worse for wear after yesterday, I hope?"

Sugira's by now moved onto more math. He shrugs.

"I feel great! What're we doing today?"

"Good question. What does everyone feel like doing today?"

"Something useful."

"Training! Or a mission!"

"Chakra control."

Kakashi counts off the response on his fingers. "Then the intersection of all that is..." He appears to be doing some complicated math in his head. "Tree walking! I'll demonstrate. First, gather chakra in the feet." He makes a focusing seal as he goes over to a large tree nearby. "Then, walk up the tree." He walks directly up the tree, seeming perfectly comfortable at a ninety-degree angle from the trunk. When he gets to an overhanging branch, he continues walking along the underside, now hanging upside down. "If you use too little chakra, you won't stick, but if you use too much, you'll be blasted off the tree. Now you try."

Naruto goes running for the tree, and promptly sends himself flying across the clearing, then bounces back to his feet and tries again.

He seems to be having fun, at least.

He'll keep half an eye to make sure Naruto doesn't break his neck, but does walk up to the tree and rest one foot on it, testing the amount of chakra needed to stick like this.

It's really not a lot, but it seems like it's a very fine line between too much and too little.

Chihiro walks up her tree in much the same fashion Kakashi did, though she walks over the branch to stand upright.

He's guessing she wasn't supposed to know how to do that already.

"Awwww, how'd you do that so easy Chihiro?"

"Gather chakra in the feet, then walk up the tree."

"People who aren't naturally gifted at chakra control might need a little more help than that," Kakashi says. "Why don't you hop back down and give your teammates a few pointers?"

"...Understood." She jumps down and lands lightly on her feet.

"So! What're you doing different?"

"In order to assess that, I first need to know what you are doing."

"I'm putting chakra in my feet. Only a small bit, though."

"Show me."

He channels chakra and lifts up his foot. There's not really a glow, but there's definitely distortion and shimmer around his foot.

"...Show me as little as you can make."

"Uhhhhhhhhh..."

He can do very little extremely unreliably; his chakra inevitably flares back up.

"Try practicing with your hands first."

"Like, walking up on my hands?"

"Focusing the chakra in your hands. That is generally easier than the feet."

"Okay!"

He seems to have a bit less trouble with this, but his chakra's still not really behaving.

"...Try making some shadow clones to decrease the amount of chakra you are managing."

"Alright."

He makes about a dozen, and does, in fact, seem to be having much more success.

Kakashi, hidden behind his book, raises an eyebrow.

Sugira's by now gotten to a low branch. He sits to watch them, and says, "Try grouping your clones and having them work on different things."

"Uh, like what?"

He shrugs. "It's your brain. Suggestions, Kakashi?"

"Think about what individual pieces make up each action. If you can't do them all at once, work on one at a time."

He hums, sets one clone to thinking, and has the others start splitting up. These can just keep doing what he's been doing with running at the tree, these can (on Sasuke's advice) start trying to stick objects to their feet, those take off the shoes and also do the running thing (also on Sasuke's advice), those ones can split into more and more clones until they have little enough it's easier...

He should have picked a bigger training field. Eh.

If Chihiro and Sasuke have the basic idea down, they can practice it while he chucks kunai and shuriken at them.