The classroom was vibrating when Iruka walked in with the clipboard.
Not literally. That would've involved explosives, and Naruto hadn't had time to get any. But the mood was buzzing—whispers, bouncing legs, pencils tapping. Half the class was already wearing hitai-ate even though they weren't officially on any team yet. Show-offs.
I had mine in my lap, fingers worrying the metal plate.
"Settle down," Iruka said, which did absolutely nothing for the first three seconds. Then he cleared his throat in That Way, and the noise dropped by half.
"Today," he said, "I'll be assigning you to your jonin instructors and three-man cells."
Naruto made a quiet, excited strangled noise from the back.
I was on the girls' side near the window, as usual, desk cluttered with doodles in the margins of my history notes. Ino sat on my right, posture perfect and eyes bright. Hinata was further up, trying to disappear into her collar. On the boys' side, Kiba was vibrating, Shino was a calm silence next to him, and—
My gaze snagged on Shikamaru.
He was slouched low in his chair, arms folded behind his head, looking like he'd nap through his own execution. His chakra, though, did that weird thing I'd noticed: slow and deep, like a river pretending to be a pond. No spikes, no jitter, just… steady thinking.
I caught myself staring and yanked my eyes back to Iruka.
"Teams will be formed to balance strengths and weaknesses," Iruka went on. "You'll be spending a lot of time with each other, so try not to drive your teammates—or your jonin—insane on the first day."
Half the class glanced at Naruto automatically.
Naruto scowled. "Why's everyone looking at me?!"
"Because you keep yelling during announcements," I whispered back.
"Shh," Iruka said, not unkindly. Then he checked the clipboard.
"Team 8: Aburame Shino, Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuga Hinata. Your jonin instructor will be Yuuhi Kurenai."
Hinata made a tiny squeak. Kiba whooped, then tried to pretend he hadn't. Shino adjusted his glasses like someone had just told him the weather report.
Kiba leaned over Hinata. "We're gonna be awesome," he whispered. "Right, Hinata?"
She nodded so fast I worried about whiplash.
"Team 10," Iruka continued. "Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Choji, Yamanaka Ino. Your jonin instructor will be Sarutobi Asuma."
Choji smiled, already halfway into a chip bag. Ino straightened like someone had just called her onstage. Shikamaru groaned audibly.
"What a drag," he muttered.
His chakra rippled in this resigned, amused way that made the corners of my mouth twitch. I'd seen them together enough to know that trio made sense: one brain, one tank, one social assassin. Neat little clan set.
Which meant…
"And finally," Iruka said, "Team 7."
My fingers dug into the edge of my hitai-ate.
"Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto fist-pumped like he'd just been pronounced god-king of the classroom. "Yesss!"
"Uchiha Sasuke."
Half the girls in the room sighed. Sasuke didn't react beyond a faint tightening around his eyes, chakra compressing like a spring. Classic.
"And Sylvie."
For a second, it felt like the air stopped.
Then Naruto jumped to his feet so fast his chair skidded. "EHHH?! Why do I have to be with him and her?!"
"Wow," I said, deadpan. "Honored to be included."
Sasuke made a noncommittal "hn," which was the Uchiha version of a full emotional breakdown. His chakra didn't spike or dip; it just… cooled. The vibe was pure "don't talk to me or I'll set you on fire by accident."
Outwardly, I was playing it for laughs. Inwardly, I could already see the shape of the trap: if I ended up standing between them, I'd spend all my time translating, soothing, redirecting—being the buffer between fire and dynamite. That played right into my skill set, sure, but it also meant it'd be way too easy to turn into Team 7's emotional shock absorber instead of an actual person with her own trajectory. I made a quiet, private promise to myself: help them, yes, but don't disappear into the space between them.
But it was going to be exhausting. I was already tired in advance.
Iruka moved on to jonin assignments. "Team 7's instructor will be Hatake Kakashi."
There was a little rustle at that. Even I only knew the name in vague, whispered terms: Sharingan Kakashi, elite jonin, habit of being late and terrifying.
"Cool," Naruto said, immediately forgetting his earlier complaint. "Bet he's awesome."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Sharingan…"
I did the mental math of "copy ninja + me + Naruto + Sasuke," and felt a headache forming preemptively.
"Teams will meet their instructors after lunch," Iruka finished. "Until then, stay in your classroom."
Chairs scraped. Conversations bubbled up. Iruka started collecting stray papers and mercifully pretended not to notice Naruto's chair was now slightly more broken than it had been this morning.
Ino turned to me the second his back was fully turned.
"Are you kidding me?" she hissed. "You, Naruto, and Sasuke? That's so unfair."
"Unfair how?" I said. "From a fatigue perspective, I agree."
She waved a hand toward the back where Naruto was loudly complaining to no one in particular and Sasuke was pointedly ignoring him.
"You get both the cool idiot and the hot idiot," she said. "Some of us have to make do with one."
I blinked at her. Then I looked back at them.
Naruto was currently trying to balance his hitai-ate on his nose.
Sasuke was staring out the window like he wanted to challenge the sun to a duel.
I turned back to Ino.
"…Which is which?" I asked, genuinely.
She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a laugh.
"You are impossible," she said, eyes crinkling. "Naruto's the cool idiot, obviously. Sasuke's the hot idiot."
I squinted thoughtfully. "Counterpoint: Naruto is many things, but 'cool' is not on the list."
"He's cool in a dumb way," she said. "Like, he says what he thinks, he doesn't care what anyone thinks about him, he's loud. That's cool."
"That's also a cry for help, but sure."
"And Sasuke—" She eyed him, then lowered her voice. "Look at him. He's like… brooding pretty. It's the hair. And the eyes. And the… everything."
"Walking unresolved trauma," I reminded her.
"I never said my taste was healthy," she shot back.
We both snorted.
As the buzz of conversation swelled, my gaze drifted back to the other side of the room—past Naruto trying to get Sasuke to high-five him ("Don't touch me." "C'monnn, we're teammates now!"), past Kiba mock-growling at Hinata, to where Shikamaru was still slouched in his chair.
He was staring up at the ceiling now, lips moving faintly like he was already running scenarios about his new team. His chakra had settled again into that lazy-deep flow, barely disturbed by the news.
Something about it tugged at me. The way he wasn't loud in my senses, but he was present. Solid in a way that felt… safe? No, that wasn't quite it. Predictable. Like if the whole room suddenly caught fire, he'd sigh, say "what a drag," and already have three exit plans.
I realized I was staring again when Ino's eyes flicked from my face to where I was looking, then back.
Her expression did something sly.
"Oh," she whispered.
"…Oh what," I said, suspicious.
"You're looking at Shikamaru like he's a puzzle you want to solve and also possibly climb," she said, way too pleased with herself.
My brain shorted out for a second. Heat rushed up my neck. "What?! No. I just—he's—his chakra is—"
"He's lazy and smart and you're doomed," she said. "Admit it."
"I do not have a type," I said, which was exactly the kind of sentence people with a very specific type said.
She leaned closer, voice dropping even lower. "You wanna trade?"
For half a heartbeat, the image flashed in my head: me on Team 10, across from Shikamaru and Choji, planning things in quiet voices while Ino went off to survive Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi alone.
My stomach did a weird, swoopy thing.
I imagined Naruto's face if I wasn't on his team. The empty space next to him in missions. The way he'd probably say "it's fine" and mean "it hurts" for weeks.
The swoop turned into a knot.
I shook my head, harder than necessary. "No," I said. "I'm not abandoning him to that."
Ino's grin softened into something more fond.
"Yeah," she said. "Didn't think so."
She bumped my shoulder. I bumped hers back.
Still, when I risked another glance toward Shikamaru, my cheeks felt hot.
"Stop staring," Ino whispered, sing-song. "You're so obvious."
"I will personally seal your mouth shut," I hissed back.
"Promises, promises."
At the back of the room, Naruto threw an arm dramatically around Sasuke's shoulders and announced, "We're gonna be the best team ever!"
Sasuke shrugged him off like he was shaking off a mosquito. "Don't touch me."
"See?" Ino whispered. "Cool idiot. Hot idiot."
I looked at them, then at my hitai-ate, then at Shikamaru's lazy profile and Choji's crunching and the way Iruka watched all of us like a tired, worried parent.
Somewhere outside this classroom, real missions and real danger and a bridge in the Land of Waves were waiting. Somewhere down that road, people were going to get hurt. People were going to die.
Right now, though, we were just kids in a sunlit room, arguing about who got stuck with which idiots.
And me?
I was the ink-stained maybe-girl who'd somehow ended up slotted between a hedgehog and a hard place, blushing over a genius who thought teamwork was "troublesome."
This world was a mess.
I kind of loved it.
Then the classroom emptied like someone had pulled a plug on a bathtub full of loud idiots.
Naruto sprinted out first, still arguing with thin air about how he was definitely going to be Hokage. Sasuke followed at a civilized walk, like he was too cool to acknowledge gravity. Ino dragged Sakura into some whispered postmortem about team assignments.
I lingered.
My hitai-ate felt strangely heavy on my forehead. It still smelled faintly like metal dust and Iruka's chalk hands.
"Hey. Sylvie."
Iruka's voice cut through the leftover chatter. I turned to see him by the door, clutching a small wrapped parcel and a stack of papers. His expression was that special blend of tired and soft that he reserved for kids who were probably about to make his life harder.
"Yes, sensei?" I tried to sound like a Responsible Kunoichi™ and not the girl who had nearly stabbed herself with a brush this morning.
"Can you run something down to the supply office for me?" he asked, holding out the parcel. "The mission office is swamped. They need these requisition forms delivered. It's… technically not an official mission," he admitted, a little sheepish, "but you'd be doing me a favor."
My heart did a weird little stutter.
Not a mission-mission. Just an errand. But it was still leaving the academy with a task and coming back with results.
"I can do that," I said, maybe too fast.
His mouth twitched like he wanted to smile but knew that would be encouraging my nonsense. "Straight to the supply office by the east wall. Don't open it. Don't get distracted. Just go there and come back. Got it?"
So: no detours, no doodling in the margins of reality. Fine.
"Got it," I said, taking the parcel. It was light—paper and maybe a couple of tiny metal weights. The twine scratched against my fingers.
For a second, Iruka's gaze softened even more. It made something in my chest ache. "You're doing well," he said, almost under his breath. "Don't overthink it."
Too late.
"I'll be back soon," I said, and escaped before I could turn into a puddle.
Konoha in late afternoon was obnoxiously pretty.
Sunlight filtered through the leaves, dappling the streets. The air smelled like dust, grilled meat, and ink—the good stuff, not the cheap watery garbage I'd used before. Before felt foggy now, a smear of shouting and slammed doors and never being the right shape, the right anything.
This life didn't fit perfectly either. My shirt was a knock-off school uniform with pink trim, one size too big. My shorts were dark pink and slightly baggy, held up by a black belt I absolutely did not fill out.
But my hitai-ate sat on my forehead, solid and real.
I walked.
Parcel tucked under one arm, glasses sliding down my nose, I mentally traced a little seal design in my head—tiny, useless chakra diagram to keep my brain occupied. A spinning circle of ink lines. Nothing powerful. Just the fantasy of control.
"—telling you, keep your son away from him."
The words snagged my attention like a hook.
I slowed without meaning to.
Two civilians stood at the corner where the street narrowed toward the east wall: a woman adjusting a basket on her hip and another woman with a small boy half-hiding behind her skirts. The boy had a wooden kunai, the sort sold to kids playing ninja—rounded tip, chipped paint.
I didn't mean to listen. Eavesdropping was rude.
My feet kept me in earshot anyway.
"That demon brat's always shouting at the Hokage monument," the first woman said, wrinkling her nose. "Doesn't know his place. My husband says they should have gotten rid of him years ago."
I froze.
The parcel in my arms suddenly felt heavier.
The other woman shifted uncomfortably. "He's… still a child," she said.
"A child?" The first woman's voice went sharp. "You know what lives inside him. You've heard the stories. The Fourth died for this village and they let that thing run around like nothing's wrong. You want your boy playing with a monster?"
The little boy looked up, big eyes blinking, uncertain. "Mom? The yellow-haired loud one?"
She snorted. "Exactly. If you see him, you stay away. You hear me? He's dangerous. He's—"
I moved before I decided to.
My sandals scuffed on the packed dirt as I stepped into their line of sight, parcel hugged to my chest like armor. My heart hammered so hard I thought they might see it through my shirt.
"Excuse me," I said.
Both women turned, startled. Their eyes flicked to my hitai-ate.
Oh. Right. I was wearing the village's logo on my forehead like a flashing sign that said Has Opinions Now.
"Y-Yes?" the boy's mom asked, brow furrowing.
I swallowed. My mouth went dry. Every instinct screamed don't start anything.
Different world, same fear.
But Naruto's grin flashed in my mind's eye. Him yelling "Believe it!" like the universe had personally doubted him. Him slamming his hands on the desk and declaring he'd be Hokage, and the room laughing like it was a bad punchline.
My fingers dug into the parcel's paper.
"He's a boy," I said, voice coming out quieter than I wanted. "Not a demon."
The first woman's lips pressed into a thin line. "You don't know what you're talking about, little kunoichi."
"Yeah," I said, even though my legs trembled. "I probably don't know a lot of things. But I know Naruto. He's loud. He's annoying. He eats like a black hole. He trips on flat surfaces. He… tries really hard." My throat tightened. "He's a boy. That's all."
Silence.
The little boy stared at me like I'd just performed a jutsu. His wooden kunai dangled forgotten from his fingers.
"Come along, Daichi," his mother muttered finally, grabbing his hand. Her voice went cold and brittle. "We don't argue with shinobi."
The other woman opened her mouth like she wanted to say something, then closed it. Her gaze met mine for a heartbeat—complicated, uneasy—and then she turned away too.
They walked off, skirts whispering, conversation dissolving into a low hiss I couldn't quite hear.
I stood there, breathing hard like I'd just run laps.
Nobody clapped. Nobody told me I was brave. The village didn't stop, shocked by my moral clarity. A dog barked somewhere. A vendor shouted about dumplings. A breeze tugged at my hair.
My hands shook.
I looked down at them, surprised to see the tremor. Back then, if I'd talked back like that, there would've been shouting, broken things, guilt trips that lasted days.
Here, there was just… distance. Cold looks. Weight in the air that said know your place.
The problem was: I didn't. Not really. I was a half-formed person wearing a forehead protector and pretending that meant something.
My stomach twisted.
"What are you doing?" I muttered at myself. "Congratulations, you annoyed a bigot. Gold star."
The parcel crinkled in my grip. I forced my fingers to relax before I actually ripped it open and ruined Iruka's day.
A tiny pulse of chakra slid down my arms, instinctive, like the faintest brush of watercolor across paper. My emotional sense—if you could call it a "technique" yet—picked up the lingering smear those women left behind.
Sour yellow-green. Bitter orange. Fear wrapped in righteousness.
It clung to the spot like old cigarette smoke.
I took a step backward, then another.
No seals. No ink. Just… retreat.
Because as much as I wanted to scream at all of them—He's saved me already and he doesn't even know it, how dare you—all I really was right now was a baby ninja with a kind-of-problematic fashion sense and a crush on teamwork charts.
I turned and kept walking toward the supply office.
Each step felt slow and floaty, like I was moving through honey. My glasses slipped further down my nose; I pushed them back up with a knuckle, because if I lost those, then I was really doomed.
"He's a boy, not a demon," I whispered again, just for me this time.
The words steadied me, tiny anchors in my chest.
Naruto didn't need to know I'd said it. He had enough heroic speeches to make on his own. Big flashy ones, shouted from rooftops.
This was… smaller. Quieter. The kind of resistance that didn't earn applause.
But as the supply office came into view—a squat building nestled against the east wall, crates stacked outside like Tetris blocks—I realized something:
For the first time in both of my lives, I'd talked back to an adult and nobody had hit me.
The world hadn't ended.
I was still shaking, yeah. My heart still pounded. The ghost of that woman's glare still burned on my skin like a bruise.
But I was walking under my own power. Parcel intact. Hitai-ate catching the sun.
Maybe that was what being a ninja actually meant, underneath the cool jutsu and dramatic poses.
Not giant battles. Not legendary techniques.
Just deciding who someone was—and saying it out loud—even when everyone around you called them something else.
I reached the door, knocked, and shoved my expression into something approximating "competent professional."
"Delivery from Iruka-sensei," I said when a harried chūnin opened up.
He blinked at me, then at the parcel, then grunted. "About time someone sent these. Good work."
Good work.
Two stupid little words. No big deal.
My throat still tried to close around them.
"Thanks," I managed.
On the walk back, the village looked the same. Same sunlight, same leaves, same kids running past shouting about which Hokage was the strongest.
But deep down, something tiny and stubborn had rewired.
Not a seal. Not a technique.
Just a choice I'd already made and now couldn't unmake:
If this world was going to try and eat Naruto alive, it was going to have to go through me too.
And I was very, very good with ink.