I found the notebook inside the nightstand drawer, beneath an old ramen receipt and a faded photograph of a woman I didn't recognize. Probably the original Kael's mother. I pushed it aside without looking.
The notebook was garbage: soft cardboard cover, yellowed pages, rusted spiral. The former owner of this body had written exactly three things in it. An incomplete grocery list, a scribble that looked like a bird, and the phrase "It doesn't matter" repeated eleven times on the last used page.
I tore those sheets out.
I sat on the apartment floor, back against the cold wall, the notebook on my knees and a chewed pencil between my teeth. I needed to organize my head before paranoia devoured me.
On the first clean page, I wrote:
CANON — WHAT I KNOW (OR THOUGHT I KNEW?)
Below it, I drew two columns: CONFIRMED and UNKNOWN.
Confirmed:
— Kyuubi attack 12 years ago. ✓
— Uchiha Clan Massacre. ✓
— Hiruzen Sarutobi is the Third Hokage. ✓
— Sasuke Uchiha exists, looks just as insufferable. ✓
— Sakura Haruno exists, still loud. ✓
— Genin team system active. ✓
Unknown:
— Naruto Uzumaki is FEMALE. → "Naruko."
— Is Hinata still in love with her? Or with a different boy?
— Will Jiraiya be her teacher? An old pervert training a girl?
— Does the Child of Prophecy apply to a Daughter?
— Is Obito still alive? Madara? Kaguya?
— ARE THERE MORE CHANGES I CAN'T SEE?
I underlined the last line three times until the pencil tore the paper.
That was the real problem. It wasn't that Naruto was female. It was what that implied. If the universe had changed one fundamental variable, how many more had it altered? One? Ten? A hundred?
I could be walking on ice that looked solid but was riddled with invisible cracks. One wrong step and all my knowledge of the future would sink into black water.
I threw the pencil at the wall. It bounced harmlessly, like everything I did in this world.
"Think, Kael," I muttered, rubbing my eyes. "What are your options?"
I stood and started doing push-ups. Thinking without moving was a luxury I couldn't afford; every second still was a wasted second.
One… two… three…
Option A: Stay in Konoha. Keep training. Assume canon is "mostly" correct and adapt on the fly.
Seven… eight…
Option B: Leave. Get out before the story turns ugly. Find a small village in some neutral country and live as a farmer.
Twelve… thirteen…
My arms trembled. I dropped to the dusty floor, gasping.
Option B was tempting. Konoha was a magnet for catastrophe. In the coming years, this village would be invaded by Orochimaru, crushed by Pain, and turned into a battlefield during the Fourth War. A civilian here was an insect waiting for a boot.
But cold logic shattered the fantasy before it could take root.
Leave? How? The roads between countries were filled with bandits, wild beasts, and rogue ninja. A civilian with 0.88 Strength wouldn't survive two days beyond the walls. No chakra, no weapons, no real combat training. I'd be fresh meat for the first group of raiders I crossed.
And even if I reached another village, what then? Foreign civilians without papers were treated like spies. In Suna they'd leave me to dry in the desert. In Kiri they'd slit my throat for sport. Smaller villages didn't have the infrastructure to protect anyone.
Konoha, with all its flaws, was a fortress. It had walls, it had ninja, it had a leader who at least cared about civilians.
"I'm trapped," I said to the ceiling. "Trapped in a village that's going to be destroyed, in a body that barely works, with a future I might not even know anymore."
I opened the notebook again and added a third column:
ACTION PLAN
Break the chakra blockage. No matter how long it takes.
If chakra won't unlock: pure Taijutsu. Like Rock Lee. Turn the body into a weapon.
Confirm which canon events remain intact. Observe from a distance.
DO NOT interact with main characters. Any change could make things worse.
Survive.
I stared at point two. Rock Lee had reached Jonin level without using a single gram of chakra for ninjutsu or genjutsu. Just muscle, speed, and suicidal determination. If that bowl-cut freak could do it, so could I.
Of course, Lee had Gai as a mentor. I had a moldy apartment and a bloody rag.
"Whatever it takes," I muttered, closing the notebook.
I shoved it beneath the futon and laced my boots.
Time to train.
On the other side of the village, at Training Ground 7, Naruko Uzumaki was having the worst day of her short life.
And that was saying a lot.
"LET ME GO, YOU DAMN PERVERTED TEACHER!" she shrieked, struggling against the ropes binding her to the wooden post.
The post didn't budge. The chakra-reinforced ropes were immune to her pulling. Her stomach growled like a caged animal, and the sun beat directly on her face.
Sasuke sat three meters away, eating his bento in silence, ignoring her. Sakura, on the other side, ate hers with flushed cheeks, sneaking glances at the Uchiha every two bites.
Neither looked at her.
"Pathetic…" purred the voice inside her head. Deep, raspy, soaked in contempt. "You can't even pass a children's test."
Naruko clenched her teeth.
"Shut up," she hissed.
"Or what? Going to cry? Go ahead, brat. Cry in front of them. Show them how weak you are."
The buzzing intensified. It was like having a broken radio shoved inside her skull, broadcasting pure hatred at full volume. Naruko squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block the voice, but it was like trying to cover a loudspeaker with her hands.
"They hate you. All of them hate you. The Uchiha thinks you're trash. The pink-haired one thinks you're a joke. And the masked one… he only sees the weapon inside you. No one sees you."
A hot tear rolled down her cheek before she could stop it. She wiped it away violently against her shoulder.
"Shut up…" she growled, her voice cracking.
But the Fox never shut up. It hadn't in years. Except…
The memory hit her without permission. Not visual—tactile. The ghost of arms wrapping around her, holding her as she fell. The sound of absolute silence, like sinking into warm water. The smell of sweat, soil, and something her body recognized as safe.
The clone. Two nights ago, in the forest. Those arms that didn't let her fall.
And yesterday, in the street. That second of peace when she passed someone.
Naruko opened her eyes. Her breathing had calmed without her noticing. The Kyuubi was still talking, but now it sounded distant, as if someone had lowered the volume.
"It wasn't my imagination," she whispered. "Twice. It was twice. In different places. But it felt the same."
Her mind began to work—not with cunning, but with the stubbornness of someone who has tasted food for the first time after days of starvation.
Something made me feel good. Something that exists. Something that's in the village.
But what? A place? A person?
The first time was in the forest. The second in the market street. Two completely different locations. If it were a place, the feeling wouldn't have moved.
It was a person.
The certainty struck her like lightning.
"What are you plotting, brat?" the Fox growled, sensing the shift in her emotional state.
Naruko ignored it—for the first time in her life. Her blue eyes were fixed on the horizon, shining with something new. It wasn't hope; it was more primitive. The gaze of a predator that has smelled blood for the first time.
"Someone in this village makes you shut up," she murmured, and a slow smile curved her lips. "And I'm going to find him."
"Stupid creature. No one can—"
"Twice," she interrupted, tugging at the ropes. "It happened twice. And next time, I'll know who it is."
Sasuke glanced at her sideways, frowning at her mood shift. Sakura muttered something about "the Fox freak."
Naruko didn't hear them. Her brain was reconstructing the two moments: the forest at night, the street by day. She tried to remember faces, smells, details. But the clone had been too disoriented the first time, and the second had been a blink.
She needed more data.
It wasn't a conscious thought. It was instinct. As her mind boiled with frustration and need, as her body twisted against the ropes, a thin thread of chakra slipped from her channels and formed something behind the trunk, hidden from sight.
A clone.
It was weak. Translucent. Barely had substance. Not the product of deliberate jutsu, but the echo of a desire so strong her chakra manifested it on its own.
The clone had no orders. No tactical objective. Only one emotional directive etched into its existence:
Find the silence.
It slipped away from the training ground with unsteady steps, staying in the shadows of the trees, moving like a sleepwalker following a dream.
Kael punched the tree for the hundredth time.
His knuckles left a smear of diluted blood on the bark. He allowed himself thirty seconds of rest, pressing his forehead against the rough surface, feeling his heartbeat in every pore.
"Status," he panted.
[USER INTERFACE]
Name: Kael
Age: 20
Affiliation: Konoha Civilian
Strength: 0.88 ➔ 0.91
Speed: 0.94 ➔ 0.98
Stamina: 0.79 ➔ 0.83
Defense: 0.85 ➔ 0.88
Chakra: Inaccessible (Calcified Channels)
Skills: None
0.91. The needle was moving, but at the speed of a snail crossing a highway.
He wiped the blood away with the rag from his pocket and reset his stance. Left jab. Right jab. Hook. Repeat.
His mind drifted to the notebook under the futon. To the list of unknowns. To the blonde girl with pigtails he had seen shouting in the Academy yard.
Naruko Uzumaki.
Would she be as strong as Naruto? Would she have the same potential? Or had this universe nerfed her for being female?
He shook his head. Not his problem. Rule number three: DO NOT interact with main characters.
He threw another punch. The bark cracked. A chunk tore free, revealing white, damp wood beneath.
"Not my problem," he repeated aloud, as if saying it would make it true.
He kept punching until the sun dipped low. Then he did squats until his quadriceps burned. Then he ran around the clearing until he vomited the rice he'd eaten for lunch.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, looked at the orange evening sky, and headed back to his apartment.
He didn't look back.
If he had, he would have seen a faint, translucent orange shadow peeking from the bushes at the edge of the clearing. Naruko's clone had arrived ten minutes too late. It stood where Kael had been, breathing air that still smelled of his sweat, and for a brief instant, the Kyuubi's buzzing that vibrated even in the copies dulled to a distant murmur.
The clone stared at the blood-stained bark. Tilted its head, confused and fascinated.
Then it dispersed. It didn't have enough chakra to sustain itself.
Back at Training Ground 7, Kakashi had just untied Naruko from the post. She rubbed her reddened wrists, half-listening to the lecture about teamwork, when the clone's memory hit her.
It wasn't a face.
It wasn't a name.
It was a smell.
Sweat. Soil. Dried blood.
And a tree with its bark torn off by punches.
Naruko went still, eyes unfocused, while Kakashi kept talking.
Someone trains there. Someone who punches trees until they bleed.
Not a ninja. Ninjas don't need to punch trees.
A civilian.
The smile returned—small and secret—curling at the corner of her lips as Sakura and Sasuke walked away without looking at her.
Tomorrow, Naruko thought, clenching her fist until her knuckles whitened. Tomorrow I'll get there before him.