…...do I really need to do a disclaimer?

Harry James Potter couldn't really say he was surprised at what happened. He had hoped it wouldn't, of course, for at least a few more years, but he had been expecting it somewhat. That was why, instead of screaming, or crying, or anything else a normal person would do in this situation, he just calmly took in his surroundings. He was in a basket. There was a building in front of him. It was a little cold.

For a few seconds, Harry thought that maybe he had been sent back in time. This was remarkably similar to how he was left at the Dursleys that fateful Halloween night all those years ago. That theory was immediately discarded when he read the sign hanging above the door of the concrete building. Or rather, looked at it, as it was written in a language that he couldn't read.

The door opened suddenly, and there was a startled shriek, followed by a giant face invading his personal space. Now, any normal person would have screamed, and wondered just how the hell people were suddenly so large. But not him. Oh no, he had a very good idea of what was going on. Closing his eyes, he called up the last image he had seen. Death, staring at him smugly with his arms crossed, a cruel smirk frmly planted on his face.

Death was such a child.

Really, he was basically throwing a tantrum because Harry jumped in front of a bus to save a kid that was apparently supposed to die that day. He never did grow out of that 'saving people thing'. According to Death, that cherubic little six year old would, if left unchecked, grow up to be the Muggle version of Voldemort. And since he really doesn't want to have to deal with all the paperwork of so many people dying before their time, he has to stage another accident for the boy.

And of course, as an immortal being of unimaginable power, that was too much effort.

So, with a mocking wave and a nasty little smile, Death decided to punish his foolish master for increasing his workload.

By turning him into an infant. Not the first time, this would actually be the fifth, and his second life in a different dimension than his original one. Though, the first one had been a malicious prank on Death's part, as Harry had been thrust into the infant body of his most hated fictional character. And he knew it was another dimension, as he knew every language ever spoken on Earth, and that was not one of them. Though it was slightly similar to Japanese.

While Harry was contemplating his situation and calling Death by as many mean names as he could think of, the giant face, attached to the equally large body of a graying middle-aged woman, had carried him into the building, which he now identified as an orphanage by the hordes of children running around.

Laying him on a table, the woman gently lifted him from the basket and checked his diaper. Harry just sighed. His first few rebirths, this had been his least favourite part of the process: having the actual clarity to remember people changing his diapers. As time went on, he just accepted it as part of his existence and resolved to shove the memories to a far corner of his mind once the phase was finished.

"Oh, what a pretty little girl you are!" The woman cooed. Harry froze. Death had made him...a girl this time. Oh that fucking asshole! It's not that he'd never been reborn a girl before, because he had, this would be the second time. The part that had him cursing Death to the deepest realms of purgatory was that he had to go through female puberty again! Boys never realize how good they have it until the start to menstruate.

Years later, very little had changed in Masaki Orphanage, located in a rural town in Tea Country. On the surface, it would appear to be an idyllic scene, the homey building placed directly in the middle of a field of flowers. Cliche, most definitely, but it served its purpose.

But, the orphanage had something to hide, the flowers being a part of it. Or rather, the inhabitants of the town did their very best to hide someone from prying eyes. A girl, found one day in front of the orphanage in a basket. The matron, Umeda Torune, had named her Masaki, for obvious, again very cliche, reasons.

It was obvious from the start that little Masaki was special. She rarely ever cried, never fussed, and possessed such intelligence that quite frankly it terrified the matron. In the early days, Masaki would just quietly stare at them whenever they spoke, it was honestly very unnerving. Then she started to speak, months before it was normal for a child to do so. Crawling followed, then walking, and she started to toddle into the older kids' reading and writing lessons. The teachers humored her with indulgent smiles, giving her paper and a brush, fully expecting the toddler to doodle with it and generally just make a mess.

Imagine their surprise when, upon collecting the papers for the day, they see that she, not even a year old, was doing better than the six to eight year olds in their class! But it didn't stop there, not by a long shot. People began to notice strange things happening around Masaki. It started out small, with her making a bird fly over to rest on her shoulder, or opening doors for people while across the room. As time passed, they got harder to brush off as coincidences.

Toys putting themselves away, Masaki suddenly appearing on the roof, floating lights entertaining the crying infants. Finally, what drove it all home in their minds that their little Masaki was something special, came the day she grew the flowers.

Before, there had been nothing here but an empty field. Not for lack of trying, just that the open space had never supported life beyond ugly weeds, and none of the flowers planted ever took root. One day, some of the older girls had been complaining loudly about having to go and pull the weeds, again. It seemed as if the day after you removed them, they would be back twice as tall for you to tackle again.

Masaki had looked up, annoyed at the interruption of her reading time, and lazily flicked a hand at the barren field through the window. Suddenly, all of those in the small village could feel something. None of them could tell you what, only that it felt like life, happiness, and sunshine. And the children watched in awe as the weeds melted away to reveal rich, healthy soil, that was soon hidden beneath vibrant colors as hundreds upon hundreds of flours erupted from the ground.

After that, well….no one ever questioned her abilities again. It was written off as a bloodline, a diverse and seemingly limitless one, but it helped them cope by putting a familiar name to something they couldn't comprehend.

For sixteen years, Masaki lived in that small village, content, showing off her 'kekkai genkai' by pulling miracles out of thin air for the children of the orphanage, where she decided to stay and work even after she came of age to leave.

Not long after her sixteenth birthday, the tranquil village was attacked.

Masaki panted as she ran through the burning wreckage of her childhood home, hoping against hope that she would find some survivors. She willed herself not to look at the burning corpses, and to focus on the task at hand. There would be time to grieve later, right now she had to focus.

Tears threatened to fall from her eyes, but she beat them back ruthlessly. She had thought that she would just stay here for the duration of this life. It's not like she had any need for adventure, that particular thirst could be sated by remembering all of the lives that had come before this one. Just once, a simple life would have been nice. But then, fate had never listened to her before, why would it start now?

For a moment, Masaki wanted to blame Death. But she knew that Death had no hand in this, he couldn't control the actions of the living to such an extent.

A sob was ripped out of her throat when she saw the sightless eyes of a toddler, staring at her from his place trapped under a table. A toddler that, just yesterday, had given her a flower with a big gap-toothed grin on his face.

Who was she kidding? Masaki sank to the floor and allowed the tears to slide freely down her cheeks. All of them were dead. She had left for all of three hours, just to let out some excess magic, far from where anyone could be harmed by the backlash.

When she got back, it was to the sight of her home being sacked by bandits, bodies littering the streets, and fire burning everywhere. She could hear the drunken laughter of the men, could smell the alcohol in the air, but she ignored it. She had to get to the orphanage and see if any of them were still alive. But none of them were. Are. None of them are alive.

So lost in her sorrow, Masaki failed to hear the crunching of boots approaching. She did hear, when one of the men slurred, "Ooohhh….we….we got a live one boys!" There were a few cheers, but mostly just grunts, too drunk to articulate actual words.

The lead man stumbled forward, grasping her chin roughly to angle her face for his inspection. "And she's a pretty one too!" Masaki had never really thought about her looks, they never really mattered much, beyond the few men in the village close to her age asking for a date.

She looked much like she had in her first life, ebony hair, emerald eyes, delicate bone structure. Though it has to be said, her size looks a lot better when she was a girl. Now she was described as 'delicate', when as a boy she had just been 'puny'. Masaki had allowed her hair to grow freely, never having gotten anything beyond a trim in her life. It sometimes got annoying, but it was worth it in her eyes for the beautiful, calf-length tresses.

Now though, now she cursed her looks, for it made her a target to these drunken men. And she knew what happened to women in the hands of bandits.

However, she refused to lie down. She would show them that she was not to be trifled with. She didn't care that she was magically exhausted right now, or that using any more could quite possibly kill her. She wasn't afraid of death. After all, she was his master.

Komaru Tamaki would be the first to tell you that he was a bad man. He stole, he killed, he raped women, and he loved it. This unlucky little village had done nothing other than be in their path, but by his logic, all of them were already going to hell, so why resist? And it had turned out to be a good decision. The village had a fairly large store of quality sake.

When Tobu, who had been on watch, reported a live woman running through the village, Tamaki hadn't cared overly much. If she was ugly, they would kill her and not have to deal with her shrieking at them over killing all her friends and family. And if she was pretty, well, the men had gotten a bit too excited during this raid, all of the others were dead, and they needed something to do tonight.

Imagine the surprise, when they find what night just be one of the most exotic beauties he has ever seen, sobbing in the ruins of an orphanage. Originally, they hadn't been planning on killing all of the kids, but they just wouldn't stop crying. For their mothers, for Kami, for someone named Masaki-nee-chan, whoever the hell that was.

He dragged the woman by her hair as his group gathered up all of their weapons and the remaining alcohol. They set out barely twenty minutes later, wanting to be far away from the burning wreckage just in case a neighboring village saw the smoke and hired shinobi. The woman was pulled along behind him, hands bound in rope they kept for just this purpose.

Suddenly, just after the fire faded into the distance, the ground started to shake. All of the bandits lost their footing, few staying on their feet, the alcohol not helping their balance any.

A rumbling sound came from behind them, and Tamaki slowly turned, horror etching itself onto his face. There, heading straight for them, was a rockslide. It was too close for them to run. All they could do was watch as their deaths drew nearer.

Cruel laughter echoed eerily through the assembled crowd of men. It was the woman, her eyes glowing, a grin stretched across her face. And they all knew it was her. Somehow, someway, she was causing this. And they were all going to die.

It took nearly four days for anyone to find the site of the 'accident'. A merchant, along with his shinobi escort, a Kumo genin squad.

They cleared the path of debris, and were shocked to find someone alive in the pile of corpses. A woman. She was sent to the closest hospital, only an hour long run for a shinobi, though it would take at least three days for a civilian to get there.

It took a week for the woman to wake up, shocking the doctor's who were convinced that she would be in a coma for the rest of her life. The woman healed remarkably fast, and miraculously didn't obtain a single scar. She left the hospital the following day, against the wishes of the staff, who believed she should stay for at least another few weeks.

But she refused. And she left.

It had been over a year since the destruction of her home village, and Masaki could honestly say that she was content. She missed her village, of course, but she had gotten over it a while ago. Being more in tune with death that any other mortal in the world, her grieving process was rather quick, compared to most others. Some would even say that she was shinobi-minded, accepting it as a part of life instead of wallowing in it like civilians generally do.

She was doing rather well for herself, traveling the Elemental Nations, never staying in one place longer than a couple months before moving on. There were a lot of things she had never experienced, a novelty for someone like her, who had lived numerous lives, and she was determined to experience all of them.

She earned money through various jobs: dancing at festivals, writing books(or re-writing, as the case may be, the stories that she remembered from previous lives and tweaked to fit her new world), modeling for a magazine, hell, she was even offered a role in the sequel to the hugely popular Princess Gale movie, not that she accepted.

Masaki often wondered just how she had convinced herself that she had no need for adventure. It had always been her lifeblood, all the way back to her first life as the Boy-Who-Lived.

Currently, she was taking a breather from her life of excitement and danger by relaxing in a hot spring in the Land of Hot Water. She had never seen the need to go to one in any of her previous lives, and cursed her stupidity, because this was heavenly!

Her peace was interrupted by perverted giggling coming from the other side of the fence. She rolled her eyes. If the man didn't want to be caught, he should be quieter. He was lucky that she was the only one in the spring right now, or his ass would have been laid out by righteous hormonal fury.

"You know," she called, and the giggling abruptly stopped. "This is a mixed bath. As long as you don't molest anyone, you don't have to hide behind the fence to get a good view."

A moment of shocked silence. She could just imagine his incredulous face.

Masaki looked up to see a shadow passing overhead, the rustle of clothes being shed, followed by a muted splash a scant few feet from her, dousing her in the warm water. "How did you know I was there?" The man asked, both amused and wary, taking the towel Masaki handed him with a quiet thanks. Dragging her eyes over his ripped(very ripped) body, she came to the conclusion of this man being a ninja.

"Your giggle is freakishly loud. You should work on that." The white-haired ninja rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. "Jiraiya." Masaki looked up at the word to see the white-haired shinobi holding out a hand for her to shake.

She placed her delicate hand in his larger, stronger one. "Masaki."

Jiraiya was confused. Normally, any woman who caught him in the act of peeping(which he now knew the reason for, how had he never noticed?) would beat him into the floor. but here was this young woman(really young, which was why he wasn't flirting with her seriously. Contrary to popular belief he did have morals) who not only did not scream, but invited him to join her.

She was interesting.

"So," he broke the silence, "what's your story?" His ninja background wouldn't allow him to be comfortable around her until he got at least the bare bones of her life's story.

Masaki stared at him through the corner of a cracked eye. "Paranoid shinobi," she muttered, opening both eyes and giving them a roll.

"How did you know I was a ninja?" Jiraiya asked, his guard up instantly.

Masaki just gave him an 'are-you-stupid?' look. "If civilians had muscles like that, women wouldn't dream of having a ninja boyfriend." Jiraiya had to concede her point. Most civilian males were rather flabby.

"You asked me what my story was, right?" Jiraiya nodded. "Well, you're a ninja. Figure it out." The Sannin couldn't help but laugh. Most would be turned off by the sass, but so long of the only people not cowed by his power or position being his sensei or his teammate, sarcasm was welcomed with open arms.

Eventually, the two decided that any longer in the water would end in them looking a good fifty years older, and got out of the pool. If Jiraiya was surprised of her inviting him into the bath with her, it was nothing on his shock when the young lady seemed to have no qualms changing in front of him.

When asked, she simply said that she saw nothing to be ashamed about in her body, adding that it was too much effort to be a prude, what with the shrieking and slapping and all. Jiraiya couldn't help but be amused by her(highly logical, in his opinion) reasons, and bemoaned the fact that Tsunade didn't share in her beliefs.

They ended up together in a bar, and Jiraiya offered to buy her drinks. The white-haired shinobi was trying to ply her with drinks so she would answer his questions, but Masaki had no problem with that. It's not like her background was had to find, or anything.

Four sheets to the wind later, and she was finally drunk enough to give semi-coherent answers. "So," Jiraiya pressed, "what do you do for a living?" Start with the easy topics, and work your way up, basic shinobi tactic.

"Uhmm," Massaki slurred, "lotsa stuff."

"Like what?"

"I pub-blish books..and...uh...dance an' shit." Obviously she was too far gone to give any in depth answers.

"Oh really? What kinds of books do you write?" being an author himself, he was honestly curious.

"Buncha ones. Like...uh….Arisa in Wonderland." Alice in Wonderland had always been a favourite, but since Alice wasn't recognized as a name here, she went with something relatively similar.

"And Twilight." Her own version, of course, she would never publish the original monstrosity. Harry had watched the first three movies reluctantly with Hermione after she had become obsessed with the series. He bailed when he saw the cover on the fourth, no way was he going to sit through that whiny bitch having a vampire baby, not even for Hermione. Freedom was worth the lecture.

That gave Death, the immortal asshole, the brilliant idea of sending Harry there after he died(his first death, mind you, so he was understandably traumatized). Being reborn as Bella Swan had him just about killing himself all over again just to escape the horror. But being the stubborn person his friends always accused him of being, he set out to make the story-line unrecognizable instead.

So the book that Masaki published included a kick-ass Bella(if she did say so herself) named Saeko and the creepy-ass emo known as Edward, called Tamaki(yes she did name him after that bandit, he ranks just under Edward on her hate scale), getting his ass handed to him on a regular basis.

Jiraiya was shocked. Two of the most popular books in the Elemental Nations, were written by a not-even-twenty-year-old girl!? There went some of his pride as an author.

The two kept talking through the night, both revealing parts of their pasts they had never told another soul. Jiraiya was shocked to feel a weight lifted off his chest after unloading a portion of his baggage on the young girl. Only the parts that didn't pertain to the village, though. Even drunk, he was a shinobi, and a damn good one.

At around five o'clock in the morning, the bartender decided they had had enough. Truthfully, they had hit 'enough' at around midnight, and he was just starving for gossip. When it became clear that the both of them were too drunk to hold a conversation anymore, and therefore not good entertainment, he sent them upstairs to a room, where they collapsed all over each other on the single bed.

Jiraiya woke to pain. Pain and nausea. Not that odd, considering his profession, and he wracked his brain for detail on the epic battle he must have participated in. Weirdly enough, he was drawing a blank. Maybe it was Tsunade, it wouldn't have been the first time she hit him hard enough to forget mission details, and hadn't that been a shitstorm with the council.

He pried his eyelids apart, ignoring the stabbing pain and wave of vertigo that washed over him. Hotel room. Better than up a tree, at least. A warm weight on his chest. Perhaps Tsunade? A perverted grin stretched over his face at the thought of the busty blonde in bed with him. He knew it would never mean what he wanted it to, but it was still nice to be so close to the love of his life.

Lifting his head to peer down at his teammate, he opened his mouth to tease her, before snapping it shut. Tsunade didn't have black hair. Suddenly, the situation was a lot less funny, and Jiraiya was a lot less calm. He never slept in the same bed as woman. Had sex with them on a bed, yes, but he always left after he was done. His body stiffened and he started to frantically search for a way out.

It's not that he was concerned about her being an enemy, the muscles on her arm, while present, were not as well defined as they would be in a kunoichi. That actually just made it worse. Civilian women were always looking to rope a shinobi into a committed relationship. Usually not even because of love, but to be arm candy for them to brag to their friends. That would not happen to him!

To his horror, the woman on his chest started to stir. NO NO NO NO! Beautiful green eyes fluttered open. OH SHIT OH SHIT OH SHIT! Here it comes. She's going to coo like an idiot, and start naming their future children. Or worse, she could be a screamer. Demanding he marry her for allegedly taking innocence that was given away long before he met her.

"Why the hell are you in my bed?" It took a few minutes for the words to penetrate his panicked mind, but when they did, he just stared at her in confusion. What? And while he was being confused…..they both still had their clothes on.

"Uh…" Jiraiya mentally stabbed himself for sounding like an idiot.

"Well, whatever," the beautiful green-eyed woman shrugged off, gracefully climbing out of the bed. "Not like we had sex, so no harm done."

"Wait," Jiraiya interrupted, confused. "We didn't have sex?" Green-eyes just cocked an amused eyebrow.

She looked down, as if checking for something. "Hmm nope. Still a virgin." Those mesmerising eyes met his, twinkling impishly, and memories of the previous day came back.

"Masaki." Oh thank Kami he didn't sleep with his new friend. That would have made things pretty damn awkward.

Someone rapped loudly on the door, and Jiraiya and Masaki flinched. What the hell did they drink last night? "Customers? We request that you either pay or vacate this room," a feminine voice called, sounding bored. Her footsteps faded as she walked away to aggravate someone else's hangover.

The two just stared at each other for a minute before Masaki groaned and collapsed on the bed, her forehead colliding harshly with Jiraiya's hard packed abdomen. "...ow." She pouted as the Toad Sennin laughed at her. "Asshole."

They were contemplating going back to sleep, when the woman came back. "Customers!" She screeched, both winced as alarm bells started blaring in their heads. Masaki sighed, and circulated her mag-chakra, she reminded herself, it's called chakra now. She circulated her chakra through her bloodstream, burning off the alcohol.

"Alright!" She chirped, the the horror of Jiraiya. "Let's go pay the banshee lady!"

""Why.." Jiraiya whined pitifully. "Why are you not in pain anymore?!" Masaki just shot him an amused grin before stalking out of the room, confident that he would follow. And follow he did, with much complaining of course.

After paying(and a sweet smile from the owner, as if she hadn't just tried to blow their ears out) the two new friends set out to find something interesting to do. Eventually they just settled down in the back of a bookstore, lounging in overstuffed bean bag chairs, critiquing each other's works.

"The reason women hate Icha Icha is that it sets mens' expectations too high, and makes them feel like they're inadequate. How can they compete, when the opposition is flawlessly beautiful, does nothing but have sex day in and day out, and has Double-E breasts?"

"Twilight was monumentally popular, and with good reason, but it needs more romance to keep the teenage girl coming back. As it is, most of your fanbase consists of teenage boys interested in the thought of a girl being able to kick the ass of a vampire, and tween girls who haven't quite gotten out of that sci-fi faze. You need to add a love interest for Saeko(Bella), enough to keep the interest of females, but not enough to turn off males. Have fun with that one."

Both walked away from that feeling satisfied, with thoughts for their next books swirling in their heads.

They spent a whole week together, just talking and laughing, Masaki even accompanied Jiraiya on his 'research', covering his mouth with a roll of her eyes when his giggling would have given them away.

That whole time, Jiraiya was contemplating how to tell her he had to leave. Really, he was supposed to have moved out days ago, he imagined his informant in Kumo was getting restless. He thought of asking her to move to Konoha, so they could meet whenever he passed through, but decided against it. She had told him that she wanted to travel for at least a few more years.

He slowly made his way back to the hotel room after his trip to the convenience store. They had decided to continue sharing a room, seeing as neither of them were particularly prudish, and Masaki had asked him to get her a cold drink since she was feeling hot.

Opening the door, he was greeted by the sight of his friend splayed on the bed, panting and red-faced. Oddly enough, not one dirty joke came to mind. He handed her the drink, and she clumsily opened it, downing the contents, spilling half of it on her chest.

"Goddamnit…." he heard her mutter. "Not now." She pauses to take a few more gasping breaths. "Shit." With that she leapt off the bed, and flung herself out the open window. Jiraiya's eyes widened in horror. Did Masaki just kill herself? A look outside confirmed that no, she was very much alive, but running into the trees. The hotel was located right at the edge of the village, so the only thing in that direction for at least three days was forest.

Following her, he found her leaning against a tree a good twenty miles from the village(Kami she was fast!). Looking him in the eyes, she mouthed 'Sorry." And released.

Jiraiya was floored by the waves of raw power flowing off of Masaki's small frame. By the sheer magnitude of power being expelled, he knew that had she done this in the village, most of the civilians would have died from shock. He, being a strong shinobi in his own right, was barely hanging on. Then it stopped, and Jiraiya breathed a sigh of relief, until he saw Masaki crumble to the ground.

"Shit!" he yelled, scooping her up and sprinted back to the hotel. She had a lot of explaining to do.

The young woman tried not to squirm as the older male stared at her, awaiting an answer to his unasked question. She had only been awake for less than a minute, but Jiraiya seemed to have no intention of waiting.

Masaki heaved a heavy sigh, and gave in. "I have a kekkai genkai...of sorts." A white eyebrow shot into an equally white hairline. "I say 'of sorts' because, well, as far as I can tell bloodline limits have set parameters, what they can do and what they can't, but mine doesn't really have any boundaries. I can levitate an object just as easily as I can make water out of thin air. Teleporting is simple, and I can tear a mind to shreds with a thought. If I chose to, I could make someone stand before an enemy and spill every one of their secrets, and not remember doing it. I could-"

She cut off at the look on Jiraiya's face. Shuttered, cold, not a hint of anything other than a hardened soldier in those diamond hard eyes. Masaki bit her lip. He was going to reject her, he thought she was a freak. Evidently, not even four long and full lifetimes had erased all of her first childhood with the Dursleys.

"I'm sorry," she whispered brokenly. She unfolded herself from her protective huddle on the bed, and picked up her duffel bag. It was always packed, and contained all of her worldly possessions. She had just opened the door when a muscular, tan arm banded around her stomach and hauled her back inside. Jiraiya kicked the door shut as he turned around and plopped her back on the bed.

"Where do you think you're going?"

Masaki swallowed at the dark voice he used. "I...I was leaving."

"I can see that. Why?" He wasn't going to let this go.

"Well, you didn't want me here anymore, so…"

Jiraiya looked surprised. "What gave you that idea?"

Masaki's eyes shot up from where she was staring at the floor. "But you...you kinda shut down there, last time someone did that…" The memory was fresh, even though it had happened in her third life, at least two hundred years ago from her perspective.

Flashback:

Harry, though his name was Galen in this life, was lying lazily on his bed, fire dancing over his raised knuckles. He stared mesmerized as the beautiful red flames danced over his flesh harmlessly, with only a slight tickling feeling. Magic never ceased to amaze him. With a thought, he changed the flame to blue, then purple, then black, and let out a joy filled laugh.

He had turned seven years old today. There had been a party earlier, with all of his second grade class invited. A cake shaped like a soccer ball, balloons with his name on them, a table piled high with presents from thirty-two kids. Thirty-two very loud kids. Galen himself was very quiet, being mentally much older than his peers. His mother jokingly called him an old soul.

Speaking of his mother…

"Galen sweetie," she called opening the door without knocking. "Your father and I haven't given you OH MY GOD GALEN PUT THAT FIRE OUT!" He did, eyes wide with panic. She wasn't supposed to find out. Ever. His mother was very religious, and believed any form of magic to be work of the devil. When Galen had innocently asked for a magician to be at his party instead of a clown, she had screeched for hours about 'those vile satanists!'.

"Galen," her voice wavered with uncertainty, "what was that?"

He hoped against hope that she would be understanding. That she loved him enough to look past her blind hatred for things she didn't understand.

His voice was small when he whispered, "Magic."

The woman's face turned to granite, not a single emotion leaked through the hard stone. Her eyes lost all light, and if she hadn't been breathing, Galen would have thought her dead. "Mom-"

She cut him off harshly. "Don't call me that you freak." Galen's heart shattered into a thousand pieces. " Why the hell were you even born? No son of mine would be this...unnatural," she spat viciously, taking sick joy in his crushed expression. "Get out of my house demon. Or I will call the priest to do it for you."

With that she threw a small box on the ground and stomped on it, before storming out of the room. Galen stared at his crushed birthday present, the cheerful wrapping paper mocking him, as tears streamed down his face.

Flashback End:

"The last person what?" Jiraiya asked, breaking her out of her daze.

"She...she called me a freak and a demon. And told me that I shouldn't have been born."

Jiraiya's face contorted in rage. "And why would she say that?"

Masaki looked at him timidly. "Because of this." She held out cupped palm, and in the time it took Jiraya to blink there was a roaring fire in the palm of her hand. It started red, then turned green, then yellow, grey, pink, white, she cycled through all of the colours she knew in her agitation.

Jiraiya stared at the flame dancing on her palm in awe. "Oh, I'm definitely taking you back to Konoha now."

Masaki stared at him like he had grown at least eight more heads. "What? Why? Why would you want something as freakish as this in your home village?"

Jiraiya's expression turned thunderous. "Whoever told you that you were a freak was a damn liar. With a bloodline like this, I doubt even Kiri would turn you away." He flopped gracelessly onto the bed beside her. "That never really answered my question though." He ignored her mumble that he never asked a question. "What was that about in the woods?"

"Um...you know how normal chakra works?" He gave her an amused look, and she flushed. "Yeah, stupid question. Anyway, normally your chakra only grows when you deplete your chakra pool, and then only to a certain point before stopping altogether. Mine doesn't do that. My reserves keep on filling past the point my body can handle, and I have to expel it before it forces my organs to shut down. The only con to doing it like that is that I have to wait a few days for my stores to get up to par again before I can use any chakra, otherwise I could die of chakra exhaustion."

Jiraiya took a moment to digest this. "So, why do it in the woods? Why not just do it here?"

"You saw what it was like. If a civilian, or even a shinobi below jonin level, saw that, they would probably die of shock. The first time I had to do this, I was six, and I put four people into comas. And I was maybe a tenth of this strong then."

They lay in silence for a while, and Jiraiya took the time to simply understand the gravity of what he was telling him. If any village were to catch wind of her, she would be captured immediately and used for breeding stock. The skills she told him about were nothing less than extraordinary, and he knew that there was more she wasn't telling him yet.

Not even Konoha, as much as he loved his village, would be above kidnapping her and selling her off to the highest bidder to pop out a hundred brats. And with the situation being what it was, it would probably end up being their beloved Uchiha prince, at least eventually, the brat was still only eleven and emotionally scarred.

How could he convince her to come willingly, though? If she came with him, she would be under his protection, and being their main source of information on the happenings of the Elemental Nations, they would be less inclined to mess with someone with his backing.

He opened his mouth to just bluntly tell her to grab her bag because they were going back to his village, but she interrupted him. "Not right now."

"...what?"

"I'll come back with you to your village eventually, just not right now. Give me a year, to finish up everything on my bucket list, and I'll let you drag me there without a fuss." He gave her an incredulous look. "Your face was an open book." Now he was just affronted. Shinobi were not open books! Their books were firmly closed, bound, locked, and sealed with blood mixed ink. He would forever deny that he was pouting.

"Now come on," she jumped to her feet, hauling him up as she went. "I'm hungry,and there's a sushi bar down the road."

Oh my god that took forever to write! I spent like two weeks on it.