Here we go

Jumping, really, was a simple matter.

Taking a step forward was even simpler. It's an action we do over and over in our lives.

Perhaps that's why it was so easy.

As I closed my eyes and took a step forward, crazy amounts of bliss and happiness took place instead of the crushing hopelessness that usually occupied the space.

Really, the aspect was quite terrifying. People did this because it wasn't scary, but they did this because it was their only relief. Only way out.

And I guess I took the coward's way.

I took my hoodie off, feeling the cold air ripple through my clothes.

I took the constricting bracelet off, exposing my scars on my wrist. It felt oddly vulnerable, but I doubted it mattered at this point.

I took a deep breath, and a smile reached my face.

A step towards emptiness, and I fell.

It was a strange feeling when the actual cold hard fact that I'll hit the concrete and die kicked in.

For month when I toyed with this idea, and this felt like the only way out, only escape. But now as I was arm length away from the relief, I just felt very very scared and very frightened.

At that moment, incredibly, I regretted the decision to jump

I wanted to live.

Then I was gone.

This world was a strange place. Stranger than normal.

There were puffs of smoke, explosions, and random acts of violence regarded as everyday activity

There was no TV and no real technology.

There were people breathing fire and water.

There were people cosplaying everyday.

Not sure what gave away the strangeness of this world.

Of course, when I first encountered this, I just assumed that I was dreaming. There was no other way that I thought this type of activities were possible.

Then again, my knowledge was not the be-all and end all.

As I slowly became used to and accustomed to this world, the logical explanations and facts began to sink in.

Funny how facts do that.

I realised that I was in the world of an anime, Naruto.

It was my best friend's favourite anime.

It was just cruel how fates worked.

I knew some things about this Naruto verse. I did watch almost all the episodes with her.

However, I truly could not recall the anime featuring a white-haired girl in a criminal organisation.

Slowly, as I grew up, I pieced information to where I was. I was in an organisation called Eos and my mother was the leader of this criminal group. Eos raided villages for supplies and sold them in a inflated price, which sounded pretty harmless compared to something like Gatos group. However, it was heavily involved with drugs and human trafficking alongside few dangerous missing-nins aiding the trade.

And that's why had Jiraiya came to infiltrate this organization.

It was quite bizarre to think that Jiraiya was an actual competent ninja rather than the image of a pervert which was displayed in Naruto. But considering the amount of rage that people had towards Jiraiya, it was clear that he made a serious damage on the organisation before I was born.

And after four years of listening to hushed talks, it was clear what happened.

Jiraiya seduced my mother to get information out of her, and my mother, realising what was happening played along and gave birth to me in order to use as a leverage. Then Jiraiya, hastily retreated as his cover was blown.

I was a result of a fancy criminal game.

Sighing, I closed my eyes and sank into my bed, relishing the warmth it gave me. Self pity never got anyone anywhere but that didn't mean I could help doing so.

A loud crack resounded as the front door opened and eerie silence followed instead of footsteps. Ninja things.

Moments later, my door opened and a woman in her mid thirty entered.

"I'm home" she said as she sat on the foot of my bed.

I sat up to face her.

She looked moderately well. She definitely looked and smelled like she's been away camping for three days but that itself was a miracle since she's been away for almost a week. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight bun and still looked sturdy. Her clothes looked slightly tattered but it was still intact.

"Welcome home" I said, hugging her.

It was a weird relationship we had. I knew that I wasn't exactly the product of mutual love, but I knew that i was the recipient of love. It was almost a foreign feeling, a feeling that I didn't get in my past life.

She returned the embrace and laid down next to me. "How's my little girl doing" she asked, tucking a stray strand of hair behind my ears.

I snuggled into her, ignoring the smell of forest trees and dirt in exchange for the warmth she emitted. "Keith taught me how to walk on trees" I said.

She laughed. "My prodigy" she patted my back. "Would you like to show me tomorrow?"

I blinked. "Are you not going to work?" Do criminal organisations have holidays?

"I'm taking a week leave" she announced, smiling and beaming.

My smile widened to match hers. "Really?"

A delightful bubbly sound erupted from her. "Of course! I'm going to spend it with my adorable little daughter" she ruffled my hair and squeezed me tightly.

I grinned. My mom in this lifetime was pretty damn awesome. It was the mom that I dreamed for in the past life. This was what I yearned for. Small acts of love that just filled my heart with warm and happiness. Of course if you forget that fact that she kills people for living.

I clutched the hem of her meshed shirt, relaxing. Mom merely responded with a fond smile, stroking my hair.

Closing my eyes, I concentrated on her steady heartbeat.

Slowly but surely, the world faded and I fell asleep.

A slight breeze shook the small forest that lay in front of us.

Mom and I stood in the clearing with smell of musky grass surrounding me.

As she looked at me expectantly, I concentrated small amount of chakra to pool at my feet. Then confidently, I went up the tree, completely sideways.

Flexing my foot, I made sure to emit good amount of chakra, making sure I wasn't overloading it.

"Can you hang upside down?" Mom asked

Instead of shouting back to make myself heard, I merely walked to a branch and hung upside down.

She smiled and motioned me to come back down.

I grinned mischievously as a idea popped in my head. I jumped down and landed on top of her, attempting to tackle her. She merely chuckled at my attempt and shifted slightly to the left to avoid me.

I rolled on the grass floor, softening the impact of the fall. Then without a moment of hesitation, I lashed out to grab on to her feet.

Mom jumped and skidded away from my reach with graceful ease. She smiled an impish grin- the one I inherited and lunged towards me, arms wide stretched.

I eeped and scrambled out of her way, almost falling down in process.

"Wind release: Gale palm" she said, and the gust of wind circulated around her.

The gust then pushed me down to the soft grass, and I attempted to regain my footing by staggering.

A familiar pair of hands grabbed me upright.

I stomped my feet. "It's not fair! You used ninjutsu!" I complained loudly.

She dusted the dirt and stray grass of my hair and clothes. "Well you should've warned me that we were playing Samurai instead of Ninja. Samurai plays fair and Ninja plays to win" she said.

I pouted but soon looked up at her. "Can you please teach me the jutsu?" I asked, putting on my best 4-year old daughter adorable look.

She sighed. "Ah my little prodigy. What am I going to do with you?" she said in an mock exasperated voice and motioned me to sit down.

"It's quite simple. It's a C-rank jutsu" she explained. She clapped her palms together and looked at me expectantly. A little weary, I copied her movement and making a resounding clap.

"Now do it again but focus wind chakra to your palms" she said, demonstrating a clap again. This time a small gust of wind made its presence.

Frowning, I tried to concentrate to putting chakra to my hands. Manipulating chakra was quite easy for me, because I could the literal foreign feeling encompassing me.

When I determined that it was enough, I clapped.

Meager amount of air escaped, but it was enough to ripple through mom's hair.

She smiled proudly at my progress. "Your affinity is wind so it should be easier to do this" she said. She clapped, demonstrating the jutsu once again.

"Now, let's add something exciting" she fished around her pouch her several kunai.

She threw the kunai in the air and clapped her palms together. "Wind release: Gale palm" she shouted.

The kunai which were falling was immediately swept by the gust of wind and got propelled. With a satisfying thud, they all solidly hit a tree trunk

My mouth snapped open. How the hell did she predict the path of those kunai?

She smiled easily at me. "Now it's so much more fun" she said in almost a teacher-like voice.

"Whoa" I said, darting to the tree to see the kunai that were embedded in the trunk. It was halfway in, and didn't look like it was going to come out by a simple tap.

"Practice makes perfect!" she said cheerfully. "Now let's go have breakfast"

Still flabbergasted by her display, I followed her back into the house.

Well, I called it a house, but it was more like a cave.

Inside was basically carved out to be a criminal compound. It wasn't too luxurious, but it was where I lived and where I grew up.

Since my mom was the leader, we had the innermost secure unit. The layout was akin to apartment with hallways and different units.

We walked through the common area, and many people nodded their heads respectfully towards mother.

"Boss!" Familiar male voice shouted from a distance. Mom and I both turned around to see the smiling red head. His blank headgear was, as always, firmly tied up, holding his spiky brown hair up. The battleaxe located on his back glistened under the torchlight inside the cave.

"Keith" Mom said, acknowledging him.

"I heard that you were taking a week leave to take care of this little prodigy" he said, prodding me in the head.

"Hi Keith" I said, smiling at him. He fondly smiled back and ruffled my hair.

She shrugged. "I am a mother you know. Sometimes you have to prioritise kids."

Keith laughed and lowered himself to face me. "Did you show her tree walking?"

I beamed. "Yeah! And she taught me how to do a ninjutsu"

Keith raised his eyebrows and looked at my mother, who was just coincidentally looking away and at a spot on the wall.

I cocked my head. "Is something wrong?"

He flashed me a reassuring smile. "Nothing wrong, just you're very advanced" he said in a tone that clearly screamed that something was wrong.

I frowned. Why is it wrong to teach a kid ninjutsu?

Before an awkward silence can come, Keith started speaking. "Do you think you can show me the jutsu? What jutsu did you learn?"

"Um I learned the Wind release: Gale palm. I'm not really good at it yet" I replied, mumbling the last part.

Guided by Keith's encouraging look, I took a deep breath and prayed that it wasn't going to be an embarrassing squirt of wind like last time.

"Wind release: Gale palm" I said, while clapping my hands together.

This time, sufficient amount of wind blew out, enough to make the torch light blow out. At least I didn't embarrass myself.

I laughed at Keith's incredulous look. Mom silently went to the torch to relight it.

"Very good job" Keith said, pride evident in his voice. "I assume you're here to have lunch?" he asked to my mom, his voice placid.

Mom nodded. "We were just heading to the cafeteria."

"Well I was going there too! Do you mind if I join the mother daughter lunch?" he said in a joking tone.

"Of course I don't mind" She said, looking at me for confirmation. I smiled in response.

Keith flashed a quick grin to me. "Rei, do you mind going there first? I just have to talk to your mother about something."

I flashed an innocent smile back. "I'll make sure you guys have space to sit" I said.

I started walking away from the adults, fully aware that they were eyeing me.

When I turned around the corner and was out of their sight, I applied chakra in my ears so I could hear their conversation.

"Did you really teach her a C-Rank jutsu? Are you insane? She's only four years old!" Keith exclaimed angrily in a hushed tone.

Mom tapped her foot almost impatiently. "Well you've seen her. She's an actual prodigy."

"Akino, I know that she's a prodigy. But she's only four. Her chakra reserves are very low. She's not old nor advanced enough to the state of her chakra reserves. She's going to exhaust herself while repeating that jutsu." he said hotly.

"Please, Keith. I think we both know that Rei is sensible enough to understand those issues. Also, if you haven't noticed, her chakra reserves her massive."

An indignant huff sounded from Keith. "That's just genetics. We know Jiraiya had massive chakra reserves as well"

"Anyways, teaching her jutsus and by extension, her chakra serves will help her learn our Bloodline Limit as well"

Silence.

"Did you just say that you're going to teach her the Bloodline Limit?" he growled, with actual ferocity clear in his voice.

"This is better if she learns it at a younger age. Better to cope with." she said with a final tone.

"You better not destroy her" Keith said in a low voice.

"Is that a request from a subordinate or a childhood friend?" Mom asked in almost a joking manner contrasting from the situation.

Hearing the rustle of their clothes, I immediately bolted towards the cafeteria.

My head pounded, trying to absorb the information I just heard.

Most four year old kids cannot use ninjutsu because their reserves are too small

I have a bloodline limit.

I slid into a table, and closed my eyes, trying to remember information from the original anime, Naruto.

I knew that a bloodline limit was something like Sharingan, Byakugan where an ability was passed down through generation. But really, I knew neither the actual extent of nor the actual limitation.

Leaning back on the chair, I stared at the table.

What am I going to do? I asked myself. Do I go to Konoha to find Naruto and Sasuke? Do I try to stop the Uchiha Massacre?

A part of me really wanted to see Naruto. I wanted to tell their poor kid that it everything was okay and show him warmth and kindness.

A part of me wanted to go to academy, to make friends with the people I saw in anime.

A part of me wanted to stop all the death happening, and I supposed I could because I knew who was going to die.

But a part of me wanted to stay with my mom, who gave me so much love, and live this life. Even though I was part of a criminal group- possibly a drug cartel- and I was a product of tactic, it was better than my previous life and I loved it here.

"Rei? Did you get your food?" Mother asked, sitting in the chair with Keith accompanying her.

I sighed. The choice was going to be hard.