Ryuna's life (part 1)
In the world of Naruto
Ryuna's Life:
At the start of the Third Shinobi War, a family traveled from a farm in the Land of Iron to Konohagakure in the Land of Fire. The group consisted of a couple in their 30s, an elderly man in his 60s or 70s, and two children around two years old. Despite the dangers of traveling during wartime, they took the roads, risking becoming casualties of the ongoing conflict.
Why would they do such a thing? Shin, a long-time friend of Hatake Sakumo and godfather to Hatake Kakashi, had finally learned of Sakumo’s tragic suicide. He felt obligated to care for the child Sakumo left behind, so he gathered his family and set out on the fastest route to reach Kakashi before anything worse could happen.
Though they couldn’t avoid all the battles, no one could defeat Takeshi Shin, the last Fuinjutsu Master of Uzushiogakure and an Uzumaki on his mother’s side. His father-in-law, Hiroshi, was a renowned samurai, famous for his swordsmanship, and his wife, Yumi, had been trained in combat due to her risky former work as a diplomat in the Land of Iron.
The children traveled on the backs of Shin’s summons—leopards, as tall as a grown man’s waist when on all fours.
Many assumed that a woman, an elderly man, and two children would be easy targets. They were wrong.
Shin, though not bearing the Uzumaki name, was a member of the clan and a cousin of Uzumaki Kushina. His acceptance into Konoha was effortless, especially with his invaluable sealing skills, which became even more treasured after the fall of Uzoshio. Welcoming the only surviving child of the former Uzokage also soothed Konoha’s guilt for failing to aid their Sister Village.
Upon arriving in Konoha, Shin met with Kushina and Minato—who wasn’t yet her boyfriend—and began the grueling bureaucratic process of gaining citizenship. This would allow him not only to live in Konoha but also to serve as a shinobi in the war. Shin wasn’t keen on fighting for the village, but he refused to leave Kakashi alone.
Kakashi, already a shinobi and legally considered an adult at the age of six, had been only five when Sakumo died. He had rejected Shin’s offer to stay with his family, still disillusioned after his father’s death.
Despite this, Shin convinced Kakashi to babysit the two children while he, Yumi, and Hiroshi handled the paperwork.
The toddlers ran around excitedly, shouting every few seconds at random things, but Kakashi held his tongue. Minato-sensei had assured him that this was normal for children. It still felt strange and annoying to him, but it wasn’t his concern. They weren’t his responsibility.
Well, maybe a little, but it was just another D-rank mission.
Everything was under control until the toddlers decided to chase after him with their slobbering mouths and sticky fingers. No matter how much Kakashi dodged or ran, the little demons only laughed harder with every evasion attempt. Even when he hid, they managed to find him. He begrudgingly admired their tracking abilities.
Were they tracking him by scent? Chakra?
Kakashi decided to test it. Using what he had practiced with his pack, he concealed his scent to see how the twins would react. His scent trail should now be too confusing to follow.
The twins ran together to the spot where Kakashi began hiding his scent and stopped, puzzled. So they were tracking by smell.
It was fascinating to watch them attempt to find him at such a young age, barely able to string together a few words. Physically, they resembled each other closely—black hair, pale skin, and blue eyes that vaguely reminded Kakashi of Minato-sensei. Their temperaments were similar as well, though the boy, Kaito, was more reckless and energetic, climbing furniture and leaping off without a care in the world. Meanwhile, Kakashi frantically tried to catch him before he got hurt. The girl, Ryuna, was more curious, constantly grabbing things to figure out what they were, which was just as nerve-wracking since her first instinct was to put these strange objects in her mouth.
For a brief moment, Kakashi considered letting the twins deal with the consequences of their actions while Shin, Yumi, Hiroshi, Minato-sensei, and Kushina were at the Hokage Tower obtaining residency papers. It was tempting, but then he remembered that this was technically a mission (a D-rank one, but still...), and he refused to fail. No matter how insignificant the task, Kakashi was a good shinobi. He wouldn’t fail.
He couldn’t let two toddlers defeat him. He wasn’t like his father.
If Kakashi couldn’t handle two children, how could Minato-sensei trust him on missions outside of Konoha? No, he had to get this right and prove that he was reliable.
The fact that the toddlers had started calling him “Kaka” had nothing to do with his resolve not to let them get hurt. Definitely not. Kakashi was a hardened shinobi, a tool for his village, and the student of Namikaze Minato, who would one day become Hokage. He wouldn’t be swayed by puppy-dog eyes or giggles—sounds he hadn’t heard since long before his father’s death. It pained him to admit that he had missed this kind of innocence and lightness, which the twins had forced on him by occupying his mind enough to prevent the usual dark thoughts.
The twins were now sitting in the middle of the room, confused by the lack of a scent trail, while Kakashi remained hidden, wondering what they would do. Would they start crying?
Almost as if in response to that thought, Kaito turned his gaze toward Kakashi’s hiding spot, as if drawn by a magnet. Kakashi didn’t let the surprise break the genjutsu concealing him.
Kaito seemed confused, staring at where Kakashi was hidden. He knew Kakashi was there but couldn’t see him.
"Kaka," Kaito called out, confusion lacing his voice as tears began to gather in his eyes. He kept looking directly at Kakashi’s hiding spot. "Kaka? Kaka!"
His cries caught his sister’s attention, who had still been searching behind the cushions scattered around the room. Ryuna walked over to Kaito and followed his gaze toward where he was looking. Unlike Kaito, however, she wasn’t upset about not being able to see Kakashi. Instead, she started running towards him with those chubby, unsteady legs, calling out excitedly.
“Kaka! Kaka!” she cried cheerfully as she continued searching the few remaining pillows, undeterred by not finding him right away.
Her enthusiasm drew Kaito out of his near-tears, and he joined her in the search.
So, Kaito had chakra sensitivity—he could become a good sensor if trained properly. He also had a good nose for tracking. He would make an excellent tracker-nin. The girl wasn’t bad either; she had the right mindset to understand that just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
Their futile search continued for a few minutes until the two sat down, apparently bored, and began to cry.
“Don’t cry just because you couldn’t find me,” Kakashi muttered, dropping the genjutsu and appearing in front of the toddlers. This didn’t stop their tears as he thought it would. “Hey, I’m right here.”
Not that pointing out the obvious did anything.
Desperate times called for desperate measures. Kakashi realized he needed reinforcements to handle the flood of tears and noise from these two toddlers who couldn’t even communicate what was wrong. Lack of communication was a real problem, and Kakashi made a mental note to revisit his shinobi sign language training, just in case. He didn’t want any issues communicating on a mission.
Biting his thumb and using the summoning jutsu, Kakashi called his pack. Soon, Pakkun, Bull, and Urushi stood before him—still growing, but able to help with the kids, he hoped.
“Hey, Kakashi, what’s with all the noise?” Pakkun asked, casting a curious look at the babies. “Who are these pups?”
“They’re my mission,” Kakashi replied. Was it weird that he expected a dog to know more about handling human pups than he did? Probably. Did he care? Not at all.
“Maybe they need changing?” Pakkun suggested as Bull and Urushi approached the babies, who immediately stopped crying to stare at the dogs. “Hmm, doesn’t seem like it... When’s the last time they ate?”
“Woof?” one of the toddlers sniffled.
“Uh, I don’t know?”
If it were possible for a dog to give a judging look, Pakkun was certainly casting one in Kakashi's direction at that moment. Alright, maybe he should have thought about this, but he assumed the babies would at least know how to ask for food. Wasn't that one of the first things you learn? It's important for survival, after all. The only babies he'd taken care of during D-Rank missions before were civilian children who hadn’t learned to speak yet, so whenever they cried, he just tried a bit of everything until they stopped. But he thought that since these two could already talk a little, there wouldn’t be that issue.
“I’ll make something to eat. You guys distract them so they don’t start crying again,” he instructed the dogs as he headed toward the kitchen, wondering what babies even eat. Fruit seemed like a good bet, as long as neither of them had allergies. Their parents hadn’t mentioned anything about that, so he was going to operate under the assumption that there weren’t any known allergies.
Kakashi returned to the living room to find his dogs completely at the mercy of the babies. Kaito was petting Urushi with something akin to reverence, while the dog was sprawled out on the floor, simply enjoying the attention. Ryuna had stars in her eyes as she poked Bull and lifted his snout to expose his sharp teeth, which she curiously touched under the watchful eye of Pakkun. He seemed simultaneously fascinated and worried by the girl’s apparent death wish, yet he didn’t stop her—just stayed close in case he needed to pull her away.
“I’ve got food here,” Kakashi announced, and like magic, the two babies abandoned the dogs and rushed toward him, shoving fruit into their mouths. This made Kakashi feel vaguely guilty for not realizing sooner that the children were hungry. He didn’t miss Pakkun’s evaluating look either. “What?”
“The pups remind me of cats,” Pakkun commented. “They even smell like cats...”
“If I remember correctly, I think their father has a leopard summoning contract,” Kakashi recalled that Minato-sensei had mentioned the summoning before, as it was the same contract that the late Second Hokage had. As far as sensei knew, Shin-san had met Nidaime-sama when he was young, but no one had given him the details.
“Ah, that explains it.”
“What do you mean ‘they remind you of cats’? I thought cats didn’t like dogs.”
“It’s not that we dislike each other… In nature, we usually hunt in the same areas and go after the same prey, which makes us competitors, you know? It’s not personal, but we have some ingrained instincts that make us naturally more cautious around each other.”
“Because you see each other as competition for food and territory,” Kakashi realized, intrigued by the logic behind his summons' instincts.
“Exactly, but here, we’re not competing for anything, which is why we don’t fight with feline summons and they don’t fight with canine summons,” Pakkun gave the canine equivalent of a shrug. “But these pups act like kittens learning how to hunt. The girl’s got a cat’s curiosity, that’s for sure.”
“Curiosity killed the cat,” Kakashi reminded him.
“And satisfaction brought it back,” Pakkun snorted before taking on a more thoughtful expression. “But a cat’s sharp eyes rarely let anything slip by unnoticed.”
“The boy, Kaito, is a good tracker,” Kakashi added.
“He’ll be a good hunter, able to find food, and the girl will defend the territory,” Pakkun seemed quite satisfied with his assessment. “Dogs and cats hunt in fundamentally different ways. Dogs are more social; we hunt in packs with teamwork strategies. Meanwhile, cats are great at hunting alone. I’m curious to see how these two will grow.”
The following months saw Shin frequently sent to the battlefield, while Yumi and Hiroshi remained in Konoha. Hiroshi opened a dojo to teach swordsmanship without the use of chakra, meaning his students were civilians and his grandchildren. Yumi began managing a craft shop where she sold handcrafted tea sets. There was even a demonstration area in the shop where Yumi could perform traditional tea ceremonies for interested customers. As a noblewoman, and a cousin of the Daimyo of Iron, Yumi had learned noble etiquette from a young age and knew how to market her products effectively.
While the adults were busy with their various responsibilities, the children were left under the care of Kazuki, the leopard summon, who happily took on the responsibility of teaching the cubs what little kittens should know. Kazuki spent so much time with the babies that he began seeing them as his own.
Kazuki, and sometimes Aiko, the cat summon, would take the children to the training grounds where Minato and Kakashi trained. There, Kazuki started teaching them things like always landing on their feet, walking silently, tracking or covering their tracks. All of this happened under the curious eyes of Minato and Kakashi. Since the children were still young, they were taught through play, just like cubs learning to hunt. They always ended the day dirty, bruised, but happy after playing games like hide-and-seek and tag.
Slowly, each of them honed their skills. Not nearly as good as an adult shinobi, but at least on par with children attending the Academy. Considering they had just turned three, it was quite impressive, and Shin knew it was only a matter of time before the Village Elders started pushing for his children to attend the Academy and graduate early, like Kakashi did. As a newcomer who had recently moved to Konoha, Shin didn’t have the means to oppose them, so he secretly intensified the children’s training in fuinjutsu, ensuring they would be able to defend themselves if necessary.
At this time, Yumi and Hiroshi also began teaching the children about politics and etiquette. Not that they could understand it all at such a young age, but the earlier they started, the faster the lessons would be absorbed, even if they had to repeat the same explanations several times. Kaito and Ryuna, being the union of two noble families, held power and influence, but it would be useless if they didn’t know how to wield it.
Hiroshi used his free time to correspond with the Daimyo of Fire and create a bridge between them, ensuring some goodwill. As a noble himself, Hiroshi was invited to spend time in the Daimyo’s company for discussions, and over time, they became friends. Eventually, Hiroshi brought the children along to ensure the twins had a solid foundation for when they grew up.
It was around the age of three that Kazuki decided to start teaching the cubs how to climb trees. What humans called “tree walking” took the twins some time to master, although it resulted in fewer bruises than expected, as they always landed on their feet.
By the age of four, Kaito and Ryuna could read and write thanks to their fuinjutsu training, had a basic understanding of their identity and societal position, and had a solid foundation in kenjutsu from Hiroshi’s lessons. They also had decent chakra control thanks to Kazuki’s training, which had unknowingly strengthened their bodies and directed chakra as needed. Aside from ninjutsu, Kaito and Ryuna were at a genin level.
At this point, Shin could no longer delay enrolling his children in the Academy, though he refused all attempts from the teachers to push for early graduation. He wouldn’t allow his children to be sent to the battlefield at such a young age, not while he could prevent it.
The twins were six when early graduation became unavoidable. They did nothing to hide their apparent genius from the other children.
With the war escalating, refusing to send his children would give Danzo the opportunity he needed to target Shin’s family or try to take custody of the children. Shin was treated as a native when they needed to send him to the battlefield but as a foreigner when it came to politics. He lacked the resources to stand between Danzo and his children.
In an attempt to maintain control, Shin made a deal with Hiruzen: he would allow his children to graduate early under two conditions: 1. They would remain together, and 2. Shin could choose their sensei.
The Third Hokage agreed.
Shin had already chosen their sensei, but he still needed to speak with the man who would take on the responsibility. Of course, Shin didn’t want a reluctant teacher for his children.
Despite his bad reputation, Orochimaru embodied the values the Takeshi clan held dear. Just as the Nara were known for their intelligence, the Uchiha for their passion, and the Hatake for their loyalty, the Takeshi clan was known for their curiosity.
The Takeshi clan was considered a civilian clan, made up mostly of teachers, craftsmen, farmers, and blacksmiths. There were some shinobi and even the occasional samurai, but not enough to be considered a shinobi clan. There were many generations in their historical records where not a single warrior emerged from the clan. This had always been the case, dating back over four thousand years, long before chakra existed in this world.
The Takeshi symbol was a dragon: a guardian of knowledge.
And knowledge is power.
Civilian or not, the Takeshi clan was not weak. Their library had never been breached, despite containing knowledge many would kill to possess.
The diaries that every Takeshi wrote daily to record ideas, thoughts, events, and anything else deemed worthy of note, were an ancient clan tradition. It was a way to ensure the most complete historical record possible. By gathering a large number of these diaries, it was possible to analyze the same event from multiple perspectives and form a clearer picture of what had happened. The diaries were also studied and sorted by topic, with more trivial matters placed in public areas of the Library, where anyone could borrow a copy, though the originals remained securely protected.
The Takeshi clan pursued whatever subjects piqued their interest, no matter how mundane or extraordinary. Orochimaru was a man of infinite curiosity, and he would never limit the twins’ curiosity. His thirst for knowledge made him the ideal sensei for Kaito and Ryuna, allowing them to follow unexpected paths instead of forcing them into his own style of combat.
Naturally, Orochimaru was hesitant to accept students, but the opportunity to access the Takeshi Library was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. Of course, he would only be able to access the Library’s lower levels at first, at least until he earned permission to access higher levels.
At first, the twins were Orochimaru’s only students, although they would receive a third teammate after the next Academy graduation in a few months. Until then, they established a routine to maximize their sensei’s time, as he would remain in Konoha for a while to train them before taking them to the battlefield in a year.
In the mornings, they trained their bodies for strength, reflexes, endurance, and chakra control. But the afternoons were reserved for personal projects, which Oro-sensei would only assist with, never interfere in.
Kaito began training to use water—his element—as an extension of his will, controlling water without jutsu or hand signs. He discovered he could do this by flooding the water with his chakra, but this was exhausting, even with his considerably larger Uzumaki reserves compared to his sister’s. To overcome this, he began working on a fuinjutsu seal that would allow him to store water already imbued with his chakra, so he could summon it during battle, but the project was still ongoing.
Ryuna, on the other hand, was interested in applying fuinjutsu to her own body. She didn’t just want to use her skin like paper; no, she wanted to be able to activate seals directly through her chakra network, allowing her to trigger seals without needing to use her hands—just by controlling her chakra. This would also prevent anyone else from accessing the contents of her seals by applying external chakra, ensuring their safety. To achieve this, she needed to figure out how to create new chakra pathways in her body to connect her seals to her main network. This would be her greatest challenge, as creating new chakra pathways was something even medical ninjas didn’t know how to do. A destroyed chakra network couldn’t be repaired.
But Ryuna had heard of how Tsunade and others had managed to completely regenerate lost limbs. The Strength of a Hundred Seal could regenerate an entire limb as if new. This had to include the chakra network, allowing continued jutsu use. With this in mind, Ryuna began learning iryo-ninjutsu, determined to figure out how to make it work.
Her experiments required animal subjects, and to cope with the guilt, Ryuna repurposed their bodies as food so they wouldn’t go to waste. Her reasoning was that they would have died to become food anyway; she just didn’t kill them immediately. Perhaps this was cruel, but it was enough to ease Ryuna’s guilt over the death of her first subjects.
Mitarashi Anko joined the twins’ team after seven months. She was older and temperamental, which the twins weren’t used to, as most people in their lives were calm, indifferent, or apathetic. There had been children like Anko at the Academy, but they hadn’t approached the twins since they had been labeled as “geniuses” and therefore untouchable from the start. Anko began training hard to surpass the twins in their morning sessions, but was unsure of what to develop in the afternoons. As a result, she spent most of her time assisting Oro-sensei and begging him to let her share his snake summoning contract.
Almost a year after they started training with Orochimaru, Ryuna finally made some progress with her chakra web creation technique. It still wasn’t ready, not even close, but now she knew the path she needed to follow. She just had to keep working on it until she developed the technique and made it safe enough to use on her own body.
With that decision made, she began working at night on creating seals. She had a particular interest in storage seals, which most people used just to make life easier when transporting things, but Ryuna? She planned to apply storage seals in combat. The seals would need to work by applying chakra on one side and having objects come in and out from the other side. She tested this on paper by applying chakra to the back of the seal to activate the front.
Team Oro began going out on missions exactly one year after the twins’ graduation, and they were immediately targeted by enemies due to their sensei’s notoriety. The twins had the advantage of having learned to fight first with their grandfather, who was a samurai, meaning they never relied on chakra in those trainings. When you’re fighting opponents stronger and more experienced than you, chakra gets drained quickly, and unless you know how to stay alive without it, you’re in serious trouble. Anko almost died in the first attack, but Kaito managed to use his new water technique to save the girl and kill the attackers while their sensei dealt with most of the enemies.
During these missions, Ryuna continued inventing new seals to test when they got home, including a bastardized version of Minato-nii’s Hiraishin and chakra absorption seals so she could absorb and use an enemy’s chakra as if it were her own during a fight. Hopefully, this would compensate for her low reserves—not truly low, but Ryuna was surrounded by people with considerably large chakra reserves, so her perspective was a bit skewed—and help her survive against stronger opponents without exhausting herself.
All of this was still just ideas, but they were ideas with great potential. She decided during that mission—which lasted months, as Orochimaru had been away from the field for so long—that when she got back, she would try to perform the Reverse Summoning Jutsu and see what kind of summoning realm she would end up in. She also fully intended to sign the leopard contract and maybe another one she had seen stored in one of the upper levels of the family library.
During the time they spent together, combining both their training and the mission, Kaito and Ryuna grew to love their Oro-sensei despite his tough way of speaking and expressing himself. They appreciated how he never dismissed their ideas as impossible, no matter how strange or crazy they seemed. He never said, “You can’t do that,” instead, he would ask, “How are you going to do that?”
Their affection showed in small acts of service, like bringing homemade food to their sensei on a day without training or fetching a book from the library that might interest him for whatever project he was working on. This, of course, also served to increase Orochimaru’s interest in gaining full access to the library. To do that, he would have to follow the clan’s customs and advance through the levels of permission one by one, but the fact that Shin liked him and treated him with respect when discussing business and as a friend the rest of the time made Orochimaru much more tolerant of the procedures, despite the delays that following them entailed.
After finally returning, Ryuna and Kaito teamed up to convince their parents and sensei to allow them to perform the Reverse Summoning. It took some convincing, and the twins had spent part of their trip preparing their arguments before they succeeded.
Ryuna ended up in a dimension surrounded by massive dragons that exuded power.
They claimed they had been able to see her in the Mortal Realm and, because of that, allowed her to enter their Realm. Others had tried to obtain that summoning contract before, but none had been worthy. Ryuna, apparently, was deemed worthy due to her lack of ambition. She never sought to possess more than what she had; she simply enjoyed what she had and fulfilled her duties to the best of her ability.
Ryuna found it odd that they could conclude this about her at such a young age, but then she remembered that time flowed differently in their Realm compared to the Mortal Realm. It was a rabbit hole Ryu wasn’t interested in exploring at that moment.
Another interesting thing she discovered was that those creatures weren’t actually dragons, but that was the form she saw them in. Most likely because that was the symbol of her clan and an image she held in high regard.
The dragons explained that they were ancient spirits who controlled the cycles of reincarnation, though they had no power to interfere in the Mortal Realm directly. Their influence began and ended with their decisions over reincarnations.
They were also responsible for maintaining balance across the worlds and universes to which they were connected.
The dragons offered her a deal. If she signed their contract, they would assist her in one battle. Just one. In exchange, they would take possession of her soul, removing it from the natural cycle of reincarnation and placing it in a cycle they controlled, putting her where she would be useful to them, rather than where it might be best for Ryuna herself.
They assured her that they would help her win a single battle, but the price…
The price, they said, Ryuna would only have to pay if she summoned them.
She didn’t think she would ever call upon them—not for such a steep price—but it was better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.
Ryuna signed the contract, intending never to use it.