Praise the Log

Waking up the next day sucked. 

The grip of panic that shot through him when he awoke to unfamiliar surroundings was embarrassing. So he’d rather not talk about it. Nor about the several minutes he sat huddled under the blanket trying to get his breathing under control.

That damned itchy blanket, he really needs to get a new one.

Once he gets himself settled, he slinks out from under the blanket and goes about his morning routine. Only to stop when he gets in front of the bathroom mirror and reaches for the toothbrush. His fingers freezing before he can make contact with the dull-red plastic. 

Que existential crisis. 

It’s his toothbrush, but it’s not. Do you use the same toothbrush as the body you overtook? Or does the weirdness of it all prevent you from doing so?

Needless to say, a few minutes later he’s writing a list of things to get and a new toothbrush is on the damned list. Along with a new bar of soap so he can take a freaking shower later. 

Breakfast is quick and dirty. Some toast. That’s it. He has a toaster, yay!

And then he’s searching around the room for some shinobi gear, coming up with sorry excuses for equipment. Half the kunai are blunted and chipped, his clothes are all rather flimsy, and he has nothing for protection. 

The sigh that escapes him could have been a low-level Fuuton jutsu with the way it left his body. Looks like he needs to do some more shopping, but he doesn’t have much in the way of money. He’ll figure something out. 

In the end, he throws on some dark pants and a dark long-sleeve shirt. Straps a weapons pouch to his thigh and slips on some ratty old sandals that look like they might have once been blue but are now not blue. And then he grabs his wallet and keys from the counter and slips out of his apartment. 

His mind searching for any place he could train that was open to Academy students. Most of the training grounds where only open to actual shinobi, Genin and up. And the few that catered to students where near the Academy itself. 

Unless, of course, you were a Clan Kid™. Then you could train anywhere you damn pleased.

‘Ugh, this kid had a Grudge™.’ He thinks and tries to shake the sneer that has twisted his lips. That can’t be good. For some random orphan to hate children from the clans like that could have only preempted danger. Searching through his memories, he doesn’t find any one event that could have twisted the kid so harshly, but a series of events that just kind of messed him up a bit inside. 

Which is fine, he guessed. He’ll grow out of it eventually. 

Maybe.

Looking through them though, is a bit enlightening. The Clan Kids™ were basically treated like royalty in the Academy. They got away with a lot of stuff because they had the backing of names with history behind them. And being kids, and being heirs to those clans, they’d allowed their perceived superiority to go to their heads. 

Not all of them, of course, but enough. And the few that are loud about it overshadow the ones who aren’t. 

So, hatred. Seeing as Rei is an orphan with no name and no one to fall back on, he was naturally jealous about it. There’s yearning there too, but he stamps it down as far as he can. Rei isn’t worth anything to anyone.

It’s not really healthy, but it doesn’t really matter anymore anyway.

‘Did I kill the old Rei when I overtook this body? Did he even exist before then?’ He doesn’t know and at this point, worrying about it will only give him gray hairs.

It’s remarkably blase about him, but he’s turning over a new leaf. Ha, get it?

Anyway, he wonders his way to the Academy and doesn’t run into anybody noteworthy. There’s also no one in the small training ground that he quickly finds himself in. He doesn’t know what he expected, but he figured there would at least be a couple students training. But nope. Not a single soul. None that he knew where there anyway.

The training ground isn’t much. Just a small field with a few training dummies in one corner and that’s about it. There are a few targets along the edge of a fence. It’s surrounded by some trees, but everywhere in Konoha is like that. 

Now that he’s there, he finds himself stumped for a moment. Unsure of what he’s supposed to do now. He has the memories, and his body is sure to remember how to do things, but there’s a nugget of doubt that itches the back of his brain. He’s never learned how to throw a knife. He doesn’t know how to fight using preset forms from katas. He certainly never used chakra before.

He closes his eyes for a moment and refuses to let out the sigh that builds in his chest. He’s being ridiculous. He just needs to stop over-thinking it all and simply act. 

He blinks and then he’s a dozen feet away, his chakra having reached out and switched with a nearby dummy. His hands folded up in a seal. Snake his mind provides. Blinking again, he drops his arms to his sides. Staring in bewilderment at the dummy he just switched places with.

‘Huh, that was….easy.’ 

He doesn’t even remember if he’d done the other four hand seals or not. He doesn’t think he had done them. 

Shaking himself a bit, he scrunches his nose and brings his hands back up again to attempt a Bunshin. Ram. Tiger. Snake. 

A copy of himself springs to life beside him and he nearly startles. He’d thought, briefly, that it would turn into his former self. But he guessed wrong. Another copy of the brat stands next to him, placid. 

He sighs and twitches when the copy does the same. He swipes a hand through the clone and relaxes when it disappears. That was kind of trippy. 

His hands flash through the seals for the Henge. Dog. Boar. Ram. And he feels his chakra slither out to coat his skin. He looks down to see-

Blood. Blood. His arms are covered in bloo-

His hands flicker and the illusion disperses, leaving behind long black sleeves. His heart hammering in his chest. 

Closing his eyes, he tries to shake himself out of the sudden funk. Okay, maybe next time he does the Henge, he has a clear form he wants to change into. No need to scar himself anymore than he already is. Or others. 

When he opens his eyes again, he glances around the training ground with a sigh. His vision flickers back to the dummy he’d displaced before he’s standing right where it was a second ago. His fingers molded into the Snake seal like earlier. 

Turning back to look at the now replaced dummy, he thinks about this new development. The Kawarimi no Jutsu was a simple technique. E-rank if he remembers correctly. But there was potential there. 

Theoretically, it was an instant teleportation jutsu. And in a world of magical eye dimensions and freaking super speed, he needed every advantage he could get. He remembers, vaguely, that after a certain while, he never saw the technique ever again. And it makes him wonder why. Surely someone would make great use of it?

If he’s going to make it work though, he’s got to be able to do it without the hand seal. The only way he knew how to get to that level though was constant use. 

Unless? 

Maybe he could just brute force it? Maybe….

Reaching out with his chakra, he feels it coat the surrounding area. Blanketing the area to the point that he can feel everything. He can feel everything that he could switch places with. 

It’s unnerving. Unnatural. Freaking awesome. 

He flickers from his place and winds up across the grounds. He stares wide-eyed at the targets he’s suddenly found himself near. And then he’s back to where he was a second later. His hands clutching the fabric of his pants. 

Okay, so he has that figured out. Now he just needs it to become second nature. No biggie. He takes a deep breath and eyes the nearby trees with something akin to rising excitement. Tree-walking was something that everyone did in the anime. Walking up surfaces and being able to walk across water was a stepping stone to getting strong.

Cool. Cool. Cool. Walk up the tree. No big deal.

He walks over to a nearby tree and stares up at it. There’s a branch about fifteen feet up that looks like an excellent place to see out across the grounds and he suddenly wants nothing more than to reach that branch.

Looking at the trunk of the tree, he places his foot against it and starts to channel chakra into it. He feels the chakra swirl inside him before it goes steady. Shaking his head, he shifts his weight and goes to bring up his other foot. 

Only for his foot to slip and send him crashing down into the earth. He stares up into the canopy of the tree and feels stupid. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

Nonetheless, his eyes narrow at the tree. It’s still early and he has all day. 

He’s going to walk up this fucking tree. Even if it’s the last thing he does.

Good news, he made it up the tree. 

He made it to the branch and had a good time surveying the grounds. Feeling like he could see everything and feeling untouchable because of it. 

Bad news, he rolled his ankle when he hopped down from the tree. Exhaustion weighed down his body and he felt sluggish and slow. His clothes had a few rips in them, so he would need to replace them soon. And somehow, he’d lost a few of his kunai. 

Don’t ask him how, he wasn’t using them in the first place. They just disappeared.

The walk back to his apartment was awful. All he wanted to do was shower and climb into bed after he ate. And it was halfway to said apartment that he remembered he needed to go to the store to get a new toothbrush and some soap. 

Meaning he had to turn around and walk a few minutes in the other direction to get to the store. Finding the needed objects freaking sucked, he doesn’t know any of these brands. And one of the store clerks was watching him with narrow eyes the entire time he was there. 

He was too tired to care what they thought of him though, so he must have come off as rude when he didn’t speak to them at all the entire time he was checking out. His eyes half-lidded as he stared through them. 

Leaving the store and walking home went by in a blur. It was only as he was climbing the stairs to get to his apartment that he realized he could have just climbed the side of the building and went in through his window. Or taken the rooftops to make his trip quicker. 

Whatever, it didn’t matter. 

Unlocking the door and slipping into the quiet apartment was a blessing in disguise. He slipped off his sandals and carried his new stuff into the bathroom. 

Showering was weird. The shower head was so far away. He had to stand on his tippy toes just to reach the damn thing. 

The less he thought about it all the better.

And then he was wrapped up in the fluffiest towel he owned and drying off. Slipping on his sleep clothes, he padded his way into the kitchen area and warmed up a packet of ramen. 

Making sure to put water in the thing. He’d forgotten once and he’d never lived it down for as long as he lived. 

When the food was done, it vanished into his belly with remarkable speed. So fast, that he felt a little ill about it. Luckily, it didn’t come back up. So he stumbled his way over to his bed and sunk down into the cushion. 

It was a western style bed, thank god. He couldn’t even think about sleeping on the floor right then. 

The sky outside had already gotten dark by the time he’d gotten home, so it was easy to see the stars out his window.  He didn’t recognize any constellations from his old life but then he didn’t expect to. The moon high in the sky. Shining like a beacon for the world to turn to in times of darkness. 

The….moon. His eyes widened. A whimper escaping his lips. 

He’d forgotten. 

There’s a goddess in the moon that’s going to be released in a few years. 

‘Great. Just. Fucking. Great.’ 

The next day was a monday. And monday’s meant class. 

Class with a bunch of noisy ass preteen brats. School, that he hasn’t been in for nearly a decade by now. 

Naturally, he was half-way to the Academy building when he said no thank you, and turned his ass around. He’s not ashamed to say that he freaking booked it as far away from the building as he could. Going so fast that his surroundings blurred and it felt a bit like he was flying. 

He was across the village before he stopped to catch his breath. He didn’t recognize the area he was in and that was okay. He’d figure the rest out later. There’s a hazy memory of the academy sensei chasing after brats who skipped class without a note allowing them otherwise and he feels himself groan in despair. 

He needs a place to hide. Stat. 

Eyes flicker around him, taking everything in. He seems to be in some sort of residential district. Which is a bad place to be as a wayward student. One concerned parent and his ass is being chased by some rabid chunin. 

He snarls under his breath and searches for a nearby tree to throw himself into. So he can get up a bit higher and see a way out of here. Finding one, he switches with a rock at the base and runs up the side of the tree as fast as he can. Hopping onto a branch that’s high enough up and covered by leafy debris to hide him.

He scans the area, trying to see a way out of the district and into somewhere he can better hide. He doesn’t see much, while the tree he’s in is placed remarkably well to see over the entire district, the district itself is large and hides the potential hidey-holes. 

Maybe he needs to- 

A chill goes down his spine. And his head turns slowly, very slowly, to his side. There, perched on the branch next to him is another ninja. They wear grey body armor, metal arm guards and a porcelain mask that resembles a…an animal of some kind, with three red stripes on it. 

Their head is tilted to the side, long dark-purple hair hanging, as they stare at him through pure black eye holes. He can’t see their eyes, but he feels them all the way down to his very bones. 

‘Ah, the shadow ninja. ANBU, was it?’

His heart thumps in his chest loud enough that he’s sure the other ninja can hear it. He’s a fool. A right fool. And now he’s about to be merced by a shadow in the trees. 

He closes his eyes, and sighs. “Do what you gotta do.”

Nothing happens for a long moment and he thinks he hears a soft sound coming from the ninja, but then the chill that sits in his spine lifts and disappears completely. Cautiously, he peaks open one eye to see the ninja hasn’t moved from where they’re crouched next to him. 

Their head tilted even further to the side and for some reason, he can feel an air of amusement coming from their side of the branch. 

He closes his eye again and sighs, again. This time in a mix of embarrassment and resignation. Right. ANBU didn’t murder people for no reason. He thinks, please don’t quote him on that.

They sit in silence for a few moments. Moments that feel like they stretch well in the minutes territory. The panic that had risen in him started to lessen, but there’s an urge in his throat to make conversation. To try to make things less awkward for him.

He digs through his brain for something to say. Anything really, that won’t make him sound like a scared little brat who stumbled upon the wrong tree. When he can’t think of anything, he just wings it. 

“Crazy weather we’re having, huh?” 

The comfortably warm breeze glides through the cloudless sky, dancing beneath the sun’s pleasant warmth and brushes gently against his skin like a lover’s kiss. 

You know, to spite him.

The ninja’s head tilts even further to the side, and the urge to run away intensifies a hundred fold. He’s absolutely pants at making conversation, okay? He didn’t do much talking in his last life and that is his default. Preferring to simply listen and speak when necessary. 

“Indeed.” The ninja intones and he startles a bit. It was a woman's voice that came from behind the mask, muffled slightly, but unmistakably a woman’s voice. “Horrendous.”

The branches of the tree rustle softly in the wind, a calming, soothing sound that has no place in this standoff. No sir. Light twinkles in between the gaps in the leaves and leaves feather light kisses of warmth along his exposed skin. 

He suddenly wishes for the ground to rise up and swallow him whole. He could be a ground dwelling creature of some kind. A mole maybe? Or something that makes a den, like a fox. Or a rabbit, like how the woman is making him feel at the current moment. 

The pitch black eye holes are soul consuming and he can’t look away from them. He won’t look away, it would admit defeat. 

He thought these ANBU or whatever where supposed to be the village shadows? That they didn’t usually show themselves to the population unless the situation was drastic. So why is this one here?

“So….you come here often?” His hand twitches. And that’s the only movement he shows that he just stopped himself from slapping himself in the face. 

Please, let him curl up and hide. But, seeing as he is currently unable to do so, he hopes his panic is less noticeable.

The woman ninja - Kunoichi, that’s it! - makes a humming sound behind her mask and he’s not sure if it’s amusement or something worse. “No.”

“Ah…” He doesn’t know what to say to that. “What-uh, what brings you to my tree?”

She makes that humming sound again and turns away to look up at the sky, he can see a bird of some kind circling above them. “Was here first.”

“Oh.” That….makes sense. He didn’t see her when he dashed up the tree but why would he? She’s an elite shinobi who has years of experience on him. He’s sure he could have stepped right past her and never known she was there. 

Which is freaking terrifying and absolution freaking cool. Will he learn that?

She turns back to him and the urge to flee reaches a breaking point. “Ill-uh, I’ll leave you to it then?”

She tilts her head the other way, before it tilts back again and it takes him a stupid amount of time to realize she was shaking her head at him. “It’s yours.”

And then she’s gone. Like, gone. There’s no poof of smoke, no slow fade away, no nothing. She’s just there one moment and gone the next. 

It’s the coolest thing he’s seen since he got here.

“Thanks!” He chirps, mood rising. He doesn’t get a reply but that’s okay. He hadn’t been expecting one. Sitting in the branch, he wonders what he’d been doing in the tree to begin with. The encounter with one of Konoha’s shadows leaves him coming up with a blank. 

He can freely admit that there’s a blossom of hero worship rising inside him. For the shadow he just met. It was the first real shinobi he’s met since waking up in this new world - memories not withstanding -  and she was freaking cool. Scary as all hell, but cool.

He wished he knew what kind of animal her mask was supposed to be though. It would make referring to her in his head much more simple. Oh well, he’ll just have to decide on something. 

‘Purple Shadow.’ 

Good enough. Is he supposed to add an honorific to the end of it? Cause that’s going to be all sorts of weird to get used to. Searching his memories, he decides that yes, he is supposed to add honorifics to people’s names. Ugh. It’s one of those.

‘Purple Shadow-sama.’

What was he doing again?

Oh, right! A place to hide. Where would be a good place to hide in a village of ninja? Someplace so obvious that no one would think to look there. Or, someplace so ridiculous that the same thing applies. 

He slumps down on the branch. Why is he hiding anyway? 

Some of those Chunin are rabid. The Inuzuka ones bite. 

Well, yeah. But it’s not like anyone besides the Academy sensei cares if a student doesn’t show up to class for the day. And even then, most of them probably don’t care all that much anyway. 

There’s a startling feeling of freedom that builds up within him. The memories of the brat come to the realization that all adults eventually stumble upon. Teachers, no matter the dimension, are over-worked as shit and underpaid to do so.

No one is going to come looking for him today. Not after one day of missing class. He’s not even a major character, so he’ll probably fly under the radar completely. 

The old couple taking a leisurely stroll underneath the tree startle violently when it starts to cackle like a horrible goose. They pick up the pace and disappear rather quickly for their advanced age. 

‘I’ve got two, maybe three days before anyone comes looking for me.’

So much to do and so little time. 

But…what exactly is he supposed to do with that time?

He slumps even further into the branch this time. Trying to merge with the wood under him. He doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. He needs to train, and while not ideal, the Academy is currently the best place for him to learn things. 

‘Maybe there is a library or something?’

Not thinking it would be that easy, he searches for any memory of a library of any kind that would cater to shinobi. He searches and searches. And he comes up with…nothing. Not a single freaking clue. 

Wait, what was that building that Suzume-senei brought them to in their second year? 

It had book shelves and tables for them to work at. They had been doing an essay on the different ninja villages and had gone to the building to do research. He hadn’t paid much attention at the time, he had been too caught up in bemoaning that he needed to write a few hundred words to meet the requirements. 

‘That’s a fucking library. This stupid fucking brat.’

He didn’t remember if it had a shinobi section or not. With a sigh, he stood from his crouch and ambled his way to the base of the tree. 

He might as well go check it out. 

News flash. It wasn’t that easy. 

Yes, Konoha had a public library. No, they did not have any shinobi techniques hidden away in the plentiful shelves. 

He didn’t know what he had been thinking. That he’d walk in and find a goldmine of shit he could use. But he found nothing. Nothing of use. Besides the presence of a medical section in the far corner, he didn’t find anything even remotely related to shinobi skills.

Sure, there were some survival skill books sprinkled about. But those didn’t count for much. No, the only things related to shinobi in the entire library were in the romance section. The less said about that the better. 

Walking out of the library, he was sure his shoulders couldn't slump any further lest they fall off. 

If he was a Clan Kid™ he wouldn’t have this problem. They gave those kids jutsu like they were candy. 

He sighs, for once agreeing with the little shit’s old thoughts. It was so unfair to the rest of them that they didn’t have access to skills they would need to grow strong. It seemed that this world relied on a special brand of nepotism that just kind of grinded his gears. That the only way to grow strong is to have someone allow you to. 

Well too fucking bad.He’s going to get strong anyway. Even if he has to steal techniques to get there. 

Too bad he didn’t have one of those magical bullshit eyes. Then he could just camp out at a training ground and rack up the techniques. 

He glances up at the sky to see the sun and realizes it’s still pretty early in the day. Noon at the latest. He has a whole ass day he’s gotta get through yet. He’d thought he’d waste the day in the library having a blast learning stuff, but no. 

He got stiffed. 

With a sigh that has seemed to become his mantra, he tries to decide what he’s going to do. He has tree-walking down now. Sure, he could get better at it to the point that he doesn’t have to think about it. But he’s got time for that. 

Maybe he should try the water version? There’s a few water ways that he could try at. Yeah, that’s what he’ll do. 

He lets his mind wander as he walks through the streets. There’s so much that happens in the show, and then all the stuff he’s heard about later on. He doesn’t know where to start. Does he even want to change anything? 

Sure, some things are objectively bad. But everything seems to work out in the end, doesn’t it? From what he could remember, mostly all the main characters had a somewhat happy ending. Sure, some people died along the way that didn’t have to. Like the Pervert Sage, Jiraiya? He didn’t know. 

Others too, but they weren’t as prominent in his memory. So who knew for sure. 

He guessed Itachi counted. Maybe? The kid did kill his family, so who knew if he was worth saving anyway. To him, it seems like the kid took the easy way out of a mess he could have changed. But, maybe that is too much pressure to put on a thirteen year olds shoulders. Not to mention the mindfuck he did to his own brother. Who was, theoretically, an innocent at the time. 

So…uh, fuck Itachi?

Not his problem.

His only major threat right now was that old coot that advised the Hokage. What was his name? Danki? No. Dango! No, that’s a sweet. He thinks. Bandage man!

Hmm, whatever. Dango it is. 

From what he can remember, the old man had a habit of kidnapping children and using them in his Super Secret Totally Not Root Ninja Group. He just needed to keep off the guy’s radar until someone could kill the bastard. 

Easy, don’t act like one of those stupid Clan Kids™ and he won’t even glance in his direction. 

He nods, simple but effective. Don’t act like the world is his stage and he’ll be fine. Mostly. Hopefully. 

‘Man, that grudge is bad.’

Before he knows it, he’s found himself at the edge of a small river. He doesn't know where it even leads, but it’s small and shallow enough that he doesn’t care. And, it has the unique position of being hidden in between the backs of a few taller buildings. Meaning he won’t have an audience to his future mishaps. 

Stepping up to the edge of the water, he hesitated for a moment before letting his chakra roll to life under his skin. Taking a breath, and making sure he’s only in a few inches of water, he took a step out onto the water. 

His foot met resistance for all of a second before it sunk down and splashed into the water. Soaking his foot and his pant leg up to his shin. 

He sighs. Of course it wouldn’t be that easy.

He could go completely in depth on how he’s supposed to do this. How he’s supposed to know exactly how his chakra moves and adjust it correctly to match the energy flow of the water or something. 

But honestly, that’s too much work.

In the end, he simply believes he’ll walk on the water. And then, he does. Easy.

It’s an hour after he made the first attempt, and he's soaked and exhausted. Give him a break. 

His chakra levels are low and he’s never felt more tired in his life, but he can walk on the surface. A win is a win.

Sleep comes easy that night. And if his shoulders are a bit more confident, and his mood lifted just a bit, then who can judge? He still has to worry about going to class and dealing with all those little brats that he’s supposed to call classmates. The main character of the show is bound to be an annoying little shit himself, and the world might end in a few years. But he feels good. 

And all that shit is a problem for future him. 

Right now, he’s going to sleep. Please, don’t bother him.