Ichi
CHAPTER 1
Noguchi Miho Wakes up Year 65, October 10th. There was something wrong that day. She’s not sure what makes it wrong, but the tingling feeling that had always been in the back of her head erupts that morning, it gives her a headache the rest of the day. It’s not until the morning of October 11th when she wakes up in an orphanage, while the previous day she had been with two living parents and no memories of a past life that she realizes what’s wrong.
She’s in an anime. An anime where she is not a main character or even a side character. She is cannon fodder, and well if she is only useful in dying for the village and or the plot, might as well do so right?
So Miho signs up for the academy with the story of the ninja who saved the children she had been playing with and well, Konoha just lost a bunch of people. Any new soldiers signing up are welcomed.
When she first realized she remembered a past life, it wasn’t that much of a big deal. Sure the person she had previously been had read all sorts of fiction about it, but Miho was 5, why should she care about existential crises, if she had still been that person she might’ve. But it's not like that person had much of a will to live and Miho’s personality came out winning, except that Miho also didn’t have much will to live after realizing she was cannon fodder, so how pathetic did that make her previous life.
Not much, but a dead soul's will to live will always be weaker than a vibrant child with all things to live for, even one resigned to their own fate.
And even as resigned to her own fate as she was, the fates of others? Kishimoto made a cool world, yes. A world with a timeline that made sense, or even proper storylines for characters, no.
So who cares about a timeline that might not actually be real, she’ll walk as a butterfly in a thunderstorm. So very delicate, but each flap of the wings brings a slight pressure that influences the world around it.
Upon awakening she had also taken a look at herself in the mirror, her child self in this life wasn’t ugly, sure she wouldn’t be a great beauty but she wouldn’t be ugly. She would be the face you walked by in the street and didn’t take a second look at, the face that was innocent but normal, so normal and plain and inconspicuous. It was the perfect face for a shinobi who didn’t want fame.
Her skin was fire nation standard, pale with a slight sun tan, it would probably fade drastically into shimmering in the sun if she spent too much time indoors.
Her hair was also fire nation standard and a brown color. It would also make blending in an easy task, due to being a common enough color in most nations.
Her eyes were a light blue with green and gray tints more commonly found in Kiri. Which would be a point of interest for missions in all countries except water, but is also easily hidden through plenty of means.
Her face was rather plain, which she was automatically thankful for. She may be only five, and aiming to be a powerful ninja. But she remembered a life of fearing being alone outside the house, of carrying pepper spray in her bag at all times, of double checking locked doors and always telling at least one person where she would be at all times, and an estimate of how long she would be gone and at what time they should be worried if she wasn’t home.
This world and her previous were probably just as ugly, that one just hid it better. And she doesn’t know how bad her previous world was. Every ugly thing brought up was something quickly covered up, or it wasn’t her country or even her state or city and so it wasn't her problem.
She was scared, sure, but in this world she had the opportunity to be stronger than any opportunities in her previous life. Even if she can’t learn certain things due to being a clanless orphan, possibly being female might be detrimental, she might even ask for help learning something and be turned away.
But training to be a ninja means as long as its for the benefit of her village and she is never caught it isn’t wrong and thus watching older ninja train wouldn’t be wrong, it's not like she would be able to properly hide from them sir, she assumed they had known she was there all along and were letting her watch. Did she do something wrong sir? They never mentioned it was wrong in the academy.
And so began Miho’s journey to be a sneaky sneak.