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Shiori wandered listlessly down the streets of Konoha. Stalls and banners were hung up all around her, and street vendors greeted villagers enthusiastically, urging them to come into their shops. The air was full of joy as everyone celebrated the annual festival marking the defeat of the Kyuubi.
Her pale complexion and melancholic demeanor stood out in stark contrast to the festive atmosphere.
In truth, she hadn’t even wanted to leave the house tonight, but the servants at the compound had insisted she get out, citing that it would "do her good to get some fresh air."
She was sure they meant well. They were concerned for their beloved mistress’s fragile mental health, perhaps fearing that the isolation might lead her to consider something... drastic.
They had no way of knowing that she already had. That her presence in this body now was the result of one such failed attempt.
They assumed her month-long depression—where she locked herself away, barely eating or getting out of bed—was due to her husband’s death in an accident outside the village around the same time.
In a way, they weren’t wrong.
She was grief-stricken, just not for the wealthy merchant husband the original owner of this body had. Instead, she mourned another self, with another family.
Just thinking about it made bile rise in her throat. No, Shiori was not grieving her husband. She had lost him over a decade ago. And she was not the wealthy, childless widow of one of Konoha’s richest men. She was a working-class mother of two sons, only one of whom was old enough to fend for himself.
The thought of the tumultuous life she left behind made her dizzy again. Her trembling feet carried her to the side of the street, where she leaned against the wall of a building. No one paid her any mind. The streets were crowded, and more than a few drunkards wandered about, doing odd things. Compared to them, she didn’t stand out much at all.
As she took in deep, gasping breaths, trying to steady herself, she heard an odd sound.
It was... laughing?
No.
It was crying.
Shiori turned her head toward the narrow, dark mouth of the alleyway and nearly screamed.
A small, filthy creature covered in unnameable substances, stared back at her with the biggest blue eyes she had ever seen. Was that... blood?
And on closer inspection, she was horrified to realize it wasn’t an animal at all. It was undeniably human.
A human child.
Shiori’s feet moved before she could stop them, taking her deeper into the alley. She stopped right in front of the filthy child—too young to even be called that, more of a toddler—who growled at her instead of speaking.
Shiori, having spent a lifetime wrestling with feral little boys, paid no attention to his too-sharp teeth. She crouched down to his level, and when she did, he stopped growling and cocked his head at her curiously, like he really was an animal.
Gently, so as not to scare him, Shiori cupped one of his dirty cheeks in her hand, tracing a whisker with her thumb. At a loss for what to do, she blurted out the first question that came to mind.
“What happened to you, baby?”
The child, seemingly responding more to her tone than her words, let big, fat tears roll down his cheeks. Alarmed, Shiori was about to ask if he was hurt anywhere when the boy suddenly threw himself into her arms, letting out heart-wrenching, hiccupping sobs into her kimono.
Shiori gently rubbed his back, wondering who had taught this innocent child to cry so quietly.
She paid no mind to the filth now staining her clothes. She sat there with him for a little while longer, just holding him, before carefully standing up with the child still in her arms.
She waited, unsure if he would protest. When he didn’t, Shiori turned back toward the busy street and began the long journey back home.
~
Shiori learned a few things about the boy in the days that followed.
The first, and most alarming, was that the servants were all wary of him. Though they dared not voice any protests about the addition of a new member to the household—lest she unleash her displeasure on them—they kept their distance.
The second was that the boy could in fact speak, though not very well. He was young, yes, but it seemed his non-existent oral abilities stemmed more from a lack of social interaction than his age.
The thought filled her with an indescribable rage toward the people who would treat a child so young so cruelly. She resolved to settle the matter herself by carrying the child with her wherever she went and speaking to him nonstop.
The third was that his name was Naruto.
This revelation hit her like a bucket of ice water dumped over her disoriented head. The moment he said his name, in that clumsy, lisping voice of his, she felt herself truly come alive. The mental fog that had clouded her mind for the past few months lifted, and when she looked around, she truly took in her surroundings for the first time.
She was in Konoha. A military dictatorship fantasy village set in the world of Naruto. A world her youngest son had been obsessed with in her previous life.
A fictional world.
The realization brought on another dizzy spell and she cursed this new body. She had never been so sensitive in her last life, and she had to sit down, dirty compound grounds be damned. This alarmed Naruto greatly, and the toddler wasted no time burrowing into her belly, making distressed, whining noises. She laughed at the strange sensation.
Since their encounter that first night at the Kyuubi Festival, Naruto seemed convinced that cuddling was the solution to all of life’s problems. She found she didn’t mind that mentality one bit.
Shiori placed a hand on Naruto’s small back and rubbed soothing circles as she contemplated what to do. In all honesty, there was very little she could do. She was just a civilian in a world of super soldiers strong enough to defeat gods. She was also far too old, and had no interest in becoming one of the said super soldiers.
So what advantages did she have at her disposal? Her memory was impeccable, and her knowledge of this world was eerily in-depth. In her past life, her youngest son's childhood obsession had been Naruto. Shiori had, quite literally, spent years of her life hearing about the series. Had even watched a few episodes and movies herself.
Shiori felt the small body against her go still. Looking down, she saw that Naruto had fallen asleep. He looked too small in her arms. Too small, she knew from experience. They had just celebrated the second year since the defeat of the Kyuubi, and yet Naruto was much smaller than a developmentally normal two-year-old should be.
Shiori gritted her teeth in anger.
Well then. It looked like she knew what she was going to do.
~
Her editor, Mirai, slid the manuscript back to her from across the table with a blinding grin. It had only been three days since Shiori had given it to the younger woman, and she looked at all the little sticky notes and markers along the sides of the pages with slight alarm. They were clear evidence the manuscript had been thoroughly read.
The title at the top of the first page also had a little red heart and a smiley face drawn next to it. It stared back at her in big, bold letters:
“The Red Hot Habanero, and the Sun Warrior.”
The story was an interpretive biography of the life of Kushina Uzumaki, cleverly disguised as a simple love story.
It began when Kushina first entered the Konoha Shinobi Academy after leaving her hometown of Uzushio for “unknown reasons.”
Sparks flew the very first day of class when she met a “stupid-pretty boy” with hair as bright as sunshine, who seemed to outmatch her at every turn.
His name was Minato Namikaze.
They quickly formed a rivalry over who would achieve their shared dream of becoming Konoha’s Hokage, fueled 80% by Kushina’s overcompetitive spirit and 20% by Minato’s reluctance to concede that Kushina might become Hokage before him.
This rivalry went on for many years, until Kushina’s last year at the Academy. On that fateful day, Minato found her crying alone in the courtyard after school.
He frantically asked what was wrong, and in her heartache Kushina sobbed all her secrets into his chest.
She was from the island nation of Uzushio, and had just received news of its destruction. This meant she was the last living member of her family, but only because she was a monster.
Minato was visibly puzzled and horrified by her admissions, so Kushina explained further. She told him of the Tailed Beast Jinchūrikis, and how she was destined to become one once the First Hokage’s wife, Mito Uzumaki, passed away.
That day marked the start of Kushina and Minato’s true friendship. They both graduated and Minato became apprenticed to the Toad Sage, while Kushina became the apprentice of Mito Uzumaki.
For a time, there was peace. Then Hatake Sakumo was branded a failure, and the happy era of their youth was quickly washed away by the mournful era of war.
No battles were shown directly in the story. Instead, the progression of the war was revealed through brief snippets of time the two shared together between missions and battlefronts.
Kushina became the Jinchūriki, and she was devastated. Minato lost two of his students, and he was desolate. They found comfort in each other’s arms during this period, and from that comfort–
–love finally bloomed.
The war ended, and Minato was chosen to be the next Hokage of Konoha. The day of his coronation was one Kushina looked back on with bittersweet emotion, for it was both the day she was defeated in the race toward her dream and the day she was proposed to by the man who had bested her.
Of course, she said yes.
Kushina and Minato were married on a cool day in January, and not long after, Kushina discovered she was pregnant. Though this revelation was a joyous one, the last few pages of the story were heavy with tension and anxiety. Filled with unanswered questions and the shadows of danger lurking in the dark.
Kushina went into hiding, but it wasn’t enough. During her labor, they were attacked, and the Kyuubi was set free. Kushina and Minato spent their final moments alive doing their favorite thing—fighting side by side—and that made the end almost bearable.
With her last breath, Kushina kissed her son’s forehead which had a shock of hair like spun daylight, and proclaimed him to be “my brave little sun warrior.”
Only then was it revealed to the readers that the book’s title was not, in fact, dedicated to Minato, but for little Naruto. The last pages were ones filled with a mournful kind of hope. Kushina’s final thoughts as she bled out were of how wonderful she was sure her son would grow up to be, and her only regret was that she wouldn’t be there to see it.
Shiori had cried to herself as she wrote those lines. Thinking of her own sons, growing up without parents in another life.
Shiori had been a writer in her last life, too. Though for a literary market far more competitive than the one Konoha had today. She knew what could capture an audience’s attention, and she was confident she had delivered it in this book.
What she wasn’t confident in was whether she would survive publishing it, given the many state secrets it revealed, or if she would even be allowed to publish it at all.
That was why she had chosen Fire Publishing House specifically, located just outside of Konoha. It was run by some of the shadiest people Shiori had ever met and promised complete and utter anonymity for its authors. Ironically, this policy had led to a flood of erotica titles being released through them, including the infamous Icha Icha series.
Shiori was pulled out of her musings by the overenthusiastic voice of her editor.
“Sakka-sensei! This manuscript is brilliant! We here at Fire Publishing House would love to take you on as a client!”
Shiori grimaced at the sound of her corny pseudonym. The word sakka literally meaning “novelist.”
“I’m glad to hear that, Mirai-san. Though you must understand my reservations about publishing some of the more… sensitive matters in this book.”
Mirai’s grin somehow grew even larger, bordering on deranged.
“Don’t worry, Sakka-sensei! At Fire Publishing House, we value our authors’ privacy above all else!”
Shiori frowned from behind the black veil she wore to cover her face.
Well, there’s not much more than this I can do, she thought.
She considered the fact that she hadn’t already been assassinated yet as a good sign.
~
The fallout wasn’t immediate. It took a few days for the book to gain traction. Then, a few more for word to spread as people began to finish reading it.
Still, the fact that it had such a massive impact that the Hokage himself had to hold a public address within two weeks of its release astonished Shiori.
Her greatest fear had been that, after taking such a dangerous risk in writing it, the book would fade quietly into obscurity.
It didn’t.
The Hokage’s speech, when it came, was every bit as hollow as she had expected. He accepted no responsibility for the lies her book had exposed. Instead, he pretended that the publication had actually been orchestrated with his approval. That he welcomed it as a historical piece of literature that would “move the hearts of Konoha’s citizens in the right direction.”
A masterclass in state propaganda.
Shiori’s already low opinion of the Third Hokage plummeted further after that display. “Coward,” she muttered from the crowd, her voice drowned out among the cheers. In the end it didn’t matter.
She had achieved what she set out to do.
Public opinion had shifted in the span of a fortnight, and Naruto Uzumaki had gone from “the demon child” to “the village savior”. She took a large amount of vindictive glee when the new scrutiny this brought upon the boy’s guardianship status had thrown the Hokage’s office into disarray.
It didn’t take long before word spread that Konoha’s wealthiest widow had adopted the village's newly appointed martyr. When shinobi were sent to her estate to politely demand that she return the boy to the state’s care, Shiori had smiled sweetly in their faces and replied that if they didn’t leave her property in the next second, she would liquidate every investment she held in the village by morning.
Needless to say, the threat of economic collapse proved wonderfully persuasive, and no shinobi had bothered her on the matter since. Honestly, if the Hokage hadn’t wanted anyone to take Naruto in for ‘political reasons’ he shouldn’t have left him at an orphanage.
Truthfully, the adoption itself had been disturbingly easy. Shiori had walked into the orphanage, announced she wished to adopt the child in her arms, and was greeted with such a blinding smile that she hadn’t even been asked which child that was. Ten minutes and a single signature later, she walked out with the full legal guardianship of one Naruto Uzumaki.
She tried not to think too hard about how wrong that was.
Weeks later, Naruto was thriving. The once-silent, and skittish toddler now chattered nonstop, his cheeks rounder, and his blue eyes bright with mischief wherever he went. Villagers who once used to cross the street to avoid him now stopped to openly coo, offering candy, or a quick ruffle of his sunny hair. The shift still felt surreal, but Shiori drank it in with a quiet, and vicious satisfaction.
She was strolling down the main market street, Naruto perched happily on her hip and waving at everyone like a tiny little monarch, when something made her stop dead in her tracks.
The masked face of a seventeen year old– if her mental timeline was still accurate– Kakashi Hatake, stood frozen in the produce aisle of a grocery store. He stared consideringly down into his basket which contained nothing but junk food and a truly puzzling amount of eggplants.
Shiori’s feet carried her forward before her brain caught up. Naruto, seemingly spotting new prey, flailed an enthusiastic hand at who he had already concluded would become his newest admirer.
Shiori barely suppressed her amused chuckle.
‘Ellooo!!!”
Kakashi visibly flinched, whipping around to look at them like he’d just seen a ghost. Only then did Shiori remember her appearance in this life, and guilt twisted sharply in her chest. She wondered if seeing a red-haired woman carrying him, or just Naruto in general, that hurt him more than he could hide.
Her heart, already soft for lonely orphaned boys, cracked a little further. He looked so young. So lost.
Kakashi said nothing, simply staring at them with wide, startled eyes. Shiori decided to take pity on him.
“Doing a bit of shopping?” she asked lightly, stepping toward him. “Need any help with that?”
To her growing amusement, he still didn’t reply. Just blinked at her like she was the child here. Shiori just smiled and began walking him through the aisles, casually pointing out some ingredients, and explaining how to use them in a few simple recipes.
By the end of her impromptu cooking tutorial, Kakashi looked even more terrified than when she’d started, and Shiori finally couldn’t help the laughter that bubbled out of her.
“I admit, cooking can be intimidating at first,” she said warmly. “How about you come over tonight at six? I can show you a few easy dishes in person.”
Kakashi, who had still yet to utter a single word this entire encounter, stared at her like she’d just invited him onto the frontlines. For a second he seemed ready to refuse, but then she notices him faltering, and looks down to see Naruto pinning him in place with those big blue puppy eyes of his.
Shiori smiled and smoothed a hand through his hair. He probably couldn’t understand even half of what they said to each other, but his instincts were as sharp as ever. She leaned down and whispered a “Good job baby,” into his ear, and he responded with one of his signature blinding grins.
In the end all Kakashi did is grunt out a simple ‘Hnn”, before vanishing in a ninja whoosh that makes the baby in her arms squeal in excitement. He claps his little hands at the display, and Shiori couldn’t help but laugh along with him. How could anyone possibly hate this child?
That night, she was pleasantly surprised when Kakashi did actually show up. He was 30 minutes late, so they couldn't make dinner together, but he did bring some– slightly wilted– flowers for her as an apology. She accepted them with genuine delight as she ushered him inside.
He lingered awkwardly in the entryway while the maids tittered nervously at the sight of ‘the mistress’ greeting a guest herself, but Shiori paid them no mind.
At the dinner table, with a cheerful Naruto beside her and an awkward, silent Kakashi across from her, she was reminded so sharply of the dinners she used to have with her own sons that she had to inhale a steadying breath.
The night progressed, and for the first time in a long while, she didn’t feel quite so weighted down anymore.
She invited Kakashi over again the next night.
Then the night after that.
She didn’t have her old life back, and she probably never would.
But sitting here, at a table with a bright-eyed little boy who hugged with his entire being; and a shameless silver-haired lost teen who’d started setting an extra plate for himself without even asking, Shiori found she didn’t feel quite so alone anymore.