Chapter 55: Chapter 53: Backstory…again?

- Moh! That idiot Homura! Why can't he see that I am doing this for his own good!? (Kasumi)

At night, within her room, Sister Kasumi could not shake off her feelings of irritation at hearing that Homura was able to properly apply for the entrance exams at the academy.

At this point, her only hope was that he would somewhat fail; since locking him in the basement was not an option.

She had given up, given up in trying to forcefully stop Homura from participating in the exams... however, if he just happened to go to sleep and not wake up in time, nobody could blame her.

Although she would never try to sabotage him directly, she could create certain conditions that would make him unlikely to wake up on time.

It was the only option she had left.

He was even more stubborn than she was, worse, he was clearly hiding something.

She knew him very well and knew also that he was clearly anxious about something else that he didn't want to share.

Homura, avoided conveying too much information to her about his circumstances, since telling others that he was originally from another world and that people in this world were fictional characters... was not exactly something he could easily share.

In fact, it was a rather crazy thing to say out loud, imagine telling it to others... even Homura himself doubted his sanity at times.

However, it was simply something he had to live with and try to bury all traces of hesitation from his mind so as to not be crushed by an existential crisis.

So, he acted the part that everything was fine, and since he has the underdeveloped brain of a child it was easy for him to lose track of his darkest and deepest thoughts.

So to Kasumi Homura was just an odd child.

However, no matter how much she tried to understand his fascination with becoming a shinobi.

Although Homura said that he wanted to be a shinobi in the future, he was a bit of an airhead.

His mind was quite childish and he was easily influenced by others' opinions of himself.

He once proclaimed that he would become the best artist just because he was praised for a drawing he once drew.

He even started charging others' for portraits made by him.

They were nowhere near perfect in terms of accuracy but he had a clear talent for art, too bad that he was too lazy to develop such talent.

However, it didn't matter for the staff at the orphanage.

Artists are not exactly the most affluent people.

Without proper support, it would be hard for him to develop such talent anyway.

Thus, no one was particularly bothered by him not trying to pursue such a career.

In fact, they were thankful that a month later he wanted to be a restaurant owner.

A much more feasible goal.

That if he was talented enough, there would be ample opportunities for him to achieve that goal in the future.

However, just like most airheads, Homura would then again change his mind and start talking another series of nonsense.

He had a potent imagination and a free spirit.

Alternatively, more like he had a personality disorder.

The truth though was a bit more complicated.

Homura, was a reincarnator.

This fact was not obvious to the people of this world, and for a prolonged time period, not for himself either.

Every new set of memories that he would awaken, would change his perspective ever so slightly.

At his base core, he could not make sense of what he was seeing or perhaps remembering inside his dreams.

Visions and memories from his past life were simply interesting dreams that made him excited about the possibilities that existed out there.

To him, those short visions or dreams that he was experiencing were only that, and not exactly revelations of a previous lifetime.

Thus, he had a bit of a hard time adjusting to all of the information that he was uncovering, even his personality was ever so slightly changing with time.

In other words, it was not a perfect reincarnation.

Especially since he had no memories of his former personal life.

Parents, grandparents, uncles, siblings, cousins, friends, acquaintances, pets, or any other form of personal information partaking in his social network was simply not there.

It was simply missing as if it never existed, to begin with...

However, certain memories also contradicted that notion, since he was eventually able to put together, parts of his previous life as he grew older, and certain memories could only make sense if he indeed had lived another life.

The most important factor that helped him put together his fractured memories was when he remembered his old name.

Just by remembering it, it was as if finally his mind was able to connect the many disjointed pieces of information available to him.

They say that names have power, in Homura's case... that turned out to be the truth.

It was at that moment in time that Homura started to drastically change in sister Kasumi's eyes.

It was not as if he had become an entirely different person, after all, at his core he is still the same being, but she found it harder to connect with him.

He started to become... different.

Acted ever so slightly more differently towards her and towards others.

Sister Kasumi at first thought that it was his realization, that he was different from other children within Konoha.

After all, as an orphan, he lacked what could be called a true family... that fact cannot be changed or eased.

Once he realized that, he would certainly lose a part of his innocence.

Although Sister Kasumi was right about that part since Homura has had the misfortune to realize such a dilemma on his own.

However, the fact that Homura had reincarnated in a world that he had once considered fictional; did a lot more damage to his psyche.

Not only that, but this was one of the harsher worlds that he could have reincarnated into.

This version of Earth...

It was a world at war.

The entire continent that he resided in... was at war.

However, the war did not just extend to the beings residing in the continent he lived in, but it would soon also be at war with interdimensional aliens that wish to eradicate all life on earth.

The realization of this fact was beyond frightening.

The only reason that he had not lost his mind right then, was because he remembered that he was not entirely powerless.

The people within this world were not as powerless as the ones in his previous reality.

This was because of the energy called chakra that resided in all living beings.

If Homura was ingenious enough to play all the cards at his disposition right, he could survive.

But then... would this also be true for his new family?

Would they be able to survive?

Or were they considered unimportant to the fleeting whims of the gods?

To be swallowed in the annals of history as unknown casualties?

He didn't know.

He didn't want to know.

Worse... He knew that if anything bad happened... he would hate himself forever.

So... it was better to cut ties or put some distance between himself and them.

Because if he were to stare into the abyss long enough, eventually, the abyss would stare back at him.

However, there's little that he can do in the grand scheme of things.

If he had changed the fate of history by merely existing, he was doomed to pay dearly for it, and most likely; the people closest to him would also share the price for it.

... It was a possible sad reality ahead of Homura.

Although he was handed broken abilities, those same abilities would take time and effort to make them worthwhile.

They were not so great as to change the course of history on a whim or use them to impose his will onto the world.

Although, the prospect of having an unfathomable amount of power in the near future was appealing... it was nonetheless going to be hard work to make it a reality.

The current truth was that he was just another weak child.

A child that lacked the power and knowledge to make his dreams a reality in a cruel and harsh world.

...sadly, the time period he had reincarnated into was one of the most eventful in this world's version of history.

The clan that he had inherited genetic traits from was about to be exterminated...there was simply no avoiding that matter.

In about 10 years, the village would face near-total annihilation twice, and the world could come to an end if the protagonist did not succeed in stopping a being that could easily destroy the entire world.

...It was laughable at how unrealistic, the future had in motion for this reality but it was nonetheless, any less true.

The curse of having the knowledge of future events that Homura was privy to, was simply too great of a burden.

It was too great of a knowledge for a child to have, no matter if his mind was enhanced from him having remembered his past life experiences.

... it was simply too much of a burden to put on the shoulders of an adult, let alone a child.

Not only that but, another thought was also weighing on his mind.

It was himself.

More specifically his place within this world.

How would he, a formerly rather normal individual with nothing great about himself, factor into all of this?

In the original story that he had read, there was no Homura.

Well, there was one. But he was an elderly man within the ranks of the elders of the village that simply shared the same name, with seemingly no relation to him... not that he was entirely certain about the matter.

Regardless, it didn't matter to his current situation.

He had to make a choice, either leave everything to fate and regret or rejoice at the end result of the outcome.

Or the alternative, take fate into his own hands and fight back!

However, Homura wasn't much of a fighter.

That fact hadn't changed even with him reincarnating into a different world, with a completely different life.

So he struggled with what type of course of action to take when he was posed with this awful realization...

... but.

He had 2 traits that would stir him up to make a decision.

Pride and fear.

As a prideful individual, Homura, could not allow leaving his fate and the fate of everyone he cared about in the hands of someone else.

As a fearful individual, he could not simply pretend that the threat that was slowly looming over his head did not exist and would eventually disappear.

So, although he had no desire to participate in the upcoming war...

Having a sharpened blade on hand for self-defense was better than being defenseless.

Even if his fate was to ultimately die again, at least this time, he would die fighting.

Those were the reasons as to why he could not simply give up on becoming a shinobi, however, sister Kasumi was none the wiser to that matter of fact.

- that ungrateful spoiled brat! Can't he see that I am worried for his sake?(Kasumi)- Said Sister Kasumi while combing her hair and looking at her reflection in the mirror.

- *sigh* It's my fault... I spoiled him too much...(Kasumi)

Although Kasumi had to take care of many orphaned children during the course of her short life, Homura was rather special to her.

She considered him to be as close to her, as family.

With that, came a myriad of issues.

She understood what it was to lose family.

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After all, she had lost both her parents.

Homura, being one of the closest things that she had as a living relative, the thought of losing him to the never-unending sea of conflict that was the shinobi world; was devastating.

She understood and knew very well how that felt.

Both her parents were medic-nins that worked at the hospital that was destroyed during the time that the nine tails unleashed onto the village.

Being a child at the time, she was unable to stay with her parents and was forced to evacuate.

She had studied medical ninjutsu under the tutelage of her parents, but she was no genius and was a normal child.

She was hard-working but hard work cannot circumvent certain fundamental realities.

That fateful day, although she was with her parents at the hospital she was forced to evacuate.

She blamed herself for not being with them in their final moments and had to watch the building they worked in being destroyed and engulfed in flames as she was being carried away.

Although she had kept hope that her parents had somehow managed to survive, reality can be a rather cruel mistress.

The wishful thinking of children pales in comparison to the harsh truth of hatred and years of despair of an entire civilization that has birthed conflict after conflict.

...Her parents died on that eventful night.

They were heroes that died trying to save as many as they could... but at the end of the day, they had died and left her all alone.

What did they get for their sacrifice?

Their names being carved on a stone monument, among all the other victims of that fateful night.

To her, it wasn't worth the sacrifice.

Nothing... was worth their sacrifice.

She hated herself for feeling that way, but the more she tried to deny it, and the louder those same vile feelings would resurface inside her mind.

So much so, that he had seen no hope for her future.

She had given up her training to become a medical ninja and was left wallowing in despair.

She was even about to end her voluntary work at the orphanage if it were not for the priest that worked there, showing her a baby that had managed to survive that fateful night amidst all the odds.

An infant boy with no name and seemingly no relatives, but kept crying with a burning passion.

He cried so much that he had to be put in a separate room, to avoid him waking up all the other infants.

Amidst all the chaos he had managed to survive.

His cries were similar to that of a wounded beast that clung to life or perhaps it was to reaffirm that he was indeed alive.

It was simply a desperate plight for help, from a mind that was not yet fully formed and could not properly process what it had experienced that day.

This much was obvious to all, but to Kasumi it was different.

Seeing the infant in front of her attempting to struggle even if it was ultimately powerless to change anything was mesmerizing. 

...The boy's desperate cries resonated with Kasumi at the time.

He had endured that hell and survived.

And kept crying as if trying to push out all the pain it had felt.

While she, on the other hand, was no longer capable of shedding any more tears for her dead parents and was now wallowing in her own misery.

The infant boy's cries... to her, were as if he was crying for both of their losses.

At a sadness that he would never truly understand but would carry for all of his life regardless.

A pain that came from loss.

The loss of losing the people that he would never get to meet, perhaps the only people that would have loved him unconditionally.

How could such a crushing sense of loss be ever fulfilled?

Perhaps it was due to this same sense of loss that resonated deep within her being, that Kasumi could not take her eyes off the crying child.

He would never get to know the faces of his parents and she would never get to see hers again.

Before she knew it, she was already holding the unruly infant in her arms.

Moreover, at that time, the boy's incessant cries started to wane little by little, until he finally fell asleep.

That day marked a shift in Kasumi's mind.

That day, she truly realized that her parents' sacrifices were not in vain or that they had no qualms about leaving her behind.

They understood that life was precious, and deserved to be protected.

As someone who was trying to become a medical ninja, the same as her parents once did... Kasumi could not understand how she could have forgotten something so simple.

As to why her parents chose to risk their lives amidst all odds.

They had lived to their very last moments true to their convictions and ideals.

They did not stay in that inferno to die, rather, they helped others to their very final moments.

Whether the child within her arms managed to survive due to the efforts of her parents or not, was irrelevant.

As long as she lived, she would live the same way they did and would only stop in her final moments.

This was an invigorating realization for Kasumi at the time.

So much so, that she was about to leave the orphanage along with Homura, as if she had adopted him.

However, she was easily stopped by the people at the orphanage who were beyond surprised at such a blatant attempt at kidnapping.

Even though she has a good head on her shoulders, Kasumi has always been an impulsive individual, even as a child.

Such impulsiveness can be debated whether or not was passed on to Homura.

However, adoption, even in the shinobi world is not an easy process.

Especially when both parties still qualify as children.

Thus, they had come to a compromise that she would continue to work at the orphanage as well as further pursue her studies in medical ninjutsu; since it was a shame that she had simply quit.

The father in charge of the orphanage was a friend of her late parents and truly did not want her to give up on all the progress and efforts that she had made in the past.

Kasumi was at first reluctant to continue after she had abandoned her training, she was ashamed of her past decisions... she even went as far as feeling that she had betrayed her parents' wishes for her.

But she was easily able to reflect on her past actions and swore to continue her training.

No amount of shame would deter her from fulfilling her renewed convictions.

Fortunately, for her, it would not take her too long to finish her training finally and become a sister, working at the orphanage.

Even though she was far from being incredibly talented, all her effort managed to pay off in the long run.

She took on so much that the father and the sisters at the orphanage were scared for her health, and she even went as far as personally taking care of Homura as well.

She truly was able to surprise all who had accompanied her progress.

-... He was so cute as a baby at the time... I would gently pinch his cheeks and he would try to defend himself but was never able to.(Kasumi)

At that time Homura was still prone to cry at night, thus Kasumi was allowed to let him sleep next to her in a crib.

Homura's influx of memories made him unpredictable, he would remember things and easily panic.

Since he had chosen to reincarnate in the world of Naruto, the memories of battles and several plot points would easily scare him and he was unable to comprehend what it all meant.

So, like most infants, he would simply cry.

Not helped that the image of threats like Kaguya and Kaguya herself were especially scary to him as an infant.

Since she was the one thing that he truly was afraid of or more likely what he was afraid of was the figure of the bijuus especially the 10 tails that were hidden within her.

However, as time passed Homura managed to regain or perhaps develop his sense of self-awareness and was no longer in dire need to stay with Kasumi at night or allow her to keep personally watching over him.

It pained her to part ways with him but, it would not be healthy for Homura and especially the other children to see, that level of disparity in their treatments.

The sisters and father are supposed to be impartial and love all the children at the orphanage as if they were family. If some start to get preferential treatment, it would undoubtedly cause more hurt.

It was with a sad heart that she had to let Homura go and simply watch over and guide him.

But since Homura, was a born troublemaker they ended up spending more time anyway.

It was more time spent arguing with each other, but it was more time that they spent together.

Perhaps, if Homura had kept any memories from that time, the time he had spent with sister Kasumi as an infant, then perhaps he would try to be less of a troublemaker for her sake.

However, since he doesn't remember anything from that time, he simply wondered why she would always interfere with his affairs... it was somewhat slightly tragic.

- Even though I chased him around... Why can't he see that it that I am worried sick about him?(Kasumi)

Kasumi could not forget or forgive Homura for running away from her during the last time they had the "talk".

Homura's actions, in the end, did not surprise her since she knew that Homura was somewhat of a coward and would run away at first sight of trouble.

If he thought it was a pain to deal with whatever problem he was facing at the time, it was not unlike him just to leave.

In other words, he was not above running away from his problems.

...A terrible behavior for someone who wished to become a shinobi.

- But... he is definitely more healthy than he was before...(Kasumi)

As one of the shortest kids at the orphanage in his age group, and the fact that he tended to get sick all the time in the past due to injecting himself with the blood of others, the physical abilities that Homura's displayed in that chase did somewhat impress Kasumi.

Even prior to him starting his training Homura was a rather weak child because he was too lazy to bother with playing with the other children all day long.

He would rather spend his time sleeping or avoiding doing anything.

-...Perhaps I underestimated him... but (I still wish that he would be more passionate about something else... Why does he always choose to apply himself to his stupid ideas rather than the ones that are the more normal? *sigh*)... sometimes I wonder where I went wrong raising him?(Kasumi)

It was clear to Kasumi that Homura was definitely in better health, thus it meant that he was applying himself to becoming a shinobi somewhat.

She just never realized it, because he just acted the same way all this time.

- I guess, him leaving the orphanage early in the morning was simply not just to avoid doing work, huh? He can act so mature at times but I guess since he is always up to no good I may have underestimated him.(Kasumi)

For about sometime, Homura has been coming home rather late and has been caught stealing kunais and shurikens from training fields and sometimes even from other children... The other children at the orphanage, don't know about this specific story because the staff at the orphanage don't want to give them weird ideas from Homura's behavior.

There's already several children that also want to become shinobis, if they are allowed to learn from Homura's poor behavior, they are likely to imitate him.

Homura himself has stopped doing that has been forced to apologize many times.

And of course, has also been punished many times over due to those incidents and other things as well, mostly for trespassing and going through others people's trash.

It's a miracle that he has not been stabbed with a projectile all this time.

It would have been the case, if not for his supercomputing ability.

Not that he could realistically explain such a thing without raising a few eyebrows.

- I don't understand. Why does he want to go to the academy so badly? He can barely do his homework. (Kasumi)

That's right.

Homura has still not been able to do most of his homework even after all these years, but that was mainly due to laziness but also something more insidious.

- *sigh* Well, at the very least, he might be able to learn how to read and write better; if he goes to the academy.(Kasumi)

Actually, sister Kasumi is wrong about something.

...Homura.

... To this day can't write or read.

Aside from his name and names or characters related to food dishes, he is practically illiterate, but with the help of supercomputing, he has been able to fool everyone.

However, that is a story for another time.

Chapter end.

 

*Phew! A bit of a heavy chapter(because I deleted the original and kept adding more stuff from memories alone, I ended up adding a lot more), but I am somewhat content with how it overall turned out but since it was heavy. so to counter balance this a will release 2 chaps ;p*

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