Naruto: Snow Cold

Two whole years have passed since I arrived, and quite a few things have happened.

First, I finally managed to completely learn this darn language—eat it, world! Yahoo! I guess it was due to my brain still being young and developing, which probably made it easier.

I no longer stared like an idiot when someone spoke to me, and I could actually formulate sentences to reply with.

It didn't change my social life much, though, as I wasn't really fond of making friends, much like in my previous life. I'll have to make some soon enough if I want to become strong, though.

My name in this life is apparently Amai—just Amai. I don't know if I have a clan, but I strongly suspect that I do, given my white hair and the fact that I was getting "kidnapped" the moment I came to this world.

I am now almost three years old, and another curious thing that I disappointingly found out about... they don't celebrate birthdays in this place.

I can probably see why, and I don't want to seem like a spoiled brat, but come on, I want at least some water balloons or some cake!

Not everything was entirely hopeless, though, since we did receive gifts from time to time from other generous people who donated to this orphanage, like cute clothes, sweets, toys, etc.

Speaking of sweets, I really loved chewing on those sugar cane pieces they gave us; they were so sweet and juicy! My mouth just drools at the thought of it. It's sad that they eventually lost their flavor and you had to throw them away right after, though.

Hmmm... What else... Oh yeah, I also picked up writing much earlier than my siblings to prepare myself for the academy and also for Fuinjutsu, since it seemed cool. Maybe there's no chance that I could do it, but I want to use the Flying Thunder God like Minato and teleport around. You know that time he just teleported behind Obito and rasengan'd the hell out of his back? I wanna try that!

------------FLASHBACK------------

I was walking down the hallway, looking for a pencil and an eraser since I had already gotten a book as a gift from one of the kind strangers.

Bump!

Ah... I wasn't looking where I was going. I looked up with a bit of worry and saw one of the caretakers in front of me, and she spoke with slight concern:

"What's wrong, my little troublemaker? Are you looking for something?"

I could understand what people said. I can do this!

"Looking for... pencil."

"Oh, you're interested in learning how to write? Such a studious kid you are. Follow me; I think I can get you a pencil for your book and a guide to help you get started." She said, reaching out her hand to me, which I, of course, took hold of, and she started walking me to the storage room.

Once we were there, she let go and told me to wait and not go anywhere, so I just stayed put.

She opened the door with her keys and rummaged through the room, finding a pencil and trying to locate something else, which I assume must be the guide she spoke about.

"Come on, where is it? Where is it... Oh, there it is!" She snatched a folder with around eight pages, I assume, and walked over to me, then proceeded to hand it to me along with the pencil.

I received it with awe, accepting it gratefully and already speculating about what I could do with it.

"Take good care of it, okay?" she said, a loving look plastered on her face.

"Yes! Thank you, big sister!" I replied. This is gonna help me so much on my journey!

She pinched my cheeks... Stop it, damn it! I may be a toddler, but I've still got my pride!

"You're so cute! Remember to work hard, study well, and eat and sleep plenty so that you can grow up big and strong—that's the ninja way." She then smooched me on the forehead, shortly letting me go back to the girls' room, where I went to my own personal space, ignoring the other children as I began to get to work.

I started trying to write English words on the first page of the book—random stuff like "I like apples." And even after all these years, I'm still not that rusty, huh?

I don't mean to brag, but my writing was pretty neat back in my previous life, to the point of even being complimented on it by my Literature teacher, heh.

Putting that aside, this is gonna take a long time, isn't it? I barely recognize a few of these letters in the guide. I'll probably have to ask one of the caretakers to help me or something so that I can progress faster and increase my efficiency.

So, I just got to work with the kanji.

------------FLASHBACK END------------

On to other matters, I also made quite a lot of progress with chakra.

How much, you ask? Kukuku... This young master has finally managed to unlock my chakra, and I can let it flow freely across my whole body! No fancy stuff like infusing it into my muscles or organs, though; I don't want to do that without supervision lest I get a disability or two—or even death.

Death is really scary to think about, ugh... Sometimes I still get nightmares from the void.

Remember how the caretaker called me a little troublemaker? Yeah, uh, there's a reason for that...

I crawled around the place a lot. Eventually, I started walking somewhat earlier than my siblings. I explored the whole orphanage and found quite a few rooms, which also meant I encountered the caretakers quite often, getting dragged right back to the girls' room. Such a bother... or am I the bother? Naaaawww, I'll just keep going! I thought to myself back then, hahaha!

During my escapades, I found that we had quite a few rooms, including:

A common room for us to relax, play around, and socialize (I'm never going to socialize!). It had board games, quite a few books for children inside bookshelves, and it was quite spacious too. I didn't visit it that often, though; I only did so for the books since I found them interesting, given that they were about cool shinobi. Ahhh!! I want to do my Rasengan already!

Then, there's the dining hall, which I already knew about. It was my favorite part, honestly, since I loved eating—something that paired well with my love for cooking.

For breakfast, the younger ones had rice porridge with some egg and fruit puree, while the older ones like me had miso soup, grilled fish, and rice with seaweed... I had never tried seaweed or miso soup before in my previous life, so it's kind of weird, but still good.

For lunch, the former had really soft rice mixed with some really small veggies; I think they were carrots and peas? Some fish was flaked into really small pieces as well. The latter had curry with rice, which I think was perfectly spicy and also a pretty good source of nutrients. You had your carbs, your protein, and your lipids.

Then, for dinner... Ahhh!! This is what excites me the most!! The younger ones get fed vegetable congee with some lightly seasoned chicken and broccoli, while our dinner varies. Sometimes, we'd get... "Nabemono?" I think it was called—a hot pot with vegetables, tofu, and thinly sliced meat. Or we'd get katsu along with some rice. I've only seen it in anime and videos, but after tasting it... so good!! We'd also sometimes get udon noodles with some savory broth; they were pretty damn good as well.

Uhhhh... Oh, there was the kitchen as well. I tried sneaking in to find out how they worked and what they did— you know, to see their techniques and recipes... but I got busted by one of the chefs. Noooo!!

Then there were the bathrooms where we usually bathed and took care of our necessities; no need to explain this one.

The health room was where we'd get checked on a monthly basis for any abnormalities, which, luckily, I didn't have.

There was also a counseling room for troublemakers... Not once did I go there, despite my escapades.

There was a classroom too, where we apparently started learning basic arithmetic and language at the age of four... Ah, I truly am the honored one!

Then there were other rooms like the storage room, the administrative offices, and the laundry room—unimportant to me as I couldn't get into any of them.

And the second most important of all to me was the outdoor area, or rather, the playground. I could see the outside world and goof around, yes!

I tried playing football with one of the children, but got denied simply because I was a girl. Hmph, not like I need friends anyway.

I also snatched tree leaves in secret to deposit in a makeshift pouch I made with one of the shirts I got as a gift; you probably know where this is going. The outside world was beautiful—the streets were filled with joy, parents walking with their children, street food vendors doing their job—just joy all around... You could even see the academy and the Hokage's office, somewhat close to each other, and I saw the Hokage stone faces engraved onto the mountain behind them, noticing four of them...

Those must be Hashirama Senju, Tobirama Senju, Hiruzen Sarutobi, and Minato Namikaze.

Though, looking at Minato's stone face, I couldn't help but feel like I was missing something.

Just what am I forgetting?