Dragonfly

Chapter Two: No Fun Allowed

I really didn't want to. Why burden myself with something like that when it would all turn out the way it should in the end? This story already had its beginning and its end set. I knew that the main cast would handle everything and, when all was said and done, they would know exactly what to do.

Call me a fatalist, but I trusted them. It wasn't my timeline to interrupt. I was only visiting.

Besides, there were so many more things to do than wear my conscience thin with savior complexes and grandiose visions.

Konoha was an interesting place, full of interesting characters-people.

I wanted to try becoming one of them before I died, because no one would remember me anyway.

But not through becoming a shinobi, no, that life was wrought with death, and I didn't want to cut mine any shorter than it already was. It wasn't a world I wanted to set foot in.

There were other ways to leave my mark.

"One fish, two fish..."

To anyone watching the scene from afar, it probably would have seemed like a cute little girl was passing the time playing by the riverside barefoot on her own, singing and not causing harm or damage to anyone or anything. The Naka River that cut through the clan property was a popular spot for recreation, after all. No one ever thought to look twice when people were congregated there or just hanging idly by.

But if they stopped to look just a little closer, they would have seen a makeshift tree branch fishing rod clutched between my chubby, dirt-covered hands, tied at the end with some of Satoshi's ninja wire that was in turn attached to one of Emiko's sturdy, curved upholstery needles. I was pretty proud of the thing-neither of the folks had a fishing hobby so I had to improvise, and it worked pretty damn well, considering.

I'd dug up a handful of wriggling earthworms for the activity, too, for bait, because there wasn't a decent fishing shop anywhere in the whole damn town who would sell a confrontational haggler of a child any proper equipment. I had the ryou-I mean, I had Satoshi's ryou, but the old shopkeeper refused no matter what and ran me out of the shop when I started cussing.

In the end, this is what it came to. But the koi sure were biting.

Three! There were three koi in the little yellow bucket I carried with me specifically for the task-Emiko said it was for the sandbox they'd recently installed in the local park, but that just sounded so boring. Who needed kiddy sandboxes when there was a perfectly abundant river in the district? Maybe I'd wrangle up a whole group of the neighborhood kids and start a fishing club, because even if they wanted to become shinobi, fishing was a skill that benefited anyone, anywhere!

The line tugged, and with one swift jerk, I reeled in another catch.

I dropped the flailing, slimy koi into the bucket with the others and grinned before speaking out my pride in the somewhat mangled Japanese my young self had managed to learn. "Wouldja look at that, I'm pro!" The words and pronunciations still felt heavy on my tongue, because I was never that proficient with the language before despite trying my best to learn (again, procrastination), so I tended to use simplistic terms. And as for writing it? Emiko practically broke down in tears when she did her best to teach me and it just didn't take easily. But she kept on, like a champ, and I think it became her life mission to turn me articulate and literate.

But, at least I had fishing. Some skills never left even when one passed between the threshold of life and death. Even if that skill was mostly dumb luck.

"Hey, what are you doing there...? Rika?"

The voice was familiar-I'd only met the man twice before because of Satoshi's position on the clan council, but it was most definitely Fugaku. Clan Head and Police Chief-as well as Sasuke and Itachi's good ol' dad-himself, probably on a patrolling round when he'd caught sight of me and got suspicious. His tone was weary, and a little forced, as if he were afraid what he'd find out. But with my track record, he was right to be.