Water ninja (2164 words)
"I will die anyway, probably sooner than later, so let's just see how far I can go."
This is my, Akira Hōzuki's moto since I figured out where I reincarnated into after my sudden death in my old world.
From an ordinary part time employee to a member of a powerful clan in the narutoverse which I previously only thought of as fiction.
Anyway, five years have passed since I reincarnated into the Naruto world and after the first year in which I brawled my eyes out at my bad luck of landing in a world full of schemers and super powerful bad guy's, I managed to get my sh*t together and started to train my chakra control and capacity by circulating it through my chakra paths and then deplete it by trying to form it into threads "ala Suna style."
This greatly helped me gain a solid foundation which is kinda funny if I think about my clan's specialty.
The Hōzuki clan is part of Kirigakure the Village Hidden in the Mist and is renown and feared for its unique Hydrification technique.
Yep, Im part of the same clan as our good old puddle boy Suigetsu who will somewhere in the future become one of Sasuke Uchiha's underlings.
I trained hard and at the age of four I managed to convince my parents with how smart and matured I acted that it was time to teach me the clans special technique.
And oh boy was it a strange experience feeling my own flesh, bones, guts and even nerves liquify and turn into water.
At first it felt alien and freaked me out, but after a year of constant training I started wondering why the hell such an overpowered ability wasn't mentioned more in the Naruto story.
Yes, I might be very vulnerable against lightning release, but the gains from this technique outweigh the loses by a lot.
"AKIRA! Pay attention while in class!" The shout rips me out of my inner self introduction, and I lazily brush some lose strands of my bluish white hair behind my ear.
"Hai! Sensei." I reply without any sincerity in my words which rewarded me with a chalk stick to my forehead.
The chalk stick pierces through me and hits the wall behind me as I'm in the last row of the classroom.
"Tsk." My teacher clicks his tongue before turning back to the black board.
He didn't like me, mostly because I don't seem to pay much attention in class and still got good grades and tend to have a dreamy look in my eyes as if I was somewhere completely else with my mind.
Well… he isn't wrong.
Its just that I have always been like this and even if I have multiple inner monologues running, I can still somehow pay attention to my surroundings to a terrifying degree.
This trait of mine pared with chakra training is simply monstrous as I can keep it running nonstop without having to strain my mind about it.
Supporting my head with an arm I look over to the window where I see my own reflection.
Ah! I haven't even made a self-description yet!
Hmhm.
So, I have bluish white hair which I have bound into a lose, low ponytail, I also have ice blue eyes and a smooth angelic face.
Right, I also got two fangs in my upper jaw, luckily, I haven't inherited the same shark like teeth's like Suigetsu did, that would have been annoying and probably would ruin my currently cute look.
I skip over the rest of the class as nothing interesting happened, one would think that with the third great ninja war approaching the standards of the academy would rise, but I think it's more like it has decreased.
Hell, the war hasn't even started yet.
Anyway, life was good for little old me and a couple more years pass in which I successfully graduated the academy by killing one of my classmates who's name I can't even remember.
Pretty cold of me now that I think about it.
But what can I do? Life here in the Narutoverse is harsh and I'm not trying to be a good person anyway so that much should be alright.
Because of how boring the classes in the academy were, I decided to graduate early.
After my graduation I became genin and participated in a ton of low-level missions till I managed to become a Chunin at the age of ten.
I had to participate in the joint Chunin Exam but different form the one Naruto had, this one went over smoothly, and I cleaned the floor with my opponents.
As a Chunin my mission level increased from E and D-rank missions to C and occasional B-rank missions.
The war started to draw closer and closer till I could almost taste it.
My missions mostly concerned guarding the borders, infiltrating the smaller nations between the land of water and the other great nations and assassinate people that hinder the villages war preparations.
I have master chakra nature and shape transformation allowing me to use jutsu's of all five basic elements which is of great help and increases my versality drastically.
The main focus of my combat style is stealth, damage and being hard to kill.
By now I have realized that Im a fu*king genius, this has nothing to do with me having the memories of my precious life, no, this is something I gained in this one, but I think that my decision to try my hardest also had a big play in the speed of my growth.
Wind and water are my main affinities, and they complement my fighting style perfectly.
With a high affinity for the water element, it made modifying and mastering the hydrification technique of my clan so much easier.
I have only used it on solo missions, but after modifying the hydrification technique a bit I have turned into something greatly resembling something like symbiont from the marvel universe.
Different than most if not all the members of my clan I'm greatly drawn to shape altering characteristics of this technique.
Becoming a mass of tentacles made from water with a weapon in each one of them, how couldn't I love this idea.
Another thing I started doing is placing throwing weapons into my liquefied body and then silently shooting them out by increasing the water pressure.
With me not hesitating to abandon my human form and monstrous chakra control I can literally seep into the ground or rain down from the sky while suppressing my chakra signature.
Then there's my wind affinity.
Killing things becomes a lot easier when you can coat a pebble with spinning wind chakra and use it as an improvised shuriken or sharpen a senbon before firing it through multiple walls by shooting it through a compressed air tunnel with my liquefied body.
As for being hard to kill, well, all Hōzuki clan members are hard to kill, but someone like me who has good chakra control and is willing to shape her body into anything the situation required, that is a complete other story.
Imagine you meet me as an enemy, you know that Im a Hōzuki and you coat your sword with lighting chakra which is very effective against my clans jutsu before trying to behead me.
You are faster than me and the blade is read to cut my neck only for this very same neck together with the entire head to liquify and turn into water made tentacles that dodge your blade in a way only boneless tentacles can.
The very same tentacles then start attacking you and all the while you still have to deal with a headless body that didn't stop moving while you tried to behead it.
Yeah, very hard to kill.
When I became thirteen it was finally time, the war was about to begin.
I was of course ordered to join it.
Together with six other teams I and my team got sent ahead of the main force to the land of whirlpools, the former location of Uzushiogakure the hidden village made by the Uzumaki Clan.
The village already got destroyed, so there is no longer any strong force on the island.
My job together with the other teams is to clean the outer area of the island off enemy forces so that our own force could make its main camp on the islands.
We wont advance into the inner area of the island as the ruins of Uzushiogakure still hide many seals that could kill you.
From there it will be much easier to start an invasion onto the coasts belonging to the land of fire, or in other words, Konohagakure's territory.
The whirlpools for which that place is renowned for are a hinderance that will make a full-scale attack hard for both sides, but because of Kirigakure's far off location we don't really have much expectations for this war and mostly join it to weaken Konoha.
"Prepare to abandon the ship, we are going over the water from here on." I hear the voice of the team leader coming from the deck of the ship.
Looking at my reflection in the blade of my sword I could see my still somewhat childlike face and ice blue eyes.
With a sigh I put my blade back into the dark blue sheath and start to get ready.
Clothed in dark blue pants with boots that go up all the way just under my knee and a ninja kit strapped to my thigh I step out of my cabin and go onto the deck where the wind pulls on my similar colored jacket that has fur lining the edge of the hood.
The jacket has lots of pockets and out of the neckline a fluffy grey scarf looks out.
My sword is resting in its sheath on my back hold in place by a black strap while I hold a white mask with crescent shaped eyes and three blue tentacles that come from each side and above in my black gloved hand.
Kirigakure's symbol is also on the mask.
The gloves I'm wearing are made form a special material to make them hard to cut and fire resistant, also, underneath my jacket I wear a chainmail like shirt to future grant me some protection.
As for my feet, well, I never really understood why most ninjas wear sandals, they hardly protect your feet, hell! They are even open on the front!
Finished with my inner outburst over this world strange commonsense I put on my mask and open up my ponytail to let my long bluish white hair move freely.
To most ninjas having long hair is a weakness, not all of course as the truly strong don't have to care about something like that, or people that can weaponize it.
I am part of the latter group.
The individual strands of my hair start to come together and moments later eight tentacles hang from my head.
One of them hangs down the front of my face, at the base they still look like hair but the closer one comes to the tip the cleared it becomes that they in fact are water.
Finished with my preparations I jump over the railing onto the water surface where the other members of my team already wait.
POV change; General.
Satoshi, the leader of team 4 one of the six teams that Kirigakure sent ahead its main force to secure the location for their main camp glances at the smallest member of his team.
Akira Hōzuki an upcoming genius, her mission success rate is extremely high with only a few failed ones.
It is very likely that over the span of this war she will be promoted to special-Jonin or even a full-fledged one if she fulfilled all the requirements, and that at the age of thirteen.
"Our target is the south side, we will sneak onto the island and dispose of any enemy shinobis located there, any questions?" Satoshi's voice was clear and clam.
As a veteran of the previous war this wasn't the first time he did something like this.
While the other five members of the team give him a short nod in affirmation a single white bluish tentacle raises into the air.
"What is it Akira?" The sight of her hair moving as if alive was a strange thing to witness, but nothing that could startle someone as experienced as Satoshi.
Lowering her tentacle again Akira starts to speak in a calm and somewhat cold voice, if not for the slightly childish tone it would have been terrifying.
"How long till the arrival of the main force and approximated deadline." Her questions were short and on the point which gained her an approving nod from her team leader.
"The main force will arrive tomorrow morning, we need to finish this mission before sunrise."