My new apartment sat at the edge of Konoha's west district, on a quiet street lined with young maples and the occasional laundry line fluttering in the wind. Compared to the war camps and burnt-out villages I'd passed through, it felt almost unreal—peaceful in a way that made my chest ache.
The key clicked in the lock with a clean, final sound. I stepped inside.
The walls were a soft mint green, their color calm and steady, like a breath after crying. The floors were dark hardwood—smooth and cool beneath my sandals. Three rooms. The main one doubled as the kitchen, its small stove and wooden counter already stocked with basic cookware. Two doors faced the kitchen—one leading to a bathroom, the other to a small dining room. From the bathroom, another door connected to a narrow hallway ending in the bedroom.
It wasn't large, but it was mine.
I took a moment to wander through, fingertips brushing the furniture as if testing whether it was real. The refrigerator hummed softly. The bed was small but clean, its sheets freshly folded. There was even a small vase on the table with a single daisy—a detail that felt almost too kind.
I unpacked the few things I had—two changes of clothes, a notebook, and my mother's old medical pouch—and set them carefully on the table. Then I sat down, exhaled slowly, and finally let myself think.
The war.
I'd heard whispers from soldiers and medics alike—how the frontlines shifted every month, how smaller nations were being pulled into the current whether they wanted to or not. Konoha, Iwa, Kumo, Suna, Kiri—all circling one another like wolves fighting over a carcass that had already begun to rot.
But why?
I spread a blank sheet of paper across the table and began listing what I knew:
The Land of Fire: fertile, resource-rich, largest population.
The Land of Wind: arid, resource-poor, forced into expansion for survival.
The Land of Earth: mountainous, territorial, reacting to Fire's influence.
The Lands of Lightning and Water: opportunists—waiting for others to weaken.
It wasn't about pride or revenge. It was scarcity. Desperation.
My pen hovered over the paper.
The Sand Village wasn't fighting for conquest; they were fighting to live. Their land was barren. Crops failed. Imports were expensive. The Daimyō of Wind had cut their funding. Suna had turned to war because peace couldn't feed them.
And maybe… maybe that was something I could change.
I stood and crossed to the window. From here, I could see the Hokage Monument in the distance, glowing orange in the late sunlight. Below, the village moved like a living thing—shinobi coming and going, shopkeepers closing stalls, children laughing in the streets. It was so full of life that I almost forgot the rest of the world was bleeding.
What if it didn't have to be?
In my old world, we had learned how to coax life from nothing. Hydroponics. Soil regeneration. Drought-resistant crops. We'd used science to reclaim deserts, to heal land ruined by war or neglect.
I pulled a blank sheet of paper toward me and began to write:
If you can fix the reason people fight, maybe they'll stop needing to fight at all. I knew that was naive, but I still want to believe in the good in people.
That thought had followed me from another lifetime.
In my old world, deserts had been reclaimed before—not with magic, not with chakra, but with knowledge.
I began jotting down everything I could remember—techniques that turned wastelands into farmland:
•Terracing to reduce runoff and erosion.
•Planting hardy, nitrogen-fixing trees to restore soil fertility.
•Creating sandbreaks using layers of stone and vegetation to trap moisture.
•Slow-drip irrigation systems—simple, gravity-based, using clay pots buried in the soil to feed water directly to plant roots.
•Bacteria and fungi that enriched soil by breaking down organic waste.
It wasn't glamorous. It wouldn't happen overnight. But if these methods worked in one world, they could work here too.
Maybe chakra could speed things up later—if I learned how to use it properly. But for now, knowledge was enough.
I could write a guide. Share it with the Hokage as part of our agreement. After all, that had been the deal—I would offer Konoha something of value in exchange for their protection. It was time to deliver.
I pulled my notebook closer and flipped to a fresh page. The idea of submitting this directly to the Hokage made my heart pound, but the thought of hiding it felt worse. If this could help, if it could bring food and peace instead of blood, then it belonged in the open.
I would stand behind it.
Tsunade's medical division here in Konoha was already large and well organized; she'd built the corps into one of the village's greatest strengths. They had triage and battlefield care refined in ways unfamiliar to the countryside healers. So handing them basic first-aid wasn't useful. What they lacked—even the great Tsunade herself could not see—was the microscopic world beneath chakra: cells, bacteria, and the instruments to observe them. If I could teach them to look smaller, to see the unseen, it would change everything about diagnosis and long-term prevention.
I flipped to another clean page and began sketching the outline of a different manual—one no one would expect from a child. Not about washing hands or sutures, but about optics and the building of a basic scientific instrument: a microscope.
The booklet would contain three parts:
1. How to build a simple microscope with local materials.
A lens assembly: instructions for shaping and polishing a small glass sphere as a high-power lens, plus a larger plano-convex lens for low magnification; how to mount lenses in wood or metal collars; acceptable focal distances and how to measure them with string and candlelight.
A stage and illumination: crafting a stable stage from wood, drilling a small aperture for transmitted light, and fashioning a mirror to direct sunlight; using oil-immersion tricks with clear oils to increase resolution.
Slide preparation: making thin glass slides by splitting flattened glass fragments, smoothing edges with sand and cloth, and sealing specimens under thin covers made from mica or polished shell.
2. Basic microbial and cellular theory.
Cells are the basic units of life; tissues are collections of cells. Bacteria are far smaller than plant or animal cells and can be seen only at higher magnifications.
Infection, in practical terms: invisible invaders—organisms too small to see with the naked eye—that reproduce quickly and cause the body to react. Treating wounds is not only about chakra balance but also about preventing those invaders from getting a foothold.
The difference between killing agents and stabilizing agents: heat and certain alcohols destroy microbes; nutrient balance and clean water support immune response.
3. Practical applications for the hospital.
How to examine wound samples: prepare a slide, focus at low then high magnification, and record observations.
How to test water clarity and contamination with simple sedimentation and filtration tests.
How to create basic antiseptic solutions using alcohol, vinegar, and local botanicals with known antimicrobial properties.
My hand moved almost faster than I could think. The diagrams flowed from my mind with perfect precision—the shape of each lens, the angle of reflection, the ratios of curvature. I could see them, not as sketches, but as if I were watching a video play in my head. Every movement, every explanation, every formula was there.
That's when it hit me.
I remembered.
Not vaguely, not in pieces, but perfectly.
The video I'd seen in my old world—some forgotten educational clip about homemade microscopes—was suddenly crystal clear. The narrator's voice, the measurements on the ruler, even the smudge on the workbench in the frame. I could pause it, rewind it, zoom in on details that had barely registered when I was alive.
My heart skipped.
At first, I'd thought I was just remembering things better because of all the studying I'd done in my old life. But this was… different.
It wasn't memory anymore. It was recall. Absolute, precise, photographic recall. Every fact, every scene, every chemical equation I'd ever read—I could summon it as if it were printed behind my eyes.
I set the pen down and stared at the page.
Why?
Was it part of the gifts Ikathar had mentioned?
It didn't matter, not right now. What mattered was what I could do with it.
If he gave me this, then I'd use it.
The sun had dipped below the horizon by the time I looked up again. My hand ached from writing, my head buzzing with plans. I walked to the small kitchen window and looked out.
The sky above Konoha was a deep purple, the Hokage Monument glowing faintly in the distance. The village breathed beneath it—soft lights flickering in windows, laughter echoing from nearby streets.
For the first time since the Capital, I let myself smile.
Maybe I couldn't stop the war. Not yet.
But I could make something grow again.
If I could give life back to the desert, even just a corner of it… maybe that would be enough to change something.
Maybe peace didn't have to start with power.
Maybe it could start with plants.
I turned back to the table, set my notebook aside, and reached for the single daisy in the vase. Its petals had begun to wilt from the day's heat. Gently, I poured a little water into the vase, adjusting the stem until it stood upright again.
"Hang in there," I murmured.
Then I laughed softly to myself, because it felt silly—and somehow exactly right.
A tiny act of life. A promise to keep going.
Tomorrow, I'd bring the notebook to the Hokage—part of the bargain I'd made, and proof that I intended to keep my word. If he accepted it, maybe Konoha would begin to see me not just as a child they rescued, but as someone worth trusting.
And maybe, if the world was kind—or if I was stubborn enough to make it so—this little apartment, with its mint walls and creaky floorboards, would be the place where peace first took root.