Fanfic / Déjà vu no Jutsu

Déjà vu no Jutsu is a Self-Insert Naruto fanfic written by Vixen Tail (author of the Katekyō Hitman Reborn! fanfic Russian Roulette). It is available at both FF.net and Archive Of Our Own.

It tells the story of Mesuji Natsumi, former US Staff Sergeant and current kunoichi of Konoha. Natsumi uses the knowledge she gained from both the manga Naruto and her life as a member of a long-stablished military organization to try and make the Naruto world a better place for her precious people.

Now with a collection of side-stories, Neko-chan's Pawprints, that is half behind-the-scenes look and half sequel.

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Déjà vu no Jutsu contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Natsumi and many other kunoichi. Never underestimate them.
• Almighty Janitor: Most of Konoha's shinobi forces are under-ranked for security reasons. As being a jounin indicates reputable skill, it results in the ninja in question having a target painted on their back. Hence, it is a rarity for jounin to be found in ANBU, and clans have a set amount of jounin slots according to the number of members they have in order to prevent other villages and bounty hunters from hunting them down and dwindling the size of the clan. It also has the benefit of many of the other shinobi villages underestimating Konoha shinobi, which goes a long way into explaining why Naruto was never promoted from his genin rank for all of Part II in canon despite being by far the most powerful shinobi in Konoha at the time. ^note If Naruto ever did get promoted beyond genin rank, it was never shown as by the time of the epilogue, he was already Hokage.
• Animal Motifs: Cats for Natsumi. Big cats. Her codename in ANBU is Panther and is nicknamed "neko-chan" by Jiraiya. She also has the Leopard Summoning Contract. Toads for Jiraiya and Minato, slugs for Tsunade, snakes for Orochimaru, tortoise for Gai, monkey for Koichi and Hiruzen, and dogs for the Hatake and Inuzuka Clan.
• The Apprentice: Komushi, a chunin of Suna and Sasori's best friend, becomes Natsumi's sealing (fuuinjutsu) apprentice. Getting an apprentice is required for someone to become a master.
• Arranged Marriage: The Uchiha clan, namely Fugaku and Mikoto, and the Hyuuga clan, for Hizashi and Misaki, as well as Hiashi and Hisana. Prevented by Shikaku when his parents were about to pair him off to Yoshino by springing a surprise proposal on Natsumi.
• Assassin Outclassin': Being an assassin herself, Natsumi has been in the position to foul not only the assassination of Sakumo’s Wife, Eri but also her own assassination.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: How all Hokages get their position, and the reason the Military Police is scary.
  Natsumi: Part of the problem with the Uchiha shinobi clan and the others was that the Military Police were scary. They had to be, ninja wouldn't respect something that wasn't possibly lethal to them. It was why a kage was the biggest badass of them all, an S-rank was a dream come true for most the ninja corps, and getting a bingo book page to yourself was a celebratory event.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Natsumi flips out when she learns Shikaku was injured during a mission. She is so distraught that she runs from her wedding kimono fitting to the hospital without knowing any of the details besides he was in the hospital.
• The Baby Trap: The less than kind people accuse Eri of deliberately getting pregnant to trap Sakumo into marriage.
• Battle Couple: Natsumi and Shikaku when they were fighting against Kumo.
• The Beastmaster: Natsumi has the Leopard Summoning Contract.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: What started Stag's eventual Heel–Face Turn from ROOT mole to loyal ANBU? Natsumi as "Panther" complimented him on his bodyguarding skills, something she admits that she's not good at. For Stag, being interchangeable is everything in ROOT so being distinguished for your abilities is a big deal.
• Becoming the Mask: Stag starts as a ROOT agent tasked with infiltrating ANBU. Natsumi gave him an identity of his own and he ends up betraying Danzo in order to become "Panther's Stag".
• Big Little Brother: Minato not only gets taller than Natsumi, but also considerably more powerful and attains a higher rank than his “older sister”.
• Big Sister Instinct: Natsumi breaks a Kumo-nin's spine when he tried to attack Minato during Kushina's kidnapping incident.
  • Minato rips a clan apart for endangering Natsumi and her unborn child, who is also his godchild.
• Big Sister Mentor: Natsumi becomes this to Minato mainly, but also has done this for a number of clan heads and their respective wives.
• Blessed with Suck: The Kurama clan has reality-bending and powerful genjutsus from their bloodline. The drawback is that the bloodline has the user form an alter ego. Unfortunately the bloodline is activated by fear and when children get it, their alter ego is shaped by what they're afraid of, usually monsters or the dark. A child develops a monstrous alter ego to protect them. If the child isn't identified quickly enough, the alter ego turns on the child and kills them. Such horrific drawbacks is why the Kurama had to marry within the clan: no one would marry in knowing their child could die.
• A Boy, a Girl, and a Baby Family: The Hatake children consists of Natsumi, Kakashi and baby Midori. Although Natsumi is a Hatake daughter through a technicality and is much older than Kakashi. She is already in her twenties and Kakashi is ten when Midori is born.
• Brother–Sister Team: Natsumi and Minato tag-team during the Third Shinobi War, against both Iwa and Kumo.
• Cats Are Snarkers: Kenta, Natsumi's first leopard summon, acts appropriately to his species.
• The Charmer: Killer B tries this with Natsumi as a distraction tactic. It sort of works.
• Chekhov's Gag: When Minato first experimented with seals, while sleep deprived, he tried to use a storage seal on squirrel which turned it inside out. When Natsumi summons Fiona, Fiona uses the seal on the Uchiha proxy to protect Kushina.
• Chekhov's Gun: There is a list that needs to be filled. Most come from Natsumi, either with her remembering why or just having a vague "feeling" due to mostly forgotten memories of Naruto canon.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Fiona Hansen.
• Chekhov's Skill: Invoked by Natsumi when training Minato and aiding the rest. Her vague ideas and memories of the potential future guide her in that.
• Childhood Friend Romance: Both Minato and Kushina, and Natsumi and Shikaku.
• Close-Call Haircut: During an attempt on Eri's and Kakashi's lives, Natsumi gets half of her hair shorn off when she barely misses getting her head lopped off.
• Cool Big Sis: Natsumi is this to most of her friends.
• Covert Pervert: Natsumi uses Jiraiya's supposed "influence" as a way to gauge her younger friends' maturity.
• Crazy Cat Lady: At one point Natsumi wonders if she was becoming the ninja version of this thanks to her ANBU mask (Panther) and her Leopard Summons
• Crazy Cultural Comparison: The traditions and holidays of US Sargent Fiona Hansen sound extremely bizarre to shinobi.
  Inoichi: There was also that Vale-in-tines day thing; originally about the goats, dogs, and some dead priest. That was celebrated with candy and flowers given between lovers or complete strangers after a few centuries. Then the fat red man that broke into people's homes in the dead of night using a chimney of all things, celebrated with gift giving. Then the rabbit laying eggs one, which had something to do with a martyr's undead state. I stopped questioning her old culture after that one.
• Crazy-Prepared: Natsumi is an assassin, and knows how easy it can be to kill a target in their own home. She seals her house so that it's lethal to anyone who touches the home with lethal intent, and the seals glow if there is intent to harm either Shikaku or Natsumi.
  • Natsumi carves cribs for all of the clan heirs. They are sealed so that once the blood of the parents and godparents are applied, they are the only ones who can take anything out of said crib.
    • Koharu tries to take Midori out of the crib and almost gets smashed through a wall. Natsumi says that the reaction should have been more violent, if it weren't for the fact that the seal is old and may need touching up. Hiashi is rather thankful for the effect when it prevents Hinata's kidnapping.
• Cruel Mercy: As she wished, Uroko Kurama doesn't have to marry her cousin and clan head Murakamo. Instead, she became a pariah in the village, stripped of her ninja status and her clan is disbanded because she backstabbed her cousin Natsumi who wanted to help her. And everyone will always know what she did thanks to the scars Natsumi put on her face right before she helped her family kidnap Natsumi.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Sealing is an extremely dangerous and volatile art. The seal can be affected by multiple factors: writing hand, chakra nature, hand-writing and the thought process of user. The wrong thing can cause the seal to explode.
• Deceased Parents Are the Best: Natsumi's biological mother, Mesuji Mana, ensured that her daughter would never be touched by the Kurama clan when they wanted to bargain her legitimacy by turning her into a brood mare. She signed papers to ensure Natsumi gets adopted by another shinobi clan and be protected even when she died. Even more satisfying was the fact that the dying Kurama clan wanted Natsumi back when it was apparent that she was a healthy Kurama, but was blocked by Mana's preparations. Even Shikaku shuddered at Mana's vindictive revenge beyond the grave.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance:
  • To civilians, clanless orphans like Natsumi and Minato would be seen as marrying above their station if they married clan shinobi. To shinobi, they would be respectable marrying partners because they don't have civilian family to deal with.
  • Homosexuality is a taboo for ninja because it is extremely important for the family line to continue. Koichi Sarutobi's homosexuality is accepted with the understanding that he'll keep quiet about it and have a child.
  • Skipping a grade is seen as a sign of accomplishment and intelligence to civilians and civilian-born ninja. For ninja, skipping a grade is used as a threat to get Brilliant, but Lazy students to work harder because it has dire consequences in a ninja's ability to socialize, earn promotions and work in groups. Natsumi speculates that the main reason why Itachi and Kakashi were so well-known for graduating at such young ages in canon is because they survived in spite of that.
• Doorstopper: As of completion and epilogue, Déjà vu no Jutsu weighs in at a whopping 572,468 words. The author, Vixen Tail, averaged 20,000 words per chapter for 25 chapters.
  • For comparison's sake, that's more than the first four Harry Potter books put together.
• Due to the Dead: After Fiona sacrifices herself to save Natsumi and Kushina, Minato adds the Japanese version of her name Shiro (meaning white) to the Konoha Memorial Stone.
• Engaging Conversation: After Natsumi rescues Shikaku from an uncomfortable discussion with his mother about marriage.
  Natsumi: Who do you see yourself living with?
  Shikaku: You.
  Natsumi: *nearly falls off roof*
• Entertainingly Wrong: Since Natsumi is a extremely difficult person to gather information on, her biological family the Kurama clan make assumptions as to who she is. They believe she is a healthy Kurama bastard that has their bloodline manifested. She actually has a kinjutsu a result of her reincarnation the bloodline doesn't manifest until Natumi's fight with the Uchiha proxy. They know she is kenjutsu-specialist that doesn't actually do any kenjutsu specialist missions. Once they realize she's ANBU, they assume she's a seduction specialist that uses their bloodline and illusions in her missions. In reality Natsumi is an assassination-specialist ANBU captain on her way to becoming the next ANBU General. They think because Shikaku slept through the Council meetings that he probably doesn't care for her that much. Shikaku loves his wife dearly and tears them a new asshole. They assume she's an unimportant retired homemaker and that no one would miss her. She has many friends and subordinates in high places, one of the legendary sannin thinks of her as his niece, and the Yondaime is her adoptive brother. They immediately close ranks to look for her. Since she married a Nara, who are known to be lazy and unmotivated they assume that she must be lazy and unmotivated and will wait for someone to rescue her. She tore her way to becoming an ANBU captain and the respected lady of Nara and she rescues herself from their clutches.
• Evil Uncle: Unkai Kurama, the head of the Kurama branch family, is Natsumi's biological uncle. He has her kidnapped to become a broodmare against her will when they believe she has the bloodline.
• Family of Choice: Natsumi is an orphan, but she has her 'little brother', Minato, her 'father' Sakumo, her 'mother' Eri, 'other little brother' Kakashi and now 'little sister' Midori..
• The Farmer and the Viper: Homura is spared from being executed with Danzo because he wasn't truly involved with ROOT. He uses this to get revenge on Natsumi by misinforming the desperate Kurama clan that Natsumi has their bloodline. This results in Natsumi getting kidnapped to break her mind, cut her ties with the Nara and become a broodmare.
• First Girl Wins: According to Shikaku, his parents were shipping them since the first time Natsumi came to his house.
• Fish out of Water:In her earlier years Natsumi feels so out of place she wonders if she’s hallucinating or in a coma.
• Five Stages of Grief: 
  • Natsumi lived in denial for years after her first death, feeling horrible survival guilt at the death of her squad and how she's very far away from her original time, unsure if anything was real.
  • Gai's quirk of making exercise challenges for himself resulted from his ailing grandfather, who would make promises of getting better if Gai won certain challenges.
• Foreshadowing: Natsumi's kinjutsu was initially believed to be the beginning of a bloodline. Her kinjutsu turns out to be something else but she does have the Kurama bloodline.
  • Natsumi is constantly mentioned to be able to keep up with the Nara intellect and leave Shikaku guessing. She later jokingly flirts with Shikaku at a get-together. Shikaku later admits to being attracted to her intelligence and asks her to marry him.
  • All those comments about two people looking out from Natsumi's heterochromatic eyes? Turns out that due to the Kurama clan's bloodlimit's predisposition to forming a alter-ego, Fiona wasn't nearly as dead as Natsumi thought. Fiona just never properly manifested, since Natsumi never experienced true fear like a normal Kurama kid would due to her reincarnation... Until she thought she was going to fail at protecting Kushina and baby Naruto. This nearly backfired on Natsumi because Fiona was not happy to be alive again, however technically. If Natsumi hadn't had two days in Tsukiyomi to convince Fiona to help her out, along with several other factors, it's heavily implied that Fiona would have turned on Natsumi like every other Kurama alter-ego.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Downplayed; while Shikaku and Natsumi get engaged after a conversation, they were Childhood Friends and knew each other for years.
  • Lampshaded by Shikaku, when he notes that since he straight up married his childhood crush without any sort of courtship, he doesn't know the intricacies of dating.
• Geometric Magic: Natsumi, Minato, Jiraiya, Kushina, Komushi and Ibiki are sealing specialists with different expertises.
  • Barrier Warrior: Kushina's specialization. We haven't seen her using them yet but, She taught Komushi enough about barriers that he went on to craft a magnetic barrier that saved the lives of countless people during the Third Shinobi War against Iwa, including Natsumi's.
  • Boring, but Practical: Komushi learned sealing because Suna desperately needed someone who could make exploding tags, refrigeration seals and storage seals.
  • Jack of All Stats: Jiraiya is capable of using many different branches of sealing, but does not master any of them.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Natsumi is great at using her seals for explosions.
  • Teleport Spam: Minato specializes in Space-Time sealing, which give him his signature Flying Thunder God technique.
  • Trap Master: Natsumi uses her seals to defend herself and her home, which are often fatal.
• Glamorous Single Mother: Tsume Inuzuka refuses to get married and has two children out of wedlock. She balances raising her children, being a kunoichi of Leaf and being Inuzuka clan head.
• Glorified Sperm Donor: Natsumi's father ditched her mother after her mother became pregnant with her. Subverted that Natsumi doesn't care who her father was and she only looked to find out her origins. Averted when the Kurama try to take Natsumi back into clan. They want Natsumi back into the clan, but she wants nothing to do with them.
• Grade Skipper: A misguided Academy teacher attempts to have Kakashi skip a grade, without considering the consequences it would have on Kakashi's social life and ninja career. Thankfully, Natsumi puts a stop to it.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Aside from the honorifics being used correctly, the rest can be a bit jarring.
• Happily Adopted: Since Natsumi and Minato are orphans, their senseis are their legal guardians so no one would take advantage of them. So unless they break the tie, Natsumi and Minato are technically and legally Sakumo's and Jiraiya's children. And Sarutobi's grandchildren.
• Harmful to Minors: Natsumi joins ANBU as an assassin before completing her final year at Academy. She would use her youth to fool targets before killing them. She did everything to keep up with her older superiors and co-workers. Thankfully, Sakumo/Wolf and Jiraiya decide to have to her benched from ANBU to let her enjoy the remainder of her childhood after the Second Shinobi War died down.
• Heroic Bastard: Natsumi never knew her father and wouldn't care to know him since he never came for her. Her father was a disgraced Kurama.
• Imperiled in Pregnancy: Natsumi is kidnapped by the Kurama clan while she's pregnant because she can't use chakra without harming her child. Her kidnappers get her to comply with them by threatening to have her miscarry.
• Infinite Supplies: Averted. Another thing that makes sealing difficult to learn is that is it's extremely expensive. Students and masters have to constant go through brushes, paper, jars, ink, furniture and such because sealing is very volatile.
• In Spite of a Nail: Even with Natsumi's presence, there are some things that still happen anyway. Sakumo still dies, only instead of seppuku, he was killed in a last stand against ROOT agents. Orochimaru still does his experiments and Tenzou still gets the Mokuton, only he has another girl named Naomi with him who was also experimented on to become a pseudo-Uzumaki and Natsumi's counter, while Orochimaru is caught and executed. Itachi still gets his sharingan when he's four due to a lack of available babysitters. A clan is still effectively destroyed, only instead of the massacred and embittered Uchiha Clan, it had been a panicking Kurama Clan whose kekkai genkai was on the verge of extinction, and was only disbanded at that.
• Internal Reformist: With Natsumi's encouragement, Hizashi confides to Hiashi that he doesn't want have children because he doesn't want them to suffer under the Caged Bird Seal. The brothers work to have the Caged Seal replaced with the Phoenix Seal made by Kushina and Orochimaru. They succeed and note that the elders will have a nasty surprise when they can't hurt any Branch members with their seals.
• Killed Off for Real: Kenta, Natsumi's first Summon. Just for that, Natsumi made sure that the boss summon of the Leopards had his killer as a chew toy.
• The Lad-ette: Natsumi is crude, casual in her language, can't color coordinate, can be very violent and was One of the Guys in her childhood.
• Kissing Cousins: The Kurama clan frequently has members marry their cousins and do not care to stop. It bites them in the ass as they are so inbred, the bloodline doesn't manifest anymore and the clan is dying out. The children who have the bloodline often don't live to see adulthood. So when they find out Natsumi is perfectly healthy, might have their bloodline and is pregnant they get very desperate for her to join their clan as she is their last hope. When she repeatedly refuses because they ignored her since childhood and she knows that they only want her because they have no choice. They kidnap her and plan to make her a breeding slave.
• Lamarck Was Right: As a "friendly reminder" to have her child become the next Leopard Summoner, Natsumi discovers that baby Shikamaru can purr just like she can.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Keiko makes fun of Natsumi and mocks Minato and Inoichi's concern for her when Natsumi's mission lasts an extra week and casually says that Natsumi is KIA. Jiraiya is disgusted by Keiko's mocking and her flippancy towards a comrade's death. Inoichi and Minato hate Keiko because she makes fun of Natsumi, terrible to work with and doesn't respect Minato's personal space. Due to all of this once Natsumi is benched from ANBU, Keiko is kicked out and replaced by Natsumi.
  • The Kurama clan refuses to respect Mana Mesuji's will that they have no legal right to Natsumi and badger Natsumi to leave her husband or have Shikaku give her to them. When they both refuse, they have Natsumi kidnapped. The kidnapping results in the Kurama clan head and branch head executed for kidnapping, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and murder. Minato dissolves the Kurama clan.
• Last Stand: Sakumo dies taking down several ROOT agents.
• Like Brother and Sister: Natsumi and Minato. They are actually pretty happy that due to legal technicalities they are brother and sister.
• Little Bit Beastly: Natsumi is able to grow long, sharp claws and purr as the result of the Leopard Summoning Contract.
  • It's later revealed in a chapter of Pawprints that Kisame's contract with the Sharks is the reason for his blue skin and gills. Asuma gets fangs from the Monkeys despite never signing the contract. Shikamaru gets the purring and the nails before he signs on with the Leopards. The Uchiha are light footed and sharp-eyed because they have the Hawk and Cat contracts. Minato and Naruto are double-jointed thanks to the Toads, while Jiraya can spit oil, jump insanely high without chakra, and is impervious to cold/wet weather. Gai gets tiny tortoise shell plates under his skin that acts as armor and are the cause of his sparkling.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Just after Natsumi lost her ANBU rank for helping Minato rescue Kushina, Inoichi tells Minato that he is Natsumi's only living anchor for her sanity. The list later expands, but Minato was the first and only for a good few years.
• Living Shadow: The Nara clan's jutsu.
• Long Hair Is Feminine: Natsumi has long dark hair that she's proud of. A young Kakashi says he can't imagine her with short hair.
• Making a Splash: Natsumi has a water-chakra nature and is fairly decent at using them. She is rather famous in Suna for successfully using a water jutsu in a desert.
• Mama Bear: Any kunoichi who has children or grandchildren. Aikido-sama (Shikaku's mother) is particularly terrifying, as the Kurama clan finds out.
• Mandatory Motherhood: It is very important for shinobi with important family or dangerous jobs to have children. It's implied that Konohamaru was born because his father, Koichi, had a dangerous career and didn't get to live that long.
• Mark of the Supernatural: Natsumi's eyes are one light-blue and one light-green, which she inherited from her mother. There's been hints that her different colored eyes might be somehow related to her reincarnation.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Natsumi tries to keep the chain intact by having Minato teach Kakashi as it happened in canon.
  • Natsumi herself seems to have one in sealing. She gains apprentices in Komushi and Ibiki, and passes on her skill while in exchange being considered a master.
  • The full chain is Jiraiya and Minato teaching sealing to Natsumi, Natsumi teaching to Komushi and Ibiki.
  • Sakumo teaches his family's kenjutsu to Natsumi, who teaches Kakashi after Sakumo passes.
• Master Swordsman: Sakumo's and Natsumi's official specialization.
• Mrs. Robinson: Natsumi thinks she might be this, considering she's older than she looks and she's attracted to people that are technically younger than her.
• Muggle: Sakumo's wife, Eri and Chouza's wife, Momo are both civilian women who ask Natsumi questions on how to deal with shinobi.
• Mundane Utility: What does Komushi look forward to when he becomes a sealing specialist? Being able to make wood-working seals, water-proofing seals and pest control seals.
  • This is why Suna readily agreed to Natsumi's offer of an apprenticeship for Komushi. They have no sealing specialists and they need one so they could have good exploding tags, refrigeration seals, storage scrolls and the like with no risk of sabotage.
• The Napoleon: Pretty much everyone ends up becoming taller than Natsumi, which she doesn't take well. She tends to jokingly threaten her students with cutting them at the knees.
• Ninja: ANBU fits the stereotype better, or as Natsumi calls them "special ops".
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: The Uchiha Clan. They felt slighted and left out from the village and acted rather difficult. Natsumi foresaw this and cleared up any misunderstanding that might have turned into resentment by talking to Fugaku and the other clan heads. Natsumi has since then been campaigning for the Uchiha Clan by putting them in a good light and forcing them to interact around the village more often.
• Nuclear Family: Discounting Natsumi's informal adoption, the Hatake family consists of Eri, Sakumo and their two children, Kakashi and Midori.
  • Shikaku and Natsumi have two kids, Shikamaru and Shikaina.
• Pair the Smart Ones: The Naras like Shikaku marrying Natsumi because they assume that Shikaku's tactical intelligence and Natsumi's incredible comprehension speed would make them very compatible.
• Panicky Expectant Father: Justified; Sakumo was extremely worried during Eri's labor because she went into labor a month early and she developed a hemorrhage while giving birth to Kakashi.
• Papa Wolf: Sakumo chops an Iwa assassin in half for threatening his wife and infant son.
  • When Minato finds out that Homura informed the Kurama that Natsumi can use their genjutsus and misinformed them that she had their bloodline. Minato calls him out for sowing dissent, releasing S-rank secrets, playing clans against each other, and endangering his sister and his godchild. He then shatters the man's jaw with one punch and has him executed. He also has the Kurama clan disbanded for kidnapping Natsumi.
• Parental Substitute: Both Sakumo and Eri become surrogate parents to Natsumi.
• Past-Life Memories: Natsumi has extensive memories of her past life as an American army sergeant named Fiona Hansen.
• Patient Childhood Love Interest: Shikaku. He had a childhood crush on Natsumi, something that very few people had noticed, namely Inoichi and some of their group. Shikaku's parents even paired him off with her, although Shikaku himself didn't reveal it to Natsumi until such time that he was pressured to take a wife.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Natsumi and Minato.
• Point of Divergence: Natsumi’s knowledge of the Naruto series has helped her change a number of events both voluntarily and involuntarily, so far Danzo is dead, Kakashi has a sister, Konoha and Sand are stalwart allies and the Kages are aware that someone might be controlling the Mizukage, among other things.
  • Because Natsumi took control of the Academy (which eventually became Nara jurisdiction) and screwed around with the genin teams barring Minato's canon team, Senju Nawaki never died like in canon nor expressed an interest in ever becoming Hokage. As a result, Tsunade opposed Dan's belief that there should be a medic on every team, citing her sensei's reasoning, and the two are unable to get along, hence they never became lovers.
  • Thanks to Komushi attaining a sealing specialty during his apprenticeship with Natsumi, Sasori never left the village or killed the Sandaime Kazekage (Satoshi). Thus, when Suna needs a jinchuriki and necessitates sealing it into Gaara, whose father, the canon Yondaime Kazekage, is the Sandaime's son, Komushi is the one designated with sealing Shukaku into Gaara and prevents the faulty seal that caused all of canon Gaara's problems from being used. Thanks to that, Karura survives the sealing, and is able to prevent her husband from destroying her youngest son's childhood. And since Sasori never left, it's implied that he will become Yondaime Kazekage rather than Gaara's father. A side story confirms it in fact.
  • In going with the above point thanks to Natsumi saving Eri, not only did Sakumo live longer, he didn't end up on a mission or situation where he would kill Sasori's parents. Though it's never flat out stated, the fact that Sasori has parents is a major contribution to why he doesn't go rogue.
  • Due to Natsumi making crib with powerful protections for her friends Hinata is never kidnapped and Hizashi doesn't die.
• Politeness Judo: As children, Natsumi was the fiercest, most skilled kid in the orphanage with a brutal exercise regime and the other kids thought she would be too mean to teach them. How does Minato get her to teach to him? He just asks her.
  • During a joint campaign with Suna during the Third Shinobi War, Sasori asks Natsumi if she can teach his best friend Komushi water jutsus as Suna has no one that knows water jutsus. Natsumi sweetens the deal by offering to teach Komushi sealing because no one would let a low-ranking ninja leave their village just to learn jutsus. Sasori tells her that he will ask the Kazekage and she initially believes it will take years before something comes of it. The Hokage uses her promise to repay Suna for helping them against Iwa and she immediately gets Komushi as an apprentice.
• Pregnant Badass: After being kidnapped by the Kurama clan she breaks out, kills her captors and takes down Unkai with no chakra, completely unarmed and pantsless.
• Professional Killer: Natsumi is an assassin-specialist ANBU captain and is famous in ANBU for going beyond the usual life expectancy of assassins.
• Properly Paranoid: Natsumi was investigating ROOT, and one ROOT agent ends up dead thanks to the seals on her home.
• Puppy-Dog Eyes: Sasori uses them to beg Natsumi to teach his friend Komushi water jutsus.
• Refuge in Audacity: During a fight against Kumo Killer B flirts with Natsumi and asks her to run away with him in front of her husband to distract them. It works perfectly.
• Reincarnation: Natsumi is apparently the reincarnation of a dead US soldier into a far-off future that has a striking resemblance to the Naruto series.
• Required Secondary Powers: In order to become good at sealing, one must have very good calligraphy and hand-writing because the strokes decide the capabilities of the seal. One wrong stroke can completely change the seal.
• Right Behind Me: A distressed Momo asks Natsumi why her boyfriend, Chouza hasn't asked her to marry him. She tells Natsumi how her parents disapprove of him because Chouza asked her to live with him and she lived with him for five years without an engagement. She admits to fearing that Chouza hasn't asked because he doesn't love her. She then turns around to find Chouza behind her with a wedding ring.
• Runaway Bride: Uroko Kurama asks her cousin Natsumi to take her in and shelter her so she wouldn't have to marry her cousin and clan head Murakamo. It's a trap for Unkai to kidnap Natsumi for Uroko not getting married in exchange.
• Save This Person, Save the World: Natsumi’s justification for her plotting to save Minato’s life, until she becomes genuinely fond of both him and Kushina.
  • It's also her reasoning when she becomes close to Eri, Sakumo's wife in the hope that having Eri would prevent Sakumo's downspiral. It also the reason why she took Komushi as a sealing apprentice, he's Sasori's best friend. Eri was a given, but she also became genuinely fond of Komushi and is very good acquaintances with Sasori as well.
• Screw Destiny: Natsumi passively and actively changes things.
• Self-Insert: Natsumi began as a Self-Insert, though on the words of the author: “A SI is a self-insert yes. However, if you write one right, by the end of the first chapter or so said SI would be, in fact, dead or dimensionally displaced and become an OC.”
• Sergeant Rock: Natsumi was this in her former life.
• Shipper on Deck: Many of the Nara clan including Shikaku's parents shipped Natsumi/Shikaku.
  • Fugaku hoped for Uchiha clan member/Natsumi.
  • Natsumi herself supports Minato/Kushina.
• The Shrink: The Yamanaka clan are therapists of many kinds to Konoha, marriage counselors, psychologists, grief counselors, etc. They are so well known for this that assigning a Yamanaka to a team means the team is going under evaluation.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Mikoto is feminine and graceful and serves as the political face of the Uchiha clan.
• The Smurfette Principle: In their first Academy year, Natsumi is initially the only girl of the group until Kushina and Mikoto come along. Generally because none of the boys could stand the other girls except for Natsumi.
• Squick: In-Universe Minato and Inoichi are disgusted when Jiraiya insinuates that they have a crush on Natsumi.
• Straight Gay: Koichi Sarutobi later admits to Natsumi that he's solely attracted to men.
• Summon Magic: Jiraiya and Minato with Toads, Natsumi with Leopards, and Kakashi and Sakumo with Dogs.
• Tangled Family Tree: Ninja family relationships get a bit confusing. An orphan genin gets his jounin sensei as a guardian, which makes Jiraiya Natsumi's 'sort-of' father (although he's more like an uncle), along with Minato's. It would also make them the Sandaime Hokage's 'sort-of' grandchildren, as Jiraiya was an orphan under Hiruzen's tutelage. Being apprenticed to Hatake Sakumo would also make him Natsumi's 'sort-of' father, Eri her mother, and Kakashi her brother. Not to mention all those honorary relationships with the other clans like the Akimichi, Yamanaka, Inuzuka, Uchiha, etc., that practically makes them family. No wonder Komushi was so bewildered. The author has the complete family tree explanation in the story.
• Therapy Is for the Weak: Natsumi's initial reaction to Inoichi's suggestion to help her with the issues that came from being a 20 something year old that died horribly and was now in the body of a child, she comes around later on.
• This Is Gonna Suck: This is Natsumi's reaction when she goes on a mission to perform a mental evaluation on the constantly bickering Tsume Inuzuka and Shibi Aburame.
  • This is also her reaction when she has to fight the Uchiha proxy and protect Kushina and the newborn Naruto.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Natsumi is the Tomboy while Kushina and Mikoto are the Girly Girls.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: While Natsumi is The Lad-ette, she is very maternal, has long hair that she's proud of, a good cook and can sew. Although the last two is due to practicality than femininity.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Kurama Clan. They were honestly stupid enough to believe they could get away with kidnapping the wife of another clan head to use as their breeding slave, in spite of living in a village with trackers such as the Inuzuka, the Aburame, and the Hyuuga, all of whom have at least one member who is very fond of Natsumi. Just look at the Entertainingly Wrong entry for their assumptions about Natsumi, including their foolish belief that just because Shikaku sleeps through council meetings, he doesn't care about her — completely discounting the fact that he's a Nara.
  • They also forgot to come up with a method of actually containing her. A mundane cell? Against ANBU's best assassin? That's just a delay.
  • Natsumi's justification for hating on Kiri in later years, besides the scars on Shikaku's face. It took them well over a decade to realize there was something wrong with their Kage, when it was blatantly obvious to everyone else. The fact that it was a sixteen year old kunoichi (Mei Terumi) that finally did something about was just icing on the cake. According to Natsumi, there are only three notable people exempt from her dislike: Kisame's exempt as he attempted to do something about it, even if he ended up leaving, and Zabuza gets a pass because he tried to kill the Mizukage in order to fix things. Mei gets her approval because she ended up succeeding, and gets a pass for being late because she was all of six when it started.
• Treachery Cover Up: What happens to Danzo after he is found responsible for Sakumo's death, and working with Orochimaru, among other things. Officially, he's succumbed to old injuries and an illness. In reality, Koharu poisons him with a scentless nerve gas, and after using him to draw out ROOT members, Natsumi kills him.
• Understatement: Unkai Kurama, Natsumi's uncle and head of the Kurama branch family calls Natsumi's refusal to leave her loving husband to become a broodmare for a clan that refused to acknowledge her for years "a petty fight."
• Undying Loyalty: Natsumi has this for Minato and the Hatake family, she would do anything for them.
• Uniqueness Value: Komushi goes from lowly chunnin to valued member of Suna's forces when he becomes Suna's sole sealing specialist.
  • In ANBU, if a ninja survives past their expected expiration date they usually get promoted. The life expectancy of assassination is five years, a sabotage specialist one years, So Natsumi and Koichi Sarutobi get promoted after they survive past it.
• Unishment: Natsumi gets in huge trouble with ANBU for revealing her codename to Kushina and Minato and chasing after Kushina's kidnapper without informing her superiors. Her punishment? Being benched from ANBU until she reaches chunnin and joining Jiraiya's genin team with her friends.
• Wartime Wedding: This is basically most of the clan weddings. Minato and Kushina made this as an excuse to have a small civil wedding instead of going all-out, aside from the fact that it was costly. And indignant Natsumi covered the costs for their wedding instead, telling them to think of it as a wedding gift.
• Wax On, Wax Off: Beginning sealing students have to constantly practice their writing and calligraphy. Justified that sealing requires neat and precise writing to not endanger the user, good handwriting is required. Although unlike other examples, Natsumi's students are told from the get go what is the purpose of the writing exercises.
  • Played straight when Natsumi would playfully attack her teammates by throwing senbon and kunai at them. Minato realizes that Natsumi was conditioning their dodging skills.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Kyoko and Mei, two Alpha Bitches who spread rumors about Natsumi, are never mentioned after Academy.
  • No mention to what happened to Keiko, the first kunoichi in Minato and Inoichi's genin team, after Jiraiya dismisses her for Natsumi. It's even lampshaded when Natsumi asks what happened to her. Keiko joins the Genin Corps and retired after she married.
• Wolverine Claws: As a side effect of her Leopard summoning contract, Natsumi's nails can grow very fast and extremely sharp.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: During an ANBU mission, Natsumi plays a injured civilian farm girl to lower the guard of an Iwa spy so she can kill him.
• Yamato Nadeshiko: Eri is a proper civilian woman who not afraid to tell off her shinobi counterparts.
• You Killed My Son: Koharu backstabs Danzo and helps Natsumi set up a trap because ROOT was responsible for her only surviving student and surrogate son Sakumo Hatake's death.
  • Natsumi, who considered Sakumo her father in all but blood, is the one to finally end Danzo's life.

Neko-chan's Pawprints contains examples of:

• A Day in the Limelight: Many of the supporting characters get their own story such as:
  • Sakumo, Hiashi, and Tsume getting a chapter each to tell a bedtime story to their children
  • Komushi getting his own apprentice and sealing Gaara.
  • Shikamaru getting advice on being a big brother before his younger sister's birth
  • Tenten asking for an explanation on what being a kunoichi entails.
• Alternate Universe: There are 10 chapters devoted to the Canon!verse meeting the Mesuji!verse.
• Big Sister Instinct: In the Alternate Universe mentioned above, Deja Vu!Temari has an outraged Freak Out when she finds out what happened to the canon version Gaara. Kankuro is of a similar opinion.
• Canon Character All Along: The "Mesuji-verse meets Canon" side stories reveal that Canon! Natsumi's fate was brought to be made a breeding slave by the Kurama family despite the measures that Natsumi's mother had done, thus points that Natsumi is Kurama Yakumo's deceased mother in the Canon verse.
• I Hate Alternate Me: Deja Vu!Neji despises his canon self, enough that they outright come to blows.
• Interdimensional Travel Device: Minato accidentally turns Hiruzen's crystal ball and a seal he created with Kushina's help into one of these
• Mass Teleportation: After wondering what the world would be like without Natsumi, Minato creates and tests a seal that is supposed to look into other universes, and ends up transporting everyone in the tower during Naruto's 2nd Stage Chunin Exams into the Canon!verse, sometime after Sasuke's preliminary fights.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Komushi takes Temari as his apprentice to become a sealing master in preparation for the sealing of Shukaku and Kushina takes Tenten as her own apprentice.
• Tangled Family Tree: Through complicated means, namely being the orphaned Gai's sensei, Natsumi is the grandmother of the orphaned Lee as well as Neji's, since Gai is the sensei of both boys and the former's legal father. Neji even evokes a variant of the trope name: "twisted family tree".

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