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Life as a ninja. It starts with confusion and terror and doesn't get any better from there.

Shikako Nara is an average girl from the Village Hidden in the Leaves. She has friends, a loving family, but there is something different about her, a secret. And she's been keeping it from birth.

Dreaming of Sunshine is a Naruto fanfic with a unique approach to the Self-Insert genre of fan-fiction. It attained legendary status among the Self-Insert Fic community by avoiding many of the more common pitfalls associated with the poorer examples via snappy dialogue and a plot that remains focused on the inner struggles of the protagonist as an observer. Among the Naruto fandom, it is often compared favorably to Team 8, another legendary fic.

Overall, a massive Door Stopper guaranteed to keep you reading for hours.

The author has announced an indefinite hiatus.

     Supplementary Fiction, Recursive Fiction, Omakes, etc. 

Supplementary:

Recursive:

  • The Grass Chunin Exams Alternate perspectives of the Second Chunin Exams Arc. Spoilers for chapters 92 - 95.
  • Sugar Plums: Different self insert reborn into the Dreaming of Sunshine universe, not in Konoha, but in Kirigakure, runs parallel to the original fic mostly, with some minor intersections.

Inspired:

  • The Cassandra Effect Hiruzen introduces his four-year-old daughter, Nanako, to Danzo, the allegedly-former head of ROOT. At her own insistence.
  • Catch Your Breath: Keisuke Gekko and Team Minato grow up as children set to a background of war.
  • Civilian Pianist: Hoshino Tomoko is reborn during the Third Shinobi World War, and in an interesting twist, chooses to be a civilian instead of a ninja.
  • Compass of Thy Soul: Uchiha Kita is reborn during Warring Clans Era. Status: complete; sequel also complete.
  • DĂ©jĂ  vu no Jutsu: An army sergeant dies in battle and wakes up as an orphan in Konoha, meeting Minato and the rest of his generation, causing a spiral of events to unfold. Status: complete.
  • Distorted Reality The main character is a branch Hyuuga, and remembers her past life, but knows nothing of the Narutoverse.
  • Dragonfly A girl is born into the Uchiha clan years before the massacre. This one is actually a parody.
  • Go ask Alice "She hadn't expected it; hadn't expected anything like it, really. Of course, dying wasn't something that people generally expected when they were her age; and then, there was the matter of being reborn in a place she barely knew about. Still, whatever else came, her new life was bound to be a bizarre adventure..." Main Character gets reborn into the Phantom Blood-era Brando family.
  • Hacia el sol ("Towards the sun") is similar, with the varient that the SI is Neji's younger sister.
  • Kakashi's Kid: The main character is reborn as Hatake Kakashi's daughter.
  • Laterality The main character is given a second chance in life as Minato's younger sister.
  • Little Acorn A blind girl with fuzzy memories of a past life. Noteworthy in that she is not related to a major character - her older brother is Yoroi Akado.
  • Of the River and the Sea: The main character is reborn as the child of a whore in Kiri at the height of the Bloody Mist.
  • Runner "Mint is extremely invasive. Mint grows and survives, even when starved and poisoned. Better not to plant it at all." The orphan Hakka gets enlisted into ROOT and replaces Rin on Minato's genin team.
  • Vapors A Self Insert story that details the life and trials of Naruto Uzumaki’s twin sister, Aiko Uzumaki. Status: complete; sequel also finished.
  • Welcome To Tomorrow The main character is reborn as Itachi and Sasuke's older sister.
  • Walk on the Moon A Self Insert story where the SI has a major problem: she doesn't want to be a soldier. So she sets out to be so powerful that she can leave an no one can stop her. The question is, will her sanity survive the process?

     Other Links 
  • Heliocentrism A community on ff.net,, compiles basically every story in the Dreaming of Sunshine Universe. This includes sidestories, translations, and spinoffs by fans.
  • We're all Dreaming of Sunshine A forum created on ff.net, mainly to discuss the story, plot points, or other things.
  • Dreaming of Sunshine Chapter Guide. A fansite started in July 2012, it serves as a carefully constructed encyclopedia about D.O.S. whilst being highly accessible even to outsiders. Might be considered a tribute to the growing legendary status of the fic amongst internet-goers.
  • dosbysilverqueen A tumblr, which mainly revolves around the weekly podfic posts, but also includes other content such as fanart, fanvids, and music suggestions for "the soundtrack"
  • Heliocentrism — a Dreaming of Sunshine recursive collection A repository of various stories about Dreaming of Sunshine.

This fanfiction series contains examples of:

  • Adaptational Explanation: This fic does a fair job of worldbuilding, which helps explain how the world functions or why things happen the way they do.
    • In Chapter 1:
      • Shikako discovers that serious ninjutsu training isn't done until one is eight or nine as children of younger ages just don't have the chakra to do it until then.
      • The Ninja Academy isn't the only school in the Hidden Leaf. It's the one for those who aim to become ninjas. There's another one for civilians called Shogakko. Shikako almost ends up attending that school as her parents thought that she wouldn't be able to use chakra.
    • Chapter 2: There are actually 5 or 6 classes at the Ninja Academy each year, with each class having 3 teams of 3 new genin going on to have jounin instructors every graduation. It also takes into account the fact that not everyone will graduate.
    • Chapter 3:
      • Female students attend 'kunoichi classes'.
        On the surface the classes were reasonably innocuous. We learnt about festivals and holidays of the major lands, we learnt ikebana and basic cooking. We learnt sewing and embroidery. We learnt tea ceremonies and how to apply makeup and wear formal kimono. We learnt instruments. All typical, girlish things. They were all also things that would aid us with infiltration. We were taught how to sing and how to act and how to dance. It was extremely thorough training and none of the other girls even realised it.
        Ikebana taught us which flowers were poisonous and where they were found and how to arrange a bouquet to look beautiful while hiding death inside. It taught us how to pass coded messages to each other, hidden in flower meanings. We could imitate geisha or highborn ladies. We could pretend to be natives to any country of the elemental nations.
        We were taught how to draw, to sketch the face of people we needed to identify, to hide messages within images to get them past scrutiny.
      • The dangers of being low on chakra are elaborated upon, as is the fact that one can only increase their chakra stores to a certain extent.
        Chakra might be thought of as the 'extra' energy that the body (and mind and spirit) produced. Stuff that you didn't need to move or to breathe or to metabolise, so you could use it to do jutsu. Once that reserve was used up, you could either stop, or start taking energy from your muscles. That was chakra debt. First went the skeletal muscles, the arms and the legs. It felt like they were filled with lactic acid, too weak and shaky to contract anymore. Then, if you kept going, you started drawing energy from other muscles, ones that didn't normally fatigue, like your lungs, and heart. Breathing grew difficult, your heart stopped beating. You died.
        We covered that very clearly at the Academy, early on, along with many, many warnings not to try and use chakra unsupervised.
        I had average sized chakra reserves, on the small side for a ninja, but normal for a kunoichi. Nara have never been exceptional in that department, but we make use of what we have cleverly. Mine may have been slightly larger than expected, since I had been practising using it, and that does help build reserves.
        You could build your chakra stores, but they wouldn't keep increasing forever. Just like there was a limit to how fast you could run, or how smart you could get. Training would help push those limits, for you to reach your greatest capacity but there was a limit. The maximum that your body could allow. Most ninja never reached that maximum. There was always a little more training they could squeeze out, a little more their chakra capacity could increase. Of course, the closer you got, the less that 'little bit more' was. Though failing that, their control could improve a little more.
      • The Nara clan's membership and duties are expanded upon.
        The clan was rather large and sprawling. From the show I think I had assumed that Shikamaru's family was the entirety of the Nara clan. It wasn't. In fact, those that lived within the walls of Konoha weren't the entirety of the clan. The Nara ran many farms in Fire country to supply the ingredients for our medicines. Farming took up a great deal of room, and Konoha proper was a walled village. There simply wasn't space.
        Within Konoha itself, we had a small forested area where we ran a herd of deer, as well as a few workshops that produced our medicine and research.
    • Chapter 4:
      • The general divisions of Konoha's ninja are given.
        Ninja in Konoha were divided into three basic sections. ANBU, Medic Corp, and General Operations. ANBU recruited members from the other two sectors and answered only to the Hokage, I didn't know much about their internal structure, nobody did, but it was assumed they were run in small teams led by a Captain. The Medic Corps were divided into two 'sections', the field medics, and the hospital medics, or rather, those that went on missions, and those that didn't. The former were usually recruited from the General Operations, as they had to have some field abilities, while the later could be anyone with the ability to use healing chakra, civilians, academy students, and there were even several clans that focused solely on their healing skills and never produced a field ready shinobi. General Operations was the largest of the three sections, and contained all active duty shinobi. Of course, shinobi never really retired, but there were those that stopped requesting missions, like my mother. Entry into General Operations happened in two ways, the Jounin Squads, which we would be tested for after graduation, and the Genin Corps. If you failed the Jounin test, you went to the Genin Corps and your chances of rising above genin were very low indeed. The Jounin Squads took the budding geniuses, the politically sensitive, the important and those students with the extra something that made people think they might succeed.
      • Konoha has specific alarms for specific situations.
        Konoha had an intricate system of alarms, some loud, some quiet, some silent. There were signal hawks and personal messenger pigeons. There were always messenger nin running around the village. The alarm system was coded for everything from invasion to disease outbreak to escaped dogs, and I remember being drilled in the different codes as soon as I could talk.
    • Chapter 8:
      • The chakra pathway system is expanded upon a bit.
        Channelling chakra through your feet was supposedly one of the most difficult ways of channelling chakra. That was because most people moulded chakra in the Hara, the centre of energies located near the stomach, and then transported it through the body to the point they wanted to emit it. This required them to keep tight control over the moulded energy or risk losing or wasting energy as it travelled.
      • How fuinjutsu works and some of the different kinds are explained.
    • Chapter 9:
      • Survival training in the Academy is explained.
      • The Akimichi clan's industries are explained.
  • Ambiguous Situation: Shikako isn't always very good at understanding others' reactions to her actions, leading her to be a little paranoid about all the different ways people could be taking anything she does (for example, she has no clue what Jiraiya thinks of her research on sealing early on).
  • Angsty Surviving Twin: Brought up by Tsunade after the Retrieval Arc - Ukon dies after trying to possess Naruto, leaving his twin brother Sakon to be brought back to the village for interrogation.
    • Also, Toki in the Land of Birds Arc.
    • The fear of this trope is what drives some of the interpersonal conflict between Shikamaru and Shikako - with Shikako near constantly in danger, Shikamaru fears losing her.
  • An Arm and a Leg: Shikamaru gets his arm turned to stone and crushed by Ishidate.
  • Armor-Piercing Response: In Chapter 11, Inari tells Team 7 that Gatou is too strong and that they should leave if they don't want to die. Shikako points out that if they did, his grandfather is the one who'll die. Inari is unable to form a response to this locks himself in his room.
  • Artistic License – Medicine: Shikako lampshades this in her head in Chapter 3, but accepts that medicine could work a little differently from how she understands it due to the fact that she's in a different world.
  • Author Avatar: Shikako, as per the premise of the fic.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Shikako notes in the Grass Chunin Exams arc, during her fight with Gaara, that fuinjutsu is slow to prepare and very specialized in application, but that it is almost effortless when executed and the effects are often spectacular.
    This was something I could never have done with ninjutsu. I didn't have the chakra, I didn't have the control, and I didn't have the concentration. The cost was too high. But fuinjutsu was different – you paid in time and knowledge instead. That made it less useful in battle where you so rarely had time, but sometimes. Sometimes it was perfect.
  • Been There, Shaped History: Team 7 has been involved with arguably 6 separate regime changes at this point; prevented leadership over throw in the lands of Birds and Moon, helped it in Water and Snow, as for Leaf and Sand, helping to find Tsunade, and helped Gaara put on a show for an international crowd and reform him as canon.
  • Behavioral Conditioning: Shikako notes on how their society turns the occupation of being a ninja into something all children should aspire to attain.
    It's hard to describe what it was like. Ninja were respected, of course, almost revered in some cases. Even the lowest of genin had standing beyond that of a civilian. Ninja, or clans, with skills could become quite wealthy and that was a draw too. But there was more to it than that. It was almost a sense of patriotism. Ninja contributed to Konoha. It was both a duty and a honour, concepts which had been foreign to me, but had quickly rooted themselves in my soul. I didn't know any jobs in my home-world that compared. Maybe a hundred years ago that was what it was like to be a soldier, but I had known nothing like it.
    There was expectation. Children were expected to try to, to want to, become ninja. To have the skills and not was nearly unthinkable.
    That was why Shikamaru was willing to entertain the idea of work. Why Ino, who would rather run the flowershop, and Sakura, who was so self-conscious of her appearance, were training to become killers.
    That, I reflected wryly, was social conditioning at its finest.
  • Berserk Button: For both Shikako and Shikamaru, hurting their twin.
  • Big Brother Instinct: Shikamaru displays this thrice: first when Sasuke hurt Shikako while under the influence of the curse seal, again when she gets mind raped by Itachi, and finally when she gets possessed by Gelel.
  • Big Damn Heroes: In Chapter 35, Teams 7, 8, and 10 pull one of these when backing up Sasuke. Temari just about craps herself.
    The rest of us flickered in after [Naruto], arraying ourselves over the branches in a variety of places. I slid to a crouch next to Sasuke, surveying the surroundings. If I'd been in the mood to notice, I probably would have said we made a damn dramatic entrance.
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Ino, Shikako and Sakura.
  • Bodyguarding a Badass: As in canon, a Kage’s “bodyguards” are not so much there to defend their leader as to show off their village’s strength. At the Hidden Grass Chunin Exams, which all the major villages attend despite their tense relationships with one another, Tsunade has Kakashi as her bodyguard, while the Mizukage has Zabuza. And a year later, when Tsunade makes Shikako and Sasuke her bodyguards for the exams at Hidden Mist, everyone involved realizes that it's for their protection rather than hers.
  • Boom, Headshot!: The death of Kin Tsuchi and a literal example in the Grass shinobi that tries to kidnap Shikako after her fight in the second Chunin Exams with Gaara.
  • Brandishment Bluff: Shikako will occasionally call out an attack that does not exist or use an extremely misleading name. For example, “Nara Art: The Shadow Devours” isn’t a shadow jutsu but merely a genjutsu. “Lightning Style: Super Beam Cannon” doesn’t exist at all.
  • Brought Down to Badass: Muku does this to Shikako during their match with his chakra-sealing technique.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Lampshaded and justified by Shikako - it helps with mental focus and significantly increases the effectiveness of many jutsu.
  • Child Prodigy: Numerous characters are/were considered prodigies ahead of most of their peers.
    • Neji, Sasuke, Shikamaru, and Shikako of the Leaf 12 are all considered this for differing reasons.
    • Kakashi and Gai were both prodigies when they were young.
    • Itachi was exceptional, to the point of being considered stronger than Kakashi when he was Shikako's age.
  • Child Soldiers: Played straighter than usual. Shikako is enough of a modern person to find the concept off-putting. Luckily, Konoha has a careful desensitization program as part of the education system.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • Way back in Chapter 6, Shikako muses that "You needed light to have shadows but there was a legend that the founder of the clan, many hundreds of years ago, could control the very night itself".
    • The Sword of the Thunder God comes in mighty handy during Shikako and Ino's fight against Kidomaru in Chapter 59.
    • Shikako's ability to sense natural energy is mentioned as early as Chapter 3, and did not become relevant again until Chapter 63.
    • Back in Chapter 3, Shikako mentioned training without chakra in order to increase her base stamina. This comes in handy in Chapter 94 when her chakra is sealed away in the middle of a fight, something that completely disables most ninja.
    • Also in Chapter 3, Shikako mentions how the Nara believe in self acceptance and mentions "what would I do if someone hurt my brother?" as a question. In Chapter 114, we finally find out the answer to that question.
  • Cold-Blooded Torture: Konoha's Torture and Interrogation Division does not do this, and Konoha takes a very dim view of it for both moral and practical reasons.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Shikako. She prefers to ambush her opponents or take them out with traps whenever possible. Also see the entry for Murder Is the Best Solution.
  • Conditioned to Accept Horror: Shikako thinks that part of the training in the Academy is desensitizing the students to better prepare them for the realities of being a ninja.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Noted by Shikako - see In Spite of a Nail below.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle:
    • Naruto's fight with Neji in the Chunin exams. Neji never even touches the real Naruto.
    • And then by the Sound Four against Ibiki.
    • Shikako vs. Netsui ends with the former winning without ever touching the latter.
    • In general, any filler villain who's a threat because Naruto is an idiot or Team Seven is dysfunctional suffers one.
  • Death by Adaptation:
    • Type I: Uzumaki Karin (no name mentioned) and later Aoba
    • Type II: The Sound Genin Trio
  • Debt Detester: Shikako offers Tenten a position as a second author in developing a new storage seal for the village to use: it's a job using her interest in sealing and her specialty within that, it will pay well, it will help the village, and they would be looking at good royalties once it's being sold. Tenten hesitates too accept because she's a no-name orphan and has already received so much from Shikako that Tenten has no idea how to begin repaying her.
    Shikako: (trying to get Tenten out of the way of a political ploy) ...Mostly I was doing it to foist all the paperwork off on you.
    Tenten: [starts laughing uncontrollably]
  • Demonization: Strongly averted - Shikako's narrative treats most people sympathetically, averting either Draco in Leather Pants or Ron the Death Eater. The only people depicted badly are the truly repulsive villains, with Kabuto so far getting the worse of it.
  • Determinator: All the canon examples apply, but Shikako has her moments as well. The fight against Orochimaru in the Forest of Death is basically Shikako trying repeatedly to kill him with extreme prejudice while yelling at Sasuke to fight back, even though she knows it's utterly hopeless.
  • Disproportionate Retribution: Shikako basically masterminds a revolutionary upgrade of the Logistics department via her seals (with help of Tenten) that leaves the department in chaos. Why? Somebody in Logistics called Shikamaru an idiot.
  • Enforced Technology Levels: Shikako notes in Chapter 15 that ninjas are actively suppressing the spread of technology, with few exceptions. Interestingly, she somewhat agrees with it.
    Out of the corner of my eye, I could see mum standing with the family camera. Technology was a little strange in this world. It was only the elite that had access to a high level of technology. Something handheld like Mum was using took extreme connections to get, even if I considered bulky and consistent with like the nineteen seventies. Heck, the camera that administration used for ID photos looked like it was from the eighteen hundreds.
    If I thought about it, it was probably more societal than due to any lack of skill. They had fireworks so they clearly had gunpowder. They had radio, they had cameras and TVs. There was at least some people capable of building cameras.
    But instead of saying 'how can this help the public' or even 'how can we sell this' like my world, they hid it. Not just the plans and blueprints, but everything. No one shared anything. Added to the fact that these were things that ninja wouldn't like - concealable cameras, radio and video that can be sent across the entire nation? No, they wouldn't like that at all. And things that ninja didn't like had a tendency to disappear. Not only that, but everyone that had heard of them mysteriously vanished or forgot they'd ever heard of it. Ninja might be able to adapt, but they'd prefer to shut it down before it got to that stage. The status quo was reasonably good to them.
    And yeah, I'm a little glad, because I never want to think the words 'ninja' and 'atomic bomb' in the same sentence ever again.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Land of Grass.
    Land of Grass was pretty much as advertised. Land. And grass.
  • Fantasy Contraception: Tsunade invented a jutsu that not only prevents conception but also halts the menstrual cycle—which can be lifesaving in a world where one's enemies may be able to smell a single drop of blood from miles away—and is easy enough for Academy students to learn. The kunoichi of Konoha revere her for this.
  • Fish out of Water: As noted in Chapter 63, Shikako still feels like an outsider due to having previously grown up in a society indoctrinated by different values, particularly regarding the value of life.
  • Flash Step: The Body Flicker Jutsu allows this. It comes in two variations: a shorter less controlled combat version, and the longer version most ninja used for transport.
  • Freakiness Shame: When Team 7 are in Taki, some differing circumstances result in them meeting Fuu, another of the Jinchuriki.
  • Geometric Magic: Fuinjutsu are jutsu that use writings and symbols, known as seals, to create an effect. There are various kinds of these, and few are able to master them. Skilled users of fuinjutsu are able to create and modify seals with just their hands.
    Seals were the machines of the elemental nations. Seals are Kanji. That surprised me to discover. I had always thought they would involve a specialised alphabet or complex symbols - esoteric lines and circles - but it wasn't. It was Kanji. Yes, there were specific ways in which they should be combined for best effect, but in that manner it was more like writing a contract or telling a story. That was … interesting to learn.
    Of course, it was limited. It took time and space and ink and paper. Only the very best seal masters could use seals in combat, because they were the only ones that could design or alter and apply a seal with merely a twist of chakra, a hand seal and maybe some blood. Minato Namikaze was lauded as a genius for a reason.
  • Giver of Lame Names: The Nara clan is this, as lampshaded by Shikako.
    "Nara are good at a lot of things, but names aren't one of them. We're twins named 'deer girl' and 'deer boy' and the only reason we have the 'deer' is because of tradition."
  • Hammerspace: One of the first applications for seals that Shikako makes use of. Also done by Tenten. Interestingly, in Shikako's case, she uses them on her own body frequently, sealing important, useful, or valuable items directly to her person.
  • The Heart: Shikako is the emotional and moral center of Team Seven, and on a larger scale, of the Konoha Twelve. Hinata and Ino are as well, in different ways. Hinata because she is a rallying point for the others, someone they gather around to support. Ino, because she is someone who supports everyone else.
  • Heel–Face Turn: Zabuza and Haku.
  • Hero Killer: Downplayed. The Sound Four defeat Ibiki Morino and subsequently prove themselves dangerous enough to threaten Shikako's efforts in preventing Sasuke's canonical Face–Heel Turn. Kimimaro as well, since he nearly kills Naruto!
  • Hidden Purpose Test: The story has a few of these, as in canon.
    • The first is the bell test. Shikako realizes the real purpose of both the order to not eat and the bell test. She explains to Naruto and Sasuke the former before their test begins and the latter after it is over.
    • Kakashi asks Shikako what she is feeling when she alerts her team about the possible ambush on the way to the Land of Waves. This is presumably to see how good a sensor she is.
  • Highly-Visible Ninja: Jusified. Shikako notes in Chapter 9 that wearing clothes that are good for stealth is less important than blending in with a civilian population.
    Civilians have odd expectations for ninja. They expect us to dress in black, wear masks, and carry lots of weaponry. In short, they expect us to look like ANBU. Which is ironic, because to civilians, ANBU don't exist and they certainly don't take missions.
    To a civilian bright, blinding orange wasn't an appropriate colour for a ninja. Therefore, it was actually a perfect colour for a ninja. Oh, sure, it stood out like hell in a forest, but the fact was, most of our time spent hiding wasn't among trees - it was among other people. The best ninja is the one you can't tell from a civilian.
    It confounded their expectations. A tall guy dressed head to toe in black carrying a small armoury? Ninja. Small, loud blond kid in orange? Are you kidding? Ninja were invisible not because of jutsu (most of the time) but because they looked just like normal people.
    That was the whole point. Even the standard Jounin-Chunin 'uniform' looked like normal civilian clothes. It took someone familiar with ninja to recognise the flack jacket as something other than a vest. And frankly, a fellow ninja was more likely to recognise your chakra than your clothes.
  • Improvised Weapon: Sakura knocks out an escaped prisoner with a vase, and Shikako wins a fight by strangling her opponent with her braid until he passes out.
  • In a Single Bound: Chapter 8 reveals that this is called the Leaping Monkey technique.
  • In Spite of a Nail: Several things that one might expect to play out differently don't. For example, most of the match ups in the chunin exams are the same as in the original story despite the fact that Shikako killed the Sound team. Shikako theorizes that the selection of the participants was rigged, and that the finals probably were too. Despite this, a number of things do change – some of which cannot be substituted easily, regardless of the petty whims of fate.
    • Also notable in some other instances because for the most part Shikako has been attempting to avoid changing anything major - after all, the best parts of her inside knowledge depend on some things remaining consistent. At first. Unfortunately she's forgotten some of it.
  • Instant Waking Skills: Ninja are trained to be able to do this. It's called 'mission sleep' by most ninja, as revealed by Shikako in Chapter 9.
  • Irony: An in-universe example with what civilians expect ninja to be. Shikako notes that civilians expect people who are dressed up as ANBU. She says that this is ironic because the ANBU don't take missions from civilians due to the fact that to the latter, the former don't exist.
  • The Jinx: In Chapter 12 of Sunshine Sidestories, it's shown that the Special Jounin Sasuke patrols with all see him as one of these. Each of the jounin have some kind of horror/traumatizing story from working with him, from impostors and contraband to Aburame giggling about flesh-eating beetles.
    • This is expanded on in chapter 104 to include Shikako and possibly all of Team 7. Shikako herself is unaware, and thinks the desk ninja are just weird.
  • The Juggernaut: It takes the combined efforts of all the remaining Konoha Genin plus the sand trio to put Kimimaro down after he was blown up at close range, effortlessly defeated Kiba, and almost killed Naruto. Even with Sasuke using his Curse Seal second transformation, Naruto pulling on the Kyuubi chakra, and Gaara pinning him down with sand, it was still a close call. Juggernaut, indeed.
  • Killing Intent: Several characters throughout the story use this, usually as an intimidation tactic.
    • In Chapter 9, Shikako remembers how teachers used this to train students to be more alert in survival training.
    • The first real example is when Zabuza fights Team 7. The killing intent given off by both him and Kakashi causes Shikako and Sasuke to freeze up.
    • After noticing the above, Kakashi sends an inversion of this trope, Positive Intent, to calm them down.
  • Laser Blade: The Sword of the Thunder God. It's similarity to a lightsaber is lampshaded by Shikako.
    I was a ninja. I knew there were jutsu and weapons of every description and ability and more. And yet, some things were so deeply ingrained, like the cultural belief that the coolest weapon in the world was made of light and went zshooshm.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler: It's hard to hide that Shikako replaces Sakura on Team 7, making the latter Demoted to Extra.
    • Also, the fact that Sasuke stays in Konoha.
  • Limited Advancement Opportunities: Noted by Shikako regarding the special jounin as a rank. Justified in that they are valued experts in a specialty, and thus can have difficulty getting promoted out of it.
  • Major Injury Underreaction: Somewhat lampshaded by Sasuke after Shikako's fight with Muku.
    Sasuke: (irritated & exasperated) Shikako! You can't just stand around and have a conversation while your arm bone is sticking out! You have to say something!
    Shikako: It's called a humerus. But I don't suppose it's that funny.
  • Mind Rape: Shikako gets subjected to Tsukuyomi. It was so bad that she kept screaming even after she was knocked unconscious.
    • Ino is subjected to this as well when she gets tangled with the copy of Orochimaru hidden in Kidomaru's seal.
    • Shikako gets hit again thanks to encountering Jashin whose about as close to Cthulhu as you can get in this setting.
  • Mundane Utility: In chapter 14, Kakashi uses the incredibly powerful water dragon jutsu... to have a water fight with his students.
    • Shikako uses her Hammerspace seal to carry coffee cups and protein shakes.
    • Haku uses his ice to soothe Shikako`s fever.
    • Sasuke uses the mighty copying power of his Sharingan... to figure out how to hold Shikako's baby brother Kinokawa. The way that Shikako barely comments on it (thus implying this is something Sasuke does a lot) just makes it funnier.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: Shikako kills the genin team from Sound because it was the least risky option available to her. This is a source of some guilt afterwards.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg: Both Lee and to a lesser extent, Gai, seem to fill a somewhat lighthearted and good-natured riff on this role.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Sasuke, after he hit Shikako under the influence of the curse seal.
    • Shikako has a massive attack of this after her seal to block the Jashin ritual breaks catastrophically, wiping out half of the Land of Hot Water as collateral damage.
  • Nice Girl: Shikako herself. She also regards Ino as this, and Choji as the male variant.
  • Noiseless Walker: The Cat's Foot technique allows ninjas to make their steps silent. Once trained enough, it becomes second nature and you have to expend more effort if you actually want to make noise with your feet.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • In Chapter 6, Ino alludes to something that Shikako did in the Academy. All we know is that it involved Shikako attempting to create and modify exploding tags.
      Ino: You just had that look on your face. You know, 'some one has done something interesting and I must find out why'!
      Shikako: That's a look?
      Ino: Right up there with 'this book is interesting' and 'I just had an idea about how to make things explode'.
      Shikako: I don't explode things! Often.
      Ino: Exploding tags. That's all I'm going to say
    • Shikamaru threatens Sasuke after he hurt Shikako while under the effect of the curse seal. We don't get to find out what he said, but it made Sasuke nervous around him.
    • In chapter 106, Shikako and Aoba go on a bog-standard dead drop retrieval mission... that somehow ends with them watching a bonfire (that Aoba, of all people, set) burn out.
      Aoba: No one is going to believe this.
  • No Periods, Period: Invoked by Shikako when she mentions why Tsunade is revered by the female population of Konoha.
  • Odd Friendship: Team 7 with a lot of characters. Zabuza, Haku, the Sand Siblings, the leadership of several nations, and a big time movie director just to name a few. Ino even comments on how unfair it is that they know so many important people.
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The previous Team Ino-Shika-Cho manage to dismember and capture Hidan.
  • Oh, Crap!: Shikako's reaction to finding herself in the Narutoverse.
    • Temari in Chapter 35 when Teams 7, 8, and 10 pull a Big Damn Heroes during the Invasion Arc.
      Temari's face went from 'determined but resigned' to 'ohshit' in the blink of an eye.
  • One-Hit Kill: The Academy teaches this in the taijutsu classes.
    'The easiest way to win a fight is to avoid it'. There is no reason to fight if you don't have to. But if there is, if you have to fight, commit to it 100%. Commit to every action as though it will win the fight. You should throw the first punch and throw the last punch and make sure the two of them are the same strike. In the academy they talked about this, they called it 'Ikken Hissatsu'. 'To kill with one strike'. Here they actually meant it.
  • Past-Life Memories: The source of some of Shikako's knowledge.
  • Plot Tailored to the Party: Invoked. See Fridge Brilliance.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Shikako comes up with several plans to fight Zabuza and Haku. Unfortunately, she forgets to tell them to her teammates. Fortunately, none of them actually die.
  • Pragmatic Hero: Shikako starts to exhibit traits of this after she kills the Sound Genin in the Forest of Death. It's not quite Murder Is the Best Solution levels, but Shikako is the first among her age group to kill, and probably has the highest kill-count of any ninja in Konoha under the age of sixteen because of this tendency.
  • Precision F-Strike: Shikako delivers one when Itachi corners her and Naruto.
  • Redemption Earns Life: Zabuza and Haku, at least compared to canon where Haku never actually turned and Zabuza simply went out via Taking You with Me.
  • Reincarnation: Shikako obviously.
  • Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Kiba promises to invoke this about Shikako's second fight in the Grass Chunin Exams, where she has her chakra sealed, but manages to come out on top by strangling Muku with her hair.
    Shikako: You don't need to mention it ever again.
    Kiba: Oh, no. This is never, ever being forgotten.
    Shikako: It worked.
    Kiba: That's why it's amazing, and why I'm going to tell this story for the rest of your life.
  • Rule #1: Shikako makes one after the fight against Zabuza and Haku is over.
    "Rule Number One of Team 7: No dying."
  • Running Gag:
    • Almost every C-rank or above mission that Team 7 goes on quickly goes to hell and becomes a higher rank mission.
    • Shikako and her usage of explosives.
  • Self-Insert: By way of Reincarnation.
  • Ship Tease: Nothing solid just yet - but the one-sided Naru/Hina is definately there.
    • Shikamaru/Tenten seems to have been confirmed in Chapter 110. It doesn't last, though.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Shikako quotes Yoda when thinking about the bell test in Chapter 5.
      Do or do not, there is no try.
    • Shikako quotes Dune when thinking about Team 7's encounter with Zabuza in Chapter 11.
      Fear is the mind killer.
    • When told by Inari that they're going to die, Shikako responds by paraphrasing a quote by Charles Franklin.
      "Sa, kid. That's the thing about life. No one gets out alive."
    • Shikako quotes William Shakespeare when deciding to let the Sand Siblings go.
    • A kidou spell from Bleach is used as an identification code between Konoha ninja.
    • Shikako's thoughts upon seeing the Sword of the Thunder God.
    • In Chapter 29, "When you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes into you."
    • "Lightning Release; Sword in the Stone!"
    • Shikako's nickname (she made up herself, told to Sakura, and was popularized by Ino)? Shikabane-hime.
    • Shikako escapes her kidnapper during the Grass Chunin exams in a way very reminiscent of how Kimblee gives Scar his trademark facial scarring. By planting an explosive seal on his face.
    • "There is no equivalent exchange for human life."
  • Shrinking Violet: Shikako has shades of this in her early chapters. Nowhere near as bad as Hinata, though.
  • Skewed Priorities: The Director in the Land of Snow arc. Repeatedly. Lampshaded by Shikako. Repeatedly.
    Director: To film a movie using a real princess… that is something that happens once in a lifetime.
  • Solar and Lunar: Sunlight is often used as a visual metaphor, or motif, for when Shikako is content or healing. On the other hand, sad or pivotal scenes usually take place at night, such as Shikako's big conversation with Kakashi after during Wave Arc, and later Shikako convincing Sasuke not to defect.
  • Spared by the Adaptation: Zabuza, Haku, Hayate, Sandayu, Tayuya, Sakon, Jirobou.
  • Standard Female Grab Area: A competing Nin does this on Shikako during Chunin Exams. It does not work.
  • The Stations of the Canon: Followed for the most part, but kept interesting by having the narrator notice the logical inconsistencies of the original work and coming up with plausible explanations for them. Unusually, it includes a number of anime filler episodes.
    • Said fillers, in turn, are utilised in order to expand on the plot, even more than the anime did - for instance, Sunshine Sidestories expands on Kakashi's previous visit to the Land of Snow, while in the main story Shikako, during the mission where Team 7 confronts Aoi Rokusho, manages to wrest the Second Hokage's sword from him rather than destroy it. These are just two examples.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Shikako is fond of explosions, which turns into something of a Running Gag.
  • Summon Magic: Anyone with a Summoning Contract can summon an animal to aid them, be it in battle or for support. Besides the canon summoners, Ino becomes the new Chameleon Summoner and Shikako the new Deer Summoner.
  • Suspiciously Specific Denial: Shikako does this deliberately in order to warn Fuu about the Akatsuki.
  • Taking the Bullet: Shikako uses the replacement technique to protect Sasuke from Itachi's Tsukuyomi, which means she gets hit by it instead.
  • Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Ino lampshades this in regards to Sai.
    Ino: So who's tall, dark and pale?
  • These Hands Have Killed: Shikako after killing some of her opponents. Kiba follows suit when he dispatches a Suna ninja to save Shikako's life.
  • Throw Down the Bomblet: Shikako's first weapon-of-choice happens to be explosive tags and notes.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Since this is a Naruto fanfic, many characters become stronger over time, particularly if they have suffered a bad defeat and have something to make up for. Special note goes to Ino, who starts out the story slightly stronger than her canon counterpart, suffers serious injuries after fighting the Sound Four, and then recovers and becomes a much stronger, more versatile fighter with the aid of her chameleon summons.
  • Tournament Arc: Any time there's a Chunin Exam, the Third Task will be a tournament.
  • Tranquil Fury: Sasuke enters this state after Kimimaro nearly kills Naruto.
  • True Companions: Team 7 - the bond here is stronger than in canon thanks to Shikako establishing the traditions of post-fight discussions to critique on another on each others abilities, and post-mission dinner celebrations at the Nara Residence. To a lesser extent, the Leaf Twelve are all fairly close friends and acquaintances.
    • Their bonds are strong enough to convince Sasuke not to defect from Konoha, unlike in canon.
  • Unfazed Everyman: Shikako describes the civilians of the Hidden Villages as this as they are able to unflappably live regular lives alongside ninja who could easily massacre them with their training.
  • The Unfought: So far, Shikako has managed to sidestep Kabuto several times.
  • Walk on Water: The Water Walking technique can be done by any ninja through enough training with chakra control.
  • Weirdness Magnet: Team 7's C-rank level missions routinely end up A-rank or worse, S-Rank. This why the Mission Desk Ninja fear assigning them missions, and Special Jounin do not want to go on patrol with one.
  • We Need to Get Proof: One of the reasons Shikako doesn't run around changing things willy-nilly is because no one would ever believe her. Instead she painstakingly begins investigating events of interest such as the Uchiha Massacre, especially after being subjected to Tsukuyomi, and the Akatsuki. This even makes sense, since she knows the information is there and will thus notice things someone else would dismiss.
  • Wham Episode: There've been a few.
    • Chapter 70: Shikako technically dies in battle against Gelel. This incident permanently changes her relationship with her brother, leading to them fighting at multiple points.
    • Chapter 113: Shikamaru loses his arm, on a mission Shikako commanded.
    • The entire Hot Spring Arc: Shikako is captured by Jashinists and her mission partner Aoba is murdered. Her attempt to distrupt the ritual ends up destroying most of the country. Tensions between Konoha and Kumo shift into outright war. And in the aftermath, Danzo makes enough moves for Tsunade to notice something off.
  • Why Am I Ticking?: Shikako attempts this on Kimimaro. Either because she's exhausted or because he's a beast, it doesn't work.
  • Wise Beyond Their Years: Shikako, due to having the memories of a previous life.
  • You Are Not Alone: When Naruto lets slip his status as a jinchuriki to Shikako, Skikamaru, and Choji, they reassure him that it doesn't matter to them and that they are still his friends. He has to hold back tears.
    • Naruto also says this to Fuu, for the same reason.
    • Shikako has a very emotional moment after she realizes that Gaara has begun to look into Akatsuki too- she is no longer fighting to change the future alone.
  • You Can Barely Stand: Shikako faces off against the Sound genin by herself while concussed, sleep deprived, low on chakra, and nursing several broken ribs and a broken arm from the encounter with Orochimaru - and she kills all three of them.
  • You Monster!: In-universe, Kabuto is the only person Shikako feels enough pure, unadulterated hatred to want to kill with her own bare hands - the only reason she's not doing so is because she realizes he's too strong for her, which frustrates her due to knowing how far his crimes will eventually go.
  • Your Head Asplode: What happens to Shikako's attempted kidnapper.

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