A/N: Alllrighty then. I'm committing the biggest sin of all fan fiction writers and doing a Self-Insert OC. Is the term "self-insert" supposed to even be taken literally?

Meh.

So obviously there have been a huge amount of SI OC fan fictions being written recently, and of course I thought "why the hell not?" Also, I've put the prologue and first chapter together. As I'm sure you can see, the word count isn't huge and uploading them separately just wouldn't have been worth it. The next few chapters will be longer.

This is just the first chapter so… let me know what you think :)

Prologue and Chapter 1: Dead Days are Gone

My name is Ayaka Yūhi, and I'm going to tell you a story.

The story of a girl who died, and how she didn't stay dead.

There are many theories pertaining to the nature of death, ponderings on the existence of souls or the afterlife. I suppose I still feel a little cheated that even though I died, I'm still not entirely sure that they exist myself. When I died, there was no birds-eye view of my lifeless body as I did not float up towards Heaven, nor did I encounter a Purgatory where I was told to "go back" by some otherworldly creature – where I was not just sent into life, but a different world entirely.

I didn't encounter anything like that. At least, not that I remember…

Yet, I retained the memories of my life. My old life. The one I'd had before I had died. I knew that I was dead. I hadn't been expecting to die when I had awoken that morning, but I suppose that that's the case for most people. Although I had always thought that death would only just mean an idle and isolated afterlife, where the naïve believed that you'd either live in a paradise or hell for the rest of eternity and that nothing proceeds from that point onwards.

And I had been so very naïve.

…I …I was being squeezed. Squeezed and pushed. The pressure on me growing to insurmountable levels. Everywhere. That's all I could feel. The pressure. That painful pressure that squeezed and constricted tightly around me, moving me forward. Pressure on my head, pressure on my chest, pressure on my throat—

My throat!

I couldn't breathe! The memory of large hands on my throat made me want to scream in terror. Large hands wrapping around my throat in this infernal darkness, seeing my struggling face reflected in two round mirrors of darkness. I wanted to scream, to cry out, to reach up and pull the hands away but I could not. My throat had already closed over and my limbs felt like they were made out of lead.

But then the pressure was no more and I released a choked cry from terror as my environment suddenly changed. From comfortable solitary darkness to a world filled with swirling lights that hurt my eyes.

I had been born.

Only this time I remembered being squeezed from a woman's uterus and emerging covered in a stranger's body fluids after a thirty-eight hour labour. Thirty-eight hours! As labours went, it was definitely possible to have worse but thirty-eight hours was still a long time to be squeezed from a uterus no matter what anybody says. Especially when you're conscious.

Needless to say, with all the pushing and prodding and pressure, by the time I was born I was more than a little sleep-deprived.

I woke up blind. Snuggled between two warm bodies, it was then that I had my first real opportunity to understand what was happening to me.

I was alive.

Again.

Not only that, but I was actually thinking. Thinking like an adult. Not like the newborn baby that I was. This wasn't normal. Obviously something had gone wrong. By all means I shouldn't be self-aware at this young an age. Would this mean that I would never experience infantile amnesia? Was that a good or a bad thing?

Time passed as days turned into weeks that quickly culminated into months, and I slowly came to terms that I had to be spoon-fed and have my body cleaned for me as though I were an invalid. Which I suppose I was. But it was still embarrassing and I hated it.

But it's not like I had much of a say on the matter.

My parents – my new parents – seemed intent on ingratiating themselves onto me, and I soon realised that with my growing affection towards them my memories of my old parent were growing dimmer and more vague. I didn't want to forget them, but I was. Their voices were the first to go, followed by – much later – their faces until all I could recall of them were warped caricatures of their personalities and general traits that I retained only through a memory of a memory.

It was rather distressing, so I tried to stop thinking about them.

And slowly, over some time, I began to forget about the details of my previous life altogether.

More time passed and mama was teaching me how to read by the time I was three years old. I was always hungry for knowledge, excited at the prospect of being able to read on my own. It took a while to learn to read the language that they spoke but mama and papa seemed quite impressed with my progress.

My sister would often help me with memorising and drawing my characters after she came home from the academy where she was training to be a kunoichi. Father was a shinobi too, as was his father and his father before him – my great-grandfather – who was one of the first civilian-born shinobi in the country to attain the rank of Jōnin. It made me proud of my heritage.

It was only fitting that I'd be trained as a kunoichi and carry on my family's pride, so we could become a "shinobi family".

Shinobi…

There was something so familiar about that word, something that was on the proverbial tip of my tongue, a feeling of vague familiarity with that single word. It was the same feeling I have when I see the symbol etched into Father's hitai-ate, an odd swirly symbol that was the sign of the shinobi of my village.

I wanted to wear that symbol on my own hitai-ate one day.

Father began my own proper training when I was a little over four years old. Previously he had had mama work me through basic chakra control exercises as well as making me memorise and learn every kanji they thought appropriate for me to learn at my age and then some.

I practically bounced with anticipation and excitement as Father led me into our backyard to begin training. Finally, finally! I was actually going to start learning the good stuff, learning how to defend myself as well as my loved ones. However, Father led me to the seats situated in front of the small cherry blossom tree that was still in bloom although it was autumn and the weather was beginning to cool.

"Ayaka-chan."

"Hai!"

"Ayaka-chan, I want to know what you want to be when you grow up?" Father asked me, leaning in close to me. "Know that I will not judge you. You can follow any path you wish with my blessing."

I frowned; I had definitely not been expecting this. Of course he had to know what I wanted to be, I hadn't been practicing chakra control over the last twelve months to just turn around and say that I wanted to be a… what? a waitress or a-a laundry maid instead?

"E-eh? Otou-san I… I want to be a kunoichi! You know that!"

"You do know that being a shinobi is very dangerous – life-threatening, in fact. You're going to have to live a life by the rules and often put the sake and wants of others above your own needs."

Was he trying to dissuade me from becoming a kunoichi?

Surely not! I was the brightest in my preschool, and I had no doubts about it. At four years old I had above average chakra control even among the children of shinobi clans, an extremely large vocabulary and – perhaps most importantly – I was motivated. I knew where I wanted to go, what career path I wanted to follow, and I knew that I would be able to do a great many things by following the road I was currently on.

No one is going to stop me.

The vehemence in that one sentence alone was both perplexing and helped soothe any doubts Father might have implanted in me. It was just puzzling from where this integral admission had come from. Certainly not from me.

"I know, Papa. I know." I said, hoping he wouldn't question me further.

Of course, he did.

"Then why? You can live a nice safe life, Ayaka. Away from danger. You can marry whomever you like-" as if "-and live a long life. You won't have to see people die. I won't have to see you die."

"U-um... I… I… Uh, people die, Papa. People die all the time. People die because they're too weak. P-people also die because they're too strong. People die from sickness and p-people die in wars." I stuttered out, trying to construe my feelings. "I-I don't want to die from being weak. I don't want to die at all. But, uh, if I had the choice I would prefer dying for being strong – dying for defending my village and family."

Papa nodded, a small smile forming on his angular face providing some warmth to his red eyes and I let out a silent sigh of relief. He looked away from me, over my shoulder. I turned. Mama stood behind me, her beautiful face blank and unreadable. Obviously this had been her idea. I felt like I had passed a test but of a nature that I was unable to determine.

"Very well," Mama said, giving me a small smile. I had every notion that she was trying to make me at ease but I could still sense her uneasiness of sending another child out into the world to become a soldier. But this was my choice – not hers.

Papa nodded at mama before she retreated back inside our home before turning to me. "Today we'll just be doing some chakra control exercises, but from after today you're mother will be teaching you chakra control-"

"Why? Mama has already been teaching me chakra control," I interrupted.

Papa gave me a stern look. "Do not interrupt me, Ayaka."

"H-hai. G-gomen Otou-san," I acquiesced, ducking my head.

"What you've learned so far is only the basics of the basics, your mother will be teaching you how to apply chakra in real life scenarios, like to enhance your speed and strength. She will be extraordinarily good at developing your control due to her proficiency in genjutsu. Don't look at me like that Ayaka, your mother may not look like it at the moment but she was a rather exceptional genjutsu-user before she left duty when Kurenai was born." He explained with a distant look in his eyes before snapping back to the present. "Meanwhile, I get to teach you all the practical and fun things, like taijutsu and shuriken throwing. And then perhaps some jutsu when you're older."

I squealed and clapped my hands in excitement. I'm sure that my eyes were sparkling. "Can we work on them now? Right now?"

Papa smiled but shook his head slowly. "No, for today we'll only be working on chakra control. To begin…"

We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting there, with Father first coaching me through breathing exercises before showing me the basics to chakra control. I was only able to make it swish around in my torso and was unable to concentrate any chakra into any of my limbs much to my chagrin. But you couldn't exactly be an expert on chakra control in the span of just a few hours. And by the end of the afternoon I was surprised to find that I was not only starving but also so tired I could barely stand on my own.

"You've done really well today, Ayaka-chan," Father said, helping me to my feet before giving up and pulling me up into his arms, carrying me towards our house. "Your chakra reserves are steadily increasing, which is always a good sign." I perked up a little at the praise. "But you've still to manage applying chakra to help aid your muscles before I'll let you touch anything like ninjutsu or genjutsu." I wilted a little.

"Ayaka-chan!" A voice called from our lounge room as father carried me in through the sliding door before placing me down on the mat-covered floor and retreating to his bedroom for some rest. He had a mission coming up in a few days, after all. "Where are you, Ayaka-chan?"

"Nee-san!" I called back, hurrying to the lounge room. "I'm coming! I'm coming!"

Kurenai greeted me with a hug in the doorway to the lounge room and I squeezed her back hard. "I saw you practicing with otou-san," she noted, smiling at me kindly.

My sister didn't have a bad bone in her body and I adored that about her just as she seemingly adored me. I admit, she spoiled me a lot, sneaking me her slice of cake whenever mother went into a baking frenzy and smuggling me up onto the roof on some nights and showing me the unfamiliar constellations.

"I know! I'm going to start training, and father says that if I do well in his taijutsu lessons I might be starting at the Academy by the beginning of next year!" I grinned.

Kurenai grinned back. "Just make sure that you concentrate on your lessons. Taijutsu is going to be very important in defending yourself, especially if you're learning the family skillset."

I frowned. "Family skillset? What's that?"

Kurenai's laugh tinkled like a bell and she rubbed me on the head. "Genjutsu, of course. Both mama and father's family's are learned in the illusory techniques of genjutsu, so they have to make sure that they can protect themselves from physical attack."

She seemed to be expecting an answer from me, perhaps whether or not I was keen to learn genjutsu like our ancestors, or move onto something a bit more mainstream. Perhaps ninjutsu. But as Kurenai stood there waiting for my answer a detail I had long since forgotten resurfaced in my memory – about genjutsu. That genjutsu was the art of illusions and as such were incorporeal and difficult to use to your advantage in battle. It was practically unheard of to be able to physically harm someone through the use of genjutsu only. But it was good at fooling and turning the battle in your favour, given that the enemy was unable to break the genjutsu, of course.

Kurenai somehow seemed to understand my reverie and gave me a quick squeeze of a hug before wishing me goodnight and making her way to bed.

Obviously I still had a lot of things to think about in becoming a shinobi for the village. And not just the question of if I was going to learn genjutsu too. I didn't want to admit – not even really to myself – but Papa's talk of certain death for a shinobi life had scared me, and I knew that I would end up spending most of the night awake and trying to weigh up the pros and cons of being a shinobi versus being a citizen.

Sighing, I found mama and papa and bade them both goodnight before going up to bed myself.

A/N: Soooo? What did you think? Lemme know xD