A/N: Hello! This is a rewritten version of a story that kept nagging at me. Pairing is undecided. I was thinking of putting up a poll for it. Feedback would be tremulously appreciated. I hope you enjoy reading it. xx
Change, choice and principles
Prologue
Some believe after death there is nothing; some believe there is a Heaven and a Hell, and some, some believe in Samsara, in an endless circle of birth-death-rebirth. The thing is, I think something got really screwed up when it came to me. Now to explain properly, I'll need you to picture this, you died, you know you died, you felt it, not pain, but a sort of welcomed release, it's cold and dark and comforting at the same time, like floating in an bubble, it feels as if everything is accomplished. Yet, in that moment of bliss, when all is calm, something, a nameless force rips you apart, it pulls, it pushes, you're confused and scared, and you're lost. There is no calm, only dread. Then in a blink, you're met by shining blurry light, muffled voices, you feel just as you did when you were alive. But how could that be? You feel your body, yet it's not yours, yours is dead, laying on the ground somewhere, or in the ground, you don't know. You don't know anything, yet you do. Your memories are not lost, erased, they are there, you are there, yet it's not you.
Confusing is it not? That's what being reborn feels like. When it happens twice, well, it's simpler. I wasn't scared or confused, I was pissed and the only thing going through my head was Not this shit again. But I'll get to that later. For now, let's focus on the first time around the block.
The first year of my life was filled with confusion, anger at being a helpless infant, dread and panic. Not the happiest things per total. I never smiled, never laughed, never did all those baby things, no matter how persistent my new parents were, they tried everything. Silly faces, toys, singing, you named it. I just stood there and stared, wondered what these two Japanese speaking people wanted from me. That got them to worry a lot, I felt sorry for that on the long run, they were kind people, but really, can you blame me? I just kept trying to figure out "Why?" and couldn't. I was tiered and frustrated. But this, this wasn't the worst of it. Not at all. I remember it vividly, more vividly than anything else. There was an awful thunderstorm outside, raging mercilessly; my mother was trying to teach me to speak in the small living room of the apartment, trying to get me to say mamma or dada. The door creaked open just as a white flash of lightning struck outside, it was like one of those dramatic scenes in a movie. My father walked in, soaking wet, water dripping all over the floor, except the droplets that hit the light wood weren't clear and sparkling, they were red. It took me a moment to realize what was actually happening. "Blood. It's blood" kept running through my head along with a million other ideas as to why he walked in with blood dropping all over, and when my head was raised enough to see his face. I screamed. I screamed in horror and disbelief and terror. A hitai-ate was sitting proud, glistening arrogantly, on his forehead.
"Don't cry, darling, calm down, dada is alright, he's not hurt, dada's not hurt" she kept going on and on, as I was crying and screaming bloody murder in the middle of the living room. I was in shock, I was in denial. Of all things, I thought, this cannot be happening to me. But it was.
It took me a while to process that I was actually in my own very personal hell. Realistically speaking, putting aside all daydreams, all crazy figments of my imagination, where I would be the stoic hero who saves all, or the victorious villain, if I was ever put in front of an ultimatum of the "Pick a fictional universe in which you are damned to live the rest of your life" kind, I wouldn't in a million years pick Naruto's. Why? Well, I have an aversion to dying in gruesome ways. Let's be honest now, death looms in every corner in "Ninja Land" and my parents, the new parents, they weren't exactly farmers/merchants/salesmen/cooks/normal people with normal average jobs. I was born in a Shinobi family, and it was made very clear over the years that that means no exceptions. But they were good people, my parents, strict when they had to, but all around loving parents. I think they were very grateful for what they had. They always smiled when we were all together.
Once I fully accepted that my life would be indeed one of a ninja, I decided that there were two paths I could take, first and foremost, the quiet path, where I would bow my head down, ignore all the knowledge I possess and let things go as they were, or, the reckless path, where I, well messed everything up, also known as the save the day path when I originally thought of it. Least to say, the first choice flew out the window as soon as I got my time bearings, I was born precisely one year after the First Shinobi War, in Amegakure, of all places. It was therefore, an opportune moment to stop certain things from happening. The problem was, I did not know when exactly the Second War would start, only the vague notion of twenty something years. Was it enough to prepare? Definitely not.
I wouldn't say I was exceptional or a prodigy, but I wasn't stupid. Perhaps a tad too impulsive. I had an already formed plan in my head. An unfortunate series of events though made it impossible to put into practice. At the beginning of the war, not three weeks after its start, I was hit head first with brutal reality of the world I was part of. It was a Thursday when the new lists of deceased and missing were posted, it took a mere second for the bonds that were created over the span of 19 years with my parents to be cut, a mere second, exactly how long it takes one to read a name. Soon after, when my team was sent on a mission, I found myself with all bonds severed. Everyone I had close to me was dead.
I ran.
I ran for a very long time. I knew I had to be prepared for the horrors of a war, but reading and hearing stories is different from feeling it, seeing it, smelling it firsthand. Yet that is not why I ran. I ran because I was not strong enough. Because, if I couldn't protect my friends, my team, from a handful of ANBU, how could I expect to protect anyone at all? To say I was outmatched was an understatement. I realized that the things I had learned in the Academy, in the field, from my parents, they weren't enough, the abilities I possessed were scarcely close to an A level. That was when I decided to borrow a leaf from Obito's book; I survived, I strived, I endured, I trained and fought, for two long decades I prepared, for one moment and one moment only, a single decisive moment, in which I could change the course of the future, even if it took my life. I failed.
I was thrown back into that same dark soothing bubble, forced to feel that indescribable serenity once more, only to be spat out into the clutches of the same miserable world. What had I done wrong? I asked myself when I realized I was yet again put on the same road, while once again I was left staring awestruck at my new new parents Hitai-ates. The only difference now was that there was no screaming, no tantrums, just an ominous thought of Fuck my life. Not again.
Keiji and Izumi Toma. These are the names of my new new parents. Both Konoha Shinobi, both Jounin, my mother retired and my father, apparently recent leader of a team, three brats to whom he introduced me to a couple of months after my second birthday, it didn't take me a whole minute to reach the conclusion they were all, irrevocably, idiots or that perhaps my patience was laid too thin after so many years. But, whilst sitting in my father's lap, on the porch in the back of the house, one of the girls, Ka-something, was…in the most horrific way, poking me in the cheek and speaking "baby", while the others, another girl with a shy smile and a boy with strangely curled hair and very joyous, kept going "Aww, cute" and "Look, she's flustered" while laughing, accompanied of course by Keiji's occasional chuckles.
I was not flustered. I had the mind of a 80-something year old woman, trapped in the body of an infant. For the love of Heaven, I was older than the Hokage and the four of them kept poking at me as if I was some sort of adorable plush toy. I was boiling inside and on the verge of spewing over, visibly frowning, glaring daggers, as much as a baby can glare daggers, all to show my discomfort, all in vain. They just kept going at it. Poke, poke, "cute", "cute". Then, curly-head pinched my cheek and what went through my head actually found its way out of my mouth as well.
"Fuckin' brats" I muttered, without even realizing, before it was too late.
There was silence, there was no movement, the four stood like statues, my father stone-still, and the kids with eyes like saucers and jaws slack, an utter look of horror engraved on their faces. It was the calm before a storm, the storm called Keiji. I hadn't expected those three to run as fast as they did. Lucky them.
Fuckin' brats.