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I'd loved my mother. No, I still loved my mother. I don't think I'd ever stop to be truthful. It was easy not to blame her for my death. She may have been driving the car, but it hadn't been her fault someone suddenly pulled out in front of us.

One moment I'd been talking to her excitedly about study abroad for my upcoming semester. The next I was watching her face go pale and her arm shoot out to push against my chest. I looked out the front window instantly recognizing my mother's reaction to a sudden traffic change. She'd done it a hundred times before when someone did something reckless that startled her or when she believed for a split second we would crash. We never had.

The one hundred and first time I looked up and saw a truck pulling out of a driveway in front of us. There was no near miss this time. My mother's brakes did not stop us in time. I didn't have time to be afraid. I was too startled. The last sensation I felt in the world was my mother's hand pressing protectively against my chest as I jerked forward to hit the dashboard.

At least I died knowing I was loved. That's something I guess.

. . .

I'd always kind of been terrified of death. Which statistically speaking isn't a surprise. The only thing the average person fears more than death is public speaking. I suppose that says something about us a species. We're more afraid of the rejection of those around us from saying something wrong than we are from our very mysterious end. Personally I'd always held a healthy fear of both, but death that was something I'd feared far longer.

I probably thought of it far more than a normal child should. I'd always been a bit of a day dreamer and one who became fixated on different subjects until they ran their course of curiosity. Death was one I always returned to.

I remember being fairly young when I first realized I was going to die one day. I'd been in elementary school, but it was a vague sort of time were the years blended a bit. I remembered that night perfectly though. I hall light had been on and my bedroom door was open so it cast an orange glow on the corners of my beige room. I couldn't sleep so I was watching the shadows quietly not really thinking, but still there. I was just getting into that state in between sleep and awake when my mind suddenly informed I would one day die.

In my defense this wasn't a thought that came out of nowhere. Several of my distant relatives had died over the course of that year. The "Greats" I hadn't really known but whose funeral I attend anyway. So death had been on my mind lately.

Realizing I was going to die one day terrified me. One day I would cease to exist. I would be nothing. I would never see my mother smile again. I would never play with my siblings again. I would never read a book again. I would never do anything.

I felt breathless with terror. I knew that children died. I'd seen horror movies and the news. I'd read books. I'd seen the graves in the family graveyards that weren't much older than me. That meant I could die. That meant there was honestly no guarantee I would be alive tomorrow.

It was a pretty heavy realization for any child, but I'd always been a little to anxious and fearful. I'd always been a bit of a coward. So a little shaky I'd gone and woken up my mother. I hadn't been able to verbalize what I was feeling, but I told her one thing.

"I'm scared."

She took my hand and lead me back to my room. She brushed her hands through my hair as she settled me back in bed and sat on the floor beside me.

"I won't leave. Don't be afraid."

Looking at my mother and her big brown cloud of hair and hearing her quiet voice and feeling her hands on my hair I settled. I was going to die, but I had a Mom. And Moms scared away everything. Even death. I looked at my mother's face for what felt like hours that night and slowly relaxed into sleep.

My fear never went away, but I settled and never felt the overwhelming terror I had that night again. Moms were great like that.

. . .

When taking in my fear of death I accepted it with a surprising calm. Truthfully I suppose that wasn't too much of a surprise. More often than not I had two reactions when faced with my fears. Blinding terror that made me freeze up or a sudden amount of "Truly Do Not Give A Single Fuck" that liked to appear at random intervals. Once I had gotten through something though I was usually able to handle it calmly the next time. My fear worked as a large explosion followed by an amount of laid back acceptance that grew with each encounter. Death was greeted with the second one. At least until I realized that this meant I had some awareness, which was probably the greatest thing that ever happened to me. That meant death wasn't complete nothingness like I'd always feared and just as wonderful that meant I hadn't went to a place of punishment.

I existed in a void. It reminded me of the moment when you're waking up in bed and aware you're sleeping. You just existed in a soft place of relaxation and warmth without any real thoughts or worries. That's what this void felt like to me.

It lasted for eons. For millennia. Centuries. Minutes. Seconds.

Time wasn't really distinguishable.

When I woke up it was with the terror that had been absent from my death was definitely present for the first moments of my new life.

. . .

I couldn't really remember much about my birth past the terror of it. It was a mixture of sensations. Pressure. Wet. Cold. Dry. Warm. Soft. Safe. I think I was held by my new mother, briefly anyway. There is a fuzzy sort of softness in my early memories that was wrapped in a feeling of safety and familiarity. Later I learned that it was common for newborns in this world to recognize and identify their mother's chakra during this first bonding touch. It had been what was keeping them alive and it was especially important for shinobi children to be introduced to due to the effect it had on future development.

I just remember being taken from those arms so abruptly that it made something inside me hurt.

I never did recover that feeling of utter safety during the first hour of my second life. At least not for a good while. I was taken away from this woman who would have been my second mother and placed in a soft, bright room all alone. I never got the chance to see her face and I never would see it alive.

I wouldn't learn for several months that my birth had been carefully planned and engineered. I wasn't just an infant.

I was a bargaining chip.