With exceptions to the Hitori clan and other OC(s) I do not own Naruto and its contributing characters, they belong to Kishimoto.

Out of the Ashes

Chapter 1: Out of the cold and into the flames

Cold. Thats all there is… thats all I feel… cold. In the most literal sense. Its hard to imagine that one camping trip can go so horribly wrong. That saying 'goodby' to my roommate as I moved out the door would be for the very last time.

The trip started simple enough; backpacking to the summit with my best friend, making camp halfway before the really steep climb and continuing the very next day. It was early spring, there wasn't even any snow where we made camp. But after 7 hours of hiking practically straight up (okay I maybe overdramatic there, but it was steep) the temperature dropped and a light powder of snow became a thick blanket. The temperature so cold. I could make chop sticks out of snot if my nose was running.

But we were prepared, we weren't complete idiots. We had heavy coats, hats, gloves, scarfs and even those emergency blankets. You know the thing that looks like the fabric version of tinfoil…?

… Anyway.

Despite my huffing and puffing I was antsy to get to the summit a bit faster and was too eager. In a rare moment of vanity I wanted to show off. So I kicked it into high gear yelling back "I'll see you at the top!" to my friend. After an extended forced jog I finally made it to the summit a good 15 minute ahead of my friend and was surprised to see a gruff looking man with a modern hunting bow over his shoulder. That was all the time needed for things to go wrong. The view would have took my breath away, if the trip up here hadn't stolen it already. I just stood there on the cliff side for a few moments gaping at the wondrous wooded pine forest that stretched and undulate with the hills like a green sea in freeze frame.

But what truly took my breath away was a golden bird with red shimmering streaks in its wings and a loose feathered crest on the back of its head. The bird was soaring over head. It was unlike anything I have ever seen before and even from this distance I could tell it was bigger then a condor. Its feathers flash in the sun's light like flames, its long graceful tail trailed behind it like a tongue of fire.

I heard a similar gasp to my own from the gruff man beside me. But instead of just looking in wonder he pulled off his bow from his shoulder and knotted an arrow.

"What are you doing!?" I gasped at the stranger, ignoring the nagging feeling of keeping my mouth shut. "that bird has to be rare, I never seen or heard of anything like it! You can't… you can't kill it."

The man simply scoffed, "Such a narrow view of things," he smirked, "Much can be learned from its body. Not mention more valuable then the deer I originally come here for."

He whispered the last part, but I heard him all the same. Before thinking properly, I shoved the bow with my palm making him send the arrow off corse. Despite missing his target by quite a bit, the bird seem to sense the danger and flew further away and out of range.

I watched the man gape for a minute, staring mindlessly where the bird was, before his face slowly twisted and turned red. A deep gurgled growl escaped his throat as he slowly turned to me with a raised hand. At this point fight or flight mode kind of took over and before even confirming if he'd take out his anger on me, I fled off the path.

I raced through the wood on uneven terrain heart pounding in my ears. Leaping over roots and pushing back branches I frantically raced. Idiot. That's what I was, an idiot. I ran before even fully assessing the situation despite hearing him roar in anger. I could not help it, when I saw his face twist in anger and move to hit me, all I could see was my… father. It would have been smarter to head back down the trail I came. And now I was just getting further off the trail and into the wilderness.

I remember bursting through the tree line so focused on my fear and the past that I did not see the cliff face until braking was to little too late. Skidding to the cliff I stiffened and sucked in a breath before I went tumbling forward. Terror gripped my heart when I pitched down, my body acted on its own. With out really thinking, I tried to swing my arms in a frantic pinwheel like fashion to try and rectify my mistake, but it was in vain.

For a moment everything seemed to stand still, my visible breath fogging up my glasses, my muscles tensing in terror, and the caw of a crow felt drawn out. Then time seemed to unravel too fast as if to make up for those few moments of slow-motion. I felt myself falling, bouncing off the cliff face and on to a snow bank on a lower ledge. My breath was knocked from me as I landed on my leg wrong and heard a disturbing snap and red hot pain shot up to my brain. I screamed in agony. Once the pain became bearable, I clenched my teeth and carefully pushed my self against the side of the cliff. My leg was broken, not terribly so, but enough that there was no way getting back up was possible, let alone hike back.

Time passed to a crawl after that moment as minutes turned to hours and day became night. And now, wile my leg now felt num, I could still feel the chill seeping through all the pours of my body. Frost clung to any exposed skin, my lips felt blue and shivers wracked my body. My cloths protected me for some time, but after 12 hours and now well in to the night I can feel hypothermia crouching down on me like a hungry puma. Whats worse was I was on my back and the emergency blanket was teasingly waving at me, illuminated by the moon light, from a large branch just out of reach my backpack nowhere to be seen.

It feels like it is getting colder and colder, and now I can't feel any of my limbs anymore. Soon I will not feel anything, just the cold and the ice forming on my skin. I fought to stay awake, but I felt myself losing. Just as I felt deaths icy grip slowly enclosing me, as if the universe was taunting me, I could distinctly hear voices carved on the breeze from the other half of my hiking group (who promised to come a few days after us) and the friend I raced ahead of calling out my name, "Zayha". But I was too weak to call back.

I would have snorted at irony and cried in the misery of recognizing my fate… if I could move. But strangely enough even though I have stressed and fretted over the most frivolous things in life, I feel at peace, for the most part at this most monumentous part of life's journey that is 'death'. But only after I frustratingly berate myself for running off the path for over reacting in fear to a man's anger that may not even resulted in violence, despite me being the cause of it. Although I regret having never found my soulmate, I still feel like I got what I needed done in life and felt ready to let go. When my eyelids were getting too heavy to keep open, I prepared to let go of my soul.

Yet. Just before my eyes shut forever, out of no where, the magnificent, but tattered bird that I protected, landed on the branch with the emergency blanket right above me. For a moment a sluggish thought said "Oh look, it has come to eat me once I become dead within the next minute." But the bird's intelligent, perceptive, old and… tired(?) eyes said otherwise. As it crouched, a warm blue fire ignited beneath its feathers. It tipped its body in my direction wings partly extended. My slow mind could not process this curiosity; that such intelligence if not sentient understanding in that beautiful red and golden bird's eyes should not be. Hypothermia finally claimed me.

-—-—-—-

Death was not something I thought about in life, although I believed in God and the eternal frame work of the soul. Even so, I did not expect to go from cold to hot the moment my life left me.

... What is this, what is happening? Blue flames danced around me, roaring in my ears… I still have those? the fire incinerated the dome of twigs that was once over me to ash… when did I get buried in branches? Yet the true flame did not consumed me, in fact the flames were liking off my skin as if my body was the original source of the fire and rather then destroying me it felt rejuvenating, coaxing my sizzling skin into existence… wait what?

… How on earth do you spontaneously combust from hypothermia!?

Wait, I am dead right? Granted I don't have prior experience being dead, but I know I died, I felt my life slipping away. I do not think I'm supposed to feel like I still had a body. I was breathing again, feeling the heat in my nostrils, the strain of my muscles, and the steady thump of my heart.

Yet something is…, this body felt… something is different. It feels like there is a fire flowing through my veins that is spiraling and collecting in my belly. Strangely it didn't hurt, like the dying fire licking off my skin it was restoring my vitality. It's heat empowering. Unlike the flames it grew steadily and did not lax in power over time, instead it plateaued and became a constant burning stream through out my body. My mind felt like a furnace with its heat slowly adding and twirling to the smooth, melting, burning sensation at my belly.

I wanted to scream but it caught in my throat and became a whimper, despite how alive this burning made me feel, it felt so alien. Fire and heat is not suppose to feel more refreshing then water. WHAT IS GOING ON!? Nothing feels right, why am I not dead? If I'm alive- some how... why can't I move?

I want to curl into myself like a smoldering leaf, but all the success I managed was a huff that became a cough from inhaling the ash and embers that I'm now buried under. Tightness gripped my heart, and heaviness dropped into my stomach. Come on, move… twitch- anything!

After what felt like hours of belligerent panicking, I forced myself to calm down. Once settled I noticed the inner fire sensation was being sucked out from the center of my belly into something smooth and rounded that was nestled where my bellybutton should be, right over the new, fire, whirlpool energy sensation in my belly. But before I could questions this new development, it stopped. Once the sensation stopped, it almost felt like something clicked and I slowly began to be able to move my sore, new muscles.

The smooth object on my belly hummed and pulsed with the same fire feeling I felt in my body… It almost felt a part of me and for some irrational reason I felt protective of it. Slowly bending what felt like legs, and flexing my arms, I felt the ash shift as I carefully raised myself out of the ashes, mindful of what was on my belly which gently roll into my lap. Ash toppling from my head as I looked to my lap and stiffly dug through the heap of ash that piled to my shoulders to reveal a golden shimmering orange… egg?

What!? So it is not weird enough to spontaneously combust after freezing to death, and have what feels like a comfortable fire (oxymoron there) burning through my veins, and wake up in a huge pile of ash. But I also seemed to have laid an egg, that I don't remember laying, too? O-hh… I think I feel a headache coming on.

With a moan I start to bring my hands to my head, and freeze when they start to pass my face, at which point all I could do is stare. My hands... they were different. Gone was the thin calloused hands from wood working and in its place were the pudgy, soft hands of a toddler. But, I'm 43, how could this have happen?

Ripping another moan, my now pudgy little hands continue their trajectory and slam into my head and slowly dragged through my hair, where yet more bazaar-o discoveries were made. My hair felt soft, almost fluffy. Ringing my fingers through my scalp I found many short soft projections with a stiff backbone intermingled with my hair follicles. Concentration of the projections rated in greater number at the top of my head. Scrunching up my forehead in confusion I picked at one of the odd projections and finally plucked it, and… Owww. That was NOT just simply glued down!

With trepidation I brought the inquiry to my face and gave it a long cold glare. It's... a feather? A golden down feather with a silver shaft to be exact, hmm.

"*What did your feather ever do to you little fire sister*?" I jerked, and reflexively curled protectively around my mysterious egg to the sound of a smooth chipper voice, "*Relax… I'm your new older fire brother. See.*"

And with the ending to the chipper voice's alien tongue another down feather was shoved in front of my nose making me go cross eyed. This feather was a glossy black with a lightning blue shaft pinched between the tan fingers of an young boy around 7 years old.

At first quick glance I would suspect he was a normal human, kind of like Hugues from Full Metal Alchemist only with elongated facial features reminiscent of a bird. Taking another glance I noticed some particularities about him. One: his eyes were brown… and looked like someone transplanted a hawk's eyes in to his sockets, complete with rapid constrictions of the iris (that looked like it took over his sclera) to tiny sized pupils and relaxing for abnormally large pupils. Two: he had feathers in his black hair, and not just down feathers he had some developed feathers too, that shown a glossy black and shimmered blue. Three: on top of his head, which was situated like a nest made up of his hair and feathers, was an unusual looking chick.

The chick was ugly, with ash colored down feathers a bare gray chest, a black curved beak, and beady black eyes. The chick blinked curiously at me and squeaked.

"*Right you are Shinga, we most certainly do have an adorable little fire sister.*" The boy chuckled at the ugly thing, lifting a finger to briefly stroke the chicks black beak.

Although I could not understand him, that last part of his sentence sounded dangerously like baby talk, making me scrunch up my face.

Ehh?

"Ehh?"

I decided to voice my thoughts so elegantly.

"*Sorry, little fire sister but for us to figure if your the language from your previous life is similar to one of our previous lives, your going to have to say something more then, 'ehh'.*"

"*Can you speak more… like an adult, please?" A gruff new voice growled in the same alien tongue, "*I'm about to barf at your baby talk Hue.*"

This new character was older and had wild spiky red hair with yellow feathers, making it look like he had a synthetic fire on top of his head. His face is angular, with similar facial features reminiscence of a bird and looked like he had a permanent scowl. He had the same odd bird like features as the first boy only instead of styling his hair into a nest with a chick in it, on his shoulder he had what look like a orange and red juvenile version. Of. The… Bird I saw before my 'death'.