Twilight River

Chapter 1

A Ripple in the Ocean

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, however this main character is my creation.

Summary: I was so excited to be a ninja that I really didn't think about anything else. Who cares about plot? I just wanna enjoy my second shot at life! A story in which I learn that life sometimes just doesn't wanna have fun. Spoiler: I make the most of it!

Life can be compared to a river. Rivers are strong and fierce, fighting through all but the hardest of things. Rivers can be brought to an end but there will always be a crack that the water can force its way through. Water is a force of nature in its own right; water carves its own paths. Life is like a river because even when a life ends some of that life can continue going.

What, don't believe me?

My life ended at the age of twenty-one. It was abrupt and very uncool. Despite going out in such an unexciting and boring way as I did, I didn't quite stay dead. I didn't know what to expect from death. Would I meet some being known as God? Or would there just be blank nothingness? Would I just be extinguished from existence with a simple poof? Whatever was supposed to happen though did not happen. My soul, very much like that trickle from that river, found a way through the cracks and into another river that became its own.

While life is like a river, birth is more like a waterfall. Noisy, scary, and something you really want to avoid. I went almost straight from dying to birth and if I had the option I would have held the fuck on to that uterus and refused to leave. It was warm there and all that noise was muffled. However I went out head first and horribly confused. You don't realize you're being born until after you've been pushed out and the cold air hits you and you just want to go back in.

I was covered in this gross slime and my nose and every other crevice was filled. I couldn't breathe but some nice person cleared out my nose and I inhaled nice and deep. Wherever I was I thought it smelled a lot like blood, sweat, and something incredibly gross. When the object I was leaning on moved me I made what likely sounded like a squeak because I was not expecting my chair to move.

Now again, I wasn't expecting to be born. Considering I wasn't dead I thought I was in a hospital. And generally when you're born you're born in a hospital. Well I wasn't born in a hospital. I opened my eyes and despite how blurry and generally hard to make out everything was, I knew I wasn't in a hospital from the colors around me. Opening my eyes also led me to mentally scream "GIANTS!" because I was being held like an infant in someone's arm.

I was handed off to another giant and this one cooed down at me. The giant holding me now was clearly a woman with fire engine red hair and incredibly round eyes. She bounced me a bit and cooed at me and that is when a very small light bulb went off in my head. Why, I thought to myself, why is this giant treating me like a baby?

It took a few minutes before I realized that yes, I was this giants baby and she probably wasn't actually a giant.

New mom bounced me and cooed over me despite clearly being tired. She kissed my forehead several times and kept babbling to me. Later on I would remember everything she said and know but at that moment the odd language she was using didn't strike any bells. She uttered a last few meaningful words, kissed my head, and wiped her eyes on her shoulder because she was tearing up. I thought she was crying out of joy.

I was handed back to the original set of arms and another woman, who I identified as a woman because she had long hair, fussed over my new mom. I was shifted so that I could see who was holding me and this was another woman with fire engine red hair. Although her hair was definitely longer than my new mom's. The woman took me away from that room and bundled me up like a present. She took me outside the shack I was born in, and it really looked like a shack even with my garbage eyesight, and brought me away from it.

That was the last time I ever saw the woman who was my new mom.

The red haired lady kept me for a few days. The other lady visited often and there were vague other faces that popped in. There was a blonde woman with a deeper voice and a kid who sounded not very pleased to meet me. Now I say kid but I really mean teenager. It wasn't that this kid didn't like me, because he absolutely loved me if no one was around. Rather he was terrified of me. He didn't want to hold me and if he had to have extended contact with me he would get antsy and make, what I assumed to be, any excuse possible to get him away.

However it was probably a week or two into my existence that I was handed off to a stern faced woman with her hair pulled into a tight bun. It was starting to gray in some places and that only added to the fact this woman looked like the crankiest old coot I had ever seen. Well this woman took me and I was given the first proper crib to sleep in as I had been left to sleep in different places by the red haired woman, dark haired woman, and occasionally the blonde woman.

From there on I hardly saw the women who had originally taken me in. They did visit maybe once a month if I had to guess a time frame. I continued to grow like a weed and I was able to sit up and babble at my visitors after a few months. But one day, many months after I was born when I was able to roll around and pull myself up the bars on my crib, there was a night that changed everything. I could talk in fragments, demand food or drink, but that night there was no one who came to help me when I screamed and cried. It was like the air itself could burn you. Every child in what I had learned to be the orphanage was screaming along with me. Even after the air was gone we all screamed our throats raw.

I did not see the pretty woman with long red hair again, and the other woman rarely stopped by when I was supposed to be asleep. Gradually I grew. I learned how to talk, walk, and other childhood necessities. I was moved out of the crib room when I was three and somehow I managed to become the most disliked child at that orphanage. Well, the children didn't hate me as young as three. But the matron, Kotoko-san, despised me. I learned relatively quickly to be nimble and quick to avoid being in her way.

Three years old was when life really started to pick up, oddly enough.

.

The orphanage had a yard that was small to an adult but large to children. The orphanage was overfilled and as soon as I could run I was thrown outside with the older kids to make room inside. Kids were slowly being adopted and making room but until then there was never enough room inside for all the orphans to play without causing some kind of havoc or destruction.

My first day outside went fine for about five minutes. I waddled around and examined the plant life that grew wildly in the unkempt backyard. The fence was only tall enough so that kids under the age of five couldn't escape but if you were an especially tall child you could easily vault over it and leave. The wall was stone brick and my little fingers could get a deep enough grip in the worn grooves.

That day I didn't vault over the wall. Instead I looked around at the colorful rooftops that I could see from standing on the broken slide. Then I turned around to see behind me and I was punched in the gut with a big fuck you. Standing high above even the tallest buildings was a mountain face with large faces carved into them. I almost stumbled off the broken slide but caught myself as my body began to shake.

Staring at me with a vengeance were the faces of anime characters come to life.

I got off the slide and hid behind the tree in the corner of the yard. It was always damp and smelly behind that tree but I liked it well enough that I went back in the days that followed. I thought about my situation with my body still shaking and I realized my body wasn't trembling in fear.

I was excited.

A world full of new things awaited me. Danger and new knowledge to feed my hungry brain! I already knew at the age of three that I wanted to become someone so smart, someone so strong, that I would achieve a flee on sight in the Bingo books. How to begin? How could I start my career already?

I went through several plans. Get adopted by a ninja. Train myself and suddenly rise among my peers when I could eventually attend the academy. But the problem is I had far too much energy in my body to just sit around and wait. I was already antsy, wanting to walk on walls and shoot fireballs out of my mouth! I wondered if I had a cool bloodline? I wanted a cool bloodline. Looking at my hands I was pale white so I was a potential forgotten Uchiha!

I spent the rest of that afternoon staring intently at the centipedes and spiders behind the tree in efforts to unlock my sharingan.

The next day I was already bored of waiting around. I wanted to get started on my ninja ways now! I ran around the yard like a wild woman for awhile but that knocked me out come nap time so I decided I would work on my intelligence first. I was always more of a thinker than a mover. Of course I had energy in my past life but I felt like my body was simply going to explode if I didn't move around now! Was this how kids felt?

I loved learning, if you were curious. But I had one big problem and that was I couldn't read. Before outside time one morning, I asked if I could learn to read from one of the helpers. She looked at me and pushed me outside, telling me to go play. My speaking was still not the best but that didn't meant I didn't want to learn! Reading, in my opinion, was way easier to learn than speaking. Immersion of course helped but damn it I there was so much opportunity in this world!

What did I want to learn first when I could read books? Medical ninjutsu sounded amazing! But I wanted to be able to fight so I considered fuinjutsu. Oh but swords! Kenjutsu! And of course I definitely was interested in ninjutsu but who wouldn't be? I wanted to spew fire as soon as possible!

Alas no one wanted to teach me to read so I came up with my next plan: Capturing the heart of a mentor figure. I figured I could find myself a Jiraiya around the village if I wandered around and showed above average intellect.

As I said, climbing over the fence wasn't the hardest thing I had ever done. The helpers weren't really passionate about the kids so they didn't usually notice if one or several hopped the wall when they weren't looking. Usually the kids were too stupid to jump over the wall if they weren't old enough to go out on their own but I was clearly not your average child. Also, I usually sat behind the tree so the helpers would assume I was there until they realized I wasn't.

Well I climbed the wall behind the tree and rolled over it like a professional. I didn't expect the drop though. It turns out the street was much lower than the fence and the yard was raised up to keep the building level. So I probably fell much further than I should have. I landed on my back and had the air knocked out of me with a pronounced fuck.

Nothing was broken because I got right the fuck up and hurried away from the orphanage before anyone tried to take me back. You know, if someone witnessed my graceful fall from the wall. I wandered about for awhile, just observing the streets. I kept to the back roads so that no one tried to take the obviously young child back to where she belonged.

I also got my first real look at myself in a decorative mirror. I was an adorable child with a round face and chubby cheeks. My eyes were a blue-purple color and my hair not quite firetruck red like my mothers, but still an obnoxious red color that had a bit of a purple tint to it. I had thick eyelashes and wide, oval shaped eyes that made me look way more innocent than I actually was.

As I was pulling at my face in the mirror someone stepped up behind me. I looked at the dark chest in the mirror and wondered what the heck this person wanted. I turned around and looked up to find not quite what I was expecting. I was expecting some adult but what I got was a kid who was older than me but definitely not old enough where I would think they knew shit. He had black hair and matching eyes but a warmer skin tone than mine.

He crossed his arms, "Did you get lost from your parents, little miss?"

"What 'bout you?" I replied, crossing my arms as well and jutting out my bottom lip.

He pointed to the headband across his forehead with his thumb, "I'm a ninja. You're a little young to be out by yourself? Did you sneak away for an adventure? Hm?"

He had a teasing smile and I pulled my lip back in, "I'm a big kid."

"Sure. Where do you live? I'll walk you home now. Your mom's probably having a heart attack." he asked gently.

I put my hands on my hips, "Def' not."

The boy crouched down so he was more at my level, "I'm sure she definitely is. That's a mom's job y'know."

"My mom's not around no more." I told him, "How 'bout dat?"

Frowning, he questioned, "Are you from one of the orphanages?"

"No." I answered quickly-apparently too quickly.

Humming he looked over my clothes and pulled the tag from the back of my collar while I struggled to stop him. He glanced at it and then let go.

"How about this." he told me with a smile, "I'll buy you a popsicle if you go back with me afterwards."

That was tempting. The orphanage rarely had anything good to eat, even for dessert, and I would kill for ice cream.

I narrowed my eyes, "Wha' kind?"

"I like green tea. We can share one."

"Never had." I huffed and he stood up and held out a hand to me.

I stared at it and he offered, "Try it?"

I put my hand in his and he led me to the nearest store. It was on the main street and I looked around in amazement at the fact everyone was way taller than me. The boy leading me was watching with an amused expression until he ordered a popsicle from a stand and we sat down on a bench. It was green and faded to white towards the bottom of the sticks. He broke it in half and handed me one. I took it and experimentally licked the green part.

I gave the boy a scandalized look and he took a full on bite of his. He laughed, "Kind of bitter, right?"

I nodded but took a bite of mine like he did, suspecting there was more than what met the eye here. Biting it somehow made the green tea taste better and I gave him a confused look. But he didn't say more and just ate away at his popsicle. I was still working on mine when he finished and I had sticky hands when I was done. The boy didn't seem to know what to do about the mess I made of myself but he still held out a hand for me anyway.

I grabbed it and relished in the fact that I could feel the gross popsicle residue squishing into his hand. As we walked and our hands got warmer it got worse and I bet he was regretting his decision to not just find a napkin or something to wipe my hands with.

"What orphanage do you live in?" the boy asked me as we made it back to where he had found me.

I smiled brightly, "Dunno!"

The boy suddenly looked like he regret his life decisions.

We ended up walking around until we found a building I recognized. Well, I recognized my tree. I stood at the spot and pointed upwards, "Up!"

The boy looked up, "Up?"

I nodded, "Lift me."

He made a face, "I'm going to have to bring you to the matron, you know."

I scowled and came up with the best bullshittery I could, "We had popsicles together. So we friends now. Friends help friends."

The boy seemed to be contemplating what I said when a stern voice at the other end of the alley yelled, "Miyako!"

I froze immediately. Miyako was my name. That voice was not a nice voice. It was absolutely Kotoko-san yelling my name.

I looked at the boy with haunted eyes and sniffled, "Ne, ne. I gotta pee!"

The boy looked alarmed, "I-what?"

"I gots to pee! I can't pee without nee-chan! I can't reach the toilet!" I was pulling very impressive bullshit out, if you were curious.

"MIYAKO DON'T THINK I DON'T SEE YOU!"

The boy gave me an unimpressed look, "Is your name Miyako-chan?"

"Maybe." I conceded. I tried my best but just didn't succeed.

"Yes." Kotoko-san's face changed immediately when she saw who was holding my hand, "Thank you so much Uchiha-san for bringing her home! She's such a rascal this one!"

Kotoko-san took my hand from the Uchiha-san's and she gripped it bone-breakingly tight. I winced as she bowed to Uchiha-san and she almost dragged me down towards the front of the orphanage.

Uchiha-san called, "Goodbye, Miyako-chan! See you again!"

The front door was up a few steps that my legs hardly even touched and i was tossed into the front room where Kotoko-san slammed the door shut.

"You're lucky today wasn't a visitors day! How would our reputation look if one of our young orphans escaped!?" Kotoko-san yelled, grabbing one of the sandals in the genkan and smacking me on the head with it. I grabbed my head and sniffled as tears came to my eyes. She whacked me on the back a few more times as I slipped my shoes off and ran down the hall to the room I shared with several other young girls. But I went to sleep thinking that Uchiha-san said he would see me again, and did he really accept my bullshit about being friends?

I curled up on my futon, aware that I wasn't getting dinner tonight, and I held my aching head. The next morning I would wake up sore all over, probably from my fall from the top of the fence as well as Kotoko-san's sandals. I wasn't allowed outside for a month after that event but that actually led to something decent.

.

I was supposed to be washing the floor the day the Hokage visited. The Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi was old with spots across aged tan skin. He looked like your typical old man except in the fact he had this aura that could overpower you. I cleaned like I was supposed to until I realized what he was talking about in the room through the conveniently cracked door I was conveniently cleaning next to.

The Hokage, with all the five year olds sat around him, was giving a speech about the academy. It was a long speech that included a lot of things about ninja and the glorious will of fire. I found myself pulled in by his charisma but because I was mentally older than these kids I recognized that he was glorifying the profession. Orphans were probably pretty convenient fodder for the front lines during war time.

After the five year olds all left, he spoke with Kotoko-san and I went back to cleaning the floor for real. I was very surprised when the door swung open and I found the Hokage himself staring down at me with twinkling eyes.

Kotoko-san made an especially nasty look from behind the Hokage, "I'm so sorry, Hokage-sama, she's very energetic and-"

The Hokage chuckled, "Of course she is. This is Uzumaki Miyako isn't it?"

I had a last name? More importantly, I had a clan last name? And most, most importantly, I was an Uzumaki!?

Kotoko-san looked pained to respond, "Well, yes."

"Uzumaki's are known for their boundless energy and vitality. I'm impressed she was able to watch from the door the entire time I was speaking. Especially with how much chakra she seems to have already." the Hokage mentioned, "Miyako-chan, do you usually feel restless?"

I did feel like I had boundless energy as he said. Honestly, I just thought the energy was a normal kid thing. I remember being something like this in my last life when I was younger and as I got older I managed to focus it into reading and activities.

I nodded and he hummed, "Do you want to be a shinobi, Miyako-chan?"

"Yes!" I answered without a single pause. Kotoko-san looked away in anger.

"Can you read yet?" the Hokage inquired.

I shook my head, "I wanna learn."

"If you learn by your fourth birthday then maybe I can let you join the academy a little earlier than usual." the Hokage offered. He had mirth in his eyes and I don't think he expected I could actually do it.

I nodded aggressively, "Please! I'll learn."

"Then it's a deal. On your fourth birthday if you can pass the entrance exam for the academy you can join a year early." the Hokage promised and I shook with excitement. He spoke longer with Kotoko-san but I didn't listen as I hurried to finish my punishment chores so that I could bug a helper to teach me.

The helper I ended up finding was the helper who helped everyday inside when I should have been outside. Her name was Mibumi and she wore big silly glasses that made her eyes look like little dots. Mibumi seemed very interested in teaching me how to read and I was glad I found an actual nice and decent human being in this forsaken orphanage. Every day for the rest of my third year of living I studied hard.

It was impossible to get my attention when I was studying. I hyper focused on books and managed to funnel my energy into that. I would go hours without doing anything else until I would have to go eat dinner. I was out of Kotoko-san and the other helper's way while I studied but every so often Kotoko-san would find a reason to hit me with something light. I was often blamed for stealing desserts from the kitchen and after awhile of being blamed for it I actually started doing it. I mean, if I was getting the punishment regardless I might as well get the sweets! I was caught a few times in the beginning but naturally I got better at being sneaky and I also got better at what I assumed was sensing with chakra.

Chakra was a fun thing, by the way. Sometimes at night, when I couldn't sleep, I could feel it there. It flowed through my body like a river that I could direct. It was soothing to just move it through and feel the parts of my body. I would drift off to sleep feeling like I was floating on my back in the ocean, rocking in the waves. It was the greatest feeling considering my actual body was laying on a less than comfortable futon.

As my fourth birthday got closer and closer I got better and better with my reading. I memorized hiragana entirely and katakana, though very, very rarely used, I could recognize. Kanji, a personal hell for most Japanese learners, was the struggle it was expected to be. Mibumi actually smuggled me a book on the most necessary kanji to know for daily life before she got let go. I was sad, but Kotoko-san probably did it because she realized I was actually learning how to read rapidly. I went from the basic picture books, to light comic novels intended for my age, to actual light novels in months.

My fourth birthday came quickly. I was born in the dead of February where Konoha was able to rarely get snow. It was never cold enough here for snow but according to Mibumi it had snowed only in February a few times. The academy year would be changing in the spring so I was timed perfectly to join the newest class if I passed the test. That morning I woke up and went through my entire book on kanji before one of the helpers wrote down directions on how to get to the academy.

The walk to the academy was longer than I expected and by the time I got there I was freezing in the morning chill. Inside it was warm though and a lady led me to the room where a rather grumpy looking man sat at a desk. He looked up when I came in and appraised me.

"Uzumkai Miyako?" he questioned.

I nodded energetically, "Yessir!"

He sighed, "Sit down. You have two hours to take this test."

I plopped down at the first desk where there was already a few papers waiting for me. I flipped them over and began by writing my name.

うずまき 美夜子

Then the test began for real.

It wasn't the worst test in the world considering it was meant for children. There were some history questions I knew from knowing Naruto lore, and the math questions were only a problem when I didn't know some of the vocabulary. Reading was simple because all the kanji it had were from the daily kanji book and there were only one or two where I had no idea what they were.

I finished the test with forty minutes left and I handed it in confidently. I was allowed to leave after the sensei made sure to check I answered everything. On my walk home I wanted nothing more than to run into Uchiha-san and demand he buy me another popsicle as a reward for being so awesome.

Sadly, that day I did not run into Uchiha-san.

I did receive my marks on the test a few days later with an acceptance letter for the academy and a note from the Hokage himself congratulating me on passing the test.

Watch out! Uzumaki Miyako is on her way to becoming the smartest, most badass ninja out there!

AN:

I wanted to write a main character much happier than Fushicho from Out of the Ashes. Miyako is intended to be happy, smart, and generally a nice person. She of course has her sarcastic, satirical adult side and she will undergo character development to give her a more in depth personality but I just wanted someone who isn't angsting for her whole life. As of now though Miyako is interested in two things: Learning and becoming strong and cool.

That being said, this story is planned out way better than OotA lmao.

I hope you enjoy! Please review and leave thoughts, comments, concerns and constructive criticism. Specifically the constructive kind.

What genre should this be? I'm labeling it Humor/Drama, but romance will be a heavy feature and I want three genre slots damn it

QotC: Who do you think Uchiha-san is?