Chapter 1
I've never considered reincarnation. Sure I heard of it and knew the concept, but I was too busy living my life to focus much on what happened at the end of it. Religiously speaking I didn't have one. I'd grown up among predominantly Christians though. So, when someone mentioned the afterlife my mind was more inclined to go straight to the pearly gates and inferno than getting a life refund.
Which is wait I'm calling it.
My first life wasn't exactly perfect. Not that anyone's was, but my best guess is my "tragic backstory" and unpleasant end gained me a refund.
Hence reincarnation.
Which was interesting to say the least. Especially considering I didn't get an average rebirth. No, I went straight up and skipped worlds. Into a fictional one. One I was kinda familiar with and pretty fond of. Naruto. I was reborn in freakin' Naruto.
There was of course the initial "What the fuck!"confusion over being alive after clearly remembering the very painful process of bleeding out on a sidewalk and depression over dying and never seeing my loved ones again. But then I realized there was nothing I could really do about that and accepted that I was stuck with this new life and I needed to make the best of it. For myself if no one else. I never stopped missing my friends, my family, especially my twin.
I managed to find something to live for though as I came to love my new family. It wasn't very hard. My new parents were loving in a way I hadn't had before. The unconditional love was something that I wasn't able to resist despite my initial determination to hold onto my first family as my "real family". Ikkaku and Kohari made it impossible to think of them as a "fake" family. I compromised by calling them by their first names in mind. It felt less disloyal that way.
It was only after I grudgingly started to accept their love that I realized I was in the Naruto world. It was Kohari's doing. I think the fact I was acting less aloof and more affectionate made her feel relaxed enough to act more natural around me.
. . .
"You be a good girl Airi-Chan, while Okaachan trains." Kohari said settling me on some blankets with a soft kiss to the forehead. Unlike the first few months I didn't flinch away from the affection. It made Kohari give me a bright smile that I noted made her plain face rather pretty.
I relaxed on the soft blanket, sucking lazily on the pacifier I'd been supplied. At first I'd been vehemently against the damned thing. I was a seventeen year old, not-quite-adult-just-yet, woman and I refused to do something so embarrassing like some infant would have been beyond embarrassing. But eventually I'd discovered how oddly soothing the damn thing was and I'd accepted the fact that I was currently "some infant". There was nobody who'd no one me as a teen to laugh at my younger state, which was equal parts relieving, considering some of the more embarrassingly traumatic aspects, and terribly depressing in ways I didn't like thinking about.
In front of me Kohari began going through stretches which reminded me of gym class and wasn't all that interesting. Briefly I wondered what exactly "train*" meant. I'd been picking up quite a bit of the language my second parents spoke, but they hadn't used the word before. Though judging by the way Kohari was beginning to bend her body after the initial stretches my best guess was some kind of complex yoga.
That didn't hold my interest too long. Watching Kohari moving her body in ways I was more than a little envious of was not helping my confidence in my so far unfulfilled goal of learning to walk again. Damn my tiny baby body. My mind quickly began to drift at my lack of interest, a habit that had carried over and actually seemed to get worse in this life. Rather it was simply due to my normal nature or the tiny attention span of my age was anyone's guess.
I was picking out animal shapes in the wood grains of our porch when something. Not a sound, though it felt like a shot the way it grabbed at me, caught my attention making me turn back to Kohari just in time for her to finish the last sign with her hand and for another version of her to appear from the water of the backyard's pond she was now standing on.
My thought process went a little something like this.
Oh, Kohari is learning sign language.
Wait, is she standing on water?
OH MY GOD THERE'S TWO OF HER!
My small mouth fell open, landing my pacifier in my lap as I witnessed my second mother not only "pull a Jesus", but somehow spontaneously clone herself. I was too shocked to contemplate what the actual fuck was going on. There were way too many questions to come to some kind of conclusion. Was Kohari some kind of witch? Is this magic? 'Cause it looks kind of like magic. Or is it some kind of X-Men thing going on? Or even worse was I just crazy? Did the whole dying, being reborn, going through months of crippling depression and apathy only to grudgingly accept my new existence break my mind?
Kohari Uno laughed at my expression, looking much too delighted with my obvious confusion and amazement.
Kohari Dos meanwhile began walking over to me in what was probably an attempt to calm me down. I didn't react well, flailing away from the clone. I ended up flopping on my back with a distressed screech and rolling around like a particularly dimwitted turtle unable to escape due to my inability to crawl. I gave another distressed squeak when I was picked up, coming face to with one of the Kohari's. Thankfully, I saw as she settled me against her chest she was now the only Kohari visible.
I gripped Kohari's shirt rather weakly unable to demand answers I really wanted as she soothed me, my heart racing and mind trying to come up with an answer. It come from Kohari, unsurprisingly enough.
"Okaachan's sorry. You aren't used to jutsu yet. I'm sorry I scared you sweetie."
Jutsu.
Jutsu.
JUTSU.
Oh my god Kohari is a ninja. Like a for reals ninja. My second my is a ninja. Like Narutoesque friggin' ninja.
Wait. Not Naruto-esque. Naruto exactly. Oh my god I'm in Naruto.
Kohari and Ikkaku didn't get much out of me the rest of that day as I processed the fact that I'd been reborn in Naruto (So cool!)(I'm going to die!) and into a family of ninjas (Does that mean I have to be a ninja? Do I want to be a ninja?). It was the second big revelation of my new life and honestly was starting to set a trend.
. . .
After the Great Naruto Realization of Year 1, I'd started to actively try to learn as much about my new world as possible. I was met with mixed results.
Firstly, I learned I was in Konoha, which was pretty good news. My favorite characters lived in that village and besides which is was supposed to be one of the friendlier ones so if I'd had to pick I was hoping for it.
Secondly, I'd seen there were only three faces on the mountain, which meant Naruto's dad wasn't Hokage yet. Which might be not so good news. I knew there were two wars between the Third and Fourth Hokage and until I saw some more Characters I couldn't figure out when exactly I was. I was hoping that maybe my good luck in my second life so far would hold and both wars would pass before I or my second parents would get dragged into them.
Lastly, I discovered I was basically useless until I turned five which was when I could actually enter the Academy. So basically even if I wanted to anything I couldn't, because I couldn't even start learning anything ninja-like, or rather shinobi-like as Kohari constantly corrected, for at least another year.
I was learning though.
Mostly figuring out the new writing system I had to learn, which included multiple alphabets. I kept getting the hiragana and the katakana and the kanji all mixed up in my head and by the time Ikkaku, who was in charge of teaching me to read and write, realized he'd gone a little too far and complex for my seventeen year old brain to process it much less a four year old's I was beyond confused. We'd been forced to start all over at a more sedate pace.
Besides that Kohari had started to include me in her yoga routine, or rather kata which she explained was part of learning a fighting style, when I'd told her I wanted to join the Academy. She was only making me do the most basic of stuff, but even with that I'd quickly regretted the decision considering the exhaustion it had left the first while. Kohari didn't believe in giving up once you'd started something though so I'd been forced to continue despite being four and begging with my best puppy dog eyes. I was a pretty adorable kid and usually that tricked work. On Ikkaku anyway, Kohari was made of a little sterner stuff. I'd managed to endure it though and the routine no longer left me cursing everyone and everything. It was actually kind of fun and a nice way to bond with Kohari.
I was completely wasting my time, in fact I was enjoying and pretty happy with my life. Then the third big surprise came, quickly followed by the fourth and final one.
. . .
I'd kinda forgotten that shinobi (See I do listen Kohari.) were actual cold blooded killers and soldiers by the time I'd turned four. I mean I still knew it. I wasn't an idiot and I'd seen the show and knew about all the wars. But my only real experience with shinobi was Kohari and Ikkaku. They really weren't that scary or soldiery. Ikkaku tried to be stern and act serious, but he was a big softie and was someone who made cute animal shaped lunches when his daughter asked. Kohari put on a better show with her rare but explosive temper and her stubborn seriousness about commitments and responsibility. She was still one of the most gentle and kind people I'd ever met in either life, not that I'd met many in the second.
Besides neither of them felt very threatening. Their chakras were a soft and welcoming. Ikkaku like a warm bath after being in the cold for a long time and Kohari a fire place making the home warm and safe in the winter. It had taken me awhile to recognize that the not-quite-hearing-or-feeling that I'd began to notice the day in the backyard was my feeling chakra.
Yeah, it's just as cool as it sounds too.
See everyone's chakra is really personalized. Something I'd learned pretty early on. It says something about them as a person and a fighter how it feels. Ikkaku is pretty calm and has a water nature, while Kohari was a bit of a homebody and fire natured. At first I could only notice it whenever it was used in front of me, like when Kohari made the clone, but slowly I'd been able to get better at it. Experimenting and poking at the weird feeling until I'd freaked out one day because suddenly I had the weird feeling from every direction and it had overwhelmed me.
My second parents had set me down and demanded an explanation. Ikkaku had figured out I was a sensor and explained it happened in his family sometimes. I couldn't control it by myself until I learned chakra control in the Academy, so he'd given me a seal that was passed down in the family to help with it. It was basically the sensor equivalent of training wheels which helped me process and control the sensations I was receiving.
I'd improved in leaps and bounds, but I could still only reliable i.d. my second parents not anyone else. The point is though that chakra is a pretty good indicator of a person and my second parents didn't feel like killers.
A fact that was only further proven when I felt the cold, empty presence in our back porch one afternoon. It made me freeze terrified in front of the door and stare at it horrified. It was big and violent and terrifying. It made me think of a dementor from the Harry Potter series. I felt like I'd never be happy or safe ever again with something like that in the world. I tasted blood in my mouth and started shaking, hands grabbing my shorts and eyes blurring with tears unable to move from where I had frozen.
"Airi-chan?" Ikkaku's voice questioned, his warm watery presence feeling so utterly small in the face of the other. His chakra flickered in a way I didn't recognize, but later identified as fear, when my answer was a stifled sob. I was not an easily distressed or weepy child. I was overall a very happy kid nowadays and I don't think I even recalled the last time I'd cried in front of my second parents.
I was being pulled up into Ikkaku's arms before the sound finished leaving me. I didn't resist burying my face in his chest and searching desperately for his chakra in order to drown out the other much more terrifying one. I found it and without thinking grabbed it making Ikkaku jerk at the suddenness. I was too afraid to care pulling at the small droplet I'd found and siphoning it with the weird blue fingers I found holding it. The droplets gave easily then and soon the blue hands didn't need to tug the soft warm water was flowing over me originating from the hands resting on my back and curving under me to hold me up. I relaxed into the feeling sobs fading away and fear beginning to quiet. I could still feel the dark, venom of chakra outside the shield of Ikkaku's, but the buffer let me function under it.
I was too tired after the shocking attack to react as Ikkaku stiffened and stepped forward to open the door. I could feel the dark chakra immediately on the other side and knew Ikkaku probably knew the person too, considering he was demanding their name.
I did react to Ikkaku identifying the person though.
"Orochimaru-san." Ikkaku greeted polite, if a little stiff.
I made a choking noise at the name and looked up, forgetting the tears and fear to confirm what he said. Sure enough standing just passed the edge of our porch was a familiar pale figure, with long dark hair, and golden eyes. A startlingly young figure who had to be in his twenties.
"Umino-san." the snake man said in a smooth hiss that made me want to run away screaming. He offered up a scroll. "Hokage-sama has sent me with a missive. You are to be assigned to an emergency mission. Debriefing is in the scroll. You have three hours to prepare, we leave at 22 hundred exactly."
"We?" Ikkaku demanded sounding more than a little shocked and to my displeasure to a step closure to take the offered scroll, causing me to be brought closer to the terrible chakra.
"Yes we." Orochimaru told him slightly snapping and impatient, gold eyes briefly resting on my face dismissive, before going back to his. "I will be leading the squad, Sensei believes your heritage will be beneficial for this mission."
There was a slight pause at that making me wonder what sort of "heritage" Orochimaru was talking about. The snake man sounded less judgemental and more matter of fact, but Ikkaku went stiff anyway making me think that it was something a little sensitive.
"I will do my best to offer assistance." Ikkaku offered, voice strained. The snake man nodded in acceptance and turned to leave without another comment.
"Oh yes," Orochimaru said, stopping to turn back once more. "Tell your wife that her leave has been approved and she has been excused from any immediate active missions."
Noting Ikkaku's confusion (which I shared Kohari had only just started switching of missions with Ikkaku and had been thrilled to be back) Orochimaru gave what I supposed was a smile but looked like a smirk.
"Tsunade informs me that congratulations or in order." Was the light comment and then the snake was gone leaving my stunned second father clutching a scroll and me.
He looked down at me dazed, looking torn between distress and a terrified joy.
"A baby? We're having another baby?" Was all he could manage.
. . .
Later that night Kohari informed him that, yes, there was going to be another baby right before he left for what would turn out to be the first mission in the Second Shinobi World War. The baby would be born shortly after the turning point in the war when the Sannin gained their famous moniker and Sakumo Hatake broke through the Suna Puppet defense. Kohari named him Iruka. Umino Iruka.
It was at the moment of my fourth surprise that I realized my family wasn't just a group of random background characters. And that my second parents would be leaving my baby brother orphaned in a ten short years. I had one thought.
Oh, shit.
Author's Notes: I know, I know I shouldn't be posting a new story, especially an unedited and rough one, but this is a special month. HAPPY NANOWRIMO! This little lovely is a very dear OC insert to me. For you see Little Airi here is an OC of a friend of mine who wanted to be an insert! Airi isn't completely like my friend, in fact I'm making it a point to have them diverge in both story and personality. But the story is dedicated to and inspired by her! Hope you guys enjoy Airi!
On another note updates for The Unfortunate, The Hatake Legacy, and Bells and Fruit are on the way.