Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
BGM: "Heisei Cataclysm" sung by IA.
Reincarnation Syndrome
A woman in blood-red and a man in bone-white stand alone in a room.
The woman grips a knife in trembling hands, malachite eyes wide with pain, overflowing salt.
The man holds a straight sword in a casual stance, ruby eyes spinning with madness, bleeding black.
He speaks, and she wavers. He advances, and she retreats.
She reaches out, he draws in. He leaves, she follows.
This time, she will strike first. The woman in red sets her stance, launching herself at him.
The knife's edge flashes with reflected light.
The knife's edge is deflected, pushed aside like a child's flash of temper.
The woman in red falls to the bare earth, and the sword's edge comes down.
The cycle plays out again.
Distantly, she felt a slight pain in her shoulder.
"Sakura-chan."
There it was again.
"Hey, wake up."
And again. Some idiot was poking her.
"Sakura-chaaan! Wake uuup!" a raspy, high voice whined.
He really should have expected her response.
From the hallway outside her daughter's room, Haruno Mebuki clucked her tongue at the scruffy blond boy huddled against the wall, clutching his bleeding nose.
"Sit right there," she told him. "I'll get you some tissues." With that, she walked off to get the first aid kit, frowning. Why did this happen every time Naruto-kun came to visit?
Said boy just leaned forward and tilted his head back, waiting for Oba-chan to get back. Having friends was great. Having a super-violent short-tempered best friend with a nasty right straight was less great.
Naruto sat at the Haruno family breakfast table, bouncing up and down in his seat and chanting, "Food, food, food, food!"
Mebuki snapped at him to wait his turn.
Naruto stopped for a second, and then traded a look with a sleepy-looking Kizashi. They grinned and continued the chant in unison.
Mebuki sent a glare in their general direction. She would have gone out there and scolded them into silence, but the pancakes needed watching so they wouldn't burn.
Soft footsteps pattered down the hall, and two yelps came from the kitchen table.
"Stop bothering Kaa-san, you two! Really…" Sakura sighed. "I'd expect this kind of immaturity from Naruto, he's just a boy-"
"Hey!" he cut in, offended.
"-but Tou-san, you're old enough to know better," Sakura continued, ignoring the interruption.
"Aw, but Sakura sweetie, I'm still a child at heart." Kizashi grinned, putting a hand over his heart.
The eleven-year-old girl scoffed, sliding into the unoccupied seat next to Naruto.
Mebuki came out of the kitchen with a huge stack of pancakes, placing it in the center of the table and taking her seat beside Kizashi. Kizashi promptly snatched the plate, and Mebuki shot him a Look. He smiled, took the top three pancakes, and put the plate back down.
Digging into their food, the boys began their usual morning argument over which was better, Zeno Sentai or Ramen Raider. The Haruno women shared a put-upon look across the table.
Sakura tapped her foot, keeping an eye on the traffic. She stole a look at her bright pink Arigatou Koneko-chan watch. It was almost seven. Where was the stupid bus?
Standing on his tiptoes, Naruto looked for a flash of yellow, then gave up. He sighed, shoulders slumping, and looked over at his friend. "Hey, Sakura-chan, the bus isn't going to come any faster, you know?"
"Like you're not fretting," she shot back.
"Well, I am," he admitted. Then he shot her his best This-Is-Awesome grin. "I can't help it, though. Today's the graduation exam. I pass this, and I'll never have to study again!"
"Until we start middle school in a week," Sakura reminded him.
Naruto fell back into a slouch, pouting at her. "Don't remind me," he muttered.
Sakura rolled her eyes. "Why are we friends again?"
"'Cause your tou-san felt really sorry for me," Naruto answered without hesitation.
Sakura blinked at him. "Oh, right…"
One weekend morning, a six-year-old Sakura had woken and gone to the living room to eat her breakfast and watch cartoons. A strange little boy had been sitting on the couch, almost swallowed by the cushions. She'd stood there staring at him, then gone running for her parents. Her father had told her that the boy was in a lot of trouble, and no, it wasn't because of anything he'd done, and that he would be staying with them for a few days. Just until a permanent caretaker could be found, he'd assured his daughter.
When her mother had seen the boy, she'd dragged Kizashi off by the ear for a "talk". Sakura had stared after them for a second before going to get the other person she went to for help – her best friend, Ino.
Ino showed up twenty minutes later accompanied by her harried-looking father, Inoichi. Ino had grabbed Sakura and raced into the living room, taken one look at the boy and pronounced him "adorably pitiful, like a sad puppy." The boy had called Ino a bad word and run off straight into a bemused Inoichi. Inoichi had then gone pale, backed away slowly and interrupted the Harunos' argument.
For the next few hours, grown-ups Sakura and Ino were told were friends of their parents came in and out of the Haruno house. The children had in the meantime barricaded themselves in Sakura's room, and wound up eating Sakura's candy stash and playing Chinese Checkers.
In the end, it was agreed that as the one to bring him home, and one of the few people that could get near the boy, Kizashi would keep an eye on him for a few days.
A few days turned into a few weeks while no one was looking.
A few weeks turned into a few months as the children grew. Still, no one showed up to take Naruto away, and the boy became a frequent guest at both the Haruno and Yamanaka households.
Eventually, months became years and the children grew close. Ino was the oldest, confident and the natural leader. Sakura was the shy, bookish middle child in public, but a fussy older sister to Naruto in private. Naruto of course was the baby, petulant and easily upset, and it was the girls' job to keep an eye on him.
This was how it was, now.
Sakura smiled, patting Naruto on the head.
He swatted her hand away. "Sakura-chan, why do you always act like I'm some little kid?" he griped.
Sakura just giggled. They jumped as the bus pulled up and rattled to a stop, rushing up the steps and joining the general clamor of many children in a confined space.
Sakura slid into her usual space next to Ino, quietly returning her usual cheerful good morning.
It was their last day of grade school.
On the other side of the city of Konoha, a tall, thin man snipped a suture thread and tied it off. He turned to his assistant, slitted chemical yellow eyes transmitting a clear command. The smaller man rushed to deal with the clean-up.
The pale man peeled off his gloves, tossing them into a convenient waste bin, and stalked out of the operating room. Walking down a route he'd taken a hundred times before, he burst through a set of steel doors.
"Kabuto!" he snapped. "How are subjects U-100 through U-110 coming along?"
The younger man looked up from his notes, round lenses disguising any reaction. "Fairly well," he said evenly. "U-102's lungs are slightly underdeveloped. U-107 had a few irregularities earlier on, but they went away without interference. The others are developing normally. Well, as normally as test-tube babies can," he commented.
Orochimaru nodded, not taking his eyes off the array of incubation tanks along the wall. Each held what appeared to be a human child, all pale and dark-haired, all identical. He had spent the last ten years trying to resurrect the fabled Uchiha, but none of the previous batches had made it past the infant stage. This was a clear sign of success.
This time, it would work.
This time, he would gain the Sharingan, greatest of the three extinct dojutsu.
This time, he would gain a body that could be truly immortal.
All are made equal in death.
No two people are exactly the same.
Even an exact copy will have its flaws, its small imperfections, those little idiosyncrasies that make a person unique.
If no two people are exactly the same, how could so many souls live the same lives over and over again, trapped in an ever-tightening loop?
From life to life, regardless of the changes in their circumstances, they have repeated the same actions time and again.
To stop the cycle would be to stop time itself. Therefore, the cycle cannot be stopped. Rather, it must be remade.
Who would dare try?
Sakura winced as the antiseptic hit her cut, Ino screaming insults at the clumsy idiot that had knocked her off the monkey bars. Naruto stood a little off to the side, torn between screaming insults at said idiot and worrying over Sakura.
Sakura smiled through the pain, trying to reassure Naruto. Iruka-sensei stuck a colorful band-aid with a picture of a popular doll on her knee, giving it a quick pat to make sure it wouldn't come off, and Sakura took off. So, her shoes kept coming untied and her juice box had leaked everywhere and she'd fallen off the monkey bars. It didn't matter.
It was the last day of school.
It was a good day.
A man in black and red and a boy in white and purple sat by a fire. Outside of the circle of firelight, there was only featureless black in all directions.
"All the others have been reborn."
Silence.
"Soon it will be our turn."
Silence.
"You have to speak sometime, otouto."
"No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You just did," the man said, letting a note of smugness enter his voice.
The boy just glared petulantly at him.
"Cheer up, otouto. We won't even remember our ages-old quarrel soon enough," the man said cheerfully.
"And that's a good thing, how?" the boy asked dryly.
The man was quiet for an endless moment. Choosing his words with the greatest care, as he always had, he replied, "Because it will be a fresh start."
The boy just gave him a blank look.
The man sighed. "Because I am tired of fighting."
The boy gestured wordlessly at the lack of any sort of weapons or potential battleground.
"Because I want to break the cycle."
"The cycle of hatred?" the boy drawled. It was just more of his usual wannabe-pacifistic drivel.
"No. I want to break the cycle of fate."
Shocked, the boy sat up, really listening for the first time in what could have been millennia.
The man smiled slightly, sadly, hopefully. "Do you trust me?"
Trust him, the man who had taken away everything he loved, time and again, who had driven him to the depths of madness?
"Could you?"
Trust him, the enemy-turned-ally who had freed him from a madman's grasp more than once?
"Will you?"
Trust him, his precious older brother, cursed as he was and still holding out hope?
Uchiha Sasuke laughed. "Of course, aniki."
A/N: Essentially, the cast are reborn into a modern AU with mad science and supernatural elements. (Gee, that doesn't sound at all like most of my other stories...)
The TV shows and watch are indeed knock-offs of real-life Japanese imports.
Please read and review. Constructive criticism would be triply appreciated.