Deep inside, we all want to believe death isn't the end. That's why reincarnation is such a present belief. Each culture and religion has their own interpretation of the concept—different circumstances, different requirements, different processes, and so on. But there's one thing they all have in common.

It's generally believed that to be reincarnated, you had to die first.

I learned this wasn't the case the night before my sixteenth birthday, when my fitful spurts of excitement died down and I finally settled down for a good night's sleep. If I had known what was to happen, I probably would have hugged my ten-year-old orca plush a little tighter in farewell, or maybe I would've jumped out of bed and never slept again. Maybe I'd crawl into bed with Mom and Dad for the first time since pre-kindergarten. Call up my best friends. Deliver a tearjerking departure speech. Anything.

But that wasn't how it went. As it was, I had tucked in for a night of sleep, only to find myself in a situation beyond my wildest dreams upon waking.

I woke up inside someone.

My first instinct was to scream because what the fresh hell? Where was I? Was this a demented nightmare!?

Then, realizing I couldn't scream, I thrashed in a panic. The instinct I had to breathe wasn't being satisfied, seeing as whatever—whoever?—I was in didn't seem to have a fresh supply of air. This only fuelled my panic, and I thrashed even more wildly. Whatever I was in didn't like that. The walls started closing in and I felt my body being pushed by the contraction. Holy shit.

Then, with a sickening slick of a noise, I was out. I felt air. And damn, it was cold.

Realizing I could breathe again, I gasped for air, still squirming in a set of arms. But then that set of arms passed me off to another set of arms that rocked me back and forth. I was overcome with exhaustion and confusion in the moment, so the motion quickly had rocked me back to sleep.

The first and possibly most shocking discovery I made was that I was a baby. Chubby-faced and stubby-fingered, my world became my bed, with my body refusing to listen to me and move on my command.

I tried to convince myself this was all a bad dream, since the last thing I could remember was going to bed, after all. It was likely, right?

But time stretched on and on endlessly. It was beginning to feel a little too scarily real for a dream by the time a fair amount of time had passed and I had began to regain control of my consciousness and my limited range of motion.

So I came to the conclusion that either I had snapped and lost it or I had legitimately been...reborn. Somewhere else.

Despite the fact I seemingly retained my mental capabilities through the process of sudden rebirth, I was unable to keep awake or conscious for very long for the first portion of my young life. You try to stay awake when your neck isn't fully developed and you can't even move your head around. It's boring, okay?

Not to mention the sleepy haze that felt as though it coated my mind. I had thoughts, but they were slow thoughts. And I had realizations that led me to panic—what the hell was I doing here—but they were slow realizations that I could only really express through crying. Even then, I'd cry out my panic and fall asleep moments after.

Life as a baby, everyone. Not the most riveting stuff.

So time flew by rather quickly at first, with me caught in this sub-living state and only occasionally regaining full awareness, these times usually ending in me crying for no apparent reason.

But one day, I came to one of those slow, alarming realizations.

What of my past life?

I didn't think you were supposed to be reborn with your entire past life intact in your memories. Yet my past life, the people I knew, and the movies I liked were all totally intact in my mind.

My friends. My family. I'd somehow left them behind without having the chance to say goodbye. Without having the chance to grow up.

As soon as I realized this, I became a very weepy baby.

Every waking moment was filled with infantile shrieks and thrashing as it hit me time and time again—I wasn't home. I wanted to see my friends again. I wanted my mother.

And my mother of this life would come to my aid every time I began to cry again, scooping me up and humming a tune I could not understand.

Then came the slow realization that not only had I been reborn, but I had been reborn into a Japanese-speaking family.

My knowledge of Japanese started and stopped with whatever I could pick up watching anime in my preteen years. Everything else was just gibberish to my English-speaking ass.

But my mother—this mother's lullabies were soothing gibberish. Something she'd hum to herself even when not trying to placate me, something I'd hear her hum to herself as she walked about the house on rainy days.

On the topic of gibberish, I really sucked at picking up Japanese.

I didn't have that innate, infant ability to latch onto whatever tongues I heard spoken around me out of necessity of language. No, my brain was as impermeable to Japanese as metal was to water, and it clung to my English knowledge with every bit of strength it could muster.

By some miracle, they'd stationed a calendar next to my cradle, and once I'd gained the ability to see past blobs of indeterminate colour and shape, I was able to vaguely identify whenever a new month rolled around by the changing of the blurry picture on the top part of the calendar. I could sense my parents were getting worried about my confusing language skills after the picture had changed four times—I didn't appear slow, but I sure wasn't picking up Japanese as fast as other first-time babies around me were.

I'd gotten tired of crying my heart out and mourning at every thought of my past life, and the sight of my parents so worriedly exhausted was starting to get to me. So with increased determination, I focused on reviewing the foreign sounds in my (plentiful) spare time and paid less mind to where I was, who I was, and why I was here.

For me, thinking too much was a black hole. It led to too many questions without answers and too many bad moods. I couldn't allow myself to think as much, and I slipped easily into the lifestyle of an airheaded baby. I cried less and babbled in Japanese syllables more, and I started to think it was worth it by the relieved smiles that stretched across my parents' faces whenever I gurgled the syllables okaa and otou.

By the time the calendar's picture changed a few more times, I'd fully accepted that this was my life now. That I was called Asagiri Futaba, my mother was Asagiri Rurae, and my father was Asagiri Takeshi.

That these two people loved me like I was their child, because to them, I was, and no matter how much of an imposter I felt I was, I couldn't stop them from showering me with kindness and affection.

The least I could do for their kind hearts was to act the part of a good child and not disappoint their expectations. I'd already given them enough hell in the first few months of my life.

So life began to progress more smoothly.

I wasn't really a loud child after my initial shrieky start. Mom and Dad were always rotating on missions so I spared them the grief of a fussy baby and stayed put unless it was urgent. That one time when the spider almost crawled onto my leg was definitely an emergency.

At one year and two months, I scrambled to my feet for the first time. We celebrated that with Dad's favourite, soba. Well, not for me. I still had that gross baby mush because not all of my teeth had come in yet. Did I mention teething was a bitch?

At a year and a half, I spoke my first word that wasn't Mom or Dad—zoni. What could I say? Mom let me try it a day before and it was so good. So good. Solid food was a gift to this world that should never be taken for granted.

At around two, I had all my teeth, and the itchy sensation of teeth growing in ceased. I had learned how to speak...enough. The English accent clung to my words in a way I knew probably confused my parents in this English-free world. Thankfully, they brushed it off as a speech impediment and worked even harder at teaching me Japanese. Mom even taught me how to write my own name!

フタバ

The strokes were simple but shaky from my pudgy hand, but my mom didn't seem to care in the least, scooping me up in celebration with a proud smile that was just contagious.

It helped that Mom and Dad were really nice people. That was a big thing. They rotated who took missions when to make sure I was never alone, they went out of their way to ask for parenting advice from others, and they always seemed to put me first. All this love that I didn't know what to do with.

It was a happy existence for those couple years. Warm days, sunny dispositions, and not an impending tragedy in sight.

I had to be good, after all. The parents of this life were busy people. I wasn't entirely sure what kind of jobs they had or what kind of missions they were doing, but they always seemed tired when they got home.

But their work garb sort of struck me as odd, once I gave it more than a half second of thought. Green vests, poofed pants, and most tellingly...headbands that covered their foreheads with a shiny metal plate.

Then I began identifying words like Hokage and shinobi in my parents' dialogue with each other.

And yes, you might be wondering how the words Hokage and shinobi being thrown around by my parents in daily life didn't set off any alarm bells immediately.

I couldn't give you a good explanation for that either. After my initial phase of panic and sadness, I'd faded even more deeply into the haze and lost motivation to think deeply into things—understanding basic commands in Japanese was hard enough. In other words, it just didn't occur to me, like a deadline on a homework assignment, blissfully forgotten.

But something definitely itched at the back of my mind every time I saw that shiny metallic plate fastened to my mother's forehead, or a funny-looking knife lying on the counter out of reach.

One night, it came to a peak, and the warm, sunny days came to an end.

Approximately two-and-a-half years had passed since my rude introduction to my new life, and I had just settled into a peaceful sleep when the dreams started.

Two girls sat in front of a TV, a cartoon playing before them as they chewed on granola bars. Directing my attention to the TV, I could see it was an animated cartoon of some sorts with an orange man energetically hopping about on the screen.

But then I looked closer.

Orange man had a metal plate strapped to his forehead. The metal plate had a very familiar insignia carved into it. Orange man was energetically speaking in Japanese, English subtitles lining the bottom of the screen.

"I'm going to be Hokage someday, just you wait!"

Orange man was Naruto.

Shinobi. Konoha. Hokage. Naruto. Jinchuuriki. Konoha. The words began to swirl in my head.

Konoha.

Ninja.

Naruto.

My eyes snapped open, the words still echoing in my mind. I jerked my stare around the room until it fell on the headbands placed haphazardly on the dresser.

The symbol, that was Konoha's symbol.

The knives in the drawers were kunai.

And I don't think my parents were just very devoted cosplayers.

For the first time in more than two years, panic overcame me, and I began to cry.

SO! this marks the beginning of come spring! i've rewritten all of the chapters (with little bits from the original drafts) and will be posting them shortly! after i've posted all of the rewritten stuff, i'll try to stick to a weekly updating schedule, but if i don't end up updating, you can find me on twitter now, where i go by altssul, and i'll likely give reasons on there why i couldn't update haha

that being said, though these chapters are rewritten, i strongly advise old readers to still give them a read. i had to rewrite a lot of different elements so many things happen differently now. i hope the story continues to be enjoyable from now on, and lastly, thank you all soooo much for all the support! it's really encouraging to read your reviews heh

alts