Prologue:
I don't remember my death. I remember my life, pained and fatigued and bored.
Three painkillers a day, with backup alarms set on my phone on the off-chance I forgot. It was pretty damn hard to forget. I remember the pain even now, and limbo seems to be a pretty mind-numbing place.
Black and warm and painless, but certainly still boring. I can imagine how my sentience will slowly slip away here. A period to accept things, and then… nothing. I assume I'll fade away.
Perhaps my energy will go back to the earth. My mom's philosophy seems believable enough.
Fading away doesn't seem so bad.
But I can't feel much here, no matter my thoughts, I only feel content.
Even the memories of panic, heart skipping, - I can't breathe - aren't so bad.
But even this place can't completely wipe away the nervous energy that sparks when I think of that.
So I don't. Because I can't remember it.
If I tell myself that enough times, eventually I'll forget. The human brain is a flexible organ. If people can block out their trauma, I can certainly block out my death.
I don't like thinking about things that bother me. I don't breathe the same here, but the meditative process of deep breathing is something that I do miss if only to give me something to focus on.
It's easy to slip into the darkness here. Thinking isn't something I need to do.
I close my eyes.
The next time I open them, it's in panic. The world around me is crashing, flooding around.
Fuck.
Not again. I swear to god if this is some sort of horrible drop to hell, I'm out.
Hah. Like I have a choice. I should probably stop swearing to god, too, but old habits die-hard.
Or I guess they don't die at all. It's too much effort to stop. Worrying about blasphemy seems a little late.
It's taking a lot longer for this place to end than I thought it would.
Freaking out about it seems pointless. I'm already alone, what's the need to worry? I doubt things can get worse.
Things can get so, so much worse. Or better? It's hard to decide.
I'll spare the details. Luckily, it's a lot easier to block out memories of being born than it is to block out death.
A lot of blood, a lot of screaming. So much fucking confusion. Being cradled in my new mother's arms. It wasn't as warm as before, but I felt nearly as safe.
It wasn't bad. Reincarnation was always high on my list of after-death possibilities.
The main issue here was that I still can remember before. I don't want to remember before. My old mom, my old family, my old friends. I want them out.
I couldn't feel the grief before when I was floating. But I can sure feel it now.
I know they are probably okay. Mourning, crying, depressed. But probably fine. Or at least, learning to be fine.
It's not like me dying was anything fucking expected. They should have known to brace themselves. It's not my fault my body was faulty. It's not my damn fault that I died.
But I still cry about it, stupidly. It doesn't make anything different. I still don't forget.
It's a good thing I'm a baby because the sobs are wailing and awful. I wouldn't have had any decent excuse otherwise. My new mother comes into the room when she hears them.
She speaks in quiet Japanese and cradles me in her arms.
She helps. Everyone I knew before might be struggling, but there's someone here that loves me. That needs me here. It gets me to stop crying, at least.
I wish I knew her name. I wish I knew my name. Because that person, who lived before, isn't me. I don't want to be her anymore. It hurts too much.
But mind over matter, right? If I don't want to be her, then I won't be. It's just memories, after all. I just have to not think about them.
My name is Hinata. I may not know Japanese, but months and months of it being spoken to me eventually words start to sink in.
Hinata-chan, good morning. Hinata-chan, it's time for food. Hinata-chan…
My mother's voice is soothing. It's something to focus on, at the very least. But she so obviously cares for me, and it's always been easy for me to reciprocate when shown such easy displays of affection.
There's a man who visits too, presumably my father. Faces are still blurry, but he seems strict. When he speaks, it's low and stoic. Controlled.
I don't know how to feel about him. Fathers have never met my expectations. So it's better to just hold off on making a judgement.
Other than that, being a newborn is boring as hell. I sleep, a lot. Almost more than I did when I was sick in my old life. But it's more restful sleep, which I'm thankful for.
I cry, I poop, I eat. It's a routine to follow, at the very least.
There are no expectations of me, no guidelines of life for me to follow yet. The part of my chest that longs for rules to follow is left hollow.
Time goes very, very quickly when there's nothing to occupy me. I'm six months old in the blink of an eye.
A year sneaks up on me, but it's pretty hard to miss my first birthday.
Not only because I've started to pick up on bits of language, but also because of the giant gathering held.
Apparently, my family is very, very large. How did I miss this? I must have slept a lot more than I thought.
I sit beside my father, on my mother's lap, and watch as all the men and women bow to us and take a seat at the table. There's a little collection of nicely wrapped presents set off to the side of the room.
I haven't been in this room before. It's traditional Japanese style, with the table set low to the floor. It's bigger than the usual dining room I eat in; it's large enough to seat 30 people comfortably, which it seems to be doing. There aren't any kids my age, which is a bit of a disappointment. It'd be nice to see any cousins I had.
I miss my old-
Nope. I babble happily up at my mother and focus on her wide smile in response.
She touches her thumb to my cheek, and leans down to whisper in my ear, "See her over there? She's going to have a baby next year. You'll have a little baby cousin, won't that be nice?"
Some of the words went over my head, but the swell of the woman's belly gave me enough context to figure out the general gist of things.
I giggle in response and wrap my hands around my mother's thumb. Yeah, a baby cousin would be nice.
Everyone here has the same glassy, clear eyes that I recognize on my parents. None of them are blind, but odd family traits do pop up throughout history, I suppose. It's a shame none of them is the type to have Instagram, they'd get popular as hell with eyes that unique.
A man walks up to my father; he speaks quickly enough that I can't follow the words. He looks identical to my father; the exception being the black fabric wrapped around his forehead.
Ha. My dad has a twin, how cool is that? I haven't ever even been friends with twins, let alone had any in my family.
My uncle looks stern and unfriendly and doesn't acknowledge me even as I stare up at him with wide eyes.
Their conversation ends quickly, and he goes to sit with the others at the end of the table.
The party is not like any other birthdays I've had. It's quiet and unfestive, but my mom feeds me my favorite sweet fruits. I don't understand any of the speaking going around, but I listen to the foreign words despite it.
When everyone leaves, they bow to our family again. I wonder if it's because of status or because it was my birthday. I guess I'll find out eventually.
My mother and I open the gifts afterward. Well, she opens them and I make happy cooing noises when she holds them up to me.
It's… a lot of kimonos. A handful of little toy knives - which is weird as hell - and a soft plush toy in the shape of a dog. When I make grabby hands towards the stuffed animal, my mother places it obediently in my lap.
Nice. I squish it a few times. Yeah, it was a good birthday. I got more gifts as a baby than I did as an adult, how weird is that? Hinata is a popular kid.
My mom speaks, in the slow, quiet voice she uses when addressing me, "Hinata-chan, now here is something that your father and I have for you. I'll be able to explain more about it to you when you're older, but the heiress of our clan needs a very special gift today, doesn't she?"
Despite the fact all I do is blink up at her, my mother smiles and continues, "Yes, she does. Stay calm, this is natural."
She reaches out with a slightly glowing hand and gently taps my forehead and I.
See.
Everything.
The compound swirls through my head, my room, a pair of teenagers with headbands walking through the halls, the neatly manicured grounds outside the building. Everything is brilliant and clear and full of life.
It all appears around me, overwhelming and magical. My mind burns with the overload. My eyes feel hyper-aware, sensitive and filled with a foggy, bright power.
And just as quickly as it began, it stops. The room closes in, what was once normal before now feels opaque and dull. There's no energy visible to me. My mom is kneeling in front of me, her hand cradling my head.
Her smile shows her straight white teeth; her hand strokes my hair.
"Hinata-chan, that is the byakugan. It's the gift that every Hyuga is given, and you are destined to lead us all one day. You're a blessing that was given to us, and I'll always do my best to help you," She murmurs, half to herself. She pulls me close to her chest and holds me.
Well.
In retrospect, I feel stupid as hell.
Authors note: So, I love self-insert fics and I've been planning on writing my own for quite some time. I was thinking about posting this after I had a few chapters, but I figured it's better for my motivation to just post it right away. The style of the first chapter is not how it'll be forever, but I wanted to breeze through the first year of life. This is going to be a very self-indulgent fic. It's a SI fic after all, those two things usually go hand in hand. This will not be a fic that follows canon closely.
While I'm not set on it, I do like writing romance. I'm undecided on any relationships though, so until I make up my mind it'll be untagged.
Reviews are greatly appreciated!