"To the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure."

—J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

1. Rain

I've always had a strange connection with water. Whether it was a good or a bad one, I have yet to find out.

I was born to a fisherman and a hospital receptionist in a coastal town of less than five-hundred residents. Growing up in a small town makes you think differently—you learn to appreciate the little nooks and crannies of the place, every board in the port, every brick, stone, and pathway. In this place I once called home, I was raised on a diet of all sorts of seafood, learned the meaning of maritime flags like the alphabet, skipped class to skip rocks, and swam as if I were born a fish in another life. Which, looking back now, isn't entirely impossible.

I lived a relatively normal life. I biked to my school of just fifty-two kids, my grades were mediocre, and I swam for the girl's swim team there. Weekends consisted of trips to the beach or catching a movie at the cinema. During especially hot summer days, blue raspberry shaved ice would be a treat I would be willing to bike twenty minutes for. And if I was lucky, I would be able to make it through the whole ride without falling off my bike or running into someone.

In what was a seemingly ordinary day in the summer of my fourteenth year, I went with a few friends to the beach. When we got there, however, our hopes for a calm, refreshing day filled with soft lapping waves were ruined by two red flags and dark clouds.

"Oh come on," Brandon whined as he flopped to the sandy ground in disappointment. "Seriously? I was looking forward to swimming!"

"Well, it's not like there's anyone here that can tell us not to," Jason, daredevil and fellow swim team member, said as he scanned the coastline for lifeguards. The beach was pretty much deserted, and the lifeguard towers were empty. "Plus everyone's out on holiday at Fiji or some other place. I say we go in anyways."

"I say we shouldn't," peeped Triss as she sat down carefully next to Brandon. "There's a reason for those flags. Someone could get hurt."

Jason let out a "tsk" and turned to me. "Well, what do you say Daphne?"

I drew a circle in the sand with my bare foot and thought. "I'm not sure. These waters seem rather dangerous," I flashed a grin at Triss. "Who knows? A vicious cannibalistic mermaid might appear to eat me." At this, Triss looked at me with annoyance.

Jason kicked some sand at me and snickered. "Just a race to the sandbar and back. Come on, how dangerous could it be?"

Unfortunately, life threatening. But hindsight is always twenty-twenty.

I could see Triss eyeing me with a look that clearly said "no", but I ignored her. With a sigh, I shrugged my shoulders before sticking out my tongue at the boy and taking off to the water. I could hear Jason crying, "Not fair!" in the background as I laughed and took my head start into the ocean.

I didn't look back as I ran straight into the water. Once it was deep enough, I began to swim, submerging my head in the salty brine. With a slight wince, I welcomed the familiar stinging of the ocean water in my eyes and took in the feeling of the coolness on my sun-warmed body.

I turned back to check if Jason was far behind, but to my surprise he was still at the shore with the others, all of them waving their arms and shouting. I lifted my arms to signal that I couldn't tell what they were saying, and in response they cupped their hands around their mouths to amplify their screams.

But their attempts to communicate with me were drowned out—quite literally—by a crash of water.

They always say that in the ocean, even the most experienced of swimmers can find themselves struggling to breathe. And although it's true that saltwater is easier to float in, the tempestuous waves make it a formidable opponent. Of course, being fourteen and utterly invincible, I dismissed all the warnings from adults and laughed at the signs posted around the beach.

Before I could comprehend what was going on, my body was dragged backwards from the shore by an unusually cold current of water. My head was submerged by a forceful wave that glided over me, and before I knew it, I was drowning.

There are a number of things while swimming that you should remember. For example, in the water, panic is your number one enemy. You go stiff, you flail, and ultimately, you sink.

I panicked.

Like a human-shaped rock I sank, trying my hardest to get to the surface but to no avail. Lack of oxygen took it's toll, and my strength faded. My vision began to spot, my lungs cried for air, and my muscles strained to keep up against the current. And then, a weird sensation came over me.

I was dying. I could feel it. But it wasn't what I had expected.

I guess before I had imagined dying as a sort of blankness you fall into, like fainting or sleeping. Or maybe I would see a tunnel or see my life flash before my eyes, as many "near death" experiences go. Then I would ascend to heaven...or rot in hell, as the zealous newspaper lady had told me when I nicked a few papers from her stand.

But this, this was different.

For me, dying was like floating, which was rather ironic, since I was actually sinking.

First, I drifted through a cold, numb darkness, like black water. I could feel my conscience slipping, but not completely. I had no body. There was some shard of me left, like a pebble amongst mountains, like a light in the night. Then, as if someone had flicked a switch, the light that once held every inch of my life, the one where I was born and raised in a small town by the sea, was turned off. And just as suddenly another light was lit, small and flickering, and the area around me began to brighten. A tunnel of what seemed like mirrors formed around me. There was a sensation of freefall, and I fell and fell and fell, until suddenly, it stopped.

I can only describe the feeling as running into a wall, but not feeling the pain that comes with it. (And trust me, I've had my fair share of running into walls.) The impact was the most notable part of it all. It came like a pressure, like I was being squeezed into bottle...or a coffin.

But it wasn't a coffin. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In my state of semi-consciousness, I could sense that this thing I was squeezed into—whatever it was—was a body. But not my body. Something foreign and strange yet familiar coursed through it, something ethereal and aura-like. It was warm and fuzzy, spreading from my stomach and extending to the tips of my hair, my fingers, my toes.

The first thing that came back to me was my sense of touch. I couldn't see, hear, smell, or taste. The body I was in wouldn't move, either. All I felt was that I was wet—not surrounded by water, just wet—and that I was laying on something soft. A few moments later, my sense of smell and taste returned. A scent of dust and rain. Then my hearing. A soft pitter-patter, wind howling.

Finally, my vision. My eyelids were the first part of my body to move as I slowly opened them to reveal a vast, cloudy sky. I blinked away a drop of rain that happened to land on my right eye. I appeared to be laying on sand, from what I could tell. I wasn't able to turn my head to check my surroundings though; the rest of the body was still stiff and rigid like a corpse in rigor mortis. It was rather terrifying, yet amusing, in hindsight, how my new life began in a death-like state.

How long I laid motionless, I don't know. I fell into a deep sleep before I was able to move again.

I've always hated hospitals. Hated the smell, the white-washed walls, flu-shots, et cetera. Hospitals and art class. I can't draw for my life. So when I found myself awakening in a hospital room, I immediately closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep, hoping it was just an illusion. I failed. I still felt rather disoriented and nauseous, because, you know, I had just died. But either I had come back to life, or I was in a hell that had taken the form of a hospital. And being the life-loving sucker I was, I really, really hoped it was the former.

I opened my mouth to speak. It took a surprising amount of effort and strain as I pronounced the words. "What happened? Did I drown?"

The moment the words left my mouth, I was left confused. Just as I had earlier realised that this wasn't my body, the voice that had come out of it wasn't mine either. But all the same, it was familiar, and I still recognized it as my own.

From the side of the bed, the nurse—or, the old woman whom I assumed to be a nurse—looked at me as if I had grown another head. "Drowned?" she asked. She had grey hair put up in a tight bun and wore a beige shawl over olive robes.

A rather strange taste in fashion. That was my initial thought.

"Or am I dead? I don't know," I babbled. I really had to get used to my new voice. It was slightly lower and a bit more rough than what I remembered. "Did I wash up somewhere?"

I'm pretty sure the nurse thought I was insane. She frowned and peered at me with a look that clearly screamed "I'm judging you."

"No," she intoned blandly. "You were found in the middle of the desert."

I took this as sarcasm and nervously laughed. Which was rather stupid.

After all, when was the last time you encountered a sarcastic old lady?

…Don't answer that. It's rhetorical.

"That's pretty funny," I said with a wavering smile. "But seriously, what happened?"

The nurse let out a frustrated sigh before smacking me on the head. For an old lady, she hit surprisingly hard. I tried hard not to wince.

"You stupid girl!" Another hit. At this point, I was seriously regretting speaking. "No one should be as dim-witted to travel the desert during a sandstorm! Be grateful the rain came when it did. If not for the rain, you would've been left to the sun and the scorpions and all we would have found would be a corpse. In fact, when you were brought to me, you were almost dead. Your chakra was literally floating off your body! And to think I wasted so much energy on saving you…"

I sat there paralysed, and not just because of the fact that I still didn't have full control of my body. Quite simply, I was in shock. I had no idea of what chakra was, nor did I have any idea on how I found myself in the middle of a desert. In surprise and slight confusion I peeped, "I'm sorry?"

The old nurse brushed off my apology and placed a stack of clothes on the bed. "Get dressed. You will be meeting with the council soon."

And although I wasn't exactly sure of what this "council" was, I was too afraid to ask. Instead I tried to get up, but to no avail.

"Um, well," I started as the old woman began to move to the door. "You see, I can't exactly move my body very well. Could we possibly reschedule this meeting until I can actually control my limbs?"

With stony eyes, she glared at me. "No."

And thus, I find myself dressed only in a white hospital gown and lying in bed with beige-robe-clad men and women surrounding me. The old nurse stands in the corner of the room with her arms crossed.

"With all twelve councilors present, may the judgement of the female found in the Eastern desert pass of the Land of Wind commence."

Judgement. That didn't sound good.

And where the hell is the Land of Wind?

"Foreigner," a woman with rectangular glasses and sandy hair directed to me. "What is your name?"

Nothing came to mind. How could I not even remember my name? "I uh...I don't—"

The nurse spoke up from her corner, interrupting me. "She's suffering from a case of amnesia. Didn't remember she was in the middle of the desert when she woke up."

"If that is the case Chiyo-sama," a man, whose face was covered halfway with a piece of cloth that draped from his turban, "tell us what you know."

It was weird, having people surround me and talk about me as if I were a piece of meat (preferably salami) being bought at the butcher's. I simply sat there and watched.

"Female, fourteen years old," she spoke as she glanced at me and the council members. "Weight, 42 kilos. Height, 157 centimeters. Appears to have no kekkei genkai, and her chakra pathways are rather fragile indicating a lack of training to control it. She is rather healthy, albeit dehydrated at the moment." I could feel her glare at me as she said that. "Also, for some reason, she is unable to control her body at the moment, but that will probably subside with time."

The half-face-covered man turned to the younger councilor beside him. "Have any reports of the other villages come in to claim her?" The other man shook his head. "None."

At the time, I didn't know what this meant. Which was totally expected; dying and appearing in a new world in a new body with no conceivable memories does leave you unable to think beyond the moment. But no claims from any village over me, I would later find out, meant that I belonged to no place, to no one. Essentially, the higher gods or spirits or heavenly beings (if they do exist) had decided to throw my spirit from a dying body to a body with no past or home.

I would never find out where I came from. Not in this world, at least.

"So, what do we do with her?"

Ah, the million dollar question.

Utterances of "Can we trust her?" and "Where do we put her?" flew around the room. I even heard a "Throw her back into the desert!", which earned a horrified expression on my part.

"Silence!" an old man—the oldest in the room, from what I could tell—shouted. The room fell quiet.

"We have no reason to throw her out," at this I let out a breath of relief, "but if we find a place to put her, we will have to monitor her."

"That is a rather large 'if'," spoke one of the other councilors. "Finding someone that will take in a random girl with no idea of her background will be a challenge of its own."

"My idea still stands. I say we throw her back into the desert."

"That is irrational, and you know it."

"And do you have any idea of where to put her?"

"No, but it's better than killing her, if that's what you're implying!"

I could feel my face pale at this.

"I will take her."

All heads—mine included—turned to the old woman in surprise.

"But Chiyo-sama—"

"No arguments. She will stay with me, unless you all have a better place to put her. It's not like I have anything to do nowadays."

"—you are not fit to do this! What if she tries something? You can't possibly monitor her all day!"

A tense silence enveloped the room, until finally the half-face-covered man spoke up.

"Of course she can't monitor her at all times, but the Sand Siblings can."

"But Gaara—"

"Gaara, along with Temari and Kankuro, are perfectly fit for the job. Temari and Kankuro can make rounds throughout the day after training the kids at the Academy, and since Gaara doesn't sleep he can do his rounds during the night. All three are capable of handling themselves if she," he looks at me with his one visible eye, "tries anything."

The room hummed in thought. Thankfully, there were no objections or further suggestions of "throwing me back into the desert."

Eventually, the twelve council members and the old woman came to a consensus and left me alone in my hospital room alone as the sun set, but not before giving me a name: Ame. I thought nothing of the strange world I had somehow found myself in as I fell asleep to the sound of the wind howling and dreamt of swimming.

A/N I really shouldn't be writing this. I really shouldn't. This is one of my earlier projects I started last year and stowed away, but now it's back. It shouldn't be, but it is. Which means I'm writing three stories at once now...shit.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Please leave a review if you enjoyed it/have any thoughts! Thanks a bundle!

- morninggrey