Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto! It is a very sad truth.

Life works in funny ways sometimes. I know that there are many people who have wondered what it would be like to enter the dimension of their favorite book or anime. Many of my old friends used to dream about it, I know I did. I did, until it happened to me. This is my story.

The car shot down the street with torpedo-like speed. Not my car, mind you, the one that passed me because I was going too slow in the express lane. That's when the "accident" happened. Right ahead of me, he had to slam on his breaks and I had no time to react. The driver beside me tried to avoid an accident by swerving into my lane, straight into me, pushing my sweet little white Honda into the oncoming traffic. I had nowhere to go and the truck (because with my luck it would be a truck) in front of me had no time to stop before hitting me head-on. That is the last thing I remember before everything went black.

My mind woke before my body did, and all I could register was pain. Not the stabbing pain of a terrible accident just passed, but the dull ache of knowing you'll survive without knowing the full extent of the damage. The crisp clean scents in the air that I caught told me I must be in a hospital, as did the uncomfortable mattress beneath me.

So I was in a hospital. That was good, sorta. Now I just needed to get an idea of the real damage. Forcing my eyes to open I surveyed the room the way Master Azin had taught us: two exits, the door and the window, though I wasn't sure what floor I was on so the window may be a bad idea. Next, choose a color: blue vase, blue sea painting, blue bed sheets, blue chair... old man in white and red sitting on chair. Wait.. what?

"H-Hokage-sama?"

I think I surprised the poor man, because the second I said those words he jumped back and his hands flew into seals. Trying to keep up with and understand what he was doing gave me a headache, so instead of succumbing to this surreal dream I closed my eyes to block it out.

A few moments passed, and when nothing happened I opened one eye cautiously and looked at him again. His hands had stopped moving, but were still in the formation of one of his many seals, the rat seal if I recognized it correctly. I hadn't been watching so I didn't know what he'd been leading up to, but as I just stared at him without reacting he relaxed his arms slowly. When they had made it to his side, he studied me carefully.

"I've never seen you before," he spoke, his voice skeptical, "how do you know who I am?"

I almost laughed out loud, but suppressed the urge. No use telling him the truth, he would think I was crazy. Ignoring the fact that I thought I was crazy, I stood no chance if he felt the same. This was getting ridiculous, so all I could do was lie. "Umm..." I started, faltering and unsure of what to say, "I'm related to Hatake Kakashi, and I am here because my mother died recently and sent me here saying he would take care of me."

Yeah, so blame me for not coming up with a well thought-out lie. I was dead meat if anyone asked Kakashi.

When asked, I politely lied again, stating that I was his grandmother's-aunt's-cousin's adopted daughter, twice removed on his father's side. If you followed that I have to congragulate you. When I originally said it to him, I didn't have any idea what was coming out of my mouth. Then I said my name was Caruh, stolen from a role-play with my best friend, I was sixteen (the sole truth in this jumble of lies) and I was a ninja from Sunagakure, Village Hidden in the Sand.

It was clear he didn't believe me, so I looked around for something to use as proof. That was when I noticed that my backpack was on the nightstand by my bed. I looked at it, wondering why it was there, and then decided that it didn't matter. What did matter was that it was there, and that within it was my salvation. I pulled it onto my lap, and the Hokage gave me a strange glance, like he was ready to do signs and attack me. Not that I blamed him, he couldn't see what I was reaching for.

"It's okay, Hokage-sama, I won't attack." I didn't add that I couldn't in the state I was in, I doubted he would appreciate what that implied. I pulled out the sand hitae-ate that I'd gotten at an anime convention earlier in the month, and showed it to him. Amazingly enough, he took it from my fingers and examined it. Then he nodded, seeming to believe that I was telling the truth. For now.

"So, what happened to you then?" he asked, studying my body. My Raggedy-Ann red hair, tied neatly back in a ponytail that smoothed the curls at least against my skull, and my grey eyes, rather boring if you ask me, were my most prominent features. I was covered in bruises and cuts still, but nothing serious. Before I could answer that question, he asked more. "Why were you lying outside our village nearly dead a few days ago?"

Nearly dead outside the village? That was more interesting news. I would have to get more into my story now. "My mother died sending me here to find Kakashi, as he is my last living relative. On my way here I was attacked by ninjas with poor information, and left to die."

"If you truly are related to Hatake Kakashi, why has he not been here to see you?"

"I was never formally adopted into the family, so it wasn't something my mother talked of much. She wasn't ashamed of me, but when you find a little girl abandoned its hard to tell people who she is and where she came from. I suppose I'm not technically related to Kakashi, but my mother was distantly." There, I'd found a loop-hole, and a pretty good one at that. Oye, but I was making my story less believable. Thank heaven for drama class. I think he believed that story more than the previous one, actually, though not by much.

"If that is true," he said, turning and walking towards the door before looking back at me, "I will get Kakashi then, so he can visit you here, okay?"

"Okay," I answered with a nod, a knot forming in my stomach.

It wasn't but a few minutes that the one-eyed-wonder himself walked in, gracing me with his presence and confusion written all over his face. Er, well, in his one visible eye, his nose and mouth being perpetually covered and his sharingan hidden behind his own leaf hitae-ate. Anyway, there was obvious confusion.

Finally his eye settled on me. "So you're my..." he paused, his eye studying me while he tried to figure out what I supposedly was to him. He decided on, "Relative?"

With a sheepish look on my face, I nodded, ever so slowly.

"And how exactly?"

"You're grandma's-aunt's-cousin's not-quite adopted daughter twice removed on your father's side," I answered, adjusting my tale to fit what I'd ended up telling the Hokage. I was surprised I could remember all of it though.

"That's impossible, my grandmother's aunt didn't have a cousin," he told me, in a tone that said he didn't believe a word I was saying. So what else was new?

I did have to laugh, though, when I wondered was how he knew that. "You know for a fact that your grandmother's aunt didn't have a cousin?" I asked, trying really hard, and failing horribly, to keep a straight face.

"Yes," he answered cautiously, now looking at me like I was from another world. Which, coincidentally, I was. "However, even if she had, that was three generations ago, in the time of the first Hokage. There is no way she would still be young enough, or even alive, to adopt a child. And I'm sure that there is no way she'd raise that child in Hiding in Sand."

Damn, I was caught. I did not want to be caught by Kakashi of all people, it meant I was in deep trouble.

"Okay, I lied," I came straight and said it.

The look he gave me was priceless, yet rather sad. At the time, I knew if I wanted Kakashi's trust or respect ever again I would have to work for it, and work hard. Instead of giving a lecture or anything, however, he asked me to introduce the real me, and explain how I'd known about him.

"You know, it's a funny story." He gave me a cold look. I sighed. "A story you wouldn't believe."

His eyebrow raised. "Try me."

I did, on the grounds that he didn't go sharing it with everyone. He said he'd see what he could do.

"I'm really from another dimension, where ninjas are a thing of the past, and this world is nothing but a television show, and a comic book. One that my parents were always annoyed with me for watching and reading, but that's beside the point.

"My real name is Jacqueline, my friends call me Jackie, but I wouldn't mind using a different name while I'm here."

He sat on the bedside and looked at me. "Okay, so for now, you're my relative. We'll explain everything to the others... when you're ready?"

"Why aren't you telling me to, I don't know, confess? Or commit myself to an insane asylum?"

"Because, for my own reasons, I believe you. And, seeing as the name you gave yourself already was Caruh, why don't we just use that?"

I nodded, now the confused one. A twinkle in his eye told me he understood this, and he was smiling at his advantage. I looked at him. "What should I do now?"

"Rest, we'll take care of the rest of it when you are released from the hospital, hopefully tomorrow."

A good idea, if I ever heard one.

Okay, so I know I said Sunday, but as I finished the editing, I wanted to get it posted today so you didn't have to wait as long for it. Hopefully, you all like it, the majority of it is the same. Again, my thanks go to SamuraiKai for the story. This will be the last time I mention it, as from here on in I am going to consider it my story.

Caruh and Gaara will still get together, and the plot will unfold much the way SamuraiKai wanted it to. She did give me the plans for the story. With that said, I hope you like the rewritten version of the story, and please forgive me for cutting off the end of the title, as it should be apparent what the story is if you've been following. Just in case, the original title was Memoirs of an Otaku by SamuraiKai.

I will also take down the author's note after a few chapters, once things start rolling smoothly.

Now, onward with the next chapter, which I have begun editing and will be posted by Sunday. Love you all! Please enjoy Memoirs: REBOOT!