Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
Prologue
She had never believed in a divine power.
It always seemed too easy an answer.
History was full of gods. The Egyptians. The Greeks and the Romans. The Eastern cultures. The Indians. All understandable, of course. They had needed answers. Explanations for the strange and marvellous phenomena that were part of everyday life. Like the sun, the moon and the stars. Dawn and dusk. And all other matter of things that could be readily explained in the present time.
Even today there were countless religions and beliefs. They were all cut from the same cloth in her eyes. Most of them sought to teach proper values and filled people with a sense of belonging, of purpose. What exactly these 'proper values' were tended to differ, she supposed. It would not make much sense if every religion had the same values.
There were few mysteries now which still needed an explanation.
Death was not something she thought about often. No close relative had died in recent years and she herself still had a whole life ahead of her. Besides, it was not like she had an answer to that question.
Nobody really knew what happened afterwards. It wasn't like you could come back and tell someone. (Wasn't it? She had never seen a ghost, but that did not mean they did not exist…)
Anyway, she choose not to give it too much thought. In the end, it would not make a difference whether she knew what would happen or not.
It was strange. Her sluggish mind could barely register anything, safe for the heavy rain that poured down on the pavement and the way her cheek pressed up against it. She was lying down, she suddenly realized. How did she get there?
She didn't know.
And it didn't feel like it mattered, anyway. In fact, nothing seemed to matter anymore.
The ringing of sirens sounded miles away. With her eyes closed she couldn't see the ambulances arriving, their lights reflecting in the multiple puddles on the road.
She should have been able to hear the screeching of tires as they stopped abruptly, a multitude of people rushing towards her, but by that time she was already gone.
Little Hanako was happy today. She was lucky enough to have been given gardening duty, which had always been her favourite. Caring for plants and seeing them grow gave her a warm feeling inside. Not so different from drinking hot chocolate, she mused. Although she was certainly no expert on that subject. Even so, she cherished the sweet drink immensely the few times she could get her hands on it.
Her chubby hands worked to remove the weeds that had accumulated over the last week. As she ripped them out of the ground to the best of her ability (was she supposed to take out the whole weed? She hoped not…) she wondered why she was the only one who liked gardening duty. She could understand her dorm-mates well enough when it came to cleaning duties, like the after-meal-cleaning-duty and the hall-cleaning-duty. Those were plain nasty. But gardening duty? That was her happy-time. When it was just her and her garden.
Humming softly to herself, she was first unaware of the small rip that had formed just beside her. It was only when a strange energy filled her body that she became aware of it. Hanako's eyes were wide as saucers as she watched the energy flow from the rip towards her. Just as suddenly as it had appeared the rip closed and it seemed as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
The energy in her body ebbed and flowed, testing out the rightness of its host. She could feel it from her arms down to her toes, like a mini ocean inside her.
At long last the energy settled down. The child was found suitable.
It took only a second longer for the memories to enter. Thousands of pictures flashed before her eyes, each and every one seemingly desperate for her attention. Years worth of feelings, thoughts, emotions and knowledge slammed into her.
Her brain just couldn't take it all at once, and her body took the only survivable course of action.
Little Hanako passed out.
It took a while for the caretaker to find her, hidden as she was between the cabbages.