Ever since I could remember I always had these weird dreams, dreams of another life. They were vivid images associated with these faint feelings I barely could understand. Their meaning I didn't immediately get as I was nothing but a small child, but a part of me already knew what they were even if I tried my best to ignore it.

I didn't want to believe that they were memories. That they were real.

-FG-

I didn't remember much of my first years because of the dreams that continuously appeared. My days passed in a sort of daze. I knew I was too quiet to be real, doing everything in a sort of robotic way. It was creepy now that I looked back to it. I didn't cry or play with others and most mornings passed trying to make head or tails to my dreams so I was always busy, thinking.

(I always had headaches because it was too much.)

That didn't mean I was oblivious though. Even with the way, my thoughts were clouded most of the time, I noticed how the grown-ups treated me. They changed my diapers quickly, gave me food without bothering to teach me how to eat it, never spending more time than necessary with me. Probably I wouldn't have noticed without those dreams to serve as a reference of how children should be treated. They weren't abusive but the neglect was clear nonetheless.

"One shouldn't treat a kid like that," a part of me whispered. The older one, the one who apparently had a little more than two decades under her belt. I ignored her. Even if I hadn't been taught about what happens after death, I knew that what died, stayed like that.

(I really wanted to believe that they were only dreams.)

-FG-

It all changed when I was hit for the first time. The matron was cutting my hair, my gold locks so unlike the dark hair I had in my dreams. It fell on my tiny shoulders, itching on my skin, reminding me of others times where I was bigger and asked always for weird hairstyles because 'hair will grow anyways so why not'.

"May I use something to cover my shoulders, please?" I asked monotonously. The first time I talked in the odd Japanese language the people around me seemed to talk. It was accented but hopefully understandable enough. That day I could ignore the dreams with ease, include them to my day to day as if they had always been there.

She tightened her grip to a painful degree. I winced, not possessing the pain tolerance I had in my dreams.

"It hurts," I whimpered.

"Shut up," she said, her nails digging in my scalp. "You don't deserve better so shut p."

I tried to stay silent but fat tears were already falling down my cheeks. Apparently, the noise bothered her because when she finished she pushed me to the ground with the hand with the scissors on them. The metal clashing painfully against my head.

I grabbed my head, the memories of another woman, this one crying and also hitting me, saying, "Don't you see this hurts me too" in my head.

I sobbed as I saw that the matron left, not understanding why I was crying. I didn't feel sad or how I remembered a sad person felt. Not that it mattered, I still cried as I remembered my mom for the first time.

I missed her.

-FG-

With time I tried to explain these memories as some mistake from whatever being that processes the lives of newborns simply made with me.

It did sound plausible, right?

-FG-

It was when I was four that another revelation occurred. I was in the bathroom, a normal sized room with small toilettes against a wall for the younger children, the stalls for the older ones were in another room in front of this one, a bigger one with the showers in it. I was taking a piss, sitting as always. I remembered thinking about puberty and what a drag it was going to be to relieve it as I got up and robotically cleaned myself like many times before. The same routine.

The change came when I looked down, thinking about periods and how the day approached for me to suffer them through, and noticed a small little thing dangling between my legs.

"Holy shit, I have a dick," I said for the first time since the haircut accident, in my original language. It was as if the veil clouding my mind had been lifted completely by the revelation as I touched the small dick, pinching it just in case it was some sort of illusion.

It wasn't.

Crap.

I always referred to myself as a female inside of my head because that's what I remembered I was from those dreams. For a brief moment, I wondered if I should refer myself as a male as to fit the body I was living in but then shrugged it off as unimportant. I never really cared about genders, besides, twenty and some odd years of thinking as a female won easily.

I gave one last tug to the tip, feeling a bit disappointed I already pissed as I would have liked to try my new little dick by pissing while standing.

Oh well.

-FG-

I was five years old now, my time as a robot long since was gone. I still followed the routine I developed in those four years of life because I liked routines. Well, not really 'liked', but more like they were easy to follow, easier than to choose the alternative and try to find the motivation to do new stuff, which I didn't have and was a problem I still seemed to have maintained from my old life, something that didn't get on well with my new body, which seemed to be full of energy. The matrons didn't like that, often calling me restless demon when they thought I was out of hearing.

I didn't know my name as I was always called 'brat' and other more demeaning names. I would have used the name I remembered from my dreams but whenever I tried to speak it out loud or even thought of it, I fainted. Or well, not fainted, exactly. More like my brain couldn't process it. One second I was fine and the next I found myself on the ground.

Weird.

Anyway, since I started considering the dreams as memories, I tried to write everything I could remember on a notebook I stole from one of the matrons in a combination of Spanish, English and Italian -the only languages I knew well- because I was paranoid like that. I wrote about the places I visited, about the people I met, about books and comics and everything. It was the only thing I did as I was not allowed to play with others. Well, that and the hobbies that passed from my previous life to this one, which was drawing and writing. The drawing was easy, writing would have been too if I had not wanted to write in Japanese. I would have taken to reading, too, but the problem was the same: I didn't know the language well enough. I knew a bit thanks to having liked Japanese Before but while my hiragana and katakana were almost decent, my kanji sucked balls.

Oh well, at least I could understand what others said and also talk passably, even if I had a weird accent.

I almost wished for the time for my schooling to start.

-FG-

I regretted my words as soon as I entered the room inside the orphanage that served as a classroom. And to understand this, one needs context. See, I was a pretty asocial person. Not only I had social anxiety, but I also had an actual personality disorder that made me unable to interact with others in a normal way. Hell, I didn't even possess feelings the way other people did, they always felt faint to me and weird. And that? That apparently passed over. And worse, it wasn't gradual as it occurred in my first life, it passed to the same level It was by the moment I was reincarnated.

I was so screwed.

Probably, I could ignore it if the people I actually interacted with were reasonable and fun, not obnoxious and loud as these kids were. It didn't help that I was apparently The pariah. Everyone treated me like shit, even the teachers. They ignored me when I held my hand up for a question, they didn't let me go to the bathroom and blamed me for everything.

The only positive thing that happened was finally being allowed to go outside. It was something new for me as the only interaction I had with the outside world came from the window inside my room, which had a view to a quiet street. The little park next to the orphanage was instead the other way over and was busier than what I was used to seeing so I was really excited.

Indeed, when I went outside it was as awesome as I was sure it would be. I didn't care if the other kids didn't play with me, that made me happier actually. I was one of the first to step out and as soon as I saw the big tree with the one swing, I immediately ran for it.

There, sitting with a slight breeze brushing my smiling face, I saw the people walking across the street. Some wearing kimonos and other normal clothes I remember seeing in my time. Some time ago I had realized I was in time older than mine, not only because the clothes but the technology and the style of life. However, to see the people mingling about just made it more real in a way.

It made me melancholic, or so I thought. Recognizing emotions or feelings never came too easy, so I wouldn't really know if-

"Hey, you." I looked over my shoulder, startled. Three kids were behind me, older, probably seven or eight. They didn't look nice, I thought as the one at the front looked at me with a scowl.

"Yeah?"

"Get out. It's our turn to play."

I frowned, annoyed. I wanted to tell him to 'fuck off' but I was the older one mentally, and I wasn't going to pick up a fight with a kid, so I stood up and with a shrug, I said, "Sure."

Wanting to go peacefully, I tried to keep my expression blank and body language subdued as I walked around them. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. As soon as I was next to them, the child closest to me pushed me off to the ground.

Ow.

I remained on the ground, thinking quickly. If I was a normal kid I would have made a scene if only to get them in trouble. And while I was petty like that, I was hated so I knew no help would come, so I merely stood up and glared at them. "Your mom didn't teach you manners or something- Wait." I made an exaggerated expression of surprise. "Right. You're an orphan, you don't have parents. Well, now that I see, with that kind of attitude it's obvious why no one adopts you."

With those words, I stood up and left.

Did I mention I was petty and cared less about hurting the feelings of a kid?

That doesn't mean I wasn't surprised that the brat threw himself at me after that with a war cry though.

And that's how my first fight started.

-FG-

I was thrown off the orphanage after that for the first time. They literally blamed it all on me. I was told to not return until the break was over, probably hoping I ended up lost or something. Not that it matters. I shrugged it off and went on to find an adventure. I walked, watching all the people around me, trying to get a better grasp of the language and customs. Some apparently recognized me as I saw the familiar sneers on some people faces, which confused me. I had been nothing but a polite child and while I could maybe understand the hate on the understaffed orphanage, for the hate to be so spread was intriguing.

As one could guess, I still didn't know why people were cruel to me but I had already resigned to it being something my parents had done. They probably were criminals or something worse. I toyed with that thought for about two minutes before I saw a young woman dressed in the most revealing outfit I had seen as of yet in this life with her revealing see-through shirt and mini-skirt, all under a brown coat. It clashed with what I thought of this timeline as women shouldn't be this forward, at least not now.

Had I been confused all along and I was closer to my time than I thought?

I looked at her, weirded out and feeling self-conscious all of sudden. It could be cosplay, but while that might be a thing, I didn't think so.

I did the wise thing and followed her.

It took her only a couple seconds to admit my existence, which was earlier than I expected. I thought I was being pretty sneaky myself.

"What's the problem, kid? Are you lost?"

Her face was blank so I couldn't tell if she recognized me or not, but she probably did. Everyone did here, apparently. Though it was surprising she didn't snarl or something like that. This woman was clearly made of sterner stuff, clearly.

"I'm fine." I pointed to where I came from. "I'm on a break now. I should probably go back though."

She didn't follow my pointed finger, but her expression turned thoughtful all of sudden. "The orphanage, right?"

I nodded, most of my attention going to her strangely dyed hair. Now that she was leaning down I could see it clearer and yep, it was purple.

My spider sense was tingling and damnit but that was always ominous.

"Want me to take you there, kid?"

"I'm not a kid," I answered immediately. I then mentally cursed because that was something stupid to say, though easy to ignore considering children said stuff like that all the time.

Luckily the only thing she did was raise an amused eyebrow. "You look like one to me"

I glared to the ground, trying to look childish and sad at the same time as I whispered, "No one calls me a kid. Everyone says I'm a monster."

Something in her face flickered and while I sucked at emoting, I considered myself pretty decent at reading emotions so I was pretty sure all the negative feelings she showed were not towards me but for me.

Aww.

"The orphanage, right? Let's go there."

She grabbed me around my waist, throwing me to her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Then she jumped. And I meant that word to be italicized because damn. It took her just a jump to reach the roof of the house nearer to us. She then continued jumping from roof to roof as if gravity just decided to retire for the day. I was amazed and awed and completely terrified. I grabbed her middle and held as if my life depended on it, which kind of did in my opinion.

"Fun, right?"

"It's not fun, you adrenaline junkie!"

She laughed as she kept on running, her whole body shaking. "Oh man, don't tell me you're closing your eyes or something."

"I'm not!" I answered back even though her words made me realize I totally was. I opened my eyes and turned around to see where we were. And there I saw it as soon as we turned on a rickety roof that leads to a wide street where a lot of merchants were selling their products. A big-ass mountain with four faces engraved on it.

Four familiar faces.

"Huh," I said out loud, once again thanking whatever powerful being out there for having the emotional capacity of a teaspoon. A normal person would have freaked out, panicked or started crying. I merely felt weird as I connected the dots. Mostly the fact my hair was blond and I was treated like shit.

I stood up as much as I could, using her back as leverage. "Down! Down!"

Something in my voice must have tipped her off because we touched the dirt. "What's going on, kid?"

I thrashed in the universally way one did when wanting to be let down. She complied, luckily for me because suddenly I wasn't sure I could manage to win anything against her if she so decided. Once my feet touched the ground I went to the one place where I could see it sell kitchen stuff to do something that I should have probably done a long time ago. I took the first look to my new appearance thanks to a well-placed shiny pot. I could not see myself very well but from what could distinguish I was a cute kid with blonde hair and blue eyes, my cheeks were with dirt but there were three distinct marks on each cheek.

I was Naruto Uzumaki.

Crap.

"So what's up?"

I jumped, wildly turning around. The same young woman stood behind me, hands on her hips and head tilted. "You looked pretty spooked there."

I scratched the side of my neck, thinking of something to distract her. "I saw these shiny things and I couldn't help it." I glanced at the pot. "This is the first time I saw my face... Is not as ugly as I thought it would be."

Which was not a lie. Before, I was scared of what I would see in the mirror because of all I heard about myself but now… well, I was pretty cute if I said so myself.

I shook my head. Not time.

Though if I was in the Naruto world…

I turned to look at the young woman again. She was still patiently waiting for me.

"Nee-chan, what your name?"

She looked a bit flustered as she grinned and said, "That's Mitarashi Anko to you, kid."

Double crap.

"Anko-nee-chan then," I said as if I wasn't suffering a mini existential crisis. Or was I? I wasn't really sure, actually. The downside of feeling stuff like I did. "So, the orphanage is very close and it's not that late. I can walk by myself now."

She raised an eyebrow. "Are you trying to get rid of me, kiddo?"

I shook my head. "Nah, but it would be better if people didn't see you with me. I wouldn't want you to gain a reputation, you see," I said as if I didn't know the whole clusterfuck that was her life. Without bothering to hear her answer I turned back and waved at her. "See you later, nee-chan!"

I was so screwed.

-FG-

What's this? A new fic when I already have so many WIPs out there? Yeah, well. I had this written and just found out yesterday when I updated a new chapter of Backslash

Dunno how long it'll take me to update this but, well, if I post it then comments will motivate me to write more. My first SI, if you haven't noticed. I just wanted to give it a try.

(The title is thanks to the song of the same name. There are various versions of this song but I was listening to Michael Bubble and Muse version.)