Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't care. Writing this for free.

AN: Hello there! Sorry I haven't been updating my other fics, but I was so incredibly uninspired for those, and yet I had this cool idea of getting myself into the world of Naruto, not cannon Naruto, but Dreaming of Sunshine Naruto! Sure, it will take a while to catch up to that canon, but this fic probably won't be all that long. Anyway, I hope you enjoy "Dreading the Sunshine" a different kind of SI.

Thanks a lot to Silver Queen for allowing me to use her universe.

Chapter 1: Wasting the years.

"Shhh, shhh... It's OK, Sayoko baby, it's OK." I remember mother saying soothingly into my ear as she hugged me tenderly and kissed my forehead with tears in her eyes, but I couldn't stop trembling. I couldn't. Because as she cooed me into calmness her hand hadn't let go of the tied rope she had placed around my neck. And I could hear THEM, the other children that were already hanging on the ceiling, gurgling and foaming in the mouth as they trashed, trying to breath. They were going to die, and so was I, I was going to die at the tender age of 5. Even the adults that were putting end to our lives were not going to make it for too long. The winter had come too fast and lasted too long. We no longer had food, we were starving and freezing.

A sob found its way to my throat. The memories of a past life never forgotten made everyhting worse. The happy life with loving parents in which I lacked for nothing was a constant reminder of how little I had now. The fact that I was born the first time around in a tropical country only served to highlight the harshness of winter of my new world. I missed mom, my real, sweet mom who always complained about my room being messy, but always was there with a plate of food every evening and a sweet word every night. I missed my comfy bed, my old friends and all the commodities of my time... What wouldn't I have given for having internet on the wee ours of the morning when homesickness left me unable to sleep and I desperately needed a distraction? What wouldn't I have given for a pain relief medicine while my muscles ached and my body got so sick it felt like it was falling apart?

If I had to describe my second life up to this point in time with one word, as I looked to the hanged children I had grown up with this time around, that word would be miserable. I had never been happy here in ancient Japan. I had been surviving but never living. I had died once by being on the wrong end of a pistol and I had died as a just another statistic in one of the most dangerous cities to live in the world. All because petty thieves wanted my car. My car that looked nice enough from outside but was falling apart from the inside because I couldn't afford to fix it. Jackasses. I hope it exploded with them in it or something.

But the past was neither here nor now. There was only one thought in my mind as I saw my mother walk away with the end of the rope in one hand, ready to pull me up by the neck like a living piñata: I don't want to die.

Even if the option was to be a time traveler that had to chance it on hew own in the cold, harsh world with the body of a toddler.

So I screamed with all the force I could muster (which I'm proud to say was really loud), but then again, the scream soon turned into a desperate gurgle and I was chocking and kicking while suspended in the air.

It was the end: I knew God wouldn't save me because He didn't save me when I prayed to him with a gun aimed to my temple. But I was not ready to give up just yet, so I raised my hands and grabbed the rope around my neck with pudgy fingers as I fought to support my own weight. But even the relief of a little weight my upper extremities provided were not enough to save my neck (pun intended) for I knew I was only prolonging the agony of oncoming death. The sight in front of me started turning foggier and foggier as I was losing my grip on both rope and life, and the darkened room was starting to look completely black save for a pinprick of light that reminded me of the belief of death being The Light at the end of The Tunnel.

But then the light was gone and I no longer felt my whole body relying right below my chin. I fell to the ground with a sick crunch (though it was hard to say what I hurt on the fall since my whole body was hurting like a bitch), getting in fetal position to make myself smaller by instinct while my chipped fingers wrapped around my bruised neck protectively. I felt big, callous hands wrap around my own, gently removing the limp rope, as a raspy voice over my head spoke whispered something my mind wasn't able to process, but I knew better than to trust, knew better than to let go of my vulnerable neck, for even the only relative I had in this world wouldn't hesitate to take my life while murmuring sweetly to me.

I didn't let go of my protective position then, nor when I was pulled into a warm chest. I was too scared to open my eyes or make a sound, even when the warmth of the body who was holding me fended off a little of the cold wind and a plea might be able to buy me a couple of seconds before death was forced upon me once again.

...

"I think she is in shock, Senju-sama," Uchiha Yume, a medic nin from once enemy clan of the Senju, reported to Tobirama, younger brother of the leader of the recently formed village of Konohagakure no Sato.

The village that had been built when Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara put an end to the two Clan's blood feud was still a work in process. Despite the conflict between ninja being no longer threatening to lead to another ninja war, making a home with along with the very same Shinnobi that had killed part of your family and whose family you have murdered in return was no easy task. However, It was because things had calmed after the very tense first months that Tobirama along with a few trusted representatives of various clans had been sent to recruit civilians to take care of the agriculture and other commercial endeavors needed for any economy to prosper; but the civilians in the nearby area had been either too distrustful or too content with their homes, homes that had housed several generations of their families, so they wouldn't move from their current locations. Not even the promise of free protection on a walled village was enough to move them, which was probably because this civilian's plentiful harvest had allowed them to hire their own ninja protectors and didn't want to risk moving to a enclosed space filled with murderers that had history of making war among them for ages.

Tobirama was frustrated, but he couldn't force the people with whom the village might strike deals with in the future, people that undoubtedly would become clients in the future if their new alliance became a success. So Tobirama looked a little bit farther away from the fertile area Konoha was built, and as the areas he looked into proved to be poorer and the nature around them more hostile, he managed to recruit civilians with a slightly higher degree of success. Still, most of the people who they managed to recruit were useless vagabonds or people who had lost everything and didn't mind following dangerous shinobi for the promise of living to see another day. The best farmers they recruited lacked the tools to work the land, lacked the seeds to plant new corps, and even the decent blacksmiths born in the various ninja families either couldn't cope with the demand of farming tools, or felt that creating those tools was bellow them since they were artist in the forgery of weapons.

It was never wise to antagonize the people who make your weapons, so the civilians they had would be lost in no time if they didn't make sure they had what they needed to start working and making a living. As for where to buy their supplies, they ended up needing to buy what they still lacked in other countries for their neighbors refused to sell to people who threatened to become their competition in a marked they were currently monopolizing: food exportation.

It was purely a stroke of luck which had Tobirama hear a scream while his squad was picking up a huge order of shovels and pikes in the borders of Land of Snow. The view of the poor, out-of-the-way village was grim and disgusting. Cold corpses of starved paupers on the streets had been either cannibalized or eaten by beasts of the nearby pine forest. The smell of those people didn't reach his nose, for the residual blood and putrid flesh had long since frozen; still, even when the whole place looked like god had forgotten it and every human had perished, there was a faint sound of struggle and a distant air of fresh blood from the shack to Tobirama's right. So the Senju entered said shack, not feeling more warmth in it than he felt outside (which wasn't surprising given that the construction lacked windows and its door was barely hanging in its hinges). Then he saw no less than a dozen children being forced to their death by skeletal parents that were probably running out food, so they decided to to kill the young ones for their own selfish survival.

Tobirama saw red as his eyes met the foggy, unfocused ones of a little blond girl who struggled with all she had to keep herself from dying. A moment later Tobirama was cutting the throat of the woman hanging the kid along with all the other vile people who had murdered their innocent children. But Tobirama was too late to save the pitiful children: the were dead, all but one. He cut the rope with a thrown kunai, knowing that every second was precious and his want to be delicate while putting the girl down might mean she might die like the others.

It was moments after he approached the only survivor that the group the Senju Shinobi had been traveling with caught up to him and the Uchiha medic he had brought along had diagnosed the kid while the rest of his men fidgeted outside the blood-spattered room where their squad leader had enacted a massacre. A massacre enacted in a foreign land that might result in a conflict with the Land of Snow if word reached the wrong ears.

"We need to burn this place," Tobirama announced, knowing full well the evidence of the events of this day needed to be erased so their feeble peace could be maintained. Tobiraba cradled the small frame of the girl he had saved as he made his way out, his boots making disgusting wet noises as he stepped on the puddles of blood that continued to flow from dismembered corpses. It was probably a small mercy that the little one seemed oblivious to the happenings around her.

The bloody shack was burnt as soon as Tobirama and the 5 years' old stepped out of it, the single Uchiha in his team easy was more than enough to encase the whole village in a giant ball of fire. Fire Jutsu, it seemed, was something all Uchiha, even rare Uchiha medic nin, mastered. The smell of burnt human bodies accompanied them for several miles as the wind mockingly blew in the direction of the road they had to take back home. A detour was tempting but they abstained: they had a mission to take their current cargo back as soon as possible so their new home could take the first step to become self-sustaining.

If anyone in Konoha's temporary hospital noticed the shocked girl wearing clothes that were not typical of the Land Of Fire, nobody said a word.

...

It had been a month since I last opened my eyes. Or so I was told. I was baffled to discover the world I had been born in had capable medics. As far as I had recalled, medics in primitive times did little more than patch you up with herbal remedies and send you away with a prayer; not to mention this doctors were different from what I recalled historical doctors of the ancient Japan were, and not only because they knew what neurons were, but because they seemed to have healing powers the like of which I had only ever read about on fiction or watched on anime. "Where am I?" I rasped. Apparently getting almost chocked to death could seriously harm your vocal chords... or maybe my voice was raspy because I didn't speak for a month?

"You are in Konoha, in the Land of Fire," the woman replied candidly.

"Say it again?" I ask-begged. I had to have heard wrong. She could't have said-

"You are in Konohagakure. The Land Hidden in the Leafs." Something in my expression prompted her to keep going, "The ninjas in the Land of Fire had been in war for a long time, but Senji Harashima and Uchiha Madara made their clans become allies and thus Konogahagakure was born. You will be safe here, little girl, our Shinobi will protect you for you are now part of our village."

My mind was completely malfunctioning. If I had been in shock before I didn't know what to label the revelation that I was, not in the past as I had believed in my secluded rebirth village, but I currently living in a world where ninja had magical healing powers; worse still, I was just told I was a place I knew only existed in the world of Naruto.

I did the only thing I could do in such an impossible situation. I laughed. Laughed until my body shook. The fountain of tears in my eyes made my increasingly hysterical laughter grow up in pitch and intensity because knowing I was crying from laughter when the last time I opened my eyes I was being chocked to death was too much for any logical response. Soon enough I became unable to breath, my trachea was spasming with wild bursts of mad giggles, preventing the air that needed to go down pass my throat.

I had finally lost it. Me? Reborn in a manga, in the Naruto Manga of all things? It was absolutely absurd! and it wasn't even all that funny, but I couldn't make my body stop the happy nose that was carrying anything but real mirth. I was reborn in ancient Japan, I had concluded as long as my reborn had it's brain developed enough to think and put two and two together. And now? now someone was just pulling my leg by telling me I was born in a tale that wouldn't be written for centuries? It made me crack up.

Soon, the medic bay was filled with worried medic that eyed lil me spiraling down into insanity. And, oh god, they had the leaf protector on their heads. All of them. And that medic did have green-glowing hands that looked just like Naruto's healing jutsu... The hysteric laughter mixed up with panic and dreadful realization, then denial, and my brain started to hurt. Blood started to pour down my nose and ears as I probably burst something delicate and vital in my brain with all the abrupt and strong emotions meshing into massive panic attack. A panic attack that had come as soon as I was out of the shock of almost being hanged.

The emotions cursing my body were too much. If I was lucky enough my mind would block all my memories to preserve my sanity and I could start anew as just another homeless girl in a world where ninja were capable of magic jutsus.

The medic that had informed me of my current location pulled me on her way as something inside my head was hemorrhaging then, praise be to The Lord, she pinched my neck in just the right spot to take me to oblivion. Maybe death by getting hanged wouldn't have been so bad after all?

...

Tobirama had just exited a reunion with his brother and the heads of the various clans when a petite, brown-haired woman in standard Konoha medic uniform, caught up with him to report the change of status of the girl he had rescued near Land of Snow. So far, the daily reports he had requested had been dull, brief and repetitive. They routinely cleaned her catatonic body with sponges, had IV drips in her arms to stop her from dehydrating, and carefully managed to get smashed food to go down her throat. Of course, the medics had made sure to put the girl on diapers and change her when needed, but they kept those unimportant details to themselves. Thus, since Tobirama had expected this report to be the same as the ones before he had been surprised by the medic's words.

After the recounts of what had taken place to the girl he went to look for her at the provisional medical facility. He knew he didn't need to keep an eye on this case but he did. Despite Tobirama's cold attitude and hardened heart, the man wan't completely unfeeling: he had killed the girl's family (the blond hair, brown hair and face structure the she had in common with the woman dangling her with a rope from the ceiling, were a dead giveaway), then Tobirama took the shocked kid to another country where she didn't have anyone at all to look for her, which meant Tobirama felt that the little blond was his responsability now, and will continue to be until he found her a place to belong and good family to take her in.

A Shunshi later and Senju Tobirama was in the medic tent. The girl was unconscious when he arrived, but the little twitches her body gave made it obvious it wasn't a deep slumber. So, as soon as he verified waking the kid up wasn't going to be dire for the patient, he gently shook her awake. Brown eyes looked up at him with a gleam of madness and a small smile formed in her thin lips. "Let me guess, you are a Naruto Ninja too?"

Tobirama frowned, having no idea what a "Naruto Ninja" was supposed to be. "No, I'm Senju Tobirama," he introduced himself and the girl let out a surprisingly disturbing giggle.

"Of course you are!" She said with an enthusiasm that was plain wrong, "I'm pretty sure that if you toss me out of the window I can show you I'm a ninja too," she looked to the window with as if she wanted to jump out of it and end her life right then.

Tobirama sighed.

"Look I understand you are afraid-"

"Afraid?" She asked in confusion, "Why would I be afraid? We are currently in the fucking Naruverse! Isn't that super awesome? Oh! and you are a ninja, right? Tobirama was it? Can you teach me how to make those magic-jutsu thingies? It would be so cool to say I learned Jutsu from the Hokage! Maybe you can teach me the Rasengan! That was invented already right? Probably not because you look to young for the Forth to have been born... But hey! I'm pretty sure you have something cool you can teach me like... I don't know, the exploding-head-no-jutsu?" She giggled again.

Something was really wrong with that kid.

"First, I am not the Hokage, my bro*cough* Senju Hashirama-sama is," Tobirama clarified, ignoring the mumbled "that much before the start of cannon, huh?" as he went on, "and you, little girl, are unwell and not apt to be a ninja in your condition."

"Because I'm crazy, right?"

"Yes. That is one reason. Mentally unstable kids aren't taught how to cause bodily harm to others." For some reason, she laughed at that too.

"So, tell me, Not-Hokage-sama, is something interesting going on in Konoha? Building a giant statue of Harashima and Madara perhaps?"

"No." Though that one wasn't a bad idea. A statue so future generations could remember the founders of the village was probably a good reminder, and having a reminder of how two mortal enemies let go of their grudges for the sake of the future might asure the mistakes of the past wouldn't be committed again... Belatedly, Tobirama realized he was getting distracted from the reason he had rushed to the medic bay. Why had he come to this girl again? Right, to see if she was alright, which she clearly wasn't. He looked towards the medic nin in the room "Uchiha-san. Make sure to ask a Yamanaka to give that girl a check up."

"As you say, Senju-sama," the Uchiha replied formally all the while Sayoko's eyes followed the parting Senju, who had forgotten to ask her her name during his visit.

Stupid fictional ninja.

...

Life for Sayoko didn't change much for the next 2 years. Even if she had moved to a room in the permanent Konoha hospital as soon as that particularly building was finished, her dubious mental health had gained her a permanent spot under the watchful eye of the local medic nin. Heck, she even had her own personal Kamanaka to bother once a week.

She had to admit she loved her imagination, convincing herself she was born in a fictional world where nobody knew anything of the customs under which she had been raised was liberating: she could sing Christmas carols in july, insult people in Spanish without them knowing they were insulted, then she would spend those many free hours coming up with possible endings of the series that were ongoing when she died... if she had died that is. She felt really alive at the moment so the whole sob story about her growing up as a borderline pauper and almost dying could have been her subconscious giving her the background necessary for her to become the dashing heroine at the end of the story... it certainly would fit the rule most fictional tales followed about their main characters: the intrepid, brave character with the dazzling blond hair shall be an orphan that found his or her destiny after going through hardship. Maybe she would end up saving the world while she was at it too?.. Nah! Her imagination knew better than to throw that particular cliche in the mix.

What Sayoko knew for certain was that she belonged in the loony bin: she was sane enough to know she was crazy. Really crazy. As in "I sometimes think I got reborn in the Naruto manga" crazy. But the moments in which she truly believed she was now a fictional character on a great manga that got so bad half way into the Shippunen she simply had to drop it. Because, how many times can Naruto play the card of "I know your pain because I'm also a ninja" before you want to punch all things orange?

Yeah, she wasn't that big of a Naruto fan, so it puzzled her that, of all series she ever read, of all animes she ever watched she would be "reborn" in this one. If it was up to her she would have been trapped in an imaginary world that reflected something she liked more, like "The Legend of the Sun Knight" or "One Piece". But nope, she was inside Naruto, a world where you could be yell at the top of your lungs every day of your life and wear a jumpsuit of the color of two mixed primary colors, and still be considered a ninja.

Sometimes she wished her -probably comatose- brain trapped her in a different reality but alas it was not to be.

In the end, she figured it didn't matter all that much to be in the Naruverse: she was inside the play and she knew many of the players and a huge chunk of the script. So all that was left to do was sit back and watch the world around her spun, or get up and mess up with people without giving any real spoilers of the entertaining disasters making their way to the "present".

For a while, Sayoko considered taking her life to see if she would wake up like one would in a nightmare, or the Inception movie. However she didn't try to kill herself in the end because, well, if you die in The Matrix...

The only thing she regretted after having her merry time in the loony bin was the lost of her playmate. Two years of abundant insane remarks had made it so Tobirama would visit her less and less frequently. Pity, they guy was rather nice to look at.

...

One day when crazy Sayoko became 11 she experienced something she had almost forgotten existed: the period. She was having her first period again. While the first time had been quite unpleasant and painful, this time was like getting back an old enemy. She wasn't happy in the slightest, but this one event was the one that finally gave a pause and finally accept that the notion of everything that happened around her was real. This realization didn't come in an earth-shattering manner, it was simply like discovering you were wearing those small earrings you forgot you were wearing until you noticed they didn't match what you were wearing. Maybe it was so unsurprising because a part of her had acknowledged the truth of her reality the very same day she woke up to see the green light of a healing jutsu moving up and down her body as one of the many doctors in the village gave her a physical check-up just in case.

Or maybe it was because she had been struggling to keep to her delusion just a little bit longer. But sadly, she was unable to deny the truth any longer and the mundane revelation that she had reached the most annoying milestone in a woman's life was but the last piece of good she managed to pile up on top of an unstable Jenga tower, making the whole damn thing come down.

So Sayoko accepted the reality of been reborn inside the Narutoverse. It only took her 11 years to realize it and come to terms with it.

Pained but more lucid she had been in years, Sayoko went to look for one of the nurses to get herself the ninja-world equivalent of pads... and maybe something for the pain. Then, as she walked the familiar walls of the place she had been living in longer than any other in this world, she started pondering how she was going to spend the rest of her life, and Sayoko knew she needed to finally get back into the game because she sure as hell didn't want to spend the rest of her life trapped in a room that smelled of antiseptic.

Now all she had to do was convince the medic-nins that she was no longer crazy after 6 straight years of liberally acting like a total lunatic.

To Be Continued.

.

AN: This was fun to write. Honestly, I admire Silver Queen for having her SI become such a cool ninja. I don't have what it gets to become a ninja, and if I got reborn in a fictional world I think I would react pretty much like I wrote above. Probably... OH! And I wanted to point out that, while I started this waaay before the DoS canon takes place, it is the same world, so you can be sure I plan to bring Shikako from DoS at some point in the fic (not telling you when).

Let me know if you think you would also go crazy if you got reborn in the Naruverse! And if not... well, you can still review. I love reviews :D