KAGEROU DAYS: 1

My world ended in an eruption of pain, lights, colors, and sounds, until it all faded out and all I could hear was that song on the radio ringing in my ears, until that faded away too into a constant resonating note, like the ghostly echo of a bell. I'm not sure if I should count myself lucky or unfortunate that I don't remember much of it because what I can remember scares the hell out of me every time I think about it. Though I suppose I should tell you what I can, because it's relevant... You should know that I'm dead. Or I was once. I'm not too sure of the specifics, or much of anything at all really, since I seem to have undergone some twisted form of metempsychosis.

For those of you that don't already know, Karma is a bitch. So is reincarnation. Then again, I'm fairly sure those two go hand in hand.

I nearly died again the second time I was brought into the world. Something to do with chakra stabilizing and development problems. But then, that was to be expected, considering my soul had transmigrated from another fucking dimension... 'How do I know this' you may ask? Oh, well, for one thing, ninjas. They were everywhere—like roaches. Incidentally, they probably wouldn't have too much of an issue surviving a nuke either. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Back to the initial question, there's just one tiny detail I might have forgotten to mention, like...ever.

I was probably the biggest closet narutard on the face of the planet before I died.

But none of that mattered in the beginning... No, in the beginning—to quote a certain genius I'd once heard of in another life—there was confusion, and terror, and it didn't get much better from there. Worse than probably anything else—the hugeness, brightness, and overall overwhelming quality of everything and everyone around me—was the constant smoldering sensation I felt everywhere. It's like I could still feel the explosion at the end, shoved into my veins, my lungs, burning like someone had poured bleach down my throat and it was streaming out my nose, and my eye sockets—I probably scared my new mom half to death if anything I felt inside was even remotely displayed on the outside of me.

I didn't actually meet her officially until a full week after my birth. Chakra instability is apparently a big deal. I can't even count how many times I blacked out and almost died again. To make it worse, I didn't even know what the hell was going on back then. I had a half suspicion that nobody else did either. But they did their best to fix me, and when I was finally placed in a pair of warm, but trembling arms, the woman who had become my mother demonstrated a small but audibly emotional display of relief by somehow holding onto me gently enough but with a certain sense of urgency suffice to make me imagine that she was also hanging on for dear life... I suppose we shared that in common.

With my shoddy, broken understanding of Japanese, I could only hang on to every half word or so, but I didn't really need to understand her words to understand that she loved me. If, with enormous effort, I quieted my turbulent thoughts, pushed away the constant burning feeling, and concentrated on her heartbeat, I could almost feel it radiating from her. It was probably the only thing that kept me from going off the deep end. So, naturally, you could say I grew more than a little bit attached. Like, stupid attached. As in, every time she put me down, I'd inevitably start wailing. Not just from constant chakra irritation, but...to put it frankly, I was terrified. Of everything. What's more, on top of it all, I still wasn't a hundred percent sure just what exactly had happened to me. And on some levels, I didn't want to know.

It was easy not to think about it though. Especially with my senses being bombarded a hundred different ways. You could say I was easily distracted back then. And I couldn't truly say there wasn't a time that I didn't have my maw wide open and screaming. My poor mom...somehow she dealt with my constant fits, and I had absolutely no idea how she could be so patient on so little sleep. But after a few weeks of believing I'd gone to some form of hell, the reality finally sunk in and I was forced to accept the facts. It didn't really go over too well. Stuff like that never truly does when it comes to me—change. I hated every moment of it. But at least the panic lessened...and, by the grace of everything that is good and holy, so did the burning.

It was still there of course. It was more like...it had torn through me, changing me, until there was nothing left and just remained—a smoldering ember—deep inside of me. It was fluctuating and volatile though, and flared up, burning, and scratching at the oddest moments. I noticed after some time that it was connected to my emotions, which were just as volatile, and I knew intrinsically that it wasn't done with me yet, and I had the tormenting feeling, were I to reach for it...with even the smallest, featherlight touch...everything would ignite, like the slightest spark can turn a gasoline soaked highway into a river of flames, devouring everything in its path... I was terrified of what was inside me. And it was always...always there.

But with its ominous retreat, came an odd silence. It took me a while to realize that the silence was me. The total absence of screaming infant. Go figure. I think I nearly gave my mother a heart attack again because she nearly vaulted over the crib bars to check for vital signs. It was honestly the first time I really got a look at her through eyes that weren't completely clouded by the utter chaos of my existence. She was haggard, and defeated, and not without dark circles beneath her eyes, but...even though her bright red hair hung lank and some of her bangs were escaping from her low ponytail to hang in her face, even though exhaustion seemed to live and breed in every fiber of her being, when she was reassured that I wasn't dead or dying, her smile lit up everything about her, and her eyes were golden glowing pools in the dim light of the obscenely early hours.

"Kagerou-chan..." her voice trembled with amazement and she seemed on the edge of crying out of sheer joy, "no more tears..." And then she started laughing, sinking to the floor beside the crib, stroking my forehead through the bars with that same sort of desperate relief she had when she'd first held me in her arms.

I think I broke her.

But I was living proof that broken things could be fixed. And I planned to fix...this...whatever it was. After that night, as mom had said in her own words, there were no more tears. In fact, I didn't plan on doing it again if I could help it. The worst was over. And despite everything, god and physics be damned, I had somehow survived it. Me. My being. I was still here. Still alive. For better or for worse, it was too soon to tell. But as a universal rule, being alive was generally better than being dead. And I was thankful for it. A fresh start. From here on out, things would be different, and could only go up from—

"Nee-chaaaan!" The apartment door slammed open and a red blur sailed through it, slamming into mom like a bullet, and I was quite frankly shocked that they didn't take down the wall with them and land in the next apartment complex across the back alley. "Nee-chan, I'm baaaaack!"

Mom let out a long suffering sigh from beneath the red-beast-woman and remarked dryly, "I couldn't help but notice..."

Suddenly, the door-breaker released mom with a sudden gasp and retracted herself immediately, speaking quicker than I'd ever heard someone speak before, "I'm sorry! I forgot I'm not supposed to—wait—" she stopped dead, staring intensely at mom's abdomen. "—where did it go?"

Mom brushed herself off and sent the other strikingly familiar woman a gentle smile gesturing to my crib over in the corner. "She came a few weeks early, Kushina."

Wait. What.

"You mean..." The younger of the two trembled out, "You didn't wait for me...?"

Mom let out a peal of laughter and shook her head, "This isn't the sort of thing that can wait! If they want to come out, then that's what they do, regardless of anyone else's feelings on the matter." She reached down and stroked my forehead again with that gentle smile of hers. "Nee, you really scared me, you know..."

I know. I'm sorry.

The other woman put a hand over her abdomen and seemed anxious, frowning for a moment. But then Mom said carefully, "Kushina...do you want to hold her?"

Her head snapped up and her voice fluttered with excitement. "I can?"

Instead of answering, Mom removed me gently from my crib and deposited me in the woman's awkwardly placed limbs, adjusting them so that they were less awkward, and I could finally see her face clearly. I froze at what I saw. Because it wasn't just eerie familiarity anymore. This was recognition. This was—

Her face broke out into one of the biggest grins I think I've ever seen and her voice melted into baby talk. "You're so cuuuuute!" I stared. Still frozen. Still not blinking. "I'm your cousin Kushina, and when you grow up, I'm going to teach you all sorts of things, and I'll take you to my favorite restaurant, and we'll pick flowers, and I'll make your hair pretty, and—" I couldn't follow after that. I think that maybe part of my brain had just shut down on me.

I'd never really been one to panic unless I was dying and/or on fire. Otherwise, I wasn't one to complain much. If something was uncomfortable, I dealt with it silently and without whining about it or flailing my limbs around like a submerged bulldog. I didn't necessarily like change, but again, I would deal, because that was just one of life's many shit sandwiches that we all had to choke down at some point or another and grin afterwards. Sometimes things got really bad though. Like right now. At which point I reacted in either one of two ways. Option one: break down and cry like a mental hospital patient, or then there was option two: deny, deny, deny, deny.

Yeah. I think I was in shock for a long time after that fateful meeting. Everything seemed out of focus, on autopilot, and I lost my grip on time. It was all blended together in a blur, the minutes, hours, days, weeks... My development skyrocketed, as is the norm for growing infants, even without my attention to it, and each time Kushina came to visit—which was quite a frequent occurrence, unfortunately—her belly became rounder, and rounder, and rounder. I think it just got worse when she dragged her husband over. It sort of made me want to throw up. And I did. A lot. On him, mostly; not my proudest moments...

I was an avid studier of psychology before. I knew what was happening. It was a way to cope with everything I knew—where I was, what had happened, what was, and what would be. And I was absolutely helpless, unable to stop any of it from coming. Convincing my brain that none of it was real worked for about a max of six months before I began to snap out of it though. There was also the fact to take into account that my brain was still that of a newborn, and kids bounce back fast from PTSD. Because I was pretty damn sure that's what it was. Getting blown up, being reborn, then finding out where you were born was a world of super-powered freaks and horribly painful death...tends to do that sort of thing to people. I knew it was over when I started to cry for the first time in months.

Mom, knew there was something wrong. I knew she did. I just hadn't really cared about anything for six months straight. I'd started walking, which surprised and delighted her, and I didn't know if that was normal or not, but I couldn't say I cared either way. I just needed to get around, so I stood up. And that was that. Understanding and comprehension of words came just as easily, though I doubted I'd be making much headway in the speech department any time soon due to my tendency to remain silent; my vocal chords were still woefully underdeveloped. It was only after what I liked to call my 'autopilot' stage that I actually became fully aware of my surroundings. But along with what felt like reverting back to 'manual' mode, came the 'feelings' part and it brought me to tears one morning when my brain finally conceded that I would be able to cope—to accept my situation...my new reality. Coping and accepting didn't automatically make it easy though. I immediately toddled into the kitchen, found Mom's leg, and held on for dear life, sniffling pitifully.

She paused in her drying of the dishes and stared down incredulously. It'd been the first time I initiated contact in months, and she murmured musingly, "Kage-chan..." I only hugged her leg tighter. She finally laughed and patted my head serenely. "You really know how to keep me on my toes, ne? In the beginning, I was afraid you might explode. Next thing I know, you're as silent as the void. I worry, you know." She smiled slowly. "But it keeps me wondering what will come next..." I simply stared up at her, frowning with calculation, trying to figure her out, and she stared back, seemingly doing the same. "What are you thinking in that head of yours, hm...?"

There was silence in the house, and the late evening sun filtered through the window in rays that illuminated the otherwise invisible dust moats wafting lazily around us. There was a strange peace in the quiet. And for a moment, just a moment, I thought...maybe some things didn't have to be so bad in this life.

That was when the air explodedall around us. Mom moved on instinct, jerking me up into her arms faster than I could see her, and sped out of the house in a similar fashion. And it's a good thing she did. A few moments later, our house, and all our possessions inside it had been flattened by the whip of a gigantic, fur covered tail, attached to an even more enormous fur covered beast. My chakra—because I knew it must be—flared at the horrific miasma that surrounded everything. And what's worse, it wasn't just inside me that burned any more, it was in my skin now, and it felt like somebody was going at it with a cheese grater. But...it wasn't myburn. It was coming from the beast.

Naturally, I screamed in pain and terror.

...

It was only the beginning.

Three weeks.

Three weeks and the village was still in an uproar.

Three weeks since Mom had found us a small apartment in the part of the village that wasn't still too saturated with the Kyuubi's evil chakra for human habitation; it was like nuclear fallout. It wasn't much, but it was home.

Three weeks since the Sandaime had been reinstated.

Three weeks since Minato and Kushina had died.

I couldn't remember much about either of them, seeing as how in most of their visits, I was in mental autopilot mode. They had been too much...much too much for my fragile mind to handle—to accept—at the time. And so I had denied their existence almost entirely, blocking them out... But from the blurry recollections I could remember...they had been unconditionally kind to me. Especially Kushina. Always Kushina. Kushina, who wanted to watch me grow, to teach me great things, to take me to her favorite places, to pick flowers, and make my hair pretty...and now she'd never do any of it. She was gone, and I could do nothing—nothing—to bring her, or Minato back. I was just a baby.

For all that, the searing gilt tore at me from the inside, out, like a wild beast with razor claws—fitting, knowing their end. I had nightmares about it. Three weeks, and I hadn't slept right ever since. The nature of this world was pressing down on me, in, and around on me, like a torture room where the spiked walls slowly closed in on you. This place was death, waiting for us all, in one form or another... You'd think from the perspective of one who's already died, this wouldn't come as such a shock. But I didn't even know what to feel any longer. If I died again, naturally the cycle would start over. So what did I have to worry about? Well, suppose the next place was even worse than this one? And the next, and the next, and the next... Would it ever end? The cycle of birth and death—livedierepeatlivedierepeat—losing my family, my loved ones, over, and over, and over... The very thought was enough to send me over the edge. Yet what could I do? What was there todo?

I couldn't linger upon it. After the attack, everyone was devastated. There was no time for my perpetual existential crisis. Mom was a wreck. Apparently Kushina was the only relative she'd managed to track down. And learning that her fragile, improvised family was about to expand to include one more member had given her something to hope for the future. To have it ruthlessly snatched out of her reach...she was shattered.

That was until one day, I awoke to her shaking my shoulder gently. I never cried when I woke up—something I remember doing frequently as a kid the first time around. I wasn't sure if she found it unsettling or not; Mom had a good way of hiding things like that. As it was, there was a strange, nervous excitement in her voice as she urged me, "Kage-chan? Kagerou? Let's go. How about a little walk, ne?"

I yawned and let out a whine of protest. I said I didn't cry—and that's the truth—but it didn't make waking up any easier... Mom thought it was adorable, and even coined the nickname 'Nemui' for me, and the first thing I thought of was 'Sleepy' from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. I supposed I should be thankful for not being reincarnated into that horror story, because I was fairly sure I'd find a way to piss off something dangerous. Then again, I conceded, that's probably going to happen anyway...

I proceeded to allow Mom to dress me, and assumed a zombie-like state of compliance—which was also bizarre, considering what I knew of my 'adorable' baby brother back home. Home. And with that, my thoughts returned to another world, another time, another place...another life that was no longer mine. There wasn't a single day that went by that I didn't think of it at least once. And every time, it crushed me.

"Now, now, no reason to be sad, ne?" Mom patted my cheeks, a cheerful smile slapped on her face, as if the past three weeks hadn't even happened. "Today is going to be a happy day. You'll see."

I stared back in silence, blinking at her with questions in my identical sun-bright eyes. But since I could voice none of them, I was simply dragged along without further ado, and that was that. Actually, that was most things these days. I really needed to find a way to communicate. Then I could finally engage in my favorite activity: arguing. Granted, I was never particularly eloquent at it like those uptight jerks on the debate team, but I made up for that with sheer stubbornness. You could say I was obstinate to a fault. If I wanted to push a brick wall to China, dammit, that brick wall was going to China.

Out on the streets, the difference between the Konoha of now, and the Konoha of three weeks ago was staggering. As opposed to the normal hustle and bustle of the morning rush, the place carried an eerie, empty silence. The shops that hadn't been demolished were still open for business of course, but hardly anyone who was anybody was out shopping. Everyone was with their families...or whatever was left of them. Needless to say, not a single child's face was to be seen running about playing friendly games of ninja... I had to say, I missed the laughter.

As it was, I held tight to Mom's hand, and she steered us far away from those areas destroyed by the demon fox... They were still finding bodies in the wreckage, and several more people had been reported dead and missing. I supposed that's why there were so many children at the orphanage when we arrived. So many of them were screaming and crying, and I just didn't know what to do. For a horror striking moment, I entertained the errant thought that Mom might leave me there. But then I snapped out of it, stared around at all the miserable children around me, and reflected on how lucky I actually was. My Mom stayed with me for the entire shebang—to protect me, not Konoha. How fortunate was I that I had a parent—a Konoha shinobi at that—who cared about my safety more than the safety of anyone, or anything else? Looking at the number of orphans around me, I realized that there were several more who would leave their kids alone simply for the sake of a goddamn village. The Will of Fire—merely a fanatic principle that had already begun to decay at its good intentioned core long, long ago...

Why are we here? I wanted to ask, staring up at Mom with a perplexed expression as she walked on, her eyes sweeping over all the parentless children with a mournful glaze in them. Maybe we were going to make a donation? But judging by our new apartment's size, I didn't think Mom was really all that well off...not poor exactly, but certainly not a philanthropist either. But that's when I saw the old man, dressed up smartly in his Hokage best, speaking hurriedly with an orphanage attendant. That's when Mom started walking quicker with a more intent stride, until she let go of my hand completely and broke into a run.

"YOU!" I jumped as I realized the furious exclamation came from my normally very demure parent. And I watched on in horror as she aimed a fist for the elder shinobi. "HOW DARE YOU?!" Of course, none of her blows hit home, all blocked successfully by the proclaimed 'god of shinobi,' but then again, I don't think she was really trying too hard. Her rage was almost palpable, and she swung her fists imprecisely in an eruption of emotion that existed only to disperse the pent up frustration within. I think that's why he didn't fight back. He merely defended himself with little effort and a somber expression drilled into his aged face. Was that also a flicker of guilt? I had enough experience in it for the past three weeks to see it from a mile away.

But there was only so much one could take, and finally, he grabbed both Mom's wrists in one hand faster than I could follow with my eyes and commanded, "That's enough, Tonbo."

She suddenly went rigid, as if just realizing what she had done, but she jerked her hands back as if she'd been bitten, putting some distance between them. "It's not!" she retorted with a viciousness I'd never heard in her voice before. Then after a moment, she broke down and cried out, "I am not stupid, Sandaime-sama!"

"I'm fully aware of that..." He dipped his head towards her in recognition, the somber expression never leaving his face.

I stared at my mother's shaking form and tentatively toddled over to her, wrapping my arms around her leg and staring between the two of them with incomprehension. Why would Mom attack the Hokage of all people? Better question: Where the hell were the ANBU bodyguards?

Mom stared down at me, her eyes glazed over with emotion as she stroked my hair, then switched her furious gaze back to Hiruzen. "You know why I came to this place. You know! And yet still, you try and pull the wool over my eyes!" She closed them for a moment, and opened them with a determined glint shining off those now intimidating golden orbs. "No... I will not stand idly by and let the four of you do whatever you please. You may be Hokage once again, but this is a clan matter. And though we may no longer be many...I intend to change that." After a deadly pause, she hissed out, "Are you going to help me, or are you going to stand in my way?"

I stared up at her, scandalized. That was a direct threat, wasn't it? Not just to the Hokage but to Konoha itself! People had been massacred for less! Mom, I thought, horrified, what in the seven fiery hells are you doing?

The old man let out a long, tired sigh, shaking his head. "This is the best solution I could coerce my colleagues into accepting, Tonbo. There was much debate over what to do about it, and let me assure you, there were far worse options that were brought to the table—"

"You are Hokage!" Mom suddenly screeched, making me flinch again, and she caught herself, pausing to pat my head reassuringly before grating out at the old man before us, "You know what the best solution is, yet you do not act upon it! If you are Hokage, hurry up and act like one!"

"It's not that simple." He pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Part of this job is learning how to play the game. There are politics involved here, and interests that—should your best solution be implemented—may put you, and your daughter, at risk."

Mom was silent for a long moment after that before whispering, "...We are always at risk. I was resigned to that fact the moment I decided to track down Kushina. My family is what's most important, Hokage-sama. I will go to any lengths to protect them, and my dream, no matter how far... That is my nindo."

I stared up at the determination glowing in her eyes and stared some more. In that moment, I think I knew why I had been born as her daughter. It was the same look I got whenever my mind was made up. Once past a certain point, there was no turning back. Mom was there, and there was no convincing her otherwise. She was just as pigheaded as me.

He saw the look in her eyes too, and once recognizing it for what it was, Hiruzen closed his eyes in defeat. "I can see there will be no convincing you otherwise. Very well. I have warned you. I will do what I can to make arrangements, but you will have to deal with the consequences."

Suddenly, Mom's lips twisted into a wry smirk. "In other words...you don't want to deal with the paperwork."

"Can't say I'm looking forward to it, no," He answered honestly, pulling out a pipe from within his sleeves and lighting it before taking in a long drag and breathing out a cloud of grey smoke that twisted into the air and disappeared as we watched. "Only three weeks into this job, and I can't wait to retire again... But then I don't know what I'd do with myself."

Mom's smile faded and her voice turned gentle once more as she consoled, "I was even more upset upon hearing of Biwako-sama's fate. I was glad to have known her...and I will miss her dearly."

Hiruzen nodded heavily, admitting after another puff on his pipe, "...So will I." After a long pause, he tore his gaze away from the clouds and promptly changed subjects, "Well? Do you want to see him, or not?"

Mom's eyes held a certain anxious excitement as she nodded firmly, grabbing onto my hand with purpose as she followed the robed man into the building swiftly. My confusion multiplied as their conversation morphed into more complex things such as finances, and political jargon, which I tuned out in favor of concentrating on where we were going. We passed rooms and walls with finger paint pictures on them and motivational posters about becoming ninja. They really started the brain washing early, didn't they? But finally we moved on to a part of the orphanage that looked like it hadn't been used in a while, and at the end of the hall we came to a single room with a crib centered in the middle of it.

There, rolled over on his side, happily gnawing his gums on one of the bars, was how I got my first glance of Uzumaki Naruto.

…

I really didn't like how Mom was smiling.

So, this is a remake of one of my old fics. Some of you may remember it.

And NO, before you ask, this is not a Kagepro song fic, nor does it have anything to do with the series. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, good! Enjoy the rest of the story! (Whatever's left of it)

Kagerou means 'Mayfly' or 'Heat-Haze' (you know, those little squiggly lines you see in the air on really hot days?)

So I hope that's all cleared up now!

Questions, comments, concerns—you know what to do ^^