美夢: A Beautiful Dream
Author's Note: Hey guys! So I'm writing a self-insert. I know the Naruto community is saturated with them, but I wanted to try my hand at it. I'd appreciate any advice or constructive criticism you could give me! Thank you very much for reading!
Chapter 1: Beauty in the unknown
Megan's hands shook as she handed the older gentleman his change.
"Have a nice night, sir!" She said cheerfully, contrary to her nervous hands.
The corner of the older man's lip twitched before he slowly walked through the automatic doors.
"You too, sweetie." He said as he turned to leave. His cane clicking and dragging against the floor with each step he took
The girl exhaled shakily. She hated doing things like this. Every minute she worried, she stressed. She hated talking to people, it made her so anxious. It also tended to make her over think things and mess up the task as a result.
Her thoughts were interrupted, when a young boy, with shoulder length curly sand colored hair, strolled to up to the counter and placed a Coke on its silvery surface.
"My staff numbers are 324678." He said without looking up from his phone. A hint of disinterest evident in his voice.
Megan felt a wave of insecurity and even a little bit of self-hate, wash over her as she put the tall boy's Coke through.
Before she could get the boy to pay, another coworker came by and rested her arm against the counter and began having a conversation with the boy. The girl had trained Megan, but whenever Megan tried to talk to her she tended to not say much and if she saw Megan walk by, she would ignore her.
The two in front of her laughed and talked for a few moments about school. Megan only watched and forced a polite smile on her face. No one talked like that with her. Why was it so hard to be interesting?
She pushed the thumbs she had in her jeans, harder against the edge of the pockets. Steeling herself from the automatic response of fleeing.
The older girl excused herself with a final laugh, before walking off to the break room to clock out. The boy sighed slightly before he paid by tapping his debit card against the machine and left without a single word. Megan wasn't sure if he would appreciate her wishing him a good break or not. So she said nothing.
They all hated her. She knew it. That could be the only explanation. All Megan wanted to do was go home, away from this place. Away from everyone. Why did she still work at this horrible place that only caused her stress? Why did she continue to exist even?
-
The store was closed now. Megan had already put her till away and had gone to the break room and grabbed her stuff from her locker.
She had to pry the automatic doors apart, in order to leave. She turned slightly and barely whispered an audible goodbye to the final coworkers in the store. They would be bothered or indifferent to her goodbye anyway, she thought.
With the close of the doors and the new feeling of fresh evening air, Megan felt a little better. She reached into her uniform pocket and pulled out a pair of tangled headphones, which she then plugged into her phone.
There wasn't much length to them now, after being so tangled, but Megan was too tired to spend a minute untangling them. So she walked to the bus stop, crossing the grass while listening to the soothing sounds of Chopin.
There was a highway that she needed to cross to get to the bus stop, so she pressed the pedestrian crosswalk button and waited patiently. The walk sign lit up and she hastily strode across. Her gait became a bit uneven when she began to think about messing up her walk, especially with so many people in cars watching her. She blushed at the awkwardness but pretended it didn't happen.
She was almost to the other side when her headphone fell out of her ear because of its short length. She stopped for barely a short period of time to place it back in.
She barely heard the screeches of the tires, her eyes met the green light in horror, before Megan closed them forever.
-
Everything looked fuzzy. She was wet and slimy. Her limbs flailed around her. Why couldn't she see? Where was the ground?
She heard faint mumblings. She felt hands around her waist, but they were way too big in comparison. Someone was holding her up with ease. Her eyes started to adjust a bit and the figure holding her came into view. A woman lying on the bed, sweat plastering stray hairs to her face, peered up at an impossible angle. A blissful look of pure happiness washed over the woman's face.
"Miyu, my darling baby girl." She brought the baby down to her face and gently nuzzled her. The woman breathed in the scent of her new child, savoring the moment.
Megan, the newly christened Miyu, could not understand a word, but she had started to understand her situation. Fear overcame her heart. She felt helpless. The shock hung in the air. Her eyes started to fill with tears before she began to scream loudly.
The woman - or rather mother - reeled back from the loud scream in her ear. She awkwardly tried to appease her new baby daughter by rocking her gently, but nothing stopped the screams.
A nurse in a light pink and white uniform walked into the room. She smiled lightly at the scene in remembrance of when she too first became a mother, before taking the baby from the mother's arms.
"Don't worry dear. It'll get easier." The nurse said reassuringly.
The tired woman on the bed looked worried and a bit scared. She was all alone after all. Her boyfriend had been killed on a mission before he even knew that she was pregnant. Her inability to calm the screams of her baby only stroked her worry that she wasn't made for raising a child.
"It'll be hard at first but you'll be able to do it. If you need any help just come in and ask for me. I'm a mother myself, I'll be happy to give you some advice." The nurse hoped the woman in front of her would do just that. Ninja tended to not understand regular and healthy baby development when they were part of a clan.
"I-I well, thank you!" The twenty-year-old woman and mother said. The worry relieved with the nurse's words. She would do her best to raise her daughter as a strong kunoichi and be the best mother she could be!
Miyu's screams had tapered off and she slept in the nurse's arms.
"I'm just going to take the baby to the nursery. Don't worry too much, you'll see her when you're ready to check out." The nurse said with a light smile. The brown haired nurse opened the sliding doors of the hospital room with one hand.
"I'm calling her Miyu." The woman said, interrupting the nurse as she started to leave.
"What a beautiful name." The brunette turned and said with a smile, before asking the woman if she needed anything else and leaving.
-
That night a demonic and fiery aura flooded the village. The nurse was so busy looking after injured patients she had forgotten about the baby she delivered that day.
The hospital was in pandemonium, people in many states of injury littered the hallways. The brunette nurse was worried about her children at home. Her only hope was that their father had gotten them out safely. She worked steadily for hours on end. The wave of injuries not seeming to likely stop.
A young Anbu man hobbled into the hospital. He announced the fall of the nine-tails, as well as the fourth Hokage. The nurse was still terrified for the life of her daughters, she couldn't stand to wait another moment. She would hesitate to admit, but she left her post when she found out the news and ran to the Hokage monument.
A crowd of adults and children emerged from the rock hiding place. She waited anxiously at the bottom hoping for her husband and children to be one of them. She started to cry when she saw the man she loved, holding both her daughter's hands in his. They were safe.
The embrace and reunion lasted only a few minutes, as she couldn't leave her job at the hospital for too long. The injured were still piling in. She hugged them one last time, before returning.
The halls were empty now. Most patients having been transferred into rooms. The horrors of the night had taken a toll on the hospital. Some of the west wing walls, near the birthing center, were missing.
The nurse heard it then.
An Anbu wearing a horse mask staggered into the hospital. Her side was impaled with a metal side beam of a building. 'The fact she was even walking in here at all!' The nurse thought.
"Miss, don't try to move just lay down!" She gestured to the gurney by the desk hastily.
The Anbu woman carefully slid onto the gurney but grabbed the nurses arm when she began to try to push her to the emergency ward.
The woman shook her head sadly and guided the nurse to her mask. The cracked horse mask slid off, revealing the pregnant woman who had recently delivered the baby, Miyu. The nurse gasped in horror.
"Protect my girl. Please. Our clan - they're dead and her father-" she began to cough up blood. The red splatters hitting the nurse's face.
"Please. She has no one. Our Miyu, just like her dad." She coughed some more.
"What's your name?" The nurse asked trying to keep the Anbu focused.
"Nakano Hayami." The woman said. The light in her eyes was greatly dimmed and the nurse's eyes started to water.
"My name's Shimizu Michiko." The nurse choked out, as a single tear ran down her face.
The Anbu woman smiled.
"Shimizu Michiko…" The woman dragged out. "Thank you." Her grip loosened around the nurse's arm and the Anbu's arm fell limp. Her eyes became unseeing and dim.
Shimizu Michiko made a noise at the back of her throat, before raising a shaky hand to the other woman's face and closing her eyes gently.
The day had taxed the Anbu. The birth and then fighting the demon. She was gone.
The nurse began to cry for the second time that night.
"I will tell your daughter what a hero you were." She whispered repeatedly to the corpse on the gurney. Still gripping the horse mask in her left hand.
Her sadness and anger at ninja life filled her. How could they ask a woman to fight after giving birth? Her tears fell on the woman, the Anbu, the mother, beneath her. The child Miyu's fate, forefront in her mind.
-
The nursery was quiet. Most of the night it had been filled with the screams of two distraught children. Now only one remained. The second had been whisked away in the climax of the battle. The one baby left behind lay sleeping in a white crib, with a sign that read Miyu in a black script written above.
The nurse knew if she didn't make a decision now the baby would go to the orphanage.
She picked up the girl swaddled in pink and stared at her intensely. Trying to choose what the right decision was.
The baby looked so much like her daughters when they were born. Skin, pink and rosy, barely a hair on her head.
That decided it for her. Miyu would become a Shimizu.
-
The third Hokage was tired. After just stepping down from his post he was back in the office wearing the hat. Many people had died the night of the nine-tails attack. He felt too old and weary to be a Hokage. He just had a meeting with a female nurse who had adopted the child of one of his Anbu Black ops.
He remembered Horse. She was a good kunoichi. Strong and loyal. Too many died that night. Many people much younger than him, that deserved a long and happy life.
The child was born on the same day as the attack, the same day as Naruto. Both lost their parents that day. It caused his old heart to clench in sadness. He hoped both would have a happy childhood but sometimes life didn't go the way you hoped.
The nurse didn't tell the Hokage she kept the Anbu horse mask. She wanted to give it to Miyu when she became a ninja.
At first, she had resisted the idea, wanting to protect Miyu from the violence of the shinobi life, but she knew that being a ninja would be what Miyu's mother would want. She would want her daughter to protect the village, just like she herself died for.
The village spent months in reparation. So many businesses and houses had been torn down. Even years after there would be evidence of that night.
The nurse's husband was reluctant to take in a child when they may not have the money to afford it but caved when Mrs. Shimizu told the story of Miyu's Anbu mother sacrificing her life for the village.
Miyu was a difficult child at first. She spent most of her time bursting into tears and screaming the first two months living with the Shimizu family. After the two months, she became so quiet Mrs. Shimizu was worried there was something wrong. She took her to visit the doctor, but he had said that it was only a light case of chakra sensitivity.
The nurse worried for her youngest daughter. She tried to be as loving and attentive as possible, but it was difficult working the hours she did at the hospital. Her husband was not often at home as well, as he had a business as a merchant going village to village selling his product.
Miyu ended up being left to be raised by her other daughters. Those daughters, twins, believed Miyu was really their sister. They were too young to understand what was happening when the baby was brought home. Only being about three years older than Miyu, after all. They loved their baby sister and both spent a great many hours of their day, playing mother and dress up with her at their daycare.
Miyu, of course, was still coming to terms with this unlikely reincarnation. Not to mention the loss of a mother she would never get to know. She was intensely depressed, living a life where her opinions couldn't be heard and where she couldn't do anything for herself. Her new sisters were the only light in her life. They played with her and entertained her. They respected her in a way an adult never could a child. Miyu loved them. And so this routine of daily life continued until Miyu was 2 years old and her sisters became 5 and had to go to school.
A/N: I tend to be a bit jumpy between characters, so hopefully no one was confused by that! Once again, thank you for reading! I don't have a beta so excuse any mistakes I made! I'll try to update again as soon as possible (but you know, school's being a pain in the *** :P)