Disclaimer: The characters aren't and will never be mine, but the OCs are as is the plot. This banner applies to all the chapters for this story line.

AN: At this time, this particular story does not have a Beta. Enjoy folks! Read and review. Let me know what you think. On with the story!

Chapter 1

In three words, I can sum up what I've learned about life: it goes on.

Robert Frost

It was a sad fact, that dying was simple yet gut wrenchingly complex. Death itself came in many forms: car accidents, heart attacks, deadly assault, and the like. Some were quick and painless while others… well they were less accommodating.

Her body was wracked with pain starting from her chest outwards, which was restricting her ability to breathe. The tube that healthcare professionals shoved down her throat was making it burn and felt itchy. The cuffs that the nurses strapped on her wrists were too tight and cut off the circulation to her hands, leaving them feeling numb.

The insistent beeping from the monitor was both an annoyance and a comfort. It told her that she was still miraculously alive, but at the same time it reminded her of her body's unending agony. She tried to distract herself by counting the beats. A beat here and a long pause then another beat there. Logically, she knew that it was too erratic to be considered stable.

When the drugs the nurse gave her started to wear off, she overheard the doctors discussing her case outside her room. They said the infection had spread from her lungs to her other major organs, heart, kidneys, and such. She could only conclude that her body was failing and she wasn't likely going to pull through.

It just served to reminded her of how much she wanted to do. She had just turned thirty a month ago and she planned to go on her first beach vacation in years. She was supposed to go out with a guy she had met through one of those online sites and she was really hopeful about this one. She wanted to hold her mother's hand and tell her that it'll be okay. She wanted to smile for her brother, who came every night to tell her how her nephew was doing and what new trouble he got into that day. She wanted to hug her crying father and tell him that she loved him too.

But she couldn't.

Her diaphragm spasmed and sent her on a coughing fit. Another alarm kept blaring at her bedside when she couldn't get it under control. During each episode, she felt herself grow weaker and didn't need the doctors to tell her that she was getting worse. The lining of her lungs were irritated and swollen from whatever the assholes exploded in her office and the infection was taking up precious space instead of allowing life giving air in.

She considered herself a realist and knew she didn't have long. She wondered if she'd even make it until her parents arrive. Time for her became skewed with the pain making minutes feel like hours or the relief made the hours feel like minutes. She tried her best to keep chugging away, like she told her nephew, but it was becoming very difficult.

She really doesn't want her last thoughts to be depressing. She doesn't want her family to see her like this, so weak and fragile, but at the same time she doesn't want them to leave.

(She doesn't want to think about how the first responders all wore hazmat suits and were hesitant to come near her. She didn't want to see the pity in their eyes as they told her and the other occupants to strip and scrub off as much as they could from their skin. Nor does she want to remember the isolation room they were quarantined in for days afterwards.)

She wanted to rave at the men that sent the package to her office. To ask them if they were finally happy now that they hurt someone, anyone, for their cause. But she doesn't want her last feelings to be of anger and hatred, so she shoved them away and buried them deep.

(She doesn't want to remember her coworker opening that package. Her mind racing with fear and adrenaline roared through her as she watched the white powder mushroom bloom up into the air. The hacking cough that went from one coworker to the next while the receptionist started to scream. Her hand reaching down into her pocket for her cell phone and dialing 911. She doesn't want to recall the tears that arched down her cheeks or the feeling of dread latching onto her.)

The nurse came in, all dolled up in protective gear, and messed with her drips. Shortly after, the pain medications started to do their job again and the feeling of cloud nine slunk through her. She let herself sink back into the warm softness that blissfully muffled the pain for the first time in days.

The pain became an afterthought and the sadness wasn't as overwhelming. She knew that she could just let herself drown in the cloud, that it would all be over after that, but she didn't want to let go, she wanted to stay. To speak with her family. To go on that vacation and burn herself to a crisp. To go on a date with Ryan and see if it would be as good as she thought. She wanted to live.

There was one universal truth about living: in the end, death came for everyone.

—

The Void was at once both enteral and momentary. A necessary entity that was everywhere yet nowhere. It served only one purpose, to prepare the dead for their next destination, be it divine judgement, limbo, heaven, the summerlands or any such afterlife.

It constantly went from soul to soul, segregating the soul's core from its lifetime of memories and feelings helping them come to terms with their new reality. The process was the Voids only time were it could truly experience what the humans called emotions. The highs and lows were addictive compared to its bleak existence and the Void understood why the souls fought so hard to cling to them. The repetitive exposure to the feelings gave it the ability to comprehend what drove the humans: be it love, greed, hate, or loyalty.

It watched as it's next assignment clung to its feelings and memories. The female soul, it was to airy for it to be male, enterwove itself between each one. One memory fed an emotion which lead to another memory and so on, a rather fascinating cascade to watch. It wasn't the first time the Void was confronted with a soul that ran on emotions rather than rational thought and it knew it needed to be slow and delicate during this process.

As it always has done, it went about its job sending out tendrils to slowly work it's way between the soul and the cloud it wrapped around itself. It was successful at first, it was to dislodge parts of the memories. The ones of her student debt, her first apartment, the first school dance she attended, and her first bike ride.

The Void stilled its movements as the soul bristled, flashing bright in the gray expanse. It felt irritation as it watched the soul wind itself deeper within the hazy cloud. It tried to pry the soul and memory cocktail apart, first delicately from one angle to another, then with greater and greater force when it didn't succeed. It went on to whisper to the female: to let it all go, to let itself slide into its embrace, that it would all be done once she gave in.

The Void looked on with concern, another emotion that lingered from the last assignment that it worked with, as the female viciously fought against giving in. It was uncertain as to what it could do next. The female had intertwined herself so deeply that it couldn't distinguish between what was a memory and the soul. If it tried to pry the amalgam apart, it would break the soul's core and leave it unrepairable. A blemish in its otherwise perfect record.

The Void sent tendrils back into the hazy mixture and watched as she saw her memories, her life. It grew to empathize with the emotional clarity left behind by the last assignment. It saw the woman's torment and desperation, hope and courage, and love and loyalty. It saw her life through her own eyes and knew that death had come to early.

What could it do? If it continued to pull the mixture apart, the shattered soul would tarnish its record. The female's body had already ceased functioning. The heart had shut down, the lungs stopped expanding, and the brain no longer had neural activity. All leading to the undeniable fact that the soul was unable to go back to its body.

Perhaps the Void could send it elsewhere? To a place where another could deal with it when she was found. It's record would still be flawless and none would be the wiser.

It wrapped its tendrils around the amalgam. Gripping it firmly as the soul went into another series of bright illuminations and flung it from the gray expanse to the ether, the energy that connected all things.

It savored the emotions that the female stubbornly refused to relinquish. It felt… smug, that it wouldn't have to deal with the conundrum the soul provided. She would be another entity's problem, an imperfection on their records and not its own.

Another flash in the dark grayness alerted the Void to another assignment's approach. The tendrils shuddered as if it was shaking off the lingering irritation. It needed a clear mind to work through the next puzzle.

Well it seemed that the Void's work was never done. After all, death was just another fact of life.

—

After the round of blinding pain that cut through her center, her narrow vision showed the ceiling. Her face was swollen, painful and bruised. The smell of damp earth and iron assaulted her nose as she slowly tested her fingers. They felt swollen and stiff from disuse as she worked to loosen them.

She forced herself up and got her back to the wall. She flexed her fingers to get the pin and needles out from them as she took in the room.

The cell was in the standard form with the stone flooring, a bucket filled with disgusting unmentionables down to the steel door with a small lamp hanging from the ceiling. She forced herself up, staggering as her feet set out a painful flare. She was quite used to pain at this point, it was still so much better than before, and grit her teeth as she took the necessary steps towards the room's only exit.

Her first steps had her stumbling around as if she was drunk. The ground was closer than what she was used too and her messed up vision made it difficult to judge the distance. After a few tries, she made it across the room and grabbed the handle.

Why was she eye level with the handle?

The neurons in her brain began firing at a rapid pace. She rushed to process the past minute or hour, she wasn't exactly sure, and knew something horribly wrong (or was it exactly right) happened. She looked down at herself and let out a whimper.

Underneath the grime and bruises, her skin was tan. She pulled a lock of her thick straight ink black hair forward. She patted her stomach and found herself lean and tiny. She could see clear across the room.

(She had always been pale from her night shifts. Her hair had always been a fuzzy dark brown. She had always been on the bit more… padded side of the scale and had forever been short but never tiny. She needed her glasses to see the board since she was in grade school.)

She looked down at her battered hands and could feel the panic rising. Questions flew through her mind: where was she, how did she get here, what happened, where was her hospital room, and… She couldn't deal with this right now. She had other things to worry about. Like how she was alone in a cell and had obviously been battered and abused.

Her hands, a child's hands (How was this possible? Wasn't she thirty?), pulled the lever down but was too weak to fully pry it open. She squeezed herself between the steel slab and it's jam before finding herself in a dark and musky hallway.

She plastered herself against the door after slowly closing it. Her head bumped against... paper?

She turned around and barely got the clipboard off the high hook that kept it against the door.

It had her face (Was it really her face?) pictured on it with squiggles written on it. She shouldn't be able to read it, but she could. (How could she though? She's never learned another language besides English.)

Name: Hidako, Kobashi

Age: 5

Acquisition Number: 374

Acquired from: District 5

Lineage: Maternal Inuzuka; Paternal unknown

Initiation: Successful

Wait… wasn't that…

Her mind flashed a series of pictures, each one bleeding into the next. A one eyed dog next to a strong built woman. A large grin framed by the red fangs that dripped down high cheek bones. A little boy lifting a small tan and white puppy in the air and it chomping on the boy's nose. A young girl chased by three brown and grey dogs across the tree tops. All had an identifying band on them with a leaf etched into the metal.

Konohagakure

While blank golden eyes stared at the file, the child opened her bowed lips and out slipped an appropriate "Oh, fuck me."