An Amalgamation of Past Lives

by Cookie-Lollie

Uzumaki Akira was born many times before, but now they actually know how many times they were born. In a world of kill-or-be-killed, where there is always someone stronger, past lives come in handy. The soul retains its memories and what it remembers, it will retain. It will definitely be a fun life to play out when they throw out tricks from past lives against paranoid ninjas.

Reincarnation was a rather difficult of a concept to describe.

One cannot justify all the colors that are trapped within the setting sun to describe to a born-blind; the typical reds, oranges, and yellows, but also the pinks, blues, and even purple as the sky transitions from the sunny daylight to dimly-lit evening sky. It is a futile exercise to try and explain the sensation of the ocean hitting again one's legs, the chillingly cold water, spray of sea foam, and even the sand that digs into the crevices between toes to someone born without sensation at all. The words on paper and the finger-signs don't feel enough to describe the sound of music, the melodies and rhythms and heart-throbbing lyrics to someone who was born deaf.

Yet, that was exactly what reincarnation was and then more.

Reincarnation was opening one's eyes to all the brights and all the cools, all the colors of the winds within the canvas of a sunset. It was like sticking one's head out from the Millennium Falcon to watch the stretching streaks of starlight during the transition into hyperdrive. It felt like the biting chill of the winter sea, bubbling sea foam and gritty sand found in every crevice of the body. It was like the pop in one's ears as the cabin pressure in an airplane dropped as the plane departed, as everything sounded too close yet too far, strangely crystal clear yet simultaneously muddled, like trying to listen to music with headphones on as someone talked away without a care.

There are rules to be followed in the cycle of reincarnation. Rinse and repeat, erase and create. Past lives must remain in the past, wiped clean to make room for a new life on its empty, blank slate. While one may not be born in the same position, every life was predestined to start out the same: without a trace of one's past lives.

Something went wrong in the process of wiping out their memories. Instead of wiping out their most recent past life, it removed the block that kept all of their past lives from leaking out. While each soul was wiped before it was slotted for its next reincarnation, to completely wipe any trace of one's past lives would fracture the soul, birth a wound that would fester until the soul would wither away.

So, it was a rather fortunate happenstance that the block on their past lives was unintentionally removed instead of moving the block "forward", to block out the next most recent past life. Souls were fragile, intangible existences they may be, hence why the block was periodically moved around after each soul served a waiting period before it was slotted for its next reincarnation.

And so, Uzumaki Akira was born.

It was a peculiar name to be born with given the meanings that come from their new birth-name. "The Light Coming from Sun" seemed prophetic, a hint of what would become of their future. "Sunlight and Moonlight" seemed to represent two figures, the Sun and the Moon respectively. "Wisdom" and "Truth" made for a very ironic name for them given that they had been reincarnated with all of their past memories since the formation of their soul.

The soul, despite its fragility, was also a contradiction in its resilient nature. Memories were a part of the soul and each past life embedded itself into the soul. The soul remembered each and every past life and what it remembered, it would retain. They wondered what kind of world they would be born into this time, if it would be a different time of a world they had been born into once before, or perhaps an entirely new world to explore. Without the block on their past lives, it was bound to be a rather interesting life to live out.