Chapter One: To Build a Home
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
Rebirth. Redidivus. Reincarnation.
What did all of those mean? What was this seemingly impossible concept long spoken of in only fictitious stories, stories that only held frivolous fantasies and worlds from the imagination, stories that were not considered real for what they were worth. But what could be as impossible as heaven and hell, as the God to his creation, as life and death itself, had been blessed upon one particular soul.
A cold-hearted and embittered warrior, only dealt with misfortunes all her life with the last semblance of light stripped away to leave her in darkness. That was what the twisted hands of fate had bestowed upon Teresa of the Faint Smile. And for so long, she truly did believe of the notion that all things tended only towards decay, that there were no such ideas of love or happiness or light or life. There was but only darkness. A blank slate that stretched out infinitely towards the horizon, only shadowing all things it touched.
But the fates took pity upon the warrior's plight. They soon learned that Teresa of the Faint Smile had been dealt with enough misfortune and so, they thrust her into a new realm—in a world where warriors much like herself would thrive and live in symbiosis with the fruits of the land. A world where shinobi and chakra and all things seemingly impossible were quite possible.
Born and bred in the soils of Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves, Teresa of the Faint Smile had rose from the ashes.
For years she grew under a true bonafide home, a nuclear household, one with a mother and father and her as their child. She was Shimura Teresa, daughter of Shimura Takahiro and Ikumi and granddaughter of Shimura Danzo—a man who was as cold-hearted as herself.
She thrived as one of the most gifted kunoichi of her generation, earning merit everywhere she went and ultimately earning her title as the "Smiling Blade" during the Third Shinobi World War after defeating one of Kumogakure's most revered shinobi. As the final days of the war soon passed and after the death of one of her dearest new companions in her realm, a young shinobi by the name of Uchiha Obito, Teresa left Konoha in sorrow, ready to partake in a new journey.
Years later, Shimura Teresa became a legend amongst the Shinobi world, where she had earned the moniker of the "Silver-Eyed Witch"—a warrior both feared and revered throughout the elemental nations. On her twentieth year, Shimura Teresa returned home after living in the Hidden Village of the Mist to avoid its impending coup d'etat while also having missed Konoha's soils for so long.
Upon her return, auspicious news was what met her person as she was blessed with the chance of raising a child granted upon her by the Third Hokage's permission. Now, it is Shimura Teresa's responsibility to raise the child of prophecy, Uzumaki Naruto, in her new path of revelation and glory. This is her story.
This is her legend...
The sun rose from the heavens, bathing the lands of Konohagakure with a dim light of both pink and orange hues that coalesced with one another and filled each and every nook and cranny within the entire village. Shadows casted themselves against the vibrant infusion of light and that was when Teresa awoke.
She awoke to the dim ray of morning sunlight filtering through the curtains.
The open window allowed the crisp breeze of dawn to sweep in through the curtains causing goosebumps to rise from her skin as it touched her. Teresa opened her eyes to the sight of the curtains flowing in the breeze, thin and white, like a long ribbon of rippling silk.
She remembered all the times she would wake up like this, slightly disoriented with muddled thoughts. And she would look up to the sky, the ceiling, anything and everything.
She would see the blank white walls, lonely and enclosing, to the point of it being suffocating. The brilliant orange hued skies like a portrait painted out of the chapels of Rabona. Vivid and so very detailed, they would fill the white walls with its color. With its distasteful zeal. The curtains flowing in the perpetual breeze of Konoha mornings would swirl like a maelstrom, unending, going on forever and forever.
Clear, crisp, yet, mundane and all the more bleak. Mornings were the most quiet. So calm and tranquil, that they forced all the foreboding thoughts that had dangerously swirled in the deepest crevices of her mind—push, push, and push, until they were at the forefront of her immediate thoughts. The loss of one of the greatest loves in this new life had left a bitter taste in her mouth. This was her denial.
Uchiha Obito had tore open her skin and ripped her heart out from under her ribs with his fingernails, letting her bleed out as he continued to murder her with his malicious words that proved more painful than the sharpest blade. Her pain was an all-consuming flame that had been birthed from the flint and steel that was Obito's morbid words of both cynicism and death. His apathetic eyes haunted her every vision as he watched her burn and burn in the fiery rings of hell. Breath caught in her throat, feeling raw, skin stinging. Eyes bleeding out streams of blood that smelled of zinc. Helpless and vulnerable. And so...
She tried to change, close her mouth more. She fasted for sixty days. Lost sleep for forty nights. And when she found the need, she would sleep all day.
Her dreams would be between both worlds, endless, yet brief—passing though the darkness of her forgotten realm and the light of the new one... Grief, sedated by her own hopes for continuation. In turn, these hopes were sedated by grief.
God, the Lord, Kami, were in the room as she awoke each morning feeling helpless, lying in a heap of her own condemnation.
Fate, coincidence, the universe, all laughed at her plight.
They said," It will never end."
And so she prayed. She begged. She abstained from food and water. She bathed in the rivers of her own tears. She begged for forgiveness, she begged for them to absolve her from her sins. For the grief was far too painful, even for one who had hardened her heart to be as strong as steel, as indomitable as the stone. Her faint tears, that too, was a form of supplication. This was her grief.
And for a brief moment, they had listened...
Mornings were bright, no longer were they nefarious and taunting. The sun, so generous in his warmth, would bring her his light and the beginning of a new day—a day that promised something new. The addition of a new love, a new flame to ignite her hearth had been blessed upon her. A boy, like light, had appeared from the ashes of her plight. And he rose and rose. She would see the light like a monolith in the foundation of her temple.
She would see the white linoleum walls, she would see the scintillating colors of the sky with violets, pinks, and orange hues that would coalesce into a glorious painting of light and life.
And then Naruto would come rushing through the opened door. His childish squeals and giggles would reverberate across the walls and she too would laugh, for his presence was infectious. This was her redemption.
She awoke to the dim ray of morning sunlight filtering through the curtains. She awoke to a little blond boy, giggling and cuddling into her bed sheets. And when she opened her eyes for the very first time, Teresa realized that mornings were beautiful. This was her awakening.
"Morning!" The boy greeted as he tumbled into her comforter to burrow himself under her sheets.
She sat up and propped herself on her elbows, smiling. "Good morning, Naruto."
She would stare into the eyes of his father, though his were filled with a whimsical childlike wonder, so big and blue. Her reflection would stare back from the pupils of the eyes and she could see his adoration for her in all its candor. He saw her as his home, something she had wished for so long when she was but a mere child. To feel at home, to feel a love that was altruistic and true. That was all she ever wanted.
"So, what're we gonna do today?" she could hear him ask.
Teresa leaned back onto the headboard, smiling faintly as she did this. "I think today we're going to fix the rest of our new home. After all, it has been a week since we moved in and we haven't even painted any of the rooms," she said thoughtfully.
"Our home..." he mumbled, not quite grasping the weight of her words being that a toddler could barely comprehend abstract thought. Somehow, she had a feeling that despite it all, he had completely understood what it had all meant.
Indeed, she had tried to make a home out of someone else once upon a time. However, doors lead to trap doors and a stairway leads to nothing... And then the grief erodes away, in its place is a polished stone, a new perspective. In consequence, the trap doors led to a new path, a path where her new refuge could be built. He was her home now, just as she was to him. It was the both of them against the world. Two unlikely souls dealt with an unfavorable past had somehow found one another. This was what she had been yearning for.
She stood up and brought his small hand in hers. "Come on, let's go. I'm sure you must be hungry for breakfast," she chimed.
Naruto promptly followed her out the door babbling along the way.
Author's Note: It has been a bit slow-paced thus far, however, I have so much more in store for you all. Reviews would be lovely.