You will come of age with our young nation

We'll bleed and fight for you, we'll make it right for you

If we lay a strong enough foundation

We'll pass it on to you, we'll give the world to you

And you'll blow us all away…

Someday, someday

Yeah, you'll blow us all away

Someday, someday

- Dear Theodosia, Hamilton Musical.

I wish I could tell you the start of my life was exciting. I wish I could tell you I remembered being a baby with an adult's mind, that I remembered the Kyuubi attack and how it felt.

Hell, I wish I could tell you I remembered anything! But children don't really have a sense of self-awareness until later in their lives, and just because I was reborn didn't mean I was an exception. Besides, can you imagine how traumatizing birth would be to actually remember experiencing? Or how absolutely insane I would have gone being trapped in my own head? There was a reason solitary confinement could break someone so badly.

No, it was far better for me to not remember any of that.

When I "came to," for lack of a better way to explain it, I woke up and I was 3 years old.

No, I mean I literally woke up. It was as if my past life flashed before my eyes in a dream, and i woke with a start in a slightly chilly room, a warm body pressed up against my back. There was no alarm, though I didn't know if this was because I instinctively knew where I was, or because I was simply too sleepy to process it all. The pinkish light just starting to peek through the blinds of the room told me it was morning, if barely, and my mind provided me an explanation as to who was beside me: My brother, obviously.

Of course, I thought. Bryce or Layne used to switch off and sleep with me when mom was staying with us. 'Cause we only had two rooms. That's fine

No, not Bryce or Layne. My brother, Kiba.

Kiba?

No, that wasn't right. I didn't have a brother named Kiba. And I hadn't shared a bed with my brothers since I was 12. But I did have a brother Kiba, he was my twin, and we were sharing a bed.

I traced a slash of pink sky through a space in the curtain and tried to think.

Pink sky in morning, shinobi take warning. The old saying came easily to me, but- No, not shinobi. It was sailor. Sailor take warning. Shinobi? Who said that? Shinobi weren't real.

But that didn't make sense, because they were. They were everywhere. Mom was a shinobi, and so was big sis and-

Have you ever argued with yourself before? Like really, truly argued? My adult mind, my past memories, were smashing painfully against the world I knew as Shippo, the 3 year old daughter of Tsume Inuzuka, younger sister of Hana Inuzuka, and twin sister of Kiba Inuzuka. My brain knew things about this world- it knew that shinobi existed, it knew there was an academy and a hokage and that we were in Konoha and that our sense of smell was stronger than normal shinobi, and that one day I'd go to the academy with my brother and be awesome.

But I also knew that none of that was true. Couldn't be true. Because I wasn't Shippo, I was Kara. I was 25, not 3. I was the oldest of my siblings and never had a twin. And shinboi and hokages and all that didn't exist. They were from an made-up series I hadn't paid much attention to since leaving high school; this was ridiculous and unbelievable in all forms.

But it was true.

But it wasn't.

But it was.

I was dead, but now I wasn't. I was Kara, but I was also Shippo, but I couldn't be because Shippo couldn't possibly exist. Shippo had never existed. This world shouldn't exist. My body began to shake like I was freezing and the body next to be stirred.

"Sis?" A sleepy murmur in baby-voice and then sudden, much more alert: "Ship?"

I didn't answer-couldn't answer. I was 3 years old (25 years old) and having an existential crisis. The covers were thrown off and tiny hands shook my tiny shoulders, but I only curled up further and shook more.

"Mom! Mom!? Hana!" The hands left and the panicked yelling began, small feet slapping against the floorboards as he ran off for help.

Moments, mere seconds, there were hands on me, feeling my forehead. The hands were cool, too cool, and I tried to turn my head away from them.

I can't really say I remember much about this part either. I asked Kiba, years and years later, and he said I was sick from something. A stomach bug, maybe, and I just nodded and accepted that that's what their interpretation of the events were. Kiba said it had scared the hell out of him, one of his earliest memories (in retrospect I feel bad about that one), his twin suddenly crying and shaking and having no means to help. I remember he stayed with me almost that whole day though, refusing to move in quiet solidarity even though at the time I hated him and wanted him to go away.

That's rather unfair of me to say, I suppose, but it was true. In that moment, I had hated Kiba, from his presence at my side to his very existence that shouldn't have been. Which was why I hated him, like somehow this world was tied to him even when it wasn't. It's hard to explain, maybe, but I was lashing out.

I didn't move from that room nearly all day, except to use the bathroom and nibble on something to stop myself from feeling so sick to my stomach. I spent the entirety of the day in bed, trying to reshape my world view and fit it into something I could understand.

The first part of the process took about 6 hours, where I alternated between staring blankly at the wall and crying my eyes out, but during that time I managed to… Not entirely come to terms with my new reality, but I'd at least calmed down and accepted that it must be real. Not even my dreams lasted this long and the hunger pains I felt were real enough. I'd pinched myself multiple times and gotten nowhere. This was… reality. Unfortunately.

Fortunately?

The remaining 6 hours had me trying to figure out what I was supposed to do now. I could clearly still remember being 25 and when I ran through my memories, they were all mostly intact to the best of my remembering abilities. I remembered matching band and ballet still. I remembered that time my college roommate and I made a 3am McDonald's run simply because we were young and we wanted chicken nuggets and we could.

This unfortunately sparked an hour and a half period of absolute mourning where I stewed in self-pity and thought of my ps4 and my books and the movies I hadn't watched; it went to the games I had been looking forward to, a trip to the beach with my friends when it got warmer that now I would never get to do. My family, oddly, got little focus. I don't know what it says about me or my relationship with them that I didn't think about them much here, that my mourning wasn't focused on their loss [my loss?] so much as the material things I'd have to give up.

I was not, you see, very close to my family.

Later, Kiba tells me, there was a period of time where I'd sobbed so hard I couldn't breathe, like my heart was being ripped apart and he had run away for a while because he didn't know what to do for me and hadn't been able to face this monster of a wall that had sprung up. It was an enemy he couldn't face, and so he had run from it and while I'm no psychologist or anything, I couldn't help but wonder if this had contributed somewhat to his rather reckless "throw myself headfirst and bet it with my fists until it stops being a problem" attitude had sprung up from.

(Being an Inuzuka, by nature, didn't help matters there though.)

But I digress. I sobbed and mourned my former life and after I had exhausted myself of tears, I really got to thinking. I was in the Naruto world, obviously. I was Kiba's twin, so that meant I was going to be around the Konoha… 12? Rookie 9? Whatever they were called? God.

Damn.

I wish I had gotten around to that reread after the series had ended like I kept saying I would. My knowledge of details was fuzzy at best, and completely mis-remembered at worst. There were things I was sure of, like the Uchiha Massacre and Sasuke running away. Or was he kidnapped? Shit. Okay, bad example apparently.

Get a grip, I thought to myself, trying to to calm myself before I had another panic attack. Remember how you'd start reading an old book because you couldn't remember what happened? And then when you started, you'd start remembering everything? It's going to be just like that. You won't remember until it gets closer, or happens, then you can act.

I didn't really like my logical reasoning there; it didn't make me feel better to think, 'I could do something to help, but most likely I won't remember until it's too late and then I can only try to minimize the damage.' I didn't like being a hero-didn't want to be-but I also didn't like sitting by and not doing anything. But what would happen if I even did? I couldn't remember all the details- I knew the massacre had happened for a… more or less good reason, right? I just remembered being vaguely annoyed and amused that all those "Itachi killed them all to protect Sasuke/protect the village!" theories had been right. So probably I shouldn't interfere with that. Honestly, I probably shouldn't interfere with much of anything because what if something worse happened? That had happened in plenty of time travel games ('Life is Strange' came to mind first), so what if stopping one thing led to… don't know, the end of the world?!

Alright. Maybe I was being a bit dramatic and that in no way helped my rising panic attack. A few deep breaths and I forced myself to calm down, but these trains of thought led to the next one: What was I going to do here? Shippo didn't exist in the canon-did that mean I was going to die young, never to join in on their shenanigans? Was my presence an unnatural anomaly that the universe was going to tear itself apart trying to correct, try to eliminate me at every turn so it could right itself again?

My breath caught and became shallow again as I verged on hyperventilating. I didn't want to die-again-and certainly not before I got the chance to do...anything! I was 3, physically anyhow, and my life (new life? second life?) had hardly begun!

Stop! Just stop. Stop thinking. Stop thinking!

I stilled myself and squeezed my eyes shut, pressing the eyes of my palms against the lids until sparks of color bloomed rapidly.

You're stupid. Stop being stupid. If this world went through all the trouble of reincarnating you here, why would it try to take you out first thing?

But I'm not a main character, I thought back to the more logical half of my brain. I'm not even related to a main character, not really. Kiba's a secondary one, or something. I'm not important enough to really bother with, you know? Oh. Oh wait. Maybe I'm not important enough to bother with! Just a blip.

I never thought I'd be relieved by the idea of being so insignificant, but honestly it was refreshing. It meant I didn't have to worry much, right?

That's what I told myself back then. It wasn't healthy, maybe, to just shut those tumulous emotions on lockdown, regard them as stupid, that I was stupid, and to shove them away to deal with… Well, the plan was "never." I was pretty good at that, avoiding.

Okay. Alright. Everything will be fine. Everything will go according to whatever plan this place has. It's not in your control anyhow. If this place brought you here, it wanted you here. It's out of your hands.

The loss of dominance, being a slave to something else's whim and knowing I had no control was… freeing. I don't know how to explain it, I don't know if it even makes sense. I didn't have to worry, because I had no control. Whatever happened would happen, it wouldn't be my fault. I wouldn't have to take any blame, because it was destiny or something. Right?

Again, not a healthy mindset to have at the ripe old age of 3 years old, but to be fair I was dealing with 25 years of expertly avoiding responsibilities and blame on top of that.

For the first time all day, I felt myself begin to relax and unwind from my tight ball on the futon. My limbs all ached, a weariness that got to me all the way to my bones, but I felt a lot lighter than I had at the beginning of my little crisis. The door slid open, but I didn't turn to face the person on the other side.

"Ship?" Kiba's tentative voice squeaked out, and I tilted my head slightly- I still didn't look at him, but it was more acknowledgement than he'd gotten from me all day. Taking that as a good side, he slipped inside, closed the door, and jumped onto the futon with me. "Are you okay?"

I wanted to say 'no,' but honestly I didn't know. "I…" It was the first time I'd spoken aloud- the first time I was actually hearing myself, and honestly I didn't sound that different from my memories of my younger self. Which was...good? I guess? God. "I don't know. I will be." That was as good as I could give, but it seemed to be enough. There's was a relieved breath and then the shuffling of the covers as Kiba snuggled under them again, pressing against my back. His arms came around me, his face pressing against the back of my neck with a happy nuzzle.

"Then I'll wait here."

I expected to be annoyed again, but I was too exhausted for that. Even if I wasn't, the feeling wouldn't have come- Shippo was Kiba's sister, and Shippo loved her brother very much; those feelings transferred easily and I felt myself relax even more. He smelled like dogs and home and felt like safety.

"...Okay."

I was Kara.

I was Shippo.

I had to remember that, these two weren't separate beings anymore, we were one and the same. My name is Shippo, and Kiba is my brother, and I loved him. I couldn't hate him for 'being,' because I had come to accept he existed now.

Exhausted, I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of the household, really listened. The sound of dogs barking and playing, the sound of footfalls not bothering to be hidden by those I would later learn were my many cousins and the puppies who hadn't learned to walk silently like their elders.

Home. Despite everything, I was in a place I could call home. I was safe and even if I fell apart, I had a family to help put me back together.

I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly exhaled, slipping easily to sleep.

A/N: So like many people I've decided to take a walk down Self-Insert/OC-lane. I love these types of stories, whether in original fiction or fanfics, so at length I couldn't help myself and gave into the desire to do my own.

Also most of the beginning chapter quotes and chapters themselves will be from the Hamilton musical, because it's flawless and if you haven't heard any of the songs from it PLEASE go do so. I think a lot can be applied to various Naruto characters and it gets me all choked up every time.

Shippo's not totally dealt with all her issues here, but she's willing to shove them aside and avoid falling apart, because it's exhausting, you know? Jessie and Rosie will appear in a couple chapters, they weren't forgotten about, but Shippo is the "main" main character here so it's all from her POV. Also not sure about using the first-person POV, but I think i'm making it work, maybe? Ehh.

This chapter is long and not much exciting happened in it I'm afraid. Oops. :(