Wow, I really hate the way my mind works sometimes; it's not necessarily bad, but I've had 2 story ideas in the past 2 days, yeesh. Oh well, it's probably best to get this out of my system so I can focus on continuing my earlier works and/or working on fleshing out ideas within this collection of sorts.

As a side note, if anyone wants to take some of my little snippets/ideas I post here and re-work them in to fully fledged stories, be my guest. All I ask is that I be given credit where it's due, and the author in question leaves me a review/pm so I know who is doing what (and can favorite/follow the story that uses my idea(s)).

So without further ado, here's idea number 2!

Story Idea/Synopsis: A ficlet where Fem!Naruto chooses to try to fight the kyuubi no kitsune earlier than in canon, leading to her death as a result of not being fully prepared. Obviously the fic does not end there, but I haven't really decided what direction I'd want it to go in, so input from reviewers and such would be helpful.

Idea Parameters: Ideally this Fem!Naruto would NOT get a second chance at life to correct her mistake, because I find the scenarios that would follow such an action to be far more interesting than if she just came back to life and continued to follow canon. After all, the ramifications of the heroine's death would be quite vast, and there are numerous ways she could still go about saving the world (Crossover with Bleach or Soul Eater for example, etc.).

Possible Genre(s): Adventure \ Hurt/Comfort \ Romance

Potential Pairings: up in the air, though I'm currently leaning towards something more obscure than anything else (that being Fem!Naruto x Male!Nibi due to the latter's control over death).

Reasoning: There are quite a few (read: most likely hundreds, if not thousands) of ficlets where Naruto or Fem!Naruto die and are brought back to life by some method or another. I'm not bashing the integrity of those fics, but reading the same thing over and over gets old after a while. Besides, the challenges that would come from being dead and yet still trying to influence the world of the living would be quite interesting to read in my opinion. There might not be a lot of difficult enemies to defeat, but the troubles the main character would face would most likely make an interesting read.

Potential Excerpt: It was over.

Even before her body impacted against the ground with sickening crunch, she knew this fight was over.

Would things have ended differently if she'd waited before initiating the battle? Could the outcome have been changed at all, given just who her opponent was? The blonde-haired girl didn't know.

Ultimately, though, it probably didn't matter anymore, because despite everything she'd strived towards, despite everything she'd done to get up to this point, despite all the hardships she'd endured, in the end it just wasn't enough.

It was over—and she had lost.

She could feel the cold seeping into her body, filling the void left behind by the blood lost from her many wounds. She could hear her mother—or at least the imprint of said woman's soul sealed within her—crying, screaming, begging her to get up and continue fighting, but her body just wouldn't respond to the mental commands she gave it.

Was this what death felt like? To slowly succumb to the frigidness of the afterlife, steadily losing her strength until nothing but a shell, a body remained? If that was the case, then why….why was she feeling so much regret?

"Why?"

As if to echo her earlier thoughts, the simple, one-word question was vocalized by her opponent as he shifted to stand above her prone form.

Yet even as she tried to speak, tried to formulate a reply, she could feel her lifeblood slipping away.

In the end, all she managed to get out was a small, heartfelt smile, before she let her final breath escape from her lips.[...]

Like the previous idea, this excerpt was short, but that was because I'm still not quite certain what the best story direction is yet. Please let me know via reviews and/or PMs what you think of this idea, and whether or not I should continue it at some point. Thanks for reading,

-ZGS