Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or Dreaming of Sunshine. Any characters you see here that aren't from their stories are completely my own.


Chapter Eight: Awareness is the Enemy

"Awareness is the enemy of sanity. For once you hear the screaming, it never stops." -Emilie Autumn


"Ayane, Hibiki, wake up!"

I opened my bleary eyes to find my mother shaking us awake. My brain was too tired, it couldn't possibly be morning yet. Could it? Blinking at the surroundings of our room, I noticed soft moonlight streaming through the window, which confirmed my thoughts exactly.

Hibiki groaned in half sleep. "Is too early" he whined.

"Shh!" Mama shushed with a finger to her lips.

It was then I finally noticed the look of panic on her face. I bolted up and tried to shake the sleep from my mind. Something was happening. I'd never seen Mama look so scared before. I wanted to ask, but she needed us to be quiet. So I scrambled out of bed and tried to signal Mama asking what we should do. It was honestly more of a flailing of arms and eyebrows, but Mama still gave a small expression of relief (pride?) and raised a hand that looked like 'wait here'. She turned her attention to my still sleepy brother and picked him up from the bed. Grabbing my hand, she led us to the entrance of the crawl space.

I wanted to stop her as she pulled us inside. This wasn't right. Why are we running? Why isn't Papa with us? Were Haku-san and his partner back? I wanted to ask her all of these questions but I knew that, whatever it was, it was something serious enough to not risk drawing attention or delaying time. We moved through the crawlspace and out of a secret panel that led outside of the house. 'Huh, never noticed that before'. I thought vaguely. She repositioned Hibiki onto her back (who was now awake enough to hold on) and took me up in her arms and started running.

And boy was she fast! She sped across the snow-covered field at breakneck speed, reaching the nearby woods within seconds. I craned my neck to look back at the house as it shrunk in the distance. It looked so small and dark, I couldn't see what was so dangerous that we had to run. Looking at it longer I noticed something strange. A sound was coming from the house. It sounded like… music?

"Don't listen!" Mama shouted. Hibiki and I jumped and looked to her in confusion. "Whatever you do, keep looking forward and Do Not Listen to it!" I was shocked by her level of alarm, and also incredibly confused. What could be dangerous about a flute playing music? Wait, why would there even be a flute playing in the first place?

Still, I took her warning to heart and tried to pay attention to the woods around us. To be honest I could barely keep my eyes open on account of the wind speed. Just how fast was she running? It didn't even feel human. But I made an effort anyways. With hope, we might reach somewhere safe where she could finally explain what on Earth was happening.

I heard a branch break and looked above at the source of the sound. There was somebody there, running across the canopy! How in the hell?! I looked down to warn Mama, only to see two more people flanking us at that same ridiculous speed. "Mama!" I shouted, trying to warn her.

"I know, Aya-chan. Hold on!" Suddenly she twisted to the right, dodging a knife that had been aimed directly at us. More knives were thrown, but Mama was somehow able to dodge each one deftly. I thought with a vain hope that maybe we could outrun them, but that was quashed when the person above jumped to the ground ahead and boxed us in.

She put me and Hibiki down in front of a tree and positioned herself as a shield against our attackers.

It was then that I finally took a look at them. The moon was hidden by the clouds so it was hard to see. But I could make out the outlines of their bodies. Baggy clothing, daggers in hand, and they seemed to be wearing some sort of white masks over their faces. They were terrifying; and yet, for some strange reason, oddly familiar. Hibiki and I held onto each other tightly, afraid of what would happen next.

One of the assailants leaped towards us, but Mama began to fight against him, blocking each strike blade for blade. 'When did she get a dagger?' And, for that matter, since when could their mother fight? She was moving in ways I had never seen before. Twisting, dodging, striking and blocking all in ways you would expect from a Bruce Lee movie. Seriously, what in the hell was going on here?!

Suddenly Mama cried to us "Run for it!" as she dodged another strike.

'Run? How can we run away from monsters like that?' My mind reeled frantically amidst the chaos around us and my body went frozen stiff with fear.

"Come on!" Hibiki shouted, pulling my arm and moving us away from the fight. I didn't want to run. I didn't want to leave Mama behind, but she and Hibiki were right. We had to get away while she could distract them.

I broke out of my frozen state and let my brother pull me away from the fight. Hibiki and I ran as fast as our little legs could carry us, trying desperately to find a place to hide. Somewhere behind us I could hear a scream. Mama! The cry caught me off guard and made me stumble, but Hibiki held a firm grip on my arm and pulled me back up to keep up the pace.

Not long after the scream we heard movement behind us. The attackers had gotten back onto their chase, and I tried desperately not to think of what that meant for my mother. We tried to hide under some yew bushes, but there wasn't much hope against monsters like that. Within seconds they were on us. One of them grabbed our ankles and dragged us out from our hiding place. "No!" Hibiki shouted and grabbed a nearby stick to try and whack the man with it. "Let go!" The man whipped Hibiki against a tree trunk, forcing him to pass out.

"Hibiki!" I cried out.

"Quiet." The man growled. I whimpered, but tried to smother the sound as much as I could. 'That son of a bitch, kill him!' My inner beast snarled, well awake and aware of the action going on around us. But what could I do? I wasn't a fighter in my last life, and I was a five year old in this one. I was damn well useless against these people hurting my family. There was nothing I could do against these sons of bitches.

Mr. Son Of A Bitch put each of us under his arms and ran back at that ridiculous pace back to where we left our mom. The moon had broken through the clouds by then, and the sight before me was nothing short of gruesome. There was blood everywhere, splashed up against the rocks. At the centre of it was my mother, lying on her back with her throat slit and her stomach gashed and oozing what I could only assume were entrails. One of the masked men was hunched over her, in the process of severing her head from her body. The bastard was cutting up my mother! I started screaming and crying out for her. And Mr. Son Of A Bitch decided to shush me by grabbing at the front of my sleeping shirt and slamming me down to the ground, knocking the wind out of my lungs.

"Ah, what noisy brats." The bastard with the knife complained. "Just kill them and get it over with, Ishida."

"You saw the father." The man, apparently named Ishida (though Mr. Son Of A Bitch suited him just fine in my books), replied "He was a Keyaki. The mother too, most likely. These brats could be of use to us."

'Of use? Fuck you, we're not gonna be used by anybody!' And if I didn't just get the wind knocked out of me, I might've had the courage to let her say as much. I looked up at him, and noticed him in a lot more detail now that there was some light. The man had dark blue hair spiking out from behind his white mask. The mask itself had slits for eyes, with blue curved triangles marking each cheek and four angled tildes on the forehead. It was the second time that night that these creepy motherfuckers made me feel an eerie twinge of familiarity.

"Doubt it." The bastard replied. I could hear a sickening crunch from his direction. Perhaps it was good I was knocked to the ground. I don't think I'd want to have seen what he just did to my mother's corpse. "The Mizukage will just kill 'em like the rest of this trash."

At that line all of the obscenities and threats shouting in my head stopped like a record scratch, as every voice focused on that single sentence. 'What the fuck did he just say?'

"I'm not talking about bringing them to the Mizukage."

Mizukage. I didn't misheard that. They actually said Mizukage. As in water shadow. As in Kage of the Land of Water. As in fucking Naruto type of shit. My brain was buzzing. I couldn't even hear them anymore as my entire world collapsed on itself and little hints of my life started clicking into place. These people were wearing masks, ANBU masks. They were fighting with daggers, 'kunai' a memory whispers, and running at inhuman speeds. My mother was fighting with daggers and running at inhuman speeds. My parents were secretive people, living on an island in isolation and only visited by strange, intimidating people or the local doctor. The doctor who had warned me about using chakra. No. No, this wasn't happening!

My brain was spinning out theories at lightning speed.

1. This is the Naruto Universe. But that's impossible, because Naruto is a TV and a manga. You can't reincarnate into a fiction.

2. I didn't die. This is some fever dream. Yes, that's it. I'm in a coma. I am not dead. Oh my god, my family has been waiting for me to wake up for five years! Or has it been five years? Maybe this whole thing is passing in a blur compared to reality. But I'm feeling pain. Agony steaming from my back. You can't feel pain in a dream!

3. This isn't a coma. I really reincarnated. I am alive. But not in Japan. This is the Naruto Universe. HOW IS THIS THE NARUTO UNIVERSE?

My brain was on a loop that I couldn't break out of.

4. Was I crazy? You can feel pain and see hallucinations and still be alive. Could a car accident make you crazy? Did I pull a Phineas Gage? Does that mean Mama, Papa and Hibiki aren't real? But they are real. I love them, I love them, I love them, and now they're DEAD!

I couldn't take it. There was too much happening. Too much noise in my head and stinging in my eyes and the smell of blood in my nose. No, no, it was all real. WHY IS THIS HAPPENING? I started screaming, shrieking into the night. It was all I could do to keep the insanity at bay. I screamed and screamed until a force knocked my head to the side. Then everything went black.


Author's Note: And so it begins. MUAHAHAHAHA!

Btw, anyone know any songs on the topic of siblings/brothers or travel?