Dreaming

"And it felt like maybe we could last forever, forever"


"You're sick, hun. Real sick."

That's where my story starts. I was sitting in a white room, across from a pale woman with stringy hair. I hate thinking about it now, because, even after all this time, it fills my gut with rocks. A lot of things have faded since my entire world was flipped upside down, but not that woman saying those words. I guess you can't blame a girl though, right? It's not every day someone tells you that you're facing certain death.

I didn't cry though. Well, at least not in the moment I didn't. The facts were there, but they hadn't really hit me yet. Instead I looked the woman level in the eye. "How long?" I asked because I needed to know. How much longer do I get to be with my family? How much longer until I have to say goodbye to everyone I've ever loved?

"Weeks maybe," she said, looking at me with pity. We had caught it too late.

That's when my Mom started crying.

I don't think that anyone is ever really afraid of dying. I wasn't. After thinking long and hard about it, I decided that I was afraid of everything that came with dying, instead of the dying itself. Not to be cheesy, but Dumbledore once told Harry Potter that he shouldn't pity the dead, but the living. Because they were the ones who had to move on without their loved ones. But what about if you're the first one to go? Then aren't you the one that's going to be alone? It's not like I had anyone I knew waiting for me in the afterlife. Even all four of my grandparents were still alive.

I really didn't like the thought of that.

Anyways, I should probably stop rambling about this. My minor existential crisis after I was diagnosed isn't really exciting or surprising. Point is, I had a lot of time to sit there and think about my place in the world, and how much I was going to miss everyone. It kind of sucked. I wish that the entire ordeal had been quicker to be honest. I tend to deal with things better when I have less time to overthink them.

I spent the next month and a half withering away in the hospital. Most of that time I filled with reading, revisiting all of my favorite stories because I'm a nerd and they made me feel better. See, I always liked to disappear into a good story and pretend like I was in a place that was entirely more exciting than plain old Earth. Being sick just put things into perspective even more. I wanted to spend my last few days doing something I enjoyed. I wasn't going to stop living until I couldn't anymore.

Then finally one day, I closed my eyes and just went to sleep. It wasn't a weird sleep. It wasn't even a purposeful sleep. One second I was in my hospital bed, and the next I just sort of dozed off, like for a nap. I had been so tired. All I wanted was a little bit a rest. My brother was coming to visit me that afternoon, and I wanted to be awake for him. That was it.

The moment was so trivial, but when it comes down to it, that was how I died.

It was painless, and, in a way, I suppose I had been ready for it too. Or as ready as I was ever going to be. I was sick of being sick.

Things were dark for a while after that. I felt like I was floating in a limbo where I wasn't in pain anymore. I think that maybe I had some self-awareness wherever I was. Like if I had wanted to wake up, I probably could've forced myself to- though I don't know which world I would've been in if I had come to. The thing is though, I didn't particularly want to go back to my body just yet. There's something magical about feeling absolutely nothing. I felt clean and perfect for the first time in a while, and like hell was I going to mess with that.

Somebody would shake me awake when I was needed, I remember thinking. Deep down though, I knew that was it. Nobody was going to come get me anymore, or rather, I wasn't going to be able to come back when they did.

So I rested, and rested, and rested, letting the bliss wash through my soul taking the illness away. I think I could've stayed in that place forever, and been perfectly at peace. But at the same time, when I first heard the voices, I wasn't really complaining either. They were faint for a while, resting just at the edge of my conscious, like music I wasn't really paying attention to. Then eventually, I could distinguish them more.

First and foremost, I couldn't understand them. That was the first concrete thought that made me stir after I closed my eyes in the hospital. They weren't speaking English. Their dialect was still familiar though. I just couldn't place it.

I wonder if they brought in foreign doctors. Even the thought seemed to strike a note of wrongness to me. No, that was impossible. But I didn't know why it was impossible. None of it made sense. Why did I need a doctor again? I was... I was something. I just couldn't find the word. Where were my words?

My answers just weren't coming to me, and it made me feel disturbed. I decided I wanted to wake up then, but it was too late. My eyes weren't working. I was just going to have to wait until something happened because I was suddenly useless.

The voices continued, and soon I began to notice patterns. Different people seemed to be passing by around me. Sometimes, there was a man with a deep voice who was always filled with loud laughter. Sometimes, there was a women, who seemed to be full of terse quips and off-put tones. Other times there was a soft coo that loved to sing and hum to me. That was the one that was there the most. Sometimes the singer's voice would fade out, but it always came back again, even sometimes when all the other voices had gone away.

I liked that voice. It made me feel like somebody was reading stories to me, and I just couldn't understand them.

I wish I could sing back with you.

Even if I couldn't really sing. There seemed to be something special about that voice. Singing with it just felt like it would be a happy thing to do.

More time passed. The singing continued, in fact, it got louder. The voices that once seemed so distance, now felt like they were right next to me. I could pick out every vowel and consonant, every pitch and tremble. My frustration was mounting- and that's saying something 'cause I'm usually not quick to a rise. The world was right there. I could hear it, but I wasn't a part of it. Just like I could hear the singer, but not understand them. Everything was just out of my reach.

This place was suddenly a prison. I was completely ready to wake up, but something was keeping me tied here in this limbo.

Come on, I'm feeling a lot better. Nurse, come wake me up. A pit formed in my gut. Nurse...

And then the world suddenly felt like it fell sideways, and the singer cried out. A wave of jarring dizziness washed over me, and things felt like they were spinning. The singer was in distress around me, and suddenly there was other voices there too- both the terse woman and another man that I didn't recognize. The woman didn't seem so mad anymore. In fact, her panic was apparent. For a moment, there seemed to be a few directions being exchanged, and then I felt like I was being moved.

Not rolled around in a chair like I should have been in the hospital though. More like I was stuck inside of a ketchup bottle, and somebody was suddenly ready to eat a hotdog. I was never one to feel claustrophobic before, but it was uncomfortable. I could feel my heart thumping hard in my chest as the world jerked to the side yet again.

Something was wrong, but I was stuck. I didn't know what was happening, let alone how to fix it. So I just kind of waited in limbo while the singer cried out somewhere above me. They- no she, the singer was a woman, I could tell now- were clearly in pain. There was no more soft humming, only wails. Rushed jargon seemed to be floating around her as well, as somebody either talked to her or over her.

That made me feel better. I didn't have to be helpful if somebody else was working things out. It was going to be fine. We weren't alone here in the void.

And then, just like that, the darkness seemed to break apart all at once, as light materialized out of seemingly nothing. It was so bright that it was overwhelming. How long had I been floating? It must have been forever to affect me this much. I opened my mouth to start asking questions, but I found that I couldn't speak. My mouth couldn't physically shape itself into words.

Somewhere very very close, a baby was crying

It was so cold too. I hadn't really realized how warm I had been just a few moments ago. Temperature hadn't really registered at all. But the light felt like an ice bath now, and I was having none of it.

Yeah, my first few hours back in the world weren't the best I've ever had. See, when you're first born, your eyesight is a little below par. I wish I had known that before- maybe it would've saved me a whole lot of confusion in the beginning.

Yup, you heard me right. I said, 'first born'. That baby crying, uh huh, that was me. I had just been born again. I wish I could give you a better explanation of the entire situation, but nobody ever bothered explain it to me. All I can tell you is that one minute I was in a hospital room dying, and the next, I was in a different hospital room living, just in a much smaller body.

Around me the world had moved so fast. The singer that I had become so accustomed to while surrounded by nothing had fallen silent, and seemed to have disappeared. In fact, there really wasn't anything consistent about my first few days in my new body. It was a lot to take in and digest.

Fortunately though, my eyesight did improve after a bit. Most things were still a blur of light, shapes, and figures, and it was like that for months. I kind of feel bad about it now. I wasn't a good baby at all. I would start crying every time something around me changed, and would fuss every time someone picked me up to carry me off. It was a solid three months of being horribly disoriented.

Hell yeah I was upset.

Eventually though, my vision did improve. Gradually I realized that a brown haired man was taking care of me. Him, and his wife; although even then, instinct told me they were not my parents. There were two boys too. One had brown hair and was just pushing five, while the other was black haired and was just starting to talk and walk. I shared a room with the latter. Sometimes a blonde woman and another boy, who looked to be about ten or eleven, would come visit me as well.

I didn't even realize how familiar they were at first because I saw their faces so slowly as my vision cleared. Eventually though, I did wake up one day and realize that I could see everything crystal clear. And on that same day, I happened to take a good look at a picture on the wall while I was being fed. It was a picture of three little kids, one of which I recognized to be the blonde woman 15 to 20 years back.

Then a chill went through me as I took a better look.

She was next to an unnaturally pale kid with long dark hair, and another with this uncontrollable mane of white locks. All three of them were wearing headbands with little leaf symbols on them. The garbled words that everyone had been speaking around me suddenly began to swarm around my mind. Tsunade. I realized. They said the word Tsunade sometimes.

Oh shit.

I glanced up at the man who was holding me right now with wide eyes. Hiruzen, I realized. Hiruzen Sarutobi, the third Hokage was feeding me a bottle. Right now.

I fussed quite a bit as all the puzzle pieces started crashing together at once. The kid that always came over with Tsunade was Nawaki, her little brother who died in the middle of the Second War. And then the older boy who lived in the house... well, his hair was too light to be Asuma's, but then again, it was always implied that Hiruzen had a second son. I had always assumed that he had died somewhere along the way too. They never actually showed Konohamaru's father on screen after all.

Then of course, if the older one wasn't Asuma, that made the baby who was on the other half of my room team ten's future jonin sensei. I blinked. Wow I must have just jumped off the deep end. Thinking you've been reincarnated was crazy. Thinking that you were suddenly living inside of a god damned manga was on a whole other level of insane though.

Okay nurse, time to wake me up. Joke's over.

Nobody came to wake me up though. I was already awake. Even if it didn't seem real yet, it was. This was my life now, and I was just going to have to get used to it. Anyways, I suppose there are worse places to be than Konoha. Right?


Arc Title and Chapter Quote from song Dreaming by Smallpools


A/N Hope you liked it. I'd like to have the next chapter up in a week, but it might take a little bit longer. I have one version of it fully written where Natsuki is about 1 year old and the second war is starting, but I'm not very happy with it. I think it's too much narration of events happening to other people than actual story telling with Natsuki. So there's a chance that I might re-write the entire thing and just time-skip to her entering the Academy. It depends on whether I can do that without making it feel choppy.

Let me know what you'd prefer to read if you have an opinion. And even if you don't, make sure to leave a review!

Until next time :)