I figured it was sometime the next morning when I woke up. I had somehow ended up back inside my crib after falling asleep last night. It took me a few seconds to register the sound of sobbing somewhere to my left. In the past few months, I'd gained enough neck strength to turn my head. I looked over and saw Mother bawling with her face in her hands.

I even had a theory for why she was crying. If last night was the night of the nine tails attack and if my father had been a ninja, then there was a strong possibility that he was dead. Suddenly, Mother lifted her head and saw that I was awake. She got up from the chair she was sitting on and walked over to pick me up.

With tears still coursing down her face, she held me in her arms and said something. I was still learning Japanese, but I recognized a few of the words - enough of them for it to make sense anyway. The words I recognized were, sorry, father, nine tails. Yep, I was right, my father had been one of the ninja that had died last night.

I had a strange conflict going on inside me. One was saying that I should be crying too seeing as it was my father. The other side was argueing that I hadn't really had an emotional bond with him. Despite my confusion, I eventually just followed my mother, and, for the second time since I was reborn, I cried.

(...)

It was about four years later, I would only have to wait for a little less than a year before I could enter the ninja academy. Today, Mother was taking me to the park. I was hoping that I could find one of the main Naruto characters and start a friendship with them. I didn't want to be an insignificent part of this story so the obvious solution was to start an early friendship with one of the Rookie 9.

As soon as Mother and I reached the park, I realized I was in luck, for I saw the younger version of one of my favorite characters; Sasuke Uchiha. I had to stop myself from running up to him and having a fangirl moment. Instead, as soon as Mother told me to go and play, I walked as casually as I could over to him, while the fangirl inside of me was screaming at the top of her lungs.

He looked up as I walked over to him, obviously wondering what I wanted.

Trying to seem as friendly as possible, I smiled and said,"Hi, I'm Zaria Ibaraki!"

He seemed a little bit surprised at me forwardness, but, seeing as he wasn't yet completely bent on avenging his clan, said,"I'm Sasuke Uchiha."

"So, what'cha doing Sasuke-kun?" I asked him, wanting to become friends with him as quickly as possible.

Still looking a little shocked that I was actually attempting normal conversation with him - I figured that he was plagued with fangirls even at such a young age - said,"Well, there's this little bug here and I wanted to make a house for it."

I smiled again,"May I help?"

"Sure," was his reply.

This was actually something that I enjoyed doing, in my past life I'd spent hours as a kid making a city for various small animals and bugs with one of my friends. I drew on that experience now as we built, and by the end of it, we had some dirt walls standing up. I lined the bottom of it with grass figuring that the bug would need something to eat. I actually didn't know what kind of bug it was, I figured that it was some bug that either only existed in areas that I hadn't lived in my previous life, or it was a species exclusive to the Naruto universe.

After we carefully placed the bug inside the structure, we placed longer pieces of grass over the top of it, effectively creating a roof. Just as we got done doing that, Mother called out for me, informing me that we were going home.

"Well, bye Sasuke-kun," I said to my new friend,"That was fun!"

"Bye Zaria-chan," Sasuke yelled at me as I ran toward Mother. I lifted my hand up and waved.

(...)

Mother and I walked into our house. It stood on the edge of the village, near the woods. The dark green of the house matched the forest it stood in front of. The house was a total of two stories, my room was on the second story, and had a small balcony overlooking the woods.

Today, Mother led me into the kitchen, and we both sat down at the table.

"Zaria," Mother said,"There's something I want to tell you."

"What?" I asked, wondering what she could tell me that I didn't already know.

"Have you ever heard of a Kekkai Genkai?"

I wondered if this was going where I thought it was. I nodded, of course I knew about them!

"Well, the Ibariki clan has one."

Awesome, I thought.

"What does it do?" I asked the inevitable question.

"It's called Beast Transformation, and as the name suggests, it let's you transform into an animal of your choice."

Awesome, I thought again. I figured that it would have been something completely unhelpful, like summoning a low-level weapon, or something stupid like that. This sounded much cooler, and 100 times more helpful.

"Will you teach it to me?" I asked, practically buzzing with excitement.

"That's the reason I brought it up," Mother replied.

"When can we start?"

She laughed," Now, I guess."

"Yay!" I said, jumping out of the chair I had been seated in.

(...)

It was about an hour later and I had learnt all the basics, now it was just a matter of doing it. The first step in performing this jutsu was to make the Tora (Tiger) hand sign and thinking about what animal you wanted to become. Mother had told me that her first transformation had been a wolf, so that was what I was trying for.

I made the hand sign, wolf, wolf, wolf, I thought. Nothing happened. I sighed and tried again, and again, and again...

(...)

I had been trying to do this for a week now, and nothing had happened. I was starting to grow slightly discouraged. I walked to the familiar training ground that I had been trying to do this in for the week.

I walked to the postion I had been standing in every time I did this. I knew that Mother was standing in the window, watching. I made the hand sign, wolf, I thought, with a little edge to my mental voice.

Unexpectedly, I felt my body start changing. After the change had occured, I looked down at myself, I still looked mostly human, but my body was covered in fine silver hair, it was the same color as my hair, I'd inherited Mother's hair, and my father's green eyes. I also knew that my sense of smell was heightened as well as my hearing.

Mother opened the door and came outside clapping,"Good job, Zaria, you got a half transformation!"

I looked down at myself again, letting the jutsu fade as I didn't have enough chakra to keep it going any longer. I sighed, realizing I still had a long way to go, maybe Kekkai Genkai aren't all they're cut out to be, I thought.