"Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory"-Dr Seuss

Being a baby was painful.

Not only did the constant boredom annoy her, but with nothing to do but sleep, her waking hours were filled with flashbacks from her past while nightmares plagued her dreams.

A small freckled girl with dark brown curly hair bounced up and down, her grin impossibly wide.

"It's snowing, it's snowing! Let's go outside!"

"Livi, don't you dare sing-" a voice warned in suspicion before being interrupted.

"Do you wanna build a snowmaaan!"

"You little!" the cry filled with mock anger quickly dissolved into uncontrollable giggling and shrieks of laughter as the older girl chased the still singing child.

"Come back here!"

Kaida woke up with her heart racing, lips open in a preparation for a cry. Lowering an outstretched hand, she gritted her teeth as fury rose up in her body.

Enough.

She is sick and tired of mourning things that couldn't be changed. That wasn't how she was raised in her past life (it still hurts like nothing else to think of it) and she sure as hell won't start now.

Forcefully shoving away all her memories of the past except anything Naruto related, she tried to distract herself by focusing on something else that could be productive.

Namely, chakra.

Judging by the blurry blobs of color that she could faintly "see" at the edges of her peripheral vision, she guessed that either she had some sort of chakra sensing ability like Karin's, or she was hallucinating because her mind snapped. She hoped that it was the former.

Whenever she tried to focus on the blobs, the sight would slip away. Frustration building up, she tried to force the image to stay by latching on to it and yanking. The end result was her chakra, which had stretched out without her noticing, snapping back, causing her to recoil from the harsh backlash. Tears formed as she winced from the stinging sensation deep within her core. Note to self: Don't try that again unless under adult supervision or further experience.

'Hmm, maybe my chakra coil isn't elastic enough? It will probably get stretchier as I get older,' she concluded after musing over her (admittedly painful) failure. She remembered something about homeostasis in Biology class, a memory that wasn't as painful to recall as the ones she had of her family (gonegonegone). She then started to hesitantly stretch her chakra again, bit by bit, ignoring her recent mental note to not do it again, before slowly releasing it. When she began to feel tired from the monotonous stretching and releasing motions, (which barely lasted a minute), she rested for a while to allow her mind to wander to other thoughts.

While Kaida was resting, she was too preoccupied to notice Haruki standing by the doorway in a defensive stance. She didn't realize that the constant stretching and compressing of her chakra acted like a frantic chakra flare to the nearby sensor. As soon as he sensed the flares, he rushed to the children's room, ready to kill anyone who would dare to harm his babies. When he came to the room with no enemy in sight, but his eldest playing with her chakra at only a few months after her birth, well, surprised was an understatement.

Calculating eyes narrowed in thought, he silently stepped out of the room, multiple plans already forming in his mind concerning this new information. He would have to inform Amaya about this and decide on the next course of action.

After all, Haruki wasn't a Jōnin in the Intelligence Division for nothing.

Sighing, Kaida looked over towards the one person that she had been avoiding all thoughts about ever since her rebirth(she shudders when recalling that experience. Never again will she think about how she came out of a woman's vagi- ). There was a childish hope that if she didn't think about something, then it didn't exist. Closing her eyes, Kaida inhaled deeply before rolling over to stare at the person dozing peacefully next to her.

Sleepy crimson eyes blinked at the shifting motion before snuggling closer to Kaida, drool slowly leaking from the corners of her mouth. Karin's bright, fire engine red hair sprouted out of her head in spiky little tufts, foreshadowing her future hairstyle. The adorable(albeit slightly disgusting with the drool) scene caused a part of her to awww at the sight, before abruptly stiffening at her actions.

Shit.

She absolutely, positively cannot get attached to Karin of all people. She was not going to get close to the girl who was going to get stabbed by a certain avenging emo. As if she was going to give herself even more grief. 'But you can change that, prevent your sister from anyone who dares to harm her,' the sneaking thought whispered in her mind.

No. She was not Karin's sister(her only sister was Olivia), so she would not be obliged to change anything. The plot had worked out fine before, and it would work out fine now, regardless of her actions. But, she did worry about any ripples she might have caused just by being born. As far as she knew, Karin hadn't had a sister, nor were her parents shown in the manga. 'Dead dead dead, they're allll dead,' the pesky voice in her mind singsonged. As callous as it sounded, these people weren't her family, so she didn't feel responsible for their safety. At least, that was what she told herself. Kaida had hoped that this time, she wouldn't be as easily attached to people as she was in her past life (that didn't sound weird at all).

She slowly placed bricks around her heart and cemented every nook and cranny in her fortress. She then wrapped chains around the whole thing, locked it, and metaphorically threw away the key. There. Now, no one can get passed her defenses and guilt her into helping them.

Then Karin yawned and hugged Kaida like she was her personal giant teddy bear, a slight smile on her face as she dreamed of unicorns, rainbows, and whatever the hell kids dreamed about in this world. Probably kunais, other sharp pointy objects, or Sasuke.

'Nononono' she mentally panicked as she felt all her hard work crumbling right before eyes. Damn it. Goddamn her weakness to all things cute. Kaida struggled to put the defenses back up before deeming it as a lost cause.

Fine.

FINE! She will try to help Karin in surviving this godforsaken world where kids run around stabbing people or frying them like some sick form of a giant barbecue. But that's it. There won't be anymore people that she'll be putting on her new "To Save" list, no matter what. 'Even if they're your parents? Like it or not, they will probably raise you with love like last time, will you be able to live with yourself if you did nothing?' her stupid conscience asked. 'Yeah, well no one asked you. Screw you!' Kaida retorted, before abruptly stopping because she was arguing with herself. Great, not only did she have to go through puberty, dodge flying sharp projectiles from people who wanted to kill her because of her heritage, but now she was insane.

She wonders briefly about the supposed link that twins were rumored to have between each other. She had heard rumors that they could read each other's mind, so she put it to the test.

Narrowing her eyes in frustration, she frowned at Karin as one thought ran through her mind.

'This is all your fucking fault you know.'

"Talking to yourself is normal. So is arguing with yourself. However, you're in deep shit if you lose that argument."-Anonymous

Authors Note:

So Kaida tries and fails to get attached. One of her many weaknesses, getting too easily attached. This took awhile because I had my AP exam today, which was really stressful, and I had to study. Finished it, now awaiting the results in July. God, I hope I passed that monster. That's why it took awhile, and also this chapter is the longest yet. I started this as a writing exercise, but now I'm actually getting attached to this story. I've got lots of ideas for this now, nothing major yet.

Thank you those of you who reviewed Failing Wings, Llyrica, native-x, Nitefallen, and FearThePanda. Those reviews were read carefully and I tried to improve my story based on those comments about more description. I may have had a happy grin while reading them.

Reviews will be welcomed with open arms and a little happy dance. Can't improve my story without anyone pointing out my mistakes.