I'd been reborn into the world of Naruto twice. The first time, most of my entire extended family had come with me, I'd fallen in love with Kakashi and still perished in the Fourth War. Or, well, I had been thought to have. I'd gotten mixed up with a Sand nin of a similar name and description. I had returned to Konoha when the error was fixed, and been terrified I would discover my quicksilver lover had found someone else.
Instead, I had overheard my eulogy, as the Sand nin had died in the hospital. My Sand escort had been upset. Kakashi had never known it wasn't me because that poor kunoichi's face had been destroyed and she had never woken.
Limping in on the arm of the Kazekage's brother had shocked my Village. I'd been badly hurt, but my face (unlike that poor kunoichi I never knew) had been unscarred. I don't think I ever heard so much screaming as that day. It was confusing, because I'd practically bullied my way into Konoha to save my family.
This time, I'd been reborn solo, back into Konoha, but with a similar body type, which was a relief because relearning to use a different one after so many lives in this one would have been a pain in the ass.
Now, Kakashi was a different story. Unlike Naruto and the others, he not only remembered the original timeline, he also remembered the altered one.
Fuck.
And then he figures out that I remember, too, and that in the altered timeline, I tried to save Itachi (and mostly succeeded). That I had hauled Tenzou into the light.
When he finally realized I am (was?) who I seem, he hesitated, and it drove me crazy. Before, now, he didn't get to pick and choose what information to act on. I told him that, and pissed him off badly enough for him not to notice the Uzu gambit. Ooops. I may have been asked by a certain restless maelstrom to insure Kakashi was busy.
Who only knew me as 'that pretty she-nin that Kakashi follows like a puppy', which is apparently a quote from Kushina. Whatever. Naruto likes me enough to not care when his 'older brother' trots off with me for a bit.
Anyway, I was stuck watching the drills on the water. Normally, that would be Kakashi's job. Or Obito's. Or Tenzou's. However, Obito was hearing petitioners today, for missions, Tenzou was drilling some Ayakashi tonight for nightside duties and Kakashi was meeting with the clan heads. It was interesting, how the genin were adapting to the whirlpools. Naruto, especially, had taken up rim-running, where you ran laps of an active whirlpool with chakra.
Shaking my head and tightening my Beta sash, I strolled along the wall, keeping one eye on the ocean and an ear out for the swordsmen. Hayate and Baki were supposed to training in the Dance of the Crescent Moon, and Haku had expressed interest, as had Zabuza.
I breathed in the air, closing my eyes for a moment, old, fragmented memories crashing down on me from the first life I remembered. In that life, I'd been a Canadian, had lived in the Interior of British Columbia as an adult, but before that, I'd lived on the coast. Living in Uzushio now had brought back memories of family trips to White Rock.
At least Kakashi understood. Kind of. He had his father back, had lived with and loved him since he was a child. My family… I wasn't sure where they were. I didn't even know what had happened to my old life.
Or… Well, it wasn't a surprise, per se, that the Librarium hadn't shared details of this with me. I had been the one to drop Aenya in Fairy Tail. And I'd been the one to activate the Happiness Protocol. Which, when you belong to the Librarium, is a bad thing.
I guess I should tell you what the Librarium is. You know all those self-insert fanfictions that exist? They were recorded because the Librarium takes the consciousness of one person, drops them in their new life, they live out that life, and return to their original consciousness. At most, a night or day or a nap passes and they wake up, disoriented and forgetting and thinking it's a dream.
They tell you they died? The Rector, head of the Librarium, will tell you that they were made to believe they died, so they could more fully enmesh themselves in that temporary life. I had lived several 'lives', always with a gray-something or other man.
It's lonely, sometimes, because even if Kakashi understands, loves me as much as he's able, he doesn't realize that I have a life waiting for me, where neither he nor any of my other lovers can follow.