ML: So. I finished (and edited) this chapter a couple of days ago, told 7S, and she won't be reading it until you guys do. Enjoy!

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I was born silent. The shock of it all was too—it was too much for a newborn's mind, and, to an extent, my mind. It was mine, wasn't it? I couldn't think. Lights too bright, shadows—menacing forms of monsters—too dark, sounds half-heard and yet too loud to ignore, the blurry babble of words foreign—just so that I couldn't place it. Nothing made sense—

The air (icantbreath!) became chalk-full of a buzzing, ebbing, flowing, energetic stuff that cut the sharp lines of the room I was in. It was smoke—too thick to breath—and my body reacted. Violently.

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The first year was a foggy mirage of screaming and panic. I remembered little of those days; the only memories were that of a screaming panic that reared its terrifying head at what seemed to be every waking hour. And when the screaming subsided, I remembered. I remembered that day on the plane, my exact thoughts before… something happened and I was reborn; I couldn't remember my death—could only recall the pain of a migraine on steroids in my forehead… Had it been pierced somehow? The skull has a lot of nerves around it, which explains the pain, but was Elleina all right? Or had she died as well? And had she been reborn as I had?

The thought sent a wave of unease through my tiny body, and it reacted in the usual way of cries.

Reborn. It was a concept I was familiar with (having read countless fan fictions about it), but had never really thought was true. If I had been reincarnated in the traditional way, why hadn't my memories been wiped? And who really was in charge of that shit anyways? Was it God? Hades? Whomever was to blame, I really wasn't understanding why me. In my previous life (previous. Oh, god, I died…) I was lazy and cowardly. I hated to do things I didn't want to do, and my stubbornness had nearly been my downfall several times. I was one of the worst people to even consider to be reincarnated!

…the situation was eerily similar to the one that had gotten me a slot for the trip. Had I barely met the requirements? My cries reached a higher pitch. If that was so… could Elleina have… come… with me…?

Mother came rushing in, and I could see that her dark brunet hair (short because any stray antlers could snag anything longer) was messy with sleep. Damn. My late-night thinking had woken her. I've always tried to time it so that at least one of my (new) parents was awake when I got that deep when I thought. It all boiled down to one simple equation:

Deep Thinking + One-Year-Old Body = Crying Bay.

It wasn't like I had enough self-awareness (mentally, anyway) to do anything about it. It was a sort of disconnectedness—one that was made even worse with this energy that I could feel pulse with each beat of my heart. Speaking of…

Mother's energy smoothed over me—not choking, she'd long learned that if she tried to smother me, I'd choke—and a soft lullaby lulled past her lips. I calmed, my mind, my fragile, oh so distractible, baby mind, tricking me into the blissful calm…

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My name had once been Alice Grey. Once. That was the key word here—the word that hinted at there being more than just that. Just Alice Grey. But I was no longer Alice Grey, was I? I was no longer a teenage American fan fiction writer with a dream to be a video game designer. No longer her. I am a completely different person now. No longer was I Alice Grey… but Eda Koe, daughter the Eda clan, branch clan to the Nara. We herded the aggressive cousins of the the shy deer our main clan cared for in the Konohagakue no Sato Nara Forests. At the age of five, we were given a small herd to raise. One herd per child, and if you were too stupid to take care of one, too bad. Life was tough. Deal with it.

Konohagakure no Sato. The Village Hidden in the Leaves. Konoha. Nara. Naruto. Naruto, the comic character that had a bullshit genin team and still managed to save the world. What. The. Hell.

WHAT THE FUCKING HELL DID I DO IN MY PREVIOUS LIFE TO BE REINCARNATED HERE! I was virtually useless! I couldn't mold chakra outside my body without pain, I fucking choked on it whenever too much of it was in the air, and I was about the worst person to send to a war-torn world where children entered the military at fucking six! Lazy, cowardly, and clingy were not the traits a protagonist needed!

…But what could I do? I was already born, already into my second year. I guess I could just off myself, but could I really throw away a second chance? And besides, that would be too much effort.

Spoken like a true Nara (even though I was apart of a branch clan).

It would be awhile before I could do anything.

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I'd just turned three. I loved my wintry birthday party—I'd gotten a drawing pad, a drawing kit, and, get this, a me-sized deer plushie! I love it! It's as large as me and floppy! The gleeful squee that come from me most defiantly brought a smile to the faces of my clansmen. No one could go through that squee and not laugh. I'd been adorable.

On the plus side of things (other than Deer-kun, because what could top a me-sized deer plushy?), I now had almost a full grasp on my body's actions. Sometimes this instinct would take over, and I could guess that was something that would always be there. I wasn't used to chakra, spiritually. I guessed that my spirit having no chakra of its own could also account for my inability to mold chakra outside my body. My spirit, I hypothesized, found something nice and warm and decided to not share with anything other than me. But I could only guess. Nothing was substantial. In the meantime…

I let out a giggle as I danced out of the reach of Kaa-san. She made a sound of frustrated disappointment, both of us knowing she could have caught me if she wanted to. That, or she was afraid to set off my chakra sensitivity. I blamed my greedy soul for that too. I ducked into the hallway of our home, darting into the guest room where Daiki-ojisan sat playing shoji with Tou-san. Both snorted in amusement as I searched for a hiding spot, and Daiki-ojisan, the wonderfully kind man he was, jerked a thumb to the chest at the foot of the bed. I grinned and leapt in, curling up tightly into the gap between Daiki-ojisan's clothes and his own stuffed toy. All Eda had their own personal plushie doll. It was a useless but fun tradition we of the Nara branch clan Eda were proud to have. And relieved. Because our plushie was the one thing we could talk to after a long day of tending to aggressive deer.

"Koe-chan!" Kaa-san's frustrated yell almost shook the house. "Come and finish your dinner before I take away Deer-kun!"

That was unlikely, because I hid Deer-kun in my hiding spot underneath my bed, and no one in this household knew where that was. I stayed put.

Kaa-san's footsteps stomped in the hallway, stopping at the door to the guestroom. A huff a breath, the sound of a buck before he charged, and the floor creaked as she shifted onto that one floorboard that always creaked no matter how you stepped on it.

"Kyo." Kaa-san's voice was like the eye of a storm—calm at the moment, but could turn into a furry in an instant. "Did Koe-chan run in here?"

"Huh?" Tou-san sounded as if he had just realized that his wife was there. "Oh, Aiko-hime. Is something the matter?"

Daiki-ojisan cleared his throat and it was clear that he was hiding his amusement. "Imouto just asked if Koe-chan came in."

"Did she?" I bit my lip to hide my giggles.

"She could have. We all know how unnaturally quiet the child is."

"True that. We might have missed Koe-chan because we were playing shoji."

"Ah, yes. I believe it's your turn, Kyo-san."

"Yes, yes, I know. You're difficult to beat, Daiki-san. I was just thinking up a good move…"

Kaa-san growled, "How you survived a war is beyond me," and stormed out.

"..." Tou-san made a small sound of acknowledgement. "She's gone, Koe-chan. Hide with Deer-kun in your secret hiding spot."

"…" I was silent for a second, reaching out to feel Kaa-san's chakra. It was outside now. "Do… you know… where…?"

"No clue."

I giggled. I climbed from the chest and, after giving each man a short hug for helping me, ran from the room. In my room now, I reached out once again to make sure that no one was nearby to catch me before I slid under the large gap under my bed. There was a loose floorboard underneath my bed—one that soon turned to five as I hollowed out the ground beneath and grew bigger. The space itself was only a crawlspace—big enough for an adult, if they ripped up a few more floorboards. The ground and walls were covered by the sheets that I'd 'borrowed' from the linen closets (Kaa-san had questioned Tou-san for months), with nailed drawings keeping them in place. I crawled down, grinning. No matter what happened, there were always four things that I loved: drawing, writing (though I couldn't here, at least not yet), scaring the living shit outta things, and hiding in hard to find places. The last two actually went hand in hand, now that I though about it.

Deer-kun was looking lonely.

I crawled over and hugged him. "Don't worry! Koe-chan's here!" I said in heavily accented English. Then, of course, there was the three-year-old slur that made my words unintelligible.

I could imagine Deer-kun's voice. "I wasn't too lonely! I had your wonderful drawings to keep me company!"

"But drawings are no replacement placement for living company!" I hugged him harder. "I shouldn't have left you down here all alone!"

"But then Kaa-san would have taken me away!"

"But still!"

"Shh! Someone's coming!"

Sure enough, Kaa-san's chakra slid into my room. I stilled.

"Koe-chan?" Kaa-san's chakra was much calmer, now. "Damn. She's probably gone off to her secret hiding place. We really need to find where that is…" Her chakra moved off towards her room.

"…close." I said in Japanese.

There was a reason that my secret hiding place remained a secret. I literally gave off no chakra. If I tried to, my skin would prick and itch at the start, and if I continued to try, it would buzz with pain. Not fun. At all. It was also tied together with my inability to mold chakra outside of my body. My hypersensitivity to chakra could be chalked down to the fact that my mind sometimes thought that nature energy and chakra signatures were tied in the same boat as smoke and tried to cough it up. Again, it wasn't fun. But what could I do?

"Yup," was what Deer-kun said before he fell silent. I hummed, laying back on a pillow and falling into thought.

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I was talking to Deer-kun when it happed. At first, it was a gradual kind of awareness—the slow realization of a tsunami coming as the water receded from the shore.

And then the tsunami crashed down.

I could only voice a faint, wailing cry before the intent paralyzed me. Tears gathered in my eyes as my soon-to-be demise exploded across my vision. I was falling—being eaten alive—drowning—bleeding out—tortured—

"Koe-chan!" Who? I couldn't think, too petrified by the overwhelming waves of malicious chakra that choked my breath and foretold of my second death—the third—the seventh—

I screamed and choked when it stopped, and…

Oblivion.

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Later, when I woke up after a week-long coma, the date of my freak-out reached me.

October tenth.

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ML: Note that the differences of scene breaks are simply my and 7S's differences in how we write chapters. (i.e. she takes the effort to add in the line breaks and I'm just too lazy to do it). Just something I noticed. Also: Koe means 'voice' and Eda means 'branch'. The Nara laziness shows.

Deer-kun: So... What language am I speaking? I'm so confused!

ML: You are Koe's imaginary friend, so of course the two of you speak English to each other! That's one way to differentiate you from the other Eda plushies, at least.

Deer-kun: Ah... Can I have mochi?

ML: *wringles nose* I don't see why you like those things... sure. In the freezer, bottom shelf.

Deer-kun: Yay! Does me being an imaginary friend of Koe's mean I can break the forth wall?

ML: I'll have to talk to 7S about that... but I don't see why not.

Deer-kun: *grins and opens fridge* WAAAH! *runs over to just entering Koe* Koe-chan! Save me!

Koe: ...Did I miss something?

ML: Deer-kun opened the fridge instead of the freezer.

Koe: And?

ML: I think... *walks over to fridge* Yup. He saw these. *holds up jar of eyeballs*

*Eyeballs twitch towards Koe*

*Deer-kun whimpers*

Koe: Why the fuck are there eyeballs in the fridge?

ML: *waves hand dismissively* Replacements. Now, I hope you all enjoyed this chapter! Don't forget to leave a review on the way out! See ya!