Precipice

"I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does is permanent." -Gandhi

In the month before I headed off to college for my freshman year, I went on a camping trip with my mother and brother to the nearby mountain range. The secluded camping site we pitched our tent in was picturesque, quite like something one would see on a postcard, and the mountain air was fresh and relaxing to breathe. We hiked through the forest trails, observing the flora and fauna with gusto during the day, and at night we curled around the campfire with marshmallows and told ghost stories. Looking back, we were just one step-dad and a slew of children away from being mistaken for the insufferably sweet Brady Bunch family. Still, I couldn't have asked for a better going away gift and that camping trip will always remain crystal clear in my memory as one of the best moments during my previous life.

I can't say that this "camping" experience really compared. My clothes were coated with mud and completely soaked through from the rain that continued to pelt Hina and I as we remained huddled under an incredibly large tree. I couldn't count the number of welts I had from mysterious bug bites over the long hours we spent awake in the darkness, but every last one of them itched maddeningly. My mother wasn't much better off and we were both freezing from being soaked all night long, so when the first light of dawn started to breach the thick canopy, the only thing I could feel was relief. Sometime after the man- shinobi –died and we hurried into the forest, my mind had seemingly shut down on itself. I just mindlessly followed my mother as she dragged me through the foliage and to be honest, I could hardly remember ending up where we were now. It seemed like a distant memory.

I knew in the back of my mind that what I was experiencing was shock in its purest form, which was to be expected after watching someone get brutally murdered. Even with that knowledge, I still couldn't wrap my mind around the events of that evening. I had sat there next to my mother for the entire night staring vacantly out into the inky darkness that surrounded us just trying to come to terms with the fact that things that I knew to be fictional were suddenly real. Very, very real. To be honest, I really should have seen it coming. Who was I kidding, thinking that something wasn't feasible after being reborn into an infant's body? It was all clicking together now- the foreign language that wasn't quite Japanese, the countries that weren't anywhere to be found on the map of Earth, and the tapestry of the two fighting men that seemed so bloody familiar.

If my encounter with the now-deceased shinobi hadn't occurred, I would have never come to the conclusion that I did. It seemed ludicrous, even though deep down I knew it was true. I really must have screwed up in my past life to end up here- a fictional dimension -of all places. And, to top it all off, it just had to be the dimension of the one anime I had watched obsessively for the better part of my senior year in High School. Naruto, the source of many Friday nights spent at home in my room watching subtitled videos rather than out with my friends.

That or this place was really just an island full of insane cosplayers. Unfortunately, I doubted that. The cosplayer explanation would make things much simpler, but it would fail to clarify how exactly I ended up in an infant's body in a place that rained like it was going out of style. Besides, even if they were all extreme re-enactors, I'm sure murdering someone by a knife to the throat along with lighting multiple houses on fire would be a bit much, even if it was to "enliven" the experience.

My musings were halted as Hina heaved a weary sigh and lifted herself up off the ground, while gesturing for me to rise as well. The rainwater ran in small rivulets down my face, almost blinding me while I squinted up at her for the next hint at what we would be doing.

"Chieko-chan," she said, her voice sounding muffled over the pattering of the rain, "we're heading back to Yokoburi."

I'll admit I stared at her as if she was insane. Where was the logic in that? What if the battle was still raging? We'd be killed for sure! So I voiced my thoughts, "But, isn't that unsafe? What if we're hurt by those shinobi?"

The laugh that ripped itself from her mouth was full of bitterness and I realized with a start that she was not as unaffected by the incident as she seemed. "We'll be fine. The battles usually last only a few hours, so it'll just be those of us that survived the night."

Before I could think of how to respond to her matter-of-fact statement, she had stalked past me on a course that presumably led home, or what was left of it. I followed after her, not wanting to be left behind, even though I knew she would return to find me if I did not follow. Still, I had even more questions than I did the night before and it was more important than ever to learn about the place in which I had been reincarnated.

Even though I wasn't the best at reading people, I could tell by the rigid line of her thin shoulders and the stiff gait she set that Hina was not in the mood to answer my questions. I chose to keep my building pile of questions contained at least until we returned to what was left of our hut. That didn't stop me from contemplating them. My primary concern was figuring out why Yokoburi, of all the backwater places in the world, would be the site of what seemed like a large battle. I wracked my mind as I struggled behind my mother in the dense foliage.

It had been a few years since I had even looked at one of the Naruto manga, let alone watch some of the anime, so my memory was patchy at best. I knew the main character was named Naruto Uzu-something, but that was fairly obvious from the title of the series. I could remember a lot about the revenge-driven Sasuke, at least, and his poor martyr of a brother, but recalling the smaller details was like pulling teeth. I knew the information, but it seemed to dangle just out of my grasp. I was missing something big, but I couldn't remember what.

The Land of Rain was my new home, so I tried to delve into my, admittedly bad, memory banks on what information I had about the country. It was small and, based off the information my mother gave me, sandwiched between three other countries. Obviously, it rained a lot, and the parts I'd seen already were poor and practically carved out of the jungle. And now, I knew there were ninja running around. Strong, possibly mentally ill assassins were sharing the same air as me. Wonderful.

With that delightful thought floating about in my mind, I looked up from my mud submerged feet to see the light from the clearing that Yokoburi was situated within. Hina continued on straight into the clearing without any hesitation, but I lingered back, straining to hear any sounds of the battle from the night before. Over the loud sounds of the exotic bird calls and the clicking noises of the monstrously sized bugs in the foliage around me, I could hear nothing, so I moved out of the forest wearily.

The damage was worse than I had thought it would be. Last night, before my mother and I had darted into the forest like frightened deer, half of the village was on fire, so I had prepared to see charred remains; however, I did not expect to see a large crater that engulfed the entire town. It was as if an earthquake had occurred, but was contained to one large, circular area.

Every last hut within the miserable village of Yokoburi was leveled to the ground like some oppressive force had crushed them into the earth. Even the trees scattered within the radius were smashed into millions of tiny fragments. I could only see the vaguest of details from my position because of the distance, but I knew when I saw splotches of red throughout the crater that it wasn't paint.

My stomach was roiling and I knew my eyes were widened in horror at the scene, but that didn't stop Hina from grabbing my hand and dragging me closer to where our hut was supposed to be. I couldn't understand why she had to drag me along, knowing that I would see all the death and destruction from the battle; it was cruel and traumatic to expose a child to such an experience if it could be avoided. I dug my heels into place and struggled against her hold until she turned to me with a stern expression on her face.

"Chieko," she said shortly, "stop fighting. You need to see this."

I parted my lips to protest, but she ignored it and continued pulling me straight to the ruins of our home. The piles of rubble that looked so small from where we had breached the forest now appeared to coat the ground in a pattern of wood, debris, and to my alarm, human remains. Limbs lie strewn about the upturned chunks of ground and puddles of water diluted blood pooled all over the ground. Looking closely at the wreckage, I could even spot the charred remains of some of the victims of the fire. It was a horrifying sight.

Finally, after what seemed like a century of navigating the scattered rubble, we stopped in front of the space that once held the home of the Higurashi family. In an attempt to avoid looking at the charred remains of the abode, I looked up at Hina, who stared intently at the ground with her brow furrowed in thought. I would have been content to stay silent in respect of the poor men, women, and children who had surely lost their lives in the brutal battle; however, that was proven impossible as a strong gust of wind kicked up a cloud of debris that carried the unbearable stench of death and decay, causing me to choke on the thick air. It was smothering, like I was inhaling the breath of the Grim Reaper, and I couldn't stop coughing.

I thought I was going to die for the second time right then and there from suffocation because no matter what I did, I couldn't inhale enough air around my powerful coughs. My heart raced in panic and tears streamed out of my clenched eyes as I tried desperately to inhale, when finally, something blocked the horrid smell from my nose. I had to sit on the bloodstained and splinter covered ground for a long period of time before I could breathe normally again.

Hina sat next to me intermittently rubbing and patting my back as I regained my awareness of the world around me. I took several more deep breaths using the cloth she covered my nose with before I mumbled the first question that popped into my oxygen deprived brain, "Mama, why did you bring me back here? I don't want to see this."

A tense look crossed her face as I watched her come up with an answer, "I know you're little Chieko-chan, but you're clever and you need to learn early." She gestured around us at the remains and continued, "This is what happens to people like us. Our homes are ruined and friends and families are killed. You need to learn how the world works now, while I can still protect you from some of it."

I was perturbed at her words, so I asked the next question that troubled me, even though I knew I probably wouldn't like the answer, "Why does this happen to us? Why not to other people too?"

I could tell my question upset her by the drawn out pause while she wrung her hands before she answered, "It happens because we're weaker than other people, Chieko-chan. We don't have money so we don't have shinobi to protect us."

My face twisted into a sour expression and the words practically flew out of my mouth before I could stop them, "Why would we need their help? They're the ones that ruined Yokoburi. Can't we just stay away from them?"

Hina let out a small snort of wry amusement while she shook her head, "We can't just stay away from them. They're almost everywhere, and in the places that they haven't taken over, samurai and yakuza live."

"Then why don't we move to where the shinobi live?" I had to force the question out due to my growing aversion to anything that involved ninja, but I need to know why we didn't live under the so-called protection of the shinobiforce. They may destroy other places on a whim, but they wouldn't do the same to their home. Surely, we could afford a hovel nearby their base so we'd at least have some security, as much as I hated the thought of depending on such a blood-thirsty military. We needed their defense, if the total and complete annihilation of Yokoburi was any clue. And if we couldn't completely avoid them, then we might as well live where they would be useful instead of destructive. It's smarter to be with them than against them, right? Or so I hoped.

"We can't," was the clipped reply I received from Hina. In all my time with my mother, I had grown to accept her as a logical, fairly intelligent woman, so her lack of a reason for avoiding the security we so sorely needed caught my attention. I ran through my memories of the time with her that may have hinted at why she would actively avoid the shinobi villages, when it hit me.

"It's because of that man that's been hunting you isn't it?" I asked, knowingly but tripping on some of the larger words, "He's the reason you're staying away from the shinobi. Why?"

A crack echoed around us as Hina snapped a small piece of wood that she was toying with in half, and her jaw clenched in a mulish way. "It's nothing important," she said simply.

A smarter person would've just let it settle, but I had to know. Whoever was hunting Hina was the root of a large problem- one that my mother was adamant about avoiding.

"I think it is important." I addressed her frankly, only stumbling over the words slightly, "whoever it is scares you." Several moments passed in which all we could hear around us was the pitter-patter of the rain and the rattling of the cicadas. Gnawing on my lower lip, I grew concerned with the extended silence between us. Maybe I was asking for too much from my mother. I was supposed to be a three year old child; I guess it would have been a bit much to expect her to answer my barrage of questions. I was about to change the subject, figuring that she wasn't going to answer, when she heaved a weary sigh and shifted so we could speak face to face.

Her brown eyes scanned my features with an unreadable expression as she absently gnawed on her lower lip, then she said, "You're a smart girl, Chieko-chan, but that's a dangerous thing. I don't want you to get hurt."

I quirked my eyebrow in disbelief at her admission, because honestly, how could being knowledgeable about something be dangerous? Well, I probably knew more than I should about future events, even with my admittedly hazy memory, which is always a bad thing, but Hina didn't know that. She was worried just thinking that I had "above level intellect". That aside, having a higher level of intelligence would allow me to avoid dangerous things, so why was she worried?

I would've continued to mull it over, but Hina spoke up and cut through my pensive thoughts, "They will take you away from me if they know how smart you are, Chieko-chan. You would make a good soldier, and they will take advantage of how young you are to shape you into a monster."

Well, I suppose that answered that question. Unfortunately, it only caused me to come up with more to ask. I felt like I was Alice in Wonderland where everything I knew was wrong and answers only brought me more questions. I didn't even have the elusive Cheshire cat to guide me through the maze of new customs and expectations in this world. I suppose I would just have to make do with what I had.

"Who would take me?" I inquired first, then followed it up with, "and isn't it bad to make children into soldiers?" I struggled with how to convey the last part, because I was unfamiliar with how 'unethical' would translate in this land- if they even had a word for it. I mean, I knew Naruto and his classmates supposedly became fully fledged shinobi at a young age in the manga, but still. I was three years old; would I really be stolen away from Hina because I was considered to be smart? It seemed farfetched to me. I was the child of a poor peasant woman; therefore, I was unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

All around us, the rain grew harder, and despite my hatred for being constantly damp, I felt soothed by the rhythmic beat of the water hitting the earth. It was almost relaxing, like a white noise machine. I tugged at a strand of my shaggy blond hair and played with the split ends while Hina explained, "The ninja who live nearby. They would take you from me, and yes, but they don't care that what they're doing is bad."

I hated the way she danced around the questions that I posed. I felt like she was treating me like an invalid- someone who couldn't handle the truth. I knew I shouldn't feel that way because she was my mother and was just trying to keep me safe, but it didn't stop the annoyance from rearing its ugly head.

Bitterness is a powerful emotion and I knew that if I let myself fall into that hole, I probably wouldn't get out again. I was in a three year old girl's body; Hina couldn't be blamed for treating me as such, no matter how much I despised it. Regardless of that fact, I had the mentality of an adult and having someone in control of so many aspects of my life and survival was a painful reality. It was only worsened by her avoidance of my inquiries. I had a right to know what I was unwillingly involved in.

"Then where are we going to go?" I asked frustrated. "We can't go where the ninja are, but they're 'everywhere', and we can't stay here because there's no one left and our house is ruined!"

Hina shot me a sharp look at my hasty words, indicating that I should shut my mouth and listen. "We're going to find another small town, like Yokoburi. Maybe we'll be safer there."

"We weren't safe here," I couldn't help but spout out, "why would we be safer there? Can't we leave the Land of Rain? I want to live where it's sunny."

"Chieko," Hina ground out, and I instantly felt guilty for causing her so much stress, "we're not leaving. We can't."

"Why not?" I knew I was being a pain in the ass at that point, but I was failing to see why we couldn't leave this hellhole behind. It's not like we had anything left for us here but ghosts and ruins. There was nothing to hold us back.

"We're stuck here, Chieko-chan," Hina finally admitted, "The military won't let us leave." There went that hope. I knew we didn't stand a chance of escaping over the border with our lives if what she said was true. We were too slow and weak, and they were too strong.

"Mama," I hesitantly drawled after an extended pause while I pushed down my growing anger at the injustices of the world, "isn't there someone who can protect us? We won't be safe if we stay like this."

She opened her mouth to say something, and I could tell it would have been an instant 'no', but something stopped her and she pursed her lips again as she seemingly mulled it over. I was grasping at straws now, but even with my limited knowledge about current events in the Land of Rain, I knew that living in a small village again was not a feasible option if we intended to stay alive. I didn't take Hina as the suicidal type and I had no intentions of dying in some ghastly battle, so we had to find some other option.

"Maybe," I heard Hina mutter under her breath as she brushed the pad of her thumb against her bottom lip in thought. I stared at her expectantly, so she muttered to me, "There's a group of hangyakusha. They fight for the people. Maybe we can go to them…"

I caught the gist of what she was saying, but I had no idea what a hangyakusha was, so I asked and she expounded, "They're people who fight against the leader of the Land of Rain. The leader is a bad man; he has done terrible things." Ah, rebels. It made sense that there would be an uprising in a country like this one. When most of the country is starving or impoverished, those who are suffering tend to fight back. Blame it on human instinct.

So we were smack dab in the middle of a civil war. Great. That's the worst type of war, from what I learned in my many history classes. They're bitter conflicts between people who were once comrades and more often than not, more lives are lost in civil wars than any other type of battle. I wanted to know more about this rebellion though. It sounded eerily familiar and I had an inkling that it had something to do with what I was forgetting about the manga.

"What's the name of the leader of the Land of Rain?" I asked, curiously, "He must be strong if he can keep everyone inside the country."

An acidic expression crossed Hina's face at my statement and I half expected her to snap at me, so I was surprised when she actually answered my question, "His name is Hanzo of the Salamander."

The name rung a bell, but yet again, I couldn't place it. I was beginning to get frustrated with my lack of information, but no matter how much I tried to dig it up, I couldn't seem to remember what was so important about that name. I decided to carry on with my questioning about the war with the hopes that it would spur my memory.

"Who are the rebels then?"

Her reply came a lot smoother than the one about Hanzo, "I don't know much, but they're led by three kids. Two boys and a girl, I think. They're supposed to be strong enough to beat Hanzo."

Kids- that's who we were dependant on for protection? Then again, at this rate, anyone would've been stronger than us. Mentally shrugging, I prodded for a bit more information. "Do you know their names?"

"I think," Hina mumbled as she tilted her head, "they call themselves Akatsuki."

My whole body froze and my scope of existence narrowed down to one point as I focused on that name. It all came rushing back to me, like a tidal wave of information. Nagato. Rinnegan. Death. Pein. Akatsuki. That was the piece I was missing. Scenes of gruesome, but fantastical clashes between the grown Naruto and the overpowered Akatsuki members rushed through my mind as I dizzily tried to piece them together in a chronological pattern.

A man, no, six men, all with auburn hair and multitudes of piercings and his partner, the beautiful Konan, flashed through my head. Hidan, Kakuzu, Kisame, Itachi, Zetsu, Deidara, Sasori, Orochimaru, Tobi. All were deadly in their own way, but Tobi- he stood out. He was the personification of a wolf in sheep's clothing, from what I remembered. Under his cheerful, almost playful façade he was the true mastermind behind the rebel group turned terrorist organization, and the instigator of many years of conflict. A manipulator of the highest caliber, and he started his scheme here in the Land of Rain, my home.

Dread pooled in the pit of my stomach as I noticed the steely spark in Hina's eyes as she straightened her back. I knew what was coming, and judging by her expression, there would be no way to convince her otherwise. I should've just let her drag us to another rundown village where we could live in misery until we either died of natural causes or the village was raided.

"We're going to find the Akatsuki."

Hi there,

I must say, I was very pleasantly surprised at the response so far to Metanoia! I would like to thank everyone who took the time to leave a review, favorite or follow my story. I really do appreciate your feedback. That said, I have decided to continue my story up until the fifth chapter and at that point, if I feel like the story hasn't garnered much attention, I will discontinue it.

Enough with the business talk- Chieko bit off more than she could chew in this chapter, yeah? Unfortunately for her, there are more surprises headed her way. Anyone who can figure out what I hinted at throughout this entire chapter definitely deserves a cookie. :) I tried to keep it subtle, but it's going to become very important in future chapters.

I hope that you enjoyed this chapter and I sincerely look forward to hearing your thoughts about it!

Thanks,

Amai