*Tsubame Fujino*

"God hates me."

Not that there was much to do about it, except live in fear.

See, I woke up and started screaming.

If I was going to die and come back to life in a new place with everything I'd been through stripped away all at once, I was going to make sure the people around me knew I was upset. At least when you're a baby you can do that much without question, and it adds the bonus of making everyone around you share your misery~.

I'd be sarcastically smiling if everything didn't fucking suck.

I spent the first two years of my life this way. Screaming. My throat gave out pretty quickly and I had to take weeks of breaks before exercising my right to scream again.

Stupid vocal chords. Stupid new life. Stupid baby body.

At least my new name was pretty. Wisteria fields beneath a swallow or something like that.

I figured out we were in Naruto when one of the Orphanage Wardens pointed to the distant cliff and started listing off names. Dead giveaway, even if my eyes hadn't developed enough yet at the time to actually see that far. I was maybe a couple months old.

Everything was pretty quiet until I was about two years old— aside from me screaming. The quiet gave me lots of time to think. And be spiteful to whatever streak of fucked-up development ended me up here, of course.

I wondered if I'd survive to be five, what with Root and everything else going on in the village. I wanted to get out. I needed to get out of Konoha, away from everything.

I didn't want to be associated with the ideas Konoha was founded on, or literally any of the universe itself. I didn't want to be sucked into anything or die for a cause I didn't believe in. So, I tried to meditate instead, limiting my screaming to about ten minutes a day and focusing on meditation instead so I'd be ready to wall and water walk as soon as possible.

The better I could move, the better I could survive. That and sleeping were the way I passed the first two years of my life.

Then I heard one of the girls in the yard singing what sounded… suspiciously like the English alphabet. She was the one I'd heard even Aunt Keiri worry about for being too quiet, saying it was an omen of the girl's death or something.

"F. G. H. I. J. K. L. M. N. O—"

Shocked, I stood completely still. Then, I joined her, " — P. Q. R. S. —"

She stumbled to her feet and launched herself at me, basically tackling me in a hug. It was warm, and I found myself reciprocating without even realizing it. 'Oh good, I'm not alone in this hell of a universe.'

"You know English?" She asked me in the language, silver eyes red-rimmed and already struggling not to cry.

I'd seen her simply sit and stare off into space more than I could count, so the abrupt transition shocked me pretty badly. "Y-yes, I do. I do know English"

She lit up, "Are you from the States too? I grew up in Texas. What about you?"

I frowned, shocked. I'd lived in Texas for… a long time. "Yeah, I grew up in Texas. Born in Wisconsin, moved to Texas. Well, and Mississippi. You know what? I don't know where I'm from. All around the world."

Her eyes widened as she stood still in silence for a long moment.

"You good?" I asked.

She began to shake. "Wh— what was your name?"

I told her.

She screamed, hugging me again, crying. "IT'S ME! IT'S ME! IT'S ME!"

Her name tumbled from her mouth clumsily and it took me 5 listens to understand.

My best friend.

I began to laugh, the tears streaming down my cheeks feeling like home. As the tears began to fade, I cackled, my sides aching, hurting, sorrowful and joyful and bittersweet and angry, returning her hug ten times harder.

"You're here too."

She nodded, rolling over to get up and wipe off her tears with her left hand/sleeve situation and offer me a non-tear-stained hand to get up, still giggling to herself.

I took it and grinned, standing with her. "Thanks. I'm… so happy I… I can't believe it."

She smiled, the relief written on her face, "Me too. Me too."

*Ayumu Natsuki*

Something we'd joked about constantly when we were… well, alive, or in the other place— however you'd like to look at it— was being transmigrated to Naruto.

It was our shared comfort series, the one we could get mad at for its representation of women and laugh and cry with the hardships and victories of the characters, the one series that really kicked off our friendship and allowed us to be friends for more than ten years.

I'd personally hoped we'd be friends for 20-30 years, but death was… unkind like that, I suppose.

I still don't really want to think about the people I left behind when I died. It hurts. But I did love them, and I was grateful for each and every one of them.

The first few weeks of being transmigrated were… well, rough. All those adventure or romance fantasy Regressors or Returners or Isekai Transmigrators are full of shit.

It sucks. It sucks so much. There's no happy family, there's no discomfort-free life; you sit in your own shit and piss and feel gross everyday until someone changes you, unable to move by yourself. You can only see blurs and everything is too loud. And then there's the matter of being changed. Like with anything, you grow numb to it with time, but it's rather violating those first few instances.

Unfortunately, my way of dealing with the reality of my present was to completely shut down, so I spent the first year-ish of my life mostly silent and muttering to myself, crying myself to sleep as quietly as possible not to disturb Nono or any of the babies. When I had a brief respite from feeling miserable to feeling somewhat less miserable, I'd take the time to meditate, the feeling of chakra surging through me quite new.

I guess I was so caught up in my own grief and the novelty of the situation that I didn't even notice there was another kid like me, someone else who wasn't acting like a normal baby.

Then again, who just flat-out expects to be caught in a situation like that with someone else? Much less someone they were best friends with?

It's objectively an absolutely insane scenario to be caught in, in the first place. Not that it was uncommon in isekai stories for people to be transmigrated with people they were close with; I probably should have actually seen it coming.

Either way, it was a welcome surprise and a huge relief to hear her join me in song as I sat on the ground.

I'd just been trying to keep the English language fresh in my memory by singing the alphabet. Not being able to speak a language for over two years will degrade anyone's skills in it, and I felt that acutely. Though it was painful, I didn't want to let go of where I'd come from.

Plus, I knew it would help disguise anything I wrote down from potential interlopers as I attempted to move around and survive, considering that Japanese appeared to be the primary language and linguistic character set.

I couldn't afford to be sad; I had objectives to fill out. Two years of grief was enough and I was tired of feeling like nothing.

Though Naruto as a universe felt far from real, I didn't want to make the mistake of treating the people therein as just characters. They had been a source of great comfort to me during some pretty dark times and, if possible, I wanted to return the favor as much as possible.

Even if it would suck to do so.

I'd drafted up a plan in my head. I needed some names to fill it out, but I had the major players and general steps. Remembering that for two years, just chanting it to myself in my head, kept me focused, and helped me begin the meditation I knew I needed to have the control over the unfamiliar energy in me as soon as possible.

I couldn't get my words out quite right during our first conversation due to toddler-mouth— to be fair, neither could she— but we could understand each other just fine regardless.

I looked into her brown and gold eyes, hopeful. "I am so glad to see you. I have a plan, but I didn't think I could do it alone. I just— I'm so glad to see you. I've sectioned it into 5 steps, but… there are a lot of individual parts. Are you down to kill a bitch?"

Fujino burst out laughing. "WEll of course, my dear. I'll follow my sugar momma anywhere."

I turned bright red and shrieked, horrified of that coming out of a 2-year-old's mouth, simultaneously embarrassed that she would say that, and elated that she was here with me.

At the same time, REALLY?!

Fujino smirked, "I'm a loyal sugar baby."

And thus it began, my ears burning. "You'd better not regret that."

She grinned at me. "Couldn't."