Project: Second Time A Kakashi x oc fanfic RomanceCherry_ChapeauSummary:
Dying as an engineer and waking up as a toddler in the Naruto world? Ayame's biggest problem isn't her tiny hands - it's surviving in a world where chakra rules and ninjas hold all the cards. Armed with only her modern knowledge, she tries to build a quiet life in a traditional farming village. But fate has other plans when a certain silver-haired ninja crosses her path...
Between inventing new farming techniques and hiding her true identity, Ayame discovers that staying uninvolved with the shinobi world is harder than expected. Especially when Kakashi Hatake shows an unusual interest in the civilian woman who keeps revolutionizing her village with 'impossible' innovations.
Notes:
This is a work of fanfiction. Naruto and all associated characters and settings belong to Masashi Kishimoto, TV Tokyo, and Shueisha. I only own my original characters (specifically Ayame Tanaka) and the plot of this story is written purely for entertainment purposes and I make no profit from : This story contains mentions of war, violence, and trauma (consistent with the original Naruto universe). Reader discretion is advised.
(See the end of the work formore notes.)
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Chapter 1: 1. I wa deadChapter Text
Afternoon sunlight spilled through rice paper doors, painting gentle shadows across worn tatami. In the kitchen, fresh rice and green tea mingled their familiar scents - the essence of home that Sachiko had crafted each day since becoming a mother. She hummed softly while preparing tea, letting the distant laughter of children playing near the bamboo grove wash over her. It was a perfect spring day in Minazawa, the kind that made you forget the world could be anything but peaceful.
Her three-year-old firstborn, Ayame, was taking her afternoon nap upstairs. The thought brought a gentle smile to Sachiko's lips as she arranged the tea cups—just this morning, her little one had insisted on helping feed the chickens, her small hands struggling endearingly with the heavy feed bucket. Such a determined child, even when faced with tasks clearly beyond her years.
The scream shattered everything.
It tore through the house—raw and primal like a wounded animal, before transforming into something worse: a sound that began as a child's cry but ended as something else entirely. It wasn't a normal child's distress. It wasn't even human. The sound cut through Sachiko's heart, sending the teacup tumbling from suddenly nerveless fingers. Porcelain splintered across the tatami like her world was about to splinter around her. Her feet were already carrying her toward the stairs before her mind could process the horror of that sound. It came from above.
AYAME*
She took the stairs two at a time, heart thundering against her ribs, a mother's desperate prayer repeating with each step: *Please, please, please...*
A scream. The door to Ayame's room slid open with a bang, and the sight froze Sachiko in the doorway, her blood turning to ice in her veins. Her daughter thrashed on the futon, small hands clawing and scratching at the air as if fighting an invisible enemy. But it was her eyes—those weren't her daughter's eyes. They were too sharp, too aware, filled with an adult's horror that no three-year-old should ever know. When Ayame's gaze locked onto her, Sachiko felt the hairs on the back of her neck rise.
"D-d-dead," Ayame choked out between sobs, the word mangled but unmistakable. "I was... I was..."
Those words. Those impossible words. Just yesterday, Ayame's speech had been limited to simple phrases like "mama" and "more rice." The sophisticated attempt at speech emerging from her baby's mouth was wrong, fundamentally wrong in a way that made Sachiko's maternal instincts scream in warning.
"Ayame-chan?" Sachiko's voice trembled as she stepped forward, maternal instinct warring with primitive fear. "Mama's here, baby." For a heartbeat, she hesitated, unsure whether to trust her deepest instincts.
She reached for her daughter, but Ayame recoiled violently, small body contorting as she tried to escape the embrace. The struggle was unlike anything Sachiko had experienced in her three years of motherhood—not the uncoordinated flailing of a tantruming toddler, but something desperate and panic-stricken, almost calculated in its intensity.
The sounds emerging from Ayame's throat were a horrifying mixture of childish wails and truncated adult words, fragments of thoughts too complex for her undeveloped vocal cords. "Bo Bro ken, I D D dead... aaahh," the words sent fresh chills down Sachiko's spine. These weren't words her daughter knew. These weren't words her daughter *could* know.
Then, like a candle being snuffed out, something changed in Ayame's eyes. The struggling ceased as she sat up straighter in her mother's arms. The terror flickered and dimmed, replaced by a more familiar childish distress. But there was something else there too—a flash of calculation, of awareness, that disappeared so quickly Sachiko almost convinced herself she'd imagined it.
"Mama," her child cried, the voice pure toddler again—but Sachiko couldn't shake the feeling that this shift was somehow deliberate, like a curtain being drawn over something vast and frightening.
Ayame whimpered, reaching up with grabbing hands, and this time when Sachiko gathered her daughter close, there was no resistance. Just the warm weight of her child, suddenly seeming both familiar and stranger than she'd ever been.
Outside, life continued its gentle rhythm. Bamboo leaves whispered in the breeze, children's laughter floated up from the street, and someone's wind chimes sang their delicate song. But as Sachiko rocked her quietly crying daughter, she knew with bone-deep certainty that nothing would ever be the same.
The room felt different now. Darker, despite the warm spring sunlight streaming through the windows. As if something fundamental had shifted in the world, leaving everything slightly out of alignment with what she'd always known to be true.
Her daughter's breathing eventually evened out, small fingers clutching Sachiko's sleeve like an anchor to reality. But even as peace seemed to return, Sachiko couldn't shake the memory of those eyes—adult eyes in her baby's face—and the terrible knowledge that something unnatural had awakened in this sunny little room.
She held Ayame tighter, fighting back tears of her own. Whatever had happened, whatever this meant, she would protect her child. Even if, for the first time since Ayame's birth, she wasn't entirely sure what she was protecting her from.
a few minutes before
The report needs to be finished today.*
Ayame rubbed her burning eyes as she read the same sentence for the third time. The office lighting hummed irritatingly overhead, a constant reminder of too many overtime hours. One more chapter.*Come on, you can do this. You've survived worse.*
"It's getting late..." The janitor's voice startled her.
"Almost done," she mumbled, blinking at the blurring letters on her screen. *When did computer screens become so exhausting?*
A drop of coffee fell on her desk.*Strange, she thought*I finished my coffee hours ago.*The image shifted. She wasn't in the office anymore. She was in her car, the radio DJ's voice fading into white noise. Headlights, too bright. A horn. The sound of-
*CRACK*
She bolted upright, heart pounding against her ribs.*A dream. Oh thank god, just a dream.*Relief washed over her as she automatically reached for her nightstand, searching for her glasses. Her hand grasped empty air.
What...?*
She blinked in confusion. The room was blurry- no, wait. The room was*sharp*.Perfectly clear, without her glasses.*That's impossible. I'm as blind as a mole without them.*
Something was wrong. The room felt different. Too big? Too small? She blinked against the midday light filtering through paper doors -*paper doors? Since when do I have... oh god*- and tried to reason away her rising panic.
"Let me think logically," she whispered... and froze. Her voice sounded*wrong*.Childlike.*No no no, this isn't...*As if someone else was speaking through her.
Okay. Okay. Stay calm. Systematic approach.*She closed her eyes, her heart beating far too fast as she tried to organize her thoughts like project data.*What do I know for certain? Oh god, what do I even know anymore?*
Yesterday. She tried to remember yesterday, her breathing becoming increasingly rapid. Two sets of memories collided in her head: the report at the office AND... eating rice porridge while mama?*Mama?*She hadn't seen her mother in years, not since moving to-*This can't be happening. This literally cannot be happening.*
Her eyes flew open. She looked at her hands.
Tiny hands. Chubby fingers. A toddler's hands.*No. NO.*
Her engineer's brain kicked into overdrive, desperately trying to maintain control while panic gnawed at the edges of her consciousness.*These proportions are completely wrong. This is impossible. Based on average hand measurements- focus, FOCUS.*
She turned her palms over, trembling now. No calluses from typing. No scar from that failed DIY project. These hands had never touched a keyboard.*This is real. This is REAL.*
Analysis. Focus. Don't freak out. Don't-*
This is not a dream.*Oh god, I wish it was a dream.*
The memories are too complex...*I don't want to know this.*
The body is physically different -*This isn't my body this isn't-*
Ergo: This is...
The logic shattered.
Her carefully constructed thought process exploded like a broken monitor. Fragments of realization cut through her*The report. The truck. The sound of metal on metal. The impact. The...*
"I'm dead," she whispered in that strange child's voice. "I was... I was..."
The scream that followed wasn't planned, wasn't analyzed, wasn't reasoned through. It was pure, unprocessed existential horror fighting its way out through a throat too small for such adult emotions.
She heard footsteps on the stairs, the sound of breaking porcelain below.*Mama's coming, part of her mind registered.*But that's impossible because mama's in Osaka and I'm twenty-six and I was at work and I'm DEAD-*
The door flew open.
The last thing she consciously registered was her mother's shocked face - *but not my mother, not really*- before all analysis, all logic, all adult thoughts dissolved into pure panic.
The room felt jarringly different - furniture that once stood at eye level now towered above like miniature buildings. Ayame sat at the low table, her pudgy legs folded neatly as she remembered was proper in this world. Afternoon light filtered through rice paper doors, casting dancing shadows across the tatami like a theatrical play of light and dark.
*This is surreal. This is SO surreal. Why does everything feel gigantic? It's like I've been dropped into some bizarre dollhouse, except I'm the doll.*
Her mother – *no, my new mother, and that still feels like some sci-fi plot twist* – poured tea with movements both familiar and strange. The scent of green tea triggered a desperate longing for her morning coffee, yet somehow brought an unexpected wave of comfort.
"You look so serious, Ayame-chan," her mother murmured, concern still evident after the earlier outburst. "Would you like some tea?"
Observation one: motor control dramatically below acceptable parameters*, her engineer's mind analyzed as she reached for the cup. Her fingers – ridiculously small and chubby like tiny sausages – could barely encompass the cup's circumference. *Surface-to-volume ratio completely impractical for efficient gripping. An ergonomic nightmare. This would never pass basic safety protocols... oh, right.*
"Careful-" Her mother's warning came too late. Hot tea splashed over tiny fingers, and Ayame's instinctive "goddammit" transformed into a frustrated "ga-bah-ko!"
"There, there," her mother soothed, worry resonating in every syllable. "Perhaps we should go to your playroom. You can settle down there."
"No, I can handle this," Ayame tried to articulate, but her tongue stumbled over the words like a drunk gymnast. "C-can... I... why won't these vocal cords cooperate?" The last part emerged as a bizarre fusion of toddler clumsiness and adult frustration.
"Come," her mother said softly, "let's go to your playroom." She extended her hand, a gesture that should have been as familiar as breathing.
*Standing up. Basic biomechanics. Just shift your center of gravity and...* THUMP.
Ayame stared at the ceiling in bewilderment, her tiny bottom protesting against the hard landing. *Fantastic. Just fantastic. This entire body interface is completely unusable. Who designed this system? I demand a revision.* Tears of pure frustration pricked at her eyes.
"Ayame-chan!" Her mother's alarmed exclamation was followed by comforting arms. She cried - partly from genuine frustration, partly from a programmed toddler reflex she couldn't suppress. It worked; her mother's worried expression softened noticeably.
The playroom was small but bright, with a large window overlooking the village. As soon as her mother set her down, Ayame waddled toward it - *waddling, really? This gait is an insult to evolution* - for her first real look at this new world.
Outside, children played with a woven straw ball, their laughter rising with smoke from traditional houses' chimneys. *Interesting construction actually - those roof beams are perfectly positioned for maximum stability with minimal material usage. Medieval engineering at its finest.*Rice fields stretched to the horizon, brilliant green in the afternoon sun. *No power lines. No asphalt. No... modern ANYTHING. This is either an incredibly convincing historical reconstruction, or...*
Her analytical spiral screeched to a halt as her gaze fell on something far more personal than architectural observations. In the corner of the room, partially hidden in shadow, lay a weathered how such a simple object can throw off all scientific 's tiny fingers reached for it, finding themselves surprisingly steady around its soft body. The movement bypassed all conscious thought, as if her muscles held memories her mind had never made. Without any engineering calculation or logical decision, she hugged the doll close - a gesture so deeply embedded in this child body's cellular memory that it felt like muscle memory from a life she hadn't technically lived. The toy smelled of dust and summer, of memories that didn't belong to her but somehow resonated in the depths of her borrowed heart.
"I'll just do some chores," her mother said softly, visibly relieved by this apparently normal behavior. "Play nicely with your doll."
As soon as her mother's footsteps faded, Ayame let the mask drop. Her forehead rested against the cool window, the doll slipping from trembling fingers with a soft thud onto the tatami. It was too much - her ultra-modern seventh-floor apartment, the dual monitors filled with technical specifications, the brand-new coffee maker she hadn't even broken in... all gone. Her entire carefully constructed life, erased like a miscalculation. A sob tore through her throat, entirely genuine this time, raw and ragged without a trace of performance.
And then, like a cosmic joke with perfectly timed irony, she felt it.
*Oh no.*
*OH NO.*
Her gaze slid slowly, with the kind of horror only an adult mind trapped in a toddler's body can experience, toward the corner of the room. There it stood: an innocent-looking wooden potty that seemed to mock her with its simple, unrelenting functionality.
*This is NOT how my day should be going. This CANNOT be happening. There are LIMITS to what a human being should have to endure.*
"Mama?" Her tiny voice sounded thin and desperate. "I need to..."
The universe, she concluded with a mixture of existential crisis and gallows humor, clearly had a very developed sense of cosmic irony.
Evening settled over Minazawa, painting soft shadows through the rice paper doors. Ayame lay in her futon, overwhelmed by how something as simple as a child's blanket could feel so foreign and familiar at the same time. *This is real. This is actually real.*
"Sleepy," she mumbled, the word feeling clumsy on her tongue. She watched her mother through half-closed eyes, noting the worry lines that hadn't been there this morning. *Great job, me. First day in a new life and I'm already making everyone miserable.*
Her mother lingered at the doorway, a shadow against the dying light. "Oyasumi, Ayame-chan." The words hung in the air like a question she couldn't answer.
Footsteps faded down the hallway. Three steps. Five. Seven. The soft click of her parents' door sliding shut.
Finally alone, Ayame let the tears come. No screaming this time - she'd done enough of that for one day. Just quiet, messy grief for everything she'd lost. Her apartment with its city views. Her coffee maker she'd saved three months to buy. The satisfaction of finishing a difficult project. All gone.
*I should be making plans or... something.* But her mind felt useless against the simple fact that she missed her life.
Fragments of memory flashed behind her closed eyes: the hum of her monitors during late-night work sessions, the weight of her laptop during meetings, the proud moment she'd finally gotten her certification. *I worked so hard to build that life. I was finally getting somewhere and now...*
"I can't—" She pressed her face into the small pillow, words muffled. "I can't fix this. There's no solution for being dead and three years old again..."
A sound through the paper-thin wall made her freeze. A muffled sob, barely audible but unmistakable: her mother was crying.
*Oh.* The realization hit her like a physical blow. This wasn't just about her loss. Her "death" - her transformation - was hurting people who had loved her as their daughter for three years. Real people with real hearts she was breaking with her inability to adjust.
*Brilliant. Really brilliant. Forgot about the actual people involved. Again.*
She rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling she could still see with disturbing clarity without her now-nonexistent glasses. For the first time all day, her mind settled into familiar problem-solving clarity.
*Okay. Think. What would you tell yourself facing an impossible task?*
*Break it down. Start small. Work with what you have.*
"I can fix this," she whispered into the darkness, surprised by the determination in her small voice. "Even if it's the hardest thing I've ever done."
Moonlight painted silver patterns across the tatami, and Ayame's eyes grew heavy, this time genuinely. Her last conscious thought wasn't of loss but of possibility. Maybe she couldn't calculate her way out of this situation, but she could try to make it better. For herself. For her family.
For this mother who loved her enough to cry.
She drifted into sleep, small fingers clutching her blanket like a promise. Tomorrow would be different. Tomorrow she would try harder.
Even if she had to learn everything all over again.
Notes:
Yo,
Writing this story is my passion project. Help me make it better.
What did you like? What felt off? What made you roll your eyes?
honesty is appreciated.
Catch you in the comments,
Author