Snap Back To Reality 56

Walking back home was awkward, especially when I knew I'd have to confront Taichi. I paused at the door for a few minutes, walking back and forth unsure of what to do, until Matsu stopped behind me, putting down some groceries and sending me a look.

"I didn't mean to leave again—it's just been tough," I admitted guiltily.

"I know, Taichi explained everything," Matsu said.

"Everything?" I asked for confirmation.

"Ev-ery-thing," he emphasised. "Look I'm not going to pretend I can have a say on whether what you did was right or wrong. It's beyond little old me, but you shouldn't have dropped that bomb on him and just ran away."

I felt the urge to defend myself, but I stopped short and paused. Matsu was right. I shouldn't have run away, panicked like some pathetic loser who couldn't handle her own actions. I was an adult and yet here I was acting like some over-emotional child. I should have stayed and comforted him.

"I'm not going to run away today," I said in determination.

"You better not or I'm going to drag your ass back here. He hasn't been able to bake a single thing… is that a Jounin jacket?"

Oh he just noticed. Which was fair enough considering he was probably pissed off at me.

"I got promoted."

Matsu whistled. "You're a quick one. Well don't keep him waiting. I'll congratulate you after you go fix up this mess."

"Thanks cousin Matsu," I mumbled as I found the courage to enter into the shop and make my way up the stairs.

I stopped at the door but eventually entered. This house had never been inviting to me I realised. Even before I murdered my own parents, it had felt like I wasn't invited here. It still felt that way. I wondered if it always would.

But my feelings never mattered. Once in a while I would pretend it did, but I'd always remind myself sooner or later what I lived for, then all my actions would look childish and selfish. Like I had a right to cry or panic when my brother was hurting… like I deserved to be comforted at all. I felt the blood drip from my hands again and I felt the urge to run them under the tap endlessly. I shut my eyes and ignored the feeling, pushing them behind my back as I stood in front of Taichi's room.

"Are you in there Taichi?" I asked.

There was a long seemingly unending pause before he shuffled out of bed and opened the door. His under eyes were dark and his hair was a mess. I winced at the glare I received.

"Finally decided to come home huh?" he asked, a tone of bitterness behind his words, then he looked down at my flak jacket and paused. "As usual. Always too busy for us."

Ouch.

"Ok I deserve that—"

"—You deserve a beating. You left for a whole day! Where were you?"

"I stayed over at my teammate's," I admitted with a sigh. "I-I'm sorry… I just left you after all that and—fuck—I'm bad at this. I know I'm bad at this, but I didn't mean to hurt you. I just thought you'd want some space."

"Kami Hina!" Taichi growled as he flung open the door. "I know what your problem is, you know what it is, everyone does, so why can't you see it?"

I faltered. "This isn't about me—I shouldn't have left. I know—"

"—No you don't know! It's been about you from the start! It's not that you left because you needed time to yourself, it's because you hate yourself so much for making a mistake, you want others to distance themselves from you, so on purpose or not you decide to hurt yourself you need to hurt them. Dammit Hina, you can fool yourself, but you can't fool me."

I didn't know what to say. A familiar panic threatened to overtake me again and so this time I decided to breathe. I didn't know what to say. For the first time in my life it felt like my brain refused to work, like it was shutting down so I couldn't think. I wanted to run away again until this horrible feeling left me, until I wasn't drowning in confusion.

"You keep saying you hate hurting us, so then stop hurting yourself. It seems to come around in a circle doesn't it," Taichi demanded angrily.

"I-I really don't want to hurt you," I whispered.

"Then don't. Stop hurting yourself. Stop deflecting all your problems onto tasks. Take a moment for once in your life to make it about you."

I already had. I had that moment when I killed Danzo. There was nothing more for me beyond my goals now. Without it…

My thoughts were pulled back to Taichi when he put a hand on my head, and I had instinctually flinched away. He frowned then pulled back and I felt stupid all over again. Like usual we ignored the matter altogether and continued. It was rare for him to forget how much I hated people touching my head.

"I'm sorry for snapping at you," he sighed.

"No don't apologise."

"I didn't notice I was the one stressing you out… maybe you should take some time to yourself," he said.

"No I really don't need that," I chuckled softly.

"I do though. You should go play with Tsukiya. He doesn't really know what's going on besides the fact that you took down a lot of 'bad shinobi'. I told him you were busy so he wouldn't get hurt, but he waits months for you to come home for a few days and it's like you're never there in that time for him."

I nodded stiffly. It had been 6 whole months for the last mission. Travelling in a caravan was not quick. It always seemed to pass so quickly for me, and then when I returned home it was like Tsukiya had become a different person each time. It hurt to think that we were practically strangers.

"Where does he usually play?" I asked.

"He tells me he plays around the corner store by the civilian district," Taichi replied before nodding and closing his door.

I sighed and then took my leave. Of course a day wasn't enough time for him to process something as big as what I had told him. A part of him probably did blame me. It was a part I don't think he would ever be vocal about, but I knew it was there regardless. I went downstairs and when Matsu turned to me expectantly, I shook my head.

"He isn't coming out for a while, is he?" Matsu asked worriedly.

"No, he needs time," I said stiffly. "I'm going to go find Tsukiya. Sorry I can't help with the shop."

"Don't worry about the shop," Matsu said flippantly as he waved me away.

I left quickly but I didn't run to the park. I knew where it was. It was the park Taichi had taken me the first time I'd come back home from the Nara district. It was a place with predominantly civilian kids considering it was located in the civilian district. I looked around for a bit, but I didn't see any green haired boy and I wondered if maybe he'd gone to get some kind of snack at a store nearby.

I went around all the snack stores and decided to try and track his familiar scent, but he seemed out of range. I felt a trickle of fear enter me. What if someone had abducted him… but that was a hard thing to do with the Uchiha police. Abductions in a Shinobi village were reserved for people suddenly 'missing' after a mission, or for children in orphanages, not for civilian children in open playgrounds. Still, Tsukiya would know not to go beyond the civilian district. Even if kids in this world had more freedom than the ones back in my old world, they were still limited from doing too much at this age.

I decided to calm down and try other parks and after 30 minutes of frantic searching I dropped down onto a tree to see a mop of long green hair. He was hanging around with a bunch of other four-year-old brats it seemed. I sighed in relief until I noticed the band aids on their legs and the wooden kunai in their hands. Shinobi children? What was Tsukiya doing hanging around Shinobi children? My heart nearly dropped. No, no, no. He couldn't.

I was so caught up in my thoughts that I barely noticed what was going on until it was too late. Tsukiya was throwing wooden kunai at a boy smaller than him with his friends. They seemed to be laughing. I was about to drop down and stop them when the smaller child picked up a rock, threw it at the kunai, flinging it back to hit Tsukiya square in the forehead. The boy picked up another rock and the rest of the boys ran away leaving Tsukiya crying on the floor holding his forehead. I dropped down next to my brother and noted the small dark-haired boy pause at my presence a little more guarded than usual.

"Hina-neechan!" Tsukiya cried. "That boy hit me on the head!"

I sighed in exasperation as I karate chopped the little shit's head. Tsukiya held his wound in indignation, more tears streaming down his face. I turned to see the other boys hiding behind a building. I glared at them and gestured for them to come. They all awkwardly gathered around. I then turned to the small dark-haired boy and motioned for him to come too. He awkwardly complied.

"Why'd you hit me?!" Tsukiya demanded.

"Because you boys were picking on him, weren't you?" I asked with a frown.

"Yeah but only because he deserves it! He always thinks he's so cool just cause he's an Uchiha," one of the boys defended hotly.

"The way I saw it, he was just walking along when you lot decided to bother him. Hey Uchiha-chan, don't you think that's unfair to you?"

The kid looked wholly flustered but he nodded either way, refraining from talking. He must be embarrassed. How cute. I turned to my brother and shook my head. He couldn't turn into a bully under my watch. Seriously how could such a cute kid at home act like this outside?

"A good Shinobi doesn't hurt their fellow village members. We have each other's backs no matter what. Are you going to cry about an Uchiha when an Iwa nin comes in?"

"No! We hate Iwa!"

"Exactly! Then you boys are going to apologise to Uchiha-kun here and become friends."

"Or what?" Tsukiya challenged and got a few murmurs of agreements.

After I karate chopped all the children on their heads a little more harshly than normal, they all began shaking hands with the Uchiha boy. Tsukiya looked incredibly embarrassed though.

"I hate you neechan! You're the worst!" he shouted before running away.

He hadn't even shaken the kid's hands. I sighed as I watched the rest of the boys make their retreat too. I turned to the awkward boy next to me, who was pulling cutely at my haori to get my attention.

"Yeah kid?"

"Thank you," he mumbled softly.

"Sure thing. Ignore my brother ok. I'll make sure he doesn't bother you again—" I said before pausing to get a name.

"Itachi," the kid murmured.

I blinked in shock. Oh shit, this was Itachi? I didn't expect him to be so goddamn adorable at this age. I was beginning to realise I had a weak spot for cute things. I almost pinched this boy's cheeks. Those big black round eyes and that cute cherub face—damn to think this little baby had the potential to wipe out an entire clan.

"Suzuki Hina at your service. So you're Shisui's cousin, aren't you?" I asked.

"Second cousin," the boy replied curtly.

"Well then Itachi-kun, I don't want to let my brother get away with his actions so easily."

"Wait—what you said about Shinobi before," Itachi said stopping me softly. "Is that the Will of Fire?"

Wow how did this kid even know what that meant at his age. He was only four at this stage, right? He looked to be slightly younger than my brother. I was witnessing another Kakashi level prodigy it seemed. These kids were scary smart.

"Hmm the will of fire is just something we say to foster camaraderie within fellow shinobi," I explained.

"If you don't believe it then why did you help?" Itachi asked.

"I don't like bullies. Remember this Itachi-kun, if you're going to fight someone pick someone worth your weight or it won't be any fun."

"That's not how war works," he said frowning in confusion.

I couldn't help but poke his forehead. Kami was this an anime moment or what? I stopped the little bit of glee inside of me at that.

"You're too young to be thinking about war, plus life's not always about war or the village."

Itachi frowned cutely, tilting his head.

"Shisui told me about you. He told me to look at the ants… that they were fighting too. He said it's just the way the world works and that's what you told him. You made him look sad."

That definitely caught me off guard. He didn't sound accusatory at all, just curious, but his words had stabbed right through me. I was a little flustered and unsure what to say. I'd barely remembered that conversation myself. Should I even be surprised Shisui remembered and Itachi caught on who Shisui was talking about in the first place? I sighed and wished I'd kept my stupid mouth shut. Now I was discussing war with a depressed four-year-old.

"It is the way the world works, but I realised it a little too late that if you give into it, you'll never get out," I admitted, looking seriously into the boy's eyes now.

I didn't know why I opened up about something so severe to Itachi at four of all times, but I knew he would understand. He seemed to grasp concepts beyond his age. It was scary in its own right, and yet when I looked into his eyes, I saw a gentle soul, someone who'd seen terrible things already but wasn't tainted by them, simply confused. Maybe Fugaku had taken him out to war to witness it firsthand already, like he had in the story. That was definitely a bad move on the man's part, but it defined how Itachi began to view the world.

Plus Itachi—well future Itachi—from the story had always reminded me too much of myself. He was basically me if my situation was a hundred times worse. Not only did he have to kill his parents, but his entire Clan, and then he had to torture his own brother to play the bad guy. With Fugaku as Hokage, and Danzo out of the picture, that would never happen, and this kid—well maybe he wouldn't end up being me.

"If it is what it is, how do you not give in?" Itachi pressed.

I faltered at that. I scratched my neck uncomfortably and looked away. Kami this boy was persistent. Why was he so curious right now anyway? Was it because of what Shisui had relayed to him about my earlier ant-analogy?

"I'm not sure Itachi-kun," I said as gently as I could, hoping the regret didn't show in my eyes, but knowing the boy could see through me like I was transparent somehow didn't give me much confidence in that. "I knew a woman who chose her own morals over her family. I never could, but I did the best I could—sometimes that's all you can do."

"The best I can do?" Itachi murmured looking down in thought.

"One day you might find yourself in a hopeless situation, and the best is all you can do," I said softly before I snapped out of this depression bubble he had put me in and shouted a loud, "ANYWAY" that scared the boy right back out of his thoughts. "Look kid, go get yourself some friends. Live a little. You're only a midget gaki right now, so you shouldn't be worrying about war. Leave that to the slightly taller gakis for now," I said patting his head. "Anyway I gotta go set up my little brother straight. I'll see you again sometime!"

He waved a half-hearted goodbye while I body flickered away in relief. I needed to remind myself not to discuss philosophy with that kid when he was older. I would probably end up being too introspective, and that always hurt my brain. For now I needed to find my wayward little brother.

I couldn't help but jump scare my little brother. Practically teleporting next to him when he was complaining about me had scared the absolute pants of him. Even his little rag-tag group of friends seemed to suddenly fear me. I grabbed him by his waist and picked him up around my side like he was a parcel or something.

"Nee-chan!" he grumbled in indignation.

"Sorry kiddos, but it's time for some sibling bonding so we'll have to go now," I said patting my brother's head and then using the body flicker to take us over the trees and towards my favourite lake.

Tsukiya groaned, turning green by the end of the trip as I set him on the grass and steadied him. I chuckled at his sick expression. It got some getting used to travelling at those speeds.

"Y-You're the worst," he complained.

"What? I thought you said I was the coolest, most awesome nee-chan," I said in mock hurt.

"You were until today," he grumbled, crossing his arms, pouting, and sitting down on the spot.

I squatted next to him and put an arm around to force him into a side hug. Despite wanting to look irritated he didn't pull away.

"Look Tsu-chan—"

"—It's Tsukiya-kun, I'm not a baby anymore," he demanded.

"Ok Tsu-kun," I amended before I continued, "You know I wouldn't let you do something silly right. That's what neechan's are for. We stop our little imouto's from doing silly things."

"I wasn't being silly," he groused.

"Then why were you picking on Itachi-chan?"

"Cause all the Uchiha's think they're so great, and he's always ignoring us… plus Izumi-chan thinks he's cute, but he's really not!"

Ohh jealousy at five! Kids these days had a lot of spicy romantic drama apparently.

"Well think about it this way. If Izumi-chan liked you and Itachi-chan decided to throw kunai at you with his friends because of it, would you like it?"

Tsukiya puffed out his cheeks and began sulking at the ground. Ha! The good old reverse logic. Gets them every time, adult, or children.

"No," he admitted after a while.

"So instead of bullying Itachi-chan, you should show Izumi-chan how cool you are instead," I advised.

Tsukiya lit up at that. I almost wished I could take my words back because he had that look in his eyes that screamed 'teach me'!

"No—No I'm not teaching you jutsu," I sighed.

"Aww but come on, it's just to impress her!"

I looked around and decided to speak only when the man walking by had gone past listening distance. I looked Tsukiya down seriously.

"Being a Shinobi isn't a joke," I said gravely.

"I know it isn't! Tai-nii said it was dangerous!"

"Then you need to understand that unless you have something to protect you should never become a Shinobi," I continued on as serious as ever.

Tsukiya looked uncomfortable under my serious look, but he needed to know. I didn't want him to become a Shinobi because he thought it was cool. If he found a worthy reason, I wouldn't try to stop him, but becoming a Shinobi for some clout would get you killed, and I wanted him very much alive. It was alright if I scared him a little now if it meant he'd be safe in the future.

"That's not why I want to be a Shinobi though," he admitted. "I want to be like you. I want to be strong."

"You don't have to be a Shinobi to be strong. Tai-nii isn't a Shinobi but he beats me around," I said gently.

"Yeah but Tai-nii beats everyone around," Tsukiya grumbled, rubbing his head as if remembering an old punishment.

I chuckled at his reaction. "There was a time when nii-san was very scared of everything though."

Tsukiya gasped in disbelief. It was incredibly adorable, maybe more so than even Itachi… although maybe that was my bias speaking.

"I'll let you become a Shinobi if you can understand why he got so strong, but if you can't figure it out, you'll have to say no to the Academy. Deal?" I asked.

Tsukiya nodded eagerly. "I'm gonna find out why big brother is so scary even to you and I'll definitely become a Shinobi. Believe it!"

I chuckled forcefully wondering why in all the 9 hells would Tsukiya quote Naruto's catchphrase now of all times. I found myself going through a pinkie promise either way. I really hoped he'd never understand why Taichi became the way he was. Sometimes it was ok to be a spoilt brat… sometimes it was ok to be weak. It just meant there was someone strong there, so you didn't have to be. I really did hope that Tsukiya wouldn't find the answer.

I found myself rolling on the field, a large mass of fur now settled on my back and I sunk my face into the dirt below. Gaku's loud rumbling laughter filled the field with a sort of jolly echo that I had very much come to miss over the years. He'd taken time away from his team for me, which admittedly meant a lot. Yama sitting on me was probably a product of the dog being unwilling to let me go again. He thought I was going to leave again and he didn't like it, which was incredibly cute.

"You've gotten good. You're making me sweat. At this rate you'll surpass me before you're even twenty and I'll be left in the dust."

I laughed at that. "You should be honoured, you know? Who else can claim to have such an epic student?"

"Good to see your shameless confidence hasn't left you."

"Yama, get of me you mutt," I grumbled playfully as I rolled over and reversed the roles by positioning myself over his thick comfortable fur.

I let out a sigh of contentment. That was some great sparring. I'd missed having some physical fun like this. Probably came close to the excitement that came with fighting a worthy opponent, except without the unadded benefit of spilling blood at the end.

"Spars are the best," I said pleased.

"Shall I take that in writing for Guy? He'll probably propose to you on the spot," Gaku barked a laugh.

"Ew no, please he's just a kid," I grumbled flustered.

Gaku actually paused at that, turned me with a curious look as if just realising something.

"Wait a second, how old are you actually?"

"46," I said casually.

Gaku's jaw nearly dropped to the floor and it was my turn to laugh. Oh kami was it good to finally be acknowledged as my age.

"All this time I just thought you had an aversion to dating… to think you had reason," he said shaking his head in disbelief. "So how does this reincarnation thing work? If I can ask?"

I pressed my lips together suddenly uneasy. "I'm new to it too. It's the first time I remembered being reincarnated into one of my lives."

"One of your lives?" he asked.

"When Inoichi looked into my mindscape I saw the countless other lives I've lived all locked away in from my memory. I really don't want this to happen again but for some reason the body I died in before—it wasn't locked away like the others."

Gaku sat cross legged paying the utmost attention. I couldn't blame him. Actual confirmation about the afterlife was rather hard to come by and I bet most people would spend their entire lives searching for the truth. I was just glad I could finally tell someone who wanted to listen, because apparently the Hokage didn't care about the afterlife.

"But there's no confirmation that if you were to… die again, you'd remember this life?" Gaku asked.

I remembered the being's words. There was someone else. I shook my head, feeling that familiar existential dread creep back up.

"There was something there… when I was fighting Danzo he activated a backup seal and for a moment I crossed into the plane of existence in-between worlds. Then once more when Inoichi pushed me into the recesses of my mind. I heard the same… voice? No it wasn't a voice. It was some kind of inexplainable communication that had nothing to do with words or feelings. It was simply pushing knowledge into my conscious."

"This is incredible," Gaku said wide eyed.

I nodded, but then grimaced at what I remembered. "It told me that there was someone else like me, but they'd lived millennia, and more than a dozen lives already. I doubt they can stand it… I doubt I could again."

I palmed the omamori in my pocket and tried to ignore how much I had opened up one of my biggest fears just then. Gaku squeezed my shoulder in reassurance and I smiled forcefully to ease up again.

"I didn't think about how hard it would be. What was your life like before this? Where you a Shinobi? Is that why you're so good at this?" he asked with a grin.

"No, no, in fact Shinobi weren't really a thing where I came from," I explained.

"The land of Iron then? Samurai?" Gaku asked.

I shook my head again, this time feeling nostalgic at my thoughts. "You wouldn't believe me."

"I just got confirmation my gaki student is actually older than me, and that she remembers a past life. Try me," he said dryly.

"Fine. I wasn't from the elemental nations. In fact I think I was from an entirely different universe or alternate reality, because the sun and the moon are the same, but the constellations are different, and the Elemental Nations didn't exist."

I gave him a 'told you so' look when his jaw dropped again as if he was trying to piece together the secrets of the universe—which in this scenario seemed to be entirely what he was trying to do.

"Impossible," he said in disbelief.

"What, so you can easily accept that I'm a reincarnation, but you can't accept that I reincarnated from another world?" I asked raising my brow in confusion.

"I'm sure you're a little too young to read any religious scripts, but the myths of old has always proclaimed the reincarnation cycle. I'm not too much of a religious nut, but I still do believe in the possibility of it. Most older Shinobi take a year or two to make a pilgrimage to the fire temple. At our age death seems around every corner, and a few of the priests there proclaim to be reincarnated."

I wanted to ask about the priests but instead I shut my mouth and stopped myself. Not the time… not to mention I almost didn't want to know if they were. If it turned out that they were just lying, then all my hopes would crash and burn and then I'd be left sulking like an Uchiha for a few months. I really didn't need that kind of emotional beat down right now.

"You're like 35. You need to calm down," I joked, although I knew what he meant about short lives in this world.

"Sure thing old woman," he joked back rolling his eyes, before his face went back into thought. "A different world with a different history? What was it like?" he asked enraptured by the idea.

"We didn't have Shinobi, or any form of easily accessible chakra, so we developed mechanical weapons beyond the ones here."

"So war was still very much rampant?" he asked frowning.

I nodded. "It was complicated by the invention of a weapon called a Nuclear Bomb. Essentially it could wipe out the entirety of Konoha in one drop, and the surrounding forest in under 3 seconds. It was dropped on a place called Japan during the 2nd World War. A whole city was levelled. The land is basically toxic to this day and unable to be inhabited without severe mutation defects or life-threatening illnesses."

Gaku looked pale at that and I couldn't help but agree. It was almost crazier than what a Rinnegan could do.

"Kami, how has your world not become uninhabitable?" he asked.

"It very nearly did. The first Country to use the bomb was America, and they used two and ended the Second World War entirely. Then for a few decades we had the Cold War, where the great world powers began all accumulating Nukes, and everyone was waiting for a Nuclear War to rain an Apocalypse. There were a few scares, but everyone agreed to not drop it because literally no one would win. Because of this there's this sort of fickle peace, although it doesn't stop us from still having smaller scale warfare in certain unfortunate places."

I thought it was kind of like the Bijuu, because every Nation had one, but no one used them.

"Are you from this America?" he asked.

"No," I snorted. "I'm actually from this large continent slash island situated at the south eastern end. Basically a large Empire 200 years before I was born, dumped all of its convicts there, and it became a place for settlers across the sea from different nationalities. Currently it's a pretty great place, although most of it is basically Suna with less sand and more rock. Not very good for farming in the middle so everyone's all crowded up in the cost. But we had the most amazing beaches, and we had large bunnies the size of mini horses that would hold their babies in pouches and beavers with poisonous gills and duck beaks, and little tree bears that has about the IQ of Guy after a hard workout. And not to mention a lot of poisonous creatures, and I mean a lot. There's this rock called Uluru the size of a small mountain, and I mean a rock. But I think the best part was the cities with bridges bigger than the Hokage monument."

"Sounds almost like something out of a fantasy novel," Gaku said in amazement.

"Ha the irony of that," I chuckled. "In my old world what we could do with chakra was basically the tales of many fantasy novels."

"It sounds like an interesting place," he commented.

My smile died. "It was…"

"You miss it?"

"Most days I don't have the time to miss it, but when I think about it, it's almost like a part of me is still there. I had a family… a wife."

"A wife?" Gaku asked wide eyed. "So you were a man in your past life?"

I shook my head.

"Oh so it was normal there?" he asked.

I nodded. "Yeah not in all places, and people are still learning to tolerate, but mostly people learned to let others have their rights. Last I heard people were saying that gender was a social construct."

"I'm not following?" Gaku said in confusion.

"Me either. I didn't really keep up with it to be honest although I'd planned to. I was never that interested beyond voting to get my marriage rights. That wasn't my fight so I hadn't really done my research and I died before I could really look into it… I died before I could learn a lot of things though," I admitted sheepishly.

"I keep forgetting that being reincarnated entails dying. You know if you don't want to discuss things, it's fine, but I think it's not good to let a loved one's memory leave unheard."

"You want to hear about my life?" I asked to which Gaku nodded. "It's not that interesting if I'm being honest."

"It's still your life so I'm still interested."

I smiled at that, and then I began my story, explaining where my parents came from, how I was raised with an overachieving cousin who laid his life down to save mine, how I spent every day from then on trying to make his sacrifice worth it, how I met my wife who was dancing on the streets of Spain, how I fell onto her awkwardly because I couldn't dance at all. Then I reluctantly went on about my time working at the pharmaceutical, how businesses in capitalism mostly ended up being a way for business owners to extort as much money as they could when the supply was low and the demand was high. How I worked in the system helping but at the same time making things worse.

"And that was my life," I said.

"Well that is anticlimactic. Didn't you leave your company and start a low-cost medical service or something?" Gaku asked looking disappointed.

I snorted in exasperation and crossed me arms. "It isn't a story. I didn't have some kind of character arc. I choked on a vegetable in my ramen broth and died suddenly."

Gaku snorted and then held his mouth like he was trying to stop himself from laughing. I huffed in indignation, feeling incredibly embarrassed about admitting my lame as death.

"The universe apparently has a sense of humour Hina," he said in amusement, trying and failing to look serious and sympathetic.

"Yeah, yeah laugh it up, I'm named after the thing that killed me. I get it," I said rolling my eyes before Gaku's contagious laughter made me break into giggles too.

It was good… good to know that Catherine would be remembered by someone else in this world besides me. It felt like for the first time in my life I could truly be myself with someone. Not just Suzuki Hina an eleven-year-old Jounin, but also Joanne Linus a thirty-five-year-old pharmacist. I looked at my old sensei and felt my heart warm at his presence.

"Thank you," I said sincerely.

"Anything for you, kiddo."

A/N

Happy New Year and thanks for all your patience guys. I'll be back on a weekly once updating schedule again now!

I love the fact that despite knowing Hina is chronologically older than him, Gaku still treats her like she's his kid ToT It's too cute. Well in all fairness, Hina is still somewhat a kid mentally because her biology is still affecting her emotional maturity.

Also thanks to everyone who's reading and beta'ing the crossover I just wrote. I assume I'll be posting that up sometime in late February or March. Really depends where I manage to get Snap Back To Reality too, timeline wise, because the crossover takes place in-between a future time-skip. This is a Naruto/Lord of the Rings crossover. Don't get me started on LOTR. I've been obsessed with it recently after my friend forced me to watch the movies. I don't know why it took me this long to get into it, but I don't regret it XD