Konoha Noire

Arc 1 Chapter 1

I am a one man army. That's not to say I'm as dangerous as an army, or that I could defeat an army, or that I am somehow worth an army. No. What I'm saying is there's one man marching in my army, and that one man is me. So really, I'm just an idiot.

Got the word back from the doctor this week. Surprise, surprise, that blood I've been coughing out lately? Lung cancer. Funny. I thought it'd be my liver that gave out first.

"Treatment?" he says. "How's chemotherapy sound?"

"Sounds like leaving my wife fifty grand in debt," I say. "Sounds like not eating solid food for the rest of my short and miserable life. Sounds like shit, of the kind that burns on its way out."

I call the ex-wife. Tell her the good news. "You gonna get treatment?" She asks.

"Nah."

"You leaving us anything?"

"Whatever's in my wallet."

"You gonna pay off the car before you punch out?"

"...Sure."

One of our better conversations. Didn't argue like usual.

My partner's nice enough to buy me a drink when I tell him. Still end up paying for most of the rounds though, cheap bastard.

He asks me how the family took it.

I told him I payed off the car.

He asks if I'm gonna quit smoking.

I light one up.

Finally, he asks if I'm gonna quit the force.

Tell him, "Hell no. If I'm lucky some crack-head'll stab me to death before my time runs out."

I was never very lucky.

My death bed. Heart monitor beeping, pipes in my throat, nurse changing my bedpans for me. And no, it's not even a pretty nurse. Some Mexican guy, probably got his degree from a manila envelope at a local back alley.

I hear they go for about four hundred each, these days.

Wife comes to see me before the end. Asks if I absolutely have to be cremated, 'cause she has a friend that can cut her a deal on pinewood casks.

"Be cheaper to donate my body to science. I hear that's free."

She actually smiles at my suggestion and says, "Thanks. Hadn't thought of that." First smile I got from her in years.

"Any chance I can see the kids before I go? I am sober."

She grimaces. "I'd have to drive them here after school, and it's a bit out of the way."

"...Well, nevermind then."

Dying sucked, but I was expecting that. I remember almost suffocating when I was a kid, thought it'd be cool to put a plastic bag on my head. Because I was a spaceman.

Now I'm a detective, and I at least lived out the 'shitting in adult diapers' part of being an astronaut. It's not so bad, I guess. Rather die having done some good in my life then spend it wasting billions out of Uncle Sam's back pocket and never get to be as famous as Neil Armstrong anyway.

I saved lives, brought bad guys to justice, tracked down license plates, tried my hand at good cop/bad cop only to find I was better at quiet cop. Had a few fights too, kept all my teeth but my nose was never quite straight after that one row with the transvestite. A few times I even shot some guys.

That was always cool.

In the end though, I guess I'm back to being an astronaut. Slowly drifting into the black as I run out of oxygen, mind fogging over and kinda wishing for one last second, one last chance to write an alimony check, or get spit on by a toothless meth head, or to have that immigrant nurse change my bedpan.

Ah well. Such is life, I guess.

At six years old, Minami was too young to understand the implications of the fact that her unmarried mother was having a second child. Of course she'd heard some of the rumors, but she'd yet to have that particular talk and didn't really know what they were about.

Since when did the village have a bicycle, and what was wrong with everyone riding it?

Adults were weird like that.

One thing she definitely knew, however, was that her Ka-san was not a very good parent. She'd seen the other children her age with their families. The Ka-san's didn't smell like sake, the Tou-sans were actually there, and strange men weren't invited over to make loud noises behind locked doors while the children slept on a tatami mat just outside.

And so she was worried. Sitting in the Konoha hospital waiting room, she was forced to realise that her's was a bad family. There was no Tou-san, the Ka-san was usually either being wierd from too much sake or angry from waking up after too much sake, and they were poor. Very poor.

As a secretary for a local trading union, Ka-san made just enough to pay rent, usually bring home one or two meals a day, and enough sake to keep her acting weird most nights.

Soon Minami would have an Imouto, a little sister, and that wasn't fair. Minami had wanted a sibling for a long time now, but… their family's newest member deserved three square meals a day, a mother that played with her, and a father. None of which she would get.

Being six years old, Minami knew she wouldn't be able to fix any of these problems for quite a while yet.

"Pardon me, little one." Her worrying was interrupted by a boy wearing a hitaite. At her blank look, he indicated the seat next to the girl. "Mind if I sit there?"

Glancing around, Minami saw every other chair in the waiting room was occupied, so she smiled at him and nodded. Sitting down next to her, he took out a book and began reading.

Turning back to her thoughts, Minami supposed that baby's don't really remember much of anything until they're about three years old, so… Maybe if she could fix things a little bit before then, her sister wouldn't know what it was like to have a bad family.

Well then, how could she fix things? She already knew there was no way she could convince Ka-san to stop spending so much on her drink, so if her sister wanted decent clothes and healthy meals, Minami would have to find a way to bring a little extra money into the house…

Hm… that would be tricky, because if there was a job out there that hired six year olds, Minami didn't know it.

But then again, now that she thought about it, she'd seen quite a few ninja around the village that weren't adults. The boy sitting right next to her didn't seem that old.

"Excuse me, Shinobi-san." She tugged on his sleeve.

"Hm?" he glanced across at her.

"How old are you?"

"Thirteen." He answered after a moment. "Why do you ask, ojou-chan?"

"I was wondering how old you have to be to be a ninja."

He shrugged. "Most people graduate when they're twelve, but some of the geniuses can be as young as seven or eight."

"Is it hard being a ninja?"

"Oh, definitely. Most people that enter the academy dropout well before graduation, and even if you do graduate there's no guarantee you'll make a genin team."

Minami frowned, and looked ahead. So, she might have a job by the time she was twelve years old, huh? "Does it cost anything to go to the ninja academy?"

"No, it's free and the village even offers loans, but if you drop out it'll be really hard to pay back the debt."

"Okay, thank you, Shinobi-san."

And with that, he turned back to his book. Okay, so Minami had a partial solution to the money problem, assuming she could become a ninja by age twelve, and even if she didn't make genin, it was a free education, so she might as well take advantage of it.

Now for the parent problem… Getting mother to marry someone seemed like the most obvious solution to acquiring a father, and as for fixing mother… Ugh, Minami didn't even know where to begin, there were just so many problems.

"Minami?" A nurse asked from her left.

"Hai?" She glanced across at the woman, still thinking about solutions for her mother.

"Your mother's resting now, and the baby's been moved to observation. You can see your sister now."

"Really?" Bouncing to her feet, Minami excitedly said, "Where is she? Can you take me to her? Is she cute?"

"I'm sure she's very cute." The nurse smiled indulgently. "If you just follow me, I'll take you to her."

Scampering along behind her guide, Minami was too excited to continue her planning. After a moment, she grew impatient and grabbed the nurses hand, trying to pull her forward. "Come on, come on!"

The walk was less than a minute long, but to the six year old it felt like ages before she had her face pressed up against the observation room window. Inside, several rows of squalling babies cried, and Minami glanced between them excitedly.

"Which one is she? Which one?"

"Let's see," The nurse flipped through her chart for a few seconds, before answering. "2-B, so… your new sister is the one that's second from the left, in the second row."

"That one?" Minami pointed through the window.

"No, sweetie, that's your right. Your sister's that one." The correct child was pointed out.

The breath caught in the young girl's throat as she saw her Imouto for the first time. "She's so little." She breathed. "Can I hold her?"

"No, not yet, sweetie."

"What's her name?"

"That… hasn't been decided yet." The nurse answered after a look at her charts. "Your mother passed out before she could choose one."

And wasn't that just typical? Minami snorted in exasperation.

"I need to go on my rounds, are you okay if I leave you here? You can make your way back to the waiting room on your own?"

She nodded, not really paying attention. As the nurse wandered off, Minami felt a growing resolve as she stared at the peaceful, slumbering form. Even if her Imouto wouldn't have the best family, she would absolutely have the best sister ever.

Pretty sure I was the worst baby ever.

Reincarnation, huh? Kinda surprised I wasn't reborn as a rat or some shit. Maybe I got lucky for once?

I'm gonna skip over a lot of my early years, because most of it was really fucking boring. That's not to say there weren't interesting moments (holy shit, I'm sucking a woman's tits) or embarrassing ones. Funny, can't believe I actually thought death would get me away from crapping into diapers all day. I guess it is true that you shit yourself when you die.

But for the most part my time was spent sleeping, lying on my back because couldn't move my neck, or trying to talk to the strange blurry women that ripped away what little dignity I (didn't) have left better than my ex-wife ever could. Which is saying something, because she was pretty fucking great at that. Eventually my eyes shaped up enough that I could actually see the women that were taking care of me. It was then that I realised a few things:

First, my new mother was one gorgeous dame. Seriously. She was in her mid thirties, right at that age where she had the sort of hips and rack that'd kill a man if he wasn't careful. Short, bushy black hair on her head, deep green eyes and beautiful pale skin. If I was still married, I woulda broken prenup in less than a minute just to get those legs to spread in my direction. As it stood though, I didn't have to do a damn thing seeing as how she bared her chest at me every day. Actually got really boring after a while.

Didn't take me long to get really sick of milk.

Secondly, there was something wrong with my new mother. Most of her time was spent crying in the corner of my room, drinking the sorta drinks I loved but my liver never did. Honestly, she was a terrible mother. Usually she forgot to feed me and my elder sister had to convince her to do it. Which is fucked up. A six year old girl shouldn't have to deal with that shit. My wife went through a bout of that post natal depression crap too, but this woman took it to scary new levels. I woulda suggested she see a shrink if I could actually say a damn thing.

Thirdly, my new elder sister was… pretty fucking amazing, really. I'd never even heard of a six year old that actually did a decent job taking care of a newborn baby and a grown ass woman, but she did it. Whenever she wasn't at school, she spent her time prying bottles out of her mother's hands and trying to teach me to speak, which was helpful seeing as how I didn't know a damn word of their language at first. It was sad, really. When my daughter had been that age, she was playing with her dolls and squealing her heart out to whatever shitty pop tune came on the radio. I would have tried to help the girl, but I couldn't even sit up on my own so I just spectated and tried to root for the poor thing.

Weird thing about her though, she had white hair. No, really. White. What kinda six year old dyes their hair white? Not sure where she got the dye from anyway, because we were dirt poor.

It might have been a different culture, but I could tell from the smell of mold, the size of their meals, and the way some asshole broke into the house to steal all our furniture, that we lived in a bad neighborhood. My mother constantly buying alcohol probably didn't help put three square meals a day on the table, either.

Oh, and the final thing I realised, after I could finally move my own goddam head? I had a vagina.

So, never mind getting lucky with this reincarnation shit. It was about three months before I had the full tally of my new situation, but I got the list: 1, I'd been reborn into a poor as dirt family, with, 2, a depressive alcoholic mother, 3, in a bad neighborhood, and 4, I was now a girl.

...Can't believe I actually thought I'd get a break after I died. Shoulda known life would always find a way to bend me over.