The sound and feeling of her throat tearing itself is the only thing that she hears and feels for the last few days of her life; the rising fever and wild body temperatures often times leaving her hallucinating and drunk. She remembers much of her life, lying there in her hot bed, uncomfortable and itching, crying when she realizes that she's on her own, laughing in joy as she realizes that her mother now gets the hint of dislike; it can go on. When she finally sees herself to the hospital, though, it's almost too late, but they keep her there and call her closest relative - her mother who doesn't even show.

Her mother takes it too far. At least she showed up when her mother was diagnosed with skin cancer, helped with the funds as needed.

It isn't the first time she got sick, but this is the last time.

Death - like fate and life and love - is a fickle thing. It is ever changing, it's loyalty only remaining to itself and itself only. Death is different for everyone, it's fickle, it's the end of life, it's the beginning of itself. It never has an ending, only a beginning.

She went somewhere, she knows that much, and she knows that she is as conscious as conscious can get. She remembers a lot of things, like that she couldn't see for one, and moving is hard until later on, and her hearing is the only thing she could rely on as her nose seemingly lost its purpose. If things get worse, she would cry if she knew how to. But, overall, things seemed to get better as time went on. She is able to move around, she heard a lot of noises, and she felt like she is at home - at a home that wanted her there.

It's so nice to feel those things again, the welcoming hum of life, the warmth of love. Maybe she is going somewhere, to paradise, where she can be assured that she is loved and cherished. Maybe she is finally going to be at rest again.

The feeling can only last so long, she knows that much. It has to end eventually. It has to end or she would know something is wrong, that they all seem to become faker and faker as time goes on.

When the time finally comes for her happiness to end she is thrown into a blinding light, drafts everywhere and temperatures almost as cold as a witch's left tit. There are gigantic movement that shakes her into an oblivion and she cries.

She hurts.

She doesn't know where she is.

She wants it all to end.

It hurts.

It hurts.

Her long dormant senses are assaulted when the pain stops, and she is handled roughly from one mass to another. Her vision is blurry, but her ears are much more sensitive than the last time she used them. When the movements stop she hears someone say something, something in a voice that is almost loving, almost adoring, almost there.

The activity has calmed down enough that she can tell that there is a warm blanket around her, that she's placed on something large and almost fatty. She grasps at what she's laying on and realizes that they're a silky material, and when she digs her hand into it it actually feels like human fat, warm and pillow-y.

She doesn't know where she is, how she got there(other than that she died, obviously), and she doesn't know what to do. If she waited long enough will she know what's going on?

What felt like a year was actually a month, and in the month she starts to see a lot of things. Things like her situation. She realizes that she's been placed in the body as some Japanese girl in what looks like feudal Japan. It's not what she thought would happen. She thought that she would go to heaven or hell; not this purgatory.

Whatever this place is, she's not sure she likes it. There is this almost constant human howling outside her door, bodies being slammed into the ground, loud and inane and insane chortling.

It's hell in this purgatory.

She's no longer sure this is purgatory, but as some form of hell. She knew death is fickle, but she didn't know hell is the same.

And when she sees that her 'father' begins to disappear at odd times of the day and night and her 'mother's' jaded look in her eyes she sees that this is no longer hell nor purgatory nor heaven; this is life again.

There are so, so many things that could have happened, and being reborn, being reincarnated, living again, is not one of them. She just…

She just wants it all to end.

But she knows it won't unless she dies of disease(because they are so, so far behind in medical care), or raid(because they are so, so far behind in history), or even murder(because this is the past, anything is possible. You've raised cattle for their village? Off with the head. Off with the families heads).

The life that she used to have is now useless. She wanted to get a good job, to have a nice home and live all by herself where no one can tell her what to do. It's never going to happen, though, and she knows it.

When the time comes she knows she'll get what she wants, because she's had enough of this shit, of this nonsense and this irrationality. Why can't she get what she wants? Why can't she even attempt at it? She's been so patient, so fucking meek, waiting and waiting for her desires to come - but they come first, they get what they want before hers; she just doesn't understand anymore.

Through dirt and dust, blood and misery, loss and depression, she's done everything that she can to stay alive and please. She's so, so tired, so, so depressed, so, so fucking confused.

Why.

Why.

It all doesn't make sense, and why give her another chance to live when she's already been beaten down to serve and to respect. Why even give her a second chance. Who thought it fun to give something broken to be beautiful again when broken things look ugly and don't exactly fit right when fixed. It makes no sense.

Something outside her room moves. Something like feet shuffling. It sounds heavy, drunk. Maybe with exhaustion, maybe intoxicated. Whatever it is, she hoped the former.

Her mother sleeps in a room over, thin walls separating them. The woman in an infant's body feels hot tears coming, and feels ashamed. What would happen if she made a noise? Would her mother wake up to confirm the noises for her? Would the intruder back off? Or would it kill her and her mother?

Hot tears edge in her vision, and she swears she can her some more shuffling. She's not sure whether to let loose or not. Her body becomes uncomfortably warm, and large beads of sweat mixed tears trail down her fatty cheeks.

Is it possible for her to just… go back to sleep? To forget about this? Hopefully this is never going to happen again, maybe it's her sensitive and young mind that's doing this to her.

This time the floors squeak.

This time she lets it all out.

She doesn't remember what happens next, as her cries and wails are clearly heard and her mother comes. Her mother picks her up and rocks her, singing a hushed lullaby and whispering what can only be her name.

Tsukiko.

Days can go by without her realizing it, confusing an event that happened two weeks ago and thinking it happened yesterday, or thinking that what happened yesterday happened four days ago. It's something that is not linear, acting up every few months or so, or just not appearing for almost a year.

Or what feels like a year, anyway.

At the tender age of three she's placed into tests, tests which involve some pretty… cruel things. Things like martial arts, the kind that involves kill or be killed situations. The sensei is a rough man, rugged in almost every sense.

Her mother doesn't seemed too concerned at the vigorous and violent and often times fatal fighting style. She, in fact, looks quite pleased, like the cat ate the canary kind of pleased, with the soft expression in her eyes and the small smirk on her lips.

It makes the three year old woman-child worried. Her mother never held that expression before - the present nor the past.

When she did ask why her mother is so happy, she got the oddest reply.

"Because then I will know that you are safe, that no one will take advantage of you."

Not only is it cryptic, it is also almost out of character. Her mother is a typical woman; quiet, soft spoken, does almost all the household chores, listens to her husband like he is god - the typical.

But she digresses.

Her mother can be pleased with her for any reason, whether for the way she fights the older boys and sometimes girls to her helpful cooking and even garden work. Tsukiko loves to have someone pleased with her work, but she knows that something will happen and she will hate it as much as being forced to please others.

Tsukiko loves it when morning comes, because that's when she gets the most attention from her mother, and sometimes even her father. The mornings are filled with stern looked that mean well(as well as high expectations to fulfill duties and a general expectation to rule over the rings in the inordinate spars). When the afternoon comes around she is expected to her her mother prepare the food- although it only takes an hour or so, so then she still has enough time to check out the unexplored places of her clan's small territory.

She has already seen what the older kids can do, and for some reason it reminds her of something that must be very important, because her head begins to throb every time she sees those boys spar for their lives, how their traditional clothes dance in the wind, how their hair reminds her of a boy she must have known before. It's so odd knowing that you know something, but can't remember where you know it from.

Weeks later she sees a man(a young man, she has to remind herself) with the whitest hair and the typical red markings above his eyebrows(but he had the oddest red bags under his eyes, and they are actually the same kind of markings as the ones on his forehead). He is so beautiful that she could feel it in her chest.

And then it all just snapped.

Tsukiko feels like crying. How could she forget? How could she not see the crazed grins on their faces, the traditional hair style, the markings, the teachings of chakra and martial arts. She feels so stupid, how did she forget? It was- it is in her face all the fucking time, from the moment she was born(the wild cheers in the background, the calloused hands holder her tiny body), the moment she realized this is life again(her parents markings, stark against the paleness of their skin), even when she turned three(the unique fighting style, her mother's pride, her own white hair).

The only ones with that power, with the shikotsumyaku, have noticeably white hair. She has white hair. She has the shikotsumyaku. So does a few of her other sparmates.

But... isn't the shikotsumyaku a rare kekkei genkai? Isn't it so rare that… that Kimimaro was one of the first in generations to wield the power?

Whatever happened must have devastated the clan that it caused its extinction. But that still doesn't tell her anything about the sudden inflation of bone wielding children, nor does it tell much about their long deserved but sudden disappearance in the shinobi world.

But that doesn't really matter much. What matters is the fact that she's in the fucking Narutoverse.

Edited

Well, this just happened. This is the most I can give right now, and the next chapter is expected in probably four or five days. I've been setting a strict schedule for myself about writing a thousand words a day, so that should help on the fact that I want approx. 5k for each chapter.