She was an anomaly from the moment she was born.

When Setsuna was born, eerily silent, a kaleidoscope of butterflies flew in and decorated her crown. Kushina could only watch in stunned disbelief as her baby (whose eyes were too wise, too knowing) merely giggled and lifted an arm for the butterflies to land on. There was no time to marvel, however, as soon the world exploded.

-a-

Harry (Aya. Tobias. Avon. Setsuna.) stared up at the impaled bodies of his parents.

"Hello again, little Mistress." A gravelly voice rumbled. He (she? they?) tore his eyes away from his parents who were frozen in the midst of their last words.

"Death." He acknowledged, gaze falling on his new form. Despite the fact that he may be parentless yet again, he did not blame Death. It was his parents' decision, after all, and what could he do as a mere babe? At least this time around he would be able to honor their last wishes. Most times they had been dead before he was even born. Despite these thoughts, bitterness curled in his gut, dark and ugly.

"You must be wondering why I have stopped time." Death watched his little Master, as he has always done.

"Stopped time?" He bared his teeth in a mockery of a smile. "But that's not all you've done, is it? You've brought us to a different dimension entirely. How else am I able to communicate, to comprehend beyond what my current self can?"

Death chuckled, the dying breaths of a thousand people whispering out. "Astute as ever, Master. However, now is not the time for our usual antics. You are at a… crossroad, of a sort."

Harry tilted his head in question.

"As you know, being the Master of Death allows for certain privileges and gifts from me. The one that applies here is your ability to make deals. Trades, if you will. In this situation, you have two options. You can choose to save either your mother or your father, but not both."

He pushed the thought - the hope that sang inside his heart - aside for a moment, because if there was one thing he'd learned since he'd become the Master of Death, it was that everything came at a price. "Why now? Why, after all this time of living and dying?"

"Fate is a fickle thing, and either option will lead down different paths."

Harry accepted the non-answer and pondered the proposition offered to him. He didn't want to give up any of his parents. Lifetimes had come and gone, but he had never been allowed the opportunity to have parents, the one thing he had wished since the first time, when he had been Harry. Just Harry. For being the Master of Death was both a blessing and a curse, and the birth of such a powerful entity - the birth of a god - always had consequences.

Always.

Now that he had to choose between parents, the chance of having both dangled just out of reach - he sighed, allowing his bitterness to diffuse into the miasma of angerhatredragelove around him.

"There is no way to save both?" He asked tiredly, already knowing the answer but desperately praying for another. "Why can't I save both and sacrifice another?" Greed and despair had made him callous, uncaring of others' plight.

Death watched him, slight sadness in his eyes. "You know why, Master. I apologize. Even gods have limitations. In order for balance to be kept, only a soul of equal value may be traded. As parents to the child of prophecy, they both have a large amount of potential change their survival will bring. The only one with an equal value will be the other, unless you decide to sacrifice the souls of hundreds."

Harry closed his eyes in anguish. He was tempted, but he knew he could not, would not place his happiness over that of hundreds.

"There is no way around it?" He couldn't hold himself back from making one last useless plea. He knew there was no way around it. He had studied these laws, after all: made them, enforced them, embodied them.

Death was silent, gaze knowing and Harry accepted.

He breathed in that miasma and let it suffuse his very being for a time, before releasing it in the form of a sigh. He felt the burdens of countless universes, countless timelines, weigh down on him in that same instance.

Such was the life of the Master of Death. Death was many things, but above all it was fair. And thus, so must he be, even if at times he felt as if he would be crushed by the weight of his burden, incinerated by the flames of a thousand dying suns.

Death was fair, and so was he.

He shed his emotions, shed the humanity he clung so fiercely to, and stepped fully into his role as the Master of Death.

"What are the consequences of either?"

Death acknowledged his acceptance with a brief nod. "If you save your mother, you will be unconditionally loved. Your mother will understand your plight, as she herself was the previous Jinchuuriki. You will know a mother's love from your birth mother, and although Dumbledore may have been misguided, he was not wrong in thinking that a mother's love is a force all its own."

Your father, on the other hand, is the Hokage, this village's leader. He is a powerful man, and if he is saved, the village's losses will not be nearly as devastating. He will influence and create many positive changes to the village. However, though he will love you, his love for you will be tainted with his anger and grief at his wife's death. You will undoubtedly have a much lonelier childhood, worse than in your first life."

It was a choice between the good of all and his personal happiness yet again. When could he be happy without needing to sacrifice thousands?

"I choose my father, then." He stared longingly at his mother's frozen form, but knew it could not be.

Death smiled sadly at him. "You can still communicate with her. She will be like every other soul."

"I know." But he knew it would not be the same.

-a-

Time restarted, and his heart clenched as they continued to speak their last words, unknowing of that interruption which had decided their fates. (And they hadn't been interrupted, not really. Perhaps their fates had long been decided, and this was merely another cruel trick to show him what he could never have. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.) Harry stared up at them, engraving each word and smile into his memory.

No matter how many lifetimes he had lived, he could remember each and every one of the last words he was lucky enough to hear. ("Grow up strong, and make me proud." "Live well, and make sure we don't meet again until many, many years later." "I will always love you, my little sunshine.")

Death stepped in them to explain what would occur.

"But why?! Why make an exception for me?" Minato cried out. He hadn't thought, hadn't dared to hope, that he would ever live past this night. And now… He wasn't sure he wanted to. He wasn't sure he ever wanted to live in a world without Kushina.

"Not for you. For your daughter. In time, you will understand."

Death faded away with one last secretive smile to Harry. Shinobi finally appeared, and there was pandemonium as the ninja attempted to staunch the bleeding of their beloved Hokage.

With a last, quiet sigh, Harry Potter closed his eyes and fell into a deep slumber.

Hey guys! Idk what this trash is I don't even know where I'm going with it to be honest. (And I really should not be starting a new story I have so many unfinished ones… But HAHA NOPE IMMA ADD THIS AND THE OTHER ONE I HAVE FLOATING AROUND MY HEAD) I'm sorry if this isn't to your liking, but I tried my best. It's kinda dramatic haha… whoops lol. I have the second chapter and part of the third chapter already written (I pre-wrote the first couple chapters a while back), I just need to type em up. But then as I was typing this chapter up it somehow evolved into this weird mass of stuff.

Also, Setsuna (or at least the kanji I'm using, 刹那) means "a moment; an instant." It comes from buddhism and, according to wiktionary (haha gotta cite your sources kids) it "carries favorable connotations of "precious" from the Buddhist teaching that one should live well even in the shortest moment of time."

Please leave a review! I'd love to hear your thoughts as usual!