Well... Here we are.

Hi, I'm the writer formerly known as Dead Witch. Used to do Naruto stuff. Was homeless for a while, my old e-mail got hacked, so I had troubles there, lost control of the account before I realized what was happening, and went through some serious shit for a while now.

I began writing again more or less for the therapeutic aspect of it. Imagining a story, no matter how ridiculous, silly, or preposterous, is a good distraction when you're at a low point. But getting down and writing it? That takes focus, concentration, and time. Once you begin writing, you don't stop until you have something. You use your computers, your paper pads, ink, and fingers, to create worlds that didn't exist before you imagined them into reality. Every possible "what if?" is out there, and for those of you who might doubt your ability to create, I say "Who gives a shit?" Writing is like any craft, nobody STARTS off being good. Hell, most of us start off as stodgy, emo world-haters in middle school creating overpowered OP god mode Sues like they're going out of style. I certainly did. I don't regret it at all. On my old account, I wrote 400,000 words of a fic called "Rising Star" before I realized how crap it was.

But you wanna know my REAL mistake? What the biggest blunder I made at the tail end of Rising Star? I fucking gave up on it. I hit a point where I not only got tired of the story, but I let myself think that if this was the limits of my ability, then what was the point? What difference would it make to keep trying?

Ladies and gentlemen, I am hear to tell you that if you give up writing something, if you have an idea in your head and you never even try to make a story of it, the only one disappointed in you is you.

Trust me here- I suck. One day I'm gonna read these words again and look at this first chapter again and be so embarrassed. I'll wonder what the hell I was thinking right now.

But right now is right now and, hey? Future me? Shut it. It took a lot of guts to show people out there how much I suck right now. But I'll get better. And I'll see you later.

Never give up on yourself, ever. You are awesome, and you just gotta convicnce YOURSELF of that.

Dattebayo, bitches.

Chapter 1: The Endless Path takes you Home

The engine roared pitifully as it barreled down the highway somewhere in the mid-western United States. The old Ford sedan was outmatched in this clash of man vs nature, twin tornadoes trailing behind it preternaturally fast, as if following crumbs left behind the vehicle, hell-bent on the destruction of both the machine and the woman in questionable control of its direction. The skies, which had so recently been a bright cobalt blue of autumn beauty, were now a pea soup green, a sickly visceral representation of wrath and rage.

I don't wanna die I don't wanna die I don't wanna die, the woman chanted to herself as she drove. Tears stained her pale blue eyes, and her dirty blond hair kept getting in them as she focused on maintaining speed. Twin twisters the likes of which she had never seen before- on account of hailing from New York City, at that- followed just behind her, close enough that her entire rear view mirrors were reflecting nothing but the cones of death. Winds howled beyond the car's exterior, carrying debris, chunks of roadway, twisted remnants of other vehicles, and so much more with them. They had seemingly come out of nowhere as she was making her cross-country drive to the west coast.

She didn't know how to handle situations like this.

She had no idea how to survive the wrath of God like this.

She didn't know if she should.

The needle on her speedometer topped out at 110 MPH, but her poor beast was barely able to push sixty. Some half-forgotten trivia she'd picked up said that twisters almost never got past seventy, she should be able to outrun it, Oh please God let me run it out I don't want to die here I want to live oh please oh shit oh shit, please! Help!

The smell of chemicals and soil permeated through the cabin. The old Taurus, the kind that had appeared in those old Robocop movies, a relic of bygone eras of film and Hollywood, wasn't built for these conditions. It... it wouldn't save her.

NO!

"I WILL NOT FUCKING DIE HERE!" she shouted aloud. "Fuck that! I'm gonna die on a shrimping boat before a goddamed tornado gets me!" She unlatched her right hand from the wheel to pound on the console. "Come on, baby! Come on! Let's go! You and me, three thousand miles, we gotta finish this!"

The road behind her was all but torn to shreds. God help whoever was in its path behind her. God help those to come.

An eye flicked down to the dashboard. The fuel gauge was getting dangerously low, and this puppy had never been very nice to the MPG. It was a race against time. Who would win? The tornadoes behind, or the precious drops of fuel that were all that was standing between her and a one-way ticket to the sky?

Come on... come on... just a little bit longer... come on! Go! Gogogogogogo!

But the funnel clouds kept coming closer and closer until the inevitable was upon her. She struggled to maintain control of the car, but the literal forces of nature behind her would not allow that. She felt the world shift under her as the rear end of the car began to lose traction. The wind, hundreds of miles an hour strong, was too much for the little engine that couldn't. She threw the wheel in a desperate attempt to straighten out (turn into the skid and maintain direction a memory of driver's ed said to her) but when the rear axal began to lift off of the ground... when the car began to flip to the side... as the dust behind her transformed into the dust around her...

Oh. Oh, no.

With seemingly no effort at all, the vehicle became airborne. The colossal winds of the closer twister lifted the car, but slowly at first, like a cheap carnival ride, but faster and faster as she rose above the ground and somehow was pulled into the orbit of the storm. And just like that, there was no more control. Tumbling on three axis as she was pulled out of the direct influence of gravity, seat belt strapped tightly to her chest so hard that she could barely breath with the g-forces, she noticed vaguely that she had somehow been tossed from one tornado to another.

Great, she thought vaguely to herself as the blood rushed to her head and her vision began reddening. World's biggest game of hot potato.

This is madness.

… Madness. No. It couldn't be.

Many years beforehand, when she was very young, her grandmother had told her something about madness... something... what was it... come on, come on, Lily, come on, come on... She couldn't scream. There were no sounds. The wind was... wind. It was wind.

"Listen to the wind, and whisper back. Find the words between the madness, and call out to it."

"But what should I say?"

"You just ask for help, dearie. I can tell you how if you wish... it isn't hard to ask for help if you know how. My father taught me how to before he left on his next great adventure. There's this little poem..."

She need to breathe. Lily took her hands off of the useless steering wheel and wriggled just enough that she could move the seat belt from her chest. If this didn't work, she'd be dead anyway. Jamming her feet against the console, she somehow managed to push her seat back to give her enough slack that she could get a gasp of air. She had heard the stories about her great grandfather. Her own mother had told her that they were simply stories, but-

but those old stories were her only chance at survival.

The storm howled more loudly than ever before, but she didn't care. Enraged, frightened, pissed off beyond measure, she shouted out at the void. "NOW THIS IS THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE!"

A mighty gust of wind overturned the vehicle, and now she was flying backwards and upside down. "AS OLD AND AS TRUE AS THE SKY! AND THE WOLF THAT SHALL-" Some violent breeze spun the car over again and around like a top. "KEEP IT MAY PROSPER, BUT THE WOLF THAT SHOULD BREAK IT MUST DIE!"

Debris crashed through the back left window, scattering shards of broken safety glass in the cabin of the old car. She felt lances of pain shoot into her cheek, her arm, and blood spattered wildly. For the briefest of instances, as if in slow motion, she noticed a few drops fly, from her perspective, out, then up, then left into the driver's window. Cabin pressure negated in its entirety, dust and detritus peppered her exposed skin and drowned her own voice out in an unrelenting howl.

Listen to the wind, and whisper back. Find the words between the madness, and call out to it.

A long, jagged strip of some kind of metal impaled the windshield. It drove into the car with enough thrust to embed itself into her seat and straight into the back floorboard. It had threaded the scant space between her arm and torso; eyeing the jagged spike, if she was to be smashed into it, she knew it would be the end of her.

She'd been taught two very important things about fear by her mother- first, to never to give in to it, never to let it consume you, but to let it guide your actions. Fear is a survival mechanism, nothing more and nothing less. Down the path of fear is darkness and madness.

Secondly, though... sometimes, fear is the appropriate response.

Some of the glass must have nicked something important in her neck. She looked down and her once-light yellow tank top was a canvas of life's-blood red. Cold began to creep up to her, from her fingertips and toes all the way up her arms.

Listen to the wind, and whisper back. Find the words between the madness, and call out to it.

She felt the radical shift in direction as, once again, she was flung from one monster twister to another. She was fading, and she knew it, and she was dying, and she knew it. But it wouldn't happen without her fighting until the bitter end. Lily inhaled one large, dirt-saturated breath, and in one go finished the verse. "AS THE CREEPER THAT GIRDLES THE TREETRUNK THE LAW RUNNETH FORWARD AND BACK FOR THE STRENGTH OF THE PACK IS THE WOLF AND THE STRENTH OF THE WOLF IS THE PACK!" Every ounce of will she had remaining had been shed in that defiant tribute.

There were no miracles. Miracles are an act of a capricious god, one who might occasionally answer a prayer.

No, there were no miracles.

But the Pack? The Pack heard the call.

At that moment- relatively speaking- seven individuals were alerted to a cry for help. Those words, those lines written by a man long dead, rang throughout the greater Outer Multiverse to reach the ears of those most needed. One by one, they turned to better hear the plea.

The Ritual Witch King, he who would make truth of all lie.

The Fearsome Mother, she who had once been a merciless warrior, but who now cared for those who would ask for her steady hands and comforting eyes.

The Immortal Gladiator, chosen by fate to guide those who would follow him into darkness and come out the other side with a blooded smile, to whom the word "impossible" was merely a polite suggestion.

The Nephilim Chain, an angel born of science and God.

The WorldWalker, the woman that knew no bounds.

The Young Death, he whose reach spans all sinners against his name and whose domain is the Soul.

And finally, the one to whom the cry was cast at in the first place...

There was a low boom in the sky. Then another. Rhythmic concussions, spaced a few seconds apart, popped around her. Some were distant, and some were so close she wondered why they hadn't torn her apart.

And then there was... not silence. But just like that, the funnel clouds were just gone. The supercells above had all but vanished. In the space of seconds, the clouds above had begun to break apart, the bright blue sky allowing sun to shine on down in columns of burning light.

A lurch stopped the old Taurus from falling more than three or four feet after it left the influence of the dual twisters, shocking Lily to the core. She felt the g-forces on her yank her into the door, her shoulder slamming so sharply that she felt, more than heard, her upper arm crack almost in half. The side of her head cracked against the glass, splintering it and sending shards of death around the cabin... but not a one of the splinters pierced her skin.

Time itself stopped in that crystalline moment. While the world around her flowed on, a bubble of eternity surrounded her. She could not move. She could not breathe. She could not speak.

But she could see. She could see a man before her, one that had existed only in her family's memory for so very long that he had become more of a myth than a reality. That bright yellow hair, shaggy and short. Those piercing blue eyes, so very like her own. Three dark marks on each cheek, looking like solid black bars.

Skin that radiated a bright, blazing golden light.

She faded into unconsciousness, but with her last waking thought, she understood who he was. He was the prayer that had been answered.

The Pack had heard her call.

Grandfather... she silently thought as she went dark. I knew... you... would...

There was a faint antiseptic scent in the air. That was the first thing that Lily noticed when she awoke from her hazy slumber. Eyes, heavy with fatigue, cracked open at last. She was too tired to move very much. The lights, from some indistinct source beyond her reach, were turned down low. Far, far off in the distance, there was the sound of some kind of water crashing about- a waterfall? Waves?

No sound came from the room itself. The air was comfortably cool, and the sheets over her body kept Lily from the chill.

Am I in a hospital somewhere? she thought. Did... did all of that really happen? Where am I? She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, the dried crust flaking off. She sat up in her bed to look around the room.

It was a fairly small room, all told. To the left of her hospital bed was a complicated-looking medical display, with what she assumed were readings coming from her. Heartbeat, brain activity, blood pressure... all of her vitals were on screen. The sensors that were picking up the signals must have been doing so remotely, because she couldn't feel any kind of electrode or device anywhere on her body. Just beyond the display was a shelf with folded clothing, toiletries, towels, and such. A wooden door was in the middle of the wall downward from the foot of her bed.

She looked to her right. By all rights, she should have been startled, but an almost unnatural calm had come over her. In a plush chair sat the last thing that she had seen before blacking out. The man with yellow hair and blue eyes, the impossible hero that had somehow been there for her, rested, slumped over with his chin being supported by his hand on the chair's armrest.

Lily blinked slowly at that, uncaring that she was only dressed in a hospital gown. It's him. It's really, really him. He was close by, perhaps two feet away, easily within arm's reach. He was wearing simple blue jeans and a tank-top, with a delicate-looking necklace with some kind of crystals hanging from it. On the table beside him were at least a half-dozen cups of instant raman noodles, presumably emptied of contents.

He wasn't an especially large man, but his body was covered by muscles that looked as if they belonged to a fighter. Faint scars could be seen on his right arm around the elbow, light patches against his evenly-tanned skin.

He stirred himself to life when Lily sat up, as if he was silently alerted. He rubbed his own eyes, and quickly sat at attention. "Hey, you're awake! Thank goodness, you've been out for a while. You took a pretty good banging before we could get to you. You feeling okay?" He sat forward in his seat, looking Lily in the eyes. He had a warm smile, full of kindness and compassion. There was no guile in him. This was a man that was used to being trusted, and one that was worthy of it.

Lily stared at him for a solid moment, simply taking him in. "You're real," she finally said after an uncomfortable silence. "You're actually real. Not dead. I mean, you're real, but you're real." She rapidly blinked, confused at her own choice of words. "Did that make any sense? Grandfather?"

If Uzumaki Naruto had any internal reaction to the title, he hid it well. "It does," he said. "I'm real. I'm alive. And so are you." He touched her shoulder, and she could feel the warmth and strength transmitting between them.

No- no, wait. It wasn't any kind of metaphorical reassuring contact, but a genuine energy flowing through his fingertips. Lily gasped as a shock of heat entered her core. Any remaining aches that she felt were dissipated; it was as if the man's very vitality was flowing through her, flooding her with fire and light, rocking the world around her, the way she saw reality itself.

"Oh, shit!" she said as she jerked away with a gasp. "What was that?!"

Naruto frowned and snatched his hand away. "Sorry!" he said, "I didn't think that through too well. I- listen, there's a lot to explain right now, and I know that you have a lot of questions to ask me. I'll answer what I can, I promise you, but we should wait for your doctor to check you out before we dive into everything."

Lily blinked. "Wait, doctor?"

Naruto let a small smile through. "Yeah," he said. "One of the best I ever met was the one that took care of you after the accident. Got you patched up in no time flat. She'll be here soon, those machines sent her an alert once you woke up."

"Who- No, hold on, where are we? This doesn't look like Kansas to me, Gramps."

Naruto winced at that name. "Oh, why you hurt me so?" he joked. "'Grandfather' I can take, but 'Gramps' makes me sound old and stodgy."

Still reeling from the unprecedented charge that had been pushed into her, Lily shook her head. "Old Man?" she suggested. "Grandad?"

"Let's stick with Grandad for now," he said wryly. "We'll figure it all out later. We've got time."

It was the way that he said the last few words that made it sound like he was more certain of that fact than his very own name. Who is this guy? Lily thought.

Naruto clapped his hands and put on a smile. "Hey, anyway, are you hungry?" He nodded to the other side of the hospital room at the kitchenette containing a small portable hot eye, microwave, and sink.

As if on cue, Lily's belly rumbled. The almighty Uzumaki clan appetite, even after all these years, was a powerful force. "No," she deadpanned.

The old man laughed as he stood. "Sorry if I don't have much in here that you might like, there aren't visitors to this facility very often. I rotate the stock every few years, but we should have something you can stomach." He busied himself at the cupboard, pulling out various Styrofoam containers. "Uh... Oh. I forgot to restock the soups." Under his breath, he muttered "Damn you, ShadowBoy, you knew mushroom was my favorite, I told you to replace them." He turned back toward Lily with a forced smile. "Uh... Say, Lily?"

"Yes?" she answered.

"How do you feel about instant raman?

Fifteen minutes later, a somewhat bemused woman in white walked into the clinic to the sounds of heated argument.

This would not be the first time that she had interrupted a discussion of the type with her dear friend perpetuating his ideals like this.

"SHRIMP?" a shout from the other side of the door came bellowing out before she could open it. "No granddaughter of mine will tell me to my face that shrimp is the best flavor of instant raman! I will not stand for this!"

"Don't you dare shame me!" Lily shot back. "Shrimp raman is the height of savory and sweet! Chicken flavor is cloying, mushroom too gamey, and beef- it's generic. Everybody likes beef. It's standard and boring."

... Perhaps I should come back later, Retsu Unohana thought to herself. Only madness lies beyond this door. Madness and chaos incarnate.

"Generic? Did you just say- Oy! 'Hana!" Naruto called out.

Sighing and resigning herself to her duties, Unohana opened the door. Of course, running away wouldn't help... "Uzumaki," she said as she entered, "I warned you about getting her too excited before I could give her a proper checkup when she awoke. Will you-" She then noticed the empty noodle cups around where he had been sitting. Then she noticed the ones in both their hands, cheap wooden chopsticks held at the ready.

Unohana had been a friend of Naruto for a very long time at this point in her life. Both the two had rules, personal rules that, when known, were a sin to violate. In certain matters, she deferred to his judgment. In others, he to hers. Some kind of switch was flipped in her soul just then.

Without changing her expression in the slightest, her mood went from resigned to apocalyptic one point three times faster than an average human could blink. The very air between them became heavy, as if a miasma of toxic sludge was immersed in her gaze. "Naruto," she said pleasantly, Unohana presented a smile at the blond-haired death-wish machine. "Would you happen to be feeding my patient... raman?"

It would not be an overstatement to say that Uzumaki Naruto was one of her favorite people. Over the years, he'd proven himself to be a capable ally and friend. She had been there with him during the Godfather War. She had bled for him, and he for her. But in the world of medicine, within the realm of a hospital, she was Authority.

Naruto had the decency to be ashamed. "I, uh, sorry, she was hungry, and-"

"And you gave... her... raman. You first instinct was to give a patient of mine junk food, and then get into an argument about said food. Is that right?"

Naruto held up a finger in protest. "Okay, yeah, you're technically correct, which incidentally is the best kind of correct, but-"

"Leave."

Naruto looked at his progeny. "Good luck," he said.

"Wait! Hey, hold on, who-" Naruto was gone and out the door faster than you could say "Pork bowl." Lily looked bewildered to be abandoned that quickly with this intimidating presence. "Uh..." She looked at her hands, still filled with warm noodly goodness, and chose the best course of action by putting them down.

"Thank you," Unohana said warmly.

Lily shrunk into herself. Some primordial part of her lizard brain was screaming DANGER, RUN, BEAST, PREDATOR, but she couldn't find the energy to flee after her grandfather. "Sorry," she squeaked.

And just like that, the mood in the room flipped on its head once again. This warm, comforting woman in white, a healer of the body? Who would be afraid of somebody like that? "It is not your fault, young one," she said as she moved over to examine the readings on the monitors beside the bed. "It is the fault of your elders-" A quick glance at the door was all that was needed to express her disapproval. "-for not following the rules that have been laid out."

Lily kept silent as Unohana continued her work. Some hidden signal had the screens shifting. A few seconds here, blood work. Another few on another screen, medical history, blood pressure, genetic anomalies, ovulation cycles, brain waves... a truly dizzying array of information was presented faster than most human eyes could follow. A few minutes of uncomfortable silence passed, and Lily couldn't take it anymore. "I, uh, I'm Lily," she said, attempting to fill the awkward silence.

"I know, dear," Unohana said without taking her eyes from the screens before her. "I read your medical file." Finally satisfied, she turned from the display to Lily with a glowing smile. "My name is Retsu Unohana. Your grandfather is a friend of mine from very long ago, and he asked me to look after your healing process. Incidentally, I was also one of the ones who was able to answer your Call the other day. I am happy to say that you have made a full recovery in the meantime."

"Huh? Call? Wait a second, 'other day'? How long have I been unconscious?"

"Mmm. It has been nearly seventy-two hours since the situation with the weather. I am happy to say that nobody was irreparably hurt, but the local hospitals must have been busy with the patients from the incident."

"Local hospitals? Wait a second, where are we then?" It was only just then that Lily realized that the room she was in was very windowless. "Are we even still in America?"

"Technically? I suppose you could say that," answered Unohana. But that word, "technically", it hung in the air like a pinata.

And, of course, Lily took a swing at it. What else do you do with a pinata? "What do you mean 'technically'? Where are we?"

"That is a question to ask your great-grandfather," Unohana said. "In the meantime, I am giving you a clean bill of health. I do suggest that you don't exert yourself overmuch for the next few days, though. You had a fairly severe concussion, a fractured tibia, and your first, third, and seventh ribs were completely broken. I can heal a broken body fairly quickly, but at a certain point it becomes taxing to the body itself. Done too quickly, and your vital energies can be depleted before the threshold between life and death can be safely crossed. After emergency aid was provided, the next two days were spent rebuilding your musculature structure, resetting and repairing bones and joints, and replenishing your blood supply. Luckily, your grandfather shares your blood type, and we were able to bring you to a full recovery."

Lily's hands instinctively went to her rib cage. "What?!" she shouted. "But- I'm not in a cast! Something like that should have killed me." Several conflicting emotions fought within Lily just then. Confusion, contentment, sheer relief to be alive, and even some anger. "Why am I not dead?"

"'Why am I not dead?' A blunt, but apt question. Simply put, I am a very efficient medic," she said. "You might have some inkling of who your great-grandfather is and what he can do. I'm sure your grandmother told you stories about him. Lovely woman. But what he is to, as he puts it, 'Kaboom Power', I am to healing a body. So long as you are not explicitly dead, or your spirit hasn't traveled too far from the mortal coil, I can heal almost anything with the correct procedures."

Lily opened her mouth to speak, but found that she couldn't express the various emotions fighting for dominance. To an outside observer, she looked like a goldfish that had been abruptly and rudely taken out of an aquarium.

Unohana was far too polite to say that aloud, of course. But she could take some humor in her own observations.

Lily looked at her doctor for a few seconds, then gave an unexpected smile. "I still have no idea what's going on here," she said. "But you two saved my life. Thank you. Thank you so much."

Unohana smiled back at the girl and patted her shoulder gently. "You are very welcome, dear. Any time you need something, I will help however I can." A very small smirk twitched at the corner of her lips. "It doesn't hurt that having Uzumaki Naruto in my debt can be a very useful chit to cash on occasion."

Lily snorted at that, then laughed. "Oh, wow. Um." She flopped back on the bed and gazed at the ceiling. "Miss Unohana? Er, Doctor? What should I call you?"

"My friends call me Retsu. I think I shall give that honor to you, if you wish to be friends."

Lily waved her hand vaguely. "Anybody who rescues me from a tornado gets to be my friend," she said. "Um, Retsu? Can I, uh, get dressed?" She glanced over at the folded clothes to the side of the room. "Will those fit?"

"Yes, I believe you are good to move on your own recognizance," Unohana said. "Just try not to over-exert yourself for a few days. You may be healed, but natural healing is as important in the long run as anything I can do on my own power."

Lily stood, conscious and somewhat embarrassed at the opened back of her hospital gown (Retsu is a doctor or something, she's a professional, damn it) and took a look at the clothing left to her. It wasn't much, really; plain white panties, a sports bra that seemed to be her size (okay, who picked this up? Where's it from?) ankle socks, black tennis shoes (Nike, nice) and black jeans that looked like they would fit a little loose around the hips. The only thing remarkable about the ensemble was the shirt. It, too, was black, a somewhat baggy t-shirt made of some kind of heavier material than she was familiar with. It was blank on the front, but on the back was a large orange emblem of a circle with a loose spiral swooping from the inside to the middle.

"I shall take my leave," Unohana said with a slight bow of her head. "If you need anything during your stay, have your grandfather give me a call. I will remain around for a few days yet, but I have responsibilities at home that cannot be put off for too much longer."

"Thank you, Retsu," Lily said. "Um, will my- shit, I still don't really know what to call him. I'm out of my league here. Will gramps be back soon?"

With a nod, Unohana said "He should be back shortly. You and he have much to discuss, and I understand that there are many answers that are owed to you. But if I may offer some advice?"

"Yes?"

"Be cautious of what questions you put to him. Knowing him, he'll tell you the truth without hesitation, but without time and context, many of those answers will do you less good than knowing the facts at face value. Start off slow, and work your way from there. Your life..." Unohana trailed off in thought for a short moment before finishing, "... it will become very complicated very soon. Make sure you are ready for that eventuality."

Lily gulped, but nodded at the woman. "Thank you, Retsu," she repeated, fidgeting with her fingers. "Um, when will Gramps- shit, I really don't know if I'm comfortable with that, when will he be back?"

"Knowing him?" Unohana tilted her head and smiled motherly. "Before the ramen is cold."

"Oh!" Lily turned back to look at the half-eaten cups she and Naruto had left. "Okay, right. Is it okay if I..." she trailed off, vaguely gesturing at the delicious, forbidden noodly goodness.

"Of course. I mainly said that to put the fear of Me into him. Never let him get too comfortable having his own way, he is far too smug for his own good at times."

Lily chuckled. "I'll remember that. Thank you, again, for everything."

Unohana Retsu nodded. "Any time, but let us not make it a frequent date. I would love to share some tea with you one of these days when our schedules allow. But for now, I have work to do." She made her withdrawal without another word, leaving Lily alone with a fresh pile of clothes, ten million questions (on the low end of a ballpark guess) and an irrational feeling that she couldn't quite place. It wasn't worry, or fear... more like, there was something staring her in the face that she couldn't quite put into thoughts or recognizable words.

It felt like she was staring at a question on a test that she had studied quite hard for that wasn't included in the lessons preceding. Somehow cheated? Motivated? Cautiously optimistic? She shook her head, no, that wasn't it.

… no. No, she recognized this one. She'd felt it long ago. She had been on a nature hike with her parents so very long ago, after her grandmother had left them. The path took a bend to a cliff on the side of the sea, and the call of the void had dragged her to the edge. With nothing beneath her for over a hundred feet but rocks, crashing waves, and dozens of feet to the seafloor below the surface, Lily had the inane urge to leap, to fly out into the nothingness and just let fate decide her future.

It's the clothes, she realized. All that black all over? The strange shirt with some kind of logo on the back? That was the precipice she was teetering over, the gift from her great-grandfather to her.

If she accepted his gift, if she let herself step into his world before he got there, she was saying that she was prepared to follow his trail wherever it could lead. But what if she didn't? What if Lily got back in bed and covered up with a hospital sheet and let him tell her what he had to say, and then they just, what? He takes her home, she sees the overbearing mother that never gave her more than a passing bit of privacy? The one who kept her home on weekends until she graduated because "An education is more important than partying all night. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about"? Who wouldn't let her get a job that worked her past eight o'clock, even on weekends?

Lily had just graduated from her high school, but still had six more months to go before her eighteenth birthday. That cross-country trip in the Taurus was intended to be the big get-away bash before college began the following autumn season.

She walked over to the clothes folded up neatly on the counter, and slowly picked up the shirt. She gently traced the lines on it, making the circumference of the circle, then following it into the epicenter where it terminated. She felt as if she knew this symbol already, somehow. The deja vu was strong with this one.

Ah, fuck it, she thought. I always did look good in black.

The Void called out to Lily Uzumaki, and the Void was answered in kind.

I know this might not be that much of a first chapter, but I'd like to avoid the same mistakes that I've made with some of my other tales. This isn't going to be a "what if" story, and I think that I've dropped enough clues near the beginning to tell you where this is going. I'm gonna play this one close to the chest for now, but if any of you have any guesses you are more than welcome to make them... I might answer ya.

In the meantime, be kind to each other. The world is dark enough as it is. Make it shine. Start each day with an empty heart and fill it with love by the time you go to sleep. Go pet a dog. Eat that ice cream. Sing that song in public, because damn it, you're fantastic.

Dattebayo.

~DeadWitch.