Diamond Spoons Taste Cold

Authors Note: Usual disclaimers apply. I made this after drowning myself in SI stories to procrastinate studying for my bar exams. Lovely. Reviews and criticisms greatly appreciated.

Prologue: Why we don't talk to strange beings who claim they're God.

I remember crashing in my firm's nap room after the third consecutive day of working till 3 am on a complicated merger, before having to clock back in at 9 am the next day. It might have been the sleep deprivation, but now, I'm seeing a picture of a mouth in white, floating in front of me. On an all black background.

The black background I can still excuse since I know I'm supposed to be sleeping, and my eyes are supposed to be closed. When eyes are closed, no light comes in, ergo, everything is dark. Very logical, very reassuring.

Blink.

The white mouth were still there.

Blink. Blink.

It seems that it's very insistently floating, and it seems annoyed. Is this a weird stress induced dream? Or a hallucination? My eyes are open, everything is dark and there's an angry looking mouth floating in front of me.

If I had known this would have happened, I would have happily pawned off most of the work to the interns.

Congratulations! You've died due to overwork!

Blink. The mouth just moved and the sound of fireworks going off started playing.

... uh what?

You're dead. If you don't believe me, try looking down at your hands.

I looked down to see my hands, but I saw nothing but more of the darkness. I tried looking around but nope, no hands, or arms. or elbows, or legs, knees or feet. There was a clear absence of a body. So I have no body? Why would I have no body?

Well what use are bodies for a dead spirit anyways? Your soul should have been sorted automatically with the system I've put in place, but obviously there's something off since I have to come here and sort you myself.

The mouth fell silent for a bit. I was stunned. I died from working at a LAW FIRM. How do you even die from dealing with paperwork? I'm not even dealing with convicts. Merger & Acquisition was supposed to be a very cushy department, with high pay, high benefits, and occasionally, high stress. Concentrated stress in short outburst mind you, but its not supposed to be fatal. Fatal are jobs in the military or the police, not solicitors in offices.

This is one strange hallucination, my co-workers must have slipped some of those hallucinogenic cookies into my snack box again.

AHA! I see the problem now. You didn't go to automatic processing because you're so... bland.

BLAND? Alright, being a solicitor isn't exactly the most exciting job in the world, but the sheer amount of work does lead to very interesting information of the borderline absurd kind to be exact. Beyond my profession, I have a wonderful and exciting life thank you very much.

Yes, your soul is bland. Blandest soul I've ever seen. It's so lacking in character I find it hard to believe that a few moments ago you were part of the living. Your soul is as bland as an old dead, stuck in limbo for centuries soul.

No one asked for your opinion mister 'I'm such a mysterious floating mouth.'

You're not a particularly bad person, but you're not particularly good one either. Let's have a run through your personal history shall we?

Despite being mildly offended at being called bland, I'm still reeling on the thought that I am dead. I am at what appears to be at the afterlife, where I broke a system somewhere. Clearly in death, as I am in life, technology malfunctions when I'm anywhere at its vicinity.

I'm in the afterlife, talking to a floating mouth, who seems to have a flair for the dramatics if the sound of fireworks were anything to go by.

Oh hush, if you think your job as a solicitor was bad, imagine me having to oversee all souls, not some but ALL souls in this blank space for ETERNITY. At least you could retire. I need to work to get a bit of entertainment.

Right, and somehow this is supposed to make the conversation less absurd. A talking, floating mouth is complaining about retirement plans.

Back to your personal history, you've had quite an interesting family. Asian. A military general for a father, and a startlingly successful business woman for a mother, and an only child to boot! Why, you've got the world on a platter. The public must love you.

The sarcasm was highly unnecessary. I wanted to protest but I reminded myself that this... being somehow has authority over the rest of my stay in this afterlife. So I kept my mouth shut.

Clever move girl. I can't believe that with a back story that interesting, you've never actually done anything interesting with your life. Your life is basically a checklist for every milestone and expectation laid out by your family, without a single deviation. You've met every expectation, ticked all the boxes, basically the 'other child' parents like to compare their kids to.

Thanks. I like to set a standard.

But it means you've had no great passion, or ambition, or grand dreams. If you had chosen something ridiculously bad, like say take over the world, you would have at least had a life with a bit of flavour, and you could have easily been judged by the system. Every accomplishment, or decision you've made has such little influence from your soul that you might as well have not been born into this life in the first place.

And this way of living is horrible why? I've always thought that avoiding trouble was the smart thing to do.

Smart doesn't solve my problem, know-it-all.

I rolled my eyes. Could I even roll my eyes without a body? Whatever, the sentiment stands.

It's a common issue I've been seeing lately with this timeline. There's a growing lack of faith, emotions are mostly deadened, with a vast majority of people lacking any sort of individuality or ambition.

Welcome to modernisation, whatever you are. I'll just call you 'Being X'.

Usually I just send these souls back to repeat their lives with a small twist, but clearly it's not helping. Your file makes you seem smart enough. Girl, humour me. What do you think is the reason for this mess.

Somehow, this seems to be like a trick question a senior partner gives an intern when they need a break from a case. Nevertheless, after being raised to meet every expectation, I actually gave some thought to this question.

On faith, due to science providing an explanation for nearly everything, the miracles of the past seem more like myths than anything real. A majority of the population nowadays have great standards of living so they're not exposed to some 'great threat and hope' scenario that usually inspires great faith like in history or in fiction. The whole, neutral living dead souls thing is pretty much anyone's guess.

The mouth stays silent, but purses thoughtfully. In hindsight, this was red flag number 1.

Hmm, so you're saying the current situation breeds complacency leading to these BUGS popping up?

Computer terminology is definitely not my forte, but that's an apt summary. This doesn't mean that you should plunge the world into chaos though! Peace is good for the growth of humanity, and everything is great in life with all the convenience and bells and whistles.

Good for humanity or not, this situation causes problems when they're dead. All living things die, ergo, this problem being solved is the Greater Good, and it MUST be fixed regardless of how you feel about it, human.

... I seem to have caused a major problem.

WAIT! Even if you change anything it doesn't guarantee that it would fix the problem. Like you've said I'm just the soul of a human-

A human with a silver- no diamond spoon in her mouth. If you consider that the average human, you're very out of touch aren't you.

Thats my past life and with how bland you say my soul is, it shouldn't even effect the characteristics of my soul, but I digress. Back to my main point, there is no guarantee that plunging the world to chaos would solve the issue. If it fails, not only will you have more work with the influx of the dead souls coming into the afterlife, its unnecessary suffering to the world or could even lead to a mass extinction scenario.

When the mouth started grinning like a loon I should have known I just majorly fucked up again.

This was red flag number 2.

That's a logical argument. Your legal training seems to have some use after all.

The mouth grinned so widely it showed nearly all of its teeth. Red flag number 3: the huge thunderclap that sounded eerily like an applause.

I've decided on what to do with you human, you'll be my test run for this solution. I'll drop you off to a chaotic world and observe whether or not the world will change your mindset. Oh this will be fun, I'll have something to watch now.

Wait what?! I didn't volunteer for this! Can't you just reincarnate me like every other weird soul that grabs your attention.

I can, but I choose not to. HA! It'll be good for you too, teach you how to live and all. I'm a nice God, so I'll even drop you into a world you'll be familiar with. Don't think to much about any pre-existing knowledge you remember, go wreck havoc or whatever, you won't destroy the world... maybe.

MAYBE?! YOU'RE NOT BEING A VERY RELIABLE OR ENCOURAGING GOD AT THE MOMENT! HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THAT THAT'S WHY PEOPLE HAVE FAITH ISSUES LATELY?

HAHAHA! I would die to see the look on that sage's face when he realises what happened, of course I'll make sure he'll only figure it out once your natural lifespan there is used up. Good luck kid, it's been nice chatting with you. Go do some crazy stuff so I can get good reality TV - I mean so I can make greater observations to solve this dead soul thing.

Well fuck you too Being X.

Shit, has he been reading my mind this entire time?! PRIVACY PLEASE that's a human right!

The last thing I remember from this episode was the sound of booming laughter coming out of a hysterical, twitching mouth, and the sensation of falling into a hole.

If any of this dream is real, I should learn how to not open my mouth and spit words out like its going out of fashion.

When I next opened my eyes, it was still dark. The difference is that it feels very warm and comfortable, like I'm floating in one of those sensory deprivation pools. If I'm in a sensory deprivation pool, it would make that strange conversation with a talking, floating mouth a hallucination. I wish it were a hallucination. If wishes were that easily granted, no one would ever do anything but wish everything they ever wanted to existence.

Sadly, my hardworking brain decided to remind me that I still distinctly remember how I passed out in the office, where we clearly do not have a sensory deprivation tank in the nap room.

Floating around like this makes everything seem timeless. The fact that my mind is still very aware, it gave me a chance to look back at the previous madness. The only daughter of the general is now dead. I am technically a new person now, with hopefully, a new family to look forward to. Of course this is on the assumption that whatever happened with Being X was true. Regardless, on the off chance that it was true, I took my time remembering the memories of my previous life.

It took a while to accept that I died, and that I am very permanently separated from my past. However, the fact that I accepted that I died, and may reincarnate somewhere, somehow, sometime doesn't mean that there's no feelings over being separated from my old life. Despite the cool nature of my previous family's relationship, which is natural considering how much of a workaholic, introvert my parents are, we do love and care for each other. Even if it meant that we enjoyed our times together by sitting in the same room, ignoring each other while doing our own thing.

Seeing that Being X mentioned "a chaotic world", the nature my parent's respective jobs ensures that I am very well versed with the reality of dirty politics found anywhere there's people. Chaotic implies unrest, which implies intrigue and masterminds with plots so convoluted I would be lost if I was never taught on how to handle it. It's comforting to know that I still remember the lessons my father taught me about his job, and in identifying the intentions of people.

With that analysis out of the way, I decided to just lean back and enjoy myself. The warmth of my surroundings sometimes fluctuated, and the gentle swaying made me sleepy. On some days I can even hear a muffled voice talking to me. Can't make out the words to save my life, but the tone was so gentle and soothing, it eventually became my lullabies whenever it pops up.

I spent my days thinking, day-dreaming, submerging myself in my memories, and sleeping. Basically like the retirement dream I envisioned the second I took up my job. Idyllic and relaxing. The only way this could get any better would be if the place wasn't so dark all the time, had a bit of scenery to look at. Blue skies, green grass, forests and lakes, like the kinds you see in Switzerland, that kind of scenery would be best.

Of course I had to open my big mouth. I just couldn't be happy with what I've got now can't I.

Soon after I wanted light, I saw light. A small hole of light, a very very small hole but lo and behold there's light. If it was just harmless light, it would have been fine, but then the calm floating became wild, like rapid currents in a river used for white water rafting. Everything swirled towards the light. The whole dark space started compressing and I was swept away with the cramping and the rushing towards the light.

There was confusion, a lot of pain, and I thought that I was actually dying again, but this time instead of peaceful dying after passing out from overwork, this was more of a death by drowning variety. If I wasn't fearing for my life, I might have made a quip about how I can't be dying since I'm not actually alive. But again, I'd like to see someone keep calm when their whole world started spinning like mad while feeling like I'm being compressed, or vacuum packed into a tube.

Oh god, oh god this is so painful, why is this happening? It was nice and comfortable before, and now it became so tight I feel suffocated. Air, oh god I need air, did I just breather in water?! Where the hell was I that I could be BREATHING in WATER this whole time.

As if all this was not terrifying enough, my eyes started itching. (Eyes? I have a body now?) I tried blinking it out like every time an eyelash fell in, but then the itching grew worse. My eyeballs felt like someone poured itching powder, then decided to pour in oil then lighting it on fire. It burned and I wanted to cry, but then more water came into my mouth choking me.

This is terrible. Everything is terrible. Confused, afraid, and in a lot of pain, I closed my eyes in a panic, bit my lip to stop from screaming and hoped for the best.

Then I saw light.

Everything was so bright and clear, and god why is everything a blinding white. The burning in my eyes is still going strong, and everything is so noisy. There's a high pitch screaming, like someone's crying miserably and that noise is giving me a migraine. Perks of having a body is the realisation that you can have migraines. I felt someone grabbing my legs and flipping me into the air. Flailing like a fish out of water, I heard a slap and the screaming voice grew louder.

There were so many strangers, and all of them were giant. I clearly saw a very tired woman, upside down, before the hand on my leg turned me right side up again. She looked like she was on a hospital bed, I'm at a hospital? The woman had black hair, pale skin and had a really beautiful face. Beside the bed as another giant, carrying a young toddler with very twinkling eyes. The giant was a man with really dark brown hair, and a stern expression that now looks kinda shocked, with his mouth hanging open.

Now that I think about it, the pretty lady on the bed also looks kinda alarmed.

"Her eyes!" She gasped. "How is that possible"

... Is there something wrong with my eyes? Clearly I'm not blind with how clear and colourful everything looks.

Thats Japanese. Okay, I kinda know that language since I has to learn that when I was younger on top of my family's native Chinese. At least Being X had the decency to drop me in a country where I don't have to work like mad to understand the language.

The world then looked sort of woozy, with all the colours blending together. I only vaguely remember the feeling of being held by strong, slender arms before passing out.

I now know that there is a very good reason babies don't remember their birth. Being born is very traumatising.

And isn't that the biggest understatement of the century.

Much later, I realised that the shrieking, migraine inducing sound, actually came from me.

The next time I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that the world was no longer in the HD view I thought it was when I was first born. Everything was in an odd sepia tone, like vintage photography, except everything was so blurry that all I could see were vague shapes. I nearly thought I was colourblind until I remembered that I'm still a baby, and immediately after birth, infant eyes' are not developed enough to have HD, full colour spectrum vision that I remembered enjoying in my previous life.

The next thing I noticed was that I was being carried in the arms of someone. Again, the blurry vision doesn't help with identification, but I'm assuming it's the new parents of this life. Previous experience dictates that even if the family I was reborn in was the wealthy or noble type, nannies don't immediately carry recently born babies since parents are still marvelling at their child.

"You really gave Hahaue a scare just now" I felt someone kiss my forehead. It's the nice voice I've been listening to!

I cooed in what I hope was the direction of my new mother's face. I ended up blowing spit bubbles instead. Great, I have to relearn all my motor skills then.

"To think that she activated the sharingan at birth... this has never happened before." The deep voice sounded dumbfounded. "If the elders ever heard about this..."

"Anata, the elders will not, and can not know about this." Mother's voice interrupted firmly. "She's our daughter and she was just born yesterday, I will not have the elders place unrealistic expectations on another one of my children, I will not have it!"

Sharingan? That sounds familiar. Lets see, where have I heard that word before. On a side note, I'm glad I can at least hear the conversation to figure out whose who.

"I don't think I can even hide this information from them, there were too many people that saw what happened yesterday." My father tried to calm my mother. "I'm more worried about her passing out, her chakra reserves are too small to even support the drain."

Chakra. That's also another familiar word. Now where have I heard the words chakra and sharingan together.

"... We'll just have to do our best to protect our child then."

There was a knocking noise before the sound of something rubbing against wood. A sliding door?

"Ara, Itachi chan, come in. Hahaue just finished talking with your Chichiue, come and look at your younger sister."

Then there was the soft pitter-pattering of socked feet on the wooden floors. When it the thuds stopped, I felt my body being lowered slightly, but still securely in the arms of my mother. A new human shaped blob walked into view. This must be the toddler I saw being carried by the man I now know is my father.

Wait.

Itachi, sharingan, chakra. Three specific words and it felt like it hit me like lightning.

"I'll drop you off to a chaotic world."

"I'll even drop you into a world you're familiar with."

"Sage."

Being X reincarnated me into the Naruto world.

"Her name is Yuuki, Uchiha Yuuki."

As a member of the Uchiha clan.

"Hello Yuuki." A soft voice and a hand tentatively touched my head. "I'm your onii san"

As Uchiha Itachi's little sister.

He reincarnated me into a similarly old and powerful family that has issues, gave me an older brother with a sibling complex so large that it would be considered crippling in my previous life, and generally had one of the most devastating tragic plot of epic proportions I've ever read in any type of literature.

An actual tragedy that has a very high chance of becoming reality.

Seriously, fuck you Being X.

I heard booming laughter in my ears.