'thoughts'

emphasis

loud

A/N at end

"Alright guys, that's it for rehearsals. Show's in two hours, go get ready."

Liz smiled. She had worked a long time for the chance to get where she was, and her career never got any less exciting. Stretching, pushing her body to its limits... Liz was a dancer at heart. And this musical was only the most recent in a long career of music videos, workshops, and theatre performances that had hurdled her into minor stardom.

One of the backup dancers she was friendly with waved her over, and she began her trek offstage.

Shink, CRASH!

Darkness filled my vision. But... it wasn't a bad type of darkness. It was like the darkness when your head is under a blanket. But instead of being a blanket, it was like a really warm, humid day in its simultaneous warmth and pressure and lack of discernibility and odd form of blanketyness that wasn't blankety.

I'm not making any sense, am I? Look, it was warm, dark, and humid, that's all I know.

Anyway, after an indeterminate amount of time (nine months!), I felt the world squishing and squeezing constricting around me. Then all of the sudden I was pushed out of something and it was cold and there were so many towels and they were huge and scratchy and fluffy... Seriously, you would not believe the sheer volume of towels. Then, I was handed to some weird, crooning giant.

By this point, the evidence was stacking up. I had been reincarnated.

This left me with a number of interesting phenomenon to consider. My first thought, a mature, 'oh shit, that weird Buddhist guy was right!?' was rapidly shelved in favor of a second thought, this being, 'I wonder what I'll do this time around?' That question was answered in two seconds flat. I would be a dancer. I always had been, and loved it with all my heart. Why change now?

Life goal set, I turned to my new mother and gave her a happy smile. She murmured something into my ear.

"Sekai e youkoso Yuuko-chan."

I cocked my head.

'That isn't English...'

In my first life, I never really had a real goal. I just muddled through and did what seemed fun or smart at the time. In this life, I had a goal and every waking moment was spent trying to achieve it in one way or another. Thinking back on it, having a goal is probably the only reason I didn't go insane or spiral into depression.

My babyhood consisted of constant soreness. Gaining the muscle to stretch and move the way I wanted and needed to for my future career was no easy feat. Add in the weird, constant itchy-flowy feeling beneath my skin and whatever weird, humidity-ish stuff is in the air and you have one tough infancy. And that's not even metioning my struggle to learn Japanese. I persevered in spite of all the roadblocks, however. I was talking in your typical baby-ish sentences at six months, and toddling around/stretching borderline obsessively at nine months. This had the interesting effect of causing my parents to brag about their, 'little genius Yuuko-chan,' but honestly, I didn't care. So long as I became a dancer, I'd be happy. It was my goal and I was laser-focused on it.

This laser-focus, while beneficial for my dance abilities, were detrimental to my situational awareness. Now, I don't mean situational awareness as in, 'I legit didn't know that table was there until I crashed into it.' No, dance weeds out that kind of clumsiness very quickly. What I mean is, I never paid any attention to the fact that I seemed to be living in a pre-industrial era that somehow had television and plumbing, or the people parkouring over roofs like it was no big deal, or shouting about youth (okay, I did notice that one, but I just dismissed it as the neighborhood crazy guy), or the kids throwing knives around way too casually.

Of course, I couldn't remain ignorant forever. It was a couple months after my second birthday that I found myself in the park practicing pirouettes. I was looking for a spot when I noticed a mountain with three faces on it in the distance. This gave me pause. Who were those guys? And why were they important enough to be on a mountain?

I contemplated this as I was spinning. They seemed familiar. I landed in Sus-sous, then pliéd down into fifth. Well, when all else fails, ask someone smarter than you.

"Mama?"

My mother, a Soccer Mom(TM) by the name of Murakawa Manami, looked up from her conversation with another mother.

"Yes Yuuko-chan?"

"Who're the people on the mountain?"

I was awarded an indulgent smile.

"Those are the Hokage."

"Hokage?"

Hokage, Hokage, where have I heard that before?

"Yes, the Hokage. He protects the village."

Oh my f***ing god this is the Narutoverse.

Ok! Here's some general service announcements:

-This is my first Naruto fic ever, so I'm counting on you guys to catch any errors. Given the fact I haven't watched past the Tsunade Retrieval arc, I'm mostly working off the Wiki and spoilers from my best friend, and thus have absolutely no confidence in the accuracy of my knowledge. Please keep criticism constructive, because it's really hard to fix an error if you don't know what it is. That said, anything constructive is welcome and encouraged

-I am notorious for being the most unreliable updater ever, but I promise I'm either a) super swamped and have no time to write, or b) have completely forgotten to post and will update the minute someone reminds me

-First insert fic, I have not yet decided whether or not to make Yuuko overwhelmingly Mary-Sue and turn this into a crackfic, or keep her reasonable and make this more serious. Opinions?

-In terms of where in the timeline our dear Yuuko is, she's the same age as Shisui, because he seemed really awesome on his Wiki and in other Naruto fics and I really wanted to write him

-I'm terrible writing romance, but there's a solid chance I have some background relationships. As such, I am taking suggestions for ships, but please don't expect anything more than a casual reference to whatever characters getting together/lowkey PDA (holding hands, kiss on the cheek, etc.)

-If and when a ship is selected, there will be no complaints beyond spelling and grammar errors. Everyone has their OTP, and that's awesome, but don't get angry at other people for disagreeing with you. Everybody has an opinion, and I expect all of you to be mature and respect everyone else and their opinions. If you can't stomach a pairing, search for a fic with a pairing you prefer and read that (then refer me to that fic because I'm always looking for recommendations...)

-This should be obvious, but I don't own anything except for the plot and my OCs

Alright, that's everything important (I think...). Thank you for reading, remember to follow/favorite/review, and I will see you, uh, eventually! Yeah, eventually. See you all next time -UndecidedAnimeGirl