Hello again! Wait, before you exit the page, this is a great update! I didn't expect to be getting back to you all so quickly, but things have changed!

On the plagiarism front, I don't know what's going on. I haven't heard back from the mods yet, but Lady Luck is continuing!

But it will not continue by me alone. My health is in decline again and I simply can't handle the enormity of this project by myself.

From now on, Lady Luck will be continued by both myself and my amazing friend, BirdBoss. It will be a collaborative effort so that this fic gets the attention it deserves and updates far more often. I cannot continue this fic solo due to health issues and other priorities, and we've been wanting to do a joint story for a very long time. When this opportunity presented itself, we took it!

You will be able to find this story under the same title, Becoming Lady Luck, under the username luckypals (our joint account). This is the only other place you should see BLL, as I will be deleting the AO3 mirror.

While we've made a few changes, such as switching from first person to third, we hope most of you will still want to read.

Thank you for supporting me this far! We look forward to seeing you in the rewrite, which is being posted shortly.

Again, I'll add what progress I made of chapter two in first person so this is not only a note. Please be aware this is subject to change.

UPDATE AS OF MARCH 23RD 2016: While this story is still continuing under the account luckypals, I cannot sit by while the person who plagiarized me continues to harass other people. For those that still check back here, Seishun Kyousoukyoku is their current username, and they have plagiarized both myself and another author, Until The Bitter Ending. Two other authors have called them out, but they have since changed their username to avoid the consequences. It takes a lot to push me to name and shame, but it has come to my attention this person is now privately harassing new authors by way of accusing them of non-existent plagiarism. Projection, much? I have personally spoken with all involved and can vouch that the only plagiarism that has taken place is on Seishun's behalf. Seishun, should you ever read this, know you have at least nine authors, most of them fairly popular, watching you here and for appearances on other sites. We are done tolerating your truly disgusting behaviour.

Perhaps contrary to popular belief, there are consequences to being reborn with an adult's mind, especially when you're stuffing it into the body of an infant.

After that first unbelievable night—set of minutes, hours; really, it was impossible to tell—I can only assume that's when things started to go wrong. The last real memory I have was being handed back to Takara as Hashirama presumably sniffled about making me cry (I felt a little bad about that, but come on, priorities!). My world fast became an endless swirl of blurry colour, sound, and that incredibly horrible feeling that I would call chakra. And no, before you ask and because I'd read so much fanfiction before I'd died, it's not because I was hypersensitive or allergic to chakra, or any combination thereof.

The simple answer was that I had the body of a newborn whose chakra coils were only developed enough to handle the amount of chakra necessary to live—even if they'd grown a little further in the womb thanks to my circumstances. Now take my adult mind, my soul full of memories, everything that I had been in my twenty-two years—all pure Yin chakra—and shove that into the tiny body I was inhabiting.

Once my Yin chakra activated in its entirety, I was living on borrowed time; mere minutes at the most before my tiny body tore itself apart from the inside out.

…I'm lucky to be alive. I'm damn lucky that Mito is an Uzumaki fūinjutsu master. I'm lucky that Hashirama is Senju Hashirama, God of Shinobi. I'm lucky that my father is their son. I couldn't assume much about my mother, but I'm sure she did everything in her power to help. I mean, by all outward appearances, I'm her daughter, after all.

Which makes me feel… guilty for what happened later on.

.

I wasn't me after that. It was like someone had placed thick glass walls around me; I couldn't hear, and it was nearly impossible to see. I wasn't sure when I was awake or asleep. I was stuck like that, half-dreaming in a daze where clips of real life would occasionally spark in bursts of colour and sound, and I'd be so, so scared. I never failed to cry and flail in those instances. (There would be consequences to this that I'd learn about sooner than later.)

"Aw, look at little Tsuna! She looks so cute in purple!" or "Look, look, she can lift her head on her own! That's my girl!" and once in a while something more violent, "SEE?! Tsunade is blonde, stupid Kawa!" (They would usually argue. My new parents didn't give off the best first impressions.) And big hands would always be manhandling me—gently, though. No one ever hurt me, but it didn't stop me from being terrified—I didn't happily accept being reincarnated, I just learned to live with it… eventually. I never saw anything definitive either; my eyesight was worse than it'd been the day I was born for some reason.

(I would learn why, and I would hate what I saw.)

However, these moments disappeared as quickly as they would come, and I'd be left alone in my prison, dreaming of a fantasy world I wasn't sure was real.

What is this place? What's happening to me?

.

What happens when you combine an active, learning baby's brain with a dormant adult's mind acting as the processor and storage?

The learning speed is all but doubled.

Do you think Tsunade's genius was a fluke? The chakra control? Her prowess as an iryō-nin? I don't.

Not anymore.

.

One day, I woke up, for lack of a better term.

"—do you understand what I mean?!" The voice was feminine and very high-pitched. She sounded frightened, like she was trying to whisper but far too frantic to do so. It's Mama, I recognized, as I lay cradled in someone's arms, half dozing and not yet aware of my returning sense of self.

There was a pause, then: "Yes," a rumbling male voice replied evenly. "This is…" his tone changed to something I couldn't quite pin down, "quite strange." He was the one holding me. "I felt the change in her chakra immediately."

Light switch: on.

Suddenly, I realized I could understand most of what they were saying. Alarm bells went off in my head as everything slammed into me full-force and I panicked. I swung my short, pudgy limbs around—were they longer?—screaming like a banshee. I caught the man holding me off guard, but he recovered quickly and settled me into a different position. I felt the warmth of Takara's hands nearly touching me as she rushed to calm me down, and briefly one of the man's hands left my body to halt her. I used this lapse to grab onto him for all I was worth, still wailing.

Why?

To be honest, it was likely a reflex of some sort—something I'd developed in my 'asleep' state—and what else could I do, beat him off of me? I might have some luck with that in another fifteen years or so.

"Don't," was all he said. Dimly, I was reminded of Mito, however this guy seemed to possess an aura of coldness around him. At least that's how I interpreted him. I'm probably wrong. His chest feels hard. Is he wearing armour?

I quieted and opened my eyes, blinking rapidly as tears made my vision bleary, clutching something soft in my little fists. Lots of white, black, and blue. Huh? I looked up, both startled at how clear my eyesight was—seriously, how old am I now?—and who I was looking at. I made a piteous sound, half desperate sob, half keening whine. This was so wrong.

Here was Senju Tobirama—the three red markings (scars?) on his face were a dead giveaway—my grand-uncle, in glorious HD, studying me with analytical red eyes. He was easily the most elegant man I'd ever seen, from his silvery-white hair to the way his headpiece framed his face like an exotic crown. His appearance practically demanded respect. And here I'd gotten tears and snot on his majestic fur collar. Why was he bothering to hold me again? I didn't even realize that I'd gone from crying at his existence to a very still silence; I could only stare at him in awe.

"It's so rare to see her so quiet when she's in this state. She seems to really like you, Tobirama-sama," Takara exhaled in a rush, voice trembling. She sat across the table from us. Her movement caught my eye, so I automatically turned to look at her.

My first thought was that Takara could have been a carbon copy of an older Tsunade if not for the small differences in her facial structure. So, it's safe to assume Takara's a full Senju, then? She wore a colourful, luxurious kimono—which confused me as it hardly looked suitable for a kunoichi (maybe she's not? Yet it's difficult to believe she isn't). It leant her a regal air. Her hair was pinned up in an updo, the neat layers of light blonde held in place by—holy shit, were those senbon? Right, kunoichi status confirmed.

It occurred to me this was the first time I was (fully) consciously seeing my new… mother. It was a tough pill to swallow, no matter how you looked at it. My face wobbled as I tried not to start crying again. Let me tell you, as a baby, you really don't have much choice.

Tobirama was surprisingly gentle as he hushed me, petting my hair and wiping my messy face, Takara protesting that she'd rather do it all the while.

"No, it's possible your chakra will begin to resonate with Tsunade's if you touch her. I would rather observe her like this," Tobirama said.

It would be an understatement to say that I was overwhelmed. In my mind, I'd just been woken out of an induced coma—though I knew that wasn't true, if my fractured memories were anything to go by—to find myself older, therefore larger, and being held by the Second Hokage.

"Oh, yes, of course," Takara rambled on, anxiously wringing her hands. She tilted her head as she looked at me, amber eyes glassy with unshed tears. "She's just—she's not—I don't…" she trailed off, pressing her hand to her mouth, like she'd said too much.

I would've felt bad for her if I wasn't feeling equally as awful for myself, if not worse. I continued to cling to my grand-uncle numbly, somewhat taking in their conversation, but much too distracted to really hear what they were saying.

I should've paid attention.

The coarseness of cloth clenched in my tiny hands, the smoothness of Tobirama's (uncomfortably) firm, blue armour against me, my five fully awakened senses—six if you counted chakra, and that shouldn't have been possible at my age. This was unquestionable real, there was simply no doubt, and that knowledge left me in a very bad place.

I was Tsunade. I couldn't not be Tsunade. The world needed her. I needed to be her.

(Don't I?)

"You don't use her name," Tobirama stated, shifting me to his other arm. Blankly, all I could think was, "Why is he decked out in full armour at home?" I was in too much shock to think clearly, to act the way I should've.

In the end, that was going to cost me more than any of my other strange circumstances.

The blonde woman's bottom lip quivered before she answered, looking ashamed. "I… When she's like this, when her chakra changes… sometimes—sometimes I think…" Her hand flew to her mouth again, guilt overtaking her. She went pale and appeared downright sick.

"You don't think she's your daughter," Tobirama finished, eyes falling on me. He ran his hand over my little head; it felt nice and my eyelids drooped… but it didn't feel… affectionate, I didn't think. It was like a carefully calculated movement.

Takara gave a single, garbled sob as if to agree.

Oh. Did—did they just say something important? That was important, wasn't it? I turned my head up against his hand, gazing up at the silver-haired man seriously, completely unaware my expression did not fit my chubby, childish face.

I didn't try very hard to hide it at all. Maybe if I'd tried, things would be different.

His stare unnerved me. All I could think of was how rude I was being. I swallowed, feeling my cheeks heat up. "Hello," I greeted shyly, smearing a hand across my traitorous eyes. The word had come so easily. Their eyes must've been so wide.

You could hear a pin drop.

"What…?" Takara uttered shakily, jaw dropping. Tobirama said nothing and his face remained neutral to my untrained eye. (He'd obviously been suspicious and I'd been nothing short of a colossal fool.)

Takara shot upwards with a gasp, basically jumping over the table. Her shock was almost tangible.

I cried out in alarm, throwing myself back against Tobirama, pressing my face to his chest. Can you blame me for thinking the woman was insane, given what I knew of her at the time?

"No," he ordered Takara sternly, halting her in her frenzied tracks. "No," he reiterated, "your touch may disrupt whatever's causing the bypass in her seal."

"Seal?" I mumbled nearly unintelligibly, suddenly concerned. That's right, I almost died. (Again.)

If only I could've seen their faces.