Author's notes:

I'm not a cutter nor have I ever had those destructive thoughts, so I'm sorry if I wrote anything that is not genuine to how a cutter feels. Feel free to correct me if I did. Most of my facts I got from the internet, so they may be wrong.

This idea has been in may head for awhile now, so I just had to write it.

Dreaming of Sunshine belongs to Silver Queen. If you haven't read it then I suggest you do. It is the best SI-OC story I have ever read.

"Please tell me why, Minori." Lady Tsunade asked, her tone was gentle unlike her normal commanding voice that put fear into any Leaf ninja (or any ninja from any village for that matter) who were unlucky enough to get on her bad side. It was a foreign sound to the Jounin setting on the hospital examination table.

Though Lady Tsunade has only been the Hokage for a little over a month now, Minori has never heard her voice sound so tender, even when counting all the hours of watching the anime that became Minori's reality.

Her worst nightmare has come true, her secret (only one of her many secrets) has been found out by the Leaf Village's best medic-nin. And yet right now, she didn't feel as bad as what she had thought it would be like. It was like her emotions were being numbed by some invisible source. As if her brain had shutout all that was happening and locked her mind deep inside herself, sealed the key away in a scroll then used a fire jutsu to burn the scroll to ash.

For years, even before she was reborn into the this universe, she has been cutting herself with razors and hiding the evidence under long-sleeved tops. It was an addiction and she was the addict.

As for the question 'why?' well, she wasn't sure about the answer herself really. In her first life, she was taught about how the chemical called dopamine is released when a person is in pain. Many addictive drugs also have dopamine in them, such as pain relief medicine as well as marijuana. So like with any addictive substance, cutting can become a sort of an escape from whatever is causing you to feel the need to do it in first place. And it is very much addictive, Minori knows this for a fact.

It's hard to stop cutting once you begin.

Hokage-sama is patiently waiting for Minori to say something. She doesn't want to be pushy with her, scared that she might cause the Kunoichi setting in front of her to have a meltdown. Looking into Minori's downcast eyes, Lady Tsunade thinks they look glazy and unfocused as if she has withdrawn herself deep inside her mind, which she has in a way.

Minori knows she needs to speak up, because it's been over five minutes since Hokage-sama had asked her why she cuts herself and if she just sets there unmoving for too long then Hokage-sama may just order some medical-nin to take her away to the psych ward for ninjas who have lost their sense of reality.

She wants to just leave the room, the Village, and never come back, but she knows she wouldn't make it two steps out the door before Lady Tsunade stops her either with a command or by force if necessary.

"I-it just helps me feel better." She stuttered, almost too softly for a human to hear, but Lady Tsunade is a ninja and she didn't have a problem with hearing the broken Kunoichi admitting it. Minori hates how her voice, at this moment, sounds so weak and broken. Normally, it would hold more power in it and she would never hesitate to speak.

It was like tearing away a band aid. It hurt at first, but now that the burden was off her shoulders, it didn't hurt anymore. Well, it still hurt, but she still felt a little better.

This was the first time she ever talked about it out in the open with someone there listening. She had mixed feelings about it. She was happy her secret was out and yet she wanted to cry for the exact same reason. On one hand, she no longer had to worry about hiding her scars and with help she might be able to finally stop. But then on the other hand her ninja career could become ruined and everyone who she knows would find out about her secret. They may never look at her the same way again.

She couldn't explain why her name was taken off the list for ninjas awaiting missions or hid the fact that she was put in the psych ward. Most of her friends were ninjas and when they notice that she hasn't been around for a few weeks then they would come looking for her. That is if they don't hear any rumors of what happened first. Ninjas are gossipers by nature and rumors spread faster than a wild fire in a forest with gasoline coating every single leaf and blade of grass.

"How long?" Lady Tsunade asked, her tone a bit more commanding then what it had been, but still sounded concerned and worried over the problem.

Minori thought back to her first life, which wasn't filled with sunshine or pretty rainbows anymore then her second bloodshed filled, ninja life.

Her father liked to drink too much to the point where people began to call him an alcohol addict. He wasn't the best of fathers far from it in fact, but he still loved her and tried to be a good father. Then one night, he tried to drive home after drinking one shot too many and crashed into a tree. The paramedics said he died instantly. She was only fifteen years old at the time of his death.

His death hit the family hard, her mother more than anyone else. She became depressed and then began to gamble away all of her life savings. By the time Minori graduated from high school, her mother was deep into debt. She couldn't come to her mother for financial help of any kind, so she had to find two low paying jobs to help her through college and keep her from starving to death.

That's when she started cutting herself. The burden of having to have two jobs and having to go to college full time was a very heavy thing to have to carry on your own. All her free time was taken away and at times it seemed like she no longer had even one minute to spear to just talk to her few friends.

For some lucky people, college was were they find themselves, meeting new people and finding out what career they would like to pursue. But then there were people like Minori who could only hope that she will be able to pay next weeks electric bill and have enough time to study for that math exam coming up. The only fun time she had left was when she read fan fiction on the internet.

Her grades in high school weren't the best and she never played sports or a musical instrument, so she never was able to get a scholarship. Because her mother's credit history was horrible, getting a student grant that wouldn't keep her in debt for the rest of her adult life was near impossible. Even her own credit history was really bad, because her mother used her credit cards to help pay off her gambling bills.

In short, her first life wasn't a great life and that's way she resorted to cutting.

In that life, the thought that she might kill herself had crossed her mind a few times, but in the end it was an accidental fire that did her in. At least, she thought the fire in her apartment building was an accident.

It could have been arson or it could have been someone leaving a candle burning next to their curtains, either way the black smoke had burned her lungs and she died from the poisonous fumes. At first, it did bother her a little how she would never know how that fire was started, but she got over it. No use in thinking about it when there was no way for her to find out the truth.

When Minori figured out that she was somehow reborn with the chance to have a better life, she wanted to never cut again and she didn't for the first twelve years of her second life. But then the Third Shinobi War started and many of her friends and family died. The pain was too much. She tried very hard to suppress those old destructive thoughts of wanting, Needing to cut herself.

"A few weeks after the Third Shinobi War started." Minori told her, unable to make eye contact. "The first time was on the day that I received the message of how my father died in battle." she adds, thinking back to that horrible day.

At first, she was fearful that if she did start to cut herself again then one of her comrades would notice. Ninjas are, after all, very mindful of any new changes around them, including if someone randomly started to wear only long-sleeved tops and avoid showing their arms at all times. Any change in behavior would set off warning balls in their heads and then they would begin to watch her like a hawk for any sign of her being a spy or becoming unstable.

Those thorough medical-nin had also been considered. They tend to check every part of the patient's body and heal any minor injury no matter how small. So if her leg was broken during a battle then they wouldn't just stop at healing her leg and send her off. It was protocol to give a quick, but full body check to make sure there wasn't any other injuries. If the medic was a Hyuga then he didn't even have to remove her sleeves to figure out there was oddly placed cuts on her arms. He could just use those white eyes for a quick scan and then he would know.

She couldn't inflict a wound on herself and lie by saying it happened while on a mission. They were trained to tell a self inflicting wound from a genuine gash made by an enemy-nin. She wasn't skilled enough to fool them but there were other ways for her to get the release she so desperately wanted.

Being sent out on the battle field every week did bring many bloody injuries. So if she just so happened to reopen the wounds during training, then well, the worst they could do is give her a scolding about how she shouldn't over do it. They couldn't stop her from not training, especially not during war time. The Village needs the sharpest weapons to win the war, so forcing one weapon to stop sharpening itself would not be good for the Village.

Every time she got injured it would take three times as long for said injury to heal completely, because she just wouldn't leave the injury alone. Just pressing down on a bruise gave her a little taste of the relief she craved so much.

It didn't take long for the medic-nins to get suspicious of her old wounds constantly not healing as fast as they should have. So Minori had to think of other ways to get the relief that only came when she hurting herself.

Since it was the medic-nin whom she most feared of discovering her secret, she decided to learn more of how they can tell the differences between a battle wound and a self-harmed wound.

Shortly after she began her research into the field of medicine, an idea came to her. Why not heal her own cuts? She had basic knowledge of how to preform the simpler healing technique used to heal small cuts, so she could learn to be able to heal the signs of her cutting addition.

Though she wasn't a medic-nin nor did she want to become a medic-nin, there was many scrolls that could teach her about the Mystical Palm Technique. This medical ninjutsu allows the user to speed up the body's natural healing process by sending chakra from the healer's hands into the injured part of the body.

She had reasoned if she could learn the Mystical Palm Technique then she could cut her arms as many times as she wanted. She did not even have to master the ninjustu. All she had needed to learn was to heal some cuts that were not even considered deep by ninja standers.

And to be on the safe side, she had made extra plans to hide her cutting nature from the medic-nin.

If just in cause the medic-nins were able to tell if she had been healing herself, she always tried getting one of the less experienced medic-nins for her checkups. She also tried to avoid getting checked by medic-nins as much as she could, which had been challenging during the war, but was less so when peace finally came.

But then Lady Tsunade had decided to do Minori's yearly check up, because the medic who was suppose to do it got sick and couldn't come to work. Minori doesn't know how Lady Tsunade was able to figure out her cutting habits, but then again they don't call Tsunade the world's best medic-nin for nothing.

"I'm sorry, Hokage-sama." she said, her voice sounding so weak. "I've tried to quiet." That's the truth. She has tried so many times after the war, but life of a ninja even during peace time is always hard. There was always those missions that just left a bad feeling in her stomach and made her wish she never put on her forehead protector. "I just can't stop."

"It will be all right." Lady Tsunade assures her and may be she is right.

But then again, nothing ever goes exactly right in this world.

The Hokage does not ask anymore questions, and Minori does not want to talk anymore. Tsunade calls in a medic-nin to take the broken Kunoichi to the psych ward for evaluation.

She doesn't recognize the medic-nin. He is tall, has brown hair and is wearing the white hospital uniform for medic-nins. He blends in to the hospital background so well that Minori almost forgot he was escorting her.

That is impressive. If he could hide his presence from a ninja who knows he is there, walking beside her then image how hard it is for others to notice him.

On their way, Minori couldn't help but to notice a certain pink hair genin, medical supplies in hand, talking to another genin with black hair in a braid and wearing the Nara clan symbol.

Oh how, Minori wanted to go talk to the little Nara girl who likes explosions, but she cannot, at least not now anyways. It's not a good time to walk up to the Nara; the medic-nin may not allow her to stop and chat. It never is a good time.

Minori remembers how shocked she was when she heard the gossip of the Jounin Commander having twins. Then she remembered her favorite Naruto fan fiction story of a reincarnated person who was the twin sister of Nara Shikamaru.

Maybe one day she will be able to gather the courage to talk to her and find out if she is really who she thinks she is. So far the plot has changed in the same ways it changed in that beloved fan fiction, from the information Minori was able to gather anyways. She is happy with the changes to the plot.

She always did like DOS over cannon.

More notes: The information on the Mystical Palm Technique is from Wikipedia.

My OC is a bit of a coward, since she did nothing to stop the Nine tails attack or other bad things from happening, but there wasn't much she could do really. She wasn't friends with the higher ranking ninja or the main characters and they would probably sooner believe she lost her mind than be an actual reincarnation from another world where the their universe is fiction. Her also hurting herself would not help her case of not being a lunatic.

Then when she found out about Shikako, it made her not want to bother the plot even more, because she needed to see if the plot changes to be more like Silver's story.