The first thing I remember was how unbelievably loud the wailing was.

I had no idea who was wailing like that, or why, but I just wanted it to stop. I felt dazed, and weirdly sluggish, as if waking up from a deep sleep. I didn't even know where the sound came from. One second there was nothing. There was no sound wherever I was, and I wasn't even sure I was anything a second ago. It was like all my senses had suddenly winked to life.

Now that I thought about it, and was suddenly able to form somewhat stable thoughts, that wasn't exactly true. It felt sudden, but it really wasn't.

It had always been completely dark, and my hearing had been weak enough that I had convinced myself that it wasn't there at all.

The wailing got impossibly louder, and I was suddenly aware of the presence next to me, the who that was making a sound like that.

Baby, my mind whispered, because what other creature could make such a needy, desperate sound? I didn't think about the fact that there was a baby right next to me, I didn't even think about why, and I didn't think about who I was. I only blindly reached a hand out, and accidentally smacked the baby in the face.

The wailing stopped for a few precious seconds, and I imagine it was only because the baby was surprised and hadn't expected to be smacked, even if it was by accident. I didn't register how small my hand felt against his or her face either. I heard the baby start to make crying noises again, having gotten over his or her initial surprise, and I gently pushed my hand against the baby's cheek, trying to convey the concept of 'shhhh'.

And it worked. The baby's crying tapered to upset sniffling, and I could live with that. Then I felt his or her tiny fingers grab onto my hand, and my eyes snapped open-oh that's why it was so dark. I was instantly blinded by how unbearably bright everything was, and I tried to turn away from the light, but my body wouldn't do what I wanted.

I blinked the spots out of eyes, and stared at… well everything was blurry, so I wasn't sure what I was staring at, until my vision slowly started to clear. I blinked at the baby. My palm was squishing his cheek, and it turns out that he hadn't stopped crying because he understood me, but because he was distracted trying to get my hand off his face.

I knew he was a he, because I recognized him. I couldn't stop staring at his perfectly unmarked forehead or his unnaturally white, lavender-tinted eyes.

I stared at him. And then the fully gravity of my situation hit me with all the gentleness of a truck. The sluggishness disappeared. My eyes latched onto the bars of a crib directly behind him, and then past him to the room that seemed way bigger than it should've been. Then I looked at my hand, ignoring the baby completely, because even realizing who he was wasn't what was rapidly destroying my mind. It was what I was. My hand was tiny, chubby, and was small enough to fit on his cheek without covering his whole face.

I was… I was a baby.

I started to shake. I broke into ragged sobs that my body was not prepared to handle. A baby shouldn't be capable of sobbing the way I did. I cried so hard that I couldn't breathe.

The truck not only hit me, but it had stopped and backed up over my remains. I remembered.

I remembered the car, that tiny car that stood no chance against the much bigger car that crashed into it. I remembered glancing out the passenger window, and the split second I had to watch the headlights illuminating my death speed closer as the driver slammed on the brakes way too late.

I died.

I choked on my tears, my hand falling limply to the crib bed. I didn't feel anything when I died, but that didn't make it any less traumatizing to relive. Neji... Neji freaking Hyūga stared at me, tears welling up in his own eyes. I was scaring him.

Someone rushed into the room, and I was picked up. I cried even harder, which wasn't good since I already couldn't breathe. Two gentle fingers were pressed against the back of my neck, and I felt an odd sensation pulsing into my skin a second before I was forced into unconsciousness.

It was darker when I woke up, but nothing had changed.

I still died, and was reincarnated.

I was still a baby.

And to top it all off—I spared a glance at Neji, who was sleeping soundly next to me—I was the twin sister of Neji Hyūga, in a fictional universe. In Naruto. I glanced up at the ceiling. Just because I used to be a fan of the series did not mean I wanted to live it, whatever deity I'd offended.

I started crying again. I couldn't help it.

Something in front of the crib shifted, standing up, and I realized it wasn't a something, but someone. Neji's—not mine—dad. Hizashi Hyūga. How long had he been sitting there? He was dressed in black formal robes, but my eyes caught on the caged bird seal branded on his forehead.

Even though I didn't have one, it felt like a shackle, because I would eventually get one. I was a branch member. I had no right to blame him for that, but I still did. It was insanely easy to pin the blame on someone I didn't know or have a connection to. He reached around Neji, and picked me up. I almost threw a fit—until I noticed that he was inspecting me, and that the veins around his eyes were bulged.

The Byakugan. But… even I, as a baby, could see the strain he was, had been, putting on his eyes. The sob that had been building up died in my throat, and I simply stared at him. He was looking at my chakra network. Despite everything, I felt a sudden flood of shame, and like I was being horribly selfish. He was the one who had come in earlier.

I didn't see him as my dad, but he saw me as his daughter, and I had almost ended my second life prematurely earlier. How worried was he about me? How much had I scared him, making him think one of his children was about to die? Had he… been sitting there the whole time, making sure I wasn't about to choke to death by monitoring me while I slept?

He sighed, and then cradled me in his arms.

…I tried not to think about that too much, though I did notice that he didn't deactivate his byakugan.

I was confused, panicked, terrified and upset, but that didn't mean he had to be as miserable as I was.

He carried me out of the room, and fed me from a bottle—at least I was spared from having to drink from the… source. Only after he'd burped me, which I admit I fought against, did he deactivate his dojutsu.

It was only when he finally left did I cry as softly as I could manage at the unfairness of it all, added with the humiliation of being completely helpless, unable to do anything. The only one who I bothered with my crying was Neji. His eyes slowly opened, but he surprisingly didn't make a sound. He only looked at me.

I don't know why I did it—maybe I needed the comfort, or it was something I saw in his eyes—but I reached towards him and grabbed his finger. Neji's hand curled around mine and he squeezed my finger in response. I wanted to believe that it wasn't instinct, but that he'd done it on purpose to make me feel better.

That's what I convinced myself, anyway.

I was wrong to think that I wouldn't become attached to Hizashi.

I thought it would be easier to keep him at a distance since he was never with us during the day. I noticed that first when I woke up in the arms of a branch member. I knew she was from the branch house by the uncovered seal on her forehead. My eyes were attracted to it like a magnet.

After the initial shock wore off, I wailed. It was jolting waking up to someone unfamiliar, and my body was handling the situation the only way it knew how.

Even through my tears, it was obvious that she felt no attachment to me. She tried to soothe me by patting my back, but it felt stiff and distant, like a new babysitter still getting used to the job. She murmured soothing words, but I refused to be soothed.

I was still trying to accept and recovering from the fact that I was a baby, and her treating me like one only made me cry harder.

When nothing else worked, she put me back down into the crib in a panic. Neji, who had been sleeping, was immediately startled awake by the loud wailing next to him. My cries faded a little once I saw the tears filling his own eyes, and instinctively put my hand on his cheek, pressing down until it was sufficiently squished.

He was distracted in an instant. It was as much of a comfort to him as it was becoming to me.

Hizashi took care of us during and after sunset.

He was the opposite of our babysitter. His every gaze at us was filled so much love and affection that I couldn't look at him for longer than a few seconds. He was expecting a normal Hyuga daughter, but he got me instead.

I don't know what I was expecting from him, but it wasn't to be presented with a Hizashi who held stuffed toys suspended over our crib and played with them to entertain us. Not one who stayed with us night after night and simply talked until his voice lulled us to sleep.

Despite my mental promise not to make him miserable, sometimes I couldn't stop myself from crying when he changed my diaper and cleaned me, or when he burped me after I was fed. It was all so demeaning, but Hizashi would only hold me until I'd calmed down enough to get a hold of myself, or he would make ridiculous faces at me to make me laugh through my tears.

This was Hizashi Hyūga, the man who passed, would pass, his resentment of the main house down to Neji?

Time passed by quickly.

There wasn't very much to do as a baby, and so I slept most of the time.

I learned that my new name was Yasu.

Even though I couldn't understand her, I did pick up on the fact that our babysitter only used that name when referring to me, and looked at me when she said it, like I should recognize it. It didn't take me long to make the connection.

Neji learned to crawl first, and I blame that on the fact that up until the moment I saw our babysitter put him on the floor, freeing him from our crib prison, I wasn't motivated to do much of anything. Though watching him crawl back and forth across the floor while I was stuck staring through the bars of the crib quickly changed this.

The second I was put on the floor for the first time to explore, I noticed how empty the room was. The floors were wood, and the walls were a simple white. There wasn't a picture in sight. I spotted a toy chest across the room, next to a changing table, but that was it. Neji's clothes were a simple combination of black and white, plain but still elegant. I imagined that I was wearing a similar outfit, and almost fell over trying to look.

Neji also learned to walk first.

I blame that on him being a genius. One day he took it upon himself to crawl over to me, and then use me as his personal chair to push himself to his feet. I protested loudly against this, but he had already accomplished his goal and lost interest in me, taking his first unsteady steps in the opposite direction. He stumbled towards Hizashi, who coughed to hide his smile even as his eyes shone with pride. I glared up at him, trying to mentally convey the question of 'why didn't you stop him?'. There was a perfectly reachable crib that he could've used instead of me, but I made sure to return the favor days later.

As I got a better grasp on the language, I learned that our babysitter's name was Natsu, and that Hizashi was always away during the day because of his duties leading the branch family.

Somewhere along the way, Hizashi became Father.

One night when Hizashi came into our room to check up on us I stood up as quickly as my body allowed and proudly screamed 'Father' at him, determined to be first at something. He stopped in his tracks, and in that same moment I realized what I had just said.

He scooped me up, beaming so much that he could have outshined the sun. I looked at him, the man who had shown me nothing but love and affection and I felt the sudden truth behind the word.

The girl I was before was dead, and I surprised myself when I realized how futile it had been trying to hold onto her and the life she had, when doing so only made it harder to live the life I had now.

The life where I was alive, and I had a family that loved me. Despite knowing what would happen in the future none of it mattered right then.

I cried, unable to keep in the emotion I was feeling. I cried as I let the girl I used to be go, and equally at much just because I was happy.

He was my Father, and I loved him.

He seemed startled by my sudden change in mood, because he squished me against his shoulder, making shushing noises. My cries faded, finding a surprising amount of comfort in his hold. I hugged him back, as much as I could anyway.

Neji pulled himself up by the bars of our crib, shaking them in anger at being left out. Father quickly picked him up, and included him in the group hug.

I would have laughed if I could have. I loved them both.

After I turned one, I got to look at myself in a mirror.

Our birthday hadn't been very special. Natsu had given us a small bell to share that I had gotten bored of within two days, handed to Neji, and never saw again.

Well, I was tall enough that I could see into the bathroom mirror by using the step stool to climb onto the toilet, but even then, I could barely reach it. I grabbed a lock of black hair in a chubby fist and noted that I looked incredibly similar to my twin. The only difference between us was that I had slightly darker eyes than his, which wasn't saying much.

I blew out a breath.

"Yasu!"

I fell flat on my butt, almost falling off the toilet. I maneuvered around to face Neji. He was looking at me in what almost looked like exasperation. But even a one year old genius couldn't look like that… right?

I expertly climbed down, and gave no excuses.

Neji looked away from me, eyeing the toilet and the mirror as if wondering if he could get up there too.

I grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the room before he could act on his thoughts. I was almost back to our room when I was picked up from behind, and dropped on a large pair of shoulders.

I laughed, watching as he bent down and grabbed Neji when he tried to toddle away, tickling him into submission. Only a shinobi could mercilessly tickle one child to death on the ground while keeping the other perfectly balanced on his shoulders.

Neji tried to say something, but it was lost within his laughter. He also tried to push Father's hands way from him, but it was no use.

"Yasu, do you think he's had enough?" Father asked seriously, pinning Neji to the floor with one hand and holding the other over him menacingly. Neji's fate was in my hands.

I leaned down to stare at Neji, considering the question. He squirmed, his eyes pleading. "Yes." I relented with a mock-serious sigh.

Father nodded once, let him go, picking him up. He was almost to the kitchen when there was a knock on the front door. The change was immediate. He stiffened, and Neji was lowered to the floor. My bare feet met the floor a second later, and he walked around us to answer the door. He instantly dropped into a low bow.

Neji and I followed suit. Whoever it was from the main house.

"We require your presence immediately," they said.

"Understood." Father almost sounded like a completely different person.

When the main house called for you, there was no saying no.

A/N: Inspired by many SI fics, but I'll mention Fatespinner by masqvia and Pinwheel Madness by Loeka.