Prologue

"You can't choose what stays and what fades away." - No Light, No Light by Florence and the Machine

Dying wasn't fun.

Let me rephrase that… Dying sucked.

I wasn't lucky enough to get granted a swift and painless death. My death was agonizing, and slow. I was walking home on a winter night, which was never a good idea. I had a night class on Thursdays, and usually I drove to and from school but my car was in the shop. Walking wasn't so bad; it gave me a chance to get some fresh air and it was great exercise. The air was freezing, and I was trying my best not to slip on the icy ground. Snow gathered in the streets of Japan on this December night, but it had stopped for now.

Some J-pop band was playing through the headphones in my ears, and I hummed along. This was before I noticed the swerving car coming down the deserted street, and I paused in my walking to stare curiously. Little to my knowledge; there was a drunk driver behind the driver's seat. I didn't have time to react or do much, because the car suddenly swerved in my direction. Blinded by the headlights, I stumble to move out the way but the ice frozen over the sidewalk causes me to slip and fall flat on my face. I lift my head in time to see the car hurtling towards me.

Pain exploded across my body as the car directly hit me, running me over and swerving as it slammed against a nearby pole. I crumple against the gutter like a broken doll, lying motionless in the snow as my killer speeds off without checking to see if I was okay. The driver was probably too much of a coward to even call an ambulance, since there was a chance he could get thrown in jail. Apparently, he didn't think I was worth the risk, and thought it better to just leave me on the side of the road.

I try to move, but I can't. Was my spine broken? I couldn't tell. I was paralyzed, unable to move and left to die in the cold. I wish I could've called for an ambulance, but my phone was likely broken from when the car hit me. I didn't know what to do; I was scared, and alone. I did something that I hadn't done in a long time… I prayed.

I closed my eyes as tears dripped down the sides of my face, 'Please, Kami…' I try to shift, but no matter how much I wanted to move, I couldn't. Breathing was starting to get difficult as well, 'I wanna live, please?'

Blood spilled down the side of my mouth, and my eyelids were getting too heavy for me to keep them open. I allow my head to sag to the side, my eyes sliding half-mast as I caught sight of my own blood staining the pure white snow beneath me. The red contrasted heavily against the white, I might've thought it looked like some sort of elaborate painting. Nope; just the blood of a dying girl.

I close my eyes, and my mind went blank.

The end right? You'd think so.

Once I "saw the light", I was sure it would be over for me. Heaven, hell, I was prepared for either one. If there was no such thing as either, I was prepared for an eternity of sitting in the darkness, alone. I thought my struggles were over.

I'm not sure how long I was in the dark place; unable to move, completely alone and confused. Time passed by, I'm not sure how long it was. Suddenly, I caught sight of the infamous "light". The light that supposedly lead to your next life. I only hesitated for a moment before I allowed myself to be pulled in, and I was relieved to be out that dark place. Once I stepped into this light, I could finally be at peace.

Or so I thought.

Apparently, the light I stepped into lead to an emergency room. The "dark place" I was in… I don't even want to elaborate. I hadn't known that was my new mother's womb I was in.

I came into this world crying in confusion, unable to express my emotions any other way than wailing about it. I had no idea what was going on as the doctor passed me to the woman lying in the hospital bed, still sweating, and panting from giving birth.

"She's a beautiful, healthy girl," the doctor hums as he hands me to my mother.

I continue to wail even as my mother rocked and shushed me, "Already quite a troublemaker, Karin? Shh, now, mommy's got you."

Truth be told, I wasn't crying because I was a newborn and didn't know better. I was crying because I realized that I had to go through life…again.

When I told God that I wanted to live, this wasn't what I had in mind.

Reincarnation sucks.

It didn't take me long to realize that I was reborn into the Narutoverse. My mother called me Karin, and after a year passed, my flaming red hair grew out to my shoulders. It wasn't any more shocking considering everything that's happened, but I couldn't believe I was reborn as a canon character! That was definitely freaky.

Being a toddler was weird, too. I relied on my mother for everything, and breastfeeding was equally strange. It was something I refused to do at first, but milk is essential to my health and it was the only way for my mom to feed me. Eventually, I got hungry and I let my mom breastfeed me, and once I gotten used to it, it wasn't as horrible as when I first did it. Awkward, but bearable.

We were a poor family that lived in a small hut, on the outskirts of a small town in Kusagakure. It was just my mom and I, my father hadn't been around ever since before I was born. I didn't even know what he looked like. I asked about him for years, but my mother would always brush me off. It was painfully obvious that something tragic had happened, and I assume that he's dead. That would be the only feasible excuse. Karin's lineage was always sort of a mystery—hell, nobody knows what her real parents' names are! I didn't even know my own mom's name.

However, I did know everything about the plot. I knew that my childhood, especially, would not be an easy one. I came to the realization that I had to be prepared for what was to come. I sure as hell wasn't going to let anyone bite me and use me in the horrendous way Karin was used. I wasn't going to allow myself to go through what Karin went through. I already had a good chance of avoiding said situations since I knew what was coming. Karin's abilities were never anything to sneeze at.

I started practicing chakra control when I was three. I know that this is essential to learning Ninjutsu and making my jutsu's more likely to succeed. Karin possessed the Adamantine Attacking Chains, and I was eager to learn that bad ass move that was pulled seemingly out of nowhere. And that had been a mere unfinished version. I started by focusing on the spiritual part of chakra control, rather than the physical part. I was still too small to start throwing kunai and punching wooden poles. I spent many hours a day meditating; focusing on my chakra and getting used to the feel of it.

My mom would sometimes catch me reading scrolls that held information about how to control chakra spiritually, and even scrolls that were just about chakra control in general. She found it peculiar that I was so young yet I could understand what the scrolls were saying. She never understood why I took such interest in something like researching at such a young age, and I never explained it to her. Whenever she asked I would brush her off or distractedly change the subject. I hated the way she talked to me; like I was an ignorant child.

Well… Physically I was.

How could I ever explain it to her, anyways?

"Hey, so I'm not actually your daughter. I'm just some unlucky dead girl who woke up in your daughter's body."

Yeah, I seriously doubted that would go over so well.

Besides, my mom was ill and dying. She wouldn't be around for too long, and I know I should've felt awful about it. There wasn't anything I could do; all the chakra control in the world wouldn't stop a disease from eating away at my mom's body. I wasn't sure when it was going to happen, but I do know that she's going to die when Karin was at a very young age. It was tragic, but I had no choice but to let it happen.

You never know how much you care for a person until you lose them. I never really agreed with such a cheesy saying, but I learned a lot in my short life as Karin Uzumaki. One of those things was how it felt when you lose someone precious to you.

I've never experienced grief before; I know it sounds weird but it's true. No one close to me has died before, not even in my previous life. I guess I was just lucky.

My mother died on a winter night; an ironic situation that would've normally made me chuckle. She passed peacefully in her sleep; the illness ate away at her until there was nothing left. She gotten worse over the years, and at last, the disease claimed her life. I knew it was coming, and yet…

"Mom!" My tears fog up the inside of my glasses, and my tiny hand is clinging to hers. Her hand was unbearably cold, and she wasn't moving. Her eyes had closed, and her breathing was getting fainter and fainter. At that moment, I felt as helpless as I actually was; a six-year-old, watching the only family she had in this world, die. My mom's eyes flutter open once more, and I suck in a hopeful breath as her stormy gray eyes meet mine.

"Mom!?"

Her lips crack into a small, loving smile, before her eyes slip close once again. Her chest stopped moving, and she let out a final breath.

Her eyes never opened again.

a/n: so this got pretty good reception, which is why I will be continuing it. there's a poll on my profile on who you think karin will end up with. I am curious to know! don't forget to leave a review, and follow!

EDIT 4/18/2017: ok, so I noticed how short the chapters were so I just combined the first chap and the prologue! I like it better this way.