Summary: If she could, she never would've chosen this life, which should be anything but possible. But impossibility is nothing in the face of reality, and despite all her qualms and doubts, Senju Tobirama must live on—whether or not she can fulfill the famous legacy of her name. SI!fem!Tobirama.

A/N: Hi! *gives meek wave*. This is my first Naruto fanfic, and I definitely had to start with one of the hardest genres: self insert. I like the idea, but it'll be hard to plan later in the fic. Pairings uncertain, but just so you know, this probably won't be gen.

Enjoy!

touch your hand to the sky

I.

The world is on fire.

Indistinct shouts and yells echo through the raging battlefield, and the air crackles with flames and smells of death.

Another battle. The same belligerents as always.

That is how the world is when she comes into it—red, hot, and burning.

What, she asks, is shinobi?

Once, to her, they were a common and well-regarded part of Japanese culture, the stealthy ninjas who fly through the night. Assassins, heroes, and many more.

They also were the focus of a favorite animated series of hers.

But ultimately, all of that was fiction to her. Nothing more.

Of course, make note of the 'was'.

It begins immediately after her death. The horrible sickness wore her body away slowly until it rendered her immobile, unable to move a single limb. It wasn't her ideal way to spend the last days of her life, but at least it had been quick and quiet. She did not suffer much.

Her family. Her friends. Are they well? Are they alright? Those are the (not quite) last thoughts she thinks before losing consciousness and giving in to the darkness.

But then, she awakes.

That itself should be impossible, and she wonders for a second if she didn't die after all, if she still remains alive in her world. Perhaps she really has survived, having escaped the clutches of death through a miracle of some sort.

That is true, in some sense. She is still capable of forming logical thoughts and conclusions, due to the consciousness that she still retains. That is a sign of her "survival".

But her world, the world around her now, is no longer the same.

The first sight that greets her when she opens her eyes is not of the bland and drab hospital ceiling, a little faded and aged, but a sphere of bright red. A massive fireball hurtles past her, just nearly missing her face, and she is stunned into silence, unable to feel joy at surviving anymore.

Granted, a fireball did just almost burn her face off...

And then there is the sound of something sharp clashing together, yells, people shouting out words and commands she vaguely recognizes as Japanese.

...What in the—

She has no time to think anymore, however, because she finds herself being juggled around and handed over to a new pair of hands. They are rough, but they hold her tightly before the world around her disappears into a gray-green-brown blur, the wind whipping sharply at her face as her holder moves ahead swiftly.

She wriggles with discomfort and confusion, wanting to leave, only to be held tighter and closer, practically feel the anxious emotions rolling off of the person holding her.

"Stay still, little hime. We have to get you back to the compound. It'll be alright," the person, a man, says in an attempt to…comfort her? That's what she feels anyway, but the words do not help her confusion, which only increases at her new title.

The newly dubbed princess does not follow. At all.

The fact that she is still alive, apparently, knowing that she's lived before, is already difficult enough to grasp and accept immediately. But now the foreign language and strange terms further confuse her. Since when did people call others "princess"? And what had happened earlier, with all the shouts and panicking people...

And there is also one fact that her lost mind has been neglecting. The fact that she appears to be small enough that she can be held. Her range of sight is not as it would've been had she been her normal self. Everything about her body feels different.

In an attempt to move her hands, she successfully lifts up a small, chubby limb, only to freeze and drop it immediately when she gets a good stare.

The size of that hand is much too small. Its shape and size is only possible for an infant. Or maybe a toddler, but still, a child.

Which is her.

She stares.

And then she sucks in a breath so hard that she begins to cough uncontrollably, and the man holding her begins to worry, quickening his steps even more, with words to calm her scattered in between along the way.

She's blubbering a little by now, but she couldn't care less. The new turn of events is more important than the little dignity that she has anyway.

She died. She was reborn, in a sense. Reincarnated.

She is a baby.

Her infant body begins to sniffle and cry as she panics, unsure, upset and confused.

But she eventually exercises what control she has over her body and cuts her sobs short. The man and herself seem to be in a situation that looks anything but carefree, so she can't afford to do anything that would endanger them both.

Even if she has just discovered that she's been reborn.

The sight of buildings, whatever they are, calms the man immensely from what she can tell, and his footsteps slow from an extremely fast sprint into more of a jogging speed.

Being tired from the entire ordeal, her eyes are already fluttering shut when voices start talking and she's handed over again, this time to a woman who reminds her of the sunshine, warm and bright and home.

She makes attempts to defy the sleepy feeling and keep her eyes open, but the woman's soothing voice and whispers do not help.

...She falls asleep.

When she wakes up again, it's in a closed area, a room that just projects the feeling of safety and does not make her feel vulnerable like the outside did.

Gentle arms cradle her close, and she makes a satisfied noise at the relative comfort of her current position. The sunshine lady's presence helps her immensely and squashes all her fear and doubts. She's, admittedly, an infant, but she'd be able to get used to it. Maybe.

"Hey, Tobirama-chan. Kaa-san's so glad to know that you're safe. No one will let you be kidnapped again, don't worry. You're the Senju Clan's precious little hime after all..." The woman smiles as she speaks, but the infant in her arms does not pay attention to the rest of what she is saying.

Those two words did it for her (Tobirama?).

Her abrupt shock and horror (noitcan'tbethisisn'tpossible) triggers her only method of expressing stress in her current state—the waterworks.

Compared to before, when she realized the fact that she was reincarnated as a baby...That can't even be called "panicking" in comparison to now.

She died. She was reborn. She is a baby.

Alright.

She is part of the "Senju". She is called "Tobirama".

That's...BRILLIANT!

Jumble all those thoughts together, shake well, and you get her currently: a colossal emotional mess.

Her young body continues to respond to her distress by breaking into tears, wracking it with every choke and sob. Her inner panic and denial translates into tears and wails.

The tears come strong and uncontrollably, and she sobs and sobs, all while panicking on the inside, vivid memories coming back like a wave smashed against the shore.

The woman—her mother, Hashirama's mother, Senju Butsuma's wife, Lady of the Senju Clan—begins to fret over her, attempting to calm her down to no avail.

Not even the sunshine-like...thing (it's called chakra, isn't it?) can calm the distressed baby that is her right now.

Senju Clan. Tobirama. The flames she first saw when she was reborn into this strange world. The yells. All the puzzle pieces begin to fit themselves together automatically.

(She would later learn that the Uchiha had kidnapped her. A new battle had broken out because of that. Hence the fireballs.)

It turns out the impossible is not always...impossible. It's nothing in the face of her (Tobirama's) new reality, her very much real world that is her new life.

She is Senju Tobirama. Female or not, there is no changing that.