Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

How do you define reality?

Maybe, if I had been able to Google, it would've said something along the lines of the world or state of things as they actually exist. Maybe, it would've told me something like this, the state or quality of having existence, or substance.

Existence.

Reality was existence. Reality was an existence. Was my reality my existence?

Was my existence the reality?

I was a substance. Of what, I didn't know yet. A fever-dream, perhaps. A delusion. A hope. A sorrow. I was a substance; a human substance; a human something; a human…existence.

I was a human existence again.

Again.

How do you define a human existence? By the years of their life? By the thoughts they speak and think and feel? By their words; meaningful, beatific, pacifying; hurtful, agonizing, tortured. By their actions; kind, considerate, generous, gentle; brutish, threatening, hellish; apathetic, uncaring, passive.

Maybe, by the feeling of the substances around you. The air in the wind. The dirt in the earth. The water in the ocean. The burn in the fire. Was it how you could touch things? The tracing of a finger, a tongue, a mouth, a leg, an arm, against something else? What was a something? A separate entity? A person?

What I knew was this. I was a substance. I was an existence again. A human existence. I had life that sparked in my chest, and bloomed in my mind, rippling over my body like a live current.

I was Life once more, Death having shed its cloak over me.

What did it mean to be human? Was I human any longer? Humanity passed in Death, they used to say Back Then. There was a hell, a heaven, a purgatory, a nothing. There was a whole other world, an afterlife, a boat, a Tartarus.

There was a whole other world where I became a human again, and I became substance again, with passive meaning, and choice.

I had choice.

How do you accept a new reality?

When I had been little, Back Then, I remembered a funeral, if barely. The sky was dreary and raining, violent thunderclouds lurching above us, like a scorned god. The woman was crying, sobbing, screaming. Her hands clutched the coffin, nails breaking. Her body heaved, and shook, and trembled with anger. Sadness, rage, fury, bitterness, loss, agony. The woman was agony and pain. The woman was tragedy.

Four years later, a new husband sat on her arm, but the tired smile never left her face.

The woman was human existence.

How do you accept a new reality?

When I had been older, Back Then, I remembered a train crossing. It was sunny, autumn, and the bitter nip of winter gripped my skin. Leaves were scattered across the train tracks, and laughter rang out behind me. A couple, young and joyous, and a scampering, little dog that barked too much to be charming. A ball rolled, and so did the dog's paws and the tracks ahead of them. There was a scream, a splatter of blood, and a horrifying dying whine.

Their faces were pale, somber, as the train conductor croaked out apologies.

They had been human existence. Defined by feeling; Tragedy. Anger. Loss. Bitterness. Fading Love. Defined by action; the curling of his hand against the other's. The lingering hands around their waists. Murmured words of pain.

They had been human existence.

I did not want to remember Death's loving hand wrapped around my throat. I did not want to remember the blood in the alley.

What I knew was this.

I felt their hands against my skin. The tubes wrapped around my arms, stuck down my throat, resting under my skin; a parasite of health. I felt the fear. Bitter, sharp, desperate. I felt the twitch of my muscles against the itchy sheets. The swallow of my throat. The contraction of my lungs in my chest.

What I knew was this.

I was substance again. I was existence again.

But was I human?

(Humanity does not fall through the veil of death. It is trapped, and festers, and grows, until the soul must leave it behind, and continue without it.)

…

Mebuki had one picture of the twins.

It had been difficult to get a photographer. There were no easy-access cameras, and very few knew how to operate them at all. The young man who had come had been stocky, his mouth a mulish line, and sported stormy eyes that flickered over the room too much to be innocent.

He came on a Thursday.

Kizashi had been out on the fields, toiling away, and had told her he'd be home in the evening, and she had wanted to surprise him.

It was his birthday the day after tomorrow.

She had asked the photographer his name. Kenji, he answered quietly. His hands were large on the camera. His nails were bitten down to the nailbeds. They shook a little.

Mebuki offered him tea, because she was a grateful hostess, if anything at all. She was tired, but those were the early days, when they hadn't known yet. Fertility hadn't ever been a problem in her family; her sisters and half-brother had had several children, although some of them no longer breathed air to tell the tale; she thought she was fine.

But those were the early days, and she smiled to ignore the rasping ache in her body, and gently lowered little Sakura into the crib next to her darling sister Haruna. They were such good girls, she remembered thinking, before heading to the kitchen to fix him a pot of steaming barley tea.

Kenji the photographer nodded in thanks. Where do you want them, he had asked. His voice was still quiet, soft, gentle. As if he couldn't bear to raise it any higher than that.

I'll hold them, she remembered telling him. Just one please, that's all.

Just one.

He nodded.

Mebuki picked Sakura up first, and her little angel wrapped her arms around her neck, and snuggled closer to her throat, a snuffle escaping her rosebud lips. She held her tightly, not wanting to hurt her, but never letting her fall. Haruna shifted when Mebuki reached for her, as she always did. Stormy eyes flickered open into slits before a cute pout settled on her lips.

Mebuki would never admit it, but there was different off about her child. She knew Kizashi didn't see it. No, Kizashi loved little Haruna more than anything in the whole wide world. But there were days when Mebuki stared down at the girls in their little cribs and wondered.

Haruna wasn't the same as Sakura. She didn't smile. Not once. She didn't laugh, or giggle, or squeal. She was silent. Observant. She watched with tumultuous, fluctuating eyes and sometimes, Mebuki wondered. She wondered about the flicker of quickening intellect behind those eyes. She wondered about the way she soaked in Sakura's attention, but nothing of much else. She wondered about the whimpers that left her daughter's throat when she slept.

Mebuki wondered, but there was nothing she could do.

So, she watched, something heavy and familiar blooming in her chest, as she watched Haruna reach for her sister; as if Sakura was the only thing in the entire world that mattered in that moment.

Haruna never reached for anyone but Sakura, and Mebuki tried to lessen the sting of rejection. She loved her, she swore she did, but Mebuki never lied to herself about the uneasiness running rampant in her chest.

There was something different about her youngest daughter.

Something…off.

Are you ready, Kenji had asked. Mebuki had nodded, shifting Haruna closer, and her smile strained as a small, little fist traversed her chest to grip Sakura's hair.

The flash of the camera was blinding.

…

"Mebu-chan…this isn't healthy."

Her older sister was looking at her with concern in her wide brown eyes. She held Sakura to her chest, hand splayed over her back. She was sleeping soundly, cheeks red. Her hair was fluffy today, and it reminded Mebuki of Haruna's untamable locks, cowlicks and all.

Her gaze broke away from her daughter.

"What isn't healthy, Megumi?"

Her sister gave her a stony glance. "You haven't gone to see her yet."

Mebuki stiffened, hands freezing over the produce. The market was to begin in a couple of hours, and Kizashi hadn't gotten back yet from his visit, but she'd heard him leave, just like she always did; quarter to four in the morning.

She pretended like she wasn't aware of the fact that he went to sit in that cold, sterile ward on the fourth floor, to watch their daughter fading away under the blankets, the tiny little cot, those long, piercing needles.

She was six and a half months old now. Give or take.

Her eyes were dry as she answered, but her mouth remained twisted in a mockery of a smile. "She's resting. I want her to recover—I might get in the way of that."

"Haruna-chan isn't getting—"

"Don't say that." Mebuki cut in. Her hands were trembling. She thought of the way her daughter was so small, so vulnerable. She stared a hole into the crate of their newest cherry tomatoes. "Don't say that, Megumi. She's…she's recovering."

She could feel it, that pitying, breaking stare on the back of her neck. It felt the same—full of compassion, empathy. Mebuki only felt shame. Deep, unparalleled shame. Her daughter wasn't healthy enough to live without sustenance. Her daughter, her baby, wasn't healthy enough to live. Mebuki hadn't been enough, hadn't given enough to her so that she'd make it on the other side and live. Mebuki hadn't been enough to birth two healthy babies.

"She woke up." Mebuki said quietly, and she felt her older sister's eyes sharpen, a question hovering in the air. "The doctor said she woke up. She garbled something, something like words. She's not old enough to start speaking. But they gave her water. And they'd spoken to her like she could understand and maybe, maybe if I wait, maybe she'll wake up—"

Megumi's hand rested on her back lightly. "Breathe, imouto. I'm sure she will be fine."

She nodded.

"She'll wake up," Megumi's voice was soft, gentle. "And you'll get your little angel back again."

Mebuki couldn't look at her as they stacked up the produce, and as the morning sun began to dawn down into the square, she pretended like her smile wasn't shaking.

…

Her sister had made her leave Sakura with her for the day, after their younger sister Midori took over the stall, and she felt oddly empty. Like something important, something crucial had been taken away from her, but she knew that if she marched back to Megumi's house, her mother would be waiting, eyes fierce, and Mebuki didn't particularly want to face the whirl-wind that was Haruno Gen.

If she did, she'd end up a crying, shaking, sobbing mess and wouldn't be able to handle anything until her little angel woke again.

So Mebuki sat on a bench, near the playground, and stared at the ground.

Kizashi had come by earlier that afternoon, and when he'd kissed her, arms circling her waist, she had to stop herself from crying as she smelt the acid chemicals of bleach, soap and something undefinable.

He'd said hello to little Sakura, who'd gurgled at her father, but remained subdued, as she always had since her sister's stay at the hospital and then he'd departed for the fields, promising Mebuki that he'd be back in time for dinner with a small smile.

Megumi had told her to 'relax', go to a spa, or the hot springs, just to breathe in the natural bath salts and soak for a while, but she couldn't. She'd occupied herself every hour of every day since her little angel had been admitted to the hospital, and although her sisters had tried to get her to breathe, to talk about what she was feeling, to let it all out, she'd merely shaken her head and gone back to stacking books, or crates or folding laundry.

She stared at the ground now, listening to everything, everyone around her. It was a happy day today for many. The sun was shining, although it was getting rather low in the sky now, and the street lights were slowly but surely flickering on. The children in the streets—ninja and civilian—got more subdued as the sun sunk lower into the sky, and Mebuki just stared at the lengthening shadow of the rock near her sandal.

When she glanced at her watch again, she realized it was nearing eight o'clock in the evening, and it was time to head back to Megumi's house (and risk seeing her mother) to pick up her daughter.

…

She was nearing the hospital when she felt the tremors.

At first, it didn't seem like anything was wrong. People were still ambling about even though the sun had set, and the moon was tilting further into the sky; the evening was warm for October, and she'd seen many citizens buying ice creams and popsicles and splitting watermelon slices, happy smiles on their faces.

There was a sort of stillness in the air; like the world was on the brink of something tumultuous, life-changing; the wait before the fall, before the tip into the screaming void. It sat stiffly against her skin, and she shivered, despite the musk of summer still sitting in the air.

And then, there was a flash of blinding, searing light, and a roar that echoed across the valley like a crack of rolling, thundering lightning.

Mebuki couldn't gasp, couldn't even move as it rose into the darkening sky, burning it a deep, crimson, waves of pure energy swishing and blooming around it. She couldn't breathe as she saw it form slowly, thousands of booming rumbles drilling themselves into her head as it amassed itself into a head, and then four legs, a tail, and a snout.

Nine Tails. Mebuki thought distantly. She'd read about it in school, fingers tracing the picture in the academy textbook. Nine-Tailed Fox. Biju. Chakra-monster.

There was that moment of pause. Of hesitation. Mebuki swore she saw the monster's eyes shatter in pain. There was an instance, a single, split moment, when she thought it would stay there, still, unmoving, despite its newfound freedom.

And then it screamed, and Mebuki clapped her hands over her ears and hoped she would make it to—

Sakura. Fear lanced through her, but she remembered that she was with her sister and mother. Haruno Gen and Megumi would take care of her. Head to the shelters and make sure she stayed safe—

Lightning bolted through her. A terror like she'd never known shook her to her very soul.

Haruna.

She staggered, the sounds of the screaming and the roaring and the ozone of its chakra making her woozy, vision blurring with dark spots. Her mouth was dry, lips cracking, as she panted, trying to stay upright.

The hospital. She had to make it to the hospital.

Kizashi was too far away, outside the gates of Konoha, ploughing the fields—he couldn't reach their baby.

Mebuki ground her teeth together. Tried to blink through the deafening noise that sang like a shrill, sonic drill. The chakra was overwhelming, burning through her, but Mebuki screamed her frustration through clenched teeth. Sobs built in her throat. Her eyes stung.

She waded through it as fast as she could, swaying like a drunk, or a woman trying to find her sea legs, and she stumbled, half-running, half-dragging herself to the hospital. People were still standing half in shock, half in horror, as the figure of the Nine-Tailed fox rose above them, standing high and proud, a wrath like no other burning in its unholy eyes.

Then came the sound of screaming inarticulate noise, and the smell of Sulphur, the heat of fire and burning, and the street exploded. People screamed, and they ran, away, away, to wherever they could reach, and Mebuki stumbled, falling when an older man shoved into her.

She hit her hand on sharp debris, an iron nail ramming itself through her palm. She wanted to scream in her horror, her fear, her agony, but she gritted her teeth, panting, gasping as she tore it out as quickly as she could.

The street was in a mass-panic, and she could hear that shrill screech of fire and brimstone filling the air again, louder than was possible, and when the feeling of wet and warm filled her ears, dulling her ability to hear, she knew her eardrums had burst.

A house collapsed next to her. Shrapnel embedded itself into her thigh, and she grunted, turning away in horror and fear as she saw another mother sobbing, bellowing for her child; her eyes were wide in panic, and she was digging through the crushed, falling rock as it shifted around her, name on her lips.

She stumbled and ran and tripped and ignored. She ignored the sounds of her people dying. Of their screams of help, of hopelessness, of agony and fear and grief.

The world was exploding around her, melting, burning to the ground and she was running, running, running to find her, her baby, her little angel—her little Haruna.

Haruno Mebuki ran into the hospital, blood on her hands, hair tangling around her face, a rusting pipe emerging from her thigh.

Her eyes burned like fire, a steady, driving determination, despite the fear in her pinched face.

She didn't look back.

…

I woke to the sound of sharp, high whistling, a pitch so shrill that tears came to my eyes.

I was in hell.

The world was on fire. I could smell it—that stench of fire and brimstone, the screams of the dying around me, the way the air seemed to crackle and burst with electricity.

I could hear fumbling and screeching and sobs echoing around me, faintly, as if dulled by my shock, my utter discombobulation.

I wasn't screaming. I couldn't scream. It was as if everything inside me had frozen, and no matter what happened, all I could do was sit still and immobile, unable to even flinch at the heat of the fire outside.

I was going to die, I realized with a rising hysteria. I could feel the shock and the irony rise on my tongue and I wanted to laugh then, because I'd just lived, and it was only now that I was even awake for it.

I was going to die a baby, a child, and there wasn't anything I could do about it.

Chakra monster. It was tall and orange and obscene as it moved, and I wouldn't ever forget the sight of those angry, horrendous red eyes in this lifetime or the next.

Kyuubi, I thought as my heart seemed to burst in my tiny chest, how could I forget the kyuubi?

There was single second of silence that seemed to echo into the void; then the world, the sky, the forces of good or evil or both came crashing down and all I could do was blink.

Then the hospital door was bursting open, and a woman was slumped there, eyes wild. They were a singular type of blue, one that I hazily recognized. Her hair was a tangled mess; blonde curls were tangled around her face, cut short.

I think I gaped. My face had gone slack.

She stared at me, "Haruna-chan…" her voice was tentative, soft, and I could hear it somehow over the sound of the earth shaking around me, us. "You're…you're awake…"

Mother. I recognized the voice. Mother—Haruno Mebuki.

She moved quicker than I could see, and the needles under my skin, the tube in my throat was gone, and I was clutched in her embrace faster than I could think.

"I've got you, Haru-chan, I've got you now," she was saying, and I felt something slick seeping into my hair. It was warm, sticky. I didn't dare think it was blood. "You're awake my sweet, darling, beautiful angel…beautiful brown eyes…your grandmother's eyes…"

I whined into her embrace. I was shaking in fear.

Move! I wanted to scream at her, get to safety!

She held me tighter. "We're gonna…" she wheezed, trembling. "We're going to be safe now, Haru. I'll get you to the shelter…we'll be fine…we'll be fine…"

The sounds of despair, of raging, horrifying screams echoed around us, and Mebuki, mother, held me so tight I could barely breathe, as she stumbled through the halls. She was breathing hard, and by now, I'd seen the hole in her hand, and her blood was matted in my curls, staining my pale, pale skin.

My sight was blurry, and I was trembling, shaking against her, as she brought us closer and closer to the exit. Around us, nurses were wheeling out patients, and doctors were stabilizing the wounded, but not effectively—there was only mass-panic, the kind that made all logic and rationale escape from your head, and you could only listen to your instincts as they screamed for you to run!

"I've got you, my sweet angel." Mebuki, my mother, said. She took a step outside, left leg lagging. "We'll be…fine…"

A blaze of orange and red and fire crashed seared past us, and the hospital collapsed, the world along with it, around us.

…

Mebuki tried hard not to scream as she realized she was trapped. She couldn't feel her legs anymore. Her arm was lodged tight underneath her and she panicked, until her eyes settled onto the slumped form of her baby.

She gasped in sweet relief, and she felt herself sag into the ground, the cool touch of concrete clearing her head somewhat.

Her daughter's eyes were brown. She smiled at that. Her mother would be so very happy.

Her vision was blurring, breaking, black spots filling the gaps where things should be, and her breath wasn't quick enough.

She was rasping when she felt a cool palm touch her cheek. She forced herself to look.

Haruna had crawled to her. She looked at her with her big, innocent, brown eyes brimming with tears and horror and Mebuki tried her hardest not to cry. She was becoming still, cold, and the numbness was spreading, up her spine, to her neck.

"Baby…" she said, and her voice was hoarse from the smoke, the stress. Her baby was crying. She wanted to reach her, to placate her. It had been months since she'd held her.

Her heart slowly broke as she realized she wasn't going to get to know her little angels. That she wasn't going to get to know how Haruna's eyes would crease in happiness, how Sakura would jump and squeal with joy when she realized that her twin was back, back, back, and the light would reappear in those listless green eyes.

I'm going to die, Mebuki thought faintly. I'm never going to know my children. Never going to soothe their wounds, help them with their homework, get them dressed for their first day of school. Never going to see them fall in love, get married, have little pink-haired grandbabies.

Haruna was crying harder now, and she was surprised that she could hear it over the sound of the screaming, the crying, the loss.

She desperately wanted to reach out, but her arm was trapped and her other was broken, unable to inch further.

"Haruna…my baby…" she choked out. She felt the blood drip down her chin. "I love you…love you so much…my beautiful, beautiful…girl…" tears filled her eyes, but she wouldn't cry. "…you're going to be…going to be wonderful…so smart…and brave…and good…"

The haze of the chakra was gone now. The night was cooler. The sounds of the kyuubi were no longer.

Mebuki smiled at her baby. "…you won't remember…me…but I loved you…loved—love—you…more than you could ever know…my pretty…pretty petal…"

Her eyes were fluttering closed, and her words were slurring into each other now, almost gibberish.

"…love you…sweet one…precious one…"

There was a sound of something turning over, something being lifted, but all she could feel was her baby's cool hand on her cheek.

As she faded away, mind desperately trying to linger onto the feeling over her child's fingers, she hoped that she would see her again.

But not too soon.

Next to her, a child wailed, and the universe shifted.

Literally been decades since I've uploaded this, but I'm determined to finish this :) enjoy, my lovelies! Also, check out another fic I'm writing with the amazing, stupendous Isedy: To Rise and Rise Again.

Also, yeah, Mebuki's dead. Background Canon has officially been destroyed.