A God's Chessboard

I. The Angel

Disclaimer: All characters, laws of the universe, and original plot lines are Masashi Kishimoto's.

Summary: There are only so many times you can live. Chiyoko has learned this - several times. So when she's thrown in a world where shinobi play with knives and Bijuu breathe fire, you'd think keeping her head down and not getting invested is easier than it sounds. If only. OC/SI GEN

A/N: The idea sort of barged through my brain and decided to run with it. If the character in the synopsis seems kind of...Mary-Sue, then I assure you, there's GEN there for a reason.

WARNING: This keeps up with the latest update of the manga. I suggest you read that first if you don't want spoilers.

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.

Oscar Wilde

The first time I died, it was done protecting my little sister.

Our family was dysfuntional. My father never came home, Oka-san drank herself to stupor at least once a week, and my older brother took a ride to Tokyo and refused to respond to our messages, cutting us off completely. My sister, who was diagnosed with a severe case of leukemia, was probably the sanest of us all.

It could have been worse. We could have been abused. We could have been bankrupt a long time ago and had to live on the streets (although, that would have happened if I hadn't found a job when I was eleven). We could have been malnourished, or both diagnosed to a hospital, or anything else between.

But we weren't. Which really, I thought dryly, was the only thing I was thankful for.

So, really, when it came to protecting my sister from a drunken driver and his swerving car, the decision came almost too easy. I used to think, years later, what a selfish fool I was. Didn't I care for my sister at all?

I did. But I cared for myself more.

Human beings, I found out quickly, were like that.

The next thing I knew, I couldn't move. I couldn't talk, and my vision was entirely blurred, so I did the next best thing. I screamed.

A voice cooed out to me. "Тихо, малката. Майка ти е тук." Which, let me tell you, as an American, absolutely confused me to death. Their were two giant arms cradling me, which was weird, because I hadn't been held like that since I was a ba—

And then, suddenly, everything fell into place. The language, I learned later, was Bul-garian. My mother was a very stubborn shopkeeper that owned a bakery. My father had gone to war and hadn't come back, but there was no need for adjusting from my old life there.

Seventy-nine years later, I died with twenty-one grandchildren and woke up as a baby again. And again. And again.

No one world was the same. I had, of course, tried to figure out the dates from when I was born and when I died, but there was no pattern in them. One time, I woke up in the French Revolution. Another, a sci-fi lover's dream world. And there was always, always, no matter how minuscule it was, a difference.

I became a doctor, the top mafia dictator, the President of the United States. A manga-ka, an engineer, and (I am somewhat ashamed to admit) one of the most expensive supermodels in the world. No two faces were exactly alike. No two lives were exactly alike.

And, the most infuriating of them all, was that no one seemed to be like me.

Oh, there were theories on reincarnation. Several, in fact. But no one was actually able to prove it. And no matter how many lives I slammed through, I could never bring myself to commit suicide. That would be almost a little too pathetic.

On the good days when I was reborn, I decided to go with everything I got. Those were the ones that I was hailed a prodigy, a Miss Whatever-Country-I-Lived-In. And sometimes, I stayed on the sidelines, watching and never, ever getting close to the people around me.

It turned to watching soon enough.

On my thirty-seventh life, I was bumped into the Naruto world. The gods up there either must have hated me, or had pushed me through my first sister's favorite manga purely on coincidence.

I was betting on the former.

At any rate, I had been born Shiori Kisaguchi with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes and a civilian background. The people there had barely known any shinobi arts, save for the fact that the Senju and the Uchiha had been battling for a bloody century. Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of the Six Paths, had died about twenty years prior to the beginning of the event.

I died and lived with no experience of being a killer at all. I expected that to be the end of it. After all, I had lived in a timeline where Hashirama and Madara weren't even born yet.

But it didn't stop. So, I figured, if I became a kunoichi but avoided the plot lines, I should do fine, right?

Wrong. And as I desperately tried to get out of this world, I had always ended up in different times of the story. Sometimes, the maid of the Uchiha sector. Or during the Nidaime's reign. Or, hell, one of the Iwa-nin's that the Yondaime himself slaughtered.

If anything, I had only forgiven him because it had been quick and painless.

It didn't mean I wasn't a good shinobi, though. Twelve lifetimes worth of assassination had to show up somewhere. It was just my luck (something that had almost countless times to appear if karma was any indictation) that I always managed to squirm my way out of being in the notice of one of the Kages as a newborn "prodigy" and learned more of the shinobi arts in the process.

Of course, I had never expected to actually being alive the same time of Naruto Uzumaki.

For some strange, mundane reason, I had never actually been born the same time as Uzumaki Naruto. It just wasn't done. I had used to think that maybe it was just because of the timeline, but as time passed I had assumed it was simply impossible. Zilch. Nada.

Of course, sharing the same birthday as him was very, very unwise. The gods were probably laughing their asses off at my expense as I felt two very warm hands carry me over. The Death God in particular did not look very pleased as Minato hurried to perform Shiki Fuujin.

"You!" The Shinigami, I quickly discover, behind his mask and face paint, is not as scary as one might think. The effect, I think vaguely, is completely ruined by the spit that flies towards me.

Minato's head, I can see, shoots upward. He must never have heard the Death God speak, I realized later. Then again, I haven't either, but forty-something lives changed your perspective of what was normal.

"Why do you cheat Death?" The Shinigami tilts his head questioningly, apparently more under control.

I hear Minato reply something as Kushina protested against the use of Shiki Fuujin, but the Death God shook his head and pointed at me. I gurgle as I try to scream out the words, That's what I would've liked to ask you!

"Mortals are never allowed to repeat the reincarnation system with their memories intact!" The Death God roared, obviously understanding me. "It is a disgrace! A butchery of milleniums of tradition!"

I squealed unhappily. Do you know who would be able to do this, then?

"Absolutely no one." he grits out, apparently frustrated at the implication of someone surpassing him. "Unless, of course..."

He never finishes his sentence as the Yondaime of Konohagakure slams his hands to perform the Hakke no Fūin Shiki. I nearly snap at him for interrupting my conversation after so many years of asking questions, and the Shinigami is clearly thinking the same notion.

"Enough! I shall seal the Kyuubi into Naruto Namikaze-Uzumaki and Chiyoko Idachi!" Minato steps back, confused. I can tell he's asking about the user's sacrifice for the Shiki Fuujin when the Death God waves his hand dismissively. "I shall collect your body in decades' time when you die. It is not necessary."

And then the world turned black.

It is only later, after the chaos, that I learn who I am. Where I am. What I am.

My mother and father (dead, by the looks of it, as no one is coddling me) were not civilian—instead, they were part of a very, very minor branch of the Uzumaki Clan that fled to Konohagakure for safe haven during the war, if the whispers around me are any indication. Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki were alive, although they were being appointed for further check ups. Naruto Namikaze-Uzumaki was being cooed over as I wriggled in my crib.

My name was Chiyoko Idachi, the same as my first life. I am currently a resident of Konoha, Naruto's cousin to some extent and Kurama's jinchūriki of his yang chakra.

And, as I watch Konoha start to replenish itself and rebuild the remnants of the Kyuubi attack, I can't help but wail, Why me?

I just did the most dangerous thing in OC history - I made a jinchuuriki and a sorta-sister of Naruto. Of course, you'll see in the next couple of chapters that she doesn't stand out that much. If anything, the opposite. But, of course, when you're trying to hide almost twelve generations' worth of assassination, things don't always go as planned.

This is not a Mary-Sue, nor do I plan for it to be. If this somehow insinuates like being a one, then please feel free to point out where and why. I am welcome to criticism.

Please leave a review on your way out.

Edit on 10/7/2013: Did some changes in verses, mostly polishing, and added the quote.