two
It was a dream.
A pleasantly faint haze, basking in the light of midday. Drifting about in my mind was a recollection from my middle school days; blue-shocked skies far above my reach, expansive and encompassing, dotted with elongated specks of pure cotton.
I lay on the grass, wind caressing my arms and jeans loosely sitting haphazardly on my waist.
One leg was propped up in an acute triangle of laziness, and the other was swallowed by the shade of the tree dangling in the corner of my vision.
My eyes fluttered.
My friend sat at my right, laptop held firmly in his hands. The familiar chatter and laughter of friends was nearby, and for the umpteenth time, the volleyball had slipped through the lawn and out onto the street. They all groaned and shouted, even as someone sprinted to rescue it from the oncoming traffic.
It was a fight just to race back across the road before anyone got hit. Rays of sunlight dappled upon my face, swaying in time with the breeze. My smile lingered lazily upon my face, as I chatted with my friend. A lunchbox sat discarded a few feet away.
Pleasant.
It was so, so pleasant.
If there was ever a time I wished I could stay in forever, it would eternally be this singular lunch period, a stationary moment in years long past. A sunny spring day in April, only a mere two weeks after a heavy snow. The mountains were still glistening with white, while the grass down below in the city was already bristling green. Everything was so fresh, and everything was blooming.
I wanted to stay.
I wanted to stay forever.
My friend opened his mouth. "I'm writing a novel. The protagonist goes through something extraordinarily unbelievable, like reincar-"
-
I woke up.
The man from earlier was gone, and it was dark. As I blinked, my eyes adjusted to the room I was in. Experimentally, I tried to wiggle around. It worked. I wasn't swaddled anymore. Despite the freedom of my limbs, I kept still.
My dream lingered in my mind as I greedily roved over every detail my feeble mind could recall. It began to twist and struggle in my grasp, like sand leaking through a clenched fist.
Have you ever had an inexplicably painful feeling in your chest when you wake up from a dream you can't remember? Or the dreams which you do remember, but nothing in it is attainable in the waking world. The pang is sharp and pulsing, but sweet and full of remembrance. I felt it now and closed my eyes again.
I needed time to process.
My senses slipped away one by one and it certainly felt like I wasn't aware anymore until bam. Total unconsciousness.
Let's redo this one more time.
I woke up.
Itchy red hair dangled in my face. My nose wrinkled almost of its own volition and I felt an urgent urge to scratch it. My arm twitched and flailed. Ugh. I hate having no bodily autonomy. The face in front of me smiled, and I paused to really take it in. It was female, and it was beautiful.
Wait, I mean she. Not it.
I couldn't actually tell if she was beautiful because she was a blurry mess of rusty copper and pale skin tone, but I assumed she was. There are just some people who give off that type of presence, you know?
But anyways.
Her hair was annoying me, and I wanted it out of my (presumably) chubby little face. So I swatted it with the best motor control I could muster, but it only served to provoke her into tinkling, high laughter.
"Oh, what a cutie. Takeshi sure has a knack for finding curious little things. It's just like that cat, the one that ate him out of his allowance," she smiled. Once again I understood absolutely zero of anything she said but I already didn't like it. It sounded politely condescending to me and foretold that she and I? We would not be getting along, oh no.
The lady let out a hum that vibrated my little bed I was laying in and asked, "So where did you come from, little one? And what a blunt name you have. I wonder who named you. We don't get many children these days with that new system they're test-driving, so I must admit you are quite a shock. Abandoned, no less! At such an inauspicious place as well."
I stared up blankly.
Maybe if I concentrated hard enough, I could activate Google Translate in my brain. It was confirmed, though, that this was indeed Japanese.
I heard a few snippets of "watashi" which was the only thing I knew from watching a single episode of anime the week before my funny little hospitalization. And subsequent death, but we don't talk about that part!
The lady continued on, perhaps villain monologuing to herself: "I think you'll be a cute one. Usually the other ones are a little plain looking, but don't tell them that," a finger grazed against my neck, "these lips! Those eyes! Oh, yes, you'll be a cute one for sure. We weren't prepared for you, but another child in the orphanage will get us a larger food allowance as well so it isn't all terrible, is it?" she cooed.
Hm.
I suspected something nefarious was being said, but I couldn't be sure.
Anyways, enough of my precious brain cells and attention wasted. I turned my head to the side in defiance, and suddenly found my bed incredibly interesting.
Vaguely I was aware that she was still droning on, but I was more interested in inspecting my surroundings. If I was to really play this game of second chance, I had to be prepared.
I'd heard that the Japanese school system was brutal, as were all Asian school systems, but the high rate of NEETS and the suicide statistics proved Japan to be a superstar in the difficulty of life department as well. As expected of a truly exceptional country in all aspects. I'm joking, of course. That's terrible.
I was in a crib. Between the man and my first waking, I had been transferred out of my little basket. The inclusion of my comfy blanket had served to keep me oblivious to the change, although I do admit that I could have noticed sooner had I been more self-aware.
Now, the crib wasn't the weird part. The weird part was... it was made out of stone?
Some sort of exceptionally polished granite. I had never heard of a stone crib before, let alone see one. This seemed incredibly strange for me, but then again my ancestors used to sleep on wooden or jade pillows which were incredibly uncomfortable so I supposed everyone was entitled to their own little quirks.
At that time I heard a quick pitter-patter on the ceiling and turned a questioning look on the lady. It seemed that she had guessed right about my silent inquiry and a blurry motion might have been pointing up.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, "you noticed that sound? What a bright young child!" Her hand came to rest heavily upon my chest, which, annoyingly, was very soothing. "Those are the ninja, young one."
I smiled toothlessly.
I was sure I heard wrong.
It's okay, if babies' eyesight isn't all that great at birth, I'm sure their hearing isn't either. She continued, "That's right! The ninja are here to protect you! We're in the land of Iwagakure, where the stone ninja are the strongest! The man who found you is a ninja, too. His name is Takeshi."
Oh, haha.
I just heard that sound repeated several more times, and then the additional wrench of what I'm pretty sure was "Iwagakure", which is a fictional enemy village in an anime series. "Ta-ke-shi! You should remember that name, little one," the woman continued, oblivious to my mounting panic inside.
Okay.
Okay.
So, this was happening. I knew reading so much SI-OC fanfiction was going to bite me in the ass, but I thought it would be in the form of a shameful browser history doxxing by a stranger on the internet. Not actually getting reincarnated.
To sum up so far: I got an infected pimple pop that landed me in the hospital.
Then as if that wasn't humiliating enough, I died of it.
I died of a fucking pimple popping and proceeded to wake up and continue to breathe. I got reincarnated into a stubby little body. I could follow along up till then. It wasn't that bad, and reincarnation was not a foreign concept.
So I died and woke up, big deal.
At least I was still human?
However.
It seems... I've woken up in a fictional world. A fictional world in which my spawn point doesn't even have the decency to be the default spawn point of the protagonist's home. Oh no, no, I have to wake up in the village that gets absolutely fucking slaughtered and overpowered. Me. Reborn in a fictional world that I read smut fanfiction about in the days it was still called lemon on Wattpad.
The red-haired lady jumped when I burst into tears.