AN: I can't believe I even got this far.

It was an extremely long... „hiatus", if you can even call it that. Why? At first I was hoping the manga would give me some damn info on Madara's past that wasn't narrated by Hashirama, then I switched schools and suddenly had stuff to do and things just kind of quietly died from there.

So, let's talk Fire Rebirth. Yes, that mess of garbled yarn and plot threads and occasional OOCness. I'll be honest.

I hate it. I hate what I wrote there, how messy some of it was, how much of it just didn't make sense – it was terrible!

Evidently enough people still liked it, and I really still love the basis of it, but some things just didn't exactly go over well. I wrote it on a whim, full of ideas but not entirely settled on their execution, and while I knew general plot points there were gaps in between.

I actually "rewrote" the first chapter of FR (actually only the first half of it because reasons) which I shall now officially rename to Feathered Sanguine - why? Because I never liked its original title, and this just works and sounds better.

I'm not going to take down FR- I realize some people might still like it. But Kasai's story will continue here, not there, and I fear quite a few things will be different. It was a decision I had to make for the sake of 'integrity', so to speak.

My writing has changed, and so have many of my priorities regarding story-telling and character development, and I suppose some people - or maybe all of my old readers, who knows, would prefer the old one. I need to know. So please. Do give feedback.

I don't actually know how far I'll get with this. Maybe not very far at all, because I've not been doing well lately, but... yeah. Anyway.

Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto. Only Kasai and her mother. For now.

1. pandemonium

Welcome to the storm
We're babies till we're born
Then adults from our first day breathing

― Black English, „The Long Haul"

We all dreamed of better things sometimes.

Some of us more than others. Some were content with life, others lamented its every aspect. I certainly wasn't the former, and I couldn't exactly say I wasn't the latter, but I still found enjoyment in so many things, in art and music – and warmth, wherever I found it.

Regardless… I dreamed of better days, and at the age of sixteen I already regretted too many things. No one should have to start their adult life with scars of regret on their hearts. Some things- many things had gone wrong in the past, some but not nearly all of them in my control, yet I longed for a way to fix them.

Death certainly wasn't what I had expected or wished for, but in the end I guess it worked out. Somewhat.

I had always been fearful of dying. Looking back, I think it wasn't so bad. I got hit by a train on accident, and darkness came. It didn't even hurt, I suppose I was gone too quickly for anything to register.

It's what happened afterwards that seemed quite strange, unbelievable perhaps, to the closed mind – and thus, to me, as I did not believe in reincarnation or any kind of afterlife, being mostly atheistic in nature. I had doubts about the nature of the world sometimes, mind you – but I more often than not felt caged by religious spirit, and in the end remained faithless.

What happened to me could have happened to anyone out there, I believe. I wasn't in any way special, I just happened to be at the right place at the wrong time. Or the right time? I don't know if the universe played a cruel joke on me, hearing my pleas for a different childhood- whether it heard my wishes for a new life and decided to mock them – but the darkness that had claimed me for so long faded, leaving me to a world without light but filled to the brim with life.

Well, this certainly wasn't what I had imagined death to be like.

For a very long time… I just existed. There is no other way to describe it. Feeling slowly returned into what appeared to be a body now, and hearing developed, letting me notice voices as time passed. I became aware of limbs, heart and something else I wouldn't be able to understand for a long time, and was sent into a period of doubt, of asking – what was happening to me? I should be dead, right?

Had they put me into the hospital and my brain was actually paste from the collision? But why would I not understand the voices then? Had I lost my ability to communicate via language?
None of that really made sense, but I kept wondering regardless, deprived of anything else to do, and sometimes… no, often I was afraid.

After a while the veil of darkness lifted – the world moved and became alive, and the once dulled voices rang sharp and clear. Blots of colors danced in front of my eyes, shadows moved and vague shapes formed and scattered in a moment's notice, a vision that thrived.

I wasn't dead.

In confusion I screamed, and there was a voice, loud and shrill and high-pitched unlike my own, desperate and aimless-

An infant's wail, a young baby fresh from birth. I fell silent then, contemplating this strange fact, and the world stopped spinning, stopped being alive. The pandemonium quelled, voices quieted, I felt like all of existence fell in line with my silence.

I wasn't dead, nor was I alive. I was - by all definitions - reborn, and the old self of me was gone while this new one thrived in its place, filled with old memories and thoughts but gifted – or cursed – with a world and body foreign to it in its entirety, at least for a while.

Settling into this… this new state of existence, one could say… it took time. I was someone else's child now, and the thought of having to abandon my old life so thoroughly was a fact I did not deal with easily. A new beginning seemed great until one remembered that one had to flush out all the pleasant things as well. There were friends I missed greatly, although the memory of them was a blur, the feeling remained – a few I had loved especially, and my heart now yearned.
My family I strangely did not miss. Perhaps it was the thought of a kinder life that spurred me, but the most broken part of my childhood I was ready to leave behind.

From the day of my birth I remember little. My mind was sixteen, but my body was not. It didn't hold on to the memories very well, no matter how much I tried to force it, and images slipped away and became blurry. I came to believe that memories were matter of body and soul, and that they had to be equal to both to be accessible in their fullest. Thus it came that my old life was about as blurry to me as the world around me, moments flashing up here in there but never willing, never desired. I had kept my skills, for the most – with effort I could remember my old languages (and I practiced those in my head, just to remember them – I spoke German and English, and some Spanish as well, although the last one faded too quickly for me to hold on to it), and other things that I had once learned, ingrained as they once were, but many things were beyond me. I was for all intents and purposes forced to start anew.

Around me was a sea of energy, of life, of terror. I felt like drowning, suffocating under this weight that pressed on my body, fell on my shoulders like a heavy blanket and filled my lungs, my flesh, every fiber of my body in its entirety. It was so strange, so entirely foreign – imagine you could feel the oxygen in your body. With time it became distant like a faint tingle, always there, ever swirling, ever itching. It was unnerving, irritating, maddening.

I grew used to it only slowly, and I bet the world around me thanked me kindly for it when it finally happened, for I suddenly became a much more quiet infant. Regardless, I didn't realize what was drowning my senses until much later.

For a long time – (a week actually, but I didn't know that) I thought I had no father. There was a woman who cared for me tenderly, who sang me lullabies and spoke to me with a soft voice as smooth as a gentle river current, but there was no man to accompany her. I had heard voices, male and female, during my time in the darkness, but none of them were here now, none spoke to me the way I heard them murmur before.

There were servants, I believe. Women mostly, with a soft demeanor and low voices, obedient and often strangely passive. I couldn't understand their words nor see them properly, but they seemed to be… below us in standing, for lack of a better word. My family had to be of noble birth or at least considerable wealth to maintain a servant branch.

Thus I spent my days, wondering, questioning, observing as much as I could – trying to understand this strange world, this strange circumstance, this foreign path fate had led me to. I was a baby. Okay. I came to terms with that. Free service?

My old home, friends and so on and so forth were gone. Okay, I would come to terms with that surely… one day. Probably. Maybe.

I had no father? Okay, that… that wasn't so great. I could come to terms with leaving my old life and all its problems behind, but if I had to start a new life in the first place I'd really like the full package. I wanted a father. The last one had done a subpar job, honestly.

And… I feared. Feared that maybe he was dead, or that he didn't even know I existed. Maybe he didn't care. Those thoughts, the implications, the consequences - they scared me. Here was this woman, warm and caring and nurturing and all the things a mother should be - a circumstance I was entirely new to - and to her I might actually be more the remnant of a tragedy than anything else.

I wasn't used to parental care, of any kind. In my past life neglect had been part of my normal day routine. I had to take care of myself, and because I couldn't – small children simply can't - a lot of things in my life had gone very wrong. Having the beginning of this life marred by mourning was not a thought I wished to entertain any longer, and so I took my mind off of it. It was easier to focus on the presences that surrounded me than to linger on poisonous thoughts, and so I took them all in. My mother's was flowing, moving smoothly, like a river or an ocean, calm but agitated occasionally much like the water of the seas, and carried a tender hint of sea breeze under its patient waves.

That week two new presences appeared, and they drowned out everything else. For a few moments I once again thought I was suffocating as they neared, swelling to a size and weight that was unfathomable – until they seemed to cover the entire world. They were different in their natures, one calm and soft and spreading forward like the roots and leaves of a tree, carrying a distinct feel of mother earth, yet heavier than the other one – that one was seemingly angry, swirling aggressively in a malevolent vortex of heat and ash. My throat ran dry when I focused on it, and yet it felt familiar, very much like the energy that surrounded me, and swirled perhaps even within myself.

I couldn't quite tell.

After a while they faded into softer versions of themselves, lying dormant below a barely sealed surface, flaring here and then in short and uneven intervals. It was nigh torture to feel them spike and jump in jagged lines, like a heartbeat. They bled into the rest eventually, mixing into a sea of energy, but always distinct in their own ways, recognizable among smaller lights of similar nature easily.

It was the same day that something happened, something I remembered clearly and vividly even years later. Evening seemed to have come, for darkness had enveloped the world. I saw no more colorful dots of light through my limited vision and tiredness claimed me, though it often did so, even when it was bright as day.

What I remembered so well, it was… it was the scent of smoke and cinder, the feeling of a moving shadow and the knowledge that I was alone, and no one there to stop it. It crept through the house, its presence so unnoticeable that it literally became a shadow to me, like trying to hear a sound at the edge of your hearing. Barely there, and its attempt at not existing almost drove me mad.

It made its way, choosing the path of least resistance – past the few still wandering servants I could feel clearly, and it must've been well hidden for it seemingly passed them without their notice.

So it moved, and moved, and moved closer and closer to me.

Anxiety became fear.

This hidden presence had no business being here, and it was coming for me. And elsewhere… elsewhere I thought a fire raged, flaring like an inferno through halls and rooms and into the streets, distracting all those who could have noticed the plight of a tiny infant. Did I matter? Would they come? Would they prioritize saving this little thing over ending the destructive desires of a fire? I fell silent, fearing that any noise at all could end my life, and shivered in terror.

The image of a monster in the night became very very real.

The door slid open, agonizingly slow. I saw nothing, only heard the by now familiar noise, but it was enough.

I feared this death, for I saw it coming this time. Would I be reborn again? It was a question that tormented me, and would many times in the future, but today it was augmented by the helplessness that kept me chained to a crib.

I was just a baby.

Just a tiny, helpless, squishy thing, anything could kill me at any moment, could end my life within just a second-

The shadow crept, without a noise, without a single sound; no breathing, no steps, no rustling clothes – was it human ?Was it a ghost?

I stopped breathing, my weak body paralyzed, thoughts flashing, dashing, racing through my mind-

Death, fear, it'll kill me, it'll end me, why here, why now?

I felt it lurking above me now, suffocating me with its existence, its presence creeping into every remaining crevice of my mind, filling it like a drifting mist. Amongst all of this a biting stench reached my nose, almost invasive to my senses. Oil?

Was it going to set me on fire?!

I panicked even more, and perhaps I would have struggled, had I been able to. My body remained still, forcing my mind to deal with itself.

It lingered above me, still not breathing, still not being human, and all I truly sensed was this abominable stench-

There was heat, and there was a lack of oxygen, and there and then I truly believed it had set me on fire. I finally began to struggle, kicking and screaming and crying, and doing all the things a scared person did. My head hurt, my eyes stung, perhaps from tears, perhaps from smoke, I couldn't actually tell because I was busy screaming my lungs out.

I heard metallic clatter, a muffled noise- a voice, a sign of something human, and then something that was decidedly not. A disgusting crack of something fleshly and alive that echoed in my ears; it lingered in my mind long after it was gone. I fell outright silent at its invasive presence occupying my every sense.

Crack.

It seemed as if the noise repeated in my mind, over and over again.

Too… not dazed, but occupied by that terrible sound to notice my situation, I did not realize that danger had passed, so instinct dictated me to struggle once again, to kick my tiny feet with all the impressive energy of a tiny infant, when I was lifted from my crib into a firm grip - the person seemed remarkably unfazed, and truly, a tiny baby struggling probably didn't mean much to a grown person, even barely twitched when I managed to kick into a palm. Well, at least I thought it was a palm.

It… no, he- he spoke, I was sure he was a man, with a voice somewhere between deep and piercing, but nowhere near rumbling. I shivered, not recognizing a word of this strange language but very much understanding the tone of his voice, commanding as it was.

I decided that I should stop struggling.

By this he appeared pleased, for he spoke no more.

Again the scent of oil stung my nose, heavy and almost etching, but mixed with the scent of leather this time, and a distinct hint of cinder- or ashes? It was then that I finally realized, that it finally clicked in my still tiny brain – I wasn't actually on fire.

It was him. He carried an ever expanding ocean of energy, the fire I had felt eating its way through the world. Nothing burned, no inferno raged. He had been on his path all along. I felt it as the incessant vortex calmed and became dormant, and finally it seemed I could breathe again. No smoke, no overwhelming heat except the one he seemed to naturally emit.

As his inferno retreated a hint of ocean approached beneath its fading waves, once covered by its wild fires; the usually gentle sea breeze brought a wild storm, tearing through the door with hasty steps.

Mother, a voice spoke in my mind, still testing the word. She said something – what emotion was it, what tone? Anger? Worry? Fear?

Perhaps all of them at once. Did she know this man? Did I know this man?

Something told me, yes. But the reason I did not know. His voice had to be familiar at the very least, and yet it was not. He needed to speak more, I could not recognize it like this.

The storm, too, calmed, much like his vortex, and became the gentle breeze I knew. They spoke again, a back and forth of voices – first she was angry, and he seemed indignant, then she became quiet, and he spoke with a slightly softened voice-

This voice, yes, this one I knew. I had heard it in the darkness, as a low murmur that vibrated in my ear drums and lingered as a quiet echo.

And then… both were calm. Peace.

Safety.

While the impression lingered I was carefully handed over to my mother, feeling slightly dazed by these stranger things. Somewhere in my mind the sound of a cracking bone still drifted idly, building itself a home in my memory. The shadow that had once haunted me was now gone, no hint of its existence left.

Was this… my father? This man whose presence seemingly swelled to an angry inferno at will and shrank to a tender flame just as easily, who had just before seemingly broken the boundaries of human life… with utter ease, and no regret, for the tides of his fire retreated readily afterwards.

Was he safe? Or would I fall to his anger just as easily? No sane human being I wanted to associate with killed a baby without remorse, but he also struck down my would-be murderer just as easily, and carried no guilt that I could feel, no inner torment.

But he had done so to save me.

A voice in my mind screamed at me to hide behind him, carrying a feeling from older days that he was safe, safe for now at least, and that I'd do well to seek shelter in his eclipsing shadow for as long as I could, and that his voice held a power I could not possibly understand in this strange, strange world, where people had presences that felt like fire and oceans and trees.

If I reached out to him now, would he reach back?

I lifted a tiny fist with all the miniscule strength I could muster, reaching into the empty space between us. It was my mother though, who stepped forward, close to him, close enough that I felt the warmth radiate off of him once more, and close enough that my tiny fingers reached an arm in the darkness.

There was a quiet noise of protest, then silence, and then a gloved finger softly poking my palm.

Somehow, in the midst of this pandemonium of things, I felt elated.

AN: Not much has changed here, but at least this scene makes a little more sense.