AN: I swore I wouldn't write a fic like this but Silver Queen's 'Dreaming of Sunshine' inspired me and I couldn't resist. If you even remotely like this fic than go look hers up, it's ten times better than this one.

Courage is fear holding on a minute longer-George S. Patton

The darkness that held me was comforting. I wasn't tired so I didn't sleep. I wasn't hungry so I didn't eat. I felt an overwhelming need to simply do… nothing. I merely existed, nothing more nothing less.

But something was wrong. The darkness that usually comforted me was…wrong. There was no other word for it. Brief spikes of barely registered pain coupled with a sense of otherness I couldn't quite identify

But then the wrongness left and the pain left with it. But the sense of otherness remained. At first I pondered what it could be but over time it seemed to disappear. I no longer felt any other presence besides my own, both just as I remembered it and different from what it had been.

Once again I could rest in peace. Time passed in blessed oblivion but before too long the wrongness returned. Perhaps it was because I remembered it from before but this time the sense of wrongness was so much stronger, the pain so much greater. I tried to cry out but found myself lacking a way to do so.

And with the pain came something else. More of…myself? Something else was here but if I hadn't felt its arrival I would never have known. I felt no different before or after and soon forgot about it altogether.

And so things continued in this way. Cocooned by darkness that I did not fear interspersed with moments of ever growing pain. In the darkness I felt safe and secure. Whenever the pain would come I would try my hardest to scream out of some half-forgotten sense of self-preservation but always found myself lacking the ability to do so. Not that it mattered. As soon as it was over I no longer cared and quickly forgot about it as well.

As time went on the darkness changed. It grew smaller and smaller. Not that it was bothering me. As it grew smaller the only change was that I began to feel the pain more and more frequently.

Suddenly everything was different. Pain worse than any other I had felt in the darkness enveloped me. Bright light shone into my eyes and for the first time in a long time I realized that I had eyes!

All I could really make out was dark shapes on a white background and oh my god everything was so blurry.

I tried to breath and was barely able to get in a breath. I tried to move my arms only to find them unresponsive. I opened my mouth to beg for help from someone, anyone, but all that came out was a weak gurgle. And I was cold. I was so very cold.

I despaired thinking that I was about to die and a large part of me felt as though I should still be in the darkness that had only a short time ago been protecting me from the horrors of reality.

Soon enough however large hands picked me up. At first I couldn't identify the sensations my body was going through because although they felt like hands they couldn't be. If they were hands then they belonged to a giant. I had never been big exactly, but I knew for a fact that I wasn't small enough to be held in the crook of someone's arm.

I felt rapid vibrations and cool air against my cheeks and surmised that whoever was carrying me was walking. Fast. My breath was hitching in my throat and what little vision I had was rapidly fading.

A few moments later all seemed right in the world. I was safe and secure in my own little corner of the universe. I wasn't in the darkness. It was too bright and occasionally I would be able to feel a cool breeze for a few moments. But it felt safe. And that was what was important.

It stayed like that for a while. I don't really know how long I remained in there. I was more aware in my new place than I had been in the darkness but it still wasn't even close to full awareness.

Eventually my new place was taken away from me. I wasn't complaining.

Yes it had started out as a warm safe place but as time passed I had slowly grown uncomfortable. It was a strange feeling. It wasn't anything physical but it was there all the same. This desire to escape a suffocating embrace that I wasn't sure was even real.

All in all I was glad to say goodbye to that place.

I felt hands wrap me in something soft and warm. I tried to breath and found myself able to take in full if short breaths. I opened my eyes and instead of a hazy world divided into black and white, a less hazy world of dull colors and blurred details awaited me.

I heard cooing sounds and looked up at the giant holding me. She was making funny faces and smiling down at me.

That was when I realized something very important. I was a newborn baby. After absorbing this information I did the only logical thing I could think of. I opened my mouth and began wailing for all I was worth.

Everything was strange and that just made me cry harder. You might think that I, with my adult mind would be able to better cope with a situation like this. But no matter how old you are there's something innately terrifying about being completely helpless.

As the giant carried me along and gently tried to shush my crying I noticed something else. Something was off with my body. It didn't feel bad just… different. There was a sort of energy coursing through me. I tentatively reached within myself and tried to get a feel for what it was and found that if I focused I could sort of channel it to an extent. Even just brushing against it like this gave me the oddest feeling of being both heavily drained and deeply invigorated.

It wasn't hurting me so I decided to leave it by the wayside. For now I had other things to worry about, the most predominant thing being where exactly I was being taken.

The giant had stopped shushing me and had begun to gently sing to me. Despite my rather recent return to awareness I found myself drawn in by her voice even though I didn't recognize any of the words. As sleep quickly took over I was at least vaguely able to recognize the language she was singing in as Japanese.

I awoke to the sound of a crying baby.

Check that. I awoke to the sound of many crying babies.

I was no longer in the white building, which upon further analysis had to have been a hospital of some sort. Instead I was lying in a crib that was in a room painted bright yellow with an off-white ceiling. And I was surrounded on all sides by wailing babies.

The only places I could think of off-hand that had a large number of children grouped together like this were hospitals and orphanages. 'Okay' the part of me that was still trying to figure out what the hell was going on thought. 'Apparently I'm an orphan. That's something that I didn't know before'.

Even realizing that however, did not change the fact that I was surrounded on all sides by crying babies.

Maybe it was the lack of control over my new body or my newborn instincts acting up or the sheer disbelief that I had been reborn at all, but I found myself crying right along with them.

A few moments later someone came in and attempted to comfort us, one by one. And strangely enough it was working. There was something about her, some warmth that permeated the air that simply said everything was going to be okay and the occupant of every crib she leaned over quickly stopped crying.

As she leaned over my crib to check on me, my eyes fell to a very strange accessory that was dangling around her neck. It was a blue cloth with a shiny piece of metal on it. Engraved on the metal was the symbol of a leaf.

I stopped crying almost immediately and she must have assumed everything was okay because she moved on to the next crib.

I would recognize that symbol anywhere. It was the symbol of Konoha, the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

My eyes widened. It suddenly made sense. Everything made sense. The strange energy within me, the symbol on her headband, and even the calm aura she was using.

I was in the Naruto-verse.