And I thought life was hard enough the first time.

OC self-insert (because I'm that shameless)

-0-

It's odd, reincarnation.

I never really… believed in it. I mean, it sounds so simple. Die and you'll get a second chance at life. You might be reincarnated as an animal, but you'll still get another chance at life. It just doesn't end there. We hear about in stories and we think, yeah, okay, I'll do good deeds and be reincarnated as a person, but how many of us really go through with it?

I wouldn't say I was a good person. I had done my fair share of lying and I may have yelled at my parents in a fit of frustration (although I felt horrible afterwards), but I definitely wasn't bad. Not bad enough to warrant being reborn as a slug or ant, apparently. I guess it wasn't so bad, being reincarnated as a human, despite the situation.

Being reincarnated is confusing. Imagine being in that state between awake and asleep, where you're feeling comfortable. You're dozing and anything could wake you, but doesn't. Suddenly, there's a sudden urgency to everything and you hear, feel, think again.

All I could think of was how odd it was, having everything so sudden again. I was suddenly forced out of my comfort zone (although admittedly not for the first time) and there was sound everywhere. My senses felt like they were in overdrive, but they were strangely dull as well. I couldn't understand anything being said, nor could I see. That was the scariest part – not being able to see. In my old life, I used to wear glasses – a souvenir from too much time with my nose in a book and in front of a screen – and I'd always hated the fuzziness of everything during times when I didn't have them on.

I found myself actually being picked up and if that wasn't a weird sensation, I don't know what is. I was being carried like a baby and last I checked, I was a seventeen-year-old girl. Seventeen-year-olds don't get picked up, and especially not with such ease.

The confusion was so sudden and I did the only thing I could do: I cried. I wailed and screamed. I tried to ask what was happening, but my tongue wouldn't obey me and all that came from my mouth were these wailing screams that all babies emit when you tease them too much. It rattled on my nerves a little, but all I could think was how scared I was.

Where was I? What was going on? Those thoughts repeatedly ran through my head and I had no way of asking those questions. In the place of those questions, I cried.

I didn't really know it at the time, but my parents (the ones in this world, not from my old life) told me that the moment I was in my mom's arms, I quietened. My dad even swore I started to smile a little, but I find that highly unlikely. I wasn't quite a joyful baby. I'd be less melancholic when I was older, of course, but there was no question that I was an odd child.

The first few weeks of my new life were filled with questions. I had no real idea what was going on, so I just went with the flow. I like to think that I'm good at adapting to the situation, but being in a new body is a really weird experience. I spent those weeks refamiliarising myself with my limbs.

I was about seventeen when I died. We all know how it's like at that age, don't we? I'd been learning how to be independent for years and suddenly, I was dependent on someone else again. It was… frustrating, to say the least. I couldn't do anything on my own. Hell, I couldn't even speak. I was a child again and childhood was difficult enough the first time.

My mother gave me the name Danika, following her Slavic roots. It was so different from my old name, which doesn't really matter now, and I absolutely loved it. Whenever Mom would coo my name, I would fall quiet in wonder. It was my name and it was so cool.

About a month into my new life, I was hit with the startling revelation; I had died. One month was probably a long time to realise that I was dead, but I had always been a little slow. I might have also been trying to push that fact into the back of my mind – as teenagers are wont to do with thing they don't want to think about (like homework) – but it was bound to hit me eventually.

There was a three month period where I mourned – I mourned the old me, my old life, my friends and family who weren't technically my friends and family anymore. I wondered how they were – they weren't grieving too much, were they? – and I wondered where I would go from here.

I had two choices, of course; I could choose to live in the past or I could take this second chance and make the best of it. I chose the second choice. After all, I was given the chance to live again. Why not make the best of it?

I was Danika Vale, only daughter of Katarina and Aaron Vale. I wasn't who I used to be in my old life and that was something I had to live with. I moved on.

I started learning to walk at six months and the week before my first birthday, I was already taking tentative steps around the house. At the same time, I had started to pick up the language my parents were speaking. It wasn't English, that I was sure. I would tentatively say they were speaking Japanese – oddly enough, everyone seemed to speak that particular language – but it didn't seem right. Occasionally, my parents would also speak in a language that sounded strangely Russian from the little I heard it in my previous life, but that wasn't right either. Tentatively, I would say that the universal language was a bastardisation of Japanese, Latin and some other language that I had never heard of in my relatively short lifespan. It didn't really matter what language it was, I suppose. All that mattered was that I was able to speak it.

I was unused to being unable to speak my mind, so I set right to learning how to speak with a fervour that was probably a little frightening. I would sit and listen to any conversation around me a frown of concentration on my face, trying to figure out which words were used in what context. I had never been very good at language, growing up in a primarily English-speaking home interspersed with my mother tongue and some Korean, but I was determined to pick up this one. It was just so fascinating, the way it sounded so lilting and harsh at the same time.

It took me a while to realise where I really was. Like I said before, I'm slow at picking up signs, but part of the reason why I never really figured out where I was could be attributed to my parents keeping me in the house for the first two years of my life.

I remember the first time my dad brought me out of the house, my small arms wrapped around his neck as I clung onto his back. I giggled a little; it had been a long time since I was small enough to get a piggyback. I guess there were perks to being a child again. We had decided to venture into the market for some groceries and it was about high time I was brought out of the house anyway. Mom was beginning to comment how pale and sickly I looked, being cooped inside all the time, while Dad would just ruffle my hair and reply almost defensively, "My little star is too precious for the big, bad world."

It's typical for children's eyes to dart everywhere when they were in a new environment. That wasn't what happened with me. Instead, my eyes were glued in front of me. Beyond the fuzz of red hair that sat atop of Dad's head, I could see a huge wall looming above us.

"What's that?" I asked, a suspicion already brewing in my mind. The sight of the wall sparked a memory in the back of my mind – somewhere in my old life, I had seen it before – and with the memory came an unexplainable fear.

Dad looks back at me with his twinkling blue eyes except – no, they weren't twinkling. That was the reflection of the sun overhead. The twinkle was dimmed as if he was saddened by the mere mention of the topic. "That?" he repeated, gesturing to the wall with his chin. The corner of his mouth curled up in a half-grin, but even I could detect there was a sardonic edge to it. He reached back to ruffle my hair. "That's Wall Rose, my little star. Big, isn't it?"

I nodded, but I wasn't paying attention anymore. My attention was riveted on the huge wall and I looked around. It might have seemed like I was taking in my surroundings as that was the moment we had reached the crowded main street, but I was really looking at the span of the wall. It circled the city and there was a moment where I feared we were in Shiganshina district, but as I listened to the conversations around us, I picked up complaints of how the rations in Karenese were running low again. I relaxed against my father's back again.

Suddenly, I jolted back into awareness, eyes darting forward to Wall Rose again. It's presence coupled with the fact that I was living in Karenese could only mean one thing.

I had been reincarnated into the world of Shingeki no Kyojin.

•●•●•●•

There were a lot of things I wondered after that shattering realisation, but the first one was why?

Why here and why me? In my old life, nothing grand ever happened to me. I was a typical almost-seventeen-year-old who spent too much time reading, writing and watching anime. I had best friends who I had fun with and I had a loving family. I was continuing my studies to get a diploma, for god's sake. I was the most average teenager you could think of, if you discounted the fact that I had already died once.

I had already resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't be famous, nor would I have an interesting story that would be told and retold hundreds of thousands of times. I was a normal person trying to get through life. I had never expected to be reincarnated into a world where there were such things as Titans that ate humans because they could.

Most of all, I didn't know why I remembered. Most people who were reincarnated had no idea of their past lives, didn't they? If that was so, why could I remember my past life? It made no sense. On a regular day, I couldn't even remember what I had for lunch the day before. If anything, it sounded like something out of fanfiction: interesting to read but highly unlikely.

My first order was to figure out where I was in the timeline. Was I born before Eren and Mikasa and Armin were or was I already in the world where they had, hopefully, already gotten rid of the Titans? A world that was, if not safe, then safer than their own.

I wasn't very good at reading yet, but I could read numbers just fine, so I searched for the newspaper Dad had left around the house somewhere. It wasn't that difficult to find and it was with a slight shiver of fear that I found the date. The twenty first of February, year… 837.

Oh, you've got to be kidding me, was my first thought. My memories were a bit hazy, but I was pretty sure the first appearance of the Colossal Titan happened in the year 845, which was eight years from now. Assuming that Eren, Mikasa and Armin were ten at the time of the fall of Shiganshina (I wasn't really that sure about the age), I was their age.

Even if I was older… well, it didn't really mean much, did it? They were in Shiganshina. I was in Karenese. The fall of Wall Maria didn't really affect me that much.

That was that. Maybe I would meet them if I decided to enlist, although that was unlikely. I was never an athletic person and even if I helped around the garden every once in a while and fed the goats, I wasn't really suited for hard work. At most, I would see them when they passed with the Recon Corps at the start of the fifty-seventh expedition.

I shrugged off the notion of meeting the canon characters, if they even existed; Shingeki no Kyojin was just a story, after all. It might have even been just part of my imagination, as Mom has told me countless times that I have an overactive imagination. I had nothing to worry about.

Oh, how wrong I was.

•●•●•●•

We all knew how Mikasa came to be with the Jaegers. Her parents were killed when human traffickers killed them in an effort to get her, with her special oriental lineage. When I watched the episode, my heart broke for her and I lamented the loss of her childhood. At the age of eight, when I found myself thinking of her in an off-handed manner, I felt a sense of sorrow. My parents had enrolled me in the local school when I was six and a classmate of mine, a mousy girl whose name I hadn't bothered to know, had had a sister kidnapped by those beasts. She used to be bubbly, but now she kept to herself. I didn't know if the other children had noticed (I greatly doubt they had), but she often came to school with her eyes rimmed red, which I didn't doubt were from crying. I thought about that happening to Mikasa not too long from now and futilely hoped it would never happen.

It's one of those things we never thought would happen to us. They always happen to other people, don't they?

I guess I should have expected it. I had been reincarnated into Shingeki no freaking Kyojin, which was arguably one of the harshest worlds to ever be reborn into. I would have thought that was a first-hand example of how much the fates loved to play with me.

It had been a normal day at school, sitting there and learning how to read and write and then watched the other children play. I didn't really mingle well with peers, but I had never been good with children in my old life, either. Disregarding the fact that I was a child myself, I didn't know how to connect with them. I didn't know what to say and all of their games held no appeal to me, even with my childish nature. As a result, I didn't have that many friends, or any at all, really. I have to admit that most of my childhood was quite lonely. In my old life, I had been a younger sister and my older sister had taken good care of me. Here, I had no one my age to connect to nor siblings to tease me and shelter me from reality in their own way. It was saddening, but I dealt with it. What else could I do?

I knew something was wrong the moment I neared my house. The goats were quiet and the stray cat we had taken to feeding regularly hadn't rushed out to greet me, demanding food. I stopped at the edge of our house property, eyes wide in fear. Our front door was ajar.

Our front door was never ajar.

I didn't want to take another step. I had a bad feeling somewhere deep in my bones. I ended up walking forward anyway, as if I was in a dream. I didn't feel in control of my body as I stopped in front of the door without pushing it open further.

I strained my ears for sound and found none but the erratic beating of my heart. It was wrong. There was always sound in my home – my mother singing in her melodious voice, the sounds of footsteps, even the insistent meowing of the cat… it was all missing.

With a trembling hand, I pushed the door open, the habitual tadaima resting on my lips. My words stuck in my throat as four pairs of eyes turn towards me.

"Mama?" I whispered into the silence. I watched as Mom's eyes widened, the grey of her irises startling against the white of her eyes. She was gagged, a rag stuffed in her mouth and her delicate wrists in the iron grip of the man looming over her. She didn't say a word, but I could hear her telling me to run away. I don't think I would have even if my feet hadn't felt like lead. She was my Mom, had been my Mom for the past eight years. She gave birth to me, sang to me when I had nightmares and smiled at me in that special way that made me feel like the luckiest girl in the world. No, I wasn't cruel enough to abandon her.

"You didn't say there was a little girl," one of the men hissed in a dark voice.

"Leave my daughter alone, you immoral bastards," Dad bellowed, struggling against the restraints. "If you lay a single hand on her, I'll kill you!"

"Shut him up," the first man said and I couldn't look away as they punched Dad until he lost consciousness. "Get her."

I could never get that harsh voice out of my head as the man who had been holding onto Mom lunged towards my frozen form.

I have to say that Mom had never been a particularly feisty woman. She's a little like me – or maybe I'm the one who's like her – but she's pretty good with going with the flow. I guess that got me to think that she wasn't much of a fighter. It wasn't the first time I've been proven wrong and it wouldn't be the last.

Her legs kicked out and she managed to kick the man holding her on the shin. Her hands scrabbled for his belt and I understood why when she brandished a small knife and waved it around almost frantically. She couldn't speak from the rag n her mouth, but I could hear what she was trying to say just as clearly as the men trying to harm us did: you'll have to go through me first.

It was over so fast. Mom's arm was wrenched backwards and her eyes screamed pain. She didn't relinquish her grip on the knife though and that was her mistake.

I could see it in her eyes – the sharp flash of pain, followed by surprise as she went limp. "Mama!" I screamed helplessly as I saw the lights in her eyes dim and noticed the knife protruding from the base of her spine. She couldn't have been dead yet, but they didn't really have the medical knowledge to properly sew her up. If we were in Back Then, she would have survived, probably, if paralysed. Here… she'd bleed to death in minutes.

"Katarina, no!" Dad yelled and I had never heard him sound so heartbroken in my life. It wasn't right to hear my big, strong father sound so lost.

We all like to think we're heroes, don't we? We'd all like to think then when it came down to it, we'd go down fighting to protect our loved ones. I had thought over what I would when it came down to that, if something like this had happened and I had resigned myself to hiding or running. To this day, I still didn't know what came over me.

We kept a brick near our front door that we used to prop open the door on windy days when Mom would sweep the house. I reached down, grabbed it and threw with all the force I could muster. It didn't reach as high as I had wanted it to, only smashing into the kidnapper's side, but it was enough to get his attention that I hadn't wanted.

I shuffled backwards a step, but I couldn't move anymore. I didn't have anywhere to go and I couldn't leave my parents. True they weren't the parents who moulded me, but they took care of me and they made me who I am today. All that mattered was today.

"Daddy," I whimpered, "help."

I didn't have any weapons and my scrawny arms wouldn't put up much of a resistance. I didn't have much strength and if that monster got me, it was over.

Dad broke his restraints with a roar and barrelled the man threatening me. "Run, Dani," he snapped. "Run away!"

"Daddy – "

"Just do as I say!"

I caught a flash behind him and gasped. The man was towering over Dad and I had to do something, anything –

"Go!" he yells and my body obeyed. I turned and ran, my auburn hair whipping into my face. I heard Dad yell again, but it was wordless and tears finally pricked my eyes. I was alone again, all alone.

I didn't where else to go, so I ran into the woods near my house. I had been in there a few times, but I never went far. The branches pulled at my clothes and scratched my bare skin as I ran. The cold rain pelted my skin, but it wasn't only rainwater on my face. My tears streamed down my cheeks and made my vision blurry. I desperately tried to stop them, but I couldn't. I had never been one to cry much, but once I did, I couldn't stop. I had lost my parents; I was allowed to cry.

I could hear them thundering behind me. It only made me cry harder. Their pursuit only meant that Dad hadn't managed to stop them. He was gone. Logically, I knew that even my dad wouldn't have been able to take on two large armed men in his state, but I had this unshakeable faith that Dad was the strongest man I would ever know. To have it shattered like that… I can't possibly put into words how terrified I was as I ran through the dark woods with their angry yells tailing me.

The mindless running was a bad idea. I wasn't particularly coordinated on a good day and today was definitely not a good day. I tripped over a protruding root and skidded across the forest floor. The cuts stung as rain dripped onto them. I tried to stand, but cried out as pain shot up my ankle. I had never had a sprained ankle, but I was pretty sure this was what it felt like.

I could hear them catching up with me. I was cold, alone and terrified. I did the only thing an eight year old could do: I screamed for help.

"Help," I screamed. "Someone, anyone, please. Help me!"

I didn't know why I thought anyone would come. I had no idea where I was and I doubted there would be anyone nearby. That was it. I was going to die. Again.

I couldn't help but sit there and weep as I heard them catch up to me. I stared up at them in horror before looking up to the treetops. Maybe it would be quick and painless, like my last one. The fates wouldn't be that cruel, would they?

I wasn't sure if it was due to a raindrop splashing into my eyes, but I thought I saw a flash of a blade in the treetops. I shook the thought away; it was probably a figment of my imagination.

"You little bitch," one of the men – I didn't even know which one anymore – seethed. "I'm going to gut you like a fish and throw you to the wolves."

I whimpered, holding my injured ankle. I wasn't ready to die. I wasn't ready to die Then and I wasn't ready to die now. I didn't want to die without putting up a fight. Mom had and Dad had, so I would too. I searched blindly for a branch, a rock, something to hit with. I was my parents' daughter (and my parents' daughter) and I would at least try to bring them down with me.

They descended upon me and I steeled myself to fight, but they were suddenly blocked from my sight by a silhouette. My eyes were drawn to the naked blades on each side of the silhouette and I could make out lumps that I had never seen before in this life but recognised from hazy memories; 3D Maneuver Gear.

"Only scumbag assholes pick on little children," a voice full of disdain sneered. "The two of you are obviously far worse."

"You punk," one of them snarled. "You're dead meat."

The silhouette in front of me sniffs. "Corpses shouldn't talk."

They never saw it coming. Not really. The blades flashed once more and then they were on the ground. I had never seen anyone move so fast before and I had to admit that my silence was in awe at the speed my saviour had moved rather than in horror at the obvious dead bodies in front of me. I had always been somewhat detached from my feelings at times and I supposed this was one of those moments. It felt like I was seeing those bodies through a TV screen, like they weren't in front of me and were living, breathing humans mere moments ago.

"Tch, they got blood on my blades," my saviour muttered, wiping his blades clean on the kidnappers' shirts before finally turning his eyes on me. I jolted when I noticed his silver eyes in the dim light. "Brat. Can you walk?"

I rubbed my nose with my arm. It was probably unhygienic, covered in dirt and grime, but I was safe and the relief that flooded through me couldn't be expressed through words.

"Thank you," I half-sobbed, hiding my face in my knees. "Thank you so much."

"Can you walk?" he repeated, a twist of annoyance in his voice as he stood over me. His eyes never softened and he never smiled, but I knew that I'd be okay now. I wouldn't be fine, not for a long time, but I'd be okay. I'd survive, I'd live another day and that's what the man in front of me had given me.

Hesitantly, I shook my head. "I – I think I sprained my ankle," I answered in a small voice.

"Troublesome," he sighed.

I could hear a whoosh sound that I would later easily recognise as the compressed air being released as the 3DMG is used, but at the time, I thought it was danger and surged forward, clinging onto my saviour and burying my face in his cloak. I could feel his muscles tense under my fingers as I clung to his leg. His hand rose to rest on my head, but I didn't know if it was to tell me everything was fine or push me away. Frankly, it could have been either one. It might have even been both.

"Heichou," a distinctly feminine voice cried. "Are you okay?" I didn't dare shift my face away to see the newcomer.

This time, my saviour pushed me away with shove, causing me to sprawl onto the forest floor once more. "The brat is hurt."

"Ow," I muttered, rubbing away the last traces of my tears. No, I should stop whining. Whining wouldn't get me anywhere. I peered at the newcomer – a woman – from between my fingers. Her ginger hair was not unlike mine, although it was shorter. It was plastered to her skull and as I watched she looked to me. Her amber eyes widened and her lips formed an 'o'. Slowly, as if not to alarm me, she walked towards me before kneeling in front of me.

"Where are you hurt?" she asked kindly. She held out a hand to touch me and I flinched back. They had never laid a hand on me, those monsters, but they might as well have. Plus, my parents had taught me to never talk to strangers. I had a feeling I knew this woman though, although I couldn't quite remember her name. She frowned briefly before seeming to understand. "I'm Petra. What's your name?"

I sniffed, wiping my nose with the back of my hand again. "D-Dani," I mumbled.

"Dani," Petra repeats with a soft smile. "Is it a nickname?"

Petra. That name was certainly familiar. It was as familiar as her face. I just had to place her name and face into the anime. But… it had been eight years since I last watched it. My memory was never very good anyway and I had only ever completed the anime up to episode twenty five. There was a lot I didn't know, only glimpsed from the anime wiki.

Damn, I should have read the manga instead.

I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I almost forgot to answer. I blinked up at the two adults, inhaling sharply. "Danika," I answered quietly. "My – my ankle hurts," I added weakly, remembering her first question. "I can't… really walk."

"Where are your parents?"

An ache developed in my chest, so acute that I was clutching the front of my blouse before I noticed. Tears burned the back of my eyes, but I couldn't cry anymore. "They're gone."

They didn't ask me to elaborate. Maybe it was something in my face or my voice, but I managed to convey what had happened with just two words.

Petra's eyes slid behind me – no doubt to the bodies – before they turned back to me. Her hand rested on my head, stroking my drenched hair away from my face. "I'm sorry," she said quietly.

I hiccupped, rubbing my eye as a tear escaped. I guess I wasn't quite out of tears yet. I was sorry too. Where was I supposed to go now? I had no other relatives, no one to turn to…

"Petra," my saviour said gruffly. "Carry the brat."

"Heichou?"

"We'll bring her back with us. She doesn't have anyone." It stung, having someone else say that. It was one thing to tell myself I was alone, but it was different hearing someone say it so nonchalantly.

"Heichou, are you sure?" Her hand never moved from my head.

"Just do as I say."

"… Yes, Heichou." She turned to me, a strained smile painted across her lips. "Dani-chan, I'm going to carry you now, okay?"

I simply nodded, my eyes drooping. I guess the adrenaline was finally fading now and my exhaustion was catching up with me. I wrapped my arms around Petra's neck and buried my face in the crook of her neck. As she lifted off the ground, the sensation of flying hit my body and I fell asleep.

-0-

… I don't know why I'm doing a self-insert. I am the worst possible person to be in this universe. Why am I doing this. I suck at self-inserts. Maybe. This is my first one. I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M DOING.

I'll try not to make Dani look too… bleh. You know, try.

Yeah, so review or not. No pressure. Hope this was okay?