What is death?

Death is the knife that stabs the heart the hand that grips the throat-

Noun: the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism; the permanent ending of vital processes in a cell or tissue.

-the water that chokes the breath the blood that runs the fire that chars the body-

Ending of vital processes…such a clinical statement, isn't it? It tells nothing of those last, choking moments when death is such a certainty that you can feel it's heavy presence, of the desperate panic that ripples through you with the primal desire to live even as the hopelessness drags down what little fight remains. And how could you be expected to combat such a potent force? The sheer inevitability consumes your mind, shreds and shatters it with apathy because you are insignificant, just another mass of atoms in such an arrangement that allows you a life so easy to extinguish.

-the poison that breaks the body the smoke that clouds the mind the chains the constrict the lungs-

And it is easy, no matter the belief of invulnerability you cloak yourself in. Even the strongest can fall, will fall, for nothing escapes the cloying grasp of death when it comes to call. If fortune in in your favour perhaps you will live a long and happy life, achieve your ambitions and content yourself with the restfulness of old age, and pass away peacefully in your sleep. But in this world such luck is rare.

-the blow that crushes the bones the hunger that consumes the body the infection that burns the flesh-

So many ways to die…We're rather fragile, aren't we? It hardly takes any effort at all to kill. A well-placed blow with nary a weapon is all that is needed to down a man so much more powerful , so much stronger. A blade only makes things easier, if a little messy if you don't take care to avoid the blood. And those were only the simpler methods; poison, drowning, burning, blunt force trauma, overdose, overeating, electrocution, suffocation, disease, dehydration, starvation – and those are only off the top of my head! Flesh can be pieced, bone can be crushed, organs can be damaged, minds can be ravaged; the possibilities were endless.

We're so soft, so weak. Oh, we claim otherwise, but such validity is so easily pulled into question. Our illusions of power are just that; illusions. When you take away our…security blanket, shall we say, what remains of the power that once was?

What is a soldier without his gun? What is a government without its money? What is a mugger without his knife? What is a conman without his words? What is a genius without his mind?

-cutcutcut the flesh-

What is a serial killer without his tools?

One day, a boy is abandoned by his family in the deep woods.

A draught destroyed their crops and they could not feed themselves as well as the boy. The father carries him there whilst the boy sleeps, the mother and sister following close behind. They leave him at the base of a tree and hurry away.

The boy wakes and quickly realises what has happened. He does not cry.

The boy begins to walk. He follows no path for there are no paths in the deep wood. Humans rarely venture there for it is the territory of wolves. The boy walks, and as the sun sets he grows hungry.

The boy comes across an owl sitting in a tree, eating a rat. He calls out to the owl. "Oh Owl, won't you share your meal with me?"

The owl peers at the boy. "No, I will not. My beak is sharp and my talons will tear. Leave, or I will make you my supper!"

The boy walks away. He soon comes across a snake slung across a branch, eating a frog. "Oh Snake, won't you share your meal with me?"

The snake sneers at the boy. "I shan't, I say. My bite is deadly and my coils constrict. Leave, or I will make you my supper!"

The boy walks away. He soon comes across a wolf that hunches over three bodies, its snout buried in their flesh. The boy moves closer and sees that the bodies are his father, mother and sister, their throats torn out. He blinks and stops.

"Oh Wolf, won't you share your meal with me?"

Rebirth. It was a fanciful concept at best, one better suited to fairy tales where the good guys always won and evil was committed for evil's sake. It was unsupported, illogical and made no sense; how could a 'soul' be transferred from one body to another? Was there some higher power that had the ability to do so? Why would it do so in the first place, what could it possibly gain? Should it even exist in the first place, of course. If it could occur, how would the soul in question not be driven insane by such an act? To be a baby was to be helpless, completely dependent on those who cared for you, trapped in a world of blurs and incomprehensible sound in a body that could barely move. Cry and scream all you like; no one can understand your terror, your confusion, the life you've left behind.

So I didn't cry. I quickly realised what had happened, even as my awareness was clouded with the developing brain of a newborn and the confusion of such a strange experience. I'd died, and now I was alive in what was evidently a baby's body; it was hardly a difficult conclusion to come to. Denials would've come next – I'm in a coma, I'm dreaming, I'm in Hell – if I were someone else perhaps. I didn't drown myself in memories of my life because despite the absurdness of this situation I was happy. Why wouldn't I be? I'm alive when I should most certainly be dead, and I don't want to be dead, so how could I view this as a bad thing? I hadn't died peacefully, satisfied with my lot in life; I wanted to live.

It was irritating being a baby with so little control over my life when I was used to being an independent adult, but it was far better than the nothingness of death. I didn't believe in the afterlife – Heaven, Hell, Valhalla, etc. – so I hadn't exactly expected to find anything one the 'other side', as it were. Honestly being reborn was quite the improvement of the non-existence I'd expected.

However I didn't exactly appreciate my helpless state, so I set to learning as much about my surroundings as I could - which wasn't much. My vision was so poor that for a time everything was little more than blurs of various colours. Eventually it improved to an area of clarity in the middle of my field of vision, though it didn't extend beyond about half a metre, making it rather useless for figuring out where I was. It did, however allow me to recognise the faces of the people who I supposed were now my family. I learnt to recognise the dark-haired woman as my mother (who recovered from childbirth unusually quickly), the man who made a few appearances as my father, and a young boy as my brother.

Mother, father, brother…family. It was such a strange idea, really. With it came the expectation of an obligatory care for each other, a need to love these people who you may not even like. They may embody every characteristic that you loathe, but at the end of the day they were family. At least, that was what I'd heard. Personally I didn't understand the concept. Just because a person possessed DNA more similar to your own than the rest of humanity, they were more important? You should always love them no matter what crime they committed against you, and help them when they asked even if you would do no such thing for another? How did them being family make them any different?

Perhaps I was jaded by my own less than perfect childhood. As far as I could tell my new parents were very different from my previous ones, and though this father was a bit distant he still visited enough for me to realise who he was. My mother was startlingly affectionate, often speaking to me with a cheerful voice (I didn't understand the language yet, though it sounded similar to Japanese which I held some familiarity with, so learning it was my priority and entertainment for now) and rocking me in her arms. She'd passed me to my brother a few times allowing him to hold me for a while, which had made me distinctly nervous – I was a tiny, defenceless baby; I really didn't want to be dropped – but the young boy was always exceedingly careful. Strange, as he couldn't be older than five, but I supposed he could just be very mature for his age.

I hovered constantly between boredom and fascination. I was curious about where I'd ended up, what country this was – the language wasn't Japanese, no matter how similar, so I wondered just where I was – and what its culture was like and how it differed from my own. On the other hand, my young body severely limited my ability to perceive and thus learn more about my surroundings. Essentially, my world revolved around the three people who were now my family.

Thankfully my mother didn't seem to have a job and so would entertain me with little prompting. Of course, the 'entertainment' was rather demeaning since she thought that I was a normal infant, but it was better than lying in my cot all day. I was too weak to move around much, but when I was left alone at night I spent several hours methodically exercising my muscles as best I could, building up my strength.I was vaguely aware that infants didn't become mobile until they were over six months old, but I figured that a bit of a head start could just be passed off as early development. It wouldn't be bad to be seen as a highly intelligent child, but if that passed over the line into abnormality there was no telling how people would react.

Strangely, my body adapted quite quickly to my attempts at movement. I had very little coordination in the first few weeks, but by a month and a half I could sit myself upright without any support, use my hands effectively (rather than having a uselessly loose grip) and my vision was beginning to clear. I took to pulling the hair of my new relatives and watching their reactions; my mother would laugh, my father would frown and gently admonish me, whilst my brother would lightly tug my own hair (what little I had) in return with a smile. Just for that I decided I liked the boy, which was good as our mother (the term still sounded strange, even in my head) encouraged any interaction between us.

I settled into a routine; spend the majority of the night doing what exercise my body could manage, sleep when my exhaustion overwhelmed my determination, be woken by my mother for the indignity of 'breakfast' and a change of nappy (which I would happily repress if given the chance, though it did reveal my gender as being male), play for a while with a member of my family, sleep some more (my infant body was rather fond of that particular pastime), and repeat. The mind-numbing boredom was just barely kept at bay, but I could grudgingly bring myself to admit that I was at least…content.

And then came an event that would turn everything I knew on its head, complicating my new life to an extent that I'm quite impressed I didn't go insane.

It started off like any other day, cliché as that sounds. I was woken sometime late morning by my mother who cleaned me as usual, and then wrapped up, which wasn't. My grasp of the language was far from fluent but I could manage to understand a few words and phrases from time to time, so when she started talking in that exaggerated tone that many adults took with children (which, though the indignity of being spoken to in such a way made me glare inwardly, actually did help me in learning the language since each word was stressed and repeated in such a way that it was easier to remember) I was able to pick up the words "walk" and "village". Putting two and two together I smiled at her – I wanted to encourage this behaviour after all, and in a psychology class I'd learnt that 'rewards' such as this signalling behaviour could act as reinforcement between child and parent – actually feeling somewhat excited at the prospect.

In however long I'd lived this life – perhaps two or three months – I'd never left the house, and was rather eager to explore my new environment. It would hopefully give me some clue as to where I was. My house seemed quite modern with clear Japanese tones to its design such as the sliding doors and tatami flooring, whilst my family were well-fed – it was obvious that they were relatively wealthy at least, though somewhat conservative in their plain clothing. Going outside the house would hopefully reveal more.

My eyesight still wasn't the best, but as my mother walked down the street I could make out the buildings on each side. They were rather odd looking to my westernised eyes, again seeming to take after the Japanese tone of this place, and none of them exceeded two stories. There were quite a few people who walked by us, most greeting my mother politely as they went. I noticed that almost all of them had dark hair and pale skin like my family, and wondered if perhaps they were relatives. The few who peered down at me as my mother evidently introduced me also shared similarly dark eyes.

My mother reached a large gate and walked through with a nod to the two men standing on either side. Were they guards of some sort? Why would there be a need for them? With an internal shrug I looked around at my new surroundings.

There were more buildings of a similar style to the ones inside the - compound? I supposed that worked – though here the most predominant colour was a bright, eye-catching red. There were also a few taller structures, though none of them came near the size of skyscrapers, and I identified several shops selling various goods from clothes to food. The people here were dressed in similar clothing to my family; generally simple designs, not a pair of jeans in sight. A green vest seemed to be popular, and headbands continued to show up on various people with not apparent preference to age or gender. Was that a trend here?

"Mikoto!" A woman shouted happily from across the street. I blinked and she was standing in front of us, a large grin on her face. What?! How did she get over here so fast- I must've imagined her being so far away. It was impossible to move that quickly.

'Mikoto'? I presumed that was my mother's name, since she responded to the brunette woman with a smile and began talking to her. The woman made wild gestures with her hands as she talked and I examined her curiously. She wore a green padded vest like others I seen, and a headband also adorned her forehead. As close as she was I could see that there was a metal plate on the grey material, with some sort of symbol inscribed on it. Peering closely I saw that it resembled…a leaf, maybe?

I frowned inwardly. It seemed familiar somehow, as if I'd seen it a long time ago…suddenly suspicious I cast a shrewd gaze upon my environment, specifically looking for anything that seemed out of place. A woman walked passed with a screaming toddler in her arms, a long-suffering look on her thin face. A young boy was petting a cat over near an alleyway, looking around for a moment before pulling a chunk of meat from his pocket and settling it in front of the feline. A grey-haired man was selling various fruits to three children with headbands, and the girl of the trio handed over some coins with a smile. I was about to look away when in a powerful bound the three leaped from the street to the rooftops, taking off at a run that far outpaced human limits.

Gaping, I tried to associate what I'd just seen with reality. That was impossible! It just- it was a blatant defiance of physics, of the rules of the universe that were the damn rules for a reason – you didn't just break them! The only way something like that could happen was if I was hallucinating, or if this was a whole other universe with its own laws-

Click. A memory slid into place, images dancing behind my eyes. It was a story about a boy who lived in a village (with red red buildings) and became a ninja (headbands – hitai-ate, green vests – chuunin, impossible feats – leap to a rooftop , chakra – the humming beneath my skin). He had two teammates; a girl with pink hair, and a boy who betrayed him and his village, all to avenge his clan-

And suddenly the words that had been so incomprehensible began to make sense with my realisation. My family had all spoken to me at some point, as well as a few strangers who'd visited briefly, and it was only upon looking back that I understood I'd heard a name – my name. (take my name take my face am I but a shadow of the - any other name would be just as –to define in such a crude manner as a name how low the mighty have fallen unto the world which tangles and twists-) The shock brought my rapid thoughts to a stuttering halt.

The brunette woman appeared in my vision, leaning close to my face as she said brightly, "Hi Sasuke-chan!"

The wolf smiles its bloody smile, and the boy smiles back.

A/N: So this new story is inspired by the many SI/oc-insert Naruto reincarnation stories that I've read. I've seen a couple of others who had the OC!Sasuke theme, but I decided to put my own spin on it.

And by spin, I mean that rather than having a normal, sane OC as tends to be the case, you get this amoral, very intelligent, likely insane guy (who's gender has still not actually been specified, nor do they even have a name) who, though they know the plot of Naruto, is hardly a fangirl. So yeah, there won't be any 'OMG ninjas kill?' angst from this guy. The weird rant about death at the beginning? That's only the tip of the iceberg.

Likely this'll be a combination of a more gritty Narutoverse whilst still containing the awesome fights we're so fond of, however unrealistic they are.

Let me know what you think so far – I do read every review, and will more often than not reply if you ask a question. Any suggestions for pairings are welcome (though in the end this may remain gen, and if there is a pairing it won't be for a long while and won't be spontaneous – obligatory fangirls notwithstanding), although giving a reason behind your thoughts would be preferable. Also, I'm thinking about switching to third person but I'm not sure if it'd be better; what do you think?

Hope you enjoyed!