Part 1 - Kaede

"Normal is an illusion. What is normal for the spider is chaos for the fly." - Morticia Addams

The first thing you should know about me is that I died, as that is probably the most important event in my life.

The second thing you should know about me, is that after I died, I woke up.

When you die, the one thing you can expected is to stay dead. Even with ideas like rebirth - which I have never believed in - you don't return as the same person. No matter what, when you die, everything about you is gone. It is over in a heartbeat.

My sister never really liked to talk about death. She'd make sure to shut down any conversations about it, and was always more fearful of others dying than I ever was. Though I was scared of people I cared for dying, it was something far away, that wouldn't affect me for years.

However, I thought about my own death more than I would ever tell anyone else. Would people miss me if I ever died? Would it be quick, or drawn out? Would I be old or young? What would my grave say? Would those I considered my friends visit? Would my family cry? What would happen to the things and people I had left behind?

What would happen next?

Sometimes I believe in heaven and hell, other times, when I am sad and depressed late at night, I believe we simply stop. Occasionally I ponder if our souls and consciousnesses remain in our bodies after death, and we are left screaming in unresponsive bodies until the end of our days. And occasionally, I think of rebirth.

To be honest, whenever I think of reincarnation, it just slips through my mind. Every source I have heard of makes you a new person, atoning for the mistakes of your last life. This always seemed unfair to me. For You, and everything that makes You you, is gone, and it is simply a new person paying for all of your screw ups, just as you must've done for someone else.

However, when the tyres are screeching all around me, and my backpack is flying through the air like a screwed up bird, all I can think is, Huh, guess I won't have to do my history homework after all…

It is surprisingly depressing.

I don't die immediately. Everything goes very blurry and I can't see, so I think my glasses are gone. I think I'm also probably showing people my pants, which makes me want to laugh, but when I try, all I can feel is a warm liquid pooling around my chin, oozing from my mouth. My blood. I can see my house and my school, which is surprisingly comforting, and I can hear someone screaming my name. It's weird. But I can remember wondering if I'd die like this, many times as I cross this road on my way home from school, wondering what people would think, but I still never thought this was how I would truly die. A moment of carelessness. Stepping out onto the road, forgetting to check. One mistake, and it was all done. Game Over.

I hope someone remembers to tell my parents soon. I hope they can continue to live, and aren't sad. I hope my little sister goes on to accomplish great things. I wish I could tell them I loved them one last time - even my annoying little sister. And selfish though it may be, I hope I am never forgotten.

And then I died.

.

.

.

And then I woke up.

Everything around me was dark, and it was stuffy and warm. I felt like I was floating - completely cut off from reality. Was I in hell? I didn't know. I could still feel phantom pains from my death - shards of glass that had long gone, and broken bones that were once again whole. I didn't know how long I was in the dark place, nothing changed there but me. I grew and changed, but everything around me was still. The place became cramped, at eventually I could barely move. It felt less like I was floating, and more like I had been shoved in a tiny box, two sizes too small for me. I had no idea what was going on, nor how long I was in that place, but suddenly, after what felt like years to me, the darkness began to rock and fadre, and I was surrounded by light. I felt like I was being squeezed through a tiny tube, like toothpaste. My head and body burned, and I wanted to scream, and even when the darkness went away, I could see nothing clearly. The new place I had found myself in was glaringly white, and made my eyes itch and tingle. I felt weaker than I had ever felt before, and like my soul and mind had just returned to me after many nights in the dark. I was alone and confused and nothing around me made sense. I was lying on a cold metal table, and I was too scared of what was going on to even scream. It felt like an eternity of blurry shapes moving around me, hearing nothing but disjointed screams, murmured words and electronic beeps. I don't know whether it was just a few moments of an eternity, but the next thing I knew, I was back in the darkness. It was a different one from what I had become used to, but it was comforting. It was colder than it had been before, and reminded me more of my life before the dark place, than the uncomfortable warmth of That place.

It was weeks before I could see again, and I missed the shitty eyesight of my life before, more than anything. All I can remember of the next while was blurs of silver and black, and a tingle of energy that surrounded everything - myself included. When my eyesight returned, I came to a startling conclusion. I had been reborn. Originally, I had thought that I had just been in a coma or something, and that what I had thought was my death, had not been. But, it turns out that once again I was a baby, which meant that the strange dark place I had been squeezed out of had been a womb. My new mothers womb. But I never saw my mother - my elder brother and father, sure, but never my mother. It was quite some time before I learnt that she had died due to complications in childbirth. I always felt guilty about that, and brother and father were always sad when mother was mentioned, so we didn't talk about her again. I looked a lot like how my mother had looked - same green eyes, and dark brown hair - and nothing like the rest of my family. They were all silver and black. That really should have been my first clue. Looking back though, there were so many things that I just dismissed at the time, but were actually proof of what had happened to me. So many things that I forced myself to forget, rather than face the situation I had found myself in.

My name was Kaede Hatake.

I was a quiet, serious baby - probably because my soul was fifteen years older than the rest of me.

I was the younger sister of Kakashi Hatake, and my the only daughter of Sakumo Hatake, and I had been reborn into the Naruto Universe.

A.N.

Cheesy I know, but I figured I should try a self Insert. I read a couple of good ones, which was weird, cause I had loads of preconceived notions of their stupidity, which was very untrue.

I won't have many authors notes this long, but I wanted to clarify a few things.

For one thing, this is a Self Insert, however, my character will only loosely be based off of me. The original version will be completely me, but I feel that if someone found themselves in a completely new world, they would change, so I'll think of how I would change, but I'll also give Kaede characteristics I strive for, but I'm not sure I achieve.

Also, these are the ages of the main characters at the end of this chapter.

Kakashi - 2 years old

Sakumo - 3 years before his canon death. (I can't find out his age).

Kaede - 0 years old

Just wanted to clarify.

Hope you enjoyed!

Ellie