Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Looking back, I'm surprised that I wasn't killed immediately. Being dumped into the Naruto-verse after my death led to a plethora of problems, but I like to think I made a positive difference in the world. Maybe. Kind-ish.

Anyways I found myself in a dark and warm place after my past life, and for a long time I assumed it was the afterlife. I was content, if not a bit bored. That all changed when I popped out of my poor mother's stomach. Let's just say there's a good reason babies don't remember birth-it's practically a self-preservation mechanism. Even as a grown woman, I shiver when I recall that terrible squeezing and light burning through by poor eyes like some kind of demented fire of God trying to burn you off the face of existence.

I was a very loud baby, and my poor family spent many nights up with me, but they were very affectionate anyways. I didn't know it at the time, but the Third Great Shinobi War was just beginning, and my parents were mere civilians. My mother would later confess to being terrified that my screams were due to some enemy nin rather than just the volatile temper of a newborn brat.

Thankfully, her fears were unfounded, and I grew up without tragedy, if not a bit bored. Without anything to entertain me, I found myself with a great dilemma. As a baby, I had no way to speak or move or even simply use the toilet. That left me with only one thing to do: think. I'm not a genius or anything, but all that time thinking changed me. I thought about my past life, how weird this reincarnation shit was, my regrets, my hopes, my dreams, everything. I began to cry less and less, and soon enough I became quite silent. My parents were obviously a bit worried at my seemingly dramatic personality shift, but I think their gratitude for a full nights sleep tempered their anxiety a bit.

For that time, I was very lonely. I had no way to express myself fully, and I found out that thinking is no substitute for friendship. I thought and thought, missing my old friends, my old life, but most greatly, regretting the absolute normalcy of my past. I tried to remember one clandestine moment buried deep in my heart where I had been truly proud of my accomplishments; some memory that I could remember and think, "Yeah, that was pretty awesome." Something I could claim as unforgettable.

There was nothing. I had nothing like that in my past life-no "crowning glory", no great achievement, no legacy. I was a normal girl who died young and whose name would be swept up and buried by the sands of time. I felt as if I was nothing. What the heck had I been striving for?

After reaching these conclusions on the insignificance of my past life and have an angsty baby cry-a-thon, I became angry. Not just angry, pissed. Why the fuck hadn't I tried harder? Done more? Done something? Who was I to feel sorry for myself when I hadn't done a damn thing about it? This angry passion led to probably the single most important vow I've made since coming to this new world.

I vowed to make a difference this time around. Little did I know then that this was probably one of the stupidest things I've ever done, seeing as I had been unwittingly thrust into a society of murders and psychopaths. It was absolutely my proudest moment.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Being as I was an "oops" child, my mother and father were very old-practically geezer and hag status, a fact I teased them about relentlessly. However, they were the best parents a kid could ask for. Takuma, my father, was the owner of

"Kobayashi Dango" and my mother, Hikari, was the master of the kitchen. She was scary-good in the kitchen, and I'm pretty sure I inherited my kunai throwing skills from her. In my past life, I'd never tried much Japanese cuisine, so I was wary of the rice dumplings, however, the first time I tasted one of my mother's An-Dango the warm, soft grilled mocha-ball practically melted in my mouth, and from then on I was hooked. Of course, I was only a couple months old when my dad snuck me my first ball of Dango, so I was promptly sick, but seeing my father beaten with a ladle definitely compensated.

The day my chakra began to form was a scary one. The night was cool, but I woke with heat searing underneath my skin. But worse, so much worse, was the pulling, groping sensation of my very self. Chakra is the manifestation of your spiritual and physical energies, and while my body was suited for chakra, being as it was born of the naruto-verse, my spirit was not. So when my chakra tried to "take" some of my spiritual energy, I was terrified. It felt as if something was trying to rip away tiny pieces of myself and I had no defense. There was absolutely no way for me to protect this tiny flame of self that I had just now become aware of. Before, I just knew I was me. That's it-you are yourself, you can't feel the separation of body and mind-they are one entity. However, as my chakra developed I became aware of my spirit and how very very fragile it was. The best way I can describe it is that I seemed to develop a separate sense for my own spiritual energy. The phrase "you don't know what you have until it's gone" is an apt description-as soon as my spirit was in "danger" I became cognizant of it's existence, only to know I could do nothing to protect it.

Fortunately, my own chakra turned out to not be an enemy, eager to steal my soul. It's a bit embarrassing, but I actually peed my pants and fainted. When I came to, my chakra had connected with my spiritual energy, and everything was alright. From what I learned about chakra as I grew up, I figure the only reason I went through that ordeal was because my spiritual energy, unfit for the naruto-verse, rebelled against the natural creation of chakra. As soon as I feinted and quit trying to resist the morphing of my energies, I was fine. However, while I still had no separate feel for my "physical" energy, seeing as it had no qualms with creating chakra, I still had a separate sense for my spiritual energies. This would develop into a much bigger deal on the path ahead of me, but at the time I was safe and sound and breathed a huge sigh of relief. Luckily, as a baby, peeing yourself isn't a big deal, and by morning I had regained consciousness, so my parents were none-the wiser to my abnormal reaction.

For the next couple of weeks, the only unpleasantness in my life was the itchy feeling of my chakra coils developing and being flushed with chakra. Hikari and Takuma thought it was hilarious that I was constantly itching as my chakra developed. I was a bit offended that they weren't worried about me, but I later found out that it was common for toddlers to itch when chakra was developing, so they knew exactly what was going on.

Being able to sense how defenseless my spiritual energies were became quite the conundrum for me. I knew I had no protection, but had no clue how to create any. So I began experimenting. The only entity that could seemingly "touch" my spiritual energies was my chakra(at the time I thought it was some weird after-affect of reincarnation, filed it away under "reincarnation shit that I can do nothing about", and moved on). Seeing as chakra was the only thing that could touch my spiritual energy, it was the only thing I could think of that would be able to protect my spiritual energy. Thus, I began trying to manipulate it to my will. I tried forming a wall, but it soon became apparent that wasn't happening anytime soon. I know now that I was having trouble because I was only manipulating the spiritual half of my chakra, and was completely neglecting the physical. The physical half was acting like a deadweight to the spiritual half because that was all I could manipulate. It was made even worse by the close proximity of my chakra to my spiritual "core". I was so tuned in to my yang properties, that I was completely neglecting the yin portion, and no matter how I tried, I couldn't get my chakra to move like I wanted it to. Frustrated by my failure, but even moreso by my utter lack of any idea of how to proceed, I eventually stopped my efforts. I sulked a lot, but Hikari and Takuma always cheered my up with dango, so I sucked it up. I could still sense my yang properties, but I just had to hope that nothing would hurt them.

Despite my struggles with chakra, I grew up with the warm scent of Dango in the air and found myself happy. However, at three years old, It was Kobayashi Dango that led to my revelation that I had been reincarnated into the Naruto-verse.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"Kokoru!" Grinning impishly at my mom, I stuffed my face with a ball of dango, the sweat red-bean dribbling down my chin.

With a sigh, Hikari scooped me up in her arms, away from the glistening orbs of sweet-dango goodness. Pouting, I began to play with her graying brown hair, tangling my fingers in soft strands.

Giving me a soft kiss, my mother carried me to the front of the shop-one of my favorite places. Since I was a baby, I very rarely got to see anything outside of Kobayashi's kitchen, and I loved people watching at the shop.

"Hatake-san, I'm very sorry, but it seems you'll have to wait a bit longer for your dango. My daughter seems to have eaten some of yours."

Hatake? Once I heard that surname, I immediately zeroed in on the man in front of me, his silver hair, the eye smile. No way. No flipping way. I completely missed the friendly response he gave until my mother started chuckling, pinching my cheek.

"What do you say to Sakumo-san Kokoro?" All eyes were on me. All four eyes because this wasn't Cyclops Kakashi, but his dad. Alive.

"Mphfblurgh?".

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I'm pretty sure Sakumo thought I was mentally challenged after that little episode, but that thought barely phased me seeing as I had bigger things to worry about. I was in Konoha. The brainchild of Kishimoto. A village of freaking ninja. And Sakumo was still alive. Meaning shit had yet to hit the fan. Or at least the shit I knew about. I really needed to figure out exactly where I was in the timeline-then I could worry about what I was going to do. Because I was going to do something. No way was I letting this second chance pass me by, I was going to make a difference here, crazy "curses of hatred" and senile bastard Uchiha's be damned. Kokoro Kobayashi was taking the ninja world by storm.

Author's Note: Heyoo readers. This is my first fic, so please be patient while I figure out how to work this cite/improve my writing. Reviews would be very helpful.

-BOOspook