Chapter Text
Shit, if I don't pick up the pace, Miranda will seriously kill me. She always turns into a literal demon from hell whenever anyone's late or when someone doesn't meet her strict deadlines.... And it just so happens that today, I'm doing both.
Miranda, my boss, kindly reminded me last night that my end of month report was due today and I better have it on her desk no later then 8:30 a.m. And by kindly, I mean she threaten to rip out my internal organs with her bare hands and then hang me by my small intestine if I dared to be late. Was that against HR policy? Yes. Was I willing to file a formal complaint? No, I like my organs inside my body quite truthfully.
I thought about all the ways that Miranda has threatened to kill me as I ran just a little faster down the sidewalk. As I was sprinting through the morning crowds of New York City, I was also trying to juggle documents, a coffee, laptop case, and a briefcase. I didn't even have time to say sorry to the people I shoved in my scurry to get to work.
I swear, Miranda has the biggest stick up her ass when it comes to deadlines. It's not my fault that I had to finish all thirteen pages of the report the night before it was due. I mean, technically, I had a whole month to do it, but I got distracted. Was it reasonable to call catching up on my Netflix shows a distraction? No, but honestly, it was almost as if I couldn’t help myself. It was almost like I wanted to set myself up for failure on some subconscious level. Huh, maybe I have some kind of masochistic tendencies…
Well so what if I'm a procrastinator? It makes me unique. While the report thing may be my fault, the fact that I'm going to be late for work, surprisingly, isn’t. My alarm clock decided to go on strike this morning and never went off. When my lazy ass finally woke up and looked at the clock, I stared at it for a full minute before screaming and throwing myself out of bed. 8:02am, I only had twenty-eight minutes to get the report on Miranda's desk!
I ran around my small studio apartment trying to get ready for the morning. I grabbed some random clothes that probably didn't even match and made my way into the shower. After five minutes, I was dry and dressed, a new fucking record. I skipped over makeup, hair, and breakfast as I almost tripped over my cat. I just grabbed my papers and work related items and threw on a small pot of coffee, putting my shoes on while I waited for it to be done brewing. I looked over at Tobi, my small orange tabby cat, who was sitting by my coffee maker. Yes, I named my cat after a character from an anime, but that was five years ago when I was still 17 and in my Naruto phase, and I couldn’t very well change his name now.
I dumped the coffee in a travel mug, deciding black coffee would be fine, and ran out the door. I forgot to lock the door as I ran towards my 1996 Volkswagen, quickly unlocking the door and jumping in. My things were thrown in the passenger seat as I shoved my keys into the ignition and turned.....
“Fuck.” I sat there as my car sputtered to life, only to immediately die. Why did I have to have the shittiest car of all time?
Once again, the car door was thrown open as I gathered my things and jumped out. I slammed the car door shut and took off running down the road. I glanced at my watch quickly before slightly speeding up my pace. 8:17, I had thirteen minutes to get there. Geez, what an unlucky number.
So that's where I am now. With such the hurry this morning, I really hope I didn't forget anything. I mean, I didn't forget anything important like my report, because that would just be stupid…. right? Oh shit, did I seriously forget my report?!
I tried shifting the contents in my arms in an attempt to open my briefcase, managing to get the briefcase to balance on top of the pile in my hands before everything spilled onto the ground in front of me. I threw up my hands in defeat and crouched down with a frustrated growl, starting to gather my things. I saw that my coffee had spilled over most of my papers as I almost started to cry. Why can't this day just be over?
Evidently while my thoughts were otherwise occupied, I hadn't notice that I was crouching low in the middle of the road. Nor did I notice the red light turning green. Another important thing I didn't notice were the shouts and screams of terror as I picked up the wet papers. It's New York, it's always loud.
Finally, I had gathered up all my papers and found the report I had stayed up all night working on relatively clean. I allowed a relieved smile to settled on my lips as I straighten out the stack of papers. As soon as I stood up and lifted my head, I noticed the people on the crosswalk in front of me looking in my direction, completely terrified. I gave them a confused look and was about to question them when a loud noise interrupted all thoughts.
Hooooooonkkkk!
I looked over to my right in shock when I saw a wall of metal just a few feet away from my face, barreling straight at me. A horror struck look crossed my face before the truck smashed into me at full speed. The crunch and snapping of my bones met my ears and the metallic, meaty stench of blood filled the air as my whole body was suddenly crushed under the weight of sheer, unbearable pain. More shrieks came along with the sound of screeching tires. Everything around me seemed so insignificant at that moment and started to fade away, my pain ebbing away just as quickly as it’s struck, my whole world turned into black and soundless nothingness.
Am I… dead? Fuck, now what?
Let it be known now that I didn't handle stress too well and somehow, making light of my situation just seemed to make it easier to cope with hardships. Hardships like dying. But underneath that defense mechanism, I was having a full blown panic attack.
So now what happens? Afterlife? Will I go to Heaven or Hell? Probably Hell... Well, I never really believed in any of that stuff so I don't really know what will happen to me. Maybe I'll get reincarnated as a cat. That would be nice. Lie around all day, get pet, eat, and sleep. That’s the life I want to live. I would so be-
‘Ouch!’
A dull throbbing pulsed in the back of my non-existent head and got more painful every second. Why the hell does my head hurt? Or better yet, how does my head hurt? I don't even have a head... or a body for that matter. How can I talk? Or think? What the hell is going on here?
My whole body stared to burn and ache until the point where I started to scream. Undeniably, not worse then dying, but a close second. With all the pain mixed with the stress of, you know dying, I couldn't stop the hot tears that started to roll down my face. Wait, my face? I started to hear muffled voices and could almost feel something around me, something warm and comforting.
Am I still alive? After that accident?
I tried to move and noticed that I could feel my fingers curl slightly so I kept repeating that action, despite the pain it brought. As my senses started coming back, I could hear more clearly, although the world still looked black to me. I was still crying but my screams went down to loud whimpers as I brought my curled fingers up to my eyes. Oh, my eyes are closed! Hah, I knew that…
I tried to force my eyes open so I could see my hospital room. After an accident like that, I was no doubt in the ICU. The muffled voices began to become clear and I started to distinguished between the voices. I think there were three people in the room, probably my doctor and my parents. Ugh, I don't feel like talking to them right now.
I couldn't quite make out what the voices were saying, but I could hear what they sounded like. One of the voices was a man that was not my father. His voice was calm and soothing and he sounded pretty close to me, most likely the doctor. Another voice that was even closer to me sounded like a woman. I frowned slightly at her voice. She wasn't my mother... maybe a nurse? She sounded exhausted and her voice was quiet. There was one more voice that was a woman, and again, not my mother. Another nurse or doctor? It sounded like she was farther away and she sounded happy and excited about something. What's there to be happy about? I got run over by a giant fucking truck.
I reached up and rubbed my eyes again, trying to force myself to open them. Finally, after what seemed like hours of hearing unknown voices and staying in the dark, I managed to crack open my eyes. I looked up through squinted eyelids to see a blurry image of a person standing above me. I stared at them until my vision cleared some and froze completely at who I saw.
It wasn't my parents, sisters, brother, friends, or anyone I knew personally, no. I knew them alright, but I never thought I would ever actually see them standing in front of me. Just for a second, imagine what it would be like to suddenly wake up from being in an accident that was supposed to cause your brutal demise to see one of your all time favorite fictional characters standing above you. Yes, you'd be freaked out too.
Minato Namikaze stood in front of me with a bright smile plastered over his face. I fumbled around my head for an explanation. Maybe I was hallucinating? That can happen after a head injury, right? Wait, maybe this was heaven and all my favorite characters are here? Or maybe I just finally lost my marbles.
I looked down to see myself and just about wet myself at what I saw. I was a… baby. I- what?
My brain malfunctioned as I just looked up, trying to see if the ceiling held any answers. It didn't. I noticed red in the corner of my vision and shifted my gaze to see the one and only Kushina Uzumaki smiling down at me.
Suddenly, it all came to me. It was exactly like those fanfictions where the character gets a chain mail thing and never forwards it so she gets sucked into whatever anime it is. Except for me, I died and was somehow reborn into the Naruto world as Kushina and Minato's kid. Call it instinct, but for some reason I don't think this is just a hallucination.
I’m not sure if it’s possible for a newborn to get a panic attack, but if it was, that was definitely what was happening right now. No, this has to be a hallucination. It’s just not possible. Even if reincarnation was, this is a fucking fictional world. It doesn’t exist. Fuck, there’s no way I’m still sane. And really, who would after quite literally dying and being reborn into a fictional world of violence and death?