You were (re)introduced to this world as Suzuki Yua-- the youngest child and only daughter of a rich merchant; a once-in-a-century prodigy with budding potential. Despite knowing this, it didn't feel right being called by your supposed birth name. To you, Suzuki Yua sounded foreign, wrong; a snake skin you can easily discard, as it is not a permanent part of you.

It's just... not you, and you've spent a year wondering why you thought that way.

Within that first year of your (new) life, you vividly remember being hyperaware of your surroundings, and being abnormally adept at adjusting accordingly. It was like instinct, knowing exactly what to do-- what you're supposed to do (albeit with difficulty due to developing motor skills). You possess practical knowledge that no infant should possess, and yet you know how to crawl, walk, run, talk, read, write, fight, wield kunais, throw senbon needles, mold chakra, perform jutsus--

Once again, you ask yourself; why?

The moment Tanaka Sakura properly introduced herself to you was when your questions were finally answered. When you heard the name "Sakura"...

You remember candy pink hair matched with seafoam green eyes; a girl--no, a determined kunoichi who strived for greatness by being a legendary medic-nin. She who lived by her principles until the very end; Haruno Sakura.

You remember sunshine blond hair and ocean blue eyes; a lonely jinchuuriki who continued to reach out despite receiving seemingly endless rejections, until he finally found his family by bonds. He who dreamed to be the future Hokage; Uzumaki Naruto.

You remember raven hair and midnight black eyes; a self-proclaimed avenger who made mistakes after mistakes due to his blinding hatred towards the world he believed that wronged him. He who loved and lost too much; Uchiha Sasuke.

You remember your best friend, Uchiha Shisui; you remember your mission partner, Hatake Kakashi; you remember your confidant, Uchiha Itachi; you remember your pseudo-parents, Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato; you remember your first friend, Nohara Rin; you remember your brother, Uchiha Obito.

You remember everyone.

And then, you remember you; yourself. A failure of a protector who had nothing left to lose.

You remember your real name; once a member of the Uchiha clan. The only living member of the Uchiha clan.

After you managed to recall every one of your precious people, the following year was when you recollected everything that happened to them-- shown within every night of your fever dreams. You didn't get much sleep within those days.

The chidori, the Kyuubi, the Naka river, his illness, Zetsu-Orochimaru, Uchiha Madara, the falling boulder, the endless dying patients, the Zetsu army, Edo-Tensei, Black Zetsu; tragedy after tragedy until you have no one left.

(Would there still be tragedy for you now that you have no one left?)

Another matter that seemed to baffle you was your Eternal Mangkeyou Sharingan. How you managed attain the kekkai genkai despite not being reborn as an Uchiha, much less retain it to its highest form was beyond you. However, it's not without a cost.

When you first gained the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, Obito's long-range Kamui was not part of your repertoire; it was sacrificed to give you less strain when using the dojutsu for your remaining abilities, which are: short-range Kamui, your two-part Kuninotokotachi, and your unused Susanoo.

Now in your current life, another one of your abilities was sacrificed to gain these eyes; your future vision. In a way, it made sense as your eyes were new and you no longer have an Uchiha sibling to exchange your eyes with.

The moment you realized you no longer had the other half of your Kuninotokotachi, you panicked. It took you months before you could barely make peace with losing your best asset. You guessed that you would rather lose your future sight than your actual eyesight.

(He asked for a favor, and now life favors you.)

Growing up, other than calligraphy, you enjoy gardening. Maybe it's of old habit, maybe it's of paranoia, but either way, you liked planting and raising a lot medicinal herbs, especially with the Land of Grass' good climate. During the Fourth Shinobi War, it was a luxury to have a greenhouse full of them, which reminded you of how scarce it was to spot wild greenery when everywhere was a potential battlefield.

The Suzuki open garden was nearby a river, the red spiderlilies lining the riverbank every late summer and autumn.

(You remember Shisui's hesitant goodbye.)

That was where you met your crow summons; they still recognize you.

(You remember Itachi's resolved valediction.)

Your caretaker made an off-hand joke about putting up scarecrows to shoo the black birds away.

(You remember Kakashi's grim farewell.)

(They never return; they all leave you behind. Your begging always fall unto deaf ears pleasestopleavingdon'tgostaywithme--)

You chose not to waste your new life. You knew it would be useless to try and distance yourself to other people to not form connections. Kakashi used to say you have a soft but strong heart-- despite losing too many people, you always have the strength to welcome new people in. You will want to protect your future precious people.

So you trained.

Using a shadow clone in your place, you trained behind Sakura's (the caretaker) back. You don't dare train in only one spot and risk having an uninvited audience. You're already risking enough by having your caretaker see your scarred and calloused hands. Fortunately, you chose to remaster medical ninjutsu first, and the rest of your skills followed.

Endurance, speed, chakra control, accuracy, strength, ninjutsu, taijutsu, fuuinjutsu, genjutsu-- you will be better than before.

In your past life, it was Obito who won the physical lottery between the two of you-- better stamina, bigger chakra reserves, stronger constitution, while you only beat him in the regards of intelligence and the amount of times you've been sick. Now that you're in a new body, you didn't have the same disadvantages you've had before.

However, there was one jutsu in your arsenal that you were hesitant to use; the Kamui dimension. You're afraid that if you enter the pocket dimension, Black Zetsu, Uchiha Madara, and your rotting corpse would be greeting you on the other side.

But... this should be a new world, right? One where they don't exist; pocket dimension or not. Your new start, despite being gifted (cursed) to have your past memories. Otherwise, this world should still be in the chaos of the war.

It was only after you trained yourself to be as fast as Shisui (now with an early access to your sharingan, you followed his training regime religiously) when you decided to visit the Kamui dimension to escape if necessary. The Kamui was something you need; you chose not to lose another valuable asset because of your cowardice.

When you entered it, you were relieved it was empty.

No Black Zetsu, no Uchiha Madara, no rotting corpse, no blood; not even your (Shisui's) hitai-ate was there.

You continued your training in the Kamui dimension to reduce the risks of being caught.

On another topic, your... the Suzuki family was disappointing.

Other than Tanaka Sakura, none of your six brothers nor your alive father was present enough for you to recognize them. With your memory being as good as an adult's, that's saying a lot.

You can live life with an absent father, you supposed, as you never experienced having a father from Before. However, you weren't used growing up without a brother, or in this case, brothers. You can hardly even call them that with how scarce they were in your life. They never asked anything in regards of your well-being, and after your first birthday, you didn't receive any more presents from them; as if their gift-giving was just a formal tradition and not an attempt for thoughtful sentiments. You even reached out an olive branch and made attempts to connect to them by writing letters, but you never got a reply back.

Maybe you were being an unreasonable brat who was used to being spoilt with affections by your older brother in your old childhood, or maybe you were salty at the fact that the universe was trying to replace your aniki; either way, you didn't like your new brothers.

Angry as you were towards Obito for what he did, at the very least, you acknowledge that he did it out of blind love.

When you first met four of your six brothers, you seethed that they blamed Sakura for never teaching you how to address family properly, as if it was her job to have you show affection towards your absent brothers. As if they actually deserved your affections. Unfortunately, your love for them is not unconditional.

"Maah, maah, sorry if I acted too coldly. I just met you all, so I don't really know how I should treat brothers, as I didn't grow up with a single one... nii-san." Even jokingly, you didn't dare address them as aniki; only Obito deserves that title. This is the most casual you could get with your new brothers.

Naturally, they were displeased with your 'disrespect', and perhaps maybe they're not as dense as you first thought they were, and finally realized that they actually have to make an effort to connect with you... to which they didn't make.

Thus, that was officially the end of your attempt of a relationship with them.

However, they did tell Father of your prodigious talents; you weren't exactly trying to hide that you're a 'prodigy', as you'd like to have them sooner treat you like an adult rather than a child. Maybe they can even enroll you to an academy at a nearer date, if there's something of an education here. Maybe with your prestige, perhaps private tutoring is a possibility too.

Eventually, you met your two other siblings and your father, along with his guests; the Sato clan head and his escorts. Your presence was nearly invisible during dinner, as you had no interest joining their conversation. But...

On hindsight, with your luck, you should've seen this twist coming.

When you heard mentions of the Uchiha and Senju being at war, something made a ripple at the dark waters of your mind which quickly turned into a tidal wave and coldly drenched you at the realization of what the dinner conversation has possibly implied. And then everything made sense.

It's no wonder why everything looked so ancient, even for traditional standards, despite living in a rich household; why every system you've picked up on written texts seemed so archaic; why the maps looked suspiciously similar to your old world, but was really just outdated.

There is no Fourth Shinobi War because it hasn't happened yet. Your Kamui is empty because you haven't defeated Black Zetsu and Madara yet. None of your precious people are dead because they weren't even born yet!

This is not an alternate reality where your enemies don't exist; this is the past!

At this realization, you felt barely bridled rage, and it seeped out of you in the form of Killing Intent, suffocating the whole room with your palpable inner turmoil. Your eyes burned with unshed, frustrated tears; your focus was divided on compartmentalizing your conflicted thoughts and doing your best on not having your sharingan activate in your emotional pressure.

You shouldn't have been naive.

Instead of finding peace after your death or at least having a new start, you were plunged far back into the past with the burdens of knowing the dark future that lays ahead of you. And here you thought you'd no longer have to face either Black Zetsu or Uchiha Madara, but now life is asking you to face them head-on, because you would definitely do your utmost efforts to not have them walk longer on this earth--whether asked to or not.

You were so mad at the fact that you suffered years of war, when all this time, you could've just ended yourself earlier and be given a head start at the beginning of it all. Every sacrifice you've made had been unnecessary. If only you gave in to your temptations earlier in the war...

You didn't have to see the rest of Team 7 go one by one. You didn't have to see Kakashi's defeated smile; you didn't have to watch Sakura slowly die as she gave her life force away to her patients; you didn't have to hear the news of Naruto sacrificing himself.

Kami, if only you knew.

But then, you have it in the end, don't you? While this may not be the peace or new start you were looking for, you can't deny that this is still your second chance. You can give your precious people better lives with this opportunity.

(Albeit, you won't get to experience their better lives with them. But that's okay, you've made peace that they're all far out of your reach now; past or not. You'd still do this for them. After all, your love for them would forever be unconditional.)

You can do better.

You just have to do it right.

With a firm resolve, you curbed your Killing Intent, letting the people in the dining room finally breathe, and continue on the conversation after a momentary gap of silence.

And then your move to the Land of Fire was discussed due to your arranged marriage within the Sato clan; you had no choice in the matter. At first, you were annoyed, maybe even disgusted at the prospect of marrying a stranger you have no former connections with. Especially of all, you were displeased at having your caretaker ripped from your life.

However, the more you thought about it, the more you grow to be not entirely against it. After all, it gave you the opportunity to leave the Land of Grass and go to the main source of all future apocalyptic disasters; the birth place of Konohagakure.

And so you did what you do best: plan, plot, scheme. Always so careful and always so wary, your comrades often tell you.

You will stage your kidnapping at the day of your departure with the use of shadow clones, and you will then freely venture around the Land of Fire on your own.

(You hope the Sarutobi won't bear grudges for this.)

Your first concern is to gather information; find out where Black Zetsu could possibly lurk, his strengths and weaknesses, and see how many options you have on eliminating him (and then you get rid of Madara after he builds Konohagakure with Hashirama).

No live human knows of Black Zetsu's existence, not even texts of myths or legends mentioned him. That in itself was enough to discourage anyone who doesn't know what or rather who to look for. Luckily for you, you're not just anyone.

You know someone who is aware of Black Zetsu's origins, who knows of history that exceeds records; and especially of all, he is aware of how much of a threat of Otsutsuki Kaguya's re-awakening could really be.

And so your journey for a better future begins.

~*~*~

Today was like any other day for him, with the exception of him being conscious to hear the surrounding forest's white noises, tempting him to a long sleep. He briefly appreciated the view of his open-walled abode, before closing his eyes. He was often if not always asleep, as he had nothing better to do to pass his time. Although, there were intervals in weeks when he would be momentarily awake before succumbing back to his peaceful slumber; such is the way that dictates his lethargic life.

This afternoon was one of his occasional consciousness, but... something about today was different.

The stone pillars around him aged but remained sturdy; undamaged, as he expected nothing less from its creator that also created him. Nothing within his enclosed space seemed unnatural, so he easily deduced that it must be an outside factor.

Was the season changing? An upcoming eclipse?... Or were there passing, warmongering humans?

No, he corrected himself, his sensitive nose picking up the foreign scent. Human.

Only one.

And it's not passing by, it's approaching him. Its distance is nearing.

He sat up straight, his long ears flattened against his head, as his sharp canines showed itself in a prepared snarl-- a wordless warning for his upcoming, uninvited visitor (it is not and never will be a guest), if his titanic size and aggressive orange were not enough to intimidate the newcomer.

Nine tails swayed within the huge temple.

"Whooh, that was a lot of stairs!" It hooted, the human entering within his visage.

Admittedly, he did not expect that to be the first noise his visitor would make. Nevertheless, a growl reverberated from his throat, catching the human's attention.

The human, he observed, was nothing more than a mere kit.

Was it lost and perhaps sought shelter within his temple? Unfortunate. Maybe, he could just end its pitiful life quickly to end its suffering. After all, it's quite unlikely for it to be found within his vast forest. Why have it thirst and starve if it could just die swiftly? He was being merciful, he justified.

Before he could even raise his paw to make an attempt at its life, it spoke again.

"Eyy, Kurama! Long time, no see!" The kit started, its hand making a lazy wave to his direction. "Before we begin, I just wanna say: your grandma is a bitch!"

... What? How--

"And her bastard of a son? Son of a bitch!"

A million thoughts ran within his mind, and with an impatient snarl, he immediately boomed, "Who are you?!"

With a smile and eyes that don't belong to a child, it introduced itself.

"In this life, my name is Suzuki Yua," It-- she said, before her dark eyes spun with three black tomoe, glowing red that was similar to his own. The sharingan, he realized with astonishment. "But my real name is Uchiha (Y/n)."

The three tomoe transformed into pattern he was unfamiliar with, and with her murmur of "Kuninotokotachi", everything within his peripherals blurred.

And then, Kurama watched the past that would become their future.

~*~*~

Wavelength: I warned you guys that my updates are slow lol. Other than that, this is where the plot officially starts!

miss chief: i cant believe im the one whos wearing pants in this author-coauthor relationship lmao