Top of the Tree

IV

Top of the Tree

IV

There was a knock on the door—not that people knocking on our house's door was unusual, if anything it was more usual than not. No, the only thing that stood out to me, that caught my attention, was the chakra behind said door—there were three sources, and all of them were hefty but jaded—experienced.

People started paying attention to me, especially the ninja. Several months went by and I tried to be inconspicuous as possible with everything I did, but the pebble was thrown into the pond, leaving the ripples to bite me in the ass. It was a mistake on my part to not have considered the people's reaction to my actions initially; it was a mistake on my part to believe that no one would think too hard of a one year old. A mistake.

Being that I'd never been the sharpest crayon in the box might add in to the entire situation. I'd always been quite average in just about everything, so being in the situation I was in—'ya know, the whole "a woman's mind stuck in a baby's body" deal—did give me the little extra something that could make me shine a little brighter instead of blending into the background. But since my intelligence is so very ordinary, I tended to let my emotions do a little bit of controlling. Thus I talked without thinking, and I acted without reason, hence the unfortunate position I was currently in.

Should've thought it all out better. Should've been more discrete and less impulsive—reckless.

Stupid. Imbecile. Fool. Idiot.

Not to mention my patience was laughable; if in a year in this world already had me spilling secrets, I didn't want to know what almost two decades would do—maybe I'd tell the world of where I truly come from, and that worried me to the point in which I would lie awake in bed with the thoughts of people trying to burn me on the stake like the witch trials in Salem.

But the whole concept of being reborn is scary—especially when I had my past memories to muddle up my reasoning. It didn't matter if I'd been reincarnated for a year, or if I'd havemany years to get used to the idea, it'll always be in the back of my mind, it will always be something that I find simply bizarre—for crying out loud, I had to go through pubertyagain! God only knows that the first time was hard enough. So I think my slip up was justifiable—but it didn't erase me from everyone else's radar.

They knocked on the door on a pretty normal day.

It was the first time I realized people had noticed me, and that I was no longer a mere baby.

It was early spring, mid-morning. Dad hadn't gone to work, having overslept for the first time in months, Mom had a night shift at the hospital the previous night so she was in the kitchen drinking coffee with my Dad and I surrounding her, and Hiro was at the academy. They knocked on the door of our house, and all movement stopped, as if time itself had stopped. Our breaths hitched—because the last time someone knocked on our door had been months before my little stunt. We just didn't know what to expect.

My parents shared glances, and finally my Dad decided to answer the door—Mom and I followed. I kept biting my bottom lip in order to find some kind of calmness.

The door revealed the faces of two men and a woman who looked the same age of my parents. They weren't really that old, probably in their late thirties or early forties. They had stern smacked across their faces almost as if the scowl was permanently imbedded onto their skin. Their hair still had color, but seemed dulled from time, and their skin was imprinted with wrinkles, making them look older than they really were. I suppose they'd been through a lot in their youth. Their clothes were perfectly clean, as was the rest of their look. Hair was in tip-top shape, not one strand going astray. They were impeccable.