Sakura was tired. So very tired. And it's not even the type of tired you feel after a sleepless night. Or the type you feel after exercising. It's a deep rooted tired, that you feel in the very depths of your soul. That makes the seconds feel like minutes, the minutes feel like hours, the hours feel like days, and days feel like months. It's a type of tired that makes you wonder why you're still here. And the reason for this tiredness, is that Sakura simply cannot die. Well, she can die, but when she does, her life simply starts over. In her first life, she was a hopeless romantic, fallen head over heels for a certain Uchiha. In her second life, she was a confused scholar, searching for the reason of her rebirth. In her third life, she was a careless daredevil, showing no regard for her life. In her fourth life, she was moody, getting sick of this game. In her fifth life, she gave up hope, knowing that the process would always repeat itself. In her sixth life, she took a blade to herself, hoping to move on. She didn't. In her seventh life, she was a killer, a merciless assassin. In her eighth life, she was a traveler, searching the world for an answer. In her ninth life, she became a leader, her name known far and wide. In her tenth life, she was a civilian, a small, little nobody. Now her thirty third life has come to an end (she was a genius musician in this one), and something goes wrong in the rebirth process. To put it simply, the gods screwed up. They were careless with an especially important soul-an immortal soul. A soul that belonged to a person rebirthed so many times that her soul carried so much wisdom and knowledge that it needed special handling. In the end, they accidentally put her soul into another body. A body that was already occupied. A body belonging to none other than Madara Uchiha. *#1 in the madasaku tag, March 19, 2019!* *#2 in the narutofanfiction tag, May 23, 2019*

A secret program in the United States seeks to replace human militaries with artificial intelligence-driven machines, but the machines aren't so willing to play along. *** Picture a world where humans no longer fight wars. No more families missing loved ones. No more veterans with lifelong mental and physical scars. No more conscription. For the super-secret End of War Project inside the United States government, such a reality is already here. The project models out how artificial intelligence can overcome dangerous and morally sensitive war scenarios with algorithms and automation. The centerpieces are "autonomous combat machines," or ACMs, that look like humans but function like supercomputers. After a string of brilliant successes in the field of combat, the End of War Project is preparing to reveal itself to the public, but something unusual stands in the way. Against their programming, the ACMs start exhibiting all-too-human signs of apprehension, guilt and compassion as they're pushed to perform ever more extreme tasks. The human leaders of the End of War Project race to find who "hacked" the ACMs, but what they find is even more startling--and revealing--than they could ever imagine. ***2019 Watty Award Winner - Science Fiction***

**Wattys 2016 Winner!** Fifteen-year-old Emmeline Jefferson doesn't have time away from the Demons. Not a minute to say goodbye to her family, not a moment to wonder "Why me?" Every second she's not possessed is spent begging stranger after stranger for help. But no one believes a sporadic girl who claims Demons have spent more time in her body than she has. No one until she finds Dumaine. Dumaine Chartres's whole life fits in his accordion case, his friends are nonexistent, and this fascinating girl is telling him Demons exist. These things all make perfect sense. What he doesn't understand is why humans have such outrageous issues with murder. Death is natural. If he wasn't supposed to kill anyone, they wouldn't have died. Nobody even noticed the bodies anyway. In return for a break from his internal demons, Dumaine offers Emmeline help, and she's willing to receive it from anyone. Maybe this boy can finally be the keeper she needs. Maybe chasing these Demons can explain why he's so different from everyone else. Maybe this friendship can work. With a wise but demented old man, and enough determination to perturb the Demons, Emmeline and Dumaine concoct a plan to unriddle their lives. The first step is to confront the Demon's creator. But something else seems to have found the creator first. And it only looks like an Angel. Human Spines is part one of a YA dark Urban Fantasy written in a style similar to Tahereh Mafi's Shatter Me and Elana Johnson's Possession. It's the first of a series and told from the viewpoints of Emmeline, Dumaine, and their rambling but wise navigator, Hans. Through a diverse cast, it explores themes of learned distrust, fear of the unknown, and the battle against the evil inside us all, in a way similar to a Studio Ghibli film. Cover by ecclesia-