Chapter 1 - Dream?

A dark brown wooden ceiling greeted me as I opened my eyes, giving me a strange deja vu feeling as if I always know that ceiling yet had never seen it. It is odd and mildly irritating.

It is not a dream huh?

Either that or I am having a realistic two-layered deep one.

I shifted under my sheets as I looked around the room, taking it all. Similar to the ceiling, the floor and walls are made of dark brown wood. With no visible painting or anything of the sort. The wall to my left, though, most of it, is of a translucent white sheet on a lattice frame. Which allowed the outside morning lights to spread widely, lighting up the room white a white glow.

They also have another function which is a sliding door. While not hindering the refreshing singing of the early birds.

The room itself is small, with minimal furniture and no decoration whatsoever. The only visible items of furniture are; the small chest of drawers for clothes made, like everything in this room, out of dark brown wood. And the warm futon I am currently laying on. If you can count that as furniture.

That is it. That is all there is for the room. A small, traditional Japanese room.

I sighed, hoping to remove the disconnected feeling dizzying my mind but to no avail. It feels like the first time I bought a car with my own hard gained money. The emotions at that time were unreal and disjointed. My mind and feelings were at odds. Clashing against each other.

One side is trying to process a fact while the other is denying it.

I am feeling the same right now. Now, however, The strange disjoint feelings are more pronounced and unduly unrealistic.

I shook my head and pushed the soft sheets away. Immediately the cold started biting at my skin as I rose from the floor bed. I stumbled slightly as walked in the direction of the translucent door.

The sound of my bare feet stepping on the rigid, cold wood echoed in the silent room before it was interrupted by the door sliding open.

I shivered when the cold wind blew past me. Ignoring the cold. I got out of the room and into the wooden edging strip that surround the exterior of the house. Some sort of raised open corridor. I stopped once I reached its edge while I took in the view all around me.

Calm, pure, and bright.

The soil separating the engawa and the outer walls, the expense of green trees far beyond the walls, the blue sky, the non stationary white cloud. It's not much, nothing out of the ordinary, nothing mildly exceptional or even marginally remarkable. But... everything is so, so vibrant, colorful, and rich; the green is more green, the blue is more blue, and the white is more white.

It made me wonder; which one is the real world.

I sighed, my breath coming out as fog. I hoped after one good night of sleep, I would wake up in my usual room, in my usual world, with my usual body, but no, I didn't. I am in a different room, a different world and, I looked down at myself, a different body.

... a kid's body.

I stretched my small limbs, they felt stiff, weak, and tired. When I woke yesterday at the village hospital, I could barely process what is happening. My head hurt, my body hurts, and everything was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Like the hospital itself or the language.

I hadn't spent much time arriving at a realization. But the realization was so unbelievable that put me in a state of detachment that is still with me right now, albeit less intense.

"You better put something warmer on, brat,"

A feminine voice abruptly, and without notice echoed from my left, jolting me out of my daze. I turned my head to its source.

"Or do you want Kaa-Chan to chew me again?"

The voice comes from a beautiful, fair-skinned young woman, with neck-length black hair with spiked ends, lengthy bangs framing her face, and black eyes. Sporting a dark blue, short sleeve, high-collared long t-shirt reaching mid-thigh with a black belt around her slender waist. White bandages wrapped around her left forearm, and a fingerless glove on her right hand. Black pants tugged inside a pair of black ankle-length, open-toed shinobi sandals.

The young woman, who appears to be in her late teens, raised an eyebrow at my silent staring "What is it?" she titled her head, concern hidden in her voice "just stay inside if you still don't feel well."

"You look old." I blurted out absently with a raspy voice and immediately regretted it.

"Huh?!" She smiled with the corner of her lips shaking, and a fist raised "You will be terribly mistaken if you think I won't hit you just because you are sick."

Any trace of concern she had before disappeared into anger and irritation. Understandable. Women are extremely sensible on the age topic. But as much as I want to think of it differently it is the truth; she looks older than her age.

Her appearance is that of a girl of approximately eighteen or nineteen years old, while she is no older than fourteen years.

"I-I mean you have the charm of an older woman." Knowing what this young lady is capable of doing, I tried to appease her with my usual blank face. The stutter at the start was just an act, yes, an act. I am not afraid of her, definitely not.

"Is that supposed to be a compliment?"

Yes, it is.

"Why are you here?" I coughed and changed the subject. Knowing how bad I am with people, the situation will only worsen if I keep talking.

"What up with you brat, am I a bother or something?"

"No, this isn't what I meant, aren't you supposed to be at work?" I looked at her right shoulder. More specifically, at the adorned emblem on the sleeve of her t-shirt. A four-pointed star with the Uchiha symbol inside, and four dots on each corner; Konoha military police force symbol.

The young woman sighed, to my luck, letting her anger dissipate while lowering her threatening fist "I took a day off." Is all she said, before turning around and walking away "Stop delaying, Kaa-Chan and Otto are waiting for us, you don't want their breakfast to get cold, do you?"

The threat at the end of her words isn't concealed.

I followed two steps behind her. My focus was pulled at the red and white symbol dyed on the young woman's back shirt, the clan's crest. I wondered If my top has the same. Looking down at myself and my clothes; a dark blue, short-sleeved shirt with a high collar, and white shorts. I concluded that this was undoubtedly the case.

Though accessing this body's fragmented memory is quite challenging, I still possess my own living memory. And, while I don't claim I remember everything, I do remember the... young lord's outfit from the anime, and they are more or less similar.

"How is your new room?" The young woman suddenly said as walked on the engawa, pulling me back out of my thoughts.

New?

I frowned. I thought the odd sense of familiarity I had with the place meant the kid lived here. Was I mistaken?

Possible. After all, since the moment I woke up yesterday, everything I see, smell, or hear has some contradicting senses of familiar unfamiliarity. Which is starting to get annoying.

"Brooding?" Misunderstanding my silence, the young woman said "well, too bad for you," she turned her head to me and grinned "I choose it myself, just for you. And don't worry," waving her hand left and right "what they say about that room being infested by ghosts is not true." Her grin turned into a wide smile as she said the last part.

Ghost?

Again mind captured the keyword.

Now, from the standpoint of an adult, yes even if my current appearance is that of six year old, I am an adult on the inside. Anyway, the young woman mentioning ghosts is just a way for her to play a little prank on the gloomy brat. But the issue is, it may be true.

I don't remember much but I feel like there was an episode with a ghost in it. And if there is one ghost why shouldn't be there many others?

No. I shook my head. I am overthinking it. She is merely playing a prank.

...hopefully.

"Why?" I asked, my voice still raspy.

I noticed her smile twitching before she moved her gaze forward, "If you woke up earlier then you could have chosen your room by yourself." it came as a whisper.

"Why change the room?" I asked again. Why do people always misunderstand wherever I say or do? I swear it's as if they are doing it intentionally.

The young woman stopped walking prompting me to do the same two steps behind her. She didn't turn around as she asked softly "You don't remember?"

I moved my eyes from her back to the blue sky before closing them.

I tried to but couldn't.

I know who I am from the memories I have. And I have two sets of memories. So how could I differentiate between the two?

It's by the state of the sets.

I could access my previous life memories without difficulties, like always. I still feel there are some blanks but I couldn't identify them, so I am not sure.

Accessing this body's memories, however, is more complicated. More fragmented, like a broken mirror. If my previous life memory is an image, then this body's memory is a jigsaw puzzle out of the box; multiple tiny pieces that make no sense alone, but you know they will... if you break your head, that is.

Nevertheless, that doesn't mean I'm unable to use this body's memories at all, far from that. How can I exchange words with this girl otherwise?

And not just the language of this world. I also know who this young woman is and whose body I am currently possessing. And any other memories that are um... a routine? Anything that he experiences or sees repetitively in his everyday life was easily absorbed into my memory.

The memories that are out of my reach are all the experiences that don't happen often, even the most impactful ones. And what happened to the kid before I took over is one such memory.

I feel like it's there but I couldn't touch it. It's so fucking frustrating that I gave up trying to remember.

So I gave her my honest reply

"I don't remember."

It's not worth lying or even trying to lie here. When I woke up on the hospital bed yesterday, I decided to use partial memory loss as an excuse. And it's not even a lie, but a convenient truth to justify any out-of-character comportment.

"Is that so?" The young woman said after a brief moment of silence "It's better this way." Before she resumed walking again.

Since she doesn't want to talk about it, I didn't ask for more. And it is not just out of respect for her choice but partially because I am not someone um... good at talking? Something like that, I prefer silence.

We walked in that silence on the edging strip of wooden floor for a couple of seconds before we arrived at a particular shoji, the sliding door made of translucent paper. Similar to the one in my room.

The young woman stopped in front of the shoji before sliding it to the side, revealing the interior of the room and two pairs of piercing eyes bearing into me.