At the end of all things, there is a waiting room.
It's fairly typical, as these things go. Thin, scratchy carpet. Fish tank with still fish. Old gossip magazines. Incredibly uncomfortable chairs. The low buzz of a television or radio or something somewhere else, words indistinguishable. No windows, no clock, no door, and the receptionist's desk was shuttered.
This one's a bit special, though.
Raizume loves all the attention and giving out all the gifts. She tries to tailor them to the right people, giving them things she knows they would like.
She wiggles out of her mom's snuggles and finds the closest mirror to poke at her face and the markings there.
They're really very similar - two upside down triangles in bright red, one on either cheek - and don't smudge on being poked. She doesn't have her mom's highlights around the eyes, but most people don't.
She likes them, it reminds her of --
-- she stops short and looks up at her mom again, startled.
Her mom is grinning down at her, the movement emphasizing her own fang marks.
"You're an Inuzuka proper now, pup," she says.
-- she's so stupid. She had this nagging sense of familiarity even before she was reborn but now...
"Inuzaka of... Konoha?"
That's... everything makes so much more sense now. Her brother is Kiba of Team Eight. From Naruto.
She's been reborn as an Inuzuka in Konoha.
That's... her life has always been weird. In this life and the last. She'd been a vampire-werewolf hybrid. But this is beyond even that.
Scoop hug, and letting the pup choose if she wants to go back around people - Kiba was never shy, but Hana sometimes got overwhelmed by crowds.
She smiles at him and cuddles him too.
He's not some fictional character. He's real and he's her brother.
She looks up at her mom. "You're shinobi?"
"Yup. You will be, too, someday."
(She'd been moderately worried, actually, when Rai didn't talk by the time most shinobi children do, but she's heard of kids hiding their abilities when they're still unsure before, so, hey, her kids: the smartest and sneakiest in the bunch.)
Awwwwwww.
"And we'll do the same! That's what the food you gave out means, that you'll provide for the clan, and the gifts we give you show that we'll provide for your future."
More snuggles.
It wasn't really real before. The future danger -- the apocalypse. She had no insight. But now with the knowledge she has, it feels pressing. It's real.
"Love you, mama."
"Love you too, my little lightning," Tsume says.
"Love you mostest!" Kiba insists, wriggling.
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