I hope one day

You give your heart

To someone

And they will hold it tight

As if it's their own.

I hope one day

You wake up

And have something

Or someone to live for

I hope one day

You can go to bed

Smiling without a worry

In the world

I hope one day

The battle is over and

And you've won

I hope one day

You meet someone

Who makes you realise

How beautiful

You truly are.

-n.v.

Wondering around, I tried to swallow the truth that I was alone, in the woods, in an alternate universe. There was no sign of life at first glance, but as I focused, I began to see the hidden birds, the camouflaged insects, a roar of a tiger from a mile away.

My stomach growled, and I saw a tree, with giant red apples looking juicer than ever. Out of habit, I used one of the very few ninja techniques I knew, and walked up the tree using chakra. I jumped down with the ruby-like fruit, finished it, when my brain comprehended what had just happened.

Then, out of curiosity, I mumbled my shadow clone technique, and to my surprise, my clone appeared. She had bright blue eyes and a thin tall nose, red hair which reached the middle of her back. The clone smiled at me, and I could see that she had a warm and kind look to her. She was slightly tall for a girl her age and wore a black shirt with red shorts and a pair of leather sandals.

I kept analysing the girl until I remembered. This was me.

Taking in my new physique, I tried using different jutsus which I remembered when I was young, even tried mimicking the ones I saw other people do.

To my surprise, I could actually do ninja techniques for once in my life, then thought for a few seconds.

In my last life, I was a boy, who was worthless and stupid, with parents who were told they had no son, when they finally found me and adopted me, only to forget about me once more.

In this life, however, I was a girl who seems to be able to do jutsus, and if it were entirely the opposite of my last life, have parents who cared for me.

The chances were low, but I heard my heart beat faster when a man's voice yelled a girl's name.

"Natsuki! Where are you? Natsuki!" Oh, how I hoped he was calling for me. The man then appeared from behind a tree, looking straight at me. His face stern at first, then breaking into a smile.

"There you are princess! Where have you been! Daddy and his crew were worried you know?" I knew my mouth was lifting up its edges to a grin, and I jumped into the man's arms. He smelt faintly of the sea.

"Sorry daddy. I was playing hide-and-seek with a fox." I mumbled, doing my best to act as a nine-year-old, remembering what I would have wanted to do and say, if I could, in my previous life.

"That's all right, but we're setting sail soon, and you know how I don't like using my observational haki to find you."

As he said those few words, as if there was a dictionary in my head, what observational haki meant, came directly into my mind. I smiled at this simple part of this new life, wishing that one day there will be a time when I no longer needed this dictionary, and spoke of things in this world as my own.

"Okay!" I tried to use that dictionary which came into mind, to find out who my parents were, and as I had thought, the dictionary came forth to my head.

I pictured my father's face, and his name came to the tip of my tongue, just as one of his crewmates, a tall man holding a rifle, a cigarette in his mouth called my father.

"Shanks! Did you find her!"

"Yeah! Go on Natsuki, go to your uncle Benn." I ran to the man, and my dictionary told me that this man was my father's first mate.

"Natsuki! Do you know how worried I was!?" Benn said in a tone which could only be described as motherly. With the thought, I asked the dictionary who my mother was. It came with what looked like a bounty poster of a lady with black hair, with eyes just like mine; a deep shade of blue. She had an air of wisdom shrouding her, with her hair bellowing around her in the wind. In her hand was a long katana, its blade gleaming red. The picture was taken with bodies around her, blood on her face and clothes. Though what stood out the most was a giant red cross over it all, as if the poster was no longer needed. The word, DEAD had been underlined, where it had shown her bounty, which could be collected for her body, dead or alive.

I felt my heart being squeezed, and I knew, that though I didn't know her, I was sad. Sympathy coursing through my veins, I looked at my father with circles under his eyes, his smiles fake to everyone except me, faking his mental strength, hiding his true face, masking it with power.

From that moment I knew, that I was meant to save my father, so that one day, he would wake up and have something to live for, so that one day, he would fall asleep without a worry in the world, so that one day, when the battle was over and he had won, he would have someone to celebrate with.

I was pulled onto the ship by my father's men, and my life as a pirate's daughter started, as the daughter of Shanks, the red-haired pirate.