A/N: Self-insert fics are somewhat of a stigma among most "serious" fanfic writers. I have tried to be one of those, but the struggle to do a good fanfic is tiring sometimes. Then I suddenly hit on an idea: why try at all? Maybe the reason I have difficulty writing is because I'm forcing myself to conform to rules rather than just doing whatever the heck I want. Well, right now, I want to do a gary-stufest self-insert of Naruto... with a MALE character, and NO reincarnation! Yes, shocking, isn't it? It's almost as if people are allergic to male non-reincarnation SI Naruto fics, there are so few. So here it goes. Don't blame me for gary-stuness. Okay, yeah, you can blame me for that, since I'm the one writing. But you've been warned.

Oh, and I own NOTHING of Naruto, save for the self-insert. Now shoo, copyright hounds! Leave me to my pathetic self-indulgence!


My life right now is interesting, to say the least. Ninjas, fighting, ninjas, ramen, ninjas, hot girls, and more ninjas. And surprise, surprise, I'm actually doing pretty well at it (read: "not dead just yet"). Now, if you had told me this would be my life before I got into all of this mess, I would have smiled awkwardly, nodded, then ran the hell away before I caught whatever sickness you had that scrambled your brain so badly. Mostly because, before all of this? My life was headed one place, and one place only: nowhere.

Okay, so my name is Casey Kendall. Or, it was. But we'll get to that later. Anyway, my life wasn't TERRIBLE by any standards—I was upper-middle class, reasonably smart, had good parents, pets, video games, etc. On the other hand, I was nearly always lonely. I'm mildly autistic, which in kid-speak tends to translate to "hey, a weird kid, let's mock him when we're not ignoring him altogether". This continued on through High School. And just when I thought, "hey, I'm out of school, I can learn to drive and then get a job and get my own place and I'll be GOING PLACES, BIATCH!1!", the stupid economy had to ruin it all.

No time to learn to drive, since my parents were always working. No way to get a job without a ride (living in the suburbs with no public transit or sidewalks doesn't work out well if you don't own a car), and that's when there's work to be had at all. No money to move out on my own. I still had games, comics, TV, and that kind of stuff, but again, no friends and no job made all that seem pointless. All I had was free time... and it meant nothing without anyone to share it with, or any work to feel relief from. And once I hit thirty, with no change, it hit me: I was stuck. Probably for good. No independence, no dreams, no means of achieving either.

Then, a hole in the world opened up, and I fell through.

Into the universe of an anime I kinda sorta used to watch before I found other stuff that I liked a little better. Yeah.

Basically, I was walking around the neighborhood when a storm came out of nowhere. One second, sunny with no clouds, the next, I'm standing in the middle of a storm that could scare your average hurricane away with a mean glare.

"SHIT! Where the fuck did this come from?!"

Yup, that was me. I curse fairly liberally when trouble pops up, so you can expect a lot more where that came from. Then, well, remember that thing I mentioned about the hole in the world? Yeah, lightning struck the ground RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. Like, inches from where I stood. And where it hit, a big glowy circle opened up in the ground. And like the clumsy jackass I was, I panicked and fell right into it.


I woke up hurting. And by hurting, I mean "fuck fuck what the fuck how many bones did I break on that fall." To my surprise, I hadn't actually broken anything. Then I noticed something was out of place—namely, me. The street I was walking on was GONE, replaced by thick forests with super-big trees and a small creek nearby.

"This has got to be a dream... wait... why do I sound funny? And since when did I speak Japanese?"

The latter thought didn't replace the former for long—especially once I noticed my clothes were baggy as hell. After a few moments of confusion, I figured out what happened. It was obvious, really; my voice had jumped up a couple of octaves, and my clothes were too big for me. Yeah, I was somehow a kid again. Just how young of a kid was the real question. Fortunately, the aforementioned creek worked well enough as far as mirrors go. And what do you know? Roughly five years old.

"Holy crap. Okay, seriously, what's with the fucking Japanese?"

Yup, back to that question. Now, before this all happened, I was your average pasty whiter-than-cornbread American. I spoke a couple of dead languages (yay for history/linguistics majors), but I didn't speak a hint of Japanese save for a couple words here and there that I picked up from anime and manga. But here I was, speaking it like a native. And understanding it fine. Upon a brief inspection, I noticed a couple of other physical differences that I hadn't noticed before.

Before I fell, my legs were inwardly bowlegged all to hell due to super-high arches in my feet screwing up my posture. I also had slight swayback, though nothing severe. I've had both problems about as long as I've been alive. But suddenly, my feet, legs, and back were perfectly normal and healthy—at least as far as five-year-olds go.

Where was I? Why did I physically de-age? Why did my legs and back suddenly fix themselves? And how come I can speak and understand Japanese as if I'd been speaking it my whole life? All these questions kept adding up, and I didn't like it one bit. Especially the part where I'm a five-year-old kid, buck naked in the woods with no one in sight. Modesty aside, I didn't feel like staying put at the moment; I needed to find someone, anyone to help me. After a few minutes of running through the woods, though, I came across a pretty big clue as to what had happened to me.

A big wall. A massive gate. With Japanese hiragana characters on it. There was only one place I had ever seen anything like it.

"Holy shit, I'm in Naruto."

No, scratch that.

"Holy shit, I'm in Naruto and I'm fucking NUDE!"

Yeah, I was lucky no one heard that considering how loudly I shouted. Before anyone could find me, I retreated back into the woods to give myself some time to mull over the problems at hand.

"Okay, pro/con time. Pros: Naruto is one of those fictional universes where literally everyone has the potential to be a badass, given adequate training. Con: Naruto is a very unstable and VIOLENT fictional universe with no guarantee that being a badass will save you from stabby death. Pro: I'm a kid, but I still know a lot of stuff, so I have a pretty good head start over other kids in the learning department. Con: I'm a kid, and that means I have to live through all the ostracism and stress of school again. Pro: This is a whole new world, a new life, where I could conceivably do some pretty awesome things so long as I get started early and train. Con..."

That's when the biggest con of all hit me like a freight train: I'm probably never going to go home. I'm never going to see my mom and dad again. Not my brother, not my grandmother, not even my crazy extended family. I was never going to be able to talk to them or see them. They'd think I was dead, they'd mourn me, and I wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it. At first, it was just a small tear, but it wasn't long before the weight of it all really sunk in, leaving me a sobbing wreck.

Evidently, my crying was louder than I thought, because it didn't take long for a ninja to find me curled up at the foot of a tree. No one I recognized, but at the very least he seemed to be one of the nicer ones, because he immediately took off his jacket, wrapped it around me, and picked me up.

"Hey, shh... it's okay, I'm not gonna hurt you..."

Despite the whole "being talked down to like a little kid because technically, you are, even if you have an adult mind" thing, the tone of his voice did help calm me down a little.

"What're ya doing out here all alone, kiddo?"

Okay, think fast. Lies of omission are a little easier to fake than outright fibbing, so...

"I... I d-dunno... I'm l-lost..."

Technically true on both counts, but still stretching it. Thankfully he bought it. Unfortunately, the next question was tougher:

"What's your name? Where are your parents?"

Yeah, this was one of those moments where most people would panic. Fortunately, I had three things going for me: one, tears aside the panic phase was done with, so I could think straight. Two, I had an education in linguistics before my sudden fluency in Japanese. Three, I was always good at thinking fast. In case you're curious, my thought processes were:

Oh fuck. Okay, okay, I'm gonna need a Japanese name. But Japanese names are based around kanji, so there's a lot more inherent meaning in names than in English, so I'm going to need one that means something. Let's see, take my real name and break down the etymology, then translate that to the closest equivalent Japanese words, cross-reference with common names...

Casey = descended from an Irish Gaelic surname meaning "vigilant" or "watchful". "Keiji" is occasionally spelled with kanji that can be interpreted together as meaning "governs with discretion/observant leader", depending on how loose you translate, so close enough. Bonus, Keiji sounds kind of like Casey.

Kendall = from Old Norse kelda, meaning "a well or spring", dalr, meaning "valley". Don't know any good Japanese names involving the word for a well, but if I cheat I can just use the other meaning of the word "spring", as in the season, which results in "haru". The Japanese word for "valley" can be pronounced "tani". Put them together, translate to Japanese, you get "Harutani", which I'm fairly sure I've heard as a family name in anime before. Okay, tick-tock, he's gonna get suspicious if I don't answer right away.

"H-harutani Keiji..."

Suck it, people who said linguistics was a useless course.

"Alright Keiji, where are your parents?"

"They're... g-gone..."

Another lie of omission that my rescuer bought completely. I was on a roll, considering I still couldn't stop crying.

Hey, I might make it as a ninja with that skill. Hopefully, I'll get adopted by some local badass who can train me and-

"Let's get you to the orphanage."

Well, shit.


Just in case you're wondering, yes, I have some education in linguistics and can speak a little bit of a couple of older Nordic/Germanic languages. The Japanese was totally googled, though.