Prologue
Note: The time-travel trope in Naruto has been pretty thoroughly played out, but there is one angle on it that I have only seen attempted once, and that fic was abandoned in 2009. (The fic in question is Nothing is Certain Except the Stubbornness of a Demon.)
Since that author hasn't done anything with the fic or the concept in four years, I'm going to do my own version of it. Maybe.
Naruto opened his eyes to a ceiling that he hadn't seen in decades. He closed his eyes again, sighed, and relaxed all his muscles, laying completely at ease.
I don't know why I hoped for anything different. He began to go through his mental checklist. I don't suppose you're around Kurama? He waited several seconds in silence before opening his eyes to the ceiling once more and sighing again.
Perhaps this time through he'd skip the whole ninja thing? He sat up and set his feet down on the floor, stretching his aching muscles. Ah, that's right, he always forgets by the end of one life that at the beginning of his next he'll be sore from beating down Mizuki.
Naruto got up and went over to his cupboard, knowing that there would be nothing but ramen there for breakfast. Well... no, he did have the two ration bars that he'd pilfered a week before his "moment of awakening" as he called it now. Or just, "the moment".
Everything before this moment he'd lived only once, that very first time that seemed so far away now as if to not even be as tangible as a dream. Everything after that point he'd lived... well let's just say that his first theory about it being a side effect of the Shadow Clone technique was certainly wrong, because he'd lived more lifetimes than he'd ever made Shadow Clones.
Yeah... he was pretty old.
So old in fact that the last few lifetimes he'd begun to feel like there was simply nothing left to do. He'd been a ninja, and he'd seen that play out so many ways that he almost didn't even see the point. He'd been a merchant too, and a fisherman, and a member of the royal court. He'd joined Orochimaru, he'd helped Akatsuki complete their "Eye of the Moon" plan (and was quite amused at how poorly it worked even when it was pulled off perfectly), and he'd been the most revered Hokage in history. He'd taught at the academy, he'd had genin teams, and he'd even united the elemental nations.
The pot hissed as the water came to a boil and he poured it quickly over his instant ramen, his hands working on their own to prepare his most familiar dish. Not that he didn't know how to cook... he'd been a renowned chef several times.
Naruto sighed as he sat down at his table, slowly slurping his noodles.
Time itself had been conquered. It hadn't taken long for him to conclude that this was some sort of time-travel matter, and after a few lifetimes he'd even learned how to time-travel himself using seals. So he'd gone and met his parents, because when you've got limitless time, why not? He'd even changed his own fate a few times, ensuring that he had at least some family to grow up with. The difference that had made in his life was... absurd.
No, after he'd mastered time-travel, he'd been so confident that he'd figure out what was going on and fix it. Oh, he'd had theories. He'd worked on them literally for lifetimes. He could never travel further back than the Sage of Six Paths, and he could never travel into the future beyond the longest he'd ever lived: his 87th birthday. If, during a life, he made it to his 87th birthday he always fell ill a few days before and passed away, on to the next life.
Theories were for younger men though. He no longer had theories. He no longer really thought about it. He'd been so anxious to "fix things" after getting through his first two lives, but then... he had. And he'd had a family, and he'd become Hokage, and he'd ruled over a prosperous and peaceful Konoha.
And then he'd woken up on the morning of genin team assignments again, and that's when he started plotting how to undo himself. Before that he'd spent a dozen lifetimes plotting all the corrections, and he'd made small but precise adjustments to the timeline at different points all the way back to the Sage of Six Paths before living his life in the best society he could possibly create.
Waking up after that life had been a little tough. He'd wanted to pass on after that one. He'd had nothing else to do.
That morning had been... well, he wasn't going to repeat that. It was unpleasant. He'd long since figured out that he couldn't commit suicide, as he always woke up when he died. So perhaps in a bit of a tantrum, he'd started using his time-travel abilities to 'unmake' himself.
That time he'd killed his five year old self, but reality started to tear apart after he did that, and he had simply drifted in a featureless white plane for what seemed like a century as formless consciousness and once more woken up in a perfectly stable and happy Konoha.
No, theories were for younger men than him, and he no longer really paid much attention to investigating why he was reliving his life over and over. It was after his 'unmaking' that he'd first decided to live a non-shinobi life. That first one he'd just run away and become a farmer, and that life was the last time Kurama had said a word to him.
He didn't really understand why the demon had stopped talking to him or interacting in any way. That had been thousands and thousands of lifetimes ago. Oh, he'd checked on the demon, just to make sure that nothing had happened, but every time he had Kurama had clearly been alive in some kind of trance.
Naruto shrugged it off after a few lifetimes. It would have been nice to at least have someone to talk to through this endless waltz of time, but he could understand a bit why the demon had chosen to pull into some sort of meditative state. As bad as it was for him to live millions of years, it had to be even worse to live that long inside of the seal. He could still use the Kyuubi's chakra fully, the demon's mind just wasn't present.
Naruto glanced at the clock, swallowing the last of his noodles. Well, if he was going to be a ninja this life, he had to get ready. He stared at the clock for five seconds, deciding, before sighing and putting on his orange jumpsuit. Ninja it was.
Note: So tell me what you think. I sort of have a plan for this, but I'm not even sure if people care at all about yet another time-travel fic.
