A… genjutsu? was the first thing Naruto wondered as he noticed his surroundings. Sitting in front of him was a man whom he would always considered his closest friend, Uchiha Sasuke. He had the same stoic look on his face with his elbows resting on the table in front of him in a passive position. This would be normal because they often spent time together, except for the fact that this Sasuke was at least a foot shorter, and, from what he could tell, around twelve years old.
Naruto could feel himself breaking out into a cold sweat. The last thing he remembered was being in a meeting with his advisors, listening to Sakura chew him out for slacking off on paperwork, when he felt a sudden pain in his chest. It felt like there was an uncomfortable pressure there that couldn't be removed, and he had clutched his chest as he started to breathe deeply.
Could it still be a genjutsu if he was in his twelve year old body? That was a question Sakura would've known the answer to, he had never been good at that kind of stuff.
"Move, Naruto!" blurted out a familiar voice—though it was too high pitched to be recognizable—and he was suddenly shoved to his right as a young Sakura took his place in front of Sasuke.
He tuned out her declarations of love to his teammate so that he could think of what could possibly be happening when his old sensei burst through the door.
"Alright everyone! Take your seats," Iruka said. Speechless, Naruto took a seat next to Sakura. He suddenly felt the only slightly familiar weight of his forehead protector actually on his forehead. He'd been wearing it on his upper left arm ever since he had become Hokage.
"Since you've all already graduated, today I'll be announcing your Genin teams," Iruka started. He listed off all the teams and their sensei as Naruto contemplated what could be happening to him.
Unless his memories of what had just happened only a few minutes ago weren't real, there was no one that would have put him under a genjutsu. Sasuke was the only Uchiha left with the ability to use the Tsukiyomi, but that wouldn't be possible because there was no strange color distortion.
Time travel… now that might actually be a possibility. There was no evidence of anyone succeeding in it, but who would believe it if someone said they actually travelled through time? And Naruto had never attempted to go back in time, even though sometimes, many times, he wished he could.
And were his memories real? Would every event play out the way he remembered them? There was no way to know except with time, and he was almost certain it would be possible to change things.
"…Uzumaki Naruto, and Uchiha Sasuke." Naruto snapped out of his deep thoughts when he heard his name… and Sakura's screech of delight. This was something that happened according to his memories, along with the announcement of Team 8 and Team 10 remaining the same.
After they were dismissed for lunch, Iruka approached him. It was weird for Naruto to have to look so far up in order to see his face.
"What's wrong, Naruto? I thought you would be happy to hear you're on Sakura's team. Is everything okay?" he asked.
That's right, thought Naruto. He had been embarrassingly overjoyed to hear he was with Sakura on Team 7.
"I'm fine, Iruka…sensei," he replied. "I was just too busy thinking about how awesome of a Genin I'm gonna be." He added a cheesy smile for emphasis.
Iruka just nodded and walked away. Apparently that had been a plausible reason.
Caught in a daze, Naruto walked back to where he remembered his old apartment being. For the rest of the day, he thought once again about how all of this was possible. Nothing he could come up with could've explained the pain in his chest before he ended up here. It had felt like what he'd heard Sakura describe as a heart attack.
When he arrived at his door, he took his keys out of the pocket where he'd always kept them and unlocked the door. Exhausted from so much thinking, he passed out on his bed. Just before he fell asleep, he said to himself, "This time, I'm going to change everything."
This fanfiction is going to be very similar to the novel Replay by Ken Grimwood. Unbeknownst to Naruto, he's going relive his life many times.
The reason I stopped here is because I need feedback. Who should Naruto be paired with for his past life, should he fall in love with them again?