Harsh Realities
By Archer2
Summary: This is the story of one shinobi's life and how he influenced the Naruto world, for better or for worse.
Warnings: Language, Violence, Sexual Situations, Original Characters, Alternate Universe, Semi Self Insert, First Person Point of View.
Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own the Naruto characters.
Author's Note: I have been reading a lot of self insert stories lately, and they fascinate me. The idea that some outside character could so irreparably change the timeline of a story is really interesting and it is a phenomenon that is only found in fan fiction. So, I wanted to write one for myself, except that I didn't want to have the main character first die and then be reborn into the world. Neither did I want them to have a reason to think they can change the future. Since these two aspects of the self insert genre weren't adhered to, I guess this story is only a partial self insert. I hope you all enjoy it. Please review with your thoughts.
Thank you.
Chapter One: An End to Boyhood
My story is an odd one, this I freely admit. Nevertheless, my story is as true as I can remember and I vow to retell it as faithfully as possible. My story begins with me sitting alone in a park sandbox, burying my feet with a plastic trowel.
I was engrossed in my game, wanting to see what my legs would look like without my feet attached at the end of them. I still remember that detail, even to this day. I was so young back then that, by rights, I should have long ago forgotten the memory in favor of something else, but that doesn't change the fact that I can still bring to mind the sight of my small sun-browned toes poking through the white sand and the feel of the plastic trowel as I accidentally scrapped it against my leg in the midst of my digging.
Oh well. I have never claimed to be a master of what the mind chooses to retain and what it chooses to discard, but if I were to offer up a guess, I would say the reason why I remember that day so well, is because it was the last time that my mother was just a mother to me. After that day, my mother came to represent scary secrets that would continue to haunt me throughout my life; but at that time, I knew none this. I was just a little boy, playing in the sand on a beautiful autumn day. And so, is it any wonder that this last memory of my boyhood became so precious to me in the days that followed?
Anyway, after I completed my objective of burying my feet, I had a single moment to marvel at my work. I remember being disappointed with the outcome, because I still looked like I had feet at the ends of my legs, they just happened to be buried beneath the white sand of the sandbox. In frustration, I kicked my legs free of the sand and stood up.
Before I could leave the sandbox in favor of a new distraction, I was lifted from behind and settled against my mother's right hip. The action was so familiar to me, since it happened about a hundred times a day for as long as I could remember, that I did not struggle or fuss about my sudden change in altitude.
As my mother brushed my hair out of my face, I noticed that her eyes did not quite look at me, but drifted off behind me. Her distraction was so apparent that I even turned around to see what she was looking at, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary.
When I turned back around, my mother was looking down at me, frowning. At the time, I didn't know what I had done wrong, but now I know she had wanted me to act as a disguise to her distraction. She had probably wanted me to chatter at her about my games or about being hungry or any other subject worthy of notice by a four-year-old-boy, but I hadn't reacted as she had predicted and she was upset by this fact.
In my defense, I do not believe she planned very well on how to prompt my unconscious cooperation with her covert surveillance of the park. On any other day, she would have engaged me in conversation, but that day, she didn't and I took my behavioral cues from her. If she was quiet and distracted, then it was for a reason and I wanted to know what it was. So, whoever or whatever she had been watching, it was her fault that my actions had alerted them to the fact that my mother was aware of their presence.
I don't remember much about the walk home, except that I felt like I was in trouble and so I remained mutinously quiet the entire way home, which was probably the exact reaction my mother least desired from me. Oh well. I was a little boy and my mother was mad at me for no reason that I could see. Of course I pouted. Who wouldn't?
My next clear memory of that time, is of my mother hurriedly dressing me in the dark. I remember that she was anxious and that lead her to being rougher with me than normal and, as a result, she hurt me. I remember that I was about to start crying, but before I could, my mother clamped her hand over my mouth, with her fingers harshly digging into my cheeks, forcing my silence.
When she saw that I was now more startled by her aggression towards me than I was hurt, she leaned down close to me, so that her mouth was right beside my ear, and whispered, "Be quiet, Kenichi. Bad people are in the forest. We have to leave."
This entire experience was a first for me. Never before had my mother demonstrated such determination and violence towards me, and it was this attitude that more disturbed and frightened me than did the information about strangers being in the forest. So, what could I do but nod at my mother that I understood her warning and that I would comply with her demand for silence.
She rewarded me with a brisk, "Good boy," before removing her hand from my mouth and thus, leaving my cheeks aching from the strength of her fingers.
A moment later, my mother had finished dressing me in a dark blue long sleeved coverall jumpsuit, with shorts, and a T-shirt underneath. Socks, shoes, and a knitted black skullcap completed the outfit, although, the cap was too big and spun loosely on my head.
"I'm hot," I whined, momentarily forgetting that I was not allowed to speak as I pulled the cap from my head.
"Quiet," she snapped at me as she replaced the hat on my head. Then, as though in apology, she knelt before me and consciously changed her tone of voice to one more gentle and familiar to me, when she whispered, "You won't be hot for long, Kenichi. Do you remember our game when I run real fast and you ride on my back?"
Being under my mother's freshly reinforced geis of silence, I nodded my head in answer, still a little afraid of her.
"That's good," she whispered to me, with an anxious smile. "When I start running fast, the wind will make it cold and you'll cool off then. Now, just be patient a few seconds longer, and then we'll leave, before the bad people get here."
In any other situation, I would have been excited to hear that my mother was going to take me running with her. It was an activity that I enjoyed above all others, since when she got going, she could damn near fly. However, I had never been running with her in the dark and, with her acting so serious and worried, she had taken away any of sense of excitement from me and had replaced it with fear of these "bad people," who were hidden somewhere in the forest, and with fear of her.
Apprehensively, I waited for my mother to finish getting ready to leave. I watched her as she purposefully moved about our tiny home, collecting scrolls that she stuffed into special pockets on her vest. I had never seen the vest before, but it was hard and rough and it smelled musty with old sweat and mold.
Lastly, she put on a harness that I immediately recognized, even in the dark. It was a child-seat for me to ride against her back and it was designed like a backpack, with two shoulder straps and a third strap to circle around her belly, to help evenly distribute my weight along her hips.
"Come over here, Kenichi, and get in," she said as she knelt down beside me.
Even kneeling, she was taller than me, so I had to partially climb up her side to be able to step into the child-seat. She stabilized me as best she could, but this was a task that I had to do by myself, since she hadn't asked for me to get into the child seat before she put on the harness. However, I had ridden in this child seat many times before and this was an action I was very familiar with, so within a few seconds, I was in the seat and she was standing and adjusting the straps so that my weight was situated comfortably against her back to her satisfaction.
"Here we go," she whispered to me and, in a blink, we were out of our small home and running through the forest.
I know now that her ability to run like this, with a child strapped to her back no less, was a trademark of a someone who had been extensively trained as a shinobi, but, back then, I just thought her speed, agility, and stamina was normal and the only reason why I couldn't do it too, was because I was too little.
In the beginning of our escape, I tried to look around for the bad people in the forest, but I couldn't see anyone. My mother was running too fast and the wind hurt my eyes and made tears blur my vision when I looked over her shoulder, so I could only look behind us and, each time I did that, my mother told me to face front, because I was throwing off her balance. After the third such correction, I resigned myself to ignorance and settled down.
My mother ran for a long time, far longer than she had ever run with me before. Sometimes, she ran on the ground, sometimes in the trees, sometimes on the water, and sometimes she ran upside-down. I didn't like when she did the last one. It scared me and made me feel like I was going to fall out of the child seat, but, after a while, her pace evened out, so that there were no more sudden drops in elevation or sudden changes in our orientation.
If I had thought of it back then, I would have realized that my mother had most likely lost her pursuers during the course of our run, and was now just running for distance, but I didn't. Instead, the motion of her body became soothing, and I eventually fell asleep against her back, trusting that she would keep me safe. She was my mother and she loved me.
Author's Ending Note: I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. Depending on reader response, I might continue to post this story. I do not see much reason to continue to write for an audience that isn't interested, so please let me know what you think. Criticisms and critiques are encouraged.
Thank you for reading.