Location unknown, date unknown.
Reincarnation and the multiverse theory, two fascinating subjects that humanity have been interested in since the dawn of our evolution. The theory of being reborn in a different person without any past memories of who you used to be or the theory of there being many different dimensions...two theories I had no idea were even possible until that fateful day. It's hazy, but it had all started like it was a normal day...I woke up, did my morning routine, went to work as one of L.A's finest, responded to a 211 turned hostage situation at the Valley Trust Bank, and got shot. I didn't know what had happened next, but I clearly remembered losing a lot of blood from getting hit in the neck and my pelvis and taken into an ambulance while falling into unconsciousness. At that point, I knew that I was dying but at least I died knowing I would see my dead friends again.
I didn't remember what happened after that, but I remember becoming warm...a tingly feeling, but I had no coherent thought about being warm. There was only instinct. Reason was long abandoned, no hunger, no worriment, and no pain. I knew I was warm, I didn't know how or why. My senses were dulled too, my ears heard nothing but the blood in my veins, I couldn't touch anything, I couldn't do anything, I didn't need food or water or anything, and I was content. Nothing to interfere with this pleasant, peaceful feeling and take it away from me.
Was I actually dead? I had felt the agony of getting shot, felt the cold feeling of losing too much blood, and now all I felt was as if I had been melted down. I ran my tongue over my teeth and flinched at the painful sensation of something cutting my tongue...and realized that my teeth were really sharp. I knew that I was dead...there was no question about that, but why were my teeth so sharp and why could I feel pain if I was dead? It felt like my teeth were as sharp like an animal and the inner cavern of my mouth felt...longer? What the hell was going on? I tried to open my mouth, only to discover that it was restrained in a strange way. Why were my teeth razor sharp and where was the entrance to Heaven?
Suddenly, an intense pain ripped through me and it felt like a huge piece of my soul was being forcibly torn into eight pieces and taken away from me. It felt like my heart was exploding while my brain was melting. I was so afraid of what was happening to me while I felt numb all over and fell unconscious.
When I awoke after an unknown amount of time, I was dimly aware of being inside a dark circular room with a dim light shining down on me, but what caught my attention was that I was literally standing on water.
"What the hell? Standing on water?" I thought in complete bafflement just as a low chuckle rang out throughout the room, causing me to tense up and look around.
"You must be very confused, I apologize for that inconvenience," a deep voice said calmly as a man with strange purple spiral eyes approached from the shadows.
My training kicked in as I analyzed the man, seeing him with pale skin, a red eye on his forehead and horns, a goatee, and pale brown hair with one lock that was braided and hanging chin-length in front of his left ear. The man was wearing a white, full-lengthed kimono with a foreign pattern on the high collar and had a necklace of the same shape of the pattern. The man also had a sword strapped to his back and he was holding an odd looking cane with a circle on top and four rings draping off of it. I didn't understand what I was seeing right now, but I knew I had to take this man with extreme caution since I didn't know who he was or if he had good intentions.
"Who are you?" I asked cautiously, testing the waters since I didn't want to come off as too impolite or too polite because this stranger could be the very person who could send me to Heaven or Hell. Besides, this all could be a coma dream and he could be nothing more than a hallucination.
"My name is Hagoromo Otsutsuki, but I am known as the Sage Of Six Paths," Hagoromo introduced while he smiled up at me, and I noticed that I towered over him as I leaned down closer to get more of a good look at him.
"What the hell? Why am I bigger than him? Something's wrong," I thought uneasily as I realized that my body felt all wrong like my face and ears seemed longer, my lower body didn't feel right, and I felt a strange alien sensation that there were multiple appendages attached to my spine.
"Where...am I?" I questioned carefully with a frown.
"You are inside a seal in my mind," Hagoromo stated and I stared at him like he had two heads.
"I'm sorry, what?" I wondered dubiously with a look of confusion and disbelief, and Hagoromo chuckled sheepishly.
"My apologies for not clarifying. I know that all this is a severe shock to you, so I'll start from the beginning. A long time ago, the world was terrorized by a monster known today as the Ten-Tails-" Hagoromo started to explain as he shifted his cane and sat down on the water.
"Forgive me for interrupting, but can I ask you a question?" I asked politely, causing the man to blink once but he gestured for me to go ahead, which I wondered, "How is it possible that we are standing on water?"
"I'll answer that question when we get there. My brother Hamura and I were given birth by a woman by the name Kaguya Otsutsuki, a once wise and kind woman who desired peace but used...controversial methods that would be considered ruthless in order to obtain that peace. Humanity regarded her with fear, awe, and reverence while declaring her as a god and worshiping her as the Rabbit Goddess. Eventually, she became corrupted by power and committed...atrocities while being driven mad. We tried to reason with her but she turned against us, merging with a monstrous tree called the God Tree and becoming a monster known as the Ten-Tails. The Ten-Tails rampaged throughout the land for years until Hamura and I challenged the beast that used to be our mother. Knowing that the kind and caring mother we knew was too far gone to be reasoned with, we fought against the Ten-Tails until we were able to gain the upper hand and sealed the beast's chakra inside me. Hamura took the remains to the sky where it became what is now called the moon. I became the Ten-Tails' Jinchuriki while my brother stayed on the moon to keep watch over the beast's remains, and I traveled all over the land to give humanity the knowledge of chakra so that they would use it to ensure that peace still remains-" Hagoromo explained but I cut him off.
"Sorry for interrupting, but what kind of drug are you on?" I inquired skeptically.
"Excuse me?" Hagoromo asked in confusion, and I could see that he was being serious.
"You truly believe what you just said? How is it physically possible that some monster's corpse became the moon and you sealed it inside yourself? Because what you just described defies any kind of logic. And what the fuck is chakra? What I want to know if you are either going to take me to Heaven or cast me into Hell for my sins," I stated, and Hagoromo just blinked up stupidly at me with a look of complete bewilderment and confusion.
"You think you're...dead?" Hagoromo wondered.
"I'm pretty sure since I remember getting shot and I bled out. I hardly felt it, but I know the EMTs used an AED on me unless I'm in the hospital in some kind of coma and this is all nothing more than a bizarre hallucination. I'm sorry for being rude and what you described was a nice story, but can you please give me the honest truth? Because I'm not stupid," I demanded calmly with an arched brow.
"What's your name then?" Hagoromo inquired hesitantly, looking completely unsure.
"Alex Winston," I answered.
Hagoromo gripped his staff a bit tighter with a pensive look as he said, "It is good that you have started thinking about yourself in such an individual manner. However, I ask you to please describe yourself to me, if you will. This may pose to be a problem in the future."
"Um...no, not until you give me some answers on where I am. For all I know, you could be a demon that's here to cast me into Hell," I said suspiciously while I blinked.
"I assure you I am not a demon. Did you say that you were a human in this past life?" Hagoromo inquired.
"Last time I checked. What else did you think I was going to be, an animal?" I deadpanned sarcastically, and Hagoromo looked nervous about something.
"Perhaps...I should show you your reflection..." Hagoromo trailed off as he put a hand on the nearby wall and the room was suddenly lit up with a clear bright light, causing me to blink as the wall had changed into a gigantic circular mirror.
But it wasn't the mirror appearing out of nowhere that made my brain shut down...what made my brain shut down and struggle to process was in the mirror. Staring back at me in the mirror's reflection was a cute baby fox kit with orange/red fur, a vulpine head, long ears with black fur that covered the inside and trailed to my red eyes with slit pupils, a humanoid torso, arms, and clawed hands with animal paw-pads, strong canine back legs, and nine beautiful tails moving around like they had a mind of their own.
I didn't know how to process what I was seeing right now. How do you react when you wake up to see that you were in the form of an animal? What kind of animal had honest-to-God nine tails? Hell, what human goes through some kind of metamorphosis that transforms them into a hybrid of a fox and human after they die? As it clicked on what I was looking at, I raised a hand and waved, and the refection did the same thing.
For the first time, I looked down at myself and saw the orange/red fur covering me and I now knew why I was so much bigger than Hagoromo...I wasn't even human or the size of a human anymore. I turned to look at Hagoromo, and sat down on my hind legs and started to panic.
"What the fuck did you do to me?! How am I even talking right now?!" I screamed at him while starting to hyperventilate and looking at my hands in denial.
Hagoromo didn't say anything and stared at me with a calculating gaze and a practiced wariness which pissed me off to no end. Imagine this...you died and accepted it, but being put into some fucked up science experiment and looking like a freak of nature was completely nerve-wracking, even for a 35-year-old combat veteran that was a Los Angeles tactical police officer when he was alive. What had happened to my body? Who did this asshole think he was by doing this to me? Was I in a coma? Or did this bastard inject some kind of drug into me?
"Answer me, you son of a bitch! Why the hell am I even here?!" I snarled ferally while my fur bristled and my new tails thrashed around in agitation.
"I do not know why you are here at this point in time, but I would like to continue with my explanation and then hear your side of the story-" Hagoromo reasoned, but I snapped and saw red as I lunged at the small man, and the next thing I knew was that my head was being slammed into the ground and an unfamiliar weight sat on the top of my rather large head.
"Please...listen to me first and then I'll hear everything about your story and try to make things better, alright Alex? I know this must be hard for you, but for now you must trust me. I will try to help you in whatever way I can," Hagoromo murmured into my ear while I tried to struggle and buck him off, but he held me down firmly. I growled and grumbled for a while but I eventually calmed down.
Once I was quiet, Hagoromo started speaking again, "As I have said before, I sealed different pieces of the Ten-Tails into different parts of myself. From this raw chakra, it took form and made separately different conscious minds and bodies...nine different Tailed Beasts, your brothers, your sisters, and you. As the chakra manifested, it picked up things from the world that I see with my own eyes, such as instincts, language, emotions. But beyond that, it did not grant me much else."
I stewed over the information I had learned which actually explained a lot, but why was I here? And more importantly, where was here? I wanted to question him again, but I didn't dare due to the fear of getting my muzzle slammed into the water again, which was surprisingly hard for a liquid. Hagoromo would explain and I needed to rely on my military training so that I could stay calm and try to make the best of my situation.
"I also noticed the chakra shaped the bodies in order from your brother the One-Tail, to you the Nine-Tails," Hagoromo finished and I frowned thoughtfully.
"Do they all...look like me?" I inquired curiously, wondering if maybe my new siblings were people who had died in different ways and wound up in this awkward situation as I had.
"No, they are quite unique and they all have keen distinctive personalities," Hagoromo explained, and I heard the smile in his voice.
I stared at my reflection, seeing his crouched figure on top of my head. I thought back to the time when I floated in that endless dark space and wondered if that was what he was referring to.
"How long? How long did it take for the chakra to evolve?" I questioned hesitantly, hoping that he wasn't going to give me any bad news.
"For each tail, it took a year which is another curious thing. Each of you developed tails at the same time, but when one of you reached the limit of that chakra space, you awoke into consciousness. You are the last, so nine years," Hagoromo stated.
If I didn't have any fur right now, I would be as white as a sheet from the revelation that was just thrown at me. I had been asleep for nine years in this new form I was in? Or had I just been replaced with my own? Did my co-workers move on? Did my brother Ryan get the news since he was an ER doctor in Washington DC? How did my parents take the news? Was there a way to contact them to let them know that I was alive? There were so many questions that resolved me to find the answers. A lot could've changed in nine years and this Kaguya might've been a scientist in Japan who discovered this 'chakra', was treated like a god because of it, and she went crazy from the implication of holding so much power in her hands. She could've experimented on many people and herself until she transformed into this Ten-Tailed monster that rampaged throughout the world, and world governments, militaries, and many law enforcement agencies failed to stop her so her sons managed to seal her body inside the moon and her chakra inside one of themselves.
"May I see some of this...chakra?" I asked hesitantly, wondering if he was going to say no because of how crazy this all was...but then again, my body had morphed into a fox with an upper-body structure of a human and I had felt pain when I accidentally cut my tongue with my teeth, so this wasn't a dream and basically nothing would surprise me anymore.
Hagoromo made some kind of hand sign and I was suddenly falling into the now not so solid water which forced me to start swimming. I glared at Hagoromo, who was standing comfortably on top of the water with a little mischievous smile.
"Ha ha...very funny, smartass. What the hell was that for?" I questioned dryly.
"A demonstration. I was regulating chakra not just to myself and the water, but to you as well. I simply cut off the chakra flow," Hagoromo explained.
"Is that what you meant by explaining how we were standing on the water?" I inquired after sighing.
"I'll teach you how to use it. However, I think you should start telling me about your own lifecycle now," Hagoromo stated with a soft smile.
"Can I at least get out of the water first?" I asked tiredly, wanting to get some form of rest after being killed, waking up in a new form, meeting a man that can do things that are considered fantasy, and also getting soaked in the process. I was miserable and wet fur didn't make me feel any better due to the rough day I'd had. I was also in a bad mood because of what I was put through.
"You should try standing on the water yourself," Hagoromo encouraged.
"By using this "chakra", right?" I inquired while making quotation marks with both hands and I added, "I have no idea how I'm supposed to do that."
"Concentrate by focusing deep inside of yourself and search for the nearly endless chakra that's inside you. Once you do that, take off a small portion and will it towards your paws," Hagoromo instructed calmly.
I did as he said and closed my eyes, searching deep inside me until I felt an unimaginable power that I was unable to describe. I gasped at the intoxicating feeling the rose up and I focused on drawing a small portion of chakra but I suddenly shot up out of the water unexpectedly and crashed into the ceiling painfully, slowly peeling myself off and falling back into the murky depths.
"Argh, son of a...God, that hurt...what the hell happened?" I wondered painfully after I surfaced.
"You used too much chakra. When you drew on too much, it made you jump too high and you injured yourself by accident. Be careful with your chakra Alex, and center it toward your paws, like you are wrapping your paws in papyrus," Hagoromo lectured.
"Why the hell would I-that doesn't even make any sense," I stated in disbelief while I sweat-dropped.
"Try using less chakra, foxy," Hagoromo sighed, looking exasperated and I bristled at the demeaning nickname.
"What the fuck did you just call me?! I am not a mindless animal, I'm an adult human male!" I growled in indignation while I slowly rose to tower over him and my tails thrashed around, though my current form said otherwise.
"But look...you are standing," Hagoromo pointed out with that irritating smile.
I looked down and saw that I wasn't quite standing on the water, but my pawed hands were resting on the surface and most of my body was out of the water.
"That little...he pissed me off on purpose," I thought in surprise.
I knew that I was usually much calmer and more professional than I currently was behaving, but something about this new body had shortened my temper and I was really not a happy camper at the moment.
I shook it off and closed my eyes again, feeling the chakra going to my back paws and I sent a tad more to give me more leverage. When I opened my eyes, I saw that I was standing on the water again.
"Good. You'll learn much faster than a human will because of your enormous chakra reserves, but you will also have much difficulty controlling your chakra because of it. That's why I'm here to help you," Hagoromo complemented me.
"You said that the Ten-Tails was monstrous...does that mean I'm a monster too?" I changed the subject, my fur soaking wet and feeling like I had three winter coats on at once.
"Even though your form is descended from a monster, it doesn't mean you are. Monsters are not in the appearance but in their personality. However, you are a Tailed Beast and there is a difference," Hagoromo said wisely.
"So I'm...evil then?" I asked uncomfortably.
"No. No one has to be evil, they only choose to be," Hagoromo said while softening his eyes.
Everything went silent as I contemplated his answer, my tails twitching slightly around us. It was bizarre...it felt like it was completely normal to me. In fact, I wouldn't have noticed if Hagoromo hadn't pointed it out to me. Now that I had the time to work out which nerves control them, my tails felt like extra limbs that were coming out of my spine...like nine arms coming out of my spine. It should've felt uncomfortable or embarrassing to me, but it felt...natural at the same time and I knew that I needed to adapt to this rapid change in my life or I would go insane and wouldn't survive the first day.
"Okay...I'll tell you everything," I decided and started to explain.
I told him everything about how I grew up with two parents and a younger brother. I told him about how I was a cop for 10 years and that I had served my country before that, also telling him that I had been discharged after a mission went horribly wrong and I lost good friends because of it. I told him that I loved reading, cooking, photography, and physical fitness. Lastly, I told him that I and my SWAT team had responded to a 211 turned hostage situation and I died in the resulting shootout between the perps. I told him that I could barely remember the EMTs trying to revive me on the way to the hospital, but I had lost too much blood to be brought back. While I had explained everything, Hagoromo was extremely patient with my story and didn't interrupt once until there was only silence after I was finished.
"This has never happened to you before?" Hagoromo asked after thinking for a while.
"No," I stated.
"As of now, I don't have an answer for you. However, I believe you should take advantage of the fact that you are indeed alive," Hagoromo suggested.
"But I'm-" I tried to protest.
"Not human? Changing form does not change the person, though there is one thing I would like to try if I may...?" Hagoromo trailed off.
I looked at him in confusion which made him clarify, "I have a certain sect I can perform to let me see your memories."
"If you can do that, then what was the point of me explaining everything to you?" I questioned.
"I believe you. However, I would like to see your life with my own eyes, because this situation is simply not probable under its usual circumstances," Hagoromo explained as he walked over to me, and I lowered my head to his height.
"I'm sorry, but can we not do that right now? I've just had my life upended and I'm simply not comfortable right now with the prospect of someone rooting around in my head," I offered uneasily and Hagoromo nodded in understanding.
"Yes, but for now you'll have to stay here in this body while I figure out what has happened," Hagoromo stated, and I ground my claws into the water pensively.
"How long?" I asked tentatively.
"However long it takes," Hagoromo told me seriously.
It was not until centuries later that I would discover the truth about why I was here. And by then, it would be too late.
A/N To explain on what's going on, this story is a what-if scenario on what would have happened if Alex was killed during the bank robbery shootout and his soul merged with Kurama's body during his creation. I also wanted to let you all know that not much will change canon-wise. Alex will suffer from humanity's hatred along with being controlled by Madara and Obito, and his personality will be similar to the original Kurama but Alex will be using cold logic and he'll analyze a situation to work for his benefit. One last thing is that Alex won't have a human form since there are some people who like that sort of thing.
Ps. How do you all think Alex's relationships with his new siblings and all three Jinchuriki will turn out? Let me know by either putting down a review or sending me a private message. Stay tuned.