Unrealized potential is the same as no potential.
I heard those words before but was too stupid, too lazy to truly act on it the first time. I was born in the Land of Fire, in the Hidden Village of Leaves, or Konoha for short. I became a genin at twelve, failed my first jonin sensei test, then became a chunin at sixteen shortly before Pain invasion. Afterwards I vowed to become stronger, not to be helpless, but a few weeks later, though it felt like months, the Forth Shinobi War started and I died fighting the White Zetsu army. I couldn't even kill one of the bastards and at best my death served to stall their attack from reaching someone that mattered.
Thus ended my first life in an unremarkable note, as one of the various casualties of the largest conflict recorded in history.
Then I woke up, and things got strange.
~~O~~
I was five years old and I had got a hang of my new life. My father worked as salariman while my mother was a housewife, and while we didn't had a luxurious life at least we didn't starved which was definitely a step up from being an orphan in the Elemental Nations. I had reincarnated into what I initially believed to be several decades to several hundred years in the future, but I was soon disabused of that notion when I learned that this world had no notion of chakra and the world map looked wrong somehow. I knew that for the world to have changed that much either someone on the same level of the Sage of Six Paths had appeared in the past and did a massive landscape change for no reason or several millions of years had passed, and I felt that both notions where unlikely, as much as 'reincarnated into another world' felt impossible.
It looked like some of those cults that preached that chakra was a gift bestowed by the Sage of Six Paths to humanity, instead of him merely being the first to harness it's power, were indeed correct. It stood to reason from that fact that chakra could be inherited by reincarnations or by genetics, which it was what eventually made chakra spread across the world through humanity and all life forms in the planet.
Technically speaking if I ever gift chakra to the world I can call myself the Sage of Six Paths, but unless I get at least Kage level those are shoes too big for me to fill.
At that age I didn't tried to act like a five year old, I had already passed that and while a shinobi greatest weapon was deception I didn't want to lie to my parents about my abilities and intellect. Besides there was much for me to learn and not enough time.
In hindsight I should have been more discreet, but what's done is done.
I did have friends while growing up, one in particular could be called that ever elusive 'childhood friend' that I never quite had while growing up the first time.
Her name is Nanjo Kisara, and I had meet her when she was taking a walk with her cat (seriously, how did she managed to make that work) and she was attacked by a stray dog. Surprisingly her cat tried to defend her and was ready to die for its owner when I showed up and drove off the dog with a couple of throw kitchen knifes I had appropriated from my home. She thanked me while in tears and hugging her cat, and I asked if she wanted to be my friend.
Thankfully she accepted.
~~O~~
My shinobi training had progressed well since I had started it ever since I could walk. At first nothing too fancy other than feeling the flow of chakra in my body and using the leaf ticking exercise to learn chakra control. My parent really liked me on that period because I was a very quiet kid, with smaller bouts of activity as I trained my body to gain strength, speed and coordination. I also training the basic three and some other necessary skills in secret, and I think that I could have graduated the academy by the time I hit six years old.
Of course I didn't get cocky and used the extra time to perfect the skills I already had and to learn more about the world.
It was around that time I went to school even if my parents knew I was much more advanced than the other kids, but my parents wanted me to have friends of my own age. It didn't worked very well, I mean I played and studied with them, but I was more like their big brother than their friends, you know? The only one that felt like a friend in that whole school was Kisara, thank the heavens for me to be enrolled in the same school as her.
She was smart for her age, and had a fiery nature on her that reminded me more or less about Ino, when she was still the popular, kind girl I meet at first and not the loathsome Sasuke fangirl she had became near the end of the academy years. It was after spending a year as her friend that I entertained the notion of telling her my secret, which was strange as all hell since I didn't wanted to tell my parents that secret yet. Then again maybe I thought that her being a child would mean she could believe. Then again she was a really cute kid in a little sister sort of way so that might have influenced my thinking a bit.
When I entered my second year her pet cat had became sick and eventually died, making her sad and silent for a whole week before I caved in and told her my secret after making her swear a pinky promise not to tell anyone. I showed her my abilities and got a predictable, but still appreciated amount of awe from her.
Then of course came the request for me to train her. Of course, after all what kind of kid would reject something shiny?
I fought with myself for a while. Technically academy could start as early as six and as late as eight so I had enough time to teach her, but if I did that I had to first share my chakra with her and hope that she managed to develop her chakra pathways and chakra gates in a reasonable timeframe.
In the end she managed to worm down through my defenses and I relented, and I started teaching her. In the end I'm glad that I did, since ever since them we had a very strong bond, something that I didn't knew I had missed all my life. Not only that but she took to my lessons, even the more boring ones like meditation, like a fish to the water and in record time she learned all the information a first year academy student were expected to know.
Life was starting to look really good and I was really living up to my potential as the first chakra user and first true shinobi of this world, meaning I could become someone that mattered, someone important, someone great instead of being a lazy ass nobody.
It was a that point that life took offense to my good cheer, and both my parents died.