"Youth is wasted on the young". It is true, young people have the time and energy to do anything, become anyone yet have neither the experience nor foresight to make it a reality. Of course you can't really blame children for not knowing the horrors of life, and not having the presence of mind to prepare for any future eventuality, for what 17 year old plans on their village being crushed by giant serpents? Who at the age of 20 expects to be killed by what could only be described as a God among men, only to be brought back the very same day? Would anyone be ready to fight a gargantuan chakra construct capable of destroying the entire Elemental Nations? Well I for one was not ready, not in the slightest.
As a 21 year old Chūnin I could deliver important documents to outposts in the Land of Fire, Escort clients and even teach the next generation of aspiring shinobi. All these things I could and did do for Konohagakure, my village, the place I was born and loved, however I couldn't even last 2 minutes against a Jōnin, so when a bomb capable of eviscerating a whole village flew at the the Allied Shinobi Forces Headquarters that I was working in as part of the Intelligence Division, I just prayed to Kami to let me rest in peace and maybe give me some attractive women to spend eternity with, the usual last wishes. I hoped that the people in charge could find some way to defeat the Ten-Tails, because I had no clue how in the world something so disastrous, and destructive.
Maybe the Fourth Hokage could have sealed it away like he did the Nine-Tails, although my extreme lack of knowledge in Fūinjutsu meant that idea may have been absolute garbage and impossible. Perhaps they could find some way to send it flying away, say to the Moon or the Sun, somewhere unreachable that it could never come back from. Why I was having all these ideas when I was about to die I do not know. It's like when you have an exam and you cannot for the life of you think of the answers, but as soon as you've finished and the pressure is off they come flooding back to your brain. I also realised that time must have been dilated for it felt like minutes had passed since I should have been removed from existence and sent to the Pure Land.
I stopped thinking to listen to the sounds of screaming, shouting and panic that I had been hearing when I shut my eyes, ready to embrace death, however all I could hear was an occasional bang of what sounded like a window shutter and quiet humming from beneath me. I opened my eyes slowly expecting to see a bright, ethereal light. I got bright light, but it dimmed soon to reveal a small room reminiscent of my bedroom as a child.
A bedside table to my right, a wardrobe to my right and a door directly in front of me. I slid to the side and got out of the bed, my mind going a million miles a second, am I dead? Or not? I couldn't tell, and honestly I was scared.
"Kai" I shouted, attempting to dispel any genjustsus that may be causing this, but nothing changed. I looked down at my hands to see soft childlike fingers, looking at my palms there were no callouses from training, my arms virtually hairless. I slowly padded to the door and as quietly as I could pulled it open.
"Hello?" I felt that it was a good start, not very shinobi-like but my mind was a mess at the time. The humming from down the stairs that lay in front of me stopped.
"Tetsuo? Breakfast is ready darling, hurry up so you're not late for your first day at the Academy." That voice was that of my mother, Kimura Akane, named for her luscious blood red hair.
She had died four years ago when Orochimaru, one of the famous Sannin, attacked Konoha and killed hundreds of civilians and shinobi. I made my way down the stairs silently, a skill borne from years of practice and now more natural than making sound, to see my mother putting breakfast on the table. As soon as I saw her face I knew that this was no dream, this was no genjutsu. No, this was real, my mother was truly alive and standing before my eyes.
"Kami have mercy on my soul." I couldn't help but say, because I was alive, my family was alive and I had a second. I had the chance to make sure that my youth was not wasted on me and that everyone I loved would live to see me become the greatest shinobi of my generation, because if I learned one thing from my first life, it was this: 'A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work' and boy was I determined.