Naruto SI

Working Title: Chakra and Ninjas – Oh My!

Chapter 1 - Where am I?

2015/03/19

Disclaimer: I do not own anything written here, except myself and my idea. I am writing purely for my own pleasure.

Consciousness slowly drifted back to me, I heard the buzzing and creaking of bugs, smelt the musty scent of moldy trees and long-damp soil, felt the soft, wet grass beneath my back, rubbing slightly against my neck and I wondered, where am I?

I slowly opened my eyes, and was greeted by the underside of tree tops. I looked around for a second before I realised: "Wait a second! WHO am I?" I stopped, frozen in a near panic, before memories unveiled themselves: My name is Thomas. Thomas... Something.

I am seventeen years old, grew up with a loving mother and father, as well as a very protective older brother. And I couldn't remember my own surname, it seemed. I took a deep breath. Okay. No use panicking.
I was raised as a very intelligent child, and could read when I was three years old. I have a reasonably strong moral code, and I am a slightly religious person. I prefer books to people and have very few friends. I have never been seriously bullied, and retaliated successfully against those who tried. Not many did.

I was walking home from school one day and crossed a very quiet road over the zebra crossing. I never had time to react to the roaring of the truck as it powered down the road, I only heard a brief burst of noise and saw a flash of light before…

Nothing.

A gap in my memory, not unlike that of when you wake up from sleep, knowing time has passed but not having experienced the passing of time. The gap seemed small, almost minuscule, but at the same time it was larger, larger than time itself. Something important had happened in that gap, but I was not sure what.

Focusing on that gap, I wondered where else I could find gaps, and I found them in strange places. I would be looking for something to read, but could not remember what it was that I read, or I would be discussing popular anime and manga with my two friends, and the topic of half the conversation would be blank…

I re-opened my eyes, not even aware that I had closed them in the first place, sat up, and once again took stock of my surroundings. Trees as far as I could see ahead of me, blocking out most of the sun, grass and moss underneath me, some birds fluttering fluttering in between the branches, and a path a short distance to my left.

Deciding that it would be best to investigate the path first, I stood up, and was shocked by my apparent miniaturisation! I seemed to have lost just under a third of my height!
Deciding that an immediate status check took priority, I investigated my body.

My current body looked to be about seven or eight years old, and had a lot less baby fat than normal children should have. Taking off my jacket, which was a rather hideous orange, and my T-Shirt, which sported a like-wise orange flame-like emblem on a white back ground, I looked at my slightly underweight torso.

My ribs were showing slightly, and I did not have much in the line of muscle tone, but at least my stomach seemed to have a bit of fat, although not as much as normal seven or eight year olds would have.

Moving on, I reached up and grabbed a bit of my hair, that was slightly long, although not as long as my hair originally was at that age, and a striking yellow! It was not a very bright blonde, as mine was at that age, before it darkened, but instead it was a bright yellow.
I sat down down, putting my shirt back on as I did but leaving my jacket on the ground, and started to think. If this wasn't my de-aged body, as I had started to believe, and instead someone else's body, as the hair and nutrition showed, then the question became: Who's body was it?

As I closed my eyes, deep in thought about the ownership of this body, I started receiving images, vague impressions of a life I had never lived, a life of loneliness, misery and slight fear, I heard shouts of "Demon!", and parents telling their children to stop playing.
I re-lived a life that was not mine, and as I came to for the second time that day, I heard a voice say "The name's Naruto, Uzumaki Naruto. You better remember that when I become Hokage, Dattebayo!"

I opened my eyes again with a wry grin as well as a derisive snort, and remarked to myself, "Well, at least I know whose body this is."

Apparently the previous owner of this body, one Uzumaki (Family name, I reminded myself, they seem to come first here, like they do in Japan) Naruto, was being hated and discriminated against for something I do not even know about. He ate ramen, which I had heard about, but never had the opportunity to eat before, simply because it was nice, cheap, and no-one told him that it was unhealthy, and eventually developed an obsession about it.

He was also nine years old. Viciously underdeveloped for such an age, he was at least fifteen centimetres shorter than the global average, something that I hoped to rectify in the upcoming years.

At a young age he developed a mask in order to hide his true sadness and misery, and the mask eventually overtook his true self, his dumb and excessively loud persona overtaking and supplanting his original personality, which became so suppressed that he developed a split personality whose memories I also received, memories of anger and hatred, wishing to burn the village to the ground were just as prevalent as those of faked laughter and plastic smiles, wanting to protect the village to his dying breath.

"Okay, Let's try this again, Thomas. Naruto. I suppose I am going to have to go by that now, won't I?" I mused, before taking a deep breath, and settled myself, before getting up, picking up my jacket as I did, and walked towards the path.

"Naruto," I rolled it around in my mouth as I said it a second time. "Sounds familiar..."