For some reason he couldn't understand, Naruto woke up in what appeared to be his bed. It didn't help that he died only a moment before, or that a slew of strange and improbable events happened shortly afterwards.

Scanning his surroundings, he indeed noticed that he was home. The savory scent of stale milk and ancient, petrified ramen made him sigh with pleasure. As he sat up, Narutofelt as though a weight had lifted off of his chest, accompanied with a likely imagined *thud*.

As he tried standing up, he felt his foot make contact with something and slip. He fell and hit his nose on the floor.

"Ouch!" he shouted.

Picking himself up from the floor, Naruto saw the object on which he slipped. Apparently, he now had an interesting black leather booklet, with the word "HELP" printed on the cover, in his possession.

He picked it up and sat on his bed.

"HELP" was one word he rarely used but currently really needed—considering what he'd been through.

"What's this about…" Naruto muttered under his breath as he flicked the book open. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't open anything besides the Table of Contents.

There were a few interesting topics he saw, from "Friends" to "Save Games".

He rubbed his fingers along the first topic and saw that he could now open the booklet's interior.

"Friends are special characters in the Game of Life. Unlike most characters you might encounter on your journey through life, 'Friends' have special functions and a greater understanding of the world. You will encounter 'Friends' where you least, or perhaps most, expect them (More information will become available upon advancing further in the game)."

Naruto paused for a moment, before flicking back to the booklet's Table of Contents and touched the second interesting topic. Perhaps this one would give some answers?

"Save Games are points in the game from where you can restart your journey if you meet an untimely end. You acquire them by saving your progress at special Save Points in the game. These 'Save Points' are scattered around the world (More information will become available upon advancing further in the game)."

Naruto closed the booklet.

Well, that was a sort of a shock - although there was almost a positive spin to the awkward situation he was now in. On one hand, he could find these special "friends" throughout the game who could likely help him in some way. On the other, he could defy logic and go back in time if only he found those special "Save Points". Well, what was a simple defiance of logic if he could cheat death?

He sat up and put the booklet beside his alarm clock.

It was seven in the morning.

Why he awoke this early was beyond him, but that was the least of his worries.

His apartment was a bit cleaner than he remembered it being - his bed-sheets were a radiant red and the walls looked to be a freshlyapplied orange. He now had a fancy radio just next to the alarm clock, too.

Beside the window, he saw, now sat a black and white tansu of some sort, and on the tansu Ukki-kun merrily absorbed the sun-

Wait…Ukki-kun?!

Naruto blinked once. And twice. Yes, he did see Ukki-kun.

Ukki-kun was now only a fig sapling - he had two leaves and one green stem. At the time, Naruto hadn't known what kind of fig he was, but the merchant who sold him the seeds said something akin to "Benchāminu" and mentioned something about the seeds being from the southern lands.

That wasn't important. What was was both Ukki-kun's size, several times smaller than when he saw him last time, and the fact that Ukki-kun was still at home with him.

Naruto suddenly noticed how the room was somehow larger than he last saw it - the window was both higher and wider, the ceiling was farther away, and the walls even seemed to be spaced farther apart. What was going on?

He turned around to face the calendar; the numbers "953" were neatly printed on its top.

But...

953? He looked down at his hands.

The rather loud and apparently manic shouting that ensued surely woke up half of the village. His arms were smaller, his hands were tiny, his feet were tiny... he was all tiny!

Naruto dashed into the bathroom, now tiled with some shinier white tiles, and found that he even had to jump up in order to see himself in the mirror. He brought one of the chairs he used to eat on to the bathroom and stood on it.

The face that stared back from the other side was utterly alien to him. Well not utterly - seeing as it had blue eyes, blond hair and an expression so shocked it perfectly matched Naruto's own.

He rubbed his cheek, and the childish figure did the same. He tugged at his hair.

So did the child from the other side.

He wasn't imagining it, that much Naruto knew. His home wasn't larger, but in fact he was smaller… and apparently seven years younger.

He went back to his bedroom-slash-dining room and looked around once again.

Yes, it was somewhat bigger, but it was due to his age rather than a better financial status. It was neater and prettier, though, and he was rather glad for it. Fortunately, petrified ramen still hung in the air.

It was the twenty-ninth of March. He turned back to Ukki-kun.

"Yeah, that's about how he looked..."

Naruto realized the importance of today. The twenty-ninth was the latest date on which children could apply to enroll at the academy.

He sighed, wishing he were older. All that academy business had taken a major chunk of his first life away, and now it was threatening to do so again.

He plodded around the room, exploring for new things, and settled on the tansu. It was of the white sort, but also handcrafted. The herikanagu on it was slightly imperfect, he saw, but didn't know why he knew. That meant that it too was handmade.

The white wood on it was rather impressive, though.

He opened the first of the four drawers and saw within it neatlyfolded black and orange clothes. The other three held his underwear and socks.

So many socks.

He got dressed. A black shirt and orange pants would do work well, he thought.

He grabbed the booklet and lay down on the bed. Going over the table of contents, he opened up to the section labeled "Introduction".

"Welcome to Naruto: Game of Life! You have probably just awoken after having died from some reason. You are now seven years old, but that may depend on the scenario. You should get dressed and hurry up to school.

"Current fun stuff active:Living Cosmology and Ages of Legends and Myths. Mixing modes is not recommended for beginners!"

He closed the booklet and put it back beside the alarm clock. It would obviously be little help to him now, seeing as he had to discover all of that by himself.

He opened the tansu to grab his equipment and slapped his forehead as he remembered he was still seven and without a weapon within twenty feet (except maybe a chopstick… or three).

As he walked out of his large apartment through the large doors, he wondered what exactly the modes were. They couldn't really do anything bad, or so he hoped, but as he was apparently stuck inside some celestial videogame, he didn't bet too much on his hopes being true.

Per his usual routine, he first visited Ichiraku's.

The stand looked about the same as he last remembered it, except it was in slightly better shape.

He preemptively dug into his pockets and counted two thousand ryō. He walked under the covers and took his regular seat.

Before ordering his food, he was subjected to a constant barrage of "Naru-chan!" which, while heartwarming, was slightly annoying considering he was actually fourteen.

Six bowls and a round of haggling later, and Naruto continued on his path to the academy.

It looked about the same, too - the gray paint was somewhat more cracked all over, which wasn't surprising seeing as it was due to Naruto that it received a new paint job every month.

He looked up - it was indeed cracked all over. Time took its toll. Come to think of it, time would take his chance at becoming a ninja, too.

He went into the building and navigated the maze of too large corridors until he reached his classroom.

There sat an oversized Iruka and fourty-something downsized friends of his. Well, they weren't his friends now, seeing as he'd never met them in this life, but, yeah...

The moment he stepped in, the bell rang.

It was the official beginning of his academy life.

But... wait, how could it be when it was still March?

Iruka wasn't too terribly interested. This was the man Naruto loved so much and looked up to as a brother. A man who almost gave up his own life just to protect him.

A man who now didn't know Naruto in any way, save by reputation.

"Uh, Umino Iruka-san? I'm, uh, Uzumaki Naruto," he managed to say meekly, hoping he had made it to class on time.

Iruka eyed him one hand, he was the last of all students to arrive (yes, even Shikamaru seemed to be present) and that was dangerous, but on the other, Konoha did have one chronically late ninja in its ranks already.

Naruto remembered he didn't know this Iruka, although he knew Iruka in general. He knew that the man's parents died in the Kyūbi attack. As far as he remembered, he was part of Iruka's first generation of students, since the man had only recently graduated to Chūnin rank.

Iruka was, by all accounts, a rather reasonable person - far from judging, both in general and to Naruto. However, the blond also couldn't remember how things went the first time he enrolled in the academy.

"Uzumaki-kun, you're... almost late," the man said and sighed. "You've arrived just as we were starting."

Naruto then thought he saw a glimmer of something not good in Iruka's eyes. By all accounts, Iruka was obligated to let Naruto join, and the kid knew the man used to be very weary of him for the first several months of their acquaintance. However, Iruka had also known that even though he had to let Naruto in, he could be particularly nitpicky if he so chose to be.

It appeared as though today he did.

"I'm gonna toss a coin, heads and you're in, tails and you're out. Ok?"

Naruto started panicking at Iruka's words. If the coin landed on tails, he'd probably never become a ninja, but if he didn't try, he'd still never become a ninja, so it was a lose-lose situation.

"Yeah, that's ok."

Iruka dug out a tenryō coin out of his pocket and tossed it upwards. Iruka caught it and eyed the results before tossing it again. Naruto felt a bubble of anger rise in his chest. How was that fair?

"Hey, that's cheating!" the blond shouted, but the man ignored him and tossed the coin in the air again. When it landed, he seemed surprised for a moment.

"Huh..."

He tossed it again, and again, and again, before sighing for one final time.

"Yeah, I guess you're in. I can't believe it..."

Naruto didn't want to argue with the ruling that he was right, and just went to his seat with a simple, "Hell yeah!" He took his seat beside an eerily familiar hedgehog-haired kid who was soundly asleep.

Iruka's first class was an introduction into the world of ninja; an explanation of all the dangers that such a life might and would bring; a brief overview of the brief history of Konoha; and finally, the swearing of oaths.

All of the children, save a few from the clans and one from the future, listened to Iruka as if he were of a divine nature and absorbed all the stories of his not-so-long life as though they were sponges filling up with water.

Naruto decided it was best to join his newfound friend in his activities and lay his head down on the desk and closed his eyes.

He thought about how cool it would be for him to become Hokage, fighting any enemy and protecting everyone, while wearing that cool hat and a cloak that had written on it some witty statement and-

He jumped up as the bell rang, slightly startled and drowsy. Shikamaru arose with far less haste.

"That's it for today, kids. You have fourty-five minutes to eat and generally do... whatever it is you do, and after that you should join Mizuki in the training grounds behind the academy," Iruka said to his class as they left. He leaned back in his chair and muttered something sounding creepily similar to "lucky brat" when Naruto passed him by.

The blond kid decided to follow Shikamaru when the lunch break began.

"Hey, we met in class, remember?" Naruto began.

Shikamaru looked at him with suspicion. Mouthing a "mendokusē", he nodded at the inquiry.

"I'm Uzumaki Naruto, 'ttebayo!"

Shikamaru didn't change his facial expression - he was as stiff and lazy with six or seven or however old he was as he was with fourteen years: too lazy to move a facial muscle.

"I'm Nara Shikamaru," he said and with that decided their conversation was over. Naruto followed as the boy walked over to a clearing on the academy's grounds and saw him lie down on the grass. After a moment, Naruto did the same.

The two watched the sky for some time before Naruto finally started to get fidgety.

"What are we doing?"

"I'm watching the clouds. What about you?" the boy deadpanned.

"Yeah, I guess I am too," Naruto responded.

He tried looking at the clouds and discerning the meaning behind them, but no matter how much he tried, he couldn't find anything to it.

"Why are we watching the clouds?" he asked.

Shikamaru half-sighed, half-whispered something and pointed at a formation of clouds to their right.

"See that cluster there?"

Naruto nodded.

"There are four of those there, then eight there," he said as he drew his finger across the sky towards the left until he reached the area in front of himself.

He pointed at their left now.

"You see that cluster there? There's nine here, and ten further along to the right."

"Oh, right," Naruto said.

He looked at the sky again and tried to focus on the clusters of clouds Shika pointed out to him.

Four, eight, nine and ten.

He squinted.

"I don't get it."

Shikamaru sighed again - people seemed to do that in Naruto's presence quite a bit,

"For all your smart looks you're somewhat dense. Four, eight, nine, ten; this is a pattern my father told me was one of the keys to some great secret. He said, 'the ruling king is armoured in head to toe in brilliant flame; he is redeemed by each act he undertakes, his death is only a diagram back to the waking world'. But I don't really understand any of it. All I know is that I keep finding this pattern everywhere, for some unknown reason."

Naruto scratched his head. Yeah, he couldn't have guessed, but now that Shikamaru explained it to him, he felt somewhat better.

"Yeah, I think I get what you mean. I mean, I don't understand anything of what your father said or that, but... yeah, thanks."

"You're welcome," Shikamaru said and tuned back in with his pattern. Naruto joined him happily this time.

"Did anyone ever tell you that you're too smart for your own good?" Naruto jokingly asked his new friend.

"Did anyone ever tell you you talk too much?"

They both laughed and went back to gazing at the clouds. Glancing back at the academy, Naruto saw Iruka face-palm and walk into the building upon seeing them. Apparently, Iruka knew more of Shikamaru than Naruto.

The bell rang to signify the end of their small lunch break (during which they didn't eat, but that didn't matter) and the two boys sat up and walked over to the mass of children assembled around a particular white-haired man.

Mizuki.

Yeah, the same Mizuki who wanted Naruto dead for some of his opaque goals.

Naruto felt a bubbling rage rise up from within him and he mugged Sasuke in front of him for several senbon before instinctively throwing them at Mizuki, who was almost caught off-guard.

Almost. The white-haired man deftly deflected the boy's senbon with his own.

"Pointy needles are popular this year, I've noticed, " he said before laughing.

Everybody, save a notable few, turned around to stare Naruto down.

"If I didn't know we were going to be practicing weapons now, I'd guess you just tried to kill me, kit," he said. "Come on, kids, brighten up! Nothing like a few surprises to keep you shinobi on your toes, right?"

A few laughs were heard coming from the group and the overall atmosphere seemed to improve.

Over the course of the next hour and a half, Naruto found himself cloudgazing once more with Shikamaru.

"Why'd you do that?" the darker-haired boy asked.

Naruto groaned. "I can't explain it to you… you'll think I'm crazy or something."

Shikamaru mulled that over for a few moments before settling for a simple "ok".

"What?"

"I said 'ok'. You have your reasons for doing the things you do. I won't prod. Too troublesome."

"Oh... Thanks, I guess."

Shikamaru merely nodded.

Naruto counted the clouds. Ten, nine, eight, four. The same pattern as before except in reverse.

He took note of it. The pattern meant something. It certainly wasn't accidental, seeing as he couldn't say anything within this cosmic videogame he was stuck in could be. Maybe Shikaku and Shikamaru were onto something.

He glanced over at Mizuki, who was also juggling between glancing at him and teaching the kids what each weapon was. The kids slacking off, Naruto saw, were all clan children, who had probably all learned how to identify weapons at a younger age. Sasuke, of course, was an exception to the slacker rule, though, and so was that Shino guy.

Naruto felt on edge being that close to Mizuki, and it didn't help that his teenager's intuition was acting up.

When classes finally ended, he went home but not before stopping to buy a notebook and pen from a scribe supply store.

He unlocked the doors of his apartment, carefully watching if anyone was around.

Having heated up a can of instantramen, Naruto sat down on his bed with the black booklet and notebook in hand.

He wrote the sequence "4-8-9-10" down before opening the booklet on "Friends" again.

"Friends are special characters in the Game of Life. Unlike most characters you might encounter on your journey through life, Friends have special functions and a greater understanding of the world. Each friend has a particular part of the story to share with you, or maybe a specific fragment of information that may be of use. Not all Friends are there to help you, and many will find delight in the opportunity to stab you in the back (More information will become available upon advancing further in the game)."

The text had changed.

Naruto rubbed his eyes before standing up and going to check the lock on his door.

It hasn't been tampered with. He checked all his windows as well, but nothing had been touched. He made his way back to his bed, seeing as this change seemed to be another game mechanic.

He looked at the Table of Contents again and sighed. He couldn't find anything interesting.

He opened his notebook and began writing.

"Monday, somewhere around April 1st, 953 (?)—Today wasn't a fun day. Having ideas about the future and knowing how peoples' actions will affect it isn't good for sanity, not unlike much of the game."

With that, Naruto closed the book and promptly threw it across the room as he was startled by the word "ARTEFACT" now neatly printed on the front cover of the booklet. He shrugged once he realised what had happened and proceeded to turn off all the lights in the room before laying down.