If you got a second chance at life, what would do?

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- Chapter One: Awakening -

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"One step must start each journey."

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I remember discomfort.

Blackness.

Confusion.

Suddenly, I saw light.

How long was I in the darkness? Days? Weeks? Months? Years?

It was impossible to tell. You had no way to keep track of time in the darkness.

Everything now was blurry and bright.

I was unaccustomed to the brightness, and it stung my eyes. As my eyes slowly adjusted, I blinked rapidly, trying to make the discomfort disappear.

People were, at least I think, washing me. They were huge. At first I thought they were giants and I was just having a really disturbing dream about giants cleaning me, but then I caught a glimpse of my hand.

I hiccuped in horror.

… Since when did I have small, pudgy hands?

I tried to ask the giants, but my voice box wasn't developed enough to form words yet and I only managed a gurgle.

A gurgle?

I was now wrapped up in a warm blanket and handed over to woman with bright red hair and green eyes. She had symmetrical facial features and looked at me adoringly. She was pretty, even though she looked obviously worn out.

I looked around to confirm my fear.

I was in a hospital.

Shit.

Holy shit.

I was a newborn baby.

Then I did the only rational thing I knew how to do and cried.

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I later found out that my mother was a 'civilian', officially speaking. She was good at handling weapons and was decent enough at taijutsu, seeing her family was one of the three main working blacksmiths that supplied Konoha with weapons, but wasn't a registered ninja.

Konoha...

It was one of the first words I had recognized. The one word that made my mind even more confused then it already was.

Konoha?

Konoha was a fictional place in a a popular manga series, Naruto... Maybe it also meant other things, but to my knowledge, Konoha was a place. A fictional place in a fictional book.

I also recognized some basic words of Japanese.

When I first heard people talking, I had been too confused to even realize it was Japanese. When I had gotten over the initial shock that I was indeed stuck in the body of a helpless, fat baby, I began to observe my surroundings carefully.

I silently thanked the heavens that I had taken two years of Japanese in high school. Granted, I didn't remember much, but even the little knowledge I had was a great deal of help. I guess it was a good thing I had been born as a baby because I had the excuse of not knowing how to speak.

Things didn't make any sense.

I was a baby.

A Japanese baby.

That itself was weird.

I wondered how I was connected to this body.

Was I a spirit stuck in a body, cursed to watch the life of this baby through their eyes?

Later, I came to conclusions that this body was indeed now my body: when I raised my hand I saw the small, pudgy fingers move upwards.

Or maybe I was controlling the body of someone else without realizing it? I didn't seem very likely, but too many weird and seemingly impossible things had happened to me to cast that option aside.

In my 'old' life, I was American. And not a baby at that.

It was extremely difficult to wrap my head around the idea that I was now a baby. As improbable as it was, I accepted it. Although, it was a major setback, good things could maybe come out of this experience.

I was now forced to restart my life all over again. Although this might seem to some as troublesome, it did have some advantages; I was smarter and more experienced, therefore I didn't have to repeat the same mistakes my former self had made.

There weren't, however, many things a baby could do. I slept a lot and was fed regularly, my body fragile and adjusting to its surroundings. I didn't have enough strength or coordination to do more than than eat and sleep anyway. Forget running- I couldn't even crawl.

It did sort of annoy me... I had been living a good enough life before and the prospect of re-doing everything again bothered me. Had all of my work and effort in my 'past' life been for nothing? Agh. This thought frustrated me.

I also missed my family and friends a lot as well. The only human contact I was limited to were with my new family (that I hardly knew anything about). I couldn't hold any conversations anymore. I could hardly understand what these people were saying.

Also, everything seemed so huge! The 'giants', as I had named them, talked very loudly and sometimes I could hear their footsteps way before I could see them.

I learned that my name was now Ren. My 'mom' (I still had difficulty calling her that) called me Ren-chan all the time, so it wasn't hard to guess.

"You're so adorable Ren-chan!" and "Look at Ren-chan!" were some expressions she overused daily.

She was rather chatty and energetic. She rarely left my side, and if she did it was no longer than two minutes. The red hair and green eyes struck me as very odd for a Japanese woman, but it strangely suited her nicely.

My 'dad' was quieter than my mother. He was tall and looked strong and fierce. He had strong facial features that contrasted with my mother's. Brown hair and eyes- he looked rather plain, but his smile changed all that. When he smiled, everything seemed so much brighter. He didn't really talk that much but every time he gazed into my eyes there was that wonderful look of pride that clouded his eyes.

There weren't many things I was sure of anymore, but I decided in those moments that I liked that look.

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I was now several months old, fully aware that I was part of the ninja world.

I could only suppose, but there were many signs that indicated I was in the Naruto world.

I spotted weapons laying around the house all the time (I sometimes wondered why- wasn't that a safety hazard?). They weren't normal looking weapons either. No guns or anything fancy like that.

There were these sort of metal knives with holes at the ends. Sometimes I spotted metal rings that had pointy ends all around. I later learned they were named 'kunai' and 'shuriken'.

There were subtle signs as well. Dad moved too silently to be considered human, in all honesty. At times I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me because he disappeared and reappeared like magic.

The biggest clue I suppose, would have to have been the headband my Dad wore around his forehead. I hadn't registered its meaning until much later, but when I did, everything seemed to make a bit more sense.

He was wearing (what I later learned was called a 'forehead protector') a navy blue headband tied around his forehead with a metallic plate facing the front. On it, it had engraved a simple design of a leaf.

Leaf.

As in, the Village Hidden in the Leaves.

Another twist to my crazy dream.

A good twist. This certainly opened more doors and possibilities. More complications and questions as well, but I ignored that for now.

I had other problems to deal with for the moment.

Communication for one.

I didn't have profound knowledge of Japanese or its culture. In high school they taught you how to write your name and how to say hello. Now that I lived in the Japan (in the feudal era!), there were many things I wanted to know, to learn, to discover.

When the only thing you hear all day is Japanese, you're bound to pick something up by the end of the day.

Of course, there were still some words and things I didn't understand but I understand basic sentences and I was content for that for now.

I had my mom read me stories a lot. I wanted to be able to read Japanese too. It had bothered me a great deal that I couldn't read without the help of someone else.

Reading was hard, and I only truly became interested in learning that until much later.

I had to learn what words corresponded to which symbols. It was complicated, but I was determined to make sense out of things.

My days as a baby weren't amazing. As I have already stated, there aren't many things to do.

Between sleeping and eating, I settled for observing.

I observed quietly (for the most part).

Observing taught me many things.

I learned that Mom was a great cook.

Surprisingly, the food in Konoha was pretty much the same I ate in my old life. I would have expected that a couple centuries ago people ate like savages. Kind of like the middle ages or vikings. Then I remembered watching Chouji eating ribs and chips in the Naruto anime.

I wasn't allowed to eat ribs yet, but the food I was allowed to eat was pretty darn good.

I learned that my taste in food wasn't the same anymore. Some things I used to refuse to eat in my old life, I now happily swallowed.

The fact that Mom was a good cook put aside, I was growing rather fond of my new family.

It didn't surprise me, seeing that as a baby I needed to rely on someone and Dad and Mom were those people. I mean come on, how can you not learn to love people who wipe your butt and feed you everyday?

I also learned I had an older brother.

He was six years my senior and had recently enrolled at the Academy, the school that trained kids to become ninjas.

I wasn't used to having any siblings but I immediately took a liking to my new relative.

Tadashi (I learned was his name) was constantly cheerful and took care of me all the time. He read me stories and played games with me. He rambled a lot but I listened anyway. Half of the things weren't that interesting (like what he ate) but sometimes he talked about what he learned at the Academy, which interested me a lot.

I had never paid attention before, but apparently the Academy wasn't just a ninja school where you learned cool new also learned math, science and the other essential courses that were taught at 'civilian schools'. A smart shinobi was always better than a dumb one.

It was only his first year at the Academy and they hadn't taught them any jutsus yet, since at his age students still hadn't fully developed their chakra reserves to an efficient amount.

From what I could remember, if you were too low on chakra you could pass out and even sometimes die. It was understandable that the instructors at the Academy waited until the students were at least seven (or even older) to teach them a jutsu, even if it was a low level one.

I sometimes wondered when exactly I had been born. I knew I was born July 11th- I had a certificate to prove it. But when? Where was I exactly on the 'Naruto timeline'? We weren't at war, that I could tell, because if we had been, my father would have been sent out on platoons to go fight. He spent far too much time at home for that scenario to make any sense.

Was I born before Naruto? Had the the Naruto arcs already finish? Was Naruto currently alive? Was he dead? So many questions... that I couldn't, under no circumstance, ask my parents.

The timeline problem didn't bother me too much, but it would have been nice to know.

There were many, many things I didn't know, that I didn't understand.

Like chakra, for example.

They had explained it in the series. Everyone had chakra. Chakra was used for jutsus. In all honesty, I didn't know much more than that.

Back in my old world, chakra didn't exist. At all. Which later (much later) would become an advantage for me. Chakra was something I had never been around or used to.

Chakra was a funny thing. I don't think I could perfectly explain it to you if you don't already know what it is or if you haven't ever been exposed to it.

Chakra has its own circulatory system, like blood. Since I had never had chakra in my body before, I could easily feel it. It was odd and felt weird.

It was fluid and warm and ran all over my body. And when I say fluid, I don't mean like water. It's really hard to explain; there aren't any words I know of to describe how it feels accurately. It was not tangible; it was like describing an abstract painting.

The chakras I was most familiar with were my family's. They were also the ones I had the best 'connection' with.

My mom's chakra felt bright and fierce, reminding me, strangely of an apple. Which didn't make any sense seeing as they had nothing in common, but that's what it felt like if I had to compare the chakra to an object.

Dad's chakra felt … determined and loyal, but if I had to find a noun to describe it... wood. Cedar wood.

My brother's chakra felt sunny and calm, like a pebble in a lake.

There were times when I caught glances at inside their chakra. That also was a difficult thing to explain.

If I had to put it simply, I would say I could feel how their chakra felt emotionally. Anger was an emotion I picked up best. But even that description wasn't really accurate; it didn't even scratch the surface of how it felt.

Nobody in the Naruto series described other people's chakra like I did.

Maybe I really was a whack child.

When I turned two, my family had celebrated and given me a book.

It was a children's book about a ninja who saved its village by killing the villain. The sentences were relatively simple and coherent and really not a problem to read. It was the longest story book I had read so far though, and it made me want to read more.

My older brother, Tadashi, gave me a block cube that sort of resembled a rubix cube, a game from my former life. You had to move the cubes in the right place to, in this case, form a picture on each side.

I decided that two was a good age to start speaking. I had said a few words here and there, but now I felt brave enough to try a full sentence.

I think the first word I spoke was 'family'. I had intended to struggle with the word on purpose to appear more like a normal baby. In the end the struggling had come naturally.

After that, I spoke deliberately slowly, careful not to say too much or talk too fast. Sometimes I stuttered or took longer to form certain words.

If I spoke normally it definitely was sure to raise suspicions. I would then be labeled 'prodigy' and my life would go downhill from there. Though I think my parents suspected me of being some sort of genius in the making regardless of what I did to hide my abilities.

Being a shinobi was dangerous, that much I knew.

In my old life, I had stayed away from anything close to dangerous. You know, things like not going past the driving limit.

I blame it on my former mother; that woman was so careful it was sometimes scary. Everything she did was calculated. She thought five steps ahead and thought about every outcome to every situation. A habit that had worn off on me.

Sure the idea of being a ninja was cool. You got to learn jutsus and how to kick ass. But the idea of being trained to kill sort of repulsed me.

A twelve year old killing dozens of people in one night- I shuddered involuntarily.

My thoughts wandered to Itachi... I certainly didn't want to end up like him, cursed to live his life in solitude by his own village.

Being a ninja meant sacrifice. I didn't think I was up for that. I was much too selfish.

It meant battle- a concept that seemed laughable at best. I had never held any sort of weapon! Unless you count kitchen knives as a weapon.

Being a ninja was fucking dangerous. It meant risking your life for someone, for a mission, for an object... One minute- even a second- of hesitation on your part meant -bam!- instant death. You didn't have three lives like in a video game. You died once and it was all over.

It scared the living lights out of me even if this was just a fictional world.

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I often wished that my family had a more extensive library.

My mom was a civilian so most of the bookshelf was filled with gardening and cook books, an encyclopedia, and a few badly written romance fictions. I had read all of them but they hadn't really taught me anything, except for perhaps the encyclopedia.

My family hardly read: my dad didn't really have time to, what with missions and two kids. My brother couldn't care less about reading and mainly focused on long range weapon attacks with my mom in the yard or playing with his friends. He wasn't allowed to use real kunai or shuriken yet since they were too dangerous for a kid to handle, so he used the carved wooden ones. Tadashi and Mom practiced his aim in the backyard a couple times per week which I observed safe from the sidelines curiously.

I would compare what my Mom did and then my brother, inferring what the correct placement of the arms and legs were.

Sometimes, Mom would bring me along with her when she went out. We often went for walks near the lake or to go to the groceries. Occasionally, she would bring me when she picked up Tadashi from school.

When I first went there, it had been odd seeing so many students. The Academy I was used to was based off memory of what I had read or watched on TV back in my old life.

It was centered around the rookie 9 so I had always assumed there was only one class per year of students.

Yeah, well no. It seemed there were three classes of 18 students per year (more or less). It surprised me... but then again it didn't.

To a ninja village, being a shinobi was an honor.

Kids, even if they knew they had a high chance of dying, enrolled to become a ninja just to serve that honor. It was also partially because most of them thought themselves skilled enough to not die during a battle. They would become ninja to become acknowledged and to prove themselves.

It was kind of like brain-washing.

Back in my former life, society and media convinced us that being rich, skinny, and pretty were the only things you needed to become successful and accepted by others. If you were ugly, fat, and poor, people gave you looks. That's why you strove to become successful, spent tons of money of plastic surgery to change your appearance, or went on a diet. It was pretty much the same concept here.

In the end, the brain-washing affected me also. How could it not? My father was someone I looked up to and my brother encouraged my curiosity of the ninja world. That's when I seriously started to consider becoming a ninja.

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A/N:

This story will follow the original Naruto plot.