Disclaimer: Naruto is owned by Kishimoto. I only own my characters.

A/N: This chapter is all the early/boring years. Nothing notable ever really happens until the academy so I thought'd it'd be better to squeeze the first 4 years into one chapter rather than drag it on for a few.

Death. I knew that I would experience it, but I never thought that it would arrive so soon. I was only 17, not even out of high school yet. I was your average teenager. I had plenty of friends and a good family. I was far from the happiest, yet not close to being the saddest.

I was body-less. My conscious was still floating around, but I had no body. No eyes to see, no ears to hear, no hands to touch. I was just a mind.

I was sort of sad. There was no afterlife or rebirth, no second chance. I would stay in this abyss forever.

I didn't know how long I was in the abyss. Maybe seconds, maybe years, but the abyss was no more. I was now being bombarded with light and noise and feelings. I was alive once again.

It took me a few seconds to adjust to the light. Once I did I saw a women staring down at me. She had long black hair that stopped near her back. Her dark brown eyes were staring straight at me.

Around her were 2 other women and a man. I assumed the women holding me was my mother. I wasn't sure who the other people in the room were, but I was sure that they were either family or friends. They began talking to each other in a language I knew but didn't understand. It was Japanese.

I was thrilled. I would get a second chance at life. I don't know what I did wrong in my last life, but I'll be sure not to make the same mistake. I was confident in who I was and where I was, until the man vanished.

I was sure there would be a reaction between the 3 women in the room, but they acted as if it was normal. Maybe it was normal. Maybe I wasn't in the same world I thought I was.

It had been 3 weeks since my birth. I had learned a few new things. First was my name, which was Kotetsu. Second was my family. My mother lived with her 2 sisters and her brother. My father left my mom 5 months before I was born. It crushed my confidence as my new life already started out worse than my last one. The third and most important was where I was. My mother lived in Konoha, which was in the universe of Naruto. I was never a big fan of Naruto. I only watched for the beginning arc before dropping it for something else.

I'm sure I would regret it.

The first 4 months of my life were boring. I did what any baby would do, eat, sleep, and cry. I felt like I wasn't in control of my emotions. Even with the smallest inconvenience and I was bursting out in tears. In the mean time, I got to learn more about this world though. My uncle and oldest aunt were ninja, which explained how my uncle was able to vanish on the day I was born. My mother and youngest aunt, on the other hand were civilians. It made sense seeing the two oldest doing the dirty work while the two youngest relaxed.

One day I was awoken from my sleep to the sound of arguing. My mom was arguing with my uncle.

"He will not go out onto any battlefield, he'll be a civilian like us," my mom argued. I guess the topic was what I was going to be in the future.

"Listen, Kona. I know this job is dangerous. That is why I want him to be a Shinobi. Kora or I could die any day now, and who would be the one to protect the family?" He replied. From what I was hearing, he had a point. In the few scenes I've seen of Naruto they were all fighting for their life. I would hate to lose both my mother and my father.

"How about this," she started. "When he turns 3 we'll give him the choice. If he wants to be a civilian he'll stay with us, but if he wants to be a Shinobi then you or Kora can train him. I'm sure you'll have enough time to ready him for the academy."

There was silence for about a minute before my uncle spoke again. "You have yourself a deal." His voice grew distant as I heard a door open and withing seconds he was gone.

It was my second birthday. In front of me were a row of presents from each member of my family, plus some of their friends. The first present was from my uncle. It was a set of kunai. I gratefully took the present, much to my mother's dismay. The second present was from my youngest aunt. She got me two presents, one was an action figure and the other was a book about chakra. I guess it was her way of trying to persuade me towards the civilian side. Next was my aunt who gave me a set of shuriken.

Last was my mom. She was hesitant to give me the gift, and it took both my uncle and aunts to convince her to give it to me. She began crying before giving me the gift. I swiftly opened it to find a picture. It was my mom standing next to a man.

"That is your father," my mom said through the sobs. There was a long pause as I stared at the picture. My mother's tears grew heavier and so did my anticipation. It felt like an eternity before she started talking again. "He died last week."

My world shattered. Tears immediately formed in my eyes. How could I feel so many emotions for a man I never met before. It was always my dream to meet my father, but now that was crushed. My birthday was ruined and I was speechless. It was that day that I made my decision.

I will become a Shinobi.

The next year flew by quickly. I was now three and it was now my time to make my decision. Both my mom and my uncle were standing in front of me waiting on my response. Each waiting impatiently for what my answer would be.

With a deep breath I answered. "I want to be a Shinobi." My uncle developed a small smirk and my mom shrunk a little.

"Kotetsu, are you sure," my mom started. "There are many dangers in being a Shinobi."

"Yes, I am sure."

The next two weeks of my life were like hell. I'm sure my uncle was going as easy as he could, but I was still a 3 year old which made it way harder to train. I was supposed to do 10 push ups, 10 sit ups, run as far as possible in 20 minutes, then practice katas for 20 minutes. I could tell for any trained warrior this would be like lifting a feather for them, but as I said earlier, I'm 3.

Just the 10 push ups had me gasping for air. It took by 10 minutes to do both the push ups and sit ups. I felt like I was going to throw up and I was only half way through the routine. In the 20 minutes I only ran 2 km. The katas were the must difficult. For every attack my uncle would correct me. I think I only did 3 correct katas in the 20 minutes.

"Get used to this. You'll be doing this until I think you can do something harder," my uncle said.

"But uncle," I started. "Why do I have to work this hard? I can't enter the academy for 2 years."

"Listen here young Kotetsu," he started. "We are clan less. That means we won't have the whole staff on our side. It means that we don't have much natural talent. Do you know how I became a Shinobi?"

"No..."

He started to pace around. "I used to slack all the time. For a clan less kid I had talent. None of the other clan less kids could beat me, so I stopped training, but in the academy that changed. Even the weakest of the kids in clans knocked me off my high horse. From that day on I trained my ass off. I did everything you just did, but without someone to guide me through it. In the end I was able to graduate. I eventually became a chunnin, then a jounin," his pacing stopped. "But I'm not the strongest... What I'm trying to tell you is that hard work can beat talent, but only if talent doesn't work hard."

His words both motivated and demotivated me. Basically what he was saying that if I work hard I could beat the clan kids, but if someone works just as hard, but had more natural talent then I'd be out of luck.

He began to walk away. "Then," I began, stopping him in his tracks. "Then I'll train harder than anybody ever has!" A grin grew on his face.

"Alright, kid. I'll see you tomorrow." He said before vanishing in the leaves.

After that my training regimen grew harder. Instead of 10 push ups and sit ups I had to do 25, and he put a time limit on them too. I had to run a certain amount in 10 minutes, each day the distance growing. I was only allowed 3 incorrect katas as well. As much as I wanted to cry about the new routine I didn't. I had brought this upon my self, and I wasn't going to back down either.

One of the major downfalls of this intense training was I was starting to spend less time with the family besides my uncle, and I had less time to make friends. In this bloodthirsty world where nobody is truly safe it's better to have more allies than enemies. I wasn't as worried, I still had plenty of years to make friends before it was too late.

After 5 months of training my uncle left on an out of town mission. That left me with my mother. I wouldn't get to work as hard as before, but I'm sure she'll let me train a little. Unlucky for me, I was wrong.

When I walked into my room I saw her standing there with a mountain of books piled onto my bed. "Reading is just as important as training, so until Kai get's back I expect you to finish all these books!" She said as she left the room.

I examined the covers of each book. I know I wasn't going to get out of this, so it was best to weed out the boring ones first. A few were about the history of Konoha and the previous 3 wars, some where about historical figures like the First Hokage or the Fourth Hokage. Lastly were the theories of chakra, those were the ones I would be reading first.

I finished the chakra books in 2 days. The most important thing I learned was about chakra coils and how they developed. Apparently chakra coils don't develop enough to unlock chakra until the age of 3-4. Which kinda made me happy that I didn't try earlier or I could've messes up my chakra system for good.

Next I read the history books. Like any history book it explained the wars and significant events like what caused the war, what ended the war and so on. This was definitely the most boring books. Lastly were the historical figures. These were the books I was most excited about. Every ninja had to start from somewhere, or more importantly someone. Every good ninja looked up to someone else, and if they didn't they had a rival to push them.

For example, the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju looked up to his brother, the First Hokage Hashirama Senju, but Hashirama on the other hand, didn't look up to anyone. It was his rival, Madara Uchiha, that pushed him to new heights.

I was going to be just like the greats. Even though I didn't have any clan I was sure I could be as great as them, if not greater.

It was 2 weeks since my 4th birthday. I had just unlocked my chakra and was sitting with a piece of chakra paper in front of me.

"So, now you know what to do, so why don't you give it a try?" My mom said. I took the paper into my hand and forced some of my chakra into it. It quickly became a brownish color before crumbling to the ground.

"Huh, so earth is your affinity," my uncle started. "Luckily for you, your aunt Kora's affinity is also earth. Unfortunately she is out on a mission, so I'll be teaching you the basics in the meantime."

My uncle taught me the Bunshin No Jutsu and the Henge No Justu, 2 jutsu that were really easy to learn. He also gave me a few chakra control practices and sent me on my way. The day was both eventful and uneventful. I'd have to wait till Kora got back to have the real fun.

My oldest aunt, Kora was now back from her mission and demonstrating how to do the Wall of Rock Jutsu. She ran through the hand signs and raised her arms into the air. A few feet in front of her a wall of rock sprouted. It was about as tall as the trees. She motioned for me to do it. I ran through the hand signs and raised my air into the air.

The only exception was that mine only reached my ankle. Kora sighed and began talking. "You didn't put enough chakra into it," she went through the hand signs again and raised her arms. Another tree sized wall appeared. After 3 tried I finally gave up with a sigh. "Don't beat yourself up kid," she began. "You still have plenty of years to master a small jutsu like this!"

"Thanks aunt Kora, I'll be sure to master this as fast as possible!" I said with a childish grin. I'll be sure to be the best.

After she left I began doing my daily training. I was doing my regular run when a giant red beast appeared out of what seemed to be nowhere. 2 figures immediately exited the building the beast appeared from. They seemed to clash in mid air before vanishing.

The beast quickly began reeking havoc. Buildings were gone in seconds, and I'm sure countless lives were gone too. Debris began falling. I started running. I didn't know where I was running, but I was going to run.

Swiftly dodging the debris I found myself in a small, one story building. It was almost completely intact, the only difference between it now and it 30 minutes ago was a hole in the roof and a piece of the roof laying in the middle of the floor.

I sat down, thinking about my next moves. "I have to get home, but I'm sure that the path I took here is blocked off. I'll have to get higher."

I exited the house and slowly began scaling up the wall to the roof. Once I was there I saw hundreds, maybe thousands of people. Some were alive, most weren't. I looked up, seeing the giant red beast in front of me. It resembled a fox, but it had nine tails. It was destroying everything in it's path. The only thing stopping it from destroying things not in it's path was a man. From where I was standing it was just a small dot, but I was sure that it was either the Fourth or Third Hokage.

Running across the roof I jumped onto a different house, the ground beneath me crumbling as I did so. I kept hopping houses until there wasn't any houses to hop. I looked around, desperately searching for something to jump onto, but the only thing I saw was on of the beast's nine tails speeding towards me. I closed my eyes and protected my face, hoping that I'd somehow survive.

The next thing I felt was a gentle breeze. When I opened my eyes I was in the arms of one of the ANBU. They swiftly dodged the falling debris and stray attacks until we reached a home. He quickly swooped in through the window and dropped me off, before leaving.

I looked around me. In the room were 2 members of ANBU. There was about a dozen of other kids, some my age, some a little younger. Everyone was crying. Everyone but me.

I was too busy worrying to cry. I was sure that Kai and Kora would be alright size they were Jounin, but I was mostly worried about my mom and my youngest aunt. What if they weren't saved? What if that beast took it's life like it took the others.

I hurried to the window, much to the dismay of the ANBU. Outside looked like hell without the fire. Buildings were destroyed, lives were taken, and in the center of it all stood the nine tailed beast. With a loud roar it attacked its offenders again, and as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.

That's the first chapter. I just wanted to say the earth is definitely NOT the most popular affinity, which means there aren't that many jutsu for it, so some of the jutsu Kotetsu uses will be fan made. But don't worry, this will mostly be for the beginning seeing as the higher ranked jutsus are used by the kages (Gaara and Onoki) With that being said, I hope everyone has a good day/night,