Chapter 1 - Where the hell am I?

Pairing: Self Insert x Mikoto Uchiha

THIS WILL NOT BE A HAREM

A/N: Honestly don't expect what I thought when I started this, other than I've read and watched so many Isekai lately, that I just wanted to see if I could make a decent fanfiction. I like the Naruto world a lot, there is just something about this shinobi world and the villages. Honestly I also have to say I felt a bit embarrassed and awkward about picking a pairing for myself, isn't this like every weeb's dream?

Anyhow, please go easy on me. This is the first time I've tried anything where I self-insert myself into anything, and I've never tried writing an original character before. So I figured I'd just try and see where it went.

Rating M, because I wanna have sex obviously. Lmfao.

May, or may not, have some Jujutsu Kaisen inspired things along the road.

Prologue.

He hadn't expected to die like this, yet, he could clearly feel it coming. As he laid there on the road, he could feel his heartbeat gradually slowing down along with the rhythm of his breath. The pain he could feel in his body was slowly disappearing, as the numbness began to take over wherever the blood had already left.

It wasn't like he could do anything about it though. The mistakes had already been made, and he was now paying the price for it. His life was now ending before it could even start to take form. His entire existence had mostly been a blank canvas, only with only the bottom reserved for the few years he had been able to take advantage of.

He never got the chance to achieve his goal of being able to live a comfortable life and taking it easy.. Instead, he had still been in the phase of toiling about and working on securing his livelihood. That may not seem like a big goal, but it had his ultimate goal. Perhaps it had already been set in stone from the day he'd been born, just like that Neji from Naruto had said. Maybe fate just didn't plan for him to be able to take it easy. Who was he to pick a fight with a divine power such as fate, anyway?

It didn't matter now anyway. As the darkness somehow managed to become even darker, and the sound of surrounding voices drowned out, he could only manage a final, weak, smile as he went over his life and all the things he had regretted about it. There had been so many things he didn't get to achieve, so many goddamned places he'd never see. Due to disease, and viruses, he had never gotten around to seeing the world. He'd always wanted to visit places like Japan, China, and generally just travelling.

He couldn't feel his legs at this rate. Even if he tried, there was no response. He could barely even hear anyone at this point, her voice was just vibrations of sound that he was unable to decipher. His hands and arms wouldn't move either, the last thing he could feel, was the stopping of his own heart. Idly, he wondered why he wasn't more scared than this.

The last feelings he had, weren't of being scared. Rather, he had gotten… used to the thought of dying by now. It was, after all, as if time had slowed down enough for him to take a look at his life, and wonder if he was satisfied with it. Which he wasn't. Even if death wasn't saddening him, his regrets were. So many regrets, so many failures, and so little time to make them right.

Had he just wasted his potential? Not that the question needed any answering. He was dying at the moment. Despite all the talent and potential he may have had in this life, it was all to waste as he was dead before he was able to achieve a single thing. It may have even been better for him to be a blight on humanity. At least that way, people would have rectified his existence and perhaps more.

It didn't take long for him to lose all feeling in his body, to the point where he couldn't even hear his heart beating anymore. He tried to open his eyes, but there was nothing except the void of darkness around him. It was just a black abyss of nothingness.

It felt like he was floating, even if he attempted to turn his head to look around, he saw nothing. Not that he could actually tell if his head was moving at all or if his eyes were even open in the first place… Hell, he couldn't even tell if he had eyes anymore in the first place

The irritation of the sunlight on his eyelids were gone, and all white noise that he had gotten used to had also vanished.. .

It felt like he was floating in an endless ocean. He could practically feel the warm water against his skin. So in some way, it felt less like an ocean, and more like a hot spring. Yet, the feeling was even more comfortable. A sense of safety that he couldn't describe, yet… it felt familiar in some way.

Occasionally, he could feel some sort of shifting motion. It was rare, but it was there from time to time. Like, he was inside a water balloon that was filled with warm water.

As he laid there, in what felt like the inside of the water balloon, his sense of time slowly withered away. He had no idea how long he had been laying there, he, sooner or later, just had to come to terms with the fact that... He had died. That much was obvious at this rate. He was just laying here, where time, place, and state, were all irrelevant.

Not that he could tell if an hour, month, year, or a decade had passed. He just felt numb. Every second of his existence, if you could even call it that, felt empty. Second or minute, he couldn't tell them apart even if he tried.

Maybe this was what death was supposed to be like. An endless nothingness with only darkness, in which he could reflect on everything he hated about himself. All the time in the world, universe, afterlife, wherever he was, where he could think about his failures. True torture, his own personal hell.

It was only until… later? that he heard the muffled sound coming from around him as if they were on the other side of a world. It sounded like voices, but he couldn't tell to whom they belonged. It definitely didn't sound like his parents or friends for that matter. He couldn't make out what they were saying either, but somehow, they made him feel comfortable that they were there.

It had been an eternity since he had last heard or felt anything besides this universe of warmth around him. He longed for them to stay, because if someone else was out there, no matter who it was, it meant that he wasn't alone. Could there actually be the possibility that he wasn't dead?

As the sounds stopped, he felt something… A desire, no a necessity. He felt the need to hear them again. So with all he could, he kicked, he hit, he tried to scream out for anyone that could hear him but there was no sound escaping his mouth.

And, once again, he was left alone in the dark. Yet he never truly felt alone, not after knowing that people were finally nearby. He wanted to hear the sounds again, and with all the effort his tired body? could muster, he kicked and tossed back and forth. Sometimes it worked, and he could hear the warm voices speak to him. He could finally tell sounds apart from actual voices, and there were definitely two of them! He couldn't decipher the words yet though, it was still far too muffled.

He felt attached to these voices, after a while, it seemed like he had known them forever, but also just for a brief moment. Even if he had never understood what they said before, he just loved the sound of them. They had to belong to someone close to him, right? That was the only thing that made sense.

He felt like he had been here for decades upon decades until the first major change happened. Everything started moving. The dark walls began to close in around him,and he began panicking, scared. The sense of safety he'd come to know of looked like it was attacking him.

All the warmth washed away, and his body was forcefully pushed around, and he hurriedly shut his eyes and curled together. The warmth that had once surrounded him had disappeared and he was freezing. Colder than he had ever been before, like he had been dropped in a pile of snow, naked, on a winter day in the midst of a blizzard.

And then things were… soft. He felt some movement like he was being lifted, by something ten times bigger than himself. No, even more than that. The thing that felt like a hand, was like half of his entire body. And that was when he opened his eyes, which was the first time he had ever done so, in a very, very long time.

His eyes were met with light. Bright warm light, so he had to narrow his eyes to shield them. It was then, he had the first realization in a long, long time. He had died. And was now born again. Because when he opened his eyes, he looked up and met two faces that were smiling with so much love down at him, that he could hardly even comprehend it.

He was staring at two people that could only be his... parents, but how was that possible? He had been an adult, nineteen years old… but then again, that time had felt like it was an eternity ago. So that would really mean, he was seeing his parents, for the first time. His new parents, but that felt wrong to say as well.

Yet deep in his heart, he could tell these two were his mother and father. He took his time to study them, and he wanted to take his time doing so, because they looked at him with so much love and care, yet he was so tired at the same time. He refused to sleep, and unlike any newborn, he didn't cry, he just stared.

That woman, with the big round dark eyes and long elegant jet-bleck hair with two bangs framing her face, whose smile was so big and bright that his heart felt like it was about to explode, she was his mom! And she was so beautiful too!

And the man with a hair more unruly and spiky than he remembered his own to be, with the same color hair as the woman's, was standing right beside her with his arm around her, and his head rested against her shoulder. His face was different, his eyes despite being filled with so many emotions, were sharper looking than his mom's. Needless to say, he looked like an awesome dad.

He reached up for them, desperate to get closer to them, and he could feel and see his mother lifting him up to her chest. With the warmth radiating off her body, his eyes instantly widened a bit more as he realized that the sense of security, safety, protection, love, and warmth he had felt during all those lonesome eternities. They had all been from his mother…

And the two voices, that he had desperately wanted to hear all the time so he that wouldn't feel alone, were these two from his mom and dad. Two people that looked so very different from what he used to look like. Did that mean he'd look different this time around? Would he have a different name too? Not that he cared at all, he was way too fixated on reaching up to grab his father's hair, as his eyelids got heavier and heavier.

He was tired and could feel and see that his mom was tired too. Which was to be expected since she had just given birth to him. So with his small arm dropping again, his eyelids dropped shut, and familiar darkness began to wrap around him once more as his eyes closed, before he heard his mother speak to him for the first time.

"Anata ni tsuite motto manabu koto o tanoshi minishitei masu, Yami..."

'Nani dafuq…'

And get to know him she did, and despite how much he'd have thought he hated being a kid again, it wasn't so bad in reality... aside from redacted. His parents were... unique, to say the least. His mother was kind, calm, and quite sweet, but she had a vicious side to her as well. Meaning that if you didn't listen, you'd soon wish you did.

His father on the other hand, while very friendly and easy going, was the epitome of laziness. Like to the point where it was laughable, and he couldn't help but grin at it… This was probably due to his previous habits of procrastination, but he definitely felt a deep feeling of kinship the lazier his dad got. Whenever he'd get the chance, he'd lay side by side with his dad in the backyard, napping or watching clouds fly by above. Sometimes both, where they'd switch between them.

It took him a while to get used to his new name. Yami, which sounded quite odd. It took quite a bit of time to also start reacting to it, he could sit inches away from either of his parents, and when they'd call his name, he'd just either stare blankly into space or continue whatever he was doing. Could he really be blamed though? He had gotten used to another name for over nineteen years in his past life after all.

After a couple of years, he finally did get used to his new name, something which greatly amused his parents. They seemed to take great joy in teasing him about it, which in turn just annoyed him. Despite being in a new body, it was only his looks that changed. He was every bit as lazy as he had been before he died, perhaps a bit more now, but he knew he got that from his dad.

He just turned four the other day, and up until this date, he had just assumed that he had gotten reborn somewhere else in his previous world, but… oh no was he was greatly mistaken. Instead, Yami had found himself in a place out of his imagination, or would it be in it, and he had to promptly calm himself down so he wouldn't make a fool out of himself.

Because when his father took him to visit some friends on his fourth birthday, and he had looked upward, the sight of some very familiar mountains caught his eyes. And when he saw the stone faces cut out of them, he was ready to lose it. He didn't of course, he'd have looked like an idiot then.

And it was then, when his father grinned at the expression on Yami's face and calmly mentioned something he never thought he was ever going to see in real life. The Hokage mountain. His father then proceeded to point at each of the three stone faces, and explained who they all were. Not that he'd needed to.

Because Yami already knew that. Senju Hashirama with his plot-covering cells, Senju Tobirama with the stupidest jutsus that may or may not entice evil people to loot the village, and last but not least, Sarutobi Hiruzen, the epitome of a lazy Hokage. The three first Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato. A village placed in what Yami had always believed to be a fictional world, yet here he was. He was here. Feeling the air, talking with the people, seeing the world. It was completely real, and not just twenty year old pages in a manga book with faded ink and questionable story elements.

Which was also when something else completely clicked in his head, that symbol on their house's front door. Fate must really have been having a fun time when he died, because not only did he just get reborn into one of his favorite series, but also into the laziest of all clans. Which also complimented his personality completely. The Nara clan.

He was greatly amused by the fact. He was now Nara Yami, member of Konohagakure's Nara clan. When he learned of that, he figured that he should probably have realized that a lot sooner, given his love for lazing around, napping, and the most obvious one of all. Cloud gazing!

Shikamaru had found great pleasure in doing so in the show, and he had finally realized why. It was awesome, relaxing, and he could waste hours doing so. Just laying there in the grass, with his fingers intertwined behind his head until food was served, or if it was time for studies.

His mother was in charge of his studies, reading, writing, and just basic household stuff since his father was out working most of the time. Was he a Shinobi then? He had never asked, but found himself curious, now. Because if he was, would that also mean that he was going to attend the infamous academy… the very one that only taught you how to make a useless clone, praise the holy log, and the precursor to the sexy jutsu? Additionally, the place of absolute boredom? That was at least what it probably was, but in all honesty, the thought excited him.

Not that he loved school or anything, god forbid that he became sick and destroyed the world like that, but the Narutoverse had always interested him, and could spend hours talking about it. And now, he was going to get a first row seat to history lessons from said place… Granted, depending on the timeline, it would either be in the classroom, or on the battlefield. Had the first war even happened? What about the second? Regardless, maybe this world would be where he can break the universe and get the top grade in a class. Now that would be amusing.

Nah, that would be too troublesome. He'd just settle for reading the books and flunking the tests. That sounds about right.

As he grew up, he realized that he took after his father in terms of looks. He had the same facial structure, eyes, and his hair was growing out to be the same wild and unruly, pineapple/marco shape as his. Even if it was a bit childish. He even loved his new hair color. Black just looked good, and it was quite cool. And, well, he was technically a child again, so being childish was only expected. Even if you had the mind of a nineteen year old… Granted, he had probably mentally regressed after spending an infinity in the abyss, if he had any mental maturity to begin with.

Realizing where he was, Yami had asked his father a few days later what his work was. And if he was a Shinobi, and the answer was a simple yes. Well, not really, the answer had been 'Even if it's troublesome, yes, I'm a Shinobi' which was hilarious. There was no doubt anymore... they were Naras, he had an expectation to uphold… He needed to be lazier, or people would suspect him of being a spy, no doubt about it..

One of the last, yet the most question he had to solve was, when was he. The mountain only had three stone faces. At the start of the show, there had been four. Which meant that the Yondaime had yet to take office, and given the atmosphere at home, it was unlikely to be wartime, so it was likely to be before the third war began, but just how far back? Was Minato even born yet?

For all he knew, this could be an alternate universe where Minato didn't exist. He certainly didn't hope so, because of the people on the catalog of people that he was interested in meeting, Minato was on one of the top spots. And why wouldn't he be? The man was a living legend that defined that speed is indeed the most important thing, and that girls shouldn't laugh if you're fast, and he was respected and loved by the entire village. The guy had to be something else.

Even if he wanted to figure out if Minato was around, it would both be odd and inefficient to go out in the village and search for him as a four year old. Would he even know what to look for? Probably not. And judging from the size of Konoha, then it would take days, maybe months. And to find a specific person out of the unknown number of citizens, that seemed impossible, especially if they moved around, didn't leave the house, weren't born yet... And most importantly, something that was way too troublesome for him to do.

So with a sigh, Yami leaned back down into the grass and stared up at the clouds racing through the sky above him. If racing could even be used in this context, maybe if it was a snail's race. Resting his hands on his stomach, the young Nara grinned lightly and closed his eyes to take yet another, little, nap. Five to six hours was short enough for dinner to get ready, right?

Seemed like life was going to be even more interesting this time around. If not a bit troublesome.

The first chapter, of my first ever self-insert story. I hope that you liked it, and I would appreciate any kind of feedback that you have. This is like my... third, or fourth attempt, can't remember. My first two attempts were beyond laughable, just ask my beta. He for sure had a "good" time reading through them. At last, we finally came up with something we agreed on being decent enough to release and work on.

I got a couple of questions today, that I hope you'll answer:

What is your favorite anime shadow/darkness character?

What is your opinion of self-insert or OC stories?

What do you think being reincarnated as a Nara is going to be like?

You think the Uchiha clan is going to approve of a lazy Nara? wink wink... or at least a specific Uchiha.