Grace's first life was as normal as it could get. She was born to a middle-class family which loved her, and she loved them back. She was an only child with a somewhat above average intellect, so her biggest problem growing up was being a little socially stunted. She never did get a real friend during these times but made a lot of acquaintances.
Her first hardship came when her mother died in the aftermath of a terrorist attack when she was seventeen, which changed her father. He never hit her or even yelled at her even once, oh no. He just… was not there anymore. He got the worst case of depression she had ever heard of. One day she heard him question in murmurs the point in killing himself, he was so sick he had even lost interest in that. After making sure he was receiving the help he needed, though, she started to make her own plans.
She enlisted in the military.
The training was hard, even more so for a female. She was treated twice as harshly and rewarded with half of what the men received, but she endured and finished her training with top scores all around. She was happy with this achievement, as this meant she could stop incidents like what happened with her mother before they even happened.
Then the higher-ups declared war on some poor tropical country she had barely even heard about. She was deployed.
The first year of her tour was somewhat standard, with only four real combat situations developing around her. She saw her first death and took her first kill. A little part of her died at that time, but she held on.
Then it went tits up.
While making a supply run through the jungle they were ambushed by the local militia. They were heavily outnumbered and outgunned. By some miracle she survived, but no one else.
She was stranded in that jungle for six years, where she became somewhat of a local legend. She learned to live off the land, to survive, to track, to hunt, to forage and scavenge. She learned how to sabotage enemy camps and when was the best time of night to infiltrate them. She learned how to harden her heart and take lives.
She single-handedly killed almost two thousand enemies.
She was called the jungle's wrath.
She came across a convoy of soldiers from her side one day. And after she almost got shot, she was finally rescued. She was 27.
She was awarded more medals than she knew what to do with and became a minor celebrity. She returned home to find it abandoned.
Her father died while she was in service, he just wasted away.
She got recruited to special forces, where she climbed to the very top in 10 years. She helped train, manage, and plan almost everything that was going on there during that time. She served for 20 more years before retiring.
She was 57. She never married and had few friends.
She spent the last years of her life catching up in everything she missed. Music, movies, shows, books, and even games. She did everything.
And when a teenaged neighbour recommended her to watch something called anime, she did that too.
She died at 81, heart failure.
She once again became a minor celebrity, not that she knew.
The problem came when she was born again.
His second life began much like his first. Just him and his parents.
Oh right, he was a boy this time.
His new life was strange because it seemed he had travelled to the past. Everyone spoke what she identified as Japanese, but there were no cars or even technology around. Everyone did what they could to survive and nothing more.
They were just recovering from a war, apparently.
He made her money writing. Mostly fiction with the odd philosophical treaty every now and then.
Everything changed when he came to his town for a pilgrimage, though.
Hagoromo Otsusuki, the sage of six paths, and his disciples.
Which meant he was in Naruto now, about a thousand years before the main story even began.
He joined him.
For fifteen years he followed the man. Fifteen years he learned of ninshu and how to use it.
This time, it wasn't Indra who discovered handseals, even if he was the one to perfect them.
He learned to fight, he learned to mediate. He learned to weave illusions and spit fire. He learned to control the elements, even if he only mastered one.
He met the sage's sons and was witness to their fight.
It was unfair how even when he started learning ninshu before they were even born, he was so completely and utterly dwarfed in terms of power it wasn't even funny.
He married and had a son, even if he never was the best father.
He met the tailed beasts, from Shukaku to Kurama. They helped him to begin mastering yin-yang, even if he never got very far with it.
He created the rasengan a thousand years early, even if Ashura's version was better.
He never stopped improving himself.
And then he died.
And got born again.
His third life was as a man once more. He was born, ironically enough, to one of his descendants.
With more generations practicing ninshu instead of just being a pioneer, the ease that came with practicing chakra was incredible. He became a leader to his people.
He never stopped to consider what his reincarnation meant, as it was would only bring him anguish.
But then he died.
And was born again.
And lived.
And died.
And was born again.
And again and again and again and again.
Two hundred years had passed since the death of the sage and the world had moved on.
Ninshu, once used for peace and understanding, became just a tool of war.
Clans were everywhere in the land, being hired as mercenary bands by nobles to wage war.
She hated every second of it. More so when she realized she was never going to die for good unless she got eaten by the Shinigami.
Still, she learned a few things.
Enough years had passed by for numerous kekkei genkai to begin popping up, so she had, so far, been born with two.
One to control lava and another that made him incredibly fast.
She studied them and tried to use them in another body.
She succeded, to a degree.
As long as she had lived a life with a body capable of using one, she could use it in the next as long as she mastered its components and figured the correct distribution of elements, yin, and yang.
She also figured out that she was always reborn as the offspring of the closest pregnant woman by the time of herdeath.
So, once she was old or sick enough, she infiltrated the camp for the clan she wanted next and was reborn into them most of the time.
She lived like this for a thousand years.
She lived as a Yamanaka the first chance she got. Her mind was becoming saturated with knowledge and needed their mind jutsu to make sure she didn't forget anything more.
She didn't even remember the face she had on her first life.
She mastered what jutsu they had and developed some more.
After half a dozen lives, everyone would become a scholar.
And so, she lived and died and was born and lived and died and was born.
She was a Yamanaka, an Uchiha, a Hyuuga, a Yuki, an Akimichi, a Nara, a Senju, and every other clan she found interesting.
To maximize the productivity of every second she had, she sometimes killed herself when she mastered everything she could from any specific clan.
She even was a samurai once.
But she spent most of the time as an Uzumaki.
Uzumakis were a loving bunch. Warm as could get and would do anything for family. She learned all the fuuinjutsu she could and became even more deadly with it every life.
When she had been living for 500 years or so, she helped with the construction, foundation, and habitation of Uzushiogakure and became her first Uzukage, even if it was fated it would be destroyed.
She made several secret vaults for knowledge, scrolls, summoning contracts, and everything she could possibly need in the future that only she knew how to find and access all around the land.
She made a plan to, once and for all, stop this torturous cycle of reincarnation she was bound to.
She learned everything she could in order for her plan to succeed.
He was reborn as an Uchiha in one life and started planning.
He mastered all chakra nature transformations before he turned 10 and started experimenting with his kekkei genkai. He never mastered any of them but was proficient.
He mastered ninjutsu, taijutsu, genjutsu, bukijutsu, kenjutsu, fuuinjutsu, and what little he could develop of iryojutsu.
He developed his sensory capabilities and trained in stealth, traps, tracking, sabotage, assassination and everything he thought of.
By the time he was 27 the whole world knew his name and to get out of his way whenever they saw him.
He tricked his mother to kill his father. It broke his heart, but he had a plan and by this point he was so jaded he would do everything for his torture to end.
After his mother got the Mangekyou, he stole her eyes and killed her himself.
He loved them both, he really did, but it was necessary and, by that point, a mercy.
He got the mangekyou and knew more than enough medical jutsu to perform the transplant himself and get the eternal mangekyou sharingan.
He trained enough to be proficient and had his first summons teach him senjutsu again.
He succeeded, but his eyes didn't evolve.
He secluded himself for years until he found out what he was missing.
The recessive gene.
All of his sacrifices, for nothing.
He went on a Rampage.
He attacked most of the countries and plundered their wealth.
He attacked all the clans he could and stole their jutsu.
He fought and fought until all nations and clans united themselves against him.
He died fighting an army of over 10,000 shinobi.
And he was reborn.
He kept learning and training and plotting and developing until it was about time for those two to be born.
He was once again reborn as an Uchiha, but this time his plans would be perfect.
Once Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara were born, he took blood, tissue, hair, and chakra samples from Madara and infiltrated the Senju compound to do the same.
Once he had everything he needed, he started his experiments.
Madara and Hashirama became clan leaders, and after that they established Konohagakure no Sato, the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
The first shinobi world war started and ended, as did the second.
He seduced a female Uzumaki. If his torture was to end, he was going to go with the name he loved the most, and maybe with him he could recreate the Uzumaki down the line.
Once the woman, Kana, was visibly pregnant he medically stopped his heart when he was at her side one night.
He might not love her, he doesn't even know if he is capable of it anymore, but he does appreciate her.
He died by his pregnant wife's side.
And was reborn as a red-haired female baby.
Her name, this time, was Akane.
Hopefully it would also be the last.
Because she did not know how much more of this broken samsara she could take.
Hey Guys! Crimson here.
For all of those that enjoyed reading this prologue for what is to come, I'm happy you did. I already have the first chapter finished (10k words, fyi) and am currently working on the second. I'm wanting to have at least a 3 chapter backrow in case I get delayed or anything.
In case you are here wandering about my other story (Ereasing scars, HP fandom), it is not abandoned, as I still periodically work on it. Thing is, that story started when I was in a bad place, and writing it really doesn't help my depression at all. Anyway, just letting you know its not abandoned.
Please let me know what you think about this, and hoped you liked it.
-Reviews are love, Favourites are life.-