DISCLAIMER: I do not claim to be the creator of the Naruto manga or anime series. I had absolutely no part in any creation of the series, and I'm just a dedicated fan of this series who has taken my time to create this fanfiction.
Author Notes: Author Notes: This is a semi-self-insert fiction of what I think would happen if Minato had two teammates who would not only challenge him to do better but could keep up. I hope you enjoy it. This is rated M, because of possible language, and violence. At no time will there be a pairing between any of the three teammates. Not that there won't be pairings outside their team, just not inside it.
I am trying to pull most of my resources on timeline from the manga, but I am only human so if any of my readers have any insight that I have missed on the timeline do drop me a message.
"Speech"
"Inner thoughts and speech"
"INNER YELLING"
I will add more if/when they become needed
Chapter 2 - Growing Pains
Okay, first off, I don't remember what it was like growing up as a baby the first time around, but wow. Now I know why babies cry so much! No body control, no energy - this sucks! Sometimes, it even feels like your body is on fire. Your range of vision is not that far - maybe a half a dozen feet or so. You're constantly hungry, and you have to rely on others for everything. This has to be the most boring thing ever, the life of a baby. Thankfully, it seems that this body requires a ton of sleep as it seems that I sleep most of the time.
The man who I assume is my father in this life seems to have a steady job that allows him to come home regularly. I rather like that. The lady who is my mother seems to be a stay-at-home mother, just like my previous one. It's always good to have someone there constantly; I didn't think that I'd be as lonely as I am, but every time my new mother or father leave the room, I have this overwhelming sense of panic and abandonment and my little baby mouth screams and screams until they come running back.
Over the next few weeks, (I guess, it's hard to tell with this absurd sleep schedule,) I can hear them talking to each other, and, of course, to me. If I had to hazard a guess as to the language, it has to be Japanese, or something Asiatic. It's very similar to the language that was in that anime I watched that one summer when I was a counselor at the Boy Scout camp. I think it was called Ranma ½. Not that I was a big anime fan in my life, I mean, I watched some every once in a while on the late night cartoon channel, but those were clearly voiced over. In any case, I could tell that I was clearly in an Asian culture. I just wasn't so sure about where in the world that I was. I was never good at geography in school. I couldn't remember anything about a place like this, but then again, I was rarely being taken out of the house.
When they talked or cooed at me, the one word that was almost always present was the word Kamiko so I guess that was my new name, as weird as it was to think that I had a new name. I just hoped I would never hear the name Scott ever again, or I would probably answer! As time ticked on, and the days turned into weeks, and the weeks into months. I started to be more awake than asleep, but that ever present feeling of being on fire internally was very annoying. But it slowly became less less of OH GOD I AM ON FIRE! and more of boy do I itch everywhere. I was slowly able to ignore it most of the time, but on the rare occasion when I couldn't, I had to cry. I still couldn't speak, it seemed that my vocal cords were still underdeveloped.
After what felt like months, I had finally gained enough control of my neck muscles to be able to look around. It was so nice to finally be able to look where I wanted to look and not have my muscles betray me constantly. But, of course, this awesome new change had to come with the expense of another shock. I know they have to change my cloth diaper because of course I'm not "potty-trained" but this is the first time I've been clearly able to watch without my head rolling around, and well, I was shocked to see that...well, I didn't have my usual equipment. I was not only a baby and had to go through growing up again, but now, I also had to go through all of this as a girl. "GOD WHY DO YOU HAVE TO KEEP THROWING CURVEBALLS AT ME?" All the pink that I had been seeing made more sense now, and in hindsight, I should have guessed it. But still! This will take some getting used to but I guess there was nothing I could do about it. What or who could I complain to? No-body, that's goddamned right.
Shortly after I gained control of my head, they started to try to teach me to crawl. This was very frustrating. I just couldn't make my limbs do what I knew they had to do. After all, I already knew how to walk, how to run! And yet, I can't manage a damn crawl. Embarrassing. After a few weeks of this, I was finally able to crawl around the room. I was slowly getting over this frustration. While my new parents had other plans for me, I decided that the next milestone I wanted to master was speech. Up to this point, the only things that came out of my mouth were cries or baby gurgles. After years of talking, not being able to was possibly the most frustrating thing about this new life. Time to try to say more than "blaheeeopst".
-Time Skip to 2 years old-
It felt like forever, but I was finally two years old. At this point I had mastered crawling, walking, even running. Basic words and sentences in this new language were harder than I had anticipated. And today was the day! I was finally leaving the house! Sure, it was only to go to a park down the street with my mother, but still! It was out of the house!
I practically skipped as my mother walked me down the paths, relishing the sun and fresh air. The park itself was very different from the parks that I remembered from my previous life. It only had a swing and a grassy field, but there were a ton of kids running around and playing some sort of game. I watched shyly from behind my mother's back. It took some coaxing from her to go over to the swing. She lifted me up to sit on the wooden seat and she began to slowly swing me back and forth. I started to swing myself higher and higher. My mother smiled brightly at how quickly I took to the swing, thanks to my old world knowledge.
As I swung there I looked around at the other kids. I couldn't help thinking about how odd it was to see nothing but black and unusually colored hair on the other children. It was so different from the mostly brown and blonde haired children from my memories. I couldn't help but think about the many, many times I had played on a swing set much like this one with a brown-haired little brother. Memories were so conflicting. I was so distracted in my own thoughts that I hadn't noticed a little boy come up to me while I was swinging.
"You wants to come play ninjas withs us?" the boy asked. His grin and air of confidence were quite infectious.
"Ummm ninja?" I asked while I furrowed my eyes questioningly. I had never heard of this game. I knew what a ninja was, but how did it relate to a game?
"You never play ninja?" The boy exclaimed in surprise, "well, guess you be on my team, cousin."
I just blankly stared at the older boy, he was maybe three? By this point in my new life, I was starved for social interaction, so I wasn't going to turn it down. He said he was my cousin. I couldn't help but wonder if that was true, but he didn't really give me time to contemplate this. He tapped his foot impatiently, huffing at me. My mother smiled at me and nodded encouragingly.
"O-Okay I will try, g-got to tell rules," I stuttered out, jumping down from the swing. Certain sentences were a chore to say. If this was English, I could talk circles around him, but this language not so much.
"Cool, name is Jetti," he said as we walked towards the group of children. I glanced back at my mom, but turned back to him as he asked me what my name was.
"Umm, Kamiko," I say as he got my attention back. I bit my lip then questioned, "Cousin?"
"Yeah, we cousins!" he quickly said right before we got to the group.
I quickly learned the rules to this game, it was similar to what I remembered as cops and robbers but with different names. I stunk at it. I wasn't very fast, and was one of the youngest. But I enjoyed it a lot more than I would have guessed. A few of the older kids said something about the academy in passing but I didn't have much time think much about it.
About thirty or more minutes later, I was exhausted so I excused myself from the game and walking slowly back to my mother. As we walked back home, (the park was thankfully not far from the house) she asked, "did you enjoy playing ninja with the other kids?"
"Uh-huh," I answered honestly, "but they sorted us o-oddly."
"How so, sweetie?" she inquired with a worried look.
"Two girls on our team, two girls on theirs," I responded with a curious look on my face, "why?"
"Ah," she smiled down at me, "that's to make the teams fair. In the world of ninja, kunoichi are usually weaker physically to ninja."
I was glad that she answered honestly, but it was a bit worrisome to hear that I was not seen as equal to the others. Since I had been brought up in my previous life to ask a lot of questions, I was glad that my new mother was encouraging with my questions and always answered me honestly. I shuffled my feet as we walked before voicing my next question.
"Ummm, mommy, are ninja real?" I asked hesitantly, really hoping that they were not and that it was only a game.
"Of course they are, sweetie," she chuckled, squeezing my hand, "I'm one, as well as your daddy. He is what the village calls a Chuunin, and I am a Genin." She continued to list the ranks of different ninja and what their roles were in our society. They were the cornerstone of this village and from what I could understand, the whole world. Ninja are the protectors of our society. From what I could hear in her voice, it almost sounded like she was explaining my destiny to me. Did she expect me to be a ninja too? I bit my lip as we went home. I'd have to pick up my own training schedule if my role in life was to be a ninja. I couldn't get tired after thirty minutes of running around. After all, ninja sounded awesome. I had to be the same.
-Time Skip to 3 years old-
Since that day, I'd been back to the park to play more with Jetti and the others, and got fairly good at the ninja game. It wasn't like me to brag, my mom did that for me. She would tell my dad all the time about how the team leaders fought over who got to have me on their team. At night, I begged and puppy-dog-eyed both my parents as much as possible for either of them to read me stories about ninja or explain more about them. And I knew how to milk those puppy-dog-eyes for all they were worth. I think I was starting to worry them about my interest in ninja, but I had to sort out what was real and what wasn't. It wouldn't do to live in this society expecting some cheesy Hollywood like effects or characterizations. What was real? My parents probably thought I was a precocious child, and told me everything that they could. Every night was full of stories from my mother's time at the academy and my father's missions.
The talk about chakra got me very confused. When I asked them to be more specific, they explained that all ninja and civilians have chakra. However, ninja were more capable of using it, and like anything that you practice, the more you use it, the more you have. I learned that chakra was made up of both physical and spiritual energy, and it flows throughout the body, replenishing muscles, and enhancing a ninja's natural abilities. They told me that if a ninja practiced a lot and had a lot of chakra, then they could use special abilities, called techniques.
"What is a technique?" I asked really wondering if this was like those video games I used to play.
"Let us go out back sweetie," my mom answered when I asked that question.
She showed me a very basic technique, according to her, that shot a fireball out of her mouth at a target dummy that my parents had set up in the back yard. As the fireball hit the dummy it caught on fire before she put it out with a bucket of water that always sat by the back door. Now, in hindsight, the bucket of water that sat there made more sense.
"Now, Kamiko, that is one of our clan's basic techniques," she said proudly, "and, one day you will master this too. It is a sign that you are truly an Uchiha."
"Whats an Uchiha?" I asked questioningly staring up at my mom's smiling face.
As she beamed down at me with a broad smile, and I could tell that I was going to be buried with stories on my clan. The thought made my heart pound with glee.
Hope everyone enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I also wish to give thanks to frodoschick on co-writing specifically with the grammar and conversation writing.