"One more, please."
The elderly bartender's brows furrowed, but he silently poured his patron another glass of tequila. The sound of flowing alcohol was noticeably loud in the near-empty bar. Without hesitation, the young man downed the shot glass, ignoring the salt and lime on the dish in front of him.
He slammed the cup onto the polished wooden counter, flushed cheeks hidden by the dimmed lights. Before he could ask for more, the glass was gently pulled away from him. He frowned, only to be met with a stern look, "You've had a bit too much, Dylan."
"It's fine," Dylan slurred. "I'll call an Uber."
"I don't think your Uber driver will appreciate you ruining his car with your dinner."
Instead of responding, Dylan grabbed his cell phone and frantically scrolled through his messages. Only two names caught his interest: "Michelle" and "Google." He opened up his conversations with them and slammed the side of his head onto the bar.
"I don't think I want to be with you anymore, not after that last fight. Let's break up…."
"I apologize for informing you so unexpectedly. However, we have decided to hire someone else for the Technical Writer position. I urge you to apply to…."
As he put the phone away, a muffled sob escaped the young man's lips. As he wobbled off his stool, the bartender tried to pat his shoulders. Dylan shook him off with a glare, "I'm not having the best day, Blake."
"It's alright. I know you're down in the dumps right now, but things will get better, ya hear? Now make sure you get home safely."
"Sure thing, boss, sure thing."
He quickly paid his tab, leaving a sizeable tip, before shakily walking out of the bar. When Dylan reached his gray, beat-up Corolla, he stopped. He dug through his pockets for his keys but drunken hesitation had his spare hand restraining the other. He stood motionless between his keys and his car for a minute before he entered his car and turned on the engine.
"It's only six blocks away," Dylan mumbled as he punched an address into his phone's GPS. "And I still don't know the directions back home."
His car slowly rolled out of the parking lot and onto the expressway. As he drove, he drank the leftover Red Bull in his cup holder and focused on his speedometer. He passed a sign stating the local speed limit: 40 MPH. He was going 35.
Miraculously, he reached the last intersection before his family home. He looked around carefully while sitting in front of the red light, his hands nervously tapping the steering wheel. When the light turned green, he booked it. He cleared the intersection and was about to turn when a deer jumped onto the road.
"FUCK!" Dylan yelled as he yanked his steering wheel to the right. His Corolla missed the running deer by inches before crashing into a nearby tree.
When his vision cleared, pain roared in his head, and a sharp pain echoed throughout his body. Looking down, he saw a distinct lack of airbags and his bleeding, crushed chest. Air was glass in his lungs, scraping his insides with every sharp breath. He craned his neck to see if anyone was around, someone to help him relieve the pain.
There was no one.
He fumbled around for his phone, only to feel a shot of pain in his shoulders and his numb arms. His back spasmed, and he slumped into his seat for the final time.
"Fuck," Dylan gasped out.
As his consciousness faded, he managed to whisper his final words. "John, Sarah… Take care of mom and dad…."
He gasped and shot up from his futon. The world spun around him as a dull ache flared near his temples. He planted onto the ground with his small, shaky hands to steady himself. An unpleasant sensation tickled his throat, but he forcibly swallowed to prevent anything from spilling.
"A nightmare?"
As he closed his eyes to recall his dreams, his mind was bombarded with twenty-two years worth of memories. Thoughts, desires, ambitions, and emotions flooded his mind as his dull headache turned into a pounding migraine. His body briefly spasmed, causing him to fall back onto his futon.
He stared at the ceiling for a few minutes before whispering to himself. "Takashi Kinjo. I'm Takashi Kinjo."
"Kinjo" brought his familiar, yet unfamiliar, hands in front of his face and studied them. After clenching and unclenching them several times, he pinched his cheeks.
It stung.
"I'm six years old, and I live in… Konoha."
Had he heard the word "Konoha" several hours prior, he would've thought about his house, his family, and the Hokage. Now when he thought about Konoha, all he recalled was what he had seen in various forms of media.
Uzumaki Naruto. Uchiha Sasuke. The Konoha Nine. Ichiraku Ramen. The Academy.
People he had never seen and places he had never been.
He rolled out of his futon and awkwardly walked to the window, his mind guiding his much smaller feet with slow caution. When he reached his destination, he tripped and nearly fell out of his window. Kinjo glanced out of his second-story window and sighed, breathing in the fresh air before turning his downsized head towards a large cliff by the northern parts of Konoha.
Four faces greeted his hesitant eyes, their empty-eyed yet stoic expressions watching over the village hundreds of thousands of people called home, including Kinjo, whose body was now occupied by an interdimensional traveler named Dylan.
A traveler who was dead in his home dimension.
Kinjo comfortably leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. ""Hello, are you there?""
Nobody answered his private thoughts, confirming his suspicions. The previous Kinjo wasn't sharing this body with him; Dylan had his memories and body, but nothing else. Still, his mind was processing the merging of two mental states.
A distant memory of a small boy watching a large, wild beast rain death and destruction upon Konoha.
The Land of Waves. The Chunin Exams. Konoha Crush. Akatsuki. The Fourth Shinobi War.
Danger was coming.
He scurried to a small desk in the corner of his room, grabbing a pencil and paper to jot down everything he knew about the world of Naruto. Kinjo scribbled a list of major plot points, characters, and minor details that would be useful in the future. He didn't remember everything; there were notable gaps in his memory of the Naruto-verse. Even so, his notes filled up the entire paper, front and back. It was only after he finished his list that he realized it was written in English.
His mind was in disarray, but he understood his situation. If he wanted to survive and make an impact in this world, then he needed to be a shinobi. And he refused to stand on the sidelines as the world burned around him.
Meta knowledge was valuable, and maybe there were some benefits to maintaining canon as much as possible. But to damn hundreds of souls and purposely leave others weak so he could pretend to be God didn't sit right with him. He had the knowledge, so he would use it to fix a few things.
"Damn the canon," Kinjo muttered with a lopsided smile."Full speed ahead."
Kinjo's mind shifted back to his family members sleeping in the other rooms on the second floor. He wasn't just going to survive; he would also live and protect.
Because from what he "remembered," he had loving parents and two younger siblings in this world. He might've taken over the previous Kinjo's body and mind, but his love for them resonated within his chest.
He was going to protect them; it was the least he could do.
"I am the master of my fate and the captain of my destiny."
AN: Hello, hello! Welcome to my latest fic, Gravity. As you can tell, the tone is a bit different from my previous fics. That is because I've grown and (hopefully) improved as a writer. This fic will be the accumulation of my writing experience for the past several years.
I have noted and taken the criticism from my previous SI fic to heart, and I will do my best to avoid the same pitfalls. Kinjo, our SI, will not have any bloodlines or special abilities. If anything, he's mediocre in terms of skill in the beginning. However, he will grow throughout the fic, and I hope you also enjoy his growth.
As for the butterfly effects... I have a HUGE number of changes planned. Some of them will be obvious; others will be more obscure.
Pairings... Undecided. I will focus on the character development first and then figure out the pairings later.
This will hopefully be my longest and best fanfic yet. I've already written about 50K words, so I will update weekly.
Thanks for reading. Have a good one :)
